Balloon Boy

I Love the Smell of Settlement in the Morning: Skype Founders Set to Get 10 Percent, Option to Buy Three Percent More and Two Board Seats

Kara Swisher in News on November 4, 2009 at 11:38 pm PT

According to several sources close to the situation, barring any unforeseen delay, a deal to settle the Skype imbroglio is likely to be announced around the time the markets open tomorrow. While the massive agreement–which will settle a series of lawsuits waged by Skype’s co-founders–is not yet officially signed, sources said lawyers are apparently putting the finishing touches on the paperwork. Sources also said that those co-founders–Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis–will get 10 percent of Skype back for rights to key technology they control, an option to pay $83 million for another three percent of the Internet telephony service and two seats on the 23-member board.

Clutter-Free, Twittified, Binged (and Also Apple-icious): The New MSN Homepage Debuts (Plus Screenshots and the Press Release)

Kara Swisher in News on November 3, 2009 at 8:15 pm PT

The new MSN homepage debuts tonight and you would be completely correct in thinking the recipe Microsoft has cooked up to inform its design ethos–white, clean and hiply modern–has definite echoes of a certain longtime tech rival. That would be Apple, of course, with a big dollop of Twitter and Facebook tossed in, and finished off with a generous sprinkling of Microsoft’s new Bing search service. For those who care: The MSN butterfly logo remains, although it appears to have lost a lot of weight.

Investors Bet on Another Real-Time Start-Up. Next Up for Hot Potato: Product, Users.

Peter Kafka in Media on October 23, 2009 at 12:16 pm PT

Here’s a good way to get your hands on scarce venture capital money: Create a start-up geared around Twitter-like “real-time” sharing and conversations. The newest entrant: Hot Potato, a buzzy start-up that’s supposed to let users converse about a particular event, whether they’re attending it in person or watching from afar. When it’s up and running, that is. The five-man crew doesn’t have users or a product just yet. But it has just raised around $1 million.

Does Checkbook Blogging Pay Off? “Hard to Measure,” Says Gawker Media’s Nick Denton.

Peter Kafka in Media on October 19, 2009 at 3:00 am PT

Another scandal, another Gawker story, and another payday for the person who sold Gawker the news. No big deal, says Nick Denton, the blog impresario: We’ll keep doing it.