• Gavin O'Malley, Jul 20, 2011, 12:40 PM
  • Apple Users Clamor For Google+ eWeek.com The mobile app for Google+ just became available for the iPhone, and it's already the top free program in the iTunes App Store. Showing consumers' taste for (curiosity around?) Google's latest social effort, its popularity doesn't seem to have been hurt by the existence of a few initial glitches. "When we launched, the App Store started serving a previous test version of the app which didn't have the stability and fixes that the latest version had," Punit Soni, lead product manager for Google+ Mobile, explained. "It started serving the correct version a little later."

    Overall, eWeek.com estimates that Google+ may have as many as 18 million users -- still a far cry from Facebook's reported 700 million members, but a good start nonetheless. The Apple-friendly app allows users to publish updates to their Google+ Stream and see the links, pictures and updates posted to the service by people in their Circles, according to eWeek. "Users may also manage those Circles." That said, eWeek adds, iPhone users can't enjoy the Instant Upload feature, which lets Android phone users automatically shuttle photos they take on their smartphones to Google+.

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  • VC Web Investment Hits Decade High GigaOm Don't call it a bubble, but the second quarter of 2011 witnessed the highest levels of VC investment in Web-specific startups since 2001, according to the latest MoneyTree report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association. "Venture capital firms pumped $2.3 billion into 275 web-oriented companies during Q2 2011, a 72 percent increase in dollars and a 46 percent increase in such deals from the first quarter of the year," GigaOm points out. "Growth is normally a good thing for the venture capital ecosystem, but it may be starting to get out of hand."

    As NVCA president Mark Heesen explains in the report: "This quarter's increased investment levels signals an incredible opportunity for job creation and innovation, but if current dynamics continue, it will not be sustainable." Overall, during the quarter, VC firms spread $7.5 billion across 966 online deals -- the highest total amount of money invested by VCs since the second quarter of 2008.

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  • Amazon Gets CBS Shows, Too AllThingsDigital Following a similar deal by rival Netflix, Amazon has added a slew of TV shows from CBS. It's all part of Amazon's broader effort to build up a digital video service that can rival the one Netflix has built, assures All Things D. "The deal is more or less a replica of the pact CBS and Netflix struck in February," which allows for access to relatively recent CBS shows that are not on the air anymore, as well as library titles, including "Frasier" and "Cheers."

    Neither deal, however, includes any "in-season" episodes. Financial terms of the deal are not being discussed, but Barclays analyst Anthony DiClemente pegged the value of the CBS/Netflix deal at $200 million over two years. Adds All Things D: "It's reasonable to assume that Amazon is paying the same rate for its shows, but spending less over all. That's because the total value of the deal is likely based on Amazon's subscriber base, which is much lower than Netflix's." Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker later estimated the deal to be worth "over $100 million" over an 18-month term.

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  • Twitter Thinking Big About Commerce Fortune Like many a Web publisher and platform, Twitter is now reportedly eyeing commerce as a way to its millions of users in billions in revenue. "After discussing its various advertising options -- including its plans to eventually offer self-serve ads -- [Twitter CEO Dick Costolo] mentioned how conference organizers and sports teams had used Twitter to find buyers for unsold inventory," Fortune reports.

    In one instance, the San Diego Chargers quickly sold around 1,000 tickets to a game that otherwise would have been blacked out on local television. Twitter didn't make any money on those transactions, but according to Costolo, may look to do so in the future. "There's a commerce opportunity there for us to take advantage of if we want," Costolo said. The issue, he added, is "how can we remove friction from the process?"

    Costolo declined to explain exactly how Twitter might address the friction issue, or whether the company is currently pursuing any related projects. He did, however, suggest that the Chargers could have sold their tickets even more efficiently if buyers were not forced to visit an entirely different Web site to make their purchase.

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