Top Items:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
AOL Buys Sphere's Blog Content Engine — Tomorrow AOL will announce the acquisition of San Francisco-based Sphere, a blog content engine that launched in 2006. The price is not being disclosed, but sources are suggesting it's in the $25 million range, or possibly a little more. More details from Om Malik
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Tony Conrad / Sphere Blog:
Our New Address @ AOL.COM — Unlike the rumor that Sphere has reserved the Wrigley Field bleachers for Game 7 of the 2008 World Series, the conjecture about Sphere being acquired by a larger platform is officially true. AOL has acquired sphere. More information is here, here and here again for the curious detail seeker.
Discussion:
BoomTown, bub.blicio.us, Webware.com, paidContent.org, Toni's Garage and SEO and Tech Daily
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:AOL tacks on Sphere; Reinvention continues
Discussion:
AOL Press Releases
Russell Beattie / Russell Beattie's Weblog:
The end of Mowser — It's been a year since I launched Mowser at April 2007's Mobile Monday, so it's time for a progress report. Sadly, the news isn't good. — Mowser is at the end of its life in its current form. We haven't been able to raise funding, and as a site …
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Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
Is the Mobile Web Dead? Some Mobile Entrepreneurs Say Yes — Former Yahoo! Mobile evangelist turned startup entrepreneur Russell Beattie announced today that he's calling it quits for his company Mowser because the market for mobile browsing is taking a fast turn for the worse.
Discussion:
Hardware 2.0, A Media Circus, broadstuff, ReviewSaurus, Venture Chronicles, techno.blog, TechCrunch and Mashable!
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Google's Don't Be Evil Not “Ordained Motto” Says Marissa Mayer — Google's “Don't Be Evil” motto, first uttered by Googler Paul Buchheit (now founder of FriendFeed) in 2001, has long been the pillar of their self-imposed code of conduct. It was amended somewhat in 2006 when CEO Eric Schmidt …
Duncan Riley / TechCrunch:
Twitter Testing Advertising In Twitter Streams — Twitter was down tonight, nothing really unusual for the San Francisco based startup (to be fair though downtime has improved since they dumped Joyent), but what was different is some reports of users spotting ads in their Twitter stream during the service difficulties.
Discussion:
Webware.com, VentureBeat, CenterNetworks, The Social Times, TECH.BLORGE.com, The Last Podcast and The Blog Herald
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes / Hardware 2.0:
Psystar: Apple's terms violate U.S. monopoly laws — Psystar, a Miami-based OEM which is now offering OS X on generic PC hardware, claims that Apple's restrictive licensing terms violates U.S. monopoly laws. Whoa, bold claim there. Better have some deep pockets if the company wants to take the fight to court.
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Paul McDougall / InformationWeek Weblog:Mac Clone Maker Psystar Vows To Challenge Apple EULA
Discussion:
Cult of Mac, The Mac Observer, Tech IT Easy, MacUser, Macenstein, MacRumors, InformationWeek, MacNN, Digital Trends, The Apple Core, Macsimum News, UNEASYsilence, Gizmodo and Elliott C. Back
Google LatLong:
YouTube videos in Google Maps — I'm excited to report the Google Maps team launched a new feature that showcases embedded YouTube videos in Maps. Geotagged YouTube videos have been available in Google Earth since last year, and we thought that it was only natural to extend this functionality to Google Maps.
Discussion:
Google Operating System, NewTeeVee, Search Engine Watch Blog, The Praized Blog and ReadWriteWeb
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Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Roundtable:Google Local Business Center Allows Free Form Categories Now
Discussion:
Screenwerk
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:Google Maps + YouTube Videos = Local Video White Pages
Discussion:
Internet Marketing …
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Facebook News Feed Reports on You Behind Your Back — The Facebook News Feed is a strange beast. Upon its release, it was met with an extremely negative reception as members protested their new ‘auto-stalker’, but it has slowly gained acceptance as users learned they could control which stories were sent to the News Feed.
Discussion:
All Facebook
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Jeremy Wagstaff / loose wire blog:
Facebook is Dead. I'm Not Being Facetious — Either there's a glitch in Facebook, or else it's dead. Well, not dead, exactly, but I noticed that, at nearly 10 pm, none of my friends have done anything today to merit appearing on the News Feed of stuff (see above).
Discussion:
Digital Inspiration
Mark Evans:
Who's Louis Gray? — At a time when blogging is evolving and the high-tech landscape is being dominated by blog publishers such as TechCrunch, GigaOm and Mashable as well as blogs operated by mainstream media, it is good to see that it's still possible for one-man/woman shop to capture …
Bill Ray / The Register:
Patent holders take 4G pledge of allegiance — Defeat 99.7% of all Spam! — The owners of the patents underpinning LTE, the fourth generation mobile technology, have agreed to only charge each other “reasonable” licence fees. — The companies involved - Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, NEC …
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Greg Sandoval / CNET News.com:
Rocker Peter Gabriel offers Filter to cut through online clutter — Internet users are awash in information every time they search for new music videos or books online, says rocker Peter Gabriel. — One of the founders of the rock group Genesis and the creator of the iconic solo album So …
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Omri / fring:
fring for your iPhone - it's a fringing world first! — OK. So if you're one of the first lucky *#@$%&s to get your hands on an iPhone, you just got even luckier. We've just made a special pre-release R&D version of fring for your iPhone - a mobile VoIP app publicly available for the iPhone?...yep that's a world-first!
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Greg Sandoval / CNET News.com:
Amazon's MP3s not affecting iTunes, NPD says — Amazon.com's MP3 service is growing but not at the expense of Apple's iTunes, according to a report issued Tuesday by market researcher NPD Group. — About 10 percent of the people who shopped at AmazonMP3 in February were previous Apple shoppers, NPD said.
Discussion:
Electronista
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Brad Feld / Feld Thoughts:
Your Analytics Data Is Very Wrong — I've written about this in the past so I expect this is nothing new for you, my dear reader. The title summarizes everything I am going to say. — My buddy Fred Wilson had a comScore chart about Delicious' growth (or lack of growth) in his hugely popular We Need A New Path To Liquidity post.
John Markoff / New York Times:
Tesla Motors Files Suit Against Competitor Over Design Ideas — SAN FRANCISCO — Tesla Motors, the Silicon Valley maker of electric sports cars, filed suit in San Mateo County Court on Monday against a competing company and two of its employees, saying they stole some of Tesla's design ideas and trade secrets.
Nokia:
Tap into experiences with the Nokia 6212 classic — NFC-enabled handset offers new and easy ways to access and share content — Espoo, Finland - Nokia today introduced the Nokia 6212 classic featuring integrated Near Field Communication (NFC). The 3G handset allows consumers …
Discussion:
Gizmodo, eWeek, Engadget, Unwired View, Phone Scoop, TechWinter, Electronista and MobileWhack.com
