Sometimes it is just amazing to hear the things that come out of the mouths of Microsoft marketers. It seems that the spotlight on the new iPhone is making Microsoft cranky. Since Microsoft Windows Mobile is already on so many phones (no mention of how hard these phones and their special features are for people to use), Microsoft does not see any need to try to create their own phone.

For just one minute, let’s try to forget all about Microsoft’s effort in the MP3 market with Zune and how that has turned out.

So officially, Microsoft is not creating a phone because they are focused on making quality proprietary software since the money in mobile is in software. Meanwhile, Nokia has just paid a fortune to open source Symbian - because the money in mobile is in software. And Google is creating their own open source mobile OS called Android - because the money in mobile is in software. And J2ME is already open sourced by Sun ages ago - because the money in mobile is in software. And Apple has just broken its usual rules by providing a free SDK for the iPhone - because the money in mobile is in software.

OK. Whatever.

Does anyone get the feeling that Microsoft is a little confused? The best line from the entire story which really shows how confused Microsoft seems to be is the quote from Microsoft’s Mobile Communications Business senior vice president Andrew Lees:

We want to give our customers choice.

Microsoft….giving the customer choices….

OK. Whatever.

I think what he really means is that Microsoft has no choice but to let the customer chose.

I attended the Java SIG and the Mobile Internet SIG of SD Forum a couple of weeks ago. What was interesting was the amount of talk that I heard on the Google Android platform and the Google Phone, especially since the latest news from the Google IO conference the week before is that the rumored Google phone that was supposed to be released in time for Christmas this year is either pushed back to 2009 or not scheduled for production at all, depending on the source of the rumor. The latest stories are still officially quoting the release for the first Android-based phones to be at the end of 2008.

My guess after having played with the Google Android SDK and reviewing its rapid release updates as ordinary developers found problems in the SDK is that Google still has a ton of work to do on Android before it is ready for an actual phone. After all, the Android simulation really did not deal with the mobile Internet, accessing the cell phone network or playing music. Forget about getting the Location API to work easily with the cell phone carriers’ networks. The Android competition was a cheap, quick and easy way to get thousands of developers to check the SDK for bugs. But Google still needs to check the other parts of their operating system. Since Google does not have any experience creating a real physical phone, I am sure that there are many things that are not tested yet. Android is in for a bumpy ride before its first cell phones appear.

In related news stories that show how the brightest of wireless stars can come crashing down, Virgin Mobile has agreed to buy once-promising MVNO Helio for $39 million. This is a great deal all around. Earthlink and SK has finally managed to upload this bottomless pit of money. Both have literally lost hundreds of millions of dollars. Back in September, SK bought its way onto this sinking ship with $270 million, while Earthlink was losing over $300 million per year. The $39 million is in Virgin Mobile stock, which has been steadily dropping since its IPO in the mid-teens less then a year ago to its current value of $2.75. Virgin ends up with two new directors on its board from SK and a cash infusion of $25 million from SK and $25 million from its parent, Virgin Group. Even more plus side for Virgin Mobile is that they are getting $17 million of handset inventory and 170,000 subscribers practically for free. If the Virgin Mobile management cannot get the stock up with these huge additions to their company, then maybe it is just not possible to make it as an MVNO.

Last night I got a quick peak under the covers of some popular Facebook apps at the Facebook Application Development meetup that was held at AOL.

The talks started with one on porting your Facebook app to Bebo given by Blake Commagere of Mogad, the programmer behind the Vampires, Werewolves and Zombie apps on Facebook. He gave a great talk that was clear and encouraging to all the developers in the room. The best part was all of the praise that he had for Steve Cohen and his platform development team at Bebo, who was in the audience to answer specific questions. Bebo has made it a point to parallel Facebooks application programming by using the same function names and call formats. But the latest announced changes to the application networking by Facebook may damage that. Bebo does not agree with many of the changes that Facebook has made to protect their users from unnecessary spam and other possible abuses.

Many of these “abuses” are designed by the programmer to help spread the application virally. According to what Blake has seen with his applications, Bebo is actually a better platform for spreading many applications. This idea was confirmed by Steve, who used an application called or provided by Gaia. It is a virtual world for the Bebo user’s avatars to roam in. Even though it does not have a viral way to spread built in, it is the fifth most popular app on Bebo.

Blake made an interesting point that I had never considered. Facebook is primarily about helping people to communicate with people in their groups. Bebo is primarily about self-expression. Since many apps on Facebook are about self-expression, they should do well if ported to Bebo.

Blake previous programming experience convinced him that the port from Facebook to Bebo would allow a programmer to keep about 90% of their original code. Porting to an OpenSocial platform like Orkut would result in the lose of 50% of the code. In general, he did not like the OpenSocial software, primarily because its documentation, even across several different social network platforms were very weak. Also he did not have kind words for Hi5’s developer effort. He said that their sandbox fails 75% of the time and that it has been a problem since May.

Blake thought that trying to make your application run simultaneously in Facebook, Bebo, and other social platforms was a bad idea. But the next speaker had products that did just that. Kyle Ellis of AOL UserPlane demonstrated a WebChat that worked across websites and social network.  These products are available white label. The cost depends on the number of channels and the max usage per month.

I like the talk given by John Smart of Zoosk. Their online dating site has a cross-platform app that works on many social networks. In his company’s case they used iFrames to hold their content. They had to do some fancy programming to prevent Facebook and other sites from timing out too quickly. I really need to get his slides. It was probably the most technical of the talks, but I really enjoyed seeing the nuts and bolts of the project from someone who did not sugar coat it.

I am not sure what is more popular in Silicon Valley right now, Facebook or Facebook Apps. I used to hear about meetings on Facebook apps every month. Then it increased to every couple of weeks. This week, I know of at least two meetings, one on Monday and one on Wednesday. And those are only the ones that I have heard about. I know that there must be others.

The real question is, Are Facebook apps becoming the next Internet bubble? Is anyone really using them? Is anyone really making any money off them? What is Facebook going to do next if these apps are not bring in more money for them or the third-party developers?

Last night, HispanicNet had a wonderful series of talks and a panel presentation on the state of multimedia and the web version 2.0. I was very impressed by the quality of the speakers and the material that they presented. I also got a great many suggestions from the people that I spoke to on how to improve my networking and expand my number of contacts.

The presentations started with Cheryl Contee. Her talk was on how Web 2.0 and social networks can help your business.  She had two charts that really had an impression on the crowd. The first showed the percentage of 30 year olds in the US who read the newspaper. It peaked around 70% back in the 30’s. The invention of the radio started to bring the percentage down slowly. The invention of the television increase the drop (or negative slope, for those of you who remember how to graph a line). With the Internet, the percentage is currently down to 30% and looks like it is falling off a cliff. There was some discussion in the audience on if there will be paper-based newspapers or magazines in the future.

The second chart showed the popularity of various social networking sites across the world. Facebook and MySpace rule in the US, but Bebo is where it is at in Europe. If you want to follow the crowd in Asia, you should look at Friendster (remember them?).

The second presenter was Carlos Melcer of intouch group inc. His talk focused on US Hispanics and the mobile phone and Internet market. I knew that Spanish TV was growing fast, but I had no idea that radio was still so popular among Hispanics. Also Hispanics save a very small percentage of their money compared to the general US population, which is great for marketers but maybe not so great for Hispanics. One out of every $12 spent in the US comes from Hispanics. I am sure that there would be a great market for Spanish language tours from Geogad. More for my To-Do list.

The third presenter was Jeff Ulin. He gave a brave effort at speaking during his talk with his terrible cold, but his voice completely gave out later during the panel discussion. It was a real pity because his talk was all about revenue and permission models for multimedia content on the Internet. This is his specialty in his practice at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. The crowd was really eager to learn more. Hopefully, he will be able to return at another time and continue the discussion.

The last talk was given by Kul Wadhwa, Director of Business Development for Wikipedia. Wikipedia has hired Wadhwa to increase revenues without changing its non-profit status or, more importantly, alienating its 100,000 volunteers. So how do you make money with completely free-to-use-any-way-you-want content? You work with book publishers to create paper versions of your content. You partner with YouTube on providing video content on Wikipedia pages. I had also heard of an effort by Wikitravel to package their content as paper-based travel books. Don’t laugh. Lonely Planet did something very similar with their users’ travel suggestions when they published their Blue List.

What I thought was very interesting is that China has banned Wikipedia because Wikipedia insists upon retaining its neutral point of view in its articles. Even so, the inventive Chinese hackers have managed to make the banned Wikipedia site one of the top 200 sites in China. Wikipedia has some serious competition in China from Baidu. Baidu has copied the content of Wikipedia’s pages, reformatted it into their own pages and presents it as their content. It is a new take on the quote:

We have met the enemy and they are us.