Top Items:
Eric Eldon / Inside Facebook:
Facebook Begins Rolling Out New Home Page Design — Facebook is now fully launching the long-planned redesign, with 80 million users getting it tonight — that's 80 million of the now-400 million people using the site, the company says. The new design is basically what we've been examining …
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Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Facebook's Project Titan: A Full Featured Webmail Product — Facebook is completely rewriting their messaging product and is preparing to launch a fully featured webmail product in its place, according to a source with knowledge of the product. Internally it's known as Project Titan.
Mark Zuckerberg / Facebook Blog:
Six Years of Making Connections — Today we're celebrating our sixth birthday, and this week there will be 400 million people on Facebook. Just one year ago we served less than half as many people, and thanks to you we've made great progress over the last year towards making the world more open and connected.
Discussion:
Tech Central, Softpedia News, TechCrunch, pluGGd.in, Erictric, Geekword, Mashable!, L.A. Times Tech Blog and All Facebook
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:Facebook Begins Rolling Out Latest Redesign (Pics)
Discussion:
Shelly Palmer, VentureBeat, Erictric, L.A. Times Tech Blog and GeekSugar, Thanks:mrinaldesai
Matt Buchanan / Gizmodo:
The $9.99 Ebook Is Dead: Third Major Publisher Hachette Dumps on Amazon — Amazon's ebook pricing structure has crumbled. Hachette's the third major publisher to push for the agency model, following MacMillan and HarperCollins: They'll set the ebook prices (higher, natch) and the bookseller takes a cut.
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Jason Boog / GalleyCat:Macmillan NYT Ad: “Available at booksellers everywhere except Amazon”
Discussion:
Mashable!
Jason Boog / GalleyCat:Breaking: Hachette Book Group to Transition to Agency Model
Discussion:
MacRumors, AppleInsider, DailyTech, Wall Street Journal, 9 to 5 Mac, Techdirt, EverythingiCafe, Electronista, Charlie's Diary, TechFlash, TeleRead and Whatever
Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:
Siri launches an iPhone personal assistant that actually works — The “personal assistant” label gets attached to a lot of websites and applications, but it's always an exaggeration. Usually the service in question can only tackle a small slice of what a human assistant would do, such as organizing your emails.
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Jenna Wortham / Bits:A Personal Assistant on Your iPhone
Discussion:
Engadget, Mashable!, Search Engine Land, ZDNet, ReadWriteWeb, TechCrunch, GigaOM, ProgrammableWeb, louisgray.com and Gizmodo, Thanks:hisiri
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
An Apology To Our Readers — On Monday evening I received a phone call from someone I trust who told me that one of our interns had asked for compensation in exchange for a blog post. Specifically, this intern had allegedly asked for a Macbook Air in exchange for a post about a startup.
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Daniel Brusilovsky / Weblog of Daniel Brusilovsky:
The Line Was Crossed — In the nine months that I've worked at TechCrunch, I've enjoyed every single moment of it. I couldn't be more thankful to Michael and Heather for giving me this opportunity to work with an amazing organization, and with an amazing group of individuals.
Avner Ronen / Boxee Blog:
Boxee responds to NBC's Jeff Zucker — Congress held a hearing today examining the proposed acquisition of NBC Universal by Comcast. Speaking before the committee were Brian Roberts, Chairman and CEO of Comcast and Jeff Zucker, President and CEO of NBC. — During the hearing the Chairman …
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MacNN:
Apple prohibits App Store devs from using location-based ads — Apple has notified App Store developers that they will be prohibited from using location-based information for mobile advertising. The company claims the GPS data can only be used to provide “beneficial information.”
Frank X.Shaw / The Official Microsoft Blog:
Measuring Our Work by Its Broad Impact — Former Microsoft employee Dick Brass has an op-ed in the NYT arguing that our better days are behind us, ("clumsy, uncompetitive innovator" . . . ouch!) and using examples from his tenure to make the point that the company can no longer compete or innovate.
Daniel Maurer / New York Magazine:
Steve Jobs in Secret New York Meeting With Top Times Execs — Bonus Buster: Bank of America Execs Acted Out Of Self-interest, Greed, And Hubris — When Apple recently booked the cellar dining room at Pranna for a talk with 50 top executives from the New York Times, even restaurant higher-ups didn't know who their VIP guest would be.
Discussion:
The Register, AppleInsider, Gawker, Electricpig.co.uk, The iPhone Blog, 9 to 5 Mac, Macsimum News, Silicon Alley Insider and MacRumors
Emil Protalinski / Ars Technica:
Buy Office 2007, get 2010 free? Microsoft posts, pulls deal — Microsoft has accidentally posted details about a promotion it will be running for those who buy Office 2007 a few months before and after the release of Office 2010 in June 2010. It is called the “Microsoft Office 2010 …
Xbox Press:
A Letter From Marc Whitten: Discontinuation Of Xbox Live For Original Xbox Games — On April 15 we will discontinue the Xbox LIVE service for original Xbox consoles and games, including Xbox v1 games playable on Xbox 360 and Xbox Originals. I want to start by saying this isn't a decision we made lightly …
Jolie O'Dell / ReadWriteWeb:
Google Rolls Out Ocean Showcase: It's a Multimedia, Underwater Street View — Ah, the sea. The big blue. From sharks to shipwrecks, from the perfectly formed pipes of Hawaii's waves to the dark and chilly depths of the deepest sea trenches, it's one of Earth's most fascinating habitats - one that people love watching and exploring.
Jack Purcher / Patently Apple:
Location Based Social Networking & Video Calling Coming to iPhone — There's an old adage concerning the finding of a location for your brick and mortar retail business: Location, location, location. While that may still hold water today, that saying is going to be hijacked by the next wave …
Ryan Tate / Gawker:
Blogger Beware: AOL's Robo-Reporters Will Swarm You Like Locusts — With great power comes great responsibility. But AOL's media borg Seed.com can't stop its horde of desperate underemployed journalists from mobbing story subjects, like the angry woman who heard from seven Seed writers in six days.
Ross Miller / Engadget:
Samsung E61 e-book reader outed, brings physical QWERTY keyboard to lineup — The pair of Samsung-borne e-book readers we espied at CES just became a trio. E6 and E101, please give a round of applause your new on-screen brother, the E61 (pictured next to Kindle).
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Citing Lousy Market Conditions, FriendFinder Networks Cancels IPO … With this short statement, FriendFinder Networks has canceled its IPO plans, following a widely reported delay in trading earlier this week. — Investors are analysts were wary of the company's plans to go public …
Connie Loizos / PE Hub Blog:
A Glimpse Inside Ron Conway's Virtual Venture Firm — In 2001, the New York Times characterized Ron Conway as “just another dot-com also-ran,” owing to the then-poor performance of two Internet index funds that Conway ran for rich contacts who wanted a piece of his early-stage action.
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
MySpace Chief Product Officer Jason Hirschhorn On His Way Out After 9 Months On The Job — MySpace Chief Product Officer Jason Hirschhorn will soon be leaving the company, we've heard from multiple sources. Hirschhorn joined MySpace in April 2009 as part of the major executive shakeup …
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider
Mehul Srivastava / Business Week:
India's 3G Auctions: Why Companies Are Fearful — Few Indians use the mobile Net, so carriers are wary of spending billions on licenses and network gear — Delhi - Be careful what you wish for. When India announced plans to auction off licenses for superfast 3G phone service, the country's mobile-phone companies cheered.
Mark Wilson / Gizmodo:
Apple Paying Out 15% On Broken 27-Inch iMacs — Still think that widespread iMac problems don't exist? After we reported Apple giving UK customers 15% refund bonuses with 27-inch iMac returns, we've heard from quite a few readers that Apple is doing the same thing in the US. UPDATE — 15%.
Discussion:
Tech Eye, O'Grady's PowerPage, Apple Gazette, SlashGear, The Register, Ars Technica, Erictric, The Next Web, SlipperyBrick.com and Macsimum News
