Top Items:
Om Malik / GigaOM:
The Return of The Big Money VC — Seattle-based real estate information service, Zillow.com raised $25 million, nine months after it raised $26 million. Think about it this way - Zillow has raised $3 million (or about $57 million) for every month of its 19-month existence.
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Matt Marshall / SiliconBeat:
Zillow raises $25, joins ranks of bigger Web 2.0 companies — Zillow.com, the controversial online real estate company that provides value estimates on homes, has raised $25 million in a second round of funding. — It is controversial because it pisses off lots of real estate agents, who think providing values is their job.
Discussion:
John Cook's Venture Blog, PostBubble, Business Filter, Blogging Stocks, Silicon Valley Watcher, CNNMoney.com and i-boy
Jay Rosen / PressThink:
Introducing NewAssignment.Net — Enterprise reporting goes pro-am. Assignments are open sourced. They begin online. Reporters working with smart users and blogging editors get the story the pack wouldn't, couldn't or didn't. They raise the money too. Q and A explains.
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Eric Pfanner / New York Times:
Hewlett-Packard Takes a New Tack: Being Cool — FOR weeks, an unusual Web site linked to the World Cup soccer tournament kept visitors guessing: Could this be real? — The site, FingerSkilz.tv, shows what appear to be close-up videos of a man's hand on a desk, using two fingers …
Reuters:
Google offers live traffic maps on cell phones —Text+SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc. said on Tuesday that the company has begun offering mobile phone users in more than 30 major U.S. cities the capacity to view highway maps with "live" traffic data.
Discussion:
Trends in the Living Networks, jkOnTheRun, WebMetricsGuru, VoIP & Gadgets Blog, Smart Mobs, Dvorak Uncensored and Slashdot
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OpenDarwin News:
OpenDarwin Shutting Down — OpenDarwin was originally created with the goal of providing a development environment for building and developing Mac OS X sources as well as developing a standalone Darwin OS derivative. OpenDarwin was meant to be a development community and a proving ground …
Diane Mermigas / Hollywood Reporter:
MySpace a launch pad for next-gen media biz — First of two parts. — CHICAGO — What do you do for an encore after you sold Rupert Murdoch on the idea of buying an exploding online lounge called MySpace? — Fox Interactive Media president Ross Levinsohn knows what his next move is.
Wired News:
Really Big Show — How does a 37-foot-tall robotic elephant run amok? Very slowly, and with lots of help. The Sultan's Elephant, seen here in central London at a performance by the French street theater company Royal de Luxe, weighs 46 tons - five times heavier than an actual African elephant …
Jason Calacanis / The Jason Calacanis Weblog:
Kevin Rose cracks (or "how to know when you've won the debate") — Update: This story has been DUGG (but is not yet 'Scaped). — Update2: Looks like the story has been killed on DIGG—go figure. :-) — OK, it's on. :-) — On the latest DIGG Nation (minute 8), Digg co-funder Kevin Rose goes …
Need / brixnet.com:
Strategic Partners Technology Partners Channel Partners — INTERNET PHONE QUALITY DROPS SIGNIFICANTLY AND STEADILY OVER LAST 18 MONTHS — From Brix Networks' TestYourVoIP.com Voice Quality Testing Portal — CHELMSFORD, Mass. — Nearly 20 percent of Internet telephone test calls experienced …
Leander Kahney / Wired News:
Why I Love Apple — I just noticed something about Apple's Mail program that perfectly illustrates why people love Apple and its products. — Like most e-mail programs, Mail's main window is divided into columns: "From," "Subject" and "Date," etc. — While I was adjusting the width of the columns …
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Magic 8-Ball Answers Your Questions Regarding Microsoft's 'Zune' — Q: So Microsoft has confirmed that Zune, the "iPod/iTunes killer" project that Engadget has been reporting on for a few weeks, is for real. It's a "music and entertainment" project that will involve portable players …
Skype for Mac:
Video has arrived - If you're brave! — Finally Video has arrived on Skype for Mac! The video preview of Skype for Mac was released today. Download the video preview now. We know that you've been waiting... and waiting... and waiting... so we've decided to release video early as a preview version.
Discussion:
TechCrunch, Infinite Loop, Skype Journal, The Unofficial Apple Weblog and VoIP & Gadgets Blog
Jacqui Cheng / Infinite Loop:
Apple and Facebook partner up for back-to-school iTunes promo — Amongst many exciting things announced today in Apple-land is a partnership between Facebook and Apple to start giving away 10 million music samplers on the iTunes Music Store to Facebook users over the next ten weeks …
Discussion:
Mashable!, The Digital Music Weblog, The Unofficial Apple Weblog, The Blogging Times and iBloggedThis
Paul Briggs / MobileWhack.com:
Lesance AS520AW-Duo Gaming Notebook — Koubou is one of the famous notebook manufacturers in Japan. They introduced their latest Lesance notebook, the AS520AW-Duo. I should say this is one of the best gaming notebooks from Koubou. It is powered by Intel Core Duo T2400 1.86GHz processor running on Microsoft Windows Home Edition.
Nick / Rough Type:
JotSpot's suite dreams — As the company's name implies, JotSpot used to provide a fairly simple product: a web-based wiki application running on the web. Now, though, JotSpot is getting more ambitious. It's transforming its wiki tool into a wiki platform - a Swiss Army Knife of office applications that run inside wiki pages.
Steve Rubel / Micro Persuasion:
Technorati Teams with the Wall Street Journal — One of the tidbits that may have been lost in yesterday's Technorati announcement is that they have formed a partnership with the Wall Street Journal. The Journal now uses Technorati data to break out the most blogged stories.
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Field Notes From The GooglePlex — On a day when most normal people would head to the beach, yours truly decided to head down to the sprawling GooglePlex, in Mountain View. This past Friday driving down Highway 101, you could feel that it would be the kind of day when the mercury would rise to record levels.
