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Epicenter The Business of Tech Google Poaches Social Search Service Aardvark * By Ryan Singel Email Author * February 11, 2010 | * 3:49 pm | * Categories: Search * aardvark-answer1The coolest search engine you've never used got snapped up by Google Thursday for a reported $50 million. Aardvark, a company that lets you use IM, Twitter and e-mail to ask full-text questions and then get answers from people in or close to your social network, confirmed it signed a deal with Google. TechCrunch, which first reported the news, put the figure at $50 million, but Wired.com could not confirm the purchase price.

But the last thing savvy tech companies want is for a product to end up as a frequent mention in #fail on Twitter. Yet that is exactly where Google Buzz was frequently mentioned, just hours after many consumers started to play with the new tool. One of the complaints was that Buzz seemed to have a mind of its own, picking names in your email inbox , and selecting them randomly for you to follow in your "Buzz" network. "Thanks Google Buzz, I'm automatically following 3 ex-girlfriends. #fail," wrote Tony Pitluga of Pittsburgh in a tweet that was widely re-tweeted last week. Another problem users discovered is that Google makes public everything you do in Buzz in its search engine, unless you set the privacy settings ahead of time.

"When Google unveiled Buzz, its answer to Facebook and Twitter, on Tuesday, it hoped to get its service off to a fast start by scanning the contact lists of Gmail users and automatically adding the most frequent correspondents as online friends. But what the company viewed as an obvious shortcut stirred up a beehive of angry critics.

"Taiwanese regulator the National Communications Commission (NCC) has revised its mobile TV licensing plans, announcing that, contrary to its previous announcement, only one concession will be awarded in 2010. As reported by CommsUpdate on 18 January 2010, the NCC revealed that it planned to award two operators concessions for mobile TV services, allocating each licensee 6MHz in the 600MHz frequency band across which it will deliver 18-20 programme channels using either the Qualcomm-developed MediaFLO or DVB-H as its mobile TV standard."

Mermigas says NBC too focused on bc schedule. Missing the digital opportunities offered by Leno and O'Brien