Top Items:
Janet Whitman / New York Post:
YAHOO! BOO-BOO: SEMEL PASSED ON GOOGLE — May 12, 2006 — Acquiring Google for $3 billion seems like an impossible bargain today, but back in 2001 Yahoo! boss Terry Semel shied away from doing just that deal. — Semel, the former movie mogul who runs Yahoo!, met with Google's two young founders …
Discussion:
Google Operating System
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Stefanie Olsen / CNET News.com:
Yahoo CEO laments not buying Google — In the annals of missed opportunities by tech CEOs, Yahoo Chief Terry Semel has a doozy. — In a talk with The New Yorker writer Ken Auletta as part of a Newhouse School lecture series, Semel was asked what his dumbest decision was after taking the job at the Net media company in 2001.
Discussion:
John Battelle's Searchblog, Gadgetell, Valleywag, Good Morning Silicon Valley and Digital Inspiration
Peter / The Local Onliner:
Gannett Buys Planet Discover; Kicks up Local Search — U.S. newspapers have largely maintained the artificial line that separates their classifieds from Yellow Pages. And vice versa. — There have been a couple of minor Yellow Pages acquisitions over time (Hearst with White and Affiliated …
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John Paczkowski / Good Morning Silicon Valley:
It's not an outrageous security vulnerability, it's a feature — Are electronic voting machines ever held to any baseline computer security standards? It certainly doesn't seem so. To wit, the discovery of a security hole in Diebold Election Systems' touch-screen voting machines …
W. David Gardner / InformationWeek:
Coming Soon: In-Flight VoIP Calling — An FCC frequency auction under way this week will likely pave the way for VoIP calls in-flight. — TechWeb.com — Like it or not, airline passengers in U.S. skies are likely to be listening to their fellow passengers talking on phones in a year or so.
Discussion:
VoIP Now
Don Dodge / Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing:
Microsoft VC Summit — Microsoft held its 6th annual VC Summit yesterday. Over 170 VCs from around the world were invited to attend. Steve Ballmer does the keynote speech every year and many top executives also present at the Summit. — The Microsoft VC Summit is an opportunity for VCs …
Microsoft:
Microsoft Statement on Agreement to Extend Part of Consent Decree Related to Protocol Licensing Program — Microsoft voluntarily agrees to continue licensing and documenting desktop communications protocols for Microsoft Windows. — REDMOND, Wash. — May 12, 2006 — Microsoft Corp. issued …
Discussion:
Peter O'Kelly's Reality Check
Tracy / The Student Tablet PC:
CONTEST: DESING THE NEW STUDENT TABLET PC HEADER — You may have picked up from a past post that we're planning on making a big move from MovableType to WordPress. You may also remember our move from TypePad to MovableType wasn't exactly seamless ^_^. This time we're doing it right.
Jonathan Fildes / BBC:
BBC starts to rock online world — The BBC has staked a claim to a virtual tropical island where it can stage online music festivals and throw exclusive celebrity parties. — The rented island exists in online game Second Life and will hold its first event this weekend with bands including Muse, Razorlight and Gnarls Barkley.
John Battelle / John Battelle's Searchblog:
THOUGHTS ON GOOGLE PRESS DAY — A few things that strike me as we digest all the news yesterday (webcast). (PS, Google's shareholder meeting is going on now...) — 1. A renewed focus on search (yes, we are still about search, says Marissa in a new blog post).
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Jackass of the Week: Rob Glaser — I'm never quite sure what to make of Rob Glaser, CEO of Real Networks. As his company's digital media technologies fall further behind Apple's and Microsoft's (at least in terms of popularity), he frequently pipes up in the press with ridiculous statements …
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Richard Monson-Haefel / I, Analyst:
BZ Research on Java EE Market Share Data — I'm currently working on a very in-depth report on JBoss. I needed some updated statistics on market penetration, so I asked BZ Research for their latest numbers from their December 2005 survey of 608 respondents. — The numbers were really interesting.
David Beisel / Genuine VC:
All Users Are Not Created Equal — Brad Feld called Josh Kopelman's recent blog entry, 53,651, "a perfect post." I completely agree with Josh's fundamental premise - that there is a strong disconnect between new Web 2.0 companies claiming traction with plugged-in Silicon Valley geeks and real usage by "Mainstreet USA" consumers.
John Battelle / John Battelle's Searchblog:
ANOTHER HITWISE: MYSPACE SENDS 8.2% OF TRAFFIC TO GOOGLE, IMPLICATIONS — Wow. I love infoporn. I have a hunch that Mr. Murdoch is thinking hard about this graph: … There are a lot of other insights in the piece. I've had MySpace again on my mind after talking Weds with Jon Miller, CEO of AOL.
Discussion:
Clickety Clack, WebMetricsGuru, ReveNews Online Revenue … and The Unofficial Google Weblog
Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed:
Crossing the Crunch Chasm — Josh Kopelman nailed something in a savvy post yesterday. Too many companies are currently targeting an audience of 53,651. That number is, to allay your puzzlement, the number of subscribers to Mike Arrington's must-read, influential TechCrunch blog feed.
Business Logs:
TechCrunch Redesigns, The Emperor Has No Clothes — TechCrunch has redesigned. — I debated writing about this, not because I didn't think it was important to talk about, but because I'm very sure that the design did not look like this when Rachel presented it to him.
Discussion:
WeBreakStuff, TechBeat, Zoli's Blog, Make Money Online …, MYBLOG by Ouriel, Nik Cubrilovic and michael parekh on IT
Evan Blass / Engadget Mobile:
Apple said to be working with Softbank on "co-branded" handset — Japanese news agency Nikkei is reporting that Apple and new Vodafone Japan owner Softbank are working together to develop cellphones capable of downloading and playing music from the iTunes store.
Marshall Kirkpatrick / The Social Software Weblog:
LAPD starts a blog — It's true, the LA Police Department have started their first blog. (Found via Ed Cone on eWeek.) They say they aim to have all 19 precincts blogging soon. Typepad, moderated comments, using Feedburner but haven't put the new feed in their header tags for autodetection …
Discussion:
Know It All