VentureBeat

Here’s the latest (layoff heavy) action:

Google lays off 200 employees — Most of the cuts are happening in the sales and marketing departments, where Google has over-invested.

Pick Your Five application surges on Facebook — The app from LivingSocial, which asks you to list your five favorite movies, books, and so on, has grown to more than 6 million users since launching a week ago.

IBM laying off 5,000 people — Many of those jobs will be transferred to India.

Opera releases new version of Opera Mobile — Version 9.7 of the browser will supposedly make loading the Internet easier and faster on your smartphone, but mocoNews is more curious about whether Opera will be announcing a partnership with a U.S. carrier.

Google Docs add drawings – The team and technology come from Tonic Systems, a startup acquired by Google in 2007.

Newspaper ad revenue dropped 16.6 percent last year — And website sales slipped too, though by only 1.8 percent.

AppEngine will soon support Java — Until now, Google’s platform for building and hosting web applications has been limited to the Python programming language, but AppEngine will be adding Java applications soon, according to TechCrunch.

New York Times cuts staff, pay — Around 100 business-side employees are losing their jobs, and all non-union positions are taking a “temporary” 5 percent pay cut.

Box.net gets full-text search — By letting you search the text within all your documents, Box makes it much easier to find what you need in the company’s online collaborative environment.

Carpooling startup Zimride is profitable – The company, which won backing from the fbFund last year, offers a Facebook application to help users connect with potential carpooling buddies.

Disqus gets new interface, improved performance — The commenting startup says performance is now up to five times faster on Internet Explorer.

Mobile satellite company Globalstar raises $574 million credit — The Milpitas, Calif., company, which provides satellite voice and data services to businesses and consumers, said it got the credit guaranty from Coface, an export credit agency acting on behalf of the French government.

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Tags: co:Box.net, co:disqus, co:Facebook, co:google, co:IBM, co:livingsocial, co:New-York-Times, co:Opera, co:Zimride