Webware

As expected, Mozilla Labs released a Firefox plug-in Tuesday called Geode that lets Web sites figure out a person's approximate geographic location and use it in online services--as long as you grant the software permission to access the information.

Geode, a preview of technology to arrive in Firefox 3.1, taps into technology called Loki from Skyhook that deduces a computer's location from the signals of nearby wireless networks, according to a Mozilla Labs blog post on Geode.

To show the technology off, Mozilla shared an application called Food Finder that shows the user's approximate location and nearby dining establishments. Others that work with the technology are Pownce, a microblogging site that can record users' locations as they post notes or photos, and Yahoo's Fire Eagle, which lets users govern which applications get access to their location information.

There's one thing I find interesting about the general thrust of this technology. The Internet has broken down geographic barriers, letting people stay in touch with high school buddies, tap into a global market for used books, and find comrades with shared interests such as speaking Latin or photographing mating insects.

But a lot of new work on the Net is trying to unlock the location information. After all, people often need to keep from getting lost or to find their friends at the concert. And of course, plenty of advertisers would like to target ads at people who are likely to walk past a storefront.

Although Geode today uses Skyhook's service, Firefox 3.1 will be configurable to select other options as well, such as a GPS device, Mozilla said.

The Food Finder demonstration application showed my location, almost, with a blue dot, and nearby pastry shops listed at Yelp.

(Credit: CNET News)

Mozilla envisions more than just more intelligent online maps. Its other examples: local news based on where a person actually is located, a Web site log-in process that only works if a person is at a specific location, and an RSS feed reader that changes what subscriptions it shows users depending on whether they're at work or home.

Web designers who want to take advantage of the feature can use the W3C's Geolocation Specification, currently in draft form.

Geode asks permission before letting a Web site use your geographic information.

(Credit: CNET News)

Sarah Perez over at ReadWriteWeb has put together a great roundup of online slide-show tools. One that's not on the list, and instead showed up in the user comments is ZuiPrezi, a not-yet-launched online presentation creator that ditches the idea of individual slides in place of a giant expanse that can be navigated with a mouse, keyboard, and eventually touch screens.

The end result is pretty incredible and feels a lot like Google Maps. It uses vector graphics to keep lines and text nice and clean as you zoom in and out of bits and pieces of a presentation. Media also streams in as you go, so you can begin your presentation from wherever while big photos and videos load in the background.

Microsoft has been experimenting with something similar in its Office Labs program. Called pptPlex, you can use zooming to jump around to different parts of a PowerPoint presentation instead of sticking to a controlled order. ZuiPrezi throws in the added benefit of charting out what order you want the presentation to scroll around in, even if it's all over the map.

The service is still in private beta although there are both preview videos and live examples of presentations to play with. I've embedded the demo video of creating one below, although if you want a thrill you should go check out this lecture from ZuiPrezi founder and designer Adam Somlai-Fischer.

Web party invitation and management service MyPunchbowl on Tuesday relaunched with a new look. While mostly a new paint job, the big, new feature is the invitation designer, which has been renamed as a "studio."

Where the service's former system had users simply picking colors, pictures, and some ready-made templates, the results of using the new tool resembles a real life paper invitation. Users can still select things like the coloring and background, but there are new flourishes like colored ribbons, textured backgrounds, and various form factors that mimic proper card stock.

The new designer lets you tweak each aspect of an invitation, right down to the ribbon.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

All of this amounts to little besides the invitation page people visit. It doesn't show up (much) in the e-mail, and you can't have it printed and sent out, which would make the whole experience feel a little more fulfilling. Your newly designed invitation will simply sit alongside the party details. The company is pushing the "green" aspect of this, but it's a shame you can't get your handiwork turned into a real-world good. Like Moo.com's mini cards, there's something fantastic about quirky designs for everyday things that could make MyPunchbowl stand out from competitors like Evite, Facebook, and Socializr.

Speaking of which, I think the service is still running up against bad public perception. Many people I know simply go to Evite because it's what they've always used. Also, when MyPunchbowl first launched, one of its stumbles was the e-mail invites, which were promptly being delivered to people's spam folders. Since then, it looks like the problem has been fixed, as I tried sending out an invitation to Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, and my work e-mail. All went through without a hitch.

The other big hurdle, which I've pressed on in the past, is the big competition from Evite and social networks like MySpace and Facebook which have integrated events management services. For many, including myself, this is just an easier option--even if it's not a better one. To its credit, MyPunchbowl has done a great job at letting people suck in contacts from elsewhere, then turn around and advertise it at those places from the very same tool. Going forward, it's simply going to be a question of whether or not people will be willing to go through all that just to have a better functioning invitation.

Here's a video of MyPunchbowl founder and CEO Matt Douglas talking about the new design tool. It's worth noting you can't use it unless you're a registered user.

Related: $2.1 million for invite start-up MyPunchbowl

A new commercial real estate site is opening its doors Tuesday: ZoomProspector. It's designed to help businesses find communities for new offices or plants, and then find the properties that fit their needs.

The service collects business stats on cities and counties, and lets you explore those in a clean interface. More importantly, it lets you search for communities that meet the criteria that matter to you. If you want a fast-growing, white-collar community near an active entrepreneurial ecosystem and a major airport, you probably already know where to look. But if you need to site and staff a manufacturing plant and are looking for community stability and an underemployed blue-collar workforce, there are options you may not know about. This service should help you find and compare them.

The service searches economic data to find you a location for your business.

The ZoomProspector team gets its data from a variety of sources and has deals with chambers of commerce and commercial real estate companies to pull it all together. I saw an earlier beta of the site and found it hard to use, but I like the version that's being released Tuesday. I did find the "wizard" that walks you through community selection too linear, but you can skip it and enter in your criteria directly to search the database if you like.

The service will also connect you with consultants who specialize in industries or locations, as well as economic development agencies that can help you grease the skids when you get interested in a locale.

One might think it is a bad time to launch a real estate site, either commercial or residential, but in the coming months business owners who want to survive will be forced to take a very clinical view of their operations, which includes siting. This tool could help.

You can also use it to drill into data on a location you are already familiar with.

The company on Tuesday morning announced Z-Payments, an online payment service for subscription-based businesses. Interestingly, the product will also accept payments from PayPal.

Along with the announcement, PayPal's president, Scott Thompson, has joined Zuora's board of directors.

What with the stock market in a funk and companies acutely concerned about the impact of a slowing economy on their bottom lines, the pitch Tzuo plans to make is that Z-Payments can handle the job of collecting recurring payments more efficiently and at a lower cost than doing it themselves--especially compared with paper-based payment processes. So the question becomes: If the economy tanks, will subscription services like Zuora's benefit?

In an interview, Tzuo made the case for the subscription model. In a post he wrote a few days ago, he laid out the same argument:

For one, the cost to subscribe is much more affordable than it is to buy. Look at Zipcar, for instance. It's far less expensive to subscribe to an entire fleet of cars vs. purchasing your own. Not to mention, many can't get the credit they need to buy a car or other goods right now, making subscriptions the only option. Likewise, it's more cost effective for businesses to use SaaS applications. Companies operating under this model have an advantage to win more business for that reason alone. Salesforce.com, as an example, thrived during the recession from 2001 to 2002.

Also on the subject of cost savings, it's less expensive for companies to offer their apps as a subscription. Building a Web app can be very inexpensive compared to a desktop app or one that you buy off the shelf. Paying for server space vs. manufacturing and shipping is also a consideration that many businesses are taking into account as they build out their products.

This marks the company's second product in the online subscription segment. In the spring, Zuora introduced Z-Billing.

I kidded Tzuo about the PayPal arrangement, suggesting it may be the prelude to a marriage between the companies. But it's not so far-fetched. PayPal doesn't do billing, and in an interview with ZDNet's Phil Wainewright, Thompson gushed about the extension of Zuora's pay-as-you-go model.

"All these enterprise software vendors sell you a chunk of stuff, most of which you don't want," he said--and it becomes a burden, he added. "Your business is slowed down because you're dragging along this big anchor."

Some are apparently up in arms that Google is refusing to allow Chrome developers to use its trademarks and the comic book it released to help explain Chrome. To these and others that equate open source with "up for grabs," please pay attention:

Open source is governed by US intellectual property law. It is not above the law.

For those who mistakenly feel that open source is a stick-in-the-eye to "The (IP) Man," you're wrong. Open-source licensing depends upon and indeed presupposes copyright and trademark law. Without copyright there is no copyleft.

Clint Boulton, whose blog I enjoy and read daily, suggests:

I would be very careful if I were Google not to be too stringent with the trademark. If people are trying to pass themselves off as Google property that's one thing, but let's not send letters to every person using a Chrome logo.

To which I'd reply, "I would be very careful if I were Google to be as stringent as required by law to ensure I didn't lose the rights to my trademarks." Google needs to protect its trademarks or it risks losing them.

Surely it's not too much to ask people to respect Google's IP so that it can release more of it as open source?

ProPay, a company that specializes in credit card processing and electronic payment services for businesses, has announced prices for eBay users.

The information was released Tuesday, ahead of ProPay's launch as an alternative payment option on the auction site later this month.

As eBay announced in August, it will soon take only electronic payments. Part of that plan includes bringing on an additional electronic payment service to compete with eBay subsidiary PayPal and thus ease concerns over eBay's total control over payment processing. Aside from accepting credit cards, eBay's solution involves giving sellers the option of using ProPay's service.

ProPay was quick to point out that it doesn't want to be considered a full-fledged PayPal competitor and instead wants to position itself as a company that caters to power sellers who plan to accept credit cards. That may be a good idea considering that sellers will be required to pay monthly fees on top of transaction costs--something most PayPal users aren't required to do.

For eBay Silver power sellers and higher, ProPay unveiled its eAuction account, which will be available once ProPay goes live on eBay. It will carry a $24 annual fee or a $2 monthly charge, but the company is offering a $24 credit for sellers who process $3,000 or more with ProPay during their first six months using the service. The plan will carry transaction fees, but ProPay wouldn't reveal those figures. It would only say that the fees will be comparable to those charged by "other services."

For those needing more than just the basics, ProPay will unveil the eAuction Pro account later this year for eBay Silver power sellers and higher who not only sell goods on eBay, but also need specialized services for processing credit card transactions in other areas.

The eAuction Pro Account will offer all the features available in the standard eAuction account and add an online virtual terminal, touch-tone phone processing, e-mail invoicing, and a secure card reader that will immediately send the cardholder's information over an encrypted connection to ProPay's virtual terminal to verify funds. According to ProPay, the fee for the Pro account will be $240 annually, and the transaction fees will be identical to those charged in the standard account.

Online advertising firm Burst Media announced Tuesday that it has launched the Thought Leaders Ad Network for a predominantly male audience aged 35 and older.

According to Burst Media, the new ad network groups 140 Web sites delivering more than 150 million impressions monthly into one vertical network to help advertisers target their intended audience. Joining other Burst ad networks like Entertainment, Moms, and Early Adopters, the Thought Leaders Ad Network will consist of sites and blogs covering news, finance, politics, business, technology, and international affairs.

"Today's thought leaders are drawn more than ever to the real-time updates that news and information Web sites provide," said David Cooperstein, CMO of Burst Media. "As news about the economy, politics, and world events affect decision makers, advertisers have an opportunity to create affinity with them through timely, targeted messages on content rich sites."

Burst Media's decision to boost its vertical ad network offerings follows a slew of announcements by LinkedIn and others that have decided to attract advertisers in much the same way. Advertisers want to target a specific audience with specific interests to get the most bang for their buck, and it's quickly becoming apparent that if ad networks don't respond to that, advertisers will find companies that do.

Appssavvy, a start-up that connects advertisers looking for "social media" campaigns with developers and firms that will build widgets for them or get their ads on existing apps, announced on Tuesday that it has raised $3.1 million in Series A venture funding. The round was led by True Ventures, with previous investor Scott Kurnit, founder of About.com, also participating.

Earlier this month, Appssavvy struck a deal with NBC Universal, making it "the exclusive advertising-sales team for the NBC News iCue social-media application."

"Social media has the potential to connect marketers with consumers in extraordinary ways," investor Kurnit said in a statement. "Appssavvy has assembled the best team I've seen in this emerging space and is well positioned to lead the way in unlocking huge potential for the future of advertising and monetization of one of the most exciting Internet segments of the past several years." The funding will be used to "sustain growth."

Social-media advertising is still the equivalent of an edgy new drug on Madison Avenue (are you listening, Don Draper?), with some skeptics unwilling to commit the ad dollars and some uberenthusiasts diving in head-first. But there's reason for the industry, Appssavvy included, to proceed with caution: a recent analyst report estimated that a full half of "social-media campaigns" will fail.

This post was updated to correct that this funding round is considered Series A, not Series B. Appssavvy does not consider its previous funding to be a full round.

Update at 5:55 a.m. PDT: Additional TV stations airing the debate live have been added.

This is Hulu's new election hub.

(Credit: Hulu)

Last year, it was all about "remixing" debate footage. But this year, it's about seeing it live.

Video content hub Hulu has secured the rights to stream the remaining two presidential debates live on the Web. The next debate is set for Tuesday night.

The news was first reported by PaidContent that Hulu has launched Election '08 hub for the live debate, as well as past election-related footage. That includes footage from political satire talk shows The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, the only two MTV Networks shows currently on Hulu.

This is the first-ever live broadcast for Hulu, a joint venture between NBC Universal and News Corp.

Cable channel Current, co-founded by former Vice President Al Gore, is streaming all presidential debates live on the Web as part of its "Hack the Debate" partnership with Twitter.

Most major television broadcasters and news channels are airing the debate live, of course, including ABC, CBS, CNBC, CNN, Fox, Fox News, MSNBC, NBC, PBS, and Telemundo.

Hulu will also, according to PaidContent, also be the venue for the debut of Crawford, a documentary about the town best known for President Bush's ranch.

Joost, the video content site that everyone thought would be a runaway success, began offering live TV for the first time this past spring, starting with the NCAA "March Madness" basketball tournament.