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Article updated 4/1/09 at 1:30 pm PT to correct the name of LyricFind.

All these lyrics can be yours as part of a subscription fee.

If you’ve ever seen this Internet-infamous video, nobody need ever remind you of the importance of song lyrics.

Licensed lyrics are beginning to set a trend in mobile applications. In addition to Slacker Radio’s lyrics play, TuneWiki has released its offering for Android and is working on versions of the music video and lyrics application for the other mobile platforms. The bottom line is: are you willing to pay for a tool that keeps you from making a fool of yourself in front of people you’re trying to impress?

(Credit:
Slacker Radio)

Soon, subscribers to Slacker Radio’s RadioPlus service will be able to avoid embarrassing lyrical flubs with the help of a new lyrics tab on the
iPhone, BlackBerry, and Web. Slacker Radio has partnered with LyricFind to provide the text behind the songs, which RadioPlus subscribers began seeing Tuesday, March 31, 2009, on Slacker.com. The lyrics tabs is expected to appear on the BlackBerry on April 1, and on the iPhone sometime next week.

The difference is the nature of the data being stored, and from where they’ve traditionally been controlled. Employee communications and file storage come from within a company. Infrastructure, habits, and laws have grown up to encourage that data to stay there. But for online services that undercut traditionally consulting-based services, like measurement analytics, there’s little business instinct to pull the entire operation inside the arms of the IT department.

Egnyte is still designed around a the idea of hosted file storage, and the Local Cloud product synchronizes with hosting servers. But the local option does at least give customers access to their data if their Internet connection is disabled.

Another business Twitter-alike product, Present.ly, launched in 2008 with support for an installed version initially, as well as a hosted service like Yammer. Yoshi Maisami of Intridea, which makes Present.ly, told me his company is making more money from the inside-the-firewall version than from the hosted service. He has more accounts on the hosted app though.

I was a little surprised when the Twitter-for-the-Enterprise service Yammer won the TechCrunch50 Best of Show award in 2008. Not because Yammer is a bad app or because I think the idea of a business Twitter is silly (I think it makes a lot of sense, in fact), but because as an enterprise service, Yammer seemed tone deaf in one key area: it was released as a hosted service and didn’t give business customers direct control of the records of conversations that their employees might be having.

There’s also, of course, the issue of perceived reliability. If an e-mail or file storage service goes offline, a business can grind to a halt. While I don’t believe that IT departments are inherently able to provide more uptime than hosted services, a business leader at least knows who he or she can complain to if the company’s e-mail suffers a glitch. With analytics services, a few minutes or hours of downtime is unlikely to have an immediate material impact on a company’s capability to operate.

So it makes sense that Yammer is now available as installable software. Users of this version of the service will pay more–they have to provide their own hardware, backups, and, most importantly, staff to support the app–but they get the control over information that itchy IT types like so much.

Not all Web 2.0 start-ups are seeing the need to offer local access to their services, though. I asked Jennifer Zeszut of the market analytics company Scout Labs (review) if any of her customers were asking for a local version of the product. She said they’re not.

It’s not surprising to hear of start-up companies that provide Web-based services to their customers as being enthusiastic consumers of Web-based services themselves. For my part, I’m happy to build the Webware 100 awards program using services from Webware companies like Wufoo and PollDaddy. But to sell to businesses in the real world, it’s not enough to offer a Web-based service that’s less expensive than a traditional software app. You’ve got to understand the habits and laws, the sacred cows, and the fears of customer companies. Local versions of apps that address these issues may be less efficient and more expensive. But they can also sell better.

The hosted model makes financial sense. It’s much cheaper to contract with a service like Yammer than to buy and install software inside a business. However, it’s not realistic to think that the people inside businesses currently running their own e-mail servers will happily encourage sensitive and timely employee conversations to head outside the firewall to a hosted service. Saving money doesn’t trump control.

In related news, Egnyte, which offers a hosted file server for businesses, now has a version it calls the “Local Cloud,” which puts the data that would otherwise live solely on Egnyte’s servers on machines that businesses can install inside their firewalls.

Scout Labs, an interesting variation on market-research services, comes out of beta on Wednesday. Briefly, you feed it your brand name and some key words, and it scours the Web–blog posts and Twitter items, mostly–to see what people are saying about your product or company.

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Scout Labs)

Scout looks like a smart progression in the market of real-time sentiment analytics. I haven’t tried it over time myself, so I can’t comment on how effective and accurate it is. But conceptually it’s reminiscent to me of Google Analytics, which democratized Web measurement. Scout isn’t free unfortunately, but its pricing undercuts traditional services dramatically. And for the engaged marketer, it will likely offer a lot of useful information. Product marketers who want to cast their lot with standard consultants may still find the old model more comfortable, though.

Scout Labs will show you how much of the blogosphere cares about you, compared with your competitors.

Plus, you can correct Scout Labs’ ratings when you see an error, and it will learn from it.

Scout Labs, by contrast, is automated, down to its core technological deliverable, which is not just collating online opinion about your product, but gauging its sentiment as positive, negative, or neutral.

The dashboard shows you how well you're doing on the Web each day. It tracks blogs, Twitter, and video-sharing services.

The competitive advantage: Compared with other market research tools, it’s cheap: $250 a month for the standard package.

In addition to its cool tools for gathering and presenting information about how your business is being perceived, Scout Labs also helps you act on the news. For example, you can create a discussion thread around a blog post, Twitter item, or YouTube video, and automatically e-mail an alert about it out to your team. You can also tag items to collect them in batches for further study.

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Scout Labs)

Zeszut said that Scout Labs will get sentiment right (which is defined as in agreement with a human customer) about 72 percent of the time. That sounds pretty loose, but she said that if you ask three people to gauge the sentiments of articles about a product, they’ll only be in agreement with each other 82 percent of the time.

Scout is not priced by user, but by the number of keywords you can search for in an account. There are the budget plan at $99 a month (for five terms), the standard plan at $249 a month (25 terms), and additional plans for public relations and marketing agencies that let users set up “workspaces” for different clients and mete out access to those workspaces to their customers.

The demo I saw featured some cool data displays, like a graph showing how “share of voice” for a product compared with its competitors over time, and one showing the positive/negative perception changing over time. The standard dashboard view shows how your keywords are faring day-to-day. For example, if you worked at Comcast and had “Comcast sucks” as a keyword phrase, you’d see how you were doing each day on the dissatisfied customer front. (A primary goal for a market research product is to help companies stay ahead of angry customers, so that would be a good thing to track.)

The company has raised an undisclosed amount of funding in two rounds from Minor Ventures, run by Halsey Minor, who was one of CNET Networks’ founders.

Scout Labs CEO Jennifer Zeszut said typical online market-research services, like Neilsen’s BuzzMetrics, Visible Technologies TruCast, Cymfony, and Collective Intellect, cost more because they require manual intervention. Each report or dashboard is a custom job.

The AeA-ITAA deal, aiming to create a stronger industry advocacy voice in Washington, D.C. and provide a greater breadth of technology sector-specific programs, is expected to close by the end of the year. The combined group, to be known as the Technology Association of America, is expected to have approximately 2,000 member companies.

Mimicking a larger technology industry consolidation trend, the American Electronics Association and Information Technology Association of America trade groups announced on Tuesday plans to merge lobbying efforts.

To protect call recipients from getting blasted over and over, any number that’s been used is barred from being used again for 21 days. These numbers are saved in a temporary database during that time, then cleared until used again. You can also add your number to the service’s block list which will keep it from being used entirely.

[via Guardian.co.uk]

I’ve been playing with the most wonderful and devious service this morning. It’s called Hoax Call, and it lets you prank call people right from your browser. If you’re familiar with soundboards, the Flash-powered array of links that play small sound clips from popular movies, you’ll feel right at home with Hoax Call. It offers three of these boards that can control, then use to connect you to any number in the U.S., Canada, or the U.K.

To play one of these lines you just click on it. The caller on the other end will hear it, and so will you.

Hoax Call is completely free, although the creators say they’re adding a premium service later on that will add additional scenarios. If they’re smart they’ll add a recording tool that lets users share their calls, too.

Each soundboard scenario has a different theme. The site has launched with just three, one that fakes a radio call, a standard wrong number, and an “annoying eBay buyer” who is attempting to return a computer they got off the auction site. What’s neat is that it combines your standard soundboard with VoIP calling, so you can hear your phone call through the computer speakers, then send over each audio clip in near real-time. You can also tweak specific details like your name and the person you’re trying to reach so that it can be personalized, lessening the chances of the person hanging up.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

All of this is something you were able to do before, although not without a fair bit of effort and some equipment. To do this you’d need a good VoIP application with some sort of proxy, as well as a pair of split headphones to be able to hear what was happening on the other side of the call. This service also provides complete anonymity–there is no special sign-up required; you just need to know the person’s number.

But that’s just my opinion. I’m still a Vudu fan, thanks to the excellent video quality of its HDX movies and the breadth of its 1,400-strong HD movie library. I’m just happy sticking with rentals.

Vudu is hoping that these niche offerings will pave the way for the major studios to flip the switch on HD purchases of their more mainstream fare at some point in the future.

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On a personal note, after building up significant VHS and then DVD movie libraries, I’ve moved to an almost entirely all-rental model in my viewing habits, so buying downloadable movies doesn’t appeal to me–even if Vudu can get the bigger studios to sign onto this plan. And if I did want to invest in a keeper, I’m still going to feel more comfortable with Blu-ray Discs than with having movies locked into a proprietary hard-drive format.

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Vudu)

Most video-on-demand set-top boxes let users rent or buy downloadable movies. But high-definition movies have been rental-only, thanks to limitations from the movie studios that own the content. But owners of Vudu’s on-demand box will now be able to buy a limited selection of HD movies from independent studios Firstlook, Magnolia, and Kino.

The initial roster of 50 high-def movies includes such titles as “Transsiberian” and the Oscar-winning “Man on Wire,” and they’ll be offered simultaneously with the DVD releases. (Viewers can opt to buy either the “instant HD” or the much more impressive HDX version of the movie, and rentals will still be available.)

What does it mean? The HD movie purchases offers Vudu another nice bragging right in its competition with Apple TV, but little more.

The car will be able to drive 40 miles on its lithium-ion batteries. An internal combustion engine–able to run on gasoline or E85, a blend of ethanol and gas–will extend the car’s driving range to hundreds of miles.

When photos of the production Volt were captured and circulated last week, many commenters seemed disappointed, complaining that the Volt resembled existing fuel-efficient sedans.

“The Volt symbolizes General Motors’ commitment to the future, just the kind of technical innovation our industry needs to respond to tomorrow’s energy and environmental challenges,” Wagoner said in a speech to a gathering of partners, customers, journalists, and employees.

He said the Volt will help reverse GM’s fortunes and, if accepted by consumers, make an impact on society’s concerns over energy security and the environment.

A front view of the production electric Chevy Volt shown publicly on Tuesday. Click image to enlarge.

Wagoner said that the auto industry is in the early days of a transition from mechanically-driven to electrically-driven vehicles, a trend that financially ailing GM intends to lead.

GM Chairman Rick Wagoner introduced the plug-in hybrid car in Detroit, showing a production version with a different look than the concept car rolled out in January 2007.

Overall, GM figures that a Volt will cost one-sixth what it cost to operate a gasoline car. Charging the car daily will consume less annually than running a home’s refrigerator and freezer units, the company said.

There will be two touch-sensitive screens, as well as a configurable liquid crystal instrument display.

GM has also sought to make the interior fit with the car’s high-tech image.

Lutz also addressed the design changes, which were meant to make the car more aerodynamic and fuel-efficient.

In the GM FastLane blog, Lutz said the Volt’s introduction on Tuesday should quiet naysayers who said the Volt program was “vaporware” or GM “green-washing” meant to improve its public image.

Another image of the Chevy Volt released by GM at its debut. Click on image to enlarge.

The Volt’s 220 lithium-on batteries can store 16 kilowatt-hours of electricity and deliver the equivalent of 150 horsepower and a quiet ride.

High-profile design guru and vice chairman Robert Lutz drove the Volt onto the stage before journalists swarmed to get a closer look at the car.

A 7-inch touch-sensitive liquid crystal display provides navigation, and a touch screen controls in-car climate and “infotainment.” There is an optional navigation system with an on-board hard drive for maps and music.

The company also released photos and a number of technical details, including a projected top speed of 100 mph and two in-car touch-screen controls. The five-door sedan, which GM calls an extended-range electric vehicle, is scheduled to be available for purchase in the U.S. in late 2010.

GM estimates that it will cost about 2 cents per mile to drive while under battery power. By contrast, it calculates that people pay 12 cents per mile for gasoline at $3.60 a gallon.

The Chevy Volt was the centerpiece of General Motors’ centennial celebration on Tuesday with executives heralding the electric
car as the first step in the reinvention of the automobile.

Update at 2:45 p.m. PT with additional technical details: The projected acceleration is zero to 60 miles per hour in 9 seconds, according to GM representatives. The battery life–a significant question facing all new lithium-ion battery vehicles–will be 150,000 miles or ten years. The Volt will come in a variety of colors.

(Credit:
GM)

(Credit:
GM)

“I submit that while it’s typically design that makes an emotional connection with buyers, in this case, the Volt is going to be bought for emotional reasons, but it will be for the emotion tied to the technology contained therein,” Lutz wrote.

(Credit:
GM)

A look at the interior controls of the Chevy Volt. Click image to enlarge.

Tech specs

Most Americans will be able to drive their daily commutes entirely on the batteries, charging them at night for about 80 cents with electricity priced at 10 cents a kilowatt-hour, according to GM. It takes about eight hours to charge via a household 120 volt outlet and three hours on a 240 volt outlet.

Yahoo Open: Finally, a real answer to Google

During an interview in September, Venkat Panchapakesan, head of Yahoo’s Audience Technology Group, listed the three top challenges Yahoo faces in bringing its social dimension to scale: making applications such as Yahoo Mail work well on desktop and mobile devices; data privacy; and converting all profiles to a single name space (the universal profile) and lighting up the social graph. One challenge partially down, and two to go.

The new profile page will allow users to make limited changes to their profiles, such as status updates, adding connections (friends in the social graph) from their Yahoo address book, and listing interests. Users can change settings, control permissions and manage notifications across various Yahoo properties.

Yahoo is beginning the transition to its new socially-enabled platform, laying the foundation for a “universal profile” Thursday.

In addition, within the next few months Yahoo is adding a new universal header on every page of the service to unify key navigation elements. Along with the usual links to the Yahoo home page, MyYahoo and Yahoo Mail, a new profile link will provide access to user profiles and contacts.

Over time, properties such as Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Finance, Flickr and Yahoo Buzz, will be socially enabled beyond activity feeds, Stoneham said. He gave an example of requesting a review from a user’s connections while perusing a product page in Yahoo Shopping. When a review is posted it shows up in the user’s activity feed. In addition, miniprofiles are available to get information quickly about the reviewer. If the reviewer isn’t a personal connection, the profile won’t have all the contact information.

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Yahoo)

Correction: Previously it was reported that Yahoo Buzz activity feeds would be surfaced at this time in the new profile pages. A Yahoo spokesperson said that the Buzz feed was not yet implemented.

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Yahoo)

Inside Yahoo’s social network

“There is not a lot to demo in this release. It’s a foundation release that will allow other things to happen and developers to do things,” Stoneham told me. “We have to make sure it works before turning on connections to big traffic properties. The big bang theory doesn’t work at this scale. It like Apple rolling out a new operating system release.” In September, Yahoo gave developers access to its new social APIs and Yahoo Application Platform (YAP) for writing applications that run on Yahoo Web pages.

See also:

Stoneham expects Yahoo’s social graph to “light up quickly” soon, however. Over the next few months, more Yahoo property activity feeds will show up in the profile page and additional aggregation points, such as the home page and Yahoo Mail, will aggregate feeds and allow connections. In Yahoo Mail, users will see messages from contacts, connection requests and activity updates from contacts. The Yahoo.com home page will offer a module that shows the activity updates of a user’s connections.

Yahoo 360 (Yahoo’s 2005 attempt to create a social network ) member profiles will be migrated to the new system, but Yahoo 360 won’t be going away yet, according to Jim Stoneham, vice president of communities at Yahoo.

In this screen from the January 2008 CES demo, Yahoo Mail shows messages from a user's most important connections as well as their status updates.

I’m a huge believer in the idea that you can have high-quality gaming experiences in the browser. Casual gaming has proven that people are willing to play browser-based games and the value chain just needs to catch up with more hard-core experiences. Add in subscription fees and other monetization efforts and all of the sudden you have real business.

Via VentureBeat

Trion doesn’t yet have any products out the door yet so investors are clearly betting on the technology and the business relationships the company has already established with the Sci Fi Channel and others.

Trion World Network just announced it has raised $70 million for its server-based online games. TWN creates massively multiplayer online games that run almost entirely on the Internet with little/no PC component download. This is different from games like World of Warcraft–or pretty much every other MMO that require you to download some component.