Warren Buffet cleans out at the fire sales
There is a fire sale, and Warren Buffet is out shopping. WSJ reports that the legendary investor is buying up distressed properties from the shakeout of the hedge funds, and the cash strapped debt market, possibly including parts of Countrywide Financial. According to Warren Buffet, “I can spend money faster than Imelda Marcos when things are right”, or wrong, as the case may be.
Sphere: Related ContentYahoo ups the ante with Smart Ads
Yahoo has been showing “smart ads” to viewers - these are advertisements that change colors or ad copy, depending upon who is viewing the ads. The ad customization will be based upon what Yahoo knows of the surfer from demographic information, and prior search history. Good to see Yahoo one-up Google, for a change.
Sphere: Related ContentHearst Corp. buys social shopping site Kaboodle
Hearst Corporation, parent of Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, and a host of other magazines, plans to announce today that it will buy social shopping site Kaboodle. On Kaboodle, users tag, review and refer products. The site get 2 million users per month.
Sphere: Related ContentGoogle’s new mobile phone : Yet another freebie?
Google has developed a cell phone prototype that could hit the store shelves, in a year. The accompanying picture is rumored to be a prototype. The subscription is expected to be free, accompanied by search engine advertising.
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Google’s new mobile phone : Yet another freebie?
Google has developed a cell phone prototype that could hit the store shelves, in a year The accompanying picture is rumored to be a prototype. The subscription is expected to be free, accompanied by search engine advertising.
News corp. to buy Dow Jones - Wall Street Journal
News Corp. won a $5 billion bid to buy Dow Jones, making it the first time that control of the company will go outside the Bancroft family. WSJ (owned by Dow Jones) reports that the deal (discussed and in the news for over 3 months) was helped along by Dow Jones CEO would who stands to benefit greatly from the sale.
Sphere: Related ContentPayscale: Are you getting paid enough?
Payscale, a service that tells you what others are getting paid - doing a similar job as yours - raised 10.3 million in Series C funding, in a round led by SAP ventures, Mashable reports. This sort of data can be very useful for employers looking to set pay scales, and for employees who need to know what kind of terms they should negotiate at the yearly review.
Sphere: Related ContentNokia buys Tango and Loudeye
Nokia, in a move to enter the social networking market, bought the file sharing site Twango founded by two former Microsoft execs. The deal is rumored to be around $100 million. Nokia is also buying Loudeye , a mobile music service, for $60 million.
Sphere: Related ContentRecord breaking sales for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
First day sales for “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” hit 8.3 million copies. It is amazing that so many people have the will, not to mention time, to read the 759 page tome! Deathly Hallows sales join the 325 million copies of all Harry Potter books sold worldwide.
Sphere: Related ContentAmazon’s sales jump 35%
From WSJ: Amazon’s profit more than tripled to $78 million as the Internet retailer logged strong growth across product lines and kept expenses in check. Quarterly revenue jumped 35% to $2.89 billion, including 27% growth in its core business selling books, movies and music. The company forecast sales will rise between 30% and 38% in the current quarter.
Sphere: Related ContentAnother hit for Andreessen: HP to acquire Opsware for 1.6 billion
HP has announced that it will acquire Opsware for $1.6 billion. The company was founded by Marc Andreessen, who was also founder of Netscape, and a major force behind making the Internet what what it is today. The company, originally called Loudcloud, settled on the enterprise software arena, after several forays into other areas, including web hosting. Loudcloud had an IPO in 2001.
Sphere: Related ContentGoogle Double click acquisition under investigation
Google is having a bad week. First earnings were below expectations. Now it is getting scrutinized by the government for its acquisition of DoubleClick. Life is rough, sometimes, in the fast lane.
Sphere: Related Contentorbitz IPO fizzles
Orbitz had an under whelming IPO, with stocks closing at $14.50 from a $15 initial offering. The IPO took place a year after Blackstone bought the company. Orbitz’s weak income statement is being blamed.
Sphere: Related ContentSunRocket: Packet8 picks up the good pieces
Packet8 is picking up customers from SunRocket (we wrote about their demise yesterday) by offering them free activation, free adaptor and free first month of service, on their website. Existing SunRocket users can port their phone numbers. Om Malik notes that all this comes with a catch - unused balances will not be honored at Packet8.
Sphere: Related ContentAcquisition fever for online Ad. companies on the rise
ValueClick Inc. agreed to pay up to $352 million to buy MeziMedia Inc., in the latest in a frenzy of acquisitions in the shopping engine space. Los Angles based MeziMedia owns the shopping comparison engine smarter.com. ValueClick owns Commission Junction and Price Runner.
Other online advertising company acquisitions in the works - Microsoft Corp.’s deal to buy aQuantive and Google Inc.’s planned purchase of DoubleClick.
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