The Trouble at Twitter Inc.

Running Twitter Inc. sounds like any entrepreneur's dream: Cash flows freely. The press is smitten. Celebrity users abound. But CEO and co-founder Evan Williams is said to be on the verge of being ousted from his microblogging paradise.
These should be Williams' glory days. Twitter is booming. The service recently announced 105 million registered users, which is roughly ten times its estimated user base from a year earlier when skeptics commonly derided the social network as a wasteland of lunch diaries from narcissists and cat pictures from shut-ins. In one year, traffic to Twitter.com more than doubled to 90 million people per month.

Williams, a painfully shy college dropout from Nebraska, has clearly won over Silicon Valley's cloistered fraternity of venture capitalists. Prospective investors competed so fiercely over Twitter's last funding round that the company was able to raise $100 million at a reported $1 billion valuation.
For Williams, this is the big one — the creation with the momentum to change the world forever, and to score for him a much more impressive jackpot than the $50 million in reported pre-IPO shares Google gave in exchange for his publishing system Blogger.com.

Microsoft Pays Mobile App Developers to Help It Catch Apple

July 14 (Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp. is paying developers to build mobile applications for its Windows Phone 7 system to help it narrow a lead by rival products from Apple Inc. and Google Inc.

The company is providing financial incentives ranging from free tools and test handsets to funds for software development and marketing, said Todd Brix, a senior director at Microsoft who works with app developers. In some cases, Microsoft is providing revenue guarantees, and will make up the difference if apps don’t sell as well as expected, he said.

Microsoft revamped its flagship mobile operating system to recoup market share lost to Google and Apple. To win consumers, the world’s largest software maker needs an ample supply of games, music and navigation apps when handsets with Windows Phone 7 reach stores later this year. Some developers may be reluctant to sign up before they know Windows Phone will lure enough customers, said Kevin Burden, an analyst at ABI Research.

“In no way do they want to say, ‘Trust us, there will be apps at some point,’” said Burden, who is based in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. “If that means paying developers, so be it. It’s a good strategy for them.”

While Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, has used similar compensation programs for previous versions of its mobile operating system, it’s devoting a larger sum this time, Brix said. He declined to say how much Microsoft will spend.

The Russian Spy Scandal Reaches Microsoft

Federal agents have detained yet another alleged Russian spy in the government’s investigation of a spy ring that has reached entrepreneurial and tech circles from coast to coast.
The alleged 12th spy, Alexey Karetnikov, was an employee of Microsoft at its headquarters in Redmond, Washington. According to the Washington Post, he was deported to Russia on Tuesday after a judge ordered his removal on Monday. Law enforcement officials say that he was “in the early stages” of his spy work, but had yet to obtain any useful information.
According to Karetnikov’s Facebook Page, he was on Microsoft’s SDET (Software Design Engineer in Test ()) team, which helps test the code that runs Microsoft’s products.

Apple Acquires Mapping Company Poly9 [REPORT]

According to French-language newspaper Le Soleil, Apple has acquired Poly9, an online mapping company based in Quebec.
The translated article reports that since the acquisition, the majority of Poly9 employees have moved from Quebec to Apple’s offices in California. As Apple Insider notes, the Poly9 website is down, although parts of the Poly9 Globe site are still accessible.

The Poly9 Globe was described as “a cross-browser, cross-platform 3D globe which does not require any download.” Think of it as a JavaScript-based 3D globe that can be manipulated with your mouse to adjust its axis and rotation points. The software then offers users statistics on their virtual locations. Basically it’s Google Earth () in the browser.
While the product is now listed as “discontinued,” you can see it in action from some its partners like Skype () and ConduitLive.

---

Second Mapping Acquisition for Apple

Facebook’s Open Graph and Like Button are Going Mobile

Facebook’s Open Graph, the platform that extends and spreads Facebook’s social network throughout the web, is going mobile, according to Facebook’s Head of Mobile Products Eric Tseng.
At the MobileBeat 2010 conference in San Francisco, Tseng said that Facebook () “really sees mobile as the future,” and that we can expect to see Facebook’s “Like” buttons in mobile applications soon.
Tseng used geolocation as an example to illustrate the power of the mobile Open Graph. If you were to walk near a coffee shop and get a location-aware notification that there’s a happy hour going on there, you’ll probably be even more inclined to visit it if the notification comes bundled with recommendations from your Facebook friends.
He also had some interesting ideas about mobile app discovery, which he thinks will become more social. Without going into the details, Tseng said that “Inevitably, app stores will become more social. As we get more apps, that’s going to be great. But the average user isn’t going to go through thousands of apps on their phone.”
As far as Facebook’s mobile user base goes, Tseng puts the number at 150 million users, adding that mobile users have fueled Facebook’s immense recent growth.

Send Destinations via Google Maps to Ford and GM Vehicles

Google’s “Send-To-Car” feature lets users send destinations from Google Maps directly to their vehicles. This feature previously worked with BMW and Audi vehicles, and now Google has extended its partner base for the program to Ford and GM.
Owners of Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles enabled with Ford’s SYNC system, as well as Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC (), Hummer, Pontiac, Saab or Saturn vehicles via GM’s OnStar navigation, can now take advantage of the “Send-to-Car” function.
To try it out, type in a destination into Google Maps () search, click “Send,” choose “Car” and then type in your car’s details. You can then access the destination through your car’s navigation system. It may sound like extra work to seasoned in-car navigators, but once you get used to it, it probably beats fiddling with the navigation system in the car.
Check out a video preview of the feature coupled with GM’s OnStar below.

HOW TO: Optimize Your Mobile Site Across Multiple Platforms

This series is supported by Webtrends Mobile Analytics, which lets you monitor the adoption and usage of your mobile apps and mobile sites. To keep up with Webtrends Mobile, add their blog to your RSS reader.
One of the most difficult aspects of designing for the mobile web is making your site compatible and accessible across different devices. A mobile-optimized site might look great on your iPhone or Android () device, but utterly fall apart on Symbian or BlackBerry handsets. Likewise, a simple WAP-enabled site might be fine for feature phones, but fall short of expectations when it comes to newer and more advanced devices.
We’ve covered some of the ways to streamline the process of creating your mobile-optimized site in the past. Today, we want to take a look at some specific tips and tricks for testing and adding compatibility for different types of devices.

---

1. Narrow Your Focus

---

It’s natural to want to make your site look absolutely perfect on every possible device that could access your mobile site. However, this just isn’t practical for the vast majority of developers and designers.
Instead of trying to support every platform out there, set out some goals for your site and your potential customers. For instance, if you know that most of your users are going to be using an iPhone, focus on making an iPhone-enhanced version of your site first.