Top Items:
Jay Rosen / PressThink:
Introducing NewAssignment.Net — Enterprise reporting goes pro-am. Assignments are open sourced. They begin online. Reporters working with smart users and blogging editors get the story the pack wouldn't, couldn't or didn't. They raise the money too. Q and A explains.
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Jeff Jarvis / BuzzMachine:
NewAssignment.net — This is an answer — not the answer — to the frequently asked question in the shrinking news business these days: How will we support journalism and investigation? NewAssignment will not replace the work of professional news organizations.
Discussion:
Sunlight Foundation
Matt Marshall / SiliconBeat:
Zillow raises $25, joins ranks of bigger Web 2.0 companies — Zillow.com, the controversial online real estate company that provides value estimates on homes, has raised $25 million in a second round of funding. — It is controversial because it pisses off lots of real estate agents, who think providing values is their job.
Discussion:
John Cook's Venture Blog, PostBubble, Business Filter, Blogging Stocks, Silicon Valley Watcher, CNNMoney.com, i-boy and Screenwerk
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Om Malik / GigaOM:
The Return of The Big Money VC — Seattle-based real estate information service, Zillow.com raised $25 million, nine months after it raised $26 million. Think about it this way - Zillow has raised $3 million (or about $57 million) for every month of its 19-month existence.
Discussion:
SiliconBeat
Reuters:
Google offers live traffic maps on cell phones —Text+SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc. said on Tuesday that the company has begun offering mobile phone users in more than 30 major U.S. cities the capacity to view highway maps with "live" traffic data.
Discussion:
Trends in the Living Networks, jkOnTheRun, VoIP & Gadgets Blog, Dvorak Uncensored and Slashdot
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Need / brixnet.com:
Strategic Partners Technology Partners Channel Partners — INTERNET PHONE QUALITY DROPS SIGNIFICANTLY AND STEADILY OVER LAST 18 MONTHS — From Brix Networks' TestYourVoIP.com Voice Quality Testing Portal — CHELMSFORD, Mass. — Nearly 20 percent of Internet telephone test calls experienced …
Discussion:
Good Morning Silicon Valley
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Marguerite Reardon / CNET News.com:
Study: Net telephony quality worsening — While it's no secret that Net phone services don't offer the same call quality as traditional phones, a new study suggests that the quality of voice over Internet Protocol is actually getting worse. — Brix Networks, a company that develops monitoring tools …
Discussion:
21talks, VoIP Now, VoIP & Gadgets Blog, Techdirt, InterMedia, VoIP Lowdown, GigaOM, The Original Blog and broadbandreports.com
Eric Pfanner / New York Times:
Hewlett-Packard Takes a New Tack: Being Cool — FOR weeks, an unusual Web site linked to the World Cup soccer tournament kept visitors guessing: Could this be real? — The site, FingerSkilz.tv, shows what appear to be close-up videos of a man's hand on a desk, using two fingers …
Marshall Kirkpatrick / TechCrunch:
Amazon to throw its weight at video downloads — Amazon disclosed this weekend that they would be entering the video download space in mid August. AdAge reported on Saturday that Amazon Digital Video will be a subscription service operating through a desktop client.
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Wired News:
Really Big Show — How does a 37-foot-tall robotic elephant run amok? Very slowly, and with lots of help. The Sultan's Elephant, seen here in central London at a performance by the French street theater company Royal de Luxe, weighs 46 tons - five times heavier than an actual African elephant …
Skype for Mac:
Video has arrived - If you're brave! — Finally Video has arrived on Skype for Mac! The video preview of Skype for Mac was released today. Download the video preview now. We know that you've been waiting... and waiting... and waiting... so we've decided to release video early as a preview version.
Discussion:
TechCrunch, Infinite Loop, Skype Journal, The Unofficial Apple Weblog and VoIP & Gadgets Blog
Reuters:
AOL founder says he is 'sorry' for Time Warner merger —Text+NEW YORK (Reuters) - Steve Case, co-founder of the one-time biggest online service AOL, apologized for the company's merger with media conglomerate Time Warner Inc. in an interview with U.S. journalist Charlie Rose.
Leander Kahney / Wired News:
Why I Love Apple — I just noticed something about Apple's Mail program that perfectly illustrates why people love Apple and its products. — Like most e-mail programs, Mail's main window is divided into columns: "From," "Subject" and "Date," etc. — While I was adjusting the width of the columns …
Steve Rubel / Micro Persuasion:
Technorati Teams with the Wall Street Journal — One of the tidbits that may have been lost in yesterday's Technorati announcement is that they have formed a partnership with the Wall Street Journal. The Journal now uses Technorati data to break out the most blogged stories.
Jeff / Venture Chronicles:
No Money Down, Zero Percent Financing — If you think objectively about pricing trends in enterprise software you can easily come to the conclusion that almost all software should be free or nearly free. I'll sidestep the entire topic of open source because while that segment is certainly a participant …
Nick / Rough Type:
JotSpot's suite dreams — As the company's name implies, JotSpot used to provide a fairly simple product: a wiki application geared to companies and running on the web. Now, though, JotSpot is getting more ambitious. It's transforming its wiki tool into a wiki platform …
Paul Briggs / MobileWhack.com:
Lesance AS520AW-Duo Gaming Notebook — Koubou is one of the famous notebook manufacturers in Japan. They introduced their latest Lesance notebook, the AS520AW-Duo. I should say this is one of the best gaming notebooks from Koubou. It is powered by Intel Core Duo T2400 1.86GHz processor running on Microsoft Windows Home Edition.
Jacqui Cheng / Infinite Loop:
Apple and Facebook partner up for back-to-school iTunes promo — Amongst many exciting things announced today in Apple-land is a partnership between Facebook and Apple to start giving away 10 million music samplers on the iTunes Music Store to Facebook users over the next ten weeks …
