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4:00 PM ET, February 7, 2011

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Kara Swisher / BoomTown:
You've Got Arianna: AOL Buys Huffington Post for $315 Million in Cash and Stock, Appoints Huffington Editor in Chief  —  In a bold and definitive move, AOL is paying $315 million, mostly in cash, to buy the Huffington Post, one of the Web's most prominent news and opinion sites.
RELATED:
Om Malik / GigaOM:
AOL+HuffPo!  Why It is Not Really a Good Deal  —  Just when you thought you could finally put Superbowl commercials behind you and go to bed in a beer-induced slumber, AOL dropped a late-night bomb: it bought The Huffington Post for $315 million, of which $300 million is in cash.  My first reaction — wow!
Dan Lyons / The Daily Beast:
Huffington Post and AOL: You've Got a Mess  —  AOL's pseudo journalism, Huffington Post's minuscule ad rates, and editors with big egos and a tough boss will doom the just-created media company.  Dan Lyons on the disastrous deal.  —  It is no surprise that AOL is buying Huffington Post.
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Armstrong's Internal Memo To AOLers About The HuffPo Deal  —  At midnight, AOL announced that it will buy the Huffington Post for $315 million.  Below is the internal memo AOL CEO Tim Armstrong sent to all AOL employees (except us, they don't trust us with anything) about the transaction.
Arianna Huffington / The Huffington Post:
When HuffPost Met AOL: “A Merger of Visions”
New York Times:
Betting on News, AOL Is Buying The Huffington Post
Keith Rabois / @rabois:   Interestingly, Aol has now become a substantially more attractive acquirer for startups/entrepreneurs than yahoo.
Stuart Miles / Pocket-lint:
Android 2.4 coming April, leaving 2.3 dead on arrival - not Ice Cream  —  EXCLUSIVE: Viewsonic to be first out of the gate  —  Viewsonic has exclusively told Pocket-lint that its recently announced ViewPad 4 smartphone will be packing Android 2.4 when it launches in April.
Matthew Hawn / Last.fm:
Last.fm Radio becomes a premium feature on mobile and home entertainment devices  —  On February 15, the radio service built into Last.fm mobile apps and on home entertainment devices will become an ad-free, subscriber-only feature.  —  Last.fm Radio will remain free on the Last.fm website in the US …
RELATED:
Kit Eaton / Fast Company:   Last.fm Moves to Paid Content Model, Largely Abandons Free Mobile Service
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
HP unveils a cool reclining touchscreen PC straight out of Star Trek  —  It seems like there's no end of uses for the touchscreen.  Hewlett-Packard is showing off a cool new touchscreen computer today that can recline at a 60-degree angle so that it can be used as a kind of control console for a lot of different applications.
RELATED:
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:   HP's New Reclining PC Coulda, Shoulda, But Didn't
Ken Deeter / Facebook:
Live Commenting: Behind the Scenes  —  Commenting on Facebook content has been an asynchronous form of communication.  Until now.  Live commenting, which we rolled out to all of our users a couple weeks ago, creates opportunities for spontaneous online conversations to take place in real time …
Discussion: GigaOM and VatorNews, Thanks:srikardhanakoti
RELATED:
Josh Constine / Inside Facebook:
Facebook Rolls Out Real-Time Commenting to All Users
Discussion: All Facebook
RELATED:
Arn / MacRumors:
Apple to Eliminate Retail Box Software Inventory  —  With the success of the iTunes App Store and the launch of the Mac App Store, it seems clear that the long term future of software sales is going to be digital distribution.  Based on what we've heard, however, Apple is planning on making …
Steven Poole / 3 Quarks Daily:
Against chrome: a manifesto  —  Please tear your eyes away from this elegant and curiously seductive prose for a few seconds and look at what surrounds this webpage on your display.  Unless you are browsing in full-screen “kiosk” mode or kicking it old-school with Lynx …
Kamal Ahmed / Telegraph:
Google chief Eric Schmidt seeks deal on EU search inquiry  —  Eric Schmidt, the new executive chairman of Google, has revealed that the search giant wants to come to a deal with the European Commission over its inquiry into Google's dominance in search.  —  In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph …
RELATED:
Foo Yun Chee / Reuters:
Google and EU in antitrust resolution talks: source
Discussion: CNET News and Digital Trends
Nathan Bullock / Google Mobile Blog:
Priority Inbox in Gmail for mobile  —  If you've ever cursed a phone's tiny screen as utterly inadequate for sifting through an overflowing inbox you'll be pleased to hear that the Gmail mobile web app now supports Priority Inbox.  Priority Inbox helps combat information overload …
Chris Ziegler / Engadget:
White iPhone 4 starts to get Best Buy, The Source shelf space  —  This shelf tag was apparently spotted this weekend at a Best Buy in Houston, and it speaks for itself: white iPhone 4, AT&T, $599.99 off contract (the same price as the black).  Of course, we all know this thing is coming within …
Sebastian Anthony / Download Squad:
Firefox 4, 5, 6 and 7 to be released before the end of 2011  —  Firefox's official roadmap has been updated, and boy are there some interesting changes afoot.  Most notably, Firefox 7 will ship in 2011.  The second biggy, and the main focus of Firefox development in 2011 …
Evelyn M. Rusli / New York Times:
Yahoo Is Said to Move Toward Personalized Content  —  For Yahoo, it is getting personal.  —  Confronted by declining revenue and a steady stream of prominent departures, Yahoo plans to announce that it is developing a publishing platform for applications that would let users get personalized content …
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
lightRadio: hideous cell towers to get smaller, lose the “hut”  —  Alcatel-Lucent is making a bold claim today: its new line of lightRadio cellular hardware can double the bits flying through the air to your smartphone, and it can do so at half the cost.  Oh, and cell towers might be able …
Jameshritz / The Quora Review:
Why Quora & Social Media Experts Don't Mix  —  As the Quora user base has grown, along with much praise, has come some criticism.  Specifically, many critics view Quora as a snobby, clubby, and intellectually elitist place.  It seems much of the loudest criticism about Quora and it's community …
Discussion: Brian Solis
 
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 More Items: 
Alexei Oreskovic / Reuters:
With new executive, Google steps up mobile ad efforts
Bonnie Cha / Crave: The gadget blog:
WSJ: Sprint to reveal dual-screen Kyocera Echo at Feb. 7 event
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
MPAA Snags Google Downloading Torrents, Threatens to Disconnect
Leena Rao / TechCrunch:
Google Ventures Invests In Web Security Company Dasient
John Paczkowski / Digital Daily:
Only 35 Percent of Companies Have a Succession Plan and Apple Is One of Them
 Earlier Items: 
Peter Sayer / PC World:
Inside Secure Offers Alternative Android NFC Software Stack
Discussion: The Register and VentureBeat
Carrie Coolidge / Luxist:
The Plaza in New York Offers iPads in all Guest Rooms and Suites (with Video)
Discussion: Digital Trends, TiPb, Gearlog and MacStories
Paul Kedrosky / Infectious Greed:
Fiber Capacity Maxing Out?
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
Tech Returns To The Super Bowl Big Time, An Ad Roundup
Discussion: TUAW and PC World
Vlad Savov / Engadget:
Best Buy ad prices Motorola Xoom at $800, affirms February 24th launch date
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Ruth La Ferla / New York Times:
Graydon Carter opens a physical store called Air Mail Newsstand in NYC, as an extension of his digital newsletter Air Mail, selling books, magazines, and more

Todd Spangler / Variety:
Filing: Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav's 2023 compensation package was worth $49.7M, up 26.5% from the year prior, with $23.1M in stock awards

Andrew Beaujon / Washingtonian:
Interviews with over a dozen current and former WAMU staffers and contractors show management's contradictory, unclear messaging about its closure of DCist

 
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