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.
RELATED:
Tony Conrad / Tony Conrad's Photo Blog:
Booyah! — Ryan, Tim and I are thrilled to announce …
Discussion:
Softpedia News, TECH cocktail, Early Stage Capital, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, SAI and NewEnterprise
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:
TechEye, SlashGear, Financial Times, CNET News, ITworld.com, eWeek, New York Times, Tech Musings, Between the Lines Blog, SAI and Electronista
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:
FM Blog, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, GigaOM, Switched, BetaNews, Technology Liberation Front and Reuters, more at Mediagazer »
RELATED:
Cecilia Kang / Post Tech:
FCC expected to pass net neutrality rules
Discussion:
Media Decoder, Forbes, paidContent, Wall Street Journal, GigaOM, Gawker, CNET News, Computerworld, PC World, DSLreports, NewEnterprise and dailywireless.org
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, PreCentral.net, IntoMobile, Droid Life, pocketnow.com, 901am, PC Magazine, Android Phone Fans, Android Community and parislemon
Surur / WMPoweruser.com:
IDC: Windows Phone 7 marketplace ramping up “faster than Android” — The Windows Phone 7 marketplace is ramping up faster than Android, and even when compared to the iPhone App store (red line) it does not look too bad. (WP7 graph from WP7Applist.com) — We continue to see rather odd stories …
Discussion:
Engadget, The Next Web, TomsTechBlog.com, eWeek, Neowin.net, Computerworld and SAI
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.
Discussion:
GigaOM, SlashGear, ITProPortal, Pulse2, Gadgetell, NetworkEffect, Neowin.net, Softpedia News, Go Rumors, Techie Buzz, TechCrunch, Fortune, Teens in Tech, WebProNews, TechSpot, PC Magazine, SocialTimes.com, Examiner, The Next Web, 901am, Technologizer, Erictric, NewsGrange, Download Squad and Lifehacker
SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:
CHART OF THE DAY: Facebook Revenue Is Not Growing Like Google's Did — Want to get the Chart of The Day before everybody else? Get it in an email. — Facebook is on track to generate $2 billion in sales this year, a nice milestone for the social networking king.
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, Evolver.fm, Otaku, Cedric's blog, Erictric and PC Magazine
Kim-Mai Cutler / Inside Facebook:
After Critiquing Facebook, Google Researcher Paul Adams Joins It — Paul Adams, the Google user experience researcher who critiqued Facebook in a lengthy report over the summer, is leaving the search giant to join them. His report is said to have accelerated the Groups product …
Discussion:
TechCrunch, NetworkEffect, paidContent and internetnews.com
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Fortune:
Steve Jobs is the No. 4 ‘wealth creator’ — Apple's CEO moved up 31 places in Chief Executive magazine's 2010 ranking — Only Priceline's (PCLN) Jeffrey Boyd, Aflac's (AFL) Daniel Amos and Federated Investors' (FII) Christopher Donahue created more wealth in 2010 than Apple's (AAPL) …
Discussion:
Computerworld, TechFlash, MacNN and TechCrunch
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:
Cam.ly Blog and Chicago Sun Times
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
Apple Removes WikiLeaks App From App Store — Looks like an unofficial iPhone and iPad app that let you view WikiLeaks site content and follow the WikiLeaks Twitter account on the go has been removed from the App app store earlier today. The app used to be available here (here's the Google cache).
Discussion:
Pocket-lint, Redmond Pie, Gizmodo, iPhone Download Blog and Phones Review
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Real Estate Site Trulia Acquires Movity — San Francisco real estate site Trulia said it has acquired Movity, a buzzy stealth start-up that searches and aggregates geodata for home buyers and renters, such as noise, crime and pricing, from a variety of sources.
Janko Roettgers / GigaOM:
No Hulu Plus for Your Cable DVR — Hulu Plus is slated to come to TiVo's Premiere DVR soon — but don't expect it to show up on any TiVo devices supplied by cable companies like Suddenlink, Cox or RCN. Rights holders are resisting subscription-based streaming content being placed next …
Discussion:
SlashGear
Mark Gurman / 9 to 5 Mac:
Apple will close Mac OS X downloads site on January 6 — Apple has informed developers of applications and widgets on Apple's downloads website that the site will be closing down come January 6th when the Mac App Store opens for business. Apple believes that the Mac App Store will truly …
Discussion:
SlashGear, TUAW, O'Grady's PowerPage, Macgasm and MacRumors
Audrey Watters / ReadWriteWeb:
One of the “Killer Apps for Android,” Swype Opens Its Beta — Oh, the war of words between iPhone and Android fans. How it has preoccupied us this year. I won't take sides now. I own both. (Don't judge.) But I will say this: if you're an Android user, you might want to go now and join Swype's beta.
Discussion:
Droid Life, Examiner and Android Community
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:
CNET News, AppleInsider, SlashGear, TUAW, PadGadget, TiPb, MacStories, 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
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:
Mobile Marketing Watch, AppleInsider, SlashGear, Softpedia News, TiPb, Macgasm, 9 to 5 Mac, MacRumors and GigaOM, Thanks:viticci
Verne G. Kopytoff / New York Times:
Skype Looks for a Spot in Offices and Cellphones — SAN FRANCISCO — Skype has become one of the Internet's most popular services — so much so that it is even used as a verb to describe a phone call over the Internet, as in “Skype me.” — The seven-year-old company, however, is still a work in progress on the financial front.
Dan Frommer / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:
Roku CEO: Sales Doubled When Apple TV Launched — When Apple and Google made big moves into the “digital living room” this year, it made sense to assume that business would become a lot harder for Roku. — The Silicon Valley-based company has been selling inexpensive web TV set-top boxes since 2008 …
Discussion:
9 to 5 Mac, BGR, GigaOM, eHomeUpgrade, TUAW, CrunchGear, Gadget Lab, AppleInsider and GMSV, more at Mediagazer »
