Check out Mini-Techmeme for simple mobiles or Techmeme Mobile for modern smartphones.
5:30 PM ET, October 19, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
OMG Britney!  On Twitter!  —  This is perhaps the most exciting news since the May launch of TomCruise.com: I'd like to welcome Britney Spears to our world.  She (or rather her people) have launched both a Twitter account and a bloggy sort of site with near constant updates on her fascinating life.
RELATED:
Randall Stross / New York Times:
Why This Storm May Stay Away From Apple  —  VIOLENT waves are tossing about the world's largest financial institutions like toys made of balsa.  The dark skies ahead can't be anything but a recession.  Sheets of cold rain have already been smacking the retail sector.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Apple 2.0:
Apple Q4 earnings smackdown  —  Andy Zaky has a bone to pick with Wall Street — or rather, with the professional analysts who cover Apple (AAPL) at Morgan Stanley (MS), Citigroup (C), Bank of America (BAC), and the rest.  —  “I could write a book on what Wall Street analysts don't know,” he says.
RELATED:
Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider:
Apple Fans Predict Blowout Quarter...But All That Matters Is Guidance  —  A group of folks who ridicule Wall Street analysts for intentionally lowballing their Apple estimates so Apple can “surprise” on the upside have assembled their own consensus for Apple's Q4.  Not surprisingly, the consensus calls for upside:
David Leppard / Times of London:
Passports will be needed to buy mobile phones  —  Everyone who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their identity on a national database under government plans to extend massively the powers of state surveillance.  —  Phone buyers would have to present a passport …
Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life:
Cloud Computing and Vendor Lock-In  —  Tim Bray has a thought provoking post on embracing cloud computing entitled Get In the Cloud where he brings up the problem of vendor lock-in.  He writes … Tim's post is about cloud platforms but I think it is useful to talk about avoiding lock …
Discussion: SmoothSpan Blog and tecosystems
Daniel Lyons / Newsweek:
Why Is Jerry Yang Still in Charge?  —  Lately, Yahoo seems to stumble from one idea to the next, with no grand vision or plan for the company.  —  From the magazine issue dated Oct 27, 2008  —  Eight months ago, Yahoo!CEO Jerry Yang had a chance to sell his company to Microsoft for $43 billion.
gHacks technology news:
Google Chrome Adds Greasemonkey Support  —  One of the elementary things that the Google browser is missing is support for some kind of plugins or extensions that Firefox offers for a long time.  Google announced plans to support an extension API in later builds of the web browser …
Elinor Mills / CNET News:
The Internet is no 21st-century boob tube  —  Remember when you were young and your family used to gather 'round the television eating dinner on TV trays, fixated by programs like M*A*S*H and All in the Family?  Chit chat about what happened at school and work was relegated to commercial breaks.
Discussion: L.A. Times Tech Blog
Mike Elgan / Computerworld Blogs:
ASUS may ship two-screen Windows 7 notebooks in Q1  —  SANTA BARBARA, CALIF. — Asustek, also known as ASUS — the people who make the Eee PC — plans to ship new notebooks that have touch screens on both the top (where the screen normally goes) and the bottom (where the keyboard normally goes) …
Corvida / ReadWriteWeb:
Handango to Offer Paid Apps for Android  —  The G1 is one of the most anticipated mobile phones to be released towards the end of this month.  Everyone is waiting to see how it will stack up against the iPhone and how the Android Marketplace will do against Apple's App Store.
Frank Washburn / GigaOM:
Where's the Money In Casual Web Game Development?  —  For years, developing web-based casual games was little more than a hobby, a means of creative expression for game enthusiasts.  Then advertising revenue started to reshape the casual gaming landscape — now, multimillion-dollar deals …
Discussion: Clickety Clack
 
 Archived Page Info: 
This is a snapshot of Techmeme at 5:30 PM ET, October 19, 2008.

View the current page or another snapshot:


Page version:
 
 Techmeme Sponsor Posts: 
Google:
Gemini 2.5 Pro: Our most intelligent AI model  —  Gemini 2.5 Pro is now available, with thinking capabilities, enhanced performance, and improved accuracy.  Try it at no cost in the Gemini app.
UiPath:
UiPath Unveils 10 Innovations that Will Shape the Agentic Future  —  Orchestration engine, API workflows and agentic testing among key features of new UiPath Platform™ for agentic automation, launched at UiPath DevCon 2025
Zoho:
The staffing formula for India's 10-minute gig economy  —  Leaving for an early morning meeting, but the dog ate your toothbrush?  That's how the quick commerce market was born in the post-COVID era.
IDrive:
Protecting your Cloud Applications Data  —  Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Box data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.
Sponsor Techmeme
 
 See Also: 
Techmeme: site main
Techmeme River: reverse chronological Techmeme
Techmeme Mobile: for phones
Techmeme Leaderboard: Techmeme's top sources
 
 Subscribe: 
Techmeme RSS feed
Techmeme on X
Techmeme on Mastodon
 
 
 More Items: 
Miguel Helft / New York Times:
Changing That Home Page? Take Baby Steps
David Chartier / Ars Technica:
Google monetizes start page, vocal minority gets vocal
Discussion: Guardian, Slashdot and Micro Persuasion
 Earlier Items: 
Michelle Meyers / CNET News:
Move over pinochle, Web surfing stimulates aging brains
Steve Gillmor / TechCrunchIT:
FriendFeed to add Realtime APIs next week
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Destruction Of Bloglines Now Complete; Founder Prepares To Switch To Google Reader
Tony Smith / The Register:
Netbooks take ten per cent of Euro PC market
Discussion: TechSpot and Engadget
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Betsy Morais / Columbia Journalism Review:
Several women attest to Wesley Lowery's pattern of predatory behavior toward young women in journalism between 2018 and 2024

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Every, which runs an online magazine, released an AI-powered word processor, and advises media companies on using AI, raised $2M from Reid Hoffman and others

Jake Kanter / Deadline:
Channel 4 unveils its Creative Investment Fund to invest in production companies as part a move to in-house production; the UK broadcaster has £111M in cash

 
Sister Sites:

Mediagazer
 Top news and commentary for media professionals from all around the web
memeorandum
 What US political commentators are discussing online right now
WeSmirch
 The top celebrity news from all around the web on a single page