Techmeme: Microsoft releases some of promised Office documentation (InfoWorld)

4:10 PM ET, April 8, 2008

Top Items:

Introducing Google App Engine + our new blog — At tonight's Campfire One we launched a preview release of Google App Engine — a developer tool that enables you to run your web applications on Google's infrastructure. The goal is to make it easy to get started with a new web app …

Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:

Google Jumps Head First Into Web Services With Google App Engine — Our live coverage of the Google App Engine launch event is here (Update: we've built and launched a test application here). — Google isn't just talking about hosting applications in the cloud any more.

Dave Winer / Scripting News:

Early notes on GoogleApps — The last few years when something new hits the tech blogosphere, I usually kick back and think while so many others scramble for position on Techmeme. I find that by doing this I can usually find the nugget that they're all missing, assuming it's an area I'm interested in …

Josh Catone / ReadWriteWeb:

HuddleChat: Did Google Just Rip Off 37Signals? — Blogs are abuzz this morning about HuddleChat, a real-time chat application that a team of three Google developers created to show off Google's new App Engine platform. The chat software bears a striking resemblance to the popular Campfire app from 37Signals.

Discussion: Download Squad, Geek News Central, Web Worker Daily and Silicon Alley Insider

Richard MacManus / ReadWriteWeb:

Google App Engine: Cloud Control to Major Tom — Google has just launched Google App Engine, “a developer tool that enables you to run your web applications on Google's infrastructure.” This will allow startups to use Google's web servers, APIs, and other developer tools to build a web app on top of.

Discussion: Guardian Unlimited, Rough Type, Outside the Lines, Matt Cutts, SmoothSpan Blog and STARTUP CHATTER

Jackson West / Valleywag:

GOOGLE APP ENGINE CAN'T HANDLE DEMAND FOR GOOGLE APP ENGINE The sign-in page for Google's new App Engine platform apparently runs on App Engine — and ran out of it's server allocation this morning, triggering the error message above when a tipster tried to sign up.

Discussion: Download Squad

Kevin Heisler / Search Engine Watch Blog:
Is Google App Engine HuddleChat a Campfire Rip-Off?

Discussion: The Last Podcast

Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
Google App Engine: History's Next Step or Monopolistic Boondoggle?

Discussion: TechCrunch, Mashable! and ProgrammableWeb

Bret Taylor / Bret Taylor's blog: Experimenting with Google App Engine

Fred / A VC:
Can The Y Combinator Idea Turn Into A Movement?

Discussion: michael parekh on IT and broadstuff

Brad Linder / Download Squad:

Find new people to follow on Twitter with Twubble — Twitter's really no fun unless you have a few interesting people to follow. But what's the best way to find new Twitter users? You could look at the friend lists for the people you already follow, but that could take forever.

Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:
5 Ways to Find More Friends on Twitter

Discussion: Mark Evans

Rodney Rumford / FaceReviews:
Want to Expand Your Twitter Friends? Try Twubble

Discussion: Webware.com and SheGeeks

James Sherwood / The Register:

Nokia confirms ‘iPhone killer’ handset in pipeline — Nokia has confirmed that it's developing a touchscreen-equipped handset to take on the Apple iPhone, and has shown off pictures of the upcoming phone to drooling onlookers. — The Finnish giant's handset is codenamed ‘Tube’ …

Discussion: last100, Engadget and MacDailyNews

Therese Poletti / MarketWatch:

Yahoo seems headed the way of PeopleSoft — Commentary: Yang's fight against Microsoft seems futile at this point — SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) - Yahoo chief executive Jerry Yang has not resorted to boorish tactics like calling Steve Ballmer a sociopath or comparing him to Genghis Khan …

Discussion: HipMojo.com, Webomatica, Forbes, Digital Daily, Silicon Alley Insider and Valleywag

Jon Fortt / Big Tech:

HP's mini laptop packs a punch — The HP Mini laptop is aimed at the education market, but it could appeal to road warriors as well. Image: HP — Pick up HP's new $500 mini-laptop, and the first thing you notice is the aluminum casing. Though the thing weighs only about 2.5 pounds …

Discussion: eWeek, Computerworld, Ars Technica and VentureBeat

Erica Sadun / The Unofficial Apple Weblog:

iPhone Developer Lockdown reportedly iPinkBricks all dev units — Reports are streaming into TUAW that official iPhone developers have been hit this morning by the Pink Screen of Expired Release. Their beta licenses for the current 1.2/2.0 firmware distribution have expired as of 12:01am April 8th.

Discussion: Infinite Loop, iPhone Dev Help, iPhone Atlas, iLounge and Insanely Great Mac

Dennis O'Reilly / CNET News.com:

Put a finer point on your Gmail searches — The first application I open and the last one I close each workday is Gmail. — Even though I use the service's labels and filters to sort my mail, I often found myself scrolling through the 600-plus messages in my Gmail in-box to find the one I need.

Discussion: Webware.com and PC World

Google Android News Android Forums:

Nokia N810 Running Google Android — First it was the Sharp Zaurus and the Armadillo 500, now it's the turn of the Nokia N810. Yup, Google Android has been successfully installed on the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet and it works too. — The Wiki page at elinux.org details the install guide …

Discussion: Gizmodo, Engadget, Dan's Tech-n-Stuff Weblog and Tech Blog

Peter Kafka / Silicon Alley Insider:

Mossberg: I Have No Idea When 3G iPhone Is Coming, And I Don't Care — That Walt Mossberg prediction about a 3G iPhone in June? Hold off on that, says Walt Mossberg. The Wall Street Journal's personal tech guru tells us he has no idea when Apple (AAPL) is releasing its next phone.

Discussion: Gizmodo, IntoMobile, Life On the Wicked Stage, The Unofficial Apple Weblog, CrunchGear and Dan's Tech-n-Stuff Weblog

Skrentablog:

Cuill is banned on 10,000 sites — Be careful while you debug your crawler... Webmasters these days get very touchy about letting new spiders walk all over their sites. There are so many scraper bots, email harvesters, exploit probers, students running Nutch on gigabit university pipes …

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