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2:30 PM ET, July 11, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Mark Wilson / Gizmodo:
Apple and AT&T Stores Having Difficulty Activating iPhones (UPDATE: It's the iPocalypse)  —  We've heard [four] many accounts now from varying Apple store and AT&T locations that employees are having problems while trying to activate phones through iTunes.  From Atlanta, one camper reports:
RELATED:
Nilay Patel / Engadget:
iTunes activation servers go down, iPhone 3G customers being sent home unactivated, first-gen iPhone customers stuck with dead iPhones  —  In a repeat of last year's problems, it looks like the insane demand for the iPhone 3G has taken its toll on Apple's iTunes activation servers …
Industry Standard:
Exclusive: Phil Schiller on the long wait for iPhone 3G activation  —  I swung by the Boylston Street Apple Store in Boston to check out the iPhone 3G festivities and who did I find?  None other than Phil Schiller, Apple's Senior Vice President for Worldwide Product Marketing.
Joe Fay / The Register:
O2 buckles under 3G iPhone demand  —  O2 customers reported that the firm's activation system crashed this morning as they raced to get their new 3G iPhones, but the telco insists everything is going swimmingly.  —  One reader in West London told El Reg that the manager of his local O2 shop …
Jacqui Cheng / Ars Technica:
Launch woes turn iPhone Parousia into activation apocalypse  —  Although the enthusiasm about waiting in line for an iPhone for days at a time was dampened a bit this time around thanks to worldwide launches outside the US, buzz was still renewed by this morning among Apple fans.
John Biggs / TechCrunch:   Epic Fail: Six Million iBricks... and Growing
BBC:   Software glitch hits iPhone fans
Caroline McCarthy / CNET News.com:
Server crashes slow lines, frustrate iPhone buyers
Discussion: Darren Herman and The Social
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Guardian Media Group Buys paidContent for $30 Million  —  In what will be seen as a new media coup, sources tell BoomTown that Britain's Guardian Media Group is set to announce this morning that it will buy the company that runs the high-profile digital media news site paidContent for a price “north of $30 million.”
RELATED:
Rafat Ali / paidContent.org:
ContentNext 2.0: Life With The Guardian Media Group  —  We got scooped on the biggest story of our own company's life.  Such is our life.  Almost six years after our company started with paidContent.org, we have been acquired by Guardian News & Media (GNM), the news media division of UK-headquartered Guardian Media Group (GMG).
Discussion: Screenwerk, CNET News.com, PSFK and /Message
Marshall Kirkpatrick / ReadWriteWeb:
Confirmed: PaidContent Bought By the Guardian - Here's How Media History is Made
Discussion: TechCrunch
Om Malik / GigaOM:   Why Guardian Media Bought paidContent for $30M
Jemima Kiss / PDA:
Rafat Ali: from blogs to riches
Discussion: paidContent.org and Guardian
Matt Asay / The Open Road:
Apple's iPhone 2.0 update is failing  —  Look familiar?  It's what I and others have been seeing this morning when trying to upgrade to the iPhone 2.0 firmware.  Apple's servers are apparently being dismantled by heavy traffic.  That's nice.  But now I have a brick with no ability to call, no contacts, nothing.
Discussion: CNET News.com and Today @ PC World
RELATED:
Tom Spring / Today @ PC World:
iTunes Store “Unavailable”: This iPod Touch Owner is Stuck in Update Limbo  —  Since I'm a Verizon Wireless customer the closest thing to joining the iFrenzy for the iPhone 3G is taking advantage of Apple's App Store and the wealth new software options available for my iPod Touch.
Discussion: Industry Standard and Apple 2.0
Ian Paul / Today @ PC World:
iPhone 3G OS Already Unlocked / ‘Jailbroken’
Discussion: Gizmodo
Arn / MacRumors:
Apple Releases Official iPhone 2.0 (5A347) Firmware [Update]
Discussion: Forbes
Vindu Goel / Bits:
An Imminent Victory for ‘Net Neutrality’ Advocates  —  When Comcast admitted last fall that it was blocking — or slowing down, as the company preferred to call it — certain file transfers by customers, a lot of people complained that the company was unfairly discriminating against heavy Internet users.
RELATED:
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:   Comcast Ordered to Stop BitTorrent Traffic Interference
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
Comcast loses: FCC head slams company's P2P filtering
Discussion: Broadband Politics
Dan Kimerling / TechCrunch:
Before the App Store “Opens”, it has already made Apple $55,000  —  Tucked away on the iPhone 2.0 version of Apple's Application Store is a counter for the number of times that each application has been purchased .  When this information is combined with an application's price …
RELATED:
Ryan Block / Engadget:
iPhone 3G review  —  It's hard to think of any other device that's enjoyed the level of exposure and hype that Apple found in the launch of the first iPhone.  Who could forget it?  Everyone got to be a gadget nerd for a day; even those completely disinterested in technology seemed to come down with iPhone fever.
RELATED:
Michael Gartenberg / JupiterResearch:   iPhone 3G and 2.0 Upgrade - First Thoughts
Dan Frommer / Silicon Alley Insider:
iPhone 3G In NYC: Sold Out At AT&T, Still Some At The Apple Stores  —  No surprise: Apple seems to have stocked its own retail stores with many more new iPhone 3Gs than it gave out to carrier partner AT&T.  —  As of noon Friday, ten of ten AT&T (T) stores we contacted in Manhattan and Brooklyn …
RELATED:
Bobbie Johnson / Guardian:
New iPhone 3G goes on sale
Liz Gannes / NewTeeVee:
YouTube Adding Geosearch (with Screenshot)  —  YouTube will soon add geosearch — giving viewers the ability to find videos tagged to a certain location — disclosed product manager Brian Glick at a developer talk at YouTube's San Bruno, Calif., campus on Thursday.
RELATED:
Greg Sterling / Search Engine Land:
YouTube Adding Geographic Search
Lester Haines / The Register:
Obama bloats Vista by 11MB  —  56MB update adds five words to dictionary  —  We're very much obliged today to readers Hawkeye and Duncan Lilly for providing evidence that the Beast of Redmond's Vista is not the lean, mean fighting machine it really should be.  Try this “important” update warning for size:
Valerie Bauman / Associated Press:
Cuomo: AT&T and AOL block child porn newsgroups  —  ALBANY, N.Y. - Two more Internet access providers have agreed to eliminate certain newsgroups that contain child pornography and purge their servers of child pornography Web sites in an agreement with state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.
Discussion: DSLreports
RELATED:
Brandon Bailey / Mercury News:
Female CEOs at top Silicon Valley tech firms down to zero  —  OUSTER AT VMWARE RIPPLES IN VALLEY  —  The number of women chief executives at Silicon Valley's biggest technology companies dropped to zero this week, with the abrupt departure of VMware's Diane Greene from the company she co-founded 10 years ago.
Discussion: Techmamas and Know It All
Susan Decker / Bloomberg:
Konami Sues Viacom Over ‘Rock Band’ Music Video Game  —  Konami Corp., the Japanese creator of the “Dance Dance Revolution” music video game, sued Viacom Inc.'s Harmonix studio, claiming its “Rock Band” game violates patents.  —  The Konami patents, issued in 2002 and 2003 …
Greg Sandoval / CNET News.com:
When you're Robert Scoble, you don't wait for an iPhone  —  SAN FRANCISCO—The perks of being a famous tech blogger include not having to stand in line all night for the latest gadget.  —  I was out in front of the Apple store near Union Square here at 9 p.m. PDT on Thursday standing in line …
 
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 More Items: 
Don Reisinger / The Digital Home:
RIM is officially on notice: Start a hype machine
Richard Pérez-Peña / New York Times:
In Deepening Ad Decline, Sales Fall 8% at Magazines
Discussion: Portfolio.com
Christian Science Monitor:
The field narrows for e-books
Discussion: TeleRead
Dawn Kawamoto / CNET News.com:
AMD to take $948 million second-quarter charge
Predict the Future of the Internet …:
The iPhone naysayers, one year later
 Earlier Items: 
Ryan Spoon:
Amazon Kindle is a Hit: 12% of Book Sales on Amazon, Doubled Since May
Caroline McCarthy / The Social:
Rough estimate: 75% of N.Y. iPhone line wants 16GB phone
Peter Bright / Ars Technica:
A victim of its own success: troubled times ahead for VMware
Om Malik / GigaOM:
I Can't Find MobileMe  —  At $99 a year, I expect my online service …
Eric Eldon / VentureBeat:
Another key early Facebook employee, Jeff Hammerbacher, is leaving the company
Discussion: Valleywag and All Facebook
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Authentic Brands licenses Sports Illustrated's publishing rights to The Players' Tribune owner Minute Media for 10 years, with plans to keep the print edition

Charlotte Tobitt / Press Gazette:
Ofcom rules that five GB News programs presented by Conservative politicians have broken its due impartiality rules and puts the channel “on notice”

Todd Spangler / Variety:
YouTuber MrBeast announces a deal with Prime Video for Beast Games, a reality-competition show with 1,000 contestants, promising the winner a $5M cash prize

 
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