Techmeme
July 13, 2012, 9:10 AM

Top News

Wall Street Journal:
Betaworks to Pay $500,000 for Fallen Social Media Star Digg  —  New York technology development firm Betaworks has agreed to buy news-sharing website Digg, in an attempt to revive a company that was early to social media but outmaneuvered by rivals like Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc.
Alexia Tsotsis / TechCrunch:
Digg Sold To LinkedIn AND The Washington Post And Betaworks  —  Sun Valley and self-driving cars aside, the story of the day today is that social news site Digg has sold its remaining assets for $500K to the NYC-based tech firm Betaworks.  While that number is indeed in the ballpark …
Megan Garber / The Atlantic Online:
The Burying of Digg, by the Numbers  —  The social news site, in a different time, tried to sell itself for $300 million.  —  This afternoon, Digg announced that it's been acquired by the incubator Betaworks — for a purchase price, The Wall Street Journal reports, of $500,000.
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
Nielsen Blog:
Two Thirds of New Mobile Buyers Now Opting For Smartphones  —  During Q2 2012 smartphone penetration continued to grow, with 54.9 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers owning smartphones as of June 2012.  This growth is driven by increasing smartphone purchases: 2 out of 3 Americans who acquired …
Business Week:
The Education of Groupon CEO Andrew Mason  —  There's an excellent Japanese restaurant in Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood.  The place has been around for years and still draws a crowd, a trendy mix of tattooed hipsters and business-casual professionals.  Black-clad waiters …
Bloomberg:
Diller Says Aereo Will Expand To Most Large U.S. Cities  —  Aereo Inc., the online television service backed by Barry Diller, will expand from New York to other large U.S. cities following a favorable court ruling, the 70-year-old billionaire said.  —  “We're going to really start marketing …
Connie Guglielmo / Forbes:
Apple, Challenged By Greenpeace, Says It Has A Plan To Run Greener Data Centers  —  Greenpeace International gave Apple a mixed review over its clean energy plans for its data centers, the huge servers farms that power its iCloud and its other online services like iTunes …
Joseph Menn / Reuters:
Social networks scan for sexual predators, with uneven results  —  (Reuters) - On March 9 of this year, a piece of Facebook software spotted something suspicious.  —  A man in his early thirties was chatting about sex with a 13-year-old South Florida girl and planned to meet her after middle-school classes the next day.
Mark Gurman / 9to5Mac:
New Food and Drink category goes live in the App Store  —  Earlier this month, Apple promised that a new Food and Drink section would be going live in the App Store in the coming weeks.  Like clockwork, Apple's new App Store section has gone live.  The new section currently holds nearly 3000 apps …
John Furrier / SiliconANGLE:
Roger McNamee of Elevation Partners calls NASDAQ & Morgan Stanley Criminals in Facebook IPO Debacle  —  Roger McNamee, co-founder of Elevation Partners, appeared on Bloomberg TV's “Money Moves” with Deirdre Bolton today and said that NASDAQ and Morgan Stanley conduct in Facebook IPO is “criminal” and exposed “extreme corruption.”
Rob Walker / New York Times:
Can Tumblr's David Karp Embrace Ads Without Selling Out?  —  It's been said (by Steve Jobs, no less) that good design is not just about how a thing looks but rather about how a thing works.  But maybe design is also about how a thing feels.  —  The design of Tumblr, the blogging tool and social network, is guided by feeling.
More: Digiday and The Verge
Reuters:
Google CEO Page recovering, was in office this week  —  (Reuters) - Google Inc CEO Larry Page, absent from the Internet company's biggest public events for weeks, is recovering from an unspecified ailment that caused him to lose his voice and was in the office on Monday, Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said.
Somini Sengupta / New York Times:
U.S. Pursues Richard O'Dwyer as Intermediary in Online Piracy  —  Richard O'Dwyer, an enterprising 24-year-old college student from northern England, has found himself in the middle of a fierce battle between two of America's great exports: Hollywood and the Internet.
Ron / WinBeta:
Report claims Microsoft will reveal Office 2013 to the public on July 16th  —  A new report by USAToday suggests that Microsoft will finally unveil Office 15, the company's next generation office productivity suite, to the public.  Office 15, or Office 2013, was originally rumored to hit a Consumer Preview stage later this month.
Shaun Waterman / Washington Times:
BlackBerry eschews China for security reasons  —  BlackBerrys, the mobile devices favored by government agencies worldwide, are not manufactured in China because that would compromise their much-vaunted security advantage, according to the CEO of Research in Motion (RIM), which makes them.
Greg Bensinger / Digits:
Netflix Users' Taste for Movie Streaming Continues to Fall  —  Netflix Inc., which built its business on mailed movie DVDs, is increasingly the destination of choice for television viewing.  —  Netflix users were less interested in streaming movies titles than a year earlier …
Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft may scrap full retail edition of Windows 8, offer OEM and upgrade only  —  Microsoft is reportedly planning to kill its retail full edition of Windows 8, offering simplified upgrade and System Builder options for home users.  The software maker has typically sold upgrade, full …

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Ben Kuchera / Penny Arcade Report:
Jenna Wortham / Bits: