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September 24, 2008

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Yahoo Clears Path for AOL Talks
FINANCIAL TIMES
Yahoo’s new board on Tuesday cleared the way for a fresh round of discussions with Time Warner over the future of its AOL unit, potentially reigniting negotiations for a combination of the two internet businesses that stalled earlier this year.The green light for the talks came as Yahoo’s directors met for the first time since activist investor Carl Icahn was granted access to the boardroom. Mr Icahn and two allies, former Viacom boss Frank Biondi and former Nextel head Frank Chapple, were given seats at the board table as part of a settlement to head off a revolt at the internet company’s last shareholder meeting.
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Buffett Deal at Goldman is Seen as a Sign of Confidence
NEW YORK TIMES
Warren E. Buffett announced that he would invest $5 billion in Goldman Sachs, the embattled Wall Street titan, in a move that could bolster confidence in the financial markets. Until now, Mr. Buffett, who has navigated the stock market with legendary prowess, has largely refrained from investing in the stricken financial industry, saying repeatedly that things could get worse.
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Music Groups Agree Online Music Royalties Deal
REUTERS
Record labels, music publishers, songwriters and online music services have reached an agreement on how to compensate music creators for online distribution of their content, they said. The agreement is designed to settle how the industry calculates royalty rates for limited downloads and music that is streamed online, including when it is provided by subscription and advertising-supported services.
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KickApps Launches Customizable Video Monetization for Web Publishers
CENTERNETWORKS
Y-based KickApps has announced the launch of a new video player product that allows Web publishers to inject advertising into the video stream. The “KickApps Widget & Video Player Studio” takes your videos from anywhere on the Web, packages them with an ad and generates a widget that can be embedded anywhere. The widgets can be used on sites powered by KickApps or any other hosting provider. KickApps Marketing SVP Michael Chin took me through a variety of examples yesterday and it’s a very impressive system. Basically you create a design for your video player. Next you select the content for the video player, either a search, premade combination or add in any RSS 2.0 feed.
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Yotify Launches Its Online Alert System
TECHCRUNCH
Today sees the launch of Yotify , an online alert system that aims to make the web “work for you”. At a high level, Yotify can best be described as a very sophisticated version of Google Alerts, which allows users to get notifications whenever a pre-determined keyword pops up in a news article or blog post. But instead of simply monitoring keywords, Yotify allows users to track variables across a number of different services, including price changes, event ticket availability, and user profile modifications.
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Mobile Content Pioneer Vindigo Shuts Down
SILICON ALLEY INSIDER
New York-based Vindigo, a mobile content company with a history that dates back to the first Web boom, is being shut down by its owner, Japan’s For-Side. Sources familiar with the company tell us more than 30 people are being laid off. Vindigo was founded in 1999 and was originally supposed to supply city guides for Palm Pilots. It survived the bursting of the first bubble, albeit in severely diminished form, and in 2004 was acquired by For-Side, which was making a foray into mobile content in the U.S. and the U.K.
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RoyaltyShare Plans New Digital Music Tracking Service
SOCALTECH
San Diego-based RoyaltyShare said this morning it will be developing a new system for tracking limited downloads and interactive streaming. According to RoyaltyShare, it will be rolling out a platform which tracks and automates the tracking of music subscriptions and streaming, based on the recent agreement by the music industry on revenue sharing for streamed music. RoyaltyShare that the platform is currently under development and will be available in Q4.
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Windows Mobile 7 Release Delayed
CNET
Microsoft has informed some of its partners that it has had to delay Windows Mobile 7, a much anticipated update to its cell phone operating system.Although Microsoft has not publicly said when to expect Windows Mobile 7, partners who had expected to have a final release in their hands by early next year have been told now that it won’t be ready until the second half of next year, sources told CNET News. The delay is a significant blow for the software maker, which has been counting on the next version of Windows Mobile to enable devices that better rival Apple’s iPhone.
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Interview: Canoe Ventures’ Verklin: Google TV Ads Is a Potential Partner
PAIDCONTENT
Back in February, six of the largest cable companies in U.S.-Comcast Time Warner Cable, Cablevision, Cox Communications, Charter Communications and Bright House Networks– came together to create a separate company that would allow national advertisers to buy customized and targeted ads. In August, David Verklin said he would step down as CEO of media agency holding company Aegis Media Americas to head up was to that point called Project Canoe. Now as CEO of Canoe Ventures, Verklin is charged with not only holding all the disparate companies together, but on helping make “addressable TV” a reality on a national basis.
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Online Image Licensing Company PicApp Raises $3.2 Million
VENTUREBEAT
Picapp is an Israel-based company that offers licensed images to web publishers in exchange for Picapp running advertising on publishers’ sites. The company has raised $3.2 million from Carmel Ventures and angel investor Leon Recanati.
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