Websense’s senior management is expected to remain in place after the acquisition is completed. Under terms of the agreement, a subsidiary of Vista will commence a tender offer for all outstanding shares of Websense. If the tender does not meet a minimum (unspecified) number of shares tendered, Vista and Websense will complete the transaction in a one-step merger, following shareholder approval.

Four of six Internet security companies are showing share price gains for the past 12 months. The biggest gainer is Vasco Data Security International Inc. (NASDAQ: VDSI), up nearly 22%, followed by Sourcefire Inc. (NASDAQ: FIRE), up about 8.5%; Palo Alto Networks Inc. (NYSE: PANW), up about 6%; and Websense, up nearly 4%. Fortinet Inc. (NASDAQ: FTNT) and CheckPoint Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CHKP) have both posted declines in the past year.

The trick for these firms is either to get their noses into the federal government trough or to persuade private firms that they need better security given the increasing number of attacks.

Websense shares are up about 28.3% in the premarket this morning, at $24.67, well above the 52-week range of $12.70 to $19.36.

In a blog post about the eighth year anniversary, the “YouTube” Team bragged:

Today, more than 100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. That’s more than four days of video uploaded each minute! Every month, more than 1 billion people come to YouTube to access news, answer questions and have a little fun. That’s almost one out of every two people on the Internet.

Movie and TV studios are not adding content at anywhere near that rate. The figure only proves that short clips from people who have no interest in premium video remain the biggest part of the site’s inventory, and the part that is growing fastest.

YouTube’s numbers are hugely impressive. Google video sites, made up almost exclusively of YouTube, had 153.9 million unique visitors in March, according to research firm comScore. No other sites where even close. Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) had the largest figure among the portals with 50.3 million visitors in March. Another contrast is that visitors to YouTube watched an average of 1,202.6 minutes in March. For Yahoo! the comparable number was 59.1 minutes.

YouTube’s advantage among its competitors ends with size. The video content at Yahoo!, AOL Inc. (NYSE: AOL) and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) is almost all professionally produced. Advertisers are happy to run marketing messages next to or in this content. YouTube has some movie trailers on its home page. It also has content there that includes “How to Disappoint Your Parents in 61 Seconds” and “The Disgusting Little Things That People Do.” Among those things is watching disgusting videos on YouTube.

Happy birthday.

However, buried in the earnings release was good news about e-commerce. Walmart’s online sales rose more than 30%. In its most recently reported quarter, e-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) boasted its revenue was up 22% to $16.1 billion. Based on those statistics, Walmart has become a force to be reckoned with in online retail sales.

Walmart’s e-commerce revenue is only 10% of the company’s total. However, that puts the number at more than $40 billion. Obviously, Walmart’s disadvantage is that it owns stores, a problem that is impossible to underestimate as it tries to crawl out of a period of flat revenue.

Walmart does have several critical advantages in its online business. The first is clearly brand recognition. Amazon may be universally known as the e-commerce leader, but Walmart’s brand is as visible as nearly any in the United States, and to some extent overseas.

Walmart also has the second largest online web property in the United States, according to research firm Comscore. Walmart sites had 41 million unique visitors in March. Amazon had 121.4 million. The gulf is tremendous, but Walmart has some means to close it, at least when the spotlight returns to the advantage of its huge overall revenue.

Walmart has begun to do some things that should increase online sales impressively, some of which leverage its store base. Buyers can order online and pick up merchandise at stores. Amazon cannot nearly match that. Walmart also has moved toward same-day delivery of goods ordered online. Amazon has started to do the same. Walmart may not be ahead in this critical race, but is not behind.

Many analysts believe that Amazon’s real advantage has been the creation of its Kindle line. The tablets range from e-readers to modestly powered PCs. The electronics help Amazon boost online sales, particularly of digital media products. Walmart cannot match the Kindle program. It might however, form a strategic alliance with another maker of tablets. Troubled Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) comes to mind.

Walmart may be behind Amazon in e-commerce. That does not mean the world’s largest retailer cannot make substantial gains.

The deal is really nothing particularly unusual — an Internet video streaming service adding old shows to its lineup. Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX), Hulu and many other streaming services do this all the time. About a month ago Amazon said it would let viewers help it choose the first of its original productions to add to the Prime service.

That was mildly interesting, but just a page from Netflix’s book. Somehow or other, the video streaming companies are going to have to shake loose new programming from the established media firms like Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS), CBS Corp. (NYSE: CBS) and others. Original programming like Netflix’s “House of Cards” proved to be a huge success, according to the company, and that is what drove Amazon to jump into the fray.

Of course all of these have to compete with Google Inc.’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) YouTube, which is far and away the leading provider of video content. That is because most of YouTube’s videos are made by amateurs and the videos are free. If — and it is a big “if” — YouTube can get viewers to pay for the various channels it has begun to offer, Google could end up putting a huge dent in revenues and profits at Netflix, Amazon Prime and others.

Google came public in the late summer of 2004 at around $100 a share. At the time Apple shares traded for less than $20. The two companies remained pretty evenly matched in trajectory until mid-2007, when Apple first introduced the iPhone. The financial crisis cooled enthusiasm for both companies, but by early 2009 Apple pulled away rapidly.

Since Google’s IPO the company’s stock has appreciated nearly 750%; in the same period, Apple’s stock price has risen more 2,500%. Google’s rise has been slower and steadier, while Apple’s shares soared on the success of the iPhone and later the iPad.

In order to beat Google to $1,000, Apple needs another iPhone. An iPhone 5S or an iPhone 6 will not do the job. A wrist-phone? Maybe, but not likely.

The winning ticket for Apple is most likely going to be an Internet-connected TV that is both easy to use and relatively cheap. Google and plenty of others are working on the same thing, but splashy innovation is, perhaps unfairly, associated more with Apple than Google.

As for Mr. Page, we wish him well as he deals with his vocal cord issues. But we figure that when Google’s stock price hits $1,000 — well before Apple’s does — he will have something to shout about.

The Google Play Music combines some of the features of Internet radio offered Pandora Media Inc. (NYSE: P), although Pandora is advertising supported, and Spotify, a subscription service that claims more than 6 million subscribers. Google allows subscribers to upload 20,000 songs at no charge, whether purchased from Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) or another source, and to play them back on a PC, tablet, or smartphone.

The odd thing about Google’s streaming music plan is that it really doesn’t make a compelling case for why to subscribe. About the only advantage it might offer to get users to switch from Spotify is that it’s seach function is very likely to be better. Whether its radio feature is superior to Pandora’s remains to be seen, but that’s hardly worth $7.99 or $9.99 a month.

Apple’s iTunes store and Amazon.com Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AMZN) MP3 store, of course, follow a pay-per-download model and the only question is when both of these giants decide to jump into the streaming music subscription business. Apple has made some noises about doing this, but no official acknowledgement so far. Apple, Amazon, and Google all offer cloud-based storage for a subscriber’s personal collection.

Far more interesting than this me-too music program would be some integration of YouTube, the single most dominant music streaming program in the world, with Google’s Android ecosystem. Such an integrated system could blow all Google’s competition out of the water. Today’s effort has got to be just a placeholder for something much different and much better.

Note to Google: The name Google Play Music All Access should be the first thing to get the heave-ho.

Wall Street remains skeptical. As proof the consensus share price target from Wall Street is $6.13 versus $7.17 today. The management team is looking to grow bookings to $10 billion and then much higher. Stern Agee believes that management’s vision of the opportunity is much larger than anyone believes currently. The firm sees EBITDA of $259.5 million in 2012 growing to $295.9 million in 2013 and then all the way up to $439.3 million in 2014.

Stern Agee’s $9 price target for one-year out is based upon 8-times the 2015 EBITDA estimate. Be advised that $9 is the street-high price target from all analysts. After meeting with management earlier in the week, Arvind Bhatia said,

“We believe the addressable opportunity at Groupon is larger than most realize and the billings growth rate in the coming years could be stronger than most expect. We think international is on the right track and can be fixed with focused execution. Competition appears to be less severe than six months to a year ago. Groupon is in a good position to benefit from two positive secular trends in eCommerce— local and mobile.”

Groupon shares are up 4% at $7.17 against a 52-week trading range of $2.60 to $13.20. Its market cap is currently just over $4.7 billion,

The new wording in LinkedIn’s user agreement now makes clear that users may not:

Upload, post, email, InMail, transmit or otherwise make available or initiate any content that: Even if it is legal where you are located, create profiles or provide content that promotes escort services or prostitution.

Prostitution is legal in some countries, so LinkedIn’s change sidesteps the legalities and replaces them with morality. Now there’s a slippery slope.

Not everyone is happy about the change. In Nevada, where prostitution is legal, opinion among sex workers is split. The owner of the Mustang Ranch supports LinkedIn, saying that advertising is against state law. Another brothel owner told The Raw Story that he didn’t want to be included in that group of people “who are doing things illegally.”

LinkedIn’s shares are up about 4% at noon today, at $191.69 in a 52-week range of $88.00 to $202.91.

Last week Apple launched a real-time counter as downloads from the App Store homed in on a staggering total of 50 billion apps. The company has promised a $10,000 gift card to the lucky devil who downloads the milestone app and $500 gift cards to the next 50 people who download an app.

The App Store contains more than 850,000 downloadable apps, and those apps are available in 155 countries. Apple said last month that it has paid developers more than $9 billion in royalties.

For comparison, Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) said last September that users had downloaded more than 25 billion apps for Android-based devices. According to research firm Canalys, Google Play leads in the number of apps downloaded, with 51% of the total.

Apple, however, leads in revenue generation, accounting for 74% of all revenue, including the download stores at Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) and BlackBerry (NASDAQ: BBRY). It is important for Apple to promote its lead because the larger a platform’s interface the more likely it is to get even larger. The network effect is, indeed, a powerful thing.

In a report out today, the analysts at UBS A.G. (NYSE: UBS) point out that the biggest positive takeaways from first-quarter earnings were that end demand, in terms of revenue, remains universally strong across their coverage universe, as top-line results were mostly in line, with a few exceptions. In particular, demand in both advertising and online ravel was notably strong. From mega-cap to small-cap, here are the stocks to buy from UBS.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) is absolutely dominating everything Internet. The new Google glasses, which may revolutionize Internet use and computer interaction, got lots of media play last week. The UBS price target for the industry behemoth is $945. The Thomson/First Call estimate is $920.

eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) continues to dominate online auctions as earnings skyrocket. PayPal’s role in eBay’s future growth cannot be overlooked. In the past quarter, sales from the PayPal unit grew 18% to $1.5 billion. The UBS price target is $64 and the consensus target is $64 as well.

Priceline.com Inc. (NASDAQ: PCLN) delivered a profit, beat Wall Street’s expectations and beat the consensus revenue estimate. The travel giant has benefitted from the rebound in the economy. The UBS price target is $860 and the consensus estimate is $827.50.

Expedia Inc. (NASDAQ: EXPE) also has seen its travel business thrive with the improved economy. Expedia traded an unusually high volume Friday, with 4.8 million shares changing hands. The UBS target for the stock is $77. The consensus is lower at $71.

AOL Inc. (NYSE: AOL) offers a suite of online content, products and services to consumers, advertisers, publishers and subscribers worldwide. The UBS target for the old dial-up leader turned content provider is $44, versus a consensus target of $42.

Yelp Inc. (NYSE: YELP) rounds out the UBS list of Internet stocks to buy. Yelp operates Yelp.com, an online urban city guide that helps people find places to eat, shop, drink, relax and play based on the informed opinions of a community of locals in the know. UBS has a $32 price objective for the stock and the consensus target is at $30.

While UBS points out that the risks in online advertising and e-commerce include a potential inability for the industry to grow due to weakness in consumer discretionary spending, as well as a lack of execution. The overall state of the Internet industry and related areas remains extremely strong. As most of us would agree, it seems our personal time on the Internet just seems to grow each year.