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Fear of lock-in dampens cloud adoption

Data portability — the ability to move your information between clouds (or in and out of clouds) with relative ease — is a key concern of companies considering a cloud move.

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Martha Stewart: Poor earnings following layoffs, mag closures

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia announced poor third-quarter earnings Friday morning, which did not come as a surprise following the layoffs and magazine closures the company announced Thursday afternoon. Publishing and broadcasting revenues fell significantly, with a bright spot in the merchandising segment.

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Storylane wants to be your newest blogging platform

Storylane is a blogging platform that looks a little like Quora and Tumblr, using attractive design and a simple userface to attack the problem lots of startups have tried to solve: How do you get users to share their stories? The site’s beta product launches Wednesday.

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Chart: US phone companies are losing their voice

Mobile phones and the rise of broadband means that fewer and fewer people need a landline. The baby bells are feeling the impact and here are two charts that highlight this precipitous decline. Of course, cable guys are doing fine, thanks to triple play offers.

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Craigslist’s big bluff

Craigslist this week told users that it can use the classifieds they post as the basis for lawsuits against other sites. The claim appears weak from a legal standpoint and even worse from a public relations one.

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Ze Frank hits Kickstarter goal, new show in March

It took video blogging pioneer Ze Frank less than eight hours to achieve his funding goal of $50,000 on Kickstarter yesterday. Now he’s already working on planing the relaunch of his show, which is currently scheduled to debut at the end of March.

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Feds need to put the fizz in FISMA

Cloud service providers are all rushing to claim compliance with the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002. The only problem is that FedRAMP, the federal effort to ensure a safe move to the cloud, won’t sign off on certifications for three or four more months.

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Bob Galvin, longtime Motorola CEO, passes away

Robert Galvin, the former CEO and chairman of Motorola, passed away today at the age of 89. He took over the reigns of the automotive radio manufacturing company in 1959 and stayed through 1990. He oversaw the development of the first mobile phone among other innovations.

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A dispatch from the new e-commerce front: Facebook

E-commerce is, like, so 2010. These days, all the cool businesses are on to “F-commerce.” And developers are seeing an opportunity to cash in as well. In Austin, veteran web developer Steve Golab has pivoted his entire business to capitalize on Facebook.

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Yahoo News Blog Head Golis Leaves For PBS

Andrew Golis, who was key to Yahoo’s efforts to ramp up the amount of original content it produces, is leaving the company. Golis is heading…

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Where Mirror Worlds and Climate Change Collide

Rock star computer scientist David Gelernter has been credited with predicting the rise of the Internet in the 90s with his book “Mirror Worlds.” Did he foresee a fundamental way to make our systems more efficient and fight climate change, too?

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Shortform Upgrades UI to Enable Video Curation

The video curation site Shortform is launching a new user experience to make the process of creating your own video playlists simpler. There are so far hundreds of “VJs” who use the site to create channels of YouTube videos, around whatever interests or themes strike them.

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Squish Up Jelly Fish Into Solar Cells

While there are a lot easier ways to make solar cells, there’s not as many as bizarre as this one: squishing up jelly fish. Out of Sweden, researchers have discovered a way to use a protein from a common jellyfish to create a solar cell.

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Aster Data Gets New CEO, Founder Switches Roles

Aster Data, a San Carlos, Calif.-based start-up that develops software for big data applications, says it’s replacing its founder-CEO, Mayank Bawa, with software industry veteran Quentin Gallivan, who previously worked for Pivotlink and Postini. Bawa will switch roles and will be company’s chief customer officer.

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BBQ&A: Auditude CRO Gets Grilled (in a Fun Way)

Just in time for the Fourth, Auditude CRO Mike Gaffney shows us his recipe for homemade BBQ sauce and grills up chicken on the bone and three magic words: cheese, filled, sausage. Join us for some summer fun on our new GigaOM TV series BBQ&A.

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OPINION: Home Star, A Smart Investment in Jobs, Innovation

For hundreds of thousands of American construction and manufacturing workers who have been sidelined by the recession, the proposed Home Star program – which now awaits Senate approval – represents a lifeline to good jobs with living wages in a growing 21st-century industry.

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The ACTA Copyright Treaty and Why You Should Care

After years of secrecy, the eighth round of talks aimed at drafting an international treaty known as ACTA recently concluded and a version of the text was subsequently released to the public. But while some might believe it’s time to actively support ACTA, it’s not.

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Is the Tech Sector Blowing Bubbles Again?

Apple’s market cap is edging towards $250 billion, Facebook is being valued at anywhere from $20-$50 billion, game maker Zynga is reportedly worth $5 billion, and VCs are said to be circling startups like Foursquare with offers of $100 million takeouts. Are we inflating another bubble?

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Note from Liz: Home at Last

I went away to Belize and Guatemala last week with intentions of never checking email once. But with free or cheap Internet…

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Time for a Web 2.0 Vulture Fund?

As the current Web 2.0 cycle runs out of steam, we’re going to see the startup equivalent of a brownout. I think there is a real money-making opportunity here, perhaps in the form of a Web 2.0 Vulture Fund — an aggregation of startups with decent technologies that have otherwise failed to get themselves off the ground. Continue Reading

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Outbrain Gets $5 Million

[qi:110]New York-based startup Outbrain has raised $5 million in a Series A funding from Gemini Israel Funds, Lightsteed Venture Partners and Glen…

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Mad Money for mig33

Mobile messaging company mig33 has raised $13.5 million to push its mobile social networking platform into the U.S. After receiving a $10…

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