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A friend pointed me to news that Magento, a leading open-source commerce platform, has cracked 500,000 downloads, not to mention its 44,000 community members that have translated the project into over 60 languages. That is progress that money can’t buy, or at least not cheaply.

Earlier this year I talked up Varien/Magento as a company and project to watch. I was speculating at that time, but today its success seems relatively sure. It’s now a question of “how big?” for Magento, not “will it take off?”

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The Magento project, founded by Varien in 2001, hasn’t been around long, but it’s already disrupting the e-commerce market. It’s also getting attention from The Wall Street Journal, among others.

But that’s only half the story. It has been said that “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” and the real story behind Magento’s success is that it’s breeding copycats. Several proprietary competitors, like Oxid eShop, are throwing in the towel and open sourcing their code, too.

The start-up, expected to launch later this week, was formed by MySpace parent company News Corp. and the largest music labels: Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and Sony BMG. At launch, the MySpace Music store is expected to offer free streaming music and sell MP3s without copy-protection software, as well as ringtones and merchandise, such as concert tickets.

The obvious upside of an agreement with EMI is that it gives MySpace Music access to EMI artists, such as Coldplay, Ben Harper, and Joss Stone. More importantly the site’s image would get a boost if their library doesn’t appear incomplete.

An EMI spokeswoman said only that the “companies were in talks.” A MySpace spokeswoman said the company doesn’t comment on rumors.

MySpace Music will now be able to offer everything it’s competitors can.

The EMI Group is close to joining the three other large recording companies in backing the upcoming MySpace Music service, according to two sources close to the negotiations.

EMI and MySpace representatives were “trying to jump some final hurdles,” according to one of the sources adding that the companies could finalize a deal in time for the launch of MySpace’s new iTunes competitor.

“Open Salon eliminates the gatekeepers,” editor-in-chief Joan Walsh said in a statement. “It makes our smart, creative audience full partners in Salon’s publishing future.”

But the idea of this might make me inclined to write something of decent quality for Open Salon and see if I get some pizza money in return. Especially if I knew that Bill Gates were reading, or something.

Will it work? Sure, while that free $10 is still available. After that, it’s less certain. If the results of Radiohead’s pay-what-you-want In Rainbows album are any indicator, Web users tend to cough up the cash when they have to and take content for free when it’s possible. But on the flip side, there are plenty of people willing to pay for virtual “gifts” in Facebook, not to mention shelling out alarming amounts of real money for the spear-and-magic-helmet offerings in role-playing games.

So you liked that blog post you just read–why don’t you toss the writer a buck or two?

Salon’s micropayments are handled through technology from Revolution MoneyExchange, a member of the Revolution corporation founded by former AOL czar Steve Case. Each Open Salon member who registers for Revolution MoneyExchange is given a complimentary $10 with which to start rewarding other bloggers for their stories, images, and videos uploaded to the site. But those would-be recipients can only accept the compensation if they’ve registered for MoneyExchange accounts themselves.

Plenty of sites have instituted virtual reputation gauges (i.e. Yelp’s “compliments”) and a handful of amateur-content-driven media sites like GroundReport give their contributors a cut of ad revenue, but having members compensate one another is a pretty novel concept.

That’s the rationale behind new-media outlet Salon’s latest initiative. Members of its “Open Salon” user-generated content community can now “tip” one another with real-world money if they like what they see. You know, like street musicians. Popular content will also appear on the main Salon.com homepage.

And the highbrow, left-leaning Salon is a pretty civilized environment in which to institute this kind of system. If “tipping” were added to a more rabble-friendly site like Digg, well, that might spell chaos.

Joost isn't letting the public try out the site yet but that will change soon.

“Our plan is to be a destination site where people go to watch their favorite shows,” Volpi said.

Volpi said Joost has greatly enhanced the content selection. The site will feature shows from Warner Bros., CBS, and Comedy Central, as well as other Viacom properties. Volpi said Joost will eventually offer a greater selection than Hulu. Volpi said Hulu offered little outside of the shows from NBC and Fox.

When it comes to YouTube, the Google property is still far and away the Internet’s most popular video site. More than a third of every video viewed online is at YouTube. But YouTube is a user-generated site, with most of its content 10 minutes or shorter. Joost is much more like Hulu, a distribution platform for mostly professionally made content.

The public wasn’t impressed. The content offering was thin. The player often stalled or stuttered, and it relied on the desktop client–meaning that you couldn’t just log on to the Web from any computer to access your Joost account.

Joost’s videos will follow a five-second advertisement or “preroll.” Despite enabling users to embed video, the site will not concentrate on syndicating content.

He called the selection “tired.”

Finally, Joost is going to correct the error that badly hobbled the Web video service many once considered to be a serious YouTube competitor.

But the big question that Joost must answer is whether the site overhaul comes too late to catch to Hulu or Google’s YouTube.

(Credit:
Joost)

The start-up was the brainchild of Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström, the founders of Skype and Kazaa. Among the backers were media conglomerates Viacom and CBS, parent company of CNET, publisher of News.com. Joost was powered by the same peer-to-peer technology that turned Skype and Kazaa into the most disruptive forces in the telephone and music sectors, respectively.

Volpi came on a year ago, and not much changed until January, when the company’s CTO left and Volpi initiated a house cleaning. Volpi says it’s still too early in the game to crown any site a winner.

Joost pounced onto the online-video scene with seemingly the right combination of founders, investors, and technology. The media instantly christened it a legitimate YouTube killer.

Yes, but are Web video fans already used to getting what they want at Hulu, the company created by NBC Universal and News Corp? The competitor launched last spring to glowing press reviews, and traffic has continued to mushroom. A report issued this week by LiveRail reported that Hulu is probably already generating as much revenue as YouTube, which launched in 2005.

CEO Mike Volpi acknowledged in an interview with CNET that the desktop client was one of the company’s missteps but that the new browser-based player would provide ease of use, a high-quality video experience, and more content. The new site, according to Volpi, will even be less taxing on laptop batteries. News of Joost’s new site was first reported by The Industry Standard.

“There is still ample opportunity to create a portal or aggregation site,” Volpi said in an interview last week. “People will go where they can find the content they want.”

Currently available for Windows and Mac, Joost is planning to launch a test version of its new site later this month that will feature a browser-based plug-in and will no longer require users to watch via the company’s much maligned desktop client. In a not so surprising move, users will be able to embed Joost’s videos.

It would be easier to be bitter if Scoble wasn’t such a nice guy. It’s 15 minutes before Scoble and 29 other people are let in. The crowd, which numbers around 250 people, is whooping it up as they break down folding chairs, drink coffee, and talk about the new iPhone apps they want to buy.

SAN FRANCISCO–The perks of being a famous tech blogger include not having to stand in line all night for the latest gadget.

A legion of marketers are handing out coupons for iPhone skins and other accessories. There’s some apprehension among some of those who are well back in the line about how long the activation process is going to take. We’ll see.

Update 9:40 a.m. PDT: OK, it would have been easier to get pissed at the congenial Scoble when Apple’s doorman started letting the first batch of people inside the store and stopped at me. It was only a few seconds’ delay before they granted me access.

I was out in front of the Apple store near Union Square here at 9 p.m. PDT on Thursday standing in line for the
iPhone 3G that makes its debut today. Robert Scoble walks up at 7:15 a.m., 45 minutes before the doors are scheduled to open, and a fan lets him take cuts in line.

A jubilant Robert Scoble poses with his new iPhone 3G at the Apple store in San Francisco.

(Credit:
James Martin/CNET News)

Update 1:20 p.m. PDT with comment from San Francisco’s mayor.

Biswas said that users can also roam among Meraki hot spots seamlessly as long as they are traveling at a slow pace, like walking or riding the bus.

About 150,000 of San Francisco’s 860,000 residents are using the Meraki network, Newsom said. “We’re a few years from having this city covered” with free Wi-Fi access, he added.

“The Meraki network is faster than AT&T’s 3G network,” he said. “So for users who know the Meraki signal is there, they prefer to jump on the free Wi-Fi network. ”

Meraki, which makes Wi-Fi equipment, gives away its small Wi-Fi repeaters and network gateways to residents who volunteer to deploy the equipment on rooftops or on their windowsills. In exchange for mounting the gear, Meraki picks up the tab for the Internet service and provides free access through the wireless network to anyone without advertising.

Sanjit Biswas, CEO of the company, said that usage on the network is growing, despite the fact that San Francisco has one of the highest penetrations of broadband access in the country. Much of the usage is being driven by Apple’s new
iPhone. Biswas said that over the last couple of months since the iPhone 3G was announced, Meraki has seen more than 20 percent of its new users coming from the iPhone.

Meraki Chief Executive Sanjit Biswas and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom announce the expansion of free Wi-Fi service at St. Anthony's center, which offers food, shelter, and computer training to low-income people. The map projected on the wall shows concentrations of San Franciscans using the Meraki Wi-Fi service in various neighborhoods in real time.

“Meraki also has a social mission to help connect people to the Internet,” he said. “So we felt we might as well do some good with our network by targeting the low-income housing to get people online.”

“We’ve already seen benefits of the network,” he said. “It gives an opportunity to stress test the network and try out new radios. We can also get a better sense for what tools our customers will need to serve their customers.”

Biswas said that working with the city to unwire its low-income housing developments served two purposes for Meraki. One, it allows the company to test deployments in larger apartment buildings, where Wi-Fi service can be offered as an amenity. Instead of working with individual residents to deploy the Meraki Wi-Fi repeaters, the city is allowing the company to deploy the repeaters in stairwells and hallways to provide indoor coverage, a service that Meraki’s equipment customers around the world might want to replicate.

San Francisco, which is where the company is based, serves as a test bed for the network, Biswas said. Meraki funds the expense of building and running the network through its research and development budget.

(Credit:
Meraki)

On Tuesday, Meraki held a press conference with the city’s mayor, Gavin Newsom, to kick off its latest initiative, which will add wireless coverage to 12 low-income housing projects in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco. Meraki also plans to provide Wi-Fi Internet access to low-income housing owned by the city in other neighborhoods as well as provide free Wi-Fi to senior centers throughout the city by the end of the year.

Meraki, the San Francisco company that is providing free Wi-Fi to San Franciscans, is teaming up with the city to bring free Internet access to low-income housing projects as part of its plan to unwire every neighborhood in San Francisco.

To date, Meraki has provided its Wi-Fi gear and free access to the Internet to residents in 80 percent of San Francisco’s major neighborhoods. The company plans to continue building the “Free the Net” network in 2009, deepening coverage in each neighborhood. Currently, the network spans roughly 10 to 13 square miles, a far cry from the city’s proposed plan with EarthLink to blanket 49 square miles. But the Meraki network, which does not use city-owned assets to mount its gear, has grown tremendously. Six months ago only 2.5 to 3 square miles were covered with Meraki Wi-Fi.

In neighborhoods where Meraki is deployed people can access the Meraki network while walking down the street or they can get a repeater for in-home coverage. Meraki acts as the network operator providing support for the service. But Meraki, which competes against Wi-Fi gear makers such as Cisco Systems, Tropos Neworks, and Bel Air, has no plans to replicate its completely free Wi-Fi network in other cities.

But Biswas added that Meraki also felt that it’s free Wi-Fi test bed could also help the city bridge the digital divide.

Stick this free gizmo in your window in San Francisco to boost the Meraki signal, for yourself and others.

(Credit:
Elinor Mills)

The Meraki network differs from municipal Wi-Fi networks because it costs the city and the people who use the network absolutely nothing. Other citywide networks, such as the ones that had been built by EarthLink, only provided limited free network access and usually required users to pay a fee for the service.

The city plans to combine Meraki’s free network access with other programs run by nonprofit groups that provide subsidized computers and technical training for residents.

It’s unclear if the e-mail is an unfortunate auto response to the temporary site outage or if it is just really bad timing.

One colleague, who made it only halfway through logging in to the Bank of America site before it timed out, got an e-mail a short time later with the subject line: “Remember how convenient it is to bank online?” The e-mail provided instructions for how to reset the password if you have had problems logging in because you forgot your online ID or password.

Tara Burke cited “temporary systems issues” and declined to say what the cause was or whether it was related to Bank of America’s proposed purchase of Merrill Lynch or other recent turmoil on Wall Street.

“We’ve had sporadic interruption of online banking service. It doesn’t impact customer information, just the ability to access it,” she said. “We are continuing to correct the error. The site should return shortly.”

The site had been down for several hours as of midday Pacific time, according to Burke.

The Web site for Bank of America was down on Monday for some customers, a spokeswoman for the bank said.