You gotta hand it to Microsoft: Yesterday they got Google to help promote their message for them.

On Wednesday afternoon, shortly after Google finished a marathon presentation at its I/O developer conference, reports surfaced that Google’s YouTube had sent Microsoft a cease-and-desist letter demanding that Redmond shut down a YouTube app it had built for its Windows Phone.

The issue, in a nutshell, is that the Microsoft app, built on YouTube’s public data feed, violates the video site’s terms of service, primarily because it strips out YouTube’s ads. Windows Phone users can still watch YouTube videos via their Web browser, but the experience isn’t as slick as a dedicated app.

So: Bad for Windows Phone users! But while it’s tempting to turn this into a he said/he said, there’s little to hash out, fact-wise.

There’s no dispute that Microsoft’s Windows app violates Google’s terms. And Microsoft, which has been complaining about access to YouTube for years, had to know exactly what it was doing. It also knows how to play nicely with YouTube, as it did with an Xbox app the two companies built together and launched last year.

The only question is why Microsoft went ahead and built the app anyway. Here we have to do some guessing, as both YouTube and Microsoft executives declined to comment.

So, okay, I’ll guess: Microsoft launched the YouTube app last week precisely because it hoped YouTube would make a fuss.

I’m also guessing that Microsoft is very happy that The Verge and Wired were able to “obtain” copies of the C&D letter.

I’ll keep guessing: I think Microsoft is ecstatic about the fact that Google sent the letter yesterday, on the same day it wanted all eyes on its new products and services.

And the fact that Larry Page closed the Google event by insisting that he’s got nothing but love for everyone, everywhere — even if they’re building rival technologies?

My guess is they have to be over the moon about that.

Now the New Yorker magazine says it can help journalists, and their sources, cover their tracks. It is rolling out an electronic tip box it says will give leakers and tipsters the ability to cloak their identity when they reach out to the magazine.

And it’s releasing the software that built the box, created by the late Web activist Aaron Swartz, via an open-source license. Which means that it expects and encourages other news organizations to build their own versions.

You can find detailed information about the New Yorker’s Strongbox here, along with posts from Joshua Rothman, the magazine’s archive editor, and Kevin Poulsen, the investigations editor at Wired, which, like the New Yorker, is published by Conde Nast. Poulsen’s post, which explains how he and Swartz collaborated to create Strongbox, makes for particularly good reading.

Strongbox isn’t the first attempt to create a secure tipbox in recent years. In 2011, following WikiLeaks’ rise to prominence, The Wall Street Journal launched SafeHouse, a similar project. But the security experts quickly pointed out flaws in the Journal’s technology, and if the paper has gotten much use out of it since then, they’re not saying (the Journal, like this website, is owned by News Corp.).

I have zero ability to judge the relative security of the New Yorker’s box, but I’m sure that Swartz’s connection to the project will reassure lots of people. (For the record, both the Journal and the New Yorker’s boxes use Tor, an anonymizing Web tool/network.)

I can try to explain the basic principle behind the box, though: It’s supposed to allow anyone to submit a letter, document or any thing else, while keeping their identity secret. If a New Yorker staffer wants to try to contact the tipster, they can reach out through an electronic version of a dead drop, which gives the original tipster the ability to re-contact the magazine.

The New Yorker had planned on introducing Strongbox last month, but delayed it for technical tweaks. But the last week’s revelations about the federal government’s surveillance of the Associated Press helps illustrate the need for the tech, said Poulsen.

“We see governments around the world putting a lot of resources into tracking journalistic sources,” he said. “So far, technology has been an ally not of journalists but the government.”

They admit that much of the planned news is already out there — there have been solid leaks and clues about refreshes to mapping, video messaging and gaming products. They say there won’t be a big focus on unveiling new devices, unlike other years.

More unexpected Google platform news, like now-scuttled plans to release a physical credit card, isn’t happening. And even some news that might have made sense, like an update on Google’s kooky Nexus Q living-room device, isn’t in the cards.

Now Google is making that downplaying of expectations official. Sundar Pichai is Google’s undisputed developer king, since he now controls the teams working on both Chrome (his long-time domain) and Android (after Andy Rubin stepped down in March). So rather than two days of keynote announcements, this year’s I/O will have only one.

Asked what to expect at I/O, Pichai said in an interview with Steven Levy of Wired:

It’s going to be different. It’s not a time when we have much in the way of launches of new products or a new operating system. Both on Android and Chrome, we’re going to focus this I/O on all of the kinds of things we’re doing for developers, so that they can write better things. We will show how Google services are doing amazing things on top of these two platforms.

Pichai also pushed out timelines for combining Chrome and Android (in a year or two, “maybe there’s a more synergistic answer,” he said, but for now he defended the dual operating systems’ coexistence), and making Android updates more universal (“We need time to figure out the mechanics, but it’s definitely an area of focus for me and for the team.”).

A mellower I/O is in some ways a tough draw, given anticipation by Google fans and the press of razzle and dazzle in the vein of Apple. But unlike some other companies — that hype up launches that probably don’t deserve it — Google under Pichai is apparently going to try to host a workaday developer conference.

With some nice gadget schwag handouts, of course.

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• Where Are They Now? Google I/O 2012 Edition.
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• Google Downplays Expectations Ahead of I/O Developer Conference
• Will Google Deliver on Its Nexus Q Promise? Not at This Year’s I/O.
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• Google Goes With Unified I/O Keynote (But Will It Unify Its Products?)

Moore’s Law means that more and more things can be done practically for free, if only it weren’t for those people who want to be paid. People are the flies in Moore’s Law’s ointment. When machines get incredibly cheap to run, people seem correspondingly expensive.

– From Jaron Lanier’s new book, “Who Owns the Future?” excerpted on Wired.com

According to numerous sources close to the situation, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer recently met with top execs at Hulu, the premium video service whose big media company owners have been considering selling it for some months.

Sources said Yahoo is “in the process,” although the Silicon Valley Internet giant has not made any kind of formal bid. Other players whom sources said are considering purchasing all or parts of Hulu include: Former News Corp. COO Peter Chernin, who now has a successful and well-funded multimedia and investment company called the Chernin Group; Guggenheim Partners digital arm, which is led by former Yahoo interim CEO Ross Levinsohn; and Amazon.

Sources said Mayer also had an extensive getting-to-know-you meeting, which was apparently not held at Hulu’s offices in Santa Monica, Calif., along with COO Henrique De Castro. The discussion is taking place in the wake of Yahoo’s failed bid — largely engineered by De Castro — to purchase a majority stake in France Télécom’s Dailymotion video service, after a top French government official said Yahoo could not own 75 percent of the company.

Had the deal — which was reportedly valued at $300 million — gone through, it would have been the most significant by Mayer since she took over at the company last July. Thus far, she has limited her purchases to small mobile startup.

While the meetings with Hulu are only preliminary, Yahoo has been to this video rodeo before, having seriously considering buying Hulu when it was previously being shopped by its owners, News Corp., Disney and Comcast. (News Corp. also owns this site.)

Of course, if Yahoo’s interest becomes more serious, Mayer will have to make important visits to top execs at those media giants, since they control the rights to critical content, and thus Hulu’s value.

As Peter Kafka noted in a previous post about Hulu’s possible sale, “much hinges on the licensing rights News Corp., Disney and Comcast would provide for the money-losing site, as well as what happens to the $300 million debt its owners have taken on in the last year.”

Without those rights, Hulu by itself is a very pretty Web site and video platform, but not worth the billions it would be with very long-term television rights, content that attracts users. Currently, sources said its media owners are offering two to three years of rights, with a lot of flexibility over removing content from the site, which is not quite as attractive a deal (to say the least).

But video is a key component of Yahoo’s strategy going forward. Along with mobile efforts, Mayer has explicitly told investors that video was a key to company under her tenure.

Coincidentally, today in an onstage interview at a Wired conference in New York, Mayer broadly addressed the video issue when asked a question about the topic, noting it was important across all of Yahoo’s properties.

“I think video is really important … video is something that we’re all innately designed and born to experience, everyone is born being able to watch and to hear,” she said. “Video is just this amazing format.”

Mayer would know that well, having been at Google when the search giant bought YouTube, ironically snatching it at the last minute from a competing bid by Yahoo, which was then led by Terry Semel. Since then, YouTube has become the most important and powerful player in the space by far.

Yahoo, despite being one of the largest video players on the Web, has mostly been a lackluster competitor in the arena, pinging over the years from creating original content to doing branded deals with media companies, but never establishing a major beachhead with consumers as Hulu did from scratch.

Short of a full acquisition, there may be a way for Yahoo to partner and invest in Hulu, instead of buying it outright that works for all sides — owners get a new owner to foot part of the bill and also increase distribution, and Yahoo can claim that it’s providing users with exponentially more content that would help Yahoo’s long-declining engagement problem.

Sources said News Corp. and Disney have mulled scenarios where one or both companies hang on to the site, while Comcast has no control over Hulu’s fate, having given up its management rights to the site as a concession to federal regulators.

But the strength of the Hulu brand is clear and it has had some success in building a more significant business. While a lot of its video offerings are free, about four million people are paying for a Hulu Plus subscription.

Still, Hulu’s strength might be lagging, especially given after talented founding leader Jason Kilar recently left. Last year, Hulu was a top 10 video site, according to comScore. No longer — in a report in March, it had dropped out of the top 10.

While this likely has more to do with methodology than real decline in Hulu ratings, it does show that while it’s the biggest thing Yahoo could buy or invest in, Yahoo itself has plenty of video views, many more than Hulu.

The question for Mayer then is how much of Yahoo’s multi-billon-dollar cash kitty she wants to bet on a big video play. She might also be considering buying several smaller ones, said sources, with Yahoo having also looked at some smaller video sites, including Blip and Grab Media.

A spokeswoman for Hulu declined to comment and Yahoo PR has not responded to a query for comment (if ever).

I feel sorry for Peter Thiel. Did he really want flying cars? Flying cars are not a very efficient way to move things from one point to another. On the other hand, 20 years ago we had the idea that information could become available at your fingertips. We got that done.

– Bill Gates, in an interview with Wired magazine’s Steven Levy

When I consider the screens that were available to me as a 5-year-old, versus those that were available to me at 40, I am staggered by all the welcome and unwelcome ways video has pervaded my life.

–Mat Honan in a Wired post titled “The Terrible Truth About Toddlers and Touchscreens”

Obvious Corp. is the brainchild of Ev Williams and Biz Stone, the two Twitter co-founders who left their daily roles at the microblogging service to re-form their small incubator, which is now also home to startups like Branch.

Hansen will work specifically on Medium, the pet project of Williams and Stone, which aims to re-think blogging and content platforms.

“Our goal is to create new publishing tools and a new kind of content platform that encourages and rewards high quality writing — not just the lastest post at the top of the feed,” Hansen wrote in an email to friends and colleagues on Thursday.

Hansen was editor in chief at Wired.com for more than seven years, and previously was a section editor at CNET news. (Disclosure: Hansen was also my boss when I wrote for Wired before working here at AllThingsD.)

Hansen’s move is one in a string of recent migrations by journalists into the startup space. New York Times editor David F. Gallagher left the paper to go to Kickstarter earlier this year. And last year saw CNET’s long-time writer Rafe Needleman land at Evernote in a sort of evangelist position, with the intent to expand Evernote’s platform and work with developers.

Hansen will also work to expand platform, though from an editorial standpoint. “I’ll be in charge of developing editorial out of San Francisco with a focus on technology, science and business,” he wrote. “After years handling business, admin and tech problems, it feels great to get back to writing and editing.”

Update 4:50 pm PST: Post amended to correct Hansen’s title, which is senior editor, charged with leading coverage of technology and science.

Or maybe she has already left. Ask different people at Nick Denton’s blog network about Darbyshire’s departure date and you’ll get different results. Some think she left last summer; others say last fall, and others insist that she’s still doing a few last things for Denton.

Details! The gist: Darbyshire, a Brit who kept all of Denton’s trains running and his employees out of (severe) legal trouble for the last decade-plus, is going to do something new.

Here’s her official take on the matter, delivered via email: “I had a great run with Nick at Gawker, but I want to do some other projects. Given that the company has matured into a well-oiled machine, it was the right time for me to move on, and change is a good thing for everyone.”

To get a sense of how important Darbyshire was to Denton, consult this excellent 2010 New York Observer profile, written by John Koblin, who now works for Denton at his Deadspin sports site.

Key paragraph:

Virtually all editors who have worked with the site agree that she’s very good at her very busy job, which is not just limited to being the head counsel. She is a sort of everywoman at Gawker, wearing hats that include overseeing law, finance, business development, the 401(k) deals, HR issues, maternity leave policy (which, as a testament to Gawker growing bigger and bigger, now needs to be drafted) — almost anything that is money-related and doesn’t deal with editorial or advertising.

Beyond her crucial role as Gawker’s chief grownup, Darbyshire was also notable for her long tenure. Gawker Media employees come and go all the time — last month, for instance, Gizmodo editor Joe Brown left for Wired; in January, Ray Wert left, just a half year after Denton put him in charge of “content creation” for advertisers – but Darbyshire has been with Denton forever.

Back in May, Denton shuffled his staff around and announced that he was putting Darbyshire in charge of international expansion efforts. Here’s the relevant part of that memo, for Gawker Media completists:

Our international efforts warrant greater attention — and that means a shift in responsibilities for Gaby Darbyshire and a cascade of job moves affecting Scott and others.

Currently, licensing provides some 8% of revenues — but a significantly greater portion of after-tax earnings. That’s pretty normal for a US-centric content company at our stage of development.

But software companies such as search engines can easily make 50% of their revenue overseas. As our language-independent discussion technology platform becomes more important, so will the international business.

As some of you know, we are expanding beyond our existing partnerships in Europe, Japan, Brazil and Australia. Our embryonic relationships in the Middle East, China and India will require much more cultivation — and the bulk of Gaby’s focus.

Wait, that’s the second time you’ve mentioned Google as potentially a million-person company.

– Wired’s Steven Levy, pressing Google CEO Larry Page on his “moon shot” ambitions

Why did I quit Instagram? It’s the thoughtlessness, stupid.

– Mat Honan, in Wired magazine

Not more than two weeks after Chris Anderson announced he was leaving tech publication Wired after an 11-year tenure as editor in chief, Conde Nast has named a successor.

Conde Nast creative director Scott Dadich will assume the position, returning to the tech publication at which he formerly served as creative director from 2006 to 2010.

“I’m excited to return to Wired, which has had such a tremendous impact on my life and my career,” Dadich said in a statement released Friday morning. “I look forward to finding new opportunities to delight and surprise the Wired community, both with the stories we tell, and in the ways that we tell them.”

That last part is important. Dadich was responsible for leading Conde Nast — which is traditionally known for its legacy print titles — into the digital age with the release of the Wired iPad app. Ostensibly, Dadich will continue to focus on bringing together Wired’s three publishing mediums — print, tablet, and on the Web at Wired.com.

A bit of disclosure: I worked for Wired up until about six months ago, when I left to join AllThingsD, though I missed Scott’s tenure by a matter of months.

Dadich is regarded highly within Conde, though, so it’s a pretty big appointment back at the publisher’s flagship technology publication. And, considering Dadich’s background overseeing all of Conde’s digital publishing channels over the past two years, it certainly speaks to Wired’s digital focus going forward.

While the site wants to remain an accessible entry point for newbies, it doesn’t want the narrative arc for successful sellers to arrive at the inevitable plot point: “And then I started a real business.”

–From a story by Rob Walker in Wired about Etsy

It has been a year, and Google’s so-called killer feature hasn’t taken off. The Google+ team is having a difficult time getting users to widely adopt the product, according to sources familiar with the company’s service. Part of the trouble isn’t necessarily getting Google+ users — or “Plussers” in platform-enthusiast parlance — to use Hangouts, but to actually keep them coming back.

Think of it in real-world terms: Gather a bunch of people in a room together who may or may not know each other, and it’s difficult to sustain an active conversation without direction. Similarly, as time passes in a Hangout, the novelty of a group video chat wears off. In the lack of direction, the retention rate suffers.

Thus the dilemma of Hangouts on Google+. Sure, it may be a cool feature, but in the long run, is cool enough?

Google is trying to combat this lack of direction, as the Google+ team heavily pitches directed ways to use Hangouts to anyone and everyone who will listen. If users can actually commune around a focused activity, the idea goes, they’ll want to continue coming back to Hangouts.

I spoke with Google for this article. Though the company did not comment, I was directed to the existing uses of Hangouts on the company’s Google+ page.

At the top of that list are the most obvious targets: Content destination sites that people already visit on a daily basis. That means publications and brands like the New York Times, Wired Magazine (which, disclosure, I previously wrote for), CNN and other major news and entertainment outlets.

It’s good for the news orgs, because they’re essentially given a lightweight, embeddable tool to host live video discussions on their sites, completely free and powered by Google. And it’s obviously good for Google in raising the Hangout brand awareness, and hoping that will extend to “Plussers” using Hangouts on their own.

There’s also the more obvious media play, pitching celebrities on Hangouts as a way for stars to get closer to their fans, similar to amassing a healthy Twitter following or a host of new fans on a Facebook page. Get enough fans to hang out with their favorite celebs, and perhaps those fans will keep coming back.

One of Hangouts’ most promising features, however, is perhaps one of the most difficult to convey: In-Hangout apps. As of now, there are a handful of applications that you can launch from within a group chat session, essentially giving the Hangout an activity to focus on.

Though the current selection is weak, Google debuted a number of games at its I/O conference in June, possibly foreshadowing a larger push into Hangout-based games in the future. And now that the Hangouts API is out of preview, developers could potentially bolster the selection over time (granted, I’d expect that would require some heavy Google lobbying).

This could be especially important for Google, given that a number of major game developers are already pulling titles from Google+, citing a “much larger following on Facebook,” and a much more “active” user base than Google+. If standalone games aren’t working, perhaps Hangout-based games could do better.

Finally, there’s the looming possibility that Google could incorporate communication across properties, rather than continuing to isolate products like Talk, Google+ Messenger and Hangouts. At the I/O conference last month, Google product manager Nikhyl Singhal hinted that we could see an integration of the three separate products soon enough.

This looks to be the direction Google is pushing in. After all, Larry Page speaks of Google+ as a “social spine” across all Google products, and Vic Gundotra’s most recent Google+ usage statistics are measured by activity across all Google products, not just Google+.

Will directing users on how to use Hangouts be enough, or will it take the more forceful approach of injecting Hangouts across other Google properties? Whatever the case, Google needs to convince users that however novel Hangouts may be, they’re worth more than just an initial test drive.

As many readers know, we have been adding to our staff here at AllThingsD, most recently in our new reviews section, with the addition of Lauren Goode earlier this year.

Now Walt Mossberg and I are proud to announce that Mike Isaac is joining our team to cover the social Web and its biggest players, including Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

He comes to ATD most recently from a staff writer position at Wired, where, among many other things, he spent much of his time writing about Google’s mobile and social efforts.

From 2010 to 2012, his coverage at Wired included the decline and fall of Hewlett-Packard’s mobile empire, Google’s surprise acquisition of Motorola Mobility, and Facebook’s steady trudge toward IPO-hood.

Prior to that, he wrote about the business of tech for Forbes magazine and Forbes.com, with a particular emphasis on start-ups and social. His work has also appeared in Paste magazine, Performer magazine, DNR magazine and the Washington Examiner.

Isaac holds a degree in English literature from the University of California at Berkeley, and is a former Georgetown University journalism fellow.

He takes over the social beat from Liz Gannes, who will be stepping up our coverage of the many businesses of Google, innovation, venture investing and the start-up scene — especially its bigger companies, from Pinterest to Quora to Dropbox. Gannes, as everyone who follows her knows well, has become a key observer of Silicon Valley and its players, and her insights into the tech scene have become one of our most invaluable offerings.

We’re excited for both of them, and look forward to their stellar work on our site.

When I first heard about Facebook, in 2005, I thought it was really stupid. And the same with eBay 20 years earlier.

– Reed Hastings, in a talk with Wired staff at its London offices

Here’s what the music service is likely to announce: The ability to let third-party developers tap into Spotify’s music library and make it available to their own users — as long as those users are already paying Spotify for a premium account.

That’s what Spotify has been discussing with developers for much of this fall. My educated guess is that the company intends to unveil its plans at its Wednesday event in New York. Evolver.fm’s Eliot Van Buskirk reached the same conclusion last week.

Spotify reps won’t comment, and I’ve yet to find a developer who says they’re working with Spotify on the new project. And developers working on some music-based apps that would be logical candidates for a Spotify tie-up tell me they’re not helping the service launch its expanded API (application programming interface).

Want more hedges? No problem: There’s an open question about whether Spotify would need to seek permission from the big music labels and publishers to open up its catalog to outsiders, or whether their existing deals will suffice. As you may recall, the last time Spotify needed permission from the labels — when it wanted to open up in the U.S. — the process took more than two years. (Shudder).

But at least some industry sources think that this is doable, and say that both Spotify and the labels envision the expanded APIs as the music industry’s version of “authentication,” or “TV Everywhere” — the TV industry plan that gives cable TV subscribers the ability to watch (some) programming on the Web or on iPad apps.

Call it “Music Everywhere.”

At least some of the big labels are “philosophically aligned with the idea of using Spotify as an ‘authentication layer,’” says an industry executive. “They see this as a value-add and they’re not worried about cannibalization.”

From a behind-the-scenes business perspective, that attitude itself is newsworthy, because the labels have for some time had a hard time figuring out just what to make of Spotify.

And I can imagine why Spotify thinks an API expansion is a big deal. “Spotify everywhere” makes the service that much stickier and useful, and it gives more users incentive to upgrade from their free accounts to paid subscriptions.

Linking up with lots of developers and services could also loosen Spotify’s dependence on Facebook, which wouldn’t be the worst idea. Facebook is currently generating a fire hose of traffic and users for Spotify via its new layout, and so far that’s been great for Daniel Ek’s company. So is the fact the services share backers, advisers and a similar view of the world. But having sources of traffic and users from places other than Mark Zuckerberg would be a healthy idea in the long run.

And for you, the average Spotify user? This won’t be nearly so meaningful.

Spotify just announced that it has 2.5 million paying subscribers, which makes it the largest Web music subscription service, by a wide margin. But the overwhelming percentage of Spotify’s users aren’t paying for the service, which would mean they won’t be able to access it from outside services.

So maybe “new direction” is an oversell. Perhaps Spotify felt it needed to say something big after Apple launched its iTunes Match service and Google rolled out its long-awaited music launch. “New options, for some” might do it. We’ll find out Wednesday.

Tonight at 1 am PT, techies who have nothing else to do — that would be me! — can click onto a brand new tech site called The Verge.

Well, kind of — it’s the result of many months of work by the gang that defected from AOL’s popular Engadget tech powerhouse, set up temporary shop under the Web site name This Is My Next and busied themselves with creating The Verge.

I have another screenshot below of the new site that will be focused on news, reviews and features about tech, and which has been getting a final tweaking all today.

From my quick perusal, it has a vibrant and slick design, with a lot of packed boxes, swooshy movement and plenty of content.

Along with the launch, The Verge’s parent company — formerly doing business as SB Nation, focused on sports — will also transform into Vox Media.

In a chit-chat with Vox’s CEO Jim Bankoff, top exec Marty Moe and Josh Topolsky, The Verge’s Editor-in-Chief, the trio of former AOLers all said they were going to for the big time.

“We want to build the platform for talented native Web voices, in sports and tech for now, and then we plan to grow more verticals,” said Bankoff.

“We want to create more than a news site or blog about tech — the frustration at AOL was that we did not get the resources or manpower to realize that bigger vision,” said Topolsky.

(You’re speaking to the choir, brother!)

Said Moe: “We think this category has not had a large enough vision…not enough has been innovated over the years and we think it is a big opportunity.”

Topolsky said the site, along with a mass of original content from 30 writers, will also be helped by a strong database of information about all its topics and gadgets and also focus a lot on community input.

“What we want to do was graduate beyond the blog,” he said.

(Hmm…and here I just got the hang of this blog thing.)

Bankoff, who would not say how much Vox spent on launching The Verge — my back-of-the-envelope guess, several million dollars — said that costs were spread out between the tech and sports sites with centralized sales and product teams.

Initial launch sponsors are BMW, Sony and Samsung, said Moe, who is aiming to sell “major brand advertisers on the idea that we will be the premiere destination of consumer tech coverage.”

It has to grow past big sites like Engadget to do so, but Topolsky said that This Is My Next had three million unique visitors in the last month and more than 10 million page views.

“We have done that with a lot of editorials and in-depth reviews,” he said. “I think people are really hungry for great content and stories.”

As to competitors, Topolsky said that “this not to necessarily I win if you lose,” although his clear aim is to unseat sites like CBS-owned CNET, Engadget and Gawker Media’s Gizmodo and perhaps even newsier sites such as TechCrunch and AllThingsD (as if!).

“We are going to do the nuts and bolts stuff,” he said. “Somewhere between Engadget and Wired.”

Topolsky compared The Verge to a “boutique hotel — we have the same stuff everyone else has, but it is a much more elegant experience.”

Later, that will change, he promised, noting that “this is only version 1.0.”

Of course — but what else would you expect from a gadget site?

(Good luck and congrats to the entire The Verge team from AllThingsD!)

And here is another lovely screenshot, as promised:

In an important deal for social reading app Flipboard, it has partnered with magazine giant Condé Nast to offer a slew of titles with branded advertising from major marketers American Express and Lexus.

The pair will share in the specially designed program, which will include the New Yorker, Wired and Bon Appetit. Additional magazines will be added, the companies said.

Flipboard, which is a popular and elegant app for the Apple iPad, has been trying to create strong ties with big publishers as it seeks to dominate distribution in the fast-growing social reading arena. It recently struck a deal with OWN, for example, the new cable network Oprah Winfrey has launched with Discovery.

Here is the official press release:

Condé Nast and Flipboard Launch
Brand Advertising On Flipboard for iPad with The New Yorker, Wired and Bon Appétit

American Express to launch today, Lexus in October

July 25, 2011 — PALO ALTO, Calif. — Today, Flipboard and Condé Nast bring brand advertising to the popular social magazine for iPad with web content from The New Yorker, Wired and Bon Appétit, with additional titles coming to Flipboard throughout 2011. American Express will be first to launch its campaign starting today in The New Yorker with Lexus following suit in October in Bon Appétit, The New Yorker and Wired.

Flipboard’s new program gives publishers and content creators a fresh way to offer magazine-like experiences of their web content with full-page ads to showcase advertiser brands. With a limited number of ad pages available within select content, advertisers benefit from an unprecedented share of voice within an immersive iPad reading experience. A simple tap on the magazine-style ad takes a reader to a brand’s website or Facebook page for additional information.

“Condé Nast is always looking for ways to take advantage of new channels that provide an environment in keeping with our editorial excellence, while offering unique opportunities for readers and advertisers,” said Lou Cona, CMO at Condé Nast. “Flipboard’s social magazine is a great example of that winning combination, while also giving us another way to market our own portfolio of tablet apps.”

Flipboard developed its brand advertising on the popular and groundbreaking iPad in collaboration with Condé Nast including the design and placement of the advertising inside the social magazine. Using a revenue share model, Flipboard will manage inventory and the publisher maintains its direct relationships with advertisers.

“Condé Nast continues to create new experiences for their content that also brings new reach to their advertisers. We are excited to be a part of this overarching strategy and bring their amazing stories, images, publications and advertisers to readers on Flipboard,: said Mike McCue, CEO of Flipboard.

“At American Express, we actively seek innovative partners that connect our Cardmembers with compelling and creative content through platforms that fit into their evolving digital lifestyle,” said Louis Paskalis, Vice President Global Media, Content Development & Mobile Marketing of American Express. “As such, we are proud to be an inaugural advertising partner for the groundbreaking New Yorker Flipboard edition, which will provide our Cardmembers and consumers everywhere a seamless, next-generation way to experience an iconic magazine in a tablet friendly adaptation.”

And semi-privately, Bewkes’ lieutenants have been suggesting that they’re going to pull back on content they supply to Netflix, and may cut it off entirely in the near future.

There’s definitely some theater involved here, put on for the benefit of investors worried that Netflix poses a threat to several of Time Warner’s properties: His Warner Bros. studio, its Turner cable networks, and its HBO premium cable network.

Because even while Bewkes and company have been lobbing spitballs at Netflix, they’ve been talking to the service about new distribution deals, sources familiar with the companies tell me.

In any case, Bewkes has been taking pains to soften his rhetoric recently. Last week, at the Tribeca Film Festival, he sent some verbal bouquets toward Hastings. And today he did much the same during Time Warner’s earnings call.

I’ve transcribed and edited Bewkes comments below. But he’s wordy, so even my abbreviated version runs long. Short version: We’re cool with Netflix because they’re complementary, not competitive. But that means we’re not going to give them our newest stuff, either.

This also happens to be what Hastings himself says. But more on that later. Here are Bewkes’s comments from this morning’s conference call:

Analyst: Can you talk about your relationship with Netflix?

Bewkes: Our view of Netflix has been very consistent. I’ve tried at times to be humorous about it, sometimes to make a point, so let me be clear: We think there’s definitely a role for subscription VOD services, library services, and Netflix in the ecosystem.

What is the role? Clearly it’s a way to give consumers access to a deep library of content that they couldn’t easily get before, particularly older shows. Although they’ll probably be able to get them more easily in other places now.

But it’s been a useful thing to get subscription services for products you couldn’t get before. There’s been some utility for viewers in being able to get serialized shows that don’t play as well on traditional cable networks or in syndication.

And because SVOD monetizes some content that couldn’t be monetized before, and it monetizes some content better than it was monetized before, particularly the older library stuff, then it can add money to the ecosystem. And that’s good for everybody.

But what we’ve always said is that you need to make sure SVOD doesn’t devalue the content and disrupt the ecosystem. So our view has been that it is not usually the right outlet for the newer, higher-value content that is functioning much more powerfully for viewers, on other kinds of networks, in other windows.

We’ve said because of all of that that we do not think it would be a suitable substitute for multichannel TV for most consumers. And therefore, we don’t think it will upend the multichannel TV business.

Q: Can you talk a bit more about cord-cutting, and whether you think Netflix and other Web services encourage it?

Bewkes: We watch it closely, but we haven’t seen it yet.

I think Netflix has around 23 million subs in the U.S. But we believe there are only about 4 million households that have broadband and no multichannel TV. And that number is almost unchanged since Netflix started its streaming service.

So even though people like the service, it has not led to very many Netflix subs cutting the cord. Looking forward, it’s hard to see how subscription TV becomes a replacement for multichannel TV.

Because as far as we can see, it probably won’t be able to economically offer a lot of the current shows, sports, live events, first run things of all kinds, that are available on all the high-value networks. And we don’t think that very many subscribers are going to be willing to give those things up.

We don’t think U.S. consumers want less choice. The record of the last 30, 40 years has been they want more choice.

Just to really acid test that, there are already a number of stripped-down TV packages that are available. And very few consumers take them.

Dish Network has a “focus on value” package, and its lowest-priced package is $24.99. Most people don’t take that, which is why the average revenue at Dish is closer to $70.

And then add the last part of the puzzle, which is you can see it this week at HBO GO: TV Everywhere [which means] VOD availability, for all the networks everybody loves. It’s going to make the current network subscriptions, foremost among them HBO, even more palatable.

So this really suggests that things like Netflix are welcome additions.

Earlier this week, BoomTown interviewed longtime author and tech journalist Steven Levy about his new book, “In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives” at a Churchill Club event in Silicon Valley.

Afterwards, I met Levy, who is a senior editor for Wired now, at the Plex in question–the Googleplex–to chitchat about what he learned after being embedded at the Borg, um, search giant for years.

Luckily for Levy, he was there during interesting times for Google, including its launch of the Android mobile operating system, its still fruitless struggles to get social networking to better compete with Facebook and the return of its decidedly quirky co-founder Larry Page to the CEO job.

Here’s the video of our longish chat, in which Levy opines on all that and more (and also shuts me down when I try to compare Google’s current fight with Facebook to the plot of HBO’s bloody and freaky “Game of Thrones”–without the swordfighting, natch!).

Enjoy–especially the shot of Levy on one of those multi-colored bikes Googlers ride around campus:

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110421/video-steven-levy-talks-about-google-book-in-the-plex/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20110415/wireds-newest-ipad-issue-boasts-its-best-feature-yet-free/ http://allthingsd.com/20110415/wireds-newest-ipad-issue-boasts-its-best-feature-yet-free/#comments Fri, 15 Apr 2011 13:40:00 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=31854 Remember when iPad magazine apps–and Wired’s app in particular–were big news? That was a year ago.

Now Wired would like to remind you that it’s still publishing on the iPad, and the Conde Nast title is offering a pretty good incentive to give it another look: Its newest issue, which should go online today, will be free.

The one-time promotion comes via a sponsorship from Adobe. Which shouldn’t be a surprise, given that Adobe and Wired have been working hand in hand on tablet publishing for nearly two years now.

Wired has also added a few more bells and whistles to the app, including the ability to share stories via Facebook and Twitter. There’s also an e-commerce partnership with Amazon, where  readers can purchase items the magazine writes about via the online store, but without leaving the magazine app itself.

None of that is revolutionary, but it does show you how relatively crude Wired’s first app edition was when it launched last May. In retrospect, for instance, it seems astonishing that it hasn’t had social media links: Any app that launched without them now would be hooted down.

So. Twelve issues in, how’s the app performing on the business side? Conde won’t share many details; Wired publisher Howard Mittman says that monthly download totals have settled into the 20,000 to 30,000 range. That’s down considerably from the first issue, which racked up more than 100,000 downloads, but not surprising.

Those figures might well go up if Conde Nast decides to work with Apple’s subscription plan, which would likely lead to a lower per-issue cost. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.

On the other hand, Mittman says that advertisers are even more willing to bet on the app than they were a year ago. Which is surprising, and contrary to what I’ve heard from other publishers about their own titles. Mittman won’t release figures, but he says that today’s issue will generate more advertising dollars than Wired’s first issue a year ago.

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