Daily Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

Microsoft has just pushed live its Release Candidate for Internet Explorer 8, the latest update to the world’s most widely used web browser. You can download it here. Unfortunately the release is only for Windows Vista, XP, and Server – if you’re trying out Windows 7 you’ll have to wait for the next OS update to try out the RC. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/26/microsofts-ie8-release-candidate-is-live 1/26)

Twenty-four of this year’s Oscar-nominated films are already available in DVD quality on the Internet, according to independent programmer Andy Baio. This is the highest percentage of Oscar contenders to appear online since he began tracking them six years ago. (hIwantmedia 1/26, ttp://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10149360-93.html 1/23)

Twitter, which just recently turned down a half billion dollar acquisition offer from Facebook (albeit to be paid mostly with Facebook stock), is dipping back into the venture capital market, Techcrunch has heard from a source with knowledge of the deal. They’ve signed a term sheet with at least one venture fund to raise a new round at a $250 million valuation. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/24/twitter-raising-new-cash-at-250-million-valuation 1/24)

While 2008 was Twitter’s hockey-stick year, Twitter’s little brother FriendFeed is also beginning to show hockey-stick tendencies in its growth. According to comScore, FriendFeed attracted 950,000 unique visitors worldwide in December. That’s a tenfold increase since June, when comScore counted only 93,000 unique visitors worldwide (and nearly double since September, when it was 550,000). (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/25/friendfeed-hits-nearly-one-million-users-grew-tenfold-in-the-past-six-months 1/25)

After watching your share of this year’s Oscar nominees, you might find yourself following the time-honored tradition of renting every tangentially related film in the hopes of finding something else just as good. Type in Slumdog Millionaire or The Wrestler, and Netflix will offer up recommendations that are “more like this.” But if you are looking for quirkier recommendations, the kind that you’d find at your local independent video store, then head on over to Clerkdogs. The human-curated movie recommendation site has an OscarMatch feature that suggests 400 films similar to this year’s crop of Oscar nominees. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/26/clerkdogs-has-your-oscarmatch-quirky-movie-recommendations-you-wont-find-on-netflix 1/26)