Ribbit just announced the launch of Ribbit Mobile. Ribbit Mobile is a cloud-based VoIP telephony service that brings together web-based calling, smart call routing and voicemail transcriptions.It is hard to look at Ribbit Mobile without comparing it to Google Voice. Just like Google Voice, Ribbit gives users a new phone number or they can use call forwarding to transfer calls from their mobile phones to Ribbit's platform. Ribbit Mobile also has quite a few features that Google doesn't offer, including the ability to ring different phones simultaneously and to make calls from within the browser.SponsorMore Features than Google VoiceAs Ribbit Mobile is part of Ribbit's open VoIP platform, the service can even forward calls to your Skype, MSN or Google Talk account if you don't pick up your mobile phone. Whenever you miss a call or when a new voicemail arrives, Ribbit can also ping you by email, Skype, Google Talk or SMS. Through its partners, Ribbit offers widgets for popular start pages like iGoogle and social networks like Facebook and MySpace. Through these - as well as on the service's homepage - users can receive and place calls from their browsers. This is a feature that Google Voice doesn't offer yet.GrandCentral, which Google bought and then transformed into Google Voice, offered some of the features that Ribbit Mobile now offers. Google dropped quite a few useful features like simultaneous rings and call chains from Google Voice's feature line-up, however.Besides call chains, another nice feature of Ribbit Mobile is that you can choose which number will appear on your contacts' phones when you call, even if you are calling from your computer. Once you are on a call, you can also easily transfer calls from any device to another. Because of this, you can start a call in the web interface or iGoogle and then continue the call on your cell phone. Just like Google Voice, Ribbit gives users the option to set up a new phone number for their Ribbit accounts. Users can earch for a specific numbers and letter combination in these numbers. For now, Ribbit only offers numbers in select cities in California and New York.A service like Ribbit Mobile wouldn't be very useful us you couldn't easily import your contacts. Thankfully, users can import contacts from Plaxo and as an Outlook CSV file (Google Contacts can export an Outlook CSV file). Caller ID 2.0As Ribbit's CEO Ted Griggs and co-founder Crick Waters told us yesterday, the company wants users to look at Ribbit Mobile as a "personal customer relationship management (CRM) platform." To do so, Ribbit Mobile doesn't just display a caller's name and phone number. Users can also add notes to every call and connect their Ribbit address book with their Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Flickr accounts. Through this, the Ribbit team noted, conversations can now take place within a context.Voicemail TranscriptionsRibbit offers two levels of voicemail transcriptions. Free accounts come with automated transcriptions. Users with professional accounts - which are free during the beta period - can also choose to have 'business-class' level transcriptions, where a human checks the computer-transcribed text and edits it.Ribbit for DevelopersBecause Ribbit is an open platform, developerscan use the service in their own applications. Ribbit already features five apps in its app store, including an SMS widget, an Adobe AIR app for checking voicemails and a conference widget. Ribbit also plans to launch its own mobile applications for the iPhone and Blackberry platforms soon. Developers are free to charge for their applications and Ribbit also offers a profit-sharing program where developers will be paid if users use their applications.Joining the BetaRibbit will slowly scale the service up over the next few weeks. The company will hand out new accounts on a first come, first serve basis. You can sign up for an account here. All service levels are available for free during the beta period, though Ribbit plans to charge for the pro accounts later on.Discuss

  In the Web 2.0 heyday, Netvibeshad that star appeal that few companies ever experience. Their platform for creating personal dashboards rocketed in growth.Web innovators sang its praises. But you know the story. Netvibes struggled to find a business model.SponsorNow, we're on the cusp of the Enterprise 2.0 movement and Netvibes has suddenly come back as a contender for providing dashboard environments to better manage enterprise software.Today, Netvibes is announcing a "sales, marketing and technology," partnership with Sage Software, an enterprise software company with 5.8 million customers worldwide and more than 14,500 people worldwide.Sage will integrate the Netvibes dashboard technology into Sage software products and business processes. The idea is that enterprise software has become increasingly complex for users. Netvibes technology will help manage Sage software by providing customers with an environment that is more user friendly. Sage is hoping the partnership will bridge enterprise software with the Web 2.0 features of the Netvibes technology.Sage reaches mid-market companies. These are larger enterprises that may do $60 million in revenues. They are adopting increasingly complex software. For instance, spftware for Enterprise Resource Planning software (ERP) and Business Process Management (BPM) are more popular in light of enterprise efforts to bring more efficiencies in these times of economic difficulty. But often, the tools require a degree of administration beyond the capabilities of the average business user.Sage will integrate Netvibes into the launch of its ERP X3 software, coming in the first quarter of 2010.For all the skeptics of social technologies, is this at all proof of the befnefots that socila software provides?. Sage is adopting the Netvibes platform to make it simpler for customers to use its ERP software.Netvibes grew from the roots of the social software movement. Its technology represents what social software can help people accomplish: give the user more options to be productive and creative in their work.Discuss

  Two years ago social news site Newsvine was acquired by MSNBC, the Microsoft/NBC joint venture. The site had launched publicly in March 2006 and was considered to be one of the best designednew breed of 'web 2.0' news sites. Features include user-generated content, reputation, voting, comments, friends lists, tags, and more. At the time of the sale, Newsvinewas promising to integrate some of those web 2.0 features into the main MSNBC properties. CEO Mike Davidson told ReadWriteWeb in 2007 that "over the next few years, Newsvine technology and content will make its way onto msnbc.com, and vice-versa where it makes sense." Has that actually occured? Let's check in with Newsvine to find out.SponsorNewsvine is a "Citizen Journalism" site; a news publication built using the voices and recommendations of ordinary citizens. It also syndicates content from its parent company MSNBC, Associated Press and others. Newsvine has a lot in common with social news sites like Digg and Slashdot - only it has more mainstream topics.Slow Development, But Keeping Abreast of TrendsWhat's new at Newsvine circa 2009? There is nothing overly different from what we saw in 2007, but the site continues to look elegant and is still packed with social features. Newsvine appears to have kept up with current trends - we noted today a Real-Time Web feature, called Newsvine LIVE. This is a rapidly scrolling view of emerging stories, displayed as a pane on the right-hand side of the homepage.However as with many startups that get acquired by big companies, the pace of development at Newsvine slowed considerably after being bought. A scan of the Newsvine blog this year doesn't show much development. There was some administrative work done on groupsand a hook-up with Facebook. Not much else is noted in the blog, although Newsvine has been active in developing widgetsfor sites like Netvibes and Yahoo.Mike Davidson blogged in Augustthat "things, for the most part, are going swimmingly [at Newsvine]." He admitted though that "building technologies and services for msnbc.com has slowed our development efforts on newsvine.com a bit, for the time being."Traffic: SteadyWhen we last spoke to Newsvine, in July 2007 just prior to its acquisition, Newsvine was getting about 1.2 million unique visitors per month. It was said to be growing at an average rate of 46% per quarter. The top topics in Newsvine in mid-07 were Politics and Technology, echoing the popular topics in the blogosphere of that time.Traffic over the past year at Newsvine has been fairly flat, at least according to Compete- which puts the US unique visitors at around 1.2 million and shows little growth. However in an August 2009 post, Newsvine CEO Mike Davidson claimed that Newsvine now gets "over 4 million uniques a month." So perhaps Compete's statistics are too low (which wouldn't be the first time).ConclusionAll seems fine and dandy at Newsvine, despite slow development of new features on the site. However, as yet there is little evidence of Newsvine functionality on MSNBC sites - certainly the readers don't contribute much content to them. Hopefully we see more of that over the coming year, as Mike Davidson did say integration would occur "over the next few years" back in 2007.Overall, it's good to see that Newsvine's community is still relatively vibrant. As of time of writing, a story entitled 'Dick Cheney was a Lying, Treasonous Coward'has 239 comments. Evidence that it is an MSNBC site after all!Discuss

  When most of us hear the words, "For as little as 50 cents a day..." our brains conjure up solemn images of Sally Struthers. For as little as 50 cents a day MixMatchMusicis offering starving and made musicians a chance to reach their fans via a customizable iPhone app maker. Between now and tomorrow morning, MobBasewill offer musicians with no programming skills the ability to build sleek-looking band apps. Features will include videos, images, bios, band news, streaming playlists, concert schedules and perhaps most importantly, links for music purchases.SponsorBest known for its web-based remixing service, MixMatchMusic is expanding to help bands further engage their fans. The company is offering a drag-and-drop interface with a number of different app templates. Musicians customize application designs by switching out page backgrounds, buttons and even features. FeaturesAlthough products are created using the template tool, no two applications look alike. Some of the available features include: 1. Music: Artists can offer samples of their collections and connect fans to album artwork, liner notes, lyrics and download links. 2. Videos: With MobBase, artists can pull in their YouTube video streams as well as encourage fans to tag their video content. From here bands can aggregate videos from a fan's point of view. 3. Photos: Band accounts on Flickr and Picasa can be instantly streamed to the photo feature. This way concert pics and backstage exclusives automatically upload as new events occur. 4. News / Info: Artists can create biography pages and pull in related RSS feeds from blogs and traditional media sources. They can also integrate multiple Twitter accounts and import fan tweets based on a band's designated hashtag. 5. Shows: The tool also allows bands to import concert event streams from MySpace and MixMatchMusic's ArtistData tool. From here concert listings are automatically updated including ticket purchase links and Google maps. Approval and PricingWhile a number of DIY-app platforms may appear on the horizon, part of the MobBase service is that MixMatchMusic handles the App store approval process. In the event that you'd like to change your app, co-founders Charles Feinn and Alan Khalfin assure us that there is no need to resubmit your app for approval. You simply log-in to the MobBase dashboard and change your pages. The company currently has 32 pilot apps pending approval including customized products for bands like Pepper and Everclear. MixMatchMusic also has partnerships with the Independent Online Distribution Allianceand a number of other indie labels. The company will look to forge deals with web 2.0-related service providers like Bandcampand Topspin Mediain the coming months. As for fees, applications are $20 dollars to activate. Free apps are priced at $15 dollars a month for the first 500 installs with $5 dollars per additional 1000 downloads. Meanwhile, paid apps cost $20 dollars per month for the first 500 installs and $6 dollars per month for each additional 1000. MobBase does not take any application sales fees in regards to revenue share. As per the standard iTunes affiliate music program, the company receives 5% of purchased music downloads. To get started visit MobBase.comfor details. For a sneak peek at the design process check out the below screenshots: Discuss

  Recently, a consortium of type designers and web designers have gathered around a new font format specification called Web Open Font Format (WOFF). The format would allow more typefaces to appear across the web and to be readable by both humans and search engines.With support from Mozilla announcedwith the release of Firefox 3.6, and with the advocacy of leading type foundries such as Linotype, Emigre, and Hoefler &Frere-Jones, the question of web fonts might be satisfactorily resolved in the near future.SponsorFor some time, sIFRhas been the go-to technology for web designers attempting to expand the Internet's typographical vocabulary without sacrificing machine readability. However, adoption and use have been limited, and the roster of fully functional online fonts has remained a static and brief cast of players.In a blog post, Mozilla contributor John Daggett wrote, "The WOFF format originated from a collabaration between the font designers Erik van Bloklandand Tal Lemingwith help from Mozilla's Jonathan Kew. Each had proposed their own format and WOFF represents a melding of these different proposals. The format itself is intended to be a simple repackaging of OpenType or TrueType font data, it doesn't introduce any new behavior, alter the @font-face linking mechanism or affect the way fonts are rendered. Many font vendors have expressed support for this new format so the hope is this will open up a wider range of font options for web designers."Of course, Firefox 3.6 will be the first browser to support the new format, so designers will need to include @font-face rules for other browsers, at least for the time being. Not surprisingly, creating such rules for Internet Explorer is more complicated than for other browsers, as IE only plays nicely with Embedded Open Type faces and a limited set of @font-face rule descriptors.Internet Explorer wonkiness aside, WOFF is a widely supported and relatively prominent step in the right direction, and we hope more browser versions will support the format. It's about time for web pages to lose their homogeneity, for designers to gain more tools for brand and personal expression, for search engines to read more fonts, and for users to have richer browsing experiences.Interested web developers and designers should also check out woffTools,a Python package for examining and manipulating WOFF files. This package also contains a set of command line tools for verifying and examining the files.Discuss

  The good folks at Twitter recentlyrolled out list-making capabilities for all users, finally catching up to functions that many desktop and web apps have featured for a while.In addition to allowing users to create their own curations, Twitter has also added a basic widget-maker for adding tweets from any user's list to any given website. And since re-embedding the code for Twitter's widget is still kind of a pain, we've hand-picked ten great listsand created widgets from them for your expedited enjoyment and copy-pasteable hijacking. You're welcome!SponsorHere's New York Times editor Patrick LaForge's list of link-happy Twitter users:new TWTR.Widget({version: 2,type: 'list',rpp: 5,interval: 6000,title: '@palafo',subject: 'Linkers',width: 250,height: 300,theme: {shell: {background: '#ad0000',color: '#ffffff'},tweets: {background: '#ffffff',color: '#444444',links: '#ad0000'}},features: {scrollbar: true,loop: false,live: true,hashtags: true,timestamp: true,avatars: true,behavior: 'all'}}).render().setList('palafo', 'linkers').start();Copy and paste to get this widget:new TWTR.Widget({version: 2,type: 'list',rpp: 5,interval: 6000,title: '@palafo',subject: 'Linkers',width: 250,height: 300,theme: {shell: {background: '#ad0000',color: '#ffffff'},tweets: {background: '#ffffff',color: '#444444',links: '#ad0000'}},features: {scrollbar: true,loop: false,live: true,hashtags: true,timestamp: true,avatars: true,behavior: 'all'}}).render().setList('palafo', 'linkers').start();Formerly of Facebook, currently of Twitter, Josh Elman's dream Rolodex is laid bare in his Awesome Social list of who's who in Silicon Valley:new TWTR.Widget({version: 2,type: 'list',rpp: 5,interval: 6000,title: '@joshelman',subject: 'AwesomeSocial',width: 250,height: 300,theme: {shell: {background: '#ad0000',color: '#ffffff'},tweets: {background: '#ffffff',color: '#444444',links: '#ad0000'}},features: {scrollbar: true,loop: false,live: true,hashtags: true,timestamp: true,avatars: true,behavior: 'all'}}).render().setList('joshelman', 'awesomesocial').start();Copy and paste to get this widget:new TWTR.Widget({version: 2,type: 'list',rpp: 5,interval: 6000,title: '@joshelman',subject: 'AwesomeSocial',width: 250,height: 300,theme: {shell: {background: '#ad0000',color: '#ffffff'},tweets: {background: '#ffffff',color: '#444444',links: '#ad0000'}},features: {scrollbar: true,loop: false,live: true,hashtags: true,timestamp: true,avatars: true,behavior: 'all'}}).render().setList('joshelman', 'awesomesocial').start();Everyone's favorite @scobleizer, Robert Scoble, is famously passionate about startups. Among his many expertly curated lists is this one of startup founders:new TWTR.Widget({version: 2,type: 'list',rpp: 5,interval: 6000,title: '@scobleizer',subject: 'Founder',width: 250,height: 300,theme: {shell: {background: '#ad0000',color: '#ffffff'},tweets: {background: '#ffffff',color: '#444444',links: '#ad0000'}},features: {scrollbar: true,loop: false,live: true,hashtags: true,timestamp: true,avatars: true,behavior: 'all'}}).render().setList('scobleizer', 'founders').start();Copy and paste to get this widget:new TWTR.Widget({version: 2,type: 'list',rpp: 5,interval: 6000,title: '@scobleizer',subject: 'Founder',width: 250,height: 300,theme: {shell: {background: '#ad0000',color: '#ffffff'},tweets: {background: '#ffffff',color: '#444444',links: '#ad0000'}},features: {scrollbar: true,loop: false,live: true,hashtags: true,timestamp: true,avatars: true,behavior: 'all'}}).render().setList('scobleizer', 'founders').start();When it comes to social media for social good, you can't beat nonprofit geek Rebecca Leaman's list of Nonprofit Technology entities:new TWTR.Widget({version: 2,type: 'list',rpp: 5,interval: 6000,title: '@rjleaman',subject: 'Nonprofit Tech',width: 250,height: 300,theme: {shell: {background: '#ad0000',color: '#ffffff'},tweets: {background: '#ffffff',color: '#444444',links: '#ad0000'}},features: {scrollbar: true,loop: false,live: true,hashtags: true,timestamp: true,avatars: true,behavior: 'all'}}).render().setList('rjleaman', 'nonprofit-technology').start();Copy and paste to get this widget:new TWTR.Widget({version: 2,type: 'list',rpp: 5,interval: 6000,title: '@rjleaman',subject: 'Nonprofit Tech',width: 250,height: 300,theme: {shell: {background: '#ad0000',color: '#ffffff'},tweets: {background: '#ffffff',color: '#444444',links: '#ad0000'}},features: {scrollbar: true,loop: false,live: true,hashtags: true,timestamp: true,avatars: true,behavior: 'all'}}).render().setList('rjleaman', 'nonprofit-technology').start();What's hotter these days than augmented reality? For a quick glance inside the minds of AR's movers, shakers, and true innovators, take a look at Chris Grayson's catalog of Augmented Reality Peeps:new TWTR.Widget({version: 2,type: 'list',rpp: 5,interval: 6000,title: '@chrisgrayson',subject: 'Augmented Reality Peeps',width: 250,height: 300,theme: {shell: {background: '#ad0000',color: '#ffffff'},tweets: {background: '#ffffff',color: '#444444',links: '#ad0000'}},features: {scrollbar: true,loop: false,live: true,hashtags: true,timestamp: true,avatars: true,behavior: 'all'}}).render().setList('chrisgrayson', 'augmented-reality-peeps').start();Copy and paste to get this widget:new TWTR.Widget({version: 2,type: 'list',rpp: 5,interval: 6000,title: '@chrisgrayson',subject: 'Augmented Reality Peeps',width: 250,height: 300,theme: {shell: {background: '#ad0000',color: '#ffffff'},tweets: {background: '#ffffff',color: '#444444',links: '#ad0000'}},features: {scrollbar: true,loop: false,live: true,hashtags: true,timestamp: true,avatars: true,behavior: 'all'}}).render().setList('chrisgrayson', 'augmented-reality-peeps').start();Speaking of what's hot right now, don't overlook Mike Taylor's XMPP list, a tailored compendium of real-time developers. No hype, all insight, this is a good place to start if you're looking for great information on where the real-time web is going without marketing disinformation:new TWTR.Widget({version: 2,type: 'list',rpp: 5,interval: 6000,title: '@bear',subject: 'XMPP',width: 250,height: 300,theme: {shell: {background: '#ad0000',color: '#ffffff'},tweets: {background: '#ffffff',color: '#444444',links: '#ad0000'}},features: {scrollbar: true,loop: false,live: true,hashtags: true,timestamp: true,avatars: true,behavior: 'all'}}).render().setList('bear', 'xmpp').start();Copy and paste to get this widget:new TWTR.Widget({version: 2,type: 'list',rpp: 5,interval: 6000,title: '@bear',subject: 'XMPP',width: 250,height: 300,theme: {shell: {background: '#ad0000',color: '#ffffff'},tweets: {background: '#ffffff',color: '#444444',links: '#ad0000'}},features: {scrollbar: true,loop: false,live: true,hashtags: true,timestamp: true,avatars: true,behavior: 'all'}}).render().setList('bear', 'xmpp').start();Raven Zacharyhas put together a huge list of iPhone developers - 422 and counting, in fact:new TWTR.Widget({version: 2,type: 'list',rpp: 5,interval: 6000,title: '@ravenme',subject: 'iPhone',width: 250,height: 300,theme: {shell: {background: '#ad0000',color: '#ffffff'},tweets: {background: '#ffffff',color: '#444444',links: '#ad0000'}},features: {scrollbar: true,loop: false,live: true,hashtags: true,timestamp: true,avatars: true,behavior: 'all'}}).render().setList('ravenme', 'iphone').start();Copy and paste to get this widget:new TWTR.Widget({version: 2,type: 'list',rpp: 5,interval: 6000,title: '@ravenme',subject: 'iPhone',width: 250,height: 300,theme: {shell: {background: '#ad0000',color: '#ffffff'},tweets: {background: '#ffffff',color: '#444444',links: '#ad0000'}},features: {scrollbar: true,loop: false,live: true,hashtags: true,timestamp: true,avatars: true,behavior: 'all'}}).render().setList('ravenme', 'iphone').start();

  Before anime torrents, World of Warcraft and even before the internet itself, fantasy seeking geeks were fortunate enough to pour over the genius and inspiration of writers and artists like Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. With the exception of Ben Affleck's lackluster display in Daredevil, almost every classic Marvel title has produced an equally epic blockbuster movie hit. The Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Wolverine and The Punisher are as thrilling to audiences now as they were in their comic book form. And this past weekend, Marvel announced plans to offer its products via a number of iPhone applications. SponsorThe Comixology, Panelflyand iVerseapps are all boasting the release of Marvel titles to US iPhone users. Select issues from Iron Man, X-Men and the the Amazing Spider-Man series' are available for between 99 cents and $1.99 per issue. While these services are likely to get their fair share of individual downloads, comic book service Take Comicsis attempting a slightly different approach to delivery. Recently launched to a roomful of entrepreneurs and investors at TechStars' Silicon Valley demo day, Take Comics offers a frictionless comic distribution platform for publishers. Rather than selling titles piecemeal, larger publishers like Marvel and indie publishers like Last Gaspcan offer titles across platforms. The company aims to create an iTunes-like experience specific to comics. But there's a catch - after purchasing users can view their favorite titles on the device of their choosing. The service renders comics on a panel-by-panel basis for easy perusal on mobile devices. As for up-selling, users receive publisher alerts on new issues and recommendations to complete their collections. While comic publishers stand to earn more on a short term basis through individual downloads, it will be interesting to see if they opt for long term loyalty via the more user-friendly cross-device route. Discuss

  Fresh on the heels of Firefox's latest beta, Google has also just released a new beta buildof their Chrome web browser. In addition to a number of speed improvements, the most exciting thing about today's beta release is the inclusion of the Google Chrome synchronization framework. Although still in development, this technology allows Chrome users to sync their browser bookmarks across multiple computers without having to manually recreate them on each machine used. SponsorHow To Enable Google SyncAccording to Google's blog postabout the beta release, the sync feature has to first be activated on each of your computers where Google Chrome is used. To do this, you'll need to download the beta build of the browser available here. Once installed, click the "wrench" menu (yes, the one with the wrench icon) in Google Chrome and select "Synchronize my bookmarks" from the menu that appears. Sign into your Google account in the dialog box that pops up. If you've already set up Sync on another computer, you'll then be prompted to confirm that your different sets of bookmarks should be merged together. In that case, click "Merge and Sync" to complete the process. Finally, click "OK" when you've finished. Not only does this feature sync your bookmarks, it also creates a copy of your bookmarks file on Google Docs in a new folder called "Google Chrome." (Wonder what else will go in that folder in the future?) What's in Store for SyncFor now, the Sync feature is only synchronizing browser bookmarks, but the framework behind Sync is ultimately designed to handle the synchronization of other kinds of browser data as well. As to what sort of data that could be, Google can't provide any official confirmation just yet. However, they did say that you could imagine that "this type of infrastructure could be extended to other types of user data such as passwords" in the future. We'll speculate that it will eventually include those passwords, your browser history, and whatever favorite websites appear as thumbnails on the New Tab page. After all, if Mozilla's Weave Sync prototypecan handle those sorts of tasks already, there's no reason to believe that Google couldn't do the same. Because the new Sync feature uses an XMPP connection to synchronize the changes, changes made on one computer are synchronized immediately to another. Not just quickly, mind you, but immediately. This is possible because XMPP is what's known as a "real-time" communication protocol - the same one that powers Google Talk, the company's IM service. The use of this sort of technology hints at how Google plans to make their Chrome web browser the core of their upcoming netbook operating system, Google Chrome OS. The new OS will run web applications "in the cloud," a radical change from current OS offerings where many applications are still installed on the computer's hard drive itself. With Chrome (the browser's) ability to synchronize data in real-time between computers, it's easy to see how a cloud OS could operate. It wouldn't matter which machine you used, your data would be available, stored in the cloud, synchronized, and all accessible upon login to your Google account. That prospect is either amazing or terrifying depending on your trust level when it comes to Google. Perhaps it's even both.  Chrome Gets Faster, TooWhile Bookmark Sync is the most interesting feature to debut in the new beta, there are some notable speed improvements to mention, too. The latest build improves performance by 30% since the current stable release of Chrome and by 400% since the very first stable release, as measured by Mozilla's Dromeao DOM CoreTests.  As noted earlier, speed was a major factor in Firefox's 3.6 beta 1, released just this Friday. Both companies are going head-to-head when it comes to browser speed, JavaScript performance, and startup times, but no official speed tests have been done yet to compare the two new beta releases. To download the latest build of Google Chrome beta, head over to the Chrome beta site here. The official beta requires Windows XP SP2 or higher. Discuss

  The real-time web is proving itself disruptive in the enterprise space. But it's not viable unless users may utilize technologies like live editing or voice collaboration on top of a real-time environment.At theEnterprise 2.0conference over the next few days we will be watching companies that give users the ability to integrate voice and other technologies with intuitive, real-time capabilities.SponsorIn that regard, we look favorably on PBWorksnew collaboration offering. PBWorks is formerly PBWiki. In its early years, the company focused on providing wiki technologies. But like a number of companies in the wiki space, PBWorks is now more of a real-time technology company more than a wiki provider. We find the wiki space a challenging as many of the original provider got their start during a time when "portals," still dominated the enterprise. Wikis worked as a complement to portals. "Web pages," by their very definition, are far more related to "documents," than activity streams.In this regard, we view the real-time web as a true disruptor in the enterprise market. But it can not act alone. A full product must have core collaborative elements such as voice collaboration. Web conferencing is a start but it still requires users to use n application separately from the other services they may use. Voice collaboration is a far better method as it is integrated directly into the application.PBWorks cited Google Wave in their demo. They say PBWorks is a ready product, offering unified collaboration. Google Wave is still in beta mode. Perhaps, but to be fair, PBWorks users will have to wait until early 2010 for voice collaboration.New features for PBWorks include:IM Collaboration: The ability to keep abreast of what others are doing in real-time. Updates appear within an instant message environment. Users may send a link within the IM message to tell other users what they are editing.Live Notification: Users can be alerted to new content or other events in real-time. Users may mark different wiki pages by "starring," or "following" particular pages. When those pages are edited, users receive a notificationLive Editing: Users may watch documents get edited in real-time. Users may edit and use IM Collaboration to form ad hoc meetingsVoice Collaboration: PBWorks voice collaboration service will be available in early 2010. It will provide the ability to initiate conference calls within the application. Think Skype integrated not a collaboration service.PBWorks new offerings are a clear sign the Enterprise 2.0 space is growing up and will change significantly with the advent of the real-time web. Documents are not going away but the messaging layer is widening in the enterprise, filling it with lightweight technologies that can be used instantly, without the hurdles that come with asynchronous notifications.Discuss

  While the Kodak Theater in Hollywood typically plays host to actual celebrities at the annual Academy Awards, last week's 140 Characters Conference in Hollywood brought together a different set of notable names: the Twitterati. Jeff Pulver's first event in a series taking place around the world drew together entertainment folks, journalists, poker players and even police chiefs, all talking about how they use Twitter to spread information, market themselves and connect with a new audience.In some ways, it's a miracle that anyone had a face-to-face conversation at the event, which was organized as a quick-fix series of 15-minute panels, what with everyone firmly looking down, typing and texting away to record the two-day event in real time.SponsorBut I'll play along. In the spirit of the event, here are a few of my favorite 140 characters from the day:This guest post was written by Laura Hertzfeld.From Access Hollywood's Billy Bush (@billybush), who warned against tweeting and driving and drunk tweeting (dweeting?):FTR, I did not get $ 2 speak at #140conf. Was a cool opp to meet amazing folks like @rumford, @dom, @kim, @adventuregirl, @bing. I m a peaThere was something of a Kumbaya feeling among the Twitterati. Conference founder Jeff Pulver (@jeffpulver) summed it up:Thank you to everyone who is part of my twitter mornings. Thanks to YOU, I have a daily reminder of humanity and serendipity.And in this crowd, you didn't have to be George Clooney to get outed as a celeb, as conference-goer @ciaobella50gave her takeon some of presenters:Celebs I met yesterday.. @billybush...(hottie),,,Pres of CNN (amazing)...Arianna Huffington (brilliant) ..Annie Duke (Sweet)@eriksundelofshared a smart train of thought upon seeing Arianna Huffington's panel on the future of news:Arianna seems to be talking about community funded models at the LA 140 conf. Both Allvoices and Spot.Us are great models here. #140confFitting for the location, here is the response of AMC News correspondent Jacob Soboroff (@amcnews) to Gawker's Richard Rushfield on how covering the Oscar nominations has changed.#140conf @richardrushfield: Death, Oscar noms "typical thing is get reactions." Now everyone tweets feelings so job is chasing social media.And how can you not love a conference where someone says, "I can haz cheezburger" with a straight face? Here's the video of Cheezburger Network CEO Scott Porad conveying his words of wisdom on social media:Next up for Pulver is London on November 17th and New York City on June 16th and 17th.Guest author:Laura Hertzfeld is a freelance journalist based in Los Angeles. In addition to writing for ReadWriteWeb, she is managing editor of EconomyStory.org, a Public Radio Exchange (PRX) project aggregating public media coverage of the economy.Discuss

  While the rest of the world is digitizing and consolidating their belongings, some of us just can't stop being the pack rats that we are. While the Kindle offers a good daytime reading experience, it's tough to justify taking it into the bath or falling asleep with it nestled against your cheek. My home is filled with books I no longer need but love to lend out. Whether your home is filled with books, camping gear, vinyls or video games, if you're a collector below are some tools to help you manage your stuff: Sponsor1. 5ftShelf: According to the site's intro Harvard University's president once claimed that, "...a liberal education could be achieved by reading a collection of books that would total no more than 5ft in width." In addition to your list of quintessential books, 5ft Shelf offers collectors a chance to showcase their favorite albums and movies. While the Ultimate Shelf(popular section) largely consists of classic works, a few contemporary works including the Twilight novel are also listed. 2. Delicious Monster: Delicious Monster allows users to scan their CDs, DVDs, video games and books using a webcam UPC reader. From here users are shown a photo-realistic shelf where all of their real-life products are displayed. 3. MyThings: MyThings also offers users a chance to index their physical objects and keep track of receipts and warranties in one place. One of the interesting components of MyThings is that in the event of a break-in, your MyThings database can be immediately sent to Trace.com- a tool that tracks lost and stolen property. 4. Neighborgoods: ReadWriteWeb covered Neighborgoods' launch in early October. This service allows users to interact in a hyper-local manner by indexing their goods for loan to their neighbors. Neighbors lends out lawnmowers, power washers and ladders to others in their area. The system will keep a running record of all your goods. 5. BookMooch: Bookmooch is a book exchange site where users list the books they'd like to give away and send them out once other members make requests. For every book you send, you are entitled to a book from another member. This is a great way to get rid of your unwanted books. The service also offers the option to donate books to charity. Photo Credits: Jane RahmanDiscuss

  Google just opened the Google Wave developer sandboxfor federation. Developers can now begin prototyping tools against WaveSandbox.com. Google tested earlier versions of Wave with a small number of developers on the Wave sandbox and this server will now become the platform for testing interoperability between different Wave servers. Google also released a how-to documentthat explains how to set up a Java-based Wave server over the weekend. More details about how to implement the Wave Federation Protocol can be found here.SponsorRunning Wave on Your Own ServerDevelopers who want to run their own Wave server can find all the necessary information for setting up a Wave Federation Prototype Server in these documents. The server is written in Java and should run on Windows, OSX and Linux-based machines. In the documentation, the Wave team explains how to run the server as an extension to the open source OpenFire XMPP server, though any XEP-00114compatible XMPP server should be able to talk to the Wave server. The Google Wave team points out that this is not even close to the final implementation of the Wave protocol and that things will inevitably change. The team also asks developers to contributeto the development of the Wave prototype server.As we pointed outlast week, the federation protocol is an integral part of Google's plans for Wave. If Google wants Wave to compete with email, it will have to create a distributed network of providers and this is a first step in that direction. Discuss

  It's called a spoiler tactic. You take your competitor's biggest cash cow and offer a free alternative. Everybody from Linux to Google has used the tactic against Microsoft. So who can fault Microsoft when it uses it against Google's advertising cash cow? The guys who benefit from this tactic today are the good folks at OpenX, the open-source alternative to ad servers from Google such as DoubleClick (for big publishers) and AdManager (for small publishers). (Disclosure: ReadWriteWeb uses OpenX to host our advertising inventory.)Of course, ad-serving itself is not really the cash cow, but it is a key part of it. The real prize is a viable alternative to AdSense. This is the background of today's news about OpenX and Microsoft announcing an advertising technology partnership.SponsorOpenX Named a Preferred Partner for Microsoft Ad Serving ProductsHere is the news today from OpenX and Microsoft. In a nutshell:Microsoft will refer publishers for enterprise ad-serving solutions to OpenX.This makes OpenX a more viable alternative to expensive ad server solutions. (Hint to publishers looking to cut costs: why spend that money on Doubleclickwhen there is a free alternative?)OpenX will promote Microsoft's Content Adsmonetization/advertising product.OpenX has 150,000 websites that serve more than 300 billion ads per month. Google Ad Manager, which is the free alternative to DoubleClick for smaller publishers, optimizes for AdSense. So Content Ads, an alternative to AdSense, is a natural ally for OpenX.Click herefor a comparison of OpenX and AdManager (the comparison is good, while also promoting Trafficspaces as an alternative to both).Content Ads is Microsoft's entry to the contextual ad game. It "matches ads to relevant editorial content, allowing advertisers to increase campaign effectiveness and allowing publishers to achieve a higher yield on certain types of inventory."Let's Get a Second Opinion on Content AdsWe spoke with Dr. Riza C. Berkan, CEO at Hakia, which makes a contextual advertising solution called Contexathat is not unlike Content Ads. (Disclosure: ReadWriteWeb uses Contexa, and Hakia is a sponsor.) Here is his view:"Content detection is a specific challenge where Microsoft will be judged by its semantic capabilities. It could be a historic moment if it works. Otherwise, it will contribute to the ongoing "blinding" irrelevancy."Riza is saying that relevancy and ranking are hard technical challenges. We know that relevancy is a bit weak on AdSense. Can Content Ads do better than AdSense? That is the bar.AdSense's Weakness, the Hunt for Relevance and the Shift to "Direct"We have written before about the possible weakness in AdSense, which is at the heart of the Google cash cow. Our theory is that we are moving to a place where publishers will sell more directly.Draw a quadrant with "Large" to "Small" on one axis and "Publishers" to "Advertisers" on the other:"Large" to "Large"This is where we find the traditional internal sales force at big "Publishers" working with agencies at big "Advertisers." This world is not changing fast. Technology solutions and networks focus primarily on selling remnant."Large" to "Small"There is always a role for ad networks to aggregate volume from large advertisers and bring that to small publishers. This is what Federated Media does for ReadWriteWeb. This works well, and we will likely see more niche ad networks serving this function in different markets (for example, FoodBuzzin the food market)."Small" to "Small"This is small advertisers reaching small publishers. This is the space in which AdSense and all of the automated ad networks operate. The genius of Google was to enable small advertisers to get results with small budgets: this has been the enabler for thousands of startups. But we're seeing a shift in this market. There is no reason why advertisers should not buy directly from publishers. Many of these advertisers will also be "the people formerly known as audience." As long as a simple self-service solution exists, there is no reason for an intermediary to take a big cut of the ad dollars at the toll booth.OpenX and Content Ads are positioned to reduce the ad toll booth costs.The winner will be decided by relevance. If the ads are relevant, then they will be useful to the audience and therefore have better ROI for advertisers.These bruising battles between the big guys help the small guys. Google will bring down the cost of MS Office, and Microsoft will bring down the cost of online advertising.Discuss

  According to a new surveyconducted by mobile analytics company Flurry, developers now launch more e-book apps than games in Apple's iTunes App Store. Games now represent 13% of the new releases while 20% of all the new apps in the App Store are e-books. One of the reasons for this is that it's quite easy for developers to release large numbers of e-books. Developers just have to switch out the text, rename the app and send it to Apple for approval. SponsorThis data from Flurry doesn't tell us much about how many people actually download e-books on the iPhone, though an earlier report from Flurry showedthat the iPhone e-book market saw impressive growth this year. The B&N Reader, Amazon Kindle app and Stanza are still the most popular e-book apps and it would be interesting to see more data about how users use these apps. While it's easy for developers to release lots of e-book apps based on public domain texts, this data tells us very little about how many people actually use them. More Than Just Static TextOver time, e-books on the iPhone will hopefully becomemore interestingthan the current crop of apps. While today's hardware e-readers mimic traditional books, the next generation of e-readers will likely go beyond this and the iPhone is already in a position to lead the charge. Creative's forthcoming Zii MediaBookwill offer some of this functionality. With iTunes LP, Apple also has a format that publishers could use to create richer e-book experiences. iTunes LPs aren't compatible with the iPhone and iPod touch, yet. It is likely only a matter of time before Apple brings this format to its mobile devices, though.Discuss