Techmeme: Microsoft, GoDaddy partner on Office 365 plans for small businesses (Mary Jo Foley/ZDNet)

Open Links In New Tab

Mobile Archives Advertise Site News Contact Editors

January 13, 2014, 4:20 PM

Top News

Ellis Hamburger / The Verge:

Facebook acquires link-sharing service Branch for around $15 million — Link-sharing service Branch and subsidiary Potluck have agreed to be acquired by Facebook for around $15 million, sources familiar with the deal told The Verge. Branch CEO Josh Miller broke the news in a Facebook post this morning, but didn't disclose a price.

Matt Mullenweg:

In role swap, Matt Mullenweg becomes Automattic's CEO, Toni Schneider to focus on new products — Toni Schneider & Automattic CEO — Eight years and one day ago I blogged about Toni Schneider joining Automattic as CEO, as I said then: … Fast-forward roughly two thousand, nine hundred …

More: Toni.org, Om Malik, Gigaom, Post Status, SiliconANGLE, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, ZDNet, Re/code and WebProNews

Tweets: @jeffjarvis, @hunterwalk and @dangillmor

See also Mediagazer

Google:

Google to acquire Nest for $3.2 billion in cash — Google to Acquire Nest — Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced today that it has entered into an agreement to buy Nest Labs, Inc. for $3.2 billion in cash. — Nest's mission is to reinvent unloved but important devices in the home such as thermostats and smoke alarms.

More: Gizmodo, Fortune, TechCrunch, Re/code, The Verge and Business Insider

Tweets: @qthrul, @cdixon, @zpower, @hunterwalk, @fromedome, @getwired and @sundarpichai

Liam Boogar / Rude Baguette:

Taxi protest in Paris turns to guerrilla warfare as Uber car attacked on freeway — The right to protest has always been powerfully upheld in France - whether it's protesting an immigrant's right to healthcare, the closing of a factory, or even Taxis, who have perfected the art of making their voice heard …

More: GeekWire, blogs.ft.com, bizjournals, CNET, Los Angeles Times, Engadget, Tech.eu, VentureBeat, Business Insider, PC Magazine, Mashable, CNET, english.rfi.fr, Gigaom, Gawker, TechCrunch, SlashGear and The Verge

Tweets: @katborlongan, @katborlongan, @michaelklishin, @sacca, @loic, @rudebaguette and @papadimitriou

Aaron Souppouris / The Verge:

Sprint's ‘One Up’ early upgrade plan axed after just four months — Sprint's One Up early upgrade plan is no more. With the announcement of the plan last September, Sprint joined T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon in offering a way for customers to upgrade their handset mid-contract.

More: PC Magazine, Examiner, IntoMobile, CNET, TechSpot, Electronista, Gigaom, Pocketables, BGR, PhoneArena, Droid Life, iPhone, Gotta Be Mobile, App Advice, LAPTOP Magazine, AndroidHeadlines.com, Android Central and Overclockers Club

Simon Khalaf / Flurry:

Mobile Use Grows 115% in 2013, Propelled by Messaging Apps — In November 2013, Benedict Evans, a well-respected and widely followed analyst, shared an updated version of his famous slide deck called “Mobile is Eating the World”. This deck quickly made the rounds on social media …

More: VentureBeat, AppleInsider, The Next Web, iPhone in Canada Blog, TelecompetitorTelecompetitor, TechCrunch and Gamasutra

Michael Gold / Reuters:

New Acer CEO disappoints with lack of detail on future plans — (Reuters) - Investors looking for specifics as to the future of Acer Inc, the world's No.4 PC vendor, came away disappointed when the new CEO spent more time delivering a history of the company's past mistakes than on where it was headed.

More: eWeek, ZDNet, Bloomberg, Maximum PC, Taipei Times and Wall Street Journal

Nathan Ingraham / The Verge:

‘High-profile’ Google+ users will get better default email settings — A few days ago, Google rolled out a potentially invasive new feature — if you have both a Gmail address and Google+ account, other Google+ and Gmail users will soon be able to send messages right into your inbox, even if you never gave them your email address.

Tweets: @nateingraham and @tomwarren

Klint Finley / Wired:

Out in the Open: An NSA-Proof Twitter, Built With Code From Bitcoin and BitTorrent — When mass political protests erupted throughout Brazil in June, Miguel Freitas did what countless others did: He followed the news on Twitter. Tweets revealed information he couldn't get anywhere else, including the mainstream media.

More: Daily Dot. Tweets: @trevortimm

Rich McCormick / The Verge:

Nokia's Android phone appears in prototype form — Images of Nokia's Android phone — code-named Normandy — were published in November, showing what purported to be a low-cost smartphone that would run with a custom implementation of Android. Now another picture of the phone has appeared on Twitter …

More: TechMesto, Examiner, BGR, TechHive, Gigaom, GadgeTell, Gotta Be Mobile, Android Beat, TechSpot, LAPTOP Magazine, SlashGear, pocketnow.com, Gizmodo, TechnoBuffalo, Inquirer, Phandroid, Electronista, WinBeta, MobileSyrup.com, Mashable, Android and Me, My Nokia Blog, The Next Web, AndroidHeadlines.com and Gizchina.com

Tweets: @seamissu and @tomwarren

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:

Groupon Moves Into Flash Fashion, Buys Ideeli For $43M In Cash — More acquisitions for Groupon to widen the net of consumers using its platform for more than daily deals. Today it is announcing the acquisition of ideeli, a flash fashion retailer, for $43 million in cash.

More: Business Wire, Betabeat, VentureBeat, Re/code, The Next Web, internetretailer.com and WebProNews. Thanks:@ingridlunden

Matthew Lynch / Capital New York:

CNN consolidates tech coverage — CNN and CNNmoney.com will merge their respective tech desks into one team headed by New York-based editor David Goldman. — CNNMoney.com executive editor Chris Peacock and CNN Digital managing editor Meredith Artley made the announcement in an email to staffers this morning.

More: FishbowlNY and Capital New York. Tweets: @elanazak

Sponsor Posts

Subquadratic:

SubQ Snap 1.1: the first long-context decision model for real enterprise work — Tied for #1 on the AA Decision Index, Snap is a multimodal model with a 384k-token context window for fast reasoning and agentic decisions.

Zoho:

Zoho Writer's latest automation updates: smarter formulas, dynamic content, and less manual work — Create personalized documents with smarter formulas, dynamic content, and payment links, and update templates without rebuilding …

IDrive:

Protecting your Cloud Applications Data — Backing up Office 365, Google Workspace, Dropbox & Salesforce data is critical to preventing data loss or corruption, complying with laws and avoiding critical downtime in case of a disaster.

WebBrain:

WebBrain: an open-source AI agent for your browser — Read pages, fill forms and automate tasks in Chrome or Firefox. Use local models or your preferred AI provider. Get started free.

Sponsor Techmeme

Featured Podcasts

Sources:

A quiet investor's $10 billion bet on AI, chips, and defense

Candid conversations with the leaders shaping what's next in AI and the broader tech industry. Hosted by Alex Heath, who has covered Silicon Valley for more than a decade.

Subscribe to Sources.

Cheeky Pint:

The company building America's uranium supply from scratch

Stripe cofounder John Collison interviews founders, builders, and leaders over a pint.

Subscribe to Cheeky Pint.

Grit:

The Difference Between 1% Improvements and 10x Growth | Immad Akhund

Grit explores what it takes to create, build and scale world-class organizations.

Subscribe to Grit.

Lenny's Podcast:

How a 19-year-old intern built the growth engine behind this $2B AI company | Hector Serrano

Interviews with world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover actionable advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product.

Subscribe to Lenny's Podcast.

Big Technology Podcast:

Big Tech's Ugly Week, Getting Rich At Anthropic, AI Costs Plunge

The Big Technology Podcast takes you behind the scenes in the tech world featuring interviews with plugged-in insiders and outside agitators.

Subscribe to Big Technology Podcast.

Machine Gods:

OpenAI's Latest Discoveries Spark a Backlash + Help! My Kid Hates AI

The official podcast of the singularity, from Casey Newton and Kevin Roose. Twice-weekly news, analysis, and interviews with the people who are building the future.

Subscribe to Machine Gods.

Add your podcast here

About This Page

This is a Techmeme archive page. It shows how the site appeared at 4:20 PM ET, January 13, 2014.

The most current version of the site as always is available at our home page. To view an earlier snapshot click here and then modify the date indicated.