NEW YORK, May 11 (Reuters) – Alibaba Group’s latest message
to Yahoo (YHOO.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) sounds a lot like the last one: it wants its
shares back.

CEO Jack Ma took full control of one of China’s largest
online payment businesses, Alipay, from the Alibaba Group,
Yahoo said in a government filing on Tuesday. The U.S. online
search engine’s shares fell as much as 9.8 percent on Wednesday
as a result.

NEW YORK, May 10 (Reuters) – Skype’s owners, led by private
equity firm Silver Lake , are set to earn more than
three times their investment, for a total capital gain of more
than $5 billion, on the sale of Skype to Microsoft Corp
, a source familiar with the situation said.

The gain is particularly large considering the short amount
of time the investors have owned internet phone service Skype –
around 18 months — since buying a majority stake from eBay
. That is a short turnaround for private equity which
typically invests with a time horizon of three to five years.

NEW YORK/BANGALORE (Reuters) – LinkedIn Corp, the social site for business professionals, is hoping to cash in with investors eager to gobble up shares in sites such as Facebook, with a public debut valuing the company at more than $3 billion.

LinkedIn, which attracts professionals and job seekers with 100 million worldwide members, said on Monday it would offer 7.84 million shares priced between $32 and $35 apiece. It is generating significant interest as one of the first social networking companies to start the process of being publicly traded — ahead of the much-anticipated Facebook IPO.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – As two Internet powerhouses slug it out to tie the knot with Skype, Facebook looks likely to be a more aggressive suitor than Google, and the world’s largest social network may make for a better fit.

Reuters reported Wednesday that Facebook and Google are separately weighing partnerships with Skype, the popular web video telephony service used by millions around the globe for communication.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – As two Internet powerhouses slug it out to tie the knot with Skype, Facebook looks likely to be a more aggressive suitor than Google (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), and the world’s largest social network may make for a better fit.

Reuters reported Wednesday that Facebook and Google are separately weighing partnerships with Skype, the popular web video telephony service used by millions around the globe for communication.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – As two Internet powerhouses slug it out to tie the knot with Skype, Facebook looks likely to be a more aggressive suitor than Google, and the world’s largest social network may make for a better fit.

Reuters reported Wednesday that Facebook and Google are separately weighing partnerships with Skype, the popular web video telephony service used by millions around the globe for communication.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Demand Media (DMD.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) is shutting down a program that lets anyone publish to its eHow website, and plans to raise the quality of its how-to articles and videos by commissioning higher quality stories.

The company commissions short, lightly reported articles and videos for eHow, often for low pay. It uses software algorithms to choose topics that it thinks people will search for in large numbers, thereby pushing those articles to the top of Web search results on Google (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and other search engines. That in turn brings in more advertising revenue.

NEW YORK, May 5 (Reuters) – Demand Media (DMD.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) is
shutting down a program that lets anyone publish to its eHow
website, and plans to raise the quality of its how-to articles
and videos by commissioning higher quality stories.

The company commissions short, lightly reported articles
and videos for eHow, often for low pay. It uses software
algorithms to choose topics that it thinks people will search
for in large numbers, thereby pushing those articles to the top
of Web search results on Google (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and other search
engines. That in turn brings in more advertising revenue.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Renren’s successful IPO could be the curtain raiser for what is to come if the world’s No. 1 social networking site, Facebook, goes public next year.

Shares of Renren Inc, one of the biggest social networking companies in China, surged 28.6 percent in their debut on Wednesday.

NEW YORK, May 4 (Reuters) – Renren’s spectacular IPO could
be the curtain raiser for what is to come if the world’s No. 1
social networking site, Facebook, goes public next year.

Shares of Renren Inc (RENN.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), China’s largest social
networking company, surged more than 50 percent in its initial
public offering on Wednesday — before it has even turned a
profit — in the latest sign investors are eager to snap up
stock in social media companies.