From MySpace to viral mother-in-laws: This week in tech and web news

Hurrah, hurrah, another week has gone and though it seemed questionable — particularly around Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday — Friday has managed to roll around.

As was explained in the first installment last week, though Memeburn readers — smart as they are — are always on top of things, the breakneck speed at which tech and web news goes by, invariably means we all miss something. As such, we here at Memeburn are giving you, our dear readers, this weekly tech and web news wrap-up column.

We still strongly advise you read everything — and we mean every last word, comma, and caption on the site — to get all the news. However, failing that here you go — your roundup of of all the important and at times not so important tech and online news items from the week.

With that special Memeburn spin of course…

Adios my no more amigos: MySpace sold
It all started off so well… With 160 000 new users signing up a day at the start of 2006, Rupert Murdoch’s business acumen in buying MySpace in 2005 was seemingly beyond reproach. However, by the late 2000s, things in the world’s first colossal social network were no longer that great and rumours were strong that NewsCorp was looking to dump the company. If Tila Tequila doesn’t even want anything to do with you, you know you have issues. Though NewsCorp was rumoured to be looking to sell off MySpace for at least US$100-Imillion, it only raised a paltry US$35-million — a loss of US$545million. As was tweeted, “35-million seems like a lot for two Russian porn pages and Nickelback’s 2009 tour dates.”

I believe Julia Roberts puts it best when explaining NewsCorp’s Myspace adventure…

Google goes social… again
In what must surely have been breaking news for millions of users who thought they were sharing on countless platforms — from Reddit to Facebook and Twitter — Vic Gundotra, Google’s Senior Vice President for Engineering, declared, announcing Google+, “online sharing is awkward. Even broken.” Google+ marks yet another attempt by the internet leviathan to break into the booming social networking business. As they say, if at first you don’t succeed, try and try again; or as is the case for Google, try, try, try, try, try, try…

Samsung takes a bite of Apple
Following Apple’s decision to sue Samsung for patent infringement earlier this year, Samsung has hit back. As Memeburn reported on Thursday, Samsung risking the ire of millions of US Apple-o-philes — spread its patent war with Apple asking that all imports of Apple products into the US be banned. This of course comes after Apple recently settled all its legal battles with Nokia who of course — amongst others — is suing LG and Sharp. Sharp, of course, is in turn being sued by Kodak, which is also in a legal battle with Sony Ericsson, the two of them suing each other. One also must remember that Kodak is also suing Apple who is also… Well I’m certain you get the picture. In fact, “Like sands through the hourglass” so are the days of the legal battles over mobile patents.

FarmVille not quite the country bumpkin as IPO rumoured
From US$1.5-billion and US$2-billion, that is how much Zynga, makers of the wildly and bewilderingly successful FarmVille are reportedly looking to make in an IPO. In the age old tradition of so-called-rumours about business deals, a spokesman for the company ever so politely declined to comment. Though many are seeing this report as further proof that we’re in, or headed for, another tech bubble a la the dot-com boom of 1999-2000, in my esteemed opinion, a business based on the continued boredom of office workers is a sure-fire bet.

The viral mother-in-law; as though there’s another kind
What is the proper response to a mother-in-law who’s making your life hell, before you’ve even married her son?

a) Not marry her son.
b) Grin and bear it.
c) Grin and bear it, but add “something special” to her meals.
d) Take to the internet.

As the Guardian reports, for Heidi Withers, a PA from West London after having received an email from Carolyn Bourne, her mother-in-law to be, the answer was “D”.

In the email, littered with helpful hints on what to do “if you want to be accepted by the wider Bourne family”, Carolyn, suggested Heidi — whom she felt was “an ideal candidate for the Ladette to Lady television series” — “take some guidance from experts with utmost haste”. The mother-in-law to be certainly did not hold back. From staying in bed too late to eating too much, she pointed out many faux pas committed by her future daughter-in-law.

But the last laugh went to the lazy, good-for-nothing, gold-digging, social-climbing, tacky Heidi.

She, as anyone in this situation would most probably do, forwarded the email to a few friends. Equally shocked, those friends then forwarded it on to other friends, and so on, and so on. When asked for comment after the email had gone viral, the previously comment-rich Carolyn and her husband could only say, “We have nothing to say”.