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4:15 PM ET, May 20, 2007

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Iain Dey / Telegraph:
Yahoo may net Bebo owners $1bn  —  Yahoo is rumoured to be working on an attempted takeover of Bebo, Britain's most popular social networking site, which could turn its British-born founder into the next internet billionaire.  —  Michael Birch founded the site with his American wife, Xochi, in 2005.
RELATED:
Pete Cashmore / Mashable!:
Yahoo In Talks To Buy Bebo for $1 Billion (Rumor)  —  A huge rumor is floating around the UK this weekend, topped off with articles in the British Sunday papers: Yahoo is said to be in talks with Bebo about a $1 billion acquisition.  —  The site, launched in 2005, has been the source …
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Yahoo's Rumored $1 billion Talks With Bebo  —  Update: Recent Comscore traffic data for Bebo, MySpace and Facebook is here.  —  Rumors about social networking site Bebo being for sale come up every few months.  First it was British Telecom for $550 million in July 2006 (we started that one) …
Discussion: Screenwerk
Steve Lohr / New York Times:
Bright Ideas: Reaping Results: Data-Mining Goes Mainstream  —  RODNEY MONROE, the police chief in Richmond, Va., describes himself as a lifelong cop whose expertise is in fighting street crime, not in software.  His own Web browsing, he says, mostly involves checking golf scores.
Discussion: WebMetricsGuru and Zenrob
RELATED:
Between the Lines:   Putting data mining in perspective
Margaret Webb Pressler / Washington Post:
For Texting Teens, an OMG Moment When the Phone Bill Arrives  —  Sofia Rubenstein, 17, got in trouble the way a lot of teens do these days.  —  Her incessant text-messaging racked up a huge phone bill on the family's wireless plan.  —  "It's whatever pops into my head.  There's no stopping it," she said.
Discussion: cruel to be kind and Slashdot
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
MyMiniLife: Your Embeddable Virtual World  —  MyMiniLife is a Flash based virtual world/social network.  Users create and customize a character and then build out a virtual space, adding walls, floors, doors, windows, etc.  Users can then add customized goods ranging from lamps to cannons to the space …
Michael Fitzgerald / New York Times:
Prototype: Why Work Is Looking More Like a Video Game  —  WORK is not play.  But maybe it should be.  —  In fact, Paul Johnston has remade his company on the idea that business software will work better if it feels like a game.  Mr. Johnston is not some awkward adolescent …
Ryan Block / Engadget:
Optimus Maximus: 113 keys, ready to pre-order  —  Ready to move around some funds in your accounts?  Take out that loan from your mom?  Tell your wife you just don't know why the account's a grand light?  The Optimus Maximus is up for pre-order for $1564.37.
Discussion: Quick Online Tips
Clay Shirky / Many-to-Many:
The (Bayesian) Advantage of Youth  —  A couple of weeks ago, Fred Wilson wrote, in The Mid Life Entrepreneur Crisis "...prime time entrepreneurship is 30s.  And its possibly getting younger as web technology meets youth culture."  After some followup from Valleywag, he addressed the question …
Discussion: robhyndman.com, A VC and New York Times
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Geni: Earning That $100 million Valuation  —  When genealogy site Geni announced that it had raised a venture round from Charles River Ventures valuing the two month old startup at $100 million, more than a few eyebrows were raised.  For the last couple of months, people have referred to …
Discussion: Feld Thoughts
Gizmodo:
Gallery: Giz Hearts Maker's Faire  —  That's Lisa and yours truly at the Flickr/Yahoo! booth, where they'd take a polaroid and scan it using some custom ware on a Sharp photocopier directly to Flickr.  —  And here's my photo stream of 90 photos from the amazing and completely overwhelming Maker's Faire.
Discussion: Gadget Lab and I4U News
Computerworld:
New and 'improved' Gozi Trojan version on the loose  —  Stealthier Russian Trojan on the loose since April  —  Jaikumar Vijayan Today's Top Stories or Other Security Stories  —  A new, stealthier version of a previously known Russian Trojan horse program called Gozi has been circulating …
Mark Wallace / 3pointD.com:
Anshe to Launch Inter-World Financial Market  —  Virtual entrepreneur Anshe Chung will launch a virtual world-spanning financial market in early June, according to a news release on the Anshe Chung Studios site.  The service will "allow direct capital flow and investment across virtual world boundaries …
Discussion: The Other Here and Metaversed
Joe Garofoli / San Francisco Chronicle:
Chronicle to cut 25% of jobs in newsroom  —  To cut costs and try to adapt to a changing media marketplace, The Chronicle will trim 25 percent of its newsroom staff by the end of the summer.  —  "This is one of the biggest one-time hits we've heard about anywhere in the country," …
 
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 More Items: 
Mark Helprin / New York Times:
A Great Idea Lives Forever. Shouldn't Its Copyright?
Charles Duhigg / New York Times:
DATA ON THE ELDERLY, MARKETED TO THIEVES
broadbandreports.com:
Citywide Wi-Fi: Boon or Bust?
Miguel Helft / New York Times:
Internet Giants Vie to Snap Up Web Ad Firms
 Earlier Items: 
Dennis Howlett / AccMan:
Intuit's blow out quarter
Kristen Nicole / Mashable!:
The Pirate Bay to Launch YouTube Killer
Donna Bogatin / Digital Markets:
Why Google Fears Microsoft, big time
Discussion: p2pnet, Newsome.Org and OnoTech
Mark Coker / VentureBeat:
Elementeo's 13-year-old CEO, highlight of TiECON
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Matthew Keys / The Desk:
DirecTV terminates its Dish acquisition after a group of Dish creditors rejected a modified bond exchange offer

Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
A growing number of podcasters, including Tim Ferriss, are moving away from interviews to monologues or co-hosts, as some well-known guests can be overexposed

Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
A New York judge finds Sirius XM liable for a difficult subscription cancellation process; Sirius says it will appeal but abide by a new “click-to-cancel” rule

 
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