Every company has something it aspires to, and it pretty much boils down to world domination. The folks at Google, however, insist they’re different; their mantra of Don’t Be Evil still has a nice ring to it, but the question is how well can a motto translate into a multi-billion company with thousands of employees. According to the recent interview with Google CEO Eric Schmidt on Fox Business, one way to make sure they’re on the right track is not to repeat Microsoft’s mistakes. You can see the entire interview below; in it, Schmidt takes on topics such as privacy (and the reasons behind launching their Google Dashboard), disruptive technology and the recovery of the economy. The most interesting sentence, however, is the one in which he talks about Microsoft. “Hopefully, we won’t repeat the mistakes that Microsot made, you know, ten years ago that ultimately led to all these things that happened with them”, he says. As far as huge companies go, I don’t think Microsoft is really doing all that bad, but these little jabs between these two giants are becoming quite commonplace; we look forward to Steve Ballmer’s response. Tags: Google, microsoft

  Seesmic Desktop has the distinction of being the first third-party Twitter client to support the new Listsfeature, and now web-based social reader Brizzlyclaims the second slot.Currently in closed beta, Brizzly is a Twitter and Facebook client built by many of the same folks who built Google Reader. Its maker, Thing Labs, is headed up by Jason Shellen — a former veteran of Blogger, the startup Twitter’s Evan Williams sold to Google in 2003.One of the cool features of Brizzly since it went into private beta this summer was Groups, which worked essentially like a precursor to Twitter’s own Lists. You could sort followers into groups in much the same way, and the way Brizzly chose to handle the transition from Groups to Lists is spot on. Brizzly will display the lists you’ve already created on Twitter and give you all the tools you need to create, display, sync and navigate them. The Groups you’ve already created in Brizzly will be migrated back in the other direction to Twitter as well — but as private lists by default, in case you’ve made Groups you might not want to share publicly (you can of course change the setting to public if you wish).The Lists support should be rolled out to all users by sometime Friday night. Have you used Brizzly yet? If so, what’s your take on the client, and on its new Lists support? If you haven’t used Brizzly yet and are looking for an invite, try asking a friend who’s in the beta as they might have a stack in stock. Reviews: Brizzly, Facebook, Google, Google Reader, Twitter, bloggerTags: brizzly, twitter, twitter clients, Twitter Lists

  We’ve seen Google change their logo hundreds of times to celebrate some event during the company’s history, but lately they’ve really upped the ante, changing it nearly every day; I’ve almost forgotten what the real Google logo looks like. A couple of days ago we wrote about a Google doodle that celebrates 40 years of the legendary children’s TV series Sesame Street, and now the logo is sporting other two characters from the series. These two guys, in case you forgot, are called Bert and Ernie. It seems that this particular celebration will go on for a couple of days. We don’t mind, we love muppets (nearly) as much as Google. Reviews: GoogleTags: Bert and Ernie, Doodle, Google, logo, sesame street

  November 6 is an important day for both Verizon and Motorola — and to a somewhat lesser extent, Google. The U.S.’s largest carrier is unleashing its first Android device, and from the swath of reviews already in it looks to be a monster of a phone. Thus far it is being hailed as both the best Android phone to date as well as the best phone in Verizon’s current lineup.The Droid is getting high marks for its speed, audio quality, gorgeous screen, overall build quality, choice of physical or virtual keyboard, multitasking functionality, home and car docking options, and free Google Maps Navigation, among other niceties. Plus, it gets all the benefits of running on Verizon’s extensive 3G network, which means far less dropped calls than certain other popular phones that start with an i.As with most devices, of course, it’s not without its drawbacks. Several reviewers dinged it for lack of multi-touch support, a lackluster camera, lack of auto-syncing software, and the paltry size of the memory available for storing apps — only 560 MB of the phone’s built-in memory is available since you somewhat inexplicably can’t store apps on the 16GB microSD memory card that comes with the phone. And although the Android Market is gaining ground on the Apple App Store in many ways, it still falls short in terms of sheer selection (12,000 apps to Apple’s 100,000+) and overall quality of the programs available.We’ve rounded up a number of Droid reviews from trusted sources below for those of you who want to check out various hands-on perspectives and opinions on Verizon’s shiny new smartphone. Do you plan to pick up the Droid? Let us know in the comments. Engadget: “The DROID is an excellent smartphone with many (if not all) of the features that a modern user would expect,and if you’re a Verizon customer, there probably isn’t a more action packed device on the network.”Boy Genius Report: “We absolutely love the Motorola DROID. It’s a perfect storm between awesome hardware, great software, and a great network. That’s not to say it’s for everyone. It isn’t the most consumer-friendly device off the bat and it’s going to take some time and a whole bunch of improvements before we think Android can totally compete in the consumer space like others can.”Gizmodo: “It’s this simple: If you don’t buy an iPhone, buy a Droid. It’s the best phone on Verizon, and with Android 2.0, the second best smartphone you can buy, period. It’s flawed, deeply in some ways. But it’s the second best phone around, on the best network around.”David Pogue (The New York Times): “Since Verizon seems to want a Droid-iPhone faceoff, here it is: the Droid wins on phone network, customizability, GPS navigation, speaker, physical keyboard, removable battery and openness (free operating system, mostly uncensored app store). The iPhone wins on simplicity, refinement, thinness, design, Web browsing, music/video synching with your computer, accessory ecosystem and quality/quantity of the app store.”Walt Mossberg (The Wall Street Journal): “The Droid is potentially a big win for Verizon, Motorola and Google, as well as for loyal Verizon customers.”CNet: “Some minor design issues and multimedia quibbles aside, the Motorola Droid is the most powerful and fastest Google Android device to date. It fully embraces the openness of the Android platform and offers Verizon customers a smartphone that certainly rivals the other touch-screen devices on the market.”LA Times: “We’re getting this out of the way now: Motorola’s Droid is the best Google phone on the market. Here’s another one: Droid is the best phone on Verizon.”Reviews: Android, Android Market, GoogleTags: android, droid, Google, Google Android, metareview, Mobile 2.0, Motorola, motorola droid, phones, review, verizon, verizon droid

  Move over, Verizon Droid, there’s a new handset moonwalkinginto town. You may have to shield your eyes from the glare, because much like its namesake this phone is blindingly larger-than-life.Manufactured by one of the many Chinese imitation goods businesses referred to collectively as shanzai, this bling-bedecked mobile is encrusted with faux diamonds and comes with a most probably pirated Michael Jackson live performance DVD.Of course it’s extremely “limited edition” and difficult to obtain outside of China. But if you had one? You could totally call on me.[via Mike Elgan]Tags: cell phones, michael jackson, Mobile 2.0, shanzai

  Scammy, deceptive ads have been in the hotseat this week, as earlier MySpaceand now Facebookhave made commitments to track down and eradicate misleading offers and survey-related ad scams. Social gaming applications in particular are being targeted for permitting certain types of scammy ads, that typically persuade users into contracting for services without disclosing costs up front. In a social game like virtual farming sim Farmville, for example, users can either spend real money to buy virtual goods, or complete offers and surveys from partner companies in exchange for virtual credits. The trouble is, some of those offers include “opt-out” riders that enroll the user in some sort of paid service or subscription, and require action on the user’s part to avoid misleading charges.MySpace CEO Own Van Natta earlier characterized these “opt-out” type of offers as misleading, and announced a change to the Terms of Use to clarify what’s acceptable to both developers and users. Popular social gaming company Zynga also posted a statementstating a commitment to weed out bad and deceptive ads, while stressing that the offers industry is still nascent along with a belief that non-scammy offer ads still hold the promise of value to both user and advertiser.Today Facebook’s announcement represents the elephant in the room addressing the problem of deceptive offer ads, and affirms that the major players are now at the table working on solutions to eradicating this type of scam ad. Their blog post indicates they’ve already disabled two complete ad networks and addressed ad-related violations in over 100 applications, and plan to take further action to police bad ads in third-party networks and apps.Have you seen or interacted with any of these type of offer ads inside social games or elsewhere on Facebook or MySpace? Do you find the whole concept misleading or do you think there might be a middle ground where such ads might be acceptable?Reviews: Facebook, MySpaceTags: ads, facebook, MARKETING, myspace, offer ads, scams, social games, spam, Zynga

  Twitter has just begun the rolloutof Project Retweet, Twitter’s official integration of the retweet. Retweeting is when a user reshares interesting tweets from his or her friends using the RT syntax (e.g. “RT @mashable”).According to Twitter, the rollout is occurring in phases, much like the Twitter Lists rollout. We will update this post with screenshots and an update on how it works momentarily.[UPDATED]: Here are some screenshots of the new retweeting feature, courtesy of Marketing Shindig(@marketwireon Twitter):The main Retweet icon at the bottom right of each tweet:Note that interestingly, there’s an Undo function if you want to rescind your Retweet. If an item has been retweeted, the list of folks who have retweeted it will show up underneath the item in your timeline:There’s a small “retweet” icon that will appear beside retweeted items for easier spotting:On the pages of users you follow there’s an icon that indicates whether or not you’ll receive retweets from them. This is similar to the mobile icon that indicates whether or not you’re getting that user’s updates sent to your phone via SMS. The icon will be green if you are getting the retweets, and presumably you’ll be able to click the icon to turn off retweets from that specific user in the same way.Reviews: TwitterTags: retweet, trending, twitter

  The NPD Group has some figures now from the Windows 7 launch, and are reportingthat the new Microsoft operating system is selling well — or at least, much better than Vista did at its launch. In the first few days of sales, Windows 7 units in the U.S. moved 234 percent faster than Vista did in its equivalent launch window.Of course, in many ways the bar wasn’t set too high. Still, Microsoft must be feeling relieved at the good sales clip for what is still, after all, its core business. Unfortunately, thanks to pre-sales discounts and general lack of promotional effort behind the Ultimate version, revenue growth wasn’t quite as impressive. Looking strictly at dollar sales, Windows 7 is up 82% over than the equivalent time period for Vista. The NPD reported the top-selling versions of the software and their average prices for the week ending October 24 as follows:1. Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade / $762. Windows 7 Pro Upgrade / $1473. Windows 7 Home Premium Family Pack 3 User Upgrade / $149In a tough economic time for packaged software, Windows 7 appears to be faring fairly well. The PC hardware sales picture wasn’t nearly as rosy, however. Although total PC sales were up 49 percent in year-over-year sales and a full 95 percent over the previous week, the overall growth rate was not as high as during the Vista launch window, which saw a 68% jump in year-over-year and 170% gain over the week prior to Vista’s launch. Vista had a slight advantage with its January release however, which typically shows a larger PC sales footprint than the month of October. Mashable readers seem to agree that Windows 7 has been a success, as it bested Apple’s OS X 10.6 Snow Leopardin our recent Web Faceoff. Did you pick up a copy of Windows 7 during the launch week? If so, which version did you buy? What are your impressions?Reviews: MashableTags: microsoft, operating systems, sales, software, Vista, Windows 7

  Twitter reportsthat they’re currently working on an issue in which certain @username mentions or replies may be missing from your timelines. In particular, older mentions may be affected, and you may not even be able to page back to view previous mentions and replies at this time.Fortunately this issue isn’t too severe, and the team is looking into it as we speak. But if you’ve noticed some mentions or replies going missing, there should hopefully be a fix on the way.Have you been affected by this issue today? Let us know in the comments.Tags: bugs, mentions, replies, twitter

  In 1985, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was forced out of his own company after he and then-CEO John Sculley began to fight over the direction of Apple (this coincided with major layoffs at the time). For the next decade, Steve flexed his entrepreneurial muscle by starting NeXT Computer and turning Pixar into an animation powerhouse.In 1996 however, NeXT was bought by Apple, returning him to the company he created. He quickly took the reigns as CEO. You probably know the rest of the story: iTunes, Mac, Macbook, iPod, iPhone, the iTunes and iPhone App Stores, and other products vaulted Apple from turmoil into one of the world’s largest and most respected companies. It’s because of that story that Fortune Magazine has namedSteve Jobs the CEO of the Decade.Here’s a short excerpt from the Fortune piece on the decision:“The past decade in business belongs to Jobs. What makes that simple statement even more remarkable is that barely a year ago it seemed likely that any review of his accomplishments would be valedictory. But by deeds and accounts, Jobs is back.”It’s hard to disagree with Fortune’s choice. Few CEOs have accomplished what Steve has with Apple, and in such dramatic fashion no less. Eric Schmidt (Google), Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway), and Bill Gates (Microsoft) have accomplished extraordinary things, but Steve’s transformation of Apple is the stuff of legends.Congrats Steve. But now that you’ve won the title of CEO of the decade, can we please finally have the Apple Tablet?Reviews: Google, iPhone, iTunesTags: apple, ceo, Fortune, Fortune Magazine, steve jobs

  While Twitter’s Trending Topics have been an amazing tool for tracking what’s happening not only on Twitter, but in the world in general, they’ve been plagued by spam. The result has been the deterioration of Twitter trends to a point where viewing tweets within trends has simply become a mess.Twitter knows this is a problem though and has now publicly acknowledged that they’re working on a solution. In an announcementtoday, the microblogging startup has revealed that they are experimenting with new ways to show higher-quality tweets within Twitter trends.The change should not be very noticeable at first, and it looks like the experiment is limited to a small group of users. However, the result should be (hopefully) less spam when you search Twitter trends. This reminds us a bit of what Bing is doing with its integration of Twitter Search, although there is no indication that Microsoft is involved.Here is the full blog post from Twitter spokesperson Jenna Sampson:“As Twitter grows and the number of tweets each day continues to astound us, we’ve noticed an increasing amount of clutter in the public timeline, especially with trending topics. Trends began as a useful way to find out what’s going on but has grown less interesting due to the noisiness of the conversation.So, today we’re starting to experiment with improvements to trends that will help you find more relevant tweets. Specifically, we’re working to show higher quality results for trend queries by returning tweets that are more useful. The improvement won’t be very noticeable at first, but this is a small step toward unearthing more value in search and getting you more relevant results.”Reviews: Bing, TwitterTags: twitter, twitter trends

  To many, it’s becoming increasingly clear that mobile is the next big platform. First, the iPhone revolutionized browsing the web. A year later, the iPhone app store launched, bringing a new platform and new possibilities to developers and smartphone owners everywhere. Now with growing app ecosystems on Google Android, Symbian, BlackBerry, Palm Pre, and other platforms, mobile has become a hotbed for innovation.Mashable, as supporters of entrepreneurs, developers, and mobile innovation, wants to do everything it can to help support new ideas in the mobile space. That’s why we’re proud to announce that we are partnering with Under the Radarto host a mobile app competition, Fast Pitch, that will occur on November 19th.What is Under the Radar?Under the Radar is a one-day showcase of emerging startups to media, venture capitalists, and tech industry executives. Companies such as LinkedIn, Animoto, Flickr, and Ustreamhave presented at this event. This year though, we’re inviting anybody with a mobile app on the market to submit it to our Fast Pitch contest for a chance at glory, fame, and the potential to meet the people that can take your app to the next level.How to Apply/The Rules- In the comment thread of this article, post a one sentence pitch for your app, then link to your app’s website and your Twitter page. The app must be live in a mobile app store and available for download.- From that list, Dealmaker (the host of Under the Radar) and Mashable will choose 6 apps to present at Under the Radar.- The deadline is Monday, November 9th. We will announce finalists by Wednesday, November 11th.- Finalists will receive full event passes to Under the Radar and present on stage during the Fast Pitch session, where you will be judged by a panel of mobile experts (one that will include me). The pitches only last two minutes.- You must be able to attend the event on November 19th, which will take place in Mountain View, CA. There will also be some free handsets involved for the winners. Some of the People That Will Be ThereWho will be in the audience, you ask? Here is an incomplete list of some of the people who will be in attendance. It’s quite a gathering:- AT&T | Will Lowry, Director- BlueRun Ventures | Jonathan Ebinger, Partner- CBS | Rob Gelick, Vice President, CBS Mobile- China Mobile | Luke Bao, Director of IC Technology and Terminal- Mayfield Fund | Raj Kapoor, Managing Director- Microsoft | Todd Brix, Senior Director, Mobile Services and Platform Product Management- Nokia | Rob Taylor, Director, Forum Nokia Americas- Nike | Stefan Olander, Global Director Brand Connections- Qualcomm Ventures | Nagraj Kashyap, Vice President- RIM (Research in Motion) | Alex McCallum, Director, Consumer ISV Alliances- R/GA | Richard Ting, VP & ECD, R/GA Mobile and R/GA Emerging Platforms- Samsung Electronics | Donald Pitt, Sr. Director Business Development- Scale Venture Partners | Chad Kinzelberg, Director- Sprint | Russ McGuire, VP, Strategy- The Coca-Cola Company | Tara Scarlett, Senior Manager, CRM and Precision Marketing- T-Mobile USA, Inc. | Venetia Espinoza, Director, Mobile Applications and Partner- Verizon | Jennifer Byrne, Director of Business DevelopmentThat’s it! We wish you the best of luck and look forward to seeing the winners at Under the Radar on November 19th.Reviews: Flickr, LinkedIn, Mashable, Twitter, ustreamTags: android, Android App, contest, Fast Pitch, iphone, iphone app, mashable, Mobile 2.0, mobile app, under the radar

  Earlier this week, we wrote about how news organizations are already using Twitter Lists. Today, they’re getting their first major test, by way of a tragic breaking news event – a deadly shootingat Fort Hood in Texas. Details are still coming in about the event, but Lists being created by major news brands are providing some of the best coverage, as they offer a real-time view of what multiple sources – both local and national – are reporting. Here’s a look at what a few news organizations are doing:The New York Times: Their Fort Hood Shootings listhas updates from news organizations throughout Texas, the US Army, as well as what look to be several citizen journalists on the ground.The Today Show: Similarly, The Today Show has found local news organizations and people in the area for their Fort Hood list. They are also included feeds from several NBC properties like MSNBC and the local NBC affiliates. Dallas Morning News: Reporter Scott Goldstein has taken it upon himself to setup a listof news sources.The Huffington Post: The popular news blog is putting its real-time curation to the test with a three column displayof Twitter lists on its site – Fort Hood Locals, Breaking News, and Central TX News.The Austin American-Statesman: Although not using Lists, the @fthoodshootingsaccount they setup immediately following news of the Fort Hood incident has been a valuable resource (though oddly it was briefly suspended by Twitter yesterday afternoon).What’s really interesting here from a media perspective is that we’re seeing news organizations that compete vigorously for breaking news turning to real-time curation to help tell the story. And the result is certainly a win for media consumers – rather than searching far and wide for local news from Fort Hood, it’s all being aggregated for us by news organizations we trust. It certainly might be a glimpse of what’s to come from the Twitter Listsfeature.Meanwhile, if you’ve seen some useful Fort Hood lists that we’ve missed, please share them in the comments and we’ll keep our post updated with the latest.Reviews: TwitterTags: fort hood, twitter, Twitter Lists

  Although most of hype has been focused on the Verizon Droid, which hits stores tomorrow, it’s not the only Android device that will be appearing on the network.When Verizon and Google announced their partnership back in October, it was announced that two Android devices would be making an appearance before the end of the year. You already know about the Droid. The second phone will be the Droid Erisfrom HTC. We’ve known about the Eris for a while, but it has finally been confirmed that the device will be out tomorrow. It will retail for $99.99.If the Droid Eris looks familiar, it’s because it is essentially a rebadged HTC Hero(which appears on the Sprint network in the US). That means that it is running Android 1.5 and uses HTC’s Sense UI.The phone is a bit slower than the Droid, but it still features WiFi, a 5 megapixel camera, and the Sense UI features multi-touch, which is something the Droid does not have. The Droid Eris is also a bit smaller and doesn’t have a separate keyboard.HTC has said that it plans to bring Android 2.0to the HTC Hero and Droid Eris, so the OS outlook looks solid.If you are interested in seeing the Droid Eris in action, PCMaghas posted this hands-on first look video:Verizon also posted a demo video for the Droid Eris:For $99 with a two-year contract, this phone could potentially be a bit of a sleeper hit. What do you think of the Droid Eris? Does it change your smartphone buying plans at all? Let us know in the comments!Reviews: Android, GoogleTags: droid, droid eris, htc droid eris, htc hero, sense ui, verizon