Top Items:
Gary Rivlin / New York Times:
Wallflower at the Web Party — JONATHAN ABRAMS was in a spot. He could take the safe bet and accept the $30 million that Google was offering him for Friendster, the social networking Web start-up he began only a year earlier, in 2002. Saying yes to Google would provide a quick …
Discussion:
Mark Evans, IP Democracy, TechCrunch, Screenwerk, Mathew Ingram, Clickety Clack, TikiRobot! and ben barren
Newlaunches.com:
McDonalds gives MP3 players infected with spyware as prizes — If it is not lawsuits then there is virus infected MP3 players, the fast food giant is always in the news. It all started in August when McDonalds Japan in association with Coca Cola announced a contest, where a MP3 player …
Daniel Terdiman / CNET News.com:
'Second Life' to begin selling real names — For anyone who has used the virtual world "Second Life," the last names Gjellerup, Godel or Stapovic probably mean a lot more than their real last names. — That's because historically, "Second Life" users have had to choose names from an ever-changing …
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Brady Forrest / O'Reilly Radar:
Second Life to Start Selling Names — Second Life is going to start selling "real" names to people (just like they do with virtual land). CNET is reporting that Linden Labs, the creators, have decided "to charge individuals who want a real last name a $100 setup fee and a $50-a-year maintenance fee.
Discussion:
Clickable Culture
Ismael Ghalimi / IT|Redux:
What I learned at the Office 2.0 Conference — With over 450 participants (375 iPods only, sorry...), 105 speakers, and 56 sponsors, the inaugural Office 2.0 Conference was a success. Eating our own dog food, we used as many Office 2.0 tools as we could to organize the event, and most of them worked.
Richard Menta / mp3newswire.net:
iPod Killers for Christmas 2006 — We have run the iPod Killers for Christmas/Summer series since 2004. In that time we reported on 149 portable players and NOT one iPod killer from the bunch. That said, we may actually have a couple of genuine challengers to Apple.
Haydn / What Will You See Next?:
Well Said is Not Always Well Written — Dave Winer has been the focal point of a discussion on blogs and journalism these past few days. — Dave's point is that the reader is now the writer and in ten years time all news will be blog based. — On mediangler I've been trying to work some of this out too.
Fred / A VC:
Who Should Buy Yahoo! — I got this comment on my Buying YHOO post last week: … My first thought was that I had sold too soon. My second thought was "no, not a carrier". And the next thing I did was send the comment around to some of my friends who are active in the market.
Discussion:
Howard Lindzon
blog.holtz.com:
Edelman and the one-sided conversation — The first inkling I had that Edelman PR had stumbled again in its social media efforts on behalf of client WalMart came early yesterday when Laurel English emailed me a copy of the MediaPost story. Shortly after that, Donna Simmons …
Discussion:
JD on EP, Mathew Ingram, NevilleHobson.com, WebMetricsGuru, Sparkplug 9 >> bizhack and PR Squared
Richard Siklos / New York Times:
A Loopy Deal That Actually Makes Sense — IS Google's $1.65 billion acquisition of the video Web site YouTube another milestone in the annals of the Internet? Or is it evidence of a second silly season? The answer to both questions: Yep, you'd better believe it.
Discussion:
BuzzMachine
Brian Krebs / Washington Post:
Microsoft Now Decides to Accept Outside Security for Vista — Microsoft Corp. did an about-face yesterday, agreeing to make it easier for customers of its forthcoming Vista operating system to use outside security vendors, such as those who make popular antivirus and anti-spyware programs.
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Anything But iPod:
MobiBLU Cube 2 Now Available in the US — For those who like their MP3 players tiny, MobiBLU is now selling the second generation DAH-1500i, dubbed appropriately the Cube 2. Still the same size as the last generation, the Cube 2 offers smoother styling and a few more features.
Steve Lohr / New York Times:
Is Windows Near End of Its Run? — Steven A. Ballmer, the chief executive of Microsoft, has his hands full. The next version of the Windows operating system, Vista, is finally about to arrive — years late and clouded by doubts that it might violate antitrust rules in Europe.
Ernesto / Torrentfreak:
How to use RSS & BitTorrent to download TV shows — Are you tired of scanning several BitTorrent sites for the latest episodes of your favorite TV-show? You should definitely try using RSS feeds then. RSS and BitTorrent are a perfect match. — What the heck is RSS?
James Niccolai / InfoWorld:
Update: MSN is latest target of Belgian copyright complaint — After Google win, Belgian publishers pursue MSN over the rights to publish content — Looking to avoid the kind of legal tangle that Google has found itself in, Microsoft's MSN division in Belgium is in talks …
Matt Marshall / VentureBeat:
Techdirt lets companies contact expert bloggers — discreetly — for advice — There is a lot going on at the Office 2.0 Conference this week, and we point to Rafe Needleman's blog overview. He has blogged the main points, and describes the companies that are worthy of mention.
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Mihai / persistent.info:
Google Reader Redux — The new version of Reader has been out there long enough (and is now stable enough) that I have some time to catch my breath and make this post (my post-launch post last year came only a couple of days after the big announcement). I've jotted down some of my thoughts …
Mglehman / MSDN Blogs:
Project Glidepath 2.0 Now Ready For Download! — After 3 months of experience with the Project Glidepath Technical Preview, we have now released Project Glidepath 2.0! — It contains many additional features and facilities including multiple factories and better support for VB.Net along with C#.
Discussion:
All about Microsoft
Cyrus Farivar / Engadget:
STAReBOOK e-book reader to hit China, US next month — We're still not sure exactly how successful this whole eBook thing will be. That said, if you believe Sony, "overwhelming demand" delayed the release of the PRS-500 until November, meaning that surely people will be rushing the streets to get their paws on an eBook.
