The Wall Street Journal is reporting that AOL and several venture capital firms are in talks to buy Yahoo.

Silver Lake Partners and Blackstone Group are rumored to be in on the deal. Currently, AOL’s market value is around one tenth of Yahoo’s.

Rumors that the two companies were in talks to merge have been swirling around for at least a few days, and still others say it’s Yahoo who is looking to buy AOL; but neither company is willing to make an official statement at this time.

Yahoo personnel haven’t yet been involved in these discussions, according to WSJ’s sources. Because of the intricacies involved in such acquisitions, Yahoo may never be formally approached with an offer.

Yahoo itself instituted “poison pill” mechanisms back during its apex in 2001 to prevent the threat of a hostile takeover — which became a very real possibility two years ago when Microsoft issued an unsolicited bid to buy the company.

Nevertheless, these new rumors are interesting ones. What do you think of AOL’s ambitions, especially in light of that company’s recent acquisition spree involving tech blog TechCrunch, app maker Thing Labs and video network 5min?

More importantly, do you think an alliance between these two fading powerhouses from the dotcom era could create a more vital, competitive organization? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Source: Mashable

Popular domain registrar and hosting company GoDaddy has put itself up for sale according to The Wall Street Journal. Sources familiar with the matter believe the company, known for its provocative advertising campaigns, could attract upwards of $1 billion during the auction process.

Go Daddy Group Inc. has hired Qatalyst Partners — an investment banking firm started by industry veteran Frank Quattrone in 2008 — to manage the auction, according to the WSJ’s report.

Neither party has gone on the record to detail the reasons behind the sale, but GoDaddy is likely venturing down this path in lieu of filing to become a publicly traded company — a process the company started and aborted once before.

In 2006, GoDaddy registered with the SEC to go public but later withdrew its filing. At the time, CEO and Founder Bob Parsons penned a personal blog post detailing the company’s growth and “significant operating cash flow,” while claiming that uncertain market conditions influenced the decision to backtrack on an IPO.

Sources estimate that GoDaddy brought in between $750 million and $800 million in revenue in 2009. Those numbers would certainly support estimates of a $1 billion sale price.

Who do you think will buy GoDaddy? Share your predictions in the comments.

Source: Mashable

Bill Gates attended the Technonomy  conference earlier this week, and had quite a bold statement to make about the future of education. He believes the web is where people will be learning in five years from now, not colleges and university.

During his chat he said:

Five years from now on the web for free you’ll be able to find the best lectures in the world. It will be better than any single university

His argument as to why this will happen are two-fold. On the one hand university has become far too expensive for students with little funding to attend, costing on average $50,000 per year for 4 years. It is therefore harder to achieve an education at university level.

On the other, he believes text books in the West are far too intimidating for many students. He also points out that students in Asia are outperforming the West, and their books are a third of the size of ours.

Gates’ reasoning is based on the assumption that education away from the classroom should count as credit. So if MIT release courses on the web, a student should be able to study them at home and get credit for doing so. And the cost? He believes the $50,000 a year university education could be done via the web for as little as $2,000.

Read more at TechCrunch

Apple iPad

Tijdens de voorstelling in San Francisco demonstreert Jobs -in traditionele jeans en zwarte trui- het nieuwe toestel dat voor Apple een vierde pijler moet worden, naast de Mac, iPod en iPhone. De iPad is iets breder dan een A4-blad en lijkt op een grote versie van de iPhone.

Virtueel keyboard

Steve Jobs liet tijdens de presentatie zien hoe gebruikers films kunnen kijken, muziek kunnen luisteren en websites kunnen bekijken. Net zoals bij de iPhone beschikt de iPad niet over een echt toetsenbord maar over een touchscreen dat bediend wordt met de vingers. Wil je bijvoorbeeld een internetadres invoeren, dan verschijnt er op het scherm een virtueel toetsenbord waarop je kunt typen. Voor wie het echt wil, wordt er een apart toetsenbord verkocht.

De specificaties van de iPad zijn afgestemd op gebruik in de huiskamer. Het is compact en licht (1,2 cm dik en 680 gram zwaar), heeft een 9,7-inch kleurenscherm met een heel brede kijkhoek, draadloos internet, Bluetooth en 16 tot 64 gigabyte geheugen. Een 3G-modem is een optie. Alle software uit de App Store van Apple werkt ook op het tablet.

E-reader

Met de iPad treedt Apple, dat de laatste tien jaar geëvolueerd van computerbouwer naar consumentenelektronicaproducent, in de arena tegen gelijkaardige toestellen als de e-readers van Amazon en Sony. Zo demonstreerde Jobs hoe je er een krant als The New York Times op kan lezen.

Via iPad kunnen boeken gekocht worden in de ‘iBookwinkel’, een variant op de iTuneswinkel waar muziek gekocht kan worden. De boeken worden geleverd in het ePub-formaat, een open e-bookstandaard die de meeste e-readers ook ondersteunen. Dat wil zeggen dat er in principe ook veel Nederlandstalige werken leesbaar zullen zijn, bijvoorbeeld afkomstig van boeken.be.

499 dollar

Het toestel komt binnen zes weken op de Amerikaanse markt en krijgt een prijskaartje van 499 dollar voor de versie met 16 gigabyte geheugen. Voor versies met 32 en 64 gigabyte komt er telkens 100 dollar bij. Wie 3G-verbindingen wil opzetten moet nog eens 130 dollar extra betalen.

En wat met België? Pas in juni worden internationale lanceringen gepland, maar in tegenstelling tot de iPhone zal een Amerikaanse versie probleemloos hier werken. De iPad invoeren of meebrengen van een reisje naar de V.S. is dus een mogelijkheid.

Volgens sommige analisten kan Apple tot 3 à 4 miljoen iPads verkopen dit jaar.

Source: DE standaard

Apple iTablet: the obvious name?

With all the recent talk about the iSlate, iPad, iSlab, whatever… doesn’t it seem like the obvious candidate for the name of Apple’s rumored tablet computer is being completely overlooked? Like Apple’s first phone that later came to be called the iPhone, isn’t the most obvious name for an Apple tablet the iTablet? To support the theory we decided to share the above image that we received from a trusted source and believe to be authentic. It’s a picture taken of an Apple Store employee’s corporate email after receiving information about the time and place of Wednesday’s Apple event. While the content of the email wasn’t very enlightening, note the word used in the filename of the second attachment: “itablet.” Now this doesn’t prove a thing. The administrative assistant who sent the mass email could have been using “itablet’ much in the same way that we’ve been using the term for years as a generic placeholder for the rumored device. Then again, maybe we should heed the wisdom of Occam’s Razor when speculating about Apple’s naming preference for a 10-inch tablet computer?

P.S. Amtek currently holds the US trademark (and itablet.com domain) for “iTablet” and continues to sell products under that name as it has for years. Not that a silly thing like trademark ownership could stop Apple from announcing its iPhone at a time when Cisco owned the rights.

Source:  engadget

Apple Logo

There has been a lot of speculation as to what Apple’s rumored tablet will look like and how it will work. One analyst is now speculating on how much potential revenue the device, expected to be announced next week, could bring the Mac maker.

Mike Abramsky of RBC Capital estimates that Apple will sell each tablet for $600, according to an AppleInsider report. At that price, the “base case” scenario of 5 billion units sold during the first year would bring Apple an additional $2.8 billion in revenue.

Of course, we all know how important price is these days, when launching a new product, so Abramsky gave a couple of other scenarios to consider. If Apple sells the tablet for $800, Apple would see $777 million in revenue for the sale of 1 million units.

You can see the trend here–as the price goes up, the predicted number of units sold goes down.

“Anticipation for an Apple tablet (expected January 27) resembles that of Moses bringing down the 10 Commandments,” Abramsky wrote in a research note, reprinted on AppleInsider. “Despite high expectations, we believe that Apple plans to redefine portable computing–as the Mac redefined the PC–by ‘creating’ desire for a new converged portable device with innovative touch/gestures [and] iTunes content. A ‘hit’ could provide a possible new growth engine for Apple.”

Rumors surrounding the tablet have hit fever pitch since the company announced its event on January 27, but few other than Apple CEO Steve Jobs really know what it will be yet. Expectations of a larger-looking iPod Touch with the ability to read magazines and newspapers, as well as watching video and listening to music, seem to be the consensus among the most popular current rumors.

Apple Inc shares reached their all-time high on Thursday as excitement builds over the expected release of its tablet

Although Apple has never acknowledged that a device exists, anticipation is peaking as the company enters the new year.

Option traders exchanged about 275,000 contracts in Apple, above its average daily turnover, as calls outpaced puts by nearly two to one, according to option analytics firm Trade Alert

“Investors are excited about an anticipated release of an Apple tablet,” said William Lefkowitz, options strategist at brokerage firm vFinance Investments in New York.

“People are expecting this to be a product that would allow Apple to continue its tremendous growth. In addition, Apple stock hit a new high today and looks very strong on a technical basis,” he said.

On Wednesday, the Financial Times reported on its blog that the company has rented a stage at a venue in San Francisco and will make a “major product announcement” on January 26.

The report, which cited people familiar with the plans, did not say whether Apple would introduce the tablet at the event. Apple has declined to comment.

The tablet could be a touch-screen device that resembles a larger iPhone or iPod touch, and could cost anywhere from $500 to $1,000, analysts have said.

There is a 50 percent chance that Apple will announce the tablet in January, with a shipping date by the end of March, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said in a research note on Wednesday.

The tablet could be released in late March or April, Oppenheimer & Co analyst Yair Reiner said earlier this month.

Although most analysts have not included the tablet in their financial estimates, many expect it to be significant for Apple, complementing its portfolio of iPhones, Mac computers and iPods.

Reiner said the device could add 25 cents to 38 cents to Apple’s earnings per share.

The median price target on Apple is $242.50, roughly 16 percent higher than its closing share price on Thursday.

Shares of Cupertino, California-based Apple rose as high as $209.35, passing their previous all-time high of $208.71, before closing up 3.4 percent at $209.04 on the Nasdaq.

Source: Reuters

Is Firefox Approaching 50% Market Share?

At least in one large region of the world, the answer is “yes”.

The folks at Gemius have been kind enough to aggregate their individual country data (e.g., www.en.ranking.pl/) into a single view across their entire sample – a sample totaling more than 60 Billion page views each month. For an overview of the various market share providers and their samples, please read here.

We’ll eventually look to expand the conversation around this data, but for now, we’ll highlight just one breathtaking view.  The chart below shows weekly browser market share data since the beginning of 2007 and it includes aggregated data from across nine countries – Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine.

Source: Blog of Metrics

The Real Live Search – Bing API experiment

Wouldn’t it be cool if search engines were as fast as you could type and actually showed you results as-you-type? As I found out this evening with jQuery in one hand and JSON in another, not only is it possible but turns out to be just as cool as I imagined.

Inspired by the realtime-ness of Google Wave, I wanted to build a prototype search engine that did away with a search button and page loads. Instead, search queries are sent character-by-character to the lightning fast Bing AJAX APIs which returned JSON results easily processed and formatted by Javascript on the page. The UI experience is driven solely by the browser.

The result is a truly “live” search experience which I’ve cunningly dubbed “The Real Live Search” as tribute to the former Microsoft search engine. I invite everyone to give it a quick whirl, but please bear in mind it’s only a couple hour’s work and may bite if prodded the wrong way.

Source: I started Something

Gmail

Good thing Gmail is out of beta. It is now the third largest Web mail service in the U.S. In July, Gmail nudged past AOL Email with 37 million unique visitors compared to 36.4 million for AOL, according to comScore estimates. (Gmail is the orange line in the chart below). That puts Gmail within sight of the No. 2 player, Windows Live Hotmail, which has 47 million unique visitors. After that there is a wide gulf separating Yahoo Mail and its 106 million monthly unique visitors.

The last time checked on Gmail’s progress was at the beginning of the year, when it seemed like it would still take at least two years for it to catch up to its nearest rivals. But so far this year, Gmail’s unique visitors grew 25 percent, while AOL’s declined 22 percent. Thus, the two crossed paths in July. (Hotmail grew only 8 percent during the same period, while Yahoo Mail increased unique visitors by a healthy 16 percent).

If Google wants Gmail to pass Hotmail quickly and gain the No. 2 spot, my suggestion is to keep pumping in new enhancements through Gmail Labs and to speed up the pace at which mail storage increases. Not that I am a typical user, but I am already at 97 percent of my allotted 7,358 megabytes. One of the primary lures of Gmail has always been its seemingly endless and ever-expanding storage limits. Please don’t make me pay for more storage.

Source: TechCrunch