Top Items:
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,
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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.
Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider:
A Yahoo White Knight Emerges! Microsoft's Shareholders... Microsoft's shareholders are unhappy about the Yahoo offer—and they're expressing their displeasure by voting with their feet. As they do, they're driving the price of Microsoft's stock down, which, in turn, is driving the value of Microsoft's Yahoo bid down.
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 …
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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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, Rev2.org, NewTeeVee 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, paidContent.org, Mashable!, Bloggers Blog and Silicon Alley Insider
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.
Discussion:
Khaleej Times, Engadget, Errata Security, Gizmodo, DSLreports, Threat Level, securosis.com, Boing Boing and Schneier on Security
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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.
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.
Ryan Naraine / eWeek:
Adobe Ships Silent Fix for Critical PDF Reader Flaw — Adobe patched a gaping code execution hole in Reader but, inexplicably, has issued no public documentation on the risk severity. — Adobe has released a software fix for what's described simply as “security vulnerabilities” …
John Timmer / Ars Technica:
Holodeck 0.1: the durable, rewritable holographic display — Most of us are familiar with the cliché about tradeoffs: fast, cheap, or good, choose any two. When it comes to holograms—two-dimensional media that can be used to create a three-dimensional image—there has been a well-defined series …
Discussion:
Nature
Michael Steen / Financial Times:
KPN unmoved by iPhone — Apple's iPhone is “pretty useless” and sales in Germany have not dented new customer numbers for E-Plus, the German mobile unit of KPN, said Ad Scheepbouwer, chief executive of the Dutch telecoms company. — However, speaking after KPN reported fourth-quarter results …
