Nick Tippmann
Three months after being acquired by Facebook and almost three years to the day of launching at SXSW GoWalla has finally closed up shop. Fitting that it finally did during SXSW in which it was launched at.
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Surprise Surprise: Greg Kumparak Joins Pando Daily
Kyle
Greg Kamparak photo: Kamparak's Google+
The exodus at AOL owned TechCrunch continues. Earlier this week it was leaked that TechCrunch’s mobile editor, Greg Kumparak, was leaving TechCrunch. At the time Kumparak announced his departure he didn’t say he was going, but of course the obvious place was PandoDaily.
PandoDaily is the new start up focused site that was started by former TechCrunch editor Sarah Lacy. Michael Arrington’s CrunchFund led an angel round for the new site that was over 2.5 million dollars.
Lacy announced a couple of weeks ago that PandoDaily was holding monthly meet ups. The first of which was tonight. Arrington was the featured guest and had a fireside chat with Lacy. It was also announced that Kumparak was joining the PandoDaily team tonight.
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With a sale or split of Yahoo, does Microsoft already own the important parts?
With a possible breakup or full blown sale of Yahoo, certain questions come up. Besides the company, the more interesting and valuable piece may be their patents. Eric Jackson at Forbes has figured out that the search company has over 1,000 patents related to areas like paid search advertising, display advertising, and social networking. Jackson believes that someone like Google if able to some how buy baring SEC approval could potentially stop or delay Facebook from going public some time next year as planned. But there is a catch.
Moons Over My YouTube?
YouTube Co-Founder, Steven Chen, took the stage today at TechCrunch Disrupt Beijing. Chen sat down with the queen of international start-up reporting Sara Lacy to talk about business, what’s new and of course the big YouTube deal.
Chen revealed that while they were negotiating the sale of YouTube to both Yahoo and Google they often met with both companies at a Denny’s in Paolo Alto. Chen says he wanted to find a place that no one would think to look for them at. Of course, TechCrunch Founder, Mike Arrington was keen to their dubious plans to get Moons over My Hammy and Grand Slam breakfasts while negotiating a grand slam of a deal.
Chen admits to having eaten Mozarella sticks while pondering over one of the biggest deals (at the time) in Silicon Valley. Chen told Lacy that it was Google CEO (at the time) Eric Schmidt’s commitment to continue to let the YouTube founders run YouTube the way they wanted, that ultimately swayed them there instead of Yahoo.
“For twelve months, whatever we wanted to do, we were allowed to do,” Chen told Lacy “It was tremendous courage from Eric, allowing this group of 20 year-olds to run the company.”
source: TechCrunch
The Big Rumor: Google In Talks To Buy Yahoo
Although AOL’s Tim Armstrong has been trying to sway his board and Yahoo’s board for an AOL-Yahoo merger, it seems like another, bigger, company wants to sink their teeth into yahoo.
Reports are running rampant on the internet today stemming from a report from the Wall Street Journal that Google is in talk with private equity firms to merge (or at least attempt) to merge with Yahoo. This wouldn’t be the first time that Google did business with yahoo. Yahoo was one of Google’s biggest clients 10 years ago, providing back end search services to the yahoo internet portal.
As PCMag suggests Google hasn’t entered into any kind of agreement with Yahoo and no one is sure which private equity firms Google is talking to. It’s also important to note that a leak or rumor from the Wall Street Journal doesn’t carry near as much weight as it would have five years ago.
It is apparent though that Yahoo wants a large, stable suitor. It’s been widely reported that Microsoft has been looking at acquiring Yahoo’s assets along with those of AOL.
Although a marriage between Google and Yahoo would spend a long time under regulatory scrutiny, the potential for GoogleAds and Google+ with a merger with Yahoo is endless.