Top Items:
Brian Womack / Bloomberg:
Facebook Passes EBay in Value, Becoming No. 3 U.S. Web Company — Nov. 15 (Bloomberg) — Facebook Inc.'s estimated worth is now bigger than EBay Inc.'s valuation, making it the third- largest U.S. Internet business and underscoring the growing allure of social media for investors.
Discussion:
Venture Capital Dispatch, GMSV, Adotas, Softpedia News, Mashable!, SAI, Rev2.org and Go Rumors
RELATED:
Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:
Facebook Worth $41 Billion (Report) — Facebook is now the third largest U.S. Internet business, behind Amazon and Google, according to a new Bloomberg report released this morning. Based on trading on secondary markets - Facebook is not yet a public company - the site's stock is now at $16 …
Discussion:
All Facebook
Microsoft:
Microsoft Launches New Casual Games Hub — The company today rolled out the Microsoft Game Hub, which helps fans of casual games like Bejeweled play and interact socially across MSN Games, Bing Games and Windows Live Messenger. — Solitaire doesn't have to be so solitary anymore.
Discussion:
LiveSide.net, Download Squad, SelectStart, VentureBeat, Softpedia News and Winrumors
RELATED:
Robin Wauters / TechCrunch:
Not So Casual: Microsoft To Revitalize MSN Games, Live Messenger And Bing Games
Discussion:
Inside Social Games, The Windows Blog, PR Newswire and Gadget Lab
Liz Gannes / NetworkEffect:
Path: The Social App That's Not Viral (By Design) — Silicon Valley is in the midst of a mini photo-sharing app boomlet. We have Instagram (which started adding 100,000 users per week as soon as it launched last month), Picplz (which beat out Instagram to get a Series A round with their shared investor …
Discussion:
Screenwerk, CNN, PC World, ReadWriteWeb, GigaOM, Epicenter, Techland, Ben Metcalfe Blog, blogs.chron.com, Gizmodo, parislemon, Continuations, TechCrunch and SFGate
RELATED:
Robert Scoble / Scobleizer:
Path: the social system that will piss social mavens off — I didn't read any of Path's hype before trying it myself. I wasn't part of the beta. I don't owe Dave Morin lunch (he's the founder of this new thing called Path that's getting a deep amount of hype tonight. The photo is of him at the TED conference).
Discussion:
SAI, Fast Company, New York Times, The Social, ReadWriteWeb, Mark Evans Tech, PhoneArena and The Next Web, Thanks:thekenyeung
Federico Viticci / MacStories:
“Exciting Announcement from iTunes” Coming Tomorrow, What Is It? — Oh, look what we have here. Apple just updated its homepage on apple.com to include this banner, which states an “exciting announcement” from iTunes is coming tomorrow at 7 AM PST. “Tomorrow is just another day.
Discussion:
GigaOM, Engadget, Digital Daily, Between the Lines Blog, Mobile Marketing Watch, Fortune, ReadWriteWeb, AppleInsider, TechFlash, BGR, 9 to 5 Mac, MacRumors, SAI, Softpedia News, Techie Buzz, Tech Trader Daily, CBS News, Andy Ihnatko's Celestial Waste …, Gadget Lab, Mashable!, Gizmodo and The Next Web, Thanks:viticci
Sameer Samat / The Official Google Blog:
Improvements to Product Search for this holiday season — Every year retailers start the holiday shopping season earlier and earlier—and still I procrastinate until late December before getting started. This year I've already made my list and I'm ready to go.
Claire Cain Miller / New York Times:
Pulse, Popular App, Moves to Attract More Users — PALO ALTO, Calif. — Publishers' offices at print newspapers and magazines are tension-filled places these days, as executives watch readers and advertisers flock to the Web and cellphone screens. — Contrast that to the atmosphere …
Discussion:
mobiputing, Marco.org, Zatz Not Funny!, Softpedia News, The Next Web, iClarified and TUAW
Nick Saint / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:
Tune In At 1PM ET For LIVE Coverage Of Facebook's Email Announcement — In just over two hours, Facebook is having another big event, reportedly to announce a new web-based email client its employees call their “Gmail killer.” — A solid email offering from Facebook could be a huge deal.
Discussion:
BBC, ReadWriteWeb, Associated Press, The Huffington Post and Lifehacker
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
Raid The MiniBar: Meebo Gets Into The Site Check-In Game. But Don't Call It A Game. — With the rise of Foursquare, the “check-in” has become fairly commonplace. With the launch of Places, Facebook will only make it more so. It shouldn't be surprising that we're seeing dozens …
Discussion:
Download Squad, Scobleizer, GigaOM, NetworkEffect, ReadWriteWeb, Softpedia News and VentureBeat
Ed Bott / Ed Bott's Microsoft Report Blog:
Microsoft vs. McAfee: How free antivirus outperformed paid — How effective is free antivirus software? I had a chance to see a real, in-the-wild example just this month, and the results were, to put it mildly, unexpected. The bottom line? Microsoft's free antivirus solution found …
Discussion:
Hardware 2.0 Blog, Thanks:edbott
Calacanis.com:
Why I'm suing Mike Arrington — Note: I just sent this to the JasonNation.com email list (which you can sign up for on the top right of this blog, or at www.jasonnation.com. I'm reposting it here since I'm getting a lot of press calls. If anyone wants to interview me on this issue …
Devin Coldewey / CrunchGear:
More Kinect Craziness: Mind-Blowing 3D Video Effect — The Kinect may be divisive as a gaming peripheral, but I think we can all agree that a $150 off-the-shelf depth-aware camera system is a good thing. And just in the week since the device launched, people have already come up with some crazy applications for it.
Discussion:
Engadget, MSDN Blogs, Digital Society, Geek.com and Beet.TV
Bob Boorstin / Google Public Policy Blog:
Promoting Free Trade for the Internet Economy — Today we're releasing a white paper [PDF] that explores the ways that governments impose limits on the free flow of information online. It's pretty wonky stuff, but the premise is simple: In addition to infringing human rights …
Discussion:
Reuters
Riva Richmond / New York Times:
Attacker That Sharpened Facebook's Defenses — A friend on Facebook suggests that you watch an amazing or funny or sexy video. The link may seem innocuous enough. But with a few simple clicks, you could end up infecting your PC with the Koobface worm. — Koobface, whose name is an anagram …
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
Let a Zillion Users Blab: Yahoo Debuts “Contributor Network” — Yahoo is debuting a new offering for its hundreds of million of users, which takes the Demand Media model and notches up the volume by presumably allowing a thousand flowers to bloom. — Or, more to the point, blab.
Discussion:
Yahoo!, AdAge and Yodel Anecdotal
Leena Rao / TechCrunchIT:
EMC Buys Enterprise Data Storage Company Isilon For $2.25 Billion In Cash — Enterprise software giant EMC has just acquired Isilon Systems for $2.25 billion in cash or appoximately $33.85 per share. The deal was rumored to be in the works but now it's official.
Discussion:
eWeek, SAI, Between the Lines Blog, Data Center Knowledge, TechEye, Digital Daily, Computerworld, PR Newswire, Bloomberg, Tech Trader Daily, VatorNews and DealBook
Kat Hannaford / Gizmodo:
Rumor: Google Taking On eBay With Boutiques.com Site Launch — Fashion bloggers are squealing that Google's going into the fashion business, following an invitation for a swanky NYC launch event this Wednesday, where “high tech fuses with high fashion.” Supposedly, they'll …
Discussion:
TechCrunch, frockwriter, Softpedia News, Go Rumors and BuzzFeed, Thanks:gizmodo
Matt Marshall / VentureBeat:
RIM shuts out red-hot mobile chat application Kik — without explanation — Kik, the hot mobile chat application we wrote about two weeks ago that was seeing explosive growth, has been pulled from the Blackberry app market App World. — RIM, the maker of Blackberry phones …
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Fortune:
Mark Papermaster should be happier at Cisco than he was at Apple — In many ways, the networking giant is a better fit for the 26-year IBM veteran — Papermaster. Photo: Apple Inc. — Last week wasn't a total disaster for Cisco (CSCO) — which got a $29 billion market cap haircut Tuesday …
Discussion:
Gizmodo, The Register, Softpedia News, Inquirer and Network World
Jon Evans / TechCrunch:
Dear Foursquare, Gowalla: Please Let's Stop Pretending This Is Fun — It's a bad month to be Foursquare or Gowalla. Ten days ago, 900-pound gorilla Facebook announced Facebook Deals for Facebook Places (i,e., location-based coupons) and check-ins for third-party apps.
Discussion:
Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life, All About Symbian and Appolicious Advisor
Zach Epstein / BGR:
Motorola MOTOPAD to usher in Android 3.0 — Just as Motorola helped Google usher in Android 2.0 with the DROID, the reborn gadgeteer is now seemingly charged with a similar task for Android 3.0. Details for the time being are remarkably slim, but Mobile-Review.com — home …
Discussion:
Fortune, Android Community, Droid Life, IntoMobile, SlashGear, SAI, Android Phone Fans, Electronista, Softpedia News, I4U News, Know Your Cell, AndroidGuys and PhoneArena
