Techmeme
December 26, 2013, 9:15 PM

Top News

Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Christmas delayed: Amazon offers $20 gift cards, refunds shipping charges after UPS and FedEx problems  —  Didn't get what you expected under the tree?  It's probably marooned in a package delivery center.  —  Following widespread complaints about absent packages, Amazon …
John Herrman / BuzzFeed:
Dogewallet announces Dogecoin theft, a dubious milestone for the new cryptocurrency that started as a joke  —  Millions Of Dogecoins Stolen In Apparent Heist  —  Much robbery, so anger, etc.  Users of the functional joke currency are reporting emptied wallets.
Todd Bishop / GeekWire:
Amazon's “best ever” season saw 1M new Prime members in one week, 426 items sold per second  —  Amazon Prime tops 20 million members as company touts its best holiday season ever  —  Amazon is exiting the 2013 holiday season with “tens of millions” of Amazon Prime members …
Ryan Lawler / TechCrunch:
Plain Vanilla Games, Maker Of Ultra-Hot Trivia App QuizUp, Raises Another $22 Million From Sequoia  —  Plain Vanilla Games, the company behind ultra-hot trivia app QuizUp, has raised a $22 million Series B Round of financing.  The financing was led by Sequoia Capital, with participation …
Hannah Karp / Wall Street Journal:
Scores of Music Services Stream Into Crowded Field  —  Many of the New Models Will Focus on Genre  —  The number of music-streaming services is set to explode next year, as record labels have warmed up to the idea of renting consumers access to a vast collection of tunes, rather than selling them individual albums or songs.
Tweets: @zseward
Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:
Tech Stocks Hover Near 2013 Highs, Paving Way for 2014 IPOs Like Alibaba, Box and Dropbox  —  Today, the tech sector got a pretty nice post-Christmas present, as stocks of many companies in the sector continued to remain near their highs for the year.  —  And with 2013 seeing …
Christopher Mims / Quartz:
2013: mobiles stagnated, wearables a letdown, arrogance of tech's ruling class increased  —  2013 was a lost year for tech  —  All in, 2013 was an embarrassment for the entire tech industry and the engine that powers it—Silicon Valley.  Innovation was replaced by financial engineering …
Sarah Frier / Bloomberg:
KakaoTalk is used by 93% of South Korean smartphone owners, expects $200M revenue in 2013  —  With $200 Million in Revenue, South Korea's Top Messaging App Is All Smiley Faces  —  In South Korea, there's no escaping KakaoTalk.  The country has a smartphone penetration rate of 73 percent …
Tweets: @papadimitriou.  Thanks:@electricwaffles

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Josh Constine / TechCrunch:
Jenny W. Hsu / Wall Street Journal: