It took a mediator–and a trip to Maui–to break the biggest logjam in landmark settlement talks between Intel (INTC) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). Before arriving at the agreement that ended years of acrimony and legal wrangling between the world’s largest makers of computer chips, representatives of each needed to answer one fundamental question: How much money would change hands?

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I’ve been carrying out a small experiment in one of the areas of greatest potential abuse of social media: Twitter marketing. If you Google (GOOG) “Twitter buy followers,” you’ll see lots of choices. One outfit called Quick Online Tips offers 100,000 followers for a mere $3,479.

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It’s never been easy making mobile-commerce predictions. Researchers who tried to forecast how much we would spend on goods and services via cell phone came up with all sorts of projections that were wide of the mark. Early in the decade, published reports cited forecasts that by 2006 more than one-quarter of U.S. cell-phone users would use the device to buy content and physical goods.

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For three months early this year, 63-year-old Ronald Lang was one of the most plugged-in patients in America. Lang, who suffers from congestive heart failure and multiple sclerosis, was pilot-testing the Intel (INTC) Health Guide, a device that let doctors monitor his health remotely. Each day after he woke up, he’d step on a scale and strap on a blood-pressure cuff that were attached to the Health Guide. The device collected his vitals and zapped them to his doctor’s office.

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As iPod sales ease, the company is focusing more and more on software–to the dismay of the record labels

Right after unveiling new iPods and iTunes software at an event on Sept. 9, Apple (AAPL) Chief Executive Steve Jobs invited singer Norah Jones on stage to perform for the assembled tech and media pundits. “Like you, we love music,” he told the crowd. “That’s probably the primary reason we do this.”

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McGraw-Hill (MHP) CEO Terry McGraw said the company has received interest from 93 potential buyers for Business Week, Bloomberg reports.

In an interview on Bloomberg Television, he said interested parties include private equity, hedge funds and strategic buyers. “Everybody’s involved,” he said.

McGraw recently announced a decision to seek potential buyers for the magazine, which has been hurt in the recessions by a downturn in the print advertising market.

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Dell (DELL) CEO Michael Dell has done little to dispel rumors that his company is working on a mobile computing device. In fact, he all but confirmed them while traveling in Japan on March 24 when he said: “It is true that we are exploring smaller-screen devices.” What form those devices will take remains a matter of heated debate. Talk is that Dell plans a smartphone that would compete with Research In Motion’s (RIMM) BlackBerry, Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone, and the various devices running software from Microsoft (MSFT), Nokia (NOK), or the Google-backed (GOOG) Open Handset Alliance. Prototypes of a Dell-made smartphone are being circulated in the wild and, according to Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu, got a cool reception from mobile-phone carriers including AT&T (T) and Sprint Nextel (S).

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As recently as late 2008, Pandora Networks’ Chief Technology Officer Tom Conrad still had big doubts about the prospects for smartphone maker Palm (PALM). In November, Conrad was among a coterie of software developers invited to Palm headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif., to take an early, up-close look at an operating system for use in the company’s phones. “I was totally skeptical when I walked in,” says Conrad, who met Palm execs along with representatives of MySpace, Intuit (INTU), movie site Fandango, and Epocrates, a maker of mobile software for physicians.

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Has news site Digg really made no progress in two years?

That’s what you’d have to conclude from the value investors are placing on Digg after its most recent investment: $164 million.

You’ll remember the hyped Business Week article from more than two years ago that reported “people in the know” said the company’s value was “easily worth $200 million.” The reference suggested Digg and its investors were hoping to steer perceptions that it was worth at least that much.

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The Internet revolutionized the distribution of software–perhaps a bit too much. The Web brought a new, cheaper method for getting software into the hands of users, but in doing so may have killed one of the best models in Silicon Valley history.

At the outset, the Internet ushered in an exciting new era of corporate software. On-demand computing–its poster child Salesforce.com’s grinning, rosy-cheeked Marc Benioff sporting his once trademark “No Software” button–promised low-priced, convenient delivery of applications.

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Since Sen. Barack Obama announced that he would forgo public financing for his presidential bid, even more is being made of his campaign’s prowess at raising record sums on the Web. Obama seems to have an almost magical ability to generate a spontaneous upwelling of political and financial support.

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“I think [fixed prices] will disappear online, simply because it is possible–cheap and easy–to vary prices online.” That was MIT Media Lab’s Patti Maes in 1999, at a time when eBay’s business was booming and auctions were seen as the future of ecommerce. Flash forward 9 years, and BusinessWeek is today calling online auctions a dying breed, Nick Carr is wondering if auctions were a fad. Indeed, the fixed price (”Buy it Now” only) format is beginning to dominate eBay, and the company has taken recent steps push fixed price even harder. But the death knell of the online auction format is not eBay’s biggest problem–no, that would be the small exodus of sellers from the site.

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