Top Items:
Emil Protalinski / Ars Technica:
Microsoft to kill Encarta later this year — Microsoft has announced that it is discontinuing its Encarta line of products. The software products will be gone by June 2009 and the website will go down October 31, 2009. — When I first saw this, I had to do a double take.
Discussion:
A VC, Technologizer, ReadWriteWeb, The Register, TechFlash, CNET News, Computerworld Blogs, All about Microsoft, TechCrunch, Geek News Central, Neowin.net, Bink.nu, Teching It Easy, ITworld.com, michael parekh on IT, CrunchGear, AppScout, techblog.dallasnews.com and Silicon Alley Insider, Thanks:atul
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Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Is a Shorter Web Address Worth Big Money? bit.ly Raises $2 Million — Here's another Web 2.0 riddle that seems particularly hard to solve post-Lehman: What's the value of a service that takes a long Web address and makes it shorter? — One answer: Several million dollars.
Discussion:
VentureBeat, ReadWriteWeb, The Download Blog, Silicon Alley Insider and Pulse2, Thanks:mrinaldesai
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Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
If bit.ly Is Worth $8 Million, TinyURL Is Worth At Least $46 Million — In a world where everything is being jammed into 140 characters or less, shorter is better. That goes double (or is it half?) for lengthy URLs. So-called URL shortening services are increasingly becoming indispensable to anyone who uses Twitter.
Spencer Ante / Creative Capital:
It's Official: Twitter Hires Ex-Google Designer Douglas Bowman — Turns out the Web rumors were true for once. In a meeting last Friday afternoon in Twitter's San Francisco office, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone told me that the company had hired ex-Google Visual Design Lead Douglas Bowman to be the company's new creative director.
David Chartier / Ars Technica:
Interview: Gmail's product manager on Labs, beta, the future — Gmail is turning five soon, and it was given an experimental feature playground called Gmail Labs nearly a year ago. For the anniversary, Ars Technica spoke with Gmail Product Manager Todd Jackson about the evolution of communication …
Thanks:atul
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Matt Cutts / Gadgets, Google, and SEO:
Hacking Google: Retro Links Revives Old Google Feature — Google sometimes turns off features. One such feature that I remember fondly is that at the bottom of Google's search results, we offered nine other search engine suggestions. The idea was if you didn't find what you were searching for on Google …
Arn / MacRumors:
Official Skype App is Now Available in the App Store — Skype, Inc. has just released their official Skype application for the iPhone and iPod touch. — Skype is a very popular voice-over-IP (VOIP) and instant messaging application that allows you to make phone calls over the internet.
Discussion:
Industry Standard, Newsome.Org, Boy Genius Report, TheNextWeb.com, Engadget Mobile and Disruptive Telephony
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Biz / Twitter Blog:
Replies Are Now Mentions — We're updating the Replies feature and referring to it instead as Mentions. In your Twitter sidebar you'll now see your own @username tab. When you click that tab, you'll see a list of all tweets referencing your account with the @username convention anywhere in the tweet …
Jessica E. Vascellaro / Wall Street Journal:
Google Prepares Venture Fund — Google Inc. is expected to Tuesday announce more details about its highly anticipated venture-capital fund, including its plan to commit roughly $100 million to the endeavor in its first year, said people familiar with the matter.
Darren Murph / Engadget:
Netflix raising rates for Blu-ray subscribers by around 20 percent — Ruh roh. In a move that will undoubtedly cause an incredibly raucous stir, only to fade away as movie renters realize that Netflix is still the best deal going, America's most adored by-mail rental service is hiking the price of Blu-ray rentals once again.
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Kontra / counternotions:
What will the next iPhone be called? — Naming any Apple product — much less the iPhone, the most iconic of them all — is no easy task. — Remember all the mindless chatter when Apple risked legal entanglement with Cisco for the right to use the name “iPhone”? Gizmodo:
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Department of Homeland Security:
DHS Releases Conficker/Downadup Computer Worm Detection Tool — The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced today the release of a DHS-developed detection tool that can be used by the federal government, commercial vendors, state and local governments, and critical infrastructure owners …
Discussion:
Government News in IT, InformationWeek, SC Magazine US, GottaBeMobile.com, Guardian and US-CERT Current Activity, Thanks:atul
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Ben Parr / Mashable!:
MySpace and Microsoft Team Up: What Does it Mean for Facebook and Google? — The world's second largest social network, MySpace, has found a new partner that may make the relationship between MySpace and Google a little more rocky: Microsoft. — Specifically, MySpace and Microsoft announced today …
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Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:MySpace Embraces Microsoft Platforms For Mobile And Web Applications
Discussion:
CNET News, Contentinople, Synergist, ReadWriteWeb, Ars Technica, AppScout and WMPoweruser.com, Thanks:mrinaldesai
Chris Ziegler / Engadget:
Microsoft announces Windows Marketplace partners, tweaked policies, designer WinMo 6.5 themes — Details are starting to come into focus on some of the finer points of Windows Mobile 6.5's launch later this year after February's announcement at MWC, and if you had to boil the news down to just two words …
Discussion:
CNET News
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Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Tinker Gives Twitter Its Long Awaited Events Firehose — Over a year ago Fred Wilson wrote about the need for a Twitter events firehose - a place where users could input a handful of keywords collectively referred to as an ‘event’, which could be used to monitor current news as it happens in near real-time.
Ina Fried / CNET News:
Microsoft, TomTom settle patent dispute — Microsoft and TomTom have reached a settlement in their respective patent suits, the companies said Monday. — As part of the deal, as TomTom will pay Microsoft for coverage related to mapping patents and file-management patents that Microsoft claimed …
Discussion:
blogs.ft.com, TechFlash, Ars Technica, Microsoft Watch, OSNews, Engadget, Gearlog, Epicenter, Silicon Alley Insider and Pulse2
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Phone Arena:
Verizon's MiFi 2200 is your own personal Hotspot — We've received information that Verizon is preparing to launch a device known as the MiFi 2200. Based on the info and pictures, it appears that the device is a personal Hotspot with built-in rechargeable battery.
IAB:
Internet Advertising Revenues Surpass $23 Billion in '08, Reaching Record High — Q4 '08 Revenues Total $6.1 Billion; Growth Continues Despite Difficult Economy — Internet advertising revenues in the U.S. remain strong, topping $23 billion, according to the 2008 Internet Advertising Revenue Report …
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
TheFunded Not Shutting Down — We're always happy to give a wide berth to people pulling April Fools pranks, but even so it's pushing it to do it on March 27. If you go that early, you need to be side-splittingly funny or earn our disdain until we've forgotten all about it.
John Paczkowski / Digital Daily:
Microsoft Acquires Yahoo ... VP of Ops — Add another name to the list of Yahoo employees defecting to Microsoft. Dayne Sampson, Yahoo's VP of operations for search and advertising, has fled the company for its former suitor, Microsoft confirmed to Digital Daily.
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Intel launches Nehalem server chips to improve data center efficiency — Intel introduced its Xeon 5500 Series family of server chips today — chips it hopes will be the standard for data centers of the future. — The chips (formerly code-named Nehalem) are the server variant …
Discussion:
Intel, Engadget, eetasia.com, eWeek, Electronista, Virtualization.com and The Register, Thanks:atul
Harry McCracken / Technologizer:
Macworld Expo Moves, Accepts Its Nickname — Here's the first hint of how IDG's Macworld Expo will change in the wake of Apple's decision to pull out of the show: It's moving from early January to February 9th-13th (which includes a Saturday-the show has been weekday only).
Discussion:
AppleInsider, The iPhone Blog, Ars Technica, The Technology Chronicles and Macsimum News
Nathan Fouts / Mommy's Best Games' dev log:
Big fish in a shallow pond — True to their word, Microsoft has provided Community Games sales data by the end of March. The results are, in one word, sobering. — First, let me just reiterate that we have been very upfront about what Mommy's Best is trying to achieve. We want to make kick ass games, full-time.
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
Twitter quakes as San Francisco shakes — Earthquake news and Twitter have long gone hand in hand because of Twitter's instant mass-communication ability. Today, an earthquake shook the San Francisco Bay area (where Twitter's headquarters is located, along with many of its original users), and Twitter traffic went nuts.
Discussion:
earthquake.usgs.gov
