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5:25 AM ET, July 17, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Gmail Blog:
Updates to Gmail contact manager  —  Posted by Benjamin Grol, Product Manager Engineer, Google Contacts Team  —  We've heard from some of you that Gmail's auto-added contacts can lead to too much address book clutter.  One of the advantages of automatically creating contacts …
RELATED:
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
Gmail Tries to Be Less Creepy, Fails  —  Gmail, Google's powerful web based email service, announced some changes to its contact management features today.  Contact management has for some time been a contentious matter among Google Account holders - the company does strange and mysterious things …
Steve Gillmor / TechCrunchIT:   Is Facebook Ready To Face The Music?
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Is This The Future Of Search?  —  The video above shows a user interface being bucket tested by Google to select (probably randomly determined) users.  Earlier today we showed a screen shot of the interface and a video of the search history, recorded by Adrian Pike, the CTO of startup Tatango.
Discussion: WebMetricsGuru and metarand
RELATED:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Google Continues To Test A Search Interface That Looks More Like Digg Every Day
Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider:
SAI Parent Company Raises Pots Of Money At Mind-Boggling Valuation  —  Silicon Alley Media, the parent company of this web site, is pleased to announce that a consortium of media moguls has been kind enough to infuse it with cash.  The money will allow it to pay rent, buy more chairs, and pay more people to sit in them.
RELATED:
Rafat Ali / paidContent.org:
Media Site AlleyInsider Gets Funding From Allen Morgan And Others; $6 Million Valuation  —  AlleyInsider, the year-old media/tech news site founded by Kevin Ryan, Dwight Merriman, and Henry Blodget, has received less than $1 million in funding at $6 million post-money valuation, we have learned.
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:   AlleyCorp's Kevin Ryan Speaks!
Sophos:
Video: Change your date of birth on Facebook - right now  —  If you're on Facebook and acting sensibly you'll already have told the social networking site to hide your date of birth, so other Facebook users cannot view it.  It's a sensible thing to do, because your date of birth …
RELATED:
Elinor Mills / CNET News.com:
Facebook fixes hole that exposed birth dates
Discussion: TechSpot
Brad Stone / New York Times:
Amazon Plans an Online Store for Movies and TV Shows  —  SAN FRANCISCO — In a significant step toward vanquishing the local video store and keeping couch potatoes planted firmly in front of their televisions and computers, Amazon.com will introduce a new online store of TV shows and movies on Thursday, called Amazon Video on Demand.
RELATED:
Pratish Narayanan / Reuters:
Amazon.com to launch new online TV, movie store: NYT
Discussion: ZDNet.com.au
Eric Eldon / VentureBeat:
Meebo launches instant message platform so other web sites can build branded chat services  —  Meebo is turning its instant message aggregator service into a “platform” that other web companies can use to build instant message features into their own sites.  The new platform …
RELATED:
Jessica Guynn / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
Meebo wants to get the Web chatting
Discussion: The Social Times
Betsy Schiffman / Epicenter:
YouTube Scores Revenue-Share Agreement With Lionsgate  —  YouTube nabbed a revenue-share agreement with Lionsgate, under which the independent film studio will get a branded video channel to broadcast movie clips — from pictures such as “Dirty Dancing” — and TV clips, including “Weeds” (right).
RELATED:
Ashkan Karbasfrooshan / HipMojo.com:
Hum, YouTube, Get a Clue; Take Cue from Yahoo!
Discussion: VentureBeat and Clickety Clack
Nik Cubrilovic / TechCrunchIT:
Why Google Slows Down Acquired Companies  —  In Febuary of this year Google re-launched JotSpot as Google Sites.  Google had acquired Jotspot some 16 months earlier, during which time Jot was only available to existing customers and closed to new signups.  What happen during those 16 months …
Alexander Wolfe / InformationWeek Weblog:
Steve Jobs Decision Behind iPhone Apps' Achilles' Heel  —  Steve Jobs is ruining the new iPhone apps!  OK, I guess should explain.  Take a perfectly good Apps Store entry, such as the AIM client.  It won't work unless it's front-and-center on your phone.  That is, AIM won't run in the background …
Discussion: Profy.Com
AppleInsider:
Apple passes Acer to become third largest U.S. PC vendor  —  Macs garnered an 8.5 percent share of the U.S. PC market during the second quarter of the year, pushing Apple past Acer in the national rankings and into third place overall, according to preliminary data released Wednesday by market research firm Gartner.
Alex Pham / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
Microsoft explains Halo's no-show at E3 game conference  —  Halo Nation has been abuzz since Bungie, the developer of the blockbuster video game franchise Halo, put out a cryptic letter on its website Tuesday apologizing for not making an appearance at E3, the game industry conference taking place this week in downtown Los Angeles.
RELATED:
The Industry Standard:
Techmeme Leaderboard analysis: Is the old-guard A list fading?  —  The Techmeme Leaderboard is a valuable tool for tracking the influencers of the tech world.  However, over the last few months an interesting trend has emerged: A-list bloggers are dropping off.
Discussion: A VC and GigaOM
Official Google Docs Blog:
Templates bring Docs to life  —  What do wedding planners, gas mileage calculators and photo albums have in common?  They're all examples of templates available in the Google Docs Template Gallery that Sarah Beth Eisinger (Docs Templates engineer), Grant Dasher (intern), and I built and (happily!) released today.
Michael Learmonth / Silicon Alley Insider:
YouTube Comes To TiVo  —  We've been hearing about TiVo's (TIVO) plans to put YouTube videos on TV for some time now.  It's a key part of CEO Tom Rogers' rescue plan for the company: make TiVo an all-purpose TV-slash-broadband device that's better than your standard-issue cable DVR.
Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
Microsoft faces lawsuit over Silverlight  —  Microsoft's latest legal headache is a suit from a little-known company called Gotuit Media, which charges elements of Silverlight infringe on the video metadata company's patented technology.  —  In a suit filed July 2 in San Francisco Federal Court …
The Boy Genius / Boy Genius Report:
T-Mobile Sidekick launching July 30th, no, it's called the Sidekick 2008  —  We just got a hold of some internal T-Mobile snap shots, and any Sidekick will truly appreciate them.  They detail the much-rumored Sidekick Gekko, from here on out known as the... wait for it... almost there... T-Mobile Sidekick 2008!
 
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 More Items: 
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
E3 trendspotting: the triumph of music
Discussion: Opposable Thumbs
The Boy Genius / Boy Genius Report:
BlackBerry Bold vs. iPhone 3G: yeah, we definitely went there
Discussion: BerryReview.com and Gizmodo
PR Newswire:
Snipitron Acquires OnlyWire.Com
press.samsungmobile.com:
SAMSUNG OMNIA MAKES ITS AWAITED DEBUT IN ITALY
Walter S. Mossberg / Personal Technology:
SnagFilms Finds Virtual Theaters For Documentaries
Electronista:
Meizu 's iPhone rival shown, due in August?
Matt Raible / The LinkedIn Blog:
LinkedIn Tech Talk: Kevin Brown on Shindig
Discussion: ben barren
Ed Bott / Ed Bott's Windows Expertise:
Hyper-V Monitor Gadget
Discussion: eWeek
 Earlier Items: 
Nivi / Venture Hacks:
I have a job offer at a startup, am I getting a good deal? Part 1.
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
NPR Launches API That Serves Up 13 Years Of Content
Joseph Weisenthal / paidContent.org:
Google Q2 Earnings On Tap: Analysts Confident; Watch For YouTube, Mobile Comments
Discussion: Between the Lines
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Yahoo Hires Former Twitter Chief Architect Blaine Cook
Leslie Cauley / USA Today:
Virgin Mobile USA treads a quirky path to success
Josh / Redeye VC:
Announcing FundingSleuth.com
Brad Stone / New York Times:
Profit Climbs for eBay, but Auction Growth Is Slowing
Amit Singhal / The Official Google Blog:
Technologies behind Google ranking
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Ashley Carman / Bloomberg:
A growing number of podcasters, including Tim Ferriss, are moving away from interviews to monologues or co-hosts, as some well-known guests can be overexposed

Jonathan Stempel / Reuters:
A New York judge finds Sirius XM liable for a difficult subscription cancellation process; Sirius says it will appeal but abide by a new “click-to-cancel” rule

Matthew Keys / The Desk:
DirecTV terminates its Dish acquisition after a group of Dish creditors rejected a modified bond exchange offer

 
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