In This Update:
• Icahn Buys Yahoo Shares; Mulls Board Proxy Contest
• TomTom Wins EU Permission to Buy Tele Atlas
• TNS Rejects Revised Sorrell Bid
• Verizon Wireless Joins LiMo Foundation for Android Rival
• Nintendo Launches Online Distribution Channel WiiWare
• MySpace Wins $234 Million Award in Spam Case
• Craigslist Countersues eBay, Accuses Company of Spying
• AT&T to Boost 3G Speeds More Than Fivefold by 2009
• Disney Launches Advertising Research Lab
• Dash Opens Up APIs for Its GPS Device to Developers
• Starbucks, Burnett Push CODE; Next Fidelity Format
• Philadelphia’s Municipal WiFi Network to Go Dark
• Facebook to Launch Jabber Support for Chat
• PubMatic’s AdPrice Index Sees 23 Percent Drop in Ad Prices
• Semantic Travel Search Engine UpTake Launches
• Nokia Sees Half of Cellphones with GPS in 2010-12
• Mobile Marketing Firm Mozes Lands $11.5 Million
• Mobile RSS Reader Viigo Raises C$7.9M Round
• Study: Older DVR Owners Are More Likely to Skip All Ads

Icahn Buys Yahoo Shares; Mulls Board Proxy Contest
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Billionaire investor Carl Icahn has purchased roughly 50 million Yahoo Inc. shares since Microsoft Corp. withdrew its offer to buy the Web company, and is leaning toward launching a proxy contest to unseat at least part of Yahoo’s board, according to a person familiar with the situation. Mr. Icahn is expected to decide Wednesday whether to launch a proxy contest. A Yahoo deadline for board nominations looms Thursday. He currently has no assurances from Microsoft that it would reconsider a Yahoo purchase, according to the person.
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TomTom Wins EU Permission to Buy Tele Atlas
REUTERS
TomTom, the world’s biggest maker of car navigation devices, won unconditional permission from the European Commission on Wednesday to buy its main map supplier, Tele Atlas, for 2.9 billion euros ($4.5 billion). “The Commission concluded that the transaction would not significantly impede effective competition,” the European Union executive said in a statement, confirming a Reuters report from mid-April. TomTom and Tele Atlas issued a joint statement welcoming the news. “The ruling of the EC is the best possible outcome for TomTom and Tele Atlas allowing the new combination to go ahead with the full execution of its strategy,” the statement said. It noted that U.S. authorities cleared the deal last year. The Commission said it had focused its investigation on the ability and incentive of the merged company to increase costs for rival makers of portable navigation devices.
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TNS Rejects Revised Sorrell Bid
GUARDIAN
WPP boss Sir Martin Sorrell has upped his offer for Taylor Nelson Sofres, only for the market research group to reject his second approach. TNS said the sweetened WPP bid, which values the company at almost £1bn, was not in shareholders’ best interests. Donald Brydon, the TNS chairman, added: “The board met today and had no hesitation in rejecting this revised proposal which substantially undervalues the company even on a standalone basis.” WPP first tabled an unsolicited offer for TNS on May 3, four days after TNS announced a “nil-premium” merger with German rival GfK to create the world’s second-largest market research business. Sorrell – who said he was “surprised and disappointed” that his first approach was rebuffed – has now upped the value of WPP’s cash and shares offer from £948m to £996m. Today, TNS’s board said it had “unanimously rejected” the revised offer as not being in shareholders’ best interests. The board added it would pursue the merger with GfK.
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Verizon Wireless Joins LiMo Foundation for Android Rival
REUTERS
Verizon Wireless said on Wednesday it joined a consortium working on a Linux-based mobile operating system expected to rival a mobile system being developed by a group headed by Google Inc. The announcement that the No. 2 U.S. mobile service joined the LiMo Foundation follows signals last month that AT&T Inc would support Android, the Linux operating system being developed by Google and about 30 partners. The LiMo Foundation said it has about forty members.
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Nintendo Launches Online Distribution Channel WiiWare
PAIDCONTENT
Nintendo has launched a new channel for games distribution-WiiWare. Games are downloaded over the internet by redeeming WiiPoints, which can be purchased at the Wii Shop Channel or at retail outlets…the benefit to this system being that kids can buy the points over the counter with cash rather than relying on an adult with a credit card (although there are parental controls). The intention is to give smaller games developers a channel to sell their wares other than the expensive retail distribution methods.
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MySpace Wins $234 Million Award in Spam Case
AP
The popular online hangout MySpace has won a $234 million judgment over junk messages sent to its members in what is believed to be the largest anti-spam award ever, The Associated Press has learned. A federal judge ruled against two of the Internet’s most prominent spam defendants, Sanford Wallace and Walter Rines, after the two failed to show up at a court hearing. Wallace has earned the nicknames “Spamford” and “spam king” for his past role as head of a company that sent as many as 30 million junk e-mails a day in the 1990s.
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Craigslist Countersues eBay, Accuses Company of Spying
ARS TECHNICA
The legal tussle between Craigslist and eBay escalated today with the revelation that Craigslist has filed a countersuit alleging that eBay engaged in unfair competition, false advertising, trademark infringement, and breach of fiduciary duty. The details of the case were made public in a legal filing published on the official Craiglist blog, and it condemns eBay’s conduct as “unlawful and unfair.” he stage for this conflict was set last year when eBay, which owns 28 percent of Craiglist, launched a competing service called Kijiji. Although the emergence of Kijiji initially had no visible impact on relations between the two companies, things went sour last month when eBay filed a lawsuit under seal against Craiglist claiming that its share in the company had been unfairly diluted.
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AT&T to Boost 3G Speeds More Than Fivefold by 2009
APPLE INSIDER
AT&T said Wednesday it plans to boost the speed of its 3G wireless network to speeds of 20 megabits per second in 2009, paving the way for over-the-air downloads that are more than five times faster than what customers can achieve today. Speaking at the Morgan Stanley’s annual Communications Conference, the company’s mobility chief Ralph de la Vega said engineers already have a version of its HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) 3G network up and running in the labs at speeds of 7.2 megabits per second, or approximately double the theoretical throughput of its existing network. AT&T plans to transition to HSPA release 7 sometime in 2009, which will deliver even bigger speeds “exceeding 20 megabits per second,” according to the executive.
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Disney Launches Advertising Research Lab
MULTICHANNEL
The Walt Disney Co. is launching an emerging media and advertising research lab designed to “understand the emotional drivers and physiological reactions to advertising.” The facility, launched in conjunctions with Prof. Duane Varan, an authority on the future of television and advertising, will conduct year-round tests. The lab will be networked: it will be based on a hub-node design, where the central hub will program and execute tests at the regional node facility. The first node will be a 3,000-plus sq. ft. lab to be built in Austin, Texas.It will test a variety of advertising methodologies including interactivity, split screens, brand integration, sponsorships, addressable advertising, broadband video and mobile devices.
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Dash Opens Up APIs for Its GPS Device to Developers
TECHCRUNCH
Dash Navigation is opening up its in-car GPS device to outside developers through an API program. The Dash already lets consumers create Yahoo map mashups on teh Web which theycan then send to their car. Now, companies that want to create specific applications for the device, which includes a two-way data channel through GPRS as well as WiFi, can join the API program.
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Starbucks, Burnett Push CODE; Next Fidelity Format
DIGITAL MUSIC NEWS
Higher-end audio formats are mostly marginal moneymakers, though another premium fidelity solution is now emerging. The new format, called CODE, was developed by producer T-Bone Burnett alongside a team of engineers. The format is being piloted on an upcoming John Mellencamp album – titled Life, Death, Love and Freedom – the next focus release for Starbucks and its Hear Music imprint. Unlike earlier high-end formats like SACD and DVD-A, Burnett and company are attempting to closely mirror the fidelity of original, master recordings. But the upgrade presents some CD-specific compatibility issues, so it is being packaged as a DVD alongside a standard CD release. The double-disc package is being offered for the price of a standard, single-disc release.
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Philadelphia’s Municipal WiFi Network to Go Dark
ARS TECHNICA
The wireless clock will soon strike midnight in the City of Brotherly Love, as EarthLink will soon shut down Philadelphia’s municipal WiFi for good. EarthLink claims it was going transfer the network to the city of Philadelphia for free (as well as donate the WiFi equipment), but blames the conclusion of this months-long drama on the city’s inability to get its act together. Current customers will have 30 days to transition to something else, and the plug will officially be pulled on Thursday, June 12. The announcement comes under a week after EarthLink gave the city its second (and apparently final) deadline to take the network off its hands.
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Facebook to Launch Jabber Support for Chat
INSIDE FACEBOOK
Since Facebook Chat launched a few weeks ago, chat application developers have been clamoring for the ability to integrate Facebook Chat into their apps via Jabber/XMPP. Tonight, Facebook will announce upcoming support for a Jabber interface to Facebook Chat that will allow users of third parties to: Chat with your friends inside Facebook from the client of your choosing; See which of your friends are online and view their profile pictures; Set your status. Jabber support marks a major step forward in the evolution of Facebook Chat. Some applications, like Adium and Digsby, have already launched Facebook integration even though the company has not officially launched Jabber support.
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PubMatic’s AdPrice Index Sees 23 Percent Drop in Ad Prices
CENTERNETWORKS
PubMatic is out with their second monthly AdPrice Index report and they believe that the U.S. economic slowdown has begun to affect online advertising. They are reporting that eCPMs for large Web sites (more than 100 million page views per month) dropped dramatically by 52 percent from 38 cents in March to 18 cents April, medium Web sites (1 million to 100 million page views per month) were nearly flat, with monetization dropping from 34 cents in March to 33 cents in April and small Web sites managed to improve their monetization, increasing from $1.17 in March to $1.29 in April.
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Semantic Travel Search Engine UpTake Launches
READ/WRITE WEB
UpTake is a vertical search engine that has assembled what it says is the largest database of US hotels and activities — over 400,000 of them — from more than 1,000 different travel sites. Using a top-down approach, UpTake looks at its database of over 20 million reviews, opinions, and descriptions of hotels and activities in the US and semantically extracts information about those destinations. Think of it as Metacritic for the travel vertical, but rather than just arriving at an aggregate rating (which it does), UpTake also attempts to figure out some basic concepts about a hotel or activity based on what it learns from the information it reads. Things such as, is the hotel family friendly, would it be good for a romantic getaway, is it eco friendly, etc.
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Nokia Sees Half of Cellphones with GPS in 2010-12
REUTERS
Nokia plans to add navigation to half of the phones it sells within a few years to find new revenue streams amid decreasing handset prices, a senior official at the world’s top cellphone maker said. Michael Halbherr, the head of Nokia’s location-based activities, told Reuters he remains comfortable with Nokia’s year-old goal for seeing up to 50 percent of its phones equipped with global positioning system (GPS) chips in 2010 to 2012. “We are planning to ship 35 million GPS units this year,” Halbherr said, adding “and many more location-enabled phones that use cell-towers to orient themselves on the map”. “You will see few ‘E’ or ‘N’ Series phones without GPS,” he said. Last year Nokia sold 437 million phones, and it expects the volume to grow more than 10 percent this year. It sold 38 million phones in its multimedia range “N Series” and some 7 million “E Series” business phones.
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Mobile Marketing Firm Mozes Lands $11.5 Million
DIGITAL MEDIA WIRE
Mozes, the provider of an on-demand mobile marketing platform, has raised an $11.5 million second round of financing led by Maveron, PEHub.com reported, citing a regulatory filing. Previous investors Norwest Venture Partners and North Bridge Venture Partners also participated. Palo Alto, Calif.-based Mozes’ mobile marketing platform is used by over 3,000 music artists, including Death Cab for Cutie, Fall Out Boy and Amy Winehouse.
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Mobile RSS Reader Viigo Raises C$7.9M Round
ALARM:CLOCK
Toronto’s Viigo (formerly Virtual Reach) has raised C$1.5M in further Series A funding from RBC Venture Partners. It had previously held a C$6.4M first close. Viigo has built a super fast and lightweight RSS reader for the mobile market. The company’s CEO says not to judge Viigo by what you see today as it is about to launch its Project Tango. Speculation is that they will make it easier to get large file audio onto your blackberry. Microsoft has selected Project Tango as a showcase at the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona.A potential hickup is that Research in Motion’s Blackberry announced its upcoming version and that includes iTunes support.
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Study: Older DVR Owners Are More Likely to Skip All Ads
ADVERTISING AGE
Approximately 30% of online Americans, ages 12 to 64, own or subscribe to a TiVo or a DVR service from their cable or satellite company. And of course, we assume that everyone with one of those devices is skipping all their TV ads all the time. But that isn’t true. When asked about their ad-skipping tendencies, people report quite a bit of diversity in the percentage of ads they skip. One surprising finding? Older Americans are more likely to skip ads all of the time. When asked whether they skip ads 100% of the time, 52% of men ages 55 to 64 said they do. By comparison, only 21% of males ages 12 to 17 report skipping ads 100% of the time.
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