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Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), has announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire Audible Inc. (NASDAQ:ADBL).Audible.com provides premium digital spoken word audio content, specializing in digital audio editions of books, newspapers and magazines, television and radio programs and original programming. Through its web sites in the US and UK and alliances in Germany and France, Audible.com offers over 80,000 programs, including audiobooks from well-known authors such as Stephen King, Thomas Friedman, and Jane Austen, and spoken word audio content from sources including The New York Times, The New Yorker, Fresh Air and Charlie Rose.

“Audible.com offers the best customer experience, the widest content selection and the broadest device compatibility in the industry,” said Steve Kessel, Amazon.com’s senior vice president for worldwide digital media. “Working together, we can introduce more innovations and bring this format to an even wider audience.”

“This deal brings together two pioneering companies that share a long history of ceaseless focus on improving the customer experience,” said Donald Katz, founder and chief executive of Audible.com. “We are very excited to be joining a company as innovative as Amazon.com.”

In recent months, Amazon has announced a number of innovations in the digital space, including Amazon Kindle, a wireless portable reader that provides instant wireless downloads of more than 90,000 books, blogs, magazines and newspapers to a crisp, high-resolution electronic paper display.

Under the terms of the agreement, Amazon.com will commence a cash tender offer to purchase all of the outstanding shares of Audible.com for $11.50 per share and will assume Audible.com’s outstanding stock-based awards, for an aggregate transaction value of approximately $300 million which includes Audible.com’s cash and short-term investments at closing.

The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals, and is expected to close by the second quarter of 2008.

Shoring up Kindle perhaps?

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Tags: Amazon, Audible.com

As reported by Billboard, in the USA 70 per cent of young people in the 9-14 years age group download music in any given month - and 49 per cent of young people use iTunes. 26 per cent use Limewire while 16 per cent download music from MySpace.

Tags: Apple, Billboard, Limewire, MySpace

MacBook Air purchasers are being warned not to use installation discs from other Macs to install the operating system.

“The Mac OS X 10.5 installation media that shipped with your MacBook Air is designed for use on this computer only,” Apple warns in a technical document posted to its website.

“The installer prevents this software from being installed on other Macintosh computers. Furthermore, other Mac OS X 10.5 installation media should not be used when restoring the system software on your MacBook Air.”

The MacBook Air doesn’t ship with an included optical drive, so users must install and reinstall their system software by using an external optical drive, or wirelessly using a system called Remote Disc.

Remote Disc lets users wirelessly access discs inserted in the optical drives of other computers on a wireless network, once a piece of software has been installed on the host Mac to support the feature.

Original Story

Tags: Apple

Ujogo, a free online poker site, has announced the first free poker application on Facebook Platform to offer prizes and rewards combined with full Facebook Platform integration. Ujogo has reconfigured its fast and slick application to seamlessly tap into the ultimate online network of users and fully leverage the Facebook Platform features.

With the new integration, users will now be able to play free, fun and highly competitive poker, including multi-table tournaments, for actual prizes in the fast and realistic Ujogo environment, without leaving the site. In contrast, most free online poker applications do not offer prizes as an incentive, and consequently, the quality of play is generally not very high.

To showcase its free-to-enter multi-table tournaments within the Facebook Platform, Ujogo will feature a week of daily $100 prize tournaments within the next month.

“With the positive feedback we’ve received on our initial launch of Ujogo in July ‘07, it was just a natural evolution for us to extend our more compelling free poker application to one of the fastest growing, integrated social communities around,” said Eric Gonzales, Ujogo’s CEO.

“Our players appreciate how prizes at stake improve the quality and competitiveness of play in our free, non-gambling platform, and the popularity of interactive features at Ujogo.com made us realize that utilizing an online networking environment would be a natural fit.”

Two time ladies’ World Series of Poker champ Susie Isaacs plays regularly at Ujogo and commented:

“I became a devoted on-line poker player in 2004 and 2005 when I took two years off from playing live poker to write four books. I tried free sites but it was not rewarding.”

“I play to win but I want to win more than accolades. Along came Ujogo and I was saved! Ujogo is a free site but we play for prizes, gift certificates, and eventually I have heard, buy-ins to major tournaments. When I win on Ujogo, I win! Risk versus reward is my old way of thinking. Today on Ujogo it is no risk and great rewards! The more I play, the more I realize that Ujogo is becoming like a social poker club. I like that!”

To start playing at Ujogo within Facebook Platform, simply search for “Ujogo,” invite your friends to join if you wish, and jump into a game.

No additional registration is required since players are already registered on the site. All players receive a sign-up bonus of Ujogo Points, which can be redeemed for valuable items at the Ujogo Store.

Additional Ujogo Points are earned with every hand played, as well as for referring friends, achieving monthly leaderboard status, and hitting jackpot hands.

Ujogo investors include Longstreet Ventures.

www.ujogo.com

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Tags: Facebook, Longstreet Ventures, Ujogo

TVU Networks, a global service for live Internet TV, announced today the signing of eight new Broadcast Partners and the availability of the new live TV channels.

The free TVU service, available at www.tvunetworks.com and through its downloadable application TVUPlayer, today offers some 300 live Internet TV channels, with over 3,000 new shows daily.   TVU Viewers watch live TV programs from around the world, including mainstream programs not broadcast on current cable and satellite services, as well as niche programming content currently available only by subscription or on private networks.

Joining veteran broadcasters such as Black Belt TV, The Auto Channel, Blue Highways TV, and the Nostalgia series of classic programming, announced today were a line-up of U.S. and international channels spanning entertainment, news, movies and lifestyle:

Channel 525
Mav TV, www.mavtv.com
• TV created by men for men:  women, sports, gadgets, fitness, laughs

Channel 4000
TV5 Telugu (India), www.tv5news.in
• Telugu news, politics, movies, reviews

Channel 5410
CRTV, www.crtv.ca
• Vintage TV:  the best of the 50’s through the 70’s

Channel 5420
PDTV, www.nostalgiafamilyvideo.com
• Specializing in hard-to-find, classic motion pictures

Channel 5460
Imagine TV. www.imaginetv.biz
• The best in news and entertainment

Channel 5933
WGAY-TV, www.wgaytv.com
• Proud TV from WGAY-TV, Florida

Channel 6888
Health & Lifestyle Channel (China), www.tictv.com
• Live interactive programs via WebCAM, 3G, Vphone

Channel 8670
IURD TV (Brazil), www.arcauniversal.com.br
• Lifestyle programming from Brazil

According to Rob Stevens, VP of Programming, MavTV, “MavTV is greatly impressed with the user-friendly TVU platform.  We’re excited to add TVU’s global reach to the growing list of MavTV distribution platforms.   MavTV’s irreverent, male demo programming is a perfect fit for TVU’s audience.  Their integrated geo-targeting feature enables us to block access where we already have distribution (US and UK) and introduce our brand to all the other countries in the world.”

Paul Shen, CEO of TVU Networks states, “We are happy to have been selected by these broadcasters as their content distribution medium of choice.  It’s a true win-win:  TVU’s global distribution capabilities expand the broadcasters’ reach exponentially, and the rich diversity of the programming offered by these eight new partners will surely be embraced by our 12 million viewers worldwide.”

Tags: Black Belt TV, Blue Highways TV, CRTV, Health & Lifestyle Channel, Imagine TV, IURD TV, May TV, PDTV, The Auto Channel, TV5 Telugu, TVU Networks, WGAY-TV