Friendfeed has just enabled an option to broadcast your lifestream – in its entirety – to Twitter. This means that whenever you share something in Google Reader, upload a new photo to Flickr, favorite a video on YouTube, or participate in any of the dozens of other activity streams that FriendFeed monitors, it can automatically be tweeted as well. The tweet includes content from the message, and a link using what appears to by FriendFeed’s own URL shortener – ff.im.

It’s not hard to see how this could end up becoming incredibly annoying on Twitter and add to its already significant noise problems. While Friendfeed’s new feature lets you decide which services to sync with Twitter, many users are involved in hundreds of activities a day on the service. Having those all duplicated on Twitter seems like tremendous overkill. Nonetheless, I’m sure many power users will quickly move to double their exposure.

That said, you can always unfollow those that become too noisey. But, that seems so hasty, when all you really want to do is have a conversation. In short, this sounds great for attention hungry Friendfeed users, but, not so great for the quality of discussion on Twitter.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Walled Garden Be Damned: Import Facebook Activities into FriendfeedFriendFeed Brings Twitter BackGeoTwitterous: Personalized Twitter on a MapFriendFeed - Does It Enrich The Conversation Or Add To The Noise?Facebook Becomes FriendFeed; Launches Commenting On Mini-Feed ItemsMovable Type Plugin Connects FriendFeed Comments With Your BlogIntroducing Mashable, Twitter Edition!

Source:Mashable!

Flixwagon, a service that allows users to stream video right from their phone, has announced integration with Nokia’s video sharing service, Share on Ovi. Flixwagon has recently been making some changes and adding features to increase its brand presence online, including a partnership with CurrentTV for the upcoming election, also announced today.

To utilize the Share on Ovi service, Flixwagon users must first sign up for the Share on Ovi site, then go back to their Flixwagon account and associate it with the service. Flixwagon already offers users the ability to stream, store and share videos on their own site. This integration just gives users one more place for their videos to be found online.

By downloading the Flixwagon application and utilizing it with Nokia’s Share on Ovi, users can store their videos directly to Share on Ovi for free, right from their phone. By adding the Share on Ovi option to the arsenal of services offered, including streaming to both the Internet and TV, Flixwagon is creating a stronger more versatile service to stay fresh in competition with similar providers, like Qik.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Flixwagon’s FliXee Widget, and Direct YouTube UploadsFlixwagon Launches Video Streaming Application for iPhoneA Quick Conversation with Mefeedia’s Frank SintonFlixwagon Adds Mobile App and Twitter IntegrationPete Cashmore Speaks at StartupCamp: Harnessing Social NetworksFlixwagon Starts Pitching Media and Mobile Carriers en MasseMeet Pete & Kristen Tonight at Evolve and All Week at the Web 2.0 Expo

This is a guest post written by Bernard Moon, Vice President of the Lunsford Group, a private holding company consisting of entities in technology, media, research & consulting, health care, investment boutique, and real estate. Bernard blogs at Silicon Moon.

The recent announcement of Google’s Lively product has created a stir in some circles, but for me it’s a yawner. Why? It’s another Google product not related to their bread and butter of search and ads. The company was built on a philosophy that products should sell themselves, so their marketing efforts are minuscule and their product development process seems undeveloped. Also “products” are not really great design but great engineering. While this approach has been wondrous for Google’s core search business and related profit margins, it has created misguided results with possibly billions of dollars left on the table.

Similar to Lively, Google’s social networking service, Orkut, was built by Orkut Büyükkökten on his 20% time. In typical fashion, Orkut was launched with little marketing strategy and received some initial fanfare.

When Google finally opened Orkut up and allowed anyone to join in 2006, it randomly became the leading social network in Brazil. While Alexa rankings are inaccurate, Orkut recently became the 11th most trafficked site in the world. In most situations, this would be a wild success, but imagine if they actually targeted specific segments in the U.S. instead of throwing dice? Orkut strategically targeted India, which has led to its leadership position there, but what other markets has Google missed?

I’m not fond of “what if” scenarios, but what if they opened up earlier and targeted the college market in 2004 as Facebook was slowly spreading through the Ivy League schools? Or if they tailored it to the teen market in the U.K.? It seems Google is now paying attention to Orkut’s growth and development, but they already missed several larger opportunities.

Google Product Search service (formerly Froogle) was another missed opportunity. Officially launched in 2002, it wallowed in mediocrity for years. I don’t know if this was a 20% project, but it seems like another engineering project not coupled with a product manager and little marketing guidance. If there is one area that has been a consistent startup goldmine from the first boom to today, it is shopping comparison engines.

CNET acquired mySimon for $700 million (2000), Yahoo acquired Kelkoo for $640 million (2004), eBay acquired Shopping.com for $620 million (2005), Shopzilla sold for $525 million (2005), and several others including Microsoft’s recent acquisition of Jellyfish.com for $50 million (2007). Shopping search engines generate great revenue and accumulate an incredible amount of valuable user data. What has Google done with Froogle? How much revenue has it generated since 2002? How many millions have been left at the doorsteps of its competitors?

Gmail’s invitation-only beta release began in April 2004. I remember receiving an invite from my friend at Google that month and testing it out. I quickly fell in love with Gmail. I loved how it grouped email conversations, the label function and the clean user interface. Over the next couple years I ran into more fans of Gmail, so I kept wondering when it would open up. It finally did in February 2007, but I questioned the rationale of this decision. What if they opened it up sooner? What if they promoted it beyond a link off its homepage?

Today, there are approximately 262 million Yahoo! email users, 256 million Live Hotmail users, 87 million Gmail users and 49 million AOL users worldwide. With my biases, I have to ask why is the best free email service a distant third?

This leads me to question Google’s approach to product development and marketing beyond their core services. While it seeks to organize the world’s information, there are products on its periphery where design and marketing can be factors towards success and untapped revenues. Google’s engineering driven culture that has doubtingly created enormous growth and shareholder value, but great engineering and design is not mutually exclusive.

Looking at Apple, their company culture is driven by design and user experience. Engineering supports the creation of Apple’s designs, and this consistent approach has served the company well in its new era.

I believe Google can learn a little from Apple and its obsessive design culture and incredible marketing machine. While I believe Google should always be an engineering driven culture and company, some room should be left for the design freaks and marketing geniuses to optimize the value of their treasure chest of innovation.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:No Sex in Lively? Yeah, Right!Is Google Building a Media Empire Based on Your Searches? Of Course.Google Launches Lively to Create a Virtual World Across Social NetworksVirtual Worlds: 20+ Tools for Creating 3D Graphics and EnvironmentsGoogle To Launch Google WikiGoogle Maps Hangs Up on Click-to-CallGoogle Checkout Trends Knows Your Shopping Habits

Source:Mashable!

Editor’s Note: If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion in “The Startup Review” series, please see the details here.

STARTUP DETAILS:

Company Name: Moblyng

20 word description: Moblyng can detect and mobilize photo and slideshow widgets and online video from any social media page or URL.

CEO’s 100 word description: Since our launch this May, Moblyng has seen tremendous traffic in the tens of thousands of users. Moblyng’s groundbreaking technology allows consumers to mobilize existing social media and also create new media. Moblyng technology automatically converts Flash-based content to images or video for mobile distribution. We provide a cool, fun, free and easy way for consumers to express themselves and share media with friends, both on the Web and on mobile phones. We also provide advertising and branding space in online and mobile Web pages, mobile text messages and pre/post-roll video, providing a real revenue business model.

Mashable’s Take: Slideshow creator fliptrack is going mobile with a new stand alone service called Moblyng. With this tool, you can import existing images, videos and slideshows from across the Web and turn them into custom mobile content that you can send to your phone or your friends’ phones.

Moblyng automatically detects the media on any given URL, and converts Flash-based slideshows into content that can be shared on your phone. Moblyng will work on just about any phone that supports photos, so there’s no short list of devices that will work for the service. The networks supported for easy import is a decent size list as well, ranging from Photobucket slideshows to your Facebook and MySpace albums. Since Moblyng is a product of fliptrack, you can always create a mobile slideshow from scratch directly on the Moblyng site by uploading your content.

While integration with popular social networks certainly makes mobile media-sharing much easier, a browser add-on that lets you create mobile slideshows and send content to your mobile phone as you browse the Web would be a really nifty feature, increasing the ease with which media is sent to users’ phones. This could encourage even more activity across the board. Even a bookmarking tool with the ability to aggregate content that users might later be interested in mobilizing could encourage some activity on that front.

Sponsored by Sun Startup Essentials

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T - news) said on Tuesday it has taken a step toward the long-promised notion of phones replacing credit cards, checks and cash by signing agreements with Wachovia Corp. (NYSE:WB - news) and several other banks.

The agreements will allow customers of its Cingular Wireless arm, which is being rebranded as AT&T, and participating banks to manage their accounts and pay bills electronically by using an application on their cell phones. While the use of mobile phones for transactions is in its nascent stages in the United States, such services are already available in parts of Europe and Asia.In Japan, people commonly shop with their mobile phones by just waving their handset instead of swiping credit cards.

AT&T, having tested mobile banking last year, has said it will not charge extra for the service but expects it to attract more users to its wireless Internet service and potentially help it add new users and keep existing ones.Along with Wachovia, U.S. banks such as BancorpSouth Inc. (NYSE: BXS - news), Regions Financial Corp. (NYSE:RF - news) and SunTrust Banks Inc. (NYSE:STI - news) are offering mobile banking to AT&T customers. The move is part of an effort by wireless companies around to world to boost their revenue and customer loyalty by convincing subscribers to use phones for everything from Web browsing and text messaging to playing music and video.

AT&T said customers can download software from privately held Firethorn Holdings LLC onto their phones. AT&T plans to include the software in new handsets in the second half of this year and is planning a multimillion-dollar ad campaign.Firethorn is also acting as an intermediary between AT&T and the banks.

AT&T said most BancorpSouth customers who tried mobile banking said they would use it to check their balance, and about three quarters said it would help them make better spending decisions. Wachovia operates in 21 U.S. states, while Regions operates in 16 states in the Midwest and South, including Texas. SunTrust provides banking in Southeast and Mid-Atlantic states and BancorpSouth operates in eight U.S. states.

AT&T Chief Operating Officer Randall Stephenson talked about the mobile banking service in a keynote speech at the CTIA wireless technology conference on Tuesday. He also commented on combining wireless and fixed-line services. "I’m confident that in the not too distant future the concepts of having different handsets for different networks ….. will be seen as quaint," Stephenson said. For example, cell phone video conference services that AT&T plans to launch in 50 markets this summer could eventually work in conjunction with video conferencing on television screens and desktop computers."You should fully expect in a very short period that the other two screens will be brought into this," said Stephenson. He saw mobile video representing as dramatic a change as the replacement of black-and-white televisions with color. To illustrate the growing ubiquity of mobile phones around the world, Stephenson said that while four babies are born every second in China, about 25 people are signing up for wireless services in the country.

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (Reuters) - A federal judge issued a permanent injunction on Friday barring Vonage Holdings Corp. (NYSE:VG - news) from using Internet phone call technology owned by Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ - news).
U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton granted Verizon’s request for an injunction prohibiting Vonage from using some Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) technologies that allow consumers to make calls over the Internet.

Vonage shares fell 6.2 percent, or 25 cents, to $3.80 shortly after the judge’s decision. Trading in the stock was then halted.

A jury on March 8 found Vonage had infringed three patents owned by Verizon. The jury said Vonage must pay $58 million plus 5.5 percent royalties on future sales.

Judge Hilton agreed with Verizon that it would suffer irreparable harm if he allowed continued infringement of the patent. He rejected an argument by Vonage that the injunction would harm the public interest.

What’s Going Down2Night.com
Seattle, San Francisco and Tri-Cities,WA among first to have Local Nightlife Broadcast by Text Message

(Seattle, WA)—March 16, 2007 – Have you and your friends ever wondered: “What are we doing tonight?” Seattle start-up Down2Night.com seeks to answer that question. Down2Night www.Down2Night.com is a free service that broadcasts SMS text message notification of a users favorite local nightlife venues they choose, on the days they choose.

Down2night.com launched this week with Seattle, San Francisco, and Tri-cities, WA for the alpha version. Rollout into other major cities across the nation will follow as popularity and feedback pour in. 

Down2Night.com is after the mobile social networking industry officially introduced in 2001, and has since exploded into a $3.45 billion dollar industry in the US alone.

Mark Michael/CEO and Daniel Rust/Chief Architect both in their early twenties co-founded Down2Night.com. They agree that down2night’s primary users will be the 18 to 35 year old professional crowd.

“This market segment is the most mobile-savvy group having SMS messaging experience, while also being the individuals that spend the most time and money attending musical events, and visiting clubs, lounges, and other nightlife establishments says Mark Michael CEO/Co-founder.”

Many of the notifications will also include specials, discounts, or coupons providing free or reduced rates for products, services, or cover charges with just the presentation of a text message.

The expected promotion in each city is planned to include discounts at local nightclubs, lounges and eateries, and a public "Launch" party, along with more conventional advertising.  

"With down2night, the user and establishments contribute event(s) or messages into the system and have it available to their peers/patrons online within minutes; using this dynamic portal, the event information broadcasted to the public can always be accurate and up to date," explained Rust.

Future enhancements will allow someone traveling to Las Vegas to temporarily sign up for that city and receive notification of special events at their favorite casinos, nightclubs and performances.

–###–

Contact:
www.Down2Night.com “What’s Going Down 2 Night?”
a Synapse Corporate Solutions, LLC Company

• Current Seattle Venues: 103
• Current San Francisco Venues: 173
• Current Tri-cities Venues: 22
• Improved Navigation
• Mashup with Yelp (http://www.yelp.com) showing snippets of the last 5 reviews added
• Browse and view what other "spots" users have subscribed to
• "Map My Spots", which is a Google Maps mashup of your "spots" shown visually on a map
• Mash up/Integration section for XML Feeds
• Embeddable flash widget to display your favorite "spots" on your MySpace profile, blog, or personal web site
• See who has subscribed to the same spots you have
• RSS feed of the top events going down in your city
• RSS feed of events going down at your "spots"
• Select what days of the week you want to be notified via text message
• Receive one text message at 3pm on each day you have selected, listing your spots and what events are going down on that night
• Add new events at your "spots"
• Vote on current events at your "spots"
• Subscribe to your favorite nightlife "spots" (i.e. clubs, bars, lounges, and venues) in your city
• Live search of the "spots" in your city
• View how popular a "spot" is based on the number of subscribers, events, and messages
• Add messages and discussion about "spots"
• Upload an image to represent you on the down2night site

A shaky video taken by one of Tolya Ivanov’s classmates shows his teacher holding him up against the blackboard striking him on the head repeatedly and throwing him across the room. After several days in hospital, the 11-year-old student told the Rossiya television network on Friday that he was afraid to return to his school in the northern town of Olenegorsk.

"I have a bruise here from when she hit me against the blackboard," he told the station, pointing to his left arm. He said the school’s reaction to the beating was to approach the student who took the video to ask him to delete it. An investigation has been opened into the incident with the teacher facing up to three years in prison if found guilty, prosecutor Yelena Smirnova told the television.