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5:05 PM ET, October 17, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Paul Graham:
Why to Start a Startup in a Bad Economy  —  The economic situation is apparently so grim that some experts fear we may be in for a stretch as bad as the mid seventies.  —  When Microsoft and Apple were founded.  —  As those examples suggest, a recession may not be such a bad time to start a startup.
RELATED:
Don Dodge / Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing:
Start a company in a recession?  Absolutely!  —  Now is a great time to start a company.  Why?  Because great people are available to join you, VCs are loaded with cash, and office space is available cheap.  Everything is cheap and readily available in a recession.
Discussion: Startup Chatter
Prince McLean / AppleInsider:
Jobs responds to outrage over MacBook's missing FireWire [u]  —  In one of his characteristically terse email replies, Apple chief executive Steve Jobs has reportedly told one Mac user that changes in video camera technology have reduced the need for FireWire on his company's 13-inch MacBooks.
RELATED:
Peter Cohen / Macworld:   FireWire's MacBook absence—inconvenience or fatal flaw?
Brian Garrity / New York Post:
FRIENDS OF THE BAND  —  ZUCKERBERG PONDERS FACEBOOK MUSIC BIZ  —  Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg is plotting a possible push into the digital-music business in the wake of MySpace's launch of MySpace Music last month.  —  The surging social-networking giant is talking to a number …
RELATED:
John Paczkowski / Digital Daily:   BREAKING: Facebook May or May Not Launch Music Service
Kasper Jade / AppleInsider:
Apple's Snow Leopard to sport Cocoa Finder and ImageBoot  —  Apple next-generation Snow Leopard operating system will introduce a massive re-write of the Mac OS X Finder and debut a new feature called ImageBoot, AppleInsider has learned.  —  Cocoa-based Finder
Discussion: CNET News, Infinite Loop, MacRumors and TUAW
The Boy Genius / Boy Genius Report:
RIM announcing BlackBerry Storm-alike for U.S. at WES 2009, more devices  —  Look, we really don't want to do this to you, (well, we kind of do) but we've just got the word from one of our RIM ninjas that there will be a BlackBerry Storm-type device announced at WES 2009.
GamesIndustry.biz:
LittleBigPlanet release delayed worldwide  —  The release of Sony's highly anticipated PlayStation 3 title LittleBigPlanet has been delayed worldwide.  —  The title has been delayed due to references to the Qu'ran on the in-game soundtrack.  —  “During the review process prior to the release …
RELATED:
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Keeping Count: The TechCrunch Layoff Tracker  —  After Silicon Valley woke up to the economic crisis last week and VCs rang the alarm bells, startups are starting to heed the call and tighten their belts for a long winter.  As the slide above from Sequoia Capital illustrates …
Dylan Stableford / Folio:
Mygazines Folds  —  Controversial magazine sharing site shuttered.  —  RELATED POST: R.I.P. Mygazines, 2008-2008  —  Just weeks after settling a lawsuit with dozens of publishers, Mygazines, the controversial Web site that allowed users to share digital copies of hundreds of magazines, has closed.
RELATED:
Ian Lamont / Industry Standard:
Mygazines.com closes shop five weeks after settling copyright suit
Discussion: CNET News and Epicenter
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
See who knew how to quit you on Twitter with Qwitter  —  We all lose followers on the micro-messaging service Twitter from time to time.  It happens to the best of us.  Sometimes it's because we go on 25 tweet (Twitter message) political rants in 5 minutes.
Discussion: Things That and Pat Phelan
Tim Westergren / Pandora:
A Sad Day  —  This is a very sad day for Pandora, and for me personally.  Today we reduced our staff from 140 to 120 employees.  Like virtually every company, Pandora is not immune to the challenges presented by the current economic turmoil.  We are trying to react quickly and responsibly to the new environment.
Cyrus Farivar / Salon:
New EFF brief argues telecom immunity law is unconstitutional  —  So you guys remember that whole NSA wiretapping, eavesdropping fiasco?  You know, that whole fantastic saga about how our tax dollars were being used to spy on our Internet traffic?  That that was a fun one.
Discussion: GigaOM
RELATED:
BBC:
Man killed wife in Facebook row  —  A man has been jailed for life for stabbing his wife to death over a posting she made on the social networking site Facebook.  —  Wayne Forrester, 34, told police he was devastated that his wife Emma, also 34, had changed her online profile to “single” days after he had moved out.
Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider:
Desperate Google Will Now Take Gambling Ads  —  Google's Q3 growth rate in the UK is a sign of things to come elsewhere: a measly 17%.  Why was growth so slow?  In part because of the economy and in part because of market saturation.  Google utterly dominates search in the UK, as it will soon do in the US and everywhere else.
Discussion: Epicenter, Brand Republic and Valleywag
RELATED:
Philipp Lenssen / Google Blogoscoped:
Google UK Allows Gambling Ads Now
Discussion: Techdirt, Guardian and WebProNews
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Google Asking Their Advertisers To Publicly Support Yahoo Search Deal  —  A reader, Darrin (from ReverseMortgageGuides), who says he spends about $100,000/month on Google adwords received a voicemail from a Cleary Gottlieb lawyer named Donald Burke.  Burke says he's representing Google in the Yahoo advertising deal.
RELATED:
Peter Kafka / Silicon Alley Insider:
Video Network Heavy Fires 14% Of Staff*  —  The snap consensus among tech and Web outfits who are sloughing off staff this fall: something in the 15%- to 30% range seems to be the way to go.  Today's entry: Dude-centric publisher and ad network Heavy, which is laying off 12 people, which it says amounts to 14% of its staff.
Discussion: paidContent.org and Gawker
Stephen Shankland / CNET News:
Google hedges against foreign currency swings  —  In recent months, financial analysts have expressed concern that Google's financial results could be hurt by foreign-exchange rate changes.  But Google said Thursday that it has taken measures to insulate itself from the potential problem.
InfoWorld:
Ballmer: Windows 7 is Vista, just ‘a lot better’  —  Windows 7 will be like Windows Vista , but more so, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said Thursday as he defended the first two years of Vista and claimed its successor will be a major release.  —  “[Windows 7], it's Windows Vista, a lot better …
 
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 More Items: 
Juan Carlos Perez / PC World:
Gmail Back After 30 Hours Down  —  A Gmail outage that lasted …
Discussion: InformationWeek and Macworld
Eric Eldon / VentureBeat:
Search engine startup SearchMe cuts 20 percent of staff
Discussion: HipMojo.com, Valleywag and Open Sources
Brad Linder / Download Squad:
Mozilla releases Mobile Firefox Alpha - For Mac, Windows and Linux?
Fred Quintana / Google Mobile Blog:
Google on Android: Gmail and Contacts
Discussion: Android Phone Fans and Cellpassion
Philipp Lenssen / Google Blogoscoped:
Footnotes in Google Docs
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
The Verbatim Transcript of Ballmer on Yahoo Deal: Separating Fiction From Truth
Discussion: Valleywag
 Earlier Items: 
InfoWorld:
Microsoft makes gains in server virtualization
Chris Albrecht / NewTeeVee:
Vimeo Lanches Vimeo Plus Paid Service
Ars Technica:
Benchmarking Flash Player 10 (Updated)
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Adult Startup Zivity Cuts 1/3 Of Staff
Staci D. Kramer / paidContent.org:
Discovery CEO: Web ‘Take-up Rate Is Not That Strong’
Discussion: Financial Times
Devin Leonard / Fortune:
Shazam comes out of the shadows
 

 
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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