For much of the year, Facebook had been in negotiation to sell itself to Yahoo. The market value of the “instant behemoth” social service sites has fluctuated, as services both large and small have changed hands this year. The first big acquisition was Newscorp’s purchase of MySpace for $580 million in 2005. That set a benchmark, which was driven upward somewhat by the NBC Universal purchase of women’s online network iVillage for $600 million earlier this year.
China Hunting Down Undesirable Online Games
After Brazil bans Counter-Strike and EverQuest to avoid violence crime, Chinese authorities recently announced that they are stepping up the crackdown against what they deem as undesirable online games.