Google is more likely than not to buy Yelp, say news reports. Which raises one glaringly obvious question: Will Google exacerbate or correct the local review site's worst tendencies, which have brought extortion allegations, porny bacchanals and physical violence?

The New York Post and Paid Content report that Nielsen Communications' $70 million sale of The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, and other trades to an investor group is done, but that Lachlan Murdoch dropped out at the last minute.

With great power comes great responsibility, and with great responsibility comes great headaches. So after years as the hottest, most talked about startup in Silicon Valley, Twitter is ready to relinquish some control of the national conversation.

As expected, Bloomberg has won the bidding for Businessweek magazine, beating out the investment firm ZelnickMedia. They ended up paying more than the cost of McChicken, after all.

Bill O'Reilly, call your office: Citing CNBC, Reuters says Rupert Murdoch is interested in buying a piece of NBC Universal, which could lead to a major embarrassment when O'Reilly draws Keith Olbermann in the corporate Secret Santa program.

Tech bloggers are in a tizzy over the prospect of tech giants Google or Microsoft getting real-time access to the thoughts of Twitterers, but Valleywag has learned that cash-hungry Twitter is already selling access to its "firehose" of data.

Everyone's talking about The Wrap's report last night that cable giant Comcast is in talks to buy NBC Universal. We don't know if it's true or not, but one thing's for certain: If it is, Tina Fey is screwed.

Newsweek's Johnnie L. Roberts reports that Ebony, which was founded with a $500 loan in 1942, is in "big, big trouble" and shopping itself to Time Warner and Viacom.

Whitley Strieber, author of The Hunger and Nature's End, has signed with Gersh Agency.

How did a group of private investors snag Skype for $2 billion+ when big public corporations like Google were too scared to bid, thanks to lawsuits? With stolen computer nerd sorcery, allegedly.

Twitter is poised to close a $50 million funding round that values the microblogging startup at a staggering $1 billion, according to TechCrunch and AllThingsD. Since closing its last venture round in February, then, the startup's value has grown fourfold.

If you're tired of hearing tales of how your downstairs neighbor got a book deal for his online compilation of images of his bad hair days, we've got news for you. Brace yourself to hear about his TV development deal.

In September, Yahoo touted Firefox to Internet Explorer users as a "safer" browser. Now it's doing just the opposite. Funny what an innocent little "search agreement" can do to one's perception of the world. [TechCrunch]

Two years ago, music service iLike appeared to be set: Its CEO said it was "made," its investor mused it could be a "billion-dollar winner," and the press was enthralled. Now the poster child is a cautionary tale.

Adrian Holovaty has sold his hyperlocal news startup to MSNBC.com, allowing the programmer to cash out and keep his staff employed. For most entrepreneurs that would be unalloyed good news. But Holovaty isn't just any entrepreneur. Just ask his critics.

FriendFeed grew out of Google's casual engineer culture, and the team didn't bother dressing up to sell the social aggregator to Facebook for $50 million, either. This picture does indeed speak volumes.

Facebook confirmed it will buy the social aggregation service FriendFeed on undisclosed terms. It would appear that narcissism is a bounded phenomenon.

Today's deal between Microsoft and Yahoo is officially a partnership. But the 10-year search deal, assuming it clears regulators, inevitably ends one way: With Yahoo's annihilation.

After a failed romance last year, tears; then fighting and the nastiness; followed by a slow, painful reconciliation starting earlier this year. Yahoo and Microsoft have finally — finally — united with an advertising deal, All Things D reports.

At the ripe old age of 28, Ricky Van Veen is finally putting CollegeHumor.com behind him. He's leaving the site he co-founded and starting a production company called Notional. But the young man remains in Barry Diller's well-padded nest.