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December 12, 2013, 9:55 PM

Top News

Instagram Blog:

Introducing Instagram Direct — Today, we're excited to bring you Instagram Direct, a new way to send photo and video messages to friends. Over the past three years, the Instagram community has grown to over 150 million people capturing and sharing moments all around the globe.

Ellis Hamburger / The Verge:

Instagram announces Instagram Direct for private photo, video, and text messaging — At an event in New York City today, Instagram announced a new messaging feature that lets users send text and photo messages to each other privately. “Communication is not about photography, necessarily,” said CEO Kevin Systrom.

More: San Francisco Chronicle, Computerworld, The Switch, NYT Bits, Ars Technica, Inside Mobile Apps, Gigaom, Engadget, Softpedia News, Forbes, Gizmodo, iMore, The Register, Betabeat, ABC News, Guardian and Electronista

Tweets: @austincarr, @erinbury, @anildash, @danprimack, @zpower, @pkafka and @mikeisaac

Mike Isaac / AllThingsD:

With Private Messaging, Instagram and Twitter Continue Their Arms Race

More: stratechery, Slate, PandoDaily, Computerworld and Business Insider

Anthony Ha / TechCrunch:

Instagram Says Half Of All Instagrammers — 75M+ — Use the App Daily

Tweets: @mikeisaac

Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:

Gmail blows up e-mail marketing by caching all images on Google servers — Ever wonder why most e-mail clients hide images by default? The reason for the “display images” button is because images in an e-mail must be loaded from a third-party server. For promotional e-mails and spam …

More: Gmail Blog, TechCrunch, BetaNews, Consumerist and iDownloadBlog.com

Tweets: @rozzie, @john_moyle_, @neerav, @hdmoore, @oroup, @steveklabnik, @netik and @jedbickford

Andrea Peterson / The Switch:

No, Gmail's tweak won't stop e-mail marketers from knowing if you open their e-mail — Google announced a change to the way that Gmail handles images Thursday. Traditionally, when an e-mail contains an image, e-mail software would fetch the image from a server operated by the mail sender.

More: MailChimp Email Marketing Blog, Ars Technica, Marketing Land, ReadWrite and Wired

Tweets: @randfish and @r

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

Gmail for desktop now automatically shows images in your messages, coming to Android and iOS 'in early 2014′

More: Digital Trends, Zettasphere, Computerworld, Marketing Land, PC Magazine, TechnoBuffalo and The Verge. Tweets: @leemunroe

Kashmir Hill / Forbes:

Blocking People On Twitter Now Just Mutes Them — Twitter has redefined the word “blocked.” Traditionally, to “block someone” on social media is to cut all digital ties. You no longer see their activity and they no longer see yours. However, that's always been tricky on Twitter …

More: TechCrunch, CNET, hypatia dot ca, Los Angeles Times, ReadWrite, The Next Web, Engadget, Mashable, BuzzFeed and Medium

Tweets: @gaberivera, @jessicamerizan, @mattlemay, @kesgardner, @mattbuchanan, @youranonnews, @chartier, @mattrosoff, @davewiner, @dickc, @margafret, @shelbyknox, @glennf, @glennf, @anildash and @leenavand

Cooper Fleishman / Daily Dot:

Twitter's new block function poses a major privacy problem — Let's say someone on Twitter is spamming you with hostile message after hostile message, then retweeting your posts to his friends, who follow suit. What do you do? Normally, you'd just hit the block button …

More: The Verge, Gizmodo, Gigaom, iMore and Business Insider

Tweets: @margafret, @attackerman and @dailydot

Marguerite Reardon / CNET:

FCC votes 3-2 to lift technical ban on in-flight cellphone use — The Federal Communications Commission took the first step toward removing regulations that ban phone calls while in flight. But FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler emphasized that the Department of Transportation …

More: The Register, Computerworld, TechHive, PhoneArena, Engadget and SlashGear. Tweets: @emilydreyfuss

Alina Selyukh / Reuters:

Wireless carriers, FCC agree on ‘unlocking’ cellphones — (Reuters) - U.S. wireless carriers will make it easier for consumers to “unlock” their mobile phones for use on a competitor's network, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler said on Thursday.

More: Electronista, CNET, Ars Technica, Computerworld, Computerworld, iMore, The Switch, FierceWireless, iPhone Hacks, The Mac Observer, AppleInsider, Ubergizmo, Los Angeles Times, 9to5Google, Bloomberg, The Verge, DSLreports, Gigaom and Gigaom

Kevin Robillard / Politico:

Anthony Foxx: DOT will consider banning cell phone calls on planes

More: MacRumors, Computerworld, Associated Press, Newsy and Business Insider. Tweets: @breakingnews

Bloomberg:

Microsoft Said to Consider Qualcomm's Mollenkopf for CEO Job — Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)'s board is considering Qualcomm Inc. Chief Operating Officer Steve Mollenkopf among candidates to replace Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer, said people familiar with the matter.

More: GeekWire, The Verge, Engadget, TechnoBuffalo, Pocket-lint, Tech Trader Daily and Business Insider. Tweets: @jyarow

Jason Del Rey / AllThingsD:

Bitcoin's Biggest Bet: Andreessen Horowitz Leads $25 Million Investment in Coinbase — Coinbase co-founders Brian Armstrong (l) and Fred Ehrsam, sporting we-got-money grins. — If you're a bitcoin doubter, you might want to turn away. The doors to venture funding in bitcoin startups are about to swing wide open.

More: San Francisco Chronicle, DealBook, ZDNet, Venture Capital Dispatch, Business Insider, PE Hub Blog, Newsy, Payments News, Y Combinator Posthaven and TechSpot

Chris Dixon:

Coinbase — One of the interesting things about Bitcoin …

More: The Register, Gigaom, VentureBeat, On Bitcoin, PC Magazine, Mashable and The Coinbase Blog

Tweets: @fromedome and @mathewi

Electronista:

Dell reveals new partnerships with Dropbox, Microsoft, Google, Red Hat — Dropbox for Business to be offered to Dell enterprise customers — Dell has announced a number of new partnerships it has formed with other companies at its Dell World event in Austin today.

More: Eucalyptus News, Dropbox for Business Blog, TechCrunch, eWeek, AllThingsD, Network World and Dell

Deborah Gage / Digits:

Dell's Venture Arm Expands Investments With $300 Million Fund

More: VentureBeat, PE Hub Blog, PC World and Direct2Dell

Josh Lowensohn / The Verge:

Fleksy wants to become your new iOS keyboard, everywhere — Can a software keyboard startup succeed where others failed? — In 2007, early iPhone users had a problem. They wanted to take a snippet of text from one place to another, and their phones wouldn't let them do it.

More: TechCrunch, Engadget, AppShopper.com, MacRumors, iDownloadBlog.com, AppleInsider, Ubergizmo, MobileBurn.com, Geeky Gadgets, MacStories, 9to5Mac, iMore, The Next Web and MacNN

Leo Kelion / BBC:

Bots now ‘account for 61% of web traffic’ — The study suggests humans only account for 38.5% of internet traffic — If you are visiting this page the chances are that you are not a human, at least according to research. — A study by Incapsula suggests 61.5% of all website traffic is now generated by bots.

More: VentureBeat, TechCrunch, CNET and Nextgov

Tweets: @gollmann and @wadhwa

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

Highlight Raises $4 Million From DFJ, Releases Version 2.0 Of Its Location-Based Social Networking App — Location-based social startup Highlight has just released a new version of its app, aimed at being smarter about the connections it shows, while also giving users more context about what those connections have been up to.

More: Gigaom, Wired, Valleywag and The Next Web. Tweets: @besvinick

Emil Protalinski / The Next Web:

YouTube expands live streaming to all channels, adds option to directly launch a Google+ Hangout On Air — YouTube today announced it is expanding its live streaming service to all YouTube channels. The Google-owned company now only has two requirements: your account must be verified and it has to be in good standing.

More: YouTube Creator Blog, The Verge, TechCrunch and WebProNews

Aaron Taube / Business Insider:

Google Will Now Only Charge For Ads That People Can Actually See — Google took a major step toward pleasing its advertisers Thursday by announcing it will now sell display ads based on viewability, a metric that will allow marketers to pay only for ad slots users are likely to see.

More: Inside AdWords and The Next Web. Tweets: @jessicalessin

Matthew Panzarino / TechCrunch:

IFTTT Launches iOS Location Channel With Integrations For Foursquare, Twitter, Instagram And Facebook — Today, IFTTT announces the addition of an iOS Location channel to its ‘Internet glue’ service. The channel will allow users to specify an ‘area’ that will allow them to trigger actions …

More: Engadget, SlashGear, Wired, iDownloadBlog.com, The Verge, MobileSyrup.com and Gigaom

Ted Johnson / Variety:

Aereo to Broadcasters: Go Ahead, Take the Case to Supreme Court — Aereo on Thursday said that it would not oppose broadcasters' petition to the Supreme Court to review rulings in the startup streaming service's favor. — “We have decided to not oppose the broadcasters' petition for certiorari …

More: TechCrunch, Hollywood Reporter, Deadline.com and CNET. See also Mediagazer

Joseph Czikk / BetaKit:

Toronto's Bitstrips Raises $3 Million After Users Created Over 30 Million Avatars — The resounding message from an update (in comic strip form I might add) from Bitstrips is that once the Toronto-based startup released their mobile app, the growth they experienced was both unexpectedly big and even overwhelming.

More: TechCrunch, The Next Web, Globe and Mail, PE Hub Blog, Valleywag, iPhone in Canada Blog, Inside Mobile Apps, Business Insider and WebProNews. Thanks:@jdubilicious

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