"We could probably have a more open discussion with Kim Jong-il about North Korea's nuclear policy," says developer Marco Arment (of Tumblr and Instapaper) in his story on Cnet's Business Insider. This is among among the kinder words he has ina long litany of complaint about the way Apple treat iPhone developers. The main complaint is that Apple stands between the developers and their customers. He calls Apple a "brick wall," though he does fail to mention that if it weren't for the App Store the developers would not have a fraction of the customers they do …

Search competitors have come and gone during the years, but Microsoft's new Bing, which made its debut last week and quickly grabbed the spotlight thanks to an $80 million ad campaign, has reportedly grabbed the attention of Google. According to the Post, cofounder Sergey Brin has assembled a team to decode Bing and design immediate upgrades for Google's search engine. A Google spokesman refused to comment on Bing specifically, but told the Post: "We always have a team working on improving search. We dedicate more time and energy to search than anything else in our company. Our …

According to insiders, Very Short List, IAC's answer to Daily Candy, has been sold to Jared Kushner, the young real estate tycoon and owner of The New York Observer. The deal evidently went down sometime last week, as many of the VSL staff was told to pack their things Thursday night, as the Observer staff -- or what's left of it after a recent round of painful layoffs -- will now be running the show. IAC's Barry Diller started VSL after seeing the money being made by Daily Candy, the daily e-mail that provides daily shopping tips. …

As Iran attempts to block mainstream media from reporting on the unrest there following a disputed presidential election, millions are finding there is news still to be had via Twitter, YouTube, photo blogs and other social media that is not so easily blocked. The BBC lists the various places people can find news about Iran on the Web. The Huffington Post is live blogging the situation; users are creating groups with updates on Facebook; Tehranlive.org is a photoblog that is updating hourly; and of course Twitter users are adding Iran hash tags to make updates easy to …

More than 3 million Facebook users registered for usernames in the first 12 hours after the social network allowed them to create easy-to-find, personalized Web pages, the company said. "It's rewarding to see so many people are interested in getting a user name," Facebook spokesman Larry Yu said yesterday in a telephone interview with Bloomberg. While traffic to the site was higher than usual, he said the introduction of the feature went smoothly. The idea behind the new names and addresses is to simplify locating friends on the site. Previously the URL for one's …

Village Voice Media is launching a niche ad network called Voice Local Network consisting of local blogs and content sites that share its indie sensibility. The company owns 15 alternative weeklies across the U.S. The network is already under way, as ads for sites such as Eater.com, real-estate focused Curbed.com and shopping site Racked.com have been sold in recent weeks. Other sites such as Wolfgangsvault.com, which traffics in vintage music; checkoutmyink.com, a tattoo site; and LikeMe.net, which helps users find food and music options based on others' recommendations; are also part of the network. …

YouTube on Thursday announced that it would now supporting Facebook Connect. The partnership would allow users who are signed into both services to publish and share videos they upload to YouTube directly to Facebook. As AllFacebook's Nick O'Neill says, "it's interesting to see a Google owned company take advantage of Facebook Connect considering the company's investment in making their other social standards more widespread." Separately, online video provider Joost reported that since implementing Facebook Connect in December, the average Facebook user has watched 30% more videos and has entered 15% more comments. "The message is clear," O'Neill …