20 posts tagged “youtube”

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.
  

• Apple
• Apple is now the #2 smartphone manufacturer. Nokia remains #1, RIM is now#3, and Motorola is #4. More here.
  
• The iPhone surpassed the Motorola Razr as the top selling consumer phone.
  
• Facebook
• TechCrunch reports that Facebook violated its own privacy policy to give Microsoft access to user emails: “Microsoft’s Invite2Messenger appears to violate that policy. Messenger users are asked to log in to Facebook, and then the names and email addresses of all that user’s Facebook friends are then sent to Microsoft and displayed in clear text on a page they control (Facebook itself only shows friend’s emails as images to prevent scraping). You check off which friends you want to invite to use Messenger, and then Microsoft sends each of them an email to install the client and become friends with you. Screenshots of the process (with emails removed) are below.“
  
• Facebook launched an app that allows users to vote for their favorite FBFund apps.  There are 25 finalists, five of which will receive $225,000 FBfund grants. Add the app here.
  
• Google
• YouTube launched a “new advertising program that enables all video creators -- from the everyday user to a Fortune 500 advertiser -- to reach people who are interested in their content, products, or services, with relevant videos.” 
  
• Motorola
• Interesting article on the perception of Motorola’s recent announcements regarding changes to the org: “Motorola's Turnaround Plans Meet with Skepticism”
  
• Nokia
• Nokia cut its 4th quarter outlook on handset sales from the 1.26 billion it forecast in October to 1.24 billion handsets. It also forecast a decrease in the global market for fixed and mobile network infrastructure. More here.
  
• Sony Ericsson
• Sony Ericsson ranks highest among customer satisfaction for the 3rd time in a row.
  
• Mobility Today is calling the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 the “ultimate Windows Mobile phone anyone can ask for”:
  
• Twitter
• Twitter surpassed its 1 Billionth tweet this week.
  

• Misc:
• Recent Layoffs:
• TechCrunch reports 58,709 tech layoffs over the past two and a half months. Check out the TechCrunch Layoff Tracker to see the latest Layoff news.
  
• Technology announcements:
• Loopt:
• Loopt has become more popular than the MySpace and Facebook mobile apps on iPhone.
• Loopt has reportedly hired Allen&Co to represent them in a financing transaction or sale
• To cut costs, Loopt is partnering with a Qualcomm subsidiary, SnapTrack, which provides GPS data for a monthly fee.
  

• OpenSocial celebrates its one-year anniversary. You can see the presentation from the press and developer event here.
  

• Soocial launched its public beta.  They say that they “aim to link all currently disconnected address books to each other. A change in one of these address books will result in a change in all your connected devices.”  It’s getting good reviews. Check it out.
• European events search engine Happener just launched after a year in development. Check it out.
  
• You can now make your own customized guide book at Offbeatguides.com, which was founded by Technorati founder Dave Sifry.
  

If you like my blog, this video will make you laugh, cry, or both! 

In addition to consulting for SocialMedia Networks and Covered Communications, I now consult for ShoZu Inc., the leading provider of mobile social media services that connect mobile consumers with their online social networks, personal blogs, photo storage sites and other Web 2.0 properties from their mobile phone. 

ShoZu allows users to engage with social media from their mobile phone, making it easy for them to keep in constant contact with preferred social networking services from the handset.  ShoZu is a light weight, mobile application that allows users to publish photos, videos, comments, status updates, blog postings and more to their favorite online sites …in one click or less. With it, you can:

• Publish to multiple sites with one click (pictures, video, metadata, geotags, etc.)
  
• Subscribe to content feeds
  
• Blog
• Make new friends
• Discover new communities
• See what friends are up to
  

ShoZu already works with most of SixApart blogging solutions, including Vox, TypePad, and Live Journal.  (My colleague "Jambo" at ShoZu is a fellow Voxer, and you can check out ShoZu's blog here). 

ShoZu also works with Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, WordPress, BBC, Kodak Easy Share, and a ton of others (click here for the full list).  And, the app is pre-loaded onto a ton of mobile phones.  ShoZu just released a new version ShoZu 3.3, which is available for download from your mobile browser or by clicking here to go to the self-provisioning website.

I'm working ShoZu to bring more social networking properties on board.  If you're a social networking site that would like to integrate with ShoZu, please email me.

In case you were wondering why this blog went from daily to naught this week - One of my best friends was in town this week, visiting from England, so I took a break from blogging to play tour guide.  As of today, I’m back to blogging as usual.

If you’re wondering what’s next in the world of web 2.0, Business 2.0 magazine has some interesting ideas.  Of particular interest, check out their gallery of 25 Startups to Watch.  The following is the list (and some of my thoughts on each company):

• StumbleUpon: Great feature that allows you to find websites and videos you might like on-line based upon the recommendations of friends. Think of it sort of like Digg but for recommending websites and videos.  It enables you to find websites that you'll like based upon your personal networks and the preferences you set of people with similar tastes.  It is the perfect accompaniment to Stickis, which allows you to see the comments people in your network have posted on various websites.  I'd love to see Stikis and StumbleUpon link-up to offer an integrated service.
  
• Slide:  I've not tried Slide yet, but I've been hearing a lot of buzz about it in the geek circles in San Francisco. It lets you create slide shows of your personal photos which can be inserted into a blog, MySpace page, Sent out via RSS, or streamed to your desktop as a screensaver.  It is an interesting idea, but I suspect there will be a lot of competition in this space with photo sharing sites like Zooomr and Flickr and companies like SharpCast (computer, mobile and PC sync) and photo everywhere messaging concepts like NowThen.
  
• Bebo: Social network with 30 million users.  Bebo is especially big in the UK.  Aside from having the conventional greatness of other social networking sites, it takes privacy setting seriously (which I like) and has an on-line whiteboard facility, which is handy for sharing.
• Meebo: Let's you manage all of your IM clients from one site. I'll be interested to see how Meebo does against eBuddy, which is a "free web based messenger that enables you to chat with your MSN, Yahoo and AIM buddies" without downloading a separate client. eBuddy also works via mobile.
  
• Wikia: This site was co-founded by Angela Beesley and Jimmy Wales, one of the founders of Wikipedia, who I  recently talked about seeing speak at the Social Media Club meeting in San Francisco.
  
• Joost: I'm looking forward to seeing how Joost pans out.  It's an on-line video website which focuses on broadcast quality television - like IPTV on demand.  They've just signed a deal with Viacom, the output of which will be interesting to watch.  The on-line video space is getting crowded between Joost, YouTube, Revver, Grouper, BitTorrent and others.
  
• Dabble: Makes a tool for organizing videos into playlists and favorites.  Hmmm... Not sure how I feel about this one.  Think I'll stick with video search engines and recommendations I find in blogs until someone convinces me otherwise..
  
• Metacafe: This site is kind of like YouTube, but it pays users for page views. As I mentioned before, the on-line video space is really crowded. With YouTube saying they're going to find ways to pay users for involvement, I'm not sure how I feel about Metacafe's long-term prospects for success.  That said, they do claim 17 million monthly visitors, so they're off to a good start.
  
• Revision3: "A production studio for geek-oriented online shows."... Certainly a growing market full of opportunity!
  
• blip.tv: Platform for syndicating on-line shows... Looks like a hot market.
  
• fon.com: Now this looks interesting!  Fon.com is based in Spain and is attempting to build the world's first worldwide wi-fi network.  They're selling wireless routers for $30.  According to the description on Business 2.0, consumers "hook it up, register their node, and agree to share their broadband with other "Foneros" for free. Those who want to charge outsiders for access can do so, and Fon gets a cut. Likewise, if someone wants to pay $2 or $3 to use the Fon network for a day, Fon takes a share of that revenue. Just over a year old, Fon's network boasts more than 70,000 hotspots." This could be huge, especially given that wi-fi on mobile phones is a growing feature.
  
• Loopt: Loopt lets you see where your friends are anytime, using your GPS enabled mobile phone.  Boost Mobile has integrated Loopt into it's service offerings.  There are many interesting applications to social networking... Check out my previous posts on GPS to see what I mean.
  
• Mobio:  Mobio makes mobile applications and wigets.  They do quite a bit in the mobile location based service space. Mobio just launched at DEMO in January. I've not played with their app, but their demo looks an aweful lot like Microsoft Life's mobile beta. 
  
• Tiny: Tiny's Radar service is like Flickr but for mobile phones.  It lets users send photos from their mobile phones and have their friends comment on them. This sounds very similar to NowThen, only it's restricted to mobile phones.
  
• SoonR: This company lets you access information on your PC from your mobile phone. I saw a lot of solutions like this when I was at Palm. I'm not sure why Business 2.0 thinks this is such a big deal.  Win-Hand Anywhere, a strong competitor, has been around for years.  I'm not convinced that that remote PC access is the way forward. The problem with software like SoonR and Win-Hand Anywhere is that if your computer is off, you can't access your data. I prefer "server in the sky" applications like Avvenu, Orb, and GotoMyPC which allow you to access your information from anywhere (including your mobile phone). 
  
• Turn: I don't know much about this but it looks very cool... According to the site: "Avertisers first enter the prices they're willing to pay for various results - $5 for a sales lead, say, or $50 to $60 for a completed transaction. Next, they upload their text-or graphics-based display ads. Turn's software then analyzes the ads using more than 60 variables - including content, brand strength, and keywords - and determines the right publishers to serve up the ads."
• admob:  Like Turn - Could be very useful to advertisers: "AdMob offers a place to buy ads for delivery to cell phones."  It seems to me that Millennial Advertising, which I talked about in my January 26th blog should also be on this list.
• Spot Runner: This looks like a great resource for small businesses. It's a "one-stop online shop for low-cost 30-second TV ads. Local businesses can browse a library of premade spots and personalize them for airing in their local markets."
• ViTrue:  This is a great idea. Though, I think they need to improve the way they explain their service on their website.  It looks a bit like parts of what I proposed as a potential monetization strategy for YouTube.
  
• SuccessFactors:  I met with these guys when I was working in London as a Management Consultant a few years ago. I evaluated their software and other eHR and performance management systems and found theirs to be the most intelligent and well designed. Definitely a company to watch if you're into enterprise systems.
  
• Janrain: Single sign which allows users to juggle multiple passwords for multiple website.  This is the alternative to open ID.
  
• Logoworks:  I've not used this site, which offers the ability to publish business cards, stationary, etc. for less than conventional on-line publishers, but I'm always interested in deals!
  
• Rearden Commerce:  I've been hearing a lot about Rearden recently.  They offer a "web-based "virtual personal assistant" application that smoothly integrates hotel and flight reservations, meetings, and other events into your daily agenda." They've got a strong user base with 150 companies and their 500,000 or so employees using the software.
• SimulScribe: This company has voice recognition software that converts voicemails to text.  Voice transcription software is a growing and hot marketplace. I know of at least one (stealth-mode) start-up working on the next generation of this type of software, which will can be leveraged for all sorts of things you haven't thought of.
  

Some other companies that weren't on the list, but I think are worth watching are:  Shozu (mobile 2.0), IMT Labs (the company behind Spleak, the chatbot), and Kiptronic (advertising platform for podcasters).

On a different note - If you're interested in technology (especially mobile), you might be interested in this, the new blog from my friend, Derek Snyder, from Microsoft’s Mobile and Embedded team.  So far, he's talked about Windows Mobile 6, how to cancel your Verizon contract in less than 30 minutes with no penalty, how to get a free extra battery for your Blackjack, and more.

Today at 3GSM in Barcelona, ShoZu Inc., an emerging leader in the mobile social networking space, announced the addition of some great new LBS feature enhancements for GPS-enabled mobile phonw.  According to the press release:

Share-It one-click image uploading service now offers location tagging for photos and video clips sent from GPS-enabled phones to Flickr and YouTube as well as Buzznet, Dada.net, moblogUK, Pikeo and Textamerica. ShoZu is the only upload service that provides automatic geotagging for cameraphone uploads to more than one Internet destination. It also supports more GPS handsets than any other provider...The new location tag capability applies to all ShoZu web destinations that support tagging. ShoZu also enables users to upload images to sites without tagging including photo sharing communities Kodak EasyShare Gallery, MSN�s Windows Live Spaces and Webshots; personal blogging sites Blogger, TypePad and WordPress; citizen-contributed photojournalism sites CNN, the BBC and Scoopt; and any FTP or email address. ShoZu continues to add new sites on a regular basis.  

While I find ShoZu's announcement exciting, it will be a while before most of us can take advantage of this capability.  Most mobile phones in the US (including my Treo 750) are not GPS enabled.  I hope that this will change in the coming years (GPS enabled phones are certainly becoming more popular).  However, in the meantime, I'll have to do things the old fashioned way - manually (which is painful).  The good news is that once GPS becomes ubiquitous, automatic geotagging and LBS services will be the norm.  ShoZu's announcement forshadows some of the exciting things mobile social media enthusiasts have to look forward to.

Today, I read an interesting article on Pocket-Lint, which summarizes a recent Harris Poll, which questioned 2,309 people back in December 2006:

Of all frequent YouTube users, two-thirds (66%) claim they are sacrificing other activities when on YouTube. Although their visits to the site are most likely to have been at the expense of visiting other websites (36%), time spent watching TV is next most likely to have taken a hit (32%). YouTube also cuts into email and other online social networking (20%), work/homework (19%), playing video games (15%), watching DVD(s) (12%) and even spending time with friends and family in person (12%).

According to the article, 3/4 of respondents would be less likely to visit YouTube.com if ads were placed in front of videos.  Interestingly though, that same group of respondents, was okay about TV network websites airing commercials during on-line showing of television shows.  Almost as many adults (41%) have watched a video on a TV network website as they have on YouTube (42%).

Pocket-Lint takes a unnecessarily negative view of what these survey results mean for Google's monetization of YouTube, saying: "It seems like TV networks can get away with advertising more easily." I don't think this is necessarily true, and I take a much more positive view of the survey results than Pocket-Lint.  While additional research would be required to confirm my thoughts, I suspect that people are more willing to see ads on material that cost money for networks/studios to produce because there is a high likelihood that this content will be entertaining vs. seeing ads on material that had little production cost and may or may not actually be entertaining. 

The thing with home videos on YouTube is that users have to sift through material to find the really funny/ interesting/ good stuff.  That's part of the excitement and charm of the site, but it may also make users reluctant to accept watching ads, if they feel those ads "waste their time."  This isn't to say that users won't accept ads on YouTube, but if YouTube goes, choses to implement ads, to be successful, ads will need to be both relevant to the user and offered in formats that don't annoy users.  Another issue, which I think impacts users willingness to see commercials, is the quality of the picture.  When copyrighted content is illegally posted on YouTube, it is often not very high resolution footage, which impacts the viewing experience.  When a user watches copyrighted content on a network's website, the footage is usually very clear and higher resolution.  I think it goes without saying that if YouTube were able to legally secure content from the content owner (e.g. movie studios/networks), resolution wouldn't be an issue.  But, why would a Studio or Network want to "give" YouTube their content?  I've got a few ideas...

If YouTube users are, as the Harris Poll suggests, really sacrificing time elsewhere in order to spend time on YouTube, there should be plenty of revenue generating opportunities for Google.  First, there are the conventional options worth exploring:

• Conventional Ads -  Additional studies would likely be required to determine what type of ads could be run without causing YouTube user attrition.
  
• It might not be a good idea to put ads ahead of every user-generated video on YouTube, but video ads or splash print ads may be tolerated by users in front of or behind highly ranked home movies or videos that networks and studios post (if YouTube is successful as signing licensing agreements with content owners). 
  
• Targeted banner ads on Youtube.com, or short video or splash ads put in front of YouTube videos that are fed through to other websites (say VOX blogs, etc.) may be more tolerated.
• Subscription services - Perhaps users who aren't willing to see ads would be willing to pay a subscription fee to watch videos.  While those who are happy to watch ads, could do so, in lieu of paying a subscription fee.

• Free to stream X number of times - Pay to watch more than X times or to download the video to your PC, Phone, iPod, etc..

If, however, Google wants to make serious money with YouTube (without being "evil" in the process), there is plenty of room to innovate...  As I mentioned in an earlier post, YouTube recently announced that it would soon incorporate an audio engine that recognizes songs laid on top of home videos that appear on YouTube. At the end of videos, YouTube will give viewers a chance to legally purchase those songs.  This technology could be used to allow users to buy/download videos from studios/ networks as well.  However, I see  enormous possibilities to innovate and create revenue generating opportunities, which would allow Google to extend the advertising empire it started with AdWords into a whole new generation of interactive advertising.

Google could power a next generation advertising platform on YouTube that works like this for consumers:

• Watch a video on YouTube
• If you've liked anything you've seen/heard about in this video, buy it now or get a discount to buy it.
• YouTube could suggest products to purchase that appear in the video that users have just watched.  Advertisers already pay to get rappers to mention products (cars, booze, etc.) in songs, and they pay for subtle (or not so subtle) product placement in films and TV shows... I imagine these same advertisers would LOVE the opportunity to immediately capture customers by either enabling them to buy (or providing them coupons to buy) products featured in YouTube videos.
• If you like what you've just watched, check out these other programs X,Y,Z (this already exists on YouTube, but it could be enhanced/expanded to more closely mirror the system on NetFlix, which recognizes a users' interests and behaviors in combination with the behavior of users with similar profiles).

TV Networks and movie studios may be more likely to allow YouTube to use their content, if significant revenue sharing opportunities are involved.  A great way to generate tons of ad revenue (without bothering the consumer) is to work with advertisers who pay for product placement within movies and TV shows, allowing them the opportunity to capture new customers who are exposed to their product placement via watching movies/shows on YouTube.  YouTube could either allow users to click-to-buy (or express interest in) products within videos (a possibility if the videos are uploaded directly by the studios/networks) OR offer viewers the opportunity to purchase any of the featured products at the end of the video. 

For those of you who are wondering why networks/studios would want allow YouTube to reap the rewards of this idea, versus just implementing it themselves on their own websites, that's a great question.  In order to make this model work, Google/YouTube would have to make a multifaceted and compelling case, which could include the following points:

• YouTube has the ability to bring new viewers to network's/studio's content... When a user goes to YouTube, they often go to explore/discover new content.  Whereas, users that go directly to a network's or studio's website go with the intent of discovering content they already know about.
• YouTube could easily maintain multiple years of content, bringing back to life ad opportunities that studios and networks thought long gone (see Reese's Pieces example a few paragraphs below).
• Google is an advertising machine and has the ability to share revenue with studios and networks. (YouTube/Google would need to make this case strong enough by offering enough of a revenue share to discourage networks from thinking it is worthwhile to expand their own IT staff and infrastructure to implement the idea themselves.)
  

In addition to enticing networks and studios, YouTube could easily entice individual contributors (home video producers) to upload quality video content.  One way to do this is by maintaining a list of products and songs that have the potential to generate extra revenue sharing opportunities for uploaders.  For example, I mentioned earlier that advertisers are willing to pay rappers to mention products in their songs.  Why wouldn't those same advertisers be willing to pay YouTubers for playing those songs on top of their home movies IF they could prove that doing so increased customers?  If viewers had the immediate opportunity to purchase the product they just heard about on YouTube after watching a video, YouTube would have the case to get ad (and commissions) revenue off of the advertiser.   To prevent gross over commercialization and "pimping" of products, YouTube could require videos to get a certain number of page views and high rankings from viewrs before agreeing to share the revenue.

Taking this a step further, if, someone were to upload a video with a rap song overlaid on the top that mentioned say "Sprite" and PepsiCo didn't want to pay to have viewers "click-to-buy" (or print off a coupon) at the end of the video, Google could offer that opportunity up to a Sprite competitor, like "7-Up".

A few use cases to illustrate my point...

• Watch the movie, ET, and at the end of the movie, have the option to buy Reese's Pieces or get a manufacturer's coupon for 10% off. 
  

  E.T. - The Extra-Terrestrial (Full Screen Collector's Edition)
• Watch Grey's Anatomy, and at the end of the show, download songs from the soundtrack from the record labels or a Gray's Anatomy t-shirt from ABC.
  
  

  Grey's Anatomy - Season One
• Watch someone's home movie with Snoop Dogg's "Gin & Juice" laid over the top, and at the end of the movie, buy the song and/or download a coupon that allows you to get a 10% discount on your next Segram's Gin purchase at BevMo. (When viewers use these coupons, there is even an opportunity for revenue sharing with YouTube, The Record label, and the person who posted the video and chose the song.

In summary, ad revenue and user enthusiasm potential is far from lost for Google and YouTube.  In fact, the world is very much Google's oyster.  There are infinite revenue generating possibilities for Google, content owners, and advertisers, which, if executed properly, benefit the consumer.  The trick is thinking creatively and getting buy-in from both advertisers and content owners. If anyone can do it (without being "evil"), Google can.

The World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos Switzerland took place between January 25-29th.  Today, I discovered some great footage from that meeting on YouTube, which dovetails nicely into my blog from Friday, in which I made several predictions for mobile in 2008. In the video, Chad Hurley, Co-Founder of YouTube, talks about some of the exciting things that lay ahead for YouTube: