TechJournal

The iPhone is now the second best selling mobile handset in the US according to NDP.  the market research firm says that the iPhone is second to the Moto RAZR V3 in terms of sales in the US.  Moreover, the introduction of the iPhone 3G boosted the sales of the iPhone and gained it 17% market share.

The good news for Apple does not stop there.  Also according to the report, the iPhone is now also the best selling smartphone in the US market.  Sales of the iPhone from June to August this year's surpassed the sales of the Blackberry Curve, Blackberry Pearl and Palm Centro.

"The launch of the lower-priced iPhone 3G was a boon to overall consumer smartphone sales," said Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis for The NPD Group. "While the original iPhone also helped win customers for AT&T. The faster network speeds of the iPhone 3G has proven more appealing to customers that already had access to a 3G network." ...more

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Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media announced earlier today their completion of another venture capital round worth $4.5 million.   Giga Omni Media is the online media company Malik started with his GigaOm technology blog 27 months ago.

The new venture capital round was led by Alloy Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm with over $1 billion under management.  Also participating in the round were GigaOm's previous investor True Ventures.  Angel investors of the company gave the go-ahead for both rounds.

The new funds will be used to expand Giga Omni Media's expansion as well as enhancement of their Technology platform, content offerings, and their portfolio of  publications, and their Events and Briefings businesses. ...more

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Bankaholic a blog on the  finance sector has been acquired by financial information service provider Bankrate for a whopping $15million.

Bankaholic is a one man blog written by John Wu and he keeps most of the $15million.

In the midst of the economic gloom the US is facing right now, this exit for Bankaholic is fantastic.  Not only did it not need an exit, it got a great payout.  However it's unclear why BankRate paid so much but with the economy dying, desperation drives anybody crazy. ...more

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Video streaming startup Qik has scored a major deal with Nokia.  They are announcing that the Qik client will be preloaded on, for now, the newly launched Nokia 5800 xpressmusic phone, the latest iPhone competitor.

Qik allows users to stream live video recordings directly from their phones over Wi-Fi or high-speed data networks, effectively turning the phone into a "mobile television studio".  

We are so excited to be a part of the new Nokia 5800 XpressMusic device launch that was announced earlier today. Qik will be available on the device directly from the Download! folder enabling owners of this WiFi enabled, touchscreen Nokia 5800 XpressMusic to get qikking right away. ...more

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Facebook Apps developed on the fbOpen Software Development Kit are now portable to use on the Friendster platform.

Facebook may be the leading social network in the US but in different countries different social networks are used by the majority.  For example in Brazil, they prefer to use Orkut, Google's Social Network.  In Asia, the social network of choice is Friendster.

Friendster reaches about 60 million users across Asia making them the biggest social network in the region that has the fastest expanding growth of internet users between the age of 10 and 20.  This makes them the ideal platform to distribute small social apps where developers could make some money.   This is why Friendster, like Facebook, released an SDK for third party developers. ...more

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Let's face it, the economic situation in the US is not looking too good.  The closure of the Lehman Brothers and other mortgage firms on Wall Street are good indications of the turmoil the US faces and across the country in Silicon Valley, technology firms aren't spared.

Yahoo has seen brighter days before and it looks like this year is not turning out too good for them.  After the whole Microhoo fiasco back in the spring that dragged all through the summer, Yahoo's stock has dipped well below the $20 mark and even below their value when Microsoft initially offered to buy them out.   Now with the economic crisis in Wall Street, Yahoo's forecast is grim and the only way to get by is by cost cutting.

Silicon Alley Insider is reporting that layoffs are on the drawing board following an earlier report on Jerry Yang's memo to Yahoo employees on shaping up. ...more

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Apple has announced some good news today in a compromise to open a part of its development to others.

Apple has a notorious history of being such a closed system that the software development kit for the iPhone mobile platform was one of the most radical things it has ever done in its entire history.  However, even opening the iPhone application development platform, developers are still required to sign a non-disclosure agreement wherein they cannot tell anyone anything about the app before, during and after its development.

That all changes today.  In a statement released on the iPhone Developer Program home page, Apple announces and explains the new terms of the Non Disclosure Agreement. ...more

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There are millions of blogs around the web covering virtually every topic known to man.  This is where blog search engines like Technorati thrive.  For different niches of blogs there are also other successful trackers or memetrackers, that analyze blog posts to determine what web pages are being discussed or cited most often on the web.   Examples of these memetrackers for technology blogs are Techmeme and Slashdot.   Of course there are also memetrackers for virtually every topic, most of them are socially driven where users vote on articles and bump them up to the front page like Digg and Reddit.

Google also has its own blog search but since they were too busy on their mainstream search, they have not taken advantage of the memetracking model, until now.  Google Blog Search  has redesigned their home page and it uncannily looks like Techmeme.

"Today, we're pleased to launch a new homepage for Google Blog Search so that you too can browse and discover the most interesting stories in the blogosphere. Adapting some of the technology pioneered by Google News, we're now showing categories on the left side of the website and organizing the blog posts within those categories into clusters, which are groupings of posts about the same story or event. Grouping them in clusters lets you see the best posts on a story or get a variety of perspectives. When you look within a cluster, you'll find a collection of the most interesting and recent posts on the topic, along with a timeline graph that shows you how the story is gaining momentum in the blogosphere." [Official Google Blog] ...more

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Dell Computers will now be available with a preloaded movie when you buy them.   Initially the only movie they are preloading is 'Iron Man'.

Dell and Paramount Pictures are in this promotion together.  However it's  unclear what they are trying to achieve.  According to Dell, they want people to get used to the idea of digital films on their computers.   'Iron Man' is the initial offering but Dell plans to expand this concept to preloading movies of customer's choice when purchasing their new computer.  Moreover, they're also thinking of putting up a service competing with Apple iTunes and this is the first step.

The whole promotion is vague, unclear and from some views absurd.  First thing, nobody buys a computer for a movie.  Second, the movie is not even free, oh yes, to have the movie preloaded on the brand new PC, there's a $20 fee on top of the $1200 for the purchase of the PC.  Third, DRM. ...more

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