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2:15 PM ET, August 21, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Wall Street Journal:
Microsoft Enlists Jerry Seinfeld In Its Ad Battle Against Apple  —  Microsoft Corp., weary of being cast as a stodgy oldster by Apple Inc.'s advertising, is turning for help to Jerry Seinfeld.  —  The software giant's new $300 million advertising campaign, devised by a newly hired ad agency, has been closely guarded.
RELATED:
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Microsoft enlists Seinfeld, Gates to battle “Get a Mac” ads  —  Those Apple “Get a Mac” ads have long been an annoyance to Microsoft and to Bill Gates in particular.  No surprise as Apple, emboldened by rising market share, continues to ratchet up the venom with quips like …
RELATED:
Thorsten / RightScale Blog:
Why Amazon's Elastic Block Store Matters  —  On the technical side, Amazon's EBS service may look like “just” another great new feature of the Elastic Compute Cloud, but on the business side it enables a whole slew of new customers.  I won't pretend that I understand all the new uses …
Discussion: PC World
Thorsten / RightScale Blog:   Amazon's Elastic Block Store explained
Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
Photosynthing the nation's capital  —  A synth of images of the Lincoln Memorial.  Click on the image for a larger view.  —  (Credit: Ina Fried/CNET News.com)  —  WASHINGTON, D.C.—On Monday, I got a demo of how Microsoft was opening up Photosynth to consumers.  On Wednesday, I put it to the test.
Discussion: Imaging Insider and WinBeta
RELATED:
Josh Lowensohn / Webware.com:
Microsoft launches 3D wonder Photosynth for consumers
John Biggs / TechCrunch:
Up Close With Microsoft's Photosynth: Stitch Photos Together Auto-Magically
Matt Buchanan / Gizmodo:
Video: BlackBerry Bold vs. iPhone Web Browser Showdown (It Gets Ugly)  —  We've seen the BlackBerry Bold and iPhone head-to-head before, as well as the Bold's greatly improved browsing powers over past BlackBerrys, but not side-by-side in a web browser race.  It actually gets pretty ugly, uglier than we thought it would.
RELATED:
PR Newswire:
Rogers and RIM Introduce the BlackBerry Bold Smartphone
Discussion: Engadget, Gadgetell and Engadget Mobile
David Chartier / Infinite Loop:
Microsoft demands Xbox LIVE iPhone app to be set free  —  People seem to really like this App Store thing we keep hearing about, and apps are selling for the iPhone and iPod touch like hot cakes.  One too-descriptively-named app, 1337pwn XBOX Live Friends Application (iTunes link) …
Discussion: Geek Gestalt and WebProNews
Timothy B. Lee / Ars Technica:
Fair use gets a fair shake: YouTube tot to get day in court  —  The saga of the copyright-infringing toddler continues as a California court refused to dismiss a lawsuit claiming that Universal Music had filed an improper takedown notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
RELATED:
Jeremiah Owyang / Web Strategy:
What Facebook's New ‘Engagement Advertising’ Means to Brands  —  Update: Only a few brands will trial these new ads, after testing, will then be broadly released later in the year.  —  A few days ago, I had a private briefing before the press with Tim Kendall, Director of Monetization at Facebook …
Discussion: All Facebook
RELATED:
Caroline McCarthy / The Social:   Facebook's ‘Engagement Ads’ tests the waters
Jonathan D. Glater / New York Times:
Welcome, Freshmen.  Have an iPod.  —  Taking a step that professors may view as a bit counterproductive, some universities are doling out Apple iPhones and Internet-capable iPods to students.  —  The always-on Internet devices raise some novel possibilities, like tracking where students congregate.
Discussion: TeleRead, TUAW and GottaBeMobile
Fred / A VC:
Ten Things I Want On My Mobile Phone  —  1) Shazam for places - I blogged about this when I was in Scotland earlier this month.  I met a company at TechStars yesterday that might be able to build it.  I hope they do.  —  2) Shazam for people - same idea. even more possibilities for this one.
Discussion: Mobile Industry News
Ryan Grove / wonko.com:
Yahoo! Search brings Search Assist, SearchMonkey, and more to the iPhone  —  In June, my boss came to me with a challenge: bring the full Yahoo! Search experience—including SearchMonkey, Search Assist, shortcuts, and other awesome Yahoo! Search features—to the iPhone with as few compromises as possible.
Discussion: Webware.com, WebProNews and Mashable!
RELATED:
Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land:   Yahoo Search Launches iPhone Safari Version
Business Wire:
Quantcast Names Industry Veteran Todd Teresi Chief Revenue Officer  —  Teresi to Join September 1, 2008, to Accelerate Market Adoption of Quantcast's Services for Publishers, Networks, Agencies and Marketers  —  SAN FRANCISCO—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Quantcast, the pioneering provider of the world's …
RELATED:
Abbey Klaassen / AdAge:
Quantcast Nabs Yahoo Exec for Its Chief Revenue Officer
Discussion: paidContent.org and Valleywag
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
12seconds extends its 15 minutes of fame with an API  —  12seconds has a goal: It wants to be the go-to platform for video status updates.  In order to make a good platform, you need a good application programming interface (API).  Today, 12seconds is launching that API and announcing its first three partners.
Seeking Alpha:
Salesforce.com F2Q09 (Qtr End 7/31/08) Earnings Call Transcript  —  Executives  —  Marc Benioff - Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer  —  Graham V. Smith - Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President  —  Analysts  —  Steven Koenig - Keybanc Capital Markets  —  Presentation
RELATED:
BBC:
Web browser to get ‘privacy mode’  —  Microsoft is planning a “privacy mode” for the next release of its Internet Explorer (IE) web browser.  —  By clicking a button, users of IE8 will be able to limit how much information is recorded about where they go online and what they do.
Discussion: Technology Live and Slashdot
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
LinkedIn launches an iPhone app, it's simple but it means business  —  If the iPhone wants to be taken serious as a business device it's going to have to have applications other than More Cowbell (the app that lets you simulate playing a cowbell).  A definite must-have for business users is LinkedIn, the professional online network.
Software Freedom Law Center:
A Practical Guide to GPL Compliance  —  1 Executive Summary  —  This is a guide to effective compliance with the GNU General Public License (GPL) and related licenses.  In accordance with the Software Freedom Law Center's (SFLC's) philosophy of assisting the community with GPL compliance cooperatively …
Rafe Needleman / Webware.com:
Zoho launches document sharing service  —  Today's addition to the rapidly-expanding suite of Zoho's productivity apps is Zoho Share, a straightforward utility for sharing word processing documents, spreadsheets, PDF files, and slide shows.  The online app reads in several popular document formats …
 
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 More Items: 
Joseph Weisenthal / paidContent.org:
Ad Net Turn Inc. Raises $15 Million Third Round
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
Comcast to slow down heaviest 'Net users to DSL speeds
Discussion: TechSpot and BloggingStocks
eWeek:
iPod Users Fear China Blocked iTunes Over Pro-Tibet Lyrics
Discussion: Techdirt
Business Wire:
Sony Ericsson Expands U.S. Carrier Channels with T-Mobile Partnership …
Ashlee Vance / The Register:
Reg server and chip hack molested by Gray Lady
Svetlana Gladkova / Profy:
Embargo Breakers: Who Exactly Do You Write For?
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
EMI/Virgin Records Sues Platinum Selling Band For $30 Million …
Nathania Johnson / Search Engine Watch Blog:
CitySquares.com is Fastest Growing Search Site
Discussion: Lost Remote
 Earlier Items: 
BBC:
New PlayStation and PSP unveiled
Chrisbrogan Com / chrisbrogan.com:
Social Media Events Are Fragmenting
Priya Ganapati / Gadget Lab:
iPhone of Home Phones Coming Next Year
Discussion: DVICE, OhGizmo!, SlashGear and Engadget
Stefanie Olsen / CNET News.com:
Widget makers get a makeover
Dana Blankenhorn / Open Source:
The new Intel gets open source mojo with SpikeSource
Discussion: Business Wire and TechCrunchIT
Robert Andrews / paidContent.org:
Microsoft Rejigs For Commercial Search, Multimap Leads The Way
Dave Rubert / NaviGadget:
tomtom PRO 4000 and 8000  —  TomTom just introduced what they call …
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
Spotted: FriendFeed Beta — coming soon
Discussion: WinExtra and The Blog Herald
 

 
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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