• This should be an exciting announcement for any of you who’ve gone to watch Lost from the night before only to find out that something went wrong and it only recorded the last 5 min of the show.
• Both Time Warner and DirecTV are now working on efforts to bring their television content to subscribers online for the free.  The projects will be a simple extension from their existing business model; deliver content to paying subcribers, this time online, on demand.
• Time Warner is deeming the program TV Anywhere and CEO, Jeff Bewkes thinks that “Everything on television should become available to you on broadband for free.”  His definition of you, obviously means customers.
• DirecTV hasn’t named the program yet, but their CEO, Chase Carey, has already stated that online video should be “embraced instead of rejected” and that “in the past, when a company tries to stop or block something from happening, it’s usually failed.”
• I know it hurts, but progress is progress, and they better embrace it before they see customers ditching their service for the likes of Hulu.  I’m sure many already have.

Stay up to date with the latest tech news from tinyComb:

Kevin Rose Leaks iPhone ‘Copy & Paste’ At SXSW

Google’s Android To Take Over The iPhone By 2012

iPhone 3.0 Operating System On The Way

• Sprint released more stats for the Palm Pre today on their website. Two things to get very excited about with this phone, which in my mind put it two big steps ahead of the iPhone. What features am I talking about?

1. Phone as modem: You will be able to connect wirelessly (via Bluetooth) or through a USB port to tap into your phones internet connection on your computer. It won’t be lightning fast, but it willl certainly get the job done when wi-fi is not available or you don’t feel like shelling out $3.99 for internet at Starbucks. AT&T and Apple have discussed this feature for the iPhone (and once was an app available in the iTunes store until it was removed), but nothing has come of it. Rumors were that AT&T wanted to charge $10 as month for the service.



2. Wireless charging. The Pre will be the first mobile phone to have a wireless charger (pictured above). It will work similar to how your electric toothbrush charges using a magnetic charge. Place the Pre on the flat surface and charging begins, no hook-up required. What a relief.

Trying to stay up on Palm? Check out these articles:

Update: Why Apple Will Not Pursue A Palm Lawsuit

Uh Oh. Sprint Dealys The New Palm Pro

Palm Pre Release Date Leaked

BestBuy Scores Exclusive Palm Pre Release

• Facebook video has flown somewhat under the radar since its launch last year.  Even though it’s a small part of the site, it still pulls in some 100,000 new videos everyday, with a total of over 45 million.
• Facebook just announced some upgrades to their video service that’s sure to up those numbers in the upcoming year.
• The first addition is the ability to embed videos on other websites.  The great thing is Facebook allows you to control your privacy settings, no matter where they’re being shared.  Users can choose to share videos with their friends or selected friends (must be logged in to view) or an everyone setting.
• Another piece of mediocre good news is they’ll be supporting higher resolution video with capabilities as high as 720p.

TC, MSH

• MySpace, the second largest social network in the world, yet the most profitable, has made a major change in its infrasructure to increase its profitability over Facebook.
• What’s this secret change? They have begun outsourcing jobs including a significant portion of development to India in a move to cut costs during the recession.
• In a recent trip to India, MySpace CTO, Aber Whitcomb and VP of Development, Jim Benedetto, named a new VP of outsourcing.
• His name (confirmed) is Nannu Pahpar and he is to oversee MySpace’s entire overseas coalition to cut costs by managing a team of developers amongst other jobs in India.
• MySpace compared to Facebook, has been notorious for spending less money on hiring top notch developers and have focused more on revenue. The new MySpace Outsource Center is further proof of this and it aims to cut infrastructure costs as much as 1/3.
• It is rumored that MySpace profits for the year will be somewhere around $900 million. This move including their new succesfful MySpace Music venture should easily put them over $1 billion in revenue in 2009.
• This is something that is not possible for Facebook who is consistently hunting for the top developers in the United States with high salaries coming out of places like Google and Microsoft.
• With the current recession, Facebook could be hurting and their recent move to delay the allowing of employees to sell their stock is further proof that they are worried about their valuation and future of making money.
• As for MySpace, the outsourcing is smart, but MySpace is widely recognized as an American based social network and to shift jobs overseas is going to be a highly scrutinized move both inside and outside the company.
• Do you think MySpace should be outsourcing jobs?

• Save The Planet And Win is the latest green social network to launch looking for different ways to encourage people to cut back on their carbon emissions.
• Beyond the basic online community platform, Save The Planet And Win offers incentives for its users to build up points and redeem them for carbon credits, donate them to a cause, shop or exchange for cash. Beyond earning points, the site offers ‘group’ capabilities so people can form their own coalitions, etc.
• How the points are eared:  Every week the site will offer a 30 second clip from a sponsor. If a user watches the ad from start to finish, they gain points.
• Other features include a ‘Carbon Collective’ where groups can monitor their combined carbon reduction efforts, as well as forums for sharing green tips and ideas.
• Very standard site. It’s always interesting to see new marketing strategies out there, especially  ‘cash-back’ type initiatives like these. TC

• Michael Wolff, author of The Man Who Owns the News: Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch, released this morning, sat down with BusinessWeek’s Jon FIne and provided a not so glamorous take on MySpace.
• On MySpace’s $25 billion+ valuation: “It doesn’t make any difference. That’s gonna go down. What they are looking at is the distinct possibility that it can go down to nothing.”
• On MySpace users being tied to the site’s community: “That’s exactly what they said about AOL. Your email was there, because your friends were there. I mean, AOL operated actually as the community of its day… What they saw at the time was that [users] were absolutely wedded to AOL. That was Time Warner’s bet on that.”
• On MySpace users: “If you’re on MySpace now, you’re a [expletive] cretin. And you’re not only a [expletive] cretin, but you’re poor. Nobody who has beyond an 8th grade level of education is on MySpace. It is for backwards people.”

Do you agree with Michael’s assessment of MySpace?

SAI

• College Tonight (CBEGE) is the social network for college students, which took itself public in a reverse merger, raising $1,639,500 in November 2007.
• The company which came out of the gates hoping to take on Facebook is standing on some thin sticks.
• Since it’s inception, the company has burnt through over $1 million dollars trying to do so.
• In a recent gasp for air, the founder, Zachary Suchin tried to launch another social product for college students called TheQuad.com.
• The founders went on a road trip and hired Lauren Conrad of The Hills (barf), to promote TheQuad brand and tell students nationwide that they finally have a place online to go hangout.
• Maybe they were trying to reach out to the students who hadn’t heard of Facebook, which seems about right according to their traffic numbers. Both properties combined have not been able to pass 15K views a month (according to Comscore reports)
• To make legitimate ad dollars in this town (which is what they are relying on driving revenue with), a site must get to at least 100,000 views a month to even have a chance at making a tiny bit of money.
• The most important thing to check out is their market cap, which is at $5.5M right now. A site with traffic and revenue like they have is not even worth the legal costs of transferring the company into your name.
• This company has no hope in site. Anyone who owns some of the 34 million outstanding shares, it’s time to sell.

M, T

• KickApps CEO Alex Blum cofrimed yesterday the company raised a Sereies C round of $14M with a new lead investor, North Atlantic Capital.
• KickApps provides on-demand social media applications and platforms for leading publishers. Big media companies love them because it lets them put social features on sites they already control.
• Current properties they power include: San Francisco 49ers, Gossip Girl, Rachel Ray’s Incredible People, the McCainSpace and more.
• 40 percent of its business is now overseas, including a Guinness World Records social destination.
• It’s largest competitor Ning has been losing customers like WarnerBros over the past year because of Ning’s hands off approach to helping publishers control and manage their own enviornment like KickApps does.
• Existing investors that joined the round include Softbank, Spark Prism and Jarl Mohn.

TC

• Supposedly, Facebook distributed a request-for-proposal to a slew of classified sites earlier this year to redo and rebrand the Facebook Marketplace (see Craigslist)
• Speculation is that Oodle, the classifieds provider that powers Wal-Mart already has the job.
• The marketplace needs serious help. In Silicon Valley, New York City and San Francisco combined, the amount of new listings to the Facebook Marketplace was less than 30 yesterday!
• Classified listings is a business that never needed to make it out of the web 1.0 era. Craigslist is simple, efficient, and everything you need to find/buy things or services. Adding social features around it just doesn’t make sense. Most people agree that they’d rather not know the person they are buying something from as then it brings some sort of history with it and never feels like ‘your own’.
• Chegg was first on the scene in 2005 to launch a mildly successful social classifieds site (for college students) up until Facebook decided to take them on. Now Chegg is a successful textbook rental company making serious dollars. Maybe Facebook should have copied that model instead of trying to kick the dead horse back to life (i’m kidding, but seriously social classifieds wil never kill Craigslist)

• Friend View is Nokia’s experimental mobile location and micro-blogging service that also works via standard web.
• The application uses the built-in GPS, network triangulation, or manual updates to decide where you are.
• Once logged-in, it pinpoints you as well as all your friends who are on the service.
• Instead of Twitter’s ‘What Are You Doing’ question, Nokia asks ‘What’s Up’.
• I’m guessing this will roll out in Japan first as a test.
• With Nokia as the smart phone leader, and also having the power to move this app onto every deck they manufacture, will this become an immediate threat to mobile social networks like Loopt and ever-growing Twitter?

TC

• Andersen Analytics conducted a research breaking down LinkedIn’s members. Apparently they are rich.
• Users with personal incomes between $200,000 and $350,000 were seven times more likely than those below that level to have over 150 LinkedIn connections.
• Nearly 60% of users have incomes of $93,000 or more.
• Executives make up about 28% (average income $104K), 30% are “saavy networkers” (average income $93K), and light or newer users had incomes of $88K or lower
  
• I personally don’t use LinkedIn anymore. I know my network of people and quite frankly don’t want to show it online nor do I need to. I have all of their e-mail addresses, phone numbers and addresses (yes, we meet offline sometimes). For me, it’s the best way to go about things as someone not in a sales position. It has become downright annoying and it’s losing its core due to large growth. Who is killing it? Recruiters, salespeople, ‘over-connectors’, spammers and neurotic ‘recommend me requests’
  

TC

• Social network widget maker RockYou has raised $14 million from Japan’s SoftBank (largest investor in Yahoo Japan) and $3 million from Korea’s SK Telecom.
• RockYou & SoftBank are creating a joint venture company with their sites set on three major distribution opportunities:
  • Xianoei, “Chinese Facebook” that rolled out an app platform similar to Zuckerberg’s earlier this year. Recently the site unveiled a virtual currency system that requires the fake dollars to be purchased by real cash to buy virtual goods, a space that RockYou is no stranger to thanks to Facebook. (SoftBank has invested $400M into Xianoei.)
  • Yahoo Japan, which is bigger than Google in the country, is launching its own version of Yahoo’s developer platform that RockYou could gain a foothold in, especially thanks to SoftBank’s influence.
  • iPhone. SoftBank is Japan’s iPhone carrier with a reach of 700 million mobile users. (Fun fact: iPhones sold by SoftBank come with a Yahoo Japan icon in the launchpad.)
• SK Telecom owns Cyworld, a virtual world that is gaining traction in Korea (17m new subscribers/mo). If they integrate w/ OpenSocial, RockYou’s apps could easily be implemented.
• RockYou currently reaches 100 million social network users per month.
• After a prior round for $35 milion, RockYou’s total funding now comes to $52 million.

Venture Beat

• Wordpress: Sync your WordPress blog posts with your LinkedIn profile
• ReadingList by Amazon: Sharing the books you’re reading with other LinkedIn members
• Box.net: Lets you share content on your profile, and collaborate with friends and colleagues
• BlogLink: Same function as the Wordpress app, but offered by SixApart
• CompanyBuzz: Shows you the twitter activity associated with your company
• Slideshare: Share presentations on LinkedIn
• Google Presentation: Upload a .PPT or use Google’s online application to embed a presentation on your profile.
• MyTravel By TripIt: See where your LinkedIn network is traveling and when you will be in the same city as your colleagues.
• Huddle Workspace: Create private workspaces to collaborate with your connections (Thanks Andy).

To see the apps page or to add them to your profile now, head here.

TechCrunch

• Business networking startup LinkedIn has raised another $22.7 million, on top of the $53 million D round it closed last June at a $1 billion valuation.
• The new round sees SAP, Goldman Sachs, and McGraw Hill join the team, with existing investor Bessemer Venture Partners participating.
• LinkedIn has raised over $100 million now, and is rumored to be around the corner to filing for an IPO with Goldman as the underwriter (our inside sources at Goldman)

Silicon Alley Insider, TechCrunch, Search Engine Watch, The LinkedIn Blog, Pulse 2.0, Mark Evans, Startup Wire, ReadWriteWeb, Between the Lines, Blogspotting, VentureBeat, Inquirer, Epicenter, L.A. Times Tech Blog, Voices, paidContent.org, Tech Trader Daily, Tech Beat, Startup Chatter, Business Technology and The Social Times

• Motorola has been recruiting around 350 people and pumping $50M into developing a series of Android phones.
• Their first phone, which is set to unveil early next year is geared to be social network intensive.
• The team heading up the project right now is the team from Good Technology, the mobile e-mail company Motorola bought in 2006 that pissed off thousands with their high subscription fees and an app which couldn’t be deleted from the phone. Great.
• For some reason Motorola is excited about standardization for phones, but I just think they no longer know what they are doing.
• If you are going to make a social network phone, I would create it around Facebook since it uses real names. It should have a separate address book for social network friends that can be messaged or IM’d as opposed to sending an SMS. It should also feature one-click calling to friend’s cell phone or VoIP. Now my address book becomes my social network, and it puts me in direct communication with friends around the world that I avoid long distance calling/SMS fees. We have seen social network phones fail in the past though (cough cough..Helio)

TC, Business Week, jkOnTheRun, GigaOM, Silicon Alley Insider, OStatic blogs, CNET News