Report: Apple in Talks to Buy Twitter

On May 5, 2009 - 8:41am.

Los Angeles - Following rumors of buyout talks with first Facebook, and then Google (NASD: GOOG), Valleywag reports that Apple (NASD: AAPL) is now in "serious negotiations" to acquire the Twitter microblogging service for as much as $700 million. The report cites "a source who's plugged into the Valley's deal scene and has been recruited by Apple for a senior position," who says Apple hopes to announce a deal by June 8, the kickoff date of its annual developers' conference.

200 Million

Facebook Hits 200 Million Users; Launches Charities Page
Palo Alto, Calif. - Online social network Facebook has reached 200 million active users, founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a blog post on Wednesday. "Growing rapidly to 200 million users is a really good start, but we've always known that in order for Facebook to help people represent everything that is happening in their world, everyone needs to have a voice," wrote Zuckerberg.
Facebook Hits 200 Million Users; Launches Charities Page

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on April 8, 2009 - 8:20am.
Palo Alto, Calif. - Online social network Facebook has reached 200 million active users, founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a blog post on Wednesday. "Growing rapidly to 200 million users is a really good start, but we've always known that in order for Facebook to help people represent everything that is happening in their world, everyone needs to have a voice," wrote Zuckerberg.

To that end, the company launched Facebook for Good, a new page "where people can share their stories about how Facebook has helped them give back to their communities, effect change or connect with a distant relative."

It also partnered with 16 charitable and advocacy organizations, including Kiva, Unicef, Livestrong and American Red Cross, which have create virtual "gifts" that members can purchase and post on one another's profiles.

Facebook said the organizations will receive 90-95% of the cost of the gift, with the remaining going to administrative expenses for the transactions.
To that end, the company launched Facebook for Good, a new page "where people can share their stories about how Facebook has helped them give back to their communities, effect change or connect with a distant relative."

It also partnered with 16 charitable and advocacy organizations, including Kiva, Unicef, Livestrong and American Red Cross, which have create virtual "gifts" that members can purchase and post on one another's profiles.

Facebook said the organizations will receive 90-95% of the cost of the gift, with the remaining going to administrative expenses for the transactions.

Along With Apple, Amazon MP3, Others Hike Digital Song Prices

Seattle - While Apple (NASD: AAPL) got the most coverage for launching variable pricing yesterday at the iTunes Store, where top songs may now be priced at $1.29 and catalog tracks at 69 cents, the change affected much of the rest of the digital music retail market, with similar price hikes seen at Amazon MP3 (NASD: AMZN), RealNetworks' (NASD: RNWK) Rhapsody, Walmart.com (NYSE: WMT) ($1.24) and Lala.

Ars Technica noted that the price increases have not been uniform across all sites, as the Black Eyed Peas' new single "Boom Boom Pow" costs $1.29 on iTunes, but can be purchased for 99 cents at Amazon MP3, and for 89 cents from Lala.com.

NPD Group recently said that 16% of U.S. digital music purchasers bought tracks from the Amazon MP3 store last year.

Billboard reports that hip-hop tracks were the most likely to see a price hike at the iTunes Store, as ten of the current top 20 were raised in price to $1.29, compared with 29% of top country songs, 25% of top rock songs, and 13% of currently popular alternative tracks.

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Conficker C April Fool's Virus

In an event that hits the computer world only once every few years, security experts are racing against time to mitigate the impact of a bit of malware which is set to wreak havoc on a hard-coded date. As is often the case, that date is April 1.

Malware creators love to target April Fool's Day with their wares, and the latest worm, called Conficker C, could be one of the most damaging attacks we've seen in years.

Conficker first bubbled up in late 2008 and began making headlines in January as known infections topped 9 million computers. Now in its third variant, Conficker C, the worm has grown incredibly complicated, powerful, and virulent... though no one is quite sure exactly what it will do when D-Day arrives.

Thanks in part to a quarter-million-dollar bounty on the head of the writer of the worm, offered by Microsoft, security researchers are aggressively digging into the worm's code as they attempt to engineer a cure or find the writer before the deadline. What's known so far is that on April 1, all infected computers will come under the control of a master machine located somewhere across the web, at which point anything's possible. Will the zombie machines become denial of service attack pawns, steal personal information, wipe hard drives, or simply manifest more traditional malware pop-ups and extortion-like come-ons designed to sell you phony security software? No one knows.

Conficker is clever in the way it hides its tracks because it uses an enormous number of URLs to communicate with HQ. The first version of Conficker used just 250 addresses each day -- which security researchers and ICANN simply bought and/or disabled -- but Conficker C will up the ante to 50,000 addresses a day when it goes active, a number which simply can't be tracked and disabled by hand.

At this point, you should be extra vigilant about protecting your PC: Patch Windows completely through Windows Update and update your anti-malware software as well. Make sure your antivirus software is actually running too, as Conficker may have disabled it.

Microsoft also offers a free online safety scan here, which should be able to detect all Conficker versions.

Amazon Kindle 2

Earth's Biggest Electronic Book Selection: 240,000 Books
At Amazon, we've always been obsessed with having every book ever printed, and we know that even the best reading device would be useless without a massive selection of books. Today, the Kindle Store has more than 240,000 books available, plus top newspapers, magazines, and blogs. This is just the beginning. Our vision is to have every book ever printed, in any language, all available in under 60 seconds on Kindle. We won't stop until we get there.
Whether you prefer biographies, classics, investment guides, thrillers, or sci-fi, thousands of your favorite books are available, including 102 of 111 books currently found on the New York Times® Best Seller list. New York Times Best Sellers and most new releases are $9.99, and you'll find many books for less.

Google adds ads to Google News searches

Google has extended its AdWords program to Google News searches, delivering text ads on the right side of the search results page, just as Google has long done with regular Web search results.

Josh Cohen, a business product manager at Google, announced the move Wednesday in a company blog:

In recent months we've been experimenting with a variety of different formats, like overlay ads on embedded videos from partners like the AP. We've always said that we'd unveil these changes when we could offer a good experience for our users, publishers and advertisers alike, and we'll continue to look at ways to deliver ads that are relevant for users and good for publishers, too.

The ads are intended to be tailored to news search terms, but the two aren't always on the same page, so to speak. While the news search understood that "spring training" was related to baseball, for example, only one of the top three ads presented made that connection, as the example below illustrates.

Faced with a much tougher economy, Google is working harder to make money off more of its properties. In recent months, it's begun showing ads in Google Earth and Google Finance as well.

Google has begun placing text ads beside Google News searches.

(Credit: Screenshot by Steven Musil/CNET News)