Techmeme: Google issues ultimatum to Yelp: free content or no search indexing (Emma Barnett/Telegraph)

9:05 AM ET, March 2, 2011

Top Items:

Kara Swisher / BoomTown:

With Jobs Definitely Mulling Appearance at iPad Event, Let's Hope the Focus Is on the Product — According to several sources close to the situation, Apple CEO Steve Jobs-who is on a health-related leave from the company-is definitely considering an appearance at its big iPad 2 event tomorrow.

Leander Kahney / Cult of Mac:

Apple Staffer: iPad 3 Is The One To “Make A Song & Dance About” — We've received some tidbits of information about the iPad 2 launch tomorrow from an Apple staffer: — MobileMe is being revamped with cloud storage features. — The iPad 2 is a ho-hum update. It's more of a speed bump than a redesign.

Jolie O'Dell / Mashable!:

Google Pulls 21 Apps In Android Malware Scare — Google Pulls 21 Apps In Android Malware Scare — Google has just pulled 21 popular free apps from the Android Market. According to the company, the apps are malware aimed at getting root access to the user's device, gathering a wide range …

Allen Stern / CenterNetworks:

Mahalo Reduces Headcount by 10% After Google Algo Change — I feel for Mahalo founder and CEO Jason Calacanis this past week. He finishes his Launch conference (my recap), heads to the afterparty and probably gets 10,000 text messages because that was just about the time that Google announced their algorithm change.

Discussion: Fast Company, Mashable!, SAI, @mathewi and MediaMemo

Ryan Singel / Epicenter:

Google: We're Working to Help Good Sites Caught by Spam Cleanup — When Google updated its algorithm late last week to weed out low-quality content factories from the top of search results, the changes didn't sit well with all. — Many well-known sites that pop up in search results despite having little …

Discussion: TechEye, Search Engine Land and SEO Book.com

Quora:

Microsoft: Why doesn't Microsoft understand tablets? — Answer (1 of 8): It's interesting to consider how this question would have been answered just two years ago. Before the iPad, the definition of tablet, was, arguably, the Windows tablet. As such, there was a lot of speculation …

Discussion: GeekSmack

Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft Blog:
Microsoft delivers its ‘other’ tablet operating system: Windows Embedded Compact 7

Discussion: Microsoft, VentureBeat, Engadget, Gadgets DNA, SlashGear, Erictric, PhoneArena, Download Squad, X-bit labs, BlogsDNA, Geek.com, The Register, LAPTOP Magazine, ThinkMobile, Liliputing, eWeek and GottaBeMobile

Mark Spoonauer / LAPTOP Magazine:

HP Says BlackBerry PlayBook Imitates webOS, RIM Responds — There's no denying it. RIM's first tablet, the BlackBerry PlayBook, looks pretty darn similar to HP's TouchPad. Yes, the PlayBook has a smaller 7-inch screen, compared to 9.7 inches for HP's slate.

Discussion: Digital Daily, BlackBerry Cool, PhoneArena, Fonehome, SAI, SlashGear, Tech Broiler Blog, The Next Web, Know Your Cell, Engadget, PhoneDog.com and Electricpig.co.uk, Thanks:mspoonauer

Emma Barnett / Telegraph:

Google issues ultimatum to Yelp: free content or no search indexing — Yelp's chief executive, Jeremy Stoppelman has spoken out against Google's use of its users' business reviews on its Places service, saying the search company has failed to offer them any leeway on the matter.

Discussion: Google Watch, Search Engine Roundtable, ReadWriteWeb, CNET News and Search Engine Land

Gaurav Jain / Google Enterprise Blog:

Now available with Google Apps: User Managed Storage — Editor's note: Last year we launched an improvement that makes over 60 additional Google services available to Google Apps users. This series showcases what's new and how your organization can benefit. — Welcome to User Managed Storage

Discussion: Inquirer, V3.co.uk, Softpedia News, InfoWorld and Rakesh Agrawal's Blog

Joel Falconer / The Next Web:

Android developers form ‘union’ to protest Google policies — A group of Android developers have formed the Android Developers Union, a movement that intends to protest Google's Android Market policies. — The group has made seven demands and claims that its members will, if demands are not met …

Discussion: Android Developers Union

Christine Lagorio / Inc.com:

How This 19-Year-Old Is Taking On Google — Where might you want to search that Google can't reach? The social slice of the Web, plus everything that an individual has password-protected hovering in the cloud, has been largely off-limits to traditional search engines.

Parth Dhebar / GeekSmack:

Twitter suspends parody @ceoSteveJobs account — Today, it appears that Twitter has suspended the ceoSteveJobs Twitter account, which had approximately 460,000 followers and over 650 tweets at the time of deletion. — Back in January, it turns out that Twitter received a complaint …

Discussion: MacNN and 9 to 5 Mac, Thanks:geeksmack

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

Facebook Acquires Group Messaging Service Beluga In A Talent AND Technology Deal — Facebook has just acquired group messaging service Beluga, we've learned. — Here's what we know: Facebook has acquired both the product and the team, and the plan is apparently to keep the service open for now.

Kim-Mai Cutler / Inside Mobile Apps:
Analysis: What's Behind Facebook's Friendfeed-Style Acquisition of Beluga?

Thanks:eldon

Reuters:

Exclusive: Yahoo closes in on Yahoo Japan deal — (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc is in advanced talks to exit its joint venture in Japan with SoftBank Corp, a move that could lead it to focus on reaching a decision on its China assets. — A deal to transfer Yahoo's 35 percent stake in Yahoo Japan …

Discussion: Post Tech, DailyFinance, Inquirer, Softpedia News, @ericjackson, SAI, DealBook, paidContent and The Tech Trade

Hiroko Tabuchi / New York Times:

Japanese Phone Makers Look to Ride Android's Surge — TOKYO — Japanese mobile phones are a gadget lover's dream. They double as credit cards. They can stream digital television. Some are even fitted with solar cells. — And yet, for all their innovations, Japanese-made handsets have had little impact overseas.

Discussion: asymco

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

A Mobile Photo Sharing Casualty, Treehouse Hits The Deadpool; Founder Off To Google — In terms of hot spaces at the moment, you'd be hard-pressed to find anything hotter than the mobile photo sharing space. Instagram, PicPlz, and Path all have gotten huge amounts of funding recently.

Discussion: GigaOM and The Next Web

Jon Brodkin / Network World:

Meet Google's human search engine for innovation — Google startup-hunter Don Dodge sheds Microsoft roots, ‘kisses a lot of frogs’ in quest for cool technology — It was November 2009, and Don Dodge had just been laid off by Microsoft. Instead of writing a new resume and collecting unemployment …

Amir Efrati / Wall Street Journal:

To Grow Big, Twitter Seeks Small Ads — Twitter Inc. is a hot property among investors, who are pumping up the company's valuation. But whether the start-up can live up to its multibillion-dollar appraisal depends on the likes of David Szetela, who holds the purse strings of numerous small and medium-sized advertisers.

Discussion: Digits

John Gruber / Daring Fireball:

Dirty Percent — It's not hard to make the case that Apple's new in-app subscription system offers numerous benefits to users, developers, and publishers. But whatever those benefits, they stem from the mere existence of these new subscription APIs. What's controversial is the size of Apple's cut: 30 percent.

Discussion: CrunchGear and Nieman Journalism Lab

Joel Johnson / Wired:

1 million workers. 90 million iPhones. 17 suicides. Who's to Blame? — It's hard not to look at the nets. Every building is skirted in them. They drape every precipice, steel poles jutting out 20 feet above the sidewalk, loosely tangled like volleyball nets in winter.

Discussion: @radleybalko, SAI and CrunchGear

Josh Halliday / Guardian:

Average broadband speeds ‘less than half those advertised’, says Ofcom — Britons get average broadband speed of 6.2 megabits per second, less than half average advertised speed of 13.8Mb — Millions of broadband customers are being sold super-fast connections that their internet providers …

Discussion: TechEye, Engadget, Telegraph, BBC, The Register and ITProPortal

Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:

Charlie Sheen, Now On Twitter At @CharlieSheen — Because if I don't write this somebody else will: After blazing a colorful trail through some obscure radio show, The Today Show, Good Morning America, TMZ, CNN and so on, media obsession of the moment Charlie Sheen has brought his antics to Twitter.

Discussion: Mashable!, Sean Percival's Blog, Engadget, @perezhilton, @charliesheen, @someecards, Reuters, The Atlantic Online, @gaberivera, Pulse2, SAI and @seanrad, more at Mediagazer »

Dharmesh Mehta / The Windows Blog:

Windows Live Mesh reaches 5 million connected devices — Today, we're excited to announce an important milestone: Windows Live Mesh has now connected 5 million devices, with over 3 million users syncing 2.2 petabytes to the cloud. Windows Live Mesh was released on September 30th …

Discussion: Softpedia News, CNET News, LiveSide.net, WinRumors and TechFlash

Todd Bishop / TechFlash:

Apple fights for ‘App Store’ name, calls Microsoft clueless as usual — Apple is defending its attempt to trademark the phrase “App Store,” saying in a new filing that Microsoft has failed to prove that the term should be left open for use by competing mobile application marketplaces.

Discussion: InfoWorld, Electronista, Softpedia News, CrunchGear, SlashGear, The Register, CNET News, PhoneArena, PC World, msnbc.com, The Huffington Post, GeekSmack, AppleInsider, Digital Trends, Fast Company, Digital Daily, Politico, mocoNews and iLounge

Wall Street Journal:

Odd Couple Behind Nintendo 3-D Push — KYOTO, Japan—Nintendo Co.'s place atop the world of videogames, and perhaps the course of the industry itself, is riding on a geek bromance. — On Saturday, Nintendo launched its first all-new machine in nearly five years, a handheld player …

Discussion: Digits

Matthew Lynley / VentureBeat:

Twitter, Digg investor Mike Maples: Yes, there is a tech bubble — Facebook, Zynga and Twitter have inspired a host of copycats, and it's those companies that are overvalued and are creating a growing tech bubble, said Floodgate partner Mike Maples. — Some major companies in the Web 2. era …

Discussion: TechCrunch

Scott Morrison / Wall Street Journal:

Amazon Threatens to Cut Affiliates in California — Ramping up its battle against Internet sales taxes, Amazon.com Inc. has warned it will sever ties with thousands of California-based advertising affiliates if the state government passes legislation requiring the e-commerce giant to collect taxes on items sold to residents.

Discussion: SAI

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