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Google lands on Mars — Tonight I noticed that mars.google.com now has a CNAME record that points to www.google.com. This usually means that something is about to happen with that subdomain — with the exception of calendar.google.com of course. So I started digging and you will never guess …
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Google Galaxy Starts with Mars — Google is one step closer to announcing a Google Galaxy (Universe/Solar System) product. Today Google introduced Google Mars, its Maps-like exploration of the surface of Mars. (This is likely an extension of Keyhole's Mars exploration that was quietly forgotten once Google acquired the company.)

Hungry Media Companies Find a Meager Menu of Web Sites to Buy — Media companies are still hungry. Is there much left for them to consume that they'll find satisfying? — NBC Universal's $600 million acquisition of iVillage, an early Internet company catering to women …
Discussion:
michael parekh on IT, PaidContent.org, Perceptric Forum, John Cook's Venture Blog and Blogspotting

MySpace Messenger on the Way — The cool kids are all talking about the impending release of MySpace Messenger (screenshots below). The story appeared on Digg yesterday, and the commenters are impatiently trying to make it to work. No official launch has been mentioned yet. — So is this a good idea?
Discussion:
Search Engine Journal
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Gosling Didn't Get The Memo — I've been blissfully neglecting this site for months with the assumption that a large part of our goal was completed. After watching good people like Martin LaMonica and Jon Udell balance out the mainstream tech press with coverage of lessish tools and languages …

Why I will stop blogging — I can do it, folks, I have already, in some sense, stopped one of my rivers, and soon, probably before the end of 2006, I will put this site in mothballs, in archive mode, and go on to other things, Murphy-willing of course. — It's been a long time coming.

Leadership in World of Warcraft — This ended up becoming a longer and more rambling post than I expected, but I'm going to post it anyway since I don't write enough these days... The other day, I was doing an interview for a management and strategy magazine and one of the questions that came …
Discussion:
Werblog
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Media's Idea that Origami is Just a Small Tablet PC Misses Intel Role — Mr. Thurrott is almost right when he says the four-year secret origami project was small Tablet PCs discussed at WinHEC. However, Origami was an interim product of the Haiku project, expected post 2007.
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Compaq founder pushes for academic library online — CARLSBAD, Calif.—Ever wonder where Compaq founder Rod Canion is? He's with Questia Media, which wants to bring a university-class library to a high school near you. — The Houston-based company is gathering academic and textbook publishers …
Discussion:
MobileRead Networks

Online Auteurs Hardly Need to Be Famous — On his computer screen, Jake R. Sanowski scrutinizes a short video of a baby eating its first pickle. Next is a skit of a woman getting drunker over the course of a meal at which, it turns out, her dining companion is a dog.
Discussion:
John Cook's Venture Blog

Microsoft pauses work on Adobe rival — Microsoft has temporarily halted development work on some aspects of its upcoming professional graphics application as it tries to bring companion tools and its next-generation Windows Vista operating system to market.

Blogging for Dollars Brings Unexpected Responsibilities — Reporter's Notebook: Professional bloggers Jason Kottke and Heather Armstrong took the stage at SXSW to discuss what happens when you start making a living from your hobby. — The story of blogging has largely been written.

The Larry and Shelley Story — In few minutes or so, MusicIP, a company that we've invested in, takes the wraps of a ton of work at the SXSW show in Austin. I'm pleased that all the team's hard work will be paying off. I'll let the company do all launch stuff first and point you to some interesting things as they go public.

Tagworld Hits 1 million members, announces $7.5 million from Draper Fisher Jurvetson — Tagworld, the next generation Myspace competitor, is showing that there is plenty of room for growth in the crowded teen/young adult home page market (previous TechCrunch posts on Tagworld are here).
Discussion:
SiliconBeat

Alive and Well in Silicon Alley — THEY arrived in crisp button-downs and pleated Dockers, 150 or so, nearly all men in their 20's and 30's, few of whom would probably object to being called a nerd. — The event, the New York Tech Meetup — part technology conference …

Behold the power of botnets — (Adam Piggott of Proactive Services originally found this mess, contacted Suzi Turner at SpywareWarrior who got him in touch with one of our spyware researchers, Adam Thomas.) — Discussions about botnets in the security community are quite active these days.
Discussion:
Spyware Confidential