“I am convinced that the margins on mobile have to be higher than on desktop,” Pichette said today, speaking at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Technology Conference in San Francisco.

Factors like proximity targeting, local offers and mobile payments should make mobile ads in many categories more valuable, Pichette said. “The premise that mobile has to be a lower CPC [cost per click] because today it’s a lower CPC doesn’t make sense.”

Plus, Google got into mobile ahead of its competitors, Pichette claimed, citing its investment in Android. “We decided to go mobile five years ago, not last month,” he said — which could have been a reference to Facebook’s new mobile advertising plans, which only came out in February after it filed to go public.

Other topics that came up during the conference Q&A included Google’s pending Motorola acquisition — which Pichette said was about hardware, not just patents — and Android tablets — which Pichette said are “a very high focus area.”

Asked to decide whether Google had infringed upon Oracle’s copyrights to certain parts of the Java programming language, the jury agreed that it had. But then, when asked to decide on four specific examples of that infringement, jurors could agree on only one: The rangeCheck method in TimSort.java and ComparableTimSort.java. Don’t ask me to explain exactly what it is, but it is being described widely as “nine lines of code.” And, unfortunately for Oracle, the damages it can collect are limited to somewhere in the neighborhood of $150,000 to $200,000, or less than pocket change for either company, not the $1 billion or more Oracle had said it wanted.

Jurors were also unable to decide if the portions of Java code that it copied could be protected by the long-established doctrine of Fair Use, under which certain infringements can be excused. Google lawyers pounced on this, and said they would move for a mistrial.

The conclusion is that Oracle proved at least part of its argument, but failed to prove the dramatic injury it said it had suffered. It also proved that Google knew that it needed a license to Java in order to use the portions of Java that it did use. The complication there was the fact that one flavor of Java is compatible with other flavors of Java: It still operates under the old “write once, run anywhere” principle that Sun Microsystems envisioned when it created Java. Oracle still wants Google to take out a commercial license that would require Google to maintain Java compatibility with other platforms.

Still undecided — and this is the big issue that has the eyes of the software industry watching this case closely — is whether Oracle can prevail on the issue of protecting software APIs using a copyright in the first place. Jurors were instructed to proceed under the assumption that this was a matter of settled law, when in fact it is not. Judge William Alsup will decide on this issue later, and it is unclear exactly how the jury verdict in the first phase of this case will affect his decision.

Had Oracle won a more ringing endorsement from the jury, that portion of the argument might seem to be stronger. It’s an important point that Google argued against, saying APIs shouldn’t be subject to copyright protection, because they’re more like tools and techniques that programmers use to build software. You can copyright a given program because it’s unique, but you can’t copyright the language it’s written in. The possibly strained analogy I came up with before is this: You can copyright a musical composition like Miles Davis’s “So What,” but you can’t copyright the form of music known as jazz.

Oracle argued at trial that copyright law offers the only proper protection for original expression in software, mainly because software advances are incremental, building upon previous advances and innovations. Laws governing trade secrets and patents don’t get the job done. Oracle lawyers contended that copyright law, while still imperfect, protects innovations and advances at a more granular level, but mainly against copying.

Also still ahead is the patent phase of the trial, where Oracle will assert that Google violated Java patents in building Android. After that, there will be a third phase, where the two parties will wrangle over damages. So far, it seems — unless Oracle prevails in the patent portion — that there won’t be much to wrangle over.

At least for now, it appears that Google has escaped the worst of Oracle’s accusations. That was the conclusion of shareholders of both companies. Google shares rose by more than 2 percent on the news of the verdict yesterday, closing at $607.55 a share. Oracle shares fell by more than 1 percent to close at $27.92 a share. The case isn’t over, and Google hasn’t exactly come out of it looking virtuous. But if the point of defending against a lawsuit is to escape paying huge monetary damages, Google won the day.

Embedded below is the filled-out jury questionnaire:

Verdict

In town for the annual CTIA trade show, the mood shifted back to business on Monday, at least until the evening parties kick off. The U.S. cellular trade association moved the convention from March to May (and to a party town) in hopes that the event can avoid being lost in the shadows of Mobile World Congress and the Consumer Electronics Show.

Although the main part of the show doesn’t begin until Tuesday, the first bits of product news were announced this morning. Verizon debuted the HTC Droid Incredible 4G LTE, while AT&T announced a $49 Samsung LTE Windows Phone as well as its plans to enter the home security business. This afternoon, MasterCard announced its new PayPass digital wallet.

AT&T is planning a press event later on Monday, with further news expected.

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But over the last several years, the Internet has upheaved the aphorism.

It used to be that media was linear. And in that world, content and distribution were married. The HBO channel had HBO content. A New York Times subscription bought you New York Times content. And Vogue and Cosmopolitan each month delivered exclusive and proprietary content from … Vogue and Cosmopolitan.

Until the Internet came along. In every single one of the varied businesses the Internet has touched — from commerce to media to communications to payments — there has been one common impact: disaggregation.

Content and distribution have parted

In the case of the hundreds-of-years-old media business, the Internet has fundamentally separated content from distribution.

Today I can watch hundreds of South Park and Jon Stewart clips, all without a cable box — on my Apple TV, my Android phone, or YouTube on my desktop.

But wait, South Park and Jon Stewart? Content is king, you say. It’s now even more free to reign, unfettered by distribution channels!

No; because content is no longer enough. Content has always been a means to an end. And the end has always been audience.

Content isn’t the goal. Audience is.

When it comes to the business of media, there’s no question: advertisers don’t pay to reach content. They pay to reach an audience.

What’s the first item in every brief from every advertiser? It’s not Target Content, it’s Target Audience.

Media has been slow to adjust to this new dynamic. Companies have sunk billions into content management systems — using CMS as the cornerstone of their modernization — under the impression that they traffic in content.

But they don’t. They traffic in audience. And how much have they spent on audience development systems? Not much, if any at all.

Now that distribution of content to audience is no longer linear, distribution decisions are suddenly more complicated. And, at the same time, they are immensely more important — and more dynamic — to create the impact media companies are looking for: drawing an audience! Social distribution can outperform search, if you use it wisely. Day-parting your postings can boost post performance by 100 percent or more. Packaging can triple the effectiveness of content in reaching an audience.

And yet, few in media have even begun to optimize these decisions.

Who’s your Chief Audience Officer?

Distribution decisions are just as important as content decisions in building and serving an audience, and yet they are being largely ignored. Everyone has an Editor-In-Chief or a Chief Creative Officer. But how many have a Distributor-In-Chief? Or a Chief Audience Officer? A Head of Digital Programming?

The myopic focus on content over distribution is widespread, and it’s a bad business decision. It ignores a critical access of leverage, and one of competitive advantage.

The smartest media companies will do three things to take control of their digital opportunity:

• Put someone in charge of audience development.
  Give them latitude to think about the interplay between distribution and content, so that they can marry the two. Like a head of programming for a cable network, they should be tasked to realize the full potential of your digital channels. They should support the delivery of your content, and they should also provide back pressure to your content creators. Don’t merge it into your editorial jobs — that’s too precarious. Make it its own discipline.
• Adopt an audience development strategy.
  There are three basic components you have to master: insights (know your audience segments, and what each one will like); channel selection (identify the highest value distribution outlets for your brand, whether it’s search, social, YouTube, Hulu, or your own channels); and optimization (use data to create a feedback loop and tune your content, packaging, and timing to what works for your audience).
• Systematize it.
  You have sunk millions into content management systems. But how much have you spent on your most monetizable asset, your audience? You should be as systematic in audience development as you are in content creation, if not more so. Whether it’s with established processes or dedicated algorithms, make audience development a competitive advantage. Get so good at it that you truly know how to maximize every piece of content you create — and multiply your ROI. Use technology for what it does best: Systematize your advantages over your competitors.

With the rise of new distribution platforms like Facebook, YouTube and Hulu, there’s no question that the next generation of digital media is as much about distribution as it is about content. Media companies that orient their organizations to prize audience development above all (with distribution as a key component) will catch the upside of these tectonic shifts. And they will be the ones that survive and thrive in the digital age. After all, audience is the ruler of media companies’ fortunes.

This article by Ben Elowitz (@elowitz) is an exclusive selection from his Media Success newsletter for digital media leaders. Elowitz is the co-founder and CEO of next-generation media company Wetpaint and the author of the Digital Quarters blog about the future of digital media. Prior to Wetpaint, Elowitz co-founded Blue Nile (NILE).

According to sources close to the situation, Flipboard co-founder and CEO Mike McCue has approached Twitter CEO Dick Costolo and co-founder Jack Dorsey about moving off the board of Twitter.

It is not clear when McCue — who became a director of the San Francisco social communications company in late 2010 — will step down, but it could come soon.

The reason, sources said, is McCue’s growing feeling that the companies are on a product collision course, with a possible troubled or perhaps more attractive result.

In other words, Flipboard will either face increasing rivalry from Twitter or will end up as a possible acquisition target for it or other companies.

“How users consume and use Twitter is a key part of its future, and that is what Flipboard does well already,” said one person with knowledge of the situation. “There is going to be an inevitable crossroads for the two companies.”

Indeed, Twitter has bought several companies that help users read and discover, such as Summify.

The goal has been to better make sense of the massive amount of data that the service produces daily; to that end, Twitter has pushed to improve its user interface design on a number of devices.

And Twitter is a big part of Flipboard’s app, which is very dependent on the tweet feed and accounts for 70 percent of its links, sources said.

Flipboard is also more of a “mobile first” company, which is where Twitter is also headed even more aggressively.

Already popular on the Apple iPad, Flipboard launched its iPhone app late last year and it is prepping a version for Google Android soon.

That’s why, in addition to being a rival, it is also an obvious acquisition target for Twitter, as well as others such as Yahoo and Microsoft.

In fact, Google already tried to buy it last year, before Flipboard did a massive $50 million fundraising round that valued it at $200 million.

Its investors include Insight Venture Partners, Comcast’s venture arm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Index Ventures and a spate of well known angels, such as Dorsey, Facebook co-founder and Asana dude Dustin Moskovitz, Ron Conway, actor Ashton Kutcher and the investment company of former News Corp. exec Peter Chernin.

Co-founded by longtime entrepreneur McCue (Netscape, Tellme) and former Apple iPhone engineer Evan Doll, Flipboard launched to much attention in mid 2010.

Its innovative social magazine concept is attempting to make the social networking universe more accessible, consumable and, perhaps most importantly, visually arresting via its rich app.

Essentially, Flipboard pulls information from media RSS feeds and sites such as Twitter and Facebook data streams and then reassembles it in an easy-to-navigate personalized format.

Google has mounted a competitor, called Currents, as has Yahoo with its Livestand offering, neither of which have gotten much traction. In fact, sources said, Yahoo is likely to shut Livestand down completely.

There have also been a spate of other similar readers, such as Pulse and Zite.

Spokespersons for both Flipboard and Twitter politely declined comment.

As the AP has it, the jury has decided against Google on Oracle’s copyright claim, but has reached an impasse on some key questions. There’s obviously more to this story as it develops. I’ll be updating as soon as I know more.

Update: The jury sided in part with Oracle, ruling that the Android mobile operating system infringes on some Java copyrights. However, it was deadlocked over the question of whether that use constituted “fair use,” and was therefore protected. This impasse appears to be the basis for a mistrial motion that Google lawyers say they intend to file.

Oracle has not prevailed on every point and, in fact, it’s looking like a messy victory. The jury found code in two files to be infringing, and that some elements of Android application programming interfaces or APIs were similar to Oracle’s Java APIs.

Attorneys for Google told Judge William Alsup that they intend to file a motion for a mistrial because of the impasse over the “fair use” question. Alsup told both sides to be prepared to argue that motion, which will come later.

A few other things are coming up: Judge Alsup still has to rule on whether APIs can be copyrighted as a matter of law. Jurors were instructed to deliberate, assuming that they could be copyrighted.

There is a clear finding that Google has infringed on nine lines of code. This came in Question 3A, concerning something called RangeCheck in Java. They decided that Google hadn’t infringed on two other blocks of code. With the jury out of the room, Judge Alsup said that there is “zero finding of copyright liability” on anything other than the nine lines.

That’s good for Google, because Oracle’s own expert at trial said they’re not worth much. An Oracle attorney suggested that the company should receive a share of Google’s profits on top of regular damages. Judge Alsup rejected that as “bordering on the ridiculous.”

From Google:

“We appreciate the jury’s efforts, and know that fair use and infringement are two sides of the same coin. The core issue is whether the APIs here are copyrightable, and that’s for the court to decide. We expect to prevail on this issue and Oracle’s other claims.”

And here’s Oracle’s statement:

“Oracle, the nine million Java developers, and the entire Java community thank the jury for their verdict in this phase of the case. The overwhelming evidence demonstrated that Google knew it needed a license and that its unauthorized fork of Java in Android shattered Java’s central write once run anywhere principle. Every major commercial enterprise — except Google — has a license for Java and maintains compatibility to run across all computing platforms.”

For reference, I’ve embedded the questionnaire that the jurors were required to fill out:

Jury Questions

This will be an extension of Color’s current app, which gives users a way to publish live, 30-second silent video clips to Facebook.

Color CEO Bill Nguyen says his company is working to “ratchet up the quality” to enable live high-definition video broadcasting from phones. Color will be able to do this better than existing mobile social video apps, because the company is customizing its app for each Verizon phone, he said.

While there have been many attempts at live-broadcasting video apps, today’s leading mobile video apps like Socialcam and Viddy do recorded video. Color will offer ways to upload both live and recorded video, as well as still photos from within a video, according to Nguyen.

“The problem [with other apps] is that the technology they’re built upon is on the OS level. That’s not efficient enough to make this work,” Nguyen argued. “We can’t write to the OS anymore — we literally have to write to the chipset.”

Today, Color is not available in high definition at all — but it is doubling its current frame rate with new versions of its iPhone and Android apps today, and allowing Verizon users to include audio in their videos (which was the weirdest restriction ever, by the way). The videos are still limited to 30 seconds, for the time being.

What Verizon gets out of the partnership is to draw attention to the upstream video potential of its 4G LTE network. It is supposed to start preinstalling Color on some phones later this year.

Color, meanwhile, has staffed up on video experts — the Palo Alto, Calif.-based team now has more than 50 people, up from 30 last year.

According to Nielsen, ethnic minorities were highly likely to have a smartphone, with Asian Americans leading the way at 67.3 percent opting for smartphones. Nearly three in five Hispanic mobile subscribers use a smartphone as do a majority fo African-American phone users.

By contrast, only 44.7 percent of white mobile phone subscribers have a smartphone.

Women were slightly more likely than men to have a smartphone, with 50.9 percent of women having a smartphone compared to 50.1 percent of men.

As for which smartphone people are using, recent trends continue as Android is the most commonly used operating system, running on 48.5 percent of smartphones, while the iPhone is the most commonly used smartphone model, at 32 percent of devices. RIM’s share of the U.S. smartphone market is down to 11.6 percent. Microsoft made up 5.8 percent of smartphone users in the U.S, but the old Windows Mobile accounted for more than twice as much of that than did Windows Phone 7 devices.

Jurors have reached no conclusion in the case and Judge William Alsup has sent them home for the weekend with instructions to try again on Monday.

The jury had indicated Thursday in a note to Alsup that it was stuck on some point. Alsup warned lawyers for both sides that they might have to prepare for a deadlocked jury. Obviously, the situation here is fluid. I’ll have more in this post as it comes in.

There are four questions the jurors are tasked to answer, and they’re said to be unanimously agreed on three of them, but unable to reach consensus on the fourth, though its unclear which are which.

For what its worth, below is the form with the four questions the jurors have to answer.

Jury Questions

The device will then head to Asia and beyond; no U.S. plans have been announced.

The L7 is at the upper end of a midrange line that LG is hoping will help the company regain some lost ground in the market.

“For consumers desiring high-end style and sophistication in a smartphone, LG Optimus L7 offers beauty and performance in one smart package,” LG mobile unit CEO Jong-seok Park said in a statement. “The L7 is a significant addition to our L-Series portfolio and we are confident that it’ll prove highly attractive to users. We expect it to be one of our most popular smartphones.”

That’s the latest forecast from NPD DisplaySearch, which anticipates a massive uptick in tablet adoption over the next few years, one that will ultimately vault the device’s market share over the PC’s. The research outfit figures tablet shipments will grow from 81.6 million units in 2011 to 184.2 million in 2013 — significantly more than the 168.9 million NPD had originally predicted.

And by 2017, NPD expects them to hit 424.9 million units, exceeding notebook PC shipments — for the second year in a row.

The key drivers of that explosive growth: The tablet’s rapidly evolving feature set, and increased investments in the tablet supply chain, as consumer interest in other device categories cools.

“So far in this relatively young product category, the tablet PC market has been dominated by Apple and has tended to include a number of competing products that are similarly configured to the iPad,” says NPD DisplaySearch’s Richard Shim. “However, as the market matures and competitors become better attuned to consumer preferences and find opportunities to break new ground, we expect the landscape to change dramatically, giving consumers more choices, which will drive demand for more devices.”

More choices in hardware, perhaps. But not so much in operating systems.

Over the next five years, NPD sees the tablet market dominated by Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android, with some small inroads made by Microsoft’s Windows 8 and Windows RT. By 2017, the firm sees iOS with a 50.9 percent share of the market, Android with a 40.5 percent share, and Windows with a 7.5 percent share.

The company showed the device running an Android version of Flipboard, the popular iPad and iPhone reading app.

Flipboard confirmed the move, but offered scant details.

“Previewed on Samsung S III today, Flipboard is coming to Android phones soon,” the company said on Twitter, pointing users to a page where they could provide their email to get further updates.

That Web page indicated that Flipboard will be available first for “select” Android models.

“We plan to come to other Android phones this summer,” a Flipboard representative told AllThingsD, adding that “there’s no specific launch date at this time.”

Update: Here’s a shot of a Flipboard widget running on the new Galaxy.

The new Galaxy device is set to be unveiled at 7 pm London time (11 am PT). AllThingsD will have live coverage of the announcement, which is also being webcast.

In the past, Samsung has announced its main Galaxy devices at Mobile World Congress; however, the company held back this year, saying it wanted to announce the product closer to when it would ship. A top Samsung marketing official also told AllThingsD in January that the company wanted to use the Olympics for a major product launch.

Samsung has since announced a quad-core chip expected to power the new Galaxy.

Earlier:
10:38 am: The live stream is slated to be available here.

11:00 am: Okay. Here are the key details on the Galaxy S III (and yes, that’s the name).

11:03 am: The device will be available in Europe at the end of May, with launches in other markets to follow.

Here’s a picture of the phone:

11:06 am: As for when it will come to the U.S., Samsung had this to say:

“Samsung Mobile is planning a U.S. version of Galaxy S III, optimized for the fastest LTE and HSPA+ networks in the U.S., which will be available in the summer of 2012. Exact timing and retail channel availability is not being announced at this time.”

11:09 am: Here’s a more direct link to the livestream.

11:10 am: Samsung’s JK Shin:

11:11 am: “There were a lot of rumors and speculations about the next Galaxy,” Shin said. “Some were right and some were wrong.” But, he said, Samsung Galaxy S III is the best in class.

Shin touts the quality of the screen and says the design is inspired by water and leaves.

The phone can listen to you and understand what you want. The screen can notice your eye movement and can stay bright when you are looking at it.

If you are texting and you want to call someone instead, Shin said, “it understands your intention to make a call and calls for you.”

Simply put, he said, Galaxy S III is a “human phone.”

11:15 am: It has more than 140 countries with more than 290 carriers, Shin said, making it the largest launch in history.

The 3G version, Shin said, will ship in May in Europe, followed by Asia, Middle East, Africa and Asia.

The 4G version will ship first in North America, Japan and Korea starting in the summer.

11:18 am: Other features include direct wireless sharing to a television or other Galaxy device, tablet or PC.

The updated S-Beam feature can share a 1GB video in three minutes or a music file in two seconds, Samsung said.

11:23 am: A European Samsung executive is demoing the “smart stay” feature that avoids going to sleep or dimming the screen by detecting when a user is looking at the screen.

It is annoying to touch the screen to keep it awake, or even worse to have to enter a password, Samsung says. The Galaxys S III can instead determine when to dim the screen by sensing a user’s intentions.

11:25 am: Next up is voice recognition, which can be used to do things Apple’s Siri does, such as getting the weather, but also to launch apps.

“I want to take a picture,” for example, opens the camera app.

The voice engine understands British and American English, Italian, German, French, Spanish (Spain and Latin American versions) and Korean.

11:29 am: Samsung is pushing hard the notion that the new Galaxy is designed with the user in mind, repeating often that the new phone “sees, listens and responds.”

11:31 am: Now demoing improved social sharing features that allow users to, among other things, bond with another phone.

Under the hood, the new “S-Beam” feature combines Wi-Fi direct and NFC technologies.

“It’s the fastest and easiest way to share content with your friends and it happens with just one touch,” said the European Samsung executive.

11:33 am: An add-on dongle extends the sharing option to any HDMI-capable device.

11:33 am: Galaxy S III has a new “buddy” photo sharing feature that recognizes friends in your photos and offers to send them the photo.

11:37 am: Video showing the S3 in action, including its quad-core chip, intelligent photo taking and other features.

11:39 am: It comes in “pebble blue” and “marble white.”

Some other specs:

It’s 8.6 milimeters thick, weighs 133 grams and packs a 2,100 mAh battery.

11:41 am: A “pop-up play” feature allows one to watch a video in a small window while performing another task, such as searching the Web. It’s kind of picture-in-picture for your phone.

A “best photo” feature picks the best shot out of a burst of eight.

11:47 am: Now showing, the first TV commercial for S III.

Among other things, the commercial notes that the Galaxy S III “follows your every move.” Hmm, not sure that’s quite the way they want to put things.

11:49 am: Accessories include flip cover for the screen, wireless charging kit, extra battery and aformenentioned HDMI dongle.

11:52 am: Samsung says the Galaxy S III has improved security and other features for businesses, allowing for better device management.

Galaxy will come in three storage options — 16GB, 32GB and 64GB.

Galaxy S III will go on sale in Europe on May 29.

11:57 am: Santa Clara-based Sensory Inc. says its voice activation technology is helping power the voice command features in the Galaxy S III.

12:00 pm: The presentation ends and those in London are invited to check out the phone in various booths designed to replicate the kind of pop-up stands where Samsung plans to show the device.

According to IDC’s review of worldwide tablet shipments for the first quarter of 2012, Kindle Fire shipments dropped from 4.8 million units in the fourth quarter of 2011 to less than 750,000 units last quarter.

From 16.8 percent to “just over 4 percent” global market share is a swift decline indeed, and enough to cost Amazon its second-place spot in IDC’s ranking of tablet vendors. Amazon is now in third place, behind Samsung.

In the first-place slot: Apple. While the company shipped 11.8 million iPads in the first quarter, down from 15.4 million units in the fourth, that was more than enough to maintain its dominant position and grow its market share to 68 percent from 55 percent.

One last detail worth noting: Worldwide tablet shipments for the quarter reached 17.4 million units, about 1.2 million units below IDC’s projections. That said, they were more than double the 7.9 million units shipped in the same period a year earlier.

(Image courtesy of Someecards)

A new version of Swivl, called Swivl-it, will cost $129 — down from $179 — and will come with fewer bells and whistles. Swivl-it will still automatically move from side to side, as the original device does, but it will require manual vertical tilting. Also, the little remote that comes with the new Swivl won’t act as a microphone, though the accessory is upgradeable for $49 if you’d prefer that it work as a mic.

I first reviewed Swivl for AllThingsD back in March, and while I thought it was a cool device that video bloggers and non-techies alike would appreciate, I wrote at the time that $179 was a lot to pay for a moving iPhone stand.

The dock physically supports other devices, such as an Android smartphone, a slim digital camera and even the ol’ Flip camera, but the compatible Swivl mobile app only works with iPhone, which means other smartphone users couldn’t use the microphone-equipped Swivl remote to record their voices directly to the app.

The microphone is a nifty accessory, but Swivl maker Satarii is hoping a more basic version will turn the heads of non-iPhone users.

It’s a good time for a price cut, too, since other products like this Kickstarter project perform many of the same functions as the Swivl, and for a few dollars less, too.