GigaOM

• LightReading: French Firms Take on Microsoft
• San Francisco Chronicle: Microsoft Opens Xbox Live to Amateurs
• Seeking Alpha: Wireless Price Wars Likely to Hurt Landline Carriers
• Ars Technica: AOL Ending All Support for Netscape on March 1
• NewTeeVee: Google Finally Launches AdSense for Video

• The Times: Yahoo Seeks to Revive Merger with AOL
• Press Release: Sequans scores $28M for WiMax Chips
  
• NYTimes: Many Obstacles to Digital TV Reception, Study Says
• O’Reilly Radar: Reuters CEO Sees Semantic Web in Its Future
• Light Reading: Verizon Sues Charter Over VoIP Patents
• EETimes: Full Stream Ahead for Web on Mobiles

• ZDNet: Google Launches Free Team Edition of Apps
• NY Times: Time Warner Plans to Spin Off AOL’s Dial-Up Service
• AlleyInsider: EarthLink Q4 Decent; Looking to Buy
• CNET: SugarCRM Lands $20M Venture Round
• DSL Reports: RIAA: Anti-Virus Software Should Filter Pirated Content

Several readers asked me to write my experience raising funds from angels and VCs for my first entrepreneurial endeavor. We raised about $15 million of which $3.5 million was from angels or what I would call boutique VC firms (i.e. a group of angels under one investment roof). Keep in mind that was all before the bubble burst back in 2001. Here are some of my observations based on my experience and from stories I’ve heard from other entrepreneurs. Continue »

In the game of Internet Q&A, only Yahoo (and not Google) seems to have all the answers. But that doesn’t stop others from trying. AOL, a division of Time Warner is buying Israeli-start-up Yedda, betting that it can get traction in the “answers” game. Q&A is about asking internet for help and getting it and given AOL’s mostly mainstream user base, this seems like a calculated bet by AOL. More on Yedda here.

Mobile search, despite the presence of giants such as Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO), Microsoft (MSFT) and AOL (TWX), is wide open. Any startup has as good a chance as any of the the big boys, just as long as they have cutting-edge technology and enough business acumen to capitalize on it. One such startup that is getting a lot of buzz is Boopsie -– yes, you read that right — Boopsie.

The company quietly launched at the recent Mobile 2.0 conference, but went largely unnoticed. And that’s a shame, for I ended up downloading Boopsie’s mobile search application to my Nokia N95, and I was impressed. The app supports all platforms, including the iPhone. After talking to the company — I am typing this while sitting in the airport in Las Vegas, waiting to get home — I like their approach. (It is not clear where the company is based, and their website offers no information.) They’ve basically created channels of content that might be useful.