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Microsoft Says Yahoo Ad Deal Still Makes Sense
REUTERS
Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said a Web search advertising deal with Yahoo Inc makes economic sense and may still be possible, though the two sides are not in any discussions. Shares of Yahoo jumped as much as 17 percent as investors hoped Ballmer’s comments could lead to the two sides returning to the negotiating table. But gains were pared back to about 12 percent after Microsoft issued a statement saying it had no interest in buying Yahoo.
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Cloud Computing Reality Check: Gmail Goes Down For A Day
SILICON ALLEY INSIDER
Take note before jumping on the cloud bandwagon: even relatively mature cloud applications like Google’s (GOOG) gmail — which unlike the many cloud upstarts already has a track record several years long — still suffer from massive failures. The latest outage Wednesday night was a doozy: some Google Apps users were locked out of Gmail for over 24 hours. No word on exactly how many users were affected, or just what went wrong.
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Google Profit Jumps 26 Percent
WASHINGTON POST
Search giant Google beat analyst estimates yesterday when it reported a 26 percent increase in third-quarter profit, bolstering the company’s claim that online advertising will hold up in a slowing economy. The Mountain View, Calif., company said its profit reached $1.35 billion in the third quarter, or $4.24 a share, compared with $1.07 billion, or $3.38 a share during the corresponding period a year ago. Total revenue increased 31 percent, to $5.54 billion. After subtracting advertising commissions, Google’s net revenue rose 34 percent, to $4.04 billion, which is about $20 million below the average analyst estimate.
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Adobe Drops Licensing Fees, Gives Away Flash For Devices
WIRED
Software maker Adobe announced Thursday that it would drop many of the licensing requirements attached to its Flash technology, which is used to display video and audio content on the web. The new initiative, named the Open Screen Project, has five key components:1. Adobe will remove license restrictions on SWF and FLV file formats. Outsiders can now build their own Flash player clones.2. Adobe will also remove the licensing fees on its Flash player. Developers can now integrate Adobe’s player into any device or application without paying a fee.
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Qualcomm to Get $2.3 Billion From Nokia Over Patents
SOCALTECH
San Diego-based Qualcomm is set to receive $2.3B (1.7 Euros) in a patent licensing deal with Nokia, Nokia disclosed quietly in its third quarter results this week. The firms, which had been battling over patent infringement lawsuits, reached an agreement in July to give Nokia a license to use Qualcomm’s patents, but had not disclosed financial terms of the deal.
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More Layoffs: Pandora Cuts 20 Employees
WEBWARE
Pandora founder Tim Westergren announced on the company’s blog Thursday that he is reducing the workforce by 20 employees. The layoffs will shrink Pandora’s staff of 140 employees to 120. Westergren did point out that there is a silver lining for his company, though. According to Pandora’s founder, its user base is growing rapidly and the popularity of its iPhone app is allowing it to grow in other areas. So much in fact, that Pandora will be hiring more advertising sales representatives to help it handle its financial success over the past few months.
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The Met Opera Will Offer Performances on the Web
NEW YORK TIMES
In the Metropolitan Opera’s relentless quest to exploit all media, the company next Wednesday will start making many video and audio broadcasts available for Internet streaming on demand.Met Player, as the service is called, will be available through the Met’s Web site, metopera.org. At its inauguration, on the 125th anniversary of the Met’s first show, users will be able to choose from 13 high-definition video performances, 37 standard video recordings and 120 audio broadcasts dating to 1937. The company said it planned to add performances regularly, drawing on its vast historical archives and its continuing high-definition broadcasts.
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The Social Media Classroom: A New Web 2.0 Platform For Education
READ WRITE WEB
The Social Media Classroom (SMC) is a new project started by Howard Rheingold which offers an open-source Drupal-based web service to teachers and students for the purpose of introducing social media into the classroom. The service includes tools like forums, blogs, wikis, chat, social bookmarking, RSS, microblogging, widgets, video conferencing, and more. The SMC is more than just a collection of new media tools repurposed for educational use, though. The end goal of the service is to move education away from being a unidirectional delivery of knowledge to become a more collaborative learning process.
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Interactive Flickr: Now for Everyone
CNET
Yahoo has finished a redesign of its Flickr home page that emphasizes the photo-sharing site’s social aspects. The new home page shows off more of a user’s own photos and more from the user’s contacts, and it surfaces social activity such as comments on the user’s photos, replies to comments the user made on others’ photos, and new photos posted to the user’s Flickr groups. The move is part of Yahoo Open Strategy, which aims to expose Yahoo users’ social activity across different Yahoo properties, let others build applications on Yahoo properties, and let outside sites use Yahoo data. Next up for Flickr is a redesign of the photo pages that house each image, the company said earlier.
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G1 gives iPhone Some Competition
SFGATE
Real competition to Apple’s iPhone is coming in the form of the G1 from T-Mobile and Google, which will be released next week, and the BlackBerry Storm, on tap for November. Having tested the G1 for the past week, I can see why 1.5 million people already have preordered the phone. It’s not next door to the iPhone 3G, but it’s on the same street. This is a good first showing for Google’s open-source Android operating system, which should be popping up on other phones in the coming months.
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