Facebook has been wooing the UK developer and media community over the weekend and today in London. It’s hard to believe that three months ago the social network was being pilloried in the media here for being perceived to have played some part a brutal murder.

But at the first official Facebook developer day to be held outside California, Mark Zuckerberg and his European team pulled off a flawless event at London’s vast Barbican Centre, while throwing out a few hints about the future.

The most interesting was Zuckerberg’s hint that location based features were coming to the platform. To a packed audience he said: “We are finishing designing our application soon and hope to offer it soon.” Whether that means integrating location data from the likes of Foursquare and Gowalla was not elaborated on.

Andreessen Horowitz celebrates its first birthday with a number of new hires, including its third general partner – John O’Farrell – who joins founding general partners Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. O’Farrell was most recently a vice president at Silver Spring Networks.

The company has also recently hired two partners – Margit Wennmachers to run marketing and Jeff Stump to help portfolio companies recruit executive talent.

The firm now has 24 investments, says Andreessen. In its first year they received 1,048 qualified deal referrals from 324 individuals. $150 million of the $300 million fund has been invested, and other $60 million has been earmarked for follow on investments. That means they are nearly out of cash, and Andreessen says they will likely raise their second fund later this year. He wouldn’t comment on the potential size of that second fund, saying the decision hasn’t been made yet.

Andreessen Horowitz has certainly made a splash in its first year. They focus on what they call “computer science” – which includes both consumer tech and IT startups – but shy away from clean tech, bio tech and other types of deals. They make investments ranging from very early angel rounds, $50,000 or so, on up to $50 million in later stage deals. And Andreessen says they will likely make even larger investments in the future.

We’re tracking most of their investments on Crunchbase. Some, says Andreessen, are still confidential and haven’t been announced yet.

With a mandate to spend $50 million a year, Ontario's Emerging Technologies Fund should be the busiest tech investor in the province right now. And after a slow start, it looks like things might be picking up.

On June 10 the OETF quietly announced two matching investments: first, in b5 Media, long-time portfolio company of Brightspark Capital and JA Albright Ventures, and a second investment in Energate, a clean-tech play backed by Montreal-based Cycle Capital Management. These matching investments brings to 6 the total number of announced deals by OETF since its inception in 2009. The Fund notes on its website that it has 9 conditionally committed co-investments deals that will result in $16.77 million being invested this year.

The list of qualified investors who wish to access matching money now stands at 13, with all but two of them local players. The public record suggests that OETF has not yet succeeded in attracting new foreign investors to Ontario. I don't think this is the case, but regardless, it needs to change, and soon. Roughly half of the qualified investors are at the end of their current funds. Given the current LP market, they are not likely to raise new funds anytime soon, which means that while their status with OETF is good news for existing VC portfolio companies, it does not do much for new start-ups.

Now, those of you who know me know that I am now a big fan of OETF, which has participated in matching investments for some of my clients. Right now, John Marshall is my personal Elvis. But I think we as a community need to consider how to lever OETF's spending success to date to aggressively seek additional qualified investors.

There was a time when Facebook was at the forefront of mobile app development. Before there was even an App Store, the web app Facebook put out that was optimized for the iPhone was brilliant. Then the App Store came and with it was a great Facebook native app. Then came version 3 of the app, which was even better. Those days, sadly, are long over.

Everyone already knows that the Facebook Android app sucks. The iPhone app, though, thanks largely to version 3, has remained a bright spot. But while some people are gushing today over the latest iPhone update (3.1.3, the first update in a while), I’m not one of those people.

First of all, Facebook still has yet to release a native iPad app. This is pretty ridiculous considering that undoubtedly a high percentage of the millions of iPad owners have searched the App Store for a Facebook app, and come away with only imitations (which Facebook has demanded be taken down). As I noted above, the original Facebook app for iPhone launched alongside the App Store itself. We’re now almost 3 months post-iPad launch, and there is absolutely no word about when we can expect an iPad app.

Second, while many of the best iPhone app developers have been hustling to get their apps iOS 4-ready (the new iPhone OS launching on Monday), and plenty already have iOS 4 apps in the App Store, this update brings nothing in that department from Facebook. They couldn’t even bother to turn on fast app switching (the most basic iOS 4 multitasking feature) if they were going to update their app anyway?

Third, this update has at least one glaring UI bug. Sure, bugs are a part of the game, but how Facebook overlooked this one is dumbfounding. If you have new messages or friend requests on Facebook, load up the main screen in the app. There you’ll find certain areas badged to let you know there are updates for you to see — but these badges have a dark upper area that clashes badly with the light background of the main screen. I mean, it just looks awful. How did that get through quality control?

Meanwhile, as I said, plenty of folks are gushing over the things Facebook did add with this update. The ability (finally) to be able to see and write on event walls is definitely nice. But the big addition is the ability to view videos in the app. The only problem? It’s really hard to actually find any videos to view. While Facebook has an area on everyone’s profile for pictures, videos are nowhere to be found. You’d think if they were going to do a video-centric update to the app, they’d make a new area for these videos to highlight the feature they added — but no.

So you’ll forgive me if I let out a big sigh upon seeing this Facebook update. Ever since developer Joe Hewitt walked away from the project (over his disgust for some App Store policies) last November, things have gone downhill. And that trend, sadly, continues — even though Facebook promised it wouldn’t. Small updates may be fine or even welcomed by other companies — but Facebook used to lead the way in iPhone development. Now they’re second-rate.

There are some 55 million monthly active users of Facebook for iPhone, according to Inside Facebook. They deserve more commitment to this platform (as do the Facebook Android users).

Find the updated iPhone app here.

Molecular diagnostics company Veracyte has raised $9.3 million of an expected $28.4 million in a second round of funding. According to a filing with the SEC, investors include Domain Associates, Versant Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and TPG Biotech. The South San Francisco company focuses on the accurate diagnosis of thyroid and non-small cell lung cancer. Veracyte, formerly known as Calderome, last raised $12 million in 2008.

Companies: Calderome, Domain Associates, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, TPG Biotech, VeraCyte, Versant Ventures

Next week, the Commonwealth Club will be holding a special ‘double feature’ event that will include our own Michael Arrington interviewing David Kirkpatrick, author of The Facebook Effect, with an introduction by Salesforce founder and CEO Marc Benioff. And it’s a double feature: following the Arrington/Kirkpatrick interview, there will be a second conversation asking if ‘Google is Making Us Stupid’, featuring Peter Norvig, Google’s Director of Research, and author Nicholas Carr, with an introduction from Josh McHugh.

Want to go? We’ve got four free tickets to give away.

If you want a shot at one, click the handy ‘Like’ buttons below to become fans of TechCrunch and The Facebook Effect, then leave us a comment below saying why you want to go. Feel free to suggest questions for Michael to ask David (though obviously he’ll ultimately ask what he wants).

The event will take place in San Francisco on June 23, with check-in starting at 5:15 PM. For full details (or if you want to buy tickets), check out this page.

We’ll pick the winners tomorrow at 5 PM — make sure to use a valid Email address (or Facebook Connect) for your comment so we can contact you should you win.

Coulomb Technologies, maker of networked charging stations for plug-in vehicles, has been growing steadily, rolling out its equipment one city or region at a time. Its technology is promising, but mass adoption still seemed far off. That may have changed today, with the announcement that the company has partnered with energy engineering giant Siemens, to co-market charging products.

Siemens has an extensive web of relationships with utilities, energy vendors, city and state governments, and automotive companies. Now these contacts will be at Coulomb’s disposal as well, giving them access to new types of deals. In particular, Siemens will be able to supply utilities, municipalities and the like with Coulomb equipment that can monitor energy consumption, run demand response programs, and provide accurate billing.

Siemens has its hands in almost every segment of the emerging cleaner, more efficient smart grid. It’s involved in energy monitoring systems, as well as solar and turbine development, and storage innovations. The deal with Coulomb to market its smart grid products alongside the ChargePoint EV charging stations, gives Siemens a new foothold in advanced automotive infrastructure, where it hasn’t been so strong yet.

Pike Research, which concentrates on cleantech, recently released a report that electric vehicle charging infrastructure could represent $297 million in new business in the U.S. alone and $1.5 billion globally in the next five years. This is a big market, and all of the corporate interests swooping in on the smart grid as it heats up are sure to get involved, including General Electric, Cisco Systems, and IBM, among others. Microsoft has already sliced into the pie, partnering with Ford to manage charging for its all-electric Ford Focus due out this year.

The alliance with Coulomb is very representative of Siemens’ approach to other pieces of the smart grid, including microgrids, smart metering, and grid-scale storage. It usually partners with smaller venture-backed players closer to the ground in each of these areas, just like Coulomb, in hopes of expediting distribution of its technology, bundled with what is already being rolled out.

The vehicle charging company already has ambitious roll-out plans in the hopper, stating earlier this month that it plans to install 4,600 new ChargePoint stations for plug-in vehicles in homes and commercial centers across the U.S.

Coulomb, based in Campbell, Calif., last raised funds in February, bringing in $14 million in a second round of capital. Before that, it raised a $3.75 million first round from Estag Capital in January 2009.

Tags: electric vehicles

Companies: Coulomb Technologies, siemens

Apple closed its online store this morning to unveil a redesigned Mac mini , promising up to twice the graphics performance than previous models, along with new HDMI port and new SD card slot.

Environmental and policy hurdles continue to stymie nuclear development in the United States despite rapid rapid growth in Europe. But a relatively new Seattle-based company called TerraPower is hoping to revamp nuclear’s public image with brand new technology — and it just raised $35 million to do it.

The company’s innovation isn’t its only distinguishing feature. It also counts several prestigious backers, including Bill Gates, Khosla Ventures and now Charles River Ventures. All three participated in this recent, second round of financing. Their endorsement goes a long way in a sector where all three have staked a claim, mostly supporting renewable sources of energy like wind and solar.

TerraPower, which spun out of Intellectual Ventures (founded by former Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold), isn’t just rehashing nuclear power under a new brand name. Rather, its goal is to commercialize a new spin on traditional reactors, building what it calls traveling-wave reactors. They are able generate electricity from a much smaller amount of enriched uranium, combined with recycled uranium from existing nuclear plants (and even the same plant). Considering that its the hazardous nature of this uranium (and its disposal) that most nuclear opponents object to, this change could very likely win the energy source new supporters.

A lot of people are unnerved by the thought of radioactive material and waste being shipped across great distances in the U.S. The ‘Not in My Backyard’ attitude that shut down nuclear growth decades ago is still prevalent. TerraPower counters this approach, claiming that its recycling reactors could run on their own byproducts for many more years than current reactors.

This sounds good, but the technology isn’t quite there yet. This recent round of funding is a stepping stone on a long journey toward a working commercial reactor. In fact, the company’s goal is to have a demonstration-scale reactor up and running ten years from now. And this is actually fast according to nuclear standards — one of the reasons new nuclear technology has been too expensive for many to pursue.

It’s amazing that TerraPower was able to find as much funding as it has. It’s going against many cleantech investing trends — first and foremost, the shrinking of venture deals, with many firms preferring to sink money into capital-efficient green IT plays that turn around quickly rather than ambitious, manufacturing-heavy solar and wind developers. Nuclear is even more pricey and long-term.

A lot of the company’s success seems to step from Gates’ support. The Microsoft chairman has been very outspoken about the need to come up with practical clean sources of energy, combined with energy efficiency strategies that go beyond anything we’ve done before. He champions nuclear as one of the most feasible sources of energy in the next decades, and has — together with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner John Doerr — been after the U.S. Department of Energy to invest up to $16 billion every year in R&D in the area.

Gates happens to be a limited partner investing in Khosla Ventures, which makes its participation seem more logical. But the firm, by and large, has favored deals with startups working to improve existing clean energy technology. It backs biofuel and combustion engine companies for similar reasons. It wants to planet to go green, while still being able to use existing infrastructure.

TerraPower’s resulting high profile has attracted interest from unlikely sources, including Toshiba, which has been in talks with the company to help it build its traveling-wave reactor.

Tags: Nuclear

Companies: Khosla Ventures, TerraPower

People: Bill Gates, Vinod Khosla

“Can Tim Armstrong make AOL king of content by 2010?” – Blog headline

If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well / It were done quickly” – Macbeth

There’s something about the idea of “New York Internet Week” that I’ve always found inherently funny; like “Saudi Arabia Bring Your Daughter To Work Day”, or Greenland being called Greenland.

Ironically for a city that’s always been so adept at branding itself, New York has always struggled to articulate its place in the worldwide web, and Internet Week is the clearest manifestation of that identity crisis. Name an industry that the Internet is disrupting: newspapers, publishing, advertising, banking – and you’ll find its heart in Manhattan. Despite the best efforts of Mayor Bloomberg and, uh, Dennis Crowley to paint New York as the place to do business in Web 3.0, the fact is that billions of advertising and investment dollars continue to flood west, never to return. And yet New York, bless it, continues to try to stay relevant – for one week a year at least – to the industry that’s bleeding it dry.

Witness the Webbies – the awards ceremony that congratulates New York based celebrities who have learned to tweet – witness the awkward panels filled with mismatched home-grown personalities (“Julia Alison meets Jeff Jarvis“) and witness (if you can’t avoid it) the week-long parties where thousands of identically unique hipsters cram into lofts to drink booze sponsored by one or all of the east coast’s four successful start-ups.

Even when they invite west coasters to get involved, the effort manages to come off more weird than wired: I was flown to town, on the kind of handsomely subsidised meal ticket only New York can offer, to moderate a panel on “Internet dating in a web 2.0 world” for an audience of feature writers from women’s magazines. This despite the fact that asking me to help navigate the minefield of online dating is like asking Rudolf Hess to give guided tours of Dachau. Nice try, New York.

And yet. While it’s easy for me to mock New York Media’s bewilderment over the Internet (see!), there was a marked change in atmosphere during this year’s Internet Week, compared to last year’s. A definite uptick in confidence, not all of which can be put down to the fact that Dennis made it on to the front cover of UK Wired. No, the change in attitude in New York towards the Internet can more fully be attributed to one word: content.

New York is a content town and, thanks in large part to AOL and Yahoo, content is once again king. Speaking at Disrupt last month, AOL’s Tim Armstrong boasted that AOL “is planning on being the largest high quality content producer for digital media”. Yahoo is taking a similar – if less clearly defined – approach, purchasing Associated Content for somewhere in the region of $100m and now, if rumours are true, eying up the Huffington Post. For the New York media crowd, this is great news – great news for journalists who are being laid off left right and centre, great news for newspapers and publishers who smell lucrative content syndication deals and great news for pro blog networks who might finally see an exit. If content really is king, then New York is its ready-made kingdom.

And yet. And yet.

The way that the likes of Tim Armstrong use phrase “content is king” conjures up a noble image. An image of professional journalists and highly-skilled writers, possibly wearing crowns, slaving over hot typewriters to produce 1000 words of crisp copy for an eager online audience; or perhaps of sharply-written web video, a la College Humor’s original programming, or the New York Times’ daily video podcasts. For ‘content’, New York media folks read a web 3.0 of professionally produced news, analysis, entertainment – the antithesis of web 2.0′s user generated horse-shit. No wonder they’re salivating.

But that’s a very east coast – with its proud history of newspapers and publishing – interpretation of the word. Over on the west cost (and note: I’m using that term in its laziest sense to cover all Internet companies including those who, by accident of birth, have offices back east), “content” means the precise dictionary definition of the term: “something contained, as in a receptacle”; generic filler to pack inside an empty box to make it attractive to advertisers. Low-paid, illiterate swill, commissioned by the ton to provide SEO ad inventory. Just consider Associated Content and how it describes its goals post- Yahoo acquisition…

“Associated Content is now a part of Yahoo! – the world’s largest online company, with more than 600 million unique visitors a month. Yahoo! plans to leverage our content to extend its leadership and build upon their global properties to deliver personally relevant content in a scalable and efficient manner.

I mean, kudos to the company for not using the words ‘writing’ or ‘journalism’ to describe what their crowd-sourced hacks do, but it’s still hard to imagine a more mercenary way to describe the craft of writing. These are not writers, or journalists; these are self-confessed generators of content in the much the same way that horses are self-confessed generators of glue.

At least the Huffington Post employs real writers – assuming your definition of ‘employs’ doesn’t require there to be payment or any meaningful editorial support and if your definition of ‘writers’ includes the authors of stories like “Sex Tapes Of The Past Decade: A Look At The Noughties’ Naughtiest” and “Indonesia’s First Celebrity Sex Tape Scandal” and “Kendra Wilkinson’s Sex Tape RELEASED, NSFW Preview” – all examples from the past few weeks.

Even the web editions of respected offline brands are going the same way. The editorial focus of Forbes Online – a mish-mash of celebrity slideshows and tacky lists of ‘Americas best paying blue-collar jobs‘ and ‘hottest summer convertibles‘ – couldn’t be more different from its print counterpart which still has ambitions to be a serious news magazine. (Truth is, today’s Forbes Online is a pale shadow of even its own glory days: this is the online publication which saw Adam Penenberg break the Stephen Glass story).

Of course, the relationship between editorial content and advertising has always been strained, in a cant-live-with-it-cant-live-without-it way. But in traditional media – for the most part – the lines were respected: editorial staff did their job, advertising staff did their job and somehow the relationship chugged along.

In new media, however, editorial content exists to serve only one purpose; as a hook on which to hang advertising. When an Internet company commissions content, their measure of success is quantitative not qualitative: does the block of words pack in enough high-buzz keywords to rope in a hundred thousand or so Google searchers? And can it be spread out over enough pages to provide half a dozen ad impressions for each of those users? If so, great: now they just need the users to click on one of those ads and GTFO, which probably explains why so much online content peters out within 30 seconds of the headline.

Jeff Levick, president of global advertising at AOL, sums up the company’s editorial policy thus: “we have insights into our audience, and can produce content they want, which leads to engagement, which leads to what advertisers want. Therein we see the critical difference between the old media attitude towards content and the new media alternative.

The old model favoured originality: break a story that no-one else has covered or write a fresh new take on the world and the audience would come, bringing with them advertising and sales. Under the new model, originality and exclusivity are the kiss of death. SEO-driven advertising depends on knowing what people are already looking for, and delivering content that satisfies that desire; nothing more nothing less.  SEO-driven content is the opposite of journalism and creativity, just like New York’s interpretation of the phrase ‘content is king’ is the opposite of Silicon Valley’s.

It’s a depressing truth, but an important one for anyone in New York media – or elsewhere – gets too excited about the idea of a content revival. Before Harry Potter, no-one knew they were looking for books about wizards; before the Washington Post broke their most famous story, no-one knew they were searching for information about a robbery at the Watergate building, or the subsequent money trail to the White House. Put simply: if Ben Bradlee were an editor at one of today’s Internet companies, instead of the Washington Post in the 1970s, he’d almost certainly have spiked the first Watergate exclusive in favour of a slideshow of cats who look like Nixon.

“We know there’s a market for that shit. I’ve seen the numbers!”