John Cook / John Cook’s Venture Blog:
Secret Farecast buyer is Microsoft  —  It’s official: Microsoft is the mystery buyer of Farecast, the Seattle online travel startup.  Responding to an inquiry from the P-I today, Microsoft issued this statement from spokeswoman Whitney Burk: … We reported earlier this week that the company …

Todd Bishop / Todd Bishop’s Microsoft Blog:
Microsoft’s Ozzie gives open-source outlook  —  People trying to get a sense for Microsoft’s direction will be listening closely in the coming months to Ray Ozzie, who has assumed the role of chief software architect in advance of Bill Gates ending his full-time role.

Hugh Crean / Farecast Blog:
Microsoft Acquires Farecast  —  We’re excited to confirm that Farecast has been acquired by Microsoft!  This acquisition creates tremendous opportunities for the Farecast team and our customers.  We look forward to sharing more details in the weeks to come.  On behalf of the Farecast team, thank you.

Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Web 3.0 Will Be About Reducing the Noise—And Twhirl Isn’t Helping  —  It’s my own damn fault.  I should have never listened to Mike.  This morning I installed Twhirl on my desktop in a failed attempt to keep up better with Twitter and Friendfeed.  I was hoping it would help me […]

Business Wire:
Google Announces First Quarter 2008 Results  —  MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG - News) today announced financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2008.  —  “Our ongoing innovation in search, ads, and apps helped drive healthy growth globally across our product lines …

Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Google delivers; Maybe paid clicks weren’t such a big deal  —  Google on Thursday allayed concerns about its paid click growth rate with first quarter earnings that topped Wall Street’s expectations.  —  Google reported first quarter net income of $1.31 billion, or $4.12 a share, on revenue of $5.19 […]

Amazon Web Services Blog:
May We Help You?  —  From the very beginning, we’ve always wanted to make sure that developers had all of the formal and informal support needed to build and to run their applications.  —  At first the task of monitoring the AWS Forums was a rotating part-time assignment.

Paul Bonanos / VC Ratings:
UMG confirms Buzznet investment  —  Universal Music Group has confirmed that it has taken a stake in social networking music site Buzznet Inc., three months after we first reported the deal.  UMG’s Interscope division isn’t mentioned in the companies’ joint statement, although prior reports indicated …

Arn / MacRumors:
Aluminum MultiTouch MacBook, New MacBook Pro, and More?  [Updated]  —  A MacRumors reader ran across a very unusual .Mac web page yesterday and was kind enough to forward it on.  The page contained promotional images for Apple products, including a couple that are not yet shipping products.

Arn / MacRumors:
Aluminum MultiTouch MacBook, New MacBook Pro, and More?  —  A MacRumors reader ran across a very unusual .Mac web page yesterday and was kind enough to forward it on.  The page contained promotional images for Apple products, including a couple that are not yet shipping products.