THE LEGEND OF NEIL: Atom.com's gaming spoof starring Tony Janning also satirizes male geeks.

Explosive late-night comedy -- and a shot at TV.

Only in a Web series would inebriation and The Legend of Zelda be a match made in heaven. But ever since a gas-station attendant woke up hungover inside the classic Nintendo game nearly two years ago, The Legend of Neil has been one of Atom.com's most successful franchises.

The campy live-action series, now in its third and final season, highlights Atom's evolution over the past decade from user-generated indie film shorts to professionally produced comedy series. In 2006, MTV Networks acquired Atom for $200 million, to serve in part as an idea incubator for its cable nets. Recent hit series 5-On, for example, became Comedy Central's Ugly Americans, and Atom has its own popular (for 2:30 a.m.) weekly showcase on the channel. "One of the things that [creators] are hoping to do is catch the networks' eye," says Scott Roesch, Atom's general manager.

Atom stockpiles the best of its year-round slate for the fourth quarter, much like a TV network. Yet it retains a Web flavor by sharing ad revenue with its creators and partnering with them in hybrid Web-TV deals. For example, Atom is working with Waverly Films, the trio behind its former Web series Stickman Exodus (stick figures in a kid's notebook go on a freedom quest) to create a series called The Fuzz, a cop show set in a city where humans and puppets coexist. Roesch explains, "We pooled some budget and had them do a Web series instead of going through normal TV development." The Fuzz is expected to air on Atom later this year.

Viewership is up to about 3 million visitors a month, with users watching nearly three times as much as last year. At least 80% of the site's 10,000 videos have been posted by users, many hoping for a shot at the big-time, or at least a distribution deal à la director Jason Reitman (Juno, Up in the Air) who, after film school, licensed some early shorts to Atom. So go ahead: Raid your Sega stash and shoot for the stars.

3 to Watch

In each episode, Munchie, an animatronic cat and the "world's worst Hollywood agent," takes a meeting with a client such as Tom Arnold, Eric Roberts, or Ray Liotta. The problem? Munchie doesn't remember who they are and suggests inappropriate projects.

Comedian Dan Levy reimagines '80s and '90s sitcoms -- mixing, say, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air with Mr. Belvedere -- with the help of talent from some of the era's original shows.

Rahzel, the legendary beat boxer from the Roots, skewers recent music news with parodies -- and yes, a little beat-boxing.

Read more of our Web Video package

Despite earlier measures intended to prevent the illegal classifieds, Craigslist may be earning more than $35 million from them.

UPDATE: On Saturday, Sept. 4, Craigslist removed access to its adult services section, the New York Times first reported. The reason -- whether from pressure or a change in internal policy -- was still unclear. In the place of the usual adult services link was a black box with the word "CENSORED."

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley demanded Craigslist remove its adult services section on Aug. 24, joining 17 other state AGs who have already called on the personal ads site to drop the category in about a week. Pressure on Craigslist has increased recently thanks to a widening belief that the company is gaining revenue through illegal advertisements for prostitution and sex trafficking, despite its 2008 effort to curtail the problem.

In May, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal issued a subpoena to Craigslist after reports surfaced that the classifieds Web site may be earning over $35 million from illegal ads. ?The Craigslist brothel business seems booming--belying its promise to fight prostitution,? said Blumenthal, who is leading a 39-state effort to regulate the site's screening process. ?The best evidence is the thousands of ads that remain on Craigslist--skimpily and slickly disguised with code words. We?re asking Craigslist for specific answers about steps to screen and stop sex-for-money offers--and whether the company is actually profiting from prostitution ads that it promised states and the public that it would try to block.?

So far, Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster has snubbed any pressure for the site to comply, arguing that many criticisms have been misdirected. "Cynical misuse of a cause as important as human trafficking as a pretense for imposing one?s own flavor of religious morality ('casual sex is evil') strikes me as wrong on so many levels," wrote Buckmaster, in a May blog post--he also called Blumenthal's efforts a "a good photo op" for his senatorial campaign.

But his rhetoric has since softened.

"Craigslist is committed to being socially responsible, and when it comes to adult services ads, that includes aggressively combating violent crime and human rights violations, including human trafficking and the exploitation of minors," he wrote last week. "We are working intensively as I write this with experts and thought leaders at leading non-profits and among law enforcement on further substantive measures we can take. We are profoundly grateful to those offering us their expert assistance in this regard."

Until Craiglist complies, the nearly-nationwide pressure on the site will continue. Massachusetts AG Coakley said the sexual ads played a "harmful role" arguing, ?The incongruity between your claimed mission and your insistence on promoting ?adult services? is startling. You cannot reasonably lay claim to a public service mission yet turn a blind eye to the link between adult services ads and illegal conduct and exploitation.?

?Only Craigslist has the power to stop these ads before they are even published,? said Kansas AG Steve Six in a statement yesterday. ?Sadly, they are completely unwilling to do so.?

Buckmaster has yet to respond to these latest calls for Craigslist reform.

Who do you think has more influence, Kim Kardashian or Martha Stewart? If you picked the jail-bird, you'd be wrong: homemaking expertise has nothing on bold badonkadonk. At least on Twitter.

According to a new analysis by social media guru Dan Zarrella (who previously helped us learn Steve Jobs' presentation techniques), the Kardashian sisters are some of the most influential celebrities on Twitter. By studying click-through rates--the amount of clicks a tweeted link receives--Zarrella was able to graph celebs' influence on their followers (see chart below). Some of the names are not so surprising (Ashton Kutcher), but others, including British actor Stephen Fry and poet laureate "Weird Al" Yankovic, may come as more of a shock.

Influence comes in many forms. The Kardashian sisters may gain more clicks because of the many provocative photographs they tweet. On the other hand, someone like Lance Armstrong may reach more fans because of his powerful message. And then there are those who have a perhaps more "nerdy" following, such as "Weird Al," Stephen Fry, and Felicia Day. "Felicia is probably high because she's a web star so her followers are more web savvy and likely to follow her links," Zarrella says.

"Alyssa Milano is my favorite example," he continues. "She has less followers than most of the others on the list, but drives huge traffic."

Zarrella's findings certainly echo a recent study by HP Labs, which concluded that influence online had nothing to do with sheer numbers--especially on Twitter--but how much users could be swayed from the passive to the active.

Don't tell that to Biz Stone.

Looking for examples on how to best green your business? A central list of the companies that can get you started might help. Enter the World Wildlife Fund's Green Game Changers initiative, a so-called "crowd-sourcing exercise" that asks companies to submit examples of green policies, products and business models that cut down on environmental impact and biodiversity loss.

The U.K-based initiative doesn't officially launch until next week, but the WWF already has approximately 20 case studies on its website. Some of them are well-known--Better Place is listed as an innovator in the transportation sector--and others, like Magenn Power, are still under the radar.

Anyone can submit case studies to the site, but the WWF will be monitoring it to make sure that only credible companies are listed. If the site catches on, we imagine that it could be invaluable to companies looking for a sustainability starting point. If you want to increase your water efficiency, for example, just check out these case studies of intelligent buildings, low-water washing machines, and water recycling.

Have better examples from your own company? Submit them here and help build up the WWF's database.

Ariel Schwartz can be reached on Twitter or by email.

Click around for early opinions of Ping, Apple's new social network for music, and you'll start seeing the same complaints: It's like a crowded room with the lights out; it's impossible to find your friends, especially without Facebook or Gmail integration; the artist community is non-existent, except for a few Apple partners promoting the service. (Why else would Ping "recommend" we all follow Lady Gaga, Yo-Yo Ma, and Rick Rubin?) Boil it all down, and the early consensus is that the oft-flawless company, with Ping, has stumbled to serve consumers, distanced itself from record labels, and even aided Google.

Jobs introduced the service Wednesday as a "social music discovery" engine, but what's there to discover? Check out the "Music I Like" section of your profile. Notice anything strange? The only items listed are from iTunes purchases. As someone who rarely purchases music through Apple (though it's my primary music player), this is plainly apparent. Ping suffers from its rigid commitment to iTunes. Of the thousands and thousands of songs in my library, Ping has plucked just seven--the only seven I bought through iTunes, all of which Apple knows are readily available for purchase through its store.

Think a little further about that: Are the pioneers, the real tastemakers, who sift through countless weekly offerings from musicians, buying their music from iTunes? They're probably spinning indie bands not yet featured, or mixtape music that will never find its way into the store. Consider rapper/R&B superstar Drake, whose first mixtape broke on the Web in 2006 before official releases ever hit iTunes. Many artists and bands haven't hashed out deals with Apple. This absence is a doozy. How can you build a social network around music when so much music is missing?

If you had to guess, what would you say is the #1 best selling band of all-time, likely one of the most beloved-bands in music history, and a group that most every iPod-owner would cite as having made at least one of their favorite songs? The answer is obvious: The Beatles. But John, Paul, George, and Ringo won't be on anyone's "Music I Like" list. Why? The Beatles are not available through the iTunes store.

For those who consider music core to their identities, arguably the very people you want contributing to a social media platform about music, Ping might feel more like an iTunes receipt than a social network.

The lack of artists featured on Ping also highlights Apple's rocky relationship with record labels. According to multiple industry sources, Apple did not include several major labels in the launch. "In Apple-land, it's all about keeping things completely mum for security reasons," said one industry source. "They weren't giving us tons of details," said another. Only this upcoming week is Apple supposedly briefing the major record labels on Ping, says one source.

It's tough to figure out who's being more lethargic here: Apple, who launched its social network without asking the big four--EMI, Sony, Universal, Warner Music--to create profiles for their top artists prior to Ping's launch; or the labels, who can't yet say what, if any, plan they'll have for leveraging Ping to promote their artists. (And would they, in the short and decidedly unimaginative term, port over artists' Facebook profiles as place holders?) Either way, it's a missed opportunity to debut a vibrant community at launch. Instead, music-lovers of all genres (or at least the three they're allowed to define on Ping) are stuck friending Jack Johnson or Katy Perry.

The labels, it could be argued, have a reason to hesitate. Apple controls more than 80% of all digital music sales (thanks largely to labels' inability to innovate), and labels would likely be reluctant to hand over any more leverage in the form of marketing via Ping. If Ping becomes even a fifth of Facebook's size--and with 160 million users registered on iTunes, it very well could--no label could contain it.

Which leads us to Google. There have been bubblings of a possible iTunes rival from Mountain View (the ballyhooed "Google Music") for some time, but according to several sources, Google's music service may be available by Christmas--and record labels couldn't have it soon enough.

Reuters reported yesterday that Google is currently in talks with labels for a download store and a "digital song locker," which would enable users to potentially access their music through the cloud. The Los Angeles Times added that "Google is finding a warm welcome at record companies that are hoping the technology company can loosen Apple?s grip on the digital music market with its iTunes music store."

"Finally here's an entity with the reach, resources and wherewithal to take on iTunes as a formidable competitor by tying it into search and Android mobile platform," said one record industry executive. "What you'll have is a very powerful player in the market that's good for the music business."

Not to mention music listeners, who may be growing tired of Apple's my-way-or-the-highway approach.

Fast Company's Adam L. Penenberg tweets the breaking news about a verdict against Ford in the death of rising Mets star Brian Cole. As reporters lagged behind on the story, Penenberg discovered a new media use for the 140-character format.

When a rural Mississippi jury awarded $131 million to the family of a star New York Mets prospect killed when his Ford Explorer rolled over in 2001, there were no reporters present, no bloggers, TV crews or radio stringers. In this age of instantaneous media, when being first is celebrated more than being right, and wire services like Bloomberg trumpet beating the competition by nanoseconds, there are still those rare moments when a major story breaks and no one is there to report it.

And this was a major story. It involved a top New York Mets prospect, Brian Cole, who former Mets General Manager Jim Duquette predicted would become a major league star, joining Jose Reyes and David Wright as the cornerstones of the team for years to come. Cole was traveling from spring training when the Ford Explorer he was driving rolled over, killing him. His cousin, also in the car, walked away from the accident relatively unscathed.

There are a number of reasons why this case is special: As any plaintiff's attorney will tell you, death cases are almost always worth far less than injury cases. It's simple math: Paying for 30 years of care for a quadriplegic--it can reach several hundred thousand dollars a year--costs far more than paying most people's estimated lifetime earnings. Cole's case was different. The Mets stipulated that it had projected that Cole would be a star and earn more than $100 million in salary over his career. Then you had the defendant: Ford, which normally settles these kinds of cases. The third wild card was the plaintiff's lead attorney, Tab Turner, a one-man litigation machine who has settled more than $1 billion in rollover cases with Ford over the past two decades. He is perhaps Ford's greatest nemesis.

So you have a $131 million verdict against a major corporation by a jury that found that one of its most popular (and profitable vehicles) was essentially defective, a future NY Mets star whose life was tragically cut short, a top litigator, and no media coverage?

Enter Twitter and an idea expounded upon recently by William Gibson in a New York Times op-ed piece. His subject is Google and its CEO Eric Schmidt's controversial statement that people want Google to tell them what to do next. He suggests that Google is not just a very big corporation but us, "individual retinal cells of the surveillant." Social media's like that. Usually journalists report. Twitter responds. And then journalists, particularly on the 24-hour cable news networks, trot out social media chatter as self-congratulation or faux populism. In this case, social media was the vehicle by which the most relevant reporting rose to the top--the rare instance when the most trusted name in news was Twitter.

I found out about it when a representative of Tab Turner called me minutes after the jury came back with the verdict. In 2003 I had published a book, Tragic Indifference, which detailed the whole Ford and Firestone debacle of the late 1990s into 2001. Turner played a major role in the narrative, and Michael Douglas optioned the book with the intent to produce a movie and star as Tab Turner. (It's still in what Hollywood suits call "deep development.") When I searched online for articles on the verdict, there were none. The only mention of Ford on The New York Times home page was an advertisement for the Ford Fusion. Nothing on the wires, blogs, or Google News.

So I got on Twitter, dashing off a two-hour burst of tweets about the case and why it was big news. I told the horrific tales of rollover accident victims and shared some of my reporting on the Ford Explorer, which Ford's own internal documents showed was dangerously unstable. I offered context for the verdict, linked to previous articles on two earlier trials that had ended in hung juries, and berated journalists for not getting on the story. I was live tweeting my reporting and analysis simultaneously, using micro blogging as my publisher, which was, as the Muck Rack Daily would put it the next day, "a very interesting use of Twitter."

Partway through my Tweetapoolaza, the first news story--a tiny article--appeared on a local Mississippi newspaper site. Then came an Associated Press piece and a post on ESPN. The New York Daily News tweeted me back, promising me they were on the case. The next day, though, there was only a brief three-sentence mention of the case and muted coverage of it elsewhere. Most of it was of the "he said, she said" sort of journalism: a lede ($131 million verdict against Ford the fact the two sides settled before punitive damages could be accessed), a quote from Tab Turner speaking for the family, and a quote from Ford blaming the driver. Other stories focused on Cole as a baseball prospect. None of them explained what the real problem was: The Ford Explorer.

There is ample proof that more than 4 million Ford Explorers were dangerously unstable and prone to rolling over at far higher rates than other vehicles, including other popular SUVs. In fact, according to government accident statistics, one in every 2,700 Ford Explorers built between 1990 and 2001 (when Ford finally reengineered the vehicle) rolled over and killed at least one person in the car.

The figures for the Ford Bronco II, the precursor of the Ford Explorer, are even more frightening: one in 500 Bronco IIs ever produced was involved in a fatal rollover. But you won't find many publications willing to go there. Perhaps they are fearful of losing Ford advertising dollars.

Here's a portion of my tweetstream in reverse order to make it easier to read, telling the story 140 characters at a time (some typos have been cleaned up):

----

Adam L. Penenberg is author of Viral Loop: From Facebook to Twitter, How Today's Smartest Businesses Grow Themselves. A journalism professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, Penenberg is a contributing writer to Fast Company. Follow him on Twitter: @penenberg

Tack on Burger King to the growing list of companies who are cutting ties with Sinar Mas, a major palm oil producer that has been accused by Greenpeace of destroying millions of acres of Indonesian rainforest and peatlands. Burger King joins Nestle, Kraft, and Unilever in ditching the company, which recently tried to varnish its reputation with a questionable self-commissioned environmental audit.

Sinar Mas's audit may have actually hurt the company--according to Greenpeace, it confirms that the company has been illegally clearing peat and operating without proper permits. And Sinar Mas's damning self-audit is partially behind Burger King's decision. The fast food giant explains in a recent announcement:

All 176 Burger King restaurants that rely on Sinar Mas palm oil will transition to a new supplier. That's not a huge loss for a global company like Sinar Mas, but it probably won't take long for other fast food chains to follow suit. After all, no company wants to be the target of a Greenpeace campaign.

Ariel Schwartz can be reached on Twitter or by email.

Twitter's traffic skyrocketed 33% over the summer, according to one survey. Meanwhile Digg's influence was fading even before its controversial makeover.

Late yesterday Twitter announced that it had 145 million registered users--impressive, at around a third of the number of Facebookers and comparable to the number of people Apple's just opened up its new music-based social network Ping to.

But a more meaningful measure of Twitter's growth is how many people are using it, and a new survey has revealed that Twitter's seen nothing less than staggering growth over recent months. In August, Twitter processed some 2.64 billion tweets--that's 85 million per day--up 33% over the figure for May. The August figure is more than double January's figure, of 1.23 billion tweets, in fact.

In other words, Twitter's growing at an incredible rate, and its users aren't just blindly signing up and not taking part--they're actively using the system, no doubt leveraging all the new uses it's being put to (like news reading, photo sharing, celebrity access, trend spotting and Web story discovery). That last aspect is the killer one, when you look at the fortunes of another famous (possibly paradigm-defining) Web story discovery network: Digg. As revealed by statistics generated by Gawker's marketing team, Digg has moved from being the dominant traffic driver among its peer services in October 2009 to coming in in fourth place after Facebook, Twitter, and Stumbleupon. The growth of Facebook in the stats is expected, Twitter's growth burst is evident, and Stumbleupon's increasing importance is something of a surprise (possibly biased by the particular sharing tech highlighted on Gawker's sites), but the clear loser is Digg.

And then the new Digg arrived, and a comparison with Reddit shows that things may have got even worse in the last week. Even when you discount the amusing/irritating hijacking of New Digg's frontpage by Reddit (thanks to angry Diggers) Reddit's grabbing big chunks of Digg's traffic.

So here's what we think is going on: Digg may have been early in the social net/web reffering game, but the entire social net phenomenon has since grown. Facebook has been steadily adding in new powers almost every week. Twitter has hit a nerve among Netizens, probably by keeping things extraordinarily simple, adopting new tech (like its new iPad app) and co-opting newly invented uses discovered by its users into official systems. Digg hasn't particularly innovated or listened to the requests of its users and has gone from being crowdsourced to what Mark Suster of VC firm GRP Partners recently called "mafia sourcing." Now that Digg is trying to open its system back up, the mafia isn't happy.

A new generation of fans will have to work hard to bring Digg back into the limelight. But they'll be tempted--as the numbers bear out--to pour their time into Twitter or Facebook, which continue to leave Digg in the dust.

To keep up with this news, follow me, Kit Eaton, on Twitter.

Only a few are deployed, but thousands are helped.

Global aid giant, Mercy Corps, has partnered with the high-tech manufacturing and engineering company, ITT Corporation, to distribute portable water treatment systems to Pakistan in the wake of the flood crisis. The system being deployed is innovative in that few are needed, yet thousands of people are helped. According to Randy Martin of Mercy Corps and Bjorn Euler of ITT, the systems have already provided clean water to 110,000 Pakistani flood victims and only five water treatment systems are in place.

"The portable, self-contained water-filtration devices take impure water from a variety of sources including rivers, lakes, and wells and remove bacteria and contaminates via sand, charcoal, etc. Water is then injected with chlorine and stored in 10,000 gallon pillow tanks. Each pillow tank is either unloaded in bulk via tanker truck or distributed via tap stands. Each pillow tank can connect to four to five tap stands," Martin and Euler tell Fast Company.

Mercy Corps has a solid track record of responding effectively under such crises, but their purpose of being in Pakistan and in partnering with ITT is also to systematically assess the country's short and long-term needs. ITT is providing the funding for the initial needs assessment.

The equipment was designed by ScanWater but purchased by ITT. They are "not specifically designed to respond to floods, but are serving NGOs well for this purpose on the ground in Pakistan. ITT initially deployed three systems to Mercy Corps and has also loaned two systems to other international relief organizations working in Pakistan. These systems are useful in any emergency where water-related disease is a threat. In January, ITT and Mercy Corps deployed these same systems to Haiti following the earthquake."

Google looked to have stolen a march on the smart Net-connected TV market when it revealed its integrated Google TV a few months back. Now we're seeing prototypes at the IFA electronics show ... and suddenly Google's offering is looking lost among the competition.

Sony's Google TV device is the one that's garnered the most press attention, and it's a great example that we can almost use to preview how Google TV will look and feel to most consumers. The TV unit itself is nothing particularly remarkable in a crowded market that's evolved so quickly its left Joe Public's head spinning: It's a full-HD (1,920 by 1,080 pixels) display, 40-inches on the diagonal, and with a pretty neutrally-designed slim black plastic chassis. But this TV isn't all about the TV itself--it's about how it works. Inside is the necessary processor, memory, and connectivity hardware to drive Google's Android-powered TV service. Also included is Chrome for browsing the Web, niceties like Google Maps, and it's even Flash compatible, in a nose-thumbing exercise aimed at Apple. The UI has been polished to make it compatible with normal TV-viewing options, so you can make a browser window transparent to let a TV show shine through your Web searches, and there's a "Quick Search Box" system which integrates searches on the Web and among your TV resources.

Sony was reportedly reluctant to let people see the units in full-on Googling action, instead demoing features like Picasa photo integration and services like YouTube.

But Google's competitor LG, which is promising a news conference tomorrow--September 4th--to announce its own Google TV efforts, also demonstrated its own rival system at IFA: Netcast. The firm has been demonstrating TVs carrying the system, which has had a serious overhaul and now rests on four design watchwords: "easy," "fun," "more," "better." As well as similar Net-connected benefits to Google's system, it comes with a smart remote control that works a little like a Wiimote, and provides a more "natural" way to interact with the TV along with added extras like a coloring book for kids. LG's TV can even stream content from the unit to other gadgets.

And since Google's TV hit the headlines, Apple's arrived on the scene, as rumored, with its own new set-top box. Though it's services are in many ways simpler than the sophisticated things offered by Google TV or NetCast, concentrating on core streaming TV and movie content and a few extra frills, the hardware is cheap, comes with that fabulous Apple cachet, and is simple enough to appeal to Grandmas everywhere. It's also running on an Apple A4-powered board, which makes us ponder if its simple UI isn't actually built on a modified iOS operating system (found inside the iPhone and iPad). And this makes us wonder if Apple won't be bringing a full-on App Store experience to the Apple TV at some point--bouncing Google TVs and LG's efforts right to the bottom of the market. The same thinking has even resulted in some industry analysts suggesting Apple's TV box is a primer technology, so Apple can test the market before building its very own hardware-integrated TV units in the coming year or two.

And now there's even news that Yahoo's partnered with a Turkish firm Vestel to bring Yahoo Connected TV to 40 more countries from early 2011. So while TVs at IFA may seem to be all about Google's technology, in the coming months it looks like Google will have to significantly up its game to stay relevant in a wholly new market for the company.

To keep up with this news, follow me, Kit Eaton, on Twitter.

When Apple released iTunes 10 last week, the newest version of the venerable media app sported not only a refined interface and the new Ping social network but a new application icon, as well.

For nearly a decade,…

According to private-company intelligence firm CB Insights, now is a particularly bad time to try to raise money if you’re a company built on top of Twitter.

The ecosystem of third-party Twitter apps has seen a 50% decline…

Nike has just rolled out a new iPhone app for runners, available for download now [iTunes link].

The Nike+ GPS App for iPhone will pull in data from the device’s accelerometer and GPS to give runners an effective,…

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

Online infrastructure for your small business doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive.…

YouTube has just launched an official gallery showing off some of the 80,000 submissions it received as part of its Life in a Day project.

The official gallery is viewable as a matrix or as…

Apple may get a nasty surprise this holiday season; rumors are swirling that Google’s Andy Rubin is planning on a holiday-season launch for the search behemoth’s new music download service.

According to a Reuters report, Rubin, the Google…

Every week, Mashable puts together a calendar of upcoming social media and web events, parties and conferences. Would you like to have your conference or event listed here? If so, please contact us at least one month before your event…

Ad Age has obtained an internal Google document that highlights some of the biggest AdWords buyers for the month of June 2010, offering insight into how big brands are using Google and how much they are spending.

…

Here at Mashable we’ve been taking a look at what the iPhone camera is capable of, and it seems (with a decent eye-of-the-beholder and the help of a variety of really cool apps) that it can turn out some…

We hope you’ve had a fantastic weekend! Now that you’re back, you might want to catch up on all that’s happened while you’ve been out enjoying the final stretch of summer (those of you in the Northern Hemisphere, anyway).

This…

Hope everybody knows we're keeping score. Here's how start-ups are looking heading into the September stretch run:

Booyah, the mobile gaming company behind the extremely successful location-aware MyTown, launched a new iPhone app called InCrowd leveraging Facebook Places. NEW RANK: #88

Things just keep getting worse for Digg. Its users are still in revolt over its new design, its site has been unreliable, it is getting called out by a former employee, and it just plain isn't as big a deal as it used to be. NEW RANK: #89

Fusion Garage, maker of the Joojoo, suffered a major set back in its lawsuit with Michael Arrington and TechCrunch. And, to top it all of, it is still Fusion Garage, maker of the Joojoo. NEW RANK: #1,732

New York City education technology startup Knewton won the prestigious Technology Pioneers award from the World Economic Forum. So did Foursquare, SecondMarket, Scribd, OpenDNS, and a handful of other startups, but we can't dedicate this whole list to Davos, so Knewton it is. NEW RANK: #55

Startup-that-isn't-a-bank-but-provides-banking-services BankSimple raised a series A from a top notch set of investors, and strikes us as a neat idea. NEW RANK: #208

Foursquare competitor Loopt landed the best check-in offer we've ever heard of: 2-for-1 plane tickets to Mexico. The deal helped Virgin America to its fifth-biggest day in sales ever. NEW RANK: #62

Twitter's authentication update broke a number of third-party apps. It sent out its announcement two days too late, without realizing what day it was. It also announced that it has registered 145 million accounts, so poor communication skills don't seem to be a dealbreaker. NEW RANK: #8

WiThings, the French startup behind the scale that lets you periodically tweet out your weight, raised $3.8 million, which makes that success of Blippy sound expected and completely undepressing. NEW RANK: #308

Join the conversation about this story »

Smart Decisions is supported by Mercedes-Benz.

Good news New York City startups: It's never been easier to raise money to get your company off the ground.

One plugged in digital media exec told us, "If you can't get money for your startup right now, then there's something wrong with you." Other people in the scene basically confirmed this, but added a few caveats.

Chiefly, getting quality capital is as challenging as ever. And big brand name VCs aren't changing their pace of funding.

However, New York City is awash in capital for early stage startups looking for smallish (under $1 million) sized rounds. There's a lot of "hedge fund guys" looking to invest in tech startups in New York right now, says one New York investor.

"If you're a hedge fund guy you're used to billions. And when you see valuations in the millions, it seems like nothing to invest," says this investor. But he adds, the hedge fund guys don't get the technology business. Taking their money, therefore, he argues is less valuable.

Of course, he's talking his book, but he says he walked away from investing in a startup after some hedge fund guys made the valuation out of whack. The terms were more favorable for the startup, but it would have scared off later round investment, he says.

A VC we spoke with touched upon the idea of later round investment. He's seeing a lot of angel funding cash out there, but he thinks some startups are getting funding before they're ready for it, or deserve it. And when the startups go looking for a series A or B round, they might find that getting that later round is much more challenging.

One person we know who has a startup trying to raise money was floored at how easy it was to get a small slug of cash. It was basically a short phone call with a potential investor who said, "I've heard good things about you from people I trust. When you're ready for me to invest, just call me back."

The growth in early stage funds in New York is being driven by a few factors say the people we spoke with.

1. The New York tech scene is flourishing. And coverage of it is too, thus investors are interested.

2. Some of the people that had successful New York based startups in the early part of the decade are investing in New York startups now.

3. Wall Street types are willing to spend money on startups.

4. It's easier than ever to do a lightweight startup. You don't need much money for many web based companies. If you need less money, it's easier to get funding.

5. Companies are acquisitive again. Google has purchased 25 companies in 12 months. Facebook is acquiring at a decent clip. Even Apple is buying some companies. And there's many other companies stepping up their M&A.

Add it all together, and the city is looking quite "frothy," according to our digital media exec friend.

Join the conversation about this story »

We asked people on the street what they think of daily deals company Groupon. Most of them hadn't heard of it. But once we explained what the company does, most of them got pretty excited. That's probably why Groupon revenues are supposedly going to reach $500 million this year. Watch above.

Join the conversation about this story »

Few industries are more badly in need of disruption than textbook publishing.

Every semester, students fork over masses of cash for extremely expensive textbooks. Teachers choose the books, but students pay for them, so the incentives to compete on price aren't what they should be. Then, every few years, publishers make a few minor tweaks, issue a new edition, and send the resell value of the textbooks down to near zero.

Enter Chegg, a Santa Clara startup that has been crushing it for the past few years by providing students with an alternative: textbook rentals.

Chegg offers students the opportunity to pay well below cover price for books that they then return when the semester or school year is over. Chegg then rents them back out to a new batch of students.

That simple idea has brought Chegg $144 million in venture funding since 2007. Simply put, the company is crushing it.

So how does it all work? We spent some time with it, and took a look at:

How to save money by renting your textbooks on Chegg →

How to make money selling your old textbooks to Chegg →

How to make money promoting Chegg to your friends →

Or:

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Textbook Rental Startup Chegg Is A Money Machine
• Netflix-For-Textbooks Startup Chegg Hires A CFO From Netflix's Board

5min Media, a New York startup that syndicates premium video content to publishers in niche markets, just gave its video games offering a huge boost by signing up gaming megasite IGN as a content partner.

5min offers web publishers a way to include relevant video next to all of their content without doing any ongoing work. Publishers embed a piece of code in their templates, and 5min automatically provides relevant videos to each new article. Ad revenues are split between content providers, publishers, and 5min.

It's a promising model: 5min served up 130 million streams in July (116 million U.S.) to 42 million unique viewers (27 million U.S.), and claims its ad inventory has been sold out all year. The company has been able to build up a huge library of over 200,000 videos in the verticals it serves. The new deal is a huge move in gaming, as the News Corp owned property is by far the biggest publisher in the vertical.

To achieve huge scale on the distribution side, we expect this has to become a self-serve process, since smaller publishers are the least likely to produce or license premium video content on their own. 5min won't say anything specific about its plans on this front yet, but it's something to watch for.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Little-Known Startup 5min Media Is Killing It In The Niche Video Market

BankSimple, a new type of technology-focused, online-only banking startup cofounded by an early Twitter employee, has just completed a round of venture funding, SAI has learned.

First Round Capital's Josh Kopelman, IA Ventures' Roger Ehrenberg, and Village Ventures' Matt Harris led the round, which will close shortly. Angels including Ron Conway joined in.

The startup was founded by CEO Josh Reich, CFO Shamir Karkal, and CTO Alex Payne, one of Twitter's first employees, and the man who predicted that new features on Twitter's home page would eliminate the need for desktop clients.

BankSimple says its goal is to "automate the hard parts of banking and make it easy for our customers to understand and manage their money." Since there are high regulatory barriers to entry in banking, BankSimple isn't a bank itself, but rather works on an affiliate model, depositing its customers' money in other, FDIC-insured banks. It issues a single ATM/Debit/Credit card, and offers some neat high tech features like the ability to cash checks using your smartphone.

BankSimple has two main selling points: simplicity, and, especially, transparency. The company is born from outrage at the revenue model of existing commercial banks: sticking their customers with hidden fees and penalties. BankSimple insists it won't do any of that. And, because it won't have any physical branches to support, it can afford to be telling the truth about that.

Of course, the startup has a huge hurdle to clear in earning consumers' trust. Even if we don't like our banks, they are huge names, and we can hand them our life savings secure in the knowledge that they won't steal or lose it outright. But if it can get past that, this could be a huge opportunity. Many consumers, especially younger, more technologically-inclined ones, don't have much use for physical banks, and we'd rather not pay for them.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Twitter Previews The Redesign That Will Make You "Not Want To Use A Desktop Client"
• How Richard Branson And Virgin Should Revolutionize Retail Banking

It’s a cliché to note that the internet has completely changed business. For big companies and small, the web has allowed businesses to be more efficient, advertise better, and scale faster.

However, the impact is not uniform. While technology has revolutionized the travel, advertising, jobs and financial services, some industries still seem to be chugging along unscathed by the web revolution.

The real estate industry is one of them.  Yes, classified advertising has migrated to the web in the form of real estate search, but the sell side of real estate may be web’s biggest relative laggard.

There are several reasons why technology adoption has lagged the Real Estate brokerage industry. 

Brokerages compete with each other not on their differentiated offerings, but simply by bringing on more agents.  And agents are typically attracted by brand and commission split.  So as a broker, that’s where you spend your money.  Developing technology based differentiation is low on the list of priorities because brokers and agents are not technologists, and the “off the rack” options don’t fit the needs of the real estate community anyway.

The “one size doesn’t fit all” problem is particularly acute for real estate sales.  Real estate is a different beast because there are two sales that need to happen prior to closing a transaction.  First, the home owner needs to be “sold” so the agent gets the listing, and then the home buyer needs to be sold the home.  Any complete technology based selling solution needs to take into account both parts of the sales equation.

Layer on top of this, a solution that needs to span online and offline media and be local in nature, and it’s no wonder real estate sales has been such a late adopter of technology.

However, never before has there been such an opportunity for an industry to embrace technology.  Social networking allows the real estate brokerage to tap into their contacts and the contacts of their agents and clients.  And analytics software can measure marketing response and determine what’s effective and ineffective – and direct ad dollars to where there is the biggest bang for the buck.  And structured real estate data can dramatically improve matching buyers to sellers, and reduce transaction costs for clients, all the while improving overall margins for the industry.

However, to do this, Real Estate brokerages need to embrace their inner CTO and become technology companies first, and sales organizations second.  Until this happens, this industry will continue to lag the opportunity in front of them.

Doug Perlson is the CEO of RealDirect, a technology driven real estate company.

Join the conversation about this story »

The World Economic Forum, best known for its annual conference in Davos, announced its annual Technology Pioneers awards today, given out to the tech startups around the world that the Forum deems the most innovative.

This year's winners include location-based social network Foursquare, illiquid asset trading platform SecondMarket, music streaming service Spotify, education startup Knewton, and DNS service provider OpenDNS.

The winning startups will be honored at the next conference in Davos.

Past winners include Google, PayPal, Mozilla, and Twitter. Of course, plenty of companies you haven't heard of have won too, but that's still impressive company to keep.

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• The Only 10 Important Things Said Today In Davos
• Foursquare Is Still More Popular Than Facebook Places ? At Yankee Stadium, At Least
• Meet The People Who Buy And Sell Silicon Valley Every Day

TechStars, one of the best known and most successful startup accelerator programs, is expanding to New York City. Applications are now open for its inaugural NYC class, which will start in January.

TechStars founder and CEO David Cohen is temporarily relocating to the city to oversee the innaugural class; angel investor David Tisch is signed on as the New York City director.

TechStars now operates in four cities, but only has one active class at any given time, and limits its class-size to 10 companies, which David says is essential to giving each startup all the mentorship it needs.

The new program has a very impressive line-up of investors and mentors, with an emphasis on NYC VCs, angels, and entrepreneurs. Investors include Union Square Ventures, DFJ Gotham, AOL Ventures, First Round Capital, FirstMark Capital, IA Ventures, RRE, Ventures, and Lerer Ventures (and we could keep going). Mentors already signed on include Dennis Crowley, Chris Dixon, Fred Wilson, Albert Wenger, Zack Klein, and Sam Lessin (again, we could keep going).

Just a few weeks ago, New York's first accelerator program, SeedStart, graduated its innaugural class. Now it already has company. That's great news for New York tech.

See also: The 5 Startups That Just Graduated From SeedStart

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Your Chance To Join VCs and Entrepreneurs At SeedStart's Workshops
• Contrary to Reports, Seed-Stage Investing Alive and Well in NYC
• 5 Startups Graduate From New York's Answer To Y-Combinator

We've recently published several articles discussing the use of convertible debt in financing seed and early-stage companies.

Why?

It's all a response to a Twitter update by Paul Graham, founder of the Y Combinator, which consults early-stage and seed companies. He tweeted:

“Convertible notes have won. Every investment so far in this YC batch (and there have been a lot) has been done on a convertible note.”

It garnered so much attention in the VC world because the value of convertible debt versus traditional financing rounds is controversial.

In fact, there's even disagreement as to what kind of convertible debt--capped or uncapped-- is best for investors and entrepreneurs.

Here's the deal:

• A convertible debt is a type of financing that has three distinct characteristics: It doesn't give the investor any legal authority in the company, thereby reducing legal fees associated with the investment (from near $40k to just $5k), and it defers valuation to the next round. In return for the risk the investors incur, they are offered a significantly upgraded rate when investing in future rounds of financing.

• A capped convertible debt essentially sets boundaries for that significantly upgraded rate, while still avoiding negotiations on an (often premature) evaluation of the seed or early-stage company. That cap helps avoid the conflicts of interests that arise between a VC and a company in the eventual valuation of a company.

• Meanwhile standard equity financing sets strict parameters on the companies valuation, gives investors legal sway with the direction of the company, and has legal fees that can reach $40k.

Obviously, Paul Graham is happy to see that entrepreneurs and investors are increasingly agreeing upon convertible debt structures. Chris Dixon, an investor in early-stage companies, also likes this trend. Albeit, with the caveat that the convertible debt financing is capped. He argues that although investors don't get as much legal power, he believes it builds a level of trust between VCs and entrepreneurs that's crucial to the success of companies.

Meanwhile venture capital investors Seth Levine, Mark Suster, and Fred Wilson, aren't so hot on this trend. All three note the symbiotic relationship between investors and entrepreneurs. Investors aren't trying to fleece entrepreneurs, and entrepreneurs are dependent upon those same investors for financing and expertise.

Essentially, they believe the growing popularity of convertible notes is overly favorable towards entrepreneurs and therefore throws off the delicate balance between VCs and startups. That, they fear, jeopardizes a market that's currently flush with venture capital dollars. 

Join the conversation about this story »

See Also:

• Raise Money Now. There Are Storms Ahead
• If Founders Are Going To Screw You, Then You Made A Bad Bet On People
• Why I Don't Like Convertible Debt