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I dare you to Facebook Like or even comment on this post. You can’t, because the Facebook Javascript API, the backend system which allows developer applications and Facebook’s own apps like Likes and Comments to communicate with the data available on the social network, is down, and has been down for at least an hour as far as I can tell, begging the question, “If article falls on a blog and no one Likes it, does it make a sound?”

Okay, that was lame, I’m sorry.

The JavaScript API status on the Facebook developer blog reads:

“Currently, the JS SDK is returning /* Not a valid locale. */. We are working on a fix now. We will update the live status as we have more information. You can following along in https://developers.facebook.com/bugs/20327564310313″

Presumably thousands in the developer community are somehow affected (I’ve emailed Facebook for more concrete details and will update this when I have them), for example apps like Turntable.fm, Quora and TinyChat have lost their Facebook Login capabilities.

“I think this is the longest downtime ive seen of their API,” said one concerned developer.

Maybe we should all get off the Internet and just, like, go outside while it’s fixed? Got Diet Coke? Sounds like a plan!

Those of us who have been following the social gaming industry already know that Zynga makes up a big portion of Facebook’s revenues. But lots of public investors only seem to have gotten the memo on Wednesday evening, when Facebook’s S-1 filing revealed that the developer accounts for 12% of its total revenues, or $445 million.

In the two days since, Zynga’s stock has gone up more than 26%, to close at $13.39 this evening.

This is far more than most analysts had previously projected. The ones who began covering Zynga after its December IPO had pegged its stock well under ten bucks. When analysts at banks who underwrote Zynga entered the fray a couple weeks ago, they were unsurprisingly more bullish. Following the end of the quiet period, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan and Barclays Capital, along with analysts from banks not involved in the IPO, all put their target price above Zynga’s public opening amount of $10.

This drove the Street’s average target price up to $11.08, as you can see from the StreetInsider table below.

Existing industry research, namely the Inside Virtual Goods report from my previous company, Inside Network, had indicated as of last fall that virtual goods revenue from Facebook applications reached $500 million last year. Facebook’s prospectus more than confirmed this on Wednesday, revealing that a strong fourth quarter had actually put the number a little higher, at $557 million.

There are other data points you can use to try to figure out Zynga’s position with that number. AppData traffic shows that it has a dominant traffic position on Facebook’s platform. It gets 90% of its revenue from Facebook, but first Facebook collects 30% of its virtual goods transaction sales, per terms that have been in effect since midway through last year. And, Zynga has since at least 2009 used Facebook ads as a main way to bring in new and returning users.

The problem is how to add this up. The Wall Street Journal’s Rolfe Winkler explains the confusion in how to calculate the results:

Different assumptions lead to different estimates for Zynga’s fourth-quarter “bookings,” which is the preferred method for measuring Zynga’s top line. Macquarie analyst Ben Schachter’s quick-and-dirty analysis says Facebook’s disclosure implies $268 million for Zynga’s bookings for the fourth quarter, short of the $302 million analysts are expecting. Baird Equity Research analyst Colin Sebastian digs deeper, making more assumptions, and comes out with a number of $315 million. Both analyses included many caveats.

Heavy trading volumes indicate high volatility among investors. Zynga will do its first ever earnings call on February 14th. Get ready for some new estimates.

I just donated $40 to Wikipedia, because I promised myself I would every time I poked fun at its Holiday donation drive and then just never got around to it. Did you know that you could actually donate during the off-season (Via the covert “Donate to Wikipedia” link at the far left of each individual entry page)? I didn’t, before I asked Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales whether it was possible to donate in the off-season. Spoiler alert, it is.

My 40 bucks got me, in addition to the very sweet ‘Thank You’ letter below, the satisfaction of paying duly for something I use all the freakin’ time.

Dear Alexia,

You are amazing, thank you so much for donating to the Wikimedia Foundation!

This is how we pay our bills — it’s people like you, giving five dollars, twenty dollars, a hundred dollars. My favourite donation last year was five pounds from a little girl in England, who had persuaded her parents to let her donate her allowance. It’s people like you, joining with that girl, who make it possible for Wikipedia to continue providing free, easy access to unbiased information, for everyone around the world. For everyone who helps pay for it, and for those who can’t afford to help. Thank you so much.

I know it’s easy to ignore our appeals, and I’m glad that you didn’t. From me, and from the tens of thousands of volunteers who write Wikipedia: thank you for helping us make the world a better place. We will use your money carefully, and I thank you for your trust in us.

Thanks,

Sue Gardner
Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director

This year the fund raised $20 million during its high gear donation drive, to cover a total budget of $28.3 million — the deficit is made up in grants and off-season donations. Money raised is spent on things like servers, bandwidth, maintenance and staff. Here are the financials if you want to dig deeper.

During the online encyclopedia’s blackout protest of SOPA, many off us felt the pang of “You don’t know what you’ve got until its gone” when we wanted to know something about, let’s say, Exponential Growth and that info wasn’t readily available. Google would be a bunch of spam if not for Wikipedia.

I personally use Wikipedia more than I use makeup, multiple times a day. And I spend a good amount of money on makeup, AT LEAST $40 on a mascara/lippy combo.

What do you use Wikipedia more than? Do the math …

In interesting but ultimately not very shocking news, Google has signed on as a major sponsor of the Conservative Political Action Conference, which is more or less what it sounds like. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s just a little odd seeing Google, which is becoming increasingly political, listed next to such organizations as the Koch Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the NRA.

But this isn’t the moment Google comes out as a closet Republican. It’s actually quite in keeping with Google’s position of aggressive neutrality.

Google says that it’s there because it’s a great place to promote their election-tracking site, push Google+ as a platform for sharing and collaborating, and because the conference is fairly young and tech-savvy. Hard to accuse them of pandering, or of partisan pandering anyway.

And that’s sort of the point. Google will no doubt be sponsoring similar events on the left side of the political spectrum as well (they say as much, but haven’t announced anything specific). The message is: hey, we just provide a service. No agenda here.

Not that Google is totally apolitical, but their fierce opposition to SOPA was more like a mother bear defending its cubs than a deliberate political decision. On the other hand, they did go out of their way to take an official stance against Proposition 8. By and large, though, they have avoided taking a stance on hot-button issues.

Can Google actually remain neutral? SOPA was the product of bipartisan ignorance and greed, not just left or right, but what if the next bill threatening a Google territory were to be led by one party or the other? Or what if Google refuses to support, say, a communications embargo with a terrorist-harboring country, or such like? The dance they’re doing will become increasingly difficult if they insist on putting their neutrality on a pedestal for much longer.

On the other hand, this may be overthinking it. Why can’t a company spend a little cash to have a ring in the political circus, and not choose sides overtly? No reason. But, as has been observed in other contexts, sometimes the only winning move is not to play.

Surveys conducted and sponsored by research firm BTIG suggest that movie viewers might actually spend more money on films, if they were available online or on cable video-on-demand services at the same time as they are available in theaters. The post from BTIG’s Richard Greenfield (free registration required to view) details three different surveys conducted over the last few weeks, which asked respondents to forecast their theatrical and home entertainment spending if windows were to collapse.

All of the surveys leveraged Survey Monkey to poll respondents, but the most complete of the three polled the Survey Monkey Audience (SMA) network, racking up 1,124 responses. About 70 percent of respondents from the SMA survey said their spending on entertainment wouldn’t change if priced in the $20-$25 range. But while the majority of users predict no change, the number who say they would spend more outnumber those who predict they would spend less by three to one.

According to Greenfield, that group appeared to be price-sensitive and more likely representative of today’s average consumer that respondents from the other surveys. Those who expected to spend more would be doing so because they saw cost savings from concessions and parking outweighing the difference in price and convenience of watching at home. In addition, some respondents suggested that they were unhappy with the current moviegoing experience.

In aggregate, the survey shows that Hollywood studios would likely make more revenue with the collapse of movie windows. More importantly, those sales would come with better margins since they wouldn’t be sharing with exhibitors. The fear seems to be that putting pressure on the theatrical window could cause some exhibitors to go out of business, which would in turn destroy that distribution channel.

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"The thing about memes is that through repetition, they create a shared language," says Professor Julie Levin Russo, an adjunct assistant professor at Brown's Modern Culture & Media Program. "If you understand the premise of the meme, you can communicate a lot very easily, with whatever twist you're putting on the meme structure."

On Jan 4, the "Shit Girls Say" meme was radically transformed. New York-based graphic designer & video blogger Franchesca Ramsey a.k.a. Chescaleigh unleashed "Shit White Girls Say to Black Girls", and it blew up the Internet. In the video, Ramsey plays her blonde-haired white friend who she portrays as curiously confused, and innocently ignorant. "Why isn't there a white entertainment television? The Jews were slaves too, and you don't hear us complaining all the time," Chescaleigh as-white-girl asks the camera. She portrays her friend as at times confused ("Is this racist?") other times annoyed. Overall, her white friend is completely unaware of fundamental cultural and racial differences between her and her black friend. It's these awkward moments that fuel the humor of this viral video.

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When Franchesca appeared on Anderson Cooper a few days after the video blew up, Cooper asked *the question* that mainstream media was dying to know: Is the video racist?

"I don't think that talking about ignorance is racist," Franchesca tells Cooper. "And like I said, I'm not labeling anyone racist because that would infer that the statements were saying someone was better than another race - and that's not what any of the statements are doing." Shortly after her Anderson Cooper appearance, Franchesca produced a sequel, "Shit White Girls Say to Black Girls Part 2."

Soon, more "Shit X Says to Y" versions of the meme began to appear. "Shit White Girls Say to Brown (Desi/Indian) Girls" features an Indian woman portraying her white girlfriend, who asks questions like "Do you want to go to 7-11? Oh oops, is that racist?" It is cutting, and points to some of the underlying racism that Indian-Americans experience regularly.

In "Shit White Guys Say to Asian Girls," actor/comedian Cindy Fang dresses in drag, playing a white dude and points out some of the obnoxious, arrogant statements that some white guys say to Asian women. "Sorry, I have a hard time telling Asians apart," she says, with a tone that conveys how the white guy she is portraying doesn't feel like trying to educate himself. He is blissful in his ignorance. And then, a blatantly racist statement: "Why do they call it Bangkok? They should call it Bang Pussy!!!" This video speaks to the painful sexism and racism that Asian women experience.

Of course, it's just comedy - and the talented Fang masterfully exaggerates these statements to hammer home the crass, yet serious joke. Moreso than "Shit White Girls Say to Black Girls," "Shit White Guys Say to Asian Girls" is doubly as biting, taking swipes at sex and race relations. It's almost as upsetting as "Shit Asian Girls Say", another version of the original "Shit Girls Say" meme.

In Latoya Peterson's blog post "Exploring the Problematic and Subversive Shit People Say [Meme-ology]" on Racialicious, she notes that it isn't until "Shit Black Gays Say" (and part 2) and "Shit Southern Gay Guys Say" that the viewer starts to see the performer's subjective interpretation of themselves.

"It's notable that these videos are the principals representing themselves (as opposed to someone else's interpretation of them), perhaps since these groups are still so invisible in the public eye that no one else but them could speak to their experience," writes Peterson.

How "Shit White Girls Say to Black Girls" Shifted the Conversation

"There's a way in which the meme format allows for a more granular renditions of identity than you often see in mass culture," says Professor Russo.

Chescaleigh's video shifted the focus from the narrator as subject to the narrator as a vehicle for social critique. Now X is saying something to Y. Previously, X was either speaking for themselves, or portraying the stereotypical subject, usually in drag.

"Do you know the guy at the liquor store? I mean, I assume you guys all know each other," says the Arab girl portraying her white friend in "Shit White Girls Say...to Arab Girls". "I've never met one of you before! I mean, I've seen Arabs on TV...on the news. Was 9/11 your fault?"

"Friendly Prejuidice"

Writing for The Guardian, Thea Lim points out that the statements in all of these videos imply a sort of "friendly prejudice":

What's friendly prejudice? The most common defence of racism is: "But I didn't intend to be racist." This response relies on the idea that if we didn't intend to offend someone, then their feelings can't possibly be hurt. The Shit X Says to Y videos are delightfully validating because they show that those with the genuinely lovely intentions of being your friend and seeking commonality with you can still be rude and hurtful.

A commenter on the NPR story that questioned if Franchesca's video was "racist" tried the good ol' "role reversal" trick (that always fails), which attempts to deny the existence of white privilege. "If the roles were reversed...Jesse [Jackson] & [Al] Sharpton, would be involved, lawsuits filed, perhaps riots...". Says Lim:

The reason why relationships between white and non-white people, or straight people and gay people are fraught, is because of our history - long gone, recent or ongoing. Racist, homophobic or simply thoughtless comments are insulting not just in and of themselves, but because they are a bilious reminder of the times when straight, white people have dehumanised and denied other groups their human rights. Of course, non-white and gay people can say nasty or even prejudicial things to white and straight people, but those things don't deliver the sting that comes from decades of being on the wrong end of an unequal relationship. Where Do We Go From Here?

I have watched my friends react to these videos with anger and sadness. I have seen others shout "That's me! That totally happened to me." Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. The most important aspect of these videos, however, is that people are actually reacting to them. They're easy conversation starters, a segway into sharing experiences past and present.

Looking at our own biased perspectives and cultural baggage is not easy, but it is necessary. The "Shit X Says to Y" iteration of the "Shit People Say" meme forces viewers to actually think about what they've said to their friends, and what their friends say to them. Humor helps us in those strange, uncomfortable moments.

But are we ready to deal with this?

In her post on Racialicous, Peterson points out that, still, "Shit Girls Say" and "Shit Black Girls Say" received a lot more views than their "Shit X Says to Y" social commentary videos. "Maybe that's because, as a culture, we are accustomed to laughing at stereotypes," writes Peterson, "but we aren't prepared to unpack how we perpetuate them."

After a few weeks of Internet madness, the noise died down. By the end of January, conversations about this meme were starting to feel stale. So the Internet chilled out and went back to its usual, easy humor. I started seeing these videos on my Facebook news feed: "Shit New Yorkers Say," "Shit Chicagoans Say." But it's only a matter of time until the currents shift again.

Image via Chescaleigh's Facebook page.

Discuss

Report after report points to AT&T marrying Dish Network after Ma Bell’s forced breakup with T-Mobile, but given the companies’ increasing belligerence, you wouldn’t think that was the case.

AT&T is petitioning the Federal Communications Commission to impose network buildout conditions on Dish’s satellite spectrum –- requirements that would be passed onto AT&T if it acquired the satellite TV provider. Meanwhile, Dish insists it plans to use that spectrum to build a commercial LTE network to challenge the reigning nationwide mobile operators, including AT&T. These are hardly the actions of two companies about to tie the knot.

What we’re witnessing here is some very cynical pre-nuptial gamesmanship. According to TMF Associates satellite communications analyst Tim Farrar, Dish is playing AT&T off its competitors by threatening to partner with MetroPCS to build a nationwide LTE network over its satellite broadband and 700 MHz spectrum. To muck up Dish’s plans, AT&T is insisting to the FCC that the satellite TV provider face the same strict rollout requirements the commission imposed on fellow satellite spectrum holder LightSquared: An LTE rollout covering 100 million people in 33 months and 260 million in less than 6 years.

As Farrar wrote in his blog:

This submission is a blatant attempt by AT&T to put a thumb on the scales, as the FCC weighs up the appropriate balance between buildout mandates and clawback of any windfall. The reason for AT&T’s action at this very late stage in the process appears to be that DISH is trying to play off AT&T’s prospective bid against a potential venture with MetroPCS. MetroPCS would certainly be unwilling to commit to a 260M POP buildout, so if the FCC conceded AT&T’s demands, they would be the only game in town and DISH would lose its leverage in price negotiations. We’ll find out soon enough if AT&T’s gambit succeeds, but few would bet against [Dish chairman] Charlie Ergen’s poker playing skills after the events of the last year.

AT&T may seem like the bad guy here, but Dish’s motives are just as suspect. In an FCC filling Thursday, Dish maintained it plans become a competing mobile operator, launching an LTE network that would compete with the big 4:

The overly aggressive and unrealistic schedule AT&T advocates would likely set DISH up for failure or force DISH into unfavorable business arrangements with large Commercial Mobile Radio Service (“CMRS”) carriers.  It would erect artificial barriers to DISH’s plan to construct a new mobile broadband network on its own or consideration of partnerships with smaller companies, and could threaten DISH’s ability to roll out a retail service.  In short, an impracticably tight schedule would be a triple loss for consumers, the Commission, and DISH.

But as my colleague Stacey Higginbotham wrote when Dish first applied for permission to build LTE, Dish’s proposal sounds more like a financial gamble to cash in on the skyrocketing value of mobile broadband spectrum, rather than a legitimate bid to become a wireless competitor. One big clue is Dish’s insistence on deploying an LTE-Advanced network in order to “enter the market for the first time with the most advanced technology.” Of course, LTE-Advanced was just finalized as a standard so Dish claims it will have to wait several years before commercial equipment is available.

That’s absolute malarkey. LTE-Advanced is an iteration of LTE technology, not a completely new network. Claiming that you must wait until LTE-Advanced equipment is available before building a network is kind of like insisting you can’t move into a house before the shag carpeting is installed. There’s nothing stopping Dish from building an LTE network this year and evolving it into an LTE-Advanced network in 2013 or 2014.

Supposedly we face a spectrum crisis, but no one is acting like it. Instead of using public airwaves to deploy real networks, operators seem to be playing high-stakes poker with their licenses. AT&T’s motives may be self-serving, but maybe in this case it’s right. If it forces strict rollout guidelines on Dish’s spectrum and then buys those licenses, we may actually get a new mobile broadband network – rather than a bunch of operators whining about how they don’t have the spectrum to build them.

Poker Image courtesy of Flickr user Ross Elliott
Tower Image courtesy of Flickr user Nikhil Verma

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This year's Super Bowl will be more social than ever before.

With the rise of social TV and the first-ever 2,800-square-foot social media command center, fans who have trekked down to Indianapolis and people at Super Bowl parties across the country can now opt to have a super-connected experience.

This marks the first time that the NFL has partnered with a Super Bowl host city. Like a Midwestern truck stop that's got a restaurant, convenience store, bathrooms, random coin-operated claw games (that you can't ever win) and gas, the Super Bowl social media command center seeks to be all things to all football fans. Receive mobile updates about navigating the city. The Super Bowl Social Media Command center will answer your Twitter (@superbowl2012) and Facebook questions. Follow the blog here. It's the customer service center of your Friday Night Lights dreams.

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Tons of fans are already busy on social media. According to research from Nielsen and NM Incite, a Nielsen/McKinsey company, the Patriots' website is beating the Giants' website in terms of unique visitors. Giants fans, however, tend to spend more time on their team's site - and they also view more pages. Giants fans are also talking more on social media about their quarterback, Tom Brady.

The Super Bowl is a Social TV Event

Various social TV apps are already available for Facebook. Entertainment social network GetGlue gives users an opportunity to check-in to sports events. ConnecTV is another free social platform that serves as a "second screen," which means users can talk to friends while watching the Super Bowl. Users can sync shows, and then watch them with their friends while chatting in real-time.

The Super Bowl seems to be making up for the lack of social media at the London 2012 Olympics. In fact, not one of the Olympic volunteers can make a comment about the games without permission, according to Sysomos. At Super Bowl 2012, expect the exact opposite.

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Want to watch the big budget Super Bowl commercials, but can’t wait till Sunday or don’t care about football? Facebook and USA Today have just launched Ad Meter, a Facebook app where you can watch many of the TV spots right now. Then from kickoff until Tuesday night you can vote for your favorites. Traditionally an offline poll done live with handheld meters, USA Today has finally brought Ad Meter online so you can judge ads both in real-time and post-game.

Facebook tapped Involver to build the app, and has secured early previews of roughly 20 commercials. The rest of the ads will become available through the app at game time. Last year Facebook let you watch

Several Internet companies have plopped down the big bucks this year in an attempt to court the mainstream. Arrested Development’s Gob plugs Hulu, and Teleflora.com touts the lovin you might get if you use it to send a Valentine’s Day gift. Etrade, Careerbuilder.com,

Investing in Super Bowl ads makes more and more sense for web services as the general public becomes more internet savvy. They should tread cautiously, though, considering past ads from Salesforce, Groupon have been voted most disliked and caused PR crises. Let’s hope no one gives our industry a bad wrap this time around. Oh wait, GoDaddy’s ads filled with body-painted models and angels in the cloud are just as sexist as ever.

This is old (as in 2007 old). The kid in the video is now seven years old and undoubtably jailbreaks his iPhone and programs Arduino boards. But five years ago he was just a toddler with a bottle, and this was the first time he was on the Web and Fleek-ler!, as he called it, on his own. It was "the moment" - the moment when you first realize that moving the cursor and clicking the trackpad leads to discovery, and that discovery is a whole lot of fun.

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My son discovered Flickr today from Paul Mayne on Vimeo.

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It’s the Super Bowl season, when a host of services and apps debut just in time for the biggest television event of the year. And, if you’re a fan of Madden’s NFL Superstars (a web app that’s available through Facebook), then you’ll like this launch: the game is now available as a Pokki right here.

Pokki, for those that haven’t used it, is a platform that lets you install lightweight apps that live in your Windows Taskbar (a Mac version is on the way). Each app gets its own icon — click on it, and the app will pop open immediately, click away and it’ll hide itself, and when you click it again, it’ll pick up right where you left off.

The point is to give you quick access to apps without having to deal with browser tabs or standalone windows, and it works well.There are other apps and services that do something similar (Mac users may want to check out Fluid), but Pokki’s platform features apps that are specifically designed for its quick, pop-over design.

Pokki has landed two major gaming companies so far: Kabam and, with this launch, EA, and it seems likely that more will follow suit (the platform is well-suited for quick sessions of gaming throughout the day). And there are other apps available as well, including Gmail and eBay.

The company says that Pokki is still in beta and hasn’t yet focused on marketing, but that its early numbers are very promising — so far they’ve seen “hundreds of thousands” of app installs, with users who have used the apps “tens of millions of times”.

The platform is also seeing strong traction with its built-in app market: 60% of users are browsing and installing two new apps per month.

Pokki is one of two main products from SweetLabs — their other major product is OpenCandy, which lets developers include targeted ads within their application’s install flow.

This funny little piece of email just got forwarded to me …

From: “****, ***”
Date: February 3, 2012 10:11:04 AM PST
To: Greg Barto [@ TechCrunch]
Subject: NapQuest

Hey Greg

It is one of our goals to get a “nap room” set-up in every location. Basically, it’s a closed room where we would put a chaise or couch, darken the windows and allow people to nap as the [sic] like. This is high on the priority list for Arianna and your office is one of the few where we don’t yet have it in place.

When I visited your office on Wednesday, I looked around. It strikes me that the room (3rd office from the back corner) might be a good choice?

There are currently a couple of desks in there we would need to remove. Then I would purchase the furniture and arrange to have the window glass tinted.

What do you think? I just need your agreement to move ahead and I will coordinate making it happen. Let me know.

Thanks,

**** ****
Sr. Facilities Manager, PA/SF
Corporate Services, AOL Inc.
395 Page Mill Road Palo Alto, CA 94306

After making a bunch of “nap room” jokes and laughing uncontrollably like a hyperactive child around the office, I’ve finally figured out why this “high Arianna priority” (LOL) strikes me as so funny — other than the fact THAT IT IS ACTUALLY CALLED NapQuest.

This is Silicon Valley, where we herald founders like Jack Dorsey for working 16 hour days (at not one, but two! companies). People at startups are never not working.

Silicon Valley absolutely, positively doesn’t need a nap room because in theory we don’t sleep, let alone nap (and if we do need to nap — like in an emergency — we take that shiz home, far far away from hungry competitors!).

Please Aol Mr. Sr. Facilities Manager, take that money and buy us a bunch of Diet Coke to drink late at night or that great beef jerky we used to have or a copyediting slave intern or passes to Burning Man or anything but a room specifically designed for being less productive.

Oh sure, it could be worse. At least they’re not trying to install one of these things. 

Image: Roger Jegg – Fotodesign-Jegg.de

StumbleUpon is one of those sites we've had on our radar for quite sometime. We covered the company's redesign last year, which re-focused the site on topic features. So when StumbleUpon snuck in a strange change the other day without telling anyone, we were shocked. This update made it impossible to get direct links for the pages one is stumbling unless they choose to not sign-in to the service.

The entire point of StumbleUpon, for the user, is to build up a taste graph that will better deliver stories that the user would like. But many sites depend on referral traffic from StumbleUpon, which is something outside of the StumbleUpon user's direct stumbling experience.

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"As part of redesign that spawns user experience that you write about, we look a lot at how users are using our service," said StumbleUpon's VP of Business Development and Marketing Marc Leibowitz. "We have some things in mind to address this concern."

StumbleUpon's response is that, well, they were "just trying to improve the user experience." And besides, they told us, two-thirds of users use the Web bar.

What a great solution. Truly. Not only will StumbleUpon not be able to get an idea of that user's taste graph, that user will miss out on the entire community aspect of the site. "Signed-in users, when they're encountering the Web bar it is about their stumbling," Leibowitz said. "Visitors can easily close the Web bar."

In other words, if you do want to see direct links, just don't sign in.

What a great solution. Truly. Not only will StumbleUpon not be able to get an idea of that user's taste graph, that user will miss out on the entire community aspect of the site.

Leibowitz cited accidental clicks on the "X" button of the Web bar as StumbleUpon's main reason for getting rid of the Web bar entirely.

"People would accidentally click the button - they don't have an extension such as Chrome or Firefox extensions, so they can't go back to their Stumbling unless they go directly to StumbleUpon.com."

This sounds like a complicated solution for a pretty easy problem. It would it have been pretty easy for StumbleUpon to just add a box that pops up when the user clicks "X." It could say something simple like: "Are you sure you want to close this page and leave StumbleUpon?" Instead, StumbleUpon says, it is thinking only of the users - not the people who receive tons of referral traffic from the StumbleUpon discovery engine.

"The trade off is that we have to make some concessions around the way we show the URL," Leibowitz tells us. "There's no way we can change the way the URL is displayed in the address bar, but there are some ways we can make it easier to copy and paste the source code."

For StumbleUpon users who are still looking for a way to see the direct URL, try using a StumbleUpon Firefox add-on or Chrome extension.

What Will Happen to StumbleUpon Referral Traffic? "My website used to get 70-80% of referral traffic from StumbleUpon," writes ReadWriteWeb commenter Jeffrey Davis. "After the redesign, that percentage dropped to 40%. I suspect now that it will drop even further...especially since SU is now hijacking the pageview." Unfortunately for sites who depend on StumbleUpon for referral traffic, there aren't too many alternatives.

"My website used to get 70-80% of referral traffic from StumbleUpon," writes ReadWriteWeb commenter Jeffrey Davis. "After the redesign, that percentage dropped to 40%. I suspect now that it will drop even further...especially since SU is now hijacking the pageview."

Pinterest is now Davis' number two referrer.

This is only one isolated case, but it's telling. Perhaps it's time for marketers to start shifting their strategy from StumbleUpon to Pinterest. Because it doesn't look like StumbleUpon will be backpedaling on its latest decision anytime soon.

Has referral traffic to your site suffered since the StumbleUpon redesign? Tell us about it in the comments.

Discuss

If there was a bright spot in the latest quarterly results from the New York Times, it’s the fact that the newspaper’s metered paywall has attracted almost 325,000 subscribers willing to pay a monthly fee for the site. Despite all the celebrating from the pro-paywall camp, however, that bright spot was more than overshadowed by the other dark clouds in the numbers — including the fact that print advertising revenue continues to decline, and the paper’s former online jewel About.com got whacked by Google’s algorithm updates. Anyone who takes on the job of CEO at the media company is going to have to start thinking creatively about its business, because all the easy money has already been made.

Although the paywall and related print-subscription deals helped boost circulation revenue by almost 5 percent in the NYT’s media group — which includes the New York Times, the Boston Globe and the International Herald Tribune — and digital advertising revenue was also up by about 5 percent for the quarter, neither of those things were able to compensate for the continued drop-off in print advertising. Print ad revenue fell by almost 8 percent, which helped push the NYT’s fourth-quarter profit down by more than 12 percent, and for the full year the company reported a loss of $40 million.

Paywall revenue isn’t even close to making up the gap

The New York Times didn’t provide any helpful charts that would make the reality of this situation more obvious, so one blogger decided to come up with his own. Paul McMorrow, an editor at CommonWealth magazine, put together a chart that shows the contrast between the NYT’s advertising revenue, circulation revenue and its total revenue:

According to newspaper-industry analyst Ken Doctor, the NYT is probably pulling in about $86 million or so from its digital paywall — or “metered access,” as the paper likes to call it, since you get to read 20 articles for free before you get hit with a request for your credit card. But that’s not even close to being enough to make up for the decline in ad revenue, both print and digital, which dropped by 7 percent in the quarter.

One of the biggest problems for the Times is that its former online star About.com, which the company bought in 2005 for $410 million, has seen both its profitability and revenue-generating ability implode in the wake of an update to Google’s search algorithm — a change that was designed to penalize what the company called “low quality” content sites, or what some call “content farms.” In the most recent quarter, the NYT said About’s revenue fell by 26 percent, and profit fell by a staggering 67 percent.

As McMorrow’s chart shows, the Times is still far under water in terms of revenue, despite the benefit of its paywall. As I’ve argued before, there’s nothing wrong with having a paywall — although in many cases it amounts to building a wall of sandbags around the print newspaper edition, which provides most of the ad revenue — but if a paywall is your only strategy for responding to digital disruption of the media business, then you are almost certainly doomed, whether you are the New York Times or not.

Which way will the new CEO go — towards the past or the future?

So what should a new CEO be looking at to revitalize the NYT for a digital age? Ken Doctor suggests that the paper needs to look beyond just subcription revenue and focus on how it can target those 325,000 digital subscribers — since it knows who they are and where they live, and it already has their credit-card numbers.

I would take it one step further, however, and suggest that the new CEO think about some of the suggestions about “reverse paywalls” that have been made by journalism professor Jeff Jarvis, and also by former Washington Post managing editor Raju Narisetti (who is now at the Wall Street Journal in a digital role). The main principle behind this idea is that regular readers should get more than just a sales rep hitting them up for a monthly payment — the fact that they are a devoted fan should entitle them to earn rewards, whether it’s money off their subscription for interacting with the paper, or offers that others don’t get.

The NYT has taken a few steps towards trying to build relationships with its readers through what I’ve called the “levelling up” process that it recently added to its comment section, where readers can achieve preferred status for good behavior. Those are the building blocks of a relationship that the paper could use to its own benefit in all kinds of ways, many of which could generate new sources of revenue — real-life events, for example, which has been one of the things that has helped turn The Atlantic around, or a line of e-books based on the newspaper’s original reporting.

Another thing the NYT could — and should — be thinking about is what the role of an information provider is in the digital age. Is it to act as a gatekeeper for certain kinds of data and try to reimpose the scarcity that used to exist in the print era? Or is it to find partners to distribute that information in as many ways as possible, and to think of the paper as a data platform, as The Guardian has with its open-platform project? One way looks to the past, and the other to the future. Which way will the NYT go?

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr users jphilipg and Giuseppe Bognanni

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Though Silicon Valley has lured away plenty of start-ups, (cough: Facebook), New York is becoming a magnet of its own, attracting companies that want to build their businesses amid the bright lights of the big city. In the last couple months, New York has drawn former San Francisco start-up Qwiki, PlaceIQ from Colorado and recent 500 Startups graduate Snapette, which started in Boston before spending the last half year in Silicon Valley.

These are just a few recent transplants but they show how New York increasingly makes sense as a headquarters for certain start-ups, especially those with ties to finance, fashion, media, retail, advertising and increasingly big data and location-based services. ConsumerBell relocated to New York from the Bay Area in May and Take The Interview, which started in Boston, is moving as well. The relocations fuel the continuing momentum behind New York, which has eclipsed Boston in the number of VC deals and is now becoming a destination for big companies like Facebook, which announced an engineering campus here and eBay, which bought Hunch and plans to build out a New York office.

Close to brands and retailers

I talked with Snapette founder Sarah Paiji about why she chose New York after building up a lot of connections in Silicon Valley and Boston. She said despite the presence of Facebook and Google in the Bay Area, it made more sense to be near brands and retailers, who are mostly based in New York. Snapette, which recently moved into Dogpatch Labs, is a kind of Pinterest for the real world, with users supplying images of products that can be found in nearby shops.

Snapette co-founder Sarah Paiji

“We are about fashion and shopping. We want to drive foot traffic into local stores. We also take a lot of meetings with brands and retailers and we have over 30 boutique partners in New York. In Palo Alto, it just doesn’t make as much sense to stay,” Paiji said.

PlaceIQ, a Boulder, Colo. location startup, also announced a move to New York in December, saying it wanted to be closer to partners and customers and the general ecosystem. PlaceIQ has built a vast database of locations down to the block level that can be used by advertisers to better target consumers without tracking them individually.

New York has changed

Duncan McCall, CEO and co-founder of PlaceIQ said he had no interest in ever relocating to New York. But over the last year after making a lot of visits to see customers, partners and company investor IA Ventures, he realized the city had changed and was now a logical home for his start-up. And he was tired of traveling so much and saw the value of more face-to-face meetings. He just moved into a new temporary space in the last few days and is hunting for more permanent digs.

“I previously spent some time in New York and I thought the technology business isn’t big enough, there’s not enough talent and there wasn’t a business around data. But that’s changed dramatically in New York,” McCall said. “Over the last year, it’s grown on me. The people and the investment scene are great and with the customers and ecosystem, it became obvious that if we want to maximize our chances, we have to be in New York.”

Qwiki's new SoHo headquarters

Qwiki, which helps produce multimedia information videos, announced its move in December and relocated into a hip SoHo space. CEO Doug Imbruce said in blog post that despite being known as a Silicon Valley company, the company saw New York as the place to become a medium for people to tell stories and share opinions. Qwiki needs to be close to where the most content was produced and that’s New York, he said.

Local strengths

Not every company will be tempted to make the move. But these recent transplants show there’s plenty of incentive to do so. With so much media and advertising here, a company like Qwiki can tap a lot of media partners as it pursues more publishing tools for users. Snapette is closely aligned with the fashion industry and revolves around location, something New York is becoming good at with Foursquare, Hyperpublic, LocalResponse. New York’s big data scene has also risen to the fore, building on the experience of the finance industry which has long been involved in data. Now with ventures funds like IA Ventures, which looks primarily at big data opportunities, there’s more momentum here in building data start-ups.

Paiji and McCall said the move to New York comes with trade-offs. Paiji said it’s harder to find talent and for a start-up mostly made up of women, they get less attention from men now that they’re away from testosterone heavy Silicon Valley. And, McCall said he doesn’t have ready access to skiing like he did in Colorado.

Not ready to topple Silicon Valley

SA 500 job fair

New York has also lost some start-ups including Think Near which moved to Los Angeles and BankSimple, which moved to Portland. And many companies still flock to Silicon Valley to make their big break. The Valley still has an edge in investment dollars and talent and has a culture built around entrepreneurship that has flourished for decades thanks to companies like Apple, Google, eBay, Facebook and others.

New York has to continue building its start-up culture and fix its talent crunch problems, which could be alleviated by a new applied sciences university and programs like the HackNY, the Turing Fellowship and SA500. But with more investors, incubators, start-up infrastructure and companies moving in, New York is increasingly an appealing place for start-ups. Will it topple Silicon Valley any time soon? No, but it’s showing that it’s becoming a competitive tech destination for start-ups convinced that if they can make it there…

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Earlier this afternoon Droid-Life noticed something strange: the Android developer devices page had been modified to remove the Verizon Galaxy Nexus, leading the site to question whether Google may have removed support for the device because of its spat with Verizon over Google Wallet.  Which would stand to infuriate a lot of new Galaxy Nexus users (including myself), who are looking forward to receiving device updates directly from Google and not having to wait for Verizon to get around to pushing their own releases.

Thankfully, we’ve confirmed this isn’t the case: Google says it will indeed be updating the Verizon Galaxy Nexus in the future.

Turns out Droid Life made a bit of a logical leap, as the page stated that No CDMA Devices were supported any more, and other devices including the Sprint Nexus S 4G had been removed as well. In response to the post, Google has written a clarification to the Android Contributors group, in which it explains that CDMA devices are being removed from the Android Open Source Project site because they need carrier-signed .apk files (which users can’t generate). Here’s the post:

Hello! This is a quick clarification about support for CDMA devices.

For various technical reasons, recent CDMA Android devices implement core telephony functionality in .apk files provided in binary form by the carriers. To function correctly, these .apk files must be signed by the so-called “platform” key. However, when an individual creates a custom build from the AOSP source code, they don’t use the same signing key as these CDMA flies were signed with.

The result is that these files don’t work properly, and pure AOSP builds running on these devices can’t place calls, access mobile data, and so on. Because we aim to make sure that we are as clear as possible about the degree of support that devices have, we updated the docs over at source.android.com to reflect this reality.

We will still make available as many as possible of the closed-source binaries for these devices, and Nexus devices will continue to have unlockable bootloaders. And, of course, GSM/HSPA+ devices are still supported, as are any other devices we’re able to support. We’ve simply updated the documentation to be clearer about the current extent of CDMA support.

We are of course always working to improve support, and we’ll keep everyone updated as we make improvements. Thanks as always for your interest in AOSP!

- Dan

Video discovery startup Taboola has been growing fast, adding top publishing partners like BusinessWeek and The Washington Post, as well as expanding into the live streaming video vertical. Those new partners have helped drive growth for Taboola, which now reaches more than 100 million uniques a month.

According to data from Quantcast, Taboola has reach of more than 110 million unique visitors a month. Of those viewers, more than 65 million are in the U.S. alone. As a result, Taboola generates more than 300 million recommendations every day, CEO and founder Adam Singolda told me by email.

While Taboola, which provides a widget for recommended videos, has traditionally been used by news publishers like the New York Times who are trying to expand their available video inventory and advertising revenues, it’s been tapped by two new partners in the live streaming vertical. Ustream and Major League Gaming now both make Taboola recommendations available to their viewers.

With the move to provide recommendations for live streaming viewers, Taboola has had to add capabilities beyond just the contextual targeting that it typically uses to match up video recommendations for users. Because videos are live, the recommendations engine doesn’t have as much data to go on. So Taboola is providing recommendations based on behavioral targeting while viewers are watching live streams.

Outside of the live video market, Taboola has also added new partners. Those include BusinessWeek, The Washington Post, Food Network, The Hollywood Reporter, Daily Caller, Ask Men and Gannett’s Navy Times. With some of those publishers, the Taboola video widget is on every page of their websites.

As publishers try to expand their use of video, they need ways to highlight the content that they’ve produced. Taboola can not only provide recommendations, but can also expand the amount of video available to viewers by recommending those from other publishers and sharing revenues between them.

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If you didn't make it to London for Monki Gras, the follow on conference to Monktoberfest, you missed out on quite a lot of great content and beer.

The conference is organized by RedMonk, an unusual analyst firm. Their conferences, reflecting the analysts at RedMonk, are unusual as well. The Portland, Maine event was primarily organized by RedMonk co-founder Stephen O'Grady, who resides in Maine. This time around, the event was primarily organized by RedMonk co-founder James Governor.

Sponsor

Conference as a Joke

Some industry events have a very serious air about them. Things like VMworld or the Open Source Business Conference (OSBC) have a very button-down feel about them, and tend to be highly skewed towards sponsor-driven content. Read: sponsors get speaking slots, and it shows. Many of the talks are little more than extended commercials, and tend to be about as interesting and informative as reading sales brochures.

James Governor paces the stage at Monki Gras

The RedMonk conferences, on the other hand, started as a joke. When the RedMonk folks joked about combining a beer and developer conference, though, they found that people weren't laughing. They were asking "when," "where" and "how much"?

The price for a two-day conference, which included catered lunch and dinner with a generous and interesting selection of beer? The tickets ranged from £99 to £140, depending on when you purchased the tickets. (Disclaimer: As a speaker, I did not pay for a ticket for the event. I did pay my own travel.)

Diversity and Expanded Agenda

Some of the speaking line-up was carried over from Monktoberfest, which is OK since few of the attendees who attended Monktoberfest were likely to attend Monki Gras. Matt LeMay reprised his talk on "kitteh vs. chikin", Greg Avola of Untappd was back (though with a different talk) and Donnie Berkholz (now a RedMonk analyst) gave his "Assholes are Ruining Your Project" talk.

But there quite a few new talks as well, especially since the agenda was expanded to two days at popular demand. I particularly enjoyed the CTO vs. vice-president of engineering talk between Jason Hoffman and Bryan Cantrill of Joyent. It was not your typical, dry and dull conference fare.

Which brings me to an important point. The RedMonk conferences are a bit more rowdy than other conferences. Nobody had a "perform like a pr0n star" moment, and none of the talks were offensive at all. However, speakers did drop some f-bombs and were generally much more casual than other shows.

One of the things I dinged Monktoberfest on was the lack of diversity. The speaking line up had no women, and there were few women in attendance as well. I spoke to Governor and O'Grady about the line-up and their response was that they were aware of the problem, but had invited a few women to speak but they were not available on the date for Monktoberfest. They did assure me that they'd make an effort to have a diverse line-up for the next event, and were good at their word.

Laura Merling of Alcatel-Lucent, UX guru Leisa Riechelt, and Bocoup's Irene Ros were all on the agenda. Was it equal time? Not quite, with two days of talks Monki Gras had a lot of speakers and most were men. However, it's notoriously difficult to recruit women to speak at tech conferences. I spotted a lot more women in attendance at Monki Gras, as well, so I think that the organizers are doing what they can to provide a solid set of talks with a diverse set of speakers.

Talk Highlights

Kohsuke Kawaguchi of CloudBees had a short slot to talk about building a community around an open source project, based on his experience with Jenkins. Stop me if you've heard this before: A lone developer starts working on something as a hobby, and ultimately creates a project that's used by a huge community. Jenkins may not be quite as ubiquitous as Linux, but for a project that started as a one-man show in 2004, it's grown impressively.

How do you get contributors to your FOSS project? Kawaguchi suggests that developers "think about the conversion funnel." Usually reserved for marketers and sales folks, Kawaguchi reminded the audience that "every developer starts as a visitor." Visitors have to be able to find the resources they need to become users, before they become developers.

Kawaguchi also asks developers to make sure their code is modularized. It's easier for people to hack small pieces than one big blob. Some developers may only care about a small part of a project. And "it's good software engineering anyway." The division of labor is greater than collaboration, says Kawaguchi.

The PhoneGap talk by Andre Charland and Dave Johnson was also interesting. Charland and Johnson went through the history of PhoneGap through its purchase by Adobe. The lesson they learned around PhoneGap? You don't need sales people, you don't need marketing. If you have a really strong FOSS project like PhoneGap "people just start calling you."

If you remember the Apache considered harmful post and O'Grady's "you won't get fired for using Apache" post, then Mike Milinkovich of Eclipse had a talk that was a must-see. Not surprisingly, Milinkovich wasn't in agreement with the anti-foundational messaging in the Apache post, or O'Grady's somewhat weak defense of foundations. He made a pretty strong case for foundations as a vendor neutral place for development that provides governance, IP management, project lifecycles, community oversight and norms, etc. Unfortunately, due to the nature of Monki Gras, a lot of talks were very short. This is good in that it's hard to have a terribly boring talk in 20 minutes. It's bad, though, when someone like Milinkovich probably could have gone longer and had more interesting things to say. All good things come to an end, though.

Day two at Monki Gras

After day one's programming came to an end, the attendees were treated to a catered dinner and a beer tasting contest led by beer expert Melissa Cole. Each table was designated a "team captain" and attendees were taught a bit about beer and then led through a practice round of tasting and trying to identify beers.

Obviously the Monki Gras attendees were enthusiastic about beer, but are they knowledgeable? Well, certainly moreso now than before. I think we found that a lot of beer fans are experts on what they like, but not necessarily at identifying types of beers.

The selection of beers during dinner was interesting, and featured six British and three Belgian beers. This includes treats like Thornbridge Jaipur, Freedom Pilsner, Oakham JHB and Trappistes Rochefort 8. Note that attendees were served amounts appropriate to tasting during dinner, not nine full pints of beer. After dinner, attendees may have consumed that or more, as the beer was flowing pretty freely and there was apparently an after-party that went until past 4 a.m. In the interests of being prepared and awake for my talk the following day, I didn't make it to that one.

Day two featured a slightly smaller crowd, slightly the worse for wear, at a different venue across town.

Day two's content was just as strong as day one. In fact, I think that Why Most UX is Shite by Reichelt was probably my favorite talk. Why does most UX suck? According to Reichelt:

Leisa Riechelt at Monki Gras

• Organizations don't make decisions. Users have to make them instead. (Too much fear in deciding.)
• You think your opinion counts. Reichelt makes the point that all too often designers are influenced too strongly by the people they work closely with, instead of the people they're designing for. (But don't interact with as often.)
• You don't measure it. Reichelt says that "companies don't have good acquisition metrics or retention metrics or engagement metrics, let alone cohort analysis." The things they track are not ideal for actually making good products.
• You don't really care. Companies talk a good game, but they're not designed around user experience.
• UI is a symptom of organizational culture. "All of these things are hard and most of them start much higher up in the organization than the average UX designer ever gets to. Good UX is cultural. If you want to hire a freelancer to 'do UX' , it's like putting a plaster on gangrenous leg."

Worth the Trip?

Following the shorter agenda on the second day, the attendees adjourned to the bar next to the venue to continue talking and trying beers. It's a testament to the strength of the conference that so many folks hung around to talk to one another afterwards.

As I've said before, the most significant track for any event is the "hallway track," and the RedMonk team have generated a really strong one. Software developers and people that need to work well with developers should seriously consider attending the next event, if it's feasible. Monki Gras is easily one of the best events I've been to for actually connecting with other folks and learning about what's going on in the rest of the industry. Cap that off with good beer and food, and what else could you want from a conference?

Discuss

Updated. The Verizon Galaxy Nexus LTE handset is reportedly no longer a Google-supported developer phone, which could have software update implications. Droid-Life has some screen shots indicating that the CDMA Galaxy Nexus — and as well as Sprint’s Nexus S — no longer appear on Google’s page showing how to get devices into fastboot mode. This mode is used to lock down the phone’s software.

I hit up some web pages that I recently bookmarked to help me flash images on my GSM Galaxy Nexus and I can validate what Droid-Life is seeing. The CDMA stock images for the Galaxy Nexus, for example now show a status of “archived, for reference only.”

I’m reaching out to sources to see what this means, because it could imply nothing more than the removal of developer options in the Settings screen of the CDMA Galaxy Nexus. But if not, I wonder if this is Verizon’s effort to gain complete control over the software on its Galaxy Nexus. It’s worth recalling that Verizon was expected to get the original Nexus One, but that never happened and no explanation was ever provided. It’s not a stretch to think that a control issue at that time entered into the situation.

The other possibility here is that this is related to Google Wallet and Verizon’s push for its own mobile payment solution in Isis. A Google statement provided to The Verge indicates this to be the case. If Verizon does have ownership over the Galaxy Nexus software, the handsets could lose a key advantage: Gaining the most recent software updates before other phones. That attribute is a key selling point of the Galaxy Nexus and if this does happen, I’m sure current owners of the smartphone will be upset.

Update: On a Google Groups page for Android Contributors, the following clarification was written after this post:

For various technical reasons, recent CDMA Android devices implement core telephony functionality in .apk files provided in binary form by the carriers. To function correctly, these .apk files must be signed by the so-called “platform” key. However, when an individual creates a custom build from the AOSP source code, they don’t use the same signing key as these CDMA flies were signed with.

The result is that these files don’t work properly, and pure AOSP builds running on these devices can’t place calls, access mobile data, and so on. Because we aim to make sure that we are as clear as possible about the degree of support that devices have, we updated the docs over atsource.android.com to reflect this reality. We will still make available as many as possible of the closed-source binaries for these devices, and Nexus devices will continue to have unlockable bootloaders. And, of course, GSM/HSPA+ devices are still supported, as are any other devices we’re able to support. We’ve simply updated the documentation to be clearer about the current extent of CDMA support. So this doesn’t appear to be an issue with Google Wallet or a wresting of control; it’s more of a clarification on CDMA support for Nexus phones. Whew!

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The amount of stuff we trust to fly in and out of our smartphones is astounding. Just look at what happened when a couple of reporters got access to an unwitting (and rather unlucky) Apple employee’s iMessages alone — within days, they learned more about him than most people know about their closest friends.

Now, imagine all the stuff that could fly in and out of a government official’s phone, or that of a highly-ranked member of the military. Forget saucy texts and booty pictures — we’re talking about state secrets, here.

Looking to keep their secrets underwraps while on the go, the U.S government is working on a build of Android custom-tailored to meet their security requirements.

Word of the project comes from CNN, who notes that U.S. officials/soldiers aren’t currently allowed to send any classified data over their smartphones. If they need to transmit anything that might sink ships (so to speak), they currently need to find a secured (generally meaning hardwired) line hooked to an approved device.

Here’s the gist of the project:

• A limited number of soldiers will get the phones first, then federal agencies, then possibly contractors
• The U.S. won’t be building their own hardware — that’d be too expensive. Instead, they’ll be buying commercially available devices and reflashing them.
• They hoped to be able to offer iOS devices, but it’s not going to happen. CNN notes that federal officials met with Apple to request that they share their source — as you’d probably guess, Apple wasn’t too cool with that idea.
• Surprisingly, users of the handsets will be able to install new applications, though the handsets will put a specific emphasis on exactly what information the application can access and what it’s currently sending. Seems unlikely that they’d give these things full Android Market access, though — that’d be rather silly.
• The project is being funded by DARPA, with the NSA evaluating it as they go (while working on a version of their own, curiously.)

Most of the project’s details are still underwraps, but this is all still rather interesting. What hardware might they use? If DARPA makes any substantial security improvements to Android’s kernel, might that work make it back to the official branch? Might this work eventually be monetized (remember, Siri was born as a DARPA project) and offered to enterprises looking for a locked-down version of Android — and what does that mean for RIM/BlackBerry?