Techmeme: Apple's market cap tops $300 billion (Philip Elmer-DeWitt/Fortune)

6:55 PM ET, January 3, 2011

Top Items:

Goldman Offering Clients a Chance to Invest in Facebook — Updated — Goldman Sachs has reached out to its wealthy private clients, offering them a chance to invest in Facebook, the hot social networking giant that is considering a possible public offering in 2012, according to people familiar with the matter.

John Cassidy / Rational Irrationality:

Facebook-Goldman: Where Is the S.E.C.? — Happy New Year everybody. I'm working on a post about the economic prospects for 2011, but, first-up, a quick memo to Mary Schapiro, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission: Mary, once again the boys and girls at Goldman Sachs appear …

Discussion: SAI, DealBook, VatorNews, Irregular Enterprise Blog, zero hedge and The Huffington Post

Henry Blodget / SAI:

Goldman Sachs Clients Can Invest In Facebook's IPO — But You Can't — Aren't you glad the government fixed the IPO market? — In the old days (the 1990s), small companies could sell their stock in the public markets at reasonable cost, just like big companies.

Discussion: Kevin Burton's NEW FeedBlog, Felix Salmon and Adotas

Peter Lattman / DealBook:
Why Facebook Is Such a Crucial Friend for Goldman

Discussion: Mediaite and Inside Facebook

Jennifer Valentino-DeVries / Digits:
Facebook's Valuation: By the Numbers

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, DealBook, SAI and NBC Bay Area

Nielsen Wire:

Apple Leads Smartphone Race, while Android Attracts Most Recent Customers — The race for the lead in U.S. smartphone operating system (OS) consumer market share is tighter than it has ever been. According to November data from The Nielsen Company, the popularity of the Android OS among …

Ingrid Lunden / mocoNews:
Android's Gaining Fast, So What Can Apple And RIM Do To Compete?

Discussion: Search Engine Land, GigaOM, Computerworld, CIOInsight, MacDailyNews, Electronista, iLounge and BGR

Nick Farrell / Inquirer:

Intel's Sandy Bridge sucks up to Hollywood with DRM — CHIPMAKER Intel has cut a deal with Hollywood in its Sandy Bridge chips to put digital restrictions management (DRM) in them. — Intel's sellout to the big media companies makes it ‘safer’ for Hollywood studios to offer premium movies …

Discussion: GigaOM, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Pulse2, FierceIPTV and TG Daily, more at Mediagazer »

Joanna Stern / Engadget:
Intel's 2nd Generation Core processor family announced, includes 29 …

Discussion: The Register, BetaNews, HotHardware.com News, AnandTech, TUAW, Electronista, ZDNet, The Tech Report, dailywireless.org, TechEye, Inquirer and Softpedia News

Andrew Munchbach / BGR:

Best Buy's new ‘Buy Back’ program to launch January 5th for phones, laptops, tablets, and TVs — One of our trusted Best Buy sources has come through with several documents that provide additional details on the retailer's new Buy Back program. The new protection plan …

Discussion: Pulse2, PhoneDog.com, Electronista, Thoughts from the Sidelines, Techland and IntoMobile

Jeff Atwood / Coding Horror:

Trouble In the House of Google — Let's look at where stackoverflow.com traffic came from for the year of 2010. — When 88.2% of all traffic for your website comes from a single source, criticizing that single source feels ... risky. And perhaps a bit churlish, like looking a gift horse in the mouth …

Discussion: Anil Dash

Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Fortune:

Apple's market cap tops $300 billion — Giving ExxonMobil a run for its money in the race to be the world's most valuable company — In a broad 2011 rally that pushed the Dow up nearly a point in mid-morning trading Monday, Apple (AAPL) popped more than $7 (2.25%) to hit new record intraday highs …

Discussion: Tech Check, BGR, Pulse2, TUAW, Mashable!, 9 to 5 Mac and The Huffington Post

Dave Winer / Scripting News:

What will become of Twitter? — The current crop of tech writers in Silicon Valley are making the mistake tech writers always make. They don't understand how the industry loops, so they misread the signs. It's happening as they try to understand the connection between RSS and Twitter.

more at Mediagazer »

Roger Cheng / Wall Street Journal:

Verizon Wireless to Showcase Google-Powered 4G Phones — Verizon Wireless is expected this week to show off several devices powered by Google Inc. software for its new 4G network, underscoring the importance of the two companies' relationship even as speculation mounts that Verizon will get to offer the iPhone this year.

Discussion: eWeek, ReadWriteWeb, SAI, Stage Two, Android Phone Fans, CNET News, Droid Life, FierceWireless, Android News, Rumours … and Erictric

Kara Swisher / BoomTown:

Exclusive: News Corp. Online Gaming Head Sean Ryan to Head Facebook's Social Gaming Partnerships — Sean Ryan (pictured here), who arrived at News Corp. mid-year to set up a new online gaming unit, is moving to Facebook to head partnerships at its key gaming platform, according to sources.

Discussion: VatorNews, paidContent, VentureBeat and ReadWriteWeb

Richard Lawler / Engadget:

Vizio details specs on VIA Tablet and VIA Phone, reveals VIA Plus is Google TV — Vizio has unveiled more about its plans for the new year which seem to consist largely of a huge push on Android, from the 4-inch phone and 8-inch tablet running a (still unspecified) flavor on their 1 GHz processors …

Discussion: eWeek, Beet.TV, PR Newswire, GigaOM, LAPTOP Magazine, Softpedia News, Liliputing, VentureBeat, msnbc.com, paidContent, ITworld.com, Switched, Yahoo! News and IntoMobile

Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:

Digg Founder Kevin Rose Launches Private Newsletter Called Foundation — I bet you didn't know that Twitter was almost named Jittter or Twitch. Well, now you will. — Last year Digg founder Kevin Rose was mulling over a new video show called fforward. Fforward never launched, but the idea did change into something else.

Discussion: Kevin Rose, VentureBeat and Pulse2

Matt Brian / The Next Web:

Did StumbleUpon just pass Facebook for social media traffic? — According to analytics service Statcounter, Stumbleupon has surpassed Facebook to become the number one website for generating social media traffic in the U.S, accounting for 43.34% of the market as January 2011 commenced.

Discussion: SelectStart and Soshable, Thanks:martinsfp

Reuters:

Apple iPhone alarm woes continue across the globe — (Reuters) - Some iPhone users across the globe complained of malfunctioning alarms on the first working day of 2011, even after Apple reassured users that its phones' built-in clocks will work from Monday.

Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft Blog:

Microsoft: Missing Hotmail e-mails are back — Over the past weekend, a number of Hotmail users reported that their Hotmail messages in various folders were gone. (And were, unsurprisingly, none too happy about it.) — Microsoft officials said on January 3 that the company had identified the cause of the problem and fixed it.

Discussion: The Windows Blog, Microsoft Watch, Computerworld, Associated Press, The Next Web, TechFlash, Ars Technica, L.A. Times Tech Blog, eWeek, TG Daily and Download Squad

Jay Yarow / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:

Apple Is Due For A (Relatively) Boring 2011 — Top Apple analyst Gene Munster just released his roadmap for Apple in 2011, and we have to say it looks relatively snoozy. — Compared to last year when Apple had an amazing year with the iPad, iPhone 4, Apple TV, and redesigned MacBook Air …

Discussion: Mobilized, Fortune, Between the Lines Blog, AppleInsider, BGR, Know Your Cell, Tech Trader Daily, TG Daily, 9 to 5 Mac and Mobile Marketing Watch

Jessi Hempel / Fortune:

What the hell is going on with TV? — Google TV. Xbox. Apple TV. Roku. All these gadgets promise to make television more like the web. There's just one hitch: None of them are ready for primetime. — By Jessi Hempel, senior writer — You don't have to wait for Thursday nights to watch The Office these days.

Discussion: VentureBeat and Mediaite

Serena Saitto / Bloomberg:

Technology Takeovers May Pick Up as IBM, HP Push Into the Cloud — Jan. 3 (Bloomberg) — Technology companies that fueled more than $100 billion in acquisitions last year are likely to spend more in 2011 in a race to harness surging demand for cloud computing and security services.

Joe Mullin / paidContent:

Wal-Mart Could Pay $40 Million To Settle Claims It Colluded With Netflix — Did Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) and Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) illegally divide up the DVD market back in 2005? Wal-Mart has denied the allegations, but the retail giant is now set to cut a check—for anywhere from $29 million to $40 million—to make them go away.

Mike Masnick / Techdirt:

Time For Google To Leave Italy? Italy Announces That YouTube Responsible For All Content — Not this again. The Italian government has long had trouble comprehending how YouTube is simply a platform for users. Of course, some might say this is willful ignorance.

Discussion: Search Engine Land

Stefan Krempl / The H Security:

27C3: danger lurks in PDF documents — At the 27th Chaos Communication Congress (27C3) in Berlin, security researcher Julia Wolf of US company FireEye pointed out numerous, previously hardly known, security problems in connection with Adobe's PDF standard. For instance, a PDF can reportedly contain …

Discussion: Help Net Security

Chris Matyszczyk / CNET News:

Apple support company sues customer for complaining — Returning to my inbox after the New Year's break, I found it full of Greeks bearing rifts. — The national press, the tech blogosphere, even normal, ordinary human beings on Twitter are railing against Systemgraph …

Discussion: TUAW and MacNN

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