It was five years ago that Nokia (NYSE: NOK) executives brushed off the idea of Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) as “not a threat” to Nokia’s top position in mobile sales. After all, Apple was only making smartphones and Nokia was still leading in that still-niche category, as well as mobiles overall. Fast forward to today, and the swift rise of Apple underscores (once more) how short-sighted that view really was.

According to Q4 figures out from IDC, Apple is now the third-largest handset maker in the world, jumping two places from its number-five position in Q3. The reason for the rise, note the analysts, was not so much because it’s now selling cheaper, older iPhones — it is — but because of strong sales of its newest (and therefore premium-priced) iPhone 4S handset.

But it’s not just Apple that is a smartphone force, of course. The other three in the top-five rankings also make feature phones, but they are all also part of the huge push that Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has made into smartphones via its Android platform. Having a feature phone and smartphone strategy is a double-threat to Nokia.

Apple’s rise still puts it at 8.7 market share — some 14 percent behind the Nokia and Samsung bracket — but it is an example of how a much the market has turned around in the last few years, that a handset maker can even be in spitting distance of the lead on the strength of a smartphone-only portfolio.

Apple saw astounding growth in Q4 and 2011 overall — 128 percent and 96 percent respectively. However, it will be worth watching whether that trend will continue in the quarters ahead amidst bigger economic factors:

IDC notes that the mobile phone market grew less in the last quarter than it has in the past two years, with vendors shipping 427.4 million units. “The mobile phone market exhibited unusually low growth last quarter, which shows it is not immune to weaker macroeconomic conditions worldwide,” writes analyst Ramon Llamas.

Ironically, that seemed to translate to a bigger-than-expected decline in cheaper feature phones than a slowdown in pricier smartphones. Despite that, IDC says that feature phone sales still accounted for the majority of handset sales in the last quarter.

Nokia — which actually saw sales of feature phones rise in the last quarter as it continued its decline in smartphones — seems catching only part of the wave that IDC describes. It is still holding on to the number-one slot, but given that its biggest driver right now is still feature phones, that leadership may well continue on its fast decline.

But if IDC’s forecast is a wave, then it is really Samsung that is the big Kahuna at the moment, with both strong feature phone and smartphone stories and reaching record levels of 90 million units overall for the quarter and more than 300 million for the year. IDC notes that fewer than 20 million units separated it from Nokia in the last quarter. Samsung earlier in 2011 already surpassed Nokia as the world’s biggest smartphone vendor, according to IDC figures.

Apple and Samsung are not the only ones benefiting from a strong smartphone offering in the top-five.

ZTE, which started to introduce smartphones into its portfolio last year and has huge ambitions in this space both on its own brand and partnering with carriers, took a big leap, the second-biggest after Apple for the year, in fact.

In contrast, LG (SEO: 066570), which has been somewhat rudderless in its smartphone strategy and equally less exciting in its feature phone offerings, saw very big declines, much bigger than Nokia’s: over 24 percent over the year compared to Nokia’s eight percent.

With ZTE just behind LG at the moment, it looks like those two might be swapping places in the quarters ahead if LG doesn’t manage to turn things around. So which should it concentrate on fixing first: smartphones or feature devices?

VIA@PC

Like the domain name auctioneer said on the page touting the sale, this was the opportunity to buy a piece of Internet history. Or maybe not.

Perhaps there’s very deliberate publicity strategy in allowing this URL has hit the auction block in the first place. By releasing control of the domain to whoever bids the highest, the events depicted in “The Social Network” would seem easier to label as fictional or at least embellished by the screenwriters. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone who works in a publicity capacity for the company advised Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg to let the domain name expire.

I’m willing to bet hard cash that Sony Pictures won the bidding for the domain name, as the company already owns FaceMash.net. The auctioneer dropped that hint on the sale page:

This is a piece of Internet history – history of a website that perhaps is second only to Google in Global influence!

This website was prominently referenced in the first scene of the recently released move “The Social Network”. Traffic has syrocketed since to over 1000 hits a day past 2 days. but is approx. 600/mo on a normalized basis.

Not only that, the site is currently leased (no contract) on a month to month basis to an upstart Social Network for $100/mo and they are open to discussing Equity ownership in Feb 2011.

Several inquiries and offers have been received – I thought it would be best to list it for auction.

See the WHOIS Archive for proof: http://who.is/domain_archive-com/facemash.com/

Note his Harvard email address and his mailing address at his parents home in NY.

Sony Pictures owns FaceMash.net!

Readers, who do you think will win the bidding on this domain name and what purpose will the new site serve?

read more @allfacebook

Boston.com reports that the Cooks Source website had an unsigned note that said in part:

“The bad news is that this is probably the final straw for Cooks Source. We have never been a great money-maker even with all the good we do for businesses. Having a black mark wont [sic] help … and now, our black mark will become our shroud. … This will end us.”

Unsigned or not, it seems likely to me that Cooks Source editor Judith Griggs was the author of this statement, given that she has previously said the publication has a staff of two – herself and her daughter. The www.cookssource.com URL is now defunct – it directs you to Intuit.com, a web hosting company, instead. The Consumerist has extracted a large chunk of it and I have quoted selectively below.

The saga started when a food blogger, Monica Gaudio, realized that her article on apple pie had been stolen and republished in Cooks Source, a regional magazine in New England, without permission or payment. When she contacted editor Judith Griggs, she was insulted and told that the article was public domain because it was online. The resulting backlash on the internet, including on the Cooks Source Facebook page (which Griggs erroneously claims was “hacked”), and the subsequent withdrawal of support from advertisers seems to have been what closed the magazine down.

Some commentary has sided with the magazine, now that it has closed. Sarah Lacy of TechCrunch wrote a post under the title “Congrats, Self-Righteous Internet Mob. You Killed a Magazine” in which she argues that Griggs acted like a “jerk” but did not deserve to lose her livelihood. She also says that only two people know what happened.

I completely disagree with both points. I can feel human empathy for someone who has lost their livelihood, while also understanding that it was entirely deserved. A magazine that makes its living from reprinting stolen material does not deserve to be in business. This was not a one-off mistake, judging by the extensive spreadsheet of material that Cooks Source has apparently stolen from other publications. If the magazine folds it will be because advertisers, once alerted to the problem, have decided to pull their money out. That’s the free market at work and in this case, the outcome is just.

read more @allfaceboook

“Through our customer care we have heard that a limited number of Nokia N8 customers are experiencing a power down or not power up of the device,” said Savander. When asked how many users are affected, Savander said it’s a “small number,” adding however that for the consumers that are affected, it’s a “significant issue”.

Savander claims Nokia has found and fixed the source of the problem. If you have a Nokia N8 that’s experiencing the issue, you’ll be happy to know that it’s covered by Nokia’s standard warranty.

read more @mashable

It certainly explains why Fashism’s app appeared on a recent screenshot of Ashton Kutcher’s iPhone, alongside the apps of other startups he has recently invested in, such as Flipboard and Hipmunk.

Launched during New York Fashion Week in September, Fashism enables users to upload photos, and solicit style advice and feedback from the site’s community via Fashism’s web site and iPhone application [iTunes link]. “Does this work?” and “Too much?” are frequent questions posted to the site.

What’s novel about the financing is not the number — especially when many other startups have raised three or six times that in a Series A round — but who invested in the company; Nina Garcia is not a name you typically see on a list of startup investors.

Until now, the New York-based startup had been entirely self-funded. Fashism plans to use the funds to scale its web and mobile applications. The site has about 40,000 registered users and gets roughly 1 million page views per month. Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley and designer Steven Alan will serve as advisers to the company.

read more @mashable

The short book, 20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web, is a step-by-step explanation of the web and how it works. It was created by the Google Chrome team using HTML5, but it also features a lot of clever illustrations by award-winning German illustrator and children’s author Christoph Niemann.

In an attempt to teach the average person about the fundamentals of browsers and the web, Google has released an interactive online book that explains concepts like, TCP/IP, HTML, browser extensions and malware.

The short book, 20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web, is a step-by-step explanation of the web and how it works. It was created by the Google Chrome team using HTML5, but it also features a lot of clever illustrations by award-winning German illustrator and children’s author Christoph Niemann.

The focus of the book is on 19 different topics (plus a recap, making for 20 things). It starts with “What Is the Internet?” and then dives into cloud computing, web apps, web programming languages, browsers, privacy, security and open source.

While regular readers of Mashable may be very familiar with these web concepts (and much more), Google realizes that most people have no clue about the function of a browser or what HTML5 actually is. This was exemplified last year when Google took to the streets and asked people, “What is a browser?” Less than 8% of the people it polled gave a correct answer.

With 20 Things I Learned About Browsers and the Web (available at 20thingsIlearned.com), Google can point these users to a website that will fill them in on the basics. While it’s not a perfect solution (we suspect the book’s too long for many in our attention-deficient society), it’s definitely something I’d show to my mom or my technologically challenged friends.

What do you think of Google’s new Internet book?

read more @mashable

Ever since the city began suffering from a widespread infestation of the pernicious bugs last year, demand has soared for people to get rid of them. Actors, it turns out, make the perfect bug busters.

“Actors have great personalities and follow directions well,” says Janet Friedman, owner of Bed Bug Busters NY, who employs many people from the theater world to clean up the vermin. She favors entertainers, she says, because they can improvise, work quickly and are used to the drama of a stressful situation.

Meagan Gilliland, a 25-year-old actress who moved from Chicago to New York in September 2009, secured a gig with Bed Bug Busters before arriving.

While she’d rather be acting, she says her new job doesn’t bug her.

On the contrary: Ms. Gilliland says she uses her acting chops while she goes through every inch of a person’s apartment. In a particularly dusty apartment—sometimes clients are hoarders—she puts on a smile trying to “pretend to be OK, like you’re still having a good time with friends and stuff, while you’re choking on a lot of dust.”

“The performance aspect, the training that most of us have in our own fields, definitely helps when you have one of those more difficult places to go to,” she says.

Just as waiting tables in fashionable restaurants gives aspiring actors access to New York’s movers and shakers, bedbug hunting can provide a platform for making connections with “high-up people in the New York scene,” says Ms. Gilliland. To date, she has been offered several babysitting gigs from her bedbug cleaning job.

Getting rid of bedbugs is no easy feat. The creatures can infest nearly anything—beds, furniture, carpets, books and clothes. They travel into homes and offices via suitcases, coats and packages.

Increased international travel and a resistance to current pesticides have contributed to their nationwide resurgence. In New York City, an estimated 6.7% of residents reported having bedbugs in 2009, according to the city’s Community Health Survey.

Generally, the only way to get rid of bedbugs is extermination by a professional. Before the exterminator arrives, homes and offices must be de-cluttered, cleaned, washed and vacuumed. Soft items must be laundered and bedbug-free items must be sealed away.

read more @wsj

The social network has a long history of proactively suing would-be patent infringers, namely any website that either begins with “Face” or ends with “book.” The maneuvers often start with what lawyers call a “cease-and-desist” letter, then an actual lawsuit.

This time around, the parody site got the first laugh, so to speak. Before Facebook could move from “cease and desist” to sue, Lamebook sued.

Lamebook wanted an injunction barring Facebook from suing, invoking First Amendment freedom of speech, along with a well-known exception to copyright protection known as “fair use,” which includes parody. Now some of the same pundits who’d snipped that Lamebook’s attempt at humor wasn’t funny are kvetching that Facebook can’t take a joke.

The latest lawsuit has less to do with whether Facebook has a sense of humor that having a sense of urgency. The social network needed to sue before any injunction sought by Lamebook could take effect. Ultimately, the litigant with the biggest largest purse wins in today’s legal climate, and few companies have more money than Facebook.

Lamebook is actually a project that Urban Outfitters plans to render into a coffee-table book. The hipster retailer has a total market capitalization of $5.4 billion, compared to Facebook’s $41 billion estimated value. Based on that alone, it looks like Urban Outfitters might have to find another name for its parody site and any related projects.

Readers, what should Lamebook change its name to, if at all? And do you find any of the material on that site funny?

read more @allfacebook

In the case of McNabb’s five-year extension, which could be worth up to $78 million, the lopsided loss highlighted the weirdness of the team’s decision to commit to the same quarterback that coach Mike Shanahan pulled from a game in favor of (avert your eyes) Rex Grossman just two weeks ago. McNabb was somewhat better on Monday, although his three interceptions in the loss wound up balancing out his 295 passing yards and two touchdowns. But the contract still stood out as a strange and strangely timed decision. “[A] focus on Monday’s malaise represents a myopic view of the move. Yet the big picture is just as hideous,” Yahoo’s Michael Silver writes. “What the short-lived benching of McNabb exposed was a stylistic disconnect that extended beyond any of Shanahan’s silly explanations about the quarterback’s lack of cardiovascular endurance or unfamiliarity with terminology. … Think of this as a rushed union between two lovers whose mutual attraction obscured some fundamental differences.”

On the topic of great differences, there’s the performance put up by McNabb’s opposite number Monday. Michael Vick had a hand in six touchdowns – two rushing, four passing – and threw for 333 yards and rushed for 88. Even those eye-popping numbers don’t quite do justice to just how brilliant Vick looked. From his 88-yard touchdown strike to DeSean Jackson on the game’s first series to the spectacular ease and elusiveness with which he navigated a slick field, Vick more or less single-handedly made an ultra-lopsided laugher into must-watch sports television. Vick’s dominance spurred talk about just how rich a contract extension he may be in for, but it also was just plain dazzling to watch in its own context. “For anyone who appreciates football, the view is universal,” Time’s Sean Gregory writes. “Michael Vick is an electrifying player, and watching his 2010 season unfold could be truly special.”

read more @wsj