“Facebook won the MySpace battle because of better and more immediate interaction with people,” Eric Covino says. “The more they get away from that, the bigger the concern.”

Covino is the founder and CEO of CreativeSignals, an online marketing firm that buys Facebook ads, among other things. And he’s not impressed with the new of the impending autoplaying video ads that Facebook is rumored to be adding in the next few months.

Source: John Koetsier

Facebook’s clean, uncluttered new News Feed.

As soon as July, according to some reports, Facebook will be rolling out 15-second video ads right in your news feed. You’ll only see one video ad from one company a day, but the positioning right in your news feed — and the fact that they may be autoplay ads– makes it a risky move. That’s very different than Facebook’s existing video ad proposition, as Wired notes, which is on brands’ own product pages.

The rationale, however, is the pot of goal at the end of the digital rainbow.

“They’re looking to push out millions of dollars of ads,” Covino sayw. “The price per spot is definitely north of a million.”

The challenge, for Covino, boils down to user experience. MySpace bit the dust because of a horrible user experience cluttered with ads. Facebook, which just added retargeted ads in the middle of your news feed, initially had just one ad per page. The social network moved to four in 2011, then to six, and has tested up to 10.

The pressure, especially now that Facebook is a publicly-traded company, is to increase revenue. And there’s also pressure from advertisers, who want new and better ways of splashing their messages in front of social media users.

“With both Facebook and Twitter, you have these tremendously large user groups with advertisers salivating over them,” Covino told me. “I’m worried about the user experience … they keep interrupting people.”

Facebook, of course, is not unaware of these problems, and they test almost everything they do with small groups of Facebook users before migrating the changes slowly to others. So if there is a significant user backlash, Facebook will know, and it will be able to course-correct.

Source: Jolie O'Dell/VentureBeat

Mark Zuckerberg announcing the updated News Feed

The question, however, is whether the tension between cash and user experience will be resolved in a way that solves both problems.

Covino’s not so sure.

“The core problem of all this is that you have to overcome the psychology of what your users think your service is,” he says.

In other words, people come to Facebook to connect with friends, not necessarily with brands. That is probably largely true, but people are also connecting strongly with companies on Facebook — especially local community businesses. In fact, Facebook trumpeted just a month ago that its users have made more than two billion connections to local businesses, view their Facebook pages 645 million times a week, and comment on them 13 million times a week.

And Facebook fans have never been more valuable to brands — BMW fans are worth $1,613, Starbucks fans $177, and Coke fans are worth $70 to their respective brands.

The core question, to Covino, is how long they’ll stay that way.

“All these things are great, and they sound great, but can that money overcome psychology?” he wonders. “I’m extremely skeptical.”

Leading VOIP and cheap call provider Rebtel asked 1,632 American adults what effects social networks had on them. In a classic can’t-live-with-it, can’t-live-without-it scenario, almost 20 percent of American adults said Facebook was the social network that has the “most negative effect” on their mood, and another 20 percent said it caused them the most stress.

However, Facebook is also the site that almost half of Americans said was the most positive.

In other words, Facebook is such a big part of our lives that our experience of the site pretty much mirrors our experience of life: sometimes our friends piss us off, sometimes they make us sad, but more often, they make us happy.

One thing that’s almost guaranteed to drive your friends nuts? Including them in status updates and location check-ins. 45 percent of us don’t like it when we appear in social media updates that others create, and 70 percent say that’s because they don’t like to broadcast their location.

LinkedIn, Twitter, and Youtube caused almost no stress, as did MySpace. In MySpace’s case, of course, that’s because no-one actually uses the site anymore. But the social media site that are the most positive are Instagram and Pinterest, with only .3 percent and .1 percent, respectively, saying they were stressed out by those services.

One other interesting data point the Rebtel survey highlighted is how social media makes us feel.

On days when we check into social accounts more frequently than normal, we’re typically bored. Of course … that might be the  reason we’re checking in in the first place. But on days when we’re checking in less frequently than normal, we’re typically feeling left out, like we’re missing out on something.

In other words, we’re addicted.

photo credit: Amir Kuckovic via photopin cc

A funny thing happened after my drive home from a Los Angeles press junket where MySpace executives Tim Vanderhook, Chris Vanderhook, and Justin Timberlake gave members of the media a detailed tour of the yet-to-be-unveiled site: I changed my mind.

While dictating detailed notes into my iPhone during the drive, I decided that the second coming of MySpace is like an extremely beautiful woman who also possesses the intelligence of a scholar — too much to absorb.

If you can have too much of a good thing, the reincarnated MySpace is that thing, I reasoned.

But when I sat down to write this story and actually started exploring MySpace and its 53 million tracks, I got lost in the experience. Suddenly, the words of the executive brothers from earlier in the day came back to me.

“You give users a couple of days and they become hooked,” CEO Tim said. He was responding to my query as to whether MySpace was too convoluted, too complicated.

He’s right. I’ve spent a few hours with the site. I think I’m hooked.

“The Internet just became boring,” COO Chris said to a room of eight reporters (and several handlers), all of whom were hoping to hear more from Mr. Sexy-Back. “There was nothing fun anymore … I want to make it fun to use MySpace.”

It is fun, and so I have to amend my conclusion to this: Wrapped in a pretty package and equipped with brains to match, MySpace feels too good to be true. It’s not. No joke.

Gushing aside, there’s a full review to be had, not all so glowing, so let’s get to it.

A different kind of space

The profile

Log on to MySpace and you’ll find a design so noticeably different from anything else you’ve encountered that it will be hard to look away.

Designed for artists and their fans, the new MySpace, said every executive and product manager I talked to, is not a redesign. It’s a new product with a new purpose and a design meant to evoke emotion. MySpace wants to draw people into relationships with creatives and the content they produce.

“The standout feature is the design. No doubt,” Chris said. “We really changed the level of expectations of consumers about what design is for a website.”

The site features two separate navigation options. The global navigation bar sits at the bottom of the page and includes links to your homepage and profile alongside notifications and message hubs. The bottom navigation bar also features a “Discover” button that directs you to a portion of the site for music and media exploration, a search button, and music controls to manage streaming wherever you roam. This bar follows you around the site and is meant to help you dive into (and out of) content.

A separate contextual navigation menu rests on the left-hand side of the page and changes depending on the type of page or content you’re viewing.

Justin Timberlake’s stream

On the homepage, you are presented with a stream of content that spans the activity of the people and objects you’ve indicated you care about. You can limit the stream to a specific type of content, say posts or music, or you can view everything. The stream runs on the horizontal, meaning you’ll be scrolling from left to right instead of from top to bottom. Everything in the stream can be interacted with via a two-ring “connection” icon that represents your relationship with that object.

Should a pal listen to a bunch of music, you’ll see the activity in your stream. You can hover over each song to play the track, add it to a music queue, send it in a message, add it to a multimedia collection (called “mixes”), and so forth. Each of these hover cards also highlights similar content and includes percentages that measure the affinity between you and an object.

Hover cards and affinity

If you want to share something, you can find the post button on your homepage. The post experience takes over the entire page, and you can share a 150-character update with a photo or track, and your location.

Searching is automatic. Sure, there’s a button included in the global navigation bar, but you never need it. All you need to do is start typing. The site will automatically return matching songs, artists, albums, people, mixes, and videos as you type.

Search

Music is enmeshed into the entire experience, so for any track you find on the site, you can either click to listen to it or drag it to a hidden music drawer that opens with your action. If you opt to watch music videos, videos are shown in full-screen. You can watch videos and browse the greater space at the same time; the video will continue to play in the bottom right-hand corner of the site as you explore.

Of course, there are cover photos for profiles. MySpace’s only original twist here is to require high-resolution imagery to maintain quality control (now that’s a twist!).

Watching a video on MySpace

Altogether, the many unique design elements and interface choices make for an engrossing but curious flow. There’s a steep learning curve here, though it be may be one that excites new users. Figuring out how some of the features work or deciphering what some of the words mean will either be tedious or enticing tasks depending on your mood.

I suspect you’ll find the stream and its horizontal scroll captivating, the integrated music player in the bottom bar fantastic, and the side reels that slide in for additional info and comments flighty and annoying.

An hour or two into the new MySpace experience and you should have a good idea of how to complete most tasks, though you may find yourself lost down some strange corridor, as was often my experience. You should also start to see why MySpace is a space all its own. Yes, the new MySpace overlaps with Spotify, Pandora, Vevo, YouTube, Facebook, and many other music and social services, but it feels different — special even. Tim, Chris, and Justin have made good on their promise to build a place for creatives.

Time to learn a new language

You don’t “like,” you “connect”

Don’t expect to arrive at MySpace and understand the language. The service has concocted new names for familiar tasks; it’s an approach that strikes me as overwrought.

You don’t make friends, “like” content, or fan or follow celebrities on MySpace. Instead, you “connect” with everything: people you know, artists you love, tracks you like, photos you appreciate, and videos you enjoy.

Connections play a huge, sometimes confusing role in the overall experience.

I don’t understand why you would take the time to connect to an individual artist and also to each of that artist’s songs. In fact, connecting with objects in the same way you connect with people is a bit jarring, even if the process theoretically simplifies the act of indicating interest in things.

MySpace Mixes

You’ll also need to add “mixes” to your lexicon. Mixes are MySpace’s version of Pinterest boards and can be hybrid collections of different media types, serve as playlists, or act as portfolios. You can add to mixes as you browse either via hover cards or by dragging-and-dropping music to the disappearing drawer.

Welcome back profile songs and top 8

Those who loved the MySpace of yore will appreciate that the site’s new owners have returned profile songs to the experience.

You can once again feature your current favorite track on your profile. You can also hit a “Play All” button to cycle through the profile songs of all your connections.

The “top 8″ is another oldie but goodie back on the scene. This profile section displays the people or artists you choose to feature as your eight favorites.

More than just a pretty face

Discover trending content

The new MySpace is easy on the eyes, but its depth may be its most exciting asset — or its most crippling.

“There is a lot going on,” Tim said. “We wanted to provide this experience that has a lot of depth to it. There are other platforms … Pandora, Spotify, but there’s no depth of just learning more and more.”

There is a lot going on. As if streams, mixes, and connections weren’t enough, there’s also a ubiquitous radio feature that employs a custom MySpace algorithm but mimics the functionality of Pandora. A “Spaces” module will house third-party applications at some point. Artists get analytics. You get content recommendations for practically everything.

Is there anything the new MySpace can’t do? Well, yes, music downloads or sales — for now anyway.

Discover is arguably the sexiest section of MySpace, and it’s also the deepest.

This is the area dedicated to media exploration. Here you can find a smattering of editorial features written by staff, check out other MySpace users with similar tastes, find new music, pan through top mixes, dive into videos picked for you, or start your own radio station. Everything in the music and video sections can be fine-tuned by genre or restricted to stuff popular with just the people in your area.

Old-fashioned social networking

Good, old-fashioned social networking, the kind that MySpace originally helped to invent in 2003, asked a lot of every person. You would sign up, create an account, and spend hours filling in the holes of your profile, finding friends to follow or looking for exes to stalk, and perfecting your image.

In more recent years, that social model has been supplanted by one that’s simpler and more immediately gratifying. Take Instagram, where you sign up with Facebook and start sharing or exploring photos instantaneously. Your image is crafted by your photos and there’s very little required of you in terms of time, attention, or comprehension.

New MySpace is a blast from the past. The service does not simplify the social stream, it complicates it. MySpace demands a lot of you. You must learn a new language, adjust to a new navigation, seek out entertainment, and devote time to understanding the nuances of the site.

My fear is that in trying to take people deep into a musical abyss, MySpace will lose those who lack patience. Those who do stick around, however, may never want to leave.

The new MySpace is still in beta. The site is gradually being rolled out to people in waves, starting with artists.

A radio DJ in my hometown recently mocked a caller for asking whether the station had a MySpace account. The uncomfortable exchange almost perfectly captured what the one-time website for friends has become: a joke. MySpace is now so uncool that people are embarrassed to be seen there.

Tim Vanderhook, MySpace CEO

But MySpace is no laughing matter for Tim and Chris Vanderhook, brothers who aren’t grim about the social network’s chances at a full-fledged comeback. The pair cofounded the interactive advertising company Specific Media with their other brother, Russell. They’ve been running MySpace, somewhat stealthily, since late June 2011, with Tim as the chief executive and Chris as the chief operating officer.

The duo fully understands MySpace’s extreme perception problem.

In a moment of honesty, I recounted the radio DJ story to the Vanderhooks. They responded with equal candor.

“That’s the old MySpace. Why would you think any different? Most people out there, up until about a week ago, had nothing really new to go on,” Chris told me. “And by the way, we’re not clueless and live in some dungeon and don’t understand that. We bought MySpace full well … we knew what we were dealing with.”

What are they dealing with exactly?

At worst, the Vanderhooks paid $35 million for a disgraced site overshadowed by Facebook and abandoned by social networkers looking for their real friends elsewhere.

At best, what they acquired is access to a creativity community of artists, DJs, directors, producers, labels, and a built-in streaming infrastructure that gives these people the capability to share their music with fans.

With an existing audience of 70 million monthly active users — 30 million of whom are in the U.S. — all may not be so gloomy.

What is MySpace?

Enter the new MySpace, with a design that’s so dramatic and bold that a recently released preview video got people all around the web talking and possibly rethinking their disdain for the site they’ve long forgotten.

“I believe [MySpace] has a shot,” Altimeter Group principal analyst Brian Solis told me. “People are worn out from Facebook, not sure what to make of Google+ … this might be the right time, right place for MySpace.”

In case you missed the memo, MySpace is no longer a place for friends — it’s a place for creatives.

“MySpace is a social network for the creative community to connect with their fans,” Tim said. “Obviously, MySpace has a huge heritage of music … but we think the opportunity is the creative community at large: filmmakers, recording artists, producers, DJs, directors.”

The point, he said, is to help these content producers bring their media to the people who want to enjoy it.

But what does MySpace have that other social platforms don’t? Streaming infrastructure, Tim said.

“MySpace is the only social platform where the artist can come upload their music. We create a catalog for them … and they stream it out to consumers for free,” he said. “That streaming infrastructure was never really replicated on any social network, and for us, it was really one of the main reasons why the artist community still had a very positive affinity for the company.”

The brothers believe the streaming infrastructure, alongside analytics, will bring in artists who will, in turn, draw their fan base over to the new experience. They see MySpace as a one-stop destination for all facets of the music business: access to 42 million songs, events and shows, artist merchandise, and tracks for download or purchase. They believe this setup will keep MySpace distinct from competitors such as Spotify or iTunes, which are both popular digital music services that offer some but not all of these features.

About that design

The MySpace redesign, which is now rolling out to artists and members of the creative community, represents nearly a year of behind-the-scenes work.

Chris Vanderhook, MySpace chief operating officer.

“We actually built everything from scratch,” Chris said.

“To make the site work properly and fast, we needed to start from scratch and build on a more modern code,” Tim added.

The first few months of the rebuilding process were spent narrowing the vision, listening to the artist community, and identifying what was necessary to fill the gap that the Vanderhooks see as the real opportunity for MySpace in present day Social Media Land.

Then it was time to tackle the design.

“We wanted to actually make something that was visually stunning, starting with the consumer’s profile, the artist’s profile, the discovery section that we have, and then really thinking through how design and devices play together as well,” Chris explained.

“We know tablets are the future. That’s where the horizontal scroll came through … because it just made more sense for the future device that everyone will be carrying.

The current social platforms are more of a tech space diary of what I’m doing, where I’m going, or where I’ve been. We wanted to create more of a visual stream that would represent the artist and their image in the way that they would do it. And that was really the driving force behind the design.”

The user experience should be easy for newcomers to figure out if the Vanderhooks have done their job. The horizontal scroll, in particular, channels how consumers naturally interact with physical items such as magazines and newspapers, and has been tailored to work on tablets and desktops alike.

MySpace is tablet-ready today. The company is, however, actively building native applications for all mobile platforms, the men said.

The pair have also hidden secret gems to make the MySpace experience more magical as people explore. Search, for instance, is a no-click experience. Just start typing and MySpace recognizes that you’re trying to input a query and automatically pulls up the search feature.

“There’s lots of these hidden things that we think consumers will intuitively figure out, and they’ll actually be even more excited about the design and the experience once they learn these secret areas.”

Overcoming the stigma

MySpace cannot survive on Justin Timberlake and nice design alone — not with a reputation marred by years of neglect. Time could, however, be on MySpace’s side.

“The stigma is incredibly deep within the old-school social media community,” said Solis, “but it’s not as deep with millennials.”

Indeed. Generation Y’s youngest members, born in the ’90s and early 2000s, were probably never MySpace users to begin with. Their lack of familiarity with MySpace, the sad old social network, could make them more open to using MySpace, the sharp new site for creatives.

The biggest question of all remains: Will you give MySpace another chance? If you’re anything like Solis, the answer is obvious: Yes.

“I was one of the folks who went to see if my MySpace still works,” he admitted.

He’s likely not alone. Solis said that he noticed many of his social connections reactivate their MySpace accounts immediately following the release of the video.

Perhaps then, mister radio DJ, the joke is on you.

Photo credit: captain simon’s mandolin/Flickr

Old people are big on the web, apparently, as AARP web properties jumped 21 percent, Sun Microsystems has risen from the dead, and MySpace continues its slow drop to oblivion as Tumblr elbows its way above yesterday’s social network.

But the biggest jump belongs to Instagram.

The Facebook acquisition and continued execution by the Instagram team translated to 38 percent growth in the month of July. Instagram.com is now the 56th most popular site in the U.S., with 22.7 million unique visitors, up from 16.5 million in June.

And that’s all with a website that contains almost no content besides a blog and developer support, unless you come in via the app or a social network to see an Instagrammed picture directly.

One big surprise in the top gainers: Sun Microsystems.

Apparently it grew 32 percent from 7.7 million to 10.2 million visitors, despite being dead, and sun.com redirecting to Oracle’s website. This is a headscratcher — Sun has been a popular website in the past, but why it is gaining now, and how ComScore is finding this are big question marks.

I asked ComScore for more information, and this is what Andrew Lipsman, the company’s VP of industry analysis, told me:

Sun Microsystems is the web property, and it would include a number of other sites for products that Sun owns. There may have been a software update this month that drove traffic to something under the Sun umbrella.

Tumblr continues to win as it surged past MySpace as the 43rd most popular site in the U.S., and the top slots are held down by the big boys: Google with 190 million uniques, Microsoft with 168 million, Yahoo with 162 million, and Facebook with 160 million.

The next big move is probably Facebook surging past Yahoo and Microsoft sites.

Here’s the top gainers graph:

ComScore top 10 gaining websites July 2012

And the top sites overall:

ComScore July 2012: top websites in the US

photo credit: gogoloopie via photo pin cc

Hat tip: MarketingLand

Like how Facebook beat MySpace in the first place.

MySpace ran huge numbers of display ads — 51 billion in June 2008. So many, in fact, that users started building up immunity — what we now call adblindness. As the site was pressed to make higher and higher revenue goals for then-parent-company News Corp, however, MySpace showed more and more ads.

The result was predictable.

Source: John Koetsier

Facebook – I’m seeing 7 ads per page

Revenue per page went down as the number of ads went up. Clickthroughs went from one in a hundred to one in a thousand in a single year — 2006 to 2007 – and even worse thereafter, to four in 10,000 in 2010.

Facebook learned from those and other MySpace mistakes, and started out with only one ad per page.

That’s right: one ad per page.

There are many reasons why Facebook won and MySpace lost, and the ad story is only one of them. But now Facebook, under pressure after a lackluster IPO and poor mobile monetization, may not only be compromising some of its principles and surrendering to the need to drive cash flow but also starting to follow the path of its failed competitor.

Ten ads from one is an order of magnitude change, and it has happened in just a few short years. While you could argue that some ads are beneficial to the user experience if they’re relevant and timely, more is not necessarily better.

And Facebook might want to remember why it won, before it starts to lose.

Ten ads per Facebook page, courtesy Inside Facebook:

Source: Inside Facebook

10 ads per page on Facebook

Image credit: Andrey Bayda/ShutterStock

Timberlake will play a major role in developing the strategy and creative direction of Myspace, according to Specific Media. Both parties plan to unveil details of Myspace’s new direction later this summer.

“There’s a need for a place where fans can go to interact with their favorite entertainers, listen to music, watch videos, share and discover cool stuff and just connect. Myspace has the potential to be that place,” Timberlake said in a statement from Specific Media.

Timberlake doesn’t have much experience on the business side of social sites beyond his portrayal of Napster founder Sean Parker in the film The Social Network. But he is a veteran of the music industry and an investor in startups Stipple and Miso.

Online advertising firm Specific Media acquired Myspace from News Corp. for $35 million in a deal announced earlier today. Irvine, California-based Specific Media was founded in 1999 by brothers Tim, Chris and Russell Vanderhook and operates offices all over the world.

The $35 million price tag might seem too high for a site rumored just months ago to be shutting down. Using the news of Myspace’s sale to leverage media attention about the partnership with Timberlake was a smart move on Specific Media’s part.

The Timberlake partnership underscores that Specific Media will focus on Myspace’s music features. VentureBeat has yet to hear back from the company regarding whether music licensing deals made under previous owner News Corp. would carry over. Considering that News Corp. is retaining a small stake in the social site, it’s likely that prior licensing deals will remain in place.

Justin Timberlake pictured above in a popular Saturday Night Live episode.

The deal will pay out a mix of cash and stock to Specific Media, an online advertising company, with News Corp. retaining about 5 percent of Myspace, according to the report.

Significant cuts to Myspace’s 400-employee staff are expected to follow the sale, according to sources within the company. CEO Mike Jones and other top-level staff will likely remain on for an interim period, the report states.

News Corp. purchased the California-based social network in July 2005 for $580 million. Myspace’s revenue peaked at over $900 million in 2008.

Specific Media outbid other potential Myspace buyers such as private equity firm Golden Gate Capital. The company is expected to focus on Myspace’s music features.

“Myspace is a recognized leader that has pioneered the social media space. The company has transformed the ways in which audiences discover, consume and engage with content online,” said Specific Media CEO Tim Vanderhook in a press release. “There are many synergies between our companies as we are both focused on enhancing digital media experiences by fueling connections with relevance and interest.”

Irvine, California-based Specific Media was founded in 1999 by brothers Tim, Chris and Russell Vanderhook. The company operates many offices around the world.

News Corp. is apparently in a rush to complete an acquisition deal by Thursday — its fiscal year-end. The media giant probably doesn’t want MySpace to blemish its 2012 financial records, especially given the lackluster revenue predictions.

Backing up earlier information, the report indicates that significant cuts in staff and operating costs will be made to Myspace depending on who the buyer is. News Corp. might also retain a small minority stake in the company, according to the report.

Specific Media and Golden Gate Capital are at the top of the list of companies that could acquire Myspace. Both companies would focus Myspace on music, sources told All Things Digital. However, it’s unclear if prior music licenses will transfer with the sale.

An investment group that includes Myspace co-founder Tom Anderson, another separate investment group that includes Myspace co-founder Chris DeWolfe and Criterion Capital Partners have also been rumored as showing interest in purchasing the company, according to the report.

News Corp. purchased the California-based social network in July 2005 for $580 million. The company’s revenue peaked at over $900 million in 2008.

TechCrunch later confirmed with sources inside Myspace that the company is laying off at least 150 (37.5 percent) of its 400 remaining employees– with another 150 employees possibly being put on a transition plan while looking for new jobs.

In January, Myspace cut 47 percent of its staff as part of the social networking site’s first attempt at re-branding itself into a content portal.

Myspace’s parent company News Corp has been extremely unsuccessful in its effort to sell the company. The latest round of layoffs is part of an effort to make Myspace more attractive for potential buyers by stripping it down.

ActiVision CEO Bobby Kotick has been rumored in the past as a potential buyer. A sale of Myspace could be announced Friday, according to TechCrunch.

Apple’s Wozniak notes white iPhone 4 camera issues, showers more love on Android — The Apple cofounder said this week that early white iPhone 4 parts caused issues with its camera, which led to multiple delays and its near-mythical status among gadget hounds.

Verizon halts iPhone pre-orders due to huge demand — Well that didn’t last long.

Call of Duty Black Ops map pack keeps Activision’s hot franchise rolling — Activision Blizzard has released a new set of multiplayer maps for the Call of Duty Black Ops combat game, and hundreds of thousands of people are already playing it on the Xbox 360 game console.

News Corp. exec: “The right time” to sell Myspace — Just in case anyone wasn’t sure about News Corp.’s desire to unload Myspace, chief operating officer Chase Carney said Wednesday that “now is the right time” to consider selling the social networking service — or find another way to restructure its relationship with the parent company.

Rambus invents extremely fast memory system for the gadgets of the future — Hoping to advance the speed of everything from computers to game consoles, Rambus announced that has invented an extremely fast way to transfer data through a computer’s memory system.

And here are five more stories we think are important, thought-provoking, fun, or all of the above:

With Honeycomb, Google has a shot at catching Apple in tablets — For the first time, Google has a chance at catching up with Apple in the hot tablet computer market.

Which is selling better: Chevy Volt or Nissan Leaf? — They’re the first two plug-in electric vehicles sold in the U.S. by major manufacturers in a decade. Thus far, the Volt is decisively in the lead.

Can we really trust the cloud? — Events in Egypt, Canada, and around the world have brought cloud advocates back to Earth.

IBM, Intel, TechStars and the White House start up America — No, America didn’t suffer a breakdown. But according to a “Startup America” campaign launched by the White House to encourage high-growth entrepreneurship in the U.S., it could use a jump-start of entrepreneurial energy.

News Corp. has spent $30M on The Daily iPad newspaper — Rupert Murdoch’s new publication will have to be a huge hit to pay off.

TechCrunch had claimed that in a recent series on how Facebook and other social networks handled privacy breaches, the Journal had left out one notable exception as of Friday afternoon—its sister company, MySpace. (Both are owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.)

But by close of business Friday, the Journal not only ran a piece on MySpace as part of the series, it was up in arms over TechCrunch’s suggestion it would shy from taking on anyone in their immediate “family.”

“The claim is ridiculous in every sense,” Ashley Huston, senior director of communications for Dow Jones & Company, told me late Friday.

“Our groundbreaking series on digital privacy has scientifically examined cookies, beacons and other tracking technologies at every leading company, including WSJ.com,” she added.

As for the timing of the piece, which appeared after TechCrunch’s blog?

Well, when asked, Huston said the piece had been in the pipeline to appear today all along, and was not rushed down the pike because of any specific blogging pressure.

So they didn’t push the piece out the door to appear impartial?

“Correct,” said Huston.

Do you buy the Journal’s defense? Let us know in the comments.