Techmeme: Facebook Is Latest Rival to Groupon and LivingSocial (Miguel Helft/Bits)

10:50 AM ET, April 26, 2011

Top Items:

Miguel Helft / Bits:

Facebook Is Latest Rival to Groupon and LivingSocial — Facebook said late Monday that it would introduce Deals, an effort by the social networking giant to tap into the consumer frenzy over online discounts. With Deals, which had long been expected, Facebook is entering a crowded market led …

Discussion: PC World, Fast Company, Digits, ReadWriteWeb, GottaBeMobile, SAI, digiday:DAILY, Mashable!, GeekWire, SFGate, CNET News, Techie Buzz, Softpedia News, VentureBeat, Adotas, MediaPost, SlashGear, Techland, Inside Facebook, Pulse2, Social Markets, eMoney, @fredericl, The Next Web, IntoMobile, All Facebook, Rev2.org, Mashable!, Ubergizmo and TechCrunch

Greg Sterling / Search Engine Land:

Facebook Launches “Social Deals” To Challenge Groupon & LivingSocial — After several months of anticipation Facebook is launching its second deals program: Social Deals. The new effort more closely resembles Groupon-style daily deals, with several twists.

Discussion: Marketing Pilgrim, The Blog Herald and Screenwerk

Emily C White / Facebook Blog:

Deals: Better with Friends — A few months ago we launched Check-In Deals, to help you get special offers when you check in at local businesses from your mobile. Today we're going a step further and testing a new feature to help you find fun experiences to share with your favorite people: Deals on Facebook.

Discussion: Between the Lines Blog and Pocket-lint

Sharon Waxman / The Wrap:

EXCLUSIVE: YouTube Finally Goes Hollywood With New Movies on Demand Service — YouTube will imminently launch a movie-on-demand service charging users to stream movies off the world's largest video sharing site, TheWrap has learned. — The new service means a full-bore challenge …

Discussion: Guardian, ReadWriteWeb, GigaOM, 9 to 5 Mac, Engadget, TechCrunch, GottaBeMobile, AppleInsider, SlashGear, paidContent, The Next Web, The Next Web, CNET News and Pocket-lint, more at Mediagazer »

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

Movies You've Heard Of Coming To YouTube. Will You Rent Them? — YouTube is finally ready to move its movie rental service from a long-running test into a real, bona fide movie store. — TheWrap's Sharon Waxman first reported the news Monday evening. I've been able to confirm …

Discussion: Black Web 2.0 and Softpedia News

Thomas Ricker / Engadget:

Sony S1 and S2 dual-screen Honeycomb tablets get official — Sony's hosting a press event in Tokyo today where it just made it's first announcement: a pair of Android 3.0 tablets. The first is the S1 media tablet with a curved top much like a folded magazine and both front- and rear-facing cameras.

Kat Hannaford / Gizmodo:
Sony's Android Tablets Are Game, Music, Video and Ebook-Downloading Titans

Discussion: PC Magazine, Computerworld, VG247 and Android Police

Ryan Kim / GigaOM:

Android Passes iPhone as Most Desired Smartphone. Barely — Android has been outselling the iPhone recently but Apple's iPhone was still the most desired smartphone in the U.S., according to the Nielsen Co. Not anymore. Nielsen said 31.1 percent of respondents in March …

Discussion: TechCrunch

Nielsen Wire:

U.S. Smartphone Market: Who's the Most Wanted? — Things change quickly in the U.S. smartphone market. — According to The Nielsen Company's monthly surveys of U.S. mobile consumers from July-September 2010, consumers planning on getting a new smartphone had a very clear preference: A third (33%) wanted an Apple iPhone.

Discussion: App Advice, Computerworld, Digital Daily, GeekWire, paidContent, iLounge, FierceMobileContent, Android Phone Fans, Electronista and MacStories

Arn / MacRumors:

Next MacBook Pro to Get New Case Design — MacRumors has heard reliable confirmation that the next revision of Apple's MacBook Pro line will utilize a new case design for the first time in several years. — The possibility of a new case design was first revealed by iLounge in February …

Discussion: Softpedia News, RazorianFly, O'Grady's PowerPage, Apple Bitch, SlashGear, ITProPortal, 9 to 5 Mac, Electricpig.co.uk, TUAW, AppleInsider and Electronista

Peter Pachal / PC Magazine:

Microsoft: Windows Phones Do Not Store Location History — Microsoft has confirmed that Windows Phones don't store location history in a manner similar to the iPhone, which records the location data in an unencrypted file. The news that some iOS devices keep location data came to light last week …

Discussion: Neowin.net, Redmond Pie, WPCentral.com, IntoMobile, MobileBurn.com, Network World, Computerworld, All about Microsoft Blog and ITworld.com

Declan McCullagh / CNET News:
Microsoft collects locations of Windows phone users

Discussion: BGR, InfoWorld, Al Franken and TechEye

Ina Fried / Mobilized:

Twitter Looks to Rebuild its Mobile Experience, Hints at New Developer Opportunities — After spending much of the last year working to improve overall reliability, Twitter's vice president of engineering says the company intends to put a lot of effort in the coming months on improving its mobile experience.

Discussion: AllTwitter

Anthony Ha / VentureBeat: Twitter: Yes, Jack Dorsey is leading product “full-time”

Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Fortune:

Analyst: 25,000 to 120,000 Xooms sold. Motorola Mobility's survival at risk — Rather than try to out-innovate Apple, he says, it should sue its Android competitors — There's some pretty blunt language in the latest note to clients from Global Equities' Trip Chowdry …

Discussion: Digital Daily, Hardware 2.0 Blog, SlashGear, SAI, Android Phone Fans, MobileBurn.com and brian s hall

Todd Bishop / GeekWire:

Amazon.com tries to toss Apple ‘app store’ trademark suit, cites Steve Jobs in its own defense — Amazon.com today responded in court to Apple's lawsuit over the name of its Android Appstore — calling the iPhone maker's claim to the “App Store” trademark baseless, and pointing to a statement …

Discussion: Softpedia News, PC World, SlashGear, The Register, MediaPost, TechEye, Pocket-lint, Pulse2, TUAW and TiPb

Richard Barley / The TweetDeck Blog:

The Dark App Rises: New iPhone TweetDeck Is Here — You all enjoyed the trailer, but now the year's biggest blockbuster has arrived at last. iPhone TweetDeck v2.0 is here! — In Hollywood they would call it a “re-imagining” - keep the essence of the original, but bring it bang up to date with a new team …

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb, App Advice, 9 to 5 Mac, TechCrunch Europe, Mashable!, The Cell Phone Junkie, MacStories, The Next Web, MacHackPC, SlashGear, Recombu, everythingiCafe and AllTwitter

Ian Sherr / Digits:

Sony Shuts Down PlayStation Network Indefinitely — Internet gamers were frustrated last week when Sony shut down its PlayStation Network. Now, they might have reason to be worried. … On Monday, the Japanese electronics giant said it is keeping its PlayStation Network videogame service …

Discussion: ReadWriteWeb, PlayStation Blog, BetaNews, TorrentFreak, Zatz Not Funny!, The Buzz Bin, IGN PS3, VentureBeat and Pulse2

John Markoff / New York Times:

Joichi Ito to Be Named Head of M.I.T. Media Lab — For centuries diplomas have been synonymous with the nation's universities. — That makes the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's decision to name a 44-year old Japanese venture capitalist who attended, but did not graduate …

Discussion: SAI, Joi Ito's Web, Snarkmarket, Xconomy, Technology Review, Silicon Valley Watcher, Boing Boing, @dangillmor, @mathewi and @kevinmarks, Thanks:ilamont

Liz Gannes / NetworkEffect:

How Google Killed GDrive and Spiked Its Skype Acquisition — This weekend I spent some time reading Steven Levy's “In the Plex,” an account of the history of Google based on Levy's deep embedding within the company (see Kara's video interview with Levy from last week).

Discussion: SAI and BoomTown

Dan DeFelippi / Razor Fast:

Dropbox Attempts To Kill Open Source Project — Yesterday morning I woke up much earlier than I wanted. Instead of lying in bed, wishing I was asleep, I decided to get up and check out Hacker News. Better to waste my time reading industry news than lying around.

Discussion: Boing Boing and Network World

Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:

Google Acquires TalkBin, A Feedback Platform For Businesses That's Only Five Months Old — It's been a good day for Y Combinator. Hot on the heels of news that YC portfolio company Wufoo landed a $35 million exit, YC alum TalkBin has just announced that it's been acquired by Google …

Discussion: Pulse2 and NetworkEffect

Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:

Android Momentum Plateaus, Says New Developer Report — Momentum surrounding the Android mobile platform has reached a plateau, with developers now refocusing their efforts on building apps for Apple devices. This somewhat surprising conclusion is just one of many new trends spotted …

Discussion: SAI, ZDNet, PC World, InfoWorld, GigaOM, CNET News, mocoNews, Android Phone Fans, WMPoweruser.com, WinRumors, WPCentral.com, The Loop, Guardian, The Register and Appcelerator

Klint Finley / ReadWriteWeb:

Stop Blaming the Customers - the Fault is on Amazon Web Services — Almost as galling as the Amazon Web Services outage itself is a the litany of blog posts, such as this one and this one, that place the blame not on AWS for having a long failure and not communicating with its customers about it …

Discussion: Computerworld, Inquirer, Computerworld and The Register

Dana Wollman / Engadget:

Shocker! Instant messaging gains popularity as TXTing declines, BBM to blame — Apparently, those young'uns just love their BBM. According to a report by the research group Mobile Youth, young folk (read: those of you between 15 and 24) are increasingly abandoning SMS in favor of instant messaging apps …

Discussion: Mobile Entertainment

Mic Wright / Electricpig.co.uk:

iPhone location tracking: patent stash reveals bigger plans — The iPhone location tracking story just rolls on with folk dredging through patents as they ponder Apple's thinking. Since Apple has kept schtum about the issue, that's really not surprising. Gawker dredged up an Apple patent published …

Discussion: App Advice, 9 to 5 Mac, New York Times, Phones Review, Gawker, MediaFile and IntoMobile

Xeni Jardin / Boing Boing:
Class action lawsuit filed against Apple in US over location tracking issue

Discussion: Fortune, MobileCrunch, Gadget Lab, Bloomberg, The Tech Report, SlashGear, Appolicious Advisor, textually.org, @jason, Techie Buzz, CNET News, TUAW, iLounge and MacRumors

David Kravets / Threat Level:

FBI Raids Apartment of Alleged King's Speech Uploader — The FBI has raided the Los Angeles apartment of a Screen Actors Guild member the bureau believes was first to upload the Oscar-winning movie The King's Speech as well as Black Swan, and other in-theater-only films to the Pirate Bay in January …

Discussion: 9 to 5 Mac, @jason, Boing Boing, TorrentFreak, iClarified and Electronista

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