Check out Mini-Techmeme for simple mobiles or Techmeme Mobile for modern smartphones.
12:25 AM ET, March 31, 2009

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Emil Protalinski / Ars Technica:
Microsoft to kill Encarta later this year  —  Microsoft has announced that it is discontinuing its Encarta line of products.  The software products will be gone by June 2009 and the website will go down October 31, 2009.  —  When I first saw this, I had to do a double take.
RELATED:
Joseph Tartakoff / paidContent.org:
Victim Of Wikipedia: Microsoft To Shut Down Encarta
Discussion: Bits, Andrew Lih and Mashable!
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Is a Shorter Web Address Worth Big Money? bit.ly Raises $2 Million  —  Here's another Web 2.0 riddle that seems particularly hard to solve post-Lehman: What's the value of a service that takes a long Web address and makes it shorter?  —  One answer: Several million dollars.
RELATED:
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
If bit.ly Is Worth $8 Million, TinyURL Is Worth At Least $46 Million  —  In a world where everything is being jammed into 140 characters or less, shorter is better.  That goes double (or is it half?) for lengthy URLs.  So-called URL shortening services are increasingly becoming indispensable to anyone who uses Twitter.
Spencer Ante / Creative Capital:
It's Official: Twitter Hires Ex-Google Designer Douglas Bowman  —  Turns out the Web rumors were true for once.  In a meeting last Friday afternoon in Twitter's San Francisco office, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone told me that the company had hired ex-Google Visual Design Lead Douglas Bowman to be the company's new creative director.
David Chartier / Ars Technica:
Interview: Gmail's product manager on Labs, beta, the future  —  Gmail is turning five soon, and it was given an experimental feature playground called Gmail Labs nearly a year ago.  For the anniversary, Ars Technica spoke with Gmail Product Manager Todd Jackson about the evolution of communication …
Thanks:atul
RELATED:
Stephen Shankland / CNET News:
Gmail Labs spreads beyond U.S.
Discussion: Gmail Blog
Matt Cutts / Gadgets, Google, and SEO:
Hacking Google: Retro Links Revives Old Google Feature  —  Google sometimes turns off features.  One such feature that I remember fondly is that at the bottom of Google's search results, we offered nine other search engine suggestions.  The idea was if you didn't find what you were searching for on Google …
Jessica E. Vascellaro / Wall Street Journal:
Google Prepares Venture Fund  —  Google Inc. is expected to Tuesday announce more details about its highly anticipated venture-capital fund, including its plan to commit roughly $100 million to the endeavor in its first year, said people familiar with the matter.
Discussion: CNET News and paidContent.org
Darren Murph / Engadget:
Netflix raising rates for Blu-ray subscribers by around 20 percent  —  Ruh roh.  In a move that will undoubtedly cause an incredibly raucous stir, only to fade away as movie renters realize that Netflix is still the best deal going, America's most adored by-mail rental service is hiking the price of Blu-ray rentals once again.
RELATED:
Kontra / counternotions:
What will the next iPhone be called?  —  Naming any Apple product — much less the iPhone, the most iconic of them all — is no easy task.  —  Remember all the mindless chatter when Apple risked legal entanglement with Cisco for the right to use the name “iPhone”?  Gizmodo:
Thanks:atul
RELATED:
Katie Marsal / AppleInsider:   RBC says iPhone 3G ‘Pro’ won't boost iPhone momentum
Arn / MacRumors:
Official Skype App is Now Available in the App Store  —  Skype, Inc. has just released their official Skype application for the iPhone and iPod touch.  —  Skype is a very popular voice-over-IP (VOIP) and instant messaging application that allows you to make phone calls over the internet.
RELATED:
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Review: Skype for iPhone. Verdict: Awesome.
Discussion: TheAppleBlog, VentureBeat and Pulse2, Thanks:mrinaldesai
Biz / Twitter Blog:
Replies Are Now Mentions  —  We're updating the Replies feature and referring to it instead as Mentions.  In your Twitter sidebar you'll now see your own @username tab.  When you click that tab, you'll see a list of all tweets referencing your account with the @username convention anywhere in the tweet …
Discussion: Mashable!, Thanks:mrinaldesai
Department of Homeland Security:
DHS Releases Conficker/Downadup Computer Worm Detection Tool  —  The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced today the release of a DHS-developed detection tool that can be used by the federal government, commercial vendors, state and local governments, and critical infrastructure owners …
RELATED:
Agence France Presse:
Homeland security releases Conficker tool
Discussion: Macworld, CNET News and Slate
Ben Parr / Mashable!:
MySpace and Microsoft Team Up: What Does it Mean for Facebook and Google?  —  The world's second largest social network, MySpace, has found a new partner that may make the relationship between MySpace and Google a little more rocky: Microsoft.  —  Specifically, MySpace and Microsoft announced today …
RELATED:
Ina Fried / CNET News:
Microsoft, TomTom settle patent dispute  —  Microsoft and TomTom have reached a settlement in their respective patent suits, the companies said Monday.  —  As part of the deal, as TomTom will pay Microsoft for coverage related to mapping patents and file-management patents that Microsoft claimed …
RELATED:
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Tinker Gives Twitter Its Long Awaited Events Firehose  —  Over a year ago Fred Wilson wrote about the need for a Twitter events firehose - a place where users could input a handful of keywords collectively referred to as an ‘event’, which could be used to monitor current news as it happens in near real-time.
Phone Arena:
Verizon's MiFi 2200 is your own personal Hotspot  —  We've received information that Verizon is preparing to launch a device known as the MiFi 2200.  Based on the info and pictures, it appears that the device is a personal Hotspot with built-in rechargeable battery.
IAB:
Internet Advertising Revenues Surpass $23 Billion in '08, Reaching Record High  —  Q4 '08 Revenues Total $6.1 Billion; Growth Continues Despite Difficult Economy  —  Internet advertising revenues in the U.S. remain strong, topping $23 billion, according to the 2008 Internet Advertising Revenue Report …
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
TheFunded Not Shutting Down  —  We're always happy to give a wide berth to people pulling April Fools pranks, but even so it's pushing it to do it on March 27.  If you go that early, you need to be side-splittingly funny or earn our disdain until we've forgotten all about it.
John Paczkowski / Digital Daily:
Microsoft Acquires Yahoo ... VP of Ops  —  Add another name to the list of Yahoo employees defecting to Microsoft.  Dayne Sampson, Yahoo's VP of operations for search and advertising, has fled the company for its former suitor, Microsoft confirmed to Digital Daily.
Discussion: CNET News and TechFlash
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Intel launches Nehalem server chips to improve data center efficiency  —  Intel introduced its Xeon 5500 Series family of server chips today — chips it hopes will be the standard for data centers of the future.  —  The chips (formerly code-named Nehalem) are the server variant …
Harry McCracken / Technologizer:
Macworld Expo Moves, Accepts Its Nickname  —  Here's the first hint of how IDG's Macworld Expo will change in the wake of Apple's decision to pull out of the show: It's moving from early January to February 9th-13th (which includes a Saturday-the show has been weekday only).
Randy Nelson / Joystiq:
Sony has ‘no plans for a PS3 price drop,’ calls rumors ‘false’  —  All those rumors of a PS3 price drop, like as soon as tomorrow?  There's absolutely nothing to them according to Sony, who has contacted us with an official comment on the matter.  —  “As we have stated previously …
Tom Krazit / CNET News:
Microsoft drops plan to charge for WinMo updates  —  Microsoft has backed off plans to charge Windows Mobile developers $99 for submitting even minor updates to their applications.  —  Last week, Microsoft said that unless developers submitted updates to their applications within 7 days of their release …
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
Twitter quakes as San Francisco shakes  —  Earthquake news and Twitter have long gone hand in hand because of Twitter's instant mass-communication ability.  Today, an earthquake shook the San Francisco Bay area (where Twitter's headquarters is located, along with many of its original users), and Twitter traffic went nuts.
Discussion: earthquake.usgs.gov
Nathan Fouts / Mommy's Best Games' dev log:
Big fish in a shallow pond  —  True to their word, Microsoft has provided Community Games sales data by the end of March.  The results are, in one word, sobering.  —  First, let me just reiterate that we have been very upfront about what Mommy's Best is trying to achieve.  We want to make kick ass games, full-time.
Dan Sabbagh / Times of London:
Authors fight free books site Scribd for ‘pirating’ their work  —  Bestselling novels are reproduced without publishers' permission  —  Publishers and agents representing the authors J. K. Rowling and Ken Follett were battling last night to get free copies of their novels removed …
Discussion: TechCrunch and HipMojo.com
 
 Archived Page Info: 
This is a snapshot of Techmeme at 12:25 AM ET, March 31, 2009.

View the current page or another snapshot:


 
 Techmeme Sponsor Posts: 
Tribe AI:
Is AI just hype?  —  Find out how top enterprises use Tribe to get real business results.
Techmeme Leaderboards:
Discover the top reporters on AI, VR, policy, and much more  —  We've analyzed Techmeme's news crawl to identify the most influential and prolific writers on 48 news topics.  Download reports immediately for just $100.
Zoho:
Authy killed their desktop apps.  Time to switch to a reliable authenticator.  Time to switch to Zoho OneAuth.  —  Twilio's Authy recently announced end of life (EOL) for their desktop apps on March 19, 2024—five months ahead of schedule.
Comprehensive.io:
Browse salary data from 3,000 startups for free  —  Click for FREE, immediate access to real-time compensation benchmarking data.  Paid version helps HR automate comp reviews and communicate total compensation to employees.
Sponsor Techmeme
 
 See Also: 
Techmeme: site main
Techmeme River: reverse chronological Techmeme
Techmeme Mobile: for phones
Techmeme Leaderboard: Techmeme's top sources
 
 Subscribe: 
Techmeme RSS feed
Techmeme on X
Techmeme on Mastodon
 
 
 More Items: 
Yinka Adegoke / Reuters:
Cable operators, networks brace for an online world
Saul Hansell / Bits:
Trolling for Patents to Fight Patent Trolls
Discussion: ZDNet Government, Thanks:atul
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:
March of the Diggs: Trent Reznor to be on Digg Dialogg
Thanks:nickgon
Mark Bockenstedt / Microblink:
Status.net: Hosted Laconica Installations
Discussion: ReadWriteWeb and Control Yourself
Stacey Higginbotham / GigaOM:
Can Stickers Drive Mobile Payments?
Discussion: PR Newswire and mocoNews
John Paczkowski / Digital Daily:
Sun Sacks 1,500 … Looks like Sun is “aligning its business …
 Earlier Items: 
John Herrman / Gizmodo:
Opera Mobile 9.7 to Support Flash, Google Gears, Server-Side Compression
Discussion: DailyTech
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
Apple: Hitch Seen In Potential China Unicom Deal
John Cook / TechFlash:
Ignition sets up offices in Seattle
Discussion: Xconomy
Stephen Shankland / CNET News:
Yahoo Net service comes to Samsung TVs
Discussion: last100
Omar El Akkad / Globe and Mail:
Meet the Canadians who busted GhostNet
Discussion: CircleID
Olga Kharif / Business Week:
Serious Threats to Sirius Radio
 

 
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”

Sam Wolfson / The Guardian:
A look at the rise of celebrity-hosted interview podcasts, whose long running times mean guests delve into deep and personal topics, resembling therapy sessions

 
Sister Sites:

Mediagazer
 Top news and commentary for media professionals from all around the web
memeorandum
 What US political commentators are discussing online right now
WeSmirch
 The top celebrity news from all around the web on a single page