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The company behind Wordpress.com & care-taker of open-source project Wordpress.org, Automattic has rejected a lucrative $200 million acquisition offer. According to latest news reports Automattic was offered a buy-out deal of $200 million acquisition of which half was in cash and half in buyer-stock.

$200 million for sure is attractive but it looks like Automattic didn’t bat an eyelid. Earlier this month Automattic had itself acquired a startup company called Gravatar. Apparently, like everybody else I am trying to find out what made Automattic reject the offer? Is that they are looking for some equity stake by a larger company or is that they are looking to go public themselves?.

Whatever is the scenario, Automattic’s Wordpress.com seems to be doing quite well. Last month, Wordpress.com had about 63 million worldwide visitors which has gone beyond May’s 38 million visitors.

Automattic first got started around August of 2005, and has since then grown in strength. Automattic is strong Open-Source believer and its major work is done under licenses like the GPL. To know more about Automattic, do check out its projects .

The much hyped and much delayed update to Apple Inc’s Mac operating system has finally hit the stores. The new update is expected to be another kitty in Apple’s bag which boasts of powerful products like iPods and iPhones. Referred to as Leopard, the update has gone one sale this Friday all over the globe.

The current update has added further enhancements to the existing intuitive operating system. ’Leopard’ comes with over 300 new features, one of them is called as “Boot Camp” that enables users to install Windows on Macs, although dual operating systems are in-operable at a single instance.

Some other top features are “Time Machine,” which is an automated data backup system, and “Spaces,” which is a cool way to simultaneously view open applications, are among the other highlighted features. Like I said, Leopard would scale up the current sales of Macs which are continuing to do right now.

Is Mozilla Labs trying to compete with Adobe AIR/Microsoft Silverlight? That is the first question which struck my mind when I heard the news about Mozilla’s Prism. Yeah, Prism. It is Mozilla’s new attempt to bring web-applications to desktop users.

So what does this mean for an end-user like you and me? First of all, it is not a replica of AIR or Silverlight. The concept is different and the single most important factor that is driving Prism is to bridge the user-experience gap between web applications and desktop apps.

Prism will enable computer users to add their favorite Web applications to desktop, when they click on the icon corresponding to the web application it will launch in a window. Prism empowers the users with various options like Control Tab, Command Tab and Expose key functions, just like a typical desktop application. Not only that, users can access their favorite web-applications from any Web browser when they are away from the computer.

Prism means cool news for web application developers. From now-on they do not have to write fresh code for their applications to function with Prism. Apparently, any application that runs in a “modern standards-compliant Web browser” will function in Prism.

Prism is developed on Firefox’s engine, so it offers supports for HTML, JavaScript, CSS and Canvas. While a Windows version is currently available for testing purposes, early editions for the Mac and Linux are in the pipeline.

A news statement by Mozilla said, “Prism isn’t a new platform.” “It’s simply the Web platform integrated into the desktop experience.”

All of us are aware of the stringent Internet rules and regulations of the Chinese government. Well, do we have another China in the making? Reading Lord Triesman’s comments about UK makes us think like that.

Apparently Mr. Triesman, UK Parliament’s under secretary is giving warning signs to bring ISPs under scrutiny and impose a ban/stoppage on their File sharing activities.

Essentially, Mr. Triesman is of the belief that his decision would aid technology companies and influencers greatly. Mr. Triesman added, “it is quite possible to know where it is happening and who it is happening with.” He also added, “we will be able to match data banks of that music to music going out and being exchanged on the net.”

I am not sure what is Mr. Triesman thinking. This could be about filtering of content that is being transmitted across UK. Whatever is the case, the UK is sure to draw a lot of criticism for their unplanned action.

And you thought designing web-pages was not your cup of tea? Well, it is not as tough as you actually thought it to be. At least with services like Jimdo  around, your job becomes much simpler.

Jimdo, a service launched by three young guys from Hamburg in Germany is a one stop solution for designing and developing web-pages. It allows even a lay-man to design visually appealing web-pages from scratch. Jimdo users can integrates pictures, videos and forms within few clicks. This cool service is available in Free and Pro versions.

We feel that the best way to know more about a service is to connect with a person who developed it. This is why at Rev2 we’ve been bringing you interviews from co-founders of exciting new start-ups.

What does Jimdo mean and why “Jimdo”.
It’s an artificial name and has no meaning. When we were looking for a name, it was really important to us that the name would work internationally, that it’s short and rather easy to remember. From our perspective,Jimdo serves all these requirements.

Why should I go for an online web design service like Jimdo, when I can design using desktop tools and put pages on my domain ?
Because you have all the possibilities an offline tool offers - but Jimdo is still easier to handle and for free! In addition, you don’t need to download any software to use Jimdo and you can access and update your Page from any Computer with an Internet Connection.

From what it appears, the concept looks quite common or to be already there then what is the difference in Jimdo?
It has never been as easy and beautiful to create and publish an own Page as with Jimdo. The three main advantages are:

1. It’s that easy to handle that it’s fun.

2. The created pages look beautiful, you can highly individualize the design and you’re now even able to integrate your own design into Jimdo. (freedom in design).

3. You can integrate pretty much any kind of content you’d like to also from other pages via widget. (freedom in content).

Since you have absolute freedom in content and design you can really make your Personal Page on the net! You can publish your content the way you wish, aggregate your content from other platforms like YouTube, flickr, etc. and make the Page look the way you like!

What can an end-user do with Jimdo and what he cannot do with Jimdo?
They can easily create their own Page, their website and publish their content. They can highly customize their design (and integrate their own), add as many pages as they want, move them in sub-menus if necessary, can integrate pretty much any kind of content (also flickr-images, YouTube-videos, del.icio.us bookmarks, and any other kind of widget), protect their pages with several passwords, use the news-letter system with link-tracking, check their statistics how many people visited their Page, etc.

Your free domains come with ad-sense installed for users like me who don’t want it is there any option available?
Sure, there’s the JimdoPro-Page which is at 6 USD/months. JimdoPro-Pages are ad-free, are published under an own top level domain of the users choice (i.e. www.username.com), an e-mail account, 5 GB of storage space and more detailed statistics.

Who are you competing with site hosting companies/site design companies or both?
Well, to be honest, we’re considering neither of them as our primary competition. Our goal is to give users a primary experience creating their own independent page on which they can publish their own content - and hosting companies as well as design companies have other goals.

Tell me one single reason why should I go for Jimdo
You’ll have to try it out - and you’ll feel the reason!

We’re spot on! We sensed something is going to happen and it has happened! The much expected deal between Facebook and Microsoft has struck officially now.

According to news reports, during its next financing round, Microsoft will be taking a $240 million equity stake in Facebook valuing it at a whopping $15 billion. The final deal at 1.6 percent stake is smaller than the initial speculations of 5 to 10 percent as reported in recent weeks.

Both parties expressed positive signs of confidence on this occassion.

In a statement, Owen Van Natta, Facebook’s VP Operations and Chief Revenue Officer said, “We are pleased to take our Microsoft partnership to the next level”. “We think this expanded relationship will allow Facebook to continue to innovate and grow as a technology leader and major player in social computing, as well as bring relevant advertising to the more than 49 million active users of Facebook.”

Kevin Johnson, Microsoft’s president of platform and services added, “It’s a strong vote of confidence in the innovation that Facebook is doing”.

Both Johnson and Owen emphasized on advertising partnership being the focus of the deal between the two companies.

According to agreement terms, Microsoft will continue to be the exclusive third-party advertising partner for the Facebook and its ads will go beyond America to cater to Facebook’s international presence. However currently, the deal has not been expanded beyond its 2011 expiration date. Further, Facebook won’t be integrated into Microsoft’s existing services and similarly Microsoft’s applications like Windows Messenger won’t be integrated into Facebook.

It would be interesting to see the specifications of Advertising strategy and how the deal will be worked out. More importantly everyone is now looking to hear Google’s reactions on the deal.

ByteSwap is an online file management service that acts like a “Virtual Cabinet” for users to organize and personalize their information and share it with their buddies and ByteSwap community members.

It is an effective solution to store virtually anything ranging from links, files, to notes and contacts.

We hooked up with Matt Brown, the founder of Byteswap, for an e-mail interview and insisted to share his thoughts about the startup, its features and future plans.

What is the meaning of name “Byteswap”, can you tell us what’s behind this name?
I worked 9 years for a company that provided information products via satellite delivery to a proprietary receiver box. The transmission side of the system ran on Intel-based systems (little endian) and the receiver had a Motorola processor (big endian).

So we had to swap bytes on the transmission side so that information would show up correctly on the receiving side. Anyway, we made great use of “byteswap” functions to accomplish this. I always liked that phrase - byteswap - and registered the domain some time ago.

When it came time to name this service, byteswap just seemed to fit. The service involves storing electronic information (bytes) and has some sharing capabilities (swap). Long explanation, but there it is.

What are the key functionalities of Byteswap?
At a high level, Byteswap is a service that lets you store and share all kinds of information - links, files, contacts, notes, and more. These items can be quickly retrieved later via keyword search or by looking in virtual file folders. Think of it as a virtual file cabinet, or a personal search engine.

A great tool for personal use becomes even more powerful when you share with other like-minded people. These might be co-workers, friends and family or other Byteswap users who share a common interest. Chances are, what’s relevant to them is relevant to you.

Once you start developing and sharing with these social connections, you have a much larger pool of relevant information to draw from. It’s important to note that you have precise control over who can access each piece of information you store in Byteswap.

Other features include a personal blog, user messaging, group discussion boards, a “look later” queue for links you want to set aside for looking at later, a convenience list of the sites you visit regularly and more.

Are there any other services providing same set of features as Byteswap?
Certainly there is some overlap with the social bookmarking sites and the online file storage sites, but I amm not aware of another service that has the breadth and depth of functionality as Byteswap - and we’re just getting started.

Tell us something about the team at Byteswap. What’s your marketing strategy?
Byteswap is a very small startup company and consists of myself supplemented by the work of a few contractors. The main methods of marketing employed to-date have been to try and get the word out on a few influential blogs, get our firefox toolbar application publicly released and, of course we rely heavily on the viral, word-of-mouth recommendations of our users.

Future/growth plans?
We will be introducing new functionality soon to suggest information to our users based on topics of interest that they’ve identified. Kind of a personal information assistant, if you will. We will also be introducing additional types of information that can be stored on Byteswap among other things.

What are you waiting for? Sign up to Byteswap now.

If we are to go by the New York Post, Google is all set to beat Microsoft in the Facebook investment deal. Apparently, both of the giants Microsoft and Google have been vouching for 5 and 10% stake in the social networking phenomenon Facebook.

Like I said, the deal is expected to be announced anytime in the next 24 to 48 hours according to sources. Google has been using his expertise and financial power to negotiate the deal and keep Microsoft out of hunt. Google had edget Microsoft in AOL deal in the past. Like last time, it is the same man — Tim Armstrong — who is assisting Google in its talks with Facebook.

Despite his presence Microsoft seems to be in the hunt this time. According to Redmond based sources Microsoft is willing to go for any possible valuation for the deal.

If we are to go buy the terms of Facebook’s investors, Google or Microsoft would have to provide around $1.5 billion for a stake of either 10 percent of 5 percent. Although both the organization can easily afford the buyout money it is expected that they’re planning to rope in external source for funding.

The key reason is huge amounts of potential advertising revenue available at stake. At present Facebook is discovering new ways to monetize their traffic and is planning to comeout with an official online advertising announcement in the next few weeks.

YouTube has launched a new version of its portal for Australia. YouTube has partnered with media organizations like Network Ten, ABC, Seven, Southern Cross’ Comet TV and Fairfax Media.

Currently YouTube has a lone staff moderating content for YouTube in Australia. More importantly there is no financial agreement between YouTube and its local partner. However, there is every single possibility of a revenue sharing agreement depending on future profits.

To cater to the local audience, the video sharing platform will have clips made by fellow Aussies in the “feature videos” and “promoted videos” sections on the front page.

YouTube international head Sakina Arsiwala said, “Australia has embraced YouTube way more than any other country”.

“Our goal is to satisfy the unique needs of the local users and to further strengthen Australia’s vibrant YouTube community” YouTube CEO and co-founder Chad Hurley told the media.

The local partners will not be showcasing their full TV shows on YouTube. However, they will be displaying highlights to pull back viewers to their own portals. Among the local partners, ABC has achieved tremendous success with few of its comedy shows like “The Chaser’s War on Everything” and “Summer Heights High on YouTube”.

The origination of Web 2.0 has empowered users with never ending cool features. The emergence of cool services like VoiceThread are few examples of adding value to existing photo sharing sites like Flickr, Facebook and more.

VoiceThread is a new service that enables users to capture and add their voices to photos, presentations and embed them in a blog or a website.

At the outset, I see a lot of areas where VoiceThread packs a punch by reinventing the same old stuff.

I ‘d like to share my thoughts on VoiceThread website before I dive deeper into VoiceThread’s features and functionalities. I remember that I had stumbled on VoiceThread’s website a little while back and like any other average website it just popped out of mind. However during the recent odd period it does look that the UI and site development team at VoiceThread have toiled hard to make user’s life easier.

VoiceThread best demonstrates the use of evolving concepts like Ajax & Flash. The images used in the site are well thought out and in synchronization with the overall message that the site is communication. Best-of-all content is user-friendly and really is self-explanatory.

What I really like about VoiceThread is its ability to almost all types of image and doc files for e.g. JPG,GIF, BMP, PNG, DOC, PDF and PPT etc. So this effectively means you can double the value of your cool looking presentations by adding your own voice to support the content. Voice integration is an interesting way to gauge your target audience in conversations by sharing your thoughts.

Apart from assisting professionals in creating collaborative presentations VoiceThread also acts a top quality service for family members who want to annotate their photos or videos.

Beyond this, VoiceThread looks to be solving a real problem which everyone of us seems to be facing. VoiceThread realises that just text does not express the real feelings or emotions of an individual and that is where integration of Voice helps. I think in the coming future an ideal combination of the two would be seen on any website.

As far as my thoughts about its shortcomings are concerned I’d say like any other start-up VoiceThread has its share of problems but again as it grows along I am sure that they would overcome these minor issues. Overall, cool service definitely worth checking out!