Britney Spears in How I Met Your Mother

Britney Spears has returned to How I Met Your Mother serial. Britney had much fun the first time and she wanted to be in a another episode.

WWE Smackdown Gets a Social Network

World Wrestling Entertainment has a pretty large fan base, and the sports entertainment company is hoping to leverage its loyal fans in the online sense as well. The official site of WWE has been around for some time, but after a few fan sites on other networks like MySpace and Facebook managed to gain a good number of users, WWE was further encouraged to add a community onto its own website.

The new community is an extension of the WWE Fan Nation, and lets you view fan profiles, stay updated with wrestlers’ activity, write blogs and share pictures. Nothing out of the ordinary here–it’s your run of the mill corporate-run social network. But having already gained a bit of traction from fan groups on Facebook, MySpace and its dedicated YouTube channel, it’s clear that a centralized place for WWE fans to network could be useful.

So given WWE’s existing traction on other social and media-sharing networks, I wish that the new WWE community were integrated with all these other networks. The users are already on Facebook and MySpace, so why not pull in or push out some of the activity and sharing that’s already going on? The ability to communicate news and updates is still just as effective with an integrated, cross-network approach.

I know that corporate run social networks are considered necessary for market research, advertising and feedback mechanisms that go towards branding purposes, but as brands also embrace the commercial promotion on social networking fan pages, I’d like to see some more effective integration across the board.

Kendra Wilkinson Olive Garden Search Girls of Olive Garden Playboy Pictorial

Playboy.com is searching for the sexiest Girls of Olive Garden to pose for a tasty pictorial. If you’re a fan E!’s The Girls Next Door, you already know that Kendra Wilkinson is a huge fan of the Olive Garden.

“I eat so many bread sticks when I go there that I can barely move when I’m done,” the beauty says.

And just because Hugh’s hunny loves the Italian eatery so much, Playboy Magazine is offering the chain’s hottest servers the chance to appear in a sizzling pictorial for the infamous men’s mag.

Kendra will hand-pick the winners for an exclusive Girls of Olive Garden Playboy pictorial.

To be considered, you must submit the following:

At least two photos: one head shot and one full-body shot (bikini or nude)
A recent pay stub showing proof of current employment at Olive Garden
A clear and legible photocopy of a government-issued photo ID proving you are 18 or older.

Lindsay Lohan Angry Over Michael Lohan Press Statements

Lindsay Lohan wants her father to shut up. The former Disney child star is growing tired of her Bible-thumping Pop’s routine statements to the media about every aspect of her life. In his most recent sermon to the press, Michael complained that Lindsay’s mom and manager, Dina Lohan, stole the idea for her new E! reality show from a series plot that he pitched to the network years ago. Michael is threatening to sue his wife over the reported breach.

“You know what I have to say about my father is that I just wish that he wouldn’t go and talk to the media as a parent,” Lindsay told Hollywood reporter Billy Bush during a phone interview for Billy’s new radio show “The Billy Bush Show.” “It is not attractive to me. It really upsets me, and I wish he would stop.”

Do we smell another Lohan estrangement coming on?

The Oprah Winfrey Show Oprah, Cher and Tina In Vegas May 8th

Oprah Winfrey is going to Vegas, and she’s bringing legendary divas Cher and Tina Turner along for the ride. The Queen of Talk will hit Sin City next weekend to tape an exclusive performance special, featuring Cher and Tina, at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace. The Oprah Winfrey Show: Oprah, Cher and Tina In Vegas will air on Thursday, May 8th.

The Brooklyn Museum Lets the Crowd Curate a Show

These days everyone is a curator. If you talk to any social media entrepreneurs, chances are they will go on and on about how their Website is all about letting people “curate” the Web, whether that’s photos, videos, or news stories. It is usually code for:”Most people are too lazy to actually produce anything, but we let them organize and remix what other people have produced.” Who doesn’t love to remix?

Well, now you can actually do some real curating over the Web. The Brooklyn Museum is putting together a photography exhibit called Click, based on how people evaluate the submissions online. There was an open call for photographs of Brooklyn through March, and now through May anyone can register and vote on the entries. The photos that get the most votes will be shown in an actual exhibit this summer—when the actual curators are at the beach.

College Cheerleader Showdown

UCLA, Florida State and Old Dominion have some incredibly sexy cheerleaders — but now it’s time for the public to decide what school has the best.

Brianna | UCLA

Alyssa Sponaugle | Florida State

Whitney McMillan | Old Dominion

Top Five Masturbation Techniques

Spank site JackInWorld alone sports several techniques that I’ve never heard of, let alone attempted. So let’s collectively pull down our pants, close the shades, read the top techniques after the jump and rub one out, for posterity’s sake.

It’s gonna get real technical from here on in…

“ORAL” SIMULATION
To simulate the feeling of lips sliding over the penis head: Lube up your erection and hold the shaft in one hand. Put your dominant hand’s index and middle fingers together horizontally, palm toward your face, in front of the penis head. Push the head into the gap between the fingers. The fingers should be relaxed, not tense. Now pull back and do this over and over the top third of the penis. Feel how the fingers conform to the penis’s contour as they slide over the head and back. As you do this, position your other hand behind the “lips,” and grip and squeeze the head as you push the penis in.

ROSY PALM & BLANKET
Lie in bed with a soft blanket on top of you; hold your penis with one hand and stick it straight up so the head is touching the blanket. Then with your other hand go outside (on top of) the blanket and try the Rosy Palm technique through the blanket. You don’t need lube; all you feel on your penis head is your soft blanket. You might not be able to continue this for long because of how sensitive your penis head can become.

THE MILKER
Make a ring around the base of your penis with your well-lubricated right hand’s thumb and forefinger, and slide it up along the shaft. When the ring reaches the head, make a ring around the base of your penis with your well-lubricated left hand, and work it up. Repeat the process when your left “ring” reaches the head of your penis. The idea is to go up without ever going down. You can use only the thumb and forefinger or add the other fingers as you get away from the base.

MONKEY GRIP
This one is great if you like to massage your scrotum with one hand while you masturbate with the other. If you’re right-handed, instead of holding your scrotum from the left side, cross your wrists (left wrist on top) so you’re grabbing your scrotum from the right side. You may have to bend your body to the right to get the best position. If you’ve never done this before, it will feel like someone else is holding your scrotum. Tip: As you masturbate with the other hand, press your fingertips and thumb into the cracks between your scrotum and each thigh, and gently massage those areas with slow, rhythmic movements.

THE “VAGINA”
Lie down on your side and hold onto your penis with the “Backhand” grip. Roll over further and brace your hand against the bed, and thrust your penis in and out of your hand. This closely mimics the movements of intercourse. It’s a very different feeling to masturbate by moving your pelvis rather than your hand. It’s also fun to put your other hand down and feel your scrotum moving back and forth as you pump in and out of the “vagina.”

YouTube Announces Enforcement Policy Changes

YouTube is updating their policies regarding site violations, and they seem fairly level headed.

First up is a change to how long strikes last on your account for violations of community guidelines. Under the old system, someone getting two strikes over the course of a year, and were facing a third, carried the same weight as someone getting those same three strikes in one week. The policy is not that your strikes roll off of your account after six months, allowing for more “human error” type occurrences. Let’s face it, everyone makes mistakes, but if you do them in rapid succession, more than likely it was intentional. Accounts that had two warnings as of April 16th, 2008 have had those strikes erased and will now fall under the new policy.

Two other changes they’ve set up include you will now be notified of video removals upon logging in to the site as well as receiving an email. YouTube realizes their notifications sometimes get caught caught in spam filters, so they are hoping this will rectify that problem some. Also, users who get two strikes in a six-month period for community violations will also now be “muted” for two-weeks. You will still be able to use the site to watch videos, but you will not be able to upload new content during your muting.

As with any large site’s policy changes, there are sure to be those who don’t feel the new ones are fair, so they are encouraging the community to give them feedback on these new rules. Personally, I think they sound pretty fair and even handed, especially the rolling system for strikes.

Yale Abortion Art Project a Hoax

So, according to the Yale University press office, this whole Yale abortion art project…

Yeah, it was a hoax. It states:

Statement by Helaine S. Klasky — Yale University, Spokesperson
New Haven, Conn. — April 17, 2008

Ms. Shvarts is engaged in performance art. Her art project includes visual representations, a press release and other narrative materials.

She stated to three senior Yale University officials today, including two deans, that she did not impregnate herself and that she did not induce any miscarriages. The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman’s body.

She is an artist and has the right to express herself through performance art.

Had these acts been real, they would have violated basic ethical standards and raised serious mental and physical health concerns.

I may be a dumbass for believing such absurdity, but at least deans at Yale were fooled too.

Heidi Montag Butt Implants

“Butt implants are the new thing, so Kim Kardashian, watch out,” Heidi Montag bellowed during her Heidiwood Clothing Line Fashion Show in Los Angeles last weekend. The Hills star wasn’t kidding when she lamented to friends that she wanted a “Jessica Biel Booty” several monts back. In late March, twenty-one year Heidi old made a top secret visit to Dr. 90210 Garth Fisher to inquire about getting butt implants.

“She has no butt,” a friend of the MTV reality star tells In Touch Weekly. “She doesn’t want to have plastic surgery, but she may have no choice…She’s still insecure about her body….She doesn’t want to be as big as Jennifer Lopez, but she does want a little more booty.”

Tony Romo Jessica Simpson Friends With Benefits

Tony Romo and Jessica Simpson are nothing more than really close “booty buddies,” at least that’s how the Dallas Cowboys quarterback sees it.

“I think Tony actually views their relationship as more of a “friends with benefits” situation than a real romance,” a Star Magazine spy says.

The reluctance of Tony’s parents to accept the bubbly Jessica as a potential daughter-in-law might also be impacting the QB’s ability to take Simpson seriously:

“Tony’s parents’ Ramiro and Joan, aren’t thrilled at all about the relationship. They think being with Jessica, who many people think of as a bit ditzy, is ruining their son’s image. Even if, by some crazy stretch of the imagination, Tony wanted to get married to Jessica, I don’t think he would ever get his parents’ blessing!”

Casey Aldridge Marrying Jamie Lynn Spears For Money

Casey Aldridge is marrying Jamie Lynn Spears to get his hands on the pregnant seventeen year old’s financial fortune, The National Enquirer reveals. Well there’s a surprise. Casey, a teen construction worker from rural Mississippi, is seething over his future mother-in-law, Lynne Spears’, attempt to cut him out of lucrative multi million deals to sell the first photos of his unborn baby. The teen is convinced making an honest woman out of Jamie Lynn is “the only way to secure his financial future.”

How about securing your financial future by actually getting a job like everyone else?

“Casey thought the money from pictures and interviews would go for Jamie Lynn, the baby and him, but he hasn’t seen a dime. He wants to know where all the money-and all the future money-will go….He thinks the only way to do that is to marry Jamie Lynn.”

Ashlee Simpson “Being….Ashlee Simpson” Video Webisode 5

Ashlee Simpson kicks off her first ever “club tour” in support of her new “Bittersweet World” LP in the latest webisode of her virtual reality series, Pepsi Smash Presents: Being…Ashlee Simpson.

Google Stock Soars Amidst Recession

All the naysayers and unbelievers, time to eat your words! Google claimed that the US recession (ok, ok, some may not call it that, and things aren’t looking as grim as they did at one point, but the fact is the US economy still has its share of trials and tribulations ahead) doesn’t hurt them one bit, and it turns out they were right, because GOOG is currently at 535, 19% up from yesterday’s price of 449.

Of course, it’s no surprise to see Google’s shares soar up after a (good) quarterly report, but this time it’s a bit different because almost everyone (following comScore’s reports) expected Google to go down. Instead, a new wave of optimism has propelled the share into a higher orbit (note my subtle knowledge of the intricate phrases used by financial journalists). As our own Paul said, there’s still good green left in GOOG, and it continues to amaze everyone and annoy those who sold their shares expecting a further drop.

BTW, congratulations to those of you (52%) who were bullish on Google in a recent poll.

Yahoo Tweaks Its Advertising Algorithm

Did Yahoo just raise its prices for search ads? Yesterday, Yahoo made a significant change to its advertising bidding system by removing the minimum bid for sponsored search keywords. The minimum bid used to be $0.10 per keyword. Now, the minimum bid will be set more dynamically based on two factors: the quality of the advertiser and the value of the keyword.

In theory, advertisers whose ads are clicked on more often will be rewarded with lower minimum bid requirements. But the past popularity of a keyword also goes into the equation, so a keyword that has been bid up in the past could also result in a higher minimum bid. So minimum bids have now become dynamic, and no single advertiser really knows what they are until they put in their bid for a specific keyword.

Already some search advertisers are complaining that their minimum bids have gone up 2X to 4X overnight. At this point, that is just anecdotal evidence. We will have to wait until the end of this quarter to see if the change has had any material impact on Yahoo’s revenues.

What is curious about this move is that it suggests that many keywords on Yahoo get bought at the minimum price, without any real competitive bidding going on. After all, if at least two advertisers are bidding for a keyword that means the minimum bid is no longer an issue. So it makes you wonder how effective Yahoo ad auction system is as a market. For a market to exist, there needs to be at least two bidders.

Conversely, the advertisers with the highest click through rates will now be in a position to buy up keywords below the point where lesser advertisers even hit their minimum bid. And that is not really a market either. For instance, if TechCrunch is awarded a minimum bid of $0.06 for the term “startup” and a Silicon Valley law firm needs to pay $0.15 for the same term (I am just making these up), TechCrunch could buy up the term all day at $0.06 if the law firm does not bid its $0.15. In that scenario, there would be even less competition than if everyone had the same minimum bid. But maybe Yahoo does not care so much about creating a market as it does about improving the quality of the ads on Yahoo search.

Any Yahoo advertisers out there seeing their prices go up? Any seeing their prices go down? Is this a good move for Yahoo ora bad one? Please share in comments.

China Not So Hot on CNN Either

It isn’t surprising to us that China is censoring something. A quick scroll through the story archives will find more instances of censorship than you can shake a stick at. Therefore it only comes as a mild shock that the country has gone back on it’s word to bring down the great firewall of China.

Word comes from Kenneth Tan at the Shanghaiist that “[t]wo days after Danwei reported the unblocking of Blogspot,” China has decided to block CNN. He reports that several of his readers, one at China Netcom in particular, have been getting connection reset, a tell-tale sign of China’s decision to block a site.

Kenneth theorizes that it’s a result of the recent saga of Jack Cafferty, and his perceived biased reporting on the part of CNN. In fact, the reporting isn’t particularly biased, but the commentary definitely has an anti-China bent to it. In a press conference on Tuesday, Cafferty more or less besmirched the entire country, saying ” I think they’re basically the same bunch of goons and thugs they’ve been for the last 50 years.”

CNN later issued a formal apology, but apparently, China is still not amused.

BBC, Wikipedia and Blogspot continue to be unblocked for now.

Ashlee Simpson MTV TRL Video Photos “Little Miss Obsessive” Performance

A reportedly prego Ashlee Simpson performed her new single “Little Miss Obsessive” on MTV’s Total Request Live on Thursday.

Jessica Simpson Pregnant Scare

Rumor: It’s no wonder Jessica Simpson is green with envy over the news that her twenty-three year old sister, Ashlee, will be the first of the Simpson Sisters to receive a visit from The Stork; Star Magazine claims the Blonde Ambition star recently experienced a pregnancy false alarm of her own when her Aunt Flo came to town three weeks late.

The tabloid claims the twenty-seven year old singer/actress asked for a pregnancy test after being admitted to Los Angeles’ Cedars-Sinai Medical Center with a kidney infection on March 28th.

“She felt a soreness in her lower back/kidney area. It got so bad that she had kidney spasms, which prompted her to check into the hospital,” a Star Mag mole reports.

“She was a nervous wreck. She was three weeks late and convinced she was pregnant.”

Christina Ricci Black Book Magazine The Design Issue

Christina Ricci’s come a long way since her day as kooky Wednesday Addams in The Addams Family film franchise. Christina, who plays a karate-loving tough girl in the new movie Speed Racer, and now she is featured on this month’s issue of Black Book Magazine-The Design Issue.

“I’m a clean freak. I get really excited when things are clean, and I love sorting stuff. I love folding laundry in front of the television.

MediaScrape Takes $3.2 Million

Montreal based MediaScrape, a Google News meets video translation service has taken $3.2 million in a new round from we don’t know who, for total funding or over how many rounds we have no idea either.

MediaScrape’s new service is updated every 30 minutes and gives users full control on the way they receive their news, from on demand through to regional loops. The company syndicates content from Reuters, AP, Canadian Press, Dogan News Agency, and others, and translates these clips into English when required. MediaScrape claims to have a distribution deal with YouTube as well.

The site has received fairly extensive positive press coverage in Canada, but there are a couple of oddities that I cant quite work out. There was no details on the investors; it’s not completely unusual that investors don’t want to be named, but usually this would be noted by the company, it wasn’t in this case. MediaScrape claim the $3.2 million is a second round, and yet when they talked to the Montreal Gazette in September 2007 when they took $1 million, they claimed the $1 million was their third round (making todays round the 4th). They claim to be a “leading online broadcast news network” and yet their traffic is so small that they aren’t being tracked by comScore, and even Alexa puts them at over 200,000; their so-called YouTube syndication deal has only netted 714 videos in 7 months, with most videos getting viewer numbers only in the low three figures. Then there’s the web site, with the cheap logo, the stolen BBC world map down the left hand side, cheapy Google logos and just a general look and feel of a site done on the cheap, not by a company with 2-4 rounds of funding who apparently leads the field in news syndication.

Microsoft Acquires Farecast For $115M

Rumors about the acquisition of Farecast are accurate - in a very brief blog post CEO Hugh Crean says they’ve been acquired by Microsoft.

SeattlePI, which first broke the rumor last week, says the price tag was $115 million. While the two companies are an understandable fit given their proximity and partnership over MSN Travel, SeattlePI reports that Farecast entertained multiple offers before accepting Microsoft’s.

Farecast is an airfare pricing comparision tool that also uses a predictive algorithm to recommend when you buy your ticket. So the idea is to show the user not just who has the cheapest ticket, but whether or not waiting might make sense as well. The site has also guarantees tickets at its predicted prices for an extra charge. As of this past fall, it also began helping travelers determine the fairness of hotel pricing.

The deal follows the acquisition of competitor SideStep by Kayak in December.

Tools For Your Video Career

Very few would argue with the statement that video is hot right now. From the cultural phenomenon of YouTube, through to the rise of live streaming services, money is pouring into startups from content creators through to service providers. Getting into video isn’t as easy as setting up a blog, so here’s some advice of which direction to head in.

The basics

Obviously you’ll need a camera to get started in video; if you’re a Mac user you might have a cam built in, but if not web cam’s are fairly cheap. Alternatively people like Chris Pirillo stream from a professional video camera, but even a second hand older model can also work, for both live and recorded shows to computer. For camera effects, CamTwist for the Mac is free and fully featured with effects such as text, clocks, image overlays, Picture in Picture, and much more. Fix8 offers cartoon style overlays if animation or funny faces are more your thing.

Recording

You’ll have two ways of recording a video: local or to the web. Local could directly on to a camcorder through to Quicktime or something in-between. Quicktime Pro (between $30-$45) does the recording and it’s a quick and easy solution. To the web means recording your video directly to a website; the advantages are that you don’t have to upload it and it’s available immediately, however depending on your internet connection the recording quality can be significantly poorer than recording a video locally and uploading it. YouTube offers the direct recording option and is an obvious candidate, but the Live streaming services also allow you to record to their services and even distribute your video out to sites like YouTube later. I’ve also found that the quality of the live stream services can often be higher in recording than YouTube.

Streaming Live

Live in the newest sector in online video with venture capital being spread around a range of services. Live offers some advantages over doing recorded video alone (although they are not mutually exclusive); streaming live means you can interact with and network with your audience while creating archive footage than can be distributed later. Companies in this space include Justin.tv, Ustream.tv, Mogulus, BlogTV, Stickam and others. All of the services have strengths and weaknesses and you should explore each one, but if you haven’t got time for that I’d recommend Justin.tv or Ustream.tv. Ustream.tv is attracting the professional, higher quality streaming shows so if you want to be in that space, you’ll be well positioned. Their tool set including full video conversion makes for a solid product. Justin.tv has a slant towards a younger, Gen Y audience, and if you’re pitching more to that audience it’s the better place to be. I also found when testing both that Justin.tv was more reliable for streaming quality from outside of the United States, and at times Ustream.tv was unusable for me, even on a 14mb down, 1mb up ADSL2 connection; you wouldn’t experience this in the US however. Of the others, Mogulus has a stronger emphasis on professional video and doesn’t have the strong community yet, BlogTV has a lot of potential, and Stickam seems to be dominated by soft porn, at least when I visited it.

Distribution

I asked Chris Pirillo for some tips for this post and one of his key points was simply: “you must understand that (a) It’s all about YouTube, and (b) It’s all about YouTube.” Like it or not YouTube dominates online video today more than Google dominates search in the

United States. Other video bloggers I’ve spoken to suggest distribution to many sites, but always making sure YouTube is top of the list.

TubeMogul is one the oldest of the video distribution sites, and is simple to use and free. You upload your video to their servers, enter you user name and password for a list of sites (first time only) then press the button and off they go. TubeMogul also tracks traffic statistics from each site so you can see which videos are being watched there. An alternative service is Hey!Spread.

The other consideration in distribution is getting your video onto other devices, like iPods. The key is to provide the correct file type and feed for services such as iTunes. You can do it manually with a WordPress plugin and by making sure the file is available on your server in the correct format, or you can use Blip.tv.

We’ve covered the occasional content deal on Blip.tv but we’ve never seriously looked at their distribution platform, and it’s the reason shows like Rocketboom, Mahalo Daily and Moblogic are using Blip.tv. On top of the obvious video hosting everyone in this space provides, Blip.tv also offers distribution to external blogs (including an automatic option), the Internet Archive, de.licio.us (links), Flickr (pics from the video), Adobe Media Player, MySpace, Twitter (text alerts), Facebook, Yahoo Video, AOL Video, Akimbo, Lycos Mix, MeeVee, MeFeedia, Meebo, Blinkx, Splashcast, Pando and the most important one of all: iTunes. Blip.tv offers an iTunes subscription feed and file conversion service; users do have to manually go to the dashboard within Blip.tv and request the file conversion on a free account, but with a premium account ($8/ mth or $80/ yr) get the conversion done automatically. A premium account also has other benefits, such as priority file transcoding that in my testing made it the quickest service available (that is time from when the video was uploaded until it was ready to view).

There was an argument between Ze Frank and Rocketboom a year or two back where Ze Frank disputed Rocketboom’s viewer numbers as they were reporting 10x the traffic of Ze’s The Show. The key to Rocketboom’s success has always been distribution, and for a long time you couldn’t open a media player without seeing Rocketboom pre-loaded. Distribution is key, and combining services like TubeMogul and Blip.tv make it a lot easier.

Content

Chris Pirillo told me that the key is to make sure every video has something different, and that you should use supportive text with each video posted as Google loves text. Ultimately what you decide to create is up to you: it may be something simple like a web cam chat, or you may want to get more creative. We cant tell you what will work for you, but the easiest way to start is to get on YouTube and just see what different people are doing, you’re sure to find something to inspire you.

Secret Merger Talks Between Technorati And b5media Blow Up

Blog search engine Technorati was days away from merging with blog network b5media when the whole deal blew up earlier this week, according to a source familiar with the negotiations.

Technorati has been searching for a new strategy ever since it appointed CEO Richard Jalichandra last October. It was recently trying to raise an additional round of financing, and pitching venture capitalists that it could turn itself into a blog advertising network and/or even pursue a blog roll-up strategy.

The talks with Toronto-based b5media (they’re big in Canada) indicate that it is taking the blog roll-up idea more seriously than we previously thought. If the merger with b5media had gone through, Technorati would have gained a network of 340 blogs. One of the slides in the pitch deck Technorati was showing potential investors (shown above) outlines how a roll-up strategy could be combined with an ad network. Technorati would use its search engine to promote owned-and-operated blogs. It would sell ads using its own sales force instead of third-party ad networks for an “immediate 30-50% revenue bump” and sell across its network.

According to our source, the deal with b5media never went through, though, because of personality conflicts between the CEOs and a lack of transparency on Technorati’s part during due diligence. At least that is how the b5media side sees it. Prior to its dalliance with Technorati, b5media was itself trying to raise another venture round that would put a $20 million valuation on the company. But there were no takers. So b5media started talking to potential merger partners or acquirers (including at one point Federated Media Publishing). A combination with Technorati could have made both Technorati and b5media more appealing to later-stage venture investors. But now the two need to keep looking for other options before their time (and cash) runs out.

Amazon Web Services Rolls Out Red Carpet Support

What’s the first thing Amazon does to counter the launch of Google App Engine? Makes sure its current customers are happy just where they are by providing two premium tech support packages.

AWS users can now pay for either a silver or gold level of support. Both packages offer “fast and predictable response times, an unlimited number of support cases, and personalized support from our team of developer support engineers.” The gold version takes things up a notch by also affording developers with round the clock phone support and a max 1 hour response time to urgent requests.

The silver package will cost $100 per month or $0.10 per dollar spent on monthly AWS usage, whichever is higher. The gold level is either $400 per month or $0.20 per monthly usage up to a certain charge, after which the rate declines.

Amazon hasn’t been slacking in terms of releasing new features, but we can expect that App Engine to drive even more rapid innovation from Seattle-based retail giant.

Hayden Panettiere Orange Bra

Hayden Panettiere slips into a tank, an orange bra, and a pair of denim short shorts while shooting scenes for her new movie, I Love You, Beth Cooper, on Wednesday in Vancouver, Canada.

Britney Spears Kevin Federline Couples Therapy

Britney and Kevin are making a serious go of rekindling their one-time love, one celebrity weekly claims. The divorced former couple are reportedly seeing a therapist.

On April 5th, the couple sat down with a therapist in Britney’s dining room for an intense talk, a Star Magazine report reads.

“Brit and Kevin spoke really openly to each other for almost two hours,” says an tabloid insider.

“They discussed some of the underlying issues that caused their marriage to fall apart. There were many tears shed. There’s still a lot to work through, but they became so much closer.”

Nude Moms Go Into Debt Making Calendars

In the cut-throat world of naked old lady calendars, it’s really the luck of the draw — or not being old/attractive enough for anyone to want one.

Citing the success of a group of British women, who “made more than a million pounds and worldwide headlines when they came up with the idea of a discreet nude calendar for 2000 to raise money for leukemia research.

Their story was made into a hit movie, Calendar Girls; a group of middle age women from Spain did the same, and are now $16,000 in debt.

Seven middle-aged Spanish mothers who posed for a tongue-in-cheek nude calendar — a fundraiser for their children’s tiny, rural school — are now saddled with debt and 5,000 unwanted copies.

One of the photos shows the mothers with Christmas tinsel as their only garb — no private parts on view. Other goofy poses include a shotgun-toting mother wearing only a fox pelt and kneeling on a table, and another shows a woman covering her body with a red umbrella on a picnic table.

Five thousand unwanted copies, huh? Well, since they aren’t recyclable, I’d say just stand outside an AARP convention, and call it a day.

If that doesn’t work, look on the bright side: You use the euro, and there are seven of you.

Are Chartiable Tie-Ins the Key to FB App Success? Dank Apps Thinks So

Dank Apps, the company behind the Lotto application on Facebook, has rolled out a series of new applications called Social Change that give a significant portion of proceeds to charity. The initial set of apps consists of:

The Clinton Global Initiative—HIV/AIDS Initiative - Earn For AIDS

Breast Cancer Research Foundation - Earn For Breast Cancer

The Nature Conservatory - Stop Climate Change Now

Students For A Free Tibet

The apps themselves are quite basic – they are designed around simple games (like “match it up”) and virtual gifting (sending karma), and participating earns you “karma points.” You can also of course earn karma points by inviting and recruiting other users to the app. Dank’s Lotto application works in a similar way, with the big difference being that as opposed to a portion of the proceeds going to charity, they go to a random winner, selected from the people that participated in the game on a given day (and more participation improves your chances of winning).



Launched only a week ago, Dank’s CEO Jason Beckerman tells me the apps are spreading quickly – more than 8,000 users so far, with the all important “invite conversion” (the % of people invited to the app that sign up) sitting at around 18% while maintaining 25-30% daily active users. Beckerman sees the company rolling out up to 15 apps representing different charities, and says his company is capable of launching a new one every day and a half or so.

Obviously, this type of marketing strategy isn’t without its questions. Dank is a for-profit company, funded to the tune of $1 million by Bay Partners. While Beckerman says the company already plans to donate 40-50% of revenue from the Social Change applications (including 2 cents on every singup) to charity, the rest goes towards paying Dank’s overhead. However, in the long-run the company wants to donate 100% of the proceeds from the social change apps to charity, and leverage their marketing reach to advertise Dank’s for-profit applications like Lotto.

A similar strategy is also being employed by Lil Green Patch, which is the 11th most popular applications on Facebook with 400,000+ daily active users according to Developer Analytics.

Google Q1 Earnings Report—Fears Were Overblown

Google reported earnings for the first quarter. The fears of a meltdown were overblown. Revenue was $5.2 billion, up 42 percent year-over-year and up 7 percent from the fourth quarter in 2007. After traffic acquisition costs (what Google pays its publisher partners) revenues directly to Google were $3.7 billion. Net income for the quarter was $1.31 billion, up 8 percent from the fourth quarter.

The earnings call is about to start. Here are my notes:

Eric Schmidt: Strategy of search, ads, and apps is beginning to pay off. Actually “transformative” in that it is letting people do things they were not able to before.

We are putting more control in the hands of advertisers. Doubleclick is hugely strategic. Allows us to offer a more comprehensive solution.

The recently announced Salesforce.com partnerships allows us to integrate Salesforce and Google apps. by doing these partnerships and investing in the app model, we think people will be able to do more thinsg online in a way that was not possible before like share documents and calendars.

George Reyes: Results include DoubleClick since the acquisition was complete, but not materials in the quarter. Paid click growth on Google.com remains healthy.

Traffic acquisition costs of $1.5 billion in the Q was 29% of revenues, down from 30% in Q4.

19,156 employees at the end of the quarter, including DoubleClick. 20% (?) of U.S. DoublelClick employees have been laid off, and another 15% are expected to leave. Only in the U.S., Internationally, keeping all the headcount.

Amazingtunes Pushes Fair Trade Music Launches Record Label

Having been in operation for about 4-5 months now, Amazingtunes (beta) purports to have a community of 50,000+ users, which, on its face, seems rather quaint. But given the niche that it occupies, the number is fairly impressive. The company also says that it expects the site, which it promotes as “iTunes unsigned,” to expand to “over four million (users) within 12 months.” And while we ourselves will have to take a more conservative outlook on the operation for the time being, given its youthfulness, as well as the proverbial glass ceiling that it must inevitably reach in the independent arena, the fact of the matter is that the company does indeed offer an appealing services to unsigned acts.

Currently, Amazingtunes presents itself to artists as a sort of eBay for the musical crowd. Members looking distribute material, with our without cost, may do so; if artists request that their songs be available for purchase, Amazingtunes take a flat 30% commission. And with the launch of record label, created by the company’s managing director, Simon King and headed by

Scott Baker-Marflitt, the former manager of The Futureheads, Amazing Media Group is looking to market acts signed directly through its Web service. AMG also promises to maintain the fair-trade values that it says users have come to expect from Amazingtunes.

Among the first acts signed to the Amazingtunes record label are Little Comets, a post-punk ensemble who offer sample recordings on the site, as well as a psychedelic-folk band who call themselves Baleo.

Amazingtunes has also orchestrated an online competition titled ‘Sound08‘, which it promoted as a sort of battle-of-the-bands among a potpourri of unsigned artists. The winner of the inaugural event was Spokes, a group with a so-called post-rock, mini-orchestra sound. As a result of emerging the winners of the Sound08 competition, Amazingtunes says it is offering Spokes a place on stage at the music festival Rock Ness in Scotland, held June 7-8. (As of writing this summary review, Spokes has yet to be ranked as a performer at the concert.)

Hilary Duff Allure Magazine May 2008 Cover Photo

Hilary Duff is featured on the May 2008 cover of Allure Magazine. The former Lizzie McGuire star discusses the perils of young stardom with the monthly women’s mag.

“I’m not 13, 14, or 15 anymore. I’m not a perfect, prude girl. I like to do things that 20-year-olds do.”

Jessica Simpson Drinking Excessively

Jessica Simpson, drinking excessively? Star Magazine claims the buxom blonde’s bout with a kidney infection last month was the result of several months of hard partying and heavy drinking with new man Tony Romo. But Jess may be quickly learning that she doesn’t have the stuff to party with the big boys.

“She was treated for a kidney infection, a bladder infection, and a urinary tract infection…brought on by drinking an obscene amout of alcohol,” a Star tattle reveals. “She used to keep her drinks to a minimum…but Tony and his buddies really party hard, and I think they expect Jessica to keep up with them…”

Jenna Jameson “The View” Video

Retired cum rag Jenna Jameson and saggy snatch lips appeared on The View on Thursday. Jenna is promoting her new film Zombie Strippers, which the blonde describes as having subtle “political undertones.” Yeah, we can totally see the connection between politics and a film with the word “Stripper” in the title. The film also stars A Nightmare on Elm Street’s Robert Englund. Oh how far Freddy has fallen.

Elisha Cuthbert Maxim Magazine May 2008 Photos

Actress Elisha Cuthbert is featured on the sizzling May 2008 cover of Maxim Magazine, which is being toted The Ultimate Movie Issue.