Unless you have been living under a rock for the past few days, you’ve probably heard that Apple has released iTunes 7.7 bringing with it the much anticipated App Store as well as the 2.0 software update for the iPhone and iPod touch. This also happs to be the day that the iPhone 3G is released. Pretty big day for Apple.

I’m in the process of updating my phone right now. It’s take about 20 minutes so far, and looks like it has another 20 or so to go. It did warn that it’d take a while. Word of warning, some people are experiencing issue with the update turning their precious iPhone into an iBrick because they couldn’t connect to the App Store (down due to traffic). I was able to browse the App Store, so I figured things should be safe now… we’ll see.

Aside from all the new games and applications, my favorite thing with this update is the ability to sync Google Contacts from GMail to iTunes. This is one of the things I’ve hated not being able to do since pretty much all of my email travels through GMail.

Here’s a roundup of iPhone related news for the past few days…

- How the iPhone App Store Will Kill iPhone Web Apps
- Battle of the iPhone Apps: MySpace vs Facebook
- iPhone App Store Is Live. So, What’s On The Menu?
- The Native iPhone 3G Apps We’ll See This Week (and Some We Won’t)
- Before the App Store “Opens”, it has already made Apple $55,000
- WordPress and TypePad Spawn Mobile Blogging
- That Didn’t Take Long…iPhone 2.0 OS Unlocked
- iPhone App Store: The Early List of Top Downloads
- iPhone Application Overview And Demo Videos

Enjoy the links!

Do you use Google’s GMail service? I do, and love it. However a few weeks ago a “dot” appeared in the top left corner of the page. I didn’t think much about it at the time, as it looked like they were trying to make it look like a folded corner. As the days went on, I started to find the 10×10 pixel spot annoying. I constantly find my focus shifting to it.

On the 4th, someone posted a picture of the problematic pixels to Flickr, which in turn made it to Digg. Apparently there are many other people who find the spot annoying, and have their own theory as to what it is. Something to track page load speeds, tracking your activity, or as I though just a failed styling attempt. A number of people have also posted to Google Groups about it.

Even TechCrunch via TechCrunchIT is trying to figure out what this is. They’re even offering a free Tee-shirt (whoopie) to whoever comes up with the best, most entertaining, or most accurate theory.

Social Networking… who would have ever thought it’d be as big as it is today. Everyone and their brother is in the game. And while I have an account on just about everyone of them, there are only a few that I log into on a regular basis.

Of course, I don’t count sites like Twitter, Plurk, or Pownce as a “Social Network”. Other people do, but I still consider these blogging services… or if you’d prefer micro-blog. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been thinking about a few services, and here are my thoughts…

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Yesterday (or the day before) someone on Plurk mentioned Woopra. I hadn’t heard anything about Woopra before, and come to find out it’s a web site analytics service similar to Google Analytics (formally Urchin). So I decided to give the service a go.

After being approved, all I can say is… WOW! This service really is nice, and after using it for a few days, I’ll admit, I like it better than Google Analytics. If you run a blog, or any other website I’d highly encourage you to take a look at Woopra.

Google has introduced GMail Labs, a new set of beta features that you can selectively enable for your GMail account. There isn’t anything that I’ve found to be extremely useful so far. But it is nice to see some new features added to the service.

There has been some rumble the last few days about a new service called Plurk. I first noticed it when ping.fm did an update earlier this week and added support for it.

Plurk, like Twitter, is a micro-blog / status service. However rather than display things in a list view, Plurk uses a rather nice timeline view. This fresh approach, in addition to Twitters consistent stability issues has lead people to ask, could Plurk be a twitter killer?

My answer: Sure, it could be. But it still has a long way to go, and will need to offer several additional features. But so far, I’ve really liked it.

Of course, Plurk isn’t the fist service to be considered a “twitter killer”. Pownce and Jaiku as well as other services have all shared the same title. So far, nothing has really been able to touch the king of micro-blogging.

Part of what makes Twitter so unbeatable right now is the number of applications, plugins, and extensions that allow you to user Twitter. You’ll find something twitter related for Firefox, Flock, Google Desktop, iGoogle, Facebook, you can even find widgets that allow you to display your tweets on your personal blog. Not to mention the dozens of other sites out there that will aggregate your twitter data and display it.

What service does everyone else use? I’ve got friends on them all. So far my favorite is Plurk, followed by Ponce and Jaiku, with Twitter dead last.

My Profiles:
Plurk
Pownce
Jaiku
Twitter

It’s been a busy week for me, and there’s been a lot of Yahoo news going on. Rather than post about everything separately, I’ll throw it all into once nice post that way I can get on to bed (I told you The Invasion bored me!).

For whatever reason, Microsoft thought it’d be a good idea to make a bid to take over Yahoo. No one that I knew expected any government to accept the deal, and thankfully yesterday Yahoo officially rejected Microsoft. This announcement came after the rumor surfaced that Yahoo may be looking to merge into Time Warner’s fledgling AOL division. AOL-Time Warner-Yahoo? Suddenly, I liked the whole Microsoft idea better.

Not long after Yahoo dissed the company Gate’s built, Microsoft issued a press release stating that it was unfortunate that Yahoo decided to turn down an offer that would create a more effective company. I guess Microsoft’s idea of being effective is releasing crap software well past the original release date (Vista anyone?). Now it looks like Microsoft has hired a proxy firm in an attempt for a hostile takeover.

Meanwhile, Yahoo has begun to layoff some 1,000 employees. Among those out the door is Salim Ismail, who has lead Yahoo Brickhouse since early 2007. According to TechCrunch, Salim left voluntary. He’ll most likely create a small startup and get bought up by Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft. Any bets?

With all the take over talks, merger proposals, and the layoffs, you’d think that’d be enough for Yahoo. Nope, today they acquired Maven Networks for $160 million.

And that’s pretty much the gist of the Microsoft-Yahoo saga that’s gone on for the past few days. Oh yeah, Yahoo also had a couple software releases, but who cares about those right now.

Why not throw out another rumor tonight. Valleywag is reporting that Microsoft may be buying Ustream.tv for $50 million.  Microsoft may not be the only one bidding on the company.

While there is no mention of it, I think Ustream or a similar service would be a great fit for Google’s YouTube. Streaming live video could really put the you into YouTube.

According to Wired there is a rumor that Google has bought Plaxo for about $200 Million.

If this is true, I hope it gets integrated with Google Apps, specifically GMail. I’ve used Plaxo fo years, and think it is an amazing service.

Rumor is that either Google or MySpace could be looking to buy social network Bebo. Word is the deal could be anywhere between $1 and $1.5 billion.

If MySpace were to buy Bebo, it could still be a win for Google as both MySpace and Bebo use Google’s OpenSocial platform. Bebo however also supports the competing Facebook platform. Chances are either way the Facebook support would get the axe.

Of course, if Google were to end up buying Bebo it could help strengthen Google’s Orkut and maybe help it to catch on more in the US. Of course, anywhere Google can stick it’s ads will be beneficial to the company.