The US real estate market may have fallen on hard times recently, but people still need to live somewhere. As a result, the rental market has recently experienced a revival, as many home owners who can't sell are being forced to become landlords to make mortgage and tax payments. Over 90% of the residential property rental market is controlled by small time owners -- i.e., those with under 50 units.These people are often small investors or casual landlords who do not have the resources to easily keep track of tenants, bills, expenses, advertising, etc. Investment Instruments is a web application provider that creates tools that make life a lot easier for small time landlords. Their premier tool is iiProperty, a full management suite for rental property owners.iiProperty is designed for people who manage between 1 and 55 units, and is built on Ruby on Rails. The management application handles a lot of the legwork of being a landlord. From tracking rental and tenant info, to automatic tenant billing and managing expenses (the service can even send out notices via postal mail to tenants), to cashflow and tax reports. iiProperty also handles the PR front, by letting users design and post "for rent" ads to popular web sites like Craigslist or Oodle. It's something like vFlyer, but focused on real estate.Where iiProperty really excels it taking the legwork out of being a landlord and keeping real estate investors on top of their properties. If one of your tenants is late on a payment, for example, iiProperty will let you know; if a lease is expiring soon, iiProperty will make sure you're kept aware. The application also lets landlords with multiple properties create a public-facing web site to help advertise their rentals (see an example).iiProperty ranges in price from free (forone unit) to $64.99/month for landlords who have more to manage.Investment Instruments also operates a consumer-facing rental site, Rentometer. I was very excited to see Rentometer, because something like it was one of the first ideas I had for the Facebook platform when it was launched last Spring. Little did I know that someone had already created my idea -- albeit not in Facebook (though Rentometer offers up their data through an API, so theoretically, someone could port the site to Facebook fairly easily).Rentometer is a painfully simple site that lets you check the price you're paying for rent against the median price for your area. The site gathers data from major public rental listings databases (like Craigslist, Rent.com and other classifieds sites) and mashes them up with Google Maps. iiProperty President Owen Johnson told me that the site probably has in the tens of millions of records -- that's a lot of rental data.Rentometer publishes a weekly report of the highest cost rental markets in the US. I'm sorry to inform that for last week, our friends in the Valley topped the listby a wide margin. The site also periodically releases rental reports for major college areas to help students not to get ripped off while renting an apartment or house. Below is a screenshot from the Rentometer report released for New York University this fall.

  digg_url = 'http://www.digg.com/playable_web_games/Moola_Opens_Massively_Multiplayer_Rewards_Game_to_Public';digg_bgcolor = '#ffffff';digg_skin = 'compact';Toronto, Canada-based Moolahas been operating an invite-only beta for a little over 18 months and will on Friday open their site to the public (they'll be officially launching at the TechCrunch Meetup in Boston). Moola has created a multiplayer online game network in which people compete head-to-head for real money. That's nothing new, but Moola's hook is that the site is completely free. You can't deposit money into Moola, instead you earn your starting funds by looking at ads before playing games. Moola is calling their creation a Massively Multiplayer Rewards Game (MMRG).Here's how it works: Moola fronts users a penny to start, which puts you at the bottom rung of a thirty step ladder. Every time you win a game, you double your money, every time you lose, you fall all the way to the bottom and start over with a penny. If you win 30 times in a row, you walk away with $10.7 million (though you can cash out at any time, so risking a few thousand in an online head-to-head game at the middle levels is probably not that smart).Moola has grown to 175,000 users since it launched the invite-only beta in 2006. Moola CEO Arlen Ritchie told me that recently the site has been getting a lot more traffic to their home page than they have registered users, which indicated that there is interest from people who don't have invites. So, now seemed like the perfect time to open the doors to the site.Ritchie acknowledged that it is unlikely anyone will ever win the $10 million prize because most people wouldn't be crazy enough to risk $5 million to try for it -- in fact, twopeople would have to be that crazy. Of course, you don't have to wager it all on each game. You can play in any bracket below your account balance, and Ritchie told me that most people keep a positive balance rather than wagering all their cash at once. And even if winning the big one may never happen, a lot of real money is being made on Moola. The top player right now has over $8,000 and the highest cash out was in the $5,500 range. Users on the site have exchanged over $4 million so far (though that figure may count the same money being traded back and forth between users multiple times and doesn't represent the amount paid out).Because it is unlikely anyone will make big money from the games, most users will either stay in a low game bracket (a few cents), which the ads will cover for Moola, or they will make money via Moola's other options -- at which Moola always makes money.Other Ways to Make MoolaIn addition to games, Moola enables users to make money by searching on their Moola Searchpage. Powered by Google Custom Search, Moola employs an algorithm that measures how much people search, weeds out illegitimate searches and clicks, and then shares ad revenue with searchers. You might only make a few pennies per day, but that money can be used to play Moola games and bump you into a higher playing bracket.Moola also lets people make cash via what they call "Boosters" -- or, a cash back program based on affiliate marketing. Shopping at any of Booster's affiliated online stores results in cash deposited in your account. Moola supports a lot of major online retailers including Hotels.com, Buy.com, Travelocity, Skype, Old Navy, and NewEgg.The final way Moola enables users to make money, is via a 4-level referral program. Refer friends, and take a cut of anything they do on the site, whether that's search payouts, Booster Zone payouts, or game winnings.BoosterBarAlong with opening the site to the public, Moola will be announcing a toolbar that is really centered around their shopping and search revenue streams. They've built the Moola search into the bar, which makes it more convenient for people. It is the slick shopping integration, however, that will garner more interest. Any site you visit on the Internet that is a Moola affiliate will register on the bar and allow you to log into your account so your shopping is eligible for cash back. That lets people shop on the web as normal, rather than have to first page through the site's directory of affiliates -- something Moola expects most people aren't keen on doing.If an ecommerce site is not a Moola partner, the BoosterBar will suggest an alternative that is in their affiliate network. Ritchie tells me that initial feedback from partners on this feature is tremendous. They love being able to steal visitors away from competition right at the point of sale.Eventually, the game playing side of Moola will be integrated into the toolbar, allowing users to set up games and then surf the web while waiting for an opponent -- which can take longer at the higher levels where competition is more thin. Ritchie told me that the plan down the line is to add social features, such as chat or messaging, to the toolbar to augment the community that has grown up around Moola. Apparently, some users have taken to organizing their own tournaments based around Moola's games (you can set up one-on-one matches with specific players on the site).The GamesFor the cornerstone of the site, the games are rather weak. Moola has created three proprietary games for the site, with a fourth currently in development. Moola's line up includes a rock, paper, scissors game (*yawn*), Hi-Lo (*yawn*), and a bidding game where you try to out smart your opponent (not the most thrilling experience, but it held my attention longer than the others). But, Moola is in the planning stages of an API that would allow third-party developers to add games to Moola. They're currently in talks with two unnamed developers to create additional content prior to the release of a public API. (And they are soliciting queries from other interested game developers at gamedev@moola.com.)Moola developers would be able to make money from both the advertising on the games, as well as take a cut of the money that changes hands between players. Ritchie also told me that the plan is to allow developers to "Moola-ize" their games outside of the site. So, for example, Microsoft could add Moola functionality to Halo 3 on XBox Live and then Moola members could organize Halo matches and play each other for cash.ConclusionNothing at Moola is very revolutionary. Cash back shopping? Seen it. Competitive gaming? Seen it. Revenue share on search? Seen it. Multilevel referral program? Seen it. But they appear to have packaged everything up in a tidy manner, and the coming API for games is exciting. Winning money playing online games without putting any of your own cash up makes it a lot more fun (I'm up to $0.22 -- time to retire!), and the prospect of less snooze-worthy games from third-party developers sounds great.It took Moola members 10 months to play for the first $1 million. The last million took about 4 months. The next million is on track to cross through Moola in just 55 days. Once the site opens up, those millions will probably be flying about at a more rapid rate.

  Is Amazon supporting Open Social? If they are, that would be big news. If they have decided not to, that would be big news too. We reported last nightthat Amazon was announcing support for the Google-led protocol, along with a number of other smaller announcements.We've been on the phone and email with Amazon's PR department all day today. It's been a great example of the challenges any of these huge companies face in trying to be either Open or Social, much less both.The long and short of it is this: Amazon has nothing to say; they told us they did, but they don't. If they do have anything to say they would like to say it through words put into my mouth. Thanks, Amazon. I don't think you've got much Openness to bring to my Social even if that is what you intend to do.Here's the time-line.1. Amazon approached us a week ago with a draft press release. They told us this release was "big news."It was announcing support for Open Social, the "first ever" access to Unbox and MP3 files for affiliates (actually not true, it's been months since that happened) and the availability of new RSS feeds for things like most popular items in various categories. Did you know that there's been no RSS feeds for top selling items in categories at Amazon.com? Well, there is now - and they were so excited that they figured it out, that they wrote it up in a press release. 2. The press release, though clearly a draft (not uncommon, PR people send us draft releases all the time), is dated November 15th. So 12:00 AM EST on the 15th arrived last night and I wrote up a post - after figuring out at the last minute that the claims in the release about "first ever" access to MP3s are the kind of information that uninformed journalists fall for and power users laugh at us for printing. Typical of too much PR practice, someone's trying to trick me, not make both our jobs easier. I added snark to my post about this, but I took it out just to be decent - it was clearly a draft release and there's no need to be nasty more than I really need to be.3. Post went up, I had a nice night vacuuming my living room floor.4. In the morning I woke up to a flurry of emails. According to an email sent to one of our writers at 11:59 PM EST the night before one minute before the release time- they threw on the brakes. Our writer wasn't awake and didn't see it until the morning, when we both received more emails insisting that we remove the post, that the release "was never issued," no statement's been made, it's not true and it's still under embargo anyway. Frustrating, but funny.5. I then put up an update reading:"Update: Amazon contacted us this morning to let us know that though they sent us a draft press release, they are not in fact making any such announcement, they are not supporting OpenSocial and if they were it would still be under embargo anyway despite the date on said release."I twittered about the absurdity of it all and Valleywag picked up the story. It was Read/WriteWeb's second appearance on Valleywag today and we felt naughty by association.6. I talked to various Amazon people throughout the day on the phone, refusing (very nicely) to take down the story or remove all references to Open Social. They did not like the update I posted.They were not happy, but they were nice enough about it. What can you do when dealing with a blogger? Weare so irrational and hard to communicate with! I offered to post a different update if they'd like to send me a statement. I meant a statement from them.7. They sent me the following."Since the publication of this post, an Amazon spokesperson contacted me to clarify that no announcement was made in regards to support for Open Social. The Amazon spokesperson went on to say that Social network developers have been using the Amazon Associates Web Service to merchandise Amazon products (and earn Associates commissions) for some time. She indicated that Amazon would continue to provide developers with tools that allow them to choose the platform that makes the most sense for them regardless of the Social networking site they are building on. She pointed out..." blah blah blah.I cannot believe they'd send me text written in the first person and expect me to post it under my own name! Not to mention the really uptight language they've got that puppet named Marshall using! I tried to mock them coyly but without cruelty at the top of the original post.The Grand FinaleThe conclusion of this ridiculous story is that I've put up this post here.In some ways, this isn't about communicating with bloggers at all. When one billion dollar company is considering interacting formally with other billion dollar companies - why would you tell press about it before everyone is sure and why would you just generally drop the ball like this?In regards to this particular situation, though, Amazon is probably not alone in a group that includes Google, MySpace, Bebo and a long list of other giant companies in not understanding what it means to be Open or Social. If these people can't communicate like human beings with a blogger going out of my way to be nice to them, why on earth should I be excited about their finding religion and embracing the OpenSocial Brand Platform?

  digg_url = 'http://digg.com/gadgets/5_Essential_Mobile_Web_Apps';digg_bgcolor = '#ffffff';digg_skin = 'compact';This week we ran a contest asking you to tell us your favorite Mobile Web apps. We got over 50 comments and there were 5 Mobile Web apps that clearly stood out, with multiple mentions. Here then is the top 5, which will be useful to people new to the Mobile Web and wondering what all the fuss is about! We've also listed all the other Mobile Web apps mentioned in our contest post, at the bottom of this page.1. Gmail Java app for mobile phone: this was noted by 18 people in the comments of our original post. This app is a Java-based version of Gmail for mobile, which features IMAP sync, attachment viewing. Phrases that were associated with Gmail for mobile by our readers included: "just works", "simplicity", "functional", "useful", "a joy to use". Commenter "mr white" said of the Gmail java app: "This *is* clearly the path of the future. All your e-mails, all the time, everywhere. No more tedious synching with this outlook / that outlook and the webmailer. Now bring on calendar and contacts." Nathan commented: "A very nice frontend onto a very nice service, and it does a rather nice job of reformatting files for the tiny screen. That's the sort of feature you don't actually appreciate until you're out in the countryside with nary a hardline in sight and need an address that was wrapped up in a .doc in your inbox that you forgot to print."2. Google Maps for Mobile: mentioned by 11 people. This too is a Java app, which Google released in December 2006. There is also a full-featured version, including GPS Integration, which can be used on Windows Mobile PocketPCs and smartphones. According to our readers, utilityis the key factor for this app.Phil commented: "...my favourite app has to be Google Maps for mobile (on my Sony Ericsson k800i). I use it a lot, from finding my way about places (I've lived in London a year and still have no idea where I'm going most of the time) to turning to the satellite view and impressing friends with the detail I can get on my mobile. The clarity of the maps, one of the main apps benefits that really shines in the mobile version, negates my need for a real map any more, though any time I'm stuck without signal I'm probably also lost too. I'd recommend Google Maps to anyone (with an unlimited or generous data plan and 3G, the maps can be pretty big!)."Simon uses Google Maps on his N95, noting that "it's fast, plays nicely with GPS and I hope it really pushes Nokia's own mapping."g0at commented: "My favorite web app is Google Maps. It seamlessly blends the divide of a local application, and web app (as every good web app should). Incredibly useful stuff."Mr Gunn also uses Google Maps on a Nokia. He says "they've [Google] got a Symbian native version that blows the java version away. The N75 and 95 have better screens so they look better than the iphone already, but the symbian native program runs so much faster, too."3. Opera Mini: noted by 10 people. Not strictly speaking a web app, but still it's something a lot of people want to download to use as their mobile web browser. Also the recent 4.0 release impressed a few of our commenters. The new features in Opera Mini 4 include quicker scrolling, auto-sizing and faster page rendering. It seems to be the mobile web browser of choice for our readers - odd though that Safari on iPhone got no mentions?!Jono commented: "It's better than my Nokia's built in browser for many sites because it doesn't get bogged down and run out of memory, plus it saves you money because everything is compressed through Opera's servers."Miss Universe noted: "The latest version of Opera mobile allows for full page zoom-outs that enable magnification of a specific area of the Web Page."Marat uses Opera Mini "to check gmail, greader and search the web."Sean said: "I love how it intelligently modifies web pages (even if it does have to go through their servers)."4. Fring: noted by 5 people. Fring is a free mobile VoIP software, that lets you connect to all your IM services and talk for free when connected to 3G or Wi-Fi.Honor Gunday commented: "It allows me to connect to all the IM networks I am part of : Gtalk, MSN, Skype, ICQ and chat, also it allows me to make mobile calls to Gtalk users when they are online and I am mobile. Normally, I would have to pay money to call them, but this calls right to their desktop and works perfectly fine over a slow GPRS connection even. I tested at least 6 apps to come to the conclusion that Fring is the winner among mobile IM/VOIP software."Uri said: "The all-in-one IM client with great interface and Skype gateway, just makes my wi-fi Nokia e65 a portable skype phone & messenger. It's very useful when sitting at home on a couch not near the desk or simply in Caffes."5. Shozu: noted by 4 people. Shozu enables you to send your videos and photos from your phone to the Web - e.g. your Flickr account, YouTube, Facebook. The Flickr use case was the one most cited by Read/WriteWeb readers.Anne Helmond commented: "My favorite app for my N95 is definitely Shozu which enables me to send my pictures to Flickr with just one click. It is the perfect application for Flickr addicts and very easy to install and use. You can enable updates on the photos of your contacts (ZuCasts) and comments on your photos. You can also upload your videos to YouTube but I haven't used that option yet."Honor said: "It allows me to send the pictures I take with my n80 to Facebook and share with my friends, or email people pictures while I am at an event, shopping for stuff for them etc..."Honorable MentionsThe following Mobile Web apps were mentioned at least once in our original post. Please add more to the comments. Also we'd like to hear which websites and blogs have the best mobile features. Here is the mobile version of Read/WriteWeb, but we have more work to do yet for it.WidSetsOggPlayInstaller.app for the iPhonehttp://xpenser.comnetvibesNextbus.comYahoo goZuCastsgreader TomTomfacebookAgile Messenger Jaiku client CalciumWindows Live Mobilehttp://seeqpod.com/mFeedM8London Underground journey plannerFT.com newsreaderemozeLiteFeedsflickrRadarwww.waterfallmobile.comMail for ExchangeJottGrandcentralTop image by jorgeq

  YouMonitor.Usis a distributed peer-to-peer monitoring service that puts your web site to work monitoring other sites for downtime, while other sites keep an eye on yours. The service is free, provided that you volunteer some CPU cycles and bandwidth from your server to monitor other sites, and YMU provides detailed downtime reports and instant notification of outages via SMS or email.The way it works is fairly simple. Once you've signed up, you're prompted to install a script on your web server (they offer it in PHP, JSP, ASP and Perl). The script receives monitoring tasks from the YMU Control Center, and pings other web sites about 10 times per minute. Other web sites in the network will ping your site up to 5 times per minute. If anything is amiss on your site, a text message or email will be dispatched, and you'll also get regular reports about your site's activity over time.The resource consumption by the script is very a low, according to YMU - approximately equal to 10 page views per minute. According to their site, running the script 100 times per minute would result in a modest CPU usage of 2-3%, memory usage of 8.5-9.5 MB, and bandwidth of 200 B/s for HTTP monitoring and 2 KB/s for HTTP transaction.For now, the site is free to use as long as you agree to participate in the monitoring network by offering up your server to monitor other web sites. In the future, the site plans to offer a paid subscription model that would allow people to receive monitoring but not dish it out. The current planned pricing model is $9.99/month for 60 checks per hour; $29.99/month for 300 checks per hour; $4.99 for every 60 additional checks per hour, though that could change.YMU is a pretty interesting concept. I haven't seen any other sites doing P2P web site monitoring, but it makes sense. Because all the service's clients are also providing the computers that are doing the monitoring, you get pinged from all over the global Internet. YouMonitor.Us currently has network computers operating on every continent (save Antarctica), and their coverage should grow as the service grows. As long as the resource consumption from running the script is negligible, as the company claims, and the script is secure -- which they also claim -- this could be a popular, cost effective, and useful service for webmasters.

  Peter Rojas, the man who was present at the founding of both of the two most linked-to blogs on the internet (Engadget and Gizmodo), launched the online music site he's working on today. Called RCRD LBL(record label without the vowels, you know how unhip vowels are, why not get rid of them all?) the site hasn't been accessible since it went live. Update:Rojas stopped by to leave a comment saying the site was back up and sure enough it is. I'm getting a musical education already.None the less, here's the details. RCRD LBL will provide free, DRM-free music for download and streaming. It will be ad supported and the company simply asks on its site that you not reuse the music for commercial purposes. We'll see how well that works, but there's really no viable alternative. "In a world where many people get their music for free," the folks behind the experiment say, "we wanted to create a site where bands we loved could put their music out there for free AND get paid for it." Music can be downloaded, it can be streamed and it can be listened to through a widget embedded on any web page or on the OSX dashboard.Comparisons to the awful SpiralFrog, another ad-supported music site that was more or less born dead, fall short; SpiralFrog is thoroughly locked down with DRM and it's full of bands you've heard of before.At RDCRD LBL's launch 10 record labels are participating so the selection is limited. I'm not hip enough to have heard of more than just a few of these bands, but I'll check them out once the site is up.The RCRD LBL site, bless its overworked little heart, was designed by New York's Gelo Factory, who have worked on a variety of projects ranging from the Rhizomeart community blog to the social site of the AARP.

  digg_url = 'http://digg.com/tech_news/MyOffice_Full_Featured_Groupware_Tool_on_Facebook';digg_bgcolor = '#ffffff';digg_skin = 'compact';Earlier this week, I posted lamentingthe lack of a good office/groupware collaboration tool in Facebook. Many of the commenters wondered why I would ever want such a thing. "I don't see the point of office style apps inside facebook. Your only going to get side tracked by being attacked by a Pirate, Ninja, [INSERT ANY OBJECT]," quipped reader Darren Stuart. "If you look for productivity in a social-networking site, you would not find it," said Joseph Pally. But I still think it's a good idea, and in this post I will attempt to defend why I think that and review a recently launched Facebook groupware app.The reason I gave in Monday's piece was convenience. Right now, I have Basecamp projects open with four different groups, meaning I have to remember passwords to four different Basecamps. That is in addition to the hundreds of sites I already have to remember passwords for for other things I do online. The more you can get the things you do under a single umbrella, the less work you have to do get to work.One of the arguments made against the idea a productivity app in Facebook was that Facebook is for socializing, not work. That may be true, but work issocial, and it is clear that Facebook has designs on professional networks like LinkedIn and Xing. In the past few months they added "Networking" to the looking for options, and some peoplehave already started using Facebook for professional networking. More useful work and productivity apps will likely find an audience at Facebook among those people.Further, there is an untapped market of college students -- the site's core user base -- that could benefit from having a simple groupware tool to use for organizing and collaborating on school projects, who have likely not heard of Basecamp, GoPlan, and the rest. Because many college students already spend so much time on Facebook, having that tool right there are their disposal would be helpful, not a hindrance. If you really can't ignore the Pirate vs. Ninja requests for a few hours to get some work done, you may need your doctor to up your dose of Adderall because the ADD is getting bad.Also in the comments of my post Monday, a reader directed us to a recently launched Facebook groupware tool called MyOffice. Built by three Columbia University students, the application is far closer to the type of thing I was looking for when I began writing.While MyOffice is certainly not a replacement for Basecamp, it is definitely a step in that direction and a useful tool for students working on group projects. MyOffice includes a private discussion board, file sharing, a schedule, and to-do lists. Each of the tools are very basic and could use some added functionality (like the ability to assign priority to tasks, for example, or to create more than one separate task list, or the ability to attach files to discussion board posts), and it would be hard for me to switch from Basecamp to any tool that didn't include a Writeboard equivalent. Though limited in functionality, however, the tools are all easy to use and work well. Each project gets its own dashboard with a helpful activity stream that keeps you on top of the latest moves by team members.MyOffice may be basic, but the foundation is there for a solid groupware/productivity tool, and it is certainly enough for students. This is the sort of application I have been hoping to see more of ever since the launch of the Facebook platform -- apps that are useful, and simplify our lives outside of Facebook by bringing the things we use each day into a single location. I hope this is the start of trend in the Facebook application ecosystem.

  digg_url = 'http://digg.com/tech_news/IBM_Unveils_Blue_Cloud_What_Data_Would_You_Like_to_Crunch';digg_bgcolor = '#ffffff';digg_skin = 'compact';IBM announced this morningthat it will be rolling out cloud computing services for corporations in the Spring of 2008. More than just a beautiful turn of phrase, cloud computing is a paradigm that leverages a distributed architecture to carry out massive processing tasks online, instead of on a single computer. The program, called Blue Cloud, is set to compete at least indirectly with Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud, or EC2. In theory, cloud computing will usher in an era wherein innovation based on massive data processing becomes affordable for almost any company, no matter how small. The possibilities are exciting; I think of the huge benefits we've seen from the network effect of users aggregating their activities online and the thought of leveraging a related paradigm for processing power seems fantastic. I hope we'll get to see the direct application of such an approach, but cloud computing could remain an activity of big, stuffy organizations only. Any semantic web companies interested in both heavy processing and avoiding investment from In-Q-Tel, the CIA's investment arm that's ubiquitous in the semantic web sector, might appreciate improved cloud computing options. IBM's hardly got a perfect record historically, either, but nobody's perfect.IBM announced last montha collaboration with Google to promote cloud computing in academic institutions. Though from the consumer perspective working with Google sounds promising, Google has seen very limited success with large organizations. Similarly, RedMonkanalyst James Governor argues that the real story behind Blue Cloud is that "IBM is miles behind the real players in this space and needed to win some breathing room." "I see no evidence IBM gets Cloud Computing, " Monk said. "IBM is addicted to its own scale, so it doesn't fully understand web effects. What's Blue Coud? Enterprise EC2/S3 but without customers and developers at this point."Amazon's showcase customers for EC2are mostly tiny, random startups, so it's hard to know the extent of adoption, but the potential is big. The market for time on single Super Computers is substantial, so in theory cloud computing should see a lot of demand as well. Is cloud computing set to become commoditized? That probably goes without saying. What direction will it move in then? I can't help but think that IBM is uniquely prepared to add a layer of business services on top of their cloud. It's mornings like this that I wish I was more engaged in the enterprise space - this sounds like a whole lot of fun.Larry Dignan at ZDNet, a writer far more informed on enterprise matters than I, says that "It’s still early to ponder the enterprise cloud possibilities, but it can’t hurt to mull over the issues. The cloud will be hovering over your corporation shortly." There's also some informed discussion over at DataCenterKnowledge. Interested in other large scale, futuristic work at IBM? Check out this posthere on Read/WriteWeb earlier this year from guest authors Martin Wattenberg and Fernanda B. Viégas, two researchers behind IBM's Many Eyes program.

  LaunchBox Digitalis a new early-stage investment firm that opened its doors yesterday in Washington, D.C. Founded by Julius Genachowski, former Chief of Business Operations at IAC, Sean Greene, founder of the Away Travel Network, and John McKinley, former CTO and President of Digital Services at AOL, the company will make small, seed investments in the style popularized by Y Combinatorand TechStars. LaunchBox Digital will invest between $15,000 and $30,000 in fledgling Internet companies in exchange for a 4-8% stake.Like the investment firms it is modeled after, LaunchBox Digital will offer startups more than just cash. Startups chosen for investment during their initial investment cycle, will be required to spend 12 weeks in Washington, D.C. and will have access to business advisors and the chance to trot their businesses out in front of angels and venture capitalists who can invest in the companies further. Unlike Y Combinator, startups participating in the LaunchBox Digital program will be required to find their own accommodations while in D.C.As cost of entry for Internet businesses goes down, small, early-stage investments are getting more and more attractive to investors. Instead of betting the bank on a handful of large investments, investors can scatter their money over a larger number of startups and increase their chances that something will stick. "There's a capital gap emerging as venture funds get larger and put more money to work per deal, but as cost to start companies go down, it gets harder for early stage companies to figure out where to go to get early stage funding," Julius Genachowski told Reuters.LaunchBox Digital has an impressive listof advisors lined up, including Dick Costolo from Feedburner, Scott Ferber from Advertising.com, Tom and David Gardner from The Motley Fool, former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt, Jon Miller, ex-CEO of AOL, and Ross Levinsohn, former President of Fox Interactive. During the 12-week program, the firm will set up a weekly series of Advisor Programs in which people on their list will speak with participants.The firm is currently accepting applications for their first program, LaunchBox08, which will begin in May, 2008. Applications are due at the end of February. Those interested in seed funding, but not the mentoring program, can also submit proposals to LaunchBox Digital.

  digg_url = 'http://digg.com/tech_news/Who_is_Blogging_and_Why_Is_the_Blogosphere_in_a_Digestion_Phase';digg_bgcolor = '#ffffff';digg_skin = 'compact';Last week Marshall and I attended the Blog World Expoconference.The gathering, held in Las Vegas, drew over 1,500 bloggers from different parts of the country and overseas. The conference lasted just over a day and ahalf and had sessions that focused on a wide range of topics interesting to bloggers - from tools to money making.It was a good conference and we had several interesting conversations, but I walked away with a strange feeling.Somehow it seemed that blogging just isn't that hot anymore. The feeling has been exacerbated by the latest slow downin news. My feeds just do not update that often these days. Can it be that the digestion phaseapplies to blogs just as itapplies to startups? In this post we'll investigate whether the blogosphere is going through a digestion phase.Blogging Trends and StatsBefore looking at different use cases lets take a look at some trends and charts.According to Google Trends, blogas a trend has been slowing down, while bloggingnever reallyhad much velocity.On the other hand, if we compare blogto newspaperwe clearly see that blog is on the riseand that newspaper is on the decline.According to David Sifry's postin April of this year, the blogosphere is experiencingexponential growth. The chart below indicates that Technorati alone indexed almost 35 million blogs in just 3 years - really quite a mind boggling number. The blogosphere has been doubling in that time about every 6 months, which means that if the trend held, there should be over 70 million blogs now.Such phenomenal growth is even more surprising because there are simply not that many people who blog professionally. Sure there is money to be made via advertisements, but the amount is directly correlated with traffic. And traffic is not evenly distributed, it's skewed toward a handful of popular blogs. What mustaccount for the growth in Sifry's chart is the long tail. That is, people who are getting online to talk about their life, and connect with their familyand friends and don't care if only a few people read their blogs. Like everything else, blogging requires motivation. What is the driving force behind the blogosphere?Lets take a look at different blogging groups and understand why people invest time into blogging.Professional BloggingIt would be interesting to know how many bloggers from the Technorati Top 100 list blog professionally.Likely not all of them. Beyond this list, we would probably see a sharp power law curve - making a living froma blog is difficult. In each vertical - gadgets, technology, politics, celebrity gossip - there are a few very successful blogsthat get a large volume of traffic. In the long tail, and even in the middle tier, there is simply not enough traffic to run a blog as a sustainable business.The separation can be seen in many ways - traffic charts, Feedburner subscribers, MyBlogLog community size, and average amount of comments per post.The advertising prices between top tier blogs and middle tier blogs differ by an order of magnitude - thousands of dollars per month for a 125x125 banner advs. at most, a few hundred for the same kind of advertising.The image above is from geckoandfly.com.Many aspire to make money by starting a blog on a niche topic, but very few succeed. Darren Rowse, over at ProBloggerhas been running a fantastic blogon how to make money online, and in his latest pollDarren asked his readers how much money they made from blogging in October:At best, 10% out of 1,300+ respondents made decent money. And likely most of the people who indicated they made over $15,000are likely blogging in one of a handful of lucrative niches. A quarter of the voters made no money at all. Of those who attempted to make money,most did not make much. What is the story behind these bloggers? We look at them next.Blogging for Business and PleasureTyler Colman, has a PhD in Political Science and Economics and writes a popular wine blog called Dr. Vino.The blog has been honored with many awards and has a good number of loyal readers. Just by spending a few minutes on the blog you will know thatthis is a labor of love. Yet, there are ads. A couple of ads are for wineries and wine equipment, an ad for Wine Searchers, topped byan out-of-place ad to search Amazon. And of course a long strip of Google AdWords. It is not likely that Tyler makes $15,000+ a month fromthese ads. So why does he do it?Like many people, Tyler does not like to leave the money on the table. Even if it is only $300 the money can be used to buy piano lessons for his kids or help fund an expensive hobby - like wine collecting. Mixing business and pleasure in blogs is common, particularlywhen blogging about a hobby. Since advertising is widely accepted on the web,blog readers readily accept it, and so bloggers have nothing to lose by adding them, even if it is obvious that the ads are not a huge money maker.Blogging for a CauseMoney is the primary motivation for a lot of bloggers, but even more bloggers just don't care if their blog brings in any cash.They are blogging because they are passionate about a cause. We explored two big causes - religion and politics.We used Technorati buzz charts to compare Christianitywith Islamand Democratswith Republicans.A couple of conclusions follow from the charts above. First, there is a bit more chatter about Islam than about Christianity.Secondly, Democrats are out-blogging Republicans. And, finally, people appear to be more passionate about politics than about religion,at least when it comes to blogging. Politics and religion are just two issues that people blog passionately about, though. There are blogs about education, sports, non-profit work, the environment, etc.Personal BlogsMoney making blogs and causes make up just a fraction of the blogosphere. The long tail is all about self-expression.Most people started blogging to stay in touch with their friends and family. As an example of this trend, the latest platform fromSix Apart, Vox, is specifically designed around family and friends.Vox is important because it recognizes the value of blogging around a community. The platform is a responseto the fact that it is otherwise difficult to keep track of blogs by friends and family members. Because of this, most blogs inthe long tail have not enjoyed a vibrant life. Because RSS readers are still not widely in use, the only way many people know tokeep up-to-date with a blog is by bookmarking it and checking once it a while.Clearly this does not scale and that is why older platforms have not been able to really connect people.Six Apart was not the only company to recognize the problem. In a way, generic social networks like MySpace and more recentlyFacebook have also exploited this flaw. Both have added some type of blogging to their social networking platforms and connected people with their friends by piping the updates into user profiles.This tight integration, along with the rapid rise of microblogging, is causing a bit of a shift, at least in the long tail.We will discuss the rising battle between traditional blogs, microblogging and social networks in a follow on post, but in the mean time, we turn to yet another kind of blog - spam blogs.Spam BloggingMost posts find their way through the blogosphere only to be republished on so called splogs (spam blogs).These fake blogs work by scraping the content of legitimate blogs, republishing it, driving traffic via search engines and sellingads. They are completely useless, but are clever pipes that just make money for the owner with little-to-no work. Very little can be done to stopthese blogs, since they've gotten great at remixing the content. They are so good sometimes that you do not realizeright away that you are reading a fake blog.Over a year ago, Charles C. Mann wrote in Wiredabout the rise of spam blogs.Mann's article provides an indepth discussion on how and why these blogs are created. Another article, published in March 2006, cites a study that found thatthere are more than twiceas many fake blogs as real ones.If that was the case a year and a half ago, today it is might possibly be 10:1. And since it is really easy to create a spam blog, the ratio is only likely to increase.ConclusionSo what is going to happen to blogosphere? Can it sustain its current rate of growth? The growth of professional blogs might not be there, but likely, the blogosphere is going to continue to grow (if anything, because of an increasing amount of spam). But there is likely to be a correction.The long-tail of the blogosphere might be in danger. Spam is only a part of it, but competition from social networks and microbloggingplatforms is quite significant. Only time will tell how things play out.Please tell us why you blog. Does making money on your blog matter to you? What do you see in the future for the blogosphere? Is the blogosphere going through a digestion phase?

  Update: Since the publication of this post, Amazon's PR people have contacted me a number of times to request that we remove this coverage based on a draft press release they sent us last week. I said I would not remove the post or all references to Open Social (their Plan B) but that I would post a clarifying statement if they wanted to send me one. The following is what they sent."Since the publication of this post, an Amazon spokesperson contacted me to clarify that no announcement was made in regards to support for Open Social. The Amazon spokesperson went on to say that Social network developers have been using the Amazon Associates Web Service to merchandise Amazon products (and earn Associates commissions) for some time. She indicated that Amazon would continue to provide developers with tools that allow them to choose the platform that makes the most sense for them regardless of the Social networking site they are building on. She pointed out that Social network developers continue to use Amazon’s infrastructure web services, Amazon S3 and Amazon EC2, to create and scale applications on popular Social networking sites."And now, the original post in question...Amazon is announcing tonight the addition of some of the hottest items in its catalog to its widely popular affiliate program, its support for OpenSocial and a new level of support for RSS.Digital Assets Now For SaleSpecifically, the thousands of full-length movie downloads offered by the year-old Amazon Unbox and the millions of DRM-free MP3 songs in the new Amazon MP3 service will be purchasable through affiliate links anywhere on the web. There's a whole lot that you can buy and sell through affiliate links to Amazon, but until now digital assets like movies and DRM-free MP3s were not among them. Unbox affiliate sales have been available for weeks and MP3s for a month. Affiliate program participants are receiving 20% commission on movies and up to 20% on MP3s during the initial introductory period.Though there is already a thriving trade in physical goods using Amazon affiliate links, these digital assets are likely to be much hotter selling items.Amazon Goes OpenSocialAdditionally, the company is announcing its support for the Google-led OpenSocial protocol. The company says that starting tomorrow all "applications developers build with the Amazon Associates Web Service will work on all social networking sites that use Open Social." I won't claim to understand the affiliate program well enough to know why OpenSocial based apps couldn't use Amazon affiliate links prior to now, but I do know that Amazon is offering its own Facebook app called MP3Download Sampler - which anyone can add to their profile pages to display their favorite songs and links to buy.RSS Feeds Now AvailableFinally, Amazon's support for RSS, which has frustrated affiliate program participants in the past, has been upgraded. Believe it or not, until now there was no RSS feed officially available for the best selling goods in any category. With this announcement, there will be and that will be another way for affiliates to keep their links timely.I'm guessing that it's the opening of MP3 and Unbox to the affiliate program that will probably make the biggest impact. I'm not a big OpenSocial fan, though, so I may be underestimating the impact of that part of the announcement.

  On our network blog last100, Natalie Fonseca is covering the NewTeeVee Liveevent. One of the panels todayfeatured VCs talking about funding for the Internet TV market. Depending on who was talking - and the panel included VCs who have backed online video startups like Veoh and Heavy.com - the outlook for VC investments "varied from treacherous to less treacherous", reported Natalie. She wrote:"Entertainment-lawyer-turned-VC Dennis Miller of Spark Capital warned that there are already investors who are becoming “roadkillâ€� and there will be more roadkill ahead. George Zachary of Charles River Ventures generally agreed that there aren’t a lot of Google-like opportunities in video now that will pay mega-dividends to early investors. Instead, Zachary thinks the money isn’t in the content but in the social networks that are built around content.Mike Hirshland of Polaris Venture Partners was more optimistic about the possibility for at least a few companies to reach the critical mass needed to really take off — and to pay off for VCs who’ve taken a chance on them."Other NewTeeVee Live coverage on last100:NewTeeVee Live: Brief Q&A with YouTube’s Steve ChenNewTeeVee Live: Can the network cope with Internet TV?NewTeeVee Live: VCs predict an uncertain future for Internet TV startupsNewTeeVee Live: MTV exec proposes antidote to piracyNewTeeVee Live: AT&T’s vision for IPTV

  A 17-year-old Dutch teenager was arrested by very real police for allegedly stealing over $5800 worth of virtual furniture to trick out his pad in online world Habbo Hotel. Five other teenagers were questioned in connection with the virtual crime spree, according to the BBC.Habbo, which attracts more than 6 million users in over 30 countries each month, is comparable to Second Life in that people use the service to create a virtual likeness to inhabit an online world. A lot of real money changes hands in Habbo in order to purchase virtual goods used by people to personalize their online experience. That real money was involved is what got the police interested in the theft."It is a theft because the furniture is paid for with real money. But the only way to be a thief in Habbo is to get people's usernames and passwords and then log in and take the furniture," said a Habbo spokesperson.It might be easy to draw a comparison to another type of oft-discussed virtual theft: downloading of copyright songs and movies. But there are some clear differences. First, unlike piracy, where the original is left intact and it is really a copy being stolen, the people who paid for the virtual goods in this case were left without any pixels. And second, the virtual thieves' methods were a bit more nefarious -- they lured Habbo Hotel users into giving up their passwords by creating fake Habbo sites.According to the BBC, virtual theft is a growing problem. "In 2005 a Chinese gamer was stabbed to death in a row over a sword in a game," writes the paper. "Shanghai gamer Qiu Chengwei killed player Zhu Caoyuan when he discovered he had sold a 'dragon sabre' he had been loaned." In August, Business Week ran an articlediscussing whether virtual currency exchanges that trade in real money, like the one operated in Second Life, required real world regulation following the theft of the equivalent of $10,000 from the Linden Dollar Exchange.

  As more and more sites launch their own development platforms, we've been slowly starting to see a trend of applications trying to make the jump outside of the platform to which they owe their roots and try to make it as standalone sites or multi-site applications. We saw the Where I've Been Facebook application make the jump to MySpacein September, and attempt to build an external travel destination site.Last night, the Clever Hippo search engine, a Facebook application that helps search and rate other Facebook applications (see AltSearchEngine's coverage) soft-launched the new version of their vertical search engine at CleverHippo.org. The site has expanded beyond the friendly confines of Facebook, and now searches applications from a wide variety of web platforms. The site currenctly indexes apps for Facebook, OpenSocial, HTML (i.e., MySpace, Netvibes, iGoogle, etc.), iPhone, and Windows and OS X desktop. It looks like Clever Hippo currently indexes 31,166 applications.The site seeds their search directory from public app directories and from developers who can manually index their applications. Search results can be sorted by relevance, recency, and popularity -- the latter of which is based on Digg-style voting that Clever Hippo enables on each entry. For many apps, the site also provides a nifty, Snap-previews style preview popup.Clever Hippo offers RSS feeds for any search result, which when ordered by recency would theoretically let you keep tabs on your competitors in the app market. The site has standard search features, such as or, not, and wildcards. It also has a way to boost certain keywords in searches -- i.e., so you can search for "video library" and cause the site to put more emphasis on video than library.31,000 apps is a lot to sort through -- Facebook alone has over 6,000. With OpenSocial and the coming release of the full iPhone platform, that web app and widget ecosphere is likely to grow larger. Clever Hippo is positioning itself in a clever position (forgive me) to provide search for the growing and increasingly important web app vertical.