Techmeme: Steve Case's New Soapbox for Defending AOL: Quora (Mathew Ingram/GigaOM)

8:45 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, The Atlantic Online, Deal Journal, DealBook, zero hedge, VatorNews 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: Deal Journal, Adotas, Kevin Burton's NEW FeedBlog and Felix Salmon

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

Discussion: Mediaite

Steven M. Davidoff / DealBook:
Facebook and the 500-Person Threshold

Discussion: Mashable!

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

Discussion: Deal Journal and Wall Street Journal

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

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: VatorNews, Technologizer, SlashGear, PhoneDog.com, Thoughts from the Sidelines, Techland, IntoMobile, Pulse2 and Electronista

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: Wall Street Journal, Reuters, GigaOM, Pulse2, FierceIPTV and GMSV, more at Mediagazer »

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

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

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?

Discussion: Fortune, New York Magazine and Deal Journal

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

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: TechCrunch, Forbes, BGR, Tech Check, Mashable!, Pulse2, The Huffington Post, TUAW, 9 to 5 Mac, AOL News and MacRumors

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 »

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: Inside Social Games, VatorNews, paidContent, VentureBeat and ReadWriteWeb

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, Droid Life, Android Phone Fans, SAI, Stage Two, CNET News, FierceWireless, Android News, Rumours …, Erictric, ReadWriteWeb and Light Reading

Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:

Reddit Has Banner Year, Boasts 232% Traffic Growth — Social news site Reddit has just posted some interesting statistics on it's banner 2010 filled with traffic 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.

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

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

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

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

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, Pulse2 and Laughing Squid

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

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: Macworld, TUAW and MacNN

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

Tim Conneally / BetaNews:

Motorola's big split takes place tomorrow — After trading closes down today, Motorola Incorporated is expected to begin distributing shares of its newly spun-off mobile devices company known as Motorola Mobility (MMI). This split has been in preparatory stages for the last three years …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal and ITworld.com

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CIO challenge 5: Can we find an effective solution that also minimizes operational costs? — Welcome to the next and final installment of our CIO series! After what feels like a thousand cups of coffee …

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