There was lots of activity in the digital lifestyle space in 2008, with new devices, services, and platforms being launched and some of our favorites from last year getting significant updates. One notable trend throughout the year was the way these products and services began to converge; not in the sense that they were becoming all-in-one devices, although some of that was happening, but rather by hardware, services, and content playing together nicely, often through open standards and platforms, with the Internet acting as a conduit. On that note, here are our picks of the 10 best digital lifestyle products of 2008.

This is the eighth in our series of top products of 2008:

• Top 10 Semantic Web Products of 2008
• Top 10 International Products of 2008
• Top 10 Consumer Web Apps of 2008
• Top 10 RSS and Syndication Products of 2008
• Top 10 Mobile Web Products of 2008
• Top 10 Enterprise Web Products of 2008
• Top 10 Real World Web Apps of 2008

1. The App Store

The real upgrade to the iPhone this year wasn't the iPhone 3G but the accompanying App Store. Launched just five months ago, the store now offers over 10,000 third-party apps, and Apple has seen over 300 million downloads. Part of that success can be attributed to the way in which the iPhone as a platform has galvanized developers; a second major factor is the simplicity of the App Store itself. As a result, lots of our other favorite digital lifestyle-related products and services wound up on the iPhone and iPod Touch, such as Pandora and Last.fm (digital music), Joost (Internet TV), Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter (social web), as well as location-based services, games, remotes (VLC Player and Sonos), and much, much more.

See also: The real surprise of the App Store isn't number of downloads or revenue

2. Netflix

When Netflix starting talking up plans to deliver its online streaming service, Watch Instantly, to "Internet-connected high-definition DVD players, Internet-connected game consoles, and dedicated Internet set-top boxes," we were a little skeptical, especially of the time frame. However, the company really delivered in 2008: Netflix streaming is now available on TiVo, the XBox 360, Internet-connected DVD players from LG and Samsung, along with the Roku Netflix Player set-top box.

3. Android

Our initial review of the first Google phone, T-Mobile's G1, was mixed, but the Android OS had us pretty excited. "Without a doubt, the Android operating system is spectacular," last100's Daniel Langendorf wrote at the time. "It's fast, with little or no lag time. It's responsive, fun to use, and full of promise." A few months on and we're still impressed. In particular, Android's mobile web browser is the best post-iPhone one yet. And likewise, the Android Market does a great job of copying the iPhone's App Store. Of course, the best thing about Android is that it's open source; as a result, we'll see it powering numerous new smartphones next year, along with other hardware, such as set-top boxes, MIDs, and GPS devices.

4. Nokia E71

In our extensive review, we described Nokia's E71 as our favorite smartphone yet. So, admittedly, this one is a very personal choice. The E71 is roughly the same size as the iPhone but has a completely different form-factor, omitting touch for a more traditional user interface and with enough room to pack in a compact but very usable QWERTY keyboard. Other pluses are the device's overall responsiveness, bundled applications, and a number of welcome improvements to the S60 line's user interface, along with decent web browsing and media playback, superb call quality, and extremely good battery life.

5. Hulu

Although online video site Hulu was available in private beta in 2007, it didn't launch publicly until March of this year. Our initial verdict was mixed, but since then the Fox and NBC joint venture has become the third biggest video destination in the U.S., according to Nielsen. Perhaps a testament to that success, a number of device makers have released set-top boxes marketed on their ability to put Hulu content on the TV, such as ZeeVee's recently announced PC-to-TV solution, the ZvBox, and the Neuros LINK. Now, if only Hulu would release an iPhone app or, like Netflix, form official partnerships with consumer electronics companies.

6. BBC iPlayer

Hulu could certainly learn a thing or two from the iPlayer, the BBC's TV catch-up service (UK only). Since its controversial Windows launch, when the public broadcaster was accused of getting too close to Microsoft, the iPlayer has added streaming for the Mac and Linux, a version for the iPhone and iPod Touch, numerous other portable media players, and support for the latest phones running Windows Mobile. There's also an iPlayer application for select Nokia phones and a browser-based version optimized for the PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii.

7. PlayStation 3

Sony's PlayStation 3 wasn't launched in 2008, but it certainly came of age this year. The company has always pitched the PS3 as a device that goes far beyond gaming. Instead, like Microsoft's XBox 360, it's designed to be a trojan horse in the living room, delivering a range of non-gaming content and services through the television. On that front, Sony made significant progress in 2008 by winning the next-generation format war with Blu-ray, adding DVR functionality in the UK with PlayTV, launching a video download store in the U.S., adding support for DivX video, and, finally, rolling out its own virtual world called Home.

8. Songbird

After being in development for two years, the open-source desktop music player Songbird reached its 1.0 release this month. What sets Songbird apart from the likes of iTunes is the array of available plug-ins that extend the app's functionality. For example, mashTape, one of six default add-ons, let's you delve into artist info, discography, links, and news and scroll through Flickr photos and YouTube videos. Other add-on services that ship with the player out of the box are Last.fm, Concerts, and SHOUTcast radio. With these installed, you can sync your tracks to Last.fm's online service, check out upcoming concerts in the area, and stream music over the Internet using the player. As of publication, there are over 70 plug-ins available for Songbird.

See also: ReadWriteWeb's full Songbird review.

9. Wii Fit

Nintendo has long contended that "everyone's a gamer," and now the console giant wants everyone to get fit. Announced last year but released in 2008, the Wii Fit aims to improve the health of family members through the kind of active play first seen in Wii Sports. The "game" comes with a balance board that assists with aerobic, toning, and balancing activities. A neat feature is that household members can review each other's progress on a new Wii channel.

10. The Netbook

This isn't an individual product but a whole new product category that has really taken off in 2008. Initially targeted to the education market and those wanting a third machine, netbooks are resonating with a much broader market -- and not just because of their lower price point compared to more traditional, higher spec'ed sub-notebooks. Despite years of industry propaganda, consumers are wising up to the fact that they don't have to step on the processor upgrade treadmill. Instead, in an age when more and more of our applications and data reside in the cloud (on remote servers, rather than local computers), a machine with Internet connectivity and powerful enough to run a modern web browser (a netbook, in other words) is often all we need.

In Android-related coverage, we put the case of why Google should have developed a GPhone of its own, and we also looked at the implications of Android's pending Marketplace for third-party applications. Lastly, on the trends front we examined why the mobile browser maybe more important than any one mobile operating system.

Note: last100 is a media sponsor of GigaOm's Mobilize conference 08, which takes place next week on Sept 18th. ReadWriteWeb and last100 readers qualify for a 10% discount.

Review: HTC Touch Diamond

"It's hard not to look at HTC's new flagship smartphone, the Touch Diamond, through iPhone-tinted glasses. Featuring a touch screen interface that's been designed, on the surface at least, to be operated using a finger rather than a stylus, like Cupertino's own crown jewel, the Touch Diamond is marketed as a device that makes accessing the Web on the go just as easy as making a phone call. It's also HTC's latest attempt to put a consumer face on the business oriented Windows Mobile operating system. No mean feat in itself."

See also: Review: Samsung Tocco SGH-F480

I've jumped on the Netbook bandwagon (MSI Wind U100 / Advent 4211 review)

Steve O'Hear: "Ever since Asus debuted its first Eee PC, I've been fascinated by this new category of mobile device, dubbed the Netbook by chip maker Intel. The form-factor is a notebook but these devices are purposely cut-down in terms of price - the Eee PC 701 sells for under $300 - as well as size and weight, and to some extent features. While designed primarily as a way of accessing the Internet on-the-go, Netbooks don't have any pretensions of putting the Internet in your pocket, and instead look to keep the screen size and keyboard small enough to still be extremely portable, yet large enough to be that bit more productive."

See also: Don't buy a Netbook pleads PC industry

Why Google should have developed its own Gphone

Dan Langendorf: "Whether the Google phone comes out in September, or later this year, or sometime in early 2009, it really doesn't matter. All this bickering over supposed hardware delays, software issues, and hurt developer feelings has me wondering how Google would have fared if it had taken a different path and developed the Gphone on its own."

See also: What's in a name? Google's announces the Android Market, not the Android Store

Mobile browser more important than operating system

ReadWriteWeb and last100 readers qualify for a 10% discount on tickets for next week's Mobilize conference 08 from GigaOm.

There's only one iPhone, and in the smartphone market, one size doesn't fit all.

Case in point: I love a QWERTY thumboard. Although the iPhone's virtual keyboard is the best of its kind, it isn't a real keyboard. And in the words of Duncan Bannatyne from the TV program Dragon's Den, for that reason, and that reason alone. I'm out.

(Left to right: Palm Treo 650, HTC Touch Diamond, Nokia E61, Nokia E71, Samsung Tocco)

The iPhone's camera is nothing to call home about too, and there's no video recording capability either. Enter Nokia's N95 which excels at media production. On the other hand, if you want a real choice of third-party apps, Windows Mobile and now the iPhone is where the action is at.

I'm also noticing a blurring of the lines between so-called smartphones - once the realm of business or power users only - and what are termed 'feature phones', which often focus on either music, video playback, photography or gaming.

Smartphones are getting more consumer friendly, and feature phones are getting smarter. As an example, just yesterday I took loan of a Samsung Tocco. Along with its iPhone-like finger friendly interface, it offers 'smart' features such as email, full web browsing, an RSS reader, calendar etc, along with a generous 5 megapixel camera, the standard music and video playback functionality, and even a basic video editor. The only thing that stops it from being classified as a smart phone in our eyes is the lack of third-party applications aside from Java games (as far as I could tell), and perhaps the omission of Wi-Fi.

In the next few weeks, at last100 we'll publish reviews of Nokia's new 'Blackberry killer' the E71, the Samsung Tocco (mentioned above), and the successor to the N95, Nokia's soon-to-be released N96. We're also trying to source a Blackberry Bold. All very different devices, and proof that one size doesn't fit all.

Now, where's my iPhone nano with a slide out QWERTY thumboard?

This post is syndicated from last100, our digital lifestyle blog covering Internet TV, digital music, Mobile Web and more. You can subscribe to last100 here.

Syndicated from last100, our digital lifestyle blog

While many UPnP server solutions already exist for Windows (it’s a pity Google hasn’t targeted Mac users), Google Media Server does bring a few specific features to the table. Namely support for Internet-based content from its photo sharing service Picasa, along with videos hosted on YouTube (using H.264 not Flash Video). From this we can conclude that Google Media Server is designed to make Google’s desktop search application that bit more useful, as well as offer another means of accessing YouTube on a TV.

Of course, Google Media Server could also be another sign that the company is testing the waters for a much more ambitious living room strategy — see Google wants to do for TV what it did for the Web.

This post is syndicated from last100, our digital lifestyle blog covering Internet TV, digital music, Mobile Web and more. You can subscribe to last100 here.

See also last100's recently published guide: DLNA certified: how your computer, cellphone, games console, media streamer and other devices can play nicely together

Syndicated from last100, our digital lifestyle blog

Android's UI looks to have borrowed just enough from Apple’s iPhone, as well as some of the design Zen of the original Palm OS, to more than satisfy my needs. However, on the one hand Google wants us to believe that Android isn’t a direct response to Apple’s own offering (which, chronologically, may well be true), but at the same time is keen to remind developers that in contrast to the iPhone they won’t need to get Android applications certified by anyone, nor will there be any hidden APIs (application programming interfaces) accessible only to handset makers or mobile operators — another dig at Apple.

What Google is less keen to highlight, however, is how Android’s openness could potentially lead to the platform becoming fragmented, resulting in a mishmash of incompatible flavors or implementations. That’s because, notes The Register, Google plans on open sourcing Android “under a freewheelin’ Apache license” in which carriers and handset makers will be able to make any modifications they like. These could be as innocuous as cosmetic changes to the UI, such as replacing icons with the networks’ own branding, to something more significant like swapping which default applications and services are installed, including the option to remove Google’s own wares and, say, replace them with Yahoo’s or a carrier’s own.

“They can add to it. They can remove from it. They make it their own”, Android project leader Andy Rubin told attendees of last week’s Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco.

However, even if this means that handset makers and carriers can customize and control the ‘out of the box’ configuration of Android-based phones — since the platform is open, users should also have the same freedom to add to it, remove from it, and make it their own, right?

Not necessarily.

In theory there is nothing stopping any Android vendor, regardless of if they are a member of the so-called Open Handset Alliance or not, from locking down portions of the OS, even going as far as removing access to certain APIs. Rubin confirmed as much at the I/O conference, but attempted to reassure developers who are worried that their applications may face compatibility problems, by revealing that Google will provide tools to easily verify the make-up of each Android handset.

“We’re providing a piece of technology - I can’t go into a great amount of detail - that tests the APIs,” quotes The Register. “This will be a script that you’ll be able to run… and determine whether all the APIs are there.”

In other words, users may be faced with the situation of downloading and attempting to install applications on their ‘open handset’ only to be greeted with a message saying that their particular Android phone isn’t compatible.

Also see: Worries over Google phones: What if they're just ordinary?

While this is probably painting a worse-case-scenario, the whole point of Android is that it is supposed to help address the current status quo in which “the mobile platform is unbelievably fragmented”, according to Vic Gundotra, Google’s vice president of engineering. So it’s somewhat surprising that the company would allow such a possibility in the first place.

Or is it?

How else could Google persuade carriers such as T-Mobile, Sprint and Telfornica, along with a host of incumbent handset makers to come on board in the form of the Open Handset Alliance?

Besides, Google is really banking on there being at least one application that the carriers and handset makers leave well alone, regardless of how else they tinker with the OS. And for Google’s purposes that application far exceeds the importance of any other, and offers the best hope of giving developers, including Google themselves, the unified mobile platform they crave.

That application is of course Android’s mobile Web browser, built on the same WebKit source code as Apple’s version of Safari for the iPhone. Nokia also utilizes WebKit in its own browser, albeit one built on older code.

Gundotra has already gone on record saying that the iPhone features “a better mobile browser than anyone had ever delivered before”, and that he expects others to follow Apple’s lead and adopt WebKit-based browsers of their own, helping to eliminate the need for developers to create separate versions of their web applications for each device — or at least if those apps stay in the browser.

All of which makes perfect business sense for the world’s largest Internet ad company.

“Google does reasonably well on the open Internet. We’d like that model to come to mobile phones,” says Gundotra.

Image credit: Android UI AndroidCommunity.com

This post is syndicated from last100, our digital lifestyle blog covering Internet TV, digital music, Mobile Web and more. You can subscribe to last100 here.

Syndicated from last100, our digital lifestyle blog

Even before the publicly available Software Development Kit (SDK) announced in March, Google had partnered with Apple to produce two of the iPhone’s flagship applications: Google Maps and a native YouTube client.

So what can we expect next from Google? While Gundotra didn’t give many clues, he did say that the company is eager to take advantage of native access to Apple’s device.

Google already has iPhone/iPod touch optimized versions of its Web-based apps that run in Apple’s Safari Mobile Web browser — Gmail, Calendar, Reader, and others — so might we see native versions of those sames apps coming to the iPhone?

Top of my list would be a dedicated Gmail client, similar to the Java version that Google already offers for other mobile phones including Blackberries. However, more ambitious would be a mobile client for Google Docs enabling spreadsheets and other text-based documents to be created and edited on the go. Another possibility might be a native client for Google-owned Blogger, along with support for the company’s photo-sharing site Picasa.

At the same time, however, Google remains committed to browser-based mobile apps, with Gundotra giving Apple credit for developing the best Mobile Web browser currently on the market.

“Google has many web-based applications we would like to be available in mobile form, but we have two challenges,” Gundotra said. “The mobile platform is not as technology capable as the desktop. And the mobile platform is unbelievably fragmented.” Gundotra believes that other handset makers will build WebKit-based browsers (the same codebase that Apple uses for Safari Mobile), leading to better industry standards. Both Nokia and Google’s own Android have also adopted WebKit.

Ironically, Google could soon find itself as the iPhone’s largest independent software vendor, while at the same time becoming its biggest competitor through the launch of the company’s own mobile platform. While browser-based versions of Google’s Web applications will run via both Android and the iPhone’s Web browser with little or no modifications (since both use WebKit), native apps for either platform aren’t compatible. In many instances Google may pick and choose which of its services to build native iPhone clients for, and which should remain browser-based or exclusively native for Android devices. As an example, the pre-release version of Google Maps for Android already has features missing from the iPhone version.

This post is syndicated from last100, our digital lifestyle blog covering Internet TV, digital music, Mobile Web and more. You can subscribe to last100 here.

Netflix’s ambitious Internet TV plans are forging ahead, with three new set-top box partners to integrate the company’s ‘Watch Now’ video streaming service into their products by the end of the year. Who those partners are, Neflix won't say, while speculation builds that Microsoft (XBox 360) could be one. However, we think it’s more likely that we’ll see Netflix compatibility added to a number of media streamers, such as those produced by D-Link and KISS (Linksys). The company has previously announced a partnership with Korean manufacturer LG Electronics to stream movies, TV shows, and other content to LG high-definition televisions or set-top boxes by the second half of 2008.

Viacom, Paramount, MGM and Lionsgate announced a joint venture to create a new premium TV channel and VOD service, which will be rolled out in the fall of 2009. The project will include a strong online component, according to Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman: “It will also meet the needs of varying distributors and take advantage of online distribution…innovative both in presenting the content and in distributing it.”

A new report surfaced this week on Sony's forthcoming movie download service for the PlayStation 3. Not much is yet known, except that negotiations with Hollywood studios are taking place — no word on pricing or if the movies and TV shows are for rent or purchase. One tantalizing tidbit, however, is being floated about: “Unlike closed networks such as Apple’s, Sony plans to embrace open standards that would make its offering compatible with a range of computers and hand-held devices, including the PlayStation Portable,” according to the LA Times.

Lastly, Motorola is rumored to be planning movie download service for its mobile devices. This is from a company that reported a $1.2 billion operating loss last year, and is considering splitting off or selling its handset division. Our advice: Worry about getting cool new phones on the market to compete with Nokia, Apple, Samsung, LG, and the highly-anticipated Google-powered Android phones. Otherwise, Motorola has bigger problems than the latest Hollywood releases.

Blockbuster to launch set-top box?

The latest company thought to be readying its own Internet TV set-top box plans is Blockbuster, according to Hollywood Reporter. The new “set-top device for streaming films directly to TV sets” could be announced as early as this month, and would utilize the company’s recent acquisition of online movie service Movielink, giving users access to over 3,000 film titles from major Hollywood studios Paramount, Sony, Universal, Warner Bros. and MGM.

BBC iPlayer lands on Wii - who said Nintendo doesn’t do media center?

A version of the BBC’s iPlayer will be made available on Nintendo’s Wii, announced the UK public broadcaster’s Future Media and Technology chief Erik Huggers during a keynote speech at the MipTV-Milia conference in Cannes. The move marks the first time the iPlayer will be available on a games console, and perhaps surprisingly, not one designed specifically to be a media center. So much for the ‘trojan horse into the living room’ strategies of Sony’s PS3 and Microsoft’s XBox 360.

Babelgum commissions feature-length environmental documentary

Internet TV platform Babelgum has always pitched itself as serving the interests of independent video producers who want to find and connect with niche audiences. By tapping into the Long Tail, the company maintains it’s possible to “find an audience that rivals or exceeds the mainstream TV audience in any local market.” However, Babelgum has now crossed a line, moving away from being purely a content distributor to also commissioning original and exclusive content of its own. Last month, the company announced plans to set up a $10+ million production fund, telling Variety that Babelgum was “transforming into a digital media studio.” The first of those commissions is thought to be a feature-length environmental documentary about the threatened Athabasca Oil Sands region in Alberta, Canada.

Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen says that, with or without Apple's blessing, the company plans to develop a Flash player for the iPhone/iPod touch platform.

During yesterday's earnings call (see SeekingAlpha transcript), Narayen told investors that that Flash was "synonymous with the Internet and frankly, anybody who wants to browse the web and experience the web’s glory really needs Flash support".

Having evaluated the iPhone's official Software Developer Kit, Adobe can "now start to develop the Flash player ourselves", says Narayen. "...we think it benefits our joint customers, so we want to work with Apple to bring that capability to the device."

With new research suggesting that the iPhone has already established itself as the No.1 mobile browser in the U.S., and No.2 in the UK, Narayen would say that.

However, only a week or so ago, Apple CEO Steve Jobs poured cold water on the idea of Flash on the iPhone/iPod touch, saying that the version designed specifically for mobile devices - Flash Lite - wasn't good enough, and that Adobe's more powerful desktop offering runs too slowly on the iPhone. What was needed is a “missing product in the middle”, argued Jobs.

Is Adobe committing itself to building the missing version of Flash that Jobs demands?

Or does Adobe really believe it can go-it-alone?

Without Apple providing the hooks to enable Adobe to tap into the iPhone's Safari web browser, it's hard to see how a Flash plug-in could be implemented. Instead, Adobe might be able to create a work around: some kind of stand-alone Flash Player that opens full screen to play certain content. This would work best for playing Flash video but would be useless for viewing websites that integrate Flash with regular HTML components.

Therefore, presuming that Adobe needs Apple's support - which I think is almost certain - and that users want the kind of experiences that Flash supports, how long can Steve Jobs hold out before agreeing to work with Adobe?

The answer: quite a long time, if not indefinitely.

Firstly, the biggest user of Flash video - YouTube - already offers a non-Flash version of the site designed specifically for the iPhone/iPod touch.

Secondly, rather than utilizing Flash to build "rich" Internet-aware applications (RIAs) for the iPhone/iPod touch, Apple is providing developers with an official SDK that will enable them to build native clients for a range of Internet services (as an example, think of the Google Maps application for the iPhone).

And thirdly, in Safari, Apple has already raised the potential of web-based applications by providing a very capable mobile web browser that supports modern so-called Web 2.0 coding standards. In fact, Adobe's own Rich Internet Application Evangelist, Ryan Stewart, recently described the latest desktop version of Safari (3.1) as Apple's own RIA platform, "complete with video and animation support (and offline storage)." Since Safari mobile is built on top of the same codebase as the desktop version, we can expect to see those same improvements brought to the iPhone/iPod touch very soon.

This post is syndicated from last100, our digital lifestyle blog covering Internet TV, digital music, Mobile Web and more. You can subscribe to last100 here.

It's official: Toshiba, the leading partner in the HD DVD camp, has waved the white flag. The next generation DVD format war is over. Blu-ray wins.

The move to stop production of HD DVD players and recorders was an "agonising decision", according to Toshiba president Atsutoshi Nishida, but one that the company had to take after "judging that there is no way of winning the competition."

Looking back, the tipping point came when Warner Bros. decided to join Sony Pictures Entertainment, MGM, Disney, 20th Century Fox, New Line Cinema and Lionsgate, by defecting to the Blu-ray camp -- resulting in an estimated three quarters of new film releases being available exclusively on Blu-ray.

What followed was to some extent inevitable. Blockbuster, Netflix and Wal-Mart all dropped support for HD DVD, and Best Buy also said it would favor Blu-ray. The old adage, "follow the money", which in this case means content, applies.

"It shows what a highly competitive market it is. When it comes to video, it is the person with the most content that wins," says Gartner analyst Paul O'Donovan (BBC News).

The technical and commercial superiority of each format - HD DVD and Blu-ray - is likely to be debated for years, as is whether the consumer drew the short straw in all of this. But the fact remains that Blu-ray will be the disc format of choice going forward. (I'm feeling a little smug at this point having recently bought a PlayStation 3 with its built-in Blu-ray drive - for once I backed a winner!).

However, a much longer battle lies ahead - HD downloads - leading some to argue that the next-gen DVD format war is irrelevant. In the future consumers won't buy physical media, they'll purchase and download it over the Internet.

True but let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.

High definition downloads from services such as iTunes, XBox Live and Vudu are in their infancy, and the competing standards of HD DVD and Blu-ray pale into insignificance compared with the many formats and DRM schemes that make up digital downloads. Moving to HD downloads also puts a greater strain on broadband speeds, bandwidth and storage. The latter isn't an issue for rentals but for those who like to own their movie collections, be prepared to bulk up on hard drive space.

Of course, the biggest lesson that the burgeoning HD download market can learn from Blu-ray's success, is also its biggest hurdle. Content wins. And this is where every HD download service currently falls short. Until the major studios treat HD downloads on par with physical media in terms of title availability and release windows, consumers will continue to vote with their wallets for DVDs and now Blu-ray.

This post is syndicated from last100, our digital lifestyle blog covering Internet TV, digital music, Mobile Web and more. You can subscribe to last100 here.

Long before Apple’s iPhone, another Silicon Valley-based company pioneered the consumer-friendly smart phone. That company was Danger Inc. best known for its T-mobile branded Sidekick (the Paris Hilton smart phone of choice) and its user friendly mobile OS and Internet applications.

As of today, Danger is no more. Instead, the company is being gobbled up by Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division, responsible for overseeing the Zune, XBox, Windows Mobile and Microsoft TV product lines.

Of note, Danger was founded by Andy Rubin, Google’s recently appointed Director of Mobile Platforms, following the search giant’s acquisition of Android.

How will Microsoft utilize Danger’s technology and expertise?

Consumers

Although successful in penetrating the corporate world with its Windows Mobile-powered smart phones, Microsoft hasn’t, until now, shown much interest in developing a consumer-friendly offering. There has long existed the misguided notion that non-business folk aren’t interested in doing much more with their mobile phones other than making calls, sending SMS or listening to music and taking photos. With the introduction of the iPhone, companies — including sleeping giants like Microsoft — are finally waking up.

Microsoft’s press release describes Danger’s customer base as “young and enthusiastic, Internet-savvy and socially inclined”, and that the team at Danger has a “deep understanding of consumers and a hold on what people want from mobility”.

Integration

Furthermore, the Entertainment and Devices Division is all about what Microsoft calls “connected experiences”, and it’s in this context where the acquisition has the most potential. Microsoft cites Danger’s mobile Web browsing, instant messaging, games, multimedia, and social networking applications, which in combination with MSN, Xbox, Zune, Windows Live and Windows Mobile technologies, it hopes will give the company a leg up in delivering “industry-leading entertainment and communication experiences”.

Zune phone?

How this will translate into tangible products is yet to be seen. While many are already predicting something along the lines of a Windows Mobile-powered Sidekick, alternatively, might we see Danger’s technology and expertise used to deliver a Zune-branded mobile phone? Although fulfilling the company’s “connected experiences” vision, the latter would imply that Microsoft is getting even more into hardware. Currently, the company sells its Windows Mobile smart phone OS and platform to various hardware vendors (which now includes Sony Ericsson) but doesn’t produce handsets of its own. Likewise, Danger is pitched as a “software and services” company and offers a hardware reference design to partners including Motorola and Sharp.

This post is syndicated from last100, our digital lifestyle blog covering Internet TV, digital music, Mobile Web and more. You can subscribe to last100 here.

Forget Microsoft, News Corp. or even Apple. Nokia, the world's no.1 mobile handset maker, should buy Yahoo. Or so says Information Week's Stephen Wellman, who puts forward a compelling argument: If Nokia is repositioning itself as a Web services company, to combat falling profit margins on its hardware, then acquiring Yahoo would help to give the company a much needed presence on the desktop (not just mobile), as well as beef up its Web offerings and Internet brand recognition in general.

"Nokia is now a Web company, not just a handset maker. But, the company acts as if the Web is just mobile and has no desktop component. This isn't a very smart strategy", writes Wellman. All of Nokia's mobile web rivals: Google, Microsoft and, of course, Yahoo all have desktop products.

"These Web giants are leveraging their vast desktop Web audiences to grow their mobile initiatives. While Nokia has tons of mobile phone customers, it doesn't have as many Web application users", notes Wellman.

As well as gaining a presence on the desktop, a Yahoo acquisition would help Nokia to further develop its range of location-based services (building on its purchase of GPS company Navteq), again to fend off challenges from Google. Ditto mobile advertising. In addition, Yahoo would give Nokia an instant bump in its U.S. brand recognition. Despite claiming a 40% worldwide market share for mobile phones, Nokia doesn't compete nearly as well in North America.

Overall, however, a combined Yahoo/Nokia (Yokia!) would provide Google with a formidable competitor in the pending battle for the mobile web. This is, as ex-Microsoftee Robert Scoble likes to point out, the real reason why Microsoft is attempting an aggressive takeover of Yahoo.

Alternatively, a nightmare scenario exists for both Microsoft and Yahoo: Yahoo sells it ad business to Google in return for an ad-revenue partnership. Meanwhile, the Open Handset Alliance starts to produce real results and Google's Android becomes a widely adopted mobile OS. The result? Google dominates the mobile Web (i.e. mobile ads) as it does on the desktop.

What do you think? Should Nokia merge with Yahoo? And yes, before you ask, Nokia does have the cash.

This post is syndicated from last100, our digital lifestyle blog covering Internet TV, digital music, Mobile Web and more. You can subscribe to last100 here.

Following Qtrax's bungled launch, and an admission that the company had in fact only persuaded one out of the four record major labels to sign on, despite publicly stating otherwise, last100 asks if a free music download service on the scale of Qtrax is too good to be true?

If Apple can't persuade all four majors to license their catalogs for DRM-free paid-for downloads, and even Amazon, seen as the company most likely to rescue the music industry away from the grip of Apple, is only able to do so on a trial basis (with regards to Universal and Sony BMG at least), then what chance does Qtrax have with an almost completely new and unproven model.

To put this into even greater perspective, both SpiralFrog (see last100's review) and We7, two services that have offered ad-supported music downloads for significantly longer, are only able to offer a catalog of around half a million tracks each of a million and a half million tracks, respectively. Why? Because the labels are far from convinced that advertising dollars can ever replace revenue from paid-for downloads or CD sales.

In a followup post today, last100 scored an exclusive interesting Q&A with We7 CEO Steve Purdham. UK-based We7, backed by Peter Gabriel, enables users to download free MP3s that have a short (and targeted) audio advert embedded at the start of each track. The ads then auto-expire after four weeks of listening, allowing users to re-download the same tracks ad-free.

Purdham talks on a range of issues including the company's mission, DRM, resistance by the major labels, new business models and We7's competitors.

On the major labels reluctance to embrace ad-supported music downloads, Purdham says the reason is "simple:"

"They are worried that if they leave the iTunes model, the revenues they get will be diminished. So out of 79p they get, say, 46p and they are worried that ad [supported models] will net a lot less. However, there is a realization that in a world where for every track sold by iTunes... 10 tracks are downloaded illegally with no payment, so the real track revenue is 4.6p. Ad funded models need to show they are additive on the whole or scale to make the total cash available higher than before."

And asked whether Qtrax's service is too good to be true, Purdham comments:

"Well let's just say the reports seem to suggest so, which is a shame as I want to see more ad models appear and then the winners are the ones that execute well. The strange situation with Qtrax, and Spiralfrog last year, do nothing for the cause. There are many big questions that are hanging over Qtrax which needn't have been there but I hope they don't destroy the opportunity for the rest of us."

You can read the rest of the interview over at last100, and don't forget to subscribe to the RSS feed to get the latest digital lifestyle news and analysis.

YouTube dominates

While the market for Internet TV is growing steadily — survey after survey shows that people are consuming more video online than ever before — as 2007 draws to an end, Google-owned YouTube is still the number one video destination site.

This isn’t just true in terms of traffic but also in terms of “mind share”; when people talk about online video they often refer only to YouTube. As a result, a number of hardware companies have added YouTube support to their devices in 2007, such as YouTube-compatible cameras and mobile phones capable of viewing and publishing video to YouTube.

And then there’s the strong relationship between Google and Apple, which this year has led to YouTube support being added to both the AppleTV and iPhone, with a change in the video format to boot. Apple successfully persuaded YouTube to start re-encoding its video catalog to the much higher quality (and Apple-preferred) H.264 codec.

Not one to rest on its laurels, YouTube introduced a number of new features of their own, including a redesiged player, the introduction of interactive overlay ads, better copyright filtering, and — like many Google properties — improvements to its mobile offering.

What can we expect in 2008?

Coinciding with improvements to the quality of Flash video, YouTube co-founder Steve Chen has said that the company is currently testing a version of its player that detects the speed of the viewer’s Internet connection and serves up higher-quality video if the user wants it. According to Chen, we can expect to see higher-quality playback on YouTube as early as February 08.

Also in part related to an upgrade to Flash Lite (Adobe’s version of Flash for mobile devices) that adds full support for Flash video, along with the launch of Google’s mobile phone-oriented OS called Android, 2008 will likely see YouTube being offered on an ever greater number of mobile devices.

On the content front, with Google stepping up its monetization options for YouTube, including expanding its ad-revenue share scheme with independent producers, 2008 may well see more professionally-produced video being offered on the site.

Television networks and movie studios reluctantly experiment

In 2007 we’ve seen a large amount of online experimentation from the television networks (both in the U.S. and UK) and, to a lesser extent, from the major movie studios too. The problem, however, is that many seem to have been doing so with their hands tied behind their back.

In September, we took an extensive look at what the U.S. television networks, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and The CW, were offering on their own websites. Dan Langendorf wrote at the time:

The good news: Major U.S. television networks continue to embrace Internet technology and are putting their shows on the Web for online viewing, just like they did last year.

The bad news: Their online offerings remain sporadic; their Internet strategies feel like “we have to” rather than “we want to”; and — worst of all — they still haven’t embraced the idea that we are living in a new digital world, with different rules, participants, and expectations all around.

This year also saw a number of new efforts by the U.S. television networks to offer their content elsewhere on the Web (not just through their own sites), embracing both ad-supported models and paid-for rental and to-own.

On the ad-supported front, the big news was the launch of the much awaited video destination site Hulu, a joint venture between News Corp. and NBC that offers streaming video of both companies’ television and film content along with offerings from other studios such as Sony Pictures Television and MGM. While many industry pundits were skeptical of Hulu’s chances, upon viewing a Beta version of the site, early reactions have been positive.

NBC, who in some ways seem the most willing to experiment, also launched a Beta version of NBC Direct, an Internet-based catchup TV service. We came away unimpressed by NBC’s thinking, however, noting that shows are only available up to seven days after broadcast, and once downloaded, expire after 48 hours.

With regards to paid-for downloads of television shows, 2007 was also the year in which NBC and Apple’s iTunes divorced. Following a very public spat, NBC chose not to renew its partnership with Apple and is instead selling downloads through Amazon’s UnBox, Sandisk’s Fanfare, and Netflix, among others.

In July we took a look at the Internet TV offerings of the five major UK television broadcasters, noting that the then yet-to-launch iPlayer from the BBC looked the most promising.

However, when the iPlayer finally launched it wasn’t without controversy. The BBC was accused of being corrupt due to the iPlayer’s reliance on Microsoft technology and its lack of Mac/Linux support, and UK ISPs were reportedly critical of the application’s use of peer-to-peer technology and potentially high bandwidth costs. Answering the former, in October the BBC announced it had partnered with Adobe to develop a streaming version of iPlayer based on Flash that will be compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux PCs, and possibly mobile devices in the future.

In the movie download space we compared eleven download stores, concluding that “it’s still very early days in the paid-for video download space, where so far, greater competition hasn’t produced nearly enough innovation in terms of pricing and convenience — particularly in relation to copy-protection.”

What can we expect in 2008?

There’s evidence to suggest that watching full length TV shows online is becoming increasingly popular, in part due to higher broadband penetration rates but also because the studios are making more of their content available on the Web. Encouraged by this, we hope to see the television networks and movie studios take greater risks, although don’t expect the constraints of traditional scheduling and release dates or geographical territories to go away anytime soon.

One likely possibility is that iTunes will start to offer online movie rentals, putting Apple in direct competition with Netflix.

In the UK, broadcasters, BBC, ITV and Channel 4 have announced an initiative to develop a combined service for accessing their on-demand and catch-up services. The new service is currently known under the working title “Kangaroo”, and if approved by the BBC’s governing body, could emerge in 2008.

Internet TV comes to the desktop

The year 2007 is definitely the year of the desktop Internet TV application, with a number of companies launching products that aim to combine a TV-like viewing experience with the best of the Web.

Joost, founded by the team behind Skype, is the most high profile, along with Italian billionaire Silvio Scaglia’s Babelgum. Add to list VeohTV, Zattoo, Livestation, Next.TV (backed by HP), Adobe’s Media Player, and Microsoft’s Internet TV, and it becomes clear how crowded this space has got in 2007.

What can we expect in 2008?

The jury is out on whether people are really willing to leave their web browser and use a number of separate desktop applications in order to get their Internet TV fix. A big question mark also remains around whether the various desktop offerings will be able to secure enough compelling content in order to compete with the Web as a whole.

PC-to-TV and set-top box ambitions

Admittedly we at last100 are more obsessed with PC-to-TV and Internet connected set-top boxes than most industry watchers and consumers alike — 2007 has been a fairly busy year for these type of devices.

The biggest launch was that of the AppleTV, which at the time Steve Jobs hailed as the final piece to Apple’s digital lifestyle strategy, since the device bridges the gap between the PC and the television. However, the AppleTV has been far from a smash hit, with worldwide sales reportedly as low as 400,000 units, a dwindling amount of video content following the NBC Universal loss, and Jobs himself repositioning the device as the company’s “hobby”.

In comparison to the AppleTV, which feels far too tied to the iTunes store, in 2007 TiVo added numerous third-party web services to its line of broadband-enabled DVRs.

This year saw the launch of the Vudu set-top movie box and accompanying download store.

Microsoft and its partners’ unveiled the latest Windows Media Extender devices, with new functionality including higher-speed wireless and DivX support.

Sandisk also entered the PC-to-TV space, with the launch of TakeTV and download service Fanfare.

But perhaps the two companies who best positioned themselves in 2007 to eventually solve the PC to TV problem, along with getting Internet content into the living room, are Microsoft with the XBox360 and Sony with its PlayStation 3.

What can we expect in 2008?

While the market for PC-to-TV devices will remain modest, getting Internet content directly into the living room will remain the pursuit of many companies, particularly Apple, Microsoft and Sony. For example, we’re pretty confident Apple will take a second stab at the AppleTV, and Microsoft and Sony will ramp up their efforts to offer more video and other content through their respective game consoles. Also expect TiVo to continue to add more web services to it DVRs.

Other companies to watch in 2008, in relation to set-top box activity, are Netflix, DivX and possibly Joost.

DivX support is everywhere

Another trend in 2007 was an increasing number of devices supporting DivX video, most notably Microsoft’s Extenders for Media Center and XBox 360, as well as forthcoming DivX support on the Sony PlayStation 3. Additionally, DivX has developed a reference design for its own DivX enabled set-top box, and Sandisk added DivX support to its Sansa line of portable media players.

What can we expect in 2008?

More of the same.

What’s new? iMovie 08 adds the ability to upload video direct to YouTube, and iWeb (Apple’s web page creation software) now integrates with Google Maps and YouTube, along with support for Adsense.

Combine these efforts with the existing iPhone tie-ins — Google Maps, YouTube, Gmail — along with AppleTV’s recently added support for YouTube, and we can see how the Apple/Google alliance is strengthening.

Read full story at last100...

Note: Many of the following applications offer very different features and solve different problems. This post isn’t designed to be a product comparison — because it would be like comparing apples with oranges — but instead serves as an overview of some of our coverage to-date.

Joost

Platform: Windows / Intel Mac
Status: Invite-only Beta

From the founders of Skype and Kazaa, Joost is an on-demand video service that utilizes P2P technology to deliver a TV-like experience on a PC. In this respect, think of it as cable television without the need for a set-top-box. Additional functionality is provided through a number of built-in applications (called ‘widgets’) which include a channel-based chat room, an IM client (currently GTalk and Jabber only), and an RSS-based news ticker. In terms of content, big names signed up include: MTV, Comedy Central, CNN, Sony Pictures television, CBS, and National Geographic.

Our verdict: Joost is an impressive entry into the world of Internet TV. Its peer-to-peer technology not only lowers the cost of distribution for content owners, but also does it in a way that appears to solve the piracy problem. That said, picture quality could be better, and the license restrictions on content seriously impedes users who reside outside of the US.

Babelgum

Platform: Windows
Status: Invite-only Beta (we have invites)

Babelgum is a peer-to-peer online video service founded by Italian billionaire Silvio Scaglia, which like Joost, aims to combine the “lean-back experience” of television with the interactivity and social elements of the web. Babelgum doesn’t yet have the mainstream content deals that Joost boasts, and instead the company’s strategy seems to be more about helping niche content find and connect with niche audiences, so as to exploit the “Long Tail”. Babelgum‚Äôs additional features include the ability to rate and bookmark clips, as well as create a playlist of channels.

Our verdict: Whether Babelgum can overcome Joost‚Äôs first-mover advantage and make a success of it’s niche content strategy ‚Äî against a backdrop of big media competition ‚Äî is yet to be seen. But either way, the peer-to-peer Internet TV space looks a lot more healthy with at least two competitors rather than just one.

RealPlayer 11

Platform: Windows
Status: Public Beta

The new version of RealPlayer combines media player and jukebox and CD burning functionality (similar to iTunes), with a new flagship feature: the ability to download videos from the web. With RealPlayer 11 installed, when you visit a website with embedded video (Real, Flash, QuickTime or Windows Media), a floating tab appears giving you the option to download the file or ‘record’ it in the case of a live stream. Once you click ‘download this video’ a copy is then placed into your RealPlayer library. The feature only works with web videos that don’t utilize DRM.

Platform: Windows
Status: Public Beta

Our verdict: While it will be hard for RealPlayer to shake off its poor reputation, there’s much to like about version 11. The new interface and jukebox functionality has been appropriately borrowed from iTunes, and the ability to download and save videos from the web, not only works well, but should prove popular with users who want to build their own personal video collection.

Vuze

Platform: Windows (required to playback paid-for content) / Mac
Status: Full public release

Vuze is an application that enables users to search, browse, and download ‘near DVD’ and HD quality video content, using the peer-to-peer protocol, BitTorrent. In particular the company is pitching the platform as a way for independent video and film producers to distribute their content to millions of users — at no cost — and with a higher picture quality than other competing services. In addition to being an open platform where anybody can publish their content, Vuze has signed licensing deals with a number of larger players, such as the BBC, A&E, and Showtime, who are offering paid-for content: rental and to-own.

Although Vuse can function as a video library, rather oddly, the application doesn‚Äôt have its own media player. That‚Äôs because Vuze is format agnostic, so content producers are free to upload their video in any number of formats, meaning it’s simpler to let playback be handled outside of the application (using QuickTime or Windows Media Player, for example).

Our verdict: Vuze will appeal to independent producers who want to distribute their content at zero-cost and up-to HD-quality. While the option to charge for content is only currently available to those who’ve signed formal licensing deals, an upcoming version of the software will enable all content creators to set their own prices, select a business model (rental, to-own or ad supported), manage territories, and choose whether to use DRM.

VeohTV

Platform: Windows
Status: Invite-only Beta

VeohTV, is is pitching itself as a more ‘open’ alternative to the likes of Joost or Babelgum. Rather than being restricted to formal licensing agreements, VeohTV pulls in videos from thousands of sources — which currently includes NBC, CBS, FOX, YouTube, MySpace, and Veoh’s own video-sharing site — with content browsable via a cable TV-style program guide. In addition, VeohTV enables you to download and save almost any DRM-free online video to your library (similar to the way RealPlayer 11 works).

Our verdict: VeohTV represents a bold attempt to create a simple video player/aggregator for any type of online video, and for that reason we really wanted to like the application. But in reality this is also why it falls short. Inconsistent picture quality and download times ‚Äî although not the fault of Veoh ‚Äî results in a confusing viewing experience, and in attempting to make subscribing to and managing video podcasts seamless with watching other types of online video, VeohTV actually makes the process more complicated. Having said that, many of these issues could be addressed through a few simple interface tweaks, so don’t write off VeohTV just yet.

Zattoo

Platform: Windows / Mac / Linux
Status: Beta (limited to a few European countries)

Zattoo is an Internet TV service which, like Joost and Babelgum, utilizes peer-to-peer technology to deliver streaming video to a PC. However, Zattoo isn’t an on-demand affair, and instead offers live streaming of existing ‘over-the-air’ and cable TV channels. And rather than attempting to re-create the lean-back experience of traditional television, the service is more at home used in a multi-tasking environment, where users watch television in one window on their computer, while accomplishing other tasks in another, such as chatting to friends over IM, surfing the web or writing email.

Our verdict: We really liked Zattoo for its simplicity, near-zero buffering, and good picture quality. The only downside is the limited number of channels (which should increase), and the fact that it’s only currently available in Spain and Denmark, with the UK.

LiveStation

Platform: Windows
Status: Private Beta

Similar to Zattoo, LiveStation utilizes peer-to-peer technology to deliverer live TV to a user’s PC. The software has been developed by UK startup, Skinkers, and is in-part based on technology licensed from Microsoft Research (who get a small amount of equity in return). Of note, the front-end for LiveStation is powered by Microsoft’s newly launched Flash-competitor, Silverlight.

Our verdict: As it stands, LiveStation is more a proof-of-concept, with only one channel being available during its closed-testing phase (BBC News24). However, like Zattto, there’s near-zero buffering time, and picture quality is good.

Jalipo

Platform: Windows / Mac
Status: Full public release

Jalipo is a web-based Internet TV service which offers on-demand (TV shows and movies) and live broadcasts on a minute by minute ‚Äúpay as you goÔø?? basis. Jalipo content — most of which we were unfamiliar with — is viewed in exchange for J:Credits, the company‚Äôs own online currency.

Our verdict: We’re not convinced that a minute-by-minute credit system is the right way to sell online video. If the content is worth watching, it‚Äôs probably worth watching till the end, and should be sold as a complete offering. Jalipo’s video quality is good (at the higher and more expensive bit-rate), though compelling content seems lacking.

Miro

Platform: Windows / Mac / Linux
Status: Public preview

Miro (formerly known as Democracy Player) is an open-source Internet TV application that combines a media player and library, content guide, video search engine, as well as podcast and BitTorrent clients. Developed by the Participatory Culture Foundation, Miro aims to make online video “as easy as watching TV”, while at the same time ensuring that the new medium remains accessible to everyone, through its support for open standards.

Our verdict: Miro is quite possibly the best video “podcast” client and player out there. Its multi-format support, coupled with a very well thought out user interface, extensive content directory, and support for a number of popular video sharing sites, makes it a formidable Internet TV application. The only major drawback is the lack of support for the iPod or AppleTV, both of which would be a natural fit.

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