Top Items:
Jessica Vascellaro / Digits:
Search Advertising Runs into the Recession — By Jessica E. Vascellaro — On Thursday, the public will find out how online search advertising - the biggest chunk of the Internet ad market - weathered the rocky fourth quarter when Google reports its results for the period.
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Greg Sterling / Search Engine Land:
Report: Search Spending Off 8 Percent In Q4 — While search engine marketing has been somewhat more durable during the recession (to date) than other media, that may not save SEM from negative growth. The Wall Street Journal is reporting on the latest Efficient Frontier search marketing report, set to be released tomorrow.
Discussion:
Beyond Search
Agence France Presse:
Change.gov coming to the White House — WASHINGTON (AFP) — At exactly one minute after noon on Tuesday change.gov is coming to the White House. — That's the moment when whitehouse.gov — the website for the past eight years of President George W. Bush — changes hands and the savvy young …
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Ashlee Vance / New York Times:
Cisco Plans Big Push Into Server Market — SAN JOSE, Calif. — Within the next few months, Cisco Systems, the largest maker of networking equipment, plans to release a product that threatens to shake up the technology industry and put the company on a collision course with traditional partners like Hewlett-Packard and I.B.M.
Jason Chen / Gizmodo:
Belkin Employee Sheds Light On Belkin's Supposedly Dirty Practices — Belkin's alleged, and now confirmed, payola scheme may have been one of the first times we've heard about their shady practices, but an employee of Belkin says it's actually very common. — To summarize the note …
Tom Warren / Neowin.net:
Microsoft set to unveil MobileMe competitor next month — Microsoft is planning to unveil three new mobile services at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona next month. The software giant is aiming to move your mobile data into the cloud and rival Apple's MobileMe service.
Discussion:
VentureBeat, Electronista, TechCrunch, TechCrunch UK, Silicon Alley Insider, Gizmodo, Boy Genius Report, Engadget Mobile, Phone Arena, Mobilewhack.com, SlashGear, IntoMobile, GPS Obsessed, One Microsoft Way, Mobile Tech Addicts, Obsessable, wmpoweruser.com, Technologizer, TechSpot, MobileCrunch and Boing Boing Gadgets
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
TechCrunch Tablet Update: Prototype B — It's time for an update on the progress we've made on the low cost touch screen tablet that I first wrote about in July 2008 when I asked for a dead simple touch screen web tablet that boots right to the browser. Here's our first post on the tablet …
Discussion:
Engadget, Obsessable, Gizmodo, TECH.BLORGE.com, The Mobile Gadgeteer, NEWSFACTOR, jkOnTheRun, Guardian, Liliputing, VoIP & Gadgets Blog, GPS Obsessed, last100, Boy Genius Report, TomsTechBlog.com, Ewan Spence's All New Musings, dailywireless.org, Gadgetreview, Boing Boing Gadgets, CloudAve, SlashGear, Scobleizer, Elliott C. Back, Electronista, Zoli's Blog, Silicon Alley Insider, atmaspheric, eHomeUpgrade, Scripting News and GottaBeMobile.com
Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:
iGoogle Redirects iPhone Users to the Standard Mobile Interface — iGoogle continues to make mistakes. After testing the new version of iGoogle without providing an option to end the experiment, after ignoring most of the complains regarding the new interface, Google decided to redirect iPhone users …
Matt Peckham / PC World:
Amazon Drops Xbox Live Price to $30 — Make what you will of Sony's embryonic PlayStation Home, the PS3's online matchmaking service ultimately costs nothing, while Microsoft's Xbox Live equivalent reaches into your wallet and extracts $50 annually. It's all a bit strange, really …
Erica Sadun / Infinite Loop:
What the duck? Train your iPhone to (truly) learn new words — I was chatting with some colleagues today who complained that their iPhones never seemed to learn new words properly and permanently, no matter how often they typed them. In the case of the Ars staff, I won't lie …
Discussion:
Lifehacker
Dieter Bohn / PreCentral.net:
New Features to the Pre: Oops I'm late and Automatic Calendar Context — We've already posted on this video, but it warrants another look. In the recent history of Palm, nothing has been more important to the survival of the company than the gigantic infusion of cash and brain-power …
Discussion:
The Technology Chronicles, Gizmodo, GPS Obsessed, Engadget Mobile, Pre Community, Electronista, mobilesyrup.com and Phone Scoop
Julia Angwin / Digits:
Guest Blogger: Googling the Inauguration — Guest Blogger Bill Tancer is the general manager of global research at Hitwise, an online data and research unit of Experian PLC. He is also the author of “Click: What Millions of People do Online and Why it Matters.”
The VAR Guy:
Zimbra Email: Thriving Under Yahoo's Ownership? — At first glance, Yahoo is struggling on multiple fronts. But take a closer look and you may discover that Zimbra — the open source email system Yahoo acquired in September 2007 — is thriving under Yahoo's ownership. Skeptical?
Discussion:
The Open Road
Katie Marsal / AppleInsider:
Apple among PC makers sued over OS permissions tech — Apple is among a dozen systems builders being sued this month for infringing on a pair of patents that cover system-wide software permissions for defining the range of operations that computer applications may or may not perform.
Paul Taylor / Inquirer:
EFI-X boots US partner — ART STUDIOS ENTERTAINMENT MEDIA (ASEM), the company behind the EFI-X UEFI dongle, has severed its relationship with EFI-X USA LLC, its North American distributor. — The whole situation was triggered when EFI-X USA LLC (unrelated to ASEM as a company) …
Discussion:
AppleInsider
Andrew Stone / Times of London:
Blogging your way into the big time — Using internet contacts can lead to myriad opportunities for small firms — Soon after starting up, Scottish beer business Brewdog was struggling to sell its product until its co-founders hit on the idea of using the internet to market their distinctive beers.
Melissa Bounoua / Forbes:
Twitter Not Loved In Europe — European companies say the social-networking tool is a time waster. — “Just had a cup of our Guatemala Casi Cielo ... It means ‘almost heaven’ in Spanish,” a Starbucks manager wrote in a recent Twitter post. — The coffee giant is one of many U.S. companies using Twitter …
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Blackberry Storefront Accepting App Applications — Following in the footsteps of Apple and its iTunes App store, several mobile companies have announced plans to launch their own storefronts. Research In Motion is looking to launch its store relatively soon, and it took a major step forward …
Discussion:
VentureBeat, CrackBerry.com blogs, Mobilewhack.com, Mobile Roar, tinyComb, GPS Obsessed, Gizmodo and mocoNews.net
Claudine Beaumont / Telegraph:
Number of computer users affected by Windows worm is ‘skyrocketing’ — The number of computers infected by a virus that attacks unsecured networks and can be spread via memory sticks has “skyrocketed” in recent days, according to anti-virus experts. — Security analysts at F-Secure believe …
Mary Jo Foley / All about Microsoft:
Win 7 testers find (and fix themselves) troublesome installer bug — A number of Windows 7 testers have succumbed to a bug that is causing them to crash randomly whenever they try to start Windows Update or install anything using Microsoft's MSI installer. But a couple of testers …
Dan Primack / PE Hub Blog:
VC Deal Scoop: Potbelly, Geni & More... What follows are six VC deals culled from recent Regulation D filings with the SEC. They have not been otherwise disclosed: — * Ardian Inc., a Palo Alto, Calif.-based developer of a medical device to treat congestive heart failure …
Frederic Lardinois / ReadWriteWeb:
Skydeck Puts Your Cell Phone Online — Cell phone providers hold a wealth of information about your real-world social network in their records that you can theoretically access through their cumbersome web interfaces. None of the cell phone companies we are aware of do a good job at presenting …
Jack Davis / SiliconBeat:
Plantronics laying off 18 percent, writing down goodwil — Plantronics, the Santa Cruz maker of headsets said last week that it plans to cut 18 percent of its workforce, or about 900 jobs, “effective immediately”, the same day that it warned that its sales for its fiscal 2009 third quarter …
DSLreports:
FCC Doesn't Like Comcast's New Treatment of VoIP - Hints that Digital Voice service should be regulated... While a lot was made of the FCC's investigation and Comcast's shift to a “protocol agnostic” network management system, the FCC order didn't actually punish Comcast, came with no fine …
Anthony Ha / VentureBeat:
GoodGuide raises $3.73M for ethical shopping — GoodGuide, a site that helps shoppers find healthy, sustainable, and ethical products, has raised $3.73 million in a first round of venture funding. — The concept behind GoodGuide is rather obvious, but it was also tough to pull all the necessary data together.
Chris Ziegler / Engadget:
Verizon launching Wireless Network Extender femtocell on January 25 — Sprint had the jump on this by a few months with its AIRAVE, but Verizon's not far behind in bringing femotcells to the masses with its less-elegantly-named Wireless Network Extender later this month on the 25th.
Rebecca Buckman / Forbes:
U.S. Venture Fund-Raising Plunges — VC fund-raising fell 71% in the fourth quarter due to the recession and aversion to risky investments. — BURLINGAME, Calif.—Fund-raising by U.S. venture capitalists plunged 71% in the fourth quarter, squeezed by the global economic recession …
Larry Magid / CNET News:
Consequences of social-network parental controls — Last week I wrote about the final report of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force that dispelled some myths about predator danger, pointing out that—while predators remain a threat—teens are far more likely to be bullied, harassed …
