Articles of the Day
European Founder’s Fund invests in Facebook - Rumour - Facebook is rumoured to be receiving an undisclosed amount of investment from the European Founder’s Fund, which was set up by three German entrepreneurs and brothers, Alexander, Marc and Oliver Samwer. It does not appear to be linked with the Founder’s Fund, which was sat up by various PayPal founders, including Peter Thiel, who previously invested USD500,000 in Facebook in 2004. This is just the latest rumour linking Facebook to a new round of funding since Microsoft invested USD240m in the social network in Oct last year in return for a 1.6% stake. Two undisclosed New York hedge funds were rumoured to have invested in Facebook, as was Hong Kong billionaire, Li Ka-Shing, who was ranked as the ninth richest person in the world by Forbes last year.
Google signs exclusive deal with Weather Channel - The Weather Channel has struck a deal with Google to be the exclusive provider of weather info on Google Earth. Under the deal, Google Maps will also make weather updates more easily available on its service. The partnership is the latest effort by The Weather Channel to expand its online presence. Most recently it acquired three online vacation rental sites, and agreed to provide forecasts to News Corp’s MySpace.
Online Values Seen As Bubblish, Social Nets Most ‘Overhyped’ - Nearly two-thirds (62%) of senior executives at major U.S. media companies believe a “bubble” is looming for online media properties, but the vast majority don’t expect it to pop until 2009 or beyond. The findings, which come from a survey of 1,600 senior executives at leading media companies released Tuesday by investment banker AdMedia Partners, also indicate that online media properties will continue to command the highest multiples in the media industry’s mergers and acquisitions market during 2008.
CNET’s “Wimpy” Fight Back - CNET Networks adopted a poison pill on Monday in a clear attempt to block a potentially hostile takeover of the company by JANA Partners, a hedge fund. Last week, the technology publisher’s announced that its board of directors had adopted a stockholder rights plan to “deter coercive takeover tactics and to prevent an acquirer from gaining control of the company without offering a fair price.” In addition, the company adopted substantial severance payments for its board members, should a takeover come to pass.
Facebook asked to remove Scrabble application - Claiming copyright infringement, the makers of Scrabble are asking Facebook to remove the Scrabulous word game from the social networking site. Scrabulous, which has more than 500,000 daily users, is one of Facebook’s 10 most popular applications. Scrabble copyright owners Hasbro and Mattel assert that Scrabulous is essentially an online version of Scrabble with a slightly different name. Hasbro, which controls Scrabble rights in the US and Canada, is the world’s second largest toy maker.
