Today during the Media Panel at LeWeb ’10 in Paris, France, there was one thing on everyones’ mind: WikiLeaks.

“This is a turning point for the Internet — it’s not just about WikiLeaks anymore,” Weblogs SL’s Julio Alonso said. ”What happens to WikiLeaks will get applied to others later on,” he warned.

“This is the first attempt at censorship of the Internet by all the governments of the planet,” Wikio’s Pierre Chappaz added. “Despite all the attacks, I’m optimistic that the information will survive,” he added.

When moderator Adrian Monck asked if this would cast a shadow on the United States in particular, Techmeme’s Gabe Rivera said he thought it already has in some ways. Rivera noted that just the tone of the crowd at LeWeb proves that to some extent. He also singled out U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman suggesting that The New York Times could be a target because of their publication of some of the cables. “It underscores that there’s really no essential difference between what WikiLeaks is doing and what The New York Times does,” he said. Rivera said that is something to be concerned about.

“We’ve pushed the theory of Internet censorship to the very edge,” The Wall Street Journal Europe’s Ben Rooney added.

“We have to speak about what’s happening,” Chappaz said. ”I’m amazed by the silence of the traditional media. This is a systematic attack. We have to explain to the traditional media. The stakes are about the free press,” he continued.

Alonso agreed. “The first line of defense is speaking about it,” he said.

Rivera added that the leakers aren’t going to lose this war. He cited mirror sites, Twitter accounts, Facebook messages, and all kinds of things that keep popping up to continue the data spread. “The leakers will win,” he said.

The panel seemed fairly convinced that even if P2P networks had to replace DNS, the information would indeed end up winning.

“The Internet is too strong. They’ll have a hard time getting it under control,” Chappaz wrapped up the panel with.

MindJolt, the game distribution company that was acquired by MySpace founder and former CEO Chris DeWolfe earlier this year, has landed a big new parter: Broadcast Interactive Media (BIM).

That name probably doesn’t ring a bell, but BIM helps run the online presences for hundreds of local television networks, newspapers, and radio stations across the country (here’s an example Fox station out of Illinois). Now, BIM is going to offer these 900 publisher partners access to MindJolt’s library of casual games. And those sites represent a lot of eyeballs: MindJolt says that it’s going to be exposed to 110 million people per month through the partnership.

MindJolt has a catalog of 1,300 casual games, which it distributes across partner sites as well as its own game portal MindJolt.com and a Facebook application that has over 10 million monthly active users. Between these channels MindJolt reaches 20 million players per month.

MindJolt COO Colin Digiaro says that the goal with the BIM partnership is to help these local news sites boost engagement — many people only visit them when local news is breaking, and these sites want to change that. Games may not be the first thing you think about when you head to a local news site, but Digiaro says that there’s a “high degree of overlap” between people who visit these local news sites and those who play MindJolt games. That said, it will be up to the publisher sites to determine how prominently they want to feature the games, so the impact will likely vary a lot from site to site.

MindJolt also recently launched a monetization product called AdJolt, which includes ads and a virtual goods system. These revenues get split between the game developer, MindJolt, and the publisher parter site, but MindJolt declined to get into specifics as far as how much would be going to BIM in this partnership.

The company did say that since launching AdJolt, it has increase the revenue of game developer partners by 50-70%, and that it’s doubled MindJolt revenue in 90 days.

MindJolt has a few competitors, including HeyZap and Mochi Media, both of which also let publishers embed a large library of casual games and monetize them.

So you went as an Angry Bird for Halloween and your kids are getting Angry Bird plush dolls in their holiday stockings. But that leaves nothing for you, the hard-working family provider. Clearly Santa should bring you some Angry Bird merchandise this year, too. It’s only fair. You’ve been a good kid.

Good thing Gear4 just announced a line of Angry Birds iPhone 4 and iPod touch cases that will dress up your device as either an Angry Bird or smug Pig King. Be warned though. While the cases are constructed out of hard plastic and are probably plenty durable, they’re not going to allow you to chuck your phone through plates of glass or wood beams. Yeah, that’s not a good idea although here’s hoping that someone does and uploads the tomfoolery to YouTube.

Both variants run $24.99 each and will probably be one of best things you get this year. Well, that is of course, if you stocking isn’t stuffed with any of these items from our epic cheap stocking stuffers gift guide. But even then, these cases are still awesome as cases can get.

The Internet IPO is back—if you are a Chinese Internet company. Youku, the YouTube of China, saw its shares pop more than 100 percent in its IPO today. Shares were priced at $12.80, but they are currently trading at $27.60.. That is a 116 percent jump.

According to its SEC filing, the company lost $25 million on total revenues of $35 million for the first nine months of 2010. The company raised $120 million prior to the IPO, and another $203 million at the IPO.

According to comscore, Youku attracted 77.8 million unique visitors worldwide in October, up 53 percent form the year before. Youku is a cross between YouTueb and Hulu, mixing user-generated videos with more professional fare for the growing Chinese audience.

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1442596/000119312510260191/df1.htm

At Le Web 10, everyone saw the awkward expression on Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley‘s face when host Loic Le Meur asked him just how large the acquisition offer was that the company recently turned down.

Le Meur guessed around $140 million (whether that offer came from Facebook, Yahoo or another company wasn’t really mentioned, but they are the likely bidders and the topic of the on-stage conversation was Facebook when the question dropped).

Crowley didn’t deny it, and then went on to acknowledge that number is “ballpark”.

Which means Foursquare turned down a $140 million-ish offer, probably from Facebook, when they’d only raised about $1.35 million in seed funding – they went on to raise $20 million more after the buyout talks died down. Visionary, or foolish? Brave, or bubble?

For what it’s worth: Foursquare just passed 5 million users, and is seeing 2 million check-ins and 25,000 new users on a daily basis.

Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley, who ironically got lost on his way to Le Web, just broke some stats about the company on stage at the conference. Crowley said that despite the fact that many people have the perception that Foursquare is at 200 hires, the company is actually just about to hit 40 employees whereas a year ago it was just four people.

These new hires have joined to accomodate recent growth: Foursquare hit over 5 million users last week and is at 2 million check-ins and 25K new users a day, Crowley confirmed onstage. Crowley also revealed that sers are split up geographically between 60% US and 40% international, with the average Foursquare user checks in 3-4 times day.

In perhaps the largest reflection of growth, Foursquare just hired an engineer that only deals with statistics.

Crowley also implied to Le Web founder Loic Lemur that he turned down an offer in the “ballpark” of $140 million, most likely from Facebook or Yahoo. Pretty nifty for something that “wasn’t meant to be a company.”

First it was distribution. Then it was monetization. The next generation of Web entrepreneurs’ make-or-break challenge will be localization and a big part of that is language.

The Web is so powerful today and the valuations are so high, because it is a billion-person-audience and growing. But more of them speak Chinese than English, and critical masses are developing around Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Bahasa Indonesian and other languages. The problem will only get worse as opportunity on the Web grows. Good translation can be incredibly expensive and just slapping Google translate on content isn’t going to be the answer.

ViKi has an interesting, open-source-like solution for video, that could have implications for other kinds of content online too. It acquires the rights to a TV show or movie, and puts it on one of its channels and within the first 24 hours an organized, volunteer community has subtitled the content into twenty languages. In another 24 hours, there’s another 20-languages of subtitles. The company has played more than 1 billion streams of video and its community has subtitled more than 100 million words into 143 languages since its 2008 inception.

Its biggest edge may be its software, which allows easy real-time collaboration between hundreds of contributors, spread all over the world. “You can do a couple of words, go get some coffee and come back and a scene is completed,” says ViKi CEO and co-founder Razmig Hovaghimian. Translators work in teams, get to see their names in translation credits, and get to work on content they feel passionately about spreading to other cultures. ViKi’s software takes advantage of all sorts of ego, game theory, nationalistic and creative levers that push thousands of hard core users to do work that usually costs thousands of dollars per thirty-minute show for free.

I’ve been watching ViKi for a while and today it is announcing a $4.3 million Series A with some big names: Saar Gur of Charles River Ventures, Reid Hoffman of Greylock, Marc Andreessen of Andreessen Horowitz, Joi Ito of Singapore’s Neoteny Labs, and some well-placed individuals like Rajesh Sawhney, President of Reliance Entertainment in India and Alex Zubillaga, former global head of digital entertainment for Warner Music.

It’s an intense lineup and each of them was drawn to the company for a different reason, Hovaghimian says. Ito, for instance, was drawn to the Creative Commons-based  community translation, while Hoffman was drawn to ViKi’s potential to open up new markets for video in an incredibly cheap and fast way. And Gur was one of ViKi’s earliest supporters.

The small, eleven-person company has been geographically all over the place– a lot like its army of free translators. It was started at Harvard and is headquartered in Singapore now, with an office in Palo Alto. It moved to Singapore to take advantage of the small city-state’s two biggest strengths: Generous government backing and its role as an easy-to-navigate pan-Asian hub. The founders have spent the last two years doing licensing deals, mostly in Korea, where Hovaghimian’s other two co-founders are from. It’s expanding now with movies from Bollywood, Japanese anime, and South America’s telenovelas– typically doing licensing deals for distribution in every country except the one where the content was made.

What I love about this company is it’s in the middle of everything exciting about the emerging world: The artistic culture that defines it, the language that so often serves as a barrier to exploiting it and the massive opportunity of surging, middle class global eyeballs. It’s going to be exciting to see where this company goes and where it takes its audience.

Today at LeWeb ’10 in Paris, France, our own Michael Arrington took the stage to talk with Google’s Marissa Mayer. Mayer recently took a new job within Google. Technically, she’s now the head of consumer products for the company. So what’s she working on?

Well, as we’ve all heard, location is a big part of it. But she’s also thinking about a bigger picture item that Google is still working on. This is what Google is calling “contextual discovery”. This means being able to look at either a person’s browsing profile or their location profile and serving up interesting data to them without them searching for anything. Yes, it’s Google results without the search.

“The idea is to push information to people,” Mayer said. She noted that on mobile devices this is particularly interesting because location can provide context. One example she gave was a menu when you’re in a particular restaurant. It would be great to show up and see that on your device — maybe with a bit of social flavor based on what your friends like, she added.

Mayer said they’re still thinking about how the UI for all of this should look, but they have some ideas. It may be a panel in the browser. But on mobile devices it would be different. She said they they have a couple of things they’re currently experimenting with and that we should expect something to come from them in the next year or so.

“We’re trying to build a virtual mirror of the world at all times,” Mayer said.

Below, find my live notes of the entire discussion (paraphrased):

MA: So, you now have a new job

MM: We’re calling it consumer products broadly. Local Search, Maps, Earth, Latitude, and all the local products. But it’s also contextual discovery. Take a users location as a piece of context for finding what they want without them actually searching for anything. We have a couple of things we’re experimenting with, but it will be out in the next year.

MA: Why give up search and do something different?

MM: Well I had done it for about 11 years. We’re the number 1 site and number 1 search engine. It was time to try something new. Local is all very related to search, so my knowledge transfers. But now I have engineering on my team. I have 800 – 1000 people working under me. If you include all the various people around the world it’s more like 2,000. “We’re trying to build a virtual mirror of the world at all times.”

MA: Let’s talk more about contextual discovery.

MM: The idea is to push information to people. It’s location in context. Inside the browser and a toolbar, can we look at where people have been going on the web — then we deliver it. But it’s a big UI challenge. In the browser it might be a panel on the right or bottom that complements your browsing. On the mobile phone, it’s where you are in the physical world. We can figure out where the next most useful information is. In a restaurant maybe it’s a menu. Or maybe it’s a social menu. It’s about explicit and implicit location.

MA: Latitude is one of your products. Can we just agree that it’s pretty terrible?

MM: (Laughs) I use it.

MA: But you are an avid Foursquare user.

MM: I am. But Latitude is useful for a smaller group of people. Only a handful of people you’ll want to know where you are at all times. There will be new layers coming on top of it. It’s more useful when more people are on it. And implicit and explicit — yes, the check-in. Maybe that’s in Latitude or maybe it’s in Maps.

MA: You launched Latitude on the iPhone right? We saw it.

MM: It’s close. We’re interested in it. (Laughs)

MA: There are three big acquisitions that Google has been involved in in the past 12 months. Yelp, Twitter, and Groupon. You don’t have to confirm. But why has Google failed to get these companies? Is all the luster gone?

MM: I can’t comment on any instance. But every deal is different. The larger the company, the more complicated the deal is. Slide is an autonomous inside of Google, for example.

MA: What is HotPot — a Yelp killer?

MM: No, it’s a recommendation engine. It’s built into Maps for mobile and Places. You can go to restaurants and rate them quickly. And you make connections with friends or other users like you. We try to produce good recommendations for you. It’s collaborative filtering plus the social component.

MA: Do you remember Buzz? I didn’t mean it like that.

MM: I don’t think Buzz was really similar, this is the new way to rate things for Local.

MA: So Google Social, +1, can you confirm that?

MM: It’s clear that social is important to Google. We need to work on it.

MA: But if you mess up again… Do you just turn into Microsoft while you watch Facebook rise?

MM: It’s clear that it’s really important. We really want to get it right this time. That said, we’re really patient. There’s search, mobile, local, and social. We’ve gotten three right. We’re working on the fourth one.

MA: How does Twitter play into the ecosystem.

MM: It’s an amazing distribution mechanism. And a way to consume information. But it’s more about blasting it out. We use it for HotPot. Foursquare is great signal too — I just checked-in here. I just checked-in there. Twitter is a great product. I use it a lot.

MA: Will acquisitions happen in your group in the next 6 months?

MM: Absolutely. We’re on track for almost an acquisition a week. We do 1, 2, or 3 of those big ones a year. AdMob, ITA, those types of deals are always in the works.

—— Dave Burk, and engineering takes the stage Gingerbread in hand on the Nexus S. ——–

DB: We’ve been working on this device with Samsung for about 12 months. It’s a pure Google experience device. It’s the very best of Google and Android.

MM: One of the key parts is Google Maps for Mobile. Now it’s Google Maps for Mobile 5.0. We have 100 million using Maps for Mobile now.

DB: I can use a multi-touch gesture to get a 3D view.

MM: This is vector maps. So we can smoothly pan and zoom.

MA: What I like about it are the new wallpapers. You’re only selling this is U.S. or UK right? Anyway to get one elsewhere?

DB: It’s only on pre-order in a couple countries. We’ll see after Christmas.

MA: What is you ran Yahoo?

MM: I think Carol has done a lot of smart things. The Bing search deal was smart — we wish it was us. But they’re doing a lot of things to flatten things out and stay relevant.

MA: What about more Google investments? You did Zynga. What about Twitter.

MM: Well gaming makes sense. But other things we’ll have to see.

MA: You’re on the secret committee right?

MM: Yes, The OC. That’s what we call it — the operating committee. It’s about a dozen people who have done a lot with the company. We help operate the company. I’m really proud to be a part of that.

MA: You talk about killing products, investments, right?

MM: Yeah, it’s true. All that stuff.

MA: Anything else?

MM: We’ve had a really exciting week. Nexus S. Gingerbread. Chrome OS. 120 million active users of Google Chrome. And the Chrome Web Store.

MA: Isn’t that a fancy name for extensions?

MM: Sort of, but they’re hosted on the network vs. on the client side. And they’re all HTML5.

MA: What about Chrome OS vs. Android?

MM: I think we haven’t really decided. We see a lot of promise in Chrome OS. We’re looking at it to be on notebooks right now. It’s not even netbooks anymore. And Android is going to tablets right now. But the form factor for either could work for the other. Like Google TV is built on top of Android. And the developer community is helping on both.

MA: What about downloading Chrome OS to my MacBook?

MM: Hard to say. I can’t speculate. Possibly. The big thing is that Chrome OS is super-fast. You open the laptop and it’s ready. I have one waiting for me when I get back.

DocuSign, which offers an electronic signature cloud platform, has secured $27 million in third-round funding. The round was led by Scale Venture Partners and joined by Salesforce.com, Sigma Partners, Ignition Partners and Frazier Technology.

In conjunction with the financing announcement, the company said that it has hired Dustin Grosse, formerly sales and marketing GM for Microsoft's Field Readiness team and the Microsoft Office Unified Communications Group, as its new SVP, chief marketing and business development officer.

The company has also recruited Roger Erickson, formerly SVP of technology solutions and services at Autonomy ZANTAZ – he will join DocuSign as VP of customer success.

DocuSign says it will use the fresh capital to introduce new cloud-based electronic signature technology and services scheduled in 2011 and beyond.

The new investment round brings the total of capital raised by the company to $56.4 million.

Christopher Poole, aka Moot, the founder of 4chan and still stealthy Canvas Networks, is now a venture advisor. He just joined Lerer Ventures, the New York City seed fund started by Ken and Ben Lerer. While he is not a formal partner, he will have the ability to greenlight deals. Poole joins other Lerer Ventures advisors Eric Hippeau (CEO of the Huffington Post), and Jonah Peretti (CEO of Buzzfeed and co-founder of the Huiffington Post). Ken Lerer is the chairman of the Huffington Post, while his son, Ben, is the CEO and founder of Thrillist.

Moot is plugged into the hacker culture in New York City, which Lerer Ventures wants to tap into. He will advise the fund and bring it deals, as well as participate in the upside of the fund. So he’s more like an advisor with privileges. “Like everyone else at Lerer,” says Poole, “I’m primarily focussed on building my company, but I view my participation in the fund as a way to stay current as the world changes and invest in my peers who are doing amazing things.”

So what kind of startups will he be looking for? “I think I’d be drawn to a founder whose story somewhat parallels my own—working on cool stuff from a young age and more motivated by an interest in solving hard problems than the prospect of striking it
rich.”

Lerer Ventures, which is run on a day-to-day basis by partner Jordan Cooper, has been on a tear lately. Overthe past twelve months, it has invested in nearly 30 startups, including BankSimple, betaworks, chartbeat, FluidInfo, gdgt, Greplin, GroupMe, Venmo, and Poole’s Canvas Networks. Sounds like they are just getting started.

Described as a fan-funded record label, My Major Company has launched in the UK with a mix of traditional A&R and crowdfunding. It differs slightly from similar sites, such as Sellaband or the UK's Slicethepie, in that the acts featured on the site are sourced by the startup's own talent spotting department first. In addition, fans who choose to invest are essentially buying shares in any future profits made from the artist's launch campaign as a whole (physical and digital music sales, merchandise, tours etc.), which My Major Company oversees, should they raise the £100,000 stipulated to get off the ground.

Milo Yannopoulos’ very first question on stage to PayPal’s VP of Platform Osama Bedier was about why PayPal blocked WikiLeaks payments and froze its account. The question was met with boos from the mostly European audience.

In his answer Bedier made it seem like PayPal had complied with a governmental request to deny service to WikiLeaks, “We have an acceptable use policy and their job is make sure that our customers are protected, making sure that we comply with regulations around the world and making sure that we protect our brand.”

Bedier also said that PayPal’s decision was influenced by the fact that the State Department deemed WikiLeaks illegal in a letter sent on November 27th, a statement that was not followed up on by Yiannopoulos. It is still unclear what exact US laws WikiLeaks is breaking.

When asked about Mastercard.com going down earlier today and whether or not Paypal had fears of retaliation, “One of the signs that you’re a successful payments company is that hackers start to target you, this case isn’t anything different.”

Update: After talking to Bedier backstage, he clarified that the State Department did not directly talk to PayPal and that the letter in question here was actually sent by the State Department to WikiLeaks. I have changed the headline of this post to reflect this statement. Full text of the letter Osama said he was referencing and video of the talk, below:

Text of State Department letter to Wikileaks
Sun Nov 28, 2010 9:11am EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Text of a letter from the State Department to Julian Assange, the founder of whistleblowing website WikiLeaks, and his lawyer Jennifer Robinson concerning its intended publication of classified State Department documents. The letter, dated November 27, was released by the department.

Dear Ms. Robinson and Mr. Assange:

I am writing in response to your 26 November 2010 letter to U.S. Ambassador Louis B. Susman regarding your intention to again publish on your WikiLeaks site what you claim to be classified U.S. Government documents.

As you know, if any of the materials you intend to publish were provided by any government officials, or any intermediary without proper authorization, they were provided in violation of U.S. law and without regard for the grave consequences of this action. As long as WikiLeaks holds such material, the violation of the law is ongoing.

It is our understanding from conversations with representatives from The New York Times, The Guardian and Der Spiegel, that WikiLeaks also has provided approximately 250,000 documents to each of them for publication, furthering the illegal dissemination of classified documents.

Publication of documents of this nature at a minimum would:

* Place at risk the lives of countless innocent individuals — from journalists to human rights activists and bloggers to soldiers to individuals providing information to further peace and security;

* Place at risk on-going military operations, including operations to stop terrorists, traffickers in human beings and illicit arms, violent criminal enterprises and other actors that threaten global security; and,

* Place at risk on-going cooperation between countries – partners, allies and common stakeholders — to confront common challenges from terrorism to pandemic diseases to nuclear proliferation that threaten global stability.

In your letter, you say you want — consistent with your goal of “maximum disclosure” — information regarding individuals who may be “at significant risk of harm” because of your actions.

Despite your stated desire to protect those lives, you have done the opposite and endangered the lives of countless individuals. You have undermined your stated objective by disseminating this material widely, without redaction, and without regard to the security and sanctity of the lives your actions endanger. We will not engage in a negotiation regarding the further release or dissemination of illegally obtained U.S. Government classified materials. If you are genuinely interested in seeking to stop the damage from your actions, you should: 1) ensure WikiLeaks ceases publishing any and all such materials; 2) ensure WikiLeaks returns any and all classified U.S. Government material in its possession; and 3) remove and destroy all records of this material from WikiLeaks’ databases.

Sincerely,

(The letter is signed by Harold Hongju Koh, legal adviser to the State Department)

Dr. Bertrand Piccard took the stage here at Le Web 2010 to talk about his ongoing efforts to build fuel-less planes with a modest statement, “If you don’t read the NY Times you have never heard of Solar Impulse.”

Solar Impulse founder Piccard comes from a long line of pioneers, his father led the first flight in the stratosphere in 1931. On this Piccard elaborated, “Pioneering spirit is something that everyone else says is impossible, until everyone says it was obvious.”

The idea for Solar Impulse came from a promise that Piccard made to himself that he would complete a flight “with solar power, batteries with whatever, but with no fuel.” Like any risk-taking entrepreneur, Piccard is extremely hopeful about the prospects of fuel alternatives, “We have technology today that allow us to reduce our consumption of oil by at least 50%. And it’s possible.”

The big ideas inspired by the existence of a solar plane is the most important part of the whole project Piccard emphasized. It is an ambitious to say the least endeavor to try to make the world a little less dependent on fossil energy, especially since the price of oil is currently at $88 a barrel. “New technologies are vital for the future, but much more than that. So many people are not pioneers. Relying on habits is what we have to kill.”

Because the construction of the plane was so out of the ordinary,  Piccard revealed that no tradition airplane construction firms would take it at first. In order for the whole no fuel schtick to work according to his calculations, the plane’s body needed to be 64 meters long and 1600 kilos (less than two tons), not an easy project. So he went to people who had no idea about airplanes.

Receiving funding from Omega, Solvay and Deutsche Bank in return for the privilege of getting their names on a side of a solar powered plane among other things, the Solar Impulse team now has over 70 people. One of the primary reasons Piccard is speaking at Le Web this year is to get more people to join the family. “If we don’t invent the future than we won’t make it to the next generation without some disaster.”

“Now we have something to show, we have an airplane,” said Piccard. But it’s more than a plane he insists again, “It’s a demonstration of what can be achieved if we manage to think out of the box and implement adventure in our daily lives.”

In an on-stage interview at Le Web 10 in Paris, Rovio CEO Mikael Hed talked about one of the most popular games ever to hit mobile phones all around the world: Angry Birds.

Our notes:

What’s the story behind Angry Birds?

It started off with a screenshot from one of our game designers. He drew a picture of some really angry-looking birds. He explained the game mechanics behind his idea. I didn’t understand any of it, but everybody really loved the characters, so we started developing a game around it.

Can you share some of the latest numbers?

We’ve sold 12 million copies of Angry Birds to date, and we’ve seen about 30 million downloads of the free app. The majority of revenues comes from the iPhone, and a lot of that is from advertising.

Did the success of the advertising model take you by surprise?

We had a pretty good idea of how well it could do, but I do think the future will hold many more apps that will be getting most of its revenue from advertising. It’s just a great way to capture users for the long term.

On the iPhone, the commercial model works really well – there’s only one shop, you have to register for iTunes, everyone can buy, etc.

There’s been quite a bit of talk about the Android version, about the severe performance issues and so on. Can you talk a little about that? Is Apple right in saying that there’s a huge fragmentation problem? Is it a big issue for you?

Not too much, we’ve done a lot of games in Java over the years, so we’re good at porting our games. It’s familiar to us. But it does take manpower to do it, and in some cases we can’t support all the handsets, because of their respective specifications.

Is it mainly the hardware, or which version of Android the handsets are running?

Everything Android 2.0 and upwards is really good.

What about some of the other platforms? Windows Phone 7 for example?

We’re actively looking at WP7, we have a very good relationship with Microsoft. They just announced our game for the platform a bit ahead of schedule.

What about the Chrome web store?

Chrome is very interesting, and we’re looking at that also.

Would that be an advertising-driven model as well?

It remains to be seen how wide the payment coverage is, but I must say the revenue split is very interesting.

Are you expanding to Facebook at some point?

It’s an interesting time to get on Facebook, so we’re definitely looking at that.

What’s with the Angry Birds toys stuff?

We were introduced to a licensing agency early on, and we thought of ways to use the brand for other things like merchandise. The results so far have been very encouraging.

We’re actually waiting for more toys to arrive from China, and we’re already selling inventory that will only arrive in January or even February 2011.

What’s next for you guys?

Next year, we’ll be moving to consoles. It’s a more traditional business model, but we’re interested in the downloadable games aspect of it. We’re building our back-end system now that will allow people to play the same game from different devices.

There’s also talk about a potential movie deal. What’s the status on that?

We have looked very closely at that, but the issue is that it would take about 4 years for the movie to come out. We could essentially do it anytime, but we’re focused on smaller screens right now.

Is there another game you’re working on?

At the beginning of this year, we were 12 people, 40 now. All of our manpower has gone to Angry Birds so far, but we’re working on new titles, that may or may not be Angry Birds related.

Same model?

Yes, we’ll continue to focus on the quality of the game. We want all of our products to be great.

How are you doing in terms of revenue? Do you need more money to grow?

No, we don’t anymore. We’re very profitable right now, and even with the expansion that we foresee, we don’t expect any problems in paying for it with our current income.

Do you get a lot of interest from potential buyers?

There is a lot of interest, but we’ve been focused on building our own business now.

Salesforce.com has just announced that it is acquiring Heroku, which provides a Ruby application platform-as-a-service, for approximately $212 million in cash.

That’s one hell of an exit for the startup, which was founded in 2007 and has raised only $13 million in funding.

Heroku was initially provided with seed funding through Y Combinator back in 2008.

The startup says it currently powers over 105,000 social and mobile cloud applications.

According to the company, the Ruby development community is over 1 million members strong and growing fast, with Internet companies as big as Twitter, Groupon and Hulu using the development language to power its applications.

Salesforce.com says the acquisition of Heroku is a way for them to continue providing support for the next generation of (Java and Ruby) app developers.

Byron Sebastian, Heroku CEO, put it this way:

“Together, we will provide the best place to run and deploy Cloud 2 apps. We believe this is the winning combination to bring cloud application platforms into the mainstream of the enterprise.”

In addition to the $212 million cash, Salesforce.com will grant shares of restricted stock and restricted stock units with a value of approximately $27 million to Heroku employees, and commits to paying approximately $10 million in cash for unvested Heroku shares.

The acquisition has been approved by Heroku’s board and stockholders and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011, ending Jan. 31, subject to customary closing conditions.

This is Salesforce’s fifth acquisition this year. Earlier purchases include Activa Live, Sitemasher and Jigsaw. Salesforce.com also spent $170 million to fully acquire its Japanese subsidiary, Salesforce Japan.

Full press release:

Salesforce.com Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Heroku

Heroku is the leading Ruby application platform-as-a-service, powering more than 105,000 next-generation social and mobile cloud applications

With an exploding community of more than 1 million developers, Ruby powers many of the leading Cloud 2 apps

Heroku’s Ruby cloud platform to accelerate enterprise customers’ transition to new era of cloud computing

Salesforce.com cloud platform will support major Cloud 2 languages – Java and Ruby

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 8, 2010 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), the enterprise cloud computing (http://www.salesforce.com/cloudcomputing/) company, today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Heroku, the fastest growing cloud application platform for writing Ruby-based applications, for approximately $212 million in cash, net of cash acquired. The transaction is expected to be completed in salesforce.com’s fiscal fourth quarter ending Jan. 31, 2011, subject to customary closing conditions.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20050216/SFW105LOGO)

Comments on the News

“The next era of cloud computing is social, mobile and real-time. I call it Cloud 2,” said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO, salesforce.com. “Ruby is the language of Cloud 2, and Heroku is the leading Ruby application platform-as-a-service for Cloud 2 that is fueling this growing community. We think this acquisition will uniquely position salesforce.com as the cornerstone for the next generation of app developers.”

“We have a service that developers really love, and salesforce.com has the trust and credibility the most demanding customers expect,” said Byron Sebastian, Heroku CEO. “Together, we will provide the best place to run and deploy Cloud 2 apps. We believe this is the winning combination to bring cloud application platforms into the mainstream of the enterprise.”

Heroku: Leading Ruby Cloud Application Platform

Heroku is the leading Ruby platform-as-a-service, built from the ground up to work in an open environment and take advantage of the Ruby language. Ruby has become the leading development language used to write next-generation apps that are social, collaborative and deliver real-time access to information across mobile devices. Today, Heroku powers more than 105,000 apps, written by an avid following of Ruby developers.

Heroku was founded in 2007 by application developers for application developers, with the goal of making the deployment and management of next-generation cloud apps as easy as developing them. The application platform features a workflow and interface designed to mirror how developers work. Because the platform is a service, there are no virtual machines to manage, no software to install, and no hardware to manage and tune. Developers can focus on writing their code, and Heroku takes care of everything else — from deployment to scaling and quality of service. That focus on the developer experience has translated into a passionate following and rapid growth. Last week alone, developers added 2,600 new apps to the platform.

Ruby: The Development Community for Cloud 2

With a growing community of more than 1 million developers, Ruby has become the leading development language used to write next-generation social and mobile applications. Such apps include Internet and social-media leaders Groupon, Hulu, 37 Signals and Twitter. Heroku — with its flexible and open platform — is geared to that Ruby development community. Heroku serves customers of all sizes, in all industries, from around the world. More than 105,000 web apps run on Heroku’s application platform, ranging from social media apps from cutting-edge companies like FlightCaster, which helps users avoid delayed flights, to established companies such as Best Buy, which created an app to help consumers improve their shopping experience.

With the demand for Cloud 2 apps increasing, new platforms and new languages are required to provide developers with the best experience possible. Salesforce.com recognizes that the leading language for building Cloud 2 apps is Ruby, and the leading cloud platform for Ruby is Heroku. The acquisition of Heroku — the leading Ruby platform for building apps using the leading development language — will help salesforce.com accelerate the shift to the next era of cloud computing, within the enterprise and across the entire industry.

Accelerating the Enterprise Shift to Cloud 2

With Heroku, salesforce.com will gain the leading application platform-as-a-service for developers working in Ruby, the hottest language used today for building next-generation apps. Salesforce.com not only gains a highly talented team and access to the rapidly expanding community of Ruby developers, but also gets technology and intellectual property assets that don’t exist anywhere else. Salesforce.com expects that — together with VMforce, the enterprise Java cloud for the more than 6 million Java developers — Heroku will enable the company to become the unparalleled platform provider for nearly any kind of Cloud 2 application. This will help salesforce.com extend its leadership in the cloud platform market.

Heroku was built with the same multi-tenant philosophy that is the hallmark of salesforce.com’s Force.com platform. Heroku and salesforce.com share the vision of providing an open and portable programming environment that doesn’t require customers to take on the expense or maintenance headaches that come with buying and deploying hardware and software.

Salesforce.com Positioned to Increase Share of Rapidly Growing Cloud Services Market

Salesforce.com anticipates that the acquisition will help it attract and serve a critical mass of developers, customers and ISVs wanting an open, scalable and trusted Cloud 2 platform. The purchase also will enable salesforce.com to take an increased share in the worldwide market for public IT cloud services, which market research firm IDC forecasts will grow 27 percent a year, to $55.5 billion in 2014. The apps that are moving to the cloud increasingly require technologies that support collaboration and mobility. The acquisition of the leading Ruby cloud application platform uniquely positions salesforce.com to capture a greater share of this market opportunity.

Details Regarding the Proposed Heroku Acquisition

Salesforce.com will acquire Heroku for approximately $212 million in cash, net of cash acquired. In addition, as part of the acquisition salesforce.com will grant shares of restricted stock and restricted stock units with an aggregate value of approximately $27 million to Heroku employees and will pay approximately $10 million in cash for unvested Heroku shares. The acquisition has been approved by Heroku’s board of directors and stockholders and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011, ending Jan. 31, subject to customary closing conditions.

Additional details and information about the terms and conditions of the acquisition will be available in a current report on Form 8-K to be filed by salesforce.com with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Financial Impact of Proposed Heroku Acquisition

* Q4 FY11: The acquisition is expected to have no impact to salesforce.com’s fiscal fourth quarter revenue. However, the company expects the acquisition to reduce non-GAAP EPS by approximately $0.02 in the quarter ending Jan. 31, 2011.

* FY12: The company currently expects no material revenue contribution from the acquisition during its fiscal 2012. The company currently projects the acquisition to reduce non-GAAP EPS by approximately $0.12 to $0.13 in the year ending Jan. 31, 2012.

The financial impact of the acquisition on a GAAP-basis cannot be estimated until the allocation of the purchase price is made following the closing of the acquisition. Salesforce.com currently expects that the impact of the acquisition will be significantly greater on a GAAP basis than a non-GAAP basis.

About Heroku

Heroku was founded in 2007 by Orion Henry, James Lindenbaum and Adam Wiggins, with the goal of creating a platform-as-a-service that would make deploying, managing and scaling next-generation web applications as easy as writing them. The industry-leading Ruby application platform, Heroku features a workflow and interface that mimics how developers work. Heroku’s multi-tenant architecture means no virtual machines to manage, no software to install, and no complicated platform stacks to manage and tune. Developers can focus on writing their code — and Heroku takes care of everything else. Heroku’s investors include Baseline Ventures, Harrison Metal Capital, Ignition Partners, Redpoint Ventures and Y Combinator. Based in San Francisco, Heroku has about 30 employees.

About Salesforce.com

Salesforce.com is the trusted enterprise cloud computing company. Based on salesforce.com’s real-time, multitenant architecture, the company’s Force.com platform and apps (http://www.salesforce.com/crm) have revolutionized the way companies collaborate and communicate. Salesforce.com’s cloud offerings include:

The Sales Cloud, for sales force automation and contact management
The Service Cloud, for customer service and support
The Jigsaw Data Cloud, for ensuring data integrity and quality
Salesforce Chatter, for social collaboration
The Force.com platform, for custom application development
Database.com, the world’s first enterprise cloud database
The AppExchange, the world’s leading marketplace for enterprise cloud computing apps

Salesforce.com offers the fastest path to customer success with cloud computing. As of October 31, 2010, salesforce.com manages customer information for approximately 87,200 customers including Allianz Commercial, Dell, Japan Post, Kaiser Permanente, KONE, and SunTrust Banks.

Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements may not be currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase salesforce.com applications should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce.com has headquarters in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia, and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “CRM.” For more information please visit http://www.salesforce.com, or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE.

In retaliation for refusing to let Mastercard customers donate to Wikileaks, 4Chan-based hackers and the Internet vigilante group Anonymous have successfully taken down the website of Mastercard.com with orchestrated DDOS attacks.

The Anonymous-backed Operation Payback which is taking responsibility for these attackes, has also lead previous efforts against the RIAA. Operation Payback is organizing its WikiLeaks and Julian Assange support efforts through the @Anon_Operation Twitter account and here.

Attacks have also hit Paypal and Swiss bank PostFinance and other sites which have refused service to Assange. EveryDNS.net, Visa as well as Amazon are also possible targets.

Assange himself was arrested in London yesterday under allegations of sexual mis-conduct and will be held in custody until December 14th. It remains to be seen how the WikiLeaks saga will play out, but it is very obvious that the entire Internet will be the battleground.

Giveo, which aims to enable organizations worldwide to set up, promote and measure online cause marketing campaigns, has raised $1.5 million in Series A financing. The round was led by Access Venture Partners, with participation from Grotech Partners, Sentinel Trust and multiple unnamed private investors.

Giveo's SaaS-based software platform lets organizations create targeted cause-related marketing campaigns, helps promote them online and also measures their effectiveness, to ensure the organizations are reaching the right audience with the right messages.

Ed Messman, Giveo founder and CEO, said the funding will be used to introduce new solutions, but “also forever change how online and social communication channels are used in cause-marketing campaigns".

We’ll see about that, but it’s definitely an interesting proposition.

The startup says it has signed up more than 35 clients since its launch in April 2010.

When asked on stage today whether there will ever be a “Zynga of music” i.e. a company that leverages social in order to disrupt the music space Director of the Facebook Developer platform Ethan Beard said that Facebook is in fact in the music business.

“Spotify is Facebook Music,” Beard said, revealing that when Spotify, which has not yet launched in the U.S., integrated social features into its own site, traffic increased 4 times. Facebook is now the Spotify’s number one referrer of traffic.

Beard emphasized that there is a lot of room for growth for music companies that integrate Facebook’s social features as well as Spotify has. “We want to focus on building out the building blocks of the social graph so companies can build on top of it,” Beard said.

The much buzzed about Spotify has been talking about a U.S. launch for well over a year, but it hasn't happened yet.

Our very own MG Siegler interviewed Jason Goldman, VP of Product at Twitter, at Le Web 10.

Our notes:

Siegler started off by asking about the new integrations Twitter launched yesterday.

Goldman went over the enhancements, which include integrations in the details plane of #newtwitter with Instagram, YouTube, iTunes, and other services.

Is the right pane the new Twitter platform?

It’s not wide open, we take a measured approach. In the future, it will be a new place for innovations to happen, though.

There’s 20 partners now?

Yes, and we’re ramping up. We’re hiring more people, so we have room for growth there.

You’ve moved into some of the holes that third-party developers were focused on filling. Aren’t you afraid that you’re scaring them?

We want to give users the best possible experience, on mobile and the Web. We need to improve all of them. But I still use TweetDeck and Seesmic, so there are still opportunities. We’re also adding new opportunities for third-party devs to make money from their applications. There’s a lot of interesting innovations in relevance, for one.

I think it’s also a result of Twitter and the service in general growing so quickly. The majority of our resources are still going to scaling the platform, but we can now build our own clients.

What would you say is the biggest product mistake you made?

Any of the UI I designed myself. Biz Stone told me that a lot of times.

Sometimes, we make stuff too complicated. Take the IM feature we once incorporated, that would recognize when you were actually online – it was a clever idea, but it just didn’t work, it was far too complicated and people got confused.

We try not to get too clever in terms of features, not add too many options.

You worked at Google for a while. What’s your view on what they’re doing with social? How do you think they’re doing?

Some stuff has leaked out, but I don’t think it’s fair to judge any products at this point.

We need to wait and see what they actually launch. There’s amazing folks at Google, and they will build innovative stuff.

Why hasn’t its social stuff caught on yet?

Their primary business is still online advertising, so it’s hard to prioritize. Google’s actually great at it, but it’s still difficult, especially because it’s such a large company.

What’s next for Twitter? What does it need to do better?

Focus on consumption experience. We have some content for everyone, but we can do a far better job at allowing people to find it quicker. Some of the stuff of ‘who to follow’ is a first step, but there’s more work on that level to be done.

You’ve been with Twitter for a while. So what’s next for you personally?

Yeah I date back to the Odeo days. But I wanted to call it ‘fleeding’, which was a terrible idea. I started in product management, but I had several different roles.

(Big surprise!)

I’ve just announced to the entire company last Friday that I’ll be leaving Twitter at the end of the month.

We’ve grown a lot over the past few years, but it’s a good time for me to step down, although I’ll still be involved as an advisor for a while. I’m not leaving to start something new, and I’m not going to join Facebook or Google.

I’m not going to say I need to spend more time with my family – as it only consists of my girlfriend and two cats – but I just need a bit of a break.

What are you most proud of?

The New Twitter was certainly one of the most complicated, but hiring Kevin Cheng to lead the project was probably the most important thing I did at Twitter.

I’m also proud of the little things, like updating the status blogs over the years. Learned the many ways of how to say “we’re working on it” and so on.

Here at Le Web in Paris, Facebook head of platform Ethan Beard told our very own Mike Arrington that 250 million people are now connecting via the Facebook Connect ecosystem monthly. Over 100 million of those people started using Connect in the past year. Facebook Connect was implemented in 2008 in order to allows users to “connect” their Facebook identity to any site online and is currently adding 10,000 about sites a day.

Beard says that after flatlining at 60 million users right after Beard joined (around the time of Beacon) Facebook put in a user growth team which is responsible for the site’s success in reaching the much hallowed 500 million milestone in the past year. “We’re shaping and defining what the internet is going to look like in the next couple of years,” he said.

We’re here at Le Web 2010 in Paris, where organizer Loic Le Meur is doing an on-stage Q&A with Charlie Kindel, General Manager for the Windows Phone Developer Ecosystem at Microsoft.

Asked how many phones Microsoft has sold to date, Kindel declined to answer the question (sound familiar?).

He only said they “plan to sell a lot in 2011″, referring to it as a “long-term project”.

Which, in my mind, means sales are really disappointing right now, admittedly only one and a half month in.

Kindel said he recognizes that Microsoft is far behind right now, but remains ambitious in its mobile efforts.

Le Meur proclaimed that mobile app developers have a terrible life, having to build applications for a multitude of platforms today. He asked Kindel why developers should be interested in Windows Phone 7.

Vague answer (paraphrased): we built the phone to be different, so developers can also create different experiences. Meh.

According to Kindel, the development tools have been downloaded 750,000 times since WP7′s debut, and about 50,000 developers have signed up so far.

Le Meur: is Microsoft building its own phone?

Kindel: I don’t think so. There are now nine different models available, and we’ll continue to work with hardware manufacturers to build more. It’s a model we’re comfortable with.

Le Meur: what about tablets?

Kindel: Nothing to announce right now, but we’ll be coming out with interesting stuff in the next year.

Kindel concluded the interview by saying that Windows Phone 7 makes Microsoft credible again in the mobile space, but that they have a lot of mountains left to climb.

He recognizes that the company still has a long way to go, but he stressed that they’re really proud of the product right now.

Now if only they’d let us know how well it’s selling.

Here’s an interesting SEC filing I stumbled upon: a San Francisco startup called Kicktag has apparently raised $2 million in funding. The company has a website, but there’s not much on there for now apart from a beta program sign-up form.

Interestingly, the people mentioned in the filing appear to be quite high profile: listed as co-founder and CEO is Michael Downing, former CEO of GoFish and more recently EIR at Stanford Research Institute, and former INQ CEO Frank Meehan and John Mc Intire are also involved.

Also involved, according to LinkedIn: NBC Universal on-air host Gardner Loulan.

According to Downing’s LinkedIn profile, Kicktag “helps video enthusiasts more effectively inform, educate and entertain audiences online – by enabling them to attach relevant and engaging data from across the web to each moment in any video”.

I also found this very recent job posting for a Senior RoR Developer, which makes Kicktag sound even more vague:

We live to create killer consumer technology that millions of people use across the web, consumer applications so cool that all our friends use them, so simple that our moms can pick them up in minutes and so disruptive that they stand to forever change how the world deals with video.

The company was previously named KickLight Labs, so assuming the information on the old website is still relevant today, you can learn more on there (and see a video here).

More interestingly:

Our lead investors and advisors include one of the largest wireless companies in the world, one of the largest investors in Facebook, and individual investors and advisors that represent a who's who of Silicon Valley stars.

CrunchBase only lists Riaz Valani, General Partner at Global Asset Capital, as a seed investor.

I’ve contacted the company to get more details, but it looks like this one will be very much worth keeping an eye on.

Europe’s largest tech conference, Loic Le Meur’s Le Web 10 kicks off today in a couple minutes. Le Web brings in over 3,000 attendees from 26 countries worldwide and today’s talks include such notables as Twitter’s Jason Goldman, Foursquare’s Dennis Crowley and Google’s Marissa Mayer. The event will be live streamed in its entirety courtesy of Ustream and you can watch the video above and here.

DAY 1 – DEC 8, 2010 – Pullman PLENARY ROOM
Times are Paris time.

08h00 – Welcome Buffet Breakfast
sponsored by Cotty Vivant Marchisio & Lauzeral – Law Firm

09h00 – Opening remarks
Geraldine & Loïc Le Meur, LeWeb Founders

09h25 – Welcome Keynote
Carlos Ghosn, Chairman & CEO, Renault S.A. & Nissan Motor Co., Ltd.
Q&A with Loïc Le Meur

State of the Industry: Platform Thought Leaders

09h50 – Charlie Kindel, GM, WP7 Developer Ecosystem, Microsoft Corporation
Q&A with Loic Le Meur, Founder, LeWeb

10h10 – Ethan Beard, Director, Facebook Developer Network, Facebook
Q&A with Michael Arrington, Editor, TechCrunch

10h30 – Jason Goldman, VP of Product, Twitter
Q&A with MG Siegler, Writer, TechCrunch

10h50 – Mike Jones, CEO, MySpace
Q&A with Robert Scoble, American Blogger, Tech Evangelist & Author

11h10 – Dr. Bertrand Piccard, Initiator & Chairman, Solar Impulse
Keynote & Q&A with Loic Le Meur, Founder, LeWeb

11h35 – Stephane Richard, CEO, France Telecom-Orange
Q&A with David Barroux, Companies News Editor in Chief, LesEchos

Let's Play – Game Talk

11h55 – Sebastien de Halleux, Co-Founder, Playfish & VP, Business Development & Strategic Partnerships,

EA Interactive
Q&A with Veronica Belmont, Host, Tekzilla

12h15 – Mikael Hed, CEO, Rovio behind the best selling mobile app Angry Birds
Q&A with Loic Le Meur, Founder, LeWeb

Mobile and Innovation

12h35 – Marko Ahtisaari, SVP Design, Nokia

12h55 – Osama Bedier, Vice President of Platform, Mobile and New Ventures, PayPal
Q&A with Milo Yiannopoulos, Technology columnist, Telegraph.co.uk

13h15 – 14h30 – LUNCH BREAK

14h30 – Ignite @ LeWeb

15h30 – Fireside Chat with Marissa Mayer, VP, Google
& Michael Arrington, Editor, TechCrunch

Get Mobilized

15h55 – Fireside chat with Tomoko Namba, CEO, DeNA
& Loic Le Meur, Founder, LeWeb

16h15 – Christopher Smith, Senior Director, BlackBerry Development Platform, Research In Motion Ltd.
Q&A with Ryan Block, Co-founder & Editor Emeritus, gdgt & Engadget

16h35 – Dennis Crowley, Co-Founder, foursquare
Q&A with Loic Le Meur, Founder, LeWeb

The Media Platforms

16h55 – Media Panel

Moderated by: Adrian Monck, Managing Director, Head of Communications & Media, World Economic Forum

Panelists:
Julio Alonso, Founder & CEO, Weblogs SL
Pierre Chappaz, Founder & CEO, Wikio
Kenneth “KC” Estenson, Senior Vice President & General Manager, CNN.com
Gabe Rivera, Founder & CEO, Techmeme
Ben Rooney, Technology Editor, The Wall Street Journal Europe

17h40 – Platform for Charity
Joe Green, Co-Founder & President, Causes

18h00 – Leo Laporte, Author, Speaker & Broadcaster
Featuring:
Brent Hoberman, Founder & Executive Chairman, mydeco
Marc Simoncini, Founder & CEO, Meetic
Loïc Le Meur, LeWeb Founder

18h30 – Closing Remarks
Geraldine & Loïc Le Meur, LeWeb Founders

19h30 – 22h00 – Official Cocktail Reception

22h30 – 2h00
15/15 32,34 Rue Marbeuf – 75008 Paris
Reserved for LeWeb Participants only
LeWeb participant wristband required @ entrance

Global DJ Bob Sinclar
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL EUROPE LeWEB’10 PARTY
Drinks sponsored by BuddyMedia

I guess Google really is in a feisty mood tonight. After the Chrome Web Store, Chrome OS, some leaked Google +1 information, and a Google Groups re-launch, we’ve just gotten word that Google has launched an official Latitude app for the iPhone. But oddly, it’s only available right now in the Japanese version of the iTunes Store. But we suspect that will change shortly. (Update below: Looks like Google quickly pulled it before it got any farther.)

Back in May, Google told us that they were evaluating building a native iPhone app with the launch of iOS 4.0, which allowed for background location (a core feature of Latitude). Latitude has technically been available on the iPhone since July of 2009, but only as an HTML5 app, not a native experience. This hampered it for a number of reasons — the top one being that it could not run in the background.

Shortly after the web app launch, Google quietly clarified why it was a web app and not a native app: because Apple said so. In other words, Google was led to believe that Apple would reject their app if they tried to release a native one.

But that was in the middle of the Google Voice fiasco. Times have changed. For example, we now have a native Google Voice iPhone app.

If you happen to be in Japan, you can find the Latitude app here. The rest of the world should probably look for it shortly in the iTunes Store. After all, a number of third-party Latitude apps already exist worldwide. Plus, all the screenshots are in English — with most of the locations in the United States…

Oh, and the app description is also in English:

With Google Latitude, see where your friends are right now. Latitude lets you stay in touch with your friends and family by making it easy to share where you are and see each other on a map.

With Latitude, you can:

* See your friends on a map – find out who's nearby and meet up.

* Share your location continuously with whomever you choose – help friends and family stay in touch with you, even when you can't take out your phone.

* Control your privacy – share only city-level location, hide your location, or turn off background updating at any time.

Latitude lets you share your location in the background, even when the app is closed or your device screen is locked. Background updating requires an iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4 with iOS 4 or above.

You can also enjoy Latitude from your computer at google.com/latitude to see where your friends are or turn on optional apps such as Google Location History for a personal history dashboard.

Latitude has existed as a core part of Google’s Android operating system for a while. It will be interesting to see how it fares in the location wars now that it’s natively on the iPhone as well…

Update: And it looks like Google may have pulled the app for now. It was likely an accident that it went live in the first place. If they can figure out a way to more officially launch it in the next few days, my guess is we’ll see it then. Of course, this post may have changed things…

Deep down, each of you has an inner artist yearning to break free and expose your creative juices to the world. Unfortunately that inner artist probably isn’t especially talented — or is at least very out of practice — which is probably why you’ve kept it locked up for so long.

But fear not: CHROMAom is a startup that wants to help, by making it as easy as possible to express yourself creatively in a way that won’t make your friends giggle or cringe. It boils down self-expression to the creation of color palettes — a smattering of five colors that look good together — and tonight, it’s releasing an app called ColorSchemer for the iPhone. You can grab the app from the App Store right here for $2.99.

CHROMAom actually has a fairly interesting history — the startup resulted from the fusion of color-sharing community COLOURlovers and ColorSchemer, which makes software for matching colors. After the companies merged, CHROMAom received funding from Y Combinator earlier this year.

Fire up the ColorSchemer app and it will prompt you to start throwing colors together. This is pretty intuitive — you tap on a color wheel, then tap the next open spot in your palette, tap the color wheel again, and so on. But what if you’re still having trouble coming up with something you’re proud of? Well, ColorSchemer has you covered — take a snapshot of something that you thinks looks cool, and it lets you select the colors present in that photo.

You can then take this color palette and share it with the 450,000 members on COLOURlovers, the social network that revolves around designs and colors. The app includes other COLOURlovers integration as well: you can browse through palettes shared by otherusers, leave comments, mark your favorite palettes, and use the other social features on the site.

Will it be a hit? Probably not on the same order as photo-based creative sharing apps like Instagram, but the application is polished and already has an established audience of color fans. My only major gripe is that you can’t currently upload the photo you’ve used to generate a palette, but the company says that this will be coming in the next release.

CHROMAom says that it’s profitable — while the COLOURlovers social network is free, the company generates money through its software sales (including a desktop version of ColorSchemer), advertising, and sponsorships.