Top Items:
Brad Stone / Bits:
E-Commerce Shrinks for First Time, Research Firm Says — Just as many Web retailers feared, online shoppers are being unusually frugal this holiday season. — During the first 23 days of November, according to a report to be released later on Tuesday by the research firm comScore …
Discussion:
GigaOM, CNET News, Tech Trader Daily, MarketingVOX, Alley Insider, Voices and Search Engine Guide
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Business Technology:
Online Retail: Dead or Just Resting? — Online retailers are hoping that the United States is a nation of procrastinators. — Because the holiday season will be rough if current trends continue. The amount of money consumers spent online on retail goods between November 1 and November 23 fell 4% …
Michael Gartenberg / MobileDevicesToday:
Microsoft will NOT do their own phone anytime soon — Rumors persist and folks believe that there will be a Zune or some other Microsoft branded phone. I've talked about this in the past but it's worth saying again. — Sorry Joe and David, there won't be a Microsoft phone. I say this for a simple reason.
Discussion:
Microsoft Watch, TechFlash, VentureBeat, Smartphones and Cell Phones, Alley Insider, Pocket PC Thoughts.com, GigaOM and Technologizer
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Jim Goldman / Tech Check with Jim Goldman:
Microsoft's Zune To Evolve Into New “Pink” Smart Phone? — I'm hearing from a good source that Microsoft is ready to give a major facelift to the company's Zune music player that could mean its evolution into a new smart phone from the company. — My source says that the new device falls under …
Chris Evans / Google Online Security Blog:
Gmail security and recent phishing activity — We've seen some speculation recently about a purported security vulnerability in Gmail and the theft of several website owners' domains by unauthorized third parties. At Google we're committed to providing secure products, and we mounted an immediate investigation.
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Google LatLong:
Happier travels through Street View with Pegman — Today we're happy to announce some big improvements to the Street View feature in Google Maps! Thanks to feedback from our users, we've now made Street View even better and easier to use. — For one thing, Pegman, our plucky mascot, is now close at hand wherever you go.
Tim Arango / New York Times:
Digital Sales Surpass CDs at Atlantic — Since MP3s first became popular a decade ago, music industry executives have obsessed over this question: when would digital music revenue finally surpass compact disc sales? — For Atlantic Records, the label that in years past has delivered artists …
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Henry Blodget / Alley Insider:
eBay Traffic Plummeting (EBAY) — eBay's (EBAY) core business continues to fall apart. Some of the decline is likely the result of the declining economy. The rest of it is likely the result of the trends that have been clobbering eBay for the past two years: competition, overpricing …
Tom Krazit / CNET News:
Google admits breaking App Store rules — Google acknowledged breaking the official rules of Apple's iPhone software development kit when it created the latest version of the Google Mobile application for the iPhone, but denied a more serious charge. — A Google spokesman confirmed Tuesday …
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Sling Opens Up Its Hulu Competitor To The Public — Sling Media, the company behind the popular Slingbox TV-streaming hardware devices, has opened the gates to its video portal Sling.com. The site pits Sling directly against Joost and Hulu (though Hulu is a Sling partner) …
Zachary M. Seward / Nieman Journalism Lab:
NYT sees success in Facebook push — The New York Times is happy to be your Facebook friend. An internal memo yesterday from Times president Scott Heekin-Canedy touted the newspaper's “successful” advertising campaign on Facebook in the days following the presidential election.
Scott Duke Harris / Mercury News:
Will undone deals be the next Big Thing in Silicon Valley? — Consider two discussion topics recently submitted to ExpertCEO, a new online community with Silicon Valley roots that allows chief executives to anonymously kvetch, commiserate and seek advice among their peers.
Mike Shields / Mediaweek:
Social Networking Traffic Up as Advertising Falls Flat — More than half the country actively uses social networking sites, but so far advertising on these properties is nothing short of anemic — More than half the country actively uses social networking sites, but so far advertising …
Arn / MacRumors:
QuickTime 7.5.7 for DisplayPort Allows Standard Definition Playback — Apple has issued a new QuickTime update for the new MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air which come equipped with the mini DisplayPort. The update addresses the issue of standard definition playback through the DisplayPort:
Stephen Shankland / Webware.com:
Why I switched from Firefox to Chrome — Sorry if it sounds like I'm drinking the Google Kool-Aid here, but I switched from Mozilla Firefox to Google Chrome as my default browser for the very reason Google's executives said we should: speed. (Get Google Chrome from Download.com.)
ifoAppleStore:
Apple Store Will Now Match Competitors' Prices — Apple has apparently fired the first shot in the holiday shopping battle, by announcing internally that retail store employees have the authority to match the prices of other authorized retailers. The stores have also cancelled …
Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Apple Confuses Speech with a DMCA Violation — Slashdot reports that Apple has sent a “cease and desist” email to bluwiki, a public wiki site, demanding the removal of postings there by those who are trying to figure out how to write software that can sync media to the latest versions of the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Richard Jalichandra / Technorati:
Changes and Tough Decisions at Technorati — Changes and Tough Decisions at Technorati — There's not much I can say about the economy that hasn't been said a hundred times already. We're facing the worst crisis of our lifetimes, and no one can say with certainty what lies ahead or how long it will last.
Mike Blumenthal / Search Engine Land:
MapQuest: “We've Come Out Of Hibernation” — I recently had the opportunity to interview two senior level executives from Mapquest to find out what the longtime provider of online mapping services is up to. Despite perceptions, MapQuest is actually a more popular mapping destination …
ongoing:
What Sun Should Do — Sun is going through a lousy spell right now. Well, so is the world's economy in general and the IT business in particular, but this is about Sun. This is my opinion about what my employer should do about it. … Our Advantages — As I look at Sun's portfolio …
Gregg Keizer / Computerworld:
Apple's new VP could cause ‘irreparable harm’ to IBM, says judge — Unsealed opinion spells out concerns over former IBM exec's role — Computerworld) A federal judge ordered Apple Inc.'s newest executive to leave the company just five days after starting work because he might cause …
Gregg Keizer / LinuxWorld.com:
Mozilla eyes extra beta for Firefox 3.1 — Mozilla will probably add a third beta to the development schedule for Firefox 3.1 to get a better handle on remaining bugs and give several new features, including a faster JavaScript engine and a private browsing mode, more testing time, the company's browser director said Tuesday.
Discussion:
Open Source
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
YCombinator Startup Creates A Better Download App Store For Windows (BaseShield) — When Microsoft opened up its own online store for software downloads earlier this month, it signaled that packaged software is not long for this world. The problem is that the store offers only Microsoft products.
Tom Yager / Ahead of the Curve:
Is the BlackBerry Storm doomed for lack of Wi-Fi? — RIM's design-out of Wi-Fi dooms the BlackBerry Storm in the same way that lacking essentials have buried the iPhone 3G and Wii — not at all. — I had already filed my review of the BlackBerry Storm, a.k.a. BlackBerry 9530, when Galen Gruman …
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
Move over, Ajax. Here comes Microsoft's ‘Kojax’ — Let me start out by saying I don't know whether Microsoft will finally decide to sell a Microsoft-branded Windows Mobile phone. (Company officials have gone back and forth over that idea for more than a year.)
Gregg Keizer / Computerworld:
Spam levels fluctuate as crooks try to revive botnets — Some researchers say spam still down, others see it bouncing back — Computerworld) Two weeks after a hosting firm's shutdown sent global spam volumes plummeting, some researchers continue to claim that junk mail rates remain dramatically down …
Murad Ahmed / Tech Central:
10 celebrities who play World of Warcraft — First of all, I should come clean about something. — I'm not really a Warcraft player or fan. Over the past few weeks I've had to report on a number of World of Warcraft events (see here and here). This has allowed me to meet and befriend …
Discussion:
digg.com
ExtremeTech:
Which Web Browser is King? — Testing Methodology — In this comprehensive browser speed test, I pulled out all of the stops. First, I found just about every speed test site around. Google offers a V8 test that tests JavaScript speed for Web apps. I also found test sites for SVG …
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Amazon Kindle 2 Slated For “Early Q1″ — Update on the Kindle 2: It was scheduled to be released in October in time for this holiday season, but Bezos himself reportedly pulled the plug for last minute changes to the software. Our sources now say it's tentatively scheduled to go on sale in “early next quarter.”
Discussion:
Homotron.net, Gadget Lab, TechFlash, TeleRead, Gadgetell, Alley Insider, Boy Genius Report, Electronista, Gear Diary, Crave, SlashGear, Gizmodo and Gearlog
