Top Items:
Business Wire:
AOL to Acquire Global Social Media Network Bebo — NEW YORK—(BUSINESS WIRE)—AOL announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Bebo (http://www.bebo.com), a leading global social media network. Together with its AIM and ICQ personal communications network …
Discussion:
BBC NEWS, GigaOM, Rev2.org, Guardian Unlimited, Search Engine Journal, Screenwerk, BloggingStocks and Mashable!
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Allen Stern / CenterNetworks:
Bebo To AOL for $850 Million — AOL has announced this morning that they have acquired social networking service Bebo for $850 million in cash. Bebo has 100 employees operating in offices in the UK, San Francisco and Austin, TX. Bebo is the third-largest social networking service in the U.S. behind MySpace and Facebook.
AOL News:
AOL to Acquire Social Media Network Bebo — AOL has entered into an agreement to acquire Bebo, a leading global social media network. Founded in 2005, Bebo now has 40 million members worldwide. Together with AIM and ICQ, AOL will have a social network of approximately 80 million unique users worldwide …
Discussion:
Download Squad, Digital Daily, The Next Web, TECH.BLORGE.com, Creative Capital, ResourceShelf and paidContent.org
Caroline McCarthy / The Social:
AOL buys social network Bebo for $850 million — AOL issued a press release on Thursday morning to announce that the company has acquired social-networking site Bebo. The price tag, according to the AOL statement, is $850 million in cash. Neither company has yet stated when the deal is expected to be closed.
Robert Andrews / paidContent.org:
AOL-Bebo: Balderton VCs Reap $140 Million From Acquisition — VC firm Balderton Capital will reap about $140 million - nine times what it invested in Bebo less than two years ago - by selling its 15.7 stake in the social net to AOL (NYSE: TWX). That's a huge return on the $15 million investment …
Robert Andrews / paidContent.org:
AOL-Bebo Call: Bebo Hadn't Planned Sale; All About ‘Engagement Marketing’; Birches Seem To Step Away — AOL (NYSE: TWX) and Bebo bosses hosted reporters and analysts on a conference call to explain the reasons for the $850 million acquisition. — AOL CEO Randy Falco (left) …
Duncan Riley / TechCrunch:
The Future Of Voice May Be Voiceless — The above video is a little rough in terms of processing delay, but it's staggering. Voice without voice. — According to New Scientist, the neckband translates thought into speech by picking up nerve signals; “with careful training a person …
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Tom Simonite / New Scientist:
Nerve-tapping neckband allows ‘telepathic’ chat — A neckband that translates thought into speech by picking up nerve signals has been used to demonstrate a “voiceless” phone call for the first time. — With careful training a person can send nerve signals to their vocal cords without making a sound.
Discussion:
Gizmodo, GottaBeMobile, BUZZYEAH, Tom Raftery's Social Media, textually.org, VoIP Blog, jkOnTheRun, Boing Boing and Slashdot
Elinor Mills / CNET News.com:
Google testing service to let publishers manage ads — Google is testing a new service called Ad Manager that will give Web site publishers more control over their ad sales and ad serving, The Wall Street Journal reported late on Wednesday. — Publishers can sell their own ads …
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Greg Sterling / Search Engine Land:Google Ad Manager Targets Medium-Sized Publishers, Seeks Broader …
Scott Hillis / Reuters:
Microsoft says no Blu-ray for Xbox 360 — SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) is not in talks to include Sony Corp's (6758.T: Quote, Profile, Research) Blu-ray high-definition DVD technology in its Xbox 360 video game console, an executive said on Wednesday.
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Matt / Photo Matt:
WordPress is Open Source — Six Apart has recently decided that the best way to win back customers fleeing their platforms is to target WordPress, which is a new strategy they call competing. (What have they been doing the past 7 years?) A good example is this exchange between a commenter …
louisgray.com:
Elite Bloggers Joining FriendFeed In Droves — Although it hasn't even been a month since FriendFeed opened up to the masses, and announced Series A financing of $5 million, momentum is definitely on the company's side. Garnering incredible media and blog coverage, FriendFeed has also been a magnet …
Discussion:
The Blog Herald, Mark Evans, Susan Mernit's Blog, The Last Podcast, SheGeeks, Scobleizer and broadstuff
PC World:
BlackBerry Pearl 8120 — RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8120 Cell Phone — The BlackBerry Pearl 8120 is the first in RIM's line of petite handsets to support Wi-Fi for speedy Web surfing and e-mail management. — Research in Motion's latest BlackBerry Pearl handset, the 8120 …
Discussion:
BlackBerry Cool
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Steve Lohr / New York Times:
Video Road Hogs Stir Fear of Internet Traffic Jam — Caution: Heavy Internet traffic ahead. Delays possible. — For months there has been a rising chorus of alarm about the surging growth in the amount of data flying across the Internet. The threat, according to some industry groups …
Discussion:
CinemaTech, Know It All, 901am, IP Democracy, VCMike's Blog, Peter O'Kelly's Reality Check and isen.blog
BBC:
BBC releases fix for iPlayer hack — The BBC has issued a fix to stop people downloading programmes from the iPlayer website that were intended for streaming on an iPhone of iPod only. — Hackers had discovered an exploit that allowed them to save the programmes to hard disk and share them with others.
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Matthew Lasar / Ars Technica:
Congress dons rubber glove, prepares probe of FCC chairman — Federal Communications Commission Chair Kevin Martin has two weeks to deliver a truckload of written records to Congress related to over a dozen hot-button FCC issues and policies. They're being demanded by House Energy …
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
User Interfaces Rapidly Adjusting to Information Overload — People who in the next few years solve big problems in Information Overload are going to be very important, and some of them are going to be UI and UX (user experience) designers. — German ISP T-Online demonstrated …
Discussion:
Fresh Creation
