Top Items:
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Twitter VC Funding Done. Raises $15 MM — I spent most of the day digging up more information on Twitter and its new round of funding that I reported last night. The update is that Twitter reached an agreement with investors today to raise $15 million in funding at around $80 million pre-money valuation.
Discussion:
TechCrunch, Rev2.org, The Inquisitr, VentureBeat, Valleywag, MYBLOG by Ouriel, Mashable!, notes, thoughts …, The PhoneBoy Blog and Furrier.org
RELATED:
Jack / Twitter Blog:
I have this graph up on my screen all the time. It should be flat. This week has been rough. — We've gone through our various databases, caches, web servers, daemons, and despite some increased traffic activity across the board, all systems are running nominally. The truth is we're not sure what's happening.
Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider:
Whoa: Microsoft Cashback Google-Killer Generates NO Revenue For Microsoft — We're going to get a full download on the economics of Microsoft (MSFT) Live Search cashback tomorrow, but in the meantime, here's why Google (GOOG) was down 5% today (in part). — Cashback merchant partners—the advertisers—set the cashback percentage.
RELATED:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
The Empire Strikes Back: Our Analysis Of Microsoft Live Search Cashback — Most are negative. Some excessively so. After hearing Bill Gates give the pitch and trying the service myself to make a couple of purchases, here's what I think: It's a bold move that goes for Google's throat …
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:Hey Microsoft: Bribing Searchers Is Fine; Frustrating Them Is Not!
Andrew Zaeske / Official Google Blog:
Google Sites now open to everyone — A few months ago we launched Google Sites exclusively as part of Google Apps for companies and organizations that wanted to use the service on their own domains. Now we've made it easy for anyone to set up a website to share all types of information …
Discussion:
CNET News.com, Lifehacker, The Inquisitr, Search Engine Journal, My Blog Posts and Digital Inspiration
RELATED:
Andy Space / 9 to 5 Mac:
Apple products for 2013 - report, speculation — Apple has huge plans to stake space in the digital home, and could introduce a slew of products to this end in the years ahead - at least, that's what Forrester Research believes. — As reported by the Wall Street Journal …
Discussion:
BBC NEWS
RELATED:
Nick Wingfield / Wall Street Journal:
Apple Daydreaming: Report Predicts Move Toward Home Devices — Predicting the new gadgets that Apple might concoct next is a favorite parlor game of the technology industry, Wall Street and the blogosphere. The latest chatter is that company CEO Steve Jobs will reveal at a developer …
Kevin J. O'Brien / New York Times:
Open-Source File Format Is to Be a Part of Microsoft Office — Microsoft was set to announce Thursday that it would make the interchangeable document format of a competitor available in its own market-leading Office 2007 software during the first half of 2009.
RELATED:
Mike Ricciuti / CNET News.com:Microsoft boosts support for rival formats in Office
Discussion:
PR Newswire, Electronista, Download Squad, TG Daily, Zoho Blogs, The Tech Report and Digg
Scott M. Fulton, III / BetaNews:Next Office 2007 service pack will include ODF, PDF support options
Discussion:
International Herald Tribune
BBC:
Gamer anger at Nokia's ‘lock in’ — Gamers have hit out at Nokia after learning that N-Gage titles bought for their handsets are locked to that specific device forever. — If a gamer changes or upgrades to a diferent Nokia handset they have to purchase the games again if they want to continue playing.
Steve Lohr / New York Times:
Google Says It Will Defend Competitive Rationale of a Yahoo Deal — How can Google, the Internet search and advertising giant, contend that teaming up with Yahoo in search ads would not invite an antitrust challenge? — Under a proposed partnership, Google would let Yahoo use …
Discussion:
WebProNews
Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life:
Note to Web 2.0 Companies: Early Adopters are not the Mass Market — If you work in the technology industry it pays to be familiar with the ideas from Geoffrey Moore's insightful book Crossing the Chasm. In the book he takes a look at the classic marketing bell curve that segments customers …
Discussion:
broadstuff, TomsTechBlog.com, David Adewumi, Digital Inspiration and Smalltalk Tidbits …
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
Facebook Censoring User Messaging: Spam Prevention or Unaccountable Control of Conversation? — Facebook and MySpace have replaced email for a substantial number of young people. Facebook, though, appears to believe that some things are better off not discussed in conversations between its members.
PR Newswire:
AT&T Nears Completion of 3G Wireless Technology Deployment that Delivers Broadband Wireless Speeds - for Downloads and Uploads — AT&T Will Be First in U.S. to Fully Deploy HSPA Technology in Its Wireless Network, Giving Customers Unsurpassed Speeds of up to 1.4 Mbps (Down), 800 Kbps (Up)
Discussion:
Gadget Lab, PhoneDog.com, GottaBeMobile, Macsimum News, Insanely Great Mac and LoopRumors
Dieter Bohn / The iPhone Blog:
iPhone vs. BlackBerry Bold: Hands On (and Wait-a-Thon) — What happens when your Sister Site, CrackBerry.com, manages to score a BlackBerry Bold on eBay? What happens after they do their hands-on images, videos, and walkthroughs, that is? What happens is they start sending the beast around the the office.
Discussion:
geeksugar, CrackBerry.com blogs, Engadget, The Boy Genius Report, IntoMobile, CrunchGear, Gizmodo and Tech Blog
Diane Bartz / Reuters:
Lawmaker questions Google over privacy practices — WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top Republican on the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee asked Google chief executive Eric Schmidt on Wednesday to detail the search engine's privacy practices since it acquired rival DoubleClick.
