A Billion Reasons for Twitter to be Happy

So it looks like Twitter has entered some rarefied air for sure. According to ReadWriteWeb and TechCrunch the micro-blogging juggernaut is moving into an exclusive club by securing a new round of funding ($50 million) based on a valuation of $1 billion (yup, it’s a b). No doubt, this will begin to stir the supporters and detractors alike. Unless we have ridiculously short memories or just think that this time will be different one has to wonder how a company that no one can figure out revenue wise can be valued at that much.

While I am not an analyst I did think about staying at a Holiday Inn Express over the past year so I qualify for jumping into the fray, right? Let’s hear what the RWW folks had to say first though.

While it’s unlikely that Twitter CEO Evan Williams was wearing a Dr. Evil costume when he delivered the news, he had the pleasure of announcing his company’s $1 billion dollar valuation today at an all hands meeting. According to TechCrunch, the company has raised a $50 million dollar funding round and the money will be in the bank shortly. Given the fact that Twitter turned down an offer to be purchased by Facebook earlier in the year, it appears the two are about to tango.

So of course, this conversation wouldn’t be nearly as much fun without bringing Facebook into the mix. Facebook is starting to look almost like IBM compared to Twitter. What with actual revenue generation plans and actually having the audacity to be cash flow positive one begins to wonder if Facebook is going to actually merit its own valuation. As we mentioned yesterday, Master of the Universe, Mark Zuckerberg, has something to say in the Facebook blog.

We’re also succeeding at building Facebook in a sustainable way. Earlier this year, we said we expected to be cash flow positive sometime in 2010, and I’m pleased to share that we achieved this milestone last quarter. This is important to us because it sets Facebook up to be a strong independent service for the long term.

So is Twitter in for the long term? They certainly still have the buzz going and now there appears to be a a real Facebook faceoff looming for the foreseeable future.

In the past, ReadWriteWeb has looked at Twitter’s platform potential. The service has already been used to create meme trackers, emergency alert services, news feeds and brand monitoring tools. As the infrastructure and search have improved, Twitter has become the go-to site for real time media. But can the company make a Facebook-like leap?

Twitter’s billions

Twitter seems to have quadrupled in value over the course of just a few months: after raising $35 million at a $250 million valuation earlier this year, it’s now raising another $50 million at a — wait for it — $1 billion valuation. At these kind of levels, one assumes, there must be some idea of how to make money in the future. I also hope the founders are beginning to cash out at this point: or does Twitter really have a burn rate which would make Michael Wolff proud?

There's no such thing as a free lunch at Twitter

It was always going to be a question of when rather than if Twitter started carrying ads.

The news that the microblogging service is ‘‘keeping its options open’’ to advertising comes as no surprise. Its meteoric launch as the social network de nos jours has come at a cost to investors; US$55 million ($63m) and counting, though it has yet to burn through that all. However, it’s clear a heavy hint has been dropped; it’s time to make some money.

Twitter’s terms now say: "Services may include advertisements, which may be targeted to the content or information on the services, queries made through the services, or other information."

The unanswered question is what kind of advertising and how the 45 million people - 700,000 of which are in Australia - will feel about being ‘‘monetised’’.

Twitter founder Founder Biz Stone wrote in his blog in May: ‘‘The idea of taking money to run traditional banner ads on Twitter.com has always been low on our list of interesting ways to generate revenue.’’ Phew. But that was then and this is now.

Twitter always said that 2009 was the year for generating revenue. It is already exploring a number of avenues, namely pulling together tweets by specific groups of people and allowing third parties to sponsor them. Twitter then shares the ad revenue with them. Microsoft sponsored the first effort, ExecTweets, a collection of tweets from executives.

It is also wants to turn all those shopping recommendations or requests for information that proliferate the site into money, possibly by venturing into e-commerce deals.

Then again perhaps Twitter doesn’t know what it wants and is tossing the idea out there in the hope a business model will come back, as Marcio Nery who heads up the social media division of Mitchell Communications Group believes. ‘‘They probably don’t know what model will work. All they know is that they doesn’t want to annoy their users.’’ Let's hope so.

Not that advertising has dented Facebook’s popularity. Tony Thomas CEO of The Population says: ‘‘You are always going to upset the purists but there’s a growing acceptance that you don’t get something for free.’’ It’s hardly a revolutionary model- remember free to air television? And look how well that’s doing.

If Twitter is mad enough to start placing ads in between Tweets and selling off large chunks of ‘‘advertising inventory’’ to companies who want to reach its rusted on audiecne then it can expect a rough reception, as Facebook found earlier this year when it changed its terms and conditions to allow it to wrest ownership of users's personal information even after they were no longer Facebook members. The resultant furore forced Facebook into an embarrassing about turn.

And what about all those risk-averse marketers who bang on endlessly about the level of ‘‘engagement’’ and ‘‘relationships’’ that these sites offer yet are too scared to place their brand in an environment where they no longer have control.

Smart companies are already using Twitter without paying a cent for ‘media’. A recent successful Australian campaign for Levi’sshowed how when the company released hundreds of free pairs of jeans onto the streets and encouraged followers of its Twitter site to bail up those people they suspected were wearing Levi’s. If they were then the person immediately dropped their pants and handed them over.

Hopefully Twitter is smart enough to realise it has a community of users rather than an audience to be 'sold' on to advertisers. Either way we have a few month’s grace before we learn yet another way to avoid ads.

Morning Briefing: Stocks Make Fresh Highs

As we move toward the open, we find stocks making fresh highs once again, sparked by strength in gold and oil and weakness in the U.S. dollar. I'm watching the 1045 area in the ES contract (red horizontal line) particularly; it represents recent support and is also near the tops of the trading range going back to 9/11 and 9/14.

We're seeing continued strength in emerging market stocks and solid strength among U.S. smallcaps. Both suggest continued risk appetite among traders and money managers. While the rally has been extended by most any short-term measure--eight consecutive days of gains--the market indicators that I post before the open via Twitter (follow here) continue to look strong. These usually weaken prior to any extended pullback; I'm not seeing such weakening at this juncture.

Twitter funding would value it at $1 billion: report

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Twitter is closing a round of funding which will value the company known for its 140-character stream-of-conscious blogs at $1 billion, technology news site TechCrunch reported on Wednesday.

The company will raise around $50 million, and Chief Executive Evan Williams told employees about the funding round, TechCrunch said, citing multiple unnamed sources.

Twitter and other social networking sites have been hard-pressed to show that they are viable businesses, despite wild popularity, and that they have what it takes to eventually make a successful public offering or private sale.

The Twitter funding news would raise the industry's credibility with investors, as did a Tuesday announcement from Facebook that it was making enough money to cover expenses.

Twitter's Tweets are 140-character dispatches, and the service has become a phenomenon among news junkies, Hollywood watchers -- and many investors.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a call seeking comment.

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic and Peter Henderson; Editing Bernard Orr)

The Inevitable Showdown Between Twitter And Twitter Apps

usually think of business competition as occurring betweensubstitutes – products that serve similar functions for the user. Famous substitutes include Coke and Pepsi, and Macs and PCs.

In fact, especially in the technology sector, some of the most brutal competition has occurred between complements. Products are complements when they are more valuable because of the existence of one another – e.g. hotdogs and hotdog buns, PCs and operating systems.

There is inherent tension between complements. If a customer is willing to pay $2 for a hotdog plus bun, the hotdog maker wants buns to be cheaper so he can capture more of the $2, or lower the price of the bundle and thereby increase demand. (For a great primer on competition between complements, I highly recommend this Joel Spolsky post. I’ve also been writing about complements, here and here).

Microsoft is famous for destroying companies that offer complementary products, either by bundling complementary apps with Windows (Windows Media Player, MSN Messenger, IE) or aggressively competing head-to-head against the most popular ones (Adobe, Intuit). The surviving 3rd party apps are usually ones that are too small for Microsoft to care about. The best (selfish) economic situation for a platform like Windows is lots of tiny complements that have little pricing power but that make the platform itself more valuable.

One of Google’s main complements is the web browser and desktop operating systems, which is why they built and open sourced the Chrome browser and OS. Google’s other big complement is broadband access – hence their excursions into public Wifi and cellular spectrum.

So what does all of this have to do with Twitter? At some point, significant (non-VC) money will enter the Twitter ecosystem. I have no idea whether this is will be by charging consumers, charging businesses users, search advertising, sponsored tweets, licensing the twitter data feed, data from URL shorteners, or something else. But history suggests that where there is so much user engagement, dollars follow.

For the sake of argument, let’s suppose Twitter’s eventual dominant business model is putting ads by search results. Who gets the revenue when a user is searching on a 3rd party Twitter client? Even if Twitter gets a portion of revenue from ads on 3rd party apps, there will always be an incentive for them to create their own client app, or to “commodotize” the client app by, say, promoting an open source version.

I’m not saying this will happen in the immediate future. First, Twitter and a lot of app makers* have raised a lot of money, so aren’t under (much) pressure yet to generate revenues. Secondly, some of the lucky Twitter apps will get acquired by Twitter. I think this is what many of their investors are hoping for. But those that aren’t so lucky will eventually find their biggest competitor to be Twitter itself, not the substitute product they see themselves as competing against today.

* when I say Twitter apps, I mean any product, website, or service that eventually makes money and depends on Twitter’s API.

Twitter Raising Money At $1 BILLION Valuation!

Huge: Twitter will raise around $50 million at a $1 billion valuation, TechCrunch's Michael Arrington reports, citing "multiple sources." Twitter CEO Evan Williams reportedly disclosed the round at a recent employee meeting.

Twitter raised $35 million earlier this year, led by Benchmark Capital and Institutional Venture Partners.

The company has no material revenue at the moment. But it has huge plans for growth. And when you can raise money at a $1 billion valuation, you do it.

Twitter Closing New Venture Round At $1 Billion Valuation

Fast growing startup Twitter will soon be joining a select group of startups with private venture round valuations of $1 billion, we’ve heard from multiple sources. CEO Evan Williams disclosed the round to employees at a recent all hands meeting.

The company will raise around $50 million, we’ve heard, although the final amount of the raise is apparently not yet locked down.

Twitter raised $35+ million earlier this year in a round led by Benchmark Capital and Institutional Venture Partners. That round valued the company at $250 million.

The company has raised a total of around $55 million to date, and sources tell us they have approximately $30 million left in the bank.

Update: A source tells us that New York based Insight Venture Partners is the primary investor in this round.

get widgetminimize

Twitter

Website:	twitter.com
Location:	San Francisco, California, United States
Founded:	March 21, 2006
Funding:	$55M

More Tips on Making Money with Google

I know many people are wondering how to make money online with Google. Some of you may already be familiar with my first article How to Make Money on Google and many may be familiar with my blog Chatter Melody where I display tips on making money online and other various
updates. Many of the tips I stated in my How to Make Money on Google still apply but I have did some research would love to reveal more secrets about Making Money with Google.

Google is a complicated company with many different associations and divisions. Making money with Google can take place free of charge. Google is associated with Blogger . People trying to make money on internet can use Blogger to create a webpage. Blogger is absolutely free of charge. Blogger allows you to create webpage with any content of your choosing. With a webpage through Blogger you can use Google ad sense while also using other third party affiliate advertising. For example if you are writing a blog about sports you can do some third party advertisement for Champions through www.Linkshare.com.

I know you are now saying how I will advertise my new Blog on the internet. Your new blog can be advertised through a number of channels for free. One way to advertise a blog is the same way I am advertising my blog through writing for Associated Content or other writing companies like Associated Content including hyperlinks to my blog Chatter Melody.

Another is through social media such as Twitter, providing updates to hot topics and including a link to your blog will get you some great views. Never underestimate the power of networking, I gotten some of my connection through networking on and offline. Get as many accounts with social media outlet because they are valuable and many of your views will come from social media.

Another is sending press releases. This will get your blog more hits on the search engine. Press releases are free with most companies. Some of the companies will show you how to write a press release. Here are a few place allow you to send out press releases for free.

• PR.com

• PR9.net

• Free Press Release

Here is a directory of different press release companies. Big list of Free Press Release

Hopefully this will provide some help to getting your blog up and visitors to your blog.

How To Make Money With Twitter

Social media is already an important part of the marketing and PR strategy of most small businesses. It has slowly replaced a lot of traditional forms of marketing like phone books, and has supplemented others like newspaper advertising.

One of the leading modes of social media marketing is Twitter. Twitter lets you place your message in front of thousands of prospects in short bytes of 140 characters or less. It has given small businesses a way to reach out thousands of people for free.

Twitter can be effectively used to drive traffic to your small business website, and help increase sales. Like other social media tools, the key to winning with Twitter is numbers. You need a large follower base before you can make your Twitter marketing tick. But once you establish a reasonable follower base, the rewards will be steady, and will increase progressively. It is a virtuous cycle which feeds itself, and very little effort is needed from you; once you set the ball rolling.

Viral Twitter Secret is one such service that helps you build a Twitter base that drives traffic to your site and lets your message go viral. It is an automated tool that spreads your message in a manner that is conducive to it going viral. It will send a tweet specific to your business through your followers Twitter accounts. So, you will see the same tweet getting sent out by a number of users, and your Twitter user name will be in the tweet along with the message that you wanted to send.

This is a very powerful way of spreading out your word through Twitter because it will easily multiply. If your tweet is sent out by a person who has a thousand followers; a thousand people potentially see your tweet, and it is likely, that one of them retweets it. And then all his followers will see the message, and so on.

This service helps you multiply the number of people who can land on your website using Twitter, and increases the odds of your message being seen by hundreds and thereby increases the chances of greater sales and profits.

Twitter is a great marketing tool, but you need effective tools to make it work for you. Without the use of the right Twitter tools, your Twitter marketing strategy may never take off, and you may be stuck with a hundred odd followers.

If you want to learn how to setup a *reliable* $5,000 per month Twitter cash cow as fast as humanly possible! Visit My Viral Tweet now for instructions on how to do this. You can also visit Viral Twitter Secret to get this cash cow technique quickly.

Twitter changes terms of service to allow ads

Twitter, the popular San Francisco microblogging service that lets you share your thoughts online, as long as you keep them to 140 characters or less, has changed its terms of service to help it make money in the future.

Among the changes, according to a post late Thursday afternoon on Twitter's blog: "We leave the door open for advertising," co-founder Biz Stone wrote. "We'd like to keep our options open."

Twitter, of course, has generated a lot of online buzz, but not a lot of cash. Earlier this week, according to Bloomberg News, Stone said Twitter is planning to start bringing in revenue later this year by offering paid services such as analytics.

Other changes involve rights to users' posts, known as tweets: "Twitter is allowed to 'use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute' your tweets because that's what we do. However, they are your tweets and they belong to you," Stone wrote.

He added that Twitter users authorize the company to make their tweets available to outside software developers that have permission to tap into the company's network, and that "abusive behavior and spam" continues to be forbidden.

Google's Planned Payment Service Will Flop (GOOG)

Google’s proposal to the Newspaper Association of America yesterday for an online subscription and micropayments solution for premium content sounds promising on the surface.

However, conversations we’ve had on the past with publishers, a recent scan of Google Checkout merchant feedback, and analysis of the potential size of the market suggest it won't amount to much.

Even if online subscriptions and micropayments are embraced, moreover, they will likely only moderately boost newspaper industry revenue. The revenue contribution to Google, meanwhile, will likely be immaterial.

According to the NAA, the Google proposal was accidentally uploaded to their site and was meant to be confidential--so newspapers executives weren't eager to speak with us about it. However, for three reasons, we think Google will fight an uphill battle trying to get newspapers to sign onto the service:

1) newspapers have been and continue to be incredibly slow to form any kind of digital strategy,

2) they likely will be hesitant to share any information with a company that many view as crippling the business, and

3) it's still unclear if there is a viable business model for paid news content online.

A number of other questions/risks remain:

Google Checkout Has Flopped

Google launched the retailing version of its PayPal killer, Checkout, several years ago. Checkout has been a major disappointment, so we question Google’s ability to make a better product for newspapers. Newspapers are also going to need heavy assurances from a company most view as a ruthless competitor that its subscriptions will be handled well.

A scan of various Checkout merchant complaints on a Google chat board reveal a number of problems ranging from mysterious referrals to inferior merchant receipts, and even lost revenue. Here is a comment from one unhappy merchant:

• “Why has my google checkout revenue fallen by over 75% in the last 12 months? As we all know the credit crunch has affected all business and we are by no means immune. But our Google Checkout revenue has fall off exponentially in comparison. Why?”

Perhaps the following feedback from another merchant could explain the sudden drop in revenue:

• “We have set up a monthly subscription using the HTML API and although everything appears to go through fine when viewing the orders and the initial charge goes through, the recurring payments do not appear to be getting charged. Also when viewing orders older than 1 month (meaning they should have gotten charged), the subscription part of their order is no longer listed. I used the code provided on the subscriptions page as an example to work from so I assume it should work.”

Not charging subscribers for products they sign up for may get some applause from consumers, but the newspapers will be understandably furious if this happens to them. In addition, merchants can’t call anyone directly at Google for help with problems, even those like the above where revenue is immediately lost, but must instead submit comments to a dedicated web page on the Google site. Newspapers will never stand for this, so Google will have to set up a professional support group. This comment from a merchant sums it up well:

• “This is the worst support you can get from a company! So sad since it's a big name involved "GOOGLE".

Anyone can hear us? Hello? How can we get your attention? No phone number to call, so support email! Only this "support forum". Are we talking with BOTS here? We are a real business with real clients, real money involved.”

At the end of the day this looks largely like an attempt by Google to make friends with an industry that has publicly referred to it as a parasite in the past for stealing valuable web traffic and ad dollars on top of content originally created by the newspapers.

Revenue From This Service Will Be Minimal For Google, Small For Publishers

Let’s assume that a subscription service is able to attract 10 million subscribers over time and charges them each an annual fee of $50 for access to premium content from all participating newspapers. Assuming Google takes a 20% fee, this would amount to $100 million in revenue for the company, or only 0.5% of its total revenue.

In addition, this wouldn’t be a material boost for the newspaper industry either. The newspaper industry would receive $400 million from the above scenario, or less than 1% of total industry revenue and about 13% of total online revenue.

That 10-million subscriber number is probably aggressive, given it represents 14% of the industry’s current online audience. Looking at a number of scenarios it appears the newspaper industry could boost its revenue by a meager 0.4% to 1.5% depending on subscriber conversion levels (Table Below).

Of course, this analysis doesn’t take into account lost ad revenue (likely nominal) or how newspapers will differentiate premium content from free content without sacrificing the perceived quality of the free content.

Would this also require hiring new journalists to produce the premium content (Consumers may have a tough time digesting the fact that they are suddenly paying for work from an author they were getting for free yesterday)? Most of these questions remain unanswered.

Give Google a break!

Yes, I said it. Give the kajillion-dollar company a break. This book scanning thing is getting completely out of hand. I want Google to make money. I want them to make lots of it because that means that all of the services I use for free will remain free. It also means that they will have the capital to keep moving forward with bringing millions of books into the digital (and public) domain and advance the technology that will help electronic texts go mainstream.

Ars Technica outlined the US Copyright Office’s major objections to the settlements that Google is seeking through the courts to bring their book scanning project out of litigation. A key quote from the Copyright Office’s brief goes like this:

We realized that the settlement was not really a settlement at all, in as much as settlements resolve acts that have happened in the past and were at issue in the underlying infringement suits. Instead, the so-called settlement would create mechanisms by which Google could continue to scan with impunity, well into the future, and to our great surprise, create yet additional commercial products without the prior consent of rights holders…

I’m no lawyer, but all I can muster out of this is a shrug. Particularly when Google turned around and offered revenue mechanisms to their competitors today based on the scanning work that Google will complete in the coming years. Suddenly, it won’t matter if you have a Kindle, a Sony Reader, or an EPUB-capable smartphone. You’ll be able to access the scanned books from Google and someone (whether authors, Google, or Amazon) will make some money.

Google’s efforts are a win all around for education. Call me a Google fanboy if you must, but anyone making millions of texts available electronically (and potentially providing revenue and publication outlets for my own books in progress) is aces in my book.

Twitter expands rules to allow advertising

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Twitter, the fast-growing microblogging site now seeking ways to make money, expanded its terms for users on Thursday to allow advertisers to reach the Internet site's more than 45 million monthly visitors.

Twitter, the two-year-old venture capital-backed company that lets people send an unlimited number of 140-character messages, is just now beginning to ramp up efforts to monetize, or gain revenue from, its popular site.

On Thursday, it revised its "terms of service" to specify that it may run ads.

"We leave the door open for advertising. We'd like to keep our options open, as we've said before," founder Biz Stone wrote on Twitter's official blog. blog.twitter.com/

Advertising revenue is the time-honored way for Web sites to generate revenue while remaining free for consumers.

Explosive growth in social networking is attracting interest: worldwide unique visitors to Twitter's site reached 44.5 million in June, up 15-fold year-over-year, according to comScore.

Some analysts are skeptical that advertising will catch on in a meaningful way on social networks, arguing that companies are reluctant to juxtapose their brands with unpredictable, and potentially offensive, user-generated content.

Stone himself has said the company was wary of annoying its growing base of users by pummeling them with ads.

But other analysts point out that users of social networking websites tend to spend a lot of time on those sites, providing an attractive platform for advertisers to promote their brands -- especially if preferences are tracked.

Twitter kept its new clause on advertising open-ended, and stressed it was subject to change.

"The services may include advertisements, which may be targeted to the content or information on the services, queries made through the services, or other information," the terms read. "The types and extent of advertising by Twitter on the services are subject to change."

"In consideration for Twitter granting you access to and use of the services, you agree that Twitter and its third-party providers and partners may place such advertising on the services...."

TwitterCounter Wants To Count Dollars, Too

TwitterCounter, a fairly basic but popular service that gives users insights on how well they're doing on Twitter with regards to numbers of followers and tweets, is flicking the revenue switch to 'ON'.

A decent amount of Twitter users regularly visit the TwitterCounter website to get statistics based on their account name ¿ Compete pegs the number of monthly uniques at approx. 650,000 ¿ and the team behind the service believes companies and organizations could well be willing to pay them a monthly fee for a premium service with more features and more detailed stats.

In what the company dubbed the Premium Dashboard, paying customers are able to compare and track multiple accounts and obtain stats from over a year's time rather than the maximum of 3 months non-paying visitors get to see. In addition, TwitterCounter 'pro' users gain the ability to export statistics in CSV format and enjoy their graphs in a larger format.

Patrick De Laive from TwitterCounter tells us support for multiple account tracking and comparisons was an oft-requested feature and that the team, which is also behind a 'MyBlogLog for Twitter' service called TwitterRemote and events like The Next Web Conference in Amsterdam, is happy to finally be able to offer it. Not that the self-funded startup wasn't already trying to monetize the web service: they also offer a way for users to gain more followers by 'featuring' them at a per-view rate (e.g. 100,000 views for $289).

Pricing for the Premium Dashboard is based on the number of users you would like to track, starting at $25 per month for 5 users and up to $198 per month for 100 users. Call me crazy, but while pricing may sound steep I can actually see why companies ¿ and particularly their PR and marketing departments ¿ would be willing to cough that up for this type of service.

Let Twitter work out how and if it will make money on their own in the meantime.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I should point out I used to write for The Next Web blog)

Why Did You Start Blogging?

In the last post on ProBlogger Kevin talked about starting a blog based upon one of your hobbies as a great way to start blogging.

As I mentioned in the introduction to that post - Kevin had really described much of my own motivations for starting my photography blog (and that of many many other successful blogs). While I did see an opportunity for profit in that blog when I started it - my main motivation for kicking it off was to share what I was learning about photography and to see if I could draw others with a similar interest together to learn from one another.

For me I always wanted to see if I could make some money from that blog - but early on it wasn’t the biggest motivation. Over the years as the blog has grown and become more profitable I suspect my motivations have changed a little - I’m still interested in the topic - but it’s certainly more of a focus to make it profitable.

Of course starting a blog on a topic you’re interested in or passionate about is not the only way - many successful bloggers have started blogs with other motivations - including to make money, to grow their profile, to drive traffic to their business etc…. (or some combination of motivations).

Why Did You Start Blogging?

Yesterdays post has got me thinking - why DO people start blogs? Has the motivation changed from a few years back when blogs first began to get popular (when I started 7 years ago most people seemed to be doing it purely for fun and to make connections)?

I’d be interested to hear about your initial motivations to starting a blog? Did you start on a topic you were interested in? Did you start with the idea of making money? Was there some other motivation/s? Also - have your motivations changed since starting your blog?

Interested to hear your thoughts!

How Much Does An iPhone User Spend On Apps? $80

AppsFire, a service for sharing iPhone Apps with anyone, has conducted a survey of 1,200 users using the AppsFire service to find out key data on iPhone and iPod Touch users. AppsFire released a report taking data on real users and trends based on their usage patterns. The company gathered data on 1,200 users in July and August with respondents from across the globe with a high concentration in the United States (50%), France and Japan.

After looking at the reports, it’s interesting to note that 15,000+ applications have been installed through these 1,200 users. Through the 15,000+ applications overall, each user has about 65 applications installed per device. The average amount of money spent per device is $80, which after thinking about how many iPhone users are there, that’s about $400,000,000+ that Apple has made from paid applications, without taking their 30%. The average price of an iPhone app is $1.56, which seems about right according to AdMob data.

One really interesting note is that only 15,000+ apps are really installed (out of 65,000+) which makes people think about all the failed iPhone apps. AppsFire was co-founded by TechCrunch France founder Ouriel Ohayon and is based in Israel. You’ll find the entire report below.

Red flags fly with Internet offer

New business alleges you can make money by multi-level marketing the Internet

A new money making opportunity that claims to “Multi-level market the Internet” could be nothing more than a pyramid scheme warns Better Business Bureau. An investigation by BBB shows that iJango – a new self-described multi-level marketing company – is aggressively seeking representatives for a product that has no track record. Consumers are paying hundreds of dollars in upfront fees based on the claim that they can earn money by recruiting others to do the same – a red flag for pyramid schemes.

Multi-level marketing is one form of compensation often employed by direct selling companies, whereby sales agents recruit other sales agents and receive a cut of their sales for products. Pyramid schemes, which are illegal, promise that participants can make money primarily by recruiting people who then pay for the opportunity to recruit more people. The money is then filtered up through the pyramid.

“Millions of people earn honest money by selling products through multi-level marketing; however, some money making opportunities blur the lines between MLM and pyramid schemes,” said Steve Cox, BBB spokesperson. “iJango is making big promises about its money making potential, but based on our investigation, BBB believes the potential to generate revenue may primarily depend on the ability of participants to recruit additional representatives.”

More than 3,400 people nationwide have contacted BBB to check out Austin, TX-based iJango since August 1. iJango is being marketed heavily on Web sites, including YouTube and Twitter, through spam e-mail campaigns and at in-person sales presentations across the country. In-person sales presentations have been held in many cities including Phoenix and Plano, Texas, with people having been contacted by e-mail and encouraged to take advantage of the opportunity.

In the company's promotional materials, iJango is described as an interactive Web site "portal" for customers to access social media and interact with online merchants. iJango claims that their representatives can make money by inviting "friends, family and associates to use iJango...for FREE!" The business claims that this portal tracks individuals' Web traffic and e-commerce, thereby generating commissions payable to iJango based on Web page views and purchases made by the user.

iJango says participants can pay an upfront fee of $50 to join the program, but recommends purchasing a package for $149.95 with a monthly maintenance fee of $19.95. The company further claims that consumers participating in the program will earn income in two ways:

The recruitment of other individuals to purchase the opportunity and the recruitment of registered customers.

Commissions that are generated by Web site traffic and purchases through iJango Web site “portals.”

BBB has recently received complaints concerning the ease of use of the iJango portal, delayed availability of materials and alleged difficulty in canceling membership. The company has responded to some consumers by stating that they have issued, or will issue a refund. iJango has earned a BBB rating of F – and its full "http://www.bbb.org/central-texas/business-reviews/multi-level-selling/ijango-in-austin-tx-90066721"BBB Reliability Report™ is available online.

Cameron Sharpe is one of the co-founders of iJango and has traveled the country presenting the iJango concept. Cameron Sharpe also co-created Ultimate Introductions, a.k.a. Ultimate Singles, a supposedly Christian dating service that generated complaints from customers by charging thousands of dollars and failing to deliver on promises. Ultimate Introductions was sued by another company in 2004 for theft, fraud and unfair competition; as part of the settlement it was required to go out of business.

BBB recommends consumers exercise extreme caution when evaluating any business opportunity and consider the following advice in order to make an informed decision:

Avoid any plan that places primary emphasis on commissions for recruiting additional distributors. It may be an illegal pyramid scheme.

Beware of plans that require purchase of expensive products and marketing materials upfront. These plans may be pyramid schemes in disguise.

Beware of plans that claim to sell miracle products or promise enormous earnings.

Don't pay or sign any contracts in an "opportunity meeting" or any other pressure-filled situation without first taking time to think over the decision. Talk it over with a family member, friend, accountant or lawyer.

Remember that no matter how good a product may be or how solid a multi-level marketing plan appears, an investment of time, as well as dollars, may be needed for your investment to pay off. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

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The celeb hate pages on Facebook and Twitter

NEW YORK - Some celebrities have hate pages devoted to them on popular social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter.

The New York Post quoted some postings targeting the stars under ‘Why We Hate You” title.

Heather Mills: “Being that Paul McCartney is the most famous living celebrity . . . wouldn’t you think [he] could at least score a broad with two legs?”

Brody Jenner: “No apparent skills other than [a] winning smile, good hair, and scoring chicks. Career high point: recently beat up . . . Joe Francis.”

Madonna: “This broad has more veins popping out of her than [Sylvester] Stallone . . . plus, the worst fake English accent we’ve ever heard.”

Kanye West: “Because you are hands down the most arrogant, least talented, and the most loathsome guy in music. Luckily for Kanye there is a guy named Chris Brown.”

Paris Hilton: “There are so many reason to hate her, it almost isn’t fair. She’s a talentless fame-whore [and] easier to spread than Skippy Smooth . . . just plain vacant.”

Kevin Federline: “10 points for nailing Britney [Spears] in her prime, but you lose the whole game for looking like you ate your kids, for trying to be a white rapper, and for sucking up perfectly good oxygen.”

The Jonas Brothers: “These girly-boys remind us of three other irritating teen queens from the ’90s who had one huge hit, sold millions of records, were wildly famous for about 10 minutes, and then disappeared . . . Remember Hanson?”

Amy Winehouse: “God definitely has a sick and twisted sense of humor, matching that voice with [her] face, mind and body. Watching Amy is like listening to Heidi Montag sing-painful, yet morbidly entertaining. We predict a minimum of two more trips to rehab.”