WordPress' Mullenweg: Users lose in Twitter-Instagram spat

The turf battle between Instagram and Twitter shows the sites have the wrong priorities, said Matt Mullenweg, founder of Automattic and its WordPress.com blogging service.

There's a danger when a company focuses too much on its own properties and pleasing its own advertisers at the expense of giving its users what they need, Mullenweg said here at the LeWeb 2012 show. Those problems are what's afflicted microblogging site Twitter and photo-sharing service Instagram, which Facebook recently acquired.

Twitter has been restricting access to third-party tweeting software and limiting access that third-party companies such as Instagram get to … Read more

U.S. misses early win on Internet regulations

The U.S. and Canada's attempt to limit the International Telecommunication Union's (ITU) regulations to telecom operators has been stalled.

The countries, along with much of Europe, had hoped to stop the United Nations arm from attempting to regulate online companies as talks got under way. However, other countries, led by Russia and some countries in the Middle East, have balked, arguing that regulating the Internet should encompass Web companies.

Reuters was first to report on the talks.

ITU discussions kicked off earlier this week as countries around the world determine the extent to which the Internet should … Read more

YouSendIt CEO: Beware the Silicon Valley bubble

PARIS -- Silicon Valley is famed for its role in nurturing startups, but companies there often suffer problems from not looking beyond the insular region to the rest of the world.

So warned Brad Garlinghouse, chief executive of YouSendIt -- one of those companies in Silicon Valley "echo chamber" -- speaking here at the LeWeb conference.

"The hype factor that has impacted Silicon Valley is an unhealthy thing," Garlinghouse said. "Companies focus more on the hype than building a great experience."

Garlinghouse is a high-profile voice in the echo chamber. Perhaps his greatest claim … Read more

Lord of the Rings slots land Warner Bros. in legal adventure

The estate of J.R.R. Tolkien has embarked on a new quest -- this one in the courtroom.

The Tolkien estate and LOTR book publisher HarperCollins have sued Warner Bros. and other parties, claiming they've breached their contracted agreement to sell merchandise based on the famous book series.

Filed yesterday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, the $80 million lawsuit asserts that a prior agreement allows Warner Bros. to sell only "tangible" merchandise and not digital items, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Also tagged in the suit were Warner's New Line subsidiary and … Read more

Medium hires former literary agent as director of content

Medium, a publishing platform being developed by Twitter co-founder Ev Williams, has hired a director of content.

Williams announced on his company's blog yesterday that Medium has hired Kate Lee, former literary agent at International Creative Management. Lee left her job at ICM in April, after deciding that she wanted to have some time off. She spent 10 years at ICM and focused heavily on bringing blog writers to the book publishing world.

In her new role at Medium, Lee will serve as director of content, a job that will see her "help get great stuff onto Medium,&… Read more

Amazon's Bezos is Fortune's businessperson of the year

Jeff Bezos, who has run Amazon at a loss the past two quarters has been dubbed Fortune's businessperson of 2012.

Amazon's quirky CEO has worried Wall Street by spending heavily on new warehouses and employees for the holiday rush and investing in new business overseas. The spending alone wouldn't be cause for concern had the company been able to turn a profit these days.

After several years in the black, Amazon posted losses over the past two quarters. For the third quarter ended September, the retail giant lost $274 million, compared with a net profit of $63 … Read more

If Windows 8 baffles you, here's some free training

People new to Windows 8 can get a helping hand via a special course from the online training site Lynda.com.

Dubbed Windows 8 Essential Training, the four-hour course is available for free to the public until November 23.

The online course covers a variety of topics, including how to upgrade to Windows 8, how to organize your files and folders, how to print, how to use the Mail app, how to back up your files with File History, and how to use Internet Explorer 10.

People can sign up for the course by "liking" its Facebook page. … Read more

Google asks court to ax book-scanning suit from Authors Guild

Google is trying to convince the courts to throw out a book-scanning lawsuit filed against it by the Authors Guild.

In a brief submitted to the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals last Friday, Google argued that a suit filed on behalf of all authors whose books have been scanned shouldn't be allowed because most authors support the scanning.

Backing up its claim, the company yet again cited a survey that found 58 percent of the authors polled approved of Google scanning their books so the content could be searched online. A full 45 percent said they had … Read more

Reddit's challenge: More users and higher costs

Reddit has seen its user population skyrocket, but that growth is forcing it to spend money to keep up with the flow.

The company revealed its latest traffic stats in a blog posted yesterday.

Last month, Reddit recorded more than 3.8 billion page views and more than 46 million unique visitors. Those page views alone are double what the Web site saw a year ago, according to VentureBeat.

The huge increase in traffic means Reddit has had to add more servers and other equipment and bring in more staff to maintain its site. That raises the question of how … Read more