When First Solar snagged a 550-megawatt deal with Southern California Edison last year, the thin-film solar giant’s utility contracts amounted to more than its actual production capacity, BNET pointed out. As utilities continue racing to get renewable energy projects onto their books ahead of state mandates for clean power, First Solar has racked up deals large and small, scooping up projects from a couple startups along the way. The company has projects across the pond, too, but here are 10 of the deals that have been inked in the U.S. between First Solar and utilities or electric co-ops, including the one announced this morning with Pacific Gas & Electric.

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While we may not all agree on the “rules” when it comes to marketing, we can all agree that marketing has changed considerably in recent years, largely due to social media. “Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs” by HubSpot’s Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah is a primer for those looking to learn how to make the most of social media to pull in customers.

A broad book, its contents revolve around how to get prospects to find you through blogs, search engines and social media. Halligan and Shah also discuss converting customers and how to apply that to your business and web site.

The short first chapter explains what has changed in marketing, and how online technologies effected the change. The first part of the book provides little value with its brief coverage of your web site as a marketing hub and creating a remarkable strategy. Really, these first chapters set the tone for the rest of the book in that its contents are wide and shallow.

The bulk of the book rightfully focuses on “Getting Found,” with 100 pages devoted to the topic out of the book’s roughly 200. Despite that much coverage, it’s still elementary stuff. The section on converting customers only lasts for three chapters, and it needs more material than the five chapters of “Make Better Decisions.”

The “Make Better Decisions” section included a whole chapter devoted to picking a PR agency and another on how to hire the right people for your marketing team. The advice given on how to find marketers who are digital citizens, however, is outdated. For example, the suggestion to hire people based on their web reach recommends looking at how many followers they have in Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Most of us know that raw follower numbers have little value, with so many low quality users who know how to rack up the numbers.

The authors are also behind the Website Grader and Twitter Grader web sites, which they mention so frequently that at times it reads like a promotion. This book really is just a primer: You won’t glean anything new if you know the basics of search engine optimization, such as the difference between organic and paid listings, and you already know how to use social media tools and connect those tools with your business and web site. ”Inbound Marketing” does a good job for those who don’t have a clue about how to use social media for business and want to understand the bigger picture.

Have you read “Inbound Marketing?” Please share what you think in the comments.

Google’s Nexus One isn’t just a hot new Android phone — it’s an experiment. Here in the U.S., the traditional cellular model is one of subsidized hardware and handsets locked to particular carrier networks. We’ve seen unlocked phones and direct sales tried by some, such as Nokia, but by and large, that’s the exception, not the rule. So Google is trying it with direct online web sales for the Nexus One, and the first iteration is unlocked for use on either AT&T’s or T-Mobile’s network. The device isn’t in either of those carrier’s stores, but the Boy Genius Report alleges that it could be sold in Verizon Wireless retail stores. Some internal email evidence passed to BGR reportedly indicates Verizon store representatives have been receiving Nexus One handset training in support of in-store sales. So will the Nexus One be available in Verizon retail stores, as many are hoping?

I don’t think so because it doesn’t fit the current Google handset model. The number of Nexus One handsets expected to move this year was recently revised downward, so could Google modify its sales strategy and have Verizon directly sell the device? It could, but it’s not likely. Besides, a million phones is a pretty solid start for an entirely new sales and support model. Google is trying to shake up the industry — first with its Android operating system and now with direct sales — so giving in now to the traditional cellular market approach would lessen the impact of that shake-up.

Opinions aside, more telling is an email conversation I had late last week with a Verizon Wireless spokesperson. I was asking about the Apple lawsuit against HTC, wondering if that could stall plans to sell the Verizon version of Google’s Nexus One — the handset is built by HTC and specifically mentioned in the suit. I understandably didn’t get a response on that front because the company doesn’t comment on lawsuits between other entities. But I also asked about the rumored March 23 release date for the Nexus One on Verizon’s network — Google specifically shows “Spring 2010″ availability on the Nexus One product page — the response to which sheds light on the type of relationship Google has with Verizon with respect to the Nexus One:

“[W]e have never said that we were going to sell the Nexus One.  What was said was the phone was to work on the Verizon Wireless network.  That is very different from saying we were going to sell the phone in our stores.”

The spokesperson also said:

“You would have to contact Google for anything associated with the device.  We have a number of wholesale customers — it is an important part of our business but that doesn’t mean we speak for them or their products.   It would be inappropriate for me to discuss a phone that we’re not selling.”

Although it’s not a direct confirmation of who will actually sell the phone, it sounds pretty clear to me — Google will be directly selling the Nexus One for use on the Verizon Network as a wholesale partner. That fits with the sales model that Google started and while the Boy Genius Report could be right, I just don’t see why Google would change it now.

I do believe that the model’s biggest weakness is the lack of in-store devices, however. For a tech enthusiast like myself, it wasn’t a problem to purchase a Nexus One sight unseen. But mainstream consumers understandably want to look at, play with and handle hardware before investing in a new purchase. Fewer devices are more personal than a phone — for most, it’s the one device you’re likely to always have with you. So making such a personal purchase based on reviews and a web page is a tough sell.

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Watching the iPad’s first television spot on the Oscars Sunday night, I got giddy all over again in anticipation of getting my hands on this hot new product. Though it’s still a few weeks away, I’m even more excited for the applications that will be coming to the platform. Here’s my top 10 list of apps that I want to see developed for the iPad.

Coda

As a graphic designer and web developer, Coda is a staple in my workflow. It features a built-in FTP system, which could be problematic to port to a mobile device, considering there isn’t a traditional file structure to store data. However, perhaps the iPad’s new file storage system will provide an adequate solution. Regardless, as someone who codes, it would be awesome to sit next to a client and modify code and push changes to a site all from my iPad while they load and test the revisions on their own desktop.

Photoshop

Before you laugh, remember that Adobe has already released Photoshop Mobile for the iPhone, and all things considered, it’s not such a bad application. A larger iPad version could allow support for opening and manipulating native Photoshop files as well as working between multiple files. CS4 introduced a new tabbed approach to viewing multiple documents at once. A similar setup could easily be implemented on the iPad.

Katamari Damacy

What’s a fun touchscreen device without a fun game? Katamari already exists as an iPhone app so it’ll scale up decently on the iPad. But given the advanced graphics of the iPad and the larger screen, a native iPad version is a must. If you’ve never played Katamari, check out this clip below.

iMovie

Call me crazy (it doesn’t hurt to be wishful) but the feasibility of an iMovie-like app is certainly within the realm of possibility. I would have never expected Apple to introduce video editing on the iPhone. Nevertheless, along with a video camera, the iPhone 3GS allows for simple video edits. Why couldn’t we have a larger implementation of this on the iPad, provided it gains a video camera at some point? With the larger screen, there’s plenty of room to view a larger timeline, add transitions or effects and with one tap, upload your masterpiece to YouTube.

iChat

I’m actually quite surprised this app still hasn’t made it to the iPhone yet, but as a platform that’s designed to be “the best way to experience the web, email, photos and video,” the iPad seems like the perfect device for iChat, especially if a future model gains a video camera.

Screen Sharing or Remote Desktop

There have been a number of third-party developers that have created similar apps for the iPhone, but I’m honestly shocked to see that Apple hasn’t implemented its own solution yet. With a larger screen and almost full-size keyboard, remotely accessing and interacting with other Macs on my network would be a breeze on the iPad.

Preview

While the iBooks application will open books that are in EPUB format, I’d love to see a more robust implementation of Preview available on the iPad (and iPhone). Specifically, an app that is capable of annotating PDF files and provides support for links within PDFs. Since I’m also an academic, some of the journals I read (as PDFs) contain bookmarks to other articles or chapters and currently, none of the built-in applications on the iPhone support interacting with them.

Hulu

I don’t care how it has to happen or if it involves Flash or not. Who doesn’t want Hulu on the iPad? Even if it required a small subscription, I would love to be able to access my Hulu queue on the go. Better yet, since the iPad is a closed system, the app could download and cache content so it wouldn’t necessarily have to be streamed in real time. This could be a great solution to save AT&T’s crowded bandwidth for 3G models and allow WiFi-only models to still play even if a network isn’t around. I’d pay for that; would you?

Bento/Filemaker

Now that we have iWork, how about a real implementation of Bento (or FileMaker if that’s not too much to ask)? The current iPhone version is pretty pathetic and really hard to use to manipulate larger databases. While FileMaker may be a stretch, I’d put serious money on seeing an iPad version of Bento before the year is out.

An Improved iTunes App

It looks as though the new iTunes app represents a step ahead of the current iPhone version, but there are still some missing features that would make this app a rock star on the iPad. Adding support for Internet radio, browsing my other libraries by Home Sharing or support for iTunes Extras and LPs would be amazing. Honestly, why hasn’t Apple announced support of iTunes Extras and LPs? The specs call for a viewing area of 1280×720 (the 720p high definition standard). They also call for building your iTunes Extras with what’s called a bleed graphic, or a graphic that can “fill in the extra space” if you’re viewing it at a size greater than 1280×720. Now given that as a way to compensate for a difference in aspect ratios, if you were to scale down an iTunes Extra for the 1024×768 display, wouldn’t it just make sense? Come on, if the Apple TV can do it (and we all know how excited Apple gets about that product), shouldn’t the iPad as well?

What are your thoughts on apps you’d like to see? Share your thoughts in the comments below. The great thing about Apple’s developer community is that they keep up with what’s discussed in the blogosphere. You never know; a developer might see your suggestions. So, share what you’d like to see on the iPad!

When it was first unveiled, Apple’s new iTunes LP format -– codenamed “Cocktail” and introduced at a “rock and roll event” in San Francisco -– promised to give consumers a new reason to buy albums instead of individual songs. Offering expanded cover art, lyrics, videos, animation and other digital goodies, iTunes LP was intended to evoke the feeling of spinning an LP record and holding the jacket in your hands. Especially when paired with a tablet computer (then rumored, now real) that would provide a new way to view large-format art, consumers were promised a digital experience that mimicked a physical one.

Six months later, however, iTunes LP doesn’t prompt much consumer recognition, and none of the industry sources with whom I spoke said they viewed it as being anywhere close to game-changing from a format perspective. Rather, it’s considered more of a curiosity. Like an enhanced CD or a DVD packaged with a physical album, iTunes LP’s bonus materials may interest super-fans, but they aren’t generating much buzz among mainstream consumers, and don’t appear to be stimulating LP sales at all. “It’s something most people will look at once,” is how one person put it.

It’s somewhat ironic that the very company that atomized the album in order to sell individual tracks -– one of many causes for the music industry’s decade-long tailspin –- has encouraged the rebundling of songs with iTunes LP. But I’m told by an industry source who preferred to remain anonymous that iTunes LP wasn’t Apple’s idea in the first place. Rather, it’s the result of the same renegotiations between Apple and the major record labels that yielded DRM-free songs and flexible pricing early last year, a concession by Cupertino to make a gesture in favor of album sales as consumers increasingly show a preference for digital singles.

One person who worked on an iTunes LP project said Apple subsidized the initial group of LP editions, which were created by the company’s handpicked third-party developer at costs of up to $60,000. All are issued in “deluxe edition” releases that feature extra tracks, typically priced a few dollars higher than iTunes’ customary $9.99. Neither Apple nor anyone else I spoke with was able to break out sales figures, but sources in various parts of the music industry agreed that the financial impact of iTunes LP on record sales has been tiny, if it’s had any effect at all.

Only 29 LPs are currently for sale in the iTunes store, about a dozen of which were available when the format was launched. Several are catalog albums, meaning that only a couple of new releases each month appear as iTunes LPs. The same person who participated in an iTunes LP project said, “If it costs $50,000 or $60,000, we’re not going to do it again,” although at the same time, acknowledged that Apple’s extra promotion of the release in conjunction with iTunes LP helped it become a moneymaker after all.

Not every project will cost so much. Apple opened a developer kit for iTunes LP in the fall, enabling artists to craft album packages independently. Direct-to-fan marketing tools developer Topspin Media handled a December release for Pixies spinoff band The Everybody, touting it as the first iTunes LP release sold outside the iTunes store. But a Topspin spokesman told me interest in iTunes LP was generally quite meager among artists with which Topspin had worked.

Although the format was initially seen as tailor-made for tablet computing, Apple hasn’t yet done much to promote the iPad as a music device. When Jobs stepped onstage again in January to introduce the iPad, iTunes LP was barely present. The music segment of the presentation was less than 60 seconds long, and although an iTunes LP was visible as Jobs spoke, he never mentioned the format. No one I spoke to said the imminent availability of the iPad had generated interest in new iTunes LP projects.

As it turns out, most artists and labels are pursuing a different avenue for their digital goodies: iTunes’ wildly popular App Store. Numerous artists have released lyrics, videos and other content in both free and paid apps, which also serve as channels for artist news and can be updated with new content anytime.

It’s still possible that once a few million iPads are in consumers’ hands, and with a few more ambitious iTunes LP releases — like the 760-megabyte package for the new album from Gorillaz — the format will prove to be an essential component of a digital album. It’s also possible that iTunes LP will continue to have a miniscule financial impact on record sales, merely providing a small bonus for a dwindling audience of album-oriented fans. At least with its effort and investment in the format, Apple can say it made a redoubled effort to undo the damage it did to last century’s record industry by selling songs one at a time.

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Now here’s a killer app for the throngs of geeks about to descend on Austin later this week: TabbedOut. The iPhone application allows users to order, review and pay for their tabs at local bars. It sounds like the perfect fix for those full-to-the-gills parties SXSW is known for. Unfortunately, TabbedOut is only available at a limited selection of venues for now — just 35 in Austin, including popular SXSW party stops The Blind Pig Club, Beerland and Mohawk.

“Having just launched in January, the integration hurdle is where we are now,” said Rick Orr, CEO of TabbedOut maker ATX Innovation, in a phone interview. But the company is trying to make the most out of an influx of its exact target audience of smartphone users at crowded bars by releasing an Android app on March 15 and handing out three free tabs to all users in Austin during SXSW.

The way TabbedOut works is you store your credit or debit card account on your phone, then file your order through the app. It pops up on the merchant’s point-of-sale system for them to fulfill your order and accept your payment (right now TabbedOut is integrated with Future POS and Jumpware). Users pay a convenience fee of 99 cents.

The concept is similar to one of my favorite iPhone apps, Taxi Magic, which lets me hail and pay for cabs without dealing with a phone dispatcher, cash or credit cards for a $1.50 fee.

Orr said that TabbedOut’s next core locations will be New York, New Jersey, LA and the San Francisco Bay Area. ATX has raised a Series A round from investors including Trellis Partners and Raven Capital Partners.

SXSW seems like an opportune time for other payments startups to have their own coming out parties. We contacted Square — the mobile transaction company founded by Jack Dorsey of previous SXSW breakout success Twitter — to ask about its SXSW plans but haven’t heard back yet.

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