Top Items:
Joel Spolsky / Joel on Software:
Bribing Bloggers — There's an interesting debate going on about whether bloggers should accept gifts from vendors. — Lately Microsoft, working through their PR agency, Edelman, has been getting rather aggressive about trying to buy good coverage from bloggers.
RELATED:
Robert Scoble / Scobleizer:
I think the Microsoft Vista giveaway is an awesome idea — Lots of people like BL Ochman are screaming bloody murder about Microsoft giving bloggers and other influentials free laptops loaded with Windows Vista. I personally don't get it. — That is a GREAT idea.
Darren Rowse / ProBlogger Blog Tips:Microsoft Under Fire Over Laptop Giveaways to Bloggers
Discussion:
Laughing Squid, Web Worker Daily, notgartner, Worker Bees Blog, Neowin.net, mstechtoday.com and digg
Marshall Kirkpatrick:Now Microsoft Wants Its Laptop Back
Discussion:
Monkey Bites, Global Nerdy, TechBlog, Jeremy's Blog, Enterprise Web 2.0, the j. botter weblog, J. LeRoy's Evolving Web, Windows-Now.com, CyberNet Technology News, notgartner, Tech_Space, CrunchGear, A View from the Isle, NevilleHobson.com, Geek News Central, Thomas Hawk's Digital …, Paul Mooney, Technically Speaking, Seeking Alpha, ALLIED, Chip Griffin, digg, B.L. Ochman's weblog, OakLeaf Systems and Slashdot
Andy Beal / Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim:Microsoft & Edelman Make Two Mistakes with Free Laptop Fiasco
Discussion:
Blogging Stocks
Matt Marshall / VentureBeat:
News site Digg raises $8.5M more, rejects evidence it has been gamed — Digg, the news site that lets users rank stories by voting, has raised $8.5 million in fresh financing from existing backers, putting to rest for now speculation that it might sell to a bigger media player.
Discussion:
Mercury News, easybourse.com, Conversion Rater, Valleywag, HipMojo.com, GigaOM, Mashable!, PaidContent, The Next Net, StartupSquad, Lost Remote and digg
RELATED:
Wendy Tanaka / Red Herring:
Digg Raises $8.5 Million — New funding might suggest that the news site will remain independent. — Digg, the San Francisco-based site that lets users rank news stories, raised $8.5 million from two of its existing investors, according to a report from VentureWire.
LeeAnn Prescott / Hitwise US:
Google Blog Search Surpasses Technorati — When Google Blog Search launched last year, I wondered if it would surpass Technorati in market share of visits. This week Hitwise data show that the market share of visits to Google Blog Search surpassed visits to Technorati for the week ending 12/23/06.
Discussion:
The Next Net, Mark Evans, Sadagopan's weblog …, Googlified, GigaOM, HipMojo.com and Search Engine Land
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CNET News.com:
Top ten Apple rumours of all time — What do you get when you cross a notoriously tight-lipped computer company with rabidly fanatical users? A whole lot of gossip, speculation and hearsay, that's what. Thirty years of Apple Computer has seen the company rise, fall and rise again like a kind …
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Peter Rojas / Engadget:
Apple faked files in Steve Jobs stock options scandal — It seems that the scandal related to Apple backdating stock options has gotten a little more serious. According to the Financial Times, in 2001 Steve Jobs was granted 7.5 million stock options without the proper authorization …
Discussion:
Seeking Alpha
Richard Waters / Financial Times:Apple 'falsified' files on Jobs' options
Discussion:
Blogging Stocks, Seeking Alpha, Tech Trader Daily, O'Grady's PowerPage, Blackfriars' Marketing, The Technology Chronicles, Scobleizer, The Mac Observer, The Next Net, Law Blog, Valleywag, Guardian Unlimited, Infinite Loop, CNNMoney.com, Macsimum News, The Unofficial Apple Weblog, Podcasting News, Legal Pad, Cult of Mac and The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs
Xeni Jardin / Boing Boing:
Google "disappears" sex blogs? UPDATED — Xeni Jardin: UPDATE (Dec. 28, 12PM ET): Readers have been writing in to say that whatever happened here, the issue appears to be resolved for now — at least for the specific sex blogs cited in this post. I haven't verified this, but if it's true, great.
RELATED:
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes / Hardware 2.0:
HD-DVD AACS hacked — A hacker going under the alias "muslix64" has written a utility which is capable of decrypting a AACS (Advanced Access Content System) protected HD-DVD discs. — The decryption tool, called BackupHDDVD, is a Java-based command-line utility which decrypts …
Darren Murph / Engadget:
Suzuki's Xbox 360-infused SXBox concept vehicle — It's not often that companies hit it big twice in a row, but we'd say Suzuki's SXBox concept car is just as nifty (albeit in a very different manner) as its previous carpet-ready ride, the MIO. Although this is likely a case …
Josh Goldman / CrunchGear:
Amazon.com's Best Of 2006 List Released — Amazon.com released its year-end "Best of" lists, which tallies up not only the best-selling items for the site's various stores, but also the most positively reviewed, most wished-for and most frequently purchased as gifts.
Jim Tharpe / Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
Busy travelers snap up iPods from Hartsfield vending machines — Concourse A machine sold $55,000 worth of electronics in a month — Anita Leopold has a little surprise for anyone who thinks vending machines were created to dispense lightly salted snack food and sugar-laced temptations.
Ionut Alex. Chitu / Google Operating System:
Screenshots of Gmail's Mail Fetcher — Gmail added a new feature that lets you fetch mail from up to 5 POP3 accounts, but the feature is not yet enabled in all Gmail accounts. Here's what you'll see: — You'll find the mail fetcher in Settings / Accounts. — You can add up to 5 accounts.
Ryan Paul / Ars Technica:
Korea considering gold farming regulation — A controversial bill proposed by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in South Korea aims to control the exchange of virtual currency. Described by the deputy director of the mMinistry's Game Industry Division as an attempt to …
Peter Pachal / SCI FI Tech:
The Eclipse: One hot cell phone, hold the extras — If you think cameras, video, and the Internet have no place on a cell phone, designer Rune Larsen is right there with you. His Eclipse slider phone gets rid of any and all features besides calling, keeping the size down to just a couple of inches with the screen retracted.
Stephen Wellman / InformationWeek Weblog:
Get A Second Life — Now that 2006 is fast slipping away, everyone has turned on their nostalgia and is eagerly looking back at the "top" stories of the last 12 months. I usually find these kinds of pieces interesting, but instead, I want to look at what I think will turn into one of the top trends of 2007.
Gamasutra:
PlayStation 3 Gets Downloadable Tekken 5 — Previously available only in arcade and PSP formats, Namco Bandai's Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection has been released overseas as a fully digitally distributed PS3 title over Sony's PlayStation Store. — First hinted at in a Weekly Famitsu report …
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Gmail Disaster: Reports Of Mass Email Deletions — Just a week after I wrote "Uh Oh, Gmail Just Got Perfect" a number of users started complaining that all of their Gmail emails and contacts were auto deleted. — The first message, posted on the Google Groups forum on December 19, stated …
Discussion:
CenterNetworks
Louis Hau / Forbes:
Free Music—Next Year? — SpiralFrog, the free music downloading service that made a series of splashy announcements in 2006, has yet to get wet. — The New York City-based company drew attention in August, when it announced plans to distribute music downloads from Vivendi's Universal Music Group …
David Pogue / New York Times:
Brilliant Ideas That Found a Welcome — It may take a village to raise a child, but that's a trivial task compared with the act of bringing a new electronic gadget to market. — Marketers determine what the masses want, product managers guide the design, engineers bring the thing to life — it's a lot of cooks.
Discussion:
The Unofficial Apple Weblog
Ars Technica:
The Mac OS X font managers review — Introduction — Well, it was a long time coming, but I've been through the trenches and come up, sucking chest wound and all, with the Ars review of font management programs. I've also succeeded in not completely losing my mind while the developers updated the apps …
