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12:00 PM ET, February 7, 2011

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
You've Got Arianna: AOL Buys Huffington Post for $315 Million in Cash and Stock, Appoints Huffington Editor in Chief  —  In a bold and definitive move, AOL is paying $315 million, mostly in cash, to buy the Huffington Post, one of the Web's most prominent news and opinion sites.
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Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Armstrong's Internal Memo To AOLers About The HuffPo Deal  —  At midnight, AOL announced that it will buy the Huffington Post for $315 million.  Below is the internal memo AOL CEO Tim Armstrong sent to all AOL employees (except us, they don't trust us with anything) about the transaction.
Om Malik / GigaOM:
AOL+HuffPo!  Why It is Not Really a Good Deal  —  Just when you thought you could finally put Superbowl commercials behind you and go to bed in a beer-induced slumber, AOL dropped a late-night bomb: it bought The Huffington Post for $315 million, of which $300 million is in cash.  My first reaction — wow!
Discussion: PC World and SAI
New York Times:
Betting on News, AOL Is Buying The Huffington Post  —  The Huffington Post, which began in 2005 with a meager $1 million investment and has grown into one of the most heavily visited news Web sites in the country, is being acquired by AOL in a deal that creates an unlikely pairing of two online media giants.
Arianna Huffington / The Huffington Post:
When HuffPost Met AOL: “A Merger of Visions”
Vlad Savov / Engadget:
Best Buy ad prices Motorola Xoom at $800, affirms February 24th launch date  —  The evidence for a Motorola Xoom launch on February 24th just became that bit more compelling, courtesy of this here Best Buy ad.  It promises Moto's Android tablet will be in stores a couple of weeks from now, decorated with a daunting $799.99 sticker.
RELATED:
Electronista:
Full Motorola Xoom Super Bowl ad: tablet for a better world
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
HP unveils a cool reclining touchscreen PC straight out of Star Trek  —  It seems like there's no end of uses for the touchscreen.  Hewlett-Packard is showing that today with a cool new touchscreen computer that can recline at a 60-degree angle so that it can be used as a kind of control console in a lot of different applications.
Matthew Hawn / Last.fm:
Last.fm Radio becomes a premium feature on mobile and home entertainment devices  —  On February 15, the radio service built into Last.fm mobile apps and on home entertainment devices will become an ad-free, subscriber-only feature.  —  Last.fm Radio will remain free on the Last.fm website in the US …
Chris Ziegler / Engadget:
White iPhone 4 starts to get Best Buy, The Source shelf space  —  This shelf tag was apparently spotted this weekend at a Best Buy in Houston, and it speaks for itself: white iPhone 4, AT&T, $599.99 off contract (the same price as the black).  Of course, we all know this thing is coming within …
Keith Johnson / Dispatch:
Google Executive Released by Egypt Government  —  Google Inc. executive Wael Ghonim has been released from government custody in Egypt after going missing during massive protests Jan. 28, the U.S. State Department said Monday.  —  “We have indeed received confirmation of his release,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.
RELATED:
Peter Sayer / PC World:
Inside Secure Offers Alternative Android NFC Software Stack  —  Inside Secure hopes to make it easier for Android phone designers to use its NFC chips — or those of its competitors — with the release of a version of its Open NFC software stack for Android.
Discussion: VentureBeat and The Register
Jameshritz / The Quora Review:
Why Quora & Social Media Experts Don't Mix  —  As the Quora user base has grown, along with much praise, has come some criticism.  Specifically, many critics view Quora as a snobby, clubby, and intellectually elitist place.  It seems much of the loudest criticism about Quora and it's community …
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
HTC Invests In Multimedia Delivery Platform Company Saffron Digital  —  Smartphone maker HTC this morning announced that it has made a ‘strategic investment’ of undisclosed size in London, UK-based Saffron Digital, which specializes in the delivery of digital multimedia.
Carrie Coolidge / Luxist:
The Plaza in New York Offers iPads in all Guest Rooms and Suites (with Video)  —  The Plaza is offering iPads in each of its guest rooms and suites.  The program, which launched in January, makes the landmark hotel on Central Park South the first hotel in the world to provide guests services …
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
Tech Returns To The Super Bowl Big Time, An Ad Roundup  —  For those of us who know nothing about football, The Super Bowl is more about what the huge brands who buy ads chose to do with their $3 million's worth of prime eyeball time, paying to play with a captive audience in the hundreds of millions.
RELATED:
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Save The Money: Groupon's Super Bowl Ads May Spark Faux Outrage
Parmy Olson / Disruptors:
Anonymous Takes Revenge On Security Firm For Trying To Sell Supporters' Details To FBI  —  If you thought Anonymous limited its cyber attacks to those who blocked WikiLeaks or suppressed free information, you'd be wrong.  One software security firm is learning the hard way that it also targets anyone …
RELATED:
Joseph Menn / Financial Times:
Cyberactivists warned of arrest
Douglas Rushkoff / CNN:
Internet is easy prey for governments  —  Editor's note: Douglas Rushkoff is a media theorist and the author of “Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age” and “Life Inc: How Corporatism Conquered the World and How We Can Take it Back.”  —  (CNN) — For all that the revolution …
RELATED:
Dave Winer / Scripting News:   The Internet is for revolution  —  Does Facebook want their service …
Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:
Updated: ‘The Daily’ Has A Big Problem  —  The Daily has all the elements to get people in the door: a splashy, hyped launch, the formidable marketing power of News Corp (NSDQ: NWS) and Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) plus it's free for two weeks.  It's also buggy, which means a lot of that may go to waste and a …
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The Daily:
We're Listening
 
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 More Items: 
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
lightRadio: hideous cell towers to get smaller, lose the “hut”
Don Clark / Digits:
Violin Memory's Funding Another Sign of Flash Frenzy
Discussion: GigaOM, The Register and VentureBeat
David Kravets / Threat Level:
FCC Net Neutrality is a Regulatory ‘Trojan Horse,’ EFF Says
 Earlier Items: 
Paul Kedrosky / Infectious Greed:
Fiber Capacity Maxing Out?
Discussion: SAI
Ravi Somaiya / New York Times:
Former WikiLeaks Colleagues Forming New Web Site, OpenLeaks
Gary Allen / ifoAppleStore:
Palo Alto Store Project Active With Updated Design
Mike Masnick / Techdirt:
Leaked State Department Cables Confirm That ACTA Was Designed …
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Peter White / Deadline:
Fox and Hulu extend their content partnership, including in-season streaming rights for Fox's programming; sources: the deal is worth $1.5B over four years

Peter Kafka / Business Insider:
A Q&A with Chris Balfe, CEO of Red Seat Ventures, which has helped Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly set up their podcast and streaming businesses and sell ads

Eliav Breuer / Jerusalem Post:
Israel approves a proposal that government bodies refrain from engaging with Haaretz or placing ads in the paper, after controversial remarks from its publisher

 
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