TowerOne.com

Now thats funny. According to the NY Times, eBay, who bought over 28% of Craiglist in 2004, have filed a law suit against the company claiming that ..”Craigslist’s two directors, the founder Craig Newmark and the chief executive, Jim Buckmaster, took actions that unfairly diluted eBay’s economic interest in the company.”

There is speculation that this is connected to Craiglist raising another funding round despite have wads of cash in the bank.

Don’t you just love families?

Bloody typical. As if we haven’t got enough to worry about with terrorism, aids, bird-flu, global warming, meteors, turbulent money markets, the rising price of oil, and a looming recession. Now Fortune is reporting that Microsoft may be eyeing the iPhone as a potential outlet for their software, including Office applications and voice control for Apple’s iPhone.

For a little more than a week, a team of the company’s Silicon Valley software engineers has been examining the iPhone software development kit (SDK for short), a set of tools Apple (AAPL) released this month that let outsiders build software for the iPhone and the iPod touch. Microsoft (MSFT) executives aren’t sure yet whether they’ll find worthwhile opportunities to sell iPhone software – but they seem eager to find out.

“It’s really important for us to understand what we can bring to the iPhone,” Tom Gibbons, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Specialized Devices and Applications Group, told Fortune on Monday. “To the extent that Mac Office customers have functionality that they need in that environment, we’re actually in the process of trying to understand that now.”

I know Microsoft has had a large development team dedicated to Mac for some time, but give us a break.  The guys at Redmond are stalking us. Everywhere we turn, Office is there, watching, waiting. I can’t bring myself to take a shower without hiding the kitchen knives away first. Is Steve Ballmer really Norman Bates in disguise? Coming mother.

photo credit: Brymo

PE Hub is reporting that Demand Media, the Santa Monica based domain name aggregator and registrar, has raised $35 million in additional Series D funding. The company has now raised $355m in total.

Their marketing blurb says .. Demand Media^TM is a social media company that connects content creators and large audiences with advertisers through its network of vertical media web properties. By using its proprietary social media tools and the unique distribution platform of the world’s second largest domain registrar, Demand Media provides an interactive, personalized and vertically-focused media experience for users.

3i Group, Oak Investment Partners,  Spectrum Equity Investors.

Outrage! Michael Arrington has branded Britons as ‘..having all the crazy-stupid ideas about how to screw up the music industry’. Surely not sir? You are a cad of the first order sir and I challenge you to a duel. Pistols at dawn. Outside right now, the honor of the British nation is at stake.

So what has caused this great champion of capitalism to insult the very soul of Britishness? Apparently Billy Bragg (you remember him, the socialist musician with a face like a bloodhound at a funeral whose extensive back catalogue includes such musical classics as ‘Tank Park Salute’, ‘Sulk’ and ‘There Is Power In A Union’) has said that Bebo should share some of its buy-out windfall with the musicians who have posted their music to the site.

“The musicians who posted their work on Bebo.com are no different from investors in a start-up enterprise…Now that the business has reaped huge benefits, surely they deserve a dividend.”

photo credit: p_c_w

He also argues that the social networking sites are adding to the declining sales in the music industry by encouraging free streaming and downloading.

Predictably, MA has come down on the side of the capitalists, leveling that Billy is talking a load of old bollocks (I paraphrased a little here). MA’s counters Social networks have absolutely nothing to do with the decline in music sales. The fact that recorded music can be reproduced at a zero marginal cost is why music sales are declining.

He goes on to say that Recorded music is nothing but marketing material to drive awareness of an artist.

Gentlemen, sometimes it is better to keep ones’ mouth shut and have everyone suspect that you are a fool rather than open it and show everyone you are. Certainly damning the entire British nation on the strength of the words from a single demi-musician seems a tad harsh.
Until dawn then Michael.

Sharpcast, has announced the release of the first-ever solution that seamlessly synchronizes both Mac OS and Windows computers, mobile phones and the Web. Built on the company’s patent-pending Universal Synchronization Platform, SugarSync’s powerful software-service combination gives people the easiest way to keep digital media and files automatically in sync across multiple computers, backed up online and remotely accessible from their mobile phones or through any web browser.

SugarSync is available for free trial at www.sugarsync.com. Through a special Founders’ Circle promotion, anyone subscribing to the service by April 15th will receive 50% off his or her first year’s subscription fees and become eligible for future Founders’ Circle offers and exclusive early access to new Sharpcast products.

Founded in 2004, Sharpcast investors are Draper Fisher Jurvetson,  Selby Venture Partners, and SIGMA.

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