Top Items:
Robert Scoble / Scobleizer:
Why Microsoft will buy Facebook and keep it closed — It no longer is about Data Portability or Social Graph Portability, if you will. — I'm hearing these rumors too that John Furrier (my ex-boss) is reporting. That Microsoft will buy Yahoo's search and then buy Facebook for $15 to $20 billion.
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John Furrier / Furrier.org:
Silicon Valley Rumor: Microsoft to Buy Yahoo Search and Then Facebook — My sources say that the Yahoo and Microsoft teams are bunkered down in a Palo Alto hotel hammering out the final stages of a transaction that will have Microsoft picking up the Yahoo search business. Word is that this deal will be done this week.
Discussion:
Download Squad, DailyTech, Between the Lines, Search Engine Journal, STARTUP CHATTER, Outside the Lines, Wired News, Search Engine Land, Tech Check with Jim Goldman, Tech Trader Daily, The Mac Observer, TechCrunch, TECH.BLORGE.com, BoomTown, Yahoo!, Windows Connected, Contentinople, ReadWriteWeb, Searchviews, I'm Not Actually a Geek, Microsoft News Tracker, Valleywag, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, Tech Ticker, Electronista, BetaNews, WebProNews, Techdirt, Profy.Com, The Register, metarand, All about Microsoft, CNET News.com, Web Worker Daily, I4U News, Tech Beat and Tech Confidential
Alexander van Elsas / Alexander van Elsas's Weblog …:Microsoft and Facebook will never succeed in locking down part of the web
Discussion:
mathewingram.com/work
InfoWorld:
Facebook CEO wants to talk with Google on Friend Connect — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants to sit down with Google and work out the privacy issues that caused Facebook to block Google's Friend Connect last week, he said Monday. — “We want to talk to Google about this and see if there's …
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Mariko Katsumura / Reuters:Facebook stresses independence amid Microsoft talk
Discussion:
Digital Daily
Brad Linder / Download Squad:
Galeon: It's like Firefox for Spartans — A few weeks ago we looked at K-Meleon, a light-weight browser for Windows that uses the same rendering engine as Firefox 2. The result is a browser that loads any page you can open in Firefox, which uses significantly less RAM than Firefox.
Discussion:
Open Source
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Adrian Kingsley-Hughes / Hardware 2.0: Why I called Mozilla's change to the Firefox install process “sneaky”
Staci D. Kramer / paidContent.org:
AOL-Bebo: $850M Deal Closes; AOL Combines Bebo, AIM, ICQ Into People Networks Headed By Shields — It's official—AOL (NYSE: TWX) now owns Bebo, closing the $850 million acquisition roughly two months after making it public. The social media network will not stand on its own; instead …
Discussion:
The Social Times, Between the Lines, MediaBytes with Shelly Palmer, BoomTown, AppScout, TechCrunch, The Inquisitr and MarketingShift
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Rajas Moonka / Official Google Blog:
Opening our content network to third parties — Today, we're announcing that Google is accepting third-party advertising tags on the Google content network in North America. This will empower advertisers to work with approved third parties to serve and track display ads, including rich media ads …
Discussion:
Search Engine Land, Search Engine Watch Blog, Mashable! and Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim
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Saul Hansell / Bits:
Apple Wants More Mobile Music From Labels — As part of Apple's efforts to improve on the shortcomings of its popular iPhone, the company has approached some of the major music labels to try to expand the variety of ringtones and other musical features available on the device, several label executives said last week.
Discussion:
CNET News.com, VentureBeat, paidContent.org, Listening Post, I4U News, AppleInsider, Electronista, iLounge, Macsimum News, Gizmodo and Insanely Great Mac
Ken Fisher / Ars Technica:
Ars Technica acquired by Condé Nast: the low-down — In less than a month, Ars Technica will be 10 years old. In 10 years time we've accomplished much, but uncovered far more work we want to do. For the past six months, we've been obsessed internally with the question …
Philipp Lenssen / Google Blogoscoped:
Will Gmail Get Themes? — A source is telling me that Gmail will get themes - custom layouts to personalize Google's web mail client. According to the source, the launch of this may happen within the next months. There will be 12 themes to pick from, according to this information …
Mark Evans:
Are Pro Bloggers Going Extinct Soon? — Louis Gray has an interesting post looking at Blogging 2.0 in which the content and conversation (C&C) are increasingly happening in places other than a blog. — He suggests this is “going to cause serious strain” on people who make a living from blogging given page views will likely decline.
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Matthew Miller / The Mobile Gadgeteer:
Mobile software Monday: Opera Mobile 9.5 — One of the primary functions I perform on my mobile devices is web browsing, but until now there have always been limitations with these browsers. The iPhone had the best current browser for strictly browsing, but didn't allow you to do much else …
AMD:
AMD GAME! Enables Console-like Simplicity for Mainstream PCs — For the 263 million mainstream PC gamers worldwide, AMD GAME! stands for exhilarating HD gaming experiences with full PC functionality— From the company powering the visual experience of the two most popular gaming consoles …
Discussion:
DailyTech, The Core Truth, The Tech Report, Coolest Gadgets, I4U News, VentureBeat and Blue's News
Mary Jane Irwin / Forbes:
Wii Gets Fitness — Like a late-night infomercial, Wii Fit sells itself as an all-in-one home fitness solution that will get the whole family exercising on a regular basis, no matter how lazy. With a menu of yoga, aerobics, strength training and balance games, it's hard to argue with the concept.
Martin LaMonica / CNET News.com:
Zoho Writer search bug exposed private documents — A bug surfaced during development of a group-oriented search feature allowed me to view Zoho documents created by other people that were not intentionally shared with me. — Zoho fixed the bug on Sunday, after I reported it, and said its impact was limited.
Matthew Lasar / Ars Technica:
Best Buy: FCC has no power to fine us over analog TVs — The nation's biggest electronics retailer has told the Federal Communications Commission that the agency lacks the authority to punish Best Buy for screwing up its digital transition TV selling rules.
