Online marketing services company ValueClick is buying financial information and investing education website Investopedia from Forbes for approximately $42 million in cash. The reasons for the purchase: content, traffic, advertiser relationships and its team, says ValueClick – the site had been put up for sale back in June. Founded in 1999, Investopedia provides visitors with a glossary of financial terms,...

As students head back to school, eBay is getting into mobile textbook sales with the launch of a a new iPhone app from Half.com, which eBay bought in 2000 for $350 million. The Half.com iPhone app is also the first eBay buying application to integrate barcode scanning technology, which was implemented through the acquisition of RedLaser in June. The app allows users to scan the barcodes on items to find the best...

This week for OMG/JK, the show on TechCrunch TV that I do with fellow writer Jason Kincaid, we decided to switch things up a bit. Because there was a major announcement, Facebook Places, that we both covered, we decided to devote the entire show to that one topic. Yes, it’s a little longer than usual (about 20 minutes), but I think the conversation is pretty interesting and dynamic. Obviously, we talk about...

Editor’s note: Is the law of large numbers getting to Google? Innovation is hard, especially when a new idea needs to create billions of dollars in revenue for it to count. In the the following guest post, author and former venture capitalist Peter Sims talks about the challenges Google faces not to suffer the same fate as every other dominant tech company before it. Sims is co-author of True North:...

Foursquare may have a tenuous partnership with Facebook Places— but don’t let the Kumbaya presentation fool you, these frenemies are gunning for the ultimate mayorship and Dennis Crowley is feeling very confident. On Friday’s taping of Gillmor Gang with former TechCrunchIT Editor Steve Gillmor, Kevin Marks and John Taschek, Crowley discussed the opportunity for places, outlined his plan for the...