Top Items:
Sarah Lacy / Business Week:
Slide: The $500 Million Widget — After cashing in big with PayPal, Max Levchin could be at it again with his social network tool. The latest funding values Slide at a half-billion — When Max Levchin started Slide, the popular tool that lets users create slide shows and other bling …
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Brad Stone / Bits:
Slide Slides Into Some Cash — Slide, the maker of applications for social networks, has raised another round of funding - $50 million from the private equity funds at Fidelity and T-Rowe Price, two major Wall Street investment houses. The firms have taken a 9 percent stake in the three-year-old …
Discussion:
GigaOM, BoomTown, mathewingram.com/work, TechCrunch, paidContent.org, VentureBeat and Mashable!
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
The “Google generation” not so hot at Googling, after all — A new UK report on the habits of the “Google Generation” finds that kids born since 1993 aren't quite the Internet super-sleuths they're sometimes made out to be. For instance, are teens better with technology than older adults?
Kasper Jade / AppleInsider:
Sources: MacBook Air battery replacements take only minutes — Due to its ultra-thin profile, Apple's new MacBook Air was designed with an integrated 37-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery that is not user-replaceable. Though this has caused some initial concern amongst potential adopters …
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Sprint:
Sprint Nextel Reports Fourth-Quarter Subscriber Results, Announces Actions to Streamline Operations — Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) today reported wireless subscriber results for the fourth quarter of 2007, announced initial plans to streamline its business as part of an ongoing review …
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Evan Blass / Engadget:Sprint announces massive layoffs, store closings amid subscriber defection
Discussion:
The Boy Genius Report
Chris Vallance / BBC:
Facebook faces privacy questions — Facebook is to be quizzed about its data protection policies by the Information Commissioner's Office. — The investigation follows a complaint by a user of the social network who was unable to fully delete their profile even after terminating their account.
USA Today:
Social, work lives collide on networking websites — Just after her honeymoon last March, Wadooah Wali took the de rigueur next step these days: She changed her status on the networking websites Facebook and MySpace from “in a relationship” to “married” and posted pictures of her partner — another woman.
Joshua Topolsky / Engadget:
CE-Oh no he didn't! Part LIV: Jobs calls Robbie Bach a drunk — Proving once again that the truth is stranger (and more entertaining) than fiction, Steve Jobs himself delivers one of the finest Oh no he didn't moments ever. Apparently riding high on the thrill of introducing the MacBook Air …
Garrett M. Graff / Washingtonian.com:
A Night Out: Google Opens a DC Office — Photos by Liz Gorman — Capitol Hill staffers, lobbyists, techies, and media folks braved the weather Thursday night to celebrate Google's official arrival in Washington, a moment marked by the presence of Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
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I, Cringely . The Pulpit | PBS:
The Big Picture — Up or down? That's what this week's Macworld show came down to for most news organizations. Would the new Apple products make the company's shares go up or down? They went down. Macworld was a bust, we were told repeatedly, as if it really mattered.
Greg Sterling / Search Engine Land:
Jupiter: Local Online Advertising Will Be Worth $8.9 Billion In 2012 — There are now a range of local forecasts in the market, some more bullish and some more conservative. But all agree that locally targeted ads in search, display (including video) and classifieds are growing at rates faster than overall online ad growth.
USA Today:
‘Rock Band’ pumps up music sales — The success of the video game Rock Band is drumming up revenue for the music industry. — Virtual rockers downloaded roughly 2.5 million songs in the eight weeks since the game launched on the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3 systems.
Tony Ruscoe / Google Blogoscoped:
Google Sites Closer to Launch? — Since October 2006 when Google announced they had acquired Jotspot - the wiki hosting service which allows you to create “rich web-based spreadsheets, calendars, documents and photo galleries” by using their wiki applications - people have been waiting for Google to do something with it.
Dan Goodin / The Register:
Personal data for 650,000 customers vanishes into thin air — Personal information belonging to more than 650,000 US customers of J.C. Penney and other retailers is at risk after the company hired to safeguard the data lost a backup tape. — The information, which was entrusted …
Discussion:
E-Commerce Times
Greg Sandoval / CNET News.com:
Don't miss lessons Radiohead, Trent Reznor offer — Musicians aren't merchants. — We certainly learned that through Radiohead and Trent Reznor's separate experiments with choose-your-price album promotions. — In October, Reznor, the leader of the band Nine Inch Nails …
