Yahoo’s new CEO mulls options
Tech news from around the web:
Yahoo‘s new chief executive Scott Thompson has a long to-do list waiting for him at the troubled internet company, according to several reports. Bloomberg suggests that Yahoo is interested in acquiring the Weather Channel, WebMD and AutoTrader.com, according to an anonymous source, as part of a “tax-efficient asset swap” with Alibaba and Softbank. Read more
NFL deals come with digital rights
When the National Football League yesterday struck a trio of eye-popping deals with big TV networks, the focus was rightly on just how valuable live sports have become to broadcasters today.
But buried in the press releases heralding the agreements (which will bring the NFL $24bn over nine years) was some rather revolutionary news: the TV networks also secured the digital rights to the most popular sport on television. Read more
Tech news from around the web:
Black Friday – the day after Thanksgiving – saw $816m spent online sales, according to research and monitoring group Comscore, making it the heaviest online spending day so far in 2011 and representing a 26% increase against Black Friday 2010. Thanksgiving Day, achieved a 18% increase to $479m, Comscore reports. Read more
Tech news from around the web:
Sony Music, the recently acquired EMI, and Universal Music are all expected to offer MP3 downloads on Google’s music service, which the online search group is scheduled to unveil on Wednesday, Billboard reports. A person with knowledge of the negotiations leading up to the launch of Google Music told Billboard that Warner Music Group is still in talks to join the service. Read more
Tech stories from around the web:
Research In Motion is facing a possible class action lawsuit in Canada over the global outage that struck BlackBerry customers last month, Cnet reports. RIM said it would not comment on the suit, which was filed yesterday in Quebec Superior Court. Read more
It is a chastened Reed Hastings who has just decided to ditch his disastrous plan to split Netflix into two businesses – Netflix and “Qwikster” – and stick with what his customers liked in the first place.
Mr Hastings is right to back down – if nothing else, his bold experiment with “disruptive innovation” has mainly disrupted his own company. Its shares have not recovered since he raised prices and announced his plan to turn his DVD rental business into Qwikster while keeping the Netflix name for video streaming.
Tech news from around the web – including a round-up of the latest news and speculation surrounding Tuesday’s launch by Apple:
Sprint, theUS mobile telecoms company, has made a multibillion-dollar committment to gain access to the latest iPhone models from Apple, The Wall Street Journal reports. Sprint has committed to buy at least 30.5m iPhones, even though – according to the WSJ - it is likely to lose money on the deal until 2014.
Ahead of today’s launch, Vodafone Germany has started offering memory options of 16GB, 32GB and 64GB on the iPhone 4, TNW says. The move has fuelled rumours that Apple will not debut the iPhone 5 today – instead unveiling a low-cost iPhone 4 model and new iPhone 4S models. Read more
Tech news from around the web:
Online music streaming group Spotify is to open up its nascent US service, chief executive Daniel Ek told TechCrunch. Spotify in the US will no longer be invite-only and essentially be free for a user’s first six months of using the service. Read more
At first glance, the apology by Reed Hastings, chief executive of the US video service Netflix, for raising the base price of his video service by 60 per cent looks sincere and heartfelt – the kind of plain-speaking that is too rare in chief executives.
“I messed up. I owe everyone an explanation.”
Tech news from around the web:
Netflix CEO Rex Hastings has announced that the online movie rental company is to separate the DVD and video streaming services, CNN reports. The DVD-by-mail service will now be called Qwikster, and the streaming service will maintain the Netflix brand. Customers can still subscribe to both, but the two sites will no longer be integrated.
Google Wallet, the online company’s mobile payment and daily deals service, is set to be launched on Monday, according to TechCrunch. The service was first unveiled in May and will allow users to load credit cards onto its app and tap a mobile phone equipped with Near Field Communication to a special reader at a till to make a purchase. Read more
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Richard Waters has headed the FT's San Francisco bureau since 2002 and covers Google and Microsoft, among other things. A former New York bureau chief for the FT, he is intrigued by Silicon Valley's unique financial and business culture, and is looking forward to covering his second Tech Bust.
Chris Nuttall has been online and messing around with computers for more than 20 years and since 2004 has reported from the FT's San Francisco bureau on semiconductors, video games, consumer electronics and all things interwebby.
Maija Palmer has been writing about technology for the FT since 1999 and is fascinated by cybercrime, privacy and all the other issues of the information society. Based in London, she covers European tech companies and hopes that they won't all get acquired by American rivals.
Robin Kwong is the FT's technology, media and telecoms page editor in London. Formerly he was the Taipei correspondent and wrote about the companies that manufacture the vast majority of the world's computers and gadgets. He is interested in the intricacies of the technology supply chain and how China is increasingly changing the tech landscape.
Tim Bradshaw is the FT's digital media correspondent, and has just moved from London to join our team in San Francisco. He has covered start-ups such as Twitter and Spotify, as well as the online ambitions of more established media companies, such as the BBC iPlayer. He also covers the advertising, marketing and video-game industries. Tim has been writing about technology, business and finance since 2003.
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