Social news site Digg.com, a perpetual target of acquisition rumors, is in “final negotiations” to sell itself to Google for $200 million, according to a TechCrunch report Tuesday that cited multiple sources.

The two companies have been in talks to bring Digg into the Google News group, but it could be a few weeks before the [...]

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The weepy countdown to Bill Gates’ last day on the job as a full-timer must be getting to Steve Ballmer. Always full of surprises, the big galoot is at it again.

Eric who?

(Credit: Dan Farber/CNET News.com)
In a revealing interview with The Financial Times, Ballmer distanced Microsoft from any criticism that it’s lost a step over the [...]

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Yesterday the AP wrote about the new LinkedIn valuation:
It’s one of the richest appraisals for a Silicon Valley startup since Microsoft Corp. paid $240 million for 1.6 percent of Facebook Inc. late last year. That deal valued Palo Alto-based Facebook and its online hangout at $15 billion.

The Facebook financing in turn helped several other startups [...]

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Instant-messaging power users, rejoice: a barrier between two previously isolated realms of online chat is coming down.

A minor sidelight in the Yahoo-Google search ad deal announced Thursday is that the two companies “agreed to enable interoperability between their respective instant-messaging services, bringing easier and broader communication to users,” the companies said. They’re not sharing further [...]

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With the Microsoft/Yahoo/Google triangle taking a new shape as Microsoft exited and Yahoo and Google connected, the analysts covering tech industry sports are weighing in with their opinions.

Some Wall Street analysts believe Microsoft will take another run at Yahoo if the company can’t get back on track or Carl Icahn wins his proxy fight to [...]

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The executive in charge of Microsoft Corp.’s search efforts acknowledged Tuesday that the company’s “Live” brand for search and online services leaves much to be desired.

Now that Microsoft has abandoned its $47.5 billion takeover bid for competitor Yahoo Inc., its marketing team is working on fixing Microsoft’s search image to make it more competitive with [...]

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Just because Google so obviously loves the idea of cloud computing, don’t think the company doesn’t care about what happens at the other end of the network connection, too.

As former President Bill Clinton used to say, there’s a third way: Google wants to improve technology on both the server in the cloud and on the [...]

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Nick O’Neill over at AllFacebook reports that Robert Scoble has posted an interesting yet somewhat off the wall post suggesting that once Microsoft acquires Yahoo’s search technology, they will then acquire Facebook for $15 to $20 billion. The acquisition of Facebook has already been discussed among a number of people previously but Robert’s rationale [...]

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Surprise! Yahoo doesn’t agree with Carl Icahn’s assessment that “it is unconscionable that you have not allowed your shareholders to choose to accept an offer that represented a 72% premium over Yahoo’s closing price of $19.18 on the day before the initial Microsoft offer.” Those were the words used by Icahn in a letter he [...]

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If you can’t buy them, beat ‘em? That appears to be the new strategy of Microsoft who according to Kara Swisher is trying to go organic like Granola and acquire as many Web 2.0 properties as possible. This strategy will supposedly differentiate them from Google. One of those companies that they are looking to [...]

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