Top Items:
Official Google Blog:
Adieu to Google Answers — Google is a company fueled by innovation, which to us means trying lots of new things all the time — and sometimes it means reconsidering our goals for a product. Later this week, we will stop accepting new questions in Google Answers, the very first project we worked on here.
Discussion:
TechCrunch, Digital Inspiration, Between the Lines, Don Dodge on The Next …, Google Operating System, Things That, HipMojo.com, LiveSide, TechSpot, Digital Micro-Markets, 21talks, CenterNetworks, Mark Evans, Quick Online Tips, MediaVidea, Clickety Clack, Googlified, Microsoft News Tracker, StartupSquad and Rex Hammock's weblog
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Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Watch Blog:
Goodbye Google Answers — Wow. Google is shutting down its Google Answers service. The company has announced that new questions won't be accepted after the New Year, though the site will continue to let people view the question archives. Killing off the service, which never seemed to catch on much …
Valleywag:
Answers deleted — What a relief. Google is finally trimming its product line, closing down Google Answers. This is, as far as I can tell, the first time the search company has ever shuttered a service, if one doesn't count Google X, a Google search page redesigned in the style …
Discussion:
Frank Barnako
Business Wire:
BitTorrent Strikes Digital Download Deals with 20th Century Fox, G4, Kadokawa, Lionsgate, MTV Networks, Palm Pictures, Paramount and Starz Media — SAN FRANCISCO—(BUSINESS WIRE)—BitTorrent, Inc., home to the world's leading peer-assisted digital content delivery platform …
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Brad Stone / New York Times:
Wal-Mart Plans to Test Online Films — The decade-old DVD moved two small steps closer yesterday to technology's endangered-species list. — Wal-Mart, the country's largest seller of movies, announced that next year it will begin testing a video download service on its Web site.
Om Malik / GigaOM:
New Deals, Big Money for BitTorrent? — Updated: BitTorrent has signed partnerships with major media companies like 20th Century Fox, Paramount, Starz Media and Comedy Central. These deals with the established media are perhaps a sign why the company is being able to raise more money.
Troy Wolverton / Mercury News:
BitTorrent cuts online video deals — In the latest volley in the growing battle to distribute movies, television shows and other video content online, BitTorrent plans to announce deals today with Paramount, MTV Networks, 20th Century Fox and several smaller studios.
Greg Sandoval / CNET News.com:
Paramount, 20th Century Fox embrace BitTorrent — Peer-to-peer company BitTorrent will begin distributing movies and TV shows for top entertainment companies starting this spring, the company is expected to announce Wednesday. — In February, BitTorrent will launch a video store where customers …
Wayan / One Laptop Per Child News:
DOOM on the OLPC XO! — Now imagine you are the One Laptop Per Child software design team, and you've just received the very first order of Children's Machine XO's. Around a thousand pounds of laptops actually, and you wanna take one for a fun filled test drive.
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Arno / Arno's Blog:
The Design of the Mac OS X Shutdown Feature — Joel Spolsky posted a blog entry about how offering choices to end users is not always a good thing and illustrate his point with the redesigned Start menu in Vista. Moishe Lettvin, who worked on that feature while at Microsoft (he now works at Google) …
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BBC:
Voluntary code for blogs 'needed' — Blogs and other internet sites should be covered by a voluntary code of practice similar to that for newspapers in the UK, a conference has been told. — Press Complaints Commission director Tim Toulmin said he opposed government regulation of the internet …
Discussion:
Scobleizer, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, robhyndman.com, Information Overlord, Techdirt and Guardian Unlimited
Reuters:
IAC/InterActiveCorp Plans Local Web Sites — IAC/InterActiveCorp, the Internet media conglomerate headed by Barry Diller, plans to introduce a local information service next week that combines Web search, city guides, maps and event listings, in one of the company's broadest moves yet to combine its assets, Mr. Diller said yesterday.
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USA Today:
What would techies do with a newspaper? First, they'd make it all digital — Over the past month, I've asked a number of Internet entrepreneurs and thinkers a pretty simple question: If you owned a newspaper, what would you do with it? — OK, we'll discount the smarty-pants quips I got …
Michael Kinsley / Slate:
Like I Care — ON THE INTERNET, EVERYBODY KNOWS YOU'RE A DOG. — The first person I knew who had a Web site of his own was a fellow Washington journalist. This was when many journalists were still just getting into e-mail, but the URL for this Web site quickly circulated around town and around the world.
pulitzer.org:
Pulitzer Board Widens Range of Online Journalism in Entries — The Pulitzer Prize Board announced today that newspapers may now submit a full array of online material-such as databases, interactive graphics, and streaming video-in nearly all of its journalism categories.
Reuters:
Time Warner plans movie downloads in 2007 — Largest media company says consumers will be able to burn downloaded movies onto DVDs; CEO Parsons says he's not counting out a political career. — NEW YORK (Reuters) — Time Warner Inc.'s digital businesses will see improvements in 2007 …
Andrew Hampp / AdAge:
MTV's Niches: From Headbangers to Bible-Thumpers — A Q&A With MTV President Van Toffler — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — MTV viewers still lamenting the deletion of "Headbangers Ball" from the late-night lineup have a reason to thrash once again: The network plans to reconnect with metal heads …
