Yesterday on the tech news site TechCrunch, it was reported that Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) may be buying social news website Digg.com for up to $200 million. Now, Digg.com has come under acquisition rumors so far, but this is the most serious one. Google stands to keep its iron fist over the controlled flow of information with the purchase if, in fact, it is officially announced.

Digg.com, which has propelled itself into the limelight by having its members and readers publish links to news stories from around the globe and vote on them to let its customers choose "headlines," is no small potato.

Although Google was rumored to have been in the chase for the company back in March, it should go ahead and just make the announcement official. Integration of Digg.com into Google News (which is already an excellent product) would take Google's news aggregation product to the next level and would assist it solidifying its daily news position against the likes of Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Yahoo, Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO).

Digg.com would not be a good fit for Microsoft, however. While Microsoft continues to roll out web-based properties and products, many of its actions seem to be compelled by a "me too" attitude more than a corporate strategy, regardless of what the company says. Google, right now, has the cachet and the product breadth to continue steamrolling much of the competition -- and a Digg.com purchase would just make it stronger.

Volumes have been written about Warren Buffett's investment approach and I was thinking that although he tends to share his methodology, he sometimes is not as straightforward as he could be. This is the first in a series discussing my view of Buffett's approach, an interpretation in the simplest terms so that the information is immediately usable.

Although you can make money investing in the stock market many different ways, the person who has made the most money by far is Warren Buffett. Therefore, it seems to follow that every time you deviate from this path, you are reducing your chances of ultimate success.

Consider the following: If Tiger Woods wanted to help you with your golf swing or putting stance, would you say, "no thanks, I know what I'm doing?" If Carlos Santana wanted to show you a few moves on the guitar or Steven Spielberg offered to help you edit a movie, would you tell them to get lost? Not if you were truly interested in improving. For some reason, though, through the years Mr. Buffett has periodically been relegated to the sidelines of the investing world while a multitude of prognosticators claim to have a better way, even here on BloggingStocks. Over the last ten years I have found that the more I learn and the more I align my stock investment strategy with Buffett's approach, the better I do.

A seemingly innocent string of 16 paired alphanumeric characters launched an all-out revolution yesterday on one of the favorite hangouts for internet aficionados, Digg.com. The characters, you see, are the top-secret encryption code used to copy-proof HD-DVDs.

Digg, founded by Kevin Rose, the former host of the late and lamented television show TechTV, is a site on which members can recommend stories from the digital world. Other users, by their digs (votes), move the story up the ladder of recommendation.

On Monday, the hacked code began to show up in posts. Digg CEO Jay Alderson filed a message explaining to the Digg community that the site was going to censor such posts rather than risk being shut down for copyright infringement. Then all hell broke lose. Over the next 24 hours, seemingly hundreds of angry diggers bombarded the site with cleverly disguised iterations of the code.

Yesterday evening Digg did any about face. In a bold and possibly suicidal post, Rose told the Digg community that the site would no longer pull posts referring to the code, thereby resigning itself to whatever consequences may come.

Such a public confrontation over a product of great importance (i.e., profit) to the entertainment industry might be the catalyst for a renewed debate about digital intellectual property rights. It might also prompt draconian penalties. One thing is for sure; this is one piece of turf Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) won't be fighting for. Stay tuned.