Yahoo bought Associated Content, known for churning out search-driven posts with an army of freelancers. The internet company is just the latest trying a hybrid cheap/pricey, highbrow/lowbrow approach to online journalism.

Facebook sealed a five-year deal with FarmVille-maker Zynga. Details are secret, but we're guessing Zynga promised to stop doing "every horrible thing in the book" to users, while Facebook promised to stop trying to take all Zynga's money. [VentureBeat]

Christopher Poole (aka "Moot") founded the unruly message board 4chan as a place for anime enthusiasts to hang out. Now it's a crazy, sometimes-scary morass of nascent memes, porn, racism. But Poole is about to go legit.

Cablevision boss Jim Dolan has created such a PR trainwreck around his supposed acquisition of blog network Gothamist it's hard to imagine the deal ever closing. Dolan's bullying of a journalist may have already killed the shaky-looking deal.

Mark Zuckerberg was reduced to bawling on the floor of a restaurant men's room in April 2005, amid high-pressure fundraising, says a new book excerpt published in Fortune. The Facebook co-founder's head was down, his words were panicked.

Continental and United Airlines have agreed to merge, creating the world's largest carrier.

Palm's newly-announced $1.2 billion sale to Hewlett Packard is great news for Bono: It means the U2 frontman's Elevation Partners roughly broke even on its 2007 investment in Palm. No loss! Who's the "Worst Investor in America" now, mate?

AOL just sold ICQ for at least $100 million less than it paid, cementing the brand's infamous association with the absolute worst deals in internet history. To cut a deal with the internet conglomerate is to invite epic disaster.

Yesterday, Senator Carl Levin said "shitty deal" twelve times on TV. Last month, Joe Biden said "big fucking deal" to the President. So many curses! When do you use which? And will I go to hell for saying "fuck"?

We hear Cablevision's much-heralded acquisition of blog network Gothamist might be imploding. That would certainly help explain why Gothamist is trying to hire its own sales guy, a month after news of its supposed acquisition.

If you don't terribly mind, Spark Capital and Union Square Ventures, David Karp needs another $5 million for Tumblr, just until the blog network's sexy fashion templates pay off. Besides, $5m is basically pocket change these days. [Pic]

It looks more and more like Yahoo is offering big money for Foursquare—and like Foursquare creator Dennis Crowley is taking his time deciding whether to accept. It can't help that's he's lost one potential advisor, his longtime girlfriend.

Sometimes making a fortune is dumb, writes entrepreneur Charlie O'Donnell—which is why, O'Donnell adds, Foursquare will wisely walk away from a rumored $100 million offer from Yahoo. It's the sort of cocky move pioneered by companies like Twitter.

When AOL paid $850 million for Bebo two years ago, the deal immediately smelled rotten. Now it's looking downright putrid: AOL might write the social network off entirely.

Chris DeWolfe was indeed prepping his first acquisition: the MySpace co-creator bought gaming platform MindJolt.

Responding to rumors he might sell his tech blog to AOL, Mashable CEO/babe magnet Pete Cashmore says he's gone to first or second base with some company, and flirted with others, but isn't about to close a deal.

If AOL buys Mashable — or just sells the monster tech blog's ads — it will be banking less on journalism than on the site's network of members, Twitter fans and party groupies. Banking, that is, on Pete Cashmore's hotness.

AOL is interested in buying the world's largest tech blog, Mashable, we hear from a source at the internet conglomerate. And in fact the two sides have been talking, people outside AOL have whispered to one another, and to us.

Local review repository Yelp walked away from Google's $550 million acquisition offer this weekend. [TechCrunch]