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4:20 PM ET, October 24, 2007

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Ina Fried / CNET News.com:
Source: Microsoft wins Facebook bid battle  —  Update: 12:30 p.m. see bottom.  —  After weeks of speculation, Microsoft appears to have won a battle with Google over who would get a stake in Facebook, according to a source familiar with the situation.  —  Microsoft and Facebook were close to a deal, according to the source.
RELATED:
Peter Lauria / New York Post:
ONLINE FACEOFF  —  M'SOFT AND GOOGLE DUKE IT OUT OVER HOT SITE  —  Google is threatening to once again beat rival Microsoft to the deal punch, this time in the white-hot Facebook investment sweepstakes.  —  Microsoft and Google are each vying to take a stake of between 5 percent and 10 percent …
Wall Street Journal:
Facebook Is Close to Choosing Microsoft or Google for Deal  —  SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook Inc. is close to choosing between Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. to sell ads for the social networking service outside the U.S., according to people familiar with the matter.
Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider:
Sorry, Microsoft, Google Has Already Won Facebook War  —  The Post suggests that our prediction of a month ago is coming true: Either Google will run off with Facebook, leaving a jilted Microsoft (MSFT) fuming at the altar, or Microsoft will have to pay a king's ransom to win the bidding war—just as it did with aQuantive:
Eric Eldon / VentureBeat:
Facebook opens developer platform for mobile  —  Facebook has announced that third-party developers can integrate features from web-based applications to work on mobile devices.  —  Most of the world uses mobile devices, and in many countries, people use cell phones more than they do computers.
Bloomberg:
Facebook Gets Bids From Google, Microsoft, People Say  —  Oct. 24 (Bloomberg) — Facebook Inc. is considering bids from Microsoft Corp. and Google Inc. for a minority stake in the social-networking Web site, people familiar with the talks said.  —  An agreement may be announced in the next day or two …
Discussion: The Utube Blog
Jemima Kiss / PDA:
Is Facebook about to be bought?
Andy Beard / Niche Marketing:
Digg Favorites Slapped By Google  —  For a company such as Google with a stock price based extensively on anticipated growth and public sentiment, it doesn't take a huge swing in goodwill to have a dramatic effect on valuation.  Google has just slapped their biggest fans.
RELATED:
Duncan Riley / TechCrunch:
Google Declares Jihad On Blog Link Farms  —  A major Google page rank update has punished large scale blog link farms and similar sites indulging in heavy cross linking by dramatically cutting their Google page rank scores.  —  There is some suggestion that the changes may be related …
Barry Schwartz / Search Engine Land:
Google's PageRank Update Goes After Paid Links?  —  Seems like there is a PageRank update taking place now that seems to be impacting sites that sell links.  Can't say that we were not warned about this?  Danny Sullivan wrote Official: Selling Paid Links Can Hurt Your PageRank Or Rankings …
Darren Rowse / ProBlogger Blog Tips:
ProBlogger - PageRank 4  —  Wow - this is an interesting one.  —  ProBlogger's page rank is currently at a 4 - and so is Digital Photography School.  —  I'd heard blogs had been penalized in their page rank recently for selling text links - bizarre thing is that neither of these two blogs sell links.
Loren Baker / Search Engine Journal:
Google Drops PageRank For Many Sites : Paid Links or New Algorithm?
Discussion: Google Blogoscoped
Robby Stein / Official Gmail Blog:
Sync your inbox across devices with free IMAP  —  There are two online petitions I've signed in my life.  One was for a "Xena: Warrior Princess" movie.  The other, which I signed a few months before starting at Google, was for Gmail IMAP.  As some of you know, IMAP is the best way to access …
RELATED:
Germano Caronni / Official Google Blog:
Free IMAP for Gmail
Donna Bogatin / Insider Chatter:
Interop: Citrix XenSource Flys as Google Crashes
Discussion: The Register and Mashable!
RELATED:
Andy Beal / Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim:
Nielsen to Provide Demographics for Google TV Ads
Don Dodge / Don Dodge on The Next Big Thing:
Google, Verizon & Microsoft on 700MHz wireless spectrum auction  —  The battle for the 700 MHz wireless spectrum has begun.  It is both a business and political battle, while the issues are very technical.  The US governement is holding an auction in January to sell off …
RELATED:
Eric Bangeman / Ars Technica:
Let open access reign: Verizon relents on legal challenge to FCC
Discussion: WebProNews and eWEEK.com
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
Google Analyst Day: Jonathan Rosenberg On Search, Apps; New Versions Of iGoogle, Gmail And More  —  The first session at Google (GOOG) analyst day is focus on search and apps.  CFO George Reyes is giving the introduction.  He'll be followed by Jonathan Rosenberg on search and apps …
Justin Smith / Inside Facebook:
Breaking: Facebook Announces Facebook Platform for Mobile; Facebook for Blackberry  —  This just in - today at CTIA, Facebook is announcing Facebook Platform for Mobile.  With Facebook Platform for Mobile, current Facebook Platform developers will be able to extend their applications to work on mobile phones and devices as well.
 
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 More Items: 
Dan Primack / PE HUB:
JibJab Raises $3 Million
Farhad Manjoo / Salon:
Why I miss the dead-tree newspaper
Discussion: if:book and Print is Dead
Andrew / Union Square Ventures:
Tumblr  —  I have many locations on the internet where I can point …
John Biggs / CrunchGear:
CG Exclusive: Samsung F700-variant coming to Verizon
Discussion: Gizmodo
Nicholas Deleon / CrunchGear:
Blu-ray outsells HD DVD nearly 2-to-1... then came Transformers
Discussion: Gadgetell
Live Search:
"Do what I mean, not what I say!" [Part 1 of 2]
Discussion: WebProNews and Mashable!
Glenn Fleishman / Seattle Times:
Q&A |  Fake Steve Jobs — how alter ego took over a portion of journalist's life
Jason / Signal vs. Noise:
Why Enterprise Software Sucks
 Earlier Items: 
Lisa Vaas / eWEEK.com:
Storm Worm Botnet Lobotomizing Anti-Virus Programs
Discussion: Sophos and WinBeta
Nick / Rough Type:
Platforms want to be free  —  The network effect is being repriced to zero.
Phil Windley / Between the Lines:
What's wrong with Facebook
Steven Bink / Bink.nu:
New version of the compatibility, reliability, and stability update …
Discussion: Download Squad and Neowin.net
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
Elcomsoft turns your PC into a password cracking supercomputer (gulp)
Tomo / THE TOMO REPORT:
LEAKED! SLINGCATCHER SPY PICS
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Judy's Book To Shut Down. …