Google has acquired the social networking gaming company Slide, according to multiple reports.
The startup was created in 2005 by Max Levchin, the co-founder of PayPal.
NYTimes reports the acquistion price at $228 million while TechCrunch says $182 million. Regardless, the price is a lot cheaper than the $500 million valuation the service was given in 2008.
When Slide began, Levchin used it as a third-party photo sharing service but it quickly evolved into a widget and app service, used in social networking giants like Facebook and MySpace.
The company’s two most popular apps are SuperPoke and SPP Ranch. The first allows you to adopt a virtual pet, and exchange money for virtual goods.
Google has been spending significant amounts of money in an effort to start a social gaming platform, investing $150 million in market leader Zynga among other purchases.
Result for: nytimes
In 2007, Dell was sued over selling faulty computers to not only individual consumers, but also to corporations and big Universities who needed Dell’s OptiPlex business units.
New documents, finally unsealed in the long-standing case, show that Dell employees knew that the company was selling faulty units, and decided to instead play off the issues, allowing the corporations and schools use the computers, at risk to their business.
In a twist of irony, the firm defending Dell in the suit had 1000 Dell computers run into trouble, and the PC manufacturer refused to fix them.
Internal documents also show that Dell shipped almost 12 million computers from May 2003 to July 2005, knowing full well they were at risk of failing.
In 2005, the company took a $300 million charge to fix and replace faulty computers, and will pay up to $100 million this year to settle with the SEC for shady accounting practices.
The problems affecting the millions of computers had to do with bad capacitors found on motherboards being built by Taiwanese suppliers. After three years, the capacitors had a 97 percent chance of popping and leaking fluid.
Making matters worse, explains The NYTimes was that Dell, when they did choose to fix faulty units, would replace the motherboards with other motherboards with bad capacitors, delaying the inevitable.
Result for: nytimes
Amazon has announced it will purchase the popular site Woot.com, the site that became famous for selling just one item at a time, usually at a large discount from its normal prices.
Retailers use sites like Woot to either dump excess inventory or introduce new customers to their brand of products.
Consumers, on the other hand, get the thrill of racing other would-be buyers for a sharply discounted item.
Woot launched in 2004 and now has 2.75 million registered users. The site sells all types of items, but mostly electronics. For example, today’s Woot item is the Apple iPod Nano 8GB, 5th Generation , selling for $99 USD, a big discount from even Amazon, which has the same item listed at $125.
Amazon was Woot’s only outside investor, when they bought a piece in 2006.
The NYTimes explains that Woot is also a wholesale distributor, which distributes to Target, Amazon, and others.
