MySpace has partnered with computer giant Hewlett-Packard to introduce a number of new print options to the popular social networking site. Beginning in November, users will be able to click an HP-branded "Print" box embedded on their MySpace pages to access a printer-friendly version of any portion of their profile that can be printed from their home printer. The announcement was made today by MySpace co-founder and CEO Chris DeWolfe and HP EVP of Imaging and Printing Vyomesh Joshi at HP's Imaging and Printing Conference in San Diego. Being able to print anything seems a little excessive - I can't imagine wanting to print out anyone's MySpace profile, and running promotions to print across the entire site isn't very green either. I wonder if MySpace's official Green site Our Planet will include the Print widget, too.

It’s been a long time coming, but it appears as though Facebook finally has begun integrating Live Search into its main search bar, thereby providing web search in addition to its preexisting profile search capabilities.

The functionality appeared earlier today for users, only to disappear again. Facebook published an official post about it only to take that down as well . Microsoft’s own post, however, can still be found here.

Update: Web search is now back, as is Facebook’s post about it. See our observations below.

The integration is a natural consequence of Microsoft’s $250 million investment in Facebook last Fall. Google has a similar deal in place with competitor MySpace.

Once it’s back up we’ll get a chance to see how web search affects Facebook’s autocomplete suggestion system, and whether or not results are tailored to your profile information. After more time pasts, we’ll also see whether this partnership can stem the continual loss of Microsoft’s search marketshare to Google.

According to Microsoft’s post above, Facebook is using adCenter to display advertisements alongside results.

Venturebeat managed to capture the following screenshots before the integration was removed (presumably only temporarily).

Update 2: Since it’s back, we’ve had a chance to try it out and make a few observations:

• The search bar still suggests friends as it did before. If you enter a term that doesn’t match a friend’s name, it will ask whether you want to search the web or Facebook. The option for web search is second and requires users to hit the down arrow on their keyboards, so it will probably suffer from that.
• The advertisements appear to be a mix of Facebook’s own ads and those served by adCenter
• The formatting of the results is a little clunky. It would be better if they stuck to the traditional formatting found on Live.com itself and other engines like Yahoo and Google
• The Facebook web search implementation doesn’t show image results, etc — just basic webpage results
• The results are not the exact same as on Live.com but they’re close
• Sponsored results do not show up on the top of all other results. The advertisements are all placed in a right-hand rail
• If you view search results by all types, the “Web” tab is the furthest to the right on top of the page, after People, Pages, Groups, Events, and Applications. It really doesn’t look like Facebook is giving web search much prominence, at least in its current incarnation.
• Facebook’s blog post says this is only available to visitors from the United States, but Orli in the comments below seems to have access from Israel

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Mozilla has posted more information about Geode, the Labs plugin we foreshadowed yesterday that helps websites detect your current location. Geode is also now available for download here.

Geode is a forerunner to Firefox’s future implementation of the W3C Geolocation Specification, a standard that (once universally implemented) will allow websites to serve up localized content and services within any browser. Mozilla plans to let the user determine how they want to reveal their location (via GPS, WiFi, manual entry, or other methods) and how specific they want that information to be (exact location, neighborhood, city, etc).

The plugin, however, will only leverage one method for determining your location - Skyhook’s Loki technology, which uses WiFi to determine your location within a second and with an accuracy of about 10-20 meters.

Since location-aware services are most useful on mobile devices, Mozilla plans to integrate Geode functionality into alpha releases of Fennec, its mobile browser under development.

Pownce and Yahoo’s Fire Eagle are launch partners of sorts for Geode, having both already hooked the plugin up to their services. Pownce is using the plugin to attach location information to messages and other contributions to the service. Fire Eagle will use Geode as another way to gather and broker location information for its users and the services they use.

Mozilla isn’t the only one who has decided to innovate in geolocation technology on its own instead of waiting for standards to evolve. Google Gears, another browser plugin of sorts, features similar location-aware functionality for websites.

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Google launched Knol, a monetizable Wikipedia, last July, and since then most people seem to have either forgotten about it entirely or decided that it will never be as good as its Wiki predecessor.

Today the site is launching a new section called Knol Debates, and while I don’t think it will ever get me to use the site as a reference encyclopedia, it’s a great idea. Google has brought together economists from the Cato Institute and the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) who have written their opinions regarding the current economic climate. Users are encouraged to participate in the conversation by leaving their comments, reviews, and suggested modifications to the original arguments.

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ZoomProspector, the site that allows businesses to search nationwide for the best places to relocate, has launched to the public. When we first introduced the site in April, we likened it to a Zillow for businesses.

ZoomProspector rates cities across the country by a number of relevant criteria, including proximity to airports, commute times, demographics, or the availability of venture capital in the area (you can also choose to exclude some of these items if they aren’t important to you). One of the more useful search functions is the ability to see what other businesses operate in the vicinity, so businesses can determine if they’re going to be working close to a competitor, or even a potential client. Once a business has found an appropriate city, it can view individual properties that have been added by real estate agents.

The site is a product of GIS Planning, a company that specializes in geographic information system applications for government and community organizations.

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Instead of dwelling on whether an economic apocalypse is about to loom upon us, some startups are plugging away at improving their products. Israeli Kampyle is a case-in-point. Today the company is extending its feedback analytics platform from websites to client software—with a specific focus on the installation process, a major pain point for client applications.

Most software client application installations have high abandonment rates. There’s no shortage of reasons for users to abort the installation process, these include: slow/heavy downloads, too many steps, security concerns, lack of information, and too many ads. Speaking to customers, Kampyle learned that the aborts leave companies with many assumptions, but few conclusions. Sure, many companies trigger uninstall feedback forms when the user abruptly ends the installation, but it seems—at least from what Kampyle has learned—companies find it difficult to translate the collected information to actionable items.

Kampyle for Software is designed to do just that. It leverages Kampyle’s feedback analytics platform to aggregate and manage feedbacks generated by two forms it produces—one for the Installation, the other for uninstall. Instead of manually going through each feedback form, as many companies do today, Kampyle groups the feedback alltogether and presents the aggregate information in easy-to-read charts.  The forms are completely customizable of course, and so are the landing pages that are designated to open upon installation termination. No special programming knowledge is required to integrate the calls into installer creation tools such as InstallShield.

Kampyle for Software is free for Open Source applications. Commercial applications will be priced by scale, with a minimum of $99/mo. The first month is free so there’s no reason not to give it a shot.

From its debut 5 months ago, Kampyle has amassed 3000 customers. It may not be the next Google, but at least it’s plugging away.

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Tech stocks continue to get creamed this morning, led by Google, whose stock is now officially a dropping knife (i.e., good luck catching it). Shares are down 5 percent so far today to about $355 (at one point they dipped as low as $350. That’s more than a $50 drop since Friday and the lowest the stock has traded since March, 2006. The question on investor’s minds: How low can it go?

Even though Google is the best positioned Internet (or media) company to weather a slowdown in advertising spending, analysts have started cutting back their earnings estimates for the company. As for overall ad spending, Barclays Capital is trimming its estimates for both overall and Internet ad spending. Total ad spending in the U.S. (including cable and broadcast TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, Yellow Pages, direct mail, Internet, and outdoor) it forecasts will decline 3.6 percent this year to $284 billion and then another 5.5 percent in 2009 to $269 billion. Of that total, Barclays is still estimating that Internet ad spending will grow 17 percent to $24.8 billion in 2008. But that represents a $1.4 billion haircut from its previous 2008 estimate of $26.2 billion. (It expects 2009 Internet ad spending to grow another 14 percent to $28.3 billion).

Although search advertising is most likely to hold up in the coming advertising recession, it’s growth rate is expected to slow down. Nevertheless, display advertising is expected to get the worst of it, which means less growth for Google’s DoubleClick business, but should hurt Yahoo, AOL, and Microsoft more. That’s why some analysts are still bullish on Google. In a note today, Barclays Doug Anmuth writes:

• Although we believe that online advertising will continue to benefit from the secular shift in advertising, we are lowering our 2008 online advertising forecast and our projections through 2012 given the current macro-environment, indications that a broader economic recession lie ahead, and the likelihood of sustained disruptions across some of the largest online advertising verticals.
• In this note we highlight five current trends that we believe will shape the online ad environment going forward: 1) pressure on display, as expected; 2) platform launches following 2007’s acquisitions; 3) privacy issues impacting behavioral targeting growth; 4) the shift to performance pricing; and 5) rich media and video continue to outperform.
• Overall we believe Search is the strongest vertical within Internet advertising due to its success based nature and focus on ROI, as such we continue to believe that the biggest beneficiary of growth in online advertising remains Google given its leading position in search and its multiple legs of growth over time including display, video, and mobile.

Despite his optimism, it’s not all good news for Google. Anmuth has search at 55 percent of Internet ad spending this year, Display at 33 percent, lead gen/email at 7 percent, and classifieds at 5 percent. But next year, he has search losing three points of market share to the other sectors. Here is his revised ad spending model (click for a larger image):

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It seems that Microsoft’s SLPS, a programming suite for adding licensing and demo functionality to your .NET based software, is closed, adding a whiff of mystery to the down-turn. Could they have taken it out back and shot it?

The service is currently not accepting new orders - at least as of last night - so either there is an upgrade afoot or Microsoft is paring back some of their less popular business units. Companies like Nalperion and CryptKey are obviously ready to step into the vacuum left by Redmond.

I have an email in with Microsoft so we’ll see what they have to say about the shut-down. The official statement:

We appreciate your interest in SLP Services, however we are currently not taking any new orders at this time. Current customers will continue to have access to the service and support for the SLP Services product through our SLPSInfo@microsoft.com email alias and our MSDN site.

and from the SLPS forum a gnomic non-answer:

It is true that SLPS is temporarily not taking on any new customers but not sure about anything beyond that. I’ll pass along any news I hear when available.

Hugo D. Malavet

SLPS Support Program Manager

Excell Data for Microsoft Corporation

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I looked at the blog post and then I looked at the date. No, it’s not April Fools and yes Google did just release a new product, created by Jon Perlow, called Mail Goggles. The new feature, which is a play on the term Beer Goggles (which refers to being so drunk that unattractive people look attractive) has the goal of helping you unsend those crazy drunken emails that sometimes go out late at night and on weekends.

If enabled, Gmail asks to you to complete a few “simple” math problems in a limited period of time before the email goes out.

There are two problems with the product. First, I hate math. Second, if I want to send a drunken email, and all that’s standing between me and success are a few math problems, I’m gonna go find that calculator.

I send messages I shouldn’t send. Like the time I told that girl I had a crush on her over text message. Or the time I sent that late night email to my ex-girlfriend that we should get back together. Gmail can’t always prevent you from sending messages you might later regret, but today we’re launching a new Labs feature I wrote called Mail Goggles which may help.

When you enable Mail Goggles, it will check that you’re really sure you want to send that late night Friday email. And what better way to check than by making you solve a few simple math problems after you click send to verify you’re in the right state of mind?

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MyPunchBowl, an eVite competitor that opened its doors early last year, has launched a ‘2.0′ version of its site that features a revamped interface and a very impressive custom E-card creator.

MyPunchBowl CEO Matt Douglas says that his team has integrated improvements throughout the site for the new release, including an enhanced address book, the ability to send test invites (to make sure they appear correctly in mail clients), and various UI changes. And while these features are welcome additions to the site, the site’s most significant release is easily its E-card Design Studio.

Douglas, who worked at Adobe for years, says that his team has created a card designer that is similar in many ways to Adobe’s Photoshop. While the designer has a very intuitive and simple interface, it allows users to manipulate layer opacity, color, and texture with very little effort. Users are offered a library of pre-made cards as well as some basic templates, all of which can be customized to include user-defined text, fonts, and colors. While many users will simply choose one of the pre-fabricated cards, the flexibility afforded by the designer will definitely appeal to a large portion of MyPunchBowl’s userbase.

Of course, these cards will only appear in Email form for now, but Douglas says that the company is in talks with major printers. While there a many other places to get custom cards printed, the ability to send both electronic and traditional invites (especially ones that look so nice) could give MyPunchBowl a leg up on its many competitors.

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A recent update to the net-connected Chumby device adds Pandora Radio as an option under the Music menu. Check out the above video for a quick demonstration of everything. It’s pretty straightforward – you’ll need to reboot your Chumby to get it to show up initially but once that’s done, you’ll find the Pandora option amongst the other available music sources.

Then, simply enter your Pandora username and password and you’ll have access to your stations. You can create new stations straight from your Chumby device and they’ll show up on Pandora.com as well.

appssavvy, a company that aims to help pair developers on social media platforms with advertisers and brands, has closed a $3.1 million Series A funding round led by TRUE Ventures. Also joining the round is About.com founder Scott Kurnit.

appssavvy reports that it has worked with 100 developers on the Facebook platform who account for 500 applications, as well as developers working on OpenSocial, Bebo, and a number of other social networks. Because there are so many developers and applications available across these social networks, it can be hard for advertisers to find an appropriate match for their brands. appssavvy acts as a middleman between these developers and major corporations like Fox and Adidas, giving developers ad revenue and offering brands targeted advertising.

appssavvy has a number of competitors, including SocialMedia, Lookery, and Cubics.

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Netvibes, the site that lets users customize their homepages with a variety of widgets, has partnered with Rambler.ru to bring its widgets to the massive Russian web portal. Rambler is the Yahoo of Russia, with an estimated 40 million users and 3 billion monthly pageviews. The deal is being described as “multi-year” and worth “multi-millions”, but further details haven’t been disclosed. Netvibes availability on Rambler.ru is expected to begin in November.

This marks the first time Netvibes has licensed its platform for installation and distribution to an independent third party, and probably won’t be the last. In order to stay competitive with other widget hubs like iGoogle, Netvibes would do well to spur its growth by offering its widgets to other region-specific portals (that said, Netvibes has been doing well, with a reported 500 billion widgets served montly). According to the press release, the Rambler homepage will include Google Search, Blinx video search, and a number of Russian services like Price.ru.

In July Google acquired Begun, a contextual ad service, from parent company Rambler. As part of the $140 million deal, Rambler has been using Google for some of its advertising and search functions.

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Sugar Inc, the company behind a network of popular women-focused blogs that includes PopSugar, is announcing two major releases tonight that take advantage of its fashion-hungry userbase. The first, dubbed PopSugar’s CelebStyle, is positioning itself as an IMDB for style, analyzing outfits from many of television’s most popular shows. Sugar Inc is also announcing a new ShopStyle API, which gives developers access to the site’s massive database of clothing and accessories which can be used in any variety of applications. Here’s a breakdown of both announcements:

ShopStyle API
ShopStyle, which Sugar aqcuired a year ago, is a search engine for fashion. The site indexes clothing and accessories across thousands of brands and stores, presenting them to users in a uniformly formatted grid of thumbnails, prices, and descriptions.

Sugar had previously made this data available to partner sites like In Style and People, and is now opening it up to developers. CEO Brian Sugar says that apps using the API could easily be deployed across a variety of platforms, including webpages (like SaleHabit, which Sugar developed in a weekend), Facebook, and the iPhone.

In thirty days, the platform will also allow developers to convert clicks from the fashion items they’ve displayed into cash. Sugar says the revenue split will vary by app, and will be determined by the success rate of the app’s lead generation.

Fashion may not be most developers’ cup of tea, but the market for this kind of application is huge - expect to see a variety of fashion-based iPhone and web applications hit the market in the next few months.

PopSugar’s CelebStyle

PopSugar’s CelebStyle will allow users to see exactly what their favorite stars have been wearing on some of the most popular shows on TV. The site is edited by a number of Sugar employees, who will pick some of the most prominent outfits from these shows and offer links to each accessory and piece of clothing. To build and help populate the site, Sugar is leveraging the technology and partnerships behind StarStyle, which it acquired in May. Through some of these partnerships (and PR representatives), Sugar editors will have access to lists detailing exactly what the stars were wearing, so users will be assured that the items presented are authentic.

Visitors to CelebStyle will also be able to craft their own outfits using Sugar’s database of clothing, which can be added as comments beneath any article. For instance, users could put together an outfit closely mirroring a fancy get-up shown in the latest episode of Gossip Girl, but with clothes that were only a fraction of the cost.

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There doesn’t appear to have been an official announcement, but Twitter has begun soliciting spam reports to a “spam” user account via direct messages.

Are you a victim of Twitter spam? Just begin following @spam and send it a direct message with the username of your spammer. As the following email autoresponse to spam reporters instructs, you can send these direct messages from your mobile phone or opt for a public tweet as well:

Howdy!

Thanks for reporting spam- we’re working really hard on getting rid of it! Did you know: you can now easily report spam directly from your Twitter account? Visit:

http://twitter.com/spam

and follow the account. You can then send:

* a direct message to @spam: @moneybagsnow is a spammer!
* a direct message from your phone using d+ username + message: d spam @carmoney, @cashnow is spam!
* a reply to @spam like so: @spam this is a spam account: @bigmoney5

and we’ll take care of it. You can send as many spam user names as will fit in one direct message or @reply as long as they are designated like this: @crystal.

Note: it’s better to send a direct message over an @reply. Direct messaging keeps @replies reporting spam out of your followers’ time lines. Sending direct messages also keeps the spam account’s user name out of all search results. Because the message is private, you prevent them from benefitting from publicity. Thanks again for helping us track down spammers!

Twitter Support Team

So far 213 members have begun following @spam, which oddly has decided to follow 179 members itself. It will have to gain a much larger following to make a dent in Twitter’s spam problem. The Twitter Blacklist, a website that tracked all banned Twitter accounts before its owner lost faith in the service, lists 561 blacklisted users as of July 12th.

Read more about Twitter’s spam efforts here.

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Tomorrow Mozilla will launch a new geotagging project called Geode into Mozilla Labs that promises to leverage your physical location to enhance your overall browsing experience. More details will be provided in an official post tomorrow, but this is what we know already:

Geode is a Firefox add-on that understands location, enabling enriched, personalized, and localized content.

For example with Geode, a user who is looking for restaurants while they are out of town will be able load up their favorite review site and find suggestions a couple blocks away and plot directions there.

Geode joins the recently announced Labs projects Ubiquity and Snowl. We’ll post more details as soon as we get them.

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As Research in Motion prepares to open its Blackberry Application Center to answer the iPhone’s App Store, an unaffiliated startup called the BerryStore has already launched a competing app store for Blackberry Apps. What makes it better than the official BlackBerry App Center (besides the name), is that apps in the BerryStore work across both old and new BlackBerries alike (not just the upcoming BlackBerry Storm), and across carriers. The BlackBerry App center, in contrast, is designed to be a carrier-specific store, with different apps for different carriers.