Facebook Gnawing Away at LinkedIn
TechCrunch
Facebook wants to continue its meteoric rise in the social networking arena by taking a bite out of LinkedIn. The site has recently allowed users to publish two different profile versions for friends and professional contacts and is reportedly gearing up to launch new networking capabilities to its API. Michael Arrington believes that these new tweaks could prove to be very significant. “Facebook could build a LinkedIn-type networking application within the overall Facebook network. And that could be very bad for LinkedIn in the long run.”
Jiglu Makes Life a Little Easier for Bloggers
VentureBeat
Relief may be on the way for bloggers who have grown tired of organizing content by tagging every post. A new service called Jiglu is designed to tag posts automatically using complicated contextual search formulas. The service will also allow bloggers to automatically embed links in their posts that will link back to related content. Chris Morrison sees potential in the new offering, but suggests that any new blog-related company faces an uphill battle. “Blogs are already crowded with competing services, from Sphere to Widgetbox add-ons. Any startup seeking to further the limited real-estate of blogs risks disappearing as soon as the shiny patina wears off.”
How Stuff Sells
IP Democracy
The popular web reference site HowStuffWorks has been acquired by Discovery for a cool $250 million. The goal, according to Discovery is to beef up the company’s lagging web presence and promote television programs online. Cynthia Brumfield believes the move will boost Discovery’s web presence, but still sees the purchase as a bit of a head-scratcher. “The $250 million price tag seems steep for a site that counts only 3.8 million unique U.S. users per month and 11 million users globally.”
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