Still, all the advertising, and the positive reviews from bloggers and gadget gurus including David Pogue and Walt Mossberg, did help to lure some customers to Verizon stores.

Tech website Cnet's Marguerite Reardon said that she found about 100 enthusiasts lining up for Verizon's special midnight opening in New York under what could hardly be described as balmy weather conditions. This morning, in a follow up story, her headline read "Slow start for the Motorola Droid?".

In a research note entitled "Droid is no iPhone, not even Storm," Jefferies analyst Bill Choi said the launch didn't compare well with Verizon's launch of the  much criticized BlackBerry Storm last year.

But Choi noted that store traffic was higher than usual in the locations he checked out and he said "anywhere between 5-7 people huddled around the Droid station at any given time."

While some of the Droid phones being sold today are HTC's new cheaper device, dubbed Droid Eris, Choi noted that all stores were reporting far better demand for Motorola Droid than that of HTC.

The "Motorola brand is helping and people really like the keyboard" said Choi who estimated that Verizon could sell as many as 750,000 of the Motorola Droid devices by year end.

That's no iPhone, but it's somethign, especially for Motorola's Sanjay Jha who is betting the future of the entire company on Google's Android system.

(Reuters Photo of Motorola's Droid)

• A speedy Cortex A8 ARM Processor and a Texas Instruments OMAP application chip that it says makes the device run 30 percent to 50 percent faster than other smartphones, including iPhone.
• First dibs on Android 2.0, the newest version of Google's mobile software.
• A new free navigation service to battle dedicated GPS makers like Garmin and TomTom.
• A higher resolution screen that's better than iPhone

"Once they see the display I think they'll be hooked," Motorola Chief Executive Sanjay Jha told Reuters.

Verizon's Chief Marketing Officer John Stratton promised to spend more money advertising this device than any phone in its history. He said that it could be seen as a "big risk" for Verizon,  which started working with Motorola a year ago, to bet on a handset maker that had been steadily losing ground.  But he said his company liked working Motorola so much that it plans to sell more Motorola Android phones in 2010.

"It almost looks like there's a whole Droid army lining up," said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at research firm Interpret. Gartenberg likes the phone's design, but reserves criticism for how it syncs consumers' music. Not easily, apparently.

Verizon and Motorola showed off the highlights of the device today.

John Hwang, general manger for Nokia's brand new connected computers division was coy about discussing future plans for Nokia computing products except to say that "there are other products in the works."

Hwang said he would look at all options for future products when asked whether Nokia, currently using the Microsoft Windows 7 operating system,  would consider making netbooks using other technologies such as systems from Google, a rival in the cellphone world.

"We certainly wouldn't rule out other technologies," the executive said. Unlike in the cellphone market where Nokia has to protect its leadership position, the Finnish giant will have to be more open-minded in computing, he said. "As a newcomer we're trying to take a different attitude."

Here are some short video demonstrations of the product. The company is betting that the device's slim form and 12-hour battery life will give it a good start in the computing market.

Nokia has also set up the device to easily synch services such as texting and photos with its cellphones using its Ovi service.

The US telecom regulator FCC has been looking into why Apple rejected an Internet telephony application from Google for inclusion in its iPhone application store. Responses from Google, Apple and AT&T, the exclusive U.S. iPhone carrier, are due today.

Along with Google Voice's consumer fans, the outcome of the inquiry will be closely watched by other Internet telephone services such as eBay's Skype. Apple approved a Skype app for iPhone but consumers can only make Skype calls when they are connected to a short-range wi-fi network and not via the AT&T cellular network.
The head of another U.S. Internet telephony provider Vonage weighed in on the topic in an interview this week. Vonage plans to offer its own mobile communications application later this year.

Marc Lefar previously served as chief marketing officer of Cingular, now AT&T Mobility, where he helped put together the mobile operator's iPhone deal with Apple, before becoming Vonage Chief Executive last year. Taking his previous experience in the wireless industry into acccount, Lefar said it was unclear to him why the Google Voice application was rejected for iPhone.

"These apps we're talking about, to me ... seem to be reasonable to allow, relative to the range of things that have already been put into the app store," he said.

"I think its very hard to defend a unique service and to distinguish some services in the communications space (from) others if all they do is use software to be able to provide that service," he said.

"We're very interested to see what the FCC comes back with. We think the inquiry is completely appropriate," he said.
So is Lefar worried Vonage's app will also face a tough time getting approval?
"It's not a concern," he said "We understand what the competitive environment is and we think there's ample opportunity to deliver software applications that deliver some of our services across a range of devices."
"We go into this with our eyes wide open." said Lefar but declined comment on specific devices.

(Reuters Photo of Vonage booth at a trade show)

Yesterday's missive had a similar intention, to explain how his company is really very warm and friendly toward consumers and competitors. The difference is its addressee -- none other than Arthur Sulzberger, the publisher of the New York Times.

He did tear to shreds the newspaper's opinion piece on phone companies. He accused the paper of relying on myths to make its point that regulators may want to take a look at phone company's behavior.

But, for media-watchers at least, the good news is that he actually read a newspaper (an increasingly uncommon act) and decided the medium was important enough to reply with a good old fashioned letter to the publisher (an even more uncommon act).

Here's a short precis of their battle of words:
NYTimes: Cites Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development to show American's cellphone bills are higher than the average.

McAdam: Says American's talk four times more on their cellphones than anybody Europe but their per minute cost is 10 cents cheaper on average.

NYTimes: Big U.S. operators are not afraid to use their sizeable power and are the only option in some markets.

McAdam: Cites former VP Al Gore calling wireless companies the most competitive in the globe. He says more than 94 pct have a choice of at least four operators

Interestingly, since the Times published its column on Wednesday morning, McAdam has written to US lawmakers to say he was willing to give some concessions on a fight about roaming agreements, addressing one element of the column.

(By the way, Verizon's smaller rivals were unimpressed with the concessions, calling them "negligable.")

Keep an eye on:

• Bumpy ride. The tech sector's road to recovery isn't looking so smooth (Reuters).

• At Comic-Con, 3-D glasses are a must (NY Times)

• Back-to-school marketing discovers social networking (USA Today)

(Photo: Reuters)
(Photo:Reuters)

That was just for starters. Now it says it has sold seen another half a billion apps downloaded in around a third of that time, showing that its growth is speeding up despite the fact that its rivals have all opened their own apps stores.

App developers appear to be taking notice too as Apple says it now has 65,000 apps available in its store ready for download to the 40 million iPod Touch and iPhone devices it has sold.

How will its rivals -- Android from Google, BlackBerry from Rim, Windows Marketplace from Microsoft and Ovi from Nokia -- ever get a break with that kind of competition?

But could it really be just a coincidence that Apple revealed its numbers on the same day that Techcruch notes Microsoft is expected to kick off its Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans with an announcement of the opening of its mobile app developmer program?

Keep an eye on:

• NY Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman describes an analyst's prediction -- that Rupert Murdoch could buy the paper instead of New York Times -- as "total fiction" (DailyFinance)
• FT Tweets that it has an iPhone App (Techcruch)
• Michael Jackson family says concert plans were too much for him (Reuters)
• Netbook shipments to double this year (PCWorld)

(Photo: Reuters)

 Some analysts worry that T-Mobile USA may have missed a trick by opting for a new Android device, myTouch 3G, which is mostly the same as HTC's first one, the G, except for its slimmer shape and lack of a physical keyboard.

According to T-Mobile USA Chief Technology Officer Cole Brodman, the No. 4 U.S. carrier currently has no plans to sell Hero, another HTC phone that runs Google's Android but has an updated user interface that looks similar in some ways to Palm Pre.

From today until July 28, T-Mobile USA customers can order the myTouch online with the potential to have their phones deliverd before its national launch stores on Aug. 5. Brodman says myTouch, with its nifty travel case, personalizable covers and T-Mobile recommendations for hot applictions, will appeal to a broader audience than G1. The idea is that myTouch's sleek shape and Android's straightforward user interface will encourage T-Mobile customers who had never bought a smartphone before to now consider this one.

"We think it's a great opportunity to bring them into the smartphone space with a portable easy to use device," said Brodman in an interview at a myTouch demo event. "It felt like the right choice for the target we were going after."

Brodman also promised that T-Mobile USA will have more Android devices later this year. He would not give any hints about the vendor but said integration of mobile social networking could be a key feature in a future Android phone. 

But Current Analysis analyst Avi Greengart was not convinced by myTouch and questioned why T-Mobile chose it over Hero, which like Pre cleverly integrates social network services such as Facebook and it can operate multiple applications at the same time. "That's just T-Mobile being shortsighted," said Greengart who also worried about the myTouch's $199 pricetag, which has to compete with a $99 iPhone that has twice as much memory. "You're paying $50 to lose the keyboard," said Greengart comparing it to the G1, which has a physcial keyboard and a $149 price tag. Brodman argues that T-Mobile USA customers would be able to make up the difference in a matter of months as its service fees are cheaper than those of AT&T, the exclusive U.S. carrier for iPhone. 

NPD analyst Ross Rubin says myTouch faces tougher competition but could still do better than G1, for which T-Mobile USA has more than a million customers. "This is a sleeker device. It will likely do better than the G1 did if T-Mobile continues to build out its 3G network," he said. 

Another analyst Michael Gartenberg of market research firm Interpret was less than impressed by myTouch. "It's very evolutionary. In an era of new devices offering new functionality and new features this doesn't feel particularly exciting," he said.

As to the device's appearance ahead of Hero, which a rival U.S. carrier is expected to sell, Gartenberg had this to say: "It's hard to introduce a product when your supplier has already announced the next update ... It would have had a lot more excitement around it six months ago. It almost feels very dated."

HTC has not said which U.S. carrier plans to sell Hero in the fall but Gartenberg sees AT&T as the most likely contender, since HTC has already built a version for Europe's Orange based on the GSM wireless technology that AT&T supports. 

Sprint often sells HTC phones but since it already has an exclusive deal to sell Palm's high-profile Pre phone until year-end at least, Gartenberg sees it as a less likely candidate than AT&T. "Do they (Sprint) really want to take on another big device that requires a lot of marketing?" he said.

(Photo from T-Mobile USA: myTouch white black and merlot versions, T-Mobile CMO Denny Marie Post and CTO Cole Brodman at Wednesday's event)

The "compounding effect of more and more settings has made controlling privacy on Facebook too complicated," Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly said on the Facebook blog.

As a result the social network site is now testing new ways for members to improve their privacy controls more easily.  This should mean that when you post those embarrassing photos or irreverent comments, you'll be able to easily control who sees them without having to worry about oversharing with your boss or professional acquaintances.

But when you've got something big to say -- like "There's a plane on the Hudson" -- Facebook will also give you the option to broadcast to everybody.

"You will have the choice of being as open or as limited in the sharing of this information as you want," Facebook promised.

However, the tests, launched yesterday and expected to continue for a few weeks, will only include a small fraction of Facebook members before the company is ready to offer final versions.

According to the New York Times, Facebook is still determining if status updates that users chose to make public would appear in results from search engines like Google but it told the newspaper that it was testing a search engine that would be able to scan through this material.

Keep an Eye On:

• Google drops News Comment Feature (New York Times)
• DirecTV reaches out to Sling Media founder Krikorian as CEO candidate (PaidContent.org)
• Murdoch denies plot to acquire New York Times (thestreet.com)
• Microsoft adds Twitter search to Bing (Businessinsider)

(Reuters Photo: Facebook CEO Zuckerberg in July 2008)

 With Google long-seen as the undisputed leader in Web search, it was interesting to see research showing Microsoft winning some market share with its new Bing search engine, in research from Internet data firm StatCounter.

But, the fact that Google's tiny market share decline in U.S. Web searches to 78.48 percent from 78.72 percent is news at all goes to show how tough a job Microsoft has ahead of it.

And since Bing just launched June 3 ,it will be interesting to see if Microsoft's search share boost to 8.23 percent of he U.S. market, from 7.81 percent before Bing, is just a kick-off spike.

In the meantime, an arguably higher-profile Web service is attracting sharp criticism as bloggers scratched their heads over Twitter's warning to an application developer against using the word Tweet, the moniker for its miniblog entries.

Techcrunch posted what it said was an email that suggested as much from a Twitter team member to an outside developer that created an interface similar to Twitter's:

Twitter, Inc is uncomfortable with the use of the word Tweet (our trademark) and the similarity in your UI and our own. How can we go about having you change your UI..

Techcrunch asked if TweetDeck, TweetMeme, Tweetie, BackTweets, Tweetboard etc should worry?

And in businessinsider.com, Henry Blodget warned Twitter against taking up arms against the very applications that helped make Twitter famous. "Let it go, folks, let it go. When you reach for a "Kleenex" or hunt for a "Xerox machine," you're helping those brands stay front and center," Blodget said.

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone confirmed the spirit of the memo in an email response to Reuters but it wasn't immediately  clear to us if the "original branding" push would be foisted on just new app developers or if it would push for brand changes in existing apps too. He said:

The ecosystem growing around Twitter is something we very much believe in nourishing and supporting. As part of this support, we encourage developers of new applications and services built using Twitter APIs to invent original branding for their project rather than use our marks, logos, or look and feel. This approach leaves room for applications to evolve as they grow and it avoids potential confusion down the line.

Keep an eye on:

• Fired columnist Roger Friedman sues News Corp (LA Times)
• Vibe Magazine shutting (DailyFinance)
• Michael Jackson shatters chart records (Billboard)
• Party celebrates China Web filter delay (Reuters)
• Facebook in investor spotlight, but values vary (Reuters)

(Reuters photo of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer)

Some viewers flee infomercials, which often last almost a half hour, and are filled with brash claims about products that, of course, are always the best inventions on the market for anything from peeling a vegetable or cleaning a house.

But Mays, who made it big in the late ninetes with a stain remover called OxiClean, convinced many viewers to listen by shouting his wares. As a result he became a popular icon and created a close following among marketers who saw him as a valuable pitchman.

"He's on the air more than any other pitch person ... He probably has been in more direct response spots than anybody else," said Sam Catanese, the head of Infomercial Monitoring Service (IMS).

But while he seemed to always yell on the TV, Mays collaborators said he spoke at a normal tone in person and was very sincere, if a bit more energetic than most of us. "He was a sweet dear nice guy. Everybody's going to miss him a lot," said Catanese who last met Mays in San Diego a few weeks ago when he asked for IMS to get involved in his Discovery Channel show PitchMen, which documents Mays' search for marketable inventions.

Mays followed in the footsteps of  Ron Popeil, who is seen by marketers as the grandfather of infomercials who turned "late night viewing into a profitable situation" for television networks, said Barry Consulting President Bill Kittel.

Executives said it will be hard for a pitchman to fill Mays shoes and match his fame. "I think he should be recognized," said Catanese.

Keep an eye on:

• Dell is developing a pocket-sized Internet device (WSJ)
• Supreme Court allows wider DVR use (New York Times)
• Facebook taps ex-Genentech CFO (Reuters)
• Wall-to-wall media coverage of Jackson receding (Associated Press)
• Three percent of centenarians Tweet (Reuters)
• Windows 7 pre-orders a hit on Amazon (CNET)