Top Items:
John Paczkowski / Digital Daily:
AT&T Prepared for Loss of iPhone Exclusive — Another question to ponder on the eve of the iPhone's debut on Verizon: Now that its arch-rival has the device on which it once had an exclusive, a device that has done so much for its bottom line, how will AT&T respond? — Or, rather, how has it been responding?
Discussion:
DSLreports, BGR, GigaOM and App Advice
RELATED:
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines Blog:
Verizon's iPhone: Here comes the fallout — Verizon Wireless will finally get Apple's iPhone on Tuesday and the network and sales machine appears to be ready to roll. — But Tuesday is only the beginning. While the iPhone is an obvious boon for Apple and Verizon Wireless there are other ripple effects to consider.
Discussion:
Fortune, Open Source Blog, CNET News and Engadget
Sam Oliver / AppleInsider:
Apple follows AT&T, drops official US iPhone 3GS price to $49 — Apple has quietly dropped the price of its entry-level 8GB iPhone 3GS to $49 with a new two-year contract with AT&T, matching the new low price that last week was offered exclusively by the carrier.
Discussion:
Examiner, CNET News, App Advice, Macgasm, everythingiCafe, O'Grady's PowerPage, Know Your Cell, Engadget and TUAW
Jay Yarow / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:
AT&T Already Attacking Verizon iPhone: “Not Sure iPhone Users …
Discussion:
BGR, Technologizer, Bits, GigaOM, Forbes, Network World, 9 to 5 Mac, PC World, Electronista, InformationWeek, VentureBeat, Mobilized, IntoMobile, Ars Technica, Scobleizer, Sidecut Reports, Appolicious Advisor, Pulse2, Bloomberg, GeekSugar, Switched, PR Newswire, MacRumors, App Advice, Faster Forward, Engadget, Mobile Marketing Watch, Evolver.fm, TiPb, Geekosystem, everythingiCafe, PhoneArena, DSLreports, MacStories, Mashable!, Computerworld, GottaBeMobile, TUAW, Neowin.net, Wall Street Journal, Techie Buzz, The Huffington Post, Examiner, DailyFinance and Digital Daily
Arik Hesseldahl / All Things Digital:
Microsoft Server Business Head Bob Muglia To Leave This Summer — Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced today in an email to employees that Bob Muglia, the company's head of its Servers and Tools Business Bob Muglia will be leaving this summer. No replacement has been named.
Discussion:
Bloomberg, SAI, TechCrunch, Pulse2, The Next Web and Reuters
RELATED:
Pui-Wing Tam / Digits:
Square Raises $27.5 Million — Square Inc., the mobile payments service co-founded and led by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, has just closed a new $27.5 million round of funding led by Sequoia Capital. — The funding, which also is set to include some strategic and individual investors …
Discussion:
eMoney, L.A. Times Tech Blog, ReadWriteWeb, SAI, TechCrunch and Pulse2
RELATED:
Michal Lev-Ram / Fortune:
Intuit takes a swipe at Square
Discussion:
Mobile Marketing Watch, ReadWriteWeb and GigaOM
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Groupon Raises, Like, A Billion Dollars — Groupon has closed what remained of that huge $950 million financing round which we first reported on in late December. They closed on roughly half of it then, from DST, Fidelity and Morgan Stanley. We then learned that Kleiner Perkins was also in the round.
New Zealand Herald:
Google billionaire buys Kiwi's superyacht — Sir Douglas Myers has lost his Senses: he's sold the 59m luxury superyacht to Google billionaire Larry Page. — The luxury motor boat sold last month to the Google co-founder after being listed on the boat international website for €35 million ($60.5 million).
Liz Gannes / NetworkEffect:
Myspace Plans to Lay Off 550 to 600 Employees Tomorrow — Myspace, which has been struggling to revitalize itself, is expected to lay off 550 to 600 of its staff of just over 1,000 tomorrow, according to several sources. — NetworkEffect first reported news of the large-scale cuts at the end of December.
Discussion:
The Next Web, Between the Lines Blog, Techie Buzz, SiliconANGLE, SlashGear, Electronista, paidContent, Tech Report, Softpedia News, Geek.com and SAI
Jeff Bercovici / Mixed Media:
The Day of The Daily: Murdoch's iPad Thingy Coming Jan. 19 — Mark your calendars, media nerds. Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2011 is the day it all changes. Maybe. — That's the planned launch date for The Daily, the iPad-only publication News Corp. has been feverishly developing.
Discussion:
NewsGrange, App Advice, MacRumors, SlashGear, CrunchGear, RazorianFly, PadGadget, Electronista, SAI, everythingiCafe, Poynter and iClarified, more at Mediagazer »
Philip Rha / Facebook Blog:
The New Profile Is Here — Last month, we introduced the new profile, which now makes it even easier for you to tell your story and learn about your friends. For the month of December, we gave people the option to upgrade to the new profile early, and hundreds of millions of you made the switch.
Discussion:
TechCrunch, The Next Web and Erictric
DigiTimes:
Motorola expected to ship 700,000-800,000 Xoom tablet PCs in 1Q11 — Motorola, with assistance from Google, has showcased its new Android 3.0-based Xoom tablet PC and has placed orders for about 700,000-800,000 units with four color options for the first quarter of 2011, according to sources from upstream component makers.
Discussion:
Examiner, PC World, Gearlog, eWeek, VentureBeat, Softpedia News, Inquirer, Android Community, The Next Web, Techie Buzz, Droid Life, SlashGear, Electronista, Forbes and Erictric
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Google Goggles Can Now Read Print Ads. Oh, And Play Freaking Sudoku! — Of all the mobile applications that Google has come out with in the past couple of years, Google Goggles is definitely one of the coolest. You point your smartphone at any object, and Google attempts to figure out what it is …
Discussion:
Search Engine Land, NewsGrange, ReadWriteWeb, Google Mobile Blog, Erictric and The Next Web
Hiroko Tabuchi / New York Times:
Facebook Wins Relatively Few Friends in Japan — TOKYO — Mark Zuckerberg. Who? — Mr. Zuckerberg, the 26-year-old Facebook chief executive and co-founder, may be the man of the moment in the United States and much of the rest of the online world. But here in Japan …
Discussion:
All Facebook, SAI, The Bivings Report, Asiajin, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim and Tech Report
New York Times:
1986 Privacy Law Is Outrun by the Web — SAN FRANCISCO — Concerned by the wave of requests for customer data from law enforcement agencies, Google last year set up an online tool showing the frequency of these requests in various countries. In the first half of 2010, it counted more than 4,200 in the United States.
Discussion:
The Atlantic Online
BBC:
Microsoft investigates ‘phantom’ Windows Phone 7 data — Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer has promised updates to the operating system soon — Microsoft has told BBC News that it is investigating why some handsets running its Windows Phone 7 software are sending and receiving “phantom data”.
Discussion:
CNET News, Inquirer, Smartphones …, ITProPortal, THINQ.co.uk, MobileCrunch, The Next Web and WMPoweruser.com
Alexandra Topping / Guardian:
Twitter endorsements face OFT clampdown — Watchdog says online companies who did not disclose paid-for promotions by celebrities and bloggers were deceptive — How does a celebrity declare their affiliations to certain brands in fewer than 140 characters?
Discussion:
Digits, ITProPortal, Fast Company, THINQ.co.uk, Pocket-lint, GigaOM, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, BBC, The Atlantic Online and Techland, more at Mediagazer »
Brad Sams / Neowin:
Microsoft is working on a FaceTime competitor for Windows Phone [Update] — Microsoft had a solid CES appearance with the announcement of many new key products. But sometimes it's not what's said at the main events but in side conversations that can provide a peek into the upcoming products from the company.
Discussion:
The Microsoft Blog, Redmond Pie, LiveSide.net, PhoneArena, Techie Buzz, Go Rumors, pocketnow.com, WMPoweruser.com and WPCentral.com
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
Foodspotting Scoops Up $3 Million From BlueRun Ventures — Location-based food discovery tool, Foodspotting has just picked up 3 million in series A funding from BlueRun Ventures, days shy of its one year anniversary on January 15th. Angels from the previous $750k seed round will also be following …
Discussion:
The Social, NetworkEffect, PE Hub Blog and Mashable!
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Apple AirPlay devices set to explode in 2011 — Although DLNA may have had a significant head start, the streaming media standard available on more than 9,000 devices is about to be challenged in a very big way by Apple's upstart AirPlay technology. At least it will be if Jordan Watters …
Discussion:
GigaOM, PadGadget, 9 to 5 Mac, Lucas Gonze's blog, RazorianFly and MacStories
Wall Street Journal:
Disney, Yahoo Look at Internet TV — Walt Disney Co. is discussing making video from some of its television networks available on sets embedded with Yahoo Inc.'s Internet-TV software, people familiar with the matter said. — Such new offerings would propel Yahoo into a broader battle …
Discussion:
GigaOM, Techland, Pocket-lint and ITProPortal
Greg Stohr / Bloomberg:
EMI, Music Labels Rejected by High Court in Appeal of Song-Pricing Lawsuit — The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal from the country's four largest music labels, refusing to block a suit accusing them of conspiring to fix Internet song prices. — Units of Sony Corp., Vivendi SA …
Discussion:
ZDNet, Reuters, Ars Technica, Media Maverick, p2pnet and hypebot
