Here’s a really fun video of Ustream’s top 10 live moments of 2010.

The most-watched stream was, no surprise, the rescue of the Chilean miners, but Justin Bieber and Kayne West also scored.

The winners on the live video platform include, in descending order:

10. Disneyland’s “World of Color” Live
9. Golden Globe Awards Red Carpet Live
8. Ochocinco’s Live Date
7. Taylor Swift’s Exclusive Album Announcement
6. “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” Premiere Live
5. Kanye West’s First Ustream
4. Justin Bieber on AMAs Backstage Live
3. Snoop Dogg’s Live Mafia Wars Stunt
2. Paul McCartney’s Live Chat With Fans
1. Live Chilean Miner Rescue

Enjoy:

Beverly Hills, Calif.-based Mobile Roadie has developed a platform that makes it easier for brands, musicians and others to build applications for the various mobile platforms, like Apple’s iOS and Android. Many of the applications provide access to news, streaming music, live or recorded videos and photos. They can also offer the ability to purchase music, video, tickets and merchandise.

From Michael Schneider’s position as CEO of Mobile Roadie, he has a 30,000-foot view of how consumers are making purchases from mobile applications.

In several instances, he’s seeing the applications power thousands of downloads, and in at least one circumstance, generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenues. “[The iPhone is] like an ATM machine in the pocket. It’s incredibly easy for fans to spend money. You just have to enter your iTunes password.”

Country pop star Taylor Swift’s applications have generated more than 600,000 downloads in the U.S., totaling more than “six figures” in digital merchandise sold, according to Mobile Roadie. Nine months ago, when the Taylor Swift apps were released, 10,000 fans tried to buy concert tickets in the first week, but not all succeeded because they were sold out.

Likewise, Linkin Park’s application directs people to a mobile optimized store, where large, easy-to-tap buttons are used to complete purchases. Fans of the multi-platinum rock band have spent more money per purchase over their phones via the apps than on purchases made on the full Linkin Park Web site, Schneider said.

These mobile commerce trends are not just occurring among musicians; top retailers are seeing the trends pick up, as well. EBay expects $1.5 billion in gross merchandise sales via mobile this year, which is three times the amount from 2009. And Amazon said in the summer that it had sold more than $1 billion in products over mobile devices over a 12-month period.

Still, Schneider says these are early days. Apple’s devices, including the iPhone, iPad and iPod, are the best at generating sales because of the easy integration with iTunes and one-stop billing.

Meanwhile, Android offers a less polished experience, leading Mobile Roadie to recommend to clients that they direct customers to Amazon.com’s MP3 store, or other third parties. The billing systems are also out of whack. Users may have to use Google’s or Amazon’s own billing platform, or be bumped out to the browser, where they might be offered a choice of PayPal, Visa or MasterCard. “Android doesn’t have the iTunes equivalent, and therefore hasn’t been as successful at monetizing digital content,” he said.

This week, rap mogul Diddy, a.k.a. Sean Combs or Puff Daddy, is releasing an app using Mobile Roadie’s platform in coordination with his upcoming new album release on Dec. 14.

It will have links to all of his previous albums to encourage fans to complete their album collection, but it also will include the ability to scan so-called QR codes. Fans will be able to find these barcodes on promotional materials, such as posters. If scanned, they’ll offer users the ability to download the app, or if it’s already installed, they will be able to unlock full tracks or other content for free.

Schneider said the experiments in mobile commerce are just beginning to happen. “Right now people are just wrapping minds around mobile being a critical and important part of selling and the fact they can do really big numbers,” he said.

You were expecting an A+, right?

Because of all the cursing and tough talk and uber-sassy assistant and loyal sidekick, Judy.

And especially, the use of elaborate barnyard metaphors from Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz’s growing up in Wisconsin to describe the Internet giant’s current state of affairs.

That includes the priceless bon mots from an earnings call last year: “This is not a company that needs to be pulled apart and left for the chickens.”

Not unless Farmer Bartz says it needs to be, that is!

I began handing out marks to Bartz recently, after she gave herself a B- for overall performance for the year since she took over the troubled Internet giant.

But I decided to be more specific, splitting the grades for Yahoo in 2009 into five categories.

I awarded Bartz an A- for management, a C+ for financials, a C- for product innovation and an incomplete for deal-making so far.

And, indeed all signs should point to A+ on the fifth, moxie, especially when you are talking about Bartz, one of the more colorful of Internet CEOs on the scene these days.

While AOL (AOL) CEO Tim Armstrong has those Don Draper cheekbones, Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer that whole sweaty energy thing, Amazon (AMZN) Jeff Bezos the borderline maniacal vibe and Google (GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt the big-brained alien act, Bartz is still 110 percent more entertaining on any given day.

But if you really think about it, she has been much more systematic in her tenure, making no dramatic, swing-for-the-fences moves, despite displaying a great deal of style.

More Taylor Swift than Lady Gaga, if you get my drift.

Like the deeply calculated Swift, Carol Bartz is a careful fixer–cutting costs at the Silicon Valley icon, finally making the inevitable search and online advertising deal with Microsoft, doing a lot of obvious internal rejiggering of systems, prettying up the front page and starting a much needed marketing campaign.

And while this all meets one definition of moxie–energy and pep–it’s still not that kind of fizzy riskiness (no wacky outfits for Yahoo!) that perhaps is still coming.

According to various definitions, the word’s etymology is from Moxie, a soft drink from the early 20th century that was one of the first mass-produced carbonated beverages in the U.S.

Per Wikipedia, its origins are as “a panacea, it was supposed to be especially effective against ‘paralysis, softening of the brain, nervousness and insomnia.’”

Would that Yahoo could be that to consumers!

Sadly for Moxie, while it still survives in New England, it got knocked out of the soda race by Coca Cola (KO), much as the ubiquitous Google knocked Yahoo out of the search business.

But Bartz, who just completed an executive offsite at Half Moon Bay, Calif., might be ready to trot out her act more dramatically in the months to come and, therefore, up the moxie stakes.

At the end of Yahoo’s recent conference call for its fourth-quarter earnings, she noted firmly that, “We’re done looking inward.”

Indeed, sources tell me Bartz has decided to start bringing all kinds of outside thoughts and influences into Yahoo next to try to shake up the often self-absorbed culture.

Maybe Gaga?

Rah rah ah-ah-ah! Ro mah ro-mah-mah! Gaga Ooh-la-la!

Now that would show some real moxie.

Until that happens, here is video of the bizarre singer at the Grammy Awards a few days ago, as well as the dreadfully off-pitch Swift (what is up with that?):

Oh dear, just a single week away and Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and every gossip site on the Web is aflame in expectation of the second installment of the young-vampires-in-lust movie series, “Twilight: New Moon.”

As pictures of its are-they-or-aren’t-they-holding-hands (um, they are) stars, Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, rocketed around the Web last week, prepare for an online and offline outpouring of teenage swooning over the whole overwrought love story, which is set to debut just after midnight on Nov. 20.

Until then, here is a very typical tweet of many-too-many, with a whole lot of exclamations, natch: “6 MORE days until NEW MOON!!!! heading there early to watch twilight in theaters one last time, then its off to NEW MOON!!!!!!!!!!! OMG!”

Thankfully, this digital short video from “Saturday Night Live”–a spoof called “Firelight” with, yes, BoomTown favorite Taylor Swift, pretty much sums up the situation perfectly:

In this ruthlessly funny video–especially for such a sweet-looking young lady–singer Taylor Swift manages to ice pretty much everyone who ever dissed her.

And Kanye West’s attention-grabbing antics at the MTV Video Music Awards in September are not the only ones getting a musical smackdown from the 19-year-old, who won the Country Music Association’s entertainer of the year award last night.

In her opening on a recent “Saturday Night Live,” the NBC television comedy show, which she hosted, Swift strummed a guitar and sang “Monologue Song (La La La).”

My favorite line, which I was completely not expecting: “I like writing songs about douche bags who cheat on me.”

Sing it, sister.

Here’s the video:

Apple TV 3.0 is largely as rumored: Adding support for Internet radio, Genius Mixes, iTunes LP and iTunes Extras (bonus clips, interviews, etc.). But it boasts another new feature as well: A redesigned user interface.

Whether the debut of Apple TV 3.0 heralds a hardware refresh of the device itself is anyone’s guess. It is worth noting, though, that there’s been quite a bit of speculation recently that Cupertino is working on an overhauled device that will offer DVR capabilities and support iTunes TV show subscriptions.

As Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster wrote back in August: “Apple could leverage its deep library of content with many network and cable channel content owners to provide unlimited access to a sub-library of its TV shows for a standard monthly fee ($30 or $40 per month).”

According to Munster, “Such a product would effectively replace a consumer’s monthly cable bill (~$85/month) and offer access to current and older episodes of select shows on select channels. The selection would dictate the value, and several tiers could be offered, but we see this as one way for Apple to leverage its large iTunes content library as well as its unique Apple TV hardware in order to get digital video to the TV for a price significantly less than the average cable or satellite TV bill.”

Sounds sweet, right? And it would be sweeter still if it were to offer App Store support and allow users to control games and other apps via iPhone or iPod touch …

Below, the official Apple (AAPL) release:

Apple Introduces Apple TV 3.0 Software With Redesigned User Interface

Enjoy iTunes Extras, iTunes LP & Genius Mixes on Your HD TV

CUPERTINO, Calif., Oct. 29 — Apple® today introduced new Apple TV® 3.0 software featuring a redesigned main menu that makes navigating your favorite content simpler and faster, and makes enjoying the largest selection of on-demand HD movie rentals and purchases, HD TV shows, music and podcasts from the iTunes® Store even better on your TV. You can now enjoy iTunes Extras and iTunes LP in stunning fullscreen with your Apple TV, as well as listen to Genius Mixes and Internet radio through your home theater system. The new Apple TV software is available immediately free of charge to existing Apple TV owners, and Apple TV with 160GB capacity is available for just $229.

“The new software for Apple TV features a simpler and faster interface that gives you instant access to your favorite content,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of Internet Services. “HD movies and HD TV shows from iTunes have been a huge hit with Apple TV customers, and with Apple TV 3.0 they get great new features including iTunes Extras, Genius Mixes and Internet radio.”

The redesigned main menu on Apple TV gives you instant access to your favorite content. Recently rented or purchased movies, as well as other content including TV shows, music, podcasts, photos and YouTube, are accessible directly from the new main menu. The new software also allows Apple TV users to enjoy stunning fullscreen iTunes Extras and iTunes LP, including great new movie titles such as “Star Trek” or classics like “The Wizard of Oz” and albums such as Taylor Swift’s “Fearless (Platinum Edition)” and Jack Johnson’s “En Concert.” iTunes Extras gives movie fans great additional content such as deleted scenes, interviews and interactive galleries. iTunes LP is the next evolution of the music album, delivering a rich, immersive experience for select albums on the iTunes Store by combining beautiful design with expanded visual features like live performance videos, lyrics, artwork, liner notes, interviews, photos, album credits and more.

Now Apple TV users can enjoy Genius Mixes through their home theater system and listen to up to 12 endless mixes of songs that go great together, automatically generated from their iTunes library. Customers can also enjoy Internet radio, allowing them to browse and listen to thousands of Internet radio stations, as well as tag favorite stations to listen to later. Apple TV’s support of HD photos is enhanced with iPhoto Events, which simplifies finding your favorite photos on Apple TV, as well as iPhoto® Faces, which gives access to photos organized by people identified in iPhoto.

Apple TV users have direct access to a catalog of over 8,000 Hollywood films on iTunes including over 2,000 in stunning HD video available for rent or purchase. Users can also choose from a selection of 11 million songs, 10,000 music videos and over 50,000 TV episodes to purchase directly from their Apple TV or browse and enjoy the iTunes Store podcast directory of over 175,000 free video and audio podcasts. Purchases downloaded to Apple TV are automatically synced back to iTunes on the user’s computer for enjoyment on their Mac® or PC or all current generation iPods or iPhones.* iPod touch® or iPhone® users can download the free Remote app from the App Store to control their Apple TV with a simple tap or flick of the finger.

Lu also confirmed a similar deal with Facebook.

bing is bringing twitter search to you

October 21, 2009, 10:24 AM by Bing | 0 Comments
One of the most interesting things going on today on the Internet is the notion of the real time web. The idea of accessing data in real time has been an elusive goal in the world of search. Web indexes in search engines update at pretty amazing rates, given what it takes to crawl the entire web and index it for searching, but getting that to “real time” has been challenging.

The explosive popularity of Twitter is the best example of this opportunity. Twitter is producing millions of tweets every minute on every subject you can imagine. The power of those tweets as a form of data that can be surfaced in search is enormous. Innovative services like Twitter give us access to public opinion and thoughts in a way that has not before been possible. From important social and political issues to keeping friends up to date on the minute-by-minute of our daily lives, the web is getting more and more real time.

Search needs to keep up. Shortly after we launched Bing, we did an experiment with the team at Twitter, where we took a fairly small number of “celebrities” from Twitter and provided access to their tweets as part of the search result. Here is a great example.

But what if we take that to the next level? What if we indexed basically the whole public Twitter stream and made it available to customers?

We’re glad you asked that. Because today at Web 2.0 we announced that working with those clever birds over at Twitter, we now have access to the entire public Twitter feed and have a beta of Bing Twitter search for you to play with (in the US, for now). Try it out. The Bing and Twitter teams want to know what you think.

How does this all work?

Were you as fascinated by the 6-year-old boy floating away in a balloon as we were? Was it a hoax? We know that people are going to twitter more and more for information surrounding all the latest chatter.

You can now search for what people are saying all over the web about breaking news topics, your favorite celebrity, hometown sports team, and anything else you use Twitter to stay on top of today.

If you want to keep an eye on this topic, you can just watch the Tweets roll in. Or, click on “See more Tweets about…” to go to a page full of Tweets. On that page, you can change the ordering to “Best Match.” Here we arrange Tweets differently. If someone has a lot of followers, his/her Tweet may get ranked higher. If a tweet is exactly the same as other Tweets, it will get ranked lower. For example, I saw a Tweet from ABC News ranked pretty high in the Best Match mode during the “boy in the balloon” fiasco. By the way, you won’t see any of your tweets if you protected or deleted them, and tweets don’t last more than 7 days in our index.

Are you a Taylor Swift fan? Just think of all the links that are shared on twitter that have to do with Taylor. To help you find these links we sift through and find the most interesting and hot trending links that other search engines usually don’t pick up on. Below you can see a couple of interesting links shared by Twitter users–some news and some gossip.

Instead of the usual captions that are used for links, we decided to give you a “social caption” and show you what people are saying about these links.

Our team has been using this product internally, below are some situations where it came in handy:

Sean Suchter (my boss) and I avoided a closed freeway on a rainy Seattle day and made our flight home.
Eric Scheel (principle program manager on the team) a photo-gear junkie, keeps up on early product reviews and owners’ tweets, which helped him decide on his next purchase.

My wife thinks I am almost cool because I know stuff about Taylor Swift.

We’d love to hear some stories from you about how this may have helped you. Of course, we also want to hear your ideas about how to keep improving this product.

Paul Yiu and the Bing Social Search Team

Want to see this in action? Go to YouTube and try to find a clip of the Kanye West/Taylor Swift/Beyoncé incident from Sunday night’s Video Music Awards. Everyone’s still talking about it (I don’t know why, really, but I guess I’m out of the demo), but if you want to watch it on YouTube, you’re stuck watching shaky, grainy footage created when people film their TV sets with a camcorder.

That’s the result of Viacom (VIA) and YouTube using the site’s Content ID system–which YouTube installed after Viacom filed suit more than two years ago. Content ID allows YouTube to track copyrighted material on the site as long as the copyright owner tells it what to look for.

It’s not a plug-and-play solution: On Sunday, Viacom had to have staff work through the night to provide YouTube with “reference files” from the live show so that the Google’s video service could find the offending clips and take them down.

But it worked pretty well. Decent-quality clips of the Kanye incident were taken down fairly quickly, and the grainy shots had only generated some 700,000 views by Monday afternoon, according to video-tracker TubeMogul. Meanwhile, MTV’s official version was approaching two million views (it’s now above three million).

You could argue that both Google and MTV would be better served if the official clip was on YouTube. And one day, that might happen. But first, they have to settle their court case.

That looks less likely today than it did a week ago, by the way, because of the recent ruling in the Universal Music/Veoh case. Team Viacom says the case, which appears to be quite similar to its own, won’t have any bearing on the how the company proceeds, while the YouTube guys see it as an affirmation of their position. Translation: More legal back and forth and fewer Viacom clips on the world’s biggest video site.

Here’s one of the low-fi versions, by the way. Not recommended if you’re prone to motion sickness:

A couple of years ago, it was Britney Spears wobbling across the stage; this time around, it’s Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift on behalf of Beyoncé and…pfft.

I can’t work up the enthusiasm to describe it, but happily for Viacom (VIA), MTV’s corporate parent, there are plenty of people who will do that for you: The story is dominating Twitter and Google (GOOG), and it’s the lead story on Yahoo’s (YHOO) front page.

You can also see the incident on Google’s YouTube, of course. But you’ll have to do a little bit of hunting since Viacom clips aren’t supposed to be on the most popular video site in the world–because Viacom is still suing Google and YouTube for $1 billion.

Remember that copyright case? It’s still motoring along, slowly but steadily: Executives from both companies are still being deposed, and if things keep moving forward, there will actually be a trial in 2010–some three years after Viacom filed its first complaint.

In any case, here’s the official version, served up by MTV, which says it has generated more than 1.1 million views of the clip since last night.

But if you’re pressed for time, you might prefer this parody version, which only requires 13 seconds and even manages to incorporate some political commentary.

Here below are three screenshots of Microsoft’s internal test of a new search product called Kumo.

The long expected upgrade to the Live Search product from Microsoft (MSFT) is being tested for a public rollout later this year.

The blogosphere was a-twitter, literally, after a Twitter post by Powerset co-founder Barney Pell this past weekend, about a rebranding and updating of the search offering. (Microsoft acquired Powerset last year and Pell works on search strategy.)

Sources at Microsoft said the company has not yet decided whether it will keep the Kumo name, which sounds a little too much like that crazy dog from the Stephen King novel.

Maybe that’s the point, at least related to Google. (Chomp!)

In Japanese, actually, Kumo has two definitions–cloud and spider.

Microsoft has been trying to catch up in the search game by spending big-time after it failed to acquire Yahoo (YHOO) last year.

And it still wants to do a search deal with Yahoo, in order to make a dent in the market dominance of Google (GOOG).

Until then, of course, Microsoft must innovate. And, so far, Kumo seems to be an interesting effort with a clean and spare look.

But what do you think? Let me know in the comments.

Also, here is the memo from Microsoft search head Satya Nadella about it, urging all company employees to try it out and send feedback:

From: Satya Nadella
Sent: Monday, March 02, 2009 4:18 PM
To: Microsoft–All Employees (QBDG)
Subject: Announcement: Internal Search Test Experience

The Search team needs you. We’ve been working hard to improve our search service and want to share the progress we are making with you. We are launching a new test program called kumo.com for employees to try and provide feedback. Kumo.com exists only inside the corporate network, and in order to get enough feedback we will be redirecting internal live.com traffic over to the test site in the coming days. Kumo is the codename we have chosen for the internal test.

In spite of the progress made by search engines, 40% of queries go unanswered; half of queries are about searchers returning to previous tasks; and 46% of search sessions are longer than 20 minutes. These and many other learnings suggest that customers often don’t find what they need from search today.

We believe we can provide a better and more useful search experience that helps you not just search but accomplish tasks. During the test, features will vary by country, but you’ll see results organized in a way that saves you more time. An explorer pane on the left side of results pages will give you access to tools that help you with your tasks. Other features like single session history and hover preview help accomplish more in search sessions.

Your Next Search…

To get started, visit kumo.com or click one of the samples below to see how it’s possible to find the right results more easily:

· Audi S8
· Taylor Swift
. Bose Lifestyle 48

You can also set your search defaults to test site using the instructions here.

Your Feedback is Critical

As employees, you are some of our most informed users and our toughest critics, and we highly value your input and feedback to help us build a better service. You have been an important voice in our efforts, and the feedback you’ve sent us since the company meeting has been amazing.

When you visit kumo.com, at the bottom right corner of the each page you’ll see a feedback badge. We ask that each time you use the test site, click the feedback badge and take a moment to answer four quick and simple questions. Feel free to reach out to give us extra feedback directly on our blog and by mailing sfeed. For answers to common questions make sure to see our FAQ.

We are committed to rapid innovation and improvement. Please give the test site a try, rate the results and let us know what you think.

Satya

Here are the three screenshots too (click on the images twice to make them larger):

Taylor Swift

Audi S8

Bose Lifestyle 48