In This Update:
• Microsoft Makes $44.6 Billion Bid for Yahoo
• Motorola May Sell or Spin Off Handset Unit
• Yahoo to Acquire Maven Networks for Around $150 Million
• Patent Court Rules for Tivo, Against EchoStar, in Infringement Case
• 700 MHz Auction Bids Reach ‘Open Access’ Trigger
• Fox Super Bowl Ad Take to Reach $260 Million
• Ad Growth Still Strong, Google Says
• Report: 100 Percent of Expired .COM Domain Names Instantly Registered
• Glam Media Close To Finishing Its $50-100 Million Equity Raise
• Report: Fixing US Broadband: $100 Billion for Fiber to Every Home
• Cornerworld Acquires Social Media Marketer Sway For $30 Million
• Widgetbox Gets $8 Million for Widget Tools, Hosting Service
• RIAA Chief: We Don’t See a Need for Mandatory ISP Filtering
• Cable Break Causes Wide Internet Outage

Microsoft Makes $44.6 Billion Bid for Yahoo
BLOOMBERG
Microsoft Corp., the world’s biggest software maker, made an unsolicited $44.6 billion offer for Yahoo! Inc. to challenge Google Inc.’s dominance in Internet search services and advertising. The $31-a-share bid of cash or Microsoft stock is 62 percent more than Yahoo’s closing price yesterday. Before today, Yahoo had dropped 18 percent this year in Nasdaq Stock Market trading, and this week posted a 23 percent profit decline for the fourth quarter.
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Motorola May Sell or Spin Off Handset Unit
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Motorola Inc., facing pressure from activist shareholder Carl Icahn, said it may spin off or sell its flagship handset division. The decision is a stunning setback for an American technology icon and offers a parable for other industries. Motorola essentially created mobile telecommunications with the earliest mass-market hand-held radios. But it repeatedly stumbled in keeping up with consumer demand for innovation, while foreign competitors stole away market share.
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Yahoo to Acquire Maven Networks for Around $150 Million
NEWTEEVEE
Yahoo is close to acquiring enterprise video startup Maven Networks for between $160 million and $170 million, according to sources familiar with the deal. Maven provides video hosting and distribution services for Gannett, Hearst, Fox News, Sony BMG, the Financial Times, Univision, TV Guide, and others. Maven had some $30 million in funding from Prism Venture Partners, Accel Partners, and General Catalyst Partners, having raised a $12 million Series C round in 2006. The company recently expanded its video advertising platform. It has a backend partnership with thePlatform, which is owned by Comcast.
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Patent Court Rules for Tivo, Against EchoStar, in Infringement Case
REUTERS
EchoStar Communications Corp infringed a TiVo Inc patent in building digital video recorders and must pay nearly $74 million in damages, a court that specializes in patent cases ruled on Thursday. Once the appeal is final, EchoStar will be barred from selling the infringing devices, the ruling said. EchoStar said it already had a substitute for the software in question, and that customers would not be affected.
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700 MHz Auction Bids Reach ‘Open Access’ Trigger
MARKETWATCH
Bidding on a valuable chunk of nationwide wireless spectrum Thursday reached the level needed to trigger new “open access” rules championed by Google Inc. and others. After 18 rounds of bidding in a government auction that began one week ago, bids for the so-called “C block” of nationwide spectrum reached $4.7 billion, according to Federal Communications Commission data. The auction will continue until no fresh bids are made. According to FCC rules, bidding had to reach $4.6 billion for the C block spectrum, or it would have been put up for bid in a subsequent auction with no open access rules.
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Fox Super Bowl Ad Take to Reach $260 Million
MEDIAWEEK
Fox is expected to take in a total of $225 million in advertising revenue on Super Bowl Sunday, according to sources familiar with the situation. Sources explained that this will include the network’s four-hour, pre-game show; Super Bowl game telecast; and hour-long episode of its hit drama, House, which leads out of the game. In addition, the Fox owned-and-operated TV stations are expected to take in about $35 million in ad revenue locally for the similar schedule of programming, bringing the total take to $260 million.
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Ad Growth Still Strong, Google Says
NEW YORK TIMES
Google said it has seen no effect from a slowing economy on its advertising business, as it reported a 17 percent jump in profit and a 51 percent growth in revenue in the fourth quarter. The result represents a slowdown in Google’s growth rate and fell shy of expectations. The company said it remained bullish about its business, regardless of the outlook for the overall economy. “We have not seen any impact as of now,” said Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, in an interview Thursday afternoon after the financial report was announced.
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Report: 100 Percent of Expired .COM Domain Names Instantly Registered
TECHREPUBLIC
The Colation Against Domain Name Abuse (or CADNA) has released a white paper this week on the practice of “Drop-catching”. Drop-catching refers to the process whereby a domain name has expired and released again into the pool of available names and is immediately registered by another individual. CADNA tracked 17,000 randomly selected Dot-ORG, Dot-COM and Dot-NET domain names after their scheduled expiration on September 18th, 2007, and found that 100% of the Dot-COM and Dot-NET domains were instantly registered after they were released.
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Glam Media Close To Finishing Its $50-100 Million Equity Raise
PAIDCONTENT
Glam Media, the high-profile and controversial online ad network, had started raising a total of $200 million last year, with the plans for $100 million in equity raise, and $100 million in debt. Now, the company is finally close to closing its equity round, though sources say that the amount has come down, and could now range anywhere between $50 million to $100 million, and may be closer to the former…multiple syndicates are still looking at the options, and an announcement could come later next month. The valuation hopes of the company may have come down, as some have pointed out. Allen & Co. and other banks were working on the deal.
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Report: Fixing US Broadband: $100 Billion for Fiber to Every Home
ARS TECHNICA
The US is in desperate need of 100Mbps “big broadband.” That’s the conclusion of a new report from EDUCAUSE, a group that represents IT managers at over 2,200 colleges and universities. But these 100Mbps connections are coming slowly; in the meantime, countries like Japan already have them. To avoid falling further behind, the report calls for a national broadband policy to be passed this year, one that includes $100 billion for a fiber-to-the-home infrastructure that will connect every household and business in the country.
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Cornerworld Acquires Social Media Marketer Sway For $30 Million
TECHCRUNCH
Cornerworld has acquired social media marketing company Sway, Inc. for $30 million. The OTC listed Cornerworld is a relatively unknown social service provider that “combines social networking, content-sharing and business management tools to enable independent people to profit from their original digital works;” a full profile from DemoFall 07 can be found here. Sway offers a central control platform for administering marketing campaigns across social media and “multiple web 2.0 platforms.” Their key products offer customers real-time results tracking across HTML e-mail, podcasts, video syndication, RSS and SMS mobile phone text messaging.
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Widgetbox Gets $8 Million for Widget Tools, Hosting Service
DIGITALMEDIAWIRE
Widgetbox, a provider of Web-based widget application development and distribution tools, has raised $8 million in its second round of venture capital financing, led by Northgate Capital. . Sequoia Capital and Hummer Winblad also participated. San Francisco-based Widgetbox’s service has been used by over 20,000 developers, and hosts nearly 34,000 widgets. The company claims that 15% of Facebook applications, and 60% of Bebo applications have been created using its service.
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RIAA Chief: We Don’t See a Need for Mandatory ISP Filtering
ARS TECHNICA
The head of the RIAA says that there’s no need for such an approach in the US, in comments he made yesterday. The RIAA still wants to see a thousand filters bloom, of course, but it holds out hope for a “marketplace solution” to the issue. Cary Sherman, the RIAA chief, made his comments today at a Washington, DC tech conference.The RIAA does not support filtering at the ISP level in the US, opting instead to back the tradeoffs of the DMCA. That law allows ISPs a “safe harbor” for the content passing through their networks so long as they respond to takedown notices and legal requests in a timely fashion.
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Cable Break Causes Wide Internet Outage
PHYSORG
At least for a while, the World Wide Web wasn’t so worldwide. Two cables that carry Internet traffic deep under the Mediterranean Sea snapped, disrupting service Thursday across a swath of Asia and the Middle East. India took one of the biggest hits, and the damage from its slowdowns and outages rippled to some U.S. and European companies that rely on its lucrative outsourcing industry to handle customer service calls and other operations.
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Tags: Accel Partners, Cisco, College, EchoStar, EMC, Facebook, FCC, Financing, Fox, Gannett, General Catalyst Partners, Google, Hearst, ISP, Local, LTE, Microsoft, Motorola, Nasdaq, RIAA, Sequoia Capital, SMS, Social Networking, Sony, Sony BMG, Tivo, TV Guide, U.S., Venture Capital, Video, widget, Yahoo