LastPass, a cross-platform password manager, has acquired the social bookmarking and browser synchronization service Xmarks.

The San Francisco-based Xmarks has been in the midst of some tumult of late, as it closed down in September and then quickly opened back up again in an effort to keep its service running for a large group of active users.

That happened after user outcry, spurring the company to try to stay afloat.

SInce then, Xmarks has been trying to land itself safely.

The start-up had multiple offers to keep the operation running, as well as pledges from almost 30,000 fans willing to pay $10 to $20 a year for a new “freemium” business model.

Enter LastPass, based in Vienna, Va., whose CEO Joe Siegrist said in an interview that he wanted to help keep the service operating.

“They had a large dedicated audience, but their free offering and advertising model was not working,” he said. “We really want to figure something out that could keep it going.”

Siegrist said LastPass offered a robust free service, but relied on a small group of users who pay to upgrade to a premium offering.

The browser add-on for cross-platform synchronization operates in the cloud.

And that is going to be the fate of Xmarks–which had been called Foxmarks initially.

It had been seed-funded in 2006 by well-known entrepreneur Mitch Kapor and also got an additional investment from First Round Capital.

Xmarks garnered another $5 million in funding from Redpoint Ventures in 2008,

That year, it also hired Silicon Valley entrepreneur James Joaquin as CEO, whose job it was to carve out a business with Xmarks’ assets, including using its mass of data.

Xmarks had certainly been growing its user base and bookmarked Web addresses strongly, via a browser widget that recorded bookmarking information.

Earlier this year, it tried out an advertising product called SearchBoost, which gave advertisers additional analytics about their ads, as well as organic search results.

But all that ultimately did not translate into a viable business for Xmarks.

“We think this will make a great ending and beginning for Xmarks,” said Joaquin.

Both Xmarks and LastPass declined to provide financial details of the transaction.

Here is the blog post by LastPass and Xmarks about the integration:

Today we’re excited to announce that Xmarks has been acquired by LastPass, makers of a leading cross-platform password manager. It’s a great opportunity that ensures the survival of Xmarks as the same service that you know and love.

In the last few years, we’ve attracted over 4.5 million users syncing more than 1 billion bookmarks across 5 million computers. Most importantly, we’ve provided a simple solution to help people easily access their bookmarks, wherever and whenever they needed to. We’ve had thousands of users tell us that Xmarks has become an integral part of their browsing experience. You can rest assured that LastPass will continue to build upon the service in the coming months.

We’re also committed to keeping Xmarks free while implementing a viable long-term plan. Xmarks is transitioning to a “freemium” business model, the same model that allowed LastPass to grow into a thriving, profitable business. The browser add-on and the vast majority of what users have enjoyed remains free. Users can then opt to purchase Xmarks Premium for $12 per year, which includes new enhanced features like Android and iPhone mobile phone apps, priority support, and more. The Xmarks and LastPass Premium offerings are also available bundled together at a reduced subscription rate of $20 per year. For those of you who pledged your financial support, you can make good on your pledge today and upgrade.

The restructuring of the Xmarks offerings will accelerate the introduction of new features and service improvements. The two services will continue to require separate downloads and will be administered through two distinct extensions and websites, although there are plans to integrate them in the future.

We believe the acquisition will prove to be a success because of the common mission shared by LastPass and Xmarks. Xmarks complements LastPass’ vision of secure, universal access to the information that gives you entry to your digital life. By joining LastPass, Xmarks will also be able to accelerate the introduction of new features and developments. As the ultimate cross-browser, cross-platform team, Xmarks and LastPass will work together to help more people simplify their digital lives and access their data from anywhere, at any time.

We’re excited to join forces with LastPass and be a part of a team that will continue to provide the best data-syncing tools out there! We hope you will support both of these great services through your business and your Premium subscription. For more information, please see the FAQs.

The Xmarks & LastPass Teams

Sources tell me that Index Ventures and Union Square Ventures are leading a “significant” new round for the Berlin-based company. I don’t have a dollar amount, but I’m told that VCs were competing fiercely to get into the three-year-old company, which raised a $3.3 million round from Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures in 2009. The round hasn’t closed yet.

Online music has been a black hole for investors for a very long time. So what’s the attraction here?

In large part, it’s because SoundCloud isn’t dependent on deals with the major music labels. It’s designed to let professional and amateur musicians share their own music with each other and the public, via cloud-based files that the company hosts.

Once the tunes are on SoundCloud’s servers, the service makes it easy to move the stuff around the Web, via its own widget and an API that’s showing up on lots of interesting sites, apps, services and devices, including Facebook and Apple’s iPad. You can load SoundCloud files into Spotify, the streaming music company that Index has also invested in.

The service uses the freemium model, offering most of its capabilities for free, and charging up to $700 a year for more storage and extra features.

You can also use SoundCloud to share music you didn’t create and don’t own–and a “private sharing” option makes it easy to do so discretely. That could leave the service open, theoretically, to copyright claims, a la YouTube.

But so far the company has signed up a million users without attracting the ire of the big labels. And recent court decisions in the Veoh/Universal Music and Google/Viacom cases seem to give user-uploaded services like SoundCloud a lot of legal leeway, at least in the U.S.

I’m told that the company also plans on using Audible Magic’s “fingerprinting” technology, which will make it easier for copyright owners to pull content off the service.

SoundCloud, Index and Union Square all declined to comment.

Here’s an example of SoundCloud at work–a 43-minute (!) mix that Beck has posted to his Web site, which we can also embed here:

Melted Lemons by planned_obsolescence

SoundCloud: The Tour from SoundCloud on Vimeo.

Yesterday marked the end for Xmarks, the Mitch Kapor-backed social bookmarking start-up that was founded in 2006.

What was most remarkable to BoomTown was the classiness and honesty of the goodbye, especially in Silicon Valley, which is loath to call a failure just that.

That was certainly clear in a terrific blog post about its history, titled “End of the Road for Xmarks,” written by its CTO and co-founder Todd Agulnick.

After noting Xmarks’ substantive growth as a browser synchronization service, he wrote:

“Tomorrow, however, will hardly be anything but typical, for tomorrow one of our engineers will start a script that will email each of our users to notify them that we’ll be ceasing operations in around 90 days.”

In the fascinating post, Agulnick did note that the company came close to selling recently. Actually, I heard it had gotten close twice and to no avail.

The San Francisco-based company–which had been called Foxmarks initially–had been seed-funded by Kapor, the well-known tech entrepreneur, and also got an additional investment from First Round Capital.

Xmarks garnered another $5 million in funding from Redpoint Ventures in 2008,

That year, it also hired Silicon Valley entrepreneur James Joaquin as CEO, whose job it was to carve out a business with Xmarks’ assets, including using its mass of data.

Xmarks had certainly been growing its user base and bookmarked Web addresses strongly, via a browser widget that recorded bookmarking information.

Earlier this year, it tried out an advertising product called SearchBoost, which gave advertisers additional analytics about their ads, as well as organic search results.

But all that ultimately did not translate into a viable business model for Xmarks.

At the time of launching this money-making effort in April, Kapor said that after growing its user base of actives, this was the next logical step for Xmarks.

“This is the effort to move from that category to the category of sustainable enterprises,” he said. “And that is certainly a good thing.”

But, as Agulnick concluded:

“We built it and it put it front of potential advertisers. Many were interested, but ultimately the feedback was negative: our user base was too small to be worth their time and attention.”

After thanking investors, employees, users and others, Agulnick ended:

“In the words of Douglas Adams, so long and thanks for all the fish.”

Indeed.

Looking back to happier times, here is a video interview I did with Joaquin in late 2008 about Xmarks’ prospects:

It’s nice to hear enthusiasm on the part of Linkin Park band member Mike Shinoda about an innovative-for-the-music-industry effort to give fans a chance to be part of the iconic Grammy-winning rock band.

That’s because most artists or content creators–while making all the right sounds about the Internet’s impact on their business–often privately cringe at the ongoing flood of user-generated material that has drastically changed the industry.

Not Shinoda, who is certain he will find some real talent via a new online contest, called “Linkin Park, Featuring You,” that gives anyone an opportunity to collaborate with the band to produce an original song based on some of the tracks from the forthcoming single “The Catalyst.”

The song is on Linkin Park’s next album, “A Thousand Suns,” to be released September 14.

“We looked at it as both risky and fun to save a spot on the record that could be just anything,” he said in an interview with BoomTown earlier this week. “It’s creative, lets the fans be heard and, of course, is a great way to promote the album.”

Of course it is, but Shinoda said he is not expecting to have to put any bad-quality music on the record just to sell more music.

“The album could not be any more sacred to us and this is certainly an X-factor, which is kind of a move against the grain for us,” he said. “But the Internet has actually given a lot more people a chance to be heard and, as it has turned out, amateurs are so much better than we ever expected.”

So far, Shinoda said, he has just sampled a few dozen of the thousands of submissions so far, either selecting randomly or via a popularity ranking system the contest uses. He said he’s also using a range of people who are part of the Linkin Park team to filter material.

But, ultimately, Shinoda and his bandmates (pictured here) will pick the winning submission, with either the song to be included on the band’s new album or the winner to be invited to perform with the band on a song on the upcoming record. Either way, a pretty good prize for an aspiring musician.

Shinoda said he is hoping to hear a lot of different sounds from electronic music to keyboards to guitars and even horns (“No one has submitted a horn version so far,” he laughed. “But I hope someone does.”)

Linkin Park is using a group of Internet companies to carry out the massive user-generated effort, including: MySpace Music (platform, promotion and direct fan messaging); Indaba Music (hosting the MySpace application that allows musicians to auto-syndicate their remixes on MySpace); Top Spin Media (using their email for a song widget to deliver audio stems to all participants); and Ning (the back end to Linkin Park’s Web site, where they are also distributing the audio stems to push back to the contest)

There have been remix contests online done before, such as Snoop Dogg’s “That Tree” Remix Contest, which had 8,000 entries and generated a lot of fan interest.

But this effort is clearly more ambitious, perhaps because Shinoda is clearly a techie, with an ongoing interest in filling the Linkin Park Web site with puzzles, games and other interactive features.

In fact, Linkin Park had already conducted a smaller contest for fans to submit designs for characters used in a game the band released in April, called “8-Bit Rebellion,” for the Apple (AAPL) iPod touch, iPhone and iPad. And, after the game was completed by a player, it unlocked a new song, “Blackbirds.”

Shinoda said the band hopes to do even more digitally, trying to involve and engage fans in ways that they never would have tried before.

“There is a huge unknown factor and this is not something we would have done five years ago,’ he said of the latest collaboration contest. “But I am not afraid of my fans being good at music, even if it turns out they are better than me.”

Until a winner is selected, here’s a most excellent music video of my favorite Linkin Park song, “Shadow of the Day,” because I wish I had written the perfect and simple line, “Sometimes beginnings aren’t so simple/Sometimes goodbye’s the only way” (maybe some fan will write something as good):

And here’s a blog post by Sam Wick, SVP of marketing at MySpace Music, about its partnership with Linkin Park:

Linkin Park Wants To Put You on Their New Album

Linkin Park is arguably one of the biggest rock acts in the world with more than seven million fans on MySpace and iLike, two Grammy wins and a boatload of accolades from the music community. So, needless to say, we were more than a little excited to help the band launch their next album, “A Thousand Suns.”

This is a band that’s almost as passionate about social media and technology as they are about the music they create–and they came to MySpace, because we have a proven track record of successfully architecting custom album campaigns that uniquely marry music to innovation on a global scale. With this in mind, we knew we had to do something that not only raises global awareness of the new album, but really plays into the intimate artist-to-fan connection that Linkin Park has been cultivating on our platform for years. And so “Linkin Park, Featuring You” was born–a multi-phase program that each of our 30 territories across the world are rolling out locally.

Linkin Park, Featuring You begins on MySpace with a music application that allows fans to create their own original version of the band’s new single “The Catalyst” and ends with the rare opportunity for one worthy fan to have his or her song stripped onto the next album. SERIOUS. To make this happen, Linkin Park and MySpace Music brought together Topspin Media, Ning and Indaba Music–a true technology trifecta–to allow fans to interact and play with the music before it is even released. Again, SERIOUS.

Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park has this message to share with his fans on MySpace and across the Web:

“In the lifetime of Linkin Park, the evolution of community and music technology has blurred the line between artist and fan. With the release of our new album we want to push it even further and so we are making a commitment to our fans that is a first of its kind: We are blindly dedicating a spot on our new album to something unknown. That space is reserved for you and we’re confident that you will create something that we can be proud to include on “A Thousand Suns.” This is not just a “fan-remix” contest; we want to collaborate with you. This effort is made possible by the global 360 music platform of MySpace, and the dedication and talent of our incredible fans. Thank you. We look forward to hearing your submissions.”

Here’s how it works: By installing the Indaba Music-powered app on MySpace, fans have access to five stems from “The Catalyst” that they can use to re-arrange and re-imagine the song using either their own Digital Audio Workstation or with Indaba’s free, Web-based software. Once submitted, users can vote for their favorite versions and help the band in their quest to identify new talent and ultimately pick a winner.

“Linkin Park, Featuring You” is just the beginning of a much larger partnership between the band and MySpace Music that will provide Linkin Park fans with recognition worldwide with access to live shows, exclusive content and premieres as well as opportunities to connect and interact with the band in ways that only MySpace Music can offer.

Be sure to get your entries in by July 25th and don’t forget to spread the word about the contest to your friends around the world–and go buy the new single on August 2nd.

Social bookmarking start-up Xmarks, which has been growing its user base and bookmarked Web addresses strongly, launched a new advertising product today called SearchBoost, which it hopes will finally give it a viable business model.

Using a tool that displays user ranking and review information from the free synching service, Xmarks Chairman Mitch Kapor said in an interview with BoomTown that the ad offering essentially “decorates” a paid search ad, thereby boosting click-through rates by 15 percent.

Xmarks, which was founded in 2006 and offers a browser widget to record bookmarking information, will also give advertisers additional analytics about their ads, as well as organic search results.

With detailed usage data on over one billion bookmarks rated and reviewed by users, this information will be attached to the end of search results from both Google (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT) Bing on Mozilla’s Firefox and soon, on Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Google’s Chrome browsers.

Xmarks said the service will cost from $29 to $99 a month for advertisers and that it will also offer more elaborate plans.

In the interview, Kapor said the company is simply enabling the addition of existing and valuable information already gleaned from its millions of users and giving advertisers the ability to show it off.

Different colors–which you can see below, with orange for paid and blue for organic results–is used to distinguish between them.

“These reviews show up where they show up and advertisers can’t buy a ranking or a rating,” said Kapor. “If advertisers want to decorate their ads to increase their conversions by showing what users think, that’s a good thing.”

Added Xmarks CEO James Joaquin: “We are allowing advertisers a tool that is already reflecting what the user base is saying is valuable…the real benefit is for brands that already have a high rank to declare that.”

Launching its business model, Kapor added, after growing its user base to four million active users, is the next logical step for Xmarks.

“This is the effort to move from that category to the category of sustainable enterprises,” he said. “And that is certainly a good thing.”

Here is Joaquin’s entire blog post on the move:

Today’s a big day at Xmarks. We’ve launched a new service for search marketers called SearchBoost, designed to increase the performance of paid search ads by displaying relevant Xmarks ratings and reviews next to sponsored links on Google and Bing search result pages. SearchBoost is a premium service with pricing starting at $29 per month.

SearchBoost is the primary business model for Xmarks, allowing us to keep our browser synchronization service completely free. While we obviously devote resources to this business, we’ve also recently launched Xmarks for Chrome and a new Tab Sync feature for Firefox. You can count on us to continue innovating and improving our sync products.

SearchBoost is also a natural extension of our vision for Smarter Search: displaying crowd-sourced ratings and reviews to help users identify the highest quality results on their search page. A small but vocal minority have told us (and may tell us again on this blog ;-) that they’re not interested in this feature. That’s OK with us: we’ve made it very simple to turn the Smarter Search feature off in Xmarks Settings. Many other users have sent us kudos for this important enhancement to web search.

We hope you’ll find ratings and reviews on ads as useful as they are on organic search results. It’s important to note that Xmarks ratings and reviews are completely crowd-sourced from our users. Advertisers cannot pay $ to improve ratings or alter reviews.

Finally, quick shout-outs to our chairman & co-founder Mitch Kapor who has kept us focused on his orginal vision of aggregating bookmarks to improve web search, and Xmarks advisor Eric Ries who helped us think through the early concept stage of what is now SearchBoost.

But TiVo is being squeezed. Cable and satellite companies now offer boxes with DVR capabilities. And other tech companies are rolling out competing set-top boxes to get Internet video to televisions.

TiVo (TIVO) is responding with a new model, the TiVo Premiere, that aims to seamlessly blend programming from conventional TV and the Internet. It is slimmer, has a slicker user interface and holds more recorded programming than earlier models—45 hours of high-definition programs, up from 20 hours in the prior model, the TiVo HD. A more expensive version of the Premiere, the XL, has the same new software and holds 150 hours of HD shows.

I have been testing the new Premiere, and it worked as advertised, with conventional cable programming and with the available Internet sources TiVo (TIVO) supports. But, in my tests, it showed some flaws and, in my view, it doesn’t go nearly far enough in tapping the Internet.

Like prior TiVos, I’d rate the Premiere as better than the standard cable-company-supplied boxes I’ve seen. But, if you already own a recent-model TiVo, I don’t believe the Premiere justifies an upgrade, unless you need the greater built-in storage.

The TiVo Premiere goes on sale Sunday at Best Buy (BBY) stores for $300, plus a monthly fee of $13, or an annual or lifetime payment plan ranging from $129 for a year of service to $399 for the life of the device. The Premiere XL costs $500, plus the same fees. Both will be available Monday at tivo.com.

TiVo calls the Premiere “the One Box,” because it better integrates regular TV and Internet content. However, it actually has no additional Internet services compared with recent TiVo models. It allows you to get movies, TV shows and videos from YouTube, Amazon (AMZN), Netflix (NFLX) and Blockbuster (BBI), which are available on competing set-top boxes. It also includes a number of online music and photo services.

The company says a couple of added Internet services will be available later this year. These include the Pandora streaming music service and a widget system displaying things like news, stock prices and Twitter updates. However, the widgets won’t allow you to interact with Twitter and won’t be viewable while you’re watching TV or Internet video.

The biggest changes in the new Premiere involve the user interface. The TiVo Central screens, where you find and manage recorded shows and other content, are now presented in high definition and wide screen. This allows more menus on a single screen. The screen containing your recorded shows is now called My Shows instead of Now Playing.

You also can now watch TV in a small window while you’re on the menu screens, and there is a 30-second skip button on the remote.

The new TiVo Premiere

Also, a new Browse function lets you look for programming without typing search terms, by scrolling through colorful icons that include “collections” of related content, such as Oscar or Emmy winners.

Both Search and Browse now integrate regular TV shows with Internet content. If you start typing letters into the search box, TiVo will respond not only with TV shows that match, but with movies and TV shows that you can download from Web sources. You can also easily find YouTube clips related to a favorite show.

A new Discovery Bar of icons appears across the top of the Tivo Central screens. It’s filled with icons of TV shows and available Web content TiVo thinks you might like.

But there are some big downsides to the Premiere. You can’t watch videos on popular sites like Hulu (owed in part by News Corp., which owns The Wall Street Journal and its Web sites), CBS.com, blogs or news Web sites. This may be partly due to media-company restrictions, not TiVo’s shortcomings, but it means the Premiere omits vast sources of Internet video.

The new HD interface was slower than the old standard one in my tests, with frequent delays, even in scrolling through a list of recorded shows. TiVo says this is a bug being fixed.

In addition, I found the Discovery Bar a distraction, cluttering the menu screens, with no way to turn it off unless you revert to the old interface (a buried option.) This is partly because TiVo hopes to sell ads on the bar.

Finally, the new HD interface isn’t available when watching live TV. You have to constantly bounce between the new and old software designs.

All in all, TiVo Premiere looks incomplete. It seems more like a platform for a future set of offerings TiVo hopes one day to have, rather than a way to deliver new content right now.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free of charge, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100324/new-tivo-mixes-tv-and-internet-but-falls-short/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100223/julius-genachowski-at-d8/ http://allthingsd.com/20100223/julius-genachowski-at-d8/#comments Tue, 23 Feb 2010 11:42:37 +0000 Kara Swisher http://d8.allthingsd.com/?p=286 The Federal Communications Commission–the regulatory ruler of all kinds of waves, from air to digital–is now ferreting away on a plan to get Americans better hooked up to the Internet, part of a newish government push to digitize this country.

It is set to be released next month and is a long, long time coming, of course, as the U.S. badly lags the rest of the world in high-speed Web access.

The plan will be the big first move by new FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski (pictured here), the longtime Internet exec who has just accepted our invite to appear as a speaker at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference in June.

There will be a lot to talk about with Genachowski, including the report the FCC is releasing today titled “Broadband Adoption and Use in America,” penned by John Horrigan.

The 52-page opus–which you can read in its entirety below–is the first of a series of working papers based on an FCC survey last fall.

It outlines a mostly wired country–as you can see from the detailed chart below (click to make it larger)–with two-thirds having some sort of broadband connection. On average, they pay $41 for that sometimes dubious privilege.

Incredibly, six percent of Americans still use dial-up access and four percent have no broadband at home at all.

Not surprisingly, poor people access the Web a lot less, although longtime gaps among races is closing, with African-Americans and Hispanics gaining in usage and access.

And what do people like to do? Well, for one, they prefer to socialize rather than watch stuff.

And they are becoming more digitally literate, with 61 percent understanding the words “reload” or “refresh.” Still, only 16 percent understand one of Silicon Valley’s favorite terms, “widget.”

Of the third without broadband access, or nonadopters, the FCC splits them into four categories.

The “Digitally Distant” make up 10 percent of the general population, finding the Internet, simply put, useless.

But eight percent are “Digital Hopefuls,” who “like the idea of being online, but lack the resources to connect using broadband.” As in, it is too expensive.

The “Digitally Uncomfortable”–also known as “BoomTown’s mother and Twitter nemesis”–are essentially afraid of having to understand what a widget means.

Finally, 10 percent are “Near Converts,” just one price point away from signing up.

Here is the full report embedded below, as well as one of two highlights videos from an interview Walt Mossberg and I did at D6 with former FCC Chairman Kevin Martin in May 2008.

In it, we harangued Martin about all these issues, using a whole lot of charts showing how the U.S. had very poor but very pricey access.

As you might imagine, we are super looking forward to having Genachowski onstage at D8!

FCCSurvey –

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100223/julius-genachowski-at-d8/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100223/new-fcc-report-reaching-the-digitally-distant-but-digital-hopefuls-too-well-ask-head-julius-genachowski-about-it-and-more-at-d8/ http://allthingsd.com/20100223/new-fcc-report-reaching-the-digitally-distant-but-digital-hopefuls-too-well-ask-head-julius-genachowski-about-it-and-more-at-d8/#comments Tue, 23 Feb 2010 12:42:09 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=24696 The Federal Communications Commission–the regulatory ruler of all kinds of waves, from air to digital–is now ferreting away on a plan to get Americans better hooked up to the Internet, part of a newish government push to digitize this country.

It is set to be released next month and is a long, long time coming, of course, as the U.S. badly lags the rest of the world in high-speed Web access.

The plan will be the big first move by new FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski (pictured here), the longtime Internet exec who has just accepted our invite to appear as a speaker at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference in June.

There will be a lot to talk about with Genachowski, including the report the FCC is releasing today titled “Broadband Adoption and Use in America,” penned by John Horrigan.

The 52-page opus–which you can read in its entirety below–is the first of a series of working papers based on an FCC survey last fall.

It outlines a mostly wired country–as you can see from the detailed chart below (click to make it larger)–with two-thirds having some sort of broadband connection. On average, they pay $41 for that sometimes dubious privilege.

Incredibly, six percent of Americans still use dial-up access and four percent have no broadband at home at all.

Not surprisingly, poor people access the Web a lot less, although longtime gaps among races is closing, with African-Americans and Hispanics gaining in usage and access.

And what do people like to do? Well, for one, they prefer to socialize rather than watch stuff.

And they are becoming more digitally literate, with 61 percent understanding the words “reload” or “refresh.” Still, only 16 percent understand one of Silicon Valley’s favorite terms, “widget.”

Of the third without broadband access, or nonadopters, the FCC splits them into four categories.

The “Digitally Distant” make up 10 percent of the general population, finding the Internet, simply put, useless.

But eight percent are “Digital Hopefuls,” who “like the idea of being online, but lack the resources to connect using broadband.” As in, it is too expensive.

The “Digitally Uncomfortable”–also known as “BoomTown’s mother and Twitter nemesis”–are essentially afraid of having to understand what a widget means.

Finally, 10 percent are “Near Converts,” just one price point away from signing up.

Here is the full report embedded below, as well as one of two highlights videos from an interview Walt Mossberg and I did at D6 with former FCC Chairman Kevin Martin in May 2008.

In it, we harangued Martin about all these issues, using a whole lot of charts showing how the U.S. had very poor but very pricey access.

As you might imagine, we are super looking forward to having Genachowski onstage at D8!

FCCSurvey –

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100223/new-fcc-report-reaching-the-digitally-distant-but-digital-hopefuls-too-well-ask-head-julius-genachowski-about-it-and-more-at-d8/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100126/actual-news-on-earnings-call-yahoo-disables-annoying-hover-tool-on-home-page-restructures-international-set-up/ http://allthingsd.com/20100126/actual-news-on-earnings-call-yahoo-disables-annoying-hover-tool-on-home-page-restructures-international-set-up/#comments Tue, 26 Jan 2010 23:18:35 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=23589

News was actually committed during Yahoo’s fourth-quarter earnings conference call today when CEO Carol Bartz noted that the company would disable its irksome “hover interaction” on the homepage and that the Internet giant has restructured its international business.

Yahoo (YHOO) reported results earlier today that slightly exceeded expectations in the fourth quarter, but it was no blowout.

Said a Yahoo spokeswoman in an email to BoomTown about dumping the hover:

“We are in the process of making a change to the hover interaction and it should be live in all markets that have the new homepage by late tonight. To give people more control over their experience, we are adding the ability to select from either a ‘hover’ or ‘click’ interaction for activating previews of apps in the My Favorites section. The default setting will be a click interaction, but people can also use a hover interaction by selecting that option as their default preference. You should see this change on your own homepage very soon.”

The hover feature, while initially touted as giving users easy access to widgets on the homepage, has been widely decried by advertisers because it essentially covers other ads at the top of the page, which are Yahoo’s most lucrative inventory.

Also, simply put, the hover is super-annoying.

Back in July when Yahoo rolled out the new homepage design, though, the company was high on the hover. (You can see it in action below; click on the image to make it larger.)

This was the most striking change in the homepage overhaul, in fact, featuring a prominent My Favorites area on the left side with dozens of specially designed applications–email, stocks and third-party sites like Facebook, among others–that users could customize and view through quick hovering glimpses.

Advertising popped up when hovering over the apps, which was Yahoo’s solution to the alternative of sending users away from the site when they clicked the apps.

In addition, Bartz said in the call that Yahoo’s international operations would be rejiggered, after an ultimately fruitless search for a new head of the unit. Bartz said she had not been able to find a qualified exec to run international, so she decided to change the set-up.

International ops will be reduced from four regions to three–Americas; Europe, Middle East, Africa; and Asia Pacific–with Emerging Markets tucked into them.

They will report to Bartz directly–with current Emerging Markets head Keith Nilsson taking the job of Global Initiatives SVP, also reporting to her.

Wrote another Yahoo spokeswoman:

“Yahoo! has reorganized our regions to strengthen focus on emerging countries, and to align company-wide resources and expertise against the company’s vision to be the center of people’s online lives. Effective April 1, the structure will be made up of three regions: The Americas, EMEA and APAC. Our Emerging Markets region, formerly separate, will be absorbed into these new regions to better support our work in countries with large and growing Internet populations. Yahoo! is making a further commitment to its global customers with the creation of a Global Initiatives SVP, reporting directly to Carol Bartz, CEO, focused on supporting global relationships and alliances.”

Rose Tsou heads up APAC, Rich Riley runs EMEA and Hilary Schneider helms the Americas.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100126/actual-news-on-earnings-call-yahoo-disables-annoying-hover-tool-on-home-page-restructures-international-set-up/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100119/connecting-with-your-inner-earpiece/ http://allthingsd.com/20100119/connecting-with-your-inner-earpiece/#comments Wed, 20 Jan 2010 00:17:22 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://solution.allthingsd.com/?p=1023 Apps are hot. These are the small programs that can be installed on a digital gadget to get it to do more than what it did when you bought it. Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone and iPod Touch are the best app platforms right now thanks to the company’s App Store, which offers an estimated 125,000 apps. Research in Motion (RIMM), Android, and Palm (PALM) devices also work with apps.

But why should smart phones have all the fun? Yahoo (YHOO) Connected TVs from Samsung, LG (LG), Sony (SNE), and Vizio allow people to load app-like “widgets”—including Facebook, Twitter, weather and stock quotes—onto their big-screen TVs. And GPS navigation devices take advantage of apps for information on fuel prices and traffic.

This week, I tested a Bluetooth earpiece that also can be made smarter with apps: Aliph’s $100 Jawbone Icon (http://us.jawbone.com). Like many other wireless earpieces, it connects to your Bluetooth-enabled phone so you can talk, hands-free. Unlike other Bluetooth earpieces, the Jawbone Icon can be plugged into a computer and loaded with different settings and apps. This works using Aliph’s Web-based software platform called MyTalk (http://mytalk.jawbone.com) and some apps enable more than hands-free talking.

For now, there are only two apps that truly expand the functionality of the earpiece, in my opinion. But MyTalk is a good start in making this tiny Bluetooth device more sophisticated and encouraging more hands-free productivity.

The idea of connecting an earpiece to a PC is helpful in two respects. First, it turns the Jawbone into a dynamic product that can be updated and enhanced over time, rather than never changing from the day you buy it. Second, it lets users more easily adjust the settings of a device that’s too tiny to have its own screen, thus eliminating the need for more confusing buttons on the device. Over time, these earpieces could become even simpler and smaller as more of their settings are adjusted on the computer.

Since the Jawbone Icon and its MyTalk software platform launched this week, only five “dial apps” and 10 “audio apps” are available for synching to the earpiece. The former are apps that perform functions by dialing out on your phone, like hands-free text messaging; the latter are settings to adjust the voice making announcements in your ear, like telling you that the battery needs charging. As of now, only one of each app category can be synched onto the Jawbone Icon at any given time. Aliph plans to make the Icon capable of simultaneously running multiple apps sometime this year.

If you ever used one of the earlier Jawbone models and thought you weren’t hip enough to remember how its hidden earpiece buttons worked, the Jawbone Icon’s refreshingly simple design will bring a sigh of relief. It uses two easily detected controls. One is an obvious button on the top of the earpiece that controls the earpiece’s functions. The other is a tiny on/off switch on the inside surface that couldn’t be easier to use.

The Ace model personified

The Icon comes in six models with catchy names that match the “persona” of the audio apps: The Hero, The Rogue, The Ace, The Catch, The Thinker and The Bombshell—each literally has its own distinct voice. Each device weighs less and has a wider and shorter design than previous Jawbones. The Icons come in shades of black, silver, white, red and gold, depending on the model’s persona, and resemble handsome jewelry.

Each earpiece has a short, gray bendable USB connector that allows for easy access to a PC’s USB port. This is used for synching and charging the earpiece, though a separate wall charger also comes in the box.

I tested my Jawbone Icon by plugging it into both an Apple MacBook Pro and a Dell (DELL) running Windows 7. I logged onto http://mytalk.jawbone.com and requested an invitation to use the MyTalk software by sending Aliph my email since it’s still in a “private beta” or experimental phase. You’ll have to do the same until MyTalk comes out of its private beta stage sometime in the next few months.

After setting up an account using my email and a password, I followed on-screen instructions to get started with synching apps to my earpiece.

MyTalk’s dial apps include five programs that help you do more with your voice, so you don’t need to look down to type on a mobile device. Once synched with your Jawbone Icon, the app will activate as soon as you press and hold the earpiece button.

For now, only two of the five dial apps are really helpful for the headset: Jott and Dial2Do. Both let people use their voice to send themselves reminders, send tweets on Twitter, and send text messages—assuming the programs correctly interpret what is dictated. I had pretty good luck with this, though one test of the text-messaging function thought I said “needle” when I really said “noodle” and another interpreted “blinds” as “blind.”

Of the two, I found Dial2Do a little easier to use. Its Basic Account is free but is limited to sending yourself reminders, while a Pro Account costs $40 a year or $3.99 a month, and offers social-networking, emailing and text-messaging, among other things. Jott can only be used free for one week, but requires a credit-card number for signing up and will charge $2.95 a month after the trial week is over.

MyTalk’s remaining three dial apps aren’t too exciting: “Directory Assistance 411″ and “Voice Dial,” a feature that only works if your phone has built-in voice-dial capability, which most do now. Another app called 1-800-FREE411 lets users get 411 information without being charged carrier fees.

MyTalk’s audio apps include six playful voices, three in different languages (German, Spanish and French) and one plain, unaccented English voice. Each of the playful voices has a coinciding photo and name when you’re picking settings on the Web site. One called “The Bombshell” is represented by an attractive, blonde woman who speaks in a sexy voice. A voice called “The Rogue” says, “I am ready for my assignment,” when the earpiece is turned on. During most of my testing, I kept my Jawbone Icon set on “The Ace,” represented by a woman with a smart British accent who said, “They can wait,” when I declined calls.

The chosen audio app voice speaks every so often, like when the device is turned on, when you query the headset’s remaining battery life (an indicator light also tells you the remaining charge), when an incoming call is received or when you turn the headset off. But the Voice Dial app uses the standard voice that comes with your device’s voice-dialing capability—not the fun audio app voice you’ve chosen.

Another downside to the headset is that it isn’t yet able to tell you the name of whoever is calling even if you have them as a contact in your phone; instead, it only reads the phone number aloud. If you’re like me, you don’t know have many numbers memorized anymore, so this isn’t helpful. Instead, it forced me to look at my phone for the caller ID, defeating the purpose of a hands-free earpiece. Aliph hopes to fix this problem within a year.

The Jawbone Icon is the first earpiece to use a software platform for adding apps, and MyTalk makes synching easy. Although Aliph plans to offer more apps and software updates for the Jawbone Icon (and subsequent devices), there will likely always be some activities that are simply too difficult to perform using voice alone. But MyTalk is a good first step toward making the Bluetooth earpiece more useful.

Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100119/connecting-with-your-inner-earpiece/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100105/nexus-on/ http://allthingsd.com/20100105/nexus-on/#comments Tue, 05 Jan 2010 18:17:17 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=31612

“Q: So if this is not the GPhone, when will we see the GPhone, and what will it be?

Eric Schmidt: We’re not announcing anything, but this is the platform for building a GPhone. It starts a whole wave of innovation…

Q: Does that mean there will be NO Google phone you can buy?

ES: Imagine not just one GPhone, but a thousand GPhones as a result of the partnerships…the many other people who will be joining the open initiative. We forgot to tell you that it’s available next week, and the terms are the broadest in the industry.

Q: …GPhone?

ES: We are not announcing a Google phone.

Q: Eric, I want to go back to the GPhone–what’s the deal?

ES: The deal is we don’t pre-announce products….If there were to be a Gphone, it would run Android.”

– Google CEO Eric Schmidt during a Nov. 2007 conference call on Android

During an Android demo in April 2008, Steve Horowitz, one of the original engineers working on Google’s Android platform, said “I’m here to tell you there is actually no GPhone,” echoing a similar point made by Google CEO Eric Schmidt when the operating system was announced. Now, not two years later, Google is telling us something different: There is a GPhone and its name is Nexus One.

At an event at Google’s (GOOG) Mountain View, Calif., headquarters this morning, a handful of company execs discussed the genesis of the Nexus One, tracing its evolution from the G1–the first Android phone–to the Verizon (VZ) Droid. In the short time since Android was launched, the number of devices running it has grown to 20, offered by 59 carriers in 48 countries.

“To help Android to adapt to the needs of users like you and me, our engineering department sometimes works with partners to speed innovation around Android,” Mario Queiroz, VP of Product Management, said during opening remarks. “But we want to do more. So we asked ourselves, ‘What if we worked even more closely with our partners to bring devices to market that will help us better showcase some of the technology we’ve developed?’”

The result: Nexus One. “The dictionary definition of Nexus One is a point of convergence. Its that point at which Web meets phone,” Queiroz explains. “The Nexus One belongs in an emerging category of devices we call superphones.”

Eric Tseng, a senior Google product manager, takes the stage to walk through Nexus One’s features, which we’re now all pretty familiar with: 3.7-inch active-matrix organic LED display, 1GHz Snapdragon processor, five-megapixel camera with LED flash, a trackball with a multicolor notification LED, light and proximity sensors that save power.

The device is 11.5 millimeters thick and weighs about 130 grams, which Tseng notes is no heavier than a keychain-size Swiss Army knife. Nexus One runs on Android 2.1, a.k.a. “Eclair.” Oh, it also offers “support” for personalization–engrave your name or that of a loved one on the back.

That’s the baseline offering, but there are other enhancements. Among them: Five home-screen panels that allow users to add more widgets, like Google’s GPS weather widget, which is evidently very exciting and “Googley.”

Another enhancement: “Living wallpapers,” dynamic, animated home-screen images–leaves falling on water, for example; tap the screen and the water ripples. Neat feature, but not exactly a killer app.

Also onboard: A photo-gallery app developed with the folks at Cool Iris and tricked out with some pretty slick 3-D viewing. Tip the phone and the photos recede, etc.

Finally, Google has developed some significant voice enhancements. Evidently, the company has voice-enabled all text fields on the device. “Now, we can speak our tweets and Facebook status updates,” says Tseng.

All in all, an impressive device. Be sure to read Walt Mossberg’s review for a more in-depth look at Nexus One.

So how do you get your hands on a Google superphone? Through a “Google-hosted Web Store,” says Queiroz. You can buy a phone with service from a carrier partner, or without service.

A Nexus One without service goes for $529. For $179, you can buy it from T-Mobile with service. In the spring, you’ll be able to buy it from–surprise!–Verizon Wireless (VZ) and Vodafone (VOD).

Transactions will be handled by Google Checkout, so if you’re a Google Account holder, purchasing the device should be fairly simple.

One last point worth noting here: Queiroz stresses that the Nexus One is the first of a number of products developed via this new collaborative process with partners. “Our plan is to add more carriers and more devices in the future,” he says.

Ah. As Eric Schmidt said back in 2007, “Imagine not just one GPhone, but a thousand GPhones as a result of the partnerships.”

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE Q&A:

• Nexus Ones ordered from T-Mobile ship today.
• Google is the merchant of record. When you buy a Nexus One, you buy it from Google.
• Why was it necessary for Google to design the Nexus One? Google didn’t really design the phone. “HTC did, Google is just merchandising it.”
• Android 2.1 will be available for Droid and other Android devices soon.
• Google’s Web Store is “simply another distribution channel.” It is not designed to replace or disintermediate carriers or mobile phone retailers.
• Queiroz on the Google Web Store program: “If users are interested in a different form factor and our software supports it, we’ll pursue it. We’re going to look at different options of devices that can be added to the program. We will consider other mobile phones.”
• Andy Rubin, VP, Engineering: “Today’s superphone is tomorrow’s smartphone.”
• Question from Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land: “Where is the ad-supported mobile phone? Where’s the revolution?” Sadly, Rubin dodges. Gotta take a first step before you can change the world…blah lah blah.
• How do superphones differ from smartphones? Rubin: “It’s just the evolution of the platform….It’s the greater memory, the faster processors….The Nexus One is as powerful as your laptop was four years ago.”
• Question for Motorola’s (MOT) Sanjay Jha: Is Motorola worried that Nexus One will cannibalize Droid sales? Jha says no, and his presence here today supports that. Still it’s tough to believe him. Maybe Motorola and Google are already working on Nexus Two.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100105/nexus-on/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091214/exclusive-myspace-eyes-flixster-for-acquisition/ http://allthingsd.com/20091214/exclusive-myspace-eyes-flixster-for-acquisition/#comments Tue, 15 Dec 2009 01:12:11 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=21949

[UPDATED]

Now that the digital equivalent of a super-vac, MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta, has sucked up some decent music start-ups–Imeem and iLike–for a song, to bolster the social networking site’s efforts to expand into an entertainment portal, what’s next?

According to several sources, the News Corp. (NWS) unit has turned its omnivorous attentions to Flixster, the popular social networking site for movies.

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. 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.

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

A MySpace spokeswoman declined to comment at the moment.

In 2007, the start-up was close to being acquired by IAC/InteractiveCorp (IACI) for $100 million, several sources said. But the deal went south when CEO Barry Diller changed his mind at the last minute.

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.

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

While Amazon (AMZN) unit IMDb (Internet Movie Database) is still larger in terms of traffic, the more innovative Flixster has been growing much faster and is more social, which makes it attractive to MySpace, sources said.

More important is the mobile growth. Flixster is the No. 1 movie app on Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone and leads on other smartphones too.

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

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091214/exclusive-myspace-eyes-flixster-for-acquisition/feed/ 11 http://allthingsd.com/20091204/almost-famous-sprouts-matthew-mcneely/ http://allthingsd.com/20091204/almost-famous-sprouts-matthew-mcneely/#comments Sat, 05 Dec 2009 02:17:16 +0000 Drake Martinet http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=18699 A feature wherein All Things Digital looks at up-and-coming and innovative start-ups you should know about.

This week: A virtual visit with, some questions for and a few pertinent stats about Matthew McNeely and Sprout, the build-it-yourself Flash tool that lets anyone create customized Web site widgets.

Who: Matthew McNeely

What: VP of Engineering, Sprout.

Why: Sprout is a Web-based, WYSIWYG Flash editor that allows individuals and businesses to build customized content that can be embedded on their own sites. Sprout’s creations (known as “sprouts”) are also frequently incorporated into social media campaigns.

Where: Sproutinc.com (corporate bio); San Francisco, although Matthew says the team is “truly distributed,” as he lives in New Hampshire (analog); Facebook Fan Page (Yes, you can write on its wall); @Sprout (Twitter).

Who else: Slide; SlideRocket. But, “not too many that focus on branding the way we do.”

---

Five Stats You Won’t Find in His Facebook Profile

Worst Job: I grew up in Indiana, and, in the summers, I would de-tassel corn.

Has a Geek Crush on: I’m gonna get letters from all my Apple (AAPL) friends for saying this: Bill Gates of Microsoft (MSFT).

Gadget of the Moment: I finally got an iPhone, but I got it for $50, refurb.

Tech Wish: I wish I could build a sprout for my iPhone, but that means it would need to run Flash.

Fails at: I’m not a very good communicator, and every once in a while I catch myself closing up and not communicating with the [Sprout] team the way I need to.

---

Bio in 140 Characters

Shares a hometown w/James Dean. Picked corn until he got his first computer. Was a software engineer/consultant before moving to Sprout.

---

The Five Questions

What does Sprout bring to the table that others don’t?

At the most basic level, it’s about the speed. Before Sprout, you really needed to understand Flash and the sort of movie metaphor that it puts out in order to use it. Now, it’s much faster. If you know PowerPoint, you can use our product.

We also have a big push in the social networking space. That’s unique to us. If you are looking to put out a really rich media campaign on a social network, there’s no better service. You can also change things on the fly. Someone in the ad department can say, “Hey, this ad isn’t working.” And you can change it in five minutes, and it’s back up.

Who isn’t using Sprout, but should?

I can think of two examples. One would be, say, a yoga instructor who was also tech savvy. She could build up a quick shell of a Web presence with Sprout and sell it to other yogis who just want to give classes, but still have a nice, clean, updated Web site.

The second thing would be a porn sprout. That’s one industry that could really benefit from our technology, but just hasn’t yet. I mean, imagine, video clips and little libraries. We’ve seen some slightly suggestive things come across the bow, but no one has really gone all the way yet. I really hope you print that.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: A Sprout spokesman wanted to make sure readers knew that McNeely was kidding here, of course. Sprout's terms of service forbid such a use of its technology.]

Is there a formula for an attention-grabbing Sprout widget?

It’s different in every industry. Overall, a little animation and really good-looking graphics help. But, when it comes to engagement, we do have some idea.

It has to be contextually relevant [in the social media space], your friends should be fans of this Facebook page [for it to become popular], stuff like that. I mean, with good design, you can get someone like this guy from Des Moines who has basically cornered the market on real estate widgets.

Who should buy Sprout?

You mean besides Google? Seriously, though, we do work with Google (GOOG) quite a bit, and I’d love to see us become the small- to medium-size business ad-building tool for them.

Most real geeks have memories where they saw something new and said to themselves, “Dang, I love living in the future.” What’s yours?

My brother and I got this old North Star computer at this garage sale or something, and I programmed through the night to get this thing to predict, you know, randomize lottery numbers. I never won anything, of course, but I was just so enamored by it.

That kinda got me hooked into the notion that you can work on something and lose yourself in it.

---

The In Living Color Interview

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091204/almost-famous-sprouts-matthew-mcneely/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091116/qualcomms-ceo-paul-jacobs-talks-about-smartbooks-and-more/ http://allthingsd.com/20091116/qualcomms-ceo-paul-jacobs-talks-about-smartbooks-and-more/#comments Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:36:52 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=20615

When in San Diego recently, BoomTown paid a visit to Qualcomm and its Chairman and CEO, Paul Jacobs, to talk about a new “smartbook” device the wireless-technology company unveiled last week.

Well, sort of–while I got a gander at a prototype, the real one is not actually set to debut until the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show in January, where Jacobs will deliver his first keynote address.

There, he will show off what is essentially a combination of a smartphone and a netbook using wireless technology and an always-on capability, an attempt to push yet another innovative device type onto the market.

It will use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chip, and the first ones will be made by Lenovo and offered by AT&T (T)–to try to get the device widely used by consumers.

Smartbooks will be videocentric and have a Linux-based user interface, a keyboard and a range of popular widget applications, such as email and Facebook.

Obviously, this will be a competitive market and, really, Apple (AAPL), with its upcoming tablet computer, is also pushing into this mobile-phone-that-ate-computers space.

Moving into new markets has been important for Jacobs and Qualcomm (QCOM), which recently gave fiscal-year forecasts under Wall Street expectations and has had a rocky time in recent quarters.

Along with the econalypse, the company has attributed this to the decline in handsets with CDMA wireless technology, which Qualcomm pioneered.

Here’s my interview with Jacobs about smartbooks, as well as augmented reality and the company’s new FLO TV device, coming out soon. Plus, a wireless bandaid!:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091116/qualcomms-ceo-paul-jacobs-talks-about-smartbooks-and-more/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20091104/motorolas-droid-is-smart-success-for-verizon-users/ http://allthingsd.com/20091104/motorolas-droid-is-smart-success-for-verizon-users/#comments Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:10:06 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://ptech.allthingsd.com/?p=1069 Verizon Wireless customers tend to love the company’s fast 3G network. But many tech-oriented Verizon loyalists gripe about the carrier’s high-end smart phones, which haven’t matched the cachet and versatility of the Apple iPhone sold by AT&T (T). In fact, some Verizon customers have switched to AT&T simply to get an iPhone.

But this week, Verizon (VZ) is rolling out a device that finally gives it a more credible alternative. This new $200 phone is the Motorola Droid and it’s the first Verizon model to run Google’s (GOOG) Android smart-phone operating system. I’ve been testing the Droid, and while it has some significant drawbacks, I regard it as a success overall. It’s the best super-smart phone Verizon offers, the best Motorola (MOT) phone I’ve tested and the best hardware so far to run Android. I can recommend the Droid to Verizon loyalists who have lusted for a better smart phone, but don’t want to switch networks.

Like the iPhone, the Droid is really a powerful hand-held computer that happens to make phone calls, and is a platform for numerous third-party programs, or apps. Currently, Android offers over 12,000 apps. That is just a fraction of the 100,000 apps available for the iPhone, but it’s well above what the newer BlackBerry or Palm (PALM) phones offer.

The Droid is also the first phone that runs the 2.0 version of Android, which sands off some of the rough edges of Google’s platform and adds some features—notably, a free voice-prompted turn-by-turn navigation program. Android still isn’t as slick or fluid as the iPhone’s OS, in my view, but it has some functionality Apple (AAPL) omits, including the ability to run multiple third-party apps simultaneously.

The Droid is a handsome, squared-off device with a gorgeous, huge, high-resolution screen, bigger and sharper than the iPhone’s. There’s also a slide-out physical keyboard. It’s only a tad longer and thicker than the Apple product. But it’s 25% heavier, which makes it less comfortable to carry around in a pocket.

The Droid also has a higher-resolution camera than the iPhone’s: five megapixels versus three megapixels. And the camera has a flash, which the Apple lacks. In my tests, pictures came out OK, though not dazzling, and videos I shot were quite good.

Motorola’s Droid

The Droid’s large 3.7-inch screen looked great, but it lacks multitouch features, such as two-finger zooming, and it seemed less responsive than some other touch screens I’ve tested.

Battery life is listed at a whopping 6.4 hours, and, in my tests, the Droid easily lasted through the day on a single charge. Phone calls were crisp and clear, and I never suffered a dropped call. Verizon’s network was speedy and reliable for Web surfing, email and social networking. I copied some songs and videos onto the Droid by plugging it into a computer, and all played properly.

The Droid, whose $200 price comes only after a $100 mail-in rebate, requires a minimum $70 monthly service plan for two years, and text messaging costs extra. It comes with 16 gigabytes of memory, in the form of a removable card, and can handle up to a 32-gigabyte card.

Unfortunately for lovers of physical keyboards, I found the one on the Droid to be pretty awful. It has flat, cramped keys that induce too many typing errors, yet lacks auto-correction. I found myself using the virtual on-screen keyboard, which was pretty fast and accurate for me, and did include auto-correction.

Another downside: The Droid’s screen has only three panels for displaying apps, versus 11 on the iPhone, and some large apps, called widgets, hog much of the space on these panels.

Like the Palm Pre, the Droid tries to integrate social networking with contacts, though in a more limited way. It handles Google’s Gmail and Facebook, as well as Microsoft Exchange for corporate email and data. A nice feature lets you tap a contact’s picture and get instant options for ways to communicate.

The Droid can do some cool tricks with a couple of $30 optional docks, one for the car and one for the desk or nightstand. When placed in the car dock, the phone automatically displays a horizontal view with large buttons, including one for the built-in navigation system. In my tests, this navigation system worked pretty well, even showing photos of certain intersections. But it also gave me a couple of bad directions, such as sending me the wrong way at a fork in the road.

When placed in the desktop dock, the Droid displays the time and a different row of large icons from when it’s in the car dock, including music and an alarm clock.

I ran into one odd flaw with my test Droid, and with a second test unit tried by a colleague. Neither could send a photo via multimedia messaging to either my iPhone or her BlackBerry. Verizon was able to send pictures this way to my iPhone from other Droids, and it suspects some flaw in our test units.

The Droid is potentially a big win for Verizon, Motorola and Google, as well as for loyal Verizon customers.

Find Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091104/motorolas-droid-is-smart-success-for-verizon-users/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091014/the-cliq-storm2-join-long-parade-of-iphone-threats/ http://allthingsd.com/20091014/the-cliq-storm2-join-long-parade-of-iphone-threats/#comments Thu, 15 Oct 2009 02:02:09 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20091014/the-cliq-storm2-join-long-parade-of-iphone-threats/ (See Correction & Amplification below.)

It’s raining smart phones. No, make that super-smart phones, the type of hand-held computer, like Apple’s iPhone or the models powered by Google’s Android software, that browse the Web well, have sophisticated communication functions and are made to run a wide variety of modern third-party apps. This holiday season, new super-smart phone models seem to be appearing weekly.

So far, the king of this new field, in my view, remains its pioneer, the iPhone. Apple’s phone has its limitations, but its design, usability and versatility have kept it ahead. There’s a well-equipped iPhone model available for as little as $99, and the platform offers a staggering 85,000 downloadable apps. By comparison, there are around 10,000 apps for Android, 3,000 for the newer models of the Research in Motion (RIMM) BlackBerry, a few hundred modern apps for phones running the latest versions of Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows Mobile software, and even fewer than that for Palm’s (PALM) Pre and its soon-to-be released little sibling, the Pixi.

But nobody is conceding the game to Apple (AAPL). A flood of new Android models is upon us, and RIM, which has a fanatical following for its BlackBerry models, is still potent despite the disappointment surrounding its first touch-screen model, the Storm.

Motorola CLIQ

I’ve been testing two new contenders, and both represent second chances of sorts. One is the revised version of the BlackBerry Storm, called the Storm2, from Verizon (VZ). The other is the first super-smart phone from Motorola, the fading former phone leader. It’s an Android-based model called the CLIQ, which will be offered by T-Mobile.

Here’s a quick look at these two new pocket computers.

Motorola CLIQ

The CLIQ is a hefty slider phone, with a touch screen on top and a slide-out physical keyboard underneath. It has a smaller screen than the iPhone or Storm, and comes with just two gigabytes of memory versus 16 gigabytes for the $199 iPhone. But the CLIQ claims six hours of talk time, an hour more than Apple’s device, and, unlike the iPhone, it has a removable battery and expandable memory. It also has a higher-resolution camera—five megapixels versus three megapixels.

It boasts all of the standard Android features. But what sets the CLIQ apart is that it’s built around the idea of consolidating all your communications and social networking, and making them easy to access. Motorola (MOT) does this with special software called Blur, part of which exists on the device itself and part on a special Motorola-run server.

Blur takes the form of special on-screen widgets. One constantly displays your own status on various services, such as Facebook and Twitter. Another, called Happenings, shows your friends’ latest updates on social-networking services, without requiring you to enter separate apps. A third, called Messages, offers a quick snapshot of current emails and text messages from all your accounts. Each entry in your address book also displays the person’s social-networking status and information.

In my tests, all of these Blur features worked nicely and proved handy, except that I couldn’t get it to consolidate both of my Gmail accounts.

My biggest gripe was with the physical keyboard, which I found cramped and hard to use. The top row is too close to the bottom of the screen and, on the bottom row, I kept hitting the symbols key when I was aiming for “M” or “N.” So I found myself constantly resorting to the virtual on-screen keyboard, which worked pretty well.

BlackBerry Storm2

The original Storm, RIM’s first phone without a physical keyboard, didn’t convert droves of traditional BlackBerry lovers. This was partly because it had an odd typing mechanism where the whole screen moved with each tap on the virtual keyboard. Also, the phone lacked Wi-Fi and, when held vertically, the device offered only a cramped on-screen keyboard with multiple letters on each key.

BlackBerry’s Storm2

The Storm2 fixes all those flaws. The screen now stays still when tapped, providing tactile feedback electronically instead of mechanically. This allows for faster, smoother typing. The new model also has Wi-Fi. And you can now use a full, albeit squeezed, virtual keyboard in vertical mode.

In addition, while the dimensions haven’t changed, the Storm2 looks sleeker and has a few user interface refinements, like an on-screen Send button.

Overall, I found the Storm2 worked well in my tests. Battery life was decent, with 5.5 hours of claimed talk time, and typing was much improved, though I doubt it will satisfy lovers of physical keyboards.

The browser is still inferior to Apple’s, Google’s and Palm’s. And the traditional BlackBerry interface cries out for a major overhaul in a touch device like this, especially when you add a lot of apps. RIM’s menu and folder metaphor seems tired on this device.

Verizon hasn’t set a launch date or price for the Storm2, but it’s likely to appear in November at around $200.

The super-smart-phone war is still in its early stages. There are more and even better devices on the way, and Apple will have plenty of clever competition.

Corrections & Amplifications

The Motorola CLIQ comes with two gigabytes of memory and the $199 iPhone comes with 16 gigabytes. A previous version of this column incorrectly expressed these figures as megabytes, not gigabytes. An earlier version of this column also mistakenly stated, based on a BlackBerry fact sheet, that the Storm2 will ship with two gigabytes of memory. Wednesday night, after the column was published, the company said the Storm2 will actually ship with 18 gigabytes of memory.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091014/the-cliq-storm2-join-long-parade-of-iphone-threats/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20091001/msn-debuts-health/ http://allthingsd.com/20091001/msn-debuts-health/#comments Thu, 01 Oct 2009 07:20:35 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=19024 MSN, Microsoft’s online portal, released a beta version of a service to let users manage their health information on the Web.

Called My Health Info, the Microsoft (MSFT) offering, which includes a range of widgets and other Web tools, wades into an area that many are attempting to crack, including Google (GOOG).

The service, which will be located on MSN’s health site, will use Microsoft’s HealthVault platform and Silverlight technology, taking the company’s effort to create a platform for storage of health information into the mainstream.

Due to issues of privacy and security, consumers have been slow to warm to loading up their personal health information on the Web.

Microsoft said users can also “research medical concerns, read the latest health news, gain guidance from medical experts, learn about nutrition, and monitor conditions such as high blood pressure or diabetes.”

Google has a similar beta product called Google Health, and there are others. In fact, the former head of Google Health, Adam Bosworth, has a similar start-up called Keas.

All efforts are trying to get consumers to embrace and feel comfortable in putting their health information online and offer easier tools to do that.

Here’s a screen shot of My Health Info:

Here’s the Microsoft press release on the service:

MSN Introduces Online Tools to Help People Make Smarter Health and Lifestyle Decisions

From swine flu info to symptom checkers, MSN My Health Info includes a broad range of widgets and tools to attract health-minded consumers.

REDMOND, Wash.–Oct. 1, 2009–Today, MSN released the beta of My Health Info, a new online service that helps people manage their health information on the Web. My Health Info is a unique service that offers people a variety of tools and widgets to upload, organize and monitor health information stored in their personal Microsoft HealthVault accounts. The new service allows people to research medical concerns, read the latest health news, gain guidance from medical experts, learn about nutrition, and monitor conditions such as high blood pressure or diabetes.
In addition, MSN is launching a specialized swine flu information center today on the MSN Health & Fitness home page (http://health.msn.com), spotlighting the virus that is currently top of mind for people. MSN works with trusted consumer health information providers such as Harvard Medical School and the MayoClinic.com to keep people informed and armed with data to help them prevent contracting the virus, assess for risk factors, find out where to get vaccinations in their local neighborhood when they become available, and more.

My Health Info delivers features designed for busy parents, adults who are managing the health concerns of aging parents, and people managing chronic conditions and multiple medications. Because the data is stored in Microsoft HealthVault, people can access their information via the Web whenever they need it and share it across multiple connected health applications. My Health Info will allow consumers to do the following:

Customize their page with tools such as allergy, medicine and blood pressure trackers, a lab results bank, body mass index calculators, vaccination information and more

Use information from personal health devices such as heart-rate monitors and pedometers

Access profiles of multiple family members at one time, allowing caregivers to more easily manage not only their information, but their family’s as well

Stay informed by receiving the latest in health news from sources they trust

“People care deeply about credible, timely and comprehensive information about health topics. MSN My Health Info will provide an exceptional selection of resources, tools and information available from a variety of sources in one convenient location,” said Scott Moore, U.S. executive producer, MSN. “We are committed to delighting our customers with information, services and tools that keep them informed and simplify their lives.”

Consumers are increasingly looking for online solutions that help them take better control of their health decisions and their families’ information, and that connect them to the broader health ecosystem in which they interact. The My Health Info service enables MSN to offer a timely service to its users, which will be continually updated to help ensure that consumers are offered relevant tools. The service is connected with Microsoft HealthVault, which stores consumer health information in a controlled and privacy-enhanced environment, while enabling consumers to easily collect and transfer their data across the health system for a more holistic and better quality healthcare experience. The My Health Info site is powered by Microsoft Silverlight technology to deliver a rich, interactive Web experience.

“As consumers are increasingly being asked to manage more of their health and wellness, they are looking for solutions that help them navigate an overwhelming amount of information, enabling them to take control of their personal health data,” said David Cerino, general manager of consumer health in Microsoft Health Solutions Group. “Building on the power of HealthVault, My Health Info demonstrates how we are continuing to provide consumers with the trusted and relevant tools they need to make more informed decisions in support of their health and the health of their families.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091001/msn-debuts-health/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20090817/sale-of-ilike-to-myspace-135-million-in-cash-6-million-for-talent-retention-delayed-over-tax-issues-reallyplus-the-list-of-other-suitors/ http://allthingsd.com/20090817/sale-of-ilike-to-myspace-135-million-in-cash-6-million-for-talent-retention-delayed-over-tax-issues-reallyplus-the-list-of-other-suitors/#comments Tue, 18 Aug 2009 06:25:06 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=17756

The board of iLike planned a meeting earlier tonight to go over a buyout offer by MySpace, several sources close to the situation said. But it was suddenly canceled because of some thorny tax implications related to the talent-retention part of the deal to purchase the social music start-up.

This does not mean the pending acquisition is in jeopardy, sources said, and it could be on track to be signed as early as today, barring any more complications.

That is what both iLike and MySpace execs are hoping, said sources, one of whom described the outstanding issues as a “technicality.”

What’s also been unclear is the actual price the social networking giant is paying for iLike, which has been reported as about $20 million.

In fact, only $13.5 million will be paid upfront in cash, with about $8 million of that money likely going to one of its major shareholders, Ticketmaster Entertainment (TKTM), due to its preferred shares.

Another $6 million has been promised by MySpace in forward payments to retain some key employees–including iLike co-founders and twin brothers Ali and Hadi Partovi.

Although those employees can remain in Seattle, where iLike has its HQ, they must stay employed at Beverly Hills, Calif.-based MySpace for two and a half years to get their money.

It’s that talent part of the deal that caused the Partovis to cancel the iLike board meeting, which they explained to key investors was necessary due to some confusion over how the money paid to these employees would be taxed.

A person briefed on the issue said that if it was taxed as compensation, it would have a much higher tax rate than if it were considered long-term capital gains.

The Partovis said in the email that they were working on the problem with their advisers on the sale, Allen & Co., as well as with lawyers and accountants.

Tax snafus in the middle of a sale are not exactly the way the entrepreneurial Partovis envisioned it was going to go for iLike (see my various video interview related to iLike below) when they created the compelling music sharing and recommendation service in 2006.

After only a few years, the innovative start-up claims it has 50 million registered users overall.

A lot of that growth was due to iLike quickly becoming one of the most popular widgets on social networking sites like Facebook, where it has also been the top music application, with 10 million active monthly users.

The Partovis–who once were close with execs at Facebook (see my party video below), particularly founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg–placed great faith in its growth lifting all Web 2.0 boats.

It did not turn out that way, though, especially from the important financial point of view, and iLike scrambled to diversify.

The iLike service recently began offering a music downloading service, for example, as well as other such features, all of which would be attractive to the music-centric focus at MySpace.

Once an Internet sensation, MySpace has been struggling to restructure itself after losing momentum and buzz in recent years, as well as a huge advertising revenue drop in its most recent quarter.

Its owner, News Corp. (NWS), replaced its founders with new management four months ago, including former Facebook exec Owen Van Natta as CEO.

After making major staff layoffs and rejiggering management, Van Natta and his new team have been working on an overhaul of the MySpace product and seem to be refocusing it to become a global music and entertainment service.

MySpace also has a joint venture with major music labels, MySpace Music, which has been trying to attract consumers and build a viable business. Sources said MySpace Music could also buy into the iLike deal or simply license its technology to improve its features.

Thus, purchasing iLike would fit in well with MySpace’s overall plans.

And iLike has also been in need of a fix itself.

For all its popularity, especially on Facebook, it has moved slowly toward profitabilty, and its $17 million in funding has been dwindling, as has its viability as a standalone company.

Back in more frothy Web 2.0 days, iLike’s generous funding gave it a valuation of more than $50 million, which has also lost steam over time and as the economy has worsened.

In the last quarter of fiscal 2008, for example, Ticketmaster wrote down its $13 million investment by $6 million.

Tensions between its execs and iLike have gotten worse over time, although some thought at one time that Ticketmaster would buy iLike.

No longer, which is why the founders turned to Allen & Co., as MediaMemo reported as far back as November, to find another big investor or buyer.

Wrote Peter Kafka: “Delivering free music on the Web has so far proven to be a high-cost, low-revenue endeavor…”

So, the New York deal-making firm ginned up a small group of suitors, which included Facebook, Activision Blizzard (ATVI) and Microsoft (MSFT), as well as MySpace.

Of the three, Activision was most serious, with interest in integrating iLike’s community and technology tools with its Guitar Hero franchise.

But Activision never actually made a formal bid, said sources.

Both Microsoft and Facebook also considered the purchase, but sources said they would only offer stock in a deal. But iLike wanted cash in the deal.

The Partovis were also was wary about working at either place.

Both Partovis, for example, had worked at Microsoft (Ali after selling it LinkExchange in 1998 for $265 million; Hadi several times, once following Microsoft’s acquisition of Tellme Networks, which he co-founded).

As it has turned out, in its short life, iLike’s last, best alternative is apparently MySpace.

“Look, iLike has been shopped around for a while, and while the team and technology are great, it only has one choice and that’s to be sold,” said one person involved in the various scenarios. “The question for the buyer then is whether it was worth it to pay up or just move on and do it ourselves.”

So until the bean counters settle this IRS nightmare, here is my video interview with Hadi Partovi about a year ago at iLike’s HQ in the Capitol Hill section of Seattle, when times were a little more hopeful:

And here is a very dark and very shaky video I did when iLike threw a fete in Silicon Valley to celebrate its start-up two years ago and to send some appreciation in Facebook’s direction–it is so dated that Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, who is in the video, is still at Google (GOOG).

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

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090817/sale-of-ilike-to-myspace-135-million-in-cash-6-million-for-talent-retention-delayed-over-tax-issues-reallyplus-the-list-of-other-suitors/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20090720/yahoo-finally-rolls-out-new-home-page-to-the-masses-and-drum-roll-its-good-plus-screen-shots/ http://allthingsd.com/20090720/yahoo-finally-rolls-out-new-home-page-to-the-masses-and-drum-roll-its-good-plus-screen-shots/#comments Tue, 21 Jul 2009 01:00:47 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=16064

Although it’s not news that Yahoo has been readying a new version of its homepage and has spent a lot of time doing so–in fact, it’s gone all Handy Manny with a whole lot of test renovations–the Internet giant begins the massive rollout of it tomorrow.

The official launch of what was code-named “Metro,” which Yahoo had previously said was coming in the fall, will take place on an opt-in “beta” basis for the hundreds of millions of users in the U.S. and will be extended to France, the U.K. and India later this week.

When users log in, they will get a choice–for now, there will be no forcing it–to switch over to the new version, which Yahoo’s Tapan Bhat, SVP of Integrated Consumer Experiences, said in an interview with me today by phone, is the “the most fundamental change to the homepage ever.”

And, indeed, the new look is much different, even than previous launch candidates, featuring an almost complete rejiggering of the look and feel of the most important page at Yahoo (YHOO) and one of the most trafficked on the Internet.

The change is an important one for Yahoo, since its front page is perhaps its most powerful calling card to users and advertisers, as well as to Wall Street. Its homepage gets 330 million unique visitors every month.

Yahoo has redone its homepage many times since its founding in the mid-1990s (you can see the various incarnations of it here), but this new design is perhaps the most dramatic.

(See screenshots of the new regular page and one with a Facebook app featured below; click on the images to make them larger.)

The most striking change is a prominent left-side “My Favorites” area, with 65 specially designed applications that users can customize, including giving a quick hovering glimpse of email, stocks and of third-party sites like Facebook.

Not quite a dashboard or exactly a social networking page, it feels a little as if Yahoo took a browser tab or a toolbar, put it in a vertical format and gave it some great functionality.

Full disclosure: All Things Digital, as well as several other Dow Jones news properties, are in its special alphabetical apps gallery, although I had no idea it would be there.

Yahoo also allows users to create such widgets on the fly from most any Web site and they can have up to 36 apps on the homepage.

There is advertising in the boxes that pop up when hovering over these apps, which is a way of dealing with the issue of purposely sending users away from Yahoo rather than keeping them there. It is a much better version of that trap.

“We want to be the center of people’s lives online and want to do it in an open, innovative way, all while providing a compelling experience,” said Bhat. “It marks the beginning of a renaissance of Yahoo, a renaissance where every pixel matters.”

After looking over the history of Yahoo’s homepages since 1994 (see them all here), it has pretty much told a story of a site with increasingly smaller font sizes and more stuff packed on it.

“It had nothing to do with the user, but what Yahoo wanted the user to do,” said Bhat, rather frankly.

Thus, he said, everything going forward will focus on what the user wants, which, he explained, essentially boils down to a “my world” and “the world” outlook.

In the my-world bucket: Email, favorite Web sites, stock info. In the the-world: General news, search, what’s hot.

But, unlike its highly customized MyYahoo product, Bhat said that Yahoo wanted to make it easier for users to create a page where “there is destination for everything you are about in just a click or two.”

The programmed “Today” module remains, although users can indicate which kind of information–finance, news, entertainment–gets top billing.

The module is also localized, depending on the user.

“We wanted to provide broadcast and narrowcast in one place,” said Bhat.

That includes updating status, right from the homepage, including integration with social networks such as Facebook and MySpace.

But–in a very big mistake–there is no ability to update status to the popular microblogging service Twitter on this part of the homepage, as yet. You can make it an app, though, as Twitter can appear in your Yahoo updates.

And there is a big advertising module still on the right, along with a what’s-hot section. And, finally, there will also soon be complete two-way syncing with mobile devices, said Bhat.

Interestingly, although CEO Carol Bartz has often said internally that she does not like the color purple, which has been the company’s signature one since its founding, the main page keeps up the violet tradition with a lighter tone.

“Yahoo’s color is purple and it is known for that,” said Bhat (deftly not taking my delicious bait).

As to why it has taken so long to get its front page redone–it was originally set to debut late last year–Bhat noted that such a major shift of such a trafficked page was, well, complex.

“It involves bringing users along and also rewiring everything within Yahoo,” said Bhat, who gave Bartz credit for turbocharging the effort, since she first arrived at the troubled Silicon Valley icon in January and quickly put the brakes on the planned launch. “Now, we are looking at Yahoo holistically, all centered around the user.”

Time will tell if it is a success, but it is certainly a good and even innovative effort, in much the same spirit Microsoft (MSFT) has had with its new Bing search offering.

And while some might complain that it is not cutting-edge enough, it seems just the right amount of rejiggering and open feel for the mass of users it serves.

For Yahoo, at least when it comes to this one, change is indeed good.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090720/yahoo-finally-rolls-out-new-home-page-to-the-masses-and-drum-roll-its-good-plus-screen-shots/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20090720/slides-max-levchin-talks-about-web-20-redux/ http://allthingsd.com/20090720/slides-max-levchin-talks-about-web-20-redux/#comments Mon, 20 Jul 2009 09:27:54 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=16021

Almost two years ago, just as Web 2.0 was heating up, BoomTown did a three-part interview with Slide founder and CEO Max Levchin.

Soon after, the popular maker of social networking applications, often called widgets, grabbed a big pile of cash from new investors–$50 million from Fidelity and T. Rowe Price–which put the value of the company at $550 million.

So, it was high-time for another visit to see him, especially after the recent recession has forced a lot of high-flying Silicon Valley darlings like Slide to wise up a little and get down to business.

That has meant tightening up costs, abandoning some business plans and drilling down on others.

Previously, Slide’s financial strategy had included making money from selling premium versions of its software, as well as selling advertisers on its large, although disparate, audience with display ads.

Now, says Levchin, it is still about premium products, but also about selling a brand “experience” rather than less effective and increasingly commoditized network-style advertising.

The products have also evolved, although Slide still essentially makes a wide range of innovative widgets that have been attracting many millions of users each. They include everything from slide shows to a software program called SuperPoke that allows a user to poke another in a super way.

A lot of Slide’s initial growth had been through taking advantage of the popularity of MySpace and Facebook.

But, since then, the company has been trying to be a kind of distributed content and application company that is not wholly dependent on large platforms.

Here’s a video of my interview with Levchin at Slide’s new HQ in San Francisco:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090720/slides-max-levchin-talks-about-web-20-redux/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20090708/gadgets-showhow-much-power-your-house-eats/ http://allthingsd.com/20090708/gadgets-showhow-much-power-your-house-eats/#comments Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:36:03 +0000 Geoffrey A. Fowler http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20090708/gadgets-showhow-much-power-your-house-eats/ Curtailing your home electricity use is a bit like losing weight: You already understand the basics of how to do it, but it’s hard to accomplish without help and motivation. An array of gadgets are vying to serve as electricity personal trainers, monitoring home power use minute by minute, and making you feel guilty about indulgences like blasting the air conditioner.

I have been testing three of these devices, the Power Monitor from Black & Decker Corp., the very similar PowerCost Monitor from Blue Line Innovations Inc., and the more-sophisticated The Energy Detective 5000 from Energy Inc. In my tests, the Black & Decker model provided the most effortless electricity-tracking service. At $99.99, it is also the least expensive.

The devices provide real-time data about how much power you’re using across the house in terms that are easy to comprehend: cost per hour and cost per month. Turn on the microwave and watch the cost jump from 10 cents to 25 cents an hour. Turn off some lights and see the cost drop a few cents.

The Power Monitor

The firms say their customers have, over time, seen drops of as much as 20% in power bills by being more mindful of electricity use and making informed purchases, such as installing efficient light bulbs. The largest drops are often recorded in households that have (power-hogging) electric water heaters, and where the whole family gets involved in monitoring use. An independent Oxford University study in 2006 found that people getting direct feedback on their power consumption reduced use 5% to 15%.

After I began monitoring, my most-recent electricity bill dropped $10 from the month before—but that could also be due to my living in a city where air conditioning isn’t a summer necessity. I find myself thinking more about electricity, and even running back into the house to make sure the lights are out.

The monitors sold by Blue Line and Black & Decker are almost identical, because they’re both manufactured by Canada-based Blue Line. The Blue Line model costs $109, is a bit larger, and features a slightly longer range for the wireless signal that transmits power use from your electric meter.

Connecting these two devices to my electric meter was simple. First, loop a metal belt around the glass dome covering the meter. Then align a sensor attached to the belt on top of the glass to read the data collected by your meter. On my old-style meter, the Power Monitor’s sensor keeps track of how fast a dial rotates. The companies say their products work with about 90% of meters in North America. On a newer meter, the sensor would read a digital port on the front

The sensor you attach to the electric meter wirelessly sends raw data to a digital monitor that is kept inside the house. Before using the monitor, you have to enter data from your electric bill, but finding the right data can be tricky. Black & Decker’s instructions on this are relatively clear, and entering the data into the digital monitor involves a process similar to setting an alarm clock.

The digital monitors, about the size of a large remote control, can sit in one room or travel about the house. A button labeled “tare” on the Black & Decker model helps you calculate how much electricity is being used by any single appliance that you can turn off and on. Press the button and it zeros out the reading.Turn on an appliance and the device calculates its usage alone. I found surprises: My LCD TV uses just $0.02 an hour, while an electric water kettle uses more than $0.20 an hour.

The Black & Decker model features a rudimentary display that only reports the aggregate power use for your house at any given time. It can’t go back and show you changes over time.

But the latest model from The Energy Detective, known as TED, connects directly to a house’s power supply for a more-precise read than the Black & Decker. It comes with software that graphs how use patterns change over time. The TED 5000 costs $199.

But installing TED requires turning off your home’s main power line and inserting a sensor into your circuit breaker—a process that the company says should be done “by qualified personnel only.” I sought help from a friend who has a lot of wiring experience, but after several hours, we were unable to make TED work. My issue was likely a decades-old circuit breaker. The company said my configuration is atypical and that problems like this are rare. A colleague has been using TED for several weeks after hiring an electrician to install it.

While TED 5000 offers many more advanced tools for sleuthing your home’s electricity waste than the other models, all of its sophistication won’t necessarily help the average user do much of a better job remembering to turn off the lights. For most of us, the large cost-an-hour sign on the Black & Decker Power Monitor offers the only feedback we really need.

If you’re just looking to target power-hogging appliances in your house, there are even less expensive solutions. For example, the $24.99 Kill-a-Watt, which I haven’t tested, sits between one appliance and the outlet, and tells you exactly how much power that appliance is using.

And before buying any of these devices, keep in mind that many utility companies are installing a new generation of so-called “smart” meters, which not only measure real-time power use, but also offer two-way communication with the power company to help cut costs. Some will also offer software to help you monitor your power use, and Google Inc.’s nonprofit foundation is already working with power companies on a free service that connects data about your power use into an online widget. Appliance makers are also working on products that can communicate with a central controller to turn themselves up or down, on or off, according to changing prices or conditions.

All three of the monitors I tested should continue to work with most new power meters. While these devices seem downright rudimentary compared to what’s on the horizon, they certainly suffice in the meanwhile to make electricity use more visible.

Walt Mossberg is on vacation.

Write to
Geoffrey A. Fowler at geoffrey.fowler@wsj.com

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