Yahoo! is buying del.icio.us, a decidedly tasty Web 2.0 flavored startup, adding the shared bookmark site to the stable that also includes Flickr. So now Yahoo! owns two of the biggest write repositories in the read-write web. Content searching is much more interesting when you own and control the sources of meta data that builds relationships betwixt and between the content entities.
The other business headline that caught my attention (because, with full disclosure, I'm an Electronic Arts shareholder) is that EA is buying Jamdat. This makes Electronic Arts a Java mobile application developer, it means that some of the outstanding properties to which EA has rights can be cast as mobile games (in Java ME), and it casts a very strong vote in favor of a rich set of client gaming devices, wireless and home consoles alike.
Here's what blows me away: already the Wall Street analysts are calling the EA/Jamdat deal "rich", as in "you overpaid." But Jamdat has excellent distribution channels into one of the few fast-growing game console markets, and it is profitable. Let's compare that to, say, the Xbox 360 market this holiday season. Our local Toys R Us got about two dozen units. I can assure you that more than two dozen people in our Toys R Us geography are getting Java ME capable cell phones in their stockings. If you want a nice analysis of the real economics of the Xbox 360, check out the the Game Guy's slice through the hype. Aren't you supposed to pay for growth?