Microsoft Is Moving Towards Checkmate
Michael Arrington
5 comments »
More details are emerging on round 2 of Yahoo/Microsoft: Instead of a simple straight up acquisition, Microsoft may be able to pull off a deal where they get to pick off just what they want - search - and leave the rest of Yahoo and it’s troubles behind.
This is a deal 
that would obviously cost Microsoft much less than a $40+ billion full buyout. And Ballmer could quiet the Microsoft employees and stockholders who were making it known that they hated the original Yahoo deal. At the end of the deal, Microsoft would own Yahoo’s lucrative search and search marketing business, and be a stockholder in the resulting entity. That final version of Yahoo would certainly use Microsoft for at least some of its advertising (Yahoo’s display advertising business may stay with Yahoo).
I suspect a deal will be done quickly - Yahoo’s Yang and supporting board of directors are already being beaten senseless by their own stockholders and they can ill afford another round of incompetence.
If only Yahoo could go back to Febrary 2 and just take Microsoft’s original offer. Everyone but Google would have been better off. In fact, if I were them, I’d be spending half the ongoing negotiations just trying to get Microsoft back to their original offer. Who knows, Ballmer may even go for it.
Also look for Microsoft’s big search announcement on Wednesday at the Advance08 conference.
On Wednesday, we will be announcing a major new initiative that our search teams have been driving. We are getting better and better with our core algorithmic search, and at the same time, we are investing to differentiate in vertical experiences and to disrupt the current model. You’ll hear more about our plans Wednesday.
Widget Platform MuseStorm Catches iPhone Fever
Mark Hendrickson
0 comments »
The small screens of mobile devices are blurring the lines between webpages and widgets. So it should come as no surprise that MuseStorm, hitherto a platform for developing widgets for syndication across the web and onto desktops, is coming out with a tool for making iPhone-ready websites.
To be precise, MuseStorm isn’t exactly debuting a new product. Rather, it’s adding iPhone support to its existing Widget Studio, which can be used for a variety of environments ranging from the Facebook platform to the Mac dashboard. But unlike these other environments, the MuseStorm Widget Studio will be free for iPhone developers.
This is a peculiar departure for MuseStorm, which makes its money from charging large corporations on a per-impression or bulk campaign basis. In contrast, widgets made for the iPhone won’t even display advertisements or branding - just the MuseStorm URL.
The creation of MuseStorm widgets for the iPhone consists of the same PowerPoint-like interface users have come to expect. It’s not terribly novice-friendly, since there’s very little in terms of visual aides, and any moderately advanced customization requires knowledge of CSS and access to a server that will host your image and style files (MuseStorm offloads most of the content within its widgets).
I created a test widget for TechCrunch that exhibits the ever-so-stylish “Lazy Day” theme (one of 5 that come pre-packaged) but looks pretty crummy in a desktop browser. Pros of the tool include the ability to work on a live widget and publish changes in bulk. Deep analytics also tell you how many people have viewed your photos, watched your videos, clicked on your RSS feed items, etc.
On the con side of things, the fade and slide transitions chug slowly and there’s no way to have a fixed header (every user interaction involves a complete page change). It would also be good to have a point-and-click CSS editor and custom URL mapping.
If you’re a publisher or marketer looking to reach iPhone-empowered audiences, signup for the service’s private beta period here. The first 250 registrants will get in before public release.
Also see MoFuse, a service for porting websites - and blogs in particular - to the iPhone. More serious developers can also use frameworks like Safire
Consumer-oriented alternatives to MuseStorm include WidgetBox, Wix, and Sprout (although good luck getting the latter two working on the iPhone; they’re based entirely in Flash).
| Website: | www.musestorm.com |
| Location: | Sunnyvale, California, United States |
| Funding: | $1.5M |
MuseStorm provides a platform for authoring, distributing, analyzing, and monetizing widgets.
The platform is made available to large marketing clients that pay on a CPM or pre-paid campaign basis. It has the ability to produce variations of… Learn More
Scoop: Job Cuts at PHP Startup Zend Could Be Aimed With An Eye Towards a Sale
Erick Schonfeld
3 comments »
Israeli startup Zend has fired 25 percent of its R&D team (at least ten people), as well as others across the company, in an attempt to become cash flow positive, says a source close to the company. Zend offers its own distribution of PHP, the popular open-source scripting language for Web applications. It sells software and support services around that (just as Red Hat does with its distribution of Linux). We have an e-mail out to the company asking for a comment.
Update: A spokesperson from the company’s PR firm says: “Yes, I can confirm that Zend made the layoffs, but we cannot comment on the numbers or reasons for the action.”
The job cuts could be an attempt to pretty itself up for a sale. Back in 2006, Oracle wanted to buy it for $100 million to $200 million. It might still be interested. IBM, which already one of Zend’s strategic partners, might also want to take a look.
Another partner is Microsoft, which has already integrated Zend into Windows Server. Thanks to Zend, programmers who don’t want to be bothered with .Net can use PHP instead to create applications that run on Windows Server. If Microsoft ever buys Yahoo, picking up Zend would make even more sense since Yahoo is littered with PHP apps.
| Website: | zend.com |
| Location: | Cupertino, California, United States |
| Funding: | $28M |
Zend Technologies is a leading provider of products and services for developing, deploying and managing business-critical PHP applications. Their mission is to enable PHP as a world-class language for large-scale enterprise development solutions…. Learn More
Terry Semel: A Man Of Few Words (On Yahoo)
Roi Carthy
8 comments »
Last week The Globes’ Noa Pereg interviewed ex-Yahoo CEO Terry Semel (he resigned in June 2007) Shimon Peres’ “President’s Conference” in Israel. Also on the panel was Sergey Brin, Susan Decker, Rupert Murdoch and Yossi Vardi.
Pereg dug to try to get something juicy out of Semel on the Microsoft/Yahoo battle (this was right as Carl Icahn was making his effort to replace the Yahoo board public). The original interview is in Hebrew, but here are some of the translated highlights:
Pereg: But you personally believe that Yahoo is worth more than $44B?
Semel: That question should be directed at Yahoo’s new managers. To Jerry Yang. They seem to think it’s worth more.
Pereg: What’s your opinion about Icahn? It is an attempt to coup the Board of Directors?
Semel: I read about that as well. Icahn is very talented and intelligent, but I don’t know what intentions stand behind the stock buying.
At this point Semel requests to stop the interview for a moment. All these questions about Microsoft are making him feel uncomfortable, and he announces: “I’m not going to talk about the deal. Who should be talking about it is Yang or Susan Decker, the president. Certainly not me.”
Semel also says his departure was based on personal reasons:
Semel: When I began working in Yahoo, my family moved with me. Despite our efforts, our kids wanted to study in Los Angele, and I was forced to see my family and friends only on weekends. In the beginning I even enjoyed it, but knew that at some stage I’d want to go back home. At the time, the people that founded it wanted to get back to it, and that was the right opportunity to go back home and look for new opportunities.
On speculation that his exit was forced:
Semel: These rumors are not true. I told the Board several months in advance that I was going to announce my departure soon, and that I want to set out in a new direction. They offered that I stay as Chairman, and I did agree for a certain time, but at the end felt that I prefer to be an active player than a mentor. It was the right time for me to leave.
On Facebook’s valuation:
Pereg: Is Facebook in your opinion worth $15 billion? Are these prices even logical?
Semel: I have no opinion about it. This is something Microsoft needs to decide on.
On future plans:
Pereg: So what is Semel doing these days?
Semel: I’m busy mostly with in searching for interesting companies in order to purchase and invest in, and I’m certain that they’ll be heard of in the coming years. I also have time to play golf and do some sports.
Ztail Wants To Be The Kelley Blue Book For Everything
Jason Kincaid
16 comments »
We all have one: It’s that thing that’s been collecting dust in your closet since the mid 90’s. You know it has to be worth something, but you’re worried that posting it on eBay will garner a whopping 99 cents (plus shipping, if you’re lucky). So it continues to sit. Ztail wants to put an end to this problem, and is launching a revamped site that it hopes will serve as pricing guide for everything under the sun.
Conceptually, the site seems like a mix between Antiques Roadshow, The Price is Right, and eBay. To post an item for appraisal users can either enter a description manually, or they can search through a database of over 1 million products provided by Shopping.com that contains default photos and descriptions (users can modify these if they wish). From there, the item is added to Ztail's "Get Worth" pool, which will present the item to other users and ask for their opinion. Sellers can also create a Ztail widget, which can be embedded in blogs and social networks to collect opinions of friends. After establishing a price, Ztail allows sellers to quickly sell an item on eBay using pre-defined templates.
Prospective buyers can peruse the listings to get a feel for how much each item is worth, which also makes Ztail something of a Kelley's Blue Book for just about anything.
The site serves both as a tool and a competitive (and potentially addicting) game. As members evaluate the worth of items, they can establish a reputation score based on their accuracy, which is determined by comparing each user's appraisal to the average. Members can enhance their accuracy score by linking to past eBay auctions, craigslist listings, or store prices to validate the prices they have suggested. This feature is where the site's real potential lies - if it can establish a hardcore group of professional appraisers for each category, Ztail could become an authoritative resource instead of a casual guide.
Ztail has a great idea, but it's going to be hard to pull off. Until the site can establish a sizable and credible user-base, prices are going to be highly variable and the site won't be much of a destination for anyone. That said, the market could really use a guide for "random stuff". Ebay works well enough for easily-identifiable products like electronics, but for everything else sellers are at the market's mercy.
| Website: | ztail.com |
| Location: | Palo Alto, California, United States |
| Founded: | 2005 |
| Funding: | $400k |
Ztail serves as a pricing and buying guide for everything under the sun. They also facilitate eBay listings by providing pre-made templates for sellers. Learn More
Google Health: A Quick Hands-On Look
Erick Schonfeld
10 comments »
Now that Google Health has finally launched, I took a quick peek at it while Mark was taking notes at today’s Google Factory Tour presentation. It’s been a long time coming, but at first glance it looks like it will be a strong competitor to existing personal health sites such as Microsoft’s HealthVault (which launched last October), Revolution Health, or Aetna’s SmartSource (via a partnership with Healthline).
The big competition here is between Google Health and Microsoft’s HealthVault. (Revolution Health is more of an information portal at this point, and who is going to trust their health insurance company?). Whereas HealthVault’s strengths seem to lie in tying together different health information silos on the back end, Google Health is focusing more initially on the consumer side. It is trying to do an end-run around the health establishment by trying to get consumers to manually load their own medical information into their profiles. HealthVault allows this as well, but seems to have stronger partnerships with back-end health data providers. Google will no doubt tackle the existing health data silos as it proceeds. It really has no choice if it wants to organize the world’s health information.
To gain consumer acceptance, Google promises never to advertise on Google Health (although ads in related searches should be fair game) and that people’s personal health information will never appear in search results (one would hope not). Members can add their doctors to their Gmail contacts and APis are n the works.
In order for Google Health to be of much use, you need to tell it about your health history by creating a personal medical profile. It is easy enough to get started. You tell it your age, weight, medical conditions, medications, allergies, and so on. It provides guided keyword suggestions, so that when you type in a symptom, for instance, you get a list of health terms.
But the key is importing your medical record in there. That is going to be a huge hurdle in terms of people feeling comfortable giving that sort of data to Google in the first place, and then simply getting the data in an electronic form from their doctors.
Google Health lists only eight partners so far from which it can import medical records, and half of them only cover drugs (Medco, Walgreens, RXAmerica, and Longs Drug Stores). The others are Quest Diagnostics (for lab tests), MinuteClinic from CVS Caremark, and two hospitals: the Cleveland Clinic, and Beth Isreal Deaconness Medical Center.
Even if your doctor sent you a file with your complete medical record, it is not clear that you could upload it (although you could enter it by hand). It also does not let you import data directly from medical devices, a feature that Microsoft’s HealthVault does have.
Google has also created specific in-depth pages for hundreds of health topics. When you enter a condition into your profile, there is a reference link to one of these pages where you can do more research. These are really helpful. They give a summary of the symptoms, treatment, causes, and prevention of different conditions; illustrations where appropriate, as well as links to related news, Google Groups, and search trends. Here is one for “Sciatica,”for instance.
Google Health also lets you link your profile to a number of other online health services. These include ePillBox.info (medication scheduler), a heart attack risk calculator, iHealth, Livestrong.com, MyDailyApple (daily health news), MyMedicalRecords,com, and NoMoreClipboard. If Google Health wants to be the central repository of your online health profile, it needs to allow you to share your profile with as many other services as possible. You are able to grant different levels of permission to each service.
HealthVault has its own list of partner sites (American Heart Association, CapMed, HealthMedia, Healthy Circles, Kryptiq, Peaksware, Pure Wellness,Sound Health Soultions, US Wellness, Podfitness, MyVitalStatistics, Limeade, and Active Health).
Google is planning to open up APIs to Google health to make it easy for other partners to tap into its health platform. And make no mistake about it. That is what this is: a platform. Health apps anyone?
| Company: | |
| Website: | google.com/health |
| Launch Date: | May 19, 2008 |
Google Health takes users’ medical records and brings them online. Users make personal profiles and add their medical info such as conditions, medications, allergies, procedures, test results, and immunizations. Additionally users can import… Learn More
Sappy Love Story Weekend King Getting High Fives
Michael Arrington
6 comments »
We’re hearing that the first showing of Weekend King, which chronicles the life of a fairly pathetic Silicon Valley programmer, was a crowd pleaser (let us know in the comments what you thought). The next showing is on May 24.
In true Hollywood style, though, everything turns out fine in the end with our hero/protagonist finding love. Bleh.
Rupert is awkward, friendless, and loveless. He’s also rich. In a quest to beat his loneliness, Rupert buys a small bankrupt town in Utah. He expects to lord over the populace but ends up contending with people that don’t buy into his newly invented confidence. But grappling with his bad investment turns out to be the key for finally finding friendship and love.
Microsoft Research: Silicon Valley Sneak Peek Event
Michael Arrington
6 comments »
On Thursday May 22, Microsoft will open up its Silicon Valley office to a select crowd. The agenda - Rick Rashid (SVP Global Research) and Roy Levin (Director Silicon Valley Lab) will show twelve new research projects, focusing on search, graphics, security, privacy. No word if they’ll be showing off TouchWall, but it’s worth trying to get in just in case they do.
The event is on May 22 at Microsoft’s Mountain View Campus (Building 1, 1065 La Avenida, Mountain View, CA 94043). Registration begins at noon, and the event goes from 1 - 4:30.
To get in, add the Facebook application and also register on the main site here. Code “MSRMay” should work until they shut it down.
| Companies: | Microsoft |
Richard (Rick) F. Rashid is currently in charge of oversight for Microsoft Research’s worldwide operations, Richard (Rick) F. Rashid previously served as the director of Microsoft Research, focusing on… Learn More
| Companies: | Microsoft |
Roy Levin joined Microsoft Corp. in August 2001 to found the Microsoft Research Silicon Valley lab.
From 1996 until he joined Microsoft, Levin was director of Compaq’s Systems Research Center in… Learn More
| Website: | www.microsoft.com |
| Location: | United States |
| IPO: | March 13, 1986 |
Best known for its Windows operating system, Microsoft is a veteran software company that has also ventured into hardware with consumer products such as the Zune and Xbox. Learn More
Live: Google Health Launches At Factory Tour of Search
Mark Hendrickson
32 comments »
Update: Check out our first thoughts on Google Health.
Google has invited the press to its headquarters in Mountain View today for some presentations on a variety of search-related projects.
The so-called “Factory Tour of Search” event will proceed until about 1pm PT today. The agenda (shown in full at the bottom of this post) includes overview presentations about Google’s various search properties, its local search services, and search quality. Later on we will also hear more about Google Health and have a chance for some Q&A and expert roundtables.
Check back here throughout the morning for my live notes from the event.
Notes
The event is about to start. There are representatives here from Cleveland Clinic, Harvard Medical School, MedCo, Quest, Walgreens, CVS, Longs, RxAmerica and more. I hear that Google Health will actually launch today in a couple hours. This comes after expectations of it launching this past January (and in February, and in May 2006 for that matter). Update: The Google Health sign in screen is live here already.
I don’t expect we’ll hear many more details about this launch until later in the program, given how the agenda is laid out.
9:50am: Event has finally begun. They’re beginning with a general overview of Google’s search properties. R.J Pittman on stage talking about the breadth of search, and three properties in particular, starting with Image Search.
Over 300 million digital photos taken every day, 100 billion per year, over half a trillion images in circulation by 2009. Wants to see Google have over 1 trillion images to search from one day.
9:55am: More users turning to image search than ever before. Today hundreds of millions of image searches per day. Important to help users navigate, so innovation is hugely important.
Likeness of an image is a difficult thing to figure out but possible with Google’s image similarity technology today. Google also has some of the first and best tech for object recognition. Adding this tech will be increasingly important with more photos online. People also like to search for people, so facial recognition important as well. Working to make tech for facial recognition one click away, so you can distinguish between, say, Delorean the inventor and the car.
9:57am: Gigapan project meant to handle big image sizes. Also working on geo-tagging and location-based imagery.
People using image search for more than just looking for pretty pictures. It’s being used for recipe hunting, travel planning, diagnosing health, shopping, etc. Relevance of commerce-related activity to imagery is increasing.
10:00am: Google has experimented with ads around images but have had to struggle with how to do it right, since it’s not easy. Announcing today a new suite of image related experiments. Pairing images with images — display ads with image search.
Examples show sponsored image results with AdSense-like descriptions, displayed along the top and on the right. Doesn’t appear to be launching publicly anytime soon, Google will “keep us posted” on how these experiments go.
10:03am: Now on to Google News. The “story cluster” is very important to the organization and display of info.
Local news is a hard problem to solve. Goes beyond zip code or city name. The way we are approaching this is quite novel; leveraging power of clusters to aggregate articles and reaffirm approximations.
10:05am: Quote search is possible on Google News to find quotes from particular people in news articles. Working to leverage clusters for quote search as well to improve its accuracy.
Microsoft Needs To Do Something. But Combining Facebook With Yahoo Search Ain’t It.
Erick Schonfeld
33 comments »
As Microsoft toys with Yahoo over the possibility of a resumed deal to buy only its search business, is it also thinking of throwing Facebook into the mix? That’s the latest rumor making the rounds. Asked about it in Japan, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg danced around the question by stressing his desire for Facebook to remain independent, but declined to comment specifically on whether a sale to Microsoft was in the works. Presumably, though, he wouldn’t be in Japan if any deal was imminent. The only thing that is safe to assume right now is that Microsoft’s corp. dev. guys are talking to everybody else’s corp. dev. guys about any number of combinations or partnerships.
This is not the first time a rumor has surfaced that Microsoft wants to buy Facebook. After Microsoft walked away from Yahoo the first time, there was chatter that Facebook might be an alternative. What is different about this rumor is that it contemplates a combination of Yahoo’s search business with Facebook. Robert Scoble lays out his conspiracy theory about how such a combo would spell the end of the open Web. Scoble points out that stuff on Facebook is not very searchable, but if Microsoft owned both Yahoo’s search engine and Facebook, it could expose all of that social data to Yahoo’s search engine (while keeping it hidden from Google’s). That would give Yahoo’s search engine a leg up on social relevancy and people search, and thus give it a competitive advantage over Google in that area.
There are a few problems with this theory.
1. If opening up Facebook to search really does confer some sort of competitive advantage, there is nothing stopping Microsoft from negotiating a much cheaper technology deal with Facebook to allow its search engine to spider the social network. It doesn’t need to buy Facebook for $15 billion to $20 billion to do that.
2. It doesn’t need to buy Yahoo’ search engine to do that either. Microsoft has its own search engine. If combining search and Facebook really is a game-changer, it would be a (much-needed) game-changer for Microsoft search as well.3. Making Facebook more searchable in and of itself is not a game-changer. Social data exists in many other places as well (MySpace, Bebo, Orkut, Hi5, Twitter, FreindFeed, Plaxo, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, etc.). If indexing this social data will make search more relevant, it needs to be done across the Web, not just on Facebook. No one deal will solve this search issue.
4. Combining Yahoo’s search engine with Facebook does not solve Facebook’s biggest problem: making money from (mostly display) ads on Facebook. Microsoft is not doing such a great job selling display ads on Facebook already, and the new deal being talked about between it and Yahoo would not include Yahoo’s display advertising business. Arguably, putting together Facebook with Yahoo’s display advertising business would make a stronger combination (assuming that Yahoo has a better shot at figuring out how to monetize social-network ad inventory than Microsoft).
Still, what this discussion highlights is that buying Yahoo’s search business on its own might not do it for Microsoft without combining it with some other move. Microsoft needs to close a deal (any deal) with Yahoo first, though, before it can start moving around other chess pieces. As far as Facebook goes, keep an eye on Zuckerberg. If negotiations with Microsoft get serious, he’ll fly home in a hurry.
Amanda Congdon’s New Show Gets Support from Media Rights Capital
May 19, 2008 — 02:52 PM PDT — by Kristen Nicole — — Add a Comment
Amanda Congdon’s latest podcast series “Sometimes Daily,” which we first mentioned here, has officially launched with the help of Media Rights Capital, a film, television and digital studio. Media Rights Capital (MRC), has partnered with Congdon for the new “Sometimes Daily” show in hopes of delving into her fan base, which dates back to her days as the host on “Rocketboom.” And with the help of MRC, which also has a syndication deal with Google, perhaps Congdon is hoping to get another chance at going completely mainstream.
After “Rocketboom” Congdon enjoyed a stint at ABC News, becoming the breakthrough as the broadcaster’s first videoblogger. “Sometimes Daily” won’t drift too far from what Congdon’s fans are used to, though there’s a more distinct focus on multifaceted interaction on her part, through blogging, texting, and more. Take a look at the show’s new homepage and you’ll see the multiple networks through which “Sometimes Daily” is being syndicated.
The highly interactive approach worked with certain web series like Prom Queen, and it appears that such distribution is the supporting task for MRC to spread “Sometimes Daily” across the web.
Twitter Is Down (Again): Mashable Asks, “What Are You Doing?”
May 19, 2008 — 01:58 PM PDT — by Adam Ostrow — — 42 Comments
Following outages last night that Mark blamed on the Democrats, Twitter has gone down again this afternoon. I’ve been noticing the outages for at least an hour, but I’ve seen other reports suggesting that it has been down longer.
In a cheap attempt to get a high comment count, Mashable looks to fill the void, and asks you to tell us what YOU are doing in 140 characters or less in our comment section.
Editor’s Note: This was originally posted last time Twitter went down for an extended period of time (May 15th). Rather than make a fresh post each time Twitter crashes, we’ll just bring this post back and let the comment thread continue 
While you wait for Twitter to return, you may also enjoy Allen Stern’s new hit music video: “Twitter Come Back“:
[inspired by this friendfeed thread]
IQLeague Says MySpace is 3rd Smartest Site in the World. Huh?
May 19, 2008 — 01:02 PM PDT — by Kristen Nicole — — 4 Comments
If you’re a site owner, then you know how important demographics are. You have a slew of tools at your disposal for obtaining the demographic data on your users and site visitors, and some of these options make the end users uncomfortable, because of privacy issues. But what if you could know the actual IQ level of your users and site visitors?
This particular metric goes along the lines of household income and highest level of education–to a certain degree. And aside from having a unique perspective on your site users, IQ level can be directly applied to advertising campaigns on your site. There are a few things you can infer, based on the IQ of a certain population, and this particular metric seems to me that it would be more helpful as a supplement to other existing demographic data than a standalone measurement for any specific group.
IQLeague has spent some time gathering the IQ scores of thousands of Internet users in order to determine the median IQ of the average Internet user. This study serves as the basis for all future implementations of IQLeague’s service.
And while you can apply IQLeague to your own site, there’s an entire community that IQLeague is growing on its own. You can take an IQ quiz yourself to determine how you stack up against others. IQLeague is building up a series of data sets for extrapolating things like the smartest female in a particular region, or the smartest website based on the IQ levels of that site’s users.
So even if you don’t utilize IQLeague for your own site population, you can peruse through IQLeague’s site and see who’s topping the various leaderboards. Take the information for what it’s worth–right now MySpace is 3rd on the list for Smartest Website in the World.
LetsProve: FriendFeed Clone, Complete with API [The Startup Review]
May 19, 2008 — 11:55 AM PDT — by Kristen Nicole — — 1 Comment
Editor’s Note: If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion in “The Startup Review” series, please see the details here.
STARTUP DETAILS:
Company Name: LetsProve
20 word description: LetsProve’s Platform enables anyone to build applications that can update your activities from external services, send an notifications.
CEO’s 100 word description: The purpose of LetsProve is to centralize your content and activities on the web by using your existing social network.
Mashable’s Take: Thanks to the cult-like following of FriendFeed, a number of similar services are gaining more attention. Amidst the evolution of profile aggregators and personalized RSS feeds, there’s been an emergence of the super-feed, which presents your activities across multiple sites, for all to see. The latest to the table? LetsProve.
Quite similar to FriendFeed, LetsProve enables you to provide your feeds from various sites like Twitter, Delicious, Flickr, etc. Your public profile will display your activity across the sites you’ve designated for inclusion on LetsProve.
Nothing new there. The more important aspect of LetsProve is an API that allows developers to add their third party services for LetsProve, as also noted by Louis Gray. As with FriendFeed’s API offering, LetsProve’s API enables the company to grow quickly, attract the developer community, which will then market its service on LetsProve. In doing so, LetsProve minimizes its administrative burden and offers an infinite amount of services for its feeds.
What LetsProve is still missing, however, are filtering options and recommendation capabilities. The recommendation aspect is something that FriendFeed hasn’t even yet realized with its own service, so the expectations I have for feeds to provide basic recommendation tools is fleeting. The filtering options, however, are necessary as this feed revolution continues to take off.
There’s simply too much data coursing through these services for them to be useful in the long run, as that data is quickly lost. Instead of requiring an increased amount of attention from users, search and filtering options will be a must-have for LetsProve so that users can actually find the particulars they’re interested in amongst their group of friends.
Sponsored by Sun Startup Essentials
Will Microsoft Buy Facebook?
May 19, 2008 — 11:37 AM PDT — by Adam Ostrow — — 4 Comments
There is a huge pile of … speculation going around today about the possibility of Microsoft buying the remaining 98.4% of Facebook that it doesn’t own. The “Silicon Valley Rumor” first reported by John Furrier stems from yesterday’s statement-exchange between Microsoft and Yahoo, in which the former indicated it was interested in pursuing “alternatives” to an outright buy of the latter, in turn, freeing up loads of cash and stock for Microsoft to buy other things – such as Facebook.
Personally, I think it’s farfetched that Microsoft wouldn’t pay roughly $52 billion for Yahoo (the company’s asking price when Microsoft withdrew its offer), a company with more than $7 billion in annual revenue, but would pay up to $20 billion for Facebook, a company on track for a reported $300-350 million in sales this year. Scoble has an elaborate theory about why it would make sense, but I still can’t see how those numbers add up to anything logical in any scenario.
In any event, let’s put it to a poll:
Google Health Now Live: Could Become a Powerful Portal for Third Parties
May 19, 2008 — 11:17 AM PDT — by Kristen Nicole — — 1 Comment
We’re nearly halfway through the year, and Google Health has launched nearly on schedule. The highly anticipated health tool is now live and accessible to all Google users. There are four basic categories to utilize: Your personal Health profile, Importing of medical records, Exploring online health services, and Doctor search.
The information you provide under your health records is used for your own personal purposes, and can be printed and taken with you to a doctor’s appointment. If an office is integrated with Google health, then the information is already accessible to them In terms of the extended health services provided through Google’s health portal, registering for any of these, and linking it to your Google health profile provides you with automated updates to that third party service.
The doctor search is quite similar to what you’ll find through a regular Google search, except this is a specialized search tool. There are no filtering options, however, so going through a page of results can b a cumbersome task. Once you find a doctor you like, however, they can be linked to your Google Health profile as well.
With the current offering, the most powerful aspect of Google Health is likely its consumer-facing portal, which a number of third-party services will be interested in having a spot. This appears to be more integrated with third parties than Microsoft’s HealthVault. Even though Google is explicitly not in partnership with these third party services, having a select number of these services is almost acting as a recommendation to the end user.
As there are only a handful of services that can be connected to your Google Health profile, including ePillBox and Walgreen’s Pharmacy, the potential for increased user base and added value of integration with Google Health makes it a potentially covted place for which third-party services are accessed.
WeeWorld is Now a Virtual World. Go Play with Other WeeMees.
May 19, 2008 — 10:49 AM PDT — by Kristen Nicole — — 2 Comments
When WeeMees first came on the scene, the furthest you’d see these tiny avatars venture would be as an AIM avatar. With the onslaught of web-based virtual worlds, however, WeeMee’s now have their own mini universe to explore.
In what appears to be an extension of the recently launched WeeRooms, the new World for WeeMees is a full fledged virtual playground, with immediate plans for growth. WeeMee’s can choose from a variety of locations to visit, chat with each other, make friends, and interact with special objects that will give off surprise events.
Given the presence of so many virtual worlds like Habbo, it was only a matter of time before WeeMee users would long for more customization and more interactivity amongst themselves. So far, the virtual aspects of the WeeWorld are rather limited in comparison to other sites, but WeeWorld already has plans to add more cities, areas specific to chat, and games where users can obtain hidden objects and get exclusive prizes.
What all this new interactivity does, however, is provide more goal-oriented options for users of WeeWorld. Instead of merely creating avatars with custom rooms, users now have a reason to further explore the site, venture on quests, and perform tasks. With the increase in engagement, WeeWorld will also become more attractive as a marketing tool. As we’ve seen with other virtual worlds, something like WeeWorld could be used for video screening, and a number of other integrated activities.
With WeeMee’s recent API release, I imagine that the potential of WeeWorld could be vastly expanded as other site publishers may be interested in incorporating some of the avatar community tools into their own sites as well.
What would be interesting is if the API offerings could usher in a new level of virtual world interactivity. For example, WeeWorld integration with AIM or Skype chat would build on both fronts of what WeeWorld has already offered to users, and could prove more attractive to users that already have multiple accounts across various virtual worlds.
Mininova, The World’s Largest Torrent Site, Facing A Lawsuit
May 19, 2008 — 10:04 AM PDT — by Stan Schroeder — — 5 Comments
Have you heard of Mininova? It’s only the 52nd largest site in the world according to Alexa, and the largest BitTorrent tracker around. Dutch anti-piracy body BREIN estimates their traffic (Google translation from Dutch) at over 30 million unique visitors per month and a total of 5 billion downloads. Their earnings, according to BREIN, count in the hundreds of thousands of euros per month.
And yet, the Dutch-based site has eluded legal action until now. Partly, it is because of their takedown policy; if a copyright owner asks them to remove a torrent from their database, they will comply.
This is not enough, according to BREIN, because over 90% of files tracked on Mininova are illegal; Mininova should start filtering their search results, or they’ll face legal action. Sound familiar? Yup, it’s pretty much the same thing media giants have been asking YouTube to do. So, although many associate Mininova with warez and illegal files, this is essentially the same issue; and if Mininova loses this one, it’ll be bad news for YouTube and others, too.
Mashable’s Guide to Upcoming Web 2.0 Conferences and Events
May 19, 2008 — 09:00 AM PDT — by Tamar Weinberg — — 2 CommentsHere’s our latest round-up of upcoming Web 2.0 events, parties, and conferences. Make sure to attend at least one! 
May 20, 2008: Chinwag Live: Micro Media Maze, will be held in London, and talks about how everything has gone micro. How is the media landscape being reshaped and who are the winners? How do media owners get their content out there? More information and booking details are at the Chinwag website. Use coupon code CL17MASH for 10% off.
May 20-21, 2008: Mediabistro.com’s first conference will be held at the Skylight studios in Tribeca. Speakers include Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson, blogging evangelist Anil Dash, and unstoppable video dynamo Robert Scoble. There will be parties, entertainments, and more. Check out the blog for updates and see our post for further information.
Startup 2.0 is a contest for European 2.0 sites (blogs, wikis, social networks, and any other website which utilizes Web 2.0 components, such as tagging, RSS, collaboration, or AJAX). Entries will be judged by the quality of the website and business plan which should be presented in a killer video presentation. Sign up now as registration is free but spaces are limited.
May 21-22, 2008: The 3rd Communitelligence Executing Social Media Conference & Workshops is a must-attend event for anyone in need of good advice on using the new social media tools for business advantage. The conference delivers practical, how-to take-aways from two-dozen experts and practitioners who are boldly executing successful new media programs today.
Get $300 off the registration fee by following the instructions in our Communitelligence Conference post.
May 22nd, 2008: InterPlay is the first conference focused on the convergence of games and the social web, and will be held at the Kabuki Hotel in San Francisco on May 22nd. From the rise of social network platforms on Facebook, MySpace and others, to the proliferation of virtual worlds like Second Life, some of the hottest new games (and game companies) are building their success on the backs of social platforms.
Want 25% off? Visit our Interplay announcements post.
May 22-23, 2008: Interested in entrepreneurship? Attend the NY Digital Basins Software Forum to be held at the Auburn Public Theater in Auburn, NY. If you are seeking new networking opportunities (looking for a job), are interested in strengthening your own entrepreneurial capacity (thinking about starting your own business), would like to sit down with a seed fund manager or venture capitalist, are interested in learning about new applications, or just are curious, you should definitely show up.
May 28-29, 2008: On May 28th and 29th in San Francisco, join some of Google’s engineers and talk about building superb applications with Google Code and other open web technologies. The Google I/O conference will discuss AJAX, JavaScript, tools that leverage Google Maps, social applications, APIs, mobile apps, and more. Register for the event at the Google I/O page.
The first TECH cocktail CONFERENCE will convene on Thursday, May 29, 2008 in Chicago, Illinois, from 8am until 5pm (at Loyola University’s Kasbeer Hall on the Water Tower campus). The CONFERENCE focuses on taking a “no nonsense” approach to running a successful business leveraging technology and the Web. Experienced top-notch speakers include Mike Domek of TicketsNow, Dick Costolo former CEO of Feedburner acquired by Google in 2007, Jason Fried of 37signals, Adrian Holovaty of ChicagoCrime.org, and many more. Mashable readers: save 11% off the ticket price.
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AIM + Bebo: A Great Idea, Five Years Ago
May 19, 2008 — 08:37 AM PDT — by Adam Ostrow — — 6 Comments
AOL has announced that they’ve completed the purchase of Bebo, and as such, formed a new business unit called “People Networks” that combines the social network with AIM, ICQ, and other recently acquired businesses including Yedda and Goowy. Integration plans aren’t overly specific at the moment, but include “[letting] users merge AIM and Bebo profiles so they can use common screen names without re-registering.”
For AOL, this marks attempt #3 (or #4 or #5 if you go back to when AOL was the dominant ISP and everything took place inside AOL’s desktop software) at turning AIM into a major social network. First, there was AOL Journals, which tied blogging community features to AIM. Then came AIMPages, a web-based social network tied to AIM screennames. And now, rather than build something in-house, AOL has spent $850 million and will attempt to integrate AIM with an existing social network that reportedly has more than 40 million users.
I’ve long held the belief that IM is the ultimate social network – if you use it properly, you have your contacts sorted neatly into appropriate groups – colleagues, college buddies, family, etc. You have status updates (away messages), photos (buddy icons), and group options (chat). However, what has long been missing is the networking aspect – there is no easy way for my AIM contacts to see my buddy list and find out who they are, and hence, network. This is what AIM pages tried to do, and what I assume Bebo with AIM/ICQ will attempt to do, by combining a huge Web community with a huge IM community.
The problem is that the opportunity may have passed. The large social networks not only have their own integrated chat options (Facebook Chat and MySpace IM), but they also allow for third-party widgets and applications like Meebo that allow users to have their friends send them an IM directly from the Web. Additionally, IM as a medium now has a lot of competitors – private messaging on the social networks, free/low-cost calling via VoIP, and microblogging services like Twitter. Are there really tens of millions of AIM users out there who aren’t yet on Facebook or MySpace? That seems to be what AOL/Bebo is banking on.
As AOL alludes to in their press release this morning, there are lots of other cross-marketing opportunities across the AOL network that will provide ample opportunity to drive further adoption of Bebo. But my feeling is the “power AIM” users who would be interested in integration with a social network are already on Facebook or MySpace, and unlikely to switch just for the marginal advantage of having your screenname and social networking username one and the same.
A social network built around an instant messaging network was a great idea five years ago (and still a good idea two years ago when AOL launched AIMPages), but at this stage in the game, I have my doubts.
The 3 Minute Twitter Challenge [Video]
May 19, 2008 — 07:17 AM PDT — by Pete Cashmore — — 17 CommentsSeesmic, the so-called “Twitter of video”, earned a unique accolade this weekend: my complaint of a site issue, posted to Twitter, received a response within 3 minutes. The problem was fixed within an hour.
My question: is Seesmic indicative of a wider trend, wherein corporations actually (gasp!) listen to their customers (beyond mere lip service), responding in a human voice and turning markets into conversations, much as the Cluetrain Manifesto envisioned back in 1999? Or is this kind of responsiveness impossible to scale: utterly unique among burgeoning startups?
And, more importantly, how does your company stack up?
Startups: are you using tools like Tweet Scan (or Terraminds) plus blog search engines like Technorati or Google Blog Search to track emergent conversations around your brand? Can you meet the 3 Minute Twitter Challenge, answering a user complaint in real time?
Social Media Mavens: Complain away! Do your darnedest to solicit responses from new startups through the medium of Twitter, submitting complaints, suggestions and feedback. Did you get a response? Did they beat Seesmic’s 3 minute turnaround? Let us know in the comments!
