Google wants to hide it, but there were indeed layoffs at SketchUp when Google bought it, according to one source. All SORTS of drama going on here, but I'm gonna need some corroboration before I run it. Word is that SketchUp folks are reading this; can we get some witnesses from the congregation?

We all should have seen it coming since they got all buddy-buddy at Macworld. Google picked up @Last Software, owners of SketchUp, today. If Google's done buying companies just for the people (notice how much they shuffled the Blogger staff), that could mean Google Earth's about to get even cooler.

It's buyout season again at Google. The Don't-be-too-evil Empire earns some cuteness points again, by popping off and buying Writely, a beta-edition collaborative online word processor.

Mercury News blog SiliconBeat found a secret dot-com incubator — secret in that coy, Googly way of promising everything and nothing. Next Internet has all the Web 2.0 trappings — pale blue color scheme, check; big sans-serif text, check; takeaway points in orange, check. And it's got big plans — maybe.

It's the "I'm working on a screenplay" of Silicon Valley: Every regular Joe's got a dot-com startup, or at least a great rough draft they've been tweaking forever (sometimes entire weeks). But a budding entrepreneur needs to research a bit before popping some flipmeat on the barby.

By the way, whomever Fox bought, Kevin Burton swears it wasn't his aggregation site, Tailrank. But under an hour after he jokingly said "Okay, it was me," on TechCrunch, he got a solicitation (which he passed to me) for the management of his newfound wealth:

Since Fox Interactive prez Ross Levinsohn said "We bought someone in this room" — at a Web 2.0 clusterfest — the bloggers have gone mad trying to guess which piece of flipmeat Fox chowed down on. Or, as VC blogger Paul Kedrosky puts it, Fox bought itself "a kazoo chorus of unwitting hype-meisters noisily playing the 'guess the company' game."

Okay, 'fess up — one of you pieces of flipmeat now belongs to Fox, according to that video from Web 2.0 Under the Radar. There are only so many options — TechCrunch counts 31. Maybe Riya, definitely not Tailrank (though its founder Kevin Burton says he's already been "congratulated" on his sale after he joked about it).

Ludwig Gatzke published a newer, grander collection of Web 2.0 logos, called Logo 2.0 Part II (as if Part I wasn't sweet enough). All these bright, candy-like brands! So exciting! A few deserve special recognition:

Overheard in San Francisco:

Another online media company's for sale. "Daily Candy could fetch more than $100 million, people familiar with the matter say." But Chris Coulter asks, "WHAT? More Pittmanish Accounting. Like who greps faux 'urbane email newsletters' anymore..." [WSJ]
Suggested World of Warcraft nicknames other than "the new golf:" "the new eavesdropping at Buck's," "the new schmoozing at launch parties," or "the new overzealous mountain-biking." [PC Mag, CNet]
"Googlepark: The Spaghetti Code" does up Google, Microsoft, Vint Cerf and Scoble all South Park style. Scares the hell out of me. [Channel9]
Podbridge, another startup, plans to fill podcasts with ads. The CEO says, "As a user, you notice nothing." Except, you know, THE ADVERTISEMENT. Or, hell, maybe the user doesn't notice the ad, which makes for one odd business plan. [SiliconBeat]
Google's "call the advertiser" feature starts a trend more insidious than clickfraud: bored kids crank-calling Adwords buyers. [Om Malik]

Beware the Valentine-tie-in press release. The Register gets cute about the crap that companies send the press. [The Register]
New Internet — all the stuff that wasn't wrong with Old Internet. [Techdirt]
Larry Ellison will eat anything. The latest Oracle acquisition is another open source firm. [CNet]
Oh, that's rich. "I failed my Google exam. Ergo, Google will die." [Craigslist]
Jeff Veen's letter to early Measure Map users: "You can expect great things from this acquisition." Sure, like with Blogger and Dodgeball. [Yugatech]

Told ya. If you haven't already seen Jeffrey Veen's post on the Google Blog, the Measure Map creator just left the UI consultants at Adaptive Path and sold his user-friendly stat-tracker to Google. (Of course, Valleywag readers knew it five days ago.)

Big data-porn core dump coming. You ready?

A Techdirt writer tells DEMOers how to not suck. "Don't pretend what isn't new is new," says Mike, wiping out half the dot-commers.

The Flip Trifecta is still open for your predictions (sent to tips@valleywag.com with the subject "flip trifecta"). Entries must be in by Monday at noon or when the first company sells, whichever comes first.

Google and Yahoo buy up internet companies like Jerry Seinfeld collects Porsches. One would have thought that one of each model was quite enough, but the internet giants want a garage full of internet companies of every shape and color. So it is with site stats services such as MeasureMap.

There's a rumor of Google offering (again) to buy Friendster, but what could Google possibly gain from that? Plenty has changed since Google's first offer of $30 million. Five reasons that Friendster is a rotten piece of flipmeat.

Yahoo may buy Odeo. Seems destined, no? [TWiT via Unofficial Yahoo Weblog]
Google may buy Friendster. Main difference between Friendster and Orkut? At least Orkut has Brazilians. [SiliconBeat]
The NYT already bought news aggregator/annotator BlogRunner. So now writing the Times will cost you too. [PaidContent]
Man and machine may merge. Give it 40 years. [KurzweilAI.net]
Draper Fisher Jurvetson is funding Tagworld, another pretty-faced Myspace wannabe. [TechCrunch]

After the New York Post reported that Google would buy Napster, a Google spokesperson denied any such plans. Looks like someone's trying to float a rumor and sell their stock. Meanwhile, Technorati's looking to sell its search tools, Six Apart might stay solo, and Digg.com is fighting lucrative sale rumors.