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5:10 PM ET, November 25, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
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 …
RELATED:
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Cisco To Shut Down For 4 Days At Year End  —  Updated with Cisco Confirmation: If you want to know how bad it is going to get for all of us in Silicon Valley, just look at Cisco Systems.  For first time in its history the company is going to shut down for four days at the end of the year, according to a report by UBS Research.
AppleInsider:
Piper Jaffray addresses 12 more ‘unanswered Apple questions’  —  Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster on Tuesday issued one of his trademark reports to address a number ‘unanswered questions surrounding the Apple story,’ such as when the company plans to next update its iPhone and the prospects for an Apple netbook.
Discussion: Apple 2.0, MacDailyNews and Valleywag
RELATED:
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.”
Eric Horvitz / Microsoft Research Home:
Cyberchondria: Studies of the Escalation of Medical Concerns in Web Search  —  Available Documents:  —  The World Wide Web provides an abundant source of medical information.  This information can assist people who are not healthcare professionals to better understand health and disease …
RELATED:
John Markoff / New York Times:
Microsoft Examines Causes of ‘Cyberchondria’  —  If that headache plaguing you this morning led you first to a Web search and then to the conclusion that you must have a brain tumor, you may instead be suffering from cyberchondria.  —  On Monday, Microsoft researchers published the results …
YouTube Blog:
Bigger Isn't Always Better... But in This Case, We Believe It Is  —  Over the years we've heard a lot of feedback from you about what you'd like to change about YouTube, and the size of our video player is always top of mind.  That's why today we're excited to announce a bigger YouTube player.
RELATED:
Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land:
YouTube Defaults Videos In HD Format: But Forgets Embed Feature
Discussion: PC World
Nathania Johnson / Search Engine Watch:
Microsoft, Yahoo Take Major Hits in Nielsen Online Search Share Rankings for October 2008  —  Microsoft and Yahoo took a tumble in their year-over-year search share in October 2008, according to Nielsen Online.  All searches were down 2%, which is quite surprising considering the election and the economy.
RELATED:
BBC:   Mobile internet usage on the rise
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 …
Discussion: WebProNews
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 …
RELATED:
eMarketer:
Economy Deals Online Ad Spending a Hit  —  Digital still stronger than traditional  —  There seems to be more bad news about the economy every day, and falling ad spending numbers are part of the mix.  Although online advertising is still on a positive growth curve, that growth is slowing …
Steven Levy / Wired News:
Ray Ozzie Wants to Push Microsoft Back Into Startup Mode  —  The keynote speaker at this past summer's TechReady conference—a gathering of 6,000 or so Microsoft engineers from around the world—was the company's chief software architect, Ray Ozzie.  This was not a routine appearance.
David Spark / Mashable!:
12 Great Tales of De-Friending  —  David Spark (@dspark) is a veteran tech journalist and the founder of Spark Media Solutions, a storytelling production company.  —  De-friending has always been awkward.  Social networks offer one click “remove a friend” options, but it still doesn't make the decision any easier.
Discussion: Spark Minute
Dana Blankenhorn / Open Source:
A great time to start an open source company  —  Think of a redwood forest after the fire.  —  Great time to be a seed.  Or imagine being an alligator after the peat in your swamp is burned out.  Life is good.  —  In that same way, now may be the best time to launch an open source company.
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 …
Mike Cassidy / Mercury News:
Yang's decision not to sell — the worst ever?  —  Jerry Yang has hit a bit of a rough patch.  Let's just get that out there.  —  He's had to surrender the chief executive spot in the company he co-founded.  He's had to listen to Steve Ballmer (again) say Microsoft was finished with any plans …
Scott Gilbertson / The Register:
Rock-solid Fedora 10 brings salvation to Ubuntu weary  —  Next RHEL looking good  —  Review Fedora might not be getting a complete makeover or flashy new features in version 10, out today, but some welcome enhancements under-the-hood make this a worthwhile upgrade.
Discussion: Ars Technica and Computerworld
Dan Frommer / Alley Insider:
Magnify.net Raises $750K For Web Video Service  —  NYC-based Web video startup Magnify.net has raised about $750,000 in Series A1 financing.  This is in addition to the $1 million it raised in February.  Innovation Ventures led the round, and all major investors returned, including RoseTech Ventures …
Google Watch:
Microsoft, Not Google, Has the Real Search Wiki  —  The New York Times this weekend put the spotlight on a research project Microsoft is working on for next-generation search that is more like a search-oriented wiki than Google's own SearchWiki.  —  No, this isn't Kumo.
Fred / A VC:
Making Twitter Smarter  —  Soren and Howard have been busy building out stocktwits and today they sent me a link to a firefox extension that makes twitter a bit smarter.  When you add the stocktwits extension to firefox, a stock tweet will look like this:  —  Those tickers are now hotlinked to stocktwits.
Ian Youngs / BBC:
Beatles iTunes deal is ‘stalled’  —  Sir Paul McCartney has said he wants The Beatles' catalogue to appear on Apple's iTunes store, but that negotiations have currently “stalled”.  —  “We'd like to do it,” Sir Paul told BBC News.  “We are very for it, we've been pushing it.
Verizon:
Verizon Wireless Adds Samsung Omnia™ To Its Touch Screen Lineup  —  Advanced Touch Screen Smartphone Features Samsung's Innovative TouchWiz™ Technology and the Power of Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional  —  Customer Inquiries  —  For customer inquiries, please call 800-922-0204 or go to
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 …
Simon Sage / IntoMobile:
Opera Mini 4.2 Ready to Roll with New Servers and Skins  —  The round of beta and bug-testing for the latest Opera Mini mobile browser has wrapped up, and now the official release of version 4.2 is available for download.  There are lots of improvements to this version, including skins …
 
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 More Items: 
Justin Berka / Infinite Loop:
New hack enables Street View on iPod touch
Caroline McCarthy / The Social:
Young entrepreneurs bond on the beach
Macworld:
Inside Safari 3.2's anti-phishing features
Discussion: Slashdot
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
KickApps Actually Raises $14 Million In Series C Round
Discussion: PE Hub Blog and Xconomy
John Leyden / The Register:
Unofficial fix issued for Vista networking flaw
Bill Ray / The Register:
iPhone developer stoops to straight bribery
Discussion: TheAppleBlog
Ashlee Vance / International Herald Tribune:
HP unit sheds stepchild status to take on Cisco
Discussion: Bits
 Earlier Items: 
Jonny / Distorted-Loop.com:
Universal, Warner, SonyBMG join iTunes Plus?
Discussion: VentureBeat and iLounge
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Caitlin Huston / The Hollywood Reporter:
Internal memo: Hearst Magazines president announces layoffs as part of a decision to “reallocate resources” to “continue our focus on digital innovation”

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

 
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