In 2006, in an essay entitled How to Be Silicon Valley, Y-Combinator's Paul Graham laid out what it would take to build the next generation of emerging startup hubs. According to Graham, all that is required are nerds, rich people, personality and a willingness to tolerate odd (but brilliant) ideas. Hawaii probably isn't the first place you'd think to launch a startup but given the fantastic quality of life and key components of a good tech community, it's certainly a viable option. SponsorNerds:Hawaii already hosts its fair share of nerds. Employees from companies like identity management platform Chi.mp, iLovePhotoscreator Blue Lava Technologiesand social media marketing solution Sproutenjoy the islands as home. Meanwhile, technology groups like TechHui, the Hawaii Science and Technology Counciland Social Media Club Hawaiihost regular events for entrepreneurs to network and provide feedback to budding technologists. Investors:The Hawaii Venture Capital Associationand High Technology Development Corporation (HTDC)offer opportunities for investment and business development. HTDC in particular helps entrepreneurs in Maui and Oahu obtain facilities, equipment, and in some cases, funding. Says CEO Yuka Nagashima, "In addition to workshops and education, we're offering below market rent and flexible lease terms. We understand startup companies and are helping them size up and down to meet their needs. " Program participants include Sprout, neighborhood platform People Bridgeand crowdsourced movie production site Produced By You. Tolerance for New Ideas:Says Chi.mp's Honolulu-based Chief Operating Officer Mike Curtis, "While the tech scene is relatively small, it is a vibrant, welcoming community and easy to plug into if you are a newcomer to the island. The local entrepreneurial community reflects [the spirit of Aloha] by sharing openly with one another to the betterment of the industry."Curtis notes that in addition to a close-knit tech community, one of the advantages of launching your business in the state of Hawaii is that tax credits are generous compared to those offered in other states. If you're interested in exploring Hawaii as a place to launch or relocate your business visit Enterprise Honolulufor a list of startup-related tax incentives. Photo Credit: Jeff KubinaDiscuss

  When Wolfram Research releasedits iPhone app for Wolfram Alphaearlier this week, most of the attentionquickly shifted away from the features of the app itself and towards the high price of the app. At $49.99, Wolfram Alpha is far more expensive than most apps in the App Store today, where only a small number of highly specialized apps sell for more than $9.99. Today, we got a chance to discuss Wolfram's pricing strategy with Schoeller Porter, the product manager for Wolfram Alpha's iPhone app.SponsorEarly ReactionsOnTwitterand in the tech blogosphere, the reactions to the app's price were anything but subtle. We called it "too expensive" ourselves, though others had strongerwordsfor it. MIT's Technology Review calledit a "a pricey online calculator for geeks" - a product that's more like the expensive but immensely powerful Mathematica than Stephen Wolfram's original ideafor Alpha ("Wolfram|Alpha aims to bring expert-level knowledge and capabilities to the broadest possible range of people"). It is worth noting that the Wolfram Alpha app quickly appeared in the list of top 100 grossing apps in the iTunes App Store (iTunes link) and has been hovering at the lower end of the top 50 ever since. That doesn't make it a breakout hit, but some people are clearly buying the app, even though only a small number of users have left reviews. A Premium Price for a Premium ExperienceThere can be little doubt that the Wolfram Alpha team was expecting some backlash. As Porter told us today, the Wolfram Alpha team decided to price the app with the cost of a hardware graphing calculator in mind. At $50, the app costs roughly half of what a hardware calculator would cost. As Porter also stressed, the app offers a far superior range of features thanks to its connection to Wolfram's server farm. The company thinks this price is justified because of the superior experience of using the app over the mobile website. After using the app for a few days, we definitely have to agree there. The dual-keyboard solution makes entering queries in the app much easier than using the mobile site and accessing Wolfram Alpha from the app is also much faster then using the mobile site. Porter noted that Wolfram is trying to set itself off from the mass of $0.99 apps that only get used once and are quickly forgotten. Instead, the company hopes that the app will become a regular companion for its users, whether they are using it for help with their homework in school or college, or in their professional life.At the end of the day, this is an app for specialists. While Schoeller Porter worded this more carefully in our interview today, the basic fact is that Wolfram is charging a premium price for a premium experience. Users who don't need the app can continue to use the website, while those who are willing and able to spend $50 on the app will get a superior experience. For the time being, Wolfram doesn't expect to bring the price of the app down and so far, according to Porter, the team has been happy and excited about how the app has been performing in the marketplace.The Price of iPhone AppsThis also leads into a broader discussion about the current pricing in the iPhone App Store, where even the most complex apps and games have to sell for under $10 to reach a wide audience. At the end of our discussion, Porter noted that the Wolfram app may lead to some changes here, though we have to wonder if anything is likely to change the current drift towards lower prices in the App Store. It is also worth pointing out, though, that a lower price point opens up the market for an app to a far wider audience - often to the point where the lower price brings in exponentially more users and more than offsets any potential losses from the lower price. What Do You Think?Is Wolfram's price point for the iPhone app a bold move? Hubris? Or would you be happy to pay $50 for the superior experience and ergonomics of the app?Discuss

  Facebookjust made one of the biggest changes to the site's user experience since the introduction of the News Feed three years ago. News Feed was the place in the very center of the site where all the activities of a user's friends were displayed in reverse chronological order. That feature is now called the Live Feed and the News Feed has become a filtered display of activity highlights instead.tweetmeme_url = 'http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/new_facebook_newsfeed_filters.php';tweetmeme_source = 'rww';In September 2006 the News Feed was a radical idea; thousands of Facebook users revolted against the idea that all their friends would be shown every photo they uploaded, when their relationship status changed and other information as soon as it was available. Today we live in a different world. Almost everything is social and the new challenge is tackling information overload. That's what Facebook just did today and it's going to be very important for the future.SponsorThe real-time flow of social activity data is very exciting, but many people have cautioned that it will be a net-negative for users' experience of the web as we're flooded with an overwhelming quantity of low-quality information. Confronting this issue is an obvious next step for social software.Everyone's trying to solve this problem. There are inbox filtering services like ReMail, Threadsyand the experimental new Mozilla Raindrop. There are column filters in stream readers like Tweetdeckand Seesmic. Google Reader yesterday introduced a "magic" filter view for the most popular items across the whole network. FriendFeed, a small but innovative social aggregator started by one of the creators of GMail and acquired by Facebook for $50 million this summer, offers a "best of day" view of any stream of updates you're looking at.That FriendFeed view is the closest thing to the new Facebook News Feed, but a Facebook spokesperson told us that the two products are unrelated.Everyone's trying to tackle information overload. Step one, get more people sharing information. Step two, figure out how to create a personalized, high-value view of all that information by surfacing the most important updates for each user. Step three, profit!How It WorksThe new News Feed view is based on an algorithm that scores every update coming in through what's now called the Live Feed. That scoring is based on the number of "likes" and comments an item has received and how much you personally have interacted with the update's author in the past.A related algorithm was used in the past to create the "highlights" section on the right-hand side of the Facebook home page. That section was getting too little interaction and didn't include things like important status updates, the company says. If your sister posted a status update saying that she's pregnant, a Facebook spokesperson told us today, that wouldn't show up in the old highlights view. It should show up in your News Feed now.So three big changes: 1. The new Live Feed is linked-to at the top of the page and shows a number of new items since your last visit. 2. Highlights plus hot status updates are now the default, the new News Feed. 3. Birthdays and other important events have taken the place of the old Highlights section; they are of particular interest to users and will now be easier to see.What It MeansFacebook says that after viewing your new News Feed, you can go check out the raw Live Stream of all the most recent updates from your contacts. That's the opposite of the way FriendFeed did it and neither strategy should be taken for granted. Decisions like this impact a major method of communication for hundreds of millions of people around the world.By showing the News Feed highlights as the default view, Facebook will probably encourage users to pay more attention to, interact with more and grow closer to the people they already have a history of interacting with and the events that are already popular. Weak social connections and your personal long-tail of content are less prioritized in this view. The inclusion of a user's past behavior as a criteria for hotness is key, though. It's not just a popularity contest. Your News Feed is your little universe and popularity is defined in relative terms. That, again, is a particular strategy. The new Google Reader Popular View, for example, appears to evaluate popularity across all users in total.What It Could Mean In the FutureSomeday social networking is going to be like the telephone. Today you can't send messages from Facebook to people on MySpace or LinkedIn but that isn't going to last forever. Just as you can call someone who uses T-Mobile from your Sprint phone, someday sharing and messaging between online social networks will be a given.How will social networks retain users then? Why stick with Facebook when some smaller service offers a decentralized social networking service outside of Facebook's control but still tied into your friends on Facebook and elsewhere? These services will someday have to compete on user experience, when they no longer have your social connections locked-in. The service that does the best job filtering up the most important information you have coming your way will likely be the service you stick with. That's going to be a key area of competition between social networks.tweetmeme_url = 'http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/new_facebook_newsfeed_filters.php';tweetmeme_source = 'rww';How well will Facebook do at filtering the Live Stream of content? We're about to find out and it's going to make a big difference in how we experience the web. That will only be more true as more and more people begin publishing content.There's been a lot of emphasis on the live stream of real-time web content, but Facebook now joins many other services in recognizing that the best value is sometimes built by combining real time and slower assets.Discuss

  The small business market is seeing a new crop of customer relationship management and intranet applications designed to provide a basic set of features without overwhelming the user. GlassCubesis an example of the type of companies entering this space, providing tools that the average sales person can begin using with little or no training.GlassCubes is a London-based company that launched last Fall. They now have about 250 customers. A good number of their users are companies that migrated from British Telecom Workspace, which has discontinued its contact management and collaboration product. GlassCubes has teamed up with the telecom provider to help users make the switch.SponsorThe GlassCubes product has a clean user interface. It provides features that would be considered basic by the advanced user. And that's the point. Microblogging, for instance, is not a feature you will find in GlassCubes. It is on the road map but to start they want the sales person to feel comfortable with the product and not require training on features they know little or nothing about. This is a trend we are seeing with content management systems for the small businesses and larger enterprise systems like Sharepoint.The new Sharepoint 2010 feels like it has social features designed for the mass market. In GlassCubes' case, the basic features are deep enough for the average user but not overwhelming to intimidate them into not using the application. More social features are on the road map, including the possibility of integrating Google Wave.GlassCubes has the following core set of features:Contact ManagementCubes (project management spaces)Upload capabilitiesShared CalendarFree Conference Call ServiceFlexible Customization CapabilitiesWe find a need in the market for core contact management features. GlassCubes has a standard feature set but is lacking email integration. Rob Hallums, online marketing manager for GlassCubes says they are in the process of integrating Microsoft Outlook and other email providers. We reviewed OfficeMediumearlier this week. GlassCubes compares well against OfficeMedium. GlassCubes may lack email but it does have a decent tasks feature. Tasks may be assigned to individuals or companies. With email, this feature would be a big hit for GlassCubes users who want to keep track of tasks by sending email from within the application.Cubes is a neat play on an office metaphor. Cubes are designed to be secure spaces where users may collaborate on documents. Cubes have their own calendars. Tasks may be tracked and assigned. Notifications, conference calls, discussions and polls are also Cubes features.Document management is a fundamental aspect of any content management system. GlassCubes users may upload documents up to one gigabyte in size. Version control is baked into the product. Users may share documents. With standard services like Google Docs, users send links to the file they want to share.GlassCubes appears to have core search capabilities. They use Lucene, the open-source search engine.Under the hood, GlassCubes looks robust. It is built on a Java platform that runs on Sun Solaris. The company uses open-source libraries in both Java and C/C++. This looks appealing from the end user perspective as it appears it has the ability to scale.GlassCubes is a pretty rich CRM environment for the small business. It has core collaboration features. It does not have all the bells and whistles of a service like Salesforce.com. Nor does it have the massiveness of a service like Sharepoint. But it also does not have a minimum entry level such as with Jive Sofware. Instead, it fits with the companies who are looking for a productivity suite that users can begin using with little or no training. Pricing is competitive, based on a subscription model.GlassCubes does need some additional features, including email and instant messaging. With the additional features, GlassCubes is a product that should be a consideration for the small business looking for a CRM environment.Discuss

  In this climate of fiscal responsibility, it makes sense that luxury publications may have fallen by the wayside. While subscription sales for Conde Nast's Traveller may have been lucrative in the past, it's rare to find them outside doctors offices and treadmills. In an effort to kickstart dwindling subscription sales, Conde Nast Traveller is partnering with web shopping experience Gilt Groupe on the site's Jetsetterservice. SponsorBest known for it's Woot-like approach to high-end fashion, Gilthas maintained steady revenue throughout the economic downturn. The site is invite-only and consumers keep a constant watch on Fendi, Marc Jacobs and Proenza Schouler deals at up to 70% off the regular retail price. As of this morning Gilt launched its latest spin off site, Gilt Man. The catch with Gilt, Gilt Fuseand Gilt Man is that consumers only have one day to buy items. Jetsetter travel hunters have a slightly longer sale time, but certainly no more than a week. Naturally, with this sense of urgency, users stay constantly connected to the sales via sms, email, a desktop application and the recently launched iPhone app.While many businesses complain that consumers have tightened their purse strings, Gilt is proof that while they've become more thrifty, they haven't stopped purchasing all together. Rumor has it that it's not uncommon for Gilt to earn $1 million dollars in a single sales day. With Jetsetter, Gilt users get limited-time deals on travel, in addition to editorial "curation" from Travellers' well-respected staff. Meanwhile, by leveraging Gilt's huge membership base and constant sales updates, Conde Nast will convert some of those uber connected bargain hunters into subscribers. Discuss

  The betalaunchof Google Wavehas once again put the spotlight on the shortcomings of email. Wave tries to be everything for everybody, but others, like the recently launched Nurphy, have opted for a more focused approach. Nurphy, founded by Paul Horsfalland Neil Cauldwell, wants to be a replacement for email conversations with multiple recipients. The result is an interesting mix between email, Twitter, Yammer and IM that is aimed at both business and casual users.SponsorConversations Instead of EmailTo initiate a conversation, you first have to sign up to the service or sign in with your Twitter credentials, which doesn't take more than a minute. On the website itself, Nurphy looks a bit like a cross between Twitter and an email client. After you have signed up, you can start a conversation with anybody who is on the service already or by email. Recipients who don't want to sign up for Nurphy can continue to reply to messages by email. Conversations on Nurphy are shown in a Twitter-like timeline in reverse chronological order. Conversations can be public, private or by invitation only (though still visible to the public). Public threats - like Nurphy's own customer service site- look a bit like forums and Nurphy recommends that you post links to these public conversations on your social networking profiles so that you can have a 'real' conversation with your friends. Without threaded conversations, however, it can be hard keep track of conversations. Instead of using sub-threads like Yammer, Nurphy borrowed Twitter's @reply structure.It is clear that Nurphy's designers paid a lot of attention to detail. If you ever registered for a Gravatarin the past, for example, it will automatically choose this picture as your profile image in Nurphy. The service also offers a nifty mobile website, which looks especially good on the iPhone.Needs some Fine-TuningThe service, however, also still needs a bit of fine-tuning. You can't edit messages once they have been posted - the only option is to delete the whole message. It can also take a few minutes before an emailed message actually appears in a conversation. There are also a few small design flaws that take a user out of the experience. When you add a message, the whole page reloads, for example, even though the system seems perfectly capable of adding incoming messages to the conversation without a reset.It almost seems like Nurphy is trying to keep things too simple in its current iteration. While we understand that the company is trying to make it as easy as possible for new users to get started, it would be nice if you could set up a private Yammer-like network for your friends or colleagues, for example. Discuss

  Microsoft announced this week that it has made a deal to include public updates from Facebookin its search engine Bing. Some Facebook users expressed concern that their private activities might be exposed to search. The real story is a little more complex. To put it simply: Facebook is not ever going to knowingly expose private activities on the site to public search.We can say that with as much assurance as we can say almost anything about the internet.None the less, Facebook has a clear agendato convince you the user to willinglyexpose more information publicy by changing your privacy settings. Multiple Facebook execs have told us so when we asked point blank.SponsorFacebook believes that sharing is good for the world. It was founded on making sharing private and secure between friends - so you'd share more - but it hopes in time to make hundreds of millions of people more comfortable sharing publicly.Yesterday's dueling announcements that Microsoft's Bing will search both Twitter and Facebook and that Google will search Twitter made it clear that this kind of social information is thought to be a very valuable addition to search. The premise is that traditional web search, based on linking authority, is valuable - but some searches benefit greatly from displaying additional results prioritized by recency or social proxemity. Facebook may someday open large amounts of user data in anonymous aggregate for machine analysis, to hunt for patterns and opportunities socially beneficial and otherwise. That data will be made available to developers, but it'salmost certain that consumer search engines won't be able to use it unless in a limited way. Facebook is in no hurry at all to expose data in that waywhile it's still trying to scale its plaform. Data in anonymous aggregate for machine analysis is different though, right?As is, searching public activity is good for search users (though many are skeptical), it's good for search engines and it's good for the social networks serving up the data. But is it good for social network users that don't want their messages showing up in search results? That's the wrong question to ask because that's not going to happen. Your Facebook profile is private by default. Your messages and media can't be seen by anyone but your friends. Some small number of users have chosen to change those settings, some even making everything they do on Facebook publicly visible to the whole world. Clearly some users would find programatic analysis of their activities anonymized and made available in builk to be a violation of privacy - but many more would not and are all ready wide-open. That group is probably made up mostly of self-promoters, marketers, overcompensating lonely people and other exhibitionists. (My profile is public, I fall under the self-promoter category, unfortunately.)Facebook would appreciate it if you would put yourself in this category, too. The company believes that sharingleads to understandingbetween people, empathy and progress towards world peace. Sharing also provides nice opportunities to advertise. Facebook wants to display lots of your information publicly, but it won't shoot itself in the foot by breaking its promise to respect your privacy settings - whatever they may be. Is it strange that Facebook, now more populous than all but three nations in the world, has such a clear agenda to change the world's culture? It is certainly something to be aware of. But Facebook is not going to make your private messages public.Discuss

  Two former Yale University law students have settled their suit brought against some 30-plus anonymous commenters who posted derogatory remarks about them on an internet forum called AutoAdmit. The comments, which ranged from standard insults to those of a more sexually explicit nature, were so vile they prompted the women to sue in order to out the identities of those doing the commenting. According to the plaintiffs, the suit was necessary because the discussion board, a site designed for law school graduates, was often monitored by firms looking to hire. Because the comments were associated with their names, the women claimed that it would hurt their chances of being offered a job.SponsorThe CaseThis case had been in litigation for years, having been originally filed back in 2007. The problem stemmed from the fact that internet sites such as AutoAdmit are essentially able to operate under different rules than those that apply to TV and newspapers when it comes to libel. This is due to a law called "Section 230," which immunizes internet publishers from legal harm. At the time of its establishment in the 90's, however, those "publishers" were the ISPs themselves - the AOLs and CompuServes that delivered Internet access to consumers. The idea of bloggers, social media publishers, and anonymous blog and forum commenters didn't really exist yet and therefore wasn't taken into consideration. That meant the women weren't able to sue the operators of the discussion board website itself, but had to go after the anonymous posters instead. That, of course, was quite the challenge.In the end, the women's attorneys were able to identify some eight or nine of the anonymous posters, according to the Hartford Courantand they settled with some of them.Because the terms of the settlement were confidential, the lawyers representing the former students, Heide Iravani and Brittan Heller, would not discuss them. However, San Francisco attorney Ashok Ramani, whose firm, Keker & Van Nest took the case pro-bono said that their clients were "very pleased with how the case went." The women had sued for monetary damages so a settlement means they were likely awarded at least some of the amount they had hoped for. Was the Settlement a Win or a Loss? Depends on Who You AskMarc Randazza, the attorney for one of the defendants scoffed that if the women's intention were to have the negative comments removed, their interests were very poorly served. "Now there's even an Encyclopedia Dramatica page for them," he told the Yale Daily News. However, David Rosen, one of the women's attorneys and a Yale Law professor, countered that unmasking some of these anonymous posters who were hiding behind pseudonyms and then holding them accountable for what they said had accomplished "the fundamental goals of the case." He thinks the suit may even have some internet commenters thinking twice before posting. The possibility of a lawsuit "may make some people pause before posting comments that are malicious and completely indefensible," Rosen was quoted as saying.Will This Really Change Things?While obviously a major case, this suit isn't the first time a defamation case like this has been brought to court. In fact, only months ago, an anonymous blogger using Google's Blogger.com service was sued for rants she made about a fellow model, one Liskula Cohen, on her site "Skanks in NYC." The victim sued to reveal the identity of the malicious blogger. Thanks to a judge's ruling that Google must hand over to Cohen any identifying information they had on the site's creator, the blogger in question was revealed to be Rosemary Port. (She's now suing Google for not protecting her). Although a slightly different case, the womens' suit involving the forum commenters also succeeded - at least in part - in revealing the identities of those posting the defamatory messages. Combined with the prior example, it will be interesting to see what impact these cases have on the online world. Will this lead to more lawsuits where alleged victims seek to out the identities of their internet foes? Will it lead to more self-policing among the commenting community? Will internet trolls actually thinkbefore they type? It's too soon to say, but it's possible that a kinder, gentler - and possibly more boring - internet may be in our future. Image credit: Troll - flickr user tandemracer;Discuss

  During yesterday's Q3 earnings call, NetflixCEO Reed Hastings revealed the company's plans to launch a streaming-only service which will allow users to watch movies via their PCs without having to sign up for the DVD-by-mail portion of the Netflix service. Unfortunately, this new streaming-only option won't be available to any Netflix subscribers in the U.S. Instead, it's a part of the company's new international efforts which will launch in the second half of 2010, starting off small in one market then expanding into other countries one-by-one. SponsorHastings wouldn't reveal which overseas market would be first to get the new service "for competitive reasons," but he did say that their initial approach is to prove their model before offering the expanded service in other countries. By "proving their model," what he probably means is figuring out how to turn a profit off a streaming-only option. The company has never attempted anything of the sort and will probably need some time to tweak it in order to make it work. It's likely that Netflix wouldn't even go this route if they had their way, but apparently, DVDs-by-mail isn't an option for them overseas. When questioned about this, Hastings cited the "tricky" postal systems in other countries as making it too difficult to mail physical disks. Although Netflix will try to make a streaming-only service work abroad, the company really doesn't think there's a demand for this type of offering within the U.S. In fact, when responding to a reporter's question regarding Netflix's plans for an a la carte option (there isn't one), Hastings said that while they're "open-minded to" an a la carte service that came without the DVD option, the company hasn't seen much interest in something of that nature in the States. "Everybody also wants to get DVDs," said Hastings. "All the new releases are on DVD, the vast catalog is on DVD. When there is demand, it will make sense for us to meet that demand for streaming only." ...But There isDemand for Streaming-OnlyWhile that may be true - people dowant the new releases - the demand for the physical media is arguably an artificial one created by the entertainment industry. Studios simply refuse to offer their movies and TV shows via Netflix's on-demand streaming library until they've been able to pull in a nice profit from disk sales first. This, in turn, forces consumers to not only purchase but alsodesirethe DVD-by-mail part of the Netflix service as opposed to a separate, unbundled option of on-demand content only. In other words, to say that the demand for streaming-only doesn't exist isn't exactly accurate. After all, Netflix reported that their streaming stats are now at an all-time high with 42% of subscribers having streamed at least 15 minutes of one TV show or movie during the last quarter. This number is up from 22% during the same period last year. Considering that Netflix's subscriber base itself has grown 28% over the past year, this figure means that the raw count of subscribers actively engaged in streaming has now more than doubled over last year. Hastings even said himself that the numbers were "a good marker of increasing streaming adoption." Although the demand for new releases would probably have many subscribers sticking with the hybrid DVD/streaming service, by forgoing a streaming-only option it seems that the company is overlooking an opportunity to pick up a sizable group of more casual users. There are likely a number of people who would appreciate the option to pay a little less in order to to gain access to the on-demand content only - content which includes a much smaller catalog than what's available by mail. Given the company's integrations into game consoles, set-top boxes and even some TVs, there's actually no need to even own a DVD player anymore to watch Netflix movies. The content is on-demand. Streaming media is the future, not physical disks. Hollywood knows this too, but as with the music industry, they're fighting tooth-and-nail to keep the old business model afloat for as long as possible. So far, it's working. As long as they control the method of distribution and keep it limited to physical media it will looklike DVDs are what the people want. But the people reallywant streams. From music (Pandora, Spotify) to TV (Hulu, iPlayer) and yes, to movies via Netflix, streaming media is rapidly becoming the method of choice for many of today's consumers. The future is an on-demand world and Hollywood would do better to figure that out now than try to delay the inevitable. Discuss

  An all-star team is forming at StatusNet, the open microblogging service for businesses and communities. The newest addition is Jon Phillips, former community and business development manager for Creative Commons.Phillips joins Brion Vibber,who came from theWikimedia Foundationwhere he served as chief technology officer.SponsorThe news is significant as it reflects the interest in open-source alternatives to the proprietary microblogging services that currently dominate the market in the consumer and enterprise communities.According to their web site, StatusNet makes sites that use open-source software to create and distribute open content. The company also provides professional support contracts and customization for companies that use StatusNet software on their own servers for intranet or Internet microblogging.identi.ca, the open network micro-blogging service is based on the StatusNet tool. Phillips and Vibber join ateamled by Evan Promodou, the founder of StatusNet, whose previous work included creating the Open Content travel guide, Wikitravel.Phillips, who is an avid microblogger (@rejon) writes on the StatusNet blog:I'm super enthused about the direction Status.Net is heading as a free network service, as a business, and as a leader in software and culture with a focus locally on niche communities on scaling internationally (more on that soon). Right now, we are working very hard towards some big releases slightly under the radar with the push towards Status.net hosted services and Status.Net 1.0 software.Phillips says he will help with some large projects Status.Net is building, including an upcoming relaunch. He will be there to help ease some of Evan's work load so he can be freed up to be "uber-CEO rather than having to wear 50 different hats."According to the bioon his blog, Phillips worked from 2005 to 2008 building the community and business development strategy for Creative Commons. Phillips "worked with hundreds of businesses through Creative Commons 50+ international jurisdictions to integrate Creative Commons licensing, and managed globally successful projects such as ccSalons, the Case Studies, Metrics, and CC+ projects. He recently completed the special project, the Public Domain Wiki, funded by the Rockefeller Foundation from Creative Commons, Wikimedia Foundation, Access Copyright, and Internet Archive.Pretty impressive. We expect some major pushes from the open-source microblogging community. Phillips arrival is a sure sign that major efforts are underway to make StatusNet a leader in this realm.Discuss

  Following weeks of requests from open-source developers, HTC has released the Hero Android source code on their developer site.In response to the mobile devs, HTC has previously stated it was waiting for its own developers to provide the source before releasing it publicly. As late as last week, HTC representatives had emaileddevelopers saying, "At the moment we do not know when the kernel source for the Hero will be released," and "We are still pushing our developers to provide us with the source code and for the links to be added." Since the Android kernel is licensed under the GPL, this delay was creating both dissatisfaction and controversy in the community.SponsorHowever, just as a few developers were beginning to talk about enforcement actions, the company posted the code, and everyone lived happily ever after.Or something along those lines. GPL non-compliance and hints of internal process and delivery issues don't mode well for the mobile manufacturer. After unfavorable coverage of the company's "foot-dragging" on Slashdotand long threads of modev complaints, we do hope that HTC's future Android projects will be more swiftly opened.The Hero, as a device, is significant in itself, hence the enhanced perception of cruelty in HTC's not releasing its source code sooner. It's created huge waves in geek circles, beating out the iPhone for Gadget of the Year at the prestigious T3 awardsand generating enough gadget-geek slaveringto power a small city.So, will the gadget geeks and modevs have to push for open sourcing every time a cool, Android-powered device is released? Where was the major malfunction that led to these delays? Were the HTC engineers thrown under the bus to allow leadership to save face, or do the HTC powers that be simply need to get their engineering team under control? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.Discuss

  For once the Bay Area Rapid Transit service has more to brag about than its endless supply of used under-the-seat bubble gum and noxious mystery smells. According to its site, Bay Area Rapid Transitwill be the first transit agency to partner with location-based game sensation Foursquare. SponsorReadWriteWeb first covered the point-based check-in service in March, and since then Foursquare has spread like wildfire across the US and to the UK. As of next month, users from Dublin to Milbrae will have a chance to win the coveted title of Mayor of one of the most utilized transit services in the Bay Area. From November onward, the transit authority will award $25 promotional tickets to random users who check-in at one of 34 BART stations. During the three month pilot program, the agency will also look for new ways to reward Foursquare mayors and incorporate local discounts from mybart.orgvenue partners. Said BART website manager Timothy Moore, "We hope this partnership will encourage users to check out different stations and neighborhoods, and will show people who aren't already BART riders some of the great things to do that are easy to get to on transit." Despite the fact that a number of BART-related Foursquare tips are going to document urine stains and public drunkenness, the reality is that absolutely anything beats driving the US-101 during rush hour traffic. BART check-ins are likely to encourage tired drivers to get out of their car and into a greener and less frustrating alternative. Those interested in official BART tips can visit the transit authority's profile page at foursquare.com/user/SFBART.Discuss

  While most conversation aggregators are concerned with harnessing your river of data, Mozilla is breaking it down into manageable raindrops. According to a morning blog post on the Mozilla Labs sitethe company is launching the prototype for Raindrop 0.1, a product that they're calling "open messaging for the open web". While Mozilla's Snowl Firefox Add-Onmade it possible to follow streams and rivers of messages in your existing browser, Raindrop offers what appears to be a much cleaner interface and an API to hack on your own personal conversation dashboard. SponsorRaindrop's mission is to "make it enjoyable to participate in conversations from people you care about, whether the conversations are in email, on twitter, a friend's blog or as part of a social networking site." Essentially, Raindrop is cutting out the noise and pulling in the information that is actually of interest. While email clients can filter bot and spam messages, it's more difficult to discern between personal and general messages from real people. With Raindrop, users messages are categorized and prioritized. For example, in Twitter your direct messages and reply messages are highlighted while the rest of the stream is cast aside. Meanwhile, mailing list messages are also given their own category, separate from personal emails. As with most Mozilla products, the group will encourage front-end widgets and code from outside 3rd party developers. While the tool certainly shows promise, it is currently only available to developers. The group's first priority is to build a downloadable installer. To ensure that you're one of the first non-developer testers, keep an eye on labs.mozilla.com/raindrop. Raindrop UX Design and Demofrom Mozilla Messagingon Vimeo.Thanks to Arjo for the tip!Discuss

  CNN.com, one of the top 25 websites in the US, just announced a radical redesign of its service at a press event in New York City. The new CNN.com homepage will be split up into three parts. On the left, CNN will now highlight breaking news stories, the middle section will feature older stories and a 'highlights' section, and the right sidebar will be customizable with personalized weather and sports scores. Right beneath the fold, the new CNN will feature a list of 'editor's choice' stories - similar to the NYTimes's 'Inside NYTimes.com' section. The new site will go live next Monday.SponsorAccording to CNN's General Manager of CNN.com Kenneth Estenson, CNN.com currently gets about 1.7 billion page views and 100 million video views every month. In total the CNN homepage has been called up over 120 billion times since its first iteration in 1996.CNN clearly put a lot of thought into this redesign. As William Hsu, CNN's VP for News Advertising Sales for Asia Pacific told Exchange4media.comearlier this week, the CNN team "did a lot of research, biometric research, in Europe" (update: a CNN spokesperson just told us that this study was done independent of the site redesign). According to Hsu, these studies showed that very few users ever went beyond the current homepage. Because of this, the new homepage will show far more content but will also make it easier for readers to navigate the site.More Emphasis on Video - Including Videos from TEDAt today's press event, CNN also stressed that the new site will integrate more of its TV product. Instead of keeping video and text separate, the new CNN.com will bring the two together. 50% of CNN's users already watch both the video and read the story, so bringing the two closer together is a smart move for CNN. CNN also announced a partnership with TED, which will bring TED videos to a completely new audience.NewsPulseThe new homepage will also have a new feature called 'NewsPulse.' This will allow users to reorganize news stories by correspondent, subject, or keyword. Today's press event was low on specifics, but this looks like a good way to personalize CNN's homepage and to find interesting content on the site.Similarity to CNN GoCNN also recently launched CNN Go, which focuses on news for the Asian market and also has a more magazine-like layout. What About the Competition?We have also heard that MSNBC will soon launch a redesign of its own. While we aren't aware of any specifics yet, the new MSNBC will focus on adding value to news wire stories by bringing together more material from NBC's affiliates and a larger focus on interactive elements designed specifically for MSNBC.Discuss