The board of iLike planned a meeting earlier tonight to go over a buyout offer by MySpace, several sources close to the situation said. But it was suddenly canceled because of some thorny tax implications related to the talent-retention part of the deal to purchase the social music start-up.

This does not mean the pending acquisition is in jeopardy, sources said, and it could be on track to be signed as early as today, barring any more complications.

What’s also been unclear is the actual price the social networking giant is paying for iLike, which has been reported as about $20 million. In fact, only $13.5 million will be paid in cash, with $6 million slated for forward payments to retain key talent.

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On my recent trip to Seattle, I visited the offices of iLike, in the Capitol Hill section of that lovely Pacific Northwest city, to take a video gander at one of the more interesting start ups to emerge from the social networking arena.

The music discovery site, unlike a lot of others in its sector, has been plugging away for several years with much less funding (about $16 million from the founding Partovi twin brothers, former AOL wunderkind Bob Pittman and a big slug from Ticket Master), but a lot more impact.

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The ankle-biters have spoken and it seems that I am completely wrong in my estimation in several recent posts where I wrote that Facebook widgets are–how shall we put it delicately?–exceedingly inane.
Why? Apparently because inane is the goal! Well then, I guess: Mission accomplished!

At an appearance at the Web 2.0 Summit yesterday, a group on [...]

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In a you-hurt-my-feelings post on his blog earlier this week, entrepreneur Marc Canter (pictured here) turned my one little quip to his bellowing question at the recent iLike party into a huge deal about why he was not invited to the D: All Things Digital conference that I co-produce with Walt Mossberg.
At the party, Canter [...]

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Why shouldn’t the Partovi brothers–Hadi and Ali, both longtime serial tech entrepreneurs who sold their previous companies for big scores–give a little love back to that nice boy, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook?

So, last night, they threw a party to celebrate their start-up called iLike and also send some appreciation in Facebook’s direction.
After all, their social [...]

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