With economic sanity about to return to the National Hockey League, owning a franchise has become viable again. In the true spirit of speculation and gossip, maybe Research in Motion co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis will buy a team. This rumor has been rumbling around for a month so perhaps where there's smoke, there is fire. Maybe American Express pitchman Lazaridis can put it on his card - I'm sure he has one of those platinum ones.

Lycos, which barely registers among the leading search engines, is celebrating its 10th anniversary but anyone really care? Lycos, which claims it has 25 million users, aims to get back in the search game with several new features. They better work soon because according to Nielsen//NetRatings, Lycos was bunched in the "others" category among search done by U.S. home and work surfers in May - meaning it had less than 0.7% market share.

Figured it would only be a matter of time before people started talking more about better blog search (BBS) beyond Technorati, Blogdigger, etc. BusinessWeek's Blogspotting did an interview with Bloglines CEO Mark Fletcher. Among his suggestions to improve search are that "certain blogs, either highly trafficked or ranked by the individual user, would jump toward the top of the search results". Fletcher's hitting exactly on what I've been harping on for months that there has to be a better mousetrap for blog search. Despite all the attention it receives, Technorati - with all due respect - is being overwhelmed by its willingness to post everything and anything. Someone really smart is going to come up with an algorith/methodology that combines a blog's traffic, relevancy and high ratings to product superior and effective blog search results. As it now stands, the blog search market is ripe for Google to steal the business. Anyone got any ideas?
Addendum: BusinessWeek's Stephen Baker has a story on the blog search market. A particularly interesting point to explain why Google, Yahoo, et al have yet to enter the blog search market is the blogosphere changes so often, it could be a challenge using traditional algorithms/methodologies.

There's a growing amount of buzz amid Rich Tehrani's post that BellSouth may acquire Vonage for US$3.5-billion. Om Malik and Andy Abramson both believe the idea - particularly the price tag - makes no sense at all, and it's difficult not to agree with them. There are several ways to explore the idea. First, the proposed price, which must have been dreamt up by Vonage CEO Jeff Citron or a Wall St. investment banker looking for a summer make-work project. Since Vonage does not disclose financial data, it's impossible to know its revenue, operating income, costs and profits/losses. But let's take a look at publicly-traded 8x8 Inc.'s $101-million market cap based on 57,000 customers. You multiply the subscriber figure by 15 (Vonage has 800,000 customers), and this gives Vonage a value of $1.5-billion. So does this mean Vonage gets a $2-billion premium because it's the market leader with a well-known brand in a market with fierce competition and a soft price environment? I doubt it.
The next question is if BellSouth doesn't buy Vonage, then who/what happens next? Sprint has been rumored as a possible buyer but it just spent $35-billion to buy Nextel. Frankly, I don't see a strategic buyer stepping up to acquire Vonage. The exit route for Citron and his happy band of investors is most likely an IPO but this may not be the best time to tap the capital market. Nevertheless, let's explore possible valuations. So far, Vonage has raised $400-million of venture capital. Let's assume, these investors own 30% to 50% of Vonage. At 30%, Vonage is worth about $1.3 billion; at 50%, it's worth $800-million. Even with investors owning just a 20% stake, Vonage would be worth $2-billion. So where does the $3.5 billion come from? You have to believe it's pure fiction and that something told Rich Tehrani a nice summer story.