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Place your bets on who Zuckerberg buys after Instagram

If Facebook is going to gamble its money, why shouldn't you?

Though we could have a lengthy mathematical discussion here about the varying merits of the exacta versus the trifecta, perhaps a quicker and more clinical bet would be on which company Facebook might buy, now that it has swallowed Instagram.

I have always found bookmakers to be helpful and imaginative. So I am grateful to the New York Times for revealing that Paddy Power, the strong and forceful Irish bookmaker, has a new addition to its novelty betting section: yes, you can toss your money toward your view … Read more

Sprint Nextel bets big on prepaid wireless

Sprint Nextel is doubling down on the growing prepaid cell phone market in an effort to better compete with rivals, AT&T, T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless.

On Tuesday morning, Sprint, the No. 3 nationwide U.S. wireless operator, announced plans to buy Virgin Mobile USA in a deal that is valued at around $483 million. At first it might seem strange for Sprint, which went into a tailspin after its last big acquisition of wireless competitor Nextel in 2005, to buy another wireless operator. But with a strong cash position and a management team determined to turn the … Read more

AT&T eyes divested Alltel assets

AT&T could end up with the lion's share of the wireless assets that Verizon Wireless must get rid of as part of its acquisition of Alltel, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

The newspaper cites sources who said that AT&T is among several bidders hoping to get their hands on the Alltel subscribers and network. The private-equity firms Carlyle Group and Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts & Co., supposedly are bidding on the assets together as is Providence Equity Partners on its own. At least one cable provider also has expressed interest, the Journal says.

In … Read more

Forrester acquires JupiterResearch for $23 million

Tech analyst heavyweight Forrester Research just got a little bigger.

The Cambridge, Mass., company said Thursday that it acquired smaller rival JupiterResearch and its parent company JUPR Holdings for $23 million. The JupiterResearch brand will begin to serve Forrester's "Marketing and Strategy" client group.

JupiterResearch, considerably smaller than Forrester, had 83 employees and made $14 million in 2007, while Forrester Research, which has more than 1,000 employees, made $212 million.

Forrester also announced its second quarter earnings Thursday. The company had a $8.6 million profit on $63.5 million in revenue for the quarter ending … Read more

Once-hyped PodTech sold at a bargain

PodTech, a video podcast network that had taken over $7 million in venture funding, has been sold--and the price may have been a downright embarrassing $500,000.

The news was reported this week by Eric Eldon at VentureBeat, but Valleywag's Jackson West was floating the rumor with less detail last week. And Fake Steve Jobs jumped the gun a little bit by declaring the company dead last October.

The buyer is the Los Angeles-based ViewPartner, a "communications technology company" that seems to only produce Google results about the fact that it bought PodTech. And while no financial … Read more