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4:30 PM ET, February 25, 2011

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
The Official Google Blog:
Finding more high-quality sites in search  —  Our goal is simple: to give people the most relevant answers to their queries as quickly as possible.  This requires constant tuning of our algorithms, as new content—both good and bad—comes online all the time.
RELATED:
Larry Fitzgibbon / Demand Media:
A Statement About Search Engine Algorithm Changes  —  How our content reaches the consumer - whether it's through direct visits, social media referrals, apps or search - has always been important to and monitored closely by us.  We also recognize that major search engines like Google have and will continue to make frequent changes.
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
Google Forecloses On Content Farms With “Farmer” Algorithm Update  —  In January, Google promised that it would take action against content farms that were gaining top listings with “shallow” or “low-quality” content.  Now the company is delivering, announcing a change to its ranking algorithm designed take out such material.
Stephen E. Arnold / Beyond Search:
Google and Search Tweaks  —  Chatter blizzard!  There is a flurry of commentary about Google's change to cope with outfits that generate content to attract traffic, get a high Google ranking, and deliver information to users!  You can read the Google explanation in “Finding More High-Quality Sites …
Alexis Madrigal / The Atlantic Online:   Testing Google's New Algorithm: It Really Is Better
Consumer Reports Electronics Blog:
Verizon iPhone 4: Mind the gap, our tests show  —  The Verizon iPhone 4 has a problem that could cause the phone to drop calls, or be unable to place calls, in weak signal conditions, Consumer Reports engineers have found in lab tests.  —  The problem is similar to the one we confirmed …
Joshua Topolsky / Engadget:
Sources: iPad 2 lands in thinner body with spec bump and cameras, SD slot and higher resolution display are out  —  The Apple rumors game can be a volatile thing.  Just as we'd heard about last minute alterations to the Apple TV before it hit the market, we've gotten word from sources …
RELATED:
ifixit:
Motorola Xoom Teardown  —  The Motorola Xoom is the first android tablet powered by Google's newest OS, Android 3.0 “Honeycomb.”  Follow along as we peek inside this scrumptious (see what we did there...) device and devour all the delicious bits of information we can gather.
RELATED:
Seth Weintraub / 9 to 5 Mac:
MobileMe is officially online only  —  Expanding on the report from yesterday, a Genius (who uses Chrome interestingly) sent us this screenshot of the Apple Internal systems which shows that MobileMe is online-only now.  —  It also appears you can't currently pay for MobileMe online.
Michael Hickins / Wall Street Journal:
Groupon Revenue Hit $760 Million Last Year  —  Daily deals website Groupon Inc. saw its revenue surge to $760 million last year from $33 million the previous year, with more than a third of its 2010 sales coming from outside the U.S., according to an internal memo.
Discussion: Digits, paidContent and SAI
Jack Purcher / Patently Apple:
Apple Reveals “Places” - A Social Networking Related Trademark  —  On February 24, 2011, The European Trademarks and Designs Office published Apple's latest trademark application for the word “Places” under application 009760141.  Apple has filed their trademark under four distinct International …
Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:
Twitter's Ad Team Runs Into the Learning Curve, and Promoted Tweets Take a Step Back  —  Another sign that Twitter's advertising plans are very much a work in progress: The company is playing down Promoted Tweets, the first ad units it introduced last year.  —  Instead, Dick Costolo's sales force …
MG Siegler / TechCrunch:
The Post-Optical Disc Era Gets Off To A Rocky Start With The OS X Lion Beta  —  If there was any doubt in peoples' minds that Apple intends to kill off the optical disc, it was put to rest today.  This morning's unveiling of the OS X Lion Developer Preview came with the news …
Facebook Site Governance / Facebook:
A Privacy Policy Re-imagined For Users Like You  —  At Facebook, we are constantly developing new experiences and features to help you control your information.  Some of our recent work includes simplified privacy settings and publisher privacy controls that let you select your audience every time you post something on Facebook.
ifixit:
MacBook Pro 15" Unibody Early 2011 Teardown  —  We got our hands on Apple's newest MacBook Pro 15" on February 24, 2011.  This is Apple's first laptop to sport a quad-core processor, and also adds a brand-new I/O technology with a Thunderbolt port.
RELATED:
Fred / A VC:
Marketing  —  You asked for it Arnold and 84 others (so far).  So I'm gonna talk about marketing.  —  I believe that marketing is what you do when your product or service sucks or when you make so much profit on every marginal customer that it would be crazy to not spend a bit …
Discussion: TechCrunch, SAI and Seattle 2.0
Brad Mauney / The LinkedIn Blog:
Discover the new LinkedIn Company Search  —  Your professional network isn't just about the people you know, it's also about the companies in your network and how you're connected to them.  —  Today, we're very pleased to launch a new Company Search on LinkedIn.
Discussion: ReadWriteWeb
Neil Hunt / The Official Netflix Blog:
30% of Netflix Streaming Content Has Subtitles; 80% By End of 2011  —  This is Neil Hunt, Chief Product Officer for Netflix, with an update on subtitles on content available to watch instantly from Netflix.  In the US, more than 3,500 TV episodes and movies have subtitles available, representing about 30% of viewing.
Tom Warren / WinRumors:
Verizon to launch Windows Phone 7 device in late March  —  Verizon is scheduled to launch its first Windows Phone 7 device in late March WinRumors has learned.  —  Verizon officials may be planning to announce the device as soon as Monday February 28 according to people familiar with the company's plans.
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
Facebook Nabs Career Recruiting Service Pursuit  —  It looks like recruiting service Pursuit has been gobbled up by Facebook, the latest in a string of acqui-hires, judging by the brief message on their homepage: … The San Francisco based Pursuit was just three extremely over-educated guys …
Elizabeth Wasserman / The Politico:
DOJ threatens to nix Google merger  —  The Justice Department has made it clear to Google that it's willing to go to court to block its acquisition of travel software-maker ITA - and Google has responded by stepping up negotiations to save the deal, a source familiar with the talks tells POLITICO.
Financial Times:
Apple, Google and Spotify race to music market  —  The digital music market is set to be shaken up as soon as this summer as Apple, Google and Spotify race to deliver new services that labels warily hope may reverse a decade of declining revenues.  Each of the technology companies is taking …
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines Blog:
Amazon Web Services launches CloudFormation: Infrastructure recipes  —  Amazon Web Services on Friday detailed CloudFormation, an effort to make cobbling together cloud services as easy as baking a cake.  —  The big takeaway here is that Amazon Web Services wants this cloud computing thing to be ridiculously easy.
Roger Browne / Google Blogoscoped:
Google drops reverse phone number lookup  —  One of the earliest specialist services provided by Google was reverse phone number lookup.  If you used the “phonebook:” or “rphonebook:” operators together with a 10-digit US phone number, Google would show you the owner of that phone number, unless the number was unlisted.
Thanks:steverubel
 
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 More Items: 
Vlad Savov / Engadget:
HTC Merge official, coming to ‘multiple’ US carriers this spring
Discussion: Gearlog, IntoMobile and MobileCrunch
Chris Preimesberger / eWeek:
How Apple Dodged a Sun Buyout: Former CEOs McNealy, Zander Tell All
Discussion: Digits and ITworld.com
Jackie Cohen / All Facebook:
REPORT: Facebook Profiles Are Now Part Of 80% Colleges' Admissions Outreach
Discussion: L.A. Times Tech Blog
Lee Mathews / Download Squad:
Creepy app uses Twitter and Flickr data to track anyone on a map
Sara Jerome / Hillicon Valley:
Consumer group wants to tax Netflix to pay for rural broadband
Discussion: Techdirt and DSLreports
Andrew S. Ross / San Francisco Chronicle:
Twitter, SF Mayor Ed Lee ‘very close’ on deal
Discussion: bizjournals and NBC Bay Area
 Earlier Items: 
Darlene Storm / Computerworld:
Google face search to use social network photos
Discussion: MediaPost and p2pnet
Nancy Scola / The Atlantic Online:
When the Internet Nearly Fractured, And How It Could Happen Again
Ryan Kim / GigaOM:
Google Pulls VoiceMail App in Possible In-App Payment Move
Discussion: CNET News, Android Phone Fans and SAI
Jon Stokes / Ars Technica:
Feature: All this has happened before: NVIDIA 3.0, ARM, and the fate of x86
Discussion: The Tech Report