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:
VentureBeat, Search Engine Land, A VC, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, Mashable!, Howard Lindzon and WebProNews
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Alan / Participate Media:
Joining Yahoo! — I am excited to announce that I am joining Yahoo! to run Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com) as Vice President and General Manager. Yahoo! is also acquiring BuzzTracker.com and related technologies as well as bringing on all Participate Media staff.
Mathew / mathewingram.com/work:
Were Techmeme and Sphere too greedy? — Kara Swisher at All Things D reports that Yahoo has acquired a blog aggregator — or "meme-tracker" — called Buzztracker for the bargain price of $5-million or so. Not a bad payout for a site that appears to have been founded and run by a couple of guys.
Scott Moore / Yodel Anecdotal:
Yahoo! News tracks the buzz — Did you know that Jerry Garcia's death in 1995 gave life to what we now know as Yahoo! News? On that grim day for Deadheads everywhere, co-founder David Filo compiled a webpage with links and outsourced information on Garcia's life and death.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Yahoo Makes Tiny Acquisition: BuzzTracker — Yahoo has acquired news site BuzzTracker, a tiny news aggregation site, for somewhere between $2 - $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).
TDavid / Things That:
Since Yahoo can't buy Google News, settles for second rate BuzzTracker instead — It must suck for Jerry Yang at Yahoo desiring the fruits of Google's labor, eternally sucking on G-exhaust, only to settle for what Kara Swisher describes as (emphasis mine):
Discussion:
Tech Trader Daily
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.
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Duncan Riley / TechCrunch:Google Presently Powerpoint Clone Could Be Days Away
Discussion:
Search Engine Land
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.
Brandon Hill / DailyTech:
Apple Activates $100 Offer For Early iPhone Customers — Apple's $100 store credit offer for iPhone buyers goes live — When Apple announced that it cut the price of the iPhone by $200 to $399, there were many irate customers yelling at their computer screens.
Discussion:
Engadget, iLounge, Good Morning Silicon Valley, Crave, Macworld, BetaNews, The Tech Report, Neowin.net, Digital Daily and PR 2.0
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Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols / eWEEK.com:
What the Hell Is Microsoft Doing with My Computer? — Opinion: Microsoft is sneaking "updates" into my PCs. What the heck! — Listen carefully. They're my computers. They're not your computers. I choose to put Windows on some of them. I choose what applications go on them.
Discussion:
Microsoft Watch
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I, Cringely . The Pulpit | PBS:
The Power of Six — I wrote a few weeks ago about Google's attempt to influence the rules for redeployment of the 700-MHz radio band in the U.S. for voice and data applications. Google said it would agree to pony up the $4.6 billion auction reserve price if only the FCC would first guarantee …
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 …
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
An iPod touch ships without OS X — hints at disabled Bluetooth — You can argue that the iPod touch is an iPhone without the phone. So what's an iPod touch without OS X? You're looking at it. That's Dave's swanky new iPod touch, fresh off the boat and out of the box with nothing more than a diagnostic utility.
Greg Sandoval / Webware.com:
FIRST PRINCE, NOW VILLAGE PEOPLE TARGET YOUTUBE — Somebody combined the Village People's hit song, "YMCA," with footage of a dancing Adolf Hitler and posted the clip to YouTube. Now the company that owns the rights to the band's music is preparing to sue YouTube.
Six Apart:
Six Apart appoints Christopher J. Alden Chairman and CEO — Six Apart, the world's leading independent blogging services and software company, today announced that Christopher J. Alden has been appointed Chairman and CEO. Alden succeeds Barak Berkowitz, who has served as Chairman and CEO since January 2004.
