Top Items:
Loïc Le Meur / Loic Le Meur Blog:
20 reasons why Seesmic acquired Twhirl — As TechCrunch just announced, Seesmic just acquired Twhirl. And here are 20 ways it will benefit the Seesmic community —Staying in touch with your friends using microblogging is much easier using a client than through your browser
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Mark Hendrickson / TechCrunch:
Seesmic Acquires Popular Twitter AIR Client Twhirl — San Francisco video/chat startup Seesmic has acquired Twhirl, a popular application created by German developer Marco Kaiser that allows users to access the Twitter service directly from their desktop, and also cross post to other services like Pownce and Jaiku.
Discussion:
Ross Mayfield's Weblog, VentureBeat, Mashable!, ProgrammableWeb, paidContent.org, The Last Podcast, ReadWriteWeb and Digg
Google Public Policy Blog:
Cone of silence (finally) lifts on the spectrum auction — For three weeks at the end of January and early February, a small team of us holed up in double super secret “war rooms” in Mountain View, CA and Washington, D.C. to bid on Google's behalf in the FCC spectrum auction.
Discussion:
WebProNews, CNET News.com, Engadget, Gearlog, VentureBeat, InformationWeek Weblog and Phone Scoop
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Fox Interactive Media To Miss Revenue Targets; Chief Revenue Officer Out Amid Reorganization — Amidst all the excitement over the MySpace Music announcement today is another story about the fate of parent company Fox Interactive Media. FIM, the division of News Corp. that controls MySpace …
Discussion:
Silicon Alley Insider, paidContent.org, CNET News.com, Searchviews, The Social Web, MarketingShift and Orbitcast
Richard Wray / Guardian:
Internet provider fires shot across bows of music industry on piracy — TalkTalk, the internet service-provider owned by Carphone Warehouse, has flatly rejected demands from the music and film industries that it should “police” the internet and cut off some broadband customers in an attempt to stem the flood of illegal file-sharing.
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Owen Thomas / Valleywag:
Facebook hires away Google's top chef — Is it “poaching” when a company steals a rival's chef? At Google, executive chef Josef Desimone scrambled cruelty-free eggs by the truckload. Now Facebook has hired him to replace steam-heated trays of takeout with the kind of free food Googlers are used to.
Nicholas Carlson / Valleywag:
South Park kills 10 YouTube memes for good — Viacom continues to pursue a $1 billion lawsuit against Google's YouTube for allowing video piracy. On Viacom's Comedy Central, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone aren't helping their corporate parent's legal case.
Eric Eldon / VentureBeat:
Rumor: Ad network Federated Media raises $50M from Oak Hill Capital Partners, at $200M valuation — The ad network Federated Media has raised $50 million at a $200 million pre-money valuation from private equity firm Oak Hill Capital Partners, I've heard from a source, with investment bank Savvian helping to broker the deal.
Laura M. Holson / New York Times:
Mobile Phone Industry Takes Aim at the iPhone — LAS VEGAS — Last year, the wireless industry obsessed over the iPhone. This year, the industry is buzzing about how to beat it. — Touch screens, the mobile Internet and devices packed with multimedia capabilities dominated the discussion …
Discussion:
textually.org
Owen Thomas / Valleywag:
The bubble to end all bubbles? — Are we in a bubble? Far too late to be asking that question, says Chris Nolan, a former Valley newspaper gossip who now runs a startup, Spot-On. She weighs in on the current market crisis and its effects on the tech business.
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Tom Neumayr / Apple:
iTunes Store Top Music Retailer in the US — Apple® today announced that the iTunes® Store (www.itunes.com) surpassed Wal-Mart to become the number one music retailer in the US, based on the latest data from the NPD Group*. With over 50 million customers, iTunes has sold …
Discussion:
ReadWriteWeb, CNN, Digital Trends, Profy.Com, VentureBeat, One More Thing, Alice Hill's Real Tech News, Podcasting News, paidContent.org, Fortune, BetaNews, Apple 2.0, PalmAddicts, Infinite Loop, Macsimum News, Engadget, iLounge, Good Morning Silicon Valley, CNET News.com, Digital Daily, Ars Technica, Gadget Lab, The Unofficial Apple Weblog and MacUser
Ryan Singel / Threat Level:
Roommates.com Not Immune From Discrimination Lawsuit, Appeals Court Rules — Apartment hunting site Roommates.com cannot shield itself from an housing discrimination lawsuit by claiming it is just an internet forum, because the site requires users to answer questions about their gender …
Jason Chen / Gizmodo:
Sony Ericsson Paris Slider Leaked? — We don't have many details of this Sony Ericsson smartphone called the “Paris”, but se-nse.net claims that it's a slider, runs Symbian UIQ 3.3 and has quite a large screen. Below the screen will be a P1-style keyboard, meaning two letters per key.
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Internet Crime Complaint Center:
Reported Dollar Loss From Internet Crime Reaches All Time High — Washington, D.C. — According to the 2007 Internet Crime Report, the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received 206,884 complaints of crimes perpetrated over the Internet during 2007. Of the complaints received …
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
Microsoft: June 30 Windows XP cut-off set in stone — Microsoft made it official on April 3: There will be no new reprieves for Windows XP (other than on Ultra Low-Cost PCs). — Some customers and partners had been hoping the company might extend again the deadline for all PC makers …
Discussion:
TechWeb, Techlog, BetaNews, Tech Tracks, GottaBeMobile, Engadget, Electronista, Microsoft and Todd Bishop's Microsoft Blog
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Michael Masnick / Techdirt:
Fashion Designers Turning To Patents To Protect Their Designs (And Kill The Industry) — from the how-short-sighted-can-you-be dept — Five years ago we pointed out that the entertainment industry could take a wonderful lesson from the fashion industry. After all, here was a highly competitive …
Tim / craigslist blog:
Finally: Craigslist Launches a Blog of Their Own — A month after we launched craigslistblog.org, the good people at craigslist launched their own blog. Oh, and shortly thereafter, I received the following request from their CEO, Jim Buckmaster, to shut ours down: … This was my response:
