Is Google Vulnerable in Advertising?

Steve Rubel just twittered an article from today's International Herald Tribune entitled "Google shows vulnerability in Advertising." It's almost a completely ridiculous article, but for the small weaknesses that Google does have in its ad platform. Of course, because the Time Magazine, Digg and Facebook havedecided to go with other ad partners other than Google, it isn't necessarily spelling the beginning of the end for the giant.

In June, Vivek Shah of Time magazine awarded a three-year, $100 million contract to Quigo Technologies, a venture capital-backed New York company that will handle ad space on more than 15 sites, including CNNMoney.com and People.com after spending six months assessing whether Google, Yahoo or Microsoft could most effectively attract advertisers to the publisher's Web sites.

The article in the IHT focuses on an alleged weakness that the Google AdSense system supposedly possesses - the inability to target your ad towards a single site. Granted, the system is set up on a bidding system, but there is the capability built in to not only put text advertisements on a preferred site (albeit at a CPD, elevated rate), but also video ads, one of the hot new areas of advertisement that is supposedly (at least according to IHT) being ignored by Google.

What is the big problem with Google then? Why are big sites like Digg and Facebook going with Microsoft right now? Essentially, it comes down to two things, in my analysis: targeting and subsidy.

I doubt that in any of their cases, Google is offering publishers big lucrative deals to switch the entire site's ad platform to Google. Microsoft clearly is, in a way that most likely doesn't make sense for Microsoft long term. This can be interpreted as a strength or a weakness for Google, depending on perspective and preferred business strategy.

The other thing: targeting. I know from my own personal experience that while Google's targeted ads on search are generally spot on, the targeted ads for content are usually so far off the mark (although in recent months they've gotten better), that I ended up removing Google AdSense from my site completely. My entire ad inventory for the site is now handled by the ad agency Project Wonderful. So far, they've pleased me far more than Google. When traffic spikes occur, of course, my income doesn't similarly spike, but they're good for a predictable and reliable income stream above what AdSense was able to provide for my level of traffic at the blog.

Want to be part of the Rizzn-ite army? Indoctrination instructions here.

gPhone: 30 pre-Beta Tests Underway

Hey Rizzn-ites and gPhone Hounds,

Last week I picked up a stray bit from a LiveJournaler about there being 30 rumored pre-beta gPhones wandering around in Mountain View California. Blogger Michael Bazeley recounts an experience he had in an Emeryville Apple store several days ago:

So I’m standing in the Emeryville Apple store today trying to troubleshoot a problem with a sales rep when a young woman bolts up to us saying she wants an iPhone. Like, now. After some back-and-forthing about the particulars, she says she’s a Google employee and she was going to wait for a demo of the gPhone, but it turns out Google’s only letting 30 people test it internally and she’s not one of them. So she’s going with the iPhone instead.

At which point, the Apple rep and I exchange glances and he says “gPhone? So it’s real, huh?” And the Google gal realizes she’s probably said too much and changes the subject.

There you go.

By the way, if you're interested in carrier information, price, and design, check out this post.

Want to be part of the Rizzn-ite army? Indoctrination instructions here.

gPhone: Belaboring the Point on the NYT Article

Hey Rizzn-ites,

I posted a bit yesterday about the NYT piece on the gPhone. The coverage of the NYT analysis has been spun as wrong as it can possibly be, with the grand take-a-way being that there is no gPhone coming. The original article was a bit off in the first place. I actually got an email from Miguel Helft this morning, responding to my analysis of what he said.

I'm puzzled that you call this a hit piece. Really? A story that lays out the facts, as I known them, and strategy behind Google's mobile ambitions and plans. In fact, most readers would probably come away with the notion that loosening carrier control and more competition for are good things. No?

As for quoting Google enemies, the one and only source I quoted who is in that camp is Scott Cleland, and I very clearly disclosed his point of view.

In fact, the one CEO of a carrier I quoted was Vodafone, by some metrics the largest mobile operator in the world, and a Google ally, since they provide easy access to Google services (unlike US carriers).

The problem is, Miguel, that very few facts were reported. The leading items were your unqualified (by any sourcing) analysis, and the quotes from those that would be decidedly out of the Google camp. Karsten Weide? Ex-Yahoo. Dan Olschwang? Potential Google mobile competitor. Arun Sarin? T-Mobile competitor (gPhone carrier).

Throughout the article, Miguel and all the quoted sources seemed mystified by the hype. As I stated yesterday, the gPhone promise is what the iPhone used to be, but without the threat of bricking.

I looked a bit further into Scott Cleland, since I was pretty sure I'd heard the name before, but couldn't place it. He writes Precursors Blog, and talked a bit about the gPhone yesterday. Like Miguel's piece, most of his analysis lacks cited sources, and completely downplays any credence to the hype surrounding it whatsoever. According to Scott, all the hype revolves around "their one-letter sub-branding conventions, their cultures of extreme secrecy about their plans, and their similar "Midas touch" public relations successes."

Again, though, what would you expect from shill for the anti-net neutrality crowd, and someone who argues that "...[t]rue competition best serves consumers, not government-managed competition where the Government pre-determines market outcomes with preemptive open access of net neutrality regulation" when speaking of the nation-wide megalopolies of AT&T and the cable companies. Competition indeed.

Update 9:48 AM CST (10/10/2007): Scoble linked Nicholas Carr's blog post this morning, who drew more or less the exact same conclusion I did.

/rizzn

Want to be part of the Rizzn-ite army? Indoctrination instructions here.

Google + Jaiku

I just found out via C.C. Chapman on Twitter, but it would appear that Jaiku has been purchased by Google!

This from the Jaiku FAQ today:

Jaiku is joining Google. While it's too soon to comment on specific plans, we look forward to working with our new friends at Google over the coming months to expand in ways we hope you'll find interesting and useful. Our engineers are excited to be working together and enthusiastic developers lead to great innovation. We look forward to accomplishing great things together. In order to focus on innovation instead of scaling, we have decided to close new user sign-ups for now.

But fear not, all our Jaiku services will stay running the way you are used to and you will be able to invite your friends to Jaiku. We have put together a quick Q&A about the acquisition.

Jyri Engeström and Petteri Koponen, Jaiku Founders

I guess Leo Laporte was right to bet on Jaiku back when he made the switch. I'll have to take a second look at the service, since it'll likely be pitched at me within the next couple months in the form of Google's new social networking initiative (yeah, bet on that!).

@sugree had an interesting observation: zingku+jaiku = google phone. It's a thought, and it is clearly related to the gPhone. Don't think it's the totality of it though, by a longshot.

Registration to Jaiku is currently closed, but you can request an invitation from the Jaiku site.

/rizzn

Want to be part of the Rizzn-ite army? Indoctrination instructions here.

gPhone: In Defense of Google

Hey Rizzn-ites,

Well, if you're like me, you woke up this morning with an inbox full of emails and a Google reader that pointed to mostly links to the New York Times article on the gPhone. Instead of tapping out thirty or forty replies to emails on my comment on the story, I'm simply going to post here, and refer all the bozos who wrote me back to this article.

You can hear me talk about this today on RizWords, daily politics and technology (subscribe for free to listen).

Everyone in the new media seems to be taking the New York Times article as if it were gospel, on not a poorly written re-hashing of everything else Crunchgear, Information Week, DigiTimes and I have written previously. Very little primary source research work was done for the article, and everything mentioned as a 'fact' about the gPhone, I've mentioned previously (to little fanfare) on my blog. The only difference is that the New York Times didn't attribute me as a source, nor did the even bother to contact me and ask me where I got my facts from.

That's right. I'm saying plagiarism. If not from me, then from the blogosphere in general. That they've not checked me out or asked me about anything (or that anyone but the Boston Globe has contacted me from the MSM) to try to get a couple of the rumors they're reporting as fact correct completely floors me.

Here are the first four paragraphs of the NYT article, translated and condensed down to a sentence a piece:

Everyone is saying there's a gPhone coming. The gPhone isn't going to be better than the iPhone. I've figured out all of Google's mobile strategy, magically, and without any help. Here it is: they want to advertise on mobile phones.

The problem here is it's all the way down to paragraph five when the author starts talking to someone who might have a clue as to what technology is, Karsten Weide. Unfortunately, even a cursory glance at his bio shows us that he has very little experience in what it is that Google actually does. He's an ex-Yahoo Germany project manager - the closest he ever came to knowing Google strategy was working at a branch of a competitor of Google.

The article then continues to cite: an anonymous (non-Google) executive, Dan Olschwang of JumpTap (a mobile phone version of Google), Arun Sarin of Vodafone, and Scott Cleland (telecommunications industry analyst who recently testified before the Senate against Google’s proposed acquisition of DoubleClick). All of these folks were either in direct competition with Google or were anti-Google.

Only in the last three sentences are any positive words used (by the article or by quoted sources) in reference to Google.

Essentially, the NYT piece is just a poorly veiled hit piece on Google, essentially stating that the gPhone is extraneous, and that you can already get to Google.com with a mobile phone, so why the hype about a gPhone?

I'll tell you why the hype. The Apple iPhone was this incredible piece of technology released to the largest launch in recent memory for a mobile device. What we had was a device we could develop for and look at as a platform for real forward, user-controlled advancement. And then Apple bricked it.

Now, with the gPhone, we're looking at the same thing, but without an Apple-ish propensity for monopoly, and closed systems. Google and the gPhone is the only device coming out on the horizon that looks like it both has the power to inspire the masses as well as the open and robust platform that developers can use and work on. That's the bottom line, and that's the big picture that the New York Times missed.

For an article that got it right, see TechCrunch today.

For a good chronology, see SearchEngineLand.

I've got more to say, but you'll have to tune into RizWords today to get it.

/rizzn

Want to be part of the Rizzn-ite army? Indoctrination instructions here.

gPhone: Rumored to be in the Wild!

Hey Rizzn-ites and gPhone hounds,

Just a bit of gPhone news for the weekend, it has been reported by Alex Lewis over at Network World that Google may have released some 'pre-beta gPhones into the wild':

Google has reportedly released approximately 30 pre-beta gPhones to current employees for testing. There are a lot of rumors, but if you hang around Mountain View, CA much you may see one in the wild. I was talking to a Googler yesterday but as soon as I asked he quickly shoved the device into his pocket and changed the subject. IF this was one of the fabled Gphones, it appeared similiar in shape to the iPhone, maybe a little thicker, with a bright screen and video.

So there ya go, another tasty gPhone rumor snack for you. Carry on!

/rizzn

Want to be part of the Rizzn-ite army? Indoctrination instructions here.

gPhone: Unsubstantiated Rumor

I haven't spoken with "Deep Throat" in a couple of days, so I'll have to ask him about this, but I just picked up an unsubstantiated rumor from a student at Rochester Institute of Technology:

So apparently Google's Phone really truly for all times for serious is coming, whether one likes it or not. It seems that there are displays at the Googleplex where people (that is, Google employees) can check it out. It also seems that the phone will be partially ad supported, in the sense that walking around town if you get close enough to some restaurant you will receive [...] I've heard of something similar in Korea where instead of getting coupons, you get texts whenever one of your friends is within x miles of you.

Interesting. I'll update you later. Gonna go record a show real quick now.

/rizzn

Want to be part of the Rizzn-ite army? Indoctrination instructions here.

gPhone: ExpansysTV demos the possible HTC/gPhone Platform

As we mentioned yesterday, the new HTC Dual touch has been released. ExpansysTV has released a five minute long YouTube video demonstrating the device. It has been speculated by some that this could be the platform for the new gPhone in development by Google (and my trusted sources at least haven't denied this could be one of the platforms, either).

So, figured you gPhone hounds might be interested in taking a peek. Enjoy.



Want to be part of the Rizzn-ite army? Indoctrination instructions here.

gPhone: The Final Countdown Starts Here

Update (11:52 AM CST 10/3/2007): You might be interested in this video demo of the HTC Dual Touch, which is rumored to be the hardware platform for the gPhone. I'd also like to re-iterate that the release dates are less trusted than the details in the main post. I mentioned that the dates I've heard have ranged from late Sept to early Oct. I haven't had any two sources say the same date twice, as I mentioned on the show, as well, so I don't trust those dates as much as I trust the rest of the details I've disclosed. Everyone seems keen to discount me using the dates I mentioned as 'proof', so I thought I'd re-iterate the authenticity of specific facts (or lack thereof). In other words, read the entire article in context.

Update (8:38 PM CST 10/1/2007): Several people have written in to me with the caveat that after the $400 gPhone is purchased the carrier connection might be subsidized by ads, thus technically free service. No one has said anything that would indicate this explicitly, but then no one has said anything to directly contradict it either. I wouldn't count on this fact personally, but it's not outside the realm of possibility. Trust me, though. I'd love it if it was free.

Update (5:00 PM CST 10/1/2007): Finally heard back from T-Mobile. A spokesperson who preferred not to be named stated: "...regarding the gPhone, T-Mobile does not comment on rumors or speculation." Almost verbatim what Google currently says publicly when asked. In response to my queries about data network specifications, the spokesperson said: "...I have looked into your request and found T-Mobile’s 3G/UMTS network updates are currently in the works. We are targeting the rollout for the first half of 2008. At this time we are not providing details regarding the availability of our network or future advanced data services. "

---

Howdy Rizzn-ites and gPhone hounds,

We're going to talk a lot about this on the show today (Episode 141). Listen in and get the full story!

I'm unloading my payload today. I've been aggregating and sifting through rumors from a number of sources - Deep Throat, NDA'ed entrepreneurs, NDA'ed employees of various related vendors and trusted internet sources. Some of the juicy tidbits that I trust implicitly I've been sitting on for the last month so I could drum up verification by independent sources. All of my sources prefer to remain anonymous, so I suppose this technically remains in the rumor bin, but my first predictions proved to be true regarding the gPhone, so as an independent reader, take that as you will. Thus ends my disclaimer.

On to the juicy tidbits. T-Mobile is going to be the network operator for the gPhone worldwide. I've got a call in to the press department over at T-Mobile in which I expect them to respond with the "we don't comment on rumor" line, but several other sources have corroborated this aspect.

It is going to be a Linux based kernel for the operating system. As of last talks with folks at Google, the GUI is still being finalized. The testing hardware was described as being in pieces spread across a table a couple weeks ago, as they finalized the drivers and the GUI for the device. The phone reference design will be open source, using the Apache license. This reference design will be an unlocked, neutral environment.

HTC is making the hardware - this isn't a new revelation. The rumor that they were involved has been a very widely reported rumor, but not only are trusted sources now reporting renewed confirmations on this, but HTC has released several phone models recently that show capabilities or indications that they could run an advanced GUI, as noted by Andy Beal.

There is going to be a price, and that price is $400. This is the big shocker. I had originally noted that part of the philosophy was that this product would compete in functionality with the OLPC and I inferred that it would be ad subsidized, which then started a spiral of analysis from many many folks that this phone would range in price from $200, then $100, then free.

Keep in mind, though, that this is being rolled out on an existing operator, not the 700 mhz spectrum, and not a satellite network. T-Mobile isn't owned by Google, and neither is HTC. It would be very difficult for the service to be free, but I haven't heard what the monthly pricing plans are going to be like, only that the device is going to cost $400. I have inquiries in at TMobile to find out the details.

Now, on to the facts that I haven't been able to find independent verification for, but sound reasonably congruent to everything else:

• Google has formed a consortium of about 30 companies to create it. The consortium includes chip makers, OEM manufacturers, software providers, and carriers. The phone will in fact not be a product -- it's really a reference design. I've referred throughout this post to the gPhone as a reference design because without anyone from Google explicitly saying this, it more or less sounds like what's happening. Google sent out requests to a whole bunch of vendors, and is putting together the pieces at the Googleplex.
• It'll be GSM everywhere except Japan, where it will be TDMA. I actually am ashamed to admit that I don't know all the specs on what goes on in the backplane of the different American carriers anymore - not like the days when I worked at Nokia where I had spec data ad nauseum memorized. If I had that information back from T-Mobile press relations, I could comment on this tidbit more reliably, but they haven't gotten back to me in time for this article to go out.
• The thrust is that the gPhone is the "the anti-iPhone". It will be an inexpensive, open design, vs. Apple's closed, expensive design. I don't think it's more or less the anti-iPhone, at least not in original intent, although it could very easily be framed that way, especially with Apple's tendency to brick iPhone in sight, these days.
• The Google phone will be announced sometime between 9/27 and 10/5. I don't know this to be a fact, but these dates are ones that have been bandied about by several of my sources. My advice? Buy your Google, HTC, and T-Mobile stock now. You know none of it's gonna go down.
• The gPhone will role out simultaneously in the US, Europe China, and Japan. They have a carrier ready to go in every region. I don't know this to be a fact, but one of my sources said that this is more or less gospel. We know they've been talking a lot to people in Asia, since much of the gPhone rumor seems to be originating in India, and they've been demonstrating it in America. T-Mobile is obviously very strong in Europe (owned by Deutsch Telekom). It's highly possible!
  

That's more or less all I know for now. I'll probably be chiming in on the blog here with some analysis on some of the more interesting posts that will come out of this. I am, for a change, going to refrain from making sweeping predictions in this post (I'll save those for the show), since the predictions I made last time were taken so widely out of context.

See these articles for all the old stuff I've said about the gPhone:

• gPhone: It's Confirmed
• gPhone: Vindicated!
• gPhone: Rumor Control.
• gPhone Hubbub

Want to be part of the Rizzn-ite army? Indoctrination instructions here.

Google and Facebook

Hey Rizzn-ites,

It seems that every time I gear up to do a blog post, Google or Facebook have to worm their way into my monologue at some point. Today is no exception.

A few days ago, Mike Arrington dropped a bombshell that got a little play in the blogosphere and then evaporated in regards to Google's impending response to the Facebook phenom. We all knew it was coming down the pike, because Orkut just isn't cutting the mustard in terms of the the US market.

I immediately commented on my blog that I simply couldn't see Orkut in any way retooled as a social networking tool, and it having a chance at all to compete with Facebook. In fact, I said that "[m]y advice to Google employees whenever they've brought up the social network issue with me has always been dump Orkut!"

Shortly after the post hit the web, I received a call from a Google employee that agreed with me.

Here's what Mike said we'd see:

On November 5 we’ll likely see third party iGoogle gadgets that leverage Orkut’s social graph information - the most basic implementation of what Google is planning. From there we may see a lot more - such as the ability to pull Orkut data outside of Google and into third party applications via the APIs.

Here's what I'm hearing: instead of leveraging Orkut's social graph information, we're going to see leveraging of GMail's social graph. Does GMail have a social graph? Sure it does. For those of us that aren't bleeding edge early adopters, what's the best measure of who's in our closest circles? Those that email us the most, and those we send out the most emails too. The interconnecting web of six degrees of separation can easily be determined by a little algorithm that pays attention to all the to's and from's. Google excels at both looking at our private data in new ways, as well as algorithms.

By way of significant upgrades to contact management and the enactment of profile pages, essentially, we're going to see a truly business-centric social networking system. It's difficult to find a system that's not got some sort of API or RSS feed within the Google world - it's simply a matter of connecting the dots, and making the Google widget platform interoperable.

Mike, in his original post, touches on very briefly what I was told:

In the long run, Google seems to be planning to add a social layer on top of the entire suite of Google services, with Orkut as their initial main source of social graph information and, as I said above, possibly adding third party networks to the back end as well. Social networks would have little choice but to participate to get additional distribution and attention.

Its curious that I'd been talking about this for at least a few months with Googlers along these lines and concurrent to that this has been brewing. I'm thinking of sending a consulting bill out to Mountain View (no, we don't have a big ego or anything. :-)

Or at least demanding an early peek at the gPhone.

Want to be part of the Rizzn-ite army? Indoctrination instructions here.

gPhone: Rumor Control.

Hey Rizzn-ites and gPhone hounds...

Several folks, most notably these guys at DigiTimes, are talking about the gPhone again.

I ran some of the theories past 'Deep Throat' over at Google (and remember, you guys named him that, not me). I'm forced to sit on some of the information he gave me for a time being, but I can comment on some of the rumors in broad generalities, as I did on the show last Friday (see episode 135). From the DigiTimes rumors:

Although market rumors previously stated that Google is likely to use an EDGE solution developed by Texas Instruments (TI) for its planned handset, recent developments indicate that Google is also evaluating the possibility of launching a 3G handset initially.

I'm still waiting on confirmation of some information from a certain American carrier regarding their technology platform, but, as I understand it, Google is past the evaluation stage in development for this iteration of the gPhone in terms of which mobile network they'll use.

Google [may] postpone the launch of the so-called Gphone to the first half of 2008 instead of the latter half of this year as expected due to the change of platform and problems related to licensing...

Obviously nothing is set in stone, as the product is still in late-stage development, but it sounds to me that the product will be released sooner, rather than later. Deep Throat didn't give me an exact date, but other sources tell me that it will be publicly released (not just demo'ed behind an NDA-wall) between 9/27 and 10/5, and released simultaneously (more or less) world-wide. I'm not dead certain on these dates (as this informant is a newer source for me, but it sounds plausible given what I do know).

High Tech Computer (HTC), meanwhile, is being marked as the manufacturing contractor for the Gphone due to the company's expertise in ODM and brand business and its mutual cooperation with a number of telecom carriers worldwide, said the sources.

Google may also try to launch a handset running on a self-developed OS, to compete with Windows Mobile and Symbian platforms, the sources speculated.

These things sound congruent with a lot of what I've heard, both from the blogosphere as well as Deep Throat. Again, I can't go into too much detail, but these bits of analysis and rumor seems on the mark. Given the fact that the story and rumors originate from a Taiwanese manufacturer, and HTC is a Taiwan-based company. Just sayin'.

If you like reading about patents, you may wanna check out this article. It's a bit tedious, but Information Week sees a pattern of patents coming out of Google that definitely signal a move towards the mobile world, too.

Of course, we've known about for a while Google's intention to spend in the neighborhood of $4.6 Billion to move to the 700mhz wireless spectrum. Channel 4 UK talks about what looks like a British bid for the mobile market by Google.

...on Thursday the UK communications regulator Ofcom announced a proposal to take some of the airwaves currently used by O2 and Vodafone and make it available to new bidders.

...

This remains a remote possibility at this stage, but the idea of a Google-branded mobile service is now a distinct possibility.

And in news that holds tertiary relevance to this (another story we talked a bit about on the show Friday), Google plans to build its own data network are under the Pacific Ocean. This from Mashable:

The project to lay cable, called “Unity,” would involve several other telecommunications companies who would aim to have it operational by 2009. The move would give Google a leg up on other US companies looking to deliver content to Asia, since they would have their own dedicated cable.

I hope it's becoming clear to those in the network-providing establishment: we will not stand for non-network-neutrality compliance. There are a number of strategic moves contained within all of these moves, but the largest bit of this that can't be ignored is that Google is moving towards an environment where they don't have to worry about network neutrality (as I discussed with Greg Blonder last week).

At any rate, stay tuned to this blog and podcast. As soon as I'm released to talk about the details, you'll definitely want to be here to hear them. They're juicy. Mighty juicy. It's killin' me to sit on 'em.

/rizzn

Want to be part of the Rizzn-ite army? Indoctrination instructions here.

Google to be 100% Open

Mike Arrington says he's talked to four of several folks who attended a super-secret meeting over at the Googleplex that more or less say:

The short version: Google will announce a new set of APIs on November 5 that will allow developers to leverage Google’s social graph data. They’ll start with Orkut and iGoogle (Google’s personalized home page), and expand from there to include Gmail, Gtalk and other Google services over time.

Here's basically what Mike thinks that means: "On November 5 it is likely we’ll see third party iGoogle gadgets that leverage Orkut social graph information - the most basic implementation of what Google is planning."

My advice to Google employees whenever they've brought up the social network issue with me has always been dump Orkut!

Orkut is only good if you're in South Florida or South America. Other than that, GMail is your ultimate social networking tool. Tool up GMail, tighten up it's integration with iGoogle, and ad the widgetizing feature to both to allow real-time social network via the oldest internet social tools in existence: email and chat.

I can't be the only person who sees this, can I?

/rizzn

Want to be part of the Rizzn-ite army? Indoctrination instructions here.

gPhone: Vindicated!

Rizzn-ites!

(further discussion on this can be found on Episode 121 of RizWords. Subscribe in iTunes for the first scoops!)

Don't ever doubt me again! When a leak or a confirmation comes from me, you know it's true! :-p

What am I talking about? Obviously you haven't checked Engadget or your copy of the Boston Globe yet. The gPhone was demo'ed in Boston, according to Scott Kirsner, to: Dan Roth of Nuance, Mike Phillips of Vlingo, Paul Ferri of Matrix Partners, and Murali Aravamudan of Veveo. It's an interesting assortment of names, and include a lot of names and companies we talk about here on the show.

Off that tidbit, what can be assumed? Well, given that Google specializes in search, and has a considerable amount of resources devoted to video and voice recognition (GOOG-411 and Video Search), we can assume they'll be either trying to incorporate their's or other's technology into the device.

Additionally, Om Malik came out today with a number of other confirmations on things we already knew here at Rizzn:

1. Google Phone is based on a mobile variant of Linux, and is able to run Java virtual machines. We knew this to be true from Deep Throat... Linux-based kernel.
2. All applications that are supposed to run on the Google Phone are java apps. The OS has ability to run multimedia files, including video clips. We didn't know that it would have video on it, although it would be rather silly for Google not to include one of it's leading draws, currently, YouTube in the mix somehow. The Java angle makes me a bit nervous - I've never had super luck with Java Applets, although in recent years, the platform has stabilized a bit. Additionally, Java Applets running on a tightly integrated system like a mobile platform could be mean better performance for said applets than we see on the PC architecture.
3. The image (with red background) floating around isn’t representative of the Google Phone UI. The entire UI is said to be done in Java and is very responsive. Again, because of integrated design, the Java could perform much better than other real-world applications. And indeed, the image we ran with the story last week was something we simply found on Engadget, not something handed to us from Google.
4. The UI, of course has a “search box.” Derrrrr.
5. Initially there was one prototype, but over past few months Google has the mobile OS running on 3-to-5 devices, most of them likely made by HTC, a mobile phone maker, and all have Qwerty apps. The model that folks have seen is very similar to the T-Mobile Dash. Around 3GSM, there were rumors that Google, Orange and HTC were working together on mobile devices. This jives with what we've heard from folks inside the loop as well as what we've read on the blogosphere. My suspicion, based on candid conversations with folks involved with the process, is that it'll initially be on a partnership basis like the iPhone situation with AT&T, but look for it in other countries before America gets it. American carriers will be less likely to do a subsidization on the service plans than overseas. If I had to guess, I'd expect to see it in Asia and Europe as some sort of internet wireless plan separate from carriers (think 802.something), parts of middle-to-Southern Asia and middle-to-Eastern Europe as a partnership with existing carriers, or maybe a mix of both. Keep in mind this is based off my analysis, not hard facts.

Om also mentioned:

We will post more details as they come our way. I had initially thought that it could be a more viable option to the $100 PC. While that argument still remains true, I think this is a strategic move by Google to keep Windows Mobile’s growing influence in check. Microsoft has spent billions on its mobile efforts including buying companies such as Tell Me Networks.

To be honest, I think this platform is an answer to both situations. The impression I get is that Google is working very closely with select partners like HTC to tailor the hardware to the OS and software, and vice-versa. The result will be something that comes in at a much lower price point with a lot more functionality than a Microsoft or OLPC style device can deliver.

Theoretically, on certain levels, it'll compete with both products, but as with most Google products, it'll do more to carve out it's own operating niche than to enter direct competition. If it's one thing I've learned, it's that Google doesn't think, in it's tactical level, on competitive terms, but more emphasis on innovation (a term I've often heard bandied about is 'Blue-Sky R&D). As a result, they end up being mightily competitive, without having to worry about it so much.

Back to the Boston Article a moment...
Scott in his Boston Globe article said:

Google spokeswoman Erin Fors wouldn't confirm whether software for mobile phones was being developed in the Cambridge office, where there are more than 50 employees.

Going back to my conversation with Deep Throat, I'm fairly certain that development for the phone is taking place, at least in part, at the Mountain View Googleplex. Saying what gave me this impression would reveal too much about my source, but it's the impression I got.

Another interesting quote from the Boston Globe article was from Mark May, an analyst:

Mark May, an equities analyst at Needham & Company who follows Google's stock, says he doesn't expect Google to manufacture the phone itself, but rather provide an operating system and a suite of applications that "would appeal to consumers and professionals," like the mail and word processing applications it already provides to PC users.

"That's a natural extension from their core business," May says. The operating system is expected to be open not just to Google's applications, but applications developed by all sorts of other players - a real problem with many cellphones.

So, what was an absurd rumor from a blogger five days ago is now a 'natural extension'? Nice spin, MSM.

GPay? What?
As if there weren't enough angles today to the gPhone story, Google published a patent today covered by TechCrunch detailing yet another application for the gPhone or other mobile devices allowing for payment via text messaging.

When I worked for Nokia in 2000, this was one of the applications we were working on before the bust hit, and 500 people from my department were laid off. PayPal initially got funded on the idea that it could be a mobile payment system, as well. No one really has gotten traction in the market of Text Message Payment Systems, and quite honestly, Google doesn't deserve the patent, which isn't to say that this couldn't become a widely successful application for them. Integrating your wallet with your mobile computing device? Actually quite ingenius.

Of course, it'll be a matter of moments before the debate on Goog's strangle-hold on information and privacy issues are raised again (not to mention the evil-ness, or lack thereof).

How's that for something to chew on this Labor Day? I'm going to my mom's to go eat some bratwurst. See you folks tomorrow. (again, check out the show for more info).

/rizzn

Want to be part of the Rizzn-ite army? Indoctrination instructions here.

Friday Wrap-Up

Hey, Rizzn-ites.

It's been an odd week for us here at Studio.Rizzn. It would appear that the gPhone story has knocked us onto a lot of people's radars. There are actually enough people posting here to warrant a bit more attention from me to my blog. I know I've broken this promise many times in the past, but I'll be posting a bit more often around here.

And in the spirit of wrapping up the gPhone rumors, I'll put in writing here what I've been trying to put out on the show the last couple of days...

I got a call from my friend over at Google (the guy everyone calls 'Deep Throat'), and he told me that "oops, yeah, um, I should have told you that stuff off-the-record, or not at all, because that demo I was talking about? yeah, it was a private demo, not a public one. Sorry!"

On the up side, though, he's not fired.

On a similar note, I've finally contacted my old buddy at HTC to try to confirm the rumors CG started about them doing the hardware for the gPhone. Unfortunately, by the time I called him, the lockdown had already initiated. I know the fellow pretty well, so it was unusual for him to be so tightlipped. His exact quotes were "I know nothing," and "I know only what I read on blogs." This can be interpreted so many different ways, I'm not even going to try to extrapolate.

Mostly, though, I surmise that very possibly the CrunchGear story is correct. Nothing in there directly contradicts anything I've heard.

So, for the moment, my contacts trail on this story has dried up, and I don't expect anything else from my trusted sources until a release date comes up or something else like gColdFusion is released (and no, that's not an actual rumor I've heard, just so that quote doesn't get taken out of context).

I would have put this out on the show Thursday or Friday, but Art and I have been absolutely plagued with technical issues, as we try different new recording techniques to bridge the 100 mile gap between our studios. There should be a late release of Friday's show, but Thursday's show was mangled in post-production beyond all recognition, and was scrapped.

Also, long-time and n3wb Rizzn-ites will be pleased to know I'm killing the green layouts very soon. I'm talking to Ryan at 3DegreeMedia to get a better design going. As I've become more entrenched in programming these last several years, my design skills have almost completely atrophied (and I used to be quite good). So coming very soon, a site that won't make your eyes bleed!

And that's a good thing!

You have a tech rumor for me? Something for me to track down? E-Mail me, and I'll find out. Until Monday (when we are broadcasting the show), deuce!

/rizzn

Want to be part of the Rizzn-ite army? Indoctrination instructions here.

gPhone Hubbub!

While the world continues to try to figure out whether to believe me and my unnamed source, I've got a list of a few of the folks talking about gPhone confirmation. Most folks are seeming to repeat what I say, and accurately interpreting the words, although a couple have taken an aspect of my analysis and skewed it. That's ok - it's expected. Since I don't have any other breaking news today, and my Developing for Facebook story isn't ready yet, I'm going to round up some of the coverage here.

(hey! it's not every day that the entire blogosphere mentions my name. let me bask in it for a second!)

Google alerted me this morning that:

• Wired said that: Rumor: Google Phone Will Be Linux-Powered, GPS-Loaded and Cheap: "If the murmurs are true, the GPhone cometh in September."
• the UK Guardian said that: The gPhone: "Speculation continues about Google's mobile phone plans."
• IntoMobile said that: Google GPhone confirmed as low-cost sub-$100 device: "Rizzn.com has also allegedly confirmed that the Google Phone will be using an ad-based model to help subsidize the cost of the phone - serving up Google ads whenever possible." [a point of clarification... that's analysis on my part, not confirmation. There will be ads on the phone, and the price-point is allegedly going to be low, but that one will subsidize the other, it's just an educated guess on my part]
• SEOPrincipal said that: Google Phone “Confirmed” - Will Be The Computer For The Poor: "Finally, someone posted something that looks like a reliable confirmation of the coming release of the Google Phone." [thanks! finally someone thinks I'm reliable instead of baggin' on me! :-) and he also said:] "Remember that Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, said last year that they would provide free phones to people if they accept to view advertising."

Digging down into the MSNBC article linked above from last November, you'll find the following quotes:

Schmidt said Saturday that as mobile phones become more like handheld computers and consumers spend as much as eight to 10 hours a day talking, texting and using the Web on these devices, advertising becomes a viable form of subsidy.

"Your mobile phone should be free," Schmidt told Reuters. "It just makes sense that subsidies should increase" as advertising rises on mobile phones.

He continues a little later in the interview with some more revealing comments:

The Google executive said his own company had no plans to directly give away phones itself, nor is he aware of any effort by partners such as phone makers Nokia or Motorola or mobile operators like Vodafone to make such a radical move, he said.

Schmidt acknowledged that mobile phones may never become totally free to the consumer. Newspapers are still not completely free a hundred years after they started relying on advertising, but they certainly are inexpensive, he noted.

Given the context of the information I got the other day from my friend, doesn't seem that far out of line now, eh?

At any rate, back to the coverage of me the gPhone rumor - these are the folks that really kicked off the coverage (thanks!):

• Mashable
• GigaOM: ... where there are apparently a lot of evangelists of the OLPC who are mad as crap at me for "spreading the rumors" that "Google is going to try to crush the OLPC." RTFA, and you'll see that's not what I said.
  

Did you post some unique analysis on this? Email the show, and we'll try to talk about it today.

Want to be part of the Rizzn-ite army? Indoctrination instructions here.

Badware: 1700 Posts that No One Will Read

According to Google, rizzn.com is a site that "may hurt your computer." Don't you just feel dangerous as heck reading this right now?

I'm not exactly sure why, although I was sent an email from a business associate last week:

When I empty my cache, and visit your site,

my Computer Associates anti-virus reports

the Microsoft Data Access pop-up there,

is infected with the JS/Petch virus.

I ignored it when it first happened Wednesday,

thinking it was just an ant-virus hiccup;

and it didn't re-occur until I cleaned out my

IE cache, and re-visited you today.

I checked the server, and all the domains with a virus scanner on the system, but found nothing. I chalked it up to a random error, until just now, when I discovered that virtually all my Google traffic has disappeared. Below any link from Google to rizzn.com, appears the following warning message: "This site may harm your computer."

This is very disconcerting for me. I went through the Google webmaster tools and requested a 'review.' I'll let you know how things turn out. All recent virus scans of the domain and web pages show no infections. I've got a sneaking suspicion that the infection came from a GoogleAd - I heard on Buzz Out Loud a while back that there were some worms that were launched through GoogleAds. I haven't confirmed this to be the source, but call it a hunch. We have a bunch of virus protection on the server, I've personally verified that. I can't imagine that a virus has penetrated that many layers of protection there.

At any rate, stay tuned for tomorrow or Monday. I've got a piece on Facebook Applications I'm working on that I hope to release here soon.

/rizzn

Want to be part of the Rizzn-ite army? Indoctrination instructions here.

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech - EP58

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech
Episode 58 - download now - subscribe now - review us on iTunes!

• A member of the TechPodcast Network @ techpodcast.com. If it's Tech, it's here.
  
• Remember, if you're listening on the podcast recording, you can call into the show live if you tune in through TalkShoe.com at 2:30 PM EST every weekday.
• If you like the podcast (and you haven't alreadyf given us a rating), head over and do so, and don't forget to sign up for the discussion list.
• Other Podcast Plugs:
  
• TalkGirls comes on Tuesday nights. Check out the TalkGirls Podcast ... it's good times!
• Cotolo Chronicles: Frank is a good friend of the show, and an associate of the late great Wolfman Jack. Check out his podcast.
• NewsReal: Good friend to Art and I - has one of the best hours of news podcast each week.
• You Are the Guest: Bill Grady turns the microphone on the internet's most interesting people.
  
• Sponsors:
  
• Try GoToMeeting for 45 days! Visit www.GoToMeeting.com/podcast to start your free trial today.
  
• J. Douglas Barker - Voice-overs for you! www.romancingthetone.com

Hey. As I mentioned on the blog earlier this week, we're the number three rated podcast on TalkShoe.com right now. Read more about it here. Our new found celebrity status is getting people to write us. Email us with that link to get your letter read on the show!

We kicked the show off with a lively discussion and report card on the various candidate performances on last night's presidential primary debate. We eventually segued into the results of the Scooter Libby trial, which was announced late yesterday:

Libby Given 30 Months for Lying in C.I.A. Leak Case
I. Lewis Libby Jr., the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney and one of the principal architects of President Bush's foreign policy, was sentenced Tuesday to 30 months in prison for lying during a C.I.A. leak investigation

After the break, we started in on the Media and Tech news:

U.S. limits fines for profanity
If President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney can blurt out vulgar language, then the government cannot punish broadcast television stations for broadcasting the same words in similarly fleeting contexts. That, in essence, was the decision Monday, when a U.S. federal appeals court struck down a government policy allowing stations and networks to be fined if they broadcast shows containing profanities. Although the case was primarily concerned with what is known as "fleeting expletives," or blurted profanities, on television, both network executives and top officials at the Federal Communications Commission said the opinion could gut the commission's ability to regulate any speech on television or radio. Kevin Martin, the chairman of the FCC, said the agency was now considering whether to seek an appeal before all the judges of the appeals court or to take the matter directly to the Supreme Court. The decision, by a divided panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, was a sharp rebuke to the FCC and to the Bush administration. For the four television networks that filed the lawsuit - Fox, CBS, NBC and ABC - it was a major victory in a legal and cultural battle they are waging with the commission and its supporters.

Mark explained the personal connection he has to Hearst media and launches into this story of positive growth for old media into new:

YouTube to will pay for local TV programming
YouTube has reached a revenue-sharing deal with Hearst-Argyle Television whereby local TV stations will be paid when users of the video-sharing site watch their programming. YouTube, a unit of Google, and Hearst-Argyle said in a statement Sunday that they would share advertising revenue on news, weather and entertainment videos from five TV stations - the first time YouTube has paid for local TV programming. Hearst-Argyle television stations in Boston, Sacramento, Pittsburgh. Baltimore and Manchester, New Hampshire, will begin posting local video content to dedicated channels on YouTube. YouTube will also distribute Hearst-Argyle's new digital video initiatives, including high school football, basketball and local amateur entertainment, the companies said. Hearst-Argyle, which owns 29 local TV stations in the United States, will take an undisclosed cut of the advertising revenue YouTube earns when its users view clips, a spokesman said. The New York-based company owns local affiliates of ABC, NBC, CBS and MyNetworkTV. It reaches roughly 18 percent of U.S. households with televisions.

Art ponders what is causing this, the latest in a rash of bouts of kleptomania:

Book Publisher Resorts To Cheap Stunts: Steals Google Laptops
Just as Google is making it even more obvious how their book scanning project is helping publishers by helping them sell more books, it appears that at least one publisher doesn't seem to understand the difference between helping more people find your books and theft. Apparently the CEO of Macmillan Publishers decided to swipe two Google laptops from Google's booth at BookExpo America, wait for Google employees to notice the missing laptops (took about an hour) and then claim that he was just giving Google "a taste of their own medicine." Let's see. One is taking an expensive scarce item. The other is building an index so more people can find books. If Macmillan's CEO really thinks that's the same medicine, than someone ought to check what medication he's taking.

And then we briefly talk about a potential winner of the dumbest startup of the week contest:

Last August Noah Kalina posted a video on YouTube (embedded above): it features nothing more than daily photos of himself over 6 years, set to music. The video has been viewed over 6 million times, inspiring many spoofs and similar postings. The amount of work that went into the video is staggering. Taking the photos, organizing them and then editing them into a movie would have taken hundreds of hours in aggregate.

FlickaDay is a new Boston-based startup that makes this whole process much easier. Use the site to take a photo of yourself every day using a connected webcam or camera. Flickaday will organize the photos and will let you publish it as a Flash widget on another website.

FlickaDay uses Flash to hook up to your web cam. Each day you can sign in and snap a photo through your web cam and write your mood. You can only snap one photo a day, which is stored to your account. You can then show off these photos on your FlickaDay widget, which lists your most recent photo and mood. Viewers can also look through archived photos using a calendar or play through the whole set to a song you uploaded. You can adjust the frame rate, but the default is a comfortable 8 frames a second.

Want to be part of the Rizzn-ite army? Indoctrination instructions here.

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech - EP55

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech
Episode 55 - download now - subscribe now - review us on iTunes!

• A member of the TechPodcast Network @ techpodcast.com. If it's Tech, it's here.
  
• Remember, if you're listening on the podcast recording, you can call into the show live if you tune in through TalkShoe.com at 2:30 PM EST every weekday.
• If you like the podcast (and you haven't already given us a rating), head over and do so, and don't forget to sign up for the discussion list.
• Other Podcast Plugs:
  
• TalkGirls comes on Tuesday nights. Check out the TalkGirls Podcast ... it's good times!
• Cotolo Chronicles: Frank is a good friend of the show, and an associate of the late great Wolfman Jack. Check out his podcast.
• NewsReal: Good friend to Art and I - has one of the best hours of news podcast each week.
• You Are the Guest: Bill Grady turns the microphone on the internet's most interesting people.
  
• Sponsors:
  
• Try GoToMeeting for 45 days! Visit www.GoToMeeting.com/podcast to start your free trial today.
  
• J. Douglas Barker - Voice-overs for you! www.romancingthetone.com

Due to a real big screw up on my part, yesterday's show notes are irretrievably lost. Here, however, are today's show notes:

George Bush has flip-flopped on the environment, and has decided to create a bumbling government effort to stop global warming, the same day that NASA proclaims it's a stupid idea:

Bush's 'new climate strategy'
Today's headlines are full of the news that President Bush is &; quot;unveiling a new climate strategy.&; quot; If your immediate reaction is cynicism, well ... looks like you learned something over the last seven years. Let's look a little closer....
NASA's Top Official Questions Global Warming

NASA administrator Michael Griffin continues to draw the ire of preeminent climate scientists inside and outside of NASA, as well as members of Congress, after apparently downplaying the need to combat global warming.

In an interview broadcast yesterday on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" program, Griffin was asked by NPR's Steve Inskeep whether he is concerned about global warming.

"I have no doubt that a trend of global warming exists," Griffin told Inskeep. "I am not sure that it is fair to say that it is a problem we must wrestle with."

"To assume that it is a problem is to assume that the state of Earth's climate today is the optimal climate, the best climate that we could have or ever have had and that we need to take steps to make sure that it doesn't change," Griffin said. "I guess I would ask which human beings — where and when — are to be accorded the privilege of deciding that this particular climate that we have right here today, right now is the best climate for all other human beings. I think that's a rather arrogant position for people to take."

Griffin's comments immediately drew stunned reaction from James Hansen, NASA's top climate scientist at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.

In other interesting political news, we nominated another guy to the World Bank chief slot:

US nominates new World Bank chief
US President George W Bush has nominated Robert Zoellick, former deputy secretary of state, to be president of the World Bank. — His nomination will be considered by the World Bank's 24-member board of governors, although the US nomination has always been accepted in the past.

Turning to tech news, are we seeing a repeat of the Digg revolt, or is this just a bunch of whiny kids posting their angst-ridden comments?:

Mass Deletion Leads To LiveJournal Revolt
Green Monkey writes "LiveJournal has been suspending accounts suspected of promoting incest — except that many of them were communities for survivors of abuse and people discussing Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita. Even after being informed of the problem, LiveJournal apparently refuses to reinstate the banned accounts. LiveJournal's official news blog has filled up with hundreds of complaints protesting the decision, so we could have another Digg-style user rebellion brewing." Update: 05/31 11:50 GMT by KD : strredwolf writes to let us know that in their offical blog LiveJournal admits to botching the suspension, saying "We made a mistake and now we are going to try to fix it."

And in breaking news, technology gets better!:

Computers Outperform Humans at Recognizing Faces
seven of five writes "According to the recent Face Recognition Grand Challenge, The match up of face-recognition algorithms showed that machine recognition of human individuals has improved tenfold since 2002 and a hundredfold since 1995. 'Among other advantages, 3-D facial recognition identifies individuals by exploiting distinctive features of a human face's surface--for instance, the curves of the eye sockets, nose, and chin, which are where tissue and bone are most apparent and which don't change over time. Furthermore, Phillips says, "changes in illumination have adversely affected face-recognition performance from still images. But the shape of a face isn't affected by changes in illumination." Hence, 3-D face recognition might even be used in near-dark conditions.'"

Oh, and follow this link for a marketing tool to help you promote your YouTube video content: http://mashable.com/2007/05/31/tellyadder/

Want to be part of the Rizzn-ite army? Indoctrination instructions here.

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech - EP53

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech
Episode 53 - download link coming soon: check the feed for details: subscribe now

• A member of the TechPodcast Network @ techpodcast.com. If it's Tech, it's here.
  
• Remember, if you're listening on the podcast recording, you can call into the show live if you tune in through TalkShoe.com at 2:30 PM EST every weekday.
• If you like the podcast (and you haven't already given us a rating), head over and do so, and don't forget to sign up for the discussion list.
• Other Podcast Plugs:
  
• TalkGirls comes on Tuesday nights. Check out the TalkGirls Podcast ... it's good times!
• Cotolo Chronicles: Frank is a good friend of the show, and an associate of the late great Wolfman Jack. Check out his podcast.
• NewsReal: Good friend to Art and I - has one of the best hours of news podcast each week.
• You Are the Guest: Bill Grady turns the microphone on the internet's most interesting people.
  
• Sponsors:
  
• Try GoToMeeting for 45 days! Visit www.GoToMeeting.com/podcast to start your free trial today.
  
• J. Douglas Barker - Voice-overs for you! www.romancingthetone.com

A bunch of new startup acquisition news. We talk a bit about the acquisitions specifically, and then a bit in general about the prevalence in the news lately of all the startups getting bought:

Look For Confirmation of eBay/StumbleUpon Today
I’m hearing that the eBay/StumbleUpon acquisition will be officially announced sometime today. Keep an eye our for the press release. We originally broke this rumor in April when a term sheet was reportedly signed. The Wall Street Journal picked up the story earlier this month.

I don’t know if the price will be disclosed, or if the rumors of $75 million are roughly correct.

An Old Media company actually gets it right with a new media acquisition:

CBS Acquires Europe’s Last.fm for $280 million
The quickly growing music social network Last.fm has been acquired by CBS for $280 million in an all-cash deal.

UK based Last.fm launched five years ago and has become a social networking favorite with 15 million active users. It has become a massive repository for music information (artist and song wikis, listening data from users, etc.). In the U.S., companies like Pandora, MOG and iLike all compete with some of Last.fm’s features, although none of those startups has built the basic social network/community of last.fm.

The deal sees Last.fm’s management team staying in place and the site maintaining a separate identity.

Last.fm has been an attractive takeover target for some time. CBS as a buyer though is surprising and is a sure sign that the media giant is getting serious about Web 2.0. CBS acquired video blog WallStrip for $5 million earlier this month, and has been on a bit of a buying spree lately after filling out the management team on the interactive side of the business last year.

Previous TechCrunch coverage here.

This certainly explains why Last.fm was a little slow to jump on the Facebook Applications bandwagon last week - they were understandably distracted.

An interesting perspective on the same story:

Don't Look Now, But Old Media May Be Figuring This New Media Thing Out
It's not much, but there are a few signs that some "old media" companies are starting to figure out what makes new media tick. This morning's announcement that CBS is buying last.fm for $280 million isn't all that interesting on its own -- but it's one of a pattern of recent deals by so-called "old media" companies that have them looking to build or buy into communities, rather than just content. The mistake that many media companies have made over the last few years is the belief that the content was king -- and as long as they had the content, the community would form naturally. What people are noticing is that the community is important and it's hard work to build one. Of course, recognizing that is only the first step. The real question is what these companies will do to cultivate these communities. In most cases (MySpace being the one exception so far), these types of purchases tend to wither and die once they become part of a larger company (and the entrepreneurial souls of the community move on).

And other startup news:

Google buys anti-malware browser virtualization startup (Ryan Naraine/Zero Day)
Google has quietly made its first anti-malware acquisition, snapping up GreenBorder Technologies, a venture-backed company that sells browser virtualization security software.

And in political news, both Art and I are surprised we didn't hear about this earlier:

Cyber-Spies Tracking Terror on Web
Dana Rosenblatt writes on CNN.com:

There is an unconventional war being waged on the Internet. The battles here know no boundaries; and are fought from homes and offices from small Midwestern towns to Europe and the Middle East.

For the fighters in these battles weapons usually consist of no more than collected intelligence and computer programming skills.

It's no secret anymore that active terrorist cells are currently operating freely and openly on the Internet, using propaganda tactics to illicit prospective recruits.

The emergence of these terrorist groups has spawned their nemesis: groups of researchers, hackers, and maverick computer geeks who cyber-stalk terrorist networks online and take them down.

More here.

Resembling a modern-day Clark Kent, Weisburd is a boyish 40-something former computer programmer who decided to use his background and skills to track terrorists following the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

He's proved himself a force to be reckoned with, fighting -- and winning -- a war waged against the "dark side" of the Internet.

Weisburd's reputation has earned him the nickname "the vigilante" in cyber space, a legacy he's eager to shrug off.

"If I was a vigilante running a Web site, I would hurt you," says Weisburd.

"If I find that you're running a Web site for al Qaeda, I'm not going to hurt you. I'll report you to people that will ask you to come quietly, and if you don't go quietly, they may hurt you," he says.

Art jumps for joy:

Fred Thompson to Form Presidential Committee

"Law and Order" star Fred Thompson — will make his flirtation with a White — House bid official this week, forming — a presidential committee and launching — a fundraising effort

His advisers say they do not expect to match the amount of money the others are raising, but profess to be unconcerned.

"He doesn't need as much money as the others have raised," said one supporter, noting that his Hollywood fame has already given him a boost in the polls. "He hasn't raised nor has he spent a single dime so far. People should not expect that he will outraise anyone."

We find a Democrat we like:

Lieberman in Iraq sees "progress,"
What a coincidence. Two years after Cheney said the insurgency was in its last throes, Joe Lieberman made essentially the same prediction.

CNN reports that Lieberman is on an unannounced "surprise" visit to Baghdad. Paula Hancocks followed Lieberman around. She talked to Lieberman and reported, "He said he was happy with the progress. He was devastated by the fact that May was turning in to the deadliest month since November 2004. But he said he did believe that this surge eventually would pay off and it would start to break the insurgency."

And in people turning on the Democrats news:

Cindy Sheehan Quits as 'Face' of Anti-War Movement
Cindy Sheehan, the "peace mom" who made headlines in 2005 by staging a marathon protest outside President Bush's Crawford, Texas, ranch, said Monday that she no longer wants to be seen as a leader of the anti-war movement.

Want to be part of the Rizzn-ite army? Indoctrination instructions here.

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech - EP52

RizWords - Daily Politics and Tech
Episode 52 - download now - subscribe now

• A member of the TechPodcast Network @ techpodcast.com. If it's Tech, it's here.
  
• Remember, if you're listening on the podcast recording, you can call into the show live if you tune in through TalkShoe.com at 2:30 PM EST every weekday.
• If you like the podcast (and you haven't already given us a rating), head over and do so, and don't forget to sign up for the discussion list.
• Other Podcast Plugs:
  
• TalkGirls comes on Tuesday nights. Check out the TalkGirls Podcast ... it's good times!
• Cotolo Chronicles: Frank is a good friend of the show, and an associate of the late great Wolfman Jack. Check out his podcast.
• NewsReal: Good friend to Art and I - has one of the best hours of news podcast each week.
• You Are the Guest: Bill Grady turns the microphone on the internet's most interesting people.
  
• Sponsors:
  
• Try GoToMeeting for 45 days! Visit www.GoToMeeting.com/podcast to start your free trial today.
  
• J. Douglas Barker - Voice-overs for you! www.romancingthetone.com

Solo show today... I talked a bit about this:

Bill calls for better tracking of faster broadband
How fast is U.S. "broadband" service, anyway? The FCC says 200 kbps is good enough to count, which sets the bar kind of low. Then again, it lets the government claim that broadband service is available in 99 percent of all ZIP codes (another fairly useless measure). A bill introduced in the Senate last week requires broadband providers to use smaller geographic areas than ZIP codes to report statistics, and force the FCC to think again about whether a 200 kbps pipe is all that broad. The Broadband Data Improvement Act was introduced by Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye, chair of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

For more about S.1492:
- read this article from InfoWorld
- see the legislation from the Library of Congress

Related Articles:
FCC head says broadband is top priority. Report
VoIP lets hotels charge extra for true broadband. Report

And everyone seems to be jumping on this story... my analysis... Google probably has little to worry about:

FTC to Investigate Google-DoubleClick Acquisition
Steve Lohr writes in The New York Times:

The Federal Trade Commission has opened a preliminary antitrust investigation into Google’s planned $3.1 billion purchase of the online advertising company DoubleClick, an industry executive briefed on the agency’s plans said yesterday.

The inquiry began at the end of last week, after it was decided that the Federal Trade Commission instead of the Justice Department would conduct the review, said the executive, who asked not to be identified because he had not been authorized to speak. The two agencies split the duties of antitrust enforcement.

An F.T.C. spokesman said yesterday that the agency did not comment on pending inquiries.

More here.

And in other Google news, something else Google might not need to worry about:

Look Out Google - Here Come the Aussies
The only word that describes what happened to our inbox tonight was “spammed” - no less than eleven links were sent to this Australian article which talks about new stealth startup MyLiveSearch.

Dubbing itself the “world’s first live search engine” it promises to show us the 4/5 of the web that Google doesn’t index - this includes the grey web of dynamically created web pages as well as real time indexing of more traditional pages.

The article says “Google is keeping a close eye on a small, suburban Melbourne start-up that claims to be developing a search engine that improves on the world leader” and goes on to quote founder Rob Gabriel as saying his startup “gives better, more relevant results” than Google and “this technology could be snapped onto any of the major search engines and improve them.”

Those are big words for a startup that is yet to launch into private beta. We’ll be taking a look at MyLiveSearch at the end of June when they launch, and looking for a little backup to their website claim of “searching the internet will never be the same…” It’s certainly true that Google isn’t perfect, but it will take more than words to take them down. These guys are feisty, though, and I like that.

In dumb engineering news:

Nissan Warns Drivers: Don't Put Mobile Phones Near Our Keys

Nissan is going around warning a bunch of US drivers of either the Nissan Altima or the Infiniti G35 to be careful with their mobile phones. However, it's not, as you might expect, about driving while using those mobile phones. Nope. It's about keeping those mobile phones away from the car keys that open and start the cars. Like many newer cars, these cars use a wireless key system. Unfortunately, they're discovering that mobile phones receiving calls while in contact with the keys can scramble the electronic code on the keys... making them into useless paperweights. This would seem like a pretty big problem -- and simply telling drivers to keep their phones away from their keys isn't likely to work very well, considering phones and keys very often end up together in people's pockets or purses.

A good alternative to Joost, for those without invites:

Joox: Another Illegal Video Site?

Joox.net is an online repository for videos–mostly television shows and movies that seemingly elude copyright agreements.

You can find quite a few episodes of The Simpsons, or Grey’s Anatomy, and the second half of Pirates of the Carribean 3: At World’s End. Content is added by Joox users, in what looks to be a somewhat complicated process. You’ll have to first play your video in the provided player, and add it to Joox directly from the player. The clip will need to be confirmed before becoming part of the Joox library, but you can still watch these upcoming videos. As Joox is probably not based in the U.S. (the domain is reportedly registered in Sweden), Joox may manage to avoid a few copyright infringement suits for a while. Also to keep in mind, you’ll need to download a divx file as Joox does not operate in flash, and doesn’t have the best quality either.

Others in this space include Pirate Bay, which has confirmed its upcoming streaming service, and front runner Joost, the Internet television provider that has landed copyright agreements with nearly every major network, studio and brand in creation, BitTorrent, which has recently launched a video store, and Jalipo, which could be considered a paid version of Joost.

Google's slow pace contributes to this more than anything else, in my opinion:

Google's Slow Shift to Social Unification?

One of the aspects largely overlooked in Google's recently unveiled Hot Trends is the prominent link on a topic's page to 'Discuss with others'. While the feature is currently flawed, and as such is basically useless, it could signal a move by Google towards unifying their services with a more social approach.

Clicking on the 'Discuss with others' link (found immediately below the Hot Trends 'Peak' information), takes you to a Google Group entitled 'Google Trends Hot Trends'. Despite being prominently displayed, this link garners little in the way of actual discussion on the Google Groups page - a total of 34 messages, 20 total members, and an activity rating of 'Low' for a group that is linked to on every single Hot Trend item.

Instead of this rather pointless broad group, Google should create a Google Group for each individual topic found in the Hot Trends. Furthermore they should make it so that at least some of the discussions will load right within the Hot Trends Topic page itself rather than redirecting you to the Google Groups page. This would show that there are others who are actively participating in discussions and entice more readers to contribute as well.

If Google could get this very basic social feature working in the Hot Trends area, they could expand the idea to their other services as well. This could particularly be interesting in Google News, where a single discussion thread on an article might be preferable to some over multiple discussion threads on sites like Digg, Netscape, Reddit, and the like.

Google Groups already keeps track of users posts and gives the option to have an avatar and profile just like the social news sites. Why Google isn't making any moves to utilize these tools already in place is a bit baffling to me. It reminds me a bit of the Google Toolbar/Dice situation with StumbleUpon. In that situation, Google had the elements in place to create a service that would have been very much like StumbleUpon before it was popular, yet they lacked the foresight to do so. Here again, they have just about everything in place to unify some of their services into a more social network, but they still have yet to act upon it.

A really neat link (pay attention to this, could be a possible ARG (alternate reality game) alert):
Batman Dark Knight viral campaign.

Want to be part of the Rizzn-ite army? Indoctrination instructions here.