While Wetpaint’s $25 million new round of funding was leaked to one and all under embargo until 12:01 am EST today–including BoomTown, so don’t assume any of us report our little hearts out on all these bits of news–what the press release did not disclose, sources said, was an intriguing new investor: Fidelity Investments.

What’s interesting about this wrinkle is that it is yet another validation in Web 2.0 world from a large traditional institutional investor.

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Today, we debut our new redesign of the home screen of AllThingsD.com.

It is, in fact, our second redesign since we launched the site in late April of 2007, although it is a much more drastic redesign, with a lot more elements added.

Why did we do it? No, we are not hyperactive (OK, we are, but we are taking medication for that).

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Project Granola?

Apparently, that’s the jokey nickname that’s been given by some in the company to Microsoft’s new online strategy, in the wake of its failed efforts to acquire Yahoo that ended in a big heap of mess this past weekend.

Now, sources tell BoomTown, it is all about “organic”–hence the image of a healthy handful of granola (except for the fact that, in my experience, nobody really likes granola after eating it as much as they think will before).

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Spot Runner, the online ad agency, delivered yet another Web 2.0 miracle today, raising another $51 million in funding from a diverse group of investors.
Among other services, Spot Runner makes and places low-cost television and radio ads for small businesses and is trying to bridge the gap between the traditional and online ad market.
In this [...]

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Who’ll get Digg? (Odds-on favorite and sources tell me much sooner than later: Google.)
And who might make a bid for Slide, RockYou, LinkedIn, Meebo or imeem? (It might be smart for News Corp. [NWS] to double down in the social- networking space, if it can’t trade MySpace for a piece of Yahoo.)
And what about a [...]

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And, as BoomTown wrote yesterday, so the war of attrition for Yahoo begins.
Not with a bang, but a whimper. And so much whine, I am considering serving up a nice plate of cheese to all players.
But while the first moves by Microsoft (MSFT), which is seeking to take over Yahoo (YHOO), seem a bit [...]

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Oh, Max!
I just got through telling someone who asked me that I thought you, Slide founder Max Levchin, was one of the smarter Web 2.0 characters.
Then, of course, you get to be on the cover of Portfolio magazine for its “Brilliant” issue this month. Apparently, Max, you are Silicon Valley’s new “It” Boy.

But for all [...]

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RockYou, widget maker, is the latest example of a sane valuation heartbreaker, as it is undertaking efforts to secure an investment from mainstream financing firms that would value the company at between $300 million and $400 million.

First reported by Valleywag last night, the start-up, said one source, “is being squired around Wall Street” by investment behemoth Morgan Stanley, in search of the same kind of deal its rival Slide got in January.

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With all the noise about Microsoft’s $41 billion offer to buy Yahoo, I dropped the ball on posting about a chat I had about a week ago with Slide’s Max Levchin about the recent $50 million investment that valued the widget maker at an astonishing $500 million.

To say I was dumbstruck by the market value, given that the profitless start-up has only about $10 million to $12 million in annual revenue and a still unproven business plan, would be wrong.

Incredulous, yes. Gobsmacked, indeed. Feeling like I was back in 1999, most definitely. But not dumbstruck!

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You have to hand it to Slide Founder and CEO Max Levchin, who has just launched a new blog.

The title of the blog? “You’ve Gotta Be Kidding Me: The Official Press Organ of the Maxist Revolution.”

Very funny, Max!

By spooky coincidence, “you’ve gotta be kidding me” is the working title and guiding principle of a post I am preparing on Slide’s recent $500 million valuation!

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It’s Bubble Time!
As BoomTown broke the news in its post earlier today, Slide grabbed a big pile of cash from new investors–$50 million from Fidelity and T. Rowe Price–which puts the value of the company at $550 million.
In our post, we said the San Francisco start-up, whose widgets are among the most popular on Facebook [...]

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Call it the Facebook Funding Effect.

I am still collecting details, but Slide–the San Francisco start-up whose widgets are among the most popular on Facebook and MySpace–is completing a round of funding that could value it at many times a multiple of its most recent $60 million to $80 million valuation.

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Fortune had an interesting article by Jeffrey M. O’Brien on the links between and among the various alumni of the PayPal online payment service, focusing on the Mafia-like aspects of their affiliation.
Actually, after reading it, with all the silly sniping among some of them (now all apparently resolved), it sounded to me more like the [...]

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Marc Canter isn’t the only one talking out loud about Google’s OpenSocial initiative.
Max Levchin, founder, chairman and CEO of Slide–the No. 1 widget maker on Facebook–sent out an email (posted in full after the jump) on Friday about the development. His point? For makers of third-party applications for social networks, their bread is buttered on [...]

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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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