Top Items:
Microsoft:
Microsoft Launches New Casual Games Hub — The company today rolled out the Microsoft Game Hub, which helps fans of casual games like Bejeweled play and interact socially across MSN Games, Bing Games and Windows Live Messenger. — Solitaire doesn't have to be so solitary anymore.
Discussion:
LiveSide.net, Download Squad, SelectStart, VentureBeat, Softpedia News and Winrumors
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Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Not So Casual: Microsoft To Revitalize MSN Games, Live Messenger And Bing Games — Microsoft this morning announced several new efforts to gain some ground in the booming social/casual gaming market. The company will be debuting an all-new version of MSN Games (see preview here) …
Discussion:
Inside Social Games, The Windows Blog, PR Newswire and Gadget Lab
Brian Womack / Bloomberg:
Facebook Passes EBay in Value, Becoming No. 3 U.S. Web Company — Nov. 15 (Bloomberg) — Facebook Inc.'s estimated worth is now bigger than EBay Inc.'s valuation, making it the third- largest U.S. Internet business and underscoring the growing allure of social media for investors.
Discussion:
Venture Capital Dispatch, GMSV, Adotas, Softpedia News, Mashable!, SAI, Rev2.org and Go Rumors
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Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:
Facebook Worth $41 Billion (Report) — Facebook is now the third largest U.S. Internet business, behind Amazon and Google, according to a new Bloomberg report released this morning. Based on trading on secondary markets - Facebook is not yet a public company - the site's stock is now at $16 …
Discussion:
All Facebook
Liz Gannes / NetworkEffect:
Path: The Social App That's Not Viral (By Design) — Silicon Valley is in the midst of a mini photo-sharing app boomlet. We have Instagram (which started adding 100,000 users per week as soon as it launched last month), Picplz (which beat out Instagram to get a Series A round with their shared investor …
Discussion:
Screenwerk, CNN, PC World, ReadWriteWeb, GigaOM, Epicenter, Techland, Ben Metcalfe Blog, Gizmodo, blogs.chron.com, parislemon, Continuations, TechCrunch and SFGate
RELATED:
Robert Scoble / Scobleizer:
Path: the social system that will piss social mavens off — I didn't read any of Path's hype before trying it myself. I wasn't part of the beta. I don't owe Dave Morin lunch (he's the founder of this new thing called Path that's getting a deep amount of hype tonight. The photo is of him at the TED conference).
Discussion:
SAI, Fast Company, New York Times, The Social, ReadWriteWeb, Mark Evans Tech, PhoneArena and The Next Web, Thanks:thekenyeung
Federico Viticci / MacStories:
“Exciting Announcement from iTunes” Coming Tomorrow, What Is It? — Oh, look what we have here. Apple just updated its homepage on apple.com to include this banner, which states an “exciting announcement” from iTunes is coming tomorrow at 7 AM PST. “Tomorrow is just another day.
Discussion:
GigaOM, Engadget, Digital Daily, Between the Lines Blog, Mobile Marketing Watch, Fortune, ReadWriteWeb, AppleInsider, TechFlash, BGR, 9 to 5 Mac, MacRumors, SAI, Softpedia News, Techie Buzz, Tech Trader Daily, CBS News, Andy Ihnatko's Celestial Waste …, Gadget Lab, Mashable!, Gizmodo and The Next Web, Thanks:viticci
Sameer Samat / The Official Google Blog:
Improvements to Product Search for this holiday season — Every year retailers start the holiday shopping season earlier and earlier—and still I procrastinate until late December before getting started. This year I've already made my list and I'm ready to go.
Claire Cain Miller / New York Times:
Pulse, Popular App, Moves to Attract More Users — PALO ALTO, Calif. — Publishers' offices at print newspapers and magazines are tension-filled places these days, as executives watch readers and advertisers flock to the Web and cellphone screens. — Contrast that to the atmosphere …
Discussion:
mobiputing, Marco.org, Zatz Not Funny!, Softpedia News, The Next Web, iClarified and TUAW
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Raid The MiniBar: Meebo Gets Into The Site Check-In Game. But Don't Call It A Game. — With the rise of Foursquare, the “check-in” has become fairly commonplace. With the launch of Places, Facebook will only make it more so. It shouldn't be surprising that we're seeing dozens …
Discussion:
Download Squad, Scobleizer, GigaOM, NetworkEffect, ReadWriteWeb, Softpedia News and VentureBeat
Nick Saint / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:
Tune In At 1PM ET For LIVE Coverage Of Facebook's Email Announcement — In just over two hours, Facebook is having another big event, reportedly to announce a new web-based email client its employees call their “Gmail killer.” — A solid email offering from Facebook could be a huge deal.
Discussion:
BBC, ReadWriteWeb, Associated Press, The Huffington Post and Lifehacker
Ed Bott / Ed Bott's Microsoft Report Blog:
Microsoft vs. McAfee: How free antivirus outperformed paid — How effective is free antivirus software? I had a chance to see a real, in-the-wild example just this month, and the results were, to put it mildly, unexpected. The bottom line? Microsoft's free antivirus solution found …
Discussion:
Hardware 2.0 Blog, Thanks:edbott
Devin Coldewey / CrunchGear:
More Kinect Craziness: Mind-Blowing 3D Video Effect — The Kinect may be divisive as a gaming peripheral, but I think we can all agree that a $150 off-the-shelf depth-aware camera system is a good thing. And just in the week since the device launched, people have already come up with some crazy applications for it.
Discussion:
Engadget, MSDN Blogs, Digital Society, Geek.com and Beet.TV
Bob Boorstin / Google Public Policy Blog:
Promoting Free Trade for the Internet Economy — Today we're releasing a white paper [PDF] that explores the ways that governments impose limits on the free flow of information online. It's pretty wonky stuff, but the premise is simple: In addition to infringing human rights …
Discussion:
Reuters
Riva Richmond / New York Times:
Attacker That Sharpened Facebook's Defenses — A friend on Facebook suggests that you watch an amazing or funny or sexy video. The link may seem innocuous enough. But with a few simple clicks, you could end up infecting your PC with the Koobface worm. — Koobface, whose name is an anagram …
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Let a Zillion Users Blab: Yahoo Debuts “Contributor Network” — Yahoo is debuting a new offering for its hundreds of million of users, which takes the Demand Media model and notches up the volume by presumably allowing a thousand flowers to bloom. — Or, more to the point, blab.
Discussion:
Yahoo!, AdAge and Yodel Anecdotal
Leena Rao / TechCrunchIT:
EMC Buys Enterprise Data Storage Company Isilon For $2.25 Billion In Cash — Enterprise software giant EMC has just acquired Isilon Systems for $2.25 billion in cash or appoximately $33.85 per share. The deal was rumored to be in the works but now it's official.
Discussion:
eWeek, SAI, Between the Lines Blog, Data Center Knowledge, TechEye, Computerworld, Digital Daily, PR Newswire, Bloomberg, Tech Trader Daily, VatorNews and DealBook
Matt Marshall / VentureBeat:
RIM shuts out red-hot mobile chat application Kik — without explanation — Kik, the hot mobile chat application we wrote about two weeks ago that was seeing explosive growth, has been pulled from the Blackberry app market App World. — RIM, the maker of Blackberry phones …
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Fortune:
Mark Papermaster should be happier at Cisco than he was at Apple — In many ways, the networking giant is a better fit for the 26-year IBM veteran — Papermaster. Photo: Apple Inc. — Last week wasn't a total disaster for Cisco (CSCO) — which got a $29 billion market cap haircut Tuesday …
Discussion:
Gizmodo, The Register, Softpedia News, Inquirer and Network World
Kat Hannaford / Gizmodo:
Rumor: Google Taking On eBay With Boutiques.com Site Launch — Fashion bloggers are squealing that Google's going into the fashion business, following an invitation for a swanky NYC launch event this Wednesday, where “high tech fuses with high fashion.” Supposedly, they'll …
Discussion:
TechCrunch, frockwriter, Softpedia News, Go Rumors and BuzzFeed, Thanks:gizmodo
Jon Evans / TechCrunch:
Dear Foursquare, Gowalla: Please Let's Stop Pretending This Is Fun — It's a bad month to be Foursquare or Gowalla. Ten days ago, 900-pound gorilla Facebook announced Facebook Deals for Facebook Places (i,e., location-based coupons) and check-ins for third-party apps.
Discussion:
Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life, All About Symbian and Appolicious Advisor
Zach Epstein / BGR:
Motorola MOTOPAD to usher in Android 3.0 — Just as Motorola helped Google usher in Android 2.0 with the DROID, the reborn gadgeteer is now seemingly charged with a similar task for Android 3.0. Details for the time being are remarkably slim, but Mobile-Review.com — home …
Discussion:
Fortune, Android Community, Droid Life, IntoMobile, SlashGear, SAI, Android Phone Fans, Electronista, Softpedia News, I4U News, Know Your Cell, AndroidGuys and PhoneArena
Peter Pae / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
The future of writing on tablets: A Q&A with Information Architects — They say they are organizing the Web so you don't have to. To them, every serif means something. — Founded by Oliver Reichenstein in 2005, Information Architects is a design strategy group focused on how information …
Discussion:
MacStories
