If a post on Facebook’s developer blog is accurate, you have less than a week to make your call for no change. That’s right, no change. a group of members have coalesced behind a petition, massing together “Against the ‘New Facebook’” to send Zuckerberg and the rest of them out in Palo Alto a message: “We’re not saying get rid of the new layout, just that they should keep the old one and let us choose which layout we want like skins. Color options would be good too.”

As Compete’s trendspotters made known this past week, many Facebook users have switched over to the “new” Facebook, also called “beta,” only to revert back to the old way. Yet, the company is choosing to switch the network over by default in a matter of days, not months, as I myself envisioned it would. If you’re not fond of the idea of a site-wide shift, join the gentle opposition. Their goal at present is to reach 1 million registrants. As of 7:50 PM ET Saturday, they collectively number 424k-strong. The count has been 11 days in the making. Thousands enter the fold by the hour. All to invoke no change, but rather, a choice. Where do you fall? (Note: We made mention of a parallel movement yesterday, less than half the size, with nearly the same title. It happens.)

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As we noted late last month, Google affixed its name to the GeoEye Inc’s GeoEye-1 satellite, in order that the Web giant get dibs on some high-resolution imagery produced of our little planet in orbit. Well, today marked the blastoff sequence, followed by a successful launch.

According to the AP, it started fighting gravity at 11:50 AM today from vertical stasis at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Video posted to the GeoEye website marks the occasion.

GeoEye isn’t just a rudimentary upgrade to satellite photography of typical Google Maps-like order. It’s designers regard it as having “the highest resolution of any commercial imaging system,” with the capability to show detail within one square foot or so. And of course, Google isn’t the exclusive name to share space on the cylinder of GeoEye-1. Boeing Launch Services provided the rocket, and its purpose will be “environmental matting to agriculture and defense.” Nonetheless, Google will reap fruits of the digicam’s labor. The data begins to flow in 45-60 days’ time, said Google’s Kate Hurowitz in late August.

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So a whole lot of people thought Microsoft’s Silverlight technology warranted an install to watch the summer games in Beijing at NBCOlympics.com. And another big crowd felt different, thinking, among other things, that the use of Adobe Flash would naturally suit them just as well.

Following the main events in China (the Paralympics opened today), the limit of Microsoft’s exclusivity deal with NBC was made clear this past week when NBC broadcast live coverage of the NFL’s opening game between the New York Giants and the Washington Redskins in celebratory preparation to do the very same for games occurring every Sunday night for duration of the next 17 weeks - and all in Flash. NFL.com, too, displayed Thursday’s game and will routinely cover Sunday matches here on in.

The no-show-Silverlight talk doesn’t end there. Suzanne Tindal of CNET’s Webware quoted Microsoft senior program manager by the name of Scott Hanselman as having said at the company’s own Tech.Ed conference that “we’re going to see a 100- to 1,000-fold speed increase in JavaScript as Google and the guys at Mozilla…kick us in the arse.” Furthermore, Jonas Follesø of Cap Gemini, an IT and business consultancy, commented that JavaScript will pose a serious challenge to Silverlight - more so than Flash has thus far.

An interesting position for Silverlight to find itself in, for sure. As it is basically known, Silverlight is a platform for developing rich Internet applications. More so with the 2.0 beta than with versions to come before, given its support for .NET and so forth. Therefore, juxtapositions with both Flash and JavaScript are rightfully made. Which means that if Silverlight is to have any chance at the kind of ubiquity shown by its more common competitors, it needs to do far more than solidify video delivery partnerships with the likes of NBC. It must inhabit a vast supply of Web applications of all types. Which, to speak reasonably here, isn’t so inevitable. Years of assimilation among Web users needs to happen to achieve an all-around permanence. Flash and JavaScript developers know this. Unfortunately for Microsoft, those forces didn’t have monsters of such dimensions to spar with.

It’s not an impossibility for Silverlight to grow, mind you. Given the right level of attention to the platform, Microsoft could mark its Olympic foray as only the first big starter in the long slog toward mass adoption. But “could” is the key word. The hill climbs (yes, climbs plural) will be trying. One, as I noted above, is to convince the public of its validity and utility in the presence of two semi-household names. There’s a toughie.

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Rhonda from MySpace says the network has had a spam infestation in its application profiles. So much so that it shut down the forum display. Complaints were coming in like crazy. Now users interested in “more exciting forums” are advised to carry on their conversations elsewhere for the time being. Free bulletins are suggested. How’s that suit you?

At the risk of making an irate user base even more angry and loud, perhaps this is the only way to really put the spoilers in a chokehold. Though as Nick O’Neill of Social Times writes, “it shows that MySpace doesn’t have…control over (its) spam situation,” which only puts the site in negative light it’s spent quite some time working to emerge from. Facebook, meanwhile, has instituted a spam reporting system that’s considered to be at least partially effective, if not fully.

So, how should should one look at this outcome? Glass half-full, or half-empty? The first category is where I fall. Better to have nothing than lots of nothing, I think. How about you?

How does the closure of MySpace App forums sit with you?
( polls)

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Next week, DEMOfall 08 hits San Diego, California for 3 days, and a total of 72 companies will, according to Chris Shipley, Mary A. C. Fallon, and the rest at DEMO setting the stage, “launch disruptive innovations.” The span of companies is as wide-reaching in design as they are in global placement. Shipley & Co are promising to showcase everything from battling spam (effectively); a game development utility for the masses, sharing and selling photographs, and lots else. And they’ve gone ahead and offered up an early look at the names slated to pitch their product or service to the crowd. And a big tease this list is. Here are some Web-centric highlights that we’ll be keeping an eye on.

Alerts, Bellevue WA - Information, delivered. News, weather, notes, etc.
Telnic, London, England - Store, update, publish contact information.
Awind, Junghe, Taiwan - Your digital home, plus WiMax.
beeTV, Milano, Italy - Personalized video.
ffwd.com, San Francisco, CA - “Your personal remote control for video on the Web.”
Invision TV, Bethesda, MD - An “Internet video guide.”
RemoTV, New Haven, CT - Stream media to any Internet-connected device.
Blue Lava, Honolulu, HI - Immerse yourself in your photography.
Kadoo, Washington, DC - Share files, etc. with specific people.
MeDeploy, Hamden, CT - Distribute media in lots of places. Quickly. Easily.
MixMatchMusic, Burlingame, CA - Connect with musicians.
Photrade, Cincinnati, OH - Sort of iStockPhoto-like. Name has received mention on Mashable.
Echonest, Somerville, MA - Music recommendation through APIs.
Paragent, Muncie, IN - Remote desktop management.
Accordia Group, New Rochelle, NY - Business relationship management.
Arsenal Interactive/HeyCosmo, Mountain View, CA - Social “unification.”
Familybuilder, New York, NY - Build a family tree within a social network. (I.e., Facebook, Bebo.)
TravelMuse, Los Altos, CA - We’ve covered this startup before. We loved.
Zazengo, Santa Cruz, CA - Social activism networking. We previously highlighted one network build on Zazengo, called MalariaEngage.
GreenSherpa, Santa Barbara, CA - Personal cash flow management.
Rudder, Inc, Houston, TX - Financial analysis in your inbox.
Momindum, Paris, France - mash documents with video presentations.
Qtask, Burbank, CA - All manner of project collaboration.
iWidgets, San Francisco, CA - Social marketing.
Semanti Corp, Alberta, Canada - Semantic Web cataloguing.
SkyData, San Mateo, CA - LinkedIn, Facebook, Outook, Google, Salesforce, SugarCRM, NetSuite in one.
WebDiet, Henderson, NV - Eat healthy, be healthy, wherever you are.
CrowdSpring, Chicago, IL - Crowdsource ideas. We covered these guys back in March.
Sim Ops, San Francisco, CA - easily build your own games.

Disclosure: Mashable is a sponsor of DEMOfall 08

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This is a fairly important question to consider, I think. The gaming industry clocks in billions of dollars in revenue each year, a good portion of which is devoted to mobile sales. Yet if mobile Web use is going to continue climb at the solid clip, and mobile phones are to be smart and powerful enough to conquer interactive entertainment, is there room for platforms devoted primarily to gaming?

While Sony’s PSP hasn’t seen itself become a phenom of the mobile gaming space, the Nintendo DS is an item which has often been touted as something of a marvel; nearly as cool as the Wii when it first arrived. Nintendo has consistently sold millions for several quarters. And the company will undoubtedly sell more. But just how much more? And if/when momentum slows to a trickle, then a crawl, and then stops, what comes after? Does Nintendo move into software exclusively, bringing Mario, et al. to the iPhone, Android devices, Nokia handhelds, and other systems?

What triggered my interest in this subject isn’t gaming itself. The most I would consider myself is a very occasional gamer. Once in a while a little Sudoku, some Tetris, some chess. Also, I’ve recently been draw to the “Cannon Challenge” [iTunes URL] game freely issued by Discovery for iPhone/iPod touch users. Otherwise my free moments are devoted to other pursuits. No, gaming isn’t really the focus here. Rather, it is the way in which mobile platforms themselves are evolving that is the basis for this comment. They are evolving to the point that Nintendo’s handhelds, and those of its competitor(s), will be no more. Why? Internet connectivity. More precisely, always-on Internet connectivity.

It’s been said constantly for over a year now by various persons well-known and not so well-known: the iPhone is a great gaming platform. Leo Laporte of TWiT, The Tech Guy, and The Lab fame, says so. Regularly. The co-hosts of “Diggnation” offer similar praise for the thing. I’ll say so, too. And by categorial association, I would say a number of other smartphones are similarly equipped to provide gameplay that’s visually impressive and entertaining as well. Indeed, because of computing power alone, it might be argued that the likes of Nintendo won’t be able to extend its legacy in a tangible sense for many more years.

Yes, it’s important to emphasize this new and very big nail in the coffin of convention. It’s a point that has been echoed with increased volume in recent months. The ever-present mobile Web. If game developers take up the task of engineering titles to connect players with one another without limit to place or time - or, reversely, dependent on place and time - the sort of gaming that comes with the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP in their current Wi-Fi-enabled form, is going to quickly become outdated.

Of course, Sony has a convenient bridge to the next era of mobile gaming in its partnership with Ericsson in the mobile phone world. That is something Sony should address, and sooner rather than later. But Nintendo, interestingly enough, doesn’t have that option. Not yet, at least. And rather than establish exclusives with one handset maker or another, it may well be better off investing little to naught in hardware and focus instead on publishing titles compatible with the modern smartphone platforms of today.

Not too long ago a report released by comScore noted that US mobile subscribers’ had essentially balanced pan-Atlantic rate of 3G adoption with residents of Europe, after years of lagging behind. If comScore’s numbers are anything accurate, they only add weight to the line that mobile phone gaming is the logical extension to come from the market. The next cash cow. Naturally, this requires that consumers take to the all-in-one approach to mobile communications, which they’ve been slow to do. But the advent of Nokia’s newest N-Series devices as well as those from Apple and Samsung, etc., have done much to whet the consumer palate. So much so that a migration is simply inevitable.

To be sure, this is a good thing. Change rarely does good things for nostalgia, but it enables progress to continue on. The sheer volume of possible applications of GPS- and 3G- and 4G-infused networking, let alone gameplay, piques the interest of millions of people. Privacy is of course an ever-present concern. But gamers have made plain their desire to take the multiplayer experience as far as it can allow. That has been the case with Xbox Live fans, PC-based MMORPG devotees, and it will also be true for mobile gamers, too. Heck, the possibilities given via the Nintendo DS specifically have intrigued a global supply of users. So gaming over wireless cellular telephony spectrum is really just upping the ante. It is very much within reach.

Now, there is a limit to what you can do given that sort of infrastructure and personal componentry. A small screen can only provide so much opportunity to developers. But the social aspect is where things go big. It’s more a matter of developers’ thinking anew about the handheld world, and seeing what they’ve already constructed in the realm of iPhone and Android, they presumably won’t be short for ingenuity for many years to come.

Which brings us back to the future that Nintendo - and to lesser extent, Sony - will encounter and be forced to navigate. Mobile gaming is critical to its business, regardless of its clear success with the Wii. Will we see Mario soon emerge on the N96, a BlackBerry’s touchscreen, the iPhone, and a Sony Ericsson Walkman of some sort? I’ll venture to say yes. Somewhat soon, anyway. It’s only sensible that they make it happen. If only because it has become increasingly evident that smartphones themselves are now being designed to be the next generation of all-purpose playgrounds, and Nintendo could well make a fortune introducing itself and its trademark craftwork to the wider world of pocket computers and the cloud they inhabit.

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Mefeedia, a Web video search startup with a claimed source list 15,000 strong, announced the addition of six more this week. They’re some pretty high profile ones, too. Revision3, Next New Networks, 60 Frames, On Networks, and Hulu and ABC.

Granted, the viewing experience delivered by each publisher individually is generally a more pleasant one. And ABC-based video, as you might expect, cannot be viewed through Mefeedia directly. The network has had an near-exclusive hold on its Web-based content for a number of years, so far only allowing syndication with the likes of Veoh, an official partner since late June. However, on the whole, the convenience of Mefeedia, more palpable than ever, is really something to note.

Naturally a search base of 15,000 sites and sources is absolutely immense, and gives Mefeedia something to trumpet in its sector of the market. But what sort of experience such depth provides is what in the end gives Mefeedia some real-world purpose. It’s not only how much a user’s search delivers, but what is presented on request. And that is what makes the service’s latest enhancements important. They help to further the relevance of Mefeedia. The breadth of premium content in the space is growing in great strides, and Mefeedia must at once make sense of user-generated material as items from professional producers large and small.

Of course it’s far from complete in its effort to grasp the field, though if it plays its role correctly, it’ll always have room to expand. What’s more, another slight negative is that its presentation of content is not so current all the time. For instance, you couldn’t catch the latest episode of a Web-only show like Revision3’s “Diggnation” at this very moment. But this challenge is something that has afflicted a number of Web video sites before. And seeing as how Mefeedia plays the part of a search utility, it’s further removed than places closer to the market’s “ground level,” which poses one more collective hurdle to continuously leap past. Still, it presses on.

And on the technical end, it seems to be doing quite well. Video quality can be quite high, if sourced appropriately. That’s why, as was the case in spring, I think Mefeedia is a name to keep an eye on. Rich with RSS and richer yet with things to see, its value is evident. And it is likely only going to increase as it gives viewers more reasons to stay longer with these new names added to the roll.

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Chances are if you’re reading this, it’s probably a little late to watch the action unfold live, but if you are in fact up at the wee hours of the morning this Saturday, you could be in for a treat. By treat, I mean finding embarrassing and possibly titilating videos favorited by your contacts on FriendFeed.

Paul Bucheit, one of the founders of FriendFeed, logged on at about 1 AM to fire off the following missive:

Vimeo changed the ids and urls used in their feeds, so all vimeo content is now showing up a second time. For unrelated reasons, some old YouTube videos are now being picked up as well (but these are not dups). The good news is that they are all very entertaining

It seemed innocuous at first, but then a few folks who had apparently over a year ago favorited some fairly pornographic videos had their predilictions in pr0n exposed to everyone on their list.

I’m intentionally not linking to these threads on FriendFeed because as it turns out at least one of these folks hold fairly high profile positions, and had already gone to sleep once these videos started showing up on FriendFeed. Because of the way FriendFeed works, people began commenting and “liking” the pornographic items, and then the potentially damaging favorites spread much further beyond those in their immediate list.

It uncovers a brand new type of public relations danger for those that lifestream - everything that is old can be new again, thanks to the glitchy wonders of automation. More importantly, a failure to scrub every possible damaging favorite, like, comment or post from a publicly available feed has the potential to end your career.

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So, Microsoft ex-CEO and incredibly rich philanthropist Bill Gates got together with Seinfeld and made a commercial. Now if you haven’t seen it yet I won’t hold it against you but it definitely has been one of the more talked about subjects in the tech blogosphere since its debut.

Not surprisingly just about everyone who has commented on it thinks it is either stupid or it just made no sense at all. Mind you a lot of these people commenting all over the place are the firsts ones to offer up how they think Microsoft should combat the rising tide of Apple and that advice doesn’t include Jerry Seinfeld.

I finally took some time today to watch the video which is on more tech blogs that you can shake a stick at and all I can say is I thought it was a great ad. Sure the beginning of the ad is kind of a head shaker so I can kind of understand why people may have fallen asleep after the first ten seconds and missed the rest of it.

However it was the beginning of the ad that was important it was as Loren Feldman said the last part of the ad that was the important part. While I may not agree with Loren on his sage advertising advice for Microsoft I definitely agree with him on that part.

Another interesting evaluation of the ad comes from Chris Baskind who suggests it wasn’t a matter of selling anything or trying to woe over the Mac users. It was a matter of trying to set the brand identification.

The campaign debut isn’t about selling Windows, trying to out-irony Apple, or reversing the fact that Microsoft’s strongest current marketing image is the strangely lovable PC Guy in those Mac spots . It has one purpose: to brand Jerry Seinfeld as the new face of Microsoft.

Like Chris I agree that in this case Microsoft could feel satisfied that the mission was accomplished. That said I want to also address the points that are being raised in the tech blogosphere about not wooing over the Mac users or that they weren’t selling anything in the ad.

First off let’s look at where this ad was playing - the tech blogosphere. This very minor and small part of the Internet is populated primarily by Apple fans and Microsoft isn’t stupid enough to believe that there is any chance of converting them. Chances are that even in the wider world there would be very little chance of converting Mac users back to using Windows.

That isn’t the objective here, no matter how much the people in the tech blogosphere might have wanted Microsoft to embarrass itself by going head to head with the Apple cool machine. They would have lost and potentially hurt themselves even more PR wise.

Instead they are trying to go the route of resetting the popular perception of Microsoft. Windows will come later but first they have to get the point across that the Microsoft of this generation is not the Microsoft that just about all of us have grown up with. Tie that in with the face of a comedian who is still popular with people in the real world and it is a plan that could work.

Besides, do you think that people are going to easily forget the image of Bill Gates doing that ass wiggle across the parking lot at the end of the commercial? I don’t think so.

Owning a car can give you a great sense of freedom… then you have to figure out where to park it! More and more tools are popping up on the Web to help you locate both long and short term parking. Here are 15 services that cover everything from free spots to event parking, long term parking, and more.

Do you use the Web to find parking? If so, tell us about your experiences in the comments.

AboutAirportParking.com - Has listings for over 400 parking lots near over 100 international airports.  Can add optional services like valet, car wash, mechanics and more.  You can read more about this site in our Startup Review.

BestParking.com - Allows you to compare parking rates of various garages in Boston, New York City, Philadelphia and Washington D.C.  Also offers a mobile version.

ParkingAnytime.com - Locate garages, lots, free parking and more for a given area.  Limited to Chicago, IL during their beta phase.

ParkingCarma.com - See real-time data of available parking spaces.  If you register, you can reserve parking spaces in advance.  Serves multiple US cities.

PrimoSpot.com - Gives you information on parking conditions in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and will show you the actual parking rules for a specific space.  The service plans to include more cities. You can read more about PrimoSpot here on Mashable.

Streetlinenetworks.com - Not operational yet, Streetline is putting monitors in 24,000 San Francisco metered parking spots so people will know where spots are available.  Read a summary of Streetline’s services here on Mashable.

CraigsList.org - As with just about anything else you can sell or rent, CraigsList has numerous listings for parking spaces.

ParkAtMyHouse.com - Specializes in renting out parking spaces around sporting venues, airports or just about anywhere.  Available in Australia, Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the UK and the USA.

ParkingHunter.com - Lists available spaces to rent in cities such as Chicago, New York City, San Francisco, Vancouver and more.

ParkLet.co.uk - Offers listings of thousands of parking spaces available for rent all over the United Kingdom.

ParkingSpotter.com - Helps you locate parking spots for major events, airports or everyday use.

Parkingspots.com - Parking spot rental connections for those who own them, and those who need them, in the USA and Canada.  You can find a more detailed review of Parkingspots here.

ParkWhiz.com - Offers parking options around airports, sports arenas, daily & monthly parking and some more tools for those who need a place to park.

SpotScout.com - Parking garages list their inventory and then you can look them up on the Web or your mobile device.

YourParkingSpace.co.uk - A site to help connect people with spare parking spaces in the UK with those who are looking for them.

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Editor’s Note: This post is part of an ongoing series at Mashable - The Startup Review, Sponsored by Sun Microsystems Startup Essentials. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

STARTUP DETAILS:

Company Name: toksta

20-word Description:  toksta brings IM and chat (text, voice, video) to social networks and websites. 100% free, hosting included + worldwide revenue share.

CEO’s 100 word description: toksta brings real time communication to your social network or website by providing free (or white label), hosted IM and chat solutions featuring text, voice and video chat. Our goal is to prevent users from leaving your community to chat via external applications like Skype, MSN or ICQ. Add a cool new feature for your users within minutes and benefit from our worldwide revenue or ad view share. All solutions are design customizable with a facebook-like chat bar and deeply integrated with your community (friends list, ignores, profile pictures etc.).

Mashable’s Take: There are many ways to add communication tools to your site these days such as instant messaging with a Meebo widget or an audio/video message forum via UserPlane. toksta is offering a fully customizable real-time text, audio and video chat system for your website. You can add your own logo, change colors, fonts and the background image.  

The toksta IM runs directly in the Web browser and users can chat via their own profile no matter what other IM service or social networking site they are connected to at the time.  Best of all, no installations or additional logins are necessary which is a big plus for your website visitors.

What’s the catch? toksta can offer all this for free because it is financed by advertising, but the ads are not as huge or as pervasive as with other ad-supported services. As a matter of fact, the ads are only displayed during what they call waiting time as things load on the screen. toksta also offers a Revenue Sharing program that will allow site owners to share some of the earnings. They do offer a white label service that will allow you to remove all ads or even add your own advertisements. 

From all first impressions, toksta seems to be worth a look if you’re considering adding a live communications platform to your site and don’t mind intermittent advertisements. It’s easy to install and the price is right.

Sponsored by Sun Startup Essentials

Despite statistics indicating that many users who migrate over to the new Facebook design are reverting back to the old, all signs point to the imminent launch of redesign. Yesterday, the company wrote on its developer blog that “over 30 million people have checked out the new profile, and many are using it as their profile full time. We’re nearing the time where we’ll switch over remaining users by default. We expect most of this to take place over the next week.”

Meanwhile, today users of the old Facebook are seeing the following message, indicating the switch over is near:

Previously, the only indication of the new Facebook (outside of the endless blog posts of course) to users still on the old version was the bar at the top giving them an opportunity to try it out. So far, about 35% of users haven’t been to the new Facebook at all, according to the Compete stats released earlier this week.

Clearly, Facebook is now doing everything they can to make sure all users know that change is afoot, in hopes of avoiding another user revolt like that they saw with the launch of News Feed and Beacon. Will it work? The group “people against the new Facebook” has more than 70,000 members, and our comments in posts about the redesign have been decidedly mixed.

Redesigns have caused chaos with the masses since the days of AOL 2.0, so you can almost guarantee plenty of angst when Facebook flips the switch. But at least the company has done a much better job of communicating its changes this time around. We’ll be watching closely when the new design goes live next week.

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