MAJOR PAPERS:

• Vonage Holdings Corp (NYSE: VG) said bankruptcy is one of the potential risks from its continuing patent litigation with phone giant Verizon Communications Inc (NYSE: VZ), reported the Wall Street Journal.
• Blackstone Group is selling Extended Stay Hotels to Lightstone Group for $8B, which beat offers from Fortress Investment Group (NYSE: FIG) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE: GS), according to the Wall Street Journal.
• The Wall Street Journal reported that other financial firms such as Countrywide Financial Corporation (NYSE: CFC), CIT Group Inc (NYSE: CIT), iStar Financial (NYSE: SFI), and KeyCorp (NYSE: KEY) may be in play after the sale of Sallie Mae (NYSE: SLM).

OTHER PAPERS:

• The Telegraph reported that General Electric Company (NYSE: GE) is looking to sell a natural gas power plant in the UK for an estimated GBP450M-GBP500M, with potential buyers including E.ON AG ADS (NYSE: EON) and Scottish Power ADS (NYSE: SPI).
• The New York Post has learned that Heather Pech, a senior Jones Apparel Group Inc (NYSE: JNY) executive that headed the Nine West retail chain, has left the company.

WEBSITES:

• WNBC.com reported that Research in Motion Limited's (NASDAQ: RIMM) Blackberry service is suffering a massive system failure since last night.

On January 9th, Eons, the 50-plus media company for boomers and seniors announced the launch of cRANKy, a search engine for the 50-plus crowd. Eon actually makes the claim that cRANKy's search results are "age-relevant" -- that's some claim to make. Specifically, cRANKy is designed to deliver the most targeted search results for the 50-plus, or boomer, crowd.

Sure, there are plenty of teen sites and kids sites. Similarly, there are many sites that are more targeted toward different age groups -- tweens, thirties, middle-aged etc -- but search?

I read the press release, and despite not being in their targeted age group, I was almost offended. The language is a little condescending in my opinion, constantly referring to the different needs of the 50-plus market. Different needs? Give me a break. I don't like to "wade through millions of search results" either.

cRANKy's Power of Four feature that displays only the top four authoritative sites is a little too simplistic, I think. Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) already display only ten search results per page, so I don't really see the point of having just four.

On the other hand, I hate to admit it, but cRANKy might be on to something. For example, I'm not that easy with my cell as many teens and even younger kids are. In fact, I often ask teens to help me decipher my cell phone's functions. It is also true that when Motorola Inc. (NYSE:MOT) announced its dumb phone, I was thrilled. So perhaps cRANKy's got a point after all.

Cranky's ads will be provided by IAC/InterActiveCorp's (NASDAQ:IACI).