Techmeme: Exclusive: Microsoft and Nokia's Plans for Marketing Windows Phone in 2012 (Paul Thurrott/SuperSite for Windows)

3:05 PM ET, January 4, 2012

Top Items:

Yahoo! Appoints Scott Thompson Chief Executive Officer — SUNNYVALE, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)— Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO), the premier digital media company, today announced the appointment of Scott Thompson as Chief Executive Officer, effective January 9, 2012, at which time Tim Morse will resume his role as Chief Financial Officer.

Om Malik / GigaOM:

Brand new CEO, same old messed up Yahoo — Yahoo has finally found a new chief executive to replace Carol Bartz (who left in a huff) and he is Scott Thompson, who till recently was the president of the PayPal division of eBay A surprise candidate, it is not very clear what his strategy …

Discussion: Motley Fool, @danprimack and Gawker

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Confirmed: Yahoo Names PayPal Head Scott Thompson as New CEO — As I reported late last night, Yahoo said it had named PayPal President Scott Thompson as its new CEO. The exec is currently in charge of the large eBay online payments unit. — He'll start next week, but there are staff …

Larry Dignan / Between the Lines Blog:

Yahoo's new CEO Thompson: Five big challenges — Summary: Yahoo's likely new CEO—PayPal president Scott Thompson—has a big to-do list including making the company relevant again. — Yahoo is reportedly set to name a new CEO—PayPal president Scott Thompson—but challenges abound.

Matt Burns / TechCrunch:
Ebay Boss John Donahoe To Serve PayPal's Interim President

Discussion: Business Insider, AllThingsD, The PayPal Blog, eBay Ink, GMSV and AllThingsD

Paul Thurrott / SuperSite for Windows:

Exclusive: Microsoft and Nokia's Plans for Marketing Windows Phone in 2012 — With tech blogs leaking somehat inaccurate information about Microsoft and Nokia's plans for marketing Windows Phone in the US during the first half of 2012—and others still predictably parroting that information …

Discussion: TechCrunch, Computerworld, BetaNews, CNET, Smartphones …, Neowin.net, pocketnow.com, My Nokia Blog, The Nokia Blog, SlashGear and PhoneArena

Ed Oswald / BetaNews:

Windows Phone partners bet $100M on Nokia Ace — The importance of the Nokia Ace to Microsoft's mobile plans is apparent as sources tell BetaNews of a major marketing push for the smartphone in the second quarter of this year. The Ace will launch in late March, sources confirm …

Tiuri van Agten / Distimo:

Google Android Market Tops 400,000 Applications — Google Android Market gave itself a nice new year's present last weekend. The total number of active applications worldwide in the Android Market reached the 400,000 milestone. Android Market has topped the 200K and 300K available apps milestones …

Lauren Goode / AllThingsD:

Roku to Launch Cordless Streaming Stick for TVs — Roku, maker of competitively priced set-top boxes that stream Web video on TVs, is introducing a new device it thinks will offer a simpler option for Internet connectivity than some “smart” TVs. — Today, the company is unveiling plans …

Discussion: The Toybox Blog, Ars Technica, PC World, The Verge, VentureBeat, Bits, Gizmodo, The Official Roku Blog, CNET, Macworld, Engadget, TechCrunch, Technologizer, GigaOM and Electronista

Kevin Lincoln / Business Insider:

The Guys Behind The Verge Just Went On Another Huge Talent Raid For A New Gaming Site — For the last week, there's been buzz about a new gaming site coming from Vox Media, the parent company of The Verge and SB Nation. — We can confirm that Vox is about to launch a big gaming vertical later …

Discussion: The Verge, GamePolitics blogs and VG247

Darrell Etherington / GigaOM:

Apple's long silence on call mute issue raising ire of iPhone owners — Apple's iPhone 4S wasn't without its share of launch troubles, including complaints of poor battery life. But while Apple was quick to address said issues in an update (and then promised to do so again in another) …

Discussion: AppleInsider, NBC Bay Area, BGR, CNET, MacRumors, AllThingsD, The Verge, Softpedia News, PalmAddicts, O'Grady's PowerPage, ITProPortal and PhoneArena

Julie Bort / Business Insider:

Cisco's Alternative To Skype Has Quietly Been Killed — Cisco has quietly pulled the plug on its ill-fated consumer home videoconferencing system, Umi. This could be the final blow to the company's once-grand consumer plans. — Umi was introduced a little over a year ago, in October, 2010.

Discussion: eWeek, SlashGear, Engadget, VoIP & Gadgets Blog, CNET, AllThingsD, VoIP Watch, The Verge and PC Magazine

Elad Blog:

How Pinterest Will Transform the Web in 2012: Social Content Curation As The Next Big Thing — The most interesting wave hitting the social web in 2012 is social curation. This was kicked off in 2011 as Pinterest's growth was noticed by Silicon Valley and a number of companies quickly followed suit …

Dennis K. Berman / Wall Street Journal:

So, What's Your Algorithm? — We are ruined by our own biases. When making decisions, we see what we want, ignore probabilities, and minimize risks that uproot our hopes. — What's worse, “we are often confident even when we are wrong,” writes Daniel Kahneman, in his masterful new book …

Krystal Peak / VatorNews:

Netflix's 20M members streamed 2B hours in Q4 of 2011 — Down from 25M+ streaming subscribers, Netflix is poised for growth again in 2012 — As Netflix continues to wrangle the conversation on its future, the video viewing and rental company announced that more than two billion hours …

Discussion: CNET, paidContent, The Verge, VentureBeat, GigaOM, Tech Trader Daily, AllThingsD, dailywireless.org, PR Newswire, The Next Web and TechCrunch

Sean Hollister / The Verge:

Samsung Series 5 Ultra up for pre-order in the US, brings optical media to the ultrabook for $949 — Koreans won't be the only ones sticking DVDs into exceptionally thin laptops this year: Samsung's Series 5 Ultra laptops are now available for pre-order at J&R. The first time we heard …

Discussion: LAPTOP Magazine, Engadget, GadgeTell, Liliputing and Softpedia News

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:

Disney and Comcast Link Up For Another 10 Years — Comcast has re-upped its distribution deal with Disney, which means the country's largest cable company will continue to pipe programming from ABC, ESPN and other channels into its subscribers' homes for another ten years.

Discussion: paidContent, GigaOM and ESPN MediaZone, more at Mediagazer »

Michael Arrington / Uncrunched:

Nobody Goes to Facebook Anymore. It's Too Crowded. — A year ago Steven Levy suggested that Facebook should give us each a single “friend-list do-over.” — A lot of commenters challenged him. “Grow some balls and just unfriend people,” said one of the more even tempered readers.

Discussion: @loic and @howardlindzon

Wall Street Journal:

Kodak Preparing for Chapter 11 Filing — Eastman Kodak Co. is preparing for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy-protection filing in the coming weeks should efforts to sell a trove of digital patents fall through, people familiar with the matter said. — The struggling photography icon …

Discussion: Between the Lines Blog, The Tech Trade, Rochester, NY News and silicontap.com

Eric Eldon / TechCrunch:

IFTTT, A Glue Gun For Sticking Together The Web, Raises $1.5M Seed Round From Top Investors — Want to instantly save all your Instagram photos to Dropbox when you take them? What about automatically updating your Twitter profile when you update your Facebook profile?

Discussion: AllThingsD

Vlad Savov / The Verge:

Microsoft sues UK retailer Comet for ‘creating and selling’ counterfeit Windows Vista and XP CDs — Now this is highly unusual. Microsoft has just reported it's taking legal action against Comet, one of the two big high street tech retailers in the UK, for “creating and selling …

Wall Street Journal:

Spam Finds New Target — Facebook and Twitter Build Up Their Defenses as Hackers Attack Social Networks — Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. are building up their forces to fight an emerging enemy: “social” spam. — One of their foot soldiers is Tao Stein, a Facebook engineer.

Discussion: WebProNews and Marketing Land

Larry Downes / Forbes:

Why Best Buy is Going out of Business...Gradually — Electronics retailer Best Buy is headed for the exits. I can't say when exactly, but my guess is that it's only a matter of time, maybe a few more years. — Consider a few key metrics. Despite the disappearance of competitors including Circuit City …

Dante D'Orazio / The Verge:

HP announces Omni 27 all-in-one PC, brings h9 Phoenix desktop stateside — HP might be all about laptops right now, but the company has a few desktops up its sleeves, like this Omni 27 all-in-one PC. As you might expect from the name, it's got a 27-inch 1080p LED-backlit display …

Discussion: Engadget, Engadget, Laptops and Desktops Blog, TechSpot, Gizmodo, Gizmodo and TechCrunch

Stephanie Clifford / New York Times:

Online Sales Buoy U.P.S. And FedEx — With sales rising to a record $35.3 billion in November and December — a 15 percent increase from a year ago, according to the research service comScore — online retailers are celebrating. — There is another less obvious beneficiary of the e-commerce boom …

Discussion: TechnoBuffalo and Fast Company

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