WordPress for iPhone/iPad v2.6 Released

Attention Apple-gadget-owning WordPress users! Have you been using the WordPress iOS app for iPhone and iPad? Or maybe you tried it a while back and thought it wasn’t for you? Either way, the new release — v2.6 — will knock your socks off. Why? A bunch of reasons:

• Video. Record, upload, attach, and play videos within the app. Yay for being able to catch your friends’ and co-workers’ most embarrassing shenanigans creative moments with iPhone video and publish them immediately for all the world to see on your WordPress site.
• A total rewrite of the way local drafts are handled, to prevent the unintentional loss of your pending posts.
• Autosave/post revisions. Bam! One of the “oh, thank goodness” features of the web app makes it into the iOS version.
• Easier setup. Faster and easier process for adding your sites to the app.
• Media Library. We’re gradually getting closer to the media management you’re used to in the web app.

There are also numerous bugfixes and performance enhancements in this release, so if you haven’t been using the app lately, you should consider giving it another try. I’m personally pretty excited to start using the iPhone version more often now that there are all these fixes and new features. Especially the video upload. You know, for those creative moments that make life fun.

You can read the full 2.6 release post on the WordPress for iOS blog, and can download v2.6 from iTunes/the app store. Happy mobile blogging!

* * *

Not an iPhone user? We’ve still got your on-the-go back! Check out the WordPress apps for Android, Blackberry, and Nokia (beta). They’re all 100% GPL, of course, and we’re always looking for contributors to the development projects, so check the blogs if you have mobile dev skills and want to get involved.

100 Million Plugin Downloads and Counting

WordPress 3.0 Thelonious passed 3 million downloads yesterday, and today the plugin directory followed suit with a milestone of its own: 100 million downloads.

The WordPress community’s growth over the years has been tremendous, and we want to reinvest in it. So we’re taking the next two months to concentrate on improving WordPress.org. A major part of that will be improving the infrastructure of the plugins directory. More than 10,000 plugins are in the directory, every one of them GPL compatible and free as in both beer and speech. Here’s what we have in mind:

We want to provide developers the tools they need to build the best possible plugins. We’re going to provide better integration with the forums so you can support your users. We’ll make more statistics available to you so you can analyze your user base, and over time we hope to make it easier for you to manage, build, and release localized plugins.

We want to improve how the core software works with your plugin and the plugin directory. We’re going to focus on ensuring seamless upgrades by making the best possible determinations about compatibility, and offer continual improvements to the plugin installer. And we also want to give you a better developer tool set like SVN notifications and improvements to the bug tracker.

We’re also going to experiment with other great ideas to help the community help plugin authors. We want it to be easy for you to offer comments to plugin authors and the community, including user reviews and better feedback. We may experiment with an adoption process for abandoned plugins as a way to revitalize hidden gems in the directory. I’m not sure there is a better way to show how extendable WordPress is and how awesome this community is at the same time.

As Matt said in the 3.0 release announcement, our goal isn’t to make everything perfect all at once. But we think incremental improvements can provide us with a great base for 3.1 and beyond, and for the tens of millions of users, and hundreds of millions of plugin downloads to come.

Soon Branded Video Content Will Just Be Called Video Content

In my post yesterday entitled “The Future of Online Video, From Someone Who Should Know,” we took a look at a post by Google’s Director of Product Management Shishir Mehrotra that laid out four ways that online video is currently evolving right before our eyes.  One of those evolutions was the surge in creative video [...]

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Chrome 8 Offers Built-in PDF Tools, Security Fixes

Staying on track with its rapid-fire, six week release cycle for its web browser, Google has pushed out the final version of Chrome 8. The latest release packs in some 800 bug and security fixes, as well as a new inline PDF viewer.

If you’re using the stable, everyday version of Chrome, you should be automatically updated to Chrome 8. If you’re using another release, or would just like to give Chrome a try, head over the Google Chrome download page.

The new, built-in PDF viewer means that when you click on a link to a PDF now, Chrome will no longer download the file to your PC. Instead, Chrome will offer a preview in the browser where you can view and search the document. Also, thanks to the sandboxing model, this decreases the chance of malicious code, malware or anything else bad being delivered through the PDF. Of course, if you then decide to download the file, Chrome won’t protect you from anything that might be lurking inside.

The PDF reader joins Flash in the list of things that Chrome manages for you. That means Google can push out updates and security fixes as needed to these components of its browser, rather than relying on users to update plug-ins themselves. You can disable the PDF viewer (or any other plug-in) by navigating to

inside Chrome.

Chrome 8 is also the first version capable of connecting to the Chrome Web Store. Although there’s nothing to see at the moment, Google is planning to release a store similar to the Android Marketplace or Apple’s App Store, but with a focus on web applications, Chrome extensions, and Chrome themes.

See Also:

• Chrome 8 Adds Google Instant to the URL Bar
• Chrome 7 Shows Off Hardware Acceleration, ‘Tabpose’
• Early Birds Will Dig Chrome Canary

Xmarks Lives: LastPass Buys Downtrodden Bookmark Syncing Service

Just when we all thought we’d never see it again, the cross-browser bookmark syncing service Xmarks has received a life-saving injection.

The company has been acquired by LastPass, maker of a cross-browser password manager and form filler add-on. The deal was announced Thursday, and terms were not disclosed.

Xmarks will live on as a freemium service. The initial cross-browser syncing tool you’re already familiar with will be free, but users will be encouraged to upgrade to a paid subscription to unlock more advanced features. It’s the same model employed by LastPass for its own Premium version of its (otherwise free) password-syncing service.

Xmarks Premium will be offered for $1 per month ($12 per year) and it comes with some new features like apps for the iPhone and Android phones, and technical support. You will also be able to bundle the premium offerings from LastPass and Xmarks together for $20 per year.

There’s already an iPhone app for Xmarks, and the company just recently released an Android app, too. Xmarks says anyone currently using the iPhone app can continue to use it without upgrading to the premium service, but they will have to buy in to the $12 per year plan to get future upgrades.

It looked like curtains for Xmarks in September, when the company announced it would shut down its service in early 2011.

Apparently, there’s no money in a free bookmark syncing service, and the company was facing new competition from the cloud-based syncing systems being built into Firefox and Chrome. Even though Xmarks one-ups those built-in single-browser services by syncing bookmarks across all your browsers, it couldn’t stay afloat.

The service has some 4.5 million users, and there was an outcry when Xmarks announced the shutdown. Later, the company asked its fans if they would be willing to pay a subscription fee to keep Xmarks alive. Over 30,000 of them pledged to do so, and that was enough to attract the attention of LastPass.

The two companies will continue to operate under independent brands, though they may merge everything later.

So, it turns out this dark story of cloud computing had a silver lining after all.

See also:

• Xmarks to Continue Syncing Bookmarks, Thanks to Loyal Fans
• Xmarks Mulls Switch to Premium Service
• Popular Bookmark Syncing Tool XMarks to Shut Down
• Xmarks Syncs Open Tabs Across Browsers, iPhone

Tablets eating Netbooks? A Microsoft GM says yes

In an interview with Seattlepi.com, a Microsoft general manager says Netbook sales are being threatened by tablets, but that she views these as secondary devices to traditional computers.

Electrical glitch delays final Discovery launch another day

Problems with the circuitry of a critical main engine control computer prompted NASA managers to order another delay, to at least Thursday, for launch of the shuttle Discovery on its 39th and final mission.

YouTube CEO & Co-Founder Stepping Down

Five years after co-founding YouTube, long-time CEO Chad Hurley is stepping down from that position, according to TechCrunch. In fact, he’s reportedly been transitioning away from the chief executive role for the last two years, ceding most day-to-day business decisions to Google VP of Product Management Salar Kamangar.

That Hurley, who founded the online video site with Steve Chen and Jawed Karim in early 2005, would be moving on is not totally unexpected. After all, he hasn’t been a public figurehead for YouTube for quite some time. The bigger surprise is probably that Hurley has held on so long after making a bundle from Google’s $1.65 billion acquisition of the online video site in 2006.

Co-founder Steve Chen left his role as CTO of YouTube in late 2008, but remained with Google; apparently Hurley transitioned away from his duties at around the same time.

YouTube is now being led primarily by Kalamangar, who is famously known as Google Employee No. 9. He has been tasked with helping to move YouTube from a very large and popular unprofitable business to one that can use its size and scale to make some serious dough.

Google is shy about sharing too many details on YouTube’s financials, though the site is reportedly serving up more than 2 billion videos a day, and monetizing about 2 billion of those video plays per week. While that means about one in seven videos viewed actually has an ad attached, it’s unclear how long it will be before the site actually starts turning a profit for Google.

Some analysts expected that YouTube could become profitable this year with nearly $1 billion in revenues. Although Google execs have spent the last several earning calls bragging about how the site is monetizing well — and has been for some time — they’ve yet to say that YouTube has actually turned a profit.

The day YouTube actually does start making a profit will be a huge one for the web video industry; despite massive amounts of money being poured into the segment, it has had very few huge success stories to date. A profitable YouTube would not just be a validation for Google and it’s $1.65 billion investment, but for the industry as a whole.

To learn more about what YouTube is up to now, come see Director of Product Management Hunter Walk at NewTeeVee Live on Nov. 10 in San Francisco.

Photo courtesy of Robert Scoble.

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Who Will Redbox Choose as Its Digital Partner?

Expectations were high that Redbox would announce its strategy for digital delivery on today’s Coinstar earnings call, and those who believed that the company would lay out its plan must have been disappointed. While the company confirmed that it would go to market with a digital offering in 2011, and said it would do so with a partner, the DVD kiosk company had little to say about the specifics of what such a plan would look like.

Coinstar CEO Paul Davis said that the company spent a good long time debating whether or not to build its own digital offering or to find another company to partner with. But in the end Redbox decided that the partner strategy was the way to go, based on its ability to roll out a digital offering quickly from a technological perspective, as well as a partner’s ability to offer up a wide range of digital content without the DVD kiosk firm having to do a lot of heavy lifting in striking content deals.

While Redbox declined to name which companies it was in discussions with, it did talk about the reasons why it would be an attractive partner for any of those companies. “Consumers have told us that they are hungry for [digital content],” Davis told analysts on the call. Not just that, but Redbox customers are well-positioned to take advantage of a digital offering, with 91 percent of them having broadband connections at home. Finally, Redbox said its strong brand and extensive physical presence would also offer up a opportunity for any potential partners.

That said, it’s not clear whether Redbox would roll out a subscription service to compete against Netflix, as has been widely rumored, or whether it would pursue a digital VOD strategy to compete against rentals from iTunes and other digital storefronts. That strategy would primarily depend on whatever partner it chooses and which options are available through such a deal. With that in mind, these are probably the top potential partners for a Redbox digital offering:

Walmart

Walmart and Redbox have long been partners in the physical DVD world, with the big box retailer playing host to a number of its kiosks around the country. It would only make sense for Walmart to extend that partnership to the digital realm. Wal-mart purchased Vudu earlier this year, and the digital video subsidiary has been mainly quiet ever since. Vudu has distribution on a number of connected consumer electronics devices, and just announced today that it has struck a deal to bring Hollywood movies to the Boxee Box. With Vudu back out of its quiet mode, it wouldn’t be surprising for Walmart to leverage that asset to help out Redbox with a white-label or co-branded offering from Vudu.

Pros: A wide distribution on CE devices, a strong partnership with Redbox already.

Cons: Walmart has struggled with digital offerings in the past.

Amazon

Ever since Amazon rolled out its video on demand offering, it has struggled to gain traction in the digital marketplace, mainly playing second fiddle to Apple’s iTunes. Even so, Amazon has managed to snag some consumer electronics deals, landing on TiVo DVRs, as well as Roku broadband set-top boxes and Google TV devices from Sony and Logitech. Striking a Redbox partnership would go a long way to expanding its market clout, but it might not give Redbox the flexibility it desires from a distribution point of view.

Pros: Quick, easy access to a library of 40,000 on-demand titles.

Cons: Somewhat limited CE distribution.

Sonic Solutions

Sonic could be the dark horse in Redbox’s partner hunt; while it doesn’t have the instant name recognition that Walmart or Amazon have, it’s providing behind-the-scenes help to a number of digital storefronts already, including those from Best Buy and Blockbuster. The owner of the RoxioNow video purchase and rental offering already is embedded on a number of CE devices and would be able to turn on a branded Redbox offering pretty quickly. At the same time, a Redbox-branded storefront and content library would be competing directly against similar offerings from other Sonic partners.

Pros: Wide distribution, potential for a quick turnaround on a Redbox-branded storefront.

Cons: Direct competition against other Sonic partners.

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