Recently marked the 8th birthday of Google’s blogger service, Google took the time to reflect on the popularity of the service and break out some baby pictures. A lot has changed since Evan Williams (He sold to Google and started Odeo,Twitter) launched the service in 1999.

Thanks to everyone who has supported us over the past four-fifths of a decade, and thanks especially to you for all the blogs.

It seems, second season of video sharing is shaping up real well. France based Dailymotion has raised $34 million in venture funding. The investment round was participated by Advent Venture Partners LLP of London and AGF Private Equity of Paris.

Dailymotion had earlier raised $9.5 million last year.

JB over at Crunchgear has the exclusive on the “upcoming” Google Phone, supposedly set to launch in Q1 2008. His source is someone inside HTC, the company that Google’s working with to pick one of 20 models to finalize their design. [read more on Gizmodo]

Hi-Media Group has agreed to acquire Fotolog Inc. for approximately $90 million in cash and stock. Fotolog is a New York-based social network and photo-sharing site that asks users to post a single photo every day. It claims to have more than 10 million members. Fotolog has raised about $11 million from BV Capital, 3i Group and other investors since 2004.

After a premature exposure earlier today, the all new Digg design is up and running. As promised, there’s a new “All” tab plus cleaner navigation. The images section has yet to appear; based on Rose’s recent posts, October is the latest you can expect that, and hopefully before.

[Via | Mashable]

For those who might have missed it: Engadget has the scoop on a new software solution that unlocks Apple’s iPhone, allowing it to be used on any mobile carrier worldwide (presuming of course they run a 2G GSM network).

The second largest social network on the web has completed a ‘redesign’, adding new icons and some blue rounded corners. Comscore proves that Orkut has the second largest user base of people ‘networking’ online although they don’t seem to care. The new look is hardly a step up from the previous dull interface and no new functionality to report of.

From the official Orkut blog

When you think Google, you picture primary colors; when you think orkut, you see blue. And though we’re updating the look, we’re staying true to blue. We’ve added some rounded corners and new icons that make orkut look a little more sleek and modern. Check out a screen shot of the new homepage.

Skype was back up and running on Saturday, but the question remains if this week’s outage will have a lasting effect on the confidence people place in the service. Will anyone feel comfortable using Skype as their primary voice communications tool if a multi-day outage is possible?

Villu Arak of Skype had few words on the matter thus far, but promises more to come on Monday.

Hello friends,

Take a deep breath. Skype is back to normal.

On Monday, we’ll provide a more detailed explanation of what happened. Until then, we’d like to apologize and thank you. Precisely in that order. We know how difficult and frustrating the past two days have been. And still, your good wishes kept flowing in. Thank you for the amazing patience, trust and support!

Hopefully there will be more details at that time that will allay people’s fears of another such outage happening.

[Via Mash]

We’re told that Facebook will be launching its joint project with Comcast’s Ziddio, Facebook Diaries, at about 9 p.m. tonight. The eight-episode weekly series spotlights topics like heartbreak, road trip, and wild nights, with pilot episode “Who Am I” already queued up at http://www.facebook.com/diaries.

Facebook has been playing around with the project for a while now since announcing it in February, even shooting some of its own video, but the series will be completely user-contributed clips, with editing and motion graphics by producer R.J. Cutler of Actual Reality Pictures.

Randi Zuckerberg, a two-time NewTeeVee Pier Screenings runner-up (and sister of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg), is one of leaders on project.

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