Top Items:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
AOL Acquires Personal Profile Startup About.Me — Personal profile startup About.me launched publicly, oh, all of four days ago. And, boom. Today AOL (our parent company), will announce that they've acquired the company. It will become part of the consumer applications group, led by AOL exec Brad Garlinghouse.
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Tony Conrad / Tony Conrad's Photo Blog:
Booyah! — Ryan, Tim and I are thrilled to announce that about.me has been acquired by Aol. Whereto begin, there is so much to say but we'll try to be informative, yet brief for today's ‘get it now, read it fast, tweet it’ internet reader. — We founded about.me so that any of us …
Discussion:
TECH cocktail, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Early Stage Capital, Pulse2, NewEnterprise and SAI
Al Franken / The Huffington Post:
The Most Important Free Speech Issue of Our Time — This Tuesday is an important day in the fight to save the Internet. As a source of innovation, an engine of our economy, and a forum for our political discourse, the Internet can only work if it's a truly level playing field.
Discussion:
CNN, GigaOM and Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim
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Cecilia Kang / Post Tech:
FCC expected to pass net neutrality rules
FCC expected to pass net neutrality rules
Discussion:
Forbes, Media Decoder, GigaOM, CNET News, PC World, paidContent, Gawker, Wall Street Journal and DSLreports
Tim Bray / Android Developers Blog:
It's not “rooting”, it's openness — “Nexus S has been rooted, let the madness commence!” proclaims Engadget. “This is only possible because Android's security is crap and it's exploited easily to gain root priviledges [sic]” adds a commenter. You'll have to excuse me if I strongly disagree.
Discussion:
Electronista, PC Magazine, Droid Life, pocketnow.com, PreCentral.net, Android Community, 901am, Android Phone Fans, IntoMobile and parislemon
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MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Is Google In A Dream World? If So, Just How Close To Limbo Are They? — “Well dreams, they feel real while we're in them, right? It's only when we wake up that we realize something was actually strange.” — Cobb's quote from Inception reminds me of something. Something going on right now, seemingly all around us.
Discussion:
parislemon, GigaOM and Macgasm
Robin Schriebman / Gmail Blog:
Free calling in Gmail extended through 2011 — When we launched calling in Gmail back in August, we wanted it to be easy and affordable, so we made calls to the U.S. and Canada free for the rest of 2010. In the spirit of holiday giving and to help people keep in touch in the new year, we're extending free calling for all of 2011.
Federico Viticci / MacStories:
Apple Launches iAd Producer - HTML & CSS Layout App for iAds — A few minutes ago Apple launched a new app for the Mac called iAd Producer which is aimed at developers and designers willing to create visually rich, interactive iAds. iAd Producer “automatically manages the HTML5 …
Discussion:
Computerworld, AppleInsider, ClickZ, Erictric, Macgasm, 9 to 5 Mac, Download Squad and MacRumors, Thanks:viticci
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Kim-Mai Cutler / Inside Facebook:
After Critiquing Facebook, Google Researcher Paul Adams Joins It — Paul Adams, the Google user experience researcher who critiqued the social network in a lengthy report over the summer, is leaving the search company to join Facebook. His report is said to have accelerated the Groups product …
Discussion:
NetworkEffect, TechCrunch and paidContent
Wall Street Journal:
SEC Probes Hurd Exit From H-P — The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the circumstances surrounding Mark Hurd's departure from Hewlett-Packard Co., in a broad inquiry that includes claims that the former chief executive shared inside information about an acquisition, people familiar with the matter said.
Discussion:
New York Times, eWeek, PC World, CNET News, Between the Lines Blog, SAI and Electronista
Staska / Unwired View:
Holy crap! Nokia is in talks with Microsoft about Windows Phone devices?! — Holy crap! — I don't believe I'm writing this, especially after publicly ridiculing even idea of such a thing for a year now. But given the source of the info... Here it goes- in his weekly op-ed Mobile …
Discussion:
eWeek, PC Magazine, MobileCrunch, PC World, BGR, Electronista, The Next Web, IntoMobile, msnbc.com, WinRumors, Pulse2, WPCentral.com, Gadget Lab, CNET News, I4U News, SiliconANGLE, VentureBeat, Internet2Go, Neowin.net, 9 to 5 Mac, Gearlog, GT Mobiles, PhoneArena, Softpedia News, SAI, Geek.com, Examiner, Between the Lines Blog, Phones Review, ArcticStartup Posts, WinBeta, GottaBeMobile, SlashGear, Gizmodo, Smartphones … and PhoneReport v2.0, Thanks:uvstaska
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Ryan Kim / GigaOM:
Nokia and Microsoft Looks Like a Desperate Hook Up
Nokia and Microsoft Looks Like a Desperate Hook Up
Discussion:
mocoNews, internetnews.com, Forbes, LAPTOP Magazine, The Nokia Blog, eWeek, Yahoo! News and TechFlash
Joe Maller:
iTunes slowdowns with Google DNS — Last night we tried to rent an iTunes movie on our newish Apple TV. Instead of starting right away, the Apple TV said it would be 2+ hours before we could start watching. I've got a healthy 15-20Mb/s connection and a clean wire to the Apple TV, so this shouldn't be happening.
Discussion:
TUAW, AppleInsider, Ultrasn0w, TiPb, Macgasm and The Apple Core Blog
Elizabeth Weingarten / The Atlantic Online:
Forget Journalism School and Enroll in Groupon Academy — It's a Friday afternoon and Jane Flotte is getting a little tired of spa treatments. “Today I've written a lot of salon deals,” the Groupon employee said. “And I'm getting kind of sick of talking about facials.”
Discussion:
GigaOM, Gawker and broadstuff, more at Mediagazer »
Reed Hastings / Seeking Alpha:
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings Responds to Whitney Tilson: Cover Your Short Position. Now. — A great investor and a wonderful human being, Whitney Tilson recently posted an article about why he is short Netflix (NFLX). Whitney, who is a major co-donor with me to charter public schools like KIPP …
Discussion:
ITworld.com, Digits, TechCrunch, Media Money …, Digital Society, IR Web Report, Six Kids and a Full Time Job, GigaOM, SAI and Tech Trader Daily
John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
Title Junk — The recent hubbub about Delicious got me thinking about bookmarking in general, and brought to mind a long-standing irritation: poorly designed web page titles. — Here's an example that I bookmarked last night: Roger Ebert's 1968 review of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The title of that web page is:
Discussion:
Wireless Security Cameras
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
Adobe Has Its First $1 Billion Quarter, Revenue Up 33% — Software maker Adobe has once again posted record revenue results this quarter, surpassing the $1 billion milestone for the first time. Adobe revenue for the fourth quarter of 2010 was $1.008 billion versus $757.3 million reported …
Discussion:
Business Wire, Forbes and Tech Trader Daily
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Royal Pingdom:
The most reliable (and unreliable) blogging services on the Web — Blogging services have been around for a long time, with pioneers like Blogger paving the way for WordPress.com and more recent arrivals like Tumblr and Posterous. There are millions upon millions of blogs out there, many of them residing on these services.
Discussion:
Techie Buzz, SocialTimes.com, Softpedia News, TechSpot, Network World, Data Center Knowledge, louisgray.com and TechCrunch
Wall Street Journal:
Hulu Puts IPO Idea on Back Burner, Focuses on Pay Video — Online video site Hulu LLC has taken off the table the idea of going public, at least for now, and may consider other financing options, people familiar with the matter said. — Hulu also is mulling new subscription plans …
Discussion:
SAI and Company Town
Oliver Chiang / SelectStart:
Facebook Should Be In China, Says Baidu — Image by Getty Images North America via @daylife — As I reported earlier, Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg has begun his trip in China, with a stop by top Chinese search engine Baidu in Beijing. Though Baidu's director of international communications Kaiser Kuo …
Discussion:
Inside Facebook, WebProNews, Gawker and Black Web 2.0
Thomas E. Weber / The Daily Beast:
Cracking the New York Times Popularity Code — Just how many people does it take to propel a story onto the Times' influential most-emailed list? And can it be gamed? Thomas E. Weber finds the answers. — The most-emailed articles list on the New York Times website …
Discussion:
ReadWriteWeb and Geekosystem, more at Mediagazer »
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
1 Billion Peoples' Interests Now Tracked by AddThis — AddThis, one of the leading link sharing services used by sites all around the web (including this one), announced today that it now offers publishers information about the types of interests their readers and content sharers have demonstrated on the other sites they have visited.
Discussion:
The Next Web, AddThis and SocialTimes.com