Created by the team that developed Tickle.com (the source of many an online personality test), SuperFan plans to make money by selling credits that its members can use to control fan pages and targeted advertisements. More interesting to me, though, is how SuperFan functions as an overlay onto YouTube (and, eventually, other online video sites). Most of the items in SuperFan's inventory of user likes and dislikes include links to images and YouTube videos posted by users. In other words, the site acts as a collection of favorites. "We really want this to be driven by the fans," said Rick Marini, the site's founder and chief executive. That's a bit different from social-media sites such as TVLoop and First on Mars, where users' likes and dislikes can help guide others to choice nuggets within the vast amount of content available. SuperFan moves in the other direction, starting from scratch and offering only the material that's drawn a reaction (good or bad) from its members. It also helps users discover content in more indirect ways than other social-media sites. For example, you might track down the members who share your love of death metal or Jonathan Lethem (or both!) to see what movies or TV shows they recommend. My guess is, that's a technique better suited for those with eclectic tastes.

SuperFan will probably have to attract far more users to become a compelling media portal. But Marini seems to believe that the site's main appeal will be the platform it provides for declaiming one's loyalties. "Everything that defines who you are, you can express on the site," he said. It takes more time to do that than some people may want to invest, and the process of suggesting a favorite not already in SuperFan's database is laborious. In fact, the site reviews the new nominees to make sure they might appeal to other users, too. "We want to include those people, those bands" that users suggest, Marini said, "but I don’t want to put in 'I’m a fan of my cat.' That’s not interesting to the community. There is a gray area we have to get through each day on what makes the cut." That strikes me as both arbitrary and not particularly effective at weeding out the things the site really should be concerned about, namely, marketers creating bogus users to pump up their clients.

Each item has a "SuperFan" who controls some elements of its fan page. To become a SuperFan, you have to either claim that spot before anyone else does or spend SuperFan credits to buy your way to the top of the heap. The site awards credits for creating or uploading content, but it also sells them. Those sales will be the site's main revenue stream, Marini said. It also hopes to command higher-than-average rates from advertisers because of its ability to target their pitches. According to Marini, SuperFan can offer advertisers a more complete profile of its users than other social networks "because we know everything you love in life." He added that the company won't share personally identifiable information with advertisers; instead, it will put their pitches in front of users who match the profiles they're interested in. Still, the more accurate the targeting, the more unsettling the practice may be to users. There's also a limit to how narrow advertisers want to make their pitches; at some point, targeting yields an audience that's just too small to be interesting.

-- Jon Healey

Healey writes editorials for The Times' Opinion Manufacturing Division.

As mentioned on the LA Now blog, the MTA is the latest to add its info to Google's interactive maps. And you can tap into that on your iPhone as well. By tapping the transit icon (the bus in the middle), you can access schedules for the road and rail public transportation options to your destination. It includes the departure times, estimated travel time and price to hitch a ride.

The BlackBerry Google Maps app also offers transit details -- routes, times and distance. The MTA's info wasn't accessible when we tried to call it up with plans for a trip from downtown L.A. to Glendale and one from downtown to Irvine. Foothill Transit directions from L.A. to Claremont came up without issue.

Other transit agencies currently available through Google Maps include Foothill Transit and Metrolink.

-- Michelle Maltais

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A screenshot of an iPhone using the TomTom navigation app, mounted with the TomTom car kit for iPhone. Credit: TomTom Inc.

As a member of the directionally challenged community, I have been much enamored with having a device that knows where I am and where I'm going even when I don't.

Even as other GPS navigation apps have launched -- among them are  AT&T’s Navigator (free download, $9.99 monthly) and Sygic’s Mobile Maps ($79.99 for North America) -- many iPhone owners have been atwitter about the advent of a TomTom navigational iPhone app, announced at WWDC in San Francisco on June 8.

I had a chance recently to chat with Tom Murray, vice president of market development at TomTom Inc., about the anticipated app and the company's iPhone car kit. ...

First things first: No, TomTom hasn't announced pricing or an expected launch date for the app.

Here's what Murray highlighted about what the app will have:

• the TomTom user interface
• the latest version of Tele Atlas maps for North America and Europe, initially
• IQ Routes, which calculates the fastest route based on data collected over the years from other TomTom users.
• turn-by-turn directions
• voice-guided navigation

Murray wasn't able to confirm whether the app would include Map Share, which lets users make and get map corrections from other users of the feature. Users may purchase additional locations, he said, but the logistics of that were still being worked out.

Users also will be able to tap into their iPhone contacts from within the app, allowing them to select a destination or starting point from a contact’s entry. TomTom for iPhone takes advantage of the device's multitouch gestures to navigate within the maps, as well.

The app will be available for purchase "later this summer" on the App Store or via WiFi, he said. But MacWorld recently wrote that due to the size of the app (about 1 gigabyte), it was unclear whether downloads via WiFi would be restricted. 

In our chat, Murray seemed slightly more excited about the car kit -- or rather the combination of the app and the kit -- that was announced at the same time as the app. Many reporters seemed to issue a collective yawn at the thought of what might seem to be yet another iPhone holder. However, the car kit could prove more attractive and useful.

The app can work with or without the kit. Both app and kit accommodate portrait and landscape mode. The kit comes with the standard suction cup and dashboard mounts users would expect from a navigational device.

As Murray described the car kit, "but wait, there's more" seemed to be the unspoken refrain. Some of the other features include:

• built-in speaker
• enhanced audio -- the better to hear the directions with
• microphone and Bluetooth speaker for hands-free calling
• auxilliary output for connecting to and playing music through a car stereo
• cigarette lighter adapter to power both the car kit and the iPhone (and you're wondering why you'd need to power the kit...)
• GPS receiver to enhance reception

Murray said the GPS receiver built into the mount helps boost the iPhone's internal GPS, particularly when you're driving near tall buildings and other obstacles. The TomTom app uses this receiver when your iPhone is in the car kit.

A theoretical possibility -- and one Murray said TomTom is exploring -- with this kit's built-in GPS receiver is that it could potentially turn a 2G iPhone or an iPod Touch into a GPS device. Now that could make the kit more attractive to a larger community.

Although they are currently focusing on the iPhone, Murray said, "It's reasonable to assume that TomTom is open-minded to other platforms in the future."

Asked whether TomTom's push into the iPhone market was likely to distract from or cannibalize what has become its primary market -- standalone portable navigation devices -- Murray reminded that TomTom was originally founded as a software company, developing navigational software for palmtops manufactured by other companies.

It was in 2004 that TomTom saw the potential of in-auto navigation and saw a need to create -- and control -- hardware, launching the TomTom Go that year. 

In 2008, TomTom acquired Tele Atlas, which is one of two major map developers. "We recognized that demand for portable navigation devices will still be strong ... as people demand more navigation in more places," Murray said.

"At our core, however, we are still a software company," he said. "The idea is we want to make our software and mapping solutions available across platforms."

-- Michelle Maltais

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When you search for something on Google, the computers that process your questions aren't thinking about what might have motivated the inquiry. Nor are they sharing the bizarre ones with their friends. You punch in a few words and machines spit out a list of related Web pages in less than second.

But as workers for KGB, the people-powered mobile search service, field questions, they find plenty to laugh, worry and wince about.

For those who haven't seen the TV commercials, KGB isn't the Russian spy agency. It's a service that lets you ask questions by sending text messages from your cellphone and returns an answer researched by one of its volunteer laborers called agents (get it?).

Users are charged 99 cents per message, and agents earn 5 cents to 10 cents for every answer they serve up, depending on the amount of fact-finding involved.

People who already own Internet-enabled cellphones might wonder why they would spend a buck when they have Google at the ready. Surprisingly, half of KGB's users have smartphones or cellphones with QWERTY keyboards, according to KGB Chief Executive Bruce Stewart.

"People don't want thousands of links," Stewart said in a phone interview. "They just want the answer." Maybe there is something to Microsoft's "search overload" ad campaign for Bing after all.

But a better question might be: What would motivate these agents to answer our whimsical questions for less than minimum wage?

For some, it's a paid form of entertainment. Kurt Briesemeister, a 30-year-old agent from Carlsbad, Calif., calls himself "a fan of knowledge for the sake of knowledge." He used to do similar crowd-sourced work for Amazon's Mechanical Turk, which operates and pays recruits similarly. With KGB, he hasn't earned more than $3.50 an hour.

"A lot of people try to stump us," he said. "I love digging into the Internet and finding that information."

Briesemeister also appreciates the occasional oddball. "I had one question in particular that was...," he said, pausing to recall the exact phrasing of the question, "How many babies standing on each others' heads does it take to reach Mars?"

"They try to say, Ah-ha! I got him," Briesemeister said. "Well, actually, no, you don't -- because the average length of a baby is 21 inches. So, how many inches in a mile? How many miles to Mars? And do the simple math, and there you go -- 582 billion babies."

Briesemeister later got a similar question about hamsters to the moon. Both questions took less than two minutes to figure out, he said. Good thing because agents usually get less than 10 minutes per question to respond.

B.J. Ellis, a substitute teacher and director of a Philadelphia improv comedy show called the N-Crowd, also finds time for KGB on some nights. He averages about $2 per hour. "I do it because I enjoy learning random things," he said. He fires up the software "in my free time, when I'm watching TV," he said.

Ellis, too, is no stranger to fielding weird queries including, "Could Charles Manson adopt me?"

"Really? Someone spent 99 cents to find that out?" he wondered. "I said, 'Most agencies frown on convicted felons adopting.' "

Nathan Venard, a 21-year-old actor in Los Angeles, puts in about 20 hours per week, earning up to $6 an hour during evening shifts. In addition to the fun factor of learning random facts, he appreciates the flexible schedules and ability to work from home.

"Especially with L.A., the job market is so difficult," he muttered grimly.

Many are turning to services like KGB or ChaCha as an entertaining way to add a small income source. "It's just a few bucks -- pays for some gas," Ellis said.

Alongside questions seeking teenage relationship advice, the age-old "What is the meaning of life?" and "Is Tupac really dead?" Ellis notes, is one of the most common queries, "Are you a real person?"

KGB has received this one so often that they've automated the response, Ellis said. "Yes, we are." And that will be 99 cents, please.

-- Mark Milian

Sun Valley, Idaho -- In one of his first public discussions since announcing plans to launch the Chrome OS operating system, Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said his Mountain View, Calif., company's decision was based on the belief that there "is an opportunity to build an operating system built around the ubiquity and power of the Internet."

Speaking to reporters at the annual Allen & Co. Sun Valley conference along with Google co-founder Larry Page, Schmidt said Chrome OS, which is designed to work with Google's Chrome Web browser, would be faster for consumers because it would boot up almost instantaneously. Page added that the "browser is a great way to do most things" and that Chrome OS will get the computer "out of the way."

Schmidt said that Page and Sergey Brin, Google's other co-founder, had been pushing to create an operating system for six years. "Previous attempts on the Web have had various problems.... They haven't been zippy enough," Schmidt said. "We think the technology is now there."

As for working with computer makers such as Dell, Toshiba and Hewlett-Packard, Schmidt declined to identify individual companies but said "everybody we have talked to is very excited about the plan.... Hopefully later this year we will see some announcements."

Although Chrome OS is clearly a shot across the bow of Microsoft, Schmidt declined to discuss whether Google's operating system is designed to compete with the Redmond, Wash., software giant.

Asked whether Google's ambitions may raise eyebrows with federal regulators, Schmidt answered that his company is "pro-consumer."

-- Joe Flint

Google made waves in the tech world this week when it announced plans to release an operating system that would encourage wider use of something called cloud computing.

Although most have never heard of cloud computing, many do it every day. By uploading photos to Facebook, sending messages via Gmail or playing Club Penguin online, users are accessing programs and software files that live far away in cavernous, climate-controlled rooms containing thousands of computers.

To help explain this shift in the way we use computers, we turned to Andreas Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems and chief development officer for Arista Networks, a Silicon Valley startup that supplies networking equipment used to build these massive arrays of cloud computers.

As it turns out, Bechtolsheim was also one of the first people to invest in Google back in 1998, when the company was just two Stanford geeks with a laptop. His  $100,000 investment in the company started by Sergey Brin and Larry Page, along with several other shrewd calls, turned the Birkenstock-wearing engineer into a billionaire.

We spoke to the 53-year-old serial entrepreneur recently about cloud computing, his investment philosophy and his latest venture, Arista Networks. An edited version of the conversation is below.

Q: What do you make of the potential for cloud computing, both as a market and a technology?

Bechtolsheim: It is a surprising evolution in the history of computing. Every application can now shift to the Web. You can access any application remotely. My startup does the networking plumbing for this.
IDC has estimated that by 2012 the market for cloud computing infrastructure will grow to $42 billion, up from $16 billion in 2008. It’s the fastest-growing slice of the spending on information technology. Right now, it’s small sliver of the overall pie. Most of the spending is for the applications. But it’s a growing slice of the pie.

Q: What are some uses of cloud computing?

Bechtolsheim: Hollywood uses high-performance clusters to ...

... render movies. The advantage of the cloud is that it’s always running and not idle. They get much better utilization. These compute farms can simulate car crashes, render movies. Facebook also does an enormous amount of computing going on behind the scenes to generate relevant content to you. That’s what is going on inside the cloud farms. What you see is just what is relevant to you.

Q: As a consumer, what’s the benefit?

Bechtolsheim: You get convenience. You don’t have to deal with servers, data storage or big expensive computers. The laptop accesses everything. You don’t have to worry about backup or security; it’s all being handled by the company that manages the cloud.

Q: Who are some of the key players in this space?

Bechtolsheim: The leader is Amazon. They started in the business by renting out their idle servers during non-holiday-shopping seasons. Google provides applications in the cloud.  Facebook is a cloud company; they host a number of third-party applications on their cloud.

Q: How did your initial investment in Google come about?

Bechtolsheim: This was in 1998, and I was using the Internet to search for things. Alta Vista was the search engine then, and they had a very simple algorithm. It counted the number of times words appeared in the document. So people built these dark pages behind the Web page to game the system. As a result, the search results became useless, and doing a high-quality search was impossible.  I was just interested in getting better search results. After I heard from Larry and Sergey about their idea, I rushed out to my car to get my checkbook. The company didn’t exist yet. So I wrote them a check and said, “Here’s a check to get you started.”

Q: You’ve made a number of smart calls over the years. What do you look for in an investment?

Bechtolsheim: When you invest in a company, you want to see a viable business plan where it can be profitable over time. In the late 1990s, there were a lot of companies that basically just took an idea for an existing business and put it on the Internet. They took dog food, for example, and sold it online. That wasn't a very good business model. Whereas Amazon created something completely new that you couldn’t find a single physical bookstore.

Q: What else?

Bechtolsheim: Simplicity. If an idea makes intuitive sense in the first five minutes, it’s probably a good idea. But the more time it takes to understand, the worse it gets. Google was a very simple idea.

Q: Tell us about your latest venture.

Bechtolsheim: Arista Networks addresses a void in the market for simpler, faster and more scalable Ethernet switches. Cisco dominates this market, but their products have become increasingly complex and expensive. Our focus has been on creating software that can be used to build large networks that play well together and are very reliable. In essence, we are building better plumbing that is more scalable and more redundant [than competing switches]. We do it by solving a fairly basic problem that hasn’t been solved in 10 years.

Q: As a non-engineer, I almost hesitate to ask what that problem is.

Bechtolsheim: People are building cloud systems that have tens of thousands of computers. It sounds simple, but the key thing here is cost and how you hook it up so computers can all talk to each other in a way that minimizes latency. But the existing network protocols don’t scale well. So we came up with a way that does. For every challenge, there is a solution.

-- Alex Pham

Follow my random thoughts on games, gear and technology on Twitter @AlexPham.

Broadcom Chief Executive Scott McGregor, who only two weeks ago sweetened his bid 20% from $764 million, said his Irvine network equipment company will now pursue "other value-creating alternatives." The company said it would not renew its offer when the offer expires July 14.

The announcement ends a contentious process marked by lawsuits lobbed by both Orange County companies. Broadcom initially had sued to invalidate an Emulex poison pill designed to ward off hostile takeovers. Emulex, based in Costa Mesa, countered with a lawsuit charging that the antics of former Broadcom chief executive Henry Nicholas made the company untrustworthy. 

Nicholas, who is no longer involved in Irvine company he founded, is awaiting criminal prosecution on two federal indictments, one on a stock backdating charge and another alleging he had supplied narcotics to acquaintances.

-- Alex Pham

Follow my random thoughts on games, gear and technology on Twitter @AlexPham.

Those percentages seem outrageous, but consider this: The royalty set by the CRB for 2009 amounted to 2.7 cents per listener per hour of music streamed. The fact that such a fee would amount to 70% or more of a webcaster's income shows how little these companies have been able to generate from advertisers. The picture has actually worsened for webcasters this year as advertisers cut their spending online and off, strengthening the companies' argument for a discount.

If the numbers were so stark, why did it take a virtual eternity for webcasters and the music industry to agree on a model that seems sustainable? I'd blame four things:

• An arbitration process that discouraged the two sides from bargaining. Under federal copyright law, webcasters have the right to play songs online (subject to some irritating limits on playlists and customization), but the royalty rate is set by mutual consent. If the sides can't agree, a federal panel sets the rate. But the mere existence of the panel made webcasters and SoundExchange reluctant to strike deals, for fear of sacrificing too much and having the panel apply those terms to the entire field.
  
• The webcasters' belief that Congress would save them by passing something like the Internet Radio Equality Act. It wasn't as quixotic as it sounds -- that's what happened in 2002, after the Copyright Office imposed the initial royalty rates for online broadcasters. 
  
• The wide range of webcasting businesses, which hindered agreement on a percentage-of-revenue model. One often-repeated argument coming out of the SoundExchange camp was that some webcasters were Internet powerhouses. But companies such as Yahoo and AOL weren't making boatloads of money off their webcasts -- they had many other sources of revenue, and they wanted the royalty calculation to be based just on the revenue directly attributable to their music streams. (Both companies, by the way, turned over much of their webcasting businesslast year to a major over-the-air radio chain, CBS.) SoundExchange naturally resisted that argument, arguing that it would encourage companies to cross-subsidize their webcasting operations and run fewer ads in their streams. Significantly, the deal announced Tuesday doesn't apply to multifaceted operations -- it's for companies that do webcasting and nothing else.
  
• The copyright holders' interest in maximizing the amount of revenue, not maximizing the number of webcasters. Major labels and performing artists weren't offended by the prospect of high rates driving struggling websites out of business. They wanted listeners to go to sites that were capable of generating significant royalty payments. The webcasters, meanwhile, were struggling to line up advertisers and attract listeners, who had (and have) an ever-increasing number of alternative sources of free music. Over the months of negotiations, SoundExchange agreed to establish several tiers of discounts for hobbyists and small commercial webcasters, with audience caps and limits on songs streamed. The latest deal has tiers too, offering webcasters with less than $1.25 million in revenue the ability to pay 10% to 14% of revenue or 7% of expenses, whichever is greater. "There was certainly concern on our side that many, many small services might erode audience from services who really were trying to make a business work," SoundExchange Executive Director John Simson said in an e-mail.

SoundExchange also agreed to cut the per-song royalties by about 50% for non-subscription webcasters in the new deal. But the more significant step forward is its willingness to accept a percentage of revenue even from popular webcasters, albeit a higher one than it collects from satellite radio services. (That's another thing webcasters find galling: how much more they pay, in percentage terms, than their competitors. On the other hand, their business models and costs are quite different.) Such arrangements aligns the interests of webcasters, labels and performers far better than per-song royalties do. But it's worth remembering that SoundExchange characterized the new deal as "experimental," signifying its hesitation to commit to a percentage-of-revenue model. Considering how well such an arrangement has worked for music publishers and conventional radio stations, I'm betting labels and performers will grow comfortable with it as well.

-- Jon Healey

Healey writes editorials for The Times' Opinion Manufacturing Division.

Will a $60 price drop make more book lovers shelve their hardcovers for a digital display? Amazon hopes the answer is yes.

The Seattle-based online retail giant dropped the price today on its Kindle 2 e-reader to $299 from its recent price of $359. This new pricetag is a $100 drop from when Amazon introduced the original Kindle reader in 2007, when it gained a minor a cult following. Kindle 2, the second and current incarnation released six months ago in February, is about the width of a pencil and weighs about 10 ounces. It has enough memory to store more than 1,500 books. In addition, this version includes a somewhat controversial text-to-audio feature, plays MP3s music files and could hop onto the Internet over a 3G wireless connection, which is offered through an arrangement with Sprint.

Readers can wirelessly download books to the device and subscribe for a monthly fee to blogs, magazines and newspapers (including the Los Angeles Times) that will automatically download.

In May, Amazon unveiled the Kindle DX, a large-screen version targeting newspaper and magazine readers.

Amazon spokeswoman Cinthia Portugal told the Associated Press that the price cut, a classic electronics marketing strategy, is not simply a short-term promotion. "We've been able to increase the volume of Kindles we're manufacturing and decrease the cost of doing so," she said.

Amazon has not released figures on how many devices have sold or the revenue generated by sales of electronic books to the Kindle.

However, ThinkEquity analyst Ed Weller called the move smart business for a company that started out serving readers. "They are serving the most important component of their consumer franchise by enhancing that connection and facilitating future sales," he said.

-- Michelle Maltais

Photo credit: Amazon.com Inc.

Dubbed Google Chrome OS, the operating system is designed to work with the company's Chrome Web browser, launched nine months ago and downloaded by 30 million users. Google said the software will be optimized for small, lightweight laptop computers called netbooks, a fast-selling category of inexpensive machines that sell for as little as $250 and are used primarily to surf the Web and check e-mail.

In a blog post announcing the product, Google's vice president of product management, Sundar Pichai, and its engineering director, Linus Upson, said:

Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We're designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don't have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.

Google did not say whether it would charge for the software, but references that it would work with the open-source community of developers suggest that the company may make it freely available. Microsoft, on the other hand, charges about $200 for each copy of its Windows Vista operating system.

"The release of an operating system is just another part of Google's strategy to more rapidly and cheaply spread access to the Internet via a multitude of different devices -- desktops, netbooks, mobile phones, set top boxes, etc.," Ben Schachter, an analyst with Broadpoint AmTech, wrote in a note this morning to investors.

Schachter said Google wants to eventually lure businesses away from Microsoft's Windows operating system towards so-called cloud computing, in which businesses can use lightweight computers to access applications and data that are managed via large data centers and served over the Web.

"Longer term, Google hopes a free operating system may encourage more small and medium-sized businesses to move towards an enterprise software solution in the 'cloud' and away from Microsoft," Schachter said.

-- Alex Pham

ZeniMax Media raised $105 million to acquire id Software, according to a document filed today with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Id Software, which created the Doom and Quake game franchises, stunned the game industry two weeks ago when it announced its acquisition by ZeniMax, which publishes the Elder Scrolls series of role-playing games developed by its Bethesda Softworks studio. The sale surprised many because id Software, based in Mesquite, Texas, had rebuffed numerous buyout offers over the years, preferring to maintain its independence.

Because both companies were privately held, neither was obligated to divulge the price.

The filing with the SEC suggests that the price may have been $105 million. That's what ZeniMax issued in the form of a "convertible note," so called because the holder of that bond can convert it into either cash or shares in the issuing company. It's unclear from the filing if ZeniMax used the entire amount to pay for id or whether the deal called for additional payment.

ZeniMax and id Software declined to comment on the filing.

ZeniMax, based in Rockville, Md., has deep pockets backing the company. In 2007 it snagged a $300-million investment from Providence Equity Partners, and its board of directors include retired baseball player Cal Ripken Jr., CBS Corp. President Leslie Moonves and Hollywood producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who in May announced his entry into the video game business.

Updated 6:42 pm to reflect the companies' denial for comment.

-- Alex Pham and Ben Fritz

Follow or random thoughts on games, entertainment and technology on Twitter @AlexPham and @BenFritz.

Musicians want to be heard. Actors need to be watched. Writers like to be read. And what better way to get an audience than to make these works free? But artists also need to eat. How to reconcile?

Chris Anderson, author of "The Long Tail" and Wired magazine's editor in chief, says the two are not mutually exclusive. He's also putting his money where his mouth is. The 47-year-old Berkeley writer is giving away his latest book, titled "Free: The Future of a Radical Price" and published by Hyperion Books.

More precisely, he's letting people read the entire book free till Aug. 10 on Scribd, a site that lets authors set their own price for digital copies of their works. The book's title aside, the giveaway is not as radical as it seems. In fact, it's perfectly rational, Anderson said in an interview.

"The book is about making money from free," he said. "I felt it was important to walk the talk."

For one thing, his book is free for only a month, after which readers will have to buy it (the hardback version retails for $17.99 on Amazon.com). Secondly, it can't be downloaded on Scribd; readers have to read the free version online. This fits with the "freemium" model -- give away the basic version to build your initial audience, then sell them premium features, such as the ability to download the book or having a physical copy.

A host of well known online services follow this model, including ...

... Club Penguin, Free Realms and Flickr. And, in his book, Anderson describes an effort by Monty Python's Flying Circus to do the same by launching a free YouTube channel with free videos of their comedy acts. At the end of a video they created to explain their decision, members of the troupe ask their fans to go out and buy the DVD versions of their movies. The stunt worked; within three months of launching the free YouTube channel, Monty Python videos became the No. 2-selling DVDs on Amazon.com, with sales soaring 23,000% in that time frame.

"If we believe that the physical book is the premium version, because it looks good on the shelf or it makes a nice gift, then we should not fear free," Anderson said in the interview. "It exposes people to the book. It should be used for marketing. And I hope that some fraction of them would convert to buyers."

How many buyers? Anderson confesses that he doesn't know the answer. As of 1 p.m. today, less than 24 hours after it was released online, his book has been viewed for free by more than 22,800 readers on Scribd. 

"We're in uncharted territory," he said. "And my publisher has taken a leap into the dark and unknown with me. We're betting it's going to pay off."

But wait, there's more. Anderson created two audio versions of his book, a three-hour abridged recording and a full-length, six-hour version. One of them is free. Conventional wisdom would suggest that Anderson would give away the shorter version. Wrong.

"The six-hour one is free," he said. "If I can give you 90% of the book in half the time, I’m giving you back three hours of your life. Time is money."

-- Alex Pham

Follow my random thoughts on games, gear and technology on Twitter @AlexPham.

What's interesting here is how Fotoglif confronts a problem common to copyright holders online. Just as it's relatively easy to find and copy media online, it's brain-dead simple for Web publishers to grab photos from around the Net and slap them onto their sites. Sure, there are companies such as Attributor that crawl the Web to search for unauthorized uses of copyrighted material, helping the owners of the material to identify infringers. But the scale of the infringing is vast, and it's not clear how much return a copyright holder might get from a big investment in enforcement.

Instead of trying to track and stop infringers, Fotoglif's strategy is to offer online publishers something better than free ...

Each image in its library — it receives 20,000 to 30,000 new news-related photos daily from such partners as Getty Images and Thomson Reuters, Betts said — comes with a display ad attached to the base. The ad generates revenue that's split between Fotoglif, the copyright holder and the publisher. To use an image, bloggers merely embed the code supplied by Fotoglif (it's JavaScript) into their post. The image and the ad is then delivered by Fotoglif's servers.

The value proposition is simple for bloggers and other publishers: It is truly better than free. There are, however, some trade-offs. The ads are chosen by Fotoglif, not by the publisher, although Betts said the company wants to develop a way for publishers to block ads from competitors. And at this point, the images are available in only three sizes. An example of the smallest format is shown to the right; the ad beneath the photo is the one supplied by Fotoglif.

Those limitations may not matter to Fotoglif's target audience: bloggers and small Web publishing businesses. "We are not trying to market ... photos to the Los Angeles Times or the New York Post," Betts said. It's focused narrowly on the folks who don't have the wherewithal to pay the fees that the photo agencies ordinarily command — the ones who've been copying and reusing images without attribution or compensation. Nor is the revenue generated by the ads "terribly monumental," Betts said. "At this point it's a small operation," he added. The goal is to create broad networks of sites that use the photos, achieving the kind of scale that can attract bigger advertisers and larger payments.

In short, rather than trying to sell its partners' copyrighted images to an audience that's reluctant to pay for content, Fotoglif is using that content to gain a presence in the blogosphere that it can monetize. It's not monetizing the photos directly, it's capitalizing on the activity around them — in particular, in the public's interest in news and commentary from sources beyond traditional media outlets. And having tried for several months to build support among bloggers just by offering them the free use of images, Fotoglif has upped the ante by promising to pay websites that use its ad-equipped photos a share of the revenue. Such an all-carrot, no-stick approach seems rare in the copyright world, and Fotoglif and its agency partners deserve credit for trying it.

Photo: Joanelle Romero performs a sacred Indian traditional drum and song live in front of the Jackson family home in Encino on July 6. Credit: Giulio Marcocchi / Sipa Press, via Newscom and Fotoglif

— Jon Healey

Healey writes editorials for The Times' Opinion Manufacturing Division.

The hot spot for online scam artists has moved again -- from e-mail and Google to Twitter, according to the Better Business Bureau.

Websites, e-mails and tweets have been popping up since late spring promising to help job seekers make hundreds of dollars a day, simply by tweeting from home.

But here’s the hitch: Customers first have to sign up for a “free” trial for an informational CD or training packet and submit their credit card information to pay a minor shipping fee.

Most people don’t notice the provision, nestled deep in a mass of terms and conditions, that the trial period begins when the customer places the order and includes the time spent shipping the product. What happens next, according to the bureau, is that customers don't cancel their membership in time and end up shelling out $50, even $100 or more, every month. 

Unfortunately, high unemployment caused by a rough economy makes people especially vulnerable to such schemes. For more, see this article in Tuesday's L.A. Times.

-- Tiffany Tsu

Yahoo says it will roll out a new feature tomorrow afternoon that automatically detects when users of its search engine are gathering research on a particular topic and saves their results in one place.

Called Search Pad, the feature is supposed to solve a problem that many researchers on the Web have -- how to keep track of those bits of information they dig up from multiple websites. Say you're planning a vacation to Hawaii and you're looking up car rentals, hotel reviews and flight information. Yahoo says its search engine will recognize what you're doing, save the search results on a single notepad, let you write notes on those sites and allow you to share your research results with friends.

Search analysts who have seen and used the feature say it's useful but not a game changer for the Sunnyvale, Calif., company, which is struggling to compete with Google for search advertising. In May, Yahoo's market share for Internet searches was 20%, second place behind Google, which claimed a 65% share, according to ComScore.

"For existing Yahoo users, it can be valuable," said Greg Sterling, an analyst in Oakland who reviewed the feature in February when in rolled out in beta to selected users. "But I don’t think it will dramatically increase their market share."

-- Alex Pham

I have exactly 103 followers on Twitter. In the world of social media, that's pathetic.

So I sought some professional help from Andrew Nystrom, the Times' social media doctor (he has a respectable 4,790 followers as of this posting). I told Andrew that I was adding about one follower a day. At this rate, I can become a factor in about, oh, three years. That's because nothing interesting happens until you have at least 1,000 followers.

Andrew gave me five quick tips for making me more popular on Twitter. If you want more pearls of social media wisdom, you should follow him @latimesnystrom. For now, here’s a CliffsNotes version:

1. Be social. When someone follows you, send them a message. It starts up a dialogue that can bear fruit in the long run when they re-Tweet your posts or when their followers start following you. 

2. Schedule your Tweets. One of our most successful Twitterers stays up until 3 a.m. to post Tweets and posts at 3 a.m. Pacific, early enough to catch the East Coast traffic as they wake up and start cruising the Web. He refreshes those Tweets and posts with updates at 8 a.m. for the West Coast crowd for double the pleasure! 

3. If you have a blog, provide links at the bottom of each post to encourage readers to follow you. If you have a Facebook or MySpace account, you can collect followers by posting your more interesting Tweets as updates, along with a link to your Twitter account. 

4. Use hash tags. Many power Twitterers still search for posts pet topics by using hash tags. Say you want to dive into conversations about Michael Jackson’s memorial service tomorrow. You should post Tweets about the event and end them with a #michaeljackson so that they would show up when other people are searching for information on him. 

5. Talk about other people’s Tweets as much as you talk about your own. It’s part of being a good Web citizen, but it also pays back dividends when people return the favor.

And because you read all the way to the end, here’s a Bonus Tip as a reward. If you Twitter about someone with a Twitter or Facebook account, send them the link. They’re likely to send it to their friends and so on, and so on.

Do you have Twitter Ninja moves you want to share? Write them below! Oh, and you can follow my technology and video game musings @AlexPham.

-- Alex Pham

The U.S. Department of Justice is examining cellphone carriers' exclusive deals with handset makers, according to a report this morning by the Wall Street Journal. For those who don't have a online subscription to the Journal, you can get a summary here from Reuters.

The informal probe focuses on agreements such as Apple's exclusive multiyear deal to supply AT&T with iPhones in the U.S.

Consumers have complained that such deals restrict them to a single service provider and offer them little choice. These deals have also triggered complaints from smaller wireless carriers that don't have the wherewithal, such as guarantees to buy large volumes of devices, to strike an exclusive contract with handset manufacturers.

The Justice Department may be looking for guidance in European markets, where phones purchased there can work with any carrier, said Charles Golvin, a telecommunications analyst with Forrester Research. But that would be a mistake, he said. That's because the two markets function differently.

European regulators long ago established a single standard for all carriers, called GSM, so any cellphones purchased in Europe can work for any carrier. But the U.S. has competing standards, including GSM and CDMA. This matters because a GSM phone will not work on CDMA networks. Sprint and Verizon use CDMA, while AT&T and T-Mobile are on GSM.

"We ended up with an alphabet soup of technologies," Golvin said. "So the lessons learned in other markets don’t always apply here."

-- Alex Pham

Is the Internet the new boob tube?

Kids ages 2 to 11 years spent more than 11 hours online in May, up from seven hours in May 2004, according to a report released today by the Nielsen Co. What are they doing? Many are watching videos -- boys flocked to Pokemon, and girls followed Barbie. Another gender difference: Boys spent 7% more time online in May, but girls zipped through 9% more Web pages.

Children in this age group made up nearly 1 in 10 Internet surfers in May, up 18% since 2004. That's 16 million kids under 12, according to the report.

One explanation for the jump in activity -- there's just a lot more for kids to see and do on the Web since 2004, including virtual-world games such as Free Realms and Club Penguin and websites featuring offline kids' brands such as Nickelodeon and Sesame Street. With many of these sites focusing on Internet safety, parents are also becoming more comfortable letting their children explore the Web, particularly when sites such as KidZui offer a higher level of parental control.

You can download a copy of the press release here.

-- Alex Pham

Some hand-held help this holiday can keep the fireworks in the sky and not in your car. Credit: BL1961

If you took a holiday or some time out to celebrate, would you take your smart phone with you? You're darn tootin'. How else would you be able to tweet taunts to your friends stuck at work or post beach pics to Facebook that you might rethink after that recovery hydration period?

Here are a few mobile apps to help make your holiday and vacation travels more enjoyable.

If you are taking a trip that requires more than just a GPS, WorldMate offers apps for a number of smart phone platforms -- yes, that includes iPhone, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile phones. (Check here to find out if it's available for your phone.) And there are free and paid versions. The app includes a mobile itinerary, which syncs with the online platform. Basically, if you can think of it, this app has it: travel clocks, maps and directions, hotels, friend finder, weather monitor and currency converter, to name a few features. The paid version of the app, or gold-level subscription, offers real-time flight updates for 350 airlines and airline alerts and lets you look up the status of flights and search airline schedules. The BlackBerry and Windows Mobile Gold version is either $14.95 monthly or $99.95 annually. The iPhone app paid version is going for $9.99 -- that's right, no monthly fees. But hurry if you want it -- the iPhone deal lasts until midnight July 4.

Another app that's available across platforms is Zagat to Go. This app offers Zagat's signature ratings and reviews of more than 40,000 venues, GPS support for directions and reservations. For devices other than iPhones, there's even a 14-day free trial.

The word most used on vacation seems to be "where." The Where application gives you local insight, with info on weather, news, restaurant reviews, cheap gas and movie show times as well as maps and directions. It's available on BlackBerry, G1 Android, iPhone and Pre. There's also Facebook integration with an app called "Buddy Beacon."

A few apps specifically for the iPhone

Postman (99 cents)

What it is: This app helps you create a digital postcard using photos you have on your iPhone, image templates or your location. Just add text. You can deliver it by e-mail, Facebook, Tumblr or Twitter.

Bottom line: They do look pretty good. It's a cheap way to get pictures and sentiments from your travels to the people you love before you return from the trip. And the app costs less than either the postcard you'd buy, along with postage to send it.

Kids Eat Free (99 cents)

What it is: This app does as it advertises and finds the eateries that offer free food for the kiddies. You can search by location, city or ZIP code. Each entry offers the parameters of the deal, address and phone number. (You might consider calling ahead to make sure the offer hasn't changed.) It also will launch Google Maps for directions.

Bottom line: Kids, precious as they are, can be pricey. The money you save with this app on feeding them could go toward that college fund.

AAA Discounts (Free)

What it is: Except when I'm booking a hotel or stuck on the side of the road, I usually forget to use the benefits of AAA membership. This app helps you to find the spots along your path that offer AAA discounts. Using native location services on the phone, this app has "find me" and "follow me" functions to better identify where you can save along the way. It also gives point-to-point directions. It searches for shopping, dining, lodging, entertainment, health, auto, travel and services, or all of the above. Plus, if you do get stuck on the road and need assistance, instead of having to look up the number you can just tap the app to call for help. 

Bottom line: Who can afford to pass up discounts these days -- plus you're really already paying for the privilege with your annual dues, right?

If you have any favorite apps that make your travels more fun, streamlined or affordable, share them with by tweetin us on @Appiphilia, dropping a line at Facebook or writing a comment below.

Happy Fourth of July weekend!

-- Michelle Maltais

Subscribe to the Appiphilia RSS feed and follow us on @Appiphilia or Facebook.

The company listed several new intriguing features, including video, increased storage, a faster processor, a better camera, hands-free voice control and, yes, longer battery life. Apple's press release touts the souped-up battery longevity.

Well, as my colleague David Sarno points out here, not really.

The S in 3GS may stand for many things on this device -- "sexy," "speed," "sweet" -- but it certainly doesn't stand for "stamina."

This, um, bonus "iDrain" feature of the battery, as David writes, is proving to be something of an Achilles' heel for the device. The company's suggestions on how to preserve battery life include, in essence, turning off the very features that make an iPhone an iPhone, including the faster 3G network itself.

To make sure the problem wasn't just with David's phone, we tested how my 3GS stands up to typical daily use. My phone started the day with a 100% overnight charge. I made no calls during this period but had the phone at the ready. I did turn off Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS. Push was enabled because that's how I typically use it to receive work e-mail.

During the day, I did a quick look or two online and used a few apps such as Touch4, American Heritage Dictionary and Tweetie. I played a four-minute video and listened to 20 minutes of music. 

By 6:30 p.m. my iPhone, which had started so valiantly, crawled to the finish line, barely breathing, with only 17% of the charge left. I gave in and did a panic power plug-in.

One of the reasons the phones might not be meeting the posted expectations is that Apple's preproduction model tests were in situations that rarely, if ever, reflect the way real people use the iPhone.

Check out the page on battery performance tests on Apple's site. 

Here's how Apple reports it tested battery life for surfing the Web over 3G:

Internet over 3G tests were conducted over a 1900MHz 3G network using dedicated web and mail servers, browsing snapshot versions of 20 popular web pages, and receiving mail once an hour. All settings were default except: Call Forwarding was turned on; the Wi-Fi feature Ask to Join Networks and Auto-Brightness were turned off. Wi-Fi was enabled but not associated with a network.

Most folks who whip out their iPhones to check something on the Web don't typically go into settings to forward calls and shut off auto-brightness and the Ask to Join Network features. Nor do they typically have a consistent signal or dedicated Web and mail server.

The day the 3GS was released, iFixit.com dismantled the device and found that its battery offered only a minimal increase over its predecessor: 

Apple promises improved battery life with the 3GS. The battery is listed as 3.7V and 4.51 Whr. This comes out to 1219 mAh, compared to 1150 mAh on the 3G. That's only a 6% increase.

David goes into greater detail on why packing sufficient power in limited space for better battery life is such a dilemma.

Until that is resolved, I suppose most of us will just have to keep staking out the nearest outlets and pull up a piece of carpet to keep connected while traveling.

-- Michelle Maltais  

Are you having battery issues -- or do you have a solution? Share the wealth in the comments area below.