Top Items:
Adam Pasick / Scientific American:
Virtual economies attract real-world tax attention — LONDON (Reuters) - Users of online worlds such as Second Life and World of Warcraft transact millions of dollars worth of virtual goods and services every day, and these virtual economies are beginning to draw the attention of real-world authorities.
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Reuters:
Reuters opens virtual news bureau in 'Second Life' — Reuters is opening a news bureau in the simulation game "Second Life" this week, joining a race by corporate name brands to take part in the hottest virtual world on the Internet. — Created by Linden Lab in San Francisco, "Second Life" …
Kevin Poulsen / Wired News:
MySpace Predator Caught by Code — Yaphank, NY — The computer crimes unit of New York's Suffolk County Police Department sits in a gloomy government office canopied by water-stained ceiling tiles and stuffed with battered Dell desktops. A mix of file folders, notes, mug shots and printouts form …
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Joe / Techdirt:
Could Investigating Sexual Predators Be Automated? — from the myspace-mashup dept — There's quite a bit of hysteria surrounding MySpace and the presence of sexual predators on the site. But while it's pointless to say that MySpace, by itself, is dangerous, it's true that the site does …
Edelman / Richard Edelman:
A Commitment — For the past several days, I have been listening to the blogging community discuss the cross-country tour that Edelman designed for Working Families for Wal-Mart. — I want to acknowledge our error in failing to be transparent about the identity of the two bloggers from the outset.
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Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Sequoia Invests in Blog Network Sugar Publishing — Blog network Sugar Publishing (the most popular blog in the network is PopSugar) has raised "around $5 million" in a Series A round investment from Sequoia Capital. Michael Moritz will join the Team Sugar board of directors.
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Om Malik / GigaOM:
Sequoia Goes PopSugar — Mike Moritz, general partner with Sequoia Capital has a habit of investing in high growth consumer Internet properties, putting business model on the backburner and instead focusing on market share. He did it with Yahoo, and then with Google. (Okay we won't hold Plaxo against him just yet.)
Discussion:
VentureBeat
Saul Hansell / New York Times:
Joining the Party, Eager to Make Friends — To big-name marketers, the teeming mosh pits of social networking sites look like dangerous places for their precious brands. MySpace: Isn't that full of dirty old men picking up teenage girls? Facebook: That's where college students post pictures of bawdy frat parties.
Miguel Helft / New York Times:
It Pays to Have Pals in Silicon Valley — Peter Thiel, a PayPal co-founder, went on to start Clarium Capital, a hedge fund. He also runs a venture firm with other PayPal alumni. — Every now and then, a group of former PayPal employees get together to catch up on life and work.
Discussion:
GigaOM
AppleInsider:
Exclusive: Apple seeks rights to iPhone trademark — Apple Computer has filed for a trademark on the term iPhone, suggesting the company plans to use the moniker, recently popularized amongst the analyst and blogging communities, as the official name for its highly-anticipated iPod cell phone.
Official Google Blog:
Corporate solar is coming — Epic games of beach volleyball, urban indoor workspaces infused with natural light, enthusiasm for the outdoors - at Google, we've always taken advantage of the sun. And now we're ready to use the sun yet another way: to create clean electricity.
Pete Cashmore / Mashable!:
Gaming YouTube for Fun and Profit — I complained over the weekend that YouTube is increasingly being gamed by users. I decided to test out how hard this would be - as it turns out, it's exceptionally easy to rank among the most viewed videos and channels by simply refreshing the page.
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Sanyo-Epson announce 7.1-inch 1080p LCD: by far the world's smallest — You'll hear people argue endlessly about the merits of paying that 1080p cost premium on say, television panels of 37-inches or below. Hell, you'll be lucky to find a 37-incher throwing that Full HD resolution in the first place.
Ryan Naraine / eWEEK.com:
Is the Botnet Battle Already Lost? — It's dress-down Friday at Sunbelt Software's Clearwater, Fla., headquarters. In a bland cubicle on the 12th floor, Eric Sites stares at the screen of a "dirty box," a Microsoft Windows machine infected with the self-replicating Wootbot network worm.
Pete Cashmore / Mashable!:
CrackSpace - Urban YouTube/MySpace Hybrid — No, not a buttock-related social network, but a blend of MySpace and YouTube aimed at hip-hop fans, at least according to a paper copy of Billboard Magazine. Designed for the "urban youth" demographic, California-based CrackSpace will offer exclusive videos …
Matt Marshall / VentureBeat:
Practical Instruments joins solar gold rush, raises $8M — Practical Instruments has raised $8 million in a first round of funding to develop what it says is the most powerful solar "concentration" technology yet. — It uses solar panels that track the sun as it moves.
Web Advertising Blog:
How to Promote Your Adsense Niche Site — Blog and Ping — Create a Blog you can install the blog on your own site or use a free blogger tool like Blogger.com. Update the blog everyday with content specific to your niche and a link back to your niche site. Ping the blog using a free pinging service like pingoat.com.
