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12:45 AM ET, January 4, 2011

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Steven M. Davidoff / DealBook:
Facebook and the 500-Person Threshold  —  Goldman Sachs's investment in Facebook once again raises the issue of whether the Securities and Exchange Commission will force the social networking company into an initial public offering.  In particular, this issue arises because of the special purpose vehicle …
RELATED:
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.
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 …
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 …
Donya Blaze / WebNewser:
Marissa Mayer on Google's Failed Groupon Bid  —  After incessant buzz that Google was looking to buy Groupon, word finally came that the fast-growing “deal of the day” company had turned the tech giant down.  So, does that mean Google might launch its own coupon-type service instead?
Lydia Dishmantoday / Fast Company:
Q&A Site Quora Builds Buzz With A-List Answerers  —  It's not just what gets answered here, but who's doing the answering.  No matter what your question, Charlie Cheever, Adam D'Angelo, and the Quora team are confident you'll find an expert answer on their site.
Discussion: Twittercism and TechCrunch
RELATED:
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Quora Fact-Checks Quora On User Milestone
Andrew Wallenstein / paidContent:
New iTunes Features Aim To Outdo DVD  —  Some of the coolest so-called “extras” embedded only on the iTunes' version of several recent film releases from Sony (NYSE: SNE) Pictures aren't even mentioned in their promotional materials.  That's because Sony Pictures Home Entertainment …
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, Stage Two and Mediaite
Paul Buchheit:
Angel investing, my first three years  —  I started investing in startups with the assumption that I don't know what I'm doing (which is always true), but that the only way to actually learn anything is through experience.  Therefore, my goal was to invest in a variety of startups …
Discussion: VentureBeat and TechCrunch, Thanks:louisgray
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
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 …
Byron Acohido / The Last Watchdog:
Google discloses IE ‘cross fuzz’ flaw before Microsoft can issue patch  —  For the second time in four months, a Google researcher has publicly revealed a fresh security flaw in Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser.  —  In doing so this past weekend, Google researcher Michal Zalewski flatly declined …
Discussion: PC Magazine, CNET News and V3.co.uk
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
Reddit Has Banner Year, Boasts 232% Traffic Growth  —  Social news site Reddit has just posted some interesting statistics on a remarkable 2010 filled with traffic spikes and user engagement growth.  Most notable?  The jump in pageviews from 250 million in January of 2010 to 829 million in December of 2010, a 232% growth.
Discussion: ReadWriteWeb, VentureBeat and Mashable!
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 …
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.
Luke Plunkett / Kotaku:
Hacker Claims To Have The PS3's Front Door Keys  —  Famed hacker George “GeoHot” Hotz, who among other things helped crack the iPhone, reckons he's found what are essentially the keys to the PlayStation 3.  And has posted them online for the world to see.  —  While a group claimed last week …
Greg Bensinger / Bloomberg:
Sprint Declines to Buy Clearwire Debt Before Deadline  —  Jan. 3 (Bloomberg) — Sprint Nextel Corp., the third- largest U.S. mobile-phone carrier, said it chose not to buy debt from partner Clearwire Corp., which is trying to raise capital to avoid running out of cash.
Discussion: IntoMobile and FierceWireless
Andy Kessler / Wall Street Journal:
How Videogames Are Changing the Economy  —  From Silicon Valley to China to media, they are leading the next productivity revolution.  So hug a geek today.  —  This fall, the Chinese National University of Defense Technology announced that it had created the world's fastest supercomputer …
Discussion: Techdirt
Electronista:
Study: 40% of iPad owners have Kindles too  —  Despite stereotypes, almost half of iPad owners also have a Kindle at the same time, JPMorgan found in a new study.  About 40 percent have Amazon's e-reader, and another 23 percent still plan to buy one in the next year.
Discussion: TechCrunch and SAI
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
J.P. Morgan: Global E-Commerce Revenue To Grow By 19 Percent In 2011 To $680B  —  With e-commerce spending performing well over the past holiday season, retailers are hoping this trend will continue into 2011.  J.P. Morgan senior analyst Imran Kahn has released his annual report forecasting trends …
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, Soshable and WebProNews, Thanks:martinsfp
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.
Horace Dediu / asymco:
How sticky is Android?  —  There is an assumption floating around the debates in this and other forums that the “battle” between mobile platforms is a land grab.  The unspoken implication of this assumption is that once a user is captured she is permanently locked into the chosen platform never …
Tomio Geron / Venture Capital Dispatch:
New Investment Fund Values Twitter At $4.1 Billion  —  Facebook Inc. is the current crown jewel for investors seeking to own a piece of a high-flying, privately held Internet company, as shown by Goldman Sachs' decision to set up an investment vehicle for its clients to buy shares at a $50 billion valuation.
Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:
Steve Case's New Soapbox for Defending AOL: Quora  —  Steve Case, the founder of America Online and the architect of the most disastrous technology merger of all time — the $165-billion combination of AOL and Time Warner in January 2000 — has made it clear at various points over the years …
Discussion: Steve Case on Quora, Thanks:mathewi
 
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 More Items: 
Joe Mullin / paidContent:
Wal-Mart Could Pay $40 Million To Settle Claims It Colluded With Netflix
Stefan Krempl / The H Security:
27C3: danger lurks in PDF documents
Discussion: Help Net Security
Tim Conneally / BetaNews:
Motorola's big split takes place tomorrow
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Time For Google To Leave Italy? …
Discussion: Search Engine Land
Serena Saitto / Bloomberg:
Technology Takeovers May Pick Up as IBM, HP Push Into the Cloud
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft Blog:
Microsoft: Missing Hotmail e-mails are back
 Earlier Items: 
Caroline McCarthy / The Social:
Assessing the fate of the ‘Facebook Way’
Discussion: AOL News
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Digg Founder Kevin Rose Launches Private Newsletter Called Foundation
Richard Lawler / Engadget:
Vizio details specs on VIA Tablet and VIA Phone, reveals VIA Plus is Google TV
Roger Cheng / Wall Street Journal:
Verizon Wireless to Showcase Google-Powered 4G Phones