Top Items:
The Doc Searls Weblog:
A ground-level view of the XM/Sirius merger in the sky — USA Today says Sirius and XM are going to merge. Mel Karmazin, possibly the wisest guy in commercial radio, will be the CEO. Gary Parsons, currrent CEO of XM, will be chairman. — There are a number of problems with this merger …
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Eric / The MyBlogLog Blog:
Weekend spamtacular — what the heck happened and how we're fixing it — Oh. My. Gosh. This weekend sucked. No doubt about it. But we've beaten things back and we have a plan for making things better still. I'm going to tell you all about that in a minute.
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Obviously:
Looking for Odeo's new home — In the last few months, we here at Obvious have been increasingly focused on Twitter. As a result, our original product, Odeo, has not gotten the attention it deserves. — It does not cost us much to run—in fact, AdSense covers the hosting …
Discussion:
evhead, TechCrunch, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, rev2.org, Mashable!, GigaOM, Boing Boing, VC Ratings, John Furrier and Anil Dash
Reuters:
Google co-founder: Science needs entrepreneurs … SAN FRANCISCO, California (Reuters) — Scientists need more entrepreneurial drive and could benefit by doing more to promote solutions to big human problems, Google Inc. co-founder Larry Page told a meeting of academic researchers.
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Marshall Kirkpatrick / TechCrunch:
Viacom to Sign Deal with Joost — Two weeks after Viacom ordered Google to take down more than 100,000 allegedly copyrighted videos from YouTube, the media giant is about to sign a content deal with Joost, the Wall Street Journal is reporting tonight. Joost, the P2P online television service soon …
Discussion:
Google Watch, franticindustries, The Social Web, PaidContent, Reel Pop and Search Engine Land
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Laurie Burkitt / Seattle Post-Intelligencer:
Google class debuts at the UW — Students learn firm's approach to programming — At 26 and at the top of his game as one of Google's vaunted software engineers, Chistophe Bisciglia found himself bored and restless. Writing computer code at the world's most successful Internet company had become a mind-numbing chore.
Nick Farrell / Inquirer:
Ballmer blames pirates for poor Vista sales — Will crank up the WGA — THE SHY and retiring, softly-spoken CEO of Microsoft, Steve "Sounds of Silence" Ballmer is blaming software pirates for Vista's poor sales. — Ballmer admitted to financial analysts that the predictions for Vista …
Discussion:
Mark Evans, JasonKolb.com, Graceful Flavor, Global Nerdy, TechSpot News, Message and robhyndman.com
HardMac.com:
Procedure and Tests — Introduction — With the introduction of AirPort Extreme 802.11n base stations, Apple announced that the majority of its current machines are compatible with the draft of that standard via a drive update. On the other hand, the MacBook and MacBook Pro Core Duo aren't likely to get compatible Airport modules.
Tatum Anderson / BBC:
Mobile phone lifeline for world's poor — While consumers around the world demand sleek black and silver mobile phones, villagers in rural India buy brightly-coloured handsets in gold, reds and pinks. — Mobile phones are as much a fashion statement here as in the trendy bars of Europe.
Donald Melanson / Engadget:
Gamers make better surgeons, study says — According to a new study published in the Archives of Surgery, surgeons who put in their downtime playing video games proved to have considerably higher surgical skills than their non-gamer co-workers, in particular when it came to laparoscopic surgery …
Joel Spolsky / Joel on Software:
Seven steps to remarkable customer service — As a bootstrapped software company, Fog Creek couldn't afford to hire customer service people for the first couple of years, so Michael and I did it ourselves. The time we spent helping customers took away from improving our software …
Discussion:
Global Nerdy
Bob Tedeschi / New York Times:
From Clipouts to the Web, Coupons Transition Slowly — ONLINE coupons have always been a bargain-hunter's diversion, which may be precisely why the market has grown so slowly. Who wants to take time out of the day to track down sites that give away 50-cent discounts, then search for eligible products that they might need?
Discussion:
IT Facts
Victoria Shannon / New York Times:
Europe's Plan to Track Phone and Net Use — European governments are preparing legislation to require companies to keep detailed data about people's Internet and phone use that goes beyond what the countries will be required to do under a European Union directive.
Michael Geist / Toronto Star:
The recording industry's off-key strategy — Ten years ago, as the Internet began to mushroom in popularity and emerging technologies enabled consumers to make nearly perfect copies of digital content, the recording industry embarked on a two-pronged strategy in response to the changing business environment.
Phil Wolff / Skype Journal:
Is 500 million Skype downloads a lot? — Congratulations, Skype! Skype users downloaded the world's leading VoIP program 500 million times today. The current rate is 640 thousand downloads a day, according to Skype data. Adrian Cockcroft observed Skype downloads spike to a million a day during major upgrades.
Arne Hess / the::unwired:
RUMOR: Is Palm in Takeover Troubles? — According to an article at Unstrung, PDA pioneer Palm Inc. appears to be in play again, with sources saying the likely buyers could be Nokia Corp. or Motorola Inc. — Several sources note that such rumors have made the rounds before, but this time they appear to be more serious.
