AOL, the old dial-up internet service provider, in a bid to turn around the company and focus itself on media and entertainment, has decided to purchase The Huffington Post for US$315 million. This purchase has been approved by the Board of Directors and is expected to happen in the late first quarter or early second quarter of the year. US$300 million is expected to be paid in cash. The balance will probably be paid in shares. The co-founder of The Huffington Post, Arianna Huffington, will be leading The Huffington Post Media Group, which means that she will be pocketing cash and have a job too.

I find it pretty amazing that The Huffington Post which was stared in 2005 has grown so much in the few short years that it could be sold at US$315 million… but then again these old internet giants have never been able to make wise decisions as they grapple to catch up with newer dotcoms. Just look at the losses suffered by AOL and Yahoo! when they have to shut down websites that they have acquired for hundreds of millions of dollars.

I read with concern that there seems to be more cases of Scam 419 in Malaysia where victims got to know these scammers via Facebook, and of course, other social networks. These scammers start milking cash from victims after a few months of intensive chatting online.

Perhaps the reason I felt that there are more cases because victims are coming out to lodge police reports and inform the media so that others do not fall victim to such scams. Or maybe there really are more people falling victim because more and more women are getting on the internet.

I wonder why, although there are plenty of such reports featured in the papers, there are still people continue to be victimised and only realise that they have conned when they have lost tens of thousands of Ringgit. By then, it would already be too late and they would be heavily in debt.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that Malaysian women are more foolish than women in other countries. There are victims all over the world. And obviously, not only women become victims. Even men get conned too.

I find this story pretty amusing. Of course it’s amusing because it didn’t happen to me but I can sympathise with this Kate Middleton from Kent who is in trouble with Facebook just because she shares the same name with the future Queen of England.

Although Facebook says that we cannot create an account with a fake ID and many celebrity names and trademarks have been blocked from being registered, it’s a problem when it’s our REAL name, like this case with Kate Middleton from Kent. The funnier thing is that Kate Middleton of Kent has a boyfriend who also shares the name of a celebrity; Jonathan Ross.

What doesn’t make sense is that if Facebook things that this was a fake account, then wouldn’t the boyfriend of Kate Middleton be Prince William instead of Jonathan Ross? Haha!