Afternoon roundup 5.16.08

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Pretty quiet out there. And HOT in California. But here’s what’s shaking.

Is that an Kindle in Jennifer Aniston’s hands? We bet she didn’t pay, but Citigroup thinks a lot of people will. The investment bank, via TechCrunch, says it expects Amazon to sell up to $750 million worth of the book-reading devices by 2010.

An L.A.-based venture capital fund is buying PC Club, a chain of computer stores, according to LA Business Journal.

Conde Nast is buying techno-hipster site Ars Technica.

Yahoo buys Mark Cuban’s company for $5 billion during the dot-com boom. He buys an NBA team, then repays Yahoo like this? Ouch, Boomtown says. Silicon Alley Insider prognosticates on what happens next in the Yahoo-Microsoft-Icahn drama.

Facebook is not a fan of Google’s Friend Connect program, and basically says goodbye.

Netscape founder Marc Andreessen: Who needs reporters to get my message out? I have a blog!

Jessica Alba and NBA star Steve Nash have a staring contest to promote ibeatyou.com, Web Scout says.

Jessica Alba and Jennifer Aniston in one post. Must be a Friday.

-- Chris Gaither