AllThingsD » Photobucket

L.A. Stories: Mike Jones and Peter Pham Talk About the Science of Tech Studios (Video)

Kara Swisher — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 20:27:00 +0000

While swanning about Los Angeles last week, I paid a visit to a number of interesting techies, including Mike Jones and Peter Pham, who recently founded Science.

While there are a lot of incubators and accelerators out there fiddling with start-ups, the pair of well-known entrepreneurs are calling this venture a “technology studio.”

By that, they mean that Science will do a lot more, from coming up with in-house ideas to investing some of their $10 million in backing to advising on how Silicon Valley should look at investments in Southern California to even taking on restructuring of larger entities.

Science investors include Rustic Canyon, White Star Capital, the Social+Capital Partnership and Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt’s Tomorrow Ventures, and it also has relationships with private equity firms for the bigger stuff.

The focus of Science, as the pair discusses below in a video interview, will be in three arenas: The intersection of content and commerce, social and mobile, and location.

As longtime entrepreneurs and Internet execs, Jones and Pham know those arenas, both the pluses and the minuses.

Jones tried his best (and, like others, failed) with the Myspace revival and also founded and sold Specific Media, Userplane and Tsavo Media.

Pham was recently helming the high-profile and controversial Color photo-sharing start-up in Silicon Valley and did stints at both BillShrink and Photobucket (a former News Corp. property, as was Myspace. News Corp. owns this Web site.).

Here’s my chat with them about their sun-dappled dreams of SoCal tech hegemony via their Santa Monica, Calif., HQ:

[ See post to watch video ]

Photobucket: Holidays Were All About Mobile Photos -- And Fido

Lauren Goode — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 23:13:07 +0000

This past holiday season, many consumers ditched their digital cameras in favor of smartphones, a new company-sponsored report from Photobucket says.

Data from the popular photo-sharing service shows the number of mobile photo app users who use the apps at least once a day doubled to 42 percent, up from 20 percent midyear in 2011.

Meanwhile, only 64 percent reported using digital cameras to capture the majority of their images throughout the season, down from 82 percent a year ago.

Anecdotally, this means more bad news for camera makers, as they become increasingly threatened by smartphones with decent image-taking capabilities.

The Photobucket report also points out that pets were, shall we say, very present in this year’s holiday cards. Some 41 percent of respondents used an image for their holiday cards; among pet owners, 58 percent included Fido/Rudolph in the photo.

The surge in smartphone use didn’t apply to just pictures: Capturing videos on mobile devices also saw a jump during the holidays. A full 80 percent of survey respondents took video using a mobile device at least once throughout the season, up from 59 percent in Photobucket’s summer sampling, while 50 percent of respondents used a mobile device to record video daily or multiple times a day.

While already-avid users of mobile photo apps increased their usage this past holiday season, a substantial 43 percent of respondents indicated they have yet to try a mobile app for taking photos.

Photobucket says it gathered responses from more than 2,200 survey participants, and culled data from Photobucket’s more than nine billion image uploads for the report.

(Photo courtesy of HollyLovesArt/Flickr)

Twitter Photo-Sharing Went Through the Roof After Twitter Started Hosting Images

Liz Gannes — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 22:11:34 +0000

Midway through last year, Twitter started offering its users a built-in service for sharing images. As might have been anticipated, this had a deep impact on third-party image hosts like Twitpic and Yfrog, which had previously dominated Twitter photo-sharing.

But even more significant was the tremendous 2011 jump in photo-sharing on Twitter, period.

After seeing some month-to-month data pulls, we asked the folks at social search engine Topsy to look at Twitter photo-sharing trends over the course of the full year.

The number of photos shared on Twitter grew 421 percent over the course of 2011, by Topsy’s count. In December, Twitter users shared 58.4 million photos.

Twitter doesn’t disclose a ton of stats that could be used for comparison, but photo growth seems to far outpace growth in active users. Active registered users grew 82 percent between January and September, according to the company.

In September, Twitter shot through the other providers’ market shares, felling former leaders Twitpic and Yfrog. Twitter’s default “Twimg” hosting service now accounts for 65 percent of photos posted, up from virtually nothing in January.

As you can see in the chart above, Yfrog’s total number of images posted on Twitter was halved in the short time between September and December 2011.

But up-and-comer Instagram and Lockerz (formerly Plixi) are doing more than withstanding Twitter’s impact. Both grew significantly last fall. That’s particularly impressive because Instagram is currently only available on the iPhone.

(Topsy arrived at its numbers by resolving links to photos found within tweets. Twimg, Twitpic, Yfrog, Instagram and Lockerz are the only “significant” Twitter photo-hosting sites, according to Topsy co-founder Rishab Aiyer Ghosh. Former social photo giant Flickr had about only 100,000 images posted on Twitter per month, Topsy data found. Topsy posted the top tweeted images of the year here.)

Another interesting sidenote is that Twitter doesn’t actually operate Twimg. The photo hosting is outsourced to Photobucket, which used to be owned by Myspace but is now independent. When I talked to Photobucket CEO Tom Munro in June, he said Twitter was Photobucket’s first paying image-hosting customer.

Munro didn’t get into the terms of the deal, but he said that Photobucket generally charges based on the number of images uploaded and the amount of bandwidth required to serve them.

A spokesperson for Twitter said the company has a policy of not commenting on third-party data.

Former Color Co-Founder Peter Pham Heads to Former Myspace CEO's L.A. Tech Studio (Video)

Kara Swisher — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 16:00:54 +0000

Well-known tech entrepreneur Peter Pham will be joining the Los Angeles-based start-ups lab that was just launched by former Myspace CEO Mike Jones.

Pham, who was recently helming the high-profile and controversial Color photo-sharing start-up in Silicon Valley, will be moving south again to join Jones at the Santa Monica, Calif.-based “technology studio,” called Science.

As Liz Gannes reported last week, the goal — with $10 million in funding and private equity partners at the ready for more — is to “incubate ideas in-house, invest in other people’s start-ups, advise Silicon Valley companies on breaking into Hollywood, and maybe even look into reworking later-stage Internet companies like Yahoo.”

Pham and Jones will aim at three verticals: The intersection of content and commerce, social systems, and mobile and location.

That’s an area that Pham knows well, with stints at both BillShrink and Photobucket (also a former News Corp. property, as was MySpace), as well as active angel investing.

In an interview yesterday, Pham said he hopes to bridge the Silicon Valley-L.A. delta more, since there is an increasing amount of promising tech taking place there, too.

“There is a lot going on in L.A., and a lot of tech talent that still sometimes get less attention up in Silicon Valley,” said Pham. “I hope to be part of bringing the communities a little closer together.”

In addition, he said that the focus of Science would not necessarily be on online entertainment start-ups, as might be expected, given the proximity to Hollywood.

“We really want to shine a light on the innovation taking place in Los Angeles beyond the obvious,” said Pham.

It’s a good idea, given how navel-gazing Northern California geeks can be.

Also in the L.A. start-up scene of late is a new accelerator called Start Engine, which debuted recently with a focus on mentorship on 120 start-ups per year.

You can see Pham featured in this video that Gannes did about Color:

[ See post to watch video ]

And here’s the official press release about Pham joining Science:

Peter Pham press release.FINAL11-21-11

Why Selling Your Start-Up to Google is Better Than Raising More Cash

Tricia Duryee — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 19:55:37 +0000

The trend among many technology entrepreneurs right now is to go big — and whatever you do, don’t sell out before you absolutely have to.

Perhaps the wave of enthusiasm was only magnified when Groupon turned down Google’s $6 billion offer.

And, maybe the decision was justified, since the Chicago-based company is now seeking $750 million in a blockbuster IPO that will value the company at billions.

But in contrast, Dan Shapiro offers a reason to sell out.

Seattle-based Sparkbuy, which was aspiring to be the Kayak of consumer electronics, was acquired by Google in May for an undisclosed sum. The company launched in March, offering consumers a way to sift through thousands of laptops and tablets to find the device that best suits their needs.

In a blog post, he explains his decision to sell his six-month-old start-up to Google after raising only $1 million in funding. He said he chose safety and security over raising more cash and grinding it out for months or years more.

Some of his decisions were pretty straightforward.

For instance, he said that Google was his number one choice as a potential acquirer. Likewise, he was really excited about pursuing Sparkbuy at “Google-scale.”

But many of the decisions were emotional, and frankly, lots came down to money. While the terms of the deal were not disclosed, he calls the money “life-changing.”

“After eight years at startups, the idea of pulling a steady paycheck for a few years was seductive,” writes the father of twin toddlers. “That means the Google sale accomplished three lifelong goals for me: allowing me to set aside enough to pay for my twin toddlers’ college educations, funding my wife and my retirement account, and giving us a financial cushion that means I’ll never have to work at a job I don’t love.”

Although he sold his last company, Ontela, to Photobucket, he said he didn’t take any cash off the table.

Finally, he explains in the post, that while he was in a position to raise more capital, he didn’t want to. At Ontela, he raised $30 million, or what he called a “ridiculous amount of money.” This time he wanted to do things differently and grow organically. But that was getting increasingly difficult since Sparkbuy’s competitors were raising rounds of cash in the double digits.

“If I hadn’t sold, I would have raised money, and I didn’t really want to do that.”

In the end, he believes he made the right move – it doesn’t even rank in his top 10 for hardest decisions he’s made in his life. Still, a lot of people don’t agree with it.

“I’ve been called a sellout,” he said, “And people have told me that I epitomize what’s wrong with entrepreneurs outside the valley.”

Photobucket Gets New Life With Twitter Deal (Video)

Liz Gannes — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 17:41:54 +0000

Web turnaround stories and brand revivals are few and far between. But the once-forgotten Photobucket seems to have cemented itself on firm footing with a deal to host photos for Twitter’s new native photo-sharing service.

Photobucket CEO Tom Munro was in town from Denver this week, so I stopped by to discuss the deal and how it changes Photobucket’s business.

Obviously Twitter would like to avoid anything that brings back the fail whale, so I guess it makes sense that the company looked elsewhere for photo hosting. Munro says the advantages of Photobucket hosting — which is delivered from data centers in Denver — are that it’s reliable and scalable and that “our cost structure is lower than most.”

Twitter is Photobucket’s first paying image-hosting customer, but it’s a business Munro said he’s pursuing. He wouldn’t disclose terms of the Twitter deal, but said Photobucket’s standard cost will be based on the size and number of photos hosted plus the bandwidth to deliver them. Every photo uploaded through the new feature includes a postscript “powered by Photobucket.” However, the photos themselves are not available on Photobucket’s Web site, and Twitter users don’t create Photobucket accounts to upload pictures.

[ See post to watch video ]

Photobucket hosts 8.5 billion files with an average size of 85K, and serves three to four billion photos every day. Munro said he doesn’t think adding Twitter photos will have “that big an impact immediately.”

For the moment, Twitter is in the process of rolling out native photo hosting for users of Twitter.com, but the company plans to add photo uploads to its other apps. There are currently about 2.1 million tweets created per day that include photos, according to a recent single-day analysis by Sysomos.

Photobucket’s revenue to date was 85 percent or more from advertising plus some subscription payments, according to Munro.

After spinning out from News Corp., where it had “just sat there for two years,” as Munro put it, the now venture-backed Photobucket has recently focused on mobile. (Disclosure: News Corp. owns this site.)

In May, Photobucket released a photo-filtering app (like all the cool kids are doing) called Snapbucket, which has been downloaded 350,000 times. And Photobucket also offers a photo backup app under its own brand that is especially useful on Android because it automatically sends any picture taken to the user’s Photobucket account (similar to the new Apple iCloud Photo Stream).

It strikes me that Photobucket providing image hosting to other Web start-ups brings it into the category of infrastructure services providers like Twilio for voice; SMS, SendGrid and Message Bus for email; and SimpleGeo for location awareness.

These companies, many of which are themselves based on Amazon Web Services, enable subscribing customers to add capabilities to their services rather than dedicating their own employees to things that aren’t core to the company. Then one day, if you become huge and that capability is really important, maybe you’ll bring it in-house.

As many up-and-coming services as there are around mobile messaging, there are probably far more that include photo sharing. So maybe Photobucket is onto something here.

It's Filter-ific: Photobucket Offers Mobile Photo Filter App

Liz Gannes — Wed, 04 May 2011 12:00:35 +0000

Photobucket today is launching Snapbucket, a photo-sharing app for Android and iOS. The app expands on photo-altering filters popularized by Hipstamatic and Instagram, offering 9,500 total filters, including customizable ones and advanced options that are unlocked through participation.

(The Android version should be available this morning, while the iOS one may still be awaiting Apple’s approval when this story goes live.)

Photobucket, which gained fame as a photo-uploading companion to Myspace, was bought by the social network in 2007, and was sold by parent company News Corp. to Ontela in 2009. (News Corp. also owns All Things D.)

Lately, the company has found a new crop of users on mobile devices, particularly Android, for which it offers an auto-upload tool (the iPhone requires a user to consent to upload a photo). Photobucket has 15 million mobile users and four million photos and videos uploaded from phones per day.

The company now plans to ramp up its releases and make additional acquisitions, said CEO Tom Munro in an interview.

“It was probably harder for Photobucket to disengage from News Corp. and become a viable standalone entity than anyone had anticipated,” Munro said. “But now we change our focus from maintaining to being innovative.”

Mobile photo filters do seem more copycat than innovative, but we’ll see what comes next.

News Corp.'s IGN Buys Hearst's UGO In Preparation For Game Site Spin-Off

Peter Kafka — Mon, 02 May 2011 00:27:44 +0000

News Corp., which is getting ready to part with MySpace, is now prepping a move for another one of its big Web properties.

The media conglomerate plans to spin out its IGN.com dudes-and-games site, and is bulking up in advance by acquiring Hearst’s dudes-and-games-centric UGO.com.

People familiar with the companies’ operations tell me News Corp. and Hearst have been finalizing plans over the weekend, and will likely announce the merger within the next few days.

Plans to cleave off IGN.com will take longer, perhaps months. Roy Bahat, who has been running IGN for News Corp. since 2007, will run the new company.

The goal is to create a standalone Web business that will focus primarily on videogame news, reviews, and culture. News Corp. is weighing taking on outside investors for IGN in advance of the split; IGN may also acquire other properties before the move.

News Corp. officials declined to comment. I haven’t heard back from Hearst. News Corp. also owns this Web site.

Unlike other Web moves News Corp. has been making, the plan to move IGN outside of News Corp.’s corporate walls isn’t a disposal of an impaired asset. People familiar with IGN’s operations say it is growing and profitable.

I’m told the company expects to earn more than $10 million this year on revenues of around $100 million. The idea is that IGN will be able to grow much faster if it isn’t operating inside Rupert Murdoch’s company.

Assuming that News Corp. ends up getting a buyer or partner for MySpace, the IGN move means that the company will have found new homes for all three of the big Web properties it bought during the Web 2.0 boom.

News Corp. kicked off the boom itself by buying MySpace for $580 million in the summer of 2005; a few months later it paid $650 million for IGN. In 2007, it paid about $250 million for photo-sharing site Photobucket, which it handed over to Ontela in December 2009.

Both in and outside of News Corp., IGN has always garnered much less attention than MySpace. Just a few years ago, MySpace was the world’s biggest social network, and the reason Google had signed on for a $900 million ad deal; IGN was simply a collection of dude-oriented sites that News Corp. had overpaid for. More recently, MySpace has been a black hole for money and talent, while IGN has found its focus as a competitor to CBS’ Gamespot.

Hearst, meanwhile, has been trying to figure out what to do with UGO for a while. It paid $100 million for the site in 2007, but its original management team left within two years. Hearst Interactive head Ken Bronfin has been overseeing the site since then, and last year the company hired former Montogmery & Co. banker Kevin Covert to find a partner.

I don’t know how the two sites are valued in the merger, except that IGN is worth more. News Corp. will have a controlling stake in the combined company. Comscore says IGN has an audience of 19.7 million U.S. visitors; it pegs UGO at 13.1 million.

Sparkbuy Aspires to Be the Kayak for Consumer Electronics

Tricia Duryee — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 16:41:34 +0000

Sparkbuy is officially launching today, unveiling a Web site that will let consumers sift through thousands of laptops and tablets to more easily find the device that best suits their needs.

The Seattle-based company–which operates out of the city’s industrial and gritty Georgetown neighborhood, better known for artists and breweries–was founded by Dan Shapiro, who merged his last company, Ontela, with Photobucket.

Similar to the Kayak travel site, the Web site uses sliders to determine such features as price, speed and weight sensitivity. Other features that can be checked are “big screen,” “great for gaming”, “great for Photoshop,” and “3D.”

“This exists for travel, like Kayak and Hipmunk,” said Shapiro, who came up for the idea when he left Photobucket and was looking for a personal laptop that was cheap, lightweight and featured long battery life.

Because he was so baffled by the options, he actually hired a contractor in Pakistan for $50 to research his options and enter the information into a spreadsheet.

That’s the model the company now uses to get its data. Instead of searching the Internet or crawling retailers’ Web sites, Sparkbuy has hired a team of researchers to manually enter the information into a database.

Currently, it has 20,000 reports on roughly 2,000 laptops. There’s so many reports because each report is entered at least three times to ensure accuracy.

The company will make money on referral fees for sending consumers to a retailer’s Web site, similarly to how Kayak makes money when someone discovers a cheap hotel room.

The site launches today with links to Amazon.com and Newegg. Next month, it expects to add HP, MacMall, OnSale, PC Mall, and Toshiba Direct.

Sparkbuy, which has raised $1 million in capital and has four full-time employees, is also collecting data on the myriad of tablets launching over the next few months. Today, it has data on 70, ranging from the $99 Pyrus 7″ Android tablet to the Windows 7 Asus tablet with keyboard for $449 and to the fully loaded iPad 2 for $927.

In Mobile Gymnastics, the Motorola Backflip Scores a 6

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:47:23 +0000

Touch screens are now prevalent enough on mobile devices that I find myself touching the screens of every new gadget I see. My trusty index finger of a stylus is ready at all times to swipe, pinch, double tap and scroll since these are natural gestures.

[ See post to watch video ]

Yet touch screens have some downsides. Finger gestures leave smudge marks on the glass screens and monopolize screen real estate, making it hard to show the screen to someone while navigating. Also, touch screens often require two hands.

This week, I tested a smart phone with a solution for two of the three touch-screen problems. The Motorola Backflip (http://3.ly/Ku9), which became available March 7, lets people navigate its screen by touching a panel behind it, thus keeping fingers off of the screen. This trackpad-like panel is appropriately named the Backtrack and works like magic: On-screen objects are selected, text scrolls and screens open, but you can’t see the fingers manipulating the screen because they’re hidden behind it.

The Backflip, which runs on AT&T’s (T) 3G network, costs $100 after a $100 mail-in rebate and a two-year agreement. Its name comes from its design: The Backflip’s screen seems to flip backward when the QWERTY keyboard flips down for use. In the device’s “closed” position, the keyboard flips back up and is automatically turned off.

I’ve been using the Motorola Backflip for emailing, Web browsing, social networking, taking photos and making phone calls. While I applaud its creative design and the idea of the Backtrack, I think it sacrifices functionality for form. Take, for example, its QWERTY keyboard, which has a subtly handsome design when the Backflip is closed. But when used for typing, its shallow keys don’t give much tactile feedback and are tough to use. Likewise, the Backtrack is clever, but only works when the phone is the flat, opened position, forcing people to reach around both the keyboard and the screen to use it. I often found myself giving up and just touching the screen directly, which also works.

Other companies’ mobile devices have found ways around actually touching their touch screens, silly as it may sound. Palm’s (PALM) Pre and Pixi models use a gesture area beneath the screen to navigate—with just one hand holding and swiping.

The Backflip in opened position.

I easily set up two email accounts and Twitter and Facebook accounts on my Backflip. There are also shortcuts for setting up accounts for Picasa, Photobucket, Bebo, LastFM and MySpace.

The Motorola Backflip runs Motoblur, the company’s social-network and message-consolidating software, which I found to be an attractive interface with intelligent capabilities. For instance, if it senses you’re checking it a lot, it will update the displayed messages more frequently. Motoblur also uses images from contacts, like their Facebook or Twitter photo, and displays these as small background icons behind Motoblur messages from that person. This is a small detail, but it brings an extra spark of life to everyday messages.

But Motoblur lacks one of the most popular Twitter functions: the ability to re-tweet, or re-message someone else’s tweet (Twitter status). A Motorola (MOT) representative said re-tweet is under evaluation, but won’t disclose details about timing. Motoblur has been available for six months, first seen in the Motorola CLIQ.

Oddly, the Backflip runs the Android 1.5 operating system, not the newest Android 2.1. A Motorola representative said the company plans to update this but wouldn’t say when. It seems strange for a brand-new device not to run the newest operating system.

Phone calls were clear and loud, and photos captured on the five-megapixel, flash, digital zoom camera looked great. I enjoyed using the Backflip’s bright, 3.1-inch screen with 320×480 pixel resolution. Though I wasn’t crazy about typing on its keyboard, I did like the keyboard shortcut keys for the Web browser, home, email and search. With the Backflip in its opened position, I used the Backtrack—the trackpad behind the screen—to skip around from one thing to the next. Double tapping on anything selected it, and I swiped my fingers down on the Backtrack to scroll a long news story on the browser.

The Backflip is designed so that whenever it’s plugged into its wall charger or set at a 90-degree angle, it goes into Tabletop mode, showing a large digital clock with the local weather, date and options for setting an alarm. This mode also offers a button for watching the device’s photos in a slow-panning, Ken Burns-like slideshow, which is useful for sharing with friends.

Monthly AT&T plans that work with the Backflip include a combination of the carrier’s required $30 unlimited data plan and a $40, $60 or $70 voice plan. It comes with a 2-gigabyte memory card, though it will work with one that holds up to 32 gigabytes. Its internal memory is 512 megabytes, and the memory available for apps is 220 megabytes, though certain apps can offload some data they use onto the roomier card.

Motorola deserves credit for trying an innovative design and for offering a unique way of moving fingers off of the touch screen. But the Backflip device seems unfinished because of several features that don’t work as well as they should.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

The Flixster/Rotten Tomatoes/MySpace Mystery Solved: A Christmas Miracle!

Kara Swisher — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 21:11:18 +0000

About 10 days ago, there was a post in this column about interest by News Corp. and its MySpace unit in Flixster, the popular social networking site for movies.

In the post, titled “MySpace and News Corp. Eye Flixster (But for What?),” I wrote:

Whether this is an acquisition or more of a larger partnership deal with News Corp. digital entertainment sites is unclear. Several sources said a purchase was a possibility, while others talked about a more complex deal that did not necessarily mean a purchase.

Sources said any such deal is not imminent, but that News Corp. (NWS) itself has been conducting extensive due diligence on the San Francisco-based Flixster, part of a plan to combine it with Rotten Tomatoes, another News Corp.-owned site run by its IGN Entertainment division.

Well, BoomTown did more gumshoeing and it is indeed shaping up to be a very complex deal, according to many sources I spoke with, centered on Rotten Tomatoes merging with Flixster in exchange for a stake in the combined independent company by News Corp.

Flixster has attracted a huge audience–upward of 50 million–which trades all kinds of recommendations, ratings, news and even post user-generated movie reviews on the Web site and via widgets on social networking sites, mostly on Facebook.

Founded in 2006 by CEO Joe Greenstein and CTO Saran Chari, Flixster has raised $7 million in funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners and Pinnacle Ventures, as well as garnering an angel investment from Silicon Valley entrepreneur and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman.

Rotten Tomatoes features mostly premium content, including professional reviews, trailer videos and news. It has a community feature in beta, so it would be a nice fit with Flixster.

In addition, in a separate but related deal, the resulting company could have its social, user-generated and premium content threaded throughout MySpace, which is in the midst of transforming itself from a social networking site into a social media site for music and other kinds of entertainment.

Several sources noted that this deal being contemplated is typical of the overall strategy at News Corp., which has been targeting digital units that are not an obvious fit inside the company any longer for sale or other disposition.

In fact, the deal is not unlike one News Corp. did recently, flipping photo-sharing Photobucket into mobile photo service Ontela, with the media giant holding a large equity position in the the new entity.

The possibility of linking MySpace and the combined social movie site is interesting and yet another signal of one of the new strategies of MySpace: “Playing on other platforms,” as one source described it.

For example, MySpace recently announced it was adding its data stream to real-time search results on Google (GOOG).

And, it seems dead obvious that MySpace is likely to adopt Facebook Connect sooner than later, perhaps beginning with a smaller implementation early next year.

Focusing less on Facebook, which has long surpassed the once high-flying MySpace as the top-of-mind social network, MySpace is likely to value the massive cross-distribution for its much richer media content.

But that’s not all for MySpace, said several sources, all of whom noted that the site will be rolling out a range of significant design and other feature initiatives over the next 45 to 60 days.

These are all aimed by its new managers at juicing MySpace’s prospects, which have declined over the last several years, as have both revenue and engagement with consumers.

“This is not a rocket-ship ride to the moon,” said one person with knowledge of the situation. “It’s building again step by step.”

A Flixster spokesman declined to comment, as did News Corp. I am awaiting a call back from MySpace’s spokeswoman, but she is stuck in a security line at the airport.

Happy holidays, anyway, Dani!

(Full disclosure: News Corp. owns Dow Jones, which owns this site.)

Photobucket Layoffs Today: One-Third of Staff Let Go; Other FIM Units Also Impacted

Kara Swisher — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 21:19:20 +0000

The layoffs at Fox Interactive Media moved on to Photobucket today, as one-third of its staff of about 120 were let go, sources close to the situation said.

The photo- and video-hosting service was bought for $250 million in mid-2007 by News Corp. (NWS).

A FIM spokesperson confirmed the layoffs after being contacted by BoomTown, but declined to give specific numbers. But sources told me a total of up to 75 people were fired.

“As part of our continuing review of each of the FIM business units, employees were informed of job cuts today at several of our sites. We made these cuts to ensure that our resources are aligned properly with our business goals, and at a scale that will enable us to operate as efficiently as possible,” said the FIM spokesperson.

It is all part of a series of job cuts that are now hitting FIM properties other than MySpace.

The social-networking site has seen massive layoffs over the last two weeks, both in the U.S. and internationally.

Photobucket was hardest kicked, with 35 people fired, while other properties, such as the IGN videogame and entertainment unit, had the other layoffs spread among them.

Cuts at IGN, for example, were minimal, and it was also hiring in other parts of its business.

FIM’s whole structure itself is undergoing a shift, along with a likely name change, as BoomTown previously reported.

(Full disclosure: News Corp. owns Dow Jones, which owns this site.)

Creating 'Moments' of Your Life

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 23:30:02 +0000

It’s hard to maintain a monogamous relationship with one photo-sharing Web site. You will sign up with a service and use it as your primary online repository for a while. You may even familiarize friends and family with that service so they expect to see your name associated with it in emails. But before long, other sites with flashier features will entice you to start spending time with them while you continue to maintain your accounts on the old site so you don’t lose your digital memories. Can’t they all just get along in one place?

This week, I tested thisMoment.com—a content-sharing Web site that doesn’t mind if you use multiple sharing sites. It acknowledges your accounts on other sites and the fact that you have probably loaded a bunch of photos or videos onto those sites. It even recognizes that you likely still want to remain connected to those services. In fact, thisMoment is made better by your relationships with these other sites. And the service also makes it easy to incorporate into your account material created by others—even strangers.

[ See post to watch video ]

Anyone can use thisMoment.com the old-fashioned way, by uploading personal content and building “moments” (collections of related content) to share with friends. But thanks to thisMoment’s ties to other sharing sites, users may opt to add others’ publicly shared materials like videos, photos and articles to a moment, making it richer and more interesting. This content can come from sources like Flickr, Picasa, YouTube, Facebook—even Life Magazine photos and MTV videos can be interspersed throughout a moment. The Moment Maker tool quickly scans sites for relevant content to add to the moment.

This week, the service introduced an iPhone app for making moments on the go and a Facebook app for creating moments within Facebook. I tried both, in addition to using the thisMoment.com site, and found that resulting moments looked like they took a lot more time and effort to make than they actually did.

ThisMoment’s secret sauce is in its elegant displays. It takes all sorts of content—text, photos, videos—from various sources and meshes it into a handsome slideshow that flows from one visual to the next. Black backgrounds dramatically frame photos and videos, and captions stand out in brightly colored text. Maps from Google (GOOG) pinpoint exactly where the moment took place and a list names other people who were in the moment.

And when you’re all done creating your moment, thisMoment doesn’t mind sharing your final project with others using still more social-networking tools like Twitter, Facebook and some 45 Web publishing sites—if your privacy settings are set for sharing.

For some people, the idea of integrating other online content into their personal moments could be a turn-off. I wasn’t initially sure I would want someone else’s content mixed in with photos and videos I took, or vice versa. And I still wish thisMoment provided a clearer way of differentiating between someone’s personal content and that which was pulled from the Web. (Currently, small print below each item tells where it came from.)

But there’s so much content online that it makes sense to tap these resources. And users can opt to make moments without external content.

ThisMoment artistically assembles digital moments using content from the Web or personal photos and videos.

Rather than just slapping photos on to a Web site where people can see them, thisMoment asks its users to check off descriptive words—or enter their own—to explain how the moment made them feel. Though I originally scoffed at these add-your-own emotions, I later grew to like them when I looked back at my moments and those created by other people. They give these online creations a personal touch that isn’t conveyed in other photo-sharing software programs or Web sites.

Another thisMoment differentiator is its sense of time. You can create moments for things that happen in the past, present or future, like an upcoming wedding or birth, and a timeline at the top of the Web site shows where these moments fit in, according to their dates. If you share a moment with someone who is labeled as being in that moment, she can “seize” the moment, adding it to her own timeline. ThisMoment also encourages you to rate your moments on a scale of small to big according to how much they matter to you, though I often forgot to do this, and to label your moments so they can be organized into different categories.

I soon got the hang of how to use thisMoment to supplement my moments when I didn’t have enough content to create something worth sharing. When I attended a folk rock concert at the Embassy of the Czech Republic here in Washington, D.C., I only captured a few so-so photographs and wouldn’t have otherwise shared any visual memories from the evening with friends. But I used the Moment Maker to troll the Web for content related to Czechomor, the band I saw, and found live concert videos, as well as professional photographs, an online biography of the band and a link to where the group’s album was sold on Amazon.com (AMZN). I used this content and one of my own photos, and made a simple moment in a few minutes. (Check out my moment.)

Likewise, friends of mine recently hosted a murder-mystery dinner, but we were so busy staying in character that we took only one photo of the entire evening. I used that photo of me and my costumed friends as the inspiration for creating a moment filled with photos and videos of murder-mystery dinners from all over. This content came from sites like Photobucket, Picasa, Flickr and YouTube, and I laughed at the number of people who wore stick-on moustaches in these photos.

ThisMoment allows anyone with whom you share a moment to see that moment without signing up for the service. If that person is included in the moment, meaning the creator labeled him or her as a person who participated in the moment, then that person can add his or her own content to the moment—as long as that person signs up as a member of the site.

A variety of privacy options let you restrict who can see your moments—just you, friends, family, people in the moment or everyone. If a moment is set so everyone can see it, they can also use your content in their moments.

You may not always want to use thisMoment to incorporate content from other services and Web sites. But even without outside influences, this service’s stunning visual displays will give your moments a polished look that makes you proud to share.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

BillShrink's Pham Speaks About the T-Mobile Deal, the Econalypse and More!

Kara Swisher — Wed, 20 May 2009 13:00:04 +0000

Last week, BoomTown paid an economically-minded visit to the Redwood City, Calif., offices of BillShrink, a Silicon Valley start-up aimed at helping consumers find cheaper prices on gas, cellphones and plans and credit cards via a Web-based comparison and alert system.

Launched about a year ago and armed with about $9 million in funding from Bessemer Venture Partners and Trinity Ventures, it has aims of moving into a range of other money-saving arenas too.

But today, it got a major boost in its existing business by inking a deal to be part of a huge national advertising campaign by T-Mobile aimed at boosting price awareness among consumers, an apt message for these econalyptic times.

The ads will start tonight in a big way on the finale of “American Idol” and will star Catherine Zeta-Jones, who asks consumers in high-profile television commercials if they want a “mobile makeover.”

Cue BillShrink, even if it does not end up recommending T-Mobile’s service.

It is the first time the mobile carrier has recommended a third-party Web site and one that is independent. T-Mobile must, given it is the No. 4 player and has to beat the bigger players with a curve ball.

While BillShrink does make money from referrals of vendors, BillShrink CEO Peter Pham said the service it delivers to consumers must remain unbiased to render the right comparison results to consumers.

I sat down and talked with Pham, a former Photobucket exec, about all this and also where BillShrink is headed next.

Here’s the video interview:

[ See post to watch video ]

And here is the T-Mobile commercial:

[ See post to watch video ]

Finally, here is the press release from T-Mobile about the campaign:

T-Mobile Aims to Help Wireless Customers Save Money by Offering ‘Mobile Makeovers’

BELLEVUE, Wash., May 20, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE)–T-Mobile USA, Inc. announced today a new campaign dedicated to helping people save money on their wireless service, and unveils a familiar face to inform customers that T-Mobile has “the coverage you need at the price you want.”

T-Mobile is prompting wireless customers to compare the value they are getting with their current wireless provider against other national carriers. People can visit T-Mobile retail stores or http://www.T-Mobile.com for a Mobile Makeover(SM), at no charge, by linking customers to BillShrink, an independent third-party service that provides people with free, unbiased and personalized savings recommendations for everyday bills such as wireless plans, credit cards and gasoline.

“Providing great wireless coverage at a great price is at the heart of what T-Mobile offers,” said Denny Marie Post, chief marketing officer, T-Mobile USA, Inc. “We’re so confident that T-Mobile provides the best overall experience for a majority of Americans, we’re willing to put our value to the test by pointing people to an independent source. And while we may not come out on top each and every time, we believe a majority of people will see T-Mobile offers them the value they want, and the best experience in wireless.”

According to BillShrink, as many as eight out of 10 people unknowingly overpay for their wireless service.* BillShrink analyzes a customer’s wireless usage, along with wireless coverage in a customer’s area and service price, to provide recommendations to help people find the best value options. “Wireless customers need quality cell phone coverage at the best available price so BillShrink helps people easily navigate through millions of wireless plan combinations to provide a personalized recommendation,” said Peter Pham, CEO, BillShrink. “BillShrink shows people how to save money on their everyday bills and still get the best level of service.”

To help drive home the message that millions of Americans could save money on their wireless service, a familiar face and voice, Catherine Zeta-Jones, is again featured in T-Mobile’s television advertising. In the ads, she prompts people to get a Mobile Makeover in order to help determine if they are currently paying too much for their wireless services, and where to find the best value, based on their individual needs.

“As an avid T-Mobile customer, I’m delighted once again to help T-Mobile carry its message to millions of Americans about the great value they deliver,” Zeta-Jones said. “The Mobile Makeover campaign is a smart way to show consumers that they could save some serious money.”

The first television spot featuring Ms. Zeta-Jones will air tonight during the American Idol season finale on FOX. It features a group of Ivy League economists trying to educate homeowners they’re paying too much for their cell phone service, only to have door after door slammed in their face. Finally, a homeowner is pleasantly surprised when he opens the door to see Zeta-Jones standing on his doorstep asking, “Do you have time for a Mobile Makeover?” Zeta-Jones will be featured in two additional Mobile Makeover television spots in the coming weeks.

Online advertising, local radio, out-of-home advertising, retail collateral, and online video opportunities also will carry T-Mobile value and Mobile Makeover messaging.

For more information about Mobile Makeover and T-Mobile’s products and services, please visit a T-Mobile retail store, or go to http://www.T-Mobile.com. More information about BillShrink can be found at http://www.BillShrink.com.

*8 of 10 claim based on January 2009 sample of consumers who used BillShrink.com to analyze their reported usage. BillShrink.com is not operated or controlled, and the information/results provided on this site are not verified, by T-Mobile. See T-Mobile.com for rate plan information.

Layoffs at Fox Interactive Media

Emily Steel — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 13:39:26 +0000

News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox Interactive Media digital division is laying off about five percent of its workforce, or about 100 people, amid continued cost-cutting efforts, according to a person familiar with the situation.

The cuts, which started in the last month, are happening gradually unit by unit, the person said. The layoffs include all groups, from social-networking site MySpace to photo-sharing site Photobucket to mobile. (News Corp. owns Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal and the owner of AllThingsD.com.)

“I can confirm that several of the groups within FIM are eliminating some jobs and repurposing others,” a FIM spokesman said in a statement. “This is part of a larger effort we’re making to put FIM in the best possible position to succeed now and, more importantly, to emerge even stronger once the markets recover. It’s important to note that we continue to hire in many areas.”

Read the rest of this post

Organizing Your Web Life in One Place

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 02:06:02 +0000

If you use the Internet regularly, your activities are likely spread out all over the Web. You might be sharing photos on Flickr, emailing via Hotmail, posting status updates on Facebook, following tweets on Twitter, sending instant messages on Google (GOOG) Chat and keeping a calendar on Apple’s MobileMe. You hop from one site to the next, juggling different user names and passwords.

Last month, Microsoft unveiled Windows Live, its Web-based attempt to consolidate many of these activities. Windows Live can be found at home.live.com and includes programs that cover a lot of ground: Hotmail (email), SkyDrive (online storage), Spaces (blogging), Calendar and Events (online invitations). Four new Windows Live categories — Profile, People, Photos and Groups — create a Facebook/MySpace-like feel by following activities of networked users and sharing that data with others.

[ See post to watch video ]

If you’re using a Windows PC, you can additionally download a suite of seven free desktop applications called Windows Live Essentials from download.live.com that enhance and coordinate with the Windows Live services. These include Messenger, Photo Gallery, Mail, Writer, Movie Maker Beta, Family Safety and Toolbar. I downloaded the Essentials and enjoyed using many of them, especially Mail, Messenger and Toolbar.

But I focused my testing this week on the Windows Live Web services, which, as advertised, let me control various elements of my digital life in one place with one password. SkyDrive is a simple and approachable online-storage repository that will be truly useful for a lot of folks who want a central place to keep files. The Windows Live Profile offers handsome personalized pages with bright colors and designs; compared side-by-side with a Facebook page, it made Facebook look dull and sparse. I also used Windows Live Photos to upload digital photos onto my Profile and then shared them with friends and family in three quick steps.

New Windows Live programs include Profile, which offers personalized pages.

Microsoft (MSFT) smartly realized that most people already visit a variety of sites for online pursuits and will want to add those activities to their Windows Live Profile. Users can currently link to 12 other sources, including Twitter, Flickr, Photobucket, WordPress, Pandora and Yelp — but not Facebook or MySpace. Microsoft says that it’s working to build relationships with Facebook and MySpace and hopes to have related news next year.

But though various Web activities can be added to a Live Profile, this connection isn’t as productive as it could be. Take Twitter, for example. I added my Twitter account to my Live Profile, but on Live Profile I could see only tweets from myself and from people in my Windows Live network. To see tweets from the 50 people I follow on Twitter, I had to go to Twitter.com.

I had a similar experience with Pandora. I added my Pandora account to my Live Profile, and when I bookmarked Keith Urban as a favorite artist, this tidbit appeared on my Live Profile page. But when I listened to Christmas tunes for a few hours, nothing on my Profile page reflected this (i.e., “Katie is listening to Bing Crosby’s ‘White Christmas’ ”).

After linking my Live Profile to my Flickr account, I posted photos on Flickr.com, and seconds later, these pics appeared on my Live Profile. But other activities from Flickr weren’t reflected on my Live Profile, such as when my contacts posted photos or when those in a Flickr group of which I’m a member posted photos. To see this, I had to visit Flickr.com.

Microsoft says that in the case of Web activities, the outside companies choose what to show and what not to show. But I can’t use Windows Live as a home base for my other online activities unless it displays useful data that save me trips to other Web sites.

Messenger displays friends’ updates.

Like many social-networking services, Windows Live gives special privileges to those who are in the network. To belong to a Windows Live network, one must first have a Windows Live ID, which anyone can get by signing up for Hotmail, Windows Live Messenger or Xbox Live.

Windows Live also allows interaction with people outside the network. For instance, I can share any of the photos that I upload to my profile with friends and family who don’t have Windows Live IDs by simply emailing a link to them. These people don’t need a Windows Live ID to look at the photos.

When I used Windows Live to share photos with my sister, who has received hundreds of digital shots from me on every photo-sharing Web site I’ve tested, she wasn’t impressed. She correctly pointed out that other sharing sites, like Shutterfly, allow full-screen slideshow views; Windows Live limits slide shows to the size of the browser window.

Windows Live Web services work best on Microsoft’s own Internet Explorer browser, version 6 and up, and a special quick-photo-upload tool works only with Internet Explorer. This uploading tool doesn’t work with Apple’s (AAPL) Safari browser or the Mozilla Firefox browser; instead, you must slowly add each photo to your page, selecting them one at a time.

If you’re using a Windows PC, the Windows Live Essentials are definitely worth installing. Photo Gallery enables simple photo publishing directly from your computer’s collection of My Pictures, and specific faces can be labeled and tagged in each shot. Windows Live Mail, which replaced Outlook Express last year, is a smoothly designed program that I rely on every day for use with three different email accounts. Windows Live Messenger links into the Live Web services specifically by retrieving the status updates for each person in your network and displaying those in a ticker-like panel at the bottom of Messenger. The Windows Live Toolbar works only in Internet Explorer but shows an at-a-glance view of your network’s updates, along with photos, email and calendar — all in the top panel of the browser.

Windows Live Essentials are still in beta, or testing, mode, and Windows Live Web services will add more partnerships next month. I’ll be anxious to see if these new partnerships operate more productively with the Live Profile. Aggregating content from across the Web isn’t worthwhile unless that content is fully and usefully accessible in its new home.

Still, Windows Live Web services and Essentials provide solid tools that can help you organize your email, messaging, photos, storage, scheduling and social networking in one place with one password. That, by itself, is a relief.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Email us at mossbergsolution@wsj.com. Find this and other columns and videos online free at the All Things Digital Web site: http://walt.allthingsd.com

Microsoft Officially Facebooks, Oops, Socializes, Windows Live Internet Services

Kara Swisher — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 05:00:15 +0000

Microsoft officially rolled out the next version of its Windows Live Services tonight, with a heavy emphasis on socializing its online offerings and giving users better tools to share all sorts of information from across the Web within them.

Microsoft (MSFT) said the changes–similar to those made by Yahoo (YHOO) and Time Warner (TWX) online unit AOL recently–would “begin rolling out to customers in the U.S. over the coming weeks and will be made available globally in 54 countries and in 48 languages by early 2009.”

You might call its the “Facebooking” of Windows Live, which is the brand name for Microsoft’s communications and other related online services aimed at consumers, especially because the much anticipated changes also include a new profile and a “What’s New” feed.

So, if imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg should feel beloved by Microsoft, since both are direct borrows of two of the social-networking site’s most prominent features.

(See many screenshots of the newly refreshed Window Live services below.)

But don’t call it a social network, said Brian Hall, who is the general manager of the Windows Live unit, in a lovely breakfast interview with BoomTown yesterday.

“No one wants to sign up for another social network,” said Hall. “But everyone does want to be able to share and bring together all they do on the Web, and we want to make sure all our users can do that in the easiest way possible.”

(Sadly, the video I did with Hall–who is Seth Rogen lookalike, and I mean that in a good way–got eaten up in my new Flip MinoHD software, which was entirely due to my boneheadedness.)

But, in it, Hall underscored that Microsoft is now fully committed to opening Windows Live Services up to whatever consumers want to do with their online lives and wherever they want to do it.

And, indeed, the “next generation” of Windows Live will inject social elements into its Photo Gallery photo sharing, Hotmail email, Spaces groups and Messenger instant messaging offerings, as well as Microsoft’s calendar and mobile products.

The move will also more significantly integrate many third-party partners into the mix. Microsoft’s outside partners announced tonight include Flickr, LinkedIn, Pandora, Photobucket, Twitter, WordPress and Yelp. (See the full list below.)

Microsoft also announced alliances with Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and China Telecom to deliver Windows Live services.

Microsoft says there are more than 460 million Windows Live customers (its instant messaging offering accounts for a bulk of this number and will see the most socializing impact), but is bowing to the obvious and inevitable trend of consumers creating and sharing all over the Internet.

But, said Hall, Microsoft is also sticking to its mantra of “software plus services” here, noting that consumers want the existing tools they use now regularly to become more social, rather than having to abandon them.

Microsoft is also launching its Windows Live Essentials, which are free widgets that can be used across a range of devices and places, such as personal computers, mobile phones and on Web sites.

Finally, to let users store all that content and information, Microsoft said it is also increasing its Windows Live SkyDrive online storage offering from 5GB to 25GB.

Here are the screenshots of the new Windows Live services (click on them to make them larger):

Windows Live Home Page

Windows Live Profile Page

Windows Live Messenger Page

Windows Live Web Activities Page

Windows Live Groups Page

Partner Integration for Windows Live

Blog
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Live Journal
Overblog
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Twitter*
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Reviews
11870.com
Amazon
Digg
Flixster*
Goodreads
Kaboodle
StumbleUpon*
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Photo
Bilddagboken.se
Flickr*
Photobucket
Rock You
SmugMug

Music/Video
Last.fm
iLike
Break
Pandora
Seesmic
Veoh

Social Networking
Biip.no
Dada.net
Daum*
Dopplr
Faves
Friendster
Hevre
Hyves
Jeeran
Libero Community
Lokalisten
Mail.ru
Metroflog
Nettby
OleOle
Playahead
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Studenti.it
TripIt, Inc.*
Yandex
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OEM and Services Partners
HP
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Telecommunications and Broadband Service Providers

China Telecom
Qwest

FrameIt Partners
Amlogic
iGala
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*Denotes First Set of Available Feed Partners

Apple iPhone Apps: Fast-Growing but Not Quite Fast Enough for the ADD Set

Kara Swisher — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 22:47:55 +0000

Someone get a dose of Ritalin stat to the noisy but deeply misguided critics who took news of the huge number of downloads of apps for the Apple (AAPL) iPhone and immediately concluded it was just not good enough.

Thus, as reported today in The Wall Street Journal, 60 million downloads in 30 days–mostly for free apps, but with about $30 million in revenue, and a runway of three million more new iPhones out there too–is a chance to talk about how it all is just so unexciting and how the apps market is officially saturated?

Am I missing something here? One would assume that were these pundits pioneers, they would get to Ohio and declare that the going farther west held very little promise, thank you very much!

Wrote TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld:

The question is how many apps can one person really manage before becoming overwhelmed. While the initial impulse is to download as many apps as possible to try them out, there is a limit to how many apps you can juggle on your iPhone. It is not much different than a PC. You have tons of apps, but how many do you actually use on a regular basis? For most people, that number is probably no more than ten apps, and on a daily basis, maybe three or four, tops.”

Yes, that personal computer thing has been such a disappointment for us all and a real failure in spurring the creation of a plethora of multi-billion-dollar software makers, hasn’t it?

In actuality, while there is obviously going to be an initial period of frantic trying-out of apps and a fall-off of regular usage, the entire point is that a useful and important platform is being developed here.

Stlll, GigaOm’s Om Malik talked to new iPhone analytics company Pinch Media and managed to find lemons in the lemonade:

Using the caveat that only a few app makers were using the Pinch Analytics library, [Pinch's Founder Greg Yardley] pointed out that as per their data, the ratio of free downloads to paid downloads is at least 10 to 1. He also said that the pace of downloads is slowing, which is expected because the early rush is behind us. According to data collected by Pinch Media, on average, less than 20 percent of an application’s overall unique users return to an application each day. Yardley also pointed out that people are using the apps for just under five minutes at a time, on average. The majority only use the applications once per day; the average number of uses per day is around 1.2.

Looks like I am not the only one who is getting bored with some of the more blah apps. Phew!”

Of course, Malik and others will not like each and every app, but that is not exactly a surprise; nor should it be the focus.

As Apple CEO Steve Jobs correctly noted to The Journal:

“Phone differentiation used to be about radios and antennas and things like that. We think, going forward, the phone of the future will be differentiated by software.”

Exactly. This is less about the iPhone, than it is about all mobile phones, going forward.

But, because of the iPhone’s trailblazing, they will be easier to use, because of apps and multi-touch and a much richer multimedia experience.

That market will thus require a lot of apps, some of which will work and some of which will flop.

As I wrote about the popularity of the third-party apps and Apple’s iTunes App Store:

That’s because Apple has built a platform for adults.

Like many, I have downloaded dozens of iPhone third-party apps over the last several days.

And, unlike what one can discover on the other hot apps platform–namely Facebook–they are uniformly superb, lovely, useful and fun in a really nonjuvenile way. …

I think you would not say so after looking over a lot of what is available at the App Store on iTunes.

Lots and lots of the apps there are games, of course, which are the most popular.

But what amazingly clever games, like MotionX Poker with the delightful rolling dice, or the humming swish of PhoneSaber (totally silly, but in a profound manner that Vampire-biting on Facebook will never achieve).

And the list of useful stuff–Pandora Radio, Starmap, WeatherBug, Evernote and WHERE–is long and growing longer, and these seem to enjoy as much prominence and popularity as the sillier stuff.

In addition, the ability to truly use other Web services in a mobile setting–from Photobucket to Yelp to AIM to the New York Times–makes the iPhone an even more useful device to me.

And for each of the apps I can also imagine various monetization schemes that now make a lot more sense since the iPhone platform enhances them with mobility and simplicity.”

Or, as the cliché goes: “The Plains are covered with the bodies of pioneers.”

But some of them, of course, made it to California.

The rest, as they also say, is history.

Speaking of which, here is a video of AllThingsD.com‘s Co-Executive Editor Walt Mossberg discussing the iPhone’s significance at the Aspen Ideas Festival in July, in a short snippet from his talk there:

All Grown Up: Apple Apps Are for Adults (There, We Said It)

Kara Swisher — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 15:26:22 +0000

When Apple releases its third-quarter earnings after the close today, Wall Street will be looking hard for a solid performance from the company to help buoy a tech sector smacked silly by weak reports from industry leaders Microsoft and Google last week.

It’s a lot of weight to put on the slim shoulders of Apple (AAPL), even though the company has shifted in recent years–largely due to the iPod and now iPhone phenomena–from a maker of devices for the elite to a mass consumer icon and a major influencer of key technology trends.

And, as has been much written about, Apple’s iPhone has brought the vision of a touchscreen minicomputer-on-the-go to the kind of reality that seemed impossible only a few years ago.

But more important to me is what is happening with the plethora of third-party apps now available from the iTunes App Store–both free and paid (picture below)–for use on the iPhone platform.

That’s because Apple has built a platform for adults.

Like many, I have downloaded dozens of iPhone third-party apps over the last several days.

And–unlike what one can discover on the other hot apps platform–namely Facebook–they are uniformly superb, lovely, useful and fun in a really nonjuvenile way.

The iPhone Facebook app is, by the way, stellar.

It’s more than a little ironic, then, that about a year ago it was the social-networking site that reinvigorated the idea of the importance of having a platform that a multitude of developers could thrive on.

It’s not exactly a new idea–Microsoft has nourished an ecosystem of developers for its powerful Windows software platform for, like, forever.

But Facebook surely made the idea bigger, looser, wilder and more exciting. Except that a lot of what has been created for Facebook has been profoundly stupid.

Last year, Boomtown set off a mini-tornado of debate when I suggested that I was less than impressed by the quality and endurance of most of the new Facebook apps–also called widgets–that began to take off.

In a post called: “The Children’s Hour: Facebook Apps Are for Toddlers (There, We Said It),” I wrote:

I get it, I get it. Millions upon millions of people are downloading and using these apps, part of a very clever ecosystem [Facebook CEO Mark] Zuckerberg unleashed in late May.

Under the scheme, widget-makers got to go wild on Facebook, and Facebook got to offload a chunk of its feature development onto others.

‘Until now, social networks have been closed platforms,’ said Zuckerberg at the [f8] event, calling on outside developers to integrate their applications into the service. ‘Today, we’re going to end that.’

But so far, as popular as those apps have become, what Zuckerberg and the widget-makers have wrought is mostly silly, useless and time-wasting, and the kazillion users of these widgets are pretty much just acting like little children.

I never thought I would call the often frivolous AOL back in the day–very simply, a Neanderthal version of Facebook–a mature offering in comparison.

While I will admit when I am not chewing nails that a lot of these apps are somewhat fun, I can’t help but ask myself that lyric from the old Peggy Lee classic: ‘Is that all there is?’

And if that is all there is, can Facebook really build a viable and long-lasting business on what is essentially a bunch of games that will ultimately become wearying for users? Doesn’t it need more robust apps that actually are useful and relevant and make Facebook the service that Zuckerberg has often told me was a ‘utility’?

While Facebook–with a cleaner and more strict look and a better navigation–is surely less goofy than rival MySpace for anyone over 12 years old, and its video, photo and email features are nice, the vast majority of its apps are still mostly as dumb as a box of hammers.”

Too harsh?

I think you would not say so after looking over a lot of what is available at the App Store on iTunes.

Lots and lots of the apps there are games, of course, which are the most popular.

But what amazingly clever games, like MotionX Poker with the delightful rolling dice, or the humming swish of PhoneSaber (totally silly, but in a profound manner that Vampire-biting on Facebook will never achieve).

And the list of useful stuff–Pandora Radio, Starmap, WeatherBug, Evernote and WHERE (pictured here)–is long and growing longer, and these seem to enjoy as much prominence and popularity as the sillier stuff.

In addition, the ability to truly use other Web services in a mobile setting–from Photobucket to Yelp to AIM to the New York Times–makes the iPhone an even more useful device to me.

And for each of the apps I can also imagine various monetization schemes that now make a lot more sense since the iPhone platform enhances them with mobility and simplicity (Carling’s branded iPint is very smart, for example).

I also get the feeling that, knowing they would otherwise not be granted entrance into the elegant kingdom of Steve Jobs, developers tried to design their apps just a little more perfectly.

I cannot say the same about adding widgets to Facebook, which only seem to put more burden on my experience there.

Some are great and some are truly awful, but you never know exactly what you are getting until you go through the typically onerous addition process.

That will soon change with the new Facebook redesign.

I do have great hopes for it, as it gets rolled out this week for users, because it looks like it will make the service much easier to manage and enjoy.

I hope so, because right now, Facebook feels too much like a garden in constant need of weeding.

Perhaps this is because these apps or widgets are more useful in a mobile setting, when you are truly looking for a wide range of discrete pieces of information, rather than on a large screen–which gets larger all the time–at home when the browsing experience lets you handle more information coming at you from all over.

I don’t know, but I do know that I have gotten more use out of my iPhone apps than any Facebook app so far, making me more productive and happy in the process.

Yes, the BubbleWrap app is pointless, but it did give me a few minutes to decompress and read the newspaper as my six-year-old son digitally popped away in glee this weekend.

You know what I mean–it’s called adult time.

MySpace Announces "Revenue Unavailability" Project

John Paczkowski — Thu, 08 May 2008 23:50:55 +0000

This morning, Peter Chernin, the chief operating officer of News Corp. (NWS) (which owns Dow Jones and this site), acknowledged that Fox Interactive Media, which includes MySpace, will fall short of its goal of generating $1 billion in revenue for fiscal 2008. A surprising shortfall for a division that operates the strongest social-networking offering on the Web.

But not to worry, MySpace has a solution for that. It’s just one that lacks an obvious monetization strategy. It’s called Data Availability and it’s a way for MySpace members to share and sync profile data across partner sites–starting with Yahoo (YHOO), eBay (EBAY), Twitter and Photobucket. “The walls around the garden are coming down–the implementation of Data Availability injects a new layer of social activity and creates a more dynamic Internet,” enthused Chris DeWolfe, CEO and co-founder of MySpace, in a statement. “We, alongside our Data Availability launch partners, are pioneering a new way for the global community to integrate their social experiences Web-wide.”

That’s all well and good. But how about pioneering a new way to, you know, make money off that integration? Data portability is wonderfull and all. But so is revenue. And right now, MySpace’s Data Availability initiative doesn’t include any advertising deals.

MySpace Announces "Revenue Unavailability" Project

John Paczkowski — Thu, 08 May 2008 23:50:55 +0000

Kara Visits Beta South!

Kara Swisher — Thu, 01 May 2008 07:02:46 +0000

Here’s a video I did from a cool party I went to Tuesday night in Santa Monica, Calif., at the offices of ad network optimizer, Rubicon Project.

Organized by Beta South, a networking organization for digital start-ups in the Los Angeles area, it’s an interesting contrast to the frenetic nature of comparable Silicon Valley parties.

In the video, I talk to SoCal techies about the scene there, as well as comparisons to Silicon Valley, including Mike Jones of Userplane (sold to AOL) with Rubicon’s Frank Addante; Peter Pham, who was at PhotoBucket (sold to MySpace) and now BillShrink; and my favorite L.A. Webhead, Gregg Spiridellis of JibJab.

I also contemplate a mutant L.A. strawberry.

Here’s the video:

[ See post to watch video ]

Adobe Web Photo Site Is Great for Editing, but Lacks Some Basics

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 00:01:00 +0000

The biggest name in photo software for many years has been Adobe’s Photoshop. But, as more and more photos migrated online, Adobe (ADBE) became concerned that people would associate photo software less with its own locally installed programs than with Web-based products and services.

So, last month, the photo giant introduced Photoshop Express, its free Web-based service for storing, sharing and editing photos, in an effort to compete with established online photo services such as Yahoo’s (YHOO) Flickr, Google’s (GOOG) Picasa Web Albums, or the photo-laden Facebook social-networking service.

[ See post to watch video ]

Photoshop Express has many of the same features as Flickr and its ilk. It gives you two free gigabytes of photo storage. But Adobe is hoping to make its mark with editing.

Most online photo services offer little or no editing, assuming you’ll do that using software on your computer before you upload your pictures. But Photoshop Express, borrowing from Adobe’s deep knowledge of photo editing, offers the nicest set of Web-based editing tools I have seen. They are sophisticated for a consumer application, yet easy to use. They edge out those in Picnik, a pioneering Web-based photo editor I hailed last year.

These slick editing tools are not only available for use with photos you’ve uploaded from your hard disk. You can also use them to edit pictures stored in your accounts at Facebook, Picasa Web Albums and another big photo-storage service, Photobucket — all without leaving Photoshop Express. You can even move pictures between Photoshop Express and these three services just by dragging and dropping.

Adobe’s new service is available in the U.S. only, at www.photoshop.com/express.

I’ve been testing Photoshop Express and its service overall is pretty good, even though it’s still labeled “beta.” It’s a nice example of the Web 2.0 trend, where programs accessed via a browser can look and feel like applications that live on your computer.

But Photoshop Express is rough around the edges. It can be slow at times, and it’s missing some obvious features, like the ability to easily download publicly shared pictures from other members or to print photos. Adobe says it is working on these things.

Photoshop Express isn’t meant to replicate all the features and power of Photoshop. It’s more like a Web-based version of Photoshop Elements, Adobe’s consumer software package.

I tested Photoshop Express on multiple computers: PCs running Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows XP and Windows Vista, and Macs running Apple’s (AAPL) Leopard operating system. I used it in all three major Web browsers: Internet Explorer for Windows, Firefox on both Windows and Mac, and Safari, also on both platforms. It worked fine in all of these operating systems and browsers, though it does require Adobe’s free Flash software.

For my tests, I uploaded from my computers dozens of photos, from very large images captured with good digital cameras to smaller shots from cellphones. All were handled perfectly by Photoshop Express. I also opened and edited pictures in Photoshop Express from my accounts on Picasa Web Albums and Facebook. All of this worked well, though uploads of large images can be slow if your Web connection is pokey.

Photoshop Express is a handsome product, presenting your photos on a gray background with controls and features arrayed at the top and bottom, and down the sides, in a logical, clear manner. Your own photos are presented in a section called “My Photos,” and can be organized into albums. Photos that other Photoshop Express users have chosen to publicly share are organized into collections called “Galleries,” which can include multiple albums. You access these community photos by simply clicking on “Browse” or performing a search.

For each album you create, you can choose to share it publicly or to keep it private. Whichever option you choose, you can email friends either a link for viewing the album or a single photo. Your own photos can be downloaded at a variety of resolutions, including original size.

When you view shared galleries or albums, they appear as slide shows. You can select a number of slick effects by which the slides appear, allowing them to zoom and glide into place from various directions.

The editing features really stand out. In addition to standard tools such as auto-correction and red-eye elimination, Photoshop Express lets you touch up areas; adjust exposure, saturation, and lighting; and even make certain colors pop — so grass is greener, for instance. And, in most cases, it shows you small example images illustrating the changes, then previews those changes in the larger main image just by moving your mouse over the example. You can revert to your original at any time.

Unfortunately, there are a number of problems. Photos, especially large ones, can take awhile to appear in the editing module and to snap into focus. Captions sometimes get lost or mixed up when you move photos to other services. You can view shared albums only as slide shows, not as individual photos.

Still, Adobe has made a good start with Photoshop Express, and it’s worth a try if you want better online editing for your pictures.

Email me at mossberg@wsj.com. Find all my columns and videos online, free, at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

TiVo Time-Shifts Company Deathwatch

John Paczkowski — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 19:58:54 +0000

Time to shelf that TiVo obituary. The “TiVolution” is picking up some new agitators. After years of struggle, the digital video recorder pioneer is back on its feet again with some new partnerships, old partnerships that are finally coming to fruition and a new business.

In the past few weeks, TiVo has signed deals with online photo-sharing services Photobucket and Picasa and the music-and-video network Music Choice. It’s begun fulfilling its contracts with cable outfits Comcast and Cox. It’s entered the media-services market, partnering with NBC Universal to provide second-by-second ratings of programs and commercials, based on the TV-watching habits of subscribers to the company’s digital video recorders.

“We are very much a technology company,” TiVo CEO Tom Rogers told the New York Times. “At the same time, in the last year and a half, we’ve substantially moved in the direction of becoming a media company.” And that’s proven a prudent move for TiVo, where things are beginning to look up. Shares of the company hit a 52-week high of $8.53 Friday. Today they were trading at around $8.35.

Too bad for TiVo that days of the standalone digital video recorder are reportedly numbered. According to Yankee Group, the standalone DVR product category will cease to exist by 2010, “and its dissolution will result in the end of TiVo as we know it.”

How the Big Photo-Sharing Sites Stack Up

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 00:01:00 +0000

Yahoo’s recent announcement that it would be closing its Yahoo Photos division on Sept. 20 forced its users to decide what to do with their photos. The site’s photo-storage and sharing service, which has been around for about seven years, is bowing to its hipper counterpart, chart for more details.

Kodak Gallery
(www.kodakgallery.com)

This is a solid site for sharing albums with friends in a few straightforward steps. Though its options for editing photos tend to feel a bit clumsy, they’re probably the best out of the five sites. Most sites expect users to edit images before sharing them. Earlier this year, Kodak introduced a new version of its EasyShare desktop software program with richer editing features, such as images that expand to almost the entire screen.

In addition to its $25 a year Gallery Premier account, you can opt to pay twice as much for the account and a discount on Kodak prints — 10 cents each rather than 15 cents. Paid accounts let you download high-resolution versions of each photo and give you a unique Web address for sharing photos that can be password protected. But the other four sites offer personal Web sites as free features, rather than just with paid accounts.

Shutterfly
(www.shutterfly.com)

Shutterfly seemed to be the simplest site, though it isn’t the most attractive or user friendly. All of its features are free. Shutterfly does away with two conditions that Kodak Gallery and Snapfish have: It doesn’t require any purchases in order to keep your account from being deleted nor does it ever require your friends to sign in before viewing a shared album.

But Shutterfly’s simplicity can also be a hindrance. It doesn’t let you upload videos to share, nor can you download high-resolution versions of each photo or send photos to the site via email or mobile device; the other sites do these things either for free or with a paid account.

Snapfish
(www.snapfish.com)

Snapfish is Hewlett-Packard Co.’s photo-sharing site, and it stands out because it has the most restrictions. Along with its requirement that you purchase something at least once a year to keep your account, guests who view your albums must always sign in; you can’t change this setting like on the other sites. To skirt this issue, Snapfish emphasizes its Group Rooms, or personalized sharing Web sites that users view with a specific URL and a password (if you choose to have one).

Snapfish and Shutterfly both have Web sites on which photos appear too small for my taste, though Snapfish does offer generously sized images in photo slideshows — a plus. I’d prefer the site itself showed larger images in other instances. High-resolution version of photos can be downloaded for a fee of 25 cents for one and five cents for more than one.

Flickr
(www.flickr.com)
Photobucket.com
(www.photobucket.com)

Of the two community sharing sites, I preferred Flickr over Photobucket. The site felt cleaner, with fewer distractions and one less advertisement than Photobucket. For people who aren’t used to these more progressive sites, Photobucket and Flickr may seem extreme. They offer things like tagging and use terms that can be confusing. Flickr uses “sets” in place of “albums,” and photos are organized within “batches.” Photobucket organizes albums, but then lets you create sub albums within an album.

Neither site requires annual purchases, and both allow free high-resolution downloads of photos. Instead of one-time sharing, the sites use photostreams, or constantly updated photo blogs that friends can check.

Flickr and Photobucket make it easy to post photos to blogs in one step, including Blogger and Typepad. Photobucket also lets you post to MySpace and Facebook in one step.

In Flickr, you can meet people who have interests similar to yours by searching through Groups. I joined a group that shared photos of tennis courts around the world. Digital photos suddenly offered ways to socialize online without chatting or leaving overused messages for strangers.

Among other things, Photobucket lets you create a Remix — a presentation made of your photos and/or videos after they’re dragged into a storyline and mixed in with music, transitions and graphics. The result was entertaining and professional, though it took just seconds to make.

Ideally, I’d like to combine a favorite feature from each of these sites to make one great photo-sharing Web site. I found something wrong with each one, but Kodak Gallery and its EasyShare software program offer a good combination of editing and sharing. Flickr was my preferred community photo site, though it and Photobucket both offer fresh ways to share digital photos.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Email: MossbergSolution@wsj.com