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With the holidays just around the corner, it's probably time you tried to figure out what to get your friends and family. How about you show them your wish list and they show you theirs?

That's the idea behind LivingSocial, a social Web site that on Monday announced its iPhone application. The social network allows users to access information on the interests of friends and family for gift ideas, as well as to publish photos and reviews. Its arrival on the iPhone could make for a handy on-the-go mobile resource for the holidays.

Just like using the Web site, … Read more

Facebook is known for keeping its cards pretty close to its chest, so to speak. But in recent months, the company has been drumming up its commitment to open source--and on Friday, Facebook announced that a piece of internally created software, called "Scribe," would be released back to the open source community.

So what is Scribe? Well, per a post on Facebook's blog, it's been instrumental in helping Facebook handle the enormous amounts of data that come through its servers. As the page for Scribe says, "If you use the site, you've used … Read more

On today's show, it appears that the person who caused Apple's stock to drop like a stone on reports of a Steve Jobs heart attack was just "doing it for the lulz." So, he didn't even short-sell the stock? Wow. Stupid trolls. Also, Oprah declares the Amazon Kindle her most favoritest gadget of all time. Wow. Kindle for President?

Report: Teen planted fake story about Steve Jobs http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10074401-37.html

Will the Kindle Get an Oprah Bump? http://www.nytimes.com/external/gigaom/2008/10/24/24gigaom-will-the-kindle-get-an-oprah-bump-26376.html… Read more

My CNET colleague Jeff Sparkman tipped me off to an odd twist in the world of Facebook application acquisitions. As of Wednesday night SpeedDate.com, the purveyor of the Web video-based online dating service snatched up the rights to the Oregon Trail Facebook application, which will soon be replaced with the service's existing speed-dating application.

That's right--instead of trying to cross 15-foot wide rivers and avoid dysentery, you'll be looking for love with your Webcam.

Early Thursday, users of the service got a message: "Next week, Oregon Trail's name and functionality will be changed to … Read more

The tale of retail game cards is a pretty amazing one. In a recent interview Rob Goldberg, founder and CEO of GMG Entertainment, a publisher of "digital currency cards" that you see on sale at Target, Safeway and a number of other big-box shops, shed some light on how the market came to be and where it's going in the future.

According to Goldberg, sales of the game cards will be worth $75 million to $100 million this year with an expected run to $500 million by 2010. Interestingly enough, Target was the retailer that figured it out first and convinced Apple to offer iTunes cards.

GMG started in the marketing services working with retailers--specifically Target--but around the same time as that, well, it's not very well known, but it's Target who actually brought the idea of the pre-paid iTunes card to Apple and sold them on that.

The first iTunes cards were co-branded and were exclusive to Target. In terms of retailers in North America who were focused on pre-paid cards for digital entertainment, Target were ahead of the curve.

… Read more

Our reservoir of embarrassing stories about Jeff is bottoming out, so we're happy to welcome his old chums from BeenVerified.com to refill the glass. Josh, Ross, and Jay are ushering in a new generation of background checks for employers and job seekers, but today they're not afraid to use their powers for evil to dish the dirt on our fellow co-host. They also help us weigh in on virtual larceny, the problem with young whippersnappers, how to answer a professional call of doodie, and Josh spouts praise for his favorite luxury gadget: the $5,000 toilet.

We spend the first half of the show talking to the guys about their brand-new company, BeenVerified. They're no strangers to starting innovative sites, and this one is no different. In an age where employers are starting to perform pseudo background checks through social networking sites like FaceBook and MySpace, BeenVerified takes it a step forward and offers a background checking service for employers and job seekers alike. After talking to Josh, Ross, and Jay, we're afraid to see how many skeletons in our respective closets, but here's the beauty of the site: users must approve the release of their information to the public before anyone can see it, so if don't want to be exposed, just say no! Of course, seekers will benefit from being an open book in general, so let that freak flag fly. Best of all, you can apply it to other transactions in your personal life, for example, screening Craigslist meetups, online daters, and nannies. Listen to today's knee-slappin' show and check out the animated short below for more about BeenVerified.

The Obama campaign on Monday announced that it launched Facebook Connect integration on its social network that aims at organizing grassroots campaigns, My.BarackObama.com.

"Starting today, you can connect your Facebook account with your My.BarackObama.com account," a campaign representative said in a statement. "When you do that, you'll be able to find your Facebook friends who are also on My.BarackObama.com. In addition to that, each time that you attend a campaign event or make phone calls for Barack, that information will appear back on Facebook. Your friends will know exactly what … Read more

Motorola, which has been struggling to find a home run hitter to replace its Razr, appears to be gearing up to debut a social-networking smartphone that uses Google's mobile operating system, Android, according to a BusinessWeek report.

Motorola's Android phone, according to the report, is expected to feature a touch screen similar to Apple's popular iPhone, as well as a slide-out QWERTY keyboard that allows users to connect to such social-networking sites as MySpace and Facebook. It is unclear how similar it will be to T-Mobile USA's newly released G1 phone, manufactured by HTC, which also … Read more

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg rarely writes for the company blog, typically taking a byline only when the company is doing some damage control. But on Thursday, the young executive penned a post for the Facebook Blog about his recent trip to Europe, which included a speaking engagement at the Future of Web Apps conference in London.

There's nothing ground-breaking in the post, titled "Hello from Madrid." But considering Zuckerberg is known for keeping to himself, a mild irony for the young fellow who facilitated the sharing of ten billion photos and a cascade of personal … Read more