Venture capitalist Nick Hanauer, an early investor in Amazon.com and founder of online ad firm aQuantive, is boosting his stake in local search and advertising company Marchex, where he's a board member. An SEC filing today shows Hanauer purchased more than 2.1 million shares of Marchex Class B common stock between Nov. 13, 2007 and Dec. 9, 2008, for more than $23 million. He now holds more than 8.7 percent of the company's Class B common stock.

Seattle startups Picnik.com (online photo editing) and I Can Has Cheezburger (comedy) have been named to the Guardian's list of the top 100 Web sites.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced a $6.9 million pilot grant program to improve internet connections in public libraries. The program will target libraries in Arkansas, California, Kansas, Massachusetts, New York, Texas, and Virginia.

ZDNet has an interesting blow-by-blow account of how online software company Helpstream migrated its data center infrastructure to Amazon Web Services, noting among other things that Helpstream accomplished the move without ever speaking to an Amazon person. A Helpstream executive chronicled the transition on the company blog.

CMC Icos Biologics, a Danish biotechnology drug manufacturer, is curtailing plans for an expansion in Bothell that could have doubled the staff to 250 people, reports Xconomy.

The Stranger's Dan Savage offers his survival tips for daily newspapers, including the use of profanity, giving away newspapers for free downtown and  "Once again here's my surefire plan for saving daily papers: scare away the old folks once and for all. Those readers are killing you."

Seattle schools, which are closed today due to snow, have been using an automated call notification system dubbed SchoolMessenger to notify parents of the closures. But the P-I reports that some parents (who opted in to the system) didn't like the early morning wake up calls, which have been changed to a 6 a.m. from 5:30 a.m. 

A stock analyst warns that Seattle's Blue Nile might miss fourth quarter targets because people aren't buying jewelry and may even be postponing engagements due to the economic uncertainty.

Compete.com says that Amazon.com is attracting more visitors to its Web site this year than last.

Could Microsoft gobble up Adobe? Speculation is growing that the Photoshop maker may get taken out in this downturn, a prediction that Kelly Smith of Curious Office Partners made at a panel I moderated a few weeks ago. "Microsoft can go bargain hunting for other companies that are now half price ... and buy monopolies at half price. For example, what is a monopoly in the tech sector? Adobe.... Microsoft could, basically, take out animation on the Internet, graphic design, Web page development without even blinking an eye."