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Firefox 3 Beta 1 now available for download — Please note: We do not recommend that anyone other than developers and testers download the Firefox 3 Beta 1 milestone release. It is intended for testing purposes only. — Firefox 3 Beta 1 is now available for download.
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Mozilla's Firefox 3 beta: Improved but imperfect — A few months later than had been planned, Mozilla released on Monday night the first beta version of an overhauled Firefox, the widely used open-source Web browser. — Firefox 3 beta 1 includes a number of significant features that Mozilla …


Firefox 3 Beta 1: The Memory Use Says It All — I've been a long time Firefox fanboy. I was one of the 10,000 people who contributed, and had their name featured in the NY Times back in 2004. I've long preached to anyone who would listen that Firefox is a better alternative to Internet Explorer …
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CrunchGear


First look at Firefox 3.0 Beta 1 — I noticed that the Beta 1 for Firefox 3.0 was made available sometime yesterday. I've been curious as to whether the Firefox dev team would do a serious revamp for this release or just concentrate on bug fixes and performance improvements.


Status Update: Facebook Is Letting Users Drop the "Is" — Facebook has caved into popular demand and will make the "is" in status updates optional, effective tonight, according to allfacebook.com. — The much despised "is" has been a mandatory component of the status update …

Against free — "Pay me for my content," says Jaron Lanier in a noble, if quixotic, op-ed in today's New York Times. Remembering his days as an "internet idealist" who wrote a pro-piracy manifesto, Lanier writes, "I was wrong. We were all wrong." He continues:
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Pay Me for My Content — INTERNET idealists like me have long had an easy answer for creative types — like the striking screenwriters in Hollywood — who feel threatened by the unremunerative nature of our new Eden: stop whining and figure out how to join the party!
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deal architect

The 20 Worst Venture Capital Investments of All Time — Catastrophic collapses and classic crashes in the high-tech business world. — Some things were just never meant to be, but that doesn't mean that investors won't pile millions of dollars upon a bad idea — or even a good idea gone bad.


What If Gmail Had Been Designed by Microsoft? — Today I want to ponder the question: what if Microsoft, not Google, had created Gmail? What would be the differences in that web mail client for users today? What if we apply some of the same design rules that brought us Hotmail, for instance?

Open Letter To Senators Hatch & Kohl About Google-DoubleClick — Today, US senators Herb Kohl and Orrin Hatch published a letter (PDF) urging the US Federal Trade Commission to carefully consider the proposed Google-DoubleClick deal. Sure, who doesn't agree with a careful review?
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Digital Daily, eWEEK.com, hatch.senate.gov, WebProNews, Search Engine Watch Blog, Rough Type, FT Tech Blog, The Open Road and SmartMoney.com

Former AOL Chair Backs New Search Tech Startup 'Clickable' — NEW YORK-BASED CLICKABLE ANNOUNCED THAT former AOL Chairman and CEO Jonathan Miller has joined the company's Board of Directors. — The announcement comes on the heels of the search tech startup's naming of Nielsen BuzzMetrics vet Max Kalehoff …


UK families put on fraud alert — Two computer discs holding the personal details of all families in the UK with a child under 16 have gone missing. — The Child Benefit data on them includes name, address, date of birth, National Insurance number and, where relevant, bank details of 25m people.


Meebo's Got Game — If you're looking for a killer app on the Internet and are unwilling to get into pornography, gaming is your best bet. So when Meebo opened their platform last month to third party developers, it was clearly only a matter of time before they let game startups in. That time has come.

Amazon Reading Device Doesn't Need Computer — Jeff Bezos knows that the world is not exactly clamoring for another way to read electronic books. — "If you go back in time, the landscape is littered with the bodies of dead e-book readers," Mr. Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon.com, said yesterday.
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Conversation Agent, WebMetricsGuru, The Globe and Mail, MarketingShift, /Message, MarketingVOX, Newsweek, paidContent.org, TechCrunch and CNET News.com