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Last month, I wrote that it was hard to feel sorry for AT&T. The context there was that their love/hate relationship with Apple over the years has been tough on them. Boo hoo. Today, AT&T is playing the sympathy card again — this time in the context of net neutrality.

Pathetic.

In a post entitled “Wireless is Different,” AT&T makes the case for why they agree with the Google/Verizon net neutrality proposal. Specifically, they agree with the wireless aspect of it, noting that the need policymakers to protect “wireless broadband networks from onerous new net neutrality regulations.“

Now, AT&T shared some interesting data about the insane growth of wireless data expected over the next few years. And I’m not going to argue that there aren’t many challenges is getting these wireless networks to scale going forward. But it’s once again just so hard to feel sorry for AT&T given their actions in the past to block basically all aspects of net neutrality, and to block the opening of the wireless spectrum.

Obviously, Google’s new buddy Verizon agreed with AT&T on both of those things back in the day. In fact, it was only because Google made a ballsy commitment of billions of dollars that the spectrum was opened. Of course, it was both Verizon and AT&T that won that bidding for the spectrum. The two spent a combined $16 billion to win those spectrum licenses.

Here was Verizon’s statement on that at the time:

We were successful in achieving the spectrum depth we need to continue to grow our business and data revenues … and to continue to lead in data services and help us satisfy the next wave of services and consumer electronics devices

Notice the first things mentioned? The growth of their business and of their data revenues. At least Verizon was being upfront about that at the time.

Like Google, AT&T is now trying to play the “what’s best for the consumer” card. But again, this is all about their business. That’s not to say they’re not entitled to make money — of course they are — but their wrapping of this debate in their spin is nauseating.

Here’s my favorite part:

In order to provide consumers with the high quality wireless broadband services that they demand, wireless carriers must to be able to dynamically manage traffic and operate their networks in an environment free from burdensome, arbitrary and unnecessary regulations.

High quality? AT&T? They can do whatever they want now and I have yet to see them deliver what I would consider a “high quality” network given what I’m paying them each month. Many seem to agree.

Once again, the real issue here is a complete lack of competition. Yes, it’s worse in wired broadband (it’s actually pathetic), but competition is awful in wireless as well. A few companies control the entire ecosystem. They’re now bitching about how they can’t handle the growth, but they won’t cede complete control and let other companies in to innovate in the space.

Yes, they’re spending billions of dollars to grow and expand their networks, but they’re also taking in billions more in revenues and profits each quarter. They can do more.

Sadly, at this point, I’m afraid it’s only the government that can make them — and believe me, it pains me to say that. But Google lost its spine somewhere a few miles back, apparently.

The way we’re going to solve the wireless data boom problem is not with caps and walls, it’s with innovation. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out. That’s the way it works. Restrictions do not help innovation. But innovation threatens incumbents. You know: AT&T and Verizon — and yes, now Google as well.

We will solve this problem, but we need competition to foster that. Right now, there’s basically none. And Google acknowledged that in 2006 when they called Verizon and AT&T “monopolies.“

AT&T then twists their argument at the end of their post to say that what we really should be focusing on is the National Broadband Plan. Jesus. I can’t wait to see their post trying to suggest their looking out for our best interests there as well.

I’ll make this really simple:

• Net neutrality = good for customers, good for innovation, bad for AT&T
• Data caps and walls = bad for customers, bad for innovation, good for AT&T

Just stop talking AT&T, you’re making it worse.

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Joyent is the only cloud computing company that has built its own complete technology stack, runs a major public cloud on that stack, and makes the technology available for anyone who wants to build a cloud.

RedBeacon allows consumers who need a service performed to find and interact with local businesses and professionals. They are hiring now.

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Just what you’ve always wanted to do, “glimpse inside Facebook’s headquarters”! Except that does sound kind of cool when you imagine Facebook bringing in top engineering talent and talking about new product development. But no, Facebook kicked off their live stream video service today with the incongruous choice of an advertorial for actress America Ferrera’s latest film “The Dry Land.”

We watched it live, along with another 359 people apparently. And while the Livestream counter on the widget did oscillate, we snapped the above screenshot while being generous. The ratio of 360 Facebook Live viewers to 500 million Facebook users (1:1,388,888) is shockingly low, especially when considering how many other media outlets embedded the pretty snazzy Facebook Live widget.

There are plenty of good explanations for these meager numbers: There’s no one on Facebook late Friday afternoon, maybe there’s a bug, maybe you have to log in to your Livestream account to be counted as a viewer? If it is the latter login problem then the 360 number is still insanely modest considering the massive size of Facebook.

When asked why the follower count was so low and if perhaps the was some analytics mistake, a Facebook spokesperson offered the following statement (Livestream has yet to respond):

“We just wrapped our Facebook Live interview and are looking into all of the results but at this time we can say that we received nearly 3000 comments from people watching the interview live.”

Right now the feature is currently on repeat (looks like about 149 people are raptly paying attention). You can add to that number by tuning in here.

Another update from Facebook:

“We’re still working on pulling the analytics but can say the number you saw on the screen during the interview was not accurate. Also, we were not counting the embeds.”

This week Additech, a fuel systems maintenance and software business in Houston, scored a $4.6 million investment SEC filings revealed.

The company’s earlier backers Adams Capital Management, BEV Capital and 9 individual angels provided the tranche money. To date, Additech has raised about $35 million.

The chairman of Additech, Ralph Koehrer, explained in an e-mail that his company will use this money to “grow the number of fuel centers [that have] our service,” and launch a new, “drive clean across America” marketing campaign short term.

Additech’s systems include interactive merchandising software, and dispensers of engine cleaning fuel additives, as well as displays that play commercials while drivers fill up. These are installed at gas stations in 16 states, from Texas to Florida and up to the Carolinas.

Its main customers include H-E-B, Kroger and the operator of Wal-Mart stores’ gas stations Murphy USA.

The company is eyeing new business in California and Arizona.

With its technical capabilities and reach, Koehrer confirmed, Additech could help gas stations distribute biofuels (or other renewable liquid fuels) in the future, though the company hasn’t committed to do so yet.

Adams Capital Management general partner in Austin Martin Neath says for now, Additech is “Mak[ing] it incredibly easy for people to make their cars and trucks run cleaner and get better gas mileage. You pick your grade of gas at the pump and you’re asked ‘Do you want to put some additive in…? Yes? Well, you don’t have to get dirty or anything.’ Do this once every three months or so and get better mileage. It’s good for the environment, and your pocketbook.”

Gas stations (or “fuel centers” in industry parlance) get a share of Additech’s revenue for allowing its systems to be installed and maintained at their stations.

Additech makes about 10% of its revenue from its media business, and 90% from its merchandising systems, and sales of its custom-blended fuel additives at the pump. Its fuel additives are made by Afton Chemical and include two detergent cleaners and a friction modifier.

Appbistro, a marketplace for Facebook tabs that businesses, bands, and brands can use to add functionality to their Facebook pages, has just scored some angel funding. The company has raised a $550,000 convertible note led by Sand Hill Angels, with participation from Alfred Lin (TellMe, Zappos, Sequoia) Dave McClure’s 500 Startups, i/o Ventures, Zelkova Ventures, Seraph Group, Erik Moore, and Thomas McInerney.

Appbistro launched in May at TechCrunch Disrupt. The startup offers a directory of tab applications for sprucing up Facebook Pages, with apps for quizzes, signup forms, contests, multimedia, and a broad range of other categories. Each app listing includes a link to install that app on your Facebook Page, as well as supplementary reviews and screenshots.

Appbistro also has a payments system, allowing developers to charge users for premium tab applications (something they can’t do through Facebook itself). Cofounder Ryan Merket says that there are over fifty apps on the marketplace right now, and that he expects that number to nearly double in the next few weeks. Wildfire, a popular promotion building platform, is on board, and more partnerships with established Facebook developers are in the works.

10,000 applications have been installed to Facebook Pages using Appbistro, but most of them have been free so far. Merket says that the company will be using the money to hire more engineers, and also to optimize the service for paid applications.

Some of you may recall back in 2009 when there was not one, but two Twitpocalypses. As a quick refresher, it was an issue with the unique identity number for tweets and the 32-bit signed and unsigned integer limits. Twitter recommended developers switch over to 64-bit, which they did, and now we’re a long ways away from another issue like that (I’m told something like 316,887,646 years, in fact). But a new issue is much closer: OAuthpocalypse!

Starting on Tuesday, Twitter is going to begin phasing out the Basic Auth support that third-party developers have been using for a long time. Beginning on August 31, they will no longer be able to use it at all to connect third-party apps to Twitter. Instead, they’re being asked to use OAuth, the more secure version of authentication.

And actually, Twitter actually did a quick test of this move today. Here’s what developer advocate Taylor Singletary notes in the Twitter Development Talk Google Group:

You may have noticed that we temporarily shut basic authentication off today for 10 minutes. We gave minimal notice today, and recognize that more notice would have been optimal. We will be doing these integration tests a few more times before the total deprecation date.

Another such test will take place on Monday.

Twitter let users know about this bigger switch was coming a while ago, the update today is more to get everyone on the same page and give a firm timetable. Here it is:

– Basic Auth will be completely shut off on August 30th.
– Beginning Aug 17, basic auth rate limiting will decrease by 15 requests
on each week day (10% drop per weekday)
– Aug 16, 8am Pacific – we’ll shut basic auth temporarily off for 10
minutes
– Aug 31, 5pm Pacific – we’ll shut basic auth temporarily for 10 minutes
– On August 30th, all basic auth requests will be served with a 401 HTTP
status code.

If you’re a developer concerned about the transition, read over Singletary’s post or check out this page. But this move shouldn’t be taken lightly, as Singletary notes:

We’ve discussed at length in the past why this transition is important. We recognize that it significantly increases the difficulty of working with the  Twitter API. OAuth is not a silver bullet for security, but protects our users and the platform ecosystem notably better than basic authentication.

The move to OAuth is probably overdue for Twitter. But they’re moving quickly after this. I’m told the move to OAuth 2, the even more secure new version, is already in the works.

Smells like victory.

“The new Internet. If AT&T and Verizon have their way.”

That was the final warning in a public service announcement that ran on television in the run up to the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2007. Guess who made that video? Google.

That’s striking, of course, because of the news this week that Google has now compromised with Verizon on a proposed net neutrality plan. Google says the compromises made were necessary to move the debate forward. If you read my post last night, obviously, I disagree. And so does much of the rest of the web, it seems. Judging from this video, 2006 Google would disagree too.

Who besides Google and Verizon do agree on this compromise? AT&T.

Earlier today, we were pointed to a new site made in protest of the Google/Verizon plan. This site is appropriately named Voogle Wireless. Apparently, this site was made by someone who helped produce the 2006 PSA for Google and is now pissed off at the blatant hypocrisy.

Watch the video below:

Further, here’s the note Google CEO Eric Schmidt also wrote in 2006 leading up to the act (which was co-sponosored by then-Senator Barack Obama, by the way):

A Note to Google Users on Net Neutrality:

The Internet as we know it is facing a serious threat. There’s a debate heating up in Washington, DC on something called “net neutrality” – and it’s a debate that’s so important Google is asking you to get involved. We’re asking you to take action to protect Internet freedom.

In the next few days, the House of Representatives is going to vote on a bill that would fundamentally alter the Internet. That bill, and one that may come up for a key vote in the Senate in the next few weeks, would give the big phone and cable companies the power to pick and choose what you will be able to see and do on the Internet.

Today the Internet is an information highway where anybody – no matter how large or small, how traditional or unconventional – has equal access. But the phone and cable monopolies, who control almost all Internet access, want the power to choose who gets access to high-speed lanes and whose content gets seen first and fastest. They want to build a two-tiered system and block the on-ramps for those who can’t pay.

Creativity, innovation and a free and open marketplace are all at stake in this fight. Please call your representative (202-224-3121) and let your voice be heard.

Thanks for your time, your concern and your support.

Eric Schmidt

Those “phone and cable monopolies” sure sounded like the enemy in 2006. Now they sound like partners.

Earlier this week we broke the news that Jambool and their Social Gold virtual currency platform had been acquired by Google. Jambool founders Vikas Gupta and Reza Hussien have just confirmed the deal on their company blog. While the founders did not reveal a purchase price, our sources have it pegged at around $70 millon.

Jambool’s Social Gold monetization platform allows game developers to integrate payment systems into their games. Google’s most recent gaming grab is in line with its current “Google Games” focused acquisition thrust; The search engine recently picked up Slide for $182 million and reportedly just plunked down a $100 million investment in Zynga.

From the Jambool blog:

August 13, 2010

We are excited to announce that Jambool is becoming a part of the Google family today. Jambool started as a social collaboration platform in 2006. In 2007, we shifted our focus to build applications on social networks. Along with success, we found fun and lucrative ways to monetize our apps – specifically virtual currency and goods. That led us to create a platform to help developers create, host, manage and monetize their virtual economies.

Social Gold has grown by leaps and bounds since it went live in 2008. In the first half of 2010, we’ve processed more than double the entire payment volume we processed in all of 2009. And we’ve welcomed hundreds of developers to our platform. The fact that our highest revenue day was in the last week attests to the continued growth of online gaming.

Our vision is to build world-class products that help developers manage and monetize their virtual economies across the globe. When the opportunity arose to join forces with Google to execute against this vision, we couldn’t pass it up. We are thrilled to bring the Social Gold platform to Google’s global users. And we invite you – our customers, partners, and friends – to continue on the journey with us.

Over the last few years, we have had the great fortune of working with an incredible team. Every day, we are amazed and humbled by what they have accomplished. We have had terrific support from our partners, investors and advisors; and we are lucky to have worked with each of them. Thank you!

As a team, we remain passionate about innovating on behalf of our customers. We aim to deliver the most frictionless, seamless transaction experience inside applications and games on every platform. We are thrilled to be part of Google, and we look forward to the exciting road ahead.

The game has only just begun.

Vikas & Reza

Yeah, if by “game,” you mean war.

Y Combinator-backed Gantto is launching its easy to use web-based project management application to the public today. Designed to take on Microsoft’s project management software, Gantto focuses on helping users visualize and present project schedules.

Gantto, a play on words of ‘gantt chart,’ not only allows you to create project schedules but also lets users turn schedules into presentations. In previous work at a medical robotics company, Gantto’s founders had to manually reproduce their Microsoft Project schedules and charts in PowerPoint presentations when showing their progress in meetings. With Gantto’s application, you can present directly from the application.

New users can actually import their projects and data from MS Project, or create their own from scratch. The task management application also features drag and drop functionality, sticky note reminders, and the ability to format presentations by color, font and more.

And you can make adjustments in schedules and data on the fly within Gantto during a meeting or discussion. Eventually Gantto will create a collaborative system that incorporates email as well as other communications.

MS Project currently has over 20 million users so the market has significant potential. And Gantto is a nice alternative for any bootstrapped business because it’s free, scalable and simple to use. Of course, Gantto faces competition from web-based project management applications such as Basecamp.

I would estimate I spend roughly 20 percent of any given day in Gmail. So naturally, I want a way to spend more time looking at the Gmail logo. Luckily Paul Truong, a “creative technologist” (I want that job) at Google spent his own 20 percent time coming up with a way.

Truong has made a new HTML5-based game called Galactic Inbox. When you start it up, a little Gmail logo envelope guy pops out of a “20% Projects Lab” and starts flying. Essentially, he’s a spaceship and can shoot objects coming his way. It’s simple, but fun.

“While I’m not on the Gmail team, I felt a little celebration of how far we’ve come was in order, so I wrote a little HTML5 game, in part as a “thank you” to the Gmail team for their ongoing work to improve the webmail galaxy,” Truong notes on the Gmail blog today.

He also notes that you need a “modern browser” to play the game. That’s Google’s fun way of saying “not IE6.”

When AT&T’s monopoly on the iPhone ends in the U.S., it is not going to be pretty. With increasing evidence that Verizon is preparing to offer the iPhone 4 early next year, many people are waiting before buying one or upgrading. Many of those are existing AT&T customers who want the same phone on a better network. According to a new survey by market research firm Morpace, 34 percent of AT&T iPhone owners are waiting for the iPhone to be available on another carrier before upgrading, and a full 47 percent of current AT&T iPhone owners say they would consider switching to Verizon. So almost half of AT&T customers surveyed are not completely satisfied with AT&T’s network.

Those aren’t just angry bloggers. Morpace surveyed 1,000 consumers, and 29 percent (across all carriers) said they are likely to buy a phone from Verizon. Of those, the majority (51 percent) are existing Verizon customers.

These survey results suggest two things. First, there are going to be a lot of people switching from AT&T to Verizon. Second, when Verizon does get the iPhone, it could start to hurt Android sales. Verizon is the biggest seller of Android phones. If 51 percent of Verizon customers are likely to buy an iPhone, that will definitely put pressure on Android sales. So far, Android has been the best choice for Verizon customers looking for a smartphone. When the iPhone becomes an option, the choice won’t be so simple and iPhone sales will begin to cut into Android’s share on Verizon.

The other unknown here is how Verizon’s network will be able to handle all the increased data traffic from new iPhone users. Everyone assumes that it has a better network, but a few million iPhone subscribers could quickly test its limits. Then everyone is going to want to switch back to AT&T.

eBay is launching its rewards program today: eBay Bucks, which allows any eBay shopper who lives in the U.S. and is a registered member of the marketplace, to earn 2 percent cash back on most items purchased through the site with PayPal.

Consumers can earn ‘eBay Bucks’ made both on eBay’s website and via its many mobile apps. The catch-users have to redeem ‘eBay Bucks’ towards other purchases on the marketplace. Rewards money is accumulated during a three month period and at the end of each period, an eBay Bucks certificate is issued to consumers, who then have 30 days to redeem their eBay Bucks towards purchases with PayPal on eBay.com.

I was curious which purchases are excluded from earning rewards. eBay says that the Bucks program excludes all purchases from Classifieds, Business & Industrial Capital Equipment, Real Estate, and eBay Motors categories (except Parts & Accessories in eBay Motors). eBay has been implementing Bucks through a pilot program over the past year and says that consumers enrolled in eBay Bucks spent five times more on eBay than those not participating in the program.

Cashback programs haven’t had the greatest success in the past. Bing shuttered Cashback recently due to lack of traction. eBay’s offering would certainly be used by loyal customers but it’s unclear if it will be able to bring outside traffic to the marketplace.

The fact that U.S. eBay sales are showing weakness and not growing as rapidly as international sales could be a possible reason for the rewards program’s exclusivity to the U.S..

Last night, Oracle filed suit against Google over its Android operating system, alleging that Google was infringing on seven Java patents with Android and its Dalvik virtual machine. Oracle acquired the rights to the patents when it bought Sun Microsystems last year, and now that Android has taken off, it’s looking to shake Google down for a big payday. Google has been quiet until now about the suit, but they’ve just given us this statement:

“We are disappointed Oracle has chosen to attack both Google and the open-source Java community with this baseless lawsuit. The open-source Java community goes beyond any one corporation and works every day to make the web a better place. We will strongly defend open-source standards and will continue to work with the industry to develop the Android platform.”

Obviously, Google is positioning this as an attack on the community at large (many developers have already written negative responses to Oracle’s suit). It’s unlikely that the lawsuit came as a surprise to Google — James Gosling, the father of Java who left Sun soon after it was acquired by Oracle, writes on his blog that Oracle was eying the Java patents as part of the Sun acquisition:

Oracle finally filed a patent lawsuit against Google. Not a big surprise. During the integration meetings between Sun and Oracle where we were being grilled about the patent situation between Sun and Google, we could see the Oracle lawyer’s eyes sparkle. Filing patent suits was never in Sun’s genetic code. Alas….

I hope to avoid getting dragged into the fray: they only picked one of my patents (RE38,104) to sue over.

Plenty of developers have also chimed in on the case. One particularly insightful post by Miguel de Icaza, who started GNOME and Mono, provides some context to the suit:

There is very little public information on the Google/Sun split over Java ME and the creation of Dalvik. The rumors on the grapevine were that Google and Sun could not reach an agreement over the Java Micro Edition licensing. Sun wanted to sit in the middle between Google and the handset OEMs, while Google wanted to create a free-for-all operating system.

When it became clear that they would not be able to reach an agreement, Google started a project to replace Java Micro Edition and they used some clever engineering techniques that blended the best of both worlds.

…

Needless to say, Sun was not happy with Dalvik. Not only because Sun had lost a large licensing deal, but also because it had the potential of becoming the de-facto Java virtual machine that everyone on the embedded space would pick instead of Sun’s own Java Micro Edition.

This isn’t the first time the Java patents have been wielded in court — in 2004, Sun got Microsoft to cough up $1.6 billion to resolve patent disputes and antitrust issues.

This review is by photographer Rich Svinkin.

“Nice Equipment.”

It took a second to process that the wedding photographer was talking about my camera. It was the shock of phrasing, not the awe displayed, that startled me. When I’m carrying this beauty around I get stopped by strangers all the time. Camera junkies are boundary blind like dog lovers. And like a champion breed, the M9 takes some effort to tame and train if you aren’t a professional. But if you go into it eyes open and put the effort in, get ready for blue ribbon results.

Zynga has hired former Facebook Chief Revenue Officer and MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta as EVP Business, reporting to CEO Mark Pincus. Van Natta was most recently in the news in February, when he stepped down as CEO of MySpace after just less than a year on the job. Van Natta has been an advisor to Zynga until now, says the company.

Van Natta will also join the company’s board of directors, joining Pincus, Bing Gordon, Reid Hoffman and Brad Feld.

In January, while he was still running MySpace, I sat down with Van Natta in Switzerland for a long video interview.

Zynga continues to soft sell the idea of an IPO, saying not to expect one any time soon. But they are clearly putting together an executive team that will take them to that level when they’re ready. In addition to Van Natta they also recently brought on a new CFO, Dave Wehner.

Van Natta is considered one of the top deal guys in technology, and has helped scale larger startups operationally. At Zynga he’ll be managing all of business operations, including revenue, corporate development, international, customer service, marketing and communications. He’ll also be reunited with GM Corporate Communications Dani Dudeck. Dudeck, who gave an in depth interview with TechCrunch here, left MySpace to join Zynga shortly after Van Natta stepped down.

Fast growing is certainly the only way to describe Zynga these days. Most of their competition has been acquired or otherwise sidelined, and the company is quickly forging business deals with the largest portals to help wean Zynga off their dependence on Facebook. Yahoo and Google are in the bag.

And they’ve also been acquiring companies at a brisk pace: XPD Media, Challenge Games and Unoh in just the last few months. Given Van Natta’s appetite for acquisitions, expect more of them, soon.