As the fugitive businessman Asil Nadir flew back to Britain from his North Cyprus bolt-hole last week, Sean O'Neill, the crime editor of The Times, scooped Fleet Street by being the only print journalist on the plane. Yet those searching Google for the latest on the breaking story that morning would have found no sign of O'Neill's exclusive – only follow-up stories by rival news organisations such as The Guardian and ITN.

People are increasingly sharing different types of information on Twitter. For example, Tweets point to web pages, photos, videos, hashtags, people, check-ins, and more. Exploring Tweets is a great way to discover new and interesting information. And with devices of all shapes and sizes connecting to the Internet, we’re constantly looking for new ways to make this easier. To date, we’ve created applications for a variety of mobile phones, giving you instant access to Tweets and great content when you’re on the go.

Today we are bringing Tweets to a device that really lets content shine - the iPad. Twitter for iPad takes advantage of the iPad’s fluid touch interface, letting you move lots of information around smoothly and quickly – without needing to open and close windows or click buttons. There are a few things we want to point out that make this app a really fast and fun way to read real-time content.

Panes: Tapping on a Tweet opens a pane to the right. Depending on the content in that Tweet, you’ll see a video or photo, or maybe a news story, or perhaps another Tweet. You can continue tapping on Tweets, opening new panes, and getting new content as long as you’d like to. And, it’s really easy to move between panes by swiping to the right or left.


Media: When you tap a video link or open a web page with an embedded video, you can play that video inline. And, let’s be honest, video is great but sometimes it can take some time to load. The panes in Twitter for iPad let you look through your timeline while a video is loading, and then you can just swipe back to the video when it’s ready to play. You can also pinch on a video to watch it fullscreen.

Gestures: You can pinch on a Tweet to quickly view details about the author and to take actions on a Tweet, such as reply or retweet. Put two fingers together and pull down on a Tweet to peek at the replies, showing the entire conversation leading to that Tweet.

New York Times publishes allegations that PM's media adviser 'actively encouraged' unlawful practice while editor

The prime minister's media adviser, Andy Coulson, freely discussed the use of unlawful news-gathering techniques while editor of the News of the World and "actively encouraged" a named reporter to engage in the illegal interception of voicemail messages, according to allegations published by the New York Times.

Coulson, who resigned as editor of the News of the World in January 2007 after its royal correspondent was jailed for intercepting voicemail messages, has always insisted that he had no knowledge of illegal activity when he edited the paper or at any time as a journalist. He told a Commons select committee last year: "I have never had any involvement in it at all."

The New York Times website published a trail to a story due to appear in its Sunday magazine. It made detailed allegations likely to bring intense new pressure on Coulson and the Metropolitan police force, which stands accused of favouring Rupert Murdoch's newspaper group by cutting short its investigation, withholding crucial evidence from prosecutors and failing to inform victims of the newspaper's crimes against them. Coulson declined to comment on the allegations. The News of the World and Scotland Yard have denied all the charges.

Coulson resigned after the imprisonment of his royal reporter, Clive Goodman, and a private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, for "hacking" into the voicemail messages of eight public figures. When the Guardian revealed last year that the scandal involved other journalists at the paper and numerous other victims, Coulson said he had nothing to add to earlier denials of involvement, and the Conservative leader stood by him. David Cameron said: "I believe in giving people a second chance."

The New York Times, which has had an investigative team at work on the story since March, is citing two former News of the World journalists who specifically claim that Coulson was directly aware of his reporters' use of illegal techniques.

An unnamed former editor is quoted as claiming that Coulson talked freely about illegal news-gathering techniques, including phone-hacking, and that he personally had been at "dozens, if not hundreds" of meetings with Coulson where the subject came up. "The editor added that when Coulson would ask where a story came from, editors would reply 'We've pulled the phone records' or 'I've listened to the phone messages'."

In addition, Sean Hoare, a former reporter who used to be a close friend of Coulson, is quoted as saying that when he worked with Coulson at the Sun, he personally played recordings of hacked voicemail messages for him and that later, when he worked for Coulson at the News of the World, he "continued to inform Coulson of his pursuits. Coulson 'actively encouraged me to do it', Hoare said".

Hoare, who was sacked from the paper at a time when he had drink and drug problems, says he personally listened to the voicemail messages of celebrities such as David and Victoria Beckham and that he has spoken out now because he believes it was unfair for Goodman to get all the blame.

Coulson told the Commons media committee last year that he had never even heard Mulcaire's name and that Goodman had been the only reporter involved: "I am absolutely sure that Clive's case was a very unfortunate rogue case."

The New York Times claims to have spoken to a dozen former News of the World reporters and editors who say that phone-hacking was "pervasive" in Coulson's newsroom. "Everyone knew," according to an unnamed senior reporter. "The office cat knew." Most former reporters are unnamed, but Sharon Marshall is named as having witnessed hacking when working under Coulson from 2002-04. "It was an industry-wide thing," she said.

The paper says that Coulson ran a highly competitive newsroom "with single-minded imperiousness". Former News of the World journalists claim that there was a "do whatever it takes" mentality and that reporters were told to "get the story, no matter what". "They described a frantic, sometimes degrading atmosphere in which some reporters openly pursued hacking or other improper tactics to satisfy demanding editors," according to the New York Times.

The paper gives a specific example of the involvement of an editorial executive: "Matt Driscoll, a former sports reporter, recalled chasing a story about the soccer star Rio Ferdinand. Ferdinand claimed he had inadvertently turned off his phone and missed a message alerting him to a drug test. Driscoll had hit a dead end, he said, when an editor showed up at his desk with the player's private phone records." Driscoll was later dismissed and awarded £800,000 by a tribunal, which found that he had been bullied by Coulson.

Bill Akass, managing editor of the News of the World, dismissed the New York Times claims as "unsubstantiated". He said: "We reject absolutely any suggestion or assertion that the activities of Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire, at the time of their arrest, were part of a culture of wrongdoing at the News of the World and were specifically sanctioned or accepted at a senior level in the newspaper."

The New York Times goes on to quote unnamed sources from the Met suggesting that its inquiry into the phone hacking was hampered by a desire to avoid upsetting Britain's biggest selling newspaper: "Several investigators said in interviews that Scotland Yard was reluctant to conduct a wider inquiry in part because of its close relationship with the News of the World."

After a raid on Goodman's desk in August 2006, according to the New York Times, "several detectives said they began feeling internal pressure. One senior investigator said he was approached by someone from the department's press office, who was waving his arms in the air, saying 'wait a minute, let's talk about this'."

The investigator, who has since left Scotland Yard, added that the press officer stressed the department's "long-term relationship with News International". The investigator recalled furiously responding: "There's illegality here, and we'll pursue it like we do any other case." Scotland Yard says that operational decisions are made by police, not by press officers.

Former journalists told the New York Times that when Scotland Yard raided Goodman's desk, two senior journalists "stuffed reams of documents into trash bags and hauled them away". Police did not interview any other reporter or editor apart from Goodman. The material seized from Goodman and Mulcaire included paperwork which potentially implicated three named journalists. None was interviewed and, as the Guardian disclosed last year, the police failed to pass key paperwork to the Crown Prosecution Service.

The New York Times quotes an unnamed former senior prosecutor who was "stunned to discover later that the police had not shared everything. 'I would have said we need to see how far this goes' and 'whether we have a serious problem of criminality on this news desk', said the former prosecutor."

When the case came to court, police identified eight victims of the hacking. However, the New York Times claims that the officer responsible for the inquiry, the then assistant commissioner Andy Hayman, had been shown a "target list" of names and numbers taken from Mulcaire's home which ran to eight or 10 pages and which "read like a British society directory".

The Met told prosecutors that it would approach all known victims, but failed to do so. One who was approached, the then Respect MP George Galloway, told the New York Times that police warned him that his voicemail had been intercepted but refused to tell him who was responsible.

Scotland Yard denies cutting short its inquiry or being influenced by its relationship with the News of the World. The Press Complaints Commission was criticised after two inquiries into the affair failed to find evidence of wrongdoing other than that originally presented by police.

After revelations in the Guardian, the Commons media select committee held a second inquiry into the affair last year. Its report expressed concern "at the readiness of all of those involved – News International, the police and the PCC – to leave Mr Goodman as the sole scapegoat without carrying out a full investigation".

Coulson said tonight: "I absolutely deny these allegations."

Atlanta Journal-Constitution | Time.com
"We don't see this as the magazine being dead," says Paste editor Josh Jackson. "We just see it as taking a break right now. We've been trying to raise capital for a long time, and we had a deal that was about to close. And it just fell apart." || Charlie Duerr: "Sorry to see you go, Paste."
> It's possible a buyer will want Paste's digital assets

Steve Jobs' Apple TV announcement today highlighted the huge difference between his company's efforts in the living room and Google's forthcoming Google TV.

Specifically, Google wants to turn your TV into a computer. Apple says people specifically don't want computers on their TV. Who will win?

Apple made it clear today that it's trying to complement the gadgets that are already in your living room and hooked up to your TV. Apple TV is an add-on -- it's basically there to provide a few extra streaming features, in addition to your cable box and videogame console.

It doesn't have an app store, it doesn't have games, and it doesn't have a web browser. It's slick but not complex. It's all about trying to ease people into the idea of using an Internet device in their living room. It's not a computer.

[People] "don't want a computer on their TV," Apple CEO Steve Jobs said today. "They have computers. They go to their wide-screen TVs for entertainment. Not to have another computer. This is a hard one for people in the computer industry to understand, but it's really easy for consumers to understand. They get it."

Meanwhile, Google is trying to invade the living room and take over. Google TV is a huge, ambitious attempt to make Google the focal point of your TV experience. It sits between your cable box and your TV, tells your DVR what to record, searches the web, and seems to add a lot of complexity to your entertainment experience.

For an analogy, in terms of ambition, Apple TV feels like Twitter, and Google TV feels like Google Wave. (This is just based on observations; not based on using either of the new devices.)

Analyst Michael Gartenberg sums it up nicely on Twitter: "Apple and Google taking two different approaches. Google wants input one. Will never get it. Apple wants input two and might."

He's referring to the input jacks on your TV set. Google is trying to replace your cable box or satellite TV box as "input one." That's really ambitious, and a big risk. Apple wants "input two," where your DVD player is today, or your PlayStation. That seems more attainable.

So let's handicap the two, based on what we've seen so far:

Google has a very small chance of totally taking over the TV business -- which would be a massive coup -- and a huge chance of completely failing. (Sort of like its Nexus One phone was a big bet to disrupt the mobile phone industry, which wound up flopping.)

Apple TV, meanwhile, has a good chance of continuing as an obscure, niche device. But if enough people take a flier on the $99 Apple TV, Apple also has a solid chance of teaching people about the idea of using an Internet device in their living room, and it can gradually make the box more complex. This seems like a safer bet, if less disruptive.

The battle is on this November. Who's going to win?

Related: Apple TV Now Slightly Less Boring

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• The Only 10 Things You Need To Know About Apple's Big Event
• Apple TV Now Slightly Less Boring, Still Probably Not Apple's Next Big Hit
• Here's What The New Apple TV Looks Like

Within the next several weeks, the New Yorker magazine will be publishing big pieces about a pair of digital icons located on the East and West coasts–an assessment of the turnaround at AOL by staff columnist Ken Auletta and a profile of Facebook Co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg by Huffington Post senior contributing editor Jose Antonio Vargas.

For the Zuckerberg piece, Vargas was given a lot of access by the social networking kingpin, including allowing rare interviews with Zuckerberg’s inner circle and also longtime girlfriend and fulltime med student Priscilla Chan.

And Auletta–whose big New Yorker takeout on Google (GOOG) turned into a book that is now being turned into a movie–will be assessing the turnaround efforts at AOL (AOL), which is now being led by former Google exec Tim Armstrong.

The Internet icon has seen troubled times in recent years, including a spin-off from Time Warner (TWX), which should make for interesting fodder for Auletta.

Also in the tech-topic kitty at the New Yorker, sources said: A profile of trouble-making Gawker Media impresario Nick Denton by Ben McGrath, which I am hoping will include his terrific tour of Chinese markets near where he lives in Manhattan’s SoHo.

The plot thickens!

While two official Apple pages tout an ability to use Facebook to find friends on its new social music offering in ITunes called Ping, which would be very useful, the feature is now not available on the service.

CEO Steve Jobs, in fact, told me at the Apple (AAPL) event where Ping and more was unveiled yesterday that the lack of Facebook integration was due to unspecified “onerous terms” that the social networking giant had sought and Apple declined.

Which is why it is odd that Apple’s SVP of worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller said in the interview below that I also did at the confab minutes apart that “you can use your Facebook contacts to find friends who are also on Ping and hook up to them.”

So what happened? A last-minute yanking of Facebook, it appears.

BoomTown has inquiries into all the parties, but until then, here my video interview of Schiller talking about Ping’s Facebook love before it was spurned in a Silicon Valley mystery and more yesterday:

Facebook is in what’s called a recruiting sweet spot right now. Out of control growth in users and revenue and a nearly certain IPO run in the near future. That’s when employee growth expands at the greatest rate for a company as it grows from hundreds to thousands and then tens of thousands of employees. And with low priced private stock as currency, companies in that position can generally get anyone they want.

Yahoo of course does more than its fair share of feeding the beast, but they’re everyone’s favorite recruiting pool right now. But plenty of Googler’s are heading to Facebook, too – LinkedIn is tracking 118 of them to date. For some Googlers, it’s paying off just to go get an offer from Facebook and then tell their employer – a counter offer is almost sure to come, and it may be stratospheric.

One recent Googler, we’ve confirmed, was recently offered a counter offer he couldn’t refuse (except he did). He was offered a 15% raise on his $150,000 mid level developer salary, quadruple the stock benefits and…wait for it…a $500,000 cash bonus to stay for a year. He took the Facebook offer anyway.

Sources close to Google tell us that about 80% of people stay when they’re offered a counter to a Facebook offer. But some still leave. Part of that may be that Facebook is quietly telling people, never in writing, that there’s no reason their stock won’t hit $100 billion in total valuation over the next couple of years. No guarantees, yadda yadda, but hey if you get 1/10 of 1%, that’s $100 million in stock. Now it’s a party.

Google isn’t making these kind of counter offers to everyone, but it’s not a one off, either. It seems to me that every Google engineer at least should be taking a personal day to go collect a Facebook offer. Even if it’s just to get a counter offer from their current employer.

Art: Audrey Fukuman

Are you addicted to Twitter? Do you have an iPad? Even if the answer to both is “no” right now, after you see Twitter for iPad, those answers are going to change — quickly.

Yes, the wait is over. Launching tonight in the App Store is Twitter for iPad — the first official native iPad app from the company. We all knew it was coming (Twitter even said so a few months ago), but it has been a long wait. It was definitely worth it.

Like most people, I wander into hyperbole from time to time. But it has now been a few days since I first played with Twitter for iPad, and I still think it is hands-down the best iPad app out there. It’s that good. With all due respect to Reeder, Instapaper, Flipboard, and Pulse, this is now going to be my go-to app for just about everything related to reading news. It’s simply such a great experience for reading tweets — and more importantly, reading the links your friends share.

What Twitter has done is create an amazing user experience for reading information. This is thanks to an intuitive user interface that layers on top of itself. So, for example, if I click on a link in my tweet stream, I’ll have a new layer that rolls over to show that webpage in a customized browser window. If you’ve used Flipboard, it’s somewhat similar, but better because it’s much easier to go back to where ever you previously were before you clicked the link. You simply swipe something to the side to move it temporarily or swipe it again to get it off the screen (in portrait mode anyway, where there’s less space).

Something else that’s awesome: when you highlight a tweet by clicking on it, it’s now pinned to the top or bottom of the screen as you scroll through your stream. This is great if it’s something you want to reference. A lot of thought has been put into these type of saving state actions within this app. It’s simple to save a draft and go back to it, for example (much easier than with Twitter for iPhone). Or to reference one of these pinned tweets in your own tweet.

There are also some great new gestures that Twitter came up with for this app. For example, if you pinch-outward on a tweet, it will unfold to show you more information about the Twitter user. Better may be the way you can swipe down with two fingers on any tweet to see a full conversation in context. It’s the little things like this that make the app great — Apple-like, even.

Overall, the app looks and feels quite a bit different from Twitter for iPhone (which Twitter built from Tweetie — developer Loren Brichter’s client that they acquired earlier this year). But Twitter’s Leland Rechis assures me it’s using all the same stuff on the backend. In fact, Twitter is now a universal app — meaning it’s one app that will work on both the iPhone and iPad, it will just look different depending on which device you’re using it on.

Rechis also says Twitter started experimenting with some newer things on the iPad version that haven’t yet been brought to the iPhone version, but undoubtedly will. A great example here is that when you click through to a user’s profile page, you’ll see at the bottom a list of users similar to that user that you may like to follow.

Rechis also notes the importance of the logged-out view — something Twitter worked on before the iPhone version launch. Twitter wants to make the service as useful as possible to people even if they don’t have an account. The idea, of course, is that they’ll hopefully sign up for one — and this app may give them the most reason to yet. When logged out, you’ll be able to see tweet streams based on hot topics.

“Tweets in general are not just what I’m doing, they have an incredible amount of metadata,” Rechis says speaking to why they created this layering idea for the app. Almost 25 percent of all tweets now have a link in them, he says. This app is perfect for those tweets, and content consumption and exploration in general.

Rechis notes that one of his favorite things about tablets is how they eliminate window management. At the same time, you need some way to manage all this information. He notes that Brichter’s original concept was stacks of sheets of paper that you quickly shuffle through. Other members of Twitter including Rechis refined that idea and the end result is Twitter for iPad.

That’s roughly 750 words about the app — but you really just need to see it, and use it. It will definitely be my go-to way to browse Twitter from now on. It’s that good.

Look for it in the App Store shortly. It will be a free download.

Update: I should note that for some of these more advanced gestures, there is a slight learning curve. That said, you can do everything without using those gestures, so it’s not a big deal — it’s just icing on the cake. And yes, Twitter is trying to come up with the best way to teach users about these new gestures.

Sony’s long-held ambition of providing a content service available to its game console and other devices is finally coming together.

At the IFA show in Berlin on Wednesday, CEO Howard Stringer said the cloud-based Sony Online Services (SOLS) platform, which was hinted at in November, is being christened Qriocity, and will offer both unlimited music and on-demand movies to compatible, connected devices.

—Qriocity already quietly launched in the U.S. in April with VOD movies from 20th Century Fox, Lionsgate (NYSE: LGF), Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, NBC Universal (NYSE: GE) International Television Distribution, Paramount Pictures, Sony (NYSE: SNE) Pictures, The Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS) Company and Warner Bros.

—On Wednesday, Sony said this “Video On Demand powered by Qriocity” would be made available in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK from the autumn, and that “Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity”, with “millions” of songs, would be added “by year’s end”.

Sony says, “over time”, it will also add games and e-books to the “powered by Qriocity” suite.

Right now, Qriocity’s movies service is accessible by four Bravia TVs, three Blu-ray players and two home theater systems. But the music service will also be available through PlayStation 3, VAIO computers and portable devices.

So Sony’s multi-platform play is Qriocity. Or is it? Where this leaves Sony Internet TV and Bravia Internet Video, the existing brands for services on Sony’s connected Bravia TVs is unclear. As it stands, Qriocity would likely sit as a service within Sony Internet TV, which has over European 30 VOD TV partners on-board, Stringer said in Berlin.

And what about PlayStation Network (PSN)? Right now, PS3 users find movie rentals tucked away in the Videos section of the PlayStation Store. With Qriocity, Sony is giving content services a higher profile in the same way Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is introducing Zune movies and music to Xbox 360.

In Sony’s 2009 annual report, Stringer had said Qriocity is actually “based upon PSN” and would include “television programming”.

Qriocity must be the suite that leverages Sony’s breadth to finally introduce entertainment content to its wide range of devices…

That’s all very well for folks who own mostly Sony devices, but it doesn’t sound like it takes account of the customer who, for example, owns a Sony TV, a Compaq computer and an Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) phone. Indeed, manufacturer neutrality would help the Sony Music Entertainment and Sony Pictures reach even more consumers.

“In the future, Qriocity will be a service available through third parties parties as well, though it’s not clear how that will work,” Engadget reported from Stringer’s announcement.

Release.

Virgin Mobile’s MiFi is nearly like the ones offered by Sprint and Verizon but with three exceptions: an unlimited data plan, no contract and a $40-a-month service fee.

It's no secret that Twitter for iPhone (née Tweetie) is often regarded as the gold standard for mobile apps -- it blends functionality, performance, and usability together with a dash of playful quirkiness that works so well Twitter just bought the app and hired developer Loren Brichter in back in April. That delayed the release of an iPad version, but Twitter's finally come through -- and as you'd expect, Twitter for iPad does things just as uniquely as its sister apps on the iPhone and Mac. In fact, we'd go so far as to say a few of its interface conventions will become as commonplace as slide-to-refresh, which was first introduced in Tweetie for iPhone -- but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Read on for more!

Continue reading Twitter for iPad review

Twitter for iPad review originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 23:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple announced on Wednesday a cornucopia of new hardware and software: sleek iPods, a brand new Internet-enabled video streaming device and new versions of its iOS software and iTunes 10. However, the most impressive to me by far was Ping, the music-only social network that Apple is opening up its 160 million existing iTunes users.

No, I’m not blown away by the 160 million number. What I’m impressed by is the thinking behind Ping.

Ping may function like a cross between Facebook and Twitter for iTunes by allowing you to follow celebrities, create social cliques and get artist updates via an activity stream. I think it could have tremendous impact on social sharing and commerce.

From a content perspective, there are three different types of media we love to talk about: movies we see, music we listen to and books we are reading. These are accepted social norms. In fact, many relationships are made on the basis of collective love of a movie and many friendships have started with mixed tapes.

It makes perfect sense for a music service to be social. I’m not alone: The popularity YouTube, the fast-growing MOG and the sadly defunct iLike and Imeem show that people gravitate towards music as a common, collective experience. A recommendation from friends on Last.fm often resulted in me buying many-a-few music tracks. My friends who listened to Thievery Corporation turned me on to The Broadway Project and Chris Joss, which I ended up buying on the iTunes store or via Amazon’s MP3 store.

This click-and-go-somewhere-to-download model of affiliate links can never match a unified experience. Amazon, for example, encourages bloggers and others to link to things they like and then get a piece of the action. This separates social from commerce and treats them as two discrete activities. On the post-Facebook Internet, I don’t think anyone can afford to keep these two actions distinct.

Ping, from what little I saw during Steve Jobs’ demo, allows a similar level of social interaction. It can tell me who my friends think are cool and the top 10 favorites of people in my social graph. Some of my friends are famous deejays. Others just have eclectic musical tastes. They can collectively sift through over 10 million songs and help with the discovery of music. This social-powered discovery is part of the biggest theme of our times: serendipity. About two years ago, when I wrote about serendipity, I said:

The problem is that there’s too much data coming online too quickly, and the traditional method of search that involves first finding and then consuming the information is not going to work for much longer. There just won’t be enough time for us to do that and still have a life. It’s a problem, and therefore solving it is an opportunity — a very big opportunity.

My belief has only been affirmed by growth in the amount of data available. With 12 million songs and 250,000 apps, the best way for Apple to enhance the iTunes store – aka its shopping experience — is through the use of social. Back in 2007, I argued that social networking was merely a feature that had to be embedded into applications to enhance their value. Apple has done a great job of that, but it’s also gone one step further, not only by adding a social networking layer to iTunes, but by meshing it with its commerce engine, the iTunes Store. And it’s made this experience available on both the desktop and its devices.

Apple received much of this social capability with the acquisition of Lala, an online music service, which as a standalone company used sharing of social objects to drive folks towards paid music downloads. Now Apple is only closing the loop by further sharing what users bought. I wouldn’t be least bit surprised if sales of music on the iTunes store rocket upwards, thanks to social discovery.

Amazon, which recently started experimenting with Facebook Connect, has similar ideas, but its implementation leaves a lot to be desired. On Amazon, I’m reduced to reading reviews from absolute strangers for music. I have a handful of friends who have impeccable taste in non-fiction business books, are all members of Amazon, and they already use email to share new book suggestions with me.

What if they too could share their likes and dislikes via a social layer inside Amazon.com? Or what if I could follow my favorite authors and get updates on their books? Much like Apple, Amazon owns book-based social service, Shelfari, and should find ways to embed the social layer inside of all Amazon products and connect its tens of millions of users.

Like Apple, Amazon too has a lot more data about its customers and their behaviors and could create a compelling discovery experience. I believe with tens of thousands of products in its store, the retail giant needs to figure out ways to surface content and other offerings smartly.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d): Why Google Should Fear the Social Web

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Most of us at Boxee are Apple fanboys. If it is silver and it has the Apple logo on it, we pre-order it. If there’s a line around the block, chances are we’re in it.  And everything stops at Boxee HQ while we unbox the latest gadget to come out of Cupertino.  We were incredibly excited when a couple of developers in the community made it possible to run Boxee on Apple TV (as hundreds of thousands of users have done) and the Boxee Remote for iPhone remains one of the most popular interfaces people use to interact with Boxee. Plenty has happened since then.

Now there is a new version of Apple TV coming out and the Boxee Box is launching in November.

We think people want to be able to watch anything that they can watch on their computer, only on their bigscreen TV.  There is an overwhelming consumer expectation that the content we can consume in our cubicles, our dorm rooms, and in our laps should be available in our living rooms, in full 1080p with a gorgeous interface.  It’s a simple premise, but the challenge is to do it in a way that makes sense in that space, so you can put your feet up, grab a remote and start watching. No keyboards, mice, windows or labyrinthine menus. It should be calm and it should be beautiful. And it *must* be open.

We all watched the Apple announcement. We walked away feeling strongly confident about the space it left for Boxee to compete. We have a different view of what users want in their living rooms.  We are taking different paths to get there. The Boxee Box is going to be $100 more expensive than the Apple TV, but will give you the freedom to watch what you want.

We think it’s worth it.

From the behind-the-scenes photoshoot from Rolling Stone, Core77 plucked these incongruous shots of Mad Men's actors using modern tech. More »

We heard earlier today that Paste Magazine was in imminent danger of folding. Looks like it's already happened. More »

We’ve confirmed that wunderkind Jessica Mah is one week away from closing a hotly anticipated round of seed financing for her banking startup InDinero. Confirmed investors in the round (which still has three open spots reserved for valley VIPs like SV Angel) include 500 StartUps‘ Dave McClure, Microsoft’s Fritz Lanman, and YouTube’s Jawed Karim.

Part of the YCombinator class of 2010, InDinero aims to be the Mint for small businesses and is off to a running start as this latest round is set to close between 1 and 1.5 million. We’ve heard reports that she had to turn investors away, and Mah promises that more “juicy details” about the story behind the funding are yet to come.

Perhaps the closest we’ve got to a female Mark Zuckerberg, Mah founded her first startup at age of 13, and entered into the Computer Science program at Berekley at 15, where she started internshipIN.com. In raising over a million at twenty, the serial entrepreneur’s got a ways to go before she gets jaded.

Here’s recent video of her explaining InDinero’s usefulness and simplicity.

To know: A gunman with thoughts about overpopulation took hostages yesterday at Discovery Communication’s headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, with a list of eleven programming demands; he was killed by police in a stand-off. Hurricane Earl has prompted more evacuations in North Carolina, and, if its path shifts west, could hit Long Island, Boston, and Cape Cod. The number of illegal immigrants entering the U.S. dropped by almost two thirds from 2005 to 2009, due in part to the recession and the loss of thousands of construction jobs, which immigrants often fill. And the cell phones of hundreds of celebrities and government officials in Britain, including Prince William and Prince Harry, may have been hacked by reporters for News Group Newspapers, owned by Rupert Murdoch.

To begin today: The latest round of Middle East peace negotiations. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas are set to meet with Secretary of State Clinton. A central issue is whether Netanyahu will renew a moratorium on West Bank settlement construction, which is set to expire on September 26th.

To drop God: Stephen Hawking, whose new book states that “spontaneous creation”—not a deity—“is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists.” This is a change from his 1989 “A Brief History of Time,” in which he seemed to accept God as the designer of the universe.

To drop Andy Roddick: The U.S. Open. The No. 9 seed was upset by Janko Tipsarevic, ranked forty-fourth, leaving John Isner as the highest seeded American. Roddick argued a foot-fault call that photographs prove was accurate.

To open uptown: The discount designer megastore Century 21, which will move into a large space, across from Lincoln Center, currently occupied by Barnes & Noble.

To watch in November: Conan O’Brien’s new show on TBS, which will be called, he has revealed, “Conan.”

The deal marks the second time in eight years that the fast-food giant has taken itself private.

In a surprisingly quick and even stealthy move, AOL has renewed and expanded its search agreement with Google, even though many had expected there to be more competitive bidding throughout the fall to win the deal.

The five-year partnership to provide search technology and search advertising by powering AOL Search is more wide-ranging than the one it replaces, also including improved search products, global search, mobile search and also a video distribution arrangement with YouTube, which could evolve over time to include content partnerships.

“We have tried to make a deal that has 100 percent alignment on what we each do best,” said AOL CEO Tim Armstrong in an interview last night with Boomtown. “At the end of the day, Google checked all the boxes.”

The search partnership between AOL (AOL) and Google (GOOG)–the third since 2002 actually–was set to run out December 19.

Thus, AOL had been talking for months with a number of new partner possibilities, especially with Microsoft (MSFT) about using its Bing search service for AOL.

Microsoft has been trying to improve its market share with the innovative Bing and it has made great strides.

But, despite a valiant effort so far, is still the No. 3 search engine with about 11 percent of the market share, according to the latest comScore (SCOR) report for July, compared to 66 percent for Google and 17 percent for Yahoo (YHOO).

Adding AOL would have been a plus for Microsoft, since it has a 2.3 percent share.

But Armstrong said a deal was worked out early once AOL got what it wanted from Google, which certainly had the inside track in terms of experience in working with AOL.

Nonetheless, AOL had started the process of reevaluating who it would pick to serve its search needs late last summer and had planned for a process to last closer to when the Google deal expired.

In April, Armstrong said, AOL reengaged with all potential partners worldwide, which he said numbered a half-dozen.

He declined to name them, but sources said the other companies included Yahoo, as well as China’s Baidu.

The talks with Google were turbocharged when Armstrong–who ironically was one of the key Google execs negotiating the first AOL deal, when he headed U.S. ad sales there–met with Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin at the Allen & Co. conference earlier this summer in Sun Valley, Idaho.

The deal moved quickly after that, with Armstrong wanting AOL to get access to the search innovation pipeline at Google, rather than just receive a more basic product.

He would not say if Google guaranteed search ad revenues in the deal, but sources said it has similar terms to the previous deal, which did include them.

The video part of the deal puts AOL content more prominently on YouTube and presumably it will be better programmed. AOL and Google will share ad revenue on the premium videos.

The mobile details are still being worked out, but will likely be served via Google’s mobile technology from its AdMob acquisition.

Armstrong admitted Google had the advantage from the start, especially since it knew how AOL Search performed, although early talks between the companies were initially rocky.

Perhaps that was due to the massive writedown in 2009 of the $1 billion investment Google–a key part of its previous search deal–had made in 2005 for a five percent stake in AOL, when it was still owned by Time Warner (TWX).

Armstrong also noted he wanted to avoid a lot of attention and uncertainty a bidding war would surely create.

“We had a no drama policy on this,” said Armstrong. “And, as it turned out, this was not a single, not a double, not a triple, but a home run for us.”

Here is an detail-free–with promise of more to come–8-K filing AOL submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission on its new deal with the Silicon Valley search behemoth:

Here is the official press release on the new Google-AOL deal:

AOL AND GOOGLE RENEW AND EXPAND GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. and NEW YORK, NY–September 2, 2010–Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) and AOL Inc. (NYSE: AOL) today announced a five-year renewal and expansion of one of the largest and longest-standing partnerships in Internet history. The global alliance, which has at its core Google’s provision of search services to AOL’s content network and properties, in exchange for a revenue-sharing arrangement between AOL and Google, will be expanded to include mobile search and YouTube.

“Today is another important step in the turnaround of AOL,” said Tim Armstrong, AOL’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “AOL users will be getting a better search and search ads experience from the best search company in the world–Google. After nearly a decade-long partnership in search, we’re looking forward to expanding our global relationship to mobile search and YouTube. All aspects of our partnership will be improved by this deal.”

“We’re excited to deepen our partnership. This agreement combines Google’s expertise in search and advertising with AOL’s strength in online content,” said Eric Schmidt, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Google. “It’s particularly exciting to see our relationship expand into video and mobile. These areas are now at the heart of users’ online experiences and at the core of both of our businesses.”

The partnership includes a broad range of features that will improve and expand the products and services offered to consumers.

· Search Products: Google will provide AOL with additional features and enhancement to its leading Web search products that will improve the consumer search experience across AOL’s network of sites.

· Advertising Products: Google will provide AOL with best-in-class ad formats, giving AOL consumers a better, more relevant ad experience.

· Mobile Search: As AOL renews its focus on mobile apps and content, the companies will work together to expand the alliance to cover mobile search.

· YouTube: AOL and YouTube have agreed to a content partnership that will bring AOL’s video content to YouTube.

· Global Focus: The alliance is international in scope and will provide improved experiences to AOL’s worldwide audience.

iTunes 10 is now live and available for download. It comes bundled with its own killer feature: music-centric social network Ping.

Announced just this morning, the new iTunes/Ping one-two combo pack a mighty punch. But can this dynamic duo deliver on its promise to revitalize music-based social networking? And will Ping be the MySpace killer all the tech pundits are speculating about?

We don’t have all the answers, but we do have a few first impressions to share with you. We were definitely met with a few surprises and even some disappointments when firing up the app for the first time. Here’s what we think so far; be sure to share your opinions with us in the comments.

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Signing Up and Getting Started

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First, download the new iTunes. Once it’s installed, you’ll notice a new link under the iTunes Store tab on the left side of the iTunes interface. The Ping tab is inconspicuous as it is exciting.

The service is opt-in, so you’ll have to turn Ping on and sign in with your Apple account and agree to a new Terms of Service. After that comes a simple profile form that gives you the opportunity to upload an avatar and write the standard social media “About Me” section. Additionally you can “like” up to three genres.

Our first nose-wrinkle moment with Ping came right here: We only get to pick three kinds of music? Almost everyone likes a few more than three genres. Still, this will force those pesky “I listen to everything” types to get specific, so we can’t complain too much.

After that, you get to make some privacy choices. You can specify how music you like, rate and review is displayed on your profile; you can also decide whether or not people can follow you and if they need your approval to follow you. Even if you don’t allow others to follow you, you can still follow anyone you like. It’s a fairly common asymmetric friendship model, much like Twitter’s.

You can also choose to connect your profile on Ping to your Facebook profile, if you wish. Once your accounts are connected, you can also follow your Facebook friends on Ping, too.

Ping already has some “Artists We Recommend You Follow,” among them, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Linkin Park and U2. These don’t seem to be connected in any way to individual users’ purchasing habits or iTunes library contents. In the “People We Recommend You Follow” section, you’ll find luminaries such as Def Jam head Rick Rubin and radio DJ Jason Bentley. It’s a shame these recommendations aren’t based on available user data yet; we’re hoping that as more artists enable Ping profiles and more users sign up and begin to exhibit certain behaviors based on demographic and psychosocial factors, the recommendation quality for first-timers will improve.

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Playing With Ping: UX/UI

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Once you’re in and set up, you’ll see a stream of recent activity. You can think of it in a couple ways. First, it’s a music-only version of your Facebook news feed. Second, it’s a huge recommendation — one that might work pretty well if your friends, or at least the people you follow on Ping, have similar taste in music.

You can comment on and like others’ activities. When you click through to another user’s profile, you’ll also see a run-down of his or her recent activities.

Navigation is a bit awkward; don’t expect Facebook’s plethora of tabs and menus. You’ll get a search bar and simple back and forward buttons in addition to the traditional iTunes navigation bar at the top of the screen. On another look-and-feel UI note, it’s new and jarring to have to use a web app from within a desktop app, but it’s something that Ping users will apparently have to get used to.

The other part of running a social network inside a desktop app is that it’s cripplingly slow — something that might seriously inhibit the platform’s growth. If there’s anything end users hate more than sites that constantly go down, it’s sites that run slowly.

You can search for artists, people or both. Either the search function is purely busted, or iTunes hasn’t got a large enough repertoire of artists on board with Ping yet. Artists have both their iTunes Store pages and Ping profiles. Ping search takes you to the former, which isn’t quite intuitive.

The artist Ping profiles show an activity stream as well as upcoming concerts and a few other links. And of course, the entire Ping artist interface contains built-in music-selling features.

Artists can also upload photos, videos and text updates, something we haven’t yet been able to do as non-artists. As for uploading content other than reviews, regular users are limited to comments on your and others’ activity only for now.

One interesting section of Ping is its Charts, a sort of recommendation engine that delivers a brief list of songs and albums popular among people you follow. It shows purchased music only, not liked, rated or reviewed items.

Other sections of your Ping profile might not be as easy to understand; for example, don’t expect to be able to write a review when you click on “My Reviews;” you’ll have to go elsewhere in iTunes for that. Controls for the interface are small and, shall we say, specific. In other words, you’d better be pretty accurate when clicking on that five pixel-wide arrow, or you’ll end up on a wholly different part of the site and have to start all over again.

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Is It a MySpace Killer?

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The big question for music fans, musicians, digital collateral creators and millions of other people is both simple and complex: Can Ping replace MySpace as the go-to marketplace to find and socialize around entertainment?

We pondered this question at length earlier today, when we were confident that this Apple-backed MySpace alternative, with its baked-in connection to the iTunes Store, would be a surefire success.

However, while testing the app this evening, we see that Ping has a long way to go if it’s going to be a better alternative. All the reasons that users have largely abandoned MySpace — the emphasis on gaudy customization, the constant stream of shallow user-to-user communication, the veritable sea of band-spam — have been avoided to a perhaps detrimental extreme. We love minimalist design as much as the next guy, but we also love self-expression, music-sharing and communication with friends. Much of that is curtailed here.

Moreover, the interface is still buggy and slower than molasses in January at the North Pole during a legitimate Ice Age. And that slowness is a big turnoff and an inherent factor of working within iTunes.

We don’t love Ping yet, but we don’t hate it, either. We suspect that much of the network’s value will be a wait-and-see proposition. Wait and see what happens when there are more artists, more curators, more well-known DJs and music bloggers, and more of your own friends on Ping. Wait to see what changes Apple makes in later iterations. But for now, it’s definitely an app worth watching.

What are your first impressions of Ping?

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