Zynga Confirms It Is Seeking Partners for Online Gambling Initiatives

Operating the largest poker game on Facebook is not enough — Zynga has confirmed that it is exploring the prospects for real-money gambling, and is in active talks with several partners.
Lo Toney Announces Zynga Casino at Unleashed 2011

Talking Schmidt: Google’s CEO in His Own Words

Eric Schmidt once said Google’s “policy is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it.” But during his soon-to-end tenure as CEO he happily high-stepped across that line like the grand marshal of the Tone-Deaf Technocrat Parade, as I once joked. After the jump, a collection of some of his more remarkable pronouncements.

Cricket Wireless’s All-You-Can-Eat Music Plan Stumbles on Way to the Buffet

The prepaid cellular service company says that it is taking a little longer to launch its Muve music server as it works to iron out some software bugs. Cricket still hopes to launch in Las Vegas later this month and in nine additional markets in February with a goal of expanding to all its cities by the spring.

Déjà Vu: Facebook's Questionable Stock Hijinks Feels Like Winklevii 2.0

CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg’s clear intent to keep the lid on Facebook tight–with no disclosure about the details of the financial performance and other pertinent information a public offering would require be disclosed–is clearly becoming a nettlesome issue for the company. But while that effort at preserving secrecy by staying private has resulted in little more than cute media guessing games about a possible IPO until now, the social networking giant’s most recent machinations are too clever by a half.

Little-Known Cricket Wireless Tries a New Take on Subscription Music

Bundling a music subscription into other goods and services has been tried a lot, mostly without success. However, Cricket Wireless is hoping to succeed where many others have failed. It’s launching a service next month that includes music downloads in the cost of prepaid cellphone service. For $55 a month, customers get unlimited text, talk and Web, plus all the music they can cram onto the phone.

Voices

Warner Bros. Probing Online Leak of "Harry Potter"

Warner Bros. is investigating how the first 36 minutes of the newest “Harry Potter” film came to be posted on the Internet late Monday night, four days ahead of the movie’s world-wide theatrical debut on Friday.

LimeWire Gives Up the Ghost, Shuts Down P2P File-Sharing Client

Last spring, music file-sharing service LimeWire suffered a crushing blow in federal court. This is the net result: The company will stop distributing its core software, and will disable “hundreds of millions” of existing downloads. It’s the victory the big music labels have been seeking for some time.

Google CEO Apologizes for Street View Schmidtstorm

Apologies from Google CEO Eric Schmidt are as rare as Bing bookmarks at Google HQ, so consider the one offered after the jump–for his cavalier suggestion that folks worried about Google Street View invading their privacy should “just move”–something of a milestone.

Schmidt: Don’t Like Google Street View Photographing Your House? Then Move.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt says the company’s “policy is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it.” And while that may be true of Google, it’s clearly not true of Schmidt, who last week suggested that people concerned about photos of their homes appearing on Google Street View should “just move.”

Comcast Won’t Talk About NBCU, Will Talk About Internet Video

Comcast couldn’t mollify Wall Street about its pending deal to buy NBC Universal this morning, because it refused to talk about the deal at all. The company did spend time, though, explaining the peril and possibilities that Web video poses for the cable giant.
fancast

10 CAR PILE-UP! ROTFL!

Facebook Unveils Social (Class) Actions?