First up, rumors are circulating that Twitter has acquired Summize. There’s no official confirmation yet, but Summize’s search engine and sentiment analysis of Twitter would certainly make a sensible acquisition. Not so much for the public-facing interface, but for the gigabytes of useful information Summize can feed to Twitter’s developers.

Changing focus, VentureBeat reveals that, despite Twitter’s performance issues, the service is still growing strong. In fact, even new competitors such as FriendFeed and Plurk, didn’t prevent Twitter from reaching record levels of users in June. As VentureBeat suggests, at this point Twitter’s biggest enemy is itself.

Every time Twitter is offline, a competitor gets its wings!

So, how is Twitter handling its performance issues? Well, it must be close to being back on track considering its recent talk about improving its API.

The Twitter API is a big part of our success and we will be stabilizing and improving it in the short term. The rate limit is currently set to 20 requests per hour but we’re working to bring it back to 70.

Let’s hope this is a sign that Twitter’s core functions–such as replies and archives–are now stable. Surely Twitter wouldn’t dare talk about API improvements, without first addressing issues with its basic functions.

Love Twitter? Follow my inner-monolog here.

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Facebook is “one hundred percent” buying Plaxo, we’ve just heard from a source.

Wow, starting your story with that sentence certainly grabs your attention, doesn’t it? VentureBeat’s managed to make a statement of "fact" without actually saying that it has confirmed the story. Nice!

Well, assuming it’s "one hunded percent" then I guess we can soon expect our Plaxo accounts to start sniffing around our business contacts and phoning home to the Facebook mothership. You see, part of the reason why Facebook would be interested in coughing-up as much as $200M for Plaxo is that the service has done a great job of convincing us to install its plugins and share our contact info.

That’s the type of info that would be very valuable to Facebook…

Mountain View, Calif.-based Plaxo could help Facebook gather data through its large user base, and through its plugins for email programs Microsoft Outlook, Mac Mail, and Thunderbird as well as a plugin for instant message service AIM, among others. Plaxo has developed technology to sync contacts through its home web site and its plugins, to create a sort of universal address book. It has also developed native mobile syncing technology for Windows Mobile and other mobile operating systems. Syncing between all of these different services is a very hard problem — that Plaxo has solved.

If the deal goes through, and I start seeing Facebook all over my Plaxo account, I for one won’t be rejoicing. Maybe I’m just too immersed in social media, but I’m just not thrilled about Facebook these days. My six month love affair ended recently as I realized that my contacts just want to send me chain letters or join groups to save a TV show. Nope, I’m finding it to be more enjoyable to connect with those in my Twitter network–which, BTW, could really benefit from a stronger "network" component.

Still, if my love affair with Facebook has dwindled, the one with Plaxo is stone cold. I haven’t touched Plaxo in about a year–when I stopped using Outlook, Plaxo became impotent–and so they can feel free to hook-up and share all the info they want. There, doesn’t it feel good to have the Pilgrim’s blessing on the marriage?

Do you use Plaxo? Have you stopped using Facebook? Do you think this will be the best union since TomKat?

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To bring in that payday, Digg has enlisted the boutique investment bank Allen & Company to assist.

Citing a reliable source, VentureBeat noted the $300 million price tag that has been rumored for months is still in place.

Valleywag picked up on the rumors a month ago, saying, "Digg’s contentious audience, too, might not take to the site’s new owners. That’s the biggest obstacle, I suspect, to any deal happening."

One would think Microsoft would rate 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th through 25th on the list of new owners the Digg audience may not like. But with Microsoft providing advertising on Digg, Steve Ballmer may be the most likely person to write a $300 million check, if only to keep it out of Google’s hands.

That is, if Digg has performed well for Microsoft’s advertisers. If not, they could get in the game to bid the price up for someone else, ideally Google, and trick them into paying a premium on what could be a poor return.

If Digg has picked up in value by shifting to less tech and more mainstream content, as Allen Stern suggested, Digg could be a lucrative social media buy.

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Hercules Technology Growth Capital is learning that lesson the hard way after sending a c&d to The Funded–a site that lets companies anonymously share thoughts about VC firms. VentureBeat has a copy of the letter sent and TechDirt points out why Hercules’ effort will likely backfire.

This seems like a bad idea for a huge number of reasons — all of which Hercules and its lawyers probably should have realized before sending the C&D. First off, as it seems we have to repeat almost weekly around here, section 230 of the Communications Decency Act very, very clearly states that a site is not liable for content its users post, and any law firm should know that. Second, and more importantly…Prior to this, not a whole lot of people would see the review of Hercules. Now, however, many, many, many more entrepreneurs will not only see and remember the negative review, they’ll see how Hercules responded to it, which may be even more damaging to the firm’s reputation.

It’s understandable that Hercules Technology had a knee-jerk reaction–who wants something negative posted about them? But, as they’ll learn, taking such a heavy-handed approach will now leave potential start-ups questioning whether they should take funding from a company that "releases the dogs" first and asks questions later.

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The exclusivity of that deal doesn’t extend to the multitude of developers creating applications for Facebook’s platform, it seems. Eric Eldon at VentureBeat spotted Google slipping in Facebook’s backdoor with its AdSense product:

These aren’t just any old Adsense ads, according to our sources – developers have been inserting plain-vanilla Adsense into Facebook applications since the developer platform launched in May. Now, Google is specifically building this network for advertisers who want to be on Facebook, and will let advertisers run their ads across all Facebook apps that sign up for it.

Facebook has been clear about letting third-party developers sell ads on their own “canvas” pages on the site and keep all the revenue – a loophole that the Google seems to fit through just fine.

Google’s advertisers should be thrilled at the prospect of a Facebook-dedicated network, considering the massive quantities of youth worship by Madison Avenue, and Facebook’s millions of young college and high school members.

Somehow, Microsoft knocking Google off of Digg doesn’t look quite as interesting now.

Of course, it’s not like there are a billion of the things (yet) – the only other mobile social network ever covered by WebProNews appears to be Bluepulse.  And as it so happens, VentureBeat’s Matt Marshall describes Trutap and Bluepulse as director competitors, then writes, “Trutap says it will differentiate through partnerships with the major social networks and carriers, but this is yet to be seen.”

Still, Trutap’s not flailing around without hope.  The company’s apparently got almost $8 million to its name, and all the standard doodads – messaging, chat, photo-sharing, and blog features – that every social network should have.  It also turned a few heads at the TechCrunch40 conference.

“The firm is the only British enterprise to be invited to the Techcrunch 40 conference,” noted the Telegraph’s Richard Tyler.  And while we’re speaking of British head-turners, I might as well mention Keira Knightley, who’s pictured in Tyler’s article for not entirely irrelevant reasons.

Anyway, we’ll try to stay tuned and report how things turn out for Trutap – assuming we can see the results on those itty-bitty screens.

So I’m sure the numbers aren’t loaded at all.

Regardless, after receiving a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) violation notice from the RIAA, Facebook promptly ejected Audio, an application developed for the social network that allows users to upload MP3s and share them within the site.

In just a week, the app was downloaded 750,000 times. And the RIAA didn’t like that one bit. VentureBeat updates its original article to note that Audio plans to be back online soon, pending some sort of resolution.

Not that copyrights shouldn’t be protected, but it makes you wonder if the RIAA would approve of someone playing music at a party where people who didn’t buy the CDs (okay, the MP3s) could hear it, too.

Don’t ask Elton John how he feels about the whole thing though. His beef isn’t so much with piracy (he doesn’t like it, in case you were wondering), but with the whole darn Internet.

The 60-year-old not sure what appeal, if any, all this technology has, but he is sure that it’s destroying art and music.

"In the early Seventies there were at least ten albums released every week that were fantastic," he told The Sun. "Now you’re lucky to find ten albums a year of that quality. And there are more albums released each week now than there were then.”

Well, there was a lot more acid floating around back then, fewer lawyers, and fewer corporate shills. Not that I would know, but my parents might.

At any rate, John would like to see the Internet – all of it – shut down to the impact it has on art. If I remember the artifacts from the Seventies, though – Velvet Elvis, Pet Rocks, the Osmonds, Shawn Cassidy, polyester, Disco Duck, shag carpet, and men with friggin’ permanents – I’m not sure if we want those days to return.

Oh well, at least we know Elton’s less dangerous than the ol’ RIAA and its teams of lawyers.  

He’s absolutely right! (I’ve been saying that a lot today — I’m in a very agreeable mood).

The thing is I’ve been keeping my own “A list.” I judge 772 feeds (which represents thousands of blogs since some of my feeds, like Microsoft’s feed, has more than 3,000 bloggers on one feed).

I judged 35,609 items in the past 30 days, according to Google Reader. Out of all those items I shared 1,094 items with you.

To get onto my feed reader you’ve gotta do something better than the average blog. You’ve gotta bring the best of tech through my feed reader. If you don’t I unsubscribe and I go somewhere else.

Out of all those feeds Google Reader keeps track of the top 35 feeds. This is the new A list and DARE IS ON IT.

See, he better watch attacking the A list tech bloggers because he now is one.

I think that’s called a “looping flame.” Where you intended damage to happen somewhere else but it came back to focus on you. Ouch.

1. Mashable

2. Read/Write Web

3. TechCrunch

4. Media 2.0 Workgroup

5. digg

6. Sun bloggers

7. Gizmodo

8. ZDNet blogs

9. Planet Intertwingly (a bunch of bloggers show up here, including Dare).

10. All Facebook

11. MSDN Blogs

12. digg/Technology

13. The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

14. RSS Feed for Lifehacker

15. GigaOM Network

16. VentureBeat

17. Chuqui 3.0

18. VentureBeat Wire

19. Y Combinator Startup News

20. Engadget

21. TechNet Blogs

22. Digital Backcountry – Ryan Stewart’s Flash Platform Blog

23. JD on EP

24. Google Operating System

25. A Welsh View

26. dzone.com: latest front page

27. All Things Digital

28. Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life

29. Valleywag

30. Googlified

31. Ryan’s shared items in Google Reader

32. rexblog: Rex Hammock’s Weblog

33. Metaversed – Business and Technology News from the Metaverse

34. Business 2.0 Beta Blogs

35. CrunchGear

Anyway, I threw an answer to Dare up on my Kyte.tv channel as well.

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Get Rich With A Niche

When it comes to online advertising effectiveness, the tradeoff between reach and efficiency makes for a challenge for advertisers.

Jeremy Liew, a partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, had a couple of his posts on ad networks regarding reach, efficiency, and other topics combined into a nice, lengthy read on ]]> http://www.webpronews.com/get-rich-with-a-niche-2007-07/feed 0 http://www.webpronews.com/google-less-sharogle-may-go-on-2007-07 http://www.webpronews.com/google-less-sharogle-may-go-on-2007-07#comments Wed, 18 Jul 2007 20:11:42 +0000 Doug Caverly http://www.webpronews.com/?p=39225 Imagine if Google paid $1 for every search you performed - pretty cool, right?  Now, Sharogle couldn’t afford nearly that rate, but it was, by all accounts, “a search engine that shares its revenue with users.”  Emphasis on “was” - Google pulled its ads from the site, and Sharogle now faces an uncertain future.

]]> Imagine if Google paid $1 for every search you performed – pretty cool, right?  Now, Sharogle couldn’t afford nearly that rate, but it was, by all accounts, “a search engine that shares its revenue with users.”  Emphasis on “was” – Google pulled its ads from the site, and Sharogle now faces an uncertain future.

Mashable’s Kristen Nicole explains how things used to work, noting that “Sharogle’s own primary source of revenue was Google ads,” and, “[u]nder its search use and referral system, users could partake in this rev-share deal by actively using the service and bringing more users to the site.”

But, as mentioned earlier, Google didn’t like this, and with its pullout, Sharogle was left stranded.  New developments appear to be taking place, however – someone called “Molly” has appeared in the comments section of that Mashable article and a VentureBeat piece to say that Sharogle has found a different search engine to use.

The last post on Sharogle’s blog also hinted at this possibility, saying, “we have decided to look elsewhere, so we can continue with our business.”  That post was written on July 11.

Whether a renewed Sharogle is a good or bad thing remains open to debate – that VentureBeat article generated quite a conversation.  Also up in the air is Sharogle’s name – should the company switch to Sharahoo or something to match its new engine?