Techmeme: Is Facebook Ready To Face The Music? (Steve Gillmor/TechCrunchIT)

11:05 PM ET, July 16, 2008

Top Items:

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 …

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb, CNET News.com and CyberNet

Steve Gillmor / TechCrunchIT:

Is Facebook Ready To Face The Music? — On today's Gillmor Gang recording, Marc Canter frequently alluded to a Facebook announcement next Wednesday, July 23rd at its F8 platform conference in San Francisco, about their new thinking on the privacy of user-contributed data.

Sunshine / LiveSide:

Live Mesh Is Indeed Now Open — Where we were wondering before, we can now confirm that Live Mesh is indeed open to anyone with a valid Windows Live ID. Open to anyone in the US without having to adjust a thing, and open to anybody elsewhere in the world willing/able to adjust their OS'es region and language setting to EN-US.

Sunshine / LiveSide:
Live Mesh Is Open, But With A Cap?

Discussion: Brier Dudley's blog, ChannelWeb Complete Feed and //steve clayton

Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:
Breaking: Live Mesh Now Open to All of U.S.

Discussion: TechCrunchIT, InfoWorld, Zoli's Blog, sarahintampa and LiveSide

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 …

Elinor Mills / CNET News.com:
Facebook fixes hole that exposed birth dates

Discussion: TechSpot

Amit Singhal / The Official Google Blog:

Technologies behind Google ranking — In my previous post, I introduced the philosophies behind Google ranking. As part of our effort to discuss search quality, I want to tell you more about the technologies behind our ranking. The core technology in our ranking system comes from the academic field of Information Retrieval (IR).

Discussion: CNET News.com, Furrier.org, Traffick, Bruce Clay, Inc. Blog, The Inquisitr, Search Engine Land and WebProNews

Kenneth Li / Reuters:

AOL talks with Microsoft, Yahoo heat up: source — NEW YORK (Reuters) - Time Warner Inc's (NYSE:TWX - News) discussions to merge or sell its AOL Internet division with Microsoft Corp (NasdaqGS:MSFT - News) or Yahoo Inc (NasdaqGS:YHOO - News) have taken on new urgency ahead …

Discussion: Search Engine Journal, Ars Technica, BoomTown, All about Microsoft, Valleywag, Silicon Alley Insider, Search Engine Land, TechCrunch, Tech Confidential, Between the Lines, Computerworld, Techland, MarketingShift, Deal Journal, Microsoft News Tracker and Tech Ticker

Wall Street Journal:
Microsoft, Time Warner To Discuss Possible Deal

Discussion: Reuters, BloggingStocks, Tech Tracks and Slashdot

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.

Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Google Continues To Test A Search Interface That Looks More Like Digg Every Day

Discussion: justin hileman dot info

Apple:

MobileMe: 30-day Extension Eligibility and Details — Note: This FAQ will be updated when your 30-day extension has been made available. Please bookmark this page and check again in a few weeks. Please note that Apple's MobileMe Support team will be unable to provide any additional information regarding …

Macworld:
Apple apologizes for MobileMe launch, extends subscriptions

Discussion: L.A. Times Tech Blog, The Apple Blog, 43 Folders, The Mobile Gadgeteer, Cult of Mac, The Unofficial Apple Weblog, Technology Live, MacUser, GMSV, Engadget and Jarrett House North

Ashkan Karbasfrooshan / HipMojo.com:

Hum, YouTube, Get a Clue; Take Cue from Yahoo! — Wow, that title rhymes. — Om Malik hits the bull's eye: Yahoo!'s audience is their main asset... in fact, while a lot of people bash Yahoo! for diving into content... the truth is that Yahoo!'s golden days encompassed the period where Yahoo! …

Discussion: VentureBeat

Betsy Schiffman / Epicenter:
YouTube Scores Revenue-Share Agreement With Lionsgate

Discussion: NewTeeVee

Ryan Paul / Ars Technica:

Google's Android platform: not so open after all — Google vowed that its Linux-based Android mobile platform would empower enthusiasts and amateur developers, but today we have seen compelling evidence that this is an empty promise. Third-party Android application developers …

Discussion: The Open Road, OStatic blogs, Mobility Site, CrunchGear, Communications … and InformationWeek Weblog

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.

Discussion: MacUser and Silicon Alley Insider

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: GigaOM

Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:

Yahoo Hires Former Twitter Chief Architect Blaine Cook — Even as Yahoo loses execs by the dozens, they continue to hire new blood. Blaine Cook, the controversial (and some say very talented) former chief architect at Twitter, is now a rails developer at Yahoo.

Discussion: Valleywag and Silicon Alley Insider

Josh / Redeye VC:

Announcing FundingSleuth.com — About 10 years ago, I helped create a web service called Company Sleuth. The basic premise was that as a company conducted its business activities, it would leave a “paper trail” online. And Company Sleuth tried to find that trail by automatically searching …

Nivi / Venture Hacks:

I have a job offer at a startup, am I getting a good deal? Part 1. — We've been answering this question a lot lately: … This isn't a comprehensive answer—just some questions we would ask if we had an offer. If you don't understand your offer, get a lawyer.

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 …

Discussion: Between the Lines and Peter O'Kelly's Reality Check

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.

Discussion: paidContent.org

Om Malik / GigaOM:

What Getting Buzzed Says About Yahoo — The battle over Yahoo's search business as witnessed over the last few days seems both ridiculous and petty. And it takes the attention away from what is Yahoo's true value: a media aggregation platform. Yahoo is the place a lot of people …

Discussion: Deep Jive Interests, mathewingram.com/work and Clickety Clack

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