Expedia shares advance on speak of privatization By MarketWatch Last Update: 4:34 PM ET Might 28, 2008 CHICAGO (MarketWatch) — Shares of on the web travel bureau Expedia Inc. advanced Wednesday on speculation that Barry Diller’s IAC/Interactive Corp. is considering taking the company private, according to a published report. Expedia’s (EXPE) stock rose $1.01 to close at $22.75, a gain of 4.7%, on […] For more visit Source:www.investment-blog.net
Archive for May 29th, 2008 AOL will officially support OpenSocial, the developer standard created by Google for social-networking applications. The announcement was hinted at by Google Director of Engineering David Glazer in a speech at the Google I/O conference Wednesday. The online service-turned-media brand will join pretty much each huge player in online media … Expedia Started At Buy By Sterne Agee >EXPE Last Update: 5/29/2008 8:49:36 AM (MORE TO FOLLOW) Dow Jones Newswires Might 29, 2008 08:49 ET (12:49 GMT) For more visit Source:www.investment-blog.net
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Report: Glam Media to snub billion-dollar buyout offerPosted by: admin in Social Media and Tech Glam Media has always been adamant that it’s not just another ad network, something it reiterated when it announced a revenue-sharing video platform for its member sites this week. But apparently, some huge company really thinks that Glam’s something special. Amid the gossipy deal making of the D6 … AOL will officially support OpenSocial, the developer standard created by Google for social-networking applications. The announcement was hinted at by Google Director of Engineering David Glazer in a speech at the Google I/O conference Wednesday. The online service-turned-media brand will join pretty much every big player in online media …
Apple has just filed a patent for an in-screen / device-covering solar film for its gadgets. We’ve seen similar in-screen technology patented by Motorola already (not clear if this is an infringement), but Apple wants to cover the entire device, not jut the screen, with the solar cells. You can already get a solar powered iPod — it just requires a larger-than-an-iPod charger that you’ve to lay out in the sun all the time. Not perfectly convenient, for sure, but I suppose it’s superior than the regular coal-powered way of charging up. But if the solar cells were built into the device, that would certainly make things simpler. Unfortunately, with current efficiencies for thin-film solar (the only kind that could be semi-transparent), it’s unclear that there would be much benefit. Unless you were planning on leaving your iPod in the sun all day long, you’d still need to charge the old-fashioned way. Unless Apple starts making flat gadgets with a big surface area … and that doesn’t seem to be the direction the company is going. Via Engadget
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Whrrl parent company nets $15 million in fundingPosted by: admin in Social Media and Tech Location-based social networking might be a clogged market, but it’s still hot: Pelago, the parent company of mobile service Whrrl, is set to announce that the company has pulled in a $15 million Series B financing round. It’ll be used for “strategic technology investments,” as well as partnerships, … Nathan Myhrvold was chief technology officer of Microsoft, but since 2000 has been building a portfolio of inventions (patents) at Intellectual Ventures. He’s also a talented chef, photographer, and paleontologist. He was interviewed Wednesday at D6 by Walt Mossberg. 
Walt Mossberg interviews Nathan Myhrvold at the D6 conference. (Credit: Ina Fried / CNET) Mossberg dived into the controversy around Myhrvold’s venture, which has been called an institutionalized “patent troll.” Myhrvold states, “We invest in ideas, not the realization of it.” He states, “We recruit inventors before they have an invention.” “And then you own it?” Mossberg asks. “Yes, but we pay the inventor.” The company, started in 2003, works on a process that takes four to five years before it has ideas that can be protected. “A lot of (the ideas) are 10 years out.” The company files 500 patents a year, and has filed 1,700 in total. Only about 50 have been granted so far, he said, but as of yet none of the patents is realized in products. Example projects include a “new kind of nuclear reactor.” Myhrvold states, “We need an inexpensive source of carbon-free energy,” and, “Maybe this is the first time that a little company could rethink nuclear power. Dramatically.” How does it work? Myhrvold believes his company’s technology can run without operators, with spent fuel from current reactors and depleted uranium. “We have a wonderful containment vessel already: a Dell blade server. You really want to simulate the hell out of this stuff first.” “We’re swinging for the fences,” he said. There’s another part of the business, similar to the private equity model. “There are lots of inventions that people have that the owner doesn’t know what the hell to do with.” It’s buying patents, Mossberg stated. Myhrvold concurred, but of course disputed the “patent troll” appellation. “I challenge the notion that there’s something wrong with having an investable asset,” he stated. “We’re closing the loop of capital.” Mossberg pressed Myhrvold on the issue, trying to get Myhrvold to admit that his company is happy to litigate for patent damages. Myhrvold: “There’s nothing wrong with trying to get a reasonable return” on patents. Yet, he says, there are several ways to monetize patents. “We’ve never sent a litigation notice to anyone, and we’ve never filed a suit.” He didn’t rule out the possibility in the future, however. “Thomas Edison’s business model was very similar to ours,” he said. What’s different, he stated, is that he thinks there’s a new model, called “invention capital,” that’s similar to venture capital in that “you create an algorithmic way that people can get funded.” See also: Myhrvold on Microhoo and his new cookbook Click here for full coverage of the D: All Things Digital conference. 
Glam CEO Samir Arora (Credit: Rafe Needleman/CNET Networks) CARLSBAD, Calif.–Glam Media is launching a new platform for content distribution, the GlamTV Platform. It will grant the video assets in its woman-focused network of sites to be shared to new destinations, and more importantly, everyone in the value chain of the distribution will collect a piece of the advertising revenue. Videos on the Brightcove platform will also work on GlamTV. “It’s a rights-managed platform end to end,” Glam Media CEO Samir Arora told me at the D6 conference here. An example he provided: Let’s state the editor of SheFinds, an independent site, saw some video on a Glam site that she wanted for her site. On the TV Platform, she would grab the embed code for the video, but unlike with a YouTube video, once the media played, all the participants in the value chain would share in the advertising revenue–SheFinds, the Glam site that acquired the video, and potentially the contract video producer as well. Arora was pleased to remind me that Glam is currently running over-$50 CPM ad rates, so its publishers can afford to split some of their revenues. The Glam TV Platform will also grant publishers to pick and select videos from around the network, bundle them into their own branded widgets, and then make those widgets available to others in the network. Again, when the widgets play videos, all participants get a piece of the action. Glam makes this economy function by securing and managing the rights for all the video assets that go into its network. In most cases, the company acquires blanket rights for videos, but it can also accept more restrictive rights from publishers who want to control where the assets they paid for end up.
Various display options for GlamTV content. 
The content-publishing platform lets users build widgets with custom video playlists.
See previous story: Social networks don platform shoes. Click here for full coverage of the D: All Things Digital conference. |
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