Webby News

Quick! Before it’s gone! Click over to the German Apple iPhone 4 vs iPhone 3GS page to see a pic of the white iPhone 4. It’s a tad small, but you get the idea. It’s just another piece of evidence in the developing case that the white iPhone is finally nearing release.

The phone was originally supposed to be release in the weeks following the iPhone 4’s launch date. But then it was pushed back. Again. And again. Until it was finally pulled completely from Apple’s website. Now a report surfaced claiming a new “miracle painting material” solved the previous issue.

Update: That was fast. Minutes after posting, the whole section shown in the screenshot of the translated German site disappeared! It’s a slippery devil.

One of the pillars of the web has always been online shopping. Billions upon billions of virtual (but real) dollars trade hands each year in the space — much of it simply because it’s fast and convenient. But as the web has matured, so have the opportunities to expand beyond the basics. What started as online shopping, also quickly become online selling. And the two formed a natural fit. And now we’re in the social age of the web, where yet another layer is being added. And that’s the sweetspot that Storenvy is in.

The San Francisco-based startup has slowly built up a mini empire of both buyers and sellers in their ecosystem. Over 60,000 community shoppers now visit their 2,800 community-run stores to browse and buy. And the stores are really the key. Storenvy gives anyone the tools to create and open their own online store to sell whatever they make. And they can then easily promote everything on networks like Twitter and Facebook, or on Storenvy’s own main marketplace.

After announcing direct relationships with AT&T, Zong, Boku are announcing direct relationships with Verizon through mobile payments operator BillToMobile.

So why is this important? Historically, mobile payments companies face the challenge of lofty carrier rates. Wireless carriers have charged roughly 30% to 40% to process transactions made via mobile phone accounts, making it very difficult for mobile payment companies like Boku to scale beyond virtual goods. These transactions costs are passed down to developers using Boku and Zong, which are then passed to the consumer. To avoid these costs, Boku and Zong have been negotiating direct relationships with carriers as a way of possibly avoiding these costs.

If you want to live like New York royalty in just 420 square feet, look no further than the winner of LifeEdited’s apartment design contes…

According to eMarketer, Apple is to pass Research In Motion as the leader of the US smartphone market this year, only to be overtaken by Android in 2012.

eMarketer, which bases its forecasts on analysis of research estimates and methodologies from multiple firms who monitor the smartphone market, estimates Apple took a 28% share of the US smartphone user market in 2010, just above the 24% of users who use a device running Android.

“The Girl Store” is a rather jolting title for an e-commerce site, but that’s exactly what its creators were going for. ̶…

This just keeps getting worse. After blocking Twitter and Facebook, it looks like the Egyptian government or carriers may have blocked Blackberry internet service as well. According to chatter on Twitter, internet access via Blackberry phones has been suspended.

As we wrote in our previous reports, Egyptian protesters are filling the streets of Cairo to demonstrate against government corruption and policies. Similar to the recent protests in Tunisia, the Egyptian demonstrations were partly organized on social networks like Facebook and Twitter. And mobile internet access is a key channel through which protesters are connecting with each other.