It was the number #1 topic on Twitter Search and was covered alot in my feeds on twitter and friendfeed, even TechCrunch blogged about the Systemwide Gmail Outage and this got me thinking - could this be done for pr purposes or was it really “raining” in the clouds.

Imagine if you took down a much valued service temporarily, you’re going to see alot of bloggers discussing it as well as, on the likes of Twitter, FriendFeed and much more. This means your getting press coverage for free and boosting your brand and as a result, you’re saving money on your advertising spend - and for any company that’s a good thing - no matter how big you are.

This also seems to ring true, when the GMail blog didn’t comment on the issue for a long period of time and the HTML Gmail Version was working through-out the mass outage - which could mean GMail could have been taken down for pr purposes.

A company as large as Google wouldn’t suspend a service to get FREE pr now, would it?

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Therefore, it is now going to be my “personal blog” and the name of my company, in which my other ventures will operate under it. As a result, some of the content will be removed from the site so we are fully in relation to the ”new” Profit Baron and I feel that this is a great way for both of us to benefit and by moving with the times, we can grow our community and expand our user base.

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A number of publications have said and quoted Viacom on that they weren’t going to collect all the data they were entitled to under the order. But, I’m not sure if we should believe Viacom on this because, if you remember in 2006 - The AOL search debacle which had users being identified based on a simple list of the search terms they had entered.

Viacom has come out again, and reiterated their statement on that they won’t use the information to go after individuals.

The problem is Google aren’t sure if Viacom will live up to the promise of not going after individuals. This is proven by them being unwilling to hand over employee data and this has led to Googles reputation being on the line. They’ve shown they’re prepared to protect their employees, now it’s time for them to show they will protect its users too.

Because, if they don’t protect their users everyone is going to remember that Google had gathered and stored information without consent, and then gave it away when they were up against some trouble. Which will certainly kill their reputation.

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Advertising is a method which may eventually work, but so far social networks are proving ad-resistant.  However, a couple of well-placed sources have told us that Facebook Officials have been debating the introduction and merits of creating a PayPal-like system which allows users to buy virtual goods and other goods. Our sources and a couple of useful clues have also said that there could a possible launch at Facebook’s f8 developer conference.

Another factor which could show that they are implementing such system is that we’ve had several reports from our readers, who use Facebook and have told us that they’ve seen what appears to be a ”secure” version of the site - which is using SSL (Secure Sockets Layers) encryption. This encryption method is often used by sites which, collect payment information from users and it seem to make sense that Facebook are using SSL for this reason.

However, although Facebook are playing with SSL it doesn’t actually mean they will be implementing a paypal-like system any time soon.

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Its three partners: Aubrey McClendon, Andre de Baubigny and Timothy Komada provided all of the money and met through Vintrust, which dubs itself an “investment bank for wine”.

Vintrust provides storage facilities, wine management software and advice and was founded by Andre and Timothy with Aubrey being an investor.

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However, I’ve noticed many startups recently that are getting investment recently and have business plans missing in action. OK, they’ve got themselves a great product/idea but they’ve not really got themselves an idea how to generate revenue other then to get invested and hopefully, flip it onto a powerhouse like Google or Yahoo. This shouldn’t be the case any more especially with the “credit crunch” in effect, these companies will be looking for companies which are able to generate revenue themselves and they can add something to it to generate even more (which is what I look for when purchasing/investing into a company).

We know this because, YouTube isn’t making a great amount of revenue which Google wants in fact its supposedly going to make $200 million this year, which is well below expectations.  Mark Cuban has discussed a great method how Google can generate more revenue from YouTube although, it will potentially kill its title as leading video-sharing site. You can read it here.

We also know this because, sites like Twitter which have acquired $20million in venture capital funding has a business plan missing in action. Which is why Twitter are in talks with Summize in relation to acquiring it, so they can buy themselves a business plan and start to generate revenue from the site. You can read more about this story here. This isn’t the only improvements Twitter should do, and I’ve discussed some of them here which includes a redesign to introduce advertisements and the implementation of more features i.e. Media.

These are not the only companies whom are launching with the intention to sell to Google or Yahoo. I mean look at NetVibes and PageFlakes these have also taken millions of venture capital investment with intentions to sell to Google or Yahoo (well it appears to be the reason for launching) and in fact Google and Yahoo have built themselves iGoogle and My Yahoo! Because, they know they can’t generate millions in fact any revenue at all from these sites so why spend millions on a company, which they could get a developer to build quickly without having to shed out millions in doing so.

The reason I mentioned bootstrapping at the start of the post was for a reason because, I know that with my companies I need to ensure that not only am I managing my cash flow properly but that it is always in the black (green). This is possible still possible with companies which have been invested in to manage their cash flow tightly and keep themselves in the black (green) although they get millions poured into them and if they ever struggle for cash they can always do a new, funding round. However, the reason why I believe it is more important with bootstrapped companies to manage cash flow even more efficiently and effectively then a firm which has received investment and that the bootstrapped company is constantly in the black (green) because, they do not have the ability to spend excessive amounts on further advertising and brand awareness.

As a result, bootstrapped companies are always looking for ways to monetize their companies or sites without looking too intrusive to the user. This isn’t always the case with bootstrapped companies, but with the ones I’ve started myself and the most I’ve had experience with it to ensure that I’m maximising revenues from the site and I’m keeping the costs as low as possible to ensure I can grow and compete with the larger sites out there and this is why, these are succeeding online and not going out of business.

OK, so a bootstrapped company won’t initially be pulling in millions a year but they’re pulling in thousands a year with costs far lower then firms which have received investment, which allows them to grow and ensure that the company has built a solid foundation before expanding and eliminating the risk of over-trading which in the long run will allow them to pull in the large amounts/year.

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A source close to the deal, has told us the deal is worth $35 million which includes earnout provisions. Rafat has confirmed the deal but hasn’t mentioned the price (here).

Rafat said that the Guardian had previously made an offer for the company, but instead he chose to raise a $1 to $2 million fundraising round. However, the group came back with a new offer three weeks ago and he said that the offer was too good to pass up.

ContentNext will remain an independent unit of the group and won’t be directly affiliated with the newspaper.

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Either they cleared up its claimed “system maintenance” issue or the Chinese government decided not to completely crush it, which is great news to its investors, Disney’s Steamboat Ventures, Susquehanna International Group, Hikari Private Equity, Sequoia China, Adobe Systems and CID Group, who have invested $30 million into the company.

We still don’t know why the site was down for so long and we don’t have an idea if the content or any other part of the site has had a significant overhaul, although we presume it has.

We also don’t know if 56.com can regain its traffic is lost if they can acquire a video license from the Chinese government, like competitor Youku has done earlier this week.

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The company’s competitors have told us, that they believe the video-sharing service has been shut down by the Chinese authorities for copyright infringement or some other high crime. If this is true then the $30 million invested into the company by Disney’s Steamboat Ventures, Susquehanna International Group, Hikari Private Equity, Sequoia China, Adobe Systems and CID Group has simply vapourized.

However, this doesn’t seem to be the case because having previously greeted visitors with a message which just blamed the outage on technical problems the company has now added some cute aliens and a promise to return, soon.

Translation from Chinese:

We are coming back to earth soon. Our system maintenance is already nearing completion, and the service will be returning soon. Please tell your friends about the news. Thank you for your support during this time. We’re looking forward to meeting you again. Thank you!

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The company will use the funding to launch its first game. However, we don’t know any details of the game, not even when it will launch - except for the fact that it is aimed at serious gamers.

As a result of the funding, there was two members added to the board, which were Rick Heitzmann of FirstMark and Mitch Lasky of Benchmark who has held positions at Activision, as the head of worldwide studios and EA Sports as the former EVP of Online & Mobile.

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