Category: Tech news

Yesterday I was tipped off about a “secret meeting” between a group of “Super Angels” being held at Bin 38, a restaurant and bar in San Francisco. “Do not come, you will not be welcome,” I was told.

So I did what any self respecting blogger would do – I drove over to Bin 38, parked my car and walked in.

in the back of the restaurant in a private room was a long oval table. Sitting around the table, Godfather style, were ten or so of the highest profile angel investors in Silicon Valley. These investors, known as “super angels” because they have mostly moved on to launch small venture funds of their own, are all friends of mine. I knew each person in the room very, very well.

I certainly didn’t think anything was amiss and I expected a friendly hello and an invitation to sit down for a drink or two before being shooed off while they talked about whatever they thought should be kept off record. But instead it went something like this:

Me: Hey!
Person who was talking: oh, oh no.
Me: Hi. I heard you guys were here and I wanted to stop by and say hi.
Them: dead silence.
Me: so….
Them: Deafening silence.
Me: This is usually where you guys say “sit down, have a drink.”
Them: not one sound
Me: This is awkward. I guess I’ll be leaving now.

I’ve never seen a more guilty looking group of people. But that alone isn’t that big of a deal. Lively conversations often die quickly when I arrive, and I’ve learned not to take it personally. But I did sniff around a little afterwards, and have spoken to three people who were at that meeting. And that’s where things got interesting.

This group of investors, which together account for nearly 100% of early stage startup deals in Silicon Valley, have been meeting regularly to compare notes. Early on it was mostly to complain about a variety of things. But the conversation has evolved to the point where these super angels are actually colluding (and I don’t use that word lightly) to solve a number of problems, say multiple sources who are part of the group and were at the dinner. According to these souces, the ongoing agenda includes:

• Complaints about Y Combinator’s growing power, and how to counteract competitiveness in Y Combinator deals
• Complaints about rising deal valuations and they can act as a group to reduce those valuations
• How the group can act together to keep traditional venture capitalists out of deals entirely
• How the group can act together to keep out new angel investors invading the market and driving up valuations.
• More mundane things, like agreeing as a group not to accept convertible notes in deals (an entrepreneur-friendly type of deal).
• One source has also said that there is a wiki of some sort that the group has that explicitly talks about how the group should act as one to keep deal valuations down.

At least two people attending were extremely uneasy about the meetings, and have said that they are only there to gather information, not participate.

So what’s wrong with this?

Collusion and price fixing, that’s what. It is absolutely unlawful for competitors to act together to keep other competitors out of the market, or to discuss ways to keep prices under control. And that appears to be exactly what this group is doing.

This isn’t minor league stuff. We’re talking about federal crimes and civil prosecutions if in fact that’s what they’re doing. I had a quick call with an attorney this morning, and he confirmed that these types of meetings are exactly what these laws were designed to prevent.

I’m not going to say who was at the meeting since at least a couple of the attendees are saying they were extremely uncomfortable with the direction the conversation was going. But like I said, it included just about every major angel investor in Silicon Valley.

On a side note, this is a difficult post to write, because I call nearly every person in that room a friend. But these actions are so completely inappropriate it has to be called out.

Tumblr CTO and notable blogger Marco Arment announced today that he would be leaving his position at Tumblr to focus on more independent projects. What many in the tech world are curious about is what this means for Instapaper, a service which allows you to “save” web pages in order for you to read them later. Thus far Instapaper has only been a side project for Arment.

When asked to confirm speculation as to what he’d be up to after the Tumblr gig, Arment responded, “I’ll be devoting most of my time to Instapaper. It has a very healthy future, hopefully.”

Perhaps Instapaper may have some challenges on its way to that future. Many have brought up copyright concerns that have by this point become old hat as far as companies that aggregate content are concerned. With regards to copyright, Arment says that most publishers rarely have issue with Instapaper because it actually brings in more eyeballs.

“I’ve worked with many large and small publishers, and nearly all of them love the value that Instapaper provides to their readers. I accommodate any publishers’ wishes who would rather not have their content accessible in Instapaper, but to date, almost no publishers have chosen that option. Most see the potential for higher reader engagement, loyalty, and retention rates, and in nearly every case, the people I speak with are happy Instapaper users themselves.”

When asked if he was finally going to turn Instapaper into a business i.e. is it now “officially” a startup, Arment responded, “It’s always been a business, it has been profitable every month for the last two years. Constantly improving the product and increasing the customer base have always been primary goals.”

“The only change for Instapaper is that I’ll now have more time to spend on it,” Arment tells TechCrunch, “So far been a side project that I’d throw a few hours at every once in a while.”

Instapaper currently makes money on ads and app store sales. Arment also says he  is not currently looking for any outside investment because Instapaper is operating well without it and he has no plans for massive expansion that necessitates funding, instead focusing on “[growing] Instapaper the old-fashioned way,” through ads, et al.

Adobe posted record revenue for its third quarter, seeing sales of $990.3 million, compared to $697.5 million reported for the third quarter of 2009 (revenue also increased from $943.0 million reported in the second quarter of 2010). Revenue jumped 42 percent from the previous year.

Net Income also remained strong for Adobe. Adobe’s non-GAAP diluted earnings per share quarter were $0.54, compared to $0.35 reported in the third quarter of 2009. Non-GAAP net income was $284.0 million for the third quarter, compared to $186.1 million from the previous year.

Adobe’s GAAP diluted earnings per share for the third quarter of 2010 were $0.44 compared to $0.26 reported in the third quarter of 2009. GAAP net income was $230.1 million for quarter, compared to $136.0 million reported in 2009.

Across the board, revenue from Adobe’s products, subscriptions and services all rose significantly. In a statement issued by the company, CEO Shantanu Narayen said: “We remain bullish about Adobe’s long-term role in enabling the transformation of content and applications across industries.”

After the ongoing war between Apple and Adobe over the whole Flash-fiasco, it seems that things are looking up for Adobe. While Apple’s recent relaxation of developer guidelines certainly doesn’t mean that Flash will now be allowed. Adobe just announced that its resuming work on its Flash-to-iPhone system for Flash Professional CS5 and we’ll see if this flies with Apple.

TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco starts next Monday. The regular attendee ticket price is nearly $3,000. But there are a number of ways to get in free.

First, new presenting companies get in for free. And they are invited back in perpetuity to enjoy future events as well. We also get as many of those companies up on stage as possible. The 25 launching companies next week have now been selected, but for future events, think about the company you want to build and launch!

We are also having a HackDay this weekend before the main event. This is a much more informal event where developers are actually building stuff. The NY Disrupt Hack Day was a huge success with 300 or so attendees, and at least one project, GroupMe, has turned into a funded startup. This is free, and everyone who completes a project also gets into the main conference for free as well. Sign up here!

And here’s the easiest way of all. We’re giving away five tickets to TechCrunch Disrupt right now. The winners will be chosen at random from anyone who comments below or retweets this post. Just “like” the TechCrunch Facebook page (if you are a Facebook user) and then do one of two things: either retweet this post, and make sure to include the #crunch hashtag, or leave a comment below telling us why you simply must be at the event. The contest ends at noon California time tomorrow, Wednesday. Please only tweet the message once, anyone tweeting repeatedly will be disqualified. We’ll pick the winners tomorrow afternoon and contact you for more details. Anyone in the world is eligible, as long as you can make your way to the event by Monday.

This will be our biggest and best event to date. See you all there!

If you’ve tried New Twitter, you’re probably already hooked on the site’s slick two-pane browsing experience: tap on a tweet, and you’ll be able to view any linked YouTube videos, Flickr photos, and a variety of other content without having to leave the page. Today, popular Android client Twidroyd is bringing a similar experience to mobile phones, and in some senses it’s doing it one better — the application also allows you to read linked articles without having to fire up a separate browser window.

To access this live preview mode, you flip the phone on its side — tweets will fill the left sidebar, and tapping on one will open up the associated link or image in the right pane. Obviously you aren’t going to have a lot of real-estate to consume the content, but it seems to work well enough on my Nexus One (and I’d imagine it’s even better on a large screen phone, like the EVO). It’s a pretty slick feature, but it isn’t perfect — I’m finding that the performance suffers a bit as I try to jump between tweets, so navigation isn’t as fluid as I’d like. Still, it’s a good start.

Twidroyd has been around for a while, and established itself as one of the platform’s most popular Twitter clients early on. PostUp, the company formerly known as Tweetup, acquired the Android application in July — the app was formerly called Twidroid, but PostUp decided to tweak the name so as to avoid any possible legal issues down the line.

The application comes pre-installed on five mobile phones, including some Samsung models, but many of these installs are abroad (PostUp’s Steve Chadima explains that US carriers sometimes override deals that have been worked out with phone manufacturers). Chadima says that the application has seen around a million installs so far, 90% of which are free (the rest are for a PRO version, which runs $3.99).

Advertising network VideoEgg will acquire blogging and advertising network Six Apart, and the combined entity will be renamed Say Media. The companies will officially announce the transaction tomorrow. VideoEgg CEO Matt Sanchez will run the combined entity as CEO. Six Apart CEO Chris Alden will step down.

The SAY Media site will launch tomorrow, but we’ve included a screenshot of the home page.

The combined company will reach 345 million global unique visitors, says the company. These are direct visitors to hosted sites as well as third party sites running ads from the companies. The combined company will have over 300 employees, and “the vast majority of Six Apart employees will move over,” says Sanchez.

There have been rumors that some of Six Apart’s flagship products will be shut down. The company is shuttering Vox this month, for example. But Alden says that Say Media will continue to support and grow the Typepad and Moveable Type platforms.

The San Francisco Business Times recently began a project to document wireless dead zones in the Bay Area. It’s a good idea; they have a simple form any user can fill out to give the address of the dead zone, explain it a bit if they choose, and name their service provider. So far, they’ve accumulated quite a bit of data — over 500 data points. The best part? As far as I can tell, nearly every single one of the dead zones is on AT&T’s network.

To be clear, in their form, the Business Times allows you to choose AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, and Other. But the only reports coming in are for AT&T. That’s not to say there aren’t dead zones for the other providers, but clearly, they aren’t nearly as big of an issue as they are on AT&T, where the problem is widespread.

It’s pretty clear at this point that both AT&T and Apple (the iPhone is the most popular AT&T device) know their service in the Bay Area sucks. Sadly, it’s not clear just how much they can do about it since it’s extremely hard in the city to get clearance for the new cell towers needed to boost service. Still, AT&T could offer discounts or partial refunds or you know, their rip-off MicroCell, to customers affected for free. Instead, we just get perpetual promises that things are getting better when in fact the opposite may be happening.

Reports have been flowing in today that AT&T’s service in the Bay Area over the past few days has been much worse than normal. Reports of missed calls, broken voice mail, and the inability to send and receive texts seem pretty rampant.

Prayers continue for a Verizon iPhone. Or a T-Mobile iPhone. Or two tin cans with a really long piece of string. All would be preferable at this point.

View the full map on the Business Times site here.

Update: Naturally, AT&T is freaking out about this and wants me to update to say that they’re responsible for only 83 percent of the dead zones in the Bay Area. Only! I still can’t find a spot on the map that isn’t AT&T, but whatever. I’m sure there’s one — maybe.

In other words, AT&T is saying we’re not really, really, really, really, really bad — we’re just really, really, really, really bad. Or, it’s like boasting about getting a “D-” on a test rather than an “F”. Everyone needs something to tout, I suppose.

Keep up the good work AT&T. I’m still waiting for any hint of coverage in our office.

Product: iPod Nano 16 GB

Manufacturer: Apple

Wired Rating: 6

What time is it? Who cares! Apple’s newest timepiece puts music, video, photos and step-counting front-and-center, and lets the minutes fall where they may.

Sure, you can check the time, but that’s hardly the point with this attractive piece of wrist jewelry. Its unisex design goes equally well with a man’s suit, a lady’s sweater or a jogging outfit.

One downside: It doesn’t come with a watchband, so you’ll need to get your own. Fortunately, the clip on the back lets you easily attach it to the strap of your choice.

Unlike almost every other watch we’ve tested, Apple’s Nano has a touch-sensitive, high-resolution LCD display. The interface is a little counterintuitive at first, but it’s no more difficult than anything from Tokyo Flash. As a bonus, you can rotate its face with a twisty two-finger gesture, making it work for you in any orientation.

With its Apple heritage, the Nano is a perfectly usable music player. Available in 8-GB ($150) or 16-GB ($170) models, it has plenty of capacity for storing thousands of songs, and its touchscreen provides a simple, if cramped, interface for selecting tracks. (Tip: Use iTunes to organize playlists before syncing. It’ll make it easier to find the music you want.)

Sound quality is excellent, though the generic white earbuds Apple includes are nothing to shout about. There’s a built-in FM radio player for getting your Ira fix (Flatow and Glass) when podcasts are unavailable.

Sadly, the Nano doesn’t support wireless or Bluetooth headphones, so you’ll need to route a headphone cable from your wrist to your ears. I recommend running it through your sleeve and under your shirt. This is dorky, but practical. And it kind of makes you feel like you’re an extra on The Wire.

The built-in pedometer function sums your steps throughout the day, posting them, if you choose, to Nike’s social site for walkers and general fitness, Nike+ Active.

As a timepiece, it’s comparable to digital watches circa 1978: The screen is usually in a black, juice-conserving state, so to check the time you need to press the power button. If you haven’t set it to “show time on wake,” you’ll also need to swipe left or right a few screens to find the clock face.

Battery life can also be a problem. Apple says it’s rated for 24 hours of music playback. But I left it on a nightstand overnight, only to find it was depleted in the morning. That doesn’t happen with other watches.

And yes, I know it’s really an iPod. I just really like using it as a wristwatch, despite its drawbacks.

WIRED Beautiful if miniscule display. Impressive touch-sensitive interface. Compact, lightweight, minimalist design. Easy-to-use pedometer function. Clock face can be white on black, or the reverse.

TIRED Watchband not included. No wireless headphone support, so you’ll have to string yourself up with headphone wires. Checking the time can take a few steps. Battery life far shorter than most watches.

This is a post I’ve looked forward to writing for a long time — and I’m surprised that I’m even getting the chance. In July 2009, we broke the news that Apple had banned Google Voice from the iPhone. But it hadn’t just blocked Google’s official application — it had also removed two third-party applications that had already been live on the App Store for months: GV Mobile, which was created by Sean Kovacs; and VoiceCentral, developed by Riverturn.

Of course, Kovacs and Riverturn hadn’t done anything wrong — they’d simply gotten caught in the crossfire of the growing rivalry between Apple and Google. Fast forward to today: nearly fourteen months after it was unceremoniously removed from the App Store, Apple has finally reinstated one of the applications that started it all. You can download the new version of GV Mobile+ right here. The application has been available in Canada most of the day, but only hit the US store minutes ago.

The news is not unexpected. Earlier this month, Apple totally revamped its App Store policies: it finally released a list of guidelines to tell developers what isn’t allowed, and it began permitting developers to use whatever tools they’d like to build applications (reversing a restriction that was added earlier this year). After reading through the new guidelines, Kovacs reached out to Apple about possibility resubmitting his Google Voice application, and their response seemed to indicate that he had a good chance at getting GV Mobile back on the App Store.

The other reason this isn’t a surprise: last night Apple accepted a different third-party Google Voice application into the App Store. Talk about adding insult to injury — Apple removed GV Mobile over a year ago, then, after finally deciding to give it the green light, it approved a competitor’s application first (which got a huge amount of press coverage and is now one of the App Store’s top grossing apps). That said, GV Mobile seems to be getting plenty of attention, and will probably do just fine.

But what about VoiceCentral, the other Google Voice application that got the axe last year? Riverturn, the development house behind the application, has shifted focus to an HTML5, browser-based Google Voice client called Black Swan (it’s quite nice). Riverturn President Kevin Duerr says that the HTML5 app has actually performed better than the iPhone application did, and he notes that Riverturn can keep iterating and improving on the web app because it doesn’t have to go through Apple’s approval process. That said, he says that Riverturn will likely wind up revisiting and resubmitting its native iPhone application simply because it’s such a big market.

And what of the official Google Voice application — the one that sparked an FCC Inquiry? We’ve reached out to Google multiple times, and were given this statement:

“We currently offer Google Voice mobile apps for Blackberry and Android, and we offer an HTML5 web app for the iPhone. We have nothing further to announce at this time.”

Facebook is building a mobile phone, says a source who has knowledge of the project. Or rather, they’re building the software for the phone and working with a third party to actually build the hardware. Which is exactly what Apple and everyone else does, too.

It was a little less than a year ago that we broke the news that Google was working on a phone of its own – which was eventually revealed as the Nexus One. It was about that time, says out source, that Facebook first became concerned about the increasing power of the iPhone and Android platforms. And that awesome Facebook apps for those phones may not be enough to counter a long term competitive threat.

Specifically, Facebook wants to integrate deeply into the contacts list and other core functions of the phone. It can only do that if it controls the operating system.

Two high level Facebook employees – Joe Hewitt and Matthew Papakipos – are said to be secretly working on the project, which is unknown even to most Facebook staff.

Both have deep operating system experience.

Hewitt helped create the Firefox browser and was working on Parakey before it was acquired by Facebook in 2007. Parakey, which never launched, was described as a “Web-based operating system.” Hewitt also created all of Facebook’s iPhone web apps and then native apps, but finally quit building for the iPhone in disgust late last year. But he knows operating systems and he knows mobile.

Papakipos also has a perfect background for this project. He was leading the Google Chrome OS project until June. He then quit and went to Facebook. Papakipos is considered a rockstar developer, and there are any number of jobs he’d be able to do at Facebook.

But that doesn’t answer the question of why he’d leave the Chrome OS project before it was finished. It would have taken something really interesting to lure him away. Something like a Facebook Phone, for example.

So what might this phone look and feel like? We don’t know yet. When will it be announced? Don’t know. But I’d speculate that it would be a lower end phone, something very affordable, that lets people fully integrate into their Facebook world. You call your friend’s name, not some ancient seven digit code, for example. I’d imagine Facebook wanting these things to get into as many hands as possible, so I’d expect a model at a less than $50 price. Pay your bill with Facebook Credits. Etc.

As for timing, the holiday season is always a good time to launch new products. But that may be too soon.

Or who knows, the whole project might get killed before it sees light. All we know for sure is that Hewitt and Papakipos are working on something very stealthy together. And we have a source that tells us that stealthy thing is a Facebook phone.

We’re also not discounting possible partnerships around this. Spotify was said to be working on a phone with INQ last year based on a shared investor, Li Ka-Shing. It turns out Li Ka-Shing is also a sizeable investor in Facebook. So an INQ/Facebook partnership on a phone certainly wouldn’t be a surprise.

If you bought a janky Compaq at Best Buy recently you may have been offered a $50 “upgrade” card that allows you to download software that will unlock threads and cache on the Pentium G6951 inside your PC. That’s right: they are selling an upgrade that is actually a key to unlock performance that your PC already has. Internet firestorm in 3…2…1…

The chip in question has 1MB of cache and is fairly underpowered in the first place. As Engadget notes, the process of locking portions of a chip is fairly common but it usually happens because that area is defective on manufacture. This, however, is something completely different: you are paying an extra half a c-note to use the full power of your processor unhindered by what amounts to DRM.

Read more…

Among companies I loathe, Comcast is right up there. Alongside Expedia and AT&T, they share the common thread of having typically poor service, and even worse customer service. But I’m a forgiving guy. I’m willing to give Comcast a second chance. Well, for 6 months at least.

I’ve been a Comcast customer a few different times at various points of my life. Each time I’ve had an awful experience. My favorite was two years ago when I was continually getting billed for services I didn’t have (nor had I ever had, actually). Each month I was told it was resolved, and each month it was right back on my bill. It took me bitching up a storm on Twitter to get it actually resolved by the higher-ups at the company. And I know my situation wasn’t unique — and sadly, many people have an even bigger nightmare resolving things.

After that incident, I cancelled my cable television service from Comcast. Unfortunately, I couldn’t completely sever the tie, because they were the only high-speed Internet provider in my area. Still, it was kind of wonderful, I used a combination of iTunes, Hulu, and Xbox Live to get all my content over Comcast’s dumb pipe. But something was still missing.

When I moved last year, I was in an area where Comcast didn’t reign supreme, so I decided to get cable television again. I just wanted to see if I really had missed it. It turns out I sort of had — mainly because of sports. So now I have a difficult choice. I’ve just moved again and sadly, once again, only Comcast is available in my area. I have to get Internet from them, so I’ve decided to sign up for one of their special packages that is discounted for 6 months.

I don’t particularly want to do this, but it’s also football season, and I really don’t feel like having to go to a bar every time I want to see a game. More importantly, the new Apple TV and Google TV are on the verge of launching. And there are even more potentially interesting things on the horizon. The assault is underway.

I think we’re getting closer and closer to the point where completely cutting the cord is not just viable, but a savvy move. And while some of my counterparts like Nick Bilton have been able to cut the cord already, others, like Dan Frommer, reattached it. We’re not there just yet. But in 6 months…

As everyone is well aware, Apple TV hasn’t been a success up to now. I like mine, but the content model on it is flawed. The move to TV show rentals is definitely a welcome one. But with only content from ABC and some content from Fox, the selection isn’t good enough. My hope is that this model proves to be a success and the other networks/stations get on board quickly. (Though it doesn’t look too promising right now.)

More interesting about the new Apple TV is the AirPlay functionality that is going to allow you to push almost any video content from any iOS device right to your Apple TV (and soon other devices that have this built-in). Yes, that includes Netflix and the MLB app.

Sports remain an issue in general, but some are supposedly coming to Xbox Live compliments of ESPN shortly. And there is ESPN 3, the online component of the network that allows you to watch games live online — if your provider has a deal with them to carry it (Comcast does).

Meanwhile, Google TV is set to launch as soon as next month. It’s a little bit different because it seems to be a layer that will exist on top of current television offerings. But it will also be pushing online video as well. That could definitely help change the stigma that is still associated with online video versus television.

And then there’s that new Mac mini with an HDMI output.

All of this stuff is chipping away at the cable television stronghold. There isn’t going to be one “killer”, but all of these combined are slowly doing the job. And they’ll continue to get better at it.

I fully understand that the vast majority of people are not going to cut the cable anytime soon. This smorgasbord of services is way too complicated for the average consumers to deal with. But I think it’s foolish if these companies believe that people never will (especially if cable keeps offering a user experience that is utter garbage).

Eventually, everything, including all video content, is going to be served over one pipe — the Internet. And, as is always the case, young people are going to lead this revolution. The excuse that, “my parents are never going to cancel their cable” isn’t a valid one. This is about the future.

So, I’m giving Comcast 6 months to live, then I’m likely cutting off its head and going Internet-only. The timing seems right.

Humorously, Comcast isn’t making this particularly easy. I was on the web yesterday looking at my options, and I found one I think I liked. But I couldn’t find a way to add all the options I wanted (like a DVR), so I called customer support. After about six steps where I basically had to prove I wasn’t already a customer (I mean, seriously?), I got through to an actual human being.

Naturally, he tried to get me to sign up for a significantly more expensive package (more than double the price) and tried to get me to agree to a 2-year contract. When I told him that was silly because the lease on my apartment is only for one year — what if I move again? He said I could easily transfer my plan. Okay, but what if I move to a place that doesn’t offer Comcast as an option, like my last apartment? Silence.

Moving on, I told him I knew the package I wanted. Guess what? He said he couldn’t help me get it because it was online-only. “Are you serious?” “Yes. How about we sign you up for the package I told you about so you can try it out?”

This is going to be a fun 6 months. I’m already sharpening my sword.

[images: Warner Brothers]

Six months ago, Google launched its very own app store for enterprise apps, the Google Apps Marketplace, at the search giant’s Campfire One event. The idea behind the marketplace was fairly simple—using a set of APIs, third-party apps could deeply integrate their products within Google Apps and offer these free or paid apps to the productivity suite’s users. At launch, Google partnered with 50 startups and companies to provide these apps, including Zoho, Socialwok, Aviary, and more.

Since March, Google has been steadily adding additional apps to the store, including Bantam Live and Bill.com, and now counts more than 200 installable apps available in the Marketplace. Google says that there are 4 million Google Apps users (out of over 25 million users) with Marketplace apps installed on their domain. The Marketplace itself is a big venture for Google; not only is it a way to provide more functionality for Apps (and draw more users) but it’s also a monetization channel (Google takes a 20 percent cut of each sale). Google has been actively trying to get more developers to add their apps to the platform, even posting glowing testimonials from developers who offer apps on the marketplace. To see how representative these testimonials are, we decided to speak with a number of developers to see how their apps are actually performing on the Marketplace.

Socialwok, a collaboration product that adds a social layer to Google products and Microsoft Outlook, launched as a pilot partner for the Google Apps marketplace in March. Socialwok’s founder Ming Yong says that the startup was able to sign up 4,000 businesses in the two weeks following the launch of their app. After this huge spike, says Yong, downloads of the app went down by half. Socialwok, which is the third top rated app in the store, is now seeing 600 to 800 businesses adding the app per week.

Yong pointed out that via the App Marketplace, the startup was able to sign a big deal with a hotel chain to use Socialwok as a separate application across its business (not just within Google Apps). Apparently, the company saw Socialwok on the App Marketplace and became interested in using the full platform.

But one drawback, says Ming, is the vast amount of noise on the Marketplace and that it can be difficult for users to separate the wheat from the chafe. “There are some developers who just want to have a little Google dust on their brands and have zero-integration with Google’s actual product,” he explains. “There seems to be a more the merrier attitude when it comes to accepting apps in the Marketplace; Google needs to do a better job with regard to discriminating which apps are integrated.”

Currently, Google lists the top five rated apps, the top five downloaded apps, suggestions of popular and notable apps, and a few featured apps on the front page of the Marketplace. You can also search for apps generally by functionality (i.e. accounting, workflow) or by name.

Productivity suite Zoho (which actually competes against Google on a number of products) launched two apps, CRM (which is the fifth top installed app on the marketplace) and Projects, in March and added two other apps, Invoice and Helpdesk, a few months later. Zoho evangelist Raju Vegesna tells me that shortly following the launch of the Marketplace, Zoho saw a few hundred downloads a day, but growth leveled off within a month, and now the company sees less than 500 installs total of its apps per week.

One feature that is missing from the Marketplace, says Vegesna, is the ability to test out apps before installing them (Vegesna didn’t know the exact uninstall rate but we heard from one developer who preferred to remain anonymous that the uninstall rate of Apps on the Marketplace is around 20 percent). Vegesna agreed with Yong that there is a lot of noise on the marketplace but said that it’s not nearly as tough to differentiate as it is on Apple’s App Store.

Aviary, which offers a suite of design tools within an App on the Marketplace, also launched as a pilot partner in March and has risen to the second most installed app on the platform. Aviary founder Avi Muchnick declined to give us specific numbers but said right after launch there was a huge insurgence of traffic, but downloads have since dropped to a steady pace.

Aviary is not seeing a large amount of web referrals to its site from the marketplace. But one of the major benefits of being on the App marketplace, rather than downloads, he says, is brand awareness of being associated with Google. Echoing Yong and Vesegna’s criticisms, Muchnik adds that the app marketplace is not ideal for users to discover applications

It’s important to note that Aviary, Socialwok and Zoho all debuted their apps at the launch of the Marketplace, when buzz and downloads were high. I bet that apps that launched a few months after March aren’t seeing nearly as much traffic as these apps did in March. Bantam Live’s CEO John Rourke, who launched his CRM app in the Marketplace in June, said he’s pleased with the performance of his app (he declined to give us numbers). Google says that CRM is a top search term for the Marketplace, so it seems that those types of apps are seeing success on the Marketplace (Bantam Live is currently a featured app).

Even looking from the testimonials Google has published, as a whole developers seem to be pleased with the traffic post launch. For example, productivity and task management app Manymoon claims that it is adding 1,000 new sign-ups per week. And it is the top installed app on the marketplace so that should probably give developers a benchmark of how the most popular app in the marketplace is faring.

Of course, Manymoon is also free, which probably makes it more appealing than some of its paid competitors. In fact, all the top five installed apps are completely free for users except for Zoho, which is free for only three users.

One well-known technology company (which asked to be anonymous), which launched its app on in conjunction with the roll out of the marketplace in March, said that while the number of apps being downloaded is lower than they initially expected. But the app has been able to draw a wide variety of customers, including educational institutions and local and state governments.

The complaint this particular company had was around the marketing of the service to the millions of Google Apps domain administrators. According to the startup, Google seems to be marketing the platform mainly to new companies that join Google Apps. Another way the service could improve, says this company, is to provide a way for Apps administrators to notify users that a new App has been deployed.

As a company spokesperson says, “We understand that Google wants to be sure to protect businesses from having their employees heavily marketed to, and that’s the dilemma of a marketplace like this – it’s massive, but you have to exercise restraint in how you market to it. There’s no easy answer, but anything that helps apps raise awareness among end users in a tactful, responsible way, would be very helpful.”

Another issue that I heard from a number of developers was how Google will integrate its other marketplaces (Android, Chrome) into the App Store. Many of the developers who offer apps in the Marketplace also have Chrome plug-ins and Android apps. Socialwok’s Yong pointed out that it would be helpful to be able to cross-promote apps from each Marketplace.

One developer I spoke to was concerned over the upcoming change in the payment structure for App developers. Currently, users who download apps pay the developers directly. He says that by the end of the year Google plans to take over the payments process and will collect all the payments from users and will distribute payments to developers accordingly. He says that not only will this new payments integration will involve an adjustment of his product but he hopes that Google will offer a payment system that can be integrated in the same way for the Chrome web store and the Android Marketplace (he thinks that each integration will have to be separate and won’t be unified).

As you can see from these anecdotes, developers and startups seem generally happy with their app’s performance on the Marketplace. But clearly Google has some improvements to make, particularly in the area of filtering out apps, marketing and app discovery. Another observation—if all of the most popular apps are free, I am left wondering how many of the 4 million users who use apps are actually paying for their apps.

It seems more likely that for now, the Google Apps Marketplace is good exposure for business apps, as Muchnick says. It can only help to be associated with Google Apps, a product that Google has very high hopes for as a viable cloud-based alternative to Microsoft Office.

Photo credit/IMDB

According to Media Culpa a blog that apparently obsessively tracks these things, photo-sharing site Flickr has hit the 5 billionth photo milestone today with the above, uploaded  by Flickr user yeoaaron. Media culpa blogger Hans Kullin also points out that Flickr has been growing at about 1 billion photos per year, over the past 3 years, eclipsed in market share by social giant Facebook which hit 15 billion photos uploaded in April of 2009.

As Facebook claims it was uploading over 2.5 billion photos a month in February of 2010, we’re loosely guestimating there are somewhere between 30 and 50 billion photo uploads on the site currently. I’ve contacted both Flickr and Facebook for more info and will update as soon as they respond.

In the meantime sit back and enjoy Aaron Yeo’s artistic interpretation of the view of the Woodward’s Building in Vancouver.

Update: Kullin shares some of the methodology behind tracking the milestones.

Flickr gives each photo a serial number and they have previously officially confirmed that for example the photo with the ID 3 billion is actually the 3 billionth photo: http://blog.flickr.net/en/2008/11/03/3-billion/ Date and serial number of a photo can be found via Exif daya: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lenglengtan/250000000/meta/.

Thanks: Media Culpa