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April 18, 2012, 11:35 PM

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Evelyn M. Rusli / DealBook:

Facebook Is Said to Suggest a Potential Value of $104 Billion — To win over Instagram, Facebook was forced to show its hand. — Facebook bought the photo-sharing service for $1 billion in early April, agreeing to pay roughly 30 percent in cash and 70 percent in stock …

More: The Next Web, CNET, ZDNet, PhoneArena, Tech and China, Business Insider, Business Insider, Wall Street Journal and Friending Facebook Blog. Tweets: @pkafka

Tricia Duryee / AllThingsD:

Square's Next Round Could Swipe a $4 Billion Valuation — Square is seeking to raise a fresh round of capital at a massive valuation of up to $4 billion, according to multiple sources familiar with the situation. — If the company is successful, it will have quadrupled …

More: TechCrunch, Appolicious Advisor, VatorNews, Fortune, The Verge, Mobile Marketing Watch, Pulse2 Technology …, VentureBeat, FierceMobileContent, MobilePaymentsToday.com News, Venture Capital Dispatch and Betabeat

Evelyn M. Rusli / DealBook:

Square Said to Seek $250 Million Investment

More: Light Reading

Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:

Facebook Targets May 17th For IPO Date — This just in: According to multiple sources close to the company, Facebook is eyeing IPO on May 17th — depending on whether the SEC agrees that all the reams of paperwork (including those concerning its recent acquisition of Instagram) are in order.

More: AllFacebook, ZDNet, CNET, bub.blicio.us and CNET. Tweets: @pkedrosky. Thanks:@chasinggodot

Sergey Brin / Google+:

I believe the internet has been one of the greatest forces for good in the world over the past quarter century. So when the Guardian requested that I speak to them over the past few months about internet freedom, I decided it was important to participate. — I think the article is a pretty …

Leslie Horn / Gizmodo:

AT&T Stores Are Almost Completely Out of Lumia 900 Stock — Both Nokia and Microsoft need the Lumia 900 to succeed. Windows Phone is struggling. So is the once-top handset maker. But while they and AT&T has been pushing the Lumia 900 hard it looks like the carrier just doesn't have enough to go around.

More: CNET, IntoMobile, Internet2Go, WMPoweruser, DailyFinance.com, AllThingsD and wpcentral

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Apple plots wireless server hubs at Genius Bars for users to temporarily store, sync content for iOS device replacements — According to sources, Apple is planning a major new addition to their Apple Store Genius Bars; an addition that will change the way the company handles Genius Bar support.

More: CNET, MacRumors, Techie Buzz and MacNN

Grant McCool / Reuters:

Apple wants trial on e-book price-fixing: lawyer — (Reuters) - Apple Inc wants to go to trial to defend itself against U.S. government allegations that it conspired with publishers to raise prices of electronic books, a lawyer for the Silicon Valley giant said in court on Wednesday.

More: The Verge, AppleInsider, paidContent, Wall Street Journal, MacRumors, Macworld Australia, CNET, 9to5Mac and MacNN

Don Reisinger / CNET:

Microsoft aims to make iPad an underdog with Windows 8 — Will Windows 8 tablets hurt iPad market share? — (Credit: Brooke Crothers) — Microsoft reportedly hopes to push Apple's worldwide iPad market share under 50 percent by the middle of 2013 with Windows 8-based tablets, Digitimes reports today, citing unnamed sources.

More: DigiTimes, Computerworld, Neowin, Liliputing, PadGadget, Hardware 2.0 Blog, TG Daily, iLounge, MacDailyNews, MacNN, Softpedia News, Fudzilla, PhoneArena, SlashGear, I4U News, AppleInsider and windows8update.com

Stuart Dredge / Guardian:

Draw Something gets more social with chat and Facebook/Twitter sharing — Dan Porter talks new features, TV possibilities and localisation plans for popular game. By Stuart Dredge — 50m downloads and a $180m acquisition by Zynga later, hit mobile game Draw Something is getting even more social with its latest update.

More: CNET, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, TUAW, VG247, GigaOM, T3 News and Inside Mobile Apps. Thanks:@stuartdredge

Horace Dediu / asymco:

Apple Stores have seventeen times better performance than the average retailer — Thanks to RetailSails we have some data on retailers in the US which can be used to calibrate the performance of Apple retail. RetailSails compiled a table of the top 20 chains by sales per square foot (annual basis).

More: 9to5Mac, PadGadget, WebProNews, Fortune, Business Insider and iClarified

Laura Stampler / Business Insider:

Tumblr Will Start Selling Ad Units On May 2 — In a 2010 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Tumblr CEO and founder David Karp said, “We're pretty opposed to advertising. It really turns our stomachs.” — How times have changed. Karp announced at Ad Age's Digital Conference that on May 2 …

More: Ars Technica, GigaOM, Mashable! and Betabeat. See also Mediagazer

Adi Robertson / The Verge:

Mystery company backed by James Cameron and Google executives may be an asteroid mining project — MIT's Technology Review has just gotten news of a mysterious new project that claims it will “create a new industry and a new definition of ‘natural resources.’” Space exploration company Planetary Resources …

More: CNET, The Museum of Flight, Technology Review, SlashGear and GeekWire

Walt Mossberg / AllThingsD:

Permission to Procrastinate: Wait to Get a New Laptop — If you're thinking of buying a new laptop this spring, my advice is to think again. Unless your laptop is on its last legs and you have to move quickly, there are compelling reasons to wait until at least the summer, and probably the fall …

More: GeekWire, TechCrunch, Ed Bott, TechEye, I4U News and BuzzFeed

Ryan Paul / Ars Technica:

Google Cloud Print can now “print” to an Android device or local FedEx store — Although modern computing devices and software offer much richer ways to consume, manipulate, and share content, there are still people who prefer to put their documents and images on slices of dead tree.

More: The Verge, Engadget, Android Phone Fans, TechCrunch, Google Chrome Blog, The Next Web and CNET

Alexis Madrigal / The Atlantic Online:

The Jig Is Up: Time to Get Past Facebook and Invent a New Future — After five years pursuing the social-local-mobile dream, we need a fresh paradigm for technology startups. — We're there. The future that visionaries imagined in the late 1990s of phones in our pockets and high-speed Internet in the air: Well, we're living in it.

More: Chris Dixon and Inquirer

Chris Welch / The Verge:

AT&T unveils new GoPhone data packages: twice the bandwidth or better for the same price — AT&T just announced new GoPhone data packages for prepaid customers that essentially offer double the bandwidth (or better) at the same pricing tiers as before. The new monthly rates take effect April 22nd …

More: WebProNews and Wall Street Journal

Biz Stone / Obvious:

Why Obvious Invested in Neighborland — We need only glance at the headlines—from Arab Spring to Occupy—to understand that people are passionate about connecting over issues. We all have issues, big and small. Toppling oppressive regimes and protesting corruption are appropriately top of mind.

More: TechCrunch, True Ventures and The Next Web

Greg Sterling / Marketing Land:

Time's “Most Influential” List Snubs Zuckerberg, Googlers, Includes Tim Cook, Marc Andreesen — People love rankings, lists — and awards. And publishers love them too because the sell issues and drive page views. Lists and awards inspire jealousy and envy and they're often controversial accordingly.

More: TUAW, iDownloadBlog.com, NBC Bay Area, USA Today and AllFacebook

Leena Rao / TechCrunch:

RingCentral Launches New Mobile, Cloud-Based Phone System For Businesses — Cloud-based phone systems provider RingCentral is debuting a new version of its platform that allows businesses to setup, manage and use their phone system from mobile devices. — RingCentral, which is backed …

More: VentureBeat and PandoDaily

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Facebook Revamps Preferred Marketing Developer Program To Make It Easier To Find “Real” Social Media Experts — Facebook doesn't want your company to get burned by shady “social media gurus”, so today it expanded its Preferred Developer Consultant program into the new Preferred Marketing Developer program …

More: AllFacebook, Inside Facebook, Facebook Developer Blog, ZDNet and WebProNews

Bonnie Eslinger / Mercury News:

Menlo Park council unanimously approves deal for Facebook expansion — In almost anti-climactic fashion, the Menlo Park City Council on Tuesday night unanimously approved a deal that allows Facebook to eventually bring in thousands of additional employees to its new campus in exchange for pumping millions of dollars into city coffers.

More: CNET and NBC Bay Area

Robert McMillan / Wired:

Amazon's Secretive Cloud Carries 1 Percent of the Internet — An Amazon data center in Sterling, Virginia. Photo: Eric Hunsaker/Flickr — Amazon's cloud computing infrastructure is growing so fast that it's silently becoming a core piece of the internet.

More: GeekWire and Slashdot

Ben Kuchera / Penny Arcade Report:

The ugly side of Kickstarter: the risks in backing game dev campaigns are greater than you think — The Penny Arcade Report has an email address for story leads and tips, and a significant percentage of those “tips” are solicitations for coverage of indie game Kickstarter projects.

More: Bloomberg and GamePolitics blogs

AppleInsider:

Apple releases OS X Mountain Lion Developer Preview 3 — Apple on Wednesday supplied developers with the third preview build of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, giving developers a chance to test out the latest version of the prerelease software. — According to people familiar with the latest build …

More: The Verge, Cult of Mac, CNET and 9to5Mac

Scott Lowe / The Verge:

Game consoles consumed nearly 70 percent of their energy idling in 2010, study finds — A new study from a group of researchers at Carnegie Mellon University estimates that that roughly 68 percent of all energy consumed by game consoles in 2010 was spent in idle mode, wasting 10.8 TWh of energy …

More: Geekosystem and VG247

Greg Sandoval / CNET:

Spotify press event lacks sizzle or substance — Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, third from the left, was doing his best to sell his company's ad deal with Coca-Cola as something to get excited about. — (Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET) — NEW YORK—Someone needs to remind Spotify that you need news at a news conference.

More: Engadget, ABCNEWS, GigaOM, MarketingVox News & Trends, Gotta Be Mobile, AllThingsD, The Verge, Softpedia News, The Verge and TechCrunch. See also Mediagazer

Alex Wilhelm / The Next Web:

Microsoft bringing Windows Store to 33 new countries in next update — If you were contemplating building for Windows 8, and we suspect that given its coming scale that many of you are, we have some good news: Microsoft intends to expand the number of countries from which Metro-style apps …

More: CNET, MSDN Blogs, Neowin, WinBeta and Engadget

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