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Yahoo’s resistance to a takeover by Microsoft looks foolhardy to some investors and Wall Street analysts. But the push-back may prove effective in the end—at least by forcing the suitor to cough up a few more bucks a share. Executives from Yahoo (YHOO) on Apr. 7 reiterated the reasons for their opposition. The $31-a-share offer, made public Feb. 1, "substantially undervalues" Yahoo, and its stock component is even less attractive in light of Microsoft’s (MSFT) slumping share price. "We have continued to launch new products and to take actions which leverage our scale, technology, people, and platforms as we execute on the strategy we publicly articulated," Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang and Chairman Roy Bostock wrote.
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Microsoft (MSFT) just dropped the bomb on Yahoo (YHOO). Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on Apr. 5 sent a letter giving Yahoo’s board three weeks before it initiates a proxy fight, including nomination of a new slate of directors likely to approve the deal.
Tag: LinkedIn
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When a small padlock appears in the corner of your Web browser’s address bar or the entire bar turns green, it seems like a powerful signal you’re safe to proceed. But experts say the SSL certificates those green lights signify — digital stamps of approval that Web sites buy to prove they’re running a legitimate business and can send and receive encrypted data safely — don’t provide the safety they seem to. "They instill some sense of security, but that could be a dangerously false sense of security," said Paul Mutton, a researcher with UK-based security firm Netcraft Ltd. The site itself could still be riddled with security holes for hackers to exploit. And the certificate could simply be bogus: Criminals have been forging them to get the padlock icon and dress up fraudulent sites.
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During the Web’s heyday, a profitable Internet company nearing $100 million in annual sales while luring a million new customers a month would have found itself on the IPO fast track. But that’s hardly the case for LinkedIn, a professional networking site that has cleared those hurdles and then some. Instead, LinkedIn is hewing closely to the Web economy’s new motto on initial public offerings: Easy does it. Founded in 2003, LinkedIn may not sell shares until some time next year. Likewise, social networking site Facebook, worth $15 billion on paper, may not go public until 2010,
I was recently invited to join a professional colleague’s Facebook network. Up until then, I had strictly used LinkedIn as my only social network primarily because a) I have always found LinkedIn to be very useful for business, and b) I perceived Facebook as a playground for college kids.
Well I was wrong. Facebook is awesome, and many of my professional colleagues were way ahead of me in discovering the network’s value. Its utility becomes very powerful as your network multiplies and matures. To be quite honest, I now view LinkedIn as a great place to view a professional profile or resume, but that is about it. Facebook provides a scalable method for communicating with your professional network. The bottom-line is that I am learning to love Facebook.
Since we are talking about Facebook, I thought you might also enjoy this article about the Facebook phenomenon.
“For college students, if it’s Facebook, it’s love | Reuters”
For the Facebook generation, love now comes with a drop-down menu.
With profiles on the Facebook social networking site (www.facebook.com/) almost de rigueur on college campuses, students can define their relationship status with menu choices ranging from “married” to that perennial favorite, “It’s complicated.”
“It’s complicated” could also describe the emotional calculations people in their late teens and early 20s make as they decide whether their relationships are what they call “Facebook-worthy.” MORE >>
My Social Network Profiles:
Facebook >>
LinkedIn >>
deli.cio.us Bookmarks >>
I spent a few minutes today working on my "Steve Woda LinkedIn Profile". I love LinkedIn, and I like the idea of having an online profile that folks can refer to if they want to get the basics on who you are. I have to be honest though, there are too many of these things out there, and it will be nice when one company has become the defacto standard.
This ties into my favorite subject, portable trust and reputation. The Wall Street Journal discussed portable reputation on 8/2/06, and they mentioned a few of the companies in this space including Trufina and Opinity. This subject is going to get bigger and bigger this next year, and I expect buySAFE will be leading the charge with its portable trust signal, the buySAFE Seal.
Important Portable Trust & Reputation blogs:
buySAFE blog
Trufina blog
Opinity blog
Rapleaf blog