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12:15 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 …
Discussion: CNET News.com and CyberNet
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?  —  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.
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
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.
RELATED:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Google Continues To Test A Search Interface That Looks More Like Digg Every Day
Eric Eldon / VentureBeat:
Meebo launches instant message platform so other web sites can offer their own 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.
RELATED:
Jessica Guynn / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
Meebo wants to get the Web chatting  —  Seth Sternberg wants to bring live chat to the entire Web.  It's a far-reaching ambition and one that won't happen in an instant, analysts say.  But Meebo, the instant-messaging service that Sternberg co-founded, took another step closer tonight …
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).
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).
Discussion: HipMojo.com and NewTeeVee
RELATED:
Ashkan Karbasfrooshan / HipMojo.com:
Hum, YouTube, Get a Clue; Take Cue from Yahoo!
Discussion: VentureBeat
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 …
RELATED:
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.
RELATED:
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, Silicon Alley Insider and Digg
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 …
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 …
RELATED:
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:   Microsoft's Trojan Horse (Also Google's): Display Advertising
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
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 …
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 …
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.
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.
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
 
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 More Items: 
Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider:
SAI Parent Company Raises Pots Of Money At Mind-Boggling Valuation
Discussion: BoomTown and paidContent.org
Electronista:
Meizu 's iPhone rival shown, due in August?
Discussion: Engadget and Gizmodo
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
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
Alex Pham / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
Microsoft explains Halo's no-show at E3 game conference
Chris Morris / Forbes:
Look-alike Gaming Machines
 Earlier Items: 
Leslie Cauley / USA Today:
Virgin Mobile USA treads a quirky path to success
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Apple 2.0:
iPhone profits: Apple cleared estimated $330 million in three days
Brad Stone / New York Times:
Profit Climbs for eBay, but Auction Growth Is Slowing
Garett Rogers / Googling Google:
New version of Gmail iGoogle gadget
Discussion: diversity.net.nz
Dave Winer / Scripting News:
Apple's walled garden
Chris Morrison / VentureBeat:
What the hell happened to Kleiner Perkins?
Greg Sterling / Search Engine Land:
iPhone Frenzy, “All You Can Eat” Data, Mobile Internet Now At “Critical Mass”
Discussion: ReadWriteWeb and CrunchGear
Om Malik / GigaOM:
What Getting Buzzed Says About Yahoo
 

 
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

Brian Steinberg / Variety:
Sources: NBCUniversal Vice Chairman Bonnie Hammer plans to leave the company at the end of the year; she has been with the company since 2004

 
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