Top Items:
Brian Rakowski / The Official Google Blog:
Google Chrome for the holidays: Mac, Linux and extensions in beta — There was nothing more excruciating for me as a kid than seeing the presents pile up under the Christmas tree but knowing that I couldn't open them until Christmas morning. On the Google Chrome team …
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Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Google Chrome For Mac Is Here! — The wait is over. Google Chrome for Mac is now available in beta. It's still missing a few features that are in the Windows version (like support for extensions), but the browser is lickety-split and more-or-less stable. — I've been holding off really using Chrome until now.
Discussion:
Telegraph, Mashable!, Chromium Blog, AppleInsider, Download Squad, VentureBeat, Macworld, MacRumors, 9 to 5 Mac, Digital Trends, InformationWeek, TUAW, Engadget and MacNN
Lee Mathews / Download Squad:
Google Chrome Extensions Gallery is open for business! — Those of you who have been waiting for the official Google Chrome Extensions gallery to open, wait no more! The switch has been flipped and Google's repository is now open the the public. — Things have been fairly active already …
Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:
New Digital Publishing Venture Boasts Access To 144 Million-Plus Audience; Squires Talks — Condé Nast, Hearst, Meredith (NYSE: MDP), News Corp (NYSE: NWS). and Time Inc. are making it formal: the five publishers are equity partners in a new digital publishing venture with grand designs.
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Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Now's the Time, Finally: Publishers Announce Their “Hulu for Magazines.” Next Up: Building It. — So here you go: The magazine industry is finally ready to announce that it is forming a joint venture to distribute and sell digital versions of its products.
The Official Google Blog:
Exploring a new, more dynamic way of reading news with Living Stories — There's been no shortage of talk recently about the “future of news.” Should publishers charge for news online? How do they replace lost sources of revenue such as classified ads? How will accountability journalism endure?
Discussion:
ReadWriteWeb, Silicon Alley Insider, Technologizer, New York Times, paidContent and Washington Post
Gmail Blog:
Offline Gmail graduates from Labs — Almost a year ago, we launched Offline Gmail in Gmail Labs. By installing Offline Gmail, you're able to use the normal Gmail interface to read and write mail, search, and organize, even when there's no internet connection.
Discussion:
Technologizer, eWeek, CNET News, Neowin.net, Download Squad, ReadWriteWeb, Geek.com, Softpedia News, Lockergnome Blog Network, jkOnTheRun, Lifehacker, Ubergizmo and AppScout
Mel Martin / TUAW:
Dragon Dictation comes to the iPhone. Wow. — Put this into the 'I didn't think they could ever get this to work on an iPhone' category. — I'm talking about Dragon Dictation [iTunes link] from Nuance, the developers of the very popular Dragon Naturally Speaking for the PC.
Discussion:
Macworld, MacRumors, Andy Ihnatko's Celestial Waste …, Nuance is a leading provider …, jkOnTheRun, MobileCrunch, iLounge, AppScout, Mashable!, blogs.chron.com, BusinessWeek, 9 to 5 Mac, TechStartups.com, The iPhone Blog, Digital Inspiration, GottaBeMobile.com, Daring Fireball, Gizmodo, Mobile Tech Addicts and Gizmodo Australia
Rafe Needleman / Crave: The gadget blog:
Hands-on with the JooJoo — CNET snagged the first journalists' demo of the new JooJoo (formerly CrunchPad) Web slate on Fusion Garage CEO Chandra Rathakrishnan's San Francisco media tour. Quick impressions: yeah, this is a really cool device. Everyone reading a tech site like CNET will want one.
Discussion:
NEWSFACTOR, Engadget, Mobile Whack, Lockergnome Blog Network, Gadgetell, I4U News, The iPhone Blog, techblog.dallasnews.com, SlashGear, PC World, Internet2Go, GMSV, Gadget Lab, ITworld.com, 901am, Gizmodo, GottaBeMobile.com, Electricpig.co.uk, Between the Lines, L.A. Times Tech Blog, PalmAddicts, Smalltalk Tidbits … and eHomeUpgrade, Thanks:mgcreed
Connie Guglielmo / Bloomberg:
Dell Rings Up $6.5 Million in Sales Using Twitter Promotions — Dec. 8 (Bloomberg) — Dell Inc., relying on social- networking sites to drum up sales of personal computers, said its promotions on Twitter have helped generate more than $6.5 million in orders for PCs, accessories and software.
Discussion:
TechCrunch, Direct2Dell, Andy Beard, Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim, the Econsultancy blog, Guardian, Boy Genius Report, Erictric and AppScout
Sam Oliver / AppleInsider:
Apple reveals best-selling iTunes content, iPhone apps of 2009 — Apple this week revealed the most critically acclaimed and best selling content of the year in the iTunes Store, the world's most popular online music seller and mobile application destination.
Chris Albrecht / NewTeeVee:
Study: Redbox Will Destroy the Entertainment Industry — If you thought the movie 2012 was disaster porn, just wait for the entertainment apocalypse that Redbox's dollar-a-night movie rentals will bring about. That, in a nutshell, is the bottom line of a new report (PDF, hat tip to Video Business) …
Michael Lazerow / MediaPost:
Alert! Facebook Pages Are Changing: Are You Ready? — In late October, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the head of Facebook Platform, Ethan Beard, provided insight into the future of the platform in the company's inaugural road map address. — Overlooked by almost every marketer …
Adam Pash / Lifehacker:
Thunderbird 3 Officially Released with New Features, Improved Look — Windows/Mac/Linux: A whopping two years at its second major release, Mozilla's popular desktop email client Thunderbird is now available as the new and improved Thunderbird 3.0, and there's a lot to love in the new Thunderbird.
Joe Wilcox / BetaNews:
What does AT&T's ‘Mark the Spot’ app say about service quality? — Do you have AT&T as wireless carrier? Are you happy with the network service quality? I encourage Betanews readers to respond in comments to these questions, which are suddenly surreal now that AT&T has released the “Mark the Spot” app for iPhone.
Google LatLong:
Changing your perspective — As an avid travel planner or discerning house hunter, you might always be looking for another view of a location before you make your final decision. On the Google Maps team we're always looking for ways to make search experiences like this more useful for you.
ComingSoon.net:
The Facebook Movie is Coming Next October — ComingSoon.net has learned that Sony's Columbia Pictures has set an October 15, 2010 release date for director David Fincher's The Social Network, written by Aaron Sorkin and starring Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Timberlake, Andrew Garfield and Joe Mazzello.
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
How Microsoft stacks up against Google's latest search and mobile wares — Hoping (unsuccessfully so) to head off the glowing press Google was bound to get this week for its “future of search” preview, Microsoft showed off some of its latest enhancements to Bing last week.
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Seagate finally makes move from hard drives to flash storage — Seagate makes about $10 billion a year in revenues from its 30-year-old hard drive business. But today, after two years of study, the company is launching a new flash memory storage business.
The Official Google Blog:
Fighting fraud online: taking “Google Money” scammers to court — “Use Google to Make 1000s of Dollars!” or “Easy Cash with Google: You Could be Making up to $978 a Day Working from Home!” You may have seen offers like these using Google's name or logo that sounded too good to be true.
Owen Van Natta / MySpace:
Imeem Becomes Part of MySpace Music — Today, MySpace Music has completed a deal to acquire certain assets of imeem - a leading social media music service. MySpace Music and imeem share a common vision and commitment to further enabling the socialization of content across the Web.
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
LaLa Was Bought By Apple For $17 Million, Not $80 Million — Sometimes you have to apply the smell test to what your sources are telling you, and the rumors we're hearing about Apple's purchase of music service LaLa are definitely smelling a little off. $80 million for LaLa? That isn't what we're hearing.
Discussion:
AppleInsider, PC World, TUAW, Gizmodo, Telegraph, 9 to 5 Mac, p2pnet news, Music Ally, Softpedia News and Erictric
Joseph Tartakoff / paidContent:
Yahoo's Bartz: ‘Things Are Looking Up’ — Asked about the disparity between online media usage and internet ad spending at UBS Media Week, Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz said that the gap was in part because internet advertising had initially over-sold itself: “I think internet advertising oversold itself …
Robert McMillan / PC World:
New Cloud-based Service Steals Wi-Fi Passwords — For US$34, a new cloud-based hacking service can crack a WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) network password in just 20 minutes, its creator says. — Launched Monday, the WPA Cracker service bills itself as a useful tool for security auditors …
Discussion:
CloudAve, Between the Lines, fiercecio.comwatch, The Register, Wi-Fi Networking News, DSLreports, CrunchGear, Help Net Security and Maximum PC
Paul Bonanos / GigaOM:
Pandora Is Coming to Your Car — Net radio provider Pandora is preparing to move more aggressively into the automotive space, with deeper integration with car radios and controls on the horizon. During an early afternoon panel at the SF Music Tech Summit, chief technology officer Tom Conrad …
Electronista:
Sony Reader EPUB, Snow Leopard support due Friday — Sony has let its customers know via an e-mail and online announcement that it will make significant changes to its online bookstore. As of December 11th, the Sony Ebook Store will be renamed the Reader Store and have a new website, readerstore.sony.com.
Eric Zeman / InformationWeek:
Samsung Redefines Vaporware: ‘Bada’ — Samsung herded up the tech press in London today to share more information about Bada, its new homegrown mobile operating system. Yours truly hopped the Atlantic to attend. Unfortunately, all Samsung demonstrated was its ability to fling every buzzword in the book at attendees.
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Tandberg to bring high-end video conferencing to low-cost PCs — Road warriors and telecommuters may get excited about this announcement. Today, Tandberg is announcing that high-end video conferencing features are being built into its low-cost PC video collaboration tool, Movi.
