Top Items:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Full Text Of AOL Email: XDrive, AOL Pictures, MyMobile And Bluestring To Shut Down — Below is the full text of the email AOL EVP Kevin Conroy sent out to staff on July 14, outlining the reorganization of his product groups and announcing the “sunsetting” of XDrive, AOL Pictures, MyMobile and Bluestring.
Discussion:
Guardian Unlimited, Startup Meme, Ryan Stewart, localmobilesearch.net, P2P Blog and Out of the Box
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Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
AOL gussies up for potential sale, but who's buying? — AOL is shutting down XDrive, AOL Pictures and other properties in a belt tightening move that may indicate the company is setting itself up to be sold. The larger question: Who will buy AOL from Time Warner?
Peter Kafka / Silicon Alley Insider:
More AOL Cost-Cutting: Dumping Properties; Cutting Back On Blogs (TWX) — AOL is “sunsetting” (i.e. killing or trying to sell) some of its underperforming units, including Bluestring, Xdrive, AOL Pictures and MyMobile. TechCrunch has the memo, issued last week, by EVP Kevin Conroy, who oversees the company's product group.
Discussion:
AppScout
Rafat Ali / paidContent.org:AOL Trimming Up For Sale; Sun Sets On XDrive, AOL Pictures, Mobile And Others
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch: AOL To Shutter A Slew Of Products, EVP Kevin Conroy's Future Uncertain
Denver Post:
Missing ‘spam king’ kills self, family — BENNETT — Just four days after escaping a federal minimum-security work camp, “Spam King” Eddie Davidson shot his wife and child and wounded a teen-age girl before turning the gun on himself. — Sheriff's deputies responded to a report of gunfire …
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Charlie Demerjian / Inquirer:
Escaped spammer kills himself — Comment Yay. No, YAY! — NOT ALL STORIES have a happy ending, but the tale of escaped spam king Edward “Eddie” Davidson sure does. After walking away from prison, he got a gun, killed his family, then killed himself. — While it is hard not to feel bad …
Discussion:
The Register
Andru Edwards / Gear Live:
Apple beta testing iPhone 2.1 firmware, adding more GPS features — We just got word that Apple has released a beta version of iPhone OS 2.1 to developers. Along with the 2.1 firmware, a new version of the iPhone SDK has been seeded as well, but the new SDK can't be used for submitting applications to the App Store at the moment.
Discussion:
Gadget Lab, Engadget Mobile, CrunchGear, O'Grady's PowerPage, Insanely Great Mac, Gizmodo and MacBlogz
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Aidan Malley / AppleInsider:Apple seeds iPhone 2.1 with directional GPS, push notification
Discussion:
Apple Gazette
PR Newswire:
Netflix Announces Q2 2008 Financial Results — Subscribers - 8.4 million Revenue - $337.6 million GAAP Net Income - $26.6 million GAAP EPS - $0.42 per diluted share — Netflix, Inc. (Nasdaq: NFLX - News) today reported results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2008.
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Joseph Weisenthal / paidContent.org:Earnings: Netflix Q2 Revs Up 11 Percent; Beats On EPS; Ups FY Guidance
Daniel AJ Sokolov / heise Security UK:
Speculation over back door in Skype — According to reports, there may be a back door built into Skype, which allows connections to be bugged. The company has declined to expressly deny the allegations. At a meeting with representatives of ISPs and the Austrian regulator on lawful interception …
Amit Agarwal / Digital Inspiration:
Believe In Superstitions? Avoid The Word “me” In Product Names — If you are superstitious and believe that names can bring (or deny) good luck, avoid giving your products a name that ends with “me”. — This is not a recommendation of any soothsayer but just a personal observation …
Discussion:
MacBlogz
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Richard MacManus / ReadWriteWeb:
Android Is For The Masses, iPhone For The Rich — Our network blog last100 has an interesting interview with Nicolas Gramlich, founder of anddev.org - an online community for Android developers. As editor Steve O'Hear notes in his intro, there have been issues with Google's mobile OS of late …
Kim Hart / Washington Post:
High-Stakes Race to Unlock a Wider Web — Critics Say New Technology May Hinder TV Signals — The nation's top technology companies have spent millions of dollars and nearly two years building devices, poring over laptops and working in federal labs trying to come up with a new way of …
Discussion:
Digg
Svetlana Gladkova / Profy.Com:
Google's Begun Growing Very Fast — I have just seen a press release (in Russian) issued by Begun, the Russian contextual advertising company recently acquired by Google from Rambler. The ad company reports on the revenue it has received in the first 6 months of 2008 …
Discussion:
Mashable!
comScore:
Are We There Yet? comScore M:Metrics Reports Mobile Map Use Grows 82 Percent in United States, 49 Percent in Europe — As families hit the road this summer, more will be turning to the mobile device for turn-by-turn directions — Mobile map usage growing much faster than online map usage
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
Loopt strikes a deal to make massive use of GPS data cost effective — Loopt, the location-based social network, uses GPS technology in cellphones to figure out where you are. Because of this it can tell you things such as which of your friends are around you, or what restaurants you are near.
Corynne McSherry / Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Here We Go Again: Yahoo! Music Throws Away the DRM Keys — Just over a month after consumer backlash caused MSN Music to rescind its decision to deactivate the digital rights management ("DRM") servers that allowed MSN Music purchasers to “reauthorize” music files after upgrading operating systems …
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Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:DRM still sucks: Yahoo Music going dark, taking keys with it
Discussion:
TeleRead, 9 to 5 Mac, Gadget Lab, CNET News.com, Boing Boing, Smalltalk Tidbits …, Slashdot, MarketingShift, Bit Player, Electronista and Digg
Brian Stelter / New York Times:
Griping Online? Comcast Hears and Talks Back — PHILADELPHIA — Brandon Dilbeck, 20, a student at the University of Washington, was complaining recently on his blog, Brandon Notices, about Comcast's practice of posting ads in its on-screen programming guide. — He assumed he was writing for his own benefit.
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
Blockbuster remembers it bought Movielink for a reason — While company after company enter the digital movie download realm including former outsiders like Apple and Microsoft, the company once synonymous with movie rentals has been noticeably absent: Blockbuster.
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