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12:00 PM ET, September 15, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Facebook Isn't A Social Network.  And Stop Trying to Make New Friends There  —  A controversy is brewing over a popular Facebook application called PackRat, where users collect sets of illustrated cards for points and levels.  The company behind the application, Alamofire …
Discussion: RotorBlog.com and Profectio
RELATED:
Steve O'Hear / The Social Web:
Facebook: no social networking here  —  One of the delightful things about creating a new web application or service is the way in which end users find unintended ways of utilizing said service.  That's a common story we hear from those who've created cutting-edge and disruptive products …
Discussion: TechCrunch
Erica Naone / Technology Review:   Turning Social Networks Against Users
Joseph Weisenthal / paidContent.org:
The Next Chapter: Best Buy To Acquire Napster For $121 Million  —  Napster (NSDQ: NAPS) has fallen into the arms of a surprise buyer: Best Buy.  The big-box electronics giant will pay $121 million or $2.65 per share.  Shares of Napster closed at $1.36 on Friday, so this is nearly a double …
RELATED:
Peter Kafka / Silicon Alley Insider:
Sold!  Best Buy Swallows Napster For $121 Million (BBY)  —  Looks like Chris Gorog really was serious about selling off perenially troubled Napster (NAPS), after all.  He's selling the company to Best Buy (BBY) for $121 million.  That's $2.65 per share, which works out to be $54 million net of cash.
Discussion: Download Squad, Minnov8 and AppScout
Aja Carmichael / Wall Street Journal:
Best Buy to Buy Napster In $121 Million Acquisition  —  Best Buy Inc. has agreed to buy Napster Inc. for $121 million, a deal that the consumer-electronics giant said it will use to reach new customers.  —  The deal, which includes $67 million of cash and short-term investments on Napster's books …
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Wall Street's meltdown and the potential technology hit  —  Folks are waking up Monday to a Wall Street meltdown as Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, Bank of America acquired Merrill Lynch and companies ranging from Washington Mutual to AIG are on the ropes.
Discussion: Epicenter and ClusterStock
RELATED:
Vindu Goel / Bits:
New WSJ.com Builds on Its Community of Subscribers
Discussion: Valleywag and Romenesko
Staci D. Kramer / paidContent.org:
WSJ.com Relaunches During Financial News Meltdown; Glossy New Look …
Robert Andrews / paidContent.org:
Newspapers Around World Oppose Yahoo-Google Ad Deal  —  The World Association of Newspapers (WAN) this morning asked the US Department of Justice, the European Commission and the Competition Bureau of Canada to block the deal under which Google will supply some advertising to Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO).
RELATED:
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
Everyone but Apple joins new “buy once, play anywhere” group  —  Buying a movie online is simple; it's watching it on the device you want that's hard.  The movie studios have been reluctant to allow DVD burning from online stores (and when they do, it doesn't always work) …
Discussion: jkOnTheRun and NewTeeVee
RELATED:
Cliff Edwards / Business Week:
Digital Content Wherever You Want It
Discussion: Epicenter
Pallab Ghosh / BBC:
Web ‘must separate rumour’ from science  —  The internet needs a way to help people separate rumour from real science, says the creator of the World Wide Web.  —  Talking to BBC News Sir Tim Berners-Lee said he was increasingly worried about the way the web has been used to spread disinformation.
RELATED:
Steve Bratt / World Wide Web Foundation:
Welcome to the World Wide Web Foundation
Discussion: eWeek and molly.com
Noam Cohen / New York Times:
Link by Link: Don't Buy That Textbook, Download It Free  —  SQUINT hard, and textbook publishers can look a lot like drug makers.  They both make money from doing obvious good — healing, educating — and they both have customers who may be willing to sacrifice their last pennies to buy what these companies are selling.
Discussion: Technology Live and Social Media
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
VMware (and Citrix) get cloud friendly  —  Updated: VMware said Monday that it will launch a cloud computing initiative to bring enterprise class service to customers with more than 100 partners.  —  The effort, called vCloud Initiative, will be launched at VMworld in Las Vegas (statement, Techmeme).
RELATED:
Scott Ferguson / eWeek:
VMware Adds Cloud, Desktop Infrastructure to Its Virtualization Road Map
Discussion: VMware, PC World and WinBeta
Yukari Iwatani Kane / Wall Street Journal:
Apple's Latest iPhone Sees Slow Japan Sales  —  Two months after its launch, the latest version of Apple Inc.'s iPhone is showing strong sales around the world — except in Japan.  —  Apple's partnership with Japan's third-largest mobile operator, Softbank Corp., to sell the iPhone 3G certainly created a buzz.
Fred / A VC:
Zemanta  —  I wrote this post for the Union Square Ventures blog and it will go up there today, but in the meantime I'll post the news here.  —  Union Square Ventures has invested in a number of blogging related applications and services; Adaptive Blue, Delicious, Disqus, FeedBurner, Outside.in, Twitter, and Tumblr.
Philipp Lenssen / Google Blogoscoped:
Google Chrome Q&A  —  Via email, I've asked Google group product manager Brian Rakowski a couple of questions in regards to Google's web browser.  Chrome has been in development for 2 years... did the initial designs resemble what has been released now, or were there a lot of interface …
 
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 More Items: 
Daimion Pinnock / PlayStation.Blog:
WipEout HD Officially Dated, Priced
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
RIMM: Pacific Crest Says Sept. Sales “Slightly” Weak
Ashlee Vance / Bits:
New iPhone Chip Will Cost an ARM and a Missile
Discussion: MacRumors
Paul Miller / Engadget:
HTC's Touch HD unveiled in very much official glory
Comforteagle / OSDir.com:
Mozilla Demands EULA on First Lanuch: Linux
Discussion: Hardware 2.0
cellular-news:
T-Mobile Wins Court Injunction Blocking iPhone VoIP Application
Ryan Kim / San Francisco Chronicle:
Mobile device just does e-mail
 Earlier Items: 
louisgray.com:
As Twitter Regains Footing, Competitors' Growth Stalls
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Why MySpace Music is Likely to Fail
louisgray.com:
SiteMeter's Attempted Challenge to Google Analytics Falls Flat
Sarah Perez / ReadWriteWeb:
Podcaster Developer Uses Little-Known “Ad Hoc” Mode To Distribute Banned iPhone App
Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Seagate elbowing its way further into consumer backup market
Ryan Paul / Ars Technica:
How Dropbox ended my search for seamless sync on Linux
Don Reisinger / TechCrunch:
iPhone App Downloads to Hit 1 Billion Mark Faster Than Songs Did
Discussion: MediaFuturist and Digg