103 posts tagged “social networking”

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A while back, I posted 5 Great Reasons to Twitter.  As Twitter continues to pick up steam (it's seen especially rapid growth since December), I thought it would be helpful to provide some hints/tips for those who are just getting started with Twitter.

Figuring out who to follow
When you're new to Twitter, it's tough to know who to follow.  If you know a few people on Twitter already, following them is easy.  Discovering new people (or companies) to follow is a bit more of a process. Here are a few tips to get started:

• Find out who your 'real life' friends are following (go into their profiles and click on "following).  Browse the profiles, and follow anyone you think sounds interesting. You can always un-follow them later if you find their Tweets aren't as good as you'd hoped.  As you discover interesting people, see who they follow.  You'll have an interesting tweet stream before you know it.
• You can also search for topics that interest you, using Twitter's search facility.  Follow the people who you think have interesting things to say on the topic, and engage them in conversation (more on having a conversation shortly).
• Once you start following a handful of people and having conversations, you can use 3rd party tools like "Mr.Tweet" which will help you discover followers and recommend people with similar interests follow you.
  

Having a conversation:
The most fun/interesting thing about Twitter is the conversations you have with other users.  Interaction is what makes Twitter engaging/sticky.  So, if you're new to Twitter, don't just post you're up to/ what you find interesting, start a conversation with someone about it.  And, if someone strikes up a conversation with you, write back! 

• Replying (@reply):
• To write back to someone (or target a message visible by everyone to a specific Twitter user), click the arrow under the star on any message you see on Twitter.com or enter the @ symbol in front of a twitter users's handle (i.e. @lisawhelan) before the message you write on twitter (i.e.: @lisawhelan I saw your blog post about Twitter.). 
• Direct Messaging (D@reply):
• To send a direct message to someone that no one besides that user can see, but a D@ before the message you send (i.e.: D@lisawhelan I'll see you at the movie theatre at 8pm.)

Using Twitter on a PC or Mac
You can always go to Twitter.com, but there are more feature-rich sites you can use that plug into Twitter's back-end.  Here are a few that are worth trying:

• Web-based solutions
• hootsuite
• Runs on any standard browser
• Currently in Beta (formerly known as BrightKit)
  
• Features:
• Manage multiple Twitter profiles
• Add multiple editors
• Pre-schedule tweets
• Check stats and analytics from the dashboard
  
• Search Twitter for keyword information
  
• @Reply and Direct Message 
• Itweet.net
• Runs on any standard browser
• Features:
• Built-in auto-refresh, search and hashtags
• View user bio, location, URL inline with tweets
• Watch conversations with "in reply to" links
• NEW! bit.ly URL shortener and TwitPic uploader
• Tweettree
• Runs on any standard browser
• Features:
• Displays your Twitter stream a 'tree-like' format, so that you can see the posts people are replying to in context.
  
• Pulls-in external content from the following sites so that you can see it in your stream, without clicking through each link:
• YouTube
• Flickr
• TwitPic
• FriendFeed
• Seesmic
• Qik
• Lala
• Blip.fm
• and more
• Tweetvisor
• Runs on any standard browser
• Features:
• Manage multiple Twitter accounts
• Get real-time updates about favorite topics, news and tweets
• Groups
• Tagging friends
• Inline video replies
• Software for your Mac or PC
• Thwirl
• Runs on Windows (2000/XP/Vista) and Mac OSX
• Features:
• Thwirl notifies you when new messages arrive
  
• Shortens long URLs  (with bit.ly, snurl, twurl or is.gd)
• Allows you to cross-post updates to your favorite social networks like: Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Jaiku, and Ping.fm
• post images to TwitPic
• Makes searching for topics easy throughTwitter Search and TweetScan.  Allows you to save searches.
• automatically finds tweets that mention you (i.e. retweets and other mentions of your @handle)
  
• Lets you record a video on Seesmic and post it to Twitter instantly
• Gives you realtime Seesmic updates using XMPP
• Checks spelling (US English only)
  
• TweetDeck
  
• Adobe Air desktop application currently in Beta
  
• Runs on Max OSX and Microsoft Vista and Windows XP
• Features:
• Split your Tweets into topic or group specific columns (i.e. establish different columns for your @ replies, specific search terms, and more)
• TweetDeck stores all tweets, so you can see tweets that happened overnight
• TweetDeck sits on your desktop and can be easily resized to take up part or the whole screen
• Twitterific
• Supports Mac OSX, iPhone, and iPod Touch
• $14.95. Buy it on the iTunes store.
• Features:
• Supports multiple Twitter accounts
• Auto refreshing at user defined intervals
• Replies and direct messages are displayed inline
• Number of unread tweets shown in the Dock
• Delete tweets from Twitter quickly and easily
• Auto show / hide when new tweets arrive
• Control over window layering and priority
• Single click access to user profile pages
• Switch between friend and public tweets easily
• Keyboard shortcuts for list navigation and more
• Control Twitterrific with AppleScript
• Audio notification for new tweets
• Hotkey to show / hide tweets
• Plugging Twitter into your Favorite Social Networks
• Many of the above solutions include automatic updating of your favorite social networks with your tweets.  You can also do it directly through Twitter by going here.
  

Using Twitter from a Mobile Phone

• There are three basic ways to interact with Twitter from a mobile phone.  The best option for you depends on what type of phone you have and how often you use Twitter.
  
• 3rd party software application: The most feature-rich option for power Twitter users with an iPhone or other supported smartphone and a data plan.
  
• WAP (mobile web): Quick and easy option, if you don't Twitter often and/or there isn't a good 3rd party application available for your phone.
  
• Text (SMS): A great option if you've got a very basic "old school" mobile phone, don't have a data plan (but do have a SMS plan or don't mind SMS charges), and/or if you want to reply to a message quickly, without launching your mobile browser.
• To get started using Twitter with a mobile, you'll need to add your mobile number to your Twitter account by logging into your Twitter account and going to http://twitter.com/devices.  The following page will help you with the complete mobile set-up process.

• 3rd Party Mobile Apps
• There are more 3rd party Twitter apps than you can shake a stick at.  Pick one based on your mobile operating system. 
  
• Some of the best mobile Twitter apps I've seen are available for iPhone via the iTunes App Store including:
• Twittelator Pro. This version has a TON of features.
• Twitterific
• Supports Mac OSX, iPhone, and iPod Touch
• $14.95. Buy it on the iTunes store.
• If you've got a Blackberry, Windows Mobile or Symbian smartphone, Android or other smartphone, check out your favorite smartphone store to see what's available or do a Google search. There are a ton of options.
• ShoZu (one of my clients), also supports posting to Twitter.  ShoZu supports multipe OSes and is pre-loaded on many Motorola phones. It is a social media gateway that allows you to push content to/from over 50 social networks from your mobile phone.
  
• Mobile Web
• Twitter has a WAP site (m.twitter.com), but it has very limited functionality.  You can't easily do @replies, favorite tweets
  
• I prefer using Dabr, which offers a more feature-rich WAP experience for Twitter. It suports @replies, favoriting, and more.
• Other WAP options for Twitter include:
• Slandr
• Twitstat
• Tweete
  
• Text Messaging/ SMS
• Once you've added your phone to Twitter, just send the verification code in a text message to the Twitter phone number assigned to you in your settings page.  Once your phone is verified, send Twitter a text message and we'll post it to your profile page and send it to your followers. (Find out more cool things you can do with your phone here!)
• Note: Twitter doesn't charge you to use SMS, but your operator/carrier will charge you for each SMS you send (and, in some countries, for the SMSs you receive). So, you may want to consider an SMS plan before enabling SMS for Twitter.
• Twitter has 2 SMS short codes and three long codes (for international users):
• In the US, use 40404.
  
• In Canada, use 21212.
• In Sweden, use: +46 737 494222
• In Germany, use +49 17 6888 50505
  
• Anywhere else, use +44 7624 801423
• A list of the commands you can use when you interact with Twitter via SMS can be found on Twitter's SMS help page.  The basics are:
• @username + message
  
• D username + message
  
• WHOIS username
  
• GET username
  
• NUDGE username
  
• FAV username
  
• STATS
• INVITE phone number
  

I'd love to hear your thoughts/additions. Tweet away!  Here's my Twitter profile. 

Tonight I caught up with a mobile industry colleague who asked me why he should bother with Twitter when he already has a blog and Facebook account.  Here's my reply:

Twitter is so easy, fast and rewarding that I've stopped blogging as much in favor of Twittering more.  Twitter is is a micro-blogging platform (i.e. 140 characters or less of text). It now feeds all of my Facebook updates.  Here are the reasons why I think you'll like it:

1. It's fast and easy to get started and update - 10 seconds a crack (max) Twitter is the latest land grab, so I've taken the liberty of signing you up for an account (so that no one claims your name).  Email to you forthcoming. Your password is ******.  At least you'll have the real estate if you decide to try it.
2. Twitter is growing very fast (~2.5M users worldwide), and there's an active community. Here are the stats & demographics from Quantcast: http://www.quantcast.com/twitter.com.
3. You get breaking news faster than anywhere else on the web.  It's a great way to keep up with and spread the latest news in tech and mobile.
   
4. You can monitor and mitigate what people think of a particular brand  People are talking about brands all the time on Twitter. In the mobile industry, for example, here are the conversations going on about Nokia: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=nokia.
5. There's a great mobile and tech conversations on Twitter... Twitter provides you with a quick and easy way to start a conversation with people and brands you find interesting and stay in touch with folks you already know offline.  Here are a handful of the folks that I'm following in the mobile and tech arena with names you might recognize.
   
1. Tim O'Reilly: Founder of O'Reilly Media: http://twitter.com/timoreilly
2. TechCrunch: http://twitter.com/TechCrunch
3. Robert Scoble: http://twitter.com/Scobleizer
   
4. MOTODEV (Motorola's developer community): http://twitter.com/motodev
   
5. Kara Swisher (Boomtown blog): http://twitter.com/karaswisher
6. Pete Cashmore (Mashable blog): http://twitter.com/mashable
7. Jeremiah Owyang (Senior Analyst of Social Computing at Forester Research): http://twitter.com/jowyang
   
8. Facebook: http://twitter.com/facebook
9. Dave Morin (Facebook Platform): http://twitter.com/davemorin
10. Mario Sundar (Evangelist for LInkedIn): http://twitter.com/mariosundar
    
11. Loic LeMeur (Founder of Seesmic): http://twitter.com/loic
    
12. MG Seigler (Venture Beat): http://twitter.com/parislemon
13. TED (updates about the TED conference): http://twitter.com/tedtalks
    
14. Guy Kawasaki: http://twitter.com/guykawasaki
15. Jerry Rocha: Social media and mobile guy at Neilsen: http://twitter.com/jerryrocha
16. And so many more!  If you sign up and want other recommendations, start following "mrtweet" and go to http://www.mrtweet.net/, which will feed you recommendations based on your interests/who you follow.

Give it a try, and follow me on Twitter.

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Here are a handful of my predictions for mobile and social media in 2009, moving into 2010… For the record, I’ve left off everything I know will happen in 2009 and limited this list to things I *think* will happen:

• Smartphones and feature phones will continue to converge in iPhone-esque fashion.  
• Mobile Internet will drive usage of smartphones, and with it, more robust experiments with mobile advertising and payments will begin.  
• Mobile advertising and payments will gain some momentum in 2009 but won’t really take off until 2010 and beyond.
• A few thoughts on Android:
• Android will struggle to gain momentum until there is infrastructure to distribute paid apps and an iTunes-esque web or client-based interface for PC & Mac.  
• Ultimately, Android will do well, but it’s going to take longer than many anticipate.
• Mobile and web convergence will continue heating up…
• Mobile back up and “kill pill” services will gain increased momentum, as those who convert to ‘smarter’ phones start storing more important data on their mobile (i.e. contacts, calendar, email, etc.).  Mobile Me, Dashwire and other services will continue to improve, and new players will enter the market, making it easier for users to access data on their phone from the web and reducing the pain associated with a lost or stolen phone.
• Mobile will become more social.  ShoZu, Xumii, Pixelpipe, PixSense, and others social media gateways are already making a play in this market.  But, in 2009, web-based players (ala FriendFeed) will experiment with mobile.  And, we’ll see acquisitions and consolidation in this space.
• Towards the end of the year or early 2010, I think we’ll start seeing converged development platforms that allow developers to create both web and mobile apps/widgets in fewer steps.  In late 2009-2010, mobile OS providers and OEMs will start looking beyond SMS, MMS, and email and incorporate social messaging tools like Twitter and maybe FriendFeed into basic functionality of phones.  And, mobile address books should become more social, allowing you to input your friends’ social networking details into your address book and interact with them via your chosen medium in 1-2 clicks.
• Both web and mobile development platforms will continue to duke it out for developer attention.  Developers will choose the platforms that provide the easiest-to-use, most robust tools and monetization and distribution options.
• I’m hoping Microsoft pulls a rabbit out of a hat… Perhaps, they will finally make computers chewy like cake, but more likely Windows 7 and the next generation of Windows Mobile (which I bet will be called "Windows Mobile 7") will play better together than previous mobile and PC OSes.
• I don't want to predict a rampant mobile virus, but I think it could happen easily, as mobile-web convergence accelerates: A mobile virus has a high probability of emerging in 2009 (though, I won't go as far to say that one will emerge), targetting PIM data (contacts, calendar, etc.).  This type of virus would negatively impact both mobile owners and anyone with an email or mobile number listed on an infected mobile phone. A virus like this would be particularly nasty because it could simultaneously spread through Internet enabled mobile apps, SMS/MMS, and email. So, even if it stopped spreading through mobile apps, it could continue to spread through email and SMS/MMS. The most likely phones that would be impacted are smartphones on open development platforms like Android that give 3rd party developers access to PIM data but don’t closely regulate free app content or distribution.  The likelihood of this happening will decrease if open mobile OS providers (like Google) implement better checks and balances for apps, though doing so may slow innovation in the 3rd party app space.  The other group of users that could be impacted by a mobile virus are those who back-up their PIM data to an un-proven “server in the sky” provider that gets hacked.
• The mobile app store war will heat up… The success of the iTunes app store has blown other smartphone stores out of the water, and bolstered sales of the iPhone. Microsoft, RIM and others will attempt to join or leapfrog the competition.
• Social media and mobile measurement, monitoring, and monetization tools like Radian6, Bango, Mobclix and others (all of which solve pieces of this puzzle) will improve, converge, and become more robust widely used and accessible. 
  
• Social media and mobile marketing will gain validity as measurement tools improve.
  
• More big brands will embrace mobile and social campaigns rather than running away from them.
• Marketers will be able to target content more appropriately to users based on behavior, location, and handset.
• Developers will be able to more effectively understand consumer behavior and increase app traction.
  
• There will be increased consolidation in the social media aggregation space.  Smaller social networks will die or be acquired into larger networks.  Aggregation sites like FriendFeed will become more popular. Turf wars will escalate with larger social networks taking increased action against smaller aggregation networks that violate terms of their API licenses and encroach on their turf (Facebook's lawsuit against Power.com and action against Google Friend connect were just the start).
  
• Facebook will continue to grow in popularity and eventually find a way to properly monetize its 150,000,000 + users.
  
• Twitter will make a big move in 2009.  Someone smart will acquire Twitter (if the offer is good enough) or Twitter will acquire more of the best companies in its developer community and build out a more robust platform with increased consumer appeal.  Twitter will (hopefully) begin to monetize in 2009.
  
• While “Virtual Gifts” will continue to grow in popularity, “Real Gifts” (like Givereal.com) will gain increased momentum in 2009 and really take off in 2010.  Online retailers will make their real products (books, clothes, etc.) easily giftable via social networks.  You’ll be able to send gifts to your friends/acquaintances without knowing their real address.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on these predictions.  If you're not a vox member, please email your comments to me, and I'll re-post. 

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Want to follow me on Twitter?: www.twitter.com/lisawhelan.

For those of you that disconnected during Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Year, etc…  Welcome back. Here’s a summary of the most interesting social media and mobile news I read in the last few weeks:

Apple:

• 1/6/09: At Macworld….
• Apple announced tiered pricing for songs on iTunes that allows record labels to charge higher amounts for more popular songs… Their new pricing scheme, which will launch in April will offer songs at 69 cents, 99 cents, or $1.29.  When I heard this, I couldn’t help but think of the old Taco Bell commercials of the early 1990s… “.59, .79, .99”  I know record labels need to make a buck, but I’m more inclined to pay $1.29 for a taco than I am for a new song on iTunes.
• On a happier note, songs will finally be DRM free and 256 Kbps AAC by the end of Q1. Today, iTunes store has 8 million DRM-free songs. By the end of March, they’ll have 10 million.  
• And, if you’ve got an iPhone 3G, you’ll be able to download songs directly to your iPhone over the 3G network, and the songs will sync between your computer and your phone….Ahhh… Finally!
• In FY 2008, Apple sold 9.7 million Macs, and Mac sales increased at two times the rate of the overall PC market.
• The new version of iPhoto within iLife will have facial recognition software, which allows you to pick photos of a specific friend from your album without a text tag.  And, iPhoto will be Facebook and Flickr compatible!
• 1/5/09: Steve Jobs told the world that his recent rapid weight loss is due to a hormone imbalance and not a return of pancreatic cancer.

Facebook:

• 1/2/09: Facebook sued Brazilian start-up Power.com for trademark and copyright infringement, violation of the computer fraud and abuse act, and unlawful competition.  Facebook’s complain states that Power.com “is offering a product that solicits, stores and uses Facebook login information to access information stored on Facebook computers without authorization and to display Facebook copyrighted material without permission.” You can read the NY Times article that describes the suit here.
  

Microsoft:

• 12/31/08: Proving that the “blue screen of death” is alive and well, Microsoft’s 2006 30GB model Zune experienced a massive failure on the last day of 2008, and users were not amused. The bug appears to have been fixed, though users are still unhappy about it.
  

Twitter:

• 1/5/09: Twitter was hacked over the weekend, and 33 high profile accounts were hijacked. There was also a separate phishing scam through the direct message capability.  You can learn more about it on Twitter’s blog.
  

UIQ:

• 1/5/09: Symbian partner, UIQ filed for bankruptcy.
  

Verizon:

• 1/5/09: BusinessWeek reports that “The $5.9 billion acquisition of cellular carrier Alltel Corp. by Verizon Wireless will close on Jan. 9”.  This will mean that Verizon trumps AT&T as the largest US mobile operator with ~ 78 million subscribers.
  

Xobni:
1/5/09: Xobni (inbox spelled backwards), the company behind a very cool outlook plug-in that turns your email inbox into a social network, announced $7M in Series B funding from new investor Cisco Systems and Xobni’s existing investors.

Layoffs:
1/6/09: Clearspring, which plays in the widget distribution space laid off 20% of its workforce in early December, and their President/COO, Jay Rappaport is leaving.

Misc. Social Media & Mobile News:

• I just learned about Twtpoll, which lets you poll your Twitter followers.  Looks like a great idea if you’re a brand that wants feedback from its community of users.
• 1/1/09: California passed a no-text messaging while driving rule, which became legal on Jan 1. I can’t help but wonder how it can be illegal to text while driving, and yet, it’s perfectly okay to fiddle with your radio, AC, or GPS.  Not that I’m advocating texting while driving. It just seems like an inane law, given the many distracting things you could be doing while driving.
• 1/3/09 The 1.0 version of a Firefox add-on called Power Twitter launched, allowing “search, search scoped to a specific user, status history peeking on mouseover, Facebook status updates, inline YouTube, Flickr, and TwitPic, url expansion, url translation to page titles, and open web update (news feed) mapping.”  It sounds interesting to me and gets good reviews, but I’ve heard a few complaints from people I follow on Twitter, so I’m waiting until the next release.
  
• 12/31: TechCrunch did a great piece on the Top Social Media Sites of 2008, which summarizes data from comScore.  Top Social Media Sites (ranked by unique worldwide visitors November, 2008; comScore):

1. Blogger (222 million)
2. Facebook (200 million)
3. MySpace (126 million)
4. Wordpress (114 million)
5. Windows Live Spaces (87 million)
6. Yahoo Geocities (69 million)
7. Flickr (64 million)
8. hi5 (58 million)
9. Orkut (46 million)
10. Six Apart (46 million)
11. Baidu Space (40 million)
12. Friendster (31 million)
13. 56.com (29 million)
14. Webs.com (24 million)
15. Bebo (24 million)
16. Scribd (23 million)
17. Lycos Tripod (23 million)
18. Tagged (22 million)
19. imeem (22 million)
20. Netlog (21 million)

• 12/31/08: TechCrunch has an interesting article on the rise of Y-Combinator, start-up Scribd.  Scribd allows users to post and share documents online.  TechCrunch reports: “According to the comScore numbers, it has more unique visitors worldwide than imeem and almost as many as Bebo, with 23.5 million visitors in November, 2008. (In the U.S., it had about 4 million visitors).”  And, Scribd grew “218 percent from November, 2007.   Pretty incredible stats for a company that initially only raised $300,000! “
• 12/31/08 The UK loves watching the TV show “Big Brother,” and rumor has it, they may be forced to live a frightening real-life version of it in the future.  The Guardian reports,

“The private sector will be asked to manage and run a communications database that will keep track of everyone's calls, emails, texts and internet use under a key option contained in a consultation paper to be published next month by Jacqui Smith, the home secretary.
A cabinet decision to put the management of the multibillion pound database of all UK communications traffic into private hands would be accompanied by tougher legal safeguards to guarantee against leaks and accidental data losses.”

Even though the report hasn’t yet been published, critics of its rumored contents are speaking out against it including Sir Ken Macdonald, the former director of public prosecutions.

• 12/31/08: Obama’s Change.gov site is getting great use.  According to TechCrunch, “more than 74,031 people have submitted more than 53,369 questions (and counting) for his administration and voted 3,122,015 times to prioritize the questions in a Digg-like fashion.”  You can see the top list of questions here.
  
• 12/30/08: Hitwise reported 3 interesting holiday social media trends in the UK:

1. “Facebook accounts for 1 in 22 UK Internet visits on Christmas Day”
2. "Video site YouTube received more UK Internet traffic than Microsoft Windows Live Mail (Hotmail) for the first time during Christmas week 2008.”
3.  “social networks accounted for 1 in every 10 UK Internet visits during Christmas week.”

• 12/26/08: Amazon.com announced it’s best Christmas season ever with “6.3 million items ordered worldwide on the peak day, Dec. 15, which is a record-breaking 72.9 items per second.”
  
• 12/15/08: BusinessWeek reports that Palm will launch its new Nova OS at CES.  After several layoffs, many ups and downs over the years, I find it amusing that they decided to name it Nova (“no va” means “no go” in Spanish.)  Chevrolet learned how disastrous that name could be when it launched the Chevy Nova years ago.  I’m not sure if this was lost on Palm’s marketing team, if it was an inside joke, or if they knew about it and decided to buck tradition and go with the name anyway. I love Palm, and I’m keeping fingers crossed they find a way to make this work. I think it’ll be tough in to re-gain developers’ trust after several false starts in recent years.
  

I took a blogging break for Turkey, so this social media and mobile round-up includes the most interesting news in mobile and social media since November 21:

Apple:

• Apple is changing the App store to show a broader range of top apps in each category and separated free from paid apps.  Hopefully this will discourage developers from arbitrarily lowering prices of their apps to make them turn up closer to the top of the listings. 
  
• Apple gives developers the ability to deliver promo codes for their iPhone apps.
  
• iTunes App store results, 5 months in.
  

AOL:

• Bebo launched “Social Inbox” on December 10.  It “combines e-mail, social networking and media recommendations in one easy-to-use interface. “ 
  

Facebook:

• Facebook is reportedly running A/B tests on its sign-up process. I think this is great. Testing is a very important part of improving customer experience, and more companies should test UI regularly. Here’s more on the test.
  
• Facebook announced the 5 grand prize recipients of its fbFund of $225,000 each: GroupCard, Kontagent, Mousehunt, by HitGrab, WedSnap created the Weddingbook application, and  Wildfire
  
• TechCrunch interviewed Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg here.
  
• Facebook Connect is now generally available.  TechCrunch reports “Now any third party website that wants to pull personal data about visitors from Facebook - and send back activity reports to their news feeds - can do so by first filling out a self-service application.”
  
• Good article from NY Times. Facebook Connect attempts 2 turn around dismal performance of social media ads.
• Oodle will power the Facebook Market (classifieds)
  

FIM:

• MySpace launched its new MySpace Toolbar for Firefox and Internet Explorer.  It enables: auto login, alerts, updates, Myspace Search by Google, quick links and user links from your browser.
  
• MySpace announced DataPortability Project  with new data portability standards.
  
• MySpace launches streaming mobile video.
  

Google:

• Mobile / Android:
• The Open Handset Alliance announced that the following 14 companies joined the Alliance: AKM Semiconductor Inc., ARM, ASUSTek Computer Inc., Atheros Communications, Borqs, Ericsson, Garmin International Inc., Huawei Technologies, Omron Software Co. Ltd, Softbank Mobile Corporation, Sony Ericsson, Teleca AB, Toshiba Corporation and Vodafone. 
  
• “Google's Android Open Handset Alliance Project unveiled the Android Dev Phone 1. The Android Dev Phone 1 is hardware and sim unlocked G1 in black with a special skin aimed at developers.  The Android Dev Phone 1 sells for $399 in 18 international markets. “
  
• The Phandroid blog speculates that Google will soon introduce Ringtones and Wallpapers to the Android Market.
  
• Google advertisers can now “show [their] desktop text and image ads on the iPhone, the T-Mobile G1, and other mobile devices with full (HTML) Internet browsers.”
  
• The Kogan Agora is the latest Android phone. It’s now available for pre-order and will be released Jan 29, 2009.
  
• Here’s an interesting summary of Android Market performance from MediaLets.
• HTC raised G1 sales forecasts for 2008 to 1 million devices.
  
• Chrome:
• Google’s new browser, Chrome, exited beta on December 11.
  
• Gmail:
• Gmail adds to-do list management (“tasks”) to its list of features.
  
• You can now SMS through Gmail’s new task manager. You can activate it here.
  
• Search:
• Google released zeitgeist 2008, a summary of the “big events, memorable moments and emerging trends that captivated us in 2008”.  The fastest rising global search terms? That’s right folks, it’s the ever frightening, “Sarah Palin” at #1 and “Jonas Brothers” at #10.  Obama falls in at #6.  In the UK, Google reports: “From BBC's iPlayer to Facebook to YouTube, many of the top searches in Britain this year have been for our favourite websites. We also see three web-savvy politicians come tops in searches”.  Check out all the stats here.  Very cool stuff.
  
• FriendConnect is now open for all websites.  As TechCrunch reports “Google Friend Connect is OpenSocial’s answer to Facebook Connect. It lets other websites accept a member’s OpenSocial OpenID username and password to log into their sites. More importantly, it also lets websites access users’ social data, which includes friend lists, profile information, feed messages, reviews, ratings and the like.”
  
• YouTube:
• YouTube launched an enhanced abuse and safety page.
  
• YouTube is tightening its standards on content.
  

Microsoft:

• CrunchGear speculates that Microsoft may announce a Zune Phone at CES 2009.
  

Motorola:

• MOTODEV’s Widget Developer Challenge underway. Be one of the first 100 unique submissions received by December 18, 2008, and win a $250 gift card to Amazon.com.  Click here to learn more.
• Motorola introduces Rokr EM35 with WebUI widgets & Windows Media support & music player with virtual surround sound.
  

Nokia:

• Nokia announced the N97, which looks like a very cool phone.
  
• Nokia announces “Point and Find” mobile image recognition technology. It allows users to point their camera phones at poster or billboard and get more information on what’s being advertised on their phones. I’ve seen technology like this before from companies like Pongr and Kooaba.  It’s great to see a big mobile OEM embrace it.  Check out a demo of Point and Find here.
  
• Nokia released a new email platform for Ovi. Check out the beta here.
  

Yahoo:

• Flickr launched a new mobile site, which allows video streaming.

Misc:

• Recent Layoffs:
• CBS Interactive: CBS Interactive laid off workers at LastFM, but rumor has it that CBS Interactive isn’t reporting the extent of layoffs across CBS Interactive.  CBS isn’t confirming the extent of the layoffs, but TechCrunch is speculating: “According to a source inside Cnet, the buzz is that the total number of employees asked to leave today was “275-ish.” A CBS spokesperson wouldn’t confirm that number. So take it as a rough estimate.”
  
•  Microblogging platform, Pownce, closes doors & founders including Digg's Kevin Rose join Six Apart

• Industry News:

• Mobile ad rates drop as inventory increases. Experts say mobile CPMs are ~$15 compared w/ ~$23 earlier this year.
• Blogging platform, Tumblr received $4.5M in series B investment from its Series A investors in a new round of funding this week.  They also announced that they’ll be releasing premium services. 
  
• VC firm, Accel Partners, announced two funds worth $1Billion.
  
• Industry Events:
• LeWeb08 took place in Paris December 9-10.  
• While I couldn’t make it to Paris, I enjoyed watching some of it on UStream.  
• The interview with Marissa Mayer, Google’s Vice President of Search Product, was particularly good.
• In particular, the closing session on the main stage with the Gillmor Gang was entertaining.  I don’t see it up on the Gillmor Gang site yet, but fingers crossed they’ll post it when they’re back from Europe.   
• Seesmic founder and organizer of Le Web, Loic LeMeur apologizes for “organizational issues” at LeWeb08.
  
• Technology announcements:
• Hi5: Announced virtual gifts on December 10.
• Opera: The alpha of the Opera 10 browser is now available for free download.
  
• TechCrunch reports that “Netvibes Founder Building iPhone-Like Operating System For Netbooks” called Joliweb.
  
• TechCrunch reports that UStream is entering the race to dominate the live mobile broadcasting market (other players include Qik, Kyte, and FlixWagon).  See a video and analysis here.
  
• New Start-up, “Give Real” encourages people to forget about giving virtual gifts in favor of giving “real drinks redeemable at any bar or restaurant.”  Check it out here and as an app on Facebook.
• Misc.
• Itsmy released a mobile social networking study of 15,000 active users. Results here.
  
• In her November 21 BoomTown blog Kara Swisher summarized the Astia Awards Dinner, which celebrated venture capital firms that support women-led companies. I’m not a fan of awards dinners so I wouldn’t normally mention one, except that for this one, Venture Capitalist, Tim Draper, who couldn’t make it to the event in person, sent in a very funny video of himself taking off a piece of clothing for every woman-led company he’s invested in.
  
• Vodafone buys European mobile location and navigation services company, Wayfinder.
  
• Sling.com, which, like Hulu, allows you to watch TV shows online, launched in beta.
  

Apple:

• iPhone 2.2 Firmware was released. MobileCrunch’s review is here.  Excerpted summary of the article: “Safari’s address bar/search … tweaked a bit, apps now request a rating upon deletion, over-the-air podcast downloads …, various video and audio quality tweaks, and assorted bug fixes throughout… Google Maps has been upgraded to include Street View and directions for public transit and walking - if you have an iPhone rather than an iPod Touch…According to early reports, 2.2 for the iPod Touch brings everything but the Google Maps upgrade.”

Facebook:

• The SEC gave Facebook permission to stay a private company, while having over 500 shareholders.  This will allow Facebook to continue to issue options and restricted stock to its current and future employees.
• Facebook launched its verified app program, which requires developers to pay $375 to have their app “verified”
  

Google:

• Google Mobile: John Gruber reports that Google seems to be using an undocumented API for the voice search feature in its recently updated Google Mobile iPhone application.  Normally doing this is against the SDK Guidelines. So, the questions are: Did Google get Apple’s permission to use this API? Did Apple not realize that that Google was using an undocumented API, or did they turn a blind eye to the usage. You can read about the saga on  John Gruber’s post here.  You can see the Google video demo of  the Google Mobile update here.
• YouTube: A researcher is claiming that he’s discovered the key to predicting the success of YouTube videos. TechCruch’s summary is very good:  “Crane claims every time a YouTube video turns into a hit, the development takes the form of an “attention spiral”, a geometric pattern that partly follows physical laws. He discovered that a decrease of popularity with certain videos, for example, can be explained through methods usually utilized in modeling the aftershocks of earthquakes.”
  

Motorola:

• Motorola launched the "MOTODEV Widget Developer Challenge" for it’s mobile Linux platform.
  

MySpace:

• MySpace for RIM’s Blackberry is which launched on Nov 12 has apparently been downloaded more than 400,000 times!  You can get it here.
  

Twitter:

• Check out the real-time results of Guy Kawasaki’s ongoing survey that asks people how much they’d be willing to pay for Twitter.  So far, more than 662 people say they’ll be willing to pay $5 or more a month for Twitter. 1,780 say they won’t pay and would rather Twitter go away than start charging.

Yahoo!

• Jerry Yang stepped down as Yahoo!’s CEO, and Yahoo! Is now on the lookout for a new leader.
  
• Yahoo is rumored to still be thinking about buying AOL.
  

Misc:

• Recent Layoffs:
• Strands and Qik lay off 10 % of their staff.
• Palm Inc. A friend reports that over two thirds of the business development and developer technical support teams were affected 
• Industry News:
• Mobile advertising company AdMob’s latest Mobile Metrics Report just came out. You can download it here.  Highlights of the report include: “The iPhone is now the #1 device worldwide in the AdMob Network with 4.1% share of requests in October. Since AdMob launched its ad units for iPhone sites and applications, iPhone requests have increased from 28 million in July to 236 million in October. This month, we break out iPhone requests by country and region.”
• Appterra, a mobile advertising company just closed a $10.5 Million round of financing and announced that former Yahoo! senior executive David Karnstedt joined its board of directors.
• “Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) today announced that Internet advertising revenues reached almost $5.9 billion for the third quarter of 2008, representing an 11 percent increase over the same period in 2007. While double-digit annual growth continues, the quarter-to-quarter curve remains relatively flat compared to recent past performance.”  Read more here.  This is very good news for the technology industry, which largely monetizes through advertising.  I’ve been concerned that since advertising was one of the first industries to decline in the 2000-2001 dot com fall out that the decline in internet advertising between Q4 07 and now may signal challenging times ahead for the monetization of online properties. This study is a re-assuring sign that Internet advertising is on the rise after a brief decline.
• Videoegg extended its online advertising reach to the iPhone.
• Technology announcements:
• Citysearch overhauls mobile and web sites, maximizing on Yelp's bad press. They also went social by integrating with Facebook Connect in this new beta version of Citysearch.
• SnapTell: This is a new, free iPhone application that gets great reviews from TechCrunch: “take a photo of the cover of any CD, DVD, book, or video game, and the application will automatically identify the product and find ratings and pricing information online.“  It just launched on the iPhone.
• Sony adds social networking to the Playstation in the form of its Home virtual world.
• OpenTable released an iPhone app available in the iTunes store.  
• Xobni, an Outlook plug-in that helps you organize email conversations, contacts and attachments just added integrations with Yahoo Mail, Facebook, Skype, and Hoovers.
• According to a new study, 22% of consumers are unlikely to respond to email social marketing. 12% will click on messages on social sites.