Top Items:
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Microsoft's Project Granola-Facebook Tastier Than Yahoo? — Project Granola? — Apparently, that's the jokey nickname that's been given by some in the company to Microsoft's (MSFT) new online strategy, in the wake of its failed efforts to acquire Yahoo (YHOO) that ended in a big heap of mess this past weekend.
Discussion:
VentureBeat, paidContent.org, Search Engine Watch Blog, Mashable!, CNET News.com, WebGuild, All Facebook, Deal Journal, The Inquisitr and Valleywag
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Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Microsoft still shopping; Approached Facebook — Microsoft, just a few days removed from walking away from its Yahoo bid, is reportedly sniffing around Facebook. — According to Kara Swisher, Microsoft's bankers contacted Facebook to see if Mark Zuckerberg and company would be interested in selling the company.
Yuri Kageyama / Associated Press:
Bill Gates says Microsoft going ‘independent’ way — TOKYO - Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said Wednesday the company isn't pursuing other deals following the withdrawal of its $47.5 billion takeover bid for Yahoo. — He said in Tokyo that the company put “a lot of effort” …
Discussion:
Digital Daily, TechSpot, BetaNews, Mashable!, CyberNet, Geek.com, SarahLacy.com, Associated Press and TechCrunch
Larry Alder / Official Google Blog:
Investing in the future of the open Internet — As you may have read, Google, Comcast, Intel Capital, Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks and Trilogy Equity Partners have entered into an agreement to invest $3.2 billion in a new wireless broadband company.
Discussion:
Wall Street Journal, eWeek, paidContent.org, Digital Daily, InformationWeek Weblog, VentureBeat, DSLreports, TechCrunch, DealBook, Search Engine Land, WebProNews, Search Engine Watch Blog, Reuters, InformationWeek, New York Times, jkOnTheRun, Google Watch, Phone Scoop, Business Week, Between the Lines, localmobilesearch.net, IntoMobile, Silicon Alley Insider, Payments News, PhoneNews.com, I4U News, Paul Mooney and dailywireless.org
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Saul Hansell / Bits:
Microsoft May Build a Copyright Cop Into Every Zune — If you like to download the latest episodes of “Heroes” or other NBC shows from BitTorrent, maybe you shouldn't buy a Microsoft Zune to watch them on. — A future update of the software for Microsoft's portable media player may well include …
Discussion:
Apple Watch, Techdirt, MacDailyNews, p2pnet, VoIP & Gadgets Blog, Gadgetell and The Mobile Gadgeteer
PC World:
OpenOffice 3.0 Beta Released — Carrie-Ann Skinner, PC Advisor — A beta version of OpenOffice.org 3.0 has been released for evaluation by the public. — This version of the popular software suite will support the forthcoming OpenDocument Format (ODF) 1.2 standard as well as being able …
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Alertbox:
How Little Do Users Read? … We've known since our first studies of how users read on the Web that they typically don't read very much. Scanning text is an extremely common behavior for higher-literacy users; our recent eyetracking studies further validate this finding.
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Karl / DSLreports:
Comcast Considering 250GB Cap, Overage Fees — Insider provides details of new ‘protocol agnostic’ solution — A Comcast insider tells me the company is considering implementing very clear monthly caps, and may begin charging overage fees for customers who cross them.
Discussion:
Scripting News, Silicon Alley Insider, Techdirt, Ars Technica, CrunchGear, Electronista, The Inquisitr, Gizmodo, GottaBeMobile, OSNN, Geek News Central, UNEASYsilence and WinExtra
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Twitter Starts Blacklisting Spammers — You know you've made it as a communications medium when you start attracting spammers. On Twitter, the problem is getting bad enough that the service is starting to blacklist people who spam other members. There is already an unofficial site called …
Allan Leinwand / GigaOM:
Web 2.0, Please Meet Your Host, the Internet — I have a major problem with many of the Web 2.0 companies that I meet in my job as a venture capitalist: They lack even the most basic understanding of Internet operations. — I realize that the Web 2. community generally views Internet operations …
Discussion:
MarketingShift
Anne Broache / CNET News.com:
Ban ‘Second Life’ in schools and libraries, Republican congressman says — Some politicos in the U.S. Congress may be embracing Second Life (pictured here is California Democrat George Miller's press conference in the virtual world last year). But Illinois Republican Mark Kirk says it's …
Discussion:
TECH.BLORGE.com, Techdirt, Chicago Tribune, Opposable Thumbs, Infocult and GamePolitics.com
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Take 2 Games:
Take-Two Interactive Announces Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto IV Breaks Entertainment Launch Records — Retail Sales of Grand Theft Auto IV Top $500 Million in First Week — Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO), said today that Grand Theft Auto IV has surpassed …
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Arik Hesseldahl / Business Week:
Apple's Board: Still Room for Schmidt? — The Google CEO's spot on Apple's board could go from awkward to untenable as the search giant's mobile push brushes up against the iPhone — Until now, having Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt sit on Apple's (AAPL) board of directors has made a lot of sense.
Andy Plesser / Beet.TV:
FORA.tv Raises $4 Million Round from Hearst, Adobe, Others — FORA.tv, referred by TechCrunch as the “C-SPAN of the Web,” has closed a Series A round of venture funding with $4 million from William Randolph Hearst III, Adobe Ventures and other investors. Hearst and Adobe were investors in the original $2 million seed round.
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
Test: Does Your ISP Slow Down BitTorrent Traffic? — A while back we posted about the plugin Azureus had developed, which allowed people to check whether their ISP is interfering with their traffic. The results showed that indeed quite a few ISPs were, but the plugin didn't provide the user with direct feedback.
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
Microsoft Live Mesh to get more competition — from Sun — At the opening day of JavaOne on May 6, Sun officials began laying out their vision for a future cloud-computing platform, code-named Hydrazine, that Sun plans to field against competitive offerings from Microsoft, Google, Amazon and others.
