Reports have surfaced that Bankaholic.com, a WordPress blog run by Johns Wu (alone) is selling for $15 million to BankRate. That’s quite a deal for Wu, I’d say. According to paidContent.org, Wu gets $12.4 million up front, with another $2.5 million possible earnout over the next 12 months.
Should You Buy Links?
This old chestnut. There is a post over at Search Engine Land by Danny Sullivan entitled "Conversation With An Idiot Link Broker". To cut a long story short, some guy tries to broker a link deal with Danny, seemingly not knowing who Danny is, and Danny plays him along. Danny reports him to the Google spam team. For the sake of furthering discussion, I’ll play devils advocate 🙂
Does Steve Jobs Have Nine Lives?
Although I have ruthlessly defended new media’s potential for legitimacy as a news source, nobody said citizen journalism was a flawless concept. Today a story was posted at iReport.com claiming that Apple CEO Steve Jobs had suffered a severe heart attack. He did not.
Gawker Lays Off Staff & Brags About It!
I’m going to be blunt here. The press coverage of the Gawker layoff memo is facinating in that they believe everything they are told and then proudly write about it! Isn’t it a bit curious that Nick is predicting doom and gloom while his sales are way up from last year and then encourages his writers to write articles on this news?
Friendster Gets Friendly with Facebook
Friendster announced today that it is now supporting both Facebook and Opensocial apps. Integration with these has now become part of the Friendster Developer Program, though they’ve been supporting OpenSocial since August.
Facebook Shares to Be Sold in Less Than a Month
Back in August, information surfaced indicating that Facebook would begin allowing its employees to sell some of their shares in the company this fall. Now, a date has been set for this to begin, and that date is the 1st of November.
Google Was Almost on TV
Google is straying from its old ways and moving more toward traditional advertising methods, says the Wall Street Journal. We’re not seeing Google commercials on TV yet, but could that be on the horizon?Apparently, Google employees had plans of slipping a Google ad in during the Olympics, but Sergey and Larry weren’t having it, because such an ad wouldn’t "fit the company’s image." WSJ reports:
Online Health Sites Announce Merger
Online health sites Waterfront Media and Revolution Health Network have reached an agreement to merge and will pose a potential threat to WebMD’s top position in the health care category.
Potential Hulu/Joost Killer Begins Beta Testing
A new player in the online video game is emerging in Sling.com. Well the service is new, not really the player. Owners Sling Media have been around for a while, focusing primarily on hardware, but that is all about to change, starting with Sling.com, which has just begun beta testing to select users.
Facebook Finds a Home for International Affairs
Tanáiste and Minister for Enterprise Trade & Employment, Mary Coughlan TD announced today that Facebook is making Dublin the location of its international headquarters.From there, they will run all of their international operations and provide support to Facebook users in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.