aggregators

New York Times sued over Boston.com's linking practice

Updated 12:43 p.m. PST with GateHouse comment in e-mail sent to staff, as well as comment from Chicago Reader Web editor.

A publisher of mostly small, local newspapers has sued the New York Times Co. over its aggregation of news headlines on Boston.com, challenging the practice many sites use of linking to other sources.

In its lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts on Monday, Fairport, N.Y.-based GateHouse Media, which publishes more than 100 papers in Massachusetts, accuses the Times of violating copyright by allowing its Boston Globe online unit to copy verbatim … Read more

Accounts central

An ultimate mobile productivity application, Pageonce's personal assistant gives you the tools to view all your online accounts in one sophisticated application. Sure, you'll have to be comfortable storing all your passwords on your phone, but if you are, you'll find yourself relying on Pageonce's stylish interface to get all your details in a glance.

After adding accounts through an assisted browsing process, Pageonce will display them as buttons on the Accounts tab. Tap it to view, for instance, your banking transactions and total balance, travel itineraries, social commitments, and friends' status updates on a slew … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 869: Linux, the new pot

A high school teacher finds it inconceivable that any software could be free. I wonder if she uses Internet Explorer? We also talk about the failure of not one but two big Internet filters, and get the scoop from Caroline McCarthy on why YouTube isn't in decline.

Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 869

Google to take Chrome out of beta http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/12/10/google-takes-chrome-out-of-beta/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10120049-92.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Australian plan to censor Internet in shreds http://www.theage.com.au/news/home/technology/labor-plan-to-censor-internet-in-shreds/2008/12/09/1228584820006.html… Read more

Martini Life launches as hub for affluent individuals

Martini Media, an advertising network that's aimed at affluent people, announced Wednesday that it has officially launched Martini Life, a site that targets high net-worth individuals through seven main channels: sailing, equestrian sports, private aviation, wine, classic cars, golfing, and cigars.

Martini Life aims at becoming the "go-to" destination for affluent individuals, but it won't create its own content. Instead, the site has pulled in more than 70 publishers and blogs to syndicate content to the site. For example, the site's sailing page features updates from the Mega Yacht News Blog and various other yachting-related … Read more

Firefox gets sagacious

Sage is a basic RSS feed and news aggregator for Firefox. Its no-nonsense approach and ease of use will appeal to all user levels.

The extension is meshed with Firefox's sidebar. It's very easy to navigate, with buttons for checking and searching feeds, and two view panels. The top panel displays each feed that you're subscribed to, and the bottom panel displays the specific feed headlines. The Options menu gives you display options, and lets you manage your feeds. We were able to easily copy and paste feed URLs and add them to our list of feeds. … Read more

FriendFeed offers 'push' service to Twitter users

Social aggregator FriendFeed has just rolled out a new option for its users to post some or all of their FriendFeed activity over to Twitter.

Earlier on in the start-up's life the functionality was introduced to send replies (via FriendFeed) to other people's Twitter messages. This worked as long as you had plugged in your Twitter credentials to give the app permission to post as you.

This new system is similar to that model, although it can be set to do this for everything you publish to FriendFeed. Users can also select which specific services they'd like … Read more

Daylife goes 'Select' for the non-techies

Daylife, a news aggregation start-up that runs a pretty Web site but makes its money from licensing its software to clients, has launched a new product: Daylife Select. It's a tool for Web sites and online publications to add aggregated news and multimedia content (like YouTube videos, Twitter feeds, and Flickr images) from Daylife without requiring technical expertise.

With a point-and-click interface, participants can insert and place widgets, customize the theme, and even import the CSS design from their own sites. Access to Daylife Select comes along with a subscription to the company's API, which ranges from $10,… Read more

FriendFeed: No more hitting 'reload'

FriendFeed, that "social feed" aggregator that's ubiquitous among the Web 2.0 set, is just so charitable. Instead of forcing procrastinating office drones to hit the "refresh" button on their browsers to see what their friends are doing, it'll do it for you.

The service has launched a new option called "Real-Time View," which is pretty much exactly what you'd think it is, and FriendFeed says that it's "experimental." In other words, there might be bugs. But if it's whirring along too quickly, you can hit the &… Read more

FriendFeed solves noise problem with redesign, duplicate roll-up

On Thursday afternoon social aggregator FriendFeed pushed out its new look to all its users.

Several things have changed since the company launched its beta program late last month, with the biggest being the look and feel of the site, including a change in navigation from the top of the page to the left side. The heart of the service still lies in linking up various sites you use, but as part of the re-design the FriendFeed post box was also given an overhaul with the inclusion of photo hosting.

The biggest change besides the look is one of the … Read more