We all know Google Music is coming, it’s just a question of when – and what it’ll look like, of course. According to Reuters, Google hopes to launch the service as early as December 2010.

Citing unnamed ‘people familiar with the matter’, Reuters says Google’s VP of Engineering Andy Rubin (which we likened to a Steve Jobs-caliber product fanatic in the past) is spearheading talks with music labels on plans for a digital music download store and cloud-based song locker service, which he hopes will see the light of day before year’s end.

Only thing that could get in the way of a pre-Christmas debut: the company has yet to sign a single licensing deal with the music labels, those same sources told Reuters.

It’ll be interesting to see if Google can get some of those deals signed in time for the launch of Android 3.0, code-named Gingerbread, which is expected to come in the fourth quarter of this year.

We recently broke the news that Google had hired well known music attorney Elizabeth Moody to assist them with negotiations with music labels and other rights holders for their upcoming iTunes rival.

Needless to say, those types of negotiations aren’t exactly a walk in the park. Each major label has different goals and strategies for digital music, and people in the know we’ve spoken to in the past say it’s nearly impossible to get them to agree to terms that will make a streaming music service viable. In particular, they tend to disagree over how long a free trial period might last, and whether or not a credit card from the user needs to be on file before the trial starts.

That’s not to say the industry isn’t excited about Google’s imminent entry into the digital music arena. As good as Apple’s iTunes, which just got a new, social-network enhanced version with the launch of iTunes 10 earlier this week, has been for them, executives at the major music labels have long considered Apple’s immense stronghold in the field an issue.

Surely, they welcome competition from a rival the size and reach of Google, as the iTunes Music Store has cemented itself the king of the hill over the years, accounting for approximately 70 percent of all digital music sales in the United States. Dependence on a single player isn’t exactly their idea of a bright future.

One label executive, who asked not to be named, told Reuters as much:

“Finally here’s an entity with the reach, resources and wherewithal to take on iTunes as a formidable competitor by tying it into search and Android mobile platform. What you’ll have is a very powerful player in the market that’s good for the music business.”

Another unnamed label executive expressed more caution despite his or her optimism, stating that Google lacks a track record in “selling stuff” (which is true).

It’s also worth questioning if Google’s entry in the digital music space leaves much breathing room for smaller, innovative startups to compete and maintain viable relationships with the music industry.

With Apple, Google and Amazon fighting for every penny, it’ll become even harder for the likes of Spotify, Rdio and MOG than it already was – which isn’t to say none of them will thrive or attract sizeable audiences, I just wonder if they’ll be left battling for increasingly smaller pieces of the pie rather than grow into giants themselves.

Yesterday, news broke about a new feature Facebook is testing out called “Subscribe.” For a second, I thought it might be the equivalent of Twitter’s “follow” ability — that is, a feature which would let you follow the updates of someone that you’re not technically “friends” with on Facebook. Sadly, that’s not the case. Instead, this is simply a way for you to more closely follow someone you are already friends with (or fan pages), by getting alerts when they update. But that doesn’t mean Facebook isn’t working on the follow idea. In fact, last year, they definitely were.

Facebook had a secret project last year that involved testing how best to implement a Twitter-like follow feature on Facebook, multiple sources have confirmed to us. The name of the project? Project Dance Party.

But at some point, the project was scrapped. It’s not entirely clear why, as at one point, it was being fairly widely tested within Facebook, we’re told.

In fact, apparently it looked similar to this new Subscribe feature that is currently being tested. It existed as the top link under a user’s profile picture that read: “Follow NAME”. Clicking on this allowed you to see all of that user’s public updates in your News Feed — without the user needing to accept a connection request from you. Yes, just like Twitter.

The thought amongst some familiar with the project was that it was a knee-jerk reaction to the failed acquisition of Twitter in late 2008. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has recently stated that he thinks he “paid too much attention” to Twitter following the failed bid. “I looked at their rate and thought if this continues for 12 months or 18 months, then in a year they’re going to be bigger than us,” he told Inside Facebook in June of this year.

His plan to catch them? Project Dance Party. An asymmetric follow feature could make Facebook grow even faster — like Twitter, may have been the thought.

But over time, Zuckerberg saw Twitter’s insane rate of growth slow down. And Project Dance Party likely became less interesting to him because it would mean fundamentally changing Facebook’s friend network and social graph.

But that doesn’t mean Facebook isn’t keeping it on the back-burner. Some of the same sources with knowledge of Project Dance Party now wonder if this Subscribe feature isn’t the first step towards a follow feature. This may be a way to break this ice, as it were. Maybe at first you “subscribe” to friends you want to follow, but later you’ll be able to subscribe to the public updates of anyone.

In fact, Facebook already has a follow feature in place right now — it’s just that most people have no idea it exists, because Facebook doesn’t talk about it. Currently, if you request to be someone’s friend, and they keep you in their queue (meaning they never accept or reject you), you will see all of their public updates in your News Feed.

It’s ridiculous for an actual feature to work this way — but it is essentially Facebook Follow. Clearly, Facebook is still open to the idea in some form.

Obviously, I’m all for a full-fledged version of this. And not just because at one point it had the name Project Dance Party. Facebook’s sharing dynamic has become too convoluted. They need to bring it back to a basic idea: either you share with your friends, or you share with your followers (which includes your friends). It’s an either/or proposition. Sure, lists could still exist to create sub categories of friends. But as Zuckerberg himself has said recently, “nobody wants to make lists.”

Instead, perhaps they’d like to dance. Facebook, just dance.

AFP - Malaysia has formed a task force to scour the Internet for blog postings deemed harmful to national unity, authorities said on Friday in the latest of a series of actions against new media.

YCombinator-funded Cloudant, a database platform built around Apache’s open source CouchDB framework, officially launches after three years of hard work.

Cloud-based like Cloudera and Amazon Web Services and part of the NoSQL movement, Cloudant scales your database on the CloudDB framework but also provides hosting, administrative tools, analytics and support so “You don’t have to think a lot up front about what your database is going to look like.”

Going up against Goliaths like Oracle, Cloudant focuses on scalability, flexibility, and high availability. Its method of data storage is ideal in any situation in which data is generated in a distributed way, such as with sensor networks, web servers, and mobile device service, in essence “small companies with big data.”

Cloudant was founded by MIT Physics PhDs Alan Hoffman, Adam Kocoloski, and Mike Miller and recently received a seed round of $1 million dollars from Avalon Ventures.

The company currently has has 1,300 users and 10 paying customers and hopes to be the leading provider of CloudDB moving forward. Says founder Mike Miller about future plans, “There will be some huge changes in what web stacks will look like and we want to remain poised to be the cloud service that underlies those technologies.”

It’s hard to remember a product I’ve become so dependent on quicker than Gmail’s new Priority Inbox. I’m so addicted, that the few times I’ve accidentally clicked on the old “regular” Inbox view in the past week have really annoyed me. So much so that I actually moved that view into my “more” drop down (you can drag any sidebar item in there). And now I have good news: you can all share in this addiction.

While it began rolling out to users on Monday, Google is now saying that Priority Inbox should be available to all users (including Google Apps users) today. Look for the “New! Priority Inbox” message in red in the top right corner of your Gmail account to activate it. There’s a slight learning curve with it, so you’ll still probably want to watch Google’s official video. But once you get started, it’s unlikely that you’ll go back.

Overwhelmingly, the people I’ve talked to since the feature started rolling out on Monday are also now addicted to the feature. But some seem

As the cloud computing market gets more crowded, a number of Web-based calculators are popping up to lure customers.

These online calculators deserve their fair share of scrutiny. For the most part, they are there for the vendor to tell their own story in a way that shows the benefits of their service. Huge savings and incredible returns are pretty much what you are given when you pop in your numbers, requirements and company information. In the end, what you get is barely insightful. What the vendor gets is far more.

At their best, these cloud computing calculators provide a thumbnail view of the market. At their worst, they are slick tools for generating sales leads.

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Here are three that we looked at. None of these calculators should ever be used to decide how to use cloud computing services. There are just too many factors to consider when making such a decision. It's a complex undertaking for any established company. It's why cloud management companies do so well. They provide a full gamut of services to help companies decide what should be in the cloud and what should not.

Astadia

Astadia developed a cloud calculator based on the data it collected from the integrations it did for its customers. Its main purpose is to show the return on the Google, Amazon Web Services and Force.com platforms.

The calculator is heavily biased. SearchCloudComputing.com observes that the actual calculator itself was built on the Force.com platform. Astadia develops marketing and sales apps. Much of the apps it develops are created on Force.com.

Google Calculator

This one stinks. The Google Cloud Calculator is hardly a calculator at all. It's an advertisement and a lead generator.

The calculator asks for your company name and then the number of employees. Input two employees and the calculator says you will save about $31,000. Put in 15 employees and you will also save about $31,000. So, either Google is inflating the numbers for a two employee company or is vastly underestimating the savings for a 15-person company.

Google does not have to promote itself in this manner. Google Apps is an excellent service, it can stand on its own. Cost comparisons are fine but to call it a calculator is a bit far fetched.

Windows Azure

The Windows Azure cloud calculator is better than the Google calculator advertisement. It still requires a high dose of skepticism, especially considering that it was built by a marketing firm.

Before you launch the calculator, they issue a disclaimer. That at least removes a bit of the marketing gleam.

The calculator asks a series of questions. SearchCloudComputing.com makes the point that the calculator is no doubt collecting hordes of marketing information. Again, its more of a marketing ploy than anything else. Still, Micrsoft at least tries to show some integrity:

"You should not view the results of this report as a substitute for engaging with a third party expert to independently evaluate you or your company's specific computing needs. The analysis report you will receive is for informational purposes only," it reads. It also assumes a rough estimate of $20,000 per year to manage a server on-premise, and about $4,000 for the Azure equivalent."

There are plenty of other cloud calculators. Rackspace has one as does Amazon Web Services. Our advice is to treat these calculators like you would any marketing information. They are simply tidbits of information that should provide nothing else but a snapshot of the market.

If you're capable of seeing past the old stones of Paris and the picturesque rural villages, you'll realize that France is every bit as technologically advanced as any other Western country - more so in some areas. Not only does the country have a higher percentage of homes with high-speed Internet than the U.S. (plus it's faster and costs half as much), it ranks first in the world for number of blogs per Internet user, and has a formidable market of Internet consumers who spent €5.5 billion online in the first quarter of this year.

When I came to Paris in 2006, I had a well-developed idea for a startup and nothing else. It's now been about three years since I joined the fray as an entrepreneur and tech blogger. In that time, I've discovered that the startup scene is infused with passion, energy and a strong spirit of collaboration.

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There's a thriving geek culture in Paris, and no lack of software development expertise, thanks to superior universities that produce superior engineers. The startup scene is relatively young, however, which is partly due to some pretty fundamental cultural barriers. But these barriers are showing some wear and tear.

There are numerous events and organizations in Paris that exist solely to foster entrepreneurship and tech innovation, many of which get partial financial support from local, regional and national government. France is not a socialist country, but it's a socialized country, and the French get a lot in return for the taxes they pay.

The Big Players

Silicon Sentier is perhaps the best-known player in the Paris startup scene. It's essentially an ecosystem whose mission is the care and feeding of innovation. Among other activities and programs, Silicon Sentier runs La Cantine, a coworking center, hip geek hangout and bustling hub for Paris tech events and activities: barcamps, workshops, competitions, launch parties, press conferences - you name it.

Cap Digital and System@tic are among a number of tech clusters in Paris. The boards of these organizations include large companies, local and regional government representatives, universities/public research labs and SMEs. Through them, entrepreneurs can hook up with R&D resources in universities and companies, and get access to a robust support network that provides opportunities for visibility, growth and financing.

Fing, another major player, is "an idea accelerator, a think tank and a resource for innovators." Fing may be a think tank, but it fosters startup success in very concrete ways. Startups can submit their projects to Fing, which provides support to over 200 projects a year through events, programs, and access to a large network of resources.

LeWeb, Europe's largest (and the world's second largest) Internet conference is held in Paris every December. It was created and is run by French entrepreneur Loïc Lemeur (Seesmic), and it includes a competition for European startups. Yes, it happens in Paris, but it's held in English because it's an international conference. LeWeb is a world-class tech conference, and the speakers on the program are always the crème de la crème of the startup world.

Incubators, Accelerators, Competitions

We have those too. Some, like Seedcamp, Startup Weekend, barcamps and the OpenCoffee Club are imports from other countries. Others are homegrown, like SeedNetworking, the brainchild of some alumni of HEC (one of France's best business schools) and Ecole des Mines (one of the excellent engineering schools), who tweaked the speed-networking concept to get entrepreneurs who need developers and developers who need projects in the same room for some fast and furious face time.

The major engineering and business universities have incubators for students and alumni, though some of them are less Internet oriented than others, and there are a few unaffiliated incubators as well, like Paris Pionnières, which receives both public and private funding and supports women-owned startups, and the incubators of Paris Développement, which is funded by the city of Paris and the Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Big names like Microsoft BizSpark and Sun Startup Essentials have a presence here, of course, and The Funded recently launched their Founder Institute in Paris as well.

One thing we are missing here in Paris is longer-term intensive accelerators of the Y Combinator variety, but they exist in the U.K., so it shouldn't be long till they hop across the Channel.

The Funding

The funding landscape is complex from a foreigner's point of view because the government is very often involved somehow. There are public entities that seem to be frequently renamed or merged, as well as semi-private and private organizations, and their activities are all very intertwined with each other. And it's acronym hell. But the bottom line is that there is money for startups, and a lot of it comes from those taxpayer Euros I mentioned earlier. In fact, about three fourths of startup money comes from public funds.

One obstacle startups have traditionally faced here is that public and private funding is largely skewed towards projects that involve an R&D/new technology component. French investors are more risk averse than their American counterparts, and the possibility of a patent is reassuring to them.

And, until recently, business angels have been relatively few and far between. This is in part because the government historically filled the seed-funding void, and that is where people tended to turn. But angels are getting more structured, more active, and there more of them. Plus there's been another important new development: Several highly successful French Internet entrepreneurs-turned-investors, who are considerably less skittish than your traditional French investor, are taking matters into their own hands (Meet France's New and Awesome Super Angels).

The chart below shows the general funding options available to French startups.

Startups can access public funding in a number of ways. A rite of passage for many is to go through OSEO, which will analyze and validate a project. OSEO validation in turn makes early-stage startups eligible for a variety of support services and funding options. OSEO can be involved during very early stage activities, such as business plan creation and feasibility studies. It also provides support and guidance well beyond that phase.

A startup can be designated a Jeune Entreprise Innovante (Innovative Young Enterprise). The JEI program was created in 2004 and is managed by the Ministry of Research. Having JEI status is pretty much a golden ticket to financing, and JEI startups also get tax breaks and other benefits. To qualify, your project has to have an R&D element. There is also the Concours national d'aide à la création d'entreprises de technologies innovantes (National competition to help create innovative technology companies). Winners of this contest can be awarded up to €450,000 for R&D.

Private individuals who want a tax break can put money into special investment funds (Fonds commun de placement dans l'innovation) that are meant to be invested in innovative companies. These are managed by various wealth management entities (Conseils en gestion de patrimoine indépendents, or CGPI). The condition for receiving the tax break on these investments is that 60% of the money must go to early-stage, innovative companies, and it must be invested within two years of receipt by the CGPI. OSEO can designate a startup as an Entreprise innovante au titre des FCPI, which makes it eligible for this kind of investment. This designation is similar to JEI but has a broader view of "innovative" and is less strict about the R&D element.

Pôle emploi is the government agency that provides unemployment compensation, but it also helps those recipients who are creating a small business or startup by providing extended compensation and breaks on the social charges (retirement, medical, disability, etc.) that businesses normally pay to the government.

Réseau Entreprendre Paris, a network of business owners, and France Initiative, a network of local organizations, are examples of the many semi-private organizations that support startups. They themselves receive both public and private funding, which they use in turn to provide financial support to startups through incubators and other established channels.

I've focused on some options for early-stage startups here, and haven't discussed VC funding or the many organizations here that help French startups expand internationally. For a comprehensive guide (in French) to starting up in France, I highly recommend Accompagnement des startups high-tech en France [PDF], and for an overview of the funding cycle, Exemple de cycle de financement de startup en France [PDF]; both are by Olivier Ezratty.

Photo by Konstantinos Dafalias

The Startups

You may think you've never heard of any French startups, but it's possible that you're using apps you don't even realize are French. If they've picked a name English speakers can pronounce and translated their sites into English, they blend right in. Take Netvibes, the pioneer in the personalized dashboard space, which has been written about a number of times here on ReadWriteWeb. They're going strong, and constantly adapting their platform to users' changing needs for information and social media aggregation. And there's DailyMotion, which is eating into YouTube's market share and had a 70% jump in US traffic in 2009.

There are plenty of successful startups in France that cleverly capitalized on the fact that startups in other countries didn't localize for the French market. The model of Sarenza is similar to that of Zappos, and it dominates the European market for footwear online. There are also original models that are either being copied or stealthily moving into English-speaking markets, like Vente-Privée and PriceMinister. PriceMinister, a site for C2C/B2C sales of new and used goods (at a fixed price) is the top e-commerce platform in France (recently surpassing eBay.fr and Amazon.fr). It has infiltrated the U.K., and I wouldn't be surprised if the U.S. were on its radar, where it'll surely give eBay.com some healthy - and much needed - competition. Vente-Privée is a retail site selling designer products at invitation-only online sales. One of the top e-commerce sites in France, it has expanded into other European countries and its model has given rise to some me-toos in other countries.

The French have their share of exemplary startups in the enterprise space as well, including BlueKiwi, an enterprise social platform, and Exalead, which offers powerful and easily integrated search tools to help businesses and institutions get the most out of their information assets. Exalead's true entrepreneurial colors still show, thanks to its internal project incubator, Exalabs. (Exalead was just acquired by the technology giant, Dassault Systems.)

These are some French startups that have made it to the big time. But what about the little guys? All those struggling, bootstrapping, Ramen-eating founders? As a matter of fact, Paris is crawling with them. Some are clearly aiming no further than the French market, but a number of them are out of the gate in at least French and English with a view to conquering the Web. Just like anywhere else, French startups run the gamut from basic Web apps that focus on a specific niche need, to ambitious and powerful platforms that are likely to give the current leaders a run for their money. Here's a list of just a few of our jeunes pousses (sprouts).

(E= in English)

English Attack: Edutainment site that teaches English using Internet content that real people actually use: music, video, gaming, and more. (E)

GameCreds: Impressive social universe for gamers. (E)

Kontest: Ready-made solution for creating and managing a variety of interactive contests to provide user communities memorable experiences on Facebook and the iPhone. (E soon!)

Meetings: Nice collaborative app that manages all activities related to meetings: communications, attachments, agendas, action items, scheduling, etc.

MonArbre-MaTribu: Crowd-sourced reforestation project, very nicely done. One Euro plants a tree. (France only, for now.)

Pearltrees: A bookmarking site with a new approach to organization of content that resembles mind mapping. (Covered previously on RWW.) (E)

Plyce: Feature-rich location-based social network. They appear to be of the opinion that badges and mayorships are so last week. (Gotta like that thinking.) (E)

Regioneo: You know all those cute little French open-air markets where small producers sell their amazing artisanal food products? This site lets you order directly from the producers. (France only, unfortunately).

Synthesio: Web app that provides extensive data from multiple sources for companies that want to track buzz and reputation, and identify trends and influencers. (E and more)

TellMeWhere: A real-time urban guide powered by user recommendations on everything from bars to barbers across the globe. Web and mobile. (Covered previously on RWW.) (E)

Yoocasa: A private online space, developed in collaboration with child psychologists, where families interact in real time through photo slideshows, video chats, interactive games, and more. (E)

Ulule: Beautifully designed crowdfunding platform for projects that are artsy or for the betterment of society. (E)

When Six Apart launched Vox, a blogging/social network platform with strict privacy controls, in 2006, investor David Hornik had high hopes. Vox is an “amazing blogging platform,” he said, because “Finally I have a place where I can post pictures and video of my kids without concern about who is looking at them.”

Vox will be shut down on September 20, says Six Apart.

What they’re not saying is why. Part of it is likely cleanup for a merger that the company continues to flatly deny – CEO Chris Alden will have fun explaining his way out of that one if it actually happens.

But it’s also that Vox is just pretty much a ghost town. The site has just 5.7 million monthly uniques, says Comscore. And if you really want to show family pictures to your friends, you’ll probably make the effort to just wade through Facebook’s privacy settings quagmire. As for private blogging, well, it just isn’t all that SEO friendly. WordPress ate their lunch, and they do private blogs, too.

We’ve put Vox into the TechCrunch DeadPool.

Heard of Tagged? Back in 2005 it was a teenager-only social network, catering primarily to U.S. high school students as Facebook charged through the college crowds. By 2007 they were profitable and worth over $100 million.

Just one problem though. Facebook eventually started letting high school students in, and then everyone else. Tagged responded by opening up to everyone, too. But by mid 2007, CEO Greg Tseng tells me, Tagged knew it was in trouble.

“Facebook beat us,” he said. “We were just another social network…but not in the top five.”

So Tseng and team decided to reach out to users and ask them what they wanted. “The most important thing we learned was that people were using our site to meet new people.”

Bingo! Facebook isn’t big on helping you meet new people. You can search by name, and you can click on friends of friends, but you can’t just find new people you aren’t already connected to via someone else. At Tagged, people were using filtered search to meet people. For sharing activities, dating, or whatever.

“We focused on being the best place to meet new people for any social reason,” Tseng tells me.

Dating is obviously a big part of this. Facebook doesn’t have dating profiles. And there’s a stigma associated with Match.com and other dating sites, at least for some people. But on Tagged people can meet and date or engage in other activities. “Going to Tagged is like going to a bar with friends, and you will probably meet new people. Going to Match.com is link going to a singles event, and there’s a stigma with that.”

Users definitely agree. In 2007 Tagged had 20 million active users. Today they’ve hit 100 million. 1/3 to 1/4 visit the site each month and the site has 5 billion monthly page views.

And they’re spending money. Virtual gifts. VIP accounts that let you do things like see who’s viewing your profile for $20/month. Revenue has grown to $30+ million, and Inc. named them one of the 500 fastest growing companies two weeks ago. 2011 revenue should be $50+ million, says Tseng.

A/B testing, which entails running multiple versions of a site at once and tracking which one performs best with users, is a key part of launching a new version of any website.Visual Website Optimizer, which I’ll just call VWO from here on out, helps users manage this often complex process. The service shares some similiarities with a Y Combinator-funded startup called Optimizely, which launched in July.

Among some of VMO’s features are multivariate testing (you can adjust more than one item on your site and VMO will run them in various combinations to determine which ones have a positive effect), heatmaps showing off where users are clicking (which are useful for visualizing where your visitors are clicking for different variations of a site), and split URL tests, which gives you the option to redirect
traffic to two alternate versions of your website.

The site also has WordPress, Drupal and Google Analytics plugins, and allows testing of pages which are behind login/signup wall and enables segmentation and running targeted tests (say, for example,
you want to test only new visitors who came to your site searching for ‘Techcrunch’.

Customers can use VMO’s API to integrate the data and management into their own dashboards. And VMO will track conversions across different domains via third party cookies, send email notifications of test results, and will send automatic screenshot generations of variations for archiving and reporting,

The bootstrapped startup is also seeing significant growth in traffic handles by its severs; its servers are now handing 540 million pageviews per month, a 500 percent increase in month-to-month traffic.
And VMO’s platform is being used by a number of well known companies including Microsoft, RackSpace and Vendio.

To many users, Twitter for iPhone (the artist formerly known as Tweetie) is perhaps the perfect Twitter client (though I’d argue that the new Twitter for iPad is right there with it). But the one thing it has been lacking and that users knock it for is the lack of Push Notifications. Well, good news. They’re coming. Soon.

Twitter is currently internally testing the feature, we’ve confirmed. Interestingly enough, we learned of its

Last time we wrote about Notifo, we called it a “simple mobile notifications platform for anything” — and really, that’s probably the best way to describe it. Take your iPhone, install the Notifo app, hook it up to your favorite services (like Twitter, or GitHub) or any of the “Projects” (read: plugins, like Growl alert forwarding, or Chrome-to-Notifo ), and bam! You’ve got push notifications coming down to your iPhone from just about anything you could imagine.

All that notification sending takes two things: users to send the messages to, and a message pushing backend to handle all the heavy lifting — the same two things, as it just so happens, that one would need to create a basic instant messaging service. And so they have.

Read the rest at MobileCrunch >>

One of Apple's announcements yesterday was a completely redesigned Apple TV. It's competing in a crowded and still confusing field of products that stream video from the Internet to your TV. Boxee and Roku are two smaller companies trying to crack it; and Google TV was unveiled in May. The ultimate goal of all of these products is to make Web-to-TV very easy for consumers, but the market is still searching for the right formula.

We'd like to poll the ReadWriteWeb community on this topic. Let us know how you currently get online video (and other media content) onto your TV. Also, which of the emerging products do you think has the best chance to be the consumer offering of choice?

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The key points of the new Apple TV are: a much lower price (now $99, compared to $229 for the first generation product), streamlined form (80% smaller), streaming functionality, no more local storage, Netflix and YouTube access, and 99c TV show rentals.

Other ways to access Web content on your TV include: modern Internet-connected TVs; online gaming devices like Sony PlayStation 3 and X-Box 360; P2P software; Set-top boxes like TiVo (specifically, its Premiere offering released in March); streaming software for computers, such as playon; wireless USB display adapter sets; special cables to hook a computer up to a TV.

Of course, there's still the matter of accessing good content. All of the online TV players have been busy doing deals with TV and movie distributors, a process which is far from being worked through. Meanwhile, many consumers have used P2P services like BitTorrent to get such content for free.

The video below from the Google TV announcement shows the (potential) benefits of streaming Web content to your TV:

I myself use a combination of Sony Playstation 3 and the P2P client Vuze in order to stream the occasional TV show and movie to my TV. Although it converts online video to a PS3 compatible format, it's still not a completely satisfactory solution. Sometimes the sound doesn't work, or the video is choppy, and so on. So I'm looking forward to purchasing one of the upcoming devices from Apple, Boxee, Roku or Google.

Do you stream content from the Internet into your TV? If so, tell everyone how you do it in the comments below.

Google Wave is far from dead, and developers, early adopters and enterprises will be glad to hear it. Today Google announced it will expand on the code it has already open sourced, building Wave into a functional application that will allow users to run wave servers, host their own waves and build bigger and better applications with the real-time collaboration technology.

"Since the beginning, it has been our vision that the Google Wave protocols could support a new generation of communication and collaboration tools," engineer Alex North wrote on the Google Wave developer blog.

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Google had big plans for Wave - it was supposed to replace email and the killer app among Google Apps, but the company basically gave up on the project earlier this month (see Google Wave Is Dead). It still seems possible for the technology to do big things. But it sounds like Google plans to move on after the application is released. The future of the open source project will be defined by developers' contributions, North wrote.

Wave In A Box will not have the "full functionality" of the Gmail-integrated Web app, but it will feature threaded conversations and support importing data from wave.google.com.

The release of Wave as an application could be a big deal for developers, especially at businesses that want to take advantage of Wave for real-time collaboration and discussion (see our post, 5 Services That Leverage Google Wave).

Wave was always intended for people to run on their own machines, but this release will make the process much easier. Developers and enterprise users that have been eyeing Wave will be more likely to take the technology into their own hands and build things like feature-rich Web forums, productivity tools and apps to facilitate collaborative projects.

Google did not specify a timeline for the release of the new code, but it has said that wave.google.com will be available at least through the end of the year.

When I read Twitter CEO Evan Williams post tonight about the state of Twitter from a mobile perspective, the first thing that jumped out at me what that Twitter for Android, an app Twitter worked hard on, isn’t even in the top 10 most-used apps for the service. But Williams also used the post to whip out some impressive numbers. Chief among them: Twitter now has over 145 million registered users (though presumably less than 150 million, or he would have said that). And there are now nearly 300,000 registered apps in the Twitter ecosystem.

The latter number above is technically the number of registered OAuth apps in the ecosystem (and includes multiple instances of some apps). Twitter made the switch over from basic authentication to OAuth a few days ago, leaving behind some apps, such as the old Tweetie (which was reborn as Twitter for iPhone). Williams says this number of registered apps has tripled since their Chirp conference — which was only this past April.

Other big numbers thrown out there by Williams:

• Mobile users have jumped 62% since mid-April
• 16% of all new users to Twitter now start on mobile (it was 5% before Twitter started doing branded mobile clients)
• 46% of active users use some sort of mobile Twitter experience
• 78% of people who interact with Twitter still do so through twitter.com — though that number includes people who use more than one app
• m.twitter.com is the second most-used Twitter interface at 14%
• SMS and Twitter for iPhone are tied at 8%

Lastly, he throws in that Twitter’s Promoted Products (read: their first big monetization pitch) has “exceeded our expectations.” No word on if that means Twitter has turned a profit, but that seems pretty unlikely. Still, revenues are undoubtedly growing.

As far as Web services go, Twitter is pretty easy to use. Fill out a brief profile, follow some people and go, right? Well apparently not. Developers at the company have been fretting over the fact that some people still think Twitter is "too hard" to use.

But the solution has proved easy. By simply releasing mobile apps named "Twitter," the company has seen a boost in new users.

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Twitter announced today that the number of total mobile users has jumped 62% since mid-April, thanks to the release of Twitter for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry. These apps existed before - Twitter for iPhone is just a rebranded version of the third-party client Tweetie - but they weren't recruiting new users.

"We did iPhone user tests and confirmed that even though there was a plethora of third-party Twitter apps, people were having trouble finding and selecting one because none were called 'Twitter.' This kept them from using Twitter at all," CEO Evan Williams wrote in a blog post titled "The Evolving Ecosystem" today.

Now 16% of new users sign up via mobile, versus 5% before the name changes. Almost half of all active users "make mobile a regular part of their Twitter experience," according to Twitter.

Despite the mobile push and recent speculation that Twitter's clients have killed its Web site, 78% of users still access Twitter at least once a month via the Web.

Twitter.com and Twitter's mobile Web site are the top ways users access Twitter, followed by SMS and the official iPhone and BlackBerry clients. TwitPic, the photo-uploading service, and Google Friend Connect, the widget that lets websites feature content from social networks, are also in the top ten ways users access Twitter. Surprisingly, Twitter for Android was not.

The rest of the 300,000 registered Twitter applications have much fewer users, Twitter said. But Williams is encouraged by the growth and variety of apps in Twitter's ecosystem. "These new services help people get the most out of Twitter, contributing to user growth and new business opportunities," he wrote.

Twitter said it now has more than 145 million registered users, although the number of active users is lower.

How do you access Twitter?

College hiring is projected to rebound in time for the Class of 2011 to feel its effects, according to a new survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). Employers who took part in NACE's survey say they're anticipating hiring 13.5% more new college grades from the Class of 2011 than they did from the Class of 2010. And in general, just under 48% of those responding said they plan to increase their hiring, while 40% say they expect to maintain the hiring levels. Good news for those stepping into the job market after graduation this spring.

We've written before about the things to ask yourself as to whether or not a job at a startup is right for you. But if you think your post-graduate plans involve life with a startup, then there are a number of things you can do, while still in school, to prep.

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Preparing Now for the Post-Graduate Job Hunt

The first, of course, may be to look for an internship. While the traditional notion of internship conjures images of corporate drudgery (in my head, at least), YouTern is one organization that works to place college students with entrepreneurial-driven companies. (See our ReadWriteWeb write-up here.) Not only are internships important skill-, network-, and resume-building experiences, it's a great way to get a taste for the startup life - something quite different than other post-college jobs.

If you're sure the startup world is right for you, then Jason Shen and Derek Flanzraich, both recent college graduates working at startups (Shen works for isocket and Flanzraich for Clicker) have written a great set of tips on how to land a startup job out of college.

Here are a few of their tips:

• Know Your Industry Inside and Out: Do your research. Domain experience matters.
• Focus - Only Target a Few Startups: You want to find the startup that matches your skills, your knowledge (see above), but also your workstyle and your vision.
• Get Good at Specific Stuff: As Shen and Flanzraich write, startups "need people who can make an immediate impact on their 'bottom line', whether that's users, revenue, traffic, or something else." You need to bring a strong skill-set, but also a diverse skill-set.
• Prove Your Worth: As with any job hunt nowadays, you want to make sure your online presence demonstrates a portfolio of projects and blog posts.
• Get a Referral - Or Become a Friendly Face: Startups rarely have "openings," and even when they do, a reference makes a big difference. Don't know anyone who can recommend you? Shen and Flanzraich suggest volunteering. "Startups love free labor."
• Send in a Killer, Personalized and Memorable App: "Do something something different," they suggest. "Do something memorable. Something that proves your enthusiasm and dedication to the company."
• Be Yourself

Sure, it's Fall and college students are just beginning to return to campus. But it's never too early to start preparing for graduation - and the job search - in the spring.

This evening Twitter CEO Evan Williams put up an interesting post about Twitter mobile usage. By just about every measurable metric, it seems to be skyrocketing. He also included a graph of the top 10 ways people are now using Twitter. This includes both Twitter’s own apps and third-party clients, but notably, Twitter for Android is nowhere to be seen.

I’ve confirmed with Twitter that this isn’t a mistake. It seems that Twitter for Android is in fact not in the top 10 ways people interact with the service. That’s incredible considering that Twitter for iPhone is number 4 and Twitter for Blackberry is number 5. Both of those were built by the Twitter team, just as the Android app was.

Even crazier, it’s behind third party clients TwitPic, TweetDeck, Echofon, UberTwitter, and even Google Friend Connect!

Obviously, Twitter downplays that in the post (and by downplays, I mean, doesn’t mention it), and instead only mentions Twitter for Android in the intro to say that it “launched a new version this week.” Remember, “new” is the best tactic to get people to try something.

So why is next to no one using Twitter for Android? Twitter won’t say. But I suspect it may have to do with the awful experience of trying to find apps in Google’s Android Market. Twitter for Android is by far and away the best client for the platform — but you’ll note that none of the other popular Android Twitter clients made the cut either.

So perhaps Android users just don’t like using Twitter? That’s probably not the case. Remember too that a lot of the newer Android phones come with custom skins that often include Twitter functionality without the need for a separate app. Still, for browsing tweets, Twitter for Android is much, much better. People should be using it, but they’re apparently not.

Update: One other thing undoubtedly at play here: Twitter for Android only works on Android 2.1 and later. Again, that’s largely an Android issue as fragmentation is preventing people from upgrading.

More: Twitter Now Over 145 Million Users, Almost 300,000 Apps

SEOMoz, a site we've covered before as a top-notch resource for search engine optimization tips, recently relaunched their site and opened their campaign-based Web app as a public beta.

The company is also hoping to drive new sign-ups for its Pro account, which is being offered at a discounted rate of $79 per month (normally $99), at least until midnight Pacific Time on Friday, September 3, 2010.

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The SEOMoz Web app, which manages crawl diagnostics, on-page optimization, and keyword tracking, is now available to all Pro users. Other features like XML sitemaps and integration with Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics are on the horizon, according to SEOMoz Community Manager Jen Sable Lopez.

Although the site's UI was already pretty snazzy, SEOMoz.org is also sporting an brand new design from head to footer.

SEOMoz is used by big names like Ebay, Best Buy, The New York Times, Facebook and Yahoo!, among others. In addition to their paid Pro account, they offer an extensive library of free SEO resources, including The Beginner's Guide to SEO and one of the most highly-acclaimed SEO blogs on the planet.

Interested in taking SEOMoz Pro for a spin? You can still sign-up at the discounted rate until midnight Pacific Time on Friday September 3.

An interesting beneficiary of Apple’s launch of music-oriented social network Ping—social status updater Ping.fm. According to Seesmic CEO Loic Le Meur, Ping.fm saw a record number of accounts created yesterday (Seesmic acquired Ping.fm earlier this year).

Could it be a coincidence? Definitely, not. When you Google “Ping,” Ping.fm is the second result under the golf equipment site PING (this doesn’t include News results). Apple’s Ping is actually the fourth result (not including Video results). On Bing, Ping.fm is the third result, behind the golf company and the Wikipedia page for Ping. Clearly, as people starting becoming curious about Apple’s Ping yesterday on search portals, they also found Ping.fm in results.

Le Meur declined to reveal the exact number of accounts created but he did say that the number of accounts created was three times the normal rate in a given day. Apple actually licensed the name Ping from the golf company, as PING owns the trademark.

AFP - A video cartoon featuring Google's chief giving away ice cream to snoop on children aired on a giant screen in Times Square as a privacy group continued to hound the Internet giant.

In the wake of Digg’s bungled redesign, its rival is enjoying a surge in traffic and a jump in ad and subscription sales. Since Monday, the site has been averaging 900,000 uniques per day— a 50% increase from Reddit’s pre-”Digg 4″ average, according to senior programmer, Chris Slowe. The six-member team does not openly celebrate the technical woes of its competitor but there is a certain giddiness in the air at Reddit’s SF headquarters (a small room, tucked in the corner of Wired’s expansive office).

The Conde Nast owned startup is having a moment, and they know it.

However, there’s no time to bask in glory, as the number of page views rises and the press rolls out headlines like, “Backlash Continues For Digg as Reddit Steps in and Reaps the Benefits,” “Report: Reddit Ready To Defeat Digg?,” and “New Digg Sucks? Reddit All Over Digg FrontPage Now!” No, for the four-person engineer team, it’s time to roll-up their sleeves and crank away, to keep the site afloat (no easy task) and create the next whizz-bang features to keep Reddit’s enlarged user base happy.

On Thursday, we dropped by their offices for a pulse check. While programmer David King’s eyes were glued to his monitor— tweaking a feature that will hopefully improve the site’s scalability— senior programmer Chris Slowe was available to take our questions, video above.

Highlights:

-Slowe says they first noticed a spike in traffic on Sunday night, as activity increased in Australia. By the close of Monday, Reddit saw 850,000 unique visitors, that number increased on Tuesday, with 900,000. Traffic has continued to hover around this level, with roughly 13 to 14 million total page views per day.

-Self-serve ads are up 30% since Digg 4′s launch. Overall ad sales have been growing roughly 5% per month, Slowe expects monthly sales to increase 5 to 10% for the remainder of this year. Subscriptions are also up, currently Reddit has 10,000 subscribers.

-Their prayer for more resources is finally being answered. They are currently in the process of hiring one new employee, but hope to have enough cash on hand to hire two full-time employees by year’s end.

-On Digg’s fumble, Slowe says: “I think the biggest complaint from their community has been that they feel marginalized…The only advice I would really give them…they haven’t been as communicative as they could be…Our only currency really is trust and candor and so if you treat your community like adults they’ll behave like adults.”

-On that whole Proposition 19 debacle: “Once the dust settled everything was just fine nobody’s been fired, everyone is perfectly happy. The main problem was that it was all happening very fast. It went from a blog post from the Prop 19 guys to a full blown community revolt on Reddit in about an hour… One of the problems with trying to be candid at all times, is that sometimes private political arguments end up public…we could have been a little bit more graceful in the handling of that.

-On the next feature for Reddit: “Our UI is not particularly friendly…we’d like to work on some tools to make it more friendly…another thing that’s been big is that its not necessarily clear off the bat that Reddit is customizable we have a whole bunch of communities and they all have different bends and you can subscribe to different communities…I think that’s not necessarily clear from a first look.”

The Virginia Community College system had a problem. The IT department had run out of ways to cool its data center.

They explored going through the expense of transforming the building where the servers were housed or moving to a new building all together.

Virtualization helped sort things out. They discovered servers that were soaking up power but were doing next to nothing. The results came far faster than expected. The cost savings were almost immediate.

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Download the Case Study

We hear that former Palm Vice President of Public Relations Lynn Fox has given up on her “Consult Until-I-Find-Another-Job Consulting” plans and landed  a permanent gig at video streaming service Ustream. Her formal title will be VP of Corporate Communications and she will be reporting to Ustream CEO John Ham.

Sources say that Fox is the first in a series of new hires at Ustream, hires which should be announced formally in the next couple of weeks. Fox’s first day will be Tuesday, Sept. 7 and her primary duties will be leading all things related to PR, Events and Social Media.

It looks like Ustream is taking advantage of its $75m round of funding from Softbank and other investors earlier this year in order to ramp up their recruiting efforts and attract major talent like Fox.

Prior to Ustream, Fox had to honor of working in the upper echleons of communications departments at both Google and Apple. She left Palm shortly before the HP acquisition in June.

Yesterday, Apple launched iTunes Ping, their new music social network. Part of that launch was a very basic implementation of Facebook Connect, simply to hook in and find out which of your Facebook friends were also using Ping. I tried it yesterday and it worked fine. But this morning the option vanished and everyone was left wondering what happened?

Well, it vanished because Facebook started blocking iTunes Ping from accessing their API, we’ve heard (just as AllThingsD and New York Times have as well). Obviously, there’s no point in having a feature that doesn’t work — so Apple simply removed it.

Apple won’t respond to requests for comment and Facebook will only give the vague canned response, “We’re working with Apple to resolve this issue. We’ve worked together successfully in the past, and we look forward to doing so in the future” But yes, Facebook blocked access and so Apple removed Connect.

But wait, I’ve heard that canned statement before. When was it? Oh, that’s right, just about two months ago, when Facebook blocked Twitter from accessing the same API. “We are working with Twitter resolve the issue,” we were told at the time. Deja vu.

So what’s Facebook’s problem? Well, from what we’re hearing, size matters. Facebook is happy to let big companies like Apple and Twitter access their Connect API, but they want a structured, formal agreement in place so they have some control over it. That’s understandable given how large those sites are and how much strain they likely put on the API.

In both cases, from what we’ve heard, Twitter and Apple simply hooked up Connect without giving Facebook much (if any) of a warning. They were able to do this because they were using the same public APIs that anyone else who wants to hook into Connect uses. Of course, most of those other companies don’t have hundreds of millions — or even millions — of users. So Facebook feels there should be different rules in place for those companies.

Again, that’s an understandable position. But the problem is that in Twitter’s case, after months of talking, the two sides got absolutely nowhere. A week ago, Twitter simply removed the Connect feature altogether from their Facebook app.

I suspect things might be a bit different with Apple, as it would be beneficial branding, if nothing else, to have the Facebook Connect button inside of iTunes. But if Apple won’t agree to some sort of formal agreement, it will still likely be a no-go.

Of course, given some of the identity issues Ping is already facing, Apple may soon be happy to work with Facebook on the “issue” Facebook says they’re working on.

[image: New Line Cinemas]

Facebook's goal for the new Places feature may be even more ambitious than we realized. Facebook wants the central platform for location data across all Web services, a company spokesman said today at a New York Times developer conference.

The statement reinforces the image of a world where the majority of the population is catalogued in Facebook's growing database. The long-term vision for Facebook Places is starting to take shape: Facebook wants to dominate the location-based Web.

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Facebook demonstrated that it wants your profile to be your identity on the Internet with Facebook Connect (see Facebook Wants to Be Your One True Login). Basically, it now wants you to add location to that identity.

Places is restricted to basic location-confirmed check-ins - who is where, when - shunning mayorships and badges and leaving any sort of advertising up to third-party developers. This minimalist functionality leaves out some of the fun out of checking in, but it makes sense if Facebook's plan is simply to place its 500 million users on a dynamic map.

And Facebook hopes that soon, any app developer who comes up with a new location-based service will turn first to Facebook's massive trove of data.

The full manifestation of Facebook Places is still five to ten years out. The feature is available to all users in the U.S., but not everyone is using it.

For one thing, Places requires users to check in from a GPS-enabled device, but less than a third of Americans have smartphones, according to Nielson. That's changing rapidly - Nielson estimates that half of Americans will own a smartphone by the end of 2011.

And all this is contingent on people sharing their location information with Facebook, of course. That's no guarantee given the company's history of privacy slip-ups (see The Facebook Privacy Debate: What You Need to Know). But whether people use the service will depend on how much utility they get from it, as it did when Facebook introduced the News Feed feature. Users initially rejected the change, it now drives much of the activity on the site because it's useful and fun.

Users, developers and advertisers should all be excited for the possibilites for location-based services, from social shopping and rewards programs to real-time travel guides. The question is whether Facebook can persuade its users to trust it with their location data. Users might prefer to give their location data directly to individual applications, or another company might rise up to collect this data.

What do you think? Are you ready to trust Facebook to handle your real-time location for the apps of the future?

Buzzfeed, the Huffington Post of Internet memes, wins the “more meta than thou” award for making “An Infographic Backlash Infographic” inspired by the tragic tale of a guy whose job it was to game Digg back when Digg had enough traffic to make it worth gaming.

Okay Buzzfeed, just because you understand recursion, doesn’t mean you have to rub it in our face all the time. Aside from the Greyhat SEO tricks, your anti-infographic infographic and the post that inspired it are actually just describing successful web-writing and content creation. It’s like…there’s a reason people are clicking on it.

From the Digg gamer’s playbook, which is really interesting if you care at all about how people used to build website traffic.

“Spam other sites with it too for bonus points. Email large blogs, etc. to try to get them to run with it too.”

From the Buzzfeed “community manager,” in our Tips inbox today:

Thought this might be up your alley -

a couple of days ago someone posted on Reddit about how he been paid to game Digg and other influential sites by creating infographics (those goofy, badly designed images with stats and pie charts called “everything you ever wanted to know about boobs” that keep turning up on content-sharing sites) and then loading them with keyword-spam embed tags once they start spreading.

today, we posted an infographic about how the system works: http://www.buzzfeed.com/awesomer/the-truth-about-infographics

and within a few minutes, dozens of new fake accounts were created on our site to defend the practice.

the whole thing is pretty fascinating!

Well I do find it fascinating … But wait, didn’t you guys just tell me I shouldn’t link to infographics? Fortunately the spam infographic has some helpful suggestions for what to do when you’re in this kind of a situation. “If you do include a link to a spam infographic include a no follow tag in the html.”

Which is exactly what we did. Thanks guys! Hi Jonah ;)

Back in August, after the release of the company's Android app, I spoke with GetGlue CEO Alex Iskold about how his startup prepared itself for making the move to mobile. The app first launched on the Web, and thus the company's developers were most familiar with languages native to the Web. In order to transition to mobile, Iskold and GetGlue employed the services of Appcelerator's Titanium - a tool that simplifies native mobile app development for developers. Today I had the chance to chat with Appcelerator's Scott Schwarzhoff about how young companies can plan ahead for their development strategy by anticipating the three phases of app maturity.

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Companies of all sizes, from startups like GetGlue to large corporations like eBay and NBC, have built consumer and enterprise level applications using the service. As Schwarzhoff points out, every company needs to plan ahead for mobile development.

"It's important to have a really well thought-out development plan across all platforms that can sustain in the long term," Schwarzhoff told ReadWriteWeb. "You can have a lot of things pop up in the form of new APIs, new capabilities and new platforms. You need to stay ahead of the curve."

One of the best ways company looking to expand into mobility can roadmap their products is to understand what Appcelerator calls the "application maturity model," which consists of three distinct phases.

• The Information Phase - The first step for many companies, says Schwarzhoff, is to dip their toes into the mobile sector with basic read-only apps that provide one-way information to the user. It's in this phase that many first timers build familiarity with the platform, its capabilities and possible business models.
• The Participatory Phase - In this second phase, apps begin to allow for two-way communication, pushing and pulling information between the device and the cloud. Companies begin to realize the potential of the platform and its native functions, like location, photos and social networking.
• The Business Operations Phase - In the third phase, a company finally begins to use their apps as a new way to drive revenue and loyalty from their customers. It's not just a side project, says Schwarzhoff, now it's a critical part of the the overall strategy.

Schwarzhoff adds that companies don't just pass through these phases with their apps, but with platforms as well. As companies enter the mobile scene on one device, like the iPad, they then get increasing curious about other form-factors.

Whatever your startup does, or intends to do, mobility should play an important role in the overall business strategy. Planning your mobile roadmap early and understanding the phases of app maturity will go a long way to help this facet of your business grow quickly and smoothly.

Facebook has confirmed that it is testing a new feature that will allow any user to subscribe to notifications of another user's activities through the same interface that new comments and accepted friend requests appear in now.

The feature was first reported on by the watch-dog blog AllFacebook. This feature is going to be a big deal. It will facilitate greater interaction between a user and people of interest by placing updates about those peoples' activities in the highest-priority place in the Facebook interface, the inbox with the strongest signal-to-noise ratio by far.

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AllFacebook correctly points out that there may be some amount of backlash among users who are not happy to have observation of their activities made all the faster and easier. That was peoples' objection to the creation of the original Newsfeed, though, and that is now the central part of the Facebook experience. It's fascinating that making already accessible information so much more easy to access can make such a big impact on the user experience, but anyone who has experienced the power of web page updates being centralized in an RSS reader knows that this type of technology really is powerful.

Subscription to notifications will help users track the activities of their closest friends and family, and possibly of people they have a work-related interest in, far more effectively than ever before.

The feature may also make users feel more comfortable adding a greater number of friends than they would otherwise, because they know that they won't miss the activities of the most important people in their online lives. That will be good for both users and for Facebook.