Category: Tech news

Commenting on the web is broken. Visit just about any site large enough on the Internet and you’ll notice it. Sure, there are useful comments every once in a while, but there are more comments that are either jokes, stupid, or just downright cruel. Considering the web is supposed to be this great medium for interaction, this is a problem. It’s one Livefyre now thinks they can fix.

When Livefyre did a limited beta launch back in December, their focus was on “intelligent conversations.” Most of those were predicated on Twitter topics though. CEO Jordan Kretchmer realized that using this system to solve the commenting problem on the web would be more interesting. And their investors agree — they’ve stepped up with an $800,000 Series A round to get things going.

Shortly, Livefyre will open its new beta for this commenting system. The first step, Livefyre Blogger, is aimed at individual bloggers using platforms like WordPress, Tumblr, and TypePad. The second step, Livefyre Publisher, meant for larger publishers, will be coming soon. But there’s also a white label version of Livefyre that the service hopes large services will take advantage of (for a fee, of course) to give them access to APIs and other options that free users don’t get.

Obviously, others are playing in this field already. The two best known ones are likely Disqus and IntenseDebate (which WordPress actually acquired in 2008). Another newer player, Echo, has been getting some buzz as well. Each aims to fix the commenting problem on the web by both making it easier to comment, and by giving users incentives to tie comments to their real (or at least established elsewhere) identities. Both of those things work to some effect, but the overall troll problem remains.

Livefyre plans to differentiate itself in two ways. First, they says they’re the first truly realtime commenting system on the web. Others that say they’re realtime still have to ping servers and so “realtime” in that regard is really a delay of about a minute or so, Kretchmer says. LiveFyre doesn’t have to ping any servers for comments to appear on sites because they’re built on top of the XMPP realtime standard. In fact, they’re built using Tornado, the backbone of FriendFeed that Facebook open-sourced after acquiring that company last year.

This is the first major undertaking being built on top of Tornado, Kretchmer believes. And that’s exactly why he thinks he can beat his competitors. Since they started before some of this technology was available, they had to build on top of older systems (read: slower). It would be too hard for them now to do a complete re-architecture, but Livefyre has the luxury of building from the ground up.

How Livefyre’s system works is a bit technical, but basically when a comment is left on some blog, it’s split into two copies. One immediately goes on to the page where it’s being left, while the other goes to the Lifefyre database where it’s stored. These are then synced after the fact to keep things moving in realtime.

The second advantage Livefyre believes it has is the system it’s using to eliminate bad comments. Like other commenting systems, Livefyre is using up and down votes on individual comments — but with a twist. Each commenter has a Livefyre account (which they can set up using Facebook Connect, Twitter, etc — it’s simple), and tied to that account is a point system. When a user leaves a comment that others deem to be good, they earn a point. If it’s bad, they may lose a point. These point totals are kept across the system.

But here’s where things get interesting. In order to dish out a down vote, you give up one of your own points. This is how they will stop commenters from flaming other commenters, Kretchmer says. And it’s not just that. There will still be the ability to leave anonymous comments, but these comments will still be tied to your Livefyre account (users just won’t be able to see who the commenter is), so the point system will still be in place behind the scenes. “We believe in accountability,” Kretchmer says.

There’s other interesting elements to Livefyre’s system as well. For example, you can use the Twitter @ reply syntax in comments, and those can be linked to actual Twitter accounts. When you do that, those comments can be sent back to Twitter letting that other user know you’re talking about them in the comments of a blog post.

You’ll also be able to “check-in” to conversations on livefyre.com to follow topics you’re interested in. This is more like the original version of Livefyre, and it allows you to track conversations happening without having to watch individual blog posts. The idea sort of reminds me a bit of the aforementioned FriendFeed.

Livefyre’s Series A round was led by by Hillsven Capital and also participated in by early stage venture funds, Zelkova Ventures and ff Asset
Management, and angels, Travis Kalanick and Paige Craig. They’ve been using the money to build out this system and make key hires (including key people working on the XMPP standard) and are up to seven employees now.

Below, find our own Paul Carr interviewing Kretchmer about the new service.

The exodus of talent from Yahoo continues. Skype has just announced that Madhu Yarlagadda, Yahoo’s VP of Engineering, has joined the company has as the new Chief Development Officer. Yarlagadda will report to Skype CEO Josh Silverman and will oversee Skype’s engineering and development initiatives. The company’s current CTO Dan Berg will be leaving the company following Yarlgadda’s transition to the role

Yarlgadda joins Skype from Yahoo where he was VP of Engineering for ICE (Integrated Consumer Experiences), leading engineering efforts for Yahoo’s Home Page, MyYahoo, Buzz, Profiles, ToolBar, Mobile, Maps and Local. Most recentlyhelped unite 35 plys different code bases of Yahoo home page for each of the different countries around the world into a single manageable code base.

Yarlagadda, who spent more than 11 years at Yahoo, was also previously VP of Engineering for Yahoo Communities, which includes Messenger, Voice (VoIP), Video, Flickr and Yahoo Groups. He joined Yahoo in 1999 after his realtime messaging company MyQuest was acquired by Yahoo.

Other Yahoo execs who have recently departed the company include EVP Arsh Patel, CTO Ari Balogh, and Search VP Larry Cornett.

As for Skype, the company may be looking to add new ideas and leadership to its engineering platform. And Yarlagadda seems to be a seasoned exec, especially on mobile initiatives. And this could be a big year for Skype if the company goes public.

If you’ve created music playlists using iTunes, Spotify, Last.fm, YouTube, We Are Hunted, Winamp, Rhapsody, Soundcloud, or even if you’ve simply scribbled a list of your favorite tracks in a notepad file, you need to check out Playlistify soon. The basic, solid premise of the service is to let you enjoy your custom-made playlists anywhere you like.

I was looking for an excuse to write it up anyway, and now they’ve given me a decent one: they’ve added a new feature that lets you convert your music playlists into Twitter lists.

Basically, Playlistify is adding functionality that lets you convert your playlists into Twitter Lists, so you can start following your favorite bands and musicians on there, too, and stay updated on news, gigs and all sorts of random bits of information from their tweets.

Here’s how it works: anyone who uses Playlistify to analyze, convert and publish their playlist(s) so that it can be shared with and discovered by others, can place their list of tracks in the Playlistify Directory. From said directory, any visitor can connect to Twitter and add the available artists’ and bands’ offical Twitter accounts as a List to their own account. The playlist page also has a tweetbox preview with the latest tweets.

(It should be live now, or at least very shortly)

Users can also decide to only follow a selection of artists. Playlistify makes this simple and smooth by making use of Twitter’s @Anywhere, showing Twitter hovercards for easy selection.

Playlistify uses the information available on Freebase to enrich the playlists with the official Twitter accounts. The startup also retrieves Facebook, MySpace and official Web pages via Freebase, and displays these on the playlist pages whenever available.

Big caveat: from the 20,000 artists currently in the Playlistify database, only about 5% has a Twitter account synced. Hopefully, more will be added soon.

But as I said, this is mostly just an excuse to let you discover Playlistify on your own. If you use any of the aforementioned services for creating playlists and you’re interested in sharing your music collections, it’s really worth checking out.

Street style focused fashion communities where anyone can post pictures of their coordinated outfits for others to admire and emulate have become a popular way to share looks online. fbFund winner Weardrobe has seen success with this model and was recently acquired by Like.com. Polyvore also offers users a way to curate their own looks. Chicisimo is entering this space as an alternative user generated, social platform for personal fashion.

The site, which is focused towards female fashion, allows users to upload a photo of an outfit, and then tag the look with the brands she’s wearing. Other users can vote for their favorite looks. Chicisimo aggregates the tags for each brand under a devoted page to show collections for each designer or brand.

The site also has a Digg-like feel, with the most popular looks, according to votes, surfacing on the front page of Chicisimo. And you can follow certain members of the community whose looks you admire. You can also explore community looks by colors, countries, brands, and clothes.

Started as a blog, Chicisimo quickly grew into a community says co-founder Gabriel Aldamiz-Echevarria. The site also plans to add the ability to post video to the site.

As I’ve said in the past, the biggest barriers to street style community sites is gaining a loyal user base and driving traffic to the site. However, brand partnerships, such as the deals that Polyvore has been able to make with the Gap and others, can bring traffic and even new users to these communities.

Flattr is a new startup with an inovative business model, coming out of Sweden. In fact it’s the brainchild of a group of people formerly associated with The [infamous] Pirate Bay, including Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi. It’s highly ironic that Flattr has sprung from a similar group that refused to pay for content, like movies. But Flattr just might work because there are already signs that the micropayments startup is getting grass-roots traction – and it’s still only in closed beta. Flattr is reminiscent of Digg or perhaps Facebook Like buttons – but this time with real money. That could make things very interesting.

According to one blogger he has had €875.89 for the month of June from Flattr and the amount has increased steadily upwards. Plus Flattr (as in flattering someone and a flat-rate payment model) is already in use by two major German newspapers, completely unprompted: taz.de and Freitag.de

There are also lists appearing of people appearing who are starting to make actual money. Admittedly these are small amounts, but that fact it’s even happening is interesting. Flattr has competition in the form of Kachingle but it’s fair to say the latter is not getting quite the same amount of buzz.

So how does it work?

From an audience perspective, the ability to embed videos on other sites is what expands their viewership and makes them go viral. But from an advertising perspective, most of that video is the Web equivalent of dead air. “Nobody sells embedded video because nobody knows where it is going,” says Magnify.net CEO Steve Rosenbaum. He has a partial fix for that, a new video advertising product he calls Elastic Inventory (more on that below).

Magnify offers a video aggregation platform that powers the video sections of mid-sized Web publishers such as New York Magazine, Bicycling, and The Week. Magnify lets these publishers upload their own video and mix that with video from more than 20 video sites across the Web such as YouTube, Metacafe, and Dailymotion.

The problem is that those publishers can’t run any pre-roll ads against those “curated” videos. But Magnify is starting to broker deals with the large video-sharing sites, starting with Metacafe, to allow publishers who use Magnify to insert their own pre-roll ads in the embedded videos. Magnify negotiates for the ad inventory on a wholesale basis across its network, allowing a publisher to buy video ads at a $5 CPM, for instance, and sell it at the $15 or $20 CPMs their own video ad inventory goes for. They pocket the spread in between (Magnify does not take a cut, it charges for its white-label video platform instead). The product is called Elastic Inventory because publishers don’t have to commit to buying any of the video ad space until they’ve already sold it. If they don’t sell it, they can continue to run the videos without ads.

The thinking is that advertisers are willing to pay higher CPMs for safe video inventory on what they deem to be high-quality sites. They don’t care if it is user-generated video as long as they’ve been vetted, which is what the editors on these Magnify-powered sites do. They are buying the known audience which visits these publishers and the controlled context in which these videos are shown.

Rosenbaum wants to cut deals for Elastic Inventory across all the major video-sharing sites. Dailymotion is probably next, but I doubt YouTube would ever agree to an arrangement where they lose control of the market for their video ads. And YouTube represents the lion’s share of embedded videos across Magnify-powered sites and elsewhere. Now, Magnify publishers will have an economic incentive to choose videos from other video-sharing sites instead.

Stribe had a good 2009. The service that aims to make it as simple as possible for any site to add a social network on top of their existing website was first unveiled in September of last year at TechCrunch50 in San Francisco. Shortly thereafter, in December, the service won the startup competition at LeWeb in Paris. Now they’re hoping 2010 will be even better.

Stribe is opening its service to all today after several months in private beta testing. More than 10,000 sites requested access to the beta, but Stribe only let in a few hundred hand-selected ones to make sure the service worked as expected, co-founder Kamel Zeroual tells us. “I now feel our value proposition has become strong enough to be shared with the world,” Zeroual says.

Stribe’s promise lies in its 5-minute set-up from scratch, and in its one line of code you need to add to your site to get things working. From a conceptual perspective, it’s similar to what the Meebo Bar offers, but Stribe is striving to be a bit more robust. Here’s the list of features they promise:

• Customizable profiles including user-specific photos, status updates and community information
• User modules to show who is online, and let users chat and send messages
• A Newsfeed where users can create new topics and share with the community
• Facebook and Twitter Connect to let any visitor of a website sign-in and join the community
• Badges to reward most active users and websites
• RSS sharing to distribute and provide more news for visitors
• “Widget” size to make integration easier
• Stribe in White Label: webmasters can now customize their Stribe social network widget with the look and feel of their website.

On top of those, Stribe has a new feature they’re launching today alongside the public roll-out: “Meta Social Network.” Basically, they’re allowing sites to group themselves with similar sites to create larger overall networks. These networks will reside on stribe.com and site owners should be able to leverage them to drive more traffic from people interested in specific topics.

“It’s also our take on what should be the Open Graph for websites — a way to freely access and share content, visitors, links and more in communities of blogs and websites sharing the same interests,” Zeroual says.

Much of Stribe’s core features are free, but there are some premium modules such as metric tracking that they charge for.

Product: Off-Road Trip

Manufacturer: Roundup:

Wired Rating: 0

Route 66 has the world’s largest ketchup bottle. Yay. Here’s a better road trip idea: Leave the asphalt behind and visit someplace that’s not already on a postcard.

1. Outdoor Research DryComp Ridge Sack
WIRED Super-lightweight and surprisingly strong. Shrugged off mud, water, rocks and scraping branches. This day pack even survived the ultimate test — being checked as airline baggage. Comfy straps.

TIRED Hip belt could use some padding. Still smells like our campfire, even after washing.

$120, outdoorresearch.com

2. ARB Fridge Freezer
WIRED It may be the size of your old Igloo, but this is no mere cooler; it’s a full-on fridge, complete with electronic thermostat. Runs off a 12-volt socket yet works as well as your kitchen model.

TIRED Costs almost as much as your kitchen model. Exposed cooling fins are easy to damage. Heavy.

$850, arbusa.com

3. Cobra CJIC 350 Power Pack
WIRED We brought it along for its air compressor — handy for tailoring tire firmness to terrain — but it does so much more. It’ll jump-start a V-8, power a flatscreen or charge your iPod.

TIRED Jumper cables too short. Wimpy compressor takes forever. Three separate power switches?

$100, cobra.com

4. Garmin Oregon 550t Navigator
WIRED Because “Elvis Rock” (a) isn’t on any map, and (b) might not look like Elvis when you’re sober, the 550t lets you take a geotagged photo that you can click on later to find your way back. 16 hours of battery life! Water- and shock-resistant.

TIRED Better off-road than on: Street maps cost $100, screen is too small, and instead of “turn here,” it just says “beep.”

$600, garmin.com

5. Black Diamond Sprinter Headlamp
WIRED Small, bright and rugged. Flashing red “follow me” light on back. Comes with a jillion different plugs for overseas charging.

TIRED No plug will help if you run out of juice in the middle of nowhere. Wiring-lined head strap chafes a sunburned brow.

$100, blackdiamondequipment.com

Product: First Responders

Manufacturer: Roundup:

Wired Rating: 0

We searched high and low for an ultralight, super-basic first aid kit that we could take anywhere. It didn’t exist, so we designed our own.

Video by Cody Pickens

The Wired Rickshaw Rescue Kit
Together with Rickshaw Bagworks, we created this water-resistant survival satchel to carry a pared-down collection of remedies that will get you back on the trail—or as far as the ER.

Ace Instant Cold Compress
Smash this packet to bring frosty relief to pain and inflammation.

Adhesive bandages
You know, Band-Aids. You also know when to use them.

Adsafe Plus CPR Face Shield with airway valve
Lets you give or get mouth-to-mouth without locking lips.

Advil (ibuprofen)
Fights inflammation. Pop two at bedtime to get your achy limbs ready to move the next day.

Alcohol prep pads
Use these to clean your cuts—and the Leatherman you’re about to use to remove that splinter.

Aspirin
Can help keep your ticker tocking if taken at the first sign of a heart attack.

Benadryl
Halts the sneezing, itching, and swelling associated with allergic reactions.

Burn Jel
This lidocaine ointment takes the burn out of your, um, burns.

Cipro
The broad-spectrum antibiotic in Cipro knocks out bacteria like Manny Pacquiao.

Dr. Scholl’s Moleskin
Still the best way to prevent blisters from bubbling into infected sores.

Imodium
Diarrhea can cause life-threatening dehydration. Imodium will stop the flow and help you get out of the john and back on the trail.

NexTemp Disposable Thermometer
Uncrushable, paper-thin, accurate to two-tenths of a degree.

Nuun Portable Electrolyte Hydration
Dissolvable tablets stave off dehydration by adding ions to your H₂0.

OxyContin
Highly addictive, but Tylenol won’t cut it if you snap your tibia.

QuikClot Sport Advanced Clotting Sponge
Slap this on a badly bleeding wound to halt hemorrhaging.

Steri-Strip Wound Closure Strips
Seal nasty gashes until you can make it someplace that has sutures, antiseptic, and anesthetic—or at least a needle and thread and whiskey.

Tegaderm Transparent Film
Leave that gauze at home with your leeches and hacksaws; this sticky, breathable dressing provides sterile protection for any body part.

Triple antibiotic ointment
Keeps nasty bacteria from turning a minor scrape into a serious infection.

Tylenol (acetaminophen)
Cools fevers like nothing else—and for some diseases, like dengue, it’s the only safe treatment.

Product: Self-Helpers

Manufacturer: Roundup:

Wired Rating: 0

A mirror will tell you how you look, but it won’t tell you what’s going on under your skin. These gadgets will help you monitor your inner health, so the contents match the wrapper.

1. Garmin Forerunner 110

The newest Forerunner is small enough to fit under the cuff of a dress shirt and yet it still talks to satellites. It’s also a great example of a company listening to its customers: Garmin users have been clamoring for a less expensive watch that records where they go and how fast they get there. The 110 does just that.

WIRED Small, affordable, accurate. Lets you use Garmin’s Connect Web site, where you can save and track all your workouts.

TIRED Clip-on USB adapter can be flaky. Getting a lock on the satellites can take a minute or two, so leave time to do some quality stretching before you take off.

$250, garmin.com

2. Zeo Personal Sleep Coach

Strap on the headband before you nod off and in the morning you’ll have a quantified picture of your night’s sleep. Zeo takes an EEG of your nappytime brain waves, so it knows how you doze. And it goes deeper too: By identifying “sleep stealers,” the device helps you find out how, for example, the light from your TV increases the time it takes to fall asleep.

WIRED Opt for detailed information or a single number—your “ZQ”—that measures quality of slumber. Can use your brain signals to determine the best time to wake you up.

TIRED You might sleep better without a transmitter strapped to your head. No wireless uploading.

$249, myzeo.com

3. Tanita BC-350

Your scale only measures your weight? Please. The BC-350 not only tracks your pounds but measures body fat, bone mass, metabolic age, and hydration level. Using a mild electric current (too small to feel), the scale measures the impedance of your body to analyze the nitty-gritty details.

WIRED If you can read standing up, you can use this thing. Allows multiple profiles, so you can see how you stack up against friends and family (eek).

TIRED No way to store data, so get comfy with Excel if you want to track your stats. Don’t expect any advice, either: Though it serves up lots of info, the scale offers no action plan or system for setting goals.

$270, tanita.com

4. GoWear Fit

Who knew so many sensors could fit into a single armband? The GoWearFit packs an accelerometer, a temperature monitor, and a galvanic skin detector. These three electronic superheroes join forces to provide an insanely accurate accounting of how many calories you burn in a given day.

WIRED Fits unobtrusively under clothes. Data uploads to an easy-to-navigate Web site.

TIRED Not waterproof, so it can’t crunch how many calories you burn in the pool (or the shower). Elastic armband gets a little ripe, snuggled up next to your armpit and all. Ugly display sold separately. The Web site has only basic goal setting, like “I want to get more active.”

$190, bodymedia.com

5. Philips DirectLife

Toss the DirectLife in your pocket or dangle it around your neck and its accelerometers keep tabs on how much you move. USB-sync it with a Web site account to track activity levels, identify trends, and set fitness goals. Wow, that was easy.

WIRED Online training coaches are just an email away; their periodic friendly reminders help you stay focused.

TIRED Do you really burn the same number of calories lifting weights as you do sitting on the sofa? (No.) There’s no display except some LED dots that show how much of your daily goal you’ve accomplished. No wireless data transfer. $12.50 monthly fee. Boo.

$99, philips.com

When Blippy was looking for a little help creating an overview video for their service, I recommended that they take a look at Mountain View based Transvideo Studios. I know executive producer Rico Andrade there fairly well and have seen some of the work they’ve done for Gmail (another), Box.net, Facebook, Mint.com (very dramatic) and others. It’s high quality stuff, and can be aimed at users, partners, advertisers, etc. depending on what audience you want.

We’ve ranted before about the power of a good demo video to tell a story. Cash strapped startups can simply do one themselves with screen capture software and iMovie, or whatever. Or you can spend a few thousand dollars and get something professionally done. Either way it’s just a good way to communicate what your startup does.

Here’s the final Blippy video, which makes the controversial service look quite cute and cuddly (see the Transvideo blog for more details):

SafetyWeb, a service that lets parents monitor their children’s online social activities, has made its first acquisition – Colorado based Odojo. The companies are not disclosing the terms of the deal other than that it is an all cash transaction.

In June SafetyWeb announced a $8 million funding round from Battery Ventures with First Round Capital, and the company has raised a total of $8.75 million.

This appears to be a technology acquisition, and only one Odojo employee, an engineer, will be joining SafetyWeb. Founder Mike Stemple will join SafetyWeb as an advisor. Odojo’s technology will help SafetyWeb identify specific dangers by category, such as “drugs,” “sex,” “suicide,” “anorexia,” “hate,” etc.

This is a space we’ve begun to cover more deeply. Parent anxiety over exactly what their kids are up to online means there’s lot of potential cash for anyone that gives them at least a basic level of monitoring. Last week we covered SocialShield, a less well funded competitor. And the New York TImes also took a look at the space yesterday. Expect intense competition over parents willing to pay a few dollars a month for some peace of mind.

It took only two days since my last post for word to reach me that someone is about to release a new product (the same product that I was hoping someone would create), which will make individuals and/or brands lives a lot easier under Facebook‘s roof.

I can already hear you thinking, man, Facebook Pages again? Yes. Again. But there is a reason why we’re talking about them constantly. Beside the obvious point that these tools can actually help you create a Page with no hassle and easily market yourself on the platform, there are signs of a new trend that we need to pay attention to.

Today, Facebook Pages look alike for the most part. That might be because people don’t have time to invest in them, nor have the qualifications to create an immersed page, or maybe they simply don’t care. But if you own a brand, you should care. Making a page by yourself is not that hard, but it involves some basic HTML familiarity, and many people don’t want to be hassled with any of that.

While Facebook only seems to care about what is beneficial for them, they aren’t really concerned about ease of use for their members. Yet the usage of this service is growing day after day, and still their feature list stays pretty much the same. Here and there, you can see some fine-tuning design-wise, and little things are added, but overall, you can’t do much when it comes to marketing your brands inside Facebook.

Not if you’re a small business anyway.

I believe Facebook creates such boundaries whenever they feel at risk of turning into the next MySpace, but there is still a long way before it comes to that (if ever) and to be honest, MySpace wasn’t bad at all (back in the day).

Only now, in hindsight, do we realize that we have something that looks much better and fits this era with Facebook. However, it is limited by “tabs.” I don’t understand why Facebook won’t allow us to customize at least one tab as we wish?

Meanwhile, should we be surprised that more and more services are trying to give us that ability to customize a Facebook page? These services are born out of a need. It started with Tabs applications such as: Twittertab, Flickrtab, YouTubetab, Picasatab, and many more. But you can’t as easily find a service that allows you to create a ‘Welcome tab’ with such freedom. But don’t worry, I believe we are about to enter a new Facebook page creators trend, and it is only a matter of time before we see more services like RootMusic around soon.

But first let me introduce you to a new service that simply allows you to create a ‘Welcome’ or ‘About’ tab without any Static FBML knowledge, or too much work. Enter Thailand-based Pagemodo, which allows anyone to create a Welcome page through a nicely done generator that is very simple to use.

(Click for a larger version of the image)

This time I don’t really need to explain how to create the page because it is really fairly easy. Once you log in with your Facebook account, you’ll be able to create a new page where you’ll be taken to a self-explanatory editor to help you achieve your page tab. You can choose between two layouts, and start your page (or tab if you wish) creation. Just enter all the information needed. You can add pictures, change the colors & font, and more. Finally, you’ll be asked to choose a Tab – ‘Welcome’ or ‘About us’ (more tab names are coming) And install it on your Facebook page. If you have more than one page, you can create a tab for each, and come back to edit them whenever you want through your account at Pagemodo.

According to Pagemodo, they will always offer a free version so that everyone, even very small organizations, can create custom pages, but these free ones will of course include their footer and might limit some advanced features that only the paying users will get, such as Add Google Analytics, custom tab-names, limited edition layouts (so they can get a unique layout), etc. Currently, Pagemodo is working on a simple payment solution, so people can at least start removing the footer and get an “early bird” discount.

I already explained the value of such pages in my earlier posts, but I’ll quickly explain again: When you set a ‘Welcome’ tab to be the first thing that new visitors land on, you have the ability to place whatever you want under this tab and explain your brand better. The main thing about all these pages is that the companies can customize these pages, so they match company colors, display the company logo, etc. With services such as the one offered by Pagemodo, they can.

This is your opportunity to attract new visitors – simple as that. You can choose to leave it the old and boring way, or take a few minutes to create a new page for your company. The rest is up to you. Moreover, the service is free so I don’t really see any reason to not test/use it. All things considered, I believe it’s a win-win proposition.

Like I’ve said previously, I believe this is just the beginning for these kind of platforms and as long as Facebook doesn’t offer users the tools to customize their own pages, we are going to see more of these tools popping up like mushrooms.

If you already have some design & code skills, my first guide might make more sense to you. But if you don’t, I encourage you to try this service, share your insights and feedback, and help them build a better platform.

Or you can give others like Likeable, Involver, or Vitrue a try. Just know that they are nothing like Pagemodo (see example). In most cases, you need to send them graphics and then they will set one of their own designers to create a page. And of course, you’ll need to pay.

Make no mistake, I’m in favor of paying for good products, but I prefer to take full control of the product I’m using. And so should you.

Regular readers will know that recently I’ve liked to state my bias in the title of my mobile device reviews: I love the iPhone. Some will call that being a fanboy, and that’s fine. But really, it’s just my opinion that the iPhone is hands down the best mobile device out there. If there were a better one, I would use it. But there’s not. So I use the iPhone. And that’s the angle I take towards these mobile device reviews. It’s simple: if you want to be the best, you have to beat the best. Well, one finally has: iPhone 4.

Yeah, if you hate these types of reviews, you’re really going to hate this one.

Before I dive into specifics, I’ll say right away that the iPhone 4 is easily the best mobile device I’ve ever used (notice I didn’t say phone, more on that later). But a lot of you probably already thought you knew I was going to say that. The more interesting question may be: how does it compare to the other iPhones? Or, perhaps even better: is it worth it to upgrade? The short answer is yes.

In my view, iPhone 4 is the biggest leap forward that any iPhone has taken yet over the previous generation. It’s not really any single thing that makes me say that, but it’s the combination of changes to the hardware. The screen is much better. The camera is much better. The video quality is much better. The form factor is much better. The device is faster. It can do more at once (thanks to double the RAM). The battery lasts noticeably longer. And, of course, it has FaceTime.

The main upgrade of the iPhone 3G from the original iPhone was the 3G chip which brought faster download speeds. The main upgrade of the iPhone 3GS from the iPhone 3G was the CPU speed increase and the video-taking capability. All of those were nice upgrades. But again, the iPhone 4 offers much more from a hardware perspective. And that makes it worth the upgrade from an older iPhone, as well as worth an outright purchase if you’re new to the platform.

I wrote down my initial thoughts about the iPhone 4 after playing with it for about 20 minutes after the WWDC keynote in June. This time, I wanted to play around with the device for an entire week, using it as much as possible before I wrote up a full review. Now I have, so here it is.

The Screen

The element most played up by Apple during the WWDC keynote was the iPhone 4′s screen. And rightly so, it’s fairly amazing. The so-called Retina display offers 960×640 pixel resolution at 326 pixels per inch. And it has a great 800:1 contrast ratio. Those specs make it great for both reading text and for watching video content or looking at pictures.

The screen is so sharp that when you’re looking at it, it almost looks as if you’re looking at a sticker overlay that they may put on a display unit at an electronics store. It looks more like you’re looking at a printed out picture than an electronic display.

But here’s the curious thing about the screen: More than a few people I showed it to thought it looked great, but wondered what was exactly so different from the previous iPhone screen. Part of that is because the previous iPhone screen was already good. But then I showed it to them side-by-side with the iPhone 3GS screen and they were blown away.

If Apple really wants to emphasize the screen, I recommend they do the same thing in Apple Store. Of course, then they may have a hard time selling the iPhone 3GS.

But when you do put them side-by-side, it’s easy to see just how much sharper text is on the iPhone 4. And just how much better colors appear. If you bring both close to your eye, on the old one you can see the pixels. On the new one, you can’t. Just look at the picture below — I don’t think I have to tell you which is which.

As I said, previous iPhones already had pretty solid displays, but they had since been passed up by the screens on a few Android devices. For example, I love the Nexus One’s screen, which is 800×480. But the iPhone 4 now destroys that. And, as a bonus, you can actually see it in daylight (which the Nexus One’s use of OLED makes very difficult).

The Speed

The iPhone 4, which uses Apple’s A4 chip just like the iPad, is definitely faster than the iPhone 3GS. However, the most part, it’s not noticeably faster in the same way that the iPhone 3GS was noticeably faster than the iPhone 3G. But it is in some cases, such as photo manipulation. One of my favorite apps is one called CameraBag (you can find it here for $1.99). On the iPhone 3GS, it can take several seconds to apply various filters to pictures in this app. On the iPhone 4, the same tasks take about a second.

Likewise, some games are noticeably faster, even those not yet optimized for iOS 4 or iPhone 4. Also, the few lags that previously existed in things like typing are now gone as well.

When you’re on WiFi, browsing the web can actually seem like a faster experience than doing so from a desktop computer. This is undoubtedly mostly thanks to the proliferation of iPhone-optimized sites. But still, for getting at raw information, the iPhone is now faster in quite a few cases, I’ve found.

On top of the new chip, another factor in the speed boost is like the 512 MB of RAM now included in the device (double what it was in previous iPhones — and double what is even included in the iPad!). But more than speed, this helps with the iOS 4′s new multitasking capabilities. In the week I’ve been using the iPhone 4 with iOS 4, I haven’t noticed the device having to quit any app I’ve loaded that takes advantage of fast app switching. Of course, that’s sort of the point, you’re not supposed to notice this. But with the iPhone 3GS running iOS 4, I have noticed a few times when an app has to restart when I switch back to it.

But the biggest speed difference for the entire device has to be the vast improvements to upload speeds. I like to send pictures I take from my iPhone to Flickr via email. On the iPhone 3GS, this takes a while, as each picture tends to be a little over a megabyte in size. On the iPhone 4, sending these pictures is so much faster — and that’s despite the files being much larger (thanks to the new 5 megapixel camera).

This upload boost is thanks to the iPhone 4′s use of High-Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA), a 3G data protocol which can boost upload speeds by as much as 10x. If you do a lot of media uploading from your phone, this alone may make the new iPhone worth it.

The Antenna

While we’re on the subject of connectivity speeds, there’s no point in beating around the bush any longer — you likely want to know about the antenna issues of the iPhone 4 that have been widely reported.

At first, during regular use, I didn’t notice anything abnormal about the device with regard to its connection. Of course, I also live in San Francisco where AT&T offers up shitty connections as standard practice.

Then I started reading all the reports and decided to see if I could get the signal to drop myself. Sure enough, I could. I even tried it on a second iPhone 4 in a different area — same result. When wrapping your palm around the lower left corner of the iPhone 4, at least on the two devices I tried, the reception bars definitely start to drop.

I also tried making calls and using data while doing this. In both cases I was able to push the connection to failure when I would shove the iPhone into my left palm. Calls would drop and data would stop. When I released from that specific area of the phone, things would start working again.

But then I decided to try something out. I did the same thing with the iPhone 3GS — and guess what? Same results. Granted, it is much hard to push the connection to this point of failure on that device, but it can be done (by wrapping your hand around the entire bottom of the phone, where the antenna resides). Interestingly enough though, when I would do this on the iPhone 3GS, the signal would degrade, but the bars wouldn’t fall. Perhaps this is why no one noticed this issue on the iPhone 3GS but they are noticing it now (though other videos show the bars falling on the iPhone 3GS as well).

Yesterday, Apple finally issued an official response to this antenna issue. The basic gist? It’s a software bug. More precisely, they claim that the iPhone software currently incorrectly shows signal strength to be better than it is. A software update is supposedly going to “fix” that. Of course, that’s not really a fix at all for the actual signal, it’s just a fix for being misleading about it in the first place.

This seems to go against Apple’s earlier suggestion that you hold the phone a different way or use a case (both of which, of course, imply there is something to the idea that the design of the new device impacting the signal). That said, I spent last weekend in Lake Tahoe which has areas of decidedly better AT&T service than San Francisco. There, I didn’t notice the same falling bar issue, even when I held it in the corner (it would sometimes drop one bar, but not more). Others have noted this as well — when you’re in an area with good service, the bar loss doesn’t seem to be an issue. When you’re in an area with bad service, it is an issue. So more accurate software should at least solve the bars being high enough to drop in the first place.

But all that being said, there is still clearly something to this notion that holding the phone in the lower left corner degrades signal quality. My tests show it, dozens of other tests have shown it as well. And Apple even somewhat acknowledges it, saying this is an issue with all cell phones to some degree.

Here’s my take on this (and while I’m no expert, this seems to be pretty common sense): Apple’s software update should alleviate some concern about the signal drop by being more accurate in the first place. But the signal drop when holding the phone is very real — again, just as it is on other devices like the iPhone 3GS. The fact that the iPhone 4 is the first phone with the antenna on the outside of the phone, I have to believe must exacerbate this issue. And this combination of software plus hardware issue is why we’re all talking about this for the first time.

But at the end of the day, all that matters is this: does the device work? While that’s a more complicated question for me to answer than it should be because I happen to live in an area with notoriously bad AT&T reception, the answer is yes. In regular use (so, not holding the device a certain way to try and get it to fail) the iPhone 4 seems to perform the same with regard to data usage as the iPhone 3GS did. Without all the hubbub over the signal issue, I don’t think I would have noticed a problem (aside from day one when AT&T’s network was clearly getting slammed harder than usual).

As for call quality, I think the iPhone 4 is actually a bit better, believe it or not. I’ve been to at least three spots where I couldn’t make a call before, and now I can. This lends some credence to the idea that the iPhone 4 actually has a better antenna than the previous iPhones, despite the fact that it’s now exposed and seemingly more susceptible to signal degradation.

I have also tried using the iPhone 4 with the new bumpers Apple sells for the device, and it definitely seems to help the lower left corner issue. It’s too bad these things coast $29.99 a pop. I know Apple’s current stance is not to give these things away, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t start doing it if the software update isn’t as effective as they hope.

The Design

All this antenna talk is the direct result of something else: design decisions Apple made for the iPhone 4. Ultimately, they may regret the exterior antenna choice, but it’s hard to argue with the overall package. The iPhone 4 is easily the best piece of mobile hardware I’ve ever laid my hands on.

In my initial thoughts (again, after playing with the device for about 20 minutes), I noted that the iPhone 4 made the iPhone 3GS feel a bit like a toy in comparison. Well, if the iPhone 3GS feels like a toy, most other smartphones out there feel like toys from the 99 Cent Store compared to iPhone 4. It’s just at a whole different level.

I happen to have 10 other recently popular cell phones laying around my apartment (dating back to the Motorola RAZR — the phone I used right before the original iPhone). I decided to pick each up just to see how they feel compared to the iPhone 4. It’s kind of a joke. Some feel okay (the EVO and Nexus One), but nowhere close to the iPhone 4. Some feel pure amateur by comparison (the Palm Pre and the myTouch 3G). And some feel like I’m holding a Zack Morris or Gordon Gekko-style brick (the G1). In fact, the best of the bunch was the original iPhone with its aluminum back, in my opinion.

There has never been an iPhone that feels more solid, looks so symmetrical, and has buttons that feel so right. I’m sure someone will tell me there’s a phone out there that’s crafted at least as well (perhaps in one of the European countries). But I have no doubt that if such a device exists, it’s one that 99.99% of us will never see or use because it probably costs thousands of dollars. That may be the most impressive thing about the iPhone 4 — it’s priced to move at just $199 (or $299 — both after AT&T subsidy, obviously).

No other phone in that price range can touch the iPhone 4 in terms of design and build quality. Not by a long shot.

That’s actually the other thing that saddens me about the bumper — it just makes the device feel (and look) cheaper. That said, the bumper is very useful when setting your device down flat because it provides some room between the all glass back and whatever surface it’s on. This glass is supposedly extremely strong, but that doesn’t mean sticky substances can’t muck up say, the back camera.

The Camera

Speaking of the camera, it’s a thing of beauty. Maybe you’ve heard Apple’s marketing talk that “it’s about more than megapixels” — coined because the iPhone 4 has a 5 megapixel camera while rivals like the EVO have an 8 megapixel one. Well, it’s not actually just marketing talk, it’s absolutely true.

I have both devices and the iPhone 4′s camera is definitely better the EVO’s. And that’s just in quality — as previously mentioned, the camera software on the EVO seems to be buggy and often has issues saving pictures. I haven’t had an issue once on the iPhone. The EVO also makes it hard to switch between the back and front camera on the device. On the iPhone 4, it’s a one-click process right there on the screen.

What most impresses me about the iPhone 4′s camera though is its ability to shoot in low light. In that regard, it reminds me much more of my Canon S90, than any other camera phone I’ve ever used. The iPhone 4 includes an LED flash, and it works fine, but I’m tempted never to use it because this thing is so good in low light. (See: the picturea below taken with the iPhone 4.)

Just as impressive as the still camera is the iPhone 4′s ability to shoot HD video (720p). This matches the EVO and other Android phones in terms of quality and it also brings it up to par with the stand-alone Flip HD cams. The quality of HD videos taken with the iPhone 4 is excellent. There are some stability issues if your taking the video while walking, but standing still, things look amazing (see: below).

FaceTime

The other big element of the iPhone 4 Apple is playing up (and, in fact, the only element they’re playing up in commercials right now) is FaceTime. Yes, I know, other phones have done video chat for some time now. But the fact that seemingly everyone is talking about mobile video chatting for the first time with this release says just about all you need to say.

As a technological demo, FaceTime is impressive. It really is one-click-and-it-works provided both parties have iPhone 4s are are connected to WiFi. There’s nothing to set up, nothing to configure. You hit the button and it works.

As a real world usable technology, FaceTime is profound. It’s one thing to do demos for your friends. It’s another when you make your first real FaceTime call. There you are, somewhere in the world, face-to-face with someone else, someplace else in the world. Once the initial cool factor wears off, it’s like your in the room with them. And Apple is ingenious to play this up in their commercial (below).

But what’s even crazier about FaceTime is that Apple says they will open source the technology — something which Apple doesn’t often do. If third-party developers choose to utilize it, it could be really interesting.

Android

During Google I/O this past year, Google didn’t beat around the bush: the updates they were making with Android 2.2 were aimed squarely at the iPhone. The problem that Android as a platform faces (with regard to challenging Apple) is that they don’t have the control over the software + hardware mix in the same way that Apple does with the iPhone. Yes, they may have taken charge of the design the Nexus One — and that is still, in my mind, their best phone to date — but they don’t have the type of industrial design expertise that Apple does in-house. And it seems unlikely that they ever will unless they change strategy.

Android now brings a lot to the table — plenty of things that the iPhone doesn’t offer such as WiFi hotspot creation, true voice search, and tight Google Voice integration. From a technological and spec sheet perspective, Android is impressive — and it continues to get more so. But from a regular consumer and practical perspective, iPhone remains the device to beat. There are just so many things you can do on the device with such ease that are kind of a pain in the ass on Android. It doesn’t appear that Apple is letting Android phase them — they still focus on quality over quantity.

But that doesn’t mean the moves Google is making with Android don’t alter Apple’s selective areas of focus for the iPhone. And I think it’s great that there are two companies playing off each other in that regard. They’re pushing one another to continue to innovate. And that means all of us, as consumers, win.

From a hardware perspective, iPhone 4 rises to the challenge brought by many Android devices in the year since the iPhone 3GS launched. And it surpasses those devices. It offers a better screen, better camera, better speed, and better battery life than any Android device. But I have no doubt that much of that will again change in the next year, as Android continues to rapidly iterate.

And then iPhone 5 will come out, and we’ll be having this discussion all over again.

Conclusion + One More Thing

In conclusion, if you said you were buying a phone today, I would absolutely tell you to get the iPhone 4. Are there antenna issues? Yes, but they don’t adversely affect the overall experience to the point where I wouldn’t buy this phone over all others. And in fact, in normal day-to-day usage they don’t seem to adversely affect the iPhone usage that I’m used to at all (and that’s not so much a statement in favor of Apple as it is a statement against AT&T).

That brings me to the caveat. And it’s a big one. Since the initial launch of the iPhone there have been rumors about the device coming to Verizon — but those rumors are now louder than ever. The current ones suggest a January 2011 launch date for such a pairing.

If I 100% knew that was the case, there is no way I would recommend anyone to buy the iPhone 4 right now. But, just as was the case last year, I simply don’t know that right now — and I’m not sure anyone besides Apple really does (including both AT&T and Verizon). Basically, buying the iPhone 4 right now is a several hundred dollar bet that it won’t launch on Verizon in 6 months. It’s a gamble.

But there is a silver lining if you choose to make the bet. Even if the Verizon iPhone does launch, it should help the iPhone on AT&T, because there will undoubtedly be defectors by the thousands (if not more). Those users switching will ease the strain on AT&T’s network and could actually render it usable at all times again. It really could be a win-win.

Speculation aside, the iPhone 4 is the smartphone to beat from this point going forward. It will be fun to watch Android try to answer and see if they can dethrone the king before iPhone 5. Leading up to iPhone 4, Android has kept inching closer, but this latest device from Apple is the biggest leap forward the product line has taken yet. It’s going to be hard to beat.

Earlier this week, Boy Genius Report published an email exchange that reportedly took place between Apple CEO Steve Jobs and a frustrated iPhone 4 customer named Jason Burford, who sent some heated messages to Jobs over the phone’s antenna issues. BGR initially attributed one particularly condescending message to Jobs, then updated to say they were mistaken and that it was Burford who wrote it. And then, dozens of blog posts and articles later, Apple told Fortune’s tech blog that the whole thing was fabricated. Engadget later confirmed with Apple that it was a hoax.

Now BGR has posted a followup story maintaining that the email exchange was real, save for that one misattributed message, and they’re basically calling Apple’s PR team liars. In the post, BGR founder Jonathan Geller details how he had the relevant Email headers analyzed and has looked through Burford’s Google Apps account himself (with permission).  And he says that despite what Apple claims, the emails check out. He also mentions that Burford asked for “a nominal fee of a couple hundred dollars” for the emails in question — a fact that doesn’t help his cause, but Geller is confident that they’re real nonetheless:

Is it possible that these replies were fabricated, and didn’t come from someone at Apple sending emails to Jason Burford from Steve Jobs’ email address [email protected]? No. I believe 100% these emails are real, as I have been given access to Jason’s Google Apps email client and verified those headers to be legitimate, undoctored, and kosher. The replies were all real, the timestamps were all matched up, and the thread was consistent. This was not faked in any way whatsoever.

So why does this matter? Given how much attention has been paid to this story, you’d expect there to be some major news involved. In reality, the email exchange itself wasn’t terribly significant: a frustrated customer was upset, and Jobs responded in his typical measured, succinct fashion. Apple has since issued an official (albeit, not terribly convincing) statement explaining the antenna issue away.

What is interesting is the allegation that Apple PR lied on the record to multiple press outlets about the authenticity of the story.  It’s not unusual for PR teams — especially Apple’s — to ignore or give vague or even misleading statements to the press.  But it would be crossing a line to give a statement that is demonstrably false.  We’ve reached out to Apple PR to ask them if they have a response to the new BGR piece.