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By Loretta Chao, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

Motorola (MOT), which has regained some credibility with the Droid/Milestone and its new focus on Android smartphones, also seems to be trying in earnest to do things right again in China, where it has lost significant market-share in recent years.

Aside from a relaunch Monday of Moto’s hit Ming series in China, the company has started a Chinese version of its application store called Shop4Apps which, unlike Apple’s Chinese App Store, is available in Chinese.

Moto’s application store, which can be used in addition to Google’s (GOOG) Android Market on Motorola smartphones (though the marketplace isn’t preloaded), also accepts payment in Chinese currency and via widely used payment methods in China like AliPay and through prepaid phone cards. Apple’s (AAPL) App Store, meanwhile, requires a dual-currency credit card, which many in China don’t have.

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BoomTown has never set foot in the dusty dustfest in the desert that is Burning Man, due to the lack of a Four Seasons in the vicinity.

Thank goodness, then, for the live stream of the annual event–direct from Black Rock City–which runs from August 30 to September 6.

You can see it below and also on Burning Man’s Web site.

This year’s art theme at the always-innovative user-generated cultural festival, which has a big dollop of digital, is: Metropolis.

As Burning Man notes:

“Great cities are organic, spontaneous, heterogeneous, and untidy hubs of social interaction. At Burning Man 2010, we will inspect the daily course of city life and the future prospect of civilization.”

Indeed! So next year I am definitely going and building a luxury hotel from scratch with the help of my Twitter followers!

Until then, have fun, Joanne–because I will be watching the live-stream video from UStream whilst getting a mani-pedi:

As Apple (AAPL) gears up for its music-themed event, a reminder of how the music business is actually doing: Not too well. At least if you use the world’s biggest music company as a proxy.

Universal Music Group just reported a sales increase of 2.8 percent in the last quarter. But if you adjust for currency fluctuations, the company, owned by France’s Vivendi conglomerate, saw sales drop 3 percent. Meanwhile, cash flow, measured via EBITDA, dropped no matter which metric you want to use –either by 9.9 percent or 17.3 percent.

The slightly good news is that Q2 was less bad for Universal than Q1: For the first half of the year, sales were down 5.4 percent (or 7.9 percent) and EBITDA declined by 24.6 percent (or 28 percent).

What happened? The same thing we’ve heard for the last decade, according to Vivendi’s press release: Digital revenues are up, but not enough to counter “reduced demand for physical product.” Perhaps an iTunes overhaul can help….

By Loretta Chao, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

Sony Ericsson Chief Executive Bert Nordberg said Tuesday that he expects smartphone use in China to expand to half of all mobile-phone users in the country within five years, as the company joins other global handset makers in shifting its focus to higher-end devices.

In an interview, Mr. Nordberg also said Sony Ericsson, a joint venture between Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson of Sweden and Sony Corp. (SNE) of Japan, is unlikely to create its own tablet-style personal computer even though competitors Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc. of South Korea are planning tablet launches. Sony is likely to produce any tablet that Sony Ericsson sells in the future, he said.

Tablets are “very interesting,” Mr. Nordberg said, adding, “I have focused very hard on devices you can have in your pocket.”

Mr. Nordberg said that as the price gap between smartphones and phones with fewer capabilities narrows in China, purchasing a smartphone will “not be unthinkable” even for less-wealthy consumers. Smartphone penetration “will quickly grow to 50 percent of the market…by 2015″ or earlier, he said.

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Inevitable but important move for Facebook: It is now selling gift cards for its newish “Facebook Credits” currency, starting with a rollout at Target (TGT) stores this week.

Facebook Credits are a big deal for Facebook because they should create an important revenue stream for Mark Zuckerberg and company. The credits are supposed to power Zynga’s games and other virtual-goods vendors, and Facebook takes a 30 percent cut of each sale.

And gift cards are a big deal for Facebook Credits because people really like buying gift cards–they buy some $86 billion worth of them a year. In the Web world, they’re very important for kids and anyone else who want to buy things online but don’t have access to credit cards.

And they’re incredibly popular for people who want to buy someone a present but have no idea what to get–I’ve heard estimates that something like 40 percent of Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes purchases are funded by gift cards. If the Facebook folks end up with anything remotely as popular they’ll be very happy.

A fair bit of time has passed since “antennagate” and Apple’s (AAPL) unprecedented response to it. So how’s the iPhone 4 been selling after all that criticism?

As well as ever, says Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Whitmore.

In other words, damn well.

“iPhone 4 demand remains very robust and despite efforts to close the supply-demand imbalance and the continued supply ramp, Apple still cannot meet iPhone demand (3 week lead times persist),” Whitmore said in a note detailing his recent meeting with Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer and Ron Johnson, the company’s SVP of retail.

Which is pretty much what COO Tim Cook said during Apple’s last earnings call when the antennagate drama was still fresh. “The demand for iPhone 4 is absolutely stunning,” he said. “We’re working hard to catch up with demand. I can’t tell you when that will occur but everyone’s working hard to do it.”

Evidently that’s proving a Sisyphean task.

PREVIOUSLY

• iPhone 4 Full Coverage on AllThingsD.com
• Apple’s “Just Encase” Answer to iPhone 4 Complaints [Live Blog]
• What Will Apple Say Tomorrow? Your Guess Is as Good as My Analyst’s.
• Apple Releases iOS 4.0.1 for iPhone, iOS 3.2.1 for iPad
• The Reality Distortion Field Appears to Be Suffering Attenuation Issues as Well
• Analyst: “Highly Unlikely” iPhone 4 Recall Could Cost Apple $1.5 Billion
• Apple Snips Needling Threads From iPhone 4 Forums
• IPhone 4 Recall? Get a Grip!
• Consumer Reports: By the Way, the iPhone 4 is Also the Best Smartphone on the Market
• Duct-Tape Makers Look for Boost From Consumer Reports iPhone Verdict
• Consumer Reports: We Can’t Recommend the iPhone 4
• Apple: Your iPhone 4 Antenna Is Fine, and So Is Your Reception–But We’re Fixing Our Software Anyway
• Grip Different: Apple, AT&T Sued Over iPhone 4 Antenna Issue
• Gripping Antenna Drama Won’t Hold iPhone 4 Back, Says Analyst
• Apple on iPhone 4 Reception Problems: Grip Different

Of course, it makes perfect sense for Mark Cuban (pictured here) to appear in a very long and involved cameo as himself on the HBO original comedy series “Entourage.”

Heck, the fun-loving Internet billionaire could easily slip into the pack of young Hollywood dudes on the show and seem part of the gang.

Cuban–who is always up to some kind of amusing stunt (for example, see his dance stylings on “Dancing With the Stars” in 2007)–actually has already been in two episodes on the premium cable television service and it looks like he will also make the finale.

The story line has Cuban vying to nab a tequila company in Mexico out from under the nose of a very befuddled Turtle.

Enjoy:

And here is Cuban also playing himself in the video of an interview I did with him at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference in 2009:

[ See post to watch video ]

By Ryan Abood, CEO, GourmetGiftBaskets.com

On November 11, 2008, I woke up at 6 o’clock and did a Google search on my phone, like I do every morning. We’re usually one or two for just about every industry keyword. But we were nowhere to be found.

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By Scott Rosenberg, Blogger, Wordyard

For 15 years, I’ve been doing most of my writing–aside from my two books–on the Web. When I do switch back to writing an article for print, I find myself feeling stymied. I can’t link!

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By Barry Schuler, Entrepreneur

The sunlight of summer has begun its annual transition to equinox, and we are all reviving the pulse of the work-year. The President has returned from Martha’s Vineyard to face what will surely be a challenging fall. It’s mid-term election season and the mood of the voting public is downright ornery.

ODS (Obama Disappointment Syndrome), a growing wave of depression, has created a huge anti-incumbent wave. “Throw ‘em all out!” seems to be the mantra of the season….

I have long held that the most qualified people to be in government are business folk. Not just billionaires like Mayor Bloomberg, but anyone who has successfully run anything, been responsible for making payrolls, paying back loans, paying bills on time, navigating through good times and bad. Most important: balancing a budget. But the reality is most people who have these credentials are too smart to get sucked into the dysfunction of the public sector. Nor will they submit themselves to the relentless intrusion and scrutiny of the press. So what’s the next best thing for the “beleaguered” President? Take some lessons from the guys who know how to really get things done. And who better than the best CEO in the Universe: Steve Jobs.

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By David A. Kaplan, Contributing Writer, Fortune

Sal Khan, you can count Bill Gates as your newest fan. Gates is a voracious consumer of online education.

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By John Markoff, Technology Writer, The New York Times

Scientists at Rice University and Hewlett-Packard are reporting this week that they can overcome a fundamental barrier to the continued rapid miniaturization of computer memory that has been the basis for the consumer electronics revolution.

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By Joann S. Lublin and Spencer E. Ante, Reporters, The Wall Street Journal

Sprint Nextel Corp. (S) has bet its future on offering speedy data services to mobile devices over a new high-speed, “4G” network and has joined with upstart Clearwire Corp. (CLWR) to build it.

But Clearwire has a problem: It needs billions of dollars to finish building its nationwide network. And now Sprint, which owns 54 percent of Clearwire, must decide whether to fund the project itself or turn to a competitor for help.

Sprint’s board of directors is debating whether to let rival cellphone operator T-Mobile USA invest in Clearwire, three people familiar with the situation said.

Such a decision would consolidate the U.S. telecom landscape by enabling the country’s third- and fourth-largest wireless operators to use the same next-generation network.

T-Mobile USA Chief Executive Robert Dotson said early this year that his carrier is looking at its options for 4G, including having conversations with Clearwire. However, T-Mobile USA hasn’t put a proposal on the table, so no decision is imminent, and some Sprint board members are adamantly opposed to the idea, these people said.

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Interesting. For the first time in five years, Apple will stream one of its media events live. Late Tuesday afternoon the company said it would broadcast tomorrow’s affair to anyone with a Snow Leopard Mac or iOS device like the iPhone and iPad–live.

Why exclude Windows users? That’s not clear. Perhaps it has something to do with the Live HTTP Streaming standard Apple will use to deliver the broadcast. Perhaps the company is conducting a limited test of widescale HTML 5 video streaming. Another theory: Apple (AAPL) wants to test out the server capacity at its new North Carolina data center.

Either way, it’s hard to view this as a purposeful snub to Windows users. This isn’t exactly an event that they’d likely be clamoring to see–though I’m sure we’ll hear shouts of outrage. Presumably most folks that would drop everything on a workday morning to watch video of an Apple press event are already using Apple hardware.

For a secretive company, Apple sure has had a lot of events, launches and communications with the people in 2010.

Such as tomorrow’s music-focused event in San Francisco, where oodles of announcements around the iPod and iTunes are expected.

In a lot of ways, the company kind of reminds me of Angelina Jolie, the glamorous global celebrity who claims to vigorously guard her privacy, while at the same time carefully doling out an awful lot of information about her life, her many kids, her thoughts, her tattoos and, of course, Brad Pitt.

BoomTown is not meaning to disrespect Apple (AAPL) with this comparison, because no one loves a dose of Jolie news more than me.

The same is true for Apple, which has had a plethora of very noisy and very public activity throughout all of 2010, from its January 27 iPad announcement to the June 7 iPhone 4 launch to the July 16 Antennagate event.

That is not even including the many spontaneous emails of CEO Steve Jobs to the masses or his well-aimed barbs at both Google (GOOG) and then Adobe (ADBE).

And, of course, his energetic interview at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference in June.

Tomorrow, of course, will likely be more of the same, and the crack All Things Digital team will be there to chronicle it all, along with 38,467 other members of the media.

Given all this–now that I think about it–Angelina needs to step up her efforts if she wants to keep up with the Silicon Valley icon.

Until tomorrow then, here are some videos BoomTown made in 2010 at various Apple confabs, as well as the full video of Jobs at D8 in June:

iPad Look-See

[ See post to watch video ]

Walt Mossberg and Jobs Talk iPad

[ See post to watch video ]

iPhone 4 Palooza

[ See post to watch video ]

Jobs at D8

[ See post to watch video ]

Facebook loves Hollywood ad dollars, except in the case of one particular film. That would be “The Social Network,” the upcoming film best known as “The Facebook Movie.”

As Kara Swisher pointed out in July, Facebook isn’t accepting ads from Sony (SNE), the movie’s distributor. The reason, in so many words: Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg don’t like the movie.

Fair enough: Sony has figured out plenty of ways to get buzz for the movie online, via both paid routes (“Promoted Twitter” ads) and unpaid gambits (viral videos, of course).

And now, in a lovely bit of irony, the “The Social Network” is being advertised on Facebook, after all. For free. By Facebook’s users.

As Forbes’s Dorothy Pomerantz explains, Sony is asking Facebook users to “like” the movie, and they’re complying: So far, some 29,000 Facebookers have endorsed the movie via a button click, which translates into some 29,000 individual “thumbs up” ads appearing in Facebook users’ streams.

Pretty clever, no?

I’m giving the movie a previewing thumbs-up, too, for what it’s worth–I’m really excited to see it. And not because I think it’s going define Generation Y or anything like that (beware of explicitly “generation-defining” movies, by the way–you’ll end up with “Reality Bites”). It’s because I think it’s going to be awesome: Aaron Sorkin is great with the words, and David Fincher makes great images.

And if that doesn’t sell you, maybe another view of the trailer, scored by a cover of Radiohead’s “Creep,” will help.

(Happy Birthday, Ben!)

It’s often said that kids need their parents to be parents, not friends. With the launch of its new social-networking tool, SafeSocial, AOL Inc. lets parents practice this adage in a literal way by monitoring their kids’ Facebook activity without becoming one of their “friends” in the social network. (It also works with other sites like Twitter and MySpace.)

Through a partnership with SocialShield Inc., AOL SafeSocial uses technology that constantly scans sites where kids are social networking to identify and report any language that might be inappropriate (think of cursing, drugs and bullying) or even dangerous (suicidal words or phrases). It detects if kids have other accounts on sites that parents might not know about, and displays photos in which kids are “tagged,” or identified as being in the photo, as well as a list of most recently added friends.

[ See post to watch video ]

SafeSocial costs $10 monthly and can be tried free for 30 days. I tested it by monitoring two people’s Facebook, Twitter and MySpace accounts, access of which was provided by AOL (AOL). I focused mostly on monitoring a 13-year-old’s Facebook account and grew to appreciate the concise way the monitoring site presents information. I easily toggled through recent photos, friends and activity without needing to know anything about how social networking works.

SafeSocial keeps all of the monitoring in one place on a password-protected website that can be accessed with any browser and set up with any email account. The site will email parents if severe alerts are triggered, like if violent or suicide-related keywords are detected. And once a week, parents receive digestible email summaries of their kid’s activities.

The site did return some false positives, like a flagged Facebook comment in which one kid used the phrase “hang out” because “hang” could refer to suicide. But an AOL representative said the site is designed not to filter alerts because the company would rather it err on the side of catching something than not. SafeSocial lacks the ability to show videos in which kids are tagged; comments that a child makes on another child’s page; or instant-messaging conversations. The representative told me that the ability for a parent to see their child’s comments on other kids’ pages may work within a couple weeks, and the other features are in the works for future updates.

AOL SafeSocial identifies any language that might be inappropriate, in this case, using the word ‘bust’ generated an alert because there are instances where it may be drug-related.

Other monitoring products, like CyberPatrol, can overwhelm parents by sending them too many write-ups and too much detailed information about kids’ online activities, much of which are confusing to parents. Still others, including PC Tattletale Internet Monitoring Software and key-logging software programs, record everything a child does on the computer, presenting parents with a lot of content to sort through.

SafeSocial works only when parents invite their kids and the kids accept the invitation; in the case of Facebook, Facebook Connect is used to link a kid’s account to SafeSocial. This way monitoring is done without the stigma of the parent actually “friending” the kid. There’s nothing in SafeSocial that lets parents hit a button to stop a child from doing something (the site encourages parents to discuss with the child why the activity isn’t allowed). Shortcuts let parents email alert items to other people, like when a spouse sees a questionable photo and wants to run it by the other. (Both parents can check the same account at the same time using the same log-in.)

The site’s technology is intelligent enough to tell if one particular friend seems like an outlier, for example, a 55-year-old man who doesn’t have any common friends with a 15-year-old girl on Facebook. SafeSocial determines if that person is a member of sites it considers more geared toward adults, like Match.com or LinkedIn, and tells parents as much without specifically saying the name of the site.

Of course, kids will be kids, and technology can’t do it all. If kids type acronyms or phrases to get around the detection technology, parents may not be notified. And if a kid creates an account on a social-networking site without using an email the parent knows, SafeSocial won’t be able to detect it. But the site scans status updates and comments against a list of hundreds of keywords, which is constantly updated.

Though AOL SafeSocial isn’t perfect, it’s an easy-to-use middle ground between banning social networking from a child’s life and watching over his or her shoulder at all times—without the embarrassment factor that kids associate with becoming “friends” with parents. More important, the site could be used to get a teen talking about what exactly they’re doing online.

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

By Sam Schechner and Geoffrey A. Fowler, Reporters, The Wall Street Journal

Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) is trying to create a service that gives paying subscribers unlimited access over the Internet to some television shows and movies, as it tries to take on Netflix Inc. (NFLX) and grab a bigger slice of the online TV business.

The Seattle retailer has in recent weeks and months proposed a Web-based subscription service to several major media companies, including General Electric Co.’s (GE) NBC Universal, Time Warner Inc. (TWX) and Viacom Inc. (VIA), among others, according to people with knowledge of the proposal.

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Research in Motion’s strength has long been in the enterprise market, which favors the BlackBerry for its robust security and data-management features. But that may be changing, according to some dismal prognostications from Bernstein analyst Pierre Ferragu. RIM’s outlook in the corporate sector is a “scary” one, he says, imperiled by the saturation of the enterprise email market and the proliferation of alternative mobile platforms like Apple’s (APPL) iOS and Google’s (GOOG) Android.

“The market for corporate mobile e-mail is highly penetrated and saturated outside of SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises),” Ferragu wrote in a note to clients. “Growth in the number of companies using mobile e-mail will be limited to the SME market, in which RIM (RIMM) is likely to suffer the most from competition. If there is still some growth in the number of users at companies already using mobile email, it is limited and we suspect it will turn into negligible value growth as it will go along with significant ASP decline.”

A significant threat, and not the only one RIM is facing these days. With the iPhone and a growing procession of Android handsets making inroads into enterprise, the BlackBerry’s footing in what was once its stronghold is being eroded.

“… Despite the company’s overall dominance of the segment…74 percent of companies with mobile e-mail have already adopted alternative platforms, including the iPhone and Android,” Ferragu explains. This phenomenon is very new: Almost all these companies “opened-up” their systems in the last two years, half of them in the last 12 months. “We expect these companies to progressively ramp up the installed base of non-Blackberry solutions and therefore expect increased pressure on RIM’s performance.”

If that’s truly the case, what can RIM do to dig in and hold its position?

Not much, says Ferragu. Ultimately, people want to use their personal smartphone at work and their first choice isn’t always the BlackBerry.

“Enterprise satisfaction with RIM solutions is very high, and most managers surveyed said that they expected BlackBerry products to remain innovative and competitively featured,” he writes. “The issue boils down to cost and consumer preferences: employees want to be able to use their own phone, and allowing them to do so presents IT & Telecom managers with a way to substantially cut their operating costs.”

In other words, employees who switch to a non-BlackBerry smartphone save their employer money. And that’s a compelling proposition, as the graph below shows. Among BlackBerry-exclusive companies, BlackBerry-nonexclusive companies and companies with BlackBerry support, 50 percent said they would consider eliminating their BlackBerry solution.

By Beth Callaghan

As part of an effort to destigmatize regular health checkups for sexually transmitted diseases, MTV and Foursquare will team up in September as part of MTV’s “GYT: Get Yourself Tested” campaign. In order to get the special black and green badge, a Foursquare user has to shout “GYT” to his or her friends after checking in at a nearby clinic. Stephen Friedman, MTV’s general manager, hopes the program will offer positive reinforcement for getting tested. “It only takes a few to get the ball rolling,” he said.