TechCrunch

When it comes to investing your hard-earned cash, today's marketplace offers more options than ever for small investors. But the key to success lies in sticking to a few basic principles -- and avoiding the irrational behaviors that plague our financial lives.

In the wake of popular blog TechCrunch's adoption of Facebook's Comments plug-in to control the virulent, useless and nasty comments on its site, the Internet has erupted with screeds about the death of anonymity. But DailyFinance columnist Alex Salkever isn't worried -- he's relieved.

They say necessity is the mother of invention. But for the young entrepreneurs behind WePay.com, necessity looked less maternal--and more like a confusing mishmash of cash and checks as they tried to collect money from friends to cover a bachelor-party tab. Their solution--a group payment epiphany...

Yahoo has denied reports of an impending 20% cut, but the controversy raises the question of whether the company's fourth-quarter performance and year-end results could be worse than Wall Street expects. One thing to watch for the holidays: The ratio of paid ads to Yahoo house ads.

Some of the best online stories for investors: Why Facebook will be bigger than Google within five years; how a "short gold, long silver" strategy will work in the long run; what the acquisition of TechCrunch might mean for AOL.

AOL, the parent company of DailyFinance, has agreed to purchase TechCrunch, a top news blog covering Silicon Valley and tech startups. The deal was announced by AOL CEO Tim Armstrong and TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington (pictured) on Tuesday morning.

Top Silicon Valley blogger Michael Arrington has leveled explosive charges at some of the most influential angel investors in technology, alleging they are engaged in a conspiracy to collude and fix price levels for early-stage investments. At least two of the investors involved have denied the account.

Facebook has acquired interest-based instant messaging service Hot Potato, a move that's expected to bolster its recently announced plans to offer a location-based service. Are you listening, Foursquare?

In addition to allegedly hacking the big-name Twitter accounts, the 25-year-old who lives with his parents is also believed to have leaked over 300 confidential Twitter documents to TechCrunch, the tech blog.

For the past three years, startup companies have fought to present at TechCrunch 50, a conference held by popular tech website TechCrunch.com, in order to win a $50,000 grand prize. Companies demoing wares were as varied as a Penn & Teller iPhone app to the next big social media website. Mixed...