February 2010

Rumors are swirling that Facebook's looking to purchase location-aware social net Loopt.

It makes perfect sense, given the sudden arrival recently of Google's Buzz mobile, which is location-aware from the get-go. Facebook's playing catch-up. According to TechCrunch, Facebook is busy doing due diligence on the potential deal, indicating that the idea is in its very early stages. And at such a point in deals like this, before negotiations have really kicked off, it's usual for everything to be shrouded in secrecy. Hence Loopt refused to comment, and Facebook simply trotted out the party line "we don't comment on rumor and speculation." But the rumor is apparently based on sound information. And from this we can infer that Facebook is at least very interested in acquiring Loopt, or perhaps a location-based system like it (because we don't know what other due diligence Facebook's planning team is also performing.)

A week before Senate lawmakers turn their attention to issues of Internet freedom, Rep Chris Smith (R-NJ) is making another push to round up support in the House for his Internet freedom bill.

Rep Smith circulated a letter to his colleagues this week in an effort to increase the bill's co-sponsors. The bill currently has nine bipartisan cosponsors. Rep Smith said his latest version of the Global Online Freedom Act builds upon an earlier version introduced in the last Congress. It would still require U.S. information technology companies to disclose the data they block and search engine results they filter when complying with the censorship policies of foreign countries. But the latest version of the bill also would require firms to keep records on and notify the attorney general of demands for information identifying users and would give the attorney general authority to order the firms not to comply. Meanwhile, the Senate Judiciary Committee's Human Rights and the Law Subcommittee is set to hold a hearing Tuesday on global Internet freedom.

However, the Congressional-Executive Commission on China's hearing set for Monday examining Google and China's spat over Internet freedom has been postponed for a second time due to scheduling issues, according to a spokesman for the commission's chairman, Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. The commission was established by Congress in 2000 to monitor human rights and the rule of law in China.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-MA) and ranking member Richard Lugar (R-IN) introduced legislation Wednesday that would allow immigrants who want to start a US business to obtain a two-year visa.

The bill would provide immigrant entrepreneurs US visas if they can show qualified US investors will pour at least $250,000 into the entrepreneurs' startup businesses. "Creating a new magnet for innovations and innovators to come to the United States and create jobs here will offer our economy a double shot in the arm - robust job creation at home and reaffirmation that we're the world's best place to do business," Sen Kerry said in a statement. The legislation would create a new EB-6 visa category and would allow these entrepreneurs after two years to obtain legal resident status if they can show that they have generated at least five full-time U.S. jobs, attracted $1 million in additional capital investment or generated $1 million in revenue. The proposal is modeled on the existing EB5 visa, which allows foreigners who invest at least $1 million in the United States and create 10 jobs to obtain a green card.

Scribd, which bills itself as the world's largest social publishing company, made its debut in the mobile space today with the lofty goal of becoming the universal adaptor for e-readers and, in doing so, expanding access to millions of written works on any mobile device.

That includes e-Readers with a "send-to-mobile" feature and eventually smartphones through a Scribd application. Scribd's open strategy allows it to avoid the e-Reader wars and run on any device, including the Apple iPhone, Google Android, so called e-book killing Apple iPad, Barnes & Noble's Nook and the Amazon Kindle. In doing so, Scribd can potentially get a piece of the action whether smartphones or e-Readers, a new category of device offering wireless connectivity sans a service contract, prove to be the most successful. The two have been in competition since the category's rise to fame, although they are also increasing blurring lines. Amazon, for example, has begun to open its Kindle service up to smartphones, including the iPhone and most recently BlackBerry. Scribd has more than 10 million documents in its arsenal and has partnerships in place with a number of major publishers including big names Random House and Simon & Schuster.