Techmeme: Facebook Could ‘Become a Credible Threat to Netflix,’ Says Goldman Sachs (Georg Szalai/Hollywood Reporter)

5:50 PM ET, March 8, 2011

Top Items:

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

YouTube, Netflix, Hulu: Meet Facebook — Every digital heavyweight is making a play for your living room. Apple, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, everyone. With one odd exception: Facebook. — Now that's over. The social media giant is taking its first step to connect …

Discussion: PC World, SAI, Tech Trader Daily, Fast Company, Macworld, BetaNews, paidContent, Techie Buzz, CNET News, SAI, Mobile Marketing Watch, Ars Technica, msnbc.com, Electronista and FierceIPTV

Georg Szalai / Hollywood Reporter:

Facebook Could ‘Become a Credible Threat to Netflix,’ Says Goldman Sachs … NEW YORK - Facebook's decision to test digital movie rentals and purchases with Warner Bros. is no immediate threat to Netflix's streaming service, but creates a new potential longer-term online video competitor, Goldman Sachs analyst Ingrid Chung said Tuesday.

Discussion: TechCrunch, @caro, broadstuff, @eldon, SlashGear and WebProNews

Gregg Kilday / Hollywood Reporter:

Warner Bros. to Rent Movies Digitally on Facebook, Starting With ‘Dark Knight’ … Warner Bros. is turning to Facebook, where it hopes to find an electronic audience interested in digitally renting The Dark Knight. — Warners said Monday that it is the first Hollywood studio to offer movies directly on Facebook.

Tim Steele / Google Chrome Blog:

Speedier, simpler and safer: Chrome's basics get even better — Just three weeks ago, we kicked off the Year of the Rabbit with a speedy Chrome beta. Today, we're excited to bring these speed improvements and more to everyone using Chrome. With today's stable release …

Brian Ngo / Google Mobile Blog:

Instant Previews now available on mobile — Instant Previews provides a fast and interactive way to evaluate search results. Starting today, Google Instant Previews is available on mobile for Android (2.2+) and iOS (4.0+) devices across 38 languages. Similar to the desktop version of Instant Previews …

Tim Conneally / BetaNews:
Google Instant Preview comes to Android 2.2 and iOS 4+

Discussion: TechCrunch

Vlad Savov / Engadget:

Adobe outs experimental Flash-to-HTML5 conversion tool, calls it Wallaby — Ah, if only we could flip a big happy switch and convert all the web's Flash content into (functional) HTML5 code. It's a dream shared by many and, funnily enough, the company pushing to make it a reality is none …

Todd Brix / The Windows Blog:

An Update on Windows Phone Marketplace; new tips, policies and regional access program — As we enter the final month of a very busy first quarter of 2011, I thought I'd take this opportunity to update developers on the status of the Windows Phone Marketplace and share some news.

Discussion: eWeek, Computerworld, CNET News, pocketnow.com, MobileBurn.com, SlashGear, ThinkMobile, Electronista, The Next Web, Many Niches, WPCentral.com and WinRumors

Bloomberg:

Deutsche Telekom, Sprint Said to Discuss T-Mobile USA Deal — Deutsche Telekom AG has held talks to sell its T-Mobile USA unit to Sprint Nextel Corp. in exchange for a major stake in the combined entity, said people with knowledge of the matter. — Talks have been on and off …

University at Buffalo:

Study: Facebook Photo Sharing Reflects Focus on Female Appearance — What affects women's self worth also influences their social networking behavior — BUFFALO, N.Y. — In a new study published in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking, University at Buffalo researcher Michael …

Discussion: CNET News, Digital Trends, Friending Facebook Blog and The Atlantic Online

Kara Swisher / All Things Digital:

Daily Bubble: Lead Generator HubSpot Grabs $32 Million From Salesforce.com, Sequoia and Google Ventures [BoomTown] — Another day, another honking big funding for another online start-up. — This time it is Cambridge, Mass.-based HubSpot winning Silicon Valley's version of the lottery …

Discussion: Mashable!, Venture Capital Dispatch, ReadWriteWeb, VentureBeat, CNET News, TechCrunch, Marketing Pilgrim and PE Hub Blog

Dan York / Disruptive Telephony:

Google Voice Now Offers SIP Addresses For Calling Directly Over IP — Wouldn't it be great if you could call a Google Voice number directly via SIP? So that you could bypass the PSTN when calling a GV number and go directly over IP? With potentially all the advanced capabilities that could give? …

Discussion: Electronista, BGR, Digital Society, Ubergizmo, VoIP & Gadgets Blog, Android Phone Fans, OnSIP blogs and TruVoIPBuzz, Thanks:aharpaz

Neil Hughes / AppleInsider:

Apple's iPad 2 launch predicted to have stronger sales but shorter lines — Initial sales of the iPad 2 are expected to surpass the first-generation device, but numerous new points of distribution for Friday's launch are predicted to dilute lines of people.

Discussion: eWeek, The Register, Examiner, PhoneArena and PhoneArena

Enigmax / TorrentFreak:

Fox DMCA Takedowns Order Google to Remove Fox DMCA Takedowns — The Chilling Effects web archive was founded in 2001 as a response to the usually secretive practice of sending so-called ‘takedown notices’ to have content removed from the web. This, according to the activists involved, was having a ‘chilling effect’ on free speech.

Discussion: Techdirt and TechEye

Steve Lohr / Bits:

Software Progress Beats Moore's Law — One of the old jokes in computing is that what the hardware giveth, the software taketh away. — The biblical vernacular is meant to convey the commandmentlike certainty of a set order of things. And the implication of the old saw is that chip-based progress …

Discussion: Fast Company and James Governor's Monkchips

Anil Dash:

Apple and Appropriate Secrecy — About a year and a half ago, I was disappointed with one of the key choices Apple had made, given that they're often described as one of the most admired companies in the world. I wrote a piece called “Secrecy Does Not Scale”, to try to describe the issue:

Joe Svetlik / Electricpig.co.uk:

The 10 idiosyncrasies of Steve Jobs — Think you know Apple's enigmatic leader? Think again. The great man is famously secretive, but we've unearthed some nuggets of info from work and home that provide a glimpse to what he's really like, from his car's numbers plates, how he decorates his house, to where he parks.

Robert McMillan / PC World:

Top Student Charged With Fixing Grades for Cash — A Nevada student who gave the opening address at his high school graduation last year has been charged with breaking into his school district's computer system and bumping up his classmates' grades for a fee.

Discussion: Geek.com and Gawker

Piero Sierra / The Windows Blog:

While FarmVille players water their crops, Messenger climbs to #2 app on Facebook — As Frederic from NewsGrange noted today, the Messenger app snuck up and overtook FarmVille this week as the second most popular app on Facebook in terms of daily active users.

Discussion: LiveSide.net, NewsGrange, SocialTimes.com and The Next Web

Sean Michael Kerner / LinuxPlanet:

Are Mobile Apps Violating Open Source Licenses? — Rampant Violations — There are a lot of mobile apps that use open source software, but how many of them are in compliance with open source licensing rules? As it turns out, not very many. — A new study from open source services …

Discussion: internetnews.com

Dwight / blogs.chron.com:

When good apps go bad: Twitter for iPhone 3.3 — Twitter was originally designed to be a mobile service, with updates pushed out via text message. That's why it only uses 140 characters for messages. Its web page was almost an afterthought. — Today, while it's often used with traditional computers …

Thanks:dsilverman

Donald Melanson / Engadget:

Jolicloud renames operating system ‘Joli OS,’ promises new web and Android apps — Well, it doesn't involve the company's Jolibook laptop, but it looks like some fairly big changes are indeed in store for Joliclould's upstart operating system. In addition to confirming that version 1.2 …

Discussion: Jolicloud Blog, GeekSmack, ReadWriteWeb, CrunchGear, BlogsDNA, Electronista and AndroidGuys

Michelle Nichols / Reuters:

Bill Gates'g philanthropy costs him richest-man title — (Reuters) - Bill Gates didn't lose his title as the world's richest man last year; he gave it away by plowing billions into his charitable foundation, experts say. — Forbes will release its 2011 billionaires list on Wednesday and Gates …

Discussion: Digital Trends, Gearlog and GeekWire

Matt Brian / The Next Web:

Confirmed: Angry Birds To Launch On Facebook In May — Fans of the Angry Birds franchise that are eagerly awaiting the Facebook release of the massively popular game will have to wait a little longer than initial reports have suggested, with the game due to a full release in May, not March or April.

Discussion: CNET News and Gizmodo, Thanks:martinsfp

Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet:

Microsoft's music/video services futures: The plot thickens with ‘Ventura’ — Recent questions about the future of the Microsoft Zune music/video service have remained largely unanswered. But my contacts have shared a new, relevant piece of the puzzle. And that piece is codenamed “Ventura.”

Discussion: CrunchGear and WMPoweruser.com

Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteCloud:

Backupify Makes Your Social Media Data Searchable, Restorable — Cloud-to-cloud social media and webmail backup provider Backupify is announcing this morning the imminent availability of a new service called CloudSight. CloudSight will render a customer's entire archive searchable and available for restoration with a single click.

Discussion: Backupify and GigaOM

Elinor Mills / CNET News:

Report: Malware-laden sites double from a year ago — More than 1 million Web sites were believed to be infected with malware in the fourth quarter of last year, nearly double from the previous year, according to figures released today by Dasient. — Malvertising, advertising containing malware …

Discussion: TechCrunch, Dasient Blog, Market Wire and Security Watch

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