Techmeme: Surge of online orders causes fulfillment, delivery delays, frustrates customers on Christmas (Shelly Banjo/Wall Street Journal)

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December 26, 2013, 2:20 PM

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Todd Bishop / GeekWire:

Christmas delayed: Amazon offers $20 gift cards, refunds shipping charges after UPS and FedEx problems — Didn't get what you expected under the tree? It's probably marooned in a package delivery center. — Following widespread complaints about absent packages, Amazon …

More: The Next Web, VatorNews, Betabeat, SlashGear, internetretailer.com, Gotta Be Mobile and IntoMobile

Shelly Banjo / Wall Street Journal:

Surge of online orders causes fulfillment, delivery delays, frustrates customers on Christmas — Shipping Delays Left Many People With Little to Put Under Tree … Many shoppers are blaming online retailers for stealing Christmas. — Companies from Amazon.com Inc. to Kohl's Corp …

More: UPS, BetaNews, louisgray.com, TechnoBuffalo, The Verge, Corporate Intelligence, Business Insider, InvestorPlace and USA Today

Tweets: @levie and @eholmeswsj

John Herrman / BuzzFeed:

Dogewallet announces Dogecoin theft, a dubious milestone for the new cryptocurrency that started as a joke — Millions Of Dogecoins Stolen In Apparent Heist — Much robbery, so anger, etc. Users of the functional joke currency are reporting emptied wallets.

More: doges.org, The Verge, Forbes, SiliconANGLE, ReadWrite, TechCrunch, Gizmodo, VentureBeat, Electronista, Mashable, The Next Web, Mediaite, Tech in Asia and Business Insider

Tweets: @daweiner, @cshirky, @fmanjoo, @tmfbiggles, @dcbigjohn, @samir and @russellbrandom

Jenny W. Hsu / Wall Street Journal:

Taiwan fines Apple $667K for influencing carriers' iPhone pricing, can face additional $1.6m if it fails to comply — Taiwan Fines Apple for iPhone Price-Plan Meddling — Island's fair-trade body says Apple told mobile-service providers how to charge for handsets

Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:

Plain Vanilla Games, Maker Of Ultra-Hot Trivia App QuizUp, Raises Another $22 Million From Sequoia — Plain Vanilla Games, the company behind ultra-hot trivia app QuizUp, has raised a $22 million Series B Round of financing. The financing was led by Sequoia Capital, with participation …

More: Betabeat, The Verge, VentureBeat, The Next Web and AllThingsD

Tweets: @semil and @caseynewton

Thanks:@chrisvelazco

Shelly Banjo / Wall Street Journal:

Online retailers mine transaction data to discourage returns, a growing problem — Rampant Returns Plague E-Retailers — Sellers Suggest Sizes and Redirect Discounts to Break Bad Habits — Free shipping and lenient return policies have given online retailing a huge boost.

More: SlashGear and Marketing Pilgrim. Tweets: @notaxation

Farhad Manjoo / Wall Street Journal:

Snapchat's popularity shows we all may want a more erasable Internet — The Internet doesn't necessarily have to keep our digital effluvia around forever. Do we want it to be erasable? — The Internet doesn't necessarily have to keep our digital effluvia around forever, and Snapchat has proved it.

More: BGR and MacDailyNews. Tweets: @fmanjoo, @stevesi and @hunterwalk

Hannah Karp / Wall Street Journal:

Scores of Music Services Stream Into Crowded Field — Many of the New Models Will Focus on Genre — The number of music-streaming services is set to explode next year, as record labels have warmed up to the idea of renting consumers access to a vast collection of tunes, rather than selling them individual albums or songs.

Tweets: @zseward

Josh Constine / TechCrunch:

Google punishes Rap Genius in search ranking for SEO practices, founders seek resolution — Google Destroys Rap Genius' Search Rankings As Punishment For SEO Spam, But Resolution In Progress — Google hit back hard today after it learned lyrics site Rap Genius had been using dubious SEO tricks to attain top spots in search results.

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Tech Stocks Hover Near 2013 Highs, Paving Way for 2014 IPOs Like Alibaba, Box and Dropbox — Today, the tech sector got a pretty nice post-Christmas present, as stocks of many companies in the sector continued to remain near their highs for the year. — And with 2013 seeing …

Kana Inagaki / Wall Street Journal:

Sony, Panasonic Call Off OLED TV Tie-Up — TOKYO— Sony Corp. and Panasonic Corp. have decided to call off a tie-up in developing production technology for big and ultrathin televisions, underscoring the challenges of bringing the next-generation TVs to the mass market.

More: asia.nikkei.com, The Verge, VentureBeat, TechRadar.com, Engadget and Reuters

Dan Rowinski / ReadWrite:

The Majority Of Porn In The United States Is Viewed On Smartphones — If you needed any more evidence that the era of ubiquitous computing is upon us, here is one stat that shows us how prevalent smartphones and tablets have become to the daily lives of people everywhere …

More: Pornhub Insights, Quartz, TechSpot, Motherboard, Gizmodo, BuzzFeed and Forbes. See also Mediagazer

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