Techmeme: YouTube Is Said to Be in Talks to Buy Next New Networks (New York Times)

7:50 PM ET, December 15, 2010

Top Items:

Kara Swisher / BoomTown:

Exclusive: Twitter Raises $200 Million at $3.7 Billion Valuation; Adds McCue and Rosenblatt to Board — Twitter has completed its latest round of funding-$200 million at a $3.7 billion valuation-with Kleiner Perkins as the lead investor, according to sources familiar with the situation.

Discussion: SAI, Fast Company, VentureBeat, ReadWriteWeb, paidContent, The Atlantic Online, alarm:clock, TechCrunch, BGR, PE Hub Blog, SiliconANGLE and The Next Web, more at Mediagazer »

Dick Costolo / Twitter Blog:

Meaningful Growth — In the past 12 months, Twitter users sent an astonishing 25 billion Tweets and we added more than 100 million new registered accounts. In that time, our team has grown from 130 people to more than 350 today. We're thankful for every Tweet, every account …

Discussion: GigaOM, L.A. Times Tech Blog, Between the Lines Blog, SAI, ITworld.com, Bits, Mashable!, ClickZ, CNET News and SelectStart

Lev Grossman / Time:

Person of the Year 2010: Mark Zuckerberg — On the afternoon of Nov. 16, 2010, Mark Zuckerberg was leading a meeting in the Aquarium, one of Facebook's conference rooms, so named because it's in the middle of a huge work space and has glass walls on three sides so everybody can see in.

Richi Jennings / Computerworld:
In snub to WikiLeaks, Zuckerberg wins TIME Person of Year 2010

Discussion: TechCrunch, GMSV, The Social, ReadWriteWeb, SAI and AOL News

Larry Yang / The Official Google TV Blog:

What's new with Google TV? — It's been two months since the first Google TV device went on sale. Since then, we have been hard at work thinking about how we can make the platform even better for our users. In fact, one of the greatest things about Google TV is that it comes with free …

Thomas Hawk / Thomas Hawk Digital Connection:

An Open Letter to Carol Bartz, CEO Yahoo Inc. — I just finished reading your demoralizing letter regarding recent layoffs at Yahoo over at All Things Digital. Although I'm only a Yahoo user, not an employee, I am a heavy user of your Flickr product — a product that I've enjoyed and loved for many years now.

Kara Swisher / BoomTown:

Here's Carol Bartz's Internal Layoff Memo to Beleaguered Yahoo Troops — It's Yahoo, it's BoomTown and so it's an internal memo from CEO Carol Bartz to staff about the layoffs at the Silicon Valley Internet giant yesterday. — Here it is:

Discussion: SAI

New York Times:

YouTube Is Said to Be in Talks to Buy Next New Networks — SAN FRANCISCO — YouTube, the video site owned by Google, is in talks to buy Next New Networks, a Web video production company, according to two people briefed on the discussions. The acquisition would be YouTube's first major foray …

Discussion: GigaOM, Fast Company, ReadWriteWeb, paidContent, CNET News, Techland and SAI, more at Mediagazer »

Milo Medin / The Official Google Blog:

An update on Google Fiber — Earlier this year we announced an experiment we hope will help make Internet access better and faster for everyone: to provide a community with ultra high-speed broadband, 100 times faster than what most people have access to today.

Discussion: Computerworld, Digital Trends, Mercury News, Erictric, Ars Technica, DSLreports, GigaOM, 901am, CNET News, TechCrunch, SlashGear, SAI, Electronista and BaltTech

Jason L. Wright / MARC:

Allegations regarding OpenBSD IPSEC — Every urban lengend is made more real by the inclusion of real names, dates, and times. Gregory Perry's email falls into this category. I cannot fathom his motivation for writing such falsehood (delusions of grandeur or a self-promotion attempt perhaps?)

Discussion: Buleyean String and Digital Society

Theo de Raadt / MARC:
Allegations regarding OpenBSD IPSEC

Greg Sterling / Search Engine Land:

Bing Releases Huge Set of Upgrades: Maps, Local, Mobile, Travel, Image Search — At the Bing Search event in San Francisco today, Microsoft unveiled a dizzying array of nearly across-the-board updates and improvements for Bing online and mobile apps. Some are minor and some are more significant.

Discussion: Bing, TechCrunch, Lifehacker, IntoMobile, All about Microsoft Blog, GigaOM, Electronista and Screenwerk

Matt McGee / Search Engine Land:
Bing Expands Use Of Facebook ‘Likes’ In Search Results

Discussion: Bing, eWeek, Mobilized, CNET News and WinRumors

Julie Bosman / New York Times:

E-Readers With Color Open Door for Pictures — Millions of consumers have embraced black-and-white e-readers like the Kindle for reading simple novels or nonfiction — but books with color illustrations have generally remained better read in print. — Now publishers are making headway …

Discussion: Computerworld, The Toybox Blog, PC World, GigaOM, 9 to 5 Mac and MacRumors

Mark Gurman / 9 to 5 Mac:
Canadian government approves of iBookstore, Canadian works en route

Discussion: Macworld, pch.gc.ca and GigaOM

Google Chrome Blog:

Chrome is Ready for Business — When we announced that Chrome is now used by over 120 million users and showed off some of its latest features last week, we saw a tremendous amount of excitement from both users and businesses. Many businesses asked how they can get the benefits of increased security …

Discussion: PC World, Computerworld, Chromium Blog, internetnews.com, ReadWriteWeb, The Register, Between the Lines Blog, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Fast Company, CNET News, GigaOM, BetaNews, Techie Buzz and Open Source Blog

Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft Blog:

Tipsters: Windows Phone 7 ‘Mango’ release to add HTML 5 support — In addition to talking up Windows tablets and slates at the January Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Microsoft execs also are expected to use the conference to give another push to Windows Phone 7.

Discussion: PhoneDog.com, WinRumors, MobileCrunch, Neowin.net, SlashGear, The Next Web, Shoutpedia, Newlaunches.com, pocketnow.com, IntoMobile, MobileTechWorld, Engadget, CNET News, Softpedia News, Electronista, WPCentral.com and WMPoweruser.com

Ben Parr / Mashable!:

Facebook Brings Facial Recognition to Photo Tagging — Facebook Photos, one of the social network's most popular features, is getting a big and potentially controversial upgrade with a new feature that automatically suggests who users should tag in photos based on facial recognition technology.

Discussion: Facebook Blog, The Social, TechCrunch and The Next Web

Matt Kelly / Facebook Blog:

Reality TV for the Rest of Us — We've all been there—spending hours in front of the TV, getting lost clicking through hundreds of channels, just to realize that you haven't really watched anything at all. The best way to stay out of the TV weeds is to get recommendations from your friends …

Discussion: All Facebook, TechCrunch, L.A. Times Tech Blog, Bits, Clicker Blog, The Next Web, Techie Buzz, MediaFile, Inside Facebook, NetworkEffect and SAI

Mike Melanson / ReadWriteWeb:
Facebook Friends Recommend Movies, Music, Food & Now T.V. with Clicker

Discussion: Mashable!

Karen Parker / Google Research Blog:

Letting everyone do great things with App Inventor — In July, we announced App Inventor for Android, a Google Labs experiment that makes it easier for people to access the capabilities of their Android phone and create apps for their personal use. We were delighted (and honestly a bit overwhelmed! …

Discussion: Erictric, ReadWriteWeb, Android Phone Fans, mobiputing and AndroidGuys

Matt Rosoff / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:

Google Wanted To Buy Spotify, But Internal Fighting Stopped It — Google was close to buying a subscription-based streaming music service - either Spotify or Rhapsody, according to a source with knowledge of Google's music plans. — But there were three different groups vying for control …

Discussion: PC World, Evolver.fm, IntoMobile, 9 to 5 Mac and Electronista

Kate Rose / YouTube Blog:

Home sweet Homepage — Starting today, you might notice a button on YouTube.com asking if you want to check out an experimental homepage we've been working on. It's an opt-in experiment, offering a homepage that has a real emphasis on a personalized video browsing and watching experience.

Discussion: Mashable!

Jacqui Cheng / Ars Technica:

Amazon's latest Kindle deletion: erotic, incest-themed fiction — Amazon may be in the process of stirring up some more trouble for itself thanks to reports that the company is deleting certain kinds of erotica from both the online store and users' devices.

Discussion: Techdirt, SAI, Macworld, Newlaunches.com and Geekosystem

Mikael Ricknäs / Computerworld:

Next-gen HSPA will offer 650Mbit/sec., says T-Mobile USA — IDG News Service - Mobile broadband based on HSPA (High-Speed Packet Access) will in the future be able to offer download speeds of more than 650M bps, T-Mobile USA and Nokia Siemens Networks said Wednesday.

Discussion: Electronista, TechEye, Engadget, FierceWireless and IntoMobile

Joseph Galante / Bloomberg:

EBay Buys Critical Path Software, Doubling Size of Mobile Team — Dec. 15 (Bloomberg) — EBay Inc. acquired Critical Path Software Inc., a developer of smartphone applications, to accelerate its lead in mobile commerce. — The acquisition doubles the size of EBay's mobile team …

Discussion: Business Wire, mocoNews, Computerworld, eMoney, TechCrunch, IntoMobile and Tech Trader Daily

Stephen Shankland / CNET News:

Microsoft gives Firefox an H.264 video boost — Mozilla is outspoken in its dislike of the patent-encumbered video technology called H.264, but Microsoft, an H.264 fan, is providing a plug-in that will let Windows 7 users use it anyway. — H.264 is a codec—technology to encode and decode video …

Discussion: Port 25, eWeek, WinRumors and Softpedia News

Craig Labovitz / Arbor Networks Security:

The Internet Goes to War — If you weren't paying attention last week, the Internet has gone to war. — ABC News proclaimed “Welcome to Infowar, Version 1.0″. Fox warned of the “growing data war”. And the Guardian provided minute by minute coverage on the opening salvos of this first “Internet-wide Cyber War”.

Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:

Blekko Goes Social, Now Lets You Search Sites Your Friends Have ‘Liked’ On Facebook — As of today search engine Blekko has made search a little bit more social. Now the search engine lets you login through Facebook Connect and, using Facebook API data, shows you what sites your friends …

Discussion: Skrentablog

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