rumors

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

So maybe today's social-media M&A gossip of the day involves two moderately-to-extremely minor players in the space, but hey, we can't always have juicy Facebook news. Mashable reported Tuesday that Mister Wong, a social bookmarking service, has acquired Lifestream.fm, a small social site that (as its name would suggest) aggregates data from multiple social-networking accounts into a single "lifestream."

No background is provided other than the report that the acquisition was made for an undisclosed amount.

Mister Wong, a European site, is a sort of cross between Delicious and StumbleUpon, generating recommendations based … Read more

This post was updated at 9:08 a.m. PDT to reflect the fact that Twitter has denied that it was testing advertisements.

If an ad shows up in a Twitter feed and no one's awake to see it, did it really appear?

Reports surfaced overnight on Monday that advertisements were appearing sporadically in some of the micro-messaging service's Web-based streams, suggesting that perhaps Twitter may be close to losing its punchline status as the Silicon Valley darling that hasn't earned a dime yet. A handful of blogs wrote about it, but it seems like most Twitter … Read more

UPDATE at 1:39 PM PT on Wednesday: It's official. Veronica Belmont will be the new co-host of Tekzilla.

When former CNET TV anchor Veronica Belmont announced last week that she was leaving her gig as host and producer of the Mahalo Daily video podcast for "new projects," her loyal fan base immediately started wondering where she'd head next. Many figured her destination might be the San Francisco-based Revision3, the video production company created by Digg founder Kevin Rose.

More specifically, some wondered if she might be hired as a host for the Tekzilla show, which … Read more

An Apple rumor a day keeps a slow news day away. Right? Though idle chit chat about tech's most gossiped-about company pops up all the time, they tend to be quashed or talked to death before another one comes along that's juicier. One recent rumor is still floating around the Web.

Sometimes the rumors are generated by simply making logical leaps, as in Wednesday's Apple-will-use-Atom-processors yarn, which my colleague Tom Krazit flatly dismisses. Other times, they're based on rumors overheard in Asia, like last week when Gartner's Ken Dulaney said he heard that Apple has … Read more

This post was updated at 9:45am EDT with comment from Google.

Will eBay sell Skype to Google?

It's no secret that many in Silicon Valley regard eBay's 2005 acquisition of the telephony service as a $2.6 billion misstep. But new rumors, reported late Tuesday night on TechCrunch, suggest that eBay may be negotiating Skype-related partnerships with Google or even selling it outright.

"We do not comment on market rumor or speculation regarding acquisitions," a Google representative told CNET News.com in an e-mail. "Generally speaking we are constantly in discussions about potential partnerships … Read more

Are you disappointed that your iPhone still hasn't made you sexier in the eyes of potential mates? Hey, don't give up yet. AppleInsider has unearthed a series of patent filings that seem to indicate the company is working on a new "digital lifestyle" product to help track and manage a fitness routine.

In a move that could rival Google's upcoming health initiatives, the Apple screenshots show that health information could also be shared with a user's authorized physicians.

The filings were submitted on Thursday.

The product appears to be an application that would require … Read more

This post was updated at 10:12 AM PT to correct the spelling of Joost CEO Mike Volpi's name.

Could a browser-based version of its peer-to-peer software save Joost, the heavily hyped video start-up founded by the creators of Skype and Kazaa?

Portfolio's Kevin Maney wrote a lengthy profile of the once-hot company, and buried inside is a juicy tidbit about a future development: "This year, viewers will be able to watch Joost videos in a browser window," the profile read. Right now, Joost requires a software download, which critics have said is one of its … Read more