Twitter's Great Big Problem Is Its Massive Opportunity
Thinking Outside the Dropbox with Minus–A New Image Sharing Tool
Inside the Wild, Wacky, Profitable World of Boing Boing
Wikileaks Evolves
Why Gawker is Moving Beyond the Blog
I, Reader
The Real Issue In Comcast's Dispute With Level 3 Is About Power, Not Money
About Voices
This is a section of the All Things Digital Web site featuring posts from around the Web, from other Dow Jones properties and also original pieces we solicit. The section is now explicitly labeled that it comes “from other Web sites.”
Regarding third-party posts: We are trying to point readers of this site to other posts from around the Web that we admire and are trying to do so in the quickest manner possible.
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Thursday, December 2, 2010
Barry Diller and John Malone Complete Their Divorce
Barry Diller and John Malone, who have been tied together for 17 years, are officially split up, for good: Malone’s Liberty Media is abandoning its majority stake in Diller’s IAC holding company and taking $220 million along with IAC’s Evite.com and Gift.com units, as parting gifts. Meanwhile Diller himself is making a smaller break with IAC by stepping down as CEO, but will remain as chairman. More details from Shira Ovide.
WikiLeaks, the site infamous for exposing America’s diplomatic dirty laundry, has confirmed via its Twitter feed that it is no longer hosting its files on Amazon’s servers. The move comes as Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut–who was a onetime vice-presidential nominee and who is also chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee–had called for Amazon to cut its ties to Wikileaks. Read More »
As the possible acquisition of Groupon by Googlechugs along–sources tell me bankers are starting to swan around annoyingly, which could be a sign of fruition, but we shall see–BoomTown realized that I have been remiss in mentioning one likely key person in the deal strategy. And, I am only guessing, that would be the search giant’s relatively new head of commerce, Stephanie Tilenius. That’s because the unassuming former longtime eBay exec–you won’t see her all over the scene swanning, for sure–is one of the few at the company sharp enough to have seen Groupon’s copious local retail data as a strong fit into Google. Read More »
Silicon Valley’s improving outlook is beginning to manifest itself through local companies’ holiday gifts and parties. Take Equilar Inc. Last year, the Redwood City-based compensation-research firm handed out pullover fleeces with the company’s logo as an end-of-year gift to its work force. This year, the firm held a Thanksgiving lunch and went one better: It gave out Apple Inc. iPads, which start at $499, to all 74 employees. Read More »
CEO Jason Kilar says he’s found plenty of takers for his premium service. But why pay Hulu at all, when you can get it for free on your PC? It’s a core question for the service and for Web video in general. Read More »
The General Services Administration–which oversees government procurement–will soon become the first major federal office to move to cloud-based office apps on an agency-wide basis. And it’s chosen Google Apps to do it. Read More »
LastPass, an online password manager and form filler, has acquired the social bookmarking and browser synchronization service Xmarks. The San Francisco-based Xmarks has been in the midst of some tumult of late, as it closed down in September and then quickly opened back up again in an effort to keep its service running for a large group of active users and to find a new home. Read More »
As a managing partner at Sequoia Capital, one of Silicon Valley’s most successful and long-lived venture firms, Michael Moritz can speak eloquently about industry trends, entrepreneurs and the rise of global competition. He did so last night at an appearance for Xconomy, a business and technology Web site in San Francisco. Read More »
Here is a teaser trailer for a mid-season replacement television show on NBC called “The Cape.” It’s from Hollywood multimedia production company, BermanBraun, which is known in tech for the handsome content sites they make for Microsoft’s MSN, such as the celebrity-focused Wonderwall. “The Cape” is about a good cop who is framed and has to turn himself into a crimefighting hero to regain his old life and family. With a cape, natch. Read More »
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Those who want to be among the first to rule the air on Verizon Wireless’s new 4G network better have a Windows PC handy. Verizon had already made clear that, for the rest of this year at least, the company will have only laptop cards and that 4G smartphones wouldn’t come until next year. However, it looks like Mac users will also have to wait–at least a little while. Read More »
YouTube today is launching a personalization update to its “Leanback” viewing mode, which is meant to be played on televisions. YouTube users who watch through Leanback already spend on average 30 minutes per session, two times longer than sessions on the Web. Read More »
Sen. Kohl Urges Close DOJ Review of Google-ITA Deal
Getting on board with those who have reservations about Google’s planned acquisition of flight information provider ITA Software, Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis. and head of a Senate antitrust panel, today urged the Department of Justice to be extra diligent in its review of the deal. Citing the concerns of consumer groups and existing online travel search and booking sites, Kohl suggested the DOJ may need to consider predicating its approval on certain conditions to ensure fair competition.
CBS’s “60 Minutes” Revisits Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg (And BoomTown Takes Back “Toddler CEO” Title)
This Sunday, the CBS news magazine “60 Minutes” returns to Facebook after several years to check in on co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. In the first interview by correspondent Lesley Stahl in early 2008, Zuckerberg’s social networking empire was much smaller, beset by a series of management snafus and mired in yet another privacy controversy. Plus, he was more than a lot more awkward. Fast-forward to today: Zuckerberg rules one of the most powerful tech companies in the world and BoomTown dubs him a prodigy! The worm has officially turned. Read More »
Here is the latest comic from our Joy of Tech friends at Geek Culture, Nitrozac and Snaggy. Joy of Tech appears three times a week in the Voices section of this site. (Click on the image to see a bigger version.) Read More »
Pulse, the visually engaging mobile news reader, is adding a social element today. To date, Pulse (for iPad, iPhone and Android) gave users an easily scannable and image-driven view of their favorite RSS feeds. Now, users will also be able to add their Facebook accounts and flip through material posted by their friends. Read More »
The Federal Trade Commission unveiled a report on Internet privacy Wednesday that calls for the development of a do-not-track system that would enable people to avoid having their actions monitored online, a move the online-advertising industry has opposed. Read More »
Since it is bubble-bursting Wednesday here at Mobilized, let me assure you that the forthcoming update to Windows Phone 7 is neither “massive” nor an iPhone killer, despite some reports to the contrary. On the other hand, the software update, which could come as early as January, will add two things that are very important for Microsoft. First and foremost, the update will pave the way for Windows Phone 7 devices that work on Sprint and Verizon’s networks. It will also add copy and paste, an omission for which Microsoft has received no shortage of grief. Read More »
Amazon Poised to Make a Major Strategic Investment in LivingSocial to Counter Groupoogle (or Goopon?) Threat
With the red-hot acquisition dance between Google and Groupon sucking up all the attention, it’s easy once again to ignore the No. 2 player in the fast-growing social buying space–LivingSocial. But not everyone is. According to sources close to the situation, the Washington, D.C.-based company that also focuses on local deals is in advanced talks for a major strategic investment–as high as $150 million–by online retail giant Amazon, at a very hefty valuation of over one billion dollars, to counter a possible Groupoogle challenge. Read More »
WikiLeaks Leaves Amazon, Returns to Sweden
WikiLeaks has left its U.S. host, Amazon Web Services, and moved its operations back to Sweden. The whistleblowing site had left Bahnhof, its Swedish host, and sought refuge with Amazon after Sunday’s leak of U.S. State Department documents left it besieged by almost constant DDOS attacks. The site reported another DDOS attack early yesterday, and was down earlier today. Neither WikiLeaks nor Amazon has officially commented on their relationship or why it ended.
Everyone has something to say about today’s speech by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski on the subject of net neutrality. Having been blocked in the courts from imposing sanctions on Comcast for throttling users of BitTorrent, the commission has been spinning its wheels trying to find a way to nudge the broadband industry in a direction toward treating all Internet content fairly. Read More »
Earlier Posts
- “Evercookies” and “Fingerprinting”: Are Anti-Fraud Tools Good for Ads? on Voices
- The Mobile OS World: Symbian, iOS Are Superpowers; Android a Developing Nation on Digital Daily
- RIM Sends Message to Kik by Filing Lawsuit on eMoney
- Men Are From Android, Women Are From iOS on Digital Daily
- Verizon 4G Network to Launch Sunday on Mobilized
- SFund Invests in a Not-Particularly Social Site, FindTheBest.com on NetworkEffect
- Apple’s 3-D Tech Is Watching You on Voices
- Netflix Shatters Pay TV Window With FilmDistrict Deal on Digital Daily
- Conduit Dumps Google Search for Microsoft’s Bing on BoomTown
- Jon Stewart Explains WikiLeaks to the Rest of Us on MediaMemo
Apple TV: Streaming and Renting From Devices
The revamped $99 Apple TV streams content from online, computers and portable devices, and allows you to rent TV shows and movies, but has a very limited selection of Internet video sources. Read More »