Techmeme: Eighth grader knocks Angry Birds out of the top free spot on the App Store (Dean Takahashi/VentureBeat)

10:00 PM ET, January 17, 2011

Top Items:

Apple Media Advisory — Apple CEO Steve Jobs today sent the following email to all Apple employees: — Team, — At my request, the board of directors has granted me a medical leave of absence so I can focus on my health. I will continue as CEO and be involved in major strategic decisions for the company.

Miguel Helft / New York Times:

Apple Says Steve Jobs Is Taking a New Medical Leave — Steven P. Jobs, the co-founder and chief executive of Apple Inc., is taking a medical leave of absence, a year and a half after his return from a liver transplant, the company said on Monday. — Mr. Jobs announced his leave in a letter to employees …

Discussion: IBD Click, AppleInsider, Reuters, Gawker, CNN, 9 to 5 Mac, CNET News, Network World, msnbc.com, Bloomberg, PSFK, FierceWireless, PC Magazine, Gawker, Pocket-lint, TechEye, MacNN, Computerworld, L.A. Times Tech Blog, Disruptors and The Huffington Post

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

A Few Thoughts On Apple's 2011, Stock, Tim Cook, And The Future — As you've undoubtedly heard by now, Apple CEO Steve Jobs is taking an indefinite medical leave of absence from the company, while remaining on as CEO. As I'm the guy around these parts who is known for writing about Apple …

Jonathan S. Geller / BGR:
Could Steve Jobs' leave of absence be more serious this time around?

Discussion: Forbes, Digits and SAI

New York Times:
A Deep Bench of Leadership at Apple

Discussion: The Next Web and Gizmodo

Digits:
How Much Privacy Does Steve Jobs Deserve?

Discussion: The Daily Beast, BoomTown, Forbes, The Next Web and mocoNews, more at Mediagazer »

John Paczkowski / Digital Daily:
Apple Shares Down Nearly 8 Percent in Frankfurt on News of Jobs's Medical Leave

Discussion: MediaPost, Mobilized, PC World, Cult of Mac, Forbes, VentureBeat, Electricpig.co.uk, Examiner and MediaMemo

Larry Dignan / Between the Lines Blog:
Apple's Jobs takes medical leave, remains CEO; Succession planning in focus

Discussion: TomsTechBlog.com, MacStories, blogs.telegraph.co.uk and LAPTOP Magazine

Aaron Lucchetti / Wall Street Journal:

Goldman to Offer Facebook Shares Only to Non-U.S. Clients — Goldman Sachs Group Inc. decided to exclude U.S. clients from the private offering of as much as $1.5 billion in shares of social-networking company Facebook Inc., citing “intense media attention.”

Discussion: The Register, PC World, Yahoo! News, SAI, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, CNET News, Reuters, Pulse2 and paidContent

Felix Salmon / Reuters:

Goldman's Facebook plan falls apart — When the news came out that Goldman Sachs was orchestrating a private offering of Facebook shares at a $50 billion valuation, those shares overnight became an even hotter commodity than they had been up to that point. Check out the results …

Discussion: All Facebook

Andrew Ross Sorkin / DealBook:
Goldman Limits Facebook Investment to Foreign Clients

Discussion: Communications …

Henry Blodget / SAI: Goldman Sachs Thumbs Nose At SEC, Sells Facebook Deal Outside Its Jurisdiction

Jamie / The Official Netflix Blog:

Removing “Add to DVD Queue” from Streaming Devices — Hi there, it's Jamie Odell, director of product management at Netflix, with an update for members who add DVDs to their Queue from the device they use to watch instantly. We're removing the “Add to DVD Queue” option from streaming devices.

Discussion: ZDNet, CrunchGear, Download Squad, Electronista and Pulse2

Andrew Wallenstein / paidContent:

Netflix Enrages Subscribers By Limiting DVD Queue — Converting to a streaming-only business isn't easy, as Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) discovered Monday when the company's blog was bombarded by complaints over its decision to remove the ability to add to DVD queues from connected devices.

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb and homemediamagazine.com

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:

Eighth grader knocks Angry Birds out of the top free spot on the App Store — Angry Birds and its variants have dominated the top ranks of iPhone games for the past year. But on Thursday, a game called Bubble Ball ousted Angry Birds: Seasons from the No. 1 spot on the App Store's top free apps list.

Discussion: Digital Trends, CNET News, ForeverGeek, Pulse2, Examiner, Inside Mobile Apps, Switched, TG Daily, Softpedia News, GottaBeMobile, dailywireless.org and The Progress Bar

Yeeguy / FrameThink:

How Facebook Ships Code — I'm fascinated by the way Facebook operates. It's a very unique environment, not easily replicated (nor would their system work for all companies, even if they tried). These are notes gathered from talking with many friends at Facebook about how the company develops and releases software.

Maria Bartiromo / USA Today:

Maria Bartiromo interviews Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer — Q: What's most important right now for Microsoft (MSFT) in terms of your new product launches? A: If you want to know where is the consumer heat, the things that people want to get their hands on, it's Xbox and Xbox Kinect.

Discussion: The Next Web, New York Post, VG247, WPCentral.com, TechEye, IntoMobile, ThinkMobile, BlackBerry Cool, TG Daily, SlashGear, TechSpot, Pocket-lint and ITProPortal

Elizabeth Woyke / Forbes:

RIM: BlackBerry PlayBook Is Great Even Without A BlackBerry — One of the more unusual aspects of the upcoming tablet from BlackBerry maker Research In Motion is the fact that users need to synch their BlackBerrys to it to fully access their email, calendars and memos.

Discussion: BGR, IntoMobile, eWeek, SlashGear, Electronista, MacDailyNews and Engadget

Dan Sabbagh / Guardian:

Music makers plan ‘instant pop’ to beat piracy — • New singles to go ‘on air, on sale’ simultaneously — • Record labels target X Factor generation — Ten years after piracy first began to ravage the music industry, Britain's two biggest record labels will finally try to play …

Discussion: Ars Technica, BBC, TeleRead, Techland, The Register, ReadWriteWeb, Electronista, Geek.com, Techdirt, ITProPortal, The Next Web, TechEye and hypebot

BBC:

Wikileaks given data on Swiss bank accounts — Mr Elmer said he took responsibility for the data he was handing over to Wikileaks — A former Swiss banker has passed on data containing account details of 2,000 prominent people to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

Discussion: New York Times, Mashable, Reuters, The Next Web, Telegraph, Gawker, This Just In, Examiner, Agence France Presse and NewsGrange, more at Mediagazer »

Tarmo Virki / Reuters:

Nokia pulls plug on free music in most markets — (Reuters) - The world's top cellphone maker, Nokia, is ending its bundling of free music downloads with cellphones in 27 countries, where it has gained little traction since its 2008 launch. — Nokia will continue to sell phones …

Tom Warren / WinRumors:

Microsoft preparing official Kinect drivers and SDK for Windows … Microsoft is currently preparing an official Kinect SDK and driver support for Windows based PCs. — Microsoft revealed at CES earlier this month that the company has sold over 8 million Kinect sensors in just 60 days on the market.

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb, VG247, TechSpot, Download Squad and Joystiq, Thanks:cb_27

Microsoft:

Microsoft Launches Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online Cloud Service Globally — Steve Ballmer introduces the new service that delivers the Power of Productivity to customers worldwide. — Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq “MSFT") CEO Steve Ballmer today announced the worldwide availability …

Discussion: Microsoft, BetaNews, MSDN Blogs, TechNet Blogs and TechFlash

Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft Blog:
Microsoft makes CRM Online 2011 available worldwide

Discussion: PC World, eWeek, Seattle Blogs, CNET News and MSDN Blogs

Michael Learmonth / AdAge:

Media World Awaits The Daily to Forge Model for iPad Content — Macy's, Verizon, Pepsi, Land Rover and Virgin Sponsor News Corp./Apple Project — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — In the coming weeks, News Corp. is set to unveil one of its more audacious content bets in recent years: The Daily …

Discussion: MacRumors, 9 to 5 Mac, Electronista and everythingiCafe, more at Mediagazer »

Dan Frommer / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:
“The Daily” Won't Run Apple's iAds

Discussion: Mixed Media

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