Techmeme
July 13, 2012, 7:30 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.
Matt Williams / Digg Blog:
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 …
More: Wired
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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 …
Nicole Perlroth / Bits:
Yahoo Breach Extends Beyond Yahoo to Gmail, Hotmail, AOL Users  —  Yahoo confirmed Thursday that a file containing approximately 400,000 usernames and passwords to Yahoo and other companies was stolen Wednesday.  A group of hackers, known as the D33D Company, posted usernames and passwords …
Ben Kuchera / Penny Arcade Report:
The reality of the OUYA console doesn't match the hype: why you should be skeptical  —  There is a reason that the press around the newly-announced OUYA game console is based almost exclusively around the amount of money being raised by the product's Kickstarter, and that reason is simple: There is very little else to report on.
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.
Dylan Tweney / VentureBeat:
Microsoft's Bing Fund will give online startups cash, advice, and discounts  —  After playing coy and dropping hints for weeks, Microsoft has finally announced its newest incubator, the Bing Fund.  —  The Bing Fund will invest $50,000-$100,000 in early-stage startups, through standard convertible notes …
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 …
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

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Donna Tam / CNET:
Jenna Wortham / Bits: