Top Items:
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Google's Groupon Offer: $5.3 Billion, With $700 Million Earnout — According to sources close to the situation, Google has offered $5.3 billion for Groupon, in what will be its largest acquisition yet if completed. — Sources said the deal for the social buying site seemed likely to be struck …
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Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
Forget Net Neutrality, Comcast Might Break the Web — The fight that erupted today between Level 3 and Comcast involves an esoteric agreement between two of the Internet's big players providers colliding with a series of equally arcane policy arguments, but at its core this fight is about money.
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Level 3 Communications:
Level 3 Communications Issues Statement Concerning Comcast's Actions — Level 3 Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: LVLT) today issued the following statement, which can be attributed to Thomas Stortz, Chief Legal Officer of Level 3: — “On November 19, 2010, Comcast informed Level 3 that …
Discussion:
Tech Trader Daily, Engadget, Fortune, SlashGear, Boing Boing, CNET News, GigaOM, Post Tech, Techdirt, DSLreports, ITworld.com, Geek News Central, Data Center Knowledge, CircleID, DailyFinance and SAI
Joe Waz / Comcast Voices:
Comcast Comments on Level 3 — Level 3 has inaccurately portrayed the commercial negotiations between it and Comcast. These discussions have nothing to do with Level 3's desire to distribute different types of network traffic. — Comcast has long established and mutually acceptable …
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
Kinect is Selling 2X as Fast as the iPad — The iPad was crowned the fastest-adopted consumer electronic device ever last month, stealing the title from the once-coveted DVD player. Records are made to be broken, though, and the Microsoft Kinect has already come out of the gate twice as fast.
Discussion:
TechFlash, Go Rumors and Deep Jive Interests
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Tiernan Ray / Tech Trader Daily:
Microsoft: Over 2.5M Kinect Sold
Discussion:
Softpedia News, The Seattle Times, Mashable!, BetaNews, Pulse2, BGR, Forbes, The Next Web, VentureBeat, Insights on the tech industry, Electronista, WinRumors, Ars Technica and LiveSide.net
Ben Parr / Mashable!:
Google's Secret Social Initiative Delayed Until Spring 2011 [EXCLUSIVE] — Google's big social initiative, once thought to be a full-fledged social network named “Google Me,” is experiencing delays that have pushed back the launch until spring 2011. — Mashable has learned …
Discussion:
Softpedia News, SlashGear, Pulse2 and SAI
Ingrid Lunden / mocoNews:
The Biggest iPad Subsidy Of All: Softbank Gives It Away - What's Behind It? — One more operator is offering a reduced price for the iPad if you take it on a two-year contract: Softbank in Japan is preparing to launch a deal that offers users a 16GB iPad for free.
Discussion:
AppleInsider, MacNN, SlashGear, IntoMobile, App Advice, BlogsDNA, Go Rumors, msnbc.com, MacStories, Pulse2 and Fortune
Jessica Guynn / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes officially launches Jumo, social network for social activism — Status update from Chris Hughes, co-founder of Facebook and the social media whiz kid behind Barack Obama's presidential campaign: On Tuesday he officially launched Jumo.
Discussion:
TechCrunch, Mashable!, Neowin.net and New York Times
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Facebook Now Worth $50 Billion In Secondary Trading — It was just a few weeks ago that Accel Partners sold off around half a billion dollars of Facebook shares at a company valuation of $35 billion. If you thought that was insane, and a lot of commenters did, then don't read the rest of this post.
Discussion:
VatorNews and All Facebook
Kelly Fiveash / The Register:
Mozilla rages at MS, Apple and Google's ‘trojan horse’ tactics — Shove your plug-ins where the sun don't shine — A well-respected Mozilla man has attacked Apple, Google and Microsoft for installing plug-ins without first asking for a web surfer's permission.
Discussion:
Asa Dotzler, Between the Lines Blog, InformationWeek, PC Pro and Which? News
Danny Sullivan / Daggle:
How Facebook Connect Freaks Me Out — More and more sites I run into these days are offering a way for me to log-in using Facebook. That's cool, if it means I don't have to fill out yet another registration form. But the permission pages that come up sometimes are so scary that I decline the offer.
Discussion:
Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Instagram Captures Their First Big Brand Partner: National Geographic — There seems to be a common cycle for many startups. First, you capture users. Then, you capture brands/celebrities. Then you capture revenues. Most startups never make it past step one, let alone steps two and three.
Discussion:
scot hacker's foobar blog
Nathan Olivarez-Giles / L.A. Times Tech Blog:
Playboy Magazine releases every issue from 1953 to 2010 on a hard drive — Playboy Magazine is on magazine racks, on the Web, on iPad, and now it's also on a hard drive. — The iconic publication, which has struggled a bit as the world goes increasingly digital, is offering every issue of Playboy …
Discussion:
Pulse2, Neowin.net, TeleRead and Boing Boing
Mac Slocum / O'Reilly Radar:
For social search, similarity could trump friendship — Just because I friend or follow someone doesn't mean we're alike. We might be colleagues or classmates. Maybe we're both fans of a baseball team or a certain twisty TV show. That's the extent of our overlap.
Dharmesh Mehta / The Windows Blog:
Over 500,000 Windows Live Spaces blogs migrated to WordPress.com — We're very excited to be working with WordPress.com to let customers connect the fantastic blogging capabilities of WordPress.com with the leading communications and sharing services of Windows Live.
Discussion:
WordPress.com News, Softpedia News, LiveSide.net, TechCrunch, The Blog Herald, Technologizer and Pulse2
Ben Parr / Mashable!:
Flock Social Browser Declares War on RockMelt with Version 3.5 — Flock, the self-described “social web browser,” is responding to the launch of RockMelt with the release of Flock 3.5, which boasts greater speed and added functionality. — The browser touts social integration …
Discussion:
Download Squad, Pulse2, GigaOM, Ubergizmo and The Next Web
Zach Epstein / BGR:
WP7 developers complain of missing payments, broken reporting tools — Microsoft is making good progress in its efforts to woo developers to the new Windows Phone 7 platform, but we hope the company is equally devoted to keeping devs on board once they arrive.
Discussion:
Nick's Rumbling, eWeek, Know Your Cell, SlashGear, AppleInsider, IntoMobile, Electronista, WPCentral.com and Ubergizmo
Liz Gannes / NetworkEffect:
Twitter Gets a Hollywood Guy: Omid Ashtari — Twitter has hired its first official liaison to the stars: Creative Artists Agency veteran Omid Ashtari. His first day at the microblogging service was today. — Ashtari told me he is “going to be Twitter's L.A. person” and will be dealing with media companies and celebrities.
Discussion:
Lost Remote
Robert Quigley / Geekosystem:
How to Make Google Translate Beatbox — Not sure if this falls in the category of Easter Egg or clever manipulation, but either way, there go our afternoons: Redditor harrichr has devised a scheme for turning Google Translate into a makeshift beatbox machine. … For the lazy, just click this link and it'll be done for you.
Discussion:
TechCrunch
Wall Street Journal:
Makers of Firefox Browser Explore Do-Not-Track Tool After Scrapping Earlier Effort — Makers of Firefox Browser Explore Do-Not-Track Tool After Scrapping Earlier Effort — The makers of the popular Firefox Web browser are exploring ways to create a do-not-track mechanism that could offer Internet users …
Discussion:
AdExchanger.com, more at Mediagazer »
Riley McDermid / VentureBeat:
Google-backed satellite provider O3b raises $1.2B to bring the world online — Google-backed Internet satellite company O3b Networks has raised $1.2 billion in what is says is its final funding round before it launches its “constellation” of fiber-quality satellites to bring the developing world online.
Discussion:
Softpedia News, Google Public Policy Blog, Pulse2, GigaOM, Search Engine Land, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, BBC and dailywireless.org
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
Zuckerberg Interviews Former President George W. Bush At Facebook HQ [Video] — Looks like President Obama isn't the only one resorting to Facebook as a way to reach the American people. In a first for a U.S. President past or present, former President George W. Bush will hold a discussion …
Discussion:
Gov 2.0, Forbes, The Next Web and Between the Lines Blog
Ina Fried / Mobilized:
Microsoft's Plan B to Make Money in Phones: Patents — Although Microsoft is still hoping that Windows Phone 7 proves to be a hit, the company doesn't see its success as the only way to make a profit from all those millions it has poured into mobile phone technology.
Georgina Prodhan / Reuters:
Few smartphone owners are loyal to their brand: survey — (Reuters) - The booming smartphone market shows no sign of slowing but manufacturers will have to fight hard to keep their customers as smartphone owners show little loyalty to their current brands, a GfK survey shows.
Discussion:
BGR, Pulse2, GigaOM, IntoMobile, pocketnow.com, TechSpot, I4U News, TUAW, displayblog, Examiner, The Toybox Blog, Electronista, Internet2Go, MobileBurn.com, PhoneArena, Fortune, Inquirer, The Next Web, MacDailyNews, AppleInsider, FierceMobileContent and Phones Review
Larry Downes / Technology Liberation Front:
Domain Name Seizures and the “Limits” of Civil Forfeiture — I was quoted this morning in Sara Jerome's story for The Hill on the weekend seizures of domain names the government believes are selling black market, counterfeit, or copyright infringing goods. — The seizures take place …
Discussion:
DomainIncite.com, Washington Post and Techdirt
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Sara Jerome / Hillicon Valley:
Government's Internet crackdown was timed to thwart ‘Cyber Monday’ crimes
Discussion:
U.S. Immigration …, techPresident and Techdirt
