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The talk of all things cell phone has without a doubt been dominated by the iPhone for the best part of 2007. Apple have blown customers away with their latest device. I have yet to find a negative piece of press about an experience that someone has had with this phone. So where does this leave Nokia, the long time global leader of mobile phone handsets?

Well as of today Nokia have signalled their intention to retain the top spot in the cell phone market by agreeing to buy digital mapping and navigational software company Navteq. The agreed sale price is a cool $8.1 billion is yet to be approved formally by both American regulators and Navteq shareholders.

Obviously, the Chicago based Navteq’s products will help Nokia realise the potential that lies within the realms of the relatively new field of personal navigational and mapping solutions. Apple’s deal with Google to provide mapping and navigational services on the iPhone has been a hit (as with other cool iPhone apps) and Nokia can respond in the best way possible with this new acquisition.

Interestingly, Nokia shares fell by as much as 4% in New York trading as investors questioned whether the European company had paid too much for Navteq who had sales of $582 million in 2006.

Update (Ed Note): After taking a quick look at the bidding history of the auction, I’ve come to highly question its validity. It looks like an attention-gaining scam by the creators of the app, and there are too many fake bids to ignore. Mark Mayhew, who caught this in the comments, has more here.

An eBay auction for the facebook application ‘I am Hungry’ recently closed with the winning bid reaching a startling $20,100 USD. The performance of the application is acceptable with over 250K users, however, it’s recent growth has been minimal and the new benchmark facebook app statistic of ‘average daily users’ is low at only 455.

This is a startling result for the developers of the application who must be over the moon having sold their application for an amazing $43 USD per active daily user. The effort that has gone into building the application is pretty much limited to development given that the primary function of the application is to inform people in your network as to what you feel like eating. One could hardly class this as one of the most creative facebook apllications?

The whole issue of facebook platform development projects, their developers and the business value that can be generated when the later are combined is a hot topic in the web 2.0 world at the moment. This news only adds more fuel to the fire. How do you value a facebook application?

In this instance it seems that the logical answer lies in the depths of Adonomics. Formerly known as Appoholic, Adonomics is a service that focuses on providing stock-market-style analysis of facebook features. These guys provide a current valuation for the ‘I am Hungry’ application of a little over $25,000. Based on this info, the successful eBay auction bidder will obviously feel that they got a great deal.

So why does the Adominics valuation of ‘I am Hungry’ fly in the face of the common sense of many experienced online entrepreneurs? The answer is in the methodology behind the Adonomics system which seems to measure an applications valued based on it’s potential to generate advertising and sponsorship revenue.

To me this approach seems a little web 1.0 as the KPI’s would surely be ‘old school’ metrics such as page-views. Personally, if I were looking to invest in a facebook application I would be more interested in the quality of the community that it had succeeded in building. I would be looking for high levels of engagement with a specific niche of people and a more sustainable business model than simply an ability to sell ads.

However, from Adonomics perspective this is probably a smart move as they look to pitch a service that the wider advertising industry can understand in period where facebook is ’so hot right now’. It almost seems like the facebook boom is a repeat of the dot com boom, where investors spent their money wildly without actually considering the sustainability of their acquired virtual businesses.

I have a funny feeling that the facebook bubble will burst above those who are not careful in considering the true value and sustainability of the social networking real estate (mainly applications) that they choose to invest in.

The rumors that Google have a mobile phone handset on the way have evolved into an inevitability as far as industry experts are concerned. However, in the meantime Google have decided to strengthen there mobile social networking presence by acquiring Zingku.

Zingku is best described as a service designed ‘from the mobile phone outward’ which enables users to create and share a wide variety of things such as photos, voting polls and “mobile flyers”.

Google recently confirmed the acquisition officially stating: “It is true that we acquired certain assets and technology of Zingku. We believe these assets can help build products and features that will benefit our users, advertisers and publishers.”

New registrations for the mobile service are currently frozen whilst a change to Google servers is being implemented.

Over the past few years I have visited and reviewed many new websites that have built there success around well managed communities. However, I have not reviewed many websites that have a direct relationship to the ‘old school’ communities and neighborhoods that existed long before the Internet was around and still thrive today. So when I visited eNeighbors for the first time recently, I was intrigued as to how this new start-up would go about promoting and facilitating some relatively ‘old school’ neighborhood values.

eNeighbors is all about connecting the physical communities and neighborhoods that we have all lived in for generations. The site basically promotes and facilitates better communication amongst neighborhoods using new technology. The site quite rightly points out that a neighborhood with a high level of communication is more likely to create a safer living environment. I couldn’t agree more to be honest. I will never forget the ‘Neighborhood Watch’ group that most of the local community were part of where I grew up in the 1980’s. The philosophy of this group was almost identical to that of eNeighbors.

So how does the site work?

Once a user arrives at the site they are asked for their ZIP code. With this information eNeighbors will set you on the way to creating an account for your new neighborhood communal site. The fees for an account are a reasonable $82.99 per month for a neighborhood of up to 300 households.

Once you are signed up and have provided the appropriate information for each household in your neighborhood, residents will be emailed a pin number. From this point residents can login and view your new community website. Some of the content features and functions that can be managed for your community using an eNeighbors site include:

• Neighborhood newsletters (email management)
• Events with registrations
• Community Calendar
• Classified Advertisements
• Residential directory
• Community feedback & bulletins

eNeighbors has already experienced some minor success with great feedback from one group who commented on how the new service allowed their small Kansas community to drastically reduce community communication costs. Paper Newsletters were eliminated and neighborhood event attendance was increased by over 300%.

I did a little bit of research and discovered that the service offered by eNeighbors is not entirely unique. They have some competition from the likes of neighborhoodlink, however, I think that eNeighbors has definitely taken a step forward in terms of their interface. It’s more attractive and usable. I suppose that the facebook developer platform could also provide the right person with an opportunity to create a similar service which could in fact compete with eNeighbors. It might pay for them to create an appropriate facebook app before someone else does..

How do you communicate (if at all) with your local neighborhood?

According to Blognation, there is a new Facebook IM client by the name of friendvox going into beta as of this Friday. This new app requires no download or install and therefore represents another revolution for a widely used existing generic online service on the back of the facebook platform.

Most existing IM clients such as MSN require some type of download. This new service on facebook could do away with the need for downloaded IM software. As Sam on blognation also points out, the benefit of facebook’s open platform approach is growing more and more obvious by the day. This new open approach will soon force other large players to re-consider their ‘closed’ and ‘proprietary’ positions.

The success of the new facebook IM app will depend on the continued (rapid) growth of the facebook community. There will surely be a number of die hard MSN and ICQ users. We must also not forget the other IM service aggregators like meebo. There is potential for a bit of an IM service land grab on facebook here for sure.

Who ever wins the IM land-grab on facebook will do well. Am I the only one who is forever frustrated by having a network of friends that all choose different IM services? I currently prefer Google Talk, however, I have a number of friends that prefer to use MSN. To be able to communicate with my facebook network using IM will be another reason for me to never leave facebook.

The word on the street is that Microsoft is interested in a 5% stake holding in Facebook. Apparently, the team at Facebook are all ears. This news comes only weeks after there were rumors that Facebook were about to engage in a new round of funding.

This could create an interesting ‘dutch auction’ type situation for Facebook, a la Google. According to the Wall Street Journal, ‘people familiar with Microsoft’s discussions with Facebook’ have indicated that the 5% stake holding could be valued some where between $300 million to $500 million.

So far, Mark Zuckerberg and the Facebook team have only ever sent signals that suggest the start-up had no plans to sell out either privately or with an IPO. A quick play on the calculator shows that the apparent value put on a 5% stake holding in the company makes the total value of Facebook in excess of $10 billion.

Personally, I hope that facebook hold out for as long as possible and avoid too much interaction/agreement with the big players in the industry. What Facebook has brought to the internet over the past few months is quite revolutionary and it would be nice to see this develop further.

I am also hopeful that Mark Zuckerberg truly believes that Microsoft and Google are beatable. The intentions of the later two organizations to invest in Facebook will only be to grow their respective ad network platforms. Facebook has the potential to turn the internet on its ear, a lot like Google did a few years back.

What would you do if you were Mark Zuckerberg right now? Prepare to take the money and run?

Are you one of those people who seems to always miss the show? I’m talking about those times when your friend asks you what you thought of that Pearl Jam concert and you are like ,”There was a Pearl Jam concert, when?”

Unfortunately I happen to be one of these people. The aforementioned Pearl Jam example actually happened to me back in 1994, man I was not happy. Living in New Zealand limits one’s opportunities to see big name bands locally. Those days are over for me now with the help of Gruvr.

Gruvr is a Google Maps mash-up that keeps you informed as to when and where there are bands playing locally in your area. All you need to do is visit the site and gruvr takes care of the rest. Once you arrive your IP address is picked up and a Google map will inform you of the relevant concerts or ‘gigs’ that are on the forecast for your local region.

Signing up for the free service is as simple as providing your email address….that’s it

My top feature on the site has to be a function that shows the real tour locations and dates of any chosen group or band using the simple Google maps interface. There is nothing quite like actually visualizing the touring schedule of your favorite band on a global map. It almost makes you feel sorry for those poor (well they aren’t all poor) musicians. Man they cover some miles on tour!

Geo RSS feeds are on offer to keep you updated on the fly. There are two feeds on offer, one is called ‘my band radar’ and the other is ‘local concerts in your area’. The ‘my band radar’ feed will provide you with updated information on shows for specific bands that you have indicated as being your favorites. The ‘local concerts in your area feed’ is designed to inform you of any concerts that pop up on the calendar in your geographic region.

Many successful bands have now had longstanding relationships with places like MySpace and Bebo. Most bands have created quality profiles and use these as key online promotional tools. Gruvr quite cleverly leverages the existing content for bands by using the concert schedule information on individual band profiles.

Any gruvr member can add a band that they would like to track by simply providing the bands name in a search field. In some situations gruvr will call for the name used in the bands myspace profile URL. I found that both functions were simple and worked well.

In true web 2.0 style, gruvr will offer you a snippet of code, allowing you to publish the map that is tracking your favourite band on your own site, profile or blog.

It never ceases to amaze me that the most pleasing web 2.0 mashups are often the most simple of ideas. When a simple idea intersects customer demand you have the magic ingredient for a potentially excellent start-up. If gruvr have a the level of demand that I am guessing they might get, they may really be onto something here.

In my 28 years I have refined TV watching into an art-form. It was only the Internet revolution that disrupted my intensive TV watching regime. As most Rev2 readers will know, the convergence of these two media channels is fast becoming a global reality.

Recently I got the opportunity to review Tioti, a new start-up that provides a TV show aggregating service online. Unfortunately in New Zealand I am not blessed with the type of broadband speed that most Rev2 readers situated in the USA are used to. Watching television content online does require an acceptable level of bandwidth, so this review took quite a while

The service offered by Tioti is beautifully basic. They are positioning themselves as ‘the long tail of TV’. The site is in beta phase 2, so naturally there are a few bugs at the moment. The great thing about a web 2.0 start-up is the ability that one has to engage beta site members as a testing resource and it seems that Tioti are using this tactic successfully.

After watching the promo video and joining up I decided to target SouthPark episodes on Tioti for the purpose of this review. Unfortunately the sites internal search function did not yield any results for the term ’southpark’, however, another search for ‘South Park’ was successful.

Once you find the show that you are looking for Tioti does a good job of providing members with valuable information such as Cast lists (not so useful for south park!) and reviews by other members. A discussion board for each TV show is also provided.

The now conventional web 2.0 features such as ‘recommend this show’ and ‘add to favorites’ hold prominent place in the user interface. There is also a ‘find fans’ function which allows the user to visualize the true popularity of the TV show amongst their Tioti friend network as well as the entire network. It would be cool to know if my friends really are watching those cheesy soap opera’s that they continually deny tuning into!

There seems to be an acceptable level of content at this point and this will only grow as new members join up and take the opportunity to upload new content from the likes of youtube.

Depending on the progress of new services like Tioti, it may not be long before the Internet is the chosen channel for watching your favorite TV shows from traditional networks!

Are you becoming overwhelmed by your growing number of social network profiles? We all really want to only use one profile to communicate with our network of friends, but we keep getting invites to new networks. Then we feel like we need to accept the invite and grab a nice relevant profile name and URL, right?

Intuuch could just be the service we all need, especially the micro-bloggers amongst us. This new German web 2.0 start-up is providing a service that allows us all to aggregate our various social profile updates from the likes of twitter and youtube into one simple interface. The benefit that intuuch provides is potentially very useful. A single source of social networking truth for all our contacts.

The main intuuch site currently uses a lot of content in German which has limited my ability to do some real fact finding (I did Latin in High-Scool). However, the development cycle of the service seems to be quite aggressive with a steady flow of enhancements since September 10th when the site officially launched.

One of the latest features offered by intuuch is a smart Facebook app. Additional features for the future of the service include the likes of an adobe air app for windows/OSX and the addition of more services that can be plugged in to.

It’s very early days for this social networking newcomer, however, they are definitely worth keeping an eye on

It wasn’t long after my post about Facebook potentially launching a data-storage service that Mark Zuckerberg broke more interesting news about his plans for the future of Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of facebook, announced that the social network was creating a $10 million fund to provide grants for 3rd party applications that rely on the facebook developer platform.

The idea of getting venture capital or angel investment to build an application that relies solely on the facebook developer platform is not a new one. Some investors have already funded start-ups of this nature.

The fund will pay out between $25K and $250K to successful applicants. The basic top level rules are that the start-up be based on facebooks developer network and that the venture must have had NO prior investment.

No doubt this news will spur on a large number of wannabe facebook millionaires. But not so fast people, there are a few hurdles on the way to your facebook start-up funding.

Screening of initial applications will be conducted by an ‘advisory council’ that includes the likes of Reid Hoffman (founder of Linkedin & early facebook investor), Josh Koppelman of First Round Capital, and Rajeev Motwani, a Stanford computer science professor and early Google backer.

If you make it through screening, your application will then face the scrutiny of the facebook ‘investment committee’. This group includes chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and marketing vice president Chamath Palihapitiya. Facebook board members Jim Breyer of Accel Partners and Peter Thiel of The Founders Fund (who are providing the $10M for the fund) will also serve on the committee. These guys will decide the ultimate fate of your application for a grant.

All interested parties should forward their applications and business plans to platform@facebook.com. Applications are expected to take up to one month to process.