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Lookout Microsoft! Mozilla’s Firefox is closing the gap a bit, as they’re about to pass 1 billion total downloads, and some think they might even pass the mark as early as Friday.

When do you think Firefox will pass the 1 billion mark? Tell us.

Mozilla is prepping for the occasion with a new site, OneBillionPlusYou.com. Little is currently known about the site, but we assume it will feature information about Firefox’s success along with various download statistics.

At the beginning of the month Chris Crum wrote about how Firefox’s newest release, version 3.5, had more than 1 million downloads in its first day of launch. Mozilla. Instead of just sitting around reveling in their success, Mozilla is currently hard at work on version 4.0.

It should be noted that the one billion total downloads is in reference to ALL versions of Firefox, which dates back to 2002.

This week WebProNews reported on a Twitter documentary that is in the works. The project’s creator Siok Siok Tan of Singapore answered a few questions for us to give people an idea of what to expect.

WebProNews: How did the idea for the concept of the Twitter documentary come about?

Siok Siok Tan: The idea of doing a documentary on Twitter crossed my mind more than a year ago. I put the idea aside because I could not think of a way to put the film together. It is a very difficult film to pull off because it involves people in far flung corners of the globe and Twitter itself is a new experience that is hard to visualize on film.  For instance, I keep hearing people say Twitter has changed their lives. Yet they have a hard time explaining it to their friends who don’t use Twitter. Many non users think of Twitter as the breeding ground for ‘narcissists’ and ‘micro celebrities.’  Twitter is revolutionary and also controversial, which makes it a great subject for a film.

WPN: What is the timeframe like for production? When do you aim to release the film?

SST: We started preparations a few months ago.  We are looking to release the film in March 2010.

WPN: Do you have a title?

SST: Yes. We have a working title – Twittamentary: Travels Through A Long Good Night. But I think we will end up referring to it as "Twittamentary" most of the time.

WPN: Have you spoken with Evan Williams and/or Biz Stone for the project?

SST: No, we have not spoken to the founders of Twitter about the project yet. It would of course be very lovely if they could find time to speak to us. But the film is really more about the people who have imagined and created all these uses for Twitter, many of which the founders would have never thought of.

WPN: What kinds of Twitter-related topics will the film cover specifically?

SST: This may surprise people but the film will not be covering specific Twitter-related topics in the sense that a book about Twitter will cover them.  There will not be a ‘chapter’ on marketing, another on ‘activism’ and one on ‘learning” etc. The reason is that what makes a good book often end up a very boring film.

The film explores the idea that Twitter accelerates serendipity. When lives intersect at an ever-increasing speed, great stories happen at an astonishing rate.  We want to tell these wonderful stories. All the rest of it, the themes and the topics are just part of the great backdrop.

WPN: What do you think about Twitter as a marketing tool?

SST: I think Twitter is probably a better tool for social influence than for marketing. Twitter is wonderful if you have the patience to stay with it and use it day after day and be authentic and playful and empathetic towards others. It can be frustrating if you just want to get something specific out of it very quickly.

WPN: How has Twitter impacted your own lifestyle?

SST: I share my thoughts more frequently with more people than I have ever done before. As a result, I have met many interesting people that I would never have met otherwise. I have also come to think of my work and myself in more global terms because I enjoy this instantaneous connection to people around the world.

WPN: What kinds of ideas are you looking to find from the community for possible inclusion?

SST: We are looking for great stories about how Twitter has affected the lives of real people, stories that have visual potential.  We will be launching our web platform in the coming weeks and Twitter users will be invited to contribute story ideas, rich media and videos.  This is going to be the first "do-it-ourselves" movie about Twitter!

We really need help to get the word of the project out to as many Twitter users as possible. So if anyone who runs a popular blog, news outlet or technology platform, wants to be our media partner, please send me tweet @sioksiok.

Wrapping Up

WebProNews would like to thank Siok Siok Tan for taking the time to answer our questions and wish her the best of luck with her project. Twitter enthusiasts will surely be interested in seeing the film. Keep an eye out for the web platform if you are interested in sharing Twitter stories.

Are you looking forward to the Twitteramentary? Tells us what you think about the concept.

On Tuesday, we told you about the launch of Twitter’s new homepage. The revamped design sports a sleek look that is pretty easy on the eye. But, once you get past the pleasing aesthetics, you’ll also see that Twitter has added a search capability and popular topics, which in turn could mean an influx of Twitterers.

It should be noted that most Twitterers won’t ever see the new homepage, unless they logout of course. But, the new layout isn’t for the "everyday Twitter user", it’s meant for the non-tweeting crowd, or those that don’t see the use for it. Recently, WebProNews featured an article, "The Average American Still Unfamiliar With Twitter", which discussed this very topic. It seems as though Twitter hopes the new homepage will help herd in some of the non-Twitter users.

Do you think the new homepage will help get new users? Tell us.

Twitter Search – Is Twitter competing with search engines now?

With Twitter’s inclusion of search, on the homepage, they’ve now made Twitter useful… even for those who refuse to tweet. WebProNews’ Chris Crum wrote an article about this very topic, and here’s his take on what might happen with Twitter search:

"When a new user comes along to discover Twitter for the first (or even second or third) time, they’ll see that search box. They’ll say to themselves, "What is this? I thought Twitter was just some pointless way to tell people what I am having for breakfast. It’s a search engine now?" Then they will start to understand that there is more to gain from Twitter than what they previously thought."

You might be asking, "What is the big advantage to a Twitter search versus, let’s say Google?" The answer is simple. With Twitter, you get real-time results (which is the next big thing in search). Twitter even highlights this aspect on the new homepage with the following header:

But, don’t think for a second that Google doesn’t know they’re late to the party, in regards to real-time search. Google’s own Larry Page has even stated:

"I have always thought we needed to index the web every second to allow real-time search.  At first, my team laughed and did not believe me.  With Twitter, now they know they have to do it.  Not everybody needs sub-second indexing but people are getting pretty excited about real-time."

Will Twitter be able to lure some searchers away from Google? Let us know what you think.

Trending Topics… umm… I mean Popular Topics

By now you’ve probably noticed that Twitter has added "popular topics" to the homepage. But, these aren’t your everyday, profile page, trending topics. With these you can now see what’s popular right now, today and this week.

If you’re still unclear what the popular topics are about, Twitter offers the following description :

"Twitter looks at every incoming tweet, then ranks the popularity of certain words or phrases in real time. Click any of the popular topics below to see what people are saying about them right now."

The new popular topics, coupled with search, seems to be a strategy that Twitter is employing hoping it leads to new users. @Biz had the following to say about this on the Twitter blog:

"…demonstrating the power of Twitter as a discovery engine for what is happening right now through our Search and Trends often awakens a sense of wonder which inevitably leads to a much more compelling question, "How do I get involved?""

What are your thoughts about the new "Popular Topics"? Tell us.

Popular Topics / Search Results Pages

Let’s say you want to see why "Apple Claims New" is a popular topic, so you click it. You’re then taken to a re-vamped results page, with an added element. Twitter now displays a description of why the topic is popular.

This new description will come in very handy when those odd terms creep up into the popular topics. Below, you can read Twitter’s description of this new addition:

"Twitter looks at every incoming tweet, then ranks the popularity of certain words or phrases in real time. Click any of the popular topics below to see what people are saying about them right now. Some topic descriptions are sourced from What The Trend."

Besides the new description, the results pages are pretty much the same… but they do sport the new updated design. I do wish Twitter would’ve incorporated the FriendFeed sort of ajax auto-refreshing thing they do, that could be turned off and on, of course. (It should be noted that the search results pages look identical.)

Do you find the new descriptions helpful, or distracting? Let us know.

Twitter’s New Search Tips

Upon clicking a popular topic, or doing a search, you’ll notice a new feature in the column, a "Search Tip". Sure, these tips aren’t anything to write home about, but they do highlight some of the underused search operators. I’ve included a few examples of them below:

"Use source: immediately before a particular Twitter source (like a desktop or mobile app) to find tweets posted via that client. Example: weather source:tweetie will find tweets containing "weather" and entered via Tweetie."

"Use until: immediately before a specific date to find tweets sent before and until that date. Example: ftw until:2009-07-16 will find tweets containing "ftw" and sent until date "2009-07-16" (year-month-day)."

Do you currently use any Twitter search operators? Tell us.

Twitter’s Sign up Page

Twitter’s sign up page is probably my biggest complaint with the new design. Why didn’t Twitter update the sign up page with the new look? Isn’t this page the most important to them? It’s the one that brings in the new users.

The sign up page seems very dull and boring when you compare it with the new look. They could’ve at least changed the color scheme to match, but maybe since this page is working well for them, they didn’t want to change it. Personally for me, it feels very disconnected from the new modern look they got going on.

Should Twitter update the design of the sign up page? Tell us.

More Work Ahead

Even though the new Twitter homepage looks great, @Biz is quick to add that they still have a lot of work to do:

"We have a lot of work to do when it comes to the quality of our search results and trend analysis but repositioning the product to focus more on discovery is an important first step in presenting Twitter to a wider audience of folks around the world who are eager to start engaging with new people, ideas, opinions, events, and sources of information.

We’ll likely continue to make changes to the Twitter home page as we respond to feedback and ideas. We’re eager to see if encouraging a sense of wonder and discovery leads to a better first impression of Twitter."

What are some changes you would recommend for the Twitter homepage? Let us know.

While some states have created solid websites to provide information about their portion of the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), most are failing to effectively educate taxpayers about the impact of economic stimulus spending, according to a report from Good Jobs First, an economic development research group.

"Many states are failing to support President Obama’s vow that the Recovery Act will be carried out with an unprecedented level of transparency and accountability," said Good Jobs First executive director Greg LeRoy.

"By failing to use broadly available web tools, they are making it more difficult to measure the success of ARRA in mitigating the effects of the recession."

The report evaluated the general ARRA websites that all states have created and graded them on transparency on a scale of 0 to 100.

Greg LeRoy
Good Jobs First
Executive Director

Six states score 50 or better for their main ARRA site: Maryland (80), Colorado (68), Washington (63), West Virginia (60), New York (53) and Pennsylvania (50). Thirteen states score 50 or better for their highway reporting, led by Maryland (75), Washington (73), Colorado (65) and Nebraska (60). The average score for the ARRA websites is 28.

Five states that scored very low on providing specifics on how ARRA money is used include Alabama, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Kentucky and Vermont. Illinois received a zero and only provided nation figures on its website and nothing on how much is being spent in the state.

"Given the Recovery Act’s high profile, we expected better results, but most state ARRA sites simply do not measure up," said Philip Mattera, research director of Good Jobs First and principal author of the report.

"The challenge is not insurmountable," he added. "States such as Maryland, Colorado and Washington are doing a very good job in conveying vital information about stimulus spending and are leading the way in establishing best practices for state ARRA disclosure."

Google’s definitely leaving behind the period during which beta tags remained visible for years on end.  Today, the search giant made a significant step by pulling the beta label off its new AdWords interface.

As part of the change, more advertisers will be required to use the new interface exclusively.  But given the laundry list of upgrades and new features it includes, this shouldn’t present much of a problem.

According to a post on the AdWords Blog, a software company called ClickTime has "seen measurable business impact from using the new interface.  They’ve used the search terms report to increase their CTR by 31% while reducing cost per lead and improving overall lead quality.  On the whole, they estimate their AdWords productivity has increased by 100% with the new interface."

Search marketing agency ROI Revolution gave the interface a thumbs up, too.

So apparently Google’s found nine months of testing to be more than sufficient.  Or, if you’re feeling cynical, you might be able to just look at this move as a sort of grab for advertisers (and/or the spotlight) following the Microsoft-Yahoo deal.

Sometimes it can be easy to forget that people use other sites besides Google, Yahoo, and Bing to find local results. There are plenty of people using YellowPages.com, and why not? Google may have the most untouchable brand on the Internet right now, but the Yellow Pages brand has been around much longer.

There are still plenty of people using the print version of the Yellow Pages, but the AT&T’s YellowPages.com extended network still gets over 40 million unique visitors a month according to the company. Not too shabby.

AT&T Interactive Chief Product Officer David Yoo tells WebProNews about a new site from the company called simply YP.com, which builds upon the local search concept of its predecessor, and takes it into some new areas.

"Our approach to building YP.COM is consistent with the approach we take
in creating our other local search offerings including our mobile applications," says Yoo. "YP.COM is focused on creating and incorporating technology that help consumers discover local and at the same time, help our advertisers grow their business."

"With YP.COM, we’re aiming to sharpen the local search experience from the ground up – starting with new data systems, new local search stack, user interface and design," he adds.

Features include:

- Expandable local maps in results

- Improved search refinements

- Aggregated content about local businesses

- Videos, coupons, and promotions from local businesses

"This beta launch is a first step in creating a new way for consumers to discover and transact locally – and for advertisers to benefit from more relevant targeting," says Yoo.

YellowPages.com will continue to connect advertisers with consumers are searching locally, "But as some consumers look for a different search experience, we are creating ways for our advertisers to become a part of the discovery process from the initial search to the final transaction," Yoo says.

It will be interesting to see if YP.com can significantly enhance the performance of the YellowPages.com network in terms of utilizing that familiar brand to attract users before they just decide to go the Google Maps route. That is the situation everybody in the search industry faces when launching a new product though. Microsoft has done a decent job getting some search engine attention so far with Bing, but it hasn’t been cheap.

Sony has announced that its eBook store now offers access to more than 1 million free public domain books from Google.

The selections include biographies, historical texts, romance novels and hundreds of other genres. The titles have been digitized by Google as part of its Google Book project. The titles are available on Sony’s eBook reader.

Adam Smith
Product Management
Director at Google

"We are committed to ensuring our customers have the freedom to discover and read content from the widest possible range of sources," said Chris Smythe, director of the eBook Store from Sony. 

"We’re proud to offer access to the broadest range of eBooks today – from hot new releases, to New York Times Best Sellers, to classics and hard to find manuscripts such as those available for free from Google."

Sony’s eBook Store, allows reader owners in the U.S. to down load and transfer any of these titles to their PRS-505 or PRS-700 Reader. New eBook Store users can access the title by setting up an account and downloading Sony’s free eBook Library software.

"As more and more people discover digital reading, it’s important to build an open platform to help them access and read books online," said Adam Smith, product management director at Google. 

"We’re pleased to continue our collaboration with Sony so that more people around the world can discover and enjoy these books."

Financial services firm UBS apparently doesn’t feel that the new Microsoft-Yahoo deal poses too much of a threat to the other big search contender.  Today, UBS initiated its coverage of Google with a "buy" rating and some rather aggressive targets.

Brian Pitz, an executive director and senior research analyst at UBS, believes Google’s stock will be trading at about $525 in one year’s time.  Google, which is currently trading at $449.89, hasn’t been that high since July of 2008, so this would equate to an almost perfect reversal of its recessionary decline.

Then there are the revenue estimates to consider.  This year and next, Pitz expects Google to report $17.1 billion and $19.3 billion in revenue, respectively, while Tiernan Ray reports that the consensus forecast names the sums of $16.9 billion and $19.2 billion.

According to Ray, Pitz explained, "We believe there is a secular trend in the industry away from higher priced CPM-based display toward cheaper, measurable, performance-based display advertising.  This trend bodes well for Google due to its focus on measurable advertising solutions to marketers.  In addition, GOOG is more aggressively monetizing YouTube and Mobile, which should provide upside potential to 2010 estimates."

So there you have it.  And in case you’re wondering, Google’s up 3.13 percent today, while Microsoft’s up 0.56 percent and Yahoo’s down 3.37 percent.

Google has released a couple of enhancements to Google Apps Directory Sync, which is a tool that helps businesses sync the user and directory info in their LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) systems with Google Apps.

Google Apps Directory Sync now helps sync employee contact info as well as non-employee info listed in the central LDAP directory. This means customers, partners, vendors, etc. can easily be looked up.

"These changes complement the improvements to contacts in Google Apps that we announced a few weeks ago," says Google Apps Team Product Manager Navneet Goel.

"This release also expands the list of contact fields that can be synchronized between an LDAP system and Google Apps," adds Goel. "Rich user profile information like multiple phone numbers, addresses and job titles are now supported, making full profiles easily accessible by employees."

More details about Google Apps Directory Sync can be found here. Key benefits are explained, and links to downloads for XP/Vista, Solaris, and Linux are also available.

On another Google Apps-related note, Google uploaded a video this week to the Google Code YouTube Channel, which explains the process of installing Google App Engine apps into Google Apps.

Google Labs has launched an interesting new gadget that allows users to create a Google Checkout store in gadget form to use on their blog or web site. According to Google the process is as simple as three easy steps:

1. Sign up for a Google Checkout account

2. Fill out a Google Docs Spreadsheet

3. Set up and insert you gadget

Sounds easy enough. Easily create an online store using a Google Docs spreadsheet. Interesting indeed. "No complicated coding or technical tasks are required," says Google on the gadget’s homepage. "You can get your first online store up-and-running in under five minutes."

As business owners and non-business owners alike look to sell stuff online to make some extra money in a less than ideal economy, a simple way of setting up a store can be just the ticket. With this gadget, once users sign up for Google Checkout, they can list their products in the spreadsheet and manage their inventory right in Google Docs.

The gadget itself can be embedded anywhere, which could be incredibly useful, particularly to those sellers who operate more than one site. In fact, online business owners are often encouraged to blog. Wouldn’t it make sense to have the store embedded right on the blog, for easy access? I think it would in many cases.

The gadget comes in three different sizes – large, small, and tiny. Here is how they look in comparison to one another:

When it comes to making the spreadsheet available to customers, you can do this by clicking "share" in the upper right-hand corner in Google Docs Spreadsheets. Then you choose "publish as a web page" from the drop down menu, and make sure that the "automatically re-publish when changes are made" option is checked. Then just click "start publishing".

If you have any trouble using it, Google runs down the whole process here. They have also set up a Google Checkout store gadget forum.

It should be noted that this gadget being a project of Google Labs means that it is still in the experimental stage. Does that mean you can’t use it? Of course not. Let’s not forget that Gmail just left its "beta" status this year. But with the gadget being a lab, just know that it could have bugs.