Technology, Acquisition | featured news

Sun Valley and self-driving cars aside, the story of the day today is that social news site Digg has sold its remaining assets for $500K to the NYC-based tech firm Betaworks. While that number is indeed in the ballpark, we’re hearing from multiple sources that the total price of the Digg acquisition was around $16 million, including the price paid for IP by a previously unreported acquirer, LinkedIn.

Believe it or not, it's been seven years since Digg launched. To date, we've had over 350M Diggs, 28M Story Submissions and 40M Comments. We're extremely proud to have helped pioneer social voting on the web.

Microsoft Corp admitted its largest acquisition in the Internet sector was effectively worthless and wiped out any profit for the last quarter, as it announced a $6.2 billion charge to write down the value of an online advertising agency it bought five years ago. The announcement came as a surprise, but did not shock investors, who had largely forgotten Microsoft's purchase of aQuantive in 2007, which was initially expected to boost Microsoft's online advertising revenue and rival Google Inc's purchase of DoubleClick.

Dell is buying Quest Software for $2.4 billion to expand its offerings as its personal computer business weakens in an era of smartphones and sleeker devices like the iPad. The deal announced Monday capped off a bidding war that began last month when Quest revealed a mystery suitor had made an offer trumping a $2 billion sale that had been worked out with Insight Venture Partners in March. The secret bidder turned out to be Dell Inc., the second largest PC maker in the U.S. behind Hewlett-Packard Co.

Microsoft agreed to buy online social network firm Yammer for $1.2 billion in cash, which will allow the software company to offer a service like Facebook's to corporate customers.

After about a month of speculation, Facebook has finally announced its acquisition of Israeli facial recognition technology Face.com. We’ve heard from multiple sources that the acquisition price was around $100m, with others reporting that the price was between $80m-$100m. (Update: We’re now hearing from a source familiar with the matter that the price was between $55 and $60 million, and that it was a mix of cash and stock. The exact value of the deal will be changing depending on the price of Facebook’s stock.) This is absolutely not an acqui-hire, as Facebook will be taking full advantage of the company’s technology and the advancements it’s made on mobile — perhaps to finally include mobile tagging options for photos.

Microsoft Corp is close to buying business software company Yammer Inc for more than $1 billion, according to a source familiar with the details. Microsoft's interest in Yammer, known for its social networking functions, could allow the software giant to beef up its offerings for corporations.

Facebook went public just about a month ago, and on Friday the Securities & Exchange Commission released its correspondence with the social network in the months between its initial filing and the May 18 IPO.

Google Inc. in Mountain View has agreed to buy Meebo Inc., a startup that helps online publishers make their websites more social. Meebo, founded in 2005, announced the agreement Monday on its blog.

Salesforce.com agreed to acquire Buddy Media in a deal worth as much as $745 million, continuing its rapid expansion into social-media marketing. Salesforce Chief Executive Marc Benioff said the deal will help the company keep up with demand as the online marketing business matures. Chief marketing officers are expected to outpace chief information officers in directing technology spending within the next five years, according to a recent report by industry researcher Gartner.