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Speculation about the imminent release of the Windows Phone 7 has been rampant.  The release of new commercials from Microsoft has only added to the rumor mill.

The original date most were guessing at was October 11, which is when Microsoft will be holding their annual event in New York City.  That event, however, is not where the Windows 7 Phone will be released, says WindowsPhoneSecrets blogger Paul Thurrott.  Citing inside sources, he says it will be on November 8.

That triggered a firestorm of re-blogging by others, including Electronista, parroting Thurrott’s claims.  Otherwise, however, no corroboration has been given.  Of course, Microsoft hasn’t begun advertising the phone yet, so it’s possible that Thurrott is correct.  MS usually has their advertising up front and hitting hard right before anything major happens.  The fact that those commercials haven’t aired yet could be a sign that the date is still a little way off.

Which brings us to the commercials themselves.  They were leaked in somewhat raw form earlier this week to YouTube and spread quickly by Sunday morning.  They are a step away from the usual Microsoft marketing fare, focusing on the human element rather than the gadget itself.  On the other hand, putting the idea that something from Microsoft is going to create something revolutionary is a little, umm.. hard to swallow.

Here’s one of those commercials:

The successful online ticketing start-up site Eventbrite is (according to its press releases) the world’s largest fastest growing event ticketing and promotion site. The site tries to make it easy for organizations to manage event administration including ticketing, registrations and promotion in a one-stop solution. They’ve managed to sell almost 18,000,000 tickets to date since their launch back before 2006.

Recently, they’ve joined the social media bandwagon by integrating ticket purchases with Facebook profiles using the Facebook connect APIs. After buying a ticket using the site, you can share the purchase via your Facebook profile. However the integration has been stepped up a gear, and now logging in to Eventbrite using your Facebook ID will show you a list of recommendations based on your friends’ Eventbrite purchases. As long as your friends have opted in to share the information that is. Online recommendations aren’t a new thing in Facebook but Eventbrite should make the online conversion rate better. You’re more likely to want to go to something that your friends are going to.

An interesting new feature is the “event graph” which is for Eventbrite events and should help increase revenue from sales for event organisers. More ticket sales means more revenue for Eventbrite.  Next steps may include the ability to pay for tickets using Facebook credit or a tie-in with Facebook games where points turn into ticket discounts.

Today catchafire.org opens its doors to the public after about a year in private beta. The service aims to match volunteers who have valuable professional skills with charities who desperately need help but can’t afford to pay. It all started back in 2009 when CatchaFire.org was created in Manhattan with funding from Angel. The service aims to make money by charging the charities a fee for each match the website made. The fee depends on the value of the recruitment manager’s time spent on admin and vetting as well as the potential volunteer’s contributions. Needless to say, it’s a fraction of professional HR and recruitment services.

Rachael Chong, CEO, found was an investment banker in a previous career and decided to embark on the project after a series of frustrating volunteering posts which included building houses. Eventually, after quitting banking and venturing into microfinance she decided to found CatchaFire.org.

Catchafire.org reports that of the non-profits helped last year, the majority needed PR, marketing, social and digital media design. Clients paid on average $200 per recruit which is, for now, not the greatest of turnovers but this is a fledgling organisation. So far, 2,000 volunteers have registered with 300 non-profits who would like to harness a new wave of time-rich volunteers looking to broaden skill-sets and have something worthwhile to show for career breaks.

In a canny move, volunteers can import career histories directly from LinkedIn profiles or Facebook profiles. So far there is no support for creative workers who would presumably like to import their Beehance profiles. In the end, CatchAFire.org hopes to match good volunteers with valuable skills to organisations who need them the most. For a small fee that is.

The Web lit up with a buzz this weekend over TechCrunch’s story about Facebook building a branded phone.  It didn’t take long for others, like Engadget, to latch on and spread the news.

Very quickly, though, Facebook issued a denial (via Mashable), saying that they had no phone plans and, but were working on “deep integration” with existing mobile phone platforms.

Of course, the news was too savory to ignore, so more was posted, including a fake mockup of the phone (made as a joke, pictured at right) by Sean Percival.

Meanwhile, Facebook’s denial was countered by TechCrunch with the obvious: Google, Microsoft, and Apple all said they weren’t working on phones either.. Then they released them.

So the question remains: is Facebook building a branded phone and if so, why would they do it?

I think Dan Frommer at Business Insider has that answer.  Currently, Facebook is the most-visited website on the iPhone.  This doesn’t mean much for Facebook, since those visitors are just more Web users as far as they’re concerned – right now.

But if Facebook were to build a platform and really engage users through proprietary access or uses through that mobile platform, they’d be a powerful force to recon with in mobile.

The bad news for Microsoft is that the reported background for this Facebook phone will be Google’s Android, trumping both Apple and MS. This would be obvious thanks to Facebook’s recent recruiting of ex-Android man Erick Tseng.

Being its own platform, and based on a relatively open operating schematic like Android, Facebook could not only easily build phones for every cellular network, but they could cash in on the huge mobile market by co-branding their phone offering with their already-hugely-popular social networking site.

Finally, as the icing on the cake, Facebook doesn’t have any real partnerships with any of those who would be negatively affected by a Facebook phone.

So despite the denials, it’s pretty obvious that Zuckerberg and Co would have a lot to gain from a Facebook-centric smart phone.  So don’t be surprised when its’ released.

North Carolina State (NC State) launched a new and free game on Apple’s iTunes App Store on August 27.  The game is a collaboration between the school’s Distance Education and Learning Technology Applications (DELTA) program and a local gaming company, Spark Plug Games, who hosts interns from the DELTA program.

The application is a simple match-3 game on an 8 x 6 playing field with 17 levels of game play.  It’s curiously addicting and is themed on the NC State Wolf mascot (hence the name, WolfMatch).

The game’s theme isn’t just window dressing either, as its matches spell the school’s name, splash screens and marques give fun facts and background on NC State’s history, and more.  Future releases will also focus on the various educational disciplines of the college, which obviously appeals to fans, alumni, and current students and faculty at NC State.

Several current students, including David Drews, a senior Art Applications major in NC State’s College of Design: “Over the past few years, we’ve explored various marketing channels,” he says, including a lot of the traditional ones.  “We wanted to try something new,” he continues, “and push into mobile app development.”  He says that working with the app team at DELTA and Spark Plug Games proved to be valuable experience for him.

Other students interned through NCSU’s Instructional Support Services team on several aspects of the game’s design and build.

Altogether, the game is fun, a great showcase of branded app building, and fun to play.  Even those who aren’t fans of NC State might find themselves changing their minds because the game keeps you entertained a lot longer than you’d expect.

WolfMatch can be downloaded from the iTunes App Store or from NC State’s DELTA website.

Google Buzz, the social media service that has not been as popular as expected, attracted a lot of unfavourable attention in February due to privacy concerns. At that stage Buzz, which aggregates social media content, automatically included Gmail users’ frequent contacts on their public Buzz profiles.

However even though Google quickly changed their policy to give its users a better understanding of the privacy features of the service, they still got stuck when Gmail user Eva Hibnick filed a lawsuit against the company in February.

Apparently the proceedings of the settlement of $8.5m will be donated to non-profit privacy groups according to the text of the settlement which was made available to the public. The settlement also requires Google to “undertake wider public education” about how the privacy aspects of Buzz works, but no specifics were provided.

The more established social networking sites continue to expand while Google Buzz does not seem to be gaining a foothold. In fact Google has never disclosed how many users Buzz has. Application bugs and the privacy problems in February have certainly not helped. At the sort of scale Google Buzz is aiming at, only a few social networks including Twitter, Facebook and MySpace really matter.

Buzz is supposed to make it easier for users to integrate the information feeds they receive on each of these networks. In addition, Buzz also collates all the contact information and profile information of friends and acquaintances that an individual has listed on their various social networks. It is an appealing product but the jury is out on whether Buzz will gain any traction soon.