Techmeme: Don't Bet Big. Little Bets Are The Ones That Turn Into Billion-Dollar Ideas (Peter Sims/TechCrunch)

1:05 AM ET, March 21, 2011

Top Items:

Om Malik / GigaOM:

In AT&T & T-Mobile Merger, Everybody Loses — The lull of my lazy, rainy weekend was broken by the news that AT&T plans to acquire T-Mobile USA for a whopping $39 billion in cash and stock. Who wins and who loses in this deal? It's hard to find winners, apart from AT&T and T-Mobile shareholders.

Discussion: CNET News, Wi-Fi Networking News, mocoNews, mocoNews, Fortune and Howard Lindzon

Dan Frommer / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:

AT&T Buying T-Mobile USA In $39 Billion Deal — AT&T just announced a deal to buy T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom in a cash and stock deal worth $39 billion. — The deal would make AT&T the nation's largest wireless carrier by a wide margin, so it will probably face significant government scrutiny …

AT&T:

AT&T to Acquire T-Mobile USA From Deutsche Telekom — Provides fast, efficient and certain solution to impending spectrum exhaust challenges facing AT&T and T-Mobile USA in key markets due to explosive demand for mobile broadband — Enhances network capacity, output and quality in near term for both companies' customers

T-Mobile Newsroom:

Q&A: More Information About AT&T Acquisition of T-Mobile USA — An agreement was announced under which AT&T will acquire T-Mobile USA. The agreement is the first step in a process that, including regulatory approvals, is expected to be completed in approximately 12 months.

Discussion: CNET News, TmoNews, Fortune, Mobilized, Between the Lines Blog, CNNMoney.com, BerryReview.com, Electronista, Android and Me, MobileWhack, TiPb, PhoneArena, Neowin.net and Crave

Ina Fried / Mobilized:

Sprint: AT&T's T-Mobile Buy Would “Dramatically Alter” Market — In its first comments on AT&T's proposed $39 billion purchase of T-Mobile USA, Sprint said that the purchase would “dramatically alter” the market and suggested that regulators take a hard look at the deal.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, @dangillmor and TmoNews

Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Exclusive: T-Mobile USA CEO to employees: Sale to AT&T the ‘best possible solution’

Discussion: paidContent, Mobilized, TechCrunch, Xconomy and Electronista, Thanks:rawmeet

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
T-Mobile: We Were Totally Kidding About AT&T's Crappy Network!

Discussion: Mobilized, Epicenter, CNET News, Fortune, techblog.dallasnews.com, Internet2Go and Screenwerk

Dan Frommer / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:
AT&T-Mobile: Here Are The Biggest Winners And Losers

Discussion: CNET News, Light Reading, Gizmodo and Mashable!

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
AT&T's purchase of T-Mobile will test antitrust law

Discussion: Mobilized, GigaOM and @dangillmor

Marco Arment / Marco.org:

Why the Quick Bar ("dickbar") is still so offensive — Twitter's official iPhone app, formerly Loren Brichter's Tweetie and an otherwise awesome client, got a lot of negative reactions from the recent addition of the Quick Bar, a mandatory trending-topics banner on top of the tweet list.

Discussion: Scripting News, Jeff Rock, Daring Fireball, @jeffitup, @fionasrotties and TechCrunch

Rupal Parekh / AdAge:

Groupon CEO: We Placed Too Much Trust in Agency for Super Bowl Ads — Andrew Mason Says Group-Buying Site ‘Turned Off Part of Its Brain’ When Working With CP&B in Aim to Be ‘Edgy’ — Talk about adding insult to injury. — As if CP&B's breakup last week with one of its biggest clients …

Discussion: @bill_gross

Dominic Rushe / Guardian:

Google accuses China of hacking Gmail — Chinese government's crackdown on activists thought to be behind what Google calls ‘politically motivated attacks’ — Google has accused the Chinese government of interfering with its popular Gmail email system. The move follows extensive attempts …

Discussion: CNET News and Electronista

Snaptu blog:

We've agreed to be acquired by Facebook! — The Snaptu team is excited to announce today that we recently agreed to be acquired by Facebook. — Our goal when we founded Snaptu in 2007 was to provide useful and innovative services to the 95 percent of mobile users that don't have access to advanced smart phones.

Discussion: Friending Facebook Blog, Inside Facebook, ReadWriteWeb, All Facebook, Mashable!, VentureBeat, PC Magazine, VC Cafe, CNET News, mocoNews, MediaMemo, Yahoo! News and Electronista, Thanks:sidharthdassani

Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Confirmed: Facebook Acquires Snaptu (For An Estimated $60 - $70 Million)

Discussion: Pulse2, SAI, GeekWire and The Next Web

Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:

Times's Online Pay Model Was Years in the Making — The discussions played out over most of 2009 amid the hum of the third floor newsroom and in the executive suites high above Times Square, consuming what seemed like countless meetings and consultants' recommendations.

Discussion: Media Decoder, Guardian, GigaOM, @dangillmor and paidContent, more at Mediagazer »

Peter Sims / TechCrunch:

Don't Bet Big. Little Bets Are The Ones That Turn Into Billion-Dollar Ideas — Editor's note: The following guest post is by bestselling author and former venture capitalist Peter Sims. His next book, from which some of this article is exclusively drawn, is Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries.

Harry McCracken / Technologizer:

The Xoom Gets Flash. But Don't Get Too Excited — When Motorola's Xoom hit Verizon stores last month, it was missing some of the features that promised to make it the iPad's first formidable rival-including its much-touted support for Adobe's Flash Player.

Peter Delevett / SiliconValley.com:

Corporations getting back into venture funding — During the dot-com craze, just about every company this side of your corner hot dog stand set up a venture capital arm. With Wall Street and Main Street slavering for tech investments, corporate chiefs launched seed funds to boost their bottom lines and scope possible acquisitions.

Michael Arrington / TechCrunch: Google Ventures Launches $10,000 Startup Referral Program For Employees

Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:

An Illustrated Guide To Searching For Shared, Tweeted & “Realtime” Images — Looking for images that are being shared and posted in realtime? That image search space has gotten more competitive, as Nachofoto reenters the field. Below, what it offers, along with general realtime image searching tips using …

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