Techmeme: Perfect Market, news ad firm, lands $9 million in funding round led by Comcast (David Sarno/L.A. Times Tech Blog)

2:00 AM ET, January 18, 2011

Top Items:

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: Daring Fireball, IBD Click, CNN, Reuters, msnbc.com, Network World, Gawker, AppleInsider, PSFK, 9 to 5 Mac, MacNN, CNET News, PC Magazine, Bloomberg, Gawker, Pocket-lint, TechEye and FierceWireless

Apple:

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.

New York Times:
A Deep Bench of Leadership at Apple

Discussion: New York Times and The Next Web

MG Siegler / TechCrunch: A Few Thoughts On Apple's 2011, Stock, Tim Cook, And The Future

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

Discussion: Digits, Forbes and SAI

Digits:
How Much Privacy Does Steve Jobs Deserve?

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

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

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

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: SAI, The Register, Yahoo! News, Pulse2, TechCrunch, CNET News, Computerworld and VentureBeat, more at Mediagazer »

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 … and NBC Bay Area

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

Leena Rao / TechCrunch:

I Can Has Funding: Cheezburger Raises $30M For LOLcats, FAIL Blog And Other Memes — Cheezburger, the internet publisher responsible for LOLcats, FAIL Blog, and other memes, has raised a whopping $30 million in new funding led by the Foundry Group with Madrona Venture Group, Avalon Ventures …

Discussion: TechFlash, NetworkEffect, GigaOM, paidContent, VentureBeat, The Seattle Times, Mashable!, Adweek and Pulse2

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: The Apple Core Blog, ZDNet, CrunchGear, Download Squad, Electronista and Pulse2

Andrew Wallenstein / paidContent:
Netflix Enrages Subscribers By Limiting DVD Queue

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb and homemediamagazine.com, more at Mediagazer »

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, Mobilized, dailywireless.org, Pulse2, ForeverGeek, TG Daily, Inside Mobile Apps, Engadget, Examiner, GottaBeMobile, Switched, Softpedia News, The Huffington Post 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.

Discussion: Pulse2

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

iPhone User? 90% Chance You're On The Latest OS. Android User? 0.4% Chance — As a member of the media, I was lucky enough to get my hands on a Nexus S running Android 2.3 “Gingerbread” a few weeks ago. It's great, easily the best version of Android yet. I hope one day soon you all get to try it out.

Discussion: Fortune, App Advice, ReadWriteMobile, 9 to 5 Mac, MacStories and TiPb

Edmund Lee / AdAge:

Facebook Books $1.86B in Advertising; Muscles In on Google Turf — New Estimate From eMarketer Shows Majority of Social Network's Ad Revenue Comes From Small Businesses — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — It turns out Facebook is a lot like Google after all. — As the social network steams past …

Discussion: TechCrunch and Mashable!

Andrew Wallenstein / paidContent:

Exclusive: Roku Lands Its First Cable Channel — Roku is expected to announce Tuesday an unlikely addition to its programming lineup: WealthTV. This will mark the first time a cable channel has joined the streaming device, which begs an obvious question: How is this even possible?

Discussion: BetaNews, The Next Web and ReadWriteWeb, more at Mediagazer », Thanks:johnrobertreed

David Sarno / L.A. Times Tech Blog:

Perfect Market, news ad firm, lands $9 million in funding round led by Comcast — Perfect Market Inc, a start-up that seeks to help news organizations make more money through online advertising, has won $9 million in new funding in a round led by Comcast Interactive Capital, the cable giant's venture arm.

Discussion: TechCrunch, VentureBeat, paidContent and PE Hub Blog

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

Tom Warren / WinRumors:

Microsoft meets with Windows Phone 7 “unlocker” team … Microsoft has begun discussions with the ChevronWP7 team today. — Microsoft representatives met with Rafael Rivera and Long Zheng of the ChevronWP7 team on Monday to discuss the tool and Microsoft's plans to support homebrew applications on Windows Phone 7.

Discussion: The Next Web, Thanks:alesrosina

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: Kotaku, The Next Web, IntoMobile, BlackBerry Cool, SlashGear, ThinkMobile, TechSpot, TechEye, WPCentral.com, TG Daily, VG247 and New York Post

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, Gawker, Examiner, The Next Web, Telegraph, This Just In, NewsGrange and Agence France Presse, more at Mediagazer »

Paul Bond / Hollywood Reporter:

What Hollywood Execs Privately Say About Netflix … Disgusted that a video rental store raked him over the coals for returning a movie late, Reed Hastings created Netflix. Seventeen million subscribers later, some people probably wish a clerk would have just refunded the man his 40 bucks.

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