But with all eyes on the Wikipedia founder, other allegations have come into play, and they don’t have anything to do with sex. First, there were reports that Wales misused foundation funds; now his ties with a high-profile Silicon Valley venture capitalist are calling into question Wikipedia’s nonprofit aims. The New York Times notes a $500,000 donation to the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia’s parent organization, on behalf of Elevation Partners’ Roger McNamee, with another $500,000 in the works. (Elevation Partners is the venture firm that counts U2 front man Bono as one of its founding partners.)

But despite the shift of “Jimbogate” concerns from personal to professional indiscretions, the musky tinge of sex-scandal still hangs over it. The latest, per Valleywag, involves a tipster who implied that Wales had a tryst in Amsterdam with Wikimedia Foundation executive director Sue Gardner, who has remained one of his staunchest supporters throughout the controversy. It appears to be thoroughly unsubstantiated at this point, but the Valleywag blogger hinted that camera phone photos existed.

Even juicier, the tipster just had to bring Amsterdam, home to what’s arguably the world’s most famous red-light district as well as notoriously lax regulations on some substances that are frowned upon in the U.S., into the equation. It’s all starting to read like the script of a made-for-TNT movie.

Eliot Spitzer, this Silicon Valley dirt might be one-upping you.

Sex. Money. Incriminating instant messages. From the news that’s been pouring in recently, you’d think Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales were the tech industry’s own Client No. 9.

Considering McNamee’s status in the Valley, it’s easy to speculate that these massive donations could constitute an investment rather than a donation. That’s bound to raise more prominent eyebrows than a trashy sex scandal. McNamee told the Times, “I am a Wikipedia volunteer–I help with strategy, fundraising and business development–it has nothing to do with Elevation Partners. And no one should be confused about that.”

In a series of embarrassing peccadilloes that were originally relegated to gossip blogs like Valleywag, Wales’ failed relationship with former Fox News commentator Rachel Marsden took center stage when Marsden “leaked” some of their online chats to the Web and made quite the public display of auctioning some of his clothes on eBay. The usual blog storm followed: photos of other women with whom Wales had reportedly been involved, hints that he may have acted inappropriately in editing Wikipedia entries to scrub details of the scandal, and what have you.

The Silverlight version of AOL Mail can be skinned. Seen here is the Halo skin from Bungie, but users will be able to create their own as well. An alpha version of this should be out in the next month or two. Click to see the big version.

The other big difference is the skinning. In AOL’s presentation last week, they showed off a new skin themed off of Bungie’s Halo video game series for the upcoming title Halo Wars. Changing the entire skin of your e-mail in-box only takes a few seconds, and it’s set up to work just like changing colors in the current iteration of AOL Mail. Roy Ben-Yoseph, the vice president of Mail for AOL told me his team is working on a way to let anyone design their own themes, complete with custom branding and color swapping that will let people custom tailor the way their mail looks. Presumably, they’ll be able to swap between them as quickly as you can in the current build, as well as share them with others in a public directory.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

In its current form it doesn’t look a whole lot different from the regular version of AOL’s mail. The big difference is in the new skinning technology and speed improvements. I’ve been playing with a private build of it, but it’s noticeably snappier than the service’s current in-box. Users will likely notice this the most when opening messages and moving them around, although it might also help in the built-in calendaring tool, which at the moment hasn’t gone functional yet.

We were lucky enough to get a chance to play with one of AOL’s works-in-progress, a version of the company’s popular Web mail service done entirely in Microsoft’s Silverlight. It was briefly shown off at Mix ‘08 last week, but is not due to get into your hands for another month or two–where it will be an opt-in alpha before going out to everyone else when Silverlight 2.0 leaves beta.

There’s also a MyBlogLog-like feature on the site, so your visitors can see who else is looking at pages. That makes perfect sense for a small community site.

My biggest issue with Sampa is how it handles photos–arguably the most important function type when you’re building a family site. Sampa 2.0 does not have a good uploader. You have to locate each of your photos individually, and even then can only upload five at a time before you have to clear the Web form and start over. Apparently the previous version of Sampa had a drag-and-drop uploader app, but it is still being retooled for version 2. You can, though, attach a Flickr account to a Sampa site, to give users easy access to photos that might already be online.

If you are looking for a quick way to build a Web site for your family or to share news about a new baby with your relatives, you could do worse than to look at Sampa, which launches its version 2 service today.

The authoring and management interfaces are straightforward, but not inviting.

See also Vox, Ning, Myfamily, Babysites, etc.

On the plus side, there are features in Sampa that are just great for creating attractive Web sites with limited access from outsiders. Inviting people in to a site is very easy, yet still more secure that most blogs. Users don’t have to register or set their own passwords–they just follow the invitation link that’s sent them. The links are unique to each user.

Yes, we are very proud.

There does not appear to be a video-handling function.

I’m less thrilled with the family tree maker feature on Sampa. It’s clever to have that on the site, but the function is not best-of-breed. Partnering with Ancestry or Geni probably would have given the user a better experience.

Building a site from scratch with Sampa is easy enough, if not especially fun. The site gives you several decent templates to chose from and lets you easily create blog posts for family events. You can also create separate standalone pages. I found some of the item-creation and editing screens busy and unattractive, though. This is not the site I’d point my grandmother at and expect her to have a good experience.

Not an inviting photo upload function.

Originally a general-purpose site-building tool, the service is now focused on family Web sites and has some new features that serve this mission well. However, this release is also missing a few features, so my recommendation for the product is not as strong as it could be.

This is a good service for building a family site. The old-school authoring interface and the lack of strong photo handling features keep it from being great.

Update
Biz Stone, from Twitter, tells us that the screenshot comes from an admin account where they try different things out from time to time. Even though he doesn’t give a timeframe for the update, Biz says that, “…we’ll definitely be integrating the search.twitter.com goodness into Twitter proper soon.”

We’ve assumed that Twitter would be integrating Twitter Search (formerly Summize) into the main site for a while now. It seems that Twitter has accidentally confirmed this integration. A topic on Get Satisfaction, talking about new behavior for nudges, shows a screenshot of a newer version of the site, featuring Twitter Search. According to this shot, Twitter will implement keyword search via a box on the right side of the page. There is no word yet on when this update will go live.

Twitter Search integration?

Public companies in the merger mode tend to love weekends. It gives them two days to hammer out an agreement without fear that their stock price may go in gyrations should any information leak out prematurely. Often these companies will announce their deal before the markets open on Monday. Ever hear of Merger Mondays?

Microsoft could use an exchange offer to prove its buyout bid is “real,” and give Yahoo investors something tangible to hold onto if they elect Microsoft’s opposition slate of directors. And as more Yahoo investors sign on board with the exchange offer, expect the software giant to trot out that number, in an effort to pressure Yahoo to the negotiating table.

Landmark 7: Proxy solicitors say once a dissident slate is elected, efforts to rescind the poison pill can move rapidly and, hence, so would Yahoo’s independence as a stand alone company.

Landmark 4: An exchange offer from Microsoft would likely be added to its proxy fight and rolled out sometime between its opposition slate being introduced and before the shareholders meeting. An exchange offer would state a per share buyout price for Yahoo and ask Yahoo investors to park their shares with Microsoft, until the stock could be tendered.

Landmark 1: This weekend is the last weekend Yahoo and Microsoft will have to take advantage of a two-day stretch in which the markets are closed, before Microsoft slams up against a March 14 deadline to name its opposition slate to Yahoo’s board.

Obviously, there are plenty of exceptions. SAP, based in Germany, announced its $6.8 billion acquisition of Business Objects on a Sunday in October. And Microsoft announced its plans to buy Aquantive in a $6 billion deal on a Friday in May.

We’ll point out a few landmarks and potential detours to expect along the way in the coming days, weeks, and possibly months, and also take a brief glance in the rearview mirror to see where we’ve been.

For a glimpse of things that may come, history serves as a guidepost. Take a look at Oracle’s drawn out fight for PeopleSoft to billionaire investor Carl Icahn’s push to unseat Motorola’s board members.

Of course, Microsoft could wimp out and ultimately chose to forgo an opposition slate, even though it has no Yahoo deal in hand. Remember the Vista upgrade program and related e-mails.

Landmark 6: Post-shareholders meeting, assuming the parties didn’t strike a deal and Microsoft’s opposition slate was elected with control on the 10-member board, the new Yahoo board could vote to accept the buyout offer and rescind the shareholder rights plan, otherwise known as a “poison pill.” Or, the new board could take a pass on formally accepting the buyout offer, but vote to rescind the pill, thereby allowing Yahoo investors to tender their shares to Microsoft.

Landmark 3: A war of words typically accompanies any proxy fight, so one could expect to see the same should Microsoft move forward with its opposition slate. The gamut runs from full-page ads in the national press to oodles of press releases to investor road shows with the candidates by both parties.

Ready to pile in the
car for The Road Ahead with Microsoft and its buyout bid for Yahoo?

Possible detours to the nomination deadline exist, however. The most obvious is Yahoo and Microsoft finally sit down and enter formal negotiations and a deal is struck before the March 14 deadline; or Yahoo takes it upon itself to extend that deadline.

Landmark 5: Currently, sometime between May 18 to July 7, Yahoo is planning to hold its annual shareholders meeting, according to its SEC filing. Last year, the company held its annual shareholders meeting on June 12.

Full coverage
Microsoft’s big bid for Yahoo Click here for the latest on the software giant’s attempt to buy the Net pioneer.

Here’s a quick view of the road traveled thus far as chronicled by News.com, as well as other sites, such as Larry Dignan’s Between the Lines on ZDNet, Henry Blodget’s Silicon Alley Insider, and Kara Swisher’s BoomTown.

If a majority of Yahoo shares are exchanged, the Internet search pioneer likely would have a keen sense that its directors may not fair well in a re-election. Possible detour–Yahoo may formally engage in buyout talks with Microsoft, prior to the shareholders meeting.

Bill Hawker, the father of slain 22-year-old teacher Lindsay Ann Hawker, displays a life-size cardboard cutout of the suspected killer, Tatsuya Ichihashi, during a press conference at the British embassy in Tokyo on Tuesday.

This isn’t the first time Japanese police have used cardboard cutouts instead of traditional wanted posters. Cutouts were used to try to track down three fugitive members of the Aum Shinri Kyo cult responsible for the 1995 sarin gas subway attacks in Tokyo, so far unsuccessfully.

Hawker’s parents reportedly don’t like the idea of the life-size cutouts, and think police are using them as a way to appease the grieving family since they’ve made no apparent progress in the case in months.

If you’re looking for someone wanted for murder, you could put up a wanted poster at a few post offices. You could set up Web sites with images of the felon or mail people the pictures. These days, however, we’re bombarded with information, and the bulletins could–and most likely would–get lost in the static.

This is, though, the first time an audio playback solution has been utilized. By pressing a button on the cutout, a person can hear a recording of Ichihashi’s voice, hopefully prompting someone to remember speaking to him at some point. Two cutouts are located at a police station, with others set to go up elsewhere.

(Credit:
AFP Photo/Yoshikazu Tsuno)

With luck it will work, Ichihashi will be found, and the Hawker family can get some closure. Using technology like this is a very Japanese solution to a common problem, and one we might see here in shopping malls, courthouses, and city halls in the future, though the idea of life sized, virtual killers all over the place might be too much for the American public.

Or you could cut through the sea of info by putting the identities right in the public’s face with life-size, talking, cardboard cutouts of the evasive culprits.

In case you’re worried about how boring your photos from a year ago are, the service lets you pick other dates, ranging from one month to two years.

The service will send you a new message twice a month filled with photos from a year ago during the same time period. They’re not just any old pictures either, time capsule will only pick the ones with the most interestingness. Each one gets links to share or view the original.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

[Via the Flickr blog]

Get old photos sent to your in-box twice a month with the Flickr time capsule service.

To get it set up, simply link up your Flickr account, and give it an e-mail address where you want to receive the messages, then wait for the photos to flow in.

Who doesn’t like listening to computer generated human voices for hours at a time? If you’re a fan of Microsoft Sam, you should check out Dixero, a service that turns RSS feeds into podcasts you can subscribe to and listen to on your computer or portable devices. The company is showing of its products at this week’s Web 2.0 Expo, despite the incredibly noisy show floor.

Dixero's player lets you skip between blog posts as audio files.

The listening quality is about the same as Odiogo, a service I looked at a few months back and have used with great success on blogs and news sites that have it integrated. What makes Dixero neat is that you can choose one of three types of voices you’d like to listen to the posts with. It’s also nice enough to take your entire OPML file and let you pull in those feeds, then pick which ones you want to fit into individual channels.

(Credit:
CNET Networks)

The PS3 is about to become an even better Blu-ray player.

In addition to enhanced Blu-ray support, the PS3 2.20 firmware is expected to include a number of other enhancements, including better DivX and WMV file support, better integration with the PSP, and improved Web browsing. Full details are available at Sony’s PlayStation Blog.

While most Blu-ray players can be updated to address bug fixes and disc incompatibilities, the PS3 is alone among current players with its ability to be upgraded to the Profile 2.0 standard. (That’s why it remains the most highly recommended Blu-ray player on CNET–even for prospective users who aren’t gamers.) The only other 2.0 players that have been announced are the Panasonic DMP-BD50 (due in April) and the Sony BDP-S550 (coming this autumn), both of which are expected to cost at least $100 more than the entry-level PS3.

(Credit:
CNET)

The next firmware update to the
PlayStation 3 will add full Profile 2.0 compatibility to the game console’s Blu-ray player. Sony hinted that the update would be coming during January’s Consumer Electronics Show, but today’s announcement confirms that it will arrive before the end of March. If it goes according to plan, the update would make the PS3 the first Blu-ray player to offer Profile 2.0 (or BD-Live, as it’s also known). Profile 2.0 will add online features to compatible Blu-ray discs, the first two of which–The Sixth Day and Walk Hard–are scheduled to hit store shelves in April. Its addition to the spec finally brings Blu-ray’s feature set in line with HD DVD players, all of which were built from the start to be able to access online content (though, to be fair, the feature wasn’t widely employed on many HD DVD movies).

The Android software developer kit will allow programmers to create applications that will run on Android phones, even before T-Mobile starts selling the first Android-powered G1 on October 22.

Listen now:

Digg raises $28.7 million in Series C round

Oracle and Intel jump on a cloud

Cisco ramps up collaboration software portfolio

Google releases final Android programming kit

Digg has raised another round of funding–no mean feat in this economy. But not everyone in the Web 2.0 crowd has had such luck. Webware editor in chief Rafe Needleman explains why there are new clouds hovering over a market that has enjoyed a remarkable run.

Ning closes in on 500,000 users

Senator warns of DTV-transition ‘crisis’

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‘Mad Men’ star leads Yahoo’s pitch to Madison Avenue