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10:50 AM ET, October 6, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Business Wire:
eBay Inc. Buys Leading Payments and Classifieds Businesses, Streamlines Existing Organization To Improve Growth  —  SAN JOSE, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—eBay Inc. (NASDAQ:EBAY - News) today announced two acquisitions that significantly extend the company's leadership position in online payments and classifieds.
RELATED:
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
eBay doubles down on payments as it buys Bill Me Later; Lays off 1,000  —  EBay on Monday revamped its corporate portfolio laying off 1,000 workers, or 10 percent of its workforce, and buying online payment company Bill Me Later as well as a Denmark classifieds company.
Discussion: Rev2.org, Epicenter and Mashable!
Peter Kafka / Silicon Alley Insider:
Meanwhile...eBay Spends $1.34 Billion On Bill Me Later, Danish Sites  —  bill me later.pngeBay isn't just cutting costs.  It is also spending cash — more than $1 billion worth.  —  It is spending $945 million ($820 million cash, $120 M worth of employee options) on PayPal alternative Bill Me Later.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Ebay Spends More Than $1.2 Billion To Buy BillMeLater And DBA.dk …
Discussion: GigaOM and The Next Web
Allen Stern / CenterNetworks:
eBay Acquires Bill Me Later for $820 Million in Cash (Updated …
Discussion: Profy and paidContent.org
Miguel Helft / Bits:
Ask.com Revamps Search Engine  —  Ask.com has a record of coming up with interesting innovations that are often copied by others in the Internet search business.  Yet those innovations have done little to help the company expand its share of the search audience.
RELATED:
Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land:
Ask.com Goes Back To 1996 With New Release
BBC:
Search engine Ask gets a facelift
Discussion: Pocket-lint.co.uk
Kevin Michaluk / CrackBerry.com blogs:
Exclusive: First Look at the BlackBerry Application Center!  —  This weekend was HUGE for leaked info on the BlackBerry Storm (thanks BG!).  But while all the latest Storm OS eye candy has been sweet to look at and filled in some gaps on how the device's OS will function (like copy and paste functionality) …
Fred / A VC:
Free Vs Paid  —  My friend Howard was visiting me a few weeks ago and he said to me “free is over, I am only investing in services that customers pay for”.  He said “freemium is dead”.  I reminded him that freemium is a paid model, but he wasn't buying it.
RELATED:
Roger Ehrenberg / Information Arbitrage:   Where and How am I Investing in Early-Stage Today?
Arn / MacRumors:
iPhone 2.2 Hidden Features: Google Street View, Emoji, Auto-Correction Off  —  It seems that Apple is taking further care in hiding new iPhone features in their beta releases.  The most recent firmware beta seeded to developers listed “compatibility testing” in its release notes as the only change.
Andy M. Zaky / Bullish Cross:
iPhone Sales Drastically Surpass Q4 Consensus, Apple Reaches 10 million iPhone Goal  —  By ANDY M. ZAKY & TURLEY MULLER (Dual Authorship)  —  Based on the tremendous efforts by members at Mac Observer's AFB to track IMEI iPhone numbers, we have determined that Apple has drastically surpassed …
RELATED:
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Apple 2.0:
Apple iPhone 3Gs: 9,190,680 and counting
Discussion: AppleInsider
Michael Bettiol / Boy Genius Report:
How To: Copy & Paste on the BlackBerry Storm  —  Thanks to the windfall of Storm documents obtained yesterday, the often asked question about how copy and paste works on the Storm can finally be answered.  All you'll need to do is put one finger at the beginning, and another finger at the end of the area you want to copy.
RELATED:
The Boy Genius / Boy Genius Report:
BlackBerry Storm User Guide
PR Newswire:
Netflix Updates Third- and Fourth-Quarter Guidance  —  Netflix Inc. (Nasdaq: NFLX - News) today announced updated guidance for the third and fourth quarters of 2008.  —  Third-Quarter 2008  —  The company said it expects net income and EPS will be comfortably within its previous guidance …
Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:
Google Spreadsheets Redesign  —  One more step towards a consistent Google Docs interface: Google Spreadsheets has been redesigned and it now includes the same old-fashioned menu like the word processor and the presentation app.  —  “We were hoping to accomplish three things with it …
Discussion: Google Blogoscoped and Mashable!
Gavin Clarke / The Register:
Mono delivers Foundation-free open .NET alternative  —  Parity on C# 3.0 and LINQ  —  The open-source implementation of Microsoft's .NET is due to hit its second release today, with many .NET 3.5 features and a few notable exceptions.  —  Mono 2. will be announced today a year and a half later …
Discussion: Open Source and Yahoo! Tech
Troy Wolverton / Mercury News:
Microsoft's Ballmer talks about Vista, Xbox and more  —  Microsoft's Xbox 360 has lost its lead to Nintendo's Wii and is losing ground to Sony's PlayStation 3, despite debuting a year earlier than either.  Smart-phones such as Research in Motion's BlackBerry and Apple's iPhone are stealing share from Windows Mobile devices.
Discussion: GamesIndustry.biz
Caroline McCarthy / Webware.com:
eBay-backed community site Tokoni leaves beta  —  Tokoni, a community site for “sharing stories,” has formally launched after nearly a year of public beta.  It has taken investment backing from eBay as well as the auction giant's founder, Pierre Omidyar, and was founded by former eBay executive Mary Lou Song …
RELATED:
Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:
Story-sharing site Tokoni makes blogging a little less lonely
Discussion: The Inquisitr
Allen Stern / CenterNetworks:
WordCamp NYC: Matt Mullenweg on the State of Wordpress (video)  —  Today in NYC WordCamp was held at the Sun Microsystems HQ.  A big thanks to Jonathan Dingman for organizing everything... having been to many “camps”, this one was better organized than most.
RELATED:
Mark Evans:
Wordpress 2.7 is the Real Deal
 
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 More Items: 
Emil Protalinski / Ars Technica:
Live Search Cashback may be paying off for Microsoft search
Discussion: Portfolio
David Leppard / Times of London:
Government will spy on every call and e-mail
Discussion: Techdirt
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Q&A: Nintendo of America chief on game industry competition
Discussion: videogaming247
Peter Kafka / Silicon Alley Insider:
AOL's Hit List: 50+ Projects Gone Or Going (TWX)
 Earlier Items: 
Liz Gannes / NewTeeVee:
Where's the Money in Online Video?
Discussion: broadstuff
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
BlackArrow Raises $20 Million For On-Demand TV Advertising
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
MySpace Music Streamed Its Billionth Song “A Few Days” After Launch
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced she will leave the agency on January 20; she was the first woman to be confirmed to lead the agency

Lachlan Cartwright / The Ankler:
Sources: MSNBC renewed Rachel Maddow's contract early this fall, but with a pay cut; MSNBC bosses' plan to shake up daytime and weekend programming

Evan Drellich / New York Times:
The MLB is planning national packages for streaming companies to bid on in 2028, when its national TV deals with ESPN, Fox, and Turner expire

 
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