Why? Well, the CLIQ, or DEXT as it will be confusingly branded in the U.K., incorporates Motorola’s new “MotoBlur” service, which essentially corrals Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Picasa, GMail and MS Exchange activity into a single feed and presents them on your phone.

In form, the CLIQ is a sideways slider. Like the Palm (PALM) Pre, the device boasts a full touchscreen and QWERTY keyboard. It’s got a 320 x 480-pixel, 3.1-inch HVGA screen and a five-megapixel camera. The CLIQ is video-capable (play, stream and capture) and supports the broad spectrum of media formats. It runs Android 1.5 (Cupcake), and Motorola (MOT) claims a battery life of six hours.

Jha says the phone is not intended to be a single iconic device–like, say, Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone. Rather, it is the first of a broad line of handsets, all running Android and Motoblur, that will be targeted at different customer segments around the world.

A wise strategy in the current market? Who knows? But at least it’s a step in the right direction. Motorola clearly needs to do something to right itself after the past few disastrous years. Hard to believe the company controlled 16.1 percent of the global handset market just two years ago. It’s market share today? A modest 6.5 percent. The CLIQ will be sold through T-Mobile in the United States.

The device’s spec sheet below; click to enlarge.

On a trip to Seattle, BoomTown visited the headquarters of the Pet Holdings empire, which includes Lolcats (icanhascheezburger.com), Fail Blog and now, Emails From Crazy People. While there, Kara filmed a video with Ben Huh, CEO of the (profitable!) company. There is obviously a method to Huh’s wackiness.

Elsewhere in Seattle, BoomTown got some of the lowdown on the machinations in the wake of the Yahoo-Microsoft deal. Satya Nadella and Yusuf Mehdi are just two of the Microsoft (MSFT) execs charged with leveraging the deal to knock Google (GOOG) out of its number one spot. They each sat down in front of the Flip camera to share their thoughts.

BoomTown also noted the beginning of the Yahoo-Microsoft regulatory filings this week and provided the full document of Yahoo’s (YHOO) 8-K to the Securities and Exchange Commission about the deal. To think: this is only the tip of the MicroHoo iceberg.

If you were one of the many wondering about Twitter’s high-profile outage this week, don’t worry–Kara provided a handy translation of the co-founder Biz Stone’s blog post about the whole matter. If you weren’t wondering at all, you’re not alone–Kara’s mother and older son, Louie, think the whole thing is a waste of time.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s resignation from Apple’s (AAPL) board of directors was just some of the news on Digital Daily this week. In some of the other news, the FTC responded with a “nice try, but we’ll continue our investigation anyway.” Better news for Apple, then, that it claims 32 percent of operating profits in the handset industry, even though it’s only the fifth-largest handset vendor.

In the not-so-good department on Digital Daily this week, NewsCorp. (NWS) (which owns the Wall Street Journal and this Web site) reported a 32.5 percent drop in fiscal-year-adjusted operating income–largely because of its “red-hot” social network, MySpace. Elsewhere, Cisco (CSCO) reported a 46 percent drop in quarterly profit while still beating the Street’s estimates, and Vonage (VG) recorded a second-quarter profit of $2.3 million while losing 89,000 net subscribers in the same quarter.

On Personal Tech, Walt Mossberg reviewed a new netbook from Toshiba this week great battery life and a winning keyboard, among other things. On the Mossberg Solution, Katie Boehret reviewed the Wii MotionPlus remote accessory, an add-on to the Wii remote that includes a gyroscope and allows for more precision and sensitivity in gameplay. Walt responded to readers on Mossberg’s Mailbox, answering emails about buying a new no-frills laptop, switching ISPs and moving contacts emails without too much pain, and discerning the minimum system requirements for Windows 7.

Walt went into a little more detail about Windows 7 on his MossBlog. Unfortunately, he discovered that more detail does not equal more clarity when it comes to a Windows 7 upgrade. At his request, Microsoft sent along a handy chart meant to simplify all aspects of the matter for readers. It is an astoundingly, even comically, complicated document. The company has promised to send a newer, simpler one. Stay tuned.

More next week.

Looks like News Corp. was a little too optimistic when the company told investors in May that it expected a decline of around 30 percent in fiscal-year-adjusted operating income.

Reporting earnings this afternoon, the publisher of The Wall Street Journal and this Web site instead posted a decline of 32.5 percent.

And, to think, News Corp. lowered that forecast twice last fall.

Anyway, the company lost $203 million, or eight cents a share, in its fiscal fourth quarter. Revenue fell 10.5 percent to $7.67 billion, dragged down by a decrease in ad revenue and $403 million in impairment charges and $228 million in restructuring costs, both largely attributable to, ahem, “red-hot social networking site” MySpace.

For the quarter, News Corp. swung from $1.1 billion in net income a year ago to a net loss of $203 million. Gruesome. Excluding items, however, it earned 19 cents a share, which beat consensus estimates by a penny. So there’s that.

“I think the worst may be behind us,” News Corp. Chief Rupert Murdoch said during a conference call with analysts. “But there are no clear signs yet of a fast economic recovery.”

Which is pretty much what he said last quarter as well. “I am not an economist…but it is increasingly clear that the worst is over,” Murdoch said back in May. “As you know, I have been uncharacteristically pessimistic in recent calls, though I would argue that it was a well-founded concern. But there are emerging signs in some of our businesses that the days of precipitous decline are done and that revenues are beginning to look healthier.”

Fifty million new users in under four months: Impressive.

“For us, growing to 250 million users isn’t just an impressive number; it is a mark of how many personal connections all of you have made, and how far we at Facebook have to go to extend the power of connection to the billions of people around the world,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a post to the company blog.

If Facebook is able to maintain its growth, it will easily hit 300 million users before the end of the year, perhaps as early as November. And as a recent study from Nielsen Online found, users are spending increasingly more time on the site. Americans spent an average of four hours, 39 minutes and 33 seconds on the site in June–significantly more than any other Web site.

Clearly, Facebook is a lot more than “the flavor of the month,” as News Corp. (NWS) chairman and owner of rival MySpace (and this site) Rupert Murdoch once called it. But how long before it’s able to turn its popularity into profit befitting its user base?

“It was clear that internationally, just as in the US, MySpace’s staffing had become too big and cumbersome to be sustainable in current market conditions,” said MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta. “Today’s proposed changes are designed to transform and refine our international growth strategy.” Operations in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, France, India, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Sweden and Spain are “under review,” he added, and face possible closure.

The cuts follow a 30 percent reduction in headcount in the states last week and the hastening erosion of MySpace’s position in the social-networking market. MySpace lost the title of world’s most popular social network to rival Facebook last year and was overtaken by it in the U.S. last month as well.

“Simply put, our staffing levels were bloated and hindered our ability to be an efficient and nimble team-oriented company,” CEO Owen Van Natta said in a statement. “I understand that these changes are painful for many. They are also necessary for the long-term health and culture of MySpace. Our intent is to return to an environment of innovation that is centered on our user and our product.”

“MySpace grew too big considering the realities of today’s marketplace,” said Jon Miller, News Corporation’s (NWS) CEO of Digital Media. “I believe this restructuring will help MySpace operate much more effectively both structurally and financially moving forward.”

The news follows a report by market research outfit comScore (SCOR), indicating that Facebook has surpassed MySpace in the U.S. market as the top social-networking site.

Below, CEO Owen Van Natta’s all-hands memo breaking the ugly news.

Everyone,

Today we are making a number of changes to MySpace’s domestic organizational structure. For the long-term health of the company we are making some very tough, but unfortunately very necessary decisions.

We are reducing our workforce from 1,420 employees to 1,000 – all divisions within the company are affected by this restructure.

These decisions are difficult for everyone, but especially for our friends and colleagues who contributed to MySpace’s success and are directly affected by the changes. Through no fault of theirs our company’s size became unsustainable. The future success of MySpace is dependent upon us operating as a nimble and entrepreneurial company with the adaptive mentality of a start-up.

I believe this is the first difficult step toward a major turnaround – a step that will not only shore us up in the short term, but position us for long term success. We need to become a more innovative company. Becoming more innovative is an ongoing responsibility for all of us, not a one-time effort. We are developing a process that will empower anyone in the company to contribute ideas and enable us to integrate your thoughts into our plans for the future. We will follow-up with details on this process in the coming weeks.

This week we will communicate the foundation for our company strategy. In the days ahead, I will visit a number of U.S. offices, starting tomorrow at HQ, MySpace Music, and El Segundo. On Thursday I look forward to seeing everyone in Seattle and San Francisco, and on Friday, I’ll be spending time with the team based in New York.

I’m honored to be working with you on the next phase of MySpace and I’m grateful for your patience during this difficult process.

Thank you,
Owen

Making New Yahoo! Homepages Your Own
 
We recognize that for many of you around the world, the Yahoo! homepage — whether you’re seeing it on a computer or a mobile device – is Yahoo!. And we know you all have vastly different interests and “must-see” places you navigate to online. We can make our homepage better reflect this reality and, as many of you know, we’ve been hard at work on improving both our mobile and Web homepages.
 
What’s new, you ask?
We recently made the new Yahoo! Mobile (http://m.yahoo.com) available on the mobile Web across more than 300 devices and as an Apple iPhone app — both are available in eight countries, with more launching soon. We’ve moved out of beta and are in the process of rolling it out as our default mobile homepage.
 
Like the PC homepage we’re testing, Yahoo! Mobile has a more feature-rich design, letting you bring together your favorite content and services from across the Web, making it more personally relevant. For example, my experience is customized with my Yahoo! Mail, Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo! Messenger accounts, as well as my various stocks, favorite blog feeds, and weather from my favorite cities. The beauty of it is that you can customize the experience to exactly what you want and add anything to the page.
 
As for the Web, we recently started testing some new designs based on your feedback. We recognize that many of you like your homepage just the way it is, thank-you-very-much, so the overall look and feel of the page will be familiar. But take a closer look, and you’ll see that we’ve made some fundamental improvements and packed in features that are easy to use and easy to make your own — things you have told us you want.
 
The “My Favorites” area on the left side of the page includes an applications “dashboard” with the ability to preview, interact with or navigate to your favorite sites — whether they’re on Yahoo! or elsewhere on the Web. It’s all fully customizable.
 
Here’s some of what’s new and cool:

• Lots more apps: We’re testing a growing library of apps that let you get more done without leaving the page. Some of these apps include eBay and MySpace, and content sites like USA Today and NPR. We also have newly developed apps for popular Yahoo! services like Messenger, Movies and Flickr.
• Social pulse: A new Yahoo! Updates app lets you keep up with your friends’ online activities directly on the homepage — such as a recently Buzzed article or a video uploaded to YouTube.
• Easier email: We’ve separated your individual email accounts as distinct apps, rather than a combined inbox, so that it’s faster and easier to get to the exact mail you want. This was a request we heard repeatedly during testing.

It’s a well-intentioned bit of legislation and it doesn’t lack for emotional import, given the famous MySpace suicide case from which it takes its name, but c’mon. As worded here, the Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act essentially makes it a crime to hurt someone’s feelings. Worse, its definition of the speech used to do that is very loose and ripe for abuse. It would seem to cover, for example, an irate reader comment on this post or pointed criticism of a public official. Or flame wars? And that’s just silly, isn’t it? And beyond that, it’s a violation of the First Amendment.

“This cannot possibly be constitutionally permissible, it cannot possibly be a good idea, it cannot possibly be what the drafters intended, and yet that is what they wrote,” UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh told the St. Louis Post Dispatch. “If it is passed through Congress, I see it being struck down in courts,” he added.

Here’s hoping it doesn’t even make it that far…

Brand new MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta started things off Monday with his first day on the job. He was joined by new COO and former AOL exec Mike Jones and new chief product officer and former Sling Media exec Jason Hirschhorn. Down in Los Angeles at the AlwaysOn OnHollywood conference, Boomtown ran smack into Huff Post mastermind Arianna Huffington, who extolled the virtues and abilities of new managing editor Jai Singh, former editor-in-chief of CNET Networks. At AOL, in preparation for spinning off the Time Warner (TWX) Online unit, new CEO Tim Armstrong began appointing new senior execs and spinning off existing ones. Platform-A president and former Yahoo (YHOO) sales exec Greg Coleman, who joined the AOL team in February, is leaving the company, to be replaced by Jeff Levick, who is leaving Google (GOOG)–where he had a close relationship with Armstrong. CFO Nisha Kumar is also leaving AOL, and a search is underway for her replacement. MediaMemo has more on Time Warner’s decision to spin off AOL. A number of Flickr engineers were laid off Wednesday, but Chief Architect Cal Henderson has left the company of his own accord and is working on a stealth start-up with Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield. Last, but not least, one of the voices covering the digital scene has found a new gig. Owen Thomas, self-described “scourge of [Silicon] Valley,” is leaving Valleywag to head up GE (GE) unit NBC Universal’s new “Bay Area” Web site, whose motto is “Locals Only.” He’ll be replaced by fresh-faced Ryan Tate, recently the night editor for Gawker. Both reporters talked to BoomTown on Friday about the changes.

MediaMemo wrote on Monday about Condé Nast shutting down Portfolio–both the print magazine and the accompanying Web site. On a cautionary note, MM outlined the reasons why Portfolio’s business magazine peers should not celebrate the loss of a competitor, even (or especially) during tough economic times. Is the meteoric ascension of Twitter flattening out? According to a Nielsen Online study, 60 percent of Twitter’s users leave after a month. This was met with a lot of skepticism so Nielsen ran the numbers again with the same results–and this time it’s sticking with them. MediaMemo also had an explanation for why the long-awaited deal between Disney (DIS) and Hulu took months and months and millions of dollars to finally come together. Digital Daily had more on that story.

Digital Daily also had more info on the ever-evolving Palm (PALM) Pre story. First, a rumor that Palm plans to launch the handset on June 7–which would be crazy, given the fact that June 8 is both the first day of Apple’s (AAPL) Worldwide Developers Conference and the day that those in the know expect the next-generation iPhone to drop. Then, there’s an assertion by Collins Stewart analyst Ashok Kumar based on supply chain research that Palm has greatly reduced its production numbers. Time will have to tell, though, because Palm certainly isn’t talking yet. Of course, things could be worse. Dell (DELL) hasn’t even solidified plans for its rumored smartphone, and already, no one really cares.

Dell’s new Adamo laptop and Studio One 19 desktop aren’t causing much excitement either. In this week’s Personal Technology column, Walt Mossberg reports that although both machines look good and function well, neither is groundbreaking. In Mossberg’s Mailbox, Walt answered readers’ questions about improving performance on a PC, using peripheral devices with an iPhone and installing Apple’s OS X on a Windows machine. And in this week’s Mossberg Solution, Katie Boehret tested three apps from the iTunes App Store that make it possible for the iPod touch to function like an iPhone.

More next week.

First up, BoomTown’s anticipation of pistol-packin’ Carol Bartz’s first earnings appearance paid off when Bartz dropped the F-bomb, live and uncensored during Yahoo’s (YHOO) earnings call. And in a very rare occurrence–actually the company’s first-ever year-over-year quarterly sales drop–Microsoft (MSFT) glumly laid out the facts of the recession’s toll on its business. On the musical chairs front, with Chris DeWolfe stepping down as CEO of News Corp.’s (NWS) MySpace, word surfaced that Facebook alum Owen Van Natta would be stepping into the position. The news was confirmed on Friday. BoomTown has all the details, including the press release.

In the ongoing ballad of the newspaper industry, the honor of winning five Pulitzer Prizes at the New York Times (NYT) was offset by news that ad sales are down 27 percent at the paper. In further bad tidings, the newspaper industry is unlikely to get a bailout from Washington. No big takeaways from Apple’s (AAPL) earnings call–Steve’s fine and the company is still not at all interested in developing a netbook. MediaMemo has all the details in a liveblog of the call. MM also notes that Netflix (NFLX) is probably one of the only businesses to benefit from the recession so far since folks are far more likely to rent DVDs than venture out to the local multiplex during these hard times.

In Personal Technology this week, Walt Mossberg discusses the many new OS and system developments coming down the pike that should inform new computer buyers in the near future. In Mossberg’s Mailbox, Walt lays out the details for syncing to an iPhone on MobileMe. And in the Mossberg Solution, Katie Boehret explores the new Nintendo DSi. Compared with earlier iterations of the DS line, as well as on its own merits, it wins some well-deserved praise.

More next week. And RIP, Bea Arthur.

That’s a lot of Superpokin’….

Apparently our self-righteous outrage over Facebook’s tweaks of its Terms of Service or claims that social networks are haunted by sexual predators has done little to dampen our enthusiasm for them. “Social networking has become a fundamental part of the global online experience,” said Nielsen Online CEO John Burbank in one of those “Fire: Hot, Bread: Good” announcements. “While two-thirds of the global online population already accesses member community sites, their vigorous adoption and the migration of time show no signs of slowing. Social networking will continue to alter not just the global online landscape, but the consumer experience at large.”

Unfortunately for the companies playing in the space, social networking hasn’t yet done the same for the advertising experience. Indeed, as Nielsen notes, “The current level of advertising activity on social networks isn’t consummate with the size–and highly engaged levels–of the audience.” Nor will it be, unless the sites figure out a way to exploit the personal data of their users without making them feel like their privacy has been invaded. Nielsen’s big idea for achieving that goal: trial and error. “New approaches to the ad model are required for this challenging and complex arena,” the company explains. “It will take time to work out the magic formula for successfully advertising in social networks. The diversity and personalised nature of the environment means standard ad models–such as contextual search and standard unit sizes–won’t cut it. Different approaches across ad units and ad inventory will have to be tried, involving a trial and error mindset.”

Trial and error, eh? That’s been Facebook’s strategy hasn’t it? And as I recall, it hasn’t exactly been working out too well…

BoomTown provided continuing coverage of the Yahoo (YHOO) merry-go-round. This time, PR head Jill Nash announced her departure. As the company’s chief communications officer, she’s had a challenging two-year run. New CEO Carol Bartz definitely has some PR ideas of her own, including offering cash prizes to employees who provide info on their colleagues who leak information to the press. Not a huge deterrent yet, apparently–it didn’t take long for BoomTown to get info on both Nash’s farewell memo and Bartz’s bounty system. Next, New Networks, the publisher behind BarelyPolitical and its hugely viral Obama Girl videos, has widened its purview to include the tech sector with BarelyDigital, which the online network has envisioned to include regular shows, tech news remixes and the like. It’s rumored that Obama Girl will be making a cameo appearance or two. If the first two features are any indication, the future looks pretty funny. In another round of executive musical chairs, Time Warner’s (TWX) AOL ad head Lynda Clarizio will be leaving the online service, to be replaced by former Yahoo ad exec Greg Coleman. Microsoft (MSFT) is launching a slick new celebrity site on MSN called Wonderwall, created, designed and produced by BermanBraun Interactive, a Hollywood company run by former Yahoo media chief Lloyd Braun. And speaking of musical chairs, MSN is clearly upping its content ante–earlier this week, it hired Yahoo’s recent media head Scott Moore, who used to work at Microsoft.

MediaMemo asked: What happens when one of the world’s richest men lets loose a swarm (a small swarm) of mosquitoes at a high-end conference? Nothing too exciting, really, but when you consider that the stunt was the publicity-generating part of Bill Gates’s talk at TED, which was a discussion of malaria and some of the problems the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is facing head-on, it gets pretty compelling. Kindle 2.0, the new generation of the device dubbed the “iPod of the book world” will be unveiled Monday at a New York press event, but how many of the devices have been sold thus far? Amazon’s (AMZN) not telling, but Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney estimates the number at 500,000–and believes that the Kindle will be a $1.2 billion business next year. Obviously, a lot will depend on Monday and the new device’s reception. MediaMemo also took some time out this week to wish Facebook a happy fifth birthday, and to stack its track record next to Google’s at the same age, with interesting results. Even the pros are getting hit hard these days–in its quarterly earnings report this week, News Corp. (NWS) missed its estimates, recorded an $8.4 billion write-off and lowered its guidance. CEO Rupert Murdoch admitted that the downturn is worse than he thought. He also admitted that he spent $2.8 billion too much for Dow Jones. (News Corp. is the owner of Dow Jones and this Web site.)

Digital Daily followed the trial of four Google executives this week on criminal charges of defamation and breach of privacy after a much-publicized two-year investigation. Google (GOOG) insists the charges are unwarranted and “akin to prosecuting mail service employees for hate speech letters sent in the post.” Clearly, the ultimate outcome will have a huge impact on the future of a free, open Internet. MySpace said this week that it has identified and ousted 90,000 registered sex offenders–and those are just the ones brilliant enough to use their real names. There’s no way of knowing how many are actually using the service or how to prevent them from re-registering once they’re deleted. A free an open Internet, indeed. DD also pondered the future (or lack thereof) of the Motorola (MOT) handset division. Co-CEO Sanjay Jha says the company is committed to making the business work, but its products are looking boring and outdated, and a turnaround would be prohibitively expensive to execute. In the words of one analyst, the company’s problems are “gruesome.” On the other end of the spectrum, Microsoft continues to vehemently deny reports that it’ll be producing its own smartphone. In a report this week, analysts from Broadpoint.AmTech speculated that the device could be uncrated later this month at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Meanwhile, it’s been up in the air for two years whether or not iPhones will ever be uncrated in historic Georgetown. Apple (AAPL) has been around the table a few times now with preservationists wary of the architectural impact of an Apple store, no matter how much the business traffic is needed in the neighborhood. Looks like perseverance may have finally paid off, though–Georgetown’s Apple store could open later this year.

In Personal Technology this week, Walt Mossberg took a look at a program called Foxmarks, which sets out to synchronize bookmarks among all of your browsers and all of your machines. Sound a little too handy to actually work well? Walt found it does a pretty good job, with a few caveats. In Mossberg’s Mailbox, Walt responds to readers who want to know more about doing “techie” maintenance on their PCs to keep them running well, whether or not to buy a 15-inch MacBook Pro, and options for email within Windows 7, which won’t ship with a built-in email program. In the Mossberg Solution, Katherine Boehret tests Google Latitude, an opt-in program that lets users track one another’s movements on their smartphones using GPS, Wi-Fi, and cell towers. Kind of like Gawker Stalker, only with permission and without Lindsay Lohan (unless you happen to be Lindsay Lohan).

Last but not least, Silicon Valley lost one of its own this week. The widely admired and much loved Mike Homer, whose rare, severe illness was a rallying point for many over the past months, passed away last weekend and was laid to rest on Thursday.

More next week.