Chrome Celebrates 2nd Anniversary with New Stable Version

Chris Crum — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:17:02 -0400

Google announced today that it is releasing a new stable version of Chrome, which the company says is even faster and more streamlined. In fact, Google claims it is three times faster on JavaScript performance than it was two year ago, when Chrome was first launched (it's the two-year anniversary, by the way).

"We've also been working on simplifying the 'chrome' of Chrome," says product manager Brian Rakowski. "As you can see, we took the already minimalist user interface and stripped it down a bit more to make it easier to use. We combined Chrome’s two menus into one, revisited the location of the buttons, cleaned up the treatment of the URL and the Omnibox, and adjusted the color scheme of the browser to be easier on the eyes."

"As always, we’re hard at work on making Chrome even faster, and working on ways to improve graphics performance in the browser through hardware acceleration," adds Rakowski. "With the Chrome Web Store, we hope to make it much easier to find and use great applications on the web. We also ratcheted up the pace of our releases so that we can get new features and improvements to everyone more quickly."

The new stable version can be downloaded here. Google has a list of all stable and beta channel updates here.

If you're more interested in the fact that it is Chrome's 2nd birthday, you can get more reflection on how far the browser has come in those two short years by reading this celebratory post from Google.

Americans Have A Love-Hate Relationship With Their Cell Phones

Mike Sachoff — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:16:42 -0400

Texting by American adults has increased significantly over the past year, but still does not approach the level of text messages exchanged by young people, according to a new report from Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Nearly three quarters (72%) of adult cell phone users send and receive text messages now, up from 65 percent in September 2009. The majority (87%) of teen cell users text. Teens text 50 messages a day on average, five times more than the typical 10 text messages sent and received by adults per day.

The majority of African Americans and English-speaking Hispanics own cell phones compared to 80 percent of whites. Twelve percent of African American and 14 percent of English-speaking Hispanics make and receive more than 30 calls a day on their mobile phones. Four percent of whites report placing and receiving that many calls. African American and Hispanic texters typical send and receive 10 texts a day; whites who text typically send and receive 5 texts a day.

“Texting among adults has reached the mainstream and the charge is being lead by African-Americans, Hispanics and young adults,” said Amanda Lenhart, Senior Research Specialist at the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and author the report.

“Of course, none of these adult groups hold a candle to teens when it comes to texting, who swamp adults in messages sent per day by a factor of 5.”

For all of their enthusiasm for texting and talking on their cells, Americans have mixed feelings about the role of the mobile phone in their lives. Most cell users report that their cell phone makes them feel safer (91%), and that they appreciate the way it allows them to arrange plans with family and friends (88% agree.) But mobile phone users also report that they get irritated when a call or text interrupts them (42%) and that they find it rude when others check their phones repeatedly during meetings or conversations (86%).

Other highlights of the report include:

*65% of American adults with cell phones sleep with their phone on or right next to their bed.

*57% of adults with cells report receiving unwanted or spam text messages on their phone.

*90% of parents have a cell phone compared with 72% of adults without children under 18 at home.

Dell Appears to Lose 3PAR to HP

Chris Crum — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 10:57:35 -0400

Update 2: It looks like Dell has lost the bidding war for 3PAR after all. The company issued a release saying it has ended discussions and will recieve a $72 million break-up fee from 3PAR. This comes after 3PAR accepted an increased bid from HP of $2.4 billion.

Update: Following the below news, HP and Dell got into a bidding war for 3PAR, but according to TechCrunch, 3PAR has accepted the latest offfer from Dell for $27 per share in cash, or approximately $1.8 billion.

Original Article: Dell announced that it is acquiring virtualized storage solutions provider 3PAR for $1.15 billion. Dell says the acquisition will enable its customers to take advantage of the "virtual era" and cut data management costs by as much as 50%.

"We have aligned our storage offerings over the last several years to provide our customers choice and value," said Brad Anderson, Dell SVP, Enterprise Product Group. "3PAR brings the same values of performance, agility and ease-of-use to higher end, virtualized storage deployments as EqualLogic does for the entry-level and mid-range, rounding out our industry-leading solutions portfolio."

"3PAR has consistently provided customers with the ability to do more with less," said 3PAR President and CEO David Scott. "With Dell we combine a powerful, virtualized storage platform with an outstanding distribution network to deliver this value to an even broader set of customers."

The transaction has been approved by both boards of directors. Some analysts are saying Dell overpaid for 3Par, and the Street calls the acquisition a "shrewd move".

After closing, Dell plans to maintain and invest in additional engineering and sales resources for 3PAR. The company has no plans to move the current operations.

Just How Concerned with Privacy Are Facebook Users?

Chris Crum — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 10:53:59 -0400

PeopleBrowsr shared a rather interesting report with us this week, looking at privacy related tweets during the center of this year's Facebook "privacy storm." The firm studied the public's reaction to Facebook's open graph-related announcements that set off the majority of the Facebook privacy controversy back in April.

Are you concerned for your privacy as a Facebook user? Let us know.

The report specifically compares the general public's (or at least the portion that uses Twitter) thoughts about Facebook privacy with the media sensationalism around the story. The firm studied tweets with references to privacy, along with other keywords like Facebook, Open Graph, Zuckerberg, and Google.

"We are the last generation to know privacy as it was," says Brian Solis, Chief Data Analyst for PeopleBrowsr. "As Facebook moves human connections and society into a more public spotlight, people and the press will push back. But this will move things forward collaboratively. Over time I believe the debate will evolve into a series of productive forums and memes that explore the risks of living in public and the rewards for participation."

Some of PeopleBrowsr's findings from the study:

- Prior to the F8 conference on April 24, privacy tweets hovered between 1,000-3,000 references per day, then spiked to 9,000 on the day of F8

- On April 25 (day after the conference), privacy-related tweets fell to 3,500 – then surged to 7,500 when politicians joined the fray. Around May 25, privacy discussions hit the ceiling in this study with 20,000 unique discussions.

- In terms of context, Facebook dominated the landscape for mentions of #privacy

- Conversations followed media reports

"We see that even on the day when privacy took center stage, the media sensationalized the topic. But the public, at least those on Twitter, did not flood the streets with 140 character picket signs. 9,000 tweets does not seem to account for the millions of Twitter users or the 500 million people who have Facebook accounts," says Solis.

That last statement is true on a couple of different levels. For Solis' purpose it does not appear to indicate that the majority of Facebook users were that concerned. However, it is also worth noting that the majority of Facebook users are not necessarily active Twitter users. Facebook has over 500 million people. It's not a flawless argument, and the findings should be taken with a grain of salt like any such study. That said, Twitter is generally viewed as a good indication of public opinion, as trending topics often reflect pop culture and news at large. If there is something significant happening, you can generally find people talking about it on Twitter.

Besides, Facebook's numbers continued to grow. Diaspora (the "Facebook alternative") will be here soon. I'm willing to bet that will have little impact on Facebook's growth as well.

Do you think the privacy discussion around Facebook was overblown? Share your thoughts.

Kobo Emerges as the E-Reading App for the Samsung Galaxy Tab

Chris Crum — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 10:52:37 -0400

Samsung has unveiled its Galaxy Tab tablet device, and Kobo announced that it is supplying the e-reader technology for it.

"After much speculation, the new Samsung GALAXY Tab has just been announced by Samsung’s CEO in Berlin, and Kobo is THE eReading application powering the 'Readers Hub' on the new Android tablet," says Kobo. "This partnership is an industry first for Kobo and Samsung, offering the first eReading experience on an Android Tablet to readers worldwide."

"This is a HUGE WIN for Kobo!" the company proclaims. "Samsung is a global leader - a world class organization that touches billions of consumers worldwide. The GALAXY Tab is an amazing device and will be a real contender in the marketplace as consumers everywhere adopt tablets. To have been selected as THE eReading application that powers the 'Readers Hub' on this device is simply incredible."

The announcement comes at a time when not only is the competition heating up in the tablet space, but it's also heating up in the e-reading space, led by Amazon's Kindle, which offers apps on other platforms as well as its own. This is going to be another space (in addition to the connected-TV space) to keep a close eye on over the next year or so.

Kobo's store has over 2.2 million popular titles, including new releases and 1.8 million free books. The company also says its adding thousands more each week. Apple announced yesterday that it has 35 million books in iTunes.

AP Updates Attribution Guidelines, Links Not Mentioned

Chris Crum — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 10:07:53 -0400

The Associated Press has revealed some new guidelines for its reporters with regards to credit and attribution. The guidelines come in the form of a letter from AP Senior Managing Editor Mike Oreskes.

The guidelines apply to AP reports in print, broadcast, and online news, and stress the importance of giving proper attribution to other publications that break stories.

"We should provide attribution whether the other organization is a newspaper, website, broadcaster or blog; whether or not it's U.S. based; and whether or not it's an AP member or subscriber," writes Oreskes. "This policy applies to all reports in all media, from short pieces, such as NewsNows and initial broadcast reports, to longer pieces aimed at print publication."

Oreskes says attribution doesn't have to be at the beginning of a story, and that sometimes it can be two or three paragraphs down.

"If some information comes from another organization and some is ours, we should credit ourselves for what's ours and the other organization for what's theirs," he writes, adding that if material from another source turns out to be wrong, that will be cited in corrections later.

While stressing the importance of attribution, he does also make a note of telling reporters not to use other sources so much that it appears they're "free riding" on another organization's work, and stresses matching or further development of the story.

What is not mentioned once in the guidelines is the word "link". There is no mention of linking whatsoever. It is unclear whether linking is included it in the proper attribution described or whether they deem simple credit to be sufficient. While obviously you can't link in print or broadcast (one reason why online content is more valuable to readers), linking has become commonly looked upon as necessary to attribution in online news, so those who deserve credit for breaking a story can in turn get traffic to that story.

The letter does say that it will continue to use "information from" lines with URLs, but that attribution should be in the body of the story as well. However, it is unclear whether or not this attribution will actually include links.

It will be interesting to see how the AP proceeds in this regard. Without links, the organization is setting itself up for a great deal of criticism.

Does Facebook Face A Google-Like Issue With "Like Farms" and "Like Buying"?

Chris Crum — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 10:03:30 -0400

Facebook may be going through some of the growing pains that Google went through earlier in its life. Google has always had to deal with link farms and link buying, polluting its search results, and has gotten better and better at keeping this under control over the years.

Now that Facebook "liking" is taking the place of linking in many cases, Facebook may have a similar issue on its hands. Like farms and like buying aren't entirely new concepts, but since Facebook's developer conference, where it unleashed the open graph and social plugins like "like" buttons all over the web, they have become more of an issue, and will probably continue to do so unless Facebook does something about it.

Would you buy "likes" if you could significantly increase your exposure? Comment here.

Why would you buy likes?

When a user "likes" a piece of content, it shows up in their friends' news feeds. The more friends they have, the more people that "like" will be exposed to. The more friends a person has, however, and the quality of those friends, may place more value on those "likes" from the perspective of those doing the buying. The problem with this, is that those same factors that increase that value may also affect how Facebook provides its search results, and Facebook is going to want to improve that search experience, particularly as competition with Google (in general) heats up.

Farming Likes

A couple months ago, AllFacebook had a pair of articles taking a deep look into the gaming of Facebook search results and the rise of the like farm. The topic has been brought up again this week by Nick Saint at Silicon Alley Insider.

"Basically, these sites are enabling the equivalent of Twitter hash tag jokes on Facebook; people see funny sentences pop up in their streams, and indicate their approval by liking them," writes Saint. "This is the Facebook equivalent of retweeting, since all of your friends are notified that you liked the blurb. Many of these entries have been liked by tens of thousands of users, all of whose friends see the updates, which links to the sites, so this is no doubt generating non-negligible ad revenue despite requiring zero effort on the part of the sites' creators. The biggest we've seen, Likey.net, is already seeing over a million uniques per month."

"Once an update has enough likes, it can spread entirely on Facebook," adds Saint. "But to get the process started, someone has to have gone to the site and submitted it in the first place. It's hard to say why -- unlike on Twitter, the original poster of these updates isn't referenced or credited in any way. And the sites look and feel extremely spammy. At least one of them has already been flagged as an attack site by Google, though it's not clear whether the site is itself malicious, or merely the target of third-party attacks."

Like farms stand to have implications on Facebook's search functionality, and Facebook's share of the search market stands to grow along with the proliferation of Facebook itself - not necessarily to Google-like proportions, but for certain kinds of searches - and with Pages becoming more heavily marketed (not to mention the potential of Places), people will search for businesses on Facebook.

"While users are mostly searching Facebook for their friends currently, users will begin to search for more generic topics as Facebook slowly changes user behavior," wrote AllFacebook's Nick O'Neill back in June. "Right now, showing up for the phrase 'discount travel' won't necessarily benefit you, however as Facebook improves their search product and users begin to understand that they can search for things other than their friends, ranking high on various keywords will become increasingly important."

"In the meantime, the numerous 'like farms' that are spamming Facebook with random quotes and phrases (like Likey.net, LikeItPage, and others) will continue to proliferate until Facebook develops a system that determine which add value and which are just spam generators," added O'Neill.

Back to Like Buying

As far as "like buying" is concerned, it's a similar situation. This has the potential to hurt the Facebook user experience, and if Facebook were to penalize Pages similar to how Google does, it could make a big impact.

Inc. just ran a story about how Google cost Ryan Abood's GourmetHandBaskets.com $4 million by penalizing the site for link buying right before the holidays. As Facebook becomes one of the main marketing vehicles of the web, much like Google has been for years (despite the differences in how the two sites operate), it is a situation that his going to have to be looked at and assessed.

Right now, it's unclear what Facebook's policies are on things like "like farms" and "like buying". We've reached out to the company for comment, and will update when we receive it. The point is that Facebook isn't just a way for college kids to look at pictures of each other anymore. People are counting on it for business, and how delicate situations like these are handled will be crucial to operations. Unfortunately, Facebook doesn't have the greatest track record for handling delicate situations.

Facebook likes and Twitter retweets have replaced links in many instances. That's not to say that links are dead by any means, but a lot of people will simply retweet a piece of content or "like" it, rather than blog about it and link to it. This "cannibalizes" the link graph from the search perspective, as Rand Fishkin and our own Mike McDonald discussed a while back, and that makes Facebook and Twitter even more important to pay attention to from the marketing perspective - when some of that juice is going away from search engines and into social networks.

Do you agree that these issues are something Facebook is going to have to take into account? Share your thoughts.

Twitter To Log Clicked Links

Doug Caverly — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 09:54:43 -0400

Twitter's link service, t.co, is designed to make shortened links easier to read and safer to follow. Initial tests have gone well, too. But an announcement that Twitter will start tracking every t.co link users click has caused a bit of a stir.

Twitter sent an email to users last night that in part stated, "In the coming weeks, we will be expanding the roll-out of our link wrapping service t.co, which wraps links in Tweets with a new, simplified link. . . . When this happens, all links shared on Twitter.com or third-party apps will be wrapped with a t.co URL."

Then here's the more controversial point: "When you click on these links from Twitter.com or a Twitter application, Twitter will log that click. We hope to use this data to provide better and more relevant content to you over time."

So it looks like a (small) loss of privacy will prove unavoidable, with no opt-outs or anything of that sort having been mentioned.

Declan McCullagh noted that, as a result, "[A] security breach at a Twitter data center could reveal who's clicking on what links . . . . Police armed with search warrants in criminal investigations may have link-clicking questions they want answered. Divorce attorneys armed with subpoenas won't be far behind. And, in general, users may not expect this data about their behavior to be stored forever."

It should be interesting to see if this becomes a significant problem, or if, between some users not grasping the issue and others more or less understanding that most of their online movements are tracked, anyway, Twitter avoids any turmoil.

AOL Renews Search Ad Deal With Google

Mike Sachoff — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 09:36:53 -0400

AOL said today it has signed a five-year search advertising deal with Google renewing its partnership with the search company that dates back to 2002.

Under the terms of the deal Google will provide search services to AOL’s content network and properties, in exchange for a revenue-sharing arrangement between the two companies which will be expanded to include mobile search and YouTube.

“Today is another important step in the turnaround of AOL,” said Tim Armstrong, AOL’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.

“AOL users will be getting a better search and search ads experience from the best search company in the world – Google. After nearly a decade-long partnership in search, we’re looking forward to expanding our global relationship to mobile search and YouTube. All aspects of our partnership will be improved by this deal.”

Key highlights of the partnership include:

*As AOL renews its focus on mobile apps and content, the companies will work together to expand the alliance to cover mobile search.

*AOL and YouTube have agreed to a content partnership that will bring AOL’s video content to YouTube.

*The alliance is international in scope and will provide improved experiences to AOL’s worldwide audience.

Twitter Releases its iPad App with iPad-Specific Features

Chris Crum — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 08:49:34 -0400

Twitter has launched its official iPad app. There's a bit more to this than the standard mobile Twitter app.

"Twitter for iPad takes advantage of the iPad's fluid touch interface, letting you move lots of information around smoothly and quickly – without needing to open and close windows or click buttons," says Twitter's Leland Rechis.

When you tap a tweet in this app, it opens a pane, and depending on the content of that tweet, you can open videos, photos, articles, etc.

"When you tap a video link or open a web page with an embedded video, you can play that video inline," explains Rechis. "And, let's be honest, video is great but sometimes it can take some time to load. The panes in Twitter for iPad let you look through your timeline while a video is loading, and then you can just swipe back to the video when it’s ready to play. You can also pinch on a video to watch it fullscreen."

There is also a gestures feature, which lets you pinch on a tweet to see details fo the author, reply, or retweet. You can put to fingers together and pull down on a tweet to see replies, showing the whole conversation. Now that's useful.

iPad users can use the app without even signing into Twitter and still see good content. Twitter has hand-picked certain Twitter accounts that you can see in various categories without logging in. You can also search and find breaking news without logging in.

Google, Facebook and Boxee Respond to Apple

Chris Crum — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 07:13:24 -0400

At Apple's music event yesterday, where the company launched a new version of iOS, a new version of iTunes with a new social network (Ping), a new line of iPods, and a new version of Apple TV, Steve Jobs took a shot at Google involving numbers of smartphone activations.

Last month, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said that Android gets over 200,000 devices a day.

"People throw out a lot of numbers about how many devices they're activating per day," Jobs is quoted as saying. "We are doing 230,000 activations a day. We think our friends may be counting upgrades - if we were counting upgrades, that would be way higher."

Fortune has a quote from a Google spokesperson responding to those comments: "The Android activation numbers do not include upgrades and are, in fact, only a portion of the Android devices in the market since we only include devices that have Google services."

Ping, the iTunes social network, is like Facebook or Twitter meets iTunes. That's the way Jobs described it in the announcement, anyway. While that may be the case, and it may even resemble Facebook, there is no integration with either Facebook or Twitter (or other social networks).

Kara Swisher was able to speak to Jobs about this, who said Facebook wanted "onerous terms that we could not agree to." When asked about integrating Facebook Connect to help people find their friends, Swisher quotes him saying (or shrugging rather), "We could, I guess."

She also got this statement from Facebook on the matter: "Facebook believes in connecting people with their interests and we've partnered with innovative developers around the world who share this vision. Facebook and Apple have cooperated successfully in the past to offer people great social experiences and we look forward to doing so in the future."

Om Malik at GigaOm calls Ping "the future of social commerce". "From a content perspective, there are three different types of media we love to talk about: movies we see, music we listen to and books we are reading," he says. "These are accepted social norms. In fact, many relationships are made on the basis of collective love of a movie and many friendships have started with mixed tapes."

Boxee, whose Boxee Box is due out in November, had some comments on Apple's Apple TV announcement. These two are now direct competitors. On the Boxee blog, Avner Ronen writes:

We think people want to be able to watch anything that they can watch on their computer, only on their bigscreen TV. There is an overwhelming consumer expectation that the content we can consume in our cubicles, our dorm rooms, and in our laps should be available in our living rooms, in full 1080p with a gorgeous interface. It’s a simple premise, but the challenge is to do it in a way that makes sense in that space, so you can put your feet up, grab a remote and start watching. No keyboards, mice, windows or labyrinthine menus. It should be calm and it should be beautiful. And it *must* be open.

We all watched the Apple announcement. We walked away feeling strongly confident about the space it left for Boxee to compete. We have a different view of what users want in their living rooms. We are taking different paths to get there. The Boxee Box is going to be $100 more expensive than the Apple TV, but will give you the freedom to watch what you want.

We think it’s worth it.

NewTeeVee has a comparison of Apple TV, the Boxee Box, and Roku, which some have also said is superior to the new Apple TV.

Implications of New Gowalla Feature, Facebook Gift Cards

Chris Crum — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:07:48 -0400

Gowalla has launched a new feature called "highlights" which it describes as "little rewards you can give to places that are important to your life". MG Siegler talks about the potential significance of such a feature.

"Where this gets really interesting is when you bring the social graph into it," he writes. "So, for example, if I check-in near a spot where a friend of mine asked his wife to marry him, I'll get a message alerting me of that. Or if I’m looking for the best taco place in Austin, Texas, I can visit the Highlight page and see what the masses are voting for. There are a lot of potentially interesting uses for this when it starts to get populated with a lot of data."

As reported, Target is going to start selling Facebook Credits gift cards. SFGate.com has an interesting article about the implications of this, in terms of Facebook securing.

Wired looks at today's story about a man who took hostages at the Discovery Channel's headquarters in Maryland, and posted his demands to the web, on his site savetheplanetprotest.com - the text is still available in cached form here.

Apple announced a bunch of new things today. You may have heard. Here's a summary.

Michael Arrington has an interesting piece about how Google has lost 118 employees to Facebook, and how the company makes counteroffers to those employees receive offers from Facebook.

Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb talks about why Alcatel-Lucent acquiring OpenPlug is big news.

Henry Blodget at Silicon Alley Insider reports that South Korea's Naver has taken search in-house. Unfortunately for Yahoo (and Microsoft), it has been Yahoo's biggest search affiliate, according to Blodget.

Justin.tv Broadcasting Comes to Android

Chris Crum — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:34:32 -0400

Justin.tv has a new Android app for broadcasting live video. This competes with services like UStream and Qik. Unfortunately, it doesn't let you simply watch Justin.tv content like the iPhone app does. Perhaps that will come later. This is the first Android app Justin.tv has offered.

"We've been focused on mobile applications since the beginning of this year, starting with the launch of Justin.tv for iPhone," says Caleb at Justin.tv. "We think the mobile space is the biggest opportunity in live video, and that being tethered to a computer has held a lot of people back. Today we’re solving that problem for Android phone owners."

"We use efficient hardware encoding to create high quality video while maximizing battery life," says Caleb. "We optimize the video for 3G or WiFi and constantly adjust quality as you move around to keep the video smooth. The results are crystal clear when compared with any other apps available, Justin.tv’s video is best because that’s what you’ve told us you care about."

The app comes with the ability to share broadcasts via Facebook or Twitter. There is even an autoshare option.

Steve Jobs Takes Dig At Android, Eric Schmidt

Doug Caverly — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:08:36 -0400

In between the announcements about iPods, Apple TV, and a music-oriented social network, Apple and Google's mobile rivalry heated up a little more today. Steve Jobs, while discussing the success of iOS, also tossed out what was likely a veiled insult at Eric Schmidt and Android.

Remember how Schmidt said in early August that 200,000 Android devices were being activated every day? It's that figure - and Google's method of counting - that Apple's CEO seemed to bring into question.

"People throw out a lot of numbers about how many devices they're activating per day," said Jobs according to Ryan Block. Then Apple's CEO continued, "We are doing 230,000 activations a day. We think our friends may be counting upgrades - if we were counting upgrades, that would be way higher."

That's an interesting statement. It's of course hard to imagine that Jobs has the iOS numbers wrong; no one's in a better position to collect more accurate data, and the SEC encourages CEOs to avoid misleading anyone. But the same observations apply to Schmidt and Android stats.

Google may well weigh in to clarify the matter (or "coincidentally" share some Android growth numbers) later this week. Or Eric Schmidt might at least save up a witty comment or two for the next time he's on camera.

Anyway, neither company's suffering due to today's events at the moment. Google's stock rose 2.29 percent today, and Apple's gained an even more impressive 2.97 percent.

Google Launches New Major Upgrade to SketchUp

Chris Crum — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 15:55:56 -0400

Google has launched a new major version of its 3D modeling tool SketchUp: version 8. This comes ten years after the launch of version 1.

Google says there are over a million people using SketchUp. "That's a pretty humbling number of 3D model makers," says SketchUp Product Manager John Bacus.

The new version comes with new geo-modeling capabilities that leverage Google's collection of geo-spatial data, for what the company says is quicker, easier, and more fun model building.

"We've made it easier to build site context models for your projects using our ever-growing collection of geo-data," says Bacus. "We've added a new collection of “Solid” tools for doing common additive/subtractive modeling operations and we’ve packed out LayOut with some new features that make it easier to document your models professionally."

SketchUp 8 is available for download today in English, French, Spanish, Italian and German versions. The list of all the new features is here. SketchUp Pro comes with a price tag of $495. Upgrades from previous versions are $95.

Zillow Partners With Aparments.com On Rental Listings

Mike Sachoff — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:43:19 -0400

Real estate website Zillow.com said today it has partnered with Apartments.com to bring the rental website’s database of 90,000 apartment listings to Zillow.

Apartments.com rental listings include home details, photos, floor plans, and property manager contact information.

Listings from Apartments.com will be viewable to Zillow’s 12 million monthly visitors, including two million who are currently renters. The partnership brings the total number of rental listings for single-family homes and apartments on Zillow to 150,000.

"Zillow offers an unmatched user experience for home shoppers who are renting, deciding whether to rent or buy, or shopping for a home to buy,” said Chloe Harford, Zillow's vice president of mortgages and new ventures.

“This partnership deepens Zillow's footprint in the rental search industry, and gives Zillow users access to a new category of managed apartment rental listings.”

In addition to being displayed on Zillow, Apartments.com rental listings will also appear on the Zillow Mobile application, which has been downloaded more than two million times and is the most popular real estate application on the iPhone, Android, iPad, and Windows Mobile platforms.

Google Adds Company Logos to Locations in Google Maps

Chris Crum — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:33:34 -0400

Google announced a new feature for businesses in Google Maps in the U.S. today. The feature lets businesses include sponsored map icons that appear on the maps themselves. The feature actually began in a pilot program earlier this year in Australia.

"Now, when you zoom in to areas of interest on Google Maps, you'll more easily be able to spot the locations of companies and brands that are already familiar to you," says product manager Matthew Leske. "That's because we're working with business owners to enable them to replace the standard icons that appear on the map at their business locations with their well-known company logos. These logos appear directly on the map when you zoom in to see a close-up view of an area. Just like the existing default business icons that appear in grey, these colored logos are clickable and open the Place page for that business. Both large and small businesses can claim their Place pages and enhance them with information including hours of operation, product inventory, photos and videos."

"By helping users identify popular businesses, we're making it easier to browse the map and navigate the real world," adds Leske. "That might mean fortunately stumbling upon a nearby ATM when you're looking up the address of the new restaurant where you're dining tonight, or exploring the neighborhood you just moved into by figuring out where the grocery store is relative to your new apartment."

Google says the icons will become visible on mobile phones in the coming weeks.

Advertisers pay to have their logos appear on the map. The feature is only being offered in limited beta to companies in the U.S. that have multiple locations and "a well-known brand." That's unfortunate for small businesses, but the feature could expand in the future.

Apple Announces New iOS, iPods, iTunes, Ping Social Network, Apple TV

Chris Crum — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:03:35 -0400

Apple held its big event today, and showed off several things. At the event, Steve Jobs said that Apple now has 300 retail stores, and will soon open one in Spain making it 11 countries. He said that Apple has shipped 120 million iOS devices, and that there are 230,000 new iOS activations per day. He also said they've had 6.5 billion app downloads and get 200 app downloads every second.

The New iOS

Jobs introduced iOS 4.1, which features bug fixes, High Dynamic Range photos, HD video upload over WiFi, TV show rentals, and Game Center.

With HDR photos, it takes 3 photos in rapid succession, and combines them to make a better picture.

Game Center includes features for multi-player games, challenging friends, auto matching, comparing scores and discovering new games. There is an API, which is its own app on the phone.

iOS 4.1 will be available next week in iTunes for the iPhone and iPod Touch. 4.2 will come in November for the iPad. This will include multitasking, Game Center, HDR photos, and wireless printing, and something called AirPlay.

AirPlay is the new name of AirTunes, and extends the service from music-only to all kinds of media. You can stream audio, video, and photos over Wi-Fi.

The New iPods

Jobs said the company has sold 275 million iPods. He then announced what he says is the biggest change to the iPod lineup "ever". The new version of the Shuffle comes with buttons, VoiceOver, playlists, and "Genius mixes." It holds 15 hours of music, comes in five colors, and costs $49.

The new version of the Nano eliminates the click wheel and adds multi-touch. It also now has a clip. It's 46% smaller and 42% lighter than the last version. It has hard volume buttons, VoiceOver, FM Radio, Nike+, pedometer, and comes in 29 languages. The screen can be rotated. It costs $149 for the 8GB version and $179 for the 16GB version.

Jobs says they've had 1.5 billion game and entertainment downloads. He says the iPod Touch is the most popular portable game player in the world with over 50% market share worldwide.

The new version is thinner, and comes with retina display, the A4 chip, 3-axis Gyro, iOS 4.1 with Game Center, FaceTime with a front camera, and a rear camera with HD video recording. It costs $229 for the 8GB version, $299 for the 32GB version, and $399 for the 64GB version.

The iPods are all available starting next week, and are available for pre-order.

The New iTunes and Social Network

Jobs says iTunes has 11.7 billion songs, 450 million TV episodes, 100 million movies, 35 million books, and 160 million accounts with credit cards and 1-click shopping in 23 countries.

He then announced the launch of iTunes 10, with a new logo (without a CD, noting that iTunes is about to bypass CDs in sales). The new version has a hybrid view with five or more songs from the same list view and album artwork. There is also a new "ping" feature, which is a social network based on music. Jobs says its like Twitter and Facebook meets iTunes. This is for users and artists.

Ping comes with privacy settings, social music discovery, follow features, a circle of friends feature, the ability to post thoughts/opinions, custom song/album charts, concert listings, and 160 million iTunes users. Ping will be an app store app.

The New Apple TV

Jobs says in four years they've sold a lot of Apple TVs but the product hasn't been "a huge hit". He introduced the second generation, and it comes in the form of a device that fits in the palm of your hand. It has a built-n power supply, one HDMI connector, built-in ethernet, and built-in WiFi.

It features HD content, with no purchases. There is no storage because everything is by rental. You can also stream from your computer. You can view movies, TV shows, and music. TV shows are 99 cents (in HD). You can rent first-run HD movies for $4.99 the day the come out on DVD. They have deals with ABC and FOX, abut think the other studios ill get onboard. It comes with Netflix access (for subscribers) as expected, and supports YouTube, Flickr, and MobileMe. You can stream content from an iOS device to an Apple TV. It costs $99 as expected. It will be available in four weeks with pre-orders today.

Update: We received the following statement from Disney/ABC: “When we put our shows on iTunes five years ago, it was revolutionary,” said Anne Sweeney, co-chair Disney Media Networks and president, Disney-ABC Television Group. “Since then, we’ve continued to provide viewers with innovative new ways to access our programming, and today we’re proud to team with Apple on a rental option for fans of our shows.”

(Hat tip to GdGt for its live coverage)

Madden NFL Superstars Launches On Facebook

Mike Sachoff — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:18:34 -0400

Electronic Arts has launched Madden NFL Superstars on Facebook that allows users to create their own fantasy team by collecting NFL players and competing in matchups with their friends.

“Each day on consoles, fans are playing as many games online as the equivalent of 750 full NFL seasons,” said Peter Moore, president of EA SPORTS.

“Now on Facebook, Madden NFL Superstars will bring a whole new dimension and audience to the Madden NFL experience.”

Madden NFL Superstars allows users to choose from more than 1,500 current players from all 32 NFL 2010 teams. The game features an “In Season” mode where players compete in increasingly difficult matchups against other player’s teams through a progressive ladder to earn championship trophies.

“NFL Pro League” mode allows players to compete in a series of games against each of this season’s actual NFL teams. “Scrimmage” mode allows users to play against their Facebook friends.

“The highly celebrated Madden NFL video game franchise from EA SPORTS is loved by millions. Madden NFL Superstars is a unique new experience that gives those fans, and tens of millions more, an opportunity to enjoy the excitement of NFL football on Facebook,” said Kristian Segerstrale, vice president and general manager of Playfish.

“With the start of the NFL season right around the corner, we’re looking forward to feedback from the Madden NFL Superstars community to help us create the most authentic and entertaining NFL football experience possible on Facebook.”

Who Will Win the TV OS Battle?

Chris Crum — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 11:55:41 -0400

There is a lot of talk about connected TV, particularly with Apple's announcement on the subject expected this afternoon.

Retrevo reached out to WebProNews with some commentary on the subject. The following comes from Retrevo's Andrew Eisner, a computer journalist and the director of content for Retrevo.

Everyone loves apps! A library of 225,000 iPhone/iPad apps and 5 billion downloads are impressive numbers for such a young platform and confirm the fast growing interest in apps-based computing. Not only can apps run on smartphones, tablets and laptops but we predict the next platform for apps will be connected TVs. We see a living room where TV viewers click on a weather app or sports app instead of watching the local news. A home where families play a board game together on the TV using the Monopoly app, or stay in touch with their friends with a FaceBook app, all from the comfort of the living room couch.

Microsoft Unlikely to Win this Battle

Unlike the battle for the desktop OS it doesn't look like Microsoft has much of a chance of winning this battle for the TV OS. Competition over who will provide a TV OS is heating up with Google TV getting set to take on all comers for control of the living room. Meanwhile Apple may soon lob a salvo with an updated version of their Apple TV that will plant Apple iPhone/iPad apps firmly in the living room TV.

TV Manufacturers Need to Adopt a Standard TV OS

A TV OS vacuum exists at the moment and unfortunately for consumers, TV manufacturers appear to be filling it with their own proprietary offerings. At this year’s CES, we saw all the big players showing off "connected" TVs with proprietary environments offering apps and services from providers like Netflix, Blockbuster, Pandora, and Skype. LG calls their platform “NetCast,” Samsung calls theirs “Samsung Apps” and Vizio has a platform called “Vizio Internet Apps” or VIA. It's unclear how all these proprietary platforms will work with different apps and services but we feel a better solution is one standard TV OS that would run a whole range of apps including smartphone and tablet apps. Apps would be able to run on a TV, receiver, Blu-ray player, game console or any other device that has a screen or connects to a device with a screen.

For Now, the TV OS is Up for Grabs

A TV OS would be part of a platform that would run apps on all the screens in your home including your phone, your computer and the TV screen in your living room. Will the TV OS come from Google/Android, Apple, Microsoft, Sony, or someone else? Google needs to push Google TV hard to become the standard TV OS partly to compensate for losing search traffic as users migrate from browser-based search to apps. Apple needs to gain control of the third screen or TV screen, after smartphone screens and computer screens, and the TV industry needs to move away from closed environments and let their connected TVs work with all the apps and streaming content that consumers are finding so appealing.

Apple to Update Apple TV (with Netflix), iTunes, iPod Touch

Chris Crum — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 11:51:15 -0400

Apple announced that it will be streaming an event online today at Apple.com, at 10:00 AM Pacific/1:00 PM Eastern.

"Apple will broadcast its September 1 event online using Apple’s industry-leading HTTP Live Streaming, which is based on open standards," the company says.

The whole thing is so open, you have to use a Mac running Safari on Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard, an iPhone or iPod Touch running iOS 3.0 or higher or an iPad. In other words you have to have bought an Apple device to view it.

It is also so open that the announcement makes it a point to say, "This broadcast is the property of Apple and is protected by US copyright law and international treaties. Any reproduction or distribution is strictly prohibited without prior written approval from Apple."

The event itself is expected to center around updates to iTunes, iPods and possibly TV. According to the Wall Street Journal, FOX and ABC will announce 99 cent rentals of TV shows through iTunes. "People familiar with the matter" are cited.

According to Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Apple will announce a set-top box for video that will include Netflix programming and a revamped version of Apple TV that will cost $99. The publication also says that Apple will release a revamped version of iTunes and an upgraded iPod Touch with higher screen resolution.

The whole thing should be a big win for Netflix.

Booyah Utilizes Facebook Places for Standalone App

Chris Crum — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 11:13:24 -0400

Booyah, makers of the check-in app/game MyTown, have unveiled a new game today, and it is is the first standalone app to utilize the recently launched Facebook Places API.

"In addition to being the first app built exclusively for Facebook Places, it is the only app that accesses Facebook Search," says Booyah.

"In InCrowd, players create their own customizable avatar, socialize, meet new friends and track popularity when they check-in to their favorite real-life places using their iPhone or iPod touch," the company explains. "InCrowd players gain popularity when others respond using a series of in-game actions, such as hi fives, fist bumps, winks, or posting about a venue. Players can also utilize the always popular Dropkick to take popularity away from a chosen individual. The more a player socializes with others, the more in-game points are rewarded to them for use in upgrading and personalizing their virtual avatar."

The company also points out that it has spent a lot of time working on privacy features. There is an invisible function in the game that lets users hide their locations and check-ins if they wish to do so.

The InCrowd app is free and available in Apple's App Store.

Booyah recently launched product check-ins as a feature of its MyTown game, which gives businesses new product marketing opportunities.

Amazon to Take On Netflix With Subscription Service?

Chris Crum — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 10:27:48 -0400

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Amazon is working on a subscription service for TV shows and movies. The company has reportedly been talking with NBC Universal, Time Warner, News Corp. Viacom, and others about such a service.

The offering would appear to be a direct competitor to things like Netflix, iTunes, and Hulu plus. According to the WSJ, it would focus on old catalogue content, and would work through the browser or connected devices like TVs, Blu-ray players, Xbox, etc - very much like Netflix.

Amazon already offers movies and TV episodes for download, but a subscription service could attract a different audience, and Amazon probably has the power to be a bigger threat to Netflix than some other competitors.

The battles for web television are seriously going to be heating up soon. Apple is expected to announce an update to its Apple TV offering today. Google TV will be here in the coming months. Yahoo has its Connected TV offerings. Samsung is pushing development on its platform hard right now. It's going to be very interesting to see how things unfold in this industry. 2011 is going to be a very interesting year for television.

Netflix itself is doing all it can to expand. The company is expected to be feature on the new Apple TV offering, and it has recently launched an iPhone app, with an Android app on the way.

Greenpeace Protests Facebook's Data Center

Doug Caverly — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 10:01:26 -0400

Facebook's won the support of a lot of people as it builds a data center in Prineville, Oregon; an official Facebook Page is full of positive comments from locals. However, because the facility will primarily be powered by coal, Greenpeace - along with around 500,000 individuals - has sided against it.

A campaign to "get Facebook to unfriend coal" has been building momentum for some time, and it appears to have reached a critical mass of sorts today. Kumi Naidoo, Executive Director of Greenpeace International, actually published an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg this morning.

In it, Naidoo stated, "Greenpeace and over half a million Facebook users have expressed significant concerns with your decision to power this data center with dirty coal-fired electricity from PacificCorp, which runs an electricity mix that is disproportionately powered by coal, the largest source of global warming pollution."

Naidoo would prefer it if Zuckerberg and Facebook would "[c]ommit to a plan to phase out the use of dirty coal-fired electricity to power your data centers" and "[u]se your purchasing power to choose locations that allow you to rely on only clean, renewable sources of electricity," instead.

These requests aren't likely to have much effect in the short term; the Prineville data center is already under construction and Facebook hasn't announced plans to build anything else. Still, it's possible Greenpeace and its supporters will influence the social network to be a little more Google-y in the future, turning to solar and wind power.

Also, in fairness to Facebook, the company's already taken the issue of energy conservation into consideration to some degree. On August 20th, a post on the Prineville Data Center page detailed several power-saving technologies that the facility will employ.

UPDATE: Barry Schnitt, director of policy communications at Facebook, left a comment further describing his company's stance on environmental responsibility and energy conservation.

Google Now Indexes SVG Files

Chris Crum — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 09:47:30 -0400

Google is now indexing SVG files. SVG, which stands for scalable vector graphics, is a widely-deployed, royalty-free, XML-based format for vector graphics and support for interactivity. The format was developed and is maintained by the W3C SVG Working Group.

"We're big fans of open standards, and our mission is to organize the world’s information, so indexing SVG is a natural step," a joint post from software engineers Bogdan Stanescu and John Sarapata on the Google Webmaster Central Blog says.

"We index SVG content whether it is in a standalone file or embedded directly in HTML," the pair add. "The web is big, so it may take some time before we crawl and index most SVG files, but as of today you may start seeing them in your search results."

Google says that if you host SVG files and you wish to exclude them from search results, you can use the "X-Robots-Tag: noindex" directive in the HTTP header. More info about robots exclusion protocol can be found here.

Google has a full list of the file-types it indexes here.

Target To Start Selling Facebook Credits Gift Cards

Mike Sachoff — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 09:35:40 -0400

Target said today it will be the first retailer to sell Facebook Credits gift cards at all of its 1,743 stores and on Target.com beginning September 5.

Facebook Credits gift cards will be available in increments of $15, $25 and $50. Facebook says its gift cards will be an “ideal gift” this holiday season for users who like playing games on the social network.

“One of Facebook’s goals is to create a great place for games – both for people who love to play and the developers that create fun and engaging social experiences,” said Dan Rose, vice president of partnerships and platform marketing at Facebook.

“Gift cards are easy to use and very popular. We’re looking forward to launching in Target stores and giving people the ability to purchase Facebook Credits for their own use or to give as gifts to their friends and family.”

More than 200 million people play social games on Facebook each month. According to Inside Network, Americans will spend more than $1.6 billion in 2010 on virtual goods and social gaming.

Facebook Credits are accepted by a number of popular games on the network, including Zynga’s FarmVille and Mafia Wars; CrowdStar’s Happy Aquarium; PopCap Games’ Bejeweled Blitz; Playdom’s City of Wonder; and EA SPORTS FIFA Superstars from Playfish.

comScore Acquires Nedstat to Create the iPad of Analytics

Chris Crum — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 09:33:14 -0400

comScore announced today that it has acquired Nedstat, an online analytics and optimization firm based out of Amsterdam.

The acquisition enables comScore to substantially expand its presence in Europe, with offices in the Netherlands, Belgium, the UK, France, Germany, Spain, and Sweden. The company says this will help it reach out to new clients in these markets.

"Secondly, this acquisition will help comScore accelerate the development of our Unified Digital Measurement (UDM) platform, which combines measurement of individual users from a sample panel with measurements of machines and mobile devices from a census of users, to provide a unified view of digital consumer behavior," says comScore. "Nedstat clients will immediately have the option to incorporate their census-level analytics data into the UDM platform to provide them with a more unified set of reporting metrics. Eventually, Nedstat’s analytics and optimization architecture will be used in conjunction with comScore’s existing audience and mobile network analytics to provide more comprehensive, granular, and real-time analytics solutions that will enhance businesses’ ability to optimize their digital marketing strategies."

"As the demand for real-time information increases, these assets will enable us to deliver the measurement and analytics platform of the future," the company says. "The products we envision building simply do not exist today. While these products will likely have some overlap with current analytics offerings, they will offer a different value proposition.

comScore uses the analogy of what the iPad has meant to the world of traditional computing: "While it has certain similarities to what a personal computer can do, it is designed for a different kind of use that represents a fundamentally different utility to the end user."

The company believes that Nedstat has a solid analytics solution, it is their core infrastructure, which will benefit them the most.

Salesforce Announces Jigsaw for Salesforce CRM

Chris Crum — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 09:12:19 -0400

Salesforce.com has announced the arrival of Jigsaw for Salesforce CRM. This is a new crowd-sourced business data service for Salesforce CRM customers.

A spokesperson for Salesforce tells WebProNews today's announcement is significant for the following reasons:

- Breadth: With Jigsaw Inside, sales and marketing professionals will get real-time access to the world's largest socially generated database, including 22 million business contacts and 4 million company profiles.

- Depth: Jigsaw Inside for Salesforce integrates Jigsaw deeply into Salesforce Chatter for social collaboration and delivery of highly accurate information in real-time.

- Immediacy: Sales and marketing professionals can get real-time updates pushed to them whenever the business data they care about changes.

- Resolution: Companies spend more than $3 billion a year struggling to keep pace with changes across sales and marketing operations by augmenting legacy data services and data management. Jigsaw Inside will solve marketers’ pain points around decayed, duplicated and dead data by delivering relevant, accurate business information in the cloud without the need for hardware or software.

"CRM systems are only as good as the information inside them," said Kevin Akeroyd, general manager, Jigsaw. "With Jigsaw for Salesforce CRM, customers can be alerted to changes in contacts through Chatter in real-time. This degree of operational agility is only possible with Jigsaw's data in the cloud."

Jigsaw for Salesforce CRM is now generally available and starts at $29 per user per month.

Salesforce bought Jigsaw for $142 million earlier this year.

Greplin is Real Personalized Search

Chris Crum — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 07:18:32 -0400

There's a new kind of personalized, social search available that may trump any effort we've seen from Google to date in this corner of search.

Greplin is a new site that searches through "all your online data in one place, really fast" - or at least your the online data you have in the services that it supports, which is likely far from all of your online data. Still, the concept behind the site is pretty noteworthy, and it will likely add more services as time goes on.

With the regular version, you can add Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, LinkedIn, Google Calendar, and Google Docs. With the pro version, you can also add Salesforce, Evernote, box, Basecamp, and Google Voice.

There is obviously great potential for a service like this. With so many forms of communicating and networking available, it can sometimes be hard to remember just which service was used in some instance. If you can search across all services to find what you're looking for, it's going to save time. There is likely significant demand for a tool like this.

There is also room for evolution. What other kinds of features could Greplin offer in the future, taking advantage of all the services you give it access to?

The site is in beta, and once you give it access to your info, it says it will email you when the system's ready for you. TechCrunch has a demo.

Facebook Goes Back to the University, A New Spin on Online Charities

Chris Crum — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 16:59:05 -0400

Facebook has launched a "Universities on Facebook" page to "help students and campus organizations discover how to take full advantage of Facebook's features to publicize events, distribute content, and foster community and school spirit."

The company has also acquired an interesting search patent for ranking based on click frequency.

With regards to the suit from the guy who claims to own a majority stake in Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg's lawyers are quoted as saying, "They filed this remand motion to harass defendants under the pretext of obtaining jurisdictional discovery into Zuckerberg's private life."

Digg announced its new CEO today - Matt Williams, who has been with Amazon for over a decade. He joins the company as the site is overrun by content from competitor Reddit. Reddit, by the way is showing off its traffic numbers since that takeover.

A site called Endorse for a Cause was launched today. It's described as "a new and easy way to make a difference." This video describes how it works:

Samsung has gathered developers to work on its Smart TV product. The company is holding a Developer Day in San Jose.

According to Engadget, Archos has unleashed five different Android Froyo tablets. They explore these (with videos).

Yedda is being renamed AOL Answers. AOLanswers.com is live. AOL has also acquired Rally Up, according to TechCrunch.

Bloomberg reports that former HP CEO Mark Hurd is leaving the News Corp.'s Board of Directors. He will reportedly no longer serve following the company's October 15 meeting.

Digg Has Found Its CEO

Chris Crum — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 16:37:54 -0400

Update 2: Rose has now put up the offiical announcement. He writes:

I'd like to update you on the latest change at Digg. After several months of searching, we are excited to announce that Matt Williams will become the CEO of Digg. As you know, I have been the interim CEO, while we looked for the right person, and I will still remain actively involved in the product, but am handing over the day-to-day running of the business to Matt...

Quote from Matt: "The launch of version 4 was a big moment for Digg and I believe in the potential of this new platform. There is so much innovation yet to come -- being the best in the world at curating news means solving the information overload we all experience every day. The Digg team has already made great strides in this direction and there is much more ahead. I'm excited to join such a talented team and such a vibrant Digg community."

Update: Kevin Rose has put up a new post on the Digg blog announcing some upcoming changes to the site, but no mention of the hiring of Williams.

Original Article: Digg has reportedly found its new CEO. According to TechCrunch, the company has hired former Amazon General Manager of Consumer Payments Matt Williams to fill the role.

Michael Arrington says Digg Founder Kevin Rose, who has assumed the CEO role since the departure of Jay Adelson earlier this year, will become Digg's chief architect, which he used to be.

While Arrington claims to have confirmed the news, Digg has not yet made an announcement about hiring Williams - not even a tweet from Rose yet.

Assuming the news is indeed true, Williams gets to take over the company at an interesting time. The new redesign of Digg just launched (announced just after Adelson's departure), and it is already inspiring some user backlash (the new home page is still being overrun by content from Digg competitor Reddit).

Williams has been with Amazon for 11 years. Before that he founded LiveBid, which was sold to Amazon in 1999.

Google Outlines Display Ad Strategies

Chris Crum — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 16:33:04 -0400

Google has an interesting post up today on its official blog, outlining its efforts in growing display advertising. Within this outline are five what Google calls "key principles guiding our future product innovations in this area."

In short, these principles are: making life more efficient, total revenue management, more insight and control, betting on openness, everything is going to be "display".

To me, there are two particularly interesting nuggets within this post - "immediate ads" and a server dedicated to automatically learn where and when a given ad will get the best response. Following are a couple quotes from the piece.

"Things like new standards for video ad serving and systems that connect buyers and sellers are helping publishers support the most engaging and creative ads across their sites. But there are quantum leaps to come in this area, for small and large publishers," says Google Director of Product Management Jonathan Bellack. "Think of a political candidate who is seeking donations on his or her website—the candidate can receive money in seconds. Imagine if publishers—even the smallest website—had tools that enabled advertisers to click a button on their site to upload an ad, let them pay for it with a credit card, and then deliver this ad—through the publisher’s ad server—within minutes. This sort of 'immediate ad' will become possible as ad serving technology continues to simplify the process of buying and selling ad space."

"There's no question that delivering the right ad to the right user at the right time delivers better results," says Bellack. "We have years of experience in doing this with search and text ads; we’re now bringing that experience to the world of display. This means investing in a smarter ad server that can automatically learn where and when a given ad will get the best response, as well as manage delivery to deliver those improved results for publishers. This new ad server can even anticipate a publisher’s future events and adjust delivery accordingly—for example, if traffic drops off every weekend, the ad server can automatically speed up during the week to keep everything moving smoothly."

Other topics mentioned are Google's variety of tools designed to provide data, reports, and controls, etc. It also talks about open APIs enabling the building of apps that cater to "advertising apps".

Give the post a read if you're interested in the strategies Google is focusing on with regards to display advertising.

Facebook Gets Click-Based Search Relevance Patent

Chris Crum — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 16:14:04 -0400

Facebook has been granted a patent called "Ranking search results based on the frequency of clicks on the search results by members of a social network who are within a predetermined degree of separation". Here's the abstract:

Search results, including sponsored links and algorithmic search results, are generated in response to a query, and are marked based on frequency of clicks on the search results by members of social network who are within a predetermined degree of separation from the member who submitted the query. The markers are visual tags and comprise either a text string or an image.

It is unclear whether or not Facebook will actually do anything with this patent, but search will continue to become more important to Facebook. That much is clear, as mroe objects, places, and businesses become connected to Facebook.

Nick Saint at Silicon Alley Insider suggests that Facebook could "use this patent as a weapon" against Google if "Google Me" becomes a threat to Facebook.

The patent was filed all the way back in 2004. You can take a look at the entire thing here. (hat tip to GoRumors)

Yahoo Expands Local Listing Partnership with Dex One

Chris Crum — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:35:27 -0400

Yahoo announced today that it has expanded its partnership with Dex One to allow listings on Yahoo Local. "This broadens the reach of Dex One's local advertiser network, providing their clients with greater exposure in local communities and more consumers with detailed information on local businesses," a spokesperson for Yahoo tells WebProNews.

All businesses who advertise on Dex One's DexKnows site will be able to show up in Yahoo Local search results. The expanded partnership doubles the geographic area covered by the original partnership, which started in 2007.

The original agreement covered the 14-state region where Dex One is the official print directory publisher for Qwest.

"Yahoo! is committed to helping local businesses unlock the potential of digital advertising," says Regan Senkarik, VP of Channel Sales at Yahoo. "Expanding our agreement with Dex One will provide their clients with greater exposure in local communities and more consumers with detailed information on local businesses."

"This strengthens a great strategic relationship with Yahoo! and broadens the reach of our local advertiser network," said Sean Greene, SVP of interactive at Dex One. "Through the network our clients' online business information appears not only on DexKnows but also in prime locations on many of the Web's most popular search sites, including Yahoo! Local."

On a somewhat related note, Yahoo today announced that its Yahoo Search Marketing advertisers can now begin their transition to Microsoft adCenter - a product of the Search Alliance between those two companies.

Music Still Leads In iTunes Purchases

Mike Sachoff — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 14:47:20 -0400

Almost all iPhone or iPod touch users have downloaded a free app, but 82 percent have actually made a music purchase from iTunes, according to a new survey from NPD.

More than half (56%) of iTunes buyers purchase music exclusively, and majority of iTunes user search time is focused on looking for music.

“Sales growth in digital music has been slowing, and some of that decline might be related to the distraction from apps; however, iTunes shoppers are still completely engaged with music, whether it’s about listening, discovering or buying,” said Russ Crupnick, vice president and senior entertainment analyst for The NPD Group.

“Apps and video certainly do compete for consumer dollars, but they can also be used to promote music and re-energize digital music and video download sales.”

The report also looked at the question if apps are valuable to users or mostly frivolous. Two out of three iPhone and iPod touch owners who have downloaded apps report using them regularly, instead of just using them briefly. In addition, nine out of 10 have downloaded a free app, which Crupnick says, “points to a major up-selling opportunity to paid versions of the same app.” Plus 69 percent of iPhone and iPod Touch owners who have not yet paid for an app told NPD they are interested in possibly doing so in the future.

MySpace Hires Tom Cox To Oversee Business Strategy

Chris Crum — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 14:34:33 -0400

MySpace announced that it has appointed Tom Cox as its new Senior VP of Business Development, which means he'll be responsible for crafting and implementing the overall business strategy for MySpace. It also means he'll be identifying and negotiating partnerships for the company.

"Cox brings to MySpace a proven track record for crafting innovative strategies, structuring productive relationships, and building successful businesses and partnerships within the technology and online media industries," the company says.

Cox was Principal and Co-founder of Stratique Partners, an exec-level consulting firm specializing in providing strategic guidance for clients in the tech and media industries. "Since its inception Stratique Partners has advised over a dozen companies ranging from early-stage start-ups to leading consumer-facing product companies reaching more than 40 million users," MySpace says.

Before Stratique, Cox was the VP of Business Development at AOL. There, he directed partnership activities, led the acquisition of Weblogs, and played a "critical role" in crafting AOL's open web strategy.

Cox joins the company as soon as today. He'll be based out of the company's Beverly Hills headquarters.

Yahoo Advertisers Can Begin Transitioning to Microsoft adCenter

Chris Crum — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:47:56 -0400

Yahoo and Microsoft announced today that Yahoo advertisers can begin their transition to Microsoft's adCenter.

"Last week, we completed the transition of the back-end technology for English-language Yahoo! organic search results in the U.S. and Canada," says Yahoo. "This week, advertisers can start transitioning their paid Yahoo! Search Marketing account, in anticipation of the Yahoo! ad serving transition which we expect to start mid-October. We encourage you to transition your account before the ad serving transition begins, so that you are ready to reach more than 159 million searchers in the U.S. and 15 million searchers in Canada on Yahoo! Search, Bing and our partners."

Yahoo says there are 3 stages to completing the transition, which are preparing the account for transition, actually transitioning, and continuing to manage the Yahoo account.

"The last stage in the transition process will occur when Yahoo! Search ad serving moves to adCenter, which we expect to begin in mid-October and be completed by the end of October," Yahoo says. "During this period, you should expect traffic from your Yahoo! Search Marketing account to decrease, and increase in your adCenter account. But until this process is complete, you’ll still need to actively manage your Yahoo! Search Marketing account to have your ads displayed on Yahoo! and our partner sites."

There is a transition checklist available here.

Half of Mobile Users Don't Know When Their Contracts Are Up

Chris Crum — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:26:28 -0400

There are some interesting survey results out from Best Buy today, regarding mobile phone users and their contracts. The findings reveal that about half of users don't know when they're contracts expire.

While the survey is used by the company to promote is new Upgrade Checker campaign, shed some light on the issue nonetheless.

"When it comes to mobile solutions available today, many consumers are not armed with the right information to truly get the most out of their mobile phone," said Shawn Score, president of Best Buy Mobile. "We know that there are customers out there using mobile phones that are four and five years old when they could be using a smart phone."

Here are some findings from the survey:

- 45 percent look for multimedia capabilities including music, video and camera

- 32 percent look for GPS navigation

- 29 percent want to replace landline phone

- 26 percent want to be able to access social networking sites

- 26 percent want to be Wi-Fi enabled

- 15 percent want to make eCommerce purchases from their mobile devices

- 15 percent want to be able to download a movie

- 14 percent want to be able to play games from their smartphone

Do you know when your contract is up? Comment here.

Amazon Kindle Coming To Staples

Mike Sachoff — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 12:33:13 -0400

Office supply retailer Staples said today it will begin selling Amazon’s Kindle in all of its stores this fall.

Staples said it will sell the $139 version of the Kindle, the Kindle 3G ($189) and the Kindle DX ($379).

“As part of our efforts to offer customers a wide range of top technology products and services at amazing values, the new Kindle is a natural fit,” said Jevin Eagle, executive vice president of merchandising and marketing at Staples.

The Kindle Store features more than 670,000 books, including new releases and New York Times Best Sellers. Over 550,000 of these books are available for $9.99.

Staples said it will also carry a variety of Kindle assortments and will allow its customers to test the device via in-store interactive displays.

Amazon began selling its Kindle’s in Target stores in June. Prior to that the Kindle was only available from Amazon. Amazon boasts the Kindle is its “best selling” product but has never released sales figures for the device.

Links Add Value That Print Can't Match

Chris Crum — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 11:46:43 -0400

Links are one of the biggest reasons that the print industry can't compete with web content. This is not a new revelation, but after reading an interesting piece about the value of links by Scott Rosenberg, I'm not sure I've ever seen it spelled out so crystal clear, and interestingly enough, it's not really the point of his article.

Rosenberg says, "Links have become an essential part of how I write, and also part of how I read. Given a choice between reading something on paper and reading it online, I much prefer reading online: I can follow up on an article's links to explore source material, gain a deeper understanding of a complex point, or just look up some term of art with which I’m unfamiliar."

With print, you can't do these things. You can take the exact same article in a print publication and its online counterpart, add some links to the online version, and automatically increase the value of the piece exponentially (from the reader's perspective). Believe it or not, readers like content that is useful to them.

Now, that's not to say that automatically adding any links increases the value. They have to be useful links that do the things Rosenberg described. Linking to past happenings related to a story, giving background, increases value. Some will argue that the links are a distraction (this is more the point of Rosenberg's article - he argues for links as opposed to no links in web content), just ask yourself how many times you've clicked on links within a web article to get more information.

The links provide a means for increasing the reader's knowledge, and doing so in a way that doesn't force the reader to read about a bunch of stuff they already know, if they're familiar with the background of a story. Links save time in an era where time has never been more valuable.

Links are also one reason why app-based publications could replace print publications in many readers' hands. While I still feel like the paywalls associated with such publications are a larger obstacle (considering so much free content is available just a click/tap away), the apps do have the capability of adding the interactive element for readers, which can make the reading experience more appealing, and the articles themselves more valuable.

I don't think print will completely die, because there will always be people that simply like to "have" the publication physically. They want to hold a newspaper over breakfast or collect back issues of a magazine that they hold dear. Some like having their own personal libraries.

However, people like convenience and valuable content, and print just can't deliver either in the way online content can, whether it be in app form or simply from the web.

Thoughts?

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