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12:20 PM ET, December 21, 2006

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Jacques Steinberg / New York Times:
Censored 'SNL' Sketch Jumps Bleepless Onto the Internet  —  The nearly three-minute digital film, shown on "Saturday Night Live" last Saturday, was a parody of two boy-band singers (including one played by the real Justin Timberlake) crooning a holiday song about making a gift to their girlfriends …
Alex Veiga / Associated Press:
Record Labels Sue Web Site Operator  —  LOS ANGELES (AP) — Several major record labels sued the operator of the Russian music Web site AllofMP3.com on Wednesday, claiming the company has been profiting by selling copies of music without their permission.  —  The lawsuit was filed …
RELATED:
MosNews.com RSS:
Record Labels Sue Operator of Russian Music Site AllofMP3.com  —  Several major record labels sued the operator of the Russian music Web site AllofMP3.com on Wednesday, Dec. 20, claiming the company has been profiting by selling copies of music without their permission.
Mike / Techdirt:   Record Labels Finally Sue Allofmp3.com
Trae McNeely / SlashPhone:
Vertu's Signature Cobra Cellphone Cost $310,000 USD  —  Views: 374  —  Vertu's Signature Cobra Cellphone can be yours for only $310,000.  Cheaper version sells for $ 115,000.  Created with various diamonds and 439 rubies.  —  I am honored to introduce our next cellphone; Vertu's Signature Cobra.
Discussion: Gizmodo and I4U News
RELATED:
Paul Miller / Engadget:   Vertu's Signature Cobra claims "world's ugliest phone" throne
Nick Bradbury:
Desktop Software is Paralyzed by Fear  —  Despite the power and rich UI that desktop applications offer, it's obvious that the move to Web applications is accelerating.  For many people, the ability to access your data through any browser clearly outweighs the benefits of desktop software.
Discussion: JD on EP
RELATED:
Ryan Stewart / The Universal Desktop:   Nick gets it - desktop software is scary
Michel Marriott / New York Times:
At the Heart of the Wii, Micron-Size Machines  —  EVEN before its release last month, Nintendo's latest video game console, the Wii, was getting a lot of attention for its wireless motion-sensitive controllers.  Swing the controller and — crack! — hit a virtual home run in a virtual ballpark, for example.
Discussion: Go Nintendo and Slashdot: Games
Don Box / Don Box's Spoutlet:
Google Search API?  —  Several people have forwarded me pointers to Google's move from a SOAP-based access mechanism for search to an AJAX-based one.  —  The O'Reilly coverage starts to detail what's going on, but I think there's more here than meets the eye.
RELATED:
Simon Willison / Simon Willison's Weblog:
Why JSON isn't just for JavaScript  —  Dave Winer's discovery of JSON …
Discussion: Scripting News and Labnotes
Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life:
Widgets Become More Important than APIs for Data Exchange on the Web
Deusx / del.icio.us:
tagometer: badges badges badges badges BOOKMARKS BOOKMARKS  —  Being a blogger, one of my long-standing wishlist items for del.icio.us has been to find some way to get more of what's going on here to show up out there.  Instead of just simple links, I've wanted to get a bit of peek through …
RELATED:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:   Del.icio.us Widget Released
Jacqui Cheng / Ars Technica:
Google drops beta tag from Blogger  —  The beta version of Google's popular blogging service, Blogger Beta, quietly shed its "beta" tag today.  The switch came without much fanfare, only noted by the loss of the "beta" tag and the introduction of "the new Blogger" on the main Blogger web site.
Discussion: Neowin.net and Web Strategy
Richard MacManus / Read/WriteWeb:
GoogleOS II: Starring Linus Torvalds  —  Written by Emre Sokullu and edited by Richard MacManus  —  Did the above image shock you?  No, this is not a real Google advert!  But something similar may well turn into reality.  In this sequel to our original GoogleOS blockbuster …
Discussion: loose wire blog
Brady Forrest / O'Reilly Radar:
OpenID on the Upswing  —  OpenID is a lightweight, decentralized identity system that has been gaining prominence.  I expect this upcoming year to be a big year for OpenID — and not just because of the Google trend chart with the recent uptake in search query share.
Fred / A VC:
Web 2.0 Is A Gift, Not A Threat, To VCs  —  It's Christmas time and I've been thinking about gifts.  In this case, I've been thinking about what a gift the evolution of the web from its first generation to its second generation has been to the venture capital business.
Inside Google Desktop:
Holiday Gadgets  —  We've released some very fun and festive gadgets just in time for the holidays!  Try these out:  —  Christmas Tree by EK Chung and James Yum [USA]  —  A tree that you can decorate.  Choose lights, bows, stockings, and ornaments for your tree to add distinctive holiday cheer.
Discussion: Download Squad
Mike / Techdirt:
Google Misses Another Chance To Be The Web Platform  —  from the strategic-errors dept  —  A few people have submitted various stories on the web about how Google has killed off their SOAP Search API in favor of their AJAX API, which is much more limited.  Some are saying that this is more …
Discussion: Search Engine Land and Slashdot
GamesIndustry.biz:
MS exec questions long term potential for Nintendo Wii  —  Satchell also unconvinced by Sony's online strategy  —  Chris Satchell, general manager of Microsoft's Game Development Group, has questioned whether the Wii has got what it takes to keep gamers' interests in the long run.
Discussion: Channel 9, Kotaku and Joystiq
Marc Canter / Marc's Voice:
Great to see others talking about decentralized social networking  —  For the past few years, I've been assuming that folks would come around to my way of thinking in regards to social networking.  These giant, centralized, lock-in beasts had to end.  —  It just made sense.
 
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 More Items: 
big-images.com:
iPod Shuffles and jolly good cheer!
David Pogue / New York Times:
Cellphones That Track the Kids
Discussion: GigaOM
Richard MacManus / Read/WriteWeb:
FeedSky, China's Version of Feedburner - But With Bigger Numbers
David Wallace / SearchRank Blog:
All I Want For Christmas Is... - A Search Marketer's Wish List
Steve Rubel / Micro Persuasion:
A Year Later, Google Talk and AIM Still Don't Interoperate
Discussion: Message
Darren Murph / Engadget:
V7 offers up budget-minded Navigator 1000 GPS unit
Discussion: All Points Blog
Mark Glaser / pbs.org:
WSJ Gets Comfortable with Blogs, Wants to Boost Community
Matt Martin / GamesIndustry.biz:
Bundles and high price creating PlayStation 3 glut
 Earlier Items: 
Shimon Sandler / SEO Consultant:
Google Holiday Gift
Discussion: digg
Business Week:
Entertainment: Downloading The Video Windfall
Discussion: GigaOM
Lexi Baugher / Official Google Blog:
Blogger's new bag of tricks
Discussion: TechCrunch
Jon Stokes / Ars Technica:
EFF taps e-voting security guru Ed Felten for board
Joey deVilla / Global Nerdy:
RSS is "The Next Big Thing" — and Has Been for the Past 3 Years
WebGuerrilla / Greg Boser:
The Half-Truths of Talking Frogs
Gamasutra:
Gamasutra's Quantum Leap Awards: Most Important Games, 2006
Economist:
Work-life balance  —  Consumer technologies are invading corporate computing