O’Reilly Conferences and TechWeb are presenting Web 2.0 Expo, and are offering TechCrunch readers $100 off of the conference with the discount code “webny08po1″. Thank You O’Reilly.

MediaTemple, TechCrunch’s exclusive hosting provider, and a worldwide leader in managed hosting solutions across all major platforms

MailChimp, a provider of turnkey e-mail marketing services

SocialText, the creator of wiki-oriented webware for the enterprise space

eBuddy, a webware meta instant messaging client

Conduit, the makers of the Crunchbar, and other toolbars

Seesmic a video micro-blogging service

ServePath the maker of GoGrid, and other cloudware products

Code42 the makers of CrashPlanPro, an automatic backup solution

RackSpace a provider of managed hosting solutions

LogicWorks a managed hosting provider

Geni, a leading tool to bring families together online

BrightCove a platform for Internet TV

3Tera a cloud computing provider

Does this remind you of your job? Maybe you should check out the latest job listings on CrunchBoard. Here is a sample from the past week:

• VP of Engineering
  Federate Media – San Francisco, CA
• Senior QA Engineer
  CastTV – San Francsico, CA
• Senior Web/Business Analyst
  Digg.com – San Francisco,CA
• CTO/Co-Founder
  Empatica3 – San Francisco, CA or New York, NY
• Senior PHP Developer
  Fluidesign – Santa Monica, CA
• Online Developer
  Jackson Hewitt -Parsippany, NJ
• Web Developer Extraordinaire
  Janus Health – San Diego, CA

We are also looking for a Ruby Developer to work on CrunchBase at the TechCrunch HQ in Atherton, CA.

International readers can check out our British and French job boards as well.

Does this picture remind you of your office a little too much? It may be time to check out the latest job listings on CrunchBoard. Here’s a sample from the past week:

• VP of Network Management
  Technorati – San Francisco, CA
• Software Developer
  Wikimedia – San Francsico, CA
• DHTML/AJAX Web Application Developer
  Oracle – Redwood Shores,CA
• Product Manager
  MySpace Mobile – Beverly Hills, CA
• Database Developer
  MySpace – Beverly Hills, CA
• New Initiatives Group Web Developer
  TripAdvisor -Newton, MA
• Senior Lead Developer
  Microsoft – Dublin, Ireland

We’re looking for someone who can do graphic design on a project basis as TechCrunch50 approaches, so if you are interested send an e-mail to Dan Kimerling and make sure that your subject line reads “Graphic Designer”. We are also looking for a Ruby Developer to work on CrunchBase at the TechCrunch HQ in Atherton, CA.

International readers can check out our British and French job boards as well.

Sponsors make TechCrunch possible, and so we wish to thank the following sponsors for their support.

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ServePath, the makers of GoGrid and other managed hosting, cloudware, and serving solutions

Codefortytwo, the maker of CrashPlanPro and other software

RackSpace, a provider of hosting services

eBuddy, web-services meta instant messenger

Logicworks, a hosting services provider

iDrive, the maker of web-based backup solutions

iNetU, a provider of managed hosting solutions

Geni, the premier web tool for bringing families together

BrightCove, an Internet TV Platform

MediaTemple, TechCrunch’s own hosting provider

SocialText, the maker of social software for businesses and organizations

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Conduit, the makers of toolbars, including the CrunchBar

Interested in becoming a TechCrunch sponsor?

See details here or contact Dan Kimerling.

Thank you to our terrific sponsors, who make TechCrunch possible.

Codefortytwo, the maker of CrashPlanPro and other software

RackSpace, a provider of hosting services

eBuddy, web-services meta instant messenger

Logicworks, a hosting services provider

iDrive, the maker of web-based backup solutions

iNetU, a provider of managed hosting solutions

Geni, the premier web tool for bringing families together

BrightCove, an Internet TV Platform

MediaTemple, TechCrunch’s own hosting provider

SocialText, the maker of social software for businesses and organizations

3Tera, a provider of cloud computing services

CrunchBar

TechCrunch sponsor Conduit has added a CrunchBase search widget to CrunchBar, our customized toolbar with TechCrunch headlines, Twitter feeds, and more. Now you can easily query CrunchBase for data wherever you are on the internet.

We want the CrunchBar to serve your needs, so please leave any suggestions you may have for it in the comments. The person with the best suggestion will win a TechCrunch T-Shirt.

Interested in becoming a TechCrunch sponsor?

See details here or contact Dan Kimerling.

Tucked away on the iPhone 2.0 version of Apple’s Application Store is a counter for the number of times that each application has been purchased . When this information is combined with an application’s price, and the uniform 30% that Apple pockets on each download, it is possible to know how much Apple is making from the App Store. As of 4PM (PST), that number hovers around $55,000. This is pretty incredible given that the iPhone 2.0 software is not officially available and App Store does not officially open till tomorrow, that bloggers have only been able to access the Apps Store for less than 18 hours, and that the 3G iPhone, with the App store built in out of the box, is not even on sale yet in the United States. If sales of applications stay at the current pace, which they won’t, because they are going to speed up dramatically, the Application Store would still provide Apple with an additional twenty million dollars of revenue per year.

Embedded in the post is a simple revenue model for the App Store, using the fifty most popular applications. We will update this regularly, hopefully including all of the 100 most popular Apps, so stay posted for more data points and more revenue models. That is, unless Apple disables the counter in order to stymie bloggers and stock analysts eager to know how much incremental income Apple is going to make from selling Applications in the App Store.

Read More

Today, Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama voted for H.R.6304, which amends the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (F.I.S.A). In doing so he voted to give telecommunication providers immunity against civil damages that they might incur in the course of enabling the government to execute wiretaps and other types of electronic surveillance. He did so, after an amendment to the bill that would have stripped out the immunity provision, S.Amdt. 5064, was defeated 32-66. In voting for the bill, Obama acted in direct contradiction to his earlier statements. In 2007 Bill Burton, an Obama campaign spokesman, said “To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.”

The original F.I.S.A statute was passed in 1978 in order to protect civil liberties against overly expansive government surveillance, and had clear penalties of $100 per person, per day, plus punitive damages, for telecommunications companies that conducted electronic surveillance without judicial oversight. Given that each day tens of millions of people have their data go across the networks of some of the larger telcos, the risk that these companies faced by working with the government on extra-judicial wiretaps was extreme. In giving companies that work with the government immunity from these penalties, H.R. 6304, and Barack Obama who voted for it, just took away the only reason stopping AT&T, Verizon, and others from helping the government use extra-judicial wiretaps. In voting for the bill, Obama not only helped the telco’s, but also broke his promise to protect the American people from expansive government surveillance.

The image above was created with this site, which lets you add whatever message you want to Obama’s campaign platform.

Note that TechCrunch endorsed Barack Obama, partially on his policies towards telecommunications companies.

Anyone who’s applied to college has dealt with the frustration of standardize testing. With the cost of failure so high, parents and grads continue to spend a lot of cash on test preparation to ensure the best results. However, there’s a crop of web startups popping up to ease the pain and we’re all benefiting from the competition.

Prepme is one online test prep company coming out of the University of Chicago’s business incubator. Founded in 2001, the company offers test preparation for the SAT, PSAT, and ACT, using an adaptive algorithm to customize the preparation course for each student.

Unlike Kaplan’s online offering, Prepme doesn’t calculate the best lesson plan once, but continuously as you work your way through the material. Their system keeps track of what questions you get right and wrong, working you harder on the types of questions you miss.

Additionally, customers can connect electronically, using real time chat, with high scoring college students who serve as tutors.

With test prep for the SAT alone being a $130 million dollar-a-year industry, using web 2.0 technology to help students seems like a logical move. Seeing the threat, some of the major players in the industry, like Kaplan or Princeton Review, have been attempting to develop online test prep products to compete with new online offering like Prepme. Prepme charges around $300 to $500 for their lessons compared with Kaplan’s lowest offering costing $400.

At the same time, Prepme is expanding the tests which they provide preparation for to include the GMAT, MCAT, and LSAT and partnering with brick and mortar companies to provide comprehensive test-preparation services. Additionally, the company signed a contract earlier this year to provide their services to every high school junior in the state of Maine.

See also our coverage of Grockit, a Silicon Valley startup focusing on helping students study for the GMAT via P2P ideas evolved through MMOGs..