Top Items:
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
When Twitter Met Facebook: The Acquisition Deal That Fail-Whaled — [Updated with new details about deal.] — About three weeks ago, Facebook and Twitter ended several weeks of serious talks, in which Facebook was offering to acquire Twitter for $500 million of its stock, which also included a cash component.
Discussion:
Tech Confidential, Industry Standard, Between the Lines, Mark Evans, Contentinople, TechCrunch, Regular Geek, The FASTForward Blog, Alley Insider, Charles Hudson's Weblog, Maximum PC all, Homotron.net, Mashable!, Webware.com, John Battelle's Searchblog, bub.blicio.us, PR 2.0, VatorNews, Media Bullseye, MarketingVOX, Valleywag, Pulse2, Inside Facebook, Twitterrati, Profy, Technologizer, Tech Central and MediaFile
Daya Baran / WebGuild:
Google Layoffs - 10,000 Workers Affected — Google has been quietly laying off staff and up to 10,000 jobs could be on the chopping block according to sources. Since August, hundreds of employees have been laid off and there are reports that about 500 of them were recruiters for Google.
RELATED:
Charlie Sorrel / Gadget Lab:
Why the iPod Touch Didn't Get Google Street View — The new 2.2 update for the iPhone brings a lot of great new features. Google Street View, direct viewing, listening and download of podcasts and a few small but neat tweaks. The iPod Touch also got a 2.2 upgrade, but it lacks one headline feature: Street View.
Discussion:
Appletell
RELATED:
Arn / Touch Arcade:
2nd Generation iPod Touch Faster than iPhone — While we had generally considered the iPhone and iPod Touch to be one cohesive platform, as games have started to push the boundaries of these devices, it has become apparent that there are differences in performance between the different models.
Max Kelly / Facebook Blog:
Making Facebook Safe Against Spam — Last Friday, Facebook won an important victory for our users - and against spam and those who create it. — We've all experienced spam - those unwanted and, sometimes, inappropriate marketing messages. The bad guys behind those messages are always looking …
Discussion:
L.A. Times Tech Blog, Epicenter, CNET News, InformationWeek, TG Daily, WebProNews and Inside Facebook
RELATED:
Eric Eldon / VentureBeat:
Facebook awarded $873 million in lawsuit against spammer — Spam marketing messages on Facebook have been getting worse over the last year as the site has grown — but maybe such spamming is about to stop. On Friday, the company won a court battle against spam perpetrator Adam Guerbuez …
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
Google SearchWiki is Not a Wiki — Late last week Google unveiled the first major change to its search interface since the introduction of multi-media ("Universal") results into the search results page. They called it Google SearchWiki. — It's a big deal, it's awkward, it's frightening …
RELATED:
Dan Frommer / Alley Insider:
RIM To Blow Q3, Says Citi (RIMM) — BlackBerry maker Research In Motion just launched three new smartphones, including the touchscreen BlackBerry Storm, which went on sale last Friday. But RIM is at risk of missing its subscriber growth numbers for its third quarter that ends Nov. 29, Citi's Jim Suva said this morning.
RELATED:
InfoWorld:
Apple sued for patent infringement over iPhone — EMG Technology on Monday announced it has filed suit against Apple in the District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in the Tyler Division. The suit claims that Apple infringes an EMG patent in the way that the iPhone navigates the Internet.
Discussion:
Infinite Loop, Business Technology, TechCrunch, Technologizer, MacBlogz, WebProNews and CrunchGear
RELATED:
Matthew Miller / Smartphones and Cell Phones:
T-Mobile G1 Android gets Opera Mini and visual voicemail — It seems like the gold rush of applications for the T-Mobile G1 (see my review) has slowed down considerably over the last couple of weeks with just a few apps trickling out here and there. I imagine most of this is because developers …
James Sherwood / The Register:
Samsung demos amazing folding phone — A video has appeared online of what's claimed to be an OLED display able to fold itself in half to become a mobile phone. — Initially, the phone - which it's thought was recently seen on a Samsung stand at a display tech trade show in Japan …
Discussion:
Gizmodo, Anything But iPod, OLED-Info, Mobility Site, Boing Boing Gadgets, Electronista, blogs.telegraph.co.uk … and Obsessable
Deirdre M. Sena / Symantec:
New Symantec Report Reveals Booming Underground Economy — Value of total advertised goods on underground economy servers during 12-month period was more than $276 million — Symantec Corp. (Nasdaq: SYMC) today released its Report on the Underground Economy.
Discussion:
Between the Lines, Negative Approach, eWeek, CircleID, WebGuild, Network World, Maximum PC all and TECH.BLORGE.com
RELATED:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Be-A-Magpie Is PayPerPost For Twitter — Like much-criticized PayPerPost for blogs, German/UK startup Be-A-Mapgpie will pay you to insert advertisements into your Twitter stream. — Advertisers pay on a cost-per-thousand-impression basis, and the ads are promised to be delivered to relevant audiences based on keywords.
Discussion:
Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, Valleywag, SitePoint, dot.life blog and Sean Percival's Blog
Mark Peter Davis / Alley Insider:
Why VCs Aren't Investing Anymore — There is one topic on the minds of all entrepreneurs right now: the impact of the economy on their startups. The economy is the centerpiece of every networking event and panel, and it even consumed the Q&A session after my speech at VANJ last week on how to raise VC.
Electronista:
Intel builds 32Gb, 34 nanometer flash chips — Intel and its memory making partner Micron today said they have begun mass producing their promised first 34nm NAND flash memory. The smaller manufacturing process lets the two firms build individual chip layers with 32 gigabits (4GB) …
The Local:
Bill Gates in Sweden for high society wedding — Microsoft billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates is in Gothenburg this weekend to attend the wedding of billionaire Charles Simonyi and Swedish socialite Lisa Persdotter. — Gates arrived in Sweden on Friday in time for the start …
Ryan Paul / Ars Technica:
Final judgment: SCO owes Novell millions (plus interest) — Federal district judge Dale A. Kimball has handed down the final judgment in the SCO case. The decision dismisses SCO's latest claims, grants declaratory relief to Novell, and sustains the court's previous judgment that SCO owes Novell …
Serkan Toto / TechCrunch:
Xing's CEO Lars Hinrichs Steps Down, Denies LinkedIn Is Getting Any “Real Traction” In Europe — Germany-based business networking service Xing today announced its CEO Lars Hinrichs will step down and be replaced by Ebay Germany head Stefan Gross-Selbeck effective January 15, 2009.
Gene Marcial / Business Week:
Apple Is Ripe for the Picking — These days, Apple's beaten-down stock looks like an appetizing “value” play based on the company's potential for earnings and sales growth — Apple Inc. (AAPL) is definitely ripe for the picking. After reaching a 52-week high of 202.96 on Dec. 27, 2007 …
Discussion:
TUAW
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
Palm: The Beginning Of The End? — At a moment in time when smartphones are one of the few hot tech products, Palm (PALM), the industry's pioneer, appears to be dying. — This morning, Global Crown Capital analyst Pablo Perez-Fernandez cut his rating on the company to Underweight from Neutral …
Ryan Paul / Ars Technica:
First Jaunty Jackalope (Ubuntu 9.04) alpha hops into view — The Ubuntu developers have announced the availability of Ubuntu 9.04 alpha 1, the first prerelease for this version. Ubuntu 9.04 is codenamed Jaunty Jackalope and is scheduled for official release in April.
Discussion:
Maximum PC all
Meghan Keane / Epicenter:
Blip.tv Brings Video Embeds to the iPhone — iPhone users tired of YouTube's video monopoly will have reason to rejoice today. Online video hub blip.tv has created a workaround to bring more online video to Apple's mobile device. — Viewing video on the iPhone is a source of consternation for users …
Steve O'Hear / last100:
Video demo: SkyFire's S60 mobile web browser accessing Hulu and YouTube — In my first attempt at a video demo — something I hope to do a lot more of — I've been putting SkyFire's new mobile web browser through its paces, running on my S60-powered Nokia e71.
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
LinkedIn Launches Streamlined People Search — LinkedIn has a launched a revamped version of its search engine that aims to streamline the business social network's most oft-used features. Most of the new features revolve around people-search (not surprising given the network's theme) …
Discussion:
WebProNews
