Woot, the one-deal-a-day portal has been acquired by Amazon – reported to be $110mn deal.

Woot’s company culture pretty much shows up in the email (interesting part highlihhted by us) sent by CEO, Matt Rutledge to employees

From a practical point of view, it will be as if we are simply adding one person to the organizational hierarchy, except that one person will just happen to be a billion-dollar company that could buy and sell each and every one of you like you were office furniture. Nevertheless, don’t worry that our culture will suddenly take a leap forward and become cutting-edge. We’re still going to be the same old bottom-feeders our customers and readers have come to know and love, and each and every one of their pre-written insult macros will still be just as valid in a week, two weeks, or even next year. For Woot, our vision remains the same: somehow earning a living on snarky commentary and junk.

We are excited about doing this for all sorts of reasons. One, our business model is so vague that there’s no way Amazon can possibly change what it is we’re truly doing: preparing the way for the rise of the Lava Men in 2012. Also, our deal means that Jason Toon will finally be released from that Mexican jail owned by Zappos honcho Tony Hsieh. No, don’t lie, Tony, we’ve seen the paperwork. And we need a powerful ally in case Steve Jobs finally breaks down and comes after us for all our Apple jokes over the years. Don’t think of it as a buyout; think of it as NATO!

Amazon earlier acquired Zappos and now, Woot – companies with distinct culture and probably hoping that these cultures change the DNA of the company, which is facing stiff competition with Apple(s) of the world.

Status.net Launches Desktop Client

StatusNet announced the launch of its Open Source multi-platform client StatusNet Desktop. The new software runs on Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows (2000/XP/Vista/Win7) and can connect to any StatusNet social messaging server.

With StatusNet Desktop, anyone can connect to multiple StatusNet sites, including secure and private installations. It is simple to post new notices and replies, and view public, user, friends, replies, tag and group timelines. StatusNet Desktop lets you directly manage your user and group subscriptions, manage your inbox of direct messages, search for notices across all timelines and have an auto-refreshed timeline with new status updates.

StatusNet Desktop is built using Appcelerator Titanium that allows for more rapid development across platforms. StatusNet Client is licensed under the Apache 2 license with the code in a public place. Anyone may download, modify and help make StatusNet Desktop better.[via]

Microsoft Kills the Kin

Microsoft announced Kin in the month of April and the project has now been shut down owing to focus on Windows Phone.

“We have made the decision to focus exclusively on Windows Phone 7 and we will not ship KIN in Europe this fall as planned,” the company said. “Additionally, we are integrating our KIN team with the Windows Phone 7 team, incorporating valuable ideas and technologies from KIN into future Windows Phone releases. We will continue to work with Verizon in the U.S. to sell current KIN phones.”

Microsoft got the pricing wrong and eyes are now on Windows Phone 7. [Suggested Read: What killed the Kin?]

Facebook Simplifies Application Permission System

Facebook has simplified privacy for application permissions and the new settings gives more control to users when it comes to information sharing.

In order for these applications and websites to provide social and customized experiences, they need to know a little bit about you. We understand, however, that it’s important that you also have control over what you’re sharing. With this new authorization process, when you log into an application with your Facebook account, the application will only be able to access the public parts of your profile by default. To access the private sections of your profile, the application has to explicitly ask for your permission. – blog

Windows Live iPhone App

In just 5 days, over one million people downloaded the Windows Live Messenger app for iPhone. In addition to the more than one million iPhone Messenger users, there are over 24 million people who connect with Messenger friends from other mobile phones through a client application, their phone’s browser, or SMS.  Along with Messenger Connect, Messenger IM in Hotmail, and the comingintegration with Xbox LIVE, the new iPhone app is just one more way that we are bringing Messenger to you across the web and on your phone. [via]

Video of the Day

From Woot team (on Amazon Acquisition)