John Furrier / Furrier.org:
Silicon Valley Rumor: Microsoft to Buy Yahoo Search and Then Facebook  —  My sources say that the Yahoo and Microsoft teams are bunkered down in a Palo Alto hotel hammering out the final stages of a transaction that will have Microsoft picking up the Yahoo search business.  Word is that this […]

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent.org:
AOL-Bebo: $850M Deal Closes; AOL Combines Bebo, AIM, ICQ Into People Networks Headed By Shields  —  It’s official—AOL (NYSE: TWX) now owns Bebo, closing the $850 million acquisition roughly two months after making it public.  The social media network will not stand on its own; instead …

Saul Hansell / Bits:
Apple Wants More Mobile Music From Labels  —  As part of Apple’s efforts to improve on the shortcomings of its popular iPhone, the company has approached some of the major music labels to try to expand the variety of ringtones and other musical features available on the device, several label executives […]

Brooke Crothers / CNET News.com:
AMD sets new game PC specifications  —  Advanced Micro Devices will try to make buying a game PC more like selecting a game console.  —  “AMD Game” will put badging on game PCs and set minimum standards for PCs that carry these badges.  The idea is to allow gamers to […]

Alistair Croll / GigaOM:
Why WetPaint & Other UGC Sites Get Big Money  —  First the money flowed to social sites like Facebook that showed the world how to get users to interact.  Then it moved on to “roll your own” platforms like Ning that allowed people to build their own social microsites.