Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.
According to sources close to the situation, along with its pending bid for Yelp, Google has been in on-again, off-again acquisition talks with Trulia, the real-estate search engine.
It is unclear what price Google would pay, but sources estimate that Trulia's valuation ranges between $150 million and $200 million, although there could be a big premium on that.
Rumors about Google's interest in the real-estate search market--and specifically in Trulia--have been rebounding around Silicon Valley for the last year.
But Google has pulled the trigger on a number of acquisitions of innovative start-ups recently and, sources said, will continue to do so.
Trulia--which is based in San Francisco and allows people to search for a range of data about homes for sale in particular ZIP codes or cities nationwide--is one of the more obvious candidates for the search giant's local and mobile efforts.
Its business and that of its competitors--which is largely based on advertising and lead-generation--has been growing quickly, despite the economic downturn in housing.
More interestingly, Trulia is deeply integrated into Google Maps, an arena the company recently targeted for growth with a series of announcements about new search features.
Trulia has raised about $33 million since 2005, with investors that include high-profile Silicon Valley venture firms Accel Partners and Sequoia Capital.
Interestingly, Accel and Sequoia recently made bank when Google bought AdMob for $750 million.
Trulia's clearest competitor is the larger Zillow, located in the Seattle area. But, sources said, Google is more interested in Trulia, given its location in the Bay Area and lower valuation.
Zillow has raised about $87 million from Benchmark Capital, Technology Crossover Ventures, PAR Capital Management, and Legg Mason.
Redfin, another Seattle-based rival, has raised about $31 million from its own well-known collection of VCs.
This week, Google's interest in Yelp, the local review site, also became public, in a deal that could cost upward of $600 million.
It is all part of a buying spree that Google has engaged in of late, with six acquisitions costing $1 billion so far.
Story Copyright (c) 2009 AllThingsD. All rights reserved.
Additional stories from AllThingsD
- Weekend Update 12.19.09- Last Minute Shopping Edition
- Open House? Google Has Also Been Eying Trulia in Real Estate Search Play.
- Even Without Its Own Google Phone, Android Gains Ground in the Smartphone Ad Market
- Condé Nast, With Help From a Nearly Naked Rihanna, Takes Another Step Toward Digital Magazines
Open University's marketing message on iTunes U.
(Credit: Screenshot by Jim Dalrymple/CNET)The education-specific channel of its iTunes Store, launched in 2007, has reached a new milestone, recording more than 100 million downloads, Apple told CNET on Friday.
According to Apple, one of the most popular areas of iTunes U has been that of the United Kingdom-based Open University (iTunes link), whose learning categories include Arts and Humanities, Business and Management, Childhood and Youth, Health and Social Care, Law, Psychology, and Science. The academic institution says it caters to at least 150,000 undergraduate and 30,000 postgraduate students, more than 25,000 of whom live outside the U.K.
More than 175 higher-education organizations currently provide content to iTunes U, including Princeton University, University of California at Los Angeles, Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Oxford University, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and Yale University.
(Updated at 1:56 p.m. PST, after I put down my own bottle of Lapin Kulta.)
If you've ever spent a long night drinking with Finns, you may have noted that after the 10th beer, they can become jolly, effusive, and positively inventive. Well, please hark the words of Martti Roth, an alleged employee of Intel Finland, who thought of something rather special while under the influence of alcohol.
I am not libeling him, truly. Because Roth says he really did come up with the notion, while at a bar, that he and his Intel friends should create the world's biggest Intel chime ever by firing themselves out of cannons.
On the special Intel Cannonbells site, Roth declared: "I thought about the biggest, most exciting way we could create those five notes. And the longer I stayed in the bar, the more sense it made."
Roth says he is a field applications engineer. And his family has a history with cannons. No, not in some 19th century war, but, well, it sounds like a tragic story.
"In 1906, my great grandfather tried to fire himself from a cannon over the widest part of the river Vantaa in Helsinki," Roth said on the site.
I cannot imagine why he might have made this interesting choice. In answer to the question "did he make it?" Roth replied: "Some of him did. Funny really, but on the day [of the Intel Cannonbells launch], I really felt as though he was looking down on me and guiding me through the air towards that big, metal pipe. It was very emotional."
I cannot possibly suggest that Roth did this interview when still under the influence of the finest Lapin Kulta (supposedly Finland's finest beer). Or that, as some (including the site's disclaimer writers) might suggest, he is merely an actor.
Oh, all right, here's the full, tucked-away disclaimer: "All copy and videos are part of a marketing campaign for Intel Sponsors of Tomorrow. No Intel employees were harmed in the making of this film. All characters featured in the videos were played by actors specially trained in silly costumes and Finnish accents. Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to fire anyone out of a cannon."
Still, I trust that the video will inspire you to aim higher in the coming year to create technological feats that will truly make a noise in the commercial world. Even if it might make you mistrust Finns a little in the immediate future.
The latest version of the popular Revo Uninstaller utility now removes 64-bit apps and throws in a host of other new features.
The VS Revo Group this week unveiled the new $40 professional edition of its Revo Uninstaller, a utility that can cleanly rid your system of unwanted software. Available in the past solely as freeware, Revo Uninstaller will now come in two flavors--the free edition and the pro. The free version hasn't been updated since the spring and so lacks many of the new features found in its professional cousin.
Shenel Emin, a product manager at VS Revo Group, told me the company plans to develop both versions, but for now, the pro edition is the priority. Emin explained that users continually requested a variety of useful and much-needed new features, all of which required additional resources to develop, so a paid version was the way VS Revo chose to go.
Okay, so why even use a third-party uninstaller when virtually every Windows app has its own uninstall routine? Well, most built-in uninstallers don't do a good job cleaning up after themselves. They'll often leave behind files, registry keys, and leftover junk that just clog your system and ultimately makes it slower and less reliable. A good uninstaller can keep Windows in better shape by removing all the forgotten bits and pieces of an application.
One of the top features of Revo's new pro version is its ability to remove 64-bit software. As more people jump to 64-bit operating systems, especially with the release of Windows 7, this type of support was essential for Revo to keep pace.
But the pro edition has a few other tricks up its sleeve. The utility can now scan for and remove leftover pieces of programs that you've already uninstalled or that weren't fully removed. The new Junk Files Cleaner gets rid of temp files and other unnecessary items. For greater accuracy, Revo Uninstaller will now monitor the installation of any program, so it knows exactly which files and registry entries need to be deleted if you decide to remove the program down the line.
As a safeguard, the pro version creates backups of registry keys, files, and folders before it gets rid of them. It also runs a full back-up of your entire registry each time you remove an application. Revo now makes it easier for you to restore applications that you decide you want back. Just select the deleted software and you can choose to recover any of its files or registry entries.
Revo Pro includes cleaners for specific types of software. A Windows Cleaner will purge your Recent Documents history, Search history, Recycle Bin, and Temporary Files. The Browser Cleaner empties out the cache, cookies, and temporary files of any installed browser. And the Microsoft Office Cleaner clears the recent documents history for Word, Excel, and other MS Office apps.
Two other new features--Evidence Remover and Unrecoverable Delete--can protect you by permanently removing specific applications and files that you don't want recovered. Finally, the Autorun Manager lets you peek at some of the items in your start-up routine, so you can prevent certain ones from loading to free up memory.
Revo Uninstaller Pro is compatible with Windows XP, Windows 2003, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. A 30-day trial is available at the Revo Web site.
Sex, porn, and Michael Jackson were among the most popular items kids searched for online in 2009, as tracked by Symantec's OnlineFamily.Norton.
Symantec on Thursday revealed the top 100 favorite search terms among children 18 and under found by its free OnlineFamily.Norton service, which helps parents monitor their kids' online searches. Though innocuous terms like Sesame Street and "New Moon"--a popular movie in the Twilight vampire series--made the cut, sex showed up fourth on the list for boys and fifth for girls, following YouTube, Google, and Facebook as the three top terms.
For boys, the top 25 search terms focused on social-networking sites, shopping sites, and certain adult terms. Girls seemed to favor subjects related to music, TV shows and movies, and celebrities.
Speaking of celebrities, to no one's surprise, the late Michael Jackson was the most searched for celebrity, coming in at number 12, followed by pop singer Taylor Swift at No. 13. Other hot stars that made the list included Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears, Beyonce, the Black Eyed Peas, the Jonas Brothers, Eminem, Rihanna, and Chris Brown (who was in the news this year after admitting that he assaulted ex-girlfriend Rihanna).
Searching for celebrities online, however, may be hazardous to your PC's health. Symantec has found found that these searches sometimes draw people to dangerous Web sites, which spew out viruses, spam, and other malware.
Kids seven and under searched for items related to video games, while older kids were heavy into music, with 34 percent of teens and 27 percent of tweens searching for music-related topics. The Miley Cyrus song "Party in the USA" was the most-searched for tune among kids, while "Boom Boom Pow" by the Black Eye Peas took the No. 2 spot.
Tech terms that popped up on the list included MySpace at No. 8, MSN at No. 33, the iPod Touch at No. 98, and Bing last at No. 100.
To compile its top 100 list, Symantec tracked 14.6 million searches run by users of its OnlineFamily.Norton service and ranked the terms according to ones submitted most frequently to those submitted the least. The terms were collected anonymously, so none could be associated with any specific children or families.
Google said Friday that a Paris court has ruled against it in a lengthy copyright infringement case filed by a French publisher.
The court has ordered the search giant to pay 300,000 euros ($430,000) in damages and interest to French company La Martiniere, which runs the Editions du Seuil publishing firm. The lawsuit charged that Google was infringing on the copyrights of the publisher's books by scanning excerpts to include in its Google Book search results. La Martiniere's argument was that Google should compensate authors and publishers if the company is going to scan and publish their work on its site.
As part of the ruling, Google must also pay 10,000 euros each day until it removes the extracts. Unhappy with the verdict, Google said it plans to appeal, according to Bloomberg.
"French readers now face the threat of losing access to a significant body of knowledge and falling behind the rest of Internet users," said Philippe Colombet, director of development for Google Books in France, in a statement e-mailed to Bloomberg. "We believe that displaying a limited number of short extracts from books complies with copyright legislation both in France and the U.S.--and improves access to books."
The suit was originally filed in May 2006 by La Martiniere and later joined by the French Publishers Association and French authors group SGDL, which had initially asked the court to fine Google as much as 15 million euros, according to Reuters.
This suit is just one of several filed by publishers and authors upset with Google posting excerpts of their books online without fairly compensating them. In 2008, Google lost a lawsuit filed by the Authors Guild and was ordered to pay authors and publishers $125 million as compensation. An amended agreement in November clarified certain changes and updates to the settlement.
But objections to Google's book digitizing projects have been especially strident in Europe, forcing the company to make concessions to European publishers over which books it will and will not scan and publish online.
Google is reportedly in talks to buy Yelp for $500 million. Sure, buyouts are a fine exit strategy for start-ups, but does Google (insert any other Web giant here too) have to buy everything that someday could be a threat?
TechCrunch first reported the Google-Yelp talks and The New York Times is confirming them.
Now let's play this out. Google buys Yelp, a big review site for local businesses. It gets access to local listings and reviews. Google then connects it all to Google Maps and its trendy bar code scanning toy and lines up local keyword ads. Through the purchase of AdMob it gets all mobile on you and sends you coupons to your phone (an Android-powered device of course).
Read more of "Google covets Yelp; Here comes the Borg of local content" at ZDNet's Between the Lines.
Updated at 11:15 p.m. PST to include comment from witness and reflect Twitter.com accessible again.
Updated at 11:50 p.m. PST with status update from Twitter.
Twitter.com was down Thursday evening, and it appears that the microblogging site may have been hacked or the victim of a DNS hijacking.
The site, which was inaccessible for about an hour starting around 10 p.m. PST, was defaced with the following image before it was taken offline:
The message at the bottom of the image appears to be written in Perso-Arabic script and when translated to English it read:
Twitter's status blog was also inaccessible. CNET has inquiries out to Twitter and we will let you know more when we hear back.Iranian Cyber Army
THIS SITE HAS BEEN HACKED BY IRANIAN CYBER ARMY
iRANiAN.CYBER.ARMY@GMAIL.COM
U.S.A. Think They Controlling And Managing Internet By Their Access, But THey Don't, We Control And Manage Internet By Our Power, So Do Not Try To Stimulation Iranian Peoples To....
NOW WHICH COUNTRY IN EMBARGO LIST? IRAN? USA?
WE PUSH THEM IN EMBARGO LIST
Take Care.
Chris Hoare, a Flickr user in Leicester, England, captured the screenshot above and said his attempt to connect to Twitter bounced through a second Web-hosting server before the image was displayed but that he couldn't catch the address.
"The HTML was pretty basic, and everything that it showed was local on the server it was being sent from," Hoare told CNET News.
A Twitter update message posted at 11:28 p.m. said the site was "working to recovery from an unplanned downtime" and indicated that the incident was indeed a hijacking of Twitter's DNS records:
Twitter's DNS records were temporarily compromised but have now been fixed. We are looking into the underlying cause and will update with more information soon.
Security has been a thorny issue for Twitter in the past. In January, a hacker hijacked CNN anchor Rick Sanchez's feed and proclaimed the journalist was "high on crack." Twitter users have also been the target of a password-stealing phishing scam. Disguising itself as a private message that led to a fake Twitter log-in screen, the scam was widespread enough for Twitter to put a warning message on all members' home pages alerting them of the issue.
Certainly, there is a contentious history between Twitter and Iran. In the wake of supposed results of that nation's presidential election in June, protesters in Iran used Twitter to skirt government filters to report events, express outrage, and get people out to opposition rallies. Twitter even rescheduled some planned downtime in order to stay accessible for Iranian users in the midst of political upheaval at the request of the U.S. Department of State.
Here is what has been reported.
According to Florida Today, a woman tweeted at 5:22 p.m. Monday about the fog over Brevard County in Florida. Some time between 5:22 p.m. and 5:38 p.m., her 2-year-old son fell into a swimming pool and was found floating in it.
911 records reportedly show that his mother called the paramedics at 5:38 p.m. Monday. At 6:12 p.m., she reportedly sent an update to her Twitter page, Military_Mom. It read: "Please pray like never before, my 2 yr old fell in the pool." (The tweet has since been removed.)
Her name is Shellie Ross. She is a regular tweeter and has a blog called Blog4Mom. Not long after she tweeted for her 5,300 followers' prayers, her 2-year-old son, Bryson, was pronounced dead.
At 11:08 p.m. Monday, she reportedly tweeted: "Remember my million dollar baby," along with a picture of her dead son.
(Credit:
CC Appfrica/Flickr)
The Huffington Post reported that her tweets caused some people to offer little sympathy.
@jalynsandoval (whose Twitter page has since been removed) reportedly tweeted: "military_mom 's fault for not keeping an eye on her son while he was next to the pool. she was to (sic) busy with twitter i guess. RIP kid."
Shellie Ross, military_mom, reportedly replied to this tweet: "@jalynsandoval you are an ass, I was outside w/him and it took 2 sec for him to slip away, I hope U never feel this pain u ass."
Florida Today reported that Ross' friends describe her as "a fantastic mother who is devoted to her children." Moreover, Brevard County authorities reportedly describe it as an accidental drowning.
A child is dead. A mother sent Twitter updates. And some who don't know her criticized her actions.
This is what has been reported. Can anyone make sense of it? Should anyone make sense of it? Or does the very use of Twitter, given its public nature, make everyone fair game for even passing critics?
The minute you tweet, you sacrifice your privacy for the sake of some greater sense of connection, some greater sense of urgency. A tweet is a report, one that will subsequently be re-reported and re-interpreted.
They may call it social media. But the society it brings together isn't always one of your choosing.
URL shortener, bit.ly, has a new service out, called bitly.tv. Bitly.tv displays a collage of the most-linked videos (through bit.ly) of the moment. Users can also sort by the top videos from the last day or the last two days.
Bitly.tv displays the most buzzed about videos linked through bit.ly.
(Credit: Screenshot by Harrison Hoffman/CNET)The site looks really slick and is well presented. When you click on a video, a light box pops out, which plays the video as well as displays a variety of sharing options (Facebook, Twitter, e-mail) and shows a live stream of tweets about that piece of content. The live stream is especially compelling since you can see what other people are saying about the video as you formulate your own opinion.
The URL shortener space is getting increasingly crowded, with a ton of new and existing companies bringing their offerings to the table. Google is the most recent example of this. Bit.ly is trying to stay ahead of the competition with products like bitly.tv and bit.ly Pro, which currently allows a limited set of beta users to create their own branded short URLs. They have a really strong beta user base for that service already, which includes The New York Times (nyturl.com) and foursquare (4sq.com).
The pop-up video lightboxes play the video as well as feature sharing options and a live stream of tweets about the video.
(Credit: Screenshot by Harrison Hoffman/CNET)
