When you launch a make or break initiative like Windows Azure, you better get it right. Well, from our vantage point, Microsoft got it right. How? In front of a sea of developers at the Professional Developers Conference , Microsoft trotted out a group of geek all-stars who showed how they are using Azure to do some pretty cool stuff. Sponsor It’s a sure way to show your chops when you get Matt Mullenweg from WordPress, Loic LeMeur of Seesmic and the CTO for the Cheezburger Network ( I Can Has Cheezburger ) to show off what they created on the Azure platform. Mullenwegg appeared on stage to show that his company, Automattic , is fully supporting Azure. Automattic is the company behind WordPress. His presence drove home how Azure will support PHP, MySQL and other open-source tools in additon to .NET. That’s a great way to show how a company, built on proprietary technologies, is accepting the open nature of the web. Showing off the geeks can only get you so far. You have to show the goods. And for about two hours, Microsoft showed repeatedly that Ray Ozzie’s vision may be right on. The code-named Dallas project may be the most interesting. It’s a data service that provides access to information from the Associated Press, data.gov and other sources. That’s the power of cloud computing that we expect to see more of from companies across the enterprise. Azure is a window into how cloud computing changes everything simply by speeding up the delivery of actionable information. We see it time and again with the companies that come knocking here at ReadWriteWeb. For example, FusionOps launched an on-demand, business intelligence service today. The company has the potential to disrupt the business intelligence market for ERP applications. How do they do it? They take huge models from SAP, put the data in the cloud and then integrate their rules based systems to visualize the data that sits deep in ERP systems. The application can be launched in a day. That’s what’s amazing. Using traditional tools, it would take a company six months to a year to do something similar at a significant cost. Ozzie and the Developers Ozzie needs support from developers. Bringing in the geek elite gives developers a reason to relate to what Azure provides. Still, Microsoft is in no position to cheer too loud. They face competition at every turn in the cloud world. Amazon, Rackspace and of course, Google, have a good step on Microsoft. But this launch should give competitors pause. It’s no easy feat to garner support from people like Mullenweg. You better have something good, damn good in order for him to get on stage in front of his peers. He has everything on the line in such a situation. But Mullenwegg said it himself a few years ago when talking about WordPress. He said that when you launch a company, the feeling is awesome. In best cases, there are rave reviews. You feel elated. But then the moment passes and you are now in the desert where no one really cares about the launch anymore. You have to get across that desert to achieve success. For Ozzie – it’s time for that walk into the wild. Welcome to the desert. Discuss

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Microsoft Uses Geek Elite To Make Azure Launch A Smash Hit

After a predefined period designed to increase transparency and maximize user feedback, Facebook has announced that, with fewer than 7,000 user comments, it will proceed to implement its proposed amended privacy policy . With adequate user information, Facebook hoped to become better stewards of “the unnaturally uncontrollable nature of communication,” as we called their general user-data privacy dilemma in June. And this revision also makes a nod to Canadian objections to Facebook’s policies. What’s in store for users, and how did the thousands of units of user data impact Facebook’s governance and privacy policy? Read on to get the full story. Sponsor The latest revision of the policy can be found here , and the current policy is available here . According to the site’s governance, fewer than seven thousand user comments, the revised policy will be shortly enacted and will be official. “While a lot of people participated,” wrote IP counsel Michael Richter, “the total number of people commenting did not reach the threshold of 7,000 that makes a vote necessary according to our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. Because of this – and the fact that many of the comments were positive – we’ve decided to adopt the revised policy.” The new method of determining policies based on user feedback stems from the site’s desire to foster a culture of transparency and engagement. Here are the old policy and revised policy changes, which, again, will be enacted shortly: Old: When you update information, we usually keep a backup copy of the prior version for a reasonable period of time to enable reversion to the prior version of that information… Even after removal, copies of User Content may remain viewable in cached and archived pages or if other Users have copied or stored your User Content… Access and control over most personal information on Facebook is readily available through the profile editing tools. Facebook users may modify or delete any of their profile information at any time by logging into their account. Information will be updated immediately. Individuals who wish to deactivate their Facebook account may do so on the My Account page. Removed information may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time but will not be generally available to members of Facebook. New: Viewing and editing your profile. You may change or delete your profile information at any time by going to your profile page and clicking “Edit My Profile.” Information will be updated immediately. While you cannot delete your date of birth, you can use the setting on the info tab of your profile information page to hide all or part of it from other users… Deactivating or deleting your account. If you want to stop using your account you may deactivate it or delete it. When you deactivate an account, no user will be able to see it, but it will not be deleted. We save your profile information (friends, photos, interests, etc.) in case you later decide to reactivate your account. Many users deactivate their accounts for temporary reasons and in doing so are asking us to maintain their information until they return to Facebook. You will still have the ability to reactivate your account and restore your profile in its entirety. When you delete an account, it is permanently deleted. You should only delete your account if you are certain you never want to reactivate it. You may deactivate your account on your account settings page or delete your account on this help page. Limitations on removal. Even after you remove information from your profile or delete your account, copies of that information may remain viewable elsewhere to the extent it has been shared with others, it was otherwise distributed pursuant to your privacy settings, or it was copied or stored by other users. However, your name will no longer be associated with that information on Facebook. (For example, if you post something to another user’s profile, and then you delete your account, that post may remain, but be attributed to an “Anonymous Facebook User.”) Additionally, we may retain certain information to prevent identity theft and other misconduct even if deletion has been requested. Future updates will be announced via the site’s governance page . Discuss

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Facebook Adopts New Privacy Policy

Digg CEO Jay Adelson told FOX Business tonight that ever since rolling out Digg Ads, the social link-sharing service has been making money and that profitability is right around the corner. Although advertising continues to be the only seemingly reliable model for monetizing content-centric websites, Adelson reports that click-through rates are higher than expected. That being said, typical rates for online advertising are generally abysmal, so if Digg’s ads are working better than most, good for them, and let’s all study their model. Read – and watch – for the rest of the story on how Digg has grown and will continue to expand and monetize. Sponsor The FOX interviewer asked Adelson if micropayments were considered as a monetization option, “I think that micropayments is interesting,” he replied. “I think that if it works though – the level that it’s going to work is between somebody like Digg and the newspaper, as opposed to necessarly expecting that consumer to subscribe to some sort of micropayment system.” This sort of talk would surely come as good news to Rupert Murdoch, who was referenced in the interview and has stated plans to charge search engines – and perhaps aggregators – that index and share snippets of the relevant, timely, and expensive content that traditional news outlets still struggle to integrate with modern Internet-enabled user behavior. What about selling anonymized, aggregate user data? Adelson says he doesn’t want to sell that information unless users are generally cool with the idea. “I think that users are pretty sensitive now; they’re pretty savvy and they understand the idea that they have to be private.” But data on trends and user attention – data that would be highly valuable for old media to have and that might actually contribute to a better user experience – might be more in line with what Digg execs are willing and able to sell. And what about the possibility of an IPO? Hold onto your hats, day traders. Adelson says that, while he feels he owes it to investors and employees to “go public at some point,” he’s waiting for two factors: A valuation he likes and the day that Digg needs “hundreds of millions of dollars for something.” In other words, we’re not shaking the quarters out of our piggy banks just yet. So, what is coming next for Digg? It seems the company is planning to follow in Twitter’s footsteps and release international versions of the site. “About 40% of our traffic comes from international, but we have no other languages on Digg right now, so why not go there,” said Adelson. Check out the whole interview below: Watch the latest business video at FOXBusiness.com Discuss

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Digg Sees the Light of Profitability at the End of the Startup Tunnel

In 2008 the idea of another subscription-only music service was enough to get your knickers in a torrent. Sure Rhapsody was doing well, but they’d been around for forever and in 2008, freemium was the music model du jour. With a year to reflect, co-founder of the Future of Music Coalition and longtime San Fran Music Tech Summit organizer Brian Zisk tells us what it takes to survive in today’s music environment. Sponsor In August 2008 ReadWriteWeb asked What Would the Perfect Streaming Music Service Look Like? While Pandora , Imeem and Muxtape were mentioned, services like

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Future of Music Coalition’s Brian Zisk: The Do’s of Streaming Music

It’s rare to look at a bookmarking tool and feel convinced that it’s going to win a design award. Pearltrees is such a product. The French site offers us a new way to explore and contextualize the web. In what looks like a mind map structure, users collect “pearls” (links to articles, videos and web pages) and drag and drop them to form a body of knowledge that folds and expands upon itself. In an interview with Pearltrees CEO Patrice Lamothe, ReadWriteWeb found that company already has a loyal user base including our friends at ReadWriteFrance. Sponsor Said Lamothe, “We wanted a type of game play that was playful to use and map the web…and the fact that you can group and ungroup content easily means that you can re-catalogue it and keep it current.” Rather than looking at the web as a series of linear pages, this service lets us build tree graphs of connecting arguments, share them and then break them at any time. Using a browser bookmarking tool, we can add and connect related pearls or ideas, place them within other pearls or start a new pearl tree (or train of thought). Rather than displaying a list of items, your pearls connect to your profile. You are literally the center of the universe and your thoughts follow you wherever you go. Naturally, as a newly anointed God of information, other great thinkers will gravitate towards you. Shared pearls connect you to others and allow you to view their collections. From here you can choose your favorite content and omit the noise. From here you can email your pearls, embed them in your blog or broadcast them to Twitter and Facebook. The Future of Touch Interfaces Given the unique user interface of Pearltrees, Lamothe expects that the company will roll out feature releases and enhancements on an ongoing basis. Says the CEO, “Once we’ve launched the web interface, the potential of a touch product will be very exciting.” At this point, I almost fell out of my chair thinking about the possibilities. Using Pearltrees in conjunction with a touch interface would be extremely practical. Rather than swiping down long lists of links to find articles, images or videos, users could tap on their desired pearl and follow the connectors to the information they wanted. Not only would this greatly improve the research experience, but it could also change device design. For some reason, many touch interfaces mimic the experience of the first personal computers. We are offered a series of boxes from which to start our applications with little room for reorganization or prioritization. The Pearltrees model may prove to be the most efficient way to navigate period. To try the product register at pearltrees.com or click on ReadWriteFrance’s pearl below.

Google just announced a new product in Google Labs: Google Image Swirl . Image Swirl introduces a Wonder Wheel-like user interface for Google Images. The new search interface combines the Wonder Wheel experience with Google’s ability to find similar images and discover faces in these images. Instead of just showing one image, the Image Swirl interface displays a stack of photos. Clicking on this stack opens up a Wonder Wheel with related images clustered around the original photo. Sponsor For now, Image Swirl only works for about 200,000 queries, though Google plans to include more in the near future. Better Photo Search Through Smarter Algorithms This new feature takes image search to a new level, as it doesn’t just display the most relevant images. Instead, Google notes, these “are the most relevant groups of images.” To create these clusters of related images, Google analyzes the characteristics of the images themselves, but the algorithm also looks at meta tags and other clues in the description of these images. Google uses the same algorithms to find and organize images of landmarks in its index. In an interview with eWeek , Google Image Swirl Product Manager Aparna Chennapragada said that this is new service is part of Google drive to “go beyond just relying on text.” Bing introduced its visual search feature a few weeks ago and is still ahead of Google in bringing these features to its core search product. Image Swirl makes looking for images on Google a far more interactive and fun experience. For now, Image Swirl is only a labs product – and some of the results can be a bit off at times – but chances are that this feature will find its way into the search options panel on Google Images in the future. Discuss

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Google Image Swirl Brings the Wonder Wheel to Photo Search

After 18 months of negotiation, the Open Web Foundation , a group made up of 106 employees of Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, some small startups and their lawyers, today released a legal document template for licensing open web technology specifications . The result could be greatly accelerated time-to-market for new technologies developed on top of these specifications and more awesomeness, sooner, for web consumers. Standardized legal documents for technical specifications may not seem like the sexiest thing in the the world – but this is actually pretty exciting news. Developments like this could be a key part of the foundation that online service providers need to move forward on a long list of great ideas for ways to serve their users. Sponsor What does this mean? It means that other companies will be able to use technologies like Media RSS, OAuth, Salmon, Web Slices and more without fear that unclear licensing agreements will lead to legal problems later. It also means that developers creating innovative new tech specifications to push and pull user data from one site to another can launch them using a turn-key license developed by some of the top legal teams in the business. People come up with crazy ideas for making the web work better all the time. This agreement aims to provide an easy way to make it safe to implement those ideas. The companies participating have spent large amounts of time and money negotiating the agreement, now anyone can take advantage of the fruits of that labor at no cost. Existing specifications that will be placed under the Open Web Foundation Agreement, per the announcement today, include: Syndicated media delivery spec Media RSS (currently controlled by Yahoo!) Secure 3rd party authentication spec OAuth Core and Wrap (from Facebook, Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft) Real-time feed protocol PubSubHubbub (Google) Comment aggregation protocol Salmon (Google) Web Slice Format (Microsoft) And several others. Discuss

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New Licensing Agreement Could Open Floodgates of Web Innovation