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CARL ICAHN is launching a proxy contest to replace YAHOO’s board of directors. Icahn plans to nominate 10 directors including former Viacom Inc. Chief Executive FRANK BIONDI. Icahn’s board will push to reopen negotiations with MICROSOFT, however, sources say Icahn has yet to speak with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.
After attracting 141.1 million unique visitors in April, GOOGLE is now officially the most popular web site in the U.S.. Yahoo formerly held the top spot due to its wide portfolio of sites but has now been soundly ousted by Google, the Internet’s new top dog.
VERIZON wireless will be running LiMO, a LINUX based operating system, on their next generation media-rich mobile phones. The decision is a crushing blow to GOOGLE, whose ANDROID system Verizon was also considering. The recent announcement comes after Google sent a letter to the FCC questioning Verizon’s dedication to keeping their 700 MHz of wireless spectrum open source. Of course, due to the open source agreement, Verizon’s phones will have to be Android compatible. The Android system debuted six months ago but no solid plans to introduce Android-based phones have yet surfaced.
COMCAST will acquire the social networking site PLAXO. Comcast paid $175 million for the social networking site, which they hope will widen their scope. Comcast has recently expanded its online presence to include FANDANGO and FANCAST, while growing Comcast.net into an entertainment destination. Look for Comcast to keep growing as they diversify away from cable and internet.
TIME WARNER’S Turner Networks (TNT, TBS, Tru-TV) are offering contextual ad buys for advertisers. The new ad system would run on a platform called TVinContext, which has the ability to place an ads on top of correlating scenes in Television shows. As an example, the Network previewed an ad for allergy medication which correlated to a scene in “Hutch” where Will Smith has an allergic reaction.