Techmeme: Netflix is suffering an outage that is affecting users in the US, Canada and Latin America (Jon Russell/The Next Web)

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December 26, 2013, 10:55 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 …

More: internetretailer.com, WebProNews, Business Insider, VatorNews, The Verge, TechnoBuffalo, Betabeat, VentureBeat, IntoMobile, Gotta Be Mobile and The Next Web

Shelly Banjo / Wall Street Journal:

Surge of online orders causes fulfillment, delivery delays, frustrates customers on Christmas

More: UPS, BetaNews, BestTechie, louisgray.com, Gizmodo, InvestorPlace, SlashGear, BGR and AllThingsD

Tweets: @levie and @eholmeswsj

Jay Yarow / Business Insider:

Christmas shoppers on iOS outspent Android users by more than 5 to 1, according to IBM — Apple's iOS Completely Blew Away Google's Android For Shopping On Christmas — Apple's mobile operating system, iOS, continues to blow away Google's Android in mobile commerce, according to IBM analytics.

More: IBM, iMore, MacRumors and AppleInsider. Tweets: @john_frankel

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 …

More: BGR, Digital Book World, The Verge, AllThingsD, Gigaom, Businessweek, Gigaom, Gotta Be Mobile, VatorNews, Quartz, Corporate Intelligence, Benzinga, The Next Web, Businessweek and CNET

Tweets: @zseward and @zseward

Thanks:@belril. See also Mediagazer

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 …

More: Betabeat, Venture Capital Dispatch, The Next Web, VentureBeat, VentureBeat, The Verge, AllThingsD and StartupBook

Tweets: @semil and @caseynewton

Thanks:@chrisvelazco

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.

More: doges.org, The Verge, SiliconANGLE, TechCrunch, Business Insider, VentureBeat, Mashable, Mediaite, The Register, ReadWrite, Gizmodo, Forbes, Tech in Asia, The Next Web, Vacuum and Electronista

Tweets: @daweiner, @cshirky, @samir, @tmfbiggles, @fmanjoo, @dcbigjohn and @russellbrandom

Farhad Manjoo / Wall Street Journal:

Snapchat's popularity shows we all may want a more erasable Internet — The Internet doesn't necessarily have to keep our digital effluvia around forever. Do we want it to be erasable? — The Internet doesn't necessarily have to keep our digital effluvia around forever, and Snapchat has proved it.

More: BGR and MacDailyNews. Tweets: @stevesi, @fmanjoo and @hunterwalk

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 …

More: Nextgov and bloc note. Tweets: @ktbenner, @jeffturner, @alexia, @nytimesbits, @jennydeluxe, @samfbiddle and @jayrosen_nyu

Jon Russell / The Next Web:

Netflix is suffering an outage that is affecting users in the US, Canada and Latin America — Netflix suffered a significant outage last Christmas — on account of problems with Amazon Web Services — and, though it was fully operational on Christmas Day 2013, the service …

More: Engadget. Tweets: @netflixhelps

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

Steve Dent / Engadget:

LG mum on smartwatch rumors, but confirms that a wearable device is coming — Amidst rumors of 2K displays and octa-core CPUs for the LG G3, the Korea Herald has just added another: The upcoming smartphone will come with a G-Arch smartwatch and G-Health fitness band.

More: The Korea Heald, TechnoBuffalo, TechnoBuffalo, Yahoo! News, VentureBeat, Droid Life, WebProNews and MobileSyrup.com. Tweets: @liliputingnews

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 …

Grant Gross / PC World:

CTIA website shows mobile app data usage — A new website launched by mobile trade group CTIA shows smartphone and tablet users how much data is used by popular apps. — KnowMyApp.org, unveiled by CTIA Thursday, allows mobile device owners to estimate an app's data usage before it's downloaded.

More: Engadget, Android Community and Broadcasting & Cable

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