Top Items:
Thomas L. Friedman / New York Times:
Start Up the Risk-Takers — Reading the news that General Motors and Chrysler are now lining up for another $20 billion or so in government aid — on top of the billions they've already received or requested — leaves me with the sick feeling that we are subsidizing the losers and for only one reason …
RELATED:
Fred / A VC:
A Stimulus Plan For Venture Capital? No Thanks. — Tom Friedman, who I admire in many ways, has an op-ed piece in today's NY Times where he suggests that the US government take the bailout money they are thinking of giving to the auto industry and instead give it to the top venture capital firms.
Discussion:
TechCrunch, Sadagopan's weblog …, SiliconAngle, Creative Capital and Rex Hammock's RexBlog.com
Nick Denton:
Gawker, now incorporating Defamer [Housekeeping] — It's Oscars day, a good a time as any to do this: Hollywood gossip site Defamer is being merged into Gawker, the company's flagship gossip title. The four-year-old title will continue as Gawker's entertainment column …
Discussion:
RyanSpoon.com, Digits, CNET News, paidContent.org, MediaMemo, Gawker, Silicon Alley Insider, Sean Percival's Blog and Pulse2
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Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Say Goodbye to Hollywood: Gawker Valleywags Defamer — Here's what should be the last step in Nick Denton's slimdown of his Gawker Media empire: The blog network is taking its LA-based Defamer site and rolling it up under its central Gawker title. The site's existing writers will leave …
Marshall Kirkpatrick:
A Look Behind the Curtain at Techmeme — In late 2005 former Intel developer Gabe Rivera launched what is now TechMeme, a powerful semi-automated “meme tracker” that discovers the hottest conversations in the tech blogosphere every 5 minutes. It's an incredible resource and has become a financial success for Rivera as well.
Discussion:
Randy Holloway Unfiltered
Randall Stross / New York Times:
Everyone Loves Google, Until It's Too Big — THE popularity of Google's search engine in the United States just grows and grows. In the past three years, its market share gains have even been accelerating, making some people wonder whether the company will eventually obliterate what remains of its competition in search.
Discussion:
Beyond Search, Screenwerk, Life On the Wicked Stage, The Noisy Channel and digg.com, Thanks:atul
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Hot News: The AP Is Living In The Last Century — A case between the Associated Press and All Headline News is moving forward based on a 90-year-old legal doctrine which may no longer be applicable in the Internet age. A federal judge ruled that the AP can sue AHN for stealing its “hot news.”
Thanks:kevendones
RELATED:
Joe Mullin / The Prior Art:The AP's “hot news” lawsuit lives on; are scoops “quasi-property?”
Discussion:
The Noisy Channel
Alex Wright / New York Times:
Exploring a ‘Deep Web’ That Google Can't Grasp — One day last summer, Google's search engine trundled quietly past a milestone. It added the one trillionth address to the list of Web pages it knows about. But as impossibly big as that number may seem, it represents only a fraction of the entire Web.
Andy Pemberton / Times of London:
A load of Twitter — Feel the need to tell everyone everything you're doing all of the time? Then tweeting is for you — “Arse, poo and widdle.” With this unholy trinity of coy expletives, Stephen Fry introduced us to the joys of Twitter earlier this month. Fry was stuck in a lift and posted a “tweet” about it.
Joseph Tartakoff / The Microsoft Blog:
Microsoft hopes to train 2 million in basic tech skills — Microsoft Corp. said Sunday that in response to the economic crisis it would sponsor an initiative to help train up to two million people in basic technology skills. — Pamela Passman, Microsoft's corporate vice president …
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Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Facebook Photos Pulls Away From The Pack — If Facebook has one standout application it has to be Photos. Measured on its own, it is the largest photo site on the Web. A full 69 percent of Facebook's monthly visitors worldwide either look at or upload photos, based on comScore data.
Thanks:atul
Nilay Patel / Engadget:
Kindle 2 shipping now — Better start checking your order status, kids — Amazon's Kindle 2 has started shipping a couple days before the February 24 launch date. Of course, it's Sunday, so we'd bet these things actually ship tomorrow and arrive on Tuesday as promised …
Discussion:
GeekTonic
Cory Doctorow / Boing Boing:
Parent of gamer asks his son to honor the Geneva Conventions — Last week, I had lunch with my friend, Hugh Spencer, a writer and designer of museum and public educational exhibitions. He told me an amazing story about his son and games, and I asked him to write it up for Boing Boing:
