Google Voice calls skyrocket to 1 million/day on Gmail

My account hasn't even been activated yet.

Wow, how is that for scale?  Google tweeted today that it had already surpassed the 1 million call mark on its first day of Google Voice integration with Gmail. And not everyone has even had their Gmail accounts integrated yet (like me!).

In a tweet on their official feed, Google (GOOG) said:

Over 1,000,000 calls placed from Gmail in just 24 hours! Thanks to everyone using MORE

Goldman: Google Voice about Facebook, not telcos

The investment bank's analysts think that the phone service in Gmail isn't about the smaller Skype picture, it is about social networking and taking on Facebook.

In a note to investors today, Goldman Sachs analyst James Mitchell says that Google's VoIP move will beef up its Social Networking status, rather than put it in a position to becoming a virtual telco.  Verizon (VZ) and Google are very chummy these days so the move was likely MORE

Samsung Galaxy tablet just a really large phone?

Blurring the line between phone and tablet even further, a video today shows that the seven inch Galaxy Tablet is also a huge cell phone.

Pundits have decried the 5-inch Dell Streak for being too big to be a phone, some even saying that it is like holding a flip flop sandal or a waffle to their ears. Add two inches to that, and you have the Android-powered  Samsung Galaxy Tab MORE

Elevation's $100 million Pandora stake: jinx?

After years of stasis, Pandora is on the verge of being rewarded for recent growth with a fat check. But can Elevation Partners' Roger McNamee -- even with U2's Bono in the backseat -- pick a winner?

By Chadwick Matlin, contributor

Pandora, that online music station you likely have open in another tab right now, is on the verge of adopting a new sugardaddy. Elevation Partners, the venture capital firm most famous for its MORE

Handicapping Apple's special events

A study of 17 invitations issued over the past 9 years tells you only so much

Click to enlarge. Source: AAPLinvestors

Silicon Alley Insider's Dan Frommer raised a good question Wednesday. "Is Apple really going to announce a TV gadget," he asked, "at an event with a guitar on the invitation?"

The invitation he refers to is the one beckoning the press to an Apple (AAPL) special event in San Francisco next MORE

Pandora by the dashboard light

Whether hooked to a laptop or iPod, or mainlining the Internet, car radios are evolving, with big assists from music companies like Pandora, MOG, and Jelli

By Betsy Feldman and Benjamin Snyder, contributors

Radio – the word is likelier to conjure up FDR's fireside chats than the cutting edge of the Web, but the original broadcast warhorse has survived the Internet boom far better than other traditional media. Americans listen to the MORE

Apple special event set for Sept. 1

Steve Jobs' annual music-themed event is coming a little earlier this year

Image: Apple Inc.

Invitations to the press went out Wednesday afternoon for a special Apple (AAPL) event Sept. 1 in San Francisco. The text offered no hint of what might be in store, but there has been plenty of speculation leading up to it. Among the new products and services rumored to be on tap:

A new iPod touch, possible MORE

Apple's 12% September bump

Steve Jobs has unveiled a new iPod every year since 2005 -- giving the stock a nice boost

Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster freely admits that doesn't really know what Steve Jobs has up his sleeve for the special event Apple (AAPL) has scheduled for Sept. 1. But that doesn't stop Munster from speculating -- both about what products and services might be unveiled, and what their unveiling MORE

Google's updates its social network (not GoogleMe)

At the same time, Facebook passes Orkut in India.

As comScore reports that Facebook has inched past Google's Orkut in India, Google is adding some trivial features to its Orkut social networking service.

Orkut is still growing steadily (Myspace is declining) in India, but Facebook is blowing up at 10 times the rate as Orkut.  That has to have some at Google worried.

Use of social networks in India grew 43 percent MORE

Hollywood's choice: 99-cents or nothing

Steve Jobs is not the TV networks' enemy. BitTorrent is.

Image: Showtime

The second episode of The Big C, Showtime's bittersweet hit comedy about a suburban mom with melanoma, aired Monday night at 10:30 p.m. Less than three hours later, a digital copy was posted on an Italian website, where it spread like crabgrass. By Wednesday morning, there were 3,387 "seeds" of The Big C, Season 01, Episode 02, on MORE