ShoZu Goes to Critical Path - Cross Network Publishing Doesn't Seem to Be a Stand-Alone Business Hours after high-profile Silicon Valley social aggregation service Seesmic announced that it acquired angel-backed cross-network publishing service Ping.fm , a similar deal was announced in Europe. Identity management service Critical Path , maker of software called Memova, announced that it has acquired mobile uploading service ShoZu , a company that had received an enormous amount of venture capital. Sponsor Rumors of the deal were first reported in mid-December by Robin Wauters of TechCrunch . Now the deal is done, reports leading European mobile blogger Ewan Spence . We're hearing that the announcement will be officially released later today. Update: We just received the official press release as well. ShoZu raised more than $30 million to build a mobile app that allows users to publish photos, videos and text to more than 50 different destination social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Blip.tv and more. The service has long been popular on Nokia phones and sells an iPhone app for $5. Shozu was voted one of our readers' favorite mobile apps in 2007. For more about ShoZu see this Techcraver interview with the company's CEO. Critical Path is a little like a combination of Plaxo and Verisign. It offers messaging and social apps, APIs, Identity Management and Access Control. Was this the big exit that ShoZu's investors sought? Almost definitely not. Critical Path is an innovative service that's got some big customers like BT, France Telecom and Orange, but it's unlikely that ShoZu came at a high price. Spence alludes to the same when he writes that Critical Path "saw the potential of combining their Memova platform suite with ShoZu's engineering." Update: In the official release, ShoZu Board Director Nigel Pilkington from lead investor SEB Venture Capital UK, called the deal "a successful outcome for us." Maybe that's being polite, maybe it's true or maybe it was a small success financially. It's most likely a talent deal and evidence that cross-platform publishing tools like ShoZu, Ping.fm and competitor Pixel Pipe are probably not stand-alone businesses. Just like FriendFeed's aggregation across scores of APIs wasn't enough to make it a success outside of being scooped up by the much, much larger Facebook - these other companies that create the pipes for the tubes just aren't compelling enough to a large number of consumers. They do make nice acquisition targets, though, and show that the future of the social web may not be found in reading and writing to one single network like Twitter or Facebook. The savvy companies that are building value on top of those networks are also dedicating resources to bring on engineers skilled at working with far more networks to publish to or read from. Discuss

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2 Cross-Publishing Services Get Acquired in 1 Day: Critical Path Buys ShoZu

Did you just get cut off? Is a professional driver behaving badly? Was your car towed? Or better, did you see a cute driver (or a really cool car) in the next lane? CarPong is a fun an innovative idea that allows users to send messages to other drivers by using their car's license plate number. Like blog commenting for vehicles, this service lets drivers write messages to other drivers, read what others have said about them and search for notes about other drivers. It's an interesting way to make our cars - and the people in them - a lot more connected in real life, and it just might work. Sponsor Car-to-car communiques remain one of the last frontiers for messaging services and one of the few environments where people are still inside isolationist social bubbles. On the Internet, we've mostly shed the goofy pseudonyms and nondescript avatars of the You've Got Mail era in exchange for real connections between real people. CarPong is exciting because it turns the highways and byways into a sort of chat room. One user called out a license plate of a European spec Ford Fiesta - which might be one of Ford's special social media fleet. Another sends a helpful hint to a fellow driver to invest in some new tires quickly. By and large, the site is so far a litany of complaints about others' bad driving habits. Still, by removing the anonymity of the road, this kind of messaging might encourage more human, more mindful and even kinder driver behavior. Founder Tony Mastrorio wrote us to say, "I am working on getting towing companies to notify car owners when their car has been towed, where they can pick it up and the associated fee. This aspect alone would make the service very useful for many people." He'd also like the site to work a bit like the "How's My Driving" signs we see on commercial vehicles. An enterprise-level CRM platform might also provide a good revenue stream. Currently, the site lacks the national or regional userbase of millions it would need to be truly useful. But I can see this idea spreading like wildfire if drivers like the idea of having a virtual complaints/comments box for those with whom they share the road. On the other hand, there's something about the encoded and regulated nature of license plates that lead one to a certain expectation of privacy. As with linking our real names, identities, careers, birth dates and even home addresses to our online personas, there may be some initial resistance to adding our license plates to that mix. Currently on the site, plates and profiles are not linked, but users can see all comments associated with other users and any reported license plate. How do you feel: Would this kind of transparency about who we are on the road lead to better and more personal communication between drivers? Or are our vehicles and driving records best left to principalities more private than the Internet? Let us know what you think in the comments. Discuss

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SMS on Wheels: CarPong Is Vehicle-to-Vehicle Messaging

In 2006, Y Combinator founder Paul Graham wrote an essay entitled, "How to Be Silicon Valley." He argues that a tech hub must have nerds and people with money. At the time, he proposed that Boulder and Portland would be the next tech hubs and indeed both have thrived. Nevertheless, as seed funds and incubators become more common, new tech centers are springing up in some of the most unlikely places. ReadWriteWeb caught up with two mentorship groups to find out the advantages of launching outside of the tech epicenter of Silicon Valley. Sponsor Bootup Labs After moving from the Valley, Vancouver-based entrepreneurs Boris Mann and Danny Robinson looked for a way to continue working with startups. The duo launched Bootup Labs to fix the Northern tech ecosystem and pass some of their learnings on to budding entrepreneurs. The group accepts 6 companies per program cycle for two annual cycles. Companies receive 8 months of mentorship, free office space, administrative/legal services and a $100,000 dollar covertible line of credit. In exchange for mentorship and funding, Bootup takes 5% equity from your company. If you choose to use the entire line of credit, they will receive an additional 10%. By attracting a star-studded cast of program mentors including Guy Kawasaki, NowPublic CEO Len Brody, and investor and writer Paul Kedrosky , Mann and Robinson ensure that their program's 12 annual spots are highly coveted. Says Mann, "I asked Flickr founder Stewart Butterfield why he decided to stay in Vancouver and build his new startup Tiny Speck . He answered that he loves living here. Being a place where people love to live is hard to replicate. We have the nerds, we think it's easier for us to bring more nerds here because of immigration rules (vs. the US) AND because people love it. [We've got] mountains, ocean and it's one of the most livable cities in the world. " Bootup Labs' choices for its January cycle include event-based community Zedmo , lifestream aggregator Statusly , location-based gaming development service Compass Engine , relevancy-based web surfing aid ReadFu , online farmer's market Foodtree and enterprise storefront platform Blast Ramp . Difference Engine Launched this year by Jon Bradford, Difference Engine is based in the North East of England. The group offers applicants £20,000 pounds of investment capital and a 16 week program in business development in exchange for an 8% equity stake. As of January, Difference Engine will welcome 10 teams per cycle, with 2 program cycles per year. When asked why Bradford believes his program can create the basis for a good tech community he replied, "The North East of England is home to The Sage Group - one of the largest software company in the UK.  As with many other parts of Europe it is not the lack of technical expertise but the lack of pre seed capital and support which reduces the opportunities for young entrepreneurs.  Whilst there is increasing activity with angel investors, it is still less mature that the US market...The Difference Engine provides mentors the opportunity to "get up close and personal" with teams over an extended period of time [and] mentors may ultimately invest in these businesses." According to Bradford, one of the advantages of starting a company is Europe is the fact that developers learn to build platforms and businesses with multi-language capabilities. This attention to global markets places European and Asian companies at a potential advantage to their US-based competitors. Difference Engine's group's first intake will be in February 2010, to apply for the inaugural program entrepreneurs can submit ideas via the Difference Engine application form . Discuss

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The Advantages of Launching Outside of the Valley

The latest quarterly survey by comScore reports that the iPhone just passed Windows Mobile phones in US market share, though it remains at just over half the level of the Blackberry. The iPhone has been outselling Windows Mobile for some time, so it was only a matter of time until there were more iPhones in peoples' hands. Android is still at the back of the pack but is showing signs of significant momentum. Sponsor Tracing links back from blog to blog the comScore phone survey of users about what types of phones they have in their hands appears first on FierceDeveloper ; comScore's press contact was unavailable for comment but mobile developers say the numbers are unsurprising. Android growth has been steady but that platform remains below Windows Mobile, Palm's WebOS and Symbian. Another report by comScore this morning though found that consumer interest in Android is growing fast and now rivals consumer interest in the iPhone. "Of those American consumers in the market for a smartphone," comScore writes, "17 percent are considering the purchase of an android-supported device in next three months, compared to 20 percent indicating they plan to purchase an iPhone. Android's prospects may fare even better in the global marketplace. "Android will continue to pick up market share, especially in the global smartphone market, because of Symbian's lack of innovation in the last 3-4 years," mobile blogger Jason Harris told us today. "Symbian is said to have 37% worldwide market share, and this will further erode as more folks give Android a look. Especially with the Nexus One coming out - a phone that is sold directly from Google and not from your carrier - that's very cohesive with the European model. Right now Android has only been available from carriers, leading to OS fragmentation. Now with the Nexus One, the phone will come from Google itself, meaning your OS updates will be direct from the source, not via the carrier, who has customized the Android OS to their liking. That might work in the US, where we are carrier-centric, but not in other markets, especially emerging markets." Discuss

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More People Now Use iPhones Than Windows Mobile

In the mid-eighties, Pierre Bellanger launched Skyrock pirate radio station as a continuation of his efforts with the French free radio movement. A community inclusive of a diverse voices and agendas, Skyrock inspired a generation of 18-25-year-olds who had never lent their unscripted opinions to a mass distribution medium. As Skyrock developed an IRC channel and later its own blogging software, the community evolved into what it is today - the third largest social networking site in Europe. Sponsor Often compared to MySpace and Facebook, most journalists tell the story of how Bellanger has grown Skyrock from a simple radio station into a business that earns more than €38million euros in annual revenue. Nevertheless, perhaps the most fascinating story is the founder himself. Says Bellanger, "We were trying to create revolution. My political act is to create a system of self-expression." In America terms like "self-expression" and "revolution" tend to accompany arguments for First Amendment rights. In Pierre Belanger's usage, "self expression" is about using the first-person singular "I" when unravelling events. Belanger's "revolution" entails a cultural shift in how French public radio media went from being a government monopoly, to being a medium where French youth could narrate the news from their own perspectives. Many believe that Bellanger's Skyrock community was the precursor to what can now be described as life streaming. In other words, the mass distribution of amateur opinions is considered here as a political act. When asked how Bellanger managed to run a revolution-generating platform as a business he replied simply, "Revolutions are only effective when they're profitable." Explains Bellanger, "There is already community dialogue, I want to help brands create a bond with the audience." While the Skyrock CEO monetizes with banner advertising, one of his major "dialogue-enhancing" campaigns is a Coca Cola-sponsored volunteer listing board entitled

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Social ME-dia with Skyrock's CEO Pierre Bellanger

The dirt is still fresh on the grave of the CrunchPad; we ought to feel guilty for writing this post. But our good friends have been working with a few cohorts on a stealth-mode startup for quite some time - working on the problem of the lightweight, portable, web-friendly device. Only their product is smaller in size and larger in spirit than any netbook or notepad yet seen - perhaps there is a balm in Gilead after all. But you didn't come here for literature; you came to see pics and read specs. So here we go. Sponsor The name of the gadget geek's new muse is the PsiXpda (pronounced sigh ex PDA). It measures 174mm by 95mm by 25mm, and it looks like this: Specifications The device is a hardware nerd's dream, described as "very techy and hackable" by one of the minds behind the project, Ewan Spence. It's smaller than netbooks, roughly 2/3 in length and 1/2 the width. It weighs 430 grams, around 15 ounces. In the closed position, the screen is on the outside. There's no accelerometer, but there are key commands for rotating the screen. The keyboard is backlit - perfect for conference whores, said Spence. It has a VGA webcam and 2-4 hours of battery life, depending on CPU usage. It's got a USB port and a VGA port on the optional docking cradle. It's a full-strength computer with a touchscreen and a QWERTY keyboard. The first units will shit with Windows XP preloaded. Spence expects that hackers will get Android and Chrome OS running on it fairly quickly, as well. As for the web, the PsiXpda will feature bluetooth, WiFi and 3G connectivity. Users will be able to blog, run web apps, play Flash-based games or just browse their hearts out on the browser of their choice. A Pearl of Great Price The drawback? "Well, we're not going to put it in Best Buy," said Spence. This beauty is a pearl of great price for the most discerning only. With a very limited pre-holiday drop and a list price of $830 US (£500) - slightly cheaper than an out-of-contract iPhone - the PsiXpda aims to be the Lamborghini of the notepad/netbook/PDA 2.0 set. "If you look back to the '80s," said Spence, "to the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrums, they were small manufactuers doing a couple thousand machines to see if it worked or not. "One of the benefits of not having a huge staff and a huge VC investment is that we don't have to have unrealistic goals for unit sales," Spence continued. There will be lots of support for those who want to hack the device. Any needed third-party programs or drivers needed will be made available as soon as possible. "I am very interested to see what hackers do," said Spence. "Because of the numbers involved, if you have 10 guys and gals that start going crazy over these things, that's probably going to take us to capacity for the first drop." Provenance & Use Cases The device is the heir apparent to the Psion , which enjoyed an extended love affair with European techies. In the States, those devices were forced to compete with Palm, and lost. You can read an extended history of Psions, or you can take our word for it that Psion Series 5 still commands a dedicated fanbase in Europe. "We were doing this while you guys [Americans] were making the Palm Pilot," said Spence. But now, in the States and elsewhere, the PDA has gone the way of the pager, and consumers are clamoring for technologically lightweight, physically small, ultimately agile devices. The Apple tablet is a fable, and the CrunchPad is, even we are sad to report, the year's most disappointing vaporware. The PsiXpda has appeared on the scene to meet consumer demand at just the right time. "One of the places that's shown interest is someplace like a hospital," said Spence, "just drop it in a doctor's coat. Also, because of the size, it's very non-threatening for looking up information, so it'd work for salespeople. And it's wonderful on a ten-hour flight from London to L.A." In other words, it might be small, but it's by no means a browser-on-a-stick piece of hardware. This beauty was made for people who like to sit on the couch and browse the web, yes; but it also takes into consideration that most people need and want to have a read/write experience online. The machines will be for sale next week. Stay tuned for videos of the review unit. Discuss

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A New, Now Netbook You Can Actually Buy: PsiXpda

Twitter's default URL shortening service Bit.ly announced steps today to stop phishing and malware attacks from being passed around online through its service. If effective, the effort should help a whole lot of people save face and prevent those moments of panic when you're afraid you may have lost access to your Twitter account forever. Really, though, people who take tech seriously don't fall for those kinds of things, right? Wrong! Below we offer the job titles of some of the most surprising people we've received phishing direct messages from over the last several months. It's a pretty surprising list. Sponsor May this serve as a memorial and a reminder that when new communication media emerge - even the most savvy people can get on board and fall for the oldest tricks in the book. Remember also, this could happen to any of us (apparently, perhaps) and thus the old saying "there, but for the grace of the Fail Whale, go I." "I made $300 today with http://ifortune4u.com" - and assorted variations... Bio: Market analyst following datacenters, energy efficiency, and blade servers. That's complicated stuff but probably pretty mechanical. No wonder a little human-engineering was able to overcome this person's defenses. Bio: Enterprise Comms Analyst That's Comms as in communications? Bio: Industry analyst: enterprise communications [Different person, same analyst firm as the above] Oops. Why are these analysts, some of whom charge up to $1000 per hour for their work, falling for a scam that promises relatively small sums of money? Bio: Consultant in large scale data warehousing. Looks like just a little bit of your data just got warehoused! Bio: Strategy planning at [Giant European Firm] Enterprise Communications How's this for an enterprise strategy? Know a phishing scam when you see one. Bio: Customer Interaction Analyst at [Giant Marketing Research and Analyst Firm] / Speech Reco and UI Geek / Trendspotter Oh my... Bio: an investor and co-founder of [common web 2.0 term].com; a founding partner and Vice-President in [big Web 1.0 company]...8 million page-views and 1 million unique visitors per month...with zero marketing budget. Surely there were people pulling scams like this back when you were...building a website with 8m monthly pageviews...with zero marketing budget... Want to brush up on your social networking skills, so you can stay off of lists like this? Check out Sarah Perez's post from October How to Avoid Malware on Facebook and Twitter: 8 Best Practicies . You can find the whole ReadWriteWeb team on Twitter here . You can follow us with the knowledge that we aren't going to spam you with scammy Direct Messages - or at least if we do you can write a blog post teasing us about it. Discuss

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7 High-Tech Twitter Users Who Fell For Phishing Scams