That’s right: you can own the plane that “Sully” Sullenberger dropped ever-so-gently into the Hudson on January 15, 2009, a little over a year ago. It looks like it’s still in pretty good condition – maybe it would make a nice playhouse for the kids? – with most of the gear intact.

The plane is out in Jersey somewhere, but you can probably just rent a Zipcar at Ikea in Elizabeth and drive it home, probably down the Pennsylvania turnpike.

According to statistics released today by Dow Jones VentureSource, the fourth quarter of 2009 was a strong one in light of an overall bad year for venture deal activity in the United States.

In Q4 2009, investors put $6.3 billion to work in 743 deals, up slightly from the $6.1 billion invested in 619 deals during the same period in 2008. In total, last year saw 2,489 deals completed and $21.4 billion in venture capital invested in U.S. companies, a 31% drop from 2008 when $31 billion was invested in 2,817 deals.

We also remarked earlier that we’d seen an uptick of venture funding deals in the fourth quarter of 2009, based on analysis of data available in our own CrunchBase.

Scott Austin, editor of Dow Jones VentureWire said: “While venture capitalists as a group loosened their purse strings toward the end of 2009, some start-ups, especially those seeking first or second rounds, may be in for a rude awakening in 2010. A large share of companies are due for capital this year and the competition will be fierce.”

“Venture capitalists are still treading lightly when making investments,” added Jessica Canning, global research director for Dow Jones VentureSource. “In the fourth quarter, venture deal activity returned to levels seen before the collapse of the financial markets, but capital invested continued to lag as investors gave companies just what they need to reach the next milestone.” (more…)

Mobile content delivery company Myxer is releasing a report this morning that indicate much of what we already know about Google?s Android platform: Android is gaining traction in the mobile space. According to data provided by Myxer’s 30 million users, visits to Myxer?s mobile site from users on the Android operating system grew 350% in 2009, compared to the iPhone, which grew 170%. In total, Myxer delivered seven times more downloads to Android devices than iPhone devices in Q4 2009.

Myxer, which delivered ringtones and other content to 1,500 different devices in 2009, also delves into the break down by type of Android device, with HTC’s Dream/G1 commanding 35% of the unique users completing downloads on Android handsets in December. HTC’s myTouch, Motorola CLIQ, and Motorola Droid each used by 18%, 11%, and 7% (respectively) of total unique Android users on Myxer.

Myxer reports that the Blackberry Curve is the most frequented phone to visit Myxer’s mobile site to download content, with Windows Mobile and Palm devices decreasing in visits during 2009. Hip-Hop/R&B content dominates as a music genre; accounting for 77% of Android downloads and 47% of iPhone downloads. (more…)

Comcast announced this morning that it has appointed Neil Smit as the new President of Comcast Cable Communications. In his new role, Smit will be responsible for all business aspects of the company?s cable operations. He will report to Comcast COO Steve Burke.

Neil Smit joins Comcast from Charter Communications, where he served as CEO and Director for the past 4 years. Prior to joining Charter, Smit was the President of Time Warner?s America Online Access Business overseeing Internet access services, including America Online (AOL), CompuServe and Netscape ISPs.

Smit also served at AOL as Executive Vice President, Member Services, and Chief Operating Officer of MapQuest.

Part of his responsibility will be the operations of the à la carte music streaming offer to ISP and cable customers which we hear is in the works.

Different territories demand different marketing approaches. Google, for instance, has been spotted taking the unusual route of promoting their search engine and Chrome browser with print advertising campaigns in India and The Netherlands, respectively.

And now a reader informs us that Facebook is buying Google ads on the search giant’s India portal (Google.co.in). You can see some examples embedded in this post or on our tipster’s blog.

It’s impossible to determine if this is new, but perhaps Indian TechCrunch readers can tell us if these just started popping up or if they’ve been running for a while. I’ve been trying out searches for people on a couple of other country portals but haven’t seen any Google AdWords campaigns from Facebook at first glance. We’ve contacted Facebook for more information.

The move is fairly ironic for two distinct reasons: first, because Facebook has been struggling to become the leader in social networking in India at the expense of Orkut, which is of course a Google service (it depends on who you ask which one is effectively leading, but Facebook has definitely been making strides all around the world). (more…)

There’s no shortage of real-time search engines that are tracking the web and social media sites like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook for results. Collecta, OneRiot, Microsoft’s Bing and Google all offer compelling search engines to tap into the real-time stream. Today, social media client Sobees is jumping into the stream with its real-time search discovery platform.

The platform, which is powered by Microsoft Silverlight and runs on top of Windows Azure, has the look and feel of Sobees’ Twitter client. Within the page, the search offering aggregates searches by categories in five columns or modules including real-time search (Twitter, Friendfeed, Facterylabs and OneRiot), image search (Bing, Flickr, Google and Yahoo), video search (Bing, Google and Youtube), web search (Bing, Google and Yahoo) and news search (Bing, Google, New York Times and Yahoo). (more…)

In the chronicles of Silicon Valley, it doesn’t get weirder than this. Just as the European Union finally gave its blessing to Oracle’s acquisition of Sun Microsystem’s, Oracle’s co-president found details of his 8.5-year extramarital affair splashed on billboards around the country.

Oracle executive Charles Phillips acknowledged that he had the long affair with YaVaughnie Wilkins and that he began divorce proceedings with his wife, Karen Phillips, in 2008. But he says that his relationship with Wilkins has ended and “we both wish each other well.”

Wilkins apparently didn’t take the ending of the relationship very well, and reports suggest that Phillips was trying to make amends with his wife as the billboards featuring Phillips and Wilkins together began to appear. The business question here is whether or not this scandal could impair Phillips ability to do his job. There are different ways to look at that. Employees, customers and others might wonder about what kind of leader Phillips really is, and if he can be trusted. On the other hand, if this matter dies down, despite the highly public billboards, then it may blow over without much impact on the business. (more…)

San Francisco hasn?t heard much from ZocDoc since its TechCrunch40 debut in 2007, but that changes next week. The site, which allows people to quickly see local doctors? availability and make an appointment with just a few clicks, is finally launching in San Francisco on Monday.

So far ZocDoc has been focused on New York and Washington DC, growing users and new doctors by double digits, month-over-month since inception. Last month some 110,000 patients used the site to make appointments. The company decided it was time for a third city, opening it up to an online vote and San Francisco won overwhelmingly.

Votes aside, it?s a natural next step. San Francisco is full of Web savvy early adopters, and new transplants who are always trying to figure out how to find a new doctor. On a less rosy side, San Francisco also has the highest STD rates and some of the longest wait times to see a doctor in the country. For instance, it takes 36 days to see a dermatologist in San Francisco.

The problem is so bad that California has recently enforced legislation that requires doctors to see patients on a timely basis. ZocDoc–which specializes in scheduling same-day appointments– could be a great way to for doctors to outsource some of those requirements immediately. (If I were one of the pun-ier writers on staff, I?d say the launch is “just what the doctor ordered.”) (more…)

Remember the DotComGuy? In 2000, Mitch Maddox, a man from Texas, legally changed his name to that as he decided to live for one year year without leaving his home, buying everything he needed online and having it delivered to him. He didn’t make it.

Fast forward to 2010; While not quite that extreme, five journalists have agreed to go stay in a farmhouse together to see what kind of stories they can get using only Twitter and Facebook as sources. They will be stripped of their cellphones, and will have no other contact with the outside world other than the social networks. I’m not kidding. MSN has the full story here.

The goal here is to see just how good these networks are at actually providing information. Regular readers will know this is a topic near and dear to my heart as I’m a huge proponent of using these realtime information streams to gather information. Sure, the speed at which the information flows in doesn’t always equate to the complete story, but they’re great for watching events unfold before your eyes.

That said, there is often a need for other sources to verify the information being found in realtime, so using only these networks as the source of information should yield some interesting results. (more…)

While crowing about Google’s strong fourth quarter earnings during a conference call this afternoon, the search giant’s executives looked back on 2009 as a whole. While Google seemed to be elbowing its way into many new markets this year, Vice President of Product Management Jonathan Rosenberg actually emphasized that Google benefited by deciding to “double down” on its core products like search.

Sure, Google announced new, ambitious products like Chrome OS, Wave, and free turn-by-turn driving directions, but Rosenberg pointed out that the company ended 2008 by burying its virtual world service Lively, then began 2009 by more-or-less killing six products including Dodgeball and Google Notebook. For a company that previously boasted about morphing products rather than killing them, that was a pretty significant shift, and suggested that even as it expands, Google is casting a more critical eye on different products.

Rosenberg described this as the “more wood behind fewer arrows approach,” and added, “I think it worked for 2009.”

Moving forward, chief executive Eric Schmidt said Google will continue its “70-20-10″ spending approach — 70 percent of its spending will go to established businesses like search, 20 percent to newer businesses like mobile that fuel search, and 10 percent to long-term investments. He noted that in recent months Google has been averaging one acquisition per month, and said we can expect that level to continue in the future. (more…)