The Digital Dish

Google to develop a PC operating system – Google has announced its plans to launch the Google Chrome OS, an operating system designed from the ground up to run the Chrome web browser on netbooks. Google said it plans to launch the operating system in the second half of 2010 in an “attempt to re-think what operating systems should be.”

Bloomberg plans to stimulate NYC’s media business – In a press conference yesterday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg unveiled a plan to create 8,000 jobs in the city’s media industry by putting eight initiatives in to action including teaming up with Hive@55. Hive@55 will serve as an outlet to provide media professionals with a space to work and will seek to “maintain New York City’s competitiveness by attracting and training top talent.”

Technorati to launch Twittorati – Technorati, the seven-year-old blog index site, is launching Twittorati in an attempt to have some of that sparkle that Twitter brings. Twittorati will be a feed of tweets from Technorati’s Top 100 listed bloggers, complete with its own list of most popular hashtags. CEO Richard Jalichandra blogs and tweets, “This is where the Blogosphere meets the Twittersphere.”

Pandora, other online radio stations, won’t be going anywhere – After a two-year court battle, music companies and online radio stations finally reached an agreement on a royalty payment deal, reports the NYTimes. The deal, made yesterday, requires online stations be charged royalties depending on their size. In essence, this means that stations will pay either a 25% revenue (Pandora and AOL, for example) or a fee per song.

Google Maps shows you real estate availability – Google has improved its Google Maps feature by letting users search for sale and rental property listings on its mapping service. The tool allows real estate agents and publishers to upload listings into Google’s database and in return, allows buyers to link directly to property and rental listings.

The Digital Dish

Online ad spending rises at double-digit rates – The growth in online ad spending is booming in growth as it continues to expand at double-digit rates. As this growth continues to defy economic expectations, it is estimated that Internet ad spending will expand 10.1% in 2009, which would signify an increase of more than 1.5 percentage points over its last forecast in April.

blueTunes comes to your desktop – blueTunes is set to launch a new desktop app this evening that will work to make an even more compelling alternative to other online music sites. The streaming music site allows users to scan their hard drives for music files and upload them to the site’s servers, which then allows users to stream music from anywhere.

Hi-media buys AdLINK Media – The Paris-based online media group, Hi-media, has announced its acquisition of AdLINK Media, the display advertising unit of AdLINK Internet media. This means that AdLINK Internet Media AG will become a major shareholder in Hi-media Group with 10.7% of the capital.

ABC content is now available on Hulu – Following an announcement last April, Hulu is introducing a whole new library of content with its recent addition of ABC content. The sites distribution will feature both prime-time ABC shows, as well as a range of movies from the Disney library. In addition to featuring Grey’s Anatomy, Hulu plans to release more ABC shows over the next two weeks, including Desperate Housewives, Ugly Betty, and I Survived a Japanese Game Show.

Twitter apps galore – This just in: there are over 11,000 registered Twitter applications in development and production, according to a recent tweet from Twitter CEO Ev Williams. Though 11,000 seems like a small number compared to the number of apps for Facebook, around 52,000, Twitter is working its way as the number continues to grow and show the vitality of Twitter as a platform.

The Digital Dish

Twitter interface gets another makeover – The Twitter user interface may look a little different, but that’s because the micro-blogging service has silently opened a set of changes to the “Following” and “Followers” sections of its website. Ultimately, the changes will make it much more simple when navigating through lists of people, deciding who to follow, and even @replying or direct messaging someone directly from the page.

Facebook may become more public – Transparency is a good thing, to Facebook developers that is. The company is hosting a webcast for press today about “upcoming privacy changes” to the site. Some say the announcement from Facebook will likely chart a shift toward becoming more public, perhaps even similar to Twitter. Looks like Facebook is quickly trolling down the path toward a more Twitter-esque network with public updates broadcast to virtually everyone. Stay tuned for post-webcast updates.

Pocket PC coming from Dell – Dell is currently in the works of developing a web device similar to the iPod Touch. The small-sized device, which will run on Google’s Android OS, will play music and videos along with Internet accessibility, but will not have a phone service. According to the Wall Street Journal, “the plan could be delayed or scrapped entirely,” but for the time being, word is that the web device will possibly make its debut later this year.

Firefox 3.5 arrives with speed and increased usability – Firefox 3.5 is finally here, and claiming to be “the fastest Firefox yet.” With it’s release yesterday, makers at Firefox say the latest software is more than twice as fast as the younger version of Firefox, Firefox 3, and ten times as fast as Firefox 2. The upgrade allows for performance features to run quickly and even more responsively.

WSJ may soon come with a cost to iPhone, Blackberry apps – WSJ.com is currently in the process of surveying iPhone users about their willingness to pay for the WSJ app. Currently, the app is a completely free product for both iPhone and Blackberry users, but the news outlet has already reported that it evventually intends to charge “handsomely" for the app.

Media Navel-Gazing by Mark Kollar

A wild week, indeed, and most of it is Off the Wall Street. The House passed the Climate Bill, called “landmark legislation” by The Wall Street Journal, to curb US greenhouse-gas emissions. It was a coup for President Obama, but the outlook in Senate is uncertain for certain. Governor Mark Sanford apologized too many times for his Argentine tangos (and bravo to his wife, who reportedly said his career is not her concern…about time!). Madoff’s wife, Ruth, handed over all the assets, save $2.5 million (another about time!). Steven Jobs had a liver transplant; Farrah died (I still have the poster); Michael died (I have every album or CD); Ed McMahon died (I share his birthday and ironic he passed as Tonight Show passed the torch to Conan and Andy); the Dow lost 1.2 pct last week, ending at 8438.

Jack’s Gonna Be Startin Something
In what I thought was a surprising announcement, the former business titan, Jack Welch, announced on Monday that he was financing and providing his name to an until-now little known educational company called Chancellor University System, to develop online MBA programs called the Jack Welch Institute. Welch said the courses will weave his leadership philosophy into a 12-course curriculum for mid-career execs. Very anti-Ivy with MBA applicants needing a GPA of at least 2.8 and no GMATs, but certainly great news for the Web and online education.

Man in the Mirror
Clearly, the title goes to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who was in the spotlight on Capitol Hill amid concerns the Fed pressured Bank of America in its deal with Merrill Lynch. Last week, the Fed held interest rates steady near zero and said it would keep rates low for “an extended period.” Let’s make that the rear-view mirror, perhaps, to make sure history does not repeat: low rates could trigger inflation and the weak economy has led to massive borrowing.

PYT
Pretty Young Twitter slowed to a crawl (I never saw it crash but some news outlets reported so) on news of Michael Jackson’s untimely death. The news did result in overloads at TMZ and the LA Times Web site, even causing Andrew Ross Sorkin to tweet: “Twitter may already be big but u watch with MJ’s death, twitter is about to take on a new prominence in our society today is the day.” RT that.

The Digital Dish

Digitalsmith launches VideoSense 2.0 Platform – The video distribution and analysis platform that commands TheWB.com and TMZ to name a few, otherwise known as DigitalSmiths, released a new product suite, VideoSense 2.0. Most conveniently, the new suite will make distributing videos across the web much more engaging for content owners, and for consumers, will host a face-lifted video search.

Microsoft ready to sell Razorfish – It looks like Microsoft will soon be selling Razorfish, which the company got when it bought its parent aQuantive for $6 billion in August 2007. According to the Financial Times, the current deal is estimated at $600 million and $700 million for Razorfish’s price.

Trade your stocks on Twitter with PollyTrade – Meet Pollytrade. Another public beta app to help navigating and increasing the overall functionality of Twitter much simpler. Yet, PollyTrade, which was started by Lance Walley who left his position as co-founder and CEO of Ruby on Rails hosting company Engine Yard, is unique in that it links your Twitter account to your E*Trade account and subsequently enables users to make transactions using tweets that start with @pollytrade and include the respective ticker.

Gigya brings out new Socialize software – Gigya has announced a new software, Socialize, which adds social features to sites. The software is available as a plug-in for WordPress, and will let anyone with a WordPress site provide users with access to the site via other social networking sites like Facebook Connect and Sigh In With Twitter. Users can also update their statue and share content or invite friends to join in on certain events on WordPress sites.

Trendrr now offering pro version – Trendrr, a free service that lets users follow graphs related to any entity—a company, brand, person, you name it—has added to its service a pro version. The package, which is aimed at companies and marketing professionals, ranges from $49 per month, which gives you 30 trends to track, unlimited alerts and full reports, to $999 per month, which allows access to 1000 trends, unlimited alerts and full reports.