Speaking at the Future of Web Apps conference in London earlier today, Digg co-founder Kevin Rose spent considerable time addressing the first issue — how “to expand beyond the geek set and get some real-world relevance”, reports CNet’s Caroline McCarthy — but also revealed that the site is contemplating a new potential revenue stream: “Diggable ads”.

Exactly how this new type of advertisement would work isn’t clear, but as the name implies they’ll likely introduce a degree of interactivity similar in spirit to Facebook’s recently introduced “Engagement ads”. In Facebook’s new ad unit, users can interact by leaving comments, sharing virtual gifts, or becoming a ‘fan’. Any interaction then shows up in a user’s news feed. In Digg’s case, it may be that an ad gets promoted to the homepage by receiving enough diggs (votes) from users.

Whatever form a “diggable” ad ends up taking, it’s almost inevitable that the site’s traditional user-base won’t take to them kindly. A constant topic of active Digg users is their disdain for online advertising and this is backed up by reports from publishers who note that site visitors sent from Digg are far more likely to have installed an ad blocker for their browser and are far less likely to click on ads.

All of which would explain why Rose is so keen to find ways of growing Digg’s user-base beyond its traditional demographic.

From CNet:

Rose explained, Digg’s strategy going forward–one of the reasons why it raised $28.7 million in a Series C round last month–is to make the service more relevant to the average user. Digg has started to experiment with personalization and recommendation, something that Rose frequently discusses in his town hall Webcasts with the company’s CEO, Jay Adelson. Introducing a “similar users” feature on the “upcoming” page of Digg increased friend adding fourfold and Digging by 40 percent.

Rose also revealed that Digg has a lot of data that it’s yet to expose, data which will help the site target users in order to provide more relevant content, and of course be potentially useful for advertisers too.

Pooling users into “dynamic” groups by interest is paramount, as is customizing the site for people who might not want all those stories about iPhones and Barack Obama. Beyond that, there’s more: Digg has used internal algorithms to identify what Rose calls “prescient users,” or tastemakers who have a high probability of Digging something early on that will eventually become very popular.

Of course we’ve known of the existence of an internal algorithm to identify “prescient users” for a long time, although most people just call them “top diggers”. They are a group of users, often early adopters of the site, who routinely get stories they’ve submitted onto Digg’s front page. What’s new is to hear Rose talk up this group of users as an asset to the site – although it makes a lot of sense in terms of brands wanting to learn how to leverage social media  – as, from the outside at least, it seems that in recent times Digg has gone out of its way to penalize their submissions.

While the fall CTIA show isn’t really known for handset announcements, Research in Motion paid no mind and started the show off with a bang by introducing the RIM BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 on Tuesday night. While much of the attention has turned to the rumored BlackBerry Thunder as of late, the Pearl Flip 8220 shouldn’t be forgotten, as it’s the first BlackBerry to sport a clamshell design.

The flip phone, which comes in black or red, measures 3.9-inches high by 1.9-inches wide by 0.6-inch deep and weighs 3.5 ounces. It features a 65,536-color, 128×160 pixel external display and front-facing 2-megapixel camera, while you get a 65,536-color, 240×320-pixel TFT display on the inside. As part of the Pearl series, you get the SureType keyboard (groan) and trackball navigator. The BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 also comes equipped with a 3.5mm headphone jack and an external microSD expansion slot.

Moving onto features, the quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900; GPRS/EDGE) Pearl Flip 8220 offers true world roaming, a speakerphone, smart dialing, and background-noise cancellation. Wireless options include Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP support. There’s no GPS, but the BlackBerry Maps application is onboard to at least provide you with maps and text-based directions.

Supported e-mail solutions include BlackBerry Enterprise, Microsoft Exchange, IMB Lotus, Novell GroupWise as well as POP3 and IMAP4 accounts. There’s also an attachment viewer for Word, Excel, PowerPoint files, PDFs, and JPG images.

(Credit: RIM)

When you’re done working, you can enjoy MP3, WMA, AAC, MPEG4, WMV, and other music and video formats with the built-in media player. In addition, the BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 has a 2-megapixel camera with flash and video-recording capabilities.

In all, there aren’t a whole lot of surprises, as the smartphone keeps very much in line with the RIM BlackBerry Pearl 8120. Research in Motion was a little vague as to release date, but it will be offered by carriers worldwide sometime this fall and the company did confirm that T-Mobile will be one of the U.S. carriers. No word on pricing.

Now, here’s the question: Will the flip-phone form factor work for BlackBerry? There’s only been a handful of smartphones to come in the clamshell design, such as the Pantech PN-820, but they never seem to really take off. Will the RIM BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 be any different?

More CTIA Fall 2008 coverage from CNET.

Andy Tung, Director of US Sales for MSI … told Laptop that their experience shows that netbooks with Linux are returned four times more often than those with Windows XP.  This would indicate what others have already noted, many consumers pick up the cheaper systems and then realize that the Linux system is not what they are used to so they return it.

And this is for a product that is targeted at early adopters who are far more technically sophisticated than average; the MSI Wind is a tiny, dirt-cheap portable PC that has been selling like gangbusters to the digital elite and gadget freaks since its launch in June. I would assume that this audience would be more forgiving of rough edges and usability gotchas than more mainstream PC buyers. This comment by MSI’s Andy Tung from the original interview highlights the uphill struggle that PC makers have when dealing with Linux:

Our internal research has shown that … the main cause [of the higher return rates for Linux-based machines] is Linux. People would love to pay $299 or $399 but they don’t know what they get until they open the box. They start playing around with Linux and start realizing that it’s not what they are used to. They don’t want to spend time to learn it so they bring it back to the store.

The interviewers interrupt at this point to note that they “struggled with the Linux version of the Wind U90” as well and ask whether the company plans to customize a Linux OS for the machine instead of using an off-the-shelf distro:

We plan to bring the Linux version to the U.S by the end of the year. But we are working on some of the issues with the SUSE Linux and even continue to explore other flavors of Linux. We have discussed Ubuntu with a Mac OS type of look and feel. We are talking to different suppliers to figure out the best user experience.

Finding software developers to build and support a great user experience that ties hardware and software together isn’t cheap or easy. It’s hard to imagine how that job can get done at all, much less be done well, on a PC that sells for $399 or less.

I have a couple of Linux-based systems here that I use occasionally for testing and just to stay on top of what’s happening in the wide world of computing.  I have been impressed with the way that popular Linux distros like Ubuntu have improved with each new release; these days, Linux is a great choice for technically sophisticated users who don’t mind being far, far out of the mainstream. But for people who don’t have the time or the inclination to make fundamental changes, it’s a nonstarter. If I were to switch to Linux for daily use, I would have to dramatically change my work habits and learn to use a very different set of tools than I use today. The same would be true of any of my home or small business clients.

As someone who writes about Windows for a living, I get a disproportionate amount of feedback from people who argue that open-source software is a panacea and that dumping Windows for Linux is the answer to every problem that affects the Windows ecosystem. The market is doing a pretty good job of proving that they’re wrong, as this example shows.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=557

Jack Black

As the U.S. economy began to wobble earlier this year, it seemed the technology sector would hold up better than most. Major tech companies tend to have plenty of cash and minimal debt—and most make products that help companies save money or boost productivity. But recently, the optimism has evaporated. Since the financial crisis worsened a month ago, the tech-heavy Nasdaq has dropped 12%, twice as much as the Dow Jones industrial average. “The mood has definitely deteriorated in the last few weeks,” says Daniel J. Warmenhoven, chief executive of storage company NetApp. (NTAP)

Few have felt the change as much as Sun Microsystems (JAVA). The company’s stock has dropped 15% over the last month, and 56% for the year. The hit at Sun reflects the concern over the prospects for tech players that rely heavily on the troubled finance sector. Analysts estimate Sun, which makes high-powered servers that help run corporate tech networks, gets nearly 20% of its sales from financial companies.

Sun may be particularly vulnerable. Consolidation on Wall Street means fewer customers to go around, and the company is at a disadvantage if it has to compete in a price war against rivals like Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and IBM (IBM). Although Sun has laid off 6,500 workers since Jonathan I. Schwartz became CEO two years ago, the computer maker still spends far more on research, development, and administrative costs as a percentage of sales than does HP or IBM. Schwartz has made bold moves, including giving away the company’s software to spur server sales, but growth is sluggish. Sales fell last quarter and are expected to rise less than 2% through mid-2010. “Sun has excellent technology, but do they last as a stand-alone company?” asks analyst Sushil Wagle at J. & W. Seligman. “My gut tells me that at some point, they’ll be part of something else.”

Schwartz argues that Sun has nothing to fear from the finance sector’s consolidation. Among its customers are JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Bank of America (BAC), two big winners in the current shakeout. “Although the number of banks may decline, the market opportunity certainly won’t,” says Schwartz in an e-mail. “We feel well positioned to capture share among the fittest that survive.”

Sun’s largest shareholder is also optimistic. Southeastern Asset Management boosted its stake to 17% of the shares outstanding, because of Sun’s rising cash flow and promising new product. “This is such a deeply misunderstood story,” says Jason E. Dunn, one of the firm’s managers.

Investors’ sudden skittishness about tech goes well beyond the exposure to finance customers. Apple’s (AAPL) stock has plunged over fears that strapped consumers will cut back. Yahoo! shares have been battered due to concerns that advertisers will trim spending online as well as off. Michael S. Dell, chief executive of computer-maker Dell (DELL), says his company is sound, with plenty of cash and little debt. But he’s grown even more concerned about the economic outlook since his company announced disappointing earnings a month ago. But, Dell says, “No business should consider itself immune.”

Sun, despite the current pressure, does have substantial assets. Its $3 billion in cash will help it weather the downturn. And if that’s not enough, sources say Sun could sell off parts of its business, such as its lucrative services division, to raise more cash.

Roger McNamee, a partner with the Silicon Valley private equity firm Elevation Partners, says the current market turmoil calls for unconventional thinking. Among other things, he says tech executives should ignore the wild swings of their company’s stock prices and focus on their businesses: “Placating your shareholders for the next 90 days is a losers’ game.”

www.businessweek.com

SAN FRANCISCO–Nintendo on Thursday said it expects to ship a much higher number of Wii video game consoles to retailers this holiday season than it did last year.

At its annual fall media event here, the Japanese company’s North American president, Reggie Fils-Aime, told the gathered media that the company intends to try to address the well-documented shortages of the Wii that occurred during the 2007 holiday season.

He didn’t say exactly how many Wiis had been available last year, nor how many more would be making their way into consumers’ hands this time around. And he didn’t even commit to being able to satisfy all demand this year.

“Will there be enough (Wiis) to meet demand?” Fils-Aime said. “Talk to me in January.”

Still, it’s important for the company to at least try to address the shortages that resulted in long lines at retailers that happened to have a few Wiis available.

But Fils-Aime added that the company is in uncharted territory with the Wii, and he suggested that the company doesn’t have the ability to judge exactly how many units would be required to satisfy all consumers this holiday season.

He did say, however, that Nintendo expects to increase production of the Wii by about 50 percent in the fourth quarter of this year.

Asked how much more demand there had been for the Wii during last year’s holiday season than available units, he said there was no way to quantify that.

“All we know,” Fils-Aime told me, “is that as soon as units were available at retailers, they were gone in seconds.”

Fils-Aime opened his remarks by unveiling Nintendo’s new DS-i handheld console. However, because Nintendo also had a media event in Japan last night, that news had already made its way around the world.

A publicity photograph of the new Nintendo DS-i.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)

He said the DS-i will not be available in North America until well into 2009 because there is still strong demand here for the existing DS Lite. He explained that the DS Lite is still selling better here than any device ever has and that there is still a large amount of penetration to be had.

In fact, he said that while one in every two Japanese households already has a DS or DS Lite, that number is just one in five in North America. Nintendo said it won’t release the DS-i, which is expected to cost the equivalent of $180 in Japan, in North America until that penetration rate is higher.

Whether there are warehouses full of DS Lites that still need to be sold is not clear, and Nintendo isn’t saying what its specific game plan is regarding the North American transition from DS Lite to DS-i.

It’s pretty likely, however, that there will be substantial demand for the DS-i wherever and whenever it is available, as it features dual cameras, one that faces outward, and another that faces the user. This means that images from the two cameras can be combined. Photos taken with the DS-i can be sent to friends and family via the device’s built-in wireless capability.

The DS-i will also have built-in MP3 playback capabilities, as well as the ability to move music from a computer to the DS-i via SD cards. In an attempt to make the new device a little slimmer than the existing DS Lite, it will lose its Game Boy Advance-compatible slot, though it will still play any existing DS games.

After Fils-Aime finished his remarks, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of sales and marketing took the microphone to introduce a slew of new games for the Wii and DS platforms.

Most notable, perhaps, for the Wii were Punch Out, a return of a classic game that will now take advantage of the motion-sensitive Wii controller. Other titles in the works for Wii include Call of Duty: World at War, Sega’s Mad World, Capcom’s Deadrising: Chop till you Drop, and others.

Among the new games for the Wii is ‘Punch Out,’ a return of a classic game, which will take advantage of the Wii’s motion-sensitive controller.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News)

Most interesting was a new demo for Wii Music, during which the audience was able to see the many ways that players will be able to layer tunes from different instruments over each other in the pursuit of complex, rich music.

Finally, Nintendo Executive Vice President Cammie Dunaway briefly introduced what will be called the Wii Speak Channel, a system that will utilize a Wii microphone to allow up to four players to communicate with each other across wireless networks. That is expected to be available November 16, 2008.

She also said Club Nintendo, a program popular in Japan and Europe that allows players to accumulate points by buying various products and taking Nintendo-related surveys, and then trade points garnered for new gear, will be coming to North America.

But none of the Nintendo executives addressed the rumors that made their way across the Internet yesterday that the company was planning on bringing out a new, HD-capable Wii by 2011.

credit: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-10056716-52.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.0

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www.expansionplus.com