While it's been exciting to track the #NewHotmailHere sightings and from what we can tell from the comments on Twitter and here on this blog, most of you are pretty excited about the new Hotmail. For some, however, things aren't going so well.

On the Windows Live Solution Center, there are some 650 responses at the time of this posting to the forum post Issues With New Windows Live Hotmail. While some complaints are about confusion with the new look, etc., which probably can be expected with any change of any kind, a number of far more serious problems are being reported.

Scanning the forum posts, there seem to be problems on a number of fronts: using certain older browsers, using Qwest, ActiveX issues, along with some more general problems with performance and certain features not working. Some people are using Mac OS X 10.4 and can't upgrade to the recommended Safari 4.x (sorry don't know much about Macs or why this isn't possible), but others seem to be using more current browsers and are still having problems, here's a quick sampling:

• I can now barely log in, cant delete any messages, cant compose messages, signing out takes forever. I do not want social networking message options, or ultra rich test clipboards to type emails on i just want to be able to check my email and send messages.
• the exact issue is ever since the upgraded, when i sign in to my hotmail account I see that I have messages and can see who they are from, but cant view them. Mycomuter hangs up or says NOt Responding.
• I see the following message above my Inbox/email: "We can't connect to Windows Live Hotmail from Qwest right now. Please try again later"
  I use Windows Internet Explorer 7 & 8.
• Was using IE8. Dowloaded Safari to see if there would be a difference, but although it allowed me to access my hotmail, it works ever so slowly, and is still doing some very weird things like flickering of icons, and sporadic access to different hotmail folders. Methinks this is a Hotmail problem rather than a browser problem. Smooooth move!

A number of posters have mentioned a problem with Hotmail from Qwest, apparently they are not able to get to their email, no matter what browser.

Responses from Microsoft personnel seem to be few and far between, but one workaround concerning ActiveX was posted:

For Browser freeze issues in IE, please try these steps and let us know if that helped or not:
In IE go to Tools > Internet Options > Security > Custom Level... >
Deactivate ActiveX objects.
Log back into Hotmail inbox - then go back and set the security to Default level.
For customers who arent able to access their emails at all in any of the browsers/computer, please try accessing your emails using a mail client as a workaround till we fix these issues for you.
For instructions, go here:
http://windowslivehelp.com/solution.aspx?solutionid=a485233f-206d-491e-941b-118e45a7cf1b

Older browsers seem to be a big problem, with a Microsoft poster offering a suggestion for the older Safari issue:

yes we fully support Safari 4.x. You could also try downloading the newest version of Firefox, which we also support. Sorry you haven't had a great experience with the new Hotmail so far, but it should be much better once you get upgraded.

Of course at least some of the forum posters are resorting to their own workarounds, by switching to Yahoo! or Gmail. Someone even started a Facebook Group, I Hate the New Hotmail, albeit currently with only 77 members. Still 650 responses to just one thread on the support forums (which aren't all that easy to find we have a link on our Wiki page if you're looking for it) and over 30,000 views since just last Thursday are some fairly sobering numbers. Are you having problems with the new Hotmail? Have you been able to fix them? Are you using the support forums? Let us know in the comments.

(via a comment from User55, hope you get your issues resolved soon)

The problem with being private is that it increasingly means that you have to choose to drop out of society. You would never let the government put a tracking device on you, but you may be carrying a cell phone that tracks your location. You don't want the government monitoring your internet usage, but Google collects data on you.

Since most people find they can't live without a cell phone or Google, they grudgingly accept that they will lose their privacy and become trackable. That doesn't sit well with Moxie Marlinspike, a security hacker with the Institute for Disruptive Studies. He is a common speaker at security events, and he spoke at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas today about how to give users more choices by allowing them to hide from both Google and cell phone carriers without losing access to their services.

Marlinspike (pictured) has set up two experimental services that allow you to stay anonymous and still use the internet. One service circumvent's Google's data collection methods. Google itself anonymizes search engine data after nine months by deleting the last eight digits of Internet Protocol address data. But Google gathers a lot of data on you through Gmail, Google Analytics, Google Checkout, and Google Health. You have to be logged in to use Gmail, and so that gives Google the ability to track you for advertising purposes.

Make no mistake, Marlinspike said. They are a surveillance business. Their intent is not the same as the government eavesdroppers. The effect is the same. Who knows more about citizens in their own country, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, or Google? Why is Google not scary? Because we choose to use it.

To create anonymous access to Google, Marlinspike created an add-on for the Firefox web browser with a custom proxy server, which redirects you when you are using a Google application. If Marlinspike's software detects a request for a Google service that does not require a login, it sends the request to the Google Sharing proxy server. That server anonymizes your identity and assigns a cookie to you that will work with the Google service. The link from you to the proxy server is encrypted using SSL technology.

You can then use the Google service without being tracked. It has been available for about six months and about 80,000 people are using it. Meanwhile, Marlinspike has also set up a way to do voice-over-internet-protocol VOIP calls on cell phones without being identified. The system, dubbed Whisper Systems, lets you make calls (via RedPhone) or send text messages (TextSecure) without being tracked. RedPhone creates encrypted phone calls so no one can listen into your conversation. TextSecure also encrypts your text messages.

The Whisper Systems service has been available for two months and has about 2,000 users. It is interesting and noble that Marlinspike wants to create a third path, which lets you participate in society without being tracked. But the sad truth is that many people probably won't care enough to use these services.

Tags: Black Hat, Whisper Systems

People: Moxie Marlinspike

Microsoft is in the process of updating the millions of Hotmail accounts to the latest version that runs faster and includes more features than before. Our account was recently updated, so here's a tour of the new features.

Windows Live Hotmail was one of the first free webmail services back when it was called HoTMaiL as a play on HTML. In recent years, Microsoft has rebranded their online services under the Windows Live brand, so now Hotmail is commonly used with @hotmail.com or the newer @live.com email addresses. You can even use Hotmail and other Live services with your own domain. Despite it's previous popularity, Hotmail has lost many users, especially techies, to Google's popular Gmail service. The new Hotmail brings many features that Gmail has offered, as well as some unique ones, so let's take a look and see if the new Hotmail has to offer.

Take a Look at the New Features

If you haven't visited Hotmail recently, you may notice the login screen has changed slightly with larger, Metro-style fonts and a clean design.

One of Hotmail's new security features is the new single-use sign in code. You can request a code which will be sent to your phone via text message. This is a great way to login to Hotmail from a public computer without potentially revealing your password to malicious apps on it.

Once you sign in, you'll notice a new Hotmail logo on the top of your browser window or tab. If you still see the old Windows Live logo, then you're still on the old version, so you'll have to wait for your account to be updated over the next few weeks.

The new inbox looks largely the same as the previous version, but there are tweaks all around.

Timesaving Features

Right at first you'll notice new View options in the Inbox; you can chose to view only the unread messages or those from contacts in your address book. You can even select Social updates to only see the messages from Twitter, Facebook, and other networks; this is a great way to quickly clear all the social network junk out of your inbox.

Another timesaving feature is the new Sweep tool. Select this on the top of the Hotmail page to quickly manage all emails from a sender.

You can have Hotmail automatically move all emails from a contact into a specific folder, or even automatically delete messages from a contact. This is one of the easiest ways we've seen to setup inbox rules, and it works great.

Hotmail includes the new Quick views underneath your folders on the left. Here you can easily view messages that are flagged, or ones that contain photos or office docs. You can even click the Shipping updates to see all shipping notice emails you may have received.

Hotmail's searching capabilities have been improved, too. Simply start typing, and Hotmail will suggest alternative options. You can also use standard search queries to search for emails from specific senders and more.

Reading Emails in the New Hotmail

Hotmail's reading pane has been redesigned with nice and useful headers. Click the bottom of the header to expand it.

Now you can see all of the info about this email, including the sender's email address and other recipients of the message.

If the email included attachments, you'll see some quick info about the files directly below the header. Click the Download link to download the files, or if the email included Office files, click the icon to open them in Office Web Apps. This is a quick way to read Word documents and preview PowerPoint presentations even if you don't have Office installed.

If Hotmail detects the email is from a mailing list, it will put an Unsubscribe link right at the top of the message to help you quit getting email you don't want.

On the header, you'll notice a new Actions button underneath the time the message was received. Click this to quickly reply, delete, forward, or more. You can also click the flag beside the time to flag the message for review later.

Our favorite new feature is Conversation View. You can now view your emails by conversation, and this works very much like Conversation view in Outlook 2010. To activate it, click the button on the far right of the reading pane, and select Conversation.

You'll now notice a number beside your email subjects showing how many messages are in that conversation.

When you're reading messages, you'll see other messages in the conversation above and below the message. You can read the preview, or click the message to see the full email right there in the same reading pane.

Composing Emails

Whether you're replying to an email or writing a new message, the new Hotmail includes tools to make it easier. You can add Office Docs via Office Web Apps, and send a nearly unlimited amount of pictures with an album on SkyDrive. Or, select the From Bing tab to add a variety of web content to your message.

You can add clipart, pictures, or even videos from Bing search directly from the sidebar. Just select the option you want above, and then search for something to add to your message.

Ads

Hotmail does still include banner ads on the right side when you're reading emails, but there are some new tools to help you manage them. If an ad is getting in the way of reading your email, you can click the X on the bottom right to close it. Note that the ad will open again with you switch to another message, but this can make it easier to read an especially wide email.

Or, if you find an ad offensive, click the Ad feedback link to let Hotmail know what you're thinking about the ad. This will help them make the ads less annoying for everyone. This works very much like the ads in Facebook, and we think it goes a long way in helping people feel comfortable with the ads they're shown.

Messenger

Hotmail and other new Windows Live apps now are fully integrated with Messenger web. You can chat with your buddies directly in Hotmail. If you open an attachment in Office Web apps or go check your calendar, Messenger will go along with you so you can continue your conversation.

You can see your online contacts from the Messenger tab on the top of Hotmail. Click a contact to start an IM session with them.

You can also see your friends online status from your email headers. Click to start chatting with them, or if you're hovering over your own contact info, you can click to change your profile picture.

More Features Coming

Hotmail has some more new, great features that will be added in the near future, including full session SSL encryption and ActiveSync to sync your Hotmail email, contacts, and calendar with popular mobile devices.

Conclusion

Whether you're a longtime Hotmail user or are considering switching from your current email provider to Hotmail, the Wave 4 updates make Hotmail a much nicer email service than ever before. We liked the new Conversation view, but also appreciated that you could turn it off if you don't care for it. The new attachment options make it easier to share pictures, links, and more. The social network integration into Contacts makes it easy to keep in touch with all of your friends. There are still some areas that Gmail is easier to use; for instance, we prefer Gmail's in-message reply; one click, and you're ready to reply and send. Give the new Hotmail a try, though; we think you might find some stuff to like!

Please Remember: The new Wave 4 Hotmail isn't activated at all accounts yet, so if you don't see the new features, be patient; your account should be updated soon.

Link

Signup or login to your Hotmail account

Anyone who has tried to track dozens of Twitter streams, hundreds of Facebook updates or thousands of blog posts simultaneously knows that the social web can be an intimidating and never-ending ocean of information, one that constantly threatens to swamp us. (There's a reason Twitter and other social networks call the APIs they use to provide all their data a firehose.) A startup called Swift River is one of a number of new services that are trying to find ways of filtering and understanding that ocean in real time, by using semantic web technologies.

The software behind Swift River was originally developed for Ushahidi, a web-based information service that was created in 2008 to help aid groups track text messages, Twitter posts and other real-time data about the political unrest in Kenya (a video of co-founder Erik Hersman describing the genesis of the project at the TED 2009 conference is embedded below). Ushahidi has since been used in other disaster areas to help emergency workers pool information about survivors, victims needing rescue, etc. including after the earthquake in Haiti earlier this year. One of the principles behind the project is that social-media tools can spread information much faster than traditional communication methods.

One problem that the project confronted in Haiti, however, was how to process, understand, categorize and verify those huge quantities of data coming in from multiple sources. How could Ushahidi workers know, for example, that a Twitter message or text from someone was actually valid in other words, that it was coming from a place and/or a person that would be likely to know what was actually happening? Volunteers who were tracking messages related to the Haiti earthquake got more than 100,000 reports in four days, Swift River developer Jonathan Gosier told the BBC, and after two weeks volunteers had only managed to process half the messages.

That's when Gosier and the other developers of Swift River realized they needed a semantic processing engine to help shoulder the load. The software they designed is based on the idea that by comparing messages and information from a variety of sources about an event, the system can build an understanding of which are credible and which are not. As the company's website describes it:

One of the strengths of crowdsourcing is the ability to collect a high volume of information from highly diverse channels like Twitter, email, news sites, blogs, and SMS. SwiftRiver acts as the verifying filter for these different channels and is possible precisely because of the volume of information available from these sources. The more information generated, the more the community interacts with it, and the easier it becomes to identify mutually trusted sources.

The software uses a combination of natural-language processing, machine-learning systems and what Swift River calls veracity algorithms. The system is designed to reveal authoritative sources, while suppressing noise such as duplicate content, irrelevant cross-chatter and inaccuracies. When users start monitoring a topic, they choose the feeds they want to track whether they are blogs, Twitter feeds, SMS messages, etc. Over time, Swift River assigns a score to each source, determined partly by the user and partly by the system's algorithms, and that score changes as more information is taken in. The software's natural-language computation continually tags the content by extracting relevant keywords, so that it can be indexed properly.

Swift River will be releasing a beta next month. The company says that it sees news organizations using it for the same purposes it was developed to make sense of large quantities of information in real-time, such as during a disaster. Gosier described the project in a post for UX magazine earlier this year.

Among the other companies that have been working on mining the social web for meaning is The Ellerdale Project, which was acquired last week by Flipboard the startup founded by former TellMe CEO Mike McCue that launched a much talked-about content reader for the iPad. Arthur van Hoff of The Ellerdale Project described what the group was trying to do in a video interview with Liz Gannes recently at GigaOM's office in San Francisco.

Whether efforts like Swift River can help us make sense of the ocean of social information in which we're swimming remains to be seen, but we need all the help we can get. Here's a video of Ushahidi founder Erik Hersman at TED 2009:

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req'd): Twitter Annotations and the Future of the Semantic Web

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr user Jurvetson

What does it take to develop an OpenSocial application on Yahoo! Application Platform (YAP)? YAP supports a lot of the OpenSocial standard JavaScript functions listed in YAP OpenSocial documentation.

This example demonstrates the development process of a simple OpenSocial application that would allow the user to poke and send messages to their friends. The poke will be broadcasted into the Activity stream, and the message will be sent to the specified user's friends.

1. Create an Open Application on the Yahoo! Developer Network (YDN):

2. Download the Gadget XML, and edit the metadata information about the application. In this example, we will be developing an application called iPoke. (Download iPoke Gadget XML).

3. We will go through the Gadget XML, but for now, let's see what does this OpenSocial application looks like. So Upload iPoke Gadget XML to your web server and Import the Gadget XML to the project that we just created from YDN. Specify the URL with the absolute path to the Gadget XML in your web server.

4. You should see that the title of the project on the project dashboard changed accordingly to the title that is defined in the Gadget XML:

<ModulePrefs title="iPoke"
   description="Poke your friends!"
   category="Communication"
   category2="Communication-ChatAndMessaging">

It will look something like this:

5. Check out the application:

6. Now, let's dive into the Gadget XML. The first section of the Gadget XML is the ModulePrefs:

<Module xmlns:yap="http://www.yahoo.com/ns/yap">
   <ModulePrefs title="iPoke"
               description="Poke your friends!"
               category="Communication"
               category2="Communication-ChatAndMessaging">
               <Icon></Icon> <!-- Favicon URL, 16x16, Will be converted to .gif for use on Yahoo.com homepage -->        
      <Locale lang="en" country="us"/> <!-- Supported languages -->
<yap:Extension name="yap.gadgets.ShortDescription">Poke your friends!</yap:Extension> <!-- Shorter description. Max: 128 chars -->
      <yap:Extension name="yap.gadgets.ApplicationIconUrl">http://www.ydndemo.com/grady/yap-status/images/connect.jpg</yap:Extension> <!-- Application Icon, 64x64 -->
      <yap:Extension name="yap.gadgets.YahooComIconUrl">http://www.ydndemo.com/grady/yap-status/images/connect-small.gif</yap:Extension> <!-- Icon to be displayed at Yahoo.com, 20x20, .gif
                                                                                DEPRECATED: This extension is no longer used
                                                                                            by Yahoo.com -->
      <yap:Extension name="yap.gadgets.ScreenshotUrl">http://www.ydndemo.com/grady/yap-status/images/screenshot.gif</yap:Extension> <!-- -Screenshot preview image, 300x250 -->
      <yap:Extension name="yap.gadgets.CreatorImageUrl">http://www.ydndemo.com/grady/yap-status/images/yahoo-logo-large.jpg</yap:Extension> <!-- Your company logo, 256x256 -->
      <yap:Extension name="yap.gadgets.CreatorWebsiteUrl">http://developer.yahoo.com/yap</yap:Extension> <!-- Your website -->
      <yap:Extension name="yap.gadgets.TouUrl">http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/</yap:Extension> <!-- Your terms of use -->
      <yap:Extension name="yap.gadgets.PrivacyUrl">http://info.yahoo.com/privacy/us/yahoo/devel/details.html</yap:Extension> <!-- Your privacy policy -->
      <yap:Extension name="yap.gadgets.Tags">open,social,status,updates,poke</yap:Extension> <!-- Tags, comma separated -->
            <!-- OpenSocial -->
	    <Require feature="opensocial-0.9" />
   </ModulePrefs>

Gadget XML Configuration File is explained in the greater detail in the YDN Gadget XML documentation. Here, we're particularly interested with the highlighted OpenSocial feature that we add into the ModulePrefs. In this Gadget XML, we particularly add OpenSocial 0.9 as a feature for our YAP application. (YAP also supports OpenSocial 0.8.)

7. Now, let's look at the second part of the Gadget XML. As you notice, there are two views defined in this Gadget XML: Small View, and Full View:

	<Content type="html" view="YahooSmallView">
		<h3>I want the full view!</h3>
	</Content>

    <!-- The content of this CDATA will render if no other content sections are applicable. -->

    <Content type="html" view="YahooFullView">

	<![CDATA[

                  ....

	]]>

	</Content>

More detailed description of the views is described in the greater detail in YDN Anatomy of YAP application documentation. In this example, we are particularly interested with the Full View. This is where the core functionalities of our application are located. In this Gadget XML, there are three parts that defines the application: JavaScript, Stylesheet, and HTML:

		<script type="text/javascript">
			// JavaScript
		</script>
		<style type="text/css">
			/* Stylesheet */
		</style>
		<div id="container">
			<!--HTML -->
		</div>

The HTML section will serve as the container of the application, with static buttons and headers. The JavaScript section is the core logic behind our application. If you're familiar with OpenSocial, the functions in the JavaScript of our example should be fairly straightforward. YAP supported OpenSocial standard features. When writing JavaScript, it is important to understand Caja-ready JavaScript standard practice.

If this is your first time developing an OpenSocial application, it is highly recommended to read OpenSocial Gadget's Developer Guide and Requesting OpenSocial Data tutorials. Briefly, let us go through the JavaScript section.

registerOnLoadHandler registers a function that will be executed when the gadget is loaded. In our case, we register gameController function:

		function gameController() {
			requestFriends();
		}

		gadgets.util.registerOnLoadHandler(gameController);

requestFriends function constructs the request and our desired parameters, then sends the request to YAP. We are using responseFriends as the callback function of the request:

		function requestFriends() {
			var idSpec = opensocial.newIdSpec({ "userId" : "VIEWER", "groupId" : "FRIENDS" });
			var req = opensocial.newDataRequest();
			req.add(req.newFetchPersonRequest(opensocial.IdSpec.PersonId.VIEWER), "viewer");
			req.add(req.newFetchPeopleRequest(idSpec), "viewerFriends");
			
			req.send(responseFriends);
		}

responseFriends function manipulates the DOM to display the images of the user's friends, and adds an Event Listener called selectFriend to each of the image. At the end of the function, we also add another Event Listener to the attack button called doAttack. The selectFriend image Event Listener will manipulate the style of the image to show whether they are selected or not, with cardinal red color on border. We also keep track the ID of friend that is currently selected:

		function selectFriend() {
			if (selectedId !== undefined) {
				deselectFriend(selectedId);
			}
			this.style.border = "2px solid #800020";
			selectedId = this.id;
		}

The doAttack Event Listener on attack button construct the parameters for sending request to the Activity stream in postActivity function:

		function postActivity(title, msg) {
		    var params = {};
		    params[opensocial.Activity.Field.TITLE] = title;
		    params[opensocial.Activity.Field.BODY] = msg;
			
		    var activity = opensocial.newActivity(params);
		    opensocial.requestCreateActivity(activity, opensocial.CreateActivityPriority.LOW, function() {
		        document.getElementById("comment").innerHTML = 'Activity created!';
		    });
		}
		
		function getSelectedAttack() {
			var attacks = document.getElementById("actionTable").elements["actions"];
			for (var i = 0; i < attacks.length; ++i) {
				if (attacks[i].checked) {
					return attacks[i].value;
				}
			}
			return "Random Punch";
		}
		
		function doAttack() {
			var title = "poked " + document.getElementById(selectedId).getAttribute("alt") + " with " + getSelectedAttack();
			postActivity(title, friendshipQuotes[Math.floor(Math.random()*5)]);
		}

Activity is posted to Yahoo! Pulse and across the Yahoo! Network:

getSelectedAttack finds the attack type that is currently selected by the user.

Sending messages to user's friends is handled by YML on share button (see YML:Message):

			<yml:message view="YahooFullView" insert="comment">
				<div id="YMLHidden">
					<input name="to" type="hidden" id="sendTo">
					<input type="hidden" name="subject" value="Check out the iPoke!">
					<textarea name="body">This is an awesome app, you should definitely check it out!</textarea>
					<input type="hidden" name="image" value="http://www.ydndemo.com/grady/yap-status/images/connect.jpg">
					<input type="hidden" name="link_href" value="http://apps.yahoo.com/-t1x6rM7k">
					<input type="hidden" name="link_label" value="Check out iPoke">
				</div>
			    <input type="submit" name="submit" value="Share">
			</yml:message>

When the Share button is triggered, floating div will be displayed with the necessary form fields for the user to send messages to their friends. It will look like this:

Grady Laksmono
Yahoo! Software Engineer

HootSuite bridges social listening and publishing tools with customer relationship management functions to launch marketing campaigns, identify and grow audiences, and distribute targeted messages across multiple channels. Using HootSuite, teams can collaboratively schedule updates to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, WordPress and other social networks via web, desktop or mobile platforms plus track campaign results and industry trends to rapidly adjust tactics.

After the jump what you need to know about HootSuite.

The application in a sentence

HootSuite is a social media dashboard which allows organizations to schedule and publish messages to multiple social networks, monitor and filter conversations and track results to rapidly adjust outreach tactics.

Ways the product benefits social media campaigns

• Find influencers: HootSuite can help companies discover people who are influencers on a relevant topic by using Klout score and keyword filtering. This is especially helpful when looking for campaign outreach candidates.
• Track results: HootSuite gives users the ability to monitor click-through statistics associated with the built-in URL shorteners ow.ly and ht.ly. Additionally, users can see clicks per individual post as well as breakdowns by country. Users can export the stats to CSV and PDF. There are also custom URL parameters for tracking and deeper link analytics.
• Collaborate with teams: Manage multiple accounts with multiple team members from a single centralized dashboard and assign posts to other team members for follow-up. Teams can share columns, draft messages plus view all assignments in a comprehensive view.
• Spread messages: Post to selected individual accounts or broadcast to multiple networks at once. HootSuite also includes the ability to forward messages via email, reply to all and re-tweet using old-school Twitter native style re-tweets.
• Track mentions: Monitor activity on Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, etc. Set up searches for your brand name including misspellings, industry related terms and even competitors, plus track specific #hashtags for conferences, campaigns and topics. Also create shareable columns with the search results.

Coolest features

• For customer service teams: message assignment / e-mail post
• For marketing teams: stats / analytics / custom url parameters
• For PR agencies: track mentions / search keyword streams
• For everyday users: drag and drop files like images or PDFs from the computer to the message box

User profile

HootSuite works best for those managing a company or brand's online presence in some capacity, such as in-house teams/departments, agencies, bureaus, publishing houses and customer service desks.

Recent user campaign

A few campaigns have made a splash by using Klout to identify influencers and then reach out to them with their offers. One example is Virgin Airlines who tracked down high-Klout-ers in San Francisco and Toronto and offered free flights to promote the airline's new service between those cities. One participant was Social Media Club's Chris Heuer who used his flight to host a club meeting in Toronto:

Pricing

At the moment, the HootSuite web app is free. The publisher will be introducing a freemium model in the next few months where enterprise users will be able to have additional features and support at a monthly rate. An estimated 95% of users will continue to enjoy the free dashboard.

HootSuite for iPhone and Android both offer free ad-supported versions and paid ($2.99 USD) versions.

Compared to competition

According to the company, We aren't really about slagging the competition but rather like to point out our benefits. HootSuite offers a comprehensive feature set which allows social media managers to perform most of their tasks from one location without switching screens, tabs and apps. This differentiates HootSuite from any erstwhile competitors.

With an ever-increasing number of social media marketing options, brands and agencies are searching for solutions to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their campaigns. This series reports on significant product releases and updates to assist in selecting the most appropriate tools to meet individual objectives. We recently presented the Involver AMP and NetVibes.Com social media marketing dashboards and Context Optional Social Marketing Suite.

We are pleased to announce the availability of YQL tables for Y! Mail.

If you (the developer) wanted to use the Yahoo! Mail API before today, you first would have to know the APIs, form the request (JSON/SOAP), and cook it up before sending the request to the server. But that game has just changed.

YQL tables for Y! Mail allow developers to access Y! Mail data using YQL queries. Using the YQL Mail tables, all you need to do is execute one query, for example:

   select * from ymail.messages

This query will get the list of messages from your Inbox (by default). Similarly, to get folders all we need to do is

   select * from ymail.folders

Now, these are simple queries. Imagine you also get the power of mail search with this. For example,

   select * from ymail.messages where attachmenttype='jpeg'

or

   select * from ymail.messages where query='yahoo'

These queries help you narrow down your search to more granular content.

It gets even more interesting if you are able to do subselects in other words, join two select statements. The input to a GetMessage API is a fid (folder ID) and mid/list of mids (message IDs). This is now possible with a one-line query with YQL. For example,

   select * from ymail.msgcontent where (fid,mids) in (select folder.folderInfo.fid,
   mid from ymail.messages where query='Yahoo' limit 1)

and a query that includes social contacts and connections looks like

  select * from ymail.messages where fr in (select fields.value from social.contacts 
   where guid=me and contact_id in (select contactId from social.connections where owner_guid=me) 
   and fields.type="email") 

Also, you have options to filter out specific fields that you need in the response. For example,

   select mid from ymail.messages

will just give the message IDs (mid) in the response or

   select folder.folderInfo.fid from ymail.folders

will give only folder IDs in the response.

You can view the tables in the YQL Console.

We've currently released three tables. We plan on adding more tables in the near future. If you have any questions, find any bugs, or need any help in writing a specific query, please post it on YDN Forums.

Also, if you have built something cool using these APIs, then post the prototype link in the forums and send us your resume (that is, mail_jobs@ymail.com).

Happy hacking!

Ramachandran Iyer ((@ramiyer)
Tech Y! Software Developer / Y! Mail Backend

You've seen Twitter clients like TweetDeck or Seesmic, but you've never seen one like this.
You've seen news readers like NewsGator, Google Reader, or, even, newer ones for iPad like Pulse, but you've never seen one like this.
You've seen news aggregators like Techmeme, Google News, Skygrid, Yahoo News, Hacker News, or Huffington Post, but you've never seen one like this.

What is this? It's Flipboard.

It's from a new company you've never heard from before. Embedded here is an exclusive interview with CEO Mike McCue. You might have heard of Mike before. He sold a company, TellMe, to Microsoft for about $800 million dollars. Flipboard, the company, has already had one round of funding from Kleiner Perkins and today is announcing a new round of funding along with an acquisition of the Ellerdale Project (http://www.ellerdale.com/).

What is Flipboard? It turns your Facebook and Twitter account into something that looks like a magazine. It also lets you build a custom magazine, either by choosing from Flipboard's pre-built curated boards or by importing Twitter lists. This is a very powerful and engaging way to read Twitter. You can also turn a single person's Twitter account, or a single brand's Twitter account, into a Flipboard. For instance, you can follow Techcrunch on Twitter with it and it will turn Techcrunch into a beautiful magazine-like interface that's easier to read than any other reader.

The differentiator for Flipboard is the design. Lots of touches that make it engaging:

1. Touch an article and it zooms to reveal more.
2. Touch a video and it plays inline.
3. Turn your iPad and everything reconfigures, even photos switch from vertical to horizontal formats.
4. Touch read more on Web on longer articles and instantly be transported to the original website that was the originator of the information discussed in the tweet.
5. When you bring in your Facebook friends your friends' photos, status messages, will all be laid out in attractive pages.
6. You can touch to share, favorite, like, or retweet, depending on what you are reading.

To get a sense of how dramatically different Flipboard is from any other Facebook or Twitter client, you should watch the video we filmed with McCue where he demoed the app for our cameras. In the interview he covered the philosophy of this interesting new company, demoed the product for us, and talked about where the company is going.

So, why is this disruptive, or even, revolutionary? Revolutionary isn't our word, either, but is what actor/entrepreneur Ashton Kutcher said when we showed him the app to get a feeling for how it would affect the content businesses he's involved in. He's not the only one, either. We showed it to Wolfram Alpha's CEO, Barak Berkowitz and he said it's one of the most awesome iPad apps I've ever seen.

Techcrunch has covered that in a second post about why Flipboard is a killer app that on first look appears very disruptive to Twitter client producers, news readers, and news aggregator/publishing companies. In that second article we've also laid out why Twitter and the iPad have set in place the ingredients for a real media revolution one that goes way beyond other publishing systems and one that further moves our reading behavior away from RSS aggregators.

But here let's discuss how it works.

You add in your Twitter and Facebook accounts. It builds tiles, or sections out of your accounts. If you are an advanced user you can add in other people's Twitter accounts, Twitter lists, or choose from a pre-done set of custom boards to choose from. More on those in a minute.

You then click on the section it builds after you flip past a cover that is made from photos that it finds from your friends and people you're following on Twitter. The cover itself is pretty interesting, but the meat is inside, so we'll focus on that.

Click on Facebook, for instance, and you'll see your friends' photos, tweets, status messages, articles, and videos. Just drag your finger through page after page, er, board after board, of these things. This is your Facebook news feed, but in a way you've never seen it before all laid out like a newspaper. Click on any item and you can see the originating status message and all comments. You can like the item, or comment on it too.

How did Flipboard find these things? After all, I have 1,800 friends on Facebook and am following 19,000 people on Twitter and it filters out most of the noise I see on other Twitter and Facebook readers. Well, it has a set of algorithms that are looking for highly engaged items. You know, items that have lots of comments, likes, or retweets. It also has an algorithm that senses photography that's been linked to from Facebook status messages and it lays those photos out.

When you reopen Flipboard it re-paginates the whole set of boards (you can only display nine sections at a time, which is a major limitation of the first version, but more on limitations in a second.

Along the bottom is a timeline that you can run your finger across to see a menu of all items. If you get to the end of the timeline and want to see more, just flip the last board over and it will go and get more pages for you to view.

LIMITATIONS

This is quite remarkable, and addictive to play with, but there are lots of things we'd like to see Flipboard add. More section tiles, for instance, is desperately needed. I have 25 different Twitter lists of just my own, for instance, and if you go to Listorious you can find thousands of lists on all sorts of different topics, all of which make good Flipboard sections.

Some might wonder why RSS isn't used. That will be a limitation for some people, especially if you are trying to follow a blogger who doesn't yet put their stuff into Twitter (naughty!) In reality, though, there is so much that IS on Twitter or Facebook that this limitation isn't that big a deal. If you find some cool blog you can Tweet it and then it'll show up in Flipboard anyway.

After playing with this I wanted to have Flipboard on my Android and iPhones. Unfortunately the team has chosen to focus solely on iPads for right now but are considering other devices for the future.

There's no advertising, which leaves us guessing as to what the business model will be in the future. Mike McCue told me they are looking at new, design-centric, advertising that could possibly fill a page or a portion of a page.

A major limitation is that this is a reading and commenting app, not one where you can build your own tweets or Facebook status messages. I found myself often wanting to tweet from inside the app as I was reading.

It also doesn't use LinkedIn or Google Buzz, both social networks I'd like to turn into Flipboards.

WHAT IT GOT RIGHT

Flipboard got a LOT right. It shows how you can enter a crowded space of Twitter clients with something that's beautiful. The interaction design is beyond anything I've seen from a startup since Siri came on the scene earlier this year (and was almost instantly purchased by Apple).

They are totally right to bet on Facebook and Twitter. These are the default information sharing systems for most people now and are both mature enough to serve as news sources. I have a Twitter list of world news brands, for instance, that is awesome in Twitter. http://twitter.com/scoblemedia/world-news-brands Lots of people haven't seen the power of lists like these, but now they will, and they'll also understand that Twitter isn't just about telling people what you're doing.

WHAT IT DID NOT GET RIGHT

There is a lot missing from Flipboard. First, the #1 thing we need is more tiles, or what they call sections. Nine is simply not enough.

Second, we need a far better store from which to find new sections, er, Twitter lists. Yes, you can eventually figure out that you can search for people, lists, etc, but we need a better way to do that. I wish there were a stronger tie between Listorious, which I find has a very nice way to find lists, and Flipboard, which makes it somewhat difficult to find new lists to make into Flipboard sections.

Third, as a content producer, I'm very worried that this takes too much of the brand and advertising dollars away from the content producers. If I share a Techcrunch article, for instance, I get more credit than Techcrunch does inside Flipboard. That's not good. Also, they need a better way for content producers to tell Flipboard just how much of the text they are using. Right now Flipboard looks for an RSS feed from a content producer to see if they've set full text, or partial text, or headline only, to figure out the syndication rules but there needs to be a way inside Flipboard for publishers to communicate their wishes since I'm sure lots of publishers won't like what they see inside Flipboard. From a user standpoint, though, I find this reading experience to be unparalleled, so media producers should work with Flipboard instead of flipping out, as I expect some of them like Rupert Murdoch to do.

There are still some bugs. I often see duplication of articles, especially in my lists that follow larger numbers of people (Flipboard's own curated lists have small numbers of sources to keep them cleaner). I also occasionally see bad text or bad headlines that were pulled in. But those are minor problems for a 1.0 beta and will be fixed, the team says.

THE FUTURE OF FLIPBOARD

The acquisition of the Ellerdale Project, this morning, gives Flipboard lots of new trending features to build as well as some strong algorithms to further reduce the noise and pull out great items for us to read, no matter what the list is we're aiming Flipboard at.

Overall this is an extraordinary iPad app and one that will shake the media world for quite some time.

ANALYSIS OF WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT:

Every once in a while I get an early look at a killer app. I still remember the day I first saw Pagemaker (back then from a company named Aldus, which later sold to Adobe). That app, along with a $5,000 laser printer from Apple, was a killer app for the Macintosh. Why? Because if you wanted to do a new form of publishing you needed to buy a Macintosh, a laser printer (back then $5,000) and Aldus' Pagemaker.

I've been using my iPad since the very first day and have been looking for that killer app that would give me a reason to tell you why you must get an iPad. In other words, an app that would justify buying an iPad for a large number of people.

We've seen other companies get close. Last month Techcrunch wrote about Pulse, a news reader for the iPad. I downloaded it, but it wasn't revolutionary, just a nicer done RSS news reader. Earlier this week another nice news app, Apollo, was announced in Techcrunch, but I quickly answered back on Twitter that I had already been beta testing something that went far beyond what they were offering.

So, Scoble, spill the beans already!

The app I've been using? Flipboard. See the news article elsewhere on Techcrunch for more details, since Flipboard also announced new funding and an acquisition too.

It does something very simple: it turns your Twitter and Facebook into something that looks like a magazine.

But, don't miss what's happening here, because there's a news revolution that has been born due to Twitter. First, you must see that Twitter has moved from being just for a way to follow your friends to a way you can follow news brands. Techcrunch, for instance, has a Twitter feed that I follow in Flipboard and other Twitter readers like Seesmic, Tweetdeck, and Twitterrific. But go further, I have a list of 216 news brands like the BBC, CNN, New York Times, etc at http://twitter.com/scoblemedia/world-news-brands. You add that into Flipboard and you have the most complete newspaper-style media you've ever seen. You can follow just the BBC, or just the New York Times, or just your local newspaper on Twitter.

The problem is that when you see the New York Times on Twitter.com it looks boring. You don't see the great photography that the New York Times provides. You don't have an easy-to-read layout. And if you try to read the New York Times along with my list of news journalists or if you want to follow Techcrunch's staff writers on Twitter you'll see them all mixed together with all the noise that comes with that. If MG Siegler posts what he's drinking on Friday night, as he did last week, it is weighted the same as a New York Times article of international importance.

This makes reading Twitter far less useful than it could be and it lays out why Flipboard is a publishing revolution. Oh, don't take my word for it. I showed actor/entrepreneur Ashton Kutcher Flipboard and he turned to me and said this is revolutionary. Then he asked me for an introduction to Flipboard so he could invest in the company (which he did). Nearly every person I gave a sneak peak to Flipboard said the same thing after playing with it.

It's disruptive to several groups: those who publish media, especially news organizations; those who produce Twitter clients; and those who produce news aggregators.

One of the most awesome iPad apps I've ever seen, is what Barak Berkowitz, CEO of Wolfram Alpha, told me after he saw it. It brings to life the real capabilities of social media.

It takes a lot of the stuff from nerddom to mainstream, Gary Lauder, VC at Lauder Partners, and TED speaker. My mother is not going to read tweets, but she will read Flipboard.

But it isn't just the app that makes this a significant new company.

It also is backed by an interesting team, starting with co-founder Mike McCue who started TellMe, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2007 for $800 million. < << http://www.crunchbase.com/company/tellme >>>

It also has already made an interesting acquisition, of Ellerdale < << http://www.crunchbase.com/company/ellerdale >>> which has been building algorithms using semantic technology that filters the real-time stream by topics, instead of keyword strings. Basically, this means that Flipboard has some cool trending topics features and noise control that will come in future versions.

It also has a list of impressive venture capitalists, including Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, Google investor Ron Conway, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, The Chernin Group founded by Peter Chernin, Alfred Lin, Peter Currie, Quincy Smith, actor/entrepreneur Ashton Kutcher, and major investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Index Ventures.

But that's not why I view this as disruptive. It just is plain fun to use. I've spent more than 50 hours on it so far and love that it removes most noise from my Twitter feed, makes me much more productive in finding interesting items, and is plain addictive to use. It also makes me feel like I'm reading an old-time newspaper with beautiful design that helps me find important items to my life. Not every Twitter item is interesting and Flipboard focuses on that.

What do you think? If you have an iPad already do you agree that this is a killer app? If you don't have an iPad does this push you over the purchasing decision line?

You've seen Twitter clients like TweetDeck or Seesmic, but you've never seen one like this.
You've seen news readers like NewsGator, Google Reader, or, even, newer ones for iPad like Pulse, but you've never seen one like this.
You've seen news aggregators like Techmeme, Google News, Skygrid, Yahoo News, Hacker News, or Huffington Post, but you've never seen one like this.

What is this? It's Flipboard.

It's from a new company you've never heard from before. Embedded here is an exclusive interview with CEO Mike McCue. You might have heard of Mike before. He sold a company, TellMe, to Microsoft for about $800 million dollars. Flipboard, the company, has already had one round of funding from Kleiner Perkins and today is announcing a new round of funding along with an acquisition of the Ellerdale Project (http://www.ellerdale.com/).

What is Flipboard? It turns your Facebook and Twitter account into something that looks like a magazine. It also lets you build a custom magazine, either by choosing from Flipboard's pre-built curated boards or by importing Twitter lists. This is a very powerful and engaging way to read Twitter. You can also turn a single person's Twitter account, or a single brand's Twitter account, into a Flipboard. For instance, you can follow Techcrunch on Twitter with it and it will turn Techcrunch into a beautiful magazine-like interface that's easier to read than any other reader.

The differentiator for Flipboard is the design. Lots of touches that make it engaging:

1. Touch an article and it zooms to reveal more.
2. Touch a video and it plays inline.
3. Turn your iPad and everything reconfigures, even photos switch from vertical to horizontal formats.
4. Touch read more on Web on longer articles and instantly be transported to the original website that was the originator of the information discussed in the tweet.
5. When you bring in your Facebook friends your friends' photos, status messages, will all be laid out in attractive pages.
6. You can touch to share, favorite, like, or retweet, depending on what you are reading.

To get a sense of how dramatically different Flipboard is from any other Facebook or Twitter client, you should watch the video we filmed with McCue where he demoed the app for our cameras. In the interview he covered the philosophy of this interesting new company, demoed the product for us, and talked about where the company is going.

So, why is this disruptive, or even, revolutionary? Revolutionary isn't our word, either, but is what actor/entrepreneur Ashton Kutcher said when we showed him the app to get a feeling for how it would affect the content businesses he's involved in. He's not the only one, either. We showed it to Wolfram Alpha's CEO, Barak Berkowitz and he said it's one of the most awesome iPad apps I've ever seen.

Techcrunch has covered that in a second post about why Flipboard is a killer app that on first look appears very disruptive to Twitter client producers, news readers, and news aggregator/publishing companies. In that second article we've also laid out why Twitter and the iPad have set in place the ingredients for a real media revolution one that goes way beyond other publishing systems and one that further moves our reading behavior away from RSS aggregators.

But here let's discuss how it works.

You add in your Twitter and Facebook accounts. It builds tiles, or sections out of your accounts. If you are an advanced user you can add in other people's Twitter accounts, Twitter lists, or choose from a pre-done set of custom boards to choose from. More on those in a minute.

You then click on the section it builds after you flip past a cover that is made from photos that it finds from your friends and people you're following on Twitter. The cover itself is pretty interesting, but the meat is inside, so we'll focus on that.

Click on Facebook, for instance, and you'll see your friends' photos, tweets, status messages, articles, and videos. Just drag your finger through page after page, er, board after board, of these things. This is your Facebook news feed, but in a way you've never seen it before all laid out like a newspaper. Click on any item and you can see the originating status message and all comments. You can like the item, or comment on it too.

How did Flipboard find these things? After all, I have 1,800 friends on Facebook and am following 19,000 people on Twitter and it filters out most of the noise I see on other Twitter and Facebook readers. Well, it has a set of algorithms that are looking for highly engaged items. You know, items that have lots of comments, likes, or retweets. It also has an algorithm that senses photography that's been linked to from Facebook status messages and it lays those photos out.

When you reopen Flipboard it re-paginates the whole set of boards (you can only display nine sections at a time, which is a major limitation of the first version, but more on limitations in a second.

Along the bottom is a timeline that you can run your finger across to see a menu of all items. If you get to the end of the timeline and want to see more, just flip the last board over and it will go and get more pages for you to view.

LIMITATIONS

This is quite remarkable, and addictive to play with, but there are lots of things we'd like to see Flipboard add. More section tiles, for instance, is desperately needed. I have 25 different Twitter lists of just my own, for instance, and if you go to Listorious you can find thousands of lists on all sorts of different topics, all of which make good Flipboard sections.

Some might wonder why RSS isn't used. That will be a limitation for some people, especially if you are trying to follow a blogger who doesn't yet put their stuff into Twitter (naughty!) In reality, though, there is so much that IS on Twitter or Facebook that this limitation isn't that big a deal. If you find some cool blog you can Tweet it and then it'll show up in Flipboard anyway.

After playing with this I wanted to have Flipboard on my Android and iPhones. Unfortunately the team has chosen to focus solely on iPads for right now but are considering other devices for the future.

There's no advertising, which leaves us guessing as to what the business model will be in the future. Mike McCue told me they are looking at new, design-centric, advertising that could possibly fill a page or a portion of a page.

A major limitation is that this is a reading and commenting app, not one where you can build your own tweets or Facebook status messages. I found myself often wanting to tweet from inside the app as I was reading.

It also doesn't use LinkedIn or Google Buzz, both social networks I'd like to turn into Flipboards.

WHAT IT GOT RIGHT

Flipboard got a LOT right. It shows how you can enter a crowded space of Twitter clients with something that's beautiful. The interaction design is beyond anything I've seen from a startup since Siri came on the scene earlier this year (and was almost instantly purchased by Apple).

They are totally right to bet on Facebook and Twitter. These are the default information sharing systems for most people now and are both mature enough to serve as news sources. I have a Twitter list of world news brands, for instance, that is awesome in Twitter. http://twitter.com/scoblemedia/world-news-brands Lots of people haven't seen the power of lists like these, but now they will, and they'll also understand that Twitter isn't just about telling people what you're doing.

WHAT IT DID NOT GET RIGHT

There is a lot missing from Flipboard. First, the #1 thing we need is more tiles, or what they call sections. Nine is simply not enough.

Second, we need a far better store from which to find new sections, er, Twitter lists. Yes, you can eventually figure out that you can search for people, lists, etc, but we need a better way to do that. I wish there were a stronger tie between Listorious, which I find has a very nice way to find lists, and Flipboard, which makes it somewhat difficult to find new lists to make into Flipboard sections.

Third, as a content producer, I'm very worried that this takes too much of the brand and advertising dollars away from the content producers. If I share a Techcrunch article, for instance, I get more credit than Techcrunch does inside Flipboard. That's not good. Also, they need a better way for content producers to tell Flipboard just how much of the text they are using. Right now Flipboard looks for an RSS feed from a content producer to see if they've set full text, or partial text, or headline only, to figure out the syndication rules but there needs to be a way inside Flipboard for publishers to communicate their wishes since I'm sure lots of publishers won't like what they see inside Flipboard. From a user standpoint, though, I find this reading experience to be unparalleled, so media producers should work with Flipboard instead of flipping out, as I expect some of them like Rupert Murdoch to do.

There are still some bugs. I often see duplication of articles, especially in my lists that follow larger numbers of people (Flipboard's own curated lists have small numbers of sources to keep them cleaner). I also occasionally see bad text or bad headlines that were pulled in. But those are minor problems for a 1.0 beta and will be fixed, the team says.

THE FUTURE OF FLIPBOARD

The acquisition of the Ellerdale Project, this morning, gives Flipboard lots of new trending features to build as well as some strong algorithms to further reduce the noise and pull out great items for us to read, no matter what the list is we're aiming Flipboard at.

Overall this is an extraordinary iPad app and one that will shake the media world for quite some time.

ANALYSIS OF WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT:

Every once in a while I get an early look at a killer app. I still remember the day I first saw Pagemaker (back then from a company named Aldus, which later sold to Adobe). That app, along with a $5,000 laser printer from Apple, was a killer app for the Macintosh. Why? Because if you wanted to do a new form of publishing you needed to buy a Macintosh, a laser printer (back then $5,000) and Aldus' Pagemaker.

I've been using my iPad since the very first day and have been looking for that killer app that would give me a reason to tell you why you must get an iPad. In other words, an app that would justify buying an iPad for a large number of people.

We've seen other companies get close. Last month Techcrunch wrote about Pulse, a news reader for the iPad. I downloaded it, but it wasn't revolutionary, just a nicer done RSS news reader. Earlier this week another nice news app, Apollo, was announced in Techcrunch, but I quickly answered back on Twitter that I had already been beta testing something that went far beyond what they were offering.

So, Scoble, spill the beans already!

The app I've been using? Flipboard. See the news article elsewhere on Techcrunch for more details, since Flipboard also announced new funding and an acquisition too.

It does something very simple: it turns your Twitter and Facebook into something that looks like a magazine.

But, don't miss what's happening here, because there's a news revolution that has been born due to Twitter. First, you must see that Twitter has moved from being just for a way to follow your friends to a way you can follow news brands. Techcrunch, for instance, has a Twitter feed that I follow in Flipboard and other Twitter readers like Seesmic, Tweetdeck, and Twitterrific. But go further, I have a list of 216 news brands like the BBC, CNN, New York Times, etc at http://twitter.com/scoblemedia/world-news-brands. You add that into Flipboard and you have the most complete newspaper-style media you've ever seen. You can follow just the BBC, or just the New York Times, or just your local newspaper on Twitter.

The problem is that when you see the New York Times on Twitter.com it looks boring. You don't see the great photography that the New York Times provides. You don't have an easy-to-read layout. And if you try to read the New York Times along with my list of news journalists or if you want to follow Techcrunch's staff writers on Twitter you'll see them all mixed together with all the noise that comes with that. If MG Siegler posts what he's drinking on Friday night, as he did last week, it is weighted the same as a New York Times article of international importance.

This makes reading Twitter far less useful than it could be and it lays out why Flipboard is a publishing revolution. Oh, don't take my word for it. I showed actor/entrepreneur Ashton Kutcher Flipboard and he turned to me and said this is revolutionary. Then he asked me for an introduction to Flipboard so he could invest in the company (which he did). Nearly every person I gave a sneak peak to Flipboard said the same thing after playing with it.

It's disruptive to several groups: those who publish media, especially news organizations; those who produce Twitter clients; and those who produce news aggregators.

One of the most awesome iPad apps I've ever seen, is what Barak Berkowitz, CEO of Wolfram Alpha, told me after he saw it. It brings to life the real capabilities of social media.

It takes a lot of the stuff from nerddom to mainstream, Gary Lauder, VC at Lauder Partners, and TED speaker. My mother is not going to read tweets, but she will read Flipboard.

But it isn't just the app that makes this a significant new company.

It also is backed by an interesting team, starting with co-founder Mike McCue who started TellMe, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2007 for $800 million. < << http://www.crunchbase.com/company/tellme >>>

It also has already made an interesting acquisition, of Ellerdale < << http://www.crunchbase.com/company/ellerdale >>> which has been building algorithms using semantic technology that filters the real-time stream by topics, instead of keyword strings. Basically, this means that Flipboard has some cool trending topics features and noise control that will come in future versions.

It also has a list of impressive venture capitalists, including Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, Google investor Ron Conway, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, The Chernin Group founded by Peter Chernin, Alfred Lin, Peter Currie, Quincy Smith, actor/entrepreneur Ashton Kutcher, and major investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and Index Ventures.

But that's not why I view this as disruptive. It just is plain fun to use. I've spent more than 50 hours on it so far and love that it removes most noise from my Twitter feed, makes me much more productive in finding interesting items, and is plain addictive to use. It also makes me feel like I'm reading an old-time newspaper with beautiful design that helps me find important items to my life. Not every Twitter item is interesting and Flipboard focuses on that.

What do you think? If you have an iPad already do you agree that this is a killer app? If you don't have an iPad does this push you over the purchasing de