Techmeme: Group video calling ready for primetime (Neil Stevens/The Big Blog)

4:55 PM ET, January 6, 2011

Top Items:

Apple's Mac App Store Opens for Business — Apple® today announced that the Mac® App Store℠ is now open for business with more than 1,000 free and paid apps. The Mac App Store brings the revolutionary App Store experience to the Mac, so you can find great new apps …

Richard Gaywood / TUAW:

Mac App Store by the numbers — almost 1,000 apps on Day One — Today's launch of the Mac App Store will doubtless be feeding analyst speculation for some time to come. Developers who choose to work within it gain exposure; users who use it gain frictionless purchasing ability, unobtrusive DRM …

Discussion: Lifehacker, Screenwerk, MacRumors and Daring Fireball

Dave Caolo / TUAW:
Mac App Store pricing of featured apps

Discussion: Switched, SAI, Engadget, The Pocket Cyclone, Shoutpedia and MacStories

Federico Viticci / MacStories:
Apple Releases OS X 10.6.6 and Mac App Store

Discussion: Apple, PC World, Ars Technica, mocoNews, GigaOM, Computerworld, ReadWriteWeb, App Advice, Redmond Pie, RazorianFly, TUAW, Gizmodo and Softpedia News, Thanks:viticci

Tony Bates / The Big Blog:

Skype to acquire Qik — I'm happy to announce that we've entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Qik, a provider of mobile video software and services that let people capture, instantly share and preserve great moments on video from anywhere. Qik has 60 employees …

Discussion: CNET News, eMoney, Qik Blog, ReadWriteWeb, Mashable!, VentureBeat, RCR Unplugged, SlashGear, IntoMobile and Download Squad

SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:

CONFIRMED: Skype To Acquire Qik For $150 Million — Update: A second source just confirmed the news, and told us that with an earnout, the price is $150 million. — Earlier: Internet phone giant Skype has acquired Qik, the service that lets you stream video from your smartphone, for around $100 million, a source tells us.

Discussion: PC World, CNET News, VatorNews, GigaOM, About Skype, TechCrunch, Mobile Marketing Watch, Between the Lines Blog, Disruptive Telephony, Pulse2, dailywireless.org, Gearlog, Geek.com, Tech Musings, LaptopMemo, Android Phone Fans, mocoNews, SlashGear, Erictric, GottaBeMobile, SiliconANGLE and The Next Web, Thanks:binoyxj

Reuters:

Goldman customers get Facebook financials — (Reuters) - Facebook earned $355 million in net income in the first nine months of 2010 on revenue of $1.2 billion, according to documents that Goldman Sachs is providing to clients. — Goldman began hand-delivering copies of the 101-page private …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, SAI and The Huffington Post

DealBook:
A Goldman Unit Is Said to Have Rejected Facebook

Discussion: PE Hub Blog, Economix, Why does everything suck?, GigaOM, The Atlantic Online, Adotas, Memex 1.1, SAI and Felix Salmon

Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Even If It Had 500 Shareholders Today, Facebook Doesn't Have to …

Discussion: All Facebook, SAI, GMSV, Guardian, Computerworld, Deal Journal, Venture Capital Dispatch and DailyFinance

Bloomberg:
Facebook at $50 Billion Looks More Like Tencent Than Google

Discussion: Epicenter and Bloomberg

AppleInsider:

Apple restricting employee vacations as first 2011 products loom — Apple is quietly prohibiting vacation days for some retail employees for three weeks beginning later this month, a move that could foreshadow a significant product introduction in the coming weeks, AppleInsider has learned.

Discussion: SAI, PC Magazine, CNET News, Computerworld, Examiner, iPhone Buzz, BGR, Erictric, PhoneDog.com, Fast Company, MacRumors and Electronista

Zach Epstein / BGR:

Android 3.0 Honeycomb shown off in new series of videos — Courtesy of T-Mobile and its newly announced G-Slate tablet by LG, several videos showing off Google's new tablet-only OS have surfaced. Honeycomb will power the next generation of Android tablets, and it appears to offer …

Discussion: Android Police

Andy Rubin / Google Mobile Blog:
A Sneak Peek of Android 3.0, Honeycomb

Bloomberg:

Apple Said to Have Approached Blackstone's Tosi to Becoming Finance Chief — Apple Inc. approached Blackstone Group LP Chief Financial Officer Laurence Tosi to become its finance chief, three people with knowledge of the matter said. — Tosi told Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman that he plans to stay …

Discussion: 9 to 5 Mac, MacRumors, SAI and RazorianFly

John Paczkowski / Digital Daily:
Apple Looking for New CFO? Apple Says Nope.

Discussion: SAI

Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft Blog:

CES: New Microsoft Surface to be priced at $7,600 — Microsoft officials showed off “Surface 2.0″ — the new version of the company's multitouch tabletop — at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) yesterday. — There were lots of tweets and relatively few details, but on January 6 …

Discussion: ZDNet, Between the Lines Blog, The Next Web, Newlaunches.com and Engadget

Devindra Hardawar / VentureBeat:
Microsoft gives LCDs the power to see with Surface 2.0

Discussion: TechNet Blogs, Geek.com and The Next Web

Greg Sandoval / Media Maverick:

Hollywood's ‘UltraViolet’ aims to replace the DVD — A group of stakeholders in the entertainment industry are poised to make a important sales pitch to consumers concerning the way they buy and watch movies and TV shows. — Warner Bros. Entertainment, Netflix, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard …

Discussion: MediaMemo, L.A. Times Tech Blog and SiliconANGLE, more at Mediagazer »

Jenna Dawn / Twitter Blog:

Celebrating a New Year with a New Tweet Record — Well, that didn't take long. Just four seconds after midnight in Japan on January 1st, Twitterers set an all-time record in the number of Tweets sent per second (TPS). At that moment, the world sent a staggering 6,939 TPS wishing friends …

Discussion: TechCrunch

BBC:

Thousands of stolen iTunes accounts for sale in China — Apple's iTunes service has been targeted several times by criminals in recent years — Tens of thousands of fraudulent iTunes accounts are for sale on a major Chinese website, it has been revealed.

Discussion: Digital Trends, Agence France Presse, china.globaltimes.cn, 9 to 5 Mac, TechSpot, The Last Watchdog, Naked Security, USA Today, MacStories, Geek.com, RazorianFly, The Mac Security Blog, TechEye and p2pnet

Carolyn Penner / Twitter Blog:

Twitter for Mac — Twitter is proud to introduce an appropriately slick and simple desktop application for Mac computers. Twitter for Mac has launched today as part of the Mac App Store. — This app gives Twitter users another fast and convenient way to stay connected to what they care about the most.

Discussion: VatorNews, NetworkEffect, 9 to 5 Mac, TechCrunch, TUAW, blogs.chron.com, Download Squad, MacStories and The Next Web

Brandon LeBlanc / The Windows Blog:

Windows at CES 2011 — It's been an exciting day for Windows with lots of news shared. I did however want to take a few minutes to share with you a bit more about the rest of the Windows story and the things we will be talking about this week at CES. — At last year's CES …

Discussion: Search Engine Land, The Microsoft Blog, dailywireless.org, All about Microsoft Blog, InfoQ and Telegraph

Neil Stevens / The Big Blog:

Group video calling ready for primetime — Group video calling has shed its ‘beta’ label and officially joined our product line-up with the introduction of the new version of Skype for Windows. — It's available as part of the new Premium package which offers group video calling together with access to live chat customer support.

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb, Fast Company and Download Squad

Dan Moren / Macworld:

AT&T halves price of iPhone 3GS, adds fuel to fire — The Mac App Store may be garnering the oohs and aahs this morning, but please, let's not forget about the iPhone. AT&T certainly hasn't: the carrier announced on Thursday morning that it will begin selling the iPhone 3GS for just $49 …

Discussion: VentureBeat, Computerworld, App Advice, Wall Street Journal, AT&T, Examiner, Geekword, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Fast Company, Techland, 9 to 5 Mac and Gadgetell

AppleInsider:

New Apple patent for network booting could lead to cloud-based Mac OS X — Apple has recently been granted a patent for administering and maintaining a network-booted operating system, possibly laying further groundwork for a cloud-based version of Mac OS X.

Discussion: App Advice, Computerworld, eWeek, Guardian, Inquirer, AppScout, TUAW and BGR

Leena Rao / TechCrunch:

Salesforce Buys Web Conferencing Platform DimDim For $31 Million In Cash — Salesforce is continuing its shopping spree into 2011. The company has announced that it has acquired DimDim, a web conferencing service for $31 million in cash. — DimDim, which has raised around $9 million in venture funding …

Jonathan Christensen / The Big Blog:

Skype coming soon to Sony BRAVIA and VIZIO VIA TVs — Last year at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), we ushered in a new era of face-to-face communications with the introduction of Skype-enabled TVs. This year at CES, we're making further strides in the living room by making it even easier to get Skype on your TV.

Discussion: SocialTimes.com, I4U News and Erictric

Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:

Skype Is Killing It on Long Distance — Skype voice traffic is expected to grow by 45 billion minutes in 2010 to more than twice the volume added by all the world's phone companies combined, according to research out today from consulting firm Telegeography.

Discussion: MarketWatch, TeleGeography Research and ReadWriteWeb

Zack Sheppard / Flickr Blog:

Introducing Flickr for Windows 7 and Windows Phone 7! — We here at Flickr know how important it is for you to have your photos with you on the go. We're constantly looking for way to make it easier to capture the world around you and instantly share your photos with friends and family anytime, anywhere.

Discussion: MSDN Blogs, Geek.com, Download Squad and Webmonkey

Arik Hesseldahl / NewEnterprise:

Google Apps Adds an Anti-Spam Weapon to Its Arsenal — One of the most frustrating aspects of the battle against spam over the last several years has concerned overly aggressive filters. You can be a perfectly innocent person sending a perfectly routine email, yet the spam filter …

Discussion: Google Enterprise Blog, Lifehacker, ReadWriteEnterprise, eWeek, CNET News and Download Squad

Jacob Schulman / Engadget:

Motorola Xoom first hands-on! (update: video!) — Look what we found hanging around the Motorola stand at CES this evening: none other than the just announced Motorola Xoom tablet. While this sleek little device is still running a very early build of Honeycomb, we were able to sneak …

Discussion: MacRumors, Switched, Gizmodo, BGR, Geekword and Phones Review

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