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For those Web companies that comply by it, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is turning out to be their best friend. Last week, Universal Music Group (UMG) was denied a summary judgment by a Los Angeles court in its copyright infringement case against Veoh. (Court order embedded below). UMG wanted a summary judgment against Veoh, arguing that it could not hide behind the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA, which state that Web services are not liable for the copyright infringement of its users if it takes certain steps to prevent it.

This is the second time a summary judgment has been denied to a company trying to sue Veoh for copyright infringement. (The last time it was a porn company). These orders are setting important legal precedents not just for Veoh, but for YouTube and others also facing DMCA lawsuits.

The safe harbor of the DMCA states that Web services are not liable for copyright infringement if the content is stored “at the direction of a user.” UMG tried to argue that Veoh should not be covered by the safe harbor because it did a bunch of things with the music and video content after it was stored on its servers, including converting it into Flash, breaking it up into chunks for peer-to-peer distribution, and allowing other users to stream it or download it.

The judge, A Howartd Matz, didn’t buy the argument. He found Veoh’s position to be “more persuasive,” noting that user’s must agree to Veoh’s Terms of Service before uploading a video, and that the terms of service clearly prohibit uploading copyrighted material. In other words, the initial act of uploading is considered to be user-directed storage under the DMCA, and whatever Veoh does to process the video after that cannot be used to get around the letter of the law.

If you live by the DMCA, be prepared to die by the DMCA.

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Picasa, the popular free photo management software made by Google, has finally made its way to the Mac. The application has long been noticeably absent on the Macintosh - especially given the fact that it has been available for Linux (which typically lags behind Macs and Windows) since 2006. It’s also a direct competitor to Apple’s long running iPhoto product, which has come with all new Macs for years. So how does it stack up?

In my brief testing the application seems to be very snappy (much faster than iPhoto), though it lacks the sleek look of Apple’s products. Photos import quickly, effects are easy to find and apply, and most things are intuitive, though the folder browsing can be a little confusing. It might not be as pretty as iPhoto, but I won’t be surprised if power-users make the switch (or at least consider it).

One of the biggest differences between Picasa and iPhoto is that Picasa doesn’t move or reorganize images, but instead keeps track of where your images are scattered across your hard drive and allows you to view them in one place. For users that manually manage their photos by sorting them into folders, this is a very welcome change. In contrast, iPhoto has long transfered your photos to its own library, and encouraged users to sort their photos through the app itself.

Given that iPhoto has come preinstalled on every Mac for years, Google is doing doing everything it can to make Picasa play nice with your existing library. While users can typically modify any image on their hard drive directly from Picasa, all images in iPhoto’s library are treated differently: the application will copy these images to a new location, and only then apply edits. The application also allows users to revert back to previous versions.

Picasa is a welcome alternative to iPhoto, but it’s still premature to drop iPhoto entirely. It’s highly likely that Apple will unveil a new version of iPhoto at tomorrow’s Macworld keynote, and you can be sure that it will include some significant enhancements.

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After picking the wrong horse in the Presidential Election (where she might have become Secretary of the Treasury if John McCain had won), former eBay CEO Meg Whitman now looks to be laying the groundwork for a run at the governorship in California in 2010. (The current Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, cannot run for another term under existing laws). Whitman today resigned from all the corporate boards she serves on—eBay, Procter & Gamble, and Dreamworks Animation. While she hasn’t formally declared that she is even exploring the possibility of becoming a candidate, that is the scuttlebutt.

If she wins the Republican nomination, candidates she could face on the Democratic side include former California Governor Jerry Brown (who is thinking of running again) and two popular mayors (Gavin Newsom of San Francisco and Antonio Villaraigosa of Los Angeles). If she hopes to stand a chance, she needs to cultivate more of a populist streak. Expect to see her on a lot more talk shows.

Even though she left eBay a year ago, much of her appeal will be tied to the public’s perception of the company, which has seen better days. If eBay turns itself around and is once again seen as a success in two years, that will help her campaign. But if eBay sellers and buyers continue to flee from the service, that will hurt her. She cannot escape the eBay association.

Would you vote for her?

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The iPhone is the hottest platform around, leading some small-time developers to overnight riches and spawning over ten thousand apps in only a few months. But without knowledge of Objective-C or the intricacies of the iPhone SDK, many talented designers have no way of getting their wares onto the App Store. Today, Viximo has released a landmark new development platform called VixML that allows talented designers to create basic applications with a minimal amount of programming knowledge. The new development platform could easily turn into one of the most important tools for novice iPhone developers, and with the the tagline “this way to iPhone awesomeness”, it’s clear that Viximo has high expectations.

VixML is based on the XML markup language, which may still be intimidating enough to scare off some prospective designers but is nowhere near as complex as an actual programming language. Using a number of pre-designated tags, the VixML WYSIWYG SDK and emulator, designers can create rich, multimedia mini-apps in a matter of days that would have previously taken weeks or months of programing. Basic tags allow developers to make their applications sensitive to a number of common iPhone user inputs, including shaking, blowing into the microphone, swiping and tapping with fingers, and tilting the phone. The platform also includes support for an integrated 3D graphics engine for nifty particle effects.

Once you’ve developed your VixML project, there’s the matter of actually getting it onto the App Store. For now, all projects will be part of Viximo’s upcoming True Flirt application, which allows users to send these mini-apps to each other as virtual greetings. To send a “Flirt”, you’ll need the premium version of the app, which is $5.99. If the recipient of a flirt doesn’t have the app installed, they’ll be sent an SMS message inviting them to download a free version that allows them to view and interact with Flirts, but doesn’t allow them to send them.

Developers will be able to submit their projects to be included as part of the main True Flirt application, or as standalone ‘Flirt Packs’ that will be sold as separate apps. Ideally users would simply be able to buy these flirts through the main application instead of having to deal with separate Flirt Packs, but the App Store doesn’t currently support micro-transactions so we’re left with this inelegant solution. Still, for the time and money saved in development costs, the hassle may well be worth it for many designers.

However, there are a few major caveats. All projects designed in VixML must go through Viximo for deployment on the App Store, which means that you’ll need to go through two gatekeepers for approval (both Viximo and the standard Apple approval process), and you won’t be able to release yours apps outside of the True Flirt brand for some time. Viximo says that there will be a revenue sharing arrangement for each app that gets deployed, but is unwilling to discuss exactly how much will be going back to the developers. It sounds like this will be determined on a per-developer basis (and you’ll be told how much you’re getting once you’ve submitted an app), but the lack of even a ballpark figure is disconcerting (why build something when you have no idea how much you’re going to get paid?).

These issues aside, VixML seems like a powerful platform that could open up the iPhone to countless new developers, provided the developer restrictions aren’t too extreme. Granted, you won’t be able to build anything as complex as Tap Tap Revenge or Shazam, but the App Store has proven that even the most basic applications can do extremely well.

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Phishing attacks, which hit Twitter over the weekend, are a sign a service has arrived (Facebook has the same problem). But someone hacking into Twitter’s internal admin tools and compromising 33 high profile accounts, including President Elect Barack Obama, has Twitter users freaking out about what to do.

Here is Twitter’s official explanation:

This morning we discovered 33 Twitter accounts had been “hacked” including prominent Twitter-ers like Rick Sanchez and Barack Obama (who has not been Twittering since becoming the president elect due to transition issues). We immediately locked down the accounts and investigated the issue. Rick, Barack, and others are now back in control of their accounts.

What Happened?

The issue with these 33 accounts is different from the Phishing scam aimed at Twitter users this weekend. These accounts were compromised by an individual who hacked into some of the tools our support team uses to help people do things like edit the email address associated with their Twitter account when they can’t remember or get stuck. We considered this a very serious breach of security and immediately took the support tools offline. We’ll put them back only when they’re safe and secure.

Most of us got a good chuckle out of the various messages that were left on the Twitter accounts for Barack Obama, Britney Spears, Bill O’Reilly and others this morning. But one other message came through loud and clear - Twitter is not yet ready for prime time, even though users continue to flock to the service.

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The Crunchies ceremony and party in San Francisco is just four days away. Who’s going to win best startup of 2008? It’s up to you. Just make sure you vote by Wednesday (we’ve extended the voting deadline by two days).

We’ve got an awesome evening planned. The ceremony kicks off at 7:30 pm, Friday, January 9 at the historic Herbst Theater in San Francisco. Awards will be given out to the winners (yep, those gorilla statues - here’s the back story).

Among other surprises at the event, you’ll see the famous Richter Scales make a return performance. We’ve commissioned them to write a special song just for the Crunchies.

Right after the main event is a big party at City Halls Rotunda, from 9 - midnight. MySpace will be showing up with a fancy DJ, and drinks will be flowing.

Tickets are available here until they are sold out. See you there!

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Smarter-email startup Xobni has raised $7 million in a B round of financing from Cisco Systems and existing investors Khosla Ventures, First Round Capital, Baseline Ventures, and Atomico. Three of the four existing investors increased their ownership stakes in the company. But Cisco led the round, highlighting the importance of enterprise e-mail for Xobni (that’s where the money is). CEO Jeff Bonforte says:

The people that use our product are professionals and corporate users (around 70% in North America), so we have always had a corporate focus (it is Outlook after all). We have been fielding a ton of demand to license our software for users in corporate environments…so we have been addressing that demand. Cisco’s participation recognizes that Xobni is being used heavily by corporate users (and professionals like lawyers, real estate agents, etc). Cisco knows those customers really well, so this is a big bonus for us to have them helping us.

Obviously, building a business around these types of users and usage is a lot more straightforward than an advertising-based web 2.0 company.

Xobni previously raised a little more than $4 million. It’s last round was in March, 2007. Its e-mail plug-in has been downloaded more than 1.5 million times. Xobni was in acquisition talks with Microsoft last year, but nothing came of it. Cisco’s interest in enterprise e-mail picked up last August with its $215 million purchase of PostPath, which it folded into its WebEx business. So there might be some product integration opportunities for Xobni as well. (Read our previous coverage on Xobni here).

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Two notes from Wall Street analysts came to my inbox today with top-ten predictions for what 2009 holds in store for the technology industry. J.P. Morgan’s Imran Khan, for instance, predicts Yahoo and Microsoft will finally strike a search deal, video advertising on the Web isn’t working, retail bankruptcies could actually help e-commerce companies, and that M&A activity will pick up in the second half of 2009 (but the IPO market will be dead until 2010).

Barclays’ Doug Anmuth thinks that both Yahoo and eBay will make major strategic moves this year to try to right their businesses, distribution wars in search will break out between Google and Microsoft, and there will be consolidation among the 300-plus ad networks out there. Both believe that performance-based advertising will continue to rise in importance.

Rather than reproduce all 20 predictions from both analysts, I’ve picked six from each and listed them below. You can vote for your favorite predictions, or the ones you think are most likely to happen, in the poll at the bottom of the post. (I also threw in a couple extra ones for good measure from John Battelle: “Google will see search share decline significantly for the first time ever” and “Yahoo and AOL will merge”). Add your own predictions in comments.

Imran Khan’s 2009 Tech Predictions (J.P. Morgan)

1. Potential search deal likely between Yahoo! and Microsoft
2. Net Neutrality should become an important mainstream issue
3. Challenges in monetizing video advertising should persist
4. Mobile usage should continue its strong growth momentum, but mobile
   advertising will likely be challenging this year
5. Possible bankruptcies in brick-and-mortar retail should create opportunities
   for eCommerce companies
6. M&A consolidation activities could potentially resume during 2H’09 (IPO market is dead until 2010)

Doug Anmuth’s 2009 Tech Predictions (Barclays Capital)

1. Yahoo and eBay will make major strategic decisions
2. Performance-based advertising will be more important than ever
3. Increased Competition For Search Distribution Via Toolbars, OEM Deals, and Partnerships
4. Proliferation of Smart Phones Will Drive The Mobile Internet
5. Small Strategic Acquisitions Will Re-Emerge
6. Ad Networks To Consolidate

Which Is the Best Tech Prediction For 2009?
( surveys)

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JPG magazine, which was declared dead less than a week ago, is most definitely for sale and it looks like a transaction will close shortly.

Twenty or so potential buyers have expressed interest, say our sources, including Flickr (a natural fit because the photos published by JPG Magazine are submitted by readers), Smugmug and Alexander Muse. Wordpress also expressed early interest, we’ve heard, although they’ve pulled out of the bidding.

It’s unclear how much it’ll take to get the JPG Magazine assets, but our understanding is that 8020 Media, the company behind the publication, is fielding cash offers only and is being fairly successful in getting a bidding war going.

Fans are going to want to see this end up at Flickr.

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Prologue:

Three years ago when Web 2.0 began proliferating, Israeli startups used eSnips as the poster child for their case that a successful social network could be founded in Israel.  Based on the criteria in those days, eSnips was in fact delivering: It was able to convince top tier VCs to buy into an advertising-based business model, it leveraged user-generated content (the main activity is sharing personal media), used free storage as a hook, traffic was rising steadily, and it became a press darling domestically and internationally. As we say in Israel, “It was all honey”.

Now fast forward to Q4 2008. A shell of its previous self, eSnips is now a startup train wreck: Founders divorced and dismissed, threatened by litigation courtesy of a record label and, with no possibility for further funding, the company was unloaded for approximately $750,000 to the Logia Group.

In the past three months I have spoken to a number of sources close to the company and have managed to reconstruct the circumstances that brought the company from its zenith, to its nadir.

The fall of eSnips is a story of heartache that is intertwined, unfortunately, with the destruction of a marriage.  All startup co-founders feel like married couples from time to time, but when they actually are married it can add to the level of stress and the complexity of running the business.   As I relate the events that led to the company’s current situation below, I’ll do my best to stick to the business issues at hand.  But the line between what is business and what is personal can sometimes get messy, especially with startups.

Episode I: Heartbreak Hotel

One of the worst kept, but most respected secrets in the Israeli startup scene was the marriage that fell apart between eSnip’s CEO Yael Elish and her CTO husband Alon. When Yael left the company, the local press didn’t publicize the real story. We also covered the drama, noting the explanation given for her departure was “personal reasons”.

The trouble at eSnips began around October 2007 when Yael began to spend more and more time out of the office. Employees perceived this as having to do with activities related to a second round of financing. By December it became evident that this had more to do with a deterioration in the couple’s relationship. (I have tried to contact her for comment and will update the post if she responds).

The meltdown had the greatest impact on Alon, who as one source close to the company put it “was clearly unable to work after the mid-December announcement [with media coverage alluding to the personal crisis] and some days came in, others not.” An awkward situation ensued and confusion among employees grew in regards to the company’s future. This had a clear and immediate effect on the company’s day-to-day operation. As the same source put it “All work just stopped.” Technologically no one picked up the slack and no new development took place. eSnips entered a maintenance “steady state”.

Between October and December the company re-ignited its fundraising activities to correspond with the release of its “Social DNA” feature. I happened to have attended the release party and clearly remember a very odd vibe on the part of the employees. In retrospect, I can best describe it as the collective anticipation of watching a house of cards about to fall upon itself.

As word began leaking out, VCs interested in participating in the Series B funding backed off as it became clear that Yael would be walking away. In mid-December 5 to 7 employees were let go and Yael notified the remaining employees that she was leaving eSnips. The company then embarked on an unsuccessful hunt for an external CEO, interviewing candidates from both the US and Israel.

In mid-January 2008 another group of employees were let go, leaving eSnips with a couple of engineers and a content manager in place. It was around February that Dr. Nahum Sharfman, the company’s Chairman (formerly one of the founders of Shopping.com), stepped in as CEO, cutting loose both Yael and Alon (who were still full time employees). The goal was now to cut losses and sell the company.

Episode II: Disco Inferno

In a fascinating—and until now unknown—twist in the eSnips story, the personal drama may have eclipsed a major business threat. Record label EMI may in fact have played a considerable role in the company’s demise.

While eSnips was taking measures to police content uploaded by users, certain copyrighted material ended up online. In mid-October 2007 EMI called the company on it. This could not have come as a real surprise because eSnips knew for well over a year that users were sharing a great amount of copyrighted music with each other through the service. It was right around this time that it began cracking down on the behavior by using Audible Magic’s music fingerprinting technology. As a consequence, doing so eventually had a negative impact on the site’s traffic. EMI though remained steadfast in vocalizing its discontent.

This is where things get a bit murky… I was unable to ascertain whether EMI actually sued or was just aggressively threatening the company. I was however able to learn that somewhere in the area of a quarter to a third of the final purchase price of the company was paid to EMI. This to me indicates that EMI’s role in eSnip’s implosion was not a minor one.

Episode III: A New Hope

It took nearly nine months for the investors to unload eSnips to the Logia Group which took it over on November 1. According to the individuals I spoke with, the purchase price did not exceed $750K. Now subtract a quarter to one third piped to EMI to settle its beef with the company. This leaves the investors recouping around $500K of the $5.5M poured into eSnips.

The Logia Group’s purchase of eSnips came out of left field as it is a collection of companies that mostly have to do with mobile content (see image below). If for no other stakeholder, the purchase could at least spell some new hope for eSnip’s users.  ComScore estimates the site still attracts 5.7 million unique visitors a month worldwide (as of November, 2008), down from a peak of 9.1 million last March.

I spoke to Itai Aaronsohn who will head the new eSnips about what Logia has in store for it. He communicated to me that eSnip’s basic functionality will not change. It will remain a free service with media sharing as its foundation, but will see new mobile and content layers added—both of which are Logia’s expertise.

In the short term users should expect an enrichment in the video and music departments, as well as the addition of casual games. Premium content and possibly original production will be added down the line. Users should also expect the addition of a mobile experience where access to personal media will be provided from handsets.

Epilogue:

Clearly, all was far from honey at eSnips.

There were fundamental flaws in the role that UGC, copyrighted material and advertising revenue held in the company’s overall strategy.

Then of course there was the personal drama. Some investors are principally against investing in husband-and-wife teams. eSnips sure strengthens the case. However, one can always use contrary examples such as Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield of Flickr, Ben and Mena Trott of SixApart, or Ruth Parasol and Russ DeLeon of PartyGaming. It doesn’t always have to go awry.

One thing cannot be argued though… Many of eSnips’ users are loyal and have stuck around through the company’s rollercoaster ride. For a great while they received the short end of the stick with no new features and little attention. Logia promises this will change, and that is as much of a silver lining as one could hope for in an otherwise sad story.

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Not much else to add but the Roku Netflix box will soon be able to stream 40,000 Amazon titles on demand, "enabling Roku customers for the first time to watch new release movies titles instantly." The movies cost as much as the do on Amazon and the box will simply connect to your online account and have no movie adding/browsing functionality. The system should be similar to the current Netflix scheme. Watch new release movies the same day that they are released on DVD. Hit titles such as “The Dark Knight,” “Hancock,” “Pineapple Express”, “Tropic Thunder” and hundreds more that are not currently available on the Roku Player.

My guess is this has nothing to do with the phishing attacks that started on Twitter a couple of days ago. But a few minutes ago the official Fox News Twitter account posted “Breaking: Bill O Riley is gay” (referring to the host of the popular Fox show O’Reilly Factor), right after a legitimate message about making turkey lettuce wraps.

My guess is they’re just finding out about it now, and realizing their password, which was probably “password,” has been changed. Twitter will promptly restore the account to its rightful owners, I’m sure. But here’s my question - if you’ve had your Twitter account hacked, how long did it take you to get it back?

Update: Ok, this is turning into a coordinated attack or one heck of a coincidence. The official Britney Spears Twitter account (which launched in October) also appears to have been hacked Any others?

Update 2: We’ve got another winner: Rick Sanchez from CNN, who’s apparently not going to make it to work today because he’s “high on crack right now.”

Update 3: Et Tu, Facebook? (see comments for bonus hack on Obama’s account)

Update 4: Next! Huffington Post goes down too:

Update 5: 33 accounts were hacked after Twitter’s internal admin tools were compromised.

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After Steve Jobs pulled out of giving the keynote at this year’s Macworld, there was rampant speculation once again about his health. The shares took a hit as investors began to worry about whether Jobs would be able to remain at the helm of the company. Despite an obvious distaste for talking publicly about his health, Apple released a letter today from Jobs designed to dispel the rumors that his cancer has returned, but which reveals that a mysterious “hormone imbalance” has caused him to lose weight. It also admits that this health problem indeed was one of the reasons why Jobs won’t be giving the Macworld keynote. (Apple’s chief marketing officer Phil Schiller will be filling in for him instead).

Here is an excerpt from Jobs’ healthnote:

Unfortunately, my decision to have Phil deliver the Macworld keynote set off another flurry of rumors about my health, with some even publishing stories of me on my deathbed.

. . . As many of you know, I have been losing weight throughout 2008. The reason has been a mystery to me and my doctors. A few weeks ago, I decided that getting to the root cause of this and reversing it needed to become my #1 priority.

Fortunately, after further testing, my doctors think they have found the cause—a hormone imbalance that has been “robbing” me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy. Sophisticated blood tests have confirmed this diagnosis.

The remedy for this nutritional problem is relatively simple and straightforward, and I’ve already begun treatment. But, just like I didn’t lose this much weight and body mass in a week or a month, my doctors expect it will take me until late this Spring to regain it. I will continue as Apple’s CEO during my recovery.

Jobs stresses that if at any time in the future he cannot perform the duties of the CEO for health reasons or otherwise, he will inform Apple’s board. The board, in turn, promises to inform its shareholders and the public. Let’s wish him a speedy recovery.

(Here is Crunchgear’s take: “Apple left MacWorld because Apple gets nothing from MacWorld.”)

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At the beginning of each year I traditionally publish a list of my favorite startups and products. This is the fourth year I’ve done this - previous lists: 2006, 2007, 2008. You guys get to pick the winners of the Crunchies - this list is all mine.

This is a list of the products I tend to use daily. Some are for work (Wordpress, Delicious, Zoho, etc.), some are for fun (MySpace Music, Hulu, etc), and some are useful for both (Digg, Skype, YouTube, etc.). But I use most of them every day, or nearly every day, and I would not be as productive or happy without all of them.

The list changes a bit from year to year, and is also getting longer (see chart). Just three products have been favorites all four years: TechMeme, Skype, Wordpress. TechMeme continues to be the news aggregator I check multiple times per day to keep up on tech news. Skype is the instant messaging and VoIP platform that I use most often, and Wordpress software powers all of our blogs.

I’ve added nine new products, including one gadget (which I’ve left off in the past): Animoto, Friendfeed, Hulu, iPhone 3G, MySpace Music, Pandora (which was on in previous years) Docstoc/Scribd and Yammer.

I’ve removed six products from last year’s list: Amazon Music, Amie Street, Firefox, Flickr, Netvibes, Technorati.

I still use the products I’ve removed, just not as much as in previous years. I find I’m just using Netvibes and Technorati less this year (Netvibes because Google Reader is so excellent, Technorati has fallen in favor of Google Blog Search mostly because it’s too slow and has too many internal links). I tend to upload photos to Facebook now because of the people tagging feature and since it flows well with the rest of my news feed (I use Posterous for mobile uploads); Flickr is becoming less important for me. I have moved most of my music consumption to MySpace Music, and download DRM-free MP3s from iTunes when I want to buy. Amie Street is still a great place to discover new music though, and I think their business model, which is variable pricing for music based on its popularity, is sound. Firefox is off the list as I experiment with Chrome, but I haven’t made a decision one way or the other. When Chrome launches for the Mac, I’m likely to switch.

As in past years, there are a gaggle of other great products that I use regularly but didn’t add to the list in order to keep it manageable. I also haven’t added individual iPhone apps that I use daily, even though they are nearly as important to productivity and fun as the products that did make the list. Next year I expect more than a few will be added.

Here’s the current list, in alphabetical order, of products I use every day and couldn’t live without:

800-Free-411

800-Free-411 first made the list in 2007 and it isn’t leaving any time soon. Use it to make free directory assistance calls and avoid per call charges of up to $3.50 that cell phone carriers charge. The company has taken more than 6% of the market for directory service calls in the U.S. Google, Microsoft, AT&T and others have entered the market, but Jingle Networks, the company offering the product, has a patent on the idea of pairing advertising with free directory service. Here’s a tip: add “FREE411USA” as a Skype contact and do lookups that way, too.

Animoto

Animoto, which joins the list for the first time this year, does one thing, and well: it creates slide shows from photos. Unlike all the other services on the list, I don’t use it daily. But their new iPhone application put it over the edge this year. I really like this service.

Delicious

Social bookmarking site Delicious has been on the list for three of the four years (I took a brief detour in 2007 to a competing service called Blue Dot, then switched back). Delicious 2.0 is finally stable and the Firefox add-on is the reason I keep using it. Also, they long ago switched away from the annoying del.icio.us domain name, so I don’t have to look up where the dots go every time I visit the site.

Digg

Digg has been on the list the last three years. The site remains a fun place to hang out when I have some spare time to review the news, and Digg is one of our top ten sources of traffic. Hacker News is another Digg-like news site that focuses on tech that I visit daily as well.

Facebook

I visit Facebook daily to keep up with what my 5,000 closest friends are up to. I’m not a big fan of most of the applications that have launched on Facebook, but I do use it for photos and events. Unlike last year, though, I also now use MySpace as well regularly to reach people. These are the two social networks you have to be on to keep in touch with everyone.

Friendfeed

Friendfeed, a microblogging and activity aggregating service, only officially launched in February 2008. I use the service daily, although I’m not nearly as addicted as some bloggers are to the service. But like Twitter, Friendfeed is a good place to find breaking news on a variety of topics, and it’s become a must have service.

Gmail

I’ve never been a fan of the way Gmail groups message threads, and things like tagging of messages could be improved, but the service is far and away superior to any other web mail service in terms of features (Yahoo Mail has the best user interface in my opinion). I continue to rely on Gmail as my main personal email provider. Once Gears is integrated for offline use, I may stop accessing it via IMAP.

Google Reader

Three years ago I was using Bloglines to read feeds. Then I tried NetNewsWire for a while. But Google Reader, which first launched in October 2005 as a seriously flawed product, continues to evolve and is by far the best feed reader on the market today.

Hulu

Hulu isn’t about work, it’s about watching TV and films after the work is done. I openly mocked the service for nearly a year as they fumbled around, but now here it is, on a list of sites I visit constantly. I spend more time watching Hulu than I do normal cable television.

iPhone 3G

The first gadget I’ve included over the years - the iPhone 3G, which was announced on June 9, 2008, is simply the best device I’ve ever used. Sure, it doesn’t have a physical keyboard. But I can actually browse the web with this thing, and that more than makes up for a slower typing speed. This is a beautiful thing.

MySpace Music

MySpace Music is just a couple of months old and is still very buggy, but it changed the way users think about music on a big scale. MySpace combined its millions of band/artist pages with legal and free streaming music from the labels and creating a very compelling music product. Services like LaLa have a better user experience, but they still charge for streaming. Free is the future of music.

Pandora

Pandora, an Internet radio service that creates stations based on music you like, was on the list the first two years. I still listen to it all the time, and their new iPhone application put it over the top again to get on this year’s list. Pandora was one of the first startups we covered on TechCrunch, and they recently passed 20 million registered users.

Scribd & Docstoc

We use both Docstoc and Scribd here at TechCrunch regularly. Both services let you upload office type documents (PDFs, Word docs, Powerpoint presentations, etc.) and then embed them on other sites. When there’s a lawsuit complaint or interesting PDF, we add it to one of the services and embed it in our post.

Skype

Skype Skype has been on my list every year and I expect it will stay there. It’s the most important productivity tool that I have - I’d give up email before I gave up Skype.

TechMeme

TechMeme is another four-year favorite. It is the blogosphere’s daily newspaper, and one of the sites we use most often in seeing how stories develop. I’m amazed that founder Gabe Rivera hasn’t accepted any of the many buyout offers I’ve heard he’s been floated. In December 2008 TechMeme gave up on fully automated news, which I believe changes the site for the worse.

TripIt

If you travel a lot, you are going to love TripIt, which returns to the list this year. It keeps you organized, it’s incredibly easy to use and it’s just a perfect, simple service. Read our post on TripIt to get an idea for how it works. You forward confirmation emails from flights, hotels, etc. to the service and it creates an itinerary automatically. You can then access it via a mobile device.

Twitter

Last year a lot of people still hadn’t heard about microblogging service Twitter. Now, Britney is on it and the company is turning down half-billion dollar buyout offers. I mostly access Twitter through a desktop client called Twhirl, and I check it multiple times per day.

Wordpress

We continue to use Wordpress open source software to power all of our blogs, and it has been on the list all four years. Their Akismet spam comment blocking service is a godsend - without it we would quite simply be overrun with spam. It catches 15,000 or more spam comments per day and auto-deletes them.

Yammer

Yammer, a spin off of a startup called Geni, is a newcomer this year. They launched at TechCrunch50 in the Fall and took the top prize. The service acts as a Twitter for businesses, letting employees send messages back and forth to subscribers. It’s way more effective than email at group communications, and we absolutely rely on it here at TechCrunch.

YouTube

YouTube has been on the list the last three years. I continue to burn time watching random videos on the site, and we use it to upload our own videos as well. Sure they sent us a Cease & Desist letter a while back, but I still love em.

Zoho

Zoho, as well as its competitor Google Docs, continues to replace Microsoft Office for most of my word processing and spreadsheet needs. The feature list is still light compared to the heavy, expensive Microsoft version, but its free and I can collaborate with others on documents. This is the future of office productivity.

Update: I’m seeing other bloggers put together their own lists. Let me know in the comments if you do one and I’ll link to it. Here’s one by Tony Bain. More: Guilmain, NewsCred, Honkin (Chinese blogger), Ghost Hack Beauty, Mario Bruggemann

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We have information from a trusted source that the latest Palm smartphone running the Nova operating system will be launched Thursday. The new phone will have a full QWERTY keyboard that will slide down under a portrait-oriented touchscreen. This only a mock-up based on information received. The new operating system is described as "amazing" and there will be a full software bazaar on launch. It will have media playback functions along with standard Palm calendar, email, and contact functionality. digg_url = 'http://digg.com/gadgets/New_Palm_Phone_Slide_down_keyboard_Large_touchscreen';

Me2, a new app that just went live on the App Store, allows users to transfer their contact information in a way that is sure to stir up some familiar (and perhaps not so fond) memories for any computer user over the age of 12. Using similar technology to the modems of yesteryear, the free application transfers data between two iPhones using a brief series of audible chirps. To send a contact, users simply push their phones together, select which contact they’d like to send, and wait for the 1-second burst of sound to transfer their information. It might be old school, but it’s very cool.

And while the technology involved may be relatively ancient, it’s also potentially more practical than some of the other solutions we’ve seen. Apps like FriendBook and Nameo use geolocation to figure out when two nearby phohnes are attempting to send information, and then relay it over the network. This works fine if you’ve got a full signal, but you might not be so lucky in the depths of a corporate office. Because Me2 doesn’t rely on GPS or the cellular network, it should work everywhere.

That said, this ‘beeping’ form of communication also has its issues. Because the phones literally have to ‘hear’ each other, you’ll need to position them so that their speakers and microphones are touching, which might be a bit awkward in a business environment. And while the screeching sounds of yore might have their charm, it would be nice if the apps used an inaudible frequency to transfer the data (which we’ve been told is possible).

Me2 is currently only advertised as working on the iPhone 3G (some reviews indicate that it won’t allow users to communicate to the first generation iPhone), but it’s likely that these issues could be remedied in future updates. The application is also only allows for one contact transfer at a time, though this too could probably be easily changed.

I’ve made no secret that I think business cards are a pain in the ass. Me2 probably won’t be the app to replace the paper cards once and for all (I suspect a wireless technology like Bluetooth would be more secure and less awkward), but it’s still a cool idea and is worth checking out if for nothing else than its novelty factor.

Last month we saw a similar modem technology employed by Electric Smoke, a virtual cigarette app that uses audio to communicate with Smule’s Sonic Lighter.

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If you’re a regular IM user with an iPhone, chances are you’ve heard of BeeJiveIM. Long established as a top choice IM app for BlackBerry, the iPhone release rocketed up to the #2 best selling application in the iTunes Social Networking category for 2008 - even with the eye-widening $16 price tag.

On Tuesday, January 6th, BeeJive will be pushing version 2.0 of BeeJiveIM for iPhone to the iTunes App Store. We were able to get our hands on a pre-release copy of it, and we’ve brought back pictures of everything new and noteworthy.

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When AppLoop launched its self-service platform for tracking and advertising on mobile applications last July, we were quite impressed. Leveraging the iPhone 3G’s native GPS capabilities, AppLoop’s geo-aware mobile ad network was able to tell when a consumer was close to a specified business address and serve up ads for that business accordingly.

Last October, the startup came out with the App Generator, a nifty tool that turned any online publication with an RSS feed into a separate iPhone application.

Now, we’re hearing rumors that the startup is in trouble, and they appear to hold some truth. For one, the company’s website has been down for the past two days. Worse, a quick glance on Twitter suggests that the service’s downtime is also causing iPhone apps using AppLoop libraries to crash.

We would hate to see the young company fade away, so we’re hoping this is a technical glitch which is simply taking a lot of time to repair. But the two startup’s founders are eerily silent about the downtime on their blogs and Twitter accounts, so it might be idle hope.

We’ve contacted AppLoop and will update this post accordingly as soon as we get some insight on what’s happening.

Update: after an e-mail from co-founder Eric Kerr, we’re putting the company in the deadpool as they effectively had to shut the service down ‘for a variety of financial and legal based reasons’. Kerr claims users have been sent an e-mail several weeks ago and that some might not have received it. I’m not so sure, but I definitely think it’s bad form not to put a message on your website or blog about the demise of your company.

(Hat tip to Philip Roy for the heads up)

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We got a tip that Facebook Polls, the social networking service’s business tool that enabled anyone to create a paid poll targetting a pre-defined group of users, is no longer available. The link that used to redirect to the service is now effectively forwarded to the Facebook homepage, and you won’t find any reference of Facebook Polls anywhere on the company’s business or advertising pages. What happened?

Update: Facebook has acknowledged putting Facebook Polls on hold following a technical migration last October which raised some questions internally about the priority for the product. They advise users to switch to one of the many polling applications available on the service.
Statement:

“The ability to create Facebook Polls is no longer available on the public site, though users may still receive Facebook Polls created internally by Facebook. Facebook is exploring options for making a polling product publicly available again in the future but has no definite plans to discuss at this point.”

When Facebook Polls launched back in June 2007, we called it a dream product for brand marketers and market researchers. Users could create a poll and target users based gender, age, location or profile keyword. Facebook charged a variable fee based on how quickly you wanted results, and based on how many results you wanted and how much you were wiling to pay per result. Prices ranged from $.10 to $1.00 per data point, plus an initial $5 insertion fee, and the polls appeared in Facebook users’ news feed so more people could become aware of the service.

Back then, Facebook had only 20+ million users on the social network - it has more than six times that amount today - and Polls seemed like a great way to monetize the appeal and engagement of Facebook’s user based on demographics. On the other hand, there was some criticism regarding the pricing and the fact that Facebook Polls delivered statistically insignificant results.

Anyone care to take a wild guess why they decided to pull the service?

(I have contacted Facebook PR and will update this post if and when I get word back.)

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