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• The Triumph of Web 2.5

  Daniel Gross 9/18/2009 12:00:00 AM

  Earlier this week, Intuit, the software company that owns the popular personal-finance software programs Quicken and TurboTax, agreed to pay $170 million in cash for Mint.com, a two-year-old startup whose free tools allow chastened customers to manage their personal finances online. Some critics, such as Web entrepreneur Jason Fried, view the deal as a defeat for upstarts: A wounded incumbent that charges hefty fees for its services is taking out a free competitor for a relatively small sum and increasing its market power. (Last year, Slate's "Shopping" column tabbed Quicken.com and Mint.com as the best online tools for keeping track of personal finances.) But the all-cash deal, which will provide a hefty payday for the company's founders and venture capital investors, represents a triumph of a new business model. Indeed, the sale of Mint.com may be the first big payoff for a Web 2.5 company.Web 2.0 refers to the generation of companies and services built on the wreckage of Web 1.0.

• Is the Internet Broken?

  9/2/2009 12:00:00 AM

  Google's Gmail system, which serves millions of customers around the world, shut down yesterday. The problem may hurt its efforts to market applications which include e-mail to businesses. Google prides itself on the reliability of its software, at least according to its marketing pitch. It is not clear why Google had the problem. It keeps thousands of servers. Some of those may have developed trouble or some outside programmer, a hacker, may have sent a bug into the system to make it collapse.

• Green Clouds in Northern Climes

  Christopher Werth 8/29/2009 12:00:00 AM

  Just google the words "carbon footprint" and you've added seven grams of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, say Harvard researchers. Google disputes this number, but there's little doubt the IT industry is becoming one of the biggest contributors to global warming. The industry now accounts for 2 percent of worldwide emissions—comparable to the annual total for airplanes.

• Does the Microsoft-Yahoo Deal Matter?

  Daniel Lyons 7/29/2009 12:00:00 AM

  Years ago I knew two people who had been dating for years, and kept talking about maybe getting married but just couldn't decide. For months, then years, we all got dragged through their ridiculous soap opera. She wanted to get married and kept hoping he'd propose. Then she got sick of hoping and gave him an ultimatum: propose by Christmas, or it's over. He called her bluff, and Christmas came and went, and she didn't toss him out. Meanwhile, he agonized over it. On the one hand, he thought he wanted to get married, but maybe not to her, but then again maybe she was the right one for him, because after all they'd been going out for so long and they knew each other so well ... blah, blah, blah. Finally she gave him another ultimatum, and this time he caved and proposed, and finally they did get married. By then we were all so sick of watching this awful spectacle that we didn't feel happy for them—just relieved that it was over.

• The Making of ‘MicroHoo’

  7/29/2009 12:00:00 AM

  With upwards of two-thirds of the search market, depending on which survey you use, one would not imagine Google would worry too much about any kind of hook-up of Microsoft and Yahoo.Think again.

• In Exile from Family and Friends

  Eric Pape 7/11/2009 12:00:00 AM

  Nikola Jovanovic was a senior in high school in 1999 when his prom was canceled. The reason: NATO planes bombed his hometown of Pec in Kosovo. Shortly afterward Jovanovic fled to Belgrade, where he now works for an Austrian bank, and he recently caught up with old classmates on Facebook. For many refugees who, like Jovanovic, resettled in relatively wealthy circumstances, social-networking sites have been a boon for finding lost friends and family members.

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