Top Items:
Tim Windsor / Nieman Journalism Lab:
Yet another reminder that users are in charge: the DiggBar backlash — If you needed any further proof that this is an age driven by users much more than publishers, look no further than what's happening right now with Digg.com, a site you probably think of as a stand-in for all that is user-generated, unedited and anarchic.
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Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
How to Sell Your Soul on Twitter and Who's Buying — What are you doing? No what are you doing Apple, Skype, Flip, StubHub and Box.net?? These popular companies just couldn't resist paying off Twitter users to put advertisements into their Twitter streams using the new pay-per-tweet service Magpie.
Discussion:
/blog, BNET Media, CenterNetworks, Shoemoney, Weblogsky, Alec Saunders SquawkBox and The Noisy Channel, Thanks:mrinaldesai
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Erik Sherman / BNET Technology:
Apple, Skype, Adobe, Others Pay Twitterers for Promos — It was only back in January that we saw Belkin make itself look like a fool by advertising to pay consumers who would write glowing product reviews, whether they had used the products or now. Well, it seems that companies never learn …
Nick / Rough Type:
Google in the middle — Three truths: — 1. Google is a middleman made of software. It's a very, very large middleman made of software. Think of what Goliath or the Cyclops or Godzilla would look like if they were made of software. That's Google. — 2. The middleman acts in the middleman's interest.
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Mathew Ingram / Nieman Journalism Lab:
Why Nick Carr is wrong on Google as a middleman for news — After seeing recommendations on Twitter from Clay Shirky and others, I was expecting a tour de force from author and former Harvard Business Review editor Nick Carr, but I confess that I found his post on Google as middleman — and its effect on newspapers — disappointing.
Discussion:
MediaMemo
Nick O'Neill / All Facebook:
Facebook Starts Recommending Branded Public Profiles — Last night Facebook turned on a feature which will surely build some buzz: the recommendation of brands as friends. Previously Twitter launched a user recommendation system which generated a lot of controversy as recommended users …
Discussion:
Inside Facebook
Matt Richtel / New York Times:
A Google Whiz Searches for His Place on Earth — MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Where's Sanjay? — The question comes from one of dozens of engineers around a crowded conference table at Google. They have gathered to discuss how to build easy-to-use maps that could turn hundreds of millions …
Fred / A VC:
Selling The Company Back To The Founders — I read with interest the Brad Stone piece in the NY Times this morning suggesting that Niklas and Janus might buy Skype back from eBay. I think this is a wonderful idea and I hope it happens. — Back when eBay bought Skype in 2005, I was skeptical that eBay was the right home for Skype.
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Brad Stone / New York Times:Skype Founders Seek to Buy Service Back
Discussion:
CNET News, Epicenter, Mark Evans, Reuters, I4U News, Download Squad, Skype Journal, Silicon Alley Insider, VoIP & Gadgets Blog, TechCrunch, The SiliconANGLE, paidContent.org, ReadWriteWeb, HipMojo.com and AuctionBytes Blog, Thanks:atul
Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider:
Steve Jobs Still Running The Apple Show — Here's a relief: Steve Jobs is still making product decisions at Apple, people familiar with the matter tell the Wall Street Journal. And at least some folks at the company still expect him to return in June. — Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook runs …
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Jennifer / Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Federal Authority Over the Internet? The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 — There's a new bill working its way through Congress that is cause for some alarm: the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 (PDF summary here), introduced by Senators Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Olympia Snowe (D-ME).
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PC World:
Netbooks and Linux: A Complicated Story — Over the past few days there's been a raft of stories about how the Linux netbook market share is not as healthy as it used to be. — Up until now it's been believed that the emerging netbook market (arguably the first new PC hardware platform for decades) …
Guardian:
Cobol hits 50 and keeps counting — It is 50 years old this year, but Cobol is still a key player in behind-the-scenes business software — When faced with “computer says no” moments in shops and banks, Jan Stuart is occasionally tempted to leap over the counter and bash the till in frustration.
