Top Items:
BBC:
BBC plans online children's world — A virtual world which children can inhabit and interact with is being planned by the BBC. — CBBC, the channel for 7-12 year olds, said it would allow digitally literate children the access to characters and resources they had come to expect.
RELATED:
David Kirkpatrick / Fortune:
It's not a game (cont.) — In this realm any resident can become an entrepreneur. There are nightclub owners, jewelry makers, landscapers and even pet manufacturers. In December, Linden Lab estimated that 17,000 residents had positive cash flow in Linden dollars, with about 450 generating monthly income …
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
TellMe Launches a Killer Mobile Product — If you have a cell phone that supports the new TellMe mobile application, you will never use 411 again to find a business. It launches today at 5 AM PST. — TellMe mobile is a free Java application that you install on your phone.
Stowe Boyd / Message:
In The Time Of "Me First": IBM Slowr? — Social applications are likely to be the major theme in software this year. IBM has been pushing hard in recent years, building on the huge installed base and share-of-mind in the enterprise software world, and now has launched a new product family …
RELATED:
Richard MacManus / Read/WriteWeb:IBM Launches Enterprise Social Networking Suite; Microsoft Helpfully …
Rustybrick / Search Engine Roundtable:
Google Personalized Home Page Adds Expand & Collapse Per Post — A DigitalPoint Forum thread reports that Google has made a slight change to the Google Personalized home page, by adding a little plus sign to the RSS feeds. Instead of just seeing the title, you can click on the plus sign …
Victoria Shannon / New York Times:
Record Labels Contemplate Unrestricted Digital Music — As even digital music revenue growth falters because of rampant file-sharing by consumers, the major record labels are moving closer to releasing music on the Internet with no copying restrictions — a step they once vowed never to take.
Discussion:
Listening Post, Michael Geist's Blog, The Next Net, Jeffrey McManus, franticindustries, Kevin Maney, Slashdot, Mickeleh's Take and A VC
Kalpana Shah / Red Herring:
Google to Fund Indian Startups — Early-stage fund, Seedfund, will help Google sow the seeds of a future buyout. — Google's style is usually to pay huge dollops for the startups it finds interesting. In India, though, it has chosen to take an indirect route.
RELATED:
Nikhil Pahwa / PaidContent:Google Invests in India Via New Investment Firm Seedfund
Discussion:
Search Engine Journal
Todd Bishop / Seattle Post-Intelligencer:
E-mail from the grave? Microsoft seeks patent on 'immortal computing' — In this culture of instant information, some Microsoft Corp. researchers are pursuing a radical notion — the concept of saving messages for delivery in decades, centuries or more. — The project, dubbed …
Discussion:
Tech Digest, Hello Kitty Space …, Ubergizmo, CrunchGear, Guardian Unlimited and Slashdot
RELATED:
Todd Bishop / Todd Bishop's Microsoft Blog:More on Microsoft's 'immortal computing' project
Discussion:
Engadget
Andrew Orlowski / The Register:
Microsoft wants Wi-Fi 'filling stations' for Zune II — MidemNet So Microsoft's strategy for its Zune player is becoming clear. Just dig up what Register readers were talking about five years ago. — Having attempted to add "BluePod" features ("squirting" music between devices wirelessly) …
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Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Report: Google Doesn't Renew Google.de, Site Goes Down — Reports are coming in from Germany that Google.de was down "for many hours" yesterday, and has now gone live again. We're trying to confirm the reason, but it appears to be because Google forgot to renew the Google.de domain name.
David Flynn / APC:
Vista Service Pack 1 is coming — Reckon you won't upgrade to Vista until the first service pack is released? That's looking likely to be the second half of this year, according to Microsoft's latest email blast. — The company has put out a call for "customers and partners (to) …
Richard MacManus / Read/WriteWeb:
Throwaway Identities — Written by Jitendra Gupta of KarmaWeb and edited by Richard MacManus — Social Media researcher danah boyd recently recently wrote in her blog about throwaway identities in MySpace: … danah notes that teens often start new accounts on a whim - in IM, email, website logins.
Neil Patel / Search Engine Land:
Forget ABCs - The Social Media Alphabet Is DNRS — Many search marketers know their search engine alphabet, A for Ask.com; G for Google; M for Microsoft Live.com and Y for Yahoo. But how many know the important letters of the social media alphabet, D for Digg; N for Netscape; R for Reddit and S for StumbleUpon?
Discussion:
splashcastmedia.com
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Apple: Will corporate miscues bruise its image? — Apple may have an iPhone coming, record financial results and Wall Street's good graces, but its corporate flubs of late make the company look arrogant. At some point-and we're not there yet-the Teflon may actually come off that Apple logo.
Discussion:
Paul Thurrott's Internet Nexus
Betsya / Live Search's WebLog:
Use Live Search and We'll Donate to Team Seattle and Ninemillion.org — The Live Search team recently launched two new programs to help children in need, and we would love you to help us out. The good news is that all you have to do to help us is try Live Search on one of our "click for the cause" …
Discussion:
Search Engine Land
Leander Kahney / Wired News:
Why I Want a Locked IPhone — Apple's iPhone is still six months from store shelves, but the backlash has already begun. — For the last week or so, bloggers and pundits have been furiously ranting and raving with a litany of the complaints: It's too expensive, it requires a two-year Cingular contract …
