Google Prepping A Second Life Competitor?

Rumors of a Google powered virtual world based on Google Earth surfaced in January; today there is word that Google may be testing their virtual world at Arizona State University (ASU).

According to Google Operating System, ASU students have the opportunity to test a new product “that will be publicly launched later this year” by “a major Internet company” that is related to social networking, 3D modeling and video games. The questionnaire attached to the application process asks would be testers if they have a Gmail account, and if not would they be willing to get one. The product’s name is shown as “My World.”

Google’s Sketchup service already provides the tech to do 3D modeling and could also be used to create avatars.

We know for certain now that Google has big plans for social networking, from SocialStream to Google’s planned November 5 launch of the mother of all open social networking platforms. Whether the planned service will be a true Second Life competitor is still to be seen, however I suspect that if Google is prepping a virtual world it will be closer to IBM’s Virtual World chat platform than Second Life. To deliver a full UGC world is a not an easy step where a basic 3D world which builds on Google Earth, SketchUp, and existing Google social networking platforms including Orkut would seem more likely.
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Yuuguu Takes Desktop Sharing Mobile

UK based Yuuguu will officially launch at DEMO today with a cross platform desktop sharing platform that also works on mobile phones.

Yuuguu, a name apparently derived from the Japanese word for fusion, enables users to see, share, and control other computer screens and applications. Yuuguu supports web browsers on any device, notably on mobile phones providing anywhere access and flexibility.

Suggested uses include team members working on a project or by friends sharing applications.

Yuuguu also includes low cost voice conferencing services for one-to-one and one-to-many voice calls.

This is a close to saturated vertical, and I’m tempted to say that a startup entering the space must have rocks in their head, or something completely different. Mobile desktop sharing is fairly new, however I couldn’t get it to work. Issues aside, Yuuguu’s idea is sound, with a lot of potential.

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Microsoft May Invest in Facebook At $10 Billion Valuation

Microsoft May Invest in Facebook At $10 Billion Valuation

Friendster Plays To Strengths, Launches In Chinese

Friendster is back, at least in Asia.

The social network that was the coolest thing on the block until MySpace came around has been slowly regaining its reputation and users over the years, and now boasts 50 million registered user and 27.4 million monthly unique visitors. The only problem (if you call it a problem) is that, like Orkut, most of those users are outside of the U.S. Specifically, they’re in the Asia/Pacific region - 24 million of the total 27.4 million unique monthly visitors come from there, as do 35 million of the 50 million registered users.

So it’s no surprise that the social network is playing to its strengths and launching its first non-English version, in traditional Chinese. This isn’t a separate website or URL; users simply click to Chinese to have the content localized to that language. User generated stuff remains in the original language.

France Telecom’s Orange to adopt OpenID

Yesterday at the Digital ID conference in San Francisco, Orange, one of the major mobile operator and ISP with more than 40 million subscribers announced they would adopt the OpenID registration/identification standard. There was already a clear trend from big internet properties to adopt (Digg, Technorati Microsoft and AOL but also Yahoo and WikiPedia already announced that).

But this is the first time that a major TelCo is taking that step. There is already an implementation of OpenID on the French portal available at openid.orange.fr . Orange presents also on the page a list of OpenID providers.

This is a good news for OpenID standard. The question remaining concerns the pace of adoption by the users. I could not find the access to the openID page by navigating from the homepage of the portal. It will probably pushed at later stage after the first tests. I also found the explanation not simple enough to understand for a new user (most of them are not early adopters) and Orange should probably think about a a short visual/demo to explain simply the benefits of such a service. An international roll out will probably come out soon.

Terabitz To Expand Beyond Home Searches Today

Palo Alto-based Terabitz launched in July 2007 as a sort of Netvibes/Pageflakes for people searching for real estate.

A search on the site pulls up a basic Google map of the area and nothing else. But users can then drag in modules to add information - local foreclosures, recent sales, listed homes, schools, even fast food restaurants. Every module that is added by a user also adds the appropriate information to the map as well. It’s a very convenient way to get a feel for the neighborhood.

The original idea for the company came from seventeen year old Kamran Munshi, who is now a freshman at Cornell. His father, Ashfaq, ran with the idea and raised $10 million in funding. The company has 42 employees (12 in the U.S., 30 in India).

Later today the company is launching a new feature - the ability to create a map with various modules included and then embed it on another website. So any site that wants to add a Google generated map that includes, say, local businesses and restaurants (a hotel, for example) can now do so easily. The tool is free, but will be branded with Terabitz.

Expect Failure From Hulu: NBCU Chief

The first positive points we’ve awarded to Hulu come for pure honesty with George Kliavkoff, NBC Universal’s chief digital officer telling a crowd at OMMA New York Monday that they should expect failure from Hulu.

To be fair, as much as the headline quote alone is worthy of at least a couple of links demonstrating how the bridesmaid service has failed already, in context Kliavkoff’s quote is good advice for any startup: you have to fail sometimes to succeed:

” you have to fail fast in order to quickly identify your errors and cut your losses. Success involves setting up “processes to fail fast.”

According to Kliavkoff, Hulu will launch in October and NBC will be providing incentives for viewers to spend time at Hulu. What those incentives are were not disclosed, nor was it explained why users would visit Hulu for NBC content when NBC itself is now offering its shows as free ad-supported downloads on NBC Direct.

Kliavkoff also told the audience that he does not believe that viewers will ever prefer consumer-generated content over premium fare, saying that “at the end of the day, premium, produced content wins,” an interesting take given the phenomenal success of services including YouTube and others.

Think you know Web2.0? Ok. But can you predict Web2.0?

How good are you at making predictions? Meet PlaytheDay a quiz game that will entertain those who can predict the future. The game is very simple: you need to answer 8 questions related to a future event. If you get 8 answers right in a row you win. There is one prize to win everyday and several series of quizzes in different spaces (celebrity, music, sport, Internet and finance,…) are available. Each questions come with a tip and link to a website where you can evaluate or find the answer. The fun part is that the games are closed one day before the actual date and on the day answers are progressively revealed along with the list of participants that are still racing for the prize.

To start off they have created a free predictive quiz on web2.0 events taking place next october 14th (you can already participate). You can find questions like “how many votes will the most popular story on Digg have at 4pm” or “How many comments will the top story on TechCrunch get at 4pm”. Honestly answering is mostly a question of luck rather than skill. But the game is free and the upside is not bad: you can win an iPod touch and you have here another opportunity to prove you are a real Web2.0 Guru :)

This free game is aimed at raising awareness around their site but the main activity of the service will be selling tickets for participations to other quizzes.

Betting games have been around for a while. Gottabet and Bluebet allow you to create a bet on virtually anything. Predicting games have been also around for a while: PicksPal allow you to predict sport event, and other services like SocialPicks do the same with stocks.

PlayTheDay has been around for a while but the official launch takes place this week. This game is operated by FairPlay, a privately held company incorporated in Cyprus and created by team of veterans in the gaming industry including an Israeli entrepreneur previously senior employee at Random Logic (that operates 888.com)