A lot of CEOs with less than 12 months of capital left have been asking me for advice about what to do, given the massive economic turmoil we're facing. I thought I would take the time put these various conversations into one email to help those who are "up against it," as we say in Brooklyn. Now, sprinting to the startup precipice is one of the most horrible and exhilarating experiences you can have as an entrepreneur. Read on

Two weeks ago, we ran an excerpt from a piece the Village Ventures partner Bo Peabody wrote for the Washington Post about how Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks would always be lousy businesses. Bo brings an interesting perspective to this argument, given that he founded and ran community-site Tripod in the late 1990s. Bo's piece generated many questions, from us and others. Happily, he had a more complete version on hand that answers many of them. Read on

Editor's note: Earlier this week, we published the account of a DoubleClick client who wrote "the atmosphere at DoubleClick is bleak and service to the clients is woeful." Then we heard from employees who came to Google through the merger. One said, "Google Destroyed My Career." Here now is another equally as disparaging account of the merger, but from the perspective of a pre-IPO Google (GOOG) employee: Read on

There has been a lot of talk about Apple's aggressive stance towards Adobe lately. For years now the two companies have been on less than friendly terms with each other over several issues. Lately they've bickered about the alleged bugginess of Flash. According to Steve Jobs, Flash is responsible for most crashes on the Mac and uses abnormal amounts of processing power which would drain the battery of any mobile device. Before that Apple and Adobe fought over licensing issues regarding PDF files and the slow pace with which Adobe updates is applications. Read on

Brads reaction: Of all the acquisition rumours around Apple, this one would make the most sense to me.

Last month Google killed four of their mobile services (Jaiku, Notes, Dodgeball and the iPhone and Android specific variants of iGoogle) and I was starting to have doubts about the search and advertising giant's commitment to mobile. I shouldn't have doubted, on Monday Google rolled out Tasks for Mobile, and today launched a brand new service, Google Latitude. Read on

Apple is building Facebook features into the latest version of its iPhone software, we're told by a plugged-in source in the mobile industry. These features could be announced during Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference keynote on June 7, when Apple is expected to unveil a new iPhone. Our source tells us that Apple is at least going to build Facebook contact syncing directly into the iPhone software, so you can pull Facebook contacts into your iPhone's phonebook. This is a no-brainer, and is already a feature that some of Apple's competition offers, so it makes sense to include on the iPhone. Read on

Brads reaction: Others have done this but when Apple does it you know that Facebook must be doing something right. It is starting to become prevalent throughout the web and now in hardware.

The iPad has been this week's media darling with active discussion about the device's merits, a look at how it fails to encourage AR innovation and of course, this morning's announcement of a developer fund. Although it's exciting from a consumer standpoint, between the iPhone, Android, Blackberry and now the iPad, application developers have their work cut out for them. While consumers may flock to the new tablet, the thought of locking more developers into the purgatory of the Apple approval process is one that few will celebrate. Read on

Paul Cook is Managing Director of Positive Feedback, which owns the TagMan tag management product that was a recent winner of an Econsultancy Innovation Award. TagMan makes it easier for companies to implement web analytics and can reduce de-duplication, which is a growing concern for many e-commerce and marketing teams. We interviewed Paul to find out more about the thorny issue of de-duplication... Read on

Skype and Joost are interesting companies to compare they are about as close as you can get to one of those sociological studies that track identical twins who are raised separately. Skype was a spectacular success. Joost never got traction and was shut down. Both were started by Nicklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, two of the great technology visionaries of our time. Both were big ideas, trying to disrupt giant, slow-moving incumbents. There are likely multiple reasons for their different outcomes. Joost had day-to-day management that didn t have much startup experience. The P2P technology that required a download made sense for chat but not for video. The companies were started at different times: Skype when there was far less investment in and there competition among consumer internet products. Read on

Rupert Murdoch's killer quarter has emboldened him, and his plans to charge for his content. Speaking on the company's earnings call, he said "Content isn't just King, it's the Emperor of all things electronic." He added later, without content the world's large flat screens, e-readers, and tablets would be "unloved and unsold." Read on