Word is that the Main Event at South by Southwest -- a Q&A between Umair Haque of the Havas Media Lab and Twitter chief exec Evan Williams -- was a bust. Fast Company called it: "likely the most horrifically devastating keynote presentation in SXSW history." First, there was no mention of Twitter's forthcoming ad platform, or any new monetization plans, as some were expecting. Then, the feature that Williams did unveil apparently failed to impress many in the crowd or at home. Named @Anywhere, the new service will allow …

At 3 p.m. EST on Monday afternoon, Umair Haque of the Havas Media Lab is expected to interview Twitter CEO Evan Williams at the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas. TechCrunch expects big news to come out of the interview, and, in particular, new details about Twitter's imminent advertising model. The microblogging leader "will likely have opted for the conference as the right place to detail its digital advertising plans, which it hopes will become a major source of revenue in addition to its realtime search outsourcing deals with major Internet players," the blog speculates. According to those …

As if we needed anymore proof, Pew has concluded that consumers prefer ad-supported content to pay walls. "When it comes to online news, getting people to pay for content they otherwise value is 'like trying to force butterflies back into their cocoons,' " assured the report from The Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. Last year, online advertising saw its first decline since 2002, according to Pew. EMarketer found that revenues fell by a total of $1 billion between 2008 and 2009. Still, a full 81% of Internet surfers say they're fine with online ads …

Based on a sampling, CNN is estimating the total product sales at Apple's online store to be about 125,000 on Friday. "Once you subtract the average sales of 16,500 and multiply by the average number of iPads bought, you come up with just shy of 120,000 iPads sold," concludes Fast Company. "It's an estimate, sure, but a conservative one, and that number is reasonable." The estimates are based on a sample of iPad and other Apple product purchasers taken by CNN. It would also appear as though all three versions of the iPad (16GB, 32GB, and 64GB) …

GigaOm examines why Google Buzz has drawn so much criticism, and what other service providers can learn from the search giant's experience. "Part of the reason why Buzz has come under so much criticism over privacy and other issues ... is that users and the search company seem to have different ideas about what Buzz is, and how it should be used." Specifically, "Apart from the privacy aspect of Buzz, one of the ongoing debates about the service is whether it should be used for aggregating or publishing -- or both." GigaOm credits Mahendra Palsule, an editor …

Chinese authorities are telling Google's partners to comply with government censorship laws or face the consequences. Specifically, they should be preparing backup plans in case Google decides to stop censoring the results of searches on its local Chinese-language search engine, Chinese government information authorities insist. According to the New York Times, the warning indicates that two months of negotiations between Chinese officials and Google over government censorship have reached gridlock -- "making it more likely that Google will end up shutting down its Chinese search engine." Furthermore, the warning is an effort to prevent broad service disruption …

In the emerging world of location-based social networking, Foursquare has been getting a disproportionate share of the attention from media, analysts, and VCs. Yet, that could all change now that rival Gowalla has won the award for best new site in the Mobile category at South by Southwest. "Gowalla beat out top rival Foursquare in the category, even as the supposed SXSW location smackdown between the two services heated up," writes Wired.com's Underwire blog. "While over a dozen services have launched new products or features around location, two still seem to stand …

Twitter has finally flipped the switch on its highly-anticipated location-sharing feature. Of critical importance to users and privacy advocates alike, the microblogging service has made location awareness optional and opt-in. The geo-location feature tags users' tweets based on where they are tweeting from. According to Twitter cofounder Biz Stone, the new feature will save lives. "Let's say I'm at my office and I hear a loud boom," says Stone. "It sounded serious, so I search Twitter for 'boom' ... Among the first results could be someone who tweeted 'Boom go the fireworks!' This could be anywhere in …

Behold Rupert Murdoch expressing his strong views on Google, the future of content and newspaper, and other related topics in this interview with Fox Business Network in Abu Dhabi. Notes Om Malik, "We all know (and have read), he is not so enamored with Google, the so-called content stealer ... (Never mind that he was OK taking Google's $900 million when the search giant wanted to run ads on MySpace.)" Watch the latest business video at video.foxbusiness.com

At present, Android claims just 7.1% of the U.S. smartphone market, but some insist that Google's mobile operating system is the one to watch. Indeed, Google added 4.3 percentage points of market share in a mere four months, according to new comScore data. "While Android's user base may skew 'young, male, and cheap,' such increase implies a much wider audience," CNet's Open Road blog writes, adding, "That is astonishing growth and has much to do with Google's open-source approach." At present, about 60,000 Android devices are being shipped every day. Meanwhile, Apple's approach is the exact inverse …