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5:35 PM ET, March 17, 2011

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Cory Doctorow / Boing Boing:
New York Times paywall: wishful thinking or just crazy?  —  The New York Times just announced a new paywall that will let you see 20 articles a month and thereafter redirect you to a signup for paid access.  However, if you follow a NYT link from some search engines and services like Twitter …
RELATED:
Ken Doctor / Nieman Journalism Lab:
The newsonomics of The New York Times' pay fence  —  t's official — and the world still turns.  After 14 months of planning, The New York Times is finally launching its pay system, starting in the U.S. March 28.  It's been a gestation period longer than a manatee's, due to customer-service identification …
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Apple Gets Its First Big Publisher: New York Times Subscriptions Will Be Sold Through iTunes
Jeremy W. Peters / New York Times:
The Times Announces Digital Subscription Plan
Jim Dalrymple / The Loop:
Study comparing Android to iPhone Web browsing speed flawed  —  A Canadian software company, Blaze Software, released a report today of what it calls the “largest ever research study of smart phone browser performance.”  The problem is, the study is flawed.
RELATED:
Guypo / Blaze.io:
iPhone vs. Android - 45,000 Tests Prove Whose Browser is Faster  —  Android 52% faster, speeds past iPhone on 84% of sites* … Browser performance is a big deal.  Browser speed was a major bullet point - if not the top point - in practically every browser release this last year.
Douglas MacMillan / Bloomberg:
Groupon Is Said to Discuss IPO Valuation of Up to $25 Billion  —  Groupon Inc. has held talks with banks about an initial public offering that would value the online-coupon company at as much as $25 billion, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions.
RELATED:
Scott Austin / Venture Capital Dispatch:
Groupon Valued At $25B? That Would Top Google At IPO
Discussion: SAI
Guardian:
Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media  —  Exclusive: Military's ‘sock puppet’ software creates fake online identities to spread pro-American propaganda  —  Jeff Jarvis: Washington shows the morals of a clumsy spammer  —  The US military is developing software …
Paul Graham:
Subject: Airbnb  —  Yesterday Fred Wilson published a remarkable post about missing Airbnb.  VCs miss good startups all the time, but it's extraordinarily rare for one to talk about it publicly till long afterward.  So that post is further evidence what a rare bird Fred is.  He's probably the nicest VC I know.
Arn / MacRumors:
Steve Jobs Offers Support to Apple Employees Affected by Earthquake  —  Photo of Apple Store in Sendai, Japan by naok  —  Apple CEO Steve Jobs is reported to have sent a message to Apple staff regarding the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan.  The contents of the email were posted to Chihouban.com …
Discussion: GeekSmack, Gearlog, Pulse2, BGR, MacNN and SAI
Arn / MacRumors:
Apple Airs 'If You Don't Have an iPhone' TV Ads  —  Apple has posted three new iPhone ads to their website and YouTube channel.  The new ads start off with the phrase “If you don't have an iPhone” and demonstrate some specific features found on the iPhone.  The three ads include:
Brian Krebs / Krebs on Security:
Rustock Botnet Flatlined, Spam Volumes Plummet  —  The global volume of junk e-mail sent worldwide took a massive nosedive today following what appears to be a coordinated takedown of the Rustock botnet, one of the world's most active spam-generating machines.  —  Rustock spam volumes, from M86 Security Labs
Charles Starrett / iLounge:
iPad 2 Wi-Fi, 3G models show microphone differences  —  iLounge has discovered that the microphones in the Wi-Fi and 3G models of the iPad 2 have different sonic qualities.  As noted in our comprehensive review, the microphone hole of the iPad 2 has been moved from its position beside …
Enigmax / TorrentFreak:
Paramount Pictures Partner With BitTorrent Release Movie  —  Distracted Media's Enzo Tedeschi and Julian Harvey first hit the BitTorrent conciousness in mid 2010 when trying to raise funding for their latest project by selling frames of their upcoming horror movie.
Robin Davey / hypebot:
Only 10% of Your Friends See Your Facebook Posts, And Only 1% Like It.  —  Post by: Robin Davey, Head of Music and Film Development at GROWVision.  —  How do I know this?  Well I conducted a simple experiment that you are all welcome to replicate.  —  I simply posted on my wall asking anyone who saw the post to like it.
Discussion: All Facebook
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Scribd's HTML5-Based Document Viewer Is Now Portable, Retroactively Upgrades 20M+ Embeds  —  Last May, document sharing hub Scribd launched one of its biggest features yet: a document reader based entirely in HTML5.  Up until then Scribd had presented its documents using …
Discussion: VentureBeat and MacStories
Michael Kleber / Google Code Blog:
Your Web, Half a Second Sooner  —  At Google we're constantly trying to make the web faster — not just our corner of it, but the whole thing.  Over the past few days we've been rolling out a new and improved version of show_ads.js, the piece of JavaScript used by more than two million publishers …
Discussion: Inside AdSense and Softpedia News
androidnews.de:
Amazon Appstore: Apps and Prices Leak [EXCLUSIVE] [UPDATE]  —  Today we accidentally tripped over some information regarding available apps and prices in Amazon's Appstore.  The store itself is still not working yet, but now we have some first impressions of which apps Amazon is going to feature …
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Exclusive: Facebook Co-Founder Eduardo Saverin Leads $6.5M Round For Jumio  —  Jumio is still gearing up for the launch of its online and mobile payments solution, due for release in 6 to 8 weeks, but the company has lined up an investor that is sure to draw even more attention to the stealth startup …
Discussion: Pulse2
Maggie Shiels / BBC:
Twitter boss on application snub  —  Twitter co-founder Biz Stone insists that improving the user experience is his company's main priority.  —  Twitter founder Biz Stone has rejected suggestions that the site is shunning developers in order to make money.
Discussion: Gartner, IntoMobile and The Next Web
Jeff Bertolucci / PC World:
Samsung's MacBook Air Challenger Ready to Ship  —  You can thank me in advance for not calling the ultra-slim Samsung Series 9 laptop a “MacBook Air killer,” which it certainly is not.  It is, however, a sleek featherweight of a portable PC, one that gives Apple's attractive Air a run for its money in the look-at-me competition.
Discussion: Mashable!, eWeek and Pulse2
Wall Street Journal:
Retailers Push Amazon on Taxes  —  Wal-Mart, Target and Others Look to Close Loophole for Online Sellers Amid State-Budget Crises  —  Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Target Corp. and other large retailers are ratcheting up a political campaign to force Amazon.com Inc. to collect sales taxes …
Discussion: Tech Trader Daily
Tim Conneally / BetaNews:
Microsoft cleans up in both U.S. search and video traffic  —  Online market research company comScore released its Video Metrix online video content ranking for the month of February.  The rating tallies up the total online video audience for the U.S., determines how much it consumes per capita …
Dirk Dougherty / Android Developers Blog:
Application Stats on Android Market  —  [This post is by Eric Chu, Android Developer Ecosystem.  —Dirk Dougherty]  —  On the Android Market team, it's been our goal to bring you improved ways of seeing and understanding the installation performance of your published applications.
Christian Belady / TechNet Blogs:
How Big is the Datacenter Construction Business?  —  As the demand for cloud services continues to grow, there are many companies in the datacenter industry (particularly start-ups) that have met with me to discuss their businesses.  Their proposals usually included huge expectations …
Discussion: Seattle Times
Electronista:
Mosaid sues ASUS, Dell, RIM, more; ‘all’ owe Wi-Fi royalties  —  Mosaid late Wednesday sued as many technology firms as possible in hopes of profiting off the success of Wi-Fi.  The Ottawa-based company's complaint targeted major device makers such as ASUS, Canon, Dell, Intel …
Discussion: CTV.ca and Ottawa Business Journal, Thanks:jonfingas
Liz Gannes / NetworkEffect:
Can a Spot on Apple's Top App List Be Bought?  Welcome to Cross-Selling!  —  Can a spot on Apple's top iPhone app list be bought?  Is there a price per head that mobile apps must pay to get users?  —  The answer seems to be an unequivocal yes, especially for free gaming apps.
 
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 More Items: 
Gautham Nagesh / Hillicon Valley:
Consumer group: Google CEO not good for Commerce post
Stephen Chapman / Between the Lines Blog:
Internal Microsoft video shows plans for next-gen gaming experience
Discussion: WinRumors, GeekWire and The Next Web, Thanks:manan
Arik Hesseldahl / NewEnterprise:
Intel Acquires Silicon Hive, a Spin-Out From Philips
Discussion: Electronista
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Fortune:
The day Apple landed in Gauna
Discussion: Digital Daily, MediaMemo and SAI, Thanks:philiped
Tricia Duryee / eMoney:
Zong Extends Mobile Payments to Game Consoles and More
Discussion: VentureBeat, TechCrunch and GigaOM
Ian King / Bloomberg:
Intel, Qualcomm Say Earthquake in Japan Won't Slow Chip Output
Discussion: NewEnterprise and eWeek
 Earlier Items: 
Devin Coldewey / CrunchGear:
Sony To Subpoena Two Years Of PS3 Hacker's PayPal Records
Lizette Chapman / Venture Capital Dispatch:
Frankness, Facebook Go A Long Way For Accel Partners' Kevin Efrusy
Tim Stevens / Engadget:
iPod touch showing freaky graphical glitches after iOS 4.3 update? (video)
Discussion: Neowin.net
Devin Coldewey / CrunchGear:
Rumor: Asus To Launch $200 Chrome Netbook
Matt Rosoff / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:
Microsoft Is More Ethical Than Google, Apple, Or Facebook
Discussion: Techland and Gearlog