News Byte

Israeli Publisher Tools Vendor Conduit Valued at $1.3 Billion

Conduit, the Israeli provider of toolbars and other “engagement” products for publishers, got a big number attached to its name today: A valuation of $1.3 billion. As had been rumored (but for double the price), early Conduit investor Yozma Venture Capital sold off its stake. J.P. Morgan’s Digital Growth Fund bought 7 percent of the company for $100 million, with Conduit’s founders maintaining their controlling stake.

Cloudy With a Chance of Transformation: New Microsoft Server and Tools Head Satya Nadella Speaks!

After he was appointed the new president of Microsoft’s important Server and Tools Division from his top engineering post at its come-from-behind Bing search unit, Satya Nadella now finds himself a leader of a business that also needs to keep catching up too. In a wide-ranging interview with BoomTown yesterday, Nadella talked about both his four-year stint at Bing and how he looked forward the challenges of his new job.

News Byte

Meebo Buys Psychographic Targeter Mindset Media

Mountain View, Calif.-based Meebo, the Web toolbar maker, has acquired a New York City-based start-up called Mindset Media, which specializes in psychographic targeting for brand advertising. The company said the acquisition will help with its expansion of advertising products. Twelve members of the Mindset team will be joining Meebo, while two who work in business development will not. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Twitter Courts Google's Sundar Pichai for Head of Product

Sundar Pichai, the man in charge of Chrome and Chrome OS at Google, is being aggressively courted by Twitter to be its next head of product, according to sources. But Google is apparently fighting back hard on this latest effort by high-profile Web 2.0 companies, including Twitter and Facebook, to raid its huge talent pool.

Binging in the Holidays (With Donuts!)

Microsoft announced a bunch of new Bing updates, most notably deeper Facebook integration and a coming update for the iPhone app that allows users to upload their own panorama images.

Conduit Dumps Google Search for Microsoft's Bing

In an interesting move in the search space, Conduit–a fast-growing start-up that helps publishers make and distribute apps using Web browser toolbars–has entered a strategic partnership with Microsoft’s Bing search service. In doing so, it is leaving its existing search deal with Google and will instead offer Bing to its network of 260,000 publishers and 200 million users.

Salesforce.com Honored With Rare Microsoft Patent-Infringement Suit

In a January Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Salesforce.com listed among its risk factors “a communication from a large technology company alleging that we were infringing upon some of their patents.” The company didn’t identify the source of that communication or the extent of its allegations, only that the two were in discussions and no litigation had yet been filed. Well, on Tuesday litigation was filed–by Microsoft.

Full Disclosure: ATD Adds Meebo Toolbar

As we have with every change to features and functionality on All Things Digital, today we are writing to give you details about a new Meebo toolbar on this site. Designed to facilitate sharing, help navigation and more, it appears at the very bottom of each page on our site. The first thing you need to know: You can get rid of it whenever you like.

Pre-Gaming Facebook F8

According to popular legend, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg once kept two versions of his business card in his wallet–one with the title CEO, the other with “I’M CEO…BITCH.” Seems that before Facebook became the de facto platform of the attention economy, it was a platform for the attention-starved. Well, there will be no shortage of attention for the social networking phenom today as it kicks off its third F8 developer conference in San Francisco.

Will Bing Sneak Onto the iPad?

Sure, Apple and Google have gone from pals to frenemies to outright rivals. But would Steve Jobs and company really dump the search giant in favor of Microsoft’s Bing? We’ll get our first real clue on Saturday, when the iPad arrives.

Yahoo Opens Up