Float (no, not that Float – what is with the duplicate names for startups lately?), is a new, minimilist scheduling application for teams. The software comes from the New York-based startup Pixel Paddock, whose three co-founders have some 30 years of combined digital agency experience behind them. They know first-hand what agencies need, and designed the software to suit. But agencies aren’t the only ones who could benefit from using Float – studios, firms, and other small teams that need a simple scheduling complement to their project management suite or current workflow may find Float useful.

Although the project/task management space seems to be a crowded field, with all-in-one solutions like Clarizen and Podio, Basecamp, and new entrants like Schedule and ResourceGuru, just to name a few, Float was designed to be easy and straightforward to use. It’s also not meant to replace more complex PM tools, only to run alongside them.

To use Float, admins set up project tasks, which they can drag-and-drop into the scheduling space. Employees are tagged with their skill set (like “Photoshop,” Javascript,” etc.) for easy search and assignment, and several built-in reports give you both a view of your team’s current utilization, their utilization over the coming weeks, or in the past. There are also built-in email notifications, so Float can send out weekly schedules to team members, as well as schedule updates.

“The trouble with agencies is that they’re the ones that have the most problems with having multiple teams and multiple projects and having to balance the time between those,” explains Glenn Rogers, CEO of the bootstrapped startup’s focus on the digital agency.

“But to be honest, Float would apply to any group of people, whether that’s freelancers with a small team under them, small studios, or even accounting firms that have clients they need to service,” he says.

To that end, Float already has 120 active accounts helping it beta test the software (for free, it should be noted). And it will continue to offer a free version in addition to the three pricing plans starting at $19/month. (Just scroll down on the pricing page – they’re sneaky about tucking away the free plan below the fold).

As for the simplicity? That was the hardest part.

“Simple is hard. Every feature that’s in this had to fight to be a feature,” says Rogers. “And we took a lot of features out because it either complicated the user flow or just wasn’t quick enough. It’s very easy to add a feature, but it’s very hard to take a feature out.”

More info on Float is available on the homepage here.

Online payments platform and PayPal competitor WePay is adding a key new feature to its easy-to-use technology—Invoicing.

For background, WePay is a Y Combinator backed startup that launched in 2009 to take the hassle out of group paying. Unlike some of its competitors, the service was able to dead simple way to collect, manage and spend money for groups. The company has since evolved into a broader offering, allowing any merchant or user a simple way to accept payments beyond just the group model.

Founder Bill Clerico tells be that the new tool was designed to match the simplicity of the payments product. Users can set up an account and start sending invoices in under a minute. Basically, users register with WePay, send invoices via email (for free) and collect payments.

Currently WePay has a ‘Bills’ feature which has been used by individuals, groups and organizations for things like membership dues and shared expenses. But the invoicing tool takes this a step further by offering a more compelling service catered towards merchants and contractors. Users can customize color schemes, add company logos, add late fees, invoice multiple recipients at once, set up recurring invoices, overdue reminders and more. WePay will charge a 3.5 percent service fee for the actual payments.

As Clerico tells us, WePay’s sweet spot has been small merchants, service providers and freelancers, who will find this feature useful.

WePay recently revealed that it exited 2011 at a multi-million dollar revenue run rate and a compounded monthly growth rate of 30 percent since launch. The company also plans to launch mobile apps in the coming year and perhaps raised another funding round.

You share music, rip DVDs, make Hitler whine about your first world problems, and much more in the course of your regular online activities—and more often than not, you do these things without giving a thought to the fact that you're actually breaking the law. Here's a look at how you're inevitably circumventing copyright law and what you can do to protect yourself. More »

I’m sitting in the packed press room for the Nokia press conference at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Stephen Elop has just come out and right off the bat praised his company’s performance in the last year, a huge one for the company in its turnaround strategy with a new operating system (Microsoft), and a shift away from its own Symbian platform. It’s proven that “We can rapidly execute our new strategy.”

Windows Phone is still accounting for less than five percent of all smartphone sales worldwide but those small numbers are not where Elop is dwelling today:

He noted that sales at T-Mobile in the U.S. have “exceeded our expectations.” And he said that Lumia 800 is the number-one selling high end smartphone… in Russia. People are lining up around the corner in Singapore trying to get the device.

Series 40 sales (feature phones) are up by 250 percent.

Now Mary McDowell is introducing new services that enhance that feature phone line, and frankly is laying out a pretty impressive move by Nokia to smarten up its feature phone line:

First off, a new suite of services called “Life Services.” Not clear whether this is related to Nokia’s acquisition of Smarterphone (feature phone specialists) earlier this year — or whether that will mean even more enhancements. A new line of games, too. These are a strong sign that Nokia has no intention of dropping those devices in its rush towards Microsoft.

Now some feature phones that look at whole lot like smartphones. Asha 202 and 203, and the 302 — a phone loaded with social media integration and a 1 GHz processor. “That’s faster than many low-end Androids,” she notes. These are, she says, “a low cost entry to smartphones.” The 302 is already shipping now and will be priced at under €100 — €95 specifically.

Another big enhancement: Microsoft Exchange is now being integrated into the new Asha devices.

Stephen Elop is back on to talk high-end.

The LTE-enabled Lumia 900 is coming to Canada, he says: “My home country.”

Jo Harlow is now on and she is confirming that the Lumia 900 is also going to start shipping without LTE for the many countries that have yet to deploy the 4G technology.

Harlow: “These [have] the same sleek progressive look and feel and the same stunning 4.3 Amoled display, the same 1800 high capacity batter that keeps consumers enjoying content all day long and the same signature experiences from Nokia.”

Nokia has made its first foray into e-reading: Nokia Reading. This is a clear sign of what it needs to do when it launches a tablet.

Also: News Stream, bringing together feeds on topics and sources into one digital magazine. Not clear if Nokia has developed this on its own or whether it has collaborated with one of the many companies like Pulse, Flipboard, Zite, Taptu and others that offer this kind of service.

This is a live story. Refresh for more updates.

When you need to create an interesting and engaging presentation for your boss, new clients, or a job interview, you have plenty of options for tools to get the job done. Plus, even though it's the industry standard, you don't have to your Microsoft PowerPoint, and many people would argue there are better tools for the job anyway. This week we're going to look at five of the best of those alternative presentation tools, based on your nominations. More »

Editor’s note: Jim Payne is CEO of mobile ad startup MoPub. Previously, n he was on the product team at Google, where he managed the Google Maps Premier product line and started Google’s real-time search initiatives. Follow him on Twitter @JimPayne.

Whether you’re a “mobile first” publisher, app developer or carrier, all eyes are set on Barcelona at the end of this month for Mobile World Congress 2012. It’s part conference, part trade show, part excuse to spend a week at extravagant parties with mobile’s biggest influencers – all wrapped up into an unparalleled four-day event. Long the mobile industry’s largest global exhibition, it attracted over 60,000 participants in 2011, including 12,000 developers, 3,000 CEOs, government delegations from 131 countries and over 1,500 media outlets.

Not long after the release of the very first iPhone, each year has been billed as “the year of mobile.” But there are signs this year may actually live up to the already-heightened expectations. Smartphone shipments in the last quarter of 2011 were higher than even the rosiest estimates, driven predominantly by the iPhone 4S, and the number of mobile devices is expected to exceed the world’s population this year. Facebook’s S-1 has revealed that 425 million monthly average users access their friends’ activities through their mobile device, growing 25 percent quarter-on-quarter. Lastly, the rapid adoption of the rich media standard Mobile Rich Media Ad Interface Definitions (MRAID) is opening the door to new opportunities for brand and performance advertisers to take advantage of the immersive capabilities of the device.

These changes will make this Mobile World Congress the one to watch. Here are four big trends I’m expecting to see at this year’s conference:

1. Alternatives to iOS and Android continue to emerge.

The endgame for mobile is clearly not upon us, as new entrants (Amazon) and old behemoths (Microsoft) invest heavily. Amazon’s strategy of building a beautiful and immersive user experience on top of the raw power and customizability of Android OS is quickly being validated. Apple’s market share in tablets dropped from Q3 to Q4 from 64 percent to 57 percent, respectively, with Amazon securing 14 percent. Microsoft’s close ties with carriers and its upcoming release of a new Windows smartphone this year, as well as Nokia’s channel partnerships, also make both these players relevant in emerging markets. Expect to see more innovation from both of these companies and likely others in the coming months.

2. Machine-to-Machine communication gains steam.

A big theme at CES this year was around smartphones controlling other devices – from televisions to garage doors to home appliances. At MWC, we’ll continue to see this trend grow and expand. We’ll see smartphones monitoring homes and controlling content – think of it as your world remote. There’s no question that both Apple and Google are making bets in this space, ranging from new TV services with Apple TV, to audio-recognition services like Siri, and programs like AirPlay. Expect to see a broader range of devices talking to other devices and the potential of smartphones and tablets to play a critical role in the process.

3. Mobile advertising shifts to “smart” and leaves feature phones for dead.

In the U.S., the smartphone has already taken over the majority of the market. While feature phones still maintain a large market share worldwide, this share will continue to decline as smartphones become more affordable. As mobile advertising increasingly takes off on smartphone platforms, brands and performance advertisers alike are shifting their focus and their budgets solely to smartphones – leaving feature phones obsolete from an advertising revenue perspective. This will likely be reflected in all parts of the mobile ecosystem and reiterated at Mobile World Congress this year.

The spotlight will shine brightly on Apple, Android and possibly even Windows – and no one is going to care (or notice) what campaigns are run on feature phones. Advertisers and agencies just aren’t seeing the same type of returns nor potential on these more limited devices, largely due to the superior native features of smartphones, such as rich media and the app potential. We’re going to see a few traditional feature phone manufacturers try to transition into the smartphone market – expect to hear more from Nokia about its new Lumia handsets. We’ll see how they attack from the low to mid-level market, and if they successfully make the jump from the sinking feature phone market. And speaking of mobile advertising, another theme will be …

4. Mobile ad networks can’t pay the piper, as publishers, games and apps take back control of their inventory.

The old, network-heavy approach to mobile ads just isn’t cutting it for major publishers. Expect to see all major publishers at the show looking to cut new types of distribution deals and control their ad inventory using a new cadre of platforms and services. Why? More money, more control and more transparency over the types of ads shown to consumers. It’s the industry’s dirty little secret. Major publishers are relying increasingly less on third-party mobile ad networks and more on direct contracts with advertisers, agencies, and demand side platforms ramping up spend on real-time bidding exchanges like MoPub Marketplace. The attendees at Mobile World Congress will likely confirm that 2012 is the year where the top 500 mobile publishers will create new in-house positions of mobile ad operations or full time team members that will control their advertising options through new dashboards. As a result, mobile publishers will grow revenues through an increase in audience but also in driving higher profits from their existing inventory.

When the dust settles on shiny new devices and fancy mobile operator announcements, it will be the four trends above that will shape the show and the industry moving forward.

[image via flickr/Tom Purves]

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