Infotrade

Oops, Microsoft is about announce the juicy details of its ‘Mango’ update to Windows Phone 7, but the early appearance of a  Romanian press release  appears to have spilled at least some of the beans. As  Gizmodo  notes, a Google Translate pass over  the release reveals the following: • Threads. You can toggle between messages, chat up, and Windows Live Messenger, all in the same conversation • Groups. Contact groups Tiles custom Live turns to see the latest statuses and quickly send a message to an email or instant message to the entire group, directly from the Start screen • Better integration with social networks. Twitter and LinkedIn contacts are integrated into the card and can include up Mango check-in, also have available one nine facial detection software that makes it easy tagging your photos or posting them on the Internet • Linked inbox. More email accounts in a secure inbox, conversations are organized so you can view the most recent mail • Hands-fr...

"I think that this is an industry that treasures new things; there's almost a natural tendency to devalue companies that have a history," said Charles King, president of research firm Pund-IT. "And in the IT world, there's no other company around that has the history of IBM." IBM may not be tech's sexiest company, but investors should still check out the hardware and software giant. From its early years selling tabulating machines, Big Blue has morphed into a 21st century powerhouse touting a vast range of tech products from mainframes and servers to a growing portfolio of software and services. Based on Monday's close, IBM has now even surpassed  Microsoft's ( MSFT _ )  market cap for the first time in 15 years, highlighting its ongoing momentum. "Large cap investors have fewer and fewer places to go;  Cisco ( CSCO _ ) ,  HP ( HPQ _ ) , and Microsoft are on their backs, while others that are doing well have sky-high valuations such as N...

Word has been circulating for weeks now that  Twitter  was soon to be swooping up the popular third-party app, TweetDeck. In early May,  Mike Arrington reported  that the deal was as good as done, but the two companies were not yet willing to publicly release the numbers. Today, CNN and CNET broke the news that  TweetDeck has been acquired by Twitter for $40 million. Twitter has yet to officially confirm, but judging by what we’re hearing from sources close to the deal, it’s done and done. As you may remember, the story of TweetDeck’s acquisition has changed a bit since February, as reports indicated at that point that TweetDeck was on the verge of being acquired by Bill Gross’ UberMedia — the price speculated at between $25 and $30 million. And, as it seems, Twitter was having none of that. They apparently rushed in with a counteroffer — an offer now proved to be on that TweetDeck couldn’t refuse. You can check out TechCrunch EU for the  full story on how...

Imagine a circle that contains all of human knowledge: By the time you finish elementary school, you know a little: By the time you finish high school, you know a bit more: With a bachelor's degree, you gain a specialty: A master's degree deepens that specialty: Reading research papers takes you to the edge of human knowledge: Once you're at the boundary, you focus: You push at the boundary for a few years: Until one day, the boundary gives way: And, that dent you've made is called a Ph.D.: Of course, the world looks different to you now: So, don't forget the bigger picture: Keep pushing.

Symantec , the computer software security giant, has announced that it will be acquiring enterprise-class eDiscovery management platform maker,  Clearwell Systems for $390 million. Symantec is probably best known for its widely proliferated (perhaps even ubiquitous) Norton security products, but of late it has been making a play at eDiscovery platforms, a strategic move, considering Gartner values the market at around $1.7 billion, and is expected to grow at an annual rate of 14 percent. What’s more, Symantec spent $2 billion last year in acquisitions, $1.25+ billion of that coming in its acquisition of VeriSign, Inc. While the company’s stock languished last year, and shareholders and more pushed for the company to break up, Symantec has pushed on. Symantec expects Clearwell to increase the company’s ability to provide its customers with archiving and backup services, considering that Clearwell is one of the more well-known information management platforms out there. I mean, hey,...

Jeff Jarvis  is the creator of Entertainment Weekly, a San Francisco Examiner columnist, the Associate Publisher of The Daily News, and a consultant to new media companies — in other words, a veteran of the old school and a proponent of the new. Jarvis took to the stage today at Disrupt NYC for some banter with TechCrunch Big Kahuna Mike Arrington. The two writers talked about their past, including Jarvis’ history of calling out Arrington publicly for saying the New York Times was in the pocket of a startup, among other things. As such, their conversation was candid and casual, and focused on the fluctuating definition of what a journalist is (and what it should be) in the age of new media. To kick things off, Jarvis flatly asked Arrington (full disclosure: Mike is my boss) about whether he would consider himself a journalist. Mike replied by saying that he does not consider himself a journalist, likening the current identity of journalist’s to that of priests. “When I think of j...

Conversocial  is a real-time social media management system which lets companies run marketing and customer support through Facebook Pages and Twitter. While competitors like coTweet, Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, Context Optional and Socialite also let you manage Facebook fan pages, Conversocial’s emphasis on enterprise tools somewhat mark it out from the pack. Today it announces a series A funs raise to the tune of £1.5 million ($2.4m) from European venture capital firm, DFJ Esprit. The London startup plans to grow its platform and extend internationally with this extra firepower. Nic Brisbourne, partner at DFJ Esprit, will be joining the board at Conversocial as non-executive director. People now expect replies on social media, ‘in public’ and in real time, however hard this is to achieve. Ignore or even delete something and a brand is dead meat. So marketing and customer support is happening in the same space at the same time. Conversocial takes all interactions between users and comp...

Yandex , one of the leading Internet companies in Russia, this morning announced the pricing of its  initial public offering  of a little under 52.2 million Class A ordinary shares at $25.00 per share. The shares will begin trading later today on NASDAQ under the symbol “YNDX”. It givesYandex a market cap of roughly $8 billion. The company is thus raising a little  over $1.3 billion , and has granted its underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 5.2 million shares to cover eventual over-allotments. Earlier this month, Yandex had priced its IPO at  $20 to $22 per share . LinkedIn , which  went public  last week, had also  increased the price  per share right before. Yandex is selling 15.4 million shares (pocketing $385 million), while some of its shareholders are selling an aggregate of roughly 36.8 million shares ($920 million). Yandex operates the most popular search engine and the most visited website in Russia (it is also th...

Hulu announced Monday that its  Hulu Plus  service is finally available on the  TiVo Premiere . If, like us, this announcement is the cause for some deja vu, it’s because Hulu and TiVo originally announced  in September  that the service would be coming to the DVR/connected device. Eight months later, the two companies have finally made good on their promise. Perhaps in a bid to entice would-be TiVo/Hulu Plus owners, Hulu is offering a  six-month free trial  to customers who buy a TiVo Premiere from  Tivo.com  or retailers until August 30, 2011. While we’re not sure that six months of Hulu Plus service is enough of an incentive to purchase a TiVo Premiere, it’s a nice gesture. Since launching last summer, Hulu Plus has taken some lessons from the  Netflix  playbook, rolling out support for its subscription offering to a variety of connected devices, video game consoles, Blu-ray players and HDTV sets.

May 23-24, 2011, San Francisco, CA : Produced by Mediabistro and SocialTimes,  Social Media Optimization Conference (SMOC)  is a two-day event dedicated to social media optimization and social advertising. Boost search engine visibility, increase linkability, and fuel your readers’ desire to share your content. Industry leaders will also show you how to get results whenadvertising on the social web in terms of strategy, targeting, privacy, and metrics. Our experts include Brian Solis (author, Engage), Rohit Bhargava (SVP, Digital, Strategy & Planning Group), Gary Ware (Covario), and many more.  Register  and use the promo code  MASH  to save 15%. May 23, 2011, San Francisco, CA : Hosted by Our Social Times,  Social Media Marketing & Monitoring 2011 will bring together leading marketing and PR experts, brands, agencies and journalists for an intensive one-day conference. Following this sell-out event last year, join us for an update on the late...