Virtual Trade Tough Nut to Crack
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Blizzard makes noises about cracking down on real-money sales of items from the virtual World of Warcraft, but such transactions may impossible to stop. By Daniel Terdiman.
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Wall Street is hammering this nut processor, but, at today's prices, it looks interesting.
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Mike Arrington is doing a great job of laying out the options for Yahoo wrt Microsoft's offer to buy them out. He's written two pieces that helped put it together for me. Mike clearly has great sources in the investment banking community and among potential buyers of Yahoo, and is actively talking with them. He's got a business lawyer's mind and, as you know I'm sure, he's spent the last few years immersed in web applications.  Bottom-line: Yahoo's three choices are: 1. Tough it out alone. 2. Sell advertising rights to Google. 3. Accept Microsoft's offer.  Mike argues that option 1 would result in shareholder lawsuits and in the end would get Yahoo nowhere because they'd end up selling to Microsoft eventually. Option 2 would enable them to pay a major cash dividend to their shareholders, making up for the lost windfall coming from Microsoft's offer. Options 2 and 3 have the risk of being rejected by government regulators.  Now, as a member of Yahoo's developer community, and generally a respector of Yahoo (is that a word) -- I say take the deal. I don't think Yahoo has ever had leadership that has been up to navigating the treacherous waters of tech industry economics and politics. At least with the Microsoft acquisition they would get one -- Ray Ozzie. He's a guy you can sit across the table from and plot something out and he can deliver. I've had many good meetings with Yahoo people, but rarely have they resulted in action. From my own selfish point of view, Microsoft owning Yahoo might mean that Ray makes more trips to the Bay Area (figuratively) and when he sits down, we can talk about new open interfaces and developer programs for Yahoo properties. I've read most of the commentary on the Yahoo deal, and the other piece that made an impression was Mark Cuban's. He says that Yahoo should accept the Microsoft deal because it would give them the breathing room they need re Wall Street. He argues that the market has always allowed Microsoft to sink resources into developing markets, and that's exactly what Yahoo needs to become the organization that it has been trying to be. Instead, the market treats Yahoo as a comp to Google, but Yahoo doesn't have the economics of Google, so that's, long-term, a losing battle.  There's one more reason I think Yahoo should sell to Microsoft -- the fatigue of the people. The company has been wobbly too long. If they don't take the Microsoft offer it's going to be a long wobbly decline and the shareholders will be right to be angry. Here's their chance to get out, it's time, so just do it.
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The United States seeks to tip the scales in China. Plus: China curbs the spread of virtual money... the Turks turn off the 'Tube... and more.
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Bloomberg - Dec. 17 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. refusal to comply with a World Trade Organization decision on online gambling is threatening to undermine the entire set of rules binding the international trade system.
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Leave it to Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN). Apparently, the holiday season could be a rich opportunity to addict more users to Amazon&#39;s A9.
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System latency can mean losses for stock traders and virtual death for online gamers. The developer of the EVE Online game hopes high-performance computing tools can save the day for its players.
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How to outmaneuver the wizards of Wall Street.
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Online investing brought stock trading to the masses, but some investment options remain limited to the rich. Now an online services company offers customized portfolios for the rest of us. By Skip Kaltenheuser.
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High market prices keeping you away? Here are some tips to break free.
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Dating, negotiating, fragging and making money.  Play and its consequences.
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Business & money: Â· Wii and Simpsons help to create trading record Â· Nearly 1m items ordered on e-tailer's busiest day
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What social web services do you get the most out of? And which ones are just a waste of venture capital? We want to know. In Monkey Bites.
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Exclusive A CD lock-in tech that only annoys P2P traders?
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Four things you need to know to beat the market.
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Get yer luverly 0day IE exploits 'ere An online marketplace where researchers and vendors can trade in security vulnerabilities has been created by a Swiss research lab.â¦
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As if the U.S. presidential contest  wasn't enough like a horse race, Web users all over the world  can now bet on the outcome through online futures exchanges  that treat politics like corn, cocoa or other commodities.