rumor

Facebook might be hiring former Google employees left and right, but if current rumors are true, don't expect them to start instituting a free-food policy like Mountain View's any time soon.

Gossip blog Valleywag has reported for the past few days that Facebook is doing away with a $600 monthly housing subsidy offered to employees who opted to rent living space within proximity the company headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. The latest rumor says that new hires are losing their housing subsidy, and that existing employees will only keep it until they move to new houses or re-sign … Read more

Microsoft may be interested in acquiring Yell Group, the British-based parent company of directories like the U.K.'s Yellow Pages and the United States' Yellow Book, Reuters reported Tuesday. Yell isn't commenting, but shares of the company stock rose up to 5.4 percent amid the speculation.

Yell's properties do not include the U.S.-based Yellow Pages, which is operated by AT&T. Yell came to fruition with the debut of the British Yellow Pages in 1966, and expanded to the U.S. when it acquired Yellow Book USA for $665 million.

Microblogging service Twitter has reportedly closed a $15 million Series B funding round, according to Om Malik of GigaOM.

Malik estimates that it will bring the company's valuation to about $80 million and that the round is led by a new investor rather than existing investor Union Square Ventures (though the latter is participating). CNET News.com originally reported late in April that Twitter had signed a term sheet for either $15 or $20 million.

Rumors peg the new lead investor as Boston-based Spark Capital. An independent source hinted to CNET News.com that this is likely indeed the … Read more

You've got to wonder how things get "leaked' sometimes, but we aren't complaining. Take this video of some new drool-worthy Sony Ericsson handsets, for example, that's been floating around the Interwebs over the weekend. From what we can see, it looks very much like an official advert, and bloggers are going nuts over the newfangled handsets on display.

Both phones look very similar to the Sony Xperia X1 we reported on earlier this year, but as you'll notice they're touch-screen phones without slide-out keypads. The focus is definitely on media and video, with a … Read more

Reuters is reporting that shares of Blinkx, a publicly traded video search site based in the U.K., climbed 50 percent on Friday following rumors that corporate giants Google and News Corp. may be vying for an acquisition.

On Friday morning, Blinkx shares were trading at 36.75 pence, their highest value since September. That puts the company's valuation at 102 million pounds, which is equivalent to $199.2 million.

Blinkx has been publicly traded since 2007, when it merged with search engine Autonomy. As part of a clause in its initial public offering filings, Autonomy is slated to … Read more

Microsoft, we get it: That Yahoo thing fell through, and picking up the pieces can be messy. But according to Kara Swisher at All Things D, Redmond just won't give up. The company has reportedly put together a Plan B that it refers to as "Project Granola," a name that makes "Zune" sound good.

And part of "Project Granola," Swisher wrote, is exploring the possibility of turning that $240 million stake in Facebook into an outright ownership.

More specifically, Microsoft's bankers have been shooting "subtle signals" in Facebook's direction, … Read more

Facebook has asked tech veteran Marc Andreessen to join its board of directors, according to Kara Swisher at All Things D. The deal isn't finalized, apparently, but Andreessen has "verbally agreed" to the commitment.

The Netscape founder is currently at the helm of his own social-networking site, Ning, which lets Web users create their own branded community sites without technical expertise. Because of its focus on niche communities rather than mass communication, it's not a direct Facebook competitor.

Facebook, meanwhile, has been padding its ranks with seasoned industry leaders as a means of competing with the … Read more

On Monday, reports surfaced that business social network LinkedIn is likely looking to raise a round of venture capital (rather than find a corporate parent).

TechCrunch reports that investment bank Allen & Co. is hoping to help LinkedIn pull in that funding at a $1 billion valuation.

Spearheading the campaign is Dave Wehner, managing director of the Bay Area bank, who was reportedly a big part of Bebo's $850 million sale to AOL.

Why $1 billion? Well, LinkedIn says its target demographic has meant that it can pull in some pretty lucrative ad revenue, avoiding the "ad trap&… Read more

Oh, Valley gossip: VentureBeat speculates we might soon hear about some big company buying business social network LinkedIn. The evidence? A board meeting that "went way over the scheduled time," and sources who say "good news" is on the way. Even VentureBeat admits it's a stretch, but asserts that "something's up."

LinkedIn isn't commenting. VentureBeat later added a note suggesting that the "good news" might be additional funding, not an acquisition.

Along with Digg and Plaxo, LinkedIn is one of those social-media companies that people just like to talk about… Read more