Adobe just announced a bunch of upgrades to Acrobat.com, its suite of web collaboration applications. The most important: It’s releasing an application for the iPhone and BlackBerry.

Mobile support has been a big missing piece for Acrobat.com, since a big selling point of applications like Adobe’s (as well as Google Docs and the upcoming web versions of Microsoft Office) is the ability to access your documents anywhere. Now Acrobat.com users can not only read and share files from their phones, but also upload documents and send faxes.

Acrobat.com started out as a free service, but in June it launched premium versions, where users pay for web meetings and the ability to create PDF documents. The mobile app follows that model. Free users can send two faxes and upload up to five documents from their phone each month, but if you want to do more, you’ll have to upgrade to a pay version.

The other major improvement is the creation of a central environment to view all your files in Acrobat.com, rather than having to view all your documents in Buzzword, all your spreadsheets in Tables, and all your presentations in, uh, Presentations. This may be what Product Manager Erik Larson was referring to when I asked him in June about future improvements, and he said, “I don’t necessarily think presentations, spreadsheets, documents are these three separate things, even though I know that’s the way the world thinks right now.”

The new version of Acrobat.com will launch at 3am Pacific on Saturday, Nov. 21. Larson told me in June that the site has 5 million registered users. (I’ve asked for more recent numbers and will update if I receive them.)

Facebook has banned offer providers Gambit and Tatto Media from providing offers in games and apps on the social network.

The development is one of the results of the recent scandal around the quality of offers in social games and apps. Some of the offers have been tainted as scams because they don’t tell consumers about hidden obligations or fees. Earlier today, Offerpal said that it was issuing a set of standards for its advertisers to follow in order to meet the highest ethics standards.

Tatto Media has had a history of problems with alleged deceptive ads, but Gambit has reportedly been trying to play by the rules. Facebook outlined the actions it was taking on Nov. 5, but it did not name the banned companies at that time. The reason was repeat violations of Facebook’s guidelines for offers. A spokesman for Facebook confirmed that the companies mentioned in the post were indeed Tatto and Gambit.

Curiously, Gambit said today in response to Offerpal’s announcement, “We at Gambit are really glad to hear that Offerpal is taking these steps. For our part, Gambit’s AdControl suite of tools has been in effect since the earliest days of Gambit, so we see this as great news because it validates our product development choices. … Because of the recent limelight on our industry, we think we can look forward to lots more announcements like this as more and more payments and offers companies realize that ‘monitor’ and ‘filter’ are key components to ‘monetize.’”

Gambit has also addressed the scam issue in its own blog. Apparently, Gambit’s approach isn’t good enough for Facebook, which has begun cracking down on scam offers as a result of the controversy. Gambit hasn’t yet responded to our query about the Facebook ban.

The offer crackdown is serious, since Inside Social Games reported today that the offer business accounts for 30 percent of revenues in the $1 billion virtual goods business. And Inside Social Goods reported that as much of 20 percent of the offer business may be based on questionable promotions. Thus, the crackdown on Facebook and other social networks could have a significant slowing effect if all of the questionable offers are removed.

Offers are special ads that are used to monetize otherwise free social games on Facebook and other social networks. In an offer, a user will agree to sign up for a Netflix subscription or credit card offer. The business has been lucrative because the offers guaranteed some kind of direct benefit for the advertisers, who are willing to pay more. And these offers are appealing to gamers who didn’t want to pay for virtual goods with credit cards. Offer companies like Offerpal, Super Rewards, Gambit, Trialpay and others have been at the forefront of the industry.

But as with other online media, complaints arose that some offers were scams. The scandal ignited last month as Techcrunch editor Michael Arrington challenged former Offerpal CEO Anu Shukla over the legitimacy of most offers at the Virtual Goods Summit. Shukla said that less than 1 percent of the offers have generated complaints from users. But the ensuing debate led to changes in policy regarding offers at Zynga, RockYou, and other companies. Facebook renewed its crackdown on scams and actually stopped one of Zynga’s games, FishVille, from launching until Zynga removed controversial offers. Zynga has also stopped using offers until it could set up a system to properly vet them. Zynga is now in the process of restoring offers, using companies that include Offerpal.

If you’ve followed coverage on R2EV, you already know that some are skeptical about the company’s battery, designed to be swapped out in a network of “Greenbox” facilities nation wide.

Perceived problems with interoperability, improper installation or short circuiting and decreasing life cycle of a fleet of batteries have all been cited as reasons to stick with a more conventional battery pack. Talking to chief executive Alex Livingston, though, one gets the impression he’s already thought of all this and has a solid plan to prevent such mishaps. In an interview at GreenBeat 2009, he clarifies some key points about his company’s product.

First, R2EV batteries aren’t some proprietary formula only available from R2EV and compatible with their Fuel 2.0 products. R2EV will be sourcing their cells from any battery manufacturer able to produce them within some basic parameters controlling the voltage and physical form for compatibility’s sake. The initial launch will be at the larger storage level and the primary consumer is expected to be the military, at least at first.

As the day-to-day realities of using Fuel 2.0 energy systems are figured out by the military (probably the toughest customer R2EV will ever have to deal with), the company will start expanding into the automotive market. This is where the real fun begins — because if battery change stations are strung out frequently enough, you could drive across the country with no more charge-time than an average ICE car would require fueling-time. Expect major cities and strategic transit stops on interstate highways to be their first locations opened. With time R2EV will adopt next-generation batteries with greater capacity.

This leaves a few questions about safety, though. After all, if Jiffy Lube can burn up an occasional engine with the wrong oil filter, could a similar type of station blow up a battery? Probably not, says Livingston. First, there will be only one way to plug a cell into the pack’s receptacle: the correct way. Second, there will be testable relays and display lights to indicate whether or not a cell is safe and fully charged. If a cell was showing substantially decreased capacity, Livingston says it would be taken out of automotive circulation and probably sold twice more for less demanding uses before it was recycled or disposed of.

This still leaves problems of adoption. While automotive companies are contracting their battery production to major cell makers it remains unclear which path to adoption R2EV is taking. They could sell their design to automakers and operate the swap facilities. They could also hit the after-market and offer a swap kit similar to their products for commercial fleet vehicles. This seems less likely to make it into the mainstream for personal commuter vehicles. According to its site, R2EV is “working with the world’s largest electric vehicle manufacturer to change the customer experience.”

Hopefully we’ll see the fruit of this labor soon.

Loopt — perhaps the largest location-based social network, a network that uses your location to recommend places to go and inform you of friends around you — announced the acquisition of GraffitiGEO this week. Several industry observers and researchers are raving about the potential of location-based social networks for businesses and advertising. “Context awareness is critical when you want to buy something, and advertisers get higher targeting based on our patterns and social contexts,” said Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher Nadav Aharony in a recent BusinessWeek article.

Smartsheet has already expanded its work management application with cool features like a way to crowdsource tasks. Now it’s adding a customer relationship management (CRM) service on top of that.

The goal of the Smartsheet Sales Pipeline Management app is to give small companies an easier transition from the tool many of them are using to track their sales leads — a spreadsheet. At some point, you’ll want something more sophisticated, but if you switch to a system like Salesforce.com, you’ll have to learn a whole new interface. With Smartsheet, on the other hand, you’re still storing your leads in a spreadsheet (er, a “Smartsheet”), but you can do more with them.

The Bellevue, Wash. company says its CRM tool has three major benefits. First, it’s easy to use — you can import your leads from a Google Spreadsheet with two clicks. The Google integration goes further, with the ability to log in using your Google account, attach Google Docs, import Google Contacts, and export your list back into Google Spreadsheets. Second, you can store everything else you need for the sale in your Smartsheet, such as related documents and emails. Third, you can use crowdsourcing to find new leads, where (using Smartsheet) you pay people small amounts of cash to find and type in other potential customers. This method should be much cheaper than buying a sales contact list.

Smartsheet chairman and co-founder Brent Frei comes from a CRM background, since he was previously co-founder and CEO at CRM company Onyx Software. On his blog, Frei says there are three trends that make his return to the CRM market a good move:

1. Simple CRM demand remains high
2. The Google Apps ecosystem needs 3^rd party small business applications
3. Google needs CRM solutions that make Google Apps more sticky

Smartsheet has raised more than $5.5 million in funding.

Amazon shares hit an all-time record -- Today’s $118.49 price is higher than the $400-plus days of 1999, because of splits in the years since. Today’s share price would be about $700 without the splits, says the Wall Street Journal. The Journal hauled out Mary Meeker, a big booster of Amazon and other dot-com stocks in the late 1990s who still follows the sector:

Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker attributed Amazon’s recent surge to “continued success in adding new customers.”

She added that the rally “indicates that Amazon.com’s value proposition (lowest prices + best selection + great customer service) is succeeding in attracting consumers as they transition from offline to online in search of value.”

Another factor driving Amazon is sales of third-party products sold in its marketplace, a business once dominated by eBay Inc. Third-party units rose 32% from a year ago and 14% from the second quarter.

About 31% of Amazon’s sales now come from third-party merchants who sell goods on the site and give Amazon a percentage of revenue.

Wall Street, which refused to reward Yahoo for beating the street’s estimates a few days ago, went ga-ga for AMZN today, sending prices up 27% and boosting Amazon’s market value to $51.2 billion. VentureBeat will not make fun of the Kindle today.

Microsoft’s results add to continuing hopes for a tech-sector recovery – Microsoft is the General Motors of the tech sector, so today’s report of an 18% drop in quarterly results from last year could likely have triggered a selloff. Instead, investors bid Microsoft shares up 5.4% to $28.03 today. The Journal attributes it to consumer demand that offsets weak business spending.

Fifteen percent of adult Americans don’t have cellphones — Claire Cain Miller at the New York Times tracked down and interviewed people across America who have chosen to live — for now — without a mobile phone.

“It’s a luxury not to be reached when I’m out and about,” said Gregory Han, a 34-year-old writer and editor living in Los Angeles. Life for him is a lot more planned than most, the consequence of not having a cellphone — or even a landline — at home.

[Photo: J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times]

Netflix to roll out streaming-only service outside the U.S. — CEO Reed Hastings wouldn’t tell ReadWriteWeb in which countries Netflix will test streaming-only subscriptions that don’t require the customer to sign up for Netflix’ DVD-by-mail service. But those countries will not be the USA. Hastings said he wants to prove the business model before trying to serve it to the entire United States of America.

Windows 7 reader questions answered by our man Pogue — The guy is kind of touchy about his hatemail from Mac fans, but he takes one for the team today by answering the most broad, what-do-I-do questions about Windows 7 from his inbox. Send this to your parents.

As for PC pundits who trash-talk Windows Vista, former PC World editor Harry McCracken looked up all of the major reviewers’ write-ups of Vista from its debut days. All but one liked it. None forecast the sprawling, deep disinterest with which the general public responded. I’ll repeat my quickie review from yesterday: Windows 7 is a complicated operating system that I use to run a browser, in which I do all my work. Google’s Chrome OS is starting to appeal to me: A simpler, more stable browser with a Unix filesystem beneath it. For free. I’m not saying Windows is going to be gone from most desktops anytime soon, but it may be gone from mine.

Taking aim at information overload, Facebook is now allowing users to see its news feed in two ways. They can either see a live stream with updates ordered by time, or the most interesting content as judged by comments and likes.

“While seeing real-time activities is extremely valuable, we also want to be sure you don’t miss other interesting content,” wrote Raylene Yung, a Facebook engineer in a company blog post today.

Stories in the “News Feed” section are featured based on how much activity they’ve attracted from others and on a user’s prior behavior. Are they likely to click on videos? Or are there certain friends they’re more likely to interact with? Facebook used to relegate these to the “Highlights” section on the right-hand part of the page. There is also a Live Feed that shows activity as its happening.

The feed design resembles what’s on Facebook Lite, a more spare version of the social networking site designed for developing countries with slower Internet connections.

Mimosa Systems, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based company that provides software for data archiving, has brought in $1.6 million in debt, rights and securities, according to a filing with the SEC. It is backed by August Capital, Clearstone Venture Partners, Dot Edu Ventures, Focus Ventures, Jafco Ventures and Mayfield Fund. It has now raised $21.6 million to date, including $3 million secured in June.

Microsoft reported its revenues for its first fiscal quarter today were down 14 percent at $12.92 billion, but the company beat Wall Street estimates.

Net income was $3.57 billion, or 40 cents a share. Analysts had expected 32 cents a share, and the  stock is up today. Revenues from yesterday’s launch of the Windows 7 operating system will be recorded in the second fiscal quarter which closes on Dec.31. While business demand was weak in the quarter, consumer demand was good. The overall PC business grew zero to 2 percent compared to a year ago, the company estimated.

Going forward, Microsoft predicted that its Windows sales would be in line with PC industry growth, which should be higher because of Windows 7. Emerging markets will grow at double digits, while Microsoft’s business division is expected to lag behind the PC market. The big variable is how soon businesses start buying computers again.

This quarter might have been hurt by both the recession and delays in purchases in anticipation of the Windows 7 launch. Windows revenues fell 37 percent to $2.6 billion, while Microsoft’s business division revenue was also down significantly from a year ago. The company predicts consumer spending will be strong as a result of the Windows 7 launch, while businesses are likely to start spending money next year as they upgrade to Windows 7.

“Into next year, we expect to see businesses start spending again,” said Chris Liddell, chief financial officer, on a conference call this morning. “We are reasonably cautious about the business cycle. We think it will begin next year and stretch over a couple of years. How quickly that will happen, we won’t speculate yet.”

One worry for Microsoft is that consumers have been opting for netbooks, the low-end web-surfing computers that are cheaper and smaller than laptops. Some are using cheaper versions of Windows, but many are using versions of the Linux operating system.

Servers and Tools division revenues was flat at $3.4 billion. Entertainment and Devices group was also flat compared to last year, with revenue of $1.9 billion. Microsoft sold 2.1 million Xbox 360 game consoles in the quarter, bringing the total to 34 million consoles sold. Revenues for the full fiscal year are expected to be flat for the Entertainment and Devices division, which also includes Zune portable sales.

Xbox 360 hardware revenue was hurt in part because of a $100 price cut, but the company had a $100 million increase in game revenue, thanks to sales of Halo 3: ODST, which was the No. 1 game in September. Profits in the division were nearly double year over year at $312 million, helped by a 50 percent growth in Xbox Live revenues. Microsoft said it has sold 8.7 games for every console, the highest in the industry.

Microsoft’s online division lost money, with a loss of $480 million on revenue of just $490 million. The company is investing heavily in its Bing search engine, which launched in June and has gained market share steadily. Search ads from Bing were up slightly, but online ad revenues were down 3 percent.

For the full year, Microsoft said it expects to spend about $26.2 billion in the full fiscal year ending June 30, 2010, down from its earlier estimate of $26.5 billion a year earlier. Liddell said the company is cautious about spending because of the uncertain nature of the economic rebound.

Microsoft ended the September quarter with $36.7 billion in cash and short term investments.

Aviir, the Palo Alto, Calif. company that turned Stanford research into technology used to diagnose heart conditions, has brought in $1 million in equity, debt, rights and securities, according to a filing with the SEC. It adds this amount to $1 million raised in August and $7.8 million in bridge financing secured in January from Aberdare Ventures, Bay City Capital and New Leaf Venture Partners. Before that it raised funds in March 2008 amounting to $1.5 million.