Stephen Shankland / CNET News:
Al Gore headlining Google event: Google Ocean?  —  Layoffs and other expense controls show that Google isn’t immune to mundane economic realities.  But the company’s cool factor is still intact, judging by the fact that it signed up former Vice President Al Gore to speak at a Google Earth event […]

Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
ComScore: Internet Population Passes One Billion; Top 15 Countries  —  The number of people on the Internet surpassed one billion in December, according to comScore.  The actual number is probably higher than that (Internet World Stats counted nearly 1.5 billion Web surfers worldwide as of June 30, 2008).

Elisabeth Lewin / Podcasting News:
Zune Death Watch: Microsoft Zune Revenues Plummet  —  Microsoft has revealed in a Security and Exchange Commission filing that the company’s Zune revenue in the 4th quarter of 2008 was less than half of what it was the previous year.  —  According to the filing, “Zune platform revenue decreased $100 […]

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Microsoftâs game studios take a beating in layoffs; flight sim studio closure confirmed  —  Amid the news that Microsoft is laying off 5,000 people over the next 18 months, sources report that the game division has taken its share of the beating.  —  Gamasutra reports …

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat:
Microsoft’s game studios take a beating in layoffs; flight sim studo closure confirmed  —  Amid the news that Microsoft is laying off 5,000 people over the next 18 months, sources report that the game division has taken its share of the beating.  —  Gamasutra reports that the Flight Simulator studio … […]

Verizon:
February 1: Verizon Wireless Reimagines The Home Phone  —  Innovative Verizon Hub Helps Manage Busy Lives and Helps Users Stay Connected to Family and Community  —  BASKING RIDGE, NJ — In a dynamic move sure to rattle devotees of plain old home phones, Verizon Wireless will introduce the new Verizon Hub on Feb. 1.

Chris Ziegler / Engadget Mobile:
AT&T dropping unlimited data and messaging to $30  —  Info’s flowing fast and furious on this whole MEdia Net thing now, and it turns out that there’s more than just a name change involved.  MEdia Basic, MEdia Works, MEdia Max 200, and MEdia Net 1MB are all going away (one […]

Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Facebook Now Nearly Twice The Size Of MySpace Worldwide  —  In November 2008 Facebook drew 200 million unique worldwide visitors; more than 1 in 5 people who accessed the Internet that month visited the site.  When sites are that big growth generally stagnates, but in Facebook’s case it’s still skyrocketing.

Caroline McCarthy / The Social:
Facebook now twice as big as MySpace?  Oh boy  —  The blogosphere’s love affair with Facebook-MySpace traffic wars just won’t stop.  —  On Thursday, TechCrunch posted new statistics from ComScore that show Facebook now pulling in nearly twice as many unique visitors worldwide as its News Corp.-owned competitor.

Steve Lacey / Random Thoughts:
the end of an era - flight sim is no more  —  It really does appear that Microsoft has shutdown the ACES game studio and axed the entire staff.  A lot of my friends are now looking for something else to do…  Microsoft Flight Simulator is dead. … It started […]