iPhone + Webkit + Digg = Mobile Digging Done Right

Webkit browsers, which the iphone uses will now be able to digg while mobile.

Delta Tang Bravo has more details on their blog:

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We just launched a special version of Digg today intended to be browsed on an iPhone. It’s available at digg.com/iphone but you’ve got to either be on an iPhone, in Webkit, or possibly on a Webkit-enabled device like some of the fancy Nokia phones.

It’s really fun to be developing for the iPhone. First off, it’s a welcome change to be developing for a single rendering engine… and a decent one at that. Plus, you’ve got the run of all of Webkit’s features, including advanced pseudo-selectors, text-overflow ellipsis, and simple rounded corners in CSS. While I do enjoy making bulletproof designs in my normal web design, there’s also some freedom in not having to consider text-resizing, extreme page resizing (you need to support 2 dimensions), and other hurdles when you’re developing for the iPhone. Of course, we’re still following standards pretty strictly, but not having to cope with the lowest common denominator (or even any rendering discrepancy) certainly makes things interesting — and fun!

Even more fun is developing specifically for the user input quirks of the iPhone. When your primary input device is a honkin’ fat finger, it changes the way you think about links and buttons. Everything’s got to be bigger… way bigger. The yellow digg box and Digg It button are about twice as large on the iPhone as on the normal website. I also made the clickable area of the Digg It button even larger than the button itself so if you click on the edge of it, you’ll still get a press. You also have to make sure buttons aren’t too close together so that you don’t mash one when you intend to hit the other.

Joe (the Digg dev who coded the project) and I started from Joe Hewitt’s excellent proof of concept and then adapted the javascript and the rest of the code. We’re using jQuery (thanks to the jQuery team for their assistance) to render the sliding effects to mimic a ‘real’ iPhone application’s functionality.

Joe and I threw this together over the weekend with Kevin’s help storyboarding it. Good times were had. I’m really looking forward to messing around more with developing specifically for the iPhone. Fun fun fun. Can you tell I think it’s fun?

UPDATE: One thing I forgot to mention is that page loading takes a long time on an iPhone. Actually sending and receiving a request over At&T’s slow network (when you’re not on wifi) is especially slow. So, we’re actually doing one larger load to bring in both the story list and the contents of the stories. Then you’ve only got one request (and we made sure it wasn’t huge) and you can browse the 10 stories on the page without loading again.

Update 2: Also see Joe’s write-up on some of the technical aspects of the Digg iPhone version
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.TV Premium Sales Top $500k in Day 1, ME.tv Launches

Demand Media, Inc., the next-generation web media company, and its wholly owned subsidiary and largest wholesale registrar, eNom , announced today .TV domain names sold in the first 24 hours of availability, totaled in approximately $500,000 in sales, not including those pending payment. The premium TLDs were released to market late Monday afternoon after a five-month hiatus, and are available at www.domainsindemand.tv.

Examples of premium domains that were sold in the first day of availability include:

bands.tv
bridal.tv
earth.tv
fitness.tv
history.tv
Malibu.tv
punk.tv
realtor.tv
skateboards.tv
weekend.tv
yearbook.tv

The release of premium names on May 1st was timed in conjunction with the introduction of www.me.tv, the first integrated suite of proprietary social media tools that allows anyone to own, program, and share their own personal video-centric website with social networking features and content completely controlled by them. These tools are provided free with the purchase of a .TV domain name purchased through www.me.tv or through an eNom reseller.

Social Media Power Brings Down Digg

The founders of Digg.com – which has been rocked by an unprecedented user revolt over the release of an HD-DVD decryption code – accepted sponsorship from the organization behind HD-DVD last year.

Episodes of the DiggNation video show were sponsored by the HD DVD Promotion Group. DiggNation is produced by Revision3, a company run by Digg founders, Jay Adelson and Kevin Rose. Rose is also a co-host of the DiggNation show. The image below shows the HD DVD logo displayed at the beginning of one such episode.

During the past 24 hours, Digg administrators have apparently deleted dozens of stories which included references to the HD DVD decryption code. These included one story which appeared poised to become the most popular ever seen on Digg, with almost 16000 votes within 20 hours. Administrators have also apparently begun deleting stories criticizing their actions, and also banned numerous members – according to angry statements posted by Digg users on the site and elsewhere.
diggnation sponsored by hd dvd.jpg32 Dangerous Hex Digits

The 32 digit hexadecimal code can be used to make copies of HD DVD movies by using software such as BackupHDDVD. A number of websites and individuals have reported that they have been sent legal notices ordering them to remove the code from their servers. These notices have come from US lawyers representing the Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administrator LLC (AACS LA). Digg itself has not yet issued any statement on the case or its legal situation (but see update 2 below).

Digg, one of the world’s fastest growing social networking sites, recently celebrated its one millionth user account – although the number of active contributors is believed to be considerably smaller than this figure.

All Digg content is submitted by users, who then vote for the stories they like. The company has made much of the community-administered aspect of the site. However, some users are now complaining that the recent events cast doubt on this.

Digg co-founder Jay Adelson has now made a comment regarding Digg’s position on the HD DVD code, at the official Digg blog.

Digg HD-DVD Decryption Code Meltdown

Tuesday night Digg is being flooded people digging stories that tell the Decrypt keycode for all HD-DVDs that are currently in production. Basically, this is the key that you need to copy HD DVDs. The even bigger piece of the story is that Digg has said they will ban your account if you Digg the story. So what does a group of thousands of Geeky-Diggers do? — Submit Digg upon digg about the Decreypt. Currently the top 10 stories range in number of Diggs from 6,500 - 4,000 and they are all about the HD DVD code decrypt.

WICKED Wordpress Theme Generator - My New Favorite Tool

Yvo Schaap has created a WICKED Wordpress Theme Generator - literally allowing you to create a new WP theme on the fly.

If you’re like me…and short on time and dont want to mess with CSS - this would be a great tool to use if you pump out several wordpress sites over a weekend.

The Wordpress Theme Generator lets users create their own custom themes and layouts for Body Size, Sidebars, Menu and overall presentation; then download the files in Zip format for easy upload to their Wordpress blog.

Realtime features allow you to see what you’re making as you build it.

check it out

Apple 2Q Profits Jump 88 Percent, Exceeding Analysts’ Forecasts

Apple Inc. blew past Wall Street expectations Wednesday, posting quarterly profits that jumped by 88 percent, fueled by strong sales of its iPod players and Macintosh computers.

In the first three months of the year, the Cupertino-based company said it earned $770 million, or 87 cents per share, up from $410 million, or 47 cents per share, in the year-ago period.

Sales were $5.26 billion, up 21 percent from $4.36 billion last year.

Analysts, on average, were looking for earnings of 64 cents per share on sales of $5.17 billion, according to a poll by Thomson Financial.

Apple said it shipped 1.5 million Macintosh computers and more than 10.5 million iPods during the quarter, representing a 36 percent growth in Macs and 24 percent growth in the music players.

“We are very pleased to report the most profitable March quarter in Apple’s history,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s chief financial officer.

The company said it expects revenue of about $5.1 billion and earnings per share of about 66 cents in the current quarter, which is the third in Apple’s fiscal year. Apple’s projections are actually lower than the forecasts Wall Street had before Wednesday.

Shares of Apple closed at $95.35, up $2.11, or about 2 percent, on the Nasdaq Stock Market, then leaped to $102.73 in after-hours trading.

At Wednesday’s closing price, the shares have gained about 11 percent this year, boosted partly by anticipation over Apple’s iPhone, the cellphone-iPod combination due to be released in June. Investors have largely remain unfazed by Apple’s stock options troubles, with industry analysts widely predicting Steve Jobs’ position at Apple will remain intact.

But legal experts say Jobs is still in legal limbo: An investigation by federal prosecutors continues and new accusations emerged Tuesday from the company’s former chief financial officer, alleging Jobs may have had a more significant role in the backdating of options than previously stated.

The new allegations came on the same day the former CFO, Fred Anderson, immediately settled his case with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which filed backdating-related civil charges against Anderson and Apple’s former general counsel Nancy Heinen. The SEC did not charge any other individuals in the lawsuit and said it did not plan to pursue further action against Apple itself.

Apple’s board of directors, which includes former vice president Al Gore and Google Inc.’s CEO Eric Schmidt, issued a statement Wednesday saying it would not enter a public debate with Anderson. It also defended the conclusion of Apple’s internal probe last year that cleared Jobs and current management of any wrongdoing.

Robert Scobble: “Ebay is about to announce a gadget that you can put on your blog and consumers can buy products - but not leave your site”

Robert Scobble - “I study how people outside of ‘us’ find people and things”

It’s a Google World:
Podcasters aren’t optimizing their content for Search Engine Optimization - and they are leaving traffic on the table.

Aggregate of the traffic is what gets you found. “Google is worth understanding” - How do people find you? When someone searches for “funny videos” - you’ll want to be found. “If you’re not thinking about how you rank on Google - you’re missing a ton of new business.”

It’s a People World and Word of Mouth World:
Robert thinks that we need to not ignore the word of mouth traffic - remember that, especially with Youtube, AskaNinja, Twitter, etc.
When he reads his feed reader - things that make him slow down are keywords, interesting photos, or “authoritative” people. These are the things that makes his eye stop and actually read the content.

It’s a Distribution World:
If you want to care about the apple tv - you need to care about the format, higher resolutions work better and will drive more traffic. It takes twice the time to code - and the bandwidth can be spendy, but you need to listen to what your readers or listeners care are the formats that they use.
Joost is starting a sister site that uses a “mashed P2P network that is far cheaper than today” - this will allow for the lower level Vbloggers to bring their content to the masses.

Getting bloggers to talk about you is exponential - it will bring in a ton of traffic!
“At Podtech we built a player that allows users to put content on their own site - which allows users to consume content without going outside of your site, and traffic trippled in 1 week.”

Nice little Tidbit of news:
“Ebay is about to announce a gadget that you can put on your blog and consumers can buy products - but not leave your site” — Look out AuctionAds!

Marshall Kirkpatrick - Getting access to information early in the conversation

Marshall Kirkpatrick Speaking at the PodCastHotel in San Francisco - Live Blog Post!

Getting access to information early in the conversation-
Timeliness - reporting on information as early in the news as possible. This is key to building the media properties that has built. SplashCast has been on digg several times, and that’s because of the timeliness of the content and news that is being broken.
Splashcast being dugg on the front page drive between 3,000 to 15,000 uniques to their site. Scribbed.com has had 9 front page diggs in the last month and this is due to timely PDFs that they have provided.

Twitter “is good for community rather than breaking news”. The earthquake story has been one of Marshall’s favorite stories related to Twitter.

Production time for podcasting or video is enormous - and that slows down the amount of speed that you have to break a story. The biggest changes in video blogging will be quickness to bring content online. Using Twitter or other live event notification tools can be used in conjunction with video blogging to let others know that a new story is being broken, needs digging, etc.

YouStream style live video - where it is an end-to-end model is the best that we have, and others will be moving towards this.
Free Speech Radio News uses several different podcasters to provide news - this is a great way to get a lot of content from many sources, quickly.

Reaching out to low-bandwidth and less tech-savy users is really the key for growth in podcasting and video blogging - bringing the un-tapped crowed into the “know” about these type of technologies.

Mini Cologne - has a program in San Francisco that teaches minorities to record and promote pod casts - this one of Marshall’s favorite examples of others reaching into the un-tapped crowed.

I’m Heading to San Fran For the PodCastHotel Event

I’ll be heading down to San Francisco this weekend to attend the PodCastHotel event, and I’m really excited about this one!

The Podcast Hotel is a conference that is going to allow people to get together to hear people speak but also to create their own works, learn a ton, discuss issues and exchange ideas. The Keynote speaker is Andrew Baron, Founder, Rocketboom, which has become of of the most successful video podcasts in the world. I’m looking foward to hearing him speak!

A few of the speakers are:
Chris Pirillo, Founder, Lockergnome
Mary Hodder, chief executive officer, Dabble
Josh Wolf, The Revolution will Be Televised
Robert Scoble, Vice President, Media Development, Podtech

This should be an awesome event, and I’ll post some notes from the speakers over this weekend!

Venture Capital Activity: Technorati Buys Personal Bee, Akami Buys Red Swoosh, LinkedIN, Y Combinator

Technorati Buys Personal Bee

Technorati said Wednesday that it has acquired Berkeley-based Personal Bee, an online service which allows people to create their own personal sites using RSS feeds. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Ted Shelton, founder of Personal Bee, will join Technorati as its VP of Business Development.

Akamai Buys Red Swoosh
Akamai Technologies said today that it is acquiring San Mateo-based Red Swoosh, a developer of client side technology for media distribution, in a deal worth $15M. Akamai said it purchased Red Swoosh in an all-stock merger transaction, and that it will use the acquisition to augment its services. Akamai said that Red Swoosh will be integrated into its existing engineering team in California.

LinkedIn Claims 10M Users
Palo Alto-based LinkedIn, the online social networking web site focused on business professionals, said today that it has reached 10 million users for the site. The company said that it is currently growing at the rate of over 130,000 members a week. LinkedIn provides social networking tools targeted at business users, and has received funding from Sequoia Capital, Grelock, Bessemer Venture Partners, and the European Founders Fund.

Y Combinator is Breaking VC Ground!

The Mercury News has a good description of how Y Combinator works:

Here’s how it works: twice a year, Y Combinator invites “hackers,” or programmers, to fill out an online application, outlining who they are and a business idea. One winning batch of teams is funded in winter and the other in summer. With Y Combinator’s help, each becomes a real company - one that is expected to create its product within three months. The amount of money Y Combinator gives each group - $5,000, plus an additional $5,000 per founder - is a pittance for what it asks in return, which is, on average, a 6 percent stake in their start-up. That money has to really stretch. Beyond their living and working expenses, it must also cover relocation costs, as the winter winners must relocate to the Bay Area and the summer winners to the Boston area.

Google to acquire DoubleClick for $3.1B

Seeking to expand its already well-honed ability to sell targeted Internet advertisements, online search leader Google Inc. said it has agreed to pay $3.1 billion in cash to acquire ad-management technology company DoubleClick Inc.

The two companies announced the deal after the markets closed Friday. The boards of both companies have approved the takeover, which is expected to close by the end of the year.

New York-based DoubleClick helps its customers place and track online advertising, including search ads, which Google — more than its nearest search competitors Yahoo Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO - news) and Microsoft Corp. — has turned into an extremely lucrative business.

Shares of Mountain View-based Google rose 3 cents to $466.32 in after-hours trading. DoubleClick has been privately held since 2005.

The sellers are San Francisco-based private equity firm Hellman & Friedman, along with JMI Equity and DoubleClick management.

Commentary:
From DoubleClick’s announcement of the exchange:

Using the new platform, publishers and other sellers make specific inventory available for purchase. Sellers define a minimum bid value - or “reserve price” - for the inventory and specify rules to restrict certain advertisers, formats and content. In parallel, buyers specify the inventory they wish to purchase, and the associated bid value for that inventory. They can also specify a rule to dynamically control the bid so that the bid price is automatically adjusted in line with inventory performance.

From the New York Times:

DoubleClick, which was founded in 1996, provides display ads on Web sites like MySpace, The Wall Street Journal and America Online as well as software to help those sites maximize ad revenue. The company also helps ad buyers — advertisers and ad agencies — manage and measure the effectiveness of their rich media, search and other online ads.

DoubleClick has also recently introduced a Nasdaq-like exchange for online ads that analysts say could be lucrative for Google.

“Google really wants to get into the display advertising business in a big way, and they don’t have the relationships they need to make it happen,” said Dave Morgan, the chairman of Tacoda, an online advertising network. “But DoubleClick does. It gives them immediate access to those relationships.”

From Bloomberg

`Deep Pockets’

Google declined to give financial details for DoubleClick, whose headquarters are in the same building as its own New York offices. The purchase eclipses the $1.65 billion Google spent to buy video-sharing Web site YouTube in November and was 50 percent more than Hellman & Friedman had wanted. A person with knowledge of the talks said last month the firm may seek about $2 billion.

“The amount is mind-blowing,” said Richard Fetyko, an analyst at Merriman, Curhan and Ford in New York. Fetyko follows DoubleClick rival AQuantive Inc., which he rates buy and doesn’t own. “Apparently there was very competitive bidding. Microsoft has deep pockets, but apparently everything has its limits.”

Friday’s Trip Around the Blogosphere

Kathy Sierra’s - Creating Passionate Users
You really ought to check out Kathy Sierra’s recent post about “outspending vs. outteaching”.

Is Google Acquiring G.CN ?

The China Search Engine View blog writes:

[W]hen you search the whois here, you may find there is one item more, “Registrant Organization: 北京刘元和君咨询有限公司” (Jan Liu & Associates), the attorney for Google’s case of googel.com.cn and googel.cn. Has Google really got g.cn?
This looks pretty realistic to me – and I must say that it’s an interesting branding play for Google China!

Speaking of Google – Aaron Wall has a great discussion about Google being and invisible hand in online marketing .

Aaron takes a look at the perception of trusted advertisers and how that affects your marketing spend and budget.

Their newest ad unit is an unmarked text link ad, which only displays any ad notification AFTER people hover over the link. Publishers who refuse to sell links directly will publish the ads, and if they spread anything like AdSense does, what happens to links to commercial sites? What happens when virtually nobody is willing to link to a commercial site unless it is through Google? What happens when their affiliate payouts are not high enough to solicit a review? And what happens to those businesses when Googlers decide they want that market for themselves, like real estate?

Facebook Buy Passed up and Mozilla’s COOP Launch: I bet you Missed these Important Marketing Developments Today

Facebook was a goldmine – and Yahoo passed on it!

Co-written by analyst Mark May, an analyst report that covers consumer Internet, references Facebook’s most recent traffic numbers (about 1.5 billion pages/day) and says social networking could one of the most important growth areas of the Internet over the next five years.

By referencing Facebook’s doubling in growth, the reports also implies Facebook may be worth twice what it was last year, suggesting the business may have a $3 billion value to a buyer based on last year’s supposed $1.6B Yahoo “offer.”

Was Facebook’s Mark Zuckerman ready to sell? – Maybe, should Yahoo have wined and dined him until he was willing to sell. YES.

Mozilla released a new product called the COOP – which is social networking for your browser.

Check out Mozilla’s Coop!

ScanScout Backed By $2 Million In Funding; Launching Tool That Monitors Video Topics For Advertisers

ScanScout, a Cambridge, MA-based startup that has developed a tool that lets online video publishers target the topic of a video, has received $2 million in angel investments, according to Mass High Tech. One of the participants in this first funding round was angel investor Ron Conway, who said he generally invests about $50K in tech companies, but decided to invest $150K in ScanScout, citing growing demand for online video and its ability to attract advertising.

Two former MIT classmates, ScanScout’s president Waikit Lau and CTO Steven Lee, developed the technology, which launches publicly next month. ScanScout monitors the content’s spoken text, audio and images and then select related advertisements that run just below the video screen.

Iminent Brings Video-add-ons to Instant Messaging

Iminent, startup based in France provides video-add-on applications for instant messaging systems. Do you remember the old days of IRC or ICQ? Well, imagine those on steroids! Iminent has secured nearly $4 million from French-Italian investment group 360 Partners, AC reports. Iminent’s video system, which is currently in beta test mode, allows users to make short videos and attach them to IM when chatting. IMer’s can use “emovids,” which is a short animation that is intended to serve the same function as an emoticon. The company’s website says that the application is free, though it offer any other details about how it is to be marketed.