Techmeme: It's All About Who You Know: Realtor.com Acquires SocialBios (Marshall Kirkpatrick/ReadWriteWeb)

6:45 AM ET, July 19, 2011

Top Items:

Arnold Kim / MacRumors:

Apple Retail Stores Receive Golden Master Copies of OS X Lion — Apple appears to be setting up the final pieces for OS X Lion's launch this week. A previous report even pinpointed the release as early as Wednesday morning. — We've now been able to confirm that Apple Retail stores …

Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:

Apple holding overnight Tuesday for possible Wednesday OS X Lion launch — We're hearing from multiple retail sources across the world that Apple's retail chain will be holding employee overnights Tuesday night. The likely topic? Lion. — In the employee halls of the retail chain sit large tubes …

Discussion: I4U News, MacNN and iClarified

Electronista:

Apple's win against HTC driving some firms to Windows Phone — Apple may push phone makers to WP7 with HTC win — Apple's early win against HTC has sent some Chinese phone makers running to Windows Phone 7, a source said. Mainland Chinese paper 21st Century Business Herald understood …

Discussion: DigiTimes, AppleInsider, SlashGear, WPCentral.com and WinRumors

Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:
Battlemap: Apple's heavy patent artillery against HTC's guerrilla warfare

Discussion: Network World, TechPinions, infoSync World, Financial Times, @cdixon and Bloomberg, Thanks:fosspatents

Electronista:
ITC upholds view Kodak didn't infringe Apple patents

Discussion: Engadget and AppleInsider

Daniel Rubino / WPCentral.com:

Breaking: New video of Nokia Sea Ray prototype running WP7 — Look at what we have here, leaking clearly out of a development factory in either China or Hong Kong (forgive us, it's 2am), we get a nice clear look at the Nokia N9, cough, ‘Sea Ray’ for Windows Phone 7.

Discussion: Hardware 2.0 Blog, This is my next, Gizmodo, Engadget, WinRumors, LiveSide.net, infoSync World, I4U News, Neowin.net, SlashGear, The Next Web and Electricpig.co.uk

Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:

LulzSec Hacks Murdoch-Owned ‘The Sun,’ Redirects Homepage To @LulzSec Twitter Account — Looks like hacker group LulzSec is back in action, this time redirecting the homepage of the Murdoch-owned The Sun (http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/ homepage/) to a fake story about Murdoch's death …

Zee / The Next Web:
All News International Websites Now Offline. (Update: Servers back live. Propagating.)

Discussion: Guardian, more at Mediagazer »

Liz Gannes / AllThingsD:

Zynga and Facebook Exclusivity Goes Far Beyond Credits — An extensive addendum to Zynga's S-1 filing with the SEC today paints an intricate picture of Zynga's dependence on the Facebook platform. Here's a parsing of the key parts of that relationship. — The fuller disclosures …

Discussion: The Business Insider

Tricia Duryee / AllThingsD:

Zynga Updates IPO Filing to List Investors and Google's One of Them — Lookie, what do we have here? — This afternoon Zynga filed a 619-page document with the SEC — that's triple the length of its original IPO filing. In other words, it is packed full of brand new information …

Discussion: The Business Insider, Softpedia News, AllThingsD and VentureBeat

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Bye Bye, Borders: Chain Shuttering All Remaining Stores — Borders is closing its 399 remaining stores. 11,000 employees are being laid off. — Yesterday's deadline for new bids on Borders came and went, with Phoenix-based venture capital firm Najafi “reluctantly” declining to submit …

Discussion: Fortune, Wall Street Journal, Deal Journal, @jowyang, Technologizer, Pulse2, ZDNet, ZDNet, Electronista, @jspepper and PE Hub Blog, more at Mediagazer »

Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
Borders May Be Dead, But e-Reader Kobo Is Still Alive And Kicking

Discussion: Mobilized, Slate, Wall Street Journal, Electronista and paidContent

Joshua Topolsky / This is my next:

The Verge — Yes folks, the rumors are true. Extra true. Super true. Our new home come fall-time will be called The Verge. Why The Verge, you ask? Well put simply, I don't think a single idea better defines the news we cover or the way we cover it.

Discussion: VentureBeat and AllThingsD

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

Asking Twitter To Commit Suicide With A Google+ Dagger — Sometimes, it's easy for power users to get drunk on that power. — I'm as guilty of this as anyone. When I constantly bitch that my Gmail account is SO DAMN SLOW, I forget that I also have a full 20 GB of email …

Discussion: Between the Lines Blog, Social Mallard, PC World and Search Engine Land

Dan Levin / New York Times:

Baidu, China's Search Giant, Announces Music Licensing Deal — BEIJING — Baidu, the dominant Chinese Internet search engine, on Tuesday announced a major licensing deal with three of the world's largest music companies that would allow Chinese Web users to legally download and stream hundreds of thousands of songs free.

Discussion: PC World, Music Ally, CNET News, Mobile Entertainment, Bloomberg, The Next Web, PR Newswire, Wall Street Journal and Fast Company

Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:

Google Buys G.Co To Create An Official URL Shortcut For Google Products — Google joins Internet biggies Twitter (T.Co) , Overstock (O.co) and Amazon (A.Co, Z.Co and K.Co) today in taking over the G.Co domain name, buying the TLD in order to build the official URL shortcut for Google products like GMail, Documents and Photos.

Josh Constine / Inside Facebook:

Facebook Opens Viral Growth Channel for Pages, Delivering Invites to Like as Notifications — Facebook now allows Page administrators to send their friends invites to Like their Page that appear as notifications, opening a new viral channel that could assist Page growth.

Discussion: The Next Web and WebProNews

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

This Fall, Apple Has A Shot At Becoming The Most Valuable Company In The World — In January, we noted that Apple surged past an amazing $300 billion market cap, making them by far the most valuable tech company in the world. In fact, the valuation made them the second most valuable company in the world period.

Discussion: @bill_gross and 9to5Mac

Janko Roettgers / GigaOM:

Dell wants to use Google+ Hangouts for customer service — Dell could soon use Google's new group video chat platform Google+ Hangouts as an alternative to the traditional customer service call, according to the company's chairman and CEO, Michael Dell. — Hangouts has been hailed …

Discussion: CNET News, Michael Dell, Networking Blog, 9to5Google, Fast Company and DailyTech

Amazon.com:

Students Can Now Save Up To 80% with Kindle Textbook Rental — Low rental prices and flexible rental periods of any length between 30 and 360 days — Margin notes and highlighted passages are stored in the Amazon Cloud for viewing anytime, anywhere - even after a rental expires

Discussion: Examiner, Fast Company, The Register, Digital Trends, MacStories, SocialTimes.com, This is my next, PC Pro, Gizmodo and L.A. Times Tech Blog

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Amazon Tries Taking the Kindle to School, Again, With Textbook Rentals

Discussion: TUAW, eWeek, The Tech Herald …, paidContent, Ars Technica and Engadget

Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:

It's All About Who You Know: Realtor.com Acquires SocialBios — Real estate service provider Move, owner of Realtor.com and related sites, announced this morning that it has acquired SocialBios. SocialBios is the startup named the most promising new technology at the prominent annual Inman real estate industry event this year.

Discussion: PR Newswire, TechCrunch and Techrockies.com

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:

Is Amazon going to challenge Zynga in social games? — Amazon.com's recent hire of a veteran games designer suggests the massive retailer may be about to get into the business of publishing games itself. — The designer, Jonathan Tweet, is presumably working on a social game for Amazon.

Stephen Shankland / CNET News:

Firefox world loses Web dev guru to Chrome — For years, an extension called Firebug has been a powerful tool that kept Web programmers loyal to Firefox. — But now, as browser makers add their own tools geared to attract those who build Web sites and applications, the lead Firebug programmer …

Discussion: FunctionSource Posts and Inquirer

Nick Bilton / Bits:

Privacy Isn't Dead. Just Ask Google+. — Some people have a very hard time trusting Facebook. — After dozens of privacy problems over the years, they've grown extremely weary of what the company is doing with my personal information. I, for one, rarely use Facebook anymore, beyond a rare comment or “Like.”

Discussion: digiday:DAILY and Googling Google Blog

Adam Penenberg / Fast Company:

Digital Oxytocin: How Trust Keeps Facebook, Twitter Humming — Internet users—Facebookers most of all—are a trusting bunch. Why? Because we are wired to build relationships around trust. — The most surprising takeaway from the recent Pew Research Center study …

Discussion: Naked Security

Jonathan S. Geller / BGR:

Apple to launch low-priced iPhone for $350, iPhone 4S/5 end of summer — We know these next-generation iPhone rumors have been out of control (aren't they every year right before a new iPhone is slated to be released?), but we just received some new information from an incredibly solid source of ours.

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