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When Wired magazine came on the scene it was the essence of Geek Chic.  It was business news for the up and comer, forward looking journalism for the techno Internet industrialists.   Founded in 1993, the magazine was quick to draw raves, winning industry awards for design and general excellence.  It set a standard for innovation and vision.  Then the Internet bubble burst.  Along with it, the audience of need-to-know-know news hungry entrepreneurs shrank.   Advertisers had less interest to spend.  To survive, Wired evolved and sought new readers.  While peers like Industry Standard and Business 2.0 stayed their courses and shuttered, Wired became more mainstream, broader.  With a wider, more diverse audience, the property survived the crash, even weathered through complex ownership  issues (Wired.com and Wired magazine shared content but had different owners from 1998 to 2006).  Along the way, however, Wired lost some of its “Silicon Street” credibility.

Over the past two years, Advance.net, Wired’s owner, has moved to restore some of that digital cache. Click to Read More

The big merger news this week was supposed to come Friday with the expiration date of Electronic Arts hostile takeover for Take Two.  Unfortunately, a number of people didn’t get the memo.  Instead, Thursday became the big day for M&A activity with not one but two major announcements lighting up the news wires. 

On one front, CBS stepped up to rescue CNET from the grips of activist shareholders by means of a $1.8billion cash tender offer.  Elsewhere, financier Carl Icahn went public with his plans for Yahoo.  He’ll begin the process Microsoft was unwilling to initiate: a tender offer to take control of Yahoo’s board of directors.

Three major deals in a week – two of them hostile and one something of a white knight rescue… it almost seems like we’ve slid back to the 80’s. Click to Read More

Carl Icahn today made his interest in Yahoo official.  More details on the proxy fight can be found in the related summary article here on Metue. Here, reprinted in entirety are the letters exchanged between Carl Icahn, initiating the attack, and Yahoo’s Roy Bostock, acknowledging it. (Biographies of his proposed board slate are available here).

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With the proxy fight officially initiated, Carl Icahn attached his nominees for Yahoo’s board to his letter to Roy Bostock. The full list of candidates, which mix former executives like Mark Cuban  (Broadcast.com and HD Net) , John Chapple (Nextel)  and Frank Biondi (Viacom) along with a number of professional investors is reprinted below along with biographies for each candidate.

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Looks like the story to watch is quickly becoming the story of the day.  Early rumors of Carl Icahn buying shares of Yahoo stock and gearing up for a proxy fight are now being supported by widespread reports that cite “sources familiar” or “involved in the matter.”  From Reuters to the WSJ, and all across the blogosphere of financial news, the news rooms and pundits are buzzing.

The reports for now provide the following set of facts (or suspected facts):

•Icahn is preparing to nominate a slate of 10, possibly 12, directors by Thursday’s deadline.
•One of the nominees is expected to be former Viacom CEO (1987 to 1996), and past Icahn compatriot, Frank Biondi.
•Icahn is proceeding with his strategy without any assurances from Microsoft that they’ll revisit merger discussions in a friendly deal if an Icahn controlled board initiates it.
•DF King has been retained to work on proxy solicitation, or prepare accordingly, should a proxy fight begin.
•Icahn is holding more than $1b of Yahoo stock.  Rough estimates are that he has at least 50million shares.

THE ICAHN ROADMAP: WHERE ARE WE HEADED?
Views can be deceptive. At first glance, the shareholdings and press leaks (which may be as engineered as the share purchases) have all the makings of a straightforward corporate raid.  Icahn buys shares, rallies support among institutional investors privately, builds buzz in the press to add additional support, then uses the consortium to replace the board and sell out. Click to Read More

With a stock price down to the mid 20s and Microsoft saying they’ve “been there, done that” and aren’t coming back, there are more than a few Yahoo shareholders second guessing whether Yahoo management overplayed their hand.  They’re wondering if holding out was a mistake.  For billionaire investor Carl Icahn, their mistake may be his opportunity.

Reports are circulating that Icahn has bought as much as 50million shares of Yahoo stock in the past week, an amount equal to about 3.5% of the company.  There are rumors he’s buying more too.  CNBC, in fact, reported Tuesday that Icahn may be gearing up for a proxy fight aimed at seating a new board and resuscitating Microsoft’s now scuttled takeover bid.

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There are a handful of surefire ways to know you’ve become a pop culture (or geek culture star): a major magazine cover shoot, being spoofed in a movie or TV show, or even playing yourself in a commercial.  Computer programmer Shawn Fanning can check all three off the list. From jokes that he stole the concept for the original Napster in 2003’s The Italian Job to a recent VW commercial, he’s had it all.

What he hasn’t had is an entrepreneurial home run; a company that’s succeeded. The original Napster file sharing service shifted the course of the music industry but as a business it wilted in the legal crosshairs of the music world.  Fanning’s follow up project Snocap was hyped to be a sophomore step up with its business to business music services.  That too, however, fell victim to tough times; a casualty of the antiquated DRM encryption environment that enveloped digital music sales.   Snocap sold out to iMeem officially in a fire sale last month.  The deal was reported back in February.

For all the efforts, the music industry just wasn’t proving a treasure trove for Fanning.   In his third startup, he shifted to gaming and now it looks like the adjustment may finally get him some entrepreneurial credit to go with his pop culture status.

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