Webware

Using smart phones as navigation tools is all the rage these days, what with a slew of applications available for the iPhone and Android platforms that utilize those devices' built-in GPS systems in determining users' real-time location.

One such service is from Waze, which in August released its iPhone app after being available on Android for several months. Waze's service is meant to help drivers figure out where they are and how best to get where they're going, all with the help of a large community of other motorists.

Waze gives users many different views of the road, including this one, in which users' avatars turn into a Pac-Man-type creature when going down previously undiscovered roads.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

Among the information that Waze provides are traffic flow, road reports, and warnings about where drivers might run into speed traps.

At DemoFall 09 in San Diego on Tuesday, Waze plans to unveil its latest steps forward, which include rolling out its service on every major smart phone platform (except BlackBerry) and offering, for the first time, voice prompts for directions.

That could be good news for users of, say, Symbian-based smart phones, in cities where AT&T service is spotty. And that's important because even in a city like San Francisco, using Waze on an iPhone--with AT&T as the only service provider--meant being subject to areas where there was a significant delay in information showing up on the screen.

Further, because the service will now be available on other platforms, it means that the overall amount of data available to drivers--via the crowdsourced nature of the system--will be broader. And, because users until now have had to occasionally look at their small screens to see where they need to go, the voice prompts may well mean an easier--and safer--way to get to a destination.

Waze's application begins as a standard turn-by-turn directions tool and also offers a slew of other features, many of which give drivers something fun to look out for as they make their way to wherever they're going.

"At the end of the day," said Di-Ann Eisnor, Waze's community geographer, Waze is "about a community of drivers helping to build this map."

The company is counting on one part being fun for drivers: seeing where anyone else who's using the system is.

That may be fun for a while, but the application is really about making for a better driving experience, and that will rely on a critical mass of users. Rolling out on Android and iPhone first was a good way to ensure a significant number of drivers, especially tech-savvy ones, had access to it right from the get-go. But only time will tell if the new platforms the service will be on will make a difference in producing that critical mass.

For CNET News' latest coverage from DemoFall 09, click here.

Traffic firm Hitwise says Facebook eventually overcame MySpace in terms of U.S. traffic as a result of the launch of its Facebook Connect universal log-in product, according to a post from analyst Heather Dougherty.

"The number of Web sites participating in Facebook Connect has grown quickly to over 15,000 Web sites (globally) including CNN.com, NBC.com, ABCNews.com, Hulu, WashingtonPost.com, The Huffington Post, and others," Dougherty's post read. "And what is really interesting is to look at the year-over-year growth in the market share of visits to Facebook, because there is a clear uptick in the growth rate following the launch of Facebook Connect."

And that growth spurt was what made it the biggest site of its kind in the U.S., according to the numbers. The social network officially surpassed MySpace in U.S. traffic during the week of May 30, Hitwise estimated.

Facebook's rapid growth made it pretty much inevitable that it would surpass the News Corp.-owned MySpace, once the clear leader in social networking. But even when Facebook passed MySpace in worldwide traffic, MySpace still had a pretty big edge in the U.S. Ultimately, Facebook passed MySpace in U.S. usage earlier than some thought it would.

If Hitwise's numbers are accurate, it's a big testament to the success of Facebook Connect, which launched in full last December.

MySpace has launched its own universal log-in product, MySpaceID, backed by partnerships with Google and Yahoo. But it's Facebook Connect that has caught on among both the Web-going public and the marketing world.

"A clear benefit of Facebook Connect is the ability of the user to use a single portable identity--and most importantly, one password, rather than logging into multiple accounts across the network of Web sites," Dougherty wrote. "Participation from Web sites in Facebook Connect also has strong implications to appear more often in the search results executed on Facebook resulting from member postings as search becomes a more prevalent activity within this large audience.

Facebook now has more than 250 million active users worldwide.

Green is good. Red is bad.

(Credit: Google)

We've established that Google knows quite a bit about you, and sometimes that's a good thing. Especially when Google plows some of that information back into new features.

Yesterday, my colleague Tom Krazit explored a new feature that's part of the traffic reporting on Google Maps, including how Google is addressing the privacy concerns of the feature since it taps users' information to provide some of its more granular traffic-reporting details. In addition to displaying traffic information for major highways, Google will display it for arterial roads, the class of thoroughfare that represents the next level down in terms of vehicular activity. (This could include expressways and higher-traffic frontage roads, for instance.)

The app works by sucking anonymous data from people using the My Location feature on Google Maps for Mobile. Google sends itself (and throughout the feature's trial has been sending itself) anonymous information behind the scenes, whenever you turn on the My Location feature on a mobile phone. Part of that data returning to Google's headquarters includes your location and speed.

While the expanded traffic map that has emerged as a result of the data gives drivers another layer of service, Google isn't the first to turn mobile data into local traffic. An Israeli start-up called Waze has even more hyperlocal ambitions. Waze also reports highway and side streets, some even smaller than arterial streets. In fact, Waze can use drivers' cell phone data in tandem with the car's motion to create fairly accurate city maps. Moreover, you can actively report traffic accidents and other incidents. Before you depart, Waze can create a real-time route that's more proactive than Google's traffic maps.

While Waze has bright ideas, it doesn't have heft. Like online social networks, it must build its user base to build its database. Google, on the other hand, has a firm hold on real-life users who already have account names and passwords. It also has established highways and arterial roads. If Google is smart, it will not only turn an eye toward even smaller byways, but will also adopt many of the interactive features that companies such as Waze are developing.

Google Maps for Mobile is free to download. On some phones, you can install it from the larger Google Mobile App suite. Visit m.google.com from your mobile browser to download Google Maps for your phone.

Article updated at 1:40 p.m. PT to include information about a rival service called Waze.

Weeks ago, the news of Michael Jackson's passing brought major news sites to their knees, so Tuesday's memorial service for the singer was expected to bring similar results.

This time it appears sites were better prepared for the traffic onslaught.

According to Gomez Incorporated, a company that monitors Web usage quality, there were both slowdowns and outages, including one that dramatically slowed Twitter's performance. The company analyzed performance on seven news sites from multiple locations during Tuesday's event, with some of the biggest slowdowns coming to streaming video. Asia experienced a 40 percent increase in what the company calls "stalling issues," with the U.S. experiencing an increase of around 5 percent.

One of those news outlets that was serving up live streaming video was CNN, which according to internal data, topped out at 781,000 concurrent streams of the event. Between midnight EDT and 4 p.m. the site also pulled in 11 million unique users who turned 72 million pages.

Ustream, which provided live streaming in a partnership with CBS, says the event was the "largest ever" that had been hosted on the service, in part because it was a worldwide broadcast. The service had 4.6 million streams of the memorial going, made up from 1.6 million unique users. It also had more than 12,000 messages posted every minute to its built-in user chat rooms. (CNET News is published by CBS Interactive, a unit of CBS.)

Besides slowdowns in streaming video, news sites also had lower availability, which means some users were unable to access them. Gomez recorded that number as low as 98.2 percent, whereas the sites usually maintain uptime in excess of 99.65 percent. Response times also took a hit. News sites experienced double, and nearly triple the load time to serve up pages. In the case of Twitter, many users were unable to view or post messages to the service. At what was seemingly the peak of Twitter's load, Gomez benchmarked it as taking around 62 seconds for the site's home page to load, then allow users to log in--a process that normally takes just a few seconds.

Update: See also Larry Dignan's analysis over at ZDNet. He points to data host Akamai's visualization tool, which shows real-time activity on its sites which represent around 20 percent of the Web's traffic. There's a noticeable bump around the time the memorial service begins.

Internet Web traffic hit its peak right around the beginning of the service, according to Akamai.

(Credit: CNET / Akamai)

CNET News' Greg Sandoval contributed to this report.

AAAAAAHHHH! Here come the grown-ups!

You've probably heard it already: New numbers from iStrategyLabs indicate that in the apparent reversal of the plot of any '90s-era kiddie caper flick, grown-ups are taking over Facebook.

According to iStrategyLabs, from January to July of 2009, even though the population of Facebook members over the age of 55 grew 513.7 percent, the site now sees 16.5 percent fewer high-school users, and 21.7 percent fewer college users. Which, naturally, is cause for panic because when the cool kids leave it's all totally over. Or so the common wisdom says.

A BusinessWeek blog post has the right idea: Take a look at the methodology. iStrategyLabs did not actually survey Facebook members, it just looked at their affiliations. The downturn means that Facebook users are dropping their university and high-school affiliations, not that they're leaving the site per se. And that could mean one of a few things: as the BusinessWeek post points out, it coincides well with spring graduations from high schools and colleges, and some members undoubtedly drop those affiliations when they graduate.

Another theory that's been tossed around is that university and high-school affiliations can make it easy for administrators and teachers--not to mention parents--to keep tabs on kids and their shenanigans. Not joining networks can make a profile more incognito.

It's also important to note that these statistics come solely from Facebook's U.S. users, who now make up less than a third of its total membership.

And there's no related shrinkage shown in Facebook's age demographics that typically encompass high-school and college students--members under 17 are up 24.2 percent, and those aged 18-24 are up 4.8 percent. Just a smidge, but not a plummet by any means.

So this is a set of numbers to take with enough grains of salt to put around the rim of a margarita--but just think twice before you put the photo of you drinking that margarita on Facebook. Those sneaky adults could be watching.

Memorial Day is one of the busiest traffic days of the year. No matter where you're going, you're likely to get caught in traffic. But if you're looking to find a way to escape it, you've come to the right place. We've found a variety of apps and sites that can be accessed from your mobile phone or GPS device that provide you with all the traffic data you need to stay away from busy roads. But remember: you shouldn't use these apps while you drive. So either try these out in the passenger seat or hand them off to your travel companion while you cruise down the road.

Traffic-tracking tools

Commuter Feed makes you rely on Twitter friends to find traffic.

(Credit: Don Reisinger/CNET)

Commuter Feed If you can access Twitter from your mobile phone, Commuter Feed will be helpful. The site is a network of Twitter users that communicate bad traffic areas with the rest of the community. Whenever they see a backup or an accident, they update the site with its location. It's not a huge community, so finding traffic in smaller areas will be tough. But if you're in a big city and you can access Commuter Feed while on the go, I think you'll be happy with what you find.

Google Maps Accessing Google Maps' traffic data takes no time if you have a mobile phone, like the iPhone or T-Mobile G1. Once you find the area you're looking for, you can click the "traffic" button above the map. The tool will then color-code streets based on the amount of traffic at the time. Green means you won't need to worry about traffic. Red means you will. It covers most areas in the U.S. It's a great tool.

Live Maps Microsoft's Live Maps features outstanding traffic data. Similar to Google Maps, Live Maps displays traffic in streets in most areas across the U.S. You can even export the map to your GPS device. Mobile phone users who have the mobile version of Live Search installed can choose an area (most major metro areas are currently supported) and see how traffic is at any time. Unfortunately, only BlackBerry and Windows Mobile users can download the mobile version of Live Maps.

Mobile Millennium Mobile Millennium is a free public traffic-information system that uses speed and position information gathered from GPS-equipped cell phones. Users can download the software onto their device and see how traffic is in their area. Unfortunately, Mobile Millennium only works on a select number of phones -- so far, mostly BlackBerry devices and Nokia smartphones -- so not everyone will be able to use it.

Earlier this week, I listed some useful Firefox extensions that help you become more productive while you blog. Now it's time to see how well your blog is performing.

I've found and tried 12 online applicatons that track your blog's traffic. Some are better than others, but they're all designed with the same goal in mind: helping you grow your blog.

Web apps

Heat maps let you know where people click.

(Credit: Don Reisinger/CNET)

Clickdensity Clickdensity not only tracks the number of page views and unique visitors to your site, it overlays a "heat map" on your page that tells you where visitors are clicking. It's a helpful tool. You can see if the way you place content on your site is helping you increase traffic. And it will give you insight into where to place page elements. Pricing starts at $5 per month. If you want to improve your site's design, try Clickdensity.

Clicky Don't let its childish name fool you; Clicky is outstanding. You'll find charts and graphs, but one of its best features is its visitor detail, which gives you accurate information on individual visitors in real time. It tells you which country they're from and how long they've been on your site. Clicky also has a mobile page designed specifically for the iPhone. It boasts all the same features as Clicky's online version. Plus, it's snappy, so you won't waste time checking traffic. Pricing starts at $29.99 per year.

Google Analytics Google Analytics is a free service that provides you with a graph showing how many people visited your site. The tool also lets you see which pages visitors clicked, how many unique visitors went to your site, and information on where the most people entered and exited. It's not nearly as advanced as other apps in this roundup, but it's certainly the easiest to use. If you want something simple and accurate, Google Analytics is for you.

Histats.com Histats.com sports the slickest design of any tool in this roundup. You'll find common tracking elements like page views, visitors, and referral information, but that's all displayed in the most user-friendly design I've seen in this space. The graphs are gorgeous. The app's ease of use is unparalleled, thanks to slick menus. And changing the data you want to look at is simple. I was really impressed by Histats (and its free price tag).

Twitter's growth. Note the huge jump at the end--that's the Oprah effect.

(Credit: Hitwise)

Twitter's much-publicized appearance on Oprah Winfrey's talk show last week did a real number for the microblogging tool's traffic, a report from Hitwise indicates.

On April 17, the day of the show--when CEO Evan Williams appeared on-air and Winfrey herself began Twittering--a whopping 37 percent of visits to the Twitter.com home page were new visitors. That's a high number even for the fast-growing Twitter. Keep in mind that many avid Twitter users rarely even visit the home page, instead relying on desktop- or mobile-based third-party applications, so the jump might not look quite as drastic if you factor all those in. But it's still high: Hitwise says that in comparison, recent counts of new Facebook visitors as a percentage of overall traffic are more like 5 percent.

There's nothing particularly surprising about this, as the "Oprah effect" has been known to propel books to the top of Amazon's bestseller list almost instantly. It's more surprising that Twitter's servers, once notoriously volatile, stayed on top of things for the most part.

But what's really going to be interesting is to see how many of these curious new visitors come back regularly.

Earlier this week, I came across the "Retweet button." Similar to the "Digg This" button, which adds a small Digg counter to articles after you embed JavaScript code, the Retweet button counts how many times a story has been retweeted on Twitter.

The Retweet Button was created by Tweetmeme, a service that aggregates links on Twitter to find popular topics sweeping through the microblog. Tweetmeme has a Wordpress plug-in to make it simple to include the button in any blog post, but the embed code can be added to any site.

Once a user clicks on the button, they're automatically redirected to their Twitter profile. A pre-written tweet is shown in their status update window saying, "RT @tweetmeme" followed by the title of the article and its link. After they update their stream, the Retweet counter adds one retweet to the tally.

There's a viral element to the Retweet button. A single user who retweets an article can drive thousands of people to the story, especially if the person's followers retweet as well. "Pass-along" traffic from retweets is becoming an important page view generator.

If you want to embed the Retweet button into your own posts, click here.