title stringlengths 2 283 ⌀ | author stringlengths 4 41 ⌀ | year int64 2.01k 2.02k | month int64 1 12 | day int64 1 31 | content stringlengths 1 111k ⌀ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Microsoft’s Surface Garage: A Cross-Department Development Team, With Pizza And Beer | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 9 | 5 | Despite being the only TechCrunch writer in Seattle, I don’t get out to Microsoft nearly as much as one might expect. The fact is it’s on the other side of a big lake and getting there usually involves a lot of traffic. But when I get an invite like I did recently, to join a sort of unofficial developers’ club for a meeting, it’s hard to say no. The promise of free pizza had nothing to do with my enthusiasm. I the Surface. So it was that I got to join a group of developers from all around Microsoft as they spitballed ideas, compared new projects, and developed a new feature as I watched. They didn’t initiate me into the mysteries of the device or swear me to secrecy regarding plans of world domination, but I got to see some cool new Surface apps and contribute to the development of a new feature. Also, they had Alaskan Amber. I arrived at the Microsoft campus (one of them, anyway) around 6, and after wandering fruitlessly for a short time (navigating corporate architecture isn’t my strong suit) I was captured and conducted to a conference room where a dozen people or so were arrayed around tables as if for a weekly meeting. After some introductions, the purpose of this secret society was explained. It turns out that some people really just love working with the Surface. So much so that they can’t get enough during working hours! So this recurring event was created, with pizza and refreshments, to make it worth the extra time being put in. There were people from gaming, Windows, Kinect, marketing, a real cross section of Microsoft life. I was then given a short tour of some things that people in the group had developed in their spare time, for the most part on their own. A simple but versatile pamphlet presentation app, a sort of paperless coffee table, spoke to the Surface’s tragically commercial-only availability: But one developer, like myself a fan of “shmups,” had put together a rudimentary but promising shooter using real-life tokens to control your ships. You might remember some time back when we went to see a Dungeons and Dragons game for the Surface, complete with figurines, spells, and kobolds. As you can see below and at the top of this article, this game is a bit more frenetic. The dots emanate from various locations and it’s your job to navigate them. You move your ship around, point it where you want to shoot, and so on. Having a physical item to play with helps address the lack of tactility that occasionally makes touchscreen games so unsatisfying. Last was an interesting fusion of two innovative Microsoft products: the Surface and the Kinect. This is a sort of “morning briefing” app that is meant to run on your living room’s idle TV, which one can imagine may some day have a touch panel and depth sensing camera built in. Today it was an upright Surface 2.0 and a stock Kinect: You always see people in movies set in the future talking to their computers, controlling them with a gesture, and so on. This is a small-scale attempt at something like that that people might actually use. When you’re at a distance, it displays large-granularity info like the weather, upcoming appointments, and so on. You can say “mail” and it’ll switch to email, or “calendar Wednesday” and it’ll switch to that. And when you approach, it senses your proximity with the Kinect and switches to a touchscreen mode where you can touch the news and email items and read them. All put together by one guy, admittedly using APIs developed by hundreds, but a fun demonstration of what’s possible with the project right now. We then selected a proposed UI element to be coded tonight more or less from scratch. In this case, a sort of drawer menu was desired, something that could display metadata or properties for an item on screen like a photo. It would need some kind of UI cue to let people know it was there, a gesture to activate it and deactivate it, and some basic parameters to make it play well with other elements. For something as simple as this, there are still tons of design decisions. Right off the bat, there was the “just in time” question. Should the drawer’s “handle” be visible at all times? Should it show up when you tap, drag, or hold the object? How long after should it disappear? I asked if we could use the Surface 2.0’s ability to see things before they touched the screen and “magically” make the handle appear, but there wasn’t enough time to create the brightness-based blob creation I had in mind. And then there was the question of how far we wanted to dictate how the item was used. We shouldn’t make it right-side-only in case developers wanted to make it ambidextrous, for instance, and it was decided that handle visibility could be made flexible and left up to the software designers. It’s in situations like this that you can see some fundamental differences between how Microsoft and Apple work. A small sample size, admittedly, but it falls in line with the philosophies I observed at work last week in the Explorer ribbon debacle. First we discussed, then we whiteboarded, then we started coding. And by “we” I mean “they,” because I don’t know anything about it. I did make some suggestions regarding how to monitor certain types of touches, and I thought I had a rather clever idea regarding how to combine the gestures for opening and closing the drawer (we didn’t implement it, despite its brilliance). And piece by piece, with a few hilarious setbacks (including a not-so-hilarious pizza-related one), our UI element took form. By the end of the night, we could boast that we’d created a box that you could slide out from underneath another box. But its simple operation belied the many details that went into its construction: it was aligned with and moved along with the other UI element, it only pulled out to a certain distance, and it could potentially be filled with content very easily. We’d left ways for it to be configured one way or another, and despite a few bugs it was a working element — from concept to execution in two hours. And this is why Surface Garage exists. Because it’s fun to create things like this, to see the results of some collaboration and work after a short interval, and know that it was created that way because everyone wanted it that way. After this, someone will pick up the code for the drawer, clean it up, give it a few parameters, and who knows, maybe the next time you see a Surface, our drawer will be lying dormant under the virtual photos scattered in virtual piles on the screen. Maybe you’ll even see something like it in Windows 8. I’ve often written about how Microsoft tends to in the cradle, or else with internal conflict. It’s good that groups like this one (surely one of many) exist, as a blowoff valve for developers just interested in creating. They may not be building billion-dollar ideas, but beer, pizza, and time with like-minded colleagues is its own reward. |
Will Windows Phone Apps Run On Windows 8? | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 9 | 5 | When you look at the combined of Android and Apple in the U.S. compared to Microsoft’s measly and shrinking 6 percent, it seems like it’s game over before it really began for Windows Phone. Windows Phone is a decent mobile OS, even , but so far it has failed to capture the hearts and minds of developers or consumers. Can Microsoft do anything to change that and will it involve tying Windows Phone more tightly to its next desktop operating system, Windows 8? There are some clues that this is exactly what Microsoft is planning to do. When we first saw the of Windows 8, with its , people thought immediately of Windows Phone, which has a very similar looking interface. Instead of app icons, both use tiles which can display data and images from the underlying apps without opening them. The tiles themselves become a dashboard displaying the realtime data behind every app. Windows Phone and Windows 8 are two separate operating systems. But what if Microsoft made it really easy for Windows Phone apps to run on Windows 8 PCs? Right now, most mobile apps on Android or Apple’s iOS devices live in their own separate world from the desktop (porting apps from iOS to OS X is possible, but doesn’t seem to be a very popular practice). The link to the desktop today is usually done via the web. If Windows mobile apps had counterparts on the desktop that synced up and presented themselves as a Windows 8 app tile, that could give Windows phone an advantage currently lacking in its rivals. It also would be in line with Microsoft’s classic embrace and extend strategy, whereby it uses its dominance of the desktop to extend to other areas. That strategy may no longer work in the post-PC era, but it is still worth a try. We will probably see all of this come together with Windows Phone 8 and Microsoft’s upcoming developer framework for Windows 8 called “Jupiter.” Just as the god Apollo was the sun of Jupiter, so too is Windows Phone 8 (codenamed Apollo) related to Windows 8. As our own Sarah Perez : Jupiter may end up being the “one framework” to rule them all. That means it might be possible to port the thousands of Windows Phone apps already written with Silverlight to Windows 8 simply by reusing existing code and making small tweaks. Or maybe even no tweaks. (That part is still unclear). If so, this would be a technical advantage for developers building for Windows Phone 8 (code-named “Apollo” by the way, the son of “Jupiter”) or Windows 8. As I noted above, even if this strategy is successful in creating a ton of cool cross-platform mobile-PC apps, it is not clear that will be enough to make a difference for Windows Phone. But it definitely points to the mobile and desktop worlds converging in the not too distant future, and not just on Windows. All your mobile apps should also be available in some form on your desktop. Not the exact same apps, of course, because mobile apps are built for touch interfaces, location, and to take advantage of your phone’s hardware such as cameras and accelerometers. Desktop apps, in contrast, still need to be designed for the mouse and keyboard. But the underlying data can feed native apps on both platforms. Over the past decade, desktop apps have given way to the web. Wouldn’t it be ironic if their popularity makes a comeback thanks to mobile apps? |
Chicago-Based Bidmyway Launches Hyperlocal Mobile Deals App | Sarah Perez | 2,011 | 9 | 5 | is a newly launched local deals app operating in the Chicago market. As opposed to being a deals aggregator for more popular brands like Groupon or Living Social, the app offers exclusive deals made with local merchants. What’s unique about is its interface and how the deals are presented to end users. Consumers “dial up” local deals using a click wheel reminiscent of the one found on old-style iPods. The wheel is used to select the budget you have available for deals. Spin to select the amount, lock it in and Bidmyway shows you the best deals within a specified radius, ranked and listed on a map. You can then purchase the deal right from the mobile app itself. It’s an interesting take on how mobile deals should work – instead of being presented with a single deal for a given geographic region, like a city, you filter a larger list of hyperlocal deals for those that are both within your budget and your vicinity. It’s a concept that could easily help users to better sort through the ever-growing number of deals available, so it’s actually somewhat of a shame (for the rest of us, at least) that Bidmyway launched as an independent deals broker, instead of an aggregator. Bidmyway CEO John T. Shave says he believes that “hyperlocal mobile” is the future of the deals industry. It’s not a surprise, then, that he felt the need to build a new system from the ground-up, right down to the new deal-filtering mechanism. He also notes that Bidmyway is the better option for merchants who need to launch a mobile deal immediately – for example, a restaurant having a slow night. Through the app, a retailer or small business owner can instantly offer a deal and post it, allowing them to attract customers right away, and most importantly, while those customers are out and about looking for something to do. Although Bidmyway is available for download on and right now, as noted above, the only deals available are in the Chicago area (incidentally, also the birthplace of Groupon.) In the future, the company hopes to expand to other markets. Bidmyway is owned and operated by local commerce company , which also runs the daily deals site . Elite Media Worx back in April. |
Blu Cigs Smart Pack Alerts You When Other e-Smokers Are Nearby | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 9 | 5 | So it looks like people are ready to slap the word “social” onto just about anything. Case in point: Blu Cigs Smart Pack. It’s a new offering from electronic cigarette maker Blu Cigs that comes with a homing device to find nearby e-cig smokers and Blu Cigs retail locations. Despite the fact that it pretty ridiculous, I find this to be a rather clever move. Here’s why: Smoking is a social activity by nature. Total strangers will share their lighters, their cigarettes, and their stories all over the course of a ten minute cigarette break. Even when you start to hate the actual act of smoking, it’s difficult to give up because you get extra breaks during work where you can mingle with co-workers or strangers, and inevitably make friendships. When you’re toking on an e-cig, you’re more or less not welcome. Thus, the Blu Cigs Smart Pack. Its homing beacon will tell you when there’s another Blu Cigs smoker within a 50-ft radius, or if there’s a nearby retail location. Along with the “social integration,” Blu Cigs also added a few other fun enhancements to the product. There are a few battery enhancements to make changing batteries easier and extend battery life, along with an “Instant Inventory” feature. This lets you predetermine settings which automatically order you new cigs when your supply is low. Blu Cigs also included the “Convenient Cartomizer,” which gives the user control over nicotine strength and flavor. The Blu Cigs Smart Pack starter kit is available for $79.95. |
Insurance Technology Company Guidewire Software Files For $100M IPO | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 9 | 5 | Joining recent tech companies , , and ; , a company that develops technologies for the insurance industry, has filed its S-1. The company aims to raise as much as $100 million in a public offering under the symbol “GWRE.” Founded in 2001, Guidewire Software provides technology software to the property, casualty, and workers compensation insurance industry. The company offers a web-based claims system that supports various lines of personal, commercial, and workers’ compensation insurance; an enterprise application for coordinating, executing, and recording transactions; and a Web-based underwriting and policy administration system for personal and commercial insurance carriers. Basically, Guidewire, which is backed by U.S. Venture Partners, Bay Partners and Battery Ventures, automates the insurance industry. While Guidewire’s product may not be as sexy as Pandora’s music radio service or LinkedIn’s professional social network, the enterprise company is actually making major revenue and profits. Guidewire brought in a healthy $144.7 million in revenue in 2010 and $121.5 million for the nine months ended April 30, 2011. Guidewire’s net income was $15.5 million in fiscal year 2010 and $33.5 million for the nine months ended April 30, 2011. And revenue and profit has grown consecutively over the past three years. As of July, Guidewire had 101 customers, including big brands such as Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company. According to Gartner, insurance carriers spent $4 billion on software and $10.5 billion on IT services in 2010, so Guidewire is confident that they are part of a pretty fast-growing (and revenue-rich) industry. For the most part, have been involving companies who offer consumer-focused products and services as opposed to enterprise companies. Fusion-IO, the developer of flash- memory technology for companies, in June. And Jive, which develops a social network and collaborative platform for the enterprise, just filed its S-1, and could begin trading at the end of the year at the earliest. |
T-Mobile’s Next Big Android Phone Gets Caught On Camera | Greg Kumparak | 2,011 | 9 | 5 | If you recognize the phone up top, ye ol’ hypothalamus is probably already hard at work churnin’ out the “Do Want” signals. If you don’t, here’s all you need to know: it’s called the HTC Amaze 4G (or the HTC “Ruby”, if we’re goin’ by its internal codename), it’s T-Mobile’s next flagship Android smartphone, and it’s a beast. While this is by no means the first time Ruby has found its way behind a lens, it’s the first time we’ve seen it in any state of operation — in other words, it’s the first time we’ve really seen it . As you may note, this specific unit lacks T-Mobile branding — that’s because it was snapped by Thai Android site at an event over in their home turf, where HTC is seemingly a bit less worried about keeping this device under wraps. With that said, this is very much the same device as what’s been floating the rumor mil around as T-Mobile’s Amaze 4G. So, why is this one worth firing up the ol’ dopamine production center? Now, the only question that remains: why the heck hasn’t T-Mobile made this thing official yet? Sure, they need to give their — but come on, guys, get this thing on the shelves.
|
Parrot’s AR.FreeFlight Quadricopter Piloting App Is Now Free On Android | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 9 | 5 | If you keep up with the TC/Gadgets crew you know we can’t resist a good R/C anything. We’ve reviewed AR remote control cars, and just recently a , but those are toys compared to what launched today: AR.FreeFlight for Android. AR.FreeFlight is a free augmented reality piloting application you can use with the Parrot AR.Drone quadricopter, which will basically make you the coolest kid on the block. And probably the coolest grown-up too. The AR.Drone first took to the sky back in 2010 at CES, and since, iOS users have been the only ones lucky enough to get in on the fun. But today an Android version found its way onto the market, along with a for developers to make their own AR.Drone games. FreeFlight is the primary piloting app for Parrot’s AR.Drone platform, but there are a few other games already available on iOS like AR.Race, AR.FlyingAce, and AR.Pursuit. What makes AR.Drone so much more badass than your average flight simulator or R/C helicopter is that the connects to your phone via WiFi and relays images from the quadricopter itself. So, in other words, you’re flying this little chopper around not only by inputting directions into your iOS/Android device, but you’re actually seeing what the quadricopter sees on the screen of your phone/tablet. Like this: The app is supported by any iOS device or Android 2.2 Froyo-powered device with a multi-touch screen at least three inches in size. As proven by , the quadricopter works just fine outdoors and comes with not one, but two cameras. One faces forward and can pan around under the control of just one finger, while the other faces the ground. A small button on the interface lets you switch back and forth between forward facing view and ground view. But there’s just one catch: Even though the app itself is a , the Parrot AR.Drone Quadricopter costs a pretty penny. The chopper is availble from Parrot for $300, and a full list of resellers can be found (brick-and-mortar) and (online). Check out the video after the break. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8YeE9fUT7w&w=640&h=390] |
Keen On… Is Apple About to Enter the Space Race? (TCTV) | Andrew Keen | 2,011 | 9 | 5 | editor in chief talked to me about the post Steve Jobs epoch at Apple. Today, he talks product – iPad 3 & 4, Macbook Pros and Airs, Apple TV, iOS 5, the death of the iPod and the optical drive and much, much more. Where, I asked Victor, will the Apple product line be in September 2012? Will there still be an iPod? Will the Macbook Air and Pro lines have merged? Will Apple have acquired Autodesk or a major Hollywood studio? Will there be a 50” Apple tv? Will we have an iPad 4? As always with Apple, there’s one more thing. And that last thing is the game changer, the thing that alters the world forever. So is Apple about to enter the space race, I asked Victor. You may be surprised by his response. |
The Wicked Lasers Krypton S3 Will Fry Passing Satellites | John Biggs | 2,011 | 9 | 5 | For a little under $300 you, too, can ruin passing satellites with what is purported to be the brightest legal laser available. The Krypton S3 goes up to 1000mW for an output of 86 million lux – “8,000 times brighter than looking directly at the sun.” That kind of power will cost you, though: the 1000mW unit costs $999 compared to the $300 300mW laser. How dangerous is it? Well, Wicked Lasers advises: Warning: This laser’s brightness is potentially hazardous to pilots’ vision and satellite sensors. NEVER point it at an aircraft or a satellite. The S3 Krypton is too powerful to be used as a laser pointer or a gunsight. Never point it at another person, an animal or a vehicle. Why would you need something like this? Well, it’s fun for astronomy and experiments but – trust me on this – don’t give it to your kids. I’ve used some of their lighter lasers and found myself temporarily blinded just by glancing at a laser reflection off of a . This is not a toy. Sharks and shark-mounted laser hardware sold separately. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Tx02Up-ovw] |
One Medical Raises $20 Million For The Modern Doctor’s Office | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 9 | 5 | It’s 2011, but most doctor’s offices are still stuck in the 1990s when it comes to patient-facing technology. The receptionist probably has a computer to manage appointments, but typically you still sign in on paper, fill out forms on a clipboard, and your doctor relies on a loosely-bound sheaf of papers to check your medical records. Tom Lee is trying to change that from the ground up with , the venture-backed primary care practice he founded a few years ago where he is CEO. On Friday, he closed a $20 million series E, led by Maverick Capital, with Benchmark, Oak Investment, and DAG Ventures participating. The new round brings the total capital raised since 2007 to $46.5 million. One Medical operates 9 doctor’s offices in San Francisco and New York, and will open 5 more this year, expanding to Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C. Patients can schedule appointments online, request prescriptions, get lab results digitally, and see their personal health summary online. Doctors can access medical records electronically (One Medical designed its own electronic medical record with doctors and patients in mind, not administrators). One benefit of having digital medical records is that patients can visit any office since every doctor has access to their records.
New patients can join online, and pay online. It even has its own iPhone app for scheduling appointments. Simple questions which can be addressed via email or the iPhone app are done digitally instead of requiring an in-person visit. And when patients do go in, the offices are bright, airy and modern. All of this technology, which is a combination of off-the-shelf and proprietary systems, is aimed at reducing administrative costs, and improving the experience for both doctors and patients. Lee contrasts his approach to the physician practice management movement of the 1990s, an investment fad which saw hundreds of doctor’s offices rolled up into larger operating companies. “The PPM movement in the 90s didn’t fundamentally reengineer the workflow of the doctor’s office or improve the experience,” says Lee. PPMs were driven by administrators. One Medical is driven by doctors. Its approach is to “reengineer the doctor’s office to be more patient-centered with less administrative overhead.” Whereas most primary care doctor’s offices employ 3.5 to 4.5 support staff per doctor, One Medical offices make do with 1.5 support staff or less. What does it do with these efficiency gains? “We invest that back into the doctor-patient relationship,” explains Lee, “so they have more time to answer questions and have a thoutghful discussion abouit healthcare choices.” One Medical accepts most insurance, but also charges an annual membership fee of $149 to $199 for all the extra bells and whistles. Lee himself was trained as a medical doctor before he got fed up with the healthcare system and went to Stanford business school. He then became a co-founder of , a popular mobile app used by doctors to look up drug interactions and care for patients. Lee led the design of the mobile and web products at Epocrates. Now he is using technology to redesign the entire primary care experience. |
Netflix Starts Rolling Out Streaming Service To Mexico, Latin America And The Caribbean | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 9 | 5 | Movie and TV subscription service Netflix has the arrival of its service in Mexico, Latin America and the Caribbean in the coming week. Netflix launched today in Brazil and will be launched in 43 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean by September 12. Netflix in early July that it would be launching in 43 countries across Mexico, South America and the Caribbean later this year. The company a deal with CBS to offer content in these regions. Brazilian users can immediately begin a free, one-month trial of the Portuguese-language version of Netflix by going to Netflix’s site. After the free month, the monthly subscription price for Netflix will be BR$14.99. On Wednesday the Spanish-language version of Netflix’s streaming service will become available in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. The monthly subscription for unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows in Argentina is 39 pesos while in Uruguay and Paraguay the price is US$7.99 per month. On Thursday and Friday, the service will roll out to Chile (3790 pesos per month), Bolivia ($7.99), Colombia (14,000 pesos), Venezuela, Peru and Ecuador (US$7.99). On Monday September 12, Netflix will launch its service in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. In the Caribbean region, Netflix will be available in English and Spanish and will cost $7.99 per month. It should be interesting to see if Netflix can take off in these regions. Already, the company is seeing success with its service in Canada, recently . Of course for Netflix, broadband access will be a contributor to usage outside the U.S. and Canada. And striking international content deals is going to be key to the beyond the U.S., where it already has major deals in place. And Netflix a deal with Telemundo for Latin American subscribers. The company this past week, when Starz announced it would not be renewing a content contract with Netflix next year. |
Deutsche Telekom Is Offering Pre-Orders For A Nebulous, Unnamed Apple Phone | John Biggs | 2,011 | 9 | 5 | In, according to , “anticipation of supply bottlenecks,” Deutsche Telekom aka T-Mobile is offering pre-order coupons to folks who call in asking for the next iPhone, whatever it may be. The move is quite clever: customers won’t have to stand in line, DT is promised a huge rush of sales during the post summer holiday slump, and it allows anti-fanboys to crow about the iSchafe on this gloriously slow federal holiday. Win-win-win. Stunt or actual effort to prevent “bottlenecks?” You decide. |
Video: Four-Legged Animal Robot PIGORASS Jumps, Gallops By Itself | Serkan Toto | 2,011 | 9 | 5 | We’ve covered our fair share of animal from Japan in , but PIGORASS, developed by from the surely stands out: Yamada has developed a four-legged robot that can walk, jump, and (in a way) gallop, too. Given that Yamada is still a master student and even advanced robots (like Honda’s , for example) are only able to move in a slow, chopping motion, the way the PIGORASS works is pretty impressive. Another point worth noting is that PIGORASS moves “autonomously” via a simulated neural system, meaning it isn’t necessary to program which action it should take in advance. Instead, the robot uses a set of pneumatic artificial muscles (shown in red below), passive muscles (springs, in blue), pressure sensors and potentiometers to propel itself forward: The idea here is to “to understand better the mechanisms underlying the animal’s locomotor skills and how to apply them in robots” and “capture the important features of animals’ musculoskeletal system in order to realize the embodiment of the neural system”, as Yamada et al. explain [PDF]. You can watch PIGORASS in action in the video embedded below: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGihdJSxrbU&w=420&h=345]
Via |
Amazon Is Only Launching A 7″ Tablet? Genius. (Plus A Mockup!) | Greg Kumparak | 2,011 | 9 | 2 | The Amazon Kindle tablet is real. Very much real. As in, MG . I threw together the mockup above based on what he shared with me. As MG explained, we now know that the Kindle tablet initially ship in both 7-inch and 10-inch variants, contrary to previous rumors. After a change in plans earlier this summer, Amazon only intends to launch with a 7-inch model. That decision might just be the best one that Amazon could have possibly made — and it ought to have Samsung and all of the other Android tablet manufacturers shaking in their boots. Before we dive in, we need to establish some numbers. So far this year, the iPad has maintained roughly 70-80% of the tablet marketshare. While certain Android tablets are undoubtedly more popular than others, that only leaves 20-30% of the market for all of the Android tablet manufacturers to split. While Apple sits with the biggest piece of the pie all to themselves, the Android tablet manufacturers are battling for left overs. Even if the Android tablet marketshare belonged to one tablet (which, again, it definitely does not), said tablet still wouldn’t have sold even half as well as the iPad. From this, we’ve learned at least one thing: competing with the iPad by trying to be the iPad.. doesn’t really work. Over the past few months, I’ve noticed something strange. Among my geekier circles, I’m always hearing the same question: iPad, or Xoom/Galaxy Tab/Android-tablet-name-here? Among less tech-minded folks (you know, like the majority of the population) though, the question seems to shift: iPad, or Kindle? Now, it’s not that the less tech-savvy people wouldn’t an Android tablet… they just don’t really seem to know they exist. There are just too many strikingly similar tablets, all battling for that one smaller sliver of the pie. To go all anecdotal again here for a second: just this past Monday — as I do every Monday — I was playing trivia at a pub in the Bay Area. Trivia Night at this pub is something of a huge deal, with around 25 teams (4-6 people each) playing each week. Mid-way through the second round, the trivia master asked: “Two pointer here, folks: What is the name of Motorola’s tablet device? What is the name of Dell’s tablet?” Three teams could name Dell’s tablet. Six teams got Motorola’s. Out of 25 teams, each made up of a handful of drinking-age adults, less than a third could conjure up the name of one of the biggest Android tablets around. Though we’ll gladly babble on it for days on end, the tablet market is still something of a niche — and in a niche market, recognition is everything. The iPad is the iPad. Everything else is.. well, everything else. If they were to launch with a 10″ tablet, Amazon would be throwing themselves in with everything else. But they’re . Rather than taking on Apple on their own court, they’re moving to keep a lock on a game they’re already kicking butt at (the e-reader market), while upping the odds that anyone weighing “iPad or Kindle?” will be swayed in their favor. By launching with a 7″ tablet (and a 7″ tablet), Amazon is making it clear: they don’t want the Kindle tablet to be the iPad. They want it to be everything the iPad is They want it to be , and comfortable to read in bed. This is a Kindle, after all. For many folks who just want something to read in bed or throw into their bag to read on the train, the iPad’s nearly 10-inch display can feel a bit gigantic. They want it to be . Smaller displays are cheaper right up front, require less plastic for the body, and can get by with a lesser battery and a smaller backlight. More than a year after launch, the cheapest iPad you can buy new will set you back $499. According to the same source whose Kindle tablet we used, Amazon currently has it priced at half that: just $250. Even launching a 10-incher alongside would increase R&D costs, as well as lead consumers to believe that the 10″ model is the flagship (thereby throwing it up directly against the iPad and everything else.) Meanwhile, they’re moving away from the direction that most other Android tablets have taken. This isn’t a be-all, do-all machine — it’s a new and improved Kindle, just as the name will imply. They’re aiming for simplicity, distilling the homescreen down to a Cover Flow-esque arrangement, making the entire experience all about your books, movies, and other media. And if you happen to want it to do other stuff? Sure, it can do that — they even have their very own App Store! But this isn’t an Android tablet. It’s a Kindle, and it just happens to run Android. As for Samsung, LG, Motorola, and all the other tablet makers out there: unless they’re happy with whatever sliver of the minority chunk they’ve nabbed so far, they better take this as a shot right across the bow. For Android tablet manufacturers, the next big step will be figuring out how to ensure that the general consumer has any idea that tablet exists — and here comes Amazon, swooping in with their cheap, small tablet and bringing the iconic, incredibly well-established Kindle brand (and their incredibly powerful distribution channel) with them. Genius. |
null | Serkan Toto | 2,011 | 9 | 5 | null |
Video: “Der Kritzler,” An Automatic Scribbling Machine | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 9 | 2 | An automatic scribbling machine sounds less than useful, admittedly, but it’s really just the style of line created by this motorized drawing machine. It’s reminiscent of ASCII art, in which heavier characters are used to create darker tones; in this case, the more jiggle added to the drawing platform, the more ink is put on the drawing surface. It’s kind of mesmerizing. Check out the video (there’s another ): [vimeo w=640 http://vimeo.com/27950453] It’s put together from mostly off-the-shelf parts (Arduino-powered, naturally), though it’s far from simple. The process uses vector graphics and turns it into a tone map, and given a known starting point for the pen, it “prints” by moving the pen along rows and adding jitter to darken the “pixels” to whatever degree is necessary. It looks like it has about four discrete tones it can make — not the greatest range, but in aggregate it works quite well. , and he has also put the source, documentation, and so on up on . |
Call Of Duty’s $50 Per Year Subscription Service Heralds An Expensive Future For Gaming | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 9 | 2 | The world’s largest game franchises have become businesses unto themselves. supports a huge halo industry of gold farming and grey markets. and its ilk have turned microtransactions into millions. The teams developing individual games like or are larger than many entire companies. So it’s not surprising that the stakes keep getting raised. is among the most popular games in the world, and although selling millions of copies of the game at $40-60 is a real source of revenue, Activision is hoping that their new Call of Duty Elite service will bring in recurring revenue and rally the fanbase. But will that fanbase accept a yearly $50 fee on top of the game itself? Part of the Elite services will be available for free, like mobile apps, stat sharing and analysis, and official clan creation. But , and what it implies about the new gaming order is equally exciting and discouraging. The primary draw will be the new content, in the form of maps, modes, and presumably weapons and character decorations. There will also be daily refereed tournaments with prizes like iPads. Activision described a “nine month DLC season” with around 20 pieces of content — a lot by any standard, and perhaps more than even CoD’s fans are willing to stomach. Many developers are already being accused of selling half the game at launch and doling out the rest over the next year or so, and although the boxed game will likely be enough for many, the emphasis placed on after-purchases is distressing. So far, so predictable, but the larger implications are more interesting. Valve has talked about “games as services,” but their idea of DLC is slightly less money-grubbing than Activisions. The community and the dozens of add-ons they’ve done aren’t an example everyone can follow, but you’re unlikely to find a more satisfied gaming community in the world. This idea of Activision’s puts CoD practically in the territory of Second Life or alternate reality games than anything else. People are already very serious about their “careers” in online games, but the we’re seeing (like Battlelog, above), the increased level of integration with other platforms, and the huge increase in money involved make this next generation of “big” games pretty serious business. It’s a bit like TV adding premium channels like Showtime and HBO back in the day. You kind of have to commit to it, and the community created is parallel to the more mundane one surrounding networks, but far more dedicated. But there can only be so many Showtimes, especially if the currency in trade is time. Someone with money can afford to purchase all the premium channels, but with , and so on all expanding to become entire worlds to live in, a gamer can only do so much. This trend will continue, because there’s a hell of a lot of money in it. Will we stop seeing “traditional” games that just sell for $50 and then that’s it? Something has to give when companies like Valve and Activision can afford to provide more for the money (though they may extract more from you later). The rise of inexpensive downloadable games on XBLA and PSN seems to offer a middle path. I’d expect way more titles between $5 and $20, hits like and that don’t attempt to build a platform, just tell a story and have some fun. In the meantime, you’ll be paying more and more for the premium experience of the big dog franchises. Is it a pro for gamers? Once the pricing and exclusivity hiccups work themselves out, I think so. People really enjoy these deep gaming experiences, and while I don’t share their need to, say, publicize my achievements, I can certainly see the draw. Clearly Activision does too, and they also see opportunity. Let’s hope the transition isn’t too rough. The generation that grew up with cartridges and arcades might have to give way. It had to happen some time. |
Baidu Looks To Leapfrog Google With Cloud-Based Mobile OS (Update) | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 9 | 2 | Chinese search giant Baidu is reportedly developing a cloud-based smartphone platform in attempt to dip its toes into the mobile pool. Mobile internet users in China totaled 233 million in 2010, projected to reach 957 million by 2014. For some perspective, the total population of both the European Union and the United States was approximately 800 million last year. So in China, mobile is less of a pool and more of a vast ocean. This should be interesting. The company is calling its platform Baidu Yi, which translates to “Easy.” Similar to the Bing integration in Mango, this OS is all about search. Smartphones that run Yi will load up a search box within seconds of turning on the phone. Other components will load in the background, but users will be able to perform a web search almost instantly. The system will also offer up to 180 GB of cloud storage space. Sounds nice — but Will Baidu Yi fare better? Baidu isn’t the only Chinese company looking to get in on the OS game. Local players like Hangzhou-based Alibaba and Shenzhen-based Huawei have announced similar cloud-based platforms recently, but as far as local competition is concerned, Baidu seems unfazed. “To us, cloud computing is much more natural than to an e-commerce company or a telecom equipment maker because we have the capability to handle data, just as Google has, that’s why they’re so good at it,” said Baidu VP Wang Jing to the . Baidu certainly has taken a page out of the Google playbook. But just one. The current version of Yi is based on Android, but the Android you’d see in China isn’t our Android. In most cases (not Baidu’s), it’s called Ophone, a fork of Android, and it effectively removes Google from the picture. The core Android operating system is made up of a Linux kernel, licensed under GPL, with Apache middleware and user stacks. Major components of the upper layers, such as the Android Market, are Google’s to license. Chinese carriers gladly do without those core Google software products and opt to integrate their own or third-party replacements. In other words, Android’s success in China is a bit hollow, even if it is the basis for Ophone, and now Baidu Yi. What’s more, Mr. Wang mentioned that “it is possible that we [will] launch our own operating system in the future.” Google already has and Android getting left behind (rather than marginally) by its biggest Chinese competitor would only make things worse. But how does Mr. Wang feel about our other hometown hero — Apple. The company has already tapped China Unicom’s 184M subscribers, and reportedly has plans to , which has a user base topping 930M as of August 29. Apple only has four Apple stores in the country, but China is its fastest growing market in terms of sales. With those stats, it hardly seems as though Baidu Yi poses a threat. But nothing is ever as it seems. China is both an irresistible and incredibly dangerous market for American tech companies, and Apple faces a number of obstacles within the market. For one, the Chinese government requires special wireless internet technology (TD-SCDMA) on its mobile phones. And then there’s the massive black/grey market in China for iPhones and iPads. Baidu’s co-founder and CEO seemed to know back in March that Apple would be one of its main competitors in the mobile space. In an interview with the , Mr. Li made mention of the new OS as compared to iOS. “Right now when you power on an iPhone, it takes 45 seconds before you can do anything,” he said. “In the future, one second, you turn on the device, and you can start using the box. That’s our mission for the future of the internet.” His plan is to build an OS that uses search as the basis for . “The goal is to let people become increasingly dependent on the Baidu Box.” And that’s all we really need: to be even more dependent on our smartphones. Good work, Baidu. So it would seem that Baidu Yi has gone live. The OS features include an eBooks app called Yue, a Google-places style app called Shen Bian, Baidu-powered maps, and a music app called Ting. Check out the video after the jump to see Baidu Yi in action. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFRRK38vGWk&w=640&h=390] [Image credit: ] [Video credit: ] |
Google Acquires Digital Coupons/Incentives Platform Zave Networks To Bulk Up Commerce | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 9 | 2 | Since 2006, has been working on digitizing coupons and loyalty rewards programs with products like . With the rise of smartphones, the market has been exploding. Today, Zave Networks takes their cause to a much bigger potential audience: Google has just acquired them. As they have announced on , “When we had the opportunity to join Google, we felt it was the perfect fit for our company and the perfect opportunity to rapidly drive the deployment and use of our platform to the next level.” Says a Google spokesperson: “We’re thrilled to welcome the Zave Networks team to Google. They have developed an impressive platform to connect consumers with coupons, special offers and reward programs for their favorite businesses, and we look forward to their joining our Commerce team.” We hear that Zave will continue to offer their services to consumers, retailers, and marketers for now. But the play for Google here appears to be to bulk up their Commerce and Wallet products. Terms of the deal are not being disclosed. |
Google Does A Full House Cleaning: Sunsets Desktop, Notebook, Fast Flip And More | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 9 | 2 | Well, it looks like the brooms and axes are out at Google today, for a little late-summer cleaning. The company that some of its products and features will be riding into the sunset in the very near future. This news in July, who said at the time that the search giant would be doing a wee bit of spring, er, early fall cleaning. Okay, so some of Google’s products (that were growing sluggishly or not at all) are being put out to pasture, but what does that mean for Google employees? According its blog, these products will be killed off over the next few months, and some products will be merging into others to become complementary features. For Googlers, all those working on those products will either go with the merge or be reassigned to other “higher impact” projects. Google’s reason for this spring cleaning is really just to use this as why-the-heck-not opportunity to streamline, shed a little weight, and continue to focus on making the user experience simple for its users. Just hope they don’t overdo it. As for users, Google says it will reach out to them directly as they make changes. Google started off by killing off nearly all of its Slide products, and today , which Google had bought back in February 2010 for $50 milion. Co-founder Max Ventilla said that Aardvark will be kaput by the end of the month. Also hitting the road are: (or the quick search box), which will be discontinued September 14, “including all the associated APIs, services, plugins, gadgets, and support; , the service designed to innovate in the news content browsing space for the web and mobile; Google Maps API for Flash (nooooooooo), ; (a.k.a. Google Fannypack); ; ; ( ), all of the data from which will be exported automatically to Google Docs; ; and (developers will be able to access data in Subscribed Links until September 14). For more, check out and Google’s . Excerpt image courtesy of . |
Amazon’s Kindle Tablet Is Very Real. I’ve Seen It, Played With It. | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 9 | 2 | It’s called simply the “Amazon Kindle”. But it’s not like any Kindle you’ve seen before. It displays content in full color. It has a 7-inch capacitive touch screen. And it runs Android. Rumors of Amazon making a full-fledged tablet device have persisted for a while. I believe we were one of the first to from a credible source — the same person who Amazon’s Android Appstore. That source was dead-on again, it just took Amazon longer than anticipated to get the device ready to go. They’re now close. How do I know all of this? Well, not only have I heard about the device, I’ve seen it and used it. And I’m happy to report that it’s going to be a big deal. Huge, potentially. First of all, before every commenter asks, no, sadly, I don’t have any pictures to share. That was the one condition of me getting this information. So instead you’ll have to rely on my prose to draw a picture of the device in your head. Or you can just look at — because it looks very similar in terms of form-factor. So here’s what I know and what I saw: Again, the device is a 7-inch tablet with a capacitive touch screen. It is multi-touch, but from what I saw, that it relies on a two-finger multi-touch (instead of 10-finger, like the iPad uses) are accurate. This will be the first Kindle with a full-color screen. And yes, it is back-lit. There is no e-ink to be found anywhere on this device. Earlier this week, that a 7-inch Amazon tablet could be released in October, with a larger, 10-inch version to follow next year. That’s somewhat accurate. As of right now, Amazon’s only definitive plan is to release this 7-inch Kindle tablet and they’re targeting the end of November to do that. The version I saw was a DVT (Design Verification Testing) unit. These have started floating around the company. It’s ready, they’re just tweaking the software now. If it’s not in production yet, it will be very soon. Originally, Amazon had planned to launch a 7-inch and a 10-inch tablet at the same time. But that plan changed this summer. Now they’re betting everything on the 7-inch. If it’s a hit, they will release the more expensive 10-inch tablet in Q1 2012. So how much will the 7-inch Kindle cost? $250. Yes, Amazon has been able to trim the cost of the device to half of the entry-level iPad. And it will be the same price as Barnes & Noble’s Nook Color, which this will very obviously compete with directly. Both have 7-inch color touch screens. Both run Android. And this is where things get really interesting. As anticipated, Amazon has forked Android to build their own version for the Kindle. Simply put: it looks like the Android you’re used to seeing. The interface is all Amazon and Kindle. It’s black, dark blue, and a bunch of orange. The main screen is a carousel that looks like Cover Flow in iTunes which displays all the content you have on the device. This includes books, apps, movies, etc. Below the main carousel is a dock to pin your favorite items in one easy-to-access place. When you turn the device horizontally, the dock disappears below the fold. Above the dock is the status bar (time, battery, etc) and this doubles as a notification tray. When apps have updates, or when new subscriptions are ready for you to view, they appear here. The top bar shows “YOUR NAME’s Kindle” and then the number of notifications you have in bright orange. It looks quite nice. There are no physical buttons on the surface of the device. You bring up a lower navigation menu by tapping the screen once. This can take you back home, etc. But the key for Amazon is just how deeply integrated all of their services are. Amazon’s content store is always just one click away. The book reader is a Kindle app (which looks similar to how it does on Android and iOS now). The music player is Amazon’s Cloud Player. The movie player is Amazon’s Instant Video player. The app store is Amazon’s Android Appstore. Google’s Android Market is nowhere to be found. In fact, no Google app is anywhere to be found. This is Android fully forked. My understanding is that the Kindle OS was built on top of some version of Android prior to 2.2. And Amazon will keep building on top of that of that over time. In other words, this won’t be getting “Honeycomb” or “Ice Cream Sandwich” — or if it does, users will never know it because that will only be the underpinnings of the OS. Any visual changes will be all Amazon. They are not working with Google on this. At all. There is a web browser (of course), and while it’s styled a bit to match the Kindle UI, it looks pretty much the same as the Android’s WebKit browser. Yes, it has tabs! And yes, Google Search is still the default (the Kindle also has its own search tool to find content on your device). Overall, the UI of this Kindle felt very responsive. You can flick through the carousel seamlessly. This is something Amazon has apparently been working on quite a bit, I’m told. And they continue to. Some of the page-turning touch mechanics still needed a bit of work in the version I used. I believe the visual web reading app Pulse will be bundled with the Kindle. A game like Angry Birds may be as well. Again, it uses Amazon’s Android Appstore, so all of the content accepted into that store will play well on this device. Apps, games, content, you name it. Amazon creating their own app store is starting to make a lot more sense, and looks potentially very smart ( ). A few more bits about the hardware: I believe it is running on a single-core chip (though I’m not 100 percent sure). My understanding is that the 10-inch version, if it comes, will have a dual-core chip. I also believe the device only has 6 GB of internal storage. The idea is that this will be more of a “cloud device” for things like music and movies. The storage is meant for storing books and apps There were a few references to an SD card expansion, but I couldn’t find a slot on the hardware itself. This initial version of the device will be WiFi-only. Amazon is supposedly working with carriers to possibly product 3G-enabled versions (as they have with their other Kindles), but that won’t be the case at launch. I’m not sure what the battery life is like (I only played with it for about an hour), but I imagine it is very good and in line with other tablets — 10 hours or so. The back of the device is rubbery — again, it’s very similar to the PlayBook (it’s black as well). The power button is underneath if you’re holding it vertically (which is a bit odd — but it’s obviously to the side if you’re holding it horizontally). There’s a micro-USB port (presumably for powering the device as well). The speakers are of the top of the device (again, if it’s being held vertically). There is no camera. So why will people buy this device instead of a Nook Color? Well, beyond the deep Amazon services integration, there will be two other reasons, I believe. First, Amazon is going to promote the hell out of this thing on Amazon.com. Second, the plan right now is to give buyers a free subscription to Amazon Prime. The service, which Amazon currently sells for $79 a year, gives users access things like free unlimited two-day shipping, and no minimum purchases for free shipping. More importantly for this product, Prime users get access to Amazon’s Instant Video service. There will be more Kindle-related perks, I imagine. As far as the existing e-ink-based Kindles, all I’ve heard is that they’ll continue to co-exist with this new tablet (though the DX may or may not stick around). They’ll simply be the low-end, low-cost Kindles, whereas this new one will be the high-end one (at least until the 10-inch version comes out, if it does). One source said it doesn’t seem likely that Amazon is going to release a touch-screen e-ink Kindle, like the new Nook, anytime soon. But none of that is confirmed, it’s simply speculation based on the emphasis on getting this new tablet to market. Oh and one more thing: Amazon has been working on a multi-touch screen/e-ink hybrid tablet device. But that’s nowhere near completion, I’m told. So for now, this new Kindle will have to do. That’s all for now. I suspect even more information (and pictures) will start leaking out soon — again, the new Kindle is very close to being done. Not only is the device real, from what I’ve seen, it’s solid. I suspect it will be on many people’s holiday wish-list . : . |
Terrahawk’s M.U.S.T. Is A Mobile Guard Tower In A Shady-Looking Van | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 9 | 2 | National Security isn’t always about the flashy solutions. Not everything can be and . Sometimes you just need a sort of seedy-looking van that slowly, slowly turns into a climate-controlled guard tower. That, at least, is the goal of defense researcher . That’s Mobile Utility Surveillance Tower if you must know. Check out this video of its deployment. [youtube w=640 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGCs7TuHosM] I have to say, it’s different in the movies and such where these things tend to exist. But I suppose in the interest of stability and durability they can’t have big feet that fire out like jackhammers, and a tower that pops up like a jack in the box. Although it looks like something you can shoot out of, I don’t think that’s really recommended. It’s a fairly vulnerable target — a speeding car or RPG could easily topple it. Terrahawk recommends it for “emergency response, public event crowd control, [and] general surveillance.” It’s got lights, thermal cameras, and ground radar for monitoring borders, so drug runners beware. They’re doing a big demonstration of the MUST for the House and Senate next Thursday, at which many Representatives will be overheard to say “couldn’t it go a little faster?” And Terrahawk will respond “well, right now your options are taking two to build a guard tower, or two minutes to put one of our things up.” The Representative will nod and check his phone. |
Google+ To Roll Out A Twitter-Like Suggested User List | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 9 | 2 | Google’s just out a note indicating that Google is about to add a Twitter-like Suggested User list to Google+. From the Tweet: As stated in the message, Horowitz is looking for users who have more than a 100,000 followers on Twitter. Besides what Horowitz wrote, there aren’t too many details on how Google+ will decide who will be on the list. Twitter’s has been because those on it were assured to gain thousands of followers a day, and those who are left off thought this was unfair. Twitter then the list last year, and now to create personalized suggested user lists. Google has become more brand friendly for profiles of celebrities, public figures, and people who have been added to an (undefined) ‘large’ number of Circles. It’s unclear yet if the suggested user list will include only verified profiles. How Google decides who makes it on the list will be very interesting. Clearly Twitter followers are playing a factor of sorts, which is interesting. You have to wonder whether Facebook or other followings on networks will also be used. Horowitz did that Google has some ‘amazing ideas around context-specific relevance’ for recommendations. |
The Killings Continue At Google: Aardvark Put Down | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 9 | 2 | Google is working fast and furious to streamline their product offerings. Just a couple weeks after of the projects in their Slide division, today comes another death: Aardvark. Co-founder Max Ventilla says the service will shut down at the end of this month. of Google and Aardvark talking in late 2009. By February 2010, they had a deal: . But Google never really did anything interesting with Aardvark, despite the big time potential. It was a type of social search that paved the way for services like Quora and . Instead of having them focus on Search, Google put most of the Aardvark team on the Google+ project. Here’s Ventilla’s to users: As part of the shutdown of GoogleLabs, Aardvark will be shutting down at the end of September. Aardvark began as a small experiment in a new kind of social search, and over a few years blossomed into a service that made millions of connections between people to answer each other’s questions. It was a great experience in seeking to combine a broad vision for the future of technology with a rigorous user-centered design process. Over this time, we learned a lot about creating and maintaining online communities, and how to facilitate sharing of knowledge between people. We’ve been excited to share these lessons within Google over the past year, especially as part of the effort behind Google+. It has been gratifying to see how well this project is doing — even in these early stages, Google+ has already become a great place to share knowledge online, eclipsing the original vark.com! — and there is much more to come very soon. In this and other projects at Google, the Aardvark team remains committed to developing powerful tools for connecting people and improving access to information. Of course, we’re also sad to say goodbye to the original Aardvark here at vark.com. Who would have thought that a digital version of a nocturnal burrowing mammal would have engendered so much affection! We’re very grateful to the whole Aardvark community for your support along the way. Onwards, Max and Damon p.s. In the spirit of data liberation, we want to make sure that any of you Aardvark users who would like to retrieve your past data from the service can do so. Right now of course you can log in and manually copy anything you’d like to keep. Or if you prefer, you can email us at support@vark.com and we’ll send you a bulk dump of your data (please allow time for us to process these). After September 30, there will be no way to retrieve your data, as shortly after that we will delete everything permanently. |
Amazon.com’s Big Redesign Is Arriving Soon For All | Sarah Perez | 2,011 | 9 | 2 | For days, our inboxes have been filled with tips and screenshots about Amazon.com’s redesign, which offers a cleaned up Amazon homepage, without the old site’s iconic blue and orange navigation. Instead, the new site features a much bigger search bar, bigger buttons, and less clutter – all changes that practically scream “tablet-optimized!” The changes, of course, hint that Amazon’s long-rumored Android tablet is right around the corner. The site overhaul is being rolled out just prior to the tablet’s launch, or goes the current speculation. Well, at least we now know when the redesign’s rollout will be complete: this month. Amazon has been testing the new design since late August and is now prepared to have it go live to all customers later this fall. This not only includes U.S. visitors, but international customers, as well. It will not disclose the percentage of users who have already received the update, however. The company believes the updated look will make searching for and discovering items easier. But in particular, Amazon notes that the design is meant to better highlight products like MP3’s, Kindle eBooks, digital games and apps from the Amazon Appstore for Android. Now, what customers would be looking for those sorts of items, again? . In addition, we’re told that the redesigned site will be the default homepage for both and PC visitors, only those browsing from a smartphone would see something different – a mobile-optimized site. . If you haven’t seen the redesign yet, check out the old (top) and new (bottom) screenshots below. |
Samsung’s New Android UI Is Ambitious But Flawed | Chris Velazco | 2,011 | 9 | 2 | One of the beautiful things about Android is how extensively you can customize things. A quick peek in the Android Market reveals tons of widgets, skins, and launcher replacements, all ready to give the Android device in your life a fresh new look. Shockingly, has decided to throw their hat into the customization ring with its own launcher replacement called Pure Breeze, developed by their . For the uninitiated, launcher replacements are applications that essentially redo an Android device’s UI, with some doing the job better than others. Samsung’s freshman effort, unfortunately, falls mostly into the latter category. Samsung says Pure Breeze is all about easy navigation between apps, and it does its best to streamline everything with that thought in mind (for better or worse). Pure Breeze’s homescreen equivalent is something the San Jose Lab calls “The Kite.” It’s much like your standard homescreen setup, save for a few crucial differences: it’s translucent (which is important), and there’s only one, very long page to scroll. That proved to be a bit of a roadblock for me in the early stages of use; I’d have to resist the temptation to swipe left and right to access other things because there was nothing there. The app drawer button is centered along the bottom of the screen, and does what it always has before. The difference here is that it comes with preloaded groups for apps, which can be accessed by swiping left and right. Apps can be easily moved in and out of these groups by holding and dragging them around. When pressing and holding an app’s icon, it can also be sent to the trash or to The Kite. Fair enough. When an app is opening, and the Home button is used to exit it, the translucent homescreen comes into play. It swoops in from a corner and covers it, leaving the app partially visible. This is what Pure Breeze is really about: hitting the Back key makes The Kite fly away again, leaving the user exactly where they were before. Hit the Back key again, and it will take you to the app opened just prior to that. Pure Breeze effectively creates a chain of apps that theoretically allows users to follow a trail back to wherever they left off. It sounds great, and for the most part, it works really nicely, but there are a couple issues. Chains can get long enough to overwhelm some less powerful devices, and the translucent homescreen can be awfully distracting when trying to find an app you placed on The Kite. Pure Breeze is just different enough that many users who pick it up will try to do their usual thing and wind up lost. There’s only one homescreen page, so be judicious in deciding what widgets to use. The Menu button, when pressed on the homescreen, brings up the Pure Breeze settings instead of the device menu. Perhaps I’m being a bit harsh, but it seems like a too drastic a shift for so little payoff. The app chaining concept is a novel idea and works surprisingly well, but all the little missteps drag everything down. This is the San Jose Mobile Lab’s first release, and it’s certainly an ambitious one, but here’s hoping future versions will be better thought out. The app went live in the Android Market a few days ago, and is available in both and versions. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRwaR4GyLmU&w=640&h=345] |
Keen On… It Will Be Really, Really Difficult for Tim Cook to Screw Up Apple (TCTV) | Andrew Keen | 2,011 | 9 | 2 | If you are sick of Steve Jobs stories, then this interview isn’t for you. But, of course, you probably aren’t. On one hand, even though Jobs resigned from Apple more than a week ago, there appears to be no let up in the flood of about The Great Leader. On the other, we are now seeing the first significant executive reshuffles in the Tim Cook era. But now that the dust is beginning to settle just a little on the Jobs epoch, what exactly is his legacy and what are the principle challenges and opportunities facing Tim Cook? To answer these questions and more, I went to one of the most reliable sources of Apple intelligence, TUAW.com editor-in-chief a guy who spends his whole day making sense of Cupertino’s alternative reality. So, I asked Victor when I caught up with him yesterday, will the authoritarianism, abrasiveness and paranoia of the Jobs regime be normalized under Cook? |
Instagram Adds 50 Million Photos In August, Now Over 200 Million Total | Sarah Perez | 2,011 | 9 | 2 | Instagram is growing like crazy. In June, we noted when the service hit , with 95 million photos uploaded. At the beginning of August, . And now the service has surpassed yet another milestone: 200 million photos. Given that our last measurement was at the beginning of August, and the site is now well beyond 200M, that means that Instagram added some 50 million photos in August alone. In keeping with our previous Flickr comparisons, that’s 200 million photos for the 10-month old Instagram, when it took Flickr almost 2 years to reach . Still, that’s a bit of an apples and oranges comparison, isn’t it? After all, Flickr reached its 100 millionth photo back in February 2006. The iPhone itself wasn’t unveiled until June 2007. And even then, it was nowhere near as ubiquitous a device as it is today. And as we noted before, Flickr is now well past , . Still, 200 million photos is another nice milestone for Instagram to reach. And it’s impressive how quickly it got there. By the way, if you’re curious how to keep track of Instagram’s numbers for yourself, on his blog, which involves using the third-party service Inkstagram. The URL’s found there are in sequential order. For example, this is the first ever published Instagram photo: . (Photo #1 is missing). This is the 150 millionth: , as . In that case, would be the 200 millionth, but the photo is private, so, sadly, you can’t view it. As for Instagram, it didn’t even notice the milestone until we pointed it out to them. They must be too busy working on over there. |
Will The Next iPhone Be Thinner And Wider? A Gazillion Leaked Cases Say Yes | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 9 | 2 | The Internet is awash in purported iPhone 5 cases. Like most iPhone related rumors, it’s hard to decipher fact from fantasy, but of nearly identical cases seem to state that at least several manufacturing houses have the same iPhone dimensions. The image here is a iPhone 4 in one of these many cases. Look different? Yep, this case, and the many like it, are clearly for a phone that’s both thinner and wider. This isn’t the first whiff of this rumor either. A rather official looking iPhone 5 clone popped up a month ago that was just 7mm thick, 2.3mm less than the iPhone 4. It also shared the same design cues with a rounded edge, slightly convex back and a wider design. Now, not that any of us in the West truly understand the seedy underworld of Chinese gadget cloning, but it’s entirely possible that, at least from where I sit, these cases and clones are sourcing the same set of unofficial dimensions. Makers are betting that they have the right specs and so they are building out a massive supply ahead of the next iPhone’s launch. But leaked cases have been a major source of leaks for years, properly foretelling even the iPad 2’s existence. A wider but thinner iPhone would match the current trend of smartphones slightly larger than the traditional form factor. This is something might be something even Apple, who is generally a trend setter instead of follower, might not be able to avoid. But what about MG? He stated that the EVO 4G’s 4.3-inch screen made the device too big. Would he actually pass on the next iPhone if it’s wider? Shock!
|
Office Depot Now Fulfilling At Least Some 32GB TouchPad Backorders | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 9 | 2 | TouchPads are in hot demand right now and it seems as if Office Depot just is ready to ship out another round. This comes from an email set to us that indicates at least some 32GB TouchPad orders were canceled, which the retailer is ready to use to fulfill the backorders. Chances are that if you’re part of this group, there’s an email waiting for you from Office Depot right now. If you don’t have said email, you’re probably going to be waiting a little longer if not indefinitely — unless the retailer you entrusted receives part of . Great news, we now have inventory available to fill your recent order for the 32GB HP Touchpad Tablet. We have received some cancellations of confirmed orders, making a limited quantity of 32 GB Touchpad Tablets available to fill backorders. Orders will be filled in the order that they were placed, while supplies last, and subject to approval from your credit card provider. We want to be able to fill as many orders as possible so we are not accepting any new orders for this product. If you still want to receive your order, please reply to this email to confirm your interest. We must receive your reply no later than 11:59pm on Tuesday, September 6th. We expect to ship orders the week of September 12th and you will receive an updated email notification at that time. If you no longer want us to fill this order please reply to let us know and we’ll be happy to cancel it immediately. Thank you for choosing Office Depot. [Thanks for the tip, Dan!] |
Google Abandons “Maps API For Flash” | Sarah Perez | 2,011 | 9 | 2 | In more news of Flash’s impending decline, Google is announcing that it’s “deprecating” the (application programming interface) for Flash. This API previously allowed developers to add Google Maps functionality within their Flash-based applications. However, as of today, use of the API is limited, says Google, with only a small number of applications taking advantage of features unique to the Google Maps API for Flash alone. The API, which originally , is similar to the , but designed for use within Flash apps. Developers could use the API for manipulating and adding content to maps through a variety of services, which enabled them to embed interactive maps applications on websites. The Maps for Flash API isn’t actually being killed off entirely – it’s being That means that it will continue to function according to the , but no new features will be developed, and only “critical bugs, regressions and security issues” will be fixed. In other words, the API is basically being abandoned. Flash developers are instead encouraged to migrate applications over the Maps API v3, which offers other benefits like , , , and , says Google. And help is being made available on the . The move is not surprising, given the limited interest in the API’s unique features, as noted above. However, in some way, the decision seemingly stands in contradiction to other moves Google has made in recent months in support of Flash. For example, last summer, that the Flash Player would soon be built into the Chrome Web browser going forward, thus eliminating users’ need to download, install and update the plugin separately. Plus, Google’s mobile operating system is known for its , and Flash-based apps. In today’s blog post, Google also adds that it continues to support Flash as a development platform in Chrome, too, but the link for more details goes to . Maybe that page got deprecated too? |
Full Video: Salesforce’s Marc Benioff Interviews Google Chairman Eric Schmidt | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 9 | 2 | [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDl5hb0XbfY] Salesforce CEO and founder Marc Benioff sat down for an hour-long interview with Google’s Chairman and former CEO last night at and here’s the full of the interview. We’ve embedded it into the post as well. As we covered last night, Schmidt and Benioff through his days at Novell and Sun Microsystems, and chatted about Google Apps, which he says has 40 million users with 5,000 firms are joining per day, as well as the success of the Android platform. Schmidt that Apple’s And he in on Google’s as well as the troubled U.S. patent market. The interview is actually very insightful, especially regarding Schmidt’s views on Apple and Steve Jobs and his suggestions on how to reform patents. It’s worth a watch if you find an hour of spare time over the holiday weekend. |
TV Ad Pegs The Droid Bionic For September 8 Release | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 9 | 2 | The Droid Bionic has been a long time coming. It was originally announced back in January at CES and it’s now September, but we’re willing to forgive the incredibly annoying wait for that dual-core LTE magic. Especially since it’s been all but officially confirmed that we’ll be seeing the Bionic on shelves on September 8. To start, the phone will launch in September. That’s not super specific, and we know this handset is all about being fashionably late, so it’s understandable if you’re still not convinced. But there’s more. A Verizon roadmap was leaked back in August that also verified that September 8 launch date, along with a Korean TV ad which didn’t necessarily show off the phone (at all), but did happen to flash a “September 8, 2011” around the 21-second mark. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsWwBH8Q8Gk&w=640&h=510] Even though the Droid Bionic will be one of the most powerful handsets on the market, nine months is a long time to keep people excited. Thus, Verizon has launched an giving peeps the chance to win a long-awaited Droid Bionic. Six days, people. Six more days. [via ] |
TechCrunch Giveaway: Tickets To BoxWorks Featuring A Live Band #TechCrunch | Elin Blesener | 2,011 | 9 | 2 | Want to attend an enterprise software conference after party with a live band? Cloud content management startup is holding its first-ever customer conference, BoxWorks, on September 28th in San Francisco. To celebrate, they’re throwing a big after party featuring a live band. The party gets started at 6pm at the , and runs until 11pm. There will be an open bar, heavy appetizers, and lots of dance floor action. Want to win tickets to the party for you and a friend? We’re giving away 20 tickets in total, so to be one of 10 lucky people to win a pair, just follow the steps below. 1) 2) – Retweet this post (making sure to include the #TechCrunch hashtag)
– Leave us a comment below telling us what your favorite song is The contest starts and ends September 4th at 7:30pm PST. And if you love the cloud as much as you love to party with a live band, consider registering for BoxWorks. Speakers include Box CEO , of Andreessen Horowtiz, author and of Zappos. Anyone in the U.S. is eligible, and Box.net will pay for your airfare to and from San Francisco. |
Yardsellr, The eBay For Facebook, Grows To 5 Million Strong, Rebrands; Launches Marketplace For Fashion | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 9 | 20 | In November of last year, TechCrunch broke the news that , the eBay for Facebook (without the auctions), from Accel Partners. At the time, the investment seemed testament to the growing interest in the value of bringing eCommerce to Facebook in order to expose it to, you guessed it, your social graph. Since then, Yardsellr has mostly remained under the radar, building out its platform and quietly growing its user base. Today, the startup is making a couple of big announcements, starting with a high-level rebrand. The motivation? Yardsellr Founder and CEO Danny Leffel tells me that his company wants to do for the eMarketplace what social gaming companies have done with studios. So, that means in practice that Leffel and company have started , which will become the overarching entity, or studio, behind a diverse catalog of transaction-based titles. Yardsellr was the first title, and today the company is announcing their second: . Style.ly, simply put, is a new social marketplace for women’s fashion. As Yardsellr was formed to be a person-to-person marketplace built on Facebook in which users can connect with other people selling everything from vintage guitars to Hello Kitty collectibles, Style.ly is the same — for fashionistas. (You can see here why Yardsellr has drawn comparisons with eBay — not to mention that Leffel worked at eBay for five years and knows the business well.) With Yardsellr, users can follow products in their news feed, talk to friends, share, and when they’re interested in making a purchase, move over to Yardsellr.com to use the site’s secure transaction mechanism to complete the sale. Since launching, Yardsellr built out over 4,000 of what it calls “blocks” — or niche communities based on particular interests — in which users can follow, browse, and connect with like-minded people based on their love of vintage guitars, or whatever the case may be. All they have to do to join one of these blocks is “like” it on Facebook. Compare this to traditional eCommerce, which focuses their verticals based on product categories. The former is inherently more communal, social, and geared towards real engagement with actual people. Style.ly was born out of both those “blocks”, and obviously the growing demand for eCommerce platforms that target women’s fashion in particular. Thus, with Yardsellr as the template, Style.ly will become a social platform (based on Facebook) for those who want to buy and sell new, lightly-used and vintage items, from designer labels to boutique finds. Voice is what matters in social commerce, Leffel said, and he’s betting that the Yardsellr model — the one that’s a bit eBay and a bit Etsy — will work well for Style.ly’s target audience, and other niche audiences going forward. And so far, it seems to be working. In a soft launch of Style.ly, Leffel and team found that more merchandise was sold in the first week on Style.ly than Yardsellr sold in its first four months. As for Yardsellr, since November, the platform has grown steadily at a rate of 35 percent per month in terms of gross merchandise sales (in both the quantity and value of products changing hands). According to Leffel, on any given day, there are more than 120,000 items for sale through Yardsellr, with 6,000 new items listed for sale each day. What’s more, Yardsellr has grown into a community of over 5 million people, 175K of which are monthly active users. If both titles can sustain that kind of continued growth, it takes the pressure off going big with its series B. Going on from here, naturally, the company plans to add further “studios” for particular interest groups, so that eventually Yardsellr will become the general store-type marketplace for those random odds and ends that will be complemented by Style.ly as well as that future drove of secondary targeted communities (or titles). But why social? Leffel told me that what used to be so special about eBay was that it’s eFlea marketplace lent itself well to the formation of communities that aggregated tightly around particular interests. Those small communities incubated fierce friendships and bonds among those buyers and sellers that loved, say, first edition novels. Leffel told me that the eBay team used to joke that there were marriages that happened because of those communities. Of course, eBay has gone on to focus more on commoditized goods, to compete with the likes of Amazon and Walmart, but the goal for YellowDog’s properties is to capture the feel of the old eBay — and find that mix between the loneliness of traditional eCommerce transactions and the scalably social aspects of Facebook. When the social graph meets the interest graph, Leffel said, commerce is a natural byproduct. It certainly seems that the industry is reevaluating its stance on social commerce, and its long term viability, and if this model proves workable in the long run, Yardsellr, Style.ly, and YellowDog seem poised to be close to the front of the pack. |
Google.com Has An Unmissable Ad Drawing Users To Google+ | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 9 | 20 | Steer your way to and you’ll find yourself staring at perhaps its boldest Doodle yet. No, Google hasn’t outdone itself with another or — it’s running an ad directing users to try out Google+. But this isn’t just your average text ad or banner: Google’s drawing a big, blue arrow that points toward your Google+ name on the left side of its top nav bar. Click it, and you’ll launch into the Google+ homepage and signup process. You can’t miss it. The ad coincides with today’s to Google+, which now allows anyone to sign up for the service (up until now you’ve needed an invite). And it’s sure to drive a major surge in new signups. Granted, this isn’t the first time Google has run ads on its homepage to promote its own products: for example, it’s previously run ads for its , and it ran text ads promoting Google Offers to users in some areas. But as far as I can remember, all of these ads have been subtle — some text and maybe a small graphic centered beneath the search bar. But this blue arrow is much harder to miss (note that the arrow actually moves a bit, as it’s ‘drawn’ when you first land on the page). If nothing else, it’s another reminder of just how serious Google is about helping Google+ succeed, and it shows that it’s willing to leverage its biggest assets to achieve that mission. |
NoSQL Database Company Neo Technology Raises $10.6 Million | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 9 | 20 | NoSQL database company has raised $10.6 million in Series A funding led by Fidelity Growth Partners Europe with Sunstone Capital, Conor Venture Partners and Rod Johnson, the founder and CEO of SpringSource also participating in the round. As the world of data explodes in volume and complexity, many applications and databases need to manage this influx of queries with high performance. Neo Technology provides enterprises with a NoSQL database that can scale to ever-changing data and its associated requirements. Neo Technology delivers Neo4j, the NOSQL Enterprise Open source database to the enterprise. The company says that Neo4j flexible and scalable graph database engine is the industry’s only NOSQL database capable of solving the complex, connected data challenges that enterprise application developers face today. Unique to NOSQL databases, Neo4j caters to enterprise developers with mature support for transactions, Java support, and ease of development. With Neo4j, the programmer works with an object-oriented, flexible network structure rather than with strict and static tables promises to offer performance improvements. The investment will be used to fuel product development and for hiring purposes. |
Podio launches ability to create apps inside its iPhone app | Mike Butcher | 2,011 | 9 | 20 | Collaboration startup , which is taking on the worlds of Yammer and BaseCamp, allows users to create easy-to-build apps (closer to widgets) on their platform. Today it’s launched the ability to do the same on its iPhone app and revealed it now has over 40,000 organisations on the platform. Podio’s CEO Tommy Ahlers is the former founder of Zyb which sold to Vodafone for $49 million. On the web version Podio’s users have created ‘apps’ to do things like manage sales leads or execute projects. And on the iPhone version the apps work inside Podio’s native app. On the web version some 200,000 apps have been built or modified by users so far. For example, Podio customer Atlas Blue runs a swimming pool maintenance and repair business in Kuwait (yes, really). Thus, they built their own Podio app to share all the details of each swimming pool they service. Developed in Denmark, Podio now has a San Francisco base, and competes against the likes of Yammer, Socialcast and Convofy. |
Facebook Sends Users An Email To Tell Them It’s Going To Send Them Less Email | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 9 | 20 | Patience is a virtue. Or so people say … While I’ve never been particularly patient, I have a sneaking suspicion that it totally works, like if you enough you eventually get everything you’ve ever wanted. The latest evidence that this principle might be true, for me at least? Facebook, which was a notorious Notifications over-emailer, has started sending out emails telling select users that it will start sending out fewer emails. Now my brain hurts, thank you Facebook. Users with the feature enabled can check the box after “Email Frequency:” to receive condensed “important update and summary” emails instead of a separate email for the 83 different Facebook Notifications one can choose to receive emails for, like when someone posts something on your wall, or when someone adds you as a friend, or confirms your friend request, or mentions you in a comment, or tags you in a post and so on and so forth ad infinitum — Not to mention the emails you can receive from Facebook apps! Sure this could be in preparation for some amazing new product to be announced at F8 on Thursday ( perhaps?), but even on its own it’s still pretty cool considering a lot of Facebook’s stickiness stems from the fact that it emails the hell out of people every time anything minute happens. From MG’s to Zuckerberg’s ears. |
Glam Buys Ning For $150 Million, Andreessen Joins Board | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 9 | 20 | After many twists and turns, DIY social network has finally found a home. is buying the network of social networks. A final price is not being disclosed. It is likely more than the News Corp fetched for MySpace from Specific Media and , but less than the or so in capital that was poured into the company over the years. ( : A source puts the deal price higher, at $150 million). Ning’s co-founder, chairman, and original investor Marc Andreessen will be joining Glam’s board as part of the deal. With Glam’s , a large part of the acquisition was probably in stock. Other serious bidders included Google, Yahoo, and even Groupon. Ning started out as a platform where anyone could build their own niche social network. It turned out that most people just wanted to be on Facebook (Andreessen also sits on its board). About 18 months ago, Ning laid off 40 percent of its employees, switched CEOs, and started . It went from an ad-supported model to a subscription model, and while it is no Facebook, CEO Jason Rosenthal managed to create a decent business with 100,000 Ning-powered sites and 60 million monthly unique visitors. If you just look at the and apply a discount, the business is easily doing somewhere between $10 million and $20 million a year in subscription revenues alone. Glam Media runs its own network of content sites, originally targeted at women, but now broader, with a combined reach of 200 million monthly unique visitors. After taking out duplication, the Ning acquisition should push Glam’s audience count up to about 240 million monthly uniques. Glam also has its own to sell ads against that audience, and a content management platform. Now with Ning it has a social platform as well. Glam will now be able to incorporate social features into its content platform. With Ning it gets the equivalent of a blogging platform, commenting platform, and social feeds platform all rolled into one. Glam should be able to do a better job selling ad inventory against the visitors to Ning-powered sites. |
Social media monitor TrustYou raises $5 million Series A, acquires competitor | Mike Butcher | 2,011 | 9 | 20 | , a social media monitoring and semantic technologies startup, has raised a $5 million Series A round. It’s also acquiring Dallas-based competitor . The round was led by Credit Agricole Private Equity and will be used to expand worldwide operations out of its base in Munich Germany. Its “sentiment search platform” is aimed at the hotel, restaurant and travel industries in the United States and Europe. The two companies combined mean TrustYou has 6,000 clients for its platform including including, Hard Rock Cafes, Best Western Hotels, Omni Hotels & Resorts, and Starwood Hotels. The platform monitors, in 10 languages, all of the world’s top travel review and social media sites, including Facebook, Foursquare, Google Places, TripAdvisor, Twitter, Yelp and blogs, for user-generated content pertaining to a particular hotel and restaurant. That data produces a score and this rating systems is used in16 countries in Europe. Which is also available via several APIs allowing travel companies and review sites to build on top of the TrustYou platform. |
NumberFire Raising Seed Round To Build The Last Fantasy Football Tool You’ll Ever Need | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 9 | 20 | Ah, the life of young startups is exciting isn’t it? Pivots. Ramen. Courting investors. A year ago, we covered a fledgling startup called that is attempting to bring a deep, scientific approach to your fantasy football picks. Not long before our initial coverage, numberFire Founder and CEO Nik Bonaddio won $100,000 from Regis Philbin on the one-and-only “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire”. ( ) Now, Bonaddio could have taken that money and gone in on a timeshare in Aspen or a one-way ticket to the Caribbean. But, , Bonaddio made the bold decision to sink that game show moola right into his startup. Bonaddio first tested the waters with numberFire last year at the TechCrunch Disrupt DemoPit. Since then, Bonaddio says he’s consumed an entire state’s worth of Ramen, Red Bull, and things are starting to look up. The Pittsburgh native and his small team are part of the current summer class at Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator in New York, were able to officially relaunch numberFire earlier this month, and traffic is on the rise. (Monthly actives, the founder tells me, are near the 6-digit range.) What’s more, the startup is currently in the midst of raising a seed round from some top New York investors (we’re hearing that the round will be a touch under $1 million). When numberFire first launched in beta last September, there were still quite a few kinks to work out, and the site wasn’t yet ready for the big time. But a year later, numberFire has come a long way, and for football fans, numberFire is getting close to to being last tool you’ll ever need for your fantasy football picks. Fine, but what exactly does the startup do, you ask? In tandem with broader trends we’re seeing across the consumer web, numberFire is tapping into the ever-more popular content personalization game — by allowing users to customize their football updates, following teams and players that they are interested in — both as fans or as fantasy gamers. NumberFire curates several activity feeds that present the user with the latest activity around their favorite players (like news, updated projections, etc.) that keep them up-to-date and engaged. Bonaddio is himself a diehard Steelers fan, and so the idea for numberFire came from the simple need to both keep up with his team and give he and his friends a leg up in their fantasy seasons. , the founder is not alone. Bonaddio set out to create custom, proprietary algorithms that will do all the stat-crunching for you, allowing users to easily import their existing teams from Yahoo or ESPN’s fantasy websites, and quickly get started. But what truly sets numberFire apart is its “cumulative” approach to making projections. In projecting whether or not Eli Manning will fare well this weekend, for example, numberFire might compare Manning’s stats to quarterbacks playing today as well as those that played years ago. The idea is to match Manning’s physical characteristics to others, as well as taking into consideration what particular fields he performs well on, at what times of day, in what conditions, etc. numberFire also takes the Giants’ collective offense into account, what types of plays they run, whether they have a strong running game, and so on, in an effort to decipher whether or not next week’s game at Philadelphia will be a good matchup for Manning (and, by extension, the Giants). But, beyond this holistic approach and its top-down analytics features, numberFire also allows users to crowdsource their decisions and engage other users in conversation through a “Q&A” feature, which capitalizes on a trend started by Quora and StackOverflow. Neither site targets sports fans (or really time-critical questions), so numberFire wants users to take advantage of its Q&A section to receive insight from a community of like-minded individuals. The questions, answers, and ensuing comments all pop up in a user’s curated newsfeed around the players and teams they’re following. Pretty cool. Of course, for a young startup growing a business in the consumer web, it’s all about acquiring and retaining users. numberFire met with some problems early on in this area (like so many before it), so to address this problem, the team has struck partnerships with SB Nation, BleacherReport, CineSport, and other sports media companies to reach a broader audience than it would be able to capture on its own. The startup accomplishes this by offering the ability to embed its data widgets into third-party sites and by delivering video content developed by its team. The idea here, says Bonaddio, is to begin encouraging sports fans to demand a more thorough analysis from sports media pundits and journalists. And I have to agree with him here. Most sports media today is filled with talking heads and blowhards, whose projections are unreliable, biased, and far from fact-based. BleacherReport writers, for example, can use numberFire’s analytics and projections to drill down into some interesting data in their coverage, rather than relying on fluffy statements like, “Oh, Cam Newton is looking good, Panthers by 7!” With these strategic partnerships, a soon-to-close round of seed funding, and Entrepreneurs Round Table demo day fast-approaching, numberFire has come a long way in the last year, and I’d say is offering a great value proposition for fantasy football enthusiasts and regular old sports fans alike. Now, if numberFire can just quickly expand to baseball so that I can finally make some money on the Red Sox, then we’ll really have something going. |
Windows Phone Manager Leaves Microsoft Over Nokia Phone Tweets | Chris Velazco | 2,011 | 9 | 20 | It’s usually a company’s social media reps that get caught tweeting things they shouldn’t be, but ex-Microsoftie Joe Marini was a bit higher up on the food chain than that. Formerly the principal program manager of the Windows Phone web team, Marini has resigned his post at Microsoft after tweeting his first impressions of a forthcoming Nokia-made Windows Phone. Microsoft typically doesn’t comment on personnel matters like this, but one spokesperson broke the silence to to confirm that Marini is no longer employed by the company. Microsoft has their own [PDF] regarding how employees should approach social media, but all it really says about content is that employees should “be smart” and refrain from sharing “new features, functionalities, or innovations that have not been publicly disclosed.” The kicker here is that the tweets themselves are hardly what one would call juicy. The original tweet, posted on September 7, simply mentioned that he got to play with a Windows-powered Nokia device: https://twitter.com/#!/joemarini/status/111555182919294976 Subsequent tweets were a bit more open with details, like these two from later that day: https://twitter.com/#!/joemarini/status/111578149971689472 https://twitter.com/#!/joemarini/status/111587869272969216 So far, all he managed to confirm that the new device has a camera, a screen, and a body — hardly anything groundbreaking. Marini (probably very carefully) left out any specifics aside from some very general comments on the devices build and UI. Still, it was apparently enough for him to run afoul of Microsoft’s social media policy, which (understandbly) bars using services like Twitter to share confidential information. Joe, however, isn’t exactly a first time offender. Back in March, Joe tweeted that he would be showing off an for Windows Phone while attending SXSW. Placed in that context, this new set of tweets could have been the straws that broke the camel’s back, but something about this situation leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Call me naive, but I think Microsoft and Windows Phone need more people like Joe. His paints a portrait of a guy who was dedicated to his work, and was very excited for what Microsoft and Nokia have coming down the pipeline. The offending tweets gave people just enough to whet their interest, and left it at that. Considering that Nokia and Microsoft struck their official agreement months ago, it’s no surprise to anyone that a handset was in the works. Why try to fire a guy for stating the obvious? My money is on Microsoft and Nokia not being too fond of his jab at the device’s screen size — a reasonable remark, but one that probably didn’t sit well with the brass. Still, given Marini’s overall vagueness about what he saw, another interesting question comes to mind: at what point is a leak really a leak? |
Google+ Renames Its Group Messaging App; From The Already Taken ‘Huddle’ To, Get This, ‘Messenger’ | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 9 | 20 | Google made a this morning, most notably opening up its Google+ social product to everyone as its 100th feature. Not content to stop there, Google followed up with Google+ features 107 being a name change for its Google+ Group Messaging app Huddle. When Google announced the Huddle product back in July, enterprise collaboration software startup Huddle — which has its own group messaging element — was like, “ and had their people contact Google’s people. Says Huddle co-founder Andy McLoughlin, “We let them know that we held the [Huddle] global trademark across all countries, so it was pretty clear that they had to consider renaming.” McLoughlin tells me that Google was cool about the name change and that the dispute never entered arbitration. Google was just like ” We think we should find a better name for this product,” he tells me. The Google+ Group Messaging feature is now known as, drumroll please, Messenger. Uh guys … So while I can’t wait until the Facebook Messenger (or Yahoo Messenger, or Microsoft Messenger …) team gets a load of this, McLoughlin, for one, is pretty pleased with Google’s decision, “We’re just very happy that an amicable end was reached that didn’t conflict on our trademark.” When asked if he had used Google+ Messenger himself, McLoughlin complimented Google on its look and feel but admitted app fatigue, “There are so many group messaging tools right now, it’s sort of hard to distinguish one from another.” No kidding (For the record, I would have gone with ‘Skype’). |
Leak, Revamp, Repeat: How The HTC Rhyme Almost Went Unisex | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 9 | 20 | A while back, rumors surfaced about a new Android smartphone built by HTC. Rumors and leaks happen with just about every phone, but for this particular Android handset, we were hearing quite a lot about it. Eventually specs trickled out, but before that all we knew was that it was a phone targeted to women: The HTC Bliss (now known as the ). We heard it would launch in a sea foam green, and come with an to let ladies know if the phone in their purse was getting calls. We even heard that would come along for the ride. This was unsettling. Joanna Stern of TIMN felt the same way I did, : To be honest, we’ve had a really hard time believing some of this information — not because there’s anything here that’s technically impossible or because we didn’t trust our source, but because we simply can’t imagine a company creating a phone specifically for American women in this day and age (it reminds us of the Petticoat 5 spoof). Even our own Sarah Perez tagged her own thoughts to the end of : What bothers me about the idea of a “girl’s” Android phone is that somehow my gender has different needs and expectations than their male counterparts do when it comes to smartphones. Colored devices and cell phone charms are not necessarily “womanly” things – they may appeal to a younger demographic, or to those who concern themselves with appearances, perhaps. But that doesn’t mean women. I second, +1, and “Like” all that was said. And what’s worse (that these ladies neglected to touch on) is that the phone itself wasn’t* all that great. By no means was it a “bad” phone, but the specs we heard about were average and likely to be outdated a few months later. With a single-core 1GHz processor and a 3.7-inch WVGA touchscreen, Sense 3.5 can’t really make up for what is very clearly a mid-range Android device. So why target something mediocre towards women? Because we don’t know what kind of processors we should want? Because we don’t enjoy beautiful, large touchscreens? I was at a loss. *I continue to use the past tense in this section as I’m referring to rumors, and what we knew then. No doubt whatsoever, HTC saw the reaction. Many tech bloggers are male, so of course it wasn’t as fiercely disputed by the boys as it was by us woman-folk, but the reaction seemed pretty collective and HTC heard what was being said, which was: “Are you guys really doing this?” As the launch announcement drew closer and closer, specs, press shots, and even were leaked, and it looked like not much had changed from the info in the original rumors. The only new information we got on the Bliss was (that happened this morning), in which HTC didn’t actually disclose the product they were announcing. But from the way that things were worded here in New York, this phone isn’t just for women. HTC was super serious about not using any female-centric words or pronouns once during the entire thing. In fact, they made a push to say that this phone was for “everyone.” I even asked an HTC rep at the event why we had heard no mention of women during the announcement. He robotically replied that this phone is for “everyone,” and that the Rhyme is more about following you through your daily life than being catered to a specific gender. Words vs. actions is an interesting thing, isn’t it? To be quite honest, not much changed from what we had thought, save for a couple last minute switcharoos. The Bliss is now the Rhyme, which I guess has a bit of a more masculine feel to it than Bliss does, but not by much. Then there’s the “calming” sea foam green we had all expected, which has changed over to a dark plum color. Again, not too much of a shift toward “unisex” here either, but I guess it’s a small step in the right direction. And those dieting/shopping apps that were probably the most insulting part of the whole thing? Those are no where to be found, which is an entirely welcome announcement after all those rumors. But that silly purse-friendly charm is still alive and well, and even worse it glows pink. That same rep mentioned how men could hang the charm out of their work-out bag when they’re at the gym, but that seems like more of a hassle than a step towards making life easier. Purple may be a step up from a light shade of green, but still doesn’t scream “A man’s man should own this phone!” My point? HTC listened to the rants in the rumor phase, and in my opinion they at least (albeit weakly) to calm the storm. By never actually saying that the phone was designed for women, HTC can get itself off the hook. The problem is that no man will buy a phone that comes with a “charm,” so no matter how much they say the phone is for “everyone,” it just takes a quick glance at the Rhyme to see how misleading that is. Purposeful leaks aren’t unheard of. Not only do leaks build hype around a phone, but they give the developers a chance to gauge our first reactions. HTC didn’t do an excellent job of nixing all the obviously girl-centered features of this phone, but in small ways you can tell that we were heard. My hope is that HTC, and every other phone maker, will pay attention to the coverage of their products before announcement. Whether the rumor itself is true or false, anonymous internet commenters give the most brutally honest feedback you could ask for. Take the hints. |
musiXmatch, The IMDB For Song Lyrics, Comes To iTunes & Spotify; Passes 1M Mobile Downloads | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 9 | 20 | I don’t know about you, but I’m awful at remembering the lyrics to songs, and I often find myself turning to Google search to answer my lyrical questions — and frequently, to lose arguments. Apparently, I’m not alone, as . While a quick search is often all one needs to flick on the light switch, overall, lyric search remains a pretty disappointing (and frustrating) experience. There are tons of lyrics sites out there, but most of them are unofficial, don’t have rights to broadcasting free lyrics, or they’re hiding malware. Founded in 2010, is a startup trying to solve this very problem by building a database of legal song lyrics on the web in the hopes of becoming the IMDB for legal song lyrics. So far, the site has collected over 5.5 million songs (in 18 languages) and is not only building a database that meets with international rights management standards, but it is also developing an API to distribute its lyrics to music publishers, services, app developers, and hackers. Phew. Today, musiXmatch is announcing the official launch of its for Mac OSX, which is available for $5 on the App Store. The plug-in enables users to automatically view full screen lyrics for the music they’re currently playing and includes support for iTunes and Spotify. The widget is still in its early stages, and the team said that it will soon be giving music fans the ability to search for lyrics by artist, song name, or keywords, and browse discography info on albums and artists — and share that info with friends through social networks. (Another cool update coming down the pipeline: Enabling listeners to automatically embed the lyrics into the id3 tag of your songs.) For iTunes and Spotify users like myself, musiXmatch’s widget is a pretty cool little add-on to the existing listening experience, as it automatically matches your iTunes and Spotify libraries (and automatically opens both), works with both platforms’ “radio” features, allows you to share lyrics to Facebook and Twitter, and receive Growl notifications. (And it works with Lion.) In addition to today’s launch of its iTunes and Spotify compatible iOS plug-in, musiXmatch also shared with us that their mobile applications, which are available on iOS, Android, Symbian, and Windows Mobile, have been downloaded more than 1 million times. Over 50 percent of those users are active on a daily basis. musiXmatch’s mobile solution allows users to easily find and match lyrics for their entire mobile music library, and with desktop availability, a sweet API that lets developers easily distribute kosher lyrics, the startup is becoming a very appealing service for everything from radio streaming platforms and video services to tablet apps and OEM manufacturers. With partnerships that include BMG, Kobalt, Universal Music Publishing Group, and Sony ATV Music, among others, musiXmatch is becoming a very interesting business and platform. But, what about competition, you say? Well my friends, look no further than . While musiXmatch is an up-and-comer, the well-funded TuneWiki has been going mobile with its lyric-centric social music player for quite some time now. MusiXmatch is, now, essentially the European equivalent. It will be interesting to see how the two vie for marketshare going forward. Which would you choose, or both? |
Bell & Ross Releases WWI Edition | John Biggs | 2,011 | 9 | 20 | Bell & Ross, not content to rest on their aviation laurels, has released the WWI-92 edition, a watch based on a World War I era pocket watch. The watch is strikingly simple – just a black face with silvered hands and case – and the 97 version has a reserve de marche and all models feature welded lugs, a wonderful detail that hearkens back to the days when wristwatches were actually pocket watches with bars soldered onto them so they could be worn on the wrist. If you want to go totally retro you can check out the , a handsome B&R pocket watch that takes design cues from the WWI-92. Both watches are probably wildly expensive but man if I’m not hungry like a wolf for them. [Warning: Scratchy, tinny WWI-era radio noises] |
null | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 9 | 2 | null |
Uh Oh … Qwikster Already Has A Lively Twitter Account, But It’s Not Owned By Netflix | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 9 | 18 | Movie delivery service Netflix has that it is rebranding its DVD-by-mail service as Qwikster and that it will keep calling its streaming service Netflix. Shocking news yes, but already the Internet has found one immediate chink in the company’s rebranded armor, other than the fact that, like a multitude of other failed companies, the name Netflix, naively, has neglected to pin down the Twitter account before launch. The account is currently owned by somebody who chooses to best represent themselves as Elmo smoking a joint and whose latest Tweets include such pearls of wisdom as, “Bored as shyt wanna blaze but at the same time I don’t ugh fuck it where’s the bowl at spark me up lls” and the poignant “Don’t bother telling me who my ex is now dating ! Cuzz now I feel bad for the bitch that has my sloppy seconds :).” What’s most problematic about this lack of foresight is that the first thing many tech pundits do upon hearing industry news is check a prominent brand’s Twitter account to see if it’s active and on message. @Qwikster, obviously, is not representing Netflix at its finest at this point and time. And yeah it’s a good guess that whoever this guy is could probably make a good chunk of change selling the name to back to Netflix (despite the whole “selling names being against the TOS” thing). Hmmm … Wonder what he’d spend the money on … A half a day later, Jason Castillo, the voice of @Qwikster, that something’s up. https://twitter.com/#!/mat/status/115657134389215233 https://twitter.com/#!/Mike_FTW/status/115661425715855360 https://twitter.com/#!/SoInterrupted/status/115663531134824448 https://twitter.com/#!/redgirlsays/status/115673348448591872 https://twitter.com/#!/sacca/status/115673809448738816 |
Facebook News Feed Gets Smarter— And The Ticker Makes Its Big Debut | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 9 | 20 | One of Facebook’s most important products is getting much smarter — and a little easier to use. Less than 48 hours before its f8 developer conference, Facebook is rolling out an updated version of News Feed that does away with the two-tabbed interface that it’s had for two years now. Before today you’d have to swap between ‘Top Stories’ (a feed of stories that Facebook thought were important) and ‘Most Recent’ (a feed of your friends’ most recent actions on the site). Plenty of users clicked both of these tabs — as of last year — but Facebook has long been convinced that it wasn’t the optimal solution. Which brings us to today’s launch. Facebook will now merge both types of content into the same feed, intelligently determining how much screen real estate to allocate to ‘Top Stories’ based on how recently you’ve logged into the site. If you’re checking Facebook ten times a day at work, then most of the items in your feed will be recent; if you’re logging in for the first time in the few days, Facebook will try to give you an overview of the most important things your friends have shared. These important stories will be denoted with a small blue triangle in the corner, and you can manually tell Facebook if it missed an important story, or if you don’t care for one of the items it deemed important (in this sense, it’s a bit like Gmail’s Priority Inbox). This is a big change, and it’s been a long road to get here — as the site’s home page, News Feed has seen plenty of iterations over the years, particularly around the way real-time content is displayed. In the early days of News Feed, users would see a listing of posts that Facebook felt they’d be most interested in. It worked pretty well, but it had one downside: posts were often hours old, which made the content feel stale compared to services like Twitter. Facebook unveiled its solution to this in , which it first introduced a real-time News Feed. No longer would all posts be delayed by at least 10 minutes — the new Feed would show them as they happened. Which, of course, brought with it other issues, like the fact that it was harder to tell which posts were actually important. Facebook used a ‘Highlights’ section in the sidebar to showcase the most important stories, but those were easy to look over. So it wasn’t a big surprise when Facebook later highlights back into News Feed, allowing users to swap between a ‘Live Feed’ and ‘News Feed’ view (which were later to Top News and Most Recent). How’s that for a history lesson? The second major change today is the official unveiling of the Facebook Ticker, a stream of content in the right sidebar that some users have been seeing for the last few weeks (Facebook’s VP of Engineering Mike Schroepfer says that the company has put a lot of work into making sure it gets Ticker right, hence the extensive testing). The purpose of Ticker is pretty straightforward: it shows you a stream of your friends’ most recent activity on Facebook, as it happens. This means that every time one of your friend ‘Likes’ a piece of content, posts a photo, or comments on a status update, you’ll immediately get a notification in your Ticker. And if you mouse-over one of the updates, Facebook will show a pop-over with relevant information (for example, if a friend checked into a venue, you’ll see a Bing map). At first glance Ticker may not sound like a big deal (after all, you’re going to see the most important updates in your News Feed), but it may well become one of the site’s most important features. The immediacy of these updates means it’s easy to tell if a piece of content is quickly going viral among your friends, or if they’re participating in a particularly active discussion. And, perhaps more important, it gives you a near-constant stream of to look at, which means it’s probably a great way to kill time (this is one reason, I suspect, why Twitter has become popular). Ticker will also be accesible throughout the site: it shows up next to everyone’s News Feed, and if you widen your browser window, the Ticker will show up in a persistent right sidebar, above the chat box. Finally, Facebook is boosting the size of photo thumbnails in your feed, which makes them nicer to look at (and more inviting to click on). [youtube=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6JrZdF4IPA’]
|
Video: Padzilla Case Turns Your iPad Into An iCoffeeTable | Chris Velazco | 2,011 | 9 | 20 | There were quite a few thoughts running through my head when I purchased an iPad, but I can honestly say that “I wish I had an iPad as big as a coffee table” wasn’t one of them. Now, after having seen Crunchy Logistics’s case, I can safely say it’s all I’m thinking about right now. Crunchy Logistics seems to have a thing for creating absurdly big touchscreens, a great example of which is the they showed off last month. The Padzilla is their newest product, and it allows users to interact with their iPhones and iPads on a completely ridiculous scale. To call it a case is a bit of a stretch: you’re not putting the Padzilla on your iOS device so much as you’re mounting your iOS device inside the Padzilla. The name is pretty apt, for sure: the Padzillas are custom made, and assuming you’ve got the green for it, they come in sizes as large as 150″ diagonal. To give you an idea of scale, the model demoed in the video below comes in at a slightly more reasonable 70″ diagonal. The Padzilla is a purely plug-and-play solution to boot; the iDevices don’t need to be jailbroken, but anything older than the iPhone 3GS isn’t supported. If playing Angry Birds and its ilk get old, feel free to connect your choice of game consoles or computers into the display too. While I’m sure the Padzilla has some practical uses (they’d give your local news station a bit of pizazz, for one), the wow factor alone is enough to make it tempting. Better start saving your pennies though, because CrunchyLogistics CEO Neil Dufva says that buying a 70″ rolling display like the one in the video would cost roughly between $30-40,000 (iPad included). If that seems a bit steep, don’t worry: Neil says CrunchyLogistics is open to renting these things out to interested parties. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBMhr7ia28M&w=640&h=360] |
Digg Experiments With Topic Newsrooms, Aggregates News By “Most Meaningful” Stories | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 9 | 20 | With 17 million monthly uniques at its disposal, news aggregator , which is attempting to overcome the by its unpopular Version 4 redesign in late August 2010, needs to find a way to keep its usership engaged and growing, if it ever wants to move beyond being a Silicon Valley cautionary tale. It’s solution? The Topic Newsrooms beta, which separates news into top categories like Technology, Entertainment, World News and even topics as granular as Lady Gaga or Apple. Basically Digg is attempting to rebuild its user communities around interest in specific news. “There are a lot of signals out there,” Digg CEO Matt Williams, who describes what happened with Digg Version 4 as a “tragedy,” tells me, “It’s difficult to sort out what’s meaningful on a given topic versus what’s popular.” Newsrooms will consist of two elements, a Front Page, reminiscent of the Digg “Popular” page, and a Newswire page, which is a realtime feed of all the stories submitted for a given topic. The Digg algorithm will take a look at signals like recency, Likes, LinkedIn shares and Tweets to determine whether a story will hit the Newsroom Frontpage. In order to make the Front Page of a Newsroom, a story will also have to hit a critical mass of Diggs and Comments by Digg users, which signify a story’s “meaningfulness,” similar to how stories became popular on Digg in the past. The most “meaningful” stories from the Newsrooms will eventually hit Top News, or the overall Digg front page. “With this new beta, Digg is also experimenting with showing user activity in realtime, and rewarding users with badges for participation, like the “Ace Reporter” badge, which users get for a story they submitted to Digg on the Newsroom Front Page. Will it work? “Overall, I think the ‘newsrooms’ project is a gutsy attempt by Digg to bring in new users as well as some of the old ones,” says long time power user and VP of BizDev at John Boitnott, “However, they had better be ready to stick to their guns and make this new beta work over the long-term.” The beta, which is invite only initially, is slowly rolling out to hundreds of users today and will eventually hit thousands, Williams says. I guess Digg has learned its lesson with regards to sudden changes. |
Facebook Announces f8 Speakers, Including Spotify And Turntable.fm CEOs | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 9 | 20 | Facebook’s f8 developer is two days away and the company has been trickling out additional information related to the event, including the of speakers that will be appearing on its ‘Transforming Industries’ track. It includes plenty of familiar names — namely, some top executives and investors in the valley — which isn’t all that surprising. But reading between the lines a bit, it may well give some insight as to who Facebook’s launch partners will be for the features that will debut at f8. Among the speakers: Spotify CEO Daniel Ek will be speaking on a panel called ‘The Future of Digital Music’, which makes the launch of a Facebook Music platform seem all the more likely. Appearing on the same panel will be Clear Channel Chairman Bob Pittman (who, by the way, also founded MTV) and Troy Carter, CEO of Atom Factory. Also notable is Turntable.fm CEO Billy Chasen, who is appearing on a Mobile+Social panel — perhaps we’ll see the hot social music service take part in the launch as well. And, of course, there are plenty of well-known executives and VCs who have long been part of the Facebook ecosystem. Unsurprisingly, Zynga is the best represented, with execs speaking on two of the panels. Here’s the full list: The Future of Digital Music:
The music landscape is evolving with new channels and innovative social experiences. Leaders in the industry will describe where things are headed.
Bob Pittman – Chairman, Clear Channel Media and Entertainment
Daniel Ek – CEO, Spotify
Troy Carter – Founder, Chairman and CEO, Atom Factory Mobile + Social:
As mobile apps become ever more social, new opportunities are emerging. Listen to mobile developers discuss social and the future of mobile.
Paul Bettner – Vice President and General Manger, Zynga
Kristian Segerstrale – General Manager and Co-founder, Playfish
Alexa Andrzejewski – Co-Founder and CEO, Foodspotting
Billy Chasen – Co-Founder and CEO, Turntable.fm The Rise of Social Gaming:
Social gaming is disrupting the traditional video game business. Top game executives will provide their views on the next big trends.
Barry Cottle – Executive Vice President, EA interactive, Electronic Arts
Kevin Chou – CEO, Kabam
John Pleasants – Co-President, Disney Interactive Media Group
Owen Van Natta – Chief Business Officer, Zynga Investing in Social:
Hear leading venture capitalists discuss their views on the future of the social web.
David Sze – Partner, Greylock Partners
Matt Cohler – General Partner, Benchmark Capital
Kevin Efrusy – Partner, Accel Partners
Bing Gordon – Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers |
Card.io’s SDK Comes To Android | Sarah Perez | 2,011 | 9 | 20 | , the mobile commerce company started by two former AdMob employees, Mike Mettler and Josh Bleecher Snyder, is launching today. The SDK for iOS launched in June, allowing mobile app developers to retrieve credit card information from cards held up in front of the phone’s camera. As of today, the company says that card.io is up-and-running in 80 iOS applications, with 750 developers in total having signed up for the service. The idea behind card.io is to make the experience of paying for items on mobile easier and faster. Instead of having to manually type in your credit card information, including expiration dates and the CVV code from the back of the card on tiny mobile keyboards, card.io users simply hold up their cards to their phone to pay for purchases. The solution has appeal across industries, including everything from e-commerce to ticketing to daily deal apps to retail. Among the 80 applications supporting card.io for credit card input are social payments platform , retail app , plus , , , , , , , , , and others. While we were hoping to see several more established applications jump on board with card.io right away, having 80 apps is nothing to sniff at, we suppose. And with 250 developers on board, card.io should become an even more prevalent option soon, at least in niche apps looking to gain traction. Meanwhile, payments company recently launched a similar service that will work on both desktop and mobile, but uses its own payments network. (Card.io requires developers to use the merchant accounts they already have in place). However, Jumio’s mobile app libraries for iOS and Android won’t go live until later this year, giving card.io the immediate edge in terms of availability. In the long run, though, Jumio’s will be the more complete solution. It will offer not just the scanning and card reading components, but the authorization, processing and fraud prevention features, too. Neither card.io nor Jumio is necessarily “better” – it just comes down to what a developer needs. Card.io is backed by angel investors Michael Dearing of Harrison Metal, Jeff Clavier and Charles Hudson of SoftTech VC, Manu Kumar of K9 Ventures, Alok Bhanot (former VP, Risk Technology at PayPal), and Omar Hamoui (CEO and founder of AdMob). App developers interested in the new card.io Android SDK can check out on the Android Market. More details on the Android SDK are . |
Buddy Media Launches Intelligent Facebook Data And Analytics Platform For Marketers | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 9 | 18 | Fresh with new funding, a company that provides Facebook Page and social media management tools to brands, is launching ConversionBuddy, a data and analytics platform for brand marketers. Buddy Media provides an social media management system to help create, manage and track social campaigns on Facebook. The platform lets brand managers agencies create, manage and track Facebook pages in a to drive and increase user and brand engagement. Users don’t need to have any prior FBML knowledge to create pages on Facebook and can create sleek and interactive pages fairly easily. ConversionBuddy allows brands to track connections to boost conversions by gaining insight into the number of shares, tweets, conversions and more. So brands can segment data by demographic and even determine which audience segment shares social content most frequently and which audience generates the most traffic and revenue per share. The new product will also show marketers which content and features are most popular and how they travel across multiple social networks, which social networks and emails generate the highest revenue per share and more. ConversionBuddy is actually a result of Buddy Media’s of social commerce and analytics startup Spinback earlier this year. The company just raised in Series D funding led by GGV Capital with Institutional Venture Partners, Bay Partners and Insight Venture Partners. And Buddy Media’s revenue has more than doubled since the end of 2010, and could be as high as $40 million. |
Look Out, GameFly: Netflix’s New Qwikster Service Ships Video Games, Too | Greg Kumparak | 2,011 | 9 | 18 | Amongst all the hollering going on over the merits of Netflix spinning their DVD shipping service and whether or not the new service’s name, “Qwikster”, was pulled at random out of a hat labeled “Bad Names”, one detail isn’t quite getting the attention it deserves: Qwikster is going to do video games. Hear that deafening whir? That’s the red alarm going off at GameFly HQ. Reed Hastings mentions the new addition in his post so passingly that it’s almost funny: One improvement we will make at launch is to add a video games upgrade option, similar to our upgrade option for Blu-ray, for those who want to rent Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 games. Members have been asking for video games for many years, and now that DVD by mail has its own team, we are finally getting it done. Other improvements will follow. Just 63 words, tucked into 1,100+ word post almost entirely about something different — that’s all it took for Hastings to essentially declare war on a service that has managed to coast by without any real competition since 2002. For nearly a decade, Gamefly has gotten by by being the Netflix of video games — and now Netflix is stepping in to be the Netflix of video games. While calling it an “upgrade option” similar to their Blu-Ray upgrade suggests that it’ll only cost a few extra bucks a month, Netflix/Qwikster hasn’t disclosed pricing for the video game service yet. Unless that “upgrade option” comes in pricier than GameFly’s standalone service, though, Gamefly’s battle just got a lot steeper: I’ve been a subscriber to both services for years now, and Netflix’s shipping/turnover times have always dominated, hands-down. If GameFly has any advantage in this surprise battle they’ve just found themselves hurled into, it’s the breadth of their catalog. While Netflix/Qwikster only plans to ship Xbox 360/Wii/PS3 games at launch, GameFly’s collection includes everything from the DS and the PSP to last generation of consoles. Happy Monday, GameFly! |
This Stevie Wonder Thanking Steve Jobs Thing Is Just Awesome | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 9 | 18 | [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2Tkj8SIHMU&fs=1&start=280&w=630] I know that a lot of you have probably already seen this awesome awesome video, but for some reason I missed out on it so I’m reposting it again, in case you guys were also preoccupied with you know, stuff. Here is singer songwriter who happens to be blind from childhood, singing the praises of Apple co-founder for making the iPhone and the iPad handicap-friendly. I’m going to assume that Wonder, who made a surprise appearance at the WONDERFULL event at the Echoplex in Echo Park where the above video was taken, is referring specifically to the of iOS where blind users can touch the device screen to hear a description of the item under their fingers as well as optional iOS features like the Bluetooth braille keyboard and already existent services like Facetime, which makes it easier for deaf people to communicate in Sign via video. Wonder’s exact words: “I want you all to give a hand to someone that you know whose health is very bad at this time…. His company took the challenge in making his technology accessible to everyone. In the spirit of caring and moving the world forward: Steve Jobs. Because there’s nothing on the iPhone or the iPad that you can do that I can’t do. As a matter of fact, I can be talking to you, you can be looking at me, and I can be doing whatever I need to do and you don’t even know what I’m doing. Yeah!” Oftentimes many of us in the industry overlook the difficulties that some of us face in interacting with technology, so props to Wonder, and Jobs, and others for bringing these concerns and the progress being made in the realm of tech accessibility to light. We’ve still got a long ways to go. Yeah. |
Reed, Don’t Listen To Wall Street. | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 9 | 18 | Netflix took a beating on Wall Street last week. After subscriber estimates downward by 1 million subscribers, its stock went into free fall, closing the week at $155, down from a $300 peak in July. Netflix, the darling of Wall Street for the past three years, has lost half its value in a few short months. It must be a gulp moment right now for CEO Reed Hastings, who has always set Netflix on its own path and let investors figure things out for themselves. More than any other company, Netflix represents the transition of high-end video entertainment (movies and TV shows) to the Internet. A bet on Netflix, is a . That transition is inevitable. It is going to happen for many reasons. Reed knows this. He saw it earlier than most. Sending people DVDs by mail was always just an interim business model until broadband, the studios, and customers caught up. We are still not quite there yet. The pace at which people are dropping DVDs is faster than the rate at which they are adopting streaming. The pressure on Netflix to do to restore confidence must be severe. But Reed, don’t listen to Wall Street. Just keep pushing the studios to open up more of their movies and TV shows to streaming, and customers will follow. However, do listen to customers. Raising prices for those of us who opt for both streaming and DVDs would have been fine if Netflix had a deeper streaming catalog. But the gap is still too big, and the price hike seemed premature. Your customers are extremely loyal. Don’t piss them off. If you remember, it was back in July when Netflix announced that would raise prices for subscribers who get both DVDs in the mail and stream movies over the Internet. This caused a backlash among some customers, although it did have the effect of making Netflix’s streaming-only plan more attractive, with of new customers now signing up for it. Still, it’s not enough to offset the drop-off in DVD subscribers. Of the 1 million fewer subscribers Netflix now expects, 800,000 will be from DVD-only subscribers. The remaining 200,000 decline will come from streaming-only subs, with the number who pay for both remaining steady. Out of Netflix’s expected 24 million subscribers this year, 21.8 million will have access to streaming in some form, and only 2.2 million will stick to DVD-only subscriptions. The shift is already clear. It is just that the exact rate at which that shift is occurring is hard to predict, hence the wild swings in the stock price. of its streaming distribution deal with Starz didn’t help matters either. Getting the studios and entertainment companies on board will continue to be the biggest challenge for Netflix. The economics of streaming don’t match the economics of other forms of distribution (like cable) for the media companies. But consumer behavior is already going in the direction of streaming. It is only a matter of how many screens you have connected to the Internet and how big they are. If it is only your computer screen, streaming is more of a last resort. But once you can get Netflix on your iPad or flat-screen TV, then it becomes one of many viewing options—and often the best one. Personally, I stream Netflix whenever I can, even if I know the same movie is already in my DVD mail-in queue. If I could watch everything via streaming, I would. But I can’t yet, so I am reluctantly paying more for my DVD-streaming combo subscription in the hopes that I will feel comfortable dropping the DVDs in a year. If Netflix can deliver on that promise over time, then I will continue to be a lifelong customer and so will millions of others. In the end, making its product better is the only part that Netflix can control. Keep doing that, Reed, and your customers will keep backing you no matter what Wall Street thinks. |
The Facebook iPhone | Semil Shah | 2,011 | 9 | 18 | In David Kirkpatrick posits the great social network is the one entity that could bully , today’s most powerful technology company. As the iPhone and other iOS devices have paved the way toward an unprecedented level of convergence, the collective power of Facebook’s user base presents a daunting challenge to Apple: specifically, could Facebook literally imprint its own applications on iOS devices, most notably the iPhone, to the point where it could, theoretically, transform the device into “The Facebook Phone” without ever having built its own hardware and/or standard mobile operating system? At the moment, Facebook is believed to be undertaking what has been “Project Spartan,” its own Trojan Horse for stitching its social layer into multiple mobile platforms in lieu of building its own phone (like Apple) and/or its own mobile operating system (like Android). As “Spartan” has been written about before in (which I won’t recount here), the basic idea, as it applies to Apple, is the development and rollout of multiple HTML5 applications which would allow Facebook to create a range of mobile applications without having to adhere to the rules and toll charges imposed by Apple’s app-store. Now, let’s consider an alternative scenario: What if Facebook releases an entire suite of iOS apps, as fast as “ ” (which feels faster than SMS) and powered by users’ own social networks? ( ) Specifically, what if Facebook decides to apply resources to construct a full “suite” of federated yet interconnected native iPhone and iPad applications to satisfy a number of interactions within Facebook, entirely powered by your friends? Consider, for a moment, the possibility of having individual apps for asking questions, playing games, sharing pictures and videos, digesting your newsfeed, listening to music with friends, accessing your address book, participating in groups, viewing pictures and videos, and so on. You could have them all, or just use a few. I’m not suggesting that it will happen, but theoretically, Facebook has the muscle to create these apps and, with its huge user base, they would be downloaded in droves. A few months ago, Apple announced a to tie Twitter into its operating system. Many lauded the deal as a win for both sides, and to be sure, it is a great idea. But to be fair, it also underscores the lengths to which Apple, a company without a social network and notorious for wanting to control its platform, made strange bedfellows with Twitter. , when Apple had tried to bake Facebook into its iTunes player experience, Ping, apparently it didn’t work out because one side exerted more strength than the other. Guess who? Whether Project Spartan continues, or whether Facebook builds out all these native iOS apps, Facebook will increasingly become the mobile identity gatekeeper and power source behind some of the newer application layer services. For example, one of the most iPhone apps to arrive this month is , which requires that users login via Facebook only. One thing is clear: Facebook is determined to get onto your iPhone. And your Android, and any other major mobile platform, too. The number of platforms doesn’t matter—this game is platform-agnostic. It will either build its own “lingua franca” for mobile via HTML5, or maybe it will build an entire fleet of apps. Or, they Facebook simply improve upon its current iOS app and not fragment the experience. Or, maybe it will develop its own mobile operating system (like Android) or, shoot, maybe build its own phone (Apple). Well, maybe those aren’t as likely, but given what we’ve seen in the last few months, with Google buying Motorola, and with Android use growing and iPhone profits skyrocketing, expect Facebook to do something big, something ambitious, and something that leverages its massive user base to penetrate the fabric of the mobile experience with social, by all means necessary. |
Google Wallet Likely Launching Tomorrow | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 9 | 18 | Last week, Google posted for featuring George Costanza. The implication: Google Wallet would finally be launching soon. Now we think we know when: tomorrow. As you can see in the above image, documentation is being sent around to partners stating a September 19 launch day. We’ve heard from others that this is accurate. And it also lines up nicely with , which kicks off tomorrow in the French Riviera. Google is not listed as a speaker or exhibitor at the event, but their main partner MasterCard is the official sponsor. Back in May when Google Wallet and Offers were initially , Google stated that field trials for Wallet would beging immediately and that an official launch would come this summer. Initial pointed towards a September 1 launch. Technically, summer lasts until September 22, so it looks like Google will hit their deadline with a few days to spare. While this will be the official launch, the product itself will likely still be quite limited. The only officially compatible phone is the Nexus S 4G, which is only available on Sprint in the U.S. Google has to bring tap-and-pay to other phones, but it’s not clear if that will be ready at launch or not. Hardware to enable the payments on the merchant end is also needed. And again, MasterCard has been the only official partner on the credit card side of things so far. Perhaps Google will have more to say on that tomorrow. But the above documentation still points to PayPass-enabled Citi MasterCards as the only way to use the service for now. It also makes sense for Google to get Wallet out there now before their next flagship Android phone, the Nexus Prime, launches next month. It too will have NFC capabilities built in and will bring the Wallet functionality to the much larger Verizon customer base. Yep, . Here’s |
Home Decor Flash Sales Site One Kings Lane Raises $40M, On Track For Over $100M In 2011 Sales | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 9 | 18 | Over two million users strong, flash sales site for home décor, furnishings and accessories has raised $40 million in new funding from led by Tiger Global Management. Institutional Venture Partners and existing investors Kleiner Perkins and Greylock Partners participated in the round, according to a which reports that One Kings Lane was valued at $440 million post-investment. This round brings the startup’s total funding to over $65 million. which was by and Susan Feldman in 2009, offers deep, limited discounts on home décor, furnishings, accessories, wine, food and gifts. The site competes with Gilt Groupe, and One Kings Lane has proven that a niche commerce model can draw a large userbase and bring in meaningful revenue The startup grew revenue over 500 percent from 2009 to 2010. One Kings Lane CEO Doug Mack told the WSJ that revenue is on track to exceed $100 million, which is also over a two hundred percent increase from 2010, in which the startup did $30 million in revenue. And more than 75 percent of sales come from repeat customers. The company has also been able to use to boost traffic and sales. Over the summer, One Kings Lane featured a content deal with Bravo’s , and teamed up with actress Gwyneth Paltrow to promote her new cookbook. Another angle One Kings Lane has used to increase engagement is editorial content. For example, the site features companies videos with sales of luxury sheets that shows visitors how to fold a fitted sheet. The company publishing design firm earlier this year. Of course, as we’ve seen with niche verticals in the flash sales business, these areas can be competitive. For example, Gilt started offering travel deals with Jetsetter and now almost every major flash site offers similar deals. Gilt has also been combining editorial with commerce in its as well as in its . Fab.com is using curated design sales to help attract users. But as exemplified by the site’s return user data and growing sales, One Kings Lane has a loyal following. If I were I’d be looking to acquire the home decor site soon. |
Breaking: Netflix Splits DVD And Streaming Businesses; Creates Qwikster For DVDs | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 9 | 18 | Netflix CEO Reed Hastings just . In the wake of a in Netflix’s stock price last week, Hastings is taking a bold step by separating the DVD and video streaming services. The DVD-by-mail service will now be called , and the streaming service will maintain the Netflix brand. That’s right: the new business (streaming) will keep the existing name. Customers can still subscribe to both, but the two sites will not be integrated anymore. Qwikster will also now offer video game rentals through the mail, a long-requested service. With this move, Hastings is reaffirming his long-held belief that streaming is the future of Netflix and the future of entertainment, and Wall Street can judge its progress by how well the streaming business is doing on its own. Separating the businesses will also force customers to make a choice, and it is obvious which choice Hastings wants them to make (hint: it starts with an “N”). Earlier today, I wrote a post beseeching Hastings not to listen to Wall Street after his stock got hammered. You’ve got to give him credit for moving fast in the direction where he thinks the greatest opportunity lies. He writes in a that just went up: For the past five years, my greatest fear at Netflix has been that we wouldn’t make the leap from success in DVDs to success in streaming. Most companies that are great at something – like AOL dialup or Borders bookstores – do not become great at new things people want (streaming for us) because they are afraid to hurt their initial business. Eventually these companies realize their error of not focusing enough on the new thing, and then the company fights desperately and hopelessly to recover. Companies rarely die from moving too fast, and they frequently die from moving too slowly.
Who knows how investors will react in the morning? But it is the right move. The other thing that is worth noting about his announcement is that it starts out with an admission to his customers: “I messed up.” He is not saying that the price hike was a mistake, though, just that he should have explained it better. The two businesses are moving apart and it’s better to separate them now than wait for the inevitable. Below is a video with Hastings and Qwikster’s new CEO Andy Rendich explaining the change: |
Weekend Watch Round Up | John Biggs | 2,011 | 9 | 18 | The timeless Timewalker from Montblanc gets a fantastic new movement totally made in-house by Montblanc in Switzerland. It is the in DLC coated titanium. We’ve always loved the no nonsense tool-watch approach that Sinn uses when making their timepieces. Ultra durable and a bit retro, the is the new flagship pro use watch from the brand as we want one. . The 2011 Only Watch charity auction is coming soon, with about 40 unique new watches from of the world’s best brands. Our favorite outdoor watch line is the Casio Pro Trek (formerly Pathfinder). New in blue and black, the digital and analog .
|
Finally! Bitcasa CEO Explains How The Encryption Works | Sarah Perez | 2,011 | 9 | 18 | TechCrunch Disrupt finalist , a new cloud storage provider, was met with a healthy dose of skepticism when it claimed to be able to provide “infinite storage.” How does it do that? It can’t do what it promises! That’s not how encryption works! And so on. VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, along with First Round Capital, Pelion Venture Partners, and TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington’s CrunchFund have invested $1.3 million in the technology, which seems to suggest there’s valuable IP behind the startup’s overly broad promises of cheap, infinite and secure storage. My of the startup was generally positive because, by all descriptions, it’s doing something innovative and new. While we raised a few general questions (does it slow you down?, will it scale?), it’s hard to review something without going hands-on. For that matter, describing the way the technology works was perhaps overly simplified. For those of you with interest in deeper technical details, here they are (well, it’s a start, at least…). As a finalist, Bitcasa got drilled by knowledgeable judges including Ron Conway, Hadi Partovi, Marissa Mayer, Roelof Botha, Matthew Cohler and Arrington. Hadi Partovi was on the founding teams of and . As an angel investor and startup advisor, Hadi’s portfolio includes , , , , , , and many others. Like you, he wanted to know how Bitcasa’s encryption worked. To see how Bitcasa CEO Tony Gauda answered those questions, scroll to minute 11:48 of at the bottom of the post. But his main explanation is that Bitcasa takes advantage of a technique called convergent encryption, which he explains towards the end before being cut off. Here’s the transcript of the relevant portion of the conversation. |
The $99 TouchPad Returns To HP’s Employee Purchasing Program On Sept 28th | Matt Burns | 2,011 | 9 | 18 | It’s not very often I get to write that it’s a good day to be an HP employee. But it’s also not everyday that HP employees are offered some of the last TouchPads. The company is set to release a final batch of the $99/$149 HP TouchPads to employees starting September 28th at 9:00am PDT. This is per an email I received from an HP employee (embedded after the jump), which notes TouchPads are available on a first come, first serve basis and employees are only allowed to buy one TouchPad — which some will likely list on ebay where TouchPads are currently selling for over $200. The sun is setting on the TouchPad’s life and HP is likely ready to move forward, thoroughly burned by their venture into the land of the iPad. This comes, as stated in the email, as HP is “clearing out inventories and winding down manufacturing operations.” HP previously canceled the TouchPad and allowed retailers to clearance them out at an astounding price: $99 for the 16GB and $149 for the 32GB. Stores sold out nearly overnight, leaving some hopeful that HP would release another batch. Unfortunately the email I received doesn’t detail any other TouchPad retail sales although I would pay close attention to Best Buy, Amazon and HP’s website the days before and after the 28th. It’s such a good deal. |
null | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 9 | 20 | null |
Sequoia’s Doug Leone: We Are ‘Thrilled’ To Be Investors In Color, ‘Stay Tuned’ For The Pivot | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 9 | 18 | It’s no secret that there’s been a major amount of controversy surrounding the photo sharing app that with $41 million in funding from Sequoia Capital, Bain Capital, and Silicon Valley Bank (Sequoia apparently put $25 million in). Color’s debut was one of the the tech world has seen over the past year, and since then the company has been plagued with , and a . Sequoia partner , who sits on Color’s board and led the investment, sat down with us last week at TechCrunch Disrupt to talk about what he refers to as his most exciting investment in the past year (he begins talking about Color at the 4 minute mark in the video below). Leone says of Color and its founder , the startup has a “passionate founder who had a loud introduction of a product that didn’t hit the market or bulls-eye,” he says candidly. “But give me an entrepreneur with a lot of courage, gusto and who iterates rapidly, and I will back that person day in and day out.” Clearly Leone doesn’t have any regrets about his investment. But he also admits that things did go wrong with the launch of Color. He revealed that Sequoia only invested three days before the scheduled launch of Color, and that the debut of the app had some weak points. He says of the negative press Color received post-launch—”The main reason the company received that feed back is because of a big splash announcement with not a lot to show for it early on.” He adds that Nguyen and his team have been iterating in the public eye, which is especially hard for a startup. But Leone still seems bullish on Color’s future. He said that Sequoia is “thrilled” to be an investor in the company, and cautions us to “stay tuned about what Color has up its sleeve.” He’s referring to . We don’t have too many details on what Blue is, but we do know that it’s a new mobile app with deep ties into Facebook Photos. We could find out more this upcoming week at . Nguyen has to be feeling massive amounts of pressure with this upcoming launch. Color’s fate could be tied to Blue. One failed product is acceptable, but two failed products can be tough for any startup (even with $41 million in backing) to rebound from. Leone actually told me after the interview that he’s been testing Color’s new product and said “it’s awesome.” Clearly he’s biased, but the positivity he has for the company overall makes me think that whatever Color does have up its sleeve could be compelling. We’ll hopefully find out more this week. |
Free Startup Tools: An Easy Way For Founders To Set The Terms Of Their Collaboration | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 9 | 27 | In this, our third installment of “Free Startup Tools”, we wanted to highlight an agreement launched by , the European startup accelerator, to help startup founders negotiate the early stages of building a company. (You can check out our first post on The Founder Institute’s and the second post on a .) While we’ve touched on these better ways to negotiate term sheets and relationships with advisors, founding a company also often entails bringing on co-founders to help you build your business. Of course, in doing so, it’s important for co-founders to be able to establish a level of trust that allows each founding member to fairly share in the benefits of success. To do so, Seedcamp (via its Seedhack initiative) is launching the “Seedhack Founder’s Collaboration Agreement”, which , has been created to allow newly formed founding teams to “agree on what each founder’s shareholding stake should be” as well as codifying the amount of equity co-founders should receive in accordance with the level of time and effort they pour into the business. Readers can check out the . As the accelerator said via its Seedhack blog, the intent with the collaboration agreement is to have it be of use to accelerators and incubators that hose events like Seedcamp’s , where “collaboration is key”, as well as to the thousands of startups out there building businesses (and investing sweat equity) in those many ideas, products, and tools before officially creating a “formal” company or enterprise. Seedcamp says that it wants co-founders to treat the document as fuel for discussion, which can either be used “as-is”, but it should be noted that it is still both a work in progress and a template which founders should modify as they see fit. (Hence the items in brackets, which are left up to founders to input their own language.) Note: The Seedhack Collaboration Founders Agreement is licensed under a . Please feel free to share your impressions of the agreement, including whether or not readers believe that the vesting schedule proposed in the document applies generally or is more in line with hackathon-type scenarios. Excerpt image |
Twitter Bot @MrDisclosure Wants Investors To Disclose Conflicts In Tweets | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 9 | 27 | It’s hard out there for an tech investor! You’re now competing with flashy Hollywood folk like , who have unparalleled opportunities, like getting to show off their investment affiliations on their you know that tech startup founder character they play on what is only the most watched sitcom in America. It was the antics of Mr.Kutcher himself that inspired , a Twitter bot that to disclose that they’ve invested in that company they’ve been tweeting about incessantly. After a Kutcher-edited issue of DETAILS magazine when Kutcher failed to reveal his stake in some of the companies he featured, @MrDisclosure creator Andy Cheung set up the account, wanting to bring awareness to the issue of investor conflict. “I do believe that if you tweet about one of your portfolio companies, you have a responsibility to disclose your affiliation to that organization,” writes Cheung in explaining the account. Right now the (limited number of) people it tracks can avoid being included by using the hashtag #investor in possibly offending tweets. But is that clunky #investor hashtag really the best solution? Where does it leave the few who attempt to play by their own (albiet makeshift) rules, like , who each tweet about a company invests in with a #FRC, or who makes it clear that he is an investor in some of the companies he tweets about in his Twitter bio? If we’re edging towards a future where everything needs to be disclosed, we’re going to need a lot more than 140 characters. |
Loopt Teams With Virgin America To Bring Check-In Deals To SFO | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 9 | 27 | Location-based service is getting some nice promotion for the next three months, courtesy of San Francisco’s International Airport and Virgin America. And it might make your trip to the airport a bit less expensive. Beginning this week, travelers going through SFO’s new Terminal 2 will be able to check-in on Loopt to receive an offer from one of six businesses located within the terminal, including Kiehl’s and Natalie’s Candy Jar — as well as hefty discounts from Virgin America itself. The difference between this and most other check-in based offers is that the deal you receive is chosen randomly from one of these merchants (you just need to check-in at Terminal 2). The promotion is being coordinated by Virgin America and Loopt, but travelers flying on American (which is also based in Terminal 2 at SFO) will be able to score the check-in deals as well. Each of the participating merchants is deciding what they want to give away, and while some merchants in the terminal aren’t participating, Loopt says that they may well jump on board in the coming weeks. The catch? After installing and signing up for Loopt, you’ll need to watch a clip called ‘A Day in the Life of SFO’s T2′ before you can see which offer you’ve received. It runs nearly three minutes long (which seems pretty hefty) and you have to watch the whole thing. But the video itself is well done, so it’s not a painful experience… provided you aren’t late for a flight. If nothing else, it’s the first time I’ve ever watched a commercial for an airport terminal. Loopt is going to be promoted to travelers through a variety of ways in the terminals: each of the businesses giving out deals will feature a sign, and the terminal itself will feature screens telling people to install the app and check-in.
[youtube=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCcTtlj5r4w’] |
Groupon Closes The Redemption Loop With Loyalty Rewards | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 9 | 27 | Groupon may be to get its IPO out the door, but that is not stopping it from introducing new products. Up until now, Groupon has built a billion-dollar business by getting local merchants to offer great one-time deals to consumers. Those daily deals are all about attracting new customers. Now the company is about to roll out a new product called Groupon Rewards that tries to give merchants a way to increase customer loyalty. Merchants will be able to start signing up tomorrow and consumers will start seeing the rewards in October. With a Groupon Reward, a business that offers a regular Groupon deal will be able to follow up with another reward that gets unlocked after the customer spends a certain amount of money. For instance, after a customer spends $50 or $100 at a store over time, she might get a Groupon Reward of $20 worth of goods for $4. It’s all tied to the credit cards people use every day so there is no need to change behavior. There are no check-ins required or that need to be waved over strange new terminals. Groupon already has millions of credit cards on file. Now it is going to turn those credit cards into digital versions of the buy-10-get-one-free punch cards from the coffee shop that you stick in your wallet. All that a customer will need to do is pay with the same credit card which is already on file with Groupon (after opting into the program). She can reach the spending goal, which is set by the merchant, over multiple visits. Each time, she will get a notification by email or on her phone alerting her that she just spent money at a merchant offering a Groupon Reward and how much more she needs to spend to unlock it: “You just spent $7 at Salem Coffee Beanery! You’re only $15 away from unlocking an exclusive reward!” One of the biggest advantages of the product for Groupon is that it finally closes the in local commerce. With most of Groupon’s daily deals today, they still don’t know how many people redeem them or when or how much total they spend at each merchant. Groupon Rewards can actually track spending at each merchant, which gives Groupon much better visibility into the success of its main business (how many people who buy regular Groupons come back, how much do they spend, etc?). Merchants who participate will also get a dashboard to track these metrics for themselves. Groupon already to show its deals to people who check in on that service, but it doesn’t sound like that is working great. “One of the biggest complaints with merchant partners,” says senior VP of product Jeff Holden, “is that there is tons of check-in fraud, and it is not tied to spend.” In other words, when merchants offer rewards tied to a certain number of check-ins, people can just check in on Foursquare (or Facebook) whether or not they are actually at the establishment. “I am not enamored with the check-in model because of the problems it has,” explains Holden. “It’s been a necessary evil because there has not been a good way to track customers’ interactions with merchants. We can eliminate all of these other instruments.” I think he just called Foursquare’s main feature “a necessary evil.” Holden positions Groupon Rewards as part of the company’s “Triforce” (yes, that is a ). “We think there are three components merchants need to run their business in the new world of local commerce,” he explains. The first is the daily deal, which Groupon perfected as a customer acquisition product and reached massive scale The second is , its mobile app that lets local merchants do yield management by offering deals when business is slow. The third now is Groupon Rewards, which is built around customer loyalty and retention. Each of these of the latter two, Groupon Now and Groupon Rewards, is made possible by the main daily deal business. Groupon used the enticement of daily deals to sign up hundreds of thousands of merchants and now is trying to use them to distribute its other products. Unlike most loyalty rewards (which tend to be much smaller than a 50-percent-off daily deal), Groupon will push merchants to offer rewards discounts similar to a daily deal. But customers will have to earn their way to that great deal, and the merchant will be able to set the spending level needed to get there. However, unlike a regular Groupon deal, the merchant will not keep half of the coupon amount. If the reward is a $4 coupon for $20 worth of goods, that entire $4 will go to Groupon. On the one hand, trying not to split it might be a hard sell. On the other, it gives merchants an incentive to offer deeper discounts. They will just have to factor in the total value of the reward into the spending limits they will set for the deals. In other words, they will have to figure out exactly what is the value of a loyal customer. Groupon now says it has not yet determined what the split will be between merchants and Groupon for reward deals. |
Citi Analysts: Facebook Ads Are Taking Spending Away From Display, Not Search | Rip Empson | 2,011 | 9 | 27 | Back in May, now accounts for one out of three ad impressions in the U.S., and that, really, no other web property in the U.S. comes close (Yahoo was second with 10 percent). That means that Facebook served approximately 340 billion ads in the first quarter. It’s probably not a surprise, then, that advertising makes up for about of the social network’s total revenues, which are estimated at about $1.6 billion for the first six months of 2011. Today, on Citi’s third quarter search marketing trends call, the panelists discussed the current landscape of search advertising, among other things that Google is maintaining its dominant market share in advertising spend on search, at 80 to 81 percent of total spend. While the panelists said that they’re not seeing much demand for social search ad targeting, there is obviously a ton of interest in marketing on Facebook. Much of this is due to the appeal, as Facebook’s Ad Czar Gokul Rajaram , of the social network’s ability to offer a social discovery experience through its ads. Rajaram clarified this point by saying that brand messaging tied to social context (“likes”, for example) leads to 68 percent ad recall — something that’s obviously of great interest to advertisers. Going forward, social ads or pages with sponsored stories or status updates will be the “foundation” of the network’s ads, the Facebook Ad Guru said. Yet, Citi panelists noted that the amount spent on Facebook ads is currently only 5 percent of what is spent on search ads. This number is expected to increase dramatically in the future, but what is of interest is that the panelists nearly unanimously agreed that Facebook ad spend is currently gobbling up share from traditional ad buckets, like banner, display, and brand awareness, and not from direct response and search. Traditionally, the media has made a big deal out of Facebook’s threat to Google in search advertising, but as it stands now, that doesn’t really seem to be the case. What is for sure, however, is that Facebook and Google continue to gobble up online display advertising from the likes of Yahoo and Aol, and Facebook is, by all accounts, growing like gangbusters in this area. We’ll continue to watch with interest as Google+ matures and certainly the two Internet giants will continue to push back and forth, but for now it seems safe to say that search marketers can continue to maintain their focus on Google, and brand marketers can keep trying to figure out how to socialize with customers on Facebook. Excerpt image |
Cable Providers Mull Switch To A La Carte Subscriptions | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 9 | 27 | I remember when we first got cable, back in the late 80s I suppose, and even as a youngster one of my first thoughts was “man, do we really need all these channels?” That suspicion, that we were perhaps being sold the whole buffet when we knew exactly what we wanted already, only became stronger with time, and before long it was a running joke shared by many in the world. 500 channels and you end up renting a movie because nothing good is on. Selling the whole package, dozens or hundreds of channels, has been part of the cable TV business model for a long time. It enabled smaller networks to grow and flourish under the ownership and careful tending of larger ones. But cable providers never talked about it as a reality of the TV business. They always just said people didn’t a la carte. A funny thing to tell the people asking for it. Now, with those same people getting their content a la carte by whatever means necessary (and feeling justified after decades of mistreatment by cable companies), it appears that Comcast, Time Warner, and the rest of the cable giants are changing their tune. Yes, it’s hard times for cable, and , they’re hatching a plan to salvage as many subscriptions as possible by putting a la carte back on the table. The trouble is that all the deals they’ve cut with content providers like Disney and Discovery during the salad days of the 90s and early 2000s are hindering that plan. The cost of business has been rising steadily as the value of a cable TV provider has dropped. When Fox or ESPN has millions of viewers online and commands a stable of premium content, the balance of power starts to change. Why Comcast et al. didn’t see this coming a decade ago is beyond me — unless, and this is just speculation, the future was obscured by their . The ugly truth for them is that their mode of distribution, as totally indispensible it was to hundreds of millions only a few years ago, is now just one of many, and its new competitors are cheaper, more mobile, and occasionally more convenient. These days people can barely bring themselves to pay for anything online, and that philosophy is leaking into the cable world. Cable-cutting (the contenders for TV replacement, Google TV, Hulu, and so on being still in their infancy), but if a family needs to cut costs, that $80 per month cable bill is a mighty easy pick. The streaming services may not quite be there, but they sure as hell are cheaper, and they don’t make you pay for four hundred channels you didn’t ask for. Unfortunately a contraction in this sector isn’t likely to be popular in the industry. The potential for riches is still huge, and no one wants to hear that maybe their company will only launch 12 new shows this year instead of 18. But that might have to happen as a stopgap as the rest of the distribution question gets itself figured out. Unless they want to float a billion or two in production costs. The “let the market decide” philosophy has never been a favorite in the TV business. “You’ll watch what we tell you to, when we tell you to” is a little more their style. And they might have stuck to it a little too long. And right now the market is deciding to leave them behind. If they’re smart, they won’t half-ass this little juke they’re doing, because it’s either this or a death spiral. Not that other industries haven’t chosen the death spiral (I’m looking at you, RIAA). I say bring on the a la carte. If consumers won’t pay $4 a month for 24/7 access to ESPN or the Discovery Channel, well, what the hell were they worth in the first place? |
Hands-On With The Toshiba Thrive 7″ Tablet | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 9 | 27 | Toshiba’s was a pretty good one — Android 3.1 Honeycomb, a wide array of connectivity ports, and interchangeable batteries. But all those ports coupled with a 10-inch form factor made for quite the hefty slate. Personally, I tend to favor the 7 to 8-inch tablet category, which is why I was so pleased to get a peek at Toshiba’s latest tab: The Thrive 7″. Unfortunately, some of the best parts of the 10-inch Thrive were scrapped to meet portability goals, like the full-sized SD card slot and that removable back cover. Instead, the Thrive 7″ has a micro SD card slot and a micro HDMI port along with a mini USB. But even with certain stand-out features missing on the 7-incher, it still has a few tricks up its sleeve. For one, the 7-inch tablet runs Android 3.2 Honeycomb instead of 3.1. A minor upgrade, but an upgrade nonetheless. Past that, the display resolution is pretty brilliant. Most 7-inch tablets on the market today sport a resolution of 1024×768, but the Thrive 7′ kept the same resolution as big brother: 1280×800. Since screen real estate was reduced to from 10 to 7 inches, the pixel density on this thing far surpasses that of the 10-inch model. Under the hood, the Thrive 7″ has the same Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core 1GHz processor as the bigger version, and comes in 16GB and 32GB flavors. The original Thrive shipped with an 8GB version as well, but with the removal of a standard SD card slot on the little guy, Toshiba likely ditched the idea of an 8GB 7-incher. Just like in the original, the smaller model also comes with a 5-megapixel rear camera and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera. However, that rear camera now has dual-LED flash capabilities. The Thrive 7″ weighs just under a pound (.88lbs) and is .47-inches thick. The slate also has the same Easy Grip textured rubber back panel as the original model, which doesn’t do so well with prints but does give it a more solid, durable feel. The Thrive 7″ is a WiFI-only tablet, and won’t be available until early December. Toshiba says it should stay under the $400 mark. Full gallery below.
|
Google Secures Seven Floor Building To Tap London Talent | Mike Butcher | 2,011 | 9 | 27 | we’ve been covering the gradual emergence of a cluster of technology startups in East London. Hell, we’ve even made about so-called . But it wasn’t until the Prime Minister suddenly appeared in the area to declare it a focus for government policy that larger tech companies started to take notice of what some random policy advisor decided to brand “ “. Since then there has been a litany of pledges pledged by corporates like Cisco, BT and Facebook to keep Number 10 Downing Street happy, but not a huge amount of, well, action. All that changes today with the news that Google is to rent, lock stock and barrel, for the next ten years, an entire seven-floor building in the area. |
Facebook’s Mobile Chief: Within 1-2 Years, We’re Going To Be A Mobile Company | Greg Kumparak | 2,011 | 9 | 27 | Facebook has their sights locked on mobile. This afternoon at GigaOm’s Mobilize conference, Facebook Mobile Chief Erick Tseng touched on just how crucial mobile is to them — and more importantly, how crucial it be. Just how crucial are we talking about? Within 1-2 years, Tseng sees Facebook becoming as much of a mobile company as it is a desktop/web company. “It’s interesting that if you take a look at our top line of growth, we’re getting to the point that the countries we’re getting into now are ones that don’t really use computers at all. The predominant ways people are connecting in Africa, in India, is through their mobile devices. As Mark touched on a few days ago, we now have over 350 million mobile users. Within another year or two, we’ll be a mobile company, with 1/2 mobile users.” It’s kind of funny to think that Facebook might not think of themselves as a predominantly mobile company. They’re already the most popular app on nearly every smartphone platform, are deeply integrated into countless Android devices, and 43% of their active user base of 800 million is using mobile on a regular basis. What else can they really hope for? Oh, thats right: to take over the mobile world . Oh, and as for : |
ITC To Investigate Apple Based On HTC’s Google-Fueled Patent Complaint | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 9 | 27 | The battle between Apple and HTC (and Android in general) is getting fiercer. The United States International Trade Commission has just that it’s instituting an investigation into Apple, based on a that HTC brought against it earlier this month. Apple and HTC have been battling over patent infringement since Apple first filed suit in — and up until recently HTC has been playing defense. Now it looks like it may be Apple’s turn. To be clear, the ITC announcement says that the merits of the case have not yet been established. But if the ITC does eventually find that Apple has infringed on HTC’s patents, it could impact many of Apple’s products — the investigation spans “computers, tablet computers, and smartphones”. Of note: some of the involved in HTC’s complaint were actually given to the smart phone manufacturer by Google over the summer. Neither Apple nor Google have directly sued each other over iOS and Android, but Google has openly that it would back its Android partners, and it made good on that promise. The ITC is important, as it is capable of blocking imports of infringing devices into the United States. That said, the process involved is usually quite lengthy. Here’s a basic description of the patents involved in the case, based on a report in earlier this month: The patents in the ITC case relate to an interface that lets the user add identifiers such as .com or .org; an interface that enlarges characters being typed; a way to display information on mobile devices; and status bars that let a user check phone calls, text messages or calendar events. Here’s the announcement that was posted on the ITC’s website: The U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) has voted to institute an investigation of certain electronic devices with communication capabilities, components thereof, and related software. The products at issue in this investigation are computers, tablet computers, and smartphones. The investigation is based on a complaint filed by HTC Corporation of Taiwan on August 16, 2011 and amended on September 7, 2011. Supplements were filed on September 2 and 19, 2011. The amended complaint alleges violations of section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930 in the importation into the United States and sale of certain electronic devices with communication capabilities, components thereof, and related software that infringe patents asserted by HTC. The complainant requests that the USITC issue an exclusion order and a cease and desist order. The USITC has identified Apple, Inc. a/k/a Apple Computer, Inc. of Cupertino, CA, as the respondent in this investigation. By instituting this investigation (337-TA-808), the USITC has not yet made any decision on the merits of the case. The USITC’s Acting Chief Administrative Law Judge will assign the case to one of the USITC’s four administrative law judges (ALJ), who will schedule and hold an evidentiary hearing. The ALJ will make an initial determination as to whether there is a violation of section 337; that initial determination is subject to review by the Commission. The USITC will make a final determination in the investigation at the earliest practicable time. Within 45 days after institution of the investigation, the USITC will set a target date for completing the investigation. USITC remedial orders in section 337 cases are effective when issued and become final 60 days after issuance unless disapproved for policy reasons by the U.S. Trade Representative within that 60-day period. : Here’s a statement from HTC — we’ve reached out to Apple to see if they have one as well.
“HTC will continue to protect its patented inventions against infringement from Apple until such infringement stops. We believe that we have an obligation to protect our business, our industry partners and our customers, who love using our products.” |
Larry Page And Eric Schmidt Hold Court At Google Zeitgeist [Video] | MG Siegler | 2,011 | 9 | 27 | [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srI6QYfi-HY&w=640&h=345] Even though has been CEO of Google for just , he hasn’t been as visible as many other high-profile CEOs. In fact, the most we’ve heard from him has been . But today during Google’s annual Zeitgeist conference, Page took the stage to address the audience. Watch the entire 45-minute talk above. Page talked about a range of things — everything from Search to Android to YouTube to Chrome to Google+ to (the great inventor who “failed”). But things got more interesting when , Google’s Executive Chairman who, of course, preceded Page as CEO, joined Page on stage for a Q&A. They talk the Motorola deal (while it will nearly double the size of Google’s workforce, Page jokes that he wished it doubled their market cap too), patents (Page notes Google has never sued anyone over patents), innovation (the self-driving cars), and agility (changing the company every year). At one point, Schmidt takes a shot at Microsoft calling them “one of our former competitors” to laughs. When asked about Yahoo, Schmidt declined to say much but did acknowledge that “they need to sort out their leadership issues”. He also called out “the mindless and stupid policy” with regard to immigration, calling it a “national crisis”. When author Steven Levy asked what the biggest threat to Google was right now, Page said “Google,” with a big smile on his face. Schmidt tried to be more nuanced: “the problems in a company of Google’s scale are always internal at some level.” “Yeah, that’s why I said ‘Google’,” Page shot back with, to laughs from the audience. Page also said that the slow down of decision-making as companies grow in size is “tragic”. That’s his aim as CEO, to make sure that doesn’t happen. |
Don Draper Pitches The Facebook Timeline | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 9 | 27 | “This makes me happy on a lot of levels,” Facebook Product manager , about this Mad Men homage to Facebook’s recently unveiled profile . Aside from founding (and selling) Drop.io to Facebook, Lessin was primarily responsible for the look and feel of Facebook Timeline, and has a right to be happy, after all, it could have ended up looking like Says the video’s creator in his explainer notes, “The most compelling elements of Facebook’s Timeline are the ones that made Kodak’s Carousel [what Draper is pitching in the original scene, below] popular. Reminiscing is a social activity. It always has been, and now Facebook is bringing that activity online.” Oddly enough, the juxtaposition of Draper’s dramatic monologue and the newness of the Timeline’s design gives the parody . Technology is a glittering lure, indeed. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAcyJhsamcQ&feature=player_embedded&w=630] [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suRDUFpsHus&feature=player_embedded&w=630] |
Canon To Bring Smooth Aperture Adjustment Rings To DSLRs? | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 9 | 27 | If you’ve been in for more than ten years, you probably remember the way things used to be on old film cameras. There was no electronic interconnect between the lens and the body, so lens-related functions (focus, zoom, aperture) were on the lens and body-related functions (ASA, shutter speed) were on the body. That changed as autofocus and auto-exposure, particularly on digital cameras, necessitated a data connection between the lens and the body. While we never did away with the focus and zoom rings, aperture went right out the window and was electronically controlled. A few nice cameras have aperture rings now — the , for instance — but generally speaking you can’t find one except on professional cinema gear these days. But Canon may be looking to change that. A recent patent shows a system for controlling the functions of a lens using three on-lens rings (or two on a prime, presumably), the hindmost of which controls a diaphragm, which we can take to mean the iris. Old-school photographers will be overjoyed. Newer camera systems have attempted to modernize the ring system by having one ring stand in for all three, its active function chosen by a switch or setting. A reasonable attempt but (I suspect) unsatisfying for many photographers. One point that isn’t clear is whether the ring will be stepped or stepless. Traditionally, aperture rings have moved in mechanically-separated 1/3-stop steps, which aids in keeping exposures consistent and prevents an aperture equivalent to zoom creep. But the stepped exposure dial is a pain for motion video, where the steps are easily perceived as they change. There’s no reason why the iris shouldn’t be able to move smoothly from open to shut and stop anywhere along the way (perhaps rounded off to the nearest third), and it may be that this is a feature planned for Canon’s next big announcement in November. No announcements have been made, of course, but the patent was interesting to warrant a post anyway. |
20 Years Of Microsoft Research | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 9 | 27 | This month marks the 20th anniversary of Microsoft Research, perhaps the most consistently interesting division of the hulking software company. , which ranges from consumer-facing work like Cleartype and spam recognition to the obscure, academic, and quixotic. The names behind the ideas are unlikely to be recognized, but they include geniuses, visionaries, knights, and humanitarians. Billions of dollars per year being expended towards furthering the reach and worth of technology constitutes an important but largely thankless endeavor. Sure, products like Office, Exchange, and other enterprise stuff make up the majority of Microsoft’s income, but I don’t think Microsoft was founded to be a office-tools company. The vision of Microsoft was putting a computer in every home and making that computer as versatile and powerful as possible. Microsoft Research is perhaps more in line with that philosophy than its parent company has been in years. If I had to pick a place to work at Microsoft, Research would be it without a doubt. Unfortunately, I’m not an accomplished computer scientist or engineer, so I have to be content with occasionally reporting mind-blowing creations like . Things like that make me actually excited about what they’re doing. So many companies featured on this site have their sights set on such miniscule problems, such niche applications, that I can’t bring myself to feel anything at all about them, however much funding they score. If Instagram had a billion dollars a year to spend on R&D, what would they spend it on? More filters? Watching for interesting projects is especially easy with both MSR and Google, because both companies want this stuff out there. And with the Motorola purchase, I think Google with the tinkering. There is probably quite a lot of interesting research being done at Apple as well, but their secretive nature over there doesn’t permit snooping. That’s why I like Microsoft Research. Their semi-academic model for collaborating and sharing means the papers and demonstration videos are often right there for you to browse. Sure, for budding products like Kinect they have to keep the lid on tight, but for more esoteric projects it’s all in the open. Rob Knies MSR Redmond Director Peter Lee’s optimism at the next few years for the division, and looks back at the last 20 years of discoveries and investigations. Research has grown to encompass more than 850 researchers at 12 facilities around the globe. Microsoft spends $9 billion per year on R&D, and while they may , MSR is still an idea factory well worth the money. |
Toshiba Announces Updated Kid-Friendly Laptop | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 9 | 27 | If ever there was an audience for a silver and neon green laptop, kids would be it (and also maybe people who like lime green a lot). That said, Toshiba has just launched its updated kid-friendly laptop: the Satellite L735D. Toshiba and Best Buy worked on this one together, and did quite a bit of research to make sure that the little ones were getting what they wanted. Which was a lot of silver and neon green. The Satellite L735D is really just the L635 wrapped up in some kid-friendly design, packed full of kid-friendly software, with more aggressive pricing. It’s a full 13.3-inch laptop, with a 1.3GHz AMD E-series processor and a 320GB hard drive. The 13.3-inch screen has a 1300×708 resolution, and supports video playback in 720p. The L735D also has two USB 2.0 ports, a webcam for video chat, and a battery life of five and a half hours. Obviously, these aren’t specs to drool over, but they make sense considering the rather low price point this little guy is going for. As far as kid-centric features go, the most obvious (aside from the color scheme) would be the “wipeable” keyboard. Toshiba was very careful to not use the term “spill resistant,” so don’t think you can send little Tommy over to his laptop with a full glass of soda pop. Once he’s finished, however, and made the keyboard sufficiently sticky, feel free to wipe it clean. The Satellite L735D also comes with pre-installed, as well as KidZui (a browser just for kids). The Satellite L735D will be available exclusively from Best Buy in the beginning of October, with an MSRP of $497.99. |
Kobo Pulse Aims To Offer New Twist On Social Reading | Chris Velazco | 2,011 | 9 | 27 | Kobo has been cultivating their initiative for a while now, and with the announcement of their new Pulse feature, they’re digging even deeper into the social space than before. Slated to launch in their Kobo iOS apps first, is a new way for readers to connect with others while digitally thumbing through their collections. The pulse manifests itself as a pink splotch on the bottom of any given page, where it waxes and wanes to display the level of social engagement is going on around that point in the book. Expect a small pulse, for example, when you run into a few pages of dull, lifeless exposition. Likewise, the pulse will grow bigger and brighter once you start hitting the juicy bits. A quick tap on the pulse reveals others reading the same book, and a shortcut to the page feed where you can discuss all the details. Swiping up from the bottom of the screen brings up a book statistics pages, which among other things shows how many times the book has been read and some of the conversations surrounding the book. Kobo’s been down with Facebook since their Reading Life plans started, but now they’re looking to tie their social reading ideas into some of the new functionality demoed at . Pulse updates will show up in in your Facebook ticker, and reading habits will eventually make their way onto your Timeline. In addition to showing up in your iOS and Android Kobo reader apps, Pulse will also make an appearance on their line of as an automatic update. Personally (and I don’t think I’m alone on this one), I’ve always felt that reading was one of those things that was best done alone. I like to curl up in a chair, turn everything else around me off, and just dive in. Visually, the pulse also seems as though it would be a distraction, though I suspect I may be in the minority on that one. Don’t get me wrong, parts of Pulse seem truly compelling; as a bit of a numbers nerd, personal reading stats are something I’d love to have a look at, and the idea of seeing a book’s “life” unfold is sort of charming. I’m looking forward to playing with Pulse when it comes via update, but I’m not expecting it to change years of reading habits. |
Under Fire, OnStar Revises Plan To Continue Tracking Former Subscribers | Devin Coldewey | 2,011 | 9 | 27 | Last week, OnStar which were almost universally recognized as being overreaching and unnecessary. The two primary changes were, first, that OnStar would continue to track subscribers who had terminated their service. They could ask to have their data connection severed in addition to unsubscribing, but why should they have to? Second, OnStar gave itself the ability to share or sell anonymized driving data to “any third party,” “for any purpose, at any time.” Faced with a flurry of criticism from users, sites like this one, and even Congress, OnStar has gone back on at least of the changes. : OnStar announced today it is reversing its proposed Terms and Conditions policy changes and will not keep a data connection to customers’ vehicles after the OnStar service is canceled. If OnStar ever offers the option of a data connection after cancellation, it would only be when a customer opted-in, Marshall said. And then OnStar would honor customers’ preferences about how data from that connection is treated. Kudos to them for quickly responding to pressure from their user base, but the tracking after cancellation was only part of the trouble. Their self-awarded ability to anonymize to their own satisfaction and then share with literally anybody they want to seems to be intact, and there doesn’t appear to be any mechanism for OnStar to even ask customers whether they want their information shared for marketing purposes (the “honor” bit is too slippery and vague to trust). If you want to use the service, this is something you’ll have to agree to. Whether that’s a good trade-off is up to you. |
T-Mobile Spots HTC Radar 4G On Horizon, Set For Holiday Launch | Chris Velazco | 2,011 | 9 | 27 | Looks like the HD7 won’t be the only Windows Phone on T-Mobile’s shelves for much longer. Right on the heels of yesterday , T-Mobile has pulled back the curtains on the newest Windows Phone in their lineup: The Radar was one of two Windows Phones revealed at IFA by HTC, and while AT&T made sure to snag the big boy, the Radar is no slouch. It sports a rather handsome white aluminum body, while a 3.8-inch LCD display running at 800×480 graces the Radar’s front. Meanwhile, you’ll find 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor running the show, and a 5 MP camera planted firmly on the phone’s rear end to round out the package. Sure, the specs aren’t exactly mindblowing, but they place the Radar far above T-Mobile’s original Windows Phone efforts. The HTC HD7 was essentially a slightly-tweaked HD2, meaning that Windows Phone left the gate at Bellevue saddled with dated hardware. Given the timing of the announcement, it should come as no surprise that the Radar runs Redmond’s long-awaited Mango version of WP7. While we’re on the subject of timing, T-Mobile is keeping quiet on the Radar 4G’s release date, but they’re quick to assure readers that it’ll be in stores in time for a holiday rush. |
Shopkick By The Numbers: 700M Product Views; 7M Product Scans; 2.3M Users In The Past Year | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 9 | 27 | We’ve written plenty of times about , an innovative geo-coupon system that has from Kleiner Perkins, Greylock, SV Angel and others. Today, the company is revealing a number of impressive stats about its service. Instead of checking in, as you would with a geo app like Foursquare or Gowalla, shopkick when someone with the free or iPhone app on their phone walks into a store. Once a shopkick Signal is detected, the app delivers reward points called “kickbucks” to the user for walking into a retail store, trying on clothes, scanning a barcode and other actions. Kickbucks can then be redeemed across all partner stores for gift card rewards or for Facebook Credits. User can also receive special discounts on specific products at partners stores like Macy’s, Best Buy or Target. Since the application’s , Shopkick has seen a whopping 700 million product views, and the startup expects to pass 1 billion product views this year. There have been over 2 million physical walk-ins to stores (which are measured from the shopkick signal device installed at the store). The device is installed at 3000 large stores and 250 malls now. Shopkick users open the apps on average on 14 days per month (often several times a day). Each day they open the app, they look at 16 stores on average. That means, per month they look at over 200 stores via the app on average. And users have scanned 7 million products over the past year, which is up from And application now has 2.3 million U.S. users. It took 7 months to reach its first 1 million users and only 4 months to reach its second million users. National retail partners in the loyalty program include Target, Best Buy, Macy’s, Crate & Barrel, American Eagle, Sports Authority, Toys R Us, Simon Malls and others, and 20 brands (P&G, Unilever, Kraft, Colgate, Clorox, Disney, HP, Intel). One of the retailers is estimating $50 million in measurable incremental revenue as a result of the shopkick mobile app. Co-founder says that shopping and commerce is where the money flows in location-based services. The advantage of a shopping app, he explains, is that each shopping app user is worth much more than a social app user, because they are real shoppers who use the app because they want to spend money on shopping. Each activity is monetizable, including walk-ins to stores, engagements with products at the store (scans) or at home (app uses). And with all of these national deals (and more to tome) the startup could be on its way to make meaningful revenue. Shopkick recently [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjDG7i9R0JQ&w=560&h=315] |
OMG/JK: Amazon Tablets, Carol Bartz, And Friendship Bracelets | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 9 | 11 | This week, we talk about Amazon’s upcoming secret tablet (which MG recently tried out), and how it might or might not take on the iPad. We also discuss the complexity of the Windows 8 UI and its growing number of buttons. And we take a look at the recent firing of Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz. Oh, and yes — I am wearing an orange thread friendship bracelet. Consider it a preview of an upcoming episode of TC Cribs (I forgot to take it off). Here are some recent posts relevant to this week’s episode: |
Report: Groupon Grew Its Revenues 13% In August, Gained 2% Marketshare | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 9 | 11 | In light of reports that the company was , daily deals aggregator has some positive information about trajectory in August, namely that it had a banner month revenue-wise. The daily deals frontrunner grew 13% during the last month of summer, increasing its revenue to $120.7 million from $106 million in July. This growth broken down symbolizes a 10% increase in the number of Groupons sold per deal and a 5% increase in the average Groupon price, both increases compensating for a decline in the number of deals ran by Groupon. Groupon Getaways, Groupon’s nascent travel deals product, bolstered the company’s sales, accounting for $9.6 million in revenue in August, compared to $5.7 million in July. The $3.9 million Groupon Getaways difference represented 27% of Groupon’s overall growth for the month. According to the Yipit data, which is derived from tracking over 30K daily deal offers in August, Groupon’s double-digit revenue growth was in stark contrast to competitor , whose revenues declined for the second month in a row. LivingSocial’s revenue in August was $45.1 million, representing a 3% decline from $46.4 million in July. This decline could be broken down into a 6% decrease in the number of vouchers sold per deal and a 1% decrease in the average price per voucher. LivingSocial did however increase the number of deals it ran by 4%. Revenue for the daily deals industry as a whole grew 9% in August, from an estimated $209 million in July to $228 million. The Yipit report holds that Groupon’s overall market share during the past month grew to 53% while LivingSocial’s estimated market share declined to 20%, with Groupon gaining 2% from its 51% share in July while LivingSocial declined the same amount from its 22% share during the same month.
You can read an excerpt of the report below. [scribd id=64647590 key=key-9ov0eyg0y9wnr0778jf mode=list] |
Let’s Drink Tonight Helps You Find People To Drink With | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 9 | 11 | Team , consisting of developers Zephyr Pellerin, Allen Romero, Jeremia Kimelman and Hunter Hastings, took advantage of its opportunity at the and attempted to solve the age old conundrum of not having anybody to drink with. Users who desire company while they imbibe can sign into and answer four hard-hitting profile questions along the lines of “Coolest person I’ve shared a drink with?” and “Favorite drink?…” They can then select their location and whether they want to drink with Facebook Friends or whether they’re feeling like meeting new people. The app will then text you if there’s someone around you ready to drink. Not a recipe for disaster, at all. Nope. So thus far I’ve put in my info and let the world know that I’m available for drinks, but the app’s suggestion — a Mr. Vinodh Kumar — doesn’t seem to be available (as in the link to his profile isn’t working). Guess I’m going to have go home and write about startups launching at TechCrunch Disrupt instead. Let’s Drink Tonight backstage interview above, and Hackathon presentation below. |
And The 2011 TechCrunch Disrupt SF Hackathon Winners Are … | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 9 | 11 | Over 700 hackers signed up and over 400 stayed the night in order to come up with over 130 hacks at this year’s TechCrunch SF. Fueled by Doritos and RedBull among other things, many ambitious developers coded at the SF Design Center Concourse Exhibition Center until 10:00 am this morning, taking to the stage bleary-eyed at 11:00 am in order to present their accomplishments in 60 second spurts. The top six Hackathon teams chosen by our select panel of judges will have the opportunity to present at on Wednesday. In addition there were a given away, from TechCrunch Disrupt API sponsors Ford, Mashery, DOAT, Face.com and Eventbrite and others. Most notably, CrowdStar and Sibblingz teamed up to each offer $250K in funding for exceptional attempts at creating mobile social games. Salesforce’s VP of Open Cloud Standards , Google’s , Betfair’s Vice President of Mobile Engineering , OneTrueFan founder and Ask.com’s Director of Engineering, Mobile and Platforms Vishal Shah mulled over the merits of everyone’s 24 hour efforts and came up with the six most worthy. The official winners below (you can check out our staff picks ). — A “Hipmunk for movies,” the FlickMunk app helps you rate and track movies. — Gainify is a plugin that lets you turn any Shopify store into a daily deals site. — Google Calendar plugin that allows you to check the weather of a planned event in advance. — A HTML5 3D color matching game. — A system that allows users to rate their exes. — A way to connect people who need help with healthcare payments with people who have the ability to donate cash. |
Watch The TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon Live | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 9 | 11 | Hundreds of hackers participated from late last night to early today morning at the fourth annual building in teams and waking up or popping enough coffee and Redbull this am in order to show off their hacks to judges including Salesforce’s VP of Open Cloud Standards , Betfair’s Vice President of Mobile Engineering , Google’s , MyBlogLog and OneTrueFan founder , and Ask.com’s Director of Engineering, Mobile and Platforms Vishal Shah. This year’s San Francisco Hackathon was our largest showing ever (over 700 hackers registered for the event), and what the hack teams came up with in the past 24 hours are about to be judged on stage with each team given 60 seconds to present. We’ll be looking for the next , a startup conceived and built at . GroupMe was a few weeks ago. |
@shopr Connects Buyers And Sellers On Twitter | Leena Rao | 2,011 | 9 | 11 | Not a day goes by that I don’t see one of the Twitter users I follow Tweet a request for an item, such as last-minute tickets; or post about a newly available item, such as an apartment for rent. As Twitter has become the , part of the content being shared revolves around buying and selling items via users’ social graph. which was developed at the over the past 24 hours, is launching as a service that matches buyers and sellers on Twitter. It’s sort of like a Craigslist for Twitter. Basically, @shopr uses Gnip to mine the Twitter firehose for people selling things and looking to buy items. The service’s founders tell me that in their initial research currently around 7,000 Tweets per hour relate to commerce and people looking to buy and sell items (over 5,000 selling-related Tweets are sent every hour). Buyers can search on @shopr’s site, by specifying the item desired and their location. @shopr will match buyers with the appropriate Twitter users who have Tweeted about the item to sell. Buyers can also Tweet with what they want and where they want it and the service till Tweet back when they find the desired item. @shopr will also allow user to see pics of the item as well. If you’re a seller and you Tweet about posting an item, @shopr will surface posts in their search engine so long as they make it clear what they’re selling and where they’re selling it. Sellers can also tweet with what they’re selling, location and an asking price, and @shopr will match this with a request from a buyer. And for an idea which was only born 24-hours ago, @shopr’s team has convinced a number of local retailers to participate in their selling service. A local San Francisco REI is listing several of their bikes, tents and backpacks (from the REI brand) with atShopr. San Francisco bookstore Dog Eared Books hast listed some of their inventory, Lost Weekend Video will be posting niche-genre movies and memorabilia, music store Aquarius Records are also putting some of their records on sale via the service. @shopr says that currently the most desired items posted on Twitter included bikes, books, apartments, tickets. What makes the service unique is that it allows sellers and buyers to expand beyond your Twitter social graph—which could be very useful for both buyers and local merchants and brands. |
Hackathon Highlights: Staff Favorites From The Disrupt SF Hackathon | Greg Kumparak | 2,011 | 9 | 11 | It’s been nearly 24 hours since the start of the Hackathon and the hax0rs have hax3d. We’ve seen 130 projects pitched in just 60 seconds each, all created in under 24 hours. While all of the projects were wonderful (really — this was perhaps our best Hackathon yet), some of them really struck the right key with the TechCrunch writers in the audience. In no particular order (and with no indication as to who might walk away a winner), some of the staff favorites: – Gives you a live audio stream of clubs around the city, helping you figure out which one you want to hop to. – An About.me for business. Easy, 30-second websites for businesses, primarily meant to group their social network accounts together in one easy to find place. – A mashup of Weather Underground and Google Calendar. Automatically scans your calendar for upcoming events, and alerts you if the weather forecast for those days has turned for the worse. Monitors and analyzes tweets about sporting events, and generates a live blog-esque text summary of the event based off popular tweets. Lets you rate your exes and peruse the ratings of potential suitors.
Punch in your cell phone, answer a few questions, and it’ll alert you when others nearby are looking for strangers to drink with – matches buyers and sellers on Twitter. It’s sort of like a Craigslist for Twitter. Basically, @shopr uses Gnip to mine the Twitter firehose for people selling things and looking to buy items. : Lets you create group-managed photo albums on the fly.
– Another easy-to-use group photo sharing tool. “Wheres Waldo” for real photos. Automatically picks a face in a photo and tasks the user with finding it. : “Your Will For Online Assets”. Distributes your social networks passwords to your trusted loved ones after you die. Whether or not you’re dead is determined by social network activity, followed by a Dead Man’s Switch e-mail. Direct feedback to the DJ at a real-world venue. Searches your iPod library for songs similar to the one currently playing at the venue, and lets you suggest those to the DJ. : You create tasks for yourself, then give Sergeant Shame access to post on your Facebook wall. Fail to finish your task (determined by whether or not you’ve checked into your task the pre-set number of times)? Sergeant Shame calls you out in public. “The easiest way to organize carpools with your friends.” Sign in with your number, add your riders, and start a trip. Karpool will show your rider’s current locations, and whether or not they’re ready to leave. Uh oh — you’re almost out of milk! Text “add milk” to a provided phone number, and milk will arrive the next day. UK only as it relies on Tesco’s API. Uses iOS 5’s face detection system in combination with Face.com’s facial recognition API. Once a face is detected, it returns a Wiki-esque publicly editable page corresponding to that person. Grocery store self-checkout through your phone, rather than the standard dedicated checkout stand. Scan an item’s UPC to add it to your “AirCart”. – Billed as “AirBnB for humans,” Thirsty lets you hire folks for short periods of time. Sellers announce what they can do in one day (Wax a car? Clean 3 rooms worth of carpet?) and their daily rate.
Reminds you to call a contact (like your mom) regularly by automatically starting the call and ringing all parties on a pre-determined schedule (say, every sunday).
A real-time, player-vs-player music battle. Each player site reads music, playing the notes on the nearest instrument. Their mobile device detects which notes they’re playing. The better you do, the more damage you do to your opponent.
Zombie defense game. Move with the arrow keys, aim with the mouse. Waves of zombies are generated based on the beat of the music. Finds people in areas that you’re traveling to that your friends may be able to introduce you to. Going to Paris? SocialBee scans your social networks for friends who have contacts in Paris, and generates an introduction request.
|
Live Webcast: TechCrunch Hackathon Demos – Tune In Now | Jon Orlin | 2,011 | 9 | 11 | null |
The Hackathon Never Sleeps | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 9 | 11 | It’s been a solid 12 hours since the Disrupt Hackathon commenced, and things are getting a bit loopy. For the most part, this place is pretty quiet. We have a few sleepers in corners, and just about every cushy object in this building has been occupied. But the vast majority of hackers are wide awake, coding away. And with good reason — $500,000 is at stake, among other awesome prizes. Each table is littered with trash — Red Bull, Doritos, Snapple, and quite a bit of beer. The pizza has been absolutely demolished, and now Chinese food seems to be the main attraction. Unfortunately, a plate shortage led some to take matters into their own hands and rip up pizza boxes to use as make-shift plates. Another development was the eruption of a massive bungee-dart war. According to the hackers “hundreds of darts were flying through the room.” In truth, I’m pretty sure there aren’t more than a few dozen darts in this building, but I bet it was epic nonetheless. I’m getting ready to call it a night, but for these hackers this is just the beginning. Progress has been made, but many have also encountered a few hiccups along the way. The Ping Pong Hero app is having some Bluetooth issues, while Ryan Tsukamoto’s AR air drums have run into quite the obstacle — the iPad’s craptacular front-facing camera. Still, determination seems to be the most dominant emotion in the room, and there’s no doubt in my mind that tomorrow will yield many success stories. |
Where Were You #OnSept11? | Erick Schonfeld | 2,011 | 9 | 11 | September 11 is our generation’s JFK assassination: everybody remembers where they were on that traumatic day. Whether you were nearby the attacks in New York City, Washington, and Pennsylvania or watching in horror from far away, it is a day that changed our country and many of our lives. Today will be filled with memorial services and constant TV coverage, but some of the most poignant remembrances are already happening on Twitter where people are sharing where they were and what they did. , who was near the World Trade Center that day, today is Tweeting out his vivid recollection of what it was like to be at Ground Zero (unfortunately, his Twitter account got rate-limited briefly because he was Tweeting so much, but now is restored). NPR’s is gathering many of the Tweets and rebroadcasting them using the hashtag (he is also collecting them into a ). Everyone has a memory about where they were and how the felt. I was living in San Francisco at the time, and woke up to the news. This was right after the first plane hit the World Trade Center and nobody knew what was going on. I turned on the TV and called my girlfriend in New York (who is now my wife). She was on Fifth Avenue watching the smoke billowing from one of the towers. Then the second plane hit, calls wouldn’t go through anymore, and the country came to a screeching halt. At least for a few days. Airplanes were grounded and nobody would go near a tall building anywhere. Where were you #OnSept11? https://twitter.com/#!/jeffjarvis/status/112890453447286784
https://twitter.com/#!/jeffjarvis/status/112891604435603456 https://twitter.com/#!/acarvin/status/112890277160697856
https://twitter.com/#!/mrdavidpatrick/status/112892902857908225
https://twitter.com/#!/scatx/status/112910124246503425 https://twitter.com/#!/nancefinance/status/112889231508111360 https://twitter.com/#!/erickschonfeld/status/112907128599097345 https://twitter.com/#!/kteare/status/112919346908631040 Photo credit: Getty |
Who Said Hackers Don’t Have Style? | Jordan Crook | 2,011 | 9 | 11 | Hackers aren’t necessarily for their sense of fashion. Usually, it’s all about the code. They might as well be wearing jumpsuits — or their birthday suits, for that matter. But here at the Disrupt Hackathon, some of our hackers are trying to prove the world wrong. There is some sartorial splendor afoot, and it’s coming in the form of headwear. That’s right. Hats. Just like these coding wizards at Hackathon, these hats come in many shapes and sizes, colors and styles. Whether they’re fashionable is something we can’t actually report on. We’ll leave that for the general public. But one thing is certain: hackers heart hats. A lot. Below, without further ado, them hats:
Karriem Khan, Nicole Yang, Siamak “Ash” Ashrafi, Devin Foley
Brigham Hausman, Kevin Jhangiani, Raimundo Martinez, Timothy Wu, Omid Ahourai, Tom Puskarich
Justin Mahon, Brett Barrows, Phil Wee
Raises Nebie, Christopher Vong
Nick Pannuto, Vy Chau, Mikita Mikado Danil Kozyatnikov |
TCTV: Darts, Shower Caps, And Other Sights At The TC Disrupt Hackathon | Jason Kincaid | 2,011 | 9 | 11 | Also be sure to check out TC Gadget Chief John Biggs’ video tour, , which covers a lot more ground. |
null | Chris Velazco | 2,011 | 9 | 27 | null |
Former Googler Builds Site That Shows You What Top Tech Companies Pay | Alexia Tsotsis | 2,011 | 9 | 29 | Last night at an informal gathering of tech people, someone likened Silicon Valley to a “Las Vegas for people who want to make crazy shit” equating VCs and angel investors to gamblers of sorts. Well if investors are gamblers, and startups are hands of cards, what does that make engineers? I don’t know (in the Vegas analogy I’m Hunter S. Thompson), but it sure seems like they get paid a lot. Attempting to match up actual numbers to that “a lot,” Google Customer Solutions Engineer Gareth Jones has set up a site called , which allows you to comprehensively search for what $$ various postions will pay at tech heavy hitters, replete with LinkedIn links for said positions so you can put faces to an amount. According to TechCompanyPay, the top five tech companies, in terms of moolah doled out, are Twitter: paying $120K on average, Apple: paying $113K on average, LinkedIn: paying $112K on average, Facebook: paying $110K on average and lastly (which surprised me) Google, at 104K. In a disclaimer Jones says that the data on the site is “very accurate” — probably using — but like most issues of salary should probably be evaluated on a case by case basis. And incase anyone was curious, a Customer Solutions Engineer at Google makes $86K. Jones actually left Google about a month ago he says. So “former Googler,” I guess. |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.