Pandora "Gets" Mobile

Image via CrunchBase

Mobile is not an easy nut to crack. Ask Facebook, ask Zynga. It helped that they started early. It also helps music is made for mobile.

First look: Pandora 4.0, the new mobile frontier

"We started thinking about creating a mobile service in 2004," Pandora CTO Tom Conrad told us in an interview. "We wanted to unify the Pandora experience." ..... and Pandora found itself one of the top five most downloaded mobile applications. Over the next four years 75 percent of Pandora listening shifted to smartphones. The company says that over 115 million registered users have tuned into the service on a smart mobile. The platform represents around 55 percent of its advertising revenue. ....... Pandora 4.0 for iOS smartphones goes live for download in the App Store at 5 pm EDT on Monday, 29 October. The Android version is going to take a little longer to show up in Google Play—"in the coming weeks," we were told. The upgrades arrive as the smartphone radio field is diversifying and expanding. Pandora still has a huge profile, but is hardly the only kid on the block. Spotify, Rdio, Last.fm, Turntable.fm all have big followings in the United States. Even Apple has been making noises about setting up a Pandora rival for the iPhone and iPad. ..... "When we launched in 2005, AOL and Microsoft were the largest services; MySpace was the gorilla in the room," Conrad noted. "Clear Channel was getting serious about iHeartRadio. What has allowed us to succeed despite stiff competition is that we are dedicated to the future of radio. We have a simple, elegant product to which we are devoted, and which we think we can produce better than anybody else." ...... Pandora says about half of its revenues go to performance royalties. The proposed legislation in both its Senate and House forms would put rates on a par with those paid by satellite and cable-based radio services. ...... the rates paid to various artists featured on the service. Two thousand will receive over $10,000 each over the next 12 months. "And for more than 800 we'll pay over $50,000, more than the income of the average American household"

Related articles

• First look: Pandora 4.0, the new mobile frontier
• Pandora refreshes iOS, Android app, Windows Phone version in development
• Pandora Refreshes iPhone, Android Apps
• New Pandora 4.0 comes to Mobile
• Pandora 4.0 service launches for Android and iOS
• Pandora 4.0 Hits iOS, Coming Soon to Android, Windows Phone
• Here's Your First Look At Pandora Radio's Big Update For Smartphones (P)
• Pandora's New Mobile App Will Rock Your World
• Pandora Rolls Out Comprehensive Mobile App Updates
• Pandora refreshes iPhone, Android apps

Google? Pirate?

So Barack Obama thinks SOPA is not worth the paper it is printed on, and Rupert Murdoch, @therealshitmydadsays, thinks Google is a pirate.

That's interesting thinking. Obviously Murdoch wants his newspapers to be online but behind paywalls and not accessible through search engines. If you are paying, you obviously know the name and the domain name. Show up and read. You found me when you paid for the subscription.

I don't know where to begin. I mean, a search engine is a good thing, right? Or am I missing something here? Do we want to go back to the good old days of the Yahoo directory?

Murdoch seems to think the internet was designed to save him the costs on paper. ("Why can't you just read the paper on your computer?") Everything else should remain the same.

Sean Parker's AirTime Could Net Him Tens Of Billions

Sean Parker is a billionaire already at a net worth of over two billion. The guy is 31.



Napster, Facebook, Plaxo, Causes, Spotify, AirTime. Before today I did not even realize Causes was his thing. You live and you learn. Plaxo was annoying, don't you think? And yet that is the company he is most proud of.

I learned of AirTime very recently. But you only have to do a search on the term Chatroulette at this blog to get a feel for my passion for the topic. Just like the Google guys gave jobs to people like Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee, Sean Parker should rope in the Russian dude, give him a small cut, not legally required, but might be beneficial.

Chatroulette Is For Real
ChatVille Is Live Now: "What ChatRoulette Should Have Been"
Chatfe Happy Hour With Paul Orlando
Penises For Sale: The Russian Mafia Is On It
Chatfe: Audio, Interest Based Random Connections On Skype?
Paul Orlando In The New York Times

The social graph that Facebook has mapped is not really all that cutting edge. I mean, I already knew these people. I did not need help knowing them. But I do need help, a lot of help, getting to know people I don't know, I might never meet. AirTime could help map that uncharted social graph, and that is big.

The Color Social Graph Might Work Better For Books, Movies, Music
Finally Facebook Lets Me Reach Out To Non Friends

In many ways I am looking at AirTime as Sean Parker's first startup. This is the one he gets to do his way. This is the one he gets to own a big chunk of.

I really like this guy. He is always thinking big. He paints in broad strokes. His visions tend to be sweeping, panoramic. Not for him is incremental innovation. He is always wanting to do the next big thing. And now through AirTime he is trying to tackle the most virgin aspect of the web. The landscape of what he is trying to navigate is so shapeless right now.

Maybe the guy should rope me in in some kind of an advisory role. I could not think of a better preparation as I gear to launch my own microfinance startup. I think I am in a position to contribute.

Sean Parker's 2009 Email To Spotify
Sean Parker: Mystery Man
Sean Parker, F8, HTML5, Android
Sean Parker: Video: Facebook, MySpace
The Sean Parker Analogy
Sean Parker, Billionaire, Was Really Poor Once
The Day I Got Called Sean Parker
Paul Graham: Wrong About NYC
White Male Conspiracy To Drive Me Homeless

Google Plus Has Buzz

Image via CrunchBaseObviously Google Plus is no Google Wave or Google Buzz. This thing has legs.

Has Google Finally Cracked Social?
Larry Page At The Helm
I Will Not Miss Eric

Sean Parker: Video: Facebook, MySpace

Could Skype Be Microsoft's YouTube?

Image via CrunchBaseThe Skype founders did not have what it takes, or they would not have done the selling, twice. And that is a surprise to me because Skype is just wonderful. Skype hit 500 million users way before Facebook did. But somehow the monetization did not happen. A nine billion dollar exit is a decent monetization, would you say?

Fred Wilson: Skype Out: Big companies mostly mess up entrepreneurial companies when they buy them and it really is best that companies like Skype stay independant and run by their founders if that is possible. ...... Skype filed to go public last year but the offering never came. ..... Maybe the company was having difficulty growing its revenues as fast
Image via CrunchBase as the public markets wanted. Maybe the investors lost confidence in the management's ability to continue to build and grow Skype as an independent company. Whatever the reasons, Skype's experiment with being independent is over and I am disappointed. ...... We use Skype every day in our office. It is our videoconferencing system and increasingly our phone system. It works amazingly well. ...... Skype brought VOIP to the masses and I'm very certain that someday we will all be communicating by voice and video over IP, maybe via Skype, maybe be other services. It is the future for sure. ..... I'm not particularly inspired by the idea that Microsoft will do something great with Skype. But I do think they are a better corporate owner than eBay. The second acquisition of Skype isn't likely to change our daily usage of the service. But it may be an inspiration to VOIP entrepreneurs everywhere to think big and create new services that can someday be as big or bigger than Skype.

Microsoft missed out on the smartphone, Microsoft missed out on the tablet, and Microsoft is on its way to being hammered by Google on both Windows and Office. Although Microsoft has done decent in gaming, and it has made some early, smart moves in 3D computing.

Looks Like Soraya Darabi Rocked The 99 Percent Conference

Image via CrunchBaseSoraya Darabi: Mobile Productivity Tools
Soraya Darabi: Top 5: Strike 3
Soraya Darabi On TechCrunch TV
Soraya Darabi In New York Magazine

I have been meaning to write a post on this article in some Australian newspaper, and this conference happened in NYC already before I got around to it. The word that kept coming to my mind was radical.

Murdoch's MySpace, Cisco's Flip

Image via WikipediaWhen Rupert Murdoch bought MySpace, that was hot property. And he looked like a genius when he paid $500 million for the service, and promptly got Google to pay him $900 million to run ads on the property. And that was the pinnacle. It was downhill after that for MySpace. Murdoch's corporate machine killed the whole operation with the usual jujitsu.

How you do it is you put a corporate guy on top of the whole thing, and that big shot starts thinking he is some kind of a big shot, he fires a few key people, he reorganizes a little bit. After all he has to cast the impression he is actually doing something. And that messes things up. There is no one in charge. The emphasis is no longer on innovation. It is on pleasing the corporate guy who, by the way, wants yet more ads shown on the property, because there are numbers to be met. They don't realize that might take away from the experience because they don't use MySpace in the first place, they just want to be the boss of it.

And now what do we have here? Cisco is flipping Flip. Flip was also hot when it got bought. That is why it got bought in the first place. Flip was supposed to be Cisco's own little iPod, that signature device that everyone but everyone carries and makes Cisco look cool.

Twitter: $45 Million To $150 Million To $250 Million

Image via CrunchBaseSo Twitter made $45 million last year, and it is projected to make $150 million this year. These numbers are a slap in the face of those who kept asking back in 2009, okay, so Twitter has all these users, but how will it ever make money?

Some of those pundits are saying the same about Tumblr. Well, these are going to be Tumblr's numbers two or three years from now, more like two. If you can get deeply engaged users, monetization is just a matter of time. The players that matter know that simple fact.

The Twins Were Rowing Boats

Image via WikipediaThe twins were rowing boats and I want the money back. What these guys have been able to do already is a travesty to the spirit of entrepreneurship.

They have this attitude that since they were born into money - not money by Zuckerberg standards obviously - and Zuckerberg was merely a dentist's son, they could hire this guy to build them a billion dollar company.

Mark Suster: The Social Network: Facebook To Fragmentation

Image via WikipediaMark Suster's three pieces on TechCrunch are a nice summary of what has happened, and what is happening, although if any of this is news to you, I have to ask, where have you been?

When he starts talking about the future, it gets trickier. Social has so much buzz right now that it is hard to imagine the post-social buzz. But that there will be is for sure. There always has been. Social itself will morph. Social is one thing. Social and mobile as a combo is a case of two plus two being five. To that cocktail add local and global and you end up with two plus two equals 22. And it is not easy to figure out.

One good news is I see many, many players emerging.

Amit Kapur Might Be Upto Something

Scobleizer: First look: Gravity is making interest graphs of your social content

Checking In, Tweeting, Spotting, Updating

Image by Em.Cee via Flickr

TechCrunch: Begun, The Sticker Wars Have: Right now, many people (probably most people) have no idea what a check-in is. When Gap launched its free jeans deal, people were actually visiting the company’s Facebook Page to write “checking in“, rather than using the Places function on Facebook’s mobile application.

That would be like someone sent you an email that was 140 characters or less, say over Gmail, and claimed they just sent you a tweet. Emails with such discipline would be nice to read, but are they tweets?

Social: Bigger Than We Think

Image via Wikipedia

The Economist: Mining Social Networks: Untangling The Social Web: From retailing to counterterrorism, the ability to analyse social connections is proving increasingly useful ..... People at the top of the office or social pecking order often receive quick callbacks, do not worry about calling other people late at night and tend to get more calls at times when social events are most often organised, such as Friday afternoons. Influential customers also reveal their clout by making long calls, while the calls they receive are generally short. ...... Companies can spot these influencers, and work out all sorts of other things about their customers, by crunching vast quantities of calling data with sophisticated “network analysis” software. ..... Bharti Airtel, India’s biggest mobile operator, which handles over 3 billion calls a day ..... there are more than 100 programs for network analysis, also known as link analysis or predictive analysis ...... Bharti Airtel employs only about 100 analysts to keep tabs on its 135m subscribers. ....... broadening data mining to include analysis of social networks makes new things possible. ..... In some companies, e-mails are analysed automatically to help bosses manage their workers. Employees who are often asked for advice may be good candidates for promotion ...... If a person discusses a particular Department of Defence payment with an individual not officially linked to the deal, SRA’s software may notice it. ...... Richmond’s police have started monitoring Facebook, MySpace and Twitter messages to determine where the rowdiest festivities will be. On big party nights, the department now saves about $15,000 on overtime pay, because officers are deployed to areas that the software deems ripe for criminal activity. ..... turns out that the key terrorists in a group are often not the leaders, but rather seemingly low-level people, such as drivers and guides, who keep addresses and phone numbers memorised. Such people tend to stand out in network models because of their high level of connectedness ...... The capture of Saddam Hussein in 2003 was due in large part to the mapping of the social networks of his former chauffeurs ...... Called SOMA Terror Organization Portal, it analyses a wide range of information about politics, business and society in Lebanon to predict, with surprising accuracy, rocket attacks by the country’s Hizbullah militia on Israel. ....... An authoritarian government, for instance, may have difficulties slowing the spread of a new idea in a certain medium—say, internet chatter about a book that explains how corruption undermines job creation. ..... diplomatic services are mapping the “tipping point” when ideas go mainstream in spite of government repression. ..... Riots, bloody elections and crackdowns, among other things, can be forecast with improving accuracy by crunching data on food production, unemployment, drug busts, home evictions and slum growth detected in satellite images. ..... In relatively closed countries, like Egypt, rapid shifts in social networks can trigger upheaval ......

Perhaps. But I never underestimated the importance of social. Individuals are like cells. When many cells get together, organs are forms. Cell behavior does not predict organ behavior. Organs are a whole new level of reality. Organs have to be studied as organs. I scribbled along those lines in the early 1990s.

The difference is now software is making collection and analysis of pertinent data possible. Now it is actually possible to connect the dots, and bring results to use, to make concrete impacts. Social is increasingly becoming science. One of my frustrations during college years was that social was not science. Social was like physics before Newton. There was just too much muss.

When you come across a big thing, the inevitable question is what is next? What is the next big thing after social? Social will stay big. But perhaps the individual might get more attention down the line.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Mining social networks: Untangling the social web (economist.com)
• Bharti Airtel founder's son joins company (reuters.com)
• Bharti Airtel to invest $600 mn in Nigeria (ciol.com)
• Bharti Airtel reafirms its long term commitment to Nigeria (vanguardngr.com)
• Bharti Airtel Expands Into Seychelles, Even as Profits Dip (pcworld.com)
• Bharti Airtel Is Still Knee-Deep (online.wsj.com)
• Free Facebook for Bharti Airtel users? what's the catch ? (trak.in)
• Bharti Airtel launches voice-based social networking blog (m2vtelecom.wordpress.com)
• News from the Datamining Coalface (broadstuff.com)
• Mining social networks (economist.com)

News: February 11

TechCrunch

The Zany 2006 Twitter Video Biz Stone Would Probably Rather Forget
MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta Steps Down
With Subscriptions Off The Table For Now, Apple To Test $1 TV Shows
Brands Wasting No Time With Google Buzz. This Could Get Annoying.
Online Advertising Revenues Ramp Up 10.2 Percent In Fourth Quarter
Topsy Becomes An Even More Powerful Alternative To Twitter’s Offical Search Engine
Gmail Banned By Iran; Is Twitter Next?
comScore Reports Q4 Revenues Of $33.8 Million, Buys 42-Year Old ARSgroup
Facebook Chat Launches XMPP Support
Hulu Could Still Launch On The iPad
Facebook Mobile Hits 100 Million Users, Growing Faster Than On Desktops
Next New Networks Sees 300 Million Views In 2009; Approaches Profitability
Google Plans To Deliver 1Gb/sec Fiber-Optic Broadband Network To More Than 50,000 Homes
New York Times Sees Rebound In Internet Advertising In Fourth Quarter
ST-Ericsson Helps Handset Manufacturers Make Low-Cost Android Smartphones
Is This @EricSchmidt’s Facebook Profile?
Coming Soon, Maybe: Opera Mini for iPhone
A Look At 4INFO, The King Of SMS
What The Wii Did For Console Gaming, Glitch Wants To Do For MMOs. And It Just Might.
AOL Integrates Facebook Chat Into AIM
Meebo Eyes A New Market For Its Chat Bar: Online Retailers
OpenTable Seats 2 Million Diners Via Mobile Apps
Video: Sergey Brin On His Six Months Using Google Buzz, The China Situation, And More
FriendFeed (and Gmail) Founder’s Reaction To Google Buzz: “This Seems Vaguely Familiar”
Baidu Raises Revenue Forecasts In Wake Of Google’s Potential China Exit
Microsoft Seizes 23 Domain Names In One Swoop
TED: Now with More Elitism?
Microsoft Slams Google Buzz
Yahoo Not Pleased With Google Buzz’s Buzz

Mashable

Iranian Government Bans Gmail
MySpace CEO Out After Just 9 Months
Twitter Hires a CFO From Pixar
HOW TO: Create and Distribute Effective Online Coupons
4 Elements of a Successful Business Web Presence
New BBC Director Mandates Journalists Use Social Media
Yahoo Talks Search Strategy and the Microsoft Deal
Shop Etsy in Pictures
Love Stinks: 5 Parodies of Google’s Romantic Super Bowl Ad [VIDEO]
Warner Music Plans to End Support for Free Streaming
Visualizing 6 Years of Facebook [INFOGRAPHIC]
Google Getting Into the ISP Business With Ultra High-Speed Network
Google Now Has a Street View Snowmobile
Associated Press Returns to Google News
The Location Implications of Google Buzz
Google Buzz: What It Means for Twitter and Facebook
Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Issue Delivers Video from Page to Phone
What Google Buzz Means for Mobile
Google Buzz: Competitors and Experts React
5 Ways Airlines and Hotels Can Drive Revenue with Social Media
Google Buzz: The Official Demo [VIDEO]
Google Goes Social with Google Buzz
Facebook Kills Lexicon, Focuses on Analytics for Page Admins
7 Ways to Promote Your Offline Event Using Social Media
WordPress To Posterous Users: Graduate to a Full Blog
World’s Longest-Married Couple to Answer Your Romantic Queries Via Twitter
Aperture 3 Hits the Apple Store
Mashable Launches TED Channel
9 Odd But Awesome Tumblr Blogs
Navigon GPS iPhone App Gets Twitter and Facebook Support
Box.net for iPhone Adds Powerful Features for Business Users
Apple Grabs 25% of the Smartphone Market, Android Doubles Market Share
Apple Store Down, Wild Speculations Abound
Nexus One Gets Live Phone Support, Sort Of
Foursquare Inks Deals With Major Media and Entertainment Brands
Music Ownership Beats Music Subscription in Reader Poll

ReadWriteWeb

• Facebook Wants to Be Your One True Login
• Top 10 YouTube Videos of All Time
• The Man Who Looked Into Facebook's Soul
• Verizon Blocks 4chan
• How Google Buzz is Disruptive: Open Data Standards
• How to Jailbreak the iPhone to Firmware 3.1.2
• Google Creating Twitter Clone for Gmail
• Live Blogging from Google: Launch of Google Buzz

AllThingsD

MySpace CEO Van Natta Was Fired by News Corp. Digital Head Miller in Late Afternoon Meeting
Bill Gates on the iPad: Hey, Apple, You’re Doing It Wrong
Google’s Little Fiber Experiment Could Cost Over $1 Billion
Nearly a Month After Debut, Google’s “New” Approach to China Still a Lot Like the Old One
Apple to Get Hefty Margins on iPad
Apple Job Posting Hints at iPad Camera
China Mobile Touts 4G Despite Skeptical Investors
Heads, We Call it “Brinternet”–Tails, “SergeyCom”
Bubble Motion Wants You to Call, Not Tweet 

Engadget

• Unearthed Microsoft emails reveal reaction to iTunes launch
  
• Google launching 1Gbps ISP service to select markets
• Microsoft employee raves about 'Windows next' in a quickly disappearing blog post

Ars Technica

Photon scattering can create lasers in fiber optic cabling
Congress wants an e-book reader for low-income kids
Opera: Mini 5 browser ready for iPhone if Apple will have it
Rise in solar activity all but certain to mess with GPS
Botnets increasingly wielded for ideological uses
Your new ISP? Google launches 1Gbps fiber-to-the-home trial
Virginia puts schools on high-fiber diet with broadband funds
Is the endless data stream eroding our attention spans?
Pluto's demotion is a great opportunity for science
iPhone VoiceServices: Looking under the hood
The Ars Technica Guide to I/O Virtualization
Remarkable third trial coming for RIAA's first P2P defendant
Google launches Buzz to rein in social media overload
Microsoft warns of TLS/SSL flaw in Windows
Variable download pricing correlated with slower music sales
Hands-on: Microsoft launches child-friendly IE8

VentureBeat

Google’s fiber network is attempt to force telcos to change
Weopia makes virtual dating more personal, less awkward
Comcast changes name to Xfinity, customers don’t care
GameFly, the Netflix of games, files for IPO
No, America will not be hit by a massive cyberattack on February 16th
One step closer to 4G: AT&T chooses Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson as suppliers
The future of reading
How to speed up the Internet? Duh, speed up the ads
Game analysts: hardcore players, gesture controls critical to console market
How to tame Twitter via automated websites
Journalists hammer Yahoo on declining marketshare
Google Buzz: Do I really have to learn another social media app?
How to get into Macworld Expo free

GigaOm

Confidence in Free Streaming Models Is Fading — Fast
Universities Threatened Over Streaming of Educational Videos
comScore: Most Online Video Viewing Happens in the Long Tail
Google’s Fiber Network Could Foil ISPs and Fuel Innovation
Gmail to Get Social News Feed: Report
Silicon Valley Has a Woman Problem, But Women Still Have a Baby Problem
Google Buzz and Email: Strength or Weakness?
Farmville Users Send 500M Valentines in 48 Hours
Google Doesn’t Want to Be an ISP — It Wants to Be a Rabble-rouser
Sponsor post: MIT/Stanford Venture Lab Presents “Biofuels 2.0: Sustainable Startups — From Garage to Gargantuan”
What Can You Do With 1 Gigabit?
Identity Theft on the Rise: Survey

Digits

Twitter Buzz Over Iran’s Gmail Ban
Online and Mobile Fraud Rises
Suffering From iWithdrawal?
More Video Coming Wikipedia’s Way
Tech Today: ESPN Plays Up Web for Live Sports, Game Makers Push Beyond Christmas

Bits

Is It Time for Apple to Retire the Cats?
Tech Talk Podcast: Why E-Books Will Cost More
An Annual Report on One Man’s Life
EBay Asks Its Users for Help Building New Search Tools
Mobile Data Traffic Expected to Surge
Foursquare Signs a Deal With Zagat
Available Soon at a Barnes & Noble Near You: The Nook
Job Postings Hint at Amazon’s Plans for the Kindle
Imagining a World of Hardware Mashups
A Search Engine That Relies on Humans

Science Daily

• Animals Adapt Their Diets to Global Warming
• Scientists Sequence Genome of Biofuel Grass
• New Branches on Arthropod Family Tree
• Nuclear Genome of Extinct Human Reconstructed
• Birds from Dinosaurs or Other Way Around?
• Climate 'Tipping Points' With No Warning?
• Seeing the Brain Hear Reveals Surprises
• Fractals Key to Semiconductor Magnetism?
• Invasive Plants: Climate Change Beneficiaries
• Stopping Pain Without Affecting Motor Function

Technology Review

Wi-Fi at the Speed of Light
Efficient Solar Cells from Cheaper Materials
A 50-Watt Cellular Network
Why NASA Needs a Better Plan
Getting a Grip on Online Buzz
U.S. Solar Market to Double in the Next Year
How Legal Wiretaps Could Let Hackers In
The Future of Human Spaceflight
Google Reveals Chinese Espionage Efforts

BusinessWeek

• Small Business Has Some News for Big Government: Caroline Baum
• Designers Say Orders to Rebound as Fashion Week Showcases Lace
• Stuyvesant Town Ownership Hinges on Payment of $90 Million Tax
• Washington Blizzard Costing U.S. Taxpayers, Local Businesses
• Record Washington Snow Costs U.S. Taxpayers, Local Businesses
• Australian Employers Add Most Jobs in Three Years (Update1)
• Stocks, Commodities Climb on Jobs, Greece, China Inflation
• China Indictment Could Be Good News for Rio Tinto 4
• A Few Initial Numbers: Future Stats
• Experts Talk Fed Exit Strategy, Trade, Greek Bailout
• GM Europe Lays Out Recovery Plan
• China Tops Germany as No. 1 Exporter
• Stock Picks: Disney, NYSE, Pulte, Baidu
• iPad Component Costs Leave Room for Price Cuts
• Google Buzz Won't Weaken Facebook

CNet

Yet again, NBC's Olympics strategy is a Web loser
Google Buzz: Privacy nightmare
Yahoo struggles to gain search respect

Image via CrunchBase

TechCrunch

The Switch From iPhone To Android, And Why Your First Impression Is Wrong
San Francisco Earthquakes Get Their Own Geolocated Twitter Account
E-Commerce Platform Shopify Buys Up StoreSync To Shore Up Mobile Strategy
Can the Skiff Save the Magazine Industry?
When To Take On Facebook, American Idol Or Virgin Mobile In An IP Fight
iPhone Beats Droid, Nexus One And Droid Eris In Touchscreen Performance
Congratulations Crunchies Winners! Facebook Takes Best Overall For The Hat Trick
Coming To The Crunchies After-Party? Donate With Square.
Sweet Seeds: Zynga Has Raised Over $1 Million For School Children In Haiti
BlockChalk Is Location-Based Sidewalk Chalk For Your Mobile Device
HootSuite Raises $1.9 Million For Social Media Dashboard
Ning SVP Engineering Lands At Facebook In Mystery Role
CES 2010: Highlights So Far
Foursquare Goes Global, Bringing New iPhone, Pre, BlackBerry, And Web Apps With It
Google’s Free Airport WiFi Is A Nexus One Promo In Disguise
At The Dawn Of The Apocalypse, One Man Battles The Zombies — On Twitter
The FBI Adds New Widgets And Facebook Quizzes To Its Social Media Arsenal
Yet Another App Store. This Time, It’s Intel
Lies, Damned Lies, And Statistics or How To Get Under John Borthwick’s Skin
Reframe It Raises $2.3 Million For Web Annotation Product
TC50 Finalist SeatGeek Raises Series A Funding, Revamps Website
Welcome To The HouseOfPalm, Home To Palm webOS Apps
Yahoo BOSS To Survive Microsoft Deal In Some Form; Details Still Hazy
Apple And Verizon: Are Two Star-Crossed Lovers Ready To Consummate?
Anxious Yahoo BOSS Developers To Speak With DOJ About Microsoft Deal
Apple Seizes 16 Domain Names From A Guy In One Fell Swoop
The Crunchies Is Sold Out. But You Can Still Get Into The After-Party
With Nexus One And Quattro, The Knives Are Out Between Apple And Google
Facebook Just Got Its Own VitaminWater Flavor: “Connect”. Seriously.
Nexus One Bursts Onto The Mobile Browsing Scene 
Netflix Stabs Us In The Heart So Hollywood Can Drink Our Blood
Pixelpipe Rolls Out New Version Of Android App 
Boxee Beta Now Available To The Masses 
The Twitter Picture Sites Start Targeting Foursquare. First Up, TweetPhoto. 
Shopaholic: Cisco Kicks Off 2010 With Acquisition Of Network Security Startup Rohati 
Zyxio Announces Winners For “Be A Mind Blower” Contest 
The Other HP Slate Runs On Android
Brightcove Comes To Yahoo Connected TVs, But Web Video Is Still Stuck In Widget Hell
Fandango For Android, Babylon For BlackBerry
Followbase: A Twitter CRM Starter Kit
Google Chrome OS Is Here! Well, Kinda.
Jive Software Acquires Social Media Monitoring Startup Filtrbox
Breaking: Google And On2 Technologies Revise Merger Agreement
Jamendo Runs Out Of Cash, Looks For An Exit
Happy Birthday, Chris Messina, And Enjoy Advocating The Open Web At Google
Let’s Just Skip To The Super-Duper-Phone
Video And Hands On: Lenovo’s Lephone Android 2.0 Smartphone
Oneforty Launching Its Premium Twitter App Store In Alpha Next Week
MG Talks The Nexus One On Attack Of The Show: “It’s A Nice Little Device”
Live from the CES 2010 Keynote with Steve Ballmer
Howard Stern Talks Google Nexus One (NSFW)
Crazy Bob: Square Nabs A Core Android Engineer
Apple’s Pricing Smoke Around The Tablet Fire Grows Thicker
$0 to $20 Million: Ten Hand-to-Hand Sales Tactics
I’m Betting Matilda Tanascov Will Be The First Person In Romania With A Google Nexus One
“Inspired” By Formspring, Tumblr Launches Nearly Identical “Ask Me”

Google’s City Tours No Longer Require You To Walk On Water
LinkedIn Polishes Its iPhone App Into A More Facebook-Like Gem
Did Apple’s Lala Deal Leave A Lump Of Coal In Google’s Music Onebox Stocking?
Songbird Still Airborne, Takes On iTunes With Improved Device Syncing
Digg Takes a Dip In Traffic, Half The Size Of Twitter
TenYears: Single Most Innovative Product Of The Decade
VeVite Taps Into Twitter For Event Invitations
Jingle Networks Rings In The New Year With A $6.75 Million Funding To Go After Geo Ads
Google Is About To Get Caffeinated With A Faster Search Index
Purported Google Chrome OS Netbook Specs Don’t Quite Add Up 

Flurry: App Store Sees Record Breaking Christmas, 50% Growth From November To December
Privacy Theater: Why Social Networks Only Pretend To Protect You
Diggnation’s Alex Albrecht launches an iPhone app: Duel
Relax, You Can Still Buy An iPhone In New York City. Just Not Online. 
Can Jolicloud Win In A Chrome OS Netbook World?
Game Rush: Mobclix And PlayHaven Predict Record iPhone Game Downloads During The Holidays
The Best iPhone Apps Of 2009 (Appvee Edition)
370 Passwords You Shouldn’t (And Can’t) Use On Twitter
Pedal Brain’s Gadget Turns Your iPhone Into A Powerful Cycling Computer
NSFW: The Physical Impossibility of The Future in the Mind of Someone Trapped In Chicago
Apple Expanding iWork In The Cloud?
TSA To Save Print Media? No Electronics On International Flights? What A Joke.
Location-Based Mobile Advertising Platform AdLocal Enters America, Wants To Win With Japan Know-How
Should You See Avatar? About 75 Percent Of People Who Tweet About It Think You Should
Tap Tap Revenge 3 Downloaded 300,000 Times First 24 Hours After Going Free
This Week On TechCrunch: Zuckerberg eaten by zebras, Al Qaeda invests in Twitter, Spotify profitable and more
The Wonder Of Apple’s Tablet
GROU.PS DIY Social Network Platform Reaches 2 Million Users, Becomes More Customizable
Apple’s New Tablet To Be Baptized iSlate? Let’s Dig A Little Deeper
Flixup Brings Its Movie Tweet Aggregator To The Web For The Holiday Movie Season
Polyvore’s Virtual Styling Tool Aims To Be More Social With Facebook Connect
SCVNGR Raises $4 Million From Google Ventures
Google Voice Is Coming Back To The iPhone Via The Browser, Thanks To VoiceCentral
The Top Ten IPO Candidates For 2010
Indiagames To Launch New Cricket Gaming iPhone App
Skout Studies What Happens When Dating Goes Mobile
The Great Location Land Rush Of 2010
WePay’s Group Payments Get Some Big-Name Backers, Including Max Levchin
Chegg Founder Raises Another $7.5 Million For Stealth Startup Kakai
Introducing… The 27-inch iLemon
23AndMe Completes $27.8 Million Series B Round
Twitter Acquires Mixer Labs To Step Up Geo-Location
ChaCha Raises Another $7 Million
Barnes & Noble Will Ship Around 60,000 Nooks This Year
Blippy Already Showing Off $1 Million Worth Of Your Credit Card Purchases (More Invites)
AOL’s Deteriorating Fundamentals Not A Hit With Analysts
Confirmed: Jajah Sold For $207 Million
More People Around The World Get Their News Online From Google News Than CNN
Qik Live Recording Finally Makes It To The iPhone (Legally)
CauseWorld Launches: Do Good Deeds Simply By Walking Into A Store
Play And Share Your Music Collection In The Cloud With tunesBag
Buzzd Brings Its Social City Guide To Android
Canadian Communication Services Provider Mitel Files For $230 Million IPO
Cc:Betty Launches iPhone App To Make Sense Of Your Email
The Rumors Are True: We Spend More And More Time Online
Story Something Quietly Opens Up, Turns Your Kids Into Heroes
Curse Raises $6 Million As It Looks To Become The Ultimate Gaming Resource
Whrrl, Still Trying To Find Its Way In Location, Focuses On “Footstreams”
Zynga Starts Testing SMS Notifications As It Tries To Kick Its Facebook Dependence
Mozzler Comes Full Circle And Turns Its Realtime News Stream Into A Reader (Private Beta Invites)
Background Checks For All With BeenVerified’s iPhone App
Sphere Team Raises Money From Aol Ventures, True Ventures And Others For New Stealth Startup
A Peek At ReachLocal’s $100 Million IPO Filing: It’s All About Building A Local Ad Sales Army
Cc:Betty Raises $500K For Email Organization Assistant
Google, Rome, and Empire
The Twitter/FriendFeed Connection Goes Realtime Once Again
iSpy, With My Little Eye, A Children’s Game Re-Imagined For The iPhone
BitGravity Co-Founder Announces 3Crowd, Funded By Jay Adelson And Kevin Rose
The World Is Flat For Twitter, As In Global Growth Has Stalled  
iPhone Now The Most Popular Phone In The US
Bump Shares Its Phone Tapping, Data Swapping Technology With A New API
Lessons From 10 Disappointing Euro Tech Stories Of 2009
Online Holiday Sales Boosted By East Coast Snowstorms
Open Your Credit Card Data To All! We Have Blippy Invites.
OneRiot Monetizes What’s Hot On The Web With Realtime Trending Ads
For Google, The Meaning Of Open Is When It’s Convenient For Them
Chesspark And Chess.com Put Their Pawns Together
Chorus Reveals Its Most Socially-Recommended iPhone Apps In November
Video: A Decade Of Tech Highs And Business Lows
In 2009, Netbook Shipments Grew 103%, Revenues Up 72% Year Over Year
gWallet Reveals Secret Weapon For Virtual Currency Platform: gLTV
Apple Not Liable For Plagued iMac Screens, Updates Firmware Anyway
Opera Reports Massive Growth For Mobile Web Usage, Particularly In Asia And Africa
Raptr Loses Director Of Product Strategy To Twitter
Livemocha Bags Another $8 Million From August Capital, Maveron
The App Store Forgets It’s Not The Android Market, Temporarily Sells NES Emulator
Voice May Join Google’s Enterprise Lineup
Ron Conway & Sean Parker Raise More Than $70,000 For UCSF And Malaria No More
Apple May Be On The Verge Of Kneecapping The Cable Industry. Finally.
YouTube Gets Its Own Short URLs. Except They’re Still Pretty Long.
MySpace Reaches Out To Upset Imeem Users: Your Playlists Will Soon Be Resurrected
Backed By Google Ventures, EnglishCentral Raises $3.5 Million For Video Language Learning
Twitter Captures A Nexus One Unboxing And Another Video
Facebook Uses FriendFeed As A Testing Ground For The Next Generation Of OAuth
Facebook Says “FML,” “Twitter” Is A Top Status Trend In 2009
As Etsy Turns A Profit, Founder Rob Kalin Takes Over Again As CEO
Facebook Also Opts To Give To Charity In Lieu Of A Holiday Party
Swoon: Flocking.me Allows You To Search Just Your Friend’s Tweets
Most Recent Facebook Common Stock Sale Values Company At $11 Billion
Justin.tv Unifies Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, And Their Own Chat
Google’s 2009 Holiday Gift To Ad Partners: $20 Million To Charity
Are Startups Getting Crazy, Or Just IPO Crazy?
Hulu Labs Cooks Up Captions Search

Mashable

Email Faceoff: Gmail vs. Outlook
5 Essential Sites for Professional Photographers
Bump Brings Digital Contact Exchange to the Masses
Facebook Guide Book: Mashable Launches Hub for Facebook Resources
AT&T Reverses Course: iPhone Available Again in New York City
5 New Year’s Resolutions for SMBs
iPhone and Android Users Spend More Than Half Their Time in Apps [STUDY]
Google’s AdMob Acquisition Meets Opposition from Consumer Groups
HOW TO: Implement a Social Media Business Strategy
New Versions of Firefox Coming Later Than Anticipated
Muziic Brings Tons of Music to your Facebook Profile
There are 15,740 Social Media Experts on Twitter
Android 2.0 Coming to T-Mobile G1 [RUMOR]

5 Big Real-Time Web Trends of 2009
What Twitter and Facebook’s 2009 Trends Tell Us About Ourselves
2009 As Seen Through Twitter Hashtags
New Security Rules Could Limit In-Flight Laptop Time
Digital Revolution? Kindle Ebooks Outsell Real Books on Christmas
64% Prefer Old Twitter Retweets to New Style
Drunk Drivers in Texas to Be Named on Twitter
5 Predictions for the Music Industry in 2010
Kid Goes Crazy Over Xbox 360 Present [VIDEO]
How Twitter Conquered the World in 2009
Foursquare vs. Gowalla: Location-Based Throwdown
Apple Tablet to be Named iSlate? [RUMOR]
The 12 Graphs of Christmas
Pope Knocked Down at Mass [YOUTUBE VIDEO]
Foursquare Rolls Out BlackBerry Beta App
Mozilla Design Challenge: Put Your Mark on Firefox 4
Apple Tablet to Offer Dynamic Tactile Keyboard [RUMOR]
8 Spectacular Christmas Light Shows on YouTube [VIDEOS]
Share Video and Photos in Real Time With Pegshot
FCC Critical of Verizon’s $350 Early Termination Fee
10 News Media Content Trends to Watch in 2010
Qik Live: Now Streaming From Any iPhone
DDoS Attack Takes Down Amazon, Wal-Mart
Twitter Buys Mixer Labs to Boost Location Features
3 Powerful Social Good Trends in 2010
FTC Inquiry Hinders Google’s Acquisition of AdMob
Digg’s Top 10 Most Popular Stories of 2009
Marketing in 2010: It’s All About the Data
Mall of America Tweets Holiday Parking Updates
2010: A Year of Digital Distraction?
Facebook’s COO to Join Disney’s Board of Directors
REVEALED: Full Specs of Google Nexus One
Safe Sexting? There’s an App for That, Too
8 News Media Business Trends for 2010
Victoria’s Secret + Michael Bay = Droves of Drooling Web Fans [VIDEO]
Pepsi to Skip Super Bowl Ads in Favor of $20M Social Media Campaign
Track Santa With Google This Christmas Eve
Apple Tablet With 7″ Screen Coming in January [RUMOR]
Creators of “HP Computers Are Racist” Video Speak
Your Head Explodes: iPhone in an iPhone [VIDEO]
OLPC Comes Up With a Beautiful, Thin Tablet Concept
Top 10 Mobile Social Apps Judged by Mashable Readers
NPR News App Comes to Android
BlackBerry Outage Affecting North America
Nexus One and Android 2.1 Walkthrough Surfaces [VIDEO]
Twitter Goes Down Under With SMS Support for Australia
Facebook Is Destroying the Sanctity of Marriage [REPORT]
Warner Music Videos Coming to Hulu
Microsoft Modifies Word to Keep it in Stores
4 Social Good Trends of 2009
Firefox Plugin Finds Related News, Tweets and Videos While You Browse
Social Media Experts Make Their Predictions for Trends in 2010
iPhone OS 4.0: Already in the Wild?
The Top 2009 Social Media Trends for Moms
Steve Jobs, Best CEO in the World?
Digsby to Add In-Stream Ads Based on Twitter Trending Topics [IMAGES]
CBS and Disney to Join Apple’s TV Subscription Plan?
Firefox 4.0: New Design Changes Revealed [IMAGES]
iPhone Is the Most Popular Phone in the U.S. [STATS]
YouTube Is the Top Social Media Innovation of the Decade
New Facebook Clickjacking Attack Is on the Loose [WARNING]
Yahoo Ends Tough Year on a Cost-Cutting Note
Youtu.be: Because YouTube Needs Its Own URL Shortener Too
5 Ways Social Media Changed Fashion in 2009
Facebook Unveils Most-Mentioned Topics of 2009
HP’s Facial Tracking Software Fails to Recognize African American [VIDEO]
Sherlock Holmes Turns to TweetDeck for Film Promotion
Augmented Reality Advertising Is Here
10 Must-Read eBooks for Social Media Lovers
Turn Your Car into a Wireless Hotspot with Ford SYNC [VIDEO]
Twitter Is Already Profitable!
Tapulous Sells Nearly $1 Million in iPhone Games Each Month
Avatar Opens With $232 Million Worldwide
Firefox 3.5: The World’s Most Popular Browser

ReadWriteWeb

Image by Ribbit Voice via Flickr

• 10 Ways Social Media Will Change In 2010
• Top 10 YouTube Videos of All Time
• Content Farms: Why Media, Blogs & Google Should Be Worried
• Morgan Stanley: Mobile Internet Market Will Be Twice The Size of Desktop Internet
• How to Jailbreak the iPhone to Firmware 3.1.2
• Google Releases API for Cool Visualization of Data Mashups from Many Sources
• Top 10 Failures of 2009
• Vote Now For Your Favorite Web Products of 2009

2009 in Review: The Year in Web Technology
2010 Tech Predictions
Buy Now: The Real-Time Web And Its Future
Augmented Reality: Passive Consumers versus Creative Contributors 
Wibiya Gives Your Blog a Twitter, Facebook and Video Chat Makeover 


ArsTechnica

Microsoft: Google's Nexus One will hurt Android
The e-book wars of 2010: displays and hardware 
Why Microsoft killed upgrade versions for Office 2010
768-bit RSA cracked, 1024-bit safe (for now)
LED flash, better graphics, multitasking: 4G iPhone rumors
Apple: pixels as touch sensors for brighter, thinner screens
Week in Microsoft: Ballmer kicks off CES 2010
Cell launches "Article of the Future" format
Digital albums, vinyl made a comeback in '09 while CDs slide