The Social

eBay to buy GSI Commerce for $2.4 billion

eBay announced today it will acquire GSI Commerce, an e-commerce marketing services company, for $29.25 a share--which will likely come out to around $2.4 billion.

To put things into perspective, that's more than it paid for PayPal and only slightly less than it paid for Skype (which is has now sold off). The acquisition is expected to close in the third quarter.

"We intend to lead the next generation of commerce innovation. The acquisition of GSI, which offers the most comprehensive integrated suite of online commerce and interactive marketing services available, will significantly strengthen our ability to more

American Express enters the 'payment 2.0' fray

It's pretty obviously inspired by the decade-plus-long rise and success of PayPal (which has been owned by eBay since 2002), but Serve is also inflected with more recent trends in digital payments. The announcement comes just weeks after a report that Google was partnering with MasterCard and Citigroup on mobile transactions and when one of the hottest buzz terms in the mobile world is near-field communication, a technology that could make payment by cell phone much more widespread. Relatively young companies like Zong and Boku are striking deals in an attempt to make the mobile phone the centerpiece of more

Color me curious: Five thoughts on the new app

For about a day and a half I've been testing out Color--the very public and very provocative new mobile photo-sharing app that made waves across the Web when reports revealed that the company behind it had already raised $41 million in venture capital.

After playing around with the Color app, I have a few thoughts. And I am, for sure, interested in seeing what happens in the near term with this one.

1. It's a whole new way to get to know your upstairs neighbors.
I've been loading up Color inside CNET's New York office,

More less-than-awesome revenue gossip for Groupon

It turned down a $6 billion acquisition offer. It wants a $25 billion initial public offering. It more or less created a breed of advertising that now every company wants into. It's grown faster than just about any company, ever. But according to multiple signals across the Web, things may be afoul at Groupon.

The latest is a chart released by Yipit, a start-up that aggregates cities' daily-deal offerings--more than 400 sites' worth--into a customizable digest that highlights individual users' preferences. Yipit said in a blog post today that it found a 32 percent decline in Groupon revenue per more

Facebook fine-tunes its Questions product

Facebook announced today some notable updates to its Q&A product, Facebook Questions--updates that knit it tightly into the broader Facebook experience, making it far less of an isolated feature. More specifically, the new Facebook Questions facilitates short, poll-like answers in addition to long-form responses, and also links directly to relevant items in Facebook's directory of "fan pages." That's something that's very relevant if you're asking a question about, say, movie recommendations or a good restaurant to visit.

The new Facebook Questions will be available as a limited beta first, though interested users can opt in more

New photo app Color hopes to see the future

What do you get when you mix together a killer domain name, a founder who sold his last company to Apple, a philosophy that borders on "Minority Report"-like futurism, and $41 million in venture funding? Well, it might look something like Color, the photo-sharing app for iPhone and Android unveiled Wednesday evening by erstwhile Lala founder Bill Nguyen.

In Color, photos taken through the app are shared through proximity, something which amasses a list of your contacts through machine learning; in effect, you'll be able to see all photos around you that were taken with Color. You'll more

Yahoo unveils its answer to Google Instant search

Yahoo today announced upgrades to its search product that bring up search results in real-time as a query is typed, much like the "Google Instant" technology launched last year. Called "Search Direct," Yahoo says this still-in-beta service will provide "a fast, simple search experience that goes beyond a list of blue links."

Highlighted in Yahoo Search Direct are results beyond the hyperlink, with its ability to detect queries related to movies, television, local information, and trending news topics.

"With today's launch, direct answers--not the search results page--is the primary focus. We are redefining the search process and prominently displaying

Royal wedding soundtrack to go straight to iTunes

Move over, Rebecca Black: Another unusual addition to the iTunes top-selling charts is on its way. Namely, it's the "soundtrack" to the much-ballyhooed royal wedding between Prince William and his fiancee Kate Middleton on April 29, set to appear on Apple's digital download marketplace "within hours" of the occasion's end, according to The Telegraph.

Were this a perfect world, the album would include a handful of wedding guests' merry karaoke recordings (Prince Harry is making sure that this is part of the program, right?), and perhaps the live cut of a surprise reunion by the Spice Girls (more

Music app Shazam gets new Facebook features

Now, when you "tag" a song by running it through the Shazam system to identify it, or just open up the app for browsing purposes, you have an option called "Shazam Friends" that lets you see a feed of songs that your Facebook friends have tagged lately. This makes it significantly easier to navigate friends' individual song discoveries--something that a new music-sharing app that launched to positive buzz at SXSW earlier this month, Soundtracking, has as its centerpiece--and may mean that people will now start spending time on the Shazam app for reasons other than identifying the soundtrack to the more

Court rejects Google Books settlement

Adding another chapter to a long, drawn-out legal saga, a New York federal district court has rejected the controversial settlement in a class-action suit brought against Google Books by the Authors Guild, a publishing industry trade group.

"While the digitization of books and the creation of a universal digital library would benefit many, the ASA would simply go too far," a court document explains. "It would permit this class action--which was brought against defendant Google Inc. to challenge its scanning of books and display of 'snippets' for on-line searching--to implement a forward-looking business arrangement that would grant Google significant rights