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5:30 PM ET, September 8, 2011

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Marissa Mayer / The Official Google Blog:
Google just got ZAGAT Rated!  —  “Did you know there's a place in Menlo Park near the Safeway that has a 27 food rating?” one of my friends asked me that about two years ago, and I was struck because I immediately knew what it meant.  Food rating... 30 point scale... Zagat.  And the place... had to be good.
RELATED:
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines Blog:
Google acquires Zagat, enters original content business  —  Google on Thursday acquired Zagat in an effort to bolster its local products with the restaurant rating service.  More notably is that Zagat is a content company.  —  In a blog post, Google said that Zagat will “be a cornerstone of our local offering.”
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
Google buys Zagat to add people power to its algorithms
Discussion: @semilshah
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:   Zagat's Price: Under $66 Million
Patricia Sellers / Fortune:
Carol Bartz exclusive: Yahoo “f—ed me over”  —  Here is what Carol Bartz thinks of the Yahoo (YHOO) board that fired her: “These people f**ked me over,” she says, in her first interview since her dismissal from the CEO role late Tuesday.  —  Last evening, barely 24 hours …
RELATED:
Robert X. Cringely / I, Cringely:
How Not to Run Yahoo  —  I seem to be writing a lot of these What the heck was that? columns explaining recent news events.  This time it is the firing of Carol Bartz as CEO of Yahoo.  I'm not here to defend Bartz, whom I would have fired long ago (or more probably not hired in the first place) …
Nicholas Carlson / Business Insider:
BLAMMO!  Huge Yahoo Stakeholder Calls For Chairman Roy Bostock's Head  —  Daniel Loeb of Third Point LLC says his multi-billion dollar hedge fund has acquired 5.1% of Yahoo's stock, and that he would like several of Yahoo's board members, including chairman Roy Bostock, to step down.
Discussion: AllThingsD
Nicholas Carlson / Business Insider:
Jerry Yang Is Trying To Buy Yahoo
Dan Primack / Fortune:
Arrington out at AOL (for real this time)  —  Not TechCrunch editor.  Not AOL Ventures employee.  Michael Arrington is on his own.  —  It has been a very long week for AOL.  And it's about to get even longer.  —  Last Thursday, word leaked that one of its employees …
RELATED:
Rebecca Greenfield / The Atlantic Wire:
After Arrington: Anarchy at TechCrunch  —  Michael Arrington is out at AOL.  For Real.  After presenting his ultimatum, AOL has fired the TechCrunch editor, reports Fortune's Dan Primack.  “Not TechCrunch editor.  Not AOL Ventures employee.  Michael Arrington is on his own.”
Fred / A VC:
Whither TechCrunch?  —  The media has had a lot of fun over the past week watching AOL, Huffington Post, TechCrunch, and Mike Arrington figure out how to move on.  I feel badly for the TechCrunch crew including MG, Erick, Sarah, and many others.  They are awesome at what they do and I feel …
Discussion: Betabeat
Connie Loizos / PE Hub Blog:
After Bartz, Armstrong Looks to Be Next
Twitter Blog:
One hundred million voices  —  Five years ago, Twitter came to life when @jack sent the first Tweet to his seven followers.  Now, 100 million active users around the globe turn to Twitter to share their thoughts and find out what's happening in the world right now.
RELATED:
Matthew Panzarino / The Next Web:
Twitter: 100M active users per month, 50% log on every day, 55% on mobile, 1B Tweets every 5 days
Discussion: Mashable!
Dan Primack / Fortune:
Twitter closes massive funding round  —  Late last month, All Things D reported that Twitter's recent $800 million funding round was actually two funding rounds: A $400 million direct investment led by DST (already closed), and a $400 million secondary offering for existing Twitter shareholders (in process).
Discussion: The Next Web
RELATED:
Jolie O'Dell / VentureBeat:   What's coming next for Twitter: fewer fail whales, more users, more ads
Sebastian Anthony / ExtremeTech:
Google announces Dart programming language  —  A few days after Google was caught registering a bunch of Dart-related domain names, and the inevitable storm of speculation, it has now emerged that Dart is a new programming language for “structured web programming.”
Discussion: SiliconFilter
Los Angeles Times:
Amazon cuts deal on California sales taxes  —  Legislative leaders agree to let the online retailer delay collecting taxes for a year, while it would drop its battle to overturn the state law.  Gov. Jerry Brown has not said if he will support the plan.  —  “It's a safe harbor for up to a year …
Yahoo! News:
Samsung, Microsoft tie up for new tablet  —  South Korea's Samsung Electronics has teamed up with Microsoft to make a new tablet computer powered by the US software giant's latest operating system, according to a report.  —  The Korea Economic Daily, citing an industry source …
Reuters:
Apple sues Samsung in Japan over patents: report  —  (Reuters) - Apple is suing Samsung Electronics in Japan, accusing it of patent violations relating to the iPhone and iPad, Kyodo news agency said, the latest salvo in a series of patent battles between the two firms.
Jack Purcher / Patently Apple:
Apple Reveals More Details on their Portable Point-of-Sale System  —  On September 8, 2011, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals more details on their portable point-of-sales (POS) system.  Apple first filed a patent application for their POS system …
Discussion: iDownloadBlog.com
Jeferson Valadares / Flurry Blog:
Mobile Freemium Games: Gen Y Plays, but Gen X Pays  —  Freemium games on iOS and Android continue to dominate the app economy, now accounting for over 65% of all revenue generated among the Top 100 grossing apps in the App Store alone.  In a series of recent pieces on free-to-play mobile games …
Mike Rosenberg / Contra Costa Times:
Newest iProduct coming to Cupertino: Apple Campus 2  —  mrosenberg@mercurynews.com  —  Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs once called the humongous campus a spaceship.  So you might think the forthcoming circle-shaped Cupertino headquarters would carry a grandiose name befitting a potential signature Silicon Valley landmark.
Alex Fowler / Mozilla Privacy Blog:
Mozilla Publishes Developer Guide on DNT; Releases DNT Adoption Numbers  —  As many people know, Mozilla jumped into Do Not Track (DNT) in a big way earlier this year by providing Firefox users on desktop and mobile users with a simple way to tell companies to stop tracking them online.
Discussion: Computerworld
Liz Gannes / AllThingsD:
Gina Bianchini's New Start-Up Is a Guide Creation Tool: Mightybell  —  Mightybell is today launching a beta version of its tools for sharing step-by-step guides to experiences like traveling, recipes and education.  —  The service, which is available as a Web site and iPhone app …
Jordan Crook / TechCrunch:
Samsung Nexus Prime Support Page Pops Up, Rumored Specs Trickle Out  —  If the model number GT-i9250 means nothing to you, you best brush up on your mobile news.  It's supposed to be the next Google phone, the Nexus Prime, and the first phone to run the much anticipated Ice Cream Sandwich.
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Google+ API Not Close ...Unless You're “Trusted”, Then It's Ready  —  Just yesterday, we wrote that those developers waiting on a Google+ API would have to wait a while — months, even.  This disappointing information came to us by way of one eager developer based on what they were told by a project manager for Google+.
Discussion: PC World, VentureBeat and WebProNews
Janko Roettgers / GigaOM:
Exclusive: Viewsonic pulls the plug on Boxee TV  —  Viewsonic has abandoned its efforts to bring a Boxee-powered TV set to market, citing high costs and insufficient interest from consumers in so-called smart TVs.  —  The company had shown off a 46" TV set running Boxee's media center software at CES …
Discussion: VentureBeat, Engadget and Electronista
 
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 More Items: 
Jim Dalrymple / The Loop:
Apple: iTunes U tops 600 million downloads
Tim Danaher / Retail Week:
Amazon to launch order collection lockers in UK shopping centres
Discussion: GeekWire, The Next Web and Pocket-lint
Tricia Duryee / AllThingsD:
eBay Bets on Social Commerce With Acquisition of the Gifts Project
Discussion: VC Cafe
Ingrid Lunden / mocoNews:
IDC: Q2 Is The First Time Smartphones Outstripped Feature Phone Shipments
Discussion: Electronista
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Andreessen Horowitz Leads $5.7M Round In Analytics Platform For Hadoop Data Platfora
 Earlier Items: 
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
YouTube's Content-ID Piracy Filter Wreaks Havoc
Arik Hesseldahl / AllThingsD:
IBM Stakes $1 Billion on Hope of Spurring Small Business Buying
Discussion: Digits, PC World and eWeek
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch:
Watch Out Amazon: GetJar Launches A Full Catalog Of Premium Android Apps For Free
Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch:
Labor Board: Fired-For-Facebooking Employees Must Be Rehired
Discussion: CNET News
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
How an omniscient Internet “sextortionist” ruined the lives of teen girls