Top Items:
Matt Marshall / VentureBeat:
News site Digg raises $8.5M more, rejects evidence it has been gamed — Digg, the news site that lets users rank stories by voting, has raised $8.5 million in fresh financing from existing backers, putting to rest for now speculation that it might sell to a bigger media player.
Discussion:
Mercury News, Valleywag, TechCrunch, PaidContent, Mashable!, The Next Net, StartupSquad and digg
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Wendy Tanaka / Red Herring:
Digg Raises $8.5 Million — New funding might suggest that the news site will remain independent. — Digg, the San Francisco-based site that lets users rank news stories, raised $8.5 million from two of its existing investors, according to a report from VentureWire.
easybourse.com:
Web 2.0 Content Provider Digg Raises $8.5 Million In New Funding — By Jonathan Shieber Of DOW JONES NEWSLETTERS NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- After spending 2006 riding the crest of the Web 2.0 wave, Digg Inc., which offers a service allowing users to post and prioritize content …
Discussion:
GigaOM
Marshall Kirkpatrick:
Now Microsoft Wants Its Laptop Back — Microsoft and AMD sent out a pile of very expensive (yet trashy looking) laptops to a number of bloggers over the past week. We were told we could keep them - now after a day of minor outrage by some people they are emailing us back with the following request that we not keep them after all!
Discussion:
Global Nerdy, the j. botter weblog, TechBlog, CyberNet Technology News, Tech_Space, Jeremy's Blog, Incremental Blogger, Enterprise Web 2.0, J. LeRoy's Evolving Web, notgartner, A View from the Isle, Thomas Hawk's Digital …, Geek News Central, Paul Mooney, Technically Speaking, Monkey Bites, ALLIED, Chip Griffin, digg and Slashdot
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Joel Spolsky / Joel on Software:
Bribing Bloggers — There's an interesting debate going on about whether bloggers should accept gifts from vendors. — Lately Microsoft, working through their PR agency, Edelman, has been getting rather aggressive about trying to buy good coverage from bloggers.
Discussion:
Office Evolution
Robert Scoble / Scobleizer:
I think the Microsoft Vista giveaway is an awesome idea — Lots of people like BL Ochman are screaming bloody murder about Microsoft giving bloggers and other influentials free laptops loaded with Windows Vista. I personally don't get it. — That is a GREAT idea.
Darren Rowse / ProBlogger Blog Tips:
Microsoft Under Fire Over Laptop Giveaways to Bloggers — While i spent the day in the sun at the cricket watching Australia totally decimate England a storm has been brewing in the blogosphere over Microsoft giving away Ferrari Acer laptops loaded with Vista to bloggers to review - and if they want, to keep.
Discussion:
Laughing Squid, Web Worker Daily, Worker Bees Blog, Neowin.net, mstechtoday.com, Incremental Blogger and OakLeaf Systems
Andy Beal / Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim:
Microsoft & Edelman Make Two Mistakes with Free Laptop Fiasco
Microsoft & Edelman Make Two Mistakes with Free Laptop Fiasco
Discussion:
digg
CNET News.com:
Top ten Apple rumours of all time — What do you get when you cross a notoriously tight-lipped computer company with rabidly fanatical users? A whole lot of gossip, speculation and hearsay, that's what. Thirty years of Apple Computer has seen the company rise, fall and rise again like a kind …
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Richard Waters / Financial Times:
Apple 'falsified' files on Jobs' options — Steve Jobs, chief executive of Apple Computer, was handed 7.5m stock options in 2001 without the required authorisation from the company's board of directors, according to people familiar with the matter. — Records that purported to show …
Discussion:
Blogging Stocks, The Technology Chronicles, Seeking Alpha, O'Grady's PowerPage, Scobleizer, Tech Trader Daily, Blackfriars' Marketing, The Mac Observer, The Next Net, Law Blog, Guardian Unlimited, Valleywag, CNNMoney.com, The Unofficial Apple Weblog, Macsimum News, Infinite Loop, Podcasting News, Cult of Mac, LAW.com, The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, Legal Pad and MacUser
Peter Rojas / Engadget:
Apple faked files in Steve Jobs stock options scandal — It seems that the scandal related to Apple backdating stock options has gotten a little more serious. According to the Financial Times, in 2001 Steve Jobs was granted 7.5 million stock options without the proper authorization …
Discussion:
Seeking Alpha
Xeni Jardin / Boing Boing:
Google "disappears" sex blogs? UPDATED — Xeni Jardin: UPDATE (Dec. 28, 12PM ET): Readers have been writing in to say that whatever happened here, the issue appears to be resolved for now — at least for the specific sex blogs cited in this post. I haven't verified this, but if it's true, great.
RELATED:
LeeAnn Prescott / Hitwise US:
Google Blog Search Surpasses Technorati — When Google Blog Search launched last year, I wondered if it would surpass Technorati in market share of visits. This week Hitwise data show that the market share of visits to Google Blog Search surpassed visits to Technorati for the week ending 12/23/06.
Discussion:
Niall Kennedy's Weblog, The Next Net, Sadagopan's weblog …, GigaOM, HipMojo.com and Search Engine Land
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes / Hardware 2.0:
HD-DVD AACS hacked — A hacker going under the alias "muslix64" has written a utility which is capable of decrypting a AACS (Advanced Access Content System) protected HD-DVD discs. — The decryption tool, called BackupHDDVD, is a Java-based command-line utility which decrypts …
Jim Tharpe / Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
Busy travelers snap up iPods from Hartsfield vending machines — Concourse A machine sold $55,000 worth of electronics in a month — Anita Leopold has a little surprise for anyone who thinks vending machines were created to dispense lightly salted snack food and sugar-laced temptations.
Darren Murph / Engadget:
Suzuki's Xbox 360-infused SXBox concept vehicle — It's not often that companies hit it big twice in a row, but we'd say Suzuki's SXBox concept car is just as nifty (albeit in a very different manner) as its previous carpet-ready ride, the MIO. Although this is likely a case …
Josh Goldman / CrunchGear:
Amazon.com's Best Of 2006 List Released — Amazon.com released its year-end "Best of" lists, which tallies up not only the best-selling items for the site's various stores, but also the most positively reviewed, most wished-for and most frequently purchased as gifts.
Carlo / Techdirt:
iPod's Present Popularity Brings Down iTunes Music Store — from the i'm-giving-her-all-she's-got-got- captain dept — Several well-known retailers' web sites went down during the Thanksgiving weekend when they couldn't keep up with the traffic their promotions were generating.
Discussion:
Slashdot
RELATED:
Gamasutra:
PlayStation 3 Gets Downloadable Tekken 5 — Previously available only in arcade and PSP formats, Namco Bandai's Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection has been released overseas as a fully digitally distributed PS3 title over Sony's PlayStation Store. — First hinted at in a Weekly Famitsu report …
Peter Pachal / SCI FI Tech:
The Eclipse: One hot cell phone, hold the extras — If you think cameras, video, and the Internet have no place on a cell phone, designer Rune Larsen is right there with you. His Eclipse slider phone gets rid of any and all features besides calling, keeping the size down to just a couple of inches with the screen retracted.
The Sun:
Talk talk naked — NEARLY half of Brits regularly chat to friends and family on their home phone NAKED, a survey has revealed. — The poll showed 49 per cent of 600 people questioned were happy to use the phone in their birthday suit. — Women are more likely than men to go au naturel …
Chris Winfield / 10e20:
101 Biggest Stories in Search 2006 — The first thing that you will do when you read this list is say "This list isn't just about search!" And you will be right. 2006 was a year that saw the definition of search expand. Search to me has become an all-encompassing word. Search is information.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
ProfileLinker Takes Meebo Approach to Social Networking — There are clearly too many social networks, and if you belong to one you likely belong to many. Boston based (soon to be relocated to San Francisco) ProfileLinker's aim is to help you stay organized across those networks.