Remember Circa, the breathlessly hyped news app that attempted to summarize stories by breaking them down into small, flavorless nuggets of content? The app abruptly stopped publishing in June after finally depleting $5.27 million in venture capital, but today the Wall Street Journal reported that it has finally found a benefactor: the conservative-leaning television news conglomerate Sinclair Broadcast Group, whose venture capital division recently acquired all of Circa’s assets for just $800,000.*

Pitchfork Media, the twenty-year-old music criticism site known for mainstreaming decent musical taste and worshipping the band Radiohead, has been acquired by media empire Condé Nast, which is excited to be the new owner of “a very passionate audience of millennial males.”

This might sound a little familiar: after filing for bankruptcy for the second time in three years, media company Journal Register Co. is being sold to an affiliate of its current owner. From the Detroit News:

As you know, Google is the world's most frugal company. So they must have really thought the founders of the now-flailing iPhone app Color were on to something when they offered to buy the company for $200 million earlier this year.

AOL just bought news site Huffington Post for $315 million—$300 million in cash. HuffPo founder Arianna Huffington will become editor of all AOL "content properties." That sound you just heard was the whole internet going "Whaaaaat?"

News and politics site Salon.com is "exploring opportunities to merge with or be acquired by another company." I've got eighteen dollars in my wallet. Anyone want to go in with me? Ten bucks'll get you the advice columnist position!

The slow death of Genuine New York continues apace: Ubiquitous NYC drug store Duane Reade, with over 1 million locations in your neighborhood alone, is being bought by boring corporate drug store Walgreen. Man. Remember when purchasing gum was real?

AOL is interested in buying the world's largest tech blog, Mashable, we hear from a source at the internet conglomerate. And in fact the two sides have been talking, people outside AOL have whispered to one another, and to us.

It looks like someone's Christmas vacation just got a whole lot more exciting:

When asked how he keeps up "with the latest tech news when there are so many blogs," Times editor David Gallagher immediately cited TechMeme, a direct competitor of Blogrunner, as "one of my favorite sites." Although the Times serves Blogrunner results from the front of Gallagher's own section, the editor didn't plug the site in his three-paragraph answer. It wasn't the first time the Times forgot about its 2005 acquisition; reporter Saul Hansell says he considered pushing the newspaper to develop something similar before discovering "we actually owned a company that did that" (see video).

Two years ago, music service iLike appeared to be set: Its CEO said it was "made," its investor mused it could be a "billion-dollar winner," and the press was enthralled. Now the poster child is a cautionary tale.

Mail.com, which launched Movieline.com with the ex-Defamer crew, has purchased Nikki Finke's Deadlinehollywooddaily.com. [AllThingsD]

Facebook tried to buy Twitter. Google and Microsoft have been giving the red-hot Internet-messaging startup the eye. But we hear it's Apple that's closest to sealing a deal, possibly for as much as $700 million.

Look at eBay's books and it wouldn't seem to have money problems. But it's running a garage, unloading would-be Digg competitor StumbleUpon, and hopes to sell Internet phone service Skype. Why?

An AOL tipster tells us incoming CEO Tim Armstrong, the Google sales veteran, wants to buy Twitter, the hot message-broadcasting startup. One problem: He hasn't even started at AOL yet.

Real-time is the future of everything, someone wrote three seconds ago. And therefore, Google will pay hundreds of millions of dollars to buy Twitter! Welcome to the way acquisitions are done in Silicon Valley.

Digg needs to sell itself. Kevin Rose's headline-voting site is drowning; the more popular it gets, the more red ink it generates. But who needs a bunch of news stories rated? Here's an idea: Amazon.com.

Facebook's failed $500 million offer for Twitter? Totally happened.

8020 Media hoped to revolutionize the magazine business. Instead, it has circled down the drain, ending up in the hands of shadowy investors after a new CEO with a Condé Nast résumé looted the startup.

We hear Yahoo is in talks to buy Tumblr, a blogging startup run by 22-year-old David Karp for "low-to-mid eight figures" — which would translate to a small fortune for the New York entrepreneur.