Facebook showed off a new version of its dashboards that are meant to give more attention to games and other apps on its social network. Today, it will give developers access to the new design so that they can start creating apps that are well integrated with the dashboards.

Users can reach the dashboards by clicking on an icon on the left hand side of their Facebook pages. The dashboards give users a central place to to manage, play and discover games or apps. That means the social network recognizes the popularity of these activities and is giving them the same kind of visibility it does for photos and events, said Gareth Davis, platform manager for games at Facebook. The latest versions are here. (more…)

We’ve extended the deadline for applications to the upcoming DEMO conference to Feb. 5.

With the next DEMO coming up soon — March 21-23 at the sunny resort town of Palm Springs, Calif. — we’ve been engulfed with applications from companies wanting to launch solid products. Several promising companies have asked us for more time, so we’ve extended the deadline.

We’ve also had an open house scheduled at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins on Feb 3 and 4, another reason we’ve decided to keep the application process open until that time. A networking reception wil be held at Kleiner on the evening of the 4th. Even though we’ve filled out the available 20 slots for pitches (we’ll be sending out the remaining invites for those this weekend), you can still apply to come to the reception (just fill out the form). We’re also inviting some well-known angel investors to participate at the open house. (more…)

During the conference call discussing Google’s impressive earnings, chief executive Eric Schmidt covered topics including Google’s priorities and its moves in China. Near the end of the call, he touched on one more topic that’s particularly interesting: Google’s relationship with Apple.

Schmidt used to serve on Apple’s board of directors, but he left the board last August, because new Google products like the Android mobile operating system and the Chrome Operating System for netbooks were competing with Apple’s core business. Now that Google is selling the Nexus One phone directly, that competition has increased.

Today, Schmidt praised Apple as “a very well-run company” (he’s pictured with Apple chief executive Steve Jobs above). He described Google’s relationship with Apple as a partnership in some areas (such as Google apps on the iPhone) and a competition with in others (such as iPhone versus Android).

“I expect that to be stable for a while,” Schmidt said.

In a defining speech today on Internet Freedom, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton extended foreign policy to the Internet, calling it a “global networked commons.” Her speech harked back to Franklin Roosevelt’s famous Four Freedoms speech, and updated each one (Freedom of Expression, Freedom of Worship, Freedom From Want, Freedom From Fear) to apply to the Internet. She also added a new freedom, the Freedom to Connect:

The freedom to connect – the idea that governments should not prevent people from connecting to the internet, to websites, or to each other. The freedom to connect is like the freedom of assembly in cyber space. (more…)

For most developers, cross-browser testing is standard practice to ensure sites reach as many users as possible. But what about language translation? No matter which language you speak, foreign languages are spoken by over 60% of internet users. If a browser had a 60% market share, would you support it?

Of course, your visitors can use third party tools like Google Translate or Babelfish to translate your site themselves, but you should never rely on users to do anything. (more…)

SecondMarket opened up its private company stock marketplace in early 2009 and gave employees at hot startups something they never had before – an organized place to sell their stock even before the company went public or was acquired. For the first time the company is releasing information on private company buy/sell demand and completed transactions.

Most companies don’t SecondMarket one bit, at least at first blush. Companies don’t want random outsiders holding their stock before they’re public. And they don’t like some employees having liquidity events before others, it tends to screw around with morale. And there are also legal and tax issues. Stock options must be priced at “fair market value” or both the employee and company face tax consequences. The board of directors usually sets the common stock price at a fraction of the preferred price. But when there are verified third party purchases on places like SecondMarket, the companies have to use those sales as a guide. The result is higher priced options for all employees. (more…)

Rixty, maker of a payment app that lets people buy entertainment online even if they don’t have credit cards, has brought in $1.24 million in a seed round of funding. The San Francisco company, which lets people turn cash into online currency, is part of a slew of companies expanding the customer base for virtual goods, virtual worlds, and social networking purchases — particularly adding much younger users who don’t have bank accounts yet.

Rixty accomplishes this by partnering with online and retail vendors. Its users can buy credits to spend online from about 20,000 different physical locations — anywhere that has a CoinStar change kiosk. Ubiquitous at grocery stories, these machines are used to change coins into bills for a small percentage. When Rixty users dump their change into one of the kiosks, they receive a PIN number that allows them to add credits to their online accounts — credits that are accepted by a variety of web sites, worlds and games. (more…)

Now that 2009 is over, we can add up the numbers on how much venture firms invested in startups during all of 2009 — and, well, it was a lot less than in the past. Over the course of the year, VCs invested a total of $17.7 billion in 2,795 deals, the lowest total since 1997, according to the MoneyTree Report from the National Venture Capital Association and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

On the bright side, the worst hit came from numbers that we’ve already reported on, since investments really plummeted during the first half of this year. Funding went up in the third quarter, and more-or-less held steady in the fourth. The amount invested went down from $5.1 billion in the third quarter to $5.0 billion in the fourth quarter, but the numbers of deals went up from 689 to 794. So VCs were making smaller bets, but they placed more fo them. Another reason for optimism: There were more seed and early-stage deals in Q4 than in any other quarter this year, so new ideas are still getting money. (more…)

Twitter retools the maligned suggested users list: Twitter is phasing in a new way of finding interesting accounts for new users to follow. If you join the site today, Twitter will suggest users for you to follow that the company has picked algorithmically instead of by hand. The new system surfaces interesting Twitter users to follow based on whether they engage their audience and tweet regularly about a subject like food or business. Twitter employees still handpick accounts for a few lists — they have one they recently created for people on the ground Haiti.
(more…)

Life as a mobile developer can be tough. First, you’re hoping and praying your app will get noticed among the thousands in Apple’s App Store. Then, if you’re lucky, you hit the jackpot — your app’s downloaded by 10,000 users. But your excitement lasts only until you start getting tons of customer complaints and you have no money to pay a customer support staff.

Now, if you could outsource that customer support when you need it, wouldn’t you? That’s the pitch a startup called Help Me is making to mobile app developers. The Karachi, Pakistan-based company, which launched in April 2008, is an off shoot of Next Generation Innovations. “Mobile app support is currently non existent, and a niche where we can help provide affordable support,” says Farzal Dojki, CEO of Next generation Innovations.

Currently Apple doesn’t have a very good after-sale support mechanism for the apps in its AppStore: Users click on a “Report a Problem” button, and are then prompted to go to the developers website, where they can directly contact the developer. Developers working with Help Me would link their contact information (email or phone) to Help Me so that Help Me can then take over the support. (more…)