Early Adopters

Enterprise SaaS and PaaS (platform as a service) vendor Netsuite announced the availability of Netsuite Manufacturing Edition last week. The company's Manufacturing Edition is aimed at mid-sized manufacturers and provides support for "multi-company, multi-plant, multi-location and multi-currency" enterprises. The product was built by manufacturing management software company Rootsock Software on Netsuite's SuiteCloud platform, which opens a new vertical market to Netsuite and escalates its competition with SAP.

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The suite's features include: multi-site planning and management, material requirements planning (MRP), production management, engineering change control (ECC), shop floor control and work-in-progress (WIP) management.

Netsuite and Rootstock's joint product, originally called Rootstock MRP for NetSuite, has been beta since April 2009.

Launched in 2009, SuiteCloud is Netsuite's platform as a service offering. Rootstock, founded in 2008, was one of the platform's early adopters. According to a press release, the company was able to bring Rootstock MRP for NetSuite to market twice as fast and at half the cost as would have been otherwise possible.

SAP is the dominant player in enterprise manufacturing software, so this product brings Netsuite directly onto SAP's turf. SAP meanwhile is readying its SaaS offering Business ByDesign, which will compete directly with Netsuite in the SMB market.

Netsuite has been aggressively positioning themselves as a SAP competitor and
CloudSuite has been seen as a competitor to both SAP and Oracle (Oracle's CEO Larry Ellison is a majority shareholder and major financial backer of Netsuite).

Netsuite Manufacturing Edition will also compete with manufacturing ERP SaaS provider Plex.

Discuss

Forget about the idea that early adopters are always first at everything. Sometimes it takes some of us a little bit longer to find utility in products or services that others get right away. Twitter was an obvious initial miss for me. I held out for a long time - by my standards - swearing first that I would never use it, and then finally giving in after getting some good feedback from peers who were finding value.

Now, nearly 30 months later, and 5,000 tweets later, the milestone I'll hit once this blog hits the service via FeedBurner, Twitter has become a powerful force. Even those people who are not on the service, or using it as often as many of us are, have at least heard of it, or know people on it. The assumption now is that everybody has a Twitter account, in the same way as we believe everybody has an e-mail address. News breaks on Twitter. People break on Twitter. And it has become the go-to source for real-time feedback from a massive audience. Maybe Twitter doesn't cure cancer, but it turns out, it can help - as we learned with #blamedrewscancer... and it sure doesn't cause cancer, no matter how frequently you update, or what client you prefer.


5,000 tweets sounds like a lot to me. That's almost 6 per day, or one every 4+ hours around the clock for 2 1/2 years, scattered almost exclusively between 8 a.m. in the morning and 2 at night, if TweetStats tells the truth. With 140 characters to play with, that's 700,000 characters of wiggle room. But as we once discussed with a Twitter Noise ratio I made up, one's pace can depend on their personal preferences, their choices to share links or engage in conversation, or what social networks make sense for them. I know, for example, that many Twitter-centric folks long since left 5,000 and 10,000 or even 20,000 and 50,000 tweets in the dust. @chrisbrogan sports nearly 70,000 while @parislemon is approaching 14,000 and the legendary @queenofspain is going to cross 85,000 before the month is out. So I must not be too noisy amid such elite company.


Twitter, for all its ups and downs with infrastructure strains and developer changes, through the company's maturation, has become an important player for many different things. Its limitations have been rebranded as simplicity, and what used to be a geek mecca is as much home to celebrities, teens and marketing as anything else. That's the problem with a nice neighborhood, everyone moves in and the ads go up. But the crowds have brought relevance. With worldwide growth and use in many different markets for many things, one can practically assume someone is twittering most events, in the same way one can safely assume that any scene of interest is being videotaped. The world is being recorded, and the world is being tweeted.


My comparatively slow approach to Twitter contrasted with some of my peers continues thanks to my own internal checks against noise. I still use Twitter primarily for distributing links from the blog and others I think may be relevant to followers. I set up a dedicated account at @lgstream for even more shares, without drowning my feed. I try to keep idle chat to a minimum, engaging on Google Buzz, FriendFeed and Facebook for some, and using Twitter DMs in other cases. I don't know if I'll ever make Twitter a place where I want to drop in and stay a while. I am absolutely glad it's there, and recognize its significant utility, but it still doesn't feel like a destination to me - instead, a powerful, increasingly critical utility.


By the time I hit 10,000 tweets, I expect Twitter will be dramatically different again from where it is now. As the company may have approached 200 employees, it could be at 1,000 or more by that time. It might be a public company, and the service could be dramatically different. Maybe popular clients like TweetDeck, Seesmic and Brizzly will be purchased by other brand names, or by Twitter themselves, like Tweetie was. But Twitter looks not only here to stay, but to play a big role in how this generation communicates. It may be through 140 characters at a time, including @Replies and short URLs, but it's what we've got.

Here's to filling your stream with another 5,000 useful tweets. You can find me at @louisgray.

Weekly Wrap-up: Zuckerberg's Half-Truths, Firefox Loosing to Chrome, Twitter Ads, And More... —

What a massive week for Facebook news, eh? What you, dear reader, loved most about our coverage was when Marshall Kirkpatrick stood up and called out CEO Mark Zuckerberg on his half-truths regarding the new privacy policies. We also continued our exploration of the significant Internet trends of 2010: We looked at how books are now a part of the Internet of Things; how you can create code-free augmented reality in less than five minutes; and how the real-time Web affected the Gulf oil disaster. Read on for more.

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Story of the Week

• The Half Truths of Mark Zuckerberg
• Firefox Losing Early Adopters to Chrome - Will Mainstream Users Follow?
• New Type of Database Gets High-Profile Funding
• Twitter Bans In-Stream Ads
• How To Use Google Wave for Live Blogging
• Facebook CEO: "I know we've made a bunch of mistakes"

More coverage and analysis from ReadWriteWeb

The Real-Time Web Summit, New York City

You're invited to join ReadWriteWeb for our third event and our first on the East Coast: the ReadWriteWeb Real-Time Web Summit, on June 11 at the Metropolitan Pavilion in New York City. This is our second Summit on the Real-Time Web, following on from our successful debut event in Mountain View last October. It will follow the same unconference format, which we have gotten a lot of great feedback on.

The Real-Time Web is a set of technologies that impacts almost every service, activity and application on the Web. We were one of the first news outlets to analyze the Real-Time Web and we've since written extensively about it. Come to the summit to understand how it impacts you, your business and your next development.

The ReadWriteWeb team is excited about our first New York event and we look forward to seeing you there! Click here to get a 30% discount on your registration.

Real-Time Web

• YouTube Adds Real-Time Discussion Support with Google Moderator
• 5 Intersections of the Real-Time Web and the Deepwater Horizon
• Need a Program Guide for the Real-Time Web? Try Live Matrix

More Real-Time Web coverage. Don't miss the next wave of opportunity on the Web supported by real-time technology! Get ReadWriteWeb's report, The Real-Time Web and its Future.

Augmented Reality

• AR Developers Ogmento Raise $3.5M for Augmented Gaming Apps
• Code-Free Augmented Reality in Under 5 Minutes [VIDEO]

More Augmented Reality coverage

Augmented Reality for Marketers and Developers: Our Newest Research Report

We're pleased to announce ReadWriteWeb's latest premium report, Augmented Reality for Marketers and Developers: Analysis of the Leaders, the Challenges and the Future. This report will help you develop a sophisticated understanding of Augmented Reality (AR), the mobile and Web technology that places data on top of a user's view of the physical world. The research included will help you decrease your AR development time to market by learning from the first wave of early adopters. AR offers a new marketing and product paradigm for a high impact, high value customer experience. More than 1,000 AR campaigns were kicked-off last year and we expect to see many more in 2010. In this report, we profile key AR development companies, their campaigns as well as development lessons learned. For more information or to buy the report, visit here.

Internet of Things

• Hotels Test Smartphones as Room Keys
• Why HP Thinks Sensors Will Lead to The Next Big Wave of Computing
• Books Come Alive with QR Codes & Data in the Cloud

More Internet of Things coverage

Mobile Web

• Kids More Likely to Own a Cellphone Than a Book, Study Finds
• Mozilla Bringing Firefox to the iPhone With "Get Up and Go" Browsing
• Anonymous Mobile Social Network Gets Venture Backing

More Mobile Web coverage

Check Out The ReadWriteWeb iPhone App

We recently launched the official ReadWriteWeb iPhone app. As well as enabling you to read ReadWriteWeb while on the go or lying on the couch, we've made it easy to share ReadWriteWeb posts directly from your iPhone, on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow the RWW team on Twitter, directly from the app. We invite you to download it now from iTunes.

ReadWriteStart

Our channel ReadWriteStart, sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark, is dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs.

• New Type of Database Gets High-Profile Funding
• "You're Fired!" (Or Not): Advice on When to Fire Your Startup's Staff
• Entrepreneurs, Say No to (Poorly Run, Unnecessary) Meetings

ReadWriteCloud

Our channel ReadWriteCloud, sponsored by VMware and Intel, is dedicated to Virtualization and Cloud Computing.

• Open API Madness: The Party Has Just Begun for Cloud Developers
• Map Reduce your Inbox: Yahoo Mail is Fighting Spam with Big Data
• S3 Companies That Tackle Complexity in the Cloud

Enjoy your weekend everyone.

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Discuss

Probably the most anticipated enhancement to Dropbox, our most favorite cross-platform / cross-device file syncing service, is now available in a new experimental build for all major operating systems: Selective Sync!

In a nutshell, Dropbox has been the best performing, most streamlined files/folders syncing and backup service available in the cloud for quite a while. Users have praised it time and again for its simplicity and seamless integration on many platforms, including the iPhone, iPad and Android.

The simplicity, however, came at a price: The service was operating on an all-or-nothing paradigm.

Once you joined a Dropbox (think shared folders), your machine received every single file and folder inside the hierarchy. No chance for you to opt out of single folders and choose what you want to sync to individual machines. While admittedly this made things easy, it became a problem more often than not when you were running a setup including machines with hard disks of largely different sizes. At least until today.

The way selective sync in build 0.8.64 works is pretty straight forward: You click the Selective Sync… button on the newly introduced Advanced tab in the Dropbox preferences dialog and uncheck the folders you don’t want to sync. Done.

A note to early adopters: When I first tried the new release, Selective Sync was grayed out. This is expected behavior. According to the FAQs for the new feature:

If you are running the Dropbox desktop application for the first time, you may have to wait until Dropbox has finished indexing the files in your Dropbox folder before you can access Selective Sync settings. If you see a message that says “Performing initial sync with server. Please wait…,” it means the Dropbox desktop application is in the process of indexing the files in your Dropbox or you have paused syncing from the Dropbox menu. You can choose to wait until indexing is complete to access your Selective Sync settings. Otherwise, select Cancel to dismiss the message and return to your preferences window. If you have paused syncing, you can resume syncing via the Dropbox menu.

One other aspect did not change, though: Everything you want so sync still needs to sit inside your main Dropbox folder. So, including folders outside your Dropbox continues to require the symbolic link workaround for a while.

More screenshots as my Dropbox moves forward:

Google Chrome has had a big impact on the browser market since its release in September 2008. The latest report from NetMarketShare puts Chrome at 6.73% market share, ahead of Safari on 4.72% and behind only IE (59.95%) and Firefox (24.59%).

What's more interesting about Chrome is the activity it's enjoying from early adopters and geeks. Our own browser statistics at ReadWriteWeb show that Chrome was used by 17.89% of our readers in April, putting it behind only Firefox (38.95%) and IE (24.76%). Further, our figures show a very clear movement from Firefox to Chrome over the past year. Chrome has gained nearly 11% over the past year, whereas Firefox has lost over 15%.

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IE has stayed stable on our site over the past year, registering no change from its 24% in April 2009. Take a look at our comparison stats, via Google Analytics:

Source: ReadWriteWeb

I can also tell you that many of ReadWriteWeb's staff now use Chrome. I myself made the switch as soon as a (relatively) stable Mac version became available in 2009, primarily because I had been experiencing slowness and crashes in Firefox for months prior. I've never looked back - sorry Mozilla. Chrome is fast, hardly ever crashes and can handle multiple tabs with ease. It does the job. The only thing I still use Firefox for is, ironically, offline Gmail! That's because on a Mac, Google Gears is only available on Firefox and Safari - not Chrome.

Before I get assailed by Firefox fans in the comments, granted the much larger NetMarketShare stats show a couple of percentage points of growth for Firefox over the past year. They also show IE losing over 8% share and Chrome gaining over 4%.

Source: NetMarketShare

However, even NetMarketShare's stats show that Firefox's real battle is not with Microsoft's IE anymore (whose downward slide is inevitable and long overdue), but with Google's Chrome.

It's not just on the statistics and performance fronts either. Google is now directly attacking Firefox's main strength from a developer point of view: its ecosystem of add-ons. At the Google I/O event earlier this month, Google announced an application store to help with discovery and sales of Web applications. Some startups have already moved focus from the add-on model to a web site or app (e.g. GetGlue), so Google's App Store will only accelerate this.

Yesterday we reported that the beta tag for Google's Chrome browser has been removed for the Mac and Linux versions. Is that also a sign that the gloves are now off too? Chrome is now a 'serious' browser, no beta tags and all OS's covered with stable versions.

Overall I can't help but think that Chrome is really hitting at the heart of Firefox nowadays. The early adopter and geeky readership of ReadWriteWeb - bless you all - is often a forerunner of future mainstream trends. And our stats clearly show our readers are moving away from Firefox and largely onto Chrome. How long before the mainstream follows?

Discuss

Exclusive: FireFox by the Numbers – Users, Usage & Downloads —

Earlier this week, a blog post on ReadWriteWeb said that Google’s speedy and nimble Chrome browser was eating into the market share of Mozilla’s Firefox browser and other browser competitors, especially amongst the early adopters. Their post was inspired by data from NetMarketShare, a service that tracks the browser market share, and set off a chain reaction of other blog posts that glommed onto the Chrome-versus-Firefox story line.

There is no denying that Chrome has won the recent battle for mindshare amongst the early adopters. There is no denying that Mozilla has problems that go beyond the pending loss of their chief executive, John Lilly to a venture capital firm. And no one can deny that so far Mozilla has blown the opportunity to have an impact on the mobile platforms. And if my sources are correct, then it is plenty evident that Mozilla has been overcome with a sense of ennui, something which prompted wunderkid and Firefox’s co-reinventor Blake Ross to say, “I think the Mozilla Organization has gradually reverted back to its old ways of being too timid, passive and consensus-driven to release breakthrough products quickly.” Ouch!

How bad are things at Mozilla? Not as bad as one would think. In a recent blog post, Mozilla’s Aza Dotzler pointed out that for every Chrome downloader, there are 2.5 folks who download Firefox. “Firefox gained just over 100 million users in the same period that Chrome gained just over 40 million users,” he wrote.

One of my sources shared with me some internal Mozilla data and now I share that with you these metrics to give you a better understanding of how Firefox is doing on a day-to-day basis. While longer term data has been plotted in the accompanying charts, I have carved out the numbers for the most recent two weeks (May 12-to-May 25). Here is what they say about Firefox’s daily active users, where they are from and daily Firefox downloads:

• Firefox’s daily downloads fluctuated between 1.39 million to 1.81 million — averaging out at about 1.5 million downloads a day.
• As expected, majority of the daily downloads are for Firefox 3.6 though a small fraction still download the older versions of the software.
• Firefox saw between 98 million to 132 million daily active “installations.” Installations equals daily active users.
• During the two-week period North America had between 26 million to 33 million daily active “installations” indicating that Firefox is more popular outside of the U.S. and Canada.
• There were between 36 million to 54 million daily active installations from European Union, making it the largest Firefox market.
• Asia saw between 20 million to 25.4 million daily active users.
• On Mac OS X, there are roughly between 6 million to 9.5 daily active “installations.”

When I reached out to Mozilla, a spokesperson responded in an email: “Because our user base of roughly 400 million represents both early adopters and mainstream consumers, we see significant daily variations on week day vs. weekend. We also see this when there are local holidays and seasonal effects, and especially during the summer months when people are on holiday/vacation.”

Given that holiday season has started in many parts of the world, with schools and universities shutting down, we might be seeing a slump in Firefox usage and downloads. Firefox according to NetMarketShare is still showing growth on a month to month basis – from June 2009 (22.43 percent) to April 2010 (24.59 percent), Firefox has increased its marke share by 2.16 percent.

That along with the 100 million+ daily active installations (Mozilla claims it has 400 million users), shows that Firefox is far from having a real moment of crisis. Not only does it have time to course-correct and respond to all its critics, it also has time to regain momentum.

It could do so with the Firefox 3.6.4, which is going to release next week and will have built-in plugin isolation, allowing the browser to overcome the bloat and problems caused by plugins such as Adobe’s Flash (especially on the Mac version of Firefox.)

What is more important: Firefox needs to bring in fresh thinking of the organization and it is doing so by bringing on board Tantek Celik, a champion of open/web standards who in his past life created Internet Explorer for the Mac.

Related content from GigaOM Pro: (sub req’d):

What Does the Future Hold for Browsers?

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In a surprising turn of events Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has responded personally to the recent privacy complaints.

Facebook has been through an intense week of criticism and debate over its privacy issues and recent move to make everyones Facebok info public unless they choose to flick them back again – something which is unfortunately not every easy to do.

In an email to tech celeb Robert Scoble, Zuckerberg says that the company will be announcing changes this week and wants to make sure that they “get this stuff right this time”.

There are two ways to see this form of personal response. One, as one commenter put it, Zuckerberg is using Scoble as a tool to essentially put himself and Facebook in a better light with early adopters and tech fanatics (most of Scoble’s readers and followers are). The other is to see this as a genuine attempt to accept there have been problems and  reach out to calm fears by personally contacting someone who Zuckerberg knows many (of the right) people trust.

Full email posted below, more discussion from us to come.

Hey,

We’ve been listening to all the feedback and have been trying to distill it down to the key things we need to improve. I’d like to show an improved product rather than just talk about things we might do.

We’re going to be ready to start talking about some of the new things we’ve built this week. I want to make sure we get this stuff right this time.

I know we’ve made a bunch of mistakes, but my hope at the end of this is that the service ends up in a better place and that people understand that our intentions are in the right place and we respond to the feedback from the people we serve.

I hope we’ll get a chance to catch up in person sometime this week. Let me know if you have any thoughts for me before then.

Mark

Shared by Jesse Stay
Singer's been rather critical lately. I'm not sure I see the benefit of this post, but he's a reputable source. Singer's a great DJ.

The early adopters tend to overvalue what’s new.  That’s fine and nothing out of the norm, it’s just what they do.  But what bothers me is when they proclaim a new piece of technology created by companies they’re fans of changes not just general consumer tech, but also industry x or y without really understanding those industries.

Case and point: Robert Scoble thinks the iPad is changing art and music.  Not the consumption, the synthesis.

His proof for this?  3 singular example videos of artists using an iPad to create their works:

1. A sketch artist
2. A hobbyist using an iPad to DJ and play around with soft synths
3. A famous pianist using an iPad on stage for a few moments

And each example is an interesting experiment, but falls short of the real thing.  A convergence device does many things, yes.  But it doesn’t do one thing well, especially in areas there are many players working hard to evolve devices for specific use over years of iteration to answer unique problems.

Let me provide an analogy.  Consider the duck:  it can fly, swim and walk on land.  In a sense they’re a true convergence animal.  Except…they’re not really that good at any of those things compared with animals who specialize.  Compared to the elegance and grace of an eagle, a duck’s flight is clumsy.  Compared with the agility of a fish, a duck’s swimming ability is poor.  Compared with a horse, a duck’s ability to walk/run on land falls short.  Comparing the iPad to devices designed to address specific solutions within verticals is like comparing a duck to any animal that specializes.

Anyway, back to Scoble’s examples – they are experiments and interesting as that, but to say that the iPad is changing synthesis of art – especially electronic art – shows a misunderstanding of it.  As an electronic musician for nearly 10 years I’d like to offer my perspective of examples 2 and 3 Scoble gives – the music examples.  The sketch artist example I’m not going to touch since I’m not actually a sketch artist but perhaps some of you can comment on that.

Let’s go through Scoble’s points:

Now that more and more people are getting iPads we are seeing just how they change everything, especially art and music.

I fail to see why a new consumer-designed device you can’t customize – which is powered by a closed platform and a crippled web browser – changes music creation or performance.  It’s a bit like saying Guitar Hero changes rock music.

Remember, Scoble isn’t talking about consumption, he’s talking about production.  Think about that for a minute.  Serious producers of digital art have studios they work in. While the right apps on the iPad might allow for the sketching of ideas on the go, this is easily possible already on a laptop (and is much more sophisticated there).  Also, the fact that a laptop can run full fledged audio production suites like Ableton Live means I can essentially have my studio on the go as opposed to stripped down applications.  Further, multi-tasking, something vital to audio production, is not even possible on an iPad.

Let’s look at Scoble’s first example – iPad DJ Rana June Sobhany

A few weeks ago I met Rana Sobhany who had gotten tons of compliments at the first iPad Dev Camp with her iPad DJ’ing system. So, she gave me a look at what she’s doing. That video went viral and has been watched half a million times. Wild.

OK Scoble, you know exactly why it went viral – someone playing around with iPads to do something interesting right during the product hype cycle.  It’s a neat experiment with what she is doing, but the fact that “that video went viral and has been watched half a million times” doesn’t really mean anything from a trend perspective.  There is no logic behind how you’ve framed this:  that just because a bunch of people watch a video with a music-lover using a gadget in a unique way is “changing everything, especially music.”

Anyway – here are some factual limitations to this setup:

• Touch screens or a mouse are not precise – that’s why midi controllers were created to work with soft synths.
• You can’t scratch with the same accuracy as vinyl (or at all from what I saw).
• Rana notes this would be a great solution for a newbie as it’s “the cheapest option when compared with CDJs”  I disagree – you can see it’s a custom setup she has (that would confuse a newbie) and there are far cheaper and simpler solutions than this that are even inclusive of a mixer (for example, you could be an iPod DJ or get an all in one kit from PSSL/123DJ).
• The audio quality coming out of the iPad is going to be sub-par when compared with hardware designed purely for music.

Even the artist herself doesn’t think her setup is changing music, as illustrated by her Tweet:

Awesome that Rana says this, and unfortunate Robert frames his argument the way he does and uses her as an example.  But lately it seems like he’d rather be sensationalistic than actually have depth to trends he reports on.  Let’s consider some actual examples of those who changed digital music:

• Pioneer of electronic music Robert Moog best known as the inventor of the Moog synthesizer (the first commercially-available modern synthesizer) changed the music industry and helped give birth to countless new genres of music.  Evolution of the synth continuous to this day.
• Technics set the industry standard for vinyl turntables with the 1200 which – 30 years later – is still the best device for mixing and scratching out there.  Even DJs using digital tools like Serato/Final Scratch or CDJs will admit this.  The 1200 is the device that changed the industry, virtual DJ software merely mimics it.
• Software like Ableton Live changed how modern producers create and perform and allows incredible flexibility, customization and editing on the fly that it enables musicians to create sets that previously required far more sophisticated setups.

If you’re versed in music history, it’s obvious the iPad doesn’t fit within the evolutionary path of digital music synthesis.  In all cases, change happened from those passionate about music and interested in solving specific problems.  This is not at all what the iPad is.  Also, if Scoble did his research into the wide array of DJ gear that already exists and the fact that there are many, many, many unique styles of mixing and setups (both custom and available for purchase), he’d realize this singular example is interesting but not changing the industry direction.

Scoble goes on to say:

But she’s not the only one using iPads. I met Wil.i.iam who is the music genius behind the Black Eyed Peas. We talk mostly about Twitter, but at the end he pulls out his iPad too.

The “music genius” bit aside (not even going to touch that’s what he thinks of the Blacked Eyed Peas) Scoble tries to add into his argument that this person “pulling out an iPad” during an interview means the iPad is changing art.  Except his pulling out of the iPad during the interview had absolutely nothing to do with music production.  Here Scoble is trying to add another proof point hoping no one actually watched the video.  Skip to the last 10 seconds of the video and you’ll see what I mean. It’s unbelievable he added this into the argument and makes me trust the rest of his content a lot less.

Next, Scoble gives an example of Lang Lang, famous pianist, walking out on stage and playing flight of the bumblebee on his iPad.  While it’s interesting, I highly doubt Lang Lang thinks that true pianists are going to give away their real pianos during concerts for iPads.  It’s a fun use of a new device, but the beauty of analog instruments is never replaced by digital.  I’m passionate about electronic music and I’ll freely admit there is something special about the range, warmth and beauty of real instruments that cannot be replaced by digital.  Lang Lang is having a bit of fun, but this is not a game-changer for the classic music world.

Conclusion

Scoble tries to paint a picture of a trend that iPads are changing art composition with this piece and three examples, but I’d be hesitant to say any real artists are going to start abandoning better gear to scale down for a convergence device.  Other than as a publicity stunt, as an artist I don’t see this making sense on any level.  I left a comment on Scoble’s blog noting this – which he immediately responded with “I disagree” – thus the motivation for this post and fleshing out my thoughts further.

What do you think?

The iPad Is Not Changing Music Production And Performance is a post from The Future Buzz

Google Throws in the Towel on the Nexus One Web Store —

After disappointing sales of the Nexus One Android phone, Google has officially given up on its mobile web store experiment.

In a blog post published just a short while ago, Google all but admitted that its web store — and thus Nexus One sales — has underperformed. The decision comes after multiple carriers dropped the Nexus One from their line-ups, including Verizon Wireless.

Here’s what Google had to say about the web store:

“But, as with every innovation, some parts worked better than others. While the global adoption of the Android platform has exceeded our expectations, the web store has not. It’s remained a niche channel for early adopters, but it’s clear that many customers like a hands-on experience before buying a phone, and they also want a wide range of service plans to chose [sic] from.”

Due to the failure of the web store, Google is making two major changes to its Nexus One and Android strategy. First, it is making the Nexus One more available to retailers. Second, it will eventually cease selling the Nexus One online, opting instead for an “online store window” to showcase a plethora of Android phones.

Despite the spin, today’s announcement can’t be considered anything less than an admission of failure. People weren’t willing to buy a phone they couldn’t play with first, and Nexus One sales suffered consequently. Apple must be jumping for joy right now.

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Reviews: Android, Facebook, Google, Twitter

Tags: android, Google, google nexus one, google phone, nexus one

We launched Nexus One in January with two goals in mind: to introduce a beacon of innovation among Android handsets, and to make it quick and easy for people to buy an Android phone. We’re very happy with the adoption of Android in general, and the innovation delivered through Nexus One. Already, a lot of the innovation that went into creating Nexus One has found its way into numerous Android handsets, like the HTC Evo 4G from Sprint and the Verizon Droid Incredible by HTC.

But, as with every innovation, some parts worked better than others. While the global adoption of the Android platform has exceeded our expectations, the web store has not. It’s remained a niche channel for early adopters, but it’s clear that many customers like a hands-on experience before buying a phone, and they also want a wide range of service plans to chose from.

So today we’re announcing the following changes:

More retail availability. As we make Nexus One available in more countries we’ll follow the same model we’ve adopted in Europe, where we're working with partners to offer Nexus One to consumers through existing retail channels. We’ll shift to a similar model globally.

From retail to viewing. Once we have increased the availability of Nexus One devices in stores, we'll stop selling handsets via the web store, and will instead use it as an online store window to showcase a variety of Android phones available globally.

Innovation requires constant iteration. We believe that the changes we're announcing today will help get more phones to more people quicker, which is good for the entire Android ecosystem: users, partners and also Google.

Posted by Andy Rubin, VP, Engineering

How can Buzz build on it’s foundations? —

As I mentioned previously, Buzz is gaining momentum but is still in its infancy and needs to develop in order to grab a bigger slice of the pie. The challenge for Google is how best to achieve this; how can Google make Buzz jump from the early adopters to becoming a mainstream service?

It seems that some are blinded by the bells and whistles of Facebook and the reputation of Twitter (built by sheer longevity) and so believe that Buzz is just another also ran – it is too early in the game to make that call.

A post by Shannon Wills at TechShali.com claims that Buzz “has failed to stake a claim in the world of social media” giving 3 reasons why this is the case. The first argument is that Google are too late to the party to have an impact. I say we need to ask if they have arrived after the nibbles have gone and people are making their way home or, are the just fashionably late, know how to make an entrance then capture the imagination of the other guests with their witty repartee – the perfect riposte to the braggado of other networks?

Buzz may not have made the entrance it was hoping for but there is a very solid base. With a bit more work and some additional features Buzz could soon be a major player with the andecotes to wow its fellow party goers.

Gmail, to be or not to be bundled

As Buzz is bundled as a part of GMail there was always going to be a tight integration between the two services which can be a good thing if managed correctly. There have been complaints about inboxes filling up with notifications and this was also given as a reason why Buzz will not succeed; taking control of the settings and muting old threads can cut down on the number of notifications received while still keeping you up to date on the items you are following.

Should Buzz be contained within GMail or a standalone app? I say both. If you are Google you don’t want to disconnect from the millions of potential users already sitting in GMail but it would be nice to use Buzz as a self contained application for those who want to. We can view and comment on our buzz data in our Google Profile outside of the confines of GMail and the mobile page is standalone so the main app needs to follow suit whilst still sticking to it’s roots.

The need to have a GMail account in order to use the service has also been criticised but, considering the integration, it is probably the best way to go. If Buzz could be used as a standalone service, however, then it would also make sense to have a “Buzz only” account which could, perhaps, be registered against your existing, external, email address.

Buzz v Facebook

My previous post prompted some good discussion via a share on Buzz itself. Parvez Halim raised an interesting point:

I think one of the things that makes FB so appealing is that you have different services within one web app. You have microblogging, photo album, chat, and games. Non-techies don’t have to think too much because everything is there in front of them.

I agree that holding all the different facets in one place is indeed nice for those that use them all but what about those who only want to perform specific actions? What if you only want to upload your photos?

I feel that, with some careful work, Google could build on its Profile system and integrate the services you use into one coherent offering despite them being independent applications. If you only use a single app then great, that’s all you are shown but for those using multiple services everything would be held in one place – a tab for each. Keeping each of Google’s services independent is a distinct advantage in my opinion.

Control

With a service such as Buzz we must remember that users want control over what they see. The search and filtering functionality suggested by Robert Scoble, as mentioned before, is a natural progression for Buzz and I can imagine a number of his suggestions being implemented before long. The ability to find all items that a particular person has commented on or to ignore items from a paticular source (e.g Twitter) would be ideal additions and vastly improve the usability of the service.

Historically, Google have struggled when it comes to the social web. Orkut was a failure and development on Jaiku was abandoned. With little consistency between offerings there appeared to be no central strategy to really succeed in the social space but, with Buzz, things are starting to change.

A paradigm shift within the company is evident now that Google have announced they are seeking to employ a “Head of Social”. They are only too aware that they are late to the game but seek to mount a second half fight back. It is clear that individual areas working on their own products need to be brought together under one “social” banner to promote consistency and interoperability. With the right person leading the way Google should be able to regain control and create a comprehensive social policy and – with the technology, resources and extremely knowledge user base at their disposal – turn Buzz (or a decendent) into a world class offering.

Image by squeaks2569

Your guide to iPad 3G prices —

All the networks that will be offering mobile broadband for Apple's iPad have now set out their price plans

All three mobile phone networks that will be offering mobile broadband access for iPad users have now announced their pricing and buyers of the latest Apple gadget are likely to find themselves choosing between O2 and Orange when they want to access the web on the move.

Vodafone was the last of the three networks that will provide mobile coverage for the 3G version of the device when it goes on sale at the end of the month to reveal its prices. But neither of its two 30-day offers – one of which gives less downloading capability than Orange's weekly bundle – have any wi-fi component and they are by far the least attractive options.

Orange, meanwhile, does not allow users of its pay as you go, daily or weekly offers to access wi-fi hotspots. The two monthly packages that it offers – at £15 and £25 a month – do come with wi-fi access but that access is capped at a rather paltry 750MB. The reason, it would seem, is that Orange customers can not only access BT's 3,800 Openzone hotspots, but also a further 150,000 BT Business Hubs, giving users a total of 153,800 places in which they can browse the web over wi-fi.

O2, however, allows anyone signing up to its three tariffs unlimited wi-fi access to BT Openzone hotspots as well as locations operated by The Cloud. In total that will give iPad users with O2 access to wi-fi in 7,500 places across the country.

A spokesman for O2 said there is no "fair usage policy" on wi-fi access but the operator reserves the right to limit someone's access if they are "clearly abusing the service". But many early adopters of the iPad are likely to think twice about relying upon O2's network for a device that requires a fast data connection. O2 came under fire last year for the poor quality of its network, especially in London. UK boss Ronan Dunne admitted in December that the firm had suffered "a short-term blip" in network quality in the capital.

The poor perception of its network, which O2 has been fighting hard to rectify, is one of the reasons why both Vodafone and Orange have done so well in sales of the iPhone since O2's exclusive clutch on the device was broken last November. Vodafone, however, is unlikely to pick up many iPad users as it is offering just two deals – £10 a month for 1GB of data and £25 a month for 5GB – both of which are easily beaten by Orange and O2.

Based on the current pricing:

Best for light/irregular 3G usage: Orange's 5p/MB pay as you go tariff

Best for regular 3G usage: Orange's pay monthly £15 for 3GB

Best for heavy 3G usage: Orange's iPad Monthly £25 for 10GB

Best for light/irregular 3G and wi-fi usage: O2's £2 a day/500MB offer (unlimited wi-fi on 7,500 BT Openzone and The Cloud hotspots)

Best for regular 3G and wi-fi usage: O2's £10 a month for 1GB offer (unlimited wi-fi on 7,500 BT Openzone and The Cloud hotspots)

Best for heavy 3G and wi-fi usage: O2's £15 a month for 3GB (unlimited wi-fi on 7,500 BT Openzone and The Cloud hotspots)

O2's unlimited wi-fi offering makes its offer best for customers who expect to use their iPad on the go.

None of the mobile phone companies are demanding that iPad users sign up to long term contracts. The "monthly" deals from O2, Orange and Vodafone can all be cancelled at the end of the month, given 24 hours notice.

If iPad users breach the usage caps on their tariffs they will be charged an additional fee. For Orange, all its data bundles charge 5p per additional MB used with no apparent pricing cap. The exception is Orange's 5p per MB pay as you go offer, under which users can only be charged a maximum of £40 in a single month. So once a user has exceeded £40 worth of data (800MB) they will not be charged for any more that they use. But it's a rather expensive way of getting unlimited 3G access.

O2 customers, meanwhile, can buy the bundle again or switch to a daily rate. So an iPad user who buys its £10 a month for 1GB service and exceeds the 1GB in just a few days can either buy a new 1GB bundle and re-start the 30 days or use the £2 daily option whenever they want to access the web until their previous monthly bundle recurs.

Vodafone, meanwhile, does not automatically charge people who exceed their monthly allowance. It treats the 1GB and 5GB limits as "fair usage" caps and a spokesman said if a user consistently exceeds the limits they can expect to get a call from customer services.

O2 also maintains that it is the only operator that will allow iPad users to easily manage their tariffs, adding and changing bundles directly from the iPad device. Orange and Vodafone customers will have to register their SIM cards, either by calling the network's customer service centre or going online. The iPad is the first device launched in the UK which makes use of micro-SIMs and according to the mobile phone companies it will be possible for consumers to request micro-SIMs from all three networks and use whichever SIM card they wish. As a result, consumers will be able to switch between networks just by switching SIMs.

Micro-SIMs can be ordered from the operators themselves or through Apple. In fact, Apple's pre-order site restricts iPad users to just one micro-SIM per device; any customer looking to try other networks will have to deal direct with their chosen alternative network. Apple also charges 20p per micro-SIM while the networks are giving them away for free.

For many consumers the easiest thing to do at first is to order both an Orange and an O2 micro-SIM and experiment with their networks using their pay as you go and daily bundles, before signing up to anything more long term.

Here's the full list of offers:

O2

£2 a day for 500MB (unlimited wi-fi across 7,500 BT Openzone and The Cloud hotspots)

£10 per 30 days for 1GB (unlimited wi-fi across 7,500 BT Openzone and The Cloud hotspots)

£15 per 30 days for 3GB (unlimited wi-fi across 7,500 BT Openzone and The Cloud hotspots)

Orange

5p per MB pay as you go (no wi-fi; unlimited 3G usage, but maximum charge £40/month)

£2 per day for 200MB (no wi-fi)

£7.50 per week for 1GB (no wi-fi)

£15 per month for 3GB (wi-fi capped at 750MB/mth but available in 3,800 BT Openzone and 150,000 BT Business Hubs)

£25 per month for 10GB (wi-fi capped at 750MB/mth but available in 3,800 BT Openzone and 150,000 BT Business Hubs)

Vodafone

£10 per 30 days 1GB (no wi-fi)

£25 per 30 days 5GB (no wi-fi)

INTRODUCTION TO OPENCALAIS
 
The free OpenCalais service and open API is the fastest way to tag the people, places, facts and events in your content.  It can help you improve your SEO, increase your reader engagement, create search-engine-friendly ‘topic hubs’ and streamline content operations – saving you time and money.
 
OpenCalais is free to use in both commercial and non-commercial settings, but can only be used on public content (don’t run your medical records through it!).  OpenCalais does not keep a copy of your content, but it does keep a copy of the metadata it extracts there from. 
 
To repeat, OpenCalais is not a private service, and there is no secure, enterprise version that you can buy to operate behind a firewall. It is your responsibility to police the content that you submit, so make sure you are comfortable with our Terms of Service (TOS) before you jump in.
 
You can process up to 50,000 documents per day (blog posts, news stories, Web pages, etc.) free of charge.  If you need to process more than that – say you are an aggregator or a media monitoring service – then see this page to learn about Calais Professional. We offer a very affordable license.
 
OpenCalais’ early adopters include CBS Interactive / CNET, Huffington Post, Slate, Al Jazeera, The New Republic, The White House and more.  Already more than 30,000 developers have signed up, and more than 50 publishers and 75 entrepreneurs are using the free service to help build their businesses.
 
You can read about the pioneering work of these publishers, entrepreneurs and developers here.
 
To get started, scroll to the bottom section of this page. To build OpenCalais into an existing site or publishing platform (CMS), you will need to work with your developers. 
 
WHY OPENCALAIS MATTERS
 
The reason OpenCalais – and so-called “Web 3.0” in general (concepts like the Semantic Web, Linked Data, etc.) – are important is that these technologies make it easy to automatically connect the people, companies and concepts in your content to the related content on the rest of the Web. 
 
So when you’re writing about the Steve Jobs speaking at the D conference, you can be automatically connected to the other stories concerning Steve Jobs speaking at the D conference without having to embed links along the way.
 
Creating standardized metadata is about revealing the connections between people, companies, concepts and events and forging connections to relevant and related content automatically – streamlining your editorial processes and saving you time and expense along the way.
 
Ultimately, this new set of technologies is driving the next wave of innovation in digital media, and has the potential to inspire yet another “boom” similar to what we saw with SEO and SEM. 
 
As innovators like MediaCloud, ViewChange.org and Hedgehogs.net (three more OpenCalais early adopters) lead the way, we will see more and more publishers, entrepreneurs and developers learning how to work with the new tools.
 
WHY OPENCALAIS IS FREE
 
OpenCalais is a strategic initiative from Thomson Reuters to support the interoperability of content across the digital landscape.
 
Our goal with this initiative is not to make money, but rather to make it easy for folks to categorize and tag their content in a uniform and consistent fashion that complies with Semantic Web standards.
 
Offering a de-facto standard for making content interoperable in this fashion ultimately benefits Thomson Reuters, as it enables us to track themes, memes and trends on the Web, and to potentially do things like link out to relevant content that helps provide context to our readers, customers and other constituents.
 
The value exchange to us is in the metadata, in the growing body of interoperable content, and in the ability to support innovation, experimentation and the continued evolution of the Web.
 
We are fully committed to OpenCalais, and we offer the API for both commercial and non-commercial purposes precisely to inspire creativity and enterprise by a new wave of innovators and entrepreneurs.
 
There is no plan to someday "drop the other shoe" and charge folks for the basic service. 
 
HOW THAT HELPS YOU
 
Ultimately, OpenCalais provides start-up entrepreneurs, publishers and institutions like libraries, museums and universities with the ability to forge a path into the future of digital media.
 
In addition to being a source for inspiration and innovation, the free service is a time- and cost-saving tool. It’s the fastest way to tag the people, places, facts and events in your content – and the easiest way to get the metadata you need in order to get truly creative with your user experience and user interface.

As our partners will attest, OpenCalais can help you:
 

• Improve your SEO as well as search and navigation within your own site
• Enhance your content with free open data assets from the Linked Data cloud
• Increase your reader engagement with greater personalization, ‘related reading’ sidebars, ‘more by this author’ widgets, search-engine-friendly ‘topic hubs’ and more.
• Streamline your editorial processes and content operations to save both time and money.

 
We are also thrilled that our price point has made OpenCalais a favorite with open source platforms like the Drupal Community, public research initiatives like DocumentCloud, and Ushahidi / Swift River – a leading real-time platform for crisis communications used in disaster recovery efforts around the world.
 
HOW TO GET STARTED
 
There are a number of easy ways to get started.
 
If you are on WordPress, try the Calais Tagaroo plug-in, which is easy to install and which automatically tags your content as you type.  It can also fetch images from Flickr and videos from Google Video, which you can select for inclusion in your post, or disregard. *Note: You must have a hosted site – or your own server – where you have access to install WordPress plugins. Blogs hosted on WordPress.com won’t work with Tagaroo.
 
If you want to manipulate your search results appearance in Google and Yahoo!, you can try Calais Marmoset, which is simple javacode you embed in your site pages.  Marmoset will collect the metadata from your page (in the form of RDFa) and hand it over to Google Rich Snippets and Yahoo! Search Monkey so that you can customize the way your search results appear.
 
If you want to extract metadata from Web pages using URLs, then try our Semantic Proxy service at SemanticProxy.com.
 
If you are using the popular open source platform Drupal, you can find a complete Calais Collection of modules for easy integration.  Join the Drupal community here.
 
If you are building a new site from the ground up, consider using OpenPublish, a free Content Management System based on Drupal.  OpenPublish bakes-in OpenCalais from the ground up to “semantify” your site and automate the creation of ‘related reading’ widgets, ‘topic hubs’ and more.  OpenPublish comes from Phase2 Technology and Thomson Reuters, and now comes with the option of fee-based support and hosting from Drupal founder Dries Buytaert’s company, Acquia.
 
To build OpenCalais into an existing site or publishing platform (CMS), you will need to work with your developers. Developers can find the resources and information they need on the OpenCalais documentation pages, and – for general education on the Semantic Web - at Semantic Universe.
 
Thanks for reading, and please join the open conversation with us on Twitter. 
·         Follow @OpenCalais or @KristaThomas for general updates. 
·         Follow @TomTague and @Finkelm for technical questions.
 

Regator, the spiffy blog, news and feed reader, is opening up the doors on its latest version to a select few early adopters — including 200 Mashable readers. The latest iteration includes an amazing UI upgrade as well as some important social integrations.

We’ve been enthusiastic about Regator in the past. This simple feed-reading service works out of the box to help users find and consume the content they care about most. It launched almost two years ago and has been in public beta for almost as long. Today, we got a look at the shiny next generation of Regator and we’re impressed. The site’s best tools and features are much easier to find and use.

“We’re really excited to be opening up the private beta of the rebuilt, redesigned Regator.com today,” wrote Co-Founder Kimberly Turner. “The new Regator has a completely new interface as well as Facebook and Delicious integration, a cool new tool that lets you graph trends based on blog mentions, and dozens of other improvements.”

Here’s what the public beta of Regator looks like:

And here’s a sneak peak at the 2.0 version:

Regator’s next-gen app includes the following new features:

• New interface with large navigational tabs at the top.
• Lists of grouped trends that relate to the same story.
• Graphs comparing the coverage a keyword has received.
• Improved search with date, topic and blog filters.
• Facebook and Delicious integration.
• A setup wizard for quick onboarding with a user’s four favorite topics.
• RSS feeds for keywords.
• Improved blog profiles with graphs showing posts per day, related blogs and more.

In short, if you’re a blogaholic, the new Regator is a must-have tool. If you’re ready to sign up, we’ve got 200 invites. Just go to the new version’s preview site and in the field for invite codes type “Mashable.” If you get to the site after the invites are gone, be sure to put your email address on Regator’s wait list.

If you’ve had a chance to look over the refurbished site, let us know what you think of the new look and features in the comments.

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For more social media coverage, follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook

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Tags: invites, regator

Every now and then we publish the favorite mobile apps or sites of the ReadWriteWeb staff. The last time we did this was November 2009, however with our Mobile Summit just around the corner we wanted to give you an updated list. We're all early adopters of mobile technology here at ReadWriteWeb, so have a scan of our favorite apps and see what catches your eye.

We'd also love to know your current favorites, because that's a great way to keep our finger on the pulse. Please note your favorite mobile apps or sites in the comments.

Sponsor

Join us at the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit on May 7, in Mountain View, CA, to discuss the hottest mobile apps and the latest mobile trends. If you're in town for the Web 2.0 Expo that week, our Mobile Summit is the day after. We'd love to see you there! Register here.

Richard MacManus (iPhone)

• ReadWriteWeb iPhone App (of course)
• Diamedic
• Evernote
• Insight (Basecamp app)
• Google Voice
• Google Reader
• Shazam
• Facebook
• Tweetie
• Woopra
• Flicks (movies)
• Art
• Words With Friends
• WorldMate
• NYTimes
• The Onion

Marshall Kirkpatrick

• Facebook
• Portland Business Journal
• Cinch
• Gowalla
• Tweetie
• NYT
• WSJ
• Rachel Maddow
• Yelp
• Pandora
• SimpleMindX (mind mapping)
• AroundMe
• Instapaper
• Shazam
• AppsFire
• BaseBall '10
• Etsy Addict
• Newser
• Crop For Free
• The Guardian
• Plancast
• Mobile Safari Mobile web apps: Techmeme, MediaGazer, Quora, EveryBlock

Sarah Perez

iPhone:

• Google Reader (web app)
• Facebook
• WeatherBug
• Flashlight
• Tweetie
• Brizzly
• TweetDeck
• Siri
• Flickr
• Bump
• Phone Flicks
• Pandora
• Foursquare (why am I doing this?)
• WhiteNoise (baby app)
• Instapaper
• NYT
• Yelp
• Google Maps
• Amazon
• Babies R Us
• Notifications
• iScrobble

iPad:

• Google Reader (web app)
• NYT
• BBC
• NPR
• USA Today
• Netflix
• AP News
• ABC Player
• Instapaper
• Pandora
• Twitterific
• StreamToMe
• Facebook (web shortcut! no app!)
• Desktop
• iMahjong

Frederic Lardinois

• Instapaper
• Reeder
• Gowalla
• Tweetie
• WorldMate
• Boxcar
• PicPosterous
• NYTimes

Mike Melanson (iPhone)

• Facebook
• Tweetdeck
• Evernote
• Public Radio
• Gowalla
• Google Maps
• Boxcar
• MapMyRide (when I'm out riding)
• Pandora
• ReadItLater

Alex Williams

• Pandora
• Twitdroid
• Facebook
• Google Maps
• The Hangover ("for weekend mindless laughs with the teenage son.")

Chris Cameron

• Social: Foursquare, Tweetie, Facebook.
• Games: Words With Friends & Charadium.
• Photography: AutoStitch, TiltShiftGen & ColorSplash.
• Other: TripIt & Chipotle. And the RWW app of course!! (Actually I use it every day to share my stories on Twitter/Facebook easily).

Audrey Watters

I like mobile apps that allow me to move easily between iphone and laptop, so Evernote and RememberTheMilk. Also Marvel and ComiXology's comics apps. And the Kindle app for when I need words to go with my picture books. :)

Abraham Hyatt

Goodreads, Stanza, Thompson Reuters, ReadItLater, NYT, Echofon, CameraPlus, Words With Friends, RWW, Pandora

Sean Ammirati

Twitterific, RWW App, Encamp, Kindle, Zipcar App

Elyssa Pallai

Where's Wally - entertainment for children of every age.

Jared Smith ("The Lone Blackberrier")

• Twitter for BlackBerry official app--direct message push via the BlackBerry system is an awful nice touch
• Seesmic for BlackBerry--fills a big gap in the official Twitter client by letting me support multiple accounts; probably the program that's easiest on my resources aside from the official client
• MyKite--still my go-to to check in on Brightkite on BlackBerry
• Rowmote (I use it on an iPod touch)--extremely inexpensive and powerful alternative to the Apple Remote for controlling a Mac.
• RadarScope (on iPod touch)--still the best mobile radar viewer on any platform.

See also: POLL: Which Location-Based Mobile App Do You Use Now?

Discuss

Early adopters of Apple's Pad's Camera Connection Kit have discovered that the accessory can be used to connect a number of USB devices to the tablet device in addition to cameras.

Foursquare seems to be  the new Twitter in terms of hype and growth. The level of buzz around Foursquare as it storms past one million users is palatable.

Is the company for sale? Their CEO Dennis Crowley had this to say, “we’ll have it resolved in a couple of weeks. I want to end the distractions and get back to work.” In other words, they want to end the tensions both internally and in the media to focus on developing their product.

What are their options? They can sell themselves for north of $100 million, or they can raise a new round and hope to grow their valuation for a later sale. Is there a company that would be good fit for Foursquare to join? If they have the cash you can bet that they are talking to Foursquare.

Why all the hype around the little company with just one million users? Location is the new status in terms of what is “in” for both investors and early adopters. As smartphones and iPads free people to move about, where they are is becoming more important. What you are doing is being followed by where you are doing it, a simple and logical progression.

Foursquare is the best location sharing game and tool that has been created thus far, with the possible exception of Gowalla, its similar and  smaller rival. Gowalla has its own financial warchest, but with Foursquare’s user growth over the company the leader seems to have emerged.

As to exactly which rumors might have some weight, Crowley had sharp words, “People are just making stuff up at this point.” That said, there is as we noted no shortage of  possible suitors from potential purchasers and presumably investors.

We will know soon. Sound off in the comments if you think they should sell, or stay independent.

Story via Bloomberg.

Original title and link for this post: Foursquare Will Soon Decide If It Will Sell Itself

For most, social media is new and fun. For others, though, social media is old and is falling out of favor. I’m seeing it happen of users who were happy about social media when it became hyped but are now realizing that they’re not yet ready to hold onto social media any longer. It’s boring, too challenging, and uninteresting. Catering to individuals seems to mean you need to bend to their will at every turn. Nobody wants to have to to a minority that seems to be unhappy with the content you’ve spent hours upon hours writing.

Social media experts are no longer social media experts. They’re moving onto “bigger and better.” Here’s why.

Social Media is a Trend

Wait, what? Social media is here to stay. However, to some, social media is a fleeting trend. That’s because social media marketing experts found success early on since social media relationship building was simply easier. Back then, companies who were engaged were genuinely involved because they wanted to build strong valuable relationships. They weren’t there to push a marketing agenda. Users were more trusting because they could be. Consequently, the early adopters persevered.

It is thanks to the early adopters, the sneezers, that we’re now seeing social media as something entirely different. It’s a cesspool for marketing as some see it. Hype translates to market saturation and puts us where we are today. The newest marketers in the social media space want to take but not to give. The audience becomes less trusting of these networks that they have been so careful to preserve.

Flurries of new experts are seeking the pot of gold behind the rainbow, despite there being none without super hard work. As a result, the original social media consultants are finding social media to be a short-lived trend that actually brought success easily. Now, with more of a challenge, they are slowly moving on. They’re no longer wanting to do the work for social media. It’s too hard now.

Relationship-Building Grows Tired

Despite social media being an extremely comprehensive field, possessing hundreds and even thousands of media, websites, and interactions, at the end of the day, social media is synonymous with human relationships to some degree. Any way you slice or dice it, the human relationships portion will always remain. Sometimes, people eventually get sick of constantly engaging and constantly trying their best to put on a happy face.

With social media, you really can’t have a bad day. You must be on your best behavior and wear your best pair of shoes all the time. Can people really do that?

Not all can. When they can’t, they don’t hang around.

Multitasking Creates Instability

This last decade is much different than any other. We’re living in such an intensive multitasking environment. Our brains are not only accustomed to frequent change, they now require it. Thanks to brand new technologies that consistently and constantly claim our attention spans, thereby requiring us to shift our focus on a very regular basis, we’re no longer willing or able to sit still. Monotony breeds impatience. Thanks to the real-time web and other sites that keep us incredibly busy all the time, unfortunately, there’s no turning back. Many in Gen Y who have become so sucked into doing a million things at once are never going to be settled on any one career, and change is inevitable. They’re used to the rapid fire nature of the Internet and these lessons learned online will be applied to real life.

Sadly, the social media profession is only one casualty of thousands. The kids are going to shop around for jobs, never staying put. And when it comes to social media, your experts of yesterday won’t be there tomorrow.

Social Media Alone Doesn’t Cut It

Social media marketing alone is not enough. There’s a lot more to marketing than just being social. Like it or not, you can’t ignore or disregard the other facets of marketing. For example, your website, without a doubt, needs SEO. SEO and social media are two entirely different things. Sure, someone with great content might capture others’ attention and get lots of links, but you have no idea how many other tweaks you might be able to apply to your website to bring highly targeted and relevant traffic. Links are just one currency of the web.

What about the creativity that is now required of you? Yup, you can’t just chat with people on Twitter and broadcast on Facebook. You can’t just IM your friends begging for votes via the backchannel. You can’t only write comments on forums. The creative element is absolutely necessary. Social media needs to be coupled with a creative strategy for maximum effectiveness, especially as everyone and their mothers join these sites and services to market themselves, their services, or their products.

It’s lofty to consider social media as your only marketing aim. Your best bet is to consider an integrated marketing plan that consists of social media and other marketing tactics, because the act of just being nice to people online won’t bring you conversions.

People Want More

If the chart above is any indication, it’s without question that social media has grown leaps and bounds. Social media marketing, too, is now a reality for many. The virtual space is becoming a real viable way to market. With the rise of social media is the expectation that social media information should be in abundance — with all the takeaways. However, expecting freebies all the time is audacious.

Market saturation brings lots and lots of experts, many of whom think Twitter is a shiny new object and are ready to write books, charge $2000 for conferences where they promise TWITTER TIPS AND TRICKS THAT NOBODY HAS SEEN BEFORE (in caps!), or offer consulting immediately after getting 20k followers via using automated friend adder applications. After all, there are millions of other users — like grandma who doesn’t even own an iPad, let alone a computer — who can still harness its potential.

Social media marketing of four years ago, when nobody was around, was simply easier. That’s because, as touched upon earlier, the audience was more trusting; the people who were online were there because they wanted to be there. They weren’t there because they wanted to take something in the form of a sale. And to attract new audience members, the earlier strategists would share a lot more. In 2010, with eleventy billion new experts, the “experts” of the early days are no longer interested in giving away social media trade secrets, and you won’t find them shared openly online. Want them? You’ll need to work long and hard for them, but nobody is going to hand them to you on a silver platter any longer. The fruits of their labor stay well hidden away to avoid being abused by everyone who capitalizes on a new finding that someone else worked hard at discovering.

Expecting that those blogging on behalf of social media have a responsibility to give you freebies is, frankly, highly inconsiderate. There are enough freebies here and in other blogs and books. Bloggers already give a substantial amount of their time, so asking for more is just wrong. Bloggers in social media don’t owe anyone else anything, nor do any other bloggers who provide expertise, for that matter.

If you give your tricks away to everyone, they’ll quickly be beaten, abused, and exploited. In a few days, after newbie marketers jump like giddy schoolchildren to try out these grandiose tricks, they’ll become ineffective. That’s exactly why social media bloggers blog in generalities. Those of you rude enough to want to demand more: consider yourself lucky that you’re better than the content provided online. I’m still reading content every day — even the stuff I already know — to consistently grow. Why? Because we can never actually be experts. We can always be learning, and sometimes that requires us to read the same things phrased differently, to get content in the form of a refresher course, to remember that social media still has the human element at its core. The nuances related to how YOU can build your business further — with specific details related to a single campaign that has no relevancy to 95% of the others — are not going to be publicly shared, because that’s stuff that you need to figure out on your own. We all have to put food on our families‘ tables, so sometimes we might have to charge for deeper insights. Demanding more is selfish.

In the absence of detailed direction and secrets provided by social media bloggers, people give up. Sorry, you can’t always lean on your “friends” to help you navigate your territory. You actually need to do the work yourself now. Surgeons don’t just pull up a website in the middle of the operating room when they’re in a rut. Sometimes “social media experts” just can’t do that either. There comes a time when all the information you get online is content you already know. At that point, you might start feeling Fed Up. If you’re still seeking the answers from others, then I’m really sorry. We found the answers by working hard. Maybe you should too.

You Can’t Please Everyone

Just like I have my own critics via comments on my last blog post, in social media, those who are trying to cater messaging to everyone will find out that they can’t. If you try to be everything to everyone, you’re failing.

The perfectionists aiming for 100% success rates in social media will not be able to last long in this space. When dealing with emotions, psychology, anthropology, sociology, among other disciplines, you’re bound to make “mistakes” as you attempt to understand demographics and communities and learn about who will be receptive to what. Sometimes, despite understanding everything you think you could master, the work you’ve done simply doesn’t cut it, and you’ll have to try again. If your efforts are being met frequently with failures, you might be inclined to give up — even if you’re that “expert” and have all the direction you need.

Sadly, consistent failure means that some are simply no longer willing to continue. They’re unwilling to adapt to their environments instead find something else to work on, perhaps something a little more predictable.

And so, Social Media has an End

It was bound to happen, though. There’s always a tipping point. David Armano put it nicely: “The true believers will remain, while others flock to the next hot field.” He’s absolutely right. We’re starting to see that happen.

Photos by Shutterstock.

[ Is Social Media Becoming Boring? is a post written by Tamar Weinberg. ]

Read more about The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web, a primer to social media marketing. Or you can subscribe to the Techipedia RSS feed.

Startups and Early Adopters: "Checking In" on Conventional Wisdom —

The popular location-based services Foursquare and Gowalla were launched at the 2009 SXSW, and one year later, many proclaimed the 2010 SXSW to be the year of "location, location, location". With almost 350,000 Foursquare check-ins during one day of the event, and with numerous location-based services launching before, during, and after SXSW, the buzz among early adopters surrounding location-based social networking seems to show no signs of abating.

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In a provocative (and NSFW) blog post this weekend, entrepreneur and developer Mark McClure takes both location-based social networks and their early adopters to task, arguing that "the current method of check-ins is a classic case of early-adopter lust for shiny objects, & has not a damn thing to do with long-term sustainable mainstream consumer behavior." Dismissing the lure of the game-mechanics that many of these platforms utilize - the idea of collecting badges, points, and/or mayorships - McClure contends that until LBS start offering some sort of simple monetary incentive, mainstream users will not be compelled to check-in. Whether or not you agree with McClure's pronouncements and predictions about location-based social networks, his comments about "early-adopter lust for shiny objects" are worth considering.

Although conventional wisdom posits that early adopters provide a solid target market for startups, there are some drawbacks in responding focusing solely on those who "lust for shiny objects."

Early adopters' enthusiasm may not always be a good indication of future growth and sustainability. Although early adopters are often willing to provide feedback on a product's development, that feedback might not be the information necessary to woo a larger market. Early adopters' feedback on existing features and push for new features might not necessarily be the feedback necessary for features that mainstream users would want or need. The push for special stamps and badges from Gowalla and Foursquare might excite early adopters, for example, but mainstream users may not find this a compelling reason to adopt a service. The lure of other social networks, such as Facebook, is in part that "everyone is there." The question remains how to make the move from just the early adopters to "everyone" being there.

Nevertheless, early adopters can be terrific champions of a product, actively promoting it to their friends. Early adopters are a small, but vocal group. Ignore them at your peril. And focus exclusively on them at your peril.

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Etiquette on the iPad is white space on the map. It's not a smartphone. It's not a laptop. It's something new. As early adopters, the opportunity to define proper etiquette is ours. More »

EdgeTheory Conversation 7 is about the big news of the last week – Apple’s latest digital device, the iPad. While millions of words and thousands of articles have already been written about the iPad, there’s always more to find, especially as the product spends more time in the hands of early adopters. This week, Chris Saad and I talk about whether the closed nature of the iPad (when contrasted with open standard solutions) is something we should be avoiding, and where the iPad fits in a world of laptops and the iPhone.

Are users getting screwed by needing to buy multiple versions of applications with the iPad’s debut? And should it be a mobile device, or a fully functional computer? We talk about this and much more in another EdgeTheory Conversation.

This and all other EdgeTheory conversations can be found on the dedicated ET Conversations site.

Listen in below:

Beach Bums & Bureaucrats: Where The iPads Early Adopters Live —

Now that we've finally embarked on a future of tablet computing (didn't we do that ten years ago?) with the iPad, we immediately got to wondering: What does iPad adoption look like across the country? Luckily, online ad network Chitika has offered some numbers on what its seeing for iPads broken down over time and state by state.

Chitika took a look at where and when it was seeing hits from iPads and built a real-time page to show you what's going on with the release of the latest and greatest in Internet gadgetry.

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According to Chitika, there are just around 300,000 iPads now in the wild, a number that jives pretty well with Apple's own estimate. Of those, 22% were first seen by Chitika today, with just under 100,000 hitting the open Internet on Saturday, the iPad's release date.

Looking at the map of iPad adoption, the company quickly declares that "it looks like California is running away with the title of 'iPadest State in America,' with more than double the iPads of any other single state" but we content that the District of Columbia has the highest concentration of iPads by far, with one iPad for every 2,019 people. Following the District of Columbia are Hawaii, with one for every 2,785, and Nevada, with one for every 2,901. Rounding out the very bottom of the list are Iowa, with one for every 29,489, and Montana, with one for every 27,857 people.

Looking purely at the number of iPads, however, California leads with nearly 20%, New York follows with 8%, Texas with just under 8% and Florida with 6%.

Again, on percentages, the three states where you are least likely to see an iPad in the wild? Wyoming, North Dakota and Montana, all with less than 2% of all iPads combined.

To keep track of how the iPad dispersion plays out, check out Chitika's real-time numbers. The company's methodology is detailed in its blog.

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iPad: The First Real Family Computer —

With the iPad's arrival this weekend, a holiday weekend for many Americans, this new iPad owner had the chance to see the device in action. In fact, "see" is the operative word here. Not, "play with myself," as is the case with most new tech gadgets I purchase. Instead, I simply watched from a distance as, over the course of the day, the iPad found its way into the hands of nearly every family member from ages 4 months to 87 years old. The incredible thing? No one walked away confused, frustrated or disappointed. It did precisely what they wanted it to do and with such ease that my tech support was not required - not even once - allowing me to sit back and relax...with an old-fashioned, paper-based magazine.

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After hearing the hoopla from the iPad launch, the crowd of "not-so-early" adopters has likely been left wondering if this is a case of media over-hype or if something revolutionary has truly occurred. If you count yourself among this group, then perhaps the spec-filled, analytical reviews won't sell you on the device's potential.

You already know what the iPad can do: apps, game, eBooks (or rather, iBooks), media and so on. But what can it do for you? How does it fit in with your life? This anecdotal review may help you to answer that question:

A Day in the Life of an iPad

The morning after the iPad's arrival - incidentally Easter Sunday here in the U.S. - I spent the first half hour of my day with the iPad in one hand and a baby bottle in the other. While the little one ate, I read the New York Times. For free. Well, at least some of it. Although a full-featured paid application is on its way, the "Editor's Choice" app available now is a great way to hit the highlights from the paper's top sections. The iPad's weight here was a bit of an issue - 1.5 pounds may not seem like a lot, but holding it aloft away from baby's grabby fingers was a bit tricky, especially because, unlike an actual, dull grey-colored newspaper, the iPad's glowing screen and colorful images is an invite to touch that can't be denied.

Morning Newspaper

Later, in the car to the family gathering, I finished reading the articles I missed in the NYT's offline mode. I have the Wi-Fi version of the iPad, so Internet access is limited. But the articles were still available, cached to the device for just this situation. I then passed the time with a game of iMahjong. Like most iPad games, Internet isn't needed to play.

Upon arrival at our destination - the sister-in-law's house where extended family would meet, dine and relax, I mistakenly imagined that the only two people who would be interested in my latest purchase were the teenage nephews, already iPod Touch owners and avid gamers. Although they were immediately engrossed, to be sure, they weren't the only ones who would spend time with this new device, as I would later find out.

Game-Playing Device

The first question from the oldest nephew: "I heard iPad apps are a lot more expensive than those for the iPod Touch - is that true?" Unfortunately, it is. For whatever reason, iPad developers have mistakenly assumed that a bigger screen means a bigger price tag. This is not how the minds of penny-pinching, allowance-earning tweens and teens think, though. And although they may not be the target market per se, their moms and dads are. A game priced too high will simply be ignored - or worse, torrented, the nephews tell me. There are plenty of iPhone app on torrent sites, I'm being told - referring to the online stores of cracked, hacked and otherwise ill-acquired software programs, movies, TV shows, music and media made available for download for those running free torrenting client applications on their computers. iPad apps will soon appear here, too. Should developers be worried about this black market for their super-sized creations? Yes, possibly. Unlike the more moderately priced iPhone apps, iPad apps can be much more expensive. And if their prices extend beyond the comfort levels of today's consumers, you can be sure the apps will leak out on backchannels such as these.

With pricing in mind, I tell the nephews they could download anything they wanted so long as it was free. And so they set forth upon their iPad adventure. After playing a number of games, including the Guitar Hero-like "Tap Tap Radiation," a tilted maze in "Labyrinth Lite," the role-playing game "Aurora Feint 3," some sort of shoot-em-up called "EliminatePro," and several others, my iPad was soon filled with a screen of apps I knew I'd never touch but would be regularly accessed time and again at subsequent family functions.

Child's Plaything

Once the older nephews had their fill, it was the 5-year-old's turn. With adult supervision, he enjoyed Disney's interactive book app, Toy Story and created works of art fingerpaint-style via Doodle Buddy. (He got a real kick out of the sound effects that accompanied the paste-in clip art in the program, too. Animal sounds, apparently, are incredibly funny).

We mistakenly thought that the Marvel comics book application would also be a fun diversion for this second-youngest of the family. (Don't laugh - comic book aficionados we are not.) But after a second-page reference to "Girls Gone Wild" in the free Spiderman comic and a third-page image of our favorite superhero shouting "Shut the @#*% up!," we realized that, at some point, comics must have grown up. These one-time children's past-times are now adult graphic novels. Oops. App closed. Back to doodling.

Grandma's Photo Album

Later, with bellies stuffed by Easter ham and dessert, the iPad found its way to the baby's grandmother. One guess what she looked at? Yes, baby pictures. "Can you email me some of those later?" Of course I could, but not later, now. Like the iPhone and iPod Touch, photos (a max of 5 at a time) can be sent directly from the iPad's built-in Photos application.

...And Everything Else

Now hours had gone by, and the iPad was still in circulation. With nothing else to do, I opened a wrinkled, balled-up magazine I had thrown into my bag precisely for this reason. I didn't expect to get much iPad-time myself, I just didn't realize that it would literally never return to me. As one person played on the iPad - reading, watching a video, playing a game, etc. - others relaxed with TV, a book of Sodoku puzzles, toys, and (gasp!) even printed newspapers.

On the iPad, someone was playing cards. Then someone was watching Netflix. Grandma is showing great-grandma more photos. Look! The baby is doodling! Now someone is trying an iPhone app on the iPad. (Verdict? Not a good experience. Forget the fact that the iPad runs all the iPhone apps - they look awful. Don't bother.) Interestingly enough, one "app" that was never launched was Safari, the iPad's built-in web browser.

By nightfall, the iPad had been in rotation for hours upon hours and still had nearly 40% battery remaining. The battery longevity claims (10 hours+) are true, it seems.

A Family Computer

Debates about the iPad's worth as an eReader, aside, fears that it will somehow transform us from a population of content creators to passive consumers (most of us already are just that), hopeful claims from big media that it's the "future of publishing" - I'd argue that none of these are reasons to buy or not to buy an iPad.

Simply put: the iPad is the first real family computer. No longer is computing an isolated experience with one person staring at one screen, fingers clacking away on the keyboard while the rest of the family does something else. The iPad was shared between brothers, giggled over by children, and downright snuggled up with by parent and child. It was no more isolating an experience than someone reading the paper in the next chair over. It was easily just another everyday object. And that may be its biggest selling point yet: the iPad hides away the technology, and makes content king. And at the end of the day, that's not really such a bad thing.

Disclosure: The New York Times is a syndication partner with ReadWriteWeb.

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