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Tech

Some believe that Facebook’s $1-billion purchase of Instagram makes sense, but others argue the dollar value of the deal seems almost unbelievably high. Is it another sign of a tech-startup bubble, or a smart move by Facebook to lock up a potential competitor? Read More »

Russian web incubator Fast Lane Ventures is developing a reputation for building big businesses fast, with the sale TV channel Shopping Live — its second significant exit inside a couple of months. Read More »

 
 

Now that Apple has showed it plans to spend some of its massive $100 billion cash holdings, some argue it should acquire Twitter as a way of bulking up its social features. But just because it could buy Twitter, does that mean it should? Read More »

IBM plans to acquire retail data analytics company DemandTec in an all-cash deal valued at $440 million, continuing Big Blue’s buys in big data businesses. DemandTec has two especially compelling elements for IBM: It adds to its big data expertise, and it’s vertically focused. Read More »

The FCC has accepted AT&T’s request to withdraw its T-Mobile merger petition, allowing it to resubmit its application if it can overcome the DOJ’s antitrust lawsuit. But the FCC didn’t let AT&T get off without releasing its report condemning the merger for all to see. Read More »

AT&T’s proposed acquisition of T-Mobile seems all but dead. If the deal falls through mobile operators stand to gain or lose depending on which of side of the battle lines the stand. The biggest losers, however, aren’t necessarily AT&T and T-Mobile. Read More »

Verizon dodged a bullet on Tuesday when the FCC denounced AT&T-Mo. No conditional approval means no new regulations to haunt Verizon’s own consolidation plans in the future. Now Verizon needs its archival AT&T to throw in the towel before it can do any more damage. Read More »

Facebook acquires Q&A startup friend.ly

Friend.ly's team (click to enlarge)

Facebook has acquired friend.ly, a startup that makes a Facebook app for asking and answering questions with your friends. Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed. Friend.ly was founded in 2010 and has reportedly raised $5 million in venture capital to date. Read More »

Samsung: We’re not buying HP’s PC biz

So, that personal computer business that HP doesn’t want anymore? The one with the largest market share in the world? Samsung isn’t interested either. The company attempted to put an end to rumors it was considering taking over HP’s laptop and desktop unit on its blog. Read More »

Skype buys GroupMe and adds group messaging

Skype announced that it is acquiring GroupMe, just a year after the group-messaging startup officially launched to the public. While Skype has been focused on adding video calling to its mobile applications, the GroupMe buy gives it expertise in the text-based group-messaging field. Read More »

Google has snapped up The Dealmap, an aggregator of nearby shopping deals, in an acquisition that furthers its Google Offers ambitions. The purchase, whose price was not disclosed, shows that Google is proceeding even without its unsuccessful $6 billion bid for Groupon last year. Read More »

If one thing was expected from Microsoft paying $8.5 billion for Skype, it was the criticism of the deal. I spoke with Steve Ballmer and Tony Bates about the deal and what comes next. Here are my notes from that conversation. Read More »

More Must Reads

In acquiring Israeli mobile app developer Snaptu, Facebook gained three things: a strong feature phone development platform, a presence in the white-hot Israeli startup scene and a team who’s development philosophy mirrors Facebook’s own. Read More »

According to multiple reports, Groupon has walked away from a rumored $6-billion acquisition offer from Google, and is choosing to go it alone, and possibly file for an initial public offering. The two-year-old company is said to have annual revenues of close to $2 billion. Read More »

Social gaming powerhouse Zynga has acquired yet another game development shop, this time Cambridge, Mass.-based Conduit Labs, it announced this morning. The deal, which will turn Conduit into Zynga’s Boston studio, was an all-stock transaction, according to Boston.com’s Scott Kirsner. Read More »

GameStop, the world’s largest game retailer with nearly 6,500 stores, is acquiring Kongregate, the free online game aggregator. The move brings GameStop into the casual, mobile and browser gaming world, with the promise it will market Kongregate to its customer base. Read More »

Google today announced it had acquired Metaweb Technologies, the ambitious startup building a database of all the web’s information called Freebase. Metaweb was yet another semantic web startup before its time, but with the help of Google it can potentially make a much bigger impact. Read More »

Apple has apparently bought Siri, as documented in a FTC file flagged by Robert Scoble. Siri makes a really cool, almost magical tool that could easily be core to the iPhone experience. Read More »

Google has gobbled up another small productivity company with today’s purchase of DocVerse, a plug-in to make Microsoft Office software collaborative for a reported $25 million. It’s an obvious shot at Microsoft, given the product was designed for Office, and founders are ex-Microsoft employees. Read More »

On Tuesday afternoon, Elliott Associates, L.P., a hedge fund with a significant position in shares of Novell, placed an unsolicited offer to buy the company for approximately $2 billion. The offer places a high valuation on Novell, and the troubled company must consider it carefully. Read More »

Google today announced it’s acquired the web photo editing tool Picnik. Picnik was self-funded and said to be profitable for more than a year based on premium services. This falls right into line with Google’s recent string of buys of companies started by its former employees. Read More »

Twitpay, a service that facilitates payments by users who publicly state who they want to send money to on Twitter, has been bought for $100,000 by investors led by Acculynk CEO Ashish Bahl and Morgan Keegan investment banker Keith Meyers, according to the Atlanta Business Chronicle. Read More »

Twitter didn’t disclose the terms of its acquisition of geo platform Mixer Labs in December, but some details have made it out since. What we know now: Mixer Labs had raised funding from Sequoia Capital and Twitter issued $5.17 million in stock alongside the transaction. Read More »

Seesmic, in its efforts to be the Grand Central Station for social network updates, has “acq-hired” Ping.fm. Where Seesmic has mostly focused on the ability to consume social web information on various platforms, Ping.fm supports a variety of posting options. Read More »

Twitter announced this afternoon it has acquired Mixer Labs, a San Mateo, Calif.-based startup that recently launched GeoAPI, a reverse look-up service to help application makers know where their users are. Basically, developers get a layer of geo-goodness so they don’t have to build it themselves. Read More »

Friendster’s long startup saga is over: Malaysian payment company Mol Global has agreed to buy it for an undisclosed amount. Mol recently became the payments provider for the social networking site, which claims 115 million users and reportedly sees 90 percent of its traffic from Asia. Read More »

Paltalk, an online video chat firm, announced today that it has acquired Vumber, a virtual phone service, in an effort to capture additional revenues by offering virtual phone numbers to existing subscribers. The deal could provide Paltalk with additional features to bolster its existing … Read More »

Consolidation appears imminent in the free streaming music sector, as MySpace is on the verge of acquiring social music site Imeem. A source with knowledge of the situation confirmed that negotiations are in process, but no deal is set. If it happens, … Read More »

Did Cisco snap up Starent on the eve of the telecom equipment provider announcing a partnership deal with Juniper Networks, Cisco’s rival in both switching equipment and telecommunications gear? Two analysts seem to think so, with Nikos Theodosopoulos, an analyst from UBS, writing that Cisco’s … Read More »

VMware has finally joined Microsoft, IBM and Oracle as one of the four horsemen in the market for platforms for building, running and managing corporate and cloud applications. With its SpringSource acquisition, VMware can now compete with specialized platform-as-a-service offerings like Microsoft’s Azure. In … Read More »

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