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Feeling a little bit of buyer's remorse, eh eBay? — The ink on eBay's $2.6+ billion acquisition of Skype isn't even dry yet (see "Skype to eBay: No, we don't accept PayPal" and "Yes, but who in their right mind wants to talk to eBay bidders on the phone?") and already it's heading for a price war.
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For Skype, One More Headache Called Yahoo — The ink on the $4.1 billion eBay-Skype deal is almost dry and already competitors are lining up to rain on Skype's parade. If the regulatory/incumbent problems were not enough, here comes news that Yahoo will soon upgrade its Messenger's dialout/dial …

Yahoo undercuts Skype on voice call rates — SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc. said on Wednesday the company plans to allow computer users to make and receive calls from phones at rates that undercut eBay-owned rival Skype and are significantly below traditional phone companies.
Discussion:
VoIP Watch

Mena Trott Implodes Onstage. News at 11. — I've just returned from Paris after attending Les Blogs, a weblogging conference organized by our European office. I'm still a bit jet-lagged and, at this moment, I haven't the energy to write up a long post about the morning talk I gave (plus the heated Q&A).
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Six Apart chief's 'nice' speech ends in name-calling — Les Blogs The second LesBlogs geekfest in Paris saw Six Apart's oh-so-nice president, Mena Trott, taking bloggers to task for incivility. — Having let the genie out of the bottle by providing over ten million people with the tools to blog …

A Kinder, Gentler Blogosphere
Discussion:
Things That, cubicgarden.com, Blog Network Watch, Beth's Blog, Andrew Lark and Full Circle Online …

Part 1: The Birth of Yahoo Answers — I've been thinking about how to handle the writing this article about the introduction of the new Yahoo Answers service that just launched moments ago and is now live. With the help of someone named Danny S., (-: I've decided to divide my comments into two posts.
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Imitation is Not Strategy, or Why Yahoo is Living in the Uncanny Valley
Discussion:
A VC

Yahoo Answers — We chatted with Ofer Shaked and Caterina Fake …
Discussion:
Geeking with Greg, TechCrunch, Charlene Li's Blog, Oliver Thylmann, business2blog, Search Engine Journal, IP Democracy and Mashable*

Google developing Google Earth for Mac OS X — Google Inc., the world's largest search engine, is developing a beta version of its fascinating Google Earth geographical satellite imagery and mapping application for Apple Computer's Mac OS X operating system, sources tell AppleInsider.
Discussion:
SiliconBeat, Download Squad, Todd Bishop's Microsoft …, The Map Room and The Unofficial Apple Weblog
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Windows Live Local — A beta version of Microsoft Corp.'s new online local search and mapping service goes live Thursday morning. Windows Live Local, powered by Microsoft's mapping and location platform, Virtual Earth, combines bird's-eye imagery with driving directions, Yellow Pages and other local search tools.

Right tool, wrong fight — Freedom of Anonymous Speech: Ross Mayfield writes of the Wikipedia debate.... Ross is wrong when he says "Big Deal. It's a wiki...." The tools don't add value, the user does. If the content of a wiki is essentially different because of the the tool used to create and edit it …
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Online comparison shopping nabs Web market share — LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Comparison shopping Web sites have seen a surge in holiday visits this year, as more consumers look to the Internet to compare prices, a research company said on Wednesday. — Last week, top comparison shopping sites logged …

Xbox 360s in Short Supply — Low Supply Shaping Up as Big Problem — Dec. 8, 2005 — Almost immediately after Microsoft's Xbox 360 video game console hit stores late last month, gaming Web sites were inundated with reports the machines were crashing, freezing up and simply not working.

US warns of fake net domain data — More than 5% of the net's most popular domains have been registered using "patently false" data, research shows. — A US congressional report into who owns .com, .net and .org domains found that many owners were hiding their true identity.
Discussion:
SearchViews

A new addition to the Quality Score — In August, we introduced the Quality Score along with the launch of quality-based minimum bids, letting you know that we evaluate many factors, such as your ad text and clickthrough rate (CTR) to determine the minimum bid for your keyword.
Discussion:
Greg Yardley's Internet Blog

Unpatched Firefox 1.5 exploit made public — Exploit code for the latest version of open-source browser Firefox was published Wednesday, potentially putting users at risk of a denial-of-service attack. — The exploit code takes advantage of a bug in the recently released Firefox 1.5, running on Windows XP with Service Pack 2.
Discussion:
OSNews.com

Apple faces iPod patent dispute — Apple could be in for a bruising legal fight with rival Creative over the technology used in iPod music players. — Creative boss Sim Wong Hoo has told the BBC he plans to "pursue aggressively" a US patent it owns on a system used to navigate music on digital players.