We mentioned that BT might use this as an excuse to get back into the mobile market. The British Independent paper has more details:

BT is interested in offering the wider-ranging WiMax technology but does not currently own appropriate spectrum to roll out the service. A BT spokesman said: “We are naturally interested in the potential of this spectrum and we continue to assess its possible uses, including the possibility of Wimax.”

ZDNet says that carriers like O2 that have already spent billions on their networks are getting all defensive over the idea of new players. “O2 has called for tight controls to be imposed on market entrants,” writes ZDNet.

It’s not a surprise that companies that overspent for 3G licenses are now trying to defend their investment any way possible. Forbes takes a look at that last famous wireless auction for the U.K. in 2000.

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The service provides local phone numbers that allow callers to eliminate expensive international long distance charges from any of 29 national markets in Europe, the Americas and Asia. Initial countries range from United States to most of Western Europe to Brazil, Chile and Mexico and Japan and Singapore.

We will get to Jaxtr later, but Guericke’s exit shows that LinkedIn might have reached a point of maturity, where the early start-up adrenaline rush is replaced by more sedate practicality. LinkedIn has told us it is profitable and will hit $100 million in revenues by 2008. LinkedIn made its debut in 2002, raised nearly $15 million in VC funding from Sequoia Capital and Greylock, and since then has grown to eight million members. See this recent profile in Business 2.0.

Jaxtr review, to follow, after a few cups of coffee! Photo courtesy of LinkedIn

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The deal is likely to close in the first quarter of 2007, and Wretch brand will remain unchanged. Wretch has 6.5 million users. This deal once again underscores the nimbleness of Yahoo in international markets, where it has used acquisitions and partnerships to build up a strong base, despite local competition.

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As for products, he hinted at partnerships with car companies to be announced at CES and mused at the vast difference in business models – small, private sales to the military versus advertising – that have been applied to the data Microsoft uses for Virtual Earth.

We each got to ask Gates one question. I asked which applications he forecast to live within the browser and which outside of it.

He replied that the distinction would come to be silly from a technical standpoint, but that the necessary movement toward web APIs does present challenges on the business side. “One of the things that’s actually held the industry back on this is, if you have an advertising business model, then you don’t want to expose your capabilities as a web service, because somebody would use that web service without plastering your ad up next to the thing.”

His solution wasn’t very specific: “It’s ideal if you get business models that don’t force someone to say ‘no, we won’t give you that service unless you display something right there on that home page.”

Then for the tease: “And, you know, [inside the browser and outside the browser are] moving towards each other, but there’s still a bit of a barrier there, and new technology, things we’re working on, really will change that.”

The conversation was meaty at times, but also quite relaxed. I don’t think anyone in the room didn’t have a blog, so I’m not going to recap every last word here.

Fun tidbits that emerged from other people’s questions: Gates has Wicked, among other musicals, on his Zune; as a kid, he never wanted to be an astronaut or a cowboy (rather, a lawyer, mathematician, and briefly economist); and he’s delaying buying the new season of 24 on DVD so that people will have something to give him for Christmas.

Update: Posts from other participants: Niall Kennedy on his question about Linux IP, Mike Arrington on his question about DRM, Steve Rubel with a summary of the Gates Q&A, Kelly Goto with a writeup of the day, Ryan Stewart with some remarks, Molly Holzschlag on her back-and-forth with Gates about Microsoft’s bad reputation on web standards, Chris Pirillo with his personal account.

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The news has generated a lot of buzz among bloggers – Andy, Alec, and Frank. Bunch of questions about this, and will blog later. Meanwhile, tell us what you really think of this new move.

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Writes Janus Friis on his blog,

We set out to try to merge the best of TV and the best of the Internet and I think we have just taken a big step on a long journey. For a few months we have been quietly testing with a small circle of people. Now, we’re going to expand that circle – with more and more people getting invited. If you want to take it for a spin, get an invitation from an existing beta tester.

From Om: Someone who got to use the service wasn’t very kind. “To sum up, very bad interface, no text description of what the buttons mean, quality of video goes up and down very much, not really much better than a good flash file that you size up 250%.”
Exclusive screenshots beneath the fold:

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