This morning, @biz (Biz Stone) and @ev (Evan Williams) kicked off Twitter’s first official developer conference, Chirp, with some facts and data and a stunning announcement related to the Library of Congress.

First, the numbers. There are 105.8 million registered users but 180 million monthly unique visitors to the website. The deduction: non-registered users read tweets. And we know that registered users read tweets primarily from other devices. Williams noted that Twitter is currently handling 3 billion requests a day; this API-driven traffic is equivalent to Yahoo, he said, noting that no other major service is this distributed.

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I own Apple stock, but I’m not lining up at my local Apple store this weekend or waiting with bated breath for the UPS or FedX guy to show up at my door. Why not? Read more…

AFP reports that the Wall Street Journal plans to charge $17.99 a month ($216/year) for an iPad subscription. This pricing model is hard to explain, given other WSJ subscription plans. And I worry that such extreme subscription plans could cloud the iPad debut and doom product adoption.

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It’s been a bonanza for public relations folks who can dream up zany stunts that feed the our news media’s thirst for “man bites dog” stories. Google reported Friday that they had received more than 1,100 community responses to the broadband fiber request for information (RFI) and more than 194,000 responses from individuals.

The company dashed a bit of cold water on those hopes when it reminded us that the goal of this experiment is to “reach a total of at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people with this experiment.”

But what city/cities should really win Google’s broadband challenge?

Greenville, SC Creates Google Logo With More Than 2,000 People Holding LED Glow Sticks; Photo by Michael Bergen, AidJoy.org

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The money quote from Hal Varian’s presentation to the Federal Trade Commission, according to TechCrunch, was this: “newspapers have never made much money from news.”

But for me, the kicker is this data point from slide #3:

Subscriptions account for 3% of revenue on average

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I’ve been thinking about business models for online content (text and images), given Apple’s introduction of the iPad and Amazon’s infamous battle with Macmillan. I’ve argued that digital subscriptions should be less than their analog counterparts, basing my argument in large part on the fact that traditional print is vastly more expensive than digital distribution.

I’ve been wrong. At least in the short run. Read more…

NBC Uses Facebook Connect As An Exclusive Login

I won’t be commenting on any NBC Olympics blog posts, or giving them a thumbs-up. That’s because the only option for commenting voting is Facebook Connect.

Unlike the federal government, which has also privileged Facebook Connect upon occasion, NBC is a corporation. It has no “taxpayer public interest” that should mandate the option of an open — non-proprietary, non-commercial — platform such as OpenID. But it should have advocates on its web dev staff who can convince their bosses that consumer choice in matters like this is in the corporation’s best interest. Read more…

Let me preface this post by reminding folks that IANAL (I am not a lawyer).

Example of White House Flickr Photo

The U.S. government policy on photographs and copyright is pretty straightfoward: photos produced by federal employees as part of their job responsibilities are “not subject to copyright in the United States and there are no U.S. copyright restrictions on reproduction, derivative works, distribution, performance, or display of the work.”

Why, then, is the Obama White House asserting that no one but “news organizations” can use its Flickr photos? Why is it asserting that manipulation is prohibited? Why is it asserting that photos may not be used in “commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House”?

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