Check out Mini-Techmeme for simple mobiles or Techmeme Mobile for modern smartphones.
2:50 PM ET, March 5, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Kevin Michaluk / CrackBerry.com blogs:
Exclusive: First Real Photos of the BlackBerry 9630!  —  FINALLY!!!!!  What you're looking at above are the first real photos of the BlackBerry “Niagara” 9630.  As you can see, this CDMA full-QWERTY BlackBerry is looking sweet and very much has the appearance of the BlackBerry Curve 8900 and BlackBerry Bold morphed into one.
John Paczkowski / Digital Daily:
Perhaps if They Think of Their Win Mobile Devices as Broken iPhones...  What an uncomfortable moment for Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at the CIO Summit Wednesday.  Fielding questions at Microsoft's annual event for government and education sector IT workers, Ballmer was asked how best …
Rick Aristotle Munarriz / Motley Fool:
Game Over for GameStop?  —  GameStop (NYSE: GME) probably doesn't see Toys “R” Us as much of a competitor in video game retailing, but that is about to change.  —  Toys “R” Us is starting to buy and resell used games in a few test stores, according to Forbes.
RELATED:
Eric Krangel / Silicon Alley Insider:
Amazon Gets Into Used Videogames Biz, Paints Bulls-Eye On Gamestop
Stephanie Condon / CNET News:
Obama names D.C. official as federal CIO  —  Updated 5:52 a.m. with details from the official announcement.  —  President Obama on Thursday named Vivek Kundra, Washington, D.C.'s chief technology officer, to the position of federal chief information officer.
RELATED:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
It's Time To Start Thinking Of Twitter As A Search Engine  —  At a dinner tonight with a friend the conversation turned to Twitter.  He just didn't get it, and he's certainly not the first person to tell me that.  Specifically, my friend didn't understand the massive valuation …
David Pogue / New York Times:
It Rings, It Shoots, It Stumbles  —  I'll never forget the time I visited a Riverwalk restaurant in San Antonio and ordered risotto: rice that's been stirred in broth until it's rich, creamy and perfect.  —  But what the waiter brought to the table wasn't risotto.  It was just rice.
Discussion: Electronic Pulp
Justin Smith / Inside Facebook:
When Will Facebook Open Up the Public Timeline?  —  Facebook announced yesterday that it is merging user profiles and fan profiles starting now and allowing users to make their updates public if they so choose at some point in the (presumably not too distant) future.  —  One major possible result of these changes?
Discussion: VatorNews, BoomTown and AppScout
RELATED:
Mike Butcher / TechCrunch UK & Europe:
Sky News realises news breaks first on Twitter, not TV - Creates a Twitter Correspondent  —  TechCrunch has been saying for a long time - at least since November last year - that Twitter is an emerging source of news.  Recent tragic events have only served to emphasise this.
Arik Hesseldahl / Business Week:
At DEMO, VCs Have Stern Advice for Startups  —  With less money available to entrepreneurs and with fewer startups being bought, VCs are pushing portfolio companies to focus on frugality  —  Watch the Video...  Venture capital investor Christine Herron has a bit of advice for technology startups …
Raju Vegesna / Zoho Blogs:
Zoho Writer 2.0 launches with fresh look  —  Refreshing changes don't come often.  Today, we are launching a new major version of our word processor - Zoho Writer 2.0 - with a fresh and elegant user interface & significant improvements.  This important upgrade comes with hundreds of improvements, mostly on the user interface.
Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:
Google Chrome, Bundled with RealPlayer  —  If you try to install RealPlayer, a media player available at real.com, you'll notice that the setup downloads Google Chrome.  The option to install Google's browser is enabled by default and I assume that most people will not bother to disable it.
Discussion: Webware.com, Mashable! and The Toybox
Heather Hopkins / Hitwise Intelligence:
Yahoo! Mail More than One Third of Yahoo! Traffic  —  Tuesday, Yahoo!'s new CEO, Carol Bartz spoke to analysts and one comment in particular caught my attention.  According to an article on ZDNet, she said “Yahoo Mail is becoming increasingly critical to the company.
Discussion: Between the Lines
Colby Ranger / The Official Google Blog:
Tipping points  —  Ideas are everywhere, but how do we know which ones actually work?  At Google, we put a lot of stock in both the wisdom of crowds — the idea that lots of people responding to a given question can collectively find the best answer — and the value of community.
David Evans / Online Dating Insider:
PlentyOfFish Starts Charging Premium Membership Fees … Free dating sites have had a good run the past few years.  Everyone starting a free dating site jumped, and continues to jump, on the free dating bandwagon.  Meanwhile, top paid dating sites are making hundreds of millions of dollars …
Thanks:daveevans
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Samsung's Nano-powered Q1EX UMPC loses its QWERTY, gains 4.5-hour battery at the FCC  —  Meet the latest iteration of the Samsung Q1 handheld: the NP-Q1EX.  First spotted at CES in January, Sammy's going back to its UMPC roots by ditching the split QWERTY in favor of a clean …
Rebecca Buckman / Forbes:
VC View From The Rockies  —  Tough sledding for most Colorado venture firms.  —  AVON, Colo.—Even in this dismal economy, venture capitalist Chris Onan can spot lots of high-quality start-ups he'd like to fund.  There's only one problem: Onan's firm, Appian Ventures, doesn't have any cash in its pockets.
Monica Hesse / Washington Post:
Offbeat Name?  Then Facebook's No Friend  —  What Caitlin wanted did not seem that hard.  She had signed up for Facebook after she married, as Caitlin Shaw.  Now, to make it easier for old friends to find her, she wanted to add her maiden name.  Her maiden name is Batman.
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
Juicing the BlackBerry: RIM wants back-end money from new apps  —  Research In Motion (RIM) is set to launch its application store for the BlackBerry, now dubbed “App World,” at the end of this month.  For third-party developers on the outside, it may sounds like a very enticing proposition …
RELATED:
Kevin Michaluk / CrackBerry.com blogs:
$2.99 Minimum Paid App Price at BlackBerry App World!
Douglas MacMillan / Business Week:
Amazon's Apple Deal: Kindle Cannibal?  —  Customers may have less incentive to buy a Kindle, now that they can download e-books onto the iPhones and iPods they already own  —  A new tool that lets consumers download digital books onto Apple devices could spur demand for some of the 240,000 …
Business Week:
Twitter Has Potential Buyers Atwitter  —  As the microblogging service explodes in popularity, the suitors are lining up.  Facebook has already made a play—others will likely follow  —  The microblogging service Twitter has caught on with everyone from celeb Ashton Kutcher to CEOs.
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Yahoo's Inquisitor Makes Search Shine On The iPhone  —  Last May, Yahoo acquired a startup called Inquisitor which offers a search plug-in for all the major browsers.  Today, Inquisitor is available as an iPhone app and it shows how certain features, such as Yahoo's Search Assist …
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Enthusiasts keep pushing Smule's Ocarina iPhone app to higher numbers  —  Ge Wang, the quirky Stanford assistant music professor who co-founded iPhone music app maker Smule, delivered an update yesterday on his company's growth since starting out just eight months ago.
Sam Churchill / dailywireless.org:
WiMAX: Aggresive Expansion?  —  ABI Research's new study, WiMAX Market Analysis and Forecasts, forecasts big growth for 802.16-2004 and 802.16e-2005.  —  While Clearwire and UQ Communications will receive much of the attention given to WiMAX services, there are many 802.16e networks …
Discussion: Business Wire and DSLreports
Paul Biba / TeleRead:
Fictionwise acquired by Barnes & Noble for $15.7 million in cash  —  Fictionwise has been acquired by Barnes & Noble, said to be the world's largest bookseller, for $15.7 million in a stock deal that TeleRead revealed earlier today.  —  I spoke with Scott Pendergrast of Fictionwise at 7:20 …
Discussion: Reuters, Thanks:davidrothman
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Joost Continues Fight For Relevancy, Teams Up With Social Network Netlog  —  Don't count out Joost just yet.  We recently wrote it still has a heartbeat despite the fact they made the wrong bet years ago by underestimating the power of the web for watching videos.
 
 Archived Page Info: 
This is a snapshot of Techmeme at 2:50 PM ET, March 5, 2009.

View the current page or another snapshot:


 
 Techmeme Sponsor Posts: 
Tribe AI:
Build AI products that matter  —  Tribe AI helps organizations rapidly deploy AI solutions that have real business impact.  We bring together world class AI talent and tooling to drive differentiated results.
Zoho:
How you can grow your business with Zoho One  —  Zoho One is a comprehensive business suite, giving businesses the scalability, stability, security, and features they need for smooth operations.
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
Techmeme Leaderboards:
Discover the top reporters on AI, VR, policy, and much more  —  We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl to identify the most influential and prolific writers on 48 news topics.  Download reports immediately for just $100.
Sponsor Techmeme
 
 See Also: 
Techmeme: site main
Techmeme River: reverse chronological Techmeme
Techmeme Mobile: for phones
Techmeme Leaderboard: Techmeme's top sources
 
 Subscribe: 
Techmeme RSS feed
Techmeme on X
Techmeme on Mastodon
 
 
 More Items: 
Electronista:
Firefox eclipses IE6 in web share, threatens IE7
Michelle Maisto / eWeek:
AMD, Intel and Nvidia Shifting Away from Integrated Graphics
Tom Krazit / CNET News:
Apple developers mark a year of iPhone apps
Discussion: I4U News, TheAppleBlog and AppScout
Alana Semuels / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
Shazam looks for ways to get more people to share music
Discussion: Obsessable
 Earlier Items: 
Mitchell Oke / Gear Diary:
Windows 7 on the HTC Shift
Discussion: GottaBeMobile.com
Reuters:
Google letting cash “pile up”: CEO
Discussion: Silicon Alley Insider
John Fontana / Network World:
Microsoft Windows on a mainframe?
Discussion: Tech Broiler
Matthew Gertner / Just Browsing:
The Browser Platform Wars
Discussion: InformationWeek
QuadsZilla / SEO BlackHat:
Twitter - The New Parasite Host on the Block
Connie Loizos / PE Hub Blog:
Lamond Not Telling Whole Story, Say Sources
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
The Onion, backed by some Sandy Hook families and Everytown for Gun Safety, buys Infowars in a bankruptcy auction, and plans a January 2025 relaunch as a parody

The Hollywood Reporter:
Disney expects to spend $24B on content in 2025, up from $23.4B in 2024, due to sports programming expenses rising after NFL rate increases and NBA contracts

Matthew Keys / The Desk:
Disney said Disney+ Q4 ARPU in the US and Canada, down 1% QoQ to $7.70, was affected partly by new wholesale arrangements with some distributors

 
Sister Sites:

Mediagazer
 Top news and commentary for media professionals from all around the web
memeorandum
 What US political commentators are discussing online right now
WeSmirch
 The top celebrity news from all around the web on a single page