eMediaOne

So former Ask.com CEO Jim Lanzone just launched his new company, Clicker. It’s like a TV Guide for online video, and the experts named it as one of their favorite companies they saw today. I like Lanzone, but I had to ask: Does a company with a well-known CEO and $8 million already in the bank really need to win our $50,000 prize?

His answer and more about why he’s jumping back into the start-up fray and his “divorce” from Barry Diller on the video clip on the jump.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

DataXu is a Boston-based startup founded by a couple of tech entrepreneurs and MIT alums who are committed to making waves in the online advertising landscape by debuting the first real-time ad optimization system working across exchange platforms from the likes of Google, Microsoft and Yahoo.

Essentially, the aim is to bring more power to advertisers – rather than publishers – who are looking to increase the ROI of their online ad campaigns by making it easier for them to make fast decisions based on qualitative data and act on them virtually in real-time. Ad exchanges serve to float unsold and/or undervalued inventory in a pool to be bid upon by advertisers. On the marketplaces, sellers get guarantees about the impressions that will be sold for the highest bid price above the specified reserve, and buyers can use the exchange to supplement their online campaigns with low-cost impressions.

The DataXu platform values, bid manages and buys ads on an impression-by-impression basis, across the major ad exchanges and based on smart algorithms. The platform is said to be capable of processing hundreds of thousands of “ad decisions” a second, each returned in under 100 milliseconds, through automated, campaign-specific algorithms.

Founded in 2007, DataXu has raised $7.8 million to date from venture capital firms Atlas Venture and Flybridge Capital. The startup has been running its system in private beta on Yahoo inventory, is about to add Google’s upcoming Ad Exchange platform – which they say is in fact launching in the next few weeks and will be processing “hundreds of billions of dollars” a day – to the mix and has just added Havas to its roster.

Expert panel Q&A:

Q – Marissa Mayer: On a technology level, it looks impressive. My questions is: are you targetting people?

Ad buyers can build their own data profiles, so you can tweak it to fit your core audience. The Internet is becoming more dynamic, and what we’re doing fundamentally is make decisions quickly, change campaigns in real-time and learn from past behavior.

Q – Paul Graham: What’s the rocket science behind it, the core engine?

A: Our system is designed to find the features that matters for brand, really custom. Advertising is not a one-size-fits-all, you need dynamic, intelligent algorithms.

Q – Tony Hsieh: We’ve dealt with third-party pixels at Zappos, and it causes problems. How do you deal with that?

A: As soon as we can tie data together, we can work, so it doesn’t have to be pixel ads.

Q – Marc Andreessen: What’s your sales model?

A: we can paid on a CPM basis, like an ad server, but a percentage on the lift.

Video:

Pictures:

Extra coverage:

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

In between startup sessions at TechCrunch50, we are hosting a number of heavy hitters in a panel titled ‘Creating scarcity, value and brand protection as we face limitless ad inventory” in collaboration with AdMeld. On the panel we have Michael Barrett from AdMeld, Kenneth Fuchs from Sports Illustrated, Kal Patel from Best Buy, Peter Foster from Hi5, Jim Heckman and Ross Levinsohn from 5to1 and Aaron Broder from Gorilla Nation. TechCrunch CEO Heather Harde is moderating.

Talking about the dilemma that remnant ads pose to quality publishers, Ross Levinsohn cautions: “In many ways I think the Internet has killed itself to a degree because there was a notion that I will just add another page without maximizing the premium spots.”

Live blog:

Kal Patel is talking about Twelpforce, an initiative from Best Buy that taps into the essence of Twitter to leverage customer service.

Ross Levinsohn: Advertising doesn’t always work. Sometimes algorithms don’t function because it lacks a human touch. Big brands and advertisers need that, to not have machines take over where and when there advertising units appear.

Peter Foster: How low are we willing to go. It comes down to what are you wiling to accept and what aren’t you.

The real challenge to us as a publisher is to find a network that is truly premium.

Heather Harde: What percentage of inventory are you direct selling?

Kenneth Fuchs: We sell everything direct.

Peter Foster: We end up selling 5 to 10 percent.

Aaron Broder: Premium programs go beyond selling a box ad. It is really about connecting your ad with a marketer’s messaging. You obviously have to listen to the publisher and what they want.

Michael Barret: Typical publisher at AdMeld has 100 million impressions plus they can not sell directly, and they have direct sales forces. We’ve built this platform that allows publishers to tap into all of these different sources and concentrate on their direct selling.

Jim Heckman: You’re talking about campaigns that are built custom, programmed with a publisher. Something that will be complementary to the brand, ads that the user will relate to and not tune out.

When I was at MySpace, we had a 100 million (billion?) unsold ad impressions. Silicon Valley creates companies looking at the whole world of advertising, we are approaching a trillion unsold pieces of inventory.

When you have a nice ad followed by a fat belly ad after the sold inventory runs out, that hurts the publisher.

63% of all ads aren’t even looked at anymore, Consumers are tuning out.

90% of all ads are unsold, they are machine-based and pushed. So there is uplift, but when you disperse it among the inventory, the individual publishers are hurt.

Ross Levinhson: AT Fox Sports, 70% of the inventory was sold. If we sold out all the remaining inventory, I think in 2003, it meant only $250,000 in revenues. We made a determination that a quarter of a million dollars at that time wasn’t worth the hassle of policing it.

On MySpace, we had to create scarcity where there was no scarcity. So we had the homepage, ad networks were arbitraging. Tom shut that down, no more ad networks on that inventory. If you have a site like Hi5 or MySpace or Facebook, creating billions of impressions a month, you have to find a way to create some scarce inventory so you can talk to the Best Buys. They don’t want to be next to [remnant ads]

In many ways I think the Internet has killed itself to a degree because there was a notion that I will just add another page without maximizing the premium spots.

Kal Patel: We look at how does it actually show up in front of our customers.

Jim Heckman: What has happened is we are selling a small percentage of our quality content, and everything else is going to the remnant networks.

Peter Foster: Also back in the day there were a few dozen ad networks, now there are 500. That is the challenge, there are so many companies doing great work, but it is all being back-filled by the same inventory.

Jim Heckman: I think Ross is right. Creating scarcity in any business is essential. I think you are better off not selling an ad at all on your front age and protecting your ad integrity.

If you are Sports Illustrated and you have a story by a top writer with beautiful images. Do you really want to put a yellow teeth ad up there?

Video:

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

With TechCrunch50 less than 24 hours away, and already the reviews and advice to startups are coming hot and heavy. For all of you who want to know how to keep on top of the latest Tweets, posts photos, and news from the conference, just remember one thing: #tc50. That is the hashtag we are encouraging people to use for all TC50-related posts, photos, videos, etc.

The more people who use that, the easier it will be for others to find Techcrunch50 related content. You can also use the hashtag #techcrunch50, but that’s a whole eight characters longer. Here are some examples of how you can use these hashtags to connect with fellow attendees and folks on the web.

Twitter: #techcrunch50 or #tc50
FriendFeed: #techcrunch50 or #tc50
Flickr: techcrunch50 or tc50

And for those social location fans, we’ve even made a venue for TechCrunch50 on Foursquare. Who will be the mayor?

Hope to see you all on Monday morning!

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

The placement of an ad featuring two skeletons immediately opposite a Wall Street Journal article about the return of Steve Jobs to Apple’s stage has raised a few eyebrows.

Huzzah! It’s that time again! Time for TechCrunch50: where thousands of struggling entrepreneurs spend three grand they can barely afford to watch fifty of their peers dancing like malnourished bears for the approbation of Jason Calacanis! It’s like Christians and lions meets Satan’s own version of speed dating, with added Scoble! What’s not to love?

I’m sorry – you’ll have to forgive my cynicism, it’s just that I have to prove to you that I haven’t gone native.

You see, one of the main reasons I was hired by TechCrunch was for my traffic-driving habit of hurling faeces at unsuspecting industry conferences. Conferences like Jeff Pulver’s inexorably ill-planned 140 Characters in New York or Loic LeMeur’s très froid ‘Le‘ in Paris – both of which saw the sharp end of my tongue when I was at the Guardian. I learned there that no-one cares when I talk about interesting start-ups or noteworthy trends – but when I textually assault a hard-working event organiser, the page impressions flow like gravy.

And so you can imagine how worried I felt when I realised that the very first major conference to come along after I moved to TechCrunch would be the one that pays my wages.

For weeks friends have been responding to my protests of impartiality with wry looks and knowing chuckles. “Sure,” they said, “even if the wifi’s shit, the venue’s freezing and there’s no food, you’ll still have to say nice things. Arrington’s not going to let you publish a hatchet job about his cash cow. The man is a renowned megalomaniac; worse than Stalin and Kim Jong-il added together.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I argued back, “that’s just propaganda put about by jealous rivals at lesser blogs. Arrington hired me for my fierce independence, not just because he wanted to make sure I’d toe the line when it came to the most important event on his calendar. No one would be that cynical.”

Right?

Well, we’ll find out soon enough. In a bold journalistic experiment, this week’s column is split into several installments, of which this is the first. The others will be filed on Monday and Tuesday, live from the conference hall, or from whichever after-party or fringe event I find myself at when my deadline hits. I’ll be working overtime to bring you a true and complete picture of the event, so if you spot a hyper-focussed figure, hunched away from the main throng, obsessively pecking away at a laptop when he should be drinking and having fun, that’ll be me. (Or possibly Gabe Rivera; you’ll know for sure by the shoes.)

My original plan was to use this first installment as a prologue, to preview some of the companies that will be launching on Monday and Tuesday and suggesting which pitches you should definitely check out. I wouldn’t give too much away, of course, but hopefully I’d give you an idea of the 50 amazingly revolutionary products that will be competing for the $50k grand prize, plus $4.7bn in advertising credits, 3.76m Beenz and a share in the fortune of the late Dr Clement Okon of Nigeria.

There are just two problems with this plan. Firstly, with the exception of Penn and Teller, I have absolutely no idea what start-ups will be pitching. Really. In the interests of impartiality – and laziness – I’ve kept well away from TechCrunch HQ, where I understand frantic last minute preparations are underway to make sure this year’s event is the best ever. MG is charging his iPhones, Arrington is practicing his cynical stage-stare, Lacy is ironing her ‘I *heart* Brazil t-shirt, Daniel Brusilovsky and the interns are doing all the actual work – that kind of thing. But I’m staying behind my Chinese wall. Until yesterday I hadn’t even bothered checking that the venue was the same as last year, or confirming that I actually had a ticket.

(It is. I have.)

The second problem is that I strongly suspect this year’s companies will fall into the category of evolutionary, rather than revolutionary. Which is probably a good thing. The market being what it is, it makes a lot of sense to play safe: develop something that users and investors can easily get on board with, make some revenue, keep up repayments on your home, ride out the storm.

The fact that last year’s winner, Yammer, was an evolution (’clone’ is such an impolite word) of Twitter is a case in point, and it wouldn’t suprise me if the selection panel have chosen similar kinds of businesses this year. Which is great for those who value tried and tested ideas and solid business models but terrible news for a columnist who gets off on mocking the sick and jeering the lame.

But, then again, I could be completely wrong. I mean, if this year’s selection really does err on the side of caution, how does one explain Penn and Teller? These are hardly men renowned for safe ideas; the last time I saw Teller thinking inside a box, Penn poured in a swarm of bees and did something decidedly innovative with a can of gasoline. So perhaps their presence is a hint that this year’s event will be one filled with ridiculously bold ideas, chosen to inject a much-needed shot of adrenaline in the arm of an industry flirting with the doldrums.

And yet that possibility doesn’t quite feel right either. No, actually, the more I think about it, the more I suspect that Penn and Teller’s attendance is indicative of a much more cynical plot altogether.

Just consider the evidence: a few weeks ago when Arrington asked for my bio for CrunchBase, I mentioned the odd factoid that I used to be a magician. Four weeks later and – lo! – Penn and Teller, the magicians’ magicians, are slated to pitch at TechCrunch50. Coincidence? I hardly think so.

A far more likely explanation is that my friends were right about Arrington all along. The poor man really is so desperate to ensure that my TechCrunch50 review is positive that he’s selected each of the participating companies based purely on how likely they are to appeal to me, and me alone. The other 1999 attendees be damned, all that matters is getting my journalistic thumbs up.

It’s an audacious plan. And you know what? It might just work. Especially if he’s chosen such me-focussed companies as…

• DoucheBall
  An evolution of the Foursquare/Dodgeball concept, designed to appeal to men who, for whatever reason, want to avoid running into any of their ex-girlfriends. Whenever a previous flame checks into a venue, an alert is pushed to the man’s phone allowing him to stay well clear until the danger has passed. Much like Foursquare, there’s a fun game element too, with badges to be won based on certain patterns of behaviour. By default, all users are awarded the “Player, please” and “Coward, grow up” badges at sign-up.
• Am I Fired Or Not?
  You know how it is – you have multiple freelance gigs, any of which you could lose at a moment’s notice by writing unforgivably navel-gazing columns about yourself and your friends. Combined with industry-wide budget cuts and publication closures, keeping track of who still employs you can be a full time job. But not any more! Introducing ‘Am I Fired Or Not?’ – the Friendfeed of firing; the RSS of redundancy. Simply add each new employer as they hire you, and be instantly notified when – a few weeks later – they come to their senses and remove themselves.
• WhoreSquare
  Sure, services like Skimlinks provide a neat way for site owners to make extra revenue by turning key words and phrases into affiliate links. But some editors are uneasy at the idea of shilling to their readers under the guise of producing impartial content. If you’re one of those editors then WhoreSquare is your perfect compromise. Simply install this free plugin and every single word on your blog will be instantly transformed into an affiliate link to my brilliant book, Bringing Nothing To The Party: True Confessions of a New Media Whore. As an added bonus, every image, including your site’s own logo will be replaced with a gigantic animated gif of me holding the book, and waving. Sure, your readers are still being sold to but, trust me, they’ll thank you for it.
• BlackoutCast
  Heading out for a quick drink? Want to record everything you say and do after 10pm so you can play it back in the morning and remember all of the people you need to apologise to / pay damages to / add to your avoid list on DoucheBall? There’s an app for that.

Exciting products, all, as I’m sure you’ll agree. And each absolutely guaranteed to get a much-needed positive review from me next week.

Perfect! See you all on Monday! I’ll be the cold, hungry one in the corner, swearing about the fucking wifi.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

New research performed by online search advertising company Chitika suggests mobile users are far less likely to click on ads than non-mobile Internet users. In fact, they’re about half as likely, the study shows based on a sample of 92 million impressions.

Could that be true? Wasn’t it the other way around?

First, we should note right off the bat that Chitika is an Internet advertising company that’s decidedly not into mobile advertising according to its own website, so that brings along a large truck carrying bags filled with grains of salt. That said, it’s worth taking a look at how they got to the conclusion, so we can reach our own.

Chitika claims to power advertising for over 55,000 sites, serving ads based on 2 billion monthly impressions. Of the 92 million impressions cited in the study, approximately 1.3 million or 1.5% of the lot came from mobile browsing. The ads that were shown on mobile devices were exactly the same as the ones displayed to non-mobile users, rather than comparing standard online advertising with mobile-oriented ads.

Ad click-through of mobile as a whole pulled only 0.48% according to analysis of the sample, with non-mobile holding steady with a 0.83% clickthrough rate. That would mean mobile commanded just over half of the average.

Of the five major smartphone operating systems – Android, iPhone OS, Windows Mobile, Palm OS and BlackBerry OS – Apple’s iPhone ranked worst for ad click-throughs representing a mere 0.30% rate. The “Other” group, comprised mainly of BlackBerry users and a handful of other operating systems (including Symbian, Nokia, and HTC) saw the highest ad click-through rate.

Personally, I’m a bit hesitant to believe the outcome of the study – much like Chitika’s earlier one about Bing ads’ click-through rate being twice as big as Google ads – considering the self-serving aspect and the apparent desire to come to controversial conclusions in order to draw attention.

On the flip side, there hasn’t been that much independent research for mobile ad click-through rates yet, and I’m equally keen not to blatantly believe studies that show mobile advertising commands spectacularly high click-through rates compared to web advertising. In my opinion it’s conceivable that click-through rates would be rather similar and largely dependent on context, type of advertising, how well the message fits the medium etc.

In short: more neutral research wanted.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Los Angeles police have been trying to hunt down the cops who gave TMZ that awful picture of a battered Rihanna — and they may have just caught them.

The LAPD placed two officers, Rebecca Reyes and Blanca Lopez, on leave in connection with their investigation into the leak, the AP reports; supposedly the officers in question met Levin at a gay/lesbian networking event, at least according to a report floated in TheMediaBuffet.com, which last winter was first to report that TMZ paid $62,500 for the police snapshot.

Lopez’s attorney has issued a blanket denial that she had anything to do with the leak; Reyes’ lawyer has, according to AP, said she “did nothing criminal or anything for financial gain” — a much more specific denial that leaves open that possibility that TMZ’s money may have gone to a friend or relative, as anti-paparazzi advocates claim is common practice.

The question of Reyes and Lopez’s guilt is beside the point as far as the effect on TMZ is concerned: It’s going to be harder to get the cooperation of law enforcement sources if they think it is at all likely a witchhunt will put their steady government job and comfy, government-funded retirement at risk, leaving them in the cold during a recession. Maybe Levin should put these two on the TMZ payroll, as a counter-example to others. He could certainly afford it.

(Pic: Levin at a Laker’s game in April. Getty.)

Last.fm's radio station will outsource programming to its online community by reflecting charts indicating what they like the most.

CBS is set to roll out over-the-air HD radio channels in the nation’s top four markets powered by the crowdsourced programming of Last.fm — apparently the first time a streaming site has morphed into a commercial radio station.

CBS purchased interactive streaming site Last.fm a couple of years go for $280 million with the goal of integrating it across its CBS Radio properties. Starting Oct. 5 it makes good on the initiative with the launch of an over-the-air Last.fm HD Radio channel in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco.

Listeners in those cities (who own HD Radios) will be able to tune in to the channel, to be comprised of “an eclectic mix of music aggregated and influenced by the service’s user-generated weekly charts, combined with live performances and interviews from the Last.fm studios in New York, and event updates,” according to Friday morning’s announcement. The station will also be available as a webcast on Last.fm and other CBS websites, of course, as well as through mobile apps for the iPhone and Blackberry.

It’s an interesting notion, to create one centralized station consisting of the top-rated and most popular stuff on Last.fm, because the whole idea behind web radio is that you don’t have to listen to what everyone else is listening to. On the other hand, Last.fm’s charts will surely do a better job of finding interesting music than the robots in charge of other radio stations will ever find.

Various hour-long blocks of programming will run throughout the day, said CBS spokeswoman Karen Mateo, including top artists, top tracks, “hyped artists” and so on. “All of the programming is derived from how people are using the site,” she explained. “The shows follow the charts.” British, LA-based DJ Sat Bisla will anchor the station’s flagship show, Last.fm Discovers.

That’s great, but who has an HD Radio?

Many in the industry are excited about the way HD Radio lets them offer pay-per-hear and subscription programming, as well as offering higher audio quality than plain old FM, but the format has languished a bit. If you’re going to upgrade from FM, you’re probably thinking about free streaming radio, an MP3 player, a smartphone that can stream music or satellite radio. CBS Interactive president David Goodman said he hopes the Last.fm station will encourage more people to buy devices with HD radio receivers, but it’s hard to imagine someone springing for a new kind of radio just to get a channel they can already get online or on their phone without purchasing additional equipment.

Nonetheless, if HD Radio becomes standard in more cars and devices (it’s on the new Zune, for instance), listeners could find they prefer Last.fm’s crowdsourced approach to the Top 40 fare and re-fried golden oldies that loop on most other stations.

The Last.fm station will be available on Last.fm and CBS Radio, as well as Yahoo and AOL Radio, which CBS powers. Or, if you’re in one of the top-four radio markets in the country and have an HD Radio, you can tune in to the Last.fm channel starting Monday, Oct. 5 on the following frequencies:

• New York: 102.7 HD2
• Los Angeles: 93.1 HD2
• Chicago: 93.1 HD3
• San Francisco: 105.3 HD3

See Also:

• Last.fm Arrives on Google-Powered Cellphones
• CBS Snaps Up Last.fm for $280 Million
• Last.fm Radio to Charge Outside U.S., U.K., Germany
• Triple-Digit Growth for Last.fm
• Warner Music Group Pulls Music From Last.fm

In this edition of the Weekly Wrapup – our newsletter summarizing the top stories of the week – we analyze the 5 biggest trends of 2009 on the Web, review the iTunes and iPhone announcements made by Apple during the week, tell you about a new Wordpress feature that makes blogs more real-time, and more. We also check in on our two new channels: ReadWriteEnterprise (devoted to ‘enterprise 2.0′ trends and products) and ReadWriteStart (dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs).

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Top 5 Web Trends of 2009

This week ReadWriteWeb ran a series of posts analyzing the 5 biggest Web trends of 2009. Click each story below for the full-length posts:

1. Structured Data

Structured data is rapidly becoming a feature of today’s Web. Companies like Thomson Reuters and Google are enabling data to be structured, and new types of products (like Wolfram|Alpha) will make use of structured data in ways we perhaps can’t imagine right now.

2. The Real-Time Web

This has been probably the most hyped trend of 2009. The Real-Time Web has become a core part of many Internet products this year: Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook, Google, Delicious, Wordpress, and many others.

3. Personalization

Personalization has long been a buzzword on the Internet. With the glut of information on the Web circa 2009, personalization in this era means providing effective filters and recommendations.

4. Mobile Web & Augmented Reality

Clearly mobile devices are an increasingly important way to access the Web. What’s perhaps most encouraging however, is the entirely new class of mobile apps we’re seeing. Augmented Reality is the most obvious example. It’s been a big year for mobile, with much promise to come.

5. The Internet of Things

The fifth and final part of our series is about the Internet of Things, when real world objects (such as fridges, lights and toasters) get connected to the Internet. In 2009, this trend has ramped up and is adding a significant amount of new data to the Web.

Other Web Trends

Forget the iTunes LP, Apps are the New Album

The “iTunes LP” was just one of many new iTunes features revealed this week. Butit has a heavy burden on its shoulders. It’s supposed to revitalize the music industry by encouraging consumers to once again purchase entire albums as opposed to single tracks. However, innovative artists are already discovering how to monetize their music while engaging fans in new ways that have nothing to do with a re-imagined LP. Instead, the “interactive format” of the future isn’t the album, it’s the app.

In 8 Years, Online Video Consumption Will be Measured in Exabytes

One exabyte is a billion gigabytes. It’s one quintillion bytes. And yes, “quintillion” is a number so large, it almost seems made-up. But that’s how much online video will be consumed by 2017, according to new reports from U.K.-based research firm Coda. Actually, to be precise, they’re claiming that mobile broadband users accessing the net via laptops and netbooks will consume 1.8 exabytes of video. Per month.

How Facebook Beat MySpace: From College Dorm to Platform

Two years ago Danah Boyd described Facebook as “hegemonic” and MySpace as the haven of “subaltern” teens. Whether Boyd intended it or not, Facebook became characterized as the privileged space of college kids and MySpace was plagued with the perception of lowbrow tackiness. But now, according to a recent Hitwise blog post, Facebook is not only beating MySpace’s traffic – it’s the second ranked site overall in the US behind Google.

SEE MORE WEB TRENDS COVERAGE IN OUR TRENDS CATEGORY

A Word from Our Sponsors

We’d like to thank ReadWriteWeb’s sponsors, without whom we couldn’t bring you all these stories every week!

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ReadWriteEnterprise

Our channel ReadWriteEnterprise, devoted to ‘enterprise 2.0′ and using social software inside organizations.

Salesforce.com Service Cloud 2: Customer Service for the Social Web

Salesforce.com is best known for its CRM and its cloud computing platform. But according to the company its fastest growing product is Service Cloud, a kind of SaaS customer service software meant to replace the traditional call center. Salesforce.com has launched the second version of Service Cloud, which incorporates new capabilities for handling content as well as a close connection with the social networks.

ReadWriteStart

Our channel ReadWriteStart, sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark, is dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs.

Design for Startups: The Aesthetics of Web Apps in 6 Questions

Look and feel is the first thing we see and notice about most web apps and is often critical to an app’s user experience, adoption, and ultimate success. We chatted with a panel of expert aesthetes in the space, including Spymaster designer Eston Bond, veteran creative director Rich Barrett, designer/developer Warren Benedetto, Mike Rundle of 9rules and Beak fame, and the Paul du Coudray Lowdown. Here’s what they had to say about developers doing double duty as designers, trends they’d like to see disappear, and how aesthetics can help a startup sink or swim.

SEE MORE STARTUPS COVERAGE IN OUR READWRITESTART CHANNEL

Web Products

It’s Only Rock and Roll: Steve Jobs is Back, iPhone 3.1, iTunes 9 & iPod Updates

Steve Jobs returned to a standing ovation at Apple’s annual iPod event this week, where Apple introduced version 3.1 of the iPhone OS and the next version of iTunes. With iTunes 9, Apple introduces a Genius-like recommendation feature for apps, a major redesign, ‘iTunes LPs‘ that will bring liner notes and artwork to digital albums, and app management for the iPhone and iPod touch built in to iTunes.

See also: iPhone 3.1: Some Nice Tweaks – Augmented Reality Still Only Semi-Supported

WordPress Just Made Millions of Blogs Real-Time With RSSCloud

All blogs on the WordPress.com platform and any WordPress.org blogs that opt-in (using this plug-in) will now make instant updates available to any RSS readers subscribed to a new feature called RSSCloud. RSSCloud is an element that’s always been present in the RSS 2.0 spec but has drawn new attention with the rise of interest in the Real-Time Web.

Android Market Passes 10K Apps; Marshall’s 5 Favorites (With QR Codes)

Google’s Android mobile operating system isn’t as popular as the iPhone, but its application marketplace is wide open and one service tracking Android apps reports that there are now more than ten thousand available. In this post lead RWW writer Marshall Kirkpatrick outlines his five favorite Android apps so far, along with QR codes you can scan.

Facebook Open Sources FriendFeed’s Ultra-Fast Real-Time Web Framework

Facebook announced this week that it has released Tornado, the real-time web framework that powers FriendFeed, as open source code. According to Facebook’s David Recordon, Tornado is one of the core infrastructure pieces that power FriendFeed’s real-time functionality.

SEE MORE WEB PRODUCTS COVERAGE IN OUR PRODUCTS CATEGORY

That’s a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone.

Discuss