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Why so much fuss about Demand Media's IPO?

When Demand Media holds its initial public offering tomorrow, it'll be the first venture-backed IPO of 2011 and, though relatively small by Wall Street's standards, the most talked-about technology IPO in quite some time. That'll happen in this peculiar era of tech-industry financials, when the the big trend has been to prolong an IPO in favor of less restrictive private-market trading activity.

But that's not what everyone's talking about with Demand--nor is the $179.4 million in revenue it reported in the first nine months of 2010 (an operating loss of $6.4 million), nor … Read more

Space love

Links from Thursday's episode of Loaded:

Spotify and Shazam team up to help you find and purchase music

Sony may be announcing a new PSP soon

Facebook teams up with the Amber Alert system

Google will start selling ads on music videos in mobile YouTube

Google launches Google Places for iPhone

Microsoft launches a Web and app building site called WebMatrix

A new report in the Journal of Cosmology discusses the specifics of mating in space

Report: AMD's Meyer fired over failure to target mobile devices

AMD's former CEO Dirk Meyer reportedly lost his job over his failure to carve out a niche for the chipmaker in the growing mobile market.

Citing people familiar with the matter, a story in today's Wall Street Journal (subscription required) said that AMD's board had been concerned for the past year over Meyer's seeming lack of motivation and interest in expanding the company's reach into mobile devices. Following a meeting in November, the board grew more impatient, eventually forcing Meyer to resign on Monday.

The Journal was unable to reach Meyer for comment yesterday.

Meyer … Read more

Apple sued over privacy in iPhone, iPad apps

Apple is being sued for allegedly letting mobile apps on the iPhone and iPad send personal information to ad networks without the consent of users.

Jonathan Lalo, who filed the lawsuit on Thursday in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., alleges that Apple's iPhones and iPads let ad networks track which applications people download, how often they're used, and for how long, according to a Bloomberg article published today.

Specifically, the suit alleges that the ad networks are able to trace an iPhone or iPad using the unique device identifier, or UDID, which is a number … Read more

Financial gray areas plague Demand Media IPO bid

Demand Media, the syndicated online content company that filed for an IPO in August, has modified its filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission amid reports that the initial public offering has been delayed because of regulators' questions about Demand's accounting practices.

The issue, it appears, is that Demand Media amortizes the expenses of paying its freelance writers, distributing the cost over five years. It's something that the company has attempted to explain further in new additions to its SEC filing.

"Capitalized media content is amortized on a straight-line basis over five years, representing the … Read more

LiveJournal in Firefox

LiveJournal users will want to take a look at LiveJournal AddOns, a free extension that provides access to LiveJournal services from the Firefox interface. It notifies you when you've got a new message or comment, when friends update their pages, or even when friends' birthdays approach. It also adds extras like built-in forms, style management, quick access to last entries, and quick text inserts. You need a LiveJournal account to use it, but they're free, though premium services are available, too.

We installed LiveJournal AddOns and restarted Firefox. LiveJournal AddOns placed a series of icons in the add-ons … Read more

Stay on schedule

QuickCal Mobile is an app that lets you quickly create new events for your calendar using plain language typed into a text field.

Mac users may know QuickCal from the free Dashboard widget of the same name, and the interface shares some similarities: you create events in the same way, by typing into an always-on text field. QuickCal will automatically recognize most parameters--for example, "Go to gym tomorrow 11-noon," "Yard work next Saturday at Dad's house," or "Team meeting next Friday for two hours starting at 3." As you type, the app will … Read more

USA Today gets makeover for mobile world

USA Today, the nation's second largest newspaper, announced this week a major restructuring effort designed to address a drop in advertising and circulation and bring it up to speed in today's new world of smartphones and tablets.

In a slide show presented to employees on Thursday, the once-innovative news-gathering organization said it would "focus less on print...and more on producing content for all platforms," the Associated Press reported.

"We have to go where the audience is," USA Today Editor John Hillkirk told the AP. "If people are hitting the iPad like crazy, … Read more

iAds in iBooks may be closer than you think

The Wall Street Journal reports that iAds may appear in iBooks as publishers watch their profits dwindle amid technology advances like Apple's iPad. The publishing industry has been less than supportive of these advances and the result could come at the expense of its content.

From a business standpoint, though, this makes total sense. Ads have been queued and served in every other form of digital technology for as long as I can remember. Why not add them to books? With heavy competition in the e-book market, prices are dropping and with it, profits. Enter Apple's iAds.

With … Read more