Know You,Know Me!

Sometimes you have to apply the smell test to what your sources are telling you, and the rumors we're hearing about Apple's purchase of music service LaLa are definitely smelling a little off. $80 million for LaLa ? That isn't what we're hearing. LaLa was purchased for $17 million by Apple, according to our sources with indirect knowledge of the deal. And the company supposedly had $14 million in cash in the bank, meaning the actual purchase price was really $3 million. That's in line with recent competitive sales like iLike ($20 million) and iMeem ($1 million) . LaLa had plenty of cash in the bank, but they were burning $500k/month, say our sources. There's just no reason Apple would pay $80 million for the company. We also believe that LaLa was acquired mostly for the star engineering team and the awesome recent Google deal more than for the product. iTunes in the cloud isn't something we should hold our breath for. $3 million for top-of Google mus...

Tomorrow, the makers of Firefox will be launching the third version of Thunderbird , its open source and free email application that is produced out of Mozilla Messaging , which is a subsidiary of Mozilla devoted to producing innovation around communication and the internet. Thunderbird 3, which is available in 50 languages and is compatible with Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, has made more than 2,000 improvements and fixes to the new email client. Thunderbird 3 will be available to the public mid-day tomorrow here. One of the main improvements to Thunderbird 3, says Mozilla Messaging CEO David Ascher, is the client's search capacity. The new search interface contains filtering and timeline tools to try to help users pin-point emails by words, correspondents or attachment types. Thunderbird 3 also includes tabbed email, which lets users view emails and folders in tabs within the client, similar to the way that you manage tabs in Firefox. Tabs are remembered in the client, s...

We've just gotten our first look at Assistly , a new startup that's looking to provide businesses with a robust platform for engaging customers on everything from Email to Facebook and Twitter. We first caught wind of Assistly back in October when its founding members left AOL in tandem, but until now the company remained firmly in stealth. Today it's launching a new 'sneak preview' version of its site at Assistly.com , and they've given us a handful of screenshots to showcase some of the features we can expect. The company is also announcing that Mark Cuban and David Liu are officially coming on as advisors. CEO Alex Bard says that Assistly looking to capitalize on some key trends: first, that more and more businesses are establishing themselves on the web, and that consumers now have louder voices than ever with their presences on Twitter, Facebook, and blogs which makes customer service more important than ever. Bard says that existing customer ...

Ned Desmond has gone fishin' and he wants you to Go FISHn too. Today, Desmond launched a fishing site for the Facebook age. You can sign in with your Facebook ID, share fishing stories and photos with your friends, ask questions to fishing pros and the community, and review all the gear in your tackle box. Go FISHn is an enthusiast site for people who love to fish—and there's an estimated 30 million recreational anglers in the U.S. alone who spend about $45 billion a year on gear, supplies, and trips. "Nobody has done a good job in enthusiast sites," says Desmond, who is the former president of Time Interactive and was once my boss (we launched a magazine together). There are other social networks for fishermen such as Angling Masters , Fishing Files , and the Fishing Network where people can share fish tales and photos. But they seem to be modeled more after MySpace than Facebook. Go FISHn isn't trying to create a new social network. "People fi...