Top Items:
Pete Cashmore / Mashable!:
YouTube Video Awards — YouTube will announce on Monday the launch of "YouTube Video Awards" - a late attempt to honor the best-user generated videos of 2006. The seven categories are Most Inspirational, Most Creative, Best Series, Best Comedy, Musician of the Year, Best Commentary and "Most Adorable Video Ever."
Discussion:
Joe Duck, CyberNet Technology News, Web Strategy, Bloggers Blog, Podcasting News and robhyndman.com
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Robert Scoble / Scobleizer:
YouTube copies Vloggies — Ahh, YouTube is coming late to the video awards show game. Mashable is saying that tomorrow YouTube will announce its own online video contest. Destined to be very popular, I'm sure. — Glad to see we're six months ahead of YouTube (not that it'll matter much …
Associated Press:
And the YouTube award goes to... NEW YORK (AP) — Lonelygirl15, OK Go and other YouTube sensations will get an opportunity to walk down a virtual red carpet. — The video-sharing Web site announced Monday that it will hold the first YouTube Video Awards to recognize the best-user created videos of 2006.
Martin LaMonica / CNET News.com:
Adobe offers early peek at Apollo — Adobe Systems on Monday is expected to release an early version of Apollo, software that will let people run Web applications online and offline. — The first release is an "alpha" version, with a beta due sometime this summer. Version 1.0 is planned for the second half of this year.
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Mike Blumenthal / Search Engine Land:
Tell Me: Is Microsoft Shadow Boxing in Mobile Directory Assistance? — The recent acquisition of TellMe by Microsoft, piqued my interest in the free voice driven directory assistance service, 520-Find and the possible role that Google plays in the service. Mobile directory assistance …
Discussion:
Screenwerk
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John Markoff / New York Times:
Researchers Track Down a Plague of Fake Web Pages — Tens of thousands of junk Web pages, created only to lure search-engine users to advertisements, are proliferating like billboards strung along freeways. Now Microsoft researchers say they have traced the companies and techniques behind them.
Michael Kanellos / CNET News.com:
Fujitsu adopts flash memory for new tablets — Tablet PCs probably get dropped more than other computers, so Fujitsu has created two machines that store data by using flash memory rather than traditional hard drives. — The LifeBook P1610 and LifeBookB6210 are now available with either 16GB or 32GB flash drives.
Rafat Ali / PaidContent:
Comcast Unhappy With Google On Search Deal; Talking To MSN; Other Ad Inventory Talks — Comcast, the second largest broadband ISP in U.S., is in talks to use Microsoft's search services on its broadband portal, a sign the cable titan isn't happy about its current search deal with Google, reports WSJ, citing sources.
Brian Krebs / Security Fix:
Stolen Identities Sold Cheap on the Black Market — Recovering from identity theft can take years and cost thousands of dollars. But how much is your identity worth to the thieves who sell it to other fraudsters? Turns out, less than the price of two tickets to the movies.
Discussion:
Computerworld Blogs blogs
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Victoria Shannon / New York Times:
Lycos, Early Search Engine, in a U.S. Remake as Jubii — Through a quirk of dot-com history, Lycos Europe cannot sell itself in the United States using its own once-famous name. Instead, the Internet service, partly owned by Bertelsmann of Germany and Telefónica of Spain …
Kristen Philipkoski / Bodyhack:
Study: Racing Games Cause Real Car Crashes — If you've been obsessed with PGR or Gran Tourismo lately, German psychologists think you should be extra cautious next time you get behind a real-life wheel. — They say that people who play car-racing games drive more aggressively …
Rafat Ali / PaidContent:
Deanna Brown Leaves Yahoo; Joins Scripps As President, Interactive Group — You're reading it here first: Deanna Brown, who was the general manager of Yahoo Media Group's Lifestyles business unit, is leaving and joining Scripps Networks for the newly created position of president, Interactive Group.
Discussion:
The Browser
John Battelle / John Battelle's Searchblog:
BALLMER ON GOOGLE - UH OH — Late last week Steve Ballmer gave an speech at Stanford in which he stated that Google is a "one trick pony" - that trick being search, of course. He also noted that Google's staff growth is "insane" and called Google, in short, "cute." — Lordy, Steve.
Jeremy Horwitz / iLounge:
QuickTime gains 720P Apple TV high-definition export mode — In an undisclosed and largely unnoticed update to its QuickTime video playback and conversion software, Apple has quietly added an "Export to Apple TV" feature capable of creating high-definition videos viewable on the Apple TV accessory.
Discussion:
CrunchGear, The Unofficial Apple Weblog, Gizmodo, Gadget Lab, broadbandreports.com and digg
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Is VoIP an Excuse for Bad Voice Quality? — In a few hours, the annual Spring VON is going to kick off in San Jose, California. Hundreds of companies, big and small will hawk their wares, pundits will pontificate and a lot of people will talk about convergence.
Discussion:
VoIP Watch
Microsoft:
Entrepreneurs Gather at Microsoft's Small Business Summit — Small-business luminaries to share best practices, and Bill Gates to unveil new communications product for small businesses. — Microsoft Corp. hosts its second annual Small Business Summit this week, a nationwide event …
Deepak Thomas / Startup Review:
YouTube Case Study: Widget marketing comes of age — This week's case study was co-authored by guest writers Deepak Thomas and Vineet Buch. — Deepak is an MBA student at the University of Chicago. He previously worked at Oracle for 10 years in engineering and product management roles.