Google’s call for medium-sized cities to pilot its high-speed broadband network has attracted the marketing wit of another locale: Greenville, South Carolina.

Citizens of Greenville have launched the “We Are Feeling Lucky” campaign –- an obvious play on Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” button — an effort that will culminate in citizens trying to form “the world’s first and longest human Google chain.” Glowsticks will apparently be involved in the event, scheduled to take place on the evening of March 20.

The site makes heavy use of Google products and services — likely not a coincidence — in getting its message across. There’s also a social media component, with “We Are Feeling Lucky” having a YouTube channel featuring citizen videos, a Facebook event for the “Google on Main” event and a Twitter hashtag: #LuckyGVL. Here’s one of the YouTube clips featuring a variety of Greenville residents:

While citizens work to spread the message and draw Google’s attention, a formal proposal from the city is in the works to be submitted to Google by the March 26 deadline.

Greenville joins a growing list of cities that are getting creative in hopes of landing Google’s fiber. Topeka, Kansas, drew headlines when it unofficially renamed itself Google, Kansas. Duluth, Minnesota, went viral (to the degree a video about a public infrastructure proposal can) with a YouTube video. Columbia, Missouri, has 5,000+ fans of a Facebook Page supporting Google Fiber in their town.

When Google announced its plan to launch the fiber network test, the company made it clear to us that it has no plans to become an ISP. Nonetheless, it appears that lots of cities would be more than happy to serve as the test bed for its vision of a faster Internet, which its claims will have speeds of up to 100x typical connections.

Which campaign for Google Fiber has been your favorite so far? Let us know in the comments.

Tags: Google, google fiber

Twitter has just announced that it is launching a new anti-phishing feature that allows Twitter’s Trust and Safety team to monitor all links submitted through the service for potentially malicious attacks. Part of the new feature will involve the use of Twitter’s link shortener twt.tl, which may now start popping up in some of your emails and direct messages.

At this point, it’s not really clear which links are being converted to Twitter’s twt.tl shortened links. We just ran a test at the TC office with two different links: one for an article on GigaOm, and another for a bit.ly link that pointed to a page on Google Buzz. The links I received on my Twitter client were both unchanged, but both were converted to twt.tl links in our Email notifications (obviously neither of them had malicious content).

From the Twitter blog:

Today, we’re launching a new service to protect users that strikes a major blow against phishing and other deceitful attacks. By routing all links submitted to Twitter through this new service, we can detect, intercept, and prevent the spread of bad links across all of Twitter. Even if a bad link is already sent out in an email notification and somebody clicks on it, we’ll be able keep that user safe.

Since these attacks occur primarily on Direct Messages and email notifications about Direct Messages, this is where we have focused our initial efforts. For the most part, you will not notice this feature because it works behind the scenes but you may notice links shortened to twt.tl in Direct Messages and email notifications.

Image via ToastyKen

Back in October we wrote about Appboy, a social network for mobile app developers and users. Since launching, Appboy has continued to evolve into a community for both developers and users to find and rate apps, as well as submit ideas for new mobile applications. Appboy has just rolled out a big update to its site which improves the design, adds stronger integration with Facebook and Twitter, and makes it easy to keep up with what your favorite app developers are doing. The site has also launched a new companion iPhone application and started a new partnership with Best Buy Mobile.

The Appboy Profile pages have been given a total facelift. Now, in addition to displaying your user activity and favorite apps, users can link their Twitter accounts with Appboy and auto-publish any #appboy tweets directly to their Appboy page.

For users, this feature might not get a ton of play, but for app developers it becomes a pretty handy way of keeping your Appboy profile up-to-date with little fuss.

Users can also now login with either Twitter or Facebook Connect. We really like that Appboy has embraced other social networks instead of trying to force users to keep everything in the Appboy garden.

You can also now follow other users, which is especially helpful when you want to keep up with what’s happening with your favorite app or app idea.

The App Pages have also received a new coat of paint, with an easy way to vote “Love It” or “Hate It” on an app’s page. Comments and reviews can now be viewed separately, which is nice when you just want to distill one group or the other. Plus, users can now add related links, videos and reviews to an app page which can help provide better context.

User reviews are also now ratable — Digg style — which allows the most helpful reviews to appear higher on the list.

In addition to a new website design, Appboy now has its own iPhone app. The free app gives users all the functionality of the website right on the iPhone. That’s really nice, especially when you are looking for a new app or want to leave a review for something you just purchased. Sure, the App Store works for that too, but what is nice about Appboy is that it is a community.

Check out these screenshots to see the app in action. As you can see, the interface matches the website and it’s very easy to get around and rate or learn about apps and app ideas.

One of the most unique features of Appboy is that it isn’t focused on just one platform; it’s focused on mobile apps in general. So whether you have an Android device, an iPhone, a BlackBerry or a Palm Pre, you can find, rate and suggest ideas for new apps.

Best Buy just launched a new mobile site, Best Buy Mobile, and Appboy powers the Apps section for iPhone, Android and BlackBerry. The top 10 apps from each platform are fed into Best Buy’s site and those apps come directly from the Appboy community.

This is a pretty big step, considering the relative age of the site, and we think it’s because Appboy has shown itself as being committed to the mobile community as a whole.

Appboy continues to be a great resource for developers and users wanting to connect and share what’s cool and what sucks in the mobile app space. The new iPhone app is a really nice addition to the site and we hope that the Best Buy partnership will bring even more users into the community.

How do you find out about new mobile applications? Let us know!

Tags: android, appboy, apple, apps, iphone, iphone apps, mobile apps

The Top 1% (one percent)  is not a  measurement and comparison of wealth or ability.  The Top 1% is a mindset.  The mindset  that you can and will achieve the goals you set for yourself.  This mindset includes a bias for action. Action taken to follow a clear roadmap. Clear goals, a bias for action and a Top 1%  mindset will result in you experiencing  success way  beyond what the general population or “the herd” can even imagine.

The idea of the Top 1%  is primarily discussed in reference to the development of business revenue and profits. If you pay attention to the Top 1%, you will see a balance in the areas health and relationships.  It may seem obvious, but if your health fails  monetary success is meaningless. Valuable  business coaching and self development programs  provide  guidance on balance.

Attributes of the Top 1%

There are no common traits. The Top 1% includes men, women, all nationalities, all age groups all professions.  The one common attribute is mindset.  The Top 1% has a dream and they take action in a rational way that brings the intended results.

I have worked with very large companies and smaller ones.  These experiences have given me the opportunity to evaluate the difference between eagles and ducks.  Of course eagles soar and ducks waddle and quack.  Eagles have a laser beam focus on those elements of their business that make the most difference.  They avoid flying into the side of a cliff.

The Top 1% invest in self development. J.T. Foxx, a successful entrepreneur, radio host in 18 markets, and author tells his audiences he invested $60,000 in business coaching and consulting  for himself in 2009.  He has budgeted  $100,000 in 2010 for business coaching and consulting.  He is also investing in  focused training and development program for his organization.

J.T. openly discusses his vision and goal of creating a $100 million coaching and consulting company.  I know he will and that goal is likely to be achieved within the  next 12-18 months.  Note the  mindset.  Less than five years ago J.T. was homeless and he  just turned 30.

Invest In Yourself

Join me, J.T. and many more at one of the upcoming Free Events.    Email Me and I will get you additional details.

Sending you energy of health, happiness, prosperity

Steve Pohlit

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About: Steve Pohlit is a CPA,MBA and has been the CFO of several major domestic and international companies.  Steve is a business owner and an expert business consultant focused on building profits and net asset value. He is very experienced with Internet marketing and social media marketing.  All articles published by Steve unless specifically restricted may be freely published with this resource information.

Today at the Google’s Campfire One event at the company’s headquarters in Mountain View the Internet search giant is launching its new app store for business, known as the Google Apps Marketplace.

Last week, we broke the story that Google Apps Marketplace would launch today, reporting that it would be an app store integrated within Google Apps that would allow third-party developers to sell software directly to Google’s business consumers.

Now, with developers gathered at the Googleplex, we’re about to learn how Google Apps Marketplace works and, more importantly, which apps are going to be available at launch.

My live notes from the event are below:

- Note: you can watch the live stream of Google Campfire One on the Google Developers YouTube Channel.

- Vic Gundotra, Google’s Vice President of Engineering, has just started speaking

- Vic is talking about feedback it’s received from its business customers. Google believes that business apps should be run in the cloud. One problem: to use multiple business apps, you need to log into multiple websites, which can be messy and a security threat.

- Google Apps Marketplace announced.

- Details: $100 flat fee, no matter the amount of apps you launch. 20% revenue share. This is an important number, as most app stores charge 30% revenue share, especially Apple’s iPhone app store.

- Over 50 partners for Google Apps, including Aviary, Expensify, Intuit, and others.

- Now Google is talking about the technical details of how to get your app added into the Google Apps interface.

- Google’s diving into secure data access via OAuth. Google’s clearly thought about how to make sure that information that apps need is received from users, but that apps don’t take more information than they need.

- Google has brought up a developer, Ryan, to demo some of the code to integrate his app with Google Apps Marketplace. It’s a “Hello World” type of app.

- If you go to http://www.google.com/enterprise/marketplace/, you’ll see the store’s future splash page.

- Intuit is demoing. They’re the people behind Quickbooks and showing off their Intuit Online Payroll app within Google Apps.

- They’re showing of integrations of Intuit’s payroll system within Google Calendar. Logging in via Google Apps seems intuitive.

- New demo: Scott from Atlassin is demoing Jira Studio. The dashboard they’ve built with Google Apps integration is very impressive. Screenshots coming.

- “Fingertip access” to Google Talk. It has Google Docs integration, and is available today. It’s a very killer apps for development management and issue tracking.

- Another demo: Manymoon.

- The key themes seem to be A) how easy it is to code integration with Google Apps, and B) How many nifty things you can do linked to Google Apps. Google Calendar will definitely benefit from these apps.

- Everything will be available tonight for purchase

- Last demo of the night: Ryan from Appirio, a cloud solution provider. It’s a tool for managing your team’s cloud applications, such as Salesforce. It’s meant to transition enterprise into the cloud more effectively.

- One interesting demo: you can trigger actions within your email with Appirio. You can, for example, get information on customers right from within your email (it’s embedded!). The embeds are called Gmail contextual gadgets, and they are really nifty.

- Example: Customers emails you saying that a project is behind schedule. With Appirio, you can access from Gmail the projects that are open with the customer vis PS Connect. It’ll show budget, the status of the project, end dates, and notes.

- Google’s David Glazer (Engineering Director) is closing the campfire session.

- The President of Google’s Enterprise division is on stage. Security, compatibility, simplicity, and more are possible through cloud apps, which is why Google has bet so heavily on it for enterprise.

- 25 million active users of Google Apps. And apparently once companies of 20,000+ employees switch to Google Apps, they don’t switch back.

Tags: app store, Campfire One, developers, Expensify, Google, Google App Store, google apps, Google Apps Marketplace, Google Campfire One, trending

Tonight, Google is hosting one of their Campfire One events at their headquarters in Mountain View, CA. They’re using the event to launch their new Google Apps Marketplace. This is the app store that business applications can use to reach the more than 25 million people and 2 million business that use Google Apps for their domains.

Here are the links to our extended coverage on the Google Apps Marketplace:

• Google Apps Marketplace: Instantly Connect Your App To 25 Million Users, Profit.
• Socialwok Takes A Stroll In The Google Apps Marketplace
• Web-Based Productivity Suite Zoho Finds A Place In The Google Apps Marketplace

Below, find our live notes from the event.

Vic Gundotra, Vice President of Engineering

• Two million businesses have “gone Google”
• 25 million users.
• Everything you need is now in the cloud for businesses
• Tonight we’re launching the new Google Apps Marketplace
• It’s great for developers – who get access to these 25 million users instantly
• It’s also great for users.
• It’s simple to integrate.
• Build your app. And you don’t have to use App Engine. You can use whatever you want.
• And you can sell your app in the Marketplace.
• What does Google ask in return? A one-time fee of $100. And a low 20% rev share.
• Over 50 launch partners.

David Glazer, Engineering Director

• I want to walk you through the “how” now – build, integrate, and sell.
• Google Apps now has a large and growing number of extension points (we’ll be adding more over time)
• there is a central management system
• Universal integration to Google Apps navigation system.
• We use OpenID to manage authentication. Single sign-on.
• And we use OAuth for secure access to data. The OAuth grant of trust is built into the Marketplace.

• We have a complete manifest.
• Time for a demo. Here’s a developer showing off a “hello world” application.
• Easy step-by-step process to get your application in the Marketplace.

• It might take a couple of days for the app to show up in the Marketplace when you submit it.
• A domain admin simply then clicks the “Add it now” button.
• Then just three clicks left – 1) agree to terms of service 2) grant data access (such as to your calendar) 3) enable the app
• You can even see it in the apps drop down if you’re in, say, Gmail.

• Here’s Intuit now showing how to take a real app – for payroll – to show how easy it is to itegrate.
• Intuit is the largest payroll provider in the nation.
• We usually serve small companies, many are less than 20 employees.
• Another demo, this time from Atlassian – a software development company
• You can easily embed your information inside of Gmail.

• The thing I’m most excited about is the studio activity bar.
• With this, Google Talk can be used for instant collaboration.
• All of this is available today. In fact it’s being used by 40 developers in a bus traveling from SF to SXSW in Austin, TX.

• Another demo, Manymoon – a social productivity app.
• We used open standards to convert free users to paid users.
• Everything you’ve seen so far will be live later tonight – for this next demo, it will be coming soon.
• Gmail contextual gadgets – like when a YouTube video is embedded in Gmails – soon third-parties will be able to use this.

• Here’s a demo from Appirio – a cloud solution provider.
• Glazer is now reiterating the main points about the Marketplace.

David Garrard from Google

• When I joined not only was there no Google Apps, there were no apps. Gmail launched soon after I joined.
• I joined to lead our enterprise initiative. It was the idea to take the innovation that happens quickly on the consumer side and putting it into the enterprise apps.
• Cloud computing is the right formula for that
• Three years ago we started with a modest effort. In Feb 2007 we immediately signed up 9,000 business — now we have 25 million active users and 2 million business.
• And the growth rate is accelerating.
• Higher education has really started moving towards the cloud with us.

• And it’s happening in the Fortune 500 companies. And no companies that size have gone back.
• Though it’s still not perfect, even today.
• People always ask, ‘when are going to build x or y’ the answer is we probably won’t – we want to be a platform in the cloud.
• Because of that we can put emphasis on our existing apps.
• We’ll be talking more at Google I/O (which is already sold out).

And that’s a wrap.

Retweet.com, which put itself up for sale last month, has sold for $250,000 in an online auction on Flippa. The auction saw a fair amount of interest with 45 bids in total, but it appears that the winning party came in with a “buy it now” offer for $48,000 more than the current bid to take ownership of the Tweetmeme competitor.

Like Tweetmeme, the site aggregates the most popular links on Twitter, and also provides third-party websites with buttons that lets their visitors easily retweet articles. Although the service isn’t as popular as Tweetmeme, it has been able to accumulate respectable traffic, and it’s ideal name give it significant branding power. According to the company’s listing on Flippa, there is not yet any revenue.

At this point, we don’t know who the buyer is, though we heard rumblings last month that a major social news site was interested. We’re looking for more information and have contacted the team behind Retweet.com for details. We’ll update if we learn more.

[thanks Matt Binder for the tip]

Tags: retweet, tweetmeme, twitter

The Arkansas Democratic Senate primary, already one of the toughest in the country, took the back-and-forth between Sen. Blanche Lincoln and Lt. Gov. Bill Halter to a new battlefield today: cyberspace.

Lincoln took to Twitter this afternoon to respond to a story published this morning suggesting her mind maybe have changed on reconciliation. In the tweet, she reaffirmed her opposition to reconciliation. A few minutes later Halter fired back with a tweet of his own making it clear that he supports the reconciliation process as a means to get health care reform.

The stage was set for the tweet-off this morning, when the published a story suggesting Lincoln might be open to considering reconciliation in the final Senate reform push. (The AP later published an account of Lincoln appearing to reverse herself in a gaggle with reporters in the Senate today.)

Lincoln seemed determined that her views on reconciliation be clear. So this afternoon, her campaign tweeted this:

Just a few minutes later, Halter gave his own take via his campaign twitter feed:

(You'll note Halter followed the example of most Democrats these days and refrained from using the word "reconciliation," while still espousing the idea.)

Unlike Lincoln, Halter's views on reconciliation have never been in doubt. In a conversation with TPM shortly after he announced his candidacy, Halter made it clear he favored using reconciliation to add a public option to health care reform, a plan most of his progressive backers across the country also support.

Speaking with reporters today after this morning's story came out, Lincoln said her views on using reconciliation to pass the haven't change since she first rejected the idea months ago.

"I don't support reconciliation!" she told the gaggle of reporters today, according to the AP. "All I said was I want to see what's in it."

But MySpace, nestled in the entertainment capital of the world, thinks it can survive — even thrive — as a repository for all things music, Avatar and Twilight for the under-35 crowd.

Read the rest of this story »

See Also:

• “AOL Is Just As Much A Journalistic Organization As The New York Times"
• Yahoo's How-To Guide For Big Brother Leaks
• It's Official: Nick Acsheim Joins AP To Bring Mobile Innovation, Revenue

Want to know what I think of the concert while the concert is still going on? I’m now tweeting during, before, after, etc at the concerts I review. Want to follow along? Follow me at http://twitter.com/jimthecritic

Google launched an application marketplace today comprised of services from third-party providers that integrate with the Google Apps ecosystem.

The news has been anticipated for some time. In particular, it shows how much Google is embracing open-standards and leveraging its search and Google Apps platform to attract third-party developers.

Sponsor

Google made the announcement at its Google Campfire One event tonight. The emphasis Google is putting on the enterprise is apparent in how much attention the company put into the event. Over and over we heard that Google passed the 25 million customer mark over the weekend.

It is that mark that Google is using as its hook for attracting developers to its platform. Developers will be charged $100 to join the program. With that entrance fee, they may add as many apps as they wish to the Google Apps Marketplace.

The marketplace supports OpenID to provide a single sign-on for developers. Authorization is integrated into the platform. The customers get access through OAuth, the open standard for authorizing users.

A "manifest page" is the foundation for the service. The developers provides information when adding the application to the marketplace that identifies it. Developers then provide additional information about the product.

The system is a controlled. Application developers submit the app for approval, which might take a few days.

Intuit provided an example of how the system works by showing how payroll could be managed. The customer accesses the account. With Google Apps integration, the customer accesses an account where they have the employee information. It's that collected contact network that is then integrated with the payroll application.

Atlassian showed how Studio, its project management application, would integrate with GMail and Google Apps. Again, if the company is standardized on Google Apps, the information is available through the network.

Manymoon is another project mangement application that was demonstrated. It uses Google Apps to develop features such as a calendar, showing how a startup can leverage Google Apps to add features to its service.

Other companies that were a part of the initial launch include Socialwok and Appirio.

At its core, the marketplace is built upon Google's search capabilities. Google Apps can be extended with applications. In turn, developers have access to the built-in capabilities of Google Apps.

Perhaps the greatest value to customers will be if they are centralized on Google Apps. If so, they can get some pretty powerful capabilities of the marketplace.