CC Photo by {eclaire}

Welcome to the Wednesday News Roundup. This week, the hot topic is, of course, our own PalmSpot contest. As if in preparation for your own spots, Palm has upped the ante by releasing their own new commercial. After we show you that, we’ll wrap up from Palm’s visit to GDC last week. Then, we’ll jump right into the Roundup because there are a lot of little stories that we want you to be aware of.

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Today is a big day for us here at webOSroundup. We have been working towards this for several weeks now and we couldn’t be more excited to announce our latest and greatest contest. We call this contest PalmSpot and with it you get the chance to show the world how amazing webOS truly is in your own video. What is even more exciting is that Palm is helping us out to take this contest to a whole new level. Excited yet? Wait till you see the prizes!

• Runners Up: Each category will have two runners up that will receive a Touchstone charging kit.
• First Prize: The best video in each category will receive a new Palm Pre and a Touchstone charging kit!
• Grand Prize: In addition to the first prize goodies, the creator of the best video in the contest will have their Pre completely pimped out including:
  • Jawbone Icon bluetooth headset
  • Invisible Shield
  • Seidio Innocell 1350mAh Extended battery
  • International travel power kit
  • $100 so you can load up your tricked out phone with the best apps on the planet

We may have some other prizes here and there for other honorable mention videos as well so stay tuned! Also, we plan on submitting all first place winners and the grand prize winner to Palm for consideration for a future web ad campaign. No promises though…

• Create your video
• Send us the source (we recommend using a free account on TransferBigFiles, DropBox, Gigasize, or the like since the files will be large)
• Email us at palmspot@webosroundup.com to let us know where we can download it.
• Make sure to include your name, contact information, the title of the video, and a little background on it. We cannot accept any videos that don’t have valid contact information!!

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Quick… you have 30 seconds to show a friend how awesome webOS is.

Wow… 30 seconds?  That’s it?

• Maybe you could show how easy it is to flick from task to task.  Your friend may shrug and say “cool.”
• You could maybe show how you have multiple calendars from different sources as one?
• Perhaps you could show how sweet the notification system works. Again, your friend nods.
• A 3D game, perhaps? …  Hmm…  but this is much more than just a gaming machine!
• Maybe you can show off all the cool stuff you can do with homebrew… but in 30 seconds? Not likely.

Here’s my point: I knew of most of these things before I purchased the Palm Pre.  I had watched the CES 2009 video and was sold…  but that took much longer than 30 seconds.  See…  no ONE individual feature of webOS  is likely to convince someone to get a Pre outright. It’s the whole ecosystem that needs to be sold here, and that’s a tall order.

Meanwhile, Apple shows one ad of people bopping two iPhones together to transfer contact information, and everybody goes wild.  I haven’t seen one person with this app, by the way. Just sayin’.

Michael Gartenburg from SlashGear wrote a great piece:  “The Palm Paradox.” In that article, he talks about how Palm has the tough task of selling its ecosystem, because it’s hard explaining the contextual value of the many great features of webOS … in thirty seconds.  That got me thinking.  Many times, I have had just a few seconds to show someone how cool my phone is.  … And I’m at a loss.  Not for lack of awesome stuff to show, of course!  It’s like “gee, where the heck do I start?”  Because you only have a few seconds there, champ.  Don’t blow it.

The more I think about it, the more I can understand why Palm swung so hard for a home run with their initial ads.  Unfortunately, many would argue they ended up way out in left field, but that’s another issue.  The point is, the gamble didn’t work, and worse still – Palm lost momentum. (In their defense, I didn’t think the flying missile ads for Droid were much better…  but that’s just my opinion.)

So, Palm has gone back to the drawing board with their ads, mostly to a positive response.  But will it be enough?

… More importantly… is there anything that we, the webOS community, can do to help Palm in their cause???

Alright so check this out… the Palm Pre Plus has gotten plenty of props from many reviewers, but we feel compelled to share this little tidbit with you:  tech channel G4’s “Attack of the Show” just dished out their first perfect score… as in, in the history of the show.  The recipient of this illustrious honor?  The Palm Pre Plus …  schvah?!

That’s right! Citing the Pre Plus’ key enhancements over the original Pre, the folks on “Attack of the Show” were blown away with the Pre Plus, especially considering its $30 price point with Amazon (new 2-year contract).  For a phone that can do just about everything an iPhone or Droid can do (and more!), we have to say we agree.

At these prices, the Pre Plus is simply too damned good to pass up.

I saw an interesting article at All Things Digital titled Could WebOS Licensing Be Palm’s Salvation? It’s an idea that occurred to me some time ago.  The article states that Palm could generate some revenues by licensing its webOS operating system to other smartphone vendors.  In particular, it singles out my favorite: HTC.

This deal would make a lot of sense.  HTC has a strong background as a hardware manufacturer (they made Google’s Nexus 1 ’super’ phone).  They support multiple software platforms already.  And, they’re having a little spat with Apple over patents right now.

Palm has some exceptional software in webOS.  Their hardware choices so far (the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi) have been well received by some but not everyone is happy with the current hardware.  The specs on the Pre and Pixi, which were impressive when launched, are looking a little tired right now.  And, Palm’s got a large patent portfolio.

With the right deal and some cross-licensing of patents, Palm could get some much needed capital and HTC could get the most impressive OS on the market today and, perhaps, some protection from Apple.  The downside, of course, is one of my complaints about Android:  Too many manufacturers with too many different models that aren’t compatible.  However, I suspect that if Palm did this it would play a much larger role ensuring the webOS experience is consistent on all devices.  What’s your opinion?

Do you have a 10 gig music collection on iTunes that you wish you could play on your phone?

Do you have a bazillion pics that you wish you could show people, but they are stuck on your hard drive at home?

ZumoDrive allows you to solve both of these little issues in one fell swoop. The app is free (and allows 2GB of storage) and, according to their press release, allows the following awesomeness:

• Video streaming from ZumoDrive directly to the device in MP4, H.264 format
• Music playback of all songs
• Music organized by artist, albums, and even playlists created on other devices
• Ability to stream music in the background
• Ability to listen to music over both 3G or EDGE networks
• Access to photo albums saved in ZumoDrive
• Easy document access and viewing for Microsoft Office documents and PDF files

We will take a deeper look in the coming days, but if this tickles your fancy, head on over to Palm and pick it up. You can also learn more on their site ZumoDrive.com