Top Items:
Susan Wojcicki / The Official Google Blog:
Making ads more interesting — At Google, we believe that ads are a valuable source of information — one that can connect people to the advertisers offering products, services and ideas that interest them. By making ads more relevant, and improving the connection between advertisers and our users …
Discussion:
Terry Heaton's PoMo Blog, Search Engine Watch, ReadWriteWeb, Tech Beat, Epicenter, louisgray.com, GigaOM, Kelsey Group Blogs, Google Operating System, Joe Duck, OUT-LAW News, Gawker, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, Nelson's Weblog, paidContent.org, BetaNews, Google Blogoscoped, InformationWeek, Profy, AdExchanger.com, Between the Lines, Softpedia News, Google Public Policy Blog, TechCrunch, Macworld and TECH.BLORGE.com
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Miguel Helft / New York Times:
Google to Offer Ads Based on Interests — SAN FRANCISCO — Google will begin showing ads on Wednesday to people based on their previous online activities in a form of advertising known as behavioral targeting, which has been embraced by most of its competitors but has drawn criticism from privacy advocates and some members of Congress.
Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land:
Google Gets Into Behavioral Targeting, Launches “Interest-Based Advertising” Beta — Google today is launching a form of behavioral targeting advertising named Interest-Based Advertising. Interest-Based Advertising allows advertisers to deliver ads based on hundreds of interest categories and previous interactions with those users.
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:Google Starts Targeting, Too. What Will Congress Do?
Discussion:
Blogspotting
Christine Monaghan / Apple:
Apple Announces Incredible New iPod shuffle — World's Smallest Music Player Now Talks to You — Apple® today introduced the all-new iPod® shuffle, the world's smallest music player at nearly half of the size of the previous model, and the first music player that talks to you.
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Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Apple's redesigned iPod shuffle hits 4GB, talks to you (updated with video!) — Bam, another Apple rumor vindicated. Apple just doubled the capacity of its iPod shuffle to 4GB while ditching the control wheel entirely. The new design keeps the clip and adds VoiceOver …
Chris Dannen / Fast Company:
The Gross Inconvenience of the New iPod Shuffle — If you're an iPhone user, you just looked at Apple's [AAPL] new 4GB iPod Shuffle and groaned. — Announced this morning, the little stainless steel slab is beautifully minimalist, and about the size of a piece of Trident.
Ina Fried / Beyond Binary:
Microsoft details app store plans — Microsoft on Wednesday is offering up more details on its would-be rival to the iPhone's app store. — The software maker said it will charge developers $99 a year, plus $99 for each application they submit to get an app into the Windows Marketplace store.
RELATED:
Microsoft:
Microsoft Unveils Its Developer Strategy for the Next Generation of Windows® Phones — Familiar tools, large worldwide customer base and transparent policies allow mobile developers to innovate and generate new revenue opportunities with Windows Mobile 6.5 and Windows Marketplace for Mobile.
Elizabeth Montalbano / PC World:Developers to Get 70 Percent of Windows Mobile Store Sales
Discussion:
InformationWeek
Kelvin Soh / Reuters:
Apple orders 10-inch touchscreens for third quarter: source — TAIPEI (Reuters) - Apple will take third-quarter delivery of newly developed 10-inch touchscreens from Taiwan, a source said on Wednesday, amid talk the U.S. firm is developing a touchscreen PC.
Discussion:
Digital Daily, Technologizer, 9 to 5 Mac, Gadget Lab, The Apple Core, Gizmodo, SlashGear, CrunchGear, Electronic Pulp and Edible Apple
RELATED:
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Apple 2.0:
Apple's Snow Leopard may be delayed - analyst — Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, the update of Apple's (AAPL) current Macintosh operating system that Steve Jobs said would ship in “about a year” when he introduced it last June, may not arrive until later this summer or fall.
Nokia:
Nokia latest releases set to hit the top of the charts — Espoo, Finland - Nokia today announced the arrival of new Nokia Music Stores, more Comes With Music launches and three new music devices. The Nokia 5730 XpressMusic, Nokia 5330 XpressMusic and Nokia 5030 bring people's music to life …
Discussion:
last100, SlashGear, Engadget, Smartphones and Cell Phones, Mobilewhack.com, Nokia Experts, Phone Scoop, Boy Genius Report, Crave, CrunchGear and Ubergizmo
Heather Dougherty / Hitwise Intelligence:
Visits to Gmail surpass YouTube — For the past two weeks, the market share of US Internet visits to Gmail has been higher than visits to YouTube. Previously, YouTube consistently ranked 10th among all websites by market share of visits until the week ending Jan. 10, 2009, where Gmail moved up one rank to reach #10.
Marguerite Reardon / CNET News:
Nokia fights to hold on to smartphone dominance — Nokia is still by far the No. 1 mobile handset maker in the world, but as competition heats up in the smartphone market, Nokia has become increasingly vulnerable to smaller players such as Apple and Research In Motion, which are increasing market share.
Discussion:
eWeek, Ars Technica, jkOnTheRun, Computerworld, Dow Jones Newswires, WMExperts, Smartphones and Cell Phones and Boy Genius Report
Ghassan Haddad / Facebook Blog:
Facebook Now Available in Arabic and Hebrew — . Ù' . — . . Ù' . — Ù' Ù' . . . . . "" “Ù'” "" . — We're making Facebook available in Arabic and Hebrew—two languages where writing begins at the right-hand side of the page and concludes on the left.
Marguerite Reardon / CNET News:
SAP to offer corporate apps on iPhone — Corporate software makers SAP and Sybase are teaming up to make it easier for business users to access SAP's software on mobile devices such as Apple's iPhone. — SAP, which is the world's biggest maker of business management software …
Associated Press:
EBay's PayPal envisions doubling in size by 2011 — SAN JOSE, Calif. - EBay Inc.'s name may conjure images of online auctions, but the company is hoping to turn attention to its second-largest business — PayPal — which it expects to blossom significantly in the next few years.
Charles Cooper / Coop's Corner:
Q&A: California lawmaker wants to blur Google Earth — OK, it's California. So we are quite used to the rest of the country rolling their eyes in knowing exasperation at our fads. But often, they turn out to be harbingers of national trends. And so the question: Will AB-255 number among them as well?
Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
Fight Over YouTube Videos Heats Up In The UK; Musician Propaganda Begins — from the you're-about-to-learn-what-leverage- is dept — The decision earlier this week by Google to block music videos in the UK has certainly kicked off quite the firestorm of discussions within the music industry …
Brad Stone / Bits:
MySpace Upgrades Its Music Offerings — It's been six months since MySpace and the four major music labels unveiled their joint venture, MySpace Music, touting it as the premier Web destination to stream nearly every major-label song, free, at any time. — In that span, MySpace Music …
Discussion:
TechFlash
Rik Myslewski / The Register:
Apple ogles location-based iPhone ads — Patent app knows where you are — Free whitepaper - An improved architecture for high-efficiency, high-density data centers — Apple has filed for a patent on a location-based interface that can display ads and facilitate purchases over your iPhone or iPod touch while you're out shopping.
Discussion:
GPS Obsessed
Justin Smith / Inside Facebook:
Gambit Launching Payments Engine for Social App & Game Developers — Virtual currency monetization and payments are hot on the Facebook Platform right now, and Inside Facebook has the exclusive on a new startup that is helping social network application and online game developers do just that.
Jefferson Graham / USA Today:
Online photo services can give shutterbug lucrative outlet — Brown University medical student Nick Monu supplements his income by selling photographs online. — He uses the “stock” photography service iStockphoto.com, offering generic photos of people and places that can be used in brochures, magazines, websites and billboards.
Discussion:
Underexposed, Between the Lines and Thomas Hawk Digital Connection, Thanks:brickandclick
Saul Hansell / Bits:
The Broadband Gap: Why Is Theirs Cheaper? — Second in a series of three posts looking at the lessons for the United States from broadband deployment in other countries. Read the first installment here. — Broadband is cheaper in many other countries than in the United States.
Alan Travis / Guardian:
Web inventor warns against third-party internet snooping — Sir Tim Berners-Lee speaks out against collection of users' data by commercial companies — Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the world wide web, today warned MPs and peers that they should not allow third parties …
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Nintendo crosses 100 million DS game handhelds sold — Everything is relative. Sony recently celebrated the sale of 50 million PlayStation Portable handheld game players. But today, Nintendo announced it has sold more than 100 million Nintendo DS handhelds. Both launched in 2004.
Discussion:
Pulse2
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
French anti-P2P law toughest in the world — France's long talked-out law to kick repeat copyright infringers off the Internet has finally come up for debate in Parliament. If passed, it would be illegal not to secure one's Internet connection, and even public WiFi hotspots will have to offer only a “white list” of approved sites.
Glenn Fleishman / Ars Technica:
Ready for take-off: the state of in-flight internet — Internet access at 35,000 feet is no longer next year's technology. Several dozen planes over the US have broadband over WiFi backed by satellite or ground cell stations, and hundreds more are coming this year.
