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, Valleywag, internetnews.com, GigaOM, Technologizer, Tech Beat, MediaNama, blogs.ft.com, Forbes, CNET News, Search Engine Watch, Docu-Drama, Screenwerk, GMSV, L.A. Times Tech Blog, Between the Lines, Susan Mernit's Blog, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, Search Engine Land and TechCrunch
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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.
Miguel Helft / Bits:Yahoo Layoffs Today May Not Be Last
Discussion:
TheNextWeb.com, Inc.com, Valleywag, BoomTown, paidContent, Tech Central, Tech Beat, AppScout and Guardian
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 …
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:
ReadWriteWeb, Performancing.com, The Blog Herald, Mashable!, Hack a Day, Cutline Theme for WordPress, T. Longren, AdMoolah and Laughing Squid
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.
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Claire Cain Miller / Bits:
What Recession? Accel Partners Raises $1 Billion — Who says that money is tight for venture capitalists? Accel Partners, the Palo Alto, Calif., venture capital firm behind companies such as Facebook, Glam Media and MetroPCS, announced Thursday that it has raised two new funds for a total of $1 billion.
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:
Google Operating System, Webware.com, Google Watch, Lifehacker, Search Engine Journal, TechCrunch, Gear Diary, Epicenter and Mashable!
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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
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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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.
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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, Fast Company, Beyond Binary and Gadget Lab
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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:
9 to 5 Mac, Public Knowledge, Infinite Loop, Techdirt, MediaMemo, iLounge, paidContent.org, The Apple Core, VentureBeat, Webomatica, AppleInsider, NewTeeVee, MacRumors and WatchingTV Online
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 …
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...
Brian Crecente / Kotaku:
Microsoft Prepared For the Winter of Our Economic Discontent — Microsoft may not be looking at further price cuts for their console as the country tip-toes through this recession, but they're looking at ways to make their console attractive to thrift-minded families.
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 …
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.
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).
Chicago Tribune:
CareerBuilder lays off 300 — Chicago-based online jobs board CareerBuilder laid off more than 300 workers late last week, a company executive confirmed Wednesday. — Chief marketing officer Richard Castellini said the cuts took place on Friday and were spread across various units …
Discussion:
paidContent.org
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
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.
Discussion:
9 to 5 Mac, Apple, MacRumors, AppleInsider, ZDNET.com.au, Gizmodo, Pocket-lint.co.uk and Infinite Loop
Jesus Diaz / Gizmodo:
iPhone Copy and Paste Now Working Between Safari and Mail — Finally, someone has conceived a way to copy and paste text from Safari to Mail, and between web pages. And this time, it doesn't require any software installation and it's legal: … In fact, it doesn't require anything to be installed …
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.
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
Joshua Topolsky / Engadget:
Palm's New-ness, coming to CES — You know, we see a lot (a lot) of PR for CES meetings, press events, booth tours, and even the occasional Jeopardy! contest. Rarely, if ever, do we get that geeky little skip in our hearts. We did, however, get one of those skips today when Palm mailed …
