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Tuesday, November 25, 2008

To Sell or Not to Sell–That Was the Question for Twitter (But Was Its Answer Right?)

There are two schools of thought about Twitter’s decision not to sell itself to Facebook, as it did not in the fail-whale of a deal that BoomTown reported on yesterday.

Here’s my favorite quote from an Internet exec who thought the microblogging service’s decision to turn down $500 million in stock (and some cash) in the hot social-networking site was–how can I put this delicately?–stupid:

“If Twitter turned down 500m in stock, they should go see a shrink.”

But, others disagreed, with another big Web player noting: “Why should Twitter hitch itself to Facebook’s horse, when they don’t have too?”

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Friday, September 19, 2008

Why the Yahoogle Deal Will Likely Launch–And Be Coming to an Internet Near You on October 9

Yesterday, BoomTown took a rather strong stand against Google and its recent aggressive efforts to defend its outsourcing deal to sell some of Yahoo’s search ads.

Given that the pair have a more than 80 percent combined market share in the search business, I and many others–advertisers, publishers and state and federal regulators–are a bit nervous about further concentration of market power in one set of hands, even if they are such Googley hands.

But in the interest of fairness and because I like to argue with myself, here is a counterpoint with three key reasons why Google and Yahoo might hold firm in launching the partnership, which sources said is likely to start on Oct. 9.

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About Kara

Kara Swisher started covering digital issues for The Wall Street Journal's San Francisco bureau in 1997 and also wrote the BoomTown column about the sector. With Walt Mossberg, she co-produces and co-hosts D: All Things Digital, a major high-tech and media conference. Read more »

Ethics Statement

Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.

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