Google’s $12.5 billion bid for Motorola Mobility is causing waves in the tech industry today, so Matt Rosoff at Alley Insider takes a look at what happened to 16 other big acquisitions by the search giant (including YouTube, Postini, ITA, Like.com). Rosoff also notes that the $12.5 billion buyout of Motorola would be four times bigger than the company’s largest acquisition to date, the 2007 buyout of DoubleClick.
Meanwhile, ZDNET’s Larry Dignan offers six reasons why the Google deal makes sense, while Henry Blodgett at Business 
Insider says it could be a ” major disaster” in part because the search giant now is competing with its partners in mobile.
Redfin has upgraded its iPhone app, allowing registered users to get more information on the pricing of selected properties and to see the Agent Insights’ notes produced by the company’s agents. “The new app is like chocolate ice cream — deeper and richer! — especially for the real-estate aficionados who log-in as Redfin customers,” writes Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman.
First Netflix boosted its pricing. Now, Coinstar is considering increasing its Redbox DVD rental pricing, testing a $1.20 nightly movie rental at kiosks in Austin, Texas. That’s up from $1.
A new study from the Pew Internet project has found that 83 percent of American adults now own some kind of cell phone. And they are not just used for playing Plants vs. Zombies. Forty percent of the respondents said that their cell phone helped them out in some type of emergency situation. Full study here.
Headline of the day comes via TechCrunch: Flickr not dead, but losing the soul of photo sharing
