Top Items:
Bloomberg:
Microsoft Considered IPod Rival, Apple Partnership (Update3) — Jan. 19 (Bloomberg) — Microsoft Corp., the world's largest software maker, as early as 2003 considered a partnership with Apple Inc. or creating its own digital music player to rival Apple's dominant iPod.
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Ryan Block / Engadget:
Microsoft made the Zune because partner hardware "sucks" — Thanks to yet another Microsoft antitrust suit in Iowa, subpoenaed emails have revealed a moment of candidness and clarity at Microsoft in 2003 when Jim Allchin (Co-President, Platforms & Services Division, depicted left) …
Nick White / Windows Vista Team Blog:
Windows Vista Content Protection - Twenty Questions (and Answers) — A conversation has cropped up since the recent publication of a paper scrutinizing how Windows handles digital rights management, especially for HD video. I've since looped back with Dave Marsh, a Lead Program Manager responsible …
Valleywag:
AOL: A warning to niche blogs — The wizardry of contextual advertising and blog publishing platforms will allow internet publications to flourish in a thousand niches. Well, that was the theory. The practice? AOL, under new and unsentimental management, is closing down a slew …
Paul Kapustka / GigaOM:
Telcos Target Google in 'Neutrality' Fight — The latest round in the battle over net neutrality has started, and as usual the telcos have their game plan sussed out and in widespread, synchronized action. The message? Google is bad, and wants to control the Internet to keep its cash pile growing.
Richard Siklos / New York Times:
Big Media's Crush on Social Networking — I WAS wandering around recently in Second Life, the much-ballyhooed online virtual world, and had a nice chat with one of its "residents." But at the end of the talk he (or perhaps she; you never really know in these digital dioramas …
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Geni Blew It — Rumors of the new startup by former PayPal COO David Sacks to be called Geni started a couple of weeks ago. A few days later, on January 16, Geni launched. It allows people to create quick and beautiful family trees, got a flood of early attention and started to spread virally at a blistering pace.
Ryan Block / Engadget:
Blu-ray cracked too? — It's still early on to tell whether this is actually true, but HD DVD cracker muslix64 is back, and with the help of another anti-DRM cracker, Janvitos, claims to have also broken the Blu-ray's implementation of AACS. Although their protection does not yet account …
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Rafat Ali / PaidContent:
Google Moving Into In-Game Advertising; In Talks To Buy AdScape Media — We had been working on this story for more than a week, and now WSJ beats us to it (darn it): Google is about to buy its way into in-game advertising, paidContent.org has learned, and WSJ is also reporting the same.
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Drew / Dembot:
Ins and Outs — There is a new article in the LA-Times this weekend on the tired issue of Amanda leaving Rocketboom. The article was scheduled to run in 2006 which is where I left all of this behind. I said it was over then and the commitment stands. By now, I wish Amanda well and hope she is happy.
Staci D. Kramer / PaidContent:
@ MidemNet: MPAA, RIAA, CEA Execs Clash Over DRM & Hardware Controls — [By Robert Andrews] This conference on the digital music business got off to a bang here in Cannes this morning when the opening-session discussion broke into a tense and sometimes bitchy disagreement about DRM between representatives …
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Stowe Boyd / Message:
Enough Already: Getting Social Media All Wrong — I attended the Third Thursday event last night, which was held in SF instead of the usual Palo Alto. About 25 people attended, mostly young, impressionable PR and communications folks eager to learn all about social media: specifically …
Chris / LiveSide:
Windows Live Maps imagery update — Windows Live Maps has updated some of its imagery, adding Miami to the list of cities you can explore in 3D, as well as updating to high-res imagery for numerous other locations. — To show the difference between high-res and the standard imaging …
Amit Agarwal / Digital Inspiration:
How to Reduce RSS Stress In Your Online Life — Do you subscribe to tons of RSS feeds ? Are there hundreds of unread items in your newsreader ? Do you end up spending more time inside the RSS reader than you would want to ? — If answer to any of the above questions is Yes …