Earlier this week, Liberty Media offered $17 per share, or $1 billion for giant book retailer Barnes & Noble.
Shares of the company, however, jumped to $18.33 by the close on Friday, as Wall Streets expects a competing bid.
Furthermore, many believe the bid undervalues the company, which has been struggling for years now.
Liberty is bidding for the company in an effort to continue the strong sales and growth of the Nook e-reader and Nook Color e-reader/tablet.
Finally, the offer is conditional on founder and current Chairman Leonard Riggio keeping a stake in his company and staying involved in running the company.
Barnes & Noble has around 30 percent of the e-book market, has 720 superstores, and has been up for sale since August.
Result for: 1 billion
In a move that should bring substantial more money to author JK Rowling, the blockbuster ‘Harry Potter’ book series is expected to go digital for the first time ever, 14 years after the 1997 release of ‘The Sorcerer’s Stone.’
All seven of the books will soon become available via the iPad and the Kindle e-reader, and should net Rowling £100 million.
Scotsman cites Rowling’s agent as confirming the imminent deal.
Rowling has an estimated fortune nearing $1 billion USD, following the record sales of the books, the films, the DVD/Blu-rays and other merchandise.
One editor added:
Experts believe that move could revolutionize the world of electronic publishing, triggering rocket sales of e-book readers such as Kindle and the iPad.
Result for: 1 billion
Evan Williams, Twitter’s co-founder, has said this week that he expects the microblogging site to hit 1 billion users, although he would not give a time frame.
Earlier in the month, Williams stepped down as CEO.
Twitter currently has just over 165 million members, but the service has been seeing exponential growth since 2008.
Zeus Kerravala of Yankee Group Research says the goal is huge but possible: “A billion does seem a bit aggressive. But I do think, over time, social networking will overtake e-mail as the most popular communication tool. In that light, 1 billion isn’t out of reach. Younger people will choose Twitter and Facebook over e-mail.”
Kerravala also said e-mail was becoming an “old people’s” tool, while Twitter was the modern equivalent.
“Over the next five years, as high school kids go to college and college kids enter the workforce, we’ll see a rapid shift away from ‘old people’ communication tools like e-mail and the phone,” he continued. “Twitter allows you to reach out to thousands of people at once.”







