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Ballmer: It's ok to wait until Windows 7; Yahoo still ‘makes sense’; Google Apps ‘primitive’ — Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on Thursday defended Vista's honor-again-but at least gave a nod to enterprise buyers that planned to skip it and upgrade when Windows 7 launches.
Discussion:
All about Microsoft, Reuters, GigaOM, The Microsoft Blog, Computerworld Blogs, CNET News, Electronista and Gizmodo
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Wake Up, People: Ballmer Just Said He'd Still Buy Yahoo* — *UPDATE: An hour later, Microsoft corporate is frantically backtracking: — “Our position hasn't changed. Microsoft has no interest in acquiring Yahoo; there are no discussions between the companies.”

Microsoft-Yahoo Deal Still Makes Sense, Ballmer Says — Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) — Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer said a deal with Yahoo! Inc. may still make economic sense for shareholders of both companies, prompting Yahoo shares to jump as much as 12 percent.
Discussion:
Digital Daily, Microsoft, Brier Dudley's blog, Epicenter, Tech Trader Daily, InformationWeek, Valleywag and Neowin.net

Ballmer says Yahoo deal would “make sense economically”
Discussion:
TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Portfolio, Silicon Alley Insider, Profy, Bits, CNET News, Smalltalk Tidbits …, Microsoft Pri0, Tech Confidential and Epicenter

GOOGLE ANNOUNCES THIRD QUARTER 2008 RESULTS — Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced financial results for the quarter ended September 30, 2008. — “We had a good third quarter with strong traffic and revenue growth across all of our major geographies thanks to the underlying strength of our core search and ads business.
Discussion:
VentureBeat, TechCrunch, Tech Beat, CNNMoney.com, paidContent.org, Tech Trader Daily and Digital Daily
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Google beats for Q3, Wall Street looks ahead — updated: In after-hours trading, shares of Google shot up more than 11 percent within 20 minutes after the company reported strong quarterly earnings. In regular trading, shares initially declined early in the day but rallied late in the day to close up more than 4 percent at $353.02.
Discussion:
L.A. Times Tech Blog, Valleywag, Wall Street Journal, Tech Ticker and Silicon Alley Insider


Google (GOOG) Strong Q3, Amazing Cash Flow — Initial Analysis: Revenue was in line with estimates, which is a modest upside surprise (Wall Street was expecting a miss). EPS was solidly ahead of estimates, so a strong upside surprise. The upside came from better G&A expenses …
Discussion:
Ars Technica, Tech Check with Jim Goldman, eWeek, Googling Google, CNET News, Epicenter and HipMojo.com

ABC, CBS, FOX & NBC Offer Incredible Lineup of Programming in Stunning HD on the iTunes Store — iTunes Tops 200 Million TV Episodes Sold, Including Over One Million HD Episodes — Apple® today announced that all four of the major networks are offering primetime programs …
Discussion:
VentureBeat, The Digital Home, The Apple Blog, Mashable!, PC World, AppleInsider, MacRumors, CrunchGear, InformationWeek, MacUser, MacDailyNews, bub.blicio.us and Macsimum News
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Apple's Gift To Hollywood: $280 Million In iTunes TV Sales (AAPL)
Discussion:
CNET News

Meet Our CEO and Chairman, Again — Three years ago during my time as CEO of Odeo, I was lucky to be working with a software engineer Jack Dorsey who wasn't afraid to bring up an idea he'd been thinking about for a long time. What if a simple status message was the format for a social communication service?

What's new with iGoogle? — I'm an iGoogle addict. I check my news, email, stocks, feeds and weather there and sometimes even manage to squeeze in a game or two during the day. Having everything in one place is super convenient, but I often wish I could deal with all my stuff without having to leave my iGoogle page.
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The Android fine print: kill switch and other tidbits — An uproar erupted when iPhone users discovered a so-called remote kill switch on their phones — will it spur the same reaction in users of the G1, the first Android phone? — In the Android Market terms of service …
Discussion:
Tech Beat, PC World, E-Commerce Times, AppleInsider, MSNBC, GMSV, Cult of Mac, eWeek, Personal Technology, Gadget Lab, IT Project Failures, Forum Nokia Blogs, Download Squad, Electronista, The iPhone Blog, The Register, Gizmodo, ChannelWeb Complete Feed, WebProNews, Maximum PC all, CrunchGear and AndroidGuys
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Adbrite Lays Off 40% Of Staff, Including Two Execs — It's not a happy day at San Francisco-based Adbrite this morning. The company is laying off 40 employees, which is 40% of total staff. Among those that are leaving are VP Marketing Paul Levine and VP Finance Bob Feller.


Go Get Yer Shiny New Yahoo Profile...And Make Some Connections! — Yahoo begins the rollout of its new user profile today, which marks the first tangible product release for the social part of the Yahoo Open Strategy, or YOS. The profile is one of the anchors (mail is the other) …
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Yahoo rolls out social Web foundation
Discussion:
Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life

Build your own display ads in minutes — Today we released the AdWords display ad builder, which lets you create professional-looking display ads in AdWords without needing to hire a designer or start from scratch. If you've wanted to expand beyond your text ad campaigns …
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H-P Making Touch Screen Laptop — PC Giant Aims to Spur Demand With Line of Products Using Touch Technology — Hewlett-Packard Co., aiming to boost its personal computer sales amid a deteriorating economy and soft holiday season, is increasingly turning to touch-screen technology.
Discussion:
Gadget Lab, DailyTech, SlashGear, Crave, Electronista, Liliputing, Maximum PC all, Engadget, Gizmodo and MediaBytes with Shelly Palmer

Shocker: Tribune Co. Gives Notice To Drop AP — NEW YORK Tribune Company has given a two-year notice to the Associated Press that its daily newspapers plan to drop the news service, becoming the first major newspaper chain to do so since the recent controversy over new rates began.
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider


Lending Alternative Hits Hurdle — SAN FRANCISCO — It was one of the most audacious ideas of the Web 2.0 boom — that people could lend money to other people over the Internet and cut out the middlemen, also known as traditional banks. — In the last three years, Internet start-ups …


Inside the BlackBerry Bold — Research firm iSuppli says it costs Research In Motion $169.41 to make the smartphone, lower than some Street estimates—and promising for RIM's profit margins — The smartphone race between upstart Apple (AAPL) and incumbents like Research In Motion (RIMM) is well under way.


Opera study: only 4.13% of the web is standards-compliant — Browser maker Opera has published the early results of an ongoing study that aims to provide insight into the structure of Internet content. To conduct this research project, Opera created the Metadata Analysis and Mining Application …
Discussion:
Maximum PC all


No Hi5's Today. No. 3 Social Network Lays Off 10 to 15 Percent Of Staff — The layoffs keep rolling in. The latest startup to cut back is Hi5, the third largest social network. But you wouldn't know it from reading the company's blog, which touts some positive press coverage today:


Yahoo to cut 3,500 jobs — party on! — A tipster tells us that Yahoo plans to cut 3,500 jobs, chiefly in sales and finance, on December 10 — while keeping plans for a multimillion-dollar holiday party days before the cuts: … Our source also confirms that the company is slashing severance packages …

Microsoft starts distributing open-source Drupal — The single biggest distributor of Drupal just might be Microsoft. As I discovered from Dries Buytaert's blog on Wednesday, Microsoft's Web Application Installer comes with out-of-the-box support for Drupal, OScommerce, and other popular open-source Web applications.

Headup: A True Semantic Web Search Agent — “Semantic web” is one of those phrases that's tossed around loosely these days, used to describe just about anything that goes beyond basic keyword search to surface relevant content on the web. But true semantic web applications …
Discussion:
VentureBeat


The MacBook and MacBook Pro splayed-out revealing intimate details — It's just tradition that when a new, hot gadget launches, someone has to tear the sucker apart thus producing what is affectionately called circuit board pr0n. Besides the pretty pictures though, sometimes hidden details …


Fleck Headed To The Deadpool Because Nobody Wants to Annotate The Web — Just a week after ReFrame It launched its service that lets people annotate Web pages, another startup that's been doing pretty much the same thing since 2006, Fleck, is putting itself up for sale.