Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
New Microsoft Commercials Are Live  —  The three new non-Seinfeld commercials, which the New York Times described earlier this week, still don’t talk about Vista features.  But they do try to break the stereotype that cool and interesting people use Macs, and everyone else is on a Windows machine.

Twitter Blog:
Changes Afoot  —  We’re getting ready to launch a refresh of parts of the Twitter.com interface.  This release does not include any new features (well, one).  It’s mostly cosmetic changes.  This post describes what we’re doing and why.  —  Moving the tabs

Bret Taylor / FriendFeed Blog:
New FriendFeed design launched… with an exciting new feature!  —  You might have noticed the new look for FriendFeed.  We’ve been tinkering with a new design for a few weeks, and after spending some time in beta, it’s finally ready for primetime.  —  larger screenshot

Caroline McCarthy / Webware.com:
O’Reilly: Stop throwing sheep, do something worthy  —  NEW YORK—Tim O’Reilly, founder of O’Reilly Media, is known as a futurist, but his keynote address on Thursday morning at the Web 2.0 Expo was heavy on the realism in the wake of sobering news from Wall Street.

Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Sergey Brin Launches A Personal Blog, Talks About His Risk Of Parkinson’s  —  Google Cofounder Sergey Brin launched a personal blog today at too.blogspot.com.  —  In his first blog post, he explains the blog name: “Welcome to my personal blog. … In the second blog post, he gets a little more […]

Kim Zetter / Threat Level:
Palin E-Mail Hacker Says It Was Easy  —  A person claiming to be the hacker who obtained access to Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s private Yahoo e-mail on Tuesday has posted a supposed first-person account of the hack, revealing the relatively simple steps he says he took to crack the private […]

Mark Wilson / Gizmodo:
Microsoft Ads Featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld Not Canceled  —  From a trusted Crispin Porter source, we’ve learned that the internet has jumped the gun and that the Microsoft Gates/Seinfeld ads have not been axed.  It’s true, Microsoft apparently asked the agency to focus on the new “I’m a PC” […]

Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Oracle’s first quarter allays worries  —  Oracle reported first quarter earnings that topped expectations as new software licenses were in line with estimates.  Revenue, however, was light.  —  In a statement Thursday, Oracle said it reported earnings of $1.1 billion, or 21 cents a share (preview).

Rebecca / Electronic Frontier Foundation:
EFF Sues NSA, President Bush, and Vice President Cheney to Stop Illegal Surveillance  —  The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a lawsuit against the National Security Agency (NSA) and other government agencies today on behalf of AT&T customers to stop the illegal, unconstitutional …

Joost:
Notice anything different? … One of the great things about working at a startup is the ability to be flexible and make changes when our users, trends or data suggest a new direction.  For much of the past year, we’ve listened to the feedback we’ve received from many of the people who use Joost […]