Brett Loveless Blog

Forbes is among several media outlets reporting late Monday night that Yahoo has purchased MyBlogLog , a social-networking site that aims to build communities among like-minded blog readers. It also tracks behaviors such as which sites readers have come from and what they click on to leave a particular site.

Forbes' Quentin Hardy, writing on his publication's CES blog , said Yahoo isn't saying what it paid for the Florida-based MyBlogLog , first launched in July. "But knowledgeable sources said it cost a little over $10 million for the company," he wrote.

Om Malik also blogged about his dinner Monday night with MyBlogLog Chairman Scott Rafer, who checked his BlackBerry Pearl, broke into a smile and then responded to an e-mail. "It's done," Rafer then said, referring to the sale of his company to Yahoo, according to Malik. Rafer declined to comment on rumors about the price, Malik added.

It's got to be Murphy's Law that once a reporter publishes a trend story, an even better example of that trend is destined to come along. So it was that a real doozy came to light only days after I published a collection of the top Web-publishing gaffes . And this one takes the cake:

Click image to view our collection of Web news publishing gaffes, including the time Vice President Dick Cheney's obituary made its way onto the Web.

A nice little story hit the Web Thursday talking up China's long-awaited space mission and even including detailed dialogue between the astronauts, according to the Associated Press . Only problem was that the spacecraft hadn't even left the ground at the time the story came out.

The story was published by Xinhua, China's official news agency, in an apparent moment of clairvoyance. It was taken down after being up on Xinhua.com most of the day, the AP said.

A staffer at the agency later told the AP that the article, which had been dated September 27, was a "technical error."

The Shenzhou 7 mission, which is expected to feature China's first-ever spacewalk, did in fact take off successfully later Thursday .

But let's hope Xinhau at least comes up with some fresh quotes from the astronauts, maybe even ones that were actually said.

On June 27, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said he didn't think that his company and Yahoo would make a deal, adding that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will find "plenty of other opportunities.

Not so fast. As Yahoo's quarterly earnings come up on July 22 and the shareholder meeting on August 1, Carl Icahn and Steve Ballmer are teaming up to remake Yahoo's board of directors and shelve Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang. In a letter to Yahoo shareholders, Icahn said:

Steve made it clear to me that if a new board were elected, he would be interested in discussing a major transaction with Yahoo, such as either a transaction to purchase the 'Search' function, with large financial guarantees or, in the alternative, purchasing the whole company."

Microsoft issued a letter today confirming Icahn's remarks about Microsoft's renewed interest in a transaction with Yahoo:

While, of course, there can be no assurance of a future transaction, we will be prepared to enter into discussions immediately after Yahoo's shareholder meeting, if a new board is elected.

Now the fate of Yahoo is clearly in the hands of shareholders. They can give Icahn a few seats on the board but not enough control to force massive changes or they can hand over the company to him and Microsoft, knowing that a transaction for $33 to $35 per share for the search business or the entire company will be consummated over the next six months.

As I have said before , Microhoo has always been about the money, and less about a shared strategy and cultural fit. Yahoo's board thought that Yahoo was worth $37 per share, and Microsoft wasn't going to negotiate against itself, with no other buyers in sight.

During an interview at the D6 conference, Yang said:

I understand the situation people are feeling, but at the same time we did not walk away from that proposal, Microsoft did. We are willing to do a deal under the right terms. It wasn't clear to me they wanted to finish the deal. I can't go revisit and take or not take it. I understand our obligation to stockholders from conversations with a number of them. The focus for us is how do we recognize more value for the company soon and position Yahoo to be much more successful in the long term. If there is a way to do it, we'll talk about other alternatives, but we aren't going to do something short term.

Yang has some regrets that Microsoft walked away from negotiations in May. He may prefer an independent Yahoo, but reality is setting in, and now he is probably wishing he and his board had played less difficult to get.

Update: Yahoo issued a testy statement regarding the Icahn-Ballmer "apparent effort to force Yahoo! into selling to Microsoft its Search business at a price to be determined in a future 'negotiation' between Mr. Icahn's directors and Microsoft's management."

In the statement, Yahoo invited Microsoft to make a proposal immediately and for Icahn to reveal his plan for Yahoo beyond teeing up Microsoft to make a deal. I doubt Jerry Yang and company are going to receive any kind of proposal until the shuffle at the upcoming shareholder meeting takes place.

A unexpected bump in the head landed yours truly in the emergency ward earlier in the year. When they wheeled me into the CAT scan, I handed over my cell phone.

"Oh, we don't need that," the attendant told me. "We only take iPhones ."

Wow, I thought. Of all places to land a scoop!

"You mean there's something about the device which interferes with the picture process?"

"No," the attendant laughed. "We're just looking for iPhones, not that other stuff."

OK, I thought. Apple had developed a very good product, but this bordered on mania. Truth be told, I also felt slightly guilty as a sometimes accomplice in the hype machine. If we're going to be honest here, it's impossible not to acknowledge that Apple plays the press like a fiddle when it comes to product releases--a willing fiddle, but a fiddle nonetheless.

Fact is that Apple has always been terrific copy--going back to the original partnership of the "Two Steves," through the prolonged corporate melodrama of the mid-1990s and right up to the return of the prodigal co-founder. It mattered little that other companies' products had bigger market share. Reporters just found Apple to have been a more interesting company to write about.

But it's sometimes hard to tell who is driving the train any more. Most of the time, Apple's corporate marketing mavens can count upon reams of free publicity during the run-up to a product debut. A suggestive comment here or a false leak there is all it takes to trigger a media scrum. How crazy has it become? Harvard Business School professor David Yoffie noted last year that the iPhone generated $400 million in free publicity for Apple. When was the last time Sun Microsystems or IBM got that kind of treatment?

A bemused Dave Winer had the right idea as he watched the day's coverage unfold.

It's really upsetting watching all the geek journos scrambling for scraps.

Which raises a simple question.

1. Why don't they broadcast Apple keynotes on MSNBC or CNN? All this makeshift jury-rigged michegas. It was cute for a while, but this has been going on for 25 years!

He's got that right. So it was that in the last week nearly every self-respecting tech blog worth its salt wigged out over the approaching debut of the second-generation iPhone. The pack picked up the scent and nobody dared get left behind. You'd think the Jobs keynote at the Worldwide Developers Conference might have been anticlimactic? No way. There were live blogs everywhere--even the normally staid New York Times got into the act.

I guess it's a case of keeping up with the Joneses, though the risk is that we've all inadvertently become fan boys. Let's face the truth: Apple gets a enormous amount of free publicity because we've all bought into the idea that it's special. I suppose kudos are in order to Apple's corporate media planners on a job well done. But will we stop? No way. The clicks are insanely great. And besides, when it comes to Apple, you all can't ever seem to get your fill. Or do I have that wrong?

All Apple, all the time

Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.

Google, which has a 5 percent stake in Time Warner's AOL division, has the option to sell it beginning Tuesday.

Google got the stake in AOL through a 2005 deal with Time Warner under which Google invested $1 billion.

According to a Time Warner regulatory filing , Google can sell that stake if it wants, with Time Warner, which owns the remaining 95 percent of AOL, getting first crack at buying the shares.

"Beginning on July 1, 2008, Google will have the right to require AOL to register Google's 5 percent equity interest for sale in an initial public offering," the filing said.

"If Google exercises this right, Time Warner will have the right to purchase Google's equity interest for cash or shares of Time Warner common stock based on the appraised fair market value of the equity interest in lieu of conducting an initial public offering."