Roddy Lindsay / Facebook Blog:

Facebook Lexicon  —  At Facebook we love tools that allow you to see what people around the globe are searching for or discussing on blogs, such as Google Trends or Technorati.  We thought it would be cool to show trends on the public and semi-public forums across Facebook (also known as Walls).

Earlier today I wrote about my eagerness for Google GDrive, a cloud-based file management service that has been rumored for years now.

The idea that Google could swoop in and dominate the online storage market certainly doesn’t help the founders of several startups sleep better at night. But they aren’t without their arguments for why a Google solution would be bad for consumers.

Box.net has come up with the following clever response to the idea that Google should control all of our information, including our files (click for a bigger view).

As the company describes it:

The goal of the game is to use Google shares to buy as many properties as you can without landing in the deadpool and losing your stock. As with any great board game, there’s a very real metaphor to what’s going on…. What happens when the Google monster gobbles up all that is left in the web world, is present on your cell phone, desktop, and even controls your health information? For all their product excellence, the threat of amassing this much data is too serious to ignore.

So the real question is, does placing Box.net on the board (between none other than LinkedIn and Facebook) mean the company sees itself as Google acquisition bait? And how do fellow startups Loopt and Scribd feel about being placed on Mediterranean and Baltic?

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Eric Eldon / VentureBeat:

Facebook is kinda competing with FriendFeed, like it kinda competes with Twitter  —  Update with a response from FriendFeed’s Paul Buchheit, below the article  —  Facebook has just launched a new feature that lets you add actions from other sites to the mini-feed of actions on your profile …

Jason Calacanis’ Mahalo has borrowed from the Simon Fuller Idol franchise in its search for the new host for Mahalo Daily by announcing Mahalo Idol.

Potential hosts are asked to respond to the above video on YouTube showing their best side, or turn up to a casting call in Los Angeles April 19. Idol style host wannabes will be purged until there are five finalists, who return one week later to pitch to the celebrity judges with one person being picked to become Mahalo Idol, the new host of Mahalo Daily. The site doesn’t give specifics but it would be a safe bet that the entire process, complete with judging, will be filmed and shown on Mahalo. Men need not apply, Mahalo is seeking female hosts only.

Jason’s embrace of quality television such as Idol is classy, but copying everything down to the logo is a lawsuit waiting to happen, unless he used the Mahalo millions to legally purchase the rights.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Oracle:

Oracle Critical Patch Update Advisory - April 2008  —  A Critical Patch Update is a collection of patches for multiple security vulnerabilities.  It also includes non-security fixes that are required (because of interdependencies) by those security patches.

Microsoft:

Microsoft Completes Acquisition of Danger, Incorporates Company Into Premium Mobile Experiences Group  —  New business group strengthens company focus on innovative mobile consumer experiences.  —  Microsoft Corp. has completed its acquisition of Danger, Inc., the company announced today.

Cuill, a stealth search engine company we first covered in September, has raised $25M in a Series B round led by Madrone Capital Partners and joined by Tugboat Ventures and Greylock Partners.

Not a whole lot is known about Cuill except that it apparently can index the web at 1/10th the cost of Google. The startup was founded by search experts, two of which came from Google. It has been rumored that Google itself has looked at acquiring Cuill even before it launches.

We previously heard from sources that Cuill had raised $4M in a Series A round from Greylock Partners. That wasn’t exactly true - it had raised $8M from both Greylock and Tugboat. That raises Cuill’s total to at least $33M, with another $5M maybe from self-funding.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Tom Krazit / One More Thing:

Defiant Psystar back selling Leopard computers  —  Psystar is back online selling “white box” Macs with a few subtle changes, and one employee has already played the monopoly card.  —  As you might recall, Psystar’s Web site was overwhelmed Monday after it was found to be selling cheap computers with Mac OS X Leopard preinstalled.

Filed under: Audio, Business, News, Apple

As much as Amazon mp3 would like to be a thorn in the side of iTunes, the data indicates that the service has had little effect on iTunes’ dominance in digital music sales.

According to a new study by The NPD Group, only 10 percent of all purchasers at Amazon mp3 are converts from Apple’s service, while the rest are switching from other services or new to the whole direct-download music scene.

While 10 percent may sound like a lot to us ordinary folks, it wasn’t worth the eyebrow raise of a single analyst.

The bottom line is, if Amazon mp3 sees itself as the David to iTunes’ Goliath, then their work is definitely cut out for them. Amazon currently sits in fourth place in US music sales, with iTunes and Wal-Mart fighting it out for the top spot, and Best Buy in third.

The troubling statistic for Amazon is that only a tenth of their music sales come from Amazon mp3. The rest come from those archaic compact discs; if you don’t know what we’re talking about, check out your parent’s music collection-maybe they have some laying around.

The question is, my friends, what is keeping Amazon mp3 from biting into sales on iTunes? Is it the poor browsing experience? Is it because Amazon is seen as outside of the iTunes-iPod ecosystem? Are people willing to part with 10 cents more, and put up with DRM, for the sake of iTunes simplicity?

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Paul Graham:

Why There Aren’t More Googles  —  Umair Haque wrote recently that the reason there aren’t more Googles is that most startups get bought before they can change the world. … This has a nice sound to it, but it isn’t true.  Google’s founders were willing to sell early on.