After adding the Telephone app to your Facebook account, you can launch the service and make phone calls directly to your Facebook friends. In order to make a VoIP call, both you and your friend will need to also have the application as well as the downloadable software. But the good thing about having the software installed on your computer is that the Telephone app can then be used as a standalone desktop application for sending and receiving calls even when you don’t have Facebook open in a web browser.

Similar to Skype, you can make VoIP calls and send instant messages. And similar to Digsby, the desktop app enables you to communicate with Facebook friends without having to be logged into Facebook. So with so many features similar to existing applications, is it worth it to try the Telephone application at all?

There are a few features that may be of interest to you, depending on how often you need to communicate with Facebook friends. For instance, Telephone allows you to organize friends into groups for easy access and messaging, as well as leave voicemails for friends that aren’t currently available to talk. Telephone also displays your call history for additional information. The call history could prove useful given its direct integration with your Facebook network, offering insight into your own personal behavior and communication patterns.

I imagine such data could be useful to other services as well, from a non-personal standpoint. But one thing I’d love to see on the Telephone app is a more direct integration with Facebook’s existing chat tool, similar to Tokbox’s integration. This way, you can invite friends to add the Telephone app in a more direct manner, and more readily initiate VoIP calls with friends as well.

While the application is robust, it doesn’t appear as though the uptake has been good. A quick look at the application chart shows that traffic to the application has dropped significantly over the past month. While we’d assume that this trend will continue, perhaps the company will adopt practices that make the application more viral under the new design. For now we will have to wait and see. Go install the telphone application and judge for yourself how successful this will be.

After 11 years working in the world’s largest software company, Microsoft, Keith Curtis has written a book, After the Software Wars. Surprisingly enough it isn’t about how life was at Microsoft but much against his former employer’s anticipation he sides with the Open Source to be the software’s future. Microsoft has always had a tough time accepting Open Source, while many others in the business (Sun Microsystems. etc) have readily accepted it and are bent at perfecting and bringing more softwares to add to its growing list (Google for one).

It’s so obvious that with people looking for the cheapest alternative (and those that are worth it) and the Cloud becoming a norm slowly and gradually, paid software will eventually be the story of the past as developers put their heads together to bring the best. A passage from his book reads:

The difference between free, and non-free or proprietary software, is similar to the divide between science and alchemy. Before science, there was alchemy, where people guarded their ideas because they wanted to corner the market on the mechanisms used to convert lead into gold.

Every one of those developers out there is an alchemist and there is no one to guard their collaborative expertise to Open Source every software.

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Related Articles at Startup Meme:

Not all companies have suffered a decrease in the amount of traffic coming to their applications. Causes, which I previously featured, has seen their traffic soar 1000 percent in the past three months. One of the main reasons that is that the application is one of two members of the great applications program that Facebook announced at f8 earlier this year.

Their traffic has appeared to slow over the past few day though and while Causes is by far the largest individual application (2.5 million more monthly active users than second runner SuperWall), it is the company’s only application. RockYou and Slide still dominate the developer leaderboard going back and forth with each other for the top spot.

It it surprising to see the two companies which were the first widget developers on social networks retain the lead positions? I don’t think so. The companies clearly have the most resources allocated to developing on social networks with large funded social gaming following close behind. For now it looks like RockYou is on target to eclipse Slide in relative size on Facebook but it’s clear that the two companies remain neck and neck as the fierce competition continues.

It’s a long road to a victory in the browser wars. Just ask Firefox. The open source browser which launched in 2004 just cracked the 20 percent threshold of the market share for November, according to Net Applications, pushing it a step closer but still miles away from IE.

Recently a few new players have also thrown their hats in the ring, including Google with its much-hyped Chrome and the lesser known, Mozilla-based social web browser Flock, which released its 2.0 version this past October. But do these newcomers even stand a chance?

The Basics

Firefox is gaining ground for good reason: it’s simple, reliable and secure. Its tabbed browsing led to a similar remodel in IE and it has a slew of add-ons that give it a leg up over the competition. It’s slowly becoming the new standard with a steady audience, and that will be hard to beat anytime soon. And its open source platform leaves room for alternatives and experimental niche browsers like Flock.

Flock 2.0 is basically a Firefox with a lot of perks and pre-installed add-ons for those heavy into social networking.  Think of it as a FriendFeed of the browser world, which brings all of your friends from 23 various networks together in a sidebar. It is also one of the first browsers to incorporate media feeds for photos and videos.  Flock is all about sharing what you find on the web as you surf, and it allows you to accomplish this pretty easily by dragging and dropping them either into an email or onto a friend.

Chrome is the polar opposite of Flock, and its big advantage is that it’s even simpler than Firefox, or any other browser out there right now.  The search bar is also integrated into the address bar, which seems to be the wave of the future, at least for those who swear by Google search and don’t need any bells and whistles. Unfortunately, Chrome’s only available for PCs at the moment.

Usability

Chrome wins hands down on getting the job done.  It’s quick and painless with a clear focus of searching for information using Google’s engine.  Dynamic tabbed browsing is a staple now, and if anything crashes, only that tab will go down, not your entire session, which is nice. But if you want a richer web browsing experience stick with Firefox or Flock.  There’s also no easy way to subscribe to RSS feeds from the search bar as there is with Firefox.

Flock can feel a bit overwhelming at times with all of the sidebars of information, but once you get everything set up and get the hang of it, it’s pretty convenient and preferable to keeping a million tabs open for sites like Twitter and Facebook. The drag and drop interface is great.  When you just want to email a YouTube video or picture it’s much easier than copying any URLs, although it does also seem a bit too easy to share something that you might not want shared.

The only other problem with the social networks is that you can’t really fit all of that functionality into a sidebar.  It’s a good way of consolidating friends, but it’s more like a giant address book than anything else. Simple things like posting tweets are a bit confusing, with no clear box for entering in text. When a friend adds content, however, it will open up the profile in the main browser in full view, so you still need to go back to the source.

Speed

Despite the extra features, Flock is surprisingly just as fast as Chrome or Firefox, at least on a medium grade PC.  Looks like they’ve improved upon this concern in the latest release. And Chrome seems to have Firefox beat in this category but the difference isn’t anything drastic.

Privacy

Incognito — aka “porn mode” –  is the new way to surf, as every browser is picking up on this private surfing option that Safari first initiated.

Chrome has faced some privacy concerns at launch with its Omnibox monitoring and recording too much information, but this can all be prevented by changing the default settings and going Incognito.

Expandability

Chrome doesn’t support any extensions or add-ons yet, so Firefox still dominates in this area.  But if you are looking for simple, you probably don’t want much more than Chrome already offers.

Final Thoughts

Firefox is here to stay, but there will always be a long tail of niche alternatives like Chrome and Flock.  When Chrome moves into Mac realm it could pick up some market share from Safari.  Flock will be there for social network junkies who want to try something new, but the first step to making Flock mainstream will be for more of the social networks themselves to go mainstream. Twitter is on track, but still has a long way to go before it’s a household name. If you’re only on Facebook or MySpace, you probably don’t need to worry about the extra sidebars and features.

---
Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:

Flock Gets a New Boss, Flock 1.0 Coming
Flock Public Beta Now Live
How Can Flock’s Social Browser Play Into the “Open” Movement?
Flock’s Social Browser 1.0 Has Finally Arrived
More is More: Flock 2.0
Flock CEO Jumps Ship
Anxious About Private Browsing in Firefox? Try the Latest Build

CNBC's Jim Goldman: Yes, you read that correctly. Hotels on the Strip are actually slashing prices ahead of the big show. In the 15 years I've been covering these shows, I have never seen anything like this, and it may just go to show just how soft this economy really is. In years' past, hotels often jacked up their rates during the week of CES because they knew they could. Rooms that ran $75 or $125 the week before and week after CES suddenly jumped to $350, $450, or over $500. The "CES Premium" all of us stuck paying it lamented.

This year, attendees are being tempted by an unheard-of CES discount! In an email to registered attendees, the Consumer Electronics Association writes, "Those who have attended CES over the years and are accustomed to peak rates...may be pleasantly surprised when they book rooms this year." "More affordable than ever," the email adds.

The show is also offering discount airfares, free registration, and free hotel rooms for some groups, CNBC adds. But that's not enough to prevent many companies from ditching or downsizing their booths.

The economy is one problem. Another: Boring trade shows. Show us something that's actually exciting at CES next year -- besides yet another big TV, yet another Blu-ray player -- and we'll eat our words.

See Also:
Consumers Prefer HP (HPQ) Computers To Dell (DELL) 5-To-1: Analyst
Amazon's Sold-Out Kindle Their Best-Selling Gadget On Cyber Monday (AMZN)
Nokia To Show Off iPhone Killer This Week? Another Tablet? (NOK)

So this unsourced report in the Daily Mail makes sense to us -- SCi is in the middle of takeover talks, with Electrionic Arts (ERTS), French gaming company Ubisoft, and Time Warner (TWX) -- which already has a 16% stake in the company -- all named as possible players in a deal. But it's still worth taking such reports with a grain of salt -- SCi has been long been the subject of takeover rumors, none of which have come to fruition.

A source familiar with matter said discussions are at an 'early- stage' and that SCi received approaches from two separate firms within the past few weeks.

The first is understood to have come from America's Electronic Arts, the world's second biggest computer games company.

It has always featured strongly in bid chatter that has surrounded SCi.

But it faces competition for SCi from France's Ubisoft, which the source says has also made an approach.

EA owns a 25 per cent stake in Ubisoft but they act independently.

Renewed interest in SCi has been sparked by the dramatic fall in value of the company.

From a peak of 1billion at the height of the dotcom boom it is worth just 50million today.

See Also:
'Tomb Raider' Maker Rejects Buyout Bid
"Tomb Raider" Game Shop SCI On The Ropes

In spite of the general economic downturn, ‘Black Friday’ sales of Apple computers were “better than expected,” analysts told investors Monday.

Like past Black Friday sales, Apple offered discounts on seven products with an 8 percent discount.

However, Mac sales we more than six times what they were in November, according to Piper Jaffray. Analyst Gene Munster said an average of 13 Macs per hour were sold Friday compared to two computers per hour in November. Munster based his numbers on 10 hours of monitoring five Apple retail stores.

Friday, Apple cut its “unibody” MacBooks by $101 and $51 discounts on the $999 white plastic entry-level MacBook. One-day price reductions of $51 on the entry-level 2.4GHz iMac and $101 for the 2.66GHz and 2.8GHz aluminum all-in-ones were also unveiled.

iPhones did not share in the same level of consumer enthusiasm. Munster said iPhone sales averaged 3.4 per hour compared to 1.3 per hour in November.

Although the analyst expects the iPhone will receive a boost in holiday sales, the impact will be “minimal.”

In a wider review of Black Friday Apple sales, Deutsche Bank said “demand for Apple was solid considering the macro backdrop.” Both Mac and iPod sales for the day likely were “modestly above” Deutsche Bank’s estimates. The firm, which reviewed retail and online sales at more than 125 storefronts, expects Apple to report 5 million iPhone sales for the quarter.

Deutsche found the new MacBooks were popular Black Friday offerings with 2GHz and 2.4GHz MacBooks outselling the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air.

Best Buy locations reported strong demand for the iPhone and shoppers at AT&T stores preferred the lower-priced 8GB iPhone. The reverse was true for iPod shoppers: the 16GB nanos were outselling the 8GB nanos, according to Deutesche.

CNET's Ina Fried reports:

Microsoft on Monday apologized for glitches on its Live Search Cashback site, which frustrated online shoppers looking to scoop up Black Friday deals.

Amid heavy volume on Friday, consumers encountered a range of problems from site sluggishness to seeing the wrong amount of cash back show up in their accounts.

The problem was particularly acute with shoppers who were looking to take advantage of a promotion with Hewlett-Packard that offered buyers a 40 percent discount when visiting HP.com through Microsoft's Live Search Cashback. Some shoppers, however, reported seeing only a 3 percent cash back amount posted to their account.

"We deeply regret customer inconvenience with respect to the outage," Microsoft said in a statement provided to CNET News. "The spike in traffic in combination with a technical glitch led to the outage. The promotion will restart in the next day or so. Again, we apologize for our customers' inconvenience."

The real problem with Cashback is that it's not helping Microsoft (MSFT) gain much search share. In the past couple of months, Microsoft's share has stopped shrinking, which is good, but it's not going to make much of a living on 8.5% share. Queries have grown the last two months, though.

Mark Mahaney from Citi:

Rosenblatt is the guy who cut costs while building revenues at DoubleClick before selling it to Google (GOOG) for $3.1 billion. He beat out Google's head of sales Tim Armstrong and former AOL CEO Jon Miller in our final round of voting.

We haven't heard from Rosenblatt about whether he'd even take the job, but we decided to collect recommendations to send to Yahoo's board anyway.

We started with another former CEO of DoubleClick, cofounder Kevin Ryan, who also happens to work in our office as SAI chairman. Kevin loves the idea of Rosenblatt-run Yahoo. He gave us five reasons why:

• He's experienced. Rosenblatt successfully managed an Internet company with more than 1,000 employees.
• He owns the niche. DoubleClick wasn't just a tech company and it wasn't just an advertising company. It was both -- like Yahoo.
  
• He can cut and grow Yahoo at the same time. At DoubleClick, Rosenblatt cut headcount from 2,000 to 1,000 between 2001 and 2003.
  
• He can cut and grow. While selling off businesses DoubleClick needed to get out of, Rosenblatt managed to increase its revenues anyway.
• He's new. Yahoo needs someone who isn't responsible -- and isn't interested in defending -- past decisions.

Current DoubleClick/Google employees crush on Rosenblatt, too. One told me: "There is nothing not to love about him. [Rosenblatt taking the Yahoo CEO gig] would be great for him. Huge loss for us."

A few readers told us why they chose Rosenblatt:

David Rosenblatt is a incredibly smart and an amazing manager; he turned Doubleclick around and was behind the entire sale to Google. He is far and away the best man for the job. Yahoo would be crazy to let him get away...

Rosenblatt's banking connections prob facilitate another deal with MSFT quickly.

DR!!! Worked for him. Smart guy, understands the business and surrounds himself with strong people.

David R. Thats what people at DCLK call him. A great CEO worked with him, even played basketball with him (he was part of the DCLK b'ball team) in the league in nyc. A great competitor.

One reader composed a list of ten reason while Rosenblatt will get the job:

• Turned around DoubleClick as CEO, gave it a rebirth and sold to Google for 5x in less than 2 years
• Unlike the AOL guys, has had a history of success in the online business-- success follows people and breeds more success...
• Is not a homegrown, loyal Google guy like [Tim Armstrong] and would probably leave
• Has seen the insides of Google, whose organization is most likely factorial worse than Yahoo only masked by the 1 phenomenal revenue stream
• Probably made 95% of his DCLK acquisition money already-- time to diversify!
• As President of Display, he will always be the step child to the search guys [at Google]
• Is highly ethical
• Is a technologist who gets the advertising space, exactly what Yahoo! needs with its open strategy and apt platform
• Is smart-- street smarts combined with cognitive intelligences (Yale and Stanford MBA)
• Is respected in the industry-- advertisers, publishers, agencies AND investors.

See Also:
Everyone's Pick For Yahoo CEO

During most of the winter, Murdoch's people (his "henchmen", they tended to call themselves) had continued to analyse the Dow Jones business. The company was trading no higher than the mid-30s; Murdoch had heard about Rich Zannino's estimate of getting the share price to, tops, $45. Nobody at News Corp thought Dow Jones could be worth, most optimistically, more than $50.

But Murdoch insists they should offer $60 - and because he's Murdoch no one is going to tell him he's a fool. Dow Jones management and the Bancroft family may act sanctimonious and high and mighty, but $60 [which values the company at $5bn], Murdoch knows, will call their bluff.

In early April he makes the call.

He's apologetic when Zannino, on vacation at the Ocean Club in the Bahamas, calls him back, sorry to disturb, but it's important, he says, that he see Zannino as soon as he gets back. Suspecting something large, Zannino might here, too, have consulted with others at the company. But he doesn't tell anyone - he persists in allowing himself to believe that seeing Murdoch, even urgently, could be about many things.

After 45 minutes in which they talk again about American Idol, Murdoch says: "Well, I'm thinking about making an offer to buy Dow Jones."

Zannino demurs a bit: "You know Rupert, you know as well as anybody, this isn't my call, it's the family's call. And the family has consistently - and Rupert, even as recently at our last board meeting - said that they're committed to the independence of Dow Jones and they have no interest in selling the company."

Murdoch: "I know that. I was thinking I'd take the offer directly to the board. I know the family feels that way. I've called [Michael] Elefante in the past. He won't even take a number. The number I'm thinking of is ... 60."

Zannino: (internally) Holy Shit! (externally) Silence.

Murdoch: "So I'm thinking I'll just take that directly to the board to try and get that through the board ... So that's what I'm going to do - I'm going to make an offer to the board. Did I just make an offer to you?"

Zannino: "No you didn't. You mused about wanting to buy Dow Jones. I told you the family has the call and it's not for sale, and you told me you were going to contact the board."

Zannino is trying to find his balance - he's walked out to the furthest point and now, teetering on the precipice, he's trying to come back. Zannino tells Murdoch he isn't going to tell his board about the offer, because it's really not an official offer, suggesting to Murdoch that if anybody asks him about it, he should say he was just joking about the $60.

But, in the car, Zannino understands that the breach has just occurred - that he's let Murdoch in. He breathlessly calls Joe Stern, the Dow Jones general counsel, and tells him: "He gave me a number." Back at the Dow Jones office, each successive person let in on the news understands that the breach is real - and that they can't close it.

Murdoch has correctly analysed that Zannino, who might have blocked his access to the board, has not.

[Continue reading at the Guardian.]

See Also:
New York Times (NYT) Now Losing Business To Wall Street Journal