Top Items:
The Official Google Blog:
Finding more high-quality sites in search — Our goal is simple: to give people the most relevant answers to their queries as quickly as possible. This requires constant tuning of our algorithms, as new content—both good and bad—comes online all the time.
Discussion:
VentureBeat, The Social, Digits, Computerworld, SAI, PC World, Fast Company, BoomTown, Post Tech, Inquirer, TechCrunch, The Atlantic Online, SAI, msnbc.com, Gearlog, p2pnet, ChasNote, Techland, The Blog Herald, Bits, Adotas, Nicke's shared items …, ITProPortal, Geek.com, ITworld.com, Tech Report, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, TechEye, Neowin.net, paidContent, gHacks Technology News, Beyond Search, Zatz Not Funny!, Mark Evans Tech, Between the Lines Blog, Techie Buzz, Boing Boing, MarketingVOX, thinq_, Softpedia News, Guardian, Download Squad, Faster Forward, The Register, Search Engine Marketing News, Pocket-lint, Soup, Switched and Poynter, more at Mediagazer »
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Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
Google Forecloses On Content Farms With “Farmer” Algorithm Update — In January, Google promised that it would take action against content farms that were gaining top listings with “shallow” or “low-quality” content. Now the company is delivering, announcing a change to its ranking algorithm designed take out such material.
Discussion:
GigaOM, CNET News, TechCrunch, SEOBook, Digital Trends, Fortune, @tolles, Search Engine Roundtable, @rafat, @vwadhwa, Sean Percival's Blog, @percival and NewsGrange
Larry Fitzgibbon / Demand Media:
A Statement About Search Engine Algorithm Changes — How our content reaches the consumer - whether it's through direct visits, social media referrals, apps or search - has always been important to and monitored closely by us. We also recognize that major search engines like Google have and will continue to make frequent changes.
Discussion:
VatorNews, Search Engine Land, MediaMemo, SAI, Mashable!, paidContent, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, BoomTown and WebProNews, more at Mediagazer »
Joshua Topolsky / Engadget:
Sources: iPad 2 lands in thinner body with spec bump and cameras, SD slot and higher resolution display are out — The Apple rumors game can be a volatile thing. Just as we'd heard about last minute alterations to the Apple TV before it hit the market, we've gotten word from sources …
Discussion:
Inquirer, Computerworld, PhoneArena, CNET News, I4U News, AppleInsider, Gearlog, Techie Buzz, Techland, Fonehome, MacDailyNews, Apple Bitch, Geek.com, Softpedia News, BlogsDNA, O'Grady's PowerPage, ITProPortal, Pocket-lint, MacNN, Redmond Pie, everythingiCafe, 9 to 5 Mac, MacRumors and Edible Apple
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John Gruber / Daring Fireball:
The Eleventh Hour — I like Josh Topolsky, and I like Engadget, but this is a bit much: … Eleventh hour, my ass. Nothing in these regards has changed in the iPad 2 since January. Nothing. There was never going to be a higher resolution display in the iPad 2.
Discussion:
SAI, App Advice, MacRumors, AppleInsider, Electronista, TiPb and BlogsDNA
Claire Atkinson / New York Post:
Google eyes UK launch of YouTube movie service — Google's YouTube is eager to launch an unlimited subscription service for movies similar to Netflix and Amazon and is considering starting it overseas to cut down on the competition, The Post has learned. — The search giant …
Discussion:
PC World, Tech Trader Daily, Reuters, The Register, The Next Web, DailyTech, fierceonlinevideo.com …, SAI, ITProPortal, Pocket-lint, SlashGear, Electronista, Neowin.net, Faster Forward, thinq_ and Download Squad
RELATED:
ifixit:
MacBook Pro 15" Unibody Early 2011 Teardown — We got our hands on Apple's newest MacBook Pro 15" on February 24, 2011. This is Apple's first laptop to sport a quad-core processor, and also adds a brand-new I/O technology with a Thunderbolt port.
Discussion:
Ars Technica, AppleInsider, Geek.com, CrunchGear, thinq_, iClarified, MacRumors, TUAW, Engadget, MacStories, O'Grady's PowerPage, SlashGear, Gadget Lab, Electronista, Pocket-lint and ThinkMobile
RELATED:
Seth Weintraub / 9 to 5 Mac:
New MacBook Pros get GeekBenched. Outrunning last year's Mac Pros
Discussion:
GigaOM, Primate Labs Blog, Electronista, MacDailyNews, thinq_, MacRumors, Apple Bitch, Softpedia News, TUAW and Electricpig.co.uk
ifixit:
Motorola Xoom Teardown — The Motorola Xoom is the first android tablet powered by Google's newest OS, Android 3.0 “Honeycomb.” Follow along as we peek inside this scrumptious (see what we did there...) device and devour all the delicious bits of information we can gather.
Discussion:
GottaBeMobile, Erictric, I4U News, Engadget, Gadget Lab, SlashGear, DailyTech, Electronista, Gearlog, thinq_, CrunchGear, Android Police, Gizmodo and Know Your Mobile
RELATED:
Sean Hollister / Engadget:
Motorola Xoom rooted in two hours flat, sinister transforming exoskeleton jetpack returns in Verizon ad — What's the first thing you're going to do with your Motorola Xoom? If you're Koush, the answer's clear — install your very own ClockworkMod recovery image and ROM Manager, and grant the latter superuser permissions.
Discussion:
Computerworld, Droid Life, Techie Buzz, Liliputing, My Brain Hurts, The Next Web, BlogsDNA, Electricpig.co.uk, SlashGear and MobileWhack
Seth Weintraub / 9 to 5 Mac:
MobileMe is officially online only — Expanding on the report from yesterday, a Genius (who uses Chrome interestingly) sent us this screenshot of the Apple Internal systems which shows that MobileMe is online-only now. — It also appears you can't currently pay for MobileMe online.
Discussion:
App Advice, The Next Web, SlashGear, MacStories, Black Web 2.0 and MacNN
Financial Times:
Apple, Google and Spotify race to music market — The digital music market is set to be shaken up as soon as this summer as Apple, Google and Spotify race to deliver new services that labels warily hope may reverse a decade of declining revenues. Each of the technology companies is taking …
Discussion:
App Advice, MacRumors, Fast Company, 24/7 Wall St., SAI, Electronista and MacStories, more at Mediagazer »
RELATED:
Daniel Eran Dilger / AppleInsider:
Apple reportedly clarifies its cloud strategy to the music labels
Discussion:
mocoNews
Zach Epstein / BGR:
New evidence of Android apps running on BlackBerry phones emerges — Mobile app developer ShopSavvy reports that its Android application has recently been tested on multiple BlackBerry devices. BGR exclusively reported last month that RIM may be working on a solution that would allow Android apps …
Discussion:
ReadWriteWeb, SlashGear, TechnoBuffalo, Fonehome, @loic, Fortune, Know Your Mobile and 901am
Facebook Site Governance / Facebook:
A Privacy Policy Re-imagined For Users Like You — At Facebook, we are constantly developing new experiences and features to help you control your information. Some of our recent work includes simplified privacy settings and publisher privacy controls that let you select your audience every time you post something on Facebook.
Discussion:
Neowin.net and Facebook
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
The Post-Optical Disc Era Gets Off To A Rocky Start With The OS X Lion Beta — If there was any doubt in peoples' minds that Apple intends to kill off the optical disc, it was put to rest today. This morning's unveiling of the OS X Lion Developer Preview came with the news …
Discussion:
Neowin.net
Elizabeth Wasserman / The Politico:
DOJ threatens to nix Google merger — The Justice Department has made it clear to Google that it's willing to go to court to block its acquisition of travel software-maker ITA - and Google has responded by stepping up negotiations to save the deal, a source familiar with the talks tells POLITICO.
Discussion:
Search Engine Land
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines Blog:
Amazon Web Services launches CloudFormation: Infrastructure recipes — Amazon Web Services on Friday detailed CloudFormation, an effort to make cobbling together cloud services as easy as baking a cake. — The big takeaway here is that Amazon Web Services wants this cloud computing thing to be ridiculously easy.
Discussion:
GigaOM, The Register, Amazon.com, CNET News, Amazon Web Services Blog, InfoWorld, CenterNetworks and Amazon Web Services Blog
Andrew S. Ross / San Francisco Chronicle:
Twitter, SF Mayor Ed Lee ‘very close’ on deal — Twitter is “very close” to an agreement to stay, and grow - exponentially - in San Francisco, says Mayor Ed Lee. But it's “not yet 100 percent.” — In an interview at his office Thursday, Lee said Twitter executives intimated last week …
Discussion:
bizjournals
Darlene Storm / Computerworld:
Google face search to use social network photos — If you are out in public, you are fair game, but how would you like it if a stranger took your picture and then ran a search to find out your name, online aliases and all the information about you via that image?
Discussion:
p2pnet
Nancy Scola / The Atlantic Online:
When the Internet Nearly Fractured, And How It Could Happen Again — When the entire country of Egypt was forced offline by its government last month, it served as a global wake-up call that the Internet is a more fragile medium than we imagine it to be. What happened in Egypt …
Roger Browne / Google Blogoscoped:
Google drops reverse phone number lookup — One of the earliest specialist services provided by Google was reverse phone number lookup. If you used the “phonebook:” or “rphonebook:” operators together with a 10-digit US phone number, Google would show you the owner of that phone number, unless the number was unlisted.
Thanks:steverubel
Sara Jerome / Hillicon Valley:
Consumer group wants to tax Netflix to pay for rural broadband — Mark Cooper, director of research for the Consumer Federation of America (CFA), says Netflix should have to pay into the Universal Service Fund. — “The Internet is not an infant industry anymore.
Discussion:
Techdirt and DSLreports
Jack Purcher / Patently Apple:
Apple Reveals “Places” - A Social Networking Related Trademark — On February 24, 2011, The European Trademarks and Designs Office published Apple's latest trademark application for the word “Places” under application 009760141. Apple has filed their trademark under four distinct International …
Discussion:
mocoNews, MacNN and Know Your Mobile
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
TinyCo Raises $18 Million From Andreessen Horowitz For Mobile Gaming — My, how things change. A few years ago, anyone proposing that Facebook games would turn into a wildly profitable multi-billion dollar industry would probably be met with some pretty strange looks.
Discussion:
Venture Capital Dispatch, VentureBeat, DealBook and ben's blog, Thanks:marissac
Matt McGee / Search Engine Land:
Google's Mobile Search Adds “Open Now” Filter — When you're on the move, there's often no sense finding local businesses that are closed. That's the impetus behind a new feature that Google has added to the iPhone and Android-powered devices: a tool to filter results that are open now.
