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11:10 PM ET, January 23, 2012

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
“Don't Be Evil” Tool — Backed By Facebook & Twitter — Gets Them Into Google's “Search Plus Your World”  —  I've written that Google has plenty of public data to allow parts its new Search Plus Your World feature to be inclusive of rival social networks like Facebook and Twitter.
RELATED:
Chris Dixon:
What's not evil: ranking content fairly *and* letting public content get indexed  —  Most websites spend massive amounts of time and money to get any of their pages index and ranked by Google's search engine.  Indeed, there is a entire billion dollar industry (SEO) devoted to helping companies get their content indexed and ranked.
Sarah Lacy / PandoDaily:
Google: Do Yourself a Favor and Just Come Clean Already  —  The issue over whether Google is giving preferential treatment to its own products is back in the news, and this time the evidence is pretty damning.  —  I'm not sure how Google will tap dance around it.  (See Trevor's reporting about another Google+ tapdance here.)
John Battelle / John Battelle's Search Blog:
Facebook Coalition To Google: Don't Be Evil, Focus On The User  —  Last week I spent an afternoon down at Facebook, as I mentioned here.  While at Facebook I met with Blake Ross, Direct of Product (and well known in web circles as one of the creators of Firefox).
MG Siegler / PandoDaily:   Evil, Greed, And Antitrust Aren't Google's Real Problems, Relevancy Is
Bradley Horowitz / Google+:
Toward a more inclusive naming policy for Google+  —  With Google+, we aspire to make online sharing more like sharing in the real world.  And during the Google+ signup process, we've asked users to select the name they commonly use in real life.  —  Since launch we've listened closely …
RELATED:
Violet Blue / Pulp Tech Blog:
Pseudonyms on Google Plus? Wrong.
Discussion: Betabeat, The Next Web and Gawker, Thanks:@violetblue
Declan McCullagh / CNET:
Judge: Americans can be forced to decrypt their laptops  —  American citizens can be ordered to decrypt their PGP-scrambled hard drives for police to peruse for incriminating files, a federal judge in Colorado ruled today in what could become a precedent-setting case.
Kathleen De Vere / Inside Mobile Apps:
Exclusive: Microsoft to discontinue its virtual currency system Microsoft Points  —  Microsoft's proprietary virtual currency system, Microsoft Points, will be phased out by the end of the year, according to a source with knowledge of the company's decision.
Jordan Golson / MacRumors:
Virgin America Names Jet After Steve Jobs  —  Virgin America has named one of its fleet after Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, emblazoning a popular Jobs quote “Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish” on the side of this Airbus A320.  —  Steve mentioned the phrase in his 2005 commencement address at Stanford University …
Pui-Wing Tam / Wall Street Journal:
Average Silicon Valley Tech Salary Passes $100,000  —  Average annual salaries for Silicon Valley technology workers surpassed the $100,000 mark last year, according to a new survey, pushed higher by the strength of the region's latest boom.  —  Tech-jobs website operator Dice Holdings Inc …
Discussion: Forbes, PandoDaily and TechFlash
Neil Daswani / Dasient Blog:
Dasient Has Been Acquired by Twitter  —  The Dasient team is excited to announce that we have been acquired by Twitter!  Effective immediately, we will be bringing our technology, tools, and team to the revenue engineering team at Twitter.  —  Since its inception, Dasient has been focused …
Dan Lyons / Real Dan Lyons Web Site:
Rumor: Apple spent $100 million in its first case against HTC — and got almost nothing  —  As I reported in this week's Newsweek, Apple's “thermonuclear war” on Android smartphone makers has been fizzling out lately.  Most of Apple's legal claims have been tossed out, and the two minor victories Apple …
John Paczkowski / AllThingsD:
350,000 Textbooks Downloaded From Apple's iBooks in Three Days  —  Though nascent and unproven, Apple's new textbook initiative appears to be gaining lots of momentum — and quickly, too.  Within days of its debut, Apple's iBooks textbook store had already racked up a significant number of downloads.
Paul Graham / Y Combinator Posterous:
Welcome Garry and Aaron  —  Y Combinator is pleased to announce two new venture partners, Garry Tan and Aaron Iba.  They're both YC alumni, both formidable hackers, and both really nice people.  —  Garry was one of the founders of Posterous, which we funded in 2008.
Discussion: PandoDaily
Bloomberg:
Nokia Lumia Sales Seen Topping 1 Million  —  Nokia Oyj (NOK1V)'s first phones running Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) software may have sold enough units last year to help rebuild investor confidence in the Finnish company, which lost $19 billion in market value in 2011.
Alex Chitu / Google Operating System:
Google Search, Punctuation Marks and Other Symbols  —  Google usually ignores punctuation and mathematical symbols from a query because it doesn't index them.  They rarely change the meaning of a query and Google's index would have to grow a lot bigger, without improving the results too much.
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Microsoft says botnet kingpin worked for antivirus vendor  —  Four months after dismantling the nasty Kelihos botnet, Microsoft says it has tracked down the central figure behind it- naming Russian citizen Andrey N. Sabelnikov as a new defendant in its civil case over the botnet.
Mike Butcher / TechCrunch Europe:
Evi arrives in town to go toe-to-toe with Siri  —  When Siri arrived on the iPhone 4S I thought to myself, who else could do this?  It would need to be a search engine with natural language processing, but also behave in the manner of artificial intelligence and respond to voice recognition.
Tricia Duryee / AllThingsD:
Gilt Groupe Cuts Include 10 Percent of Employees and Two Executives  —  Gilt Groupe, a luxury e-commerce and flash sales site, has trimmed roughly 10 percent — as many as 90 — of its employees, including some of its management team.  —  Earlier this month, Gilt Groupe CEO Kevin Ryan downplayed rumors …
Neil Hughes / AppleInsider:
64GB iPhone 4S takes 21% of sales, 36% of iPhone buyers come from another platform  —  A new survey of recent iPhone customers found that 21 percent of iPhone 4S buyers chose Apple's highest capacity 64-gigabyte model, while 36 percent of users migrated from another platform like Android, BlackBerry or Palm.
Tom Loftus / Digits:
T-Mobile, AT&T File For FCC Approval Of Spectrum Transfer  —  T-Mobile USA and AT&T filed a request with the Federal Communications Commission for approval of the transfer of $1 billion in wireless airwaves AT&T promised as a result of the failure of its $39 billion bid to take over its smaller rival.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Fortune:
Our Apple whisper numbers  —  Averaging the Q1 2012 estimates of the six analysts with the best track records  —  Whisper numbers, according to Wikipedia, emerge from widening cracks in the spreadsheets maintained by Wall Street analysts.  Quoting an article by Daniel Svensson, the entry explains:
Claire Cain Miller / Bits:
Polyvore, the Fashion Site, Gets More Money and a New C.E.O.  —  On Polyvore, the do-it-yourself online fashion magazine, the trendiest clothing and accessories today are Givenchy bags, mini skirts and anything from H&M.  —  That information is helpful enough to advertisers …
Discussion: TechCrunch
Enigmax / TorrentFreak:
Cyberlocker Ecosystem Shocked As Big Players Take Drastic Action  —  While the shutdown last week of Megaupload and the arrest of its founder and management team was certainly dramatic, a situation of perhaps even greater gravity is beginning to emerge.  —  Over the past 48 to 72 hours …
Jay Greene / CNET:
Google nearly doubles lobbying spending in 2011, tops Microsoft  —  Google nearly doubled its federal lobbying expenditures last year, surpassing rival Microsoft in dollars doled out to persuade legislators to consider its policy positions.  —  The Web giant spent $9.68 million in 2011 on federal lobbying …
Tom Krazit / mocoNews:
Denial Is Not A Turnaround Strategy: Why RIM's New CEO Needs To Get Real  —  If you took the statements of new Research in Motion (NSDQ: RIMM) CEO Thorsten Heins this morning at face value, you might walk away thinking the company's many problems stem from confused marketing and poor execution.
Discussion: Toronto Standard
 
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 More Items: 
Seth Weintraub / 9to5Mac:
Apple appoints Sony Ericsson Americas President Anderson Teixeira to Head of Apple Latin America
Kevin Fitchard / GigaOM:
Nokia Siemens reaches for a $1.6 billion lifeline
Discussion: Bloomberg and Reuters
Lindsey Compton / VentureBeat:
Google+ introduces new Q&A feature for crowdsourcing answers from friends
Jennifer Baker / PC World:
Consumer Watchdog Urges EU to Block Google's Motorola Deal
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines Blog:
VMware Q4 shines: Aims to ‘go beyond cost reduction’
Discussion: The Register and Market Wire
Michael Geist Blog:
The Behind-the-Scenes Campaign To Bring SOPA To Canada
Discussion: Ars Technica and IT Law in Ireland
 Earlier Items: 
David Kravets / Threat Level:
Supreme Court Court Rejects Willy-Nilly GPS Tracking
Danny Sullivan / Daggle:
Dear Rupert Murdoch: Let's Talk Piracy & “The Simpsons”
Alexei Oreskovic / Reuters:
Exclusive: YouTube hits 4 billion daily video views
Lee Rainie / Pew Internet:
Tablet and E-book reader Ownership Nearly Double Over the Holiday Gift-Giving Period
 

 
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”

Todd Spangler / Variety:
YouTuber MrBeast announces a deal with Prime Video for Beast Games, a reality-competition show with 1,000 contestants, promising the winner a $5M cash prize

 
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