News Byte

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt to Sell Up to 42 Percent of Stake

Eric Schmidt, former CEO and now Chairman of Google, plans to sell up to 3.2 million shares of his class A common stock in the company, according to an SEC filing published Friday. The amount is equal to approximately 42.1 percent of his overall stake in Google. Schmidt will sell off the shares over the coming year in a “pre-arranged trading plan,” created for a “long-term strategy of individual asset diversification and liquidity.”

Exclusive: Digital Chief Jon Miller Leaving News Corp.

His departure brings into focus the fate of News Corp.’s overall digital strategy in an upcoming new structure.

News Byte

Telco-Backed Nonprofit WAC Calling It Quits

After two-plus years of trying to make a better platform for selling mobile apps, the Wholesale Applications Community (WAC) is handing over its assets to Palo Alto, Calif.-based Apigee. The goal of the WAC, started by AT&T, Verizon, Vodafone and others, was to build yet another app store. Turns out that its most interesting assets were around payments, including the ability for consumers to easily pay for goods using their phone bill. Apigee will work with the GSMA to keep the assets available. Terms weren’t disclosed.

Liveblogging the New Yahoo CEO Call: You Might Want to Refrain From Cussing, Scott!

Mind your P’s and Q’s and Y’s too!

Cash Isn't King–Liquidity Is

EMoney took a side trip this morning from the massive crowds gathering at Moscone in downtown San Francisco for the Game Developers Conference to Japantown, where there was an equally vibrant, albeit slightly smaller, conference called the Future of Money.

News Corp. Faces the Myspace Music With a Big Writedown [Updated]

Here’s the flip side to News Corp.’s digital optimism: The company has taken a $275 million charge on Myspace and its related Web businesses, it disclosed in today’s quarterly earnings report.

Condé Nast Gets Ready to Go Shopping, Adds $500 Million and an Ex-Yahoo

Anyone have anything they want to sell to Condé Nast? The publisher is officially in shopping mode: It has hired an M&A guy from Yahoo and raised $500 million to get him started.

Going, Going: LimeWire Shutters Online Store, Too

LimeWire, the high-profile file-sharing company, more or less shut down in October, following a federal court ruling. But the last bits of the company seem to be going away: Its online music store will be shuttered at the end of the month, and I’m told that plans to launch a new music service have been shelved.

Apple's Ping Wants Rock ‘n’ Roll, but No Sex and Drugs

When it comes to creating profiles on its would-be social network, Apple doesn’t want music acts thinking that differently.

AOL’s “Forget the Last Few Years Campaign” Continues With Buy.at Sale

Another marker in Tim Armstrong’s campaign to undo just about every part the old regime at AOL: The company has sold Buy.at, an affiliate marketing company it bought two years ago. Meanwhile, we’re still waiting to hear what happens to ICQ, among other assets.

Sellaband Selling Bands, Again

EU Approves Oracle-Sun Deal

Microsoft Updates Bing

AOL: We Need to Fire 2,500 “Volunteers”

Sprint Nextel Silences iPCS