Check out Mini-Techmeme for simple mobiles or Techmeme Mobile for modern smartphones.
11:40 AM ET, July 20, 2007

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Duncan Riley / TechCrunch:
Could Facebook Become The Next Microsoft?  —  Amongst all the noise today over Facebook's acquisition of Parakey, little has been said on what the acquisition means for Facebook in the broader sense.  Robert Scoble says that Facebook is the new data black hole, noting that many of his favorite apps are now appearing on Facebook.
RELATED:
Dave McClure / Master of 500 Hats:
Kottke is wrong — Facebook isn't AOL; it's Visual Basic.  —  For about a year or two, i've been meaning to do a followup piece on how Google, Microsoft, & Yahoo all screwed the pooch by not building out a REAL web application OS worth developing apps for, but i'm too late.  —  GYM is Old & Busted.
Blake Ross:
Facebook Goes Public (withnewsaboutitsrecentacquisitionofPar akey, Inc.)  —  Facebook has acquired my fledgling startup, Parakey, Inc. The project remains very much alive, and since we will be working to port the concepts and technology to Facebook, it will remain stealthy.
Justin Smith / Inside Facebook:
Breaking: Facebook Acquires Parakey  —  Just received word from Facebook that the company has made its first acquisition: Parakey, a startup founded by Blake Ross and Joe Hewitt, co-founders of Mozilla Firefox.  Ross and Hewitt will join Facebook immediately to work on the Facebook Platform.
Aoife White / Associated Press:
EU OKs German online search-engine grant  —  BRUSSELS, Belgium - The European Union on Thursday authorized Germany to give $165 million for research on Internet search-engine technologies that could someday challenge U.S. search giant Google Inc.  —  The Theseus research project …
RELATED:
Andy Beal / Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim:   Government Funded Google Challenger a Huge Conflict of Interest
europa.eu:   State aid: Commission endorses €120 million aid for German R&D project THESEUS
Duncan Riley / TechCrunch:
YouTube: Now With Customizable Player  —  YouTube has launched a new "custom player" feature that allows users to customize embedded YouTube videos.  —  Users are able to customize player features including the name of the player, color theme, layout (a standard layout or one with related videos to the right), and content.
RELATED:
San Francisco Chronicle:
Google exec's past returns with a demand for payment  —  A top Google executive, David Drummond, has agreed to pay $700,000 to settle a complaint by federal regulators that accused him of helping to misstate the financial results of his previous employer, SmartForce.
RELATED:
David A. Utter / WebProNews:
Google Lawyer Settles With SEC  —  David Drummond will pay the Securities and Exchange Commission almost $700,000 to settle their claims against him stemming from his work with a technology training firm. … We used to call this "no blood, no foul" when we played basketball on the playground.
Discussion: PC World
Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land:
Ask.com To Launch AskEraser To Erase Search History & New Data Retention Policy  —  Ask.com announced that they will be launching "AskEraser" in the near future, a feature to allow you to erase your search history.  Ask also said it will be implementing a new 18 month data retention policy …
RELATED:
Brian Ashcraft / Kotaku:
Busted: Unreal Engine 3, Half-Baked, Broken and Late?  —  At Sony's E307 presser, Jack Tretton stood on stage, announced Epic's Unreal Tournament III as a PS3 exclusive and said that Sony was working closely with Epic to "adjust" the Unreal Engine for the PS3 so that it reaches the "best of its potential."
RELATED:
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Google dangles $4.6 billion in front of the FCC  —  Google said Friday that it would bid a minimum of $4.6 billion for the federal government's upcoming wireless spectrum auction-if the Federal Communications Commission creates an open wireless platform.  —  The wireless spectrum auction …
Discussion: Ars Technica and VentureBeat
Jack Ewing / Business Week:
Why Nokia Is Leaving Moto in the Dust  —  Phones for high- and low-end consumers, a great supply chain, and lots of cash—the Finnish company has it all (except the iPhone)  —  Pop singer Alicia Keys and Ramkishen Pyarelal, proprieter of a Mumbai tea stall, may not have a lot in common.
Chris Taylor / Business 2.0:
The Google backlash begins  —  The Internet search giant is having a rough week — and not just because it missed Wall Street earnings forecast.  Business 2.0's Chris Taylor suggests four steps the company should take now to stem the fallout.  —  (Business 2.0 Magazine) …
Linda Haugsted / Multichannel News:
CBS Aims to Spread Web Content  —  Broadcast Network Targets 400 Sites by Fall  —  CBS television content will be available through 400 sites on the Internet by the fall, according to executives from the broadcast network's interactive division.  —  "CBS is al about open, nonexclusive partnerships …
Paul Miller / Engadget:
iPhone says "Hello World," here come the 3rd party apps  —  If there wasn't a vast, cold expanse of internet in the way, we could just hug those iPhone Dev Wiki folks.  Apparently a particularly dedicated hacker who goes by "Nightwatch" has compiled and launched the iPhone's very first independent …
Discussion: digg
Ryan Singel / Threat Level:
Nearly Ten Percent of Companies Have Fired Bloggers, Survey Claims  —  Nearly ten percent of companies have fired an employee for violating corporate blogging or message board policies, and 19 percent have disciplined an employee for the same infractions, according to a new survey from Proofpoint, a messaging security company.
Discussion: WebProNews and MediaVidea
 
 Archived Page Info: 
This is a snapshot of Techmeme at 11:40 AM ET, July 20, 2007.

View the current page or another snapshot:


Page version:
 
 Techmeme Sponsor Posts: 
Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
Zoho:
Zoho Assist 2024: A quick recap  —  2024 was a year of new features and transformative enhancements aimed at making remote support more effective for technicians, ensuring a seamless user experience, and enabling efficient remote support sessions.
Genesys:
Executive Insights: The Era of Contact Center AI Copilots  —  How AI copilots are transforming customer experience and agent performance.
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Sponsor Techmeme
 
 See Also: 
Techmeme: site main
Techmeme River: reverse chronological Techmeme
Techmeme Mobile: for phones
Techmeme Leaderboard: Techmeme's top sources
 
 Subscribe: 
Techmeme RSS feed
Techmeme on X
Techmeme on Mastodon
 
 
 More Items: 
David Kravets / Wired News:
IPhone Contract Is Long and Legally Murky
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
Broadband Data Improvement Act clears Senate Commerce Committee
Discussion: dslreports.com
Grant Robertson / Download Squad:
Google kills click to call feature in Google Maps
Discussion: CenterNetworks
Tony Dennis / Inquirer:
O2's failure to launch voice and video shortcodes "holds up entire industry"
Discussion: SMS Text News
Wei Luo / Google LatLong:
NASA in Google Earth
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
iPhone on T-Mobile's German site: Das Neue Kult-Handy!
Discussion: Infinite Loop
Michael Geist / Michael Geist's Blog:
Copyright Board Gives Go Ahead to iPod Levy
Discussion: Engadget and iLounge
Jonathan Richards / Times of London:
Digital DNA could finger Harry Potter leaker
 Earlier Items: 
John Biggs / CrunchGear:
Class Action Suit Against Microsoft Alleges XBox 360 Skwatches Disks …
Discussion: Inquirer
Phil Butler / Read/WriteWeb:
Powerset and hakia - Quest For The Semantic Web
Miguel Helft / New York Times:
Google Earnings Up 28% but Miss Expectations
RSnake / ha.ckers.org web application security lab:
Firefox Implements httpOnly And is Vulnerable to XMLHTTPRequest
Michael Liedtke / Associated Press:
Google's Profit Falls Short, Shares Drop
Richard Mitchell / Xbox 360 Fanboy:
OXM rumor: MGS4 on 360 a few months after PS3
Discussion: CrunchGear, Kotaku, Joystiq and digg
Internet Stocks on Seeking Alpha:
Google Q2 2007 Earnings Call Transcript
Ross Mayfield / Ross Mayfield's Weblog:
CEO 2.0  —  As a company founder, as I've written before …
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Max Tani / Semafor:
News media personalities including Andrew Ross Sorkin, David Remnick, Rachel Maddow, Mehdi Hasan, and Bari Weiss reflect on the things they got wrong in 2024

William Christou / The Guardian:
A look at Syria's state news agency Sana, which had led the Assad regime's propaganda effort for the past 13 years, with its journalists unable to report freely

Lillian Rizzo / CNBC:
Industry executives say media companies expect ad spending to stabilize in 2025 and even grow for platforms with sports and live events

 
Sister Sites:

Mediagazer
 Top news and commentary for media professionals from all around the web
memeorandum
 What US political commentators are discussing online right now
WeSmirch
 The top celebrity news from all around the web on a single page