Mashable - Mashable is proud to present the fourth annual Mashable Awards (formerly known as Open Web Awards). The Mashable Awards celebrate major innovations and achievements in the digital and social media landscape by companies, people and projects via an open, multilingual, international, community-nominated voting platform. Millions of votes will be cast in 25 categories ranging from “Best New Gadget” to “Best Music Discovery Service” to “Must-Follow Brand.” Following three months of competition, the Mashable Awards Gala will kick off the 2011 International CES convention week on January 6, 2011 at Cirque du Soleil’s Zumanity stage in Las Vegas. The venue capacity is 1,200+ and the event will be streamed live. Tickets are now on sale exclusively through Eventbrite. For sponsorship opportunities, please contact sponsorships at Mashable.

Mashable - This series is brought to you by HTC EVO 4G, America's first 4G phone. Only from Sprint. The "First to Know" series keeps you in the know on what's happening now in the world of social media and technology.

Digital Trends - Headphones used to be the realm of audio nerds and vinyl collectors, but the digital music revolution has brought headphones to the masses…and made the masses aware that most consumer headphones are pretty awful. Harman is the latest to jump on the celebrity-endorsed headphone bandwagon, but instead of banking on pop stars like Lady Gaga, Harmon is adding a touch of cool to the mix, announcing its Quincy Jones Signature Line of headphones by AKG.

AP - A federal appeals court has found Eminem's former production company is entitled to more money from downloads of the rapper's songs and ringtones.

Investor's Business Daily - The search giant is in talks with music labels on plans for a download store and a digital song locker that would let its mobile phone users play songs wherever they are. Google (NMS:GOOG) hopes to launch the service by Christmas, according to sources. Google is trying to compete with Apple, which dominates via its iTunes Music Stores, accounting for 70% of all U.S. digital music sales. It rose 1.5% to 470.30.

PC World - It's the kind of ironic story that news editors find irresistible. Apple makes big announcement about a social network for music lovers. When music lovers go hunting for the service, they end up in some Internet backwater. They like what they find there and the little guy gets a boost in business thanks to the big guy's big marketing budget.

PC World - Behold the King of music, circa 2010. We aren't talking about Elvis here. Apple's iPod still reigns supreme. And judging from the impressive new crop of iPods announced this week along with an update to iTunes, Apple 's dominance of the digital music world seems solid -- at least for now.

Mashable - Apple this week launched Ping, a new social network that runs within the iTunes software.

Mashable - iTunes Ping is apparently full of spam, yet another hiccup in Apple's road to establishing a legitimate social network.

Digital Trends - If Bill and Ted were able to jump back in time and convince John Logie Baird (the man arguably responsible for transmitting the first moving image back in 1925) to return with them to the present day in their telephone-booth time machine, Baird would likely be baffled and shocked by the long, strange, evolutionary twists to video that have resulted in the rise of the viral video clip.  Then he would probably laugh himself sick when he saw his wonderful technology being used to capture that most personal and hilarious of moments when a guy gets hit in the junk, or a fat guy sings a techno song.

Macworld.com - As you’re aware, Apple just released iTunes 10. With that release has come some changes—both expected and not so.

Reuters - Google Inc is in talks with music labels on plans for a download store and a digital song locker that would allow its mobile users to play songs wherever they are as it steps up its rivalry with Apple Inc., according to people familiar with the matter.

PC World - Ping is Apple's music-centric social network that is integrated into iTunes 10. From a privacy standpoint, it's pretty straightforward--as opposed to Facebook's multitude of privacy settings--but then again, Ping is also very limited as to what services it offers. In either case, here's a quick run-down of the privacy features present in Ping.

Reuters - Google Inc is in talks with music labels on plans for a download store and a digital song locker that would allow its mobile users to play songs wherever they are as it steps up its rivalry with Apple Inc, according to people familiar with the matter.

Macworld.com - Looking to catch the most recent season of Lost, but don’t want to succumb the baggage of having to buy a bunch of episodes that you’ll only watch once? Relax, friend, because if you’re an iTunes 10 user, you can now rent TV shows from the comfort of your very own…computer.

Mashable - Late last evening, Apple released iTunes 10 and its new Ping social network to the public. Assuming you were able to access the service, you may have noticed the ability to add friends via Facebook Connect, a feature we mentioned in our first-impressions post last night.

PC Magazine - Apple wants the new iTunes social network to be the Facebook of music.

PC World - Apple's big overhaul of iTunes, announced Wednesday, turns the media management software into a fledgling social network thanks to a newly introduced feature called Ping. I would have expected more from Apple with this first attempt at building a community around iTunes. It's not all bad, but if Ping doesn't improve soon this music-oriented social network will bomb faster than an American Idol wannabe.

PC World - If you yearn for the days of yore when mythical devices known as cassette tapes ruled the land, you’re in luck: A design company called Homade has created Tuned Up, a plastic cassette case for the iPhone. Instead of containing magnetic tape with sound recordings, the silicon cover envelops your Cupertino-designed 3G, 3GS, or 4G phone while you listen to digital tunes.