Techmeme: Amazon to acquire LoveFilm, the ‘European Netflix’ (Martin Bryant/The Next Web)

6:05 AM ET, January 20, 2011

Top Items:

Mark Heynen / Facebook Blog:

A Better Mobile Experience for More People — We want people to have a great mobile experience no matter what type of phone they carry. Smartphones have offered better features for sharing with friends but aren't used by most people around the world. — Today, we're launching a new mobile app …

Liz Gannes / NetworkEffect: Facebook's Mobile Strategy: It's All About Global Growth

Stephen Lawson / Computerworld:
Facebook brings mobile app to non-smartphones

Discussion: Softpedia News

Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:

Google Voice Is About To Take Off: Number Porting Coming Soon For $20 — We've been huge fans of Google Voice for quite a while now — it makes screening calls and managing multiple phones a breeze — but there's always been a huge thorn in its side: it didn't allow people to port their existing phone numbers over.

Discussion: SlashGear, GigaOM and Mashable

Ross Miller / Engadget:

Google Voice now lets you port your own phone number (update: option disappears) — We'd be lying if we said we hadn't been waiting on this feature since the service's debut. As one reader just notified us (and verified by a number of staffers), Google Voice now lets you port your own phone number …

Discussion: Computerworld, SAI, GottaBeMobile, TechCrunch, The Next Web, Android Phone Fans, Gizmodo, GeekSugar and Crave

Mark Gurman / 9 to 5 Mac:

Apple to fight Facebook with iOS 5 and Media Stream? — Ping was Apple's first attempt at the social networking but it pales in comparison to what they have coming. Hidden deep in the iOS 4.3 file system is a new folder titled “Media Stream.” Within that folder is some information about “Photo Streaming.”

Discussion: MacStories, Mashable, SAI, Gizmodo, Softpedia News, TechCrunch, Apple Headlines, NBC Bay Area, MacRumors, Electronista and Gizmodo Australia

Arn / MacRumors:

FaceTime, Camera and PhotoBooth Icons Confirm Camera in iPad 2 — Apple's developer release of iOS 4.3 Beta 2 has provided more visual evidence confirming that the next iPad will carry a front facing camera as well as the Apple Camera App and Photo Booth App.

Discussion: AppleInsider, 9 to 5 Mac, TG Daily, PhoneReport v2.0, SlashGear, The Next Web, MacStories and Engadget

Nilay Patel / Engadget:
iOS 4.3 beta 2 released, iPad multitasking gestures just a developer preview

Discussion: 9 to 5 Mac, MacRumors, PadGadget, Macworld, App Advice and iPodNN

Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:

LivingSocial Hits A Million Amazon Gift Cards Sold, $20 Million In Card Value — LivingSocial has been offering $10 off any $20 Amazon purchase since 5 am this morning and it's been a boon huge for the daily deals company, which Amazon has astutely invested $175 million in.

Discussion: Bits, CenterNetworks, GigaOM, Deal Journal, Digits, Geek.com, The Huffington Post, TechCrunch, LivingSocial Deals, ReadWriteWeb, Communications …, Kindle Review, Mashable!, TechFlash, Lightspeed Venture …, BetaNews, VentureBeat and eMoney

Dan Frommer / SAI: Silicon Alley Insider:

LivingSocial CEO: “No Widescale Problem” Of People Buying More Than One Amazon Gift Card — Update: Looks like this isn't actually an issue. — LivingSocial CEO Tim O'Shaughnessy just reached out to us with this explanation: — Just saw your post come through based on Martin Tobias' post …

Discussion: Deep Green Crystals and Gearlog

Nick Eaton / The Microsoft Blog:

Microsoft nails down Windows Phone 7 data-uploading issue — A third-party application is mostly responsible for a Windows Phone 7 issue that has caused, for some users, megabytes of mysterious data uploading over 3G, Microsoft said today. — Last week, Microsoft said it was investigating claims …

Martin Bryant / The Next Web:

Amazon to acquire LoveFilm, the ‘European Netflix’ — LoveFilm has announced this morning that Amazon is to acquire the remaining shares in the movie rental and streaming service, which is similar to Netflix. — Amazon already has a significant minority shareholding in LoveFilm and deal has been rumoured for some time.

Discussion: BBC, paidContent, TechCrunch, Guardian, Engadget, SAI, Bloomberg, Reuters, THINQ.co.uk and Electricpig.co.uk, Thanks:m4tt

Zokem:

In the US Market, iPhone Outperforms Other Mobile Platforms in User Loyalty by a Wide Margin, Android is Second, Blackberry Fourth — Zokem's industry leading Mobile Life panel in the US from the year 2010 reveals that iPhone scores 84% higher in loyalty ratings than the nearest competitor, Google Android.

Discussion: Fortune, Digital Trends, GeekSugar, iPhone Buzz, Androinica and SlashGear

John Brownlee / Cult of Mac:
Study: iPhone Most Satisfying To Use Smartphone, But Android Users Most Loyal

Discussion: IntoMobile

Wall Street Journal:

Nokia Cancels U.S. Launch of X7 Phone — In another setback for Nokia Corp., the Finnish mobile-phone giant has canceled the U.S. release of a smartphone that was slated to launch exclusively this year with AT&T Inc., people familiar with the situation said.

Philip Elmer-DeWitt / Fortune:

Apple's blow-out quarter: The bloggers called it, the Street blew it — In the quarterly battle between outsiders and the insiders, it's the amateurs by a mile. Amateurs in blue, pros in peach. This one wasn't even close. In our ranking of the best and worst Apple (AAPL) analysts for Q1 2011 …

Discussion: Mashable, TUAW, Kevin Burton's NEW FeedBlog, Boing Boing and Computerworld

Adam Satariano / Bloomberg:
Apple's ‘Underdog’ Analysts Outperform Wall Street From Helsinki, Caracas

Discussion: Deagol's AAPL Model, Fortune and asymco

Christopher Grant / Joystiq:

Kongregate CEO Jim Greer on getting pulled from the Android Market — Kongregate CEO Jim Greer called Google's swift removal of his company's Kongregate Arcade app from the Android Marketplace “surprising.” Released on the morning of January 19, the app was pulled by that evening.

Discussion: IntoMobile, Destructoid, Engadget, ReadWriteWeb and Droid Life

Ryan Kim / GigaOM:
Kongregate Exile Raises Questions About the Android Market

Discussion: VentureBeat, EngageDigital and GetJar

Andru Edwards / Gear Live:

Leaked: New ATT text messaging plans in preparation for Verizon iPhone — AT&T customers, get ready for new text messaging rates to go into effect starting next week. As the Verizon iPhone approaches, the company is looking to make their plans look a bit more attractive, and not so different from what Verizon will be offering.

Discussion: SAI, SlashGear, Gadgetell, IntoMobile, MacRumors, Erictric, Geek.com, DSLreports, Techland, TUAW, PhoneArena, Gizmodo, Electronista, Pulse2, Gizmodo Australia and CrunchGear

Jonathan S. Geller / BGR:

Apple testing multitouch gestures for iPhone 4 internally? — One of our Apple sources has just sent us over a couple screenshots from what we're told is an internal testing iPhone 4. They are interesting because it looks like Apple is testing multitouch gestures on the iPhone in addition to the iPad.

Discussion: Engadget, Apple Headlines, TiPb and GeekSmack

Oliver Chiang / Forbes:

Twitter Hits Nearly 200M Accounts, 110M Tweets Per Day, Focuses On Global Expansion — Twitter has reached nearly 200 million users registered accounts who post 110 million tweets per day as of the January 1, 2011, Twitter spokesperson Carolyn Penner tells me.

Discussion: Seoul Space

Dan Goodin / The Register:

Google gins search formula to favor its own services — Gmail, Maps get free ride — A noted Google-watcher has assembled a convincing argument that the site's search results highly favor Google-owned services, despite repeated company claims that they are algorithmically generated and never manipulated.

Discussion: Ben Edelman and Beyond Search

Danny Sullivan / Search Engine Land:
Study: Google “Favors” Itself Only 19% Of The Time

Discussion: John Battelle's Searchblog

Peter Kafka / MediaMemo:

One Down: Spotify Signs Sony to U.S. Deal — This doesn't get them into the States, but it gets them a lot closer: Music service Spotify has finally signed with Sony for a U.S. distribution deal. Multiple sources tell me the deal, which has been very close since last fall, is now closed.

Discussion: hypebot, Electricpig.co.uk, The Next Web, ReadWriteWeb and Mashable

Jolie O'Dell / Mashable!:

Startup Collecta Shuts Down Its Product, Starts Working on a New One — Collecta, a real-time search engine that launched in June 2009, has quietly shuttered its main product; the team is returning “back into the woodshed,” in the words of CEO Gerry Campbell, to work on new ideas and new directions.

Discussion: Search Engine Land, ReadWriteWeb and NetworkEffect

Leena Rao / TechCrunch:

Google Ventures Leads $600K Investment In LawPivot, A Quora For Startup Legal Advice — There's no doubt that the success of startups like Quora have propelled the Q&A space into the spotlight. And there seems to be room for other niche Quora-like sites, such as enterprise-focsued Opzi …

Discussion: VatorNews, VentureBeat, SAI, GigaOM and Wall Street Journal

Evan Blass / Pocketnow:

What Is the “HP Touchpad”? — Hewlett Packard has just filed for trademark protection on the term “HP Touchpad,” and unless it's poised for a marketing push based around its laptop input devices, we suspect that this will be yet another tablet from the venerable Silicon Valley manufacturer.

Discussion: Engadget, MobileWhack.com, SlashGear, WebOS Arena, PalmAddicts, Liliputing, PreCentral.net and Electronista

Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
HP / Palm tablet to feature Touchstone dock, cloud storage …

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