As Entourage fans most likely know, Season 5 of the hit HBO show debuts this evening. Last Thursday, I attended the first ever “in-flight” television premiere, a co-promotion between HBO and Virgin America, who was using the opportunity to launch the maiden voyage of its New York to Las Vegas route. While the event was choc-full-o free drink, party schwag, celebrity sightings, and an advanced look at the new season of my favorite TV show, it was also a chance to use some of the tools we talk about incessantly on Mashable for some real world social networking.

I actually got the ball rolling on the experience earlier in the week, when I posted an article from Variety and note about the event to Facebook. Of course, this automatically was sent to my mini-feed and in turn my friend’s news feeds, letting them know what I’d posted. While primarily I was simply looking to share the experience and maybe make a few friends from high school jealous, within a couple hours someone I knew from Mashable events had commented on the item, letting me know that they were also going to be in Vegas. Considering I was going on the trip solo, it was nice to know that I’d know at least one person once I got to town.

Moving on, once Thursday rolled around and things were getting started at a private hangar at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York, my weapons of choice for keeping people updated on my whereabouts and activities were Twitter and the Facebook for Blackberry application, which allowed me to upload photos to my profile immediately after taking them. This proved especially useful later on, as my Blackberry decided to have memory issues that required me to continuously delete pictures to make room for new ones.

After a couple hours of partying and mingling in the hangar, the event got started when the cast of Entourage (minus Jeremy Piven aka Ari Gold) and Sir Richard Branson himself emerged from the plane for their photo opp. While this part of the story admittedly doesn’t have much of anything to do with social networking tools, it does provide an opportunity to insert some cool photos, which you can see after the jump

Getting back to the story, as you may know, one of the more interesting features of Virgin America’s entertainment system is its chat capabilities, which allow you to converse with other people on the flight. This was tightly integrated into the in-flight Entourage experience, as the crew asked everyone to login to the chat room and mention their most memorable moment from the previous four seasons of the show for a chance to win a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne. Of course, the chat also provided an opportunity to get to know some of the other travelers and discuss the premiere after it was showed over the entertainment system.

Once on the ground, the party moved over to The Palms, where my camera phone captured some of the most spectacular views I’ve ever seen (if city sky lines are your thing), which were immediately uploaded to Facebook. From there, the real world social networking began, with the usual furious exchange of business cards leading to the mandatory social profile connecting the next day.

While putting in an honest day’s work on Friday from my hotel room, I set my sights on the evening’s activities. After running a few disappointing Google searches that were dominated heavily by annoying SEO-gauged content, I moved onto Yelp for reviews of places to go. What’s great about reading user reviews versus the generic ones provided by the many of the sites atop the search listings for terms like “Vegas nightlife” are that just about every review provides value of some sort, as one person’s negatives (“it was too crowded!”) are another’s positives.

After reading reviews of dozen’s of places, my indecisiveness was ultimately cured by some new Facebook friends who were heading over to Tao, a nightclub at the Venetian. From there, my Twitter timeline documents much of the night, including talk of a Michael Phelps sighting from the night before and even a celebrity encounter of my own – or so I thought. Of course, there comes a point in any good night out in Vegas where your Twittering *should* come to an end, and I certainly made sure to disconnect once that point was reached

As for the moral of the story, for me, not only was the trip a ridiculously good time, but also a reminder that some of these tools that many take for granted and others often question the value of really do have a purpose. When used properly, they can do an excellent job of making your travel experiences more fun and social – especially when going it alone. As for the season premiere, I think Entourage fans will definitely enjoy it, but I’ll leave the TV reviews for another day and a different blog (feel free to leave comments about the show though after watching the premiere!).

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Lots and lots of advertising companies are taking the opportunity given by the recent Google-Yahoo search advertising trial and the subsequent autumn revelation made by the Google CEO last month to let the U.S. Department of Justice know they’re not so comfortable with the recent dealings between the two largest search giants on the Web. The ANA, or the Association of National Advertisers, a group that collectively manages north of $100 billion in business, decided to issue a letter today to the assistant attorney general of the antitrust arm of the DOJ.

According to Dawn Kawamoto of CNET News, the ANA, which “includes a range of Fortune 500 companies such as the Kellogg Co. and The Proctor & Gamble Co. to Johnson & Johnson and The Walt Disney Co.,” the delivery was preceded by “a comprehensive and independent analysis of its members” as well as “in-person discussions with (Google and Yahoo).”

As has been mentioned by many a news and analysis source, Google last week celebrated it’s 10th year in operation, and in light of the milestone its VP of search products and user experience, Marissa Miller, spoke with the LA Times about the company’s presence in advertising following its DoubleClick acquisition in 2007 (made official in March 2008). If trends continue, the company’s numbers are only growing larger. In fact, the ANA foresees that “a Google-Yahoo partnership will control 90 percent of search advertising inventory” which will in turn “likely diminish competition, increase concentration of market power, limit choices currently available and potentially raise prices to advertisers for high quality, affordable search and advertising.”

All things considered, this news only adds further to the fairly compressed period of trouble for the last several months have been for Google. Yahoo as well. Google is now being hit with increased privacy concerns from European reaches, the US Government, consumer advocates, city and town residents, and various other parties big and small. Yahoo, meanwhile, is coming off an attempt by Microsoft to purchase its business, an effort which Redmond abandoned, only to see activist investor Carl Icahn net three Yahoo Board seats for himself and two other individuals, a story which seems far from complete. Where will this go? Perhaps not the way Google and Yahoo originally intended for. The extra level of attention given by the ANA that regulators parsing the deal between both companies cannot weight kindly. Keep in mind, it is only weeks until the “grace period” given to inspectors by Google and Yahoo is through.

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UPDATED: It’s no cheap exercise to implement a surveillance system to record what goes on at home or at one’s place of business. And as for the hardware, it can still be a pricey endeavor. As with most anything else, much depends on engineering and utility. But there’s a name that seeks to extend such artificial eyes into what it calls Web 2.0 video storage, and do so very inexpensively. GoToMyCamera, based in Palo Alto, Calif., operates with the aid of Amazon’s S3 cloudware and enables remote access to video (”surveillance-as-a-service”) at a rate that many will financially regard to be very manageable.

Let’s get right into the numbers. According to GoToMyCamera, part of Eptascape Inc (no affiliation to Citrix, the maker of GoToMyPC), there exist three plans operating on a month-to-month contract. While sign-up costs $5 across the board, a Solo account, allowing for 1 camera, 1 user, and 100 MB of included storage space ($0.25 for extra 100 allotments), will cost just $5. Basic will run you $10 per month, enabling 4 cameras, 1 user, and 200 MB included. And despite what the website may describe, it is $0.50 for each additional 200MB of space.

Higher still is GoToMyCamera’s Business plan, costing $30/month for service with a 10-camera allowance, 10 users, 500 MB included cloud storage. For each additional 500MB, it is $1.50.

There’s a bit of a disparity in the extra storage allotments offered among the Solo, Basic, and Business plans. If storage should be proportional, 500MB would be $1.25 rather than the published $1.50. We’ve contacted the folks behind GoToMyCamera about this. We’ll let you know of their response.

Yet, even with these adjustments, the cost/service ratio is intriguing. Once you have one, two, four, ten network cameras (only Axis Network cameras supported at present), and connect them as required, material pushed to the Web is easily accessed. Vacation on the mind? Perhaps you’re just across town and want to maintain a connection. This is one way to do that - and keep lots of dollars in your pocket.

Update: Marco Graziano of GoToMyCamera wrote back to us about the matter over storage pricing. Here is his reply in full:

I have tried intentionally to keep only storage for additional fees over the monthly fee. It is true that there is an (intentional) small discrepancy between the $0.25/100MB for Solo subscribers and the $1.50/500MB for the Business subscribers. On the other hand, Business subscribers have up to 10 times the cameras of the Solo subscribers with increased bandwidth costs that is not a factor in the pricing. It is not easy to map what Amazon S3 charges us into a simple schema for end-users and this is an initial attempt. I would like to refrain from using number of “HTTP PUTS” and bandwidth in the pricing schema for our subscribers. Somehow they need to be factored in. We will be able to refine the pricing once we have a better understanding of the common usage patterns in real situations.

An interesting statement emerged on NewTeeVee today. Post author Chris Albrecht quotes Roku VP of consumer products “It’s unfortunate that the limitless possibilities are being capped by an ISP [Comcast], but it has no direct business impact on us.” Roku, for those unaware, is in a partnership with Netflix to deliver streaming movies on a $99 buy-in deal fully subsidized through one’s monthly rental subscription cost. Comcast, meanwhile, will be initiating a bandwidth limit of 250GB for residential broadband users per month starting in October.

Let me say that 1) the limits to be enact could have a direct business impact on Roku, and 2) of course the company will say otherwise. The reason being that it is in Roku’s interest to disregard changes at Comcast. If it were to complain in ways that prospective users would notice, it might risk cutting into sales by dissuading shoppers concerned about hitting the data limit. And at this point in time, Roku likely doesn’t need such disruptions to its output.

VP Tim Twerdhal says that consumers’ choice of downstream video bitrates allows Roku to safely stay within the bounds set by Comcast. A valid point. Equally valid is his explanation that visual quality will be sustained while bitrates drop as the technologies involved improve and advance. But such progress is a relative unknown to Comcast’s very real “cut-off.”

Furthermore, it only takes knowledge of existence a limit - not too big or too small - to influence consumer decisions. Give a user warning of what might be if he/she were to seek the full potential (or close to it) of modern conveniences like high-quality media downloads, and that tricky thing known as deliberation creeps into the picture. A user might begin to weight the pros and cons of his/her situation. And that eventually eats into interconnected economies. With the movie/TV download sector being one of the hungriest around today.

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Germany’s Office for Information Security, also known as the BSI, has apparently looked at Google’s Chrome browser and felt a pinch of uneasy déjà vu (a la Microsoft), only this time sensing that the company behind the software wants to know too much about you, too often. As a result, the BSI is advising anyone who’ll listen to steer clear of the crayon invader’s brand new beta. At least for anything other than experimental tasks.

Though this isn’t a warning stretched to the whole EU, the fact is that the BSI’s red flag has been shown by a number of German media stalwarts, including Berliner Zeitung and Tagesschau, the second of which is a news program widely viewed by the public. Which makes for fairly substantial news. And just so we’re thorough, the way we’ve learned of this official relay is the through the German blog Spreeblick, sourced by Philipp Lensen of Google Blogoscoped. Lensen summarized the matter thusly:

The Federal Office for Information Security warned Internet users of the new browser Chrome. The application by the company Google should not be used for surfing the Internet, as a spokesperson for the office told the Berliner Zeitung. It was said to be problematic that Chrome was distributed as an unfinished advance version. Furthermore it was said to be risky that user data is hoarded with a single vendor. With its search engine, email program and the new browser, Google now covers all important areas on the Internet.

To be honest, a part of me wishes to draw a bit of humor from this news chain. After all, it’s not as if Google hasn’t walked this line before. It manages vast amounts of user data, regularly distributes “unfinished advance version(s)” of software and services, and generally gives privacy hawks the willies. On the other hand, we knew this moment would come.

All this conversation about Google this and Google that, Google so easy and Google so smart. The Chrome project aggregates pretty much every concern into one quick install. Naturally the whistle gets blown. This time from Germany’s own BSI. The issue of security can really only be compounded by the fears of a one-stop shop for both corporation and criminal. The premise of those fears: Google Chrome equals Google Concentrate. “Getting to know you, getting to know all about you,” goes the song.

There’s more of this on its way, to be sure. Regardless of intent or execution, words of caution ring more loudly than calm, and with holes in Chrome to fill, it’s easy to see why various folks would prefer people dabble rather than dive. No doubt, this discussion will be an open one for long time hence, and Google as it is known today will never escape the cloud of suspicion that hovers ever more darkly. All the company can do now is…deal.

Just to lay the cards fully out onto the table, I used Google Translate to put articles from both Berliner Zeitung and Spreeblick into poor, algorithmically-arranged English.

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As we noted earlier, the 2008 Paralympic Summer Games in Beijing held their official opener on Saturday. The next week and a half will bring roughly 4,000 athletes from 150 countries into one athletic village, challenging one another for hundreds of medals gold, silver and bronze in nearly two dozen sports. With that in mind, if you’re keen on taking in the views and the news as they come from the Chinese capital, here are a few places to stay abreast and in tune.

While the NBCOlympics.com isn’t playing host to events scheduled through the 17th of the month, when the Paralympic games officially wrap up, the NBC Universal Sports website is, according to Alan Schwarz of The New York Times’ Rings blog, slated to present 50 hours of live coverage, as well as on-demand footage. In order to watch live coverage, viewers in the US will be required to schedule their days to an early morning routine, seeing as how many events will take place as early as 5 AM ET.

So far, two videos are presented in the Universal Sports archive: one for the opening ceremony held Saturday; the other a highlight reel of the ceremony plus coverage of a portion of Day 1 events. As for software compatibility, video is not presented in Silverlight, nor Flash, but in Windows Media format. Mac users can view coverage through a browser plugin called Flip4Mac. Personal experience shows this option to stutter and flicker at points, but it is a mostly decent delivery.

Another way to watch the Paralympic games up close is through ParalympicSportTV. This is done through Narrowstep, and while video detail isn’t particularly outstanding, the channel is tagged with the IPC (International Paralympic Committee) label, an association which might be of interest to some. If you have trouble viewing content at the main ParalympicSportTV page, an archive has also been established on YouTube. Nearly three dozen clips have been added to the collection so far.

Want extra reading material to go with the IPC’s coverage? The committee president, Sir Philip Craven, has gone ahead and created a blog, to which he has posted daily items for a short time. The broader Paralympic.org website is home to a good amount of news and resource information, too.

Across the Atlantic, the BBC offers a page within its Sport section devoted to Paralympic happenings. Of course, there’s ample focus on competitors from Team Great Britain, but according to BBC News, live streams are being offered “for six hours a day through the red button.” Quite thorough, I think. That is in addition to evening showings on BBC2 and via the BBC’s iPlayer service.

Lastly, being an American, I think it behooves me to briefly mention the U.S. Paralympics Team website, which is just chock-full of material to pore over. It last links to news stories, video clips, photo galleries, event results, and even a link to Universal Sports’s Paralympic coverage. Plus, if what you see gets you interested enough to take part in paralympic game play yourself, you can head over to its event page to see if something is happening in your area in the near future.

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If a post on Facebook’s developer blog is accurate, you have less than a week to make your call for no change. That’s right, no change. a group of members have coalesced behind a petition, massing together “Against the ‘New Facebook’” to send Zuckerberg and the rest of them out in Palo Alto a message: “We’re not saying get rid of the new layout, just that they should keep the old one and let us choose which layout we want like skins. Color options would be good too.”

As Compete’s trendspotters made known this past week, many Facebook users have switched over to the “new” Facebook, also called “beta,” only to revert back to the old way. Yet, the company is choosing to switch the network over by default in a matter of days, not months, as I myself envisioned it would. If you’re not fond of the idea of a site-wide shift, join the gentle opposition. Their goal at present is to reach 1 million registrants. As of 7:50 PM ET Saturday, they collectively number 424k-strong. The count has been 11 42 days in the making. Thousands enter the fold by the hour. All to invoke no change, but rather, a choice. Where do you fall? (Note: We made mention of a parallel movement yesterday, less than half the size, with nearly the same title. It happens.)

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As we noted late last month, Google affixed its name to the GeoEye Inc’s GeoEye-1 satellite, in order that the Web giant get dibs on some high-resolution imagery produced of our little planet in orbit. Well, today marked the blastoff sequence, followed by a successful launch.

According to the AP, it started fighting gravity at 11:50 AM today from vertical stasis at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Video posted to the GeoEye website marks the occasion.

GeoEye isn’t just a rudimentary upgrade to satellite photography of typical Google Maps-like order. It’s designers regard it as having “the highest resolution of any commercial imaging system,” with the capability to show detail within one square foot or so. And of course, Google isn’t the exclusive name to share space on the cylinder of GeoEye-1. Boeing Launch Services provided the rocket, and its purpose will be “environmental matting to agriculture and defense.” Nonetheless, Google will reap fruits of the digicam’s labor. The data begins to flow in 45-60 days’ time, said Google’s Kate Hurowitz in late August.

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So a whole lot of people thought Microsoft’s Silverlight technology warranted an install to watch the summer games in Beijing at NBCOlympics.com. And another big crowd felt different, thinking, among other things, that the use of Adobe Flash would naturally suit them just as well.

Following the main events in China (the Paralympics opened today), the limit of Microsoft’s exclusivity deal with NBC was made clear this past week when NBC broadcast live coverage of the NFL’s opening game between the New York Giants and the Washington Redskins in celebratory preparation to do the very same for games occurring every Sunday night for duration of the next 17 weeks - and all in Flash. NFL.com, too, displayed Thursday’s game and will routinely cover Sunday matches here on in.

The no-show-Silverlight talk doesn’t end there. Suzanne Tindal of CNET’s Webware quoted Microsoft senior program manager by the name of Scott Hanselman as having said at the company’s own Tech.Ed conference that “we’re going to see a 100- to 1,000-fold speed increase in JavaScript as Google and the guys at Mozilla…kick us in the arse.” Furthermore, Jonas Follesø of Cap Gemini, an IT and business consultancy, commented that JavaScript will pose a serious challenge to Silverlight - more so than Flash has thus far.

An interesting position for Silverlight to find itself in, for sure. As it is basically known, Silverlight is a platform for developing rich Internet applications. More so with the 2.0 beta than with versions to come before, given its support for .NET and so forth. Therefore, juxtapositions with both Flash and JavaScript are rightfully made. Which means that if Silverlight is to have any chance at the kind of ubiquity shown by its more common competitors, it needs to do far more than solidify video delivery partnerships with the likes of NBC. It must inhabit a vast supply of Web applications of all types. Which, to speak reasonably here, isn’t so inevitable. Years of assimilation among Web users needs to happen to achieve an all-around permanence. Flash and JavaScript developers know this. Unfortunately for Microsoft, those forces didn’t have monsters of such dimensions to spar with.

It’s not an impossibility for Silverlight to grow, mind you. Given the right level of attention to the platform, Microsoft could mark its Olympic foray as only the first big starter in the long slog toward mass adoption. But “could” is the key word. The hill climbs (yes, climbs plural) will be trying. One, as I noted above, is to convince the public of its validity and utility in the presence of two semi-household names. There’s a toughie.

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