Top Items:
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Day 59: Yahoo Buys BuzzTracker — Now, we're cooking with some gas over at Yahoo, closing in on the two-thirds point of Jerry Yang's declared 100-day March to Happiness. — Today, the Internet giant will announce the purchase of a clever Web site called BuzzTracker, which uses a combination …
Discussion:
Participate Media, Epicenter, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, WebProNews, A VC and Howard Lindzon
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Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Yahoo Makes Tiny Acquisition: BuzzTracker — There are rumors that Yahoo may have acquired news site BuzzTracker, a tiny news aggregation site, for $5 million. Alan Warms, CEO of parent company Participate Media, will join Yahoo as Vice President and General Manager of Yahoo News (a job with a bit of a revolving door, apparently).
Discussion:
Search Engine Journal
Inquirer:
Google readies PowerPoint killer — Slideshow program will be with you, Presently — SURE AS EGGS ARE EGGS, it's been known for a long while that Google will at some point take on PowerPoint with a web-based presentations package. The breaking news is that the coming-out party for the software is any day now.
Discussion:
TechCrunch, HipMojo.com, Silicon Alley Insider, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, Mark Evans and 24/7 Wall St.
Richard MacManus / Read/WriteWeb:
Marshall Kirkpatrick Joins Read/WriteWeb — I'm very pleased to announce that Marshall Kirkpatrick is joining Read/WriteWeb as a Lead Writer, starting this Monday. Marshall teams up with Josh Catone in this role, meaning that Read/WriteWeb now has three daily writers (including myself).
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Marshall Kirkpatrick:
I've left my day job to blog at Read/WriteWeb — I'm excited to announce that my work life is changing; I've resigned as Director of Content at SplashCast and joined the team at the excellent web 2.0 industry news blog Read/WriteWeb. I'll also be putting a new level of time and energy …
Spencer Reiss / Wired News:
Google Offers $20 Million X Prize to Put Robot on Moon — Editor's Note: Google will award $20 million to the first private team to put a robot on the moon, the company and the X Prize Foundation announced at Wired NextFest in Los Angeles Thursday. Members of the public will also get the chance to send digital mementos to the moon.
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Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Salesforce.com: It's all about the UI — Salesforce.com on Friday announced a new offering dubbed Force.com, an on-demand platform that gives companies the backend infrastructure as well as the tools to design their applications. — The Force.com platform, which is headlined by Visualforce …
Richard Siklos / Fortune:
Viacom's plan to be cool again — Left behind in the social media scene, the owner of MTV has some new stealth projects it hopes will allow it to catch up. Fortune's Richard Siklos divulges the media giant's plan. — NEW YORK (Fortune) — Will Sumner Redstone ever get over being bested …
Discussion:
Daily Feed, Silicon Alley Insider, paidContent.org, mediabistro.com, Reuters Blogs, MediaBytes with Shelly …, 901am, The Social and Mashable!
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Andy Greenberg / Forbes:
Counting Clicks — Given that most of Google's $13 billion in revenue comes from clicks on ads, you would think the words "click fraud" would inspire fear in Shuman Ghosemajumder, the company's senior product manager and resident click-fraud czar. But the problem—publishers …
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider
Bloomberg:
Verizon Wireless Suing Over Auction Rules — WASHINGTON, Sept. 13 (Bloomberg News) — Verizon Wireless has sued the Federal Communications Commission, seeking to overturn auction rules requiring the buyers of some airwaves to make their networks compatible with any device.
Discussion:
Gizmodo
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Chris Sacca / Google Public Policy Blog:
Consumer choice is always the right answer
Consumer choice is always the right answer
Discussion:
Between the Lines, dslreports.com, CNET News.com, Epicenter, IP Democracy, Reuters, dailywireless.org, GigaOM, WebProNews and The Technology Liberation …
Peggy O'Crowley / NJ.com:
What do we think of Wii? — We received responses to our Question of the Week about the new gun-like remote wand that Wii is planning to unveil for its first-person shooter games. — Most people think it's a bone-headed idea. — "Great, this is what we need. Children with guns learning how to aim and shoot.
CNET News.com:
Web ad blocking may not be (entirely) legal — Advertising-supported companies have long turned to the courts to squelch products that let consumers block or skip ads: it happened in the famous lawsuit against the VCR in 1979 and again with ReplayTV in 2001.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Google To Present At TechCrunch40 — We just got permission to post this - On top of everything else we've got planned, Google will present something at TechCrunch40 next week. Like the AOL and Yahoo product launches, it will not be eligible for the $50,000 top prize awarded to the best new startup product.
Mike Collett-White / Reuters:
Prince to sue YouTube, eBay over music use — LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. pop star Prince plans to sue YouTube and other major Web sites for unauthorized use of his music in a bid to "reclaim his art on the Internet." — The man behind hit songs "Purple Rain," "1999" and "When Doves Cry" …
Discussion:
Insider Reports Feed, muhammad.saleem, franticindustries, TechCrunch, Download Squad, Techomical, NewTeeVee and Online Video Watch
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David Pogue / New York Times:
A Baffling New Phenomenon: Customized Ringtones — At last week's presentation for journalists in California, Apple unveiled a refreshed iPod lineup and several secondary developments. One of them, which I didn't have room to cover in my iPod review today, involves the availability of custom ringtones for the iPhone.
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BBC:
BT set to study internet novices — BT is setting up an initiative to find out why some people resist using the internet. — The project will employ psychologists to closely study a small group of people to reveal what stops them joining the net-using majority.
Discussion:
Inquirer
Humphrey Cheung / TG Daily:
TG Video: Electric motorcycle inventor crashes at Wired NextFest — Recommend article: — Los Angeles (CA) - The inventor of the "KillaCycle" electric motorcycle almost killed himself during a demonstration at the Wired NextFest conference. Bill Dube, a government scientist during …
Mike Butcher / TechCrunch UK:
Apple EU iPhone deal expected — Now that Apple has summoned the UK press to a London briefing next Tuesday, it looks like the iPhone announcement is imminent. There are no other significant details about the event at its flagship Regent Street outlet, but I know the venue and it is only big enough …
Discussion:
Telegraph