Top Items:
Juan Carlos Perez / PC World:
Facebook, Google Launch Data Portability Programs to All — Google and Facebook separately announced the general availability of their respective data portability programs on Thursday. — Google Friend Connect and Facebook Connect are generally designed to extend social-networking capabilities broadly across the Web.
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Mark Zuckerberg / Facebook Blog:
Facebook Across the Web — Over the summer we announced an extension of Facebook Platform called Facebook Connect. Facebook Connect makes it easier for you to take your online identity with you all over the Web, share what you do online with your friends and stay updated on what they're doing.
Discussion:
TechCrunch, Gear Diary, Between the Lines, TECH.BLORGE.com, PC World, Facebook Developers, Industry Standard, Guardian and Webware.com
Mussie Shore / The Official Google Blog:
Google Friend Connect: now available — We're pleased to share that Google Friend Connect is now available in beta to any webmaster looking to add a “dash of social” to his or her site. This service lets webmasters add social features to their sites by simply copying and pasting a few snippets of code …
Discussion:
Profy, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, Google Webmaster Central Blog, VentureBeat, L.A. Times Tech Blog, Ars Technica, Epicenter, InformationWeek, The Social Times, David Harry, The Real McCrea, pluGGd.in, Pocket-lint.co.uk, WebProNews, Google Watch, TheNextWeb.com, mathewingram.com/work, Lifehacker, Digital Inspiration and Marketing.fm
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Google Friend Connect Now Open To All Websites
Google Friend Connect Now Open To All Websites
Discussion:
Google Operating System, Webware.com, Obsessable, CNET News, WinExtra, Google Blogoscoped and Mashable!
Scott Cleland / The Precursor Blog:
Google uses 21 times more bandwidth than it pays for — per first-ever research study — The 27 page research study can be accessed at this link: — Contact: Scott Cleland 703-217-2407 — First-Ever Study of U.S. Consumer Internet Usage and Cost Finds — Google Uses 21 Times More Bandwidth than it Pays For
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David Pogue / New York Times:
Readers React to David Pogue's Review of the BlackBerry Storm — I learned something last week. — In my Times print column, I reviewed the BlackBerry Storm, by far the worst product Research in Motion has ever produced. I had problems with its concept, problems with its clicky touch screen …
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Microsoft:
Microsoft Appoints Dr. Qi Lu to Run Online Services Group — Yahoo! veteran to oversee Internet offerings for consumers, advertisers and publishers. — Microsoft Corp. today announced that Dr. Qi Lu will join the company as president of the Online Services Group.
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John Paczkowski / Digital Daily:
RealDepressing: The Entire RealNetworks Layoff Memo — Earlier this afternoon, Peter Kafka reported in Media Memo that RealNetworks (RNWK) was “next up in today's layoff parade.” Here's the official internal memo from RealNetworks founder, chairman and CEO, Rob Glaser:
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Jenna Bilotta / Google Reader:
Square is the new round. — On the Reader team, we know that the old adage “change is good” isn't always true. Sometimes, change is just change. In this case, we hope that these decisions both improve your Reader experience today, and pave the way for additional improvements down the line.
Owen Thomas / Valleywag:
Facebook cancels employee stock sale — So much for Silicon Valley's latest get-rich-quick scheme. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has cancelled a plan to let employees cash out their shares early. — In August, before the markets started to melt down and with Facebook worth $15 billion on paper …
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Stephen Myers / Cygnet Engineering:
Iphone as a Universe Controller: Part 1 — Why have a universal remote control when you can have a universe controller? I was fortunate enough to get to beta test some of ioBridge's forthcoming hardware. Their hardware lets you connect just about anything to the internet.
Stephen Lawson / Macworld:
AT&T hopes for single smart phone OS — AT&T hopes to standardize on a single operating system for AT&T-branded smart phones as part of a “dramatic consolidation” of its mobile platforms over the next few years, a company executive said Thursday. — The mobile operator believes smart phones …
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Nick / Rough Type:
The trailer park is the computer — Microsoft is about to take trailer park computing, or, as The Register memorably dubbed it, white trash computing, to its logical and necessary conclusion. The company's next generation of utility data centers will take the form of - you guessed it …
Paul Graham:
Could VC be a Casualty of the Recesssion? — (I originally wrote this at the request of a company producing a report about entrepreneurship. Unfortunately after reading it they decided it was too controversial to include.) — VC funding will probably dry up somewhat during the present recession, like it usually does in bad times.
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
Does Amazon's iPhone app go too far? — Now that the official Amazon Mobile iPhone app is here, it's easier than every to check prices from anywhere, even while shopping in retail stores. And the company's clever new “Amazon Remembers” service will use humans to identify product pics snapped …
Devin Coldewey / CrunchGear:
New Samsung webcam sensor does 720p and more — Seeing that PC users on desktop and laptop are embracing both HD video and built-in webcams, Samsung has decided to put the two together in the obvious form of a HD webcam. Until now, webcams have been pretty much limited to VGA (640×480) …