Top Items:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Decision Time For Yahoo — The dust is settling on Microsoft's $31 per share offer to acquire Yahoo, and the options left open to the company are fairly well understood at this point. There will almost certainly be no White Knight or other buyout offer coming to the table - the sorry state of the debt markets is assuring that.
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Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider:
Microsoft Bid for Yahoo Drops To $29.50 a Share — As Yahoo waits in vain for other bidders or deal alternatives to emerge, the dissatisfaction of Microsoft investors with the Yahoo bid has reduced the value of Microsoft's offer to $29.50 a share. — Why? — The bid is half-cash / half-stock,
Elizabeth Woyke / Forbes:
Google Likely Out, And Happy — After dominating the U.S. wireless spectrum auction for months, from influencing the terms of the auction to bidding, it looks like Google is off the hook. — Nine days into the closely watched Federal Communications Commission auction …
CmdrTaco / Slashdot:
Fifth Cable Cut To Middle East — You may have noticed a number of stories recently about undersea cables getting cut around the world. Apparently the total is now up to 5, but the scariest part of this is that Iran is now offline. You can also read Schneier's comments on this coincidence.
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Asma Ali Zain / Khaleej Times:
Cable damage hits 1.7m Internet users in UAE — DUBAI — An estimated 1.7 million Internet users in the UAE have been affected by the recent undersea cable damage, an expert said yesterday, quoting recent figures published by TeleGeography, an international research Web site.
Shane McGlaun / DailyTech:Bad to Worse: Fifth Undersea Cable Cut in Middle East
Discussion:
Good Morning Silicon Valley
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
AOL revenue continues to slide; Who are these 9.3 million AOL access subscribers? — AOL's revenue and operating income continued to slide as the parent Time Warner focuses on advertising. For the fourth quarter, AOL reported operating income of $274 million on revenue of $1.25 billion.
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Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
MySpace's San Francisco Debut in Living Color! — Last night, BoomTown checked out the new space MySpace is renovating for its soon-to-open San Francisco office. The occasion was a party the social-networking site held for developers as part of its recent platform launch.
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Josh Bernoff / Groundswell:
Why Social Applications Will Thrive In A Recession — Is a recession coming? Don't ask me — I'm not an economist, and even the economists don't really know. But if it's anything like the last recession, advertising will plummet and experimental media will crater.
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Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Ex-Googlers Launch Instructional Video Site Howcast, Raise $8 Million A Round — A New York City startup called Howcast is launching today that wants to be the YouTube of instructional videos. In fact, the three founders—Jason Liebman, Daniel Blackman and Sanjay Raman …
Discussion:
The Technology Chronicles, Techland, Screenwerk, NewTeeVee, Rev2.org and Silicon Alley Insider
Greg Sandoval / CNET News.com:
Video site Revver shopping itself for a song — Revver, a YouTube competitor that made a name for itself by paying video producers, has fallen on hard times. — The company's staff has dwindled to less than half the size it was 18 months ago, according to former employees.
Discussion:
NewTeeVee, mathewingram.com/work, Mashable!, Bloggers Blog, paidContent.org and Silicon Alley Insider
Peter Kafka / Silicon Alley Insider:
“BigNews”: Ask's Digg Project Revealed (IACI) — Here's the Ask.com/Digg collaboration we'd heard about earlier this week, but it may be less than we'd advertised: “BigNews” is actually more of an attempt to create a new spin on Techmeme/Google News than a ripoff of Digg's social news site.
Nitin Borwankar / GigaOM:
Data Property Rights, Not Portability — The recent flood of activity around data portability has stirred in me two reactions: keen interest and a distinct feeling of being underwhelmed. Having been in the data business since the early 90s, it's clear to me that data portability is a non-solution …
Discussion:
Changing Way
Steve Tobak / CNET News.com:
Ten irrelevant technology companies — The great corporate graveyard is filled with hundreds, maybe thousands, of technology companies that managed to go public and then fizzled. Still, most of them weren't going anywhere and never should have gone public to begin with.
Enigmax / TorrentFreak:
How a BitTorrent Tracker Owner Hides from the MPAA/RIAA — Apart from The Pirate Bay guys, most tracker administrators are acutely aware of the risks they expose themselves to, and do everything they can to hide in the shadows. We speak to a tracker owner to find out the kind of measures …
