RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech - EP53

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech
Episode 53 - download link coming soon: check the feed for details: subscribe now

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A bunch of new startup acquisition news. We talk a bit about the acquisitions specifically, and then a bit in general about the prevalence in the news lately of all the startups getting bought:

Look For Confirmation of eBay/StumbleUpon Today
I’m hearing that the eBay/StumbleUpon acquisition will be officially announced sometime today. Keep an eye our for the press release. We originally broke this rumor in April when a term sheet was reportedly signed. The Wall Street Journal picked up the story earlier this month.

I don’t know if the price will be disclosed, or if the rumors of $75 million are roughly correct.

An Old Media company actually gets it right with a new media acquisition:

CBS Acquires Europe’s Last.fm for $280 million
The quickly growing music social network Last.fm has been acquired by CBS for $280 million in an all-cash deal.

UK based Last.fm launched five years ago and has become a social networking favorite with 15 million active users. It has become a massive repository for music information (artist and song wikis, listening data from users, etc.). In the U.S., companies like Pandora, MOG and iLike all compete with some of Last.fm’s features, although none of those startups has built the basic social network/community of last.fm.

The deal sees Last.fm’s management team staying in place and the site maintaining a separate identity.

Last.fm has been an attractive takeover target for some time. CBS as a buyer though is surprising and is a sure sign that the media giant is getting serious about Web 2.0. CBS acquired video blog WallStrip for $5 million earlier this month, and has been on a bit of a buying spree lately after filling out the management team on the interactive side of the business last year.

Previous TechCrunch coverage here.

This certainly explains why Last.fm was a little slow to jump on the Facebook Applications bandwagon last week - they were understandably distracted.

An interesting perspective on the same story:

Don't Look Now, But Old Media May Be Figuring This New Media Thing Out
It's not much, but there are a few signs that some "old media" companies are starting to figure out what makes new media tick. This morning's announcement that CBS is buying last.fm for $280 million isn't all that interesting on its own -- but it's one of a pattern of recent deals by so-called "old media" companies that have them looking to build or buy into communities, rather than just content. The mistake that many media companies have made over the last few years is the belief that the content was king -- and as long as they had the content, the community would form naturally. What people are noticing is that the community is important and it's hard work to build one. Of course, recognizing that is only the first step. The real question is what these companies will do to cultivate these communities. In most cases (MySpace being the one exception so far), these types of purchases tend to wither and die once they become part of a larger company (and the entrepreneurial souls of the community move on).

And other startup news:

Google buys anti-malware browser virtualization startup (Ryan Naraine/Zero Day)
Google has quietly made its first anti-malware acquisition, snapping up GreenBorder Technologies, a venture-backed company that sells browser virtualization security software.

And in political news, both Art and I are surprised we didn't hear about this earlier:

Cyber-Spies Tracking Terror on Web
Dana Rosenblatt writes on CNN.com:

There is an unconventional war being waged on the Internet. The battles here know no boundaries; and are fought from homes and offices from small Midwestern towns to Europe and the Middle East.

For the fighters in these battles weapons usually consist of no more than collected intelligence and computer programming skills.

It's no secret anymore that active terrorist cells are currently operating freely and openly on the Internet, using propaganda tactics to illicit prospective recruits.

The emergence of these terrorist groups has spawned their nemesis: groups of researchers, hackers, and maverick computer geeks who cyber-stalk terrorist networks online and take them down.

More here.

Resembling a modern-day Clark Kent, Weisburd is a boyish 40-something former computer programmer who decided to use his background and skills to track terrorists following the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

He's proved himself a force to be reckoned with, fighting -- and winning -- a war waged against the "dark side" of the Internet.

Weisburd's reputation has earned him the nickname "the vigilante" in cyber space, a legacy he's eager to shrug off.

"If I was a vigilante running a Web site, I would hurt you," says Weisburd.

"If I find that you're running a Web site for al Qaeda, I'm not going to hurt you. I'll report you to people that will ask you to come quietly, and if you don't go quietly, they may hurt you," he says.

Art jumps for joy:

Fred Thompson to Form Presidential Committee

"Law and Order" star Fred Thompson — will make his flirtation with a White — House bid official this week, forming — a presidential committee and launching — a fundraising effort

His advisers say they do not expect to match the amount of money the others are raising, but profess to be unconcerned.

"He doesn't need as much money as the others have raised," said one supporter, noting that his Hollywood fame has already given him a boost in the polls. "He hasn't raised nor has he spent a single dime so far. People should not expect that he will outraise anyone."

We find a Democrat we like:

Lieberman in Iraq sees "progress,"
What a coincidence. Two years after Cheney said the insurgency was in its last throes, Joe Lieberman made essentially the same prediction.

CNN reports that Lieberman is on an unannounced "surprise" visit to Baghdad. Paula Hancocks followed Lieberman around. She talked to Lieberman and reported, "He said he was happy with the progress. He was devastated by the fact that May was turning in to the deadliest month since November 2004. But he said he did believe that this surge eventually would pay off and it would start to break the insurgency."

And in people turning on the Democrats news:

Cindy Sheehan Quits as 'Face' of Anti-War Movement
Cindy Sheehan, the "peace mom" who made headlines in 2005 by staging a marathon protest outside President Bush's Crawford, Texas, ranch, said Monday that she no longer wants to be seen as a leader of the anti-war movement.

Want to be part of the Rizzn-ite army? Indoctrination instructions here.

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech - EP34

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech
Episode 34 - download now - subscribe now

• A member of the TechPodcast Network @ techpodcast.com. If it's Tech, it's here.
  
• Remember, if you're listening on the podcast recording, you can call into the show live if you tune in through TalkShoe.com at 2:30 PM EST every weekday.
• If you like the podcast (and you haven't already given us a rating), head over and do so, and don't forget to sign up for the discussion list.
• Other Podcast Plugs:
  
• TalkGirls comes on Tuesday nights. Check out the TalkGirls Podcast ... it's good times!
• Cotolo Chronicles: Frank is a good friend of the show, and an associate of the late great Wolfman Jack. Check out his podcast.
• NewsReal: Good friend to Art and I - has one of the best hours of news podcast each week.
  
• Sponsors:
  
• Try GoToMeeting for 45 days! Visit www.GoToMeeting.com/podcast to start your free trial today.
  
• AACS - Guaranteed improved credit - http://aacsnet.com/ - Mention RizWords and get $50 off your entry to the program.
  

Here are the stories for today:

Google denies Viacom copyright charges
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—Google responded to Viacom's $1 billion copyright lawsuit on Monday, arguing that it has not infringed on the rights of the media company and that the lawsuit threatens the viability of its popular YouTube video-sharing Web site as well as others like it.

And in counter-Google news:

Panama Not Enough To Battle Google: Yahoo Acquires RightMedia

Yahoo announced today that it will acquire the 80% of advertising network RightMedia that it doesn’t already own for $680 million in cash and Yahoo stock.

Yahoo previously bought 20% of the company in a $45 million Series B round of funding announced in October 2006. The company has raised over $50 million to date.

This move counters Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick earlier this month for $3.1 billion, and signals that Yahoo wants more weapons in its arsenal to fight the ongoing online advertising war beyond their new Panama release.

RightMedia runs an advertising marketplace that allows for much more efficient advertsing pricing than older negotiated models (something still in the planning stages at DoubleClick). See our coverage of their RMX Direct product from August 2005.

RightMedia also tends to work with large intermediate ad brokers and addresses the short tail of the ad market (as does DoubleClick), whereas Overture and Adsense are definitely long tail products with many smaller advertisers and publishers.

In other slightly-related (in terms of acquisition) news:

Akamai Releases FoxTorrent 1.0 - Firefox BitTorrent Add-on

Red Swoosh (acquired by Akamai for $15 million earlier this month) released v1.0 of FoxTorrent today. This is a fully functional BitTorrent client for Firefox that works cross platform (Windows, Mac, Linux) and has a very cool additional feature - the ability to stream files as they are downloading.

This is no Azureus (my BitTorrent client of choice), but it does the job and saves time by allowing you to manage torrents directly from the browser. I tested it on a few (non-copyright infringing, of course) files and it worked great on the standard BitTorrent functionality. Streaming just didn’t work, although with the way the BitTorrent protocol breaks files into pieces and reconstructs them in a non linear way means you may have to wait until the file is mostly complete to even begin streaming. I’ll try it again once the files are nearly complete.

Webcasting Non-RIAA Music In Protest May Only Make The RIAA Wealthier

Following the latest webcasting rates that will likely put many webcasters out of business, one suggestion was that webcasters should simply play non-RIAA music. In theory this would help in multiple ways -- giving those independent musicians more publicity while avoiding the draconian webcasting rates. In practice... however, that won't work. Slashdot points us to an article dissecting the fine print, where you'll discover that SoundExchange, which is the RIAA's collection body, actually gets to collect money for non-RIAA members as well. In other words, even for independent artists who don't want webcasters to have to pay, webcasters will still need to pay up.

The story actually gets even worse. As we noted a few years ago, part of the deal is that SoundExchange and the RIAA get to keep any unclaimed money for themselves. Even better, SoundExchange can simply pretend not to be able to find the musicians (as they've done with a ton of big name musicians in the past). So, chances are, many independent artists have no idea that SoundExchange is hanging onto a bunch of money they didn't even want collected and there's almost no chance they'll claim it -- meaning that if you try to avoid the webcasting rates by playing non-RIAA music, there's a good chance you're actually enriching the RIAA even more.

Just for fun, why don't we compare two situations? The RIAA tells people that simply listening to music without paying for it is a terrible crime that people should be punished for. Yet... the RIAA getting money for non-RIAA music and not paying the deserving artists that money is perfectly legal? Damn, the RIAA lobbyists are good.

A related link to the aforementioned story (http://www3.capwiz.com/saveinternetradio/taf/confirm/?alertid=9631541&style=1&content_dir=). Now, be careful with your MySpace.

Be Careful In MySpace Or You May Get Denied A Degree

We've seen stories of people getting arrested for posting incriminating evidence of themselves on MySpace as well as people losing jobs over info posted to a MySpace profile... but what about losing a degree? techguy83 writes in to let us know of a lawsuit by a woman who was apparently denied an education degree and teaching certificate after school officials found a photo of the woman on her MySpace page from a Halloween party. In the photo (remember, this was a Halloween party), the woman was dressed as a pirate and the photo was captioned "Drunken Pirate." The school claims that the woman was encouraging underage drinking -- but the woman is 27 now and the photo was from 2005, meaning she was 25 (or close to 25) at the time. That's hardly underage. It's not clear why school officials were viewing the woman's MySpace page in determining whether or not she qualified for a degree -- but if other schools start doing the same, I'd imagine we're going to have an awful lot of students who have completed their qualifications, but have no degrees due to incriminating MySpace photos.

In political news:

The US says it has arrested one of al-Qaeda's highest-ranking operatives, as he was on his way home to Iraq to plan future attacks.

The Pentagon said Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi was now in Guantanamo Bay.

He had been going to Iraq to take over al-Qaeda operations and possibly plot attacks on Western interests, it said.

He was accused of commanding attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan, and of involvement in plots to assassinate Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

Pakistani Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao described the arrest as a "welcome development".

An Afghan defence ministry spokesman said it was "a major success" that would "help to get to the high-ranking terrorist network figures and... have a deeply negative effect on the network".

According to information about him provided by the Pentagon, Mr Hadi was a key paramilitary commander in Afghanistan during the late 1990s, before taking charge of cross-border attacks against US and coalition troops from 2002 to 2004.

A US intelligence source told the BBC he was arrested late last year in an operation which involved the CIA. It was not clear where he was detained, or where he has been held since.

Texas Green Party blasts Operation Enduring Freedom

The Green Party of Texas issued a press release today:

Here in the holiday season, George W. Bush's immoral and illegal occupation of Iraq has reached a grim milestone. As of December 31st, 2006, 3000 honorable men and women of our armed forces have died in this reckless and atrocious act of aggression.

Every claim made to justify this war has been a lie:

• The claims that Iraq was manufacturing weapons of mass destruction
• The claim that somehow Iraq was a clear and imminent threat to the United States
• The claim that our purpose in Iraq was to "liberate" the Iraqi people from tyranny
• The claim that the Hussein regime was in some way connected to the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The invasion and occupation of Iraq has cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi women, children and men, has cost the lives of 3000 American military men and women, has injured almost 25,000 of our military, has cost this country almost half a trillion dollars, has shattered our foreign relations, and has fostered deep contempt and anger against our country across the globe. Our military presence in Iraq is fueling the civil war growing there and is inflaming sectarian violence. Our outrageous policy of torturing prisoners of war in Iraq constitutes a horrific violation of American values and principles that puts our own military men and women in grave danger of being tortured themselves.

The Green Party of Texas calls on the White House and Congress to immediately withdraw the American military troops from Iraq and fund an internationally-diverse humanitarian and diplomatic mission to that country.

I could pick this press release apart bit by bit, but is it really necessary? I guess that people still spew garbage like this is evidence that it is.

• WMDs were found in Iraq on multiple occasions.
• That Saddam used them on his own people and would have loved to have used them on Israel given the chance is a threat to national security, and the security of the world.
• How can motivation for or against liberty be judged? Does the Green Party have a magical device used to divine the president's true motivations?
• Saddam and Bin Laden did work together.

That we are grimacing as a country at the loss of 3000 troups is deplorable, and shows that America is no longer worthy of the mantle of 'Superpower' any longer. Compare death rates of Iraq and WWII for evidence.

That the Green Party thinks that throwing more money at this quagmire in the form of diplomacy and humanitarianism is idiotic, as eight years of diplomacy and humanitarianism in the face of terror and anti-Americanism under Clinton showed us that nothing can be achieved by this route.

Say what you want about my party of Libertarians - but hey, at least we're not Greens!

/rizzn

Update:

Fred Drew of the TxSLEC had the following to say on the press release:

I am sad that the Green Party has determined to pursue that tactic as it will alienate about 80% of the families in South Texas, who believe like President Ford, that Bush used the wrong message to justify the war and that Congress supported it wrongly by authorizing it, as required by the War Powers Act.

Most of rural America doesn’t support Bush but believes the troops are doing the right thing because they are the families of the troops and are being told directly from the horse’s mouth that progress is being made with the exception of certain areas in particular, Bagdad.

They are also not the stupid underachievers that they were called by Congressman Rangel.

There is a lot of difference between commencing a war for what appear to be the wrong reasons and then trying to get out later. If you walk away without a clear victory the same folks that heckle a dying man on the gallows will be even more convinced that they can defeat our way of life militarily, not to mention the kind of mid-eastern National Leaders that I watched describe how they would kill all of the western cultures. Remember, Armageddon is a goal to them, not a consequence.

Those, that think they can, will. Look back at the progress of events beginning in 1938. Dejavu