It's November 2009 and we're nearing the end of a decade. It's been a tumultuous time of change for many industries, much of it driven by the Internet. The newspaper industry has been particularly affected by the Web. Over the past 10 years, news media has undergone a seachange akin to the invention of the printing pressin 1440. Just as Johannes Gutenberg's printing press brought books to the mainstream public in the 15th century, Tim Berners-Lee's World Wide Web brought commercial publishing to the people.SponsorThe Web has always been a medium where people could just as easily write as read (yes, the read/write Web), however it didn't reach its potential until blogging came along earlier this decade.BloggingBloggingnot only allowed anybody to publish easily to the Web, it ended up shaking up the print media world.Blogging began in the 90sas a form of online diary - Rebecca Blood wrote a good pre-historyin 2000. One of the early popular blogging services was Blogger.com, launched by Evan Williams (who subsequently became a co-founder of Twitter) and Meg Hourihan in August 1999. The service was acquired by Google in February 2003, a couple of months before ReadWriteWeb began. At that point, 2003, blogging was still seen as an informal diary-type of publishing. Around 2004-05, blogging started to become accepted as a legitimate news source. This was around the time that ReadWriteWeb began to publish tech news, as well as analysis. By the endof the decade, many blogs were directly challenging newspapers - proving that a solid news brand, such as Huffington Post, can be created from almost nothing in a few years.RSSBlogging software was one part of the democratization of media. RSS ("Really Simple Syndication") was another. There were and still are different versions of RSS, created by Dave Winerand others. But whatever the flavor, syndication has had a major impact on media. Basically RSS allowed people to subscribe to updates from blogs and other publications. Using RSS Aggregators, people could read news from a selection of niche and general news publications.Blogs were the first to utilize RSS, but mainstream media followed during the 2005-06 period. Today it is very rare for a major news website - whether it be the New York Times or a leading blog - not to use RSS.Twitter & The Real-Time WebThe next major development in news media occurred towards the end of this decade. It was of course Twitter and the Real-Time Web. To be fair, this has challenged not only traditional media - but blogs as well. Now anyone, whether they're a writer or not, can publish 140 characters to the Web. And it might end up as breaking news, as the Hudsen River plane crashproved earlier this year.Media in the Next DecadeThere is much talk of the mainstream media "dying" and blogs usurping traditional media companies like the New York Times. While it's true that blogs sometimes report breaking news stories or analyze them better than newspaper websites, I'm a big believer in the power of brand. Washington Post, Wall St Journal, New York Times - these are all powerful brands and they reach a much wider audience than the vast majority of blogs.The challenge of course for mainstream media is to (drastically) reduce their costs, because few people want to pay for contentthese days - news or otherwise.However, in my view the traditional news media industry is in much less danger of extinction than the music industry. Musicians can bypass record labels completely nowadays, but there will always be a need for news to be questioned, put in context and analyzed. The best media publications of the next 10 years will do that and be successful, the ones that don't will fade away.See also: Top Internet Trends of 2000-2009: Online MusicDiscuss

  When you launch a make or break initiative like Windows Azure,you better get it right.Well, from our vantage point, Microsoft got it right. How? In front of a sea of developers at the Professional Developers Conference, Microsoft trotted out a group of geek all-stars who showed how they are using Azure to do some pretty cool stuff.SponsorIt's a sure way to show your chops when you get Matt Mullenwegfrom Wordpress, Loic LeMeurof Seesmic and the CTO for the Cheezburger Network (I Can Has Cheezburger) to show off what they created on the Azure platform.Mullenwegg appeared on stage to show that his company, Automattic, is fully supporting Azure. Automattic is the company behind Wordpress. His presence drove home how Azure will support PHP, MySQL and other open-source tools in additon to .NET. That's a great way to show how a company, built on proprietary technologies, is accepting the open nature of the web.Showing off the geeks can only get you so far. You have to show the goods. And for about two hours, Microsoft showed repeatedly that Ray Ozzie's visionmay be right on. The code-namedDallas projectmay be the most interesting. It's a data service that provides access to information from the Associated Press, data.gov and other sources. That's the power of cloud computing that we expect to see more of from companies across the enterprise. Azure is a window into how cloud computing changes everything simply by speeding up the delivery of actionable information. We see it time and again with the companies that come knocking here at ReadWriteWeb.For example, FusionOpslaunched an on-demand, business intelligence service today. The company has the potential to disrupt the business intelligence market for ERP applications. How do they do it? They take huge models from SAP, put the data in the cloud and then integrate their rules based systems to visualize the data that sits deep in ERP systems. The application can be launched in a day. That's what's amazing. Using traditional tools, it would take a company six months to a year to do something similar at a significant cost.Ozzie and the DevelopersOzzie needs support from developers. Bringing in the geek elite gives developers a reason to relate to what Azure provides.Still, Microsoft is in no position to cheer too loud. They face competition at every turn in the cloud world. Amazon, Rackspace and of course, Google, have a good step on Microsoft.But this launch should give competitors pause. It's no easy feat to garner support from people like Mullenweg. You better have something good, damn good in order for him to get on stage in front of his peers. He has everything on the line in such a situation.But Mullenwegg said it himself a few years ago when talking about Wordpress. He said that when you launch a company, the feeling is awesome. In best cases, there are rave reviews. You feel elated. But then the moment passes and you are now in the desert where no one really cares about the launch anymore. You have to get across that desert to achieve success.For Ozzie - it's time for that walk into the wild. Welcome to the desert.Discuss

  After a predefined period designed to increase transparency and maximize user feedback, Facebook has announced that, with fewer than 7,000 user comments, it will proceed to implement its proposed amended privacy policy.With adequate user information, Facebook hoped to become better stewards of "the unnaturally uncontrollable nature of communication," as we calledtheir general user-data privacy dilemma in June. And this revision also makes a nod to Canadian objectionsto Facebook's policies. What's in store for users, and how did the thousands of units of user data impact Facebook's governance and privacy policy? Read on to get the full story.SponsorThe latest revision of the policy can be found here, and the current policy is available here.According to the site's governance, fewer than seven thousand user comments, the revised policy will be shortly enacted and will be official. "While a lot of people participated," wroteIP counsel Michael Richter, "the total number of people commenting did not reach the threshold of 7,000 that makes a vote necessary according to our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. Because of this - and the fact that many of the comments were positive - we've decided to adopt the revised policy."The new method of determining policies based on user feedback stems from the site's desire to foster a culture of transparencyand engagement.Here are the old policy and revised policy changes, which, again, will be enacted shortly:Old:When you update information, we usually keep a backup copy of the prior version for a reasonable period of time to enable reversion to the prior version of that information... Even after removal, copies of User Content may remain viewable in cached and archived pages or if other Users have copied or stored your User Content...Access and control over most personal information on Facebook is readily available through the profile editing tools. Facebook users may modify or delete any of their profile information at any time by logging into their account. Information will be updated immediately. Individuals who wish to deactivate their Facebook account may do so on the My Account page. Removed information may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time but will not be generally available to members of Facebook.New:Viewing and editing your profile. You may change or delete your profile information at any time by going to your profile page and clicking "Edit My Profile." Information will be updated immediately. While you cannot delete your date of birth, you can use the setting on the info tab of your profile information page to hide all or part of it from other users...Deactivating or deleting your account. If you want to stop using your account you may deactivate it or delete it. When you deactivate an account, no user will be able to see it, but it will not be deleted. We save your profile information (friends, photos, interests, etc.) in case you later decide to reactivate your account. Many users deactivate their accounts for temporary reasons and in doing so are asking us to maintain their information until they return to Facebook. You will still have the ability to reactivate your account and restore your profile in its entirety. When you delete an account, it is permanently deleted. You should only delete your account if you are certain you never want to reactivate it. You may deactivate your account on your account settings page or delete your account on this help page.Limitations on removal. Even after you remove information from your profile or delete your account, copies of that information may remain viewable elsewhere to the extent it has been shared with others, it was otherwise distributed pursuant to your privacy settings, or it was copied or stored by other users. However, your name will no longer be associated with that information on Facebook. (For example, if you post something to another user's profile, and then you delete your account, that post may remain, but be attributed to an "Anonymous Facebook User.") Additionally, we may retain certain information to prevent identity theft and other misconduct even if deletion has been requested.Future updates will be announced via the site's governance page.Discuss

  In late August Br.st was nothing more than a URL shortener service with link stats and malware filters. While the company allowed users to cross post to social networks like Twitter, Myspace and Digg, it was simply too late to the space to be considered a contender. As of today the caterpillar has transformed into a butterfly. Br.stis spreading it's new wings with a slew of features and instead of resembling Bitly, it's looking a lot closer to the current social media reader of choice Brizzly. SponsorBr.st offers the basic features of Brizzly including the ability to edit your status, view your Twitter feed, direct message friends, retweet great content, view trending topics and save searches. But where Brizzly also incorporates Facebook statuses, Br.st forgoes Facebook and concentrates on its URL shortener roots. The company does a great job of ensuring against malware through inline link, image and video previews. Additional key features include:1. GeoTags:Images with geotags are automatically displayed alongside a map of their location2. Text Shortener:Br.st automatically reduces your word count with Twitter shorthand ("2" for too, "u" for you)3. Image Upload:You can upload images and files up to 10MB each4. Commenting:Users can comment on your images and files5. Analytics:In addition to real-time links on your stats you can also set up Br.st to notify you every time a person leaves a comment or downloads your files6. Follow:The service allows you to find people and instead of scrolling through people you can search for a person and either unfollow them or add/remove them from a list.7. Conversations:Users can create conversation threads around a specific message and keep all of those replies in one place.While there's a great deal of overlap between Brizzly and Br.st, the two companies are clearly close competitors. Test Br.st by registering hereand let us know your favorite Twitter tool in the comments below. Discuss

  Digg CEO Jay Adelson toldFOX Business tonight that ever since rolling out Digg Ads, the social link-sharing service has been making money and that profitability is right around the corner.Although advertising continues to be the only seemingly reliable model for monetizing content-centric websites, Adelson reports that click-through rates are higher than expected.digg_url = 'http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/digg_sees_the_light_of_profitability_at_the_end_of.php';digg_bgcolor = '#ffffff';digg_skin = 'normal';That being said, typical rates for online advertising are generally abysmal, so if Digg's ads are working better than most, good for them, and let's all study their model. Read - and watch - for the rest of the story on how Digg has grown and will continue to expand and monetize.SponsorThe FOX interviewer asked Adelson if micropayments were considered as a monetization option, "I think that micropayments is interesting," he replied. "I think that if it works though - the level that it's going to work is between somebody like Digg and the newspaper, as opposed to necessarly expecting that consumer to subscribe to some sort of micropayment system."This sort of talk would surely come as good news to Rupert Murdoch, who was referenced in the interview and has stated plansto charge search engines - and perhaps aggregators - that index and share snippets of the relevant, timely, and expensive content that traditional news outlets still struggle to integrate with modern Internet-enabled user behavior.What about selling anonymized, aggregate user data? Adelson says he doesn't want to sell that information unless users are generally cool with the idea. "I think that users are pretty sensitive now; they're pretty savvy and they understand the idea that they have to be private." But data on trends and user attention - data that would be highly valuable for old media to have and that might actually contribute to a better user experience - might be more in line with what Digg execs are willing and able to sell.And what about the possibility of an IPO? Hold onto your hats, day traders. Adelson says that, while he feels he owes it to investors and employees to "go public at some point," he's waiting for two factors: A valuation he likes and the day that Digg needs "hundreds of millions of dollars for something." In other words, we're not shaking the quarters out of our piggy banks just yet.So, what is coming next for Digg? It seems the company is planning to follow in Twitter's footstepsand release international versions of the site. "About 40% of our traffic comes from international, but we have no other languages on Digg right now, so why not go there," said Adelson.Check out the whole interview below:Watch the latest business video at FOXBusiness.comDiscuss

  In 2008 the idea of another subscription-only music service was enough to get your knickers in a torrent. Sure Rhapsodywas doing well, but they'd been around for forever and in 2008, freemium was the music model du jour. With a year to reflect, co-founder of the Future of Music Coalitionand longtime San Fran Music Tech Summitorganizer Brian Zisk tells us what it takes to survive in today's music environment. SponsorIn August 2008 ReadWriteWeb asked What Would the Perfect Streaming Music Service Look Like?While Pandora, Imeemand Muxtapewere mentioned, services like

  It's rare to look at a bookmarking tool and feel convinced that it's going to win a design award. Pearltreesis such a product. The French site offers us a new way to explore and contextualize the web. In what looks like a mind map structure, users collect "pearls" (links to articles, videos and web pages) and drag and drop them to form a body of knowledge that folds and expands upon itself. In an interview with Pearltrees CEO Patrice Lamothe, ReadWriteWeb found that company already has a loyal user base including our friends at ReadWriteFrance.SponsorSaid Lamothe, "We wanted a type of game play that was playful to use and map the web...and the fact that you can group and ungroup content easily means that you can re-catalogue it and keep it current." Rather than looking at the web as a series of linear pages, this service lets us build tree graphs of connecting arguments, share them and then break them at any time. Using a browser bookmarking tool, we can add and connect related pearls or ideas, place them within other pearls or start a new pearl tree (or train of thought). Rather than displaying a list of items, your pearls connect to your profile. You are literally the center of the universe and your thoughts follow you wherever you go.Naturally, as a newly anointed God of information, other great thinkers will gravitate towards you. Shared pearls connect you to others and allow you to view their collections. From here you can choose your favorite content and omit the noise. From here you can email your pearls, embed them in your blog or broadcast them to Twitter and Facebook. The Future of Touch InterfacesGiven the unique user interface of Pearltrees, Lamothe expects that the company will roll out feature releases and enhancements on an ongoing basis. Says the CEO, "Once we've launched the web interface, the potential of a touch product will be very exciting." At this point, I almost fell out of my chair thinking about the possibilities. Using Pearltrees in conjunction with a touch interface would be extremely practical. Rather than swiping down long lists of links to find articles, images or videos, users could tap on their desired pearl and follow the connectors to the information they wanted. Not only would this greatly improve the research experience, but it could also change device design. For some reason, many touch interfaces mimic the experience of the first personal computers. We are offered a series of boxes from which to start our applications with little room for reorganization or prioritization. The Pearltrees model may prove to be the most efficient way to navigate period. To try the product register at pearltrees.comor click on ReadWriteFrance'spearl below.  ptInitTree('pt-pearl-1_6478-243',1,6478,1,72070,1); Discuss

  Google just announceda new product in Google Labs: Google Image Swirl. Image Swirl introduces a Wonder Wheel-like user interface for Google Images. The new search interface combines the Wonder Wheel experience with Google's ability to find similar imagesand discover facesin these images. Instead of just showing one image, the Image Swirl interface displays a stack of photos. Clicking on this stack opens up a Wonder Wheel with related images clustered around the original photo.SponsorFor now, Image Swirl only works for about 200,000 queries, though Google plans to include more in the near future. Better Photo Search Through Smarter AlgorithmsThis new feature takes image search to a new level, as it doesn't just display the most relevant images. Instead, Google notes, these "are the most relevant groups of images." To create these clusters of related images, Google analyzes the characteristics of the images themselves, but the algorithm also looks at meta tags and other clues in the description of these images. Google uses the same algorithms to find and organizeimages of landmarks in its index.In an interview with eWeek, Google Image Swirl Product Manager Aparna Chennapragada said that this new service is part of Google's drive to "go beyond just relying on text." Bingintroduced its visual search featurea few weeks ago and is still ahead of Google in bringing these features to its core search product. Image Swirl makes looking for images on Google a far more interactive and fun experience. For now, Image Swirl is only a labs product - and some of the results can be a bit off at times - but chances are that this feature will find its way into the search options panelon Google Images in the future. Discuss

  After 18 months of negotiation, the Open Web Foundation, a group made up of 106 employees of Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, some small startups and their lawyers, today released a legal document template for licensing open web technology specifications. The result could be greatly accelerated time-to-market for new technologies developed on top of these specifications and more awesomeness, sooner, for web consumers.Standardized legal documents for technical specifications may not seem like the sexiest thing in the the world - but this is actually pretty exciting news. Developments like this could be a key part of the foundation that online service providers need to move forward on a long list of great ideas for ways to serve their users.SponsorWhat does this mean? It means that other companies will be able to use technologies like Media RSS, OAuth, Salmon, Web Slices and more without fear that unclear licensing agreements will lead to legal problems later. It also means that developers creating innovative new tech specifications to push and pull user data from one site to another can launch them using a turn-key license developed by some of the top legal teams in the business.People come up with crazy ideas for making the web work better all the time. This agreement aims to provide an easy way to make it safe to implement those ideas. The companies participating have spent large amounts of time and money negotiating the agreement, now anyone can take advantage of the fruits of that labor at no cost.Existing specifications that will be placed under the Open Web Foundation Agreement, per the announcement today, include:Syndicated media delivery spec Media RSS(currently controlled by Yahoo!)Secure 3rd party authentication spec OAuth Coreand Wrap(from Facebook, Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft)Real-time feed protocol PubSubHubbub(Google)Comment aggregation protocol Salmon(Google)Web Slice Format(Microsoft)And several others.Discuss

  Superfeedr, a service that transforms a wide variety of feeds into normalized XMPP or Pubsubhubbub format, announceda seed round of funding from some very high-profile backers this morning. Betaworks, backers of Twitter, Bit.ly, Tweetdeck, Twitterfeed, Tumblr and more, and Mark Cuban, have invested in Superfeedr's parent company Notifixious.Superfeedr offers services to both publishers and subscribers. Current marque users include SixApart, Adobe, Twitterfeed and Posterous. Notifixious founder Julien Genestoux first met Betaworks CEO John Borthwick at our event last month, the ReadWrite Real-Time Web Summit.SponsorSuperfeedr is one of a number of real-time as a service providers, related if different competitors include Notify.meand Kaazing. These services offer developers plug-and-play real-time publishing and subscription, allowing them to instead focus on building the features they can offer the most unique value from. "We do something stupid so you don't have to," is a slogan used on the Superfeedr website. If there's a downside to using the service it's reliance on a third party for critical syndication functionality. Superfeedr experienced an outage for several hours earlier this month. Genestoux blogged about the problem and eventual solutionon the company blog. Genestoux says he plans to build out hardware and personnel with the backing. These relationships will also facilitate important introductions to potential customers and offer big validation of the Superfeedr service.Superfeedr is one of ten companies profiled in the case studies section of the forthcoming ReadWriteWeb research report on the state of the real-time web market, which will be published later this month and can be pre-ordered here. Discuss

  Google just announcedthat it now features legal opinions in Google Scholar. Starting today, Google Scholar will feature the full text of legal opinions from US federal and state district, appellate and supreme courts. Through this, users can now easily find the text of Roe v. Wadeor Brown v. Board of Education, for example. Google Scholar also lists other legal opinions and journals that cited these opinions. In addition, users can also do standard keyword searchesto find legal documents. SponsorUsers can easily restrict searches to opinions from federal courts or courts in certain states. In addition to finding the case and legal opinion, Google Scholar also displays related documents in a sidebar, as well as a list of cases where a certain opinion was cited. Google's Anurag Acharya also notes that a lot of these opinions are surprisingly readable. As Google points out in the announcement, finding these legal opinions has typically been difficult. Now, the company makes it very easy to find any legal opinion about Napster, for example. Google notes that it hopes that access to this information will allow regular citizens to "learn more about the laws that govern us all." It's interesting to see that Google continues to add more and more public data to its repositories. Just last week, Google added data from the World Bankto its search results. Earlier this year, Google also startedto include data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau's Population Division. Google didn't go as far as integrating these legal opinions on its search results page yet - though for searches for Roe v. Wadeor Miranda v. Arizona, these results could really enhance the current search results. Discuss

  At Microsoft's Professional Developer Conference, Seesmic'sfounder and CEO Loic Le Meur just announced that the company will release a native Windows version of its popular Twitter client later today. Seesmic developed this client on top of .NET. tweetmeme_url = 'http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/seesmic_for_windows_pdc_launch.php';tweetmeme_source = 'rww';As Le Meur told us yesterday, the new client will be faster and use significantly less memory than the current AIR client. In addition, Seesmic will now also feature a Firefox-like plugin infrastructure that will allow developers to extend the application through a new, built-in API.SponsorAs usual, Seesmic will first make this new Seesmic for Windows client available to members of its Team Seesmic beta test community. Signing up for Team Seesmicis easy and you will immediately get access to all of Seesmic's public beta products. Le Meur told us that a native Windows client was something that Seesmic's users had been requesting for quite a while. The Seesmic team worked on this new client for the last few months, though the company managed to keep this development under wraps and today's release comes as a surprise. While there are quite a few good native Twitter clients for OSX, the most popular Twitter clientson Windows are currently AIR apps. FeaturesBeing a native client, Seesmic can now also make use of some of Windows' built-in features like a system-wide spellchecker or Windows 7's location services. While Twitter hasn't launched it's location API yet, Seesmic will now be able to tab into this data quickly.The new client will also allow users to drag and drop their friends' avatars into user lists.Just like the current beta version of its AIR app, Seesmic for Windows will support Twitter's userlists and while the look and feel is similar to the AIR app, the Windows client also features vertical tabs in the sidebar that allow users to quickly switch between different views (all, accounts, userlists and searches).Plugins for SeesmicFor developers, of course, the new plugin infrastructure also means that they can now offer their services directly in a Twitter client. The current version already showcases plugins from TweetMemeand MrTweet. According to Le Meur, this will also allow other Twitter-like services to build their own plugins and build their own columns in Seesmic without having to establish a formal relationship with the company. In a few weeks, Seesmic will launch a plugin gallery to showcase these extensions. What About the AIR App?Seesmic will continue to develop its Adobe AIR client for the time being, though chances are that the company is also looking at developing a native Mac client. Discuss

  Three iPhone application developers are cited in an online petitionwhich asks Apple to approve their apps, all of which have been sitting in limbo for months on end. The developers are awaiting word about their new DJ applications which let users mix loops of their own iTunes tracks stored in their iPhone or iPod Touch's music library. In this case, it's speculated that the holdup either has to do with rights issues surrounding the music or possibly the way the apps in question access the music library. But without word from Apple, the developers can't be sure. The delays have angered fans, too, one of whom created the petition in hopes of forcing Apple's hand.Update: One of the applications was just approved. Click through for more info. SponsorWhy the Delay?The three developers mentioned in the fan-posted petition include Amidio, Pajamahouse Studios, and Musicsoft Arts. All three have created DJ applications which tap into a users' own iTunes library. Unlike the DJ applications already available in the App Store, these new apps let users mix their own tracks while offering features like simultaneous playback of multiple tracks, pitch, fade, tempo, and more. Other DJ applications, on the other hand, only let users mix loops that have no rights associated with them. The rights issue may be one of the problems causing the delays. It's highly likely that the labels don't want their artists' songs to be used in this way without some sort of controls in place - if they deem to allow this type of interaction at all. If that's the case, though, the developers simply want Apple to tell them so.Another explanation for the delay may have to do with Apple's current ban on dual access to the iPhone's music library via third-party applications. In order to work around this ban, the developers came up with an alternative method which involves transferring music over Wi-Fi instead. Of course, Apple may see this "workaround" as just a loophole allowing the developers to break the rules while not technically violating any of Apple's edicts. But again, without word from the company itself, there's no way to be sure. The PetitionAlthough the developers themselves aren't behind the online petition, they've been frustrated for some time regarding the delay. For example, a posting on the Sonorasaurus blogreads:"We have been waiting about 3 months now with no word on if we are approved and when we can release. It is nice to see other people taking issue with Apple's system and their interest in getting DJ apps on the platform. So to whomever thought to include us in their petition: Thank you."The petitionitself isn't a kindly-worded plea for Apple's attention either, but an angry letter demanding that attention instead: There are more than 20 million of iPhone and iPod Touch users in the world, but there is no decent DJ MP3 application on iPhone/iPod Touch. Why? Because Apple doesn't approve any of them! At least two quality DJ MP3 applications - Touch DJ (www.amidio.com) and Sonorasaurus (www.sonorasaurus.com) are held "in review" since the beginning of the September. That's 8 weeks in limbo which is insane. The developers of the apps are now facing serious troubles because a lot was invested into the production of the apps. Moreover, Apple doesn't specify any reasons for such delays. There's simply no information about what is going on. This is all really weird and absolutely unfair.Later, the petition writer adds that they had become aware of a third application, DJ Player, which was also waiting approval.Similar Apps Already ApprovedWhat's really strange about this current delay, writes a blogger on Sonorasaurus.com(the app from Pajamahouse Studios), is that there are applications which have already been approved by Apple that offer similar features as their new app. For example, the Quixpin DJ uses the same mixing feature, Deadmau5 Mix uses the same packaged songs feature, and Air Sharing uses the same file uploading via HTTP feature. And Musicsoft Arts already has an app called the DJ Spooky The Secret Songwhich uses the same codebase as the yet-to-be-approved DJ Player application. UPDATE: Oddly enough, of the three apps in question, Amidio's application was approved first, having just launched today in the App Store. Are the others far behind? Did the petition catch Apple's eye or is this just a coincidence? We'll have to stay tuned to the other developers' websites and Twitter accounts to know for sure.Fans Care, TooRegardless of what happens, though, it's an interesting development to see fans getting involved in complaining to Apple instead of just the developers themselves. Although we've already seen high-profile pull-outs from notable Apple developers like Joe Hewitt who created the iPhone's Facebook applicationand Rogue Amoeba's Paul Kafasiswho quit after a three-and-a-half month delay in app approval, we've rarely heard complaints from users outside the tech blogosphere demanding the same. Could this mean "regular" folks are now becoming aware of Apple's issues too? Possibly. The 272 people who have signed the petition aren't all Apple developers or tech pundits. They're just people who want these apps approved. Hat tip to iLoungefor pointing to this petition.Discuss

  Today Adobe released new beta versions of the company's Flash Player and AIR. The Flash Player 10.1 technology now includes HTTP streaming and hardware decoding of H.264 video. The company plans to bring the updated Flash Player to mobile devices too, starting with the Palm Pre and then completing versions for other major smartphones by the first half of 2010 (with the notable exception of the iPhone, of course). However, out of the two updates, it's Adobe AIR 2that received the biggest overhaul. The new runtime allows developers to create entirely new types of applications that simply weren't possible using AIR 1. What sort of apps are those? Adobe's gallery of sample apps should give you some ideas of what's to come. Sponsor1. Mass Storage DetectionIn Adobe AIR 2, apps can now detect when a mass storage device has been inserted into the computer. That means the app can "see" your USB flash drives, external drives, and even some digital cameras. For example, developers could build an app that recognizes when your Flip camera is plugged in and lets you automatically upload videos to YouTube. To demo this capability, Adobe has released FileTile, a sample app that does just this (minus the video uploading). FileTile recognizes external devices and lets you see the files and open them with their default application. Download Installer| Source2. Native Process APIThe native process API allows developers to better integrate their AIR apps with existing code libraries or extend their apps using native code. With the new native process API, this can now be done without compromising the cross-platform capabilities of AIR which allows it to run on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Developers using this new functionality can now deploy their apps with operating-specific installers like .exe, .dmg, .rpm, and .deb instead of an .air installer file. To demonstrate the native process API, Adobe released SearchCentral, an application that taps into Mac OS X's Spotlight feature for desktop searches. It also lets you do web searches on Google and Wikipedia. Installer| Source| How toHere's a video explaining in more detail how the native API works:3. Microphone Data AccessLike it sounds, the microphone data access feature lets you acquire the sound data from a computer's microphone without the need of a server. For example, a developer could build a note-taking application that lets users record audio clips even when they're offline. To get started, a simple app called Microphone is now available which does recording and playback with variable playback speeds supported. Download Installer| Source| How to4. Drag-and-Drop Support for Remote FilesThe new "file promises" feature of AIR 2 lets you drag remote files out of an AIR application. A file promise, as described by Adobe's Christian Cantrell, is "what you put on the clipboard when you want the user to be able to drag and drop files that do not yet exist, or that exist elsewhere (not locally on your machine)." It's a promiseto deliver a file at some point, but not an actual file. For example, an app could generate a CSV file but only when a user tries to drag and drop the file. It could also refer to files on a remote server, like an FTP server. When a user grabs that remote file and pulls it into the AIR app, the app could then download the data. It even supports files accessible via a URL like those hosted on Google Sites. Unfortunately, this feature is Windows and Mac only. A sample app called S3E provides a graphical front-end to your Amazon S3 account to demonstrate this feature. Download Installer| Source| How to5. Peer-to-Peer Networking CapabilitiesAdobe AIR 2 also adds support for new networking capabilities including UDP, secure sockets and peer-to-peer. To demonstrate the possibilities, Adobe released KeePIPE, a javascript app that lets users on the same network share files using peer-to-peer technology. It also lets VMWare users transfer files between a virtual machine and a host computer. Download Installer| Source| Read me6. Multi-TouchPerhaps the most exciting enhancement in AIR 2 and in Flash Player 10.1 are the new multi-touch APIs. In Windows 7, AIR apps can respond to multi-touch and in both Windows 7 and Mac OS X Snow Leopard, they can respond to gestures. In this video (below), Adobe's Kevin Lynch demos a multi-touch app on an HP TouchSmart computer:Obviously, Adobe is excited about this new feature, too, because they've released not one but foursample applications that demonstrate multi-touch in action:GeoTest: Lets you move images around the screen using a built-in physics engine. Download Installer| SourcePhotoPhysics: A multi-touch app with a built-in physics engine. Download Installer| SourceSpriteFract: A multi-touch app with a built-in physics engine that demonstrates a mouse-compatible, direct-manipulation interface. It also uses PixelBender to asynchronously process a large amount of geometry data. Download Installer| SourceTouchTest: Lets you drag, scale, and rotate images on the screen. Download Installer| SourceOther FeaturesOther features in Adobe AIR 2 include the following (courtesy of Rob Christensen):A new API lets you open documents with its default application Global error handling Enhanced printing support, including vector printing support on Mac and new APIs to query the local machine for a list of printers or print without a dialog box. WebKit in AIR 2 is now based on the version shipped with Safari 4.0.3 which includes support for JavaScript profiling, SquirrelFish Extreme JavaScript engine performs 50% faster using SunSpider tests, CSS3 Module support (2D transformations, transitions, animations, gradients, zoom and WebKit CSS selectors), styling scrollbars via CSS and Canvas enhancements. IPv6 format addresses can now be used with all APIs that accept an IP string as input. Increased maximum size of NativeWindow: AIR 2 apps can have a window size of 4095 x 4095 where before the maximum was 2880 x 2880. DNS lookup Network interface enumeration Database transaction savepoints Screen reader support in Windows IME API and IME text input enhancement Smaller runtime installer sizes More efficient CPU usage and reduced memory size Adobe AIR 2 is available for download here on Adobe Labs. You can send Adobe feedback hereor participate on the user-to-user forums here.Discuss