It all stems from a report that claims Apple is going to release two versions of iPad 3, one with more bells and whistles than any human being could actually ever need, and a more basic upgrade. The idea is to give them a range of price points from $499 to $399 and then the assumed $299 for the old iPad 2.

This is where speculation runs wild, suggesting that Apple could drop the iPad 2 to only $199 in order to compete with the new Kindle tablets.

The Kindle Fire is on fire. . . depending who you ask. Amazon is shouting about big sales numbers. Forbes says, probably 4 to 5 million units, cutting into Apple iPad sales by about 1 to 2 million. A loss in sales is never a good thing, but it’s not like Amazon is stealing all of Apple’s business. So is it enough to push them into a big price drop?

Bigger question, why should you care? You should care, because tablets are great for the online industry. Like laptops before them, tablets are allowing people to stay connected 24/7. But when it comes to portability, tablets make laptops look bulky.

What comes with portability? Content. People went crazy on Christmas Day, downloading apps and books into their new devices and they’ll keep on doing it.

The Washington Post states that Amazon is losing money on every Kindle Fire they sell but it’s increasing the sale of downloadable content. If Amazon is willing to take that loss, then you know they have confidence in the future of downloads. You should, too.

If you’re in any kind of online biz, tablet content should be on your priority list for 2012. With prices dropping, and more competition in the market, it’s only a matter of time before more households have tablets than TVs.

What is interesting though is the thought of these two companies that are moving along their way like two drunken sailors on leave becoming one. Imagine for a moment the talk in the search industry. Would Bing now become the search partner of Aol despite Aol’s deal with Google? Oooooooh, the drama. Would anyone outside of the search community care or even notice that this was a concern? Not likely but that’s another discussion for another time.

This is not the first time these rumors have surfaced. I would like to see these two merge for purely selfish reasons. There hasn’t been much to talk about or speculate on lately in the Internet industry. There are plenty of press releases and people saying the have the next best thing but that’s just the usual noises in the space. Then, of course, you have the latest “So what?” episode between Aol, Arianna, Michael and company which needs to go away as fast as possible.

But bringing Aol and Yahoo together would be the business equivalent of the struggling couple who can’t seem to make the relationship work but come to the brilliant conclusion that having a child will fix everything. That seems to never end well and this merger wouldn’t either in all likelihood. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t happen though and here are a few thoughts on why.

New leadership faces – Let’s face it, Tim Armstrong is not the guy to be leading Aol. His track record is spotty at best and the news as of late is that most projects he has started like Patch and now, Project Devil, are missing the mark (hey with a name like Project Devil who woulda thunk it wouldn’t go real well?). It’s time for a new leader to try to drag Aol back to Internet respectability. It should be a solid business person with a true business pedigree (one outside of the Internet space preferably) who will surround his or herself with knowledgeable people and make strong business decisions. Instead it will be Arianna Huffington which will be a spectacular train wreck so I am voting for that one!

As for Yahoo’s leadership? That oxymoron’s ship has sailed. Would it even matter at this point?

The world’s largest Internet properties garage sale – Pile the kids into the van and get to this sale early! Anyone who thinks that just taking these two limping entities and mashing them together as they currently exist will result in success is delusional. A merger of these two would be the best time to start auctioning off pieces to the highest bidder and streamlining the product and offering bloat that exists in both companies. Remember that one man’s junk is another man’s treasure so there could be a real cash infusion if parts are sold and overhead slashed to the bone for the two.

The chance of creating real competitors in certain areas – It’s not like these two companies are complete disasters. They each have parts that when combined could make for some interesting possibilities. If for nothing else the content farming business would have a megapower between Aol and Yahoo’s Associated Content. Imagine the level of craptent those two could produce on hourly basis! Woo hoo!

A chance for Aol to bow out gracefully from the dial up era – We don’t talk about it much but Aol is really getting a ton of support from its slowly dying yet highly profitable dial up operation. Hard to believe but this option still exists and it may always be needed in some limited capacity. For Aol to be taken seriously as a new age Internet company it needs to shed the last vestige of its previous heritage and move on to greener Internet pastures.

A chance for Yahoo and Aol to be defined or simply recreated– Ever see some of the answers offered for what Yahoo is? The descriptions often end up sounding like a random sample of Internet buzzwords connected with verbs so that the appearance of a sentence is given. Both Aol and Yahoo are in desperate need of defining and this is the chance to file for brand bankruptcy and start over.

There are always more possibilities as to what could become of a Aolhoo! (try pronouncing that one without feeling dirty) or a Yahaol (once again, I dare you). Heck, since there is nothing but speculation in all of this let your imaginations run wild and consider what might just happen if these two companies who represent the Internet’s version of classic rock music (aging dinosaurs trying to relive the glory days for those of you who missed that one) merged.

Let’s hear it!

Second, TechCrunch is reporting that four of the companies key product managers have been let go. TechCrunch sees it as the final stage of cleaning out those loyal to the old regime, but it does seem like an odd time to give that many top people the boot.

In recent months, Twitter has been on an upswing with new advertising programs and a new design. Kicking out the key people who made it so, just before a round of new funding feels weird. Is Twitter planning some radical change in the near future, like upping the character count to an even 200!

Comments on the news range from, “bad move on Twitter’s part,” to “yes, they need a fresh perspective.” The best comment comes from George who says, “Quick! Everyone head over to Google+ and discuss this!”

What do you think? Does this signal a major change at Twitter or will it be business as usual again by Monday morning?

Cards that rely on more than 4,000 MySQL “shards” or should that be sharts?

According to GigaOm:

…Facebook has split its MySQL database into 4,000 shards in order to handle the site’s massive data volume, and is running 9,000 instances of memcached in order to keep up with the number of transactions the database must serve.

And, citing database guru Michael Stonebraker…

…Facebook is operating a huge, complex MySQL implementation equivalent to “a fate worse than death,” and the only way out is “bite the bullet and rewrite everything.”

That may sound like an exaggeration, but having lived through this nightmare myself, he may have a point.

Trackur started off using MySQL and that worked absolutely wonderfully until we got to about 20,000 users and millions of entries. At that point, things started to groan, break, or create mysterious bugs out of thin air. In the end, we had to bite the bullet and move to a NoSQL platform that was better suited to the vast amount of data we have to index, search, and serve.

Those headaches were real. And we were on a much, much, MUCH smaller scale than Facebook. I can only imagine that the MySQL team at Facebook look something like this on any given day:

For the past few days, a mystery has been unfolding in Silicon Valley. Somebody, it seems, hired Burson-Marsteller, a top public-relations firm, to pitch anti-Google stories to newspapers, urging them to investigate claims that Google was invading people’s privacy. Burson even offered to help an influential blogger write a Google-bashing op-ed, which it promised it could place in outlets like The Washington Post, Politico, and The Huffington Post.

We could stop right there and this would be a juicy enough story, but it gets better. Not only is the company behind this anti-Google media campaign none other than Facebook–pot calling the kettle black, anyone?–but apparently Facebook has admitted it hired Burson-Marsteller to run the negative campaign.

Again, Facebook has admitted it:

Confronted with evidence, a Facebook spokesman last night confirmed that Facebook hired Burson, citing two reasons: First, because it believes Google is doing some things in social networking that raise privacy concerns; second, and perhaps more important, because Facebook resents Google’s attempts to use Facebook data in its own social-networking service.

Wow!

Look, I’m the poster child for being Radically Transparent, but someone at Facebook needs to know when to shut-up. Agreed, Facebook shouldn’t have started this campaign in the first place, but to go on record admitting to it? It’s not like Facebook came forward with a mea culpa. It didn’t apologize for such a bone-headed move. It practically bragged about it and then tried to justify its actions!

My hat is off to Dan Lyons. While other journos flapped around in the wind–trying to guess who was behind this attempted reputation hit–Dan did what appears to have been too Occams Razor-like for most reporters: he flat out asked Facebook.

Not that it took Sherlock Holmes sleuthing to put two and two together. USA Today, which uncovered half the plot, practically stumbled over the reason why it should have pointed fingers at Facebook:

Even so, Google has set out to emulate Facebook by using tracking programs and algorithms to connect more members from the top social networks to Gmail users. ”Google wants access to the dollars that Facebook is getting,” Lee says. “They’re trying to create a product that comes closer to mirroring Facebook’s ability to target specific groups of people for advertisers.”

Oh, it’s on!

Why?

Here’s the reason:

Google is preparing to show off a new music service at tomorrow’s I/O conference. And like Amazon’s launch earlier this year, the company is doing it without the approval of the major music labels and publishers.

So, you have the weight of Google thrown behind this, but you have two things working against this being a success.

First, history teaches us that when Google launches a media platform without the approval of the actual content providers, it dies pretty quickly. What happened when Google TV launched and didn’t play nicely with the other kids in the TV playground?

I’ll tell you what happened. Viacom, NBC, ABC, Fox, and CBS all blocked Google TV from accessing their content. If Google does indeed launch a music hosting service, then I’m sure the music industry will just love to work with them and won’t block them or sue them in any way. Sorry, I had an extra cup of sarcasm this morning.

OK, so what’s the second reason Google Music will be a flop? This…

…Google has apparently decided that it would rather launch a reduced version of a music service than none at all.

Oh cool! Google’s trying to enter a competitive space, it knows little about, with a half-baked offering. And when exactly did that work out for Google? Google Video, Google Answers, Google Wave, Google Print Ads, Google Buzz anyone? Without the ability to purchase and download music, what value does this really offer?

I hope Google proves me wrong. I love a lot of Google’s successes–Search, Reader, Gmail, and Chrome to name a few–but Google’s track record for entering new markets, with half-assed attempts at a product, tends to speak for itself.

Why? And what now? Fortune has the “why” covered. They’ve just published an extensive article that looks at the history of the company and the roadblocks they’ve faced. If you want all the gory details, it’s a good read.

Here’s what caught my eye;

To be fair, Twitter’s founders didn’t set out to build the next Facebook: Consumers turned it into a social phenomenon and kept signing on to see what it was about. Dorsey, Stone, and Williams started the service as an experimental side project; it was never designed to accommodate the 200 million–plus registered accounts worldwide it now hosts.

Okay, but now it’s big so it’s fight or flight time. Personally, I usually choose the later, not the former, but that’s just me. Twitter, despite the correlation, isn’t in flight mode. They’ve come back with an updated dashboard. They’ve improved functionality and they’ve firmed up their advertising component. What more do people want?

What they want, is for Twitter to be something it’s not. It’s not made for conversation. It’s not made for long statements. It’s a bulletin board big enough for the whole world to see. It’s about telling the world what you’re watching right now, what you ate for breakfast and who ticked you off, big time. That’s what it is and that’s what it does.

Then we have UberMedia, makers of one of the lesser third-party Twitter interface apps. Rumor has it they’re finalizing a deal to buy TweetDeck which would put them in a very sweet place. TweetDeck and other similar apps are designed to make up for Twitter’s natural shortcomings. They let you look at multiple accounts easily (can you believe some people have more than one account!) and they allow you to post longer messages.

CNN says that UberMedia isn’t interested in being an attachment anymore, so they’re going to launch their own micro-blogging service. By the end of the article, they backpedal saying that the launch is a “backup plan” to save them if Twitter decides to cut off all third-party apps. Yeah, sure.

If anyone is going to be able to compete with Twitter it’s the people behind either TweetDeck or HootSuite. What they need to do is find a way to make a micro-blogging platform that is more about threaded conversations and less about the one-shot shout-out. That would be a viable model that could give Twitter a run for its money.

Can anyone compete with Twitter at this point? Or maybe the question is, should anyone even bother to try?

The article says that YouTube is prepared to spend up to 100 million dollars on content created exclusively for the site. Content that goes beyond Rebecca Black’s “Friday, Friday” and endless hours of animals and babies doing funny things. What YouTube is after, is content that will have people tuning in week after week, just like they do for their favorite shows on TV.

A big part of the upgrade will be the creation of channels which will be featured on the homepage. Some of the channels will be created to support the original programing, while others will just group similar videos that are already on the site.  The Wall Street Journal says that YouTube has been in talks with all the big Hollywood talent agencies, no doubt looking for partners with name recognition to spearhead these new channels.

YouTube shouldn’t have any trouble finding talent interested in creating exclusive content. Where working on a webshow used to be akin to a Broadway star working community theater, that’s no longer the case. Many actors, directors and writers have found that they can be more creative on the web, trying things they’d never get past a major studio. And while comedy certainly rules, the landscape is wide open and ready for dramas, documentaries, reality shows and educational programing.

YouTube’s goal is to up the amount of time the average user spends on site, but if they plan to do that by adding full-length TV shows and movies, that could be a problem. Many people watch three hours of TV a night, but not many would do it online.

Still, as more people get reliable, inexpensive access to streaming videos and the content quality increases, it’s possible that YouTube could become a viable option to network TV.

Now all they have to do is convince the advertisers.

Arianna Huffington doesn’t agree. That’s the rumor, anyway. According to Business Insider, AOL, under the leadership of Huffington, is doing away with freelancers. Not only are they looking to work with only full-time employees, but one source says, those employees are expected to be at their desks at 9:00 am.

Business Insider posted an email that was sent to them from a former freelancer and I found this paragraph particularly interesting.

We’ve been told that all these new, full-time employees will be expected to report to the office every day for a 40-hour work week. For some reason, it’s very important to Arianna [Huffington] to have writers physically working in a newsroom in either LA, New York or Washington, DC, thus going back to an archaic newsroom model that went out with the invention of the telephone, and needlessly eliminating any talented writers in other parts of the country. So much for a global, cutting edge news team.

Huffington has been quoted as saying that she’s working to bring back old school journalism and for that, I say, yeah! But by cutting ties with freelancers, she’s in essence saying that she doesn’t believe they can do as good a job as an employee and that’s ridiculous.

News doesn’t happen only in LA, NY or Washington, DC. News happens everywhere, and having a freelancer close to the source can make the difference between getting the inside scoop and getting the scoop everyone else got. When it comes to niche topics, doesn’t it make more sense to have a freelance foodie from Florida than a full-time writer who also covers gardening, books and events handle that beat?

AOL’s business-and-finance editor Peter Goodman took issue with Business Insider’s original story and here’s what he had to say;

It is true that we are shifting from relying on freelancers and contractors to investing in full-time staff. We feel this gives everyone greater security and a shared mission. And we do want people right here in the newsroom, to participate in the sorts of spontaneous conversations that often yield the best ideas. This is something about which we are unabashed and even proud: We are assembling a first-rate group of full-time staff to take us forward.

As much as I hate to admit it, he’s got a point there. The one, very large, downside to having a team spread out all over the country is communication. I’ve worked with a half-dozen virtual companies and no matter how many phone calls or Skype meetings you set up, someone is always left out of the loop. And when it comes to brainstorming nothing beats a face-to-face pitch session.

But what Goodman gives with one hand, he takes away with the other.

At the same time, we will continue to embrace the contributions of a wholly different group of people — our enormous, diverse, vibrant community of bloggers. These are people who are free to write or not write as they choose. We own no claim on their time, or guarantee on production.

The phrasing here says that bloggers are not paid, someone correct me if I’m wrong. This paragraph goes along with a line in the original Business Insider post which said that although freelancers were being let go, they were told they could still contribute without pay.

I’ve been in the position of managing a writing team for a website and it is hard to keep the content flow and standards up when they’re freelancers. That’s been my experience and it sounds like AOL feels the same way, too. The trouble is AOL needs a huge amount of content everyday and now it’s going to be up to the chosen few to fulfill what was the work of the many.

So congratulations to the newly hired, full-time writers and kudos to AOL for trying to up the quality of content on the web. I’d also like to send my condolences to those same full-time writers who are going to be tearing their hair out a month from now as they try to meet all of their deadlines.

Since then, the publisher has done its best to let Reddit go the way of a Digg Dodo, but thanks to some fundraising and running a lean team, Reddit has managed to achieve some epic growth–hitting 1 billion pageviews no less!

It appears that Conde Nast is not quite ready to let go of the cash-cow that Reddit could still become and is instead mulling a sale of a stake in the site. According to CNET,

The publisher would continue to own the site, but it’s talking to investors about selling a stake. Sources tell me it is floating a $200 million valuation…The theory: taking Reddit outside of Conde Nast’s corporate structure would make the site that much more valuable, and would give it a better chance to compete for capital, managers, and employees alongside the likes of zippy start-ups like Quora, StackExchange, etc.

What a rosy picture that is! More likely, Conde Nast is not sure whether Reddit will dive or thrive and so is hedging its bet. Sell a small stake and reduce some of the risk, while still having enough skin in the game if the site soars.

Sorry, it will…take a little…longer to…type this sentence…with just one hand.

On the back of a recent $200 million investment–and a reported $80m secondary market purchase–the Wall Street Journal is reporting that both Google and Facebook are sniffing around Twitter.

Both Google and Facebook have discussed buying Twitter in the past and have kept their lines of communication open, people familiar with the matter said. One of these people said companies including Facebook and Google have expressed “latent interest” in an acquisition.

When it raised the $200m in December, Twitter’s valuation was only $3.7 billion. Now it appears that Google and Facebook are kicking around valuations anywhere between $8 billion and $10 billion.

Twitter’s estimated revenue for 2010 was just $45 million and this year it is rumored have around $100 million in revenue.

10,000,000,000 ÷ 100,000,000 = a multiple not seen since the dot com heyday.

It’s no wonder the WSJ says Twitter is a “tech bubble barometer” – 100 times revenues sure looks like a bubble. Then again, Twitter is not going away anytime soon and this valuation is not based on this year’s revenue–or even the next 2 years–but the company’s future revenues. Remember, its ad platform has not yet opened up to the general public–which that in itself should see Twitter’s revenues hit the $500m range in a just a couple of years.

Still, 100x is a multiple that would surely ignite a mini-dot com boom (or bust).

Sources say that Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase all took meetings with Linkedin back in November and the timing couldn’t be better. With the financial world all a flutter at the thought of investing in a social media site, Linkedin would be smart to jump in before Facebook steals the spotlight once again.

Of course, comparing the two social media sites is like comparing Kim Kardashian to Oprah. Like Kim, Facebook is all about connecting with friends and realtives for fun — share photos, play games, swap stories over a virtual cup of coffee. Linkedin, however, is all business. Connections are developed through working relationships and the chatter is career based. Linkedin is where you go if you want to find a professional partner, Facebook is where you go if you want a partner of a different kind.

Linkedin may not capture the headlines like Facebook but behind the scenes, they’ve got it all going on. Says the LA Times:

LinkedIn, which has more than 1,000 employees, may not have the explosive growth of Facebook but it is one of the first social media websites to become profitable, making money from premium services and advertising. LinkedIn does not disclose financial results but estimates of 2010 revenue are $200 million.

Which goes to prove that publicly popular doesn’t always mean profitable. 

Check out these current facts from their “About” page:

• LinkedIn has more than 90 million members in over 200 countries around the globe.
• A new member joins LinkedIn approximately every second, and about half of our members are outside the U.S.
• Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are LinkedIn members.

Now imagine where they could go with an IPO.

Other times, they’re a lame duck and you wonder why anyone–let alone Reuters–would waste the time writing the story.

Exhibit A:

Exclusive: AOL mulls breakup, then merger with Yahoo

Ooh, that’s a BIG story, right? AOL, trying to reinvent itself and Yahoo, looking at a boatload of options to survive.

This is a huge story for a Monday in December. Let’s examine the “smoke” to this “fire” shall we?

…The plans are still in the exploratory stage…

Oh, OK. But I am sure the two sides are deep in talks, right?

…and Yahoo has not been contacted, the sources said…

Oh well, I’m sure Reuters has someone reliable that can be quoted here.

…The sources declined to be named because they were not authorized to speak to the media…

OK, well perhaps AOL offered some kind of confirmation that it’s considering buying Yahoo.

…AOL declined to comment…

What about Yahoo?

…A spokesperson for Yahoo also declined to comment…

Yeah, but surely Yahoo would love to be acquired by AOL–if this were all true, right?

…a source close to the company reiterated that it is not seeking proposals or in any buy-out discussions with AOL…

You can’t make this stuff up! Oh, wait! Apparently you can!

There’s actually a page “2″ to this article, but really, why would you bother to read it? C’mon Reuters, we know it’s a slow news season, but if I wanted speculation, tenuous connections, and lack of citation, I’d write it myself!

According to VatorNews…

Google has just purchased Groupon for $2.5 billion, according to an unnamed insider who spoke with VatorNews.  Neither Google nor Groupon could be reached for comment to confirm the report, but Vator’s source is reliable and the report falls in line with the recent string of Groupon acquisition rumors.

If that is true, then Groupon might just be a bigger acquisition than the monstrous purchase of YouTube back in 2006. Not only is the purchase price about $1B more, but unlike YouTube at the time, Groupon is said to be raking in as much as $50 million a month!

With such a whopping price tag, Google should have enough of an investment to turn Groupon into a massive part of our daily lives. It’s that price tag that might just prevent Groupon from becoming another Dodgeball.

The big questions is: did they get a discount on the price with a coupon?

According to multiple sources close to the situation, Google is in discussions with local deals powerhouse Groupon about buying it.

Without making the requisite joke about the deal of the day, sources said the price being considered is certainly no discount–well above the $2 billion to $3 billion that Yahoo offered Groupon in acquisition talks that took place earlier this year.

But sources cautioned that the talks are not complete, and could also end up without any result, as the Yahoo discussions did.

So yes it is a rumor but a pretty compelling one. Not to be left out, Henry Blodget feels that Google needs to spend some of that mountain of cash they have in Mountain View.

Google is in talks to buy Groupon for more than $3 billion, Kara Swisher reports.

Good.

Google offered $2.5-$4 billion to buy Twitter a few months ago, Nicholas Carlson reports.

Also good.

Google’s Marissa Mayer is obsessed with Foursquare and is probably considering buying it.

Also good.

Google should buy all these leading companies–and more.

Here’s why:

Google has cash coming out of its ears, and the cash is currently doing the company no good whatsoever.

Pretty straightforward, huh? Whether or not any of this comes to fruition, it is starting to look more and more like Google may have had enough of developing Wave after Wave (pun obviously intended) of failed social / collaboration / whatever it is they were trying to do offerings.

Google needs to be in the social space. They need to maintain the relevancy of search as we know it or at least gracefully evolve moving forward. These things take some nuance and some more than just whiz bang engineering. It takes a soul, which Google sometimes seems to lack because it comes off as very robotic and almost stuffy at times.

I think it would be great if they bought a big name in the social space. It would give us all something to blabber about for a few days. What would be more interesting is what that purchase looks a year from the time it is bought. You can buy a small niche player like they often do and let it assimilate into the Goog without much trouble. Most people didn’t know that the companies they purchase even existed anyway.

But take a high flyer with a growing brand like Groupon or fourssquare and then see if they smother it like Lennie did to critters in “Of Mice and Men” or if they let it grow and then figure out how to integrate rather than assimilate it into the existing Google ecosystem.

All in all, it would be interesting to see Google try to buy its way into the social world. I think it’s the only way they can succeed because being social isn’t the strong suit of most engineers.

For example, if someone Tweets about a new movie and 500 of his friends follow a link to buy a ticket for the movie, then the original referrer gets a kickback for each ticket. When asked if Foursquare was working on this idea, Crowley said it was on a long list of ideas under consideration.

Here’s where it gets sticky. Jeff Bercovici from Forbes.com asked Crowley how he would get around the FTC ruling that required full disclosure when an endorsement was offered on social media in return for payment of some kind (cash, product or service.)

Bercovici writes:

Crowley was surprised. He hadn’t known that was the case, he said. He made a note to bring up the issue with Foursquare’s legal team, and thanked me for alerting him to a potential complication that could influence their decision about whether to move forward.

Gawker and other outlets picked up on the statement and replied with jeering remarks about Crowley’s intelligence and his ability to run a major company.

But the truth is, the FTC ruling may not apply in Foursquare’s case. Here’s the important section from the FTC’s “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

The Commission does not believe that all uses of new consumer-generated media to discuss product attributes or consumer experiences should be deemed “endorsements” within the meaning of the Guides.

Rather, in analyzing statements made via these new media, the fundamental question is whether, viewed objectively, the relationship between the advertiser and the speaker is such that the speaker’s statement can be considered “sponsored” by the advertiser and therefore an “advertising message.”

In other words, in disseminating positive statements about a product or service, is the speaker: (1) acting solely independently, in which case there is no endorsement, or (2) acting on behalf of the advertiser or its agent, such that the speaker’s statement is an “endorsement” that is part of an overall marketing campaign?

The way I read that, a person who decides to talk about a movie to their friends, then after the fact, gets a $15 Fandango gift certificate as a thank you, doesn’t constitute an endorsement and thus isn’t covered by the rule.

If Foursquare says to a member, we’ll give you a Fandango gift certificate if you checkin from your local theater and give a glowing report of the movie — that’s an endorsement and has to have a disclaimer.

Offering social media kickbacks for positive results is not a contract between the company and the user. It’s not a paid endorsement. Giving me a DVD for free in return for a review on my blog, is an endorsement.

So anyone who plans on poking fun at Crowley for not having the right answer to the question should think about this. He founded a multi-million dollar social media company that grew to 4 million users in just over a year. What have you done lately?

Well, Cuil had its PR engine revved to the max, when it launched in 2008. It claimed to be bigger, better, and safer to use than Google.

Fast forward a little over two years and let’s see how things are working out for Cuil, shall we?

Yikes, apparently it can’t even keep the lights on. I mean, if the rumors are true, and Cuil’s still trying to find a buyer to rescue it, then you’d think someone would cough up the $10 needed to host a “We’ll be right back!” page. Apparently not.

So much for the “Google Killer” with a $200 million valuation.

Oh, there’s so much to discuss in that statement. First of all, ‘social layer?’ Some reporters are taking this to mean that Google will be adding social elements to all of their current sites as opposed to developing a new site specifically aimed at competing with Facebook. This being the case, it’s likely they’ll create a home page for people that allows them to link to and follow all of the related info from their friends.

Remember, Google already tried a similar trick with Google Buzz which was a horrendous failure. But Buzz was like Twitter meets Digg and not a true social networking site where you can spend virtual time with your friends.

The second part of the statement is the “this fall” part. Isn’t it fall? Or is he talking about calendar fall which will happen on September 22. Sure there have been rumors of a social site on the horizon, but are they really ready to roll out a major program in the next few weeks?

As for the “slipped” part, I wasn’t there, but according to Bloomberg, Schmidt dropped the info unexpectedly when a Facebook executive made a comment about Google building a social networking site. When questioned further, he wouldn’t elaborate, except to say that he hoped Facebook would allow Google access to their data. The Wall Street Journal wrote:

“The best thing that would happen is for Facebook to open up its data,” Mr. Schmidt said. “Failing that, there are other ways to get that information.” He declined to be specific.

If Google Me gets it even half right, they could be the first real competition Facebook has seen in a long time. Looking at the track record though, I don’t expect to see a mass exodus from Facebook anytime soon.

Can Google can put together a strong social networking site that’s strong enough to knock out the current king? What do you think?

Apparently Future US, the parent company of Daily Radar, has pulled the plug on the entire network including BallHype, ShowHype and my beloved TVBlips. Seriously? Just like that?

I took a turn around the internet and Twitter and was surprised to find that it wasn’t a big topic of conversation. Few people seem to have noticed the closure and maybe that, right there, explains it all.

Daily Radar was a niche version of Digg. Instead of adding your links to a general pot, you added them to a specific “blips” portal individually or by way of a feed. They had a site for TV, music, politics, green living, webmarketing, technology and all the major sports. There had to be at 30 – 50 sites in the network and now there are none.

Websites close everyday, though not as often as they used to, but this no notice closure is particularly annoying because Daily Radar was a community site. It wasn’t written by staff members. I know this because I was a staff member a few years ago. We kept the sites neat and tidy, but the content was provided by the thousands of blog feeds that were listed across all the niche sites.

Once you became a member, there was friending and following and voting stories up and down and commenting. . .you know. . .a community. People. People  like me who both enjoyed reading the sites and learned to depend on it as a means of marketing my posts.

I suppose there are numerous legitimate business reasons for not alerting the world that a site is about to go dark. I also supposed that I wouldn’t feel any better about losing a site I visited on a regular basis if I knew about it ahead of time. Still, it would be nice to hear an explanation, even if it is the standard, we weren’t making enough money.  The parent company, Future US, is a major publisher of gamer and computer magazines, which has to be a tough sell these days. Things are changing so fast, how can there be any new news in a computer magazine that has to be written three months before publication? Maybe the downturn in magazine sales meant that the budget had to be slashed and Daily Radar took the bullet.

Maybe in the next few days, more news on the whys and wheres will come to light. But for me, it’s a sad day. Daily Radar sites are on the referrers list on every one of my websites and I will be hard pressed to find a replacement. Maybe the new Digg will take their spot? I doubt it, but I’ll give it a try.

Were you a Daily Radar blip site user? What are your thoughts on the no-notice shut down?

Says Atkinson, it’s AOL’s online ad marketing mojo that is of interest to Facebook, and it’s enough for the popular kid on the playground to consider hanging out with the nerd.

“Think of Tim Armstrong’s former role running ad sales for Google and think of where Facebook needs help.”

In addition to the ad sales techniques, AOL also has a large amount of content and since there’s no such thing as too much content, it can only help sweeten the deal. Armstrong also worked with Facebook’s COO Sandberg and head of ad sales David Fischer so he’s already someone they feel comfortable with and that can go along way in business.

The New York Post article sums it all up with a quote by Internet consultant Shelly Palmer.

“Put them together, you get context, contact and content.”

Though neither party would comment on the rumor, Facebook has nothing to lose and AOL has everything to gain by teaming up. I can hear it now, the familiar, deep dulcet tone announcing, “You’ve Got Friend Requests.” Followed by the sharp squelch of a connecting modem.