Opening on Tuesday, HP’s stock took a hit and is currently trading at $40.72/share. A $0.75 decrease from yesterday. This can be attributed to talks of “new directions” and “long-term strategy“, as such terms can lessen the confidence of investors.

Apotheker mentioned cloud services as a market HP plans to invest heavily in moving forward. He even promised to deliver a cloud infrastructure in 2011. Services HP will offer include an app store, along with other programs for enterprises.

To coincide with their cloud services, HP will move forward with their expansive plans for WebOS. Last year, HP purchased Palm and looked to their WebOS platform as an investment opportunity. Last month, HP laid out their list of devices which will utilize WebOS: HP TouchPad, Veer and Pre3. Of their plans for the mobile space, Apotheker believes there could be 100 million devices a year running the WebOS platform.

Bill Shope, an analyst at Goldman Sachs, had mixed feelings towards the CEO’s plans, “We were impressed with the new CEO’s long-term vision, and agree with his view on the areas where HP needs to focus in coming years” he continues, “Nevertheless, we still believe the company is underestimating the costs of its current transformation and the resulting risks to medium-term margin stability.”

The obvious problems ahead for HP come from staunch competition they’ll be facing in the new markets they plan to dive into. On the cloud side of things, Oracle and Cisco are established companies with renowned products. Their mobile plans will be going up against the two-headed monster of Android, and iOS.

While HP has a tough journey ahead, sometimes it’s bold words and plans that are needed to come up from a rut. Ever since the abrupt exit of ex-CEO, Mark Hurd, the company has been sliding backwards. Their stock has been down 20% the past year.

Apotheker has laid out the plan, now it’s time to see how HP handles the follow through.

Will OnLive be a successful venture? tell us

The OnLive service was announced at the Game Developers Conference last year, and since there has been wide speculation as to how successful they’ll be with their plans. This week, we go from speculation to finally seeing the service in action. Before getting into the details, you might be curious as to how the service works.

OnLive works the same way as cloud storage does for accessing files. Games are hosted on a server and players access content through these servers. Let’s say you wanted to play the game: Batman Arkham Asylum. Instead of going to a store to buy the disc, or download it, OnLive will allow you to simply click on a link and have the game loaded instantly. Batman: Arkham Asylum will then pop up on your screen and you’re on your way.

Game saves will be hosted through these servers as well, so when you’re done playing a game you can pick up right where you left off. All with a simple click.

With the synopsis I provided above, you’d think OnLive would be a successful venture. The problem is everything I’ve explained has been simple theory. The question now remains; how will it work in practice?

Luckily, this week we get to find out as the service has officially launched. You can signup for the ‘Founding Members Program‘ which provides your 1st year free, with a $4.95/month charge for the second year. When they say "free", it means you have access to demos, community features, ‘friending’, chat, and spectating. Actual gameplay will require a separate purchase.

This separate purchase is called a ‘PlayPass’. Each game will have its own PlayPass, so to play Batman Arkham Asylum you’ll need to purchase its PlayPass. You can purchase a Full Playpass, which provides unlimited access throughout the game’s lifetime on the OnLive service. You can also choose to ‘rent’ the game for three or five days. OnLive has guaranteed games on the service will be supported for at least three years.

As of now you can connect to OnLive using a PC or Mac. They’re developing a MicroConsole TV Adapter to bring their service to the living room. No release date has been announced as of yet.

Obviously, OnLive is pushing the boundaries of gaming to places never attempted. The problem being, it might be ahead of its time. Streaming a game through a server to players’ broadband connection is a strain which could cause all sorts of lag. Potentially causing a game to be unplayable.

Stever Perlman, OnLive Founder & CEO, has voiced the potential of the service, along with the potential problems,

"Despite the enormous potential of OnLive technology, it is important to emphasize that the OnLive Game Service is a very different way to experience videogames. We are using the Internet and computers in ways that have never been tried before and, like any brand new technology, you can expect a few bumps on take off until we reach cruising altitude and achieve a smooth flight. OnLive has been tested in an enormous variety of locations using a vast number of combinations of computers, ISPs, displays and input devices. Even so, there are endless possible combinations. So while most OnLive testers report good results with their gameplay experience, we still run into situations where the user may have to take some action (e.g. reset a cable modem or use a different mouse), or unique situations that we have not yet accounted for and require further changes to OnLive technology. "

The success of the service will really boil down to two things; the frequency of lag or other technical problems, and price. They’ve announced the monthly free will be $4.95 a month to simply access OnLive (with the Founding Member Discount, anyway). What they haven’t provided is how much the PlayPasses for the various games will cost. If they set the price points too high, then you’re charging people a monthly fee along with another charge which might be too great for players to handle.

The evolution of gaming has been started by lofty ideas, and goals much like OnLive is presenting. The potential of the service is too great to ignore, but so are the foreseeable problems along with it. Whatever happens, cloud gaming is certainly something to keep an eye on.

Will you sign up for OnLive? tell us

The “Connect Wizard” distills integrating Facebook Connect into a website into three steps. Many popular websites have long used Facebook Connect as a method of signing in to comment, and this effort expands that capability to any size website, even those without awesome tech staff. Facebook reminds us on the developer blog that Facebook Connect gives participating websites “identity for a great registration system, and immediate access to 300 million active global users.”

As part of the effort to bring Connect to the masses, Facebook is also launching a playground. Wait! Before you all run outside for recess, you should know that this playground doesn’t come with a merry-go-round or monkey bars. Says the blog, it “provides code samples for adding profile pictures, user names, and friends to your site.”

Talk about your disappointments.

Just before they announced the Connect Wizard yesterday, Facebook also announced a new translation feature through Facebook Connect. Unaccountably called Translations for Facebook Connect (where do they come up with these names?!), the service can translate participating pages, widgets, IFrames and apps into any of the 65 offered languages.

(You know, as well as machines can.)

(Unless this is secretly a Mechanical Turk. I hear that Facebook is really popular in Turkey.)

Naturally, if you don’t want the most popular search engine in the world handling your site translation, you might be happier with the most popular social network in the world doing it for you. Plus, Facebook has fourteen more languages than Google—though I’m not sure if that includes the regional varieties they offer for Facebook itself. Like English Upside Down. Very useful.

What do you think? Will you add Facebook Connect now that it’s just three easy steps? If you already use Connect, have you seen any advantages? Will you use it to translate for you?

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I’m a huge fan of Twitter, and very much rely on the service for my micro-communications, so I hope none of these scenarios ever materialize.

1. Ownership of Tweets

While Twitter’s new Terms state that you maintain full ownership of your Tweets, it provides no guarantee that you can get access to, or download, such content.

We reserve the right at all times (but not [sic] will not have an obligation) to remove or refuse to distribute any Content on the Services and to terminate users or reclaim usernames.

Twitter further states:

Twitter reserves the right to immediately terminate your account without further notice in the event that, in its judgment, you violate these Rules or the Terms of Service.

Unlikely but Possible Scenario:

Make one mistake and, without notice or opportunity to rectify, Twitter can delete your account and all the Tweets that you supposedly own.

2. Advertising

Twitter’s new terms include the following language:

In consideration for Twitter granting you access to and use of the Services, you agree that Twitter and its third party providers and partners may place such advertising on the Services or in connection with the display of Content or information from the Services whether submitted by you or others.

Unlikely but Possible Scenario:

Twitter could start embedding links in your actual Tweets or start using inline contextual ads–those double-underlined links that open ads, not web pages–all without your permission.

3. APIs

You’re giving Twitter pretty broad usage rights to distribute your Tweets:

You agree that this license includes the right for Twitter to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals who partner with Twitter for the syndication, broadcast, distribution or publication of such Content on other media and services, subject to our terms and conditions for such Content use.

Unlikely but Possible Scenario:

What if Twitter started selling your Tweets to analytics or research companies? The company is sitting on a mountain of data and if the advertising model fails, Twitter could make a healthy bottom line by selling that data.

4. Private Data

I’m not sure if this is new, but Twitter has every right to read your direct messages:

We also reserve the right to access, read, preserve, and disclose any information as we reasonably believe is necessary to (i) satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request, (ii) enforce the Terms, including investigation of potential violations hereof, (iii) detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues, (iv) respond to user support requests, or (v) protect the rights, property or safety of Twitter, its users and the public.

Unlikely but Possible Scenario:

Twitter becomes concerned that you’re using its service to organize a protest about its new Terms. It takes a look at your Direct Messages and concludes that you are a threat to the safety of other users. It annihilates your account!

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This week I have encountered SMB (small and medium business) people who love the idea of Internet marketing but they don’t think that they should have to pay for it. I have read that free services suck because you can’t get service when something breaks or fails. I have been doing free seminars for some folks for over a year but have closed nearly zero business from it (this last one may be because I just didn’t do the right things to make them a customer which I can accept).

So free is in but for how long? Two of the most prolific Internet properties that are currently getting a serious amount of attention from business are Twitter and Facebook. They are both free to use. I am beginning to think that Facebook has a better mousetrap due to a wider breadth of services it ties together, but that’s for another post. One thing that Twitter has is a ton of hype. This hype appears to outpace reality on a consistent basis. I think any stumbling blocks that Twitter is encountering is due to one facet of the service: it’s free.

So should Twitter charge for the service? Here’s a few things to mull over.

1. If Twitter were getting more people who actually used the service rather than signing up and then not using it within a month it would have more value. It may have a lot less users but it would be the people who actually get it. So how to you separate the wheat from the chaff? Make the service a paid one. Not much. Let’s just say $24.99 per year. Just over two bucks a month. I would spend that in a heartbeat for Twitter. Why? Because I see the value and I would think that 2 bucks a month is a steal. Some quick math for you. If 50% of the 18 or so million Twitter users decided they would pay for the service at $24.99 per year you now have revenue of just under, gulp, $225 million. With overhead being as small as it is for Twitter you have plenty of profit, plenty of cash for R&D and even more for infrastructure. Oh and you also get 9 million users with skin in the game so they now become much more valuable to advertisers.
2. If Twitter had revenue, it could quit wasting time with everyone speculating how they were going to make money to survive and then just develop very cool ways to apply the service to businesses for their benefit.
3. If Twitter charged for use and could provide customer service. Nothing else needs to be said there.
4. Back to the R&D thought. If Twitter was making money it could work 24 / 7 to improve its search capabilities.  Many believe search is the true potential value of Twitter anyway. Think of the paid search model around highly targeted and engaged Twitter users based on keyword. The cash registers would ring a lot.
5. Twitter as a paid service would eliminate a lot of the noise. There would be less mundane reporting because users would have skin in the game.

I say all this because, while it’s not as sexy as Twitter, LinkedIn is looking to be profitable for its second year in a row. That’s right. Profit. No matter how many characters you get to make that point it’s something that Twitter may never realize. Sure that’s a strong statement but why not? Twitter is burned into everyone’s brain as a free service and I suspect it may be too late for them to get back to where they need to be.

Look, I could be wrong here but one thing I am sure of. If anything is put out as free you will get what you pay for. To expect more and, even worse, to think that you shouldn’t have to ever pay for any Internet services is ridiculous. Would you just give away your product or service? No, of course not. So why do you think that Twitter should?

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Here’s how TwitPub explains its "get rich quick" service:

TwitPub is just another fantastic way to monetize Twitter. The best way to be rewarded for generating quality content (or tweets) is to get paid for it. All you need to do is to have a Twitter account and set it to private (or protect your updates so it’s not publicly visible) in your Twitter settings.

Next, signup for TwitPub and our system will automate approvals when a person subscribe to your Premium Tweet on TwitPub. Plus, you set the price on how much you want charge per subscription! It’s easy. Less hassle and gives you more control! All you have to do is Tweet!

Yeah, right. There’s just one problem. People won’t pay to read your Twitter stream. Seriously! There are lots of really smart individuals on Twitter–and lots of great news providers too–but I wouldn’t pay a penny to read what they had to say in 140 characters or less.

Would you pay to read a Twitter stream?

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Qwest Communications is taking this approach as noted over at MediaPost. The @TalktoQwest is monitored by 7 employees (or company reps as the article states which makes one wonder are they real Qwest employees?) 24 / 7and is designed to help aid customers in near real time regarding services like high-speed Internet, billing, pricing, technical support, and more.

The campaign was done by Room 214 out of Boulder, CO. Founder James Clark had this to say about
addressing customer concerns and providing quick feedback is the first step.

The challenge resides with integrating comments into daily processes. “Companies need to find a way to integrate the feedback in product development,” he said. “Those that do that will have extremely loyal customers for life.”

Others who have adopted this forum to aid in customer service and experience are Comcast, JetBlue, Odwalla, Starbucks and the Travel Channel. All are following the lead of Dell and others who were the earliest adopters of the social media tool. Surely more will get involved which will certainly help those who use Twitter.

Twitter themselves must be thrilled because they are now going to likely see numbers of Twitter users go up so they can access the service if they are a customer of that company.

Gregory Galant, CEO at Sawhorse Media, Brooklyn, N.Y., recently published “The Shorty Report” report, which explores how companies use Twitter for business. He talks about the online reputation monitoring aspect of Twitter as well.

Galant said a push for better customer service via Twitter has helped to diffuse sites like ComcastMustDie.com founded by Bob Garfield. In a post on the Web site, Garfield explains plans to put the Comcast site to rest and redirect traffic to CustomerCircus.net, “where other infamously arrogant corporations will be subjected to power of aggregated rage.”

While Twitter apps are all over the place we are now seeing more and more business applications of Twitter like those use to further develop characters for TV shows. As business folks become more and more savvy could there be the possibility of Twitter generating revenue for the right to use the platform for these kinds of activities? I don’t know. I just figure that has to cross someone’s mind at Twitter at some point with all that annoying monetization talk being thrown around all the time.

The personal nature of Twitter is helping some companies get back in touch with customers and allows opportunities for other programs like offering discounts etc. Looks like we are really starting to scratch the surface of how Twitter as a business tool will impact how we all do business in the foreseeable future.

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There’s a lot of buzz right now about Google Latitude, the new location-based service where you opt in to the service, select which friends you’re connected to, and then have it automatically update your location. I admit that there’s a creepy factor here, and that most people will not want to let most other people know exactly where they are at any given moment.

Yet in today’s MediaPost, the concerns get SO overblown that it’s making me think Latitude’s not such a bad idea after all:

So basically, the concern is that these phones will be turned into Trojan horses. And the concern’s not with the software, it’s with the hardware.

It’s quite possible that Al Qaeda could come into your office, take your phone while you’re in the bathroom, turn it into a bomb, and make it explode when you walk into a shopping mall. But if the real concern about Google Latitude is some doomsday scenario a la Arlington Road, then maybe we can focus on more serious threats.

I do think Mr. Davies of Privacy International has had some REALLY bad cellphone repairmen.

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