Top Items:
Bankston / Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Facebook's New Privacy Changes: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly — Five months after it first announced coming privacy changes this past summer, Facebook is finally rolling out a new set of revamped privacy settings for its 350 million users. The social networking site has rightly …
Discussion:
Facebook Blog, TechCrunch, PC World, Inside Facebook, aclunc.org, Maximum PC, Gawker, the Econsultancy blog, MediaPost, GigaOM, Between the Lines and paidContent
RELATED:
Facebook Press Releases:
Facebook Asks More Than 350 Million Users Around the World To Personalize Their Privacy — Service Gives Users New Tools to Control Their Information — Setting a new standard in user control, Facebook announced today that it is calling on its more than 350 million users to review and update …
Discussion:
Inside Facebook, Daggle, Christian Science Monitor, CNET News, The SiliconANGLE, Switched, MediaMemo, Epicenter, All Facebook, AppScout, Softpedia News, Neowin.net, Digits and TechCrunch
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
The Day Has Come: Facebook Pushes People to Go Public — Facebook announced this morning that its 350 million users will be prompted to make their status messages and shared content publicly visible to the world at large and search engines. It's a move we expected but the language used in the announcement is near Orwellian.
Ruchi Sanghvi / Facebook Blog:
New Tools to Control Your Experience — Today, we're launching new tools to give you even greater control over the information you share. Mark Zuckerberg, our founder and CEO, talked about these changes in his post last week. They include a simpler privacy settings page and a tool …
David Pogue / New York Times:
Not Yet The Season For a Nook — The holidays are no joyride. Between the stress, the money and the relatives, no wonder so many people contract Seasonal Depression, Financial-Obligation Migraine and Family Drama Disorder. — And in the electronics business, Greed-Borne Insanity is contagious.
Discussion:
Associated Press, Marco.org, Kindle Review, blogs.ft.com, Silicon Alley Insider and TeleRead, Thanks:mrinaldesai
RELATED:
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Brainstorm Tech:
Apple tablet set for spring launch? — Production is starting and should hit mass-market stride in February, says an analyst — Artist's rendition of an Apple tablet computer, with iPhone. Credit: AppleInsider — “The manufacturing cogs for the tablet are creaking into action,” …
RELATED:
Neil Hughes / AppleInsider:Tablet rumors: February production start, 10-inch LCD screen
Discussion:
InformationWeek, MediaPost, Silicon Alley Insider, Ars Technica, EverythingiCafe, The Tech Report, Neowin.net and TheAppleBlog
Matt Hamblen / Computerworld:
AT&T moves closer to usage-based fees for data — With some smartphone users turning into data hogs, AT&T eyes a ‘pricing scheme’ — Computerworld - AT&T is moving even closer to charging special usage fees to heavy data users, including those with iPhones and other smartphones.
RELATED:
Andrew LaVallee / Digits:AT&T to New York and San Francisco: We're Working on It
Discussion:
Mashable!, Associated Press, Engadget, paidContent, Seeking Alpha, ChannelWeb, eWeek, GigaOM, Boy Genius Report, Phone Arena, PC World, NBC Bay Area, DSLreports, Techland, FierceWireless, The iPhone Blog, MacRumors, Silicon Alley Insider, Zatz Not Funny!, AppleInsider, Tech Trader Daily, Maximum PC and Slashdot
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Backstage With Chad Hurley, Talking About His Ridiculously Cool Life — Forget the on stage interview at Le Web today - we ask the tough (not really) questions of YouTube cofounder Chad Hurley backstage afterwards. — What does one do when the company you've cofounded sells to Google for $1.65 billion?
Tim Arango / New York Times:
AOL Quietly Returns to Life on Its Own — The long, chaotic and star-crossed relationship between AOL and Time Warner finally ended in divorce. — AOL began trading as its own public company Wednesday, after its long planned spin-off from Time Warner was finally made official.
RELATED:
Jay Yarow / Silicon Alley Insider:
15 Gadgets That Changed Everything This Decade — This decade is the decade of gadgets. — From the tiny USB thumb drive introduced in 2000 to the iPhone 3G in 2008, a bunch of revolutionary devices have been brought to the market. — Check out the 15 best gadgets of the decade →
Discussion:
GottaBeMobile.com
Ina Fried / CNET News:
Microsoft reposts Windows 7 download tool — Microsoft said Wednesday it has reposted a tool to the Internet that aids installing Windows 7 on Netbooks and computers without an optical drive. — The software maker pulled the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool off its Web site last month …
Business Times:
Malaysia's MOL Global to buy Friendster — Malaysia's MOL Global will buy US social-networking service provider Friendster Inc. MOL Global Ltd expects to generate US$110 million in annual revenue from the takeover, chief executive officer Ganesh Kumar Bangah told reporters in Kuala Lumpur after the signing ceremony today.
Janko Roettgers / NewTeeVee:
Buy a DVD on Amazon; Start Watching the Movie in Minutes — Amazon.com just launched a promotion dubbed Disc+ On Demand that may well be the start to the industry's first major multi-platform retail experience. Customers who buy select movies on DVD or Blu-ray will be offered the chance …
Discussion:
Download Squad
Matt McGee / Search Engine Land:
Hitwise: Google Near 72% Of All US Searches — Google is approaching a 72% market share of searches in the U.S. according to the latest release from Experian Hitwise. The November 2009 stats show Google getting 71.57% of all U.S. searches, up almost a full percent from October.
Discussion:
Digital Daily, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, The Next Web Network, WebProNews, Computerworld and DailyFinance
Chauncey Dupree / 9 to 5 Mac:
Microsoft: Do not mention/use Apple products at our events — Probably still reeling from all publicity around these shots, Microsoft reportedly told journalists gathered for a company press event in Germany not to use or mention Apple products. Our German is a bit rusty and Google is even worse …
Stephen Shankland / CNET News:
First Mobile Firefox enters home stretch — Mozilla is wrapping up work on its first version of Firefox for mobile phones, an important step in bringing the second most popular PC browser to an area where a rival project holds more influence. — “Our goal is to have a release candidate next week …
Discussion:
jkOnTheRun, Maximum PC, GigaOM, IntoMobile, Mashable!, TechSpot, MobileCrunch and Gadgetsteria
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
The iPhone Finally Gets Live Video Streaming With Ustream Live Broadcaster — Services like Ustream and Qik have long offered the promise of live streaming video from your mobile phone to the web — except if you had an iPhone. For those devices, that was only possible if you jailbroke your phone.
RELATED:
Bloomberg:
EBay Lawyer Says Company Used Confidential Craigslist Data to Build Site — Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) — An EBay Inc. executive said the online-auction company used confidential Craigslist Inc. information to help start up a competing classified-advertising Web site.
Discussion:
Screenwerk
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
‘70% Chance’ Of An iPhone At Verizon Next Year — Update: Piper's “70%” prediction apparently originally dates back to a note from Oct. 17, but was reiterated in a note today. Still, worth discussing... Earlier: AT&T's era of exclusivity on the iPhone is fading fast.
Joe Wilcox / BetaNews:
Why Apple succeeds, and always will — Simply put: Apple doesn't play by the rules. It reinvents them. Apple applies what I call “David Thinking” to its broader business, product development and marketing. Apple is David to Microsoft Goliath — and other ones, too. Goliath plays by one set of rules.
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
MSN Strikes Another Local Deal: This Time With NBCU and Hearst — MSN has struck yet another local deal, this time with NBC Universal and Hearst, to provide local news and information to the Microsoft consumer portal. — The deal encompasses 36 markets in the U.S. and will provide 3,000 …
Ian Fette / Chromium Blog:
Web Sockets Now Available In Google Chrome — Starting in the Google Chrome developer channel release 4.0.249.0, Web Sockets are available and enabled by default. Web Sockets are “TCP for the Web,” a next-generation bidirectional communication technology for web applications being standardized in part of Web Applications 1.0.
Thanks:atul
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Marissa Mayer Talks Google Search, Chrome, Online News And More At Le Web — TechCrunch's Mike Arrington this afternoon interviewed Marrissa Mayer, Google's VP of Search Product and User Experience, at the Le Web conference here in Paris, France. — Last year, Arrington interviewed Mayer …
Richard MacManus / ReadWriteWeb:
wikiHow vs. eHow: Is The Wiki Way Better Than Content Farms? — Jack Herrick knows a bit about Demand Media, one of the top 20 web properties in the U.S. and the subject of several ReadWriteWeb articles about sites that are pumping thousands of pieces of content into the Web every day.
Discussion:
TechCrunch
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Milo's Local Shopping Engine Leaves Beta With One Million Users In Tow — There's nothing like shopping online when it comes to finding the lowest price for a consumer product, but when it comes to actually getting something now, online obviously falls far short of driving down to your local retail store.
Nick Bilton / Bits:
The American Diet: 34 Gigabytes a Day — A report published Wednesday by the University of California, San Diego, calculates that American households collectively consumed 3.6 zettabytes of information in 2008. The paper — entitled “How Much Information?”
CircleID:
IDC on Why Mobile Devices Accessing Internet Will Pass 1 Billion by 2013 — There were more than 450 million mobile Internet users worldwide in 2009, a number that is expected to more than double by the end of 2013. Driven by the popularity and affordability of mobile phones, smartphones …
