No Phoenix Love from Twitter?

Amazon CloudFront is a web service for content delivery. It integrates with other Amazon Web Services to give developers and businesses an easy way to distribute content to end users with low latency, high data transfer speeds, and no commitments.

Amazon CloudFront delivers your static and streaming content using a global network of edge locations. Requests for your objects are automatically routed to the nearest edge location, so content is delivered with the best possible performance. Amazon CloudFront works seamlessly with Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) which durably stores the original, definitive versions of your files. Like other Amazon Web Services, there are no contracts or monthly commitments for using Amazon CloudFront – you pay only for as much or as little content as you actually deliver through the service.

"Consumers are going to expect a far greater level of customer service."
- They already do, very few deliver.

Gary avoids being punked by the host and produces a great show with one of the best wine makers in the world. This is classic @garyvee.

This on the spot interview with Jack Dorsey shows that he knows what he is talking about. He thinks before he speaks and he handled it very well.

1. Motorola Droid

By LEV GROSSMAN AND PETER HA Tuesday, Dec. 08, 2009

Everybody likes Android, Google's open-source smartphone operating system. But a smartphone operating system isn't all that satisfying without an actual kick-ass smartphone wrapped around it. Now Android has one: The Droid is a hefty beast, a metal behemoth without the gloss and finish of the iPhone, but you don't miss it. The Droid's touchscreen is phenomenally sharp and vivid, it has an actual physical (not great, but good enough) keyboard, and best of all, the Droid is on Verizon's best-of-breed 3G network. It's Android's first credible challenge to the iPhone. Price: $300.

Release date was November 6th and it tops the list.

Social Media ROI - Great examples but the best is ...

What is the CO$T of doing nothing?
Do you really want to take that risk?
The social media title wave is here

Motorola Droid over-the-air update to 2.0.1 now available with less over-the-air

By Chris Ziegler posted Dec 9th 2009 7:54AM

Seriously, don't let Verizon's tyrannical "we want to make sure the update goes smoothly" attitude get in the way of enjoying your Android 2.0.1 just the way you like it: fresh, piping hot, and served on the bleeding, jagged edge. Just because you haven't been carefully groomed and hand-picked to receive the Droid's latest (and first) firmware update over the air doesn't mean that you've got to twiddle your thumbs; thankfully, the binary has leaked onto the 'nets, which means you just need to copy it to your microSD card (Motorola graciously included a 16GB one with your phone, if you recall correctly) and follow a few simple instructions. Godspeed, Droid owner -- never let The Man hold you down. Not now, not ever.

Twitter: All Developers Will Get Access to the Firehose in Early 2010

Written by Frederic Lardinois / December 9, 2009 2:45 AM

At LeWeb today, Ryan Sarver, Twitter's Director of Platform, took the state during the morning session. He stressed that Twitter needs the developer ecosystem if it wants to continue to grow. Sarver also announced that Twitter will give all developers access to the full firehose feed in early 2010. In addition, Twitter will also soon launch a new developer site, increase the rate limit for services that use OAuth and launch a new API for browser-less apps.

Walking through the history of Twitter, Sarver noted that the core value of Twitter is openness. The first Twitter application was written in January 2007. There are now over 50,000 application in Twitter's ecosystem. This, Sarver notes, shows how developers can use simple APIs to create rich experiences.

Sarver also noted that 50% of the company's traffic now happens on partner sites and through applications. For Twitter, according to Sarver, it's all about growing the market and building out the ecosystem. Throughout the keynote, Sarver stressed that Twitter can only be as successful as long as its developers are successful.

Sarver pointed out 3 companies that have manged to monetize Twitter: CoTweet, OneRiot and TweetMeme.

Coming Up: More Transparency, Improved Communication and a Business Model

Going forward, Twitter wants to offer even better tools for third-party developers in its ecosystem. Twitter wants to be more transparent with its developers and improve its communication. In addition, the company wants to improve the utility of its API. Twitter also plans to announce a business model that allows it to share in the success of its partners.

Everybody Gets Access to the Firehose

Most importantly, Twitter is opening up the firehose of tweets to all developers. Sarver didn't announce any details, but this is obviously a very important move as it will give more developers the ability to build applications that need real-time access to every tweet without having to get Twitter's permission.

Soon, developers who use OAuth will be able to ping Twitter more often than services that still use Twitter's old authentication mechanism. Twitter will soon deprecate its old non-OAuth authentication mechanisms. In addition, Twitter will launch an API for browser-less apps.

Twitter also plans to launch a new developers site to educate its developers and will soon host its first developers conference.

Image credit: @scobleizer
© 2003-2009 ReadWriteWeb

This is too good to be true. Firehose for all developers, new developers site and an official developers conference.

Maybe a screenshot application and tethering is near.

This application has tremendous potential. I'm downloading it now to give it a spin. Have you used it?

Of all the books that Amazon sells, what percentage are digital books?
For every 100 copies of a physical book we sell, where we have the Kindle edition, we will sell 48 copies of the Kindle edition. It won’t be too long before we’re selling more electronic books than we are physical books. It’s astonishing.

Maybe as early as mid 2011, electronic sales will exceed book sales. However, this does not take into affect the number of titles that are not available for the Kindle.

Apple acquires music service Lala

Gabriel Madway and Yinka Adegoke

Sat Dec 5, 2009 10:49am EST

SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Apple Inc has acquired digital music service Lala, as the dominant online music retailer explores new models for selling songs.

Terms of the deal weren't disclosed by Apple, which confirmed the purchase on Friday.

ITunes is the leading music service in the United States with more than 70 percent of all digital music sales and it is the leading music retailer overall.

But newer music streaming services from the likes of News Corp's MySpace Music and Spotify have begun to win over music fans in the last year.

"Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time and we generally do not comment on our purpose or plans," Apple spokesman Steve Dowling said.

A source familiar with the matter said the iPod, iPhone and Mac maker is seeking new ways to expand iTunes to move it beyond being a predominantly download service for songs. The source asked not to be named.

"Apple recognizes that the model is going to evolve into a streaming one and this could probably propel iTunes to the next level," said the person.

The iTunes store offers more than 11 million songs. Apple has sold billions of tracks through iTunes since its launch in 2003.

The Lala service allows users to stream from the Internet any tune in its catalog of more than 8 million songs once for free, and then sells unlimited streams for 10 cents per track and MP3 downloads starting at 79 cents.

The Palo Alto, California-based company's investors include Bain Capital Ventures, Ignition Partners and Warner Music.

Lala founder Bill Nguyen said in October his company's revenues total less than $10 million. He said the company had about 100,000 customers.

Internet search giant Google Inc recently partnered with Lala to provide users song samples along with links to purchase the music.

Lala has also partnered with Facebook to offer music through the social networking site..

(Reporting by Gabriel Madway in San Francisco and Yinka Adegoke in New York; Editing by Richard Chang and Carol Bishopric)

I have been using Lala for several months now and I really enjoy the service. I'm sure it's going to get some pretty big changes.

Posterous

Whether you want to open up a new blog without any fuzz or just share photos and messages easily on multiple services like Facebook, Flickr and Twitter, light blogging service Posterous has you covered. The service launched in May 2009 and was definitely one of the most interesting new arrivals in the blogging landscape this year. What makes Posterous stand out is its ability to cross-post updates to other services (Flickr, Facebook, Twitter or your own blog, for example). In addition, it's also extremely easy to set up a new blog. Just email a message, photo or video to post AT posterous.com and your new blog is ready to go. Advanced users can also port their own domain names to the service and theme their blogs.

Congratulations Guys! Your hard work is paying off. Every new feature is a great enhancement. I use it and love it. Also, your prompt response to customer service requests is much appreciated. You are listening.