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Richard MacManus / Read/WriteWeb:
Google Advertises Firefox on Homepage — Spotted on the Google homepage today, using the IE browser, was this blazing advertisement for Firefox: — (click image for full screenshot) — While Google has advertised Firefox on its homepage before, it was a co-promotion of Firefox with the Google Toolbar.
Scott Karp / Publishing 2.0:
Platforms Are The New Portals — We've all become so enamored with the increasingly distributed nature of the web — or the de-portalization as Keith Teare of Edgeio puts it — and the success of user-centric platforms like YouTube and MySpace. But we seem to be forgetting …
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Michael Gartenberg:
Lessons of Zune — So while Microsoft works to get the first million Zunes sold, here's some thoughts at what they need to do (and should have done at launch) to get to this milestone. — Zune lacks elegance - It's actually not bad looking device but put it next to a 30gb iPod …
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Steven / StevenLevy.com:
A Universally Bad Idea — So Microsoft is paying the record label Universal a dollar for each Zune sold. (See the story here.) Doug Morris, the CEO of the Universal Music Group, justified it quite succinctly: "These devices are just repositories for stolen music, and they all know it," he said.
Tim O'Reilly / O'Reilly Radar:
Web 2.0 Compact Definition: Trying Again — A commenter on one of my previous posts about Web 2.0 wrote: … I replied, and thought that my reply might be worth publishing more widely than just in the comments. So here is a new attempt at a brief definition:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Jott to Convert Cell Phone Calls to Text — Seattle based Jott will launch its new voice to text product sometime this week. It's very simple - a user calls a specific phone number and leaves a voice message along with a recipient or recipients (an obvious use for Jott will be for people to leave themselves quick notes).
Richard K / Silicon Valley Watcher:
Should Semel go? Is Yahoo a media company? Is that a good thing to be? (Yes, Yes, No.) — By Richard Koman for SiliconValleyWatcher — So GigaOm posted this piece on Thursday, based on Yahoo employee Jonathan's Strauss' verbatim transcript of Terry Semel's post-reorg talk to employees.
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Google Finance to get a facelift soon — Google is likely to announce a facelift to its Google Finance service soon, according to informed sources. The upgrade could come as soon as Monday, though as we all know product upgrades can get pushed out due to unforeseen reasons.
Steve Poland / TechCrunch:
MyBlogLog adds MySpace support — As 2006 closes in, my favorite web service of the year is MyBlogLog. Despite Yahoo! acquisition rumors a few weeks ago, the company is still privately-held. If I were in the web M&A business, they'd top my list along with music social networking service Last.fm.
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Technically Speaking
Jon Pareles / New York Times:
2006, Brought to You by You — IMAGINE paying $580 million for an ever-expanding heap of personal ads, random photos, private blathering, demo recordings and camcorder video clips. That's what Rupert Murdoch did when his News Corporation bought MySpace in July.
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Darren Murph / Engadget:
Microsoft patents DVR application to provide targeted advertising — While Microsoft isn't exactly the first name we'd guess to be associated with a new DVR tidbit, the firm has nonetheless filed a patent for "DVR-based targeted advertising." Apparently, Microsoft's idea is to eliminate the …
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Add Text Bubbles To Videos — Brand new Israeli startup BubblePLY has created an easy tool for adding text or link comic-book style bubbles to videos from popular video sharing sites. Tell it the link to a video on YouTube, Google Video, Metacafe and others, and then add your own content.
Dave Taylor / The Intuitive Life Business Blog:
When is a blog too personal? — One of the great ongoing debates in the murky world of blogging is whether your weblog should be personal or professional, whether you should be revealing or private. There are, of course, many different answers and at some level the real answer is …
Richard Siklos / New York Times:
The Hat Trick That Didn't Happen — WITH the arrival of mittens and mufflers comes the inevitable onslaught of year-in-review columns. Certainly there have been plenty of media milestones this year — from the march of Google and the explosion in online video to the turmoil in the newspaper industry …
