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1:40 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.
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 …
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 …
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
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
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 …
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
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 …
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.
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
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.
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 …
Wall Street Journal:
Myspace Prepares Downsizing, Layoffs  —  News Corp.'s Myspace is preparing to disclose a dramatic downsizing of its business, according to people familiar with the matter.  —  One person familiar with the matter said the site could lay off between a third and a half of its roughly 1,100 employees.
Discussion: Reuters, Variety, Company Town and CNBC
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 …
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
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.
Sascha Segan / PC Magazine:
Honeycomb to Require Powerful Processor, Screen: OEM  —  Google's new Android Honeycomb tablet OS will require a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor to run properly, said Bobby Cha, managing director of Korean consumer electronics firm Enspert.  —  That means that many existing Android tablets …
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
 
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 More Items: 
Gregg Keizer / Computerworld:
Windows 7 breaks 20% share barrier
Discussion: Electronista
Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:
Steve Case's New Soapbox for Defending AOL: Quora
Discussion: Steve Case on Quora, Thanks:mathewi
Greg Bensinger / Bloomberg:
Sprint Declines to Buy Clearwire Debt Before Deadline
Discussion: IntoMobile and FierceWireless
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
Matt Brian / The Next Web:
Did StumbleUpon just pass Facebook for social media traffic?
Discussion: SelectStart, Soshable and WebProNews, Thanks:martinsfp
Tim Conneally / BetaNews:
Motorola's big split takes place tomorrow
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Time For Google To Leave Italy? …
Discussion: Engadget and Search Engine Land
 Earlier Items: 
Serena Saitto / Bloomberg:
Technology Takeovers May Pick Up as IBM, HP Push Into the Cloud
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Exclusive: News Corp. Online Gaming Head Sean Ryan to Head …
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft Blog:
Microsoft: Missing Hotmail e-mails are back
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Digg Founder Kevin Rose Launches Private Newsletter Called Foundation
Roger Cheng / Wall Street Journal:
Verizon Wireless to Showcase Google-Powered 4G Phones