One of the new product announcements at Google IO in May was the introduction of movie rentals from the Android Market. Following the path beaten by Apple with its iTunes and Apple TV pairing, popular movie rentals can be picked up for the typical price of $2.99 or $3.99 each, are watchable in the next month and playable for 24 hours after you start. It's familiar, but new for Google, who added the option to their marketplace a month ago, making one less reason one has to be shackled to iTunes. The video rental service is powered by YouTube, who has clearly shown they know how to push Web video content to hundreds of millions of homes worldwide, and is ready to try longer-length content.

As mentioned frequently here, I've been a longtime iTunes user, and have slowly migrated away from the platform, thanks to increased use of Spotify and Google Music on one side, NOOK on the other, and now, movies, by way of Android Market, on top of Netflix Instant. The focus is not so much an anti-Apple vendetta, but just finding new ways to consume rich media on my changing array of devices. The more Android and Chrome I have in my house, the less iTunes is an option - until Apple changes its mind.


The promise of the Android Market offering is to play these movies right in your Web browser, on any of your Google account-enabled devices. There's no need to download the movie (as iTunes does), but you instead start streaming after an extremely minimal amount of buffering, at either 320p or 480p. Purchases are sent to the account you have registered with Google Checkout, and the item shows in your Android Market purchase history. All straight forward.


In the last two days, I pulled down Adam Sandler's romantic comedy "Just Go With It" and Vince Vaughn's "The Dilemma". Both $3.99, I can play these videos on the Web (and even Google TV's Chrome App) and expand to full screen. In our on demand world, the experience is on par with Apple TV or Netflix Instant, and your service preference depends on the device you're using or the title you want. Using the Android Market interface is actually just a front end for YouTube's full-length feature movie rentals (see all of them here), including films like The Hangover, Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows, The King's Speech, Knocked Up and many others. It's yet another example of Google trying to push to the browser what traditionally has been handled with desktop client software.


I tested the video rentals on my Mac, in both Chrome and Safari and on the CR-48, as well as on Google TV. Essentially, if the app can play YouTube videos and you can sign in with you're Google credentials, you're good to go.


At Google I/O, it was promised that ChromeOS (and these rentals specifically) would bring more offline access for those outside of broadband streaming. I assume those will come soon, to solve for the poor souls stuck on airplanes who still want access, and might still be going to Apple to shell out three or four bucks at a time.

Last month, Social.com announced the lucrative domain name was going up for sale after Scott Carter, owner of the URL for more than 15 years, could no longer justify trying to throw business models at it that would stick. Following a false-start auction process two weeks ago, the domain received multiple bids by competing parties vying for the URL, including a bid for exactly $2.5 million on June 6th. The eventual purchase price of $2.6 million was reached on Monday, and just hours ago, Carter received payment. The buyer so far is uncertain, described only as a "Fortune 500 company in the Ukraine", which still leaves us guessing.

Reports of the sale reached DN Journal, a domain name industry site yesterday, saying the purchaser was a company based in the UK (United Kingdom), but Carter said multiple e-mail messages during the process referred to the buyer "as being in the Ukraine", even though not even he knows the identity of the purchaser.

Carter, who says he got the first email from the buyer's broker after they connected via Twitter, reported that message simply stated, "Good to connect. My client who is based in Ukraine is interested to purchase the domain: social.com for $2.5m."

As is common in the odd high-value domain name sales business, other bidders for the name are similarly cloaked in secrecy. Carter acknowledges that he does know their identiites, including multiple US-based Fortune 500 companies, but is unable to reveal them. Final negotiations were only conducted with the eventual buyer after the initial $2.5 million bid, and not against the other parties.

Through the process, until now, Carter has remained silent, waiting for the sale to complete, and become official. His reason for doing so is obvious, sitting on a domain name that eventually sold in the seven figure range.

"I was waiting for the sale to finally close before I said anything," he wrote me this afternoon. "As of about 3 hours ago, the payment finally arrived and the sale is now concluded. What everyone is wondering is who the buyer is? I do not know. Negotiations between the parties involved another broker working for the buyer. Moniker worked directly with the buyer's broker. Moniker has told me that they also do not know who the buyer is."

That a company based in the Ukraine would be interested in the Social.com is another wrinkle in the odd story of this domain name which could be the basis for a new service, a rebranding of one we already know, or just a valuable domain for another player who has some big ideas. The Global 500 Fortune list does not have any Ukrainian companies, and the six Russian companies on the list don't exactly scream out Web tech. So either Carter's contact is not from a Fortune 500 company in the Ukraine, or its a Fortune 500 company based elsewhere with a contact in the Ukraine... or something. Eventually, no doubt, we'll find out.

While some noisy Web pundits have declared RSS dead, smart developers see expanded social sharing and connections as an opportunity to rethink news consumption, leveraging RSS as a utility and making it the backbone for new services. Amidst the rise of Twitter, Facebook and other networks, we've seen the launch and rapid adoption of products like Pulse, Feedly, Ninua, Flipboard and others who have taken the geeky parts out of RSS and presented new ways to consume news.

A new site you've never seen, which I've been watching since January, has finally cracked open the door with exclusive invites to its own take on RSS with social connections. The name is NewsDrink, which starts on the Web and will soon follow on with dedicated applications for mobile phones and tablets.




Based in Bangalore, India, NewsDrink, like other RSS readers, can import an OPML file, synchronize with Google Reader, have you add feeds one by one, or select from their extensive topic-driven directory. Content can be viewed by individual source, or sorted for recency, with newest items at the top.


Unlike Google Reader, which is biased toward full feeds, and has a wide array of sharing functionality and statistics for your own activity as well as the blog feeds themselves, NewsDrink favors a more minimalist approach, with feed items truncated to give you a glimpse into the story, but push for downstream views if interested. That said, you can make comments or likes directly on items that flow through your view in NewsDrink, and this site activity is collected on your central profile - which also displays feeds you add or delete.


NewsDrink goes beyond Google Reader when it comes to social, reminding me a lot of RSS projects gone by, including AssetBar in 2008 and the follow-on Shyftr, best known for its aggregation of comments on full feeds, which in my view got them in an unfair share of trouble. You can follow friends on NewsDrink, find friends from Twitter and Facebook who are using the service, and see their activity. Find a feed they are reading that you like but don't have? Add it to your NewsDrink. You can also see people they follow and have an opportunity to discover new people with similar interests - much like the promise of Toluu, another 2008 debut that has seen its founder move on to new projects.


Does the world need another RSS reader besides Google Reader, or does the world need RSS at a time when it seems that social sharing is king? I still think there is a place, absolutely. One that is built from the start to be social, but also allows you that solitary approach to get in and read your feeds, could be a solid alternative. NewsDrink is a just starting, so if there are some UI bugs that are not your favorite, or missing functionality, be sure to let them know. It's all part of the fun of beta products.

To get into NewsDrink, use the invite code of "louis", without quotes. There should be enough invites for everyone. You can find NewsDrink at http://www.newsdrink.com.

In late March, I introduced you to a great Chrome add-on that interfaces with Android to let you send and receive texts from the Web browser. I use it constantly, sending messages to friends and family from my computer without having to pick up the phone. It's extremely convenient. Today, the extension added some great new features, expanding from texting to call information, and has rebranded as MightyText.

If you don't remember, the initial attraction to Texty was getting instant notification of incoming texts on the computer, and getting the option to respond from the desktop interface, including viewing text history and integration with Google contacts to reveal true names of senders instead of phone numbers. There are some similarities to Google Voice in this regard, but the extension works for users regardless of their status with Google Voice, and is always at the forefront, assuming you have Chrome open. Of course, performance on ChromeOS is great as well.


Today the company moves beyond just text, with two major features - first being a live "Calling Now" notification, which gives you a popup notification on the desktop showing who is calling and the timestamp. You can respond from the desktop via SMS to say "call me back later" or dismiss the notification and pick up the phone. The second addition is missed call notifications, where popup notifications will immediately display on the desktop showing who the missed call was from and the timestamp, again with the option to follow up by SMS.

For those who like to put their phones to the side and work on their desktops without interruption or switching to a different device, MightyText's duplication of phone functionality is very useful. Since launch, the extension reports more than 12,000 users, and a 4 1/2 star rating on the Chrome store. It's one of my must-have extensions on all computers.