Top Items:
Jerry Yang / Yodel Anecdotal:
Tough times — As we announced in October, we've been aggressively managing our costs to bring them in line with the challenging economic conditions. Unfortunately, that means laying off employees — by far the toughest part of being a manager. Here's the email I sent to Yahoos today:
Discussion:
Industry Standard, GigaOM, Valleywag, internetnews.com, Forbes, Technologizer, blogs.ft.com, Tech Beat, MediaNama, CNET News, Search Engine Watch, Docu-Drama, Screenwerk, GMSV, L.A. Times Tech Blog, Between the Lines, Susan Mernit's Blog, Search Engine Land, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, BoomTown and TechCrunch
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Miguel Helft / Bits:
Yahoo Layoffs Today May Not Be Last — Yahoo began laying off 1,500 workers on Wednesday as part of a plan, announced in October, to slash expenses by $400 million a year. The cost cutting, however, may have to go deeper in the coming year. — “There could be additional staff reductions next year …
Discussion:
Valleywag, Inc.com, BoomTown, paidContent, Tech Central, Tech Beat, AppScout, Guardian and Silicon Alley Insider
Rafe Needleman / Webware.com:
Watching layoffs in real time, on Twitter — If you want to watch a community event reveal itself in real time, there's really nothing like Twitter. As the Yahoo layoffs finally took hold this morning, newly former employees headed to Twitter to say farewell to the company; those staying reported what it was like for the rest.
Matt / WordPress:
WordPress 2.7 “Coltrane” — The first thing you'll notice about 2.7 is its new interface. From the top down, we've listened to your feedback and thought deeply about the design and the result is a WordPress that's just plain faster. Nearly every task you do on your blog will take fewer clicks …
Discussion:
Mashable!, Performancing.com, Hack a Day, T. Longren, AdMoolah, The Blog Herald and Laughing Squid
Leo Dirac / Gmail Blog:
Really new in Labs this time: SMS Text Messaging for chat — How often do you try to chat with somebody and they don't respond because they just walked away from their computer? Or maybe you're in the middle of chatting with them just as they need to leave.
Discussion:
Webware.com, Google Watch, Lifehacker, Search Engine Journal, Gear Diary, TechCrunch, Epicenter and Mashable!
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Greg Sandoval / CNET News:
TV has license to kill movies at iTunes, Netflix — Apple is an Internet retailer and Neflix is a Web video rental service, but Hollywood treats them as if they were potential competitors to TV broadcasters. — In the past two weeks, customers of iTunes and Netflix's streaming digital-movie service …
Discussion:
Public Knowledge, Infinite Loop, MediaMemo, iLounge, paidContent.org, VentureBeat, The Apple Core, Webomatica, AppleInsider, NewTeeVee, MacRumors and WatchingTV Online
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Brian Lam / Gizmodo:
Rumor Smash: No Zune Phone at CES — Sorry dudes. Just it first hand from Brian Seitz, Group Manager of Zune: “No Zune phone at CES.” — Well, at least no Zune Phone as we're hearing it. A few days ago, some analysts stirred up the rumors of a Zune specific piece of hardware this week …
Discussion:
paidContent.org, VentureBeat, Microsoft Subnet's blog, Gadget Lab, Beyond Binary and Fast Company
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Paul Carr / Guardian:
Freezing cold, no internet, boring: it's a French web 2.0 conference! — Want to know how Britain should spend that billion pounds it has earmarked for internet startups? On a vodka-fuelled conference in a sauna in London. It would sure put LeWeb into the shade. Though almost anything would.
Discussion:
VentureBeat
Jessica E. Vascellaro / Wall Street Journal:
Google Executive Departs for LinkedIn — Dipchand “Deep” Nishar, a longtime Google Inc. executive who helped start its mobile business and other key products, is leaving the company to become a senior executive at LinkedIn Corp. — Mr. Nishar, 40, in January will become vice president …
Window Snyder / Mozilla Security Blog:
Leaving Mozilla — I will be leaving Mozilla at the end of the year. I am sad to be leaving, but I am excited to go work on something I have always been passionate about. I wish I could tell you about it now, but that will have to wait for a while. — You will still get Mozilla security information here.
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Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Screw The Downturn. Accel Raises A Cool Billion In New Funds — Twenty five year old venture capital firm Accel Partners is announcing two new funds today that add more than $1 billion to their war chest: Accel Growth Fund at $480 million and Accel London III at $525 million.
Rafat Ali / paidContent.org:
CBS Interactive To Merge CBSNews.com and CNET Newsrooms; Some Layoffs — CBS Interactive (NYSE: CBS), under pressure to cut costs after what now seems like an even more costly acquisition of CNET, is announcing some more restructuring tomorrow, we have learned from reliable sources late tonight …
Stephen Fry:
Gee, One Bold Storm coming up.... So here I am. In a hotel room in New York. The writing desk and its view of xth Avenue are all but obscured by:- — 7 x Mini USB cables: 2 of them are the new Micro type that Blackberry has switched to for the Storm only, the rest are standard.
Business Technology:
Memories of Past Slumps No Help in Silicon Valley — Over the past four decades, technologies for retaining information have increased at a startling rate. Yet technology suppliers seem to have trouble calling up some key information-the lessons of the past.
Brian Stelter / New York Times:
YouTube Videos Are Pulling in Serious Money — Making videos for YouTube — for three years a pastime for millions of Web surfers — is now a way to make a living. — One year after YouTube, the online video powerhouse, invited members to become “partners” and added advertising to their videos …
PC World:
Sony to Close Last US TV Factory — Sony has named its Westmoreland, Pennsylvania, plant as the second factory of a planned 5 or 6 that will be shut down as part of a global restructuring. The factory is Sony's last remaining TV manufacturing facility in the U.S. and the closure will see 560 people lose their jobs.
Discussion:
Technologizer
internetnews.com:
Google, Microsoft Back Off on Datacenter Plans — The two online giants rethink ambitious datacenter efforts, but for different reasons. — With the economy in the shape it's in, even Microsoft and Google are thinking twice before dropping $100 million on a new datacenter.
Discussion:
Microsoft Pri0
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Microsoft Live Labs Tackles Web Clips With Thumbtack, Still Needs Polish — Microsoft's Live Labs has just released Thumbtack, a web clipping service that allows users to compile links, media, and text snippets into online storage bins for future reference.
Discussion:
Microsoft Live Labs, ReadWriteWeb, Bink.nu, PC World, Download Squad, Webware.com and The Microsoft Blog
Don Reisinger / Webware.com:
How Twitter's competitors do what it doesn't — Twitter may be the leader in the micro-blogging space, but it's missing key features—features its competitors offer. Will Twitter pick up on these omissions? We know groups are coming to Twitter, but we're not so sure about some of these other useful features...
Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land:
Google SearchWiki To Get Off Button, Might Get Used As Ranking Signal — TechCrunch has coverage of Google's Marissa Mayer talk at Le Web conference in Paris, France. In that talk, Mayer said SearchWiki will gain an option to let users turn it off and reiterated statements that Google's previously made …
Tom Krazit / CNET News:
Apple stabilizes new Mac notebooks — Apple has released stabilizing updates for its new MacBook, shown here, as well as other systems introduced in October. — (Credit: Apple) — Apple has released several new firmware updates aimed at solving problems with its latest batch of notebooks.
Nilay Patel / Engadget Mobile:
Video: Android rocking on the HTC Touch — If you're anything like us, you've been waiting for Android to work its way onto basically every device you own, so this video of the plucky open source OS getting busy on an HTC Touch is an encouraging glimpse of the future.
Alana Semuels / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
Lose your Time Warner Internet connection (again)? You could try Open DNS — If you live in Greater Los Angeles and are fed up with Time Warner Cable, there's probably not much you can do about it (unless you're the L.A. city attorney, in which case you can sue).
Dawn Kawamoto / CNET News:
Yahoo amends controversial severance program — As part of its settlement agreement stemming from a shareholder lawsuit, Yahoo announced Wednesday it revised its controversial severance policy that had the potential of making a buyout of the company more expensive to a prospective buyer.
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider
Brier Dudley / Brier Dudley's blog:
Sony's PlayStation Home boss says it's “leapfrogging” (Xbox Live) — Actually PlayStation Home Director Jack Buser wouldn't mention competitors by name — he never used the “M” word — when we talked about Thursday's public debut of Sony's new virtual world. — But you could tell what Buser was talking about:
Discussion:
TechFlash
Arn / MacRumors:
Latest Firefox 3.1 Beta Adds Multi-Touch Support — On Monday, Mozilla released the latest beta version of Firefox 3.1. This “Beta 2” version of the popular web browser adds a number of new features across all supported platforms including: — Private Browsing Mode — Faster JavaScript engine
Discussion:
Lifehacker, Simple Thoughts, Gizmodo, SlashGear, jkOnTheRun, Gadget Lab, LinuxWorld.com, Boing Boing Gadgets, MacDailyNews, Appletell, Edible Apple, MacBlogz and GottaBeMobile.com
Microsoft:
New President of Online Services Group Sees Chance to Make Impact at Microsoft — Q&A: Qi Lu discusses what attracted him to Microsoft and how he plans to boost the company's efforts in online search and advertising. — On Dec. 4, Microsoft announced Qi Lu had been hired as president of the Online Services Group.
Discussion:
ChannelWeb, AppScout, Beyond Search, The Microsoft Blog, Silicon Alley Insider, Microsoft Pri0, TechFlash and Search Engine Land
