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April 16 - Facebook and creator Mark Zuckerberg were hit with another lawsuit over the origin of the social networking website.  The lawsuit seeks, among other things, to take back legal rights to the name “Facebook.” Aaron Greenspan, a Harvard classmate of Zuckerberg around the 2004 launch of Facebook, filed the lawsuit with the United States Patent and Trademark Office on Tuesday.

Greenspan claims that his online dating and social networking site houseSYSTEM debuted months before thefacebook.com, now Facebook. Greenspan also provided substantive evidence, including a campus-wide email discussing the next phase of houseSYSTEM called “the Face Book,” to support his infringement claims. Months later in 2004, according to Greenspan, Zuckerberg created the second largest social networking site with the same name that now has over 30 million users worldwide.

It is unclear whether Facebook will go forward with this lawsuit or settle out of court. Should it follow recent trends, the company likely will settle out of court, as it did with creators of the social networking site ConnectU. The company settled within the last few weeks over claims of unfair business practices and stealing ConnectU’s business model from the two founders, also Zuckerberg classmates.

Chritic.com reported here of possible evidence of infringement claims here.

The New York Times reports here.

April 9 – Despite many impressions that Microsoft’s offer to buy Yahoo! for $31 a share was dying down and potentially would go away, all sides of the transaction are shifting strategies. On April 5, Microsoft gave the Yahoo! board until April 26th to make a deal or face a hostile takeover, which would include offers directly to shareholders with the potential for a lower bid. The Yahoo! board continues to formally reject Microsoft’s offer. With Yahoo! stock generally stagnant over the last 52 weeks (about $6 in either direction of the current close of $27.77 on 4/9/08), shareholders are much more likely to let money talk than are rich, ego-driven board members that want Yahoo! to remain independent.

New developments are in the air: The New York Times reports that Microsoft is in talks with News Corporation, the media acquisition leviathan, to make a joint bid for Yahoo! (Yahoo! Finance acknowledges this possibility here). Additionally, Yahoo! and AOL are said to be close to a deal themselves: Time Warner will agree to fold AOL into Yahoo!, while Time Warner would invest cash into 20 percent of the combined entity (giving AOL a $10 billion value). Should these be true, it could pin two very highly-bankrolled operations against each other with no room for error. So, what is all the fighting about?

It is likely that Yahoo! is fighting for its independent life, or at least wants to choose its own destiny, to prove it still has what a website needs to remain in the environment of Internet companies that matter. In the last several weeks, Yahoo! has had several major announcements in the last few weeks in an attempt to prove just that. Yahoo! launched “Buzz,” a news and Internet traffic aggregating website similar to Digg, Del.icio.us, Newsvine, and Stumbleupon. Yahoo!’s Flickr recently launched a video service, hoping to be the first realistic competition for Google’s Youtube. Yahoo! announced the acquisition of IndexTools’ Analytics Business in an effort to expand online marketing efforts. It also recently disclosed plans to use Google’s ad search engine, a revolutionary team-up between rival search engine companies. Essentially, the two companies agreed that Yahoo! could test Google’s search-based advertising in an effort to fend off Microsoft (think: enemy of my enemy is my friend).

Absent these recent efforts, Yahoo! would have little reason to give shareholder that it is in their best interest to wait this process out and have faith in the Yahoo! board. Though the leadership of the company cruised in neutral while companies such as Google flew by, they have woken up and realize they have work to do in re-establishing Yahoo!’s name. These three developments may just be enough to show shareholders that the company is working overtime and handing over the reigns to another company would thwart any efforts in keeping Yahoo! competitive.

If this is the board’s strategy, they too should make sure they are moving full speed ahead. If these recent developments at Yahoo! do not prove to shareholders that selling is a bad idea, the victor of this acquisition war will enjoy quite the spoils.

Spread the Word: :: :: :: :: ::

Feb. 28 - Sprint announced a $29.5 billion loss for the fourth quarter, writing down much of the leftover value of the Sprint-Nextel merger from the summer of 2005. CEO Dan Hesse conceded that the fourth quarter results were lower than expected and that organizational shifts he plans to make will not take effect immediately. Citing fourth quarter losses and over one million subscribers leaving last year alone to competitors, Sprint also announced a lowering of it’s price for unlimited voice and data “Simply Everything (SM)” plans to compensate:

$89 a month for unlimited voice plans

$99 a month for unlimited voice and data

This immediate shift seems to be an about face when Sprint, just last week, declined to join the AT&T, Verizon Wireless, & T-Mobile price battle.

This decision shows a weak spot in the Sprint decision-making team. This recent announcement undercuts the board and senior management’s credibility and ability to look as though they are calm, collected, and deliberative. Rather, their decisions are starting to look like knee-jerk reactions to competitors and as though they are simply catering to industry analysts.

Sprint’s announcement is here.

New York Times discusses the announcement here.

Washington Post has it here.

(In the interest of transparency, the chritic has family employed by Sprint. That family member did not contribute to this article.)

Tuesday, Feb. 5 – Apple (AAPL) announced release of a 16 gb iphone (retail $499) along with a more substantial 32 gb ipod touch (retail $499). Both products feature the same wireless and user-interface capability as previous versions.

Additionally, reports have circulated that the iphone market share for smart phones has increased to 28 percent in less than nine months since release in June 2006. Apple Insider reports here, citing British market research firm Canalys’ report dictating recent market trends in smart phone purchases.