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Commenting system Livefyre has announced version 2.0 of its platform, introducing new features to bring conversations from the social Web into on-site comments. SocialSync grabs related Twitter and Facebook comments automatically, so there's always a conversation on the page, even if no one has commented yet directly. It also adds @ mentions from within the comment box, allowing users to tag and notify their friends on those services, drawing them into the conversation.

"Everything we're doing is about increasing engagement on publisher content," says Livefyre CEO Jordan Kretchmer. By drawing in conversations from where they're happening on the social Web, Livefyre sites will become the hubs of conversation about their own content again. People who prefer to chat on social networks can still be involved, but sites will still benefit from those conversations on their own pages. Twitter and Facebook are built in at launch, and Google Plus is coming soon.

Analytics firm Flurry has just announced a new video advertising network called AppCircle Clips which aims to bring a "TV commercial"-like experience to mobile applications and games. The video advertisements will reach over 30 million people per day, says Flurry, a larger audience than most successful primetime TV shows.

While initially, a consumer's gut reaction may be a groan at the thought of an ad popping up in the middle of an intense gaming session, the new service offers an enticing feature which may change their minds. Gamers can actually earn in-game rewards like virtual currency for viewing the clips and have the opportunity to earn even more if they share those clips via Facebook or Twitter.

Multiple mobile payments companies are teaming up to offer expanded direct carrier billing options to Verizon Wireless customers here in the U.S. BilltoMobile, a Verizon partner since March 2010, has signed an agreement with BOKU, a mobile payments company that already provides merchants access to 2 billion consumers worldwide on 230 carriers, including AT&T, Vodafone, Globe and others. Also now on board is Zong, another international mobile payments company known for its integration with Facebook Credits, and more recently, its launch of a carrier billing program for Android developers.

BilltoMobile operates a payment gateway that's tied directly with Verizon's billing platform here in the U.S., as well as AT&T's. The new agreement allows BOKU and Zong to access that gateway, in order to provide services to Verizon customers.

For Verizon end users, this simply means more options for carrier billing.

Amazon has recently touted that sales of Kindle books are outstripping those of both hardcover and paperback editions. And a Forrester forecast earlier this week gauged that the sales from e-books for 2010 would hit over $1 billion. It seems as though the market for digital literature is strong.

But according to some publishers, if libraries start lending e-books, it could serve to "undo the entire market for e-book sales." Those were the words of Stephen Page, CEO of the publisher Faber and Faber who spoke last month at a library conference in the U.K. and announced the Publisher Association's new stance on e-book lending via libraries.

There are a number of ways developers and publishers of mobile applications can earn revenue, including everything from ads and subscriptions to virtual goods and advertising. But which models work? And can you make "real" money using these methods?

Leading application developers and content players from the industry shared their experiences on the topic on a panel this afternoon at the Open Mobile Summit in San Francisco.

AddThis, one of the most popular bookmarking and sharing buttons on the Web, has today released a new version of its sharing menu for the Apple iPad, the iPhone and Google Android. Now, when you visit a site from one of these mobile devices, tapping the button will present a sharing menu that's been built to specifically work with the touch interface of your mobile device and better integrate with its functions, like the built-in email client.

The new version of Digg has changed the playing field for two of its biggest constituents: power users and publishers. We discuss this with a long-time Digg power user.

The latest version of social news site Digg is currently in restricted beta, with an additional 20,000 users added at the beginning of July. The new version adds the ability to "follow" people or publishers via a feature called "My News." This will be the default Digg home page, and it's prompted many to compare the new Digg to Twitter and Facebook. Another big change is that publishers may now automatically submit their content. This changes the game for both power users and publishers, because previously the secret to getting onto the Digg front page was for a power user to submit the story. That's no longer the case.

In an interesting nugget of Friday afternoon news, Michael Arrington of TechCrunch has posted an article featuring a preview of the upcoming fourth version of the social news site Digg. Founder Kevin Rose has published a glorious 1080p video to YouTube aimed at explaining the new features to publishers. Among the most interesting features is the inclusion of social network contacts into the Digg ecosystem, as well as the ability for publishers to auto-publish stories to Digg via an RSS feed.

Facebook just shook the tech world by announcing several major initiatives that collectively constitute an aggressive move to weave the social net on top of the existing Web.The rumors were that the leading social network would launch a "Like" button for the entire Web. Instead, Zuckerberg & Co. unveiled a bold and visionary new platform that cannot be ignored.

The bits of this platform bring together the visions of a social, personalized and semantic Web that have been discussed since del.icio.us pioneered Web 2.0 back in 2004. Facebook's vision is both minimalistic and encompassing - but its ambition is to kill off its competition and use 500 million users to take over entire Web.

Today, digital textbooks for higher education and career education account for only 0.5% of all textbook sales in the United States. According to a new study by social learning platform Xplana, this could soon change. Xplana predicts that digital textbooks will account for almost 20% of all textbook sales within the next five years. This will make digital textbooks a $1 billion market.