Check out Mini-Techmeme for simple mobiles or Techmeme Mobile for modern smartphones.
5:45 AM ET, September 29, 2010

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Why We Sold TechCrunch To AOL, And Where We Go From Here  —  By now you must have heard the news that AOL has acquired us.  Here are videos of the on stage signing of the agreement and an interview with AOL CEO Tim Armstrong immediately afterwards.  —  So how did all this happen?
RELATED:
Tim Armstrong / TechCrunch:
Tim Armstrong: We Got TechCrunch!  —  I'm very pleased to announce that we have acquired TechCrunch.  Details are in the press release below, and I'm sure founder Michael Arrington will have a few words to say as well.  This is a great complement to our continued investment in world class content.
Alexis Madrigal / The Atlantic Online:
Engadget's Founder on TechCrunch Under AOL  —  Michael Arrington, one of the most outspoken and wild tech bloggers, is about to get a corporate boss, following AOL's purchase of his site, TechCrunch.  —  Peter Rojas once found himself in a similar position.  He founded Engadget in 2004.
Discussion: TechCrunch
Nicholas Carlson / Silicon Alley Insider:
AOL Insider Says TechCrunch Price Only $25 Million - CNBC Says $40 Million  —  Update: Sources tell CNBC that AOL paid $40 million.  We're guessing the $25 million figure is cash and the rest is an earnout.  Earlier: AOL has told insiders that the company is only paying $25 million for TechCrunch, a second-hand source tells us.
Edmund Lee / AdAge:
Why AOL Bought TechCrunch
Discussion: dailywireless.org
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Exclusive: Facebook and Skype Readying Deep Integration Partnership  —  You didn't think Facebook would integrate with Google (GOOG) Voice, did you?  —  Actually, according to sources close to the situation, Facebook and Skype are poised to announce a significant and wide-ranging partnership …
Discussion: Gizmodo
Ross Miller / Engadget:
BlackBerry PlayBook vs. iPad vs. Galaxy Tab vs. Streak: the tale of the tape  —  What a day — yesterday, that is.  Research in Motion finally announced its long-awaited BlackBerry tablet, the 7-inch PlayBook (thankfully not named the BlackPad).  While there's still quite a few missing details …
RELATED:
Simon Sage / IntoMobile:
RIM VP Confirms PlayBook QNX OS Will Replace BlackBerry OS  —  Over a breakfast event today at the BlackBerry Developer Conference, a RIM VP confirmed that the QNX operating system announced in their new PlayBook tablet would in fact be finding its way to smartphones in the long run, and ultimately replace the existing BlackBerry OS.
Amir Efrati / Digits:
Google Wants to Make Online Display Ads ‘Sexy’  —  Google has long dominated Web search, and the advertising it generates.  But the company has vowed to build a major business in the parallel market of online display ads, and on Tuesday laid out some predictions about how that business will evolve.
RELATED:
Jon Brodkin / Computerworld:
Google is world's most attractive employer; Microsoft drops  —  Survey of 130,000 career seekers taps Google as world's most attractive employer.  —  Google is the “world's most attractive employer” based on a survey of 130,000 career seekers with an education in business or engineering …
Discussion: webpronews.com
Amir Efrati / Digits:
Tweet This Milestone: Twitter Passes MySpace  —  There's a new piece of data that Twitter Chief Operating Officer Dick Costolo could take with him to the stage today at the IAB MIXX conference in New York, as the company tries to woo marketers.  —  Last month the four-year-old micro-blogging …
Bryan Gardiner / Gizmodo:
Exclusive: The Plans For Steve Jobs' New House  —  You knew Steve Jobs was tearing down his old mansion.  You didn't know what he was building in its place.  Until now.  —  After nearly a six years of detailed cost comparisons, environmental impact surveys, court appeals …
Sharon Pian Chan / Seattle Times:
Q&A with Steve Ballmer on mobile, search and Facebook  —  Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer sat down with The Seattle Times for a Q and A on the eve of the annual company meeting on Sept. 28, 2010.  Here is the story.  —  With the imminent launch of a new Windows mobile phone …
Joanna Stern / Engadget:
T-Mobile G2 preview  —  Well, well, well... would you look at what we found lounging around Best Buy's NYC holiday event!  Yes, indeed, it's the T-Mobile G2 (the US version of the HTC Desire Z if you happen to think it looks familiar).  After months of leaks and blurry shots we finally got …
Sebastian Anthony / Download Squad:
GameCrush — where you pay to play video games with hot girls — opens its doors  —  GameCrush is just like prostitution, but with boys buying game time rather than sexy time from a dizzying array of cute, gamer girls.  The service, which has been privately beta testing since the start of the year …
Matthew Lynley / VentureBeat:
Google CEO: the Internet of things will augment your brain  —  For Google CEO Eric Schmidt, the next step in technology is the same that it has always been — augmenting humanity to handle information that a human brain couldn't otherwise keep up with, and just make things work.
RELATED:
Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:
Pinger brings free calling to your iPod Touch  —  A startup called Pinger says it has already built a big user base for Textfree — which is (you guessed it) a free text messaging service.  Now it's offering a similar service for making phone calls.  —  The calls can be made over a 3G cellular data network or Wi-Fi.
Don Jeffrey / Bloomberg:
Disney, CBS, Fox Sue Online Subscription Service Ivi for Streaming Shows  —  Walt Disney Co.'s ABC, CBS Corp. and other broadcasters sued Ivi, an online subscription service, for streaming television programs over the Web without authorization.  —  The companies, also including News Corp.'s Fox …
Anil Dash:
Make The Revolution  —  Malcolm Gladwell gets started with “The revolution will not be tweeted” in this week's New Yorker, condemning social media's ability to enact real cultural change with an argument he sums up early in the piece: … Who are the “they”?  It's not really clear.
Discussion: Leigh's Blitherings
Gary Merson / HD Guru:
Google TV by Sony Revealed-Exclusive First Photos  —  (September 28, 2010)Best Buy conducted its holiday preview press event today in New York City.  Included among the hot items for the fourth quarter was the first Google HDTV, the Sony NSX-46GT1.  HD GURU received a quick demo and snapped these exclusive photos.
Mike Taylor / New York Observer:
Did Apple Suffer a Mini Flash Crash?  —  Shares in Apple Computer experienced two sharp downward spikes today.  But the price action is very different from what we saw yesterday with Progress Energy.  Progress' shares dropped 90 percent almost instantaneously.
Tarmo Virki / Reuters:
Apple takes legal battle with Nokia to Britain  —  (Reuters) - Apple has sued Nokia in Britain, extending the two technology giants' legal battle over patents beyond U.S. borders.  “We are investigating the claims, which appear to be based on nine implementation patents already in suit between …
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Condé Nast's iPad Apps Are Too Portly.  Blame Adobe.  —  The Wired iPad app has a weight problem.  —  The first one came in at about half a gigabyte of memory, and it hasn't shrunk that much since.  —  And Condé Nast's newest iPad app, from the New Yorker, isn't much better …
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Atlassian Buys Mercurial Project Hosting Site BitBucket  —  In July, product development software company Atlassian said that it would be putting its recently raised $60 million investment towards M&A in the enterprise space.  It looks like the company is moving fast—Atlassian …
Discussion: Bitbucket, SD Times and The Next Web
Enigmax / TorrentFreak:
RIAA Takes Down Music Downloading App Mulve  —  Last week an impressive new music downloading application hit the mainstream.  Mulve became hugely popular and demand was so great that the site's servers couldn't handle the pressure and fell over.  Today the site is down again …
Discussion: Download Squad
Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:
AOL's Wild Acquisition Day Concludes With Thing Labs, Maker Of Brizzly  —  It's a Ronco kind of day for folks who cover AOL (NYSE: AOL)—you think you're done and then the company says, but, wait, there's more.  For the last one (today), paidContent can confirm that AOL has acquired Thing Labs and its Brizzly social media reader.
 
 Archived Page Info: 
This is a snapshot of Techmeme at 5:45 AM ET, September 29, 2010.

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: 
Joab Jackson / PC World:
CA Technologies to Buy Hyperformix
Cecilia Kang / Post Tech:
Commerce finishes $4 billion broadband Internet stimulus grants
Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg / Wall Street Journal:
Authors Feel Pinch in Age of E-Books
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
MobilePay May Be The Death Of The Wallet. Yes, For Real This Time.
Discussion: VentureBeat and IntoMobile
Mimi Turner / Hollywood Reporter:
Jeff Bewkes: Beware of Apple, Amazon deals
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
First Ben Silverman Online Program-"Ready, Set, Dance!"  -Debuts on Yahoo
Cecilia Kang / Post Tech:
Internet pioneers protest Senate anti-piracy bill
 Earlier Items: 
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
Figure Out Your Flying Needs With Superfly
Discussion: VentureBeat
Sam Diaz / Between the Lines Blog:
HP offers solid 2011 outlook, no CEO
Amir Efrati / Digits:
For Google and Apple, an Easing of Tensions?
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Yammer Debuts A Facebook For The Enterprise
Discussion: All Facebook and VentureBeat
Jessica Dolcourt / Crave: The gadget blog:
Mozilla: No Firefox browser for the iPhone
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Exclusive: Yahoo Exec Churn Continues, With Media Head Pitaro Ready to Bolt