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TechCrunch |
Bang!
The Artist parades its conceit at every turn of its familiar romance. We're doing this no sound thing for you because it's good for you. Things will work out fine. The dog needs no dialogue. The music tells you what to feel. It's already half over, and besides, it's already better than the last five movies you've seen.
Google Search + parades its conceit at every turn. It's free, so we can improve it any way we want. We're already reading everything you write in Gmail, so now we're blurring the...
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TechCrunch |
The Future of Peer Review
This guest post was written by Richard Price, founder and CEO of Academia.edu — an online community that revolves around researchers and their work.
Instant distributionMany academics are excited about the future of instant distribution of research. Right now the time lag between finishing a paper, and the relevant worldwide research community seeing it, is between 6 months and 2 years. This is because during that time, the paper is being peer reviewed, and peer review takes an incredibly ...
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TechCrunch |
White House Pushes Green Button To Liberate Your Energy Data
The future of easy home energy monitoring may be a little bit closer, thanks to a government initiative designed to allow consumers direct access to their energy consumption data.
The White House's new Green Button gives utilities a way to simplify and standardize sharing usage statistics with their customers via a one-click download. Two California providers, Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric, already launched the feature, adding what is literally a green button to th...
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TechCrunch |
Designing for Mobile: 7 Guidelines for Startups to Follow
As an investor, I’ve seen hundreds of mobile application pitches. And as a consumer, I’ve downloaded hundreds more – some out of curiosity and others in the hope that I’ll find something so useful and exciting that I’ll make room for it on my iPhone’s home screen.
From both perspectives, I am rarely excited by download numbers. What gets my attention is engagement: how frequently an application is used and how engaged users are. This ultimately is the barometer for an application’...
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How Facebook Really Stacks Up Against Pre-IPO Google
Now that Facebook is preparing the biggest tech IPO in history, it is possible to compare its financials and potential market value to Google's when it went public. At first glance, all of Facebook's numbers look bigger. Its pre-IPO revenues of $3.7 billion in 2011 are more than two and a half times larger than Google's 2003 revenues of $1.5 billion (Google's IPO was in 2004). Facebook's $1 billion in profits is ten times larger than Google's pre-IPO profits of $106 million. And its expected mar...
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TechCrunch |
The Phone Stacking Game: Let’s Make This A Thing
So it's Saturday night and you're out with friend. Are they the inconsiderate jerk who can't stop checking their smartphone? Or is that you?
Either way, here's one way to make dinner a little more interesting.
I've seen/heard this described as both "The Phone Stacking Game" and "Don't Be a Dick During Meals". It's been mentioned on a couple of blogs, but a quick straw poll of my friends suggests that it hasn't become widespread yet, at least on the West Coast. Which is a shame, because it's p...
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I’m A New York Times Subscriber, So Where’s My Tote Bag?
The New York Times released its latest earnings report earlier this week, spurring another round of discussion about the newspaper's paywall, which was launched near the beginning of last year. The consensus: Early signs are positive, but it's not doing well enough to offset plummeting print ad revenue.
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TechCrunch |
Labor Efficiency: The Next Great Internet Disruption
For more than a decade now, the Internet has done a great job of making things in our day-to-day lives more efficient by easily connecting parties who can have a mutually beneficial personal or business relationship. This same idea is now on the verge of disrupting labor and changing the definition of employment as we know it.
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TechCrunch |
Facebook – Run from the Bulls?
Much ink has been spilled these past few days on the Facebook IPO filing. Much of it analyses the details revealed in the S1 initial document. Some of it has focused on revenue and growth; some of it on control and corporate governance, some on valuation and how reasonable or not it is likely to be, and a little on whether or not the IPO represents the end of Facebook’s growth cycle.
So, should you be a bull, and buy? Or should you run as fast as you can away from the bulls?
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TechCrunch |
An Arab Spring For IT
Change in the air. It’s palpable.
Those of us in the technology world are witnessing a transformation: a buyer-led revolution in how information technology is both produced and consumed. Smartphones and tablets are upsetting the PC order; social applications are impinging on traditional “workforce productivity” and communications applications.
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TechCrunch |
Gillmor Gang 02.04.12 (TCTV)
The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, John Taschek, and Steve Gillmor — trembled in the face of Facebook's IPO and all-out war on the open Web, also known as Google. Me, I go back to Bill Gates during the DOJ deposition when he basically said we don't need no steenkin' breakup when Google will come along and be invented.
@kevinmarks makes a good college (fitting) try of defending the open schmopen set, while none of us seem to notice Social Spring just keeps on rolling over convent...
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Algorithms/Data vs. Analysts/Reports: Fight!
Quick, what's the second most traded commodity in the world, after oil? Sorry, no: it's not coffee. In fact, while hard data is scant, it may well be -- of all things -- carbon. No, really. According to the World Bank (PDF) , the global carbon market was worth a whopping 1.42 Facebooks US$142 billion in 2010.
Mind you, it's not like container ships weighed down to the gills with graphite are crossing and recrossing the Pacific every week. What we're actually talking about here is the trade in c...
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TechCrunch |
Sh#t VCs Say: “Have You Ever Tried Kiteboarding?”
Following in the tradition of "Shit Silicon Valley Says" and other Shit ______ Says memes, August Capital's David Hornick has made "Shit VCs Say."
There are some gems in here, including:
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TechCrunch |
Mark Zuckerberg’s 6 Ingredients For Success
Leadership guru Warren Bennis asked whether leaders are born or made. When asked if Wall Street would accept a young Mark Zuckerberg in his early 20s as CEO, Facebook investor Peter Thiel said: “Well, we’ll wait until he’s over 25 to file”. Wise move, considering that Mark’s title on his business cards read “I’m CEO, bitch”.
This week Facebook filed its S-1 to go public. Mark is 27. How Mark managed to launch a social networking site after Friendster had crashed during MyS...
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TechCrunch |
Which Service Has The Best Welcome Message? (Hint: Pin Carefully!)
Two days ago, I received an invite to Pinterest. (I know, I'm late.) After signing up, I pretty much ignored the welcome message, just as I do with most services. But last night I decided to get myself caught up after the Crunchies, and started reading through all my unread emails (even the ones from Nigerian royal's relatives) and found myself actually reading through the Pinterest welcome email, too.
It's wonderful, and the reason it's wonderful comes down to just one bullet point:
Pin car...
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TechCrunch |
Daily Crunch: Zen
Here are some recent stories on TechCrunch Gadgets: The Zen Table Practices Mindfulness So You Don’t Have To The Wheel: What Is The Foxconn Debate Really About? iModela Adds CNC Milling To Your Home 3D Printing Arsenal
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TechCrunch |
Facebook Javascript API Goes Down, Taking Down Likes, Comments And Apps With It
I dare you to Facebook Like or even comment on this post. You can't, because the Facebook Javascript API, the backend system which allows developer applications and Facebook's own apps like Likes and Comments to communicate with the data available on the social network, is down, and has been down for at least an hour as far as I can tell, begging the question, "If article falls on a blog and no one Likes it, does it make a sound?"
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Investors Drive $ZNGA Up 26% In Two Days Following Facebook IPO Filing
Those of us who have been following the social gaming industry already know that Zynga has made up a big portion of Facebook's revenues. But lots of public investors only seem to have gotten the memo on Wednesday evening, when Facebook's S-1 filing revealed that the developer made up 12% of its total revenues, or $445 million.
In the two days since, Zynga's stock has gone up more than 26%, to close at $13.39 this evening.
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TechCrunch |
I Use Wikipedia More Than Makeup
I just donated $40 to Wikipedia, because I promised myself I would every time I poked fun at its Holiday donation drive and then just never got around to it. Did you know that you could actually donate during the off-season (Via the covert "Donate to Wikipedia" link at the far left of each individual entry page)? I didn't, before I asked Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales whether it was possible to donate in the off-season. Spoiler alert, it is.
My 40 bucks got me, in addition to the very sweet 'Th...
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TechCrunch |
Google Adjusts Political Posture With Sponsorship Of Conservative Conference
In interesting but ultimately not very shocking news, Google has signed on as a major sponsor of the Conservative Political Action Conference, which is more or less what it sounds like. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just a little odd seeing Google, which is becoming increasingly political, listed next to such organizations as the Koch Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the NRA.
But this isn't the moment Google comes out as a closet Republican. It's actually quite in keepi...
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TechCrunch |
Watch 2012 Super Bowl Commercials Now With Facebook + USA Today’s Ad Meter
Want to watch the big budget Super Bowl commercials, but can't wait till Sunday or don't care about football? Facebook and USA Today have just launched Ad Meter, a Facebook app where you can watch many of the TV spots right now. Then from kickoff until Tuesday night you can vote for your favorites. Traditionally an offline poll done live with handheld meters, USA Today has finally brought Ad Meter online so you can judge ads both in real-time and post-game.
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Pokki Gives Quick Access To Madden NFL Superstars, Just In Time For The Big Game
It's the Super Bowl season, when a host of services and apps debut just in time for the biggest television event of the year. And, if you're a fan of Madden's NFL Superstars (a web app that's available through Facebook), then you'll like this launch: the game is now available as a Pokki right here.
Pokki, for those that haven't used it, is a platform that lets you install lightweight apps that live in your Windows Taskbar (a Mac version is on the way). Each app gets its own icon — click on ...
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Arianna Wants To Put A Nap Room In TechCrunch HQ. LOL.
Silicon Valley absolutely, positively doesn't need a nap room because in theory we don't sleep, let alone nap (and if we do need to nap -- like in an emergency -- we take that shiz home, far far away from hungry competitors!).
Please Aol Mr. Sr. Facilities Manager, take that money and buy us a bunch of Diet Coke to drink late at night or that great beef jerky we used to have or a copyediting slave intern or passes to Burning Man or anything but a room specifically designed for being less produ...
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Fear Not: Google Will Still Support The Verizon Galaxy Nexus
Earlier this afternoon Droid-Life noticed something strange: the Android developer devices page had been modified to remove the Verizon Galaxy Nexus, leading the site to question whether Google may have removed support for the device because of its spat with Verizon over Google Wallet. Which would stand to infuriate a lot of new Galaxy Nexus users (including myself), who are looking forward to receiving device updates directly from Google and not having to wait for Verizon to get around to pus...
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U.S. Government & Military To Get Secret-Worthy Android Phones
The amount of stuff we trust to fly in and out of our smartphones is astounding. Just look at what happened when a couple of reporters got access to an unwitting (and rather unlucky) Apple employee's iMessages alone — within days, they learned more about him than most people know about their closest friends.
Now, imagine all the stuff that could fly in and out of a government official's phone, or that of a highly-ranked member of the military. Forget saucy texts and booty pictures — we're t...
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Gillmor Gang Live 02.03.12 (TCTV)
The Gillmor Gang - Robert Scoble, John Taschek, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor – are recording live at 1pm PT.
Recording has concluded.
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TechCrunch |
Apple Kicks Chart Topping Fakes Out Of App Store
Temple Jump, Tiny Birds, Numbers With Friends. These are not the apps you love. They're fakes designed to scam you out of $1.99 when you go to buy Temple Run, Tiny Wings, or Words With Friends. Today Apple took a stand against plagiarism, kicking these rip-offs out of the US App Store. Good riddance, but how can platform owners stop these developers before they rob users of thousands or even millions of dollars?
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TechCrunch |
Micron CEO Dead At 51
The CEO of Micron Technology, Steve Appleton, died in a small plane crash today in Boise, Idaho. He was 51.Appleton worked at the company since 1983, starting on the night shift production line. He died piloting a Lancair experimental aircraft around Boise.
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TechCrunch |
OnSports Mobile App Battles Its Way Up A Tough League Ahead Of The Super Bowl
Most popular mobile sports apps are trying to feed you scores and news, or show you fantasy numbers. OnSports, by HitPost, is in a smaller class of apps that's focused on users running the discussion themselves. And now, ahead of the Super Bowl this Sunday, viral growth and featured spots on the Android Market and the iTunes App Store are helping it step up against larger competitors.
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TechCrunch |
The Zen Table Practices Mindfulness So You Don’t Have To
Remember those little Zen rock gardens they used to sell for desks? So you could take a minute of your busy day to contemplate the void? Thanks to the magic of Kickstarter, you can build your own automatic, desktop-based Zen garden that will rake itself into endless patterns.
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TechCrunch |
Ansca Mobile Accuses Partner PapayaMobile Of Copying Its Code
Ansca Mobile, the Palo Alto-based mobile development company and makers of the popular Corona SDK, is accusing its partner PapayaMobile of ripping off parts of its SDK for use in PapayaMobile's Social Game Engine. According to Ansca Mobile COO David Rangel, his company recently discovered that Papaya's engine is what he calls a "blatant copy" of some aspects of the Corona SDK.
In addition, says Rangel, some of PapayaMobile's syntax and sample code is identical to Ansca's, and the company is ...
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TechCrunch |
Some Refurbished Xooms Could Put Personal Data In The Wrong Hands
Maybe it was too thick, maybe it was too heavy, maybe you just didn’t like Honeycomb. Regardless of your reasoning, you may want to keep your eyes peeled on your credit score if you bought and returned a Motorola Xoom between March and October 2011, because your personal information may be in someone else’s hands.
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TechCrunch |
Tumblr Now Lets You Highlight Your Favorite Posts For A Dollar
Tumblr is introducing a new feature today that lets its users pay a dollar in order to have their post featured on the Tumblr Dashboard. The option is called "Highlights," and it's now available right from the new post page on Tumblr. With Highlights, you can choose a special icon that will appear next to the post along with an optional message that points out why the post is important.
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TechCrunch |
The Wheel: What Is The Foxconn Debate Really About?
Thirty spokes meet at a nave;
Because of the hole we may use the wheel.
Clay is moulded into a vessel;
Because of the hollow we may use the cup.
Walls are built around a hearth;
Because of the doors we may use the house.
Thus tools come from what exists,
But use from what does not.
- Tao De Ching
There's a carousel in a small Cape Cod town that we visited this summer and the kids rode it a few times. The carousel is quite old and quite handsome and it makes a great diversion of an evening. I'm ...
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TechCrunch |
Peter Thiel Invests (Again) In Xero’s $16.6M Round
Online accounting software maker Xero has raised a new $16.6 million round of funding from existing investors — including PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, whose most famous investment, Facebook, just filed for an IPO,
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Keen On… Dane Jasper: Why High Speed Broadband Is The Key To US Innovation (TCTV)
There are few more articulate supporters of high speed broadband access than Sonic.net CEO Dane Jasper. Not only does he think Americans should have the right to high quality broadband, but he also thinks that it is the key to innovation in the broader economy. Home video is, of course, increasingly dependent on broadband and so, Japser told me when he came into our San Francisco studio earlier this week, is innovation in our healthcare and education sectors.
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TechCrunch |
The Founders of Warby Parker Talk Wire Frames – And The Hipster Question
Earlier this week during the Crunchies we snagged the founders of Warby Parker for a backstage interview — which was fitting, as I've been wearing a pair of their specs myself (they seemed pleased by this).
Tune in to the video above for some details on the company's 'Buy A Pair, Give A Pair' program, through which Warby Parker matches every purchase by donating a pair of glasses to people in need. And for those of you looking for an alternative to the hornrimmed classes, there's good new...
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TechCrunch |
Shazam, Delivery Agent Let You Buy Super Bowl Gear While Watching The Big Game
The Super Bowl is just around the corner, but unfortunately most of us won't be able to attend the big game. Parties are fun and all, but there's nothing like leaving the stadium with arms full of jerseys, footballs, foam fingers and the like. How else are you supposed to relive the excitement over and over without mementos? (In a non-serial killer kind of way, of course.)
Well, the good news is that Shazam and Delivery Agent have partnered yet again to let you buy Super Bowl XLVI goods from yo...
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TechCrunch |
Making Learning Fun For Kids, Everything Butt Art Launches Its First iPad App
You know what's funny? If you Google "how do you get kids to learn" (sans quotes, even), the first result goes to this TechCrunch blog post about an app that lets kids draw butts on the iPad. Really! The post details the company called Madbrook (aka Everything Butt Art), which launched at TechCrunch Disrupt NY in May. It's the brand behind a series of printed books, all of which are meant to teach creativity and step-by-step drawing while using humor and silliness to appeal to the young demogr...
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Dear Nokia, This Pink Lumia 800 Commercial Discouraged Me. -Boys Everywhere
Nokia's UK YouTube account has posted a video promoting the pink Lumia 800, and shockingly enough it seems pretty targeted toward women.
Here's the thing: It's pretty obvious that, with a pink phone, the majority of its owners will be teenage young ladies. That's fine. But doesn't a commercial that shows only women enjoying the phone kind of ruin it for guys? What if there's a young man in the UK that was really excited about the pink Lumia 800? He's probably not so excited after seeing this c...
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TechCrunch |
Test Dropbox’s New Android App And Snag Some Extra Storage Space
Dropbox has no shortage of fans or users these days -- their stellar wins at the Crunchies are proof of that -- and now the cloud storage service is leaning on them to test an experimental new build of the Dropbox Android app.
While the thrill of being on the bleeding edge is probably enough for some people to take the plunge, the real meat of the experimental build comes in the form of the new auto upload feature for photos and videos. It's pretty much exactly what the name implies: as soon as...
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TechCrunch |
Google Chrome Market Share Drops For First Time In Two Years
Google's move to demote the Chrome website in search rankings in January led to a decline in browser market share, according to new data from Net Applications. Google's Chrome web browser dropped from 19.11% in December to 18.94% in January, the firm found. Meanwhile, among the other browsers, only Internet Explorer saw significant gains during the month, going from 51.87% in December to 52.96% in January.
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iModela Adds CNC Milling To Your Home 3D Printing Arsenal
Upset that the Makerbot can't produce solid, smooth objects for your home 3D printing pleasure? Why not give the iModela a look.
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Evernote’s First Institutional Investor Troika Sells Stake To Sequoia For Over 10X Return
Russian venture firm Troika Ventures is announcing that it has sold its share in productivity app Evernote to fellow investor Sequoia Capital. Troika Ventures was Evernote’s first institutional investor, and backed the company with $4.5 million in 2009, and participated in Evernote's $20 million C round in 2010. Evernote has raised a total of $95.5 million in funding. The most recent round took place last year, when Sequoia and Morgenthaler Ventures put $50 million in the company.
Troika is n...
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Lead Management Company Leads360 Raises $15 Million
Leads360, a consumer sales automation and telephony platform, announced today it has completed a $15 million round of new funding. The round was led by Volition Capital and saw participation from existing Leads360 investor Rustic Canyon Partners.
The company plans to use the funding to expand its product lineup, pursue strategic relationships and raise awareness about its platform.
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Motorola Injunction Kicks 3 iPhones And An iPad Off Of Apple’s German Site (Update)
Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived a website called Apple.de. And on this website, in historical Deutschland, there lived three iPhones and an iPad. They were a happy bunch: some wise but slow with old age, others quick and lean, but they all had one tragic flaw in common.
According to a court in Germany, all four of them are infringing on Motorola patents related to embedded 3G/UMTS wireless technology, FRAND standards essential patents to be specific. This means that the ...
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Lean-but-mean StylistPick Guns For The Competition With New War Chest
Bringing US business models to Europe might seem an obvious move for some - but it's frequently far harder than it might appear. US incumbents can indeed try to expand, but some fall at the first hurdle. Exactly this happened on January 20 when Shoedazzle announced its closure in the UK. UK head Nigel Whiteoak has since admitted to me that the company was looking to make more of the continued opportunity in the US, versus trying to expand in the UK. Shades of the Romans over-reaching their borde...
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TechCrunch |
The 16-Year-Old Startup CEO And The Hong Kong Billionaire [TCTV]
We covered the launch of Summly an application that summarises text last year, but I recently caught up with Nick D'Aloisio, the16 year year-old programmer who came up with the application for a video interview.
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Daily Crunch: Dust
Here are some recent posts on TechCrunch Gadgets: The Peek Bites The Dust Steve Jobs Impersonator With Angel Wings And Halo Used To Hawk A Worthless Android Tab The $199 PlayBook Returns For A Limited Time
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The Seven Most Interesting Startups At 500 Startups Demo Day
Halfway to living up to its moniker with over 250 startups, 500 Startups held a series of demo days this week and last, where a group of 33 scrappy startups presented their wares to investors in both New York and San Francisco. As we are wont to do with these things, we visited the 500 Startups offices in Mountain View and interviewed the seven that we thought were the most interesting, from both an investor and consumer standpoint.
The startups chosen spanned all sorts of market territory, fro...
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Facebook Tests Photo Viewer That Encourages Comments, Google+ Comparisons
Facebook is testing a new photo viewer layout that mounts engagement buttons and comments to the right rather than beneath images. See, Facebook doesn't want you to just view comments, it wants you to start a conversation. Apparently the company doesn't care about being accused of copying Google+, since the viewer's layout is very similar to that of its competitor.
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The Revolution May Or May Not Be Branded
The Occupy movement, or rallying cry, or whatever you want to call it, is by its nature decentralized. By refusing to come together under one banner other than the word "Occupy," they've both diluted their message and allowed it to spread more quickly. You don't need an Occupy license to occupy a bank's lobby in Kansas City, but at the same time there's a natural question of whether one occupation is related to another.
Political considerations aside, the point is that Occupy might benefit from...
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Yammer Time: In 2011 “Pretty Much Everything Tripled”
Yammer grew like crazy last year. How crazy? Product VP Jim Patterson just tweeted out the Yammer 2011 Year in Review infographic below with the comment: "Pretty much everything tripled."
Paid seats went from 300,000 to 800,000, total users went from 1.6 million to 4 million (2.5X growth), and employees went from 80 to 250. Also, all told, 200,000 companies are using Yammer, including 85 percent of the Fortune 500 (and TechCrunch).
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AT&T Galaxy Nexus Gets Semi-Official Google Wallet Support
The tale of Google Wallet's life thus far is a bit of a weird one, but here's the gist: Google launched it back in September, initially as an exclusive feature on Sprint's Nexus S. We reviewed it here. Then came Google/Samsung's new flagship Android phone, the Galaxy Nexus — and, for one reason or another, none of the Galaxy Nexuses on any of the US carriers supported Wallet. Android fans roared, and everyone involved pointed fingers everywhere else until everyone just kind of forgot about it....
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Hitwise: Facebook.com Now Accounts For 1 In Every 5 Pageviews On The Web (In The U.S.)
In case you happened to be the victim of a day-long coma yesterday, it was a very exciting day for Mark Zuckerberg, Silicon Valley, and that quaint little social network we've all come to know, love, and be terrified of. Facebook filed its S-1 on Thursday with the crystal clear intent to go public on a market near you very soon, and will be raising $5 billion ahead of its IPO at an expected valuation of between $75 and $100 billion.
In fact, there was so much excitement and noise around Facebo...
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The Alan Lomax Folk Collection Will Be Available For Streaming In February
Alan Lomax single-handedly (and some would say, heavy-handedly) saved the folk music from oblivion. Son of John Lomax, Alan travelled across the US and around the world recording folk musicians in their natural habitat. Some of his most notable songs - work songs, cowboy songs, and ballads - formed the bedrock of the folk movement and the succeeding rise of the singer-songwriter in the 1960s and 70s. Everyone from Bob Dylan to Nickelback owe him a debt of gratitude.
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Want To Buy Last-Minute Tickets To Local Events (At A Discount)? WillCall Is For You.
If you're anything like me (and hopefully for your sake, you're not), then you tend to do things --scheduling, booking, and so on -- at the last minute. For we Last Minute Scramblers, some highly usable services have popped up that not only allow us to book at the last minute, but receive deals while doing so. You may be familiar with HotelTonight, an app for Android and iOS that takes last-minute deals (discounts up to 70 percent) offered by hotels on their unsold rooms -- and serves them to yo...
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HuffPo Unique Visitors Up 47%, Plans Streaming Network To Kill Cable News
Say what you will about The Huffington Post and AOL, their merger has given HuffPo the resources to conquer the online news aggregation business. Today HuffPo dropped some big stats about the year since its acquisition, most importantly a 47% growth of monthly unique visitors to 36.2 million. Next it's aiming to take down CNN and the cable news industry with The Huffington Post Streaming Network, which will stream content live on the web for 12 hours a day.
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Surprise! Location App Highlight Actually Creates Serendipity
The big promise of location-based mobile apps is that they can help you find something great in real life without you meaning to look for it. But that hasn't usually been my experience. Instead, whether because of the friction of having to check in, the lack of adoption by friends outside of tech, or whatever else, I simply forget to use them.
That has changed with Highlight, a new passive location app for iOS that shows you when Facebook users with friends and interests in common are nearby. ...
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TechCrunch |
After 11 Billion App Downloads, Google Finally Gets Serious About “Bouncing” Android Malware
Love it or love it less, Android is a force to be reckoned with. As Jordan wrote last night, Android cannot be ignored, and The Crunchies served as a timely illustration. The most successful apps work at presenting a unified UI experience across platforms, as difficult as this may sometimes be. While many developers still opt to build on iOS first before Android and iOS is winning enterprise (and the beauty contest), it's hard to argue against a mobile operating system that's nearing 50 percent ...
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TechCrunch |
The Peek Bites The Dust
You may remember the Peek, a device that showed up back in 2008 (so long ago, now!) offering nothing but email. That's right, nothing but email in an age when smartphones were already becoming popular, and the iPhone was changing the way people thought about interacting with their data.
In a way, it was genius: limiting the service and the device made it easy to explain and simple to use. It does email, period. An interesting tack, and one that kept them rolling for a few years, but alas, Peek ...
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TechCrunch |
Part Health Tracker, Part Q&A Community, WeSprout Looks To Bring Sanity To Parenting
Parenting is already an extremely hard job, let alone the myriad issues tired parents find in trying to track down the best local babysitter and daycare services, schools, and more. Meanwhile, the brain-melting technology that we see employed every day focuses mainly on photo sharing, friend finding, and money managing, but parents are often left holding the short end of the stick. This is according to Dr. Carol Peebles, a co-founder of WeSprout, a graduate of the first batch of startups from he...
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TechCrunch |
Windows Phone 8 Apollo Features Leak
A video detailing the new features of Windows Phone 8 Apollo — originally intended for Microsoft's smartphone partners — has leaked into the hands of PocketNow editors.
Yay!
In my opinion, Windows Phone Mango is a solid platform that's quicker and smoother than anything I've seen on Android. Still, when looking at devices from Microsoft, Apple, and Google side-by-side, the Windows Phone always seems to lose in the spec department. That said, WinPho boss Joe Belfiore has plenty in...
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TechCrunch |
Google Adds A New Security Layer To The Android Market… A “Bouncer,” If You Will
Android malware has been an issue over the past year. Granted, most of the numbers we see out of security software companies are inflated — including malicious apps from third-party sources and ignoring small download figures — but that's not to say that we can just brush that dirt off our shoulders.
Google knows this, and has for a while. Despite the fact that downloads of malicious apps are down 40 percent between the first and second half of 2011, seeing that 14,000, 30,000, or ...
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TechCrunch |
comScore: As U.S. Smartphone Usage Grows, Android Nears 50 Percent Market Share
comScore just released its monthly mobile numbers, which charts smartphone usage from U.S. consumers for the three month period ending in December 2011. For the period, 234 million Americans age 13 and older used mobile devices, which is in line with the previous period's usage. With respect to smartphone usage, 97.9 million (up from 91.4 million people in the previous period) people in the U.S. used smartphones during the three months ending in December, representing 40 percent of all mobile su...
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TechCrunch |
The $199 PlayBook Returns For A Limited Time
Back in November, there was a run on PlayBooks when the price was briefly reduced to $199. For a tablet that started out with a premium price, the deal proved enticing to many buyers. And again at the beginning of January, with a slightly odd promotion pricing all models at $299. Well, they're at it again: until the 11th, the PlayBook is priced to move: $199 for the 16GB version, $249 for 32GB, and $299 for 64GB.
Unfortunately, the device won't be shipping with the 2.0 version of the PlayBook s...
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TechCrunch |
TCTV: In the Studio, Greylock’s John Lilly Examines the Opportunities in Personal Health Data
“In the Studio” at TechCrunch TV continues today with a guest who was once a Senior Scientist at Apple and CEO of Mozilla Corporation before eventually making the trek up Sand Hill Road, where today he's a partner at a leading venture capital firm.
John Lilly, an investor with Greylock Partners, has kept himself busy. Having invested already in properties like Tumblr, Dropbox, and a series of others through his firm's early-stage "Discovery Fund," one of the new areas Lilly is investigating...
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TechCrunch |
IPO Be Damned, Facebook Will Still Prioritize User Experience
For those not from Silicon Valley or Wall Street, there's only 1 thing you really need know about Facebook's plan to become a publicly traded company: Your Facebook won't be suddenly overrun with ads. Facebook bluntly warns greedy investors "Our culture emphasizes rapid innovation and prioritizes user engagement over short-term financial results", and CEO Mark Zuckerberg proclaims, "Simply put: we don’t build services to make money; we make money to build better services."
This is a huge wi...
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TechCrunch |
MVF Reveals Your Most Valuable Twitter Follower, Facebook Coming Soon
Ever wonder which of your Twitter followers you should be sucking up to? Well, you can go to MVF and find out.
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TechCrunch |
You Can Also Spy On Someone’s iPhone If You Kidnap Them And Lock Them In Your Basement
Yesterday, Gizmodo ran a story about a supposed bug in iOS, specifically related to iMessage. The title: The Apple Bug That Let Us Spy on a Total Stranger’s iPhone. Essentially, Gizmodo got ahold of an iPhone that was receiving iMessages not intended for that phone. The fact that some of these messages were quasi-sexual in nature and that the phone belonged to a teenage boy made the story more salacious. But here's the thing, fear mongering aside, this "bug" is something that is so convoluted...
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TechCrunch |
TripIt Owner Concur Backs Personalized Travel Search Engine Room 77
Travel and expense management company Concur revealed in its earnings today that it made an undisclosed investment in Room 77, a comprehensive and personalized search engine and review site focused exclusively on finding and booking hotel rooms.
Room 77, which officially launched in public beta in February, has collected and indexed data on more than 500,000 hotel rooms in 2,500 properties and also crowdsources reviews and ratings from travelers. The site provides travelers with specific detai...
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TechCrunch |
Keen On… Sonic.net: Why Fiber Is The Future Of Wired Connectivity
It's always nice to see a small, plucky start-up take on the big guys and not only survive but also prosper. My excellent Santa Rosa based ISP Sonic.net is doing just that - laying its own fiber-to-the-premises network in Sebastopol for only $70 a month and signing up 30% of the local market. While the numbers are still small (the fiber network still only reaches 700 Sebastopol homes), the Sonic.net story is encouraging because it shows that innovation is still possible in the ISP space, a marke...
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TechCrunch |
Visualizing Facebook’s Media Storage: How Big Is 100 Petabytes?
Just a little tidbit from everyone's favorite reading material this week, the Facebook IPO filing: the company noted that it now stores over 100 petabytes of media (photos and videos) uploaded by its 845 million users. In case "100 petabytes" didn't blow you over, the filing further explains that's equal to "100 quadrillion bytes."
OK, now you're just showing off, Facebook.
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TechCrunch |
Coming Off Big Holiday Season, Sincerely Ink’s Mobile Postcards Now Ready For Valentine’s Day
Sincerely, the maker of mobile apps that let you send your photos as print postcards, is pushing out a new version of its Sincerely Ink app today. The main change is that the theme now features Valentine's Day cards, instead of other themes like Birthdays or New Year's. Not huge news in and of itself, but get ready for many more updates like this because the Christmas season went so well for the company that it's doubling down on holiday editions
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TechCrunch |
Why It’s Good News HealthIT is So Bad
I know of no industry where technology is as despised as it is in healthcare. It's telling that it took government money to incentivize healthcare providers to finally do what virtually every other industry has done -- apply information technology to streamline processes. "Established technology is being given a federally funded new lease on life," athenahealth CEO Jonathan Bush said. "Traditional health software now is on Medicare, being kept alive like grandma." Bush dubs this program as the "...
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TechCrunch |
Showyou Rolls Out All-New iPad App With Improved Video Discovery, Better Social Tools
Social video browsing app Showyou just launched version 3.0 of its iPad application, a major update with a ton of new features. Competing in a hot space with competitors like Fanhattan, Shelby.tv, Squrl, Vodio and others, Showyou offers a grid-like view for browsing the videos your friends are sharing on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube and Vimeo. Once connected, you can watch any of the over 30 million videos indexed by the Showyou search engine.
With version 3.0, four ...
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TechCrunch |
Docstoc Releases New iPad Apps Focused On Helping SMBs Streamline Their Businesses
DocStoc, a document sharing site has been focusing on providing bundles of premium professional documents for businesses for some time now. But today, the startup is expanding to producing articles and videos related to starting and running a business, providing more than just form documents for professionals.
Docstoc has launched four iPad apps: Legal and Copyright Small Business Toolkit; Sales Techniques and Training Secrets; Adwords and SEO Secrets; and HR & Employee Management Advice to...
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TechCrunch |
Steve Jobs Impersonator With Angel Wings And Halo Used To Hawk A Worthless Android Tab
Bad taste. Is nothing off-limits anymore?
I'm always up for a good satire but this Action Electronics' video promo airing on Taiwanese for the Action Pad misses the mark. It's not the turtle neck, stage, or even the premise. For me it's the angel wings and halo. The little props takes the ad from a tasteless parody to an absurd stunt. But personal feelings aside, this company won. Their ad spot went viral and the Action Pad won't go unnoticed.
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TechCrunch |
Newest TechStars Network Member Hub Ventures Is Looking For “Change The World” Startups
Hub Ventures, the San Francisco-based startup accelerator focused on funding entrepreneurs "building a better world," is the newest member of the TechStars network. The official announcement of its TechStars affiliation will be made next week. For those unfamiliar, the organization's 12-week program provides companies with typical accelerator benefits like seed funding, mentorship, workshops and access to investors, but what makes this accelerator different are the types of startups it's interes...
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TechCrunch |
Mobile Ad Network Mojiva Reaches 1 Billion Devices
Mobile ad startup Mojiva is the latest startup to start throwing around the word "billion" in its press releases. The company says it now reaches one billion unique devices each month.
Of those devices, about 224 million are in the United States, Mojiva says. The United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy, account for 33 million, 10.6 million, and 8.7 million devices, respectively. Overall, Mojiva says it's serving 45 billion ad requests in 190 countries.(When mobile ad network Millennial Media filed f...
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TechCrunch |
For It Before They Were Against It: Google Spent $400K On SOPA Lobbying
According to filings with the Federal Election Commission, Google spent approximately $390,000 (out of $3,760,000.00 total) on SOPA and PIPA lobbying including efforts to educate lawmakers on SOPA and the DMCA. The question, then, is whether the massive search and advertising giant was for or against the bill - and why so much money was spent to argue the case.
The document, available online in PDF here, is fairly succinct and covers a number of topics, thereby explaining the massive cash outla...
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TechCrunch |
Mobile TV Apps Shazam, IntoNow Reveal Super Bowl Plans
When people watch the Super Bowl on Sunday, they may notice something different about the ads — many of them will be touting a new way to interact with the advertised brands. Shazam, an app that allows people to connect with extra TV content by listening to a few seconds of audio, says it has big plans for Sunday, and IntoNow, a Yahoo-acquired app offering similar capabilities, is announcing a big partnership, too.
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TechCrunch |
ConnecTV Prepares To Take On IntoNow With New Social TV Platform
Today, a company called ConnecTV is launching an ambitious new service for socializing the TV viewing experience using mobile and web-based applications. The new app, available first on the iPad, with Android tablet support in the works, is similar to competitor IntoNow in that it also seems to "hear" what's on TV in order to load the appropriate content. But the way it's processing the data on the backend is completely different. There's no "Shazam-like" experience here - everything ConnecTV do...
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TechCrunch |
Daily Crunch: Swarm
Here are some of yesterday’s stories on TechCrunch Gadgets: Swarming Robots Will Fly Menacingly Towards Your Loved Ones In Perfect Formation Mint.com Launches Android Tablet App The New Android Watch In The Google Store Isn’t What You Think Review: Panasonic Lumix GX1 Back To Basics: Sony Appoints Kazuo Hirai, Ousts Stringer
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TechCrunch |
Tucows Officially Launches Ting, A More Thoughtful Wireless Carrier
Tucows is probably best known for their slew of web services and their extensive reseller network, but CEO Elliot Noss sees room to grow in another space: mobile. After spending the past few months conducting a private beta for a hundred users, Tucows has officially opened up their Ting wireless service to all comers. The goal? To offer wireless customers "a whole different type of carrier relationship."
"Big name carriers have services meant to maximize their profitability, not their service t...
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TechCrunch |
You Know What’s Cool? $1 Billion In Profits
We learned a lot of things about Facebook today from its IPO filing. But there is one detail that sticks out for its improbable exactness: The $1.000 billion in profits Facebook reported for 2011.
The number wasn't $998 million. It wasn't $1.003 billion. It was $1.000 billion right on the dot.
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TechCrunch |
Little Black Bag Raises $2.75M From GRP, Chamath P., David Tisch And Others
There is something to be said about the serendipity of shopping in a brick and mortar stores, especially when you're buying fashion. The dilemma with clothing is that you don't know what you'll like until you get to the store and are presented with an array of options, and that perfect thing you never though you'd like. Perhaps this is why people stock up sartorially in actual stores -- Part of the fun of shopping is the sense of discovery involved in finding and loving items IRL.
Attempting to...
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TechCrunch |
Glassdoor Launches “Inside Connections,” A Facebook-Based Job Hunting Tool
The jobs and career community site Glassdoor is hoping to ride on the coattails of the Facebook IPO hotness with this evening's launch of a new Facebook-based product called "Inside Connections." With this new option, which is really just an enhancement to the company's website, users can sign in to Glassdoor.com using their Facebook account information and then immediately see where their friends work.
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TechCrunch |
Android Can No Longer Be Ignored, And The Crunchies Prove It
While sitting at the Crunchies last night something became quite apparent: almost all the big guys — even the ones who were stubborn about it — are currently available on Android.
And what do you know? They won at the Crunchies!
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TechCrunch |
New Everpix iPhone App Automatically Uploads Your Photos To The Cloud
Photo organization service (and TechCrunch Disrupt finalist) Everpix just launched its first iPhone application. The app does two key things: it offers you a way to access your entire photo collection from your phone, plus it automatically uploads all your iPhone photos to the Everpix cloud.
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TechCrunch |
The New Android Watch In The Google Store Isn’t What You Think
I really wish this whole post could be about Google taking a big step forward in the field of wearable tech with the introduction of a new Android-powered wrist device, but their new Android watch is simply a watch with Android logos on it.
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TechCrunch |
Yes, We Actually Changed Our Logo To Zuck (A Facebook IPO Round Up)
Facebook put the "sexy" in S-1 today, with its IPO filing basically DDoSing the SEC's site and eventually Scribd this afternoon.
Because it drives massive amounts of traffic we are genuinely interested, we covered it a lot on the site and even changed our logo to Zuck's face, a move that some thought was funny and others not so much. We're going to be doing this for some big stories from now on, so new life goal = Getting your face TechCrunched.
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TechCrunch |
Facebook Wants All Two Billion Internet Users, But Growth Rates Are Slowing
Make no mistake about Facebook's ambitions. "There are more than two billion global Internet users," its S-1 filing states, "...and we aim to connect all of them." As evidence of its ability to reach this goal, the company says that it already has some countries with above 80% penetration rates among users.
The problem, as the filing also notes, is that "our rates of user and revenue growth will decline over time." A quick analysis of the worldwide monthly and daily active user counts in the d...
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TechCrunch |
“Think Profit.”
When Steve Jobs took the stage at Macworld in 1998, he did something unusual. For the first time in any presentation he had ever given, he ended with a slide reading, "Oh, and one more thing..." This phrase would of course enter the Apple lexicon in the subsequent years. But what was it that was hidden behind this first "one more thing"?
"Think Profit."
You see, Jobs had just been named interim CEO in September 1997 after successfully pushing out the man who brought him (back) in, Gil Amelio...
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TechCrunch |
Facebook Ads Becoming (A Little) More Valuable; Mobile May Be Next
In the S-1 filing for Facebook's IPO, the company offers a little more insight into its advertising business, which it describes as "the substantial majority" of its revenue (and that's an understatement).
In 2009, advertising accounted for 98 percent of Facebook's revenue. The number declined to 95 percent in 2010 and 85 percent last year, thanks largely to the growth of revenue from payments. Advertising revenue is climbing, though that growth has slowed — it grew 69 percent in 2011, to $3...
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TechCrunch |
LeVar Burton Snags @ReadingRainbow Twitter Handle To Push New Reading App
While we nerds may best remember LeVar Burton as a VISOR-clad Starfleet officer, he also spent much of the 80s and 90s instilling in children an appreciation for reading. In fact, Burton is still stuck to the idea of encouraging childhood literacy -- he launched a new company called RRKidz this past September that's currently working on (among other things) a "disruptive" new iPad reading app.
But when the time came to set up the all-important Twitter account to provide "the latest info on the...
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TechCrunch |
Review: Panasonic Lumix GX1
A return to form for Panasonic, and a M4/3 camera that photographers won't be suspicious of. Its weaknesses are largely the weaknesses of its class of camera, but beyond those it's solid, comfortable, and fairly powerful. Not recommended for fidgety and manual focusers, but most shooters will be able to have a lot of fun with it.
Read on for our full review.
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TechCrunch |
Payments Are A $557M Business For Facebook — That Could Expand From Games To Apps
Within Facebook's S-1, the social network revealed that its Payments business is bringing in $557 million in revenue per year. As the company explains, it currently requires Payments integration in games on Facebook. But according to the filing, Facebook is considering what could be very big moves in the payments space.
From the filing, Facebook writes that "we may seek to extend the use of Payments to other types of apps in the future." It's not specific about what these other apps are, but th...
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TechCrunch |
Fujifilm X-Pro1 Finally Gets Pricing: $1700, Plus $600 Each For Lenses
Well, that's the end of that dream for me. I was really looking forward to owning one of these lovely little cameras, but Fujifilm has just gone and priced it right out of my range. Amazon has put up its pre-order pages for the camera and its lenses, and the earlier rumors were true: the camera sells for $1700 body-only, and the lenses aren't cheap, either: $600 for the 18mm and 35mm, and $650 for the 60mm macro.
Damn it!
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TechCrunch |
ShoreTel To Acquire Cloud Communications Company M5 Networks For Up To $146 Million
IP phone company ShoreTel has today announced that it is beefing up its offerings by acquiring unified communications company M5 Networks in a deal that is valued up to $146 million in cash and stock.
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Bang!
