Techmeme: How eBay Defied Convention and Turned Itself Around (James B. Stewart/New York Times)

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July 29, 2012, 10:50 AM

Top News

New York Times:

Apple Officials Said to Consider Stake in Twitter — Apple, which has stumbled in its efforts to get into social media, has talked with Twitter in recent months about making a strategic investment in it, according to people briefed on the matter. — While Apple has been hugely successful …

Harry McCracken / Techland:

Apple Buying into Twitter: Neither Likely nor Implausible — We already know that Apple is a Twitter fan. It's baked the social network into both of its operating systems, OS X and iOS, in a manner that's a departure from its tradition of building every possible aspect of its products itself.

Tweets: @samgustin

Jessica Vascellaro / @jvascellaro:

Apple considered Twitter investment > a year ago. We match nice @nyt story; describe timing differently w/@shiraovide....

More: Wall Street Journal. Tweets: @macgeekpro

Kurt Eichenwald / Vanity Fair:

Microsoft's Lost Decade — Once upon a time, Microsoft dominated the tech industry; indeed, it was the wealthiest corporation in the world. But since 2000, as Apple, Google, and Facebook whizzed by, it has fallen flat in every arena it entered: e-books, music, search, social networking, etc., etc.

More: VentureBeat, Pulse2 Technology …, Slashdot, Stowe Boyd and 9to5Mac

Tweets: @dondodge and @flyosity

Jay Yarow / Business Insider:

You Have To Read This Blistering Response From Microsoft's PR Boss On Its ‘Lost Decade’ — We missed this when it was first posted, but it's so good, we have to post it here. — Vanity Fair had a big expose on Microsoft in its August issue about the company's “Lost Decade.”

Rolfe Winkler / Wall Street Journal:

How to Fight iPhone Theft — Device theft has exploded. New solutions are on the way. Is the industry doing enough about ‘Apple picking’? — Police across the nation are fighting surges in mobile phone and tablet thefts. But can technology and blacklists help bring down the statistics?

More: Business Insider, TUAW and Slashdot

Matthew Panzarino / The Next Web:

Instapaper for Android sees a 600% jump in downloads on release of Nexus 7 — The Nexus 7 is being talked about, that's one thing we know for sure. It's gotten a ton of press as a device that is so good it makes the case for small tablets in general. It's certainly one of the most well received non-iPad tablets ever.

Thanks:@ener

Tom Warren / The Verge:

Windows Phone 8: a video preview of unannounced features — Most hubs have been updated with functionality. The built-in Maps app is now powered by Nokia and you can download maps to use offline. Internet Explorer now includes settings to allow you to change the functionality …

More: Engadget, TechnoBuffalo, Pocketables, WMPoweruser, Business Insider, Gotta Be Mobile and Engadget

James B. Stewart / New York Times:

How eBay Defied Convention and Turned Itself Around — Remember Myspace, Friendster, eToys, Webvan, Urban Fetch, Pets.com? Like meteors, they burned with dazzling brilliance before turning shareholder dollars to ash. EBay, Yahoo and AOL, the dominant Internet triumvirate circa 2004, seemed destined for a similar fate.

More: Business Insider

Matt Rosoff / Business Insider:

Google Fiber Is The Most Disruptive Thing The Company's Done Since Gmail — Remember how blown away people were when Gmail launched in 2004? — Google Fiber feels like the same leap of innovation. It's been a long time since we saw anything like this from the search and advertising giant.

More: TechCrunch, GigaOM and Growthology

Felix Salmon:

Annals of dubious statistics, crowdfunding edition — Are crowdfunding statistics the new counterfeiting statistics? Certainly they seem to have become a meme. If you know that crowdfunding is a big deal, it's probably because you read all about it in TechCrunch, in May …

More: AllThingsD

U.S. Census Bureau News:

New Online Tool Gives Public Wider Access to Key U.S. Statistics … The U.S. Census Bureau today released a new online service that makes key demographic, socio-economic and housing statistics more accessible than ever before. The Census Bureau's first-ever public Application Programming Interface …

More: Federal Computer Week

Christopher Soghoian / slight paranoia:

The known unknowns of Skype interception — Over the past few weeks, the technical blogosphere, and most recently, the mainstread media have tried to answer the question: What kind of assistance can Skype provide to law enforcement agencies? — Most of the stories have been filled with speculation …

More: Techdirt, NYT Bits, ValueWalk, Forbes, Stream, BBC and PC Magazine

Enigmax / TorrentFreak:

Leaked RIAA Report: SOPA/PIPA “Ineffective Tool” Against Music Piracy — “These illicit sites are among the culprits behind the music industry's more than 50 percent decline in revenues during the last decade, resulting in 15,000 layoffs and fewer resources to invest in new bands,” …

More: Techdirt, Neowin and Daily Dot

Ernesto / TorrentFreak:

RIAA: Online Music Piracy Pales In Comparison to Offline Swapping

More: Techdirt and Daily Dot

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This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 10:50 AM ET, July 29, 2012.

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