Techmeme: Google inserting conspicuous message above search results urging Firefox users to switch default search engines (Matt McGee/Search Engine Land)

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March 15, 2015, 9:10 PM

Top News

Todd Spangler / Variety:

A competitive landscape, and disgruntled partners and advertisers, challenge YouTube's dominance — YouTube Turns 10: How Competition Crashed the Party — If there could be said to be a poster boy for YouTube, it may well be Freddie Wong. Known online as FreddieW, the 29-year-old is the creator of …

More: PC Magazine and Ubergizmo. Tweets: @digitalerfilm and @tcarmody

Dante D'Orazio / The Verge:

YouTube may launch subscription video service for a monthly fee — YouTube may soon have a subscription option for its best original content. A comment buried in a Variety report reveals that the Google-owned video site is “exploring the prospect of launching its own subscription VOD service.”

Tweets: @tcarmody

Michael Wolf / Medium:

Gigaom's former VP of Research on how venture capital and the growth expectations that come with it contributed to Gigaom's demise — Gigaom: The Life and Death of a Venture Funded Media Startup — As most know, we lost Gigaom last week. It was a sudden passing of a widely beloved tech media company …

Tweets: @raju, @johnhcook and @bmorrissey. See also Mediagazer

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Gigaom struggled with significant debt for years, recently spent $400K/month on rent and interest; unprofitable research arm became a drag on the company

More: Disruptive Telephony, mathewingram.com/work, The Wrap and Beyond Search

Tweets: @moorehn, @pkafka, @dangillmor, @mathewi and @reformedbroker

See also Mediagazer

Alex Hern / Guardian:

The dual personality of Reddit: a problem for CEO Ellen Pao should she try to cleanse the site — Reddit: can anyone clean up the mess behind ‘the front page of the internet’? — The social news site is almost as famous for its never-ending supply of creepy subforums as it is for memes, pictures and assorted lols.

Tweets: @adrianchen. See also Mediagazer

Matt McGee / Search Engine Land:

Google inserting conspicuous message above search results urging Firefox users to switch default search engines — Google Is Practically Begging Firefox Users To Switch Their Default Search Engine — It almost looks desperate. Google has placed a big, new message above its organic search results …

More: PC Magazine. Tweets: @alex_gibson

Ron Amadeo / Ars Technica:

Evolution of the smartwatch, like the smartphone, will be a multi-year, multi-vendor effort, with Apple Watch now contributing app-centric approach and Wi-Fi — Apple's contribution to the smartwatch: An app-centric approach and Wi-Fi — Key differences make Android Wear and Apple Watch two very different platforms.

More: 9to5Mac. Tweets: @coffeegeek

John Herrman / Matter:

What it's like to go from using an iPhone to using a low-end generic BLU Android smartphone — I was an iPhone man once, like you. Then S**tphone changed everything. — Last month my fourth iPhone in six years was, in medical terms, crashing. The screen, which had pulled away from its glue, was behaving strangely.

Tweets: @99u, @mkonnikova, @whatthebit, @caseyjohnston and @kashhill

Charles Babcock / InformationWeek:

Widely-used open source Network Time Protocol depends primarily on one overworked project lead — NTP's Fate Hinges On ‘Father Time’ — The Network Time Protocol provides a foundation to modern computing. So why does NTP's support hinge so much on the shaky finances of one 59-year-old developer?

Tweets: @kylemaxwell, @storagezilla and @holdenweb

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:

Netflix's war with Internet service providers is over, but Comcast and AT&T still have congestion issues with Internet backbone operators GTT and Zayo — Netflix war is over, but money disputes still harm Internet users — AT&T won't upgrade network without payment; Comcast is working to fix congestion.

Andrea Rodriguez / Associated Press:

Cuba allows for the country's first free public Wi-Fi network at Havana cultural center — Cuba allows rare free public Wi-Fi at Havana cultural center — Adonis Ortiz chats with his father, who lives in the U.S., using a free Wi-Fi network at a center run by famed artist Kcho, in Havana, Cuba, Wednesday, March 11, 2015.

More: SlashGear, Electronista and The Verge

Max Chafkin / Fast Company:

YC-backed nonprofit DemocracyOS runs a small political party in Argentina that votes based on polling it conducts online — Why Y Combinator Funded a Radical Political Party in Argentina — “I got my five guys!” — It's a Wednesday morning in mid-February, and Pia Mancini isn't talking about hamburgers.

Andrea Peterson / Washington Post:

Yahoo demos plug-in for end-to-end email encryption, to launch by end of year; rolls out single-use password via SMS feature — Yahoo's plan to get Mail users to encrypt their e-mail: Make it simple — Keeping your e-mail messages super private can be a pain.

More: Yahoo, CNET, Wall Street Journal, The Verge and VentureBeat

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