Webware

More casualties of Google's belt-tightening are surfacing as the search and ad giant pares away projects that don't pass muster: Shared Stuff and AdWords business pages for mobile ads.

"This service will no longer be available after 3/30/2009," said a note on Shared Stuff, which let people publish Web links, videos, and Knol articles, then share them with contacts. "If you want another way to share videos, you can use the 'Share' link below each YouTube video. You can also create a public Google Site if you want to share Web sites and links with friends."

In a statement, Google said it decided to remove Shared Stuff "because few people are using this service. Instead, we find people are much more familiar with sharing through e-mail or through other shared services, like the sharing links on YouTube and other sites on the Web."

Google Operating System, which spotted the change, offers some more useful suggestions for alternative services.

Also apparently on the block is the mobile business pages service, a Google-hosted system that let people create ads geared for mobile devices and then hosted those ads for free. Google announced AdWords business pages for mobile ads in 2007.

Tim Cohn spotted a cancellation notice in his AdWords account: "AdWords Business Pages for mobile ads are being retired. As the first stage, you will no longer be able to edit your mobile Business Page after March 23. Please make any necessary changes before that time."

The service was only for ads using the lower-end WAP mobile technology. "We are no longer supporting mobile WAP business pages, but we will to continue focusing on new marketing opportunities on the mobile platform," Google said in a statement.

Faced with economic pressures from the recession, Google is curtailing many smaller projects such as Dodgeball and a few higher-profile ones such as ads for radio and print publications. Google also has slowed hiring dramatically, cut contractor jobs, and implemented more rigorous reviews of new projects.

(Via Search Engine Land.)

GiftCardRescue.com, a company that allows visitors to sell or exchange unused gift cards, announced Monday that it has instituted a new bankruptcy protection policy that will cover customers who purchase gift cards from the company's site.

"The current economic downturn is causing anxiety among consumers about whether a gift card purchased today will be redeemable tomorrow given the recent surge in bankruptcies by retailers," Kwame Kuadey, GiftCardRescue's CEO and founder, said in a statement. "This policy is to reassure our customers that their gift card losses from bankruptcy will be covered."

According to the company, GiftCardRescue will reimburse a customer's gift card if the retailer goes bankrupt within a year of the gift card purchase, as long as the retailer is no longer honoring gift cards. Kuadey said his company will cover the cost of the insurance with its own cash reserves and will not pass it on to the retailers or customers.

GiftCardRescue also announced Monday that it will start keeping tabs on retailers through its GiftCardBlogger blog. The site will will feature updates on retailer bankruptcies and their impact on gift card holders.

Gift card sales were one of the hottest buys during last year's holiday shopping season, but economic troubles mean gift cards may not top the list this year. The National Retail Federation announced last Tuesday that gift card sales are expected to drop 6 percent this holiday season.

SAN FRANCISCO--In a panel at the Web 2.0 Summit, Twitter co-founder and CEO Evan Williams wouldn't concretely answer one of Silicon Valley's biggest unanswered questions: how the company plans to make money.

But he gave some strong indications. Hint: it's not advertising.

He spoke obliquely of a possible business model that we've heard whispers about before, corporate accounts for businesses that want to use Twitter. Twitter is a communication channel, he said, and what it can do is "charge the people who want to use that communication channel commercially."

He named companies like fire-sale start-up Woot.com that are already using Twitter to sell products: "a lot of companies that have goods that are scarce and they want to get the word out quickly." Other companies, like retailer Zappos.com, whose CEO Tony Hsieh spoke at the Web 2.0 summit on Wednesday, are using Twitter for internal communication and customer service.

"There is commercial value, not just personal value" to Twitter, Williams said, "and if there's commercial value we can really deliver on...then I don't think it's going to be hard to monetize that."

There are a lot of possibilities for "commercial" accounts, as Williams put it. Twitter could give corporations access to analytics and data unavailable in free Twitter accounts, something that could undoubtedly be enhanced by its acquisition of search app Summize earlier this year. Alternately, it could offer companies a way to use Twitter as an internal communication tool, something that start-ups like Yammer and Presently are trying to do.

Twitter had just completed a big partnership: its election night and debate deal with cable network Current, whose CEO Joel Hyatt joined Williams onstage for the panel.

Twitter CEO Evan Williams

(Credit: Web 2.0 Summit)

Williams also exhibited what seemed to be a clear aversion to bringing advertising to Twitter, reinforcing the possibility that the company will institute enterprise accounts instead. "I think advertising, as most people think of it, is more and more a different proposition, the whole idea (that) we're going to insert some message along with the content you actually want, and hope you'll be interested in that as well."

In either case, what Twitter has to do soon is actually put some of this into action. The company raised its most recent venture round this spring, a $15 million round led by Spark Capital. Williams recently took over the CEO reins from fellow co-founder Jack Dorsey. And the company overcame a major hurdle in getting through election night without taking a technical tumble.

With these growing pains behind it and some money in the bank, inching toward profitability is a natural next step for Twitter. The clock is ticking, and industry confidence may start to waver before Twitter puts a business model in place. Some critics have alleged that it's getting late already, especially given an economic climate that has shortened the shelf life of companies running without revenues.

The panel moderator, author and New Yorker writer Ken Auletta, asked Williams what scares him, what keeps him awake in the middle of the night.

"Thankfully I'm not waking up in the middle of the night as much lately," Williams joked, an allusion to the rocky state the company's infrastructure was in not so long ago. "But it's still very early for Twitter, and we get a lot of attention for the stage we're at as a company...We are not at the level of a Facebook or MySpace, and well established and mainstream yet, so it's all about execution now and there's a million worries on a daily basis about a particular feature, a part technical problem and people problems and everything else."

Regardless, he said, he's optimistic about Twitter's future. "I'm feeling pretty good right now," Williams said confidently. "There's not one worry that's overshadowing all the others."

George Carlin said that when you live in the United States, you're guaranteed a front row seat to the freak show. Events of the last few weeks only reconfirm how right he was.

(Credit: CNET News)

But first, think back a few years.

The deflating of the Internet bubble, which began in 2000, wasn't a one-day blowup. Instead, the pain was spread over months and only ended after dozens of one-time high-flying technology companies got obliterated.

Out of the rubble emerged a new generation of start-ups that went on to operate under the Web 2.0 rubric. And since 2002, the innovation in consumer and social-network services has been the more interesting story in tech.

But this latest market upset takes place at a very inconvenient time. (When is it not inconvenient?) It's hard to know exactly, but most of these start-ups aren't swimming in cash. Before it's over, this may become a particularly hard transition for companies that depend on Internet advertising to pay the bills. Especially companies that operate according to the "freemium" model.

What's "freemium"? Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures nicely defines how the model is supposed to work.

Give your service away for free, possibly ad-supported but maybe not, acquire a lot of customers very efficiently through word of mouth, referral networks, organic search marketing, etc., then offer premium-priced, value-added services or an enhanced version of your service to your customer base.

The idea is predicated on the assumption that you'll be around long enough to collect. In normal times, that might work. Does anyone believe we're living in normal times? Even if Bush convinces congressional renegades in his party who opposed the Wall Street bailout, this economy's getting worse by the week.

If past is prologue, the technology business may emerge changed, and ready for the next big challenge. But that's the longer-term perspective. In the meantime, there's that matter of meeting payroll. "Freemium" was a grand experiment but its practitioners don't have the luxury of time any more.

NEW YORK--"We are not an alley."

So said venture capitalist Fred Wilson of at the Web 2.0 Expo here in his keynote entitled "New York's Web Industry From 1995 to 2008: From Nascent to Ascendent." A longtime leader in Gotham's culture of digital innovation, Wilson, of Union Square Ventures, gave a short "history lesson" to the hordes of conference attendees, many of whom had come from hundreds of miles away.

And the term "Silicon Alley," he said, is one that the city should shake off. "We are one of the largest cities in the world," Wilson said. "We are one of the largest Internet development communities in the world. Let's bury the name Silicon Alley."

Fred Wilson, with Union Square Ventures, gave a keynote address at the Web 2.0 Expo.

(Credit: Union Square Ventures)

New York's technology community is still considered an afterthought in comparison to the Bay Area, and Wilson, though he has invested in companies like Delicious and Twitter over the years and runs one of the Web's most influential venture capital blogs, isn't yet in the league of true Valley legends like John Doerr.

But the numbers, Wilson said, show a very different trend. In 1995, 230 early-stage companies in the Bay Area received venture backing, and only 30 did in New York. By the end of the year, 2008's numbers should be 360 in the Bay Area and nearly 120 in New York. "We have grown here in New York by four times in 14 to 15 years, and Silicon Valley has grown by 1.5 times," Wilson said. "We've gone from being one-eighth of the activity of Silicon Valley to one-third. In my mind that's very significant."

The keynote took the audience back, in fact, to 1979, when New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program was first formed. "It started in an art school, the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU," Wilson said. "I think that still to this day defines a distinguishing characteristic of the New York Internet community."

The timeline went on: the rise of interactive ad agencies in 1995, along with the debut of The New York Times Web site, which first launched in conjunction with the visit of Pope John Paul II to New York; the debut in the mid-1990s of digital businesses like iVillage, The Knot, and Star Media; the sale of Total New York to AOL, and the IPO of DoubleClick in 1997--New York's first tech company to go public.

I saw Twitter buzz building this morning over Fuelly, a site that records your gasoline purchases and gives you potentially useful info in return: your car's mileage and cost data like dollars you're spending per mile and your fuel economy over time. You can record your info on an iPhone, even. The site's special sauce is the social angle; you can follow people and compare your mileage to theirs. Coming soon to the service: A way to update your gas purchases over Twitter.

Believe it or not, there are already other Twitter-enabled gas purchase trackers out there. MyMileMarker and FuelFrog both let you Tweet your receipts, so when you visit your account later from a big computer you can analyze your driving and expenses.

Those sites don't have the social angle that Fuelly does, though. With Fuelly, you can compare and compete with other users for mileage bragging rights. Does that matter? It could help you research real-world mileage on a car model you're thinking of buying. And it might be something you want if you're a competitive hypermiler. I can't imagine the novelty of Fuelly's social network becoming something you'd actually want to stick with, but if you use the site for tracking your personal mileage, it's a gimme.

Track your economy with Fuelly. If you have friends with the same car model, you can see how you compare.

Fuelly also serves to remind us that there are a lot of resources to help us track our gas spending and save money. In addition to the sites mentioned so far, there's also FuelEconomy.gov's Your MPG, which does mileage tracking using a retro, hideous K-Car-era interface.

The iPhone app Triplog will do the useful mileage calculations as well as track your car use for tax purposes. iPhone users might also want to check out lower-cost apps like AccuFuel, FuelGage, GasHog, and CarStat.

To get the best prices on gas, there are map sites like GasBuddy. Sadly, none of the mileage tracking sites yet integrate with a gas price database like this. And do keep in mind that driving a few miles to save 10 cents on a gallon of gas might end up costing you more than you save, not including the cost of your time or extra wear on your car.

If you really want to save money on gas, drive mellow and inflate your tires to their maximum recommend pressure. Thanks to the Obama/McCain energy spat it's become cliche, but I just corrected the slightly saggy tire pressures I was driving on and my mileage went up 15 percent. No iPhone or Twitter widget is going to save me money like my gas station's air hose just did.

Although it has disclosed that 600 of its coffee shops will be closing up shop in the coming months, Starbucks will be unveiling only a small selection of closures per month.

That doesn't mean that you can't check if your favorite coffee watering hole (or office) is going the way of $2 gas. According to The Seattle Times, employees at stores that are facing closure have been given some extra heads-up to either find new jobs or transfer elsewhere.

That extra foresight has led to a special Google Map chronicling which stores will soon be going under, even if their closures have not yet been announced.

Keep in mind that not all of the Starbucks locations listed are definitely being shuttered. Most listings are based either on rumors or speculation, since the first smattering of downed stores has not yet been announced.

One thing is clear though: people in Northeastern Texas do not like a cup of joe.

Do virtual shopping damage with real cash--it all starts here.

(Credit: Zwinky)

Teen-oriented virtual world Zwinky has expanded its e-commerce operations so that members can use real-world cash to pay for virtual goods. Starting Monday, credit cards and PayPal accounts can be used to purchase the in-game "ZBucks" currency, which members could heretofore only earn by visiting certain in-world locations and winning games. The cash will then go on new "ZCard" shopping cards which members will be able to use at the in-world retail hub, the--wait for it--Zwinchester Mall, which contains stores like the Z-Loft trendy furniture outlet and "Like Dat," a boutique branded with the identity of the rapper 50 Cent.

For an idea of the exchange rate, 5,000 "ZBucks" will cost you $19.99.

Real-to-virtual economies are not uncommon in virtual worlds like Eve Online and Second Life. But Zwinky, which is owned by InterActiveCorp (IAC) and has a head count of more than 9 million members (that's accounts, not active users) who have already assembled more than 10 million virtual outfits through trips to the in-world mall, has not actually created a currency exchange--it does not appear that there are any plans to allow members to switch ZBucks back into real dollars. In that respect it's more like the Disney-owned kiddie space Club Penguin, but considering Zwinky's older youth demographic, it'll more likely be the teens than the parents who are doing the buying.

I'm guessing that reactions to the "ZCard" will either go in one of two directions--it'll ultimately be held up as a smart strategy to help young people learn about being economical, or as yet another factor in the material corruption of digital-age youth. Which one, I'm still not sure.

Atten.TV is pure vanity.

It's also slightly creepy. Atten.TV is a Mac-only client that lets individuals sign up to have their clickstreams--or records of Web sites visited--recorded and sent to a server. Anyone can then opt to watch what these other random folks are browsing, in the same manner as one might watch television.

The Atten.TV player is a viewing window with a menu on the left that displays the clickstreams that can be tuned in. Eventually there will be an Atten.TVGuide that lists who's on. Clickstreams can be recorded and viewed later, or tuned in live (with a slight delay).

Browsing several users' viewing habits at once.

(Credit: Atten.tv)

Founder Seth Goldstein gave a demo before this week's SF New Tech Meetup, but he officially unveiled his nascent project at last week's Emerging Tech Conference.

Goldstein's thesis is that at least "a couple people out there are comfortable exposing their clickstreams." He compared the idea to Justin.TV, except instead of looking at his view from behind a camera, you're looking at what pages he is browsing.

How information like this will be used in the future is unclear. Behavioral marketing experts would love to have this kind of information, but Goldstein says he needs to get hundreds of thousands of clickstream broadcasters to sign up for Atten.TV--and voluntarily give information like gender, ZIP code and some personal preferences--before approaching any marketers.

More screenshots of Atten.TV can be found here.