Top Items:
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.
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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 …
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 …
Discussion:
Apple Watch, AppleInsider, Infinite Loop, CNET News, Between the Lines, TUAW, Crave, CrunchGear, The Mac Observer, MacRumors, Edible Apple, MacBlogz, iLounge, Macsimum News and MobileDevicesToday
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.
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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:
CNET News, Tech Trader Daily, Alley Insider, MarketingVOX, Voices and Search Engine Guide
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Tim Arango / New York Times:
Atlantic Records Says Digital Sales Surpass CDs — 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 …
Discussion:
paidContent.org
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Peter Kafka / All Things Digital:
What Happened to the Digital Music Boom? Ask Apple. [MediaMemo] — Big music ignored digital music for a long time. But over the last few years, that's changed. Now the industry is hoping that fast-growing digital revenue can help it overcome slumping CD revenue. — That has yet to happen.
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 …
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.
Discussion:
The Register, The Platform, CNET News, Technologizer, Communications …, Alley Insider and Between the Lines
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:
TeleRead, TechFlash, Alley Insider, Andrea on Amazon …, Homotron.net, Gadget Lab, Electronista, Gear Diary, Boy Genius Report, Gadgetell, SlashGear, Engadget, Gizmodo, Crave and Gearlog
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.
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.)
Discussion:
digg.com
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.
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 …
Discussion:
VentureBeat, Search Engine Land, TechFlash, WebProNews, HipMojo.com, Epicenter and paidContent.org
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 …
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Update on the AOL-Yahoo Deal: “Like Trying to Catch a Falling Knife” — Last week, Bloomberg reported that Yahoo and AOL were still chit-chatting about a possible deal-non-news, actually, given the pair have never stopped talking. — Nonetheless, it set off yet another flurry of excitement …
Discussion:
Valleywag
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 …
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 …
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
Caroline McCarthy / The Social:
Young entrepreneurs bond on the beach — The coastal resort that hosted the Summit Series event last weekend. — (Credit: Caroline McCarthy/CNET News) — PUERTO MORELOS, Mexico—They kept their Twitter feeds quiet and their iPhone cameras dormant. Most of them didn't want their names to be used.
Discussion:
Gawker
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.
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.
Discussion:
dailywireless.org
Greg Sterling / Search Engine Land:
Nielsen: UK Mobile Web Growing “8x Faster” Than PC Internet — Nielsen released some UK mobile usage data yesterday that are very interesting on a number of fronts. The highest-level findings reflect that in the UK the mobile internet is growing much faster than the PC internet (8x) …
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:
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 …
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.
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.
Thomas Mennecke / Slyck:
The Pirate Bay Celebrates 5 Years Online — It's been 5 years since The Pirate Bay appeared online. That was way back in 2003, when the file-sharing world was a very different place. BitTorrent was just starting to enter the P2P realm, but FastTrack and eDonkey2000 were still the undisputed kings and queens of file-sharing.
Discussion:
TorrentFreak
