google

Previously interested in buying the Los Angeles Times for 2 billion in 2006, David Geffen has now made an offer to buy a 19% stake in the New York Times. According to thewrap.com Google has also shown interest. Too bad the troubled newspaper is not for sale and no agreements have been made..

According to techcrunch, there's serious talk going on between the HNIC's at Google and Twitter regarding a possible merge. While Google doesn't want to pay much more than twitter's last valuation ($250 mil), apparently twitter's CEO won't blink even at a billi... Read more here.

Google finally announced their venture into (pun intended) funding start-ups. Click here for details but they're looking to invest up to $100 million in its first year.

The former top sales exec at Google was recently named CEO/chairman of AOL.  Not bad for a 38 year old (sociology major) who spent the past 9 years leading the successful sales efforts of world's top search engine.  Click here to read more about Tim Armstrong. 

Google's one of the few companies still doing very well (relatively speaking) so it's only appropriate that they reward some of the execs who've contributed this past year.  And no these million dollar bonuses aren't for the ones you're thinking of (Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt because quite frankly, they don't need it).  Click here to see who got the fat checks from your favorite search engine...

Esquire just did an interesting editorial on Google's newest (and most controversial) app, Latitude. For those who don't know, Latitude is a plugin for google maps which allows you to highlight your location via cell phone, which makes it possible for your "friends" to track you and find you. For many, this is the manifestation of all Big Brother conspiracies. However Esquire believes that this will become just another norm in the quickly changing technological landscape.

Latitude will be precisely as annoying as e-mail and social networking sites and cell phones themselves — and just as useful. What won't stop Latitude, or the wider rollout of location-based tracking, is bitching about it. These are juggernauts of free, culture-reorienting technology. And you and me, we are but posts on the massive Facebook profile of history.

Check the whole article here

The Google CEO was on Jim Cramer's Mad Money today (I'm gonna watch it a little later tonight) and the two discussed everything from Steve Jobs' health (which affects Schmidt directly since he's on Apple's board) to the downward spiral of print ad business; plus some insight on how to create white collar jobs and what the new president/government can do to stimulate the economy... 

You can click here to read the entire transcript courtesy of techcrunch/CNBC.

Google’s Marissa Mayer said a lot of interesting things on stage today on stage at the Le Web Conference in Paris. We covered the Chrome and Search Wiki news. But the most important thing she said, in my opinion, was also the simplest. An attendee asked Marissa how she went about building her team over the last decade.

Her answer: “I like to hire people who have two traits. They’re smart, and they get things done.”  She also talked about the joy of working with a team where every member was passionate about the project. But the key message resonated. Smart people who aren’t closers tend to flail. 

 Jacked straight from Michael Arrington/Techcrunch...

Everyone knows Bill Gates/Microsoft are and have been enormously profitable and efficient, but when it comes to the online game not only are they FAR behind Google in generating profits (via ads), they're even below Yahoo and AOL at this point (and we all know what's happened to Yahoo's stock and it's former CEO Jerry Yang's reputation). Read the Fortune story here.

Personally, I don't know anyone who goes to MSN.com (last time I did is when our Mano x Flakez '5 year old kid dancing' video was on the front page of their site)

Newsweek has an interesting article about Facebook's "problem" with advertising expectations. If the ads are too targeted, people freak out about privacy; to vague and people don't care:

That's why "paid search" advertising accounts for 41.8 percent of all online ad spending, according to eMarketer. It's also why Facebook is struggling. Avenue A/ Razorfish, a leading online ad agency, bought online ads worth $735 million last year, but only $55 million-a mere 7 percent-went to social-networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and others. Jeff Lanctot, chief strategy officer at Avenue A/ Razorfish, sees Facebook as a communication tool, akin to e-mail or instant messaging. Those are useful things but not great vehicles for running advertisements. Facebook, Lanctot says, has been "a victim of unrealistic expectations." (Facebook would not provide anyone who would talk on the record for this article.)

check out the whole article here.