VentureBeat

Big Facebook profile changes are coming, sure to impact developers — Facebook has been experimenting with a ground-up redesign of its user interface for months, that it hopes will improve communication among users. Now, the company is providing Facebook application developers with more details on the changes — and how those changes are going to affect applications. The new home page will have a tabbed interface for news feed, personal info, photos, and something tentatively called “boxes.” The “box” tab will house Facebook applications (see screenshot, above), although the apps will also appear in various forms within the other tabbed sections. Perhaps most significantly, the news feeds themselves will include a new range of ways for applications to share stories with Facebook users who haven’t already added the application. If you’re interested in the many, many changes happening, see this detailed post by Justin Smith of the blog Inside Facebook and application company Watercooler. The official preview site here.

Meanwhile, Facebook is seeing an overall drop in the number of new applications that grow quickly, and a probably-related drop in the number of developers working on the platform — even as the site continues to grow around the world. So these profile changes are part of a far-reaching initiative by Facebook to make the site more usable; the company has previously, for example, placed ever-more restrictive measures on app developers, to try to curb abusive practices like spam-emailing users. All in all, these changes will likely benefit Facebook users, the company, and the higher-quality applications, as another top Facebook app developer, Jesse Farmer notes here. The open question about the profile redesign is how Facebook is going to manage explaining the changes to its users.

News Corp. earnings report: MySpace, FIM miss revenue targets — News Corp. executives admitted yesterday that they weren’t monetizing MySpace and other social networking properties like they’d aimed to — bringing in $900 million in revenue versus $1 billion. Surprisingly, quarterly revenue actually declined from $233 million to $210 million. A number of pundits have jumped on this news to surmise that social networks may never monetize very well, as you can read over on Techmeme. But overall, monetization has actually been improving across a number of fronts at MySpace, as Silicon Alley Insider details, even if it’s not as fast as News Corp. chief executive Rupert Murdoch wanted. For example, MySpace is actually earning 49 percent more money per-user compared to last year even as the user base continues to grow, partially through efforts like better-targeted ads. And many forget that monetizing social networks is not just about banner ads. We’ve covered companies that are creating new ways of doing things like distributing music or creating sports communities — companies that are helping to drive ticket sales for live events, apparel sales and other non-banner-ad forms of making money. Basically, social networks are in the process of becoming businesses and there are lots of unexplored opportunities. Here’s another one: Online video, which benefit greatly through being distributed on social networks, also have the opportunity to make money, as blog HipMojo notes.

Fuel cells coming soon to your GPS device? — MTI Micro has introduced a methanol-based fuel cell prototype, essentially a new and longer-lasting form of battery, for GPS devices.

Comcast may introduce a new fee system targeting people who habitually download large files — More here.

Email organizer Zaplets technology bought by email startup Xobni — Zaplets was developed in 2000 to turn long strings of back-and-forth emails into single emails, with the most recent information being displayed most prominently on each message (which sounds not unlike Gmail to me). Zaplets’ parent company, FireDrop had raised more than $100 million, with venture investors including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. It went bust, some of the patents ended up with an “enterprise process management” company called MetricStream — and have now been bought by email analysis startup Xobni. Zaplets’s problem was that it was ahead of its time, Xobni chief executive Jeff Bonforte tells Techcrunch. So, look for Zaplet technology in Xobni.

MeeVee bought, finally — The Burlingame, Calif. company offers a sort-of TV Guide-style site for online videos. But gaining only around 1.1 million monthly active users after raising $27 million since it was founded in 2000, MeeVee decided last month to try to sell. It has reportedly succeeded, selling to Live Universe for an undisclosed price.

Sprint and Clearwire have confirmed yesterday’s reports that they’re teaming up to create a new wireless broadband company. The new company, which will also be called Clearwire, should be the first to create a national mobile network using Intel’s WiMax technology, delivering broadband Internet at a much higher speed than existing 3G networks.

Intel, Google, Comcast, Time Warner and cable company Bright House Networks will invest $3.2 billion in this new company, while wireless veteran John Stanton’s Trilogy Equity Partners will invest directly in the new Clearwire’s common stock, which has a target price of $20 per share. Sprint will own 51 percent of the new Clearwire, existing Clearwire shareholders will own 27 percent and the strategic investors will collectively own 22 percent.

As we wrote yesterday, this looks to be a big win for all companies involved — particularly Sprint, which has been struggling, and WiMax, which is competing with rival technology LTE. (Others, however, argue that the situation risks becoming a “too many cooks in the kitchen” fiasco.)

The new Clearwire plans to cover between 120 and 140 million customers in its network by 2010.

The announcement includes a bunch of related partnerships between Sprint, Clearwire and the strategic investors. Google, for example, will work with Clearwire to develop Internet services, and Google applications like Google Maps and Gmail will now come preloaded on Sprint devices. Comcast, Time Warner and Bright House have made wholesale agreements with Sprint and Clearwire, and the two companies have also struck wholesale deals with each other.

Google Product Manager Larry Alder says his company invested $500 million, and he touts the deal’s potential for more open network policies, such as an open Internet protocol for mobile broadband devices.

Intel bullish on mobile Internet handhelds: The world’s biggest chip maker said more than 25 companies have signed up to use its low-power Atom microprocessors in upcoming “mobile Internet devices” (MIDs). The new category of wireless broadband-enabled devices will combine the features of Internet-enabled computers and navigation units in a handheld, with the first devices appearing in late May and early June in China, South Korea, and Japan. The chips consume anywhere from 0.65 watt to 2 watts. That means they could be serious challenges to low-power processors from Arm Holdings, which has a virtual lock on processors for mobile devices and cell phones, making the so-called MIDs Intel’s Trojan Horse for an assault on the mobile device chip market.

The latest iPhone rumors: AT&T’s CEO dropped a hint once again that Apple will launch a 3G version of its iPhone on AT&T’s network within months. His second mention, it was enough to set off an argument among analysts about whether the signs of an imminent 3G iPhone introduction are iPhone shortages at Apple stores. Apple, meanwhile, passed Wal-Mart as the No. 1 music retailer in the U.S.

Google acquisition rumors multiplied in the past 24 hours as word spread that it was going to buy travel site Expedia. Susquehanna Financial Group’s market intelligence team started the rumor. The consensus currently seems to be that it’s bogus, but we’re not completely ready to rule it out. Travel is a major vertical that Google hasn’t moved into yet, and back in 2005, there was some talk about Google starting up a travel site of its own that would tie into Google Maps and Google Earth. Travel e-commerce blogger Alex Bainbridge posted that Google had a high-level executive dedicated to working with Expedia from 2003-2007, and that Google may have developed Expedia’s search marketing program. Separately, TechCrunch reported that Google might buy the Skype phone service from eBay. Word is that eBay has been shopping Skype for months.

Blazing broadband. How fast do you want your Internet access to be? Comcast has begun offering 50 megabits a second to some lucky people in the Midwest. That’s like a dirt road to South Koreans. But here in the U.S., it’s the Autobahn (and it only costs $149.99 a month). Sometimes I wish I lived in Hudson, Wisc.


Best Buy beat expectations but saw a slight dip in its profits. The company earned $737 million in the March fiscal quarter. The electronics retailer’s earnings and its guidance for the fiscal year ahead were ahead of expectations. TV sales are expected to grow. But you can expect everyone will be watching closely to see if consumers get skittish about buying big-ticket items as a recession looms.

Games uber alles. Market researcher NPD Group reported that about 72 percent of Americans played some kind of video game in 2007, up from 64 percent of the population in 2006. Does this mean non-gamer dinosaurs are rapidly dying off? Of these, more than half say they play online games. The PC is the most common platform, with 90 percent of online gamers using it. Half of Xbox 360 game console owners use it to go online.

Get ready to rumble. Sony said that it would launch a new controller for the PlayStation 3 with “rumble” technology built into it. Sony caught flack for not including the force-feedback technology in its latest game console controllers, but the company was still smarting from a settlement where it agreed to pay Immersion in a patent case. The new DualShock 3 controllers have motion-control in them and Sony will stop selling its Sixaxis controllers, which come without the rumble feature, once supplies run out.

Peer-to-peer traffic on the internet appears to have received a temporary reprieve this morning, with an announcement by major internet service provider Comcast that it will stop specifically targeting BitTorrent traffic on its networks and instead focus on limiting only the heaviest bandwidth users, regardless of which download protocol they use.

P2P traffic is essentially a technique for spreading data transfers through a cloud of users’ computers, rather than sending data directly from a commercial server to a user. Initially popular for ad-hoc (and often illegal) file sharing between individuals, it’s growing in popularity as a choice for companies. BitGravity, Joost, Vuze and many others use some form of P2P, and it’s quickly becoming important for streaming music and video.

However, P2P also presents a huge, and increasingly unsustainable drain on internet service providers, taking up between 50 and 90 percent of all internet bandwidth. That’s what led to a kerfuffle with giant ISP Comcast last year, in which it slowly became apparent that the company was doing something to limit P2P traffic without bothering to tell anyone, including customers, companies or the government.

An Associated Press investigation eventually proved that Comcast was selectively filtering P2P traffic, which in turn got the Federal Communications Commission interested, to the point that it looked like the FCC might step in and force the company to treat all traffic equally. Thus, today’s Comcast deal smacks of a last-minute plea bargain to avoid unfavorable regulation.

This deal, then, is the first substantive thing Comcast has done to improve its image — which is why it’s hard to take the company at face value when it says that it will deal fairly with its customers. It doesn’t help that the company’s release is seeded with vague, noncommittal statements. Here’s one: “We will refine, adjust, and publish the technique based upon feedback and initial trial results.” Translation: “We might change our minds.”

Ashwin Navin, the president of BitTorrent (the company that invented the sharing protocol of the same name), seemed significantly more optimistic in a conversation I had with him. “They say they’re upgrading their upload network, and there’s no reason to do that unless you believe there’s a place for P2P,” he said of Comcast.

BitTorrent will be working together with Comcast to develop new solutions to handle and optimize P2P traffic, including new network equipment that can better handle media delivery. Navin isn’t worried that Comcast will return to P2P-specific throttling, citing the company’s promise to begin disclosing all its practices.

However, there’s still the question of what Comcast, and the smaller ISPs who will likely follow its example, will do to regulate users who use more than the average amount of bandwidth — and there’s no doubt that that means heavy P2P users, whether they’re illegal file-sharers or people who like watching lots of internet TV.

The most likely scenario is charging more for higher internet usage. That practice has been out of vogue since the early days of the internet, but Comcast has made no promises not to re-institute it. And ultimately, that could be just as harmful as selective throttling. “People want all-you-can-eat. They may be willing to pay for higher speeds, but if they belive they’re being metered, that may stunt the growth of the internet,” says Navin.

Here’s the latest action (updated):

Struggling cell phone manufacturer Motorola announced it would split itself into two different companies. Under pressure from activist investor Carl Icahn, the company will divide itself into a cell phone company and a company with broadband and mobility equipment operations. The latter firm would create infrastructure equipment for wireless networks as well as build television set-top boxes. The company had said in January that it would consider a breakup, mainly since its stock has plunged in the past year amid loss of cell phone market share to Nokia, Samsung and Apple.

Comcast and Time Warner are talking about a joint venture in WiMax wireless Internet technology. The Wall Street Journal reported that the cable operators would diversify their business by setting up a WiMax company operated by Sprint Nextel and Clearwire. Under the plan, Comcast would invest as much as $1 billion in the venture while Time Warner Cable would contribute $500 million. Bright House Networks, the sixth-largest cable operator, would contribute $100 million. Gigaom called it the $3 billion WiMax Rescue Act. They’re plowing forward in spite of questions about the technology, including a failed trial in Australia.

Take-Two formally rejected an offer from Electronic Arts. As expected, the beseiged video game maker rejected EA’s $26 a share, or $2 billion, tender offer. Take-Two, the maker of the upcoming game Grand Theft Auto IV arriving in stores April 29, also amended its proxy statement to adopt anti-takeover measures such as a stockholder rights plan.That sets the stage for a grueling battle with EA, which could nominate its own slate for Take-Two’s board.

Yahoo! joins Open Social Alliance led by Google. The Internet company said that the move will make it easier for programmers to write software that can run on the pages of many social networks and other web sites. Meanwhile, David Morin, senior platform manager at Facebook, reiterated at the Snap Summit 2.0 conference that his company isn’t joining Open Social now but isn’t against it in principle. Google said Tuesday it would give up control over the alliance and turn it over to the nonprofit OpenSocial Foundation.

Facebook confirmed it lured away another Google executive. Ethan Beard, former director of social media at Google, will join Facebook. He’s the second high-profile executive to leave Google this month. Facebook now has more than 500 employees.

$19 billion deal to privitize Clear Channel Communications nears collapse. The Wall Street Journal reported that the private equity deal is a victim of the credit market crunch. The leveraged buyout apparently is imploding as private equity firms and banks failed to work out differences over financing terms.

Imeem, the playlist company, opens up its platform — The company has opened to third-party developers, giving them tools to integrate their applications into Imeem. Imeem says calls itself the third largest social network, with more than 24 million unique visitors a month, though its users are mostly checking out each other’s music, and its not considered by most to be a full-fledged social network. The API lets developers access its users’ music tracks, which is a powerful thing because Imeem lets users run complete tracks for free (it got rights to do this from labels, after Imeem said it wanted to try an ad-based model). Developers can also access any videos and photos on imeem, access the social graph of users, modify the metadata for the content and customize the imeem video player.

Here’s the latest action:

File-sharing company Pando Networks raising $20.9M — Pando Networks, a New York file-sharing company that uses P2P software to allow users to download, stream and share large media files quickly, has raised $8.1 million of a targeted $20.9 million round of capital, VentureBeat has learned. The company has gotten positive press coverage for its ability to send very large files, such as high-def video. The round is includes backers Wheatley Partners and BRM Capital Fund. (Our early coverage of Pando.)

Federal Communications Commission weighs action against Comcast — The FCC said Comcast may have violated Net Neutrality principles, after it acknowledged t was slowing down traffic for peer-to-peer file-sharing sites. It is unclear what, if any, penalty the FCC can impose.

Cisco backs hi-definition streaming video company GridNetworks –Cisco participated in the Seattle company’s $9.5 million first round, part of the giant San Jose company’s effort to move into digital media to grow traffic on its infrastructure. GridNetworks competes against other content delivery networks, such as Akamai or Limelight, using a peer-to-peer client. We covered the company here.

Online advertising company Adjug gets backing from Tomorrow Focus — Adjug, the London based ad marketplace, lets advertisers determine where on a Web page they can place an ad, and decide what price they will pay to the publishers (announcement of the strategic investment is here ).

Softcoin, Web-based promotions company, raises $200,000 more — The Silicon Valley company offers promotion and loyalty programs online in the form of coupons. Customers get to redeem them in a store. The Brisbane, Calif. company has now raised $2.2 million in a third round of funding, which came from RRE Ventures, Greylock Partners and others, according to VentureWire.

Wireless car technology gets adopted by Ford – Airbiquity lets a driver’s cellphone deliver location and diagnostic data about their vehicle. The Seattle company has just landed a customer in Ford. See our recent coverage of Airbiquity and its financing here.

Walt Disney Co. expects $1 billion in revenue from online content this fiscal year — That’s a major increase from last year, according to CEO Robert Iger.

Here’s the day’s action:
1) CNET sells its photo-sharing site Webshots at loss, may be ready to try again
2) Comcast isn’t the only ISP manipulating traffic
3) Apple may lose Warner Music, too
4) Yahoo’s Cammie Dunaway goes to Nintendo
5) Trusted Opinion, social recommendations, raises $1.3 million
6) JackBe, enterprise mashup software, raises $9.5 million
7) EchoSign, electronic signatures, takes $6 million

CNET sells Webshots to American Greeting for $45M – CNET bought Webshots, a photo-sharing site, for $70M in 2004, so the purchase apparently didn’t do much for the company. CNET itself is losing money, and also recently took on a $250 million loan, which may signal a desire for more (but hopefully better advised) acquisitions of internet properties.

Comcast isn’t the only ISP interfering with P2P — This post by Om Malik points out that other ISPs are probably also interfering with Net traffic. So much for Net Neutrality. Companies that rely on P2P traffic may have to count on lawmakers for relief if ISPs become bolder in their efforts to minimize certain traffic. Luckily, they’ve got congressmen like Rick Boucher, who has put the issue at the top of the House tech agenda.

Apple’s iPod aura wearing off with music labels — Last month it was Universal Music Group, this month it’s Warner Music. As record label’s contracts with Apple run out, the companies are deciding they don’t really want to be in a controlling relationship, and would prefer to see other distributors. Both Universal and Warner are shifting to a month-to-month contract with Apple that will allow them to strike deals elsewhere. If the companies have figured out yet that they don’t have to be in constant control of their own content, that might even mean a few crumbs for startups.

Yahoo-er Cammie Dunaway has indeed left for Nintendo – The New York Times confirms the rumor that Valleywag had the other week.

Recommendation-focused social network Trusted Opinion raises $1.3 million – More here.

JackBe, enterprise mashup software company, raises $9.5M more – The company, based in Fremont, Calif., raised the third round of financing from Harbert Venture Partners, Core Capital Partners, and existing investors Intel Capital, Darby Technology Ventures and Blue Chip Venture Company. The company’s Presto platform allows users to create applications by pulling in data from various sources, and faces numerous competitors, including Nexaweb and Xignite. It had previously raised $9.5 million.

EchoSign takes $6 million for signature automation — A month ago today, we reported that competitor DocuSign had taken $12.4 million to continue developing its electronic signature technology. We wouldn’t say they’re copying, but does anyone else hear an echo? (OK, sorry for that one.) This is EchoSign’s second funding, led by Emergence Capital and also participated in by previous investor Storm Capital.

Here’s the latest action:

1) Dash Navigation opens platform
2) Flock releases new browser, with Facebook in sidebar
3) Patriots successfully sue ticket scalper, StubHub
4) Google’s great quarter: Net income up 46 percent
5) Brad Greenspan’s tell-all essay on MySpace
6) Microsoft releases Popfly, allowing non-geeks to build apps
7) Comcast steps away from Net Neutrality

Dash Navigation opens platform — Dash, you’ll recall is the cool GPS device that you can use in your car, and which will be constantly connected to the Internet. The company orginally said it was going to release its product this fall. However, last month, it delayed the release and will come next year. Notably, at the Web 2.0 Summit today, it also declared it will be an open platform. So you can do mashups with maps, and use Zillow, for example, to track the values of homes as you drive by them. That’s a good turn, because earlier year we criticized the company for being closed. That’s when it signed an exclusive contract with Yahoo to offer people search. What’s the point of letting people use the Web from their car if you’re going to shut them out from using other services? We still think this company is somewhat hyped. Accessing a decent, reliable Internet connection from your car is going to be a very difficult thing to do, and there’s loads of competition out there. As mobile internet access gets more robust, however, this device will get more attractive.

Flock offers new version of its broswer to the public here — We’ve written about its sidebar, which lets you operate within some of your social networking accounts without actully going to their site. New is the ability to access your Facebook account, and do upload photos directly to that account from your browser (see image).

Sports: Patriots successfully sue StubHub to gain ticket resellers’ identities – Stubhub, a marketplace that lets people buy and sold tickets they have purchased for sports games, concerts, and other events, was forced to divulge the identity of 13,000 of its users to the team. The Patriots claimed reselling tickets violated a Massachussets state law against reselling tickets for over two dollars the price at which they were purchased. EBay-owned Stubhub has begun notifying its affected users that the Patriots have their names, addresses and phone numbers. The Patriots management says it may revoke the tickets of people who resold on Stubhub. The Boston Globe has more. The team is now spying on its fans, after having been busted for spying on its opponents, as others have noted.

Google widens lead in search – Google’s said net income in the third quarter rose 46 percent compared to a year ago. Sales climbed 57 percent, beating estimates. Its profit margin declined somewhat, but its market share keeps rising, and competitor Yahoo said its revenues had grown just 12 percent.

Funky macro economics — We’re not certain how this will affect start-ups, but the dollar is an all-time low, at $1.42 to the euro, and the price of crude oil also hit a record, briefly breaching $90 a barrel yesterday. This could mean inflation, but housing woes are keeping things in check. (Details here).

Comcast steps away from Net Neutrality — Web companies like Joost and BitTorrent that have business models based on peer-to-peer sharing rely on the concept of “net neutrality,” meaning all traffic on the internet will be treated the same. Net neutrality isn’t a law, though; internet service providers can manipulate traffic in other ways if they wish. Comcast, the nation’s second largest internet service provider, has now been shown to be selectively blocking some peer-to-peer traffic, with no regard to the source of the traffic — in other words, they don’t care whether it comes from illegal file sharing or a legitimate business, they just don’t want it.
It’s not time for P2P-based companies to panic just yet. Comcast was already notorious for heavy-handed tactics to limit their bandwidth, and the bad publicity may force them to drop the practice. On the other hand, if the company manages to set a precedent, Joost et al. could be in trouble. And to make matters worse, many customers can’t vote with their feet by leaving Comcast — in many areas, only one or two service providers are available to choose from.

The tell-all essay of Brad Greenspan, Myspace “founder” – Greenspan played an early role at a company called eUniverse, which gave birth to MySpace. However, while he claims to have been a founder of MySpace, Myspace executives dismiss his role there. Greenspan writes in a long, unedited essay on the anti-Myspace site: I was forced to leave eUniverse at the end of October as [venture capital firm VantagePoint Venture Partners] took control of eUniverse and Myspace. His screed, complete with court documents, tells the story of how he was the driving force behind Myspace, and how a cast of characters took the company out from under him. Greenspan has already tried suing News Corp over his grievances, but his case was dismissed. See our previous coverage of the issue here. Found via YC hacker news.

Software giant Microsoft’s drag-and-drop Web mashup development tool, Popfly, now open for public testing — Its for people who don’t know how to code, and gives anybody the ability to build applications. As it becomes easier to mix and match programs, like building a house from Lego pieces, maybe the rest us will really start building applications. This may have limited popularity, but it won’t be a blockbuster.

Facebook and Ziddio.com, the user-generated video site recently launched by giant cable company Comcast, will announce a partnership tomorrow. It will give Facebook users another way to create and share videos.

Users will also be able to submit short videos of their lives, and winners of contests will be featured at Facebook and Ziddio and on Comcast’s ON DEMAND video service. The winners will also be used as the basis for a new television series titled “Facebook Diaries.”

Facebook hasn’t been known for its video. Looks like it’s thinking about changing that. Comcast ON DEMAND reaches more than 12 million people. Facebook has more than 16 million users.

(Updated with Web site URL)

San Mateo start-up BlackArrow has raised $14.75 million to develop a way to insert advertisements in TV and Internet video programming, and it shows the ads even if people try to skip over ads with their DVRs.

It has been secret until now. But this is pretty serious cash for an unknown company. It is, after all, a pretty serious proposition.

Here’s how it works: Take ABC, a network that sells 30-second advertising spots. Roughly a quarter of US households have digital video recorders, and that percentage is growing — and they’re skipping the 30-second spots in greater numbers. Advertisers are now saying that’s uncool, and so ABC says, “Aha, but we can offer enhanced ads — those that are played during the pause, ffwd modes” in video-on-demand and DVR households. So after the original show airs on TV, ABC syndicates the show to their own video web site, potentially other websites. The 30-second TV spots are removed and replaced with a group of pre-roll, mid-roll, post-roll ads, as well as companion ads (those that occupy real-estate around the video window) that are shown in the various playback modes. BlackArrow handles the brokerage and placing process by providing these new forms of ad inventory.

The funding comes from Intel Capital (yes, there is a trend here lately), Mayfield and Polaris Venture Partners, as well as Comcast.