Top Items:
John Battelle / John Battelle's Searchblog:
ALEXA (MAKE THAT AMAZON) LOOKS TO CHANGE THE GAME — (This will be updated when the service goes live, I was briefed and the embargo was 9 pm PST...) — Every so often an idea comes along that has the potential to change the game. When it does, you find yourself saying - "Sheesh, of course that was going to happen.
Discussion:
Web 2.0 Explorer, michael parekh on IT, ZDNet.com, IP Democracy, pc4media, The Stalwart, Google Blogoscoped, Social Patterns, Conversion Rater, Between the Lines, Ho John Lee's Weblog, Things That, Guardian Unlimited, TechBeat, business2blog, Boing Boing, PaidContent.org, Smalltalk Tidbits … and Mashable*
RELATED ITEMS:
Mylene Mangalindan / Wall Street Journal:
Amazon Revs Its Search Engine — Alexa Unit Will Provide — More Specialized Data — For Software Developers — An Amazon.com Inc. unit plans to allow software and Web developers to request customized data searches when it scans the Web to seek new information …
Discussion:
John Cook's Venture Blog
Richard MacManus / Read/WriteWeb:
Alexa turned into web service - Amazon back to its innovative best — John Battelle just posted that Amazon is opening up its Alexa search data and tools to the world! According to John, Alexa has about 5 billion documents in its index, which is about 100 terabytes of data.
Om Malik on Broadband:
Amazon's Alexa Commoditizes Search — About a month ago Nicholas Carr suggested that Internet search was fast becoming a commodity, because there was very little differentiation between MSN, Yahoo or Google. That's why all the action around toolbars, desktop widgets and desktop search.
Geoffrey Mack / Alexa:
Announcing the Alexa Web Search Platform Beta — Today, Alexa is releasing the Alexa Web Search Platform Beta (websearch.alexa.com), effectively opening up the Alexa Web Crawl and ushering in a new era where anybody can create new search services without having to invest millions of dollars in crawl …
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Alexa Totally Gets It, Opens Up API — John Battelle has the scoop - Alexa is making its dataI available on the Amazon.com Web Services platform, and it's a really big deal. — Amazon's Alexa is opening up its 5 billion web documents and 100 terabytes of data to anyone who wants to use it.
Discussion:
Software Only
Bloomberg:
Microsoft Sold 28% of Xbox 360s in Japanese Stores (Update1) — Dec. 13 (Bloomberg) — Microsoft Corp., the second-largest maker of video game systems, sold 28 percent of Xbox 360 consoles on store shelves in Japan, according to preliminary figures from market researcher Media Create Co.
RELATED ITEM:
Nick Wilson / Performancing.com:
Exclusive: Google Talks About Splogs, Ranking & More — I recently got the chance to grill senior Google engineer and webmaster relations chappy Matt Cutts on some issues specific to bloggers. Matt took his sweet time getting the interview done, but it was well worth the wait.
Om Malik on Broadband:
Like Yahoo, SIPphone offers Penny A Minute Calling — Yahoo was the first one to launch a salvo at Skype by offering a penny-a-minute calling, betting that its low price offering would help it gain market share and lure users away from Skype. (Service will be available next year... but the press release is already out!)
Shankar Gupta / MediaPost Publications:
Marketing Execs Lukewarm On Plan To Pay Searchers — MARKETING EXECUTIVES SAID THEY ARE wary of Microsoft's tentative plan to reimburse online users for using MSN Search to conduct searches, fearing that it will dilute the value of being associated with MSN and attract a lower-value audience.
Discussion:
rexblog.com
John Leyden / The Register:
This SMS will self-destruct in 40 seconds — A UK developer has come up with a "self-destruct" text messaging service it hopes will prove a hit with both businessmen dealing with sensitive information and celebrity love cheats. StealthText from Staellium UK is positioned as a means to give …
Discussion:
Connected Internet News, SearchViews, Tech Digest, MIT Advertising Lab and Gadget Review
Brendon Connelly / Slacker Manager:
The Several Habits of Wildly Successful del.icio.us Users — First things first, real quick like. At it's core, del.icio.us is a place where you can store your bookmarks and get to them from anywhere you can find an internet connection. Accounts are free, get yours today.
Eric Auchard / Reuters:
Yahoo offers Movable Type for bloggers — SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news) and Six Apart Ltd., creator of Movable Type — the most popular software used to create professional blogs — said on Sunday Yahoo will be the preferred supplier of Movable Type for small businesses.
Matt / Blog Network Watch:
Blog Network List launches overall Blog & Blog Network Ranks — We're pleased to announce the launch of new overall blog & blog network rankings over at Blog Network List! — We have taken each of our individual metrics for blogs and blog networks and ranked them from lowest to highest.
RELATED ITEM: