Philipp Heintze

Facebook is using their marketplace feature to create a place for application developers and the companies that need them to connect. If you’re a developer of Facebook applications, you can post a resume of sorts, while if you’re looking to have an app built, you can describe your project and budget.

When searching for a developer or for a project, you can drill down to your various networks, but since the feature is brand new, the best option for now is just to follow the marketplace link from the Facebook Developer Homepage.

Several firms specializing in Facebook app development have sprung up since the social network launched its platform, such as FB Factory and Techligtenment. While these types of firms will still probably be the go-to for companies with a bigger budget, the marketplace should give people with good app ideas and limited funds a good centralized place to connect with others and get their project built. It should also be a good place for freelance developers to find some work.

ShareThis

We’re not a conventional company and we don’t intend to become one, they said. See how we scorn the traditional stock offering process! See how we fearlessly test the large-scale viability of the so-called Dutch auction! Look at us! See how we refuse to give earnings guidance in the traditional sense! See how we make money without being evil! See how easily our share price passes the $200 milestone! And the $300 milestone, and the $700 milestone. See it twice! See how our newly rich employees drive up the prices of the Atherton, Calif., $25 million tear-downs! Our profit margins are among the highest in corporate America! Ha ha! See how we beat estimates quarter after quarter! See how they add us to the S&P 500! See how we refuse to sacrifice long-term opportunities to meet quarterly market expectations! See how our shares “plummet” and they’re still 20 times more valuable than Microsoft’s? And 40 times more valuable than Yahoo’s! Cower before our market cap! Bask in our arrogance! We are a golden god!

Well, we’re not so high and mighty now are we, Google? Not with financial results that come in a penny under estimates. A penny under estimates! That’s what they call a material miss, you Dutch auction dandies. Who cares if those estimates were inflated? Your fourth-quarter profit only rose 17%, compared to the 46% profit growth you posted in the third quarter. Ha! Your revenue rose a paltry 51% from a year earlier to $4.83 billion. You’ve only got $14.2 billion in cash and marketable securities on hand. $14.2 billion. A pittance. You are going down! Who cares a whit for your assurances about the state of the economy! (See how our CEO arrogantly dismisses the current growth recession as “rumors of future recessions“!“)

Investors are not so easily consoled. Into the mud, Google! Your shares, which have dropped 18% already this year, are down more than $36 today! Kerplunk! $520 in after-hours trading! They’re only 29 times more valuable than Yahoo now, prigs. Ha! Oh you are going down, all right …

Filed under: iPod Family, iPhone

TUAW reader Rudi writes that he needs web clips on his iPhone that "prefix my web path with a username and password, great for things like web based corporate email." In response to Rudi and to anyone else who needs special-purpose URLs, including ones that make telephone calls (using the tel:// prefix instead of http://), here's ClipIt.

When run, it prompts you for a web clip name and URL. Enter these and tap Create. The utility builds a new web clip for you and places it on your home screen. There's no way to go back and fix a URL with this (and of course, being the iPhone, no cut & paste yet), so make sure you've entered it carefully the first time.

If you're looking to create a telephone link, build a URL that starts with tel://, e.g. tel://202-456-1111. When tapped, the web clip first opens Safari, which then asks you to confirm whether you want to continue placing the call. ClipIt, with its web clip functionality, works only on iPhone firmware 1.1.3 and higher.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Jonathan “NerveGas” Zdziarski has put an iPhone that has received the “secret” software/firmware 1.1.3 jailbreak — a method the iPhone Dev Team does not plan on releasing until after Apple has announced an official SDK — on eBay.

The jailbreak applied on this iPhone, unlike the currently available “soft-upgrade” method, is true. That means it uses the iPhone 1.1.3 baseband, iPhone 1.1.3 kernel, and operates without many of the issues plaguing users of the cumbersome soft-upgrade.

The item’s description reads:

“This 4GB iPhone has been my development phone since Apple’s initial release. It has been with me when we first jail-broke firmware 1.0.0, was used when I wrote ‘iPhone Open Application Development,’ and today is proudly running the ‘private’ jailbreak of firmware 1.1.3.

“The private jailbreak is how members of the dev-team jailbreak our own phones, but is not presently available to the public. This is one of the only ‘true’ jailbreaks out there for v1.1.3, and as such is running the 1.1.3 baseband, 1.1.3 kernel, and is activated - running flawlessly with the native Google location service, fully functioning sync, sound, and all other features as a proper upgrade does. The firmware was updated directly in iTunes, and so is a completely legal software revision to include with the iPhone. As a week 23 phone, this iPhone has the older boot-loader, which allows for unlocking. 1.1.3 unlocking development is underway, but will require an older bootloader like this one. And if you can’t wait then you can always downgrade the baseband when the next firmware version rolls out.”

The actual method for performing the jailbreak has been erased from this phone, so reverse engineering or discovery of the secret procedure doesn’t seem possible.

Feedback? info@iphoneatlas.com.

Relativ viel Wirbel hat der Navigationsgerätehersteller Garmin mit der Ankündigung eines eigenen, deutlich am iPhone orientierten Mobiltelefons ausgelöst und damit das erste Ziel erreicht: breite Medienpräsenz.

Was jedoch im September in die Läden kommen soll, macht momentan noch den Eindruck einer großen Luftblase. Sämtliche Produkt- und Menüabbildungen in der Fotogalerie zum Nüvifone dürften am Rechner entstanden sein, zudem hält sich der Hersteller mit jeglichen Informationen zu Bedienung und Betriebssystem komplett bedeckt. (via Daring Fireball)

Google has just reported earnings for its most recent quarter. Revenue for the company totaled $4.83 billion, a 51% increase from the same period last year. Of that revenue, $1.64 billion came from ads on third-party sites, via AdSense. This compares to the 8 percent revenue growth that increasingly distant rival Yahoo reported earlier this week.

We also received some numbers earlier this week from Nielsen with traffic metrics for Google. In search, Google maintained 56.6% share, handily beating Yahoo (17.7%) and Windows Live Search (13.8). That said, traffic to Google was up only 8% for the quarter year-over-year, though, the laws of large numbers are partly to blame here – Google totaled 114 million monthly unique visits on average during the fourth quarter. Other Google properties showed very impressive growth – Picasa up 197%, YouTube 81%, and Blogger 52%.

Coincidently, VentureBeat is out today with a fascinating interview of Marissa Mayer, Google’s VP Search Products & User Experience. In it, she discusses how Google may begin to incorporate social networking into search in the future, such as utilizing data from your Gmail contacts or even third-party social networks. Well worth a read if you have a few minutes.

ShareThis

Steve O'Hear (who edits our digital lifestyle blog last100) has an interesting post on his ZDNet blog that questions whether Google's OpenSocial initiative is at all about data portability, or if in fact it really just about widget standardization. O'Hear quotes heavily from a recent article by Marc Canter, who is a strong advocate for open standards and data portability, that ran on CNet.

"It seems that almost everybody got a little carried away about what OpenSocial really stands for, falling for Google’s attempt to outmaneuver Facebook and paint the latter as the big bad wolf of data lock-in," writes O'Hear. "Except OpenSocial isn’t really designed to give users the ability to move their data from one social network to another."

Instead, he says, OpenSocial's goal is to standardize widget development. According to Canter, many of the social networks that have signed on to OpenSocial never intended to open their network and allows users to transport data, regardless of whether that was part of Google's plans. Rather, networks wanted access to Google's OpenSocial gadgets (their word for widgets) in an attempt to strike back against Facebook's successful platform.

This is something Marshall Kirkpatrick picked up on shortly after Google announced OpenSocial. "As some people have told me tonight, it may have been more accurate to call this 'OpenWidget' - though the press wouldn't have been as good. We've been waiting for data and identity portability - is this all we get?" he wondered in November.

And if Google is really just trying to standardize widget development, are they the ones we want at the helm? Snipperoo's Ivan Pope argues that "we'd be better off working from the ground up rather than getting suckered by a Google et al inspired bit of marketing flammery." I'm inclined to agree. Other than the seeming lack of data portability as part of the OpenSocial initiative, one of the other chief concerns that our own Marshall Kirkpatrick talked about was whether Google was exercising leadership or control.

"Still remaining is the question of Google's control over the standards creation process. It's not possible that one of the largest companies in the US and the largest in this consortium would act entirely out of concern for the world at large," he wrote.

So if OpenSocial is really not about data portability and interoperability between networks (except as far as widget creation is concerned), we'll have to look elsewhere for that. But that's not to say that OpenSocial is a total wash -- widget standardization isn't such a bad idea. As we wrote in November, there are plenty of winners when OpenSocial is adopted. "The winners of OpenSocial are Google (who now has hooks into a large number of social networking sites that reach hundreds of millions of people -- whom Google surely hopes will one day be viewing Google ads), users (who now have access to social apps on networks that previously didn't have developer APIs), app developers," we said.

The question is, do we want Google to be leading the way in widget standardization? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Kennt ihr Leute, die mit dem Begriff Web 2.0 ausschließlich Social Networks, Microbloggingdienste und Videoportale verbinden? Dann zeigt ihnen Sprout. Dieses Startup aus dem sonnigen San Francisco führt dem staunenden Betrachter/Benutzer eindrucksvoll vor Augen, was man mit einer Webapplikation im Jahr 2008 alles machen kann. Sprout ist eine Art webbasierter Flash-Editor, mit dem Blogger, Webseitenbetreiber und Nutzer sozialer Internetdienste kostenlos multimediale Flash-Widgets erstellen und auf beliebigen Seiten integrieren können. Das Besondere an Sprout ist der enorme Funktionsumfang und die intuitive Benutzeroberfläche des Editors, die sehr nah an die bekannter Desktop-Programme herankommt. Es ist ein gutes Zeichen, wenn man während Arbeit völlig vergisst, dass man einen browserbasierten Dienst nutzt, oder?!

Ich fasse mich bei der Beschreibung von Sprout kurz, denn um meine Begeisterung teilen zu können, solltet ihr euch selbst daran versuchen. In aller Kürze: Man wählt die gewünschte Größe des Widgets und erstellt ein neues Projekt. Anschließend gelangt man zur Arbeitsfläche, die über frei positionierbare Werkzeugleisten (Toolbars) verfügt. Wie z.B. von Photoshop gewohnt, klickt man auf die benötigten Funktionen und befüllt die zu Beginn weiße Widgetfläche mit Inhalten. Zu den verwendbaren Elementen gehören MP3-Dateien, Videos, Bilder, Texte, RSS-Feeds, Kalender, Buttons, Fortschrittsbalken, Slideshows, Thumbnails, Google Diagramme, Yahoo Maps, Meebo Chats und viele mehr. Alles kann beliebig und sehr flexibel kombiniert werden. Jedes Element bringt eine eigene Werkzeugleiste mit zahlreichen Detailoptionen mit.

Es ist eine reine Freude, mit Sprout herumzuspielen und aufwändige, multimediale Flash-Widgets zu erstellen. Dabei läuft jeder Prozess extrem flüssig, dynamisch und ohne merkliche Verlangsamung des Browsers oder Systems ab (anders als beim ebenfalls flashbasierten Online-Office-Dienst Live Documents). Nachdem man seine Kreativität genutzt und ein schickes Widget (was die Größe eines Skyscraper-Banners haben kann) erstellt hat, kann man es speichern und auf seiner Website, in seinem Blog oder auf seinem Profil bei unzähligen Social Networks veröffentlichen. Auch das Arbeiten an verschiedenen Projekten gleichzeitig ist möglich, ebenso wie das Verändern bereits veröffentlichter Elemente.

Rechts oben seht ihr ein innerhalb kürzester Zeit erstelltes Widget mit dem RSS-Feed von zweinull.cc (zugegeben, ich war nicht sonderlich kreativ). Angefangen von den einzelnen Textfarben über die Anzahl der angezeigten Beiträge und Einstellungen zum Linkverhalten bis hin zu grafischen Zusatzelementen ist alles frei wählbar. Die Benutzung von Sprout ist kostenlos. Der Dienst befindet sich momentan in der geschlossenen Beta-Phase, allerdings wurde der entscheidende Link zum Editor lediglich versteckt. Hier ist er. Wer Sprout ausprobieren möchte, kann sofort loslegen. Erst wenn es ans Speichern eines Projektes geht, ist eine Registrierung erforderlich. Ich bin gespannt, was ihr von Sprout haltet. Für mich ist es die bisher größte Innovation im noch jungen Jahr 2008.

Im Folgenden eine kurze Videopräsentation von und mit Sprout:

Allen Gerüchten zum Trotz - bei Microsoft wird gearbeitet. Am Wochenende schwirrte eine Meldung durchs Internet, die Programmierer in Redmond würden nur Däumchen drehen und das neue Windows 7, Codename Vienna, sei erst “in Planung”. Alles nicht wahr, wird nun richtiggestellt. An Windows 7 und vor allem dem neuen Mediacenter wird schon fleissig codiert.

Bei all der Aufregung habe ich ganz vergessen, Windows Vista zum einjährigen Geburtstag zu gratulieren. Das wird hier - TaaTaa - gleich nachgeholt. Als Geburtstagsgeschenk vermachen wir den Neuerdings-Lesern auch gleich den grössten Windows-Start-Button aller Zeiten. Den erhält man mittels Klick auf obigens stehendes Bild. Vista-Fans können sich das Ganze auf ein T-Shirt drucken lassen und so der Freude Ausdruck verleihen, dass Microsoft schon 100 Millionen Vista Lizenzen verkauft hat.

Aber eigentlich wollte ich ja über Windows 7 schreiben. Also, laut neuesten, natürlich unbestätigten News ….

…. kommt Windows 7 irgendwann zwischen 2009 und 2011. Die genaue Terminplanung wüsste eigentlich Steven Sinofsky, Senior Vice President, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group. Aber der schweigt. Stattdessen erschien beim WinVista Club eine als offiziell bezeichnete Aussage von Microsoft, “man sei bei Windows 7 in der Planungsphase und rechne mit 3 Jahren Entwicklungszeit”. Das wurde dann gleich so interpretiert, dass die Entwickler bei Microsoft nun lediglich gemeinsam in der Agenda rumkritzeln, statt fleissig zu programmieren. Oder feiern die einfach wochenlange Vista-Geburtstagspartys?

Ich kann die Windows-Gemeinde beruhigen. Bei Microsoft wird geschuftet. Der Milestone 1 von Windows 7 ist nicht nur ein Gerücht und auch am neuen Mediacenter wird fleissig gebaut. Dessen Produktmanager, Charlie Owen, versicherte in seinem Blog dann auch, dass man am neuen Mediacenter seit Oktober 2007 mit Volldampf entwickelt. Später soll sogar ein Debugger dazukommen.

Das ist auch dringend nötig, denn das aktuelle Mediacenter bockt mit Settop-Boxen genauso wie mit Satellitenempfang. Kein Wunder, fressen clevere SAT-Receiver und Multimedia-Harddisks Microsoft dem Markt weg.

Inzwischen sucht Microsoft übrigens bereits Beta-Tester für das neue Media-Center.

A brief interview with Fortune Magazine reveals that Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, along with CEO Eric Schmidt, made a pact shortly before the company’s 2004 IPO to stay at the company for at least 20 years. That means that we’ve got at least 16 years left with the trio leading what is currently the world’s biggest search engine.

It also means that they are firmly committed to seeing through Google’s many initiatives outside of search, such as wireless, print advertising, Google Knol, and countless other projects currently sitting in Google Labs.

So, what will the company look like in 2024 when the top Googlers start thinking about retirement? Pontificate in the comments.

ShareThis