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Plancast, the social planning service created by TechCrunch alum Mark Hendrickson, is rich with data. It knows not only what you’re planning to do in the foreseeable future, but what your friends are planning, and what their friends are planning. But all of this data has been trapped inside of Plancast. Not anymore.

Today, the service is announcing its API. This gives developers the ability to build new apps using Plancast’s data — or to add that data to their existing apps. And the API is both read and write-enabled, so other services will be able to feed their data back into Plancast as well. The importing of event data from Facebook (through Connect) has helped Plancast grow, so this full read/write API should be a continuation of that.

Actually, the API work started out of necessity for Plancast. They needed it in order to build their iPhone app in time for the SXSW conference back in March. Since then, the API has been rebuilt, Hendrickson tells us. And it’s already been tested with some third-party developers such as Exygy, which built a Plancast Andorid app (aptly named Plandroid).

Currently the API only support basic authentication (username/password), but that’s because Hendrickson wants to enable OAuth 2.0 as soon as it’s ready.

Alongside the API, Pancast is also launching its first widgets and buttons as yet another way to help seed its data around the web. The widgets look great — they use a simple JavaScript embed that allows you to display all of the upcoming plans you have on a website you control (such as a blog’s sidebar). There is also a full page profile widget which was created because people were porting their data to things like Google Calendar and then embedding those to show their Plancast events. This solution is much more seamless.

Then, of course, there are buttons for those who don’t want to embed their data but want a cutesy way to link to their Plancast profile. And yes, one of them has the cute penguin logo on it.

“These are the first pieces of our general platform strategy in which we want to power any and all plan-related listings on the web and do so with a thoroughly social context,” Hendrickson says about the new elements of Plancast. He notes that they have some other cool ideas in the works — particularly surrounding places, something which Twitter and Google are now targeting (not to mention Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, etc).

Again, you can read all about Plancast’s API here.

It’s been no secret that social network platform Ning has been going through a significant transition in both its leadership and business model in 2010. In March, longtime CEO Gina Bianchini was replaced by COO Jason Rosenthal. And in April, Ning’s bubble burst — the company laid off 40% of its staff and killed off its free service. In May, Ning rolled out the different paid models for its platform, Ning Pro, Ning Plus and Ning Mini. And June brings new revenue streams for Ning’s social networks, in an effort to help Ning users monetize their social networks.

Ning is announcing two partnerships, with branded product creator CafePress and social gaming startup Heyzap, to offer monetization options to Network Creators. Custom CafePress shops can now be integrated directly into Ning Networks, offering creators the opportunity to sell branded products, like mugs, t-shirts and more, to members and fans. With Heyzap, Ning creators can add Heyzap pay-to-play games onto their networks. Creators will earn 10% of all revenue from premium game purchases. Ning has also partnered with Chipin to allow non-profit creators to raise funds and collect donations from members. A number of networks have already been experimenting with the new channels, including The Veloist, Duke City Fix, and TuDiabetes.

Of course, Ning is taking a cut of any revenue made through these channels (with the exception of funds collected through Chipin), but Rosenthal assures us that this cut is small and the majority of the revenue goes to the network creator. These revenue channels join Ning’s Run Your Own Ads option that allows creators to collect revenue from running display advertisements in their sites.

Rosenthal adds that this is the beginning of a string of revenue channels that Ning plans to open up for network creators. While he declined to name any future channels, he did say they would be in the areas of e-commerce, gaming, group buying and more. Rosenthal added that they would be exploring any channels that are currently working on other similar platforms.

It seems safe to infer that he probably meant channels that were working on Facebook, which could mean that Ning may get into the offers game as well, considering its success in social games and applications on Facebook.

It’s clear that Rosenthal seems to have big plans for Ning when it comes to revenue for the network and its creators. He has told us in the past that the DIY social network arena focusing on subscription model could represent a $4 billion plus revenue stream. It should be interesting to see if Ning can capture a portion of this anticipated cash.

Video distribution and monetization platform provider Joost, owned by Adconion Media Group since its assets were acquired in November 2009, is today announcing a global sales and technology partnership with online publishing powerhouse Demand Media.

Under the terms of the exclusive agreement, Demand Media will leverage Adconion’s video ad serving platform to deliver all premium video campaigns sold by the former’s sales force.

In addition, (15 sec) pre-roll inventory on Demand Media owned and operated websites, including eHow.com, Cracked.com, Mania.com and Airlines.net, will become part of the Joost Video Network (which claims a reach of 67 million unique viewers and some 500 million total streams per month as it is).

As a result of the cross-sales deal, the Joost Video Network will be able to present Demand Media’s worldwide audience to its premium brand partners through audience and vertical channel sales packages. Adconion specially touts its targeting abilities, saying it can target pre-roll ads by demographics (age, gender, etc.), location, various ways of retargeting and behavioral data provided by third parties like BlueKai and others.

Adconion will also – exclusively – provide its video technology platform to power all of Demand Media’s in-stream video advertising needs, including trafficking, optimization, and reporting.

Demand Media claims that, collectively, its seven media brands currently attract more than 88 million unique visitors each month – 61 million people alone visit eHow.com for ‘how to’ articles and video. The company adds that it currently counts about 150,000 videos in its library.

The Nintendo 3DS is real — we know that. The 3D works well — we know that, too. But that’s where our 3DS knowledge stops. Nintendo isn’t talking-up 3DS details right now and we have so many questions about the handheld 3D gaming.

AT&T just issued a statement addressing the massive iPhone 4 pre-order sales yesterday. The company said that sales of the iPhone 4 were 10-times higher than the first day of pre-ordering for the iPhone 3G S last year.

AT&T also said that they are suspending pre-ordering today in order to fulfill the orders they’ve already received. At&T wil resume taking pre-orders when they get more inventory from Apple. Yesterday’s chaos also brought more than 13 million visits to AT&T’s website to determine if users were able to upgrade to the new phone, which was about 3-times higher than the previous record for eligibility upgrade checks in one day.

The Apple Online Store is out of the devices as well. They’ll still let you pre-order one, but you won’t be getting it on June 24 (launch day). Instead, Apple is saying the next batch of phones will ship by July 2.

This huge numbers of pre-orders and traffic also brought massive failures in Apple’s and AT&T’s system that prevented people from completing their orders. Both systems seem to be resolved now.

UPDATE – Apple apologized too, said they got 600,000 pre-orders.

If you have a wee one with an interest in science (face it, you’re reading CG and TC, your procreative material is pre-disposed to nerdity) then check out Allen Kurzweil’s latest project, a science kit in a potato chip bag.

Potato Chip Science, available now for pre-order and shipping in September, lets you learn science through the magic of bag chips, tubes, and even actual potato products. You can study acoustics, aeronautics, forensics, and as well as the psychology of shame when you realize that you’ve eaten far too many potato chips in your life.

Read more…

At first glance, our Twitter account, @TechCrunch, doesn’t have much in common with @BarackObama‘s. He’s the President, we are a lowly tech blog. His staff Tweets out quotes from his speeches, we Tweet out links to our stories. He has 5.3 million followers, we have 1.4 million. But according to social media analytics firm Sysomos, both of our followers have the same average authority—2.4 on a scale of 0 to 10.

The average is so low because the law of large numbers starts to take hold with accounts above one million followers. The authority ranking is based on how many followers each person has compared to how many people they follow, as well as how active they are in terms of retweeting and other factors. Basically, if you are passive and have no followers, you get a score of 0 (these are the Twitter bots that bring down the average), but if you have a lot of followers, follow only a few people and retweet a lot, you get a higher score.

Sysomos looked at three different types of popular accounts (celebrities, news organizations, and “social media heavyweights”). Celebrities like Ashton Kutcher (@Aplusk) and Britney Spears have the highest number of followers (5 million and 4.8 million, respectively, but the lowest average authority scores (1.8 and 1.3, respectively). News organizations like the New York Times and TechCrunch have a slightly higher average, at 2.2 and 2.4, respectively. But the accounts with the highest authority followers belong to the “social media heavyweights” like @steverubel, @chrisbrogan, and @jowyang. These are all social media consultants and PR experts. They have fewer followers (42,000, 140,000, and 65,000, respectively) but those who do follow them, not surprisingly, tend to retweet more and have higher authority as measured by Sysomos. You can see the distribution of authority is bunched closer to the middle (see below).

Measuring authority by number of followers is flawed, but it is an easy number to track. A better measure is to find out how much each follower amplifies a message or set of messages. I’d like to see a similar study of follower authority from TunkRank or Klout, which measure influence in different ways..

Klout, a startup that measures influence on Twitter, is expanding its horizons today with the launch of BirdBrain, a new feature that allows you to measure influence using data from both Facebook and Twitter.

BirdBrain uses Facebook connect to look at the interests listed on a user’s profile and then uses that data to search for the most influential people on Twitter, based on interests. Klout, which recently released a new API, evaluates Twitter users’ behavior with complex ranking algorithms and semantic analysis of content to measure the influence of individuals and topics around the web.

The premise for this specific development is based on Klout’s belief that Twitter’s suggested user list is flawed. The buckets they use, says Klout, are simply too big. BirdBrain uses Facebook Connect to evaluate your interests, and will mashup that data up with Tweets from Twitter users with terms associated with those interests. For example, if you list the TV show Lost as an interest on your Facebook profile, Klout will search for users Tweeting about the latest smoke, or polar bear conspiracies. And Klout breaks down the influencers onTwitter by the type of influencer they are. For example, a person might be a “chatterbox” which means they like chit chat about the topic on the network while another type of influencer might be a “curator,” who simply sends out the best content.

BirdBrain is part of Klout’s newly launched Labs section, which will experiment with products that assess influence based on the interaction within social networks, beyond just Twitter. Of course, BirdBrain represents Klout’s first data foray outside of the Twitter-sphere. Klout’s CEO Joe Fernandez says that this is a sneak-peak into the startup’s eventual movement to cross-platform influencer data. Considering that Twitter is looking to build its own powerful analytics platform, it’s probably wise for Klout, which just raised $1.5 million in funding, to look for ways to offer innovative technologies that combine both data from Facebook and Twitter.

We told you this was coming: Swype has just made it possible for any Android handset owner to download their innovative touch-screen enabled text-input application straight from the website. Which means a whole lot of people can henceforth start challenging that Guinness World Record for speedy textin’.

Up until today, Swype came pre-installed on only a fraction of available Android phones (including the all new Motorola Droid X) due to its licensing business model, although the company did open up to 25,000 eager beta testers a couple of months ago – most of whom seem to have completely fallen in love with it.

Well, anyone can download it now, but only for a limited time (a couple of days) and with a somewhat limited feature set. Important: it won’t work if you have a phone that came pre-installed with Swype and support will be via Swype’s forums only.