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Everything you always wanted to know about Google…December 3

…But were afraid to ask. This is the title of this very interesting 34-slide presentation on Google prepared by FaberNovel, a french consulting firm. It is hard to realize the real nature of this just 10 years old giant given the number of services it has continuously released, updated (and sometimes shut down) or acquired.

This presentation gives a great overview of the company’s overall strategy and the reasons it has become what it is today.

It addresses some key questions about the company’s future, presented in the slide above: how Google won’t be affected by the crisis (not so sure about that if you consider their own stock update: the WSJ has a

Apple Announces Top 10 iPhone App Downloads of 2008December 2

With 2008 on the way out and right around 10,000 iPhone applications behind them, Apple has released a bunch of lists outlining which applications scored the most downloads since the App Store’s launch back in July.

The lists are separated by whether the the application is paid or free - first as an overall look, and then by each major category (games, entertainment, utilities, social networking, and music). While the overall top applications should come as no surprise to anybody who takes an occasional glance at the iPhone’s built-in top downloads page, there are a few interesting gems hidden in the categorically separated data.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Pownce Deadpooled, Team Moves To Six ApartDecember 1

Pownce, the media-rich Twitter competitor once labeled by the New York Times as “the hottest startup in Silicon Valley”, is headed to the deadpool after being acquired by Six Apart. The service, which was co-founded by Digg’s Kevin Rose along with Leah Culver and Daniel Burka, will be closing its doors on December 15. Users will be able to export their accounts to other services, allowing them to retain their messages and media, but it looks like Pownce users will have to turn to Twitter for their micro-blogging needs (if they haven’t already). Culver and Mike Malone (Pownce’s two engineers) will be integrated into the Six Apart team.

The news doesn’t come as much of a surprise - Pownce has long struggled in the shadow of Twitter in the microblogging space, despite the fact that the Pownce crew objects to being called a Twitter competitor. There were some major differences: Pownce allowed users to share photos, music, videos, events and offered niceties like an official AIR application, but its core f

When Everyone Is A Blogger, Nothing You Say Is Off The RecordNovember 28

There’s a lot of buzz here in the Belgian blogosphere and mainstream media about an incident involving a New York-based blogger, who was fired from her job as a bartender after publishing a post on the bar visit of a Belgian politician. I’m generally hesitant to share ‘local’ stories here because I want to keep it relevant. In this particular case, I think it is.

Current Belgian Minister of Defense Pieter De Crem apparently stumbled into a Belgian bar in New York City on Monday evening with his entourage. Following his visit, bartender Nathalie Lubbe Bakker blogged about their visit (in Dutch), talking about how disgusted she was of how drunk De Crem was and how embarrased she was about his behavior. Worst part, she wrote, was the fact that one of the politician’s advisors admitted to her that the meetings they were there for on taxpayer’s money were in fact cancelled because the UN was meeting in Geneva (which is about 330 miles from Brussels). He reportedly told her they had decided to come to NY anyway despite being aware of the cancellation because the policital situation here was ‘calm’ and that he’d ‘never visited the city anyway’.

A couple of days later, someone from De Crem’s office had a telephone call with

Koornk Blatantly Rips Off TwitterNovember 27

There are a lot of Twitter clones out there, often built by companies outside the US trying to steal the company’s thunder by creating local communities with a translated application, something the San Francisco startup has focused little on so far. That this isn’t always a direct road to success, proved German Twitter clone Duduku last year when it put itself for sale on eBay. Not that being inspired is necessarily a bad thing.

In the case of Yammer and Present.ly, it’s about taking Twitter’s core functionality and doing something with it that benefits teams in a business environment rather than individuals. There are other examples of clones that take the concept of sharing short messages with other people and do something fresh with it, like Gospelr (yup, for Christians), Blip.fm (for music lovers) or - why not - catering those interested in adult content (Twatr). There are