Photobucket has announced some new features for their online photo sharing service including the ability to add themes to albums and better album management tools.

You can now select themes from a large library of selections in categories like Sports, Nature, Holidays, and more. If you can’t find a theme that you like or just want a unique one, you can create your own customized theme. Just select an existing one and make it your own. The themes can be applied to your photo or video collections.

Photobucket has also improved photo album management with new tools. For example, you can organize your photos and videos with a drag and drop feature, and add titles, descriptions and tags to any item in bulk, which will save a great deal of time. You can also now sort the order of media in albums any way you want, and the search feature has been improved, allowing you to search albums based on title, descriptions and tag content.

These new features allow Photobucket users to express themselves in a more visual way. Being able to add customizable themes to albums and the enhanced album management features raise the game for the service. While these aren’t groundbreaking additions, they do improve the online experience and provide more fun for users.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Photobucket Lets Users Scrapbook with Scrapblog IntegrationiGoogle Themes Directory is LiveGet an Exclusive Invitation to the Photobucket Developer Party on April 23rdPhotobucket Launches API, Picnik Taps InPhotobucket Gains on comScore’s Top 25 ListPhotobucket Postcards Facebook App Now LivePhotobucket Launches Bulk Uploader, Privacy Features

Source:Mashable!

A startup, by (loose) definition, is a young company heading into uncharted territory. And, by that very definition, it needs funds to operate; these usually come in the form of investments from venture capital companies or angel investors willing to accept significantly higher risk for their investments, which occasionally yields higher rewards.

As you can all see by looking at the headlines of finance sites and stock market charts, the definition of “risk” has changed significantly.

Web startups, which comprise a great portion of what we cover here at Mashable, won’t go far without venture capital. Unfortunately, there has been quite a boom lately when it comes to Web startups, so the usual definition of startup has widened; sometimes, a team of one or two with a good idea and a proof of concept is now considered a startup, and expects - at the very least - money to rent an office, buy servers, hire secretaries, marketing people, finance people, more developers. Business plans, something no sound company ever wants to be without, are often loosely defined, and depend on a lot of factors which may or may not go as planned.

Unfortunately, it’s time to go back to the old drawing board for many. I can’t tell anyone how to run their business. But a company that makes no money, in a time of financial turmoil and crisis, is not a business. Therefore, one or three guys with a good idea and a proof of concept should not assume they’re running a business just yet, because a) they might not ever get funds for it and b) even if they do, they might burn through the cash very fast and never get a second chance.

You’ve got a great idea for a Web product or a service? Fantastic. It’s a project. By all means, develop it, work on it, find other talented people that are willing to work on it and if you can afford them, hire some. With time, your project might start earning money and your small team will start feeling too small for it. Wait some more. Maybe you’ll get offers and be very sure that it’ll keep earning more and more money and on the other hand your small team will really become overwhelmed.

Then it’s time to start a business.

Do it too soon, and you might find yourself in an empty office with bills to pay, no cash and a bunch of angry emails from employees to answer. Am I overly pessimistic? Maybe. You go check out that Dow Jones chart and be an optimist, I won’t.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Facebook Platform DownTomorrow in Tel Aviv: TWS2008Free Advertising on Mashable for Three Lucky StartupsThe US Financial Crisis-Nigerian Email Scam ParodyNew Mashable Blog - Weblist!Seedcamp’s 20 Startups RevealedDiscount Code for IsraelWebTour, Hosted by Microsoft

Valleywag, this time, has gone too far. Or so some people believe. Yesterday, we posted Robert Scoble’s cell phone number, which is 425 205 1921, in a picture. One reader was so outraged that he woke one of my reporters from a sound sleep to express his ire. This top-secret information has been been posted on every page of Scoble’s own blog for three years — not to mention his Facebook profile. If you wish to think ill of Valleywag for posting the number, our only request: That you direct the same vitriol to Scoble himself. He awaits your calls. At 425 205 1921.

Source:Valleywag

Terry Semel is still Yahoo’s chairman, but the company is rapidly erasing his mark on the business — chiefly any push into original content, a business Wall Street views as expensive and unrewarding. He’s clearly not interested in carrying on that argument in the Yahoo boardroom. Instead, PaidContent reports, he’s reviving his old company, Windsor Digital, the investment vehicle which carried him between Warner Bros. and Yahoo.

Unconfirmed, but sensible, is a rumor that Windsor might switch strategies from merely investing in companies to developing original content. If so, Semel seems to be assembling an appropriate team. Drew Buckley, who headed up Yahoo’s original-programming business, and Jeff Karish, former head of strategy for Yahoo’s media group, are joining him. Understandable departures, given the shakeup Scott Moore’s leading in that group. What I wonder: Will it take long for Jeff Weiner, embattled head of Yahoo’s Network division, to rejoin Windsor Digital, which he cofounded with Semel?

Source:Valleywag

Along with having excellent food and guests, the All Things Digital party at the Venetian in Las Vegas had very nice throw pillows. Jason Calacanis may have Twittered about stealing one, but I actually did it. (Admittedly, I did so with the connivance of Kara Swisher.) Score one for the bullycub!

Helicopters. Hot metal print. Faked photos. Police scanners and running engines. Even if you’re not a journalism wonk, outgoing Wall Street Journal managing editor Paul Steiger’s recap of his years in the golden age of newspaper reporting is an engaging read, all 2,963 words of it. If you just want the dirt, I’ve pullquoted Steiger’s dead-bird story, plus the time he asked for a helicopter to do some reporting — can we get one of those, boss?

I remember walking past a photographer’s open car trunk and noticing that he carried a well-preserved but very dead bird among his cameras and lenses. The bird, he explained, was for feature shots on holidays like Memorial Day. He’d perch it on a gravestone or tree limb in a veterans’ cemetery to get the right mood. Nowadays such a trick would get him fired, but in the 1950s, this guy said, there was no time to wait for a live bird to flutter into the frame.

In 1979, one reporter got the idea of flying over refineries and tank fields to look for evidence of gasoline hoarding. As the editor running the coverage, I asked my bosses for approval to hire helicopters or small planes for a story. The answer: Go right ahead.

Why is Steiger leaving the Journal now? Because he’s 63 years old. “Retirement,” a more insidery Journal reporter tells me. “He was set to go a long time before the Murdoch thing.”

“It’s trying to set up an economy of writing and the Web is a great place to try to experiment with different economies. Wikipedia has already succeeded with one, and these are two different styles.” — Ward Cunningham, inventor of the wiki and a Wikipedia board member, responding to Google’s competing Knol, an experiment to create its own repository of content. And I thought the all-volunteer Wikipedia was just beginning to experiment with economies themselves. [Read/WriteWeb]

Source:Valleywag

Hans Reiser, the open-source developer accused of murdering his estranged wife, is facing mounting circumstantial evidence that Nina Reiser, his Russian mail-order bride, did not flee to Russia as he contends. As the prosecution’s testimony draws to a close, a series of witnesses have painted a portrait of a mother who would not leave her two children abruptly and a man who was acting suspiciously following the Labor Day weekend when Nina disappeared.

Hans Reiser’s neighbor observed the programmer, dressed in heavy clothing despite excellent weather, washing either his car or the driveway late at night just after Nina Reiser disappeared. It was unusual, prosecutors claim, because Reiser was not known for performing outdoor activities and the yard was no cleaner the next day. Natalie Potter, a supervisor at the daycare the couple’s two children attend, testified that Hans showed up agitated on the Tuesday following the holiday requesting a meeting. He was not scheduled to pick up the children and never returned for the meeting.

Possibly more damaging was the testimony about Nina’s last known activities. She had recently been hired for a new job. The woman who hired her testified that she was excited to start a new job and valued flexibility to spend time with her children over pay. She never returned to complete the hiring process. Also, when Nina’s mini-van was later found with recently purchased perishable groceries.

Perry Mason may have stressed that a murder prosecution without a body is difficult. CSI purports to teach that there is physical evidence even without a murder weapon and body. But juries weigh evidence, not microscopes. We are a storytelling species, and what real people recount in their own words can often sway more than hard evidence. There’s one more story to hear: Hans Reiser will soon have the opportunity to present his own version of what happened to his former wife. (Courtroom sketch by Wired News/Norman Quebedeau)

Source:Valleywag

In his own, not-so-subtle way, Rupert Murdoch is screaming Face! at all of News Corp.’s competitors, detractors, and new Dow Jones employees. The form of his victory lap? Despite the fact that every major news outlet has covered Murdoch’s $5 billion acquisition of Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones since the first whispered rumors, the billionaire found it prudent to spent $2 million on a global ad campaign — a three-page advertisement that flaunts the history of News Corp.’s acquisitions. With Murdoch’s oft-undermined slogan — “Free people, free markets, free thinking,” except when he’s doing business in China — the promo is running today in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. “We make the stuff that excites, entertains, informs, enriches and infuriates billions of imaginations.” Indeed.

Rep. John Conyers, D-MI, said he was “dismayed to learn” that the head of the Department of Justice’s antitrust division may approve the XM-Sirius merger “over the objections of department staff.” [AP]

Source:Valleywag

We’d heard rumors Jobster was close to replacing Jason Goldberg as its CEO, and the Seattle P-I now confirms them. Jeff Seely, another Seattle entrepreneur who just sold online stock-buying site ShareBuilder for $220 million to ING Direct, will take over the online job board on January 7. His first order of business: Raising more money, I suspect.

In June, a commenter claimed the company only had $7 million left of its $48 million in funding from Mayfield, Ignition, and other VCs. Goldberg conceded to the P-I that the company was still not profitable, but a company spokesman wouldn’t confirm the commenter’s figures.

Whatever the number was in June, this much is certain: Six months later, Jobster has even less money now. Almost as certain: John Connors, the former Microsoft CFO on Jobster’s board, has too much of his reputation at stake to allow Jobster to fail.

Source:Valleywag

A Reaganesque landslide: Dow Jones shareholders voted 60 percent in favor of Rupert Murdoch’s purchase of the company which publishes the Wall Street Journal. The Bancroft family, split as always on the deal, tendered 54 percent of their supervoting shares to approve the deal, while an overwhelming 78 percent of common stock was voted in favor. Murdoch has already started replacing execs at Dow Jones, and News Corp. takes formal control tomorrow. (Photo by AP/Evan Vucci)

Did you think, after Google announced its YouTube Video Identification tool, that Viacom would drop its $1 billion lawsuit? Don’t count on it. Though he told me Viacom general counsel Michael Fricklas was “delighted” with the tool, Viacom spokesperson Jeremy Zweig is saying the tool changes nothing. “It doesn’t have any impact,” Zweig said. “Or at least it’s very premature to try and figure out the impact it could have on the litigation.” (Photo by AP)

Source:Valleywag

So everyone but Congress is lovey-dovey with Yahoo now that it beat third-quarter earnings expectations, right? Not so fast. Wall Street analysts still have their doubts, PaidContent reports. Bernstein analyst Jeff Lindsay doesn’t expect ad revenue gains to carry over into the fourth quarter. He also doesn’t believe Panama’s improvements to search marketing will continue to grow quite so fast. Deutsche Bank, RBC Capital and American Technology Research weighed in too.

Deutsche Bank analyst Jeetil Patel told clients, “One quarter does not make a trend.” He’s also disappointed Yahoo didn’t adjust its expectations for the last few months of 2007, even after acquiring BlueLithium, an online-advertising startup, and Zimbra, a Web-based software company.

Rob Sanderson, an analyst with American Technology Research, said he’s waiting for Yahoo to do more with the Right Media Exchange, as Yahoo president Sue Decker has been promising since Yahoo acquired the company in the spring.

Jordan Rohan, analyst with RBC Capital, was more optimistic. “We think the worst is behind Yahoo for now.”

But remember, this is also the guy who valued me-too platform-maker MySpace at $15 billion late in 2006.

(Photo by r.s.m.b. Sees)

Source:Valleywag

I’m always hearing that no matter how bad it gets for newspapers, icons like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times will be fine. Don’t count on it. Dow Jones announced earnings today, and it looks like even the Journal is in trouble. Print ad revenues sank 2.9 percent in the third quarter. And worse yet, while print circulation increased 7.8 percent, ad revenue dropped 0.5 percent. Advertisers had to spend less to reach more readers. Online ad revenues were up 7.8 percent in the quarter, however. And there’s your solution? Rupert Murdoch should go with his instinct and set WSJ.com’s content free. The plan appears to be working for the Times. (Photo by Claire L. Evans)

“What that tells you is that News Corp. is totally underpriced.” — News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch, asked by AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher about Facebook’s rumored $15 billion valuation at the Web 2.0 Summit.

Source:Valleywag

WEB 2.0 SUMMIT — “I’m happy to say I’ll have a job for the next two years,” says Chris DeWolfe, CEO of MySpace, on stage with conference organizer John Battelle and his boss, News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch, confirming widespread rumors that he and MySpace cohort Tom Anderson had renewed their contract to run the social network for another two years. “I had to go from the nickel-and-dime newspaper culture, to the magazine culture … to Hollywood and the Internet culture,” says Murdoch, nodding to the reported — but unconfirmed — figure that DeWolfe and Anderson would make: $30 million over two years. More live coverage, after the jump.

“I think Silicon Valley is the most exciting place in the world right now,” says Murdoch, DeWolfe’s boss for another two years.

“Looking back, it looks like you got a pretty good deal,” observes Battelle. “What did you see?” he asks Murdoch. “Was it like, ‘I hope this one works out,’ or did you think you’d be sitting on a red couch at Web 2.0 two years out?”

“We thought there was a real opportunity, and [asked ourselves], ‘What do we have to pay to shut the doors?’” replies Murdoch. “We never imagined it would do this well.”

Murdoch says that Fox Interactive Media, the unit of which MySpace is the biggest part, could cross $750 to $800 million in revenues next year. And there’s a hint, in the back-and-forth, that the rumored earnout provision in DeWolfe and Anderson’s contract might be tied to MySpace and the rest of FIM hitting a target of $1 billion in revenues.

DeWolfe and Murdoch make nice-nice comments about Google, which has a $900 million contract to provide search and ads on MySpace. Battelle keeps probing them. It’s almost like he wants Murdoch to call Google a “frenemy,” but, alas, the wizened, megarich News Corp. mogul settles for “threat and friend.” (Google executive Megan Smith, recently locked in negotiations with MySpace rival Facebook, sat next to DeWolfe at the dinner before the interview.)

Confirming Valleywag’s scoop that the MySpace platform would not be ready for today, DeWolfe says that the company is, as we reported, compiling a directory of third-party widgets currently used on the site’s profiles.

Battelle asks Murdoch, “What do you think of Facebook?” A pause. “I think it’s pretty cool,” says Murdoch. “It’s more of a utility…. In spite of the hype, we seem to be growing faster.”

“Is that a reference to the September ComScore numbers?” asks Battelle. (ComScore, controversially, showed a drop in Facebook’s traffic last month.) “Yes,” says Murdoch. A pause. “I love that Rupert Murdoch is referencing ComScore Internet numbers. I don’t know why, but I love it.”

Is MySpace a portal? “We’re more like a connectivity engine,” says DeWolfe. Apparently that’s better than being a “utility.”

Battelle asks Murdoch about the acquisition of Dow Jones, publisher of the Wall Street Journal. “Well, I haven’t paid for it yet,” says Murdoch, alluding to the deal’s expected closure in December. “Are you going to kill the New York Times?” asks Battelle. “That’d be nice,” says Murdoch. Murdoch then says CNBC, rival to News Corp’s newly launched Fox Business Network as “half-dead” — and then retracts the observation, noting that CNBC’s still making hundreds of millions of dollars. As for FBN’s future, “I’ll stick with it for at least a few years.”

Murdoch talks acquisitions for