Gregarius » TechCrunch » February 2009

Feeds

36701 items (36701 unread) in 10 feeds

• Mashable! (14191 unread)
• TechCrunch (15829 unread)
• alarm:clock (1745 unread)
• Marc's Voice (562 unread)
• SF Tech Sessions
• BuzzShout - New Websites (10 unread)
• Jeff Clavier's Software Only (51 unread)
• Seth's Blog (1665 unread)
• VentureBeat (2494 unread)

Web 2.0 (154 unread)

• China Web2.0 Review (154 unread)

TechCrunch (384 unread)

• February 28, 2009
• 17:21

  Amazon Caves to Authors Guild: Text-to-Speech Now Optional

   »  TechCrunch
  Well done to the Authors Guild! Amazon revealed last night that the text-to-speech feature in the Kindle 2 will now be optional for publishers. The guild had been tenaciously fighting this feature, arguing that it had the potential to turn the Kindle 2 into a de-facto audiobook player. Right or wrong, Amazon has caved, and now publishers will be able to dictate whether or not the Kindle 2 is able to read aloud their books.

  

  
• 10:14

  DAZZ Offers A Way To Preview Photo Gifts Prior To Purchase

   »  TechCrunch

  Photo gift service Personello has launched a simple but useful web service dubbed DAZZ that lets you preview a wide variety of goods with uploaded photos on them, completely automated and with both custom images and video clips.

  It seems like a no-brainer for any personalized photo gift service provider to offer a similar functionality, but to the best of my knowledge DAZZ is currently the only one of its kind.

  What you do is create an account on the DAZZ website and upload a photo that you’re considering printing on things like mugs, mousepads, t-shirts, teddybears, snowglobes, jigsaw puzzles etc. to give away as a gift. The startup’s ‘DAZZigners’ will then strip out the background and create a collection of so-called photostyles (e.g. Flowers, Heart, Sepia, Pop Art, etc.) centered around the main subject of the photo.

  DAZZ subsequently lets you preview a bunch of items and also put together a video that shows a number of items in a sequence which should help make up your mind. For each type of item, you also get to see a separate animated video clip showing you the personalized gift in question in a relevant setting. (screenshots embedded below)

  The biggest downside of DAZZ is that it takes several hours to get your photostyle previews ready, so it’s not the most ideal way to trigger impulsive purchases (although you are notified by e-mail once the previews are ready for your evaluation). Also, the video player inexplicably doesn’t offer a way to embed videos in your own website or blog so you can only play them when logged on to your account on DAZZ.com.

  I think Personello, a startup based in Germany, was right to execute on this idea and offer a way for potential customers to visualize personalized photo gifts prior to purchase. Many people are not aware of the fact that photos can be printed on a slew of regular things, and this could open their eyes to the possibilities of giving away personalized gifts and significantly lower the threshold for them to actually start buying stuff.

  

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• February 27, 2009
• 21:12

  ToysRUs Buys Toys.com At Auction For $5.1 Million

   »  TechCrunch

  

  In a heated bidding war, ToysRUs bought the domain name Toys.com at auction for $5.1 million. ToysRus really wanted the domain, for obvious reasons. Everyone except ToysRUs and domain holding company National A-1 (owner of domains such as free.com, boys.com, girls.com, and divorce.com) bowed out of the auction at $3 million. The last $2 million was just those two companies going back and forth for hours.

  ToysRUs really didn’t have much choice. If it wants to be the first thing people associate with toys it really couldn’t afford to allow anyone else to own that domain, even in this economy. Who says real estate is dead?

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 17:28

  Live Stream: TechCrunch Cloud Computing Roundtable

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Here’s the live stream of our Cloud Computing Roundtable, which kicks off at 2:30 PST with product demos from a handful of early-stage cloud-focused start-ups, with commentary from a panel of experts. Shortly thereafter our roundtable discussion will bring together a dozen panelists from some of Silicon Valley’s most acclaimed companies who will discuss the future of cloud-based services. Thank you to Sun Microsystems for sponsoring the roundtable stream (powered by ustream and camera work by FutureWorks.)

  Twitter Hash Tag: #tccloud

  
  Live Videos by Ustream

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 17:27

  Y Combinator’s FathomDB Takes The Hassle Out Of Managing Your Database

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Our Cloud Computing Roundtable just saw the launch of FathomDB, a new Y Combinator startup that offers database administration as a service. The startup manages many of the tasks that database administrators typically have to deal with, like database backups, monitoring, and launching replacement servers in the event of a crash. The service is primarily operating with MySQL databases hosted on Amazon’s EC2, but will expand to support other cloud-based computing services as they become available. And because it uses industry-standard systems, developers won’t have to modify their code to make it work with FathomDB, and they aren’t locked into the service.

  Aside from routine maintenance tasks, FathomDB also offers an array of analytics tools that help developers track the status of their servers and identify where their performance bottlenecks are. CEO Justin Santa Barbara says that the system isn’t necessarily meant to actually replace database administrators, but instead to take care of low-level tasks so that they can focus on more complex and important issues.

  Final pricing for the service is still being determined, but the company plans to charge a small (~10-20%) markup over standard EC2 prices.

  
  
  

  Disclosure: FathomDB is a sponsor for today’s Roundtable event.
  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 17:26

  Mitter: Friendfeed For Online Videos (And Other Media)

   »  TechCrunch

  Sometimes it’s hard to remember which video you have seen, left a comment on, rated, or who recommended it to you. And it’s getting harder to cut the noise in the heavily crowded online video space (YouTube users alone are uploading 15 hours of new content every 60 seconds). This is where Mitter, a service provided by Tokyo-based Metacast comes in (the site is available in English).

  Mitter wants to do for video what recently introduced Dutch startup Twones does for music. The service tracks viewing patterns over multiple video services and generates a social feed based on that information. And much like Twones, Mitter doesn’t make much sense without installing an add-on for Firefox or the Internet Explorer (there is also a browser-independent bookmarklet available). To date, the Mitter toolbar has been distributed 1.5 million times. It’s now being actively used by more than 150,000 people, mostly in Japan.

  Mitter is all about aggregating metadata of online videos and using the information to let users socialize around it. Once the tracker is installed, you will see a Mitter button next to every video accessed on 14 different sites like YouTube, Veoh, Seesmic etc. After pressing the button, you can tag, rate and comment on the video (the service calls this activity “mittering”), which will be then added to your history on the website (this happens even if you don’t mitter the video). In addition, the activity can be posted to Twitter and several Japanese blogging platforms.

  Your history can be set to private or shared with friends. Other users with a similar taste can follow you, receive updates on your video viewing log and possibly find new content that’s of interest to them (Mitter->Twitter, get it?). It’s also possible to join discussion groups, view rankings of popular videos and dig up videos that are similar to the listed one (and share the relevant video, too).

  

  Mitter does fill a gap in the rapidly growing web video space but there are some drawbacks. Even though the site wants to let you share “experiences” (and not necessarily the videos themselves), it would make a lot more sense if users didn’t need to navigate away to watch videos. The English version still lacks Non-Japanese members who may find it hard to connect to the Japanese usership (and its taste) and there are hardly any comments or tags in English to be found at this point. This can obviously only be overcome through increased participation of Non-Japanese users.

  CEO Kengo Ito says in its current form, Mitter is just covering a snippet of one’s life log. The company’s ultimate goal is to build a “social lifestreaming service” that automatically keeps track of a person’s complete online media consumption behavior. Think FriendFeed for media.

  This is a big plan and just yesterday, Mitter broke out of the video geek community by following what you watch on TV (Japanese only for the time being). Music, movies, video games and other media will be added to user feeds in the near future.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 17:25

  8 Little Things We Still Can’t Stand About the iPhone

   »  TechCrunch

  

  The iPhone is like the bacon-wrapped scallop of the mobile world. Both are quite visually pleasing relative to their peers, easy to use, and generally liked by the masses. Spend a little too much time with either, however, and you start to see the flaws. With the scallops, the grease and animal fat that was oh-so delicious on the way down begins to clog your arteries and slow your saunter. With the iPhone, the interface that seemed oh-so-polished when it first met your fingertips begins to show signs of oversight and imperfection.

  We’ve been using the iPhone for just a few months shy of two years now, and a few things that once seemed trivial have come to drive us up the wall. You’ll find no mention of the glaring faults (The lack of MMS, Copy and Paste, etc) in this list - we’re talking about the stuff that we just can’t believe made it through Apple’s user experience team.

  Read the rest of this entry at MobileCrunch >>

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 17:20

  Diomede Offers Green File Storage In The Cloud For A Fraction Of The Cost

   »  TechCrunch

  

  At today’s TechCrunch Cloud Computing Roundtable event, a new storage company called Diomede launched in private beta with the goal of offering low cost cloud-based storage that is also very energy efficient. The basic premise behind the service is that not all data in the cloud needs to be immediately available, but that most people still pay for the immediate access anyway. While most data centers have their servers and disk drives operating 24/7 with near-immediate access, Diomede allows customers to designate files that they don’t need instant access to, and places them either as ‘nearline’ or ‘offline’. These files have an access time of five minutes or four hours, respectively, but cost only 1/12 as much as standard cloud providers to store and take as little as 1/60th the amount of energy. If you’d like to try it out, go to this page and enter the invite code ‘tcrunch’.

  The service offers a full API to developers, and also allows them to view metrics like the power consumption of each individual file. Possible applications include allowing developers to set their redundant file backups (which rarely need to be quickly accessed) to ‘offline’, where they can be stored at only a fraction of the normal cost.

  
  
  

  Deomede is the latest venture from Steve Iverson, who was CEO of MediaMax, a file storage company with a very tumultuous history that closed its doors last year. While the company had its issues, it’s unclear if they can be attributed to Iverson or were primarily related to engineering blunders and investors.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 15:58

  Startup Launch: Buzzable Creates Twitter Groups Around RSS Feeds (500 Invites)

   »  TechCrunch

  

  One of the most requested features for Twitter is the ability to create groups. While users wait (and wait and wait) for Twitter to add this feature, a number of startups are going ahead and showing how it should be done. The latest of these is a LaunchBox Digital startup called Buzzable which just launched today. Buzzable lets you create Twitter groups around RSS feeds, and does so in a very compelling way.

  Right now anyone can browse public groups, but you need an invite code to create a new group. Anyone with a twitter account, however, can join a public group and post a message. We have 500 invites. Just use the promo code: techcrunch.

  You sign in using your Twitter ID, which lets you join and create both public and private groups centered around different topics. Some of the public groups right now include Android, Kindle, the New York Knicks, and the White House. There is even one for TechCrunch.

  Groups are built around RSS feeds. So the TechCrunch group is simply our feed. But you can set up topic-specific groups which pull from a number of feeds, including Google News, Eventful, Digg, Yahoo Finance, Twitter itself, blogs, and so on. You can set it up so that the feeds are filtered by keyword (such as “Android,” Kindle,” “Knicks,” etc.). Members of the group can then discuss any headline by commenting in-line. Each comment can be pushed out to Twitter proper as well. Both RSS headlines and comments can be “Buzzed” up by popular vote. The result is a combination of RSS content and Twitter conversation, all in the same stream.

  By priming the pump with the RSS streams, Buzzable hopes to stimulate conversation, even among people who don’t normally Twitter twenty times a day without prompting. In addition to micro-messages, images and YouTube videos can be added to each comment. And since Buzzable uses your Twitter ID, every time you create a group, it asks you if you want to invite all of your Twitter followers. Every Buzzable member can also be followed on Twitter simply by clicking a follow button on their Buzzable profile. Buzzable groups can also be republished as their own Twitter account. In these ways, Buzzable tries to take advantage of the viral nature of Twitter itself to create as many entry points as possible for new users. Each group can also be republished as a separate RSS feed or as an embeddable widget (see below)

  Buzzable’s co-founders are Satjot Sawhney and Ashish Kundra. The company was part of LaunchBox Digital’s 2008 summer incubator program. LaunchBox founder John McKinley is chairman and the lead investor. Check out the demo video below:

  
  Buzzable Demo: Creating a Group from Satjot Singh Sawhney on Vimeo.

  displayWidget("http%3A//buzzable.com//","techcrunch","500","600");

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 14:00

  Will the Future of the Web Be More Like the Present?

   »  TechCrunch

  When I was a kid one of my favorite parts of Disney World was Tomorrowland’s Carousel of Progress. It was steeped in 1950’s futurism: Why, of course! Every family will have their own electric paint mixer in the future! And I only wish I’d been old enough to see this gem before it was torn down and replaced with a souvenir stand: The Monsanto House of the Future, a house built entirely of plastic.

  Disney likes to talk up inventions the house featured that wound up becoming commonplace, like the microwave oven. What it leaves out are all the ones that never did. You know, the type of things we saw on the Jetsons: flying cars, our food in pill form, robot butlers and maids. Sadly, as it turns out the “future” looked a lot like the past, just more streamlined. Had Tomorrowland stayed in tact, it would have looked more like the Tomorrow-that-never-happened-land.

  I’ve been thinking about Tomorrowland for about three days. It started when I read Farhad Manjoo’s excellent piece on Slate about the “Jurassic Web.” He painted a picture of what the Web was like in 1996. It was mostly a place you went and then thought, “OK, I’m here. Now what?” He reminded us of the sheer wonder the first time you could search on Amazon by author or browse through Yahoo’s hand built “directory” of Web pages.

  The note Manjoo struck at the end of the piece was pure Silicon Valley: If all this happened in just 13 years, what will the next decade of the Internet hold? Will we look back on YouTube, Facebook, Hulu and iTunes as primitive?

  This is where Tomorrowland and the Jetsons come in. There seems to be a pattern of diminishing innovation the longer a new technology is on the market. The early years—even decades— of, say, the plane, the car, the telephone, television, computers all saw rapid innovation, such rapid innovation that people would look back with the same kind of wonder that we do thinking of the Jurassic Web. “Can you believe you used to have to crank a car engine?” “What do you mean TV was only in black and white?”

  But at some point, the innovation gets more evolutionary than revolutionary. Sure there are advancements in digital filmmaking and editing equipment but has anything in movies yet transformed the medium as much as the change from silent pictures to talkies? At some point, the technology stays the same while the cultural importance of it, or the way it is used is what changes. Put another way, the technology that was used to film a movie like “Deep Throat” wasn’t what changed society and the industry, it was the content of the movie itself.

  I know it’s heresy to write this on a site that entrepreneurs and technologists read: But what if the bulk of technology innovation on the Internet is, well, done?

  Already, if you think about Web 2.0, the successful companies are building off the technology that was pioneered before—whether it’s the browser, broadband, or the open source stack. Sites like YouTube and Twitter may be technically hard to scale, but are they really technical leaps in innovation, or more of a creative, cultural leap in how existing technology is being used? 

  Of course, the Internet is still very young. It certainly took technologies like the mobile phone more than 13 years to go from that embarrassing brick that took up half of a briefcase to the iPhone. Some could argue the mobile phone is still ripe for as much game changing innovation, as new models like the Palm Pre promise to integrate the browser experience throughout the user interface. Is it simply too early in the Internet’s lifecycle to even raise the question of whether Internet innovation has peaked?

  As someone who writes about the Web for a living, I certainly hope so. But then again, everything has happened faster on the Web. No other technology has been so rapidly adopted by such a large number of people. Is it possible this is it? 

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 12:59

  Mufin Incorporates Powerful Recommendation Engine Into New Native Music Player

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Mufin, an automated music recommendation engine that actually works (most of the time), has released a new native media player in public beta. The player includes a powerful recommendation engine based on technology developed at the Fraunhofer Institute, allowing users to quickly generate playlists similar to any song they have in their library. The player is for Windows only at the moment, but Mac users can still try out the recommendation technology at Mufin.com, which launched to the public in November. You can see a full list of the new player’s features here

  Mufin’s core technology is based on finding recommendations based on knowing a few songs that you like. Unlike Apple’s Genius feature, which creates recommendations based on aggregate data compiled from user listening habits, Mufin actually analyzes the sound file itself, ‘listening’ to 40 audio characteristics as it tries to recommend similar songs. In my testing the service has usually worked surprisingly well, though there are sometimes a few bizarre results. Oftentimes these apparent errors actually do share characteristics with the original song I used to gather recommendations, but they are very obscure and sometimes in a completely different genre (which is both the blessing and the curse of using such audio-based recommendation engines).

  Mufin’s new player incorporates this recommendation technology, alongside a standard set of features that you’d expect from a modern audio player. Beyond creating the recommended song playlists, Mufin’s Player also brings a new twist to music management by allowing users to sort their songs by the way they sound (versus by song title or artist name). But aside from that I’m not sure if there’s a compelling reason to use it over iTunes at this point, especially since you can download a Mufin plugin to integrate the site’s audio recommendations into Apple’s music player (though the plugin is limited to creating playlists, and doesn’t allow users to sort by sound).

  
  
  

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 12:33

  Gary Vay•ner•chuk Expands His Web Video Empire With Obsessed TV

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Gary Vaynerchuk is going after the Oprah set. The wine wholesaler who launched a career as a Web video celebrity talking about wine and marketing just launched Obsessed, a new video talk show hosted by Samantha Ettus. With Obsessed, Vaynerchuk hopes to move beyond niche programming on the Web to appeal to a mainstream audience.

  The format of the show is an in-depth 30 to 40 minute interview with guests that appeal to 25 to 55-year-old women. The first interviews on the site right now are with food writer Mark Bittman and floral designer Preston Bailey. Future guests will include Today Show travel editor Peter Greenberg, TreeHugger founder Graham Hill, and BlogHer founder Liz Stone. (They are working on some bigger names as well).

  Ettus will host the show and be the main star, while Vaynerchuk will come on at the end for 3 minutes to talk about wine, which is his thing. He is the host of Wine Library TV and also serves up regular videos on gary vay•ner•chuk, mostly about marketing. “There is only so much content I can pump out,” Vaynerchuk say. “I need to own as many media properties as possible.”

  Vaynerchuk and Ettus are co-producers of the new show. Each owns half of Obsessed TV, the production company behind the endeavor. Vaynerchuk’s other projects include a T-shirt search engine and Corkd, a wine rating site he promises to pay more attention to this year.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 11:52

  Kindle Student Edition Rumored to Be In the Works

   »  TechCrunch
  Prime View International, maker of electrophoretic displays AKA epaper makes the screens for Amazon's Kindle 2. That much we know. However, rumors that they are working on a larger-sized touchscreen makes us think they are now ramping up production of the "student's Kindle" we talked about last year. This Kindle will have a larger screen and more research-oriented features - Wi-Fi, anyone?

  

  
• 10:59

  The New York Times Expected To Launch Local Blog Network On Monday (Confirmed)

   »  TechCrunch

  If this post on a local blog about Brooklyn has it right, the NY Times will be debuting a neighborhood blog project next week on Monday. Here’s the gist:

  Look out, local bloggers, the Gray Lady is moving in on your turf. Starting next week, The New York Times will be rolling out a neighborhood blog initiative starting mid-day on Monday. Our home soil of Fort Greene and Clinton Hill will be one of the two pilot sites (the other site will cover Millburn, Maplewood and South Orange in New Jersey). According to an email that was forwarded to us, the subject matter will include “cultural events, bar and restaurant openings, real estate, arts, fashion, health, social concerns and anything else that goes on in the ‘SoHo of Brooklyn.’”

  Still according to the blog, the local blog network will be filled with content from the paper’s editors (one for each site) but also rely partially on citizen journalism i.e. unpaid contributions from locals readers who will be able to post everything from short video clips to wedding announcements. Apparently, the network will also feature a map-based real-estate listings section will tie back to the NY Times’ main real-estate site.

  Update: Jim Schachter, editor for digital initiatives at The New York Times, confirms the news in comments:

  We expect to sell ads to local merchants using our telesales and self-serve ad solution. Our two pilot sites are staffed with full-time NYTimes reporters. That’s not cheap. Obviously, it’s also not a sustainable model. We’re trying to figure out what would be. Can we create a combination of journalism, technology and advertising that people who don’t work for us can adopt? How much or how little oversight by us would be needed to keep the quality high? Would people pay to be associated with us? Would there be enough revenue that some split between us and a non-NYT blogger would work? I’d love to know what readers here think.

  The New York Times and blogging, it’s not a new relationship. The institution operates a good number of blogs on its own, it acquired and started using BlogRunner back in November 2007, it co-invested in blogging platform WordPress and Federated Media Publishing, and it’s doing all kinds of good stuff with APIs nowadays.

  That said, its Internet advertising revenues are dropping while its visitor numbers are also in decline. The local blog initiative could be a way to counter both trends, although Sarah Lacy could have a thing or two to say about the former, based on her most recent BusinessWeek column on the expected slow-down of the local advertising market.

  (Hat tip to Jonathan Butler)

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 10:05

  OSLO aims to break down mobile social network barriers

   »  TechCrunch

  We’ve had OpenId to make the transport of your ID easier between Web sites. We’ve had initiatives on Data Portability to make it easier for you to move your data around between social networks and other apps. But what we haven’t had yet is a way to allow you to share your location between different mobile social platforms. That’s something that a new, largely European-inspired, initiative hopes to address. The alliance, called OSLO (Open Sharing of Location-based Objects) includes many of the players in mobile social networking and location-based social software. Twelve startups, all of whom serve their users with location-based services, have signed an agreement to enable their combined 30 million users to share location information and interact between networks. Currently most location-based systems operate in a similar fashion to instant messaging systems, and don’t interoperate. The question is, will Google’s Latitude and Yahoo!’s FireEagle come on board?

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 9:22

  Print Your Favorite Wikis As Books, Courtesy Of Wikipedia (And PediaPress)

   »  TechCrunch

  Did you know that you can assemble your own wiki pages from Wikipedia and print them out in book form? You can, for a while now, thanks to a partnership between Wikimedia Foundation and a German startup called PediaPress. Last week, the wiki-to-print feature was activated for six more languages besides German but as of yesterday the functionality is also being tested on the regular English Wikipedia (restricted to logged-on users only for now).

  You can check it out here, but you might want to visit the help pages first.

  The books can be created with a table of contents or category lists and can be downloaded as free PDF files but also ordered as a printed book from PediaPress. PediaPress books are bound in dimensions 8″ x 5.5″ with a color cover and black & white interior, and the prices are reasonable. The cost of a book depends on the number of pages contained in addition to a base fee (starting at $8.90 for 100 pages) and worldwide shipping that’s charged extra.

  As indicated by the Foundation, the roll-out for English Wikipedia users will be gradual out of fear for scalability issues, so it’s currently still in test mode. We’re trying to find out when the organization will open it up for non-registered users and will update this post if we learn more.

  You can find a sample book on the fascinating subject of ‘Amphibious Aircrafts’ here (PDF).

  And if you’re wondering if PediaPress got a sweet deal out of the partnership, the answer is yes. The Wikimedia Foundation receives (only) 10% of the gross total for each book sold. Another part of the agreement is the development of open source software with the goal to ease the reuse of wiki content in other media or applications.

  (Image from Wikipedia, hat tip goes to Ross Masters)

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 9:22

  Print Your Favorite Wikipedia Articles As Books, Courtesy Of PediaPress

   »  TechCrunch

  Did you know that you can assemble your own wiki pages from Wikipedia and print them out in book form? You can, for a while now, thanks to a partnership between Wikimedia Foundation and a German startup called PediaPress. Last week, the wiki-to-print feature was activated for six more languages besides German but as of yesterday the functionality is also being tested on the regular English Wikipedia (restricted to logged-on users only for now).

  You can check it out here, but you might want to visit the help pages first.

  The books can be created with a table of contents or category lists and can be downloaded as free PDF files but also ordered as a printed book from PediaPress. PediaPress books are bound in dimensions 8″ x 5.5″ with a color cover and black & white interior, and the prices are reasonable. The cost of a book depends on the number of pages contained in addition to a base fee (starting at $8.90 for 100 pages) and worldwide shipping that’s charged extra.

  As indicated by the Foundation, the roll-out for English Wikipedia users will be gradual out of fear for scalability issues, so it’s currently still in test mode. We’re trying to find out when the organization will open it up for non-registered users and will update this post if we learn more.

  You can find a sample book on the fascinating subject of ‘Amphibious Aircrafts’ here (PDF).

  And if you’re wondering if PediaPress got a sweet deal out of the partnership, the answer is yes. The Wikimedia Foundation receives (only) 10% of the gross total for each book sold. Another part of the agreement is the development of open source software with the goal to ease the reuse of wiki content in other media or applications.

  (Image from Wikipedia, hat tip goes to Ross Masters)

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 7:24

  MicroPlaza Is a Link-Catcher For Twitter (100 Invites)

   »  TechCrunch

  

  It used to be that if a link was worth sharing, people would bookmark it for all to see on del.icio.us. Now, they just Twitter it (with a shortened URL). Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to separate out all the Tweets with links in them, and sort them by time or popularity? That is what MicroPlaza does in a nutshell.

  MicroPlaza is still in a very limited private beta, but I have 100 invites for TechCrunch readers. Once you log in, you are presented with a stream of headlines, along with everyone who Twittered the link to that page. You can see a personal timelime made up only of links from people you are following on Twitter, or a public timeline to see what everyone is linking to. Each timeline has its own RSS feed.

  The headlines can be sorted chronologically or by popularity. The more people who Twitter about the same link, the more popular it gets. Each time someone Tweets a link, it becomes more popular (although there is a time-decay function so that you only see the most recently popular links and associated headlines.

  Since most of the time these links are articles or blog posts, MicroPlaza distills the headlines for you and gives you a sense of what is capturing everyone’s attention on Twitter. Any headline can be bookmarked, and you can group the people you follow into different “tribes,” and then keep track of each tribe. MicroPlaza also lets you look at everyone you are following and see their most recent links.

  

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 5:52

  Web 2.0 Expo Europe 2009 Cancelled

   »  TechCrunch

  A message on the German O’Reilly community blog indicates that the Web 2.0 Expo Europe, an annual event held in Berlin, Germany, has been suspended for this year in the face of the worst economic downturn in decades. (translated version here) The event, co-produced by O’Reilly Media and TechWeb, had been running for only two years.

  Web 2.0 Expo Europe was widely known as an outstanding event for the European tech community with a host of excellent speakers, but like many companies O’Reilly and TechWeb are feeling the sting of the declining economy and are being forced to make difficult decisions. Obviously, this is bad news for European entrepreneurs and startups.

  We’re still trying to get an official comment at this point.

  The blog post reads that Europeans who would like to visit Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco can register using the code “websf09eu” and thus enter a lottery to win a free entrance ticket plus 3 free nights at a hotel and $1000, but also acknowledges this is not a real substitute for a full-fledged European counterpart of the Web 2.0 Expo.

  Let’s hope it’ll be back once we get through the storm.

  (Disclosure: I run Plugg, an alternative European Web 2.0 conference, and Web 2.0 Expo SF is one of our sponsors here at TechCrunch)

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 2:23

  Facebook Pages Redesign Coming

   »  TechCrunch

  Facebook launched Facebook Ads in November 2007 to give brands and businesses a way to create a presence on Facebook and interact with users. Starting next week, says a source with knowledge of the new product, those pages will be substantially redesigned.

  Today there are countless pages (example) that highlight brands. These pages are free to set up, and the Facebook sales team then encourages those brands to buy Facebook ads that point back to the pages. The brands get users who become fans of the page and maybe leave a wall comment. Facebook gets ad dollars, and users never leave the Facebook site.

  Those pages include standard Facebook features like a Wall for user comments, a News Feed showing changes and updates to the page, and places for photos and videos to be uploaded. Many advertisers also spend a great deal of money customize the page with applications and widgets showing off various products as well.

  Look for a much more streamlined look to Facebook Pages next week though, with a multitab interface very similar to what Facebook launched to users in 2008. The default view will show the Wall (which may include negative comments unless they are routinely deleted). All the custom apps will be pushed to a second Boxes tab. The Pages will also likely mirror the look of normal user profiles, with an image in the top left corner, etc.

  The Facebook sales team is soft selling the concept to advertisers now, some of whom aren’t pleased with the changes, we’ve heard. Many of these advertisers have spent significant money designing the pages, and lots more on top advertising the Pages through Facebook. Now the Pages will be changed. Users may love the changes and interact more with the pages. Or they may not. As usual with changes at Facebook, people (in this case advertisers) will scream bloody murder, and then likely settle down.

  The timing on the change doesn’t seem to be a coincidence - MySpace recently announced that they’ll be launching their own business profile product in the near future. As with last year’s stacked announcements on data sorta-portability, both companies want to be first with new products and features.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• February 26, 2009
• 21:27

  JPG Magazine Has Been Acquired, Lives Anew

   »  TechCrunch

  

  JPG Magazine, the innovative photography magazine that was composed of user-submitted photographs and shut down last month, has been revived. The magazine’s assets have been acquired by a group of investors who will also continue to employ some of the magazine’s staff, we’ve confirmed with a source with knowledge of the deal.

  JPG launched in late 2006 with the novel idea of cutting back on publishing costs by accepting user-submitted photos and relying partially on the community to edit the magazine. But despite reaching near-profitability, the periodical announced that it was shutting down on January 2nd when its parent company 8020 Media ran out of money. Within a few days it became clear that JPG might still have life, as a number of potential buyers including Flickr and Smugmug entered talks, but until now the future of the magazine was in limbo.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 20:36

  Ning Launches Rich, Persistent Chat Feature

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Tonight Ning will introduce new chat functionality, giving Ning network administrators the oft-requested ability to integrate a rich chat environment similar to the one launched on Facebook last April. Ning’s new chat system is Flash-based, presenting users with a persistent chat bar along the bottom of their screens as they browse through a Ning network. Users have the option of chatting through an interface at the bottom of their screen, or can ‘pop-out’ their chats into their own windows. While the interface will remain consistent across each network, users won’t be able to chat with members outside of the Ning network they’re currently browsing.

  Ning originally introduced a more basic chat feature last summer, but that version uses either dedicated chat pages or sidebar iFrames, which means they aren’t always visible as users navigate through a network. But even the basic version has proven to be very successful - Ning’s chat traffic has skyrocketed, as seen in the Compete graph below pitting Ning’s IM domain against Meebo’s homepage. To be fair, the graph probably doesn’t take into account Meebo’s traffic that occurs offsite (Quantcast reports that Meebo’s entire network sees more like 12 million uniques), but it’s clear that Ning Chat is rapidly gaining traction.

  Aside from its growth in chat, Ning has also been posting some impressive stats recently, growing to 4.8 million uniques in January (a 368% growth year over year) despite the fact that the site recently banned porn networks, which some believed were responsible for a significant amount of Ning’s traffic.

  
  
  

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 19:10

  Cloud Computing Roundtable Sold Out, But It Will Be Streamed

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Tomorrow’s Cloud Computing Roundtable is sold out. But we have good news. For those of you who can’t join us in person, we will be live-streaming the event. Thank you to Sun Microsystems for sponsoring the roundtable stream (powered by ustream and camera work by FutureWorks.) Tune in on TechCrunchIT or Sun.com/cloud

  TechCrunchIT editor Steve Gillmor and I will be grilling our panel of cloud-computing heavyweights about where we are with this technology and where we need to go. As Gillmor wrote in a post on TCIT:

  Short term, cloud computing will slip in as a cost-saving rationale. Near term, the social clouds will expand across workgroups, across business domains, and finally cross-cloud. Then the Golden Age of the Cloud will occur, where applications and services only possible in that environment will guide the next wave of business architecture.

  On Friday, the dialogue will be about when, not if. When did cloud computing begin? How far are we into the cycle? Is cloud computing a baby or an old man in diapers, and are we going backwards or forwards so fast that we can’t tell the difference? Or are we and cloud computing meeting in middle age, each ready for the other?

  I am also happy to announce the startups who will be giving the main demos prior to the roundtable and the panel of judges who will be evaluating them. Here are the companies and what they will be showing off:

  Veodia—Video recording through the cloud.
  BrowserMob—Stress testing Websites via virtual browser instances.
  Diomede Storage—Cheap, green storage with power-saving technologies at one tenth the cost of Amazon S3. Or so they claim..
  Appirio—Stitching together three different clouds. Can it be done?

  They will be judged by:

  Dan’l Lewin, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft
  George Zachary, partner, Charles River Ventures
  Geoff Ralston, CEO LaLa
  David Bernstein, VP/General Manager, Cisco
  David Kralik, Silicon Valley office Director of Newt Gingrich

  And then we will hold the roundtable. Again, our roundtable participants will be:

  Marc Benioff, CEO, Salesforce.com
  Vic Gundotra, VP Engineering, Google
  Amitabh Srivastava, Corporate VP, Windows Azure
  Lew Tucker, CTO, Cloud Computing, Sun Microsystems
  Scott Dietzen, SVP Communications Products, Yahoo
  Paul Buchheit, Co-founder, FriendFeed; creator of Gmail
  Werner Vogels, CTO Amazon
  Mike Schroepfer, VP of Engineering, Facebook
  Gina Bianchini, CEO, Ning
  John Engates, CTO, Rackspace

  Roundtable Moderators:
  Erick Schonfeld, co-editor TechCrunch
  Steve Gillmor, editor TechCrunchIT

  Thank you to Microsoft and the BizSpark team for hosting us at their Mountain View campus. And thanks to Charles River Ventures, Ribbit and FathomDB for sponsorship support of the roundtable and reception.  We looking forward to learning more about a dozen early-stage companies at the roundtable reception.

  We have a few tables left for companies who would like to demo product at the event, but otherwise we are over capacity. Contact Jeannie with sponsorship inquiries (jlogo@earthlink.net)

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 17:33

  Digg Is Working On a Toolbar To Go After StumbleUpon, TinyURL, and All The Rest

   »  TechCrunch

  

  A super-secret Digg toolbar has been spotted in the wild. We tracked down a beta tester who gave us the skinny on its features. The toolbar lets you Digg or Bury the page you are on, and shows how many Diggs it has already received. There are also links to show related pages, as well as more pages from the same source voted highly by the Digg community or marked as up and coming.

  Then there is the “Random” button which works like StumbleUpon. It takes you to a randomly-generated page based on your past input and overall Digg voting. By the prominence of this button, it appears that is a feature Digg will be trying to highlight. Users can also share the page via Facebook, Twitter, or email via icons at the top. A drawer slides down to expose additional functionality.

  Now, here where it gets interesting. For each page, the toolbar creates a shortened URL similar to TinyURL or bit.ly that starts instead with http://digg.com/. . . followed by a six-character code such as “http://digg.com/d1gVha.” When you share a page via Twitter or Facebook, it is that shortened URL which is used. And in fact, for the beta testers, the toolbar can be wrapped around any page simply by sticking “http://digg.com/” in front of any URL, which then gets converted into a shortened version. This technique works for pages that have never been Dugg as well. I could see this feature eventually showing up as part of a browser add-on so that Digg URL’s could be created with one click.

  The toolbar is not an add-on to existing browsers. It is actually creating a large i-frame around the original Webpage and delivering it on the Digg.com domain. Users can click on an X to get rid of the toolbar frame and be taken to the original page, and the original page gets the hit as well. (This is a similar technique to what Ginx does with its Web-sharing Twitter client). But by running all of the recommended pages through its own domain, Digg can run all sorts of analytics on each page such as how many people viewed it, where people clicked to next, and so on.

  It is amazing that Twitter has single-handedly created this need for shortened URLs and that a relatively large player like Digg now wants a piece of that market.

  Click on the screenshot below for a larger image:

  

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 16:09

  HP Upline Gets Disconnected, Heads To The Deadpool

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Well, that didn’t last long. HP’s Upline, a backup service that offered unlimited storage for $59/year, is closing its doors. Since launching last April, Upline has faced issues with extended downtimes - a pretty major offense for a backup solution. But it’s likely the ultimate reason for the shutdown is that Upline was never really able to get much traction in a crowded space with very little in the way of differentiation. That said, there’s clearly money to be made in online storage, as evidenced by Hitachi’s recent acquisition of storage and backup solution Fabrik this week and EMC’s $76 million acquisition of Mozy in 2007.

  Below is the letter sent to HP Upline users, who will have until March 31 to download their files. In a classy move, it looks like HP is going to refund all fees customers have previously paid for the service.

  Thank you for your interest in HP Upline.

  HP continually evaluates product lines and has decided to discontinue the HP Upline service on March 31, 2009.

  HP will no longer be backing up your files to the HP Upline servers as of Feb 26, 2009 at 8 am Pacific time. HP will keep the file restore feature of the Upline service operational through March 31, 2009 Pacific time in order for you to download any files you have backed up to Upline.

  If you have a paid subscription to HP Upline, you will be refunded the full amount of the fees you paid for the service. That refund will be credited to the credit card account or PayPal account that you used to subscribe to the Upline service. If you do not receive the refund prior to March 31, 2009, please contact our customer service team at https://www.upline.com/support/email.aspx.

  HP looks forward to offering you additional technology products and services in the future.

  Thank you.

  HP Upline team

  
  
  

  
  
  

  HP Upline has been added to the Deadpool.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 15:11

  AIM for iPhone Grows Up, Paid Version On the Way

   »  TechCrunch

  While there may still be a lot of confusion surrounding the future of AOL, that didn’t stop the folks in Northern Virginia from recently overhauling their popular AIM instant messaging app for iPhone (and iPod touch).

  Available in two tasty flavors, free (”AIM Free”) and paid (”AIM Paid”), AIM 2.0 for iPhone now provides SMS notifications, has location-aware services, and supports multiple accounts (among other updates). It appears as though all of the application updates have been included in both the free and paid versions, with the major (and obvious) difference being the inclusion of ads in the buddy list of the AIM Free app.

  So, what’s the big deal here? What do all the changes mean? Well, for one thing, now when you first sign in, the app will ask you if you want to share your current location:

  Want to see where your friends are hanging out? You can share your location with your Buddies (or everyone) and see Buddies who are sharing their location.

  Users are given three options: 1. No, don’t share location (default); 2. Share only with people on my Buddy list; or 3. Share with everyone. Once you’ve made your selection (let’s say we pick option 2 or 3), a new Group will be added - “Near Me” - showing other contacts within your vicinity. As Ars Technica points out, “there is no control over how large one’s nearby radius is” and thus, it is not exactly clear how near or far any of your contacts may be from your current location. What you can control, is the frequency of your location updates by navigating to: My Info > Preferences > (scroll down) Frequency. Here, you can select between 3 options: 1. On Startup; 2. Every 5 min. (default); or 3. Every 2000 feet.

  Beyond location-awareness, AIM 2.0 also features SMS capabilities. Users now have the option to send an IM to a screen name, or alternatively, can send an SMS to a contact’s phone number (works on both iPhone and iPod touch). The app now includes both a buddy list and a contact list, to take advantage of these new features. Also, you can now stay logged-in for up to 24 hours, even if the AIM app has been closed. This allows you (iPhone users only) to get notifications via SMS when you receive a new IM and offers a work-around until Apple enables real Push notifications.

  Other notable new features include the ability to use photos (taken with an iPhone) as buddy icons and the option to configure/switch between multiple screen names at any time. Are these new features enough to take down competing IM apps such as IM+, Fring, Truphone, and others? Only time will tell.

  AIM Free (2.0.1) is currently available for download, while the cleverly named (but as yet unpriced) AIM Paid is still pending approval (at the time of this writing).

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 14:45

  Alaska Airlines Begins Testing Satellite-based In-flight Wi-Fi

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 14:05

  Live Blogging The Facebook Conference Call

   »  TechCrunch

  

  We’re live blogging this morning’s Facebook conference call, during which Mark Zuckerberg is planning to “announce the new steps Facebook is taking to improve user understanding and ownership of the Facebook terms of service and, more generally, the policies of the Facebook service”. The call begins at 11 AM PST.

  To coincide with today’s call, Facebook has also announced that it is Opening Up Its Terms Of Service To Input From Users.

  After a brief delay. Elliot Schrage, Facebook’s VP Communications and Public Policy, is introducing the call.

  Mark Zuckerberg:
  Today we are going to talk about a set of documents that will be the governing documents of Facebook from here on. . . . We feel this is fairly unprecedented, giving users this much involvement into the process. The purpose of Facebook is to make the world more transparent and open. The governing documents are the framework of how we want to move forward with this. Last week we put up an old set of terms after we got feedback from a newer set of terms that we put up. What we are talking about today are things we’ve discussed at Facebook and our principles for a long time. We took last week as a strong signal that people care about Facebook. These are the foundational policies. The policies, principles, rights and responsibilities are really the foundation for the things we are going to build. The rules for how we want to govern the site.

  What we’re talking about today is policy, not product.

  We are open to putting the documents up to a vote. The rules people must do when on the site and what we must do, a two way thing. There will be Comment periods, a council that will help on future revisions.
  ” We do not own user data, they own their data. We never intended to give that impression and we feel bad that we did.” This document is a foundation that we’re going to use our decisions going forward.”

  Q: How did you go about changing the terms of service last time?
  Zuckerberg: The terms were similar to what other sites have. We actually shortened our terms from 15 pages to something much smaller. But we made some mistakes, and the complaints were completely fair. But what we’re doing now is totally unprecedented.
  Q: Who decides what the vote determines? What if you disagree with them?
  Schrage: We feel confident they’ll make good decisions..

  Q: You’ve been here before. Did you not learn from Beacon that people will rebel against changes in Terms of Service?
  Zuckerberg: Beacon wasn’t a change in Terms of Service. This was a dialog around the governing terms of the site. People use a lot of services on the web, but this is one of the only ones where they’re sharing their information.
  Schrage: Part of the challenge is that what was proposed with new ToS is remarkably consistent with what other sites have their ToS. Some of the blogs criticizing our ToS had Terms that were just as broad, but Mark’s point is that people share so much more on Facebook so we have to be held to a higher standard.

  Q: You mentioned that the amount of user involvement here is unprecedented. As an increasingly international organization, some of these continents like Europe have more stringent laws. What are your considerations for international laws?
  Ted: We of course pay attention to the laws…

  Q: Can you comment on steps Facebook is taking to determine phishing, malware?
  Schrage: That’s not really the purpose of the call today, feel free to contact us about that later.

  Q: You were already asked about Beacon. What could you have learned from the News Feed response? How do you manage expectations to people Twittering that you’re allowing users to write your ToS?
  Zuckerberg: We’re going to build product according to the goals we’re laying out. We should have been communicating about these products more broadly.

  Q: Is there not a need for contract language somewhere?
  Ted: I encourage you to look at the statement of rights and responsibilities. We have not just what you see as the ToS for users, but also for advertisers and developers. We have shrunk 44 pages of material to around 5.5 in this document including all three of those terms.

  That concludes the call.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 13:59

  Facebook Opens Up Its Terms Of Service To Input From Users

   »  TechCrunch

  

  After the uproar that ensued when Facebook tried to change its terms of service a couple weeks ago, along with its subsequent backpedaling and public assurances that users own their data, the company is trying a different tack. It is inviting users to comment and contribute on proposed changes to its terms of service.

  Facebook has posted a proposed set of Facebook Principles (reprinted below) and proposed Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. Members can discuss these proposals in two groups dedicated to each set of statements (here and here, respectively).

  During a conference call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained:

  Today we are going to talk about a set of documents that will be the governing documents of Facebook from here on. . . . We feel this is fairly unprecedented, giving users this much involvement into the process.

  He also reiterated:

  We do not own user data, they own their data. We never intended to give that impression and we feel bad that we did.

  Here are the statements:

  The Facebook Principles

  We are building Facebook to make the world more open and transparent, which we believe will create greater understanding and connection. Facebook promotes openness and transparency by giving individuals greater power to share and connect, and certain principles guide Facebook in pursuing these goals. Achieving these principles should be constrained only by limitations of law, technology, and evolving social norms. We therefore establish these Principles as the foundation of the rights and responsibilities of those within the Facebook Service.

  1. Freedom to Share and Connect

  People should have the freedom to share whatever information they want, in any medium and any format, and have the right to connect online with anyone – any person, organization or service – as long as they both consent to the connection.

  2. Ownership and Control of Information

  People should own their information. They should have the freedom to share it with anyone they want and take it with them anywhere they want, including removing it from the Facebook Service. People should have the freedom to decide with whom they will share their information, and to set privacy controls to protect those choices. Those controls, however, are not capable of limiting how those who have received information may use it, particularly outside the Facebook Service.

  3. Free Flow of Information

  People should have the freedom to access all of the information made available to them by others. People should also have practical tools that make it easy, quick, and efficient to share and access this information.

  4. Fundamental Equality

  Every Person – whether individual, advertiser, developer, organization, or other entity – should have representation and access to distribution and information within the Facebook Service, regardless of the Person’s primary activity. There should be a single set of principles, rights, and responsibilities that should apply to all People using the Facebook Service.

  5. Social Value

  People should have the freedom to build trust and reputation through their identity and connections, and should not have their presence on the Facebook Service removed for reasons other than those described in Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.

  6. Open Platforms and Standards

  People should have programmatic interfaces for sharing and accessing the information available to them. The specifications for these interfaces should be published and made available and accessible to everyone.

  7. Fundamental Service

  People should be able to use Facebook for free to establish a presence, connect with others, and share information with them. Every Person should be able to use the Facebook Service regardless of his or her level of participation or contribution.

  8. Common Welfare

  The rights and responsibilities of Facebook and the People that use it should be described in a Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, which should not be inconsistent with these Principles.

  9. Transparent Process

  Facebook should publicly make available information about its purpose, plans, policies, and operations. Facebook should have a town hall process of notice and comment and a system of voting to encourage input and discourse on amendments to these Principles or to the Rights and Responsibilities.

  10. One World

  The Facebook Service should transcend geographic and national boundaries and be available to everyone in the world.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 13:37

  Yahoo’s Bartz Cleans Up House; CFO Jorgensen, Mobile Chief Boerries Out

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Yahoo’s new CEO Carol Bartz is streamlining the company and picking which executives will remain on her team and which ones won’t. Chief Financial officer Blake Jorgensen will be departing, as will the head of Yahoo Mobile, Marco Boerries, among others. Getting a bump up are Ari Balogh, now CTO and head of all products, and Hilary Schneider on the advertising side, now head of North America. David Ko will be taking over mobile, reporting to Schneider interestingly enough rather than to Balogh. In her first blog post, Bartz writes:

  So today I’m rolling out a new management structure that I believe will make Yahoo! a lot faster on its feet. For us working at Yahoo!, it means everything gets simpler. We’ll be able to make speedier decisions, the notorious silos are gone, and we have a renewed focus on the customer. For you using Yahoo! every day, it will better enable us to deliver products that make you say, “Wow.”

  In addition to getting rid of unnecessary layers of management (and, oh boy, does Yahoo have plenty of that), Bartz also says that she is going to get the company to pay more attention to its customers and to burnishing its brand. To that effect, she is creating a “Customer Advocacy” group to speak for the customer inside Yahoo, and she promises to clarify “what the Yahoo! brand stands for. . . . Look for this company’s brand to kick ass again.”

  In a note that just went out, Barclays Capital analyst Doug Anmuth says of the CFO’s departure:

  We are not surprised by Jorgensen’s departure given that he was largely brought into the company by Sue Decker who left YHOO upon new CEO Carol Bartz’s recent appointment. However, we are increasingly concerned about Yahoo!’s thinning management ranks & about who internally will help guide new CEO Bartz as she moves deeper into the Internet space & soon makes critical strategic decisions for the company.

  In other words, where are the star hires? (Note that Bartz has hired a new Chief marketing officer in Elisa Steele).

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 12:34

  Yahoo SearchMonkey Adds Facebook Profile Actions Into Search Results

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Yahoo just embedded some Facebook functionality directly into its search results via SearchMonkey. When you search for a person on Yahoo, if they have a public Facebook profile, a link to that profile will appear in results, along with a photo and several actions you can take. these include adding them as a friend, “poking” them, sending them a message, and viewing their friends.

  You can see how it looks like in the image above, which shows results for Yahoo marketing VP Raj Gossain. The blue links under his name are the actions you can take. These are similar to the deep links SearchMonkey added to Yahoo Search for Wikipedia results.

  The links save you at least one step. But I’ve also noticed that the Facebook profile is often far down the results page. I wonder if this will help to change that. By all rights, Facebook should be the default people search, whether on Facebook or on search engines like Yahoo and Google.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 10:49

  Import Facebook Photos Into Your iPhone Contact List with Photo Phonebook

   »  TechCrunch

  

  How much overlap is there between your Facebook “friends” and the real contacts in your mobile phone’s address book? If those two world’s align and you have an iPhone, you might want to check out a nifty utility called Photo Phonebook (iTunes link). It finds the matches between the people in your iPhone’s contact list and your Facebook friends and downloads their Facebook profile photos. (Right now, there is a limit of 100 photo downloads because of memory constraints on the iPhone, but the developers are working to fix that).

  Next time a Facebook friend calls, their Facebook photo appears on your iPhone. It also appears in the address book. When your friends change their profile photos on Facebook, they change on your iPhone as well. HotorNot founder James Hong, who is an adviser to the developers behind the app, says:

  The novel idea is for people to basically start publishing their picture to other people’s phones, taking control of what picture represents them. Sort of like if you could control the ringtone that plays when you called someone, rather than them setting it.

  Photos taken with the iPhone can also be published directly to Photo Phonebook’s directory. The plan is support more phones in the future, and other image sources ranging from photos to avatars. This seems like the type of feature Facebook itself should make available through its mobile apps. It would also be much more useful if you could download and sync phone numbers between your Facebook contact list and your mobile phone. But then you might actually have to talk to some of your so-called Facebook friends.

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 10:48

  TechCrunch Roundtable & Meetup In Warsaw, March 19

   »  TechCrunch

  TechCrunch is hosting a Roundtable and Meetup in Warsaw on Thursday March 19, 3pm-6.30pm. “TechCrunchTalk Central & Eastern Europe” will feature an afternoon of panel discussions and some evening networking with CEE startups and the investment community. The event will be live video streamed. Please grab a ticket here. Read on for details:

  The TechCrunchTalk event - put on by TechCrunch UK & Europe - is aimed at bringing together the Web/mobile startups and the VC community. It will be the day after the Mini Seedcamp event for startups.

  TechCrunchTalk CEE will feature two quick-fire panel discussions with the hottest entrepreneurs and investors selected for their leading views on the market, with topics focused around the following themes:

  • Central and Eastern Europe is a hotbed of tech talent, but how best does it capitalise on this?

  • What will help CEE countries create the next Internet giants of the future?

  • What do startups need the VC community to do better?

  • What are investors looking for? What are the hot trends?

  Why Warsaw? In the past 15 years Central and Eastern European countries have experienced dynamic growth in the last few years. EU accession significantly lowered risk profiles which has led to the inflow of foreign capital and now entrepreneurship, producing new technology companies and, in turn new, hunting grounds for VCs. Poland is the largest country in the region and an emerging hub for CEE startups.

  Please contact our event organiser Petra Johansson on petra [at] twistedtree.co.uk for any enquiries about demo tables or sponsor packages. Press enquiries for press passes to rassami [at] rassami.com.

  The event will be followed by product pitches from three to five companies (products or startups that actually launch at the event will receive extra consideration, but it is not a requirement). If you have a startup ready to launch then and would like to give a demo, send a brief pitch to TechCrunch UK & Europe Editor Mike Butcher.

  And I’m happy to report we’re also getting some help from our friends at Warsaw-based New Europe Events, who’s TMT.Ventures’09 Warsaw conference is happening on March 5, at the Warsaw Stock Exchange, Poland.

  More Upcoming TechCrunch UK & Europe Events

  London
  21st April
  Topic: A day-long event for UK & other European startups. More details to follow
  Sign up for further info

  Stockholm
  27th May - Nordic and the Baltic states event for startups and VCs
  Topic: Connecting Northern Europe - Where are the strong and weak links?
  Sign up for further info

  Berlin
  10th June – More details to follow
  Topic: How does Berlin and Germany become a key node for European Tech?
  Sign up for further info

  London
  9th July – TechCrunch Summer-Party
  Topic: Party!
  Sign up for further info

  Past TechCrunchTalks:

  Barcelona
  19th February - “Mobile 2.0″ event alongside Mobile World Congress
  Topic: The future for Mobile 2.0 startups.
  Archive here

  Paris
  25th February
  Topic: Building the Tech scene in France, scaling across Europe and the world. Please check at TechCrunch UK for the video archive shortly.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 10:47

  iPhone Not Doing So Well In Japan, Now Free

   »  TechCrunch
  There are no official statistics available as how well the iPhone sells after Apple started offering it in the Japanese market. Now Softbank Mobile, one of Asia's biggest tech companies and the exclusive carrier for the iPhone in Japan, thinks sales need a boost and decided to give away the hardware basically for free.

  

  
• 10:25

  Google Friend Connect Hooks Up With Blogger

   »  TechCrunch

  Google has integrated Friend Connect with its weblog publishing service Blogger. Essentially, this enables people to start following (i.e. subscribing to) blogs using their Google, Yahoo, AIM or OpenID accounts and turns Blogger more into a social network than a straightforward blog publishing service.

  Blogs that you follow will be listed in your Blogger profile and the integration will also leverage existing relationships, meaning you’ll be able to quickly see if your friends are also following those blogs.

  The integration was announced on Google’s new Social Web Blog, and the post promises more goodies in the future:

  And this is just the first step in the integration, so be sure to stay tuned for further improvements, including an easy way to add OpenSocial gadgets through Blogger and the integration of the commenting features.

  Here’s a video:

  Just two weeks ago, Google introduced what it calls the Social Bar, a way for webmasters to include a small strip on top of their web pages and to enable them to add links for drop-down gadgets that lets visitors do things such as sign in via Friend Connect, see who else has signed in recently, check out comments, etc.

  Google Friend Connect, which is the company’s own data portability effort, was opened up for all websites in the beginning of December 2008, right when Facebook made Facebook Connect generally available as well.

  And thus, the battle for who will control access to your online identity continues. My guess is it’ll go on for a while before someone can be declared the winner, if at all.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 8:27

  Lawsuits Galore: Songbeat Silenced For Now, Won’t Go Down Without A Fight

   »  TechCrunch

  With a comic message on its website saying that the service has gone away to enter the 36 Shaolin Chambers of Software Kung Fu but will return stronger, music discovery application Songbeat lets its visitors know that it has received a first blow in court after Warner Music (and other music labels) sued the German startup for enabling users to stream and download music without permission.

  Songbeat essentially allowed you to scour the web for MP3s using integrated search for Seeqpod, Project Playlist, SpoolFM, iASK and more, stream tracks and even download them from a neat and fast desktop application.

  This comes fresh off the heels of the news that Warner Music is suing Seeqpod and even a developer that was using the application’s API, which prompted us to write that they’ve reached a new low. It’s not getting any better today.

  Warner Music succesfully sued the startup in a Hamburg court last week, so they have a court enactment which they also served last Friday. Songbeat says it will respond with a fast appeal but has taken the service offline for the time being just to make sure. The company believes it has a good chance of winning the appeal; I’m a bit less optimistic but I like the fact that the startup firmly believes they can make the labels start listening to them instead of chasing them around. One can always dream.

  Either way, Songbeat says it will be back online soon. The company says it’s currently in talks with music labels and will continue to do so even if it loses the case for good. If the latter should happen, the startup plans to relocate and simply reboot the service anyway.

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 4:35

  3Sixty Fishes DivShare Out Of The Deadpool

   »  TechCrunch

  When we reviewed file-sharing service DivShare way back in October 2007, we were mildly impressed with its one-stop solution for storing, managing and sharing files. A month later, the service was put up for sale on an auction site which prompted us to deadpool it.

  Fast-forward to January 2009, when the small startup behind DivShare was finally picked up by a group of internet veterans who started a new company called 3Sixty and aim to not only continue the service but also add some bells and whistles to it in the near future. The reason it took so long for DivShare to be acquired, so I was told, was because the service was doing well and making money and the owners just wanted to make sure it fell into the right hands and not sell it off to quickly and see it fade.

  As everyone knows, online file storing and sharing services are a dime a dozen, but DivShare boasts over a million registered users and - gasp - profitability (it helps when you haven’t take a dime in VC funding, of course). I tested the service and while it was not special in any way you look at it, it did work as advertised and you get a decent amount of storage (5 GB) for free. The company is apparently also very serious about not hosting anything but legitimate material on their servers. Annoyingly, a free account means that when you upload a file, it displays on a page filled with blatant in-your-face advertising units and pop-up ads, so that’s definitely a big turn-off. That said, the price for an ad-free service is reasonable and the company is re-evaluating how it displays advertising at the moment.

  DivShare also has some nice features like an iPhone application to access your files, a Facebook application for easy sharing on the social network, a WordPress plugin that replaces your regular uploading form with one from DivShare and an extensive API. You can find out more about that here.

  Interestingly, the people behind 3Sixty (who used to work for companies like Netscape, Roku, Verizon Wireless, AT&T, PSINet, Sybase, etc.) tell me that the acquisition of DivShare is just one of the steps in the direction they want to take their company, and that they’ve got some really exciting integrated internet communication services in the pipeline. Unfortunately, that’s about all they shared for the moment so we’ll just have to wait and see how that translates in practice.

  In any case, DivShare is no longer tagged ‘deadpool’ and you should try it out.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• February 25, 2009
• 20:00

  Google Responds To ‘Gfail’ Outage With Apps Status Dashboard

   »  TechCrunch

  In response to its extended Gmail outage yesterday, Google has just launched the Google Apps Status Dashboard. The dashboard offers an at-a-glance look at the system health of most popular Google services, including Gmail, Google Calendar, and the company’s suite of web-based document editors. Google has been pretty good about responding to down time with blog posts alerting users with status updates, but having a dedicated page seems like a much better solution (especially for users who don’t follow Google’s blogs).

  The news is in line with recent trends seen by other popular web services, like Twitter, which now offers its own dedicated Status Update. Given that users (especially business customers) are becoming increasingly reliant on Google’s cloud based services, this is a welcome move, though I’m hoping we won’t have to use it too often.

  For more, check out Google’s blog post here.

  

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 19:35

  Music Labels Reach A New Low, Sue Developer For Using Seeqpod API

   »  TechCrunch

  

  It’s no secret that the record industry hates Seeqpod, a music site that lets users stream songs for free. Last year the company was sued by Warner Music Group (the outcome of the suit is still pending). Now, the company has just been slapped with a complaint from EMI. But the new complaint goes one step further, personally naming some of the Seeqpod executives, and in a move that may well raise the ire of countless developers, a developer named Ryan Sit who happened to tap into the Seeqpod API.

  The legality of Seeqpod is murky. The company says that it doesn’t store any songs, but instead streams them from countless music files littering sites across the web. In effect, it acts as a powerful music search engine with a media player built in. The record industry claims that this is still illegal, and the new EMI complaint goes as far as to say that Seeqpod actually does host some of these music files, at least temporarily (which would strike a major blow to Seeqpod’s defense if proven true). In any case, Seeqpod is clearly on some shaky legal ground, so the new lawsuit doesn’t come as a surprise.

  What is surprising, and potentially very alarming, is the fact that Ryan Sit was named in the suit for running the one-man startup Favtape, which leverages the Seeqpod API to stream music. Sit has created a number of sites, including Swurl and FavThumbs. In short, he’s a prolific developer who takes advantage of the APIs offered by many popular websites.

  Favtape allows users to create playlists of their favorite songs, which are then streamed using the Seeqpod API. Favtape never hosts any of these files. At its core, it’s essentially just a fancy front-end for Seeqpod. In my past coverage of Favtape, I’ve noted that the site would become virtually useless if Seeqpod ever got sued. But it never crossed my mind that the site itself, and the man who built it, would also be named in the case. For one, there are dozens of other sites that use the Seeqpod API to do exactly what Favtape does. Why was Favtape singled out? There’s also the fact that - given the already murky laws surrounding Seeqpod - Favtape is yet one more degree removed from any possible transgressions.

  If EMI does win, it would set a precedent that the usage of an API puts the developer at risk of a lawsuit should the service they’re tapping into ever get sued. Such a decision would have huge ramifications for developers, who could become weary of using any service that could conceivably be considered illegal. It would stifle innovation. And frankly, it’s ridiculous.

  For more, check out this post by Michael Robertson.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 18:53

  Online Ads: Even the Evangelists Turning Bearish

   »  TechCrunch

  It wasn’t too many months ago that saying online advertising would decline in 2009 was enough to get you laughed at in the blogosphere, mocked on Twitter, and have Eric Schmidt roll his eyes and explain, again, why Google ads were such a better value than traditional media.

  Flash forward to this week and the Interactive Advertising Bureau big wigs are predicting whole businesses dependent on online ads could go belly up, and researcher IDC has completely reversed its growth estimates. No longer will online ads grow 10% in 2009, says the firm. IDC now predicts a 5% drop in revenues in the first quarter that could get worse in the second. Fingers crossed for the second half of the year.

  The trend is certainly already moving in that direction: Last year the market was growing at 18%. Last quarter it grew a sad .4%. That’s flirting dangerously close to the first quarter-over-quarter drop in online ad sales since the great dot com bust. Suddenly everyone’s bull scenario isn’t double-digit growth; it’s a year that doesn’t tip negative.

  How’d everyone get the story so wrong? (Ok, not everyone. Stop waving your hand Henry Blodget, I see you.) Two big assumptions were at work here: One was that online advertising is more actionable and more measurable than advertising in the offline world. The other was this pie chart that Yahoo’s PR department used to love to trot out showing the discrepancy between the amount of time people spend online and the percentage of advertising spend that goes online. “At some point, that has to balance out, right? RIGHT?”

  There’s enough truth in these assumptions to ensure that online advertising won’t have nearly as bad of a year as offline advertising. But in this market, that’s like saying a broken leg is better than an amputated one.

  Plenty of attendees at this week’s IAB conference pointed out that problems like reliable audience measurement are no closer to being solved than they were during the industry’s last identity crisis in 2001. Some people argue, it’s gotten worse. There was also plenty of worried chatter that desperate times would lead to desperate measures, causing advertisers to play fast and loose with user privacy in an attempt to make a sale.

  I have a better idea: How about actually come up with innovative advertising products? Google-aside, I think the Web industry has gotten lazy when it comes to advertising innovation. There’s too much outsourcing to the ad networks and too much of an assumption by the portals and other large properties that gaudy eyeballs will be enough. That’s old media thinking. It’s enough to get ads when times are good, but not necessarily to keep them when times get bad.

  A lot of people criticize newspapers for just putting their stories online, the same way they’d dummy them up on the printed page, rather than really utilizing the two-way medium. I think you could argue the same about the way many sites think about display ads. Too often it seems a cat and mouse game where I’m chasing an ad around a page looking for the close button so I can read some content. Sure, maybe I look at your message more than I would in a banner. But it’s also annoyed me enough that I will never buy your product. In many cases, even a back-to-basics approach works better, as I wrote about in my BusinessWeek column today that highlights some of the shockingly high CPM rates that un-high-tech email newsletters are getting.

  Like so many things in the recession, it’s ultimately a good sign that marketers are panicked. We might actually see some innovation here.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 17:15

  GamersGate, An Alternative Direct-Download Games Service

   »  TechCrunch
  When people think of games on demand, Steam is usually the first thing that comes to mind since so many of us have it by default, having bought Half-Life 2 and whatnot. But there are services that have been around for just as long and which offer the same huge variety of games, like GamersGate, which we're highlighting because of CrunchGear's ongoing war with accepting the tech status quo (see Zune). Online game distribution is becoming as standard as ordering books and electronics online — so why should you tether yourself to a single store? It's no different than checking prices on both Newegg and TigerDirect — just open an extra tab. You may find GamersGate's clientless format more or less convenient, or maybe the game you're looking for is on sale at one but not the other. There's no reason you shouldn't put your search into more than one box if it means a chance to save a couple bucks.

  

  
• 17:05

  Michael Jackson’s Collection of Arcade Games Going to Auction

   »  TechCrunch
  The King of Pop's enormous collection of arcade games will be auctioned off on April 24th. You'll be able to bid online at AuctionNetwork.com or in person at Julien's Auctions in Beverly Hills. Hit the jump to see the full list of over 100 machines that'll be up for grabs.

  

  
• 16:20

  Salesforce Hits $1 Billion Dollars In Annual Revenues

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Salesforce is now officially the first enterprise cloud computing company to hit $1 billion in annual revenues. The company announced its fourth quarter and year-end earnings. It’s quarterly revenues were up 34 percent to $290 million, bringing the total for the year to $1. 077 billion. Net income for the quarter was $13.7 million ($0.11 a share), and $43.4 million ($0.36 a share) for the year (which doesn’t sound like a lot compared to $1 billion in revenues, but it was more than double last year’s earnings). Its operating cash flow for the year was a quite healthy $230 million.

  Salesforce ended the year with 55,400 corporate customers, and 1.5 million individual subscribers. And it has $883 million in the bank. Salesforce expects revenues to increase by about 30 percent this fiscal year to $1.3 billion.

  Passing the $1 billion mark is a major milestone for both Salesforce and cloud computing in general. Salesforce is the first enterprise computing company to get to that size based solely on selling Web apps.

  Here is the press release:

  Salesforce.com delivered the following results for the fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2009:

  Revenue: Total Q4 revenue was $289.6 million, an increase of 34% on a year-over-year basis and an increase of 5% on a quarter-over-quarter basis. Subscription and support revenues were $266.1 million, an increase of 35% on a year-over-year basis and an increase of 5% on a quarter-over-quarter basis. Professional services and other revenues were $23.5 million, an increase of 15% on a year-over-year basis and an increase of 2% on a quarter-over-quarter basis.

  For the full fiscal year 2009, the company reported revenue of approximately $1.077 billion, an increase of 44% from the prior year. Subscription and support revenues were $984.6 million for the year, an increase of 45%, while professional services revenue rose 35% to $92.2 million.

  Earnings per Share: Q4 GAAP diluted earnings per share were approximately $0.11, including approximately $21.1 million in stock based compensation expense and approximately $2.9 million in amortization of purchased intangibles related to previously announced acquisitions. For purposes of the Q4 GAAP EPS calculations, there was an average of approximately 125 million diluted shares outstanding during the quarter.

  For the full year, GAAP diluted earnings per share rose approximately 130% year-over-year to $0.35, including approximately $77.4 million in stock based compensation and approximately $8.0 million in amortization of purchased intangibles related to previously announced acquisitions. For purposes of the GAAP EPS calculations, there was an average of approximately 125 million diluted shares outstanding during the year.

  Customers and Paying Subscribers: Net paying customers rose approximately 3,600 during the quarter and approximately 14,400 during the year to finish at approximately 55,400. Net paying subscribers rose to greater than 1.5 million, an increase of approximately 400,000 from the prior fiscal year end.

  Cash: Cash from operations for the fiscal fourth quarter was approximately $76 million, up from $17 million in the third quarter, and down 7% year-over-year. For the full year, operating cash flow totaled $230 million, an increase of 12% from the prior year. Total cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities finished the year at approximately $883 million, an increase of approximately $78 million from Q3 and approximately $213 million from the prior fiscal year end.

  Deferred Revenue: Deferred revenue on the balance sheet as of January 31, 2009 was $594 million, an increase of 24% on a year-over-year basis and 27% on a quarter-over-quarter basis.

  As of February 25, 2009, salesforce.com is initiating guidance for its first quarter, fiscal year 2010. For its full fiscal year 2010, the company is updating its prior revenue guidance and initiating EPS guidance.

  Q1 FY10: Revenue for the company’s first fiscal quarter is projected to be in the range of approximately $304 million to approximately $305 million. GAAP diluted EPS is expected to be in the range of approximately $0.10 to approximately $0.11. Stock based compensation expense is expected to be approximately $22 million, and amortization of purchased intangibles is expected to be approximately $2.6 million. For purposes of the Q1 GAAP EPS calculation, the company is expecting an average diluted shares count of 126 million shares, a GAAP tax rate of approximately 43%, and a minority interest expense of approximately $200,000.

  Full Year FY10: The company today is updating the full year revenue guidance it provided on November 20, 2008, with revenue now expected to be approximately $1.30 billion to approximately $1.33 billion. The company is also initiating its earnings outlook for the full year, expecting GAAP diluted EPS to be in the range of approximately $0.54 to approximately $0.55. Stock based compensation expense is expected to be approximately $91 million, and amortization of purchased intangibles is currently expected to be approximately $9.3 million. For purposes of the full fiscal year 2010 GAAP EPS calculation, the company is expecting an average diluted shares count of 128 million shares, a GAAP tax rate of approximately 43%, and a minority interest expense of approximately $1 million.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 15:28

  Biden Forgets Recovery.gov’s “Website Number”

   »  TechCrunch

  This morning Vice President Biden went on the CBS early show to promote Recovery.gov, the website that will detail where all of the money in The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will be going. Unfortunately, he forgot the actual address of the site during the interview, explaining that he was embarrassed that he didn’t have the “website number”. And thus, we have a new internet meme in the making, as Biden follows in the footsteps of Senator Ted Stevens’s Series of Tubes and President Bush’s reference to the “internets”.

  
  
  

  In Biden’s defense, at least he was smart enough not to take a guess at what the website might have been called, only to have an entrepreneural domain squatter grab the domain and start a porn site. The last thing the government needs is something along the lines of NBC’s hilarious Hornymanatee fiasco.

  Thanks to Paul Kedrosky for the tip.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 6:58

  Appcelerator Releases New Preview Of Open Source Developer Platform Titanium, Adds Bells And Whistles

   »  TechCrunch

  This morning, Mountain View-based startup Appcelerator is taking the wraps off its second Preview Release for Titanium, an open-source developer platform meant to compete with Adobe AIR and the likes for building rich internet, mobile and desktop applications.

  Titanium PR2 comes with a number of new features that are worth taking a look at, like an extensible Module API and built-in support for Linux and a wide range of programming languages like Python, Ruby and JavaScript in addition to C++. More technical details are outlined on the company blog Appcelerant.

  The new release of the open developer platform, licensed under Apache Public License (version 2), can be downloaded for Windows, Mac OSX or Linux here. The release also includes a nifty tool dubbed Titanium Developer which groups a number of social media and communication services like Twitter, FriendFeed and an IRC chat module which is supposed to make it easier for the open-source developer community to connect and collaborate when using Titanium for building apps. Check out this screencast to see how it works.

  I have my doubts about Appcelerator being able to compete with more established players like Adobe with its cross-platform AIR runtime (at version 1.5.1 since yesterday), but it never hurts for developers to have alternatives, especially when they are open-source and as flexible as Titanium. The startup features a couple of demo applications you can play with, like Tweetanium (desktop Twitter client) and Playtanium (a desktop YouTube video player). I tested both (admittedly very basic) apps on my Windows Vista powered PC and they worked like a charm.

  Appcelerator recently raised $4.1 million in a Series A round led by Storm Ventures.

  Below are a couple of screenshots and a tutorial video on how to get started with Titanium. If you build an app with it, be sure to let us know!

  
  Titanium Developer: Getting Started from Appcelerator Video Channel on Vimeo.

  

  

  

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 6:06

  Imagini Gets $13.5m To Work Out Your Personality With Pictures

   »  TechCrunch

  UK start-up Imagini has secured a significant $13.5 million in a second round of funding (the first round was undisclosed). The additional investment comes from Horizons Ventures, NorthZone Ventures and Atomico. Imagini has an interesting technology called VisualDNA which effectively works out people’s personality types by presenting them with picture choices - instead of, say, asking users to type in their profile. The Flash-based quiz is not unlike a game, and can be quite addictive once you get going. The result is that Imagini says online retailers get a 37% uplift from customers after they get profiled. So whether you picked the Grand Torino over the Lamborghini really does say something about you.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 5:23

  World Economic Forum Announces New Batch Of Young Global Leaders (Mark Zuckerberg, Chad Hurley, Kevin Rose And More)

   »  TechCrunch

  The World Economic Forum has just published its annual list of Young Global Leaders, recognizing “between 200 and 300 outstanding young leaders from around the world for their professional accomplishments, commitment to society and potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world”.

  The list of honorees, besides celebrities like Coldplay’s Chris Martin and F1 legend Michael Schumacher, includes a good number of people from the technology and Internet industry, so here’s a quick run-down of the names you might know:

  Mark Zuckerberg - founder and CEO of Facebook
  Kevin Rose - founder of Digg
  Chad Hurley - co-founder and CEO of YouTube
  Josh Silverman - CEO of Skype
  Michael Birch - founder and CEO of Bebo
  Premal Shah - President of Kiva
  Lisa Huddleson - Corporate Foundation Executive Director at Dell
  Vinodan Lingham - CEO of Synthasite
  Paul Bassat - CEO of Seek
  Suranga Chandratillake - co-founder and CEO of blinkx
  Michael Cannon-Brooks - co-founder of Atlassian
  Andrej Nabergoj - co-founder and CEO of Noovo
  Kamal Quadir - founder of CellBazaar
  Ashok Vemuri - Senior VP, Banking and Capital Markets at Infosys Technologies
  Habib Haddad - co-founder of Yamli
  Josh Spear - founding partner of Undercurrent

  For the full list, click here (PDF).

  Drawn from a pool of almost 5,000 candidates, the Young Global Leaders 2009 were chosen by a selection committee (PDF), chaired by H.M. Queen Rania Al Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, comprising 31 eminent international media leaders.

  The recently published list of active YGLs includes names like Sergey Brin and Larry Page (Google), Tony Fadell (Apple) Marc Benioff (Salesforce.com), John Battelle (Federated Media), Peter Thiel (Clarium Capital), Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia), Uday Khemka (Sun), Tariq Krim (Jolicloud), Philipp Justus (PayPal), Lila Ibrahim (Intel), Esther Duflo and Kristin Forbes (MIT), Jack Ma Yun (AliBaba), Jorge Blanco (Avaya), Bill Nguyen (LaLa), Tero Ojanpera (Nokia), and Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook).

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 3:11

  Google App Engine Offers Pricing Plan Beyond Quotas; Grab A Free I/O Ticket To Celebrate

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Google has released a new upgrade for its popular App Engine service that allows developers to pay to extend their application’s resource quotas beyond those that have historically been offered by the free service. According to Google this has been the platform’s most oft-requested feature, as developers with rapidly growing applications have been unable to expand beyond the set thresholds to meet demand. Developers will be able to set aside a specified amount of money each day, which will be distributed across fees related to CPU usage, bandwidth, storage space, and email (you keep any money that isn’t spent that day). For more details, check out the company’s blog post here.

  
  
  

  To coincide with today’s announcement, we’re giving away three more tickets to Google’s upcoming I/O event this May. If you’d like one, leave a comment below telling us how you’re going to use Google’s new premium quota extensions, and we’ll pick out the best ones. Be sure to use your real Email address so we can contact you directly.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• February 24, 2009
• 23:24

  MySpace Inches Closer To Offering Full-Fledged Webmail Service

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Last month we reported that MySpace was planning to launch a webmail service - a move that could instantly make it one of the web’s largest Email providers (provided a substantial portion of its users took advantage of the feature). Today we’ve received a number of tips that MySpace has introduced some new messaging features that indicate that the transition is well underway. Most notably, the site now allows users to send a message to multiple friends at once, as seen in the shot below.

  The feature works as advertised: as users begin typing their friends’ names, an autocomplete window opens with a list of matches. Each picture in the ‘To’ line is a link to that user’s MySpace profile, which makes it easier to confirm that you’re messaging the right friend.

  

  While the company wouldn’t comment on its webmail plans, MySpace has confirmed that the new feature launched today, and also detailed some of the other upgrades to the site’s messaging functionality. The site now offers an at-a-glance view of your sent messages so you can see if your friends have read them (frankly I find this feature to be a little creepy, but it’s not uncommon in standard Email clients). Users will also be able to attach video files to their outgoing messages.

  Of course, while the site’s interface may be gradually moving towards that of most webmail clients, it is still missing one key feature: users don’t have a dedicated name@myspace.com Email address yet, so they can’t receive incoming mail. But as we noted last month, the company has started moving its corporate Email addresses from name@MySpace.com to the domain MySpace-inc.com, paving the way for users to occupy the name@MySpace.com addresses.

  We should note that Facebook has also been slowly adding features to its messaging platform. While we haven’t heard anything directly related to a Facebook webmail application, the site clearly strives to be a central hub for social communication on the web, so it wouldn’t be surprising if it has similar aspirations (especially if MySpace’s experiment goes well).

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 21:14

  Microsoft TechFest: ‘Surface’ Upgrade Projects Images Beyond The Screen

   »  TechCrunch

  

  We’re big fans of of Microsoft Surface, the interactive multitouch tabletop that acts a bit like an iPhone on a much larger scale (though the technology used is completely different). In fact, we like the Surface so much that we’re one of the few private organizations to actually have one. So today when I saw some new technology may well work itself into a future version of the innovative product, I was more than a little enthused.

  The new technology showcased today allows Surface-like devices to effectively project two different images in the same space. One of these projections is shown on the display as it normally would be, while the other is projected through it, so that it appears on anything that is held above the Surface (watch the video if this doesn’t make sense - it’s very cool). The technology works by rapidly alternating which of the images are projected at a speed that makes the transition undetectable to the human eye. The technology can also be applied to a basic hand held electronic viewfinder that can shift the user’s perspective of the Surface image in real-time (again, see the video).

  
  
  

  Note: It is tough to see the projected images in the standard-def YouTube video, so make sure to click on the ‘HD’ button to watch the high definition version.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 18:00

  Ginx Helps You Find And Follow The Experts on Twitter

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Ginx, the third-party interface for Twitter that makes it easier to share news with friends, has added a new feature that organizes experts into groups so you follow their ongoing commentary on your favorite topics.

  Each group on Ginx is created and administered by a single owner who determines who the experts are in a particular field or category. For example, here’s a group of journalists who are focused on covering Apple news. It’s run by the user mirthlab and members include John Gruber and Arnold Kim.

  Currently there are 11 groups in total on Ginx, and all of them are listed in this simple directory. The others include one about China and another about Arizona politics.

  If you’re interested in hearing what the experts in a particular group have to say, you can become a follower of that group with a single click. All of the tweets from the group’s members will then show up in your Ginx timeline, regardless of whether their tweets are related to the group’s topic or not. When asked about whether it would be better to just show followers those tweets that are relevant to a group’s topic, co-founder Pierre Omidyar insisted that getting the whole stream of tweets from group members actually lets you learn more about who the members are as people. And in turn, this makes the news and commentary you get from them more personal.

  This new groups feature is a natural addition to Ginx’s core functionality, since it advances the notion that Twitter should be used to learn and educate others about the world. It does pose the risk of information overload, however, since by joining just a few groups, you’re expanding the number of people who contribute to your timeline considerably. In anticipation of this problem, there are checkboxes next to the timeline that let you temporarily remove all tweets from a particular group. But something tells me that most users will still want to be part of only one or two groups at a time, lest they have trouble separating the wheat from the chaff.

  Only select users have the power to create groups, although I’m told that this will change soon so that anyone can set up their own. Everyone can start following the existing groups today, and if you’re not already a Ginx user, the first 100 users to sign up with this code will get in: 842A11AC93EA.

  Update: We’ve created a group with TechCrunch employees that you can follow.

  

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 17:19

  Microsoft TechFest: Qik Meets Photosynth With Impressive Panoramic Mobile Movies

   »  TechCrunch

  

  I’m here in Redmond, Washington at Microsoft TechFest 2009, where Microsoft is showcasing many of the projects its researchers around the world. The event is filled with impressive demos covering diverse topics ranging from advanced user interfaces to improving computer-based learning in developing countries. We’ll be posting videos throughout the day, the first of which is a demonstration that essentially combines the mobile video broadcasting of services like Qik with Microsoft’s image and video stitching technology that can be seen in its impressive Photosynth product. The technology can take multiple live video streams focusing on the same subject (as you might find at a concert), and stitches them together to create one large panoramic video. For a full demo, see the video below.

  
  
  

  It’s important to note that while many of these technologies are extremely impressive, they may not be seen in consumer devices for quite some time (if ever). Still, given the fact that products like Microsoft’s Surface emerged from similar research projects, these may well be a window into the future what our gadgets will soon be able to pull off.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 16:45

  Paid Search Just Got Visual: SearchMe Launches AdView Beta (Free Ads For First 500 Signups)

   »  TechCrunch

  

  What happens when you make paid search ads both relevant and visual? Searchme, the search engine startup which presents results as a stack of full-page previews that you can flip through, is hoping to find out with the beta launch of AdView. Its first foray into advertising, AdView is SearchMe’s version of AdWords, except that instead of selling of paid text links it will be interspersing into its results clickable previews of entire Webpages, videos, or other visual advertising.

  If you are an advertiser and want to try it out, SearchMe is giving a free trial to the first 500 companies or individuals that sign up here. That’s right, you get to run a free ad campaign on SearchMe for 30 days.

  To see how this works, search for “Ralph Lauren” and if you flip through to the third result, it will be an ad that shows a landing page for its fall collection. In other words, the Website becomes the ad itself. This approach is similar to what StumbleUpon does, with ads placed in every 20 or so Stumbles. But the ad unit can also be a YouTube video which can be played without leaving SearchMe. For instance, check out the third result when you search for “Mac” (SearchMe inserted one of the “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” ads for demonstration purposes).

  This could potentially be a very effective form of advertising. It is almost like a magazine ad where the ad is a Website. Advertisers who create visually appealing landing pages I suspect will do better. And it is also a potentially powerful way to target video ads, combining keyword targeting with a TV-like viewing experience. (Check out SearchMe’s own video commercial embedded below, which it plans to run as a TV spot)

  SearchMe is not huge by any means, but it provides a nice sandbox to experiment with new types of advertising. Quantcast shows some decent growth over the past six months to about 3 million visitors in the U.S. That is certainly large enough to test the ROI for visual paid search. And its organic growth suggests that the idea could catch on. Certainly, it doesn’t hurt that Apple is training consumers to become comfortbale with the page-flipping metaphor. One of the key features of its just-released version of the Safari browser is a similar Coverflow-like treatment of bookmarked pages and browsing history.

  

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 16:40

  Can’t Get 1password to Work With the Safari 4 Beta? Here’s the Fix.

   »  TechCrunch
  After weeks of dealing with Firefox running like a pile of hot garbage on both of my Macs, I made the jump over to the Safari 4 Beta as soon as word of it broke this morning. All was well until I went to log in to pay my gas bill, when I suddenly realized that I had no idea what the passwords were for my less frequently used services. 1password keeps track of all that junk for me, and suddenly 1password was no where to be found. I was password-less and alone. Fortunately, it's a pretty easy fix.

  

  
• 14:52

  China’s Social Network QZone Is Big, But Is It Really The Biggest?

   »  TechCrunch

  Tencent, China’s largest Internet portal mostly known to us for its hugely popular instant messenger product QQ, published an updated report on the user numbers of its social networking service QZone last week. The report was only available in Chinese, but the folks over at Web2Asia were kind enough to translate it.

  And if the self-reported numbers are not too much of an exaggeration, they’re nothing short of mind-blowing.

  Even taken with a healthy grain of salt, the stats Tencent are presenting deserve a mention: the report claims more than 200 million people were using QZone as of January 31, 2009, surpassing international players like Facebook (which recently announced 175 million registered users) and MySpace.

  For the sake of comparison, we took a look at the worldwide comScore stats for the aforementioned social networking services, but they only give you an overview of visitor numbers for QQ.com instead of QZone separately (which has its own subdomain). To be frank, we don’t even know if the comparison flies because we’re not sure where QQ the communication (IM) service ends and where QZone the social network begins.

  

  Going back to Tencent’s report, it states that about 150 million out of the total 200 million are actively contributing on Qzone by posting blogs, sharing photos, and interacting with other users. In Qzone, about 4 million users are supposedly uploading an average of 60 million photos every day. Furthermore, on February 9 the company’s instant messenger QQ reportedly recorded more than 50 million concurrent users.

  The numbers are so impressive that we dug a little deeper, stumbling upon a report on DataCenterKnowledge which also wonders if QZone is bigger than Facebook globally or not. The article points to Netcraft’s latest monthly web server survey, which this month started including the Qzone blogging service. Netcraft: “this month’s inclusion instantly makes the company the largest blog site provider in the survey, surpassing the likes of Windows Live Spaces, Blogger and MySpace.” Facebook is under-reported here because Netcraft’s survey doesn’t capture all the activity at social networks and instead zooms in on sites rather than users.

  Furthermore, QQ has more social networking services targeting various markets besides QZone. QQ Xiaoyou, a service targeting students in universities and high schools, has over 20 million registered users and it only officially launched in January, 2009 (it’s been in private test mode since June 2008).

  If QQ doesn’t operate the world’s largest social networking sites already, it will soon.

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 14:43

  Amazon Kindle 2 Unboxing and Run Through

   »  TechCrunch
  Welcome to KrunchGear's Kindle 2 Dekontainment, a video in which we unbox the Kindle 2 and show off some of its various and sundry features. Here are our initial photos including the Kindle Kover (k) which is konsiderably better than the original cover. This one actually snaps into the Kindle and can't fall off. Click through for our unboxing video.

  

  
• 14:16

  Browser-based ‘Quake Live’ Public Beta Today

   »  TechCrunch
  Previously invite-only, the public beta of Quake Live – Quake III in your browser! – will open today. A countdown timer on the website indicates that we’ll all be able to “frag” each other, as you kids say, at around 11:00 PM Eastern tonight. Let’s all go fragging together, shall we?

  

  
• 13:50

  Reunion.com And Wink Morph Into MyLife.com

   »  TechCrunch

  When Reunion.com and Wink announced their merger in early October 2008, the company indicated that it would be relaunching under a different brand name and with a completely overhauled website in early 2009. That day has finally come, and henceforth the merged companies will live on as MyLife.

  The website for Reunion.com already redirects to MyLife.com, while dedicated people search engine Wink still has its own web presence. MyLife, however, already integrates Wink’s technology, which means the new hybrid social platform is now a full-fledged search engine which not only finds people—thanks to aggregated search across social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace—but also helps visitors connect with them all on the same site. On its company presentation page, MyLife boasts that it can locate over 750 million online profiles via its search index today.

  Reunion.com has been getting decent traffic lately, rising to 15.4 million U.S. unique visitors and 18.2 million worldwide last month, according to comScore. Google Trends also paints a picture of continued growth, albeit almost exclusively for North America. That basically means MyLife is now effectively the fourth largest social network in the U.S. after Facebook, MySpace and Classmates.com, leaving behind a bunch of more talked-about companies like Bebo, LinkedIn, Digg and Imeem, if you compare comScore data for January 2009.

  According to Founder and CEO Jeffrey Tinsley, Reunion grew 92% last year and its revenues for 2008 was somewhere in the vicinity of $52 million. Up until now, the company has raised $26.4 million in venture capital over two rounds, and it has used $6 million of this capital to acquire five companies to date (Wink, GoodContacts, MyAddressBook, Planet Alumni, and HighSchoolAlumni.com).

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 13:16

  TC50’s plaYce Launches Real-World, 3D Game Platform as a Service (500 Invites)

   »  TechCrunch

  

  plaYce which showcased at last year’s Techcrunch50 is today announcing the beta launch of its Game-Platform-as-a-Service, aimed at assisting game developers bring high-quality 3D game play right into the browser. Games in plaYce are based on 3D renderings of real cities such as San Francisco and New York.

  500 private beta invites for both users and developers are available exclusively to TechCrunch readers here.

  Casual games on the Web are quite bland when compared to “Tripple-A Games”—high budget titles typically produced by game studios such as EA. The type of games developed and/or distributed by the likes of Zynga, SGN, Kongregate or Oberon just don’t cut it for “real” gamers which are used to superior high-quality game play and graphics.

  plaYce tackles this matter by allowing high-quality games to be streamed into the browser. The company claims it delivers quick-engagement by initiating play within a minute for games ranging from 300MB up to a few gigabytes in size. Granted, that is indeed quite a bit of time to wait for a game to load, however, the game quality is in a different league than the quality of current casual games (see the video embedded at the end of the post). Users are required to install a 7.7MB plug-in (the “plaYce player”) in order to play games utilizing plaYce’s technology. IE & Firefox are supported on PCs, with Linux and Mac coming soon I’m told.

  plaYce is targeting independent game developers who will be able to port existing games or build new ones from scratch. The company’s Game-Platform-as-a-Service includes:

  • Game Streaming – Where the user’s current and predicted point of view in the game define what piece of data needs to be upload to the client.
  • Graphics Engine – In-browser complex rendering including soft shadows, shaders, lights, particle effects, etc.
  • Game Arenas - Currently San Francisco, Manhattan and a few large open terrain areas, with two major European cities and Hong Kong on the way. Game developers can also model 3D arenas in any standard 3D modeling tool and then import it. Game arenas that “float in space” are also supported.
  • Facebook & OpenSocial Integration – Allows users to import friends into games.
  • Micro transaction & Virtual Goods – Game developers will be able to implement these in any game.
  • In-game advertising – Provided through Massive and Double Fusion.
  • Services – Game lobby, security, asset management, quality of service.

  Like any technology there are “performance envelops”… Game developers will have to be aware that the scenes are streamed and that there are hardware considerations (CPU, graphics card, etc.). Developers should also be aware that the plaYce API is written in C++, with the next version supporting Lua.

  The company’s business model will be based on micro-transactions, virtual goods, in-game ads, and rev-share with game developers. Developers will not be charged for the use of the platform.

  plaYce is showcasing its technology with Downtown Defender, a game it developed itself (it does not plan to enter the game production business). The company describes the game as:

  Downtown Defender brings the game mechanics of “Desktop Tower Defense” and the emotion of a realistic, giant monster movie into a tight, high impact experience. Using a Black Hawk Military helicopter, players will defend San Francisco from waves of massive creatures by dropping powerful gun turrets into strategic positions. Players will also need to rescue people on the ground from being eaten alive. The more people the player collects, the greater man power they will have for their turrets.

  Here’s a video of the game play:

  >

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 12:05

  Why Social Networks Are Good for the Kids

   »  TechCrunch

  The other day I asked somewhat tongue-in-cheek whether Tom Friedman had ever visited Silicon Valley. Today, I’m wondering if Lady Greenfield has ever used a social networking site.

  The professor of synaptic pharmacology at Lincoln College, Oxford and the director of the Royal Institution has the United Kingdom up in a tizzy about the idea that Facebook, Bebo and Twitter are warping their children’s minds.

  She warned that social networking sites “are devoid of cohesive narrative and long-term significance. As a consequence, the mid-21st century mind might almost be infantilized, characterized by short attention spans, sensationalism, inability to empathize and a shaky sense of identity.”

  I’m not a psychologist, nor am I a parent, so let me start by saying she might be right that these sites are harmful in some cognitive way. But I think she’s wrong to assume social networking is devoid of a “cohesive narrative and long-term significance.” I can see where she’s coming from, but like a lot of people who don’t actually use these sites, she’s missing a fundamental shift from Web 1.0 chat room days to Web 2.0 social networks: Real identity.

  We no longer “go to the Internet” to interact with some shadowy user name where we pretend to be someone we’re not. Ok, maybe people on Second Life do. But sites like Facebook and Twitter are more about extending your real identity and relationships online. That’s what makes them so addictive: The little endorphin rushes from reconnecting with an old friend, the ability to passively stay in touch with people you care about but don’t have the time to call everyday.

  Facebook makes me a more considerate friend because I now remember people’s birthdays. Over Geni, I stay in touch with my niece who I used to see once a year, but is now helping me map out our family tree. Via Twitter, my parents and in-laws know everything happening in my life so that when I call home, we have substantive conversations, not the awkward, “So…..whatcha been up to?” variety. In dozens of cases, these sites have made my real human relationships longer lasting and more substantive. They have actually given me a longer narrative, because it has rekindled friendships with dozens of people with whom I’d lost touch.

  Greenfield may well have a point when she argues that the young brain can’t handle over-stimulation of “fast action and reaction.” But isn’t that the same argument we’ve been making about all technology and entertainment for decades now? Indeed, I’m of the MTV generation and all those fast cuts and blaring sounds were supposed to warp my brain long ago. (I know some TechCrunch commenters who would argue it has…) Everything has a trade off, and I’d argue the benefits in communications, education and collaboration of the Web far outweigh the negatives, and indeed give us greater benefits than we get from TV or Guitar Hero.

  I do share one concern with her: Whether over saturation online leads to a lack of empathy. This is something that is being debated throughout the blogosphere right now. As we all become public personas in our own sphere we’re increasingly subject to the same abuse, scrutiny and haters that actual celebrities have to deal with. Such anonymous venom is, after all, why you are reading a post from me on TechCrunch right now.

  But I’m hopeful that the direction social networking is headed in is the answer to this, not the problem. As more of our social graphs move online, via Twitter or Facebook, the more the same social pressures of the real world come to bear. Compare anonymous YouTube comments with Twitter comments. Generally, Twitter is more kind and substantive, especially among users who Twitter under their real names. Now compare that to comments on Facebook. Almost all of the comments on someone’s photo, video, status are supportive and empathetic, because the site has mimicked real world relationships and with that real world pressures.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 12:00

  12Seconds Teams With TweetDeck, Enhances Third Party API

   »  TechCrunch

  

  12seconds.tv, the ‘video Twitter‘ that allows users to send brief video clips counting twelve seconds in length, has announced that is now fully integrated into popular Twitter client Tweetdeck, which will now allow users to both record and receive 12seconds messages (previously they had only been able to receive messages).

  The site is also going to begin allowing third party sites and applications to integrate 12seconds recording functionality through an API (as with TweetDeck, they previously had been unable to record messages). Developers will need to request a key to access the API, and will gradually be allowed to access the system over the next two weeks.

  The news marks a significant win for 12seconds, as it will instantly help expose it to the many TweetDeck users, many of whom are considered Twitter ‘power-users’ and are thus more likely to be interested in this kind of rich media sharing. Other services that have also been integrated into TweetDeck include TwitScoop, which tracks hot trending topics on Twitter in real-time, and StockTwits, a Twitter-based community revolving around stocks and investments.

  Loïc Le Meur’s Seesmic is behind TweetDeck competitor Twhirl, so it’s worth noting that the latter Twitter desktop client already offered integration with a video conversation service.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 10:39

  Sedo Pushes For More U.S. Domain Parking Business With RevenueDirect Acquisition

   »  TechCrunch

  Online domain name marketplace Sedo has acquired RevenueDirect, a domain parking and monetization service, from its parent company and registrar Dotster. Sedo, itself owned by the German internet marketing and media company AdLINK Group, is pushing for a bigger foothold inside the United States as it does in the rest of the world.

  As DomainNameWire points out, the deal makes sense because Sedo is a significant Google advertising partner across the globe, while RevenueDirect has a similarly strong relationship with the search and online advertising giant in the U.S. Sedo also closed a strategic partnership with Dotster to further integrate its services into their registration and inventory management solutions.

  The financial terms of the acquisition remain undisclosed.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 10:34

  Happy Kindle 2 Day!

   »  TechCrunch

  

  We should be getting our review units in any minute. Is there anything in particular that you want to know? First, check out this and this then leave your questions in comments. Thanks!

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 8:55

  Safari 4 Beta Released for OS X, Windows

   »  TechCrunch
  Welcome to the future, Safari fans, because the Safari 4 beta just hit the download shelves and it's ready to tear some things up in Tiger and Leopard and even Windows. The download requires the latest security patch (2009-01) but other than that you're ready to ride. Guess what? Javascript is 4X faster! And that's not all. The press release appears below but here are the major updates. I'll install it and give you the details as soon as everything reboots: * Top Sites - a visual representation of all of your frequently visited pages (warning: could be NSFW for some) * Full History Search - an index of every single page you've visited including titles, URLs, and text * Cover Flow - iTunes like browsing for your bookmarks and history * Tabs on Top - A more intelligent method for tabbed browsing.

  

  
• 7:18

  Google Groups Page On Gmail Shows Adult Material Amidst Serious Outage

   »  TechCrunch

  It’s bad enough for Google that businesses and consumers across the globe are being left without web access to Gmail for hours, but to add insult to injury someone hacked the created a Google Groups page on Gmail (link NSFW) at the worst possible time, adding images that leave nothing to the imagination as well links to adult content elsewhere on the net on top of the page.

  

  Update: per comments, this is not an official Google group but a user-generated one most likely deliberately set up now to take advantage of the fact Google has other things on its mind right now than checking up and moderating new groups on the subject of Gmail. Title edited.

  That said, this is the very first result that shows up when you search for ‘Gmail down’ so they might wanna take a look at this quickly.

  Update 2: someone at the Googleplex just did and deleted the group, which was up for at least 25 minutes.

  Update 3: weird, it dissappeared for a while but now you’re able to access it anyway after a warning message.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 6:14

  Trouble In The Clouds: Gmail Turns Into Gfail

   »  TechCrunch

  Thousands of Twitter messages carrying the words “gmail” or “gfail” will teach you that Google’s free web-based e-mail platform is currently down around the world. A Google spokesperson told Pocket Lint that their engineers are working on it but have no clue why the errors are turning up.

  Meanwhile, a Google representative posted this on a its help pages:

  We’re aware of a problem with Gmail affecting a small subset of users. The affected users are unable to access Gmail. We will provide an update by February 24, 2009 6:30 AM PST detailing when we expect to resolve the problem. Please note that this resolution time is an estimate and may change.

  (POP3 / IMAP seems to be still functioning, and the problem doesn’t appear to affect other Google Apps at this point)

  I’m not buying the small subset part, and considering the fact that Pocket Lint says the problem started occuring around 10:20am GMT, 3 hours before even telling everyone what’s going on is an incredibly long timeframe in my opinion.

  Update: Gmail is supposed to be coming back now, at least for some. But Google is also dealing with people posting adult content on Groups pages related to Gmail.

  Update 2: there’s a status box on the Gmail Help homepage that says the outage started at 1:30 AM PST, which means the problems have been occurring for nearly 2 hours and a half at the time of this update. The message now reads that access has been restored without any indication of time.

  Update 3: the problem appears to be solved for most users now, 3 hours after Google indicated that it was aware of the errors.

  This comes a couple of weeks after the chaos when a reportedly human error caused Google’s search engine to erroneously flag the entire internet as malware. Curious to see what their response to this outage will be, as this is not the first time this has happened.

  Good thing Gmail went offline with Google Gears some time ago.

  Update 4: Google’s official statement was just blogged.

  If you’ve tried to access your Gmail account today, you are probably aware by now that we’re having some problems. Shortly after 10 9:30am GMT our monitoring systems alerted us that Gmail consumer and businesses accounts worldwide could not get access to their email.

  We’re working very hard to solve the problem and we’re really sorry for the inconvenience. Those users in the US and UK who have enabled Gmail offline through Gmail Labs should be able to access their inbox, although they won’t be able to send or receive emails.

  We’re posting updates to the Gmail Help Centre at http://mail.google.com/support/ and Google Apps users can visit the Google Apps help centre at www.google.com/support/a.

  Thanks for bearing with us while we sort this out. We’ll report back as we make progress.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 4:40

  Mio.tv Picks Up Spanish Social Network Wamba For €4 Million

   »  TechCrunch

  Latino-targeting online entertainment and communication services provider Mio.tv has acquired Spanish social network Wamba for approximately €4 million euros with earn-outs according to various Spanish and Latin-American media.

  Considering the fact that the startup had raised €3 million from early Skype investor and serial entrepreneur Morten Lund back in 2007, this isn’t exactly a home run for the Spanish company.

  Nevertheless, this is good news for Lund, the colorful European web celebrity who TechCrunch UK earlier this year reported to be personally bankrupt after a series of investments gone awry. According to earlier reports, Lund retained 40% of Wamba shares in return for his investment.

  Mio.tv aims to become the default bilingual online portal for the millions of latinos on the web, offering a slew of online video channels, gaming, social networks and communication services. The company’s Chairman and CEO, Manuel Garcia-Duran, told EuropaPress that Mio.tv is buying Wamba for its reach in the Latin-American community and cites 8.4 million registered users for the social network.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 2:09

  Founders At Work: Uncovering The Truth Behind A Hotmail Founder’s Claims

   »  TechCrunch

  

  In 2007 Jessica Livingston, a founding partner at Y Combinator, released a book called Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days in which she transcribed over thirty extensive interviews with some of Silicon Valleys most notable successes. Included in the book was an interview with Hotmail co-founder Sabeer Bhatia, who detailed the experiences he had raising money for the webmail startup and its subsequent acquisition by Microsoft for a tidy sum of $400 million.

  In the interview, Bhatia made some strong accusations regarding early-stage venture fund Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ), stating that DFJ had actively tried to dissuade other VCs from investing in the company (so that they could be the only ones to invest in Hotmail’s funding rounds). He also denied that DFJ’s Tim Draper had come up with the idea of including ‘viral’ taglines at the end of each message inviting new users to join Hotmail, instead attributing the idea to Hotmail co-founder Jack Smith. Today Livingston has written a blog post asserting that some of the statements made by Bhatia are incorrect:

  I received evidence yesterday that some of the things Sabeer Bhatia said in his interview in Founders at Work were false. The evidence indicates that (a) Tim Draper rather than Jack Smith had the idea of putting a Hotmail ad at the bottom of emails sent by the service, and (b) that DFJ didn’t disparage Hotmail to other VCs interested in investing.

  The corrections are notable for a number of reasons. While Founders At Work may not be a national bestseller, it has become very popular in the startup community (it currently ranks second on Amazon’s list of books in the ‘High-Tech’ category), so Bhatia’s claims may well have impacted DFJ. In the tight-knit Silicon Valley community, reputation is extremely important among VCs and such statements can be damaging, even if the events involved occurred well over a decade ago. The fact that Tim Draper was also apparently responsible for one of the elements that helped make Hotmail massively successful also serves to dispel the myth that most investors’ only contribution is money - clearly, the good ones have far more to offer.

  Livingston isn’t at liberty to share the evidence that led her to believe that Bhatia’s statements were false, but the fact that she wrote the blog post indicates that it is extremely compelling (authors don’t take such corrections lightly). It also sounds like Bhatia had previously requested that the statements in question be removed from future editions of the book, though he didn’t indicate that they were untrue (it sounds like his burnt bridges were coming back to haunt him). In a post on a message board, Livingston writes:

  Sabeer approved the interview before publication, but after the book was published he asked me to remove those parts if there was a second edition. He didn’t say specifically that the things he said were false, just that they hurt people’s feelings. (Many people in the book cut stuff out of their interviews, but usually because the material was controversial or confidential, not false.) But once I got evidence that what he said was actually false, it seemed appropriate to post a statement about it immediately.

  None of the other things people said in interviews were false that I’m aware of.

  Since leaving Hotmail, Bhatia has begun a number of other ventures, including Live Documents, an online Microsoft Office clone that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere fast.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• February 23, 2009
• 22:02

  Microsoft Quells Severance Firestorm, Lets Ex-Employees Keep Their Cash

   »  TechCrunch

  

  On Saturday we published a letter sent out to some recently laid-off Microsoft employees explaining that they had been overpaid in severance - and that Microsoft wanted some of its money back. Something had clearly gone wrong during Microsoft’s first mass layoffs, as we began to receive more reports that ex-employees had gotten similar letters, and that some had actually been underpaid. One original tipster has detailed how he felt when he initially got the notice:

  Right away I was angry because when I got my severance check, I immediately created a budget to stretch this out as long as possible. I know we’re in a recession now and I don’t know how long I’ll be unemployed. And now here comes this letter totally destroying the budget and on top of that, there’s no detailed information on how the error occurred, no details breaking down the severance pay.

  Microsoft initially refused to provide any details on the incident, instead stating that it was a “private matter between the company and the affected people”. And then the news began to spread.

  Since Saturday, well over 300 news outlets have covered the story. Many of them have deemed this to be a huge PR misstep, but it’s likely that Microsoft PR never even knew about the letter in the first place, and were only alerted to it after the fact. In any case, it’s clear that nobody ever considered how people would react if the letter leaked to the public.

  Today Microsoft has announced that it will allow the former employees to keep any overcompensation they were sent (with overpayments averaging around $4,500), and that those who were under-compensated would be paid in full immediately:

  Last week, 25 former Microsoft employees were informed that they were overpaid as a part of their severance payments from the company. This was a mistake on our part. We should have handled this situation in a more thoughtful manner. We are reaching out to those impacted to relay that we will not seek any payment from those individuals.

  While there was some speculation that the issue could have been widespread (perhaps extending to many of the 1,400 employees laid off on January 22nd) only around forty five people in total (including 20 who were underpaid) were affected by the billing issue. Each of them is being personally contacted by Microsoft HR chief Lisa Brummel.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 19:04

  With Chernin Out At News Corp, What Happens To FIM?

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Peter Chernin, the long-time president and COO of News Corp, is leaving the company after protracted negotiations over his contract could not be resolved. Chernin’s salary was $28.8 million in the last fiscal year, which was $1.3 million more than even Rupert Murdoch’s take-home pay. Chernin helped Murdoch build and oversee his vast media empire over the past 20 years, and his departure no doubt will raise all sorts of questions about the future of the company. He will be leaving when his current contract expires on June 30.

  For instance, what will happen to Fox Interactive Media (FIM)? This particular corner of the Murdoch empire is where News Corp keeps all of its Web businesses: MySpace, Photobucket, IGN, Scout, Chernin was its biggest supporter and internal sponsor. Peter Levinshon, the leader of FIM, was considered to be within Chernin’s camp. Although Chernin and Murdoch worked hand-in-hand, they are also very much opposites and a competitive rivalry always existed between the two. News Corp executives often identify with one boss or the other. MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe, for instance, is considered a Murdoch guy.

  With Chernin gone, perhaps this is as good a time as any to take another look at FIM and what purpose it serves. Its original purpose was almost as an internal M&A fund for Internet startups. But now those businesses have grown up. Other than MySpace, which contributes the vast majority of FIM’s revenues and profits, it is not really clear what the point of FIM is. Photobucket could just as easily be part of MySpace. And some of the other businesses could be integrated into other operating units, or sold off. The overhead of running FIM with all of those expensive lieutenants could be reduced as well. Investors would certainly like to see MySpace broken out as a separate business, instead of having to back out estimates of its performance based on FIM numbers as a whole.

  Complicating matters is that the employment contracts for MySpace founders DeWolfe and Tom Anderson are up for renewal later this year (each one reportedly makes $15 million a year). Would DeWolfe want to broaden his control to new fiefdoms within News Corp, or would he try to avoid taking on what appear to be deadweight businesses? Or maybe FIM just remains as it is: an anachronism within News Corp.

  (Photo by What Counts).

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 18:41

  Park Let Saves UK Renters Precious Pence

   »  TechCrunch
  Now this is something that I'd like to see in the US, considering that so many of us are paying ridiculous prices for our parking spaces. Park Let, the UK's largest parking space letting agent, launched an online parking space price-guide tool today. It is the first real-time, location-specific tool available in the UK. The tool is based on both current contracts and advertised spaces. Landlords can use this to get an estimate of the value of their parking spaces and tenants will be able to calculate the true market value of how much parking spaces and garages are renting for today in their area.

  

  
• 16:15

  Aqua Moto: It’s Like Wave Race For Your iPhone

   »  TechCrunch

  

  It’s no secret that the iPhone is one of gaming’s hottest new platforms, and while many of the games on the App Store leave something to be desired, every once in awhile we stumble across a game sporting very high production values that rival dedicated videogame systems. This weekend, Resolution Interactive unveiled a new game called Aqua Moto that is strongly reminiscent of Nintendo’s classic game Wave Race 64, allowing gamers to race Jet Skis through a variety of 3D environments. You can grab a free ‘Lite’ version of the game here, but at only $3 the full version (which includes far more tracks) is a bargain.

  Beyond its impressive graphics, Aqua Moto shines because its controls are perfectly suited for the iPhone. As gamers tilt their iPhone from side to side their character swerves left or right, and tilting the phone forward or backward controls the acceleration. This isn’t the first game to employ this kind of control scheme - dozens of similar racing games have been released on the App Store since its launch last July. But most of those games are car-based, which means that the controls are often much more ‘twitchy’ and tough to control. Aqua Moto favors broader motions as the vehicles are water-based, which makes the gameplay feel much more natural (and is also a bit more forgiving).

  My biggest gripe is that the game fails to tap into the iPhone’s network effect - it would be great if the game supported multiplayer, even if only across a Wi-Fi network. That said, its championship mode seems to be long enough to satisfy most gamers, and is certainly worth the $3 price of admission.

  
  
  

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 15:46

  Social Web Q&A with Google’s Kevin Marks

   »  TechCrunch
  This guest post is written by Kevin Marks, Developer Advocate for OpenSocial at Google. Over the last 20 years he has alternated between giant companies and founding startups - BBC, The UK MultiMedia Corporation, Apple QuickTime, Technorati and now Google. He is one of the driving forces behind microformats.org and advisor to the Open Rights Group. He wants you to remember that URLs are people too, and his URL is http://epeus.blogspot.com. In this Q&A-style post, Kevin delves into the standards that make up the emerging open social stack (OpenID, OAuth, Portable Contacts, and OpenSocial), looking at the infrastructure problems they address, and exploring some of the live implementations, including Plaxo and Google Friend Connect. Q: We keep hearing that “Google wants to make the web more social.” What does that mean? Everything on the web is more interesting when it takes place with friends. Today’s social networking sites, are the online contexts where you and your friends go to be social, and the time we spend on them shows the attraction.

  

  
• 15:33

  Picnik Is Emerging As One Of The Fastest-Growing Photo Sites On The Web

   »  TechCrunch

  

  When I was looking at traffic numbers for the top photo sites this weekend, another stat caught my eye. Online photo editing site Picnik is also quickly climbing the ranks of photo sites from seemingly nowhere.

  In January, according to comScore, the site attracted 6.6 million unique visitors worldwide, a tenfold increase from the year before. On comScore’s list of the largest photo sites, Picnik ranks No. 14, above Shutterfly and AOL Pictures, and just below Snapfish. Unlike those services, however, Picnik is not really a place people store their photos. Rather, it is a place where they touch them up and manipulate them before they post them on MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, Smugmug, or somewhere else.

  Picnik is a powerful, cloud-based photo editor that is integrated directly into Flickr, SmugMug and other photo repositories. Competing online photo editors such as Fotoflexer and Photoshop.com (formerly and Photoshop Express) attract only a fraction as many users (1.4 million uniques for Fotoflexer and 760,000 for Photoshop.com.

  I asked CEO Jonathon Sposato for more details. He offered that 45 million photos were uploaded in January, and that 45 percent of Picnik’s traffic is direct, 28 percent comes from search engine, and that only 18 percent comes from partner sites such as Flickr and Smugmug. Picnik offers a base version of its photo editor for free, and then tries to convert power users into paying a subscription for more features. While Sposato won’t get into the conversion rate of free to paid members, he says that the percentage is increasing, renewals are increasing as a percentage, and he says that Picnik is now cashflow positive, a little more than two years after launch.

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 11:48

  GumGum Adds B5Media, DailyFill To Its Image-Licensing Network

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Image-licensing network GumGum is growing by leaps and bounds. Measured as an advertising network, it is now a Quantcast Top 100 site, reaching 13.7 million people in the U.S. and 23.5 million worldwide. More than 1,000 Web publishers are licensing images through GumGum, which allows them to pay based on how many people see the image or use them for free with embedded advertising.

  Today, GumGum is adding blog network B5Media and gossip site DailyFill to its customer list. They join Glam Media, MTV, and Gawker. Sites that rely on celebrity pics particularly like GumGum’s model.

  Sites contract directly with photo agencies, and GumGum keeps track of who is using what images and how many times they are viewed. That is what those Quantcast numbers are counting, thus GumGum acts like an ad network for images. Typical CPMs (cost per thousand views) are $0.15 - $1.00 per image for sites that opt to pay instead of accepting ads in their images. This kind of licensing model makes much more sense on the Web, where small sites want the same quality images as large sites but don’t have the resources to pay the same rates.

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 11:15

  Microsoft Research: A Look At The Intriguing Social Desktop Prototype

   »  TechCrunch

  Late last week, Microsoft Research shared a couple of things about Social Desktop, a prototype of which they are debuting at TechFest 2009 in a couple of days (along with dozens of other things). From the looks of it, this will be a much talked about product even if it stays in proof-of-concept phase for now.

  And if they decide to open it up even just a little, this could be a major breakthrough in tearing down the virtual wall between the desktop and the web, a trend we’ve been noticing for years.

  The service would essentially be capable of providing you with a secure unique ID for all the files and folders on your desktop, enabling users to share, comment on, tag and search files like photos and videos via a dedicated web page powered by .NET. Think of this as social URLs that link to files which could easily be pushed to third-party services like Twitter or Digg but also Microsoft’s own Windows Live Messenger without the need for you to copy, move or upload anything. Furthermore, social interaction around the files would be visible from inside the Windows desktop OS, blurring the line between the desktop and the web even more.

  You can have a URL drill into a subportion of a document or a PowerPoint deck, or data can come from a Web service or a database. Social Desktop is a local service that maps the user’s local data into a .NET service bus service, enabling local data to be accessible through firewalls. Social Desktop also provides a Web-service view over the same data, with inherent RSS event streams for any container. New data sources can be mapped into the URL hierarchy, enabling a distributed view to be built. There are simple sharing paradigms that enable URLs to be shared temporarily or permanently.

  Social Desktop runs on Silverlight and leverages both the Windows OS and Windows Azure, the software giant’s very own cloud services platform which Microsoft announced in October 2008. TechFlash reviewed the service as well last week, and asked the project leads how Social Desktop differs from Live Mesh. The response came from Lili Cheng, who manages Microsoft Research’s Creative Systems Group: “In the Mesh model, you can almost imagine your PC being pushed to the cloud,” she explained. “In this, you can almost imagine the Web being embedded inside your desktop.”

  

  I don’t know about you, but to me this all sounds very promising and I’m curious if using Social Desktop would change my file sharing habits. Even with the plethora of free, simple and fast online backup and sharing services around, there’s still a trust barrier not easily overcome by startups who need to market their services extensively on an inherently low budget to reach any kind of scale. Besides, Social Desktop even relieves you from the not-so-cumbersome task of moving a file to the cloud in order to store or share it, so that makes for one hell of a substantial benefit compared to other services where you’d be required to register and do a series of actions before that happens.

  Unfortunately, a Microsoft spokesperson told NetworkWorld that Social Desktop at this point is merely a research prototype which will not be a feature in Windows 7, nor will it be available for public use.

  But I still want to get my hands on Windows 7 Beta (it makes use of the new operating system’s file-preview functions) right now even if just to test this application once (and if) they release it.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 8:58

  Bebo Zeroes In On Lifestreaming For The Masses; Gets Massive Bump From AIM Profiles

   »  TechCrunch

  

  In the first of several major product changes that will sweep through AOL in the coming months, the company is adding more lifestreaming capabilities to its Bebo social network today, including activity stream updates from rival social networks Facebook and MySpace. It is also introducing a visual timeline called a “Lifestory” that puts uploaded photos, events, and (soon) videos into a scrollable, chronological series of postage stamp icons at the top of members’ profile pages. Eventually, people will be able to subscribe to other Lifestories, including those from brands and bands, and embed them in their own profile pages or elsewhere. The timeline will also become the centerpiece of a Bebo iPhone app coming out soon.

  The new features should all help to reinvigorate a site that has been in the doldrums lately. But Bebo’s biggest boost will come later this week when AOL migrates all of its AIM Profiles members over to Bebo on Wednesday and Thursday. This single move will more than double Bebo’s presence in the U.S., where AIM Profiles is even bigger than Bebo. According to comScore, Bebo’s unique U.S. visitors have been in decline the past few months to 5 million in January, whereas AIM Profiles has seen an upswing to 8.5 million. (See chart below). Worldwide, Bebo has 22.6 million monthly visitors.

  

  At the center of AOL’s new product strategy is its “Lifestream Platform.” Think of it as FriendFeed for the masses, with personal AIM updates mixed in. Already, Bebo members are able to keep up with their friends’ activities on other sites, such as Flickr, Twitter and Delicious. Now Facebook, MySpace and YouTube are being supported as well. Whenever any of your friends do something on these services, their activity stream shows up on your Bebo page. Once you link an account to Bebo, it automatically keeps track of all of your new friends on that service as well. (The technology is based on AOL’s acquisition of Socialthing! last summer).

  If you are an AIM member, all of your AIM buddies now seamlessly appear on Bebo. And through Bebo’s recently launched Social Inbox, you can get all of your lifestream updates, instant messages, and email in one massive feed.

  But is this a capitulation to the two big social networks out there? No, says David Liu, the senior vice president and general manager of AOL’s People Networks:

  We are not trying to connect everybody to everybody—that is Facebook—just to the content and people important to them.

  Bebo is just the beginning. He plans on rolling out the Lifestream platform across revamped versions of AOL’s IM clients (AIM and ICQ), mobile apps, and even other Websites later this year. Regardless of any second thoughts that AOL may have had after buying Bebo, it is a central part of its strategy today. AOL has a huge and active group of millions of IM users that it has been wanting to turn into a social network for years. Now it has a place for them to create profiles and interact, but more importantly it can take the central communication model of social networks—the lifestream—and pour it back into its IM clients.

  It is an ambitious undertaking. But will AOL’s take on lifestreaming be compelling enough to keep existing members from leaving? And more importantly, will it be compelling enough to attract new members from eleswhere on the Web?

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 8:15

  After MySpace And Facebook, Oodle To Power Brand New AOL Classifieds

   »  TechCrunch

  Classifieds aggregation service provider Oodle is on a roll and definitely one of the startups worth following closely this year. After signing up two social networking juggernauts - both MySpace and Facebook - the company is now apparently also behind the just launched AOL Classifieds platform, per blog post by Greg Sterling.

  The news comes right after a significant financing round announced earlier this month, when 3 VC firms invested $5.6 million in the company, bringing the total in funding raised to a healthy $21.6 million. Meanwhile, its traffic continues to surge (see Crunchbase profile for some upward-pointing visitor number graphs).

  I would be very surprised if Oodle ends 2009 without being acquired for a price that puts a big smile on the faces of their investors.

  For context, from the release:

  AOL Classifieds is expected to serve as a platform for sellers to promote their listings by leveraging the reach of Oodle’s network of more than 250 partner sites.

  Buyers can expect to find deals with access to more than 40 million listings aggregated from more than 80,000 different sites. In addition, AOL Classifieds links consumers directly to classifieds listings on other properties within the AOL network, including AOL Autos, AOL Jobs, AOL Personals, and AOL Real Estate.
  AOL Classifieds is the latest addition to the AOL Local Network, which is an online local network with a monthly reach of 54 million unduplicated unique visitors.

  In addition to the launch of AOL Classifieds in the U.S., a site for Canada is also available beginning today. An AOL Classifieds site for the UK will be launching later this week.

  

  (Via Techmeme)

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 7:59

  Kyte Launches Turn-Key iPhone App Platform

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Given the incredible popularity of the iPhone, many entertainers (and the studios backing them) are eager to establish a presence on Apple’s App Store, but don’t necessarily want to invest in the resources needed to independently develop their own iPhone applications. Today Kyte has launched its iPhone Apps Framework - a turn-key solution that allows Kyte partners to create applications that can include video, live chat, and monetization options with a minimal amount of development costs. Alongside the launch of the new platform, Kyte is announcing five artists from IGA records who have already released their iPhone applications, including the following free apps [all iTunes links]: The All American Rejects, Keri Hilson, Lady Gaga, The Pussycat Dolls, and Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em.

  Besides Twitter feeds, RSS, and chat, Kyte also offers a listing of each artist’s most recent videos taken using Kyte.tv’s mobile phone video apps. And, perhaps most importantly for the artists, each app features a list of links to songs in the music section of Apple’s iTunes store.

  Kyte isn’t the first company to launch a platform for branded iPhone applications. Other options include Infomedia’s Mobile Syndication Solutions, through which MC Hammer built his app.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 7:15

  ZumoDrive Now Open to the Public

   »  TechCrunch
  The Network (that’s what I’m going to call all the “Crunch” sites from now on) covered the private beta launch of ZumoDrive last month, so there’s no need to get into details again, but we wanted to inform you that the service is now available to the public. Also announced this morning was ZumoDrive’s free “All My Media” iPhone application, which hasn’t shown up yet, but we expect to see it sometime this afternoon.

  

  
• 5:28

  Skimlinks Gets $1m To Give Publishers Control Of Affilate Ads

   »  TechCrunch

  Funny how a recession concentrates the mind. In just over a year UK startup Skimbit has made the full journey from Web 2.0 era “decision-making tool” with a vague business model about affiliate advertising, to re-engineer as an affiliate aggregator for publishers. Re-launching as Skimlinks, it now aggregates 11 affiliate networks for clients like The Daily Mail newspaper in London. The move means it has now attracted first round investment led by Sussex Place Ventures with participation from UK government body NESTA (yes, in the UK there are public funds for startups), The Accelerator Group, and Angels Duncan Jennings (eConversions) and Alex Hoye (Latitude Group). The amount was undisclosed but is understood to be in the vicinity of just over $1 million (£700,000). Competitors like the older Dianomi and Chicago-based Science Revenue appear to have more clients, but given they are North America focused, Skimlinks has an opportunity to break out more in the UK and Europe.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 5:12

  Put This On Your T-Shirt: Spreadshirt Scores €10 Million

   »  TechCrunch

  German custom apparel company Spreadshirt has secured €10 million in funding from Kennet Partners and returning investor Accel Partners, which led an undisclosed round of Series A funding for the company back in 2006. Spreadshirt, which competes internationally with companies like CafePress and Zazzle, was founded in 2002 by graduate student Lukasz Gadowski (currently still acting as Chairman of the company) and has become one of the most significant players in the field of personalization and online ordering of custom goods and clothing over the years.

  The company also lets private individuals and commercial organizations set up their own online merchandising outlets as resellers of the Spreadshirt service.

  Spreadshirt says the financing will be used to develop its online platform and its push into the North American market, where its two main competitors, venture-backed CafePress (Foster City, CA) and Zazzle (Redwood City, CA) are based.

  According to a January company blog post, 1 million t-shirts were sold in 2008 via Spreadshirt. They’re also open about the missed growth estimates put forward at the end of 2007: growth was at 40% for the year instead of the aimed-for 50-80%. As a result, the company was recently forced to do a round of lay-offs and reorganize some of its departments.

  

  (Source: Deutsche Startups)

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 4:08

  More Consolidation In Europe: GoAdv To Acquire LeGuide.com For €50 Million

   »  TechCrunch

  After Meetic buying the European operations of Match.com last week, here’s another sign the online media landscape in Europe is changing in the face of a dire economy: pan-European online media company GoAdv will later today announce that it has proposed to acquire LeGuide.com, an 11-year old network of shopping portals operational in 14 European countries, for €50 million (about €64.5 million), and retain all of its staff and offices.

  GoAdv currently holds 395,648 shares in LeGuide.com, which is approximately 11.8% of the share capital and 10.8% of the voting rights. The company states that it informed the LeGuide group on 18 December last year that it had crossed the 5% and 10% thresholds in the capital and voting rights earlier that month.

  The move would instantly make GoAdv a significant player in the continent’s online and social shopping field, now that it holds cards in terms of content, online marketing and shopping with offices in Ireland (Dublin), France, Germany and Italy. In case you don’t remember, GoAdv acquired Excite Europe in October 2007 and went on to raise €11 million by issuing convertible bonds in the Summer of 2008, prompting TechCrunch UK’s Mike Butcher to predict that they’d go on a buying spree. Turns out he was right.

  GoAdv, founded in 2004, says it counted 17.6 million unique monthly users across its network - which includes Excite properties as well as the BetterDeals site network - in November 2008, while LeGuide.com welcomed 14.8 million unique monthly users in December 2008 if you add traffic for DooYoo, a shopping and review site the LeGuide group acquired last year.

  With this acquisition, which still needs to be approved, GoAdv is betting hard on the estimated growth of e-commerce and social shopping in Europe for the years to come. Finnish startup Fruugo is currently readying the launch of a ‘new breed’ of social shopping service in Europe, so we’ll be curious to see if it will be able to compete with GoAdv.

  Update - in case you’re interested in the financials:

  GoAdv will offer shareholders in LeGuide.com the opportunity to exchange their shares in a voluntary mixed public offer according to the following parity: 5 GoAdv shares along with a €45 cash adjustment for every 6 shares contributed in LeGuide.com, i.e. an offer of €15.19 for each LeGuide.com share, based on the 3 month weighted average price of a GoAdv share.

  The terms of the voluntary mixed public offer would express a 9.2% premium in relation to the 1 month weighted average price and 28.8% in relation to the 3 month weighted average price of a LeGuide.com share. Taking 12 December 20083 as a reference, the terms of the offer express a 44.7% premium in relation to the 1 month weighted average price and 33.2% in relation to the 3 month weighted average price.

  If all the shares in Leguide.com (watered stock) were contributed to the voluntary mixed public offer, this would represent a capital increase of 2,532,390 new GoAdv shares. A shareholder in GoAdv would then be diluted by 28.2%.

  Update 2: it’s been brought to our attention that the takeover bid is considered hostile by LeGuide.com, who has stated that it sees little synergies in a combination of both companies for now. To be continued.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 0:13

  Letter to Obama: What the Car Industry Needs Is A Steve Jobs

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Editor’s Note: There are not a lot of fans of the $20 billion bailout of the auto industry outside of Detroit. But if the government is going to get involved, Spark Capital’s Todd Dagres believes it should insist on new leadership.

  In an open letter to President Barack Obama, Dagres argues that the car industry needs no less than a Steve Jobs to save it. In fact, he suggests that Jobs himself would be the best person to fill that role if his health allows him to do so. If not, there are other capable leaders in Silicon Valley that might bring much-needed change to the auto industry.

  But a product=specific approach is worth considering, even one which results in American car companies no longer building any cars, but just designing them. After all, Apple doesn’t manufacture its own computers.

  The letter is below.

  Barack Obama
  President of the United States

  Dear President Obama:

  I am writing you with a suggestion on how to deal with the US auto industry crisis. The recession and the meltdown of financial markets are the catalysts, but the root of the problem is the manner in which these colossal auto companies have been managed. It’s time to face the truth: The people running the US auto companies are officious bumblers, the products stink, and the unions are a parasitic drain on the business. And yet the Government seems content to throw billions of dollars at the problem. How can we bail out the same people that presided over the destruction of the industry? It is painfully clear that they are incapable of producing products that can compete successfully with German and Japanese rivals.

  As you well know, if GM and Chrysler fail, the US auto industry will suffer a fatal blow – along with our entire economy. We must find a way to not only save the industry, but also make it competitive in the global marketplace. Cars are part of our national fiber, based on an industry that includes a massive ecosystem of vehicles and parts that stretch across our people and economy. However, bailing out the US car makers and investing tax payers’ money in inferior products is no solution. We must strive for a level of competitiveness in the auto industry similar to that which we have attained in the Information Technology industry. Our country’s leadership in the auto industry lies in developing future cars that are more like computers with wheels than mechanical sleighs addicted to dinosaur juice. The future of the automotive industry will be defined by electronics and software. The good news is that there is no country with more talent and capability in this arena than the United States.

  Now the suggestion: Draft Steve Jobs (his health willing) to run a combined GM and Chrysler. After all, who has done a better job developing and marketing products consumers want to buy? Who has been more successful keeping the US ahead of other nations in competitive, technology-based markets? Mr. Jobs has also done right by his shareholders. GM and Chrysler have far too many product lines, most of which are uncompetitive. To compete in the global auto industry, they must develop Macs, iPods and iPhones with wheels. Rather than pouring billions of dollars into these failed companies, why not replace the current management with people capable of changing the way cars are designed, manufactured, powered and sold? I believe Mr. Jobs is the best choice to lead this effort.

  As has been widely reported, Mr. Jobs has some health issues and it is possible that he may not be able to dedicate the time and effort required to put the US auto industry back on firm footing. Only Mr. Jobs knows if he is up to the task. If anyone can convince him to take this on, I suspect it’s you. Should Mr. Job’s be unable to take on the position, in my opinion, great technology leaders including John Chambers at Cisco Systems or Craig Barrett at Intel would also be worthy of your consideration. Both are great Americans and capable of leading the charge.

  It is time for us to put tax payer money behind an executive capable of transforming the automotive industry. I respectfully submit that neither the current leadership behind these companies nor government officials are the answer. We need entrepreneurs, consumer product savants and creative managers capable of effecting change. We need great leaders who can transform cars into computers rather than horse-less carriages. You were elected to the Presidency based on a mandate for change. Making the necessary moves to transform the US auto industry would be a great way to walk the walk. This challenge is a once in a lifetime opportunity to save hundreds of thousands of jobs, hundreds of billions in future GDP, and prevent further deterioration of our nation’s manufacturing sector. This is the time for great Americans to be called upon to serve. I can think of no better leader than Steve Jobs to support America in this time of national crisis. President Obama, I urge you to seriously consider recruiting Mr. Jobs to manage the revitalization of the US auto industry that is so desperately needed. Thank you for your consideration of this suggestion.

  Respectfully yours,

  Todd Dagres,
  Founder and General Partner,
  Spark Capital

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• February 22, 2009
• 21:26

  Thummit Scopes Out Twitter To Rate The Oscars In Real Time

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Thummit, a startup that evaluates Twitter messages to determine what subject they’re relevant to and if the sentiment is positive or negative, is running a special site for tonight’s Oscars ceremony. The site is currently monitoring tweets regarding dozens of actors and films, allowing users to quickly determine at a glance who is faring the best. It’s tough to tell exactly how well the sentiment recognition engine is working, as all the tweets appear to be shown in a single list without any indication as to whether they were deemed to be positive or negative. But there are definitely some clear trends - for example, Philip Seymour Hoffman has a lowly 10% approval rating, as it seems that many people really don’t like his hat.

  For more of the Oscars on the web, check out Betfair, which has real time odds for the winners in each category.

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 20:54

  Friedman Misses the Point and Economic Reality of Silicon Valley

   »  TechCrunch

  Thomas Friedman is a very smart man and a very good writer. He’s certainly sold more books than I ever will. But in reading his latest column arguing $20 billion in bailout money should go to VCs not auto companies, one thing was crystal clear: This man doesn’t live in Silicon Valley. Has he even ever visited?

  I totally agree we shouldn’t be bailing out “loser” companies and industries. Car companies should be going bankrupt, and their stockholders and bondholders should lose their money for betting on an industry that clearly wasn’t adapting and was spending like drunken trust fund kids. (Trust me, they’re worse than sailors.) Yes, the inevitable job losses will be hard to absorb. But these companies will fail eventually, so you’re really just stalling when it comes to the pain, and inevitably dragging out the recession longer—especially in areas like the rust belt that were hurting before the recession hit.

  My above views are precisely why I live in Silicon Valley: A place that not only lacks an artificial reverence for an old stodgy company, it actually celebrates when a younger, nimble startup takes it down. How, could Friedman get why the Valley continually creates strong multi-billion dollar companies and then turn around and propose a government subsidy for us? Investments in agencies like DARPA are one thing, but government subsidies are crutches for non-performing industries. And hit by the recession or no, Silicon Valley doesn’t want or need that crutch.

  Before we get into the economics of his argument, let’s start with the facts. Friedman writes, “Call up the top 20 venture capital firms in America, which are short of cash today because their partners — university endowments and pension funds — are tapped out, and make them this offer: The U.S. Treasury will give you each up to $1 billion to fund the best venture capital ideas that have come your way.” Um, venture capital firms are not short on cash. Far from it. The precise problem with the venture industry is too much cash in fact, especially given increasingly paltry returns.

  Yes, investors in VC firms are pulling back and some are even reportedly defaulting on capital calls. But this is after a bubbly run-up where a boutique industry exploded. In the last fifteen years, the amount of money pouring into venture capital has more than doubled. Look at returns: The industry is having a hard enough time investing $30 billion a year. Another $20 billion from the government? Are you kidding?

  What’s more, there was never a shakeout in venture firms after the year 2000 crash—it’s only now working its way through the system. So the firms that may be finding themselves short of cash? Those are our own version of the “loser” firms – to borrow Friedman’s phrase—that should be shaken out of the venture economy. Not only do the top 20 venture firms have plenty of money, the top 100 firms could find a way to raise more capital if they needed to. But odds are they don’t, because funds work in multi-year cycles, and not everyone is forced to fundraise in 2009.
  In short: The core assumption to Friedman’s argument just isn’t reality. And call me crazy, but if you are throwing my tax dollars after an industry, shouldn’t the so-called “need” be based on– oh, I don’t know– an economic reality?

  Point two: Venture capitalists don’t want a bailout. As stated above, they don’t need the money, and startup rule number one is you don’t give away equity for something you don’t need. Friedman proposes VCs would give the government 20% of the proceeds from an IPO or acquisition and keep 80% for themselves. [UPDATE: Apologies, watching Oscars and accidentally swapped the percentages! 80% for taxpayers, 20% for VCs. More of a sucker's bet.] He ignores carve outs for employees and founders in this equation, which cuts down the VC take further.

  Given how rare it is to have a bona fide Google-style home run these days as many of the core tech markets that have been the golden geese of venture capital mature—why on earth would a venture capitalist give up 20% of the next Facebook over a silly little thing like needing more capital? As a Facebook (and more recently Twitter) well knows, no matter what the market is doing a scorching-hot startup can always find money. Bailouts are by nature adverse selection: The only people that would take the government up on this deal are companies who are the GM-versions of startups and venture firms.

  Friedman further says in the column that “Bailing out the losers is not how we got rich as a country, and it is not how we’ll get out of this crisis.” Agreed. But what country got rich by bailing out winners? Is that even a concept that makes sense? I can’t imagine a greater a waste of shareholder money than giving it to people who don’t need it and aren’t asking for it. At least when it comes to the car companies, we’d be (temporarily) saving jobs.

  Most shocking to me, Friedman invoked one of the most repeated Valley mantras to prove his point when he wrote, “Some of our best companies, such as Intel, were started in recessions, when necessity makes innovators even more inventive and risk-takers even more daring.” Mr. Friedman: Read the second half of your own sentence again. The reason recession-born companies are so inventive and daring is because founders are forced to work within constraints, precisely because it is harder to raise capital. Nothing kills a great idea like too much cash. Unless it’s a flood of too much taxpayer cash, because then we all lose.

  I think all taxpayers should be grateful that President Barack Obama spends more time in the Valley than Thomas Friedman. I know I am.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 16:56

  Hot News: The AP Is Living In The Last Century

   »  TechCrunch

  

  A case between the Associated Press and All Headline News is moving forward based on a 90-year-old legal doctrine which may no longer be applicable in the Internet age. A federal judge ruled that the AP can sue AHN for stealing its “hot news.”

  The AP’s beef against AHN appears to have more merit than when it tried to go after bloggers for merely linking to its stories without changing the headlines. AHN itself sells news feeds and headlines to other Websites, newspapers, and digital signage companies. The AP alleges that AHN simply copies the AP’s headlines and news without permission and without paying a syndication fee, and then resells those headlines and news stories as part of its own feeds with all AP accreditation stripped out.

  If that is what happened, it does sound like pure theft. But rather than simply sue AHN for copyright infringement, the AP is also invoking the “hot news” doctrine, which treat news scoops as a form of property. Hot news is defined as time-sensitive news that is gathered at a cost, which a competitor then reproduces, free-riding on the original news-gathering organization’s efforts. The Prior Art blog has a good discussion of the legal history (sentence bolded for emphasis):

  The “hot news” doctrine that The Associated Press now wants to enforce is actually a product of a much earlier AP litigation. “Hot news” originates in a lawsuit that AP brought 90 years ago against a competing news service, International News Service (INS), which was owned by Hearst and later became part of United Press International (UPI). “In 1918, INS was unable to provide its clients with news stories from the war zones because, having been accused of violating wartime censorship restrictions, it was barred from use of the British and French mail and cables,” writes the AP in its brief against AHN. INS solved that problem by grabbing early editions printed in AP newspapers and sending them to its own clients. INS even bribed employees of the AP and AP member newspapers to get AP’s news before it was published.

  Ultimately, the Second Circuit found that AP had a property right, separate from copyright, in the news that it sold, “arising from the labor and expense involved in its gathering and disseminating that news.” This right could only be used against competitors and only lasted as long as the news had commercial value. The case then went to the Supreme Court, which voted 5-3 in favor of the AP’s “quasi property” and upheld the 2nd Circuit decision.

  Let me repeat that bolded part: “This right could only be used against competitors and only lasted as long as the news had commercial value.”

  Basically, the judge says the AP can try to prove AHN stole it’s “hot news”. But what constitutes “hot news” in an age of instant communications? And how long does it last. In 1918, “hot news” traveled by mail and telegraph. It could last hours or even days. Today, a true scoop lasts for about a minute. The AP would have to show instances of articles where not only the AP broke the news, but was the only outlet to get the original story—something rarer and rarer when anyone can publish news over the Internet.

  It also raises some troubling questions. Is the AP going to start suing bloggers or news aggregators who take an AP headline and excerpt and rebroadcast it to the world, even with a proper link and attribution? And what happens when the AP is scooped by bloggers, which happens every day. Should bloggers sue the AP? Will people who break news on Twitter claim scoop status, and sue all the bloggers and news outlets who pile on afterward? It could get pretty messy.

  Hot news is a concept best left in the twentieth century. Lawsuits like this one just brings home the point that the AP is more concerned with defending its antiquated business model than with moving forward and adapting to the realities of today’s information flows.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 15:32

  How To Make Twitter Sound Like Music To Your Ears

   »  TechCrunch

  People generally love sharing things, and Twitter has made broadcasting updates to anyone who cares to care on what you’re doing, wearing, reading, commenting on, eating, using, etc. a breeze; in 140 characters or less, even. It’s only natural to see so many users also share which music they are listening to at any given moment on Twitter, as this has been a fairly popular use of status feeds on other social networking and communication services for years (Facebook, Skype and Windows Live Messenger leap to mind).

  Here’s a number of ways to use Twitter for just about anything related to music:

  * Blip.fm - dubbed the “Twitter for Music” when we first reviewed the service, it got its own API in late 2008. Blip.fm enables anyone to start their own music station and broadcast tunes to Twitter and other status sharing services where people can interact with the choice of music.

  * Twiturm does much of the same - upload music and share it with all your Twitter followers in a heartbeat. Intended for artists who want to share their own music, hence the name (”Twitter Ur Music”).

  * Twisten.fm - Escape Media Group linked its music discovery service Grooveshark and its URL shortening service TinySong with an application that crawls Twitter for messages about music (and “then you listen to them”).

  * Twt.fm (anyone see a naming pattern here?) - type in an artist, track, and your twitter username. Twt.fm will then generate a track page for you using your twitter page design and you’ll be able to tweet it to your followers.

  * Tweetj - include a #tweetj tag in your tweets when you’re listening to music and it’ll be posted to a public playlist. The playlist allows you to discover new music and immediately purchase tracks on Amazon.

  * A similar service is WiiZZZ (yes, that’s the actual name) - it allows you to listen to entirely random songs that have been posted and shared by Twitter users on any given day.

  * Play Twitter - allows you to easily play mp3 files directly on Twitter or Identi.ca. MP3 links will automatically become playable right on the page.

  * Tra.kz - this “URL shortener for all things music” was cooked up by MixMatchMusic and does exactly what you suspect it would do and therefore competes with the above mentioned TinySong and alternatives like Song.ly.

  * TwittyTunes - Firefox extension that comes with another Firefox extension, Yahoo’s FoxyTunes, and allows you to instantly post your currently playing songs to Twitter with just a click.

  * LastTweet - enables you to embed a widget with your latest tweets into your Last.fm profile

  * Update: LastFMLoveTweet is a mashup that automatically pushes a tweet from you carrying a track’s artist and name that you’ve indicated as a tune you loved on Last.fm

  * Update: Tweekly.fm will get your weekly artist data from Last.FM and send a tweet to your profile listing your top 3 listened artists for the week plus their respective play counts.

  * Update: this site tracks the top music being listened to on Twitter

  Also worth checking out, even if not directly related to Twitter: Nabbit (”connects your cellphone to your radio”), MuseBin (music news and reviews in 140 characters, like Blippr but music only) and Twones (the “social music feed”).

  Did I miss any other apps, tools and websites worth noting?

  Share them in the comments and I’ll be happy to update the post.

  Update: it’s not Twitter-specific, but you can use Favtape to put together your own playlists / online mixtapes and share them on Twitter.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 12:15

  Facebook Photos Pulls Away From The Pack

   »  TechCrunch

  

  If Facebook has one standout application it has to be Photos. Measured on its own, it is the largest photo site on the Web. A full 69 percent of Facebook’s monthly visitors worldwide either look at or upload photos, based on comScore data. And more than 10 billion photos have been uploaded to the site.

  And it’s been pulling away from its competitors. As can be seen in the comScore chart above, as recently as last September the top three photo sites in the U.S. were running neck-and-neck, with Facebook Photos at 23.9 million unique visitors, followed by Photobucket at 21.3 million uniques, and Flickr at 19.5 million uniques. But by January, the number of monthly U.S. visitors going to Facebook Photos shot up 41 percent to 33.6 million. Meanwhile, Photobucket is up only 7 percent to 22.8 million, while Flickr is up 12 percent to 21.9 million. (Picasa is a distant fourth in the U.S. with 8.1 million).

  In other words, Facebook increased the gap between its closest competitor (Photobucket in the U.S.) from 2.6 million monthly unique visitors to 10.8 million. On a worldwide basis, the gap between Facebook Photos and Flickr (which is the No. 2 site globally, and looks like it is about to pass Photobucket in the U.S.) went from 41.2 million unique monthly visitors in September to 87 million in December (the most recent data available, see chart below).

  What accounts for Facebook’s advantage in the photo department? The biggest factor is simply that it is the default photo feature of the largest social network in the world. And of all the viral loops that Facebook benefits from, its Photos app might have the largest viral loop of all built into it. Whenever one of your friends tags a photo with your name, you get an email. This single feature turns a solitary chore—tagging and organizing photos—into a powerful form of communication that connects people through activities they’ve done in the past in an immediate, visual way. I would not be surprised if people click back through to Facebook from those photo notifications at a higher rate than from any other notification, including private messages.

  But the tagging feature has been part of Facebook Photos for a long time. What happened in September to accelerate growth? That is when a Facebook redesign went into effect which added a Photos tab on everyone’s personal homepage.

  (The chart above shows U.S. visitors through January. The chart below shows international visitors through December, with 153.3 million unique visitors for Facebook Photos, 66.7 million for Flickr, 45.5 million for Picasa and 42.7 million for Photobucket).

  

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 5:45

  Another Way To Look At Terms Of Service Agreements: Wordle Visualizations

   »  TechCrunch

  This is what you get when you use a slick tool like Wordle (try it!) to run all the words used to make up the Terms of Service agreements of seven notable internet companies: cool visualizations that somewhat capture the essence of their content.

  Pointless? Very. Cool? Definitely.

  Here’s how Facebook’s Terms of Use agreement comes out (at least for now):

  

  Yahoo (Terms of Service)

  

  Digg (Terms of Use)

  

  Google (Terms of Service)

  

  Twitter (Terms of Service)

  

  MySpace (Terms of Use)

  

  YouTube (Terms of Service)

  

  CrunchBase Information Wordle Information provided by CrunchBase

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• February 21, 2009
• 23:19

  Andreessen in realtime

   »  TechCrunch
  At a time when many people are saying innovation is dead along with the economy as we knew it, I can't help but feel the hot breath of a surge in the power of the network. As Marc Andreessen reminds in his fascinating conversation with Charlie Rose, the Internet didn't take off until the browser. The infrastructure was in place for some time already, but when the browser appeared, the TV generation sat up and took notice. Now we're at the threshold of the realtime moment, and history seems to be repeating itself. For some of us, the advent of a reasonably realtime message bus over public networks has changed something about the existing infrastructure in ways that are not yet important to a broad section of Internet dwellers. The numbers are adding up -- 175 million Facebook users, tens of thousands of instant Twitter followers, constant texting and video chats among the teenage crowd -- a semi-secret economy of interactive media that is sucking the chewy chocolate center out of the one-way broadcast sector.

  

  
• 18:31

  Oops: Microsoft Asks Some Laid Off Workers To Send Back Part Of Their Severance

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Talk about adding insult to injury. Apparently Microsoft has inadvertently overpaid severance to some of its recently laid off employees, and is now asking for some of the money back. It’s unclear how many of the 1,400 employees laid off last month were affected, but we’ve confirmed that it wasn’t a single isolated incident (we’ve contacted Microsoft for a response). We’re also hearing that some employees may have been underpaid as well.

  While the payroll error must be irritating in and of itself to these laid off workers (severance is a sensitive subject), it appears that Microsoft HR isn’t even bothering to explain how it happened (employees are instructed to call the office, which is closed for the weekend, if they want to know the details). Given that it was Microsoft HR that screwed this up in the first place, you’d think they’d at least include the calculations they made and point out where the error took place.

  
  msletter

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 18:31

  Oops: Microsoft Asks Some Laid Off Workers To Send Back Part Of Their Severance (Updated)

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Talk about adding insult to injury. Apparently Microsoft has inadvertently overpaid severance to some of its recently laid off employees, and is now asking for some of the money back. It’s unclear how many of the 1,400 employees laid off last month were affected, but we’ve confirmed that it wasn’t a single isolated incident (we’ve contacted Microsoft for a response). We’re also hearing that some employees may have been underpaid as well.

  While the payroll error must be irritating in and of itself to these laid off workers (severance is a sensitive subject), it appears that Microsoft HR isn’t even bothering to explain how it happened (employees are instructed to call the office, which is closed for the weekend, if they want to know the details). Given that it was Microsoft HR that screwed this up in the first place, you’d think they’d at least include the calculations they made and point out where the error took place.

  Update: CNET reports that Microsoft has decided to allow any workers who were overcompensated to keep the money. The story also notes that around 25 workers were overpaid, and around 20 underpaid.

  
  msletter

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 13:30

  Awww… Twitter Helps You Make Friends With Shaq

   »  TechCrunch
  So you don't like Twitter, huh? Lots of pablum, not much content? No real human-to-human connectedness? Well you're wrong, Mr. Ludd, because Twitter helped two guys meet Shaq. Jesse Bearden was following The Real Shaq on Twitter and saw that he was at a diner near his home. Instead of saying "Twitter is not a uniter, it is an egocasting system designed for infantile neophiliacs who have little to offer the world except search engine optimization snake oil and web marketing consulting," Jesse and his buddy went down to the diner and saw Le Shaq sitting in a booth getting his feed on.

  

  
• 10:23

  Facebook: You Own All Your Data. Period. (But See You at the Next Privacy Uproar.)

   »  TechCrunch

  In case you didn’t read him quoted in some 1,700 newspapers last week, NBC’s Press:Here has an interview with Chris Kelly, Facebook’s Chief Privacy Officer this week. The show, which focuses on technology, airs in the Bay Area on Sunday mornings after Meet the Press, and the young show has already been beating Meet the Press in the ratings. You can also watch a clip on the jump or the entire episode online here right now. (I was one of the guest reporters on the show this week.)

  Kelly said in no uncertain terms that Facebook does not own your data and content, never did and never will. What’s more: Any reproduction of your data has to be subject to the privacy settings you choose as a Facebook user. You can sense his frustration amid a scandal that was essentially cooked up by Consumerist on the Sunday night of a holiday weekend without even calling Facebook to check if their assumptions on the Terms of Use changes were right.

  But this isn’t the first or last time users will be in an uproar over Facebook, despite all of Facebook’s best efforts. Why? There’s never been a Web site—or media property for that matter—that people trusted with so much personal, emotional and intimate information, whether it’s your cell phone number or a video of your child taking his first steps. And with Facebook’s business model still uncertain, that trust makes us legitimately nervous. You think all the search data Google has been collecting on us for all these years is scary? Things you do and upload to Facebook are far, far more personal. For the conspiracy theorists out there, Facebook is going to be the gift that keeps on giving.

  I asked Kelly—on this, the third major user uproar the company has faced on privacy that caught it completely by surprise—if the issue was a blind spot for the company or if Facebook was doing something so new in organizing the data of human relationships that it was bound to take all the arrows as these issues of privacy continually emerge. Kelly essentially said its the latter; I think it’s a mixture of both, although Facebook’s privacy sensitivities have clearly come a long way since the News Feed and Beacon debacle days. Give them credit: Each time they learn how to handle the crisis better, and this time they sprung into action quickly and decisively.

  Either way, this is not the first or last time a user revolt will spark up around privacy and the site. And that’s one reason Facebook is inviting users to help them craft the language this time around. You can’t blame yourself for violating your rights, right? But as Elizabeth Corcoran of Forbes pointed out on the show, can you really organize a committee of 175 million people?

  The clip featuring both of these conversations is below, or go here for the entire episode.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• February 20, 2009
• 19:43

  Ticketing Startups Launch Multi-Million Dollar Funds To Combat TicketMaster Merger

   »  TechCrunch

  

  With the proposed $2.5 billion merger between TicketMaster and Live Nation looming large, many venue owners and promoters are up in arms, deeming the deal anti-competitive and monopolistic (they may be right - the deal is being examined for possible anti-trust violations). Now ShowClix, a TicketMaster competitor that launched in early 2007, is launching the Fair Ticketing Fund, setting aside up to $5 million to entice venues and promoters away from the pending Live Nation Entertainment goliath. Other ticket vendors are also beginning to offer similar deals, including TicketBiscuit, which launched a $10 million fund last week.

  For those who aren’t familiar with the ticketing business, here’s a bit of a primer. TicketMaster has long been contracting venues into exclusive deals, promising some portion of the service fees (also known as convenience or venue fees) the site racks up as an incentive for them to sign on. TicketMaster has become notorious for gouging customers with these fees, and many fear that with the Live Nation deal they’ll only continue to rise higher.

  Smaller ticket companies like ShowClix don’t typically charge service fees that are nearly as high as TicketMaster’s so they usually can’t promise the same returns to venues. That’s where the their new funds come in: each is promising venues that they’ll use the new funds to compensate for the income they stand to lose from leaving TicketMaster. In effect, they’re giving venues opposed to the new deal a chance to protest it without doing too much damage to their bank accounts.

  However, while ShowClix and TicketBiscuit may be giving away money for now, this is hardly a charity - any venues looking to take advantage of the Fair Ticketing Fund will be signing on with ShowClix under an exclusive year-long deal (which is fairly common in the industry), and TicketBiscuit will also mandate an exclusive deal. Still, it’s nice to see these smaller entities take on TicketMaster - I’m getting tired of “convenience” fees that cost a third as much as the ticket itself.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 17:46

  Did Last.fm Just Hand Over User Listening Data To the RIAA?

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Update: Last.fm vehemently denies this rumor. See below.

  That leaked U2 album is causing all sorts of trouble. The unreleased album, which is due out on March 3, found its way onto BitTorrent and was downloaded hundreds of thousands of times. That, apparently, sent music industry lawyers over at the Recording Industry Association of America into a fit. As a result, word is going around that the RIAA asked social music service Last.fm for data about its user’s listening habits to find people with unreleased tracks on their computers. And Last.fm, which is owned by CBS, actually handed the data over to the RIAA. According to a tip we received:

  I heard from an irate friend who works at CBS that last.fm recently provided the RIAA with a giant dump of user data to track down people who are scrobbling unreleased tracks. As word spread numerous employees at last.fm were up in arms because the data collected (a) can be used to identify individuals and (b) will likely be shared with 3rd parties that have relationships with the RIAA.

  Supposedly, the operations team which handed over the data in the first place weren’t told the true purpose for the transfer or who was getting the data until after the fact, and only when they had to help with some corrupted data. It sounds like it was more of a corporate decision. I’ve contacted both CBS and the RIAA. Most of the Last.fm team is in London, where the weekend has already started. For now Last.fm says: “To our knowledge, no data has been made available to RIAA.” (The RIAA declined to comment).

  Setting aside what actually happened to the data, and assuming this rumor is true, why would the RIAA target Last.fm? It wasn’t streaming the U2 album, and it is not an illegal download service. But Last.fm has millions of users who are heavy music consumers, and many of them download Last.fm’s Scrobbler software which keeps track of every single song you listen to on your computer, no matter which music player you use. In other words, it captures tracks played from illegal BitTorrent downloads just as easily as from iTunes.

  Last.fm members knowingly share what they are listening to with the rest of the Last.fm community, and in return receive social recommendations of music they might like. That is the whole point of the service. And Last.fm’s privacy policy does clearly state:

  . . . your record collection (including your skipping history) may be viewed by all other users of Last.fm (who may include other organisations or representatives of other organisations who have registered as Last.fm users) and that they may easily associate this information with your Last.fm username.

  But most probably never even considered it a possibility that individually identifiable information about their listening habits (legal, illegal, or otherwise) could be handed over to an organization known for taking consumers to court for file-sharing. What makes this even more egregious is that it appears to be absent any legal precedent (such as a pending lawsuit) for which Last.fm could at least hide behind as an excuse.

  Incidents like this highlight how the social Web can sometimes bite back if you are not careful. It also raises the issue of who owns all of this data about you and what they can do with it. (The same issue that caused Facebook to backtrack on recent changes to its data policy). Unfortunately, it’s come down to this: you really shouldn’t share any data on the Web you wouldn’t feel comfortable seeing in a court of law.

  (Please contact us at tips [at] techcrunch if you have more information about this).

  Update: Some more denials from Last.FMers, including one of the co-founders, Richard Jones, in comments, who says this story is “utter nonsense and totally untrue,” and another one from Russ Garrett, a systems architect.

  Update 2 (2/21/09): There are a lot of angry questions being raised about this post in comments and elsewhere. Lots of demands for retractions and some people questioning the timing of the post late on Friday night.

  First, on the timing. The reason this story was posted so late was because I had contacted a Last.fm spokesperson in the U.S. earlier in the day who promised me a response, and I decided to wait for it. Several hours passed, with assurances that a statement was being prepared. So I was a little surprised when it was only one sentence:

  To our knowledge, no data has been made available to RIAA.

  That statement is hardly a categorical denial. It leaves open all sorts of holes. Was the data collected internally, but never actually handed over? Was it made available to a specific record label or group of record labels, perhaps at the request of the RIAA. Or did the whole thing never happen? I asked for clarification, but again was referred to the single vague statement. After I posted, I again contacted the spokesperson to see if she had any further comment she would like to make. She didn’t.

  Soon after I posted, however, plenty of unofficial but heartfelt denial came from Last.fm staffers in London, two of which I linked to last night in the update above. The one from Russ Garrett, in particular, raised even more questions. His denial starts out unequivocal, but then he adds a squishy disclaimer:

  I’d like to issue a full and categorical denial of this. We’ve never had any request for such data by anyone, and if we did we wouldn’t consent to it.

  Of course we work with the major labels and provide them with broad statistics, as we would with any other label, but we’d never personally identify our users to a third party - that goes against everything we stand for.

  Hmm, so could the RIAA or a record label use the data to identify people? I never suggested that it was Last.fm that was singling out individuals listening to unreleased tracks. The issue is whether the RIAA or any of its member companies are trying to do so and whether or not Last.fm is helping them.

  As Garrett points out, Last.fm shares aggregate listening data with the labels. Are there any unique identifiers associated with this data that could lead back to an individual, despite any precautions Last.fm might take? (It wouldn’t be unprecedented—remember that leaked AOL search data a few years ago?) I sent Garrett an email about 5 hours ago asking him some of these questions.

  From the very beginning, I’ve presented this story for what it is: a rumor. Despite my attempts to corroborate it and the subsequent detail I’ve been able to gather, I still don’t have enough information to determine whether it is absolutely true. But I still don’t have enough information to determine that it is absolutely false either. What I do have are a lot of unanswered questions about how exactly Last.fm shares user data with the record industry.

  Update 3 (2/22/09): Garrett got back to me. He responds:

  The data we make available to labels is aggregate data about their artists - it’s a slightly more detailed version of what you see on the site. We release no data linking users and plays to any third parties.

  The only data we provide to labels (in addition to the data publicly available on their artist pages) are historical graphs of listeners and plays. There’s no way to link these to individual users.

  If a label was trying to work out who’s been listening to their leaked track, the closest they can get would be to look at the publicly-available listeners on the music pages. I would doubt that would be enough evidence to convict someone, and users can opt out of being displayed there in their settings.

  Update 4 (2/23/09): Last.fm co-founder Richard Jones expands on his denial in comments with an official post on the Last.fm blog. He also adds this:

  We never share personally identifiable data such as email and IP addresses. The only type of data we make available to labels and artists, other than what you see on the site, is aggregate data of listeners and number of plays.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 16:40

  German Apple Clones May Succeed Where Psystar Failed

   »  TechCrunch
  The long-running Psystar dispute may be settling down as the controversial PC-maker runs out of steam, but don't think that's the end of... the Clone Wars. (sorry) Powerfully-named German PC company HyperMegaNet UG has started selling its own line of cloned Apples. But good heavens, you say, aren't they scared of Apple? Won't they see the smoking ruins of Psystar and fear the same fate may be in store for them? Ah yes, but you forget: they're German. I don't mean that in the sense that they're industrious and methodical, but simply that they're part of the European Union, where it's possible that the law permits this piratical behavior. They certainly seem to think so.

  

  
• 14:30

  Andreessen on Charlie Rose: “I Am Creating A Fund.” (Full Video)

   »  TechCrunch

  Marc Andreessen appeared on Charlie Rose last night. (The entire interview is embedded above). He gave Rose a primer on everything from Facebook and cloud computing to the mobile Web. But he also tells Rose: “I’m creating a fund.” Actually, Andreessen is creating it with his investing partner Ben Horowitz, and it will formalize the angel investing he has been doing on his own for the past several years. It will be called Andreessen Horowitz. From the transcript:

  Charlie Rose:
  Why are you doing this?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Because of the nature and the scale of the opportunities. We’re actually been investing ourselves with our own money for three years and we’ve invested in 36 — he and I invested together in 36 deals in three years so about one a month.

  Charlie Rose:
  Yeah, but I’ve read that you think that the normal investment for you to make, this may have been prefund, what, was about 100,000 to 200,000?

  Marc Andreessen:
  That’s right, and we’re actually going to preserve and extend that model in the fund. So historically we’ve only invested up to $200,000 total in a deal. We’re going to definitely bring that up in the fund because we’re going to raise more money, be able to put more money in. But it’ll be pretty typical for us to do a $500,000 investment or maybe down to 200,000 or maybe up to a million in a deal to start. And what we’re seeing is a whole generation of startups that actually don’t need very much money to get started, so the cloud computing example, or a mobile application, an iPhone developer doesn’t need very much money to get started.

  Andreessen, who sits on Facebook’s board, also says that Facebook could be generating $1 billion in revenues today if it wanted to, and thinks the New York Times should go all digital.

  Marc Andreessen:
  There’s a lot of confusion out there. Facebook is deliberately not taking a lot of the kind of normal brand advertising that a lot of Web sites will take. So you go to — a company like Yahoo which is another fantastic business and they’ve got these you know banner ads and brand ads all over the place, Facebook has made a strategic decision to not take a lot of that business in favor of building its own sort of more organic business model and it’s still in the process of doing that and if they crack the code on that which I think that we will, then I think it will be very successful and will be very large. The fallback position is to just take normal advertising. And if Facebook just turned on the spigot for normal advertising today, it’d be doing over a billion dollars in revenue. So it’s much more a matter of long term strategy. Companies —

  Charlie Rose:
  So if you want to make a lot of money instantly, you could.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Yeah, oh, very easily. It could sell out the homepage and it would start making just a gigantic amount of money.

  The full transcript is below.

  Transcript

  The Charlie Rose Show Session Two

  Guest:
  Marc Andreessen

  Charlie Rose:
  Marc Andreessen is here. He is one of Silicon Valley’s most respected entrepreneurs. He has already founded and sold two companies, each for over a billion dollars. The first was Netscape. It revolutionized web browsing before it was sold to AOL in 1999. His second company, Opsware, was bought by Hewlett Packard.

  Charlie Rose:
  Mark Andreessen is here. He’s one of Silicon Valley’s most respected entrepreneurs. He’s already founded and sold two companies, each for over a billion dollars. The first was Netescape. It revolutionized web browsing before it was sold to AOL in 1999. His second company, Opsware, was bought by Hewlett Packard in 2007. He has two new ventures, the social networking site, Ning, and a brand new venture capital fund. We want to talk about all of that. I am pleased to have him back on this show. Welcome.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Thank you.

  Charlie Rose:
  First just let me talk about something that has — you own 1.6 percent of it. It is Facebook.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Oh actually I own less than that.

  Charlie Rose:
  Did you? Oh, no —

  Marc Andreessen:
  Fortunate enough to be on the Board.

  Charlie Rose:
  Okay, fair enough, if you’re on the Board, I mean, why did I read that it was 1.6 percent? Somebody then —

  Marc Andreessen:
  Somebody’s giving me a —

  Charlie Rose:
  You can’t believe what you read.

  Marc Andreessen:
  – credit I don’t deserve.

  Charlie Rose:
  All right, because they said that you had invested at the same time $260 million, is that right or wrong?

  Marc Andreessen:
  No, no.

  Charlie Rose:
  None of my business.

  Marc Andreessen:
  No, I joined the Board later on.

  Charlie Rose:
  Okay, all right.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Yeah, last year.

  Charlie Rose:
  There is this sort of silly idea, but you want to speak to it, that Facebook is the next Google and Google is the next Microsoft. You’ve heard of that. Does any of it resonate with you?

  Marc Andreessen:
  I don’t think there are nexts, like so for example there was IBM and then people said here’s the next IBM and there never was the next IBM. I don’t think — Google’s a totally different business than Microsoft.

  Charlie Rose:
  IBM was not the next IBM.

  Marc Andreessen:
  IBM was not the next IBM. Microsoft wasn’t the next IBM. Google — Google’s its own company, it’s a fantastic company, it’s its own company with its own model. Facebook is a fantastically successful company with a huge amount of potential. Google is you know just a gigantically successful business you know I think for anybody to voluntarily step up and compare themselves to that I think would be hubris, I think that would be a bit much in general. But Facebook’s got huge potential and frankly I think it deserves to be evaluated on its own.

  Charlie Rose:
  Well, it is evaluated at $15 billion?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Well, there was an investment round at $15 billion evaluation which was for preferred stock.

  Charlie Rose:
  Which was the Microsoft investment?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Microsoft investment and some other investors. People are getting confused on that by the way because that’s preferred stock and there was an internal assessment, a valuation [spelled phonetically] that people have lots of rumors about that was lower than that which was for common stock. So people are getting the preferred and common confused. And of course this is all abstract, right, because the company’s private. You know someday the company will you know at some point —

  Charlie Rose:
  And because the company’s not making any money.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Well, company’s financials likely are private so it gets to keep that to itself but company’s [inaudible] —
  [talking simultaneously]

  Charlie Rose:
  But you’re on the Board of Directors —
  [talking simultaneously]

  Marc Andreessen:
  I am on the Board.

  Charlie Rose:
  – you can be here and tell us.

  Marc Andreessen:
  I know. Company’s doing very well. On its internal goals it’s doing very well. It’s passed 175 million active users. Half of those users use it every day. A lot of those users use it 50 times a day. It’s generating I think a substantial amount of revenue. I think it can be doing a lot more revenue in the years to come.

  Charlie Rose:
  Have you read this story? Fortune has marked on the cover how Facebook has taken over our lives then but is it a real business?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Yeah, sure. So I think people ask us about new companies all the time. They —

  Charlie Rose:
  They monetize it.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Yeah, [unintelligible] they monetize it. But look it’s got 175 million active users. It’s the sixth most populated country in the world right now if you compare it to countries. It’s on its way to 500 million users. I mean, it’s going to be a multibillion dollar success.

  Charlie Rose:
  So what’s going to be the trick to monetize it?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Oh, okay, so and this is where people are getting confused, is Facebook is deliberately, and this is actually very interesting.

  Charlie Rose:
  There’s a lot of confusion out there.

  Marc Andreessen:
  There’s a lot of confusion out there. Facebook is deliberately not taking a lot of the kind of normal brand advertising that a lot of Web sites will take. So you go to — a company like Yahoo which is another fantastic business and they’ve got these you know banner ads and brand ads all over the place, Facebook has made a strategic decision to not take a lot of that business in favor of building its own sort of more organic business model and it’s still in the process of doing that and if they crack the code on that which I think that we will, then I think it will be very successful and will be very large. The fallback position is to just take normal advertising. And if Facebook just turned on the spigot for normal advertising today, it’d be doing over a billion dollars in revenue. So it’s much more a matter of long term strategy. Companies —

  Charlie Rose:
  So if you want to make a lot of money instantly, you could.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Yeah, oh, very easily. It could sell out the homepage and it would start making just a gigantic amount of money. Yeah and so there’s just tremendous potential and it’s just a question exactly how they choose to exploit it. What’s significant about that is that Marc is very determined to build a long term company. And you know there’s as you know there are people in the Valley who like quick hits and like sell companies quickly and then there are people, Andy Grove for example, or Bill Gates, and I think in his own way now, Marc, and obviously the Google guys are other examples of this, who want to build a long term business. And so he’s got his eyes way out on the horizon.

  Charlie Rose:
  So when one others may have sold out to larger media companies —

  Marc Andreessen:
  Yeah.

  Charlie Rose:
  Mark insisted he would remain independent and develop his own company in his own way.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Yeah. And he had those turning parts presented to him. Any successful company in the valley gets acquisition offers and has to decide whether or not to take them. And he’s passed on some very lucrative offers and has a very big vision.

  Charlie Rose:
  Tell me what the big vision is.

  Marc Andreessen:
  So the big vision basically is — I mean the way I would articulate it is connect everybody on the planet, right? So I mean 175 million people —

  Charlie Rose:
  If you don’t think large, what the hell —

  Marc Andreessen:
  Exactly. 175 million people — 175 million people on the thing now. Adding a huge number of users every day. 6 billion people on the planet. Probably 3 billion of them with modern electricity and maybe telephones. So maybe the total addressable market today is 3 billion people. 175 million to 3 billion is a big challenge. A big opportunity.

  Charlie Rose:
  Let me remind you that you’re in the business of social networking.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Of course.

  Charlie Rose:
  That’s what your Ning is all about.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Of course, my own company Ning is about to cross 20 million users, and we’re adding 2 million users a month. We’re — and Ning is actually a business that lets you create your own social network, and we’re about to cross a million social networks on Ning that are —

  Charlie Rose:
  So you want to create a social network with your high school chums, then you can do that.

  Marc Andreessen:
  You can do that. And there is over a million of those. It’s easy, it’s free. Advertising — there is all kinds of ways. We make money on that, and that’s growing very fast. MySpace is doing very well for News Corps. LinkedIn is another company I’m an angel [?] investor in, you know, got north of 20 million resumes on it now. Everybody uses LinkedIn now to look for jobs and recruit. Which is a very hot topic these days.

  Charlie Rose:
  I would assume so. So social networking is hear to stay.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Oh, yeah.

  Charlie Rose:
  And it’s potential is just beginning.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Yeah.

  Charlie Rose:
  If you can connect everybody, then you have a huge opportunity to do a bunch of stuff.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Here’s the thing. If you can get 50 people or 100 or 150 million people to do something, then over time, you’re going to be able to get everybody to do it.

  Charlie Rose:
  Low politics —

  Marc Andreessen:
  Everything. Everybody. So there is huge potential, huge upside.

  Charlie Rose:
  The Obama campaign —

  Marc Andreessen:
  Yeah.

  Charlie Rose:
  Revolutionized politics, didn’t it?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Excellent example. The Obama campaign by far, like the most aggressive state of the art uses social networking approaches, right, and philosophies. Now, primarily, that was harnessed in the form of fund raising. Right? It was an engine to be able to generate just gigantic numbers of campaign contributions. So every new campaign is going to use these technologies and these approaches. We have a lot of politicians creating networks on Ning. There will be a whole new wave of social networking in politics, right? And also the Obama campaign was very good for volunteer coordination over this. But there is a whole aspect of this for getting the message out in how the campaign gets covered and how the debates happen and how communication happens, which has yet to come. And that will be in ‘12 or ‘16.

  Charlie Rose:
  And in fact, I think Obama now speaks — rather than using the radio program, speaks online.

  Marc Andreessen:
  On YouTube. Right. He puts the video on YouTube and then that spreads out all over the web. In politics that’s amazing. In the rest of the world, that’s how things work today.

  Charlie Rose:
  Does YouTube make money?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Google — I mean — I don’t know specifically. That’s a Google thing.

  Charlie Rose:
  You know.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Well, if they don’t –

  Charlie Rose:
  You know.

  Marc Andreessen:
  I’ll give you the same answer as I do on Facebook. If they’re not making money today, they easily could. These are all under-monetized, under-monetized assets. Give you an example. Every video on YouTube — Viacom. Viacom is suing YouTube, suing goggle for copyright infringement. It’s 180-degree the wrong strategy.

  Charlie Rose:
  On the part of Viacom?

  Marc Andreessen:
  On the part of Viacom to sue YouTube. They should be using YouTube as a distribution channel, right? They should let all the videos go on to YouTube, and then ever time there is a Viacom video on YouTube, there should be a buy button. And you’re driving traffic directly pack to the properties, you’re selling DVD’s, you’re selling music, you’re selling video games, you’re selling all the stuff that Viacom sells. These are the distribution vehicles of all time. These are nirvana. Right? It’s like Napster for the music industry.

  Charlie Rose:
  I should count my lucky day that all my programs are on YouTube.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Oh, yeah. Of course. Because you want people to see them.

  Charlie Rose:
  Right.

  Marc Andreessen:
  I mean you want people to see them. So you put them out there. Like I say, there should be a buy button. There should be an advertisement.

  Charlie Rose:
  Right.

  Marc Andreessen:
  It’s like with Napster with music, right? 20 million people lined up in 1998 and decided they wanted to start using Napster to start listening to music. If there had been a buy the CD but been there, or buy the digital track, it would have been a gigantic source of revenue for the music industry and the music industry would be far healthier today. And so when you get huge numbers of people lining up to do something, in my view, you figure out how to take advantage of that.

  Charlie Rose:
  In my view, you have a market.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Right. Yeah. A market. You know, magic markets don’t appear –

  Charlie Rose:
  No, that’s right.

  Marc Andreessen:
  – all the time, so you take advantage of them.

  Charlie Rose:
  Okay. So what about this other part of Facebook, taking over our lives? Not so good.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Well, obviously I don’t think that that’s the case. So everything on Facebook is put on Facebook, or any of these other sites linked in as put on voluntarily. People have a lot of control who gets to see it and who doesn’t.

  Charlie Rose:
  You don’t deny that, in fact, some employers go first to Facebook and therefore if they see something they may not like, they may not hire somebody?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Well, yeah, but if I put photos of myself dancing around at a party down here on the wall and then apply for a job with you –

  Charlie Rose:
  There are photos around?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Possibly. I would have to check your hallway. Check your entrance. Check your Facebook pages.

  Charlie Rose:
  Yes, exactly.

  Marc Andreessen:
  But –

  Charlie Rose:
  I’m talking with about you.

  Marc Andreessen:
  For me? I’m sure there is photos. Who knows what kinds of photos are out there on me. But, yeah. I mean people are going to check. People are going to do Google searches. But I’ll tell you, it’s the other way around also; right? You’re an employee, you get to learn a lot more about the company you’re going to go to work for.

  Charlie Rose:
  So you find out about them, too.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Sure.

  Charlie Rose:
  On Facebook?

  Marc Andreessen:
  On Facebook, on Google –

  Charlie Rose:
  But there is always this controversy just erupted, which is the idea of who owns the user’s profile?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Yeah. Yeah. So there was confusion, Facebook put out a new release to their so called terms of service. It was sort of legalese. And it caused a lots of confusion. So Mark has announced that they’re actually pulling those –pulling that off the site, referring to the previous version, and they’re going to write a new document which is in English.

  Charlie Rose:
  Which says?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Which says users own their content.

  Charlie Rose:
  But do they keep it though? Does Facebook keep it, even though users own it?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Well, there is –

  Charlie Rose:
  Do they keep it after you sign off? They still keep –

  Marc Andreessen:
  There is a technical definition of keep, and they be there is actually practical like would it ever get used for anything. And so –

  Charlie Rose:
  So the answer is they do keep it, but it will never be used for anything?

  Marc Andreessen:
  No. I’m not saying they do or they don’t. I’m just saying because there is a copy –

  Charlie Rose:
  You know they do. What are you talking witho about?

  Marc Andreessen:
  I don’t know there is a lot of reason to keep people’s drunken party photos –

  Charlie Rose:
  But they do.

  Marc Andreessen:
  I don’t know. Maybe in some cases there are copies. Maybe there aren’t. If it never gets used for anything –

  Charlie Rose:
  Why don’t they erase it all?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Why doesn’t Google erase everything in the cache once websites disappear.

  Charlie Rose:
  I don’t know. That’s a good idea.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Well, in general, you try to –

  Charlie Rose:
  That’s a good idea.

  Marc Andreessen:
  You try to clean it up. Well, you don’t always know what’s active and what’s not. You don’t know when a user is going to come back. You don’t know –

  Charlie Rose:
  Oh, you being one of the technology geniuses don’t know?

  Marc Andreessen:
  I’ll tell you what. If a website dropped offline and Google immediately cut it out of their index, everybody would complain because it will just mean if a website just crashed for five minutes, it’s gone –

  Charlie Rose:
  Yeah, right. Right. So what’s the answer to all this?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Well, the answer to this is there is, I think, always a middle ground. You have to be very respectful of privacy. You have to provide a lot of controls to let people decide. Have sliders, and let people decide how they want to set it.

  Charlie Rose:
  Okay.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Give people the tools.

  Charlie Rose:
  Back to Ning. How many networks do I want to belong to? There is Linkedin, there is Facebook, there is — on and on and on and on.

  Marc Andreessen:
  I would say how many things do you care about in your life?

  Charlie Rose:
  Oh, man.

  Marc Andreessen:
  How many things are you into?

  Charlie Rose:
  I don’t want to belong to that many social networks.

  Marc Andreessen:
  But I mean that’s where it’s going. You’re going to be interconnected. You’re going to be interconnected into a web –

  Charlie Rose:
  Of tennis players, of whatever in your –

  Marc Andreessen:
  Exactly. People you grew up with, people — you know, shared –

  Charlie Rose:
  How many do you belong to?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Oh, dozens.

  Charlie Rose:
  Dozens. What kind are they? Tell me what they are?

  Marc Andreessen:
  There are all kinds of things. For music, I like crime fiction, I like –

  Charlie Rose:
  Just — slow down. Did you create this on Ning, this crime fiction?

  Marc Andreessen:
  No, no, no. In that case somebody else created it, and so –

  Charlie Rose:
  And I joined it.

  Marc Andreessen:
  I’m watching it.

  Charlie Rose:
  Have you created any of them yourself?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Well, I’ve created networks — I haven’t created anybody that [inaudible] scale.

  Charlie Rose:
  [laughter]. [talking simultaneously]

  Marc Andreessen:
  I haven’t created any that I would tell your audience about.

  Charlie Rose:
  10 or 11 or –

  Marc Andreessen:
  Exactly. Exactly. Small. But we use them all. One of the nice things is we see all the new networks being created, so we sign up for a lot of them ourselves.

  Charlie Rose:
  When we interview people like you, we always have to ask this question. What is the hottest idea there and what’s the next big idea?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Yeah. Well, so I mean I think — maybe this goes off track from your question, but I think the hottest idea is innovation is actually alive and well. I mean there are more — I know. But look, there are a lot of people who are arguing the other side of that.

  Charlie Rose:
  That innovation is dead?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Oh, there is a lot of people — I mean a lot of people I have been hearing or reading. There is a lot of, you know — well, I mean –

  Charlie Rose:
  Saying what?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Innovation is dead or these things can’t be turned into businesses. One or the other.

  Charlie Rose:
  That’s not innovation. They got this great thing but they can’t monetize it.

  Marc Andreessen:
  There is even some very successful people out in Silicon valley who are arguing that innovation is dead.

  Charlie Rose:
  Like whom?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Two very good friends of mine, Andy Grove and Judy Estron [spelled phonetically].

  Charlie Rose:
  That’s true. They are saying — you’re right, you’re right.

  Marc Andreessen:
  There are actually people saying that. So what I’m actually seeing is an endless series of new ideas. We can name all kinds of — cloud computing is a fantastic new idea. It’s –

  Charlie Rose:
  That’s not a new idea. It’s been out there for –

  Marc Andreessen:
  Well, I started a company called Loud Cloud in 1999 –

  Charlie Rose:
  I know you did.

  Marc Andreessen:
  – which —

  Charlie Rose:
  10 years ago —

  Marc Andreessen:
  People didn’t know what we were talking about. But now, it’s a big deal. I mean it’s a legitimate —

  Charlie Rose:
  It’s been around for a while.

  Marc Andreessen:
  But at scale, as a big thing — let me tell you what’s happening. So Amazon has this so-called cloud service. And so companies instead of needing their own servers, they can just upload their software code into the Amazon cloud and it will actually return their application or their site on Amazon servers. So you’ve got a whole generation of startups that are basically just a couple of programmers with a couple laptops, and they upload everything into the Amazon cloud. It’s pay by the drink like utility. So all of a sudden, you have this whole new wave of Internet startups getting started for practically no money, right? So there is a level of innovation. Every kid coming out of Harvard, every kid coming out of school now thinks he can be the next Mark Zuckerberg, and with these new technologies like cloud computing, he actually has a shot.

  Charlie Rose:
  There are more opportunities today than there have ever been.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Oh, yeah.

  Charlie Rose:
  Because of all the different kinds of things that are possible?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Yeah. It’s a cascading. It’s a layering effect. Every layer of new technology makes another layer of innovation —

  Charlie Rose:
  Exactly.

  Marc Andreessen:
  – possible on top, and that just keeps roll.

  Charlie Rose:
  All right. Let’s talk about mobile for a second, because you’ve said some interesting things about that, cell phones and mobile. There was a big meeting, I guess, over in Spain, Barcelona or somewhere —

  Marc Andreessen:
  Yep.

  Charlie Rose:
  – right? Did you go to that?

  Marc Andreessen:
  No, I didn’t.
  I read about it online.

  Charlie Rose:
  So did I.

  Marc Andreessen:
  There we go.

  Charlie Rose:
  So tell me about it. What came out of that, and so — what can we say about where we are and where we’re going in terms of mobile? And later, this whole idea of another company you have called Quick or something.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Qik —

  Charlie Rose:
  Okay So take off.

  Marc Andreessen:
  So the big thing is mobile has arrived. So you have these technology friends that people talked about, and talked about, and talked about, and talked about, and talked about, and they never quite happen. And then all of a sudden, they happen. And they’re a big deal. The Internet was like that. The Internet took off in ‘94, ‘95. The Internet had much getting built for 25 years up to that point. But it took off in ‘95.

  Charlie Rose:
  It took off because of you in part, because of the browser?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Because the technology got right. The technology of the browser. But the browser became possible because the windows interface, the windows and Macintosh user interfaces became mainstream. So the technology comes together, and all of a sudden the market takes off. So in mobile, you’ve now got the 3G networks.

  Charlie Rose:
  Right.

  Marc Andreessen:
  You’ve got really super sophisticated handsets. You’ve got application developers, you’ve got content, you’ve got all this stuff, and it’s just catalyzed, and it’s just gone boom. And so here in the US, we see it with the iPhone.

  Charlie Rose:
  Right.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Right? And now the iPhone is a template that every other technology vendor is going to copy, right, or base ideas off of.

  Charlie Rose:
  Explain that.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Right. So the iPhone is the first true cell phone that is actually a full computer.

  Charlie Rose:
  Right.

  Marc Andreessen:
  It has a full operating system. It has the ability to support a large number of applications. It has a software development kit that you can use to build applications. It has a way to distribute applications over the network onto the phone.

  Charlie Rose:
  It’s a whole business. It’s a new venture, in fact, for people to provide applications for the iPhone.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Exactly.

  Charlie Rose:
  It’s a big venture capital business.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Yeah. And in fact, actually, there’s thousands of iPhone applications. But –

  Charlie Rose:
  Exactly.

  Marc Andreessen:
  – [unintelligible] in the last 12 months.

  Charlie Rose:
  Exactly.

  Marc Andreessen:
  And some of them are free, and some of them you charge money for.

  Charlie Rose:
  Right.

  Marc Andreessen:
  And there’s just enormous diversity of application. So whether you’re a doctor, and you’re reviewing X-rays on the thing, or whether you’re a caterer listening to music, or whether you’re sending — you know, you’re on the FaceBook application or you’re on a Ning application, it can do anything. So it’s a full general purpose computer. And that’s the first time that somebody has actually delivered that product with a fast — with relatively fast AT & T 3G network.

  Charlie Rose:
  What was so different about the iPhone that made it sort of a game changer?

  Marc Andreessen:
  I would say two things. One is, it’s the first real operating system. And I say that’s a sort of — sounds like it’s a technical concept. But it’s the first operating system that really makes a lot of applications possible. And there’s a whole bunch of technical details for that, but it’s a real [unintelligible]

  Charlie Rose:
  A big system within a phone.

  Marc Andreessen:
  It’s actually unism. It’s actually the same operating system –

  Charlie Rose:
  Right.

  Marc Andreessen:
  – that runs banks and airlines.

  Charlie Rose:
  Right.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Just shrunk down to run in the phone. And that’s part of the brilliance of what Apple did is it’s a real operating system. And then also, they packaged the whole thing together, including the tool kits to build the applications and then the way to actually distribute the applications onto the phone. And that had never been done before. So you could have bought a Microsoft phone or a Rim phone or whatever, and they just — they never had it quite put together right so somebody could build an application, distribute it, sell it and get it down to [unintelligible].

  Charlie Rose:
  In fact, you have said that iPhones are the demarcation point between operating systems. And the other problem we had is that from were so many different standards.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Right, right, of course.

  Charlie Rose:
  In America, unlike Europe, and so they got a — and Japan, they had a huge –

  Marc Andreessen:
  Yeah.

  Charlie Rose:
  [unintelligible] Asia, not Korea.

  Marc Andreessen:
  For building proprietary systems, they had a big advantage because there was a single network.

  Charlie Rose:
  Right.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Basically a single kind of network. Now in the US, the networks have also consolidated down.

  Charlie Rose:
  Right.

  Marc Andreessen:
  So there’s a much smaller number of networks. But now the iPhone is a point, sort of a central point whereas a developer, you can rely on the iPhone being a stable platform for development. And so a lot of developers are doing that. And then the other significant thing is now that the iPhone is successful, it paves the way, much like the MacIntosh paved the way for Windows PCs.

  Charlie Rose:
  Right, right, right.

  Marc Andreessen:
  It paves the way for another set of companies, whether it’s Microsoft or Rim or, you know, dozens of others who are startups to create new devices.

  Charlie Rose:
  By the way, you are one of the people who really do — and I think that this is enormous, to give credit to Bill Gates for developing an operating system that was the standard.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Yes.

  Charlie Rose:
  And things happened because of that.

  Marc Andreessen:
  That’s a big deal.

  Charlie Rose:
  You know.

  Marc Andreessen:
  That’s a very big deal. And it’s a very serious commitment for a company. Apple’s had this commitment, Microsoft’s had this commitment. You have to commit — it’s actually a commitment to what’s called backward compatibility. See, if you have to commit to never break anything. So you load up Windows Vista, and you can still run the original Visical [spelled phonetically] from 30 years ago, which was the original killer app on the PC, original spreadsheet. And so that is a long-term institutional commitment that takes a very serious company to be able to do. And then the opportunities, I mean, Netscape was an application that got built on top of that kind of platform. The Macintosh is that, the iPhone is that. And it’s sort of a responsibility for the next set of vendors to do the same thing.

  Charlie Rose:
  I just read I think this week where Microsoft has an operating system that they’re — a mobile operating system that they’re now going to work with LG and a whole new phone. I mean, other people will be doing that.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Well, they’re doing a rethink.

  Charlie Rose:
  Trying to create new operating — what?

  Marc Andreessen:
  They’re doing a rethink. They’ve had a mobile strategy for years, right, and they’ve had a mobile, Windows Mobile. They’re doing a rethink of it because they’ve seen the iPhone, right? So the iPhone is like –

  Charlie Rose:
  They’re doing a rethink because they saw Google, too.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Well, and also — another good reason to do a rethink. The iPhone is liked beam from the future, right? The iPhone, when it landed was like beamed in from five years in the future. And so it has — it itself is fantastic, and it has inspired a level of creative thinking around it that we’re going to see the results from over the next two, three, four years. And there’s lots and lots — I mean Samsung obviously is very serious about this, Nokia is very serious about this. You know, and then there’s a lot of software developers. Ning is very serious about providing the software for this. FaceBook is as well. And Google is as well. And so there’s going to be just a tremendous amount of innovation, and then actually a lot of people using it. It’s going to be a real thing.

  Charlie Rose:
  What is this idea you have for what is it called Qik?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Qik, yeah.

  Charlie Rose:
  Qik, is that way you can do live streaming wherever you are?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Any cell phone with a camera.

  Charlie Rose:
  Yeah.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Can be a source of live streaming video straight onto the internet or onto everybody else’s phones.

  Charlie Rose:
  All right. Just explain to me the potential of this.

  Marc Andreessen:
  So basically, 3 billion phones in the world. They all have cameras. 3 billion sources of live streaming video.

  Charlie Rose:
  Right.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Anybody, at any time can pull out of their pocket and can start streaming video live. They could be at a political protest.

  Charlie Rose:
  Right.

  Marc Andreessen:
  They could be at a — you know –

  Charlie Rose:
  So we can go live anywhere in the world now –

  Marc Andreessen:
  – bank robbery.

  Charlie Rose:
  – at anyplace.

  Marc Andreessen:
  You could be doing an interview.

  Charlie Rose:
  Right.

  Marc Andreessen:
  And it goes live. And of course, it goes live which is a big deal, but it also gets recorded, and so it can be streamed. It can be played back later. And so it streams up onto the web. You can embed these videos into your blog –

  Charlie Rose:
  And what’s the quality of this –

  Marc Andreessen:
  – your YouTube video.
  [talking simultaneously]

  Charlie Rose:
  –video?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Well, it depends, there are phones actually that actually don’t have camcorder functions yet and so it actually stitches together a video stream out of individual frames, which is a neat trick by itself. And then now there are cell phones coming out — there are cell phones coming out now that have high def camcorders built in. And so you’re going to have in a couple years it’s going to be fairly common to have a little phone and it’s going to have high def camcorder and it’s going to be streaming high def video over either 3G or the new 4G networks straight onto the Web.

  Charlie Rose:
  And you know what they’re going to do? They’re going to be able to inject these little devices inside us you know a live stream what’s happening in our body so they’ll tell us exactly how everything is functioning.

  Marc Andreessen:
  I can’t wait.

  Charlie Rose:
  I can’t either. No, I’m serious.

  Marc Andreessen:
  [unintelligible] for healthcare?

  Charlie Rose:
  Technology is changing medicine more than any other particular thing that I know of or it has the potential to change more than anything else.

  Marc Andreessen:
  It really should.

  Charlie Rose:
  I mean imaging and the rest. Imaging is like just the beginning of the potential and you’ve seen it now with the brain in extraordinary ways.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Yep. Absolutely.

  Charlie Rose:
  All right, so is this thing working now, this [unintelligible] thing?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Yep, yeah, this works, so you download it, you install it, you use it, you stream it, people are –

  Charlie Rose:
  How much does it cost?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Well, you know they’re working on that.

  Charlie Rose:
  You’re so evasive.

  Marc Andreessen:
  They’re working on that. There’s a bunch of you know there’s a bunch of –
  [talking simultaneously]

  Charlie Rose:
  Your reputation is being very candid and outspoken –

  Marc Andreessen:
  They’re working on that.

  Charlie Rose:
  Everything is you’re working on it, I can’t tell you.

  Marc Andreessen:
  They’re working on it.

  Charlie Rose:
  All right.

  Marc Andreessen:
  So the thing with these things is that actually makes sense, people actually laugh about this, but it actually makes sense, if you can get the scale, you can figure out a way to build a business around it.

  Charlie Rose:
  Of course.

  Marc Andreessen:
  If you can’t get it to scale, it doesn’t matter how many creative ideas, you have to build a business. And so you raise venture capital. You get it to scale and then you build a business around it.

  Charlie Rose:
  Let’s talk about venture capital. You’re starting a new fund.

  Marc Andreessen:
  I am starting a — for the first time in my life –

  Charlie Rose:
  You and — for the first time?

  Marc Andreessen:
  I’m crossing over into the dark side. I’ve been an entrepreneur three times. I started three companies.

  Charlie Rose:
  Yeah, and I mean that was — you’ve been the guy who’s out looking for venture capital.

  Marc Andreessen:
  I’ve always been the guy raising money.

  Charlie Rose:
  Yeah, and so now you’ve got a bunch of money and you have a partnership or a fund and you’re raising money from all your friends.

  Marc Andreessen:
  I’m creating a fund. I actually — it’s a friend of mine, friend of mine is a long term colleague, Ben Horowitz and I, who have worked together for 15 years, he and I are going to –
  [talking simultaneously]

  Charlie Rose:
  So what’s your history with him because I’ve read of it?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Oh, he was one of our first guys at Netscape.

  Charlie Rose:
  That’s what I thought, right.

  Marc Andreessen:
  So he was one of our key product leaders at Netscape and he’s just coming off of a job at Hewlett Packard. We sold our second company to HP and he was running 3,000 people there and was very successful. So he and I are going to start it. And it’s going to be sort of a — it’s going to invest in a lot of early stage — lot of companies like the ones we’re talking about. And you know our claim to fame is we’ve actually you know by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs, we’ve done it, we’ve been on that side of the table for a long time, we know what it’s like.

  Charlie Rose:
  Why are you doing this?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Because of the nature and the scale of the opportunities. We’re actually been investing ourselves with our own money for three years and we’ve invested in 36 — he and I invested together in 36 deals in three years so about one a month.

  Charlie Rose:
  Yeah, but I’ve read that you think that the normal investment for you to make, this may have been prefund, what, was about 100,000 to 200,000?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Yeah, we –
  [talking simultaneously]

  Charlie Rose:
  You’d have to make a lot of small investments.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Right.

  Charlie Rose:
  So that if anything goes bad or there’s no –

  Marc Andreessen:
  That’s right, and we’re actually going to preserve and extend that model in the fund. So historically we’ve only invested up to $200,000 total in a deal. We’re going to definitely bring that up in the fund because we’re going to raise more money, be able to put more money in. But it’ll be pretty typical for us to do a $500,000 investment or maybe down to 200,000 or maybe up to a million in a deal to start. And what we’re seeing is a whole generation of startups that actually don’t need very much money to get started, so the cloud computing example, or a mobile application, an iPhone developer doesn’t need very much money to get started.

  Charlie Rose:
  What’s not very much money?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Very much money might be anywhere from 200,000 to say a million and a half.

  Charlie Rose:
  Really?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Right.

  Charlie Rose:
  To get started to –

  Marc Andreessen:
  To basically to prove that the product can work, right? To basically give you something that you can use, right? And then based on that you then often go raise a traditional venture capital route.

  Charlie Rose:
  I heard the other day a story of someone who went out to prove a product that did not exist online to see if there was a market –

  Marc Andreessen:
  Mm-hmm, oh, right exactly actually that’s — I think it’s the same guy, it’s the guy we’ve actually invested in.

  Charlie Rose:
  Right.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Who actually is raising money himself for his own company now.

  Charlie Rose:
  Right.

  Marc Andreessen:
  From a venture capitalist.

  Charlie Rose:
  Right.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Very close to getting that deal done. And so he had this very clever idea which was you can actually launch — he used Google Ad Words, right? So he was buying little ads on Google. He said the great thing with Google Ad Words is you put up an ad and people click and then even if there’s nothing on the other side they didn’t know that and so you can actually test how often they click and so you can test what the response rate is and so the really, really smart marketers are doing this now, you run Google Ad Words campaigns, or the equivalent thing on other systems, and you check the response rate for different words, different value propositions, different markets, different nationalities, different languages, and you see the response rates. And you don’t even have to [unintelligible], you don’t have to have the product. And you basically build the product after the fact and you back into –

  Charlie Rose:
  So if there’s enough support for the product, then you go make it, right?

  Marc Andreessen:
  But what I’ve heard is in the old days really smart book authors used to put classified ads like in literary journals and say you know new book you know poetry for sale, $30, and then they would you know if they got like 500 orders they would actually write the book.

  Charlie Rose:
  Oh, yes, yeah.

  Marc Andreessen:
  And if they didn’t, they’d return the money. And so you can just basically do a much more sophisticated version of that online. And so this guy, Andrew Chen [spelled phonetically], is the guy I’m thinking of.

  Charlie Rose:
  Yeah, what’s his idea?

  Marc Andreessen:
  So it’s a new kind of — you’re going to hate this — it’s a new — it’s undisclosed — it’s a new kind of viral consumer internet service, by viral, meaning it’s going to — it’s a service like a Facebook or a Twitter that spreads from user to user on its own steam, where he has a –
  [talking simultaneously]

  Charlie Rose:
  Why am I going to hate this?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Because I’m not going to tell you what the idea is.

  Charlie Rose:
  [unintelligible]

  Marc Andreessen:
  Or I’m also not going to tell you how he’s going to make money. But he’s still –

  Charlie Rose:
  Or how much money he’s made or whatever.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Or how much money he’s made. He’s getting started. But it’s this approach. He stakes this analytical marketing approach and runs the ad campaign before the product exists.

  Charlie Rose:
  Tell me about Twitter.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Twitter.

  Charlie Rose:
  You’re invested in that, too?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Yeah. Exactly. That’s the kind of company — I’m an angel investor in that, and that’s the kind of company — that’s exactly the kind of thing that we want to do in the funds. So —

  Charlie Rose:
  Are they making any money?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Not yet. Not yet. Actually Twitter — I believe Twitter’s current revenue may actually be zero.

  Charlie Rose:
  Yes, exactly. Explain what Twitter is and why everybody is talking about it.

  Marc Andreessen:
  So Twitter is a new kind of messaging system, or sort of a combination of an SMS sort of short messages, a little bit like blogging. So basically, people can post either from their PC key board or from their cell phone. They can post these short updates. And it actually limits the updates to 140 characters.

  Charlie Rose:
  Right.

  Marc Andreessen:
  And when you go to the Twitter home page, it just has a simple question which says what are you doing? And then you type in 140 characters, and it says that. And you been subscribe on Twitter to people you’re following. And they could be people who are friends of yours, or people who don’t know who have public feeds. So for example, you could have a feed on Twitter, if you don’t already, that has a notification of the guests on each show and a link to the video.

  Charlie Rose:
  Right.

  Marc Andreessen:
  And the thing is growing like wild fire —

  Charlie Rose:
  I know it is. It’s just amazing.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Exactly. So it percolated along for about a year, and then it took. The last two or three months, it’s growing vertically. And so — and the uses are nearly infinite. It can be used for news, like you can — there is a whole API —

  Charlie Rose:
  As long as you can keep it within 140 characters, you got —

  Marc Andreessen:
  Yeah. But 140 characters, you can headline and link to a news article. You can do a headline and a link to a video. You can do a notification — the other thing is like real time reporting —

  Charlie Rose:
  You can do a synopses and a link to a website?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Link to a website. A link to a Qik video. Exactly. You can do all these things. And you can search on it, right. So you can see what’s happening in real time. So the next time there is a, you know, next time a plane lands in the Hudson, this actually happened with the plane that landed in the Hudson, all these people are doing Twitter. Is there are actually people on the plane with their cell phones doing Twitter updates saying, well, I’m hoping they get the rafts deployed. Oh, good, they got the rafts deployed.

  Charlie Rose:
  Water coming in the plane, what do I do now?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Exactly. And so it’s basically — it’s sort of — think about it as sort of a real time electronic nervous system for lots and lots of sort messages to be accept all over the planet for all kinds of people to all kinds of other people for all kinds of uses.

  Charlie Rose:
  So when did you become an angel for this?

  Marc Andreessen:
  When it first got started.

  Charlie Rose:
  Really? Why? Tell me the process in your little mind that made you think that this was a big deal.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Okay, so two things. One is the entrepreneurial I’m a huge fan of. So the entrepreneur is a guy by the name of Evan Williams. He created blogger, which is one of the big blogging services.

  Charlie Rose:
  Right.

  Marc Andreessen:
  He created a company called Odeo. This is a good example of what’s happening. He created a company called Odeo for podcasting. He raised 3 1/2 million dollars. Turns out the idea didn’t work. He did something revolutionary. He gave the money back. He went back to the investors, he made them whole, he gave the money back. He had this little side project —

  Charlie Rose:
  He’ll earn a reputation right there.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Yeah. Exactly. He actually made up the difference out of his own pocket and gave the money back. He had a side project that spun out Twitter that he and another guy named Jack Dorsey were working on as a sort of a side project, which was Twitter. It started to take off. So they said, you know what? It’s that, not this. Shut that down, return the money. This. Raise new money for it. All the investors who were in the first company were delighted to come into the second company because he had the reputation for being somebody who either wins or treats you fairly. And then, you know — for those of us in the industry just looking at the dynamics of how he put Twitter together, it was pretty obvious that it was going to work at all, it was going to be viral and it could get big. So, you know, he placed the bet early, relatively small amount of money. I don’t know what he raised in the first round, a couple million dollars or something.

  Charlie Rose:
  When did you appreciate the idea of [unintelligible] viral?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Oh, viral? I don’t know. Probably — I would say probably post Netscape. We saw it with Netscape a lot, but we didn’t really have the terminology to describe it. But I would say especially PayPal and the PayPal guys who are friends of mine have been very, I think, advanced thinkers on that topic. And especially in 2000, 2001, 2002.

  Charlie Rose:
  I think Peter is on the board of Facebook.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Peter Till [spelled phonetically] is on the board of Facebook with me. And so he is — he’s just — they’ve developed a very sort of rigorous way of thinking about this concept, and so I’ve learned from that, and been involved in much of these businesses.

  Charlie Rose:
  Here is what I have never understood, I want you to explain to me at this mom. Microsoft decides that Netscape has a good idea. We’d like to be in that business.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Sure, yep.

  Charlie Rose:
  They go to the University of Illinois where they have the code.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Yes.

  Charlie Rose:
  Which you —

  Marc Andreessen:
  Wrote.

  Charlie Rose:
  – wrote. You wrote the codes.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Yeah.

  Charlie Rose:
  University of Illinois insisted on keeping the code that you —

  Marc Andreessen:
  We didn’t take it with us.

  Charlie Rose:
  Was that a voluntary choice by you?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Oh, yeah, that was voluntary.

  Charlie Rose:
  So you could have taken it with you, but you didn’t.

  Marc Andreessen:
  We knew it was no good.

  Charlie Rose:
  Wait a minute. Let me finish the story. So they had it and so Microsoft went and bought the code.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Mm-hmm.

  Charlie Rose:
  From the University of Illinois, right?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Actually indirectly.

  Charlie Rose:
  Okay. They got it.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Illinois licensed it to a startup company which then licensed it the Microsoft, and then was surprised when Microsoft decided to actually do something with it.

  Charlie Rose:
  And what they did was created Explorer?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Yes.

  Charlie Rose:
  Right?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Which is why I now take credit for both, Firefox —

  Charlie Rose:
  [laughter]

  Marc Andreessen:
  – and Internet Explorer.

  Charlie Rose:
  And Mosaic became —

  Marc Andreessen:
  Mosaic —

  Charlie Rose:
  Became Firefox.

  Marc Andreessen:
  No, Mosaic became IE.

  Charlie Rose:
  IE, right.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Netscape became Firefox.

  Charlie Rose:
  Right. Right. Right. That’s right. Because AOL and then —

  Marc Andreessen:
  As a matter of fact, if you go to the about page on IE, if you go to about IE up in the menu there, you’ll actually see down at the very bottom, developed at the University of Illinois.

  Charlie Rose:
  Amazing.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Actual center for computing applications.

  Charlie Rose:
  You’re a big guy.

  Marc Andreessen:
  I take credit for that. Exactly.

  Charlie Rose:
  All right. Let me talk about where this — this whole thing in the world is going in terms of Facebook. Newspapers.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Yep.
  I’ve heard of them.

  Charlie Rose:
  What is it between you and the New York Times?

  Marc Andreessen:
  You want to know what really pushed me over the edge?

  Charlie Rose:
  What?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Judy Miller.

  Charlie Rose:
  Really?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Just —

  Charlie Rose:
  Explain who Judy Miller is.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Technology. She’s the national security reporter who covered the run up to the Iraq war and the WMD topic. And I just — I took —

  Charlie Rose:
  She was wrong on the question of WMD and people thought her sources —

  Marc Andreessen:
  Completely, completely incorrect. And I would normally cut somebody slack for something like that, but then the folks at Knight Ridder at the time, Knight Ridder, now McClatchy got it completely correct.

  Charlie Rose:
  Right, they did.

  Marc Andreessen:
  So I actually got to know a couple of those folks, and I asked them like what was the difference, how did you get it right? They said, oh, we talked to the colonels. The Times had access to all the generals and all the politicians. We talked to the colonels. We talked to the guys that were actually in the field doing the work. They said, we don’t see any of this. We don’t understand what these guys are talking about in Washington. We don’t see any of it. So they said to us was totally obvious. So like at that point –

  Charlie Rose:
  At that point what?

  Marc Andreessen:
  At that point, I didn’t know this at the time, like a lot of people, so I read the Times, and I said, hey, you know, war with Iraq, great idea. Right? Existential threat, weapons of mass destruction. He wants to kill us. We have to go kill him first. So, okay. I’ll give somebody one shot at that but not two.

  Charlie Rose:
  And then?

  Marc Andreessen:
  And then –

  Charlie Rose:
  That happening turned you against the New York Times because you created a thing called New York Times death watch.

  Marc Andreessen:
  In fairness, I’ve actually totally dropped that. I think at this point it’s become unfair.

  Charlie Rose:
  To the New York Times?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Well, because –

  Charlie Rose:
  Your sense of fairness overwhelms me.

  Marc Andreessen:
  I know. Things — events are playing out.

  Charlie Rose:
  So you’ve got the New York Times death watch is no longer there.

  Marc Andreessen:
  That was a blog post that I did. A blog post that I did that I was kind of — it was a little bit tongue in cheek and a little bit serious. But with an underlying point.

  Charlie Rose:
  Here is where you go — what’s the under underlying point?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Well, the underlying point is fundamentally, there is a structural change happening in that business, so –

  Charlie Rose:
  In the newspaper business.

  Marc Andreessen:
  In the newspaper business. Well, in the entire media business. In all branches of the media industry, but the newspapers are sort of front and center topical. And the reason I bring up Judy Miller is because the typical — there are exceptions to this. There are friends of mine who are trying very hard to grapple with this. But the typical sort of newspaper industry response is, you know, we just got to figure out a way to kind of gut through it, like if we can — if we can get through the advertising recession, if we can downsize the paper, if we can downsize the news room –

  Charlie Rose:
  I don’t think that’s what their idea is, but go ahead.
  [NE] .

  Marc Andreessen:
  Start returning ads on the front page, if we can just figure out some kind of combination of things, then we can keep printing the paper and delivering it as a physical medium, and this Internet thing will kind off stay off to the side.

  Charlie Rose:
  No, I think that’s not true. I think they’re trying to survive until the Internet thing pays off. That’s how they’re doing it.

  Marc Andreessen:
  But this is — this is playing offense versus playing defense. Their revenue today is still, in most cases, 90 percent print.

  Charlie Rose:
  Right.

  Marc Andreessen:
  10% online.

  Charlie Rose:
  Right.

  Marc Andreessen:
  That means they spend 90 — I can tell you. I have been involved with a lot of companies, right? Ninety percent — if 90 percent of your revenue is coming from something, 90 percent of your time is being spent on that. So they’re spending 90 percent of their time –

  Charlie Rose:
  And the future 10 percent –

  Marc Andreessen:
  Future 10 percent, and spending very little time playing offense. For the most part, they’re Internet divisions have been off to the side, often with different news rooms. I mean just like bizarre separation.

  Charlie Rose:
  So to play offense for a newspaper for you means what?

  Marc Andreessen:
  Oh, you got to kill the print edition.

  Charlie Rose:
  You would stop the presses tomorrow?

  Marc Andreessen:
  You have to kill it.

  Charlie Rose:
  Stop the presses tomorrow.

  Marc Andreessen:
  You have to kill it.

  Charlie Rose:
  Stop the presses tomorrow.

  Marc Andreessen:
  Stop the presses tomorrow. I’ll tell you what. The stocks would go up. Look at what’s happened to the stocks. This investors are through this. The investors are through the transition. You talk to any smart investor who controls any amount of money, he will tell you that the game is up. Like it’s completely over. And so the investors have completely written off the print operations. There is no value in these stock prices attributable to print anymore at all. It’s gone.

  Charlie Rose:
  So you would recommend to the owners of the New York Times, stop printing papers.

  Marc

• 14:19

  Lost City of Atlantis Found on Google Earth?

   »  TechCrunch
  UK tabloid The Sun has an article claiming that someone found Atlantis using Google Earth. As someone who’s personally interested in ancient mysteries, paranormal phenomena, and cryptozoology, I’m really happy that a tabloid has this story because it totally gives credence to the idea that Atlantis does, indeed, exist and should definitely silence all the naysayers.

  

  
• 12:41

  Fotolia Reaches One Million Registered Members And Five Million Images

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Micro-stock photography is alive and well. Fotolia tells us they have just reached their one millionth registered member and now have 5 million stock images for sale, for as little as 14 cents, and typically a dollar or two. Of those one million registered members, 860,00 are active (defined as having made at least one credit card purchase or uploaded content within the past three months). Fotolia says it is registering new members at a rate of 3,000 per day (86,800 per month)

  ComScore also shows some health growth, with 2.3 million unique visitors a month (the vast majority of which are obviously not registered members). Competitor iStockphoto , which was purchased by Getty Images for $50 million in 2006, has about twice as many monthly visitors (5.2 million). But on ts Website, iStockphoto says it only has 4 million images.

  Another interesting stat the company shared with me: the number of uploads is very close to the number of paid downloads. People upload 40,000 images and other content every day, and download 50,000 images a day. That download rate translates to 1.5 million paid downloads a month. Fotolia takes 20 to 50 percent of the sales price.

  Next up, Fotolia will begin selling stock video (something iStockphoto has been doing for a while). Fotolia already has 20,000 videos uploaded, and plans to roll out the new category generally in March or April.

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 12:14

  CG Review: WickedLasers Spyder II GX laser

   »  TechCrunch
  There are lasers and then there are lasers. The Spyder II GX is a crazy 200-300mW green laser that can burn through paper, balloons, and skin and generally blind you if you're not careful. How much does all this fun cost? $1,699 including a pair of absolutely essential shades that will keep you from blinding yourself.

  

  
• 11:20

  Forget About Those Leaked Downloads, Listen To U2’s Entire New Album on MySpace Music

   »  TechCrunch

  

  I’m not sure if this was moved up in response to leaked copies of U2’s newest album, No Line On The Horizon spreading across the Internet, but the entire the album will be streamed for free at MySpace Music. The player in U2’s MySpace Music page features a single, but if you click on the top album in the sidebar, you can hear the entire thing. MySpace says that the entire album will be streamed from February 20 to March 3, with links to pre-order it.

  This is akin to Radiohead offering a free download of their album In Rainbows for a limited time, except without the download. It is good marketing, at it helps the band try to keep control over distribution. Although, that Bittorrent cat is already out of the bag. (The unreleased album leaked out and has been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times by fans who just can’t wait for U2’s perfectly planned release schedule.

  Update: MySpace says the timing of the streamed release was planned all along. Listening to it now. U2 still rocks (or maybe I’m just old).

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 11:01

  TechCrunch Roundtable, Paris, Feb 25: What Next For France 2.0?

   »  TechCrunch

  TechCrunch is hosting a Roundtable and Meetup in Paris on Wednesday next week, Feb 25. “TechCrunchTalk: What Next For France 2.0?” will feature an afternoon of panel discussions and some great evening networking with French startups and the investment community. The event will be live video streamed on TechCrunch. Please grab a ticket here. Read on for details:

  The TechCrunchTalk event - put on by TechCrunch UK & Europe and TechCrunch France - is aimed at bringing together the Web 2.0 startup and VC community to debate the next phase of the French startup world. It will feature two quick-fire panel discussions with the hottest entrepreneurs and investors selected for their leading views on the market, with topics focused around the following themes:

  • What are the strengths of the French tech scene?
  • Where and how can it be improved?
  • Should French startups concentrate on France, or scale across Europe and the rest of the world?
  • Is the VC community doing enough for entrepreneurs?
  • What is the VC community looking for from French entrepreneurs?

  France is a key nation in Europe but can it build the next Google? French entrepreneurs are renowned for their savvy, smart take on technology - but does France face a brain-drain as French startups seek their fortune in Silicon Valley?

  To help us explore these questions we’ll have on hand:

  Roundtable Discussion
  Salman Malik, co-Founder of Firefly
  Steph Bouchet, ex-Joost
  Laurent Féral-Pierssens, Silentale.com
  Olivier Schuepbach, Wellington Partners
  Colette Ballou Lamotte, Ballou PR
  (Other panelists will shortly be confirmed)

  Roundtable Moderator:
  Mike Butcher, TechCrunch UK & Europe

  Details: TechCrunchTalk France 2.0 will be on on Wednesday, 25 Feb 2009 3pm-6pm, followed by networking over refreshments till 9pm. It will be held at La Cantine, 12 passage Montmartre, Galerie des Panoramas, 151 rue Montmartre, in Paris, the innovation and co-working place owned by Silicon Sentier. Tickets here..

  Please contact our event organiser Petra Johansson on petra [at] twistedtree [dot] co [dot] uk for any enquiries about demo tables or sponsor packages. Press enquiries for press passes to rassami.

  The event will be followed by product pitches from three to five companies (products or startups that actually launch at the event will receive extra consideration, but it is not a requirement). If you have a startup ready to launch then and would like to give a demo, send a brief pitch to TechCrunch UK editor Mike Butcher.

  Our video streaming partner for the event is Floobs. Floobs Ltd is Helsinki based start-up which is developing Floobs -services for live streaming and a platform for commmunity created LIVE tv-channels.

  We’ll be holding a series of TechCrunch events in Europe this Spring and Summer, all focused on bringing together and networking the European tech community. If you wish to be on the mailing list for information about all the up-coming events, sign up on our Amiando account here. And there is lots more information here.

  Warsaw
  19th March - Central European event for tech startups & VCs
  Topic: Re-engineering the Central European tech scene - What’s next?
  Get Tickets

  London
  21st April
  Topic: A day-long event for UK & other European startups. More details to follow
  Sign up for further info

  Stockholm
  27th May - Nordic and the Baltic states event for startups and VCs
  Topic: Connecting Northern Europe - Where are the strong and weak links?
  Sign up for further info

  Berlin
  10th June – More details to follow
  Topic: How does Berlin and Germany become a key node for European Tech?
  Sign up for further info

  London
  9th July – TechCrunch Summer-Party
  Topic: Party!
  Sign up for further info

  Past TechCrunchTalks:

  Barcelona
  19th February - “Mobile 2.0″ event alongside Mobile World Congress
  Topic: The future for Mobile 2.0 startups.
  Archive here

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 8:58

  Why the Smart VCs Are Boarding their Jets

   »  TechCrunch

  I started my career as a finance reporter covering wonky subjects like banks, bonds and agribusiness. I ended up in Silicon Valley covering tech, because it was the late 1990s, and I was doing what finance reporters are supposed to do: Follow the money. I’ve since realized if you want to cover startups well, it’s more complicated than that: You have to distill between the pioneer money and the lemming money. By the time the lemming money is investing, the story has been told, and the pioneers have already picked their bets.

  There are a few ways to do this. One is to poll the smarter VCs, but frequently they don’t want to share their secrets. Another is to look at relative increases in the percentage of capital going to different sectors. For instance, in the mid-2000s, sectors like Web 2.0 and clean tech weren’t getting the most venture capital, but they were getting the biggest percentage of increases in funding before Facebook was gracing every magazine cover and John Doerr was weeping over the environment at TED. A third way is to look at how the money shifts in a downturn. When a bubble bursts do formerly hot sectors turn into wastelands?

  One reason I knew Silicon Valley would rise again after the 2000 crash was that it always does. Another was that the percentage of capital going to Valley companies increased, as VCs pulled closer to home and stopped speculating in more nouveau tech hot beds around the U.S. and overseas markets. But the exact opposite is happening this time around. According to new numbers by Dow Jones VentureSource, venture capital investment fell in the United States last year but rose in China, India and Israel despite increased economic and political turmoil in those regions; despite the human desire to nest in bad times; and despite the fact that so far VCs have struggled to get much in the way of returns from billions poured into India and China.

  That should tell us something.

  Sure, more money is still invested in the U.S.: But all three of my litmus tests support the theory that the pioneer money isn’t pulling back from overseas speculation in the wake of troubled times for the industry. The smart money is doubling down on emerging markets. Investing in unknown entrepreneurs in emerging markets is scary. But there’s a greater fear in venture capital these days: Where is the next new frontier to make big money?

  We think of a VC’s job as investing in high tech—but really, it’s about investing in high growth. Doubling or tripling your money is great, but venture capital is at heart a home run business. And most of the sectors where VCs have traditionally gotten the biggest home runs have simply matured: Chips, computers, software, telecom, Internet. Sure, there’s still opportunity in the Web, software and even hardware—look at Facebook, Salesforce.com, and NComputing—but these are increasingly one-off and many of the most promising ventures sell before they get to home run levels.

  There continues to be opportunities in biotech, too, but drug discovery takes a lot of money and a lot of time. Instead of swinging for the fences building the next Genentech, most VCs are content to find a novel drug candidate and license it to big pharma. That’s more a base hit than a home run. As for clean tech, the market is huge, but uncertainties around the science, government cooperation and expense of building a new alternative energy industry cast big doubts on just how lucrative returns will be.

  Compare that to places like India, China and even Central Africa where incomes are rising, populations are growing and nearly everything is a growth industry. Trucking, logistics, coffee shops—and yes, some Internet and tech companies too. Sure, it’s fraught with its own risk, whether it’s ethical quandaries of whether to bribe public officials, language and cultural barriers, immature capital markets or just the grind of investing halfway around the world. But venture investors are supposed to take risk. They are supposed to be pioneers. If it were easy, there wouldn’t be the promise of 10x returns.

  Venture capital judges itself on a ten-year cycle, and the riches of 1999 are about to fall off the index. The industry as a whole is in danger of performing about at the level of the S&P 500 or below. If it wants to survive, it’s time for a reboot: Get back to boutique, the way smart seed funds have done, or figure out global. Only a few firms will thrive in between.

  Interestingly, the trend is happening at the same time the rank and file in the Valley seems to be coming down with a disturbing case of xenophobia. One of BusinessWeek’s most commented stories this week was about H-1B Visa fraud, and frankly, there were a lot of offensive anti-Asian views throughout the thread. Similarly, when I was on KQED’s Forum last month talking about layoffs in the Valley, a good many people called in angry that they’d been laid off while foreign-born engineers kept their jobs.

  I know losing a job is scary, but a lot of the value of Silicon Valley has been built by people from other countries. Put another way: You had your job (and stock options) at companies like Google and PayPal because of foreign-born founders who came to the Valley and were able to thrive. We’d do well as a region to continue to invest in the smartest people from around the world, whether they’re coming to us or—gasp— we have to get on a plane and go to them. I believe the Valley will remain the hub of innovation, but for that to be the case, that hub needs to have far longer spokes.

  Ten years after following the money brought me to Silicon Valley, increasingly following the smart money is taking me halfway around the world.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 8:55

  Popjam takes Twitter - applies LOLs

   »  TechCrunch

  Popjam is a new ’social humour’ site which has launched using the Twitter ‘friend/follow’ model of social networking. In fact - but for the images of LOLcats and videos - it is so similar to Twitter in appearance and operation that it could be mistaken for a pure Twitter clone. But what we have here is a kind of Twitter-meets-Digg-meets-jokes. Unlike niche humor sites like College Humour oreBaumsworld, Popjam is aiming to be more of a ‘platform’ for humour, if that’s conceivable. PopJam users can post images, videos and links in their feed, as well as ‘LOL’ posts so that that users go onto a leader-board. As for the Twitter aspect, the site doesn’t yet integrate with Twitter, though that’s ‘in the plan’. The UK-based site is Angel funded.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 7:50

  CBS Interactive: “Well Within Our Rights To Stream Hulu Content”

   »  TechCrunch

  We broke the story of Hulu pulling the content plug out of TV.com earlier this week, and two days ago we also reported that content owners forced Boxee to stop streaming Hulu content as well. Now the owners of TV.com, CBS Interactive, have responded with a message that sparked the Wall Street Journal to headline an article on the reaction “CBS Strikes Back at Hulu”.

  What did CBS Interactive’s statement say?

  “CBS Interactive is well within its rights to stream Hulu video content on TV.com under its agreement with Hulu. We are evaluating our next steps at this time.”

  Sounds like war talk to me, yet neither side was willing to comment on whether there was still a possibility of Hulu videos appearing on TV.com. The distribution agreement between TV.com and Hulu was made prior to CBS’s acquisition TV.com’s parent company, CNET. CBS very recently relaunched TV.com recently with a redesign that almost exactly matched the look and feel of Hulu. TV.com is growing at a very fast rate, surpassing Hulu in traffic according to some.

  To be continued, no doubt.

  In related news, Comcast and Time Warner Cable are reportedly in talks with major cable television network owners about ways to give cable subscribers (and only them) access to much of the networks’ programming on the web.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 6:05

  Adography Offers A Way To Cash In On Your Amateur Photos

   »  TechCrunch

  Everyone knows there are lots of amateur and hobbyist photographers out there, and collectively they produce a massive amount of material stored on online photo sharing sites and desktops around the globe which might just contain that one image an advertiser was looking to use to communicate a message.

  Adography is a relatively new service that offers a way to monetize your own amateur photos if you think there are some who might make for great advertisement material.

  Adography is essentially a marketplace where people can put their amateur photos up for sale, while businesses can put out requests for photos by creating so-called ‘want-ads’. You can find an example of a listing here, which includes the image specifications, asking price, and more. The service is free for people who upload their photos, but we should note the FAQ mentions that Adography is automatically granted an exclusive worldwide license for twelve months for every uploaded picture.

  It’s obviously not a novel idea, as there are plenty of web services out there with a similar proposition. Even Yahoo’s Flickr was once considering launching its own marketplace dubbed Flickr Stock. The problem with most of these is, evidently, marketing the service and getting the scale needed to attract enough advertisers and photographers to make it compelling enough for both target groups to come back for more.

  Adography faces the same problems, and personally I think the user experience is a bit below par for the moment. That said, the name has a nice ring to it and no clear leader has emerged yet in this space (meaning non stock photography marketplaces) so who knows if this one will fly. Then again, I’m not so sure the advertisers Adography cites as examples (e.g. Coca-Cola) will be interested in low-resolution amateur images for their official branding campaigns. Seems to me small businesses would be more interested in the service, but how do you reach them?

  Update: as a commentor notes, iStockPhoto is probably the most familiar name in this space, but it’s not really the best place for true amateur photos.

  On a sidenote: I love this type of story. Someone has an idea, which lingers in his or her mind until one day this person wakes up and decides to incorporate and try to turn the idea into a business, not even considering anything but bootstrapping to get it started. In this particular case, the founder is documenting this road less traveled by blogging about it, which is a welcome aside for aspiring entrepreneurs who haven’t made the jump yet and want to read someone else’s experiences first.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 4:28

  YouTube Annotations Get Social, Add A Much-Needed ‘Off’ Button

   »  TechCrunch

  

  YouTube has just launched an expansion to its Annotations feature that gives users the ability to invite their friends to help spruce up their videos using text boxes, labels, and interactive buttons. In the past I’ve been somewhat critical of these annotations, primarily because they can be really annoying in the wrong hands. But tonight YouTube has also introduced a oft-requested feature that will turn off all annotations entirely, allowing users to peruse videos in their unadulterated form if they wish to. You can find the option under your account’s ‘Playback Settings’ menu.

  
  
  

  YouTube originally launched annotations last June, and introduced a new interface in January that made the process more intuitive. Tonight’s new sharing feature presents video uploaders with a link that they can share with friends to invite them to help annotate their video. Anyone who accesses the video through the special link will be able to use the same annotation interface, though the original video owner will retain final control over what appears (they can also reset the link should it become too widespread).

  For tight circles of friends this will probably be a welcome addition and could lead to some fun interaction, though if the sharable link got posted to a message board or public chat room I can imagine a video getting cluttered up pretty quickly (though you can always delete these later). In any case, it’s nice to see that YouTube isn’t resting on its laurels as it continues to expand its feature set, and is willing to implement user requests like that ‘off’ button.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 0:48

  Quicken Online Can’t Believe Mint Is Doing So Well; Sends Threatening Letter

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Intuit, the company behind the well-known Quicken suite of money management software that includes Quicken Online, can’t believe how well its competitor Mint is doing. In fact, they were so bewildered by Mint’s claims of gaining 3,000 new users a day and jumping from 600,000 to 850,000 users in a matter of months that they decided to send a threatening letter demanding an explanation for this apparently inconceivable feat.

  We’ve obtained copies of both Intuit’s letter and Mint’s reply, which we’ve embedded below. From Intuit’s letter:

  “While we do not wish to suggest that Mint.com is engaging in false advertising, the substantial difference in claimed user numbers over a short period time [from 600,000 to 800,000] is of some concern. As a result, we’re requesting that you provide us with the Substantiation and evidence that you rely upon to support the above reference claims… before February 6, 2009.”

  Note that the letter says that Intuit doesn’t “wish to suggest that Mint is engaging in false advertising”, despite the fact that that was the entire purpose of the letter. Nice.

  Aside from Mint’s remarkable growth rate, Intuit’s concerns focus on the startup’s definition of “users”. Mint’s reply states that the company considers anyone who has filled in an Email address, Zip code, and password to be a “user”, regardless of whether they’ve ever actually linked their bank account to their Mint user name. This figure obviously overstates the number of people who actually use Mint on a day-to-day basis, but it’s also a fairly standard way to define “users” for most web services. As an outside check, Comscore counts 416,000 monthly unique visitors worldwide, and growing rapidly (see chart below).

  

  That said, Mint’s definition of “user” raised some concerns for me - I suspected that after entering their Email information and getting counted as a new member, many of them would jump ship when they realized they’d need to enter their bank account information. But CEO Aaron Patzer says that as of today around 680,000 of 934,000 registered users (over 70%) have linked at least one bank account to Mint, with most of them linking between 5-6 of their financial accounts. Frankly this number is far higher than I was expecting, and indicates that most people visit Mint with the full intention of entering their account information. Patzer also notes that while those users who haven’t linked their bank accounts to Mint will have access to less functionality, they still receive regular offers from Mint’s partners.

  Could Mint have been more transparent with its user numbers? Probably, but their methodology for measuring user stats is par for the course here - certainly nothing worthy of Quicken’s demanding letter. The bottom line here is that Mint is growing so quickly (it will soon pass one million users—no doubt spurred by the bad economy and tax season), that its competitors literally can’t believe it. And for any startup, that’s not such a bad thing.

  Update: Intuit spokesman Scott Gulbransen has offered the following response to this story:

  We’d like to apologize to Mint.com if our letter came across as anything but a simple request to understand how they count their users. Businesses do this all the time and we appreciate their reply.

  We are so pleased with the rapid growth of Quicken Online, we were just curious about how we’re doing. And now that we have a common yardstick by which to measure, we know we’re doing great based on an apples-to-apples comparison. Quicken Online now has more than 650,000 users and has been adding on average approximately 45,000 new users a week since Jan. 2009.

  So now you know…customers are choosing Quicken Online more than ever before.

  Thanks,
  Scott

  Here are the two letters:

  
  mintpdf1 - Free Legal Forms
  
  mintpdf2 - Free Legal Forms

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• February 19, 2009
• 21:43

  Facebook Gets Into The Widget Business With New Comments Box

   »  TechCrunch

  
  
  Facebook has just launched its first widget for Facebook Connect, its recently-introduced platform that allows users to authenticate themselves using their Facebook logins. Dubbed ‘Comments Box’, the new widget allows site owners to integrate a comments section into their webpage. But unlike normal commenting systems, comments left in Comments Box will be relayed back to the users’ Facebook profiles, where the conversation can continue (users can also choose to receive notifications through Facebook whenever someone responds to their comments on other websites).

  Until now only developers have been able to take advantage of Facebook Connect. This new widget represents the first time anyone, using a small snippet of code, can include some of the functionality afforded by the new platform. They’ll still need to create an account (as demonstrated in the video below), but compared to the effort required to fully implement Facebook Connect, this should be much easier.

  Also important to note is the fact that Comment Box retains the Facebook ’style’, which for the first time will begin creeping beyond the borders of the social network. It’s also the first substantial widget created by Facebook, and the first in what will likely be a suite of similar widgets that could begin to encroach on the likes of JS-Kit, IntenseDebate (recently acquired by Automattic) and Disqus (some of which have already enabled Facebook Connect into their commenting widgets).

  At this point it’s unclear how much blog owners with other commenting systems already installed will benefit from the new widget. According to Facebook’s blog post, “via [Facebook] APIs, you can access related comments made on Facebook as well to bring the conversation together”, which could help drive more comments. But in the end all of this content is going to be going to Facebook, which established blog owners and publishers are not going to like. It’s also bringing Facebook one step closer to becoming the universal standard for social content across the web - an idea that may alarm advocates for open standards like OpenID.

  
  
  How To: Create a Comments Box with Facebook Connect in 5 Minutes from Pete Bratach on Vimeo.
  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 20:55

  The Top 21 Twitter Clients (According To TwitStat)

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Some readers took issue with our list of Top 21 Twitter Applications (According To Compete), wherein we tried to gauge which Twitter Web apps were gaining the most benefit in the form of trickle -down traffic from Twitter. Most Twitter apps don’t even register on the majority of site measurement services. We chose Compete because at least they had stats on a good many of them. We figured even if the absolute numbers are wrong, at least we’d get an interesting ranking.

  What Compete does not measure very well is Twitter traffic from desktop and mobile clients. One service that tries to measure that is Twitstat. So take your pick, clients versus Web apps. Which is the stronger list (meaning which list has the most companies likely to amount to something)?

  Below are the top 21 Twitter clients from its bigger list of 99, ranked by percentage of users who opt for that method of Tweeting. The Web ranks No. 1 with 32 percent (presumably that is Twitter.com itself), followed by Tweetdeck and Twhirl (there, are you happy Loic?), with 16 percent and 7 percent, respectively. Twitstat also counts services such as Ping.fm (no. 12) and FreindFeed (no. 14) as Twitter clients, although they do a lot more than just support Twitter. But then again, the majority of activity on those services is Twitter, so you could argue it either way.

  Rank	Client	% of users	Tweets/user
  1	(1)	web	31.99 %	3.93
  2	(2)	TweetDeck	16.07 %	5.14
  3	(4)	twhirl	6.85 %	3.73
  4	(3)	twitterfeed	6.09 %	2.81
  5	(5)	Tweetie	3.66 %	2.38
  6	(13)	TwitterBerry	3.50 %	2.20
  7	(8)	txt	2.89 %	1.63
  8	(6)	twitterrific	2.59 %	1.79
  9	(11)	TwitterFox	2.51 %	2.79
  10	(10)	TwitPic	1.98 %	1.42
  11	(7)	mobile web	1.90 %	2.04
  12	(12)	Ping.fm	1.68 %	1.27
  13	(9)	TwitterFon	1.68 %	5.45
  14	(14)	FriendFeed	1.68 %	3.59
  15	(15)	Power Twitter	1.52 %	2.55
  16	(16)	Brightkite	1.14 %	2.07
  17	(22)	HootSuite	0.53 %	2.00
  18	(26)	twitthat	0.46 %	1.17
  19	(30)	DestroyTwitter	0.46 %	2.83
  20	(24)	Twittelator	0.38 %	3.80
  21	(21)	m.slandr.net	0.38 %	2.60

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 20:45

  The Top 21 Twitter Applications (According to Compete)

   »  TechCrunch

  

  We’ve accumulated a list of the twenty most popular Twitter applications, based on monthly unique visitor data from Compete.

  Twitpic, an app that lets users share photos on Twitter, took the top spot with 1,236,828 unique visitors in January. Tweetdeck, which came in second with 285,864 monthly visits, is a Twitter app that streamlines notifications and tweets. Third place went to Digsby (with 233,472 monthly visitors), an application that centralizes e-mail, IM and social networking accounts into one desktop program. With 149,812 visits, the fourth most popular app, Twitterfeed, offers to automatically tweet posts published on a user’s blog using RSS. A Twitter user ranking site, Twitterholic, is the fifth most popular application, with 147,164 people visiting monthly.

  Interestingly, two of the top twenty apps - Digsby and Hellotxt, an application that allows users to update their status across social networks - are not exclusively focused on Twitter. We recently wrote a detailed post on why we cover Twitter-related news so often, and we think the fact that there are so many applications developed as an offshoot of the microblogging system is another testament to the fact that Twitter is not just another startup. This is our attempt to figure out which ones are gaining the most traction.

  While we think this is a pretty comprehensive list based on the chosen proxy for popularity, it’s but a first pass at a list we hope will become more authoritative over time. Keep in mind that this methodology is only one measurement of engagement; many people use Twitter iPhone apps and other clients without ever visiting these services’ websites. Derivative site traffic is only a proxy for usage but the most easily measurable one.

  We also ran these sites though Quantcast and Google Trends, but chose to measure by Compete because it had the most comprehensive set of data, especially for the smaller sites. So the absolute numbers are unquestionably higher for some of these Twitter apps. If you know additional Twitter apps that should be listed here, or if you have better ideas on how to compile this list, please leave a message in the comments.

  It should also be noted that there is a plethora of Twitter application databases out there. Here are a few that we looked at particularly closely: Twitter Fan Wiki, Twitdom, Twapps, Twitstat, and TwitTown.

  Update: As many people are pointing out in the comments, Twhirl is not included in this list. That’s because the list is based on Compete data, and Compete measures Twhirl at under 13,000 visitors per month. As we said above, this is just the first pass at creating a list and we certainly realize Compete traffic is not a perfect way to gauge the popularity of applications.

  Update 2: So it looks like we owe a “mea culpa” on Twhirl, since we looked up the wrong address on Compete originally (it’s at .org not .com). Twhirl.org actually has 143,000 visitors, putting it at the #6 spot.

  Update 3: By popular demand, here is a list of the Top 21 Twitter Clients (According To TwitStat).

  Twitter Applications	Monthly unique visits (Compete)
  1. Twitpic	1,236,828
  2. Tweetdeck	285,864
  3. Digsby	233,472
  4. Twittercounter	212,200
  5. Twitterfeed	149,812
  6. Twitterholic	147,164
  7. Twhirl	143,333
  8. Twitturly	88,793
  9. Twtpoll	74,154
  10. Retweetist	60,051
  11. Tweepler	51,304
  12. Hellotxt	45,754
  13. Twitdom	45,411
  14. Tweetscan	44,463
  15. Tweetburner	41,754
  16. Tweetvisor	31,621
  17. Twittervision	30,708
  18. Twitterfall	29,592
  19. Monitter	25,433
  20. Twibs	17,168
  21. Twistori	16,229
  22. Twitbin	14,986

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 20:35

  Free Fred Wilson

   »  TechCrunch

  Fred Wilson finds himself on two sides of the fundamental issue of our time: the user’s right to access data the way he or she wants to. On one side, that of the user, Wilson is an investor and board member of Boxee, a startup that translates web pages into a form more easily consumable on a TV screen. One site in particular, Hulu, just shut Boxee down at the insistence of the content providers for material on the NBC and Fox-owned site.

  Boxee’s popular because it leverages Hulu’s free access to mainstream content in an on-demand solution. It’s the long-awaited rollup of TV or the computer, where on demand entertainment can be watched on the big screen under computer control. The studios don’t want us getting used to that methodology, especially not when it breaks out of the tightly controlled box where you can watch for free (ad-supported) or pay (DVD and Pay per view on demand) but not free on demand on the big screen.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 20:32

  SAP Acquires Coghead’s Technology As It Looks Towards The Cloud

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Yesterday we reported on the shutdown of Coghead, a web-based enterprise software editor that featured an unusually intuitive interface. Today, we were contacted by the company’s CEO Paul McNamara, who informed us that software giant SAP, which previously had invested in the company, has acquired Coghead’s intellectual property assets. While Coghead will cease operations, much of the company’s team will join SAP (though McNamara will not be joining the company).

  While SAP had previously invested in the company, its ultimate acquisition of Coghead is sure to raise a few eyebrows. SAP has long been associated with local enterprise software suites that require time-consuming upgrades and IT teams, and has had trouble coping with the pressure to lower its prices to reflect those offered by SaaS services like Salesforce.com (though SAP offers products that these SaaS solutions don’t).

  To combat this attrition, the company recently began offering smaller upgrades, allowing customers to pick and choose the features they’d like to upgrade rather than having to spend time on large system overhauls. It has also been making strides to establish services in the cloud, which may explain the logic behind the Coghead acquisition.

  Update: Some comments below note that the Wall Street Journal article referenced originally contained some inaccuracies, and that SAP may not be introducing the ’smaller updates’. However, the company is indeed expanding its presence in the cloud.

  Here’s a portion of McNamara’s letter to customers:

  As a customer, you know that the Coghead platform provides one of the
  fastest and most efficient ways to develop applications. SAP saw great value
  in our technology. SAP also saw great value in our people. As part of the
  deal, many of the Coghead engineering and operations team have joined SAP as
  well.

  Coghead began as an ambitious vision by Greg Olsen, Chelliah
  Thirunavukkarasu, and Bill Trento. Along the way, the company became a
  trendsetter in the cloud computing space and I want to thank all of our
  employees, customers and partners who contributed to turning Coghead from
  vision to reality.

  As for me, I will not be joining SAP, and I cannot comment any further on
  SAP’s future plans for the technology or the details of the sale
  transaction. However, I wish my former colleagues the best of luck at their
  new home.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 18:27

  Amazon, Ning, Facebook, And Rackspace Join Our Cloud Roundtable

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Our roundtable on cloud computing is coming up next week. (Get tickets here via Eventbrite: $75 each based on availability). In addition to the previously announced speakers, I am happy to announce a few more very special participants: Amazon’s chief technology officer Werner Vogels, Ning CEO Gina Bianchini, Facebook VP of Engineering Mike Schroepfer, and Jon Engates, CTO of Rackspace.

  An event on cloud computing wouldn’t be the same without Amazon, which is becoming the computing infrastructure of more and more startups through its various Amazon Web Services (winner of this year’s Crunchies Award in the enterprise category). And Rackspace, through its Mosso subsidiary, is diving headfirst into the business as well. But we also wanted to hear from consumer-facing companies such as Facebook and Ning that are creating their own cloud platforms. What happens when all of these various cloud platforms meet in sky? And how does the similarity in their back-ends result in similar applications for users, whether they be consumers or enterprise users? Do enterprise apps need to become more social, or is that simply a frivolous pursuit?

  These questions and more will be put to everyone on the roundtable, which will be preceded by five cloud computing enterprise product demos which will be evaluated by a panel of judges TechCrunch50-style. We got so many good candidates we decided to expand the demo session and move the event up a half hour earlier.

  There will also be a networking party afterward where more companies will be giving product demos. We couldn’t do this without our sponsors Microsoft and Ribbit. To find out about how to become a sponsor or get a demo table please email Jeanne Logozzo or Heather Harde.

  Below is the complete list of Roundtable Participants

  Roundtable Discussion
  Werner Vogels, CTO, Amazon
  Mike Schroepfer, VP of Engineering, Facebook
  Gina Bianchini, CEO, Ning
  John Engates, CTO, Rackspace
  Marc Benioff, CEO, Salesforce.com
  Vic Gundotra, VP Engineering, Google
  Amitabh Srivastava, Corporate VP, Windows Azure
  Lew Tucker, CTO, Cloud Computing, Sun Microsystems
  Scott Dietzen, SVP Communications Products, Yahoo
  Paul Buchheit, Co-founder, FriendFeed; creator of Gmail

  Roundtable Moderators:
  Erick Schonfeld, co-editor TechCrunch
  Steve Gillmor, editor TechCrunchIT

  Date: Friday, February 27, 2:30 - 6:30 pm

  Location: Microsoft Mountain View Conference Center
  1065 La Avenida St
  Building 1
  Galileo Auditorium
  Mountain View, CA 94043

  (more info here).

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 16:16

  Interview with Sir Richard Branson

   »  TechCrunch
  It’s not every day we get a chance to sit down with one of the world’s richest and most industrious men. Actually, Sir Richard is only the 236th richest person in the world according to Forbes. I thought he’d be higher. *shrug* Anyway, we had the esteemed pleasure of taking Sir Richard’s IM interview virginity last week as he was jetting back to his private island, Necker. CBS’ The Early Show’s Dave Price was also onboard to broadcast weather updates from a Virgin American flight and kept pulling Sir Richard into one segment after another. It got to be really annoying after a while.

  

  
• 14:47

  Disney Acquires Kerpoof’s Kid-Friendly Creative Suite

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Kerpoof, a web-based creative design suite for children that launched at 2007’s TechCrunch 40, has been acquired by Disney. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Kerpoof’s online portal at Kerpoof.com will continue to operate as its technology is deployed on Disney’s homepage.

  Kerpoof is a good fit for Disney: the company’s technology is primarily image-based with little instruction needed so it’s ideal for kids, and it has become increasingly popular in classrooms worldwide. Creating a picture generally consists of dragging and dropping images from the site’s large collection of clip art, but users can also draw their own doodles and insert speech bubbles. The editor also includes a number of ’smart’ features - for example, as users move their images through the pseudo-3D landscapes, the editor will automatically resize them to fit perspective. Kerpoof has a half-dozen different editing modes, including movies, E-cards, pictures, and story books, each of which takes advantage of the same accessible interface.

  Disney has already begun to integrate the technology on its Disney Characters site (click the button that says ‘Make a Picture’), where users can create custom Disney-themed images, which they can then print out to make a personalized coloring book. It’s likely we’ll see more new features that take of Kerpoof’s technology in the near future.

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 13:55

  Breaking: Meetic Finds A Soulmate, Acquires Match.com’s European Operations

   »  TechCrunch

  Meetic, the popular European online dating company, announced today that it has agreed to buy the European operations of the IAC-owned Match.com. The news was announced on the blog of Loïc Le Meur, who is a board member of Meetic but will need to resign to leave room for an IAC representative.

  IAC will sell 100% of the stock of Match Europe - the entity that houses Match.com’s European operations - for an approximate 27% stake in Meetic, plus a 5 million euro note (which converts to just over $6.33 million). Additional terms of the transaction are not being disclosed.

  As Loïc points out, this is somewhat of a boost for the European internet industry, and the transaction is definitely turning Meetic into the default pan-European leader when it comes to online dating; one that will not easily be competed against. I wouldn’t exactly refer to it as ‘making history’ like Loïc does, yet I can’t help but notice Meetic’s tagline in their logo (”Same Game, New Rules”) and wonder if one could possibly find a phrase more appropriate to describe the deal.

  From the press release:

  Match.com is licensing the Match.com brand for its European operations to Meetic, and Meetic will optimize the two brands on a market-by-market basis. Match.com’s European operations include Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

  Match Europe contributes approximately 13% of Match’s consolidated Operating Income Before Amortization. IAC expects annual run rate synergies to be at least 15 million Euros, though it will take a significant transition period before Meetic is able to fully realize them.

  According to French newspaper Le Monde, Meetic had revenues of 153,7 million euros (close to $195 million) in 2008 and currently counts over 696,400 registered users. The company is public and listed on NYSE Euronext, currently valued at nearly 228 million euro ($289 million).

  Acquisitions Meetic has made in the past to grow in Europe include eFriendsNet, Lexa, ParPerfeito, DatingDirect, Cleargay and Neu.

  Meanwhile, IAC says Match.com will continue to operate all U.S.-based and remaining international operations, spanning 24 countries, 8 languages and five continents. This means that Match.com will no longer be competing against Meetic in Europe, but they’ll still be battling for ground in Latin America, the only continent where the companies both have a presence as of now. The IAC subsidiary also got a change at the helm: Greg Blatt, currently IAC’s Executive Vice President and General Counsel, has been named the new CEO of Match.com.

  (Coverage in French on TechCrunch France)

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 12:47

  DocStoc Does Its Part To Rid The Web Of Download Links

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Document sharing site DocStoc has launched DocShots, a free service that allows publishers to convert any document on a website into a hoverable link that provides an instant online document preview. DocShots’ technology cuts long downloading times while also giving readers an easy way to preview documents in a pop-up window.

  DocShots allows website and blog owners to easily add a custom DocShots code (by literally just copying and pasting) into the html code of the site, rendering any posted documents (Word, Powerpoint, PDF, and Excel) as DocShots links. The publisher can even specify the exact size of the pop-up window. When users scroll over the links, they can instantly preview files in the pop-up viewer. DocShots is similar in theory to Snap’s Snap Shots application (whose technology we feature on TechCrunch), where a user can hover over a link to a site and see a small visual preview of what is on the site.

  Issuu revealed a similar application late last year. Issue’s feature, SmartLook, appears to be equally as simple (and free) for publishers and readers to use, but provides a slightly different interface. And DocStoc claims its implementation is faster. DocShots includes tabs where the reader can click on related documents and see additional documents posted by the publisher. DocShots is easy for publishers to integrate into their code, and cuts out annoying download times for readers. And it’s free. What’s not to love?

  

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 12:25

  Pinch Media Data Shows The Average Shelf Life Of An iPhone App Is Less Than 30 Days

   »  TechCrunch

  

  There may be more than 20,000 iPhone apps out there that have been downloaded more than 500 million times, but what is the average shelf life of each app? Greg Yardley, CEO of Pinch Media, offers some stats based on the 30 million+ downloads his iPhone app analytics startup has kept tabs on. One of the most telling slides in a recent presentation he gave shows the drop-off rate in iPhone app usage (see above; entire slide presentation embedded below). For free applications, only about 20 percent of users return to use the app the first day after they download it, and then it quickly drops off from there. By 30 days out, less than 5 percent are using the app. The chart for paid apps shows a slightly steeper fall-off rate. So there is a very brief window of time to capture people’s attention and potential revenues.

  The key insight of the presentation is derived from this data. Because it answers the eternal question that all iPhone developers have: Should my app be free or should I charge for it? For all but the most successful apps, the free route does not make much sense because ther eis not enough time to recoup the costs of developing the app from advertising.

  Free apps tend to be run 6.6 times more often than paid apps, but even with that increased usage, it is not enough to make more money. Yardley offers some quick math. The average paid app returns $0.70/user. The average free app is run 80 sessions. In order to earn the same as a paid app on a per user basis, the free app would have to command an $8.75 CPM (cost per thousand ad impressions). But most iPhone app ad rates are in the $0.50 to $2.00 range. That is assuming on ad per session. The other option is to bombard users with more ads, which might scare them away.

  Yardley estimates that less than 5 percent of all apps woul dmake more money right now with advertising than charging for paid downloads. His advice: “Unless there is something inherent about the app that screams free, sell it.”

  iPhone AppStore Secrets - Pinch Media View more presentations from pinchmedia. (tags: pinch smartphone)

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 11:53

  Embed YouTube and Vimeo Videos In Slides at Slidesix

   »  TechCrunch
  Todd over at SlideSix recently cooked up a couple nice additions for this slide-sharing service, to make it a more useful offering in this age of mashups and interconnected media. First and foremost, he's added a robust API to allow third-party integration, so enterprising developers can build upon the SlideSix foundation. And it's now possible to search for and embed YouTube and Vimeo videos as slides into an existing SlideSix presentation.

  

  
• 10:13

  The TechCrunch 2008 Year in Review

   »  TechCrunch

  

  One of the best decisions we ever made at TechCrunch was when we launched CrunchBase, our open startup directory, at the end of 2007. We aspired to make it the best current source of information about technology startups, people and investors. Data is added by TechCrunch editors, our amazing team of interns, and the community at large (it is a moderated wiki, so anyone can contribute data). Over the last year, the database has grown to include more than 15,000 companies, 26,000 people and 1,700 investors. In short, it’s finally gotten big enough to become interesting. So as 2008 drew to a close, we started running statistics on the structured data to see what we could learn.

  Today, we unveil our first premium research product, the TechCrunch 2008 Year In Review, which presents our key findings. The report takes a step back from the news that breaks day-to-day and provides a unique perspective on the major trends of 2008. We cover new products, financings and exits across a variety of technology sectors: search, social networking, cloud computing, mobile communications, advertising and ecommerce, consumer media and entertainment, consumer electronics and clean technology.

  Below is a portion of the executive summary and key statistical highlights for all to read. CrunchBase counted 1,422 startups that were founded last year alone, and tracked $13 billion worth of venture investments across all stages of companies. It also tracked 284 acquisitions. The deals for which the price was disclosed totaled $41 billion. If you’re interested in further detail and statistical analysis, you can buy the full Year In Review or use the CrunchBase API to retrieve and parse the data yourself.

  The full 143-page report (including 100 pages of tables and charts) is available for $149 as a download. We plan to continue refining our analysis and releasing new reports on a quarterly basis. We’d appreciate your feedback on how we can make our research even more valuable.

  Subscribe to our research feed and we’ll notify you by email whenever new reports are released.

  Executive Summary

  Here are some highlights of the year in tech that you will find throughout the report:

  Startup Launch Highlights:

  

  • CrunchBase recorded 1,422 new companies formed in 2008.
  • More than 1,000 companies were founded through August. The number of new start-ups then declined precipitously each month from September through year-end.
  • 1,276 new start-ups have not raised or disclosed financing rounds in 2008.
  • 146 new start-ups received $146M in aggregate angel, seed, and series A financing.
  • The average number of months between founding and financing was 3.8 months.

  Venture Highlights:

  

  • CrunchBase recorded over 1,100 financing transactions representing $13 billion in venture financing, approximately 50% of total capital raised in 2008. (CrunchBase data is still accumulating in clean tech, healthcare, and international categories.)
  • Transaction volume followed a rough bell curve– approximately 20% of deals were angel and seed round, 60% were Series A and B and 20% were Series C or later-stage rounds.
  • Average round sizes: $0.6M for seed rounds, $1.2M for angel rounds, $6.3M for series A, $11.1M for series B and $20.4 for series C rounds. Later-stage financing averages were $26.4M for series D and $36.5M for series E rounds.
  • The top 10% of deal flow captured 50% of capital raised (133 deals raised over $25M, totaling $6.9B.)
  • The most heavily invested sectors were clean tech, social networking, ecommerce and mobile, which each received $1B or more in venture.
  • Venture activity declined as the year progressed and US markets fell. Deal flow through September averaged over $1B and 100 financings per month. By December, activity was nearly half, or $600M raised from 50 deals.
  • The healthy quarters of 2008 showed some aggressive raises. CrunchBase counted 9 companies that raised $100 million or more in 2008: Iridium ($500M), Xiaonei ($430M), Nanosolar ($300M), HomeAway ($250M), SulfurCell ($134M), GridPoint ($120M), Palm ($100M), Rearden Commerce ($100M) and Spinvox ($100M.)
  • CrunchBase found an additional 15 companies that raised $50-100 million: Active Network ($80M), Adconion Media Group ($80m), Coremetrics ($60M), Facebook ($75M), Federated Media ($50M), Fisker ($65M), Glam Media ($65M), i/o Data Centers ($56M), LinkedIn ($75M), Plastic Logic ($50M), Realtime Worlds ($50M), Silk Road ($54M), Slide ($50M), SpotRunner ($51M) and Trion ($70M.)

  M&A Highlights:

  

  • CrunchBase counted 284 exits in 2008, exceeding $41B (nearly 200 transactions had undisclosed purchase prices.)
  • CrunchBase recorded 7 transactions of $1B or more: HP’s acquisition of EDS ($13.9B), Google’s acq. of DoubleClick ($3.1B), Brocade’s acq. of Foundry Networks ($3.0B), buyout firm Hellman & Friedman’s acq. of Getty Images ($2.4B), CBS’s acq. of public company CNET ($1.8B), Microsoft’s acq. of public company Fast Search & Transfer ($1.2B) and Sun Microsystems’ acq. of MySQL ($1.0B.)
    CrunchBase counted 42 deals priced at $100M-$1B, and another 39 transactions were announced between $10-100M.
  • The 4 largest corporate buyers with multiple acquisitions aggregating $1B or more in 2008 were: Google ($3.6B), Microsoft ($2.6B), eBay ($1.5B), and AOL $1.0B. (Note: large corporate buyers frequently do not announce all deals and do not disclose all purchase prices.)
  • If you’re a seller, Google and Microsoft were the largest, most consistent buyers between 2007-2008. Yahoo! had been a major buyer in 2007 ($1.5B) but dropped its spending to $200M in 2008. AOL was a strong buyer in both 2007 and 2008, but TechCrunch expects that trend to decline in 2009 given the company’s recent write down of assets, and lackluster results from its $850 million Bebo acquisition. Amazon increased deal flow between 2007 and 2008, and they are likely to remain acquisitive as strong trends in cloud computing continue.

  See the table of contents, table of tables and content preview here.

  TechCrunch 2008 Year In Review
  
  $149

  TechCrunch 2008 Year In Review and Quarterly Reports Q1-Q3 2009
  
  $295

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 9:34

  Live From Mobile World Congress : TechCrunch Roundtable on Mobile 2.0

   »  TechCrunch

  TechCrunch is hosting a Roundtable and Meetup at Mobile World Congress today. The live video stream is being piped in right now, so come on in and join us. “TechCrunchTalk: Mobile 2.0 - Where next?” features an afternoon of panel discussions with mobile startups and the investment community. Plus we’ll be having some startup pitches. The whole thing will run for three hours from 3.30pm to 6pm (Barcelona time).

  Featuring:
  Davor Hebel, Fidelity Ventures
  Ben Holmes, Index Ventures
  Bob Last, SVP Taptu
  Ken Johnstone, Co-Founder INQ Mobile
  Jean Schmitt, Sofinnova Ventures
  Peter Vesterbacka, Founder, Some Bazaar
  Marc Rougier, Co-founder, Goojet
  Andrew Scott, Founder, Rummble
  Jennifer Grenz, VP of Marketing, Shozu
  Mike Butcher, TechCrunch UK (moderating)

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 8:32

  Portero Raises $6.6 Million Round For Online Luxury Goods Marketplace

   »  TechCrunch

  NY-based Portero has raised $6.6 million in VC funding in a round led by LFE Capital and joined by return backers like The Grosvenor Funds. The company, founded in 2004, operates an online marketplace and auction service for branded and authenticated luxury goods from more than 180 brands.

  Portero.com offers pre-owned vintage and new goods, with a focus on watches, handbags, accessories and jewelry, all certified authentic and often in original packaging. To verify authenticity of goods, Portero draws on the experience of in-house specialists, by working with outside experts, and in some cases even by partnering with selected luxury brands directly.

  As Leslie Frécon, CEO of LFE Capital and a fresh Portero board member, notes in the news release, this is an industry rife of counterfeits. If Portero manages not to screw up and remain a trusted brand, they’ve got something going for them.

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 8:11

  Video Interview: MySpace Thinks Mobile Is A “Hugely Powerful Opportunity”

   »  TechCrunch

  I managed to grab a short video interview with Travis Katz, international head of MySpace at Mobile World Congress today. In it he talks about MySpace’s announcement of its integration with the new Palm Pre and the new Nokia flagship phones. MySpace will now have integrated apps for all the major phones, including the existing Blackberry and iPhone apps, and it’s the only social network on the Android platform right now.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 7:25

  177 Million Domain Names And Counting, VeriSign Shows Growth Is Slowing

   »  TechCrunch

  So VeriSign released its Q4 2008 Domain Name Industry Brief (PDF) yesterday, a document that zooms in on “the state of the domain name industry through a variety of statistical and analytical research”. Let’s take a look at their findings and stats.

  As you could have deducted from the headline, last year ended with a total base of 177 million domain name registrations across all of the Top Level Domains (TLDs), up from 153 million at the end of 2007 representing a 16% growth rate. Over the entire year, there was an average of 11.9 million new domain names registered per quarter compared to an average of 12.2 million new domain names registered each quarter in 2007.

  Last quarter, like Q3 2008, the five largest TLDs in terms of overall size were .com, .cn (China), .de (Germany), .net, and .org. The overall base of .com and .net domain names grew to 90.4 million domain names at the end of 2008.

  

  But growth is slowing, likely because of the bad economy (although this apparently didn’t stop VeriSign from raising its prices) and a falling interest and revenue potential for parked domains.

  More than 10.1 million new domain names were registered across all of the TLDs in the last quarter of 2008. This reflects a slower growth in new registrations with a decline of 12 percent from the third quarter 2008 and 17 percent from the same quarter in the previous year. The decline was driven by slower growth in both gTLDs and ccTLDs. Over the entire year, there was an average of 11.9 million new domain names registered per quarter compared to an average of 12.2 million new domain names registered each quarter in 2007.

  Last year ended with 71.1 million ccTLD (country code Top Level Domains) registrations, a 22 percent increase over the end of 2007. In total, there are more than 240 ccTLD extensions globally, but the top 10 ccTLDs contribute 65 percent of the total number of registrations. Unsurprisingly, .ru (Russian Federation) and .cn (China) were the fastest growing. But overall, the growth of ccTLDs is also slowing down: only 36 percent of the top 25 largest ccTLDs experienced growth rates in the fourth quarter that were higher than the growth rates in the third quarter.

  

  To conclude, an interesting tidbit: VeriSign estimates that 88 percent of .com and .net domain names resolve to a website. Broken down, nearly a quarter of the 90 million .com and .net domain names the company analyzed lead to one-page websites, which include include under-construction, brochure-ware and parked pages in addition to online advertising revenue generating parked pages. 12 percent doesn’t resolve at all.

  

  
   

  CrunchBase Information VeriSign, Inc. Information provided by CrunchBase

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 7:12

  Top Secret HTC Touch Diamond With Windows 6.5 On It Gets Stolen

   »  TechCrunch
  A prototype of an upcoming HTC Touch Diamond device, powered by the yet-to-be-released Windows Mobile 6.5, was stolen from a Telstra executive after the company's CEO Sol Trujillo demoed the phone at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Apparently, the device was loaded with secret product information, sparking Sky News to claim there's a major security scare going on at Microsoft. We're not entirely sure if it was a random pick-pocket, but we're pretty sure it wasn't these guys.

  

  
• 6:35

  Mozilla And Skype Back EFF On iPhone Jailbreaking DMCA Exemption Request

   »  TechCrunch

  In a filing with the US Copyright Office, both Skype and Mozilla have expressed their support to a request by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) for an exemption to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act related to iPhone jailbreaking, says AppleInsider. This exemption would take away Apple’s ability to charge groups with DMCA violations for circumventing the iPhone’s security by modifying Apple’s internal software.

  VoIP service provider Skype has backed the EFF’s exemption request, claiming that “copyright law should not interfere with a user using his or her phone to run Skype and enjoy the benefits of low- or no-cost long-distance and international calling.”

  AppleInsider correctly points out that VoIP apps are in fact allowed on the iPhone, as long as they use Wi-Fi.

  Mozilla CEO John Lilly, in turn, said he doubted “Mozilla would venture into the iPhone even if the Copyright Office grants the DMCA exemption over jailbreaking”, stating that the iPhone SDK agreements clearly show its Firefox runtime is not welcome on the device in a recent interview with ComputerWorld. Note that Mozilla is developing its own mobile browser (Fennec) at the moment, which will compete against mobile browsers based on WebKit, including Apple’s Mobile Safari.

  Apple’s fillings say the EFF’s exemption request is uncalled for, as the DMCA already has provisions that allow circumvention to enable interoperability (which is the EFF’s prime reason for the exemption request). It also claims the EFF is trying to use the courts to attack its unique business model, and that the EFF does not present any evidence to back up its claims that decriminalizing jailbreaking would result in increased innovation.

  In response, EFF’s Fred von Lohman says Apple’s argument against the exemption are “FUD,” “corporate paternalism,” and “absurdity.”

  (Image from Amit Bhawani)

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 6:30

  Flip Or Bust? FlipGloss Debuts Glossy Digital Photo Magazine

   »  TechCrunch

  

  FlipGloss, a Forbes Media-funded digital magazine focused purely on editorial and advertising photo content, has launched the beta version of its site. Featuring “lifestyle” based photography focused on fashion, design and travel, FlipGloss wants to combine search engine capabilities with the experience of flipping through photo content of a magazine.

  Users actually click and “flip” through glossy photos of models wearing designer clothes, the vistas of the world’s premiere five star hotels, and beautiful home amenities, like posh swimming pools and custom-design kitchens. Using what FlipGloss calls “Flip, Hover, Discover” navigation, users can click on their objects of interest to find out where to purchase an item or even be led to an advertiser’s website. There is a seamless integration of editorial content and advertising, which makes editorial images nearly indistinguishable from advertisements. For example, images from a Forbes’ Coolest Hotels editorial feature look similar to images used as advertisements for luxury hotels.

  Founded by former Yahoo! digital music executives, FlipGloss has a host of prominent advisors, including Marc Bodnick from Elevation Partners, former Forbes publisher Jim Berrian, and the founders of Launch.com, Dave Goldberg and Bob Roback. FlipGloss was fully funded by Forbes Media but is not considered a subsidiary of the media group.

  FlipGloss’s editorial competitors are magazines with online photo content. While online magazines provide in-depth editorial writing along with photos, FlipGloss nearly eliminates written content. Although FlipGloss’s photo-advertising platform is unique, its search function competes with Google. FlipGloss seems more likely to be a destination for those who like to browse high-quality imagery (and perhaps stumble upon a purchase), whereas Google would likely be the destination for those who begin their internet search with an intended purchase in mind. In that light, I have to wonder whether FlipGloss will be able to scale mass traffic to the site. Also, FlipGloss claims its focus is on “lifestyle” products and goods, though nearly every item I discovered could easily be categorized as a “luxury” good. The images are beautiful, but in this economy, Gucci’s and Louis Vuitton’s price tags don’t resonate quite like they used to.

  
  

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 3:31

  ImageShack Launches Mediocre TwitPic Alternative

   »  TechCrunch

  ImageShack, the oft-forgotten and underestimated venture capital backed media hosting company, has quietly launched an alternative to the image sharing tools for Twitter already out there, like TwitPic and Twitxr. The tool is called Yfrog and like its counterparts it allows for immediate posting to your Twitter stream any image you upload or link to.

  Evidently, the image is hosted by ImageShack, so this is just another way for the company to get more people to learn about their media hosting wares. Once the image is up (example showing a guy eating a yfrog), you get the usual stuff like embed codes, custom thumbnails, a direct link to reblog and retweet the material, etc. We should note - and I’m getting tired of having to say this every time - that you have to enter your Twitter credentials to use Yfrog so that’s up to you.

  Like TwitPic, YFrog has its own API, but the former is also built into most popular Twitter clients, so they have the advantage of already being familiar to most Twitter users who are interested in this type of service. TwitPic, which by the way is growing in traffic quite quickly, also enables you to comment on pictures on-site, has better navigation, tags and lets you view images in full size. Yfrog has some catching up to do in terms of features and integrating into the widely used Twitter clients.

  Personally, I switched to Posterous some time ago, which lets you e-mail photos from your desktop or web client as well as your mobile phone and pushes the link for short blog posts, pictures and videos to a variety of social services (including Twitter). Also, it doesn’t show ads next to your uploaded pictures.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 1:57

  YouNoodle Scores: What Startups Can Learn from Wars

   »  TechCrunch

  Venture capital has long been heralded as an apprentice-style business where success only comes with ten years of experience and a gut that can predict the future. That was fine when it was a clubby industry making modest bets on companies within a 30 minute drive of Sand Hill Road. But as more money has flooded into the industry and tech has matured, finding the big home runs has become exponentially harder. Simply put: When you’re investing halfway around the world or trying to find the next Google amid a sea of me-too companies, let’s put the machismo aside and admit the industry needs some metrics, some methodology and some help. Check out the latest returns if you think I’m being too harsh.

  This is why I thought YouNoodle’s Startup Predictor was a great idea pretty much the first second I heard about it. There was a lot of derision early on about the idea that a company could create an algorithm to predict how much a startup could be worth. (Ahem, not by me of course. YouNoodle predicted my book writing, blogging, column writing and TV show hosting mini-empire would be worth $21 million in three years. We’re still working on that.) But the algorithm takes the same variables that VCs weigh, like how long a team has worked together, what the goals for success are and metrics like Web traffic and buzz.

  On Thursday, the company is releasing a new product called YouNoodle Scores that quantifies the buzz further. Unlike a vanity Twitter app that ranks the value of Tweets based on surface details like how many people follow you, there’s some serious methodology here, thanks to a partnership with Sean Gourley. Gourley is a Rhodes Scholar who’s studied how collective intelligence works, specifically how different cultural patterns, news reports and buzz lead up to break outs of terror attacks and wars. He found that you could predict the nature, size and timing of outbreaks by looking at all these factors. YouNoodle hired him to apply the same thing in the startup world: Analyzing traditional media, blog posts, Twitters, Alexa traffic patterns and other metrics over time to predict when and how a startup would, well, break out.

  Conceptually, figuring out what all these patterns and metrics really mean will be even more important as we trudge deeper into this muck of a recession. Web 2.0 has become way too reliant on surface metrics with all of us thinking page views, unique visitors, Facebook friends and Twitter followers implies value in an age when we all know how to goose these metrics. If the algorithm works right, my guess is you see sites with fewer gaudy statistics actually scoring higher in meaningful buzz.

  YouNoodle CEO Bob Goodson cites a company called Viikii.com, that jumped onto YouNoodle’s radar out of nowhere in October thanks to the algorithm. It was started by two Stanford kids, but I’d certainly never heard of it. Viikii makes subtitling software for Korean videos and despite its MIA status in the Valley echo chamber, the site has been taking off—it’s just been taking off in Korea. I can’t help but wonder what the scoring engine might have made of a site like Pownce that launched to wide hype and fanfare, but quickly tailed off in user activity and adoption.

  It’s possible the new scoring engine may help YouNoodle inch towards a business model—the biggest area where I’ve had my doubts about the company. I don’t think VCs are a great market to buy any premium YouNoodle analytics, because there’s going to be natural skepticism that an algorithm can be any kind of substitute for their experience and judgment. But governments charged with investing in startups are a natural fit. After all, they are trying to act like VCs without the training or experience. Even if YouNoodle’s algorithm is right 30% of the time, it’d be a huge upgrade over funding companies in the dark. One of the company’s launch partners is the UK’s Department of Trade and Investment, which is currently charged with disbursing some one billion pounds into the London scene. (Full disclosure: CrunchBase is another launch partner.)

  Of course for any of this to happen, the site has to work and, to be clear, I haven’t gotten a chance to play with it yet. (Yes, we all remember Cuil.) But as someone who’s covered this industry for ten years, I’m hoping that YouNoodle’s start up engine works well enough to give the venture capital industry just the kind of healthy kick in the pants it sorely needs. It’s only fair. Venture capitalists have certainly profited off of the Internet disrupting every one else’s businesses.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• February 18, 2009
• 12:05

  Google Shows Healthy January Growth In U.S. Search Volume

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Google saw healthy growth in the number of search queries on its core U.S. search engine in January, according to comScore qSearch numbers that came out last night. Google’s query growth rate was 38.4 percent, compared to January, 2008, outpacing the industry’s overall 28.6 percent growth in search queries. Any way you slice it, people are still doing more and more searches, which suggests that the search market is far from saturated.

  Compared to December, Google’s query growth rate slowed down slightly (from 42.8%). Yahoo, on the other hand, is the one standout among the major search engines in that its annual growth in search queries accelerated from 17.2 percent in December to 21.6 percent in January.  All the other search engines saw a slowdown. (See first table below).

  This resulted in Yahoo gaining half a percentage point in overall query market share to 21.0 percent, while Google’s market share dropped by the exact same amount month-over-month to 63.0 percent. Compared to a year ago, however, Google’s market share is still up 4.5 percentage points. (See second table below).

  Beyond the core search engines, YouTube generated an estimated 2.92 billion searches in January, up 68 percent from the year before, and slightly up 2.4 percent from December.  YouTube represents 24.9 percent of Google’s total searches, and on its own is a s big as Yahoo.

  Y/Y Growth In Core U.S. Search Queries, January 2009 (Source: comScore qSearch)

  Google	38.4%
  Yahoo	21.6%
  Microsoft	11.3%
  Ask	4.6%
  AOL	1.1%

  U.S. Core Search Share, January 2009 (Source: comScore qSearch)

  Google	63.0%	-0.5% m/m	+4.5% y.y
  Yahoo	21.0%	+0.5% m/m	-1.2% y/y
  Microsoft	8.5%	+0.2% m/m	-1.3% y/y
  AOL	3.9%	-0.1% m/m	-1.0& y/y
  Ask	3.7%	-0.2% m/m	-0.8% y/y

  Click on the image below for a larger table showing stats going back a full year (courtesy of Douglas Anmuth at Barclays Capital).

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 11:24

  Unboxing: Targus Essentials Kit for Palm V

   »  TechCrunch
  Inspired by the lonesome death of Palm OS I dusted off my old Palm V and found that I had thrown away my docking cable and accessories. Saddened, I took to the Internet only to find an excellent aggregation of actual accessories on Amazon and eBay. A few clicks later and I am now the proud owner of a Targus Essentials Kit for Palm V, one of the best handhelds in the business. Like most old technology, I'm having a heck of a time syncing this thing right now but a few more tries and I should get it. It's quite a bit of fun just firing this monster up and even if I can't get it to work it's nice to see how far we've come in a few short years. Click through for the video unboxing.

  

  
• 10:40

  Microsoft to buy 3D webcam company for use with immersive Xbox 360 games?

   »  TechCrunch
  Microsoft is apparently negotiating the proposed $35 million purchase of Israeli technology company 3DV Systems. 3DV makes a consumer video camera called Z-Cam that mounts to the top of a TV set or computer monitor allowing you to “use your body freely to control games, no wearables required, no limitations attached.”

  

  
• 7:23

  TinyChat Makes Creating Disposable Chat Rooms A Breeze

   »  TechCrunch

  Companies like Google and Twitter have taught us that a simplistic front-end and limited features can effectively have much more appeal to users than overly complex services, as long as they fill a need and work as advertised. TinyChat falls under the category of really simple applications that might just be what people are looking for, although I think this one ist just a thad too Spartan.

  TinyChat lets you create a basic web-based chat room with just one click of the button, by generating a unique URL that you can share with whoever you choose to invite to the virtual hang-out. Share the link and users will be redirected to a simple chat room interface that lets them input messages and change their usernames (and that’s really all it does). There’s also a way to embed a badge on other sites and forums to spread the link to the chatroom, showing the number of active users. Once you close the screen, the data is gone, so don’t use it to discuss anything worth remembering even if it lets you save the chat log.

  Here’s an example chat room where all the cool kids are hanging out right now.

  Update: seems a bit buggy, getting MySQL errors at regular intervals and the screen seems to freeze constantly too.

  The instant chat rooms are starting to become pretty popular on micro-sharing service Twitter, which is kind of strange if you consider that many people look at Twitter as one gigantic chat room to begin with. Could be the fact that the app annoyingly posts tweets to your stream to get more people to join.

  The service was created by Daniel Blake, who seems to have a knack for these types of micro-applications judging by his Crunchbase profile. He’s also the guy behind TinyPaste, which we reviewed here earlier, and ControlC (previous coverage).

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 5:58

  Scout Labs’ Brand Tracker Now Generally Available

   »  TechCrunch

  

  The internet is full of all sorts of chatter. And some of that chatter might actually be about your brand. Wouldn’t you like to filter out the noise and hear what people are saying about it?

  Enter Scout Labs, a SaaS dashboard that makes it easy to keep track of what people across the internet are saying about particular topics. The product, which we first reviewed in December 2007 while still in private beta, is now generally available.

  CEO Jenny Zeszut says that most companies start off using Scout Labs - and similar products by competitors - to cover their asses, basically by discovering when bloggers and the Twitterati are complaining about their brands. But Zeszut says that over time companies tend to get more involved with the data that Scout Labs collects, reading through blog posts and studying the data to see just what can be learned from customers.

  There are six main sections to the Scout Labs dashboard: Blogs, Sentiment, Graphs, Photos, Videos, and Twitter. The first displays all of the blog posts that have been indexed by Scout Labs related to a particular keyword or phrase. The Sentiment section breaks these blog posts down into positive, neutral and negative categories. Just which category Scout Labs puts a particular post into is determined by an algorithm, but you can always change a designation manually and this manual intervention actually improves the algorithm for going forward.

  In the other sections, photos, videos and tweets related to your brand are collected for display as well. It’s understandable that Scout Labs doesn’t determine the sentiment for photos and videos, but it would be nice if you could filter tweets by those that are saying nice things about your brand and those that are saying not-so-nice things. Right now, it’s basically a replication of the functionality you’d get from Twitter’s own search engine.

  The Scout Labs dashboard is designed for use by teams of brand managers. When you sign up for the service, you’re allowed to invite an unlimited number of colleagues into your workspace. But you’ll have to pony up more for every additional workspace you add. Each workspace costs $250 and lets you monitor 25 concurrent “searches” (aka keywords or phrases). As you buy more workspaces, the price of each incremental workspace does go down.

  Zeszut says that 300 companies already use Scout Labs with 2,000 more on the waitlist. Starting today, all of those waiting (and more) will now have access to the entire dashboard.

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 2:45

  Facebook Backtracks Under Community Pressure, Goes Back To Old ToS (For Now)

   »  TechCrunch

  Isn’t it ironic that Facebook, which is so often used by groups of people to protest and demand changes for just about anything, has reverted to its former Terms Of Services under pressure of the community?

  After trying to calm everyone down first, Mark Zuckerberg has now posted a new blog post stating that the company will revert to its previous ToS while they “resolve the issues that people have raised” (the post is being hammered right now so it’s going up and down).

  The company has even polled some of its users in news feeds asking them if they should go back to their previous ToS.

  According to the young CEO, it’s a language thing and they just did a poor job explaining the changes. But those changes will still be coming in the next few weeks, this time including the Facebook user community to make sure everyone can live with it / gets it (I always thought it was impossible to please everyone, but anyway):

  Our next version will be a substantial revision from where we are now. It will reflect the principles I described yesterday around how people share and control their information, and it will be written clearly in language everyone can understand. Since this will be the governing document that we’ll all live by, Facebook users will have a lot of input in crafting these terms.

  You have my commitment that we’ll do all of these things, but in order to do them right it will take a little bit of time. We expect to complete this in the next few weeks. In the meantime, we’ve changed the terms back to what existed before the February 4th change, which was what most people asked us for and was the recommendation of the outside experts we consulted.

  Update: Barry Schnitt, Senior Manager, Corporate Communications and Public Policy at Facebook, weighed in on the discussion on the “People Against the new Terms of Service (TOS)” group.

  Facebook has set up a group for its “Bill Of Rights”, where people will be able to provide feedback on the ToS changes. Only 2,000 people have joined the group at the time of this writing.

  This isn’t the first time the company backtracks on a decision that got its users and outsiders all riled up. Beacon, anyone?

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 1:30

  Snapstream Mini Is An Affordable DVR On Steroids

   »  TechCrunch
  Snapstream, who brought us BeyondTV and Snapstream Enterprise, has launched a more budget-friendly standalone TV search engine appliance for enterprises. The Snapstream Mini costs $2000 ($6000 less than the original Snapstream Server) and offers most of the capabilities of the more expensive product. One of the main differentiators is memory capacity; the Mini offers a little over 1000 hours of recordable content whereas the server product allows 2300 hours of recordings. The Snapstream Enterprise products are a cross between a powerful DVR and a search engine. The Snapstream allows enterprises to record thousands of hours of TV (from both satellite and digital cable sources) and search inside the recordings for keywords such as a company or individual's name. The interface looks and feels like a consumer DVR so it's pretty easy to use. The product allow multiple users to schedule and search inside recording via a laptop, desktop or through the TV itself. Users can record several shows at once (the Mini allows two shows simultaneously, the Server allows up to 10 shows to be recorded at the same time) and have email alerts sent to users when a search item is mentioned. The products also allows users to trim and clip the records, email a clip url and burn recording onto a DVD.

  

  
• 1:30

  Snapstream Mini Is A DVR On Steroids For Enterprises

   »  TechCrunch
  Snapstream, who brought us BeyondTV and Snapstream Enterprise, has launched a more budget-friendly standalone TV search engine appliance for enterprises. The Snapstream Mini costs $2000 ($6000 less than the original Snapstream Server) and offers most of the capabilities of the more expensive product. One of the main differentiators is memory capacity; the Mini offers a little over 1000 hours of recordable content whereas the server product allows 2300 hours of recordings. The Snapstream Enterprise products are a cross between a powerful DVR and a search engine. The Snapstream allows enterprises to record thousands of hours of TV (from both satellite and digital cable sources) and search inside the recordings for keywords such as a company or individual's name. The interface looks and feels like a consumer DVR so it's pretty easy to use. The product allow multiple users to schedule and search inside recording via a laptop, desktop or through the TV itself. Users can record several shows at once (the Mini allows two shows simultaneously, the Server allows up to 10 shows to be recorded at the same time) and have email alerts sent to users when a search item is mentioned. The products also allows users to trim and clip the records, email a clip url and burn recording onto a DVD.

  

  
• 0:00

  WeddingBook Marries Search Aggregation With Wedding Vendor Listings

   »  TechCrunch

  

  With upwards of 200,000 wedding vendors in the U.S. alone, the wedding industry can be both fiercely competitive and highly profitable for businesses. A new website, WeddingBook, is attempting to become a highly comprehensive search aggregator for or U.S. wedding vendors by offering highly exposed listings for free.

  WeddingBook allows vendors to list an advertisement on the site without the “pay-to-play” stipulation commonly used. For example, one of WeddingBook’s most established competitors, The Knot, requires vendors to pay listing and lead fees to advertise services on the sites.

  WeddingBook allows any local wedding vendor to create a listing and a web page, including pricing information and service details. But nothing comes entirely for free. If a bride-to-be decides to “request a proposal” from a particular vendor listed on WeddingBook and the vendor wants to submit a proposal to the potential customer, the vendor will pay a “modest” fee to WeddingBook. Fees are determined by the revenue opportunity and geography of a vendor. For example, an event space will not be charged the same fee as a photographer.

  

  So, will this work?

  Perhaps. Already, WeddingBook has 65,000 listings compared to The Knot’s 16,000 listings. WeddingBook’s search options are very comprehensive and useful to consumers. Brides can use a filtering tool not only to narrow vendors by location but also by budget parameters. The filtering tools also change according to vendor. For example, a user can search for a photographer by a preferred type of shooting style, the availability to see online proofs, or the ability to work with additional staff on the wedding day. Vendors can also be recommended by other vendors on the site or reviewed by consumers.

  CEO and founder John Dillon launched WeddingBook in the fall of 2007 and has spent the last year and a half recruiting vendors, which he said wasn’t difficult with his new business model. The site received an undisclosed angel round of funding from TripAdvisor founder and CEO Stephen Kaufer; Dan Saul, founder of Smarter Travel Media; and others. Dillon says that while fellow wedding websites, like The Knot, offer valuable content and advice for brides-to-be, WeddingBook will focus exclusively on what they do best: perhaps becoming the TripAdvisor for weddings?

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• February 17, 2009
• 23:29

  Did Hulu Just Pull The Plug On Its Deal With TV.com?

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Something is up at TV.com, the CBS-owned site that recently relaunched as a competitor to Hulu. Since last summer, when TV.com was owned by CNET and was still primarily a community hub, the site has featured content from NBC and News Corp through a partnership with Hulu. Now, only two months after TV.com relaunched as a CBS-supported direct competitor to the popular media portal, it looks like much (if not all) of the content served through Hulu is no longer working.

  Both clips and full episodes formerly supplied through the agreement simply present a note stating “video unavailable”. It’s possible that this is just a technical glitch - TV.com would have likely removed any links to the episodes entirely if the agreement had come to an end. But the videos have been unavailable since at least this morning, which seems like a long time to fix a bug. And other video sites like Comcast’s Fancast and Sling.com seem to be serving Hulu content just fine.

  If Hulu has in fact ceased its agreement with TV.com, it would be a big blow to the rapidly growing site. TV.com does offer other content, including shows from CBS, MGM, Sony, Endemol, USA, PBS and Showtime, but many fan-favorites are still found on NBC, Fox, and other networks Hulu has partnered with.

  We’ve attempted to contact Hulu about the issue, and will update the post as soon as we hear back.

  
  
  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 21:18

  DocVerse: Building A Better “Office Live” (Beta Invites)

   »  TechCrunch
  When Microsoft launched "Live Workspaces" last year we were sufficiently underwhelmed. But Microsoft didn't have to wow us. The software giant could, and has been taking its time playing catch-up with web enabled productivity suites (namely Google Docs) while it continues milking the desktop software cash cow. So far much of the competition has been centered around web apps that mimic the majority of functions users need (Google Docs, Zoho, Thinkfree, Transmedia, LiveDocuments). However, two former Microsoft employees, Shan Sinha and Alex DeNeui, are bringing web-top-like sharing and collaboration to the Microsoft Office Suite millions of people already own.

  

  
• 17:26

  Skype Integration On Handsets: Threat Or Opportunity For Mobile VoIP Startups?

   »  TechCrunch

  Skype is (finally) teaming up with mobile handset maker Nokia to get its VoIP and IM software program pre-installed on some of Nokia’s devices, as announced at the Mobile World Congress and reported by MobileCrunch. The eBay-owned company had 405 million registered users in total at the end of last year, and Nokia is still the largest handset maker in the world until further notice, so this is a significant deal.

  Of course, the operators won’t be jumping up and down from joy over the news.

  The first Nokia device to get the Skype integration will be the N97, beginning in Q3 of 2009, followed by (unnamed but reportedly high-end) N-series devices. Leveraging N97’s WiFi and 3G connectivity, users will be able to communicate with Skype-to-Skype voice calls, as well as make mobile and landline Skype calls at reasonable prices. We should note that Sony Ericsson already has some sort of solution for Skype by offering a ‘panel’ for the app on its Xperia X1 device (which runs Windows Mobile 6.1), and Skype already had a mobile ‘lite’ version in beta which works fine on compatible LG, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson phones.

  Bringing Skype’s internet calling app on-board is one thing, but I am more excited about the presence management. The fact that the application will tap into your contact list to see who else is online or not, and enable you to chat with your friends and co-workers either by voice or text instantly, is a powerful feature.

  But what does this mean for those mobile VoIP startups for whom one of the prime reasons of existence in the first place is supporting Skype functionality on mobile handsets, like fring, Nimbuzz and Truphone?

  I got in touch with executives at all three startups to get a reaction on the news. Unsurprisingly, they call the move a validation of their services and are confident they won’t be pushed aside any time soon.

  Tobias Kemper, Head of Communications at Nimbuzz, says the fact that Skype will come pre-installed on mobile devices is actually going to help normalize the use of VoIP applications (and particularly Skype) and thus boost their own growth. He also added that the integrated approach of Nimbuzz, which combines a variety of voice and text chat services into one app, is still in demand.

  Geraldine Wilson, CEO of Truphone, says much of the same by declaring that this will only increase the awareness and uptake of these kinds of VoIP applications on mobile, which is good for Truphone too. She also cites the interoperability with Skype in combination with support for other communication services to be a big advantage for their users.

  I’ll update this post with fring’s view as soon as it gets in, but you should also read up on what iSkoot is doing by moving beyond Skype for mobile phones with the release of a more general application.

  I agree that bringing Skype to a select number of Nokia devices isn’t going to ‘kill’ any of the service providers I mentioned, and the aggregation of communication services is still a very good selling point in a world were people are connected through multiple social networks and instant messaging clients. That said, for the VoIP part it won’t get any better than having Skype pre-installed on a phone that links up your contacts to the application instantly. While companies like fring, Nimbuzz and Truphone are scrambling to turn their fast-growing legion of users into a profitable business, Skype has more runtime and more leverage to push free internet calling to mobile phone users.

  But as I mentioned before, the carriers are not going to be happily standing on the sidelines as things progress.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 16:37

  @TwitterHR For Future Reference, Use BCC When Rejecting Applicants

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Apparently the folks at Twitter are a little too used to sharing. At around 11 AM this morning the company sent out a rejection notice to many of the candidates who had applied for its open Product Manager position. But instead of using BCC to hide the identities of the applicants from each other, Twitter HR goofed and sent them all the message using a standard Carbon Copy, allowing everyone else to see who the other 185 applicants were.

  Here’s the message each person got, along with the list of other recipients:

  Hi,

  Thank you so much for taking the time to apply for the Business
  Product Manager position at Twitter, Inc. During the course of our
  recruiting efforts, we come across many fine candidates such as you,
  and we carefully evaluate each candidate’s background and interests
  against our projected workloads and staffing needs. Although we are
  impressed with your background, the hiring committee has decided to
  move forward with a different candidate.

  We will keep your information on file for six months in case future
  opportunities arise.

  Twitter isn’t the first company to mix up the BCC and CC fields. RockYou has made similar mistakes in the past, repeatedly CCing a full list of its advertisers and developers for all to see (much to their chagrin). But Twitter’s blunder could potentially have a negative impact on some of these applicants who may already be employed elsewhere.

  Craig Given, who was one of the applicants, has blogged about the message, and also includes a response that CEO Evan Williams has sent to all the affected applicants. Note that Williams says that not everyone on the list even applied for the job:

  It has just been brought to my attention that we just sent this note about this job with everyone’s address exposed in the cc line.

  This is obviously a big mistake, and I sincerely apologize on behalf of Krissy, myself, and Twitter, Inc. We really appreciate you expressing interest in Twitter, and I can only imagine that this type of move adds insult to injury.

  To be clear: Not everyone on this list even applied for this job. Some were recommended to us and entered into our applicant tracking system by employees here.

  Whatever the case, I regret this mistake. Please help us reduce the impact of this error by respecting each other’s privacy.

  If there’s anything I can do for you, please let me know.

  Evan

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 16:33

  CardPricer Finds There Is More Money Selling Baseball Card Data Than Selling Baseball Cards

   »  TechCrunch

  

  CardPricer, a sports card valuation site, has undergone several transformations as a start-up and has learned that being flexible with a business model is a necessity in the start-up world. Founded in 2005, CardPricer was originally an online auction house specializing in high value collectibles. The company realized the value of creating pricing data on collectibles (particularly sports cards) and decided to ditch the auction house model in 2006 and focus strictly on providing pricing data on sports baseball cards, based primarily on Ebay market data. To date, CardPricer has linked 5 million completed transactions to its price guides.

  CardPricer’s main revenue stream is from the pricing information on the site. CardPricer also offers users the ability to create a “virtual card collection,” where the user can manage a card collections and see accurate values of all cards owned in an easy to view grid system. Membership prices are lower than competitor Vintagecardprices.com, but Vintagecardprices.com and other competitors like Beckett Media offer valuation for basketball, football, hockey, boxing and non-sports cards as well (CardPricer is hoping to expand to this market in the near future). And Vintagecardprices.com has a flashier interface for users, offering users real time market reports and alerts when an auction house is selling a desired card.

  CardPricer has a good price point compared to its competitors. The company charges $45 for a six month membership with unlimited access to its pricing data. And the company claims that it has a larger userbase and more published information than any direct competitor. CardPricer wouldn’t release the number of users, but said that traffic generally falls between 40,000 to 50,000 visitors per month. According to Quantcast, CardPricer has about 37,000 unique visits per month. Vintagecardprices.com’s unique visits hovers around 11,500 visits per month. Its selection is limited to baseball cards but with its continued flexibility, CardPricer has the potential to make its mark in the card valuation space in the future.

  

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 15:47

  Half The Charges Against The Pirate Bay Dropped, But The Circus Ain’t Over Yet

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Today was the second day in the trial brought against popular torrent site The Pirate Bay by a phalanx of media companies formed by Universal, Warner Brothers, MGM, EMI, 20th Century Fox, Columbia Pictures, and Sony BMG.

  So far the trial has amounted to a circus wherein the plaintiffs have struggled to make their case. According to the media companies, The Pirate Bay has profitably caused over $13 million in damages by assisting copyright infringement and helping to make copyrighted material available. But they’ve done a lousy job presenting evidence that they’ve had three years to collect.

  Things started off badly yesterday when prosecutor Håkan Roswall made himself look like a Luddite after fumbling with his computer and failing to open a PowerPoint presentation. But the biggest setback for the prosecution came today when it was forced to drop half of its charges against The Pirate Bay— those that concern “assisting copyright infringement”— because the screenshots it produced showed no clear connection between the tracker and the .torrent files under consideration.

  The founders, Gottfrid Svartholm, Fredrik Neij and Peter Sunde, have done a good job so far making this whole trial look like a silly spectacle. After showing up to the trial in a pirate bus with supporters from the Pirate Party wielding microphones, the founders proceeded to post obnoxiously boastful messages to Twitter like the one from Peter Sunde that simply declared “EPIC WINNING LOL”. The optimism on their part isn’t unfounded, since the prosecution has indeed forced itself into retreat out of what looks like sheer incompetency.

  However, The Pirate Bay isn’t out of the woods just yet. As Ars Technica points out, the site and its founders could still be found guilty of simply making copyrighted material available:

  When contacted by Ars Technica, Danowsky said that Sweden’s copyright act does not require actual distributions to take place. “A work is made available as soon as it is for sale or for hire or given away,” he said. “This does not have to involve any actual transfer of the work. And the right to control availability is protected by the Act, so making available can be in violation of copyright even though no actual distribution has taken place.”

  Napster was nailed, at least in part, for simply making infringement possible and not doing anything to stop it - something known as “vicarious infringement”. It’s yet to be seen whether the Swedish legal system will look more kindly upon The Pirate Bay.

  The Pirate Bay launched in 2003 and reported 22 million simultaneous users just this month. The site’s offices were raided in 2006 by Swedish police, setting the ball in motion for this trial.

  [Image courtesy of TorrentFreak]

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 15:25

  Survey Of Insular Social Media Elite Says: Twitter Is Better Than Facebook For Businesses

   »  TechCrunch

  

  If you were to ask “over 200 social media leaders” which social media site they would pay for if they had to, as Abrams Research recently did, Facebook would come out on top, with 32.2 percent saying they would pay for it. (Yeah, right). LinkedIn was second, Twitter was third, and MySpace and Digg tied for last place (with only 1.5 percent of respondents saying they’d pay for those services).

  But if you ask, which one would they recommend for businesses to pay for (if they had to), Twitter beats Facebook by more than two to one (39.6 percent vs. 15.3 percent). LinkedIn again comes in second. Why did Twitter come out on top. It is seen as an efficient way for companies to get their marketing messages out there. One typical response:

  
  It’s the quickest way I’ve seen to spread information virally to a wide scope of people attached in a lot of random ways.

  The survey was taken at Social Media Week 2009 and included “founders, bloggers, journalists, entrepreneurs and members of the Twitterati.” Basically it is the opinion of the insular social media elite. So what they say may just be wishful thinking, but the results are good fodder for discussion nonetheless.

  Abrams also asked which social media service is most likely to die first. ImInLikeWithYou is given the worst odds of survival, followed by Bebo, and FriendFeed. Below are the questions and the results. Pipe in with your own answers in comments.

  1. Which social media service would you be most likely to pay for?
  Facebook 32.2%
  Linkedin 29.7%
  Twitter 21.8%
  YouTube 13.4%
  MySpace 1.5%
  Digg 1.5%

  2. What social media service would you advise a business pay for?
  Twitter 39.6%
  Linkedin 21.3%
  YouTube 18.8%
  Facebook 15.3%
  Digg 3.0%
  MySpace 2.0%

  3. Which social media service will be the first to die?
  ImInLikeWithYou.com 41.1%
  Bebo 12.4%
  FriendFeed 8.9%
  Meetup.com 8.4%
  Flixster 6.9%
  Digg 5.0%
  Last.fm 3.0%
  Other 14.4%

  4. Which corporation has done the best job of using social media? (Respondents were asked to choose
  one; these were the most popular choices, ranked accordingly)
  1. Zappos (online shopping site)
  2. Obama (campaign and presidency)
  3. CNN
  4. Comcast (“Comcast Cares”)
  5. Jetblue
  6. Dell
  7. Burger King
  8. NPR
  9. New York Times
  10. Ford

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 15:17

  OpenFeint: A Plug-And-Play Social Platform For iPhone Games

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Aurora Feint (iTunes Link) is a popular and very addictive RPG puzzle game notable for effectively merging game play with an online a community and real time chat - features that are still unfortunately lacking in many iPhone games that fail to tap into the network effect. Now, the developers of Aurora Feint are releasing OpenFeint, an API that will allow iPhone developers to integrate rich social features into their applications with a minimal amount of effort. The platform is launching in private beta today (interested developers can contact the company here to request an invite), but will be released to the public next month.

  The OpenFeint Platform allows developers to integrate features including user profiles, Facebook-like ‘walls’, and chat rooms (which can either be game-specific or globally shared across all games). OpenFeint founders Jason Citron and Danielle Cassley say that the platform will save developers around two months of coding and only takes around two hours to integrate with its default UI (though developers will be free to customize the system to suit their games). And all chats will be hosted on the OpenFeint servers, so developers won’t have to worry about managing resources. Final pricing plans have not yet been determined, but Citron and Cassley say that it will remain free throughout the beta and will also be free for small-time developers, though they will have to sign on to a paid plan if their game becomes popular.

  While the platform offers extensive social features, it is not currently being targeted as an “Xbox Live” for the iPhone, so it won’t have competitive features like a trophy system (another platform called Onyx, from the developers behind competing puzzle game Trism, is meant to do just that). Citron and Cassley say that they’re sticking with what they know works for now, but would be open to expanding the platform in that direction in the future.

  
  
  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 14:37

  That Was Quick: QikCom Hits The Deadpool

   »  TechCrunch

  

  It seems like only yesterday when we covered the beta launch of QikCom, which was poised to become another horse in the race for the first real Twitter-for-enterprises alongside Yammer and Present.ly. It was almost yesterday, as they released the application to the public in October 2008. Now, a look at their website teaches us the micro-messaging service has already folded under the pressure of the race.

  QikCom hits the deadpool, and companies who were using the service only have a couple of days to retrieve their data, which leads us to believe there weren’t all that many of those in the first place. The placeholder now even includes a link to Yammer, deeming them the ‘best enterprise micro-messaging service’ (they recently raised $5 million in funding and launched a hosted version of their software that can be used inside corporate firewalls). We use it here and are indeed quite happy with it, but we’re not counting out Present.ly out just yet. Since they added a desktop and mobile version recently, they’re keeping up pace with Yammer quite nicely without raising a dime in venture capital (so far).

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 14:24

  Mel Karmazin Gives Away the Farm, Saves Job

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Liberty Media threw Sirius XM a lifeline with an 11th hour $530 million loan. If Sirius’s beleaguered balance sheet didn’t tell you everything you’d need to know about how the negotiations went, the terms would. The initial loan of $280 million comes at a steep 15% interest rate, and Liberty will get 40% of the satellite radio company in the end. Liberty Media will also get two board seats, expected to be filled by Liberty chairman John Malone and chief executive Greg Maffei, who techies may remember from his short, ill-fated stint at Oracle.

  In what may be the most disingenuous quote in a press release ever Maffei said, “We have been impressed with the company, its operations and management team.” Really? Because I see a company that concocted an unsustainable business model where people pay less than a dollar a day for content, while it pays out $100 million-a-year contracts to celebrity talent. I see a company growing its revenues in double digits that can’t even pay the minimums on its debt. I see a company that was too wrapped up in the ego of winning than proving a business model. And perhaps most dire, a company way too dependent on the auto industry for generating new subscribers.

  All that said, it was an advantageous deal for both parties. My criticisms aside, satellite radio can be a viable market, it’s just not as huge as its boosters thought five years ago. Once the debt and sky-high operating costs can be stripped out of the company, there’s arguably a nice business there for Liberty. Even one that might one day be spun off to another buyer. And even considering the waste, Liberty Media is essentially getting billions of dollars that went into building and evangelizing satellite radio for a bargain basement price. And Karmazin? Well he gets to keep his job one more day, which is more than 300,000 other people in tech can say.

  (Photo by Andrew Stawarz)

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 13:15

  SynthaSite Gets A $20 Million Boost For Simple Website Creation Software

   »  TechCrunch

  There have been simple, browser-based website creation tools available on the market ever since the WWW turned mainstream, but there’s clearly still a significant demand for this type of services, especially with the way the web is evolving.

  SynthaSite is one of the players in the DIY website / blog builder field, and they’ve just gotten a huge vote of confidence from their investors: the company has announced a $20 million Series B round from Luxembourg-based Reinet Fund and plans to use the money to grow both organically and through selected acquisitions (they made a first small one past December when they bought Clickpass).

  This is actually the same investor as the $5 million Series A round it raised in November 2007, but then then-called Columbus Venture Capital was recently restructured into Reinet, which is now a listed entity on the Luxembourg & Johannesburg Stock Exchange with over $2 billion in market cap.

  No word on the startup’s valuation, although co-founder and CEO Vinny Lingham (also an occasional blogger) tells me it was definitely not a down-round and that they’re in it for the long run. He also added that the company is growing nicely, boasting 1 million registered users and graphs clearly showing an upwards traffic trend (Quantcast). Compete shows a similar curve.

  SynthaSite makes building simple websites a breeze, but in that it doesn’t differ much from the dozens of similar services out there (e.g. the just launched DevHub, WebJam, Sampa, Jimdo, Weebly, webme and many many more) apart from the fact that they integrated a bunch of third-party services into the application (e.g. WidgetBox for widget distribution, Picnik for photo editing, etc.). SynthaSite is also up against services from established companies, like Microsoft Office Live and Google Sites. It remains to be seen if the now heavily-funded startup will be able to keep growing at the current rate in this economic climate and with an increasingly competitive playing field.

  As for the business model: SynthaSite generates revenue from domain names sales only (as an affiliate to Network Solutions) as the service is entirely ad-free. Premium services (like advanced features, unique templates, etc.) are coming later this year, says Lingham.

  Strategy-wise, SynthaSite is looking for partnerships with ISPs and large computer manufacturers and internet companies, who could offer a co-branded solution to their users without paying SynthaSite for the service but rather getting a chunk of the revenues back from the company.

  It’s a good strategy, but many have tried - and are trying - to do the same, so again, the jury is still out if SynthaSite will be able to justify the faith their investor obviously puts in them in the years to come.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 13:10

  Ustream Launches Watershed, A Pay-As-You-Go Live Streaming Service For Enterprises

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Live video streaming service Ustream is rolling out a white-label service today called Watershed for Websites and businesses that want to broadcast their own live streams. Watershed comes with a lot of extra management capabilities like the ability to customize the player, add a logo, turn on features like chat, polling, picture-in-picture video chat, Twitter integration, analytics and more.

  Ustream is targeting this service at companies that may want to live stream meetings to employees, as well as to Websites that want to offer their own live-streaming programming and need more than what they can get by simply embedding a Ustream.tv player today.

  Watershed is a cloud computing service, with pricing on a pay-as-you-go basis. Pricing starts at $1 per viewer hour for 1,000 viewer hours per month or less and scales down to $0.25 per viewer hour for streams that a reach 50,000 viewer hours per month or more. (A viewer hour is one viewer watching a stream for one hour, or 60 viewers watching for one minute, etc.).

  So a live stream watched by only 30 people for a half hour would cost $15, but a stream watched by 30,000 people for a half hour would cost $7,500. I am not sure how much a comparable content delivery network like Akamai would charge, but Ustream CEO John Ham says they are aiming for a comparable price. Watershed’s advantage being that customers only need to pay for what they actually use.

  That still seems pretty steep to me. If live video streaming is going to ever gain a mass audience, the price is going to have to come down.

  

  Update Mogulus CEO Max Haot counters that his competing Mogulus Pro service is actually cheaper for anyone delivering more than 500 viewer hours per month. Using my example above of 30,000 viewers watching for 30 minutes, he says that would cost $3,490 with his top-of-the-line plan. Here is a Scribd document he provides with handy price comparison tables.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 12:52

  Facebook Is Big In France

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Facebook has become the most popular social network in France, according to the latest figures from comScore. Social networking had a banner year in France, with a 45 percent increase in unique visitors. In Europe as a whole, 211 million (roughly three fourths of total internet users) visited social networking sites.

  After Facebook launched a French language interface in February of 2008, the site’s popularity skyrocketed, growing 443 percent over the past year to an estimated 12 million visitors. The native social network Skyrock only grew by a paltry 8 percent (in terms of unique visitors). MySpace ranked fourth on the list of leading social networking sites, with 3 million visitors. This is not surprising, since Facebook has been steadily widening the gap with MySpace internationally.

  Worldwide, Facebook had an estimated 221.8 million unique visitors, up from 200.2 million visitors in November, showing an 11 percent growth in visitors. That compares to 125 million unique visitors for MySpace versus 120.7 million visitors in November, a 4 percent increase.

  While Facebook is dominating in the global space, MySpace still is at the top in the U.S. But, Facebook’s growth hasn’t stagnated and we think Facebook could be set take the top spot from MySpace very soon.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 11:39

  Yahoo Mobile Also Wants to Claim The “My Phone” Moniker.

   »  TechCrunch

  

  What would you rather have, an iPhone or a My Phone? Both Microsoft and Yahoo think you want a My Phone. On the iPhone section of its Website detailing the revamped Yahoo Mobile service, due to launch publicly in March, Yahoo marketers try to drum up interest in the new offering by using this headline in its marketing campaign:

  From iPhone™ to “my” phone.

  The iPhone trademark is taken (notice the ™), but that is not stopping mobile marketers from trying to ride on its coattails. Yesterday, Microsoft announced its own My Phone service for syncing data between your phone and desktop.

  If you are a mobile marketer, here is a tip for you. Coming up with something that rhymes with iPhone to peddle your mobile services is not a winning strategy. It is derivative and shows a lack of imagination. It is as though they are trying to say, “Our products are like the iPhone, but only better and more cuddly.” Why even invite the comparison? That two major Web companies decided to characterize their products as the My Phone just goes to show how much the iPhone is defining the industry right now.

  

  So what exactly is new about Yahoo Mobile? The service is built around Yahoo oneConnect, which the company announced at the World Mobile Congress last year. OneConnect is a social address book that pulls together all your contacts, emails, IMs, SMS messages, and activity streams from other social networks and social media sites across the Web. Building on top of oneConnect, Yahoo Mobile will integrate more services such as oneSearch (its mobile-optimized search engine) and Yahoo onePlace (a fancy feed reader that lets you keep track of blog posts, stock updates, sports scores, and the like). The different apps appear in a familiar icon grid, just like on the iPhone.

  In March, Yahoo Mobile will be available as a destination on mobile browsers, as a new app for the iPhone, as well as apps for a wide range of smartphones including Blackberriey, Nokia, Windows Mobile, and other handsets. (Yahoo has been working in thisMobileCrunch found some screen shots last November). One noteworthy distinction between the iPhone app and the other smartphone apps is that Yahoo Mobile will incorporate the Opera mobile browser as one of its icons on the smartphone apps. It doesn’t appear that the Opera browser will be an option on the iPhone app. The mobile browser is not something that Apple is too keen on opening up to competition.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 10:14

  Bill Gates Wants to Help the Third World With Cellphone Banking

   »  TechCrunch
  The GSMA, a worldwide consortium of mobile industries, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (owned by the guy who used to run Microsoft and his lady wife) have teamed up to found the the Mobile Money for the Unbanked (MMU) initiative, allowing folks in developing countries to carry out mobile banking from their non-smartphones and keep and grow their money in a safe and affordable fashion. The Foundation has donated $12.5 million to the endeavor and is currently working to "catalyze a new wave of mobile money innovation" and will support 20 projects in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The ultimate goal? Supply 20 million unbanked people with mobile financial services by 2012.

  

  
• 9:45

  Indeed’s New Industry Trends Point To Where The Jobs Are

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Tech layoffs may have hit 300,000 since the financial crisis began, but there are at least 395,629 job openings in information technology, enough to re-employ all of those now out of work. Job search engine Indeed this morning launched a new Industry Trends page filled with stats on job openings in the U.S. across major industries. Although there are more job openings in IT than in any other industry except healthcare (which has 581,625 job listings).

  

  Even so, IT job listings are down 43 percent from a year ago. Again, healthcare is holding up the best with only an 8 percent decline. Job postings in banking and financial services are down 48 percent (to 144,569), and media and newspaper job listings are down 47 percent (with only 24,104 postings).

  Indeed CEO Paul Forster explains why he is making these stats available (besides hoping to spur more job searches):

  For people working in rapidly declining industries, it will help them identify industries in better shape to which they can try to transition.

  Our data are an alternative to government payroll statistics, offering a more forward-looking insight into hiring activity. If government data show the job market in the rear-view mirror - jobs that have been created or lost - Indeed’s Industry Trends provide a view through the front windscreen: job openings that companies intend to fill.

  You can click on any industry to get more detail. For instance, in the IT industry, while job postings have decreased 43 percent, clicks on job postings have increased 84 percent to 9.8 million. The most clicks are coming from New York City (San Francisco is No. 7 in terms of clicks). Some of the most sought after jobs, as measured by the top keyword searches are project manager, business analyst, engineer, and graphic design.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 9:29

  Tagging The Real World: Sekai Camera For The iPhone Is Alive And Very Cool

   »  TechCrunch

  A total of 52 companies launched at last year’s TechCrunch50 conference. Five of them got jury selection prizes, there was one big winner and a very special crowd pleaser: Japan-based Tonchidot’s Sekai Camera, an iPhone app that presents tagged information in the form of a graphical layer over images in the iPhone camera.

  Charismatic CEO Takahito Iguchi delivered a memorable demonstration, making the audience go crazy by fending off questions of TC50 judges such as Tim O’Reilly if Sekai Camera really works with the words “Join us!” or “We have a patent!”. The reason for the skepticism: Iguchi’s on-stage show mainly centered on a pre-produced video clip, not an actual product demo. This left people wondering if Sekai Camera isn’t just vaporware for almost half a year during which it seemed like nothing happened. But today I saw the app is real and working - on an iPhone.

  

  Tonchidot organized an invitation-only event at an exhibition in Tokyo today, showcasing a working prototype for the first time. Sekai Camera’s basic concept is still intact: Use the iPhone camera to overlay tags and information onto any object in the real world. Users then need to look through the camera to see icons pop up that contain information on buildings, stores, sightseeing spots or objects.

  The prototype I tried out today was a bit buggy but worked as promised, showing tags with information (sounds, pictures and text) on other booths installed in the exhibition hall. Many people speculated how Sekai Camera works technically. The answer is simple: The user’s location is identified through GPS (no cell-tower triangulation or image recognition technology is being used). As the iPhone doesn’t have an internal compass, the direction of where the viewfinder is pointed at can’t be measured: Users need to flick fingers left or right to find relevant tags that are around them (as demonstrated in the video I took below). Tap a tag and the information it contains appears in the form of a window, for example a picture with a comment box below it or a voice message someone left earlier.

  

  

  Tonchidot today showed they were rightfully chosen as a TechCrunch50 finalist. Sekai Camera is incredibly cool technology even though the prototype version didn’t look as flashy as the previous one shown on video. For a massive land grab, Sekai Camera will have to come up with a viable business model, achieve a critical mass of tags to make the app worthwhile and optimize the technology.

  But Tonchidot is working on it. Iguchi said he is in talks with companies interested in contributing commercial tags that could contain anything from ads, coupons to product information for a fee. Tags are also being scraped from various web services such as Yahoo Japan’s Wai Wai Mappu (a community-style map information service). But Sekai Camera also needs user-generated tags - lots of them. While a compass built into a future iPhone model might solve the directional alignment issue, GPS within buildings will most likely remain a problem for quite some time. (For tagging the exhibition hall today, locations were measured through Wi-Fi signals an external service called PlaceEngine provided.).

  According to Tonchidot, Japan will be covered with social tags first, followed by the rest of the world. Asked when Sekai Camera will be available for everyone to buy, Tonchidot fellow Masayuki Akamatsu told me: “In 2009, sometime when it’s warm!”. We will stay tuned.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 9:16

  DevHub Lets You Publish And Monetize Websites In One Swoop

   »  TechCrunch

  DevHub is launching to the public today with a solution that enables users to create and publish multiple websites and offers a way to monetize them in the same process.

  The web-based commercial publishing platform isn’t groundbreaking stuff, but DevHub lets web publishers tap into a fairly large aggregated network of sites and affiliate networks with the use of an API, boasting deals with more than 35 internet properties such as Careerbuilder, Superpages, Shopping.com, Priceline, Homegain, etc.). The startup says this integrated monetization approach, the rich WYSIWYG editing capabilities and the extensive reporting features are what set them apart from other online website building tools (and there are many of those).

  During the private beta, the Seattle company had already over 55,000 sites developed with the centralized platform, and today it is entering public beta allowing anyone to sign up and take it for a ride. The company claims it takes 5-10 minutes to set up a website, so you don’t need to refrain from testing for lack of time.

  

  They also have an interesting way of going about signing up new users: while a DevHub user can manage an unlimited number of sites on the DevHub platform, they must pass a quality threshold for their first set of 10 sites before being allowed seats for their next 10. It’s unclear what this quality test entails exactly.

  The product is targeted primarily at wannabe internet entrepreneurs looking to build an online media network without a lot of technical know-how.

  

  DevHub, actually a product from the company EVO Media Group, is backed by the same angel group behind BuddyTV and the icanhascheezeburger.com / failblog.com sites. They’ve been working on the platform for the past 1.5 years on less than $1 million from the private investors.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 8:56

  Tech Layoffs Surge to 300,000

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Layoffs in the tech sector are accelerating.  It took exactly three weeks for tech layoffs to surge to 300,000, according to our Layoff Tracker. Since late January, when the tracker hit 200,000 layoffs, another 100,000 job eliminations have been announced or completed. In contrast, it took five weeks for layoffs in the tech industry to hit the 200,000 mark, and four months for layoffs to hit 100,000 last December. The total number of layoffs since we began tracking since the financial crisis began in late August is 300,093.

  The past few weeks have particularly brutal for the technology space, with substantial layoffs announced by Pioneer (10,000), Cisco (3,000), Panasonic (15,000), NEC (20,000), Electronic Arts (1100) and AOL (700). Even Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal, who both managed to avoid layoffs in the past few months, were forced to make cuts to their workforces. And Google, who was immune to layoffs until late January, continued giving pink-slips in the past three weeks with the company’s exit from radio. Sadly, a few start-ups weren’t able to weather the storm, with eBaum’s World cutting all of its workforce.

  Obviously the tech industry is not immune to the current economic climate, and if the past three weeks are any indication, things could still get worse for the tech space before they get better. Maybe that economic stimulus plan will help turn the tide.

  If you know of any layoffs at a tech company, please submit a tip with the name of the company and number of layoffs. If it’s been covered, also send a link to the blog post or news article. (For who is hiring, check out our job board).

  Below is a list of late January and February layoffs from our tracker:

  • Total Layoffs: 426
  • Total Employees: 300,093

  Company	Date	Location	#	%	Source
  Sapient	February 14, 2009	BANGALORE	300	8%	THE TIMES OF INDIA
  Google (Audio Ads)	February 12, 2009	Mountain View, CA	40		Google Blog
  Pioneer	February 12, 2009	worldwide	10,000	25%	Reuters
  Nokia	February 12, 2009	Finland	625		Business-Standard
  AMCC	February 12, 2009		100	17%	Yahoo
  NetApp	February 9, 2009	USA	480	6%	U. K. Register
  Cisco	February 5, 2009	San Jose, CA	3,000	4%	BusinessWeek
  Wall Street Journal, News Corp.	February 5, 2009	New York, NY	14	2%	PaidContent.org
  LA Times, The Tribune Co.	February 5, 2009	Los Angeles, CA	300		LA Times
  About.com	February 5, 2009	New York, NY	19	10%	Rueters
  Panasonic	February 4, 2009	Tokyo, Japan	15,000	5%	Bloomberg
  THQ	February 4, 2009	Agoura Hills, CA	600	24%	SIlicon Alley Insider
  Electronic Arts	February 3, 2009	Redwood City, CA	1,100	11%	TechTrader Daily
  Bloomberg	February 3, 2009	New York, NY	100		Reuters
  The Walt Disney Co.	January 31, 2009	New York, NY	200	5%	LA Times
  eBaum’s World	January 31, 2009	San Francisco, CA	13		NewTeeVee
  Broadcom	January 30, 2009	Worldwide	200	3%	scoalTECH
  NEC	January 30, 2009	Wordwide	20,000	7%	NYT
  Zazzle	January 30, 2009	Redwood City, CA	40	15%	TechCrunch
  Freescale	January 30, 2009	Worldwide	2,400	10%	Austin American Statesman
  Hitachi	January 30, 2009	Worldwide	7,000		BBC
  Sierra Wireless	January 29, 2009	Vancouver, BC	56	10%	Fierce Wireless
  Teradyne	January 29, 2009	North Reading, MA	532	14%	Boston.com
  Toshiba	January 29, 2009	Tokyo, Japan	4,500		EETimes
  Nexon Games	January 28, 2009	Vancouver, BC, Canada	90	100%	Gamasutra
  AOL	January 28, 2009	New York, NY	700	10%	TechCrunch
  Citrix	January 28, 2009			10%	Reuters
  SAP	January 28, 2009	Walldorf, Germany	3,000	6%	SAP
  Parametric Technology Corp (PTC)	January 28, 2009		250	5%	Reuters.com
  Skyworks	January 28, 2009	Woburn, MA	150	4%	StreetInsider.com
  Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati	January 27, 2009	Palo Alto, CA	113	8%	LAw.com
  STMicroelectronics	January 27, 2009		4,500		EETimes
  IBM	January 26, 2009	Armonk, NY	2,850	1%	WSJ
  Texas Instrument	January 26, 2009	Dallas	3,400	12%	EETimes
  Sprint Nextel	January 26, 2009	Overland Park, Kansas	8,000	14%	Bloomberg
  Philips	January 26, 2009	Amsterdam, Netherlands	6,000	5%	AP
  Fox Interactive Media	January 26, 2009	Los Angeles, CA	100	5%	TechCrunch
  Unisys	January 26, 2009	Global	1,300	4%	Computing.co.uk

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 6:22

  Live Blog: Vodafone MWC09 Press Conference, HTC Magic Announced

   »  TechCrunch

  

  We’re live at the relatively low key Vodafone press conference at Mobile World Congress, where they’re announcing the Android-powered HTC G2 - otherwise known as the HTC Magic. Click through for the live blog.

  Update: The press announcement is now over, but we’ve since dug up the full specs and have had a bit of not-quite-hands-on time with the Magic.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 5:35

  Mobile CDN Offers First Official iPhone Streaming App

   »  TechCrunch
  This past weekend, Mobile CDN made a fairly significant move in the mobile world when it streamed footage of the NBA All-Star game live over mobile phones. Why? Mobile CDN launched the first live streaming application approved by Apple and that works over any wireless network Edge, 3G and WiFi phones. Until now, Apple hasn’t officially allowed iPhones to access streaming applications. So how did Mobile CDN break down Apple’s barriers? Mobile CDN approached streaming application, Orb, and asked the company to repurpose their existing technology to make a solution that could both be high quality and high capacity, in order to reach all iPhone users concurrently.

  

  
• 3:18

  Filtrbox Raises $1.4 Million, Launches Revamped Market Intelligence Tool

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Filtrbox, a startup for online brand monitoring and market intelligence that was part of the TechStars class of 2007, has announced that it closed a $1.4 million Series A funding round led by Flywheel Ventures and True Ventures at the end of last year. In conjunction with today’s funding announcement, the site is also launching an overhauled version of its main product,
  Filtrbox G2.

  The site allows users to monitor thousands of content sources, including blogs, Twitter, and FriendFeed. After inputting the terms they’d like to keep track of, Filtrbox can send them continuous updates, weeding out duplicates (you can also choose to receive periodic digests). Beyond typical metrics like relevance and how recently an article was published, Filtrbox can also gauge how relevant an article is by analyzing its source (obscure bloggers will have a lower priority than mainstream press).

  The original version of the site launched in June 2008, and while the core functionality in the new version remains the same, it has a handful of notable improvements. Users with premium accounts (which cost $10/month) will now be able to monitor an unlimited number of search queries at the same time (previously there was a maximum limit of 25). Other new features include the ability to view results as graphs, export data for use in other programs, and collaboration tools that allow users to share search results, with granular privacy settings.

  The site also offers a more basic free version, which has fewer features and restricts users to five simultaneous searches. Other players in this space include BuzzGain, which launched in January.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 3:03

  Medpedia’s Health Platform Could Be Just What The Doctor Ordered

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Medpedia Project, an initiative we wrote about during its private beta launch, has unveiled a public version of its trustworthy, fully transparent technology platform for the worldwide health community. Combining social networking with Web 2.0 health information, Medpedia’s website offers consumers a Wikipedia for health information, a LinkedIn network for health professionals, and a Facebook-like platform where consumers and experts can have a medical dialogue about treatment and conditions.

  Medpedia has developed partnerships with Harvard Medical School, Stanford School of Medicine, Berkeley School of Public Health, University of Michigan Medical School and other health organizations to help bring content and medical networks to the site. Many of the health institutions are offering the content free of copyright restrictions. Already, 25 medical and government institutions in both the U.S. and the U.K. have signed on to Medpedia to use its professional network.

  When comparing the angioplasty information pages on WebMD, Wikipedia, and Medpedia (from a consumers point view), I found Medpedia’s post much easier to understand, both visually and content-wise. The pictures of the procedure and condition were detailed and the description offered two versions of the procedure, the clinical and “plain english” version, which can be helpful when doing extensive research on a condition. The ability to edit or add information to these pages can only be done by physicians and PhD’s in the biomedical and life sciences fields, adding some legitimacy to what the consumer is reading. The user can even see the name of the post’s author and can suggest changes in the post.

  What seems particularly innovative is the formation of social networking platforms in Medpedia. While WebMD offers a news platform for professionals, the customized LinkedIn-like application could be valuable in the medical community for finding jobs, speakers for conferences and for referrals. The “Communities of Interest” section, though similar in idea to other online health forums like Trusera or PatientsLikeMe, offers a new twist. Users must submit their real names in profiles. This may be an obstacle to engaging consumers, who remain hesitant to publicly reveal health history or attach their names to certain medical conditions.

  Medpedia was founded by James Currier, a well-respected and experienced Silicon Valley entrepreneur. The company is funded and operated by Ooga Labs (also founded by Currier), a technology greenhouse in San Francisco. It doesn’t appear that there has been such an integrated and comprehensive medical platform to date. With the backing of the world’s best medical institutions and the support of the technology space’s most enterprising and respected leaders (Mitch Kapor is on Medpedia’s board of advisors), Medpedia has the potential to be a powerful all-in-one technology platform for the health community. Now all Medpedia has to do is incorporate the power of Twitter into the platform.

  Here are a few screen shots:

  
  
  

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 0:10

  TechStars Fills Void Left By Y Combinator With New Incubator In Boston

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Boulder, Colorado-based startup incubator TechStars has decided to open a second office in Boston where it will run a concurrent mentorship program starting this summer.

  The Boston program - which will probably be located in Cambridge - will accept the same number of companies (10) as the Boulder program, effectively doubling the number of TechStars companies admitted each year. Assuming application rates don’t rise dramatically, this will make it easier for companies to get into the program - especially if they’re willing to relocate to either city.

  Co-founder David Cohen says that admission rates are about on par with last year, despite the recession. With the deadline of March 21st still over a month away, TechStars has already received 100 applications for its Boulder program. Last year, 400 applications were collected in total. Those who apply after today will get the chance to state a preference for either location, and those who have already applied to the Boulder program can contact TechStars to switch their preference to Boston.

  It would seem TechStars is intentionally trying to fill the mentorship void left by Y Combinator when that incubator announced its departure from Boston in January. However, Cohen says that TechStar’s expansion into Boston has been in the works for about six months now, so Y Combinator’s decision didn’t play a role.

  TechStars plans to run its Boston and Boulder programs mostly separately, even though they are going to be held at roughly the same times. About 5-6 investors have contributed to each program, and Boston has its own set of east coast mentors that includes Colin Angle, Don Dodge, Eran Egozy, and Chris Heidelberger. Boston entrepreneur Shawn Broderick will be in charge of managing the new branch.

  The programs will mix, however, at the end of both sessions when the best from each are combined and given the opportunity to present to investors in Silicon Valley.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 0:01

  MySpace Mobile to get a new look, Palm Pre and S60 support

   »  TechCrunch

  Design standards on the Web are constantly evolving, and the Mobile Web is no exception. We’re currently smack-dab in the middle of the Web App age, with users expecting their mobile browser-based services to provide a rich visual experience closer to that of a native application than the ultra lightweight (and generally ugly), text-centric pages of yesteryear. Looking to embrace this change, MySpace will soon debut a new version of its mobile site (m.myspace.com) whilst simultaneously announcing support for S60 and webOS, the platform set to launch with Palm’s much-lauded Pre.

  MySpace anticipates 50% of their total traffic to come from mobiles within the next few years, so a refresh of the mobile site makes a lot of sense. The new layout (see mockup below) takes a bunch of design cues from the native MySpace applications - especially the Android app. A number of navigational items have been converted from text to icons, with sub-navigation items losing the old fashioned numbers for icons as well.

  

  Beyond being for the sake of modernity, the new look should help dramatically with enhancing the brand’s identity in the mobile space. Note the use of MySpace’s signature blue in the header and footer, something which was curiously absent in the previous design.

  For all the curious scalability geeks out there: John Faith, MySpace’s General Manager and VP of Mobile Operations, tells me that this is as much an architectural change as it is visual. They’ve moved away from XML/XSLT transformations and towards a MVC (model-view-controller) architecture, with significant leverage of Microsoft’s ASP.NET. If all the acronyms are hurting your brain, this is essentially just a fancy way of saying MySpace Mobile’s servers should now be able to handle a good amount more without things getting shaky.

  While no specific timing has been set for the new site’s launch, we’re told that we’ll probably see it go live sometime around Chris DeWolfe’s Mobile World Congress keynote on Thursday.

  As previously mentioned, MySpace is also announcing plans to support Symbian S60 and Palm’s webOS when it debuts with the Pre later this year. Combine these coming additions with the support already in place for Android, BlackBerry OS, Sidekick OS and the iPhone, and MySpace supports just about every major smartphone platform besides Windows Mobile. When we asked about Windows Mobile, Myspace responded by saying “it has great relationships with everyone and wants to be everywhere”. Our sources close to both companies say Myspace and Microsoft have been in talks for awhile, so we wouldn’t be surprised to see them knock that last one off the list before too long.

  Random tidbits gleaned from our discussions with MySpace:

  • Of all the mobile traffic they see, between 20% and 25% is from the native applications.
  • MySpace Mobile has seen 2 million installs in the past week, and has 20 million mobile users overall.

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• February 16, 2009
• 23:27

  iSkoot’s Kalaida Platform Makes Your Plain Phone Smarter

   »  TechCrunch

  

  iSkoot, the startup that specializes in creating software for the billions of mobile phones that aren’t smartphones, has released its new Kalaida Platform, allowing users to access their social networks, RSS feeds, and Email from their basic cell phones. The platform is the same one that powers iSkoot’s recently-released Notifier application available on AT&T’s Media Mall, but will be available to a broad range of carriers and has more supported services.

  The platform includes support for Facebook, Email, instant messaging, and RSS news services, and international carriers can add or remove services to suit their regions. Kalaida Platform is a big step for the company, which was previously best known for its mobile Skype client. The platform stems from iSkoot’s acquision of Social.im last September.

  iSkoot’s Kalaida Platform works with most phones, but it still requires a dataplan - something that many users with basic phones don’t have (at least in the United States). The carriers will love this, as it will drive some users to spring for their unlimited data packages, but iSkoot will still have to fend off competitors, who include Mig33 and Trutap.

  We should also note that iSkoot has finally ditched its funky purple skooter logo in favor of something a little more professional (looks like that $19 million funding round paid off).

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 19:33

  Justin.tv Is Redirecting Porn Queries Into Cash

   »  TechCrunch

  

  In the down economy, startups are trying everything they can think of to keep a steady flow of revenue coming in. For popular live-streaming video site Justin.tv, it looks like one of these measures is to try to capitalize on its users’ frequent searches for porn: if you run queries for terms like “xxx” or “sex”, the site will automatically redirect you to a third-party pornography page.

  Before users are redirected, they’re presented with a message for five seconds indicating that while Justin.tv has banned adult content, the site is sending them to “a site where you can find what you’re looking for”. The new “feature” may be flying under the banner of convenience, but the site is clearly looking for a new source of income. Justin.tv may well be having trouble coping in the current economy, and a porn affiliate pays far more than a blank search results page.

  I don’t think there’s anything morally wrong with what Justin.tv is doing - it’s highly unlikely anyone is going to accidentally search the site for “xxx” and get offended when they’re sent to a porn site (though they might get annoyed). But the new ‘feature’ doesn’t gel with much of the content on the site, which features clips of puppies and video games on its home page. And the site should really include a page confirming that the user is over 18 before redirecting them (there seems to be no such confirmation found on at least some of the redirected porn sites).

  Above all, I sincerely hope this isn’t the start of a new trend. I hate when sites redirect me without my permission, and fear that other startups could expand on this technique to include other search categories - how annoying would it be if a search for “soccer” sent users to Nike’s homepage? It may sound like an extreme case, but many startups are getting desperate, and a good user experience is often among the first things sacrificed as they try to stay afloat.

  Update: Justin.tv CEO Michael Seibel has sent us the following response to this story:

  Justin.tv uses a variety of common tools to effectively reduce the
  amount of inappropriate content on the site including: community-based
  reporting, community admins, chat moderation and redirecting
  sex-related search queries.

  Lets be clear, this isn’t the magical solution for monetizing Web 2.0,
  these tools exclusively help us to improve the community experience on
  the site.

  
  
  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 17:37

  Zuckerberg On Who Owns User Data On Facebook: It’s Complicated

   »  TechCrunch

  

  When Facebook recently changed its terms of service to no longer allow users to delete their data when they leave the service, it justifiably created an uproar. Just what is Facebook planning to do with this data, and isn’t it mine to delete if I wish. In a blog post, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg tries to calm everyone down.

  Essentially, he says that the issues are not so cut and dry. When you share your data with someone else, whether it be an email or a photo, it becomes their data as well. You cannot normally rescind data you share with other people in an e-mail. So why should a social network be any different? Zuckerberg explains:

  Our philosophy is that people own their information and control who they share it with. . . . One of the questions about our new terms of use is whether Facebook can use this information forever. When a person shares something like a message with a friend, two copies of that information are created—one in the person’s sent messages box and the other in their friend’s inbox. Even if the person deactivates their account, their friend still has a copy of that message. We think this is the right way for Facebook to work, and it is consistent with how other services like email work. One of the reasons we updated our terms was to make this more clear.

  In reality, we wouldn’t share your information in a way you wouldn’t want. The trust you place in us as a safe place to share information is the most important part of what makes Facebook work. . . .

  Still, the interesting thing about this change in our terms is that it highlights the importance of these issues and their complexity. People want full ownership and control of their information so they can turn off access to it at any time. At the same time, people also want to be able to bring the information others have shared with them—like email addresses, phone numbers, photos and so on—to other services and grant those services access to those people’s information. These two positions are at odds with each other. There is no system today that enables me to share my email address with you and then simultaneously lets me control who you share it with and also lets you control what services you share it with.

  Zuckerberg is saying, “Trust us.” But it is difficult to trust a company that is stripping users of rights they’ve become accustomed to, even if hardly any of them ever actually asserted those rights in practice. And the principle that you should be able to delete your data from the Facebook service is one that many would argue trumps the good that is done by letting Facebook keep it. If I upload a picture which I later regret uploading, why shouldn’t I be able to erase it from Facebook forever, even if some of my friends have already seen it? And should there be different rules for different media? Most people consider the messages in their inbox to be theirs, even if the sender wishes they’d never sent it? And as this data is shared beyond Facebook across the Web, who controls what becomes even harder to determine.

  Like Zuckerberg says, it’s complicated.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 16:51

  What Do Sirius and Blu-ray Have In Common? (Hint: Nothing Good).

   »  TechCrunch

  

  It’s tempting to blame the downturn for all the bad news hitting tech in 2009, but downturns have a healthy impact too. They burn away the brush of businesses that looked good enough on paper to keep raising money, but never quite worked in reality. Consider two stories in the news today: The possible bankruptcy of Sirius XM Radio in the next 24 hours and the looming ouster of its chief executive Mel Karmazin, and the slumping DVD sales that the so-called “winning” BluRay format is doing little to boost.

  Stick with me here: I realize satellite radio and DVDs are very different businesses. But if you look at how Sirius XM, Howard Stern, Sony, Hollywood studios and all their various fans and stakeholders got into this mess, you’ll see two things in common that are causing more problems for their continued viability than waning consumer spending and locked-up credit markets.

  1. Both businesses were too confident that trends of the past would repeat in the Web age. Go back to 2004 and read the press both Howard Stern and Karmazin did when they bet their futures on and bolstered their bank accounts with fat Sirius deals. Nearly every time either was asked whether people wanted to pay for a device and pay a radio subscription fee on top of that, they countered that the same doubts were there at the beginning of cable TV and that the same thing that premium cable did to broadcast was happening with radio. Similarly, during the Blu-ray/HD-DVD wars, there was a blanket assumption that this battle was clearly VHS/Beta, Part Two and hence the winner would inherit a big multi-year-growth market. Beware new technologies whose arguments are rooted in something that happened decades ago.

  Clearly, in both cases, the creative-destructive power of the Web was vastly underestimated. In a Web world, there are not only far fewer people willing to pay for content, but they’re willing to pay far less than in the past. Put another way, free distribution of popular podcasts like Diggnation or on-demand episodes of “The Office” for $1 were never forces with which cable TV and VHS had to reckon.

  Similarly, the satellite radio and Blu-ray/HD-DVD wars also missed a substantial shift in how people want to consume media: They’d rather rent than own. The reason my husband and I have a bookshelf filled with (dusty, still shrink-wrapped) DVDs was the early lure of having our favorite movies at our fingertips. Now, we essentially have that via a combination of TiVo with a DVD burner, Vudu, Netflix, iTunes, and Comcast OnDemand without cluttering up our living room.

  2. Both spent way too much money on the assumption that past-was-prologue. Even given the above point, it’s possible there were still good businesses to be built out of satellite radio and a next generation DVD standard. There are plenty of rabid audio/video geeks and early adopters, and at just .43 cents a day satellite radio is hardly an unaffordable luxury. And, as Karmazin points out, satellite radio customers and revenues are growing in double digits. The problem was the stakeholders in both visions believed so much in the assumptions described above that they spent billions blindly driving towards this El Dorado market, utterly ignoring their balance sheets along the way.

  Sirius and XM acted like 1999-era companies filing for IPOs, and racking up a combined $3.25 billion in debt, before ever turning a profit or proving exactly what the spoils of this shift from terrestrial radio to satellite would be. It’s a rookie mistake when it comes to new tech markets: Getting more wrapped up with beating a rival before your market really exists, or a classic case of putting the cart before the horse. See: Stern’s $500 Million deal with Sirius and Toshiba paying studios like Paramount and DreamWorks a reported $150 million to offer movies in HD-DVD exclusively. These were only a few of the high-priced deals struck on all sides of the two wars. Contrast that to a rivalry like MySpace and Facebook. Sure there’s some good-natured sparring. But there’s also a realization that social networking is in its early days, and the bigger problem is figuring out the business model, not killing one another. Market before market-share.

  The result? Sirius and Sony find themselves in 2009 with combined billions of dollars in debt and shareholder cash wasted, scorched earth all around them and two victors of a still uncertain market standing and wobbly. And, for both Karmazin and Sony’s Sir Howard Stringer, uncertainty about their future employment.

  For those who believe that tech always leads the U.S. out of recessions, there’s a lesson from the meltdown and billions lost in the war for satellite radio and next-generation DVDs: Beware of the old adage that history repeats itself. Because if markets are truly innovating, patterns of the past only hold up so much.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 16:40

  Welcome, Sarah Lacy

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Over the next few weeks, you will see a new byline on TechCrunch. We are fortunate to have tech journalist and blogger Sarah Lacy filling in as a guest writer here over the next few weeks while Michael takes some much-deserved time off.

  Sarah is the author of Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good: The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0 (available at Amazon), she is the co-host of Yahoo’s Tech Ticker with Henry Blodget, and she still writes the “Valley Girl” column for BusinessWeek, where she started out as a reporter.

  As I say, we are lucky to have her. Please give her a hearty TechCrunch welcome.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 15:58

  Dawdle Invites Game Resellers To Set Up Shop

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Dawdle, an online market for resold games, consoles and accessories, relaunched this past Fall as a niche eBay competitor of sorts. It’s a place where gamers can get some money back on their old supplies, albeit not through auctions but a straightforward price listing and “buy it now” process.

  After amassing a collection of about 5,000 unique items for sale across the site (but not yet amassing much traffic), Dawdle has decided to make things more attractive to independent, brick-and-mortar retailers who might want to sell their excess inventory online. In addition to simply listing your goods alongside everything else on Dawdle, individuals and stores alike can now set up their own virtual, branded storefronts. These are intended to help resellers cultivate their reputations onsite and hopefully ship more units.

  Dawdle already has a handful of these storefronts up and running, such as one for BRE Software and another for Magisterrex. Products listed on each storefront can be filtered by type, price, platform, genre, and more. There appears to be no shipping fees or tax for any products, and Dawdle takes a consistent 11.99% commission on all sales.

  Seller reputations are built around user reviews and the number of ways sellers identify themselves. Their rankings go up, in particular, the more they link their storefronts to sites that reinforce their identities (Facebook, Twitter, Xbox Live, etc).

  CEO Sachin Agarwal says that the items on Dawdle are currently split about 50/50 between newly released products (like those for the Xbox, Wii, PS3, etc) and classic products (like those for Nintendo 64, Genesis, NES, etc.) To generate interest in this new storefront feature, Dawdle has hired a sales team that will actively reach out to independent retailers.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 14:54

  Microsoft Updates Windows Mobile To Make It More Like The iPhone. (My Phone, Anyone?).

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Once again, Microsoft is throwing some flattery Apple’s way by following its lead. Earlier today at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Microsoft announced the latest version of its mobile operating system, Windows Mobile 6.5. The new OS takes cues directly from the iPhone. It has “an improved touch-screen interface, making it easy to take action with a finger” (so advanced) and a dashboard-like interface with different application icons in honeycomb cells (screen shots).

  One of those icons will launch a Windows Marketplace with 20,000 mobile apps, similar to how the iTunes App Store can be accessed directly from the iPhone. And the phones will come with a new My Phone service, formerly codenamed Skybox, which sync contacts, emails, text messages, calendar, and pictures. Apple has a similar syncing service for the iPhone called MobileMe. The new mobile OS will appear in phones in the second half of 2009.

  The upgraded Windows Mobile is not a complete imitation, however. It probably takes more cues from the Zune than from the iPhone. There is also a status update/feed view which highlights new messages, voicemails, and calendar appointments. The updated mobile version of Internet Explorer which will be included in the OS will at least support Flash (something the iPhone stubbornly refuses to embrace).

  And the My Phone service, while it appears the same as MobileMe on the surface, is but the first step in Microsoft’s roll-out of its Live Mesh initiative. As more Live Mesh services become available, they should automatically be added to WinMo phones. If anything, that is where these phones will distinguish themselves from the iPhone down the line. Update: I was wrong about this. The My Phone service is based on technology from Mobicomp, a company Microsoft acquired last June. It has nothing to do with Live Mesh. But syncing with data on mobile phones is in Live Mesh’s roadmap, so hopefully these two technologies will eventually merge.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 14:48

  Nvidia Plans To Power $99 Mobile Internet Devices

   »  TechCrunch
  Nvidia has announced that it plans to power $99 mobile internet devices with its Tegra 600 series chips, perhaps as early as this summer. What's a mobile internet device (MID)? Well, it's a gadget that fits somewhere in between a smartphone and a netbook. It's compact and internet-enabled, but it can't quite fit in your pocket or make phone calls. It's primarily intended for web surfing and watching videos over a WiFi or 3G connection. According to VentureBeat, Nvidia is touting both the long battery life and the HD video capabilities of these Tegra-based devices. General Manager Michael Rayfield says they can go for days without a recharge and they support 1080p HD video playback, which is the high end of what you'll find streaming online.

  

  
• 14:27

  Mobile Startups Whittled Down To The Last Five in Barcelona

   »  TechCrunch

  The Mobile Peer Awards in Barcelona - running alongside Mobile World Congress - are wrapping up here and they’ve announced the winners. Why the hell does this matter? Well, about 163 mobile startups entered from all over the world, 42 got selected and only 20 got to present. That’s been whittled down to just five winners. Which are…

  Babajob - From Bangalore, India, this 12-person startup connects informal sector workers - cooks, maids, drivers, guards, etc.- and employers in India. That’s one big market, right?

  Orbster - Orbster is a developer of location-based entertainment like games, and has a publishing platform for third party location-based services. Their main product is GPS Mission, a platform for user-generated GPS games like scavenger hunts, historical timetravels, crime and mystery stories and guides. Users have already created GPS games in about 60 countries since launch in May 2008. GPS Mission was - apparently - the first worldwide playable GPS game for the iPhone.

  Unkasoft Advergaming - Unkasoft, Spanish company, is an in-games advertising company aiming at Mobile.

  Fring - We know all about them.

  The final award went to a rather astounding idea.

  PopCatcher Is a Stockholm, Sweden startup with a slightly mad piece of software. Their software records FM radio from the cell’s internal radio, separates the commercials and chat out from the songs and saves the songs on the handset as an MP3. They license the tech to handset makers and operators. It’s patented. Good luck with that guys…

  The rest of the 42 and the final 20 are listed here and here.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 12:20

  Clarizen: Project Management for Non-Project Managers (Free 1 yr. Subscriptions!)

   »  TechCrunch

  Many professionals I know are not project managers by profession and yet most at some point or another have had the dubious pleasure of battling it out with a project management (PM) application—MS Project typically the nightmare of choice. It begins with lofty ideals of planning and running an organized project (for once). Yet what usually happens is that they end-up managing the project management tool, rather than have it manage the project. Granted, PM tools have made progress in recent years, with Basecamp from 37Signals leading the charge with a Web-based subscription model that sports a user-friendly interface. The fact remains though that there’s a long way to go before non-project managers can put a hand on their heart and claim that the benefits of using a PM tool outweigh its overhead.

  This was that I had in mind when Israeli startup Clarizen approached me, explaining theirs is a project management and collaboration tool specifically aimed at non-project managers. There’s no question Clarizen is a latecomer to the space, but they seem to have the right ingredients: A fairly convenient interface, a smidgen of unique differentiation, and friendly pricing to boot—and $15M in funding doesn’t hurt either, of course.

  Clarizen is making two great offers available for TechCrunch readers:  First, Clarizen is auctioning off five (5) FREE one year subscriptions to TechCrunch readers. All you need to do is explain in the comments why you need and want Clarizen and how you intend to use it. The Clarizen team will select the 5 winners. Make sure to include a valid email address along with your comment!  Second, anyone who mentions this TechCrunch post to Clarizen’s sales team when making any purchase will receive one additional free subscription for the term of their purchase.

  Clarizen was designed as a PM tool for operational/functional managers (think: department heads). This is a good move because the biggest failing point in project management is probably during the set-up stage which requires the project be planned out to the “T” before it can be rolled out. This is a process that requires a high level of familiarity with such methodologies, so it’s no surprise why non-professional project managers bail on it so often.

  Clarizen deals with this basic problem by allowing the project participants to assist in the planning, even if the project has already begun. The collaborative planning and execution can transpire among teams working within the same organization, or among those whose resources are dispersed between two or more companies.

  Here’s an example: Let’s say my project is the creation of a Facebook app and I own entire the project. I can delegate my R&D manager to set and manage the in-house development process and its dependencies. When it comes to the user interface, though, I’ve gone with an outside contractor who obviously has his own work processes and dependencies. With Clarizen I can have the contractor enter and update all the relevant info independently, while I maintain a unified view of the project at large. As a side note, Clarizen includes with each company subscription a single free license for a partner.

  One of the things I like about Clarizen is that it puts reality above methodology. Even if the full scope is unknown or the whole plan is not complete, projects can be kicked-off by activating only the parts that are ready to roll. At any point, any portion of the project can be switched back to draft mode, be paused, re-planned and reactivated. So if the graphics designer goes snowboarding for a week unexpectedly (something far too many of us can relate to), no problem, the task can be reactivated when he/she gets back. Other PM tools provide similar functionality but in a version control paradigm that involves the project’s “baseline”. Basically this creates a new version of the project each time an “anomaly” (i.e., delays caused by the real world) occur.  Clarizen, in contrast, treats delays as a normal occurrence.

  Another feature I found useful is that Clarizen allows projects to be updated without having to log into the application. Using the Facebook app example above, the contractor would be sent an email notification (screenshot below) with a link to a form in which the task statuses can be updated. No login is required, no subscription has to be purchased. Very convenient indeed.

  Clarizen has been selling its solution for a year now with the bulk of its customer base considering it an alternative to heavy-duty enterprise solutions such as Clarity and Primavera. The company did not reveal the amount of actual subscribers it has, but did share with me that it has over 200 customers and that current contract closures are predominantly for 12-month terms.

  

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 11:02

  A Peer-to-Peer Plaxo: Glynx Launches P2P Identity Management

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Glynx, not to be confused with the recently released Ginx, is taking a peer-to-peer approach to identity management and in the process promises to help its users take back control of their online identities. After downloading the Glynx software to either a PC or a Mac, you have a Plaxo-like contact manager for online contacts, email addresses and phone numbers, except there is no central directory. Instead, Glynx has a directory it calls the “Blackpages” that exists spread out on user’s computers. You can look up specific IDs of people you know by entering their email addresses or mobile numbers, but you can’t do browse it indiscriminately (this feature is supposed to make it more difficult for spammers to exploit the directory).

  Glynx allows you to import your contacts from Outlook, Skype, and Facebook. It also offers a rich presence management tool that tells you when your Glynx contacts are online and the best way to contact them at any given moment. Finally, your Glynx ID also serves as an OpenID, making it easier to maintain a single identity across the Web.

  Here is how the company describes the main benefits of its software:

  Without Glynx, the web sites and service providers pretty much control how your information is used. They are in a position to watch your relationships and monitor what information you are sharing, and with whom. Your e-mail and messaging is increasingly full of SPAM and attempts to defraud you or steal your online identity. And your mobile connectivity and productivity is at the mercy of your service provider

  . . . With Glynx your information stays on your PC. Unless, of course, you wish to share it with someone else - in which case it gets sent directly from your PC to theirs. No middle-men. But even before you share information, Glynx lets you know who you are dealing with. And you can know what each of your contacts is up to as soon as they do.

  Glynx encrypts all entries to its distributed directory, and claims that nobody controls the directory. Thus, nobody knows what is in it other than the entries they have put into it or discovered in a piecemeal fashion.

  Is this what phishers and spammers have reduced us to—looking for ways to hide in our own private Internet?

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 5:14

  Nokia Unveils Ovi Store, Application Sales To Debut In May

   »  TechCrunch

  

  At the Mobile Word Congress in Barcelona, Nokia has unveiled its initiative to try and repeat the runaway succes of Apple’s App Store with its own mobile storefront dubbed Ovi Store. This was an expected move as the rumors about the Finnish mobile juggernaut’s mobile applications store already spread last week; they were late confirmed to Reuters by industry sources.

  Here’s how they pitch it:

  “Offering a range of content including applications, games, videos, widgets, podcasts, location-based applications and personalised content, Ovi Store will be available on S60 and Series 40 devices. The first device to include the mobile storefront on board will be the Nokia N97, set to launch in June. Meanwhile tens of millions of existing S60 and Series 40 devices will be able to take advantage of the store from May. Ovi Store is unique in its ability to target content based on where you are, when you’re there, why you are where you are and who else has downloaded similar content.”

  That last part, as well as the geo-location features, seems interesting. Ovi Store will include what it calls a ’social discovery’ feature which will enable users to find out which content is being used by their social network peers, as they will automatically be highlighted and made available for download on their devices.

  Nokia, still the number-one maker of mobile phones until further notice, expects that the store will reach 300 million users by 2012. According to The Guardian, Nokia also said 70 percent of revenues from the store would go back to software developers.

  As from today, content publishers and developers will be able to register for the Ovi Store here, but they will only be able to upload starting next month. The application store will be gradually rolled out, starting next May in nine countries.

  CrunchBase Information Nokia Nokia Ovi Information provided by CrunchBase

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 2:52

  Adobe Is All Flash. Announces Vaporware For Several Mobile Phones, Except The iPhone.

   »  TechCrunch
  Adobe wants everyone to know that its fully-featured Flash Player, not the dinky lite version, will be available on many mobile phones . . . in 2010. So hang tight until then. The phones that will support Flash 10 include the Palm Pre, Nokia S60 models, Android phones, and Windows Mobile (but we already knew about those last two). Seriously, Adobe has been working on this for how long now? Maybe it is waiting for phones to come out with their own special Flash graphics processors. Conspicuously absent from this vaporware announcement is the iPhone. Apple still thinks Flash is a resource hog and likely has some other business issues with it (even though Adobe is waiving its license fee for Flash on mobile devices).

  

  
• February 15, 2009
• 20:00

  Travelzoo’s Fly.com Launches Yet Another Travel Search Aggregator

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Publicly traded travel site Travelzoo has launched the beta version of its new comprehensive airfare search engine, Fly.com. At first glance, Fly.com is a Kayak-look alike (except that Fly.com searches are limited to airfares only). The two sites offer virtually the same search options, except that Fly.com’s price comparison sites are limited to Priceline and Hotwire, whereas Kayak offers comparison searches on Priceline, Hotwire, Expedia, Travelocity and Airfare.com

  What differentiates Fly.com from Kayak is the way in which a user can see the listed flight information. Fly.com includes a summary view, where each airline’s lowest and highest prices is listed. The user can then click on the airline to see the flight times and ranges. Also, the user can see the economy, business and first-class prices in one search. And Fly.com’s results include “Why Me?” boxes, which inform travelers about amenities on a specific route or airline. For example, a “Why Me?” box attached to Virgin Airlines informs the user about Virgin’s in-flight entertainment options. While some of these may be innovative, it’s doubtful that these differentiators will be enough to drive people away from a more comprehensive site, like Kayak, where a user can also search for rental cars, hotels and package vacations. That said, Fly.com does seem to have at least a few advantages - for one the site lists American Airlines flight options, whereas the airline company ditched its listings on Kayak. Update: American actually returned to Kayak in October.

  Travelzoo created buzz around its $1.8 million purchase of the domain “Fly.com” in January. Undoubtedly, Fly.com is a highly desirable domain name, but history has dictated that success does not necessarily correlate with a good name (just take a look at the Pets.com fiasco). Hopefully, Fly.com can figure out a way to truly stand out in the sea of travel search engines.

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 17:57

  Experiences Of A Newbie iPhone Developer

   »  TechCrunch

  Noel Hartshorn (left in the picture) is a 37 year old Wales (UK) based iPhone developer, working in partnership with illustrator Dennis Harrison (on the right). Formerly a contract technical writer, Noel became one of the many casualties of the global economic crisis. With the IT contract market in decline, and with a lot more time on his hands than anticipated, Noel decided to take the plunge into iPhone development. This is his story.

  (Editor’s note: the app they developed is called i-Doodz. Noel decided not to include the name of, nor the link to the app in this piece, but we add it because it deserves some credit at least)

  

  It is now 4 months and 24 days since my contract as a Senior Technical Writer with a large PC manufacturer was terminated; a result of “streamlining”, “resource rationalization” or whatever the currently favored term for “axe wielding” is.

  4 months and 24 days of energy sapping job hunting, wondering when the next significant income will present itself, and doing everything possible to avoid being a statistic and a burden to the welfare system.

  It is 2 months and 6 days since, over a few bottles of budget beer, illustrator Dennis Harrison and I had an idea for an iPhone application that would surely leave other developers in awe, and the global iPhone community screaming for more. This was it - the solution to our financial woes – we’re going to make millions! All we need is a little bit of money and a good iPhone developer.

  It seems the world is full of iPhone developers offering their services, and they cost a lot more than our budget would stretch to. When the quotes came in, realization dawned – we’d have to do it ourselves. The fact that I hadn’t programmed anything more than a website in over 15 years was only briefly considered, and I invested the profits from selling a beloved surfboard on eBay in a few iPhone development books. Dennis in the meantime got to work on the illustrations that would be the focus of our app – a slightly off the wall character designer and e-card sender.

  At this point we had read a few App Store Cinderella stories, and decided to file them under “unachievable”. In the “possibly achievable” file were the accounts of a plethora of developers who are making a little pocket money from their efforts, maybe even a modest income. With expectations lowered, if that is all we would end up with, it was still worth doing. Slightly more income than nothing is, undeniably, more than nothing.
  The development process was relatively straightforward. My rusty skills quickly caught up with modern programming concepts, or at least enough to achieve our goal.

  Within 5 weeks our app was complete, and we began the process of enrolling in Apple’s iPhone Developer Program in order to get our app listed in iTunes for the world to see and, hopefully, buy. At this point, many iPhone developers would expect to read a tale of misery and woe, but for us the process was, in all honesty, a walk in the park. Our app went on sale on January 16th 2009. Then the real hard work began.

  The iTunes App Store is a weird, wonderful and ever-changing beast. If a developer launches an app and leaves it alone expecting it to earn money, it won’t. Making money is an ongoing and often demoralizing effort, largely involving trial and error. First of all, how much should an app cost? Should it be free? (Not if we want to feed ourselves). Should it go for the cheapest price point of 59p? Such a tiny amount belittled our efforts, and grouped our software with the “pull-my-finger” apps that are the scourge of iTunes, but which are, for now at least, remarkably (although spectacularly disappointingly) successful. After spending 25 minutes developing our own pull-my-finger app to fit into that particular market, we eventually settled on £2.39 for our main app, which to us seemed a snip whilst also reflecting our hard work and maybe, just maybe, allow us to consider ordering curry sauce with our chips. Playing with the price of the app was interesting – changing it made little difference to daily revenues. The trade-off was the number of daily downloads.

  Next, the tried and trusted Lite version strategy. Tried and trusted?! Despite the description of our no-cost Lite version stating its inadequacies, it received the apparently to-be-expected “needs more!”, “is that it?!” and “it should have….” comments. It seems all apps should be free and make you cups of tea whilst implementing global peace and eradicating Third World debt. Our Lite version does none of that. It simply provides a taster of the paid version. Apparently, this was naïve.

  Updates. This is proving to be an important aspect of promotion. Every time an app is updated, it goes back to the top of the “list”. We’ve just launched our third update. Some developers have released 20 updates to their app in the same space of time. Note to self – make sure there are more typographical errors in the next app.

  Final strategy – market, market, market…with neither marketing experience nor budget. The Internet is awash with iPhone app “review” sites, none of which bear any resemblance to an iPhone app review site; merely providing data extracted directly from iTunes, presented in a less friendly manner. Many long days of blogging, emailing, pleading and gazing at the screen wondering who to contact next have, however, resulted in a handful of good reviews. Whether these have any effect on sales or not is impossible to tell.

  All this effort to promote our software is having two effects; I am no longer aware of what is going on in the world, and people are slowly starting to buy our app. Whilst we’re not mentioned in the Top 100 apps in our chosen category, we are starting to make money - almost enough to provide us with a basic salary each. With the continued effort, the gradually increasing number of good reviews, and a new themed version launching imminently, we’re looking through rose tinted spectacles at the possibility that we can soon stop searching job sites for a 9 to 5. Moonlighting, however, may be required.

  Our experience has shown that jumping on the App Store bandwagon is relatively easy. Staying on it, sticking with it and reaping the benefits are a whole different ball game. There are at least 15,000 iPhone apps listed in iTunes. For every big winner there are hundreds of underdogs. For every little gem there is a wall of “fart apps” obscuring the view. For every single app there is at least one developer hoping they have guessed this week’s gimmick correctly.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 12:08

  Mining The Thought Stream

   »  TechCrunch

  

  What if you could peer into the thoughts of millions of people as they were thinking those thoughts or shortly thereafter? And what if all of these thoughts were immediately available in a database that could be mined easily to tell you what people both individually and in aggregate are thinking right nowabout any imaginable subject or event? Well, then you’d have a different kind of search engine altogether. A real-time search engine. A what’s-happening-right-now search engine.

  In fact, the crude beginnings of this “now” search engine already exists. It is called Twitter, and it is a big reason why new investors poured another $35 million into the two-year-old startup on Friday. Twitter is not the only company trying to solve this problem. Facebook, FriendFeed, and even Google are trying to crack it, but Twitter has a decided advantage in that it is capturing the vast majority of the real-time thought stream on the Web (because more people enter their thoughts directly into Twitter’s database than any other, and are doing so at an increasing rate).

  What makes Google and other search engines so valuable is that they capture people’s intent—what they are looking for, what they desire, what they want to learn about. But they don’t do a great job at capturing what people are doing or what they are thinking about. For thoughts and events that are happening right now, searching Twitter increasingly brings up better results than searching Google.

  Whether you want to know how people are mentally gearing up for this week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona or what they are thinking about today’s Ireland vs. Italy rugby match, searching Twitter will give you a pretty good smattering of sentiment and opinion. It is also a lot faster at getting out the essential details about breaking news, such as the Mumbai attacks or the plane that landed on the Hudson.

  Twitter’s search engine is powered by Summize, a startup it acquired last July. But it also developed a feature called Track, currently disabled but coming back soon, that allowed people to follow the mention of specified keywords. John Borthwick, an investor in Summize (and thus now an investor in Twitter), explained in a blog post earlier this month ago why he thinks that “Twitter search changes everything.” Excerpt:

  Imagine you are in line waiting for coffee and you hear people chattering about a plane landing on the Hudson. You go back to your desk and search Google for plane on the Hudson — today — weeks after the event, Google is replete with results — but the DAY of the incident there was nothing on the topic to be found on Google. Yet at http://search.twitter.com the conversations are right there in front of you. The same holds for any topical issues — lipstick on pig? — for real time questions, real time branding analysis, tracking a new product launch — on pretty much any subject if you want to know whats happening now, search.twitter.com will come up with a superior result set.

  . . . How is real time search different? History isn’t that relevant — relevancy is driven mostly by time. . . . This reformulation of search as navigation is, I think, a step into a very new and different future. Google.com has suddenly become the source for pages — not conversations, not the real time web. What comes next? I think context is the next hurdle. Social context and page based context. . . . Twitter search today is crude — but so was Google.com once upon a not so long time ago.

  Twitter may just be a collection of inane thoughts, but in aggregate that is a valuable thing. In aggregate, what you get is a direct view into consumer sentiment, political sentiment, any kind of sentiment. For companies trying to figure out what people are thinking about their brands, searching Twitter is a good place to start. To get a sense of what I’m talking about, try searching for “iPhone,” “Zune,” or “Volvo wagon”.

  Why can’t Google simply index Twitter? It does, but its search results give more weight to links than to time. It could create a new search product along the lines of Blog Search or News search that is geared more towards Micro-messaging services such as Twitter, FriendFeed, and the rest. But what it really needs to go beyond simply indexing Twitter after the fact. IVP partner, and Twitter investor, Todd Chaffee, suggests:

  If they were really smart they could partner with Twitter and make Twitter their real-time feed.

  Doing that would require Google to “affirm Twitter’s dominance in this category and the importance of the Twitter data stream,” contends Borthwick. But so far, Google has pretty much flubbed this opportunity to open up real-time search. It bought Twitter competitor Jaiku, only to shut it down. And now it is hoping to create a counterweight to Twitter’s growing strength in real-time data by open-sourcing Jaiku. Good luck with that one.

  Listening to Twitter’s investors gives a good sense of how they think Twitter can become a game-changer in real-time search. While it is instructive, it is also important to note that much of this vision has yet to materialize. Twitter’s current search is extremely crude, as Borthwick readily admits. It simply brings up the most recent Tweets with the keyword you are looking for. There is no ranking or clustering beyond that.

  An undifferentiated thought stream of the masses at some point becomes unwieldy. In order to truly mine that data, Twitter needs to figure out how to extract the common sentiments from the noise (something which Summize was originally designed to do, by the way, but it was putting the cart before the horse—you need to be able to do simple searches before you start looking for patterns). But what is the best way to rank real-time search results—by number of followers, retweets, some other variable? It is not exactly clear. But if Twitter doesn’t solve this problem, someone else will and they will make a lot of money if they do it right.

  (Photo by Patrick Boury).

  

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• February 14, 2009
• 21:40

  MTV Pulls The Plug On Embeddable Videos

   »  TechCrunch

  

  When NBC Universal and News Corporation-backed Hulu launched in Fall 2007, it was a signal that old television media might actually grasp the distributive power of the internet. Not only were great programs made available for free as streaming videos, users could grab and embed them anywhere online - in their entirety or just as clips.

  So it’s a bit of a shame to see another giant media conglomerate, Viacom, buck this trend and actually clamp down on the embedding of videos from the MTV Network. Yesterday in a post to its developer blog, a staff member for MTVN developer services announced that video embeds would no longer be available through MTV’s API, starting sometime in early March.

  Currently, developers can build websites that embed videos from MTV, VH1, CMT and Logo (such as this one that also embeds videos from YouTube). But soon developers will be allowed to display only thumbnails and meta data associated with MTV’s videos. If users want to watch the actual videos, they’ll have to follow links back to webpages that are owned and monetized by MTVN.

  This not only means that developers can no longer build websites that automatically incorporate MTVN’s high quality video content; you simply won’t find legitimate embeds from MTVN anywhere, since you’re already not allowed to embed the videos as an end user.

  We don’t know yet why MTVN decided to pull the plug on the most useful part of its API, but we do know that at least several developers are angry, especially since they helped MTVN debug the API only to see their capabilities limited. We’ve sent an email to the staff member who posted the announcement and hope to hear back from him soon.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 21:40

  MTV Pulls The Plug On Embeddable Videos [Update]

   »  TechCrunch

  

  When NBC Universal and News Corporation-backed Hulu launched in Fall 2007, it was a signal that old television media might actually grasp the distributive power of the internet. Not only were great programs made available for free as streaming videos, users could grab and embed them anywhere online - in their entirety or just as clips.

  So it’s a bit of a shame to see another giant media conglomerate, Viacom, buck this trend and actually clamp down on the embedding of videos from the MTV Network. Yesterday in a post to its developer blog, a staff member for MTVN developer services announced that video embeds would no longer be available through MTV’s API, starting sometime in early March.

  Currently, developers can build websites that embed videos from MTV, VH1, CMT and Logo (such as this one that also embeds videos from YouTube). But soon developers will be allowed to display only thumbnails and meta data associated with MTV’s videos. If users want to watch the actual videos, they’ll have to follow links back to webpages that are owned and monetized by MTVN.

  This not only means that developers can no longer build websites that automatically incorporate MTVN’s high quality video content; you simply won’t find legitimate embeds from MTVN anywhere, since you’re already not allowed to embed the videos as an end user (Correction: End users can actually grab an embed code from the player and there’s been no announcement as to whether this will change as well).

  We don’t know yet why MTVN decided to pull the plug on the most useful part of its API, but we do know that at least several developers are angry, especially since they helped MTVN debug the API only to see their capabilities limited. We’ve sent an email to the staff member who posted the announcement and hope to hear back from him soon.

  Update: MTVN Corporate Communications representative Mark Jafar has gotten back to me with the following details:

  All of our online video is and will remain embeddable for end users, just like Hulu. That includes music videos, clips and full-episode content across MTV.com, VH1.com, ComedyCentral.com and our entire Web portfolio.

  The only thing we’re pulling back is fully open access to our music video API, and it’s purely an issue of economics. Every music video we stream through the API costs us money due to our deals with the record labels, regardless of whether an ad is attached or not. So, allowing developers to use the open music video API can be a money-losing proposition for us. However, we’re absolutely open to extending the music video API to third-party publishers who are willing to work with us to monetize. It’s all about striking that right balance between innovation and commerce as we continue to move forward and try new things.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 17:12

  Mob Wars Creator Puts A Hit Out On Zynga, Sues For Copyright Infringement

   »  TechCrunch

  

  It looks like the controversy around Mob Wars , a very popular social network game that has been rumored to pull in as much as $1 million a month, is only getting started. Creator David Maestri and his company Psycho Monkey have filed suit against Zynga, a popular developer of social network games. The lawsuit centers on Zynga’s game Mafia Wars - a text-based game very similar to Mob Wars, which has also developed a large following.

  Zynga’s Mafia Wars launched after Maestri’s Mob Wars with very similar game play and design (not to mention a similar name). Since then some of the design elements have changed, but it’s clear that Zynga was at the very least inspired by Mob Wars (Maestri will likely contend it was a blatant clone). I suspect that Zynga will argue that text-based games similar to Mob Wars have been around for years, and games focused on mobsters are hardly a novelty. Should Maestri win the case, it would set important precedents for the future of social gaming, and would likely affect the many Mob Wars knockoffs on social networks like MySpace and Facebook and potentially the iPhone.

  It’s clear that Maestri is willing to go to great lengths to defend Mob Wars, especially after he spent many months in a legal battle with his former employer SGN over the rights to the game (which he developed while he was still employed there). SGN and Maestri settled their issues last December, in an agreement that gave Maestri the rights to Mob Wars but gave SGN full license to produce similar games in the future (SGN just released its first mobster related game last week).

  You can see the court docket for the case, called Psycho Monkey, LLC v. Zynga Game Network, Inc., here, but the complaint itself is not yet available online.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 15:50

  iFart v. Pull My Finger: The Court Case of the Century

   »  TechCrunch
  It's rare for a genius to truly get satisfaction in his own time. Picasso was unappreciated until much later in life and Van Gogh died before receiving the notoriety he deserved. And so we meet Joel Comm, creator of iFart Mobile, who finds himself so decidedly under-appreciated and misrepresented in the realm fart programs for the iPhone that he is suing his closest competitor, Pull My Finger. Mr. Comm, a well known web-marketer, describes how the company that makes Pull My Finger, Air-o-matic, asked for $50,000 for using the tagline "Pull my finger!" in some of his PR materials and on a YouTube video representing iFart Mobile. Long story short, now Comm is asking a judge to find that "pull my finger" is part of public domain, essentially shutting Air-o-Matic up with the legal system. His court documents are here.

  

  
• 8:20

  As The Economy Sours, LinkedIn’s Popularity Grows

   »  TechCrunch

  

  As layoffs continued to pound the economy in January, one beneficiary was job networking site LinkedIn. According to the latest January data from comScore, the LinkedIn’s U.S. unique visitors shot up 22 percent to 7.7 million, up from 6.3 million in December. Total minutes spent on the site doubled in January to 96.8 million, from 47.6 million in December.

  Part of what is driving all the activity is people looking for job, and helping friends who are out of work. Recommendations are up 65 percent since December, says spokesperson Kay Luo. LinkedIn’s improved people search, which it launched at the end of November, is also driving a lot of activity on the site. The company is seeing a 50 percent increase in activity on the new search platform.

  When times are tough, networking is a survival skill.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 7:54

  The Death Of “Web 2.0″

   »  TechCrunch

  I’m not going to discuss the economic meltdown and its devastating effect on technology companies and internet startups in this post, but rather something that crossed my mind earlier this morning: “Web 2.0″ seems to become more and more a void (and an avoided) term. Of course, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it is definitely apparent.

  So why do I say it’s fading? For one, because the number of startups that contact us and include the term Web 2.0 in the subject line or message is visibly dropping (and that’s a good thing), and I hardly ever see it mentioned anymore on other technology blogs and news sites either. That’s not really tangible, so I took a look at the number of mentions of the phrase across the web, and they seem to be decreasing significantly, reflecting my feeling on this.

  Judging by Google Trends, which shows how often a particular search term is entered relative to the total search volume across various regions of the world (and in various languages), the term started being used at the end of 2004 when Tim O’Reilly organized the first edition of the Web 2.0 Conference. Search queries for the term started picking up in the middle of 2005, when TechCrunch was started - with the tagline “Tracking Web 2.0″ by the way - and the number kept increasing until the end of 2007. After that, the trend is clearly downwards, falling back to the level it reached in early 2006 today. If the trend continues, there should only be a handful of people left who scour search engines for “Web 2.0″ by 2011.

  

  Also noteworthy: take a look at the geographic regions that have generated the highest volumes of worldwide search traffic for the term over the years - it’s Asia, with the top 5 regions being India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Malaysia (in that order). Furthermore, Google Trends pegs the number one language in which people search for stuff related to the topic of Web 2.0 to be Russian before English.

  

  And just in case you’re curious: “Web 3.0″ doesn’t seem to picking up much.
  Let’s all rejoice.

  Google’s “Insights for Search”, a beta service that analyzes a portion of worldwide Google web searches from all Google domains to compute how many searches have been done for the terms you’ve entered - relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time - gives an even better overview:

  

  I’ve never had anything against the phrase “Web 2.0″, but I wouldn’t miss it a bit if it were never used again.

  How about you?

  (Picture of Tim O’Reilly at Web 2.0 Expo 2007 by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid)

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• February 13, 2009
• 21:54

  MySpace Quietly Launches Site-Wide Image Search

   »  TechCrunch

  

  MySpace has introduced a new image search feature to its integrated search engine, allowing users to quickly search through photos shared by their friends and the MySpace community. While MySpace did not officially announce the new feature, the company has confirmed that it recently went live, and indexes around 3 billion of the site’s 7 billion photos. The addition reflects MySpace’s apparently increasing focus on its search engine, which also includes the site’s video and music content along with a Google-powered web search.

  Users are given the option to search through photos their friends have shared, those with viewing rights set to ‘public’ by other MySpace users, or images on Photobucket, which was acquired by MySpace’s parent company in 2007. MySpace says that all results are shown through a “social lense”, which means that the engine pays attention to keywords in your profile and who your friends are to try to generate the most relevant results.

  It’s a neat feature and one that I’m sure will improve over time, but in its current form MySpace Image Search is a little weird. While a search for “San Francisco” on Flickr or Google Image Search will generally yield city-scapes or famous landmarks, most of the results on MySpace feature people that you don’t know, with the famous landmarks in the background. Searches for celebrities like ‘Lil Wayne‘ tend to fare better, but you’ll still wind up with a number of MySpace users who have photographed themselves dressed up as the person you searched for. Like I said, it’s a little weird - though it can come in handy when you’re only concerned with looking through your friends’ photos.

  

  Much of the problem stems from the fact that Image Search relies on each photo’s meta-information, which includes tags and captions (about 4 billion of MySpace images don’t have any of this information, so they aren’t included in the index). Unfortunately, many of the photos on the social network are either poorly tagged or feature captions that are not particularly descriptive, which can lead to mixed results. MySpace wouldn’t comment on its future plans to improve the technology, but I suspect they’re working on some kind of image recognition engine that can provide more relevant results.

  We should note that Facebook has an image catalog of well over 10 billion photos (trumping MySpace’s by a significant margin), but the site’s setup with segmented networks and granular privacy settings probably isn’t conducive to a site-wide search.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 21:27

  Elevator Pitch Friday: Relenta Provides Economy Friendly CRM Solutions To Small Businesses

   »  TechCrunch

  This week’s elevator pitch comes from Relenta, a SaaS email-centric contact and task management platform. The pitch was concise and explained the product well but should have indicated more clearly how Relenta’s business model is viable (a.k.a. how they are going to make money).

  Relenta is an all-in-one email/customer relationship management/group calendar/mailing list management/task management application that displays activity in a chronological stream for users. Relenta’s CRM doesn’t seem to be offering different services than other big name CRMs, such as Salesforce, Zoho or SugarCRM, but Relenta’s all-in-one package offers several different types of software in one application. Small businesses who are trying to cut costs (though in this economy, all businesses are being mindful of software expenses) could find this product particularly useful. Relenta’s monthly rate is $25 per user with an allowance of 2500 contacts per user. Users can also add contacts for an additional fee.

  It appears that customers are satisfied with Relenta’s product from its customer feedback site. And like we predicted, most of Relenta’s customer base draws from small businesses. Relenta’s price seems right nd customers (many of who used Salesforce previously) feel that Relenta’s customer service rivals those of the bigger CRM providers.

  It’s tough to tell whether Relenta’s product will take off in a sea of similar applications but its always fun to root for the underdog.

  Here are some screenshots of the system:

  

  

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 18:56

  YouTube Kills Our Video Download Tool

   »  TechCrunch

  

  For the last few years we’ve offered a very basic tool for downloading YouTube videos that allowed users to enter the URL of any video to immediately get a link to a downloadable file. The tool does exactly the same thing as dozens of other sites and plugins, which have emerged because YouTube has long refused to offer similar functionality through its own site. Now, in light of yesterday’s news that the site is going to begin supporting downloads for a small number of videos, YouTube has apparently decided to crack down on these tools - and it looks like they’re making an example out of us.

  In the last 24 hours our tool stopped working, but every other method I’ve tried has worked fine so far, including a handful of other websites and popular Firefox extensions. It’s possible that YouTube was just disabling a certain technique of creating links to their video files that we happened to use, but it’s more likely that they singled us out (our tool has become very popular, and ranks second when you run a Google search for “download YouTube“).

  When asked why our tool was being disabled, A YouTube spokesman referred us to this portion of the site’s Terms of Service (the company had a similar response when they sent us a Cease and Desist back in 2006):

  Section 5. Your Use of Content on the Site

  Part B. You may access User Submissions for your information and personal use solely as intended through the provided functionality of the YouTube Website. You shall not copy or download any User Submission unless you see a “download” or similar link displayed by YouTube on the YouTube Website for that User Submission.

  The move isn’t particularly surprising. YouTube’s new download feature - and more importantly, the fact that it can charge for downloads - won’t become a viable cash cow unless the company can stifle these unauthorized downloads. But if this is the start of a trend then it is very premature. While you can download a handful of videos on YouTube, the vast majority of them still don’t offer that option, and users may soon be left with no alternative.

  And even if YouTube can eliminate all of these tools, the downloads may well be too little, too late: most people already use iTunes, Amazon, or Netflix for their video downloads, and while YouTube may get a massive amount of traffic, it’s unclear if many people be willing to actually start paying for the brief clips that litter the site.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 17:59

  IVP’s Chaffee: Why I Invested In Twitter

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Why did Institutional Venture Partners and Benchmark Capital just plow $35 million into Twitter? I talked today with Todd Chaffee, the partner at IVP behind the deal, and asked him just that. His answer:

  Our model is to find the winners and market leaders that are going to grow at a disproportionate level. Twitter falls in that category.  Twitter is bigger than a lot of people realize and growing faster than a lot of people realize, but it has not hit the mainstream yet. It is just starting.

  To Chaffee, Twitter is a new type of media property, pure and simple. He (conveniently) puts it in the same category as YouTube or Facebook. The bigger it can grow and the more addictive it can become, the more opportunities there will be for revenues from advertising and other sources. He says:

  From a business perspective, it is a media property that is growing very quickly. These newer media properties that have emerged are massive compared to older media properties.

  [Some people say] Twitter is whatever you want it to be. But at the end of the day you have this open, one-to-many network, and to enable that is this platform. But who cares? The reality is that it is a network/platform which has millions of users and thousands of applications.

  Twitter does three things. It facilitates social connections with friends, colleagues, writers, and celebrities. The second is knowledge transfer. It is a real-time mechanism for tapping the wisdom of millions of people. The third is social expression. It is a mechanism for the global community to express itself.

  Sounds good, but how will it make money? Chaffee is not so worried about that just yet:

  I love that here is this cry for revenue generation out of a company not even two years old, Relax, it is coming.

  But what gave him the confidence to invest? He ticked off four characteristics of Twitter that make it a potential game-changer.

  1. Open.  That makes it easy for others to build on top of Twitter and it also makes it searchable.
  2. Real time. It is a huge database of what is happening right now.
  3. Ubiquitous. You can get to it from just about any device.
  4. Scalable. (Don’t laugh)
  5. Persistent. It allows for an archive of what is happening and what has happened, which is searchable (see No. 1).

  Chaffee says:

  [Twitter is] the only thing we’ve found that has all of those things. None of the other things out there—Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn—has all of those variables. That is why Facebook tried to buy them.

  With more than $35 million in extra cash now in the bank, Twitter has a lot more time to figure out which business opportunities to pursue. For now, it’s investors just want it to keep growing as fast as it can and make the jump from early adopters and celebrity users to the mainstream.  But there are several money-making avenues it can pursue, from real-time search to premium marketing services for brands.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 15:49

  Android Pay App Explosion Due Next Week

   »  TechCrunch
  Last week's update to the T-Mobile G1, which included the handy voice search among other things, apparently also laid the foundation for the real pay app push, which should be starting this coming week — perhaps to give a chance for developers to debut during the supreme madness of the Mobile World Congress season. European Android-lovers will have to wait a little longer, however.

  

  
• 15:06

  Google Japan Apologizes For Awkward PR Campaign, Gets Punished With PageRank Reduction

   »  TechCrunch

  On Monday, we covered an embarrassing pay-per-post campaign Google launched in Japan with the aim of boosting awareness of a new keyword hitlist box on the Google Japan top page. It now turns out the move, which was (to my knowledge) first brought to light by Japanese super bloggers Masato Kogure and Akky Akimoto, triggered a number of repercussions.

  The aftermath in a nutshell: The campaign is now stopped, Google is embarrassed, apologizes and penalizes the Japanese site with a PageRank reduction.

  Just a few hours after the Japanese version of the TechCrunch article went online Tuesday, Google Japan issued a half-baked, vague apology on the official Google Japan blog, basically saying the Japanese subsidiary was unaware of their own terms of service. The campaign was halted and Google Japan ordered their outside PR agency to remove all existing paid postings in question.

  An email Google Japan sent out to bloggers asking for a comment states the following (the second half of the last sentence is a winner):

  Our internal guidelines have been violated in two ways:
  First, the blog posts were connected to Google (via the outside agency which we contracted), but failed to fully disclose that relationship. Our internal guidelines are committed to transparency, and this was not sufficiently transparent.

  Second, we have strict rules against doing anything that would
  artificially promote the ranking of our own sites — or even be
  perceived as artificially promoting their ranking. Having outside
  blogs write about our gadget and linking to our site may have had an
  impact on our own ranking, which is not acceptable under our
  guidelines.

  At Google, we believe in being open and transparent with our users,
  and do not condone these kinds of opaque communications. We would
  like to apologize for this episode, and express our gratitude to the
  community of users and bloggers who brought this to our attention so
  that we could put a stop to it.

  But the apologies obviously weren’t enough as Google has imposed a PageRank penalty upon itself, busting down the rank from 9 to 5 (Google.com has a PageRank of 10, while TechCrunch still stands at 8). Matt Cutts, head of Google’s anti web spam team, tweeted that he expects Google Japan’s lower rank to remain as is for a while.

  

  Considering that Google stopped the campaign after a little more than 24 hours, the funding was openly acknowledged in the posts and apologies were issued, the self punishment may appear a bit too harsh at first sight. But Google is actually just replicating a punishment strategy it pursued against other sites that violated company policies in the past (Google Japan’s PageRank hasn’t been reset to zero, however).

  I doubt Google will lose any significant search traffic in Japan in the process, but think the measure is better than no measure at all. It should be OK now anyway as the company has been heavily scoffed at in the last few days and will probably have to live with a damage to its image for a while. But it’s Google, after all, and worse things than this PR meltdown could have happened.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 13:59

  Twitter Raises $35 Million Series C From Benchmark and IVP

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Update: We just got off the phone with IVP partner Todd Chaffee who says this round was actually in excess of $35 million. Apparently, $35 million is just the total of what Benchmark and IVP put in ($21 million and $14 million respectively), while the additional amount put in by Union Square Ventures and Spark Capital is still unknown. According to Chaffee, “Everybody wanted to protect their pro rata and then some.”

  Biz Stone just announced on the official Twitter blog that Twitter closed a third round of funding led by Benchmark and Institutional Venture Partners last night. We have confirmation from IVP that the round was $35 million, and that Union Square Ventures and Spark Capital also participated. The news gels with our report last month that Twitter was raising a new round at around a $250 million valuation following Facebook’s failed attempt to acquire the company, with IVP as one of the leading investors.

  Stone says the company was not actively looking for additional funding because they haven’t burned through all of the money from the last round. But he was impressed by both of the VCs who led the round (and presumably also impressed by some very favorable terms).

  This is the first time either Benchmark or IVP have invested in Twitter. Union Square Ventures participated in both the Series A and Series B as well, while Spark Capital first joined for the Series B. For more information about Twitter’s funding history, refer to its CrunchBase profile. As part of this Series C deal, Peter Fenton from Benchmark will be joining Twitter’s board of directors.

  According to Stone, this round is intended for Twitter to go from strength to strength:

  Twitter is growing at a phenomenal rate. Active users have increased 900% in a year and even though our web traffic is amazing, we see twice that traffic to the APIs. Interacting with Twitter over SMS is also getting more popular every day. Our relatively small team of 29 employees has accomplished quite a bit lately but it’s obvious that we have the world ahead of us.

  Stone has also indicated that it’s time for Twitter to get serious about making money, saying “We are now positioned extremely well to support the accelerating growth of our service, further enable the robust ecosystem sprouting up around Twitter, and yes, to begin building revenue-generating products.”

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 13:05

  Ning’s Doing Just Fine Without The Porn

   »  TechCrunch

  

  At the beginning of last December, Ning reversed course on its anything-legal-goes policy by declaring a prohibition on adult social networks. The reason? Porn wasn’t paying the bills; instead of attracting advertisers, it was scaring them away. Legal adult content was also begetting illegal content, which drew the ire of both authorities and lawyers with DMCA notices in hand.

  Given the report released by CPM Advisors at the beginning of 2008, which suggested that Ning relied on adult content for much of its traffic, one might expect Ning to take a hit after shooing the smut out the door. But according to comScore traffic from January, that hasn’t been the case at all.

  Ning gave adult networks until January 5th to pack up their bags and leave. That gives us the rest of the month to see how the network of networks fared without them. And it actually fared quite well, picking up almost 1 million unique visitors in the United States (from 3.94 million in December to 4.79 million in January). That pickup is almost enough to pass Bebo, which attracted 4.97 million Americans in January and barely managed to halt a downslide that surely didn’t make AOL happy.

  What’s not clear is whether there’s been much dispute over what constitutes adult content. As far as we can tell - and as CEO Gina Bianchini outlined prior to the evictions - Ning hasn’t prohibited nudity entirely. Nudist social networks are still listed in its directory, for example, although all of them appear to be private networks. If you’ve run a Ning network with borderline content that has been either kicked out or allowed to stay, please let us know in the comments.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 12:29

  Xoopit Marries Facebook Status Updates With Gmail

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Xoopit, a social networking email enhancement that allows users to locate files, images and videos in their inbox, has launched a new feature that lets Gmail users immediately see and set Facebook status messages and view profile photos of their Facebook friends while reading emails off a Gmail account.

  Users can also quickly see other information such as birthdays and mobile phone numbers. After downloading the feature, a user can easily update their own status directly from a Gmail account using Facebook Connect. Xoopit’s new feature is pretty neat and gives users the ability to bounce between Facebook and Gmail accounts seamlessly. And Facebook’s status message feature is one that most users check most frequently, so its particularly useful to the average Facebook user.

  The marriage of social networking and email is not a new concept. Yahoo and Google are both pretty open to incorporating social networking into their email applications, with Yahoo even potentially creating a social network around its email product (Yahoo mail has around 254 million users worldwide, Gmail has around 80 million users).

  It doesn’t appear that the Xoopit-Facebook feature is available to Yahoo Mail users but the Yahoo and Xoopit may not be far away from developing a Gmail-like relationship with Yahoo, as we wrote about late last year.

  The plug-in was a bit buggy when I downloaded it but I think its a nifty tool as a whole. It certainly saves me the time in switching back to Facebook to check status updates or update my own status. Now if only we could stream the news feed feature into Gmail.

  Here’s another screenshot of the new feature:

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 11:49

  Another Baby Birth Streamed Live. Does This Cross A Line?

   »  TechCrunch

  This isn’t the first time a guy tries to stream the birth of his child live on the internet (it happened on Ustream back in August 2007), and I’m confident it won’t be the last: Allan Branch yesterday streamed a minute of his wife’s c-section on live streaming site Qik, using a jailbroken iPhone. Right after the birth of his baby girl Sarah, she was even given her own Twitter account in addition.

  

  The video is actually just of his wife’s head and part of the surgery room. It doesn’t show any of the actual surgery or even the baby. You can find the video on Qik here, but here’s the embedded clip:

  Leaving aside the fact that Branch ignored the advice of the attending nurse, who asked him to turn it off (many hospitals prohibit any video taping in surgery rooms for malpractice reasons), doesn’t this make you cringe just a little bit? There’s no question that everyone has the right to determine how far he or she wants to go in sharing their private lives on the internet, but I imagine a lot of people will deem live streaming a child’s birth inappropriate. Are there no private moments left anymore?

  Personally, I think the video doesn’t cross a line at all, although I can hardly think of anything more private and intimate than a child’s birth that could be streamed on the web. That said, thanks to Allan, who is a Rails developer, for letting us know and all the best for his family!

  What do you think? Acceptable or opening up Pandora’s box?

  
   

  CrunchBase Information Qik Information provided by CrunchBase

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 10:05

  Now You Can Edit Google Spreadsheets On Android and iPhones

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Google Spreadsheets can now be edited on Android mobile phones and iPhones. Up until now, all Google Docs (online docs, spreadsheets, and presentations) could only be viewed on mobile phones. Editable spreadsheets work inside the mobile browser, which for both Android and iPhone is based on Webkit.

  Jonathan Rochelle, the senior product manager in charge of Google Spreadsheets, showed me the app on his Android G1 a couple weeks ago. As he added rows, edited, sorted, and filtered on his phone, the changes would automatically be reflected in the same spreadsheet on his desktop. (I took a photo of him doing this—with my iPhone, naturally). Each row can be edited by clicking on an “edit” link, and columns can be sorted via a box at the top of each one which then pops open an overlay screen that allows you to select each name or other variable you want to view in that column.

  The feature went live this morning on Android G1 phones, but I am having trouble seeing it on my iPhone (that could be my phone, or the roll-out process to iPhones could be taking longer). Update: It is now working on my iPhone, although it is a bit buggy. The sort function brings up the slot-machine cylinder interface, but clicking on the Edit link doesn’t do anything. It works great on my Android, though. Nokia S60 series phones are also supported. You can check it out on a mobile phone by opening up the Google App or going to [m.google.com] on your mobile browser.

  The new feature will be welcomed by anyone who wants to change a spreadsheet while on the go. It works only when the phone is connected to the Internet (no Google Gears version yet). And it works only on spreadsheets. Docs and presentations remain view-only on mobile phones for now.

  Update 2: Here is the Google Docs blog post on it.

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 9:37

  Microsoft Splits Up Zune Team, New Hardware Still Coming Though

   »  TechCrunch
  When Microsoft started laying folks off in January, we were afraid the Zune might be directly affected; it was. The big wigs at Redmond separated the Zune department into hardware and software teams. The bulk of the developers went into the software and services department where they are headed-up by the same suit that runs Microsoft's Mediaroom and Media Center TV businesses. Interestingly enough, the hardware geeks are now working with the WinMo guys. We kind of figured it would have been the other way around.

  

  
• 9:09

  TechCrunch Roundtable At Mobile World Congress: Mobile 2.0 - Where Next?

   »  TechCrunch

  TechCrunch is hosting a Roundtable and Meetup at Mobile World Congress on Thursday next week. “TechCrunchTalk: Mobile 2.0 - Where next?” at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona will feature an afternoon of panel discussions and some great evening networking with mobile startups and the investment community. The event will be live video streamed on TechCrunch. Please grab a ticket here.

  2009 promises to be the year many of the predictions made about the rise of mobile may start to come true. Startups in the space are poised to take advantage of affordable mobile Internet access and sophisticated handsets like the iPhone. The question is, can they do it? That’s what TechCrunchTalk will seek to tease out from the assembled entrepreneurs and the venture capitalists that back them.

  TechCrunchTalk Mobile 2.0 will be at Hotel1898 Barcelona on Thursday 19th of February, 3pm-6.30pm, with networking over drinks till 9pm. Please contact our event organiser Petra Johansson on petra [at] twistedtree [dot] co [dot] uk for any enquiries about demo tables or sponsor packages.

  The topics will focused around a number of themes, including:

  - What will be the mobile trends over the coming year?
  - What are VC’s looking for?
  - Can the power of the operators really be disrupted?
  - What value can be created in the mobile world in difficult economic times?

  To help us explore these questions we’ll have on hand:

  Roundtable Discussion
  Davor Hebel, Fidelity Ventures
  Jean Schmitt, Sofinnova
  Peter Vesterbacka, Some Bazaar
  Bob Last, Taptu
  Marc Rougier, goojet.com
  Andrew Scott, Rummble
  (Two more to be confirmed)

  Roundtable Moderator:
  Mike Butcher, TechCrunch UK

  The event will be followed by product pitches from three to five companies (products or startups that actually launch at the event will receive extra consideration, but it is not a requirement). If you have a Mobile startup ready to launch on February 19 and would like to give a demo, send a brief pitch to TechCrunch UK editor Mike Butcher.

  The event is currently sponsored by LiveCLIQ Inc. Other sponsors slots are still available.

  LiveCLIQ Inc.
  LiveCLIQ is a leading provider of 2-way, 3-screen Digital Media Streaming, able to stream network and user media on Mobile, Internet and TV platforms. The Company offers its hosted services to media properties, consumer brands and mobile carriers. LiveCLIQ’s user media site, www.livecliq.net, that enables people to stream live and recorded video from their mobile phones to public and community destinations on the web. LiveCLIQ’s Magellan interface provides a media overlay upon Google Earth in which geo-located media are displayed with user, title and tags enabling contextual media searches. The Company’s founders include product and business leaders from Apple, Microsoft Xbox, Netscape, Motorola and MobiTV. LiveCLIQ is based in San Francisco, California.

  In addition, we’ll be holding a series of TechCrunch events in Europe this Spring and Summer, all focused on bringing together and networking the European tech community. The week after Mobile World Congress is TechCrunchTalk in Paris. If you wish to be on the mailing list for information about all the up-coming events, sign up on our Amiando account here. And there is lots more information here.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 8:45

  Comeks Runs Out Of Cash, Seeks Buyer

   »  TechCrunch

  This was one of the weirdest incoming pitches I’ve received in a while. Finnish startup Comeks, which I’d never heard of before, contacts us to tout its product, a nifty application that lets you generate funny cartoons based on the pictures on your phone and enables you to push them out to social networking services, and then casually lets us know they’re up for sale.

  I got in touch with co-founder and CEO Arto Viitanen, who told me the startup simply ran out of money, after raising €400,000 from Accel Partners about two years ago when the outlook for internet and mobile startups was way better than in the current economy. With the seed funding, the company produced a tool called Comeks Shorts, which lets you send visual SMS messages for the price of a normal SMS message.

  Last week, they added to that service “Fun Photo Blogger”, a tool that lets you create funny cartoons with available artwork (speech bubbles, add-on stickers etc.) in combination with your own pictures, both on the web and from your mobile device (with the help of custom applications for J2ME, the iPhone and Android).

  I tested Comeks on my iPhone (App Store link) and actually liked playing around with it. It’s pretty fun to mess with pictures from your photo gallery, and you can easily share cartoonized images to other sites like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Tumblr, which basically turns it into a (free) visual microblogging application. You can see a bunch of examples of that on Viitanen’s Tumblr blog.

  I have the feeling that the company was a bit too early for this type of thing, and that the story would have been different had they only started out now, even though it would have been virtually impossible to raise venture capital for it in the current climate.

  The startup attracted about 170,000 registered users to date, but Viitanen admits that many of them are not active.

  The team has been taking on other projects for the past 6 months to be able to keep paying the bills, but has no intention of pulling the plug out of the Comeks service just yet.

  They’ll keep the servers running for the thousands of users that still make use of the application, and meanwhile they’re looking for a buyer to step in and pick up development where they stopped.

  Hope springs eternal.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 4:33

  Y Combinator’s AngelConf Teaches Would-Be Investors How To Get Started

   »  TechCrunch

  

  It’s no secret that Silicon Valley is teeming with wealthy tech veterans, many of whom are eager to try their hand at angel funding a few new startups. Unfortunately, the vast majority of them are put off by the logistics of figuring out exactly what they’re supposed to do (handing out money isn’t as easy as it sounds). In light of this, Paul Graham and the team at Y Combinator are putting on a special event, dubbed AngelConf, that will bring together some of the Valley’s most prominent investors to tell these prospective Angels how it’s done - and hopefully help give a new wave of startups a chance to make it big. The event will be held on March 5th at Y Combinator’s office in Mountain View and will be free of charge, though you’ll need to request an invitation from its homepage.

  Graham believes that there are probably 100 times as many would-be angels who haven’t actually gotten around to investing as there are actual ones. He should know - he spent seven years after selling Viaweb before he started his Y Combinator incubator. And during the time since founding Y Combinator he’s also found that the number of startups emerging is directly related to the amount of angel funding available. Even a modest boost in the number of angel investors could be a boon to the startup community, especially in light of the economy.

  From the event’s homepage:

  Have you thought about investing in startups, but didn’t know how? You’re not alone. Investing in startups seems mysterious and difficult. How much are you supposed to invest? What legal agreements do you need? Where do you find startups to invest in? How do you pick winners?

  AngelConf was designed to answer these questions. Silicon Valley’s most prominent angels have generously agreed to spend an afternoon explaining the secrets of angel investing, from mundane matters like deal terms to questions we all still wonder about, like how to tell which startups will succeed.

  Here’s the roster for the event, which includes our own Michael Arrington:

  Paul Buchheit
  Jeff Clavier
  Ron Conway
  Paul Graham
  Dave McClure
  Mike Maples
  Ariel Poler
  Aydin Senkut
  Jim Young
  Andrea Zurek
  Michael Arrington

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 3:25

  CamSpace Brings Wii-Like Interactivity To Flash Gaming

   »  TechCrunch

  

  CamSpace, the innovative technology that allows gamers to use their computer cameras to play Wii-like games, has added support for Flash, making its platform accessible to a much broader range of developers (prior to today CamSpace was restricted to traditional .exe games). To get started, users will still have to download the CamSpace client here, which includes a few dozen games and will be adding more on a frequent basis (sorry Mac users, CamSpace is still Windows-only).

  CamSpace’s technology revolves around detecting up to four objects in real-time, and translating their movement and rotation into in-game actions. To get started, users are asked to activate their webcams with their objects out of frame for a few seconds, then they hold them in front of the camera briefly until the system recognizes them. Any object will do, provided it is bright and has a near-uniform color (we used highlighters), and the tracking seems to work very well provided there’s adequate light.

  
  
  

  While many Flash games probably wouldn’t work with CamSpace, some of them translate surprisingly well. For example, the classic ‘Kick-Ups’ game that involves clicking on a soccer ball with your mouse to keep it bouncing in the air is very fun and addictive - I spent far longer testing it than I needed to, and looked a little ridiculous in the process as I waved a highlighter wildly trying to get the ball to stay up.

  CamSpace isn’t the first system to merge video with gameplay (I recall the PS2’s EyeToy did something similar if a little more basic, though it never really seemed to catch on). But it works surprisingly well and only takes a few minutes to install. That said, it still needs some work - the interface can be confusing, and the fact that it is still Windows-only is frustrating (though a Mac version is on the way).

  Disclosure: TechCrunch Israeli Correspondent Roi Carthy is an advisor for CamSpace.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• February 12, 2009
• 21:46

  Laugh All You Want, But The Microsoft Store Could Be Great

   »  TechCrunch
  So Microsoft is going to have themselves a little retail space. This is, of course, ripe for mockery, and I'm sure tomorrow will bring the fruits of photoshop contests from around the web. Will it be wall-to-wall Vista boxes? Will you have to sign a license agreement to get in? Will they avoid the color "BSOD blue"? All very funny questions, but the fact is that Microsoft's stores could be the beginning of... well, another beginning for the oft-maligned software baron. After all, despite what the web has to say, they do manufacture more than error screens. What have they even done to put themselves out there lately? Their silly booths were too passive, Mojave was too obscure, and "I'm a PC" was capitulation, pure and simple. And while they're dabbling in this and that, their entire media image is being created out of whole cloth by their competitors. They need a main event, not a sideshow.

  

  
• 21:12

  Google Pulls The Plug On Its Radio Ads; Retreats To What It Knows Best

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Google is pulling the plug on its Google Audio Ads and Adsense for Audio products, and is looking to sell off its Google Radio Automation software business. The moves come less than a month after the company decided to stop selling print ads, another experiment to expand beyond Web advertising that went nowhere. Google expects to lay off as many as 40 people as a result of exiting the broadcast radio advertising business. We’ve added teh number to our Layoff Tracker.

  It also marks the failure of Google’s $102 million acquisition of dMarc Broadcasting two years ago, which formed the basis of these businesses. The dMarc deal could have been worth as much as $1.13 billion if the business hit certain milestones. But radio stations and the companies that own them never gave Google the advertising inventory it needed to make it a real business, despite Google’s outright attempts to buy market share.

  You’ve got to wonder whether dMarc would have made more inroads on its own had it not sold to Google. As it was, fear of Google’s growing power no doubt played a role in the lack of cooperation from the radio industry. And in this environment, even Google can’t fund money-losing projects forever. So it decided to take its marbles and go home, staying in the audio ad business only as it applies to streaming audio on the Internet. Google says it will still continue to pursue its dreams of serving better TV ads, but it is not clear Google is making much progress on that front either.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 20:01

  Microsoft Planning Retail Stores

   »  TechCrunch
  I guess it had to happen: Microsoft is opening retail stores with the help of some guy named Dave Porter who used to work for Wal-Mart. Super synergy. I can see it now: these stores will be the exact polar opposite of the Apple Store - brightly lit, overstocked, and oddly jarring (kind of like Windows - ZING!!!) No real information on these stores just yet, but Dave is going to start planning a slow and steady roll-out. Will they have Smartie Stations with crack technicians? Weekly training in Windows Paint? What I suspect will happen is that Microsoft will launch a set of pop-up stores using distressed retail space and then roll out if and when these spaces become popular. Nothing like a boom or a bust to build out bricks and mortar.

  

  
• 19:16

  Rules of Engagement: Users Are Spending More Time On MySpace

   »  TechCrunch

  

  We’ve dug a little deeper into today’s latest set of Comscore data. As we noted earlier today, Facebook continues to show tremendous growth, and may well catch up to MySpace in terms of U.S. unique visitors by 2010. But another interesting trend, and one that is important to advertisers, are the increases in engagement both networks have seen over the past year - a metric that MySpace has been building a firm lead in.

  Since last month, MySpace saw the number of minutes each U.S. user spent on the site per month grow 15%, to 266.3 minutes - a new record for the social network, and a 31% increase since last January. Facebook has also shown an increase over the last month, growing 4% since December to an average of 176.6 minutes per user, but has only grown around 3% year over year. And MySpace is still besting Facebook by around 90 minutes per user.

  As the graph below shows, MySpace has had the advantage here for quite a while, but the recent spike is likely due to the site’s launch of MySpace Music, as well as growth in MySpace Video. In the struggling economy people are spending more time at home, which tends to benefit these media-heavy sites.

  

  Page views are also up for both social networks, at least in the short term. MySpace’s page views are up nearly 10% since December to 579 pages per user per month, while Facebook has grown around 3% in the same time period to 337. Figures for both sites are smaller than they were a year ago, likely because they have both been introducing UI improvements like AJAX that don’t force users to refresh their page for every action. Such improvements generally help with lengthening visits as users are less likely to get frustrated, but they also lead to deflated page views.

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 18:28

  YouTube Hopes To Boost Revenue With Video Downloads

   »  TechCrunch

  

  YouTube took a step towards monetization by allowing partners to charge users for downloads. In this “test” initiative, selected YouTube partners can offer their video downloads for free or for a fee (determined by the partner) paid through Google Checkout. Most videos in the test are currently charging about $1 each. The partner can also decide how the downloadable video will be licensed to the user - whether it will be restricted to a private non-commercial use video, or whether it can be used under Creative Commons.

  YouTube’s university partners, which include Stanford, Duke and UC Berkeley, are also testing free downloads of lectures and events. And a small group of YouTube partners (YouTube mentioned partners khanacademy, householdhacker and pogobat in their blog post) are using the test offer as a revenue generation and distribution tool. This initiative would also allow users to access videos offline.

  YouTube is a innovative product but very expensive and not profitable. Everyone knows that Google has been looking for ways to make money from YouTube, especially in a struggling economy, and it looks like as thought they are flirting with this option as a revenue generator. Google has rolled out several ways to generate revenue, including through YouTubevertorials, selling search results, and ad revenues from big content partners. Google hasn’t indicated how much YouTube would be making from this partnership but we assume that they are hoping to make some cut from this down the line. YouTube is soliciting applications from partners to collaborate on the pilot partnership, but it is restricted to US-based partners only.

  Will this work? We have a huge amount of traffic to our YouTube download tool so that may be an indication that this new venture could work out to Google’s advantage.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 16:00

  VoxPop.TV Creates Pop Culture Games For The Masses

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Ever seen a pop culture clickable game on MTV or Entertainment Weekly asking you to predict and vote on who is going to be a winner in a latest awards show? Or asking you to vote on who is hotter, Beyonce or Britney? Chances are the game was made by San Francisco start-up VoxPop.TV.

  The under-the-radar VoxPop.tv (the company’s services were launched in 2007) is tapping into a relatively niche market by creating pop culture contextual games for publishers like Entertainment Weekly, E! Online, and Maxim. Unlike traditional casual games, these highly contextual and sometimes ad-supported games are based on opinions and predictions on topics and current events (like the Oscars or the Grammy awards). Games range from an E! Online game on what celebrity wore the best outfit to an awards show to picking brackets for March Madness at NCAA.com.

  VoxPop has turned the games into free, shareable widgets for anyone to post on a blog, social networking site or website, and users can even create a “game lobby” of sorts by adding multiple games to a page. Users are able find games through VoxPop’s own Game Lobby or through publisher sites like Entertainment Weekly or BillBoard.

  VoxPop seems to be creating a solid revenue base from creating both ad-sponsored games for publishers and publisher-sponsored games. The turnaround for a game is around an hour, so VoxPop can create a “Who wore it best” game for the Oscars for a publisher and post it by the end of the awards show. And VoxPop hasn’t seen much of a dropoff in sales with the economic downturn. The company said that publishers have less staff and less content and are looking for online games, like VoxPop’s applications, to fill content. There doesn’t seem to be another company doing this niche work out there; and VoxPop said its main competitors are the in-house capabilities of publishers. But VoxPop says creating a pop culture games in-house can be costly and time-intensive. We recently wrote about Heyzap, another online gaming start-up hoping to break into the digital space. VoxPop’s co-founders, Mike Derezin, Bill Armistead, and Michael Hoffman, said the hardest battle was forming partnerships with publishers. Word-of-mouth publicity has helped tremendously, they added.

  VoxPop received around $2 million in series A funding from True Ventures in 2007 and currently creates close 60 new games a month. The company is hoping to create even more innovative games down the line and wants to offer self-service game production to publishers in the future.

  Here’s a sample game and screenshot:

  
  var voxpopShellObject = new VoxPopShellObject('xrttrivia8', '630', ' 382', 'onload', '1'); voxpopShellObject.embedGameSwf();

  
  

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 14:52

  Looks Like Facebook Just Took The Top Spot Among Social Media Sites

   »  TechCrunch

  

  This past December we reported on how Facebook was coming up on Blogger to steal its top spot among social media sites when measured by total unique visitors worldwide.

  Now, it appears as though Facebook has finally done it. Data from comScore, which unfortunately goes only through December 2008, shows how Facebook’s visitors (221 million) basically matched Blogger’s (225.5 million) by the end of the year. That’s a gap of just 4.5 million versus the gap of 21 million that existed in November. Assuming Facebook’s upward trend continued in January (and Blogger’s remained flat), the social network sits on top of the roost now.

  Facebook stands out from the others not only because it’s the most popular; it’s also the only one showing consistently healthy growth. Chris DeWolf in a recent interview with Charlie Rose said how he doesn’t expect Facebook to pass MySpace by 2010 in terms of U.S. unique visitors (as we’ve predicted in the past). But that prospect is still inching towards reality, as shown by the graph below.

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 14:16

  IBM Uses Amazon To Leapfrog Microsoft On The Way To The Blue Cloud

   »  TechCrunch
  IBM is advancing its aggressive cloud computing strategy with a string of announcements this week. The most recent was IBM's partnership with Amazon Web Services to allow access of its software to solution providers using Amazon's cloud computing applications. The partnerships offers pay-as-you-go access to development and production versions of IBM Information Management database servers, IBM Lotus content management, and IBM WebSphere portal and middleware products through Amazon's EC2 cloud computing service. The partnership makes sense because Amazon has been an early leader in the cloud computing sphere, and IBM is making strides towards becoming the master of cloud computing. Microsoft is readying its own cloud-computing software service, Windows Azure, that will allow developers to create services and applications that are supported by Microsoft’s data centers.

  

  
• 13:40

  Fav.or.it Closes Funding Round For Corporates To Track Your Blogs And Comments - And Reply

   »  TechCrunch

  Blogs and commenting aggregator fav.or.it has closed a new round of funding close to $710,00 from an angel round taking their total funding to date to around $1.5m. The UK-based startup is also launching a about to launch a new property, FeedBroker.net. This separates some of its functionality into a new site which would allow for licensing RSS feeds external to any other site, including fav.or.it, and send the lion-share of ad-revenue back to content owners - not unlike what Feedburner was supposed to do but never quite got around to it.

  Launched in beta in October 2007 and public from June last year, the site - with perhaps the most annoying URL known to man, but hey… - aggregates content from thousands of blogs and websites and streams them into a network of vertical channels. In this respect it’s not unlike a bunch of Google News Channels but the difference is logged-in users can comment on fav.or.it’s platform and the comments will appear on the original blog. Disqus already makes use of Fav.or.it’s full API for commenting, for instance. Thus fav.or.it has been compared to “commenting systems” like CoComment, SezWho, Tangler, and Intense Debate. But it’s now expanding beyond this to allow brands to pay for channels that aggregate the conversation around their brand/product and use it to engage with customers. Think of it as a centralised command and control system.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 12:00

  Why We Often Write About Twitter And Will Continue To Do So

   »  TechCrunch

  As most of you readers know, we regularly cover stuff related to Twitter over here on TechCrunch. When we do, we often get bashed by people in comments for writing about the startup and the slew of applications that make use of the Twitter API so much. Sometimes we’ll get e-mails and - ironically - messages on Twitter from people who are downright angry or disappointed in us for doing that.

  So we wanted to take some time to explain why that’s the case, and why you’re likely going to continue reading about them on this blog. We should note that this post was fueled by Allen Stern from Centernetworks, who published an article yesterday about why he doesn’t write about Twitter every day that hit Techmeme shortly after.

  For the record: we don’t write about Twitter related news and applications every single day, just more often than most startups. Also, we’re not the only ones doing that (ReadWriteWeb, for example, had three posts related to Twitter up yesterday, four if you count the Ginx coverage too).

  So why is that?

  I’ll tell you why it isn’t first. It’s most definitely not because Twitter is currently the hot Silicon Valley startup with known faces running and backing it, because they raised millions in funding or because they almost got bought by Facebook for much more money than was invested in them. Heck, I work and live thousands and miles away from San Francisco and I don’t know any of the people tied to Twitter well enough to be biased because I would have a blind spot somewhere.

  But I am an avid Twitter user, and I see its value and potential growing every day. We all do here at TechCrunch. We see an ecosystem of developers swarming around the Twitter API like moths around a flame, and the quality of applications that come out of that ecosystem is limited only by their creators’ imagination (well not really, but you get the point). We receive e-mails in our tips inbox and profile submissions almost daily about Twitter related tools, and most of the time we take a mental note but don’t write about them. But sometimes something resonates with us and we want to share that with you.

  Why would you expect us to write about small startups getting seed funding (most recently FrugalMechanic, Diddit, Pollsb and Tvinci) but not if it’s for a Twitter desktop application (TweetDeck)? Why would you want us to cover e-commerce related startups (WujWuj) but not if it’s tied to Twitter (TwtQpon, Dell, Tweba)? Why wouldn’t Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey joining Ustream.tv as an advisor constitute as tech news? And ask yourself: if all the talk about Twitter’s business model is so irrelevant, why does a post about its potential revenue-generating plans garner 175+ comments (and counting)? If nobody cares about Twitter, then why does a Kevin Rose guest post on how to get more followers trigger no less than 365 people to share their thoughts in comments?

  If it’s the Twitter downtime posts that bother you (just yesterday, it was out for about an hour), why not just skip reading them? It’s not like the titles are misleading or anything.

  Point is, Twitter has grown into far more than just a messaging or status updating service, and anyone who really uses it or develops for it knows that. It’s where news gets broken and what more and more celebrities openly turn to to start getting social with the community. It’s an almost perfect crowdsourced Q&A tool. It’s a place where companies can do business while people can choose to engage only with their peers instead. It triggers and support the organization of worldwide charity events (e.g. today’s Twestival).

  Basically, it’s as social as social networking services can get.

  And it’s still growing like a weed, too.

  That is why we like Twitter, and why we don’t intend to stop writing about it anytime soon (and we’ll mix the positive with the negative too). You have the comment section to give your opinion, as usual, but try and keep it classy.

  By the way, you can follow TechCrunch on Twitter (with the occasional update from Mike Arrington) as well as TechCrunch UK, Crunchgear and Crunchbase, and these are our individual accounts: Erick Schonfeld, Jason Kincaid, Mark Hendrickson, Leena Rao, Mike Butcher, Roi Carthy, Steve Gillmor, Serkan Toto, Henry Work, John Biggs, Greg Kumparak, Asad Akbar, Peter Ha and myself (Robin Wauters).

  (Image from Darkmotion - no link because the original image contains a word that is offensive to many)

  Update: our sincere apologies to all who were offended by the original image that we took from another blog, we genuinely didn’t notice that there was such an offensive word on it until 30 seconds after we published. Obviously, it still got caught by some RSS readers, so again, we’re sorry.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 11:58

  Nightlife Application Breaks Away From Facebook, Tries To Stand On Its Own Two Feet

   »  TechCrunch

  

  The Scene, a new social network geared towards improving your nightlife, is making its public debut at the Twiistup 5 event in Santa Monica, CA today. After three months in beta, the company is announcing the seed round of funding it has raised from Velocity Interactive Group and angel investor Marko Babic. An iPhone application (for when you’re stumbling around the streets at 1:00am looking for the next bar) has also been released.

  The Scene has a strong “let’s go out to a club and get drunk” vibe to it (not that there’s anything wrong with that). But it makes me wonder how many people who have this urge will actually boot up their computers and start planning out the best way to go about it, let alone carry the iPhone app around in their pockets and post updates to the site as their nights go on.

  

  The founders - four graduates from the University of California at Berkeley - obviously felt the need to create a whole new site around this idea, one that could possibly supplant MySpace as the most party-inclined social network around. The Scene started off as an application on Facebook called TheBarBook, which currently has about 6,250 monthly active users (although the company claims it has over 150,000 total users). It’s previous incarnation as a Facebook app shows through clearly in the new site’s design. Many elements, such as the Wall-like area called “My Feed” that displays prominently on the homepage, were blatantly recreated from Facebook. Things to do on the site include sharing your status, adding photos, creating events, viewing profiles, and making friends.

  The Scene is also a lot like Yelp, with a near identical set of search boxes at the top of each page that asks you what type of establishment you want to search for and where. Each bar, club and lounge in your area is given its own profile page where users can post quick notes (effectively mini-reviews) and add their own events. Perhaps most usefully, each venue page also shows a list of related places under the header “People Who Go Here Also Go To”. And you can see everyone else enjoys your favorite dive bar under a list simply called “People Who Go Here”.

  

  One thing I’d recommend to the team behind The Scene is to open up user profiles. Whenever I click on someone’s avatar, it takes me to a page where I’m abruptly informed that I can’t see the person’s information because I’m not friends with them. This is too much like Facebook where it needs to be a lot more like MySpace. After all, half the point of going out at night is to meet other people who like to have fun, too.

  Addendum: I should note that The Scene isn’t the first social network to try translating social network activity directly into real-world experiences. College Tonight tried to convince college students to “get up and get out” (but not via Facebook) and failed spectacularly. It’s still trying under a new name but appears to have been forced into side services like college merchandise sales.

  Update: Co-founder Erik Ober has since pointed out that one of the reasons they decided to leave Facebook and build their own site was “due to Facebook’s platform restrictions”. And he explains that TheBarBook’s current low usage numbers are a result of having not worked on the app since last summer and migrating the app’s users to The Scene.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 11:55

  Apple Could Offer Streaming Movies Alongside Movie Downloads

   »  TechCrunch
  Downloading movies is kind of a fool's game. You have the movie on disk, but now what? Am I going to burn it to a DVD so my kid can watch it? Probably not. I basically paid - or didn't pay - for content I'll never access again. Well, it seems Apple is thinking about adding streaming to the next version of iTunes and, presumably, offering cheaper streaming prices for those so inclined. I could totally see two things happening - iTunes 8 and Apple TV offering video "rental" - 99 cents seems about right - and, and this is far fetched, some sort of little program they can put into another device to grab your iTunes content on multiple systems a la Netflix.

  

  
• 11:54

  Skyfire Bumped Up To v0.9, Learns To Be Social

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Skyfire, a mobile browser for Windows Mobile and S60 which quickly became a favorite around these parts for its abilities to playback Flash video and a number of other rich media formats, has just gotten the update treatment.

  While it brings the obligatory bug fixes and optimizations that any pre-1.0 release should, the biggest new feature is what they’re calling the “real-time activity wall”, which is essentially an aggregator for RSS feeds, Facebook, and Twitter. It comes preloaded with Digg, ESPN, Google News, Hulu, YouTube and Yahoo! News, but adding in new feeds is a matter of 3 or 4 clicks. Once you’ve plugged in your Facebook/Twitter account info, you can change your status directly from the reader.

  Facebook and Twitter clients are nothing new - especially in the mobile realm. There are countless varieties. The primary benefit of it being in the browser, however, is sharing: if you’ve stumbled across a new page you want to tweet about, you can do so directly from the “Share” menu. No copying and pasting URLs or, worse yet, retyping them.

  Also new in this release is WVGA and WQVGA support - so if you’re toting around a Samsung Omnia or an Xperia X1, Skyfire now plays friendly with your handset.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 11:01

  Innovative iPhone Developer Smule Raises $3.9 Million

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Smule is one of our favorite iPhone developers - besides putting together ridiculously addictive apps like Ocarina (iTunes Link), the team is also especially adept at tapping into the iPhone’s network effect, even on something as basic as a virtual lighter. Today, the company has announced that it has closed a $3.9 million funding round led by Granite Ventures, with Bessemer Venture Partners, Maples Investments, and Jeffrey C. Smith (the company’s co-founder and CEO) also participating.

  The company combines the talents of Smith, an experienced entrepreneur, with Dr. Ge Wang, an Assistant Professor at Stanford’s Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (who is the company’s other co-founder). Wang is partially responsible for the development of ChucK, an “on-the-fly audio programming language” that allows Smule’s apps to create and transmit realistic music over the iPhone’s network connection. Wang also conducts the Stanford Laptop Orchestra (video here), and the Smule Ocarina orchestra, which played at this year’s Crunchie awards (video here).

  Some of Smule’s other applications include Zephyr, a interesting app that combines audio and visual effects to respond to your touch, and Sonic Vox, a voice shifter. Overall Smule’s apps have gained over 1 million users.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 11:00

  Mixx Still Growing (But Not Fast Enough), Relaunches Website

   »  TechCrunch

  Mixx is steadily growing, and they’re hoping to spur even greater traffic increases with a completely revamped website. But every social news service is showing growth, and Mixx actually appears to be lagging if you compare publicly available data.

  Last time we wrote about Mixx, they were touting healthy traffic numbers and boasting the fact that Hitwise report suggested that its users are more mainstream than those of their main competitor Digg. Today, the company says its visitor numbers have increased to about 7 million per month (citing January figures), which is up from 5.8 million in October 2008.

  Meanwhile, all the big social news and discovery services are showing healthy growth, and Mixx appears to still play in the minor leagues. Take a look at this snapshot from Compete, for example, which show Digg is thriving and Reddit is steadily outpacing Mixx. Google Trends paints a slightly different picture but still pegs Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon to be more popular than Mixx. Quantcast, finally, says Mixx receives about a 1/5 of the amount of visitors Digg does.

  For the sake of comparison: Mixx raised $3.5 million in funding so far, while Digg pocketed $40 million to date.

  

  Mixx is launching a new website today to better serve their existing users, which they claim have provided all the feedback that was used to put together the revamped web presence.

  We’ll let you be the judge (more info here):

  Old Mixx

  

  New Mixx

  

  
   

  CrunchBase Information Mixx Digg Reddit Information provided by CrunchBase

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 8:22

  Yammer Aims To Bring Microsharing Inside Corporate Firewalls

   »  TechCrunch

  Later today at the LA Twiistup event, the makers of Twitter-for-business application Yammer will announce a new, hosted version of its software that will enable companies to install it inside their corporate firewall.

  This was an inevitable move for the venture-backed startup to make if it wanted to expand its reach to larger companies who have security policies in place that would prevent users from communicating via the internet (something the normal SaaS version requires).

  Customers will be able to switch back and forth from the SaaS version to the hosted one, since Yammer promises to transfer network information between both versions upon request. Pricing is $12 per seat per year, although the company says it will change its pricing according to the size and scope of its customers. The Yammer software can be installed on top of existing infrastructure and comes with a licensing agreement and support contract.

  On a sidenote, Yammer has recently announced that it has open-sourced its iPhone application. The documentation can be found on GitHub.

  Yammer was the overall winner of the TechCrunch50 conference and recently raised a $5 million round of funding. We’re quite happily using it internally here at TechCrunch, although it’s had its uptime problems before.

  And if I can quickly slip in a feature request to the team: please add presence status updates for people in the network!

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 5:22

  Google Buys … A Paper Mill?

   »  TechCrunch

  Consider it a sign of the times when internet company Google acquires the buildings and premises of a mill site from a paper, packaging and forest products company that caters to the print industry.

  Today, Finland-based paper group Stora Enso has announced that Google is buying the buildings and most of the Summa Mill site, where production of paper was ceased last month in January 2008, for approximately €40 million ($51.7 million).

  From the press release:

  Stora Enso has signed an agreement to sell the buildings and most of the Summa Mill site in Finland to Google Group of Companies for approximately EUR 40 million.The sale is expected to close by the end of the first quarter 2009. The transaction will improve operating profit by approximately EUR 38 million, of which approximately EUR 15 million is a reversal of earlier impairment, and will be recorded as a non-recurring item in the first quarter 2009 results.

  Google is expected to announce its plans or future investment “in due course”, and has agreed that part of the mill site will be further transferred to the City of Hamina for other industrial uses.

  Update: obviously the space is most likely going to serve as a data center, which has now also been confirmed by Reuters.

  An earlier (brutally honest) press release from Stora Enso reveals that the mill site was closed down because of “persistent losses in recent years and poor long-term profitability prospects” It continues: “Despite tremendous efforts by its employees, the mill cannot compete in today’s and tomorrow’s markets using expensive virgin wood fibre, much of which is imported”.

  You can read the whole release about further cost reductions and lay-offs here.

  (Thanks to Jens Agerberg for the tip)

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 0:53

  The AP Reveals Details of Facebook/ConnectU Settlement With Greatest Hack Ever

   »  TechCrunch

  

  This is almost too good to be true. The Associated Press has uncovered the details of the Facebook/ConnectU settlement using, of all things, copy and paste. After taking drastic preventative measures to keep the settlement confidential, including barring reporters from the courtroom and redacting portions of the documents, Facebook has been foiled by the most laughable lull in security I’ve heard of:

  Large portions of that hearing are redacted in a transcript of the June hearing, but The Associated Press was able to read the blacked-out portions by copying from an electronic version of the document and pasting the results into another document.

  Read that again. Just, wow.

  Now for the juicy details:

  The document reveals that Facebook’s internal valuation of the company is $3.7 billion, or $8.88 per share - far less than the $15 billion implied valuation established by the Microsoft investment in 2007 (though this comes as no surprise, as a value around $4 billion has been rumored for months).

  Under their settlement, Facebook agreed to pay ConnectU $20 million in cash and 1,253,326 shares of common stock. The stock was worth $45 million, based on the Microsoft valuation, but only $11 million under Facebook’s own appraisal.

  Something worth noting from these figures: Facebook paid out $20 million in cash, but only around $11 million in stock based on its own valuation (when the news of the supposed $65 million settlement was revealed yesterday by a lawfirm’s advertisement, many speculated that it was primarily in stock). The high cash value (at least compared to the stock) may indicate that the ConnectU founders really did have some compelling evidence in their case. Then again, $20 million in cash is still fairly insignificant to Facebook - it may have well been worth paying even if there was no damning evidence given that it was supposed to make the case go away forever. So much for that.

  Via Techmeme.

  Update: If you’d like to see the full text for yourself, you can find the PDF of the relevant document here. It appears that the issue is tied to the PDF, as the ‘copy/paste’ trick works with this document.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• February 11, 2009
• 23:08

  Facebook Begins Mobile Blitz

   »  TechCrunch
  Facebook strategists clearly see the potential for growth in the mobile sector, seeing as 13% of their users log in from their phones. To some that number would have the appearance of success, but Facebook sees nowhere to go but up. They've begun talks with pretty much everyone in the business, and are hoping to bring more Facebook to more handsets, including Palm's much-anticipated Pre and hopefully a whole bunch of Nokias.

  

  
• 21:35

  Sir Richard Branson in drag – oh, and Virgin America lands in Boston

   »  TechCrunch
  Doug Aamoth reporting from Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts. Today in the B terminal I saw some good-looking New England Patriots cheerleaders, a good-looking Maria Menounos, and then everything went all haywire when two guys in bumblebee tutus showed up followed by Richard Branson dressed like a patriotic psychiatrist’s wet dream.

  

  
• 21:35

  Video: Sir Richard Branson in drag – oh, and Virgin America lands in Boston

   »  TechCrunch
  Doug Aamoth reporting from Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts. Today in the B terminal I saw some good-looking New England Patriots cheerleaders, a good-looking Maria Menounos, and then everything went all haywire when two guys in bumblebee tutus showed up followed by Richard Branson dressed like a patriotic psychiatrist’s wet dream.

  

  
• 21:00

  Diddit: A Social To-Do List For Your Life

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Diddit, a new site launching today to the public, is looking to help you check off all the things you’ve done with your life, and discover new things that you’d like to do. The site allows users to browse through thousands of activities in categories ranging from the bars you’ve visited to “Bizarre Retro Candies” you’ve eaten at one time or another. To coincide with the launch, Ludic Labs, the company behind Diddt, has also announced that it has closed a $5 million funding round led by Accel Partners with KPG Ventures also participating.

  At first glance, the site seems a little pointless - I don’t particularly care if my friends know that I’ve eaten Pop Rocks during my lifetime or that I’ve visited AT&T park (though I should note that I had similar thoughts when I first discovered Twitter). But after exploring the site a little more thoroughly, I can see why it might become very addictive.

  For one, it’s a great place to look if you’re trying to think of things to do during a day trip or a night out on the town. Interested in California’s Gold Rush? Check out the list of historic museums, parks, and landmarks that focus on just that. Want to experience Polynesian culture in the San Francisco Bay Area? They’ve got a list for that too.

  But the site isn’t just focused on destinations - it has sections for just about everything you could have experienced, including books, movies, games, and foods. If you’ve discovered a new author you’re interested in, there’s a decent chance you’ll be able to find a collection of their best works, along with reviews from other users.

  Every item in a list - be it a book or an amusement park - has its own profile, which offers a listing of user reviews, ratings, and other essential information (the profiles are very similar to those seen on Yelp). And while today is the site’s first official unveiling, it has quietly built up a user-base of 10,000 who have shared 750,000 items, so there’s plenty to read about.

  Diddit shares many features in common with a number of other sites (for example, Yelp offers a huge library of user reviews and lists, as does Amazon). But its broad scope and already-thriving community may help it get a foothold, especially if it can acquire dedicated users who genuinely care about building up a list of their accomplishments (diddits) and To-Dos (wannados).

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 20:21

  Previously Unknown Palm Pre Specs Emerge

   »  TechCrunch
  Well, well, well. What do we have here? Looks like Sprint just updated their site with the Palm Pre’s specs. This news alone isn’t anything special as the specs have been available for quite some time, but we now know a few details about the Pre’s internal storage and some service details. Does this mean the Pre is coming soon or did Sprint and Palm just finalize some details?

  

  
• 18:48

  Ginx Reinvents Twitter’s Interface For The Sake Of Sharing

   »  TechCrunch

  

  I met up with Randy Ching, co-founder of Ginx alongside eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, this afternoon to finally get a glimpse of what their secret startup is all about.

  We first wrote about Ginx last month when it was revealed that parent company Peer News had raised $2 million in funding. At the time, we could only infer its purpose from Omidyar’s twitter account, which was hooked into Ginx somehow.

  Now we know that it’s basically an interface for Twitter on steroids. Ching explains that the most fundamental purpose behind Ginx is to help people share news and other content over the internet. Citing the figure that 20% of all tweets contain links, Ching says that Ginx was built to make better use of them, to encourage more sharing of links, and to connect people who didn’t know each other already along the way.

  Functionally, Ginx is a replacement for the experience of using Twitter at Twitter.com. The small development team behind Ginx has used Twitter’s API to rebuild virtually all of the functionality found at Twitter.com. And then it has gone a few steps further to make sharing links easier and more powerful.

  For example, when you look at tweets in Ginx, you don’t see TinyURLs that obfuscate their destinations. Rather, Ginx pulls out the original URL and displays it alongside the webpage’s title and an image from the page, if available. You can also click a tab to view only tweets that contain links, or only tweets that contain links that you have visited previously (for when you want to go back to something you once came across on Twitter).

  

  When you click on a link, it takes you to the page but leaves a bar at the top with the Twitter username and avatar of the person who shared it with you. A box lets you enter a reply to that person, retweet their message, send a direct message to the person about the page, or create a brand new tweet with the link. This is intended to make it easier for people to respond to the content they’ve found on Twitter.

  Back in the Ginx interface, the service tries to keep track of what people are saying about a particular link, even when they’re not in your follow list. Just click on the conversation link below a shared link and you’ll see a thread of messages pertaining to it, from anyone who uses Ginx (in this way it’s like FriendFeed but the replies are not restricted to people within your social circle). Ching says that this feature in particular is meant to help you discover new people with similar interests. (Update: I think I was a bit confused about this feature. It appears as though the conversations thread only shows replies to a particular person’s tweet that contains a link, not all messages about a particular link that has been shared on Twitter).

  While Ginx is ostensibly focused on spreading journalism through the Twittersphere, it also takes liberties to improve the Twitter interface in a variety of unrelated ways (hell, if you’re going to rebuild the Twitter interface, you might as well go all out). There’s a feature that lets you view people’s timelines as they actually see them so you can get a better sense of what conversations they’re engaged in. When you copy a link into Ginx, it automatic calculates how long it’ll be once shortened so you have more room to type. And when you click on a term preceded with a hash mark (e.g. “#obama”), it’ll take you to a page that shows all tweets with that tag.

  Right now Ginx is a sophisticated extension to Twitter, but Ching insists that the company will not limit itself to only one social network. It plans to eventually support lots of other networks in the future, perhaps when the other’s have opened up their APIs as much as Twitter has. As far as monetization goes, there are no firm plans on that front either, but Ching suggests that any revenue model may eventually have something to do with helping publishers spread their content to new audiences.

  Even as things stand currently, Ginx is an intriguing service that essentially flips the idea of Digg on its head. Instead of the wisdom of the crowds dictating what you read online, Ginx intends to help you discover and share news with people you trust.

  Ginx remains in private beta but we hope to share invites with readers soon.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 18:15

  FrugalMechanic Gets A Tune-Up With A New Round Of Funding

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Start-up FrugalMechanic.com, an online product search engine for auto parts, received seed funding for an undisclosed amount from Seattle venture capital firm Founder’s Co-Op. The fund typically invests between $250,000 to $500,00 in start-ups.

  FrugalMechanic, like a Froogle for auto parts, has gained a niche following of mechanics and consumers as a nifty price comparison tool in the auto market. Founded in July of 2008, the site doubled traffic from December 2008 to January 2009 and boasts over 5 million auto parts from 50 retailers. In an economy where everyone is looking for a deal, FrugalMechanic’s growth isn’t surprising. And when cash and credit are tight, consumers may be looking to repair cars with new auto parts instead of buying new cars.

  FrugalMechanic plans to use the funding add new consumer-friendly features to the site as well and to offer a greater selection of parts by adding new categories. In an efforts to cross-brand the site, FrugalMechanic recently partnered with CarDomain.com to allow automotive enthusiasts an e-commerce solution to searching for parts on their own sites.

  Here’s a screen shot:

  

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 17:18

  Google Raises The Social Bar With New Friend Connect Feature

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Google is now making it easier for Websites to surface Friend Connect features with what it is calling the Social Bar. This is a toolbar that Websites can add to their homepage or any other page they wish, and then they can add links for drop-down gadgets that lets site visitors do things such as sign in via Friend Connect, see who else has signed in recently, check out comments, or site members, all from Social Bar. Here is an example.

  Basically, the social bar is a small strip that webmasters can layer on top of any web page, either at the top or at the bottom. That way, website visitors are provided with a bit of information, and the bar also lets them interact with any social feature the site incorporates through drop-down gadgets. As Software Engineer Christopher Wren explains in the announcement blog post, this is a good way to save on pixel space and keep putting the actual content of the site forward first.

  Here are some of the gadgets Websites can include in the Social Bar, from Google’s brand new Social Web blog:

  • On the far left, visitors can join your site, see their identity, and edit their profiles and settings.
  • Your visitors can also delve into your site’s activity stream to see what’s happening throughout your site. It includes links to recent posts made anywhere on your site, helping other visitors quickly find where the hottest conversations are taking place.
  • The wall gadget can host a discussion for the whole site, a section of pages, or each individual page, letting your visitors easily read and leave comments.
  • Lastly, visitors can see the other members of your site, check out their profiles to see how like-minded they really are, and even become friends.

  The toolbar approach is both an attempt at ubiquity and invisibility at the same time. Google wants Friend Connect to be everywhere, but at the same time it doesn’t want to seem too pushy about being everywhere. Hence, the seemingly innocuous toolbar. But that toolbar expands with pop-down gadgets, which takes advantage of Google’s strengths with creating gadgets in iGoogle and elsewhere. Can a Facebook Connect toolbar be far behind?

  

   
   

  CrunchBase Information Google Friend Connect Information provided by CrunchBase

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 16:29

  Western Europe Stimulates Worldwide Growth In Mobile Porn

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Juniper Research released a report today that claims that the global mobile market for adult content grew by around 36 percent, to an estimated $2.2 billion, in 2008. Juniper also estimated that the market will be worth $4.9 billion by 2013, largely dominated by increased demand for video-chat services. Demand for mobile adult content seems to growing at a fast pace since the research company’s 2007 report estimated revenue to reach $3.5 billion by 2010. With 2008 revenue already past the $2 billion mark, the forecasts could become a definite reality.

  But this growth is not happening in the United States. Western Europe remains the largest market for the adult mobile services, especially video-based applications, mainly due to the increased adoption of 3G mobile phones in European markets. Western Europe’s share of the revenue was 42 percent in 2008, whereas North America accounted for only 2 percent of revenue in 2008. The lack of widespread availability of 3G phones is not the only reason the U.S. and Canadian market is not catching on to adult mobile services. The report indicates that the US market is constrained by carrier reluctance to introduce age verification systems. Other markets, such as Indonesia and Switzerland, have even tightened the laws governing the access of mobile adult content.

  But with the potential revenue stream in the billions, will U.S. carriers re-think the opportunity in this area? Playboy and adult entertainment company Private Media Group have both expanded their mobile operations in the past year and focused on international ventures. Perhaps its only a matter of time before more flesh will be seen on U.S. iPhones. Just don’t expect Apple to lead the way.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 16:20

  Google Book Settlement Site Is Up; Paying Authors $60 Per Scanned Book

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Last October, Google signed a $125 million settlement with the Author’s Guild to pay authors for copyrighted works it has scanned and made available on the Web through its Google Book Search project. More than 7 million books have been scanned by Google so far, a large portion of them out of print. Today, the Google Book Settlement site went up, which allows authors and other copyright holders of out-of-print books the ability to submit claims to participate in the settlement.

  What do they get? Authors, publishers, and other copyright holders will get a one-time payment of $60 per scanned book (or $5 to $15 for partial works). In return, Google will be able to index the books and display snippets in search results, as well as up to 20% of each book in preview mode. Google will also be able to show ads on these pages and make available for sale digital versions of each book. Authors and copyright holders will receive 63 percent of all advertising and e-commerce revenues associated with their works. With Google Book Search now available on mobile phones, downloaded e-books could become an interesting digital side-business for Google. (But please Google, convert the scanned text into something more easily legible on the screen).

  Remember, this settlement is only for the millions of out-of-print books that are making zero revenues for authors and publishers today. So it is not a bad deal all around. Copyright holders have until January 5, 2010 to make a claim.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 14:57

  Palm OS, She Is Dead

   »  TechCrunch
  Palm CEO Ed Colligan just pulled the plug on Palm OS, destroying the hopes and dreams of millions of Palm lovers around the world. As a former Palm programmer, let me tell you that this news saddens yet cheers me: Palm OS is in a better place now. Colligan also mentions that the Pre will have an app store and Palm will have no control over the content. The Pre will hit other carriers in 2010 and that they're not too worried about Apple's patents (famous last words.) Luckily, Palm has 1500 patents up its sleeve and sees little problem in implementing multi-touch in the new OS.

  

  
• 13:45

  WujWuj’s New Focus: Make Online Retail Go Viral

   »  TechCrunch

  

  When online retail service WujWuj first launched, it focused on helping people pool their money to buy gifts for friends and family. That never really took off, so the service was shut down and is now being reborn with new focus on so-called “group buys”.

  A group buy is a type of sale in which the price of an item drops as more people commit to purchasing it. Consumers benefit from lower prices as more people commit, and retailers benefit from an increase in sales volume. Essentially, it’s a way for retailers to incentivize their consumers to market their goods for them, because customers will be inclined to spread the word about deals.

  WujWuj CEO Monti Majthoub tells me that most group buys are currently organized in online forums like FatWallet and AnandTech. His new GroupBuy system adds more structure and “viral” potential to the process by leveraging the power of widgets.

  

  Here’s how it works. WujWuj’s retail partners enter their goods into the GroupBuy system and then embed special GroupBuy widgets on their websites. Each widget shows a photo of the item on sale and how much the price will drop as more people commit to buying. Consumers who have already committed to buying (after seeing the products on retailers’ sites) can grab the widgets and embed them on their own social networking profiles and websites, which will then lead their visitors back to the same WujWuj purchasing form.

  Customers are guaranteed to pay no more than the maximum price they’ve indicated for a good, and once the time period is up for a particular group buy, all of those who have committed to purchasing will pay the lowest price reached. WujWuj lets retailers charge customers with their own payment gateways and it collects just 1.9% of all successful sales as a fee.

  Will this system make online group buys more popular and viral? Majthoub is cautiously optimistic. He points out that several other companies (such as previously reviewed eSwarm) have tried to improve the group buy process and failed. But he also believes WujWuj may have finally devised a system that’s so simple for both retailers and consumers that it might actually work.

  

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 12:59

  Virgance: Harnessing The Community To Save The World (Business Plan Included)

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Virgance, a new startup headed by Powerset co-founder Steve Newcomb, is looking to change the world - and make some money doing it. The company, which features the tagline ‘Activism 2.0′, has announced that it has closed a round of seed funding and is already profitable. Now it’s ready to reveal itself to the masses, and hopefully make the world a better place in the process.

  Virgance focuses on fostering and promoting benevolent, wide-reaching and important campaigns that also stand a good chance to make money. The Virgance engineering team, headed by VP of Engineering Naseem Hakim (who helped build the very popular Facebook app Circle of Friends), is building a platform designed to help promote these campaigns across a number of social platforms. Newcomb describes the platform as “the next iteration of what President Obama did” - leveraging the power of social media to reach the masses. But these campaigns are not simply about raising awareness - they have to let the community somehow interact, and they have to have a solid business model. Depending on the campaign, Virgance gets a portion of the incoming revenues.

  Over the course of the next two years Newcomb plans to deploy as many as 20 campaigns, in the hopes that a handful of them will be “homeruns” (he calls this the ‘EA’ model, likening it to the video game giant that produces dozens of titles a year, a few of which are very successful). The company’s first full-fledged campaign is 1 Block Off The Grid (1BOG), which helps homeowners looking to install solar power systems team together, using their collective buying power to get discounted rates from solar providers.

  The system seems to work: in Q4 2008 only around 250 people in San Francisco transitioned to solar; during the campaign’s first quarter, it has already signed up 1,200 people (Virgance’s cut translates to around $1000 per house). Virgance was apparently so pleased with 1BOG’s success that it acquired the effort in November - and it’s likely we’ll see similar acquisitions in the near future. You can explore Virgance’s other four ventures, including Carrotmob.org on the company’s website, and more are going to be announced at the company’s SF Beta 3.2: the Virgance Equinox event on April 7th.

  

  The company’s name is a reference to Star Wars (it’s from Episode I, so don’t worry if you don’t get it), and refers to a “powerful new force in nature that can be used for good or evil”. Newcomb says that Virgance represents a new force that is powered by the community, but stresses that it is meant solely for good - the company will not support overly negative protests or campaigns, even if they are ultimately supporting a good cause. He also notes that while some may associate Virgance with liberal causes, he has seen positive reactions from many conservatives, explaining that Virgance is just a good idea that appeals to people from all walks of life.

  Newcomb has a long history with startups: he previously founded Loudfire, Promptu Mobile, and Powerset (which he left in 2007). He also sits on the board of Serious Business, the company behind the hugely popular Facebook app Friends For Sale.

  Newcomb is also taking a unique approach to building his team. Acknowledging that many of the Valley’s best and brightest are keen to create their own startups, Newcomb invites them to work at Virgance with the understanding that they may well decide to move on in a year or two. In light of this “future-founder” mentality, the company holds classes every other week to teach these employees the subtle points of being a startup founder - in many ways, it’s an incubator within a startup. The company also stresses transparency, holding regular meetings where team members can ask each other questions that they “have to answer”.

  Virgance seems to have a good thing going, though I question how effectively its team can create a single platform that can be applied towards all of the diverse campaigns the company winds up teaming with (I’m always wary of nebulous platforms that sound too flexible to be true). That said, having to make a few tweaks for each campaign wouldn’t be the end of the world, and it sounds like Virgance won’t have any trouble finding the talent to do it: the company is one of only a few that can claim that it offers a respectable salary and is trying to change the world for the better - an attractive prospect for those engineers who might be growing tired of toiling away on less wide-reaching projects.

  There are a few other well-known companies in this space, the best known of which is Causes, which has over 21 million active users on Facebook.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 12:36

  Spotify Opens Up In The UK - If It Can Handle The Traffic

   »  TechCrunch

  P2P music streaming startup Spotify has removed the “invite only” barrier from its streaming music service in the UK. Till now it’s been keeping growth in check with an invite-only subscription method. Since it started in Sweden it has that market pretty much sown up, although, bizarrely, it remains invite-only in Sweden. But invites have been spreading across the planet like wildfire for this very simple to use service. And others are using it whether they are in the UK or not.

  However, it has even warned users that if it can’t take the traffic it may put the invite-only hurdle back in place. “We want to make sure that everyone who uses Spotify gets the same fast, uninterrupted experience so providing a stable service is our priority,” the company says on its blog. “If growth happens too fast and it starts affecting quality we may have to re-instate the invitation system, hopefully this won’t happen.”

  The service has licensing deals with the Big Four record labels (EMI, Warner Music, Sony BMG and Universal) and other smaller players. It’s P2P client streams in Ogg (quality equivalent to 192kbps MP3) instantly with no delays. The business model (for the free version) is unskippable ads every 5/6 tracks but a monthly subscription wipes these out.

  Spotify has wowed users with its catalogue but as the service has grown it’s started to attract more interest from the music industry and not in a good way.

  As one users comments on their blog: “Just like to say, i’m using spotify less and less since you’ve been removing music constantly. 50% of my playlists are now gone.”

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 11:27

  Redfin Rolls Out The Welcome Mat For Foes Amidst Real Estate Crisis

   »  TechCrunch

  

  In a surprising move, online real estate brokerage Redfin is entering into partnerships with real estate agents from more than a dozen other brokerages in areas that Redfin’s in-house agents can’t reach. Redfin appears to have changed its tune from its founding when the firm wasn’t really getting along with real estate agents. In fact, Redfin seemed to be founded with the mission that consumers could avoid fees associated with hiring and using a real estate broker.

  With the real estate market contracting and credit tightening, Redfin has been forced to reconsider its business model. It seems that these partnerships with real estate agents was necessary for Redfin to expand throughout the country without having to hire more agents. Redfin was previously limited to showing listings in the metropolitan areas of Seattle, San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Diego, Boston, Washington, and Chicago and will now be adding a presence in counties in Northern California, Illinois and Washington. Redfin laid off 20 percent of its staff in October of 2008 and reported slower revenue growth last year than in years before.

  The firm is also hoping to make the real estate market more transparent by posting consumer reviews of in-house and partner real estate agents on its website. For every transaction completed by a partner agent, Redfin will earn a 30 percent referral fee (of the agent’s commission), but half of that fee is given back to the consumer. The returned fee to the customer averages around $1000 to $2000.

  Here’s a look at a sample review of a in-house Redfin real estate agent (not a partner agent):

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 11:11

  Yahoo Readies The Meter For Its First Web Services Business

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Yahoo is announcing several changes to its Search BOSS service, which lets developers incorporate web results from Yahoo’s main search index into their own web apps. The biggest of these changes intends to transform one of Yahoo’s most innovative projects into a real business.

  Since launch, the BOSS API has been provided entirely for free. Now Yahoo is putting in place a freemium model where it’ll be free only for developers who generate fewer than 10,000 queries per day. After that, a tiered pricing model will kick in that charges for BOSS as if it were a utility (think AWS). Rates will vary depending on the type of query (web result vs. spelling correction, for example), how many results the developer wants returned per query (with a new maximum of 1000 results), and just how far the developer goes over the free queries cap. The pricing scheme is also backed by a newly introduced service level agreement.

  

  Yahoo plans to start charging for BOSS in late second quarter of this year. Will the service actually start making money for the company then? It’s hard to say since Yahoo won’t divulge how many developers use BOSS in production or how many queries they each generate per day. All we know is that Yahoo BOSS, on the whole, reached 10 million queries per day this past December.

  For Yahoo to make no money even after the pricing scheme goes into effect, it would have to have enticed over 1,000 developers, each making no more than 10,000 queries per day. There’s a decent chance that this will indeed be the case, since 10,000 is a fairly high number of queries (our entire blog network here at TechCrunch generates only a few thousand queries per day). Yahoo is still in the phase of attracting developers to its first real web services business, so it makes sense to keep things free for most users. But the company may very well be forced to lower the free queries threshold later on in order to produce a substantial return on its investment.

  The upside to this new SLA for developers is that they’re given complete freedom to run any advertisements they want alongside the web results they pull from Yahoo. There may have been an effort on Yahoo’s part to generate a return on BOSS through advertising, but somewhere this idea must have been dropped in favor of giving developers the freedom to shop for ads anywhere they want. Placing a restriction on the advertisements that partners could run would have imposed its own enforcement costs as well.

  To offset the (mostly downer) news that’s Yahoo’s going to begin charging its most demanding developers, the company is simultaneously announcing a few technical upgrades to BOSS. The same semantic markup used by SearchMonkey, the tool used by site owners to customize the way their pages show up in Yahoo’s results, will now be included in the XML returned by BOSS. The example below shows how extra information marked up on a LinkedIn profile page (in RDF or microformat) will be sent alongside normal results data.

  

  The BOSS API is also being amended to allow for longer abstracts (developers can now request 300 characters instead of the standard 170). And the Site Explorer API is getting rolled into BOSS so that developers can more easily retrieve data about inbound links to their pages.

  Disclosure: Yahoo BOSS powers TechCrunch’s own search engine, and I personally worked with the Yahoo team to get it up and running.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 11:01

  Google Brings Location-Awareness to Email

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Google appears to have a new obsession with knowing and broadcasting your current location. A week after announcing Latitude, which shares your location with friends on Google Maps and threatens to render several startups irrelevant, an engineer has developed location-aware email signatures for Gmail.

  After turning on the “Location in Signature” feature in Gmail Labs, you’ll see a new checkbox in the Signature area of your settings that says “Append your location to the signature.” Once the box is checked, all of your subsequent emails will end with something like “Sent from: San Francisco, California”.

  

  By default, Gmail determines your location by looking up the geographical data associated with your public IP address. Since this isn’t always very accurate, Google encourages you to install its Google Gears browser extension software, which can more accurately identify your location using WiFi.

  This project doesn’t appear to be related to Google Latitude, at least from a programmatic point of view. But expect Google to release a variety of “hooks” into the Latitude platform throughout its products, since it’ll be most useful as a platform not a standalone application.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 10:39

  Author’s Guild Calls Kindle 2’s Text-to-Speech Software Illegal

   »  TechCrunch
  Another day, another potentially disruptive technology called out by conservative and fear-mongering industry groups. Paul Aiken, director of the Author's Guild, is calling the Kindle 2's text-to-speech system a form of copyright transgression in that it essentially creates an audiobook, albeit automatically. From the WSJ:

  "They don't have the right to read a book out loud," said Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild. "That's an audio right, which is derivative under copyright law." An Amazon spokesman noted the text-reading feature depends on text-to-speech technology, and that listeners won't confuse it with the audiobook experience. Amazon owns Audible, a leading audiobook provider.

  

  
• 8:54

  Pollsb Nabs $1.3 Million In Funding For Lousy Interactive Polling Widgets

   »  TechCrunch

  Pollsb (short for Polls Boutique) has raised a Series A round of $1.3 million led by DFJ Tamir Fishman Ventures and early-stage investors Zelkova Ventures and PhilQuo Ventures. The Tel-Aviv, Israel-based startup had previously raised $700,000 from incubator and seed funding provider Connector Media, which brings the total invested in the company to $2 million.

  Here’s how they pitch the service:

  Pollsb is your ticket for a self-discovery ride. Our ride will allow you to learn new things about yourself, and about the way others perceive you. It’ll help you get instant feedback, and ultimately assist you in developing what we call social identity. It’ll even introduce you to some pretty cool people and help you find some pretty cool stuff people like you seem to enjoy.

  The Pollsb ride is fueled by questions, on every topic in the world. Joining you on it are all the other active participants on Pollsb. The insights we provide you stem from where you stand in relation to them.

  If that sounds a little vague, it’s because it is.

  But I signed up for the service and discovered it is in fact a - gasp - polling application platform (slash social network), and quite frankly not the best one I’ve ever come across. Pollsb lets you create polls and mini-surveys based on text, photo, video and/or audio, assign a category to it, tag it and turn it into a widget (see example below). The poll can be shared with the Pollsb community and by e-mail, but the process also involves the creation of embed code with direct integration to WordPress, Blogger and TypePad blogs.

  The user experience is really below par in my opinion, and the widgets are fairly limited (only 5 answers per poll, for example). Pollsb also seems a little thin on the business model front; I doubt placing default Google AdSense advertising units will prove to be enough to give their new investors a return any time soon. They also invite advertisers to buy into their “innovative, tailor-made solutions to engage their precise target audience, tapping into their needs, preferences and opinions” but it’s not clear how they go about this.

  As I was writing this, I got an e-mail from someone at Pollsb who saw the poll I created for testing purposes telling me that the polling part of the service is only the “fuel that facilitates what they’re trying to do”, which is help users and companies learn new things about themselves, get quick self-feedback, and brainstorm with others. Fair enough, but good luck telling the rest of the world that you’re not a polling application.

  create a free poll on pollsb.com

  CrunchBase Information Pollsb Information provided by CrunchBase

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 7:20

  Huddle adds OpenSocial apps to Intercall conference calls

   »  TechCrunch

  We don’t often report on distribution deals startups make with big companies. But it’s significant that InterCall, the world’s largest conference call provider, is to give each of their 1 million customers an account with UK-based Huddle. The UK startup has built a suite of social collaboration applications which were good enough to make it the only non-US partner for LinkedIn when it added a bunch of OpenSocial apps recently (alongside the likes of Amazon and Google). Huddle is still running on a $4 million Series A round from 2007 from UK VC Eden Ventures, but revenues are coming in at the same time from premium features and enterprise accounts from the likes of UNICEF and even some US government departments.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 5:59

  Modu Comes Out Of The Woodwork With A Truly Innovative Mobile Offering

   »  TechCrunch

  Modu, the heavily-funded Israel-based modular phone manufacturer that enables you to slip a light mobile device into a variety of so-called “jackets” (think music players, other cellphones, car stereos, digital cameras, etc.), is prepping its big commercial launch for this year by unveiling its family of phones at the upcoming Mobile World Congress. The actual sales for the device will start at the beginning of next quarter.

  Modu started teasing everyone in January last year, and revealed what it had in store a month after. Crunchgear’s John Biggs dubbed it cool but flawed, but this was all way before the company ever had something to show for its promises and - meanwhile - over $85 million in venture capital funding. Well, now they do.

  At the heart of the Modu ecosystem is a small modular mobile phone (the lightest one available according to the Guiness Book of World Records) that comes with complete mobile functionality but also doubles as both a music player and a mass storage device (2 GB). The modu phone boasts a seven-key keypad to perform basic functions even without a jacket, but it’s really the jackets that make the product unique.

  Straight from the press release, the freshly unveiled Modu jacket line-up includes:

  • Night jacket: inspired by the nightlife scene, this jacket includes futuristic styling with an edgy keypad, flashing lights, night mode imaging and a unique graphical user interface
  • Street-art jacket: capturing the expressive and vibrant street art scene, this jacket fea tures stereo speak ers and dedicated music keys for a powerful music experience
  • Classic jacket: designed to fit the everyday needs of a modern lifestyle, this jacket carries all essential mobile communication features with an air of elegance and fine taste
  • Express jacket: this jacket transforms the modu phone and user interface with a rain bow of fun, playful flavors

  Pictures:

  

  More jackets will be announced in the course of this year.

  The jury is still out if Modu is onto something here, but it’s refreshing to see a company in the mobile industry risk such a bold move and truly try to innovate the space. I’m curious to find out what else they’ll announce at the Mobile World Congress; they’re promising more news on “global distribution of the Modu phone and jackets, with a significant initial order; partnership agreements; new product news; and manufacturing and production capabilities”.

  Modu was founded in 2007 by Dov Moran, the inventor of the USB Flash Drive (he was the founder, Chairman and CEO of M-systems, acquired by SanDisk Corp for $1.6B at the end of 2006), and you can hear him explain the product in the interview embedded below.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 5:34

  And Twitter Goes Down Again

   »  TechCrunch

  We’d have never thought breaking the news of Twitter co-founder and ex-CEO Jack Dorsey joining Ustream’s board of advisors would have that much of an effect on the micro-sharing service. As of 11:19 AM CET, Twitter is down for the count, which brings back a lot of memories here at TechCrunch.

  I hate to pimp services I was involved in myself, but since it’s a non-commercial, fun project: Twiddict should be able to queue up your tweets for when Twitter comes back again (yes, it asks for your user name and password and no, we won’t do anything wrong with it).

  Update: half an hour of downtime now, Twitter Status is silent. I’m getting my Fail Whale T-shirt.

  Update 2: the error image (see below) switched to a bogus ‘database maintenance’ claim, with a message saying they’ll back in 30 minutes.

  Update 3: it’s back (12:08 AM CET). Nearly an hour without tweeting; go catch up now.

  Update 4: this update on the Twitter Status blog says it was a database problem and the site was down for about an hour indeed.

  

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 3:49

  Twitter’s Jack Dorsey Joins Ustream.tv Advisory Board

   »  TechCrunch

  Twitter co-founder - and former CEO - Jack Dorsey is stepping in as an advisor to Ustream.tv, the popular live video community site. By now, you will / should have read about how Twitter came to be and how vital the role of Dorsey was to the whole story, essentially laying the groundworks for the real-time updating service we’ve all come to love (or not understand).

  This history prompts Ustream.tv’s co-founder and CEO John Ham to state that “Jack has changed the internet forever”, which is a little over the top but no doubt his experience with real-time culture and the pains of scaling rapidly growing internet services will be a big help to the Mountain View, CA-based startup.

  Dorsey is the third outsider to join Ustream’s Advisory Board, after General Wesley Clark and Former Head of Monetization at YouTube Shashi Seth. The company has raised over $13 million to date but faces stiff competition from similar services like Stickam, Kyte, Justin.TV and Mogulus (to name but a few), so it can use all the advice it gets.

  Update: Twitter needs some advice too. The service is currently down for the count as from around 11:19 AM CET (aaah, memories).

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• February 10, 2009
• 20:54

  Yumbunny: Crowd-Sourced Matchmaking With Hilarious Results

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Yumbunny is a new matchmaking site that relies on ‘the crowd’ to help you pick out your future mate. The site presents two people side by side, asking users to vote if they look like they’re meant for each other (it also presents a brief list of the things they like and dislike, so you can get a feel for their personalities). The end result is ridiculously superficial, but it’s also a fun guilty pleasure reminiscent of Hot or Not (some of the matches have left me laughing hysterically).

  The site’s biggest draws are its widgets, which allow you to embed Yumyum matching into your blog or social network profiles. You can get either a widget that pits two randoms against each other every time, or one that always features your photo as one half of the pair (presumably this is the widget you’d embed if you were actually trying to use the site to find a match). As an extra incentive to vote on other matches, the more active you are on Yumyum, the more often your photo will be shown to other users. And if at any time you come across a match you think one of your friends might like, you can Email them a recommendation.

  At the end of the week the site Emails you a list of your best matches, as decided by the general population. If you’d like to initiate contact, it charges $2.99 for unlimited conversation.

  Given the fact that the site doesn’t seem to take region into account at all, I have a hard time believing that many people will find their true love on Yumbunny. But I really hope that someone can prove me wrong - the commercials for this thing would be hilarious.

  We should note that Engage.com does something very similar, but has less of a focus on widgets.

  
  
  

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 19:46

  New Brain-Scan Tech Uses IR-Detecting Headband

   »  TechCrunch
  Researchers at the University of Toronto have put together a new technique for coarse determination of thought processes and preferences. It involves a headband set to detect near-infrared radiation, which is apparently emitted by the brain in areas of activity — it has to do with oxygen activity and blood flow. The technique can't be used to tell if you prefer Coke Zero over Pepsi One (I don't), but it can be used as a rudimentary choice-making device. Some similar-in-concept devices are being pitched as game controllers, but they've had little success so far. The execution is different, but the idea is the same: supercortical pattern detection.

  

  
• 18:45

  Tsavo Strays From The Acquisition Model, Develops Three Lifestyle Blogs

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Start-up Tsavo Media, an online media network started by UserPlane founder Mike Jones, has officially added a trio of new blogs, Manolith, Twirlit and KidGlue to its growing media mini-empire. Tsavo, who has appeared to implement a growth by acquisition strategy since its start in September, opted to develop the three blogs in-house.

  Tsavo is trying to tailor digital content directly to a consumer’s online experience. Twirlit, which includes content showcasing celebrity gossip, fashion, food and beauty; and Manolith, which features posts on gadgets, style and men’s health; are both blogs targeted at consumers in their mid-20s to mid-40s. Kidglue rounds out the mix with resources and news for parents. Last week, Tsavo announced the acquisition of popular foodie recipe site OpenSourceFood, which has been integrated into its search aggregator and network, Daymix, under the name NibbleDish. Daymix serves as both a platform for the blogs and as a giant automated search technology. Through Daymix, users can not only search for personalized content, but can also create and embed widgets of their favorite topic searches. See the Michael Arrington widget below. Tsavo also recently created a nifty Twitter-based search engine called Twithority.

  Funded by deep-pocketed private equity firm American Capital, Tsavo has made several acquisitions since its birth, including the publishing assets of Canadian digital media network MoxyMedia and the online marketing and search engine optimization firm Better. We speculated last year about how Tsavo and American Capital are good fit for each other in terms of implementing an expansion by acquisition strategy.

  While some compare Tsavo to new media network Demand Media, Jones doesn’t agree. He prefers for Tsavo to be compared to a smaller Hearst Media, CNET or even parts of Sugar Inc.’s blog platform. It should be interesting to see how Tsavo continues to differentiate itself from the aforementioned (and well-established) digital media networks in the future.

  Michael Arrington

  on Daymix

  See full results »embed this widget

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 16:36

  Law Firm Blunder Reveals Value Of Facebook Payout To ConnectU: $65 Million

   »  TechCrunch

  

  The founders of ConnectU were apparently paid as much as $65 million in cash and Facebook stock to settle their longstanding dispute with Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, according to an ad unearthed by The Recorder this morning. The advertisment was placed by Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges, the lawfirm that represented ConnectU founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendr up until spring of last year, and includes a listing of all of Quinn’s successes over 2008, proclaiming that “It’s Our Opponents Who Need A Bailout.” Listed among the victories was the Facebook claim - a bizarre move given the great lengths all parties involved took to ensure that the press would not learn the details of the settlement.

  From the article in The Recorder:

  Lawyers in the heavyweight fight had expended great effort to keep the settlement secret — even going as far as persuading a judge to clear the courtroom of reporters on one occasion. But ConnectU’s former lawyers from Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges published the settlement amount in a firm advertisement trumpeting the firm’s prowess….
  The disclosure was apparently inadvertent. Firm Chairman John Quinn asked The Recorder to not print the amount, citing the confidentiality provision, and declined to comment further.

  Because neither Facebook nor Quinn are willing to discuss the ad, it’s unclear how much of the settlement was paid out in equity and cash, or the valuation of the Facebook stock (it may have been based on the vaunted $15 billion valuation established by Microsoft’s ad deal 2007, while recent internal valuations are only around a quarter of that). Given the fact that it’s in Quinn’s best interest to claim the highest figure possible and the apparent lack of judgment from the ad’s writer, I wouldn’t be surprised if the actual value of the settlement is significantly less.

  The case centered on ConnectU’s claims that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stole their intellectual property and code to build the hugely popular social network, and has dragged on for years. As The Recorder and other publications have noted, the payout is not necessarily an admission of guilt on Facebook’s part - the company may well have just wanted to put the case (and the associated negative press) behind it.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 14:51

  Qik and Boingo Wireless to announce partnership

   »  TechCrunch

  
  Like all mobile video broadcasting solutions, Qik works at its best when it’s granted access to a nice fat WiFi pipeline. But beyond their living rooms, their local coffee shop, and that one street corner where they can pick up WiFi signal if they hold their laptop just right, most people don’t have a very wide array of WiFi spots available to them - not without hotspot-by-hotspot fees, at least. Looking to make full-breadth broadcasting on the go a bit more accessible, Qik and Boingo Wireless, a nationwide WiFi provider, will be announcing a partnership later today.

  Under the partnership, Qik users (or anyone who makes use of the Qik-themed signup page) will get a free month of Boingo’s Mobile service (which usually goes for just shy of 8 bucks), allowing them to hook their mobile handsets up to any of Boingo’s roughly 80,000 hotspots around the world. Boingo’s already got WiFi spots in a number of airports, McDonalds, Starbucks, and a laundry list of other major chains, so their offerings go together with Qik quite well. If you’re considering making use of the deal, know that a credit card is required and that it’ll auto-renew at the end of the month; such terms are commonplace now, but as someone who tends to forget to cancel trials I don’t want, I figured it was worth a mention.

  Boingo has been offering an identical deal directly for some time, but this partnership highlights the potential money model for Qik and its competing services. By passively pointing out compatible companion services to their users, they’re able to bring in revenue without forcing pre-stream blurps or other sorts of advertisements down the user’s throat. We’ve confirmed that this is a revenue sharing deal between Qik and Boingo, though we’re not sure what sort of cut they’re getting. Qik will be promoting the deal with a community blog post, a listing on a partner page which will go live later today, and by featuring it on the user profile editing page (which every new user sees at least once), but won’t be advertising the deal within the Qik mobile application.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 12:53

  Teens Spend 31 Hours a Week Online

   »  TechCrunch
  How much time do you spend online, America? [Waits for answer.] That's funny because the average teenager spends a cool 31 hours per week online. And what does the average teen do? The usual, I guess you can say—instant message friends, surf YouTube, get homework help, view porn, etc. Just another day in Anytown, USA.

  

  
• 12:51

  Why no multitouch on the G1? Because Apple said so.

   »  TechCrunch

  

  When the G1 launched back in October, a common question clanged through the halls: wheres the multitouch? When a few clever minds managed to patch in their own multitouch support, proving that the hardware could handle it, things got even more perplexing. Had Google just not ironed out the multitouch workings enough to support it in this first device, or had Apple’s patent stranglehold scared them away?

  According to details given to VentureBeat by an Android team member, it’s something along the lines of the latter. If their source’s retellings ring true, Apple “asked” Google not to make multitouch a part of the device. it’s unclear whether “asked” here means “Please don’t include multitouch support” or “Please don’t include multitouch support, or our lawyers will eat your face.”

  The source also adds that they were glad Google didn’t challenge Apple’s request. Google and Apple have a rather strong relationship, especially in the mobile realm - the iPhone comes out of the box with Google Maps installed, Google’s search engine in the browser’s top bar, and Apple has seemingly turned their heads on the fact that Google’s voice search application relies on restricted APIs.

  While it might work out for everyone involved for the time being, I can’t imagine it’ll stay that way for long. Heavy marketing of the capabilities of many-fingered input on Apple’s part has made it a look-for feature, and no manufacturer wants to be on the wrong side of a trend. Palm seems to be moving forward with the Pre (which makes heavy use of multitouch), regardless of the threat of litigation by Apple’s COO Tim Cook. Multitouch has become a staple and, if they have hopes for Android to be successful as a platform (beyond the initial rush of device’s we’ll likely see at Mobile World Congress next week), Google will have to find a way to offer it.

  It’s highly unlikely that a simple request from Apple has scared Google from multitouch altogether. What’s more likely is that multitouch support is being developed and maintained throughout the platform, but in a seperate (and private) development branch - in other words, “behind the scenes”. When an end to the dispute is reached, be it by Apple licensing the patent (probably not going to happen) or losing the legal ability to dictate who can detect two fingers rather than one (more likely), Google could be ready. As we’ve seen through the user-made demos, Android supports multitouch with just a few lines of code in the right places; with a few quick switches, multitouch could be sent out to the masses.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 11:04

  TicketMaster and Live Nation Agree to $2.5 Billion Merger

   »  TechCrunch

  

  This could be good news for the music industry, which suffers from steadily declining record sales and stands to benefit from more ticket sales for live performances. Or just another last-ditch measure to save itself from an inevitable death and rebirth.

  According to Paidcontent, Live Nation and Ticketmaster have entered into a definitive agreement to merge into an entity called Live Nation Entertainment.

  From the release:

  The companies will be combined in a tax-free, all-stock merger of equals with a combined enterprise value of approximately $2.5 billion. Under the agreement, Ticketmaster shareholders will receive 1.384 shares of Live Nation common stock for each share of Ticketmaster they own, subject to certain adjustments defined within the agreement. Live Nation and Ticketmaster shareholders will each own approximately 50 percent of the combined company. The new company anticipates generating approximately $40 million of operating synergies through the combination of their ticketing, marketing, data centers and back-office functions.

  Ticketmaster specializes in online ticketing whereas Live Nation focuses on concert promotions. They will still have to go through regularly review before the merger can be completed, and as Paidcontent points out, there will be those in the music industry that create stiff resistance to this consolidation of power (especially with Ticketmaster’s reputation for monopolizing ticket sales on its own).

  Eliot Van Buskirk from Wired suggests that the merger “could lead to a dramatic change in how event tickets are sold: from the fixed price norm that often results in quick sellouts for popular shows to an auction-based model that legitimizes what scalpers have always done.” The rationale:

  If Live Nation and Ticketmaster merge, the combined entity could bypass the primary ticketing system partially or completely, forcing fans to bid against each other for tickets in Ticketmaster’s TicketsNow secondary market rather than selling them at a fixed price in the primary ticket market, the way they have done in the past.

  This is not the first time Live Nation and Ticketmaster will have worked together. According to Barry Diller, who’s Chairman of Ticketmaster, “It was less than two months ago that Ticketmaster ended its 10-year partnership with Live Nation.”

  The Wall Street Journal first reported that the two companies were close to making a merger announcement early Monday morning.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 10:54

  Google’s PowerMeter Project: For When The Web’s Data Is Not Enough

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Google has announced its plan to help consumers gain better information about their personal electricity usage.

  The plan, which is listed on Google’s philanthropic website, promotes the adoption of smart electricity meters in homes across the world. These smart meters are better than regular meters because they can provide detailed information about usage rates throughout the day, theoretically letting consumers make smarter decisions about when to leave the lights on or when to run the dryer.

  But since installing these devices in homes won’t automatically make the information they gather available to users, Google is also developing a software tool called Google PowerMeter (presumably a web app) that puts this information at people’s finger tips. We can only guess that the graph below is something that this application would produce, since Google hasn’t showed any of it off to the general public yet. The application is currently being beta tested internally by Googlers and will stay that way as Google tries to build partnerships with “utilities and independent device manufacturers”.

  

  Personally, I find this type of Google project the most exciting. The search giant is using its weight to bring data online that currently exists in a very offline realm. As Google calls it, the electrical utilities system we still use is very “1950s-era”. Who’s jaw hasn’t dropped after looking at their electricity bill at the end of a cold winter month? This sort of situation shouldn’t happen in the information age.

  Google is in a unique position to tackle large-scale projects like this one because of its clout and resources. It can throw its weight behind lobbying, development, and partnership efforts all at the same time. That’s why we see Google, and not startups, successfully pursuing projects like digitizing the world’s books and collecting panoramic images from every street across the country. Google’s competitive advantage over more nimble startups is the ability to actually add hard data to the internet while others are just trying to organize what’s already available (or are depending on “social” data that comes straight from consumers’ heads).

  Since an important part of Google’s mission statement is to make the information it organizes universally available, we can expect to see the company aggregate the data it collects from individual consumers to provide statistics about usage trends and whatnot. This ultimately has to be what Google has in mind, since simply saving consumers 5-15% on their monthly bill doesn’t warrant such an ambitious undertaking.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 10:45

  Miro Gets A Makeover

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Miro, an open-source HD video player we wrote about in 2007, launched Miro 2.0, an updated, re-designed, more powerful video player.

  Several new features have been added to spruce up Miro, including faster performance and torrent downloads, the ability to stream shows from websites like Hulu and YouTube on the sidebar,and the ability to play videos in a separate video. Similar to the 1.0 version, Miro allows users to search for and download video podcasts from sources but Miro is offering a greater selection of video podcasts for users. Miro, a BitTorrent-enabled, Firefox-like open-source application was built by non-profit Participatory Culture Foundation and boasts of more than 4 million downloads in 2008.

  Miro is in direct competition with video player Joost and lists all of its advantages over its rival here. Perhaps the recent make-over of Miro isn’t just an update of the application but also a move to keep up with the growth its competitor has seen in the past few months. Joost’s viewership recently picked up steam after the company moved away from the use of downloaded software to an all-browser video experience.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 10:38

  Tvinci Raises $1.6 Million For Custom Internet TV Solutions

   »  TechCrunch

  Tel Aviv, Israel-based Tvinci has raised a Series A round of funding to the tune of $1.6 million led by private investors Zohar Gilon and Ron Tamir’s Keidan Capital Group. The startup specializes in the creation of customizable turnkey video environments (both live and on-demand) for mobile operators and pay-TV providers.

  Tvinci broadly defines its target group, citing online publishers, broadcasting networks, ISPs, mobile and pay TV operators among its potential customers. It essentially offers them a media management platform that includes an interactive video player, aimed at maximizing monetization of studio-quality content on the net. For consumers, Tvinci enables the process of locating, purchasing and watching professionally produced video content.

  Examples can be viewed at the websites for MTV Poland and Orange Israel’s entertainment portal.

  When Tvinci launched its custom video platform for MTV Israel, we concuded that they made it look better than MTV.com (best watched here due to country-specific copyright restrictions).

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 7:00

  Trackle Feeds You Personalized RSS

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Silicon Valley start-up Trackle.com is launching the public beta of its personalized Google Alerts to track pretty much everything in an internet user’s life. Trackle’s technology and interface is innovative and disarmingly comprehensive. It provides real-time personalized RSS feeds of the latest crime in a user’s neighborhood, fluctuating airline ticket prices, how much a user’s house value is down this week, updated job listings, sports scores and much more.

  The breadth and specificity of Trackle’s information is what differentiates itself from other RSS tracking applications like Google Alerts, Yotify and Notify.me. Trackle doesn’t just search for keywords, it incorporates change into the keywords and provides up-to-date, highly customized information about ever-fluctuating internet content. For example, if a user is eyeing a camera on sale at Amazon.com but only wants to spend $200, Trackle will monitor the sale and provide you updates of when the camera price reaches $200. Trackle keeps all of this information on the user’s personalized site but the user can also choose to receive the real-time alerts via SMS and e-mail. Imagine if a user is bidding on an Ebay item; Trackle claims to give real-time price updates on an auctioned item. For free.

  So who’s behind this nifty idea? Trackle was founded by Silicon Valley serial entrepreneur Pavan Nigam and technology executive Naveen Saxea. Nigam was the founder of Healtheon (a health care start-up that merged with WebMD in 1999) and Cendura (a start-up that was acquired by Computer Associates in 2006). Trackle, who has received seed funding by NEA (New Enterprise Associates) and other angel investors, hopes to morph into “the PayPal of tracking systems” by having a “Trackle” button on websites, such as retail sites, to allow a user to track content instantaneously.

  Trackle has already started thinking towards the future by incorporating elements of social networking into the interface. For example, a user can Tweet a Trackle update via Twitter to friends and users can also share their Trackle updates with accepted friends.

  

  

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 5:51

  Twitter To Start Charging Companies For Having An Account?

   »  TechCrunch

  Companies using Twitter for commercial purposes may soon start getting charged for that activity, according to an interview British trade magazine Marketing (part of BrandRepublic) held with co-founder Biz Stone.

  This is what Stone reportedly said:

  “We are noticing more companies using Twitter and individuals following them. We can identify ways to make this experience even more valuable and charge for commercial accounts.”

  No big surprises there, as this is often cited as one of the most obvious moves Twitter could make to start generating revenue, although many are expecting more from the startup who has become notorious for its lack of an apparent business model even after nearly 3 years of existence. Stone also said they will not start charging individual users, and that the move could “create revenue-generating features to tap into the way brands use Twitter as a hybrid marketing and customer-service tool.”

  Stone did not give any details regarding pricing or the specific way Twitter would go about charging users and for what exactly. As a reminder: the startup has raised $20 million in venture capital to date and recently turned down an acquisition offer from Facebook.

  One of the most recent examples of companies using Twitter for commercial purposes is Dell, who reportedly made $1 million in sales during the holidays via the micro-sharing utility, and recently started giving discounts exclusively to its followers.

  We’ll see more of this type of behavior in the future beyond any shred of doubt, but I’m wondering what exactly is considered as ‘commercial usage’ by Twitter management: does it mean any way of promoting a product or service or only when there’s sales activity connected to the corporate accounts? And will companies be prepared to pay up for use of the service at all?

  Marketing got in touch with Bob Pearson, VP of communities and conversations at Dell, with that exact question and got a telling response: “If it becomes complicated and costly, our instinct would be to move elsewhere.”

  Update: as Peter Kafka points out in comments, there was good article two days ago in New York Magazine which reveals a little more of where Twitter is headed.

  Update 2: Twitter’s Biz Stone has written a post related to the rumors:

  However, it’s important to note that whatever we come up with, Twitter will remain free to use by everyone—individuals, companies, celebrities, etc. What we’re thinking about is adding value in places where we are already seeing traction, not imposing fees on existing services. We are still very early in the idea stage and we don’t have anything to share just yet despite a recent surge in speculation. When we do, we’ll be sure to let you know.

  (Picture from Profy, hat tip to Matt from Made by Many)

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 5:17

  Oodle Shows Decent Growth, Adds $5.6 Million More To Its War Chest

   »  TechCrunch

  Online classifieds service Oodle is reporting decent growth in the first month of 2009 with over 10 million visits (both Quantcast and Compete reflect a significant traffic surge). Add to that the fact that social networking juggernaut Facebook has selected the company to power its classified listings application and you know they’re on to something over at the San Mateo, CA-based startup.

  Its investors seem to agree, as they have just injected more capital in Oodle: Greylock Partners, JAFCO Ventures and Redpoint Ventures are adding another $5.6 million to the startup’s war chest, bringing the total amount invested in the company to $21.6 million.

  Oodle is already powering the classified listings for MySpace, and the roll-out for the Facebook Platform is supposed to start this quarter, effectively replacing an in-house solution (Facebook Marketplace) in favor of a product developed by an outside company, as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained in a recent interview with Michael Arrington.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 0:35

  IBM And Juniper Networks Hoping To Gain Cloud Computing Market Share

   »  TechCrunch
  IBM will be unveiling a number of new cloud computing technologies at its CIO Leadership Exchange in Shanghai and its Pulse Conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday with networking giant and Cisco-rival Juniper Networks by its side. We reported last summer that Juniper is doing a good job of making inroads on Cisco's turf, and this partnership with IBM is a sign of Juniper's continued strength in the cloud computing sphere, an area where Cisco is also hoping to make its mark.

  

  
• February 09, 2009
• 23:59

  Goodrec Launches Its Mobile-Friendly Online Review Site To The Public

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Goodrec, a recommendation site that was first introduced at TechCrunch50, has launched its online review hub to the public alongside a new iPhone application. The site differentiates itself from other similar sites by keeping reviews short and sweet - users can rate an item as either ‘Thumbs Up’, ‘Mixed Bag’, or ‘Thumbs Down’, and can include only 160 characters of text. The site also covers a very broad range of items, which include restaurants, music, nightlife hotspots, or anything else users submit. You can find the main site at Goodrec.com, and can grab the free iPhone application here.

  At launch the site is pre-populated with venues and items relating to nightlife, books, music, and restaurants, but users will be able to add reviews to anything else (they’ll just have to add the product or location first). Users can also request that friends review a given item by sending invitations to through peers through Facebook or Email.

  CEO Mihir Shah says that since TechCrunch50, the site has compiled over 100,000 recommendation from its beta testers, the majority of which were submitted through the site’s iPhone application. Shah says that because of the brevity of its reviews, Goodrec is better suited for mobile reviewing than competitors like Yelp, which doesn’t allow users to submit reviews from its iPhone app (likely because the site prefers longer reviews). Aside from the main standalone application, Goodrec is also offering free apps that focus on each category the site covers (the first will be called GoodFood and will offer restaurant recommendations, with more to follow). The site also has plans to quickly expand to other mobile platforms.

  The site’s Thumbs Up or Down rating system is also taking a different approach, shying away from the typical 5-star system seen elsewhere. Shah notes that as most review sites compile dozens of reviews for a given item, the average usually approaches three stars, making it difficult to tell if the restaurant or attraction is worth checking out. Goodrec presents these thumbs in a counter form (Digg does something similar), allowing users to immediately tell how positive reviews are without having to read through them.

  Goodrec’s biggest problem will clearly lie in getting users, as Sean Parker noted during the site’s presentation at TechCrunch50. With competitors that have compiled years worth of reviews, Goodrec will need to quickly build a catalog of content for it to stay competitive. That said, Shah says the site is off to a good start, averaging over 20,000 restaurant reviews a month in its beta stage.

  

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 22:42

  GoAnimate Boldly Goes Where No Man Has Gone Before, Thanks to CBS

   »  TechCrunch
  Time to induldge your inner animator. Home animation site GoAnimate is officially announcing tomorrow that they have obtained the rights from CBS to allow you to create your own Star Trek animated stories. Sounds pretty cool to me. From the press release:

  Go!Animate is a free online animation tool that enables everyone -- no artistic ability required -- to create their own animated stories and share them with the world. And now, after signing a licensing deal with CBS Consumer Products, Go!Animate is giving users the ability to create their own STAR TREK animated adventures. This is the first ever officially-sanctioned use of STAR TREK material for the purpose of user-generated content within an online medium.

  Click through to see our own cartoon.

  

  
• 22:06

  Facebook Activates “Like” Button; FriendFeed Tires Of Sincere Flattery

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Facebook has just activated a new feature that allows users to leave “Like” labels on photos, notes, and other items across the network. The feature, which is nearly identical to one on FriendFeed, was first seen in a demo video last month but has not been available to the public.

  According to Facebook’s blog post on the feature, users will be able to say that they “Like” something whenever they leave a comment. It appears that the feature is being gradually being rolled out, because I can’t seem to find it anywhere.

  Facebook has stepped on FriendFeed’s toes with a few other features, including the ability to import activity items from third party sites into your News Feed and the fusion of microblogging with activity streams. We should note that it was Facebook that really popularized activity streams in the first place, and these improvements may well have come about eventually even without FriendFeed’s inspiration.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 20:33

  As IM Finally Begins To Open Up, Yahoo And Microsoft Cling To The Stone Age

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Last week Meebo and Facebook teamed to launch the first integration of Facebook Connect + Chat, allowing Meebo users to chat with their Facebook friends from the popular web-based IM service. The feature has had a rocky history: Meebo used an unsanctioned method to integrate Facebook Chat in December, then temporarily disabled it at Facebook’s request. And while many were quick to point the finger at Facebook (which has had a history of bullying some third party services), as it turns out the site was eager to help Meebo, and is likely open to helping other third parties.

  The announcement is the latest in a series of policy changes that indicate that instant messaging is finally starting to open up, representing a paradigm shift could potentially lead to a slew of innovations. That is, as soon as the largest remaining holdouts - Yahoo and Microsoft - follow suit.

  Historically, IM has existed on closed and proprietary systems, with dedicated clients that can only connect to a single network. For many years users with accounts on multiple networks (say, AOL and MSN), would have to keep multiple programs open, which ate up system resources and cluttered desktops. By 2000 a handful of clients emerged that would allow users to manage multiple IM accounts from a single program. These stayed largely under the radar until 2002, when a client called Trillian hit 1 million downloads (and then jumped to 5 million six months later).

  Prompted by the application’s growing popularity and incensed by the fact that users no longer had to use its official client, AOL attempted to block Trillian in early 2002, though the application’s developers would release patches very quickly to un-break the service. Yahoo and MSN attempted to enact similar measures against third party clients with limited success, as their restrictions were quickly cracked.

  Eventually the battles between third party IM clients and the networks died down to a simmer - third-party programs would rely on open-sourced plugins to access the chat networks, and would be quickly updated if anything broke. The networks seemed to gradually accept the fact that these clients would persist, but wouldn’t do anything to help get their workarounds to function correctly (and oftentimes advanced features like file transfer didn’t).

  Finally, in 2006 some chinks started to appear in IM’s armor. Google launched Gtalk, a chat client built on the open standard Jabber protocol. Meebo, a popular web-based multi protocol client, launched at around the same time, and along with other clients encouraged sites to begin opening their protocols to third parties.

  Gradually AOL’s AIM network began to get in on the action, first with Open AIM 1.0 (which really wasn’t open at all, as it was primarily concerned with plugins and status updates) and later in 2008 with Open AIM 2.0. The second iteration of Open AIM offers third party web services like Meebo and native clients like Adium a sanctioned way to access the network.

  More recently, the social networks have also begun to also grant access to Meebo and some other third parties, though most of them aren’t quite open (at least not yet). MySpace worked with meebo to launch support in December, and the aforementioned Facebook support was added last week.

  It’s clear that progress is being made, but there are still two major holdouts: Microsoft’s Window Live Messenger (AKA MSN) and Yahoo Messenger. The two networks have teamed to let their users talk to each other, but everyone else is out of luck.

  Meebo CEO Seth Sternberg says that he has reached out to both companies, but that neither of them are willing to offer a sanctioned way to access their networks. He notes that while Meebo’s integration with MSN and Yahoo are secure, he’d prefer to use the standards established by the networks themselves. A lack of ‘official’ third party access is also likely the reason why the networks have not been integrated into Gmail Chat (AIM has).

  Sternberg points out the parallels between IM and SMS messaging, which has grown to become a massive market that now sees over 2 trillion messages sent per year. While SMS might seem ubiquitous now, for years major carriers didn’t support inter-network texting (you could only send messages to contacts using the same carrier). It wasn’t until these networks opened up that SMS became the norm, spurring incredible growth and widespread innovation (you can now use SMS to order pizza, look up stock prices, and get directions).

  IM is also ripe for innovation, but developers have been hampered by a near-complete lack of cooperation from the major IM networks. Perhaps developers will take advantage of the growing number of networks that are open, adding new features that make them attractive to users still stuck on the old behemoths. Then Yahoo and Microsoft might be compelled to finally change - or perish.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 19:59

  Picturesurf: Dead-Simple Photo Galleries For Bloggers

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Picturesurf, a new Wordpress plugin that allows bloggers to quickly build photo galleries, has launched to the public. Instead of having to waste time cropping and resizing thumbnail photos (and then embedding them into annoying HTML tables), Picturesurf allows users to simply select and upload a number of photos from their desktop, which are then automatically resized and arranged in standard CSS. The plugin is available in the WordPress plugin directory, or you can grab it at the Picturesurf homepage, which also includes directions.

  Founder Alan Rutledge says that while there are other galleries available for bloggers, Picturesurf is primarily targeting large blogs looking to “convert their images into cash”. Because the gallery can place ads alongside each image (as opposed to just seeing a blank page using embedded .png or .jpg files), bloggers can more effectively monetize their images while saving users from having to constantly hit the ‘back’ button.

  The plugin is also optimized for SEO purposes, and will work with RSS feed readers (typically galleries using Flash or Javascript don’t work in RSS readers). And because these images link back to the blog itself, Rutledge says that it could help bloggers more effectively monetize their RSS feeds.

  While this is the first time the plugin has been publicly announced, Picturesurf has been quietly available for some time and has been integrated into over 3,000 blogs. Rutledge reports that on average, bloggers are seeing ad impressions double using the plugin as opposed to their standard thumbnail galleries (users are also clicking more images because of the increased convenience).

  We’ve been trying out the plugin on some of our image-heavy blogs (including CrunchGear), and have been pleased with how easy it is to create the galleries - it sure beats doing them by hand, as we used to.

  We should note that Picturesurf isn’t Rutledge’s first startup venture - while a student at Berkeley he and three other students built a small mobile startup that was acquired by iLike.

  

  

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 19:27

  Twhirl Gets An Upgrade, Too; And Now Seesmic Has A Desktop Client

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Not to be overshadowed by AlertThingy’s announcement earlier today, Seesmic founder — Twhirl owner — Loic Le Meur let us know that his desktop notifications client is also getting a substantial upgrade today.

  Twhirl doesn’t support as many services as AlertThingy but Le Meur points out that it’s much more popular. It’s also the only desktop client in its class that supports his video messaging system Seesmic, which is no surprise since Seesmic aquired Twhirl last April.

  Until today, users could only play video clips through Twhirl from the people they follow on Seesmic. But now with version 0.9, Seesmic users can record and post video clips from within Twhirl as well, bringing the construction of a Seesmic desktop client to completion.

  Le Meur says that creating the right API to record and post video comments from within Twhirl took a lot of work, and naturally he’d like to see the other desktop notification tools pick up Seesmic support as well. So all of the recording functionality is now part of the APIs that Seesmic has already provided publicly. No desktop clients have used it to retrieve or post clips yet, but the web services Ping.fm and DailyMile have both added Seesmic video recording as features already.

  There’s a variety of other improvements in this release, which you can read about in Le Meur’s official post on the announcement. Among them is new support for Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and Ping.fm.

  Le Meur says that Twhirl has about 150,000 active users, about three times the number of those who use Seesmic regularly. The client has been downloaded about 700,000 times and about 10,000 people sign into Seesmic each day.

  Disclaimer: TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington is an investor in Seesmic, although I am not.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 19:13

  Pikum’s Social Gambling Site Loses Its $6m In Chips, Closes

   »  TechCrunch

  Pikum, an online social gambling startup which had $5.92 million in investment from Virgin USA and First Round Capital has shuttered. We’ve tried email and phone calls to get hold of the CEO and will update this post when we get official comment. However, the image on Pikum’s front page says it all.

  Sources close to the company said “I think they ran out of money. As far as I know they spent a lot on getting the right gaming licences… and putting the infrastructure in place. Then they spent a lot on marketing.” That rings about about right. Adwords campaigns fell flat, while a weekly 10 minute-long studio-based video webcast garnered less than a 1,000 viewers. Then there were the “Pikum Girls”…

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 18:50

  Outright’s Simplified Online Bookkeeping Leaves Stealth Mode With $2 Million In Funding

   »  TechCrunch

  There’s no shortage of bookkeeping software applications for self-employed people and small businesses on the market today, but that’s not stopping startups and venture capitalists from trying to get a piece of that action with fresh products.

  GoBootstrap was one of the startups taking a swing at catering to small-business owners with a dead simple, web-based tool that allowed them to manage their income and expenses while forecasting their federal and state taxes based on input data.

  One look at the embedded logo will teach you that GoBootstrap is now relaunching under a different name, Outright, along with a vote of confidence and $2 million in venture capital funding from First Round Capital and Shasta Ventures, with additional investments from Jeff Clavier’s SoftTech VC and a number of (undisclosed) angel investors.

  Outright is what it claims to be, dead simple, and this is why (U.S.-based) small-business owners and self-employed individuals should definitely give it a spin, as it only takes a little time to get used to the process and is bound to save them a lot of hassle and time on administration. They don’t have to get second thoughts about the cost either: Outright is completely free (for the time being). And if that’s not enough, Outright offers integration with the time-tracking capabilities of FreshBooks, which essentially turns Outright into a full-fledged finance management portal for micro-businesses.

  The tool is currently still in public beta, but the company intends to open up to anyone in the next few weeks. In a later stage, Outright will start rolling out (paid) advanced versions that will include features like additional tax forms, multi-user access as well as add-on services for filing, payroll, and the likes.

  When asked about competition, the company responded that they’re mostly up against Microsoft Excel and Word and the traditional “pencil & paper”, and I believe those are actually valid claims. Other online bookkeeping solutions that are comparable to Outright are Intuit QuickBooks, LessAccounting and Xero. I’m aware that there are likely many many more, so if you’re using one and you’re absolutely thrilled with it, let us know in comments.

  

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 18:06

  Smack Shopping Lands Bellyup In The Deadpool

   »  TechCrunch

  

  We’ve received a number of tips indicating that that Jellyfish’s flagship product, online social shopping show Smack Shopping, is going to be shut down. This is surprising move for Jellyfish, a Microsoft-owned online shopping portal, since the premise of the show is based around the audience creating hot (low-cost) deals on online products. In a economy where a good deal is desirable, one would think Smack Shopping could survive. Scheduled shows used take place 24-hours a day, 365 days a year, but last year Jellyfish changed Smack Shopping format to only one show per weekday and none on the weekends.

  We wrote about Microsoft acquiring the discount online shopping service, Jellyfish, in 2007. And creators and serial entrepreneurs Brian Wiegand and Mark McGuire have had several successes in the start-up world, with the most recent, Alice.com, set to launch this March. When Microsoft bought Jellyfish, they seemed optimistic about the website, saying that they “think the technology has some interesting potential applications as we continue to invest heavily in shopping and commerce as a key component of Live Search.”

  Here’s the email sent to registered users.

  Dear SmackShopping User,

  Thank you for using SmackShopping and participating in the SmackShopping
  community over the past few years. Regrettably, we are closing down the
  site effective February 16, 2009. SmackShows, chats and other interactive
  SmackShopping services will be discontinued at this point. However, you
  will be able to redeem any coins you have accrued for 90 days (until May
  15, 2009). At the end of 90 days the site will be brought down completely.

  Please do not reply to this email, but if you have any questions, please
  contact us at questions@smackshopping.com.

  Sincerely,

  SmackShopping Team

  We’ve added SmackShopping to the Deadpool.

  Thanks to Shawn Rubel for the tip.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 16:59

  Notification Aggregator AlertThingy Rips A Page Out of TweetDeck’s Book

   »  TechCrunch

  

  The battle between desktop notification tools continues. AlertThingy, one such tool with a knack for aggregating a handful of social networks, has released a third version that takes direct aim at competitor TweetDeck.

  Just this past month we heralded TweetDeck as an innovator in the space for splitting notifications up into their own columns. While TweetDeck retrieves notifications only from Twitter, you can break up items into their own categories, such as all tweets, replies, groups, and search results. The categorization helps you stay on top of what would otherwise be one massive stream of information overload.

  While not ripping off this aspect of TweetDeck completely, AlertThingy now also allows users to “expand” their stream of notifications into columns. AlertThingy is essentially an aggregator of disparate services, so it breaks each supported service — not each type of data pulled from Twitter — into its own column (although, as with TweetDeck, you can set up a separate column with Twitter search results). You can have all your friends’ Facebook statuses in one column, their Twitter updates in another, and their Yammer messages in yet a third. Since AlertThingy also supports RSS, you can create a column for each of your favorite blog feeds as well, turning AlertThingy into a messaging-system-cum-blog-reader.

  

  In addition to the new expanded mode, AlertThingy has added support for six more services: Ping.fm, Basecamp, Huddle, TwitPic, TwitterSearch, and Yammer. That makes for a total of 13 services, which already included Digg, Facebook, Flickr, Jaiku, TinyURL, Tumblr, and Twitter. A variety of other incremental improvements have been made, such as improved automatic URL conversion via TinyURL and better memory usage.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• February 08, 2009
• 22:08

  Wake Up Call: Facebook Isn’t A Safe Haven

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Facebook just turned 5 years old. But a week that should have been filled with reflection and good times was instead marred by a series of breaking news reports detailing sex scandals, phishing, and other malicious activity on the world’s largest social network.

  In his blog post announcing the 5-year milestone, founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote that “Facebook has offered a safe and trusted environment for people to interact online, which has made millions of people comfortable expressing more about themselves.” But is Facebook really as safe as everyone seems to think?

  It’s Been A Long Week

  On Tuesday, February 3rd, we reported that thousands of sex offenders (many of whom were previously booted from MySpace) were lurking on Facebook (they’ve since been removed). As CNET’s Caroline McCarthy pointed out, these might not have necessarily been MySpace ‘refugees’ in the sense that they migrated en masse from MySpace to Facebook - they likely maintain profiles on multiple social networks. But the fact remains that there were thousands of convicted sexual offenders on a social network that is generally perceived as safe.

  On Wednesday, news broke of an elaborate and disturbing sex ring involving at least 31 high school students. An 18 year-old man named Anthony Stancl has allegedly been masquerading as high-school girls on Facebook, flirting with underaged male classmates and convincing them to send him nude photographs. He would then use the photographs to blackmail the boys into performing sexual acts with him, which he took pictures of using a cell phone. Stancl has been charged with 12 felony counts and up to 300 years of jail time. (In a somewhat bizarre twist, Facebook responded to news of the sex ring by stating that fewer than 1% of its 150 million users are affected by impersonation schemes. So, around 1.5 million people. Not exactly a confidence-inspiring statistic.)

  The same day, Facebook updated its Terms of Service, rewording many of its rules to make them easier to understand and explicitly prohibiting some common transgressions, like including false information in profiles or creating fake accounts. But there was one far more timely addition: “If you are required to register as a sex offender in any jurisdiction, you may not use the Facebook Service.” Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt says that sex offenders had previously been banned through a number of other more general statements in the Terms of Service, but that the company wanted to make it more explicit.

  On Friday, CNN reported on an increasing number of phishing attacks seen on Facebook, using a technique we first heard about in January. After gaining access to compromised accounts, scammers are now using Facebook to ask the victims’ “friends” for cash. The attacks can be particularly effective because the scammers can easily look up personal details of the people they’re contacting.

  Finally, Maryland banned both Facebook and MySpace from its General Assembly Computers, as they had been the primary sources of numerous malware attacks (though we should note that the rumored ban of Facebook in Apple stores was overblown).

  Had each of these stories broken on their own, they probably would have been met with little more than raised eyebrows. After all, with over 150 million users, it’s inevitable that some bad things are going to happen (and they have before). But taken together, it’s clear that Facebook isn’t quite the safe haven we might perceive.

  How We Got Here

  Since launching in 2004, Facebook has benefited from its public perception as a safe, clean site - especially compared to its biggest competitor, MySpace. Whereas MySpace allows users to customize their profile pages with graphics and audio (sometimes to the point of making them obnoxious), Facebook has maintained a more pristine environment, which certainly helps bestow a feeling of safety.

  Facebook is also theoretically more secure. When it first launched, only users with valid university (.edu) Email addresses could sign up. Over the years the site expanded to allow high school students, and eventually opened up to everyone. But each group of students or coworkers is still segmented into different ‘networks’ - you can’t browse through anyone’s profile unless you belong to their university or company network, usually verified through Email. These roadblocks add up to make creating fake profiles more of a challenge, but as we’ve seen in the last week, they can be overcome.

  Perhaps most important to note is Facebook’s relatively good security record up until this point. Parry Aftab, an independent online security expert who heads WiredSafety, says that there have been fewer sexual predator attacks on Facebook than its competitors and that her studies have found its security measures to exceed those seen elsewhere. She also notes that in general, users have behaved better on Facebook, and that teenagers have reported that they “feel safer” on the site.

  But Aftab says that given how quickly Facebook has grown - it jumped from 100 million users last August to over 150 million users today - she isn’t surprised that some registered sex offenders slipped through the cracks. In her words, “if you have 150 million users, you’re going to have all kinds of bad people”.

  So what measures can Facebook take to maintain its wholesome image?

  What Needs To Change

  Last May, Facebook announced that it had forged a deal with Attorneys General from 49 states to implement new safety and privacy rules (MySpace had adopted similar measures a few months earlier). Among the new policies were agreements to “aggressively remove inappropriate images and content” and to “more prominently display safety tips”.

  At the time we noted that this was probably a tough measure for Facebook to swallow - such initiatives can be very costly in terms of manpower, especially when it comes to moderating content. And frankly it looks like Facebook hasn’t really lived up to its promise. For starters, MySpace has a pair of human eyes looking at every photo uploaded to the site. Facebook doesn’t - instead, it relies on users to flag any content they find inappropriate. Aftab says that this system is effective, but I don’t regard it as “aggressive” - I’d much rather hear that Facebook employs a dedicated team to scan through photos, even if only for those shared by minors (or even better, a combination of flagging and human scanning).

  This events of this week, and the sex ring case in particular, will likely be a wakeup call for Facebook, akin to MySpace’s tragic suicide case a few years ago. As it continues its rapid growth, Facebook needs to step up both its technological and manpower efforts to more effectively deter malicious behavior. And Facebook’s Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly, who plans to run for Attorney General of California, can’t afford to let these issues fall to his successor.

  But the reality is that no matter what these social networks do, they’ll never have the technology or the manpower to stop every threat. Which is why they need to stop pretending that they’re safe. Facebook’s (and MySpace’s) goal is to connect as many people as possible, and the sad truth is that many people are very naive when it comes to online safety. These social networks need to step up their education and awareness efforts, perhaps even offering a ’safe mode’ for users (even adults) who aren’t adept at navigating the web’s pitfalls. Because sharing is only fun until someone gets hurt.

  Image Source

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 20:10

  YouDiligence Helps Parents Combat Cyber Predators

   »  TechCrunch

  In light of recent reports of sexual predator growth on Facebook and MySpace sites, we wanted to mention start-up YouDiligence.com, a service launched late last year that alerts parents and educators to questionable content on Facebook, MySpace and other social networking websites. The company says that business has been exploding since MySpace recently cooperated with Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal to hand over the names of 90,000 registered sex offenders that were identified and blocked by the social networking site.

  Here’s how it works: When a child (or one of their friends) post inappropriate or questionable content on their page, an email alert is sent to the parent. A pretty comprehensive report is also stored on the user’s dashboard. Reports include time, the inappropriate words used, the context of how the terms was used, where it was posted (i.e., on a profile page, caption, wall comment, or if child writing a comment on someone else’s page) and a link to the exact URL.

  From a business model point of view, YouDiligence has had a few hiccups. A paid service, YouDiligence had slow growth after its launch and recently rolled out a 30-day free trial. The cost of the service ranges from $9.99 a month to monitor one child to $19.99 to monitor four or more kids. The company reports that it has seen sign-ups increase since the implementing the free trial. YouDiligence also started using retargeting start-up Fetchback to get customers back to their site. So far, they have a re-subscription rate of 95 percent.

  YouDiligence’s technology does has have overlap with competitors in the child internet monitoring space, including ReputationDefender and Sentinel Safe, who partnered with MySpace to find the sexual predators in the social networking site.

  Despite the competition, YouDiligence provides a valuable service in a marketplace that can be unsafe for young children.

  

  

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 16:28

  What I Learned At Davos: How Networking And Feedback Loops Can Make A Better World

   »  TechCrunch

  The following is a guest post by Eric Clemons, Professor of Operations and Information Management at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

  

  After returning from the World Economic Forum in Davos, I have been thinking about how to build more perfect human societies out of the visibly and demonstrably imperfect human decision makers we have to rely upon. Any classically trained techie knows the answer — it’s feedback loops for error correction. That’s how affordable class B amplifiers are made out of cheap off-the-shelf components.

  But what does that have to do with the governance of societies or the future of the high tech sector? So before Davos I was asked the typical “let’s diss Davos” question … “Is Davos anything more than a networking event?” I’d never been to Davos, I didn’t really understand Davos, and I gave the wrong answer. I tried to explain that it was more than networking. The correct answer, of course, is that there is nothing more than networking when trying to plan, to impose structure, and to create even more wealth from otherwise uncoordinated actions. There is nothing more important for the governance of civil and commercial society than people interacting, working together, learning about each other in a full frontal, full bandwidth interaction.

  So…what did I learn from my high tech full frontals?

  • Google is scarier than I thought. They know exactly what they are doing … from the launch of new free products to their settlement of class action litigation … and they have only one goal. Their successes are no accident and their setbacks are investments, not mistakes. They know what their goal is and you can probably guess. And no, they are not subsidizing the gPhone, the gDrive, or Google Office as their only remaining meaningful charitable contributions now that Bill and Melinda have already solved Malaria, HIV, and the other medical problems that beset Africa.
  • Microsoft is now cuddlier than I thought. I have more affection than I used to for the beleaguered team in Redmond (Hell, I have affection for them for the first time). And I am counting on them to ensure that there is a counterbalance to Google. I like bipolar worlds, at least on the technology side.
  • Facebook is worth a couple of looks below the obvious surface. If Google has had a plan, the Zuckerbergs may have been merely lucky at first. They (Mark and Randi) are a couple of delightful kids, the brother and sister team of idealists, making a better world one friending at a time. I know there is a business model in here somewhere. I know that they Zs will implement it without abusing my privacy. I hope that they can do it without trying to rely on push-it-out, in-your-face advertising.
  • Before Davos I had thought that Michael Arrington of TechCrunch was a jerk. I now know that a lot of this reaction was envy on my part. I learned by watching up close that he is faster with a sound bite, a summary, or a quick insult than anyone else in the field, and that he would rather be physically assaulted than change what he writes. If he is a jerk he is definitely my kind of jerk.

  More later on the future of paid search, the future of advertising, the future of online social networks and their impact on the marketplace, the relationship between internet penetration and the quality of American beer, the future of petites digerati in the workplace, later, if Arrington will have me back.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 11:23

  Nokia Shaping Up To Launch Its Very Own App Store?

   »  TechCrunch

  Our sister site MobileCrunch may be convinced that not every company needs an app store, but for Nokia to launch a central platform for distribution and sales of micro-programs developed for the Symbian OS, it would make a whole lotta sense.

  And if what Eldar Murtazin, editor of Mobile-review.com (both blogs are in Russian) writes is true, then that’s exactly what the Finnish juggernaut in mobile is going to launch at the upcoming Mobile World Congress. I concur with Engadget who says launching an application portal/store is a logical step to take for any mobile handset maker these days, but if Nokia is in fact going to launch one it will be worth taking a look at, and not only from a consumer or developer standpoint.

  According to UnwiredView, this is what Murtazin wrote in Russian:

  At first glance, for now, the app portal looks so so, there is some confusion. But they are trying, polishing it and a lot has changed for the better in a matter of days. A right step in a right direction… And the distribution and revenue sharing model between app makers and Nokia looks very attractive.

  At this point, this is nothing but a rumor, but such a move would definitely make sense and Muzartin is known to have strong insider connections in the mobile industry so this isn’t just a random thought from a blogger.

  It’s worth noting in this context that Nokia now fully owns Symbian Limited, but contributes the mobile operating system and S60 software to the Symbian Foundation, which is readying its official launch with a slew of members from the industry, including Sony Ericsson, Samsung, LG, Sharp and dozens more. There’s also an active community site for Symbian developers already in place, so they wouldn’t be creating an ecosystem from scratch.

  Then again, as someone pointed out in the comments of the Engadget post, Nokia already has a couple of half-baked portals for mobile software, e.g. Mosh, Download! and Software Market, so it’s unclear what would happen to those or how they would be able to morph these sites as well as the N-Gage platform for games into one single application store.

  We’ll find out more about Nokia’s plans at the Mobile Word Congress, which is being held from 16 to 19 February in Barcelona.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 10:37

  ShopIt Acquires Triana Global, Launches Ad Network For Social Networks

   »  TechCrunch

  ShopIt, a social commerce platform that enables people to set up an online store and sell goods through a variety of social networking services, has finished integrating its recently acquired Triana Global publisher network and relaunching it as ShopIt Media, another social advertising platform.

  Like many others, Triana Global claims to have been one of the first ad networks that started focussing on monetizing facebook applications after the social networking service started opening up for outside developers with the launch of Facebook Platform back in May 2007. Its biggest competitors are Adknowledge (which recently picked up both Cubics and Lookery Ads), Social Media, Offerpal Media and Appssavvy.

  The service has managed to stay largely under the radar since its launch, and even when they started guaranteeing floor CPM rates of $0.15 and $0.08 CPC rates on standard banner sizes for new developers joining the network they seem to have gotten the silence treatment and were also downright criticized for developing their own Facebook apps besides acting as a social advertising network. It didn’t help that Triana Global claimed to have hundreds of applications in their network, which they later expanded to other social networks like MySpace, hi5 and Bebo, but never published a portfolio or customer reference list.

  Either way, apparently the company was acquired by ShopIt in October 2008, and that startup is now relaunching the service as ShopIt Media, essentially providing a way for their users (1 million according to the company) to market the products they have for sale across a multitude of social communities. New publishers are being wooed with a 80% revenue share for all campaigns on Facebook, Ning, MySpace, hi5, Bebo and Orkut that are kicked off in February.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 9:00

  Is Noca The Next PayPal?

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Noca, an online payments start-up we wrote about last year, is launching its official payment service today. Formed by ex-Visa employees, Noca originally offered a micro-payments system via two Facebook applications, OneClickPay and HelpYourWorld. The company is now offering payment services for unlimited amounts. Currently, Noca has two clients; digital content provider Klatcher.com and a local little league site. The advantage of Noca’s system is that it allows online merchants to bypass high transactional fees (usually 2-3 percent plus $0.30) imposed by credit card companies on consumer purchases.

  Whether using Google Checkout, PayPal or Amazon Flexible Payment Service, merchants have been unable to avoid these fees, which can be pricey on expensive or luxury items. Until now. Noca’s online payment service only charges 0.25 percent on transactions and eliminated the fixed $0.30 fee all together. Once Noca’s system is enabled, the consumer’s issuing bank underwrites the risk so that the merchant receives payment within 1 to 2 business days.

  On the consumer side, Noca assures security and prevention of identity theft because the transaction avoids credit cards and uses debit transactions instead, where the money goes directly from the buyer’s checking/savings account to the merchant. The user enters account and routing numbers into a virtual check, in a process which the company insists is secure. After entering routing and checking numbers, Noca will then send a text message with a code to the user’s cell phone, which needs to be inputed for the transaction to be completed.

  With credit tight, consumers might feel more comfortable paying for items directly from a checking account. And it assures security for both merchants and consumers. Can Noca give PayPal a run for its money?

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 4:29

  Confirmed: TotalMusic Is Dead

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Earlier today we detailed the chaotic history and recent trouble at TotalMusic, an experimental music initiative created by Sony BMG and Universal Music Group designed to rethink the way music was streamed on the web. After a round of layoffs and the shutdown of Ruckus, a streaming music service acquired by TotalMusic last year, the company looked like it was in bad shape. In what will likely be the most official statement we’ll get, Jason Herskowitz, the company’s VP of Product Management, has confirmed in a blog post that the music labels have indeed pulled the plug on TotalMusic:

  And so it goes. And, so do I. I know what you are thinking… “Hey Herskowitz, you were only there 3 months, how did you manage to screw it up so quickly?!”. Heh… all I can say is that in that short time I had the privilege of working with some great people on something that I *know* was going to be extremely compelling. I regret that we didn’t get to show you guys more about what we built - but in these extremely hard economic times (particularly for those in the music industry) it’s hard to blame them from pulling the plug on a still-highly-speculative offering .

  Herskowitz’s post is worth reading, if for no other reason to affirm that there are at least some people in the music industry who know that things need to change for online music streaming to become a viable business. And where does he think the labels should turn for innovation? Startups.

  But, from where I sit at least, I see all of the innovation in digital music services coming out of bootstrapped companies and passionate tinkerers. Hell, there are very few private investors or venture capitalists that want to get anywhere near this space right now… and rightfully so considering no one has really figured out how to make any money out of this industry (and its products) that so many people love.

  Herskowitz has also thrown together a few music mashups (some of which are likely of questionable legality), which are worth checking out. Among them is Friendp3, which offers a list of songs that have recently been listened to by his friends on Last.fm (note that this only shows songs that were played by his friends).

  In a way it’s disappointing that TotalMusic has run its course - the music industry is desperately in need of innovation, and it sounds like the initiative was making some progress, even if it wasn’t quite tangible yet. Of course, while TotalMusic may be gone in its current form (whatever that was meant to be), don’t be surprised if the record companies band together again once the economy settles down. After all, TotalMusic has come back from the dead before.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• February 07, 2009
• 19:18

  The Record Industry’s TotalMusic Experiment Is Sinking Fast

   »  TechCrunch

  

  TotalMusic, the digital music distribution initiative created by Sony BMG and Universal Music Group, appears to be on life support - or worse. In the last few months the company has seen the two music executives who spearheaded the initiative jump ship, followed by a round of layoffs that included senior personnel. Yesterday Ruckus, a music streaming company acquired by TotalMusic last year, abruptly shut down. Repeated attempts to contact Michael Bebel, Ruckus’ CEO, have gone unanswered. It may be too soon to definitively put TotalMusic into the Deadpool, but things are not looking good for the company.

  The history of TotalMusic is dramatic, filled with failed deals, major strategy changes, and an antitrust lawsuit. Since forming, the company has proposed two new revenue models for music: the first was to offer end-users a large library of music for ‘free’, by building the cost of the music service into their music devices. That plan didn’t exactly work out - in early 2008 the Department of Justice launched an anti-trust probe which derailed the idea.

  Then, last summer, the company came back from the dead. The second new model was meant to serve as a departure from the way music has traditionally been licensed on the web. Historically, the major record labels have charged sites per-song fees for streaming, badgering everyone into submission with threats of lawsuits and steep penalties. Major sites like MySpace and imeem are held under this kind of agreement, as are many smaller sites which are having trouble sustaining themselves because of the high fees (even Pandora, a streaming music site that had the most popular iPhone application of 2008, has worried about having to shut down).

  In contrast to these per-song fees, TotalMusic was supposed to offer free streaming to sites in return for user data and all associated advertising revenue. In particular, the initiative was built from the start with Facebook in mind, offering the social network a chance to implement a music service for free while all of its competitors were paying hefty fees. But Facebook didn’t bite. The exact reason why is hazy - UMG and Sony were able to bring EMI on board, but were unable to get Warner, the last major label, to agree. We’ve also heard that Facebook was unwilling to hand over user data and ad revenues.

  Since the Facebook deal fell apart, the company has taken a turn for the worse. When we investigated the company last summer, we noted that four TotalMusic software engineers listed on LinkedIn had previously worked on MusicNow, another streaming music service that changed hands from Circuit City to AOL and ultimately had its customer base sold to the ‘legit’ Napster (presumably they had been brought in to apply their expertise to the new service). In the last month, two of the four employees have changed their profiles to indicate that they no longer work with TotalMusic.

  We’ve also heard that one of the company’s lead engineers was laid off in the last few days, prompting the sudden shutdown of Ruckus. Ruckus was quietly acquired last year by TotalMusic, and was meant to act as the foundation for the service’s backend. The operation closed down so quickly that some of the service’s participating universities weren’t even notified of the upcoming change (many campuses have been actively promoting Ruckus for years to try to curb piracy).

  But there has been some progress. Last month TotalMusic soft-launched a new site called TunePost, which apparently offers streaming music through widgets. The service is in a private beta, but the company’s VP of Product Management, Jason Herskowitz, has been embedding widgets into his personal blog.

  

  This may be a sign that TotalMusic still has a pulse, but we’ve also heard that the company’s remaining employees are shopping around its technology to outside buyers - the embeds may simply be a way to show off the technology they’ve built. In any case, it’s hard to believe that in the current economy the music labels will continue to funnel money into what boils down to a music widget that has yet to launch to the public.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 17:50

  Why Facebook Isn’t Poised to Steal Twitter’s Thunder

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Last night, Facebook announced a set of changes to its platform that make it easier for third-party applications to exchange data about users’ status messages, notes, shared links, and videos.

  The more open Facebook’s platform gets, the more powerful it becomes for developers to build fun and useful applications with Facebook’s data, either onsite or off. However, several pundits have already jumped to the conclusion that greater openness with concern to status updates in particular spells trouble for Twitter, the bourgeoning microblog service that Facebook itself recently courted without success.

  No one knows just where Facebook is heading with its platform or whether it’s serious about crushing novel new social networking services like Twitter or FriendFeed. It’s easy for bloggers to speculate that every incremental change to its platform or feature set is a devious plan to do just this. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, especially when there’s a lot to suggest that Facebook has a long way to go before putting any kind of dent in Twitter’s growing popularity.

  Mike Butcher over at TechCrunch UK has outlined four particular ways in which he thinks Facebook “won’t kill Twitter”. First off, Facebook has a fundamentally different relationship model than Twitter. On Facebook, you create a simple two-way friendship with someone. On Twitter, you can choose to follow someone and you can be followed, but the following relationship doesn’t have to be bidirectional.

  Butcher also suggests that Facebook is more interested in preserving ownership over its social graph than Twitter is over its own. And he points out that the replies Twitter users make to each other are usually public.

  These are all fine points to make, and the technical differences he spells out certainly make it more difficult for Facebook to recreate the appeal of Twitter. But when it comes down to it, Facebook fails to challenge Twitter with this new platform upgrade because the two companies ultimately serve substantially different behavioral paradigms.

  While Twitter and Facebook prompt users with eerily similar questions — Twitter asks “What are you doing?” and Facebook asks “What are you doing right now?” — their users don’t answer in the same way. By and large, Facebook users answer the question more faithfully than Twitter users. They actually provide information about what they’re currently doing, perhaps because they are prompted with a field that starts with something like “Mark is”. And the news feed lists their entries as action items (”Mark is having a bike ride” or at least “Mike likes biking outside”) under a tab called Status Updates.

  Meanwhile, Twitter users have (by and large) decided to ignore the questioned posed for them. Instead of using the service to post real status updates — i.e. descriptions of what they’re currently doing — they use it as a public broadcasting system of sorts. It’s an efficient way for them to send out thought trinkets to an often ambiguous crowd of friends and strangers. And with @replies, Twitter morphs into a conversational medium, a big cocktail party where everybody is constantly eavesdropping on everybody else’s impromptu conversations.

  There are, of course, exceptions to these generalizations. Facebook users do enter random thoughts in lieu of real status updates, and Twitter users do actually say what they’re currently doing. But the overlap is rather small, and it’s this smallness that undermines any attempt (real or imaginary) on Facebook’s part to steal Twitter’s thunder. Something behavioral about Facebook’s users would have to change, and it’s unlikely that these users — who are largely mainstream — are inclined to pick up the tweeting habits of a crowd that consists mostly of early adopters.

  [Image courtesy of Doug Geivett's blog]

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 17:24

  Hopstop Jumps Onto iPhone App Bandwagon That Is Driven By Google Maps

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Transit planner HopStop launched its free iPhone application last week to rival the mobile version of Google Map’s Transit option. The application, with support from iPhone’s GPS functionality, offers all the same services as the website. This includes trip customization, maps marked with nearby subways and bus stops, a taxi mode that estimates time and cost of travel and contact information for taxi companies, and the ability to re-route a transit plan that is provided.

  In the past, Hopstop was ahead of competitor Google Transit in terms of providing transit info for a widespread amount of metropolitan areas but Google has caught up (and maybe surpassed) with its Maps-based transit planner. And Google Maps is integrated with iPhone 3G’s GPS, making Google Transit a free native application that doesn’t have to be downloaded.

  The first reviews posted on the iPhones apps store were fairly positive. Let us know what you think of the HopStop app in comments. Is it better than Google Transit on the iPhone?

  

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 10:31

  Apple Rejects Obama Trampoline iPhone App, Leaves Us Puzzled

   »  TechCrunch

  Video game developer Swamiware was surprised to see its latest iPhone app rejected by Apple, and so are we. The application was a harmless game that let you select a known U.S. politician (both republicans and democrats) and have him/her jump a virtual trampoline. You could tilt to control movement, use the head to pop some balloons with the White House or the Oval Office in the background, do some acrobatic flips and shake the device to clear the scene.

  That was it.

  Now can make an educated guess as to why Apple decided to reject the application, because there are precedents. About a month ago, Tim Burks saw his cartoon being rejected as an iPhone app for likely the same reason the Obama Trampoline was denied:

  … it contains content that ridicules public figures and is in violation of Section 3.3.12 from the iPhone SDK Agreement which states:

  “Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple’s reasonable judgement may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users.”

  But does the Obama Trampoline app actually ridicule public figures? It’s not obscene or pornographic of nature, so why was it deemed either offensive or defamatory?

  Judge for yourself:

  Not so bad, right?

  Either way, the app goes in the … not the deadpool, but Mac developer Peter Hosey’s iPhone Applications Graveyard.

  

  CrunchBase Information iPhone App Store Information provided by CrunchBase

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 8:31

  Amazon Kindle 2 Images and Price Leaked

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 0:35

  Elevator Pitch Friday: Zumeo Tries To Be Gen-Y’s LinkedIn

   »  TechCrunch

  This week’s elevator pitch comes from Zumeo.com. The pitch gets points for being concise and presenting a clever idea: a social networking and job site for the Generation Y.

  Zumeo.com is a social networking and online recruiting site for college students, recent college grads and first year hires. Users first take a “self-discovery” test that highlights strengths and weaknesses. Zumeo partnered with career consultant Career Key to develop an assessment test to help match a user with the appropriate job. The user then creates a “Live Resume” that can be updated and shared with recruiters, friends or colleagues or even shared with other social networks like Facebook and MySpace.

  Zumeo has over 500 users; but only about 15 recruiters at the moment, which seems low for such a large amount of users. Zumeo’s recruiter and business list includes SOS Staffing, CDS Publications, and Consolidated Graphics and the CEO, Jared Booye, said Zumeo has matched many young adults with jobs in the past few months.

  Zumeo’s current pricing model lets recruiters test drive the site and then pay if they see talent they like. The cost is $9 per post and $19 per month for unlimited posts. The number of recruiters seems low, even for a poor economy. I remember that I found my internships and first jobs through my college career services department, like many of my fellow classmates. Perhaps Zumeo needs to tap into those platforms to really expand, even in a job market that’s not ripe for employment.

  It seems like Zumeo.com has a ways to go when it comes to building up a social and employment network of recruiters and experienced professionals across various industries. Maybe this comes through partnerships with established professional social network, like LinkedIn. Maybe not. But even with its shortcomings, Zumeo has a neat concept and may do well for itself.

  Here are some screen shots showing Zumeo’s “Live Resume” :

  

  

  

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• February 06, 2009
• 21:17

  One Lawsuit Later, SGN Releases Its Mafia Game For The iPhone

   »  TechCrunch

  

  SGN, the company behind many of the popular Wii-like games on the iPhone, has just released a new game to the App Store. Dubbed “Mafia: Respect and Retaliation“, the game joins a growing number of mob-based games on the App Store, some of which are growing to become immensely popular.

  Among the features that differentiate Mafia:R&R from its competitors are the ability to play the game while offline (other games typically require a network connection), use of the iPhone’s accelerometer to train in a virtual shooting range, and 3D graphics. The game is available for free, but also comes in a half dozen premium versions available for 99 cents, $5, and denominations up to $50. Premium versions grant gamers more skill points and higher rank, allowing them to establish their dominance more quickly.

  The app has been a long time coming. In January David Maestri launched a game called Mob Wars on Facebook Platform while he was employed by Freewebs, the company that later became SGN. The game has grown to become incredibly popular, with millions of users and rumors of monthly revenues topping $1 million. However, because Maestri was employed by Freewebs/SGN when he built the game, the company felt that the IP was theirs (as is commonly stipulated in tech employee contracts). For more on the legal drama, check out this post.

  
  
  

  After months of legal wrangling, Maestri and SGN reached a settlement, granting Maestri control of the Mob Wars app but rewarding SGN with a undisclosed monetary payment along with the rights to develop Mob Wars-like games.

  SGN’s Mafia game is one of the products of that agreement, and it certainly looks like it stands a chance at becoming another hit for the company. As with other similar mob-based games, Mafia:R&R is primarily text based, allowing gamers to complete jobs to rise through the ranks of organized crime, buying improved items along the way. These games can take some getting used to, but they can also be very addictive.

  Other popular mob games include iMob (covered here and Mafia LIVE!, currently the 7th most popular paid app on the App Store.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 19:52

  Aviary Encroaches On Adobe Illustrator With Raven, The First Vector Graphics Editor For The Web

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Aviary is a small New York startup with the ambitious goal of recreating (and expanding upon) Adobe’s most popular design tools in the browser.

  Since we first covered the company about a year and a half ago, Aviary has kept most of its 15 planned tools (at least those that have seen development at all so far) in private beta. Only three have become publicly available: Phoenix, an image editor along the lines of Photoshop; Peacock, a so-called “visual laboratory” for pixel-based images; and Toucan, a color palette tool.

  Now, Aviary has taken the lid off a tool called Raven as well. Raven is a vector-based image editor that mimics (and therefore competes with) Adobe Illustrator, a popular desktop application among digital artists whose work often makes it onto real paper. Like Phoenix, Raven doesn’t match its Adobe counterpart feature-by-feature but it does recreate Illustrator’s most essential functionality. And the results are pretty impressive; the pen tool and gradients in particular work just as they should, and the tool overall reaffirms Flex’s reputation as a suitable platform for desktop-like applications.

  

  Is it good enough to convince veteran Illustrator users to switch? Probably not. But it may be enough to convince new designers to forgo buying Illustrator and try out Raven first. After all, Adobe charges a pretty penny for its creativity software and not everyone’s inclined to pirate it.

  CEO Avi Muchnick seems keenly aware of the imprudence of calling Raven (or any of his other products) real competition for Adobe just yet, preferring to describe Raven as “the web app counterpart to Adobe Illustrator”. The thinking is that Illustrator users may want to load their files into Raven using its SVG import feature, after which they can make modifications and then release their work into Aviary’s online community. And the community does appear to be Aviary’s biggest selling point, at least until its productivity tools evolve. Artists can easily browse and modify each others’ work, and they can retain control over copyrights and sell their work online, if so desired.

  Almost a year ago Adobe started making its own inroads into online creativity tools, releasing a photo editing tool at photoshop.com. Surprisingly, Adobe chose not to recreate Photoshop in the browser but rather to design a new tool with broader consumer appeal. This suggests that Adobe may leave the field open for Aviary to produce online products that are robust enough to entice creative professionals.

  Aviary is still working to improve font support, bitmap-to-vector tracing, and support for export file types in Raven. An API will also be released next month that makes it possible to embed any of Aviary’s applications across the web. Interested parties can email this address.

  Check out a video demonstration of Raven below.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 18:43

  College Music Service Ruckus.com Shuts Down

   »  TechCrunch

  
  
  

  Ruckus, an online music service geared towards universities that allows students to stream an unlimited amount of music, has apparently just closed its doors. The service was designed to appeal to college students, offering a legal alternative to the piracy that can be found on many campuses. Ruckus was initially offered as a subscription service, then eventually moved to an ad-supported model with partnerships with dozens of major universities. Eventually it opened to all students with an accepted university email address (typically .edu).

  At around 5 PM EST today the site went down with a notice stating that it was undergoing an update. As of 5:30, it was displaying the shutdown notice seen above.

  We’re told that music that has not passed its “renew date” still works, but that music that has expired will no longer work because the DRM licensing server has apparently shut down.

  Last year Ruckus was acquired by Total Music, the joint venture between Sony and UMG, with the intention of using it as a backend for a service which still has yet to launch. Total Music has been struggling for some time - we hear that it made a strong pitch to provide Facebook’s music service, but that it was eventually denied when the social network was unwilling to share revenue and user data, which would have been part of the deal (Total Music was also unable to get Warner, the last major label holdout, to agree to participate in the venture).

  While Ruckus’ closure certainly doesn’t bode well for the initiative, Total Music doesn’t seem dead quite yet. Last month it quietly launched a site called Tunepost in private beta, which seems to offer streaming music through a widget.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 17:50

  MySpace Begins Monetizing Music Videos With Impressive Results

   »  TechCrunch

  

  In an effort to monetize the growing number of music videos on its site, MySpace has just launched a new pilot advertising initiative that places attractive overlays at the bottom of some clips, allowing users to buy the song they’re listening to or immediately jump to the artist’s homepage.

  The new initiative stems from MySpace’s partnership with Auditude, a content detection and management company that can identify copyrighted content and serve relevant advertising, even on user-submitted video. Now Auditude is applying the technology to music videos, which in the past have largely relied on banner ads and static text links to music stores for monetization.

  On Wednesday the site, in a partnership with Warner Music Group, placed an overlay ad on a video for My Chemical Romance’s cover of Desolation Row. Users were presented with the option to buy the song either on Amazon, or (in an interesting twist) on a vinyl disc. Over the 24 hours that the ad ran it posted an impressive 1.2% click-through-rate (significantly higher than rates seen on typical banner ads), encouraging MySpace and Auditude to expand the program to more videos. Today the site began displaying advertising on U2’s new single Get On Your Boots, with plans to expand the program more broadly in the near future.

  Much of the overlay’s success probably stems from the fact that it doesn’t look too much like an ad - it actually shows informative content like the album the song came from, the year it was released, and a link to the artist’s profile. I wouldn’t say I like having it there, but MySpace could have done a lot worse. And frankly in the current economic climate it’s encouraging when companies can find advertising methods that actually work without being ridiculously annoying.

  

  YouTube launched a similar program three weeks ago, allowing content owners to insert overlays for products into their videos (MySpace’s overlays are significantly more attractive, but they both serve the same purpose). YouTube wouldn’t provide any exact numbers, but a representative confirmed that in general the site has seen significantly improved clickthrough rates when ads are embedded in videos themselves, as opposed to appearing in surrounding banner ads.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 15:24

  Survival Of The Fittest: Drugstore.com Reports First Quarterly Profit

   »  TechCrunch

  This isn’t exactly new news, since its earnings were reported last Wednesday, but it’s a fact worth highlighting these days: Drugstore.com is now effectively a profitable business as it has been able to turn an operating profit for the fourth quarter of 2008, the first time since it went public in 1999.

  The company would have gotten there sooner, if it weren’t for the fact that the state of New Jersey settled against the company in a sales tax case, costing the company $2.5 million and resulting in a quarterly loss for Q4 2007, when the company had originally thought it would be turning an operating profit.

  The company this week reported quarterly net sales of just south of $94 million and net income of $289,000, and jumped to profitability thanks to an increase in customers (+400,000 new customers in Q4 alone) and solid sales of over-the-counter products. The company achieved fourth quarter gross margins of 28.5% and the highest adjusted EBITDA in the history of the company of $5.2 million, which is up 243% over Q4 2007.

  For the year, Drugstore.com reported net sales of $366.6 million, a net loss of $8.3 million and an operating cash flow of $9.9 million for 2008.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 14:53

  FlightTrack Pro Puts TripIt (And More) In Your Pocket

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Appropros Mobile has released a Pro version of its popular FlightTrack iPhone application that can automatically pull in your flight itineraries through TripIt’s recently released API.

  The original FlightTrack application, which costs $4.99 and is currently ranked third among the iPhone App Store’s top paid travel applications, asks for you to enter an airline, a flight number, and a date. It then displays a travel map with route and weather information, and it tells you whether the flight’s gate has changed or if there’s been a delay.

  The new Pro version essentially saves you from having to remember flight numbers by giving you a list of the itineraries you have already emailed to TripIt. You can still look up flights manually (perhaps when you want to retrieve the status of a flight for a friend or family member), but you’ll always have your own travel information ready for quick access.

  By releasing an API and deciding not to develop its own iPhone application, TripIt has essentially offloaded its mobile users to Appropros Mobile (TripIt does have a mobile iPhone site but it’s not nearly as functional). Unfortunately, this means TripIt will miss out on the revenue that Appropros gets to generate with its data, not an insignificant amount at $9.99 a pop for FlightTrack Pro.

  This could be a strategic mistake for TripIt since travel is by definition a mobile activity. However, travel social network competitor Dopplr hasn’t released an iPhone app of its own either, so perhaps neither company has felt enough competitive pressure in the mobile space yet.

  See our previous coverage of TripIt here.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 14:50

  CG Freebie: Free Screening of the All-Star Game in 3D

   »  TechCrunch
  Were you as excited as we were about the 3D presentation of the BCS championship game? Here's a chance for you and a friend to see this hot new technology in action! Read on to learn how to win free tickets to see the Sprite Slam Dunk contest in 3D at a theater near you!

  

  
• 14:29

  Google Sets Its Sights On Your Sight

   »  TechCrunch

  Google has published a bit of an insider’s look on how the company conducts eye-tracking studies to evaluate the effectiveness of its search results.

  In addition to holding interviews, field studies and live experiments to improve the usability of its products, Google has special hardware and software that tracks test participants’ eyeballs as they scan results for the perfect link.

  The official blog post doesn’t detail any groundbreaking discoveries that have been produced by this testing technique. It sounds as though it has mostly helped Google confirm the obvious: that the first few results it returns are indeed usually the most relevant, and its so-called “universal search” effort (where it mixes rich media results like images and video thumbnails among the standard text results) doesn’t distract users too much but has actually proven rather useful.

  Perhaps most intriguing is the following video provided by Google that shows how quickly users glance around result pages:

  The bigger the dot, the longer the person sat looking at a particular part of the page.

  This heatmap-like image, which is named the “golden triangle”, also suggests that people spend a lot more time evaluating the whole results at the top of the page than the ones further down.

  

  For more, see our previous coverage of Google’s usability lab.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 14:29

  Debunked: Apple Doesn’t Ban Facebook In Stores As A Policy

   »  TechCrunch

  

  UPDATE: An Apple representative just informed me that its retail stores have NOT banned access to Facebook.

  There’s been a lot of talk about how Facebook has been banned at all Apple stores to prevent customers from loitering. We did a little investigation on our own and found that Facebook was able to be accessed at Apple stores in Washington D.C. and Palo Alto. However, two stores, one in Richmond, Virginia and one in LA, confirmed that Facebook and MySpace have both been blocked from use on in-store computers.

  MySpace was banned in May of 2007 from all 251 Apple stores, in an effort to prevent loitering and internet cafe use of in-store computers, so it’s very well possible that other social networking services will be banned in the future too. Apple reports that their retail stores see an average of 2 million visitors weekly. If anyone is going to an Apple store today, check it out and let us know in the comments what you find.

  Our guess is some store managers are just getting a little overanxious.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 14:03

  Reminder: Monday is Kindle 2 Day!

   »  TechCrunch
  Just a friendly reminder that CrunchGear will be blogging live from the Amazon.com press conference on Monday, 2/9, at 10am eastern. How great is it going to be? Will Bezos be there? Will it involve Kindle 2s? Will there be dancers? Will it involve something even better and more incredible? We won't know until Monday morning. Here's what we know so far:

  

  
• 12:15

  TwtQpon Throws A Free Bone To Struggling Retailers

   »  TechCrunch

  Dell made a cool $1 million over the holidays by alerting Twitter users to sale items. Now, Felipe Coimbra, the developer who gave us twtpoll, twttrip and twtvite, is launching twtQpon, a Twitter coupon creator for businesses to roll out their Twitter marketing strategy. Not a bad idea, when retailers are trying desperately to find a way to harness the outreach power of Twitter. Others retail operations are following Dell’s lead by using Twitter to spread the word on sales and discounts. CheapTweet.com even breaks down all these sales by product.

  You create an coupon on the twtQpon site, and then, like the developer’s other apps, micro-message with a tiny URL on Twitter or Facebook. The link takes people to back to the advertised website to redeem the coupon.

  Here’s a sample:

  

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 9:57

  Backup And Share Your iPhone Contacts For Free With IDrive Lite

   »  TechCrunch

  We don’t write about every iPhone application that we come across (there are other sites doing a great job at that), but sometimes we just have to. For instance, IDrive, which specializes in backup solutions, has a neat application dubbed IDrive Lite that allows you to backup, share and restore all your iPhone contacts completely free of charge if you’ve updated your iPhone software to 2.0.

  Especially for business users, tools like this can come in quite handy. Once the app is installed on your iPhone, you can tap the ‘Backup’ button and the tool will automatically save your contact information to ‘the cloud’ i.e. IDrive servers. No signups required. You can easily restore contacts as well without overwriting people you’ve added after your last backup. Finally, the sharing functionality is rather nice; it lets you share information with other contacts in your address book by sending them an SMS with an import key for them to use.

  Update: as someone points out in the comments, you can only restore your full contact list and not individual ones. I’m also hearing reports that the app crashes the device but I haven’t had any problems.

  MobileMe does much of the same (not for free though) but other than that we haven’t found any other application in the App Store that can do what IDrive Lite does, unless we’ve missed those, and we should also note Tapulous has this app called FriendBook which lets you manage and swap contacts with other iPhone users.

  Update: other backup solutions for the iPhone are Funambol and My.Memova.

  Pro Softnet Corp, the company behind IDrive, is currently working on making it possible for iPhone owners to backup and share photos as well. For now, you can download the contact backup solution from the App Store here.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 9:55

  Getcher Free GMail Stickers

   »  TechCrunch

  Over on the official GMail blog, they’re giving away GMail stickers. I know you’ve always wanted that “m-velope” icon to adorn your laptop. Act quick. If you’re lucky, you can get that fancy unicorn bookplate sticker. If you’re unlucky, you’ll get that boring computer bookplate sticker.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 9:27

  Tree.com Acquires Mint Competitor Thrive

   »  TechCrunch

  New York-based Loudwater Labs has sold the assets of its online personal finance management application Thrive to Tree.com (Nasdaq:TREE), the company behind services such as the formerly IAC-owned LendingTree and RealEstate.com. This means that the publicly listed Tree.com now has a very good resource in its hands as well as sufficient reach to give Mint and other personal finance management tools like Wesabe, Geezeo and Buxfer a good run for their money.

  Tree.com Chairman and CEO Doug Lebda commented that the acquisition of Thrive is a perfect fit with the strategic vision of Tree.com, and you don’t have to be a genius to see that he has a point there. Tree.com operates a number of strong brands in the financial and real estate space, and its customer base can clearly benefit from free tools like Thrive which enable users to better monitor, manage and improve their personal financial health, particularly in the tough economic times we’re in.

  According to its website (which also includes funny bios for their team members), $225,209,097 is currently managed with the help of Thrive at the time of this writing. For the sake of comparison, Mint says it’s tracking $50 billion in transactions, $15 billion in assets and has identified more than $100 million in potential savings for its users.

  The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed and are said not to have had a material impact on the operations of Tree.com. According to the about-page, Thrive’s investors included current and former executives from Paypal, Citigroup Investment Banking and Limewire.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 9:26

  Review: SensorKlear Loupe

   »  TechCrunch
  It's notoriously hard and scary to for amateurs to clean the image sensors inside digital SLRs. Just by touching the delicate surface of the sensor you risk permanent damage or misalignment, which is why some DSLRs now offer dust detection and removal software - they basically say don't touch the dust, the computer will interpolate the missing portions of the image. Me, I just pour a little cleaning fluid in there, swish it around, and keep shooting. This does nothing good for the longevity of the camera.

  

  
• 6:53

  Join The Travelling Circus Of TechCrunch Events In Europe

   »  TechCrunch

  Here’s a heads-up about some TechCrunch events we are planning to put on in Europe in the first half of this year. The format of the events follows a simple formula: afternoon panel discussions involving tech startups and the investment community, followed by relaxed evening networking. Where possible we will live video stream the events onto TechCrunch. We bill these sessions as as “TechCrunchTalk”. The aim is to both network the disparate community of European startups together, whilst also providing an insight into how the European tech scene works for those outside.

  We have done our best to “synchronise” with other events on the European circuit like like Seedcamp, OpenCoffee so that we’ll be in a city around the same time as many of the key players on the scene. We’ve also tried to avoid clashes with larger European events like Plugg (organised by TechCrunch writer Robin Wauters), The Next Web, Next 09, and Le Web, among others.

  For each event we’ll be looking for entrepreneurs and VCs for the panel discussions in the locations listed. So if you are potentially available, throw your hat into the ring by contacting Mike Butcher of TechCrunch UK. And some events may also have a ’startup pitch’ element as well, with startups selected by TechCrunch UK editorial.

  We are always interested in hearing about venues in these locations - ideally someone with a big office space that can host about 150-200 people.

  TechCrunchTalk events will be covered on TechCrunch UK and cross-posted to TechCrunch.com. Plus, wherever possible, they will be video streamed live onto TechCrunch so you can get a heads-up on the European scene from wherever you are. We already have a live streaming partner for one event, Floobs, but we’re interested in hearing about more.

  And of course we have a range of sponsorship packages available. If you would like information on the sponsor packages please email our European events co-ordinator Petra Johansson of Twisted Tree Events on petra@twistedtree.co.uk

  If you are a member of the press wanting to cover any of the forthcoming events in some way, please email our PR co-ordinator Rassami Hök Ljungberg of Rassami PR on rassami@rassami.com

  If you want to come to any of these events please go grab tickets where they are available for the early bird prices. An if you wish to be on the mailing list for information about ALL the up-coming events, sign up on our Amiando account here:

  We also now have a dedicated page on TechCrunch UK for these events.

  Outside of these dates I (Mike Butcher) will be attending many of the other European tech events and am available as a speaker or moderator.

  The dates we have so far (other events are planned for the second half of the year) are:

  Barcelona
  19th February - “Mobile 2.0″ event alongside Mobile World Congress
  Topic: The future for Mobile 2.0 startups.
  Get Tickets
  More Info here
  Sponsors so far: LiveCLIQ Inc.

  Paris
  25th February - The day after Seedcamp
  Topic: Building the Tech scene in France, scaling across Europe and the world.
  Get Tickets

  Warsaw
  19th March - Central European event for tech startups & VCs
  Topic: Re-engineering the Central European tech scene - What’s next?
  Get Tickets

  London
  21st April
  Topic: A day-long event for UK & other European startups. More details to follow
  Sign up for further info

  Stockholm
  27th May - Nordic and the Baltic states event for startups and VCs
  Topic: Connecting Northern Europe - Where are the strong and weak links?
  Sign up for further info

  Berlin
  10th June – More details to follow
  Topic: How does Berlin and Germany become a key node for European Tech?
  Sign up for further info

  London
  9th July – TechCrunch Summer-Party
  Topic: Party!
  Sign up for further info

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 5:39

  IMO.IM Is The Best IM Web Service You’ve Never Heard Of

   »  TechCrunch

  With all the talk about Meebo adding support for Facebook chat yesterday, I took notice of a message in our tips inbox today about another instant messaging aggregator service that I’d never heard of before adding support for Skype chat. IMO.IM is its name, it’s still in alpha stage (whatever that means), and it’s actually pretty neat.

  First, the good. IMO.IM is simple, web-based service that doesn’t require you to register, comes with a desktop version for Windows and supports multiple languages. It can handle text, voice and video conversations on the most important instant messaging services including Windows Live Messenger / MSN, AIM / ICQ, MySpace, Yahoo Messenger, Jabber, Gtalk as well as - and correct me if I’m wrong but I think this is a first - Skype. I tried using the service on my iPhone (no app, just browse to the website) and it worked seamlessly.

  Update: Nimbuzz and fring also supports Skype chat on mobile devices.

  The bad? No Mac or Linux desktop application and no Facebook chat (yet), but that’s about the only things we could come up with for an otherwise awesome little product.

  According to this blog post, IMO.IM has some other great stuff in the pipeline, including text to speech and vice versa functionality in all languages, face and object recognition, smart advertising, 3D emoticons and avatars, offline access, and more. Consider me subscribed to that blog to learn when those features become available.

  Also worth noting is that IMO.IM was co-founded by Georges Harik, one of the first 10 employees at Google and manager of several of its early products. He’s also an active angel investor; he invested in our competitor Venturebeat so he’s lucky to get written up here at all (please note the sarcasm), and a handful of other internet startups which you can check out in his Crunchbase profile. Also, FriendFeed co-founders and also ex-Googlers Paul Buchheit and Sanjeev Singh are listed as advisors to IMO.IM.

  Surprised that they haven’t enjoyed more buzz so far.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 3:09

  Techrigy Hits 1 Billion Conversations–Think Google Alerts On Steroids

   »  TechCrunch
  When I first began working on TechCrunch, I immediately looked for a tool to alert me whenever people wrote about CrunchBase online. After demo'ing several products, I landed on SM2 by Techrigy. Techrigy announced last week that their index of online conversations just broke the 1 billion mark. And two days ago, they announced real-time alerts, fixing my biggest complaint with the service--results previously took a day or two to appear. Like most website analytics packages, these conversation monitoring tools face a delicate balance between simple interface and powerful statistics. Much like a scientific calculator is very powerful, but a little confusing. More after the jump.

  

  
• February 05, 2009
• 21:15

  Gmail Adds Support For Multi-Pane Viewing

   »  TechCrunch

  

  A new feature in Gmail Labs just launched, giving users the ability to simultaneously view multiple panes in Gmail without having to open another browser window. For users that frequently label their messages and have saved searches, this is a huge upgrade that will make Gmail even more efficient.

  Since launching, Gmail users looking to view search results or a subset of their labeled messages saw their results take up their entire browser window. Now, you’ll be able to do multiple things at once.

  To enable the feature, first activate Gmail Labs for your account, then enable “Multiple Inboxes” from the list of Labs options (you’ll have to scroll down a bit to find it). The term Multiple Inboxes is a bit of a misnomer - you can’t actually show messages from other accounts, but that could still come in a future Labs release.

  To set up your panes, go to the Gmail Settings menu and select “Multiple Inboxes” (once you’ve enabled them). From there, you can create up to five different panes. Creating a pane seems to be a little counter-intuitive - you’ll need to manually enter the Gmail ‘code’ of your label (for example, “label:friends” would display a list of messages tagged with the friends label). But the system is also flexible, as it allows you to combine multiple attributes into a single pane (for example, “is:drafts OR is:starred” would show messages that are either drafts or starred).

  Google first launched Gmail Labs last June, giving Googlers a way to showcase the results of their 20% time. Labs apps have included everything from a version of the classic game Snake to features like SMS chat, Gadgets, and even Mail Goggles, meant to keep intoxicated users from sending drunken Emails that they’ll regret in the morning.

  For more, check out Google’s blog post on the new feature here.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 21:13

  Come work with Laguna (and us) at TechCrunch

   »  TechCrunch

  

  We like to say that TechCrunch isn’t a job, it’s a calling, and certainly there are a lot of great reasons to work at TC. Truth be told, Laguna (Michael Arrington’s chocolate lab) is one of our favorite perks. She’ll have you well trained in frisbee 2.0 and the latest catch API in no time flat.

  Seriously, we’re growing and hiring and we’d love to hear from you if you want to help TechCrunch change the world. We need:

  • Developers (2): We don’t just report the news, we build products that change the media landscape. CrunchBase is one of our first successes. We have more projects in the pipeline. Rails developers preferred, but raw talent and drive most important to our team.
  • Sales Directors (2): TechCrunch is the largest technology blog network, reaching over 5 million uniques and 15 million page views / month. We are expanding our direct sales effort with online and event-related sponsorships. Separate positions sought for focus on each start-ups and agencies/brand.
  • Conferences & Events Director: TechCrunch hosts about a dozen events a year. Roundtable sessions, networking MeetUps, big conferences (such as TechCrunch50) and awards ceremonies (Crunchies.) Plan events for 200 - 2,000 people and be in the center of the tech community.
  • Executive Assistant: If you love to be involved in a million projects, and love attention to detail, and want to keep us organized, this job is for you.
  • Bookkeeper (part-time/contractor): We’re growing and profitable, so our financials are fun to do.
  • CrunchBase Analyst: Great opportunity for a recent college grad to break into the start-up scene by researching and and writing about new start-ups. Broad exposure to the start-up, VC and technology landscape.
  • CrunchBase Interns (6): College sophomores through seniors are invited to join us as CrunchBase interns. It’s a great way to learn about technology start-ups from the inside. We need a commitment of 5 hours a week and keen interest in covering new products.

  Also, we’re finally looking for proper office space. If anyone has 2-3,000 square feet of space to sublet in the Palo Alto area, please ping me, heather [at] techcrunch [dot] com.

  Photo credit: thank you netzkobold. It’s a favorite.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 21:10

  Video Review: Health Energy Potion

   »  TechCrunch
  Health Energy Potion is a tiny 1.69-ounce energy drink that resembles a health vial from a video game. And sure enough, the drink promises “to add +160 to gamers’ HP.” Video and review after the jump...

  

  
• 20:14

  SEO At the Enterprise Level–A Major Flop

   »  TechCrunch
  When I hear SEO, I think of brilliant quantitative guys shut-up in an apartment somewhere running A/B split tests and writing link-bait. Search Engine Optimization is the way companies make it easy for customers to find their website using Google. Because search engines don't publish their algorithms, SEO is a reverse-engineering guessing-game. The very nature of SEO--unknown, constantly changing, and unethical spam tactics--seems diametrically opposed to enterprise culture. So I interviewed Stephan Spencer, president and founder of Netconcepts. (Major clients include Cabela's, HSN, AOL, SuperPages.com, Zappos, and Discovery Channel, among others.) What's your experience with large enterprise and SEO?

  When it comes to SEO, enterprise companies don't seem to care or are clueless or both.

  

  
• 19:44

  How to Get RC33 On Your G1 Without the Wait

   »  TechCrunch

  

  If you’re a G1 owner and are anything like us, you’ve been checking your handset every 20 minutes for the last two days in hopes that it’s finally your turn to bask in the light of the latest update, RC33. It’s not the Cupcake update folks are so anxious to get their hands on - but its got voice search and Latitude, and that more than justifies the patch for us. Fortunately for those of us dying to play with the latest and greatest, some brilliant beings managed to sniff out the official update package. Armed with little more than an SD card, you can be enjoying RC33 in under 10 minutes.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 19:05

  Facebook Pledges Support For OpenID; But Will Anything Change?

   »  TechCrunch

  

  The OpenID Foundation has just announced that Facebook’s Luke Shepard will be joining the OpenID board as a corporate member, and that Facebook has made a $50,000 donation to the cause. The news marks the first time Facebook has officially signed on with the campaign, though some of its employees have been actively involved with improving the open standard for some time.

  At this point it’s unclear exactly what change this will bring to Facebook. Facebook’s increasingly popular Connect product, which allows users to secure use their Facebook ID’s as logins across over 4,000 sites (including ours), is a closed and proprietary system. But it is also very well designed - members from the Facebook Connect team have given several talks in the hopes of improving the OpenID effort, and are holding an event on the topic next week. From Facebook’s development blog:

  As we’ve launched and built Facebook Connect, we’ve been participants in OpenID efforts. One of our user experience experts, Julie Zhuo, presented at the UX Summit in October. Several of our engineers have been participating in meetups, and one of them ran as a community member for a board seat. We’re happy to announce today that we are formalizing our support of the OpenID Foundation by officially joining the board. It is our hope that we can take the success of Facebook Connect and work together with the community to build easy-to-use, safe, open and secure distributed identity frameworks for use across the Web. As a next step in that effort, we will be hosting an OpenID Design Summit next week here at Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto.

  Facebook is apparently “building up momentum towards their adoption of OpenID as a standard”, but that too is ambiguous - many companies have signed on as “issuing parties”, meaning they’ll allow their IDs to be used elsewhere. But far fewer have been “accepting parties”, which means that accounts from other sites can be used to log-in to their services. OpenID has long been exploited by major internet brands who have pledged support to the cause (and reaped the positive press), only to put their plans on the backburner indefinitely. That said, even if Facebook doesn’t wind up implementing OpenID, it sounds like they’ll at least help make it a little easier to use.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 18:42

  No Escape From Work: Present.ly Releases AIR and Mobile Applications

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Enterprise microblogging service Present.ly, which faces off squarely against TechCrunch50 winner Yammer, has made strides to match the accessibility of its competitor by releasing several applications for the desktop and mobile devices.

  Present.ly users can now exchange messages with groups of their coworkers using an AIR-based desktop app that looks and functions much like Twhirl, Twitteriffic, and Yammer’s own desktop client. For when in transit, these same users can also install Present.ly applications on their phones. The list of supported devices and mobile operating systems now includes the iPhone, BlackBerry, Android and Windows Mobile.

  The desktop application should be particularly effective at persuading Yammer users to try out Present.ly. As many who’ve gotten into the habit of microblogging can attest, having a simple client that sits in the background while you do other work makes staying on top of messages a much more feasible task.

  Details about Present.ly’s new applications can be found in the company’s official blog post. Our initial review of Present.ly, which launched days after Yammer this past September, can be found here. Screenshots are below.

  Desktop AIR Application

  

  Mobile Applications

  

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 17:45

  Offline Google Calendar Is The Ugly Stepsister of Offline Gmail

   »  TechCrunch

  After announcing the offline feature for Gmail last week, Google allowed another feature to be viewed offline: Google Calendar. Unfortunately, the masses will have to wait for access. The offline access, which was built using Google Gears, is currently only available to users of business software package, Google Apps.

  While the offline feature for calendars offers read-only access for enterprise users, it’s not nearly as useful as offline Gmail, where users can write and save emails that will be sent once online. The new offline calendar application doesn’t allow you to create, edit or delete events.

  So what’s the next feature to join the offline party? And when will Google let consumers use the offline calendar?

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 17:33

  Extensions for Google Chrome Coming In May?

   »  TechCrunch

  

  If the schedule for Google’s big annual developer conference is any indication, we should expect to see an extension platform released for Chrome sometime this May.

  Programmer Nicholas Moline has noticed a session called “Developing extensions for Google Chrome” among the 38 sessions posted to the Google I/O website. It sits alongside two other Chrome-specific sessions (the others titled “Exploring Chrome internals” and “V8: Building a high performance JavaScript engine” respectively) and carries the following description:

  Learn how Google Chrome makes it easy to write extensions using the web technologies you already know. This talk will cover the basics of the extension system (distribution/packaging, installation, updates), as well as the different APIs to enhance with the browser.

  This isn’t a guarantee that extensions will be released before or during the conference, but it’s hard to believe Google would hold a session on the topic if we didn’t see them sometime around the date of the conference.

  Extensions, which are very popular among Firefox users, were notably absent from Chrome when it launched last September. Google has since made it clear that it has always planned to provide for them at some point. However, many have taken it into their hands to hack away at Chrome on their own.

  As Google Operating System points out, Google has already enabled user scripts for Chrome. A draft of the extensions model can also be found here.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 16:58

  The Parent Company Auctions Off Assets, Sells Toys.com Domain For $1.25 Million

   »  TechCrunch

  After YP.com (picked up by Yellow Pages for $3.85 million) Fly.com (bought by Travelzoo for $1.8 million), Vibrators.com ($1 million), here’s another high-profile domain name that was just acquired for a 7-figure sum: Faculty Lounge has put $1.25 million on the table for Toys.com in an auction organized as a result of the recent meltdown of The Parent Company.

  The Parent Company filed for bankruptcy in December 2008 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court District of Delaware, and has auctioned off several substantial assets at the law offices of Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones LLP yesterday morning. Although creditors still need to approve everything, most of the assets on auction were sold, and you couldn’t tell we’re in a recession if you look at the sums that were coughed up.

  ePregnancy.com and other eToys assets were bought for $2.15 million (they were actual operational businesses, not just domain names), while Birthdays.com, Pinata.com, eParties.com were acquired for $200,000 by Done Ventures and Domain Equity picked up Hobbies.com and iToys.com for $102,000.

  But Toys.com was the most noteworthy sale, as it was worth $1.25 million to Faculty Lounge solely for the domain name.

  (Source: Domain Name Wire)

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 16:48

  Google’s Answer To The Kindle?

   »  TechCrunch

  

  If you ever get a craving for classic literature while on the go, Google’s just given you the ability to check out your favorite literary works via an iPhone or Android phone. Google’s Book Search currently features 1.5 million public domain books, which have all been optimized to fit a mobile screen. Unfortunately, Blackberrys and other non-Android operating system phones are out of luck in accessing this feature.

  Google is using an extraction technology called Optical Character Recognition (OCR), that captures and formats the text from the page so that it can be easily viewed on a mobile browser.

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 15:49

  UK Spends Billions on High-tech ID Cards, Forgets to Buy Card Readers

   »  TechCrunch
  This has to be one of the dumbest things I've heard in a long time. The UK has spent £4.4 billion ($6.6bn US) on a controversial high-tech National Identity Card scheme for the whole country. The card, intended to be issued to government workers first and the general population soon after, would include biometric information such as facial scanning data and fingerprints, encoded onto the card. Sounds great if you're into the whole Big Brother thing — but they forgot one thing. No police or border station, to say nothing of licensing and job centers, has a machine capable of reading the damn things.

  

  
• 14:09

  MySpace Struggles In Korea, Shuts Down Regional Office

   »  TechCrunch

  

  MySpace will be closing its Korean satellite office by end of the month, we’ve learned, though its Korean portal will continue to operate and will be maintained by staff in the company’s other Asian offices. Sources close to the company say that the layoffs will affect fewer than ten people, but that unlike MySpace’s recent shutdown of its Netherlands office where some employees were offered reassignment, the Korean employees will not be consolidated into other regional offices.

  While MySpace wouldn’t comment on its usage statistics in Korea, it’s likely that the company was underwhelmed by its growth since launching a localized portal last April. Korea is a notoriously difficult market to crack, primary because it is dominated by Cyworld - a social network founded back in 1999, long before MySpace was even in beta stages. Reports have pegged Cyworld’s membership to include up to 90% of Koreans in their 20’s - a staggering figure that leaves little room for newcomers. Add that to substantial cultural differences and it’s little surprise that MySpace is struggling get a foothold in the market.

  We should note that despite Cyworld’s Korean dominance, that company has had a hard time expanding its presence abroad. Cyworld’s US site, launched in 2006, has largely failed to catch on, after months of research spent trying to tailor the network to an American audience.

  Outside of Korea, MySpace has generally been more successful at expanding abroad. The company reports that international revenue is up 35% year over year, with engagement up 38%. But Facebook is growing even more quickly internationally, and is now nearly twice the size of MySpace worldwide.

  MySpace issued the following statement regarding its Korean office shutdown:

  On Thursday 22nd January 2009, employees in our Seoul office were informed of our decision to close our Korean facility and MySpace/FIM legal entity Fox Interactive Media Korea.

  Since opening MySpace in Korea we have realized many successes and gained invaluable insight into the local market. Our team created a locally relevant and unique experience for the Korean community and built awareness for the value of open platforms across the market for developers. We have also advocated cultural diversity and enabled our users to harness the power of our platform to creatively express themselves locally and globally.

  We are incredibly proud of our accomplishments and of the team that built MySpace Korea.

  We are laser focused on profitable growth and rapid monetization. We are very pleased with how this strategy is gaining traction around the world and we believe this decision will enable us to continue to prioritise our investments in the markets that will achieve this for the brand most rapidly.

  Korean MySpacers will continue to enjoy access to MySpace at http://kr.myspace.com/

  It is expected this change will take effect from 28th February 2009.

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 13:38

  ClickTale Launches Email Tracking, Says Revenue Growth Is Strong

   »  TechCrunch

  ClickTale is revving-up for its second round of financing by both rolling out a new email tracking feature and reporting that it’s making significant headway on the business front: Passing the 20K registered customer mark and a 500% revenue growth in the past 12 months. With more than 550 customers paying $99 to $290 a month, we estimate the company is pulling in somewhere between $55,000 and $100,000 a month.

  For those of you unfamiliar with the company, here’s a short primer on ClickTale’s in-page web analytics: Requiring site owners to paste a bit of JavaScipt into pages, ClickTale is then able to capture a variety of user-centric data such as mouse movements, scrolls, clicks, and keystrokes. The data is used to provide a view of how users actually interact with websites by way of videos of users’ browsing sessions, and through aggregated reports—form analytics, heatmaps, etc.

  Another interesting upside of using ClickTale is that it provides a real measurement of user engagement. This is because it’s able to truly determine the amount of time that users were moving their mouse, scrolling, typing, or clicking. Certainly “Time on Page” provided by standard web analytic solutions will suffice for many, but there are definitely site owners who can use such valuable data to optimize pages and their elements.

  ClickTale’s new email tracking feature is an extension of its core service. Using special tags added to links within emails, ClickTale is able to generate video and data on each individual user that clicked a link and consequently interacted with the linked website. The video embedded below shows my own personal interaction with ClickTale’s website after Tal Schwartz (CEO), emailed me about this feature.

  You can start using ClickTale for free, but be warned, you may end up paying for a web service that actually delivers real, quantifiable value.

  
ClickTale - Email Tracking from Itsik Hefez on Vimeo.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 13:00

  Yourmagz.com Marries Ning with Scribd

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Canadian start-up Yourmagz.com launched the closed beta version of its SaaS content distribution platform today. You can sign up to view the site.

  The platform - which can be described as a hybrid between social network platform Ning and web document sharing service Scribd - specializes in distributing publishers’ content across various websites, social networks, and mobile devices. So basically, a user creates a website (much like one can do on Ning), uploads print or video content and then can distribute a “virtual magazine” to Facebook and other social networks, mobile phones and websites with the click of a button. Each virtual magazine can have members who can comment and upload their own photos and videos.

  Yourmagz will offer “freemium” based services, allowing anyone to use the technology’s core benefits for free. The founder says the premium service will be “low-cost” while declining to specify just how much he will charge for it. Yourmagz seems more likely to draw an independent, smaller publication. While it’s doubtful that a large magazine like Forbes would switch it’s content to Yourmagz, but it might be a useful side application.

  Yourmagz.com is similar to an existing business. Scribd had a successful year in 2008, which could mean that there is a receptive audience for content sharing services like Yourmagz. You can also get a similar magazine-like experience for free with services such as Issuu.

  But there are definite challenges in forming such a widespread and open platform like Yourmagz.com. Recently, Ning found itself in a sticky situation with the creation of adult sites. With Yourmagz’s tagline “Freedom to publish,” it doesn’t sound like the platform will be restrictive. Also, users may not want pay for access to the platform when they could use free services offered by Scribd, Issue, and Ning.

  You can check out Yourmagz’s example of an embedded magazine or take a look at the screen shots below:

  

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 12:03

  Viagogo Raises $15 million Round And Signs Tennis Stars To Battle Seatwave

   »  TechCrunch

  So Viagogo has raised another $15 million and hooked in former tennis champions Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf both as board members / investors as well as advisors to help it push its secondary ticketing market into Europe. The funding now gives it $70 million of external investment. That’s some war-chest.

  Agassi and Graf invested in the common-stock round alongside existing shareholders Index Ventures, Bernard Arnault, the chairman of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA; German media mogul Herbert Kloiber; and international financier Jacob Rothschild, via his family’s interests. The new funding values Viagogo at more than $300 million, although I hear from sources that they were aiming for a $30 million round.

  The company currently serves ticket seekers in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany and the Netherlands. Founder Eric Baker says Viagogo has annual sales close to a $100 million annually and expects those figures to double or triple this year. Viagogo, which charges buyers a 10% fee and sellers a 15% fee on each confirmed transaction, handled $100 million in transactions in 2008.

  The London-based secondary ticketing site has deals with UK soccer clubs Manchester United, Chelsea and Germany’s Bayern Munich as well as music companies Warner Music International, Live Nation and Madonna. It is looking to push into more European markets such as Spain and Italy, and the US, but Germany is key to this.

  Graf and Agassi are going to open their contact book for partnerships in tennis, and Graf is clearly a draw in the key German market - but one wonders if signing up a celebrity is really going to give Viagogo the extra juice it needs.

  Because it’s not just about having deals with clubs and live music promoters. A growing proportion of resold tickets are sold by fans to other fans. To that end Viagogo competitor Seatwave has a 3-year exclusive deal with StudiVZ, the “German Facebook”, for instance.

  Seatwave is Viagogo’s headache in Europe. According to a Hitwise spokesman I spoke to today, Viagogo is the third largest secondary ticketing site in the UK. As of January this year Seatwave is on 35% market share, GetMeIn (a UK startup founded by US guy James Gray and acquired by TicketMaster) is on 25%, and Viagogo is on 14%.

  Seatwave also has deals with European soccer and rugby clubs and saw a 50% increase in transaction volume in the fourth quarter last year. Seatwave is also London-based and backed by a phalanx of investors including Adinvest, Atlas Venture, Fidelity Ventures and Mangrove Capital Partners to the tune of $36 million. Seatwave was founded in 2006 by Joe Cohen, formerly with Ticketmaster and Match.com, and is widely tipped on the London scene as a smart entrepreneur.

  One of those backers, Fred Destin of Atlas Ventures, has blogged vociferously against Viagogo, at one point last year calling out Viagogo as being poised to deadpool.

  Clearly he was wrong, but third party observers Hitwise reported last October that Viagogo’s traffic numbers had fallen from 3.8% in April to 1.7%. We know traffic leads to sales but Baker denied it was of significance and preferred to talk about transactions. Nevertheless, perhaps that’s why they signed some high-profie celebs to push the site? Agassi is liked in the UK, Graf in Germany. Queue advertising blitz maybe?

  Then again both Viagogo and Seatwave stand to benefit in the recession, which is driving down prices for live events. That’s good for secondary ticket markets of course, because people start to sell their tickets more often. Viagogo said ticket prices for this year’s Super Bowl dropped 40% - a $5,000 ticket last year sold for $3,100. People are now bargain hunting which puts more power in the hands of secondary markets. The trouble is, these markets have to get volume.

  In the US it Viagogo faces StubHub, which in 2007 signed a five-year contract with Major League Baseball to be its official ticket reseller and TicketsNow, was acquired by TicketMaster Inc. in 2008. Forrester estimates U.S. online secondary ticket sales reached almost $3 billion last year, up from about $2.6 billion in 2007.

  Last year TechCrunch named both Viagogo and Seatwave a well placed to weather a downturn.

  Viagogo was launched by Baker in August 2006 after reportedly fell out with Stubhub CEO Jeff Fluhr, hence Viagogo. StubHub was sold to eBay in 2007 for $307 million.

  (picture credit)

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 11:39

  Is The Worst Behind Us? Online Ad Revenues Pick Up In The Fourth Quarter.

   »  TechCrunch

  

  With Time Warner reporting earnings yesterday, we now have online advertising numbers for the fourth quarter from the four largest players: Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL. Tallying up their online advertising revenues provides a decent proxy for the health of the overall online advertising industry as a whole, since they represent a majority of those revenues. (For comparison, see IAB numbers for the U.S. only).  After a full year of slowing growth, their combined ad revenues actually picked up in the fourth quarter, showing a 3 percent rise compared to the third quarter. Combined revenues grew 8 percent on an annual basis.

  Like everyone else, I’ve been expecting to see continuing pressure on Internet advertising. In the third quarter, the sequential growth of the combined ad revenues from these four companies ground to a halt, going from 12.7 percent sequential growth in the fourth quarter of 2007 to 0.6 percent in the third.  (All growth rates are quarter over quarter, unless otherwise noted).

  What the slight rebound in growth tells us is that search advertising may be making up for the continued weakness in display advertising, which each of these companies acknowledged in their conference calls.  The question is whether sequential growth will remain in this low range for the rest of the year, or whether search advertising can push it higher. One quarter’s worth of data is not enough to make any conclusons on that front, but at least these numbers provide a ray of hope.

  The combined ad revenues totaled $8.5 billion in the fourth quarter, up from $8.2 billion in the third quarter and $7.8 billion in the fourth quarter of 2007. Google continued to dominate, accounting for 65 percent of those revenues, up from 61 percent from a year ago but slightly down from its 65.3 percent share in the third quarter.  Google contributed slightly more than half of the growth.  Yahoo’s 19.1 percent share of revenues went up quarter-over-quarter by the same amount that Google’s went down (0.3 percent).  Microsoft’s $866 million in online revenues gave it a 10.2 share, up from 9.4 percent in the third quarter.  And AOL’s advertising revenues remained flat at $507 million, giving it a 6.0 percent share (down 0.2 percent).

  For the purposes of this analysis, I took the total advertising revenues from both Google and Yahoo, including their network revenues paid to affiliates, the online revenues reported by Microsoft, and only the advertising portion of AOL’s revenues. The revenue share figures above are rounded. Below are the absolute revenue numbers, broken down by company:

  Update: We’ve updated the chart and table below to reflect more data going back to the third quarter of 2007. While there was an uptick in the quarterly growth rate in the fourth quarter, the 8 percent annual growth rate was still much slower than the 18 percent annual growth rate we saw in the third quarter. The big quarterly jumps began to temper in the fourth quarter of 2007, so that is only now beginning to be reflected in the year-over-year comparisons.

  

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 11:37

  MagicJack and the Problem With Gadget Start-Ups

   »  TechCrunch
  You have a great idea for a product. You have a great designer. You have a manufacturer willing to pump something out for not much money. You're on your way to gadget riches, right? Wrong. Dan Costa wrote a cautionary tale for all those looking to produce a consumer electronics product. His focus is magicJack, a company that we wrote about in August 2007, a post that currently has 167 comments, none of them particularly good. Here's an example from our own comments:

  How do you CONTACT these people I can find NO way to send them a message?

  MagicJack is basically a VOIP dongle that plugs into your USB port. You then add a telephone and make calls. It costs $40 and then $20 a year. It should be plug and play but, as with everything in life, it often isn't. Fair enough, you say. Just make a phone call to the support line and you've got it solved. Sadly, this is not the case. MagicJack is one of the reasons we gadget writers are so cynical. We see a great idea but there is something missing either during the review or on delivery. After a while you get a sixth sense about these things but unfortunately I couldn't see the problems with this device until far along the product life cycle. I didn't know the company would fail so badly at support and marketing.

  

  
• 10:43

  Universal Music Links To Unauthorized, Soundless Eminem YouTube Clip From Its Own Website

   »  TechCrunch

  Universal Music Group has a long history of bringing lawsuits upon music and video sharing services (MySpace, Veoh and its investors, Grouper / Bolt.com, etc.), so it’s kind of surprising to see them link to a clip of one of their biggest artists, rapper and producer Eminem, which has not been authorized by its copyright holders (i.e. Universal Music themselves).

  Update: the news item has been updated as a result of this coverage. Good thing we have a screenshot.

  

  The link can be found on this January 7 news item on the UMG website about the ‘leaking’ of Eminem’s newest track, and leads to this YouTube clip posted by a regular YouTube user. In case you were wondering, Universal Music Group has an official channel on the video sharing site which does not feature a clip for this particular track yet.

  Ironically, there is a notice from YouTube below the video stating that the video “contains an audio track that has not been authorized by all copyright holders”. Furthermore, the audio has been disabled as a result of YouTube’s new policy whereby audio that has not been authorized is simply stripped away from the video, effectively generating a ton of creepy, soundless music videos.

  Way to encourage uploading copyrighted material without your consent, UMG!

  CrunchBase Information Universal Music Group YouTube Information provided by CrunchBase

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 9:18

  Once Again, The AP Tries To Redefine Fair Use; Goes After Shepard Fairey For Obama Poster

   »  TechCrunch

  

  The Associated Press is on the wrong of a fair use argument again. It is actually going after artist Shepard Fairey for his iconic Obama poster, which it recently discovered was based on an AP news photograph by Mannie Garcia. The poster is clearly based on that photograph (see comparison at left), but this is exactly the kind of use of copyrighted works that is meant to be protected.

  The poster is art. The image it is based on has been sufficiently transformed that even the AP did not know it owned the copyright to the underlying work until a few weeks ago. And Fairey says he hasn’t made any money from the poster, although others have. You can buy the image on posters, stickers, coffee mugs and T-Shirts, and copies of the poster signed by Fairey sell for thousands of dollars. Still, the AP is wants money from Fairey.

  I’d link to the AP story describing the dispute, except that we’ve banned the AP for exactly this kind of behavior in the past. The AP has a history of making copyright infringement claims that push the boundaries of the law. Last year, it went after Websites that copied its headlines, even if they had links back to AP stories. (The AP syndicates its headlines to news organizations, that’s how it makes money, but using headlines as links is also common practice on the Web).

  Fair use is under attack, and the AP is leading the charge. Artists like Fairey take copyrighted images and reinterpret them all the time. Many argue that is what art is. Fairey’s Obama poster certainly made a bigger impact on our culture than the original image, which he reportedly found by doing a Google image search. He is being represented by the Stanford Fair Use Project.

  I hope he tells them to go to hell, because if this isn’t fair use, I don’t know what is.

  Update: This gets worse. It is not even clear that the AP owns the copyright to this photo. The photographer, Mannie Garcie, says he was a temporary staffer when he took it and never signed the AP contract. In a Q&A with Photo News Forum, he throws doubts on the AP’s claims of ownership:

  2) Where you either an employee, or a freelance photographer, as defined by their contract, for the AP when you took this image?

  I was a temporary hire, filling in for a staffer at the AP. It is my understanding that I was neither a freelancer nor a staffer, but rather a temporary hire. I have never been an AP staff employee, and no, I have never signed an AP contract.

  3) So, you own the copyright to the image?

  The ownership of the copyright is in dispute, as per the AP. It is my understanding that since I was not a staffer, and was not a freelancer, and did not sign any contract, that I am the owner of the copyright, but I am in discussions with the AP over this issue.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 9:14

  Warner Music Slaps Songbeat With Lawsuit

   »  TechCrunch

  Who didn’t see this one coming? When we first reviewed Songbeat, a simple desktop application for playing and discovering music on the net, we liked the product but were interested in what the music industry would have to say about it. The updated version released last December was even better, but we were still critical of its chances for survival.

  Songbeat essentially allows you to scour the web for MP3s using integrated search for Seeqpod, Project Playlist, SpoolFM, iASK and more, stream tracks and even download them. You can find and listen to as many music tracks as you wish, but you can only download 25 of them. An upgrade would cost you 19.99 Euros (or $ 29.9), for which you’d get an unlimited amount of downloads.

  When we checked with the German company behind the application about possible copyright infringement at the time, their response was:

  The downloading of music is not fundamentally illegal. However, it lies in the hands of the user to discern whether or not they have the right to download the particular music file at hand.

  The music labels didn’t agree, obviously.

  In an unsurprising move, an alliance of European labels have decided to sue the company, according to co-founder Marco Rydmann. So far, Warner Music is the only one who has made a move by enacting a restraining order against Songbeat in agreement with the BVMI (the Association of German Music industry who has all major labels amongst its members), but because of a protective letter filed in all major courts in Germany the restraining order did not go through. The first hearing in the case will take place next week on Wednesday in a Hamburg court, and the general expectation is that more music labels will join in for what BVMI intends to put forward as an “example lawsuit”.

  Philip Eggersgluess, founder and CEO of Songbeat, is confident about the case and claims the service is perfectly legal in Germany. He says: “The music industry’s action shows, once again, that instead of looking for dialogue, they seek confrontation. Our intention, though, is to be a partner, not an enemy. We are offering dialogue: open talks aimed at finding a solution together”.

  TechCrunch has written quite a bit about the highs and lows of online music distribution and sales, and how the industry is responding to the changes that will inevitably continue to turn their business model upside down. Read some of our thoughts here and here.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 9:01

  Social Playtime: hi5 Adds Casual Gaming Section

   »  TechCrunch

  That other social network boasting tens of millions of members worldwide, hi5, is launching hi5 Games today, adding casual games like sports, arcade, strategy and cards to its roster of social entertainment initiatives catered to some 60 million unique monthly users.

  The social networking service says hi5 Games will become an important part of its monetization strategy, with the help of their recently launched virtual currency that allows members to buy virtual gifts using real money in a digital form (still with us?). Users will eventually be able to utilize the virtual currency, called hi5 Coins, for direct transactions such as premium content, advanced gaming features and status upgrades. Hi5 is also experimenting with “new and immersive” advertising options on hi5 Games, which it says will allow brands to better engage their target audience.

  Hi5 has recently laid off a good portion of its staff but continues to be a very relevant player in the social networking field; it is still the third largest social network after Facebook and MySpace according to Comscore.

  

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 8:35

  Box.net Hones In On Businesses With New Social Features

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Online file storage startup Box.net has unveiled a redesigned interface, introducing a number of new collaborative features in an effort to appeal to its new target audience: businesses and the enterprise. The site will continue to offer the same storage solution it has for years, but is looking to capitalize on businesses - the kind that are actually willing to pay - that have grown to become the site’s most frequent users.

  Box.net launched back in 2005 as a fairly basic online storage site, and has continued to add functionality since then, introducing new features like a two-way storage widget, a platform that integrated a number of popular web applications, and a Facebook application that CEO Aaron Levie refers to as an “interesting effort”.

  Over time, Levie says that the company found that its most avid users were businesses - a fact that became increasingly apparent when Box.net introduced collaborative and enterprise features that allowed teams of coworkers to quickly share files with each other. In light of this trend (and the fact that these companies actually pay for the service), Box.net is working to make itself better optimized for a group work environment.

  First and foremost, users will notice a revamped interface. Each directory now includes a sidebar indicating which files have been recently modified, along with a listing of other members who have been working on the files. The site also now gives every user their own profile page, which presents standard contact information, a news feed of recent activity, and a list of common collaborators. Other new features include the ability to add discussions and bookmarks to folders, offering a level of communication beyond just file sharing.

  The upgrades introduced today certainly emphasize the site’s shifting focus to collaboration, but I feel as if the new social aspect is missing a few key features (for one, I’d like to be able to send a direct message to one of my collaborators without having to include it as part of a general discussion). But Box.net is walking a fine line between maintaining the simplicity its users have embraced and building a full-blown file sharing social network (which it probably doesn’t want to become), so any further changes will likely be gradual. Still, don’t be surprised if we see some more collaborative features added in the near future.

  

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 5:21

  Is That Really An Audio Interface For Sale On Amazon?

   »  TechCrunch

  We’re pretty sure it’s not, but then again what do we know?

  

  The item is listed on Amazon through the Musician’s Friend storefront. Get it while it’s hot - there are only 5 left in stock.

  Update: that didn’t last long. Listing has been updated with a more relevant picture.

  if you have some time to kill, read the reviews and the comments on Reddit (where we got the link from).

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 2:55

  Mobile Restaurant Ordering (Finally) Hits The App Store

   »  TechCrunch

  

  In the last week, a pair of new iPhone applications have appeared on the App Store that put the menus of hundreds of restaurants at users’ fingertips. Dubbed GrubHub and CityMint, both applications allow users to order food on the go from online menus, buying entrees, appetizers, and drinks on the fly without the hassle of human interaction.

  Our appetites were first whetted three weeks ago, when Chipotle released an official app that let users build their burritos from their iPhone. Unfortunately, the application was pulled down only a few hours after release as a throng of users overwhelmed the app’s servers. The Chipotle app is still missing in action, but these new offerings should be able to hold us over.

  At first glance, the two applications seem pretty similar: they both let users browse through the menus of restaurants in their vicinity, adding food items to a virtual cart until they submit their orders. But a closer inspection reveals a few key differences.

  GrubHub seems to focus exclusively on restaurants that deliver, so most of its options offer fare like pizza, Chinese, and Mexican food (of course, there are some exceptions). CityMint offers a catalog of restaurants that deliver, but it has also partnered with hundreds of popular restaurants to allow for pick-up. CityMint CEO Frank Kuo says that the company sifted through Yelp for the most frequently and popular restaurants in each region, seeking out the ones that would integrate with their system.

  As far as usability goes, both applications seem to work well. CityMint’s interface is more polished and Apple-like, while GrubHub looks more like a web app (though it is native). But GrubHub has the edge on user reviews, which are displayed alongside each restaurant (CityMint doesn’t seem to have reviews integrated at all).

  In the end, the app you use will likely come down to which one has restaurants available in your area. CityMint has a larger coverage area than GrubHub and includes a wider variety of locations that offer take-out, but it also costs $2.99 (GrubHub is free). We should also note that there are plenty of web-based applications that offer mobile ordering, but the user experience of these is generally not nearly as good as it is on native apps.

  GrubHub

  CityMint

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• February 04, 2009
• 23:02

  Sweetness: Jimmy Eat World Uses Twitter For Concert-Specific Chats

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Jimmy Eat World has just launched an innovative new site for its American tour that uses a clever implementation of Twitter to give fans an easy way to chat about each upcoming concert. To use the system, simply send a tweet to @jimmyeatworld, followed by the date of the upcoming concert you’ll be attending. Here are the complete instructions:

  Tweet @jimmyeatworld #YYYYMMDD (where YYYYMMDD is the date of the show). For example, @jimmyeatworld #20090223 can’t wait to see you in New York!

  Forums related to individual shows are nothing new - many artists homepages and fan sites feature boards dedicated to helping fans connect and talk about upcoming and recent concerts. But these generally require users to sign up for accounts, and they don’t really work well for ongoing conversations during the show itself. The new Twitter system is much more accessible (assuming you have a Twitter account), and also lends itself to real-time chats.

  Tweets pertaining to each show are separated and presented on their own pages, making it easy to see who will be going and what people have been saying about the concert. Because the site is so new only a few dozen tweets have been saved, but the stream could be used in any number of ways, from offering parking tips to chatting during the show itself. It’s a cool system, but it could probably use some work - for one, each hash tag weighs in at nearly 25 characters, which would be frustrating to enter multiple times (I’d prefer it if every show used an easy abbreviation like #sf).

  And while this is by no means the first system to use Twitter to let users submit content (Techmeme just launched one last week), it’s definitely another sign that the service is going increasingly mainstream.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 20:20

  Judge Tells UMG: No, You Cannot Sue Veoh’s Investors For Copyright Infringement

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Things are not going well for Universal Music Group’s in its lawsuit against video-sharing site Veoh. First, the Los Angeles judge, A. Howard Matz, ruled last month that the safe harbor provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act do apply to the case, contrary to UMG’s request for summary judgment.

  On Monday, Veoh scored another point in the preliminary legal sparring that always precedes the main event. The same judge threw out the part of the complaint that named Veoh’s investors as defendants in the suit. UMG had tried to argue that Shelter Capital, Spark Capital, and Michael Eisner’s Tornante Company were guilty of “vicarious copyright infringement” and “inducement of copyright infringement” (yes, those are actual crimes) because they effectively control the company and sit on its board.

  UMG cited as its precedent a case involving Napster and its then-single investor Bertelsmann, which actually was found guilty of vicarious copyright infringement, but only because Bertelsmann chose to keep Napster running even after it was obvious that it was an infringing service.

  Judge Matz noted in his ruling that Veoh has so far not been found guilty of any copyright infringement, and his previous position on the DMCA’s protections shows that he understands the difference between users infringing copyright and Veoh. He also ruled that the mere act of being an investor or board member of a company facing copyright issues and fulfilling those normal duties does not constitute infringement, even if the company they “control” is found guilty.

  Merely exercising ownership power to select members for a Board of Directors cannot invite derivative liability for infringement. Nor is there a common law duty for investors (even ones who collectively control the Board) “to remove copyrighted content,” in light of the DMCA. . . . these descriptions of how the Investor Defendants exercised control are the equivalent of “plain vanilla” characterizations of what directors ordinarily do . . . and are expected to do.

  Rather, the board members and investors have to go out of their way to encourage copyright infringement. Yet if you read the ruling (embedded below), it is clear that Shelter and the other investors were doing everything they could to get rid of and filter out infringing content.

  If this ruling and the last one are any indication, Universal Music Group has a tough road ahead as it presents its central case.

  Jan 31 Umg Filing Publish at Scribd or explore others:

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 18:10

  Copy, Paste, Get Acquired: Mister Wong Buys FreundeNews

   »  TechCrunch

  Construktiv, the company behind social bookmarking service Mister Wong and Lifestream.fm, has acquired FreundeNews, a German service blatantly modeled and designed after the example of FriendFeed (the startup was actually called FreundeFeed when it first launched in April 2008 but changed its name sometime after, most probably in fear of sparking a trademark dispute).

  Let’s hope this isn’t an encouragement to copy/paste innovation, althought Construktiv is most likely simply doing this to clear the path for their lifestreaming service Lifestream.fm to become the only relevant one in Germany. Although the deal terms remain undisclosed, we believe that it was rather small in size; we’re told FreundeNews usage was relatively low in the country and the founders were keen on pursuing other ventures.

  The users that did engage with the web service have 4 weeks to transition to Lifestream.fm, starting today.

  (Hat tip to Netzwertig)

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 17:45

  JuicyCampus Dries Up

   »  TechCrunch

  

  JuicyCampus, a website that invites students to post anonymous (and often-times libelous) messages about their peers, is headed for the Deadpool. In a blog post on the company’s website, founder Matt Ivester blames the site’s demise on a lack of revenue, despite steady growth:

  Unfortunately, even with great traffic and strong user loyalty, a business can’t survive and grow without a steady stream of revenue to support it. In these historically difficult economic times, online ad revenue has plummeted and venture capital funding has dissolved. JuicyCampus’ exponential growth outpaced our ability to muster the resources needed to survive this economic downturn, and as a result, we are closing down the site as of Feb. 5, 2009.

  I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the site’s advertising issues stemmed from the fact that it often featured incredibly hateful and mean-spirited content that advertisers were hesitant to be associated with. Ivester has long maintained that the site was for ‘Juicy’ gossip, not mean insults, but with top threads including “Biggest Whore At Tulane”, it was hardly a place for light-hearted fun. In light of the overwhelmingly negative comments found on the site, some schools began banning JuicyCampus entirely, leading Ivester to claim that they were “joining the ranks of the Chinese government in internet censorship, and spitting in the faces of everyone who believes in free discourse online”.

  Ivester may also be growing increasingly worried about the litigation threats the site receives for defamation and libel. Ivester has claimed legal protection, citing the fact that he didn’t author any of the defamatory posts, but he may not be too eager to put those claims to test in court.

  Update: The site’s FAQ discounts any suggestions of possible lawsuits or advertisers pulling out from the site, but given JuicyCampus’s history of turning a blind eye to trouble, it’s a little hard to take at face value:

  Does this have anything to do with the investigations by Attorneys General? Other legal reasons?
  No, not at all. No charges were ever brought against JuicyCampus by any AG. The site is likewise not shutting down as a result of any lawsuits or other sort of legal trouble. JuicyCampus’ services and policies have always been well within the law.

  Is this because advertisers pulled their ads from your site?
  No. Online ad spend dropped across the board as the economy took a turn for the worse. Our advertisers have spent less, but have remained loyal, and for that we are very much appreciative.

  Is this because too many campuses banned you?
  No. The vast majority of campuses decided not to censor their students. Our traffic levels have remained very strong. Any revenue lost as a result of the campuses that banned us was negligible.

  We’ve added JuicyCampus to the Deadpool.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 15:44

  Announcing Our Next TechCrunch Roundtable: Whose Cloud Is It Anyway?

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Cloud computing is growing up fast, so we’ve decided to bring together some of the smartest people we can for our next TechCrunch Roundtable: Whose Cloud Is It Anyway? The event and networking reception will take place on Friday, February 27, between 3:00 and 6:30 PM at Microsoft’s Mountain View Conference Center, which holds 275 people. Tickets are $75 and are on sale now.

  The cloud is many things to many people. It is a a data center in the sky, a platform for a new breed of enterprise apps, a way to bring Web-scale computing to businesses small and large.

  But are we on the verge of a new set of platform wars that will make the Windows Vs. Mac war look like Tiddlywinks? Or will all the different cloud platforms which are emerging create an interwoven fabric of Web applications that draw from each cloud as is convenient? Mission critical apps are moving to the cloud. In fact, entire industries are being built on cloud computing infrastructure.

  Yet as both consumer and enterprise apps move to the cloud, they start to look more and more alike. They also begin to take on social features. What does a social enterprise app look like?

  To help us explore these questions we’ll have on hand:

  Roundtable Discussion
  Marc Benioff, CEO, Salesforce.com
  Vic Gundotra, VP Engineering, Google
  Amitabh Srivastava, Corporate VP, Windows Azure
  Lew Tucker, CTO, Cloud Computing, Sun Microsystems
  Scott Dietzen, SVP Communications Products, Yahoo
  Paul Buchheit, Co-founder, FriendFeed; creator of Gmail
  Additional speakers to be announced next week, stay tuned

  Roundtable Moderators:
  Erick Schonfeld, co-editor TechCrunch
  Steve Gillmor, editor TechCrunchIT

  The format of the event will be similar to the Android Vs. iPhone Roundtable we did last August, but with fewer speakers. The Roundtable will be preceded by product pitches from three to five companies (products or startups that actually launch at the event will receive extra consideration, but it is not a requirement).

  If you have a cloud computing startup or enterprise Web app ready to launch on February 27th and would like to give a demo, send a brief pitch to steve [at] techcrunch [dot] com.

  After the product pitches and the roundtable, there will be a reception where we will have additional demo tables and sponsor packages for a select number of enterprising sponsors. Those interested in sponsoring the event should contact our CEO Heather Harde by emailing heather [at] techcrunch [dot] com.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 15:24

  Alloy Media + Marketing Picks Up Social Network For High School Sports TAKKLE

   »  TechCrunch

  Alloy Media + Marketing, a division of the publicly listed Alloy, has agreed to acquire high school sports social network and portal TAKKLE and intends to fold it into its youth-focused media and advertising network http://www.TEEN.com. This comes right after Alloy M+M’s acquisition of teen girl community gURL.com.

  TAKKLE is essentially an online community service centered around high school and college athletics, enabling young athletes to create player and team profiles, share videos and photos, track and view stats, and allows students to connect with team coaches and college sports recruiters for advancement opportunities. It’s pretty similar to PrepChamps, which also focuses mainly on high school athletes and helping them succeed.

  According to the news release, TAKKLE currently draws a monthly audience of about one million athletes. Alloy Media + Marketing’s TEEN.com Network reaches a total audience of over 20 million people.

  The terms and size of the acquisition were left out of the release, and requests for more detailed information were declined. Alloy is a public company and would have to disclose if it was a material acquisition, so we’re assuming it’s not. TAKKLE raised venture capital funding to the tune of $7 million in 2007, from investors like Sports Illustrated, the New York City Investment Fund, IJ Smith Enterprises, Greycroft Partners, Liberty Associated Partners and WMG Investments.

  
   

  CrunchBase Information Takkle Alloy Information provided by CrunchBase

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 14:35

  Charlie Rose: The MySpace Interview. Going After Small Business.

   »  TechCrunch

  Charlie Rose - Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson
  

  MySpace founders Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe got the Charlie Rose treatment on Tuesday night in a wide-ranging interview that lasted about a half hour. We’ve embedded the entire interview above and the Charlie Rose Show provided us with the full transcript below. We’ve bolded a few highlights throughout the interview.

  Rose starts with a few general questions, but he does get a few tidbits of new information. For instance, DeWolfe reveals that 18 million people a month get MySpace on their mobile phones. To put that into perspective, that is about the same size as the worldwide audience for the NYTimes.com (comScore). DeWolfe also claims:

  We have the biggest library of professional videos in the world.

  Anderson talks about the effort that is going into small business profiles on MySpace, in combination with its new self-serve MyAds product. Anderson tells Rose:

  Well, actually there’s something that we’re working on . . . a new profile that we launched in November which is basically the framework to allow companies to come on and make MySpace profiles.

  . . . the same way you want to discover you know music or video or that sort of thing, you want to know about the companies and the people and the resources that are around your community. So if I want to find someone that I want to do business with, if I need a contractor for my home, why not look at his MySpace profile and see the reviews of people that I understand where they’re coming from?

  Rose even refers to a TechCrunch post to ask whether Facebook will one day surpass MySpace in the U.S. (it already has worldwide). DeWolfe says, “no.”

  And what does Anderson think of Facebook? He calls it an “address book.” He also comes to the defense of Yahoo, believe it or not:

  But both of us agree that Yahoo! is a very good business, and it’s also been maligned, I think unfairly when you look at it in comparison to Google and say, well they don’t — you know, they’re not doing this thing in search. Well, they’re doing a lot of other things.

  Sounds like someone’s in like with Yahoo.

  Transcript:

  The Charlie Rose Show Session One

  Guests:
  Chris DeWolf
  Tom Anderson

  Charlie Rose: Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe are here. They are the cofounders of MySpace.com. With over 120 million members, it is the largest social network in the United States. In 2005, Rupert Murdoch recognized MySpace as a success and he bought it for $580 million. Four years later MySpace adds 300,000 new people a day and it is the fastest growing Web site in the world. I am pleased to have Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe here, not for the first — is this the first time?

  Male Speaker: This is the first time.

  Charlie Rose: Oh, my gosh —

  Charlie Rose:I am pleased to have Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe here at this table for the first time. Welcome.

  Tom Anderson: Thank you.

  Chris DeWolf: Thank you, Charlie.

  CR: It feels like you’ve been here before simply because we’ve got all these conversations –

  Male Speaker:I know.

  CR:– at different places –

  Male Speaker: It’s about time.

  CR:– in the world. So tell me where we are for anybody who does not know tell them what MySpace is and what it is becoming.

  CD:All right, so really MySpace is a social portal. And many people think that it’s just a social network where you go on there and talk to your friends but it’s really about discovery and it’s about discovering people, content and culture. When I’m talking about content, it could be music. We have the biggest music catalog in the world and you’re notified every time one of your friends uploads a new song so it’s a primary way on how people discover new music. It’s a primary way that people discover new videos. We have the biggest library of professional videos in the world. And then if you look at culture and the last election, MySpace played a major part of that in terms of both registering voters and you know all the major candidates having a MySpace profile. So Obama had over a million friends. And so, I think we’ve probably definitely had big part in, you know, both the changing of the media business and culture and politics.

  CR: So I’ll just turn to Tom. So where are you going? Tell me where MySpace will be.

  TA: Hopefully onward and upward. We want more people, more countries, more content, and so we’re always just trying to see how we can appeal to more people. And it’s easy when you have things like what Chris described, the whole world’s music catalog, the whole world’s film and television catalog. We’re bringing more and more and more content on, more than you can get even on YouTube, professional TV shows, the full episode, things like that. So, you know, we’re trying to take every aspect of the our business and just make it richer and fuller to attract more people.

  CD: And also, just add to that, on any device, so in addition to those 125 million people you mentioned earlier, there is also 18 million people that are using it on a mobile device on a monthly basis.

  CR: That’s going to grow exponentially.

  CD: Exponentially.

  CR: I don’t know if you know the number here, but he paid close to 600 million, whatever the number was. You would know, specifically. And you would know specifically. What do you think it’s worth today? In terms of some kind of market appreciation, market value.

  CD: Right. Well, if you look at the time, I think we had around 20 million unique users, and, you know, Rupert was — at the time, was widely criticized for paying too much.

  CR: I know.

  CD: And then, you know, years later —

  CR: And also widely embarrassing to Viacom, because they let him get it.

  CD: Yeah, exactly. So, you know, we’ve grown like crazy since then, obviously. You just mentioned the new numbers, and, you know, our —

  CR: If you look at the new numbers, based on the — what he paid for the old numbers, what would be the valuation in 2009?

  CD: It’s in the billions, and depending on which month you look at, the market’s a third of what it was from media companies and Internet companies, you know, as it was a few months ago. So there is a valuation of 15 billion on a company that was smaller than us, you know, a year ago. But, you know, the market has gone down.

  CR: Are you happy you made the deal? [laughter]

  TA: It’s a tough one, right? You know —

  CR: Because what glares out there is the fact that Facebook remains independent, although people have bought investments in it.

  TA: Well, I’m personally happy. How much money do you need?

  CR: Exactly.

  TA: We got a lot of money, and, you know, we’re happy at that level. Actually, I think the partner that we chose was a wise one. Newscorp has always been, for us, very easy to work with and they respect our opinions and let us run the site we wanted to. And, in fact, they wanted to keep us on. They weren’t saying, hey, let’s throw these guys out. They were buying into what MySpace was and the founders, and so it’s been very good for me. That was my main concern, was that it would be taken away from us. And it wasn’t.

  CR: So he’s allowed you guys to run it the way you want to run it.

  TA: Yeah.

  CD: Yeah. And it’s also, you know, Peter Chernin as well, he’s been an incredible executive to work for also.

  CR: All right. More about Peter later, because we had him on the show talking about MySpace, as you well know.

  CD: Right.

  CR: So China, for example.

  CD: Right.

  CR: There has been a real focus there. Murdoch’s wife, Wendy Murdoch, has been very interested in that. Where does that stand?

  CD: So about two years ago we started exploring China and then we officially entered China maybe a year ago, I’d say. We launched the site in China, independent company that was created there, so it’s actually a Chinese company.

  CR: Meaning what?

  CD: Meaning —

  CR: There is a new company created, which you’re a junior partner?

  CD: Exactly. So —

  CR: Or 50/50? You’re a junior partner?

  CD: No. It’s not a 50/50 deal. It’s completely owned — all the IP is completely owned and controlled by Chinese in China, so there is a board of directors of the holding company and, you know, we spend quite a bit of time over there. And, you know, the Chinese folks over there are great to work with. They’re great entrepreneurs.

  CR: Any restrictions on it?

  CD: You know, they operate within the Chinese laws and regulations, but so far it’s very similar to MySpace US in a lot of ways. They’re growing very quickly.

  CR: Any restrictions?

  CD:In terms of what?

  CR: In terms of what can go up.

  CD: Certainly. Again, they operate within the Chinese laws and they have certain laws and regulations in which, you know, they need to abide by, as, you know, you do in any country. You have privacy policy, issues in the U.S., you have different regulations in the E.U., so that’s why we have offices in all the different countries that we work with.

  CR: And why you have Chinese partners.

  CD: Exactly.

  CR: All right. Facebook —

  CD: It’s a law that we have to have Chinese partners. You can’t own Chinese media —

  CR: Chinese media companies.

  CD: Right. Or Chinese Internet companies.

  CR: Okay. Facebook. How is MySpace different from Facebook, or how is Facebook different from MySpace?

  TA: I think in the thing that Chris described MySpace as in the beginning is the key difference. MySpace is so much more about culture and about creativity and expression. So in other words, you go on MySpace and you can find music, and you can find video, and things about politics, and things like that. It’s not just about talking to people. In one sense, Facebook is very focused as an address book, as efficient communication. It’s like e-mail or like IM or something like that. And we do those things, too, but we do so much more. We try to focus on the whole world and all the things that people are interested in, rather than just people to people, or one to one communication.

  CR: How many people do you think will be on MySpace in the year 2015? Do you have any idea?

  TA: 2015? What are we in now?

  CR: Six years from now.

  TA: Six years from now? I hope — I mean I’m not sure what the online audience is worldwide. I think it’s something like 530 million.

  CR: Right.

  TA: People are online right now. We want our piece of it. It’s really hard to say, but I’m hoping that we’re, you know, 2, 3, 400 million, that we can expand into all these markets.

  CD: You also have to look at, you know, countries like China that have 350, 400 million people using mobile devices to access the Internet.

  TA: Yeah, I mean —

  CD: So it’s not more than 500 —

  CR: Especially in places like India where mobile devices are a primary means of doing it.

  CD: Exactly. And with smart devices getting cheaper and cheaper, everyone is going to be accessing MySpace both through the Internet and mobile devices.

  CR: And how are you going to monetize all these users?

  CD: Well, we are right now. And that’s — you know, one thing that Tom — Tom and I have been working together for 10 years. That’s one thing that we’ve always had in common was that we wanted to —

  CR: Passion for monetizing — [laughter]

  CD: Passion for monetizing and building a big scalable business. Yeah, money.

  CR: Yeah. Right. Go ahead.

  TA: But real statistically, from the day we started, we didn’t just — we weren’t these guys saying hey, let’s come up with this cool idea that is just, you know, something cool and had no plan to make money. We had an advertising plan from the beginning, and there were ads on the site from the day it launched. And we knew that business, and we got started running that way. And so even when News Corp. came in, it wasn’t like, hey, how are we going to monetize this, what are we going to do? It’s just how are we going to improve. How are we going to get better? Because we’re still doing the same things.

  CR: Yeah, but advertising on social networks has not turned out to be — has not taken place as fast as you expected it to do, has it?

  CD: I think from our perspective, it certainly has. If you look at — there is a lot of studies out there. There is e-marketer and we have over half of all of the advertising spent on social networks. But what’s interesting now is we’re not competing against other social networks for those ad dollars. We’re competing against the larger portals and now print media and television. So we’re getting larger and larger since we’ve gotten critical mass and redesigned our whole site to be more advertising friendly. So there are really numbers. It’s a big scalable business. We’re probably the only company that started on the Internet within the last five years that’s created a scalable profitable business.

  CR: Because as you know, everybody — the one big question that many people have had and continue to have is how is YouTube and how is Facebook and how is MySpace going to maximize the monetization of the fact that they have so many millions of users. Right?

  TA: Yeah. It’s a fair question, but I think the characterization of MySpace in the media has not been that fair in that they don’t realize how well we’re doing. You can’t really —

  CR: How has it not been fair? That’s a good point point.

  [JC]
  I don’t think you can put us in the same bucket as a Facebook, who — Mark has said, Mark Zucker, founder, they are not focused on making money. That is not their interest right now. And they’re not, you know. They’re losing money. But we, from the beginning, have been, and we’re doing well. I mean I think we got close to something like a billion dollars faster than Google, Yahoo, than anyone else in their five year — their five year history, which is how old we are. We’re making quite a bit of money. We want to do more, obviously. We want to do better. But it is the focus, and I think it’s been, you know, underreported on how well we are doing.

  CR: You and I have mentioned Michael Arrington, TechCrunch, often on this program. He says at current growth rates, Facebook will overtake MySpace in U.S. users in January, 2010 when Facebook’s U.S. users will reach 86 million compared to your 84. Are those numbers you agree with or —

  CD: No.

  CR: Or don’t care?

  CD: No. I mean, you know, we’re focused on obviously growing our user base, which we are, you know, year over year. Our unique users are way up. Our engagement, the number of minutes spent on the site is up 40 percent, number of minutes spent on our side is 50 percent greater than our nearest competitor, which is Facebook.

  CR: What is the number now, for the amount of minutes most users spend on your site?

  CD: The average amount, I think, is 400, just over 400 minutes per month on MySpace. So, I mean, if you look at Michael’s numbers, I mean, anyone can put together a model and, you know, it may or may not be correct. A lot of things happen in a two-year period of time, but we’re focused on growth right now, and we’re very focused on revenue growth.

  TA: I think also, you know, I want to return to that idea that when we look at our competitors, we think about Yahoo! and MSN and sites like that. It’s not just Facebook. I mean, they do one part of what we do. But we’re trying to create a service that the whole world can use for a variety of things. And from the business side, where we’re looking for the advertising dollars is from those same people, Yahoo! and MSN. We’re trying to take the ad dollars that they’re getting because we have the reach that they have. It’s just helping to get the advertising world to understand that, hey, social networks are not so different from the social portals or concept or that what we have is not that different than from what Yahoo! has. It’s a big audience of people. And that’s the key thing.

  CR: What’s going to happen to Yahoo!? They’ve got a new CEO who seems aggressive and strong. There is Steve Ballmer talking about they might try to do something with the search engine, make a deal on the search engine.

  TA: Yeah.

  CR: What do you think?

  TA: I don’t know about the new CEO. Chris and I were just talking about this earlier, but I think we both –

  CR: That always makes me feel good. We were just talking about that, and I didn’t even know.

  TA: The right question. And I don’t know because I don’t know much about the people that are being brought in right now. But both of us agree that Yahoo! is a very good business, and it’s also been maligned, I think unfairly when you look at it in comparison to Google and say, well they don’t — you know, they’re not doing this thing in search. Well, they’re doing a lot of other things. And they are the biggest site in the world. You know, they’ve got a huge brand, a great brand. People come to them all over the world to use them for email and for search and for a hundred other things every day. And so when you just watch the stock price and think about that, it’s just, to me, it doesn’t reflect the reality of the brand and the value in that brand and the value in the actual service.

  CR: Am I right that social networking is the fastest growing activity on the net, on the web or not?

  CD:No. It definitely is. I mean, the internet in general is becoming more open and more social. And looking at these content sites, they’re all becoming more social. People want to comment on articles. You know, they want to be able to write their own blogs on sites. They want to be able to respond back. And I think that’s one of the things that Yahoo! needs to do, and you know, we’ll do under the right leadership.

  CR: MySpace 3.0, what is that?

  CD: I think it’s a lot where the internet is going and where we’re anticipating the internet going, meaning that MySpace will be everywhere. So if you’re on a content site, instead of having to set up a profile on that content site, you can take your whole MySpace profile with you. And I can write a comment if you write an article on your own website. And then MySpace friends will automatically see it, and they can respond to that comment. And I think that’s really where it’s going to go, MySpace everywhere on the internet and really kind of mashed up internet with the average user having two or three identities based on the current social networks that are in place.

  CR: How many friends do you have on MySpace?

  CD: I have about 300, and they’re all people that I know pretty well and talk to on a regular basis.

  CR: Tom?

  TA: I think I have something like 220 million on my big one. And then I have a smaller one that has all our –

  CR: 220 million on the big one?

  TA: Yeah. Because when you sign up, you get me as a friend.

  CR: Oh, yeah, right, right.

  TA: And then I have one for work where I’ve got, you know, 800 employees on there, and then I have a personal one. I’ve had 20 in the past of like all kinds of accounts signing up for [unintelligible].

  CR: This is sort of the big questions. How do you think this is changing us, the idea that there’s so much information out there? Where people used to think about was indiscreet now is practiced all the time, that everybody shares everything, and knows everything.

  CD: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s changed discovery in a big way, and it’s changed the way people gather information. So if you look at ten or 12 years ago, people would go onto Yahoo!, and there’s essentially a directory. So if you wanted to find out about music, you’d click the music button, then it would say — give you all the genres, and then you’d click country music, then it would give you a bunch of artists.

  CR: Right, right, right.

  CD: And then it evolved to Google that organized the world’s information, and you know, you’d still get a thousand type of — thousand results on, you know, various different country artists. Now, as in MySpace, it’s based on what your friends recommend or what other MySpace members recommend. And that’s how the discovery of content and culture is taking place. So I think that’s really the evolution. And it’s, you know, again, it’s manifest the itself in a huge way in the election. No one will ever win a major election again unless they’re proficient in really leveraging the internet and especially MySpace. Again, we registered over a million voters this year. Obama had over a million friends this year. And I think it’s pretty clear why that you know people are used to interacting with profiles just as they would their friends. It’s a really user-friendly way to find out about the issues, which wasn’t available before.

  CR: Not only did Obama use it, president use it very well in the campaign, I mean, it’s clearly going to be a part of his governing.

  CD: Agreed.

  CR: Yeah.

  CD: Definitely. And you know it already has been. So –

  CR: So the radio address is now addressed to people over the internet as well as over the broadcast air.

  CD: Yeah, and it’s you know I think for the first time ever, and we were talking about this before, that you know individuals really believe that they can make a difference and have to make a difference and have to help Obama you know to make the changes that he wants to make. And they feel that they can make a difference and I think that social networks especially MySpace have driven that and you know we just worked with Ashton Kutcher on a project called the presidential pledges where everyone starting with celebrities and everyone on MySpace is pledging what they’re going to do to help make the world a better place over the next 12 months.

  CR: Why do I think he does everything except make movies now?
  [laughter]
  Because you see him everywhere.

  CD: Yeah.

  CR:You know, how will corporations and business use MySpace?

  TA: Well, actually there’s something that we’re working on.

  CR: Or institutions of any kind.

  TA: Yeah. Obviously, they can advertise with us. We’re always ready for them to come and do that. But we’ve been working on something with a new profile that we launched in November which is basically the framework to allow companies to come on and make MySpace profiles. So if you’re a –

  CR: Private company.

  TA: Yeah, and if you’re an independent contractor, if you’re a plumber, you know, or if you’re a hairdresser, all the way up to you know a larger organization that wants to have an online way for them to communicate with their customers, we’re working on that because we just feel like it’s in line with the things that we’ve been talking about, the same way you want to discover you know music or video or that sort of thing, you want to know about the companies and the people and the resources that are around your community. So if I want to find someone that I want to do business with, if I need a contractor for my home, why not look at his MySpace profile and see the reviews of people that I understand where they’re coming from, I can see their whole social context and find out about business that way.
  [talking simultaneously]

  CD:– just like to add one thing to that. In the past, you know, we’ve totally ignored the small and medium-sized businesses from an advertising perspective, there’s 20 million of them in the United States which represents billions of dollars in buying power. In the past, anyone that — small business, medium-sized business that wanted to advertise on the internet, had to go to Google. We’ve just offered a new program called MyAds that allows you as a small business to go on, spend as little as $20, and target your advertising to whoever you want. And so, I think that’s another huge way in which advertising is going to evolve on the internet.

  CR:Tell me about where your concerns are. I saw a story in the last 24 hours somewhere you know about how kids now are posting all kinds of photographs of themselves which are sexual and objectionable to some people including those people that are receiving them in some cases. Is this going to be an issue and what is MySpace’s responsibility?

  TA:Yeah, well, I think kids you know acting out inappropriately is always an issue right?

  CR: Right.

  TA: And the parents need to get involved.

  CR: And in being victimized too by people who –

  TA: Right, right.

  CR:– are trying to reach them.

  TA: And that — exactly. And parents need to know you know what their kids are doing. We’ve done a lot at the company to try and help make that easier for parents and try to help stop any behavior that could be dangerous –

  CR: How do you do that?

  TA: Chris is great at answering those questions. [laughter] But –

  CR: What’s the division of authority here? I mean, you two did this together?

  CD: Correct.

  CR: Yes?

  CD: So I mean –

  CR: And so you brought what skills and he brought what skills?

  CD: So you know I’m the CEO. I have a business background. But I would like to think of myself as fairly creative and am definitely able to spot creative people very quickly you know which is Tom. So Tom’s done a great job on the product side of designing the future of the product and so –

  CR: So he’s technology and you’re business? But you both created — He’s creative, that’s the idea.

  CD: Yeah. Any big decisions you know we always make together. But if you had to split it up, he does a lot more on the product side and I do a lot more on the strategy business organization side.

  TA: The reason I say he’s better at answering this question is because he’s done a lot of the work there with the attorney generals, with the parent-teachers’ groups –

  CR: So where is it? It’s a great concern to a lot of people.

  CD: Yeah, I mean, we’re fortunate in that we’ve been working on it since day one. You know, we’ve been working very closely with attorneys general, Bloomberg from Connecticut, attorney general —

  CR: Bloomenthal, I think it is.

  TA: Bloomenthal, I’m sorry. We’re in the Bloomberg building.

  CD: Nice building.

  CR: Yes, it is.

  TA: So we have been working with Attorney General Blumenthal from Connecticut, and Attorney General Cooper and the rest of the committee that they formed to establish new standards that everyone else on the Internet is now adopting. In addition to that —

  CR: First of all, you’re trying to create standards?

  TA: We’ve created the standards. We’re the ones that sat down with them and said, this is what we need to do. This is what we need, demand from other Internet sites.

  CR: Once you create the standards, what happened? You have somebody that’s going to keep an eagle eye on what’s going out there, and serve as a kind of a filter?

  CD: Yeah. I mean to a certain degree. I mean I can just give you an example of some of the things that we do. And I think that may be helpful in answering the question. So, you know, there is literally millions and millions of photos that get uploaded to our site every day.

  CR: Right.

  CD: And every single one of those photos is reviewed by a pair of human eyes, if you can imagine that.

  CR: How many uploaded —

  CD: I think it’s somewhere around 10 million —

  CR: And every one of then is seen —

  CD: Is seen by a pair of human eyes. And those that are deemed to be inappropriate are flagged and someone else takes a look at them, look at them to ensure that they’re in compliance or not in compliance with our terms of service. We don’t — we immediately take them down if they’re not in compliance with our terms of service.

  CR: Do you think you catch most of them?

  CD: Yeah, I believe we do catch most of them. No everyone —

  CR: [talking simultaneously]

  CD: But the majority of sites out there don’t make that kind of investment. It’s a huge investment. We put a big investment in education, parents’ groups, teachers’ groups, civic organizations, governmental organizations, and, again, it’s — we feel the number one defense against things that are going wrong on the Internet is education, just like it is in the offline world.

  TA: You know, Chris directly answered that question about photos that you raised. Ultimately it comes back to the parents. What do they think is inappropriate for their child? And I always say sign up for MySpace and see what your kid is doing. Be his friend on MySpace. Know what your child is doing online because you’re going to know more there than you’d ever know when he goes to school.

  CR: Almost like eavesdropping on their conversation with their friends, though, kids —

  CD: An understanding of what’s going on on MySpace. If you look at the stats right now, 40% of all moms in the United States are on MySpace. And, you know, a lot of them use it just for networking, and a lot of them go on just to see what it’s all about.

  CR: What’s the demographic difference between MySpace and Facebook?

  CD: Well, the demographic of MySpace is almost — if you overlay it with the U.S. census, it overlays perfectly. It’s right in line with the U.S. census. I don’t know how Facebook’s demographic overlays with the U.S. census, but if you look at the users on Facebook and my space, there is about 65 percent overlap, meaning 65 percent of the users use both sites.

  CR: No, I understand. This is a new definition of friend, isn’t it, in some ways?

  TA: Yeah.

  CR: How is it?

  TA:Yeah. I think on MySpace, you can friend, you know, Barack Obama, and you can friend a company. So in your collection of friends, it could also just show things that you’re interested in. But some people choose to use it in different ways. Like Chris said, he has a profile where it’s all people he knows. I’ve added all the people in my company because I find it an easy way to communicate with all of them, but we have how many employees do we have now?

  CD: I think we have probably 1600 employees.

  TA: 1600 employees.

  CR: All of them are friends?

  TA: I’ve only found 800 of them on MySpace, like trying to weave my way through it. So there is different uses for it. And I like having that, because I really do find out things about different people in the company that I wouldn’t any other way. So I think, yeah. I mean you can use it in a variety of ways.

  CR: What does it take you, as busy and as rich as you are — [laughter]

  TA: Don’t overstate that.

  CR: You’re doing fine. What is it you want to tell people about you? Yourself? What do you want your friends to know. What is it you want to take time to communicate?

  TA: You mean like on the Charlie Rose show or on —

  CR: No, no, not on MySpace. I’m trying to get at what you want to tell on the Charlie Rose show.

  TA: Well, like on my personal profile, I just people, you know —

  CR: Yeah, but you keep them up-to-date on what your life is about. You’re on your way to Davos. You probably will let them know you’re going to be in Davos?

  TA: Yeah, or that I’m playing the Wii tonight. I’m playing a video game, if I’m going to play World of Warcraft or something. Because, you know, you can update your status and tell your friends to put very personal things in there.

  CR: Speaking of that, gaming is look like an extraordinary growth market, is it not?

  CD: Yes.

  CR: So what’s happening there?

  TA: Well, I think like everything, you know, broadband penetration is making the ability to play rich games easier and —

  CR: Rich games means?

  TA: Like World of Warcraft. This game, you go online where you have a complete 3-D environment. And it’s a form of social networking as well. There is 10 million paying customers every month go into this thing and shout with each other and play a game that they can play with people all over the world. So I think the technology has allowed, you know, games to get better, and more people have access to them, and it’s a really cool thing. And we want to incorporate more of that.

  CR:What games do you play.

  TA: I play World of Warcraft.

  CR: Yeah? world of Warcraft.

  TR: Which is an online game.

  CR: Yeah?

  TA: I play games on Xbox which also are online. You can play against people. You don’t really get to know them —

  CR: Xbox is making money, isn’t it?

  TA: Yeah, yeah. And you can play games look like, you know, shooting games, whatever, and you’re shooting at a kid, you hear him scream in Indiana or something. You don’t really know what he’s like. The World of Warcraft is very social.

  CR: And you?

  CD: I don’t play games.

  CR: I don’t, either. It’s time.

  TA: You would like the Wii. The Wii is one. The Wii is this game where you have the controllers and you move it around, and I knows how you’re moving them rather than just pushing buttons. So it sort of takes your real body —

  CR: I saw another article today that struck my mind, that took — at least how many garnered my attention, which is how many people now no longer subscribe to any kind of television, not satellite, or cable, or over the air, obviously. They get all of their television now through the Internet, through computers and through the Internet.

  CD: I don’t know the exact numbers, but we have all the television shows from fox, all the television shows from NBC, all the television shows produced by Sony. Every music video on MySpace. And we’re continuing to develop a bigger and bigger library of professional videos that people just watch online now.

  CR: That’s amazing.

  TA: I watch people do this in my own house all the time. You’ve got the big TV on. Maybe it’s American Idol, and we’re watching —

  CR: Or a big football game or something where you want to watch it as a community.

  CD: Right.

  TA: And then we’ll all be sitting there with laptops.

  CR: Go ahead.

  TA: While we’re watching the show, we’ll all have laptops, and we’re online, we’re playing a game, maybe we’re watching something else —

  CR: And talking to your friends about what you’re seeing.

  TA: While we’re watching the TV. So it’s kind of — I wouldn’t say that people have dropped TV, and I don’t think they ever will drop it entirely. This are certain events that you can’t really experience any other way, and it’s good to see it on a big screen. But definitely why not watch it on your computer, and why not do multitask? It’s sort of the level of entertainment.

  CR: If you were starting over today, today, what business you go into?

  CD: In terms of only the Internet or —

  CR: I don’t know. Maybe you want to be a social worker. I don’t know. [laughter]

  CD: No.

  CR: I’m thinking primarily about technology and primarily about the Internet and primarily things that are happening entrepreneurially that will be prominent tomorrow and the next day and the next day.

  CD: Right. So what’s really, really interesting is that our original — we started several businesses together, and I’ve started other businesses on my own, and you write a business plan, and it goes horribly awry, and you end up doing something completely different than you originally thought you were. When we wrote the business plan for MySpace, it’s been almost exactly on track up until this day. So the vision that we originally had and how we were going to make money, the types of content — the type of content that we were going to add to the site, its evolution into mobile, its evolution internationally, is all pretty much on track.

  CR: Many people think it’s it’s the wave of the future in terms of what goes on.

  CD: Yeah. And so —

  CR: In lots of different ways.

  CD: Yeah. So looking back, I don’t think we would have done that any differently. What I do think —

  CR: Did you see that from the beginning?

  CD: Yeah. I think —

  CR: You think you saw — take what MySpace is today. You actually saw that potential from the beginning, you think?

  TA: I saw the potential, and I brought the idea to Chris. We talked about it. He saw it, too. We built it. And within the first month I thought, this ain’t going to work. It’s not taking off. Because —

  CR: Because people were not —

  TA: People weren’t coming around so much. And so for a while there —

  CR: What was the breakthrough?

  TA: Just people. Like suddenly they started coming. But in that first month I thought, you know, it doesn’t really seem like it’s going to take off. And then when it did, you know, that initial germ of the idea and all the big ideas, you know, were there with us, you know, a month after it launched. And I have a document I wrote, you know, a month after launch saying we are going to be as big as Yahoo, MSN, AOL in terms of traffic, thinking that we could. At least it was a possibility. And I don’t think I really believed it, you know. I dreamed of it. But we were thinking that big within a month of the launch.

  CR: When you got that document, you said I’ve already been thinking about this for about six months?

  CD: And I have been involved in the Internet —

  CR: [talking simultaneously] reading your mail or something. What?

  CD: We have both been in lock step from the first day we were working together, so —

  CR: And in the end, and realizing you’re an entrepreneur and not a philosopher, why is it so compelling for so many people? What is it in the end, you think ? Articulate for me.

  CD: You know, I think a lot of it’s about the ability to express yourself. So if you look at your MySpace profile, you have the music why that you’re listening to, you have the colors, you have the background, you have the videos. So, you know, I look at your profile, if you have one, and I can get to know you pretty quickly. It’s almost like if you invited me over to a dinner party and you had, you know, certain music playing, you had certain kinds of furniture, and you invited a certain group of friends, I would get to know you very quickly. So I think it’s like an online representation of who you are when which is really fascinating. And it’s a great way to stay in touch with people, and it’s a great discovery mechanism. And there’s no other place and no other way to really do that.

  CR: Would you add anything to that?

  TA: I think a lot of it has to do with timing too, you know, that we came out right at the right time when digital cameras were on the rise and people wanted to come in and people weren’t exactly ready for MySpace, you know, a year or two earlier. So timing really helped us in being there to give people what they wanted.

  CR: Good luck.

  TA: Thank you.

  CR:Good luck.

  CD:Thank you.

  CR: Great to see you.

  CD: Good to see you.

  CR: Have fun in [unintelligible]. Tom and Chris will be in charge of the business development of [unintelligible] Charlie Rose Inc. from now on. Thank you. How many users?

  CD: 125.

  CR: 125 million [spelled phonetically].

  TA: That’s every month.

  CR: Every month.

  TA: Yeah. We’ve got more — more –

  CR:Unique visitors every –

  TA: More have signed up. That’s how many visit every month.

  CR: Yeah. Thank you again.

  TA: Thanks, Charlie.

  CR: Thank you for joining us. See you next time.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 13:38

  Not Every Company Needs an App Store

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Yesterday Samsung unveiled the Mobile Applications Marketplace, a storefront purposed with peddling Samsung-friendly Windows Mobile and S60 applications to consumers while making developers some more cash than they otherwise might. It’s an admirable idea at face value - but is it the beginning of a terrible trend?

  Centralized application stores are nothing new - third parties and carriers have been providing places to purchase mobile software for ages. After the Apple App Store began reporting monumental numbers, however, there was a significant shift; suddenly, those responsible with making the handsets tick wanted to be the ones vending the wares. Google launched the Android Market. RIM announced the BlackBerry Application Center. Palm will be debuting the webOS App Catalog with the Pre. What do Apple, Google, RIM, and Palm have in common that Samsung lacks? They control the platform for which they’re selling applications.

  If you’re looking to start an application outlet, you need to be at the reins of the platform; if you don’t, you’re further segmenting an already messy market. With Samsung launching their own boutique, others will likely follow; suddenly we’ve got all sorts of manufacturers all peddling the exact (or nearly exact) same junk in a different way. Some might have an on-device store, while others rely on a web-only storefront - all of which would are likely to have completely different interface. Developers who choose to offer their goods through multiple outlets will need to maintain each one individually, monitoring sales and collecting revenue from each individually. Consumers never get the native, unified experience that makes the App Store so enticing. It’s a step in an entirely wrong direction.

  That’s not to say that the device makers couldn’t make things better, however. In fact, they’d have to be the ones to do it - but they’d have to work together. Nokia has been surprisingly mum on the S60 app store topic, and Microsoft’s nose is split between the Windows Mobile 6.5 and 7 grindstones right now - so those two are unlikely to have a fix-all solution for the current iterations of their platform any time soon. Thus, responsibility falls to those pushing the devices off the line. If you’re going to get knee-deep in app sales, guys, you need to form an alliance. One store, one common interface, one thing to pitch to consumers as the place to go.

  Should it happen? Certainly. Will it? Of course not. Every company involved is a direct competitor with the rest. By the time they worked out agreeable terms and managed to get it onto devices, Windows Mobile 7 (which will include SkyMarket, purported to be Microsoft’s official rebuttal) will have launched and penetrated enough of the market that developers likely wouldn’t be interested anymore. Oh well.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 13:17

  Tokyo Meetup Notes: Japan’s Coolest (And Weirdest) Startups

   »  TechCrunch

  
  Picture credit: Umihiko Namekawa (more photos from the event can be found here and here)

  Our first TechCrunch/CrunchGear meetup in Tokyo (TechCrunch Japan is one of Japan’s main blogs) yesterday night was a blast. Peter Ha was in town and over 100 people attended the event on very short notice, including representatives from Yahoo Japan, telecommunications giants KDDI and NTT, Opera, MySpace Japan, mobile social network GREE and many more. Japan’s super blogger Danny Choo also joined, spending the whole evening in Stormtrooper gear.

  There were a lot of companies with iPhone apps in the room: iPhone manga, iPhone Othello, iPhone Meow Cam, even an iPhone newspaper. Here is a selection of some of the web services and iPhone apps from smaller start-ups that were pitched to me yesterday (in no particular order). Next time we really need to schedule more than two hours for these events.

  
  Startup No. 1:
  Genkii, a developer of iPhone applications, virtual world and social media projects, presented One Coin Comics. The platform for the iPhone launches this month with a multi-lingual, interactive manga called “Foxfire”. In addition to releasing original comic projects, Genkii told me they will open the platform this spring to other writers and artists. Artists can then submit finished art to Genkii for assembly and release through One Coin Comics, and share the revenue.

  

  Startup No. 2:
  CEO CTO Masahiko Tachizono told me that his site Natalie is probably the main hub on the web for news about Japanese pop music in English. Unlike similar sites, all news are delivered directly from Tokyo and the site gets updated a few times daily. Tachizono also said he is currently looking out for strategic partnerships in order to expand distribution, especially outside Japan. Natalie is also available as a Facebook app (in English).
  
  Startup No. 3:
  DigiDock is an iPhone development company currently selling Reversi Sister, a pretty unique version of Reversi (a board game also known as Othello), in the iTunes AppStore (in English). The game, which is enriched with anime-style audio and graphics, is actually tons of fun and costs $2.99. Watch a Reversi Sister demo video here.

  

  Startup No. 4:
  MyGengo offers crowdsourced human translation (currently in English and Japanese only). After uploading or pasting texts into the order form, users receive instant pricing to order their chosen quality level, and receive completed translations within a few hours through the site. CEO Robert Laing told me his company relies on an outsourced network of pre-tested native-speaker translators to keep business costs down, claiming users can save up to 70% in translation costs this way.

  Startup No. 5:
  Appliya just yesterday announced a collaboration with SoftBank Mobile (Japan’s third biggest cell phone carrier) that aims at bringing iPhone apps with a Japanese flavor to the global market. The company has released 26 iPhone apps soo far. What Appliya showed me yesterday was Meow Cam. Download it ($0.99) and the iPhone meows when you press the Meow button, causing a cat to be photographed to look into the direction of the camera (video). The Baby Cam, which also costs $0.99, is the corresponding app for infants (video). The Ghost Camera Lite app (free) automatically overlays a Japanese style ghost image on top of every picture you take with your iPhone. This is some crazy stuff and you can find more in their iPhone app catalog.
  
  
  Startup No. 6:
  Japanese print media companies are notorious for being very slow in embracing the web. But Yappa distributes the printed contents of the Sankei Shimbun, one of Nippon’s main daily newspapers, to Japanese iPhone users for free. The iPhone version is available at the same day the newspaper comes out, features all its pages and layout and has been downloaded around 200,000 times since December 12, making it one of the most successful apps in the Japanese iTunes store. Judging from what I have heard, Japan’s conservative publishing industry is not very amused about the Yappa-Sankei Shimbun collaboration.

  
  
  Cool Japanese geek group:
  Some ultra-geeks from Hacker’s Cafe, an interest group of 11 individuals, demonstrated Cyber Star Rally to me. The Cyber Star Rally is basically an outdoor game that involves a person riding a mountain bike trying to collect virtual “stars” (only visible for the player) by using GPS. The Augmented Reality-powered project is weird but also very, very cool (see the video below for more).

  Hacker’s Cafe also offers an English blog now, which I can highly recommend (you don’t want to miss stuff like the running web server).
  

  We had a great time (the after-party ended at 4am) and I think the event, which was originally planned as a casual get-together “with a couple of readers”, turned out to be a huge success. Many thanks from Peter Ha and me for coming out. Arigatou gozaimasu!

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 12:46

  Yahoo Search Pad Uses Search To Help Your Brain Take Notes

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Yahoo is testing a new note-taking application integrated into search called Yahoo Search Pad. This isn’t publicly available yet, but look for it to become a feature of Yahoo’s search engine in the future. I’ve played around with a beta version. Unlike other note-taking tools, such as Google Notebook, Search Pad doesn’t force you to go somewhere else to take notes. It also tries to figure out when you might be in research mode, and records and groups all of your searches for you.

  As you do searches on Yahoo, it recognizes when you are searching or clicking on links related to the same topic. If it thinks you are in research mode, as opposed to looking up a single site or a single fact, it will prompt you with a toolbar ynder the search box asking you if you want to take notes. Or you can always open up Search Pad on your own. When you do, a box opens up over the search results isting all of your related searches.

  As you go back and forth, researching a topic on the Web, you can cut and paste or add your own notes. Even if you didn’t go to a site dierctly from Yahoo Search, you can still cut and paste some text and Search Pad will compare it to Yahoo’s Web index and associate the clipped text with a URL. Each collection of links and notes is caleld a “document” and you can share documents via e-mail with other people.

  The idea is that you can just go about your normal Web surfing day (searching, clipping, taking notes) and Search Pad will organize it for you. What makes it potentially powerful is that it ties back into Yahoo’s search engine to assist your brain in categorizing and organizing your notes, and even reminding you when you should think about taking notes. Search Pad addresses a very limited use case, however. Yahoo has found that people are in this research/note-taking mode only a very small portion of the time.

  The one thing the product is lacking is a way to share your notes publicly. Documents (the collection of notes around a given topic) don’t have their own URL. That is going to limit the appeal and usefulness of Search Pad. On the Web, documents you can’t link to might as well not exist.

  
  Yahoo! Search Pad Preview @ Yahoo! Video

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 11:39

  Did AOL Just Write Down Its Bebo Acquisition?

   »  TechCrunch

  

  As part of Time Warner’s $24 billion writedown of goodwill that it detailed in this morning’s fourth quarter earnings announcement, AOL accounted for $2.2 billion. That charge swung the business from a $2.0 billion operating profit last year to a $1.1 billion operating loss in the quarter.

  The charge was related to reducing the “carrying value of goodwill,” which is what companies do when when an acquisition or investment is no longer worth what they paid for them. For instance, Google just wrote down $1 billion of its investment in AOL itself. But AOL can’t take a charge on a decline in its own value (at least, I don’t think it can). It’s $2.2 billion charge is an acknowledgment that it overpaid for certain acquisitions or investments. But which ones?

  It doesn’t say in the earnings release, but its biggest acquisition last year was the $850 million it paid for social network Bebo. It is now clear that AOL overpaid. But how much does AOL think it is worth now? 200 million? I have calls and emails into AOL, but don’t really expect them to answer that.

  Of course, there are plenty of other acquisitions AOL can write down as well. (We track $8.8 billion worth of AOL acquisitions going back years on CrunchBase). It’s other large acquisitions in recent years were all online advertising companies (buy.at, Quigo, Tacoda, Third Screen Media). Those could be worth less now as well. And last quarter AOL shut down some businesses, including Xdrive (that is $30 million right there).

  AOL’s advertising revenues declined 18 percent in the quarter to $507 million (which was flat with the third quarter). And it’s total revenues, including from dial-up subscriptions, was $968 million, down 23 percent. For the year, AOL had total revenues of $4.2 billion, down about $1 billion. But it’s advertising revenues of $2.1 billion was up 6 percent for the year.

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 3:01

  Broadcast Your Location To Friends With Google Latitude

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Google Mobile Maps is getting a new feature tonight called Google Latitude. It will allow you to broadcast your location to select friends, family, and colleagues based on the coordinates of your cell phone (via GPS or otherwise). If you have the GPS feature enabled in Google Maps on your mobile phone, you are probably familiar with the reassuring, pulsating blue dot on the map that represents you wherever you go. Google Latttude is now essentially letting you share that blue dot with anyone you like.

  

  But Google Latitude is a full mobile application in and of itself. (Download it from your mobile browser at google.com/latitude). You can keep track of where everyone is at any given time, and from within the app you can call, email, or IM them. Everyone you have opted to follow shows up as a picture icon on a map or in a list view. The list view is like a location-based Twitter.

  Don’t feel like being tracked? Just hide yourself from select “friends,” or manually enter a false location as your current one. You can control how much privacy you want on a very granular, contact-by-contact level.

  Latitude works out of the gate in 27 countries on Blackberries, Windows Mobile, and Nokia S60s. Android will begin rolling out over the next week, and an iPhone app is coming soon. In the U.S., there is also an iGoogle gadget that shows everyone’s location and messages.

  In a sense, Latitude is a private version of Yahoo’s Fire Eagle geo-location service. There is no way to broadcast your location to the public at large, only to your own Gmail contacts. (It does not yet work with Google Friend Connect). Obviously, there would be privacy concerns with publicly sharing your location at all times, but it is already happening and public geo-broadcasting will only become more popular over time.

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• February 03, 2009
• 23:00

  Gigulate Attempts A ‘Techmeme For Music News And Tickets’ - 500 Invites To The Beta

   »  TechCrunch

  Gigulate is a new UK startup which aims to match music news, blogs and gig listings against each other. The result is a useful, Techmeme-like site which allows you to drill down by artist and see their latest upcoming gigs. There are obvious comparisons to be made with Google News’ Entertainment section, Cloudspeakers, and aspects of Daylife. Gigulate is not unlike another Brit startup Songkick, but instead of tracking your music collection it tracks news, though so far the listings are UK-only. We have 500 invites for TechCrunch readers here.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 22:31

  Password Optional: Huge Security Breach Hits SpeedDate

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Wow. Something is seriously wrong at SpeedDate, the online dating site that throws strangers into whirlwind 3 minute dates. For at least 30 minutes this evening (and possibly more), passwords were totally optional. Type in a user name (no password needed), hit “Log In”, and you had access to every private message, ‘flirt’, and buddy list available on the user’s profile. You could modify profile photos, bios, or whatever else you could find.

  We’ve verified that the issue worked with at least five different accounts. One account didn’t work, the others went though without a hitch. Fortunately there isn’t a whole lot of damage you can do on the site beyond read or send private messages, but as far as security breaches go it doesn’t get much worse than this.

  We’ve confirmed the problem with SpeedDate, who say it is now fixed (we held the story until they could address the issue to avoid further exploitation). SpeedDate says that the issue only affected a subset of users, though the number of accounts affected seems to have been substantial.

  This isn’t the first time SpeedDate has been in hot water with users. Last year the site acquired a number of Facebook applications unrelated to dating, only to convert them to SpeedDate apps without the consent of users. It was also temporarily banned from Facebook entirely.

  Thanks to Reece Schofield for the tip.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 21:25

  Calling All Socially-Minded Techies; Kiva Launches API Platform

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Kiva.org, the non-profit people-to-people microlending organization, is rolling out an open-source API platform for techies interested in building tools and new applications for the microfinance/microlending community. Kiva wants ‘build.kiva.org’ to become a hub for socially-minded developers who want a make a difference in the world (and create cool applications).

  Here’s a list of the current APIs. Kiva advises that they are going to add more. Some examples of data developers can access through the API include:

  • all of the loans at Kiva currently raising funds
  • all of the entrepreneurs from Uganda and Peru which have fully repaid their loans
  • the latest lending activity on Kiva
  • financial nitty-gritty for any of Kiva’s loans
  • the list of loans made by any one of Kiva’s lenders with a public lender page

  Kiva even makes some suggestions to developers of several products that could be built from the API. Here are a few, but you can access all of the ideas through the Kiva developer’s Wiki.

  • an application for iPhone or Blackberry that let’s you keep up with Kiva on the go
  • service where lenders can register for alerts on new entrepreneurs they want to fund
  • integration into a social network where friends can engage around each others’ activity and loan updates on Kiva
  • a map that simulates the realtime transfer of funds across the globe

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 21:02

  How Microsoft Can Sell Just One Version of Windows 7

   »  TechCrunch
  With everyone's fears about multiple versions of Windows 7 confirmed today, the question on everybody's lips is "why?" After all, they say themselves that they're focusing on just the two main versions (Home Premium and Professional), and they must know, if not admit, that the various tiers of Vista hurt it badly. So why release these different versions? Well, I hate to break it to you, but I don't know. Nobody does for sure, though it probably has something to do with inertia. A body that's blowing it tends to continue blowing it, and it was too much to expect that Microsoft would remove all the suck from Vista in one swoop. But this particular problem could have been solved with a minimum of fuss. Here's how.

  

  
• 20:31

  Fight! LinkedIn Launches German Site Against Local Player Xing

   »  TechCrunch

  LinkedIn is launching a dedicated site for Germany where local - and already IPO’d - business network Xing predominates. The US business networking site has an existing 500,000 users in Germany which can populate the new country site. LinkedIn now has 9 million European users. Given that 30% are in IT, marketing, advertising and finance - all sectors hit hard by the downturn - activity on the site has skyrocketd in the past few months. Xing has over 6.5 million members across Europe and parts of Asia, about 510,000 of whom are paying about $90 per year for a premium account. Last year LinkedIn launched sites for Spain (on 200,000 users) and France (on 700,000). This is the fourth of LinkedIn’s country-focused sites. It has 41 which are simply translated versions.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 20:27

  FriendFeed Cuts Through The Noise With Advanced Search Features

   »  TechCrunch

  

  FriendFeed has just released a set of new advanced search options, including the ability to filter results by the number of comments and ‘Likes’ each submission has received - a feature that will make it far easier to figure out where “the conversation” is occurring for a given news story. While the new search operators may not seem particularly exciting to casual users, they open the door to some powerful queries that can cut through the noise that had previously hindered the site’s search function.

  From the company’s blog post:

  * Search for words only in entry titles or in comments
  [intitle:superbowl] - entries that mention “Superbowl” in the title
  * Search for only entries that were liked or commented on by specific friends
  [like:bret football] - entries about football that Bret has liked
  * Search for entries with a minimum number of likes or comments
  [comments:5 friendfeed] - entries that mention FriendFeed with at least 5 comments
  * Exclude terms from your search
  [jobs -steve] - entries about the job market, not the CEO of Apple

  For a taste of what is possible with the new search functions, check out this thread initiated by Robert Scoble, where a number of users are submitting their own inventions.

  In addition to the new operators, FriendFeed’s blog post also says that search will be “faster and more reliable”.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 20:17

  CVSDude Hopes To Continue Its Success in Silicon Valley

   »  TechCrunch

  

  CVSDude’s 2009 is off to a promising start. The Australian-based provider of hosting software environment development just reported that January was the company’s biggest month of revenue in its six-year history, despite the worldwide economic downturn. And CVSDude recently acquired an Australian competitor, SharpForge, a project management SaaS company. Now, the company is trying to make its mark on Silicon Valley with a relocation of its headquarters to Palo Alto.

  CVSDude said that “increased customer focus” was the primary reason for the move. Two-thirds of the company’s 3,000 clients are located in North America.

  So why does an early stage start-up like CVSDude appear to be flourishing when many established tech companies are just barely managing to stay alive in the current economy? CVSDude’s software streamlines software development projects between developers and clients. And they’ve made some wise decisions in the past year. Last February, we reported that CVSDude partnere with oDesk, an online marketplace for developers. Additionally, CVSDude’s “cloud-based” systems allow developers, in different locations, to work on the same set of code without having to worry about redundancy and conflicts. For the company’s clients, which include Apple, Stanford University, and Intel, CVSDude’s software promises productivity in an economic climate where efficiency is crucial.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 19:34

  MoshiMonsters Get More Backing And More Content

   »  TechCrunch

  UK-based Mindcandy, best known for its MoshiMonsters educational virtual world for kids, has pulled off a number of moves in a short space of time. IN the last few months it’s raised a round of Convertible Loan Notes with existing VC investors Accel, Index and Spark plus one new investor, though details remain undisclosed. It’s also launched its subscription service, hit a million users and acquired the TutPup gaming site from Cominded, the company owned by Paul Birch, a co-founder of Bebo and brother to Michael Birch.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 18:48

  Stake Your Claim? Technorati Opens Goldrush-Inspired Tag Directory

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Technorati has just launched a new directory of ‘tag’ pages, offering brief overviews of a variety of tech-related topics. Tag pages range from broad subjects like ‘internet’ to individual companies, with each page offering links to relevant articles, blog posts, user-written summaries, and related topics on Technorati (in some ways the pages are reminiscent of Mahalo’s topical overviews). Unfortunately, while these tags could eventually serve as a handy glossary to the web, it seems that in an effort to quickly build up content Technorati is openly inviting users to submit articles that are less than objective.

  Technorati can automatically generate listings of recent blog posts relating to each tag, but it still has to rely on users to write the summaries for each page. To entice writers, the site is allowing users to include links to their own blogs or webpages in their submissions (provided they’re relevant):

  “This is a unique opportunity for authors, brands, agencies, experts and content sites with some significant benefits. Your tag article will appear on Technorati.com with a writer credit. You will be seen as the definitive expert on a tag subject – by millions of readers. Your article can include links to useful references and sites, including your own, if relevant, as well as your own byline link. It’s also really easy to contribute: tag articles are only 2-3 paragraphs, between 100 and 200 words, and can live for years as evergreen content.”

  To further entice writers, Technorati is making each tag page first come, first served (there’s apparently no voting system in place to float the most objective summaries to the top), so this is effectively a gold rush period. Technorati says that each tag page will be overseen by trusted editors in the Blogcritics community to reject overly commercial submissions, but it still seems like the system is openly inviting self-serving and biased summaries.

  For more, check out Technorati’s blog post here.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 18:36

  On The Eve Of Its Fifth Birthday, A Facebook Design Retrospective

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Facebook turns five years old tomorrow. That’s practically middle-aged in Silicon Valley. To celebrate, Facebook has put up this slideshow that highlights Facebook’s evolving Web design over that time period. We’ve reproduced the slides below. (Yeah, we wish they were bigger too).

  Founder Mark Zuckerberg also hints at a surprise virtual gift that will that will appear tomorrow in the the Facebook Gift Shop. Oh, what could it be?

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 17:43

  The LeapFish Chronicles: “Admitting To Click Fraud Is An Interesting Business Model.”

   »  TechCrunch

  When we first covered LeapFish, once a domain name appraisal service, they had just launched a new meta search engine which I claimed no one would ever use. Practically immediately after posting, we were flooded with anonymous comments praising the service, all coming from the same IP address and within half an hour (CEO Ben Behrouzi later apologized for the astroturfing).

  But there were other reports on the net that showed the employees were indeed painting a far better picture of the company than the reality would suggest. Some of those targeted blogged about their experiences of being approached by super-aggressive sales people from LeapFish, which is ok up to a point. But I have never heard of sales tactics like this: blatantly committing click fraud to drive up the advertising cost for potential clients using other systems in the hopes that they would be inclined to switch to LeapFish instead, and bragging about it to those potential clients!

  And that’s exactly what happened this morning.

  We got an e-mail from Matt at Pong-A-Long who had been contacted earlier today by a LeapFish employee named Chris who was looking to sell him the company’s online advertising services. After being told that Pong-A-Long wasn’t interested, Chris called back a couple of minutes after the first call to try again. He got the same response. Apparently, he ended the second telephone call with the words “well, have fun spending money on Google” (LeapFish might have targeted Pong-A-Long because they noticed the company was advertising using Google AdWords in the first place).

  Chris later decided to follow up on his two unsolicited phone calls with an e-mail to Pong-A-Long saying:

  I just clicked on your link 50 times. Pay per click hurts. Found you on page 2 of the sponsored links. Call me for an advertising solution (888)REDACTED-EXT 765.

  Ouch.

  As Matt puts it: “Admitting to click fraud is an interesting business model.”

  (For the record: we called the number and determined that it was in fact the LeapFish office)

  Update: Behrouzi responds on his blog. He’s disappointed in TechCrunch.
  See also the official LeapFish blog post.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 16:48

  TringMe Finds A Way To Make VoIP Calls from Microsoft Silverlight

   »  TechCrunch
  Indian start-up TringMe launched a demo of a widget that now allows a user the ability to make a VoIP call from Microsoft Silverlight applications. Silverlight doesn't allow access to a microphone, thus restricting VoIP calls, so TringMe used a backdoor Flash widget to access the microphone. This could open up the door for Silverlight developers to integrate VoIP in their applications. What's interesting is the ability to use Silverlight's competing application, Flash, to get around issues in the Silverlight platform. Basically, a competing platform is being used to strengthen an existing platform.

  

  
• 16:07

  Is The Kindle Outpacing Early iPod Sales?

   »  TechCrunch

  

  When the Kindle sold out during the holidays, I guessed that Amazon would end the year selling 500,000 of its electronic books. All I did was roughly double the 240,000 that had sold through the middle of the summer. But now Citi analyst Mark Mahaney has come to the same conclusion, using better data.

  In a note today, he cites some numbers in Sprint’s 10Q filings that indicate 210,000 devices were activated in the third quarter, and 100,000 each in the first and second quarters. (Each Kindle downloads books wirelessly using a built-in Sprint EVDO antenna). In addition to the 410,000 activated Kindles during teh first three quarters, he estimates that Amazon shipped a total of 500,000 activated Kindles before selling out in mid-November. (Oprah had something to do with that). If it hadn’t sold out, Mahaney thinks Amazon could have sold 750,000 Kindles in 2008.

  But even the 500,000 estimate would mean that the Kindle is outpacing iPod unit sales in the iPod’s first full year on the market, when it sold only 378,000 units. That means if you turned back the clock and launched both at the same time, the Kindle would be outselling the iPod by 32 percent. Mahaney estimates that total revenues (devices plus electronic books sales) reached $153 million in 2008, but will grow nearly tenfold to $1.2 billion in 2010. That’s a steep ramp.

  Good thing Amazon is getting ready ready to announce the second version of the Kindle on Monday. Below is Mahaney’s updated model.

  (Dog photo by Nebbish1).

  

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 15:32

  Animoto Launches The Perfect Last-Minute Valentine’s Gift

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Valentine’s Day is rapidly approaching, and while you’ve still got plenty of time to stock up on chocolates and other goodies, come February 14th there’s a good chance you’ll have forgotten about the big day entirely. That is, until your dearly beloved springs an incredibly thoughtful gift on you and you’re left wondering if you can somehow regift the Tony Bennett CD sitting in your closet without getting caught.

  Fortunately, Animoto has you covered. The site has put together a new Valentine’s Day card that allows you to submit a handful of photos of you and your loved one to automatically a generate a great looking video-slideshow set to the music of an appropriately sappy love song. It only takes a few minutes to put together, but to anyone who hasn’t been exposed to Animoto before it’s pretty impressive - at least, it’ll buy you enough time to run down to the store and grab something a bit more tangible.

  In conjunction with the launch, Animoto has also announced that users will now be able to include stock imagery in all of their slideshows (not just the Valentine’s ones) through a partnership with iStockphoto, which could come in handy if you don’t have pictures of roses and hearts lying around.

  You can check out a sample video by clicking on the photo below. And if this post helps save your relationship come the 14th, be sure to let us know in the comments.

  

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 15:01

  iWidgets Raises $4.1 Million For Social Syndication Platform

   »  TechCrunch

  

  In an economic climate that isn’t ripe for funding, iWidgets, a social network syndication service, just raised $4.1 million in Series A funding from Opus Capital and University Venture Fund. The start-up previously received an undisclosed amount in seed funding from Opus Capital, Wilson Sonsini, and a few angel investors in June of 2007.

  iWidgets, who lists CBS Interactive as one of its customers, drives traffic and interest for a client’s website by syndicating content and user activity to social networks and portals. For example, iWidgets could create series of widgets promoting and offering full content on CBS’s CSI Facebook page. iWidgets also provides a free self service widget creator on its site, so the masses can create their own widgets for their Facebook page.

  iWidgets appears to have the competitive advantage over fellow widget producers. Sprout Builder recently discontinued its free widget service. Also, iWidgets’ applications don’t use Flash (many other widget creator do) making it easier to build a wide variety of widgets. And iWidgets’ WidgetWORA™ (Write Once Run Anywhere) technology customizes its widgets for specific destinations, “nativizing” widgets to they can take the look of social networks, including Facebook and MySpace.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 14:08

  Dell Starts Offering Exclusive Discounts Through Twitter

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Dell’s Twitter experiment seems to be working. After making $1 million during the holidays by alerting Twitter followers to sale items, Dell is now offering discounts exclusively to the 11,844 people who follow @DellOutlet. For instance, here is a Tweet with a link to a 30-percent-off deal on an XPS laptop. When you click on the link, it takes you to this product page on Dell.com.

  The new marketing program was, of course, announced on Twitter, as well as on this Direct2Dell blog post:

  Beginning today, Dell will offer deals from the Dell Outlet exclusive to Twitter in the U.S. With over 11,000 followers, our team wanted to show their thanks to the Twitter world through these new deals which will continue each week.

  Signing up for what is essentially a marketing email on Twitter perhaps gives some consumers the feeling of being part of an exclusive club. (It’s so exclusive, anyone can join). Or maybe they simply don’t want this junk filling up their inbox, and can choose to pay attention only when they are in the market for Dell products.

  Twitter as a marketing channel. Hmm, . . . there must be a way to charge for that.

  

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 11:10

  Thousands Of MySpace Sex Offender Refugees Found On Facebook

   »  TechCrunch

  

  MySpace is in the spotlight today because it revealed that 90,000 registered sex offenders have been kicked off its site in the past two years. But where did all of those sex offenders go? Some evidence suggests that a portion of them are now on Facebook.

  John Cardillo is a former New York City police officer and the CEO of Sentinel, a security technology firm based in Miami which helps MySpace, Bebo, MyYearbook, WePlay, and other social networks identify sex offenders. He goes so far as to call Facebook a “safe haven” for sex offenders. Needless to say, Facebook is not a client, and MySpace is his biggest one. But he shared some data with me that is hard to overlook.

  Sentinel’s technology is the foundation for Sentinel SAFE, the software MySpace uses to identify sex offenders on its site. Sentinel SAFE is a database of more than 700,000 registered sex offenders in the U.S., complete with names, photos, dates of birth, email and IM addresses (when available), and more than a hundred other data points. Cardillo took the 90,000 sex offenders who were removed from MySpace and started looking for them on Facebook. He says:

  We found over 8,000 offenders on their site without much effort. My professional opinion is that the real number is 15 to 20 times that.

  The actual number of matches he found was 8,487. Rather than take his word for it, I have in my possession Cardillo’s spreadsheet with all the names. (Update: Only 4,679 of them, however, are matched to a Facebook user ID). I also have about 100 mugshots of sex offenders along with their corresponding Facebook profile names and pictures. (I’ve reproduced four of the mugshots above). A spot check of the mugshots, which are publicly available, matched names and photos in the National Sex Offender Registry. Once I had the names, it was pretty easy to find them on Facebook as well.

  It is theoretically possible that people other than the sex offenders themselves created these Facebook accounts. Although they would have had to go to great lengths to do so (creating false profiles, culling all known information about these offenders, finding credible snapshots of the same people for their profile photos, setting up false e-mail accounts, and repeating the process thousands of times). And it is not clear why anyone would want to create a fake sex offender profile on Facebook. But even if this doesn’t prove that the actual sex offenders themselves created these profiles, it may not really matter.

  In a deal with 49 state attorneys general last May, Facebook agreed to identify and remove “profiles of all registered sex offenders.” Presumably this policy covers all profiles on Facebook, regardless of who created them.

  How much would it cost Facebook to license the Sentinel screening technology? I asked Cardillo, and he said “fractions of a penny per user.” With 150 million users, he said that would come to under $1 million.

  It could be even cheaper for Facebook to develop its own software to check official state sex offender registries, something it has proposed doing in the past. Maybe this home-grown system is already in place. But judging from the matches that Cardillo found, Facebook’s sex offender detection system needs some work. Several groups are already popping up on Facebook itself with names like Get Child Molestors Off Facebook (11,761 members).

  I’ve contacted Facebook, and have been told they will respond shortly. I will update this post as soon as I get it.

  Update: Of the 8,000 matches, Facebook spokesman Barry Schmidt responds:

  Obviously, we are going to investigate. We hope to define them and remove them as soon as possible.

  He also cautions that these should be viewed as potential matches:

  Facebook does not allow the same investigations by an outsider as by insiders. Saying there is a positive match of 8,000 sex offenders is difficult to for an outsider to do. You would need would need more than a name and a photo the size of your thumb. The correct way would be to characterize them as potential matches.

  And he says this of Sentinal:

  For a company that has a mission to keep kids safe, we find it irresponsible that they wouldn’t share this with us. Or, if not with us, how about with law enforcement? This could have been an announcement that Sentinel and Facebook removed 8,000 potential sex offenders. We still don’t have the information on who they are. If you are willing to share that with us, we will investigate immediately.

  (I am forwarding the spreadsheet with the list of matched names to Facebook).

  Update 2: Here is an official statement from Chris Kelly, Facebook’s chief privacy officer (who may be considering a run for California Attorney General), which explains how Facebook currently screens for sex offenders and works with attorneys general to remove them:

  Protecting our users, especially the many children who use our site has always been a top priority for Facebook. We have devoted significant resources to developing innovative and complex systems to proactively monitor the site and its users, including those not on a sex offender registry, for suspicious activity (such as contacting minors or users of predominantly one gender).

  We also have established a large team of professional investigators to evaluate any reports of potential abuse, including those surfaced by our systems or from our users. We have been working proactively with states’ attorneys general to run their lists of registered sex offenders against our user base. Our team uses various internal tools to automatically find matches. Any potential matches are evaluated more fully by our internal team of investigation professionals.

  If we find that someone on a sex offender registry is a likely match to a user on Facebook, we notify law enforcement and disable the account. In some cases, law enforcement has asked us to leave the accounts active so that they may investigate the user further.

  We have worked proactively to establish a publicly available national database available to everyone of registered sex offenders that enables real-time checks and includes important unique information like email addresses and IM handles. The passage of the KIDS Act, a measure we actively supported, was a major step forward and we’ve already contacted the new administration to offer our help in designing the real-time access features that it supports.

  We are glad to be able to report that the success of these techniques means that we have not yet had to handle a case of a registered sex offender meeting a minor through Facebook. We are working hard to make sure it never happens and we are investigating Sentinel’s claim.

  Kelly raises a valid point: Why isn’t there already a publicly available national database of registered sex offenders that can be used for such screening purposes?

  Update 3: At the tail end of a press release from the office of Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal about the 90,000 sex offenders MySpace found on its site, the following sentence was appended:

  Recent reports also indicate substantial numbers of convicted offenders with profiles on Facebook. Blumenthal said that his office is awaiting a response to his recent subpoena to Facebook.

  The press release came out after this post was online.

  Update 4: Shortly after I sent Facebook the list of matches, Facebook disabled all of the accounts with associated user IDs as a precautionary measure (which was about half the list).

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 11:03

  iPhone App Helps Reduce Stuttering

   »  TechCrunch
  Researchers at the Hollins Communications Research Institute have created an iPhone app that helps treat speech impediment disorders. As a former stutterer - I wasn't that bad but it was hard to stop - this is actually very cool. Stuttering treatment usually require a feedback loop to retrain the brain. This application listens to your voice in the field and offers immediate feedback, a process that usually depended on a desktop PC and special software used in an office. Now, however, stutters can perform exercises and tests while they're shopping, chatting, or at a restaurant. The software also records the samples taken in the field for later analysis at the research facility.

  

  
• 10:33

  Oops! LinkedIn Goes Down, Can’t Get Up

   »  TechCrunch

  

  LinkedIn may be profitable and growing fast, but something seems to be going very wrong with the business social networking service today. The service has been going up and down all day over here in Europe, and has now been displaying an ‘Oops’ page for the past 55 minutes (4:30 PM CET).

  Update: it’s back up, downtime lasted exactly one hour.

  Update 2: and it’s back down again (4:45 PM CET), they’re having serious technical issues over there.

  Update 3: it’s bouncing up and down. Seems to be stable now (4:52 PM CET)

  As we’ve learned from people e-mailing us about us (and comments on this post and on Twitter), LinkedIn seems to have been dealing with various technical problems for weeks now. We’re getting LinkedIn’s side of the story and will update this post asap.

  It’s a very unusual thing to happen with LinkedIn, which has always had quite a reliable web service, and there’s no official update to be found on the LinkedIn Blog (which is still up). Meanwhile, Twitter users are spreading the word about its current downtime fast.

  We got in touch with Pingdom, who states:

  LinkedIn started having intermittent problems around 5:30 a.m. US EST. The errors we are getting from them are HTTP 500 errors (internal server error). At 9:36 a.m. US EST the site went down and has kept returning errors since (HTTP 500 errors). As of this writing it’s been that way for 55 minutes.

  Update 4: The problem was too many backed up messages, specifically LinkedIn’s Message Queuing. Explanation is up on the LinkedIn Blog:

  Many of you trying to use LinkedIn between 2:18am and 4:08am US Pacific time this morning, and all of you trying to use LinkedIn between 6:10am and 7:43am, were unable to get in. This is not what we want for our users, and we are very sorry for the inconvenience caused. Rest assured, all of your postings and messages were sent out.

  What caused the outage? LinkedIn uses a technology called “Message Queuing” within our site to allow our various services (for example, Network Update Service, inMails) to communicate with each other asynchronously, so that a sudden surge of usage on one part of the site will not affect performance on another. Starting early this morning, we ran into some issues with our Message Queuing services, which caused the message queues to back up.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 8:00

  Citing Progress, MySpace Says 90,000 Sex Offenders Blocked From Site

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Update: Some of these sex offenders are showing up on Facebook.

  Responding to a subpoena from Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, MySpace today is handing over the names of 90,000 registered sex offenders who have been identified and blocked from the social networking site over the past two years.

  Kicking sex offenders off the site has been a big priority for MySpace. A year ago, it struck a child protection deal with 49 states, which put in place a series of safety measures such as policing the site for predatory content and removing any known sex offenders (which it had already been doing on its own). As a result of its efforts, MySpace says that 36 percent fewer registered sex offenders are now trying to become members.

  The new disclosures come amid claims and counterclaims of just how big a problem sexual predators are on MySpace, and social networks in general. For instance, a Hong Kong company being sued by MySpace recently hired a private investigator who claims to have found sex offenders still active on the site, despite MySpace’s attempts to remove them. While a report sponsored by MySpace and other companies found the threat to children on social networks overblown.

  The KIDS Act of 2007, which was signed into law last October, requires that sex offenders register their real email and IM accounts with the National Sex Offender Registry. Similar legislation has also been passed in 20 states, making it a parole violation not to comply. This information is supposed to help social networks like MySpace and Facebook keep registered sex offenders off their sites.

  MySpace uses software it helped to develop called Sentinal SAFE to run its member profiles against a database of more than 700,000 known sex offenders. The technology ties together all the various state sex offender registries. It compares 120 different points of identification—including name, date of birth, photo, scars, and tattoos—to make a positive match and block those members from registering again. The Sentinal software is how MySpace identified those 90,000 blocked sex offenders.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 7:58

  Kabooza Gets $840,000 To Jumpstart Yet Another Online Backup Service

   »  TechCrunch

  I’m seriously doubtful if there’s room for yet another one, but Kabooza is a relatively new online backup service which just raised 7 million Sweden Kronor or $840,000 in seed funding from Swedish VC firm Aggregate Media, reports ArcticStartup.

  Kabooza’s main selling point is that it’s “really simple”, which is basically the selling point for the dozens of similar services out there as well. You download a program to your PC (only Windows XP and Vista users, no Mac or Linux version, sorry) and you select which folders you would like to backup to Kabooze’s servers and voila, you’re done.

  That is, if you want to trust a Swedish startup with your data - note that I’m in no way implying that they’d ever misuse or lose it, but consumer trust happens to be one of the issues a lot of cloud services, and particularly online backup services, have to deal with and I find the information on Kabooza’s website far too insufficient to make that call.

  Anyway, Kabooza offers unlimited storage and a 25 GB upload limit per month per user. There are no free trial plans available, not even for testing purposes, and pricing is set to $49.95 per year.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 6:43

  Mixpo Raises $4 Million More For Video Advertising Tech

   »  TechCrunch

  Seattle-based online video advertising technology company Mixpo has raised $4 million more from previous investors Madrona Venture Group, Growthworks and Yaletown Venture Partners, bringing the total of capital invested in the company to a healthy $10.5 million.

  As media companies continue to struggle with revenue declines across the board and as the economy has many SMBs turning over every advertising penny twice before spending, publishers are trying to diversify their interactive product portfolios. Online video advertising has emerged as the fastest-growing online advertising format for small and medium-sized businesses.

  What Mixpo is doing is pretty smart: they’re signing deals with local media publishers like Comcast, NBC’s local media group, the Tribune newspaper company, TownNews.com and many more to equip them with their so-called VideoAd platform, which essentially enables advertisers to create and distribute video ads into the publishers’ existing online ad systems.

  The company, founded in 2005, is competing against companies like Jivox and One True Media’s Spotmixer, which has recently inked a distribution deal with Google.

  Here’s a demo video:

  VideoAd by Mixpo

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 0:59

  World-Renowned Scientists Team With Google And NASA To Launch Singularity University

   »  TechCrunch

  

  NASA, Google, and some of the foremost authorities in science and technology have teamed up to create a new school, dubbed Singularity University, that is looking to solve “humanity’s grand challenges”. The university is named after the idea of the singularity - an extremely rapid period of technological progress. And damn if it doesn’t sound like the coolest school ever.

  The roster behind Singularity University is beyond impressive: it was founded by Dr. Ray Kurzweil (author, technologist, and futurist), Dr. Peter Diamandis (XPRIZE), Pete Worden (Director of NASA Ames), Dr. Robert Richards (co-founder of the International Space University), Dr. Robert Richards (ISU President), Dr. Michael Simpson, and a number of sponsors including Google. And to run the school, Singularity brought on board Salim Ismail, the founder of Yahoo’s innovative Brickhouse team.

  Modeled after the International Space University, the school is meant to expose some of world’s the most promising graduate students and professionals to a broad range of cutting-edge technologies and research with subjects including bioinformatics, networking, genetics, law, heath, and entrepreneurship (you can see a full listing of topics covered here).

  The first three weeks of each session are devoted to forming a basic understanding in all of the fields, following by three weeks spent seeing how each of these fields can possibly intermingle (for example, you might study how 3D printers traditionally used in prototyping could be used to build organs out of stem cells). The final three weeks of study are spent applying the newly-learned knowlege to solving real-world problems.

  Sessions will be held at the NASA Ames Research Campus, near Mountain View, California. Unfortunately, space will be extremely limited - the initial class will consist of around 30 students, with around 100 for the school’s second year. It won’t be cheap either: fees run around $25,000 per student, though there will be scholarships available. There will also be brief sessions available for students who are already in the workforce.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 0:00

  FairShare Helps Bloggers Track Their Content Across The Web; Grab An Invite Here

   »  TechCrunch

  

  FairShare, a new site launching today in private beta, is looking to help bloggers keep track of their content online. The free service allows users to specify what kind of Creative Commons distribution license they’ve previously assigned to their material, and uses a vast index of the web to see where their content has been distributed and how it has been used. TechCrunch readers can grab one one of 1,000 invites by going here and entering the code “TechCrunch”.

  In many ways FairShare is a toned-down version of Attributor (an enterprise-grade web service that helps large media companies search the web for copyright infringement). The two services share the same massive and frequently-updated index of the web, which claims to search 35 billion pages. But while Attributor features a suite of analytics options suited for large companies like the Financial Times and CondéNet, FairShare is a bit more bare-boned, offering a listing of every post that includes your content along with the number of words copied, the percentage of the original article copied, and Yes/No indicators describing if the blog is following the license rules you’ve set.

  Getting started with FairShare is straightforward. After entering the URL of your blog’s RSS feed, FairShare will ask for the type of Creative Commons license you’ve assigned to your content (the most common of which will be the ‘Attribution’ license, which requires that other blogs link back to your article whenever they’ve quoted it). The system will then automatically monitor its large index of websites, flagging any sites that have included your content and indicating whether they’ve abided by the license you’ve set.

  

  The service will appeal to two very different groups of people. Established bloggers can use FairShare to see where their content has been copied without attribution, and can respond accordingly. On the other end of the spectrum, fledgling bloggers can use the system to see how their content is being distributed and can use that information to form relationships with other blogs or change the focus of their writing to appeal to their audience. It sounds like FairShare is hoping to appeal more to the latter set - while it will help bloggers find possible cases of copyright infringement, VP of Marketing Rich Pearson says that it’s unlikely that the site will ever offer any tools to help them request take downs.

  It will be nice for bloggers to easily look up when other sites are reposting their content, but I doubt many of them will have time to hunt down any offenders, and it’s already fairly easy to tell who is linking to your site using trackbacks. Still, the site’s future plans are promising: FairShare plans to eventually introduce a revenue-sharing system that would allow sites that have distributed their content under appropriate licenses to get a cut whenever their material is published elsewhere.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• February 02, 2009
• 23:26

  Health Care Social Network Enurgi Acquired By Univita Health

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Enurgi, a social network that connects caregivers to patients, is being acquired by Univita Health, a health care services platform that promotes independent aging through home care and support, for an undisclosed amount.

  Enurgi brings to the table a valuable database of 1.5 million caregivers and an established social network of care recipients and caregivers. Univita will most probably add the social network to its roster of services to help the elderly make their homes comfortable places to age.

  Univita is slowly building its independent aging one-stop shop via acquisitions and mergers. The company, which is backed by San Francisco-based private equity Genstar Capital, recently merged with Minnesota-based Long Term Care Group a national long term care insurance service that processes claims.

  We previously wrote about Enurgi when it launched in 2007. Enurgi not only streamlines the finding process between caregivers and patients, but it also facilitates the payment transactions (through PayPal) between the two parties.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 21:47

  AdventureDrop’s Beta Version Not Very Adventurous

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Start up AdventureDrop is launching what seems to be a very, very rough beta version of its wiki-based travel portal focused on providing an easy way to find adventure travel by location and activity. The site’s wiki platform allows others to edit, add and share adventures with the community.

  AdventureDrop currently only features somewhat dull U.S. travel adventures. For example, if you do a search for travel in a jungle, most of the locations that appear are in the U.S., including the Lake Meredith National Recreation Area in Texas and the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River in New York. And the user rating for both of these “top jungle adventures” is four out of five stars. Also, the site doesn’t list providers for all the activities.

  If AdventureDrop goes global and can hone its searches, it has the potential to be a nifty resource for those wanting to find the ultimate trip involving scuba diving, mountain climbing or a hot air balloon. And the site has a few innovative features, including allowing users to create customized itineraries, the ability to rate adventure travel spots and form groups based on a particular adventure travel activity.

  No doubt, the site needs some work. But if it can expand its global reach and use the user generated concept to its advantage, it could give National Geographic’s Adventure Travel Portal a run for its money.

  

  

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 17:51

  TechCrunch Interviews Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg At Davos

   »  TechCrunch

  We saved the best for last. Below is our interview with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last week. Sandberg, who says this is her first video interview since joining Facebook in March 2008, talks with me for about nine minutes about the conference and the state of Facebook.

  Sandberg has attended six World Economic Forum events at Davos over the years, including four as part of the Clinton administration. This year was a more somber event than normal, she says.

  We spoke briefly about the impact that the Facebook community had on the event through the polls created by Randi Zuckerberg, Facebook’s Director of Marketing. During one panel, 120,000 Facebook users weighed in on the U.S. economic stimulus package.

  Sandberg on her first year at Facebook: “It’s been great. Facebook is a really exciting place trying to do something really important that I really believe in. And it matters. You go to different things from users to marketers to people like Obama running for office, who really want to connect with people and want a more authentic way to communicate and to listen and I think we are one of the forces and in some ways the leading force helping to provide that and that’s just a really exciting thing to be a part of.”

  On the fact that 1 in 5 worldwide Internet users are on Facebook: “So we have 4 in 5 more to go. To get everyone connected. Joking aside, we want everyone in the world to be connected. Through Facebook, through technology, not just through us. But we really believe in enabling people to be their authentic selves on the web, and enabling people to communicate directly with each other in a very personal way.”

  Sandberg also promised that users would be able to add more than 5,000 friends sometime soon (something we first wrote about last year). She said “I’m not going to give you a specific date, but I will reinforce the message that this is coming, and more importantly tell you why we think it’s important. Because you have these friend requests because people genuinely want to hear from you and genuinely want to connect with you. We’re not providing that functionality and we think that’s important so we are working on this and we’re working on it currently. We look forward to your having 80,000 friends… 100,000 friends.”

  Our other interviews from Davos: Chris DeWolfe (MySpace), Robert Kalin (Etsy), Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Ed Sanders/Amit Sood (YouTube/Google Earth). You can also watch the panel I moderated with Chad Hurley (YouTube), Craig Mundie (Microsoft), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Shananu Narayen (Adobe), Hamid Akhvan (T-Mobile) and Eric Clemons (Wharton) here.

  Full transcript:

  Michael Arrington: I am here with Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook, and we’re at the end of the World Economic Forum at Davos. So, how was Davos for you this year?

  Sheryl Sandberg: Interesting. I’ve been here before so you can kind of feel the different moods. I’d say this is the most somber Davos I’ve been to.

  Michael Arrington: How many have you been to?

  Sheryl Sandberg: Six I believe - four, a long time ago when I was working in the Clinton government, and last year. During the Clinton years there was an Asian financial crisis and I would say the mood then was not as up, but the pessimism was constrained to one part of the economic sphere, which was really Asia and some of the Latin American countries.

  Michael Arrington: The NASDAQ was still way up then..

  Sheryl Sandberg: Here there’s a real pessimism, and I think it’s earned - where is the economy going to bottom out? What don’t we understand?

  Michael Arrington: This is your first Davos as a Facebook executive. Is it any different? Are people approaching you for different things? To talk about different things? What is this community giving you? What is this community giving you, what are you giving back, to this community?

  Sheryl Sandberg: At Facebook we feel a lot of affinity not just for this community but for any community that is trying to do what Davos is trying to do, which is to share information. And Davos is doing it in a particular way - I think the Facebook approach is obviously more broad-based, we’re trying to include everyone in the world. But the goal is the same: bring people together, to share information and make the world more connected, and have people have a deeper understanding of themselves, others, the communities of which they want to be a part and can be a part. This has been a great year at Davos for Facebook. We’ve done a bunch of things including some polls from the stage, which has been really exciting.

  Michael Arrington: Randi Zuckerberg did a poll that had around 500 responses in a matter of seconds..

  Sheryl Sandberg: Yeah, I think the most compelling thing we had was there was a panel here which was on the situation in Congress with the US. And the panelists were talking about the stimulus package, and the assumption on the panel was that people were for it, and it would pass, there’s some tinkering to do. And Randi did a poll from the stage in twenty minutes, 120,000 responses, 70% of whom were against it. They said, “I don’t believe in the stimulus package”.

  Michael Arrington: This was during the panel..

  Sheryl Sandberg: During the panel, real live, 120,000 responses. Now it’s not a representative full sampling of the US population, but that’s a lot of responses. It completely changed the panel… The panel then were talking about, “wow, a lot of people are against this, what are we going to do?” And I think that’s exciting because Davos is a pretty exclusive thing. And the voice of people who were not invited - while everyone is always trying to get it in here, I don’t know how much you can do that.

  Michael Arrington: Yeah, but you inserted it directly into a panel.

  Sheryl Sandberg: Yeah, and the times I’ve been here [it was] the most direct voice of the people I’ve seen inserted into a panel so I think that was pretty exciting.

  Michael Arrington: Was that an on-the-record panel with the video up on the site?

  Sheryl Sandberg: I don’t know… It’s pretty exciting to take real people living in the real world, their opinions, and have people have to react to that. As opposed to their perceptions of what people are thinking, which are often very different.

  Michael Arrington: So how was your first year at Facebook? We’re coming up on the one year mark in March.

  Sheryl Sandberg: Yes, coming up on the one year mark. It’s been great. Facebook is a really exciting place trying to do something really important that I really believe in. And it matters. You go to different things from users to marketers to people like Obama running for office, who really want to connect with people and want a more authentic way to communicate and to listen and I think we are one of the forces and in some ways the leading force helping to provide that and that’s just a really exciting thing to be a part of.

  Michael Arrington: How many users do you have now? 150 million?

  Sheryl Sandberg: 150 million..

  Michael Arrington: But it’s actually above that, you just don’t announce it. Every few months..

  Sheryl Sandberg: *Laughs* We update it regularly.

  Michael Arrington: Why does Comscore say 200 million people visit the site every month? Is it just Comscore is off or…

  Sheryl Sandberg: An active user for us is someone who comes every month, at least once a month. I don’t know exactly how Comscore is measuring it.

  Michael Arrington: You realize it’s like 1 in 5 people in the world that are on the internet visit Facebook.

  Sheryl Sandberg: So we have 4 in 5 more to go. To get everyone connected. Joking aside, we want everyone in the world to be connected. Through Facebook, through technology, not just through us. But we really believe in enabling people to be their authentic selves on the web, and enabling people to communicate directly with each other in a very personal way.

  Michael Arrington: So.. Revenue. You own revenue in the company, is that right?

  Sheryl Sandberg: I definitely work on revenue, have responsibility for revenue.

  Michael Arrington: So what’s monthly revenue now?

  Sheryl Sandberg: Oh, you know, three dollars. $3.52 precisely.

  Michael Arrington: How do you feel about revenue, where do you feel the big growth opportunities are? Do you have any new products? Micropayments for the developers, anything like that that you’re willing to talk about now?

  Sheryl Sandberg: No product announcements on this video, that will disappoint but not surprise you. But you know it’s funny, a lot of people will say, “what’s Facebook’s business model?” I always find that a kind of funny question. Our business model is out there, which is: we monetize largely through advertising and a little bit through the gift revenue, the virtual gifts we have on our site. I think those continue to be the most promising avenues going forward. I think what you will see from us - you’ve seen from us some last year but you’ll see a lot this year - are the evolution of the advertising products so that they can be more targeted for advertisers and provide useful interactions for users. And I think we’re actually having a good year so far, a good quarter, and looking forward to more growth.

  Michael Arrington: So you have direct ad sales, you have a team, and then you have the self-serve ads and we’ve actually looked at the self serve ads quite a bit and advertisers seem to love that. You said you have virtual gifts, but what about that micropayments platform for developers, I mean that’s a way for you to make additional money and they’re begging for it.

  Sheryl Sandberg: Nothing to announce today.

  Michael Arrington: Didn’t you guys already announce it a year ago?

  Sheryl Sandberg: Yeah, we did do that… We haven’t updated that announcement and part of being a startup is, you know you announce things, you try to get there… not going to give anything else. Other than the $3.52. Obviously a very specific announcement.

  Michael Arrington: Give me one thing then, give me more than 5,000 friends, this was promised to me personally not a year ago but close. And they’re just piling up. The friend requests are just piling up. And I know it’s only a small percentage of users have that need for more than 5,000 friends, but I’m one of them. When do I get that?

  Sheryl Sandberg: I’m not going to give you a specific date, but I will reinforce the message that this is coming, and more importantly tell you why we think it’s important. Because you have these friend requests because people genuinely want to hear from you and genuinely want to connect with you. We’re not providing that functionality and we think that’s important so we are working on this and we’re working on it currently. We look forward to your having 80,000 friends… 100,000 friends.

  Michael Arrington: I want to be friends with everyone that wants to be friends with TechCrunch. I don’t know if they really want to be friends with me or if they want to be friends with TechCrunch. But I want to add everyone, right now they’re piling up. What do you think of your hotel? I forgot to ask you that.. I’ve asked everyone that. It’s a 2 star hotel at a 5 star price.

  Sheryl Sandberg: Yeah, it’s not the nicest hotel I’ve stayed at this year. I was a little scared at first because I walked into the room and there was no bed. I have a Murphy bed.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 17:50

  TweetBowl Taps Into Twitter To Find The Super Bowl’s Real Winners (The Ads)

   »  TechCrunch

  

  This year’s game may have been unusually thrilling, but the fact of the matter is that most people tune in to watch the Super Bowl for the ads (and an excuse to gorge on beer and chips). For this year’s event a number of groups tapped into Twitter to try to get a real-time perspective on how each ad fared. One of the more impressive reports was put together by SocialMedia, an advertising network that focuses on social networks. Their report, called the TweetBowl, plots the number of tweets relating to each commercial over time, allowing us to easily see which commercials were the most popular, and which had the most staying power.

  It’s impossible to use the total number of tweets as a a direct measure of each brand’s success - some companies ran multiple commercials, while others had their videos more widely distributed so no single link got the most attention. But it’s still easy to spot some trends. For instance, it looks like this Bridgestone Tire ad had a relatively good initial response, with nearly 400 tweets in the five minutes after it aired. But the number of tweets surrounding the ad dropped precipitously only a few minutes later. In contrast, GoDaddy’s shower ad spiked at nearly 600 tweets immediately after its commercial aired, with a relatively high number of tweets continuing for at least the next 30 minutes.

  
  
  
  

  The SocialMedia report claims that Hulu ultimately won the TweetBowl, though it didn’t even come close to having the most number of Tweets:

  So, why hulu? They didn’t have the most tweets. But they also didn’t have seven commercials. And, not only was their commercial great, hulu.com/superbowl was the #1 shared link across all companies by a large margin. So, combining what was arguably the best commercial, ownership of the most frequently shared link, and the fact that they serve up all the other commercials in addition to their own makes Hulu a pretty easy choice for champion.

  This doesn’t seem quite fair to me - Hulu had the number one shared link because it was streaming all of the Super Bowl ads (which even had their own ads). But even if we are comparing apples to oranges, Hulu clearly had a big day - another survey called the Twitter Bowl (details here) ranked Hulu as the second best ad, narrowly missing the top spot after getting edged out by Transformers.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 17:30

  Milabra: B2B Image Recognition Service Learns To Find Anything From ‘Puppies To Porn’

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Milabra, a new image recognition company offering other websites a B2B solution, has launched to the public. In conjunction with the launch, the company has also announced a $1.4 million funding round with a number of private investors contributing. Milabra’s engine is capable of identifying a broad range of images, “from puppies to porn” (their words), and can be applied in a variety of ways like adult content prevention and automatically tagging images with searchable metadata.

  The company’s image recognition engine is supposed to mimic some natural tendencies seen in the human brain (Milabra’s team includes PhD neuroscientists from Columbia University). Rather than trying to identify photos based on their similarity to a template image (for example, using a portrait of the Mona Lisa to find identical matches or slightly modified versions of the famous painting), Milabra can “learn” to recognize certain scenes or objects without having to refer to a source image. So when searching through a library of images for dogs, Milabra doesn’t need to constantly compare each image with its database of known ‘dog’ images - instead, it can look for traits that it has learned to associate with “doggyness”, leading to an engine that is more flexible and speedier.

  While Milabra offers a demo version of its software on its website, its primarily focus is on creating solutions for other businesses (you can view a list of partners the company has already signed here). Clients are able to manage their photos through comprehensive CMS backend, which can be customized on a per-customer basis.

  The company reports an average of 20ms needed to identify each image, which it says is substantially lower than most of its competition. It also reports a success rate of 98% when identifying faces, and its pornography filter (which could be used by family-friendly sites to screen user-generated content) is also nearly 99% successful. However, the software has its limits: in order to add a new filter (say, a search that could identify all photos with baseball caps), customers will have to wait a few days for Milabra to implement their requests - there’s apparently no way to teach the application using your own photos.

  During the demo I was shown, the company’s engine worked as advertised. A search for beach images successfully identified all photos taken at the beach, regardless of the lightening or camera orientation. Of course, this was using the company’s own database so it’s tough to tell how accurate the engine is in real-world scenarios. Milabra is by no means the first startup to tackle image recognition - there have been stream of similar solutions that have tried and failed, leading some companies to give up on automation and crowd source the identification to bored humans. So while Milabra may seem to work well, the real test will lie in how many major partners the company is able to sign (Milabra says some major deals are on the way, though they wouldn’t go into details).

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 17:13

  It Turns Out Zecco’s Free Trading Model Isn’t Such A Good Idea

   »  TechCrunch

  

  We outlined three points in 2006 on why Zecco’s free trading model raised some red flags. Unsurprisingly, the discount online brokerage firm has been forced to change its pricing structure due to the economic crisis.

  Over the years, the zero commission brokerage service increased the minimum asset balance to $2,500 and decreased free trades from 40 to 10. Now the company is putting further restrictions on trades. In a letter to customers, CEO Jeroen Veth says that as of March 1 customers will be required to have $25,000 in assets to qualify for free trades. The full letter is below.

  Why? Zecco is no longer making money thanks to the now low interest rates on customers accounts. And revenue from discounted commissions are amounting to very little.

  We saw the writing on the wall for the trouble this company could face in an unstable market. Although Zecco was able to secure $25 million in funding late last year, the company has been hit hard by a decline in trading due to the economic downturn. In an effort to boost trading, Zecco is allowing customers who make at least 25 total trades per month to also qualify for 10 free trades. In early January, Goldman Sachs forecasted a 28 percent decline in daily average revenue for discount brokers.

  Even the premier brokerages like Charles Schwab are not immune to the current economic crisis so its of no surprise that Zecco, whose pricing structure raised some red flags in 2006, is being forced readjust its pricing model. Last week, Charles Schwab warned that revenues could drop as much as 20 percent this year and said it will cut between 500 and 600 jobs, or 5 percent of its staff in the current quarter due to low interest rates and a decrease in trading.

  Here’s the entire version of the letter Veth sent out:

  Dear Zecco Trading client,

  I’m writing to tell you that as of March 1st, 2009, we’re increasing
  the minimum level of assets needed to earn 10 free trades per month to
  $25,000. We’re also adding a new way to get free trades: customers who
  make at least 25 total trades per month will also qualify for 10 free
  stock trades per month.

  Additionally, as of March 1st, 2009, you’ll be able to earn $75 for
  each friend referred to Zecco Trading through our Zecco Friends
  program. You can use that cash to offset trade commissions or make new
  investments.

  Why was this necessary now? Anyone who’s read a newspaper lately knows
  that the US and world economies have been hit hard over the past 4
  months. As a result, some of the largest corporations in the world
  have had to cut costs and adjust to new business realities. With
  reduced retail trading volumes and lower interest rates, we at Zecco
  Trading simply could no longer provide free trades to as many people
  as we would like.

  Many customers will not be affected by this change. For those of you
  who are impacted, I want you to know that I understand this is
  disappointing news. Since our founding, our goal has always been to
  provide a great value to online investors, and we’ve always made free
  stock trading part of that. And while we continue to provide some of
  the lowest trade commissions of all leading online brokerages at $4.50
  each, we understand that nobody likes to pay for something that was
  previously free.

  I’d like to emphasize that we are continuing to invest in our customer
  service and trading platform. You may have already noticed the
  improvements within our customer service team. We’ll also be upgrading
  to an entirely new trading platform later in 2009. This new platform
  will improve reliability as well as introduce advanced order types,
  enhanced options trading capabilities, online bond trading, better
  account management, single-step login, and a faster website.

  So how can you qualify for free stock trades? There are two simple
  ways to do it:
  1. Keep $25,000 in net assets in your account. This doesn’t have to be
  cash — it can be stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, options, or other
  assets.

  OR

  2. Make 25 total trades in a calendar month. These can be stock, ETF,
  or options trades. And yes, free trades count.*

  For more qualification details, visit:
  http://www.zecco.com/trading/newpricing.aspx

  As mentioned above, as of March 1st, 2009 you’ll also be able to earn
  $75 for each friend referred to Zecco Trading. You must refer your
  friend through our Zecco Friends Program, and your friend must open
  and fund their Zecco Trading account with at least $500. See program
  details here.

  Thank you for your loyalty to Zecco Trading. We intend to continue
  earning your business as the best value for online investors.

  Jeroen Veth

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 16:21

  LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman: “We Can Go Public Any Time We Want To”

   »  TechCrunch

  Next up in my series of interviews recorded at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last week is Reid Hoffman, the founder and CEO of LinkedIn. I spoke to Reid for more than twenty minutes in the lobby of our hotel about a wide range of subjects, including LinkedIn’s product plans, fundraising activities and revenue.

  LinkedIn has raised over $100 million in financing - roughly $75 million of that was in 2008 alone. The company has been profitable for the last two years, Reid says, and has $80 million in the bank.

  I spoke with Reid at length about whether he’d consider a merger with Facebook (he’s buddies with most of the Facebook execs that attended Davos and was spending a lot of time with them). His flat out answer is “no,” there aren’t any discussions going on with them. And he insists that personal and professional networks shouldn’t be linked. At the very least they need to stay separate brands, he says.

  Meanwhile, LinkedIn continues to grow like a weed, adding a million new registered users every seventeen days. With that $80 million in the bank and 2 years of profitability, he’s not being unreasonable when he says, near the end of the interview, “We’ve been profitable for the last two years, so when we want to IPO we can do that.”

  The full transcript is below.

  Michael Arrington: I’m here with Reid Hoffman, the founder and CEO of LinkedIn. Thanks for taking some time with me, I’ve been hounding you all week and we’re at the last day of Davos. Before we jump into Davos, I have a couple of questions that I’ve been asking people that I’ve interviewed. So you’re staying here at the Club Hotel, we’re actually doing the interview here at the hotel. This is where they put all the Internet luminaries. Arianna Huffington is staying here. Sheryl Sandberg from Facebook. You’re staying here.

  Reid Hoffman: and Chris DeWolfe

  MA: Chris DeWofle is here. I was asking Chris yesterday about this wonderful two star hotel that charges five star prices and the first question is, do you have a Murphy bed in your room?

  RH: I actually had one last year but this year I have a regular bed but it’s no better.

  MA: So last year I had a Murphy bed and my room was mostly underground. But yours is ok?

  RH: I’m on the 8th floor and have a good view of the mountains, it’s actually pretty good this year?

  MA: What about the water controls for the sink and the shower, have you found they are kind of difficult?

  RH: Well you know like any technology you have to master it.

  MA: Yeah but there’s a lot going on.

  RH: The funny thing is the lack of connectivity. This is the Internet ghetto and there’s limited wifi in the lobby and that’s it.

  MA: You pay for it, 8 Franks for two hours, doesn’t work well, nothing in the room, we’re all racking up $1,000 bills on cell phones, whatever. How many trips to the World Economic Forum is this for you?

  RH: This is my second.

  MA: Ok so last year was your first year. When you came last year was it part of the Tech Pioneers?

  RH: I don’t think so.

  MA: You didn’t pay the massive $100k fee to get in did you?

  RH: No.

  MA: Think you’ll come back?

  RH: Probably. The people here are incredibly high quality. Of course I’m not referring to you really but you know [laughs]

  MA: I’m definitely editing that out [laughs]

  RH: No but the people are great, I actually really like the breadth. The three conferences I really like is this one, Sun Valley Allen & Co. and TED.

  MA: What was your favorite session so far?

  RH: My favorite session was a NYSE exchange dinner.

  MA: Did you lead any sessions?

  RH: Privacy. And What is Social Computing Mean For The Enterprise with you.

  MA: That was fun. Last Davos question: Last year, you took the Google plane back. Are you taking it back tomorrow?

  RH: I haven’t been invited.

  MA: How’s LinkedIn doing?

  RH: Very well. We had a record Q4 in terms of revenue, growth. We’re profitable and have 350 people.

  MA: Ok. Are you just barely profitable?

  RH: A little profitable.

  MA: You’ve raised over $100 million. How much of that is in the bank?

  RH: Over 80%

  MA: But didn’t you raise twenty something last year?

  RH: We raised $73 million last year, and all of that is in the bank?

  MA: what are you going to do with all that?

  RH: We raised an extended round last year. The first was the money people to set the price, that was Bain. They gave us the right to extend it to include some key business development players, SAP, McGraw-Hill, Goldman Sachs.

  MA: You didn’t need the money, so what are you going to do with it?

  RH: we raised it because we were thinking of doing some acquisitions. If you do private acquisitions, cash is very helpful, if we find the right deal we’ll of course do that. As it turns out given the market turbulence it’s nice to have a thick bank account.

  MA: You were valued at over $1 billion in your last round?

  RH: Yes.

  MA: How many users come to the site? Registered users?

  RH: Over 34 million registered, 9 million in Europe, growing by over 1 million every 17 days. Twelve million people visit every month.

  MA: How is the economy affecting your business?

  RH: Everyone knew we’d get an uptick from job seekers, free agents, consultants. A pleasant surprise is the recruiting space, all of our customers are keeping or increasing their spend. Recruiting business is growing. We have three principle lines of revenue, advertising, subscriptions from users, recruiting tools.

  MA: How can people use LinkedIn in a tough economy to get a job?

  RH: Be present, fill out your profile, which will help people find you. It’s essentially SEO. Second, be active in using it. First, searching, if you are looking for contracting gigs, reach out to companies you want to work with, tell them you are available. Second, use the answers service. Ask questions that generate discussions. Or answer to demonstrate expertise.

  MA: In December you took the CEO role back from Dan Nye. Your reasons for that are well published, but now that you are CEO again, what are you short term goals for the company?

  RH: We have a number of tools but most people don’t know how to use them. Lots of ways of finding the right information. Focusing on product marketing or merchanidising them.

  MA: So first priority is marketing, evangelizing. Second priority…

  RH takes a phone call from Simon Levine at Accel.

  MA: building on existing functionality is other priority. Any new big products coming?

  RH: Last year we beta launched company groups. Create private discussion thread. Can filter in news, create news feed for a company any time their name shows up.

  MA: foreign language support?

  RH: We have Spanish and French. Can establish profiles in local languages. We’re very focused on Europe, makes obvious progression on new languages.

  MA: Asia? Not as much?

  RH: We’re looking closely at Asia and interested in it. Harder to get right. Have 9 million people in Europe now, so building on it makes sense. We have discussions in Asia, India is growing like wildfire.

  MA: I’ve seen you hanging out here at Davos talking to Facebook execs. Merger coming?

  RH: Facebook execs are my friends. Matt Cohler was sourced into Facebook from LinkedIn. I knew Sean Parker from Plaxo before he went to Facebook.

  MA: Yeah but you aren’t answering the question

  RH: There are no discussions on that topic.

  MA: Ok so you’re denying those rumors?

  RH: What rumors?

  MA: I’m not sure [laughs] But from my point of view a merger would make a lot of sense and here’s why. Facebook is a social utility, you are a professional network. It seems to me that an obvious area of growth would be for them to be overlapping with you quite a bit, get more detailed information about resumes into Facebook and get into recruiting and things linke that. A merger would make a lot of sense.

  RH: I can’t speak for Facebook, but their goals seem to be…they self describe as a social utility, what they mean is sharing a variety of social experience that matter to you. Pictures, which movies do you like, music, that’s the stuff that they’re focused on, its very different from what we do. The brands must be separate. MySpace is like a bar, Facebook is like the BBQ you have in your back yard with friends and family, play games, share pictures. Facebook is much better for sharing than MySpace. LinkedIn is the office, how you stay up to date, solve professional problems.

  MA: Ok, but Facebook has eaten MySpace’s lunch. In all the international markets FB is absolutely dominating, and they’ll catch up to MySpace in the next year. Once FB consumes the bar, what stops them from consuming the office as well?

  RH: The profile you establish is different. On FB, you want to look like a fun person, you go to parties, you drink, dating, not dating… None of that stuff is relevant professionally. Also what kinds of applications? There is no enterprise photo sharing, not what people do at work. Just like life, home life and friends, but need two distinct environments.

  MA: IPO?

  RH: We’ve been profitable for the last two years, so when we want to IPO we can do that.

  MA: Thanks very much.

  RH: Pleasure.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 15:16

  Google’s Task List Turns Up On The Android And iPhone

   »  TechCrunch

  

  When Gmail Labs added a Task list to Gmail in December, it turned out to be an extremely popular feature. Now the Tasks app is going mobile, and is available on Android mobile phones and iPhones through the browser on those devices. Both of those browsers are based on Webkit). Simply point your mobile browser to [gmail.com]. If you’ve already installed Tasks on Gmail, they will show up automatically.

  As you add or cross out tasks, they are automatically synced with your task list on Gmail. In addition to a stand-alone to-do list, you can also now convert e-mails into tasks. Unfortunately, you cannot yet share task lists with others or make lists if your mobile phone is not connected to the Internet. When the mobile version of Google Gears supports Android and the iPhone, offline capabilities will also be possible.

  But this is going to be great for using your mobile phone as your to-do list. It is also significant in that Google is taking what was an added feature of Gmail and turning it into its own app. Pretty soon Tasks is going to need its own full-fledged destination site.

  Here’s a demo video:

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 15:11

  TwitterValue: The How Much Are Your Tweets Worth Redux

   »  TechCrunch
  So there's this site Out There called TwitterValue. It allegedly measures how much your Tweets are worth, based on a super-secret “Ph.D algorithm.” Our guess is that it takes into account the number of followers you have, how frequently you tweet, how many @replies you get, etc. Being the vainglorious nerds that we are here at CG, we decided to see how much our Tweets are worth. You're in for a treat, believe me! Or should I say, you’re in for a Tweet, lol!

  

  
• 14:27

  Yahoo! Stops Serving Ads In RSS Feeds

   »  TechCrunch

  Yahoo! has discontinued its Ads in RSS service, which enabled network publishers to insert contextual advertising into syndicated content and get a piece of the action thanks to a revenue-sharing program.

  This is the e-mail that was sent out to the network members:

  Dear Yahoo! publishing partner,

  We wanted to let you know that we are closing our Ads in RSS program effective February 2, 2009. We have ended this beta program to focus on other more broadly used ad products for our publishing partners, such as Sponsored Search and Content Match. We recommend that you remove current Content Match tags from your RSS pages.

  Please be assured that we continue to invest in both our Sponsored Search and Content Match products and are excited about many upcoming improvements for 2009. We appreciate our relationship with you and look forward to working with you to grow our business together.

  Sincerely,

  Your partners at Yahoo!

  Yahoo refers to Ads in RSS as a beta program, but it was launched quite a while ago; it was formally introduced in November 2005.

  Now that Yahoo is pulling out of the RSS advertising space, Pheedo, Text Links Ads’ Feedvertising and Google’s FeedBurner (which isn’t exactly delivering stellar performance lately) are just about the only ones left.

  (Thanks to Dave Zatz for the tip)

  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

  

  

  
• 14:04

  Wiggio Comes Out Of Beta With A Yammer For College Students

   »  TechCrunch

  

  College students now have their own Yammer. Last week, Wiggio came out of beta with a new look and a slew of group messaging and group management features. For each private group that you create, Wiggio provides a Twitter-like message stream from all the group members. But it also includes a slew of other features such as a shared calendar, mass text and voice messaging, file-sharing (including online docs and spreadheets), polling, and more.

  Many of these features can be found in other products such as Yammer, Basecamp, WizeHive, and Producteev. But Wiggio is a solid addition to the group messaging family, and it is already gaining some traction by targeting college students and their particular group dynamics (academic, extracurricular, social, committees, sports teams, music/dance, religious, charity, etc.). Wiggio, which has been in closed beta for a year, already has 45,000 users, about 80 percent of which are college students and faculty members.

  The site was created in January, 2008 by Dana Lampert, who was then a senior at Cornell. His two co-founders are Rob and Derek Doyle, sons of Bob Doyle, the creator of MacPublisher (the first desktop publishing program) and the 1970s electronic game Merlin. The elder Doyle is an adviser and investor in Wiggio, and houses the four-person startup in his lab a block away from Harvard. Wiggio raised $450,000 in an angel round last August.

  The site offers following features:

  • Shared calendar (with SMS reminders)
  • Folder (includes group editing of docs and spreadsheets, photo sharing, video)
  • Mass text and voice messaging
  • Free conference calling and web meetings
  • Polling
  • List-serv

  Groups can be created by simply adding people’s email. They don’t even have to sign up. Wiggio hooks into existing text messaging and email services. You can email an entire group, take group polls, import calendars, share documents, links, photos, videos, and other files. Wiggio uses Zoho and Scribd for shared document viewing and editing, and has partnered with Rondee for the teleconferencing. All the other features were developed in-house.

  Lampert has several ideas for making money, including display ads targeted by group type and university, SMS ads, and subscriptions for additional customization and security features.

  Here are a couple intro videos and screenshots:

  

  

  

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 13:37

  German Social Network Wer-kennt-wen.de Bought By RTL

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Wer-kennt-wen.de, one of Germany’s largest social networks, has been acquired by The RTL Group, one of Europe’s largest media conglomerates. RTL reportedly bought the remaining 51 percent of the company (RTL already owned 49 percent of the company).

  WKW currently has 5.5 million members. WKW’s founders, Fabian Jager and Patrick Ohler, will be staying at the social network.

  The story broke on Netzwertig.com. Here’s the translated version.

  WKW has been likened to a “German MySpace”, though it doesn’t seem to have blatantly ripped off the social networking giant, which is more than some of its competitors can say. German startups have been notorious for copying their American predecessors, the most notable of which is StudiVZ, which Facebook has filed suit against for an infringement of Facebook’s “look, feel, features and services”. As of November 2008, StudiVZ had 12 million users.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 11:56

  Apple Could Be Pursuing iPhone Video Chat

   »  TechCrunch
  Apple was recently granted a gigantic patent covering everything that is the iPhone and a closer look reveals that serious video capabilities might be coming in the next iPhone. Apparently video recording is mentioned frequently throughout the entire document but a few images and sections explain a video conferencing capable phone.

  

  
• 11:06

  Rare UK Snow Blizzard Brings Out the Twitter Mashups

   »  TechCrunch

  There’s nothing like a breaking news event to show off the usefulness of Twitter. Today large swathes of the UK were blanketed in snow, including London (first worst snow in 18 years - that’s global warming for ya folks). But the Twitter feeds and mashups came to the rescue of anyone wanting real-time updates about what was happening. One of the most useful was that provided by Ben Smith who built UK Trains Disruption Alerts which Tweets alerts for 25 UK train operators via travel news feeds provided by a project from the BBC called BBC Backstage). The more fanciful but interesting Twitter mashup came from Ben Marsh who coded the #UKsnow Mashup, pictured. This is a Google map which maps reports of snow from UK Twitterers. They simply Tweeted the #UKsnow hashtag, the first half of their postcode and a score out of 10 for their local snow cover. The resulting map did what a billion-dollar weather satellite, hampered by cloud cover, couldn’t - actually portray a reasonably accurate picture of what was happening on the ground.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• February 01, 2009
• 20:00

  UK’s Directgov giving Change.gov a run for its money

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Directgov.com, the UK government’s one-stop supersite for citizens, has opened up idea generation by allowing developers around the country to share ideas on how to build a word-class online hub for all national government services. The Directgov site, which launched in 2004, reportedly receives more than 11 million visits a month.

  Unlike President Obama’s digital initiative Change.gov (now Whitehouse.gov), which solicits ideas from citizens of all backgrounds on a range of topics, Directgov is recruiting ideas from the developer community for a specific challenge: how to make Directgov itself more innovative.

  Through a new Innovate blog, Directgov is trying to engage the developer community in forming and expanding a platform that is opening up the UK government to more input from citizens. The Obama administration might want to engage developers more directly in a similar manner. The administration could make use of techies in developing novel applications and software to share government resources and information.

  The Obama Administration prides itself on online community engagement. Perhaps it should take a page out of the UK’s digital playbook. Whitehouse.gov’s technology main page lists ensuring “the full and free exchange of ideas through an Open Internet” as a top priority. Perhaps the next step is to be specific and more goal-oriented about open-source initiatives, as Directgov seems to be.

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 18:34

  Twitter comes clean

   »  TechCrunch
  Twitter developer manager Alex Payne has updated the Twitter FAQ with the actual, real, honest story on the return of Track to its users. First, the relevant text:

  When will the firehose be ready? By late January, early February 2009. For at least Q1 2009, the "firehose" (the near-realtime stream of all public status updates on Twitter) will only be available to a small group of trusted partners. The firehose is a stream HTTP solution; a client connects to it and the stream begins, ceasing only when the client disconnects. Once we're confident in the stability of the service, we'll add partners on a case-by-case basis. We may allow a wider selection of clients to consume subsets of the public stream (that is, updates from a collection of user IDs or matching specific search terms). We do not intend to allow anonymous, unregulated public access to this stream for any number of legal, financial, and technical reasons.

  Now, the translation:

  

  
• 18:11

  LaunchBox Digital ‘09 Now Taking Applications

   »  TechCrunch

  

  LaunchBox Digital a startup incubator similar to Y Combinator that offers founders small amounts of seed funding and a mentorship program in exchange for equity stakes of around 4-8%, is now accepting applications for its class of 2009. The incubator will accept up to ten startups, who will be invited to a 12-week program in Washington D.C. where they’ll receive advice from a number of industry veterans. The program will culminate in demo events on both the East and West Coasts. Applications are due by March 16th.

  The incubator’s first class has done fairly well (you can see an overview of each here), with six of the nine startups receiving funding following completion of the program (the combined amount raised was around $6 million). Among those to raise funding were Koofers, an online repository for old exams, Mpowerplayer, an online catalog of mobile games, and MyGameMug, a social network for gamers. Also check out JamLegend, a web-based game similar to Guitar Hero.

  Other similar incubator programs include TechStars, DreamIt Ventures, and Y Combinator, which pioneered the model. It’s great that all of these programs are still open for business in the current economic climate, but I suspect that the success rates for post-program funding will be much lower than they have been for earlier sessions.

  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

  

  

  
• 10:20

  CrunchGear/TechCrunch Meetup in Tokyo

   »  TechCrunch
  Ba Da Da Ding Ding Ding Ding Ding. Greetings from the Land of the Rising Sun, Hello Kitty, Ninjas and all sorts of sexual fetishes. Serkan and I are talking about having a meetup here in Tokyo on Tuesday night. Please drop a line in comments or e-mail me at peterha at crunchgear dot com and let us know if you'd like to join. I'm staying in Ebisu and plan to have the meetup around here or wherever Serkan suggests. So, come on out and have a beer or pitch us your shenanigans. We're up for anything. Hope to see you!

  

  
• 9:05

  Google Chrome Not Cool Enough For Google Docs, Facebook (If You’re Browsing Incognito)

   »  TechCrunch

  

  Google’s Chrome browser has this neat little feature built-in that lets you browse the web in porn incognito mode, which essentially means it will refrain from storing any information when you visit web pages. According to this help page explaining the feature, you can switch to browsing incognito if you want to “plan surprises like gifts or birthdays” in stealth mode.

  Except you won’t be able to do that using Facebook, and not because it falsely claims it’s a phishing site this time. It won’t even let you open and edit files using Google’s own Docs.

  

  If you try to open Google Docs or Facebook with the latest version of Google Chrome (update 1.0.154.46), you’ll see a notice that the browser isn’t supported yet. Facebook will even admit that they’re probably not cool enough to support the browser, pointing to alternative browsers like Firefox, IE, Safari, Opera and Flock instead. This only happens in incognito mode, so this seems to be a mildly amusing oversight on Google’s end.

  Granted, adoption for Google Chrome can’t be deemed phenomenal so far (still lacking a Mac compatible version doesn’t help) and the browser is still in beta, but they still might want to take a look at why this isn’t working, considering they’re creating incompatibility issues between two proprietary products and with Facebook still growing remarkably fast around the world and all that.

  (The bug has already been reported as an issue, and there’s a support thread)

  Hat tip to Izza Aamer.

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 1:51

  So Bad It Hurts: Classic Hits By Microsoft Songsmith

   »  TechCrunch

  When we first came across Microsoft Songsmith, it was the promo video that made us cringe. But the song-making software is inspiring a whole new genre on YouTube where people alter famous music videos and concert footage by stripping out the original instruments and replace them with tinny keyboards or folk banjos, and keep the vocals. The results are a twisted breed of classic hits that are fascinating in the same way that terrible automobile accidents are. Once you start watching, it is hard to look away.

  These songs as sung through Songsmith have become a popular meme. Music from the Beatles to “Nirvana to Radiohead have all gotten the Songsmith treatment. There is even a heavy metal version of the Rickroll. Youtube member azz100c, who also appears to be the author of the Journeys of Jack Tripper blog, is particularly obsessed (and adept) at making these Songsmith classics.

  Below I present some of the best of the worst.

  “White Wedding,” Billy Idol

  “Roxanne,” The Police

  “Wonderwall,” Oasis

  “Just What I Needed,” The Cars

  “Beat It,” Michael Jackson

  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

  

  

  
• 0:31

  Betfair Gives Steelers 69 Percent Chance of Wining Super Bowl

   »  TechCrunch

  

  The Superbowl is in 17 hours, but many people think they already know who will win. The odds on betting site Betfair give the the Pittsburgh Steelers a 69 percent chance of winning versus the Arizona Cardinals. Both were seen as long shots at the beginning of the season, when the Steelers were given a 4 percent chance of winning the Super Bowl, and the Cardinals were only given a 1 percent chance. (See chart).

  Betting markets like Betfair’s are a form of prediction market, so it looks like it is the Steeler’s game to lose. Then again, what do Brits know about American football? U.S. residents cannot legally bet on Betfair, which is based in London.

  For what it is worth, the MVP favorites are: 33% Ben Roethlisberger (PIT), 18% Kurt Warner (ARI), 12% Willie Parker (PIT), 8% Larry Fitzgerald (ARI), 5% Troy Polamalu (PIT).

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

  

  

  
• 0:31

  Betfair Gives Steelers 69 Percent Chance of Winning Super Bowl

   »  TechCrunch

  

  The Superbowl is in 17 hours, but many people think they already know who will win. The odds on betting site Betfair give the the Pittsburgh Steelers a 69 percent chance of winning versus the Arizona Cardinals. Both were seen as long shots at the beginning of the season, when the Steelers were given a 4 percent chance of winning the Super Bowl, and the Cardinals were only given a 1 percent chance. (See chart).

  Betting markets like Betfair’s are a form of prediction market, so it looks like it is the Steeler’s game to lose. Then again, what do Brits know about American football? U.S. residents cannot legally bet on Betfair, which is based in London.

  For what it is worth, the MVP favorites are: 33% Ben Roethlisberger (PIT), 18% Kurt Warner (ARI), 12% Willie Parker (PIT), 8% Larry Fitzgerald (ARI), 5% Troy Polamalu (PIT).

  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.