Acquired in October 2007, Twitter rival Jaiku still doesn't accept new users. Its current ones complain of system slowdowns and malfunctions. On May 30, 2008, founder Jyri Engeström wrote:

Contrary to some voices out there, we DO have plans for future development and we will involve our developer community as much as we can. Just to reiterate, we are working very hard to ensure you have a useful and usable service. We feel the short term pain, too.

Acquired in October 2006, JotSpot is Google Sites now, and according to longtime users, it's not what it used to be.

Purchased in 2005, it took Google six months to assign any new engineers to the project. The founders quit in 2007, and one, Dennis Crowley, will tell any entreprenuer who will listen to reject Google's siren song.

Google acquired GrandCentral, which provides a suite of telephony services, in July 2007, immediately closed it to new users and hasn't opened it since.

Google acquired Measure Map in 2006, hoping to incorporate its features into Google Analytics. "And we did that," reports Google VP David Lawee. Too bad for bloggers who missed Measure Map's blog-specific features and don't use Google's Blogger.

Dick Costolo from dick costolo on Vimeo.

Here's the problem: Entrepreneurs need to get paid. Those who finance need return on investment. It's nuts to take any company public that cannot deliver consistent and predictable growth and earnings quarter over quarter for years. We've sold Del.icio.us, FeedBurner, and Tacoda, to Yahoo, Google, and AOL, respectively. Were we happy to take their money? Yes. But look deeper. Del.icio.us: the user base has fallen off. FeedBurner: I don't see any integration between AdWords and FeedBurner. Tacoda: top members of the Tacoda team are gone. I am wondering if there is a better way: a place for private equity investors to trade securities. The companies remain private, do not file with the SEC, and do not trade daily. When an entrepreneur or investor wants liquidity on a position they own, they come to these private markets, offer their position or part of their position for sale, and a trade is made.

Counting feed subscribers — for a single feed-reader application, in a market crowded with many — seems a pointlessly masturbatory activity. RSS feeds allow subscribers to track a blog's posts without actually having to visit a website. As such, what do they really indicate, besides the portion of a site's audience that's technically adept and more than a little lazy? If RSS-feed advertising had any money in it, the tech business bloggers could claim some value to their time well wasted. But there isn't, really; what little business there was, thanks to FeedBurner, went away after Google acquired that company and fired its specialized sales staff, who were just beginning to make inroads with large advertisers. When RSS-feed ads add up to a noticeable source of revenue for these sites, real businesses will count this data. Until then, I'll spend my time researching Google's efforts to automate FeedBurner's ad sales, not joining the circle jerk.

Wilson's investment in Tacoda actually predates the formation of Union Square Ventures, but partner Brad Burnham argues more ably than I can that Tacoda shaped his and Wilson's thinking in forming their current firm. Two years ago, Wilson told writer John Heilemann that media and marketing would be among the worlds most transformed by the Internet — and most lucrative for venture capitalists, making New York, not Menlo Park, the ideal perch for spotting new ideas and new companies. With hundreds of millions of dollars worth of portfolio companies sold, he's looking increasingly right.

Blogbeat explains that Feedburner bought them for their technology. In other words, look for a couple of layoffs, or people who just plain weren't picked up in Feedburner's purchase, especially outside the engineering department.

Blogbeat says the terms of its deal are "not even whispered in hushed tones among those in the know." Instead, they're sent to tips@valleywag.com.

Feedburner acquires Blogbeat [Blogbeat front page]

In fact, the press release for the real story is already in journos' hands, but everyone's obeying the embargo. (Come on, TechCrunch, we all know you're sitting on this.)

If you want to leak the announcement, drop a line at tips@valleywag.com, or ping "heyvalleywag" on AIM.

Earlier: Scoop: Feedburner buys Nooked (No it doesn't.)

A reader follows up on an earlier tip to report that Feedburner will soon announce that it's buying Nooked, another player in the RSS marketing space. Nooked will get both cash and stock in the deal.

Nooked is based out of Ireland and mostly does business in Europe, bringing Feedburner some international reach. The companies foresee no trouble meshing their technologies, says the source.

Earlier: Feedburner's buying someone. But who?

Now this could mean that someone's buying Feedburner. (Yahoo? Google? They already have massive ad programs, but Feedburner's RSS ad network could be a growing asset.) But given how this was phrased, it's more likely that Feedburner's buying someone else. I'd guess feed search company Feedster, but that little startup just took more VC funding.

Still looking into this story. If you know more, whisper it to tips@valleywag.com.

• SpotBit hosts scans of popular magazines — a virtually cost-free business. Look ma, no clearances! Last week, media blog FishBowlNY was tracking SpotBit's survival with some incredulity. And sure, the old main page may now just show an error message, but that's just a minor setback, right?
• Feedpass isn't exactly stealing, but it's sure borrowing on loose terms. And, says tech blogger Michael Arrington, the feed parsing site is pretty useless — it's basically a poor man's Feedburner.
• The cream of today's crop must be Chinese event site Boubo.com, which supports its perfect simulacrum of Yahoo's Upcoming.org with Google ads (OMG scandal!). Check out the Boubo screenshot on (Yahoo's) Flickr, where one Yahoo employee has tagged the listings with translations like "NEW STARBUCKS, 50% OFF ALL FRAPPUCINO'S - Forbidden Palace, West Hall." Heehee.