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It’s hard to change heavily used sites. A 2001 Hotmail revamp triggered complaints, then a 2006 Hotmail redesign caused enough problems that Microsoft reverted to classic mode by default.

Microsoft said there was indeed warning. “Hotmail customers were notified of these changes beginning in early September,” the company said, before the changes started going live on September 22. “The team sent out e-mails and posted ads in advance, which highlighted the upcoming changes to t

The site was inspired by the fact that, according to the U.S. Census, 20 percent of registered voters who did not vote in 2004 said they were too busy, making that the top reason for eligible voters to miss Election Day.

Technology CEOs and other business leaders are taking to YouTube to encourage their employees to tear themselves away from their desks for an hour on November 4 to go vote.

VoteHour.org, launched by Google, features about two doz

OpenX CEO Tim Cadogan

“This is some pretty phenomenal growth,” crowed Chief Executive Tim Cadogan, a former Yahoo search and advertising executive.

(Credit:
OpenX)

More than 10,000 customers installed version 2.6 of the OpenX software since its July release. The company plans to release 2.7 into beta testing soon, a version that will add a plug-in system that will enable customers to customize the software with specific modules for tasks such as specific target

In the TechCrunch ghetto (the “Demo Pit,” where those that didn’t make the cut gather onstage), there are several interesting companies showing off their products. We’ll be covering a few of them over the course of this conference.

The demo I saw was limited (Abraham Lincoln), but the model is good. The revenue model is aimed at getting consumers to interact with branded personas: the Geico gecko, for example. Prolific bloggers might also benefit from a personality surrogate. The

As you may recall, part of a proposal for the book, tentatively titled Face Off, was leaked to gossip blog Gawker and launched a mini-firestorm because of some supposed inaccuracies–not to mention the fact that it doesn’t look like the book will portray Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in the most positive light. It implied that the book, reportedly worth a seven-figure advance, would depict Zuckerberg as a hard-partying social climber who founded Facebook in his undergraduate days at H

Nvidia has been in the throes of a minor stock meltdown. On July 2, Nvidia announced a one-time charge of $150 million to $200 million to cover warranty, repair, return, replacement costs connected to weak die/packaging material in laptop graphics chip products. Then on Thursday, July 3, shares plunged $5.54, or just over 30 percent, and closed at $12.49. And share prices have continued to fall–though how much of the post-30-percent drop can be attributed to the weak stock mark

“A whole industry could be created just to provide forms” for the process, he said. “This is insane.”

Lawmakers and health care representatives also asked the HISPC to clarify why privacy issues were such a critical part of maintaining electronic health records.

Creating such a network, however, is a dizzying prospect bogged down by conflicting state laws regarding privacy and patient consent, policymakers acknowledged Tuesday at a conference of the National Governors

A Photosynth view of the CNN Center in Atlanta, Ga., retrieved with Microsoft's Live Search Maps.

Photosynth stitches multiple images together into a 3D view, and people can in effect gaze around from a virtual vantage point. Areas with Photosynth views can be shown in the “explore collections” view of a map that also lets people see photos and other additions to a map.

I found the feature easy to use–even the Photosynth installation that had given

“We run an extensive global people search resource, and have gathered a lot of public data about what people look for and how they act on that information,” Yasni founder and CEO, Steffen Ruehl said in a statement.

In an attempt to be more than a search site, Yasni also features a VIP Rank, which ranks each registered user based on the amount of search data available on them. And for those who search for a person and Yasni fails to deliver any results, the company has

Yahoo’s “executive exodus” has been well-documented, with dwindling search share and a disastrous takeover bid from Microsoft dampening employee morale.

Another high-level Yahoo employee has left the building: Valeh Vakili, director of U.S. sales operations, will join News Corp.’s MySpace as senior vice president of sales strategy and operations.

MySpace announced in July the hiring of five new vice presidents, two of whom came from Yahoo–but at the same time un