Top Items:
Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider:
Google Disaster: Comscore Reports Awful January* — Comscore reported shockingly bad US paid click performance for Google in January: flat growth year-over-year versus a 25% increase in Q4. Even if Comscore is only half right, this is a disaster. — Flash note from analyst Bob Peck at Bear Stearns:
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Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
Google Shares Slide On Weak Paid Click Data; Is The Crumbling Economy Dragging Down The Search Business? — Google (GOOG) shares are down sharply this morning after new data from comScore shows what appears to be a material weakening in the company's advertising business.
Bill Tancer / Hitwise Intelligence:
Google: Does Search Data Indicate a Recession? — The news is buzzing this morning, starting with a report from UBS that alleges that Google's paid clicks are down in January. Analysts from a number of firms have been speculating that this may be a sign that a slowing economy is affecting search.
Donna Bogatin / Insider Chatter:The Web Economy Rejoices: Google IS Overrated and Due For BIGGER Fall!
Discussion:
CNET News.com
Apple:
Apple Introduces New MacBook and MacBook Pro Models — Multi-Touch Trackpad Comes to MacBook Pro — Apple® today updated its popular MacBook® and MacBook Pro notebook lines with the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors, larger hard drives and 2GB of memory standard in most models.
Discussion:
bub.blicio.us, Hardware 2.0, Infinite Loop, geeksugar, Mark Evans, CyberNet, TidBITS, Salon, Insanely Great Mac, Between the Lines, GigaOM, Good Morning Silicon Valley, dailywireless.org, Gearlog, Todd Watson, Gadgetell, The Apple Core, Web Worker Daily, Digital Daily, Podcasting News, LAPTOP Magazine and Apple Gazette
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Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
Outage hits Windows Live Hotmail, Messenger users — Windows Live users are reporting on February 26 that they are unable to access Windows Live Hotmail and Windows Live Messenger, two of Microsoft's key consumer Internet services. — Microsoft's MSN.com portal also is extremely slow to load.
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Todd Bishop / Todd Bishop's Microsoft Blog:
Tracking Microsoft's Windows Live outage (Updated) — Readers have been e-mailing this morning about problems accessing Microsoft's Windows Live Hotmail and Messenger services. Microsoft is acknowledging the problem, but as of late morning Pacific time, there doesn't appear to be a resolution.
Discussion:
InfoWorld
Erica Sadun / The Unofficial Apple Weblog:
iPod/iPhone firmware update 1.1.4 released — Just connected my iPhone to iTunes. More details as they come in. — 1:30: I'm downloading the software now... To download directly, the direct links are iPhone and iPod. (Do let me know if I messed either of those up.)
Discussion:
Engadget, iPhone Atlas, InformationWeek Weblog, greg hughes, The Mobile Gadgeteer and PalmAddicts
Mathew / mathewingram.com/work:
Lance Ulanoff's death spiral has begun — I hate to pick on someone — unless they deserve it, of course — but I'm willing to make an exception in Lance Ulanoff's case. He's the PCMag editor whose piece on Facebook got picked up by Fox News, primarily (I'm assuming) because of the headline …
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Portfolio.com:
Comcast Astroturfs the Old-Fashioned Way — How big are the stakes in the so-called network neutrality debate now raging before Congress and federal regulators? — Consider this: One side in the debate actually went to the trouble of hiring people off the street to pack …
Tom Neumayr / Apple:
iTunes Now Number Two Music Retailer in the US — iTunes Customers Top 50 Million — Apple® today announced that iTunes® (www.itunes.com) is now the number two music retailer in the US, behind only Wal-Mart, based on the latest data from the NPD Group*.
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ACU News:
ACU first university in nation to provide iPhone or iPod Touch to all incoming freshmen — An Apple iPhone or iPod Touch will become a central part of Abilene Christian University's innovative learning experience this fall when all freshmen are provided one of these converged media devices …
Constantinos Michael / Google LatLong:
Refine by user ratings and neighborhoods — Ever since I moved to the New York City Google office I've had an agenda: exploring the best the city has to offer like so many other New Yorkers do. Sometimes this can be an overwhelming experience, since the city has more than 18,000 food vendors according to nycvisit.com!
Royal Pingdom:
Social network downtime in 2008 — This is a list of 14 of the largest social networks in the world, and how much downtime they have had so far in 2008. … As we mentioned in a recent report, Bebo's downtime has increased significantly lately and has had by far the most downtime …
Discussion:
Epicenter, Webware.com, All Facebook, Valleywag, CenterNetworks, Mashable! and Data Center Knowledge
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
Apple: More On New Macs, Higher Margins, Weak iPods and iPhones; Where Has Steve Jobs Been Flying? — The Street is feeling chatty today about Apple (AAPL) today, and there's lots to talk about. The analysts are musing on the announcement today of a refresh of the MacBook and MacBook Pro line …
Gartner:
Gartner Recommends IT Organizations Establish IT Cost-Cutting Programs Now — IT Leaders Should Set Up Ground Rules for Complying with Cost-Cutting Mandates by Following a Six-Step Plan — IT organizations should not wait for an official declaration that a recession has begun before undertaking …
