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4:00 PM ET, January 4, 2012

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Yahoo! Inc.:
Yahoo! Appoints Scott Thompson Chief Executive Officer  —  SUNNYVALE, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)— Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO), the premier digital media company, today announced the appointment of Scott Thompson as Chief Executive Officer, effective January 9, 2012, at which time Tim Morse will resume his role as Chief Financial Officer.
RELATED:
Om Malik / GigaOM:
Brand new CEO, same old messed up Yahoo  —  Yahoo has finally found a new chief executive to replace Carol Bartz (who left in a huff) and he is Scott Thompson, who till recently was the president of the PayPal division of eBay A surprise candidate, it is not very clear what his strategy …
Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:
Confirmed: Yahoo Names PayPal Head Scott Thompson as New CEO  —  As I reported late last night, Yahoo said it had named PayPal President Scott Thompson as its new CEO.  The exec is currently in charge of the large eBay online payments unit.  —  He'll start next week, but there are staff …
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines Blog:
Yahoo's new CEO Thompson: Five big challenges
Paul Thurrott / WindowsITPro:
Exclusive: Microsoft and Nokia's Plans for Marketing Windows Phone in 2012  —  With predictably parroting that information—I thought it might be worthwhile to set the record straight.  Microsoft and Nokia will not spend “in the neighborhood of $100 million” to market Windows Phone this year.
RELATED:
Ed Oswald / BetaNews:
Windows Phone partners bet $100M on Nokia Ace  —  The importance of the Nokia Ace to Microsoft's mobile plans is apparent as sources tell BetaNews of a major marketing push for the smartphone in the second quarter of this year.  The Ace will launch in late March, sources confirm …
Tiuri van Agten / Distimo:
Google Android Market Tops 400,000 Applications  —  Google Android Market gave itself a nice new year's present last weekend.  The total number of active applications worldwide in the Android Market reached the 400,000 milestone.  Android Market has topped the 200K and 300K available apps milestones …
Wall Street Journal:
Kodak Preparing for Chapter 11 Filing  —  Eastman Kodak Co. is preparing for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy-protection filing in the coming weeks should efforts to sell a trove of digital patents fall through, people familiar with the matter said.  —  The struggling photography icon …
Elad Blog:
How Pinterest Will Transform the Web in 2012: Social Content Curation As The Next Big Thing  —  The most interesting wave hitting the social web in 2012 is social curation.  This was kicked off in 2011 as Pinterest's growth was noticed by Silicon Valley and a number of companies quickly followed suit …
Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:
The Case of the Unfortunate Underscore: How Twitter Verified the Fake Wendi Over the Real Wendi  —  I went all Encyclopedia Brown yesterday after I and many others had been led astray by an account — @wendi_deng — that Twitter had verified with its famous blue check mark over the holiday weekend …
Lauren Goode / AllThingsD:
Roku to Launch Cordless Streaming Stick for TVs  —  Roku, maker of competitively priced set-top boxes that stream Web video on TVs, is introducing a new device it thinks will offer a simpler option for Internet connectivity than some “smart” TVs.  —  Today, the company is unveiling plans …
Kevin Lincoln / Business Insider:
The Guys Behind The Verge Just Went On Another Huge Talent Raid For A New Gaming Site  —  For the last week, there's been buzz about a new gaming site coming from Vox Media, the parent company of The Verge and SB Nation.  —  We can confirm that Vox is about to launch a big gaming vertical later …
Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Disney and Comcast Link Up For Another 10 Years  —  Comcast has re-upped its distribution deal with Disney, which means the country's largest cable company will continue to pipe programming from ABC, ESPN and other channels into its subscribers' homes for another ten years.
Krystal Peak / VatorNews:
Netflix's 20M members streamed 2B hours in Q4 of 2011  —  Down from 25M+ streaming subscribers, Netflix is poised for growth again in 2012  —  As Netflix continues to wrangle the conversation on its future, the video viewing and rental company announced that more than two billion hours …
Julie Bort / Business Insider:
Cisco's Alternative To Skype Has Quietly Been Killed  —  Cisco has quietly pulled the plug on its ill-fated consumer home videoconferencing system, Umi.  This could be the final blow to the company's once-grand consumer plans.  —  Umi was introduced a little over a year ago, in October, 2010.
Darrell Etherington / GigaOM:
Apple's long silence on call mute issue raising ire of iPhone owners  —  Apple's iPhone 4S wasn't without its share of launch troubles, including complaints of poor battery life.  But while Apple was quick to address said issues in an update (and then promised to do so again in another) …
Michael Arrington / Uncrunched:
Nobody Goes to Facebook Anymore.  It's Too Crowded.  —  A year ago Steven Levy suggested that Facebook should give us each a single “friend-list do-over.”  —  A lot of commenters challenged him.  “Grow some balls and just unfriend people,” said one of the more even tempered readers.
Discussion: NBC Bay Area and @loic
Dennis K. Berman / Wall Street Journal:
So, What's Your Algorithm?  —  We are ruined by our own biases.  When making decisions, we see what we want, ignore probabilities, and minimize risks that uproot our hopes.  —  What's worse, “we are often confident even when we are wrong,” writes Daniel Kahneman, in his masterful new book …
Sean Hollister / The Verge:
Samsung Series 5 Ultra up for pre-order in the US, brings optical media to the ultrabook for $949  —  Koreans won't be the only ones sticking DVDs into exceptionally thin laptops this year: Samsung's Series 5 Ultra laptops are now available for pre-order at J&R. The first time we heard …
Eric Eldon / TechCrunch:
IFTTT, A Glue Gun For Sticking Together The Web, Raises $1.5M Seed Round From Top Investors  —  Want to instantly save all your Instagram photos to Dropbox when you take them?  What about automatically updating your Twitter profile when you update your Facebook profile?
Discussion: AllThingsD
Wall Street Journal:
Spam Finds New Target  —  Facebook and Twitter Build Up Their Defenses as Hackers Attack Social Networks  —  Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. are building up their forces to fight an emerging enemy: “social” spam.  —  One of their foot soldiers is Tao Stein, a Facebook engineer.
Discussion: Marketing Land and WebProNews
Roger Cheng / CNET:
MetroPCS to offer live local TV on its smartphones  —  MetroPCS said today it was partnering with a consortium of broadcasters to bring live local television to its wireless customers later this year.  —  The prepaid mobile service provider is working with Mobile Content Venture …
Discussion: 9to5Google and TechCrunch
Dante D'Orazio / The Verge:
HP announces Omni 27 all-in-one PC, brings h9 Phoenix desktop stateside  —  HP might be all about laptops right now, but the company has a few desktops up its sleeves, like this Omni 27 all-in-one PC.  As you might expect from the name, it's got a 27-inch 1080p LED-backlit display …
Ryan Kim / GigaOM:
Walmart Labs buys mobile agency Small Society  —  Walmart Labs, the social and mobile lab created by the retail giant, has picked up mobile development agency Small Society.  The small Portland, Ore. team will be incorporated into Walmart Labs, which has a Portland office and previously acquired Set Direction last year.
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
File-Sharing Recognized as Official Religion in Sweden  —  All around the world file-sharers are being chased by anti-piracy outfits and the authorities, and the situation in Sweden is no different.  While copyright holders are often quick to label file-sharers as pirates …
Discussion: Gizmodo
 
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 More Items: 
Austin Carr / Fast Company:
Proust, IAC's Social Network For Sharing Eternal Memories, To Shut Down
Discussion: AllThingsD
Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:
Oracle's lawsuit against Google to go to trial on or after March 19, 2012
Stephanie Clifford / New York Times:
Online Sales Buoy U.P.S. And FedEx
Discussion: TechnoBuffalo
 Earlier Items: 
David Kravets / Threat Level:
No Warrant Needed for GPS Monitoring, Judge Rules
Vlad Savov / The Verge:
Microsoft sues UK retailer Comet for ‘creating and selling’ counterfeit Windows Vista and XP CDs
Andrew Clay Shafer / fate = will && choice:
incubators are a ghetto
Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Codecademy's CodeYear Attracts 100,000 Aspiring Programmers In 48 Hours
Discussion: TechPinions
Fraser Speirs:
Misconceptions About iOS Multitasking
Discussion: Daring Fireball
Dieter Bohn / The Verge:
Google requiring default ‘Holo’ theme in Android 4.0 devices for Android Market access
Larry Downes / Forbes:
Why Best Buy is Going out of Business...Gradually
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Sara Fischer / Axios:
Spotify is paying hundreds of millions for audiobooks annually; US audiobook users average five more hours on the app in the 60 days after starting a book

Benjamin Mullin / New York Times:
Five ex-Pitchfork journalists launch online music outlet Hearing Things, aiming to capture Pitchfork's independent spirit; subscriptions start at $70 per year

Katie Kilkenny / The Hollywood Reporter:
Condé Nast reaches a tentative deal with The New Yorker union, ending a strike threat at the mag's annual festival; the union plans a final vote in a few weeks

 
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