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1:05 PM ET, August 12, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Royal Pingdom:
Social network popularity around the world  —  With the help of Google data, we have looked at 12 of the top social networks to answer a simple, but highly interesting question:  —  Where are they the most popular?  —  The social networks we included in this survey were MySpace, Facebook …
RELATED:
Andrew Chen / Futuristic Play:
Early adopters vs the Mainstream: Google Insights points out websites only used by Silicon Valley nerds  —  Intro to Google Insights  —  I have recently been playing around with the insanely useful Google Insights for Search product.  You should definitely try it out if you haven't.
Caroline McCarthy / Webware.com:   Measuring social networks' popularity by region
Gmail Blog:
We feel your pain, and we're sorry  —  Many of you had trouble accessing Gmail for a couple of hours this afternoon, and we're really sorry.  The issue was caused by a temporary outage in our contacts system that was preventing Gmail from loading properly.  Everything should be back to normal by the time you read this.
RELATED:
Ellen Nakashima / Washington Post:
Some Web Firms Say They Track Behavior Without Explicit Consent  —  Several Internet and broadband companies have acknowledged using targeted-advertising technology without explicitly informing customers, according to letters released yesterday by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
RELATED:
Chloe Albanesius / PC Magazine:
Yahoo to Allow Users to Opt Out of Custom Ads  —  In the wake of a congressional inquiry into how Internet companies and ISPs track their users' activities, Yahoo on Friday announced that it would it would allow users to opt out of customized advertising by month's end.
Discussion: ZDNet Government
David Kaplan / paidContent.org:
Google, Others Discuss Their Ad Targeting Secrets; Push For …
Discussion: Digital Destiny
Shawn / TmoNews:
Android may be here sooner then we think  —  We're hearing rumor after rumor that Android has been delayed, and pushed back to 2009.  Well TmoNews is jumping into the pool or rumors, calling BS on those other rumors, and putting in our vote of confidence on a presale of the Android phone on September 16th, 2008.
RELATED:
Hank Williams / Why does everything suck?:
UI Guru Jakob Nielsen's Site Is Unreadable  —  Ok, this is only half a dig.  Jakob is one of the most respected writers and thinkers about user interface on the web.  He is clearly bright, and he writes intelligent and useful things.  In fact I quote Jakob and reference his work all of the time.
Discussion: TomsTechBlog.com
RELATED:
Alertbox:   10 Best Application UIs of 2008
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
3G iPhone Connection Problems Chip-Related?  —  Om has complained about his frustration with the 3G iPhone, which has poor reception and forces him to spend more time on the 2.5G EDGE network than he thought, but the issue may be with Infineon's 3G chip, according to Richard Windsor, an analyst with Nomura Securities.
RELATED:
Brent Csutoras:
TWITTER LIMITS FOLLOWING TO 2,000  —  Twitter has always been looking for better ways to combat spammers and it appears they have recently added a new measure to combat one aspect of gaming.  —  User can now only add up to 2,000 followers before being limited and receiving this error message.
RELATED:
Caroline McCarthy / Webware.com:
Twitter tries ‘following’ limits to curb spam  —  Did you know that you can only follow 2,000 people on Twitter—unless there are at least 2,000 people who have opted to follow you?  —  This was one of the measures that the microblogging service formally announced Thursday as part of a new system to cut down on spam.
Stephanie Condon / The Iconoclast:
States may tax iTunes, other digital downloads  —  If you enjoy buying music from iTunes, movies from Amazon.com's Unbox, or computer software from anywhere, be warned: the halcyon days of tax-free digital purchases may be over.  —  With retail e-commerce sales now estimated to exceed $130 billion a year …
John Leyden / The Register:
Pentagon hacker McKinnon earns extradition delay  —  European Court of Human Rights hangs fire  —  Pentagon hacker Gary McKinnon has been granted a short reprieve from possible extradition to the US while a European court decides whether or not to intervene.
RELATED:
InfoWorld:
Court delays British hacker's extradition to U.S.
Discussion: CNET News.com
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
The Much Anticipated DataCase Launches: Turn the iPhone Into A Wireless Drive  —  The much anticipated DataCase application for the iPhone launched this morning.  —  The app, which costs $6.99, turn your iPhone into an easy-to-use wireless storage device that can be access by any other device on your wireless network.
Discussion: Ubergizmo, TUAW and CrunchGear
Justin Berka / Infinite Loop:
Phishing e-mail appears in MobileMe disguise  —  A few weeks ago, a number of MobileMe users in the UK were affected by a billing glitch that led to Apple placing a £121 hold on their accounts, which isn't something you want when you've just signed up for a free trial.
RELATED:
Macworld:
Phishing scam targets MobileMe users
Chris Albrecht / NewTeeVee:
Vongo is Gone-go  —  This certainly isn't shocking: Starz Entertainment has shut down online movie service Vongo.  A visit to the site shows the following message:  —  The writing was on the wall for the service when the company announced Starz Play, a white-label movie download service for Verizon, in May.
VMware Communities:
The bug:  —  Starting this morning, we could not power on nor VMotion any of our Virtual Machines.  The VI Client threw the error “A general system error occurred: Internal Error”.  —  Further digging lead us to messages like this one in /var/log/vmware/hostd.log, and the log file …
Brad Stone / Bits:
Shutterfly Finally Gives Photos Wings  —  Shutterfly, one of the first photo sharing sites on the Internet, has survived the dot-com bust and competition from the likes of Kodak and Hewlett-Packard.  —  But the recent wave of popular Web 2.0 photo sites like Flickr, Slide, Photobucket and RockYou …
Discussion: CenterNetworks
 
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 More Items: 
Catherine Rampell / Chronicle of Higher Education:
Antipiracy Campaign Exasperates Colleges
Jon Fortt / Big Tech:
Dell's comeback machine
Discussion: Crave
Longofest / MacRumors:
Two Weeks Later: MobileMe's Uptime Calculated (96%)
Discussion: CyberNet and TUAW
Jason Cross / ExtremeTech:
ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 Review
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Carl Icahn's Yahoo Board Choices: Meyer and Biondi?
Discussion: CNET News.com
Christine Kearney / Reuters:
Allman band sues Universal over digital royalties
investor.napster.com:
Napster Reports $30.3 Million in First Quarter Sales and Positive …
IAB:
Use of “Ad Networks” Surges Six-Fold as Media Companies Step …
 Earlier Items: 
Ionut Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:
Photo Albums in Google Docs
Discussion: webmonkey
TG Daily:
AMD split rumors accelerating
Discussion: Engadget
Heather Dougherty / Hitwise Intelligence:
Google's share of US searches hits 70%
Matthew Lasar / Ars Technica:
Congressional Dems back porn-free wireless broadband network
Discussion: Portfolio.com and The Register
Maggie Shiels / BBC:
‘Pump and Dump’ conmen targeted
Discussion: Techdirt and Virtual Economics
Jemima Kiss / PDA:
Is Amazon's Kindle the iPod of the book world?
Discussion: The Register, Epicenter and Reuters
Cornelia Dean / New York Times:
Handle With Care  —  Last year, a private company proposed …
Steve Weis / Google Online Security Blog:
Keyczar: Safe and Simple Cryptography
 

 
From Mediagazer:

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”

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

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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