Top Items:
Bret Taylor / FriendFeed Blog:
FriendFeed accepts Facebook friend request — We are happy to announce that Facebook has acquired FriendFeed. As my mom explained to me, when two companies love each other very much, they form a structured investment vehicle... The FriendFeed team is extremely excited to become a part of the talented Facebook team.
Discussion:
Mashable!, Between the Lines, PE Hub Blog, Techgeist, BoomTown, the Econsultancy blog, ReadWriteWeb, MYBLOG by Ouriel, Search Engine Watch, TechTicker, SEO and Tech Daily, Webomatica, @vanelsas, Inside Facebook, eWeek, Bizzia, The Register, Download Squad, louisgray.com, PC World, Technosailor.com, Webmonkey, This is going to be BIG., Style Council, Gawker, contentSutra, Sample the Web, TheNextWeb.com, Gear Live, Regular Geek, TECH.BLORGE.com, Silicon Alley Insider, The Web Life, VentureBeat, Search Engine Land, Obsessable, SiliconBeat, bub.blicio.us, Twittercism, Bits, Mark Evans, internetnews.com, CloudAve, Forbes, AppScout and Neowin.net, Thanks:atul
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MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
The Cost Of FriendFeed: Roughly $50 Million In Cash And Stock — Everyone is obviously talking about the Facebook/FriendFeed deal, but everyone wants to know one key detail: How much did Facebook pay? Now we know: Facebook paid nearly $50 million when you add the $15 million it paid in cash …
Discussion:
Loic Le Meur Blog, Mashable!, Wall Street Journal, Inside Facebook, Reuters and VentureBeat, Thanks:thinkmantra
Robert Scoble / Scobleizer:
Oh, FriendFeed is now Facebook's “official” R&D department! — When I heard the news I was walking through San Antonio's Hard Rock Cafe looking at Kurt Cobain's high school photograph. Wow. FriendFeed was purchased by Facebook. — I quickly wrote a DM to Paul Buchheit and Bret Taylor, co-founders and said “call me.”
Discussion:
Thomas Hawk Digital Connection, TechCrunch, All Facebook, Between the Lines, Inside Facebook, The SiliconANGLE, Techgeist and VentureBeat, Thanks:mrinaldesai
Facebook:
Facebook Agrees to Acquire Sharing Service FriendFeed — Facebook today announced that it has agreed to acquire FriendFeed, the innovative service for sharing online. As part of the agreement, all FriendFeed employees will join Facebook and FriendFeed's four founders will hold senior roles on Facebook's engineering and product teams.
Caroline McCarthy / CNET News:
Facebook buys FriendFeed: Is this a big deal? — Surprise! Facebook has acquired FriendFeed, a Bay Area-based social-network feed aggregation start-up. — “Facebook and FriendFeed share a common vision of giving people tools to share and connect with their friends,” FriendFeed co-founder Bret Taylor said in a release.
Discussion:
AdAge, Mashable!, TechCrunch, Softpedia News, Macworld, Life On the Wicked Stage, BoomTown, broadstuff and NBC Bay Area
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Now That There's FaceFeed, Does That Make Twoogle More Inevitable? — MicroHoo. Check! FaceFeed. Check! — And Twoogle? Let's check! — Yahoo (YHOO) and Microsoft (MSFT) have finally partnered. Microsoft is already a big investor in Facebook.
Discussion:
Business Week
Matt Cutts / Gadgets, Google, and SEO:
More info on the Caffeine Update — Google recently opened up a preview of our new Caffeine update, and I wanted to give a little more background on this change. At the Real-Time CrunchUp a few weeks ago, I joked that the half-life of code at Google is about six months.
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Vanessa Fox / Search Engine Land:
Caffeine: Google's New Search Index — Google has just unveiled a “secret project” of “next-generation architecture for Google's web search”. This new architecture appears to include crawling, indexing, and ranking changes. For the first time, Google isn't simply incorporating these changes …
Akhil Wable / Facebook Blog:
Facebook Search Improved for Everyone — Last month, we began testing new versions of Search with a small group of people on Facebook. Based on the success of those tests, we're rolling out a new version of Search to everyone on the site beginning today. — You now will be able to search …
Discussion:
Digits, Mashable!, TechCrunch, Search Engine Watch, paidContent, CNET News, Softpedia News, ReadWriteWeb, Search Engine Journal, VentureBeat, Search Engine Land, Between the Lines and Pocket-lint.com, Thanks:rahulkumar
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Matt Buchanan / Gizmodo:
Zune HD Prices Leaked: 16GB for $220, 32GB for $290 — It feels like we know everything about the Zune HD—except the price. Well, now we know, if Best Buy's inventory system is right: the 16GB model will go for $220, and the 32GB model will be $290. — It also backs up the previously rumored launch date, Sept. 8.
Discussion:
OLED TV Display Lighting …, Pocket-lint.com, SlipperyBrick.com, Ars Technica, MobileContentToday, Neowin.net and OLED-Info
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Ross Miller / Engadget:Zune HD hits FCC in prolific photo shoot, 16GB and 32GB capacities
Discussion:
Crave, Ben Patterson, Electronista, BetaNews, ClipperHouse, WMPoweruser.com and Ubergizmo
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
VMware goes shopping: Buys SpringSource for $420 million; Can it keep the open source mojo? — VMware said Monday that it will pay $420 million for privately held SpringSource in a bid to become a bigger player in cloud computing application management and the open source community.
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Rod Johnson / SpringSource Team Blog:SpringSource: Chapter Two — Today I want to share some exciting news.
Discussion:
The Console, VMware Cloud Computing …, People Over Process, TechCrunchIT, The Open Road, The Register, OnStrategies Perspectives, BoomTown, Computerworld, internetnews.com and EE Times, Thanks:atul
Erica Ogg / Crave: The gadget blog:
MLB beefs up Roku's rotation — In its bid to put together a roster of compelling content, Roku has just acquired an ace. — Starting Tuesday, the set-top box—known to many as “the Netflix box”—will begin streaming Major League Baseball games. As with the current Netflix arrangement …
Discussion:
Macworld, Beet.TV, Engadget, L.A. Times Tech Blog, Mercury News, Gearlog, San Francisco Chronicle, NewTeeVee, Contentinople, Silicon Alley Insider, Gizmodo and paidContent
Kim-Mai Cutler / VentureBeat:
Twitter CEO's wife tweets about labor, ongoing birth of first child — Sara Morishige Williams, Twitter CEO Ev Williams' wife, is certainly making use of the company product — for the birth of their first child. — She went old-school, using text messages rather than a fancy application to post the news.
Emil Protalinski / Ars Technica:
Microsoft: “dropping support for IE6 is not an option” — In a blog post on the IEBlog, Microsoft has outlined its reasoning for not forcing users to upgrade away from IE6. — Microsoft wants to see IE6 gone as much as anyone else, but the company isn't going to make the decision for its users anytime soon.
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Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider:
Mahalo 2.0 Is Kicking Ass — Jason Calacanis continues to do what he does best: Innovate. — When the original concept for Mahalo didn't work as well as he thought it would, he did what all great entrepreneurs do: Try something different. — The second version of Mahalo …
Thanks:mrinaldesai
Ashlee Vance / Bits:
An Elephant Leaves the Room at Yahoo — Doug Cutting, one of Yahoo's top search and infrastructure software experts, will leave the company later this month and join the Silicon Valley start-up Cloudera. — Mr. Cutting's exit from Yahoo follows on the heels of the company's recent search tie-up with Microsoft.
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Sean Michaels / Guardian:
Major labels preparing new digital album format — The four big record companies are to compete with Apple's forthcoming Cocktail project by developing their own format called CMX — Forget WAV, MP3 and M4A - major labels have something new in mind, and it's called CMX.
Jim Dalrymple / CNET News:
Apple working on software fix for MacBook Pro hard drives — Owners of Apple MacBook Pro notebooks with 7200rpm 500GB hard drives have been complaining for months of clicking sounds followed by temporary stalling. According to Apple, a fix is in the works.
Discussion:
SlashGear, Engadget, Computerworld, Softpedia News, MacNN, Technologizer, MacFixIt, TechSpot, MacRumors, Lockergnome Blog Network and Macsimum News
Scott Austin / Venture Capital Dispatch:
Benchmark Capital Keeps The Returns Coming — Benchmark Capital, the firm behind hits such as eBay Inc., Juniper Networks Inc. and Red Hat Inc., continues to prove it can generate investment returns even amid a troubled economy. … Today, two more of its portfolio companies were acquired …
MacGregor Campbell / New Scientist:
Robots to get their own operating system — THE UBot whizzes around a carpeted conference room on its Segway-like wheels, holding aloft a yellow balloon. It hands the balloon to a three-fingered robotic arm named WAM, which gingerly accepts the gift. — Cameras click.
Steven E.F. Brown / bizjournals:
Fortinet files for IPO worth up to $100M — Fortinet Inc. filed papers with regulators for an initial public offering worth up to $100 million. — The Sunnyvale business makes network security devices and software. It had sales of $211.8 million in fiscal 2008, up from sales of $155.4 million in 2007 and $123.5 million in 2006.
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Nambu Wants $80K-$100K For Tr.im, Considers Shutting Down Its Twitter Client — Earlier today, we reported on Bit.ly offering Tr.im parent Nambu Network, a couple of ways to ensure all its links don't die when the service stop supporting them at the end of the year. Nambu rejected those, as it is instead looking to sell.
Discussion:
the Econsultancy blog
Ben Fritz / Los Angeles Times:
Tough times in the porn industry — The business, centered in the San Fernando Valley, is being undercut by a growing abundance of free content on the Internet. — On a recent Saturday night, Savannah Stern earned $300 to hang out for seven hours at a party in Santa Monica wearing nothing but a feather boa.
David Murphy / PC World:
GeekBargain: Microsoft Doubles Cashback Incentives for Bing Search — Microsoft kicked off a large Bing promotion today that's geared to attract the attention of the Internet's best bargain shoppers. The program itself is called Cashback, a function of the company's Bing search engine that …
