Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers

William R. Hearst III, grandson of the founder of the Hearst newspaper chain, will leave his post as publisher of the San Francisco Examiner early next year, newspaper officials said today. Hearst, 45, is joining Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, a prominent San Francisco Bay area venture capital firm. He will remain on the Examiner board of directors. The Hearst organization in New York is sending Lee J.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. sued Amazon.com on Friday, alleging the Internet bookseller that wants to be the discount superstore of cyberspace is stealing trade secrets. Wal-Mart asked the court to prevent the Seattle-based Amazon.com and affiliates Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Drugstore.com. from trying to duplicate proprietary technology. The Bentonville, Ark.-based company claims Amazon.

Former Sen. John Edwards, the Democratic candidate for vice president last year, joined New York-based buyout and hedge fund company Fortress Investment Group as a senior advisor. Edwards, a possible presidential contender in 2008, joined Fortress this month, spokesman Kim Rubey said Thursday. Fortress was founded in 1998 and has about $15 billion in equity under management.

Arden Realty Inc., one of the largest office property owners in Southern California, is close to signing an agreement with Eureka Broadband to sell telecommunications, Internet and related services to its tenants, company officials said. An announcement is expected to be made in the next couple of weeks, officials at the Los Angeles-based real estate investment trust told analysts and investors.

The revamped initial public offering of online grocer WebVan Group Inc. (ticker symbol: WBVN), which was delayed in early October, is expected to be priced today amid fanfare as investors are drawn to its list of heavyweight backers. Underwriter Goldman Sachs confirmed the target pricing range of $11 to $13 a share for the IPO, which was put off after the Securities and Exchange Commission expressed concern about publicity surrounding the deal.

Overture Services Inc. sued Google Inc., claiming the rival Internet search engine stole its patented method for letting businesses pay to have their Web sites listed in the results of queries. Pasadena-based Overture said Google was aware of its patent when it introduced a similar system this year. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, is similar to a complaint Overture brought against another search engine, FindWhat.

What's in a name? If it's an Internet domain name, there can be quite a bit. The registry of Internet domain names kept by Network Solutions Inc. hints at the plans of online retailers such as Aliso Viejo-based Buy.com Inc. and Corona del Mar-based Shopping.com. Buy.com appears to be preparing for a direct attack against its main competitors in the online retailing of books, music and software, having registered the domains 10percentoffamazon.com, 10percentoffreel.com, and 10percentoffegghead.

Marimba Inc., a start-up company founded by four members of the team that developed the Java software language, will unveil its first products today to help create a CD-ROM-like experience on the Internet's World Wide Web. The new set of tools and technologies, called Castanet, will let software developers create Internet applications that feature elaborate graphics, audio, and news feeds but do not require huge amounts of network capacity.

Twitter Inc. doesn't seem to be in any hurry to offer its shares to the public. Instead it has raised another round of funding from some very deep-pocketed and plugged-in private investors. The San Francisco company acknowledged a "significant" round of funding from preexisting investors and new investor Digital Sky Technologies, the investment engine run by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner. Milner has significant stakes in social networking's hottest companies, including Facebook Inc. People familiar with the funding peg it at $800 million, which would make Twitter worth $8 billion.