Techmeme: Hulu Orders Up a New Bite-Size Show. It's Going to Taste a Lot Like “Talk Soup.” (Peter Kafka/MediaMemo)

4:50 PM ET, December 6, 2010

Top Items:

Introducing Nexus S with Gingerbread — The very first Android phone hit the market in November 2008. Just over two years later, Android's vision of openness has spurred the development of more than 100 different Android devices. Today, more than 200,000 Android devices are activated daily worldwide.

Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:

TechCrunch Review: Google Nexus S — For the last few days we've been using the Google Nexus S, manufactured by Samsung, with the new Android 2.3 “Gingerbread” operating system. This is a phone that was designed with direct input from the Google Android team.

Discussion: SAI, Search Engine Land, Gizmodo, BetaNews, Engadget, Computerworld, PC World, Inquirer, BGR, Telegraph, CrunchGear, MobileCrunch, I4U News, The Atlantic Online, Guardian, TmoNews, 901am, displayblog, Softpedia News, Android Community, Android Phone Fans, Techie Buzz, SlashGear and PhoneDog.com, Thanks:alexia

Android Developers Blog:

Android 2.3 Platform and Updated SDK Tools — Today we're announcing a new version of the Android platform — Android 2.3 (Gingerbread). It includes many new platform technologies and APIs to help developers create great apps. Some of the highlights include:

Devindra Hardawar / VentureBeat:
Google finally spills the beans on Nexus S, coming Dec. 16 on T-Mobile

Discussion: Bits, Computerworld, Daring Fireball and Appolicious Advisor

Abraham Murray / The Official Google Blog:

Discover more than 3 million Google eBooks from your choice of booksellers and devices — Today is the first page in a new chapter of our mission to improve access to the cultural and educational treasures we know as books. Google eBooks will be available in the U.S. from a new Google eBookstore.

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Google's New Bookstore Cracks Open the E-book Market — Google today launched its long-awaited electronic book store, called simply Google eBooks, with more than 3 million titles and 4,000 publishers participating as partners, including most of the major industry names.

James McQuivey / paidContent: The Ultimate Effect Of Google E-Books: A New Ad-Supported Model For Books

Dwight Silverman / Houston Chronicle:

Consumer Reports: AT&T is the worst carrier — Consumer Reports is out with its latest survey of cell phone service by its members, and AT&T is now ranked as the worst in the country, as well as the worst in Houston. — In the 2009 survey, AT&T was at the bottom of the list locally, but came in next-to-last nationally.

Discussion: 9 to 5 Mac, Consumer Reports …, MacRumors, IntoMobile, TechFlash, SlashGear, MobileBurn.com, L.A. Times Tech Blog, Mobilized, BGR, Gizmodo, Daring Fireball, iLounge, BerryReview.com, techblog.dallasnews.com, PhoneDog.com and iPhone Buzz, Thanks:dsilverman

Kirk Hiner / Appletell:

Appletell exclusive: Mac App Store to open December 13th? — An inside source has just told us that Apple is targeting a Monday, December 13th launch of the Mac App Store. The company apparently told developers to have their software prepared for a launch as early as Monday the 6th of this month …

Discussion: Digital Trends, Computerworld, App Advice, eWeek, GigaOM, Engadget, CNET News, Download Squad, AppleInsider, MacRumors, Ubergizmo, ReadWriteWeb, TechSpot, Notebooks.com, BlogsDNA, AppleBitch and MacStories, Thanks:aczafra

Neil Hughes / AppleInsider:

Verizon may pay Apple to keep iPhone away from T-Mobile, Sprint — With the launch of the Verizon iPhone widely expected in early 2011, the wireless carrier may pay Apple to keep its smartphone off of rival networks Sprint and T-Mobile. — Analyst Shaw Wu with Kaufman Bros. said in a note …

Discussion: eWeek, Examiner, MarketBeat, Fortune, Fast Company, TechFlash, Electronista, Computerworld, PhoneDog.com, GigaOM, Cult of Mac, SlashGear, TmoNews, Digital Daily, MacRumors, 9 to 5 Mac, SiliconANGLE, TiPb, MacStories and Thoughts from the Sidelines

Nadia Damouni / Reuters:

AOL plots breakup, then merger with Yahoo: sources — (Reuters) - AOL Inc, undergoing a radical transformation into the king of content on the Internet, is actively exploring a breakup of the company involving a complicated series of transactions that may lead to a merger with Yahoo Inc, sources close to the plans said.

Discussion: Digital Trends, Reuters, VatorNews, DailyTech, Hillicon Valley, Mashable!, CNET News and TechCrunch, more at Mediagazer »

Paul Graham:

Founder Control — Someone we funded is talking to VCs now, and asked me how common it was for a startup's founders to retain control of the board after a series A round. He said VCs told him this almost never happened. Ten years ago that was true. In the past, founders rarely kept control …

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:

Tumblr Outage Continues — Can It Pull a Twitter and Recover? — The Tumblr blog-hosting platform has been down for more than 17 hours, in what appears to be the longest outage in the company's history. Fans of the fast-growing service are grumbling about the downtime …

Discussion: TechCrunch, Associated Press, Technologizer, Gawker and Techland, more at Mediagazer »

Kara Swisher / BoomTown:

Russia's DST Out of Twitter Funding Race, As Kleiner Poised to Take the Deal — According to sources close to the situation, the aggressive Russian investment outfit DST Global is out of the running to fund Twitter. — Instead, the prize is almost certainly going to Kleiner Perkins …

Discussion: SAI

Milo Yiannopoulos / Telegraph:

Dark forces gunning for Google — Microsoft has been funding an organisation seemingly set up to make trouble for the search giant. — Last week's announcement that Google is to be investigated by the EU for allegedly giving preference to its own services and advertisers in search rankings …

Discussion: SAI

Ari Levy / Bloomberg:

Groupon Aims to Emulate Facebook, Not Yahoo, After Walking Away From Deal — Groupon Inc., which rejected a Google Inc. takeover last week, is betting it can keep increasing its valuation after walking away from a deep-pocketed suitor, something Facebook Inc. pulled off and Yahoo! Inc. failed to do.

Discussion: Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, TechCrunch, Adotas and Pulse2, Thanks:chadcat

Kathy Kristof / CBS Money Watch:

Online Retailer Charged with Fraud, Threats — DecorMyEyes founder Vitaly Borker — also known as Tony Russo and Stanley Bolds — was arrested Monday and charged with defrauding customers of his online eye wear company and making repeated and violent threats to customers who attempted to return defective goods.

Discussion: SAI and Search Engine Land

Ryan Kim / GigaOM:

Sprint's Future: No iDEN, LTE (Maybe) — Sprint is rolling out a $4-5 billion plan to modernize and converge its network in a wide-ranging effort that will mean the end of its iDEN network and a possible embrace of LTE down the road. The Sprint Network Vision blueprint will involve replacing …

Discussion: DSLreports, Between the Lines Blog, BGR and MobileCrunch

Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land:

Google's New Social Sitelinks — Google is now showing social search related results in the Sitelinks section of the search results. The social sitelink includes your friend's name, profile photo, and it links to your friend's content on a particular website.

Zach Epstein / BGR:

Pandora has a change of heart; no Windows Phone 7 app planned [Updated] — Back in March of this year, Microsoft proudly announced that Pandora would be one of its big-name Windows Phone 7 launch partners. In an interesting turn of events last week, however, the popular Internet radio provider …

Discussion: pocketnow.com, SAI, The Next Web, WMPoweruser.com, GottaBeMobile and Electronista

Seth Weintraub / 9 to 5 Mac:

Norman Foster to design Apple's new campus called ‘Apple City’ — El Economista reports (English)that renowned British architect Norman Foster is hard at work designing Apple's new campus in Cupertino. The 100 acre campus was picked up from HP last month for a measly $300M.

Discussion: AppleInsider, Fast Company, NBC Bay Area and SlashGear

Josh Constine / Inside Facebook:

Facebook Profile Redesign Will Coax More Data From Users: An In-Depth Review — Facebook has released a major redesign of the user profile which makes more profile info, photos, and friends immediately visible. A single panel navigation system, image-accompanied Likes, Friendship Page previews …

Discussion: Computerworld, Digital Trends and Yahoo! News

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

Loopt 4.0: Redesigned, Facebook-Heavy, And Location-Based Texting — Much has already been written about how Loopt was perhaps a bit too early to the location game for their own good. But that doesn't mean they're not out there still trying new things to keep their over 4 million users and entice new ones to join.

Discussion: GigaOM, VentureBeat and IntoMobile

Tony Romm / The Politico:

White House to continue copyright crackdown — The Obama administration is just getting started in its mission to shut down rogue websites that illegally share copyrighted content such as movies and music. — The White House's intellectual property czar, Victoria Espinel …

Larry Dignan / CNET News:

Cisco, BMC forge cloud infrastructure partnership — Cisco and BMC Software said today they are expanding their partnership to enable telecommunications companies to offer multi-tenant cloud-computing services. — Under the terms of the alliance, BMC and Cisco will sync product development road maps …

Discussion: eWeek, Fortune, MSDN Blogs, ZDNet and Erictric

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