Top Items:
Eli Shimoni / Ynetnews:
Exclusive: Metacafe to be sold for USD 200 million — Owners of Metacafe, from Tel Aviv, in advanced stages of negotiations for selling company. Estimated price tag: USD 200 million. Company runs one of largest video-sharing sites on Web, directly competes with YouTube
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Natali Del Conte / TechCrunch:
Metacafe May Be Sold For $200 Million — Metacafe, the video sharing site, is reportedly being sold for between $200-300 million. The buyer is currently unknown but there is speculation that it may be Yahoo. — In July, Metacafe recieved $15 million in funding from Benchmark Capital and Accel Partners.
StraussBlog:
Amen, Terry! — So, I'm probably breaking a ton of rules by doing this. But, f@$k it! Here is the transcript, verbatim (I rewound the webcast several times just to get it right), of Terry's closing comments at today's re-org all-hands: — "At the next all-hands. Just as a reminder.
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Om Malik / GigaOM:
Yahoo Reorg, The Inside Story — The widespread criticism of the Yahoo reorganization announced on Tuesday has been a one sided affair - outsiders looking in. Much of the criticism while warranted, has become to personal. Was getting rid of CEO Terry Semel, the quick fix the erstwhile Internet leader needs?
Discussion:
i-boy
Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson / Financial Times:
BSkyB in Google link-up — The partnership will at first see Google provide its user-generated video, e-mail, search and targeted advertising tools to customers of BSkyB's five-month-old broadband internet service - the first licensing of the video tools Google bought when it acquired YouTube for $1.65bn in October.
Discussion:
IP Democracy, Rough Type, Mashable!, Digital Micro-Markets, Mark Evans, Blogging Stocks, Microsoft News Tracker and 24/7 Wall St.
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Richard Wray / Guardian:Google moves into TV ads with BSkyB deal
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Good Morning Silicon Valley
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Yahoo's Semel Says No Layoffs — Yahoo CEO Terry Semel blasts some of the rumors out there about Yahoo, including reports (by us) of layoffs, that he was leaving and that Dan Rosensweig and Susan Decker were taking a joint role to lead the company until a replacement was found.
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Eliot Van Buskirk / Wired News:
Remembering James Kim — Editor's note: CNET senior editor James Kim was found dead Wednesday in the snow-covered mountains of southern Oregon, 11 days after he and his family went missing. — At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas seven or eight years ago, I ran into a familiar face on the edge of the main floor area.
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Eric Bangeman / Ars Technica:
Testing DRM-free waters: EMI selling a few MP3s through Yahoo Music — Yahoo Music is selling the latest single from piano-playing songstress Norah Jones, along with a pair of tracks from Christian rockers Reliant K, in the MP3 format. Priced at 99¢ like the rest of the songs available …
Discussion:
PaidContent, InfoWorld, The Future of Music …, Soaring on Ridgelift, The Technology Liberation … and Slashdot
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The Smoking Gun:
Tom Brady Blitzes Yahoo! — NFL star sues over use of image in firm's fantasy football promos — Along with a sweeping management reorganization and shrinking stock price, Yahoo! also has to contend with a lawsuit filed against it by the gridiron's golden boy, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady …
Michael Kanellos / CNET News.com:
Perspective: The Apple phone flop — perspective I just looked at the calendar and realized that: — (a) It's only a few weeks to Macworld, where Apple Computer is expected to release a smart phone similar to the BlackBerry, and: — (b) I haven't antagonized Apple fans in a while.
Discussion:
Techdirt, TechCrunch, TechEffect, Jarrett House North, 21talks, NewTeeVee, Peter O'Kelly's Reality Check and O'Grady's PowerPage
Andres Guadamuz / TechnoLlama:
Spanish café loses case on "free music" — A Spanish court in Pontevedra has ruled in favour of the Sociedad General de Autores y Editores (SGAE) against a café named Direccion000. SGAE initiated action against the cafe to claim royalties for de public performance of music in the locale …
Charlie Demerjian / Inquirer:
iPhone runs into trademark problems — Those pesky Canucks — APPLE MIGHT have some serious problems with the iPhone. No, not the product, I am sure it will be reassuringly expensive and the fashion equivalent of what Paris Hilton wore last night, but who really cares?
Drivl.com | Front page:
What code DOESN'T do in real life (that it does in the movies) — Following up our article: Top 20 Hackers in Film History and Vibrant's Top 10 Servers in the movies, I felt obligated to dispel some of the notions about programming that these movies endorse.
Scott Gilbertson / Monkey Bites:
BitTorrent Inc. Acquires µTorrent — BitTorrent, Inc., will announce later today that it has acquired µTorrent, a lightweight and efficient implementation of the BitTorrent protocol. The official announcement will come this afternoon, but there are already some posts from Bram Cohen …
Katie Fehrenbacher / GigaOM:
Google to Invest in Chinese P2P Startup Xunlei? — There's a rumor going around that Google is investing a major stake in a Chinese P2P startup called Xunlei (or Thunder). Xunlei is reported to have between 75 million to 100 million downloads of its software, and has raised previous funding from Morningside and IDG Ventures.
Discussion:
NewTeeVee
Richard Siklos / New York Times:
News Corp. to Buy Out Malone's Shares — Rupert Murdoch and John C. Malone have settled their long-running corporate feud, as Mr. Murdoch's News Corporation agreed to buy out Mr. Malone's big stake in the company in exchange for a controlling stake in DirecTV, cash and other assets valued at $11 billion …
