IBM has announced a mashup integration that fits Cognos Business Intelligencewith a new version of the company's Mashup Center. The two services fit together to create an environment that leverages IBM's existing technology base with a service that's right out of a play book for social computing.It's a small move for IBM but demonstrates that the company is thinking strategically about how to leverage its strengths in business intelligence and analytics. At the same time it shows how IBM is adopting new ways for users to communicate more effectively with multiples sources of information.SponsorIBM is leveraging it Cognos Business Intelligence to give mashups more context for the user. Cognos 8 Mashup Service is an API . It exposes business intelligence information from the Cognos platform. The data is used as a web service in mashups as well as applications in the enterprise and business processes. The new Mashup Center provides connections with RESTfulservices that give it access to a variety of data sources. Additionally,SharePoint,WebSphere MQand FileNetmay be integrated into the mashups, allowing users to leverage their existing investments. Users have access to widgets that they may drag and drop into the mashup they are creating. It requires no IT intervention. The Mashup Center also includes:A mashup builder for creating the web-based service.A catalog that includes templates of mashups users have made.Feed generator that pulls REST services from other sources.The ability to import RSS feeds.Security, with permissions based on LDAP.In a demonstrations of the new Mashup Center at the Information on Demand Conference, IBM managers showed how Google Gadgetscan be dragged right into the Mashup Center along with data from Cognos to make a case for sales projections.They focused on how a sales manager could use the Mashup Center to view recent changes to the mashup; ratings of mashups in the catalog; tags; the most discussed mashups and a wiki. It was a surprising demonstration from a company we have become trained to believe is focused almost entirely on heavyweight business technologies.But perhaps the move is not entirely unexpected. IBM competes with companies like Oracle, IBM and increasingly Google. All these companies are moving into the social computing space.IBM's move into the mashup world may be limited but with its interests in cloud computing you have to wonder what kind of competitive marketplace we should expect to see develop in the year ahead.[Disclosure: IBM paid for a plane ticket and hotel room for Alex Williams to attend the IBM Information On Demand Conference.]Discuss

  The App Store could be your goldmine or simply another dead end. Or the long tail could end up being where your mobile dev shop slowly turns a corner into profitability. But how do developers know where to turn for the fine-tuning that transforms sparse user interest into a robust business?Appruptis a performance analytics shop focusing specifically on iPhone apps. They track the click-thrus and conversion rates for online and mobile links to iPhone applications, and they claim to help developers find the sweet spot where highly focused user targeting meets pure monetization. But how does the end-of-the-rainbow promise hold up?SponsorEspecially for independent and solo shops, narrowing and enhancing marketing efforts is a smart economic choice. Apprupt gives developers the option to add a single layer into their creations in order to deliver marketing data across multiple sessions.Clicks, downloads, rates, and revenue are all available from the Apprupt dashboard:Developers can create links for separate campaigns. Each campaign is tracked individually, and the resulting data can be used - much like the feedback from other typical direct response campaigns - to ditch unsuccessful efforts, adjust budgets to support successful campaigns, and conduct testing on which methods will yield the best results.Apprupt analytics apply to such media buys as online or mobile media, be they links or banners, as well as social media promotion on sites such as Twitter, Facebook, or blogs. Interestingly enough, app optimization data is offered from Apprupt absolutely free, although premium features may be introduced in the future.For the time being, Apprupt supports iPhone and iPod Touch apps only, but support for other mobile operating systems is in the works.Discuss

  If hardcore hackers had any doubts whether the real-time web was a legitimate development environment, Y Combinatorco-founder Paul Graham is dispelling them. In an interview with Graham, ReadWriteWeb learned that the entrepreneur-turned-investor issued a "Request for Startups" (RFS) asking for ideas from companies utilizing Twitterand Justin.tv's live video API. Groups who are accepted to Y-Combinator and fall under these categories will be given "priority access" to Twitter and Justin.tv. SponsorSays Graham, "In the beginning people believed Twitter was a fad and they didn't realize this was a new protocol...In some ways Twitter is a replacement for email. We're not doing this to promote Twitter, we genuinely believe it's important."It's obvious why Y Combinator companies are able to gain special support from Justin.tv's founders. The lifecasting site took on Y Combinator seed funding in 2007 and has since developed into one of the web's leading online video destinations. The Twitter partnership is a different story. While it's important that Y Combinator teams have Twitter's support, the question on many people's minds is, "If Twitter is an all-important protocol, then why should one group of investors get privileged access to its data-rich firehose?"According to Graham, "This is a practical matter. They need to be able to keep ahead of growth technically... If thousands of startups want to talk to you, then you need to have filters. Even before publishing this Request for Startups, we had a dedicated guy at Twitter who answered Y Combinator questions." In the past, Y Combinator-funded real-time meta-search engine Scooplerworked closely with Twitter. Said Graham, "Honestly, Twitter probably has a lot of filters on those who access them. The only thing special about this is that we formalized it with an RFS." After taking a $2 million dollar investment from Sequoia Capital in March, Y Combinator aims to increase its portfolio companies from 40 to roughly 60 per year. The "Request for Startups" offers companies direction in their applications. Graham notes that when individuals apply for Y Combinator, they are asked to specify if they are applying with an RFS in mind. While he estimates that only 10% of applications are directly related to the RFS, he believes that many who might not apply are inspired to do so after seeing their ideas highlighted. The incubator's first requests were issued in August with a call for alternative journalismand online retailideas.Discuss

  IBM is developing analytics platforms to help companies better understand how multiple pieces of information fit together to create rich forms of business intelligence.We sat down today at the IBM Information on Demand ConferencewithJeff Jonas, one of IBM's chief scientists to get a picture of the types of analysis they see emerging for users.SponsorYou Can't Squeeze Knowledge From A Pixelfrom ReadWriteWebon Vimeo.[Disclosure: IBM paid for a plane ticket and hotel room for Alex Williams to attend the IBM Information On Demand Conference.]Discuss

  Matt Mullenweg has just annouced on his blogthat WordPress parent company Automattic is open sourcing After the Deadline, a natural-language spell-checking plugin for WordPress and TinyMCE that was only recently ushered into the Automattic fold.Scarcely seven weeks after its acquisition was announced, After the Deadline's core technology is being released under the GPL. Moreover, writes Mullenweg, "There's also a new jQuery API that makes it easy to integrate with any text area."SponsorAtD founder, former military researcher, and Y-Combinator reject Rafael Mudge noted at the acquisition that he intended to continue his natural language processing research and expand support to other languages. He wrote, "We hope to see others build on the service... We're planning to open source the After the Deadline engine and the rule-sets that go with it. This will be the most comprehensive proofreading suite available under an open source license."The related API is the same one that powers a plugin from another Automattic property, Intense Debate. Mudge told Ostatic, "I'd like to see AtD spread as far and wide as possible. I'm an inventor first and have this desire to see my inventions help people."Interested parties can check out this demoor read the tech overview and grab the source code here.Discuss

  Business intelligence, analytics and the demand for process optimization are the big draws here at theIBM Information On Demand Conferencein Las Vegas.As one executive said on stage, its not enough to react quickly to what is happening but to predict it.SponsorAccording to IBM's CIO Global Study, 83 percent of respondents said business intelligence and analytics are a top priority. IBM sees business analytics as the next mega trend, growing twice as fast as the rest of the IT industry.For example, Cognos,acquired by IBM in 2007, is now a hub for IBM's business intelligence offerings.Cognos announced its Content Analytics product at the conference. With the addition, Cognos is putting an emphasis on combining a client's internal data with external information to provide a more complete picture of the market and how to optimize marketing and processes within the organization.This may be used to correlate transaction information with unstructured information that the client collects from the web.Applications may include using analytics for sales purposes to get a better understanding and deeper insights into trends that come as trickles from actual purchases. The information can be analyzed with other data from sales reps about the products they are selling. This information can then be used by sales executives to predict trends and ready the rest of the organization for changes in the marketplace.But though this conference is about information on demand, there is little talk about the real-time web. We asked IBM executives if they can integrate activity stream information, such as a Twitter search pertaining to a company name or product. They said it was possible though it is unclear exactly how this would be accomplished. Most of the examples we saw with Cognos Content Analytics focused on massive amounts of form data that can be viewed in a dashboard. That's impressive but we would like to see how IBM is leveraging the social web and how they plan to compete against the number of lightweight social technologies that are filling the market.[Disclosure: IBM paid for a plane ticket and hotel room for Alex Williams to attend the IBM Information On Demand Conference.]Discuss

  Touchdown dances, chest painters and rally caps - if you're not a sports fan, it's hard to understand why a perfectly upstanding citizen would wear a gigantic foam hand or engage in the politically incorrect Tomahawk chop. But if you are a diehard sports addict, you've probably been one since you were a kid. We watched in awe when Nolan Ryan pitched a 101 mph fast ball at the age of forty, when Air Jordan effortlessly dunked from the free throw line and when Joe Montana set the record for most yards passing during Super Bowl XIX. When you've been present to watch sports history, you can't turn your back on the game now. Nevertheless, with so much happening at once, below are a few tools that can help you juggle multiple games:Sponsor1. Lockerblogger: Lockerblogger offers users a chance to create fan profiles and track the sports they're most interested in. Through blogs, video uploads, short messages and in-site chat, the service offers users a chance to connect with sports stars and fans.2. Yardbarker:Similar to Lockerblogger, Yardbarker lets fans keep up-to-date with the latest rumors, training news and injuries. With strict league policies arising around Twitter-usage, these services are a great way to get insider news. 3. ESPN ScoreCenter: This iPhone App offers the official stats and scores on more than 500 sports leagues including the NFL, NHL, NBA and MLB. Users can also follow Soccernetfor soccer scores and news. 4. MLB at Bat iPhone App: A number of services offer users a chance to listen to regular season games and watch clips. For $10, MLB at Bat offers live video of postseason games streamed via the iPhone. The free appoffers scores and stats. 5. NBA Game Time iPhone App: Similar to MLB at Bat, NBA Game Time has both a free version with basic scores and infoand a premium iPhone applicationwith radio broadcasts, video recaps and push notifications to keep tabs on your favorite teams. 6. Fanfeedr: ReadWriteWeb first covered Fanfeedr in mid-August. The site offers a real-time feed of sports-related traditional news reports, blog posts and Twitter updates. The company also offers an iPhone appwhere users can check scores, talk trash with rival fans and follow along with game analysis. 7. Watercooler: Having just raised $5.5 million dollars to expand it's sports-related social games, Watercooler connects more than 40 million fans via Facebook, MySpace and Bebo. Best known for its Facebook Fantasy Football application, the company creates sports applications for individual teams as well as sports-related networks. Photo Credit: John LewDiscuss

  Social Search just went live in Google Labs. Google announcedthat it was working on this Social Search feature at the Web 2.0 Summit last week, but at that time, Google's Marissa Mayer announced that it would only be available "in a few weeks." tweetmeme_url = 'http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_search_gets_personal_social_search_launches.php';tweetmeme_source = 'rww';Social Search taps into a user's social network profiles and displays relevant links and status updates that members of a user's own social network have shared at the bottom of the default search results page. According to Google, Social Search will enhance the search experience on Google by providing users with more personally relevant search results.SponsorTo get started, you first have to head over to Google Labs's experimental section and activate this feature. For now, Social Search will only be available in the US and in English. Sources: Gmail Contacts, Google Reader Subscriptions and Your Google ProfileSocial Search can tab into three different sources, so you will need accounts on at least one of these services to make Social Search work. Social search uses the Gmail contactsyou have added to your friends and coworker lists and those you have chatted with on Google Talk. Social search also looks at your Google Readersubscriptions and the social networking profiles you have added to your Google Profile. While you don't need to have a Google Profile, this service is a hub for your social networking profile on Social Search. Based on the information in your Google Profile, Google can auto-detect your social networking profilesand your friends on services like Flickr, FriendFeed, YouTube, Reddit, Digg, del.icio.us, BrightKite and many others. How it Works and How to Trigger Social Search ExplicitlyOnce activated, Social Search results will appear at the bottom of the standard search results page and will be clearly labeled as "results from people in your social circle." As Google's search evangelist Matt Cutts pointed out to us in an interview earlier today, it is important to note that not every search will trigger Social Search results. When it does, however, the results should be highly relevant. You can also explicitly trigger Social Search from the search options panel. There, Google will now also present a list of your friends that it thinks are the most closely related to the keywords you were searching for. By clicking on a name, you can restrict your search even further and just see results from this one person. Social Search Makes Google Profiles More UsefulThis new feature will also put a new emphasis on Google Profiles. Google has made some moves to make these profiles more prominent by highlighting some profiles when users search for people, but Google Profiles has generally not received a lot of attention from users. Now, however, as the hub for Social Search, users have an incentive to fill out their profiles - which, of course, will also give Google more information about you and your social network.Privacy Concerns?We talked to Google Fellow Amit Singhal, search evangelist Matt Cutts, and Maureen Heymans (the Technical Lead for Social Search) and Murali Viswanathan (the Product Manager for Social Search) earlier today and the team was obviously excited about this launch. The Social Search team was especially excited about the fact social search will now make your friends' knowledge far more accessible than ever before and that this will make it easier to find trusted product reviews and local search results.We also asked the team about how they thought users would react to the fact that Google indexes and surfaces all of their social networking profiles and connections, which could spark some privacy concerns. In reaction to this, Matt Cutts pointed out that all of the info that Google indexes is already publically available on the Internet, including a user's friend connections. He also stressed that this was an opt-in experiment.Social Search as "A Big Chess Move Against Facebook"As our own Marshall Kirkpatrick pointed out last week, Social Search can also be seen as a "big chess move against Facebook." Both Google and Facebook want users to come to their sites to see what their friends are saying about a given topic. Google, however, can't tap into your social circle on Facebook and hence won't be able to highlight status updates from your Facebook friends, which explains why Google needed to make a deal with Twitterto get access to status updates from their service.Discuss

  3D virtual pets to hold in your hand and interact with, software that turns drawn objects into movable 3D objects subject to the laws of physics and a Microsoft hiring-coup. Those are the stories behind the hottest videos from the eye and brain-candy world of Augmented Reality, as seen at last week's International Symposium on Augmented and Extended Realityin Orlando, Florida.Who says the web is all about pagesthat you view in a browser? Check out these three visions of a fast-approaching future where data is drawn from and overlaid on top of the real world around us.SponsorKid Stuff: Eye PetThe Eye Petis a virtual critter that you can interact with through a webcam on your computer. Check out this demo where the Sony Computer Entertainment Europe pets the animal and spins through a 3D menu of toys to play use in playing with it. It's pretty awesome. The Eye Pet is expected to be released for the PS3 game systemas early as next month.That looks like a lot of fun for kids (who knows about the psychological impact) but imagine other interactive 3D objects with menus of options like this. Occupational training possibilities? Sports practice? There seems to be a lot of possibilities. Thanks to Canadian PhD student Gail Carmichaelfor shooting that video.The New AR Paradigm: AR SketchWe wrote about this international project last weekand the team behind it went on to win the Best Student Paper award at the ISMAR conference.AR Sketch takes drawn images, processes live video capture of the drawings and turns them into 3D image overlays. Then it subjects them to a physics simulation. The team behind it just happened to hack into the private API for live video processing on the iPhone and make it available to developers around the world, too. Popular AR apps like Yelp or Layar on mobile phones don't actually know what they are looking at, they just know where you are and which direction you're facing. Thus they can tell you what they believe you're looking at. Marker-based AR apps know only to look for one thing - a printed marker with a pattern on it that triggers display of an overlay. Sketch AR needs neither guesses nor markers - it processes and augments what you're actually looking at.It's nuts. As Ori Inbar wrote about the Sketch AR team in an overview of ISMAR, "Their work is revolutionizing the AR world by avoiding the need to print markers - or any images whatsoever."Here Comes Microsoft AR!Oxford's Georg Klein, whom Inbar calls "the smartest Computer Vision guy on the block," just joined Microsoft this month, conference-goers learned. Is Microsoft going to make a major Augmented Reality play? They'd be fools not to explore the possibility. They don't want to be left out in the cold if AR does become the next version of the web. Here's what their new man's been working on.These exciting examples of Augmented Reality have little to do with mobile location awareness, a nice reminder that there's a whole lot more to the field. Mobile AR browsers are the best known commercial services so far, but academic research on other forms of AR has been going on for years. Ready to browse and interact with data on top of the physical world, through webcams, mobile phones and increasingly svelte AR glasses? A future when such experiences are mainstream may be fast approaching.Discuss

  Once just a browser add-on that allowed users to surf smarter across several verticals, AdaptiveBlue's Glueis now a site-centric product that acts as both a hub and a spoke of the social web.Glue's synaptic web-esque technology is based on a user's browsing across common sites such as Amazon, Wikipedia and YouTube, and those visits and any interactions (comments, "likes," etc.) feeding back to automatically create a taste profile and a web of affinity with other users and recommendations of other items or content across about a dozen categories, including music, books and movies. So, can this be done without violating users' privacy or - worse yet - frustrating and boring them into attrition?Sponsor[Disclosure: AdaptiveBlue founder and CEO Alex Iskold is a ReadWriteWeb writer.]AdaptiveBlue VP Fraser Kelton thinks both aims can be accomplished. In a phone interview this morning, he shared that Glue has a three-tiered set of privacy controls to ensure that items are shared only when a user wants them to be. As the privacy/permissions inverse of Facebook Beacon, an ill-fatedsystem for socially powered product recommendation, the Glue system is completely opt-in for users and opt-out for publishers.Glue's all-new user profiles are rolling out today at GetGlue.com."Nobody's confortable sharing all of their stream," said Kelton. "Financial sites, adult content - we don't want any of that stuff shared." In addition to having a set list of sites from which to pull browsing and interaction data, Kelton said, "The secondary privacy controls can prevent visits to a website from being shared unless the user has a specific interaction on that site. You can also opt to have a private profile so only your friends can see the items you interact with." Finally, Kelton told us that users can delete or edit their own shared content on an item-by-item basis.Our other concern was whether Glue would be a semantic web geek-fest or whether the average end user would also be able to use, enjoy, and return to the site. Kelton said the site went over well with non-techie beta testers, many of whom started out using the GetGlue.com website and eventually also installed the add-on for an even richer experience.One of the factors we think makes Glue so much fun for end users, from geeks to complete Luddites, is its Foursquare-like system of achievement and rewards. "We're big fans of game interaction driving the user experience," said Kelton, who also revealed that the product team considered Xbox 360 as inspiration for the Glue system. Users can earn stickers on their profiles based on how many items they browse or interact with, how many users discover content through them, and how much of an expert they are on a particular topic.Glue's game-like system of badges or stickers as rewards for user interactions and discovery makes for addictive browsing.Each item indexed by Glue can have a guru, and only one guru at a time. The result is friendly competition, increased interactions and a very sticky website that's compelling and entertaining for even the least technical end user.The site also allows for content to be pushed to a user's existing social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter. Here's a demo video showing more about how the site works:As previously mentioned, the user experience of Glue - both the site and the revamped add-on - is one of synapses and nodes, not back-and-forth browsing and search for content. As data and content from all around the web is associated with films, books, music, and other items, users are able to quickly scan and consume related content without further navigation. This type of curated experience is something the AdaptiveBlue team calls "shortcut search."As a social network, GetGlue.com is a hub; but the way it curates content makes it a series of spokes, as well."You don't have to go to Rotten Tomatoes or YouTube. We know there's a subset of information users want, and we're bringing it in," said Kelton, who is very excited about Glue's position on distributed social networking and the semantic web. "Jeremiah [Owyang] uses the term 'social colonization.' I also think we're implementing what Charlene Li talks about when she uses the phrase, 'The network is all around us.'"Discuss

  Joining the ranks of tools such as Tweetmeme and Digg widgets, Facebook's Share button will now be showing the number of users who share items in real time - and with a new set of analytics features.Facebook Platform product manager Mark Kinsey writeson the Facebook Developers blog, "Today we're making the sharing experience on Facebook and off even richer by launching the next version of Facebook Share, with a live counter, as well as new ways to measure how content is being shared on Facebook."SponsorWhile the cosmetic change is a nice feature for end users, the real news here is the analytics on the back end. Content creators and site owners can access the data associated with each shared item, including how often users share the link, how often they "like" shared content, how often they comment on the shared content on Facebook, and how often users click through from the shared item on Facebook to the original website."You can do this programmatically by calling the links.getStats API method, or you can run an FQL query on the link_stat table," writes Kinsey. "By giving you access to this data for all URLs, we hope you'll create tools to help analyze and understand how users interact with your content on Facebook."The Facebook post further notes that Techmeme, bit.ly, and awe.smhave already put this data to use in analyzing traffic and monitoring user attention.Discuss

  With no fanfare or as much as an official announcement, Google has taken an important step in making users' Google Docs more open and portable.As of today, severalbloggershave reported seeing this new feature, which allows users to grab all their Google Docs and batch export them as a zip file. Files can be exported in a number of formats, including Microsoft Office and Open Office formats. Users can also choose to export only certain types of docs, e.g., spreadsheets and slide decks only.SponsorThe process is simple: Users select the documents they wish to export, click "More actions," then "Export."If a user is particularly pressed for time or has a larger chunk of data to export, he can also choose to navigate away and receive an email when the export is finished.Unfortunately, any folders a user may have created or data related to authorship or shared documents do not seem to be included once documents are exported.Discuss

  Social networking sites are quickly becoming one of the most important places where retailers can meet potential customers and interact with their current customer base. According to a new report from eMarketer, social network users are a lucrative target demographic because they are more likely to make online purchases than any other group. About three-quarters of all the retailers in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guidemaintain a presence on at least one social network. Facebook, YouTube and MySpace are the most popular social networking sites for online retailers.SponsorOnline Retailers Experiment with Twitter, But They Really Love Facebook's PlatformAccording to eMarkter's report, 56.8% of online retailers maintain a Facebook presence, 41.4% are on YouTube and 28.6% use MySpace. Twitter comes in at #4, as only 20.4% of all online merchants actively maintain a Twitter account. As eMarkteter points out, Twitter is a 'hotbed for experimentation,' where companies can promote deals and interact directly with their customers. For the majority of companies, however, Facebook is the most lucrative place to meet current and potential customers. Facebook's platforms give retailers ranging from 1-800-Flowers to Papa John's Pizza the ability to create e-commerce applicationsand provide users with services right on Facebook. According to an earlier eMarkter report, almost 99% of all US Online Retailers plan to have a Facebook fan site within the next year (up from 86% today), and 85% plan to use Twitter within the next 12 months.Consumers Want Online Retailers to be on Social NetworksThis trend, of course, isn't new, but it's also clear that online retailers will have to continue to follow their customers to where they are - and today, that means social networks like Twitter and Facebook. We also know that consumers want to interact with brandsand online retailers through social networks, so any company that isn't using these tools is bound to miss out on potential sales. These customers are also highly likely to spread the word about a product - good or bad - on these social networks, so smart retailers will not just have a presence on these networks, but also use them to reach out directly to their customers. Discuss

  Everyone is looking to Huluas the future of Internet TV. The joint venture between several major networks, Hulu delivers free, ad-supported programming via online streams - an untested model for long-term profitability, at least when it comes to television. While consumers have been enjoying the service since its launch in 2007, happily watching free TV shows and movies over their PCs and even their TV sets thanks to Media Center plugins and other unofficial hacks, the company itself is still trying to navigate this new online landscape and effectively monetize their content. Now recent statements by a News Corp exec have people wondering: can Hulu make the ad-supported model work? Or does the company have other plans? SponsorIs Hulu Working?One of the primary objectives behind Hulu was to put free programming on the Internet to combat the rampant pirating of TV content that took place on sites like the popular file-sharing destination, The Pirate Bay. As iTunes did with music, the idea is to make using Hulu's service easier than having to go out and seek the illegal downloads. Although iTunes charges for music on a per-file basis, Hulu, too has a business model that makes you pay - except in their case, you're paying with your eyeballs, not your credit card. Using video ads, Hulu has been attempting to monetize its service, but those efforts have been difficult at times. This spring, for instance, Screen Digest analyst Arash Amel claimed that Hulu had only sold about 60% of its ad inventory. "What we've seen is rapid growth in consumption, but the advertising isn't keeping up," he said.While these figures, if accurate, could be reason for concern, many feel that the profitability of an online video venture of this nature takes time to develop. Eventually, the ad-supported model would work for Hulu as it has worked for numerous other websites and services, supporters claim. Besides, more recent deals seem to bode well for the site. Case in point, this month the Publicis Groupe announceda mulit-million dollar ad deal that involved targeted advertising to particular Hulu demographics. The deal is said to represent a "significant increase" in spending on Hulu. Hulu to Charge?Despite the promises ad deals like this hold,there is still debate as to whether or not Hulu is going to stick to the ad-supported model or try something new. At a conference last week, News Corp. deputy chairman Chase Carey made a pronouncement regarding this point that raised more than a few eyebrows:"I think a free model is a very difficult way to capture the value of our content. I think what we need to do is deliver that content to consumers in a way where they will appreciate the value," Carey was quoted as saying by Broadcasting & Cable. "Hulu...needs to evolve to have a meaningful subscription model as part of its business."This seems to jibe with earlier reportswhere News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch also hinted at the site's plans to add premium services by saying, "Are we looking at it with a view toward adding subscription services and pay per view? Yes we are." But "looking at" and "doing" are two very different things - where does Hulu stand now? Has their core philosophy - that is, their belief in the ad-supported model - changed? According to AdWeek, it has not. In the article, the company claims their ad-supported free service is still the one that "resonates with the largest group of users" and that any additional models would just serve to complement that.However, when we reached out to Hulu to ask about their plans regarding charging for content, the company wouldn't go on record with any such statement. Why So Cagey? Hulu's current decision to clam up could be taken in a few different ways. Perhaps they simply haven't decided what they're going to do about adding new premium services to Hulu and therefore don't want to discuss it at all. Yet the quote they provided to AdWeek seems innocuous enough - so why not just stick with it? Why now choose to say nothing at all? Maybe they're hoping that with no quote, there is no story, and that will allow them to quell the impending panic among some users who are worried about Hulu's plans to make customers pay. Because some people are so opposed to paying for online content, just hearing reports that Hulu might change to a pay-to-stream model could dissuade them from continuing to use the service. Then again, it could be that the opposite is true. Hulu wants to keep everyone wondering about what's coming next, generating excitement without providing any details. This means people can speculate wildly and give their opinions, allowing Hulu to tap into that online conversation about what people want before making any official decisions or announcements. What We Think: Hulu Will Launch Value-Added ServicesDespite any official confirmations from the company, we think it's pretty clear that Hulu has intentions to launch value-added services on top of its free, ad-supported model in the coming months. These may include pay-per-view options and some sort of subscription model. However, that subscription model would be there to provide users with value-added services that you couldn't get from the free model alone. Perhaps behind the scenes interviews? Sneak peeks? Actor interviews? Who knows...but the possibilities are endless. As to why we think that, it comes down to simple math. We've now seen three different statements about these premium services: Carey's recent remarks, Murdoch's quote from earlier this year, and anonymous sources quoted by Dan Rayburnwho hinted that Hulu's iPhone app won't launch until "Hulu rolls out a subscription based service." ...And They'll be Tied to the iPhoneThe iPhone app, in fact, may be the real secret the company is trying to hide. Imagine if the much-rumored and highly anticipated applicationwas linked to a subscription-based model. That could downright revolutionizethe way people watch TV. Providing streaming content over the popular Apple smartphone would easily bring in additional revenue and that new source could quickly outperform the profits made by the ad-supported model. Yet launching a Hulu iPhone app would be a challenge, as the company is undoubtedly aware. And, of course, Hulu wouldn't want to say anything about it, especially considering how difficult Apple is when it comes to applications that compete with their core services. Apple may not even approve such an application, claiming (rightly so) that it competes with iTunes. However, Apple may be loosening up on that front, with no small thanks going to the FCC who recently questioned the company's rejection of the Google Voice application- a VoIP dialer that Apple rejected because it competed with what the iPhone does natively. (Apple claims they're "still reviewing" it, but no one really buys that.) Since the FCC's involvement, however, Apple has gone on to approve a streaming music app called Spotify, an application that many had feared would be rejected because it, even more so than Google Voice, competed with iTunes. That leaves us hopeful that a similar application launched by Hulu could also make it through the approval process. Still, we wouldn't blame Hulu if they wanted to keep that extremely quiet. And that would certainly explain why Hulu won't comment on their plans. Of course, this is all just speculation at this point, but we hope it turns out to be true.Discuss