Check out Mini-Techmeme for simple mobiles or Techmeme Mobile for modern smartphones.
10:25 PM ET, April 13, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
StumbleUpon Stumbles Out of eBay's Arms to Be Reborn as a Start-Up (Plus the Entire Press Release)  —  The content discovery service, StumbleUpon, has gotten itself back to start-up status, after being bought by eBay two years ago.  —  It announced today that it was returning to being an …
RELATED:
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
StumbleUpon Breaks Free from eBay - Founders Buy it Back  —  Want a geeky way to chill out after a long work day of focus, focus, focus?  There are few better ways online to keep the synapses lubricated than through the semi-serendipity of social sharing service StumbleUpon.
gmc / Official StumbleUpon Blog:
StumbleUpon is a start-up again!  —  After nearly two years as a subsidiary of eBay, today StumbleUpon returns to being an independent company.  StumbleUpon is now backed by myself and co-founder Geoff Smith, along with several great investors who've backed companies such as Google and Facebook.
Zach Epstein / Boy Genius Report:
Palm Pre gets caught taking a walk in the park  —  If you're looking for rhyme or reason, unfortunately we can't offer either for the time being.  All we know is this: It looks like Sprint and Palm may be loosening the reins a bit when it comes to allowing the Palm Pre out into the wild.
RELATED:
Chris Ziegler / Engadget:
Palm Pre launching no earlier than May 16 according to leaked doc?  —  We've been made privy to some Sprint planning documentation that implies that the carrier is looking to get all its Pre ducks in a row by May 16, which would suggest that there's no way in hell it's launching any earlier than that.
Eric Engleman / TechFlash:
Amazon: “ham-fisted” error caused glitch with gay books  —  Amazon has been taking a beating online for the removal of sales ranking on a number of gay- and lesbian-themed books.  The company initially called it a glitch that was being fixed.  Now Amazon is calling it a “ham-fisted” error that goes far beyond gay titles.
RELATED:
Owen Thomas / Gawker:
Why It Makes Sense That a Hacker's Behind Amazon's Big Gay Outrage
Chris Albrecht / NewTeeVee:
Hulu: More Vids to Fewer Uniques in March  —  Monthly viewer stats used to be pretty boring to write.  To paraphrase Jan Brady, it was always “YouTube, YouTube, YouTube!”  Then along came Hulu and things got more interesting as the premium content site started to take off.
Discussion: Contentinople and Beet.TV
Dawn Kawamoto / CNET News:
Analyst: Apple placed chip order for 32GB iPhones  —  Apple has reportedly ordered 100 million units of 8-gigabit and 16-gigabit NAND flash chips, with the bulk of its order coming from its main iPhone chip supplier, Samsung, according to a research report released Monday by a Lazard Capital Markets analyst.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Jim Breyer Joins Dell Board Of Directors, Fast Becoming Most Powerful Man In Silicon Valley  —  Jim Breyer, a partner at Accel Partners, joined the board of directors of Dell today.  That's interesting in itself, but the man also sits on the board of Facebook, Walmart and Marvel, as well as a number of younger startups.
Communications / OpenSecrets.org:
OpenSecrets.org Goes OpenData  —  Award-winning website from the Center for Responsive Politics now provides 20 years of downloadable money-in-politics data—for free  —  WASHINGTON — Politicians, prepare yourselves.  Lobbyists, look out.  Today the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics …
Discussion: CNET News
Paul McDougall / InformationWeek:
Windows 7: 83% Of Businesses Won't Deploy Next Year  —  New data shows that the vast majority of corporate IT departments won't touch Microsoft's next OS until at least 2011.  —  Microsoft may need to keep its Windows XP operating system around a little longer—at least for its deep-pocketed corporate customers.
Nick O'Neill / All Facebook:
Top Facebook Applications See 25 Percent Drop In Traffic Since Redesign  —  If you thought the last redesign spelled the death of the Facebook platform, you ain't seen nothing yet!  Last July Facebook released their new design and within a matter of months, widget applications had become a thing of the past.
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
Pocket Meeting: A $5 WebEx Killer?  —  Sharing your screen with someone while chatting on the phone is one of those things that's much harder than it ought to be.  We've tried a lot of different tools and none of them makes us very happy.  The newest entrant into this field is Pocket Meeting and it's got some promise.
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
How Bad Was Google's Quarter?  —  . (His prior estimate was for 5 percent growth).  Khan also revised his pro forma EPS estimates down 5.5 percent from $5.04 to $4.76.  —  What's got him spooked?  Through February, comScore is showing declines in U.S. search activity (measured in query volume) …
Discussion: tinyComb, Thanks:gsharma
Enigmax / TorrentFreak:
Miramax Rewards Would-Be BitTorrent Pirate With Free Ticket  —  Most people sharing files on the Internet are aware that at any time they could be being monitored by any number of anti-piracy companies, investigators or lobby groups.  There can be little doubt that file-sharing forums …
Discussion: Crave
Mark Walsh / MediaPost:
What iPhone Apps Are Used Most?  Hint: Not Games  —  When it comes to the type of applications iPhone owners use most, ones for checking the weather trump games, music, news and everything else.  —  According to an upcoming report on smartphone usage by online market research firm Compete …
Priya Ganapati / Gadget Lab:
Kindle 2's Fuzzy Fonts Have Users Seeing Red  —  Amazon's Kindle 2 is slimmer, faster and has longer battery life than its predecessor.  But the newly launched e-book reader falls short when it comes to how well it displays text, say some users.  —  “When you read a lot of text on the screen …
Discussion: Engadget
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Let's Go Crazy: New Prince iPod Costs $150 Per Song  —  The newest special-edition iPod to hit the market comes from Prince.  It is purple, it is produced in a limited batch of 950, and it will cost you $2,100.  —  But at least it contains every Prince song ever recorded, right?  Nope.
Susan Decker / Bloomberg:
Alcatel Patent in $358 Million Suit Rejected by U.S.  —  An Alcatel-Lucent SA patent that resulted in a $358 million jury verdict against Microsoft Corp. was rejected by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office after the agency took a second look at the invention.
Discussion: paidContent.org and TechFlash
Peter Lattman / Deal Journal:
KKR, Warburg, Providence and Elevation Surface in Skype Bid  —  A quartet of private-equity firms have joined forces for a leveraged buyout of a global telecommunications firm with hundreds of millions of users.  —  And no, this isn't a blog post from 2006.
Discussion: GigaOM and Silicon Alley Insider, Thanks:atul
Xavier Ducrohet / Android Developers Blog:
Getting ready for Android 1.5  —  I'm excited to announce that starting today, developers can get an early look at the SDK for the next version of the Android platform.  This new version (which will be 1.5) is based on the cupcake branch from the Android Open Source Project.
Discussion: Engadget, Electronista and AndroidGuys
Marin Perez / InformationWeek:
BlackBerry Storm Gets Firmware Update  —  The 4.7.0.113 update will be pushed over the air by Verizon and will fix numerous bugs and add new functionality to the touch-screen Storm.  —  Verizon Wireless is preparing to roll out an over-the-air software update for the touch-screen BlackBerry Storm …
Steven Levy / Wired News:
Steven Levy on the Promise and Perils of Divorcing Your Cable Company  —  Now, I don't want to wind up in hell.  But if that fate befalls me, I anticipate finding my cable provider roasting alongside me.  In fact, cable television service in general has a reek of Hades about it.
Discussion: Ars Technica
Brian Caulfield / Forbes:
Intel's Stress Test  —  The microprocessor goliath is feeling some pain, but Intel has far worse things planned for rivals.  —  BURLINGAME, CALIF. — If you're in the microprocessor business right now, you have two problems: the rotten economy and Intel.  That means if you're Intel …
Louis Gray:
Twazzup Takes On Twitter Search to Make Sense of Real-Time Web  —  Twitter's acquisition of Summize in 2008 gained the red-hot status update service arguably the most impactful new entrant into the Web 2.0 space last year, as the company looked to harness the millions of daily tweets flowing through its system and make sense of it all.
Discussion: ReadWriteWeb, Thanks:jesse
Greg Sterling / Search Engine Land:
Report: Yahoo Gains Marketers, Ad Share  —  SEM tool provider AdGooroo today released a report that explores ad coverage per keyword among the big three engines in Q1 2009; it's a hypothetical proxy for search revenues.  The report concludes, among other things, that Yahoo has gained advertiser share …
Discussion: adgooroo.com and BoomTown
Ben Kuchera / Ars Technica:
Confirmed: Retail Patapon 2 to be UMD-free  —  Our inside source has given us word that Sony will release its upcoming title Patapon 2 purely through digital means, even though empty cases with the download code will be available at retailers.  Sony may be inching even closer …
Gamasutra:
Report: Netflix Hiring To Extend Console Streaming  —  stumble it!  —  It appears that Netflix is to expand its presence on video game consoles even further.  By way of a new job listing, Gamasutra has learned the video rental service is seeking a high-level “Engineering Leader” with …
Sam Oliver / AppleInsider:
Apple to sell $899 20-inch aluminum iMac to schools  —  Apple this week quietly announced plans to begin selling an aluminum 20-inch iMac configuration to qualified educational institutions for just $899, effectively closing the book on the white 17-inch legacy model that had previously assumed a similar role.
Discussion: PC World
 
 Archived Page Info: 
This is a snapshot of Techmeme at 10:25 PM ET, April 13, 2009.

View the current page or another snapshot:


 
 Techmeme Sponsor Posts: 
Meta:
Open Source AI: Available to all, not just the few  —  Meta's open source AI enables small businesses, start-ups, students, researchers and more to download and build with our models at no cost.
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:
CIO challenge 5: Can we find an effective solution that also minimizes operational costs?  —  Welcome to the next and final installment of our CIO series!  After what feels like a thousand cups of coffee …
Hamming:
Make AI Voice Agents trustworthy  —  Hamming AI automatically tests AI voice agents and continuously monitors them in production.
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: 
Ina Fried / CNET News:
Microsoft's search must begin in Redmond
Discussion: LiveSide and paidContent.org
Mike Linksvayer / Creative Commons:
Wikipedia community vote on migration to CC BY-SA begins now
Discussion: ReadWriteWeb
Ryan Paul / Ars Technica:
Microsoft rep faces tough questions at Linux Summit
Discussion: OSNews
Mikko / F-Secure Antivirus Research Weblog:
Ongoing problems at Twitter
Discussion: ITworld.com
Galen Moore / Mass High Tech:
Online video firm ScanScout lands $8M funding
Discussion: NewTeeVee
Katherine Bourzac / Technology Review:
Gmail Sidesteps the App Store
Discussion: GigaOM
 Earlier Items: 
Martin Langeveld / Nieman Journalism Lab:
Print is still king: Only 3 percent of newspaper reading happens online
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
Don't Buy A Smartphone Until June!
Discussion: jkOnTheRun
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Alex Sherman / CNBC:
Analyzing Comcast's spinoff of cable networks, purposefully structured with low debt: the move might be a signal to the industry that it's time to consolidate

Daniel Thomas / Financial Times:
James Harding says the Tortoise-Observer deal could create a profitable media group and there isn't a guaranteed future for the Observer with the Guardian

Charlie Savage / New York Times:
Trump says Republicans must kill the PRESS Act, which would protect journalists' records and sources from the US government; the bill is stalled in the Senate

 
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