Top Items:
Microsoft:
Microsoft to Acquire aQuantive, Inc. — Company details plans to build Internet-wide advertising platform for advertisers, publishers and ad agencies. — Microsoft Corp. today announced it will acquire aQuantive, Inc., for $66.50 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $6 billion.
Discussion:
CenterNetworks, HipMojo.com, Valleywag, alarm:clock, Things That, All about Microsoft, Search Engine Land, Don Dodge on The Next …, Sadagopan's weblog …, Microsoft News Tracker, Mark Evans, Epicenter, Incremental Blogger, Screenwerk, LiveSide, Search Engine Watch Blog, The Globe and Mail, Channel 9, Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life, 901am, PSFK Trend: PSFK, Digital Inspiration, StartupSquad.com, Peter O'Kelly's Reality Check and Search Engine Roundtable
RELATED:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Microsoft Pays $6 billion for aQuantive: Massive Ad Network Consolidation Is Occuring — Breaking: Microsoft is acquiring advertising network aQuantive, the parent company to Avenue A | Razorfish, Atlas and DRIVEpm, for roughly $6 billion in an all-cash transaction, the company said this morning.
CNNMoney.com:
Microsoft buys aQuantive for $6 billion — In a move to strengthen its position against Google and Yahoo, software giant pays huge premium to buy into suddenly hot online advertising sector. — NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Microsoft announced Friday it is buying online ad agency aQuantive …
Discussion:
Howard Lindzon, Media Biz, The Next Net, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim and Business Wire
Between the Lines:
aQuantive: Who are these guys? — The instant messages and emails about Microsoft's $6 billion purchase of aQuantive go something like this: — "Whoa that's a big deal." — "I'd hate to be short aQuantive." — "If Microsoft was going to spend that much why didn't it just buy Doubleclick?"
Discussion:
HipMojo.com
MediaPost Publications:
WPP Buys 24/7 Real Media For $649 Million — ENDING WEEKS OF SPECULATION, WPP Group on Thursday announced plans to buy online ad company 24/7 Real Media for $649 million in cash. — WPP, the world's second-largest marketing services company, is paying $11.75 per share for the company …
Josee Rose / Wall Street Journal:
Microsoft to Pay About $6 Billion To Buy Ad Company aQuantive — Microsoft Corp. agreed to acquire aQuantive Inc. for $66.50 a share, in a deal valued at about $6 billion, as the software giant became the latest to buy an online advertising agency. — Microsoft's offer for aQuantive …
Nik Cubrilovic / TechCrunch:
Microsoft Launches Popfly: Mashup App Creator Built On Silverlight — Microsoft will announce the private beta launch of Popfly this morning, a new Silverlight application that allows users to create mashups, widgets and other applications using a very cool and easy to use web-based graphical interface.
RELATED:
Martin LaMonica / CNET News.com:
Microsoft Popfly service does mashups — Microsoft, long known for catering to the geekiest of programmers, on Friday introduced a Web mashup builder for the rest of us. — The hosted service, called Popfly and now in alpha testing, gives consumers a visual way to create a Web site or add features …
Sam Sethi / Vecosys:
Rumour: Google to buy Feedburner — I have just heard from a VERY trusted source that Google is buying Feedburner in order to get into the rapidly evolving RSS Ad market. The delay in announcing the deal, I am told is solely due to the delay in closing out the DoubleClick deal.
Discussion:
StartupSquad.com, Valleywag, Chip Griffin, Mashable!, The Webpreneur, Ken McGuire On The Web and parislemon
Justin Berka / Ars Technica:
Rumor: Apple issuing pre-release builds of OS X 10.4.10 — With the postponement of Leopard until at least October having quieted the speculation (at least for a bit), attention has turned to what Apple will be doing with Tiger in the meantime. There are still a good few months until Leopard comes along …
RELATED:
BBC:
Global net censorship 'growing' — The level of state-led censorship of the net is growing around the world, a study of so-called internet filtering by the Open Net Initiative suggests. — The study of thousands of websites across 120 Internet Service Providers and found 25 …
Discussion:
IP Democracy, Center for Citizen Media, Light Blue Touchpaper, Good Morning Silicon Valley and Slashdot
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
House Dems: broadband isn't broadband unless it's 2Mbps — Saying that the FCC "has not kept pace with the times or the technology," Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) opened a hearing today into the FCC's methods for measuring broadband availability in the US. The US lags in speed, availability …
BBC:
Yahoo 'censored' Flickr comments — Yahoo has been accused of censorship on its popular photo website Flickr, in a row that has highlighted the issue of copyright in the online age. — Earlier this month photographer Rebekka Gudleifsdóttir discovered that seven of her pictures …
David Berlind / Berlind's Testbed:
ZDNet's first MonkCast: Will SAP's A1S service disrupt its on-premises A1? — In what I hope will be a regularly recurring podcast here on ZDNet, we've launched our first "MonkCast." On a periodic basis (weekly is the goal), I'll be interviewing James Governor, principal analyst and co-founder …
Discussion:
James Governor's Monkchips
Thomas Claburn / InformationWeek:
Fair Isaac Claims Pay-Per-Click Fraud Is 10% to 15% — Google disputes the figures and has consistently taken issue with the methodology and motives of those reporting significant levels of click fraud. — At the InterACT Conference in San Francisco on Friday, Joseph Milana …
