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| Posted: 06 May 2009 08:49 AM PDT
It's a madhouse here at Pace U., but I managed to grab a couple photos. Not my hands, but you can see how big this new DX really is. South Paws might feel like they're being left out with only right-hand side controls, but you can flip the Kindle DX upside and it auto-rotates so the controls are on your left (upside down though). Oh, and Pace U. has been confirmed as the sixth University for the pilot program. Video coming shortly. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
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| URL Shortening Wars: Twitter Ditches TinyURL For bit.ly Posted: 06 May 2009 08:43 AM PDT
To get this implemented, Twitter went with TinyURL, a service that shortens URLs down signficantly (but not extremely) and at the time had been around for years already. It never gave a reason for this choice, but it did provide TinyURL with a lot of exposure and a lot of extra traffic. Those days are over. Apparently, Twitter has silently replaced TinyURL as its default URL shortening service with bit.ly, a competing service that launched quite recently and not too long ago raised $2 million from several prominent angel investors. This is actually not that much of a surprise. Betaworks, the startup accelerator behind Twitter related companies such as Summize (acquired by Twitter in July 2008), is also behind bit.ly, and it just happens to also count early Twitter investors and advisors Chris Sacca and Ron Conway as their own backers. Which obviously prompts this inevatible question: does the move signal Twitter paving the way for an outright acquisition of the URL shortening service provider? (Thanks to Avi Muchnick for letting us know) Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
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| The Big Kindle Revealed (Liveblog) Posted: 06 May 2009 07:32 AM PDT
Amazon is revealing its third Kindle today at a jam-packed press conference in New York City. The new Kindle, which we first caught wind of last year, is expected to have a larger screen to be used for reading newspapers, magazines, and textbooks. (Don’t expect it to save the newspaper industry, though). Arthur Sullzberger, Jr. of the New York Times is in the house I’ll be liveblogging the event, which should start any minute now. Notes: Bezos just stepped on stage. The Kindle vision is every book ever printed available in 60 seconds. 18 months ago launched with 90K books, 200K books with launch of Kindle 2, added another 45K books. Where we have Kindle editions, Kindle is now 35% of books sold for those titles. It took us 14 years to build up our physical books business. We find this very encouraging. Bezos introduces the Kindle DX, built in PDF reader. No zooming, no panning, just read. shows off cookbooks, a picture of Sushi doesn’t look too appetizing in gray-scale, however, atlases, and textbooks. announcing partnership with three top textbook publishers which account for 60% of textbook sales (Pearson, Wiley and Cengage Learning).
5 universities have agreed to pilot Arizona State, Princeton, Reed, U of Virginia, Case Western Reserve Newspapers have been popular. This summer 3 newspapers have agreed to pilot Kindle DX for a reduced price in return for long term commitments for subscriptions, NYT, Washington Post and Boston Globe.subscriptions Bezos is showing off PDF documents. pilots charts, sheet music, a document from Bezos’ library on rocket thruster. “This is the type of document I would have wasted ink toner on.” With a large screen Bezos is showing that with teh larger screen newspaper headlines can now be accompanied with the first few lines of text when scanning headlines. For textbooks, you can change the number of lines and font size that it displays. Kindle has a 9.7 inch display with autorotation. 3G wireless access to 275K books Native PDF support 3.3 GB of memory $9.99 or less for NYT $489 for Kindle DX versus $359 for 6 inch display Here are some pics:
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| Amazon Kindle DX: 9.7-inch Screen For $489 Posted: 06 May 2009 07:24 AM PDT  Amazon's third incarnation of the Kindle is here, folks. All 9.7-inches of it. Specs and info leaked about the now official Kindle over the last week and they seemed pretty much dead on. It comes packing with the larger screen, auto-rotating screen, and finally supports PDF files fully with a native PDF reader. This larger Kindle also ups the storage capacity from 1,500 books on the Kindle 2 to 3,500 on the Kindle DX. The pre-order is up now and will ship shortly if you're willing to drop $489 on one. Here is Amazon's welcome video.
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| Stickam’s StreamAPI Makes Doing Video Live Cheap And Easy Posted: 06 May 2009 04:58 AM PDT
StreamAPI is the white label version of a service Stickam’s been offering to several larger companies for a while now. While most startups probably won’t need to scale as big as an MTV-sized audience, there is still a need to have the appropriate resources to stream live to a large audience. StreamAPI can handle that while giving clients an easy to use, customizable interface and very low per-viewer hour stream rates. How low? Well, while Ustream may charge up to $1 per view hour, with StreamAPI, Stickam is willing to go as low as $0.05 per view hour (depending on quality). And a bigger draw of StreamAPI may be that you can set it up without an expert Flash developer. The service offers a drag and drop editor that is very simple to use. Stickam CEO Steven Fruchter walked me through the process of making your own video streaming area — it took just about a minute to have everything in place and ready to go. “We’re trying to power all live video on the internet,” Fruchter told me. And at such low prices and with a service that’s easy to use, StreamAPI is certainly a compelling offering. Stickam launched in February of 2006, before all of its big rivals, but today it’s often overshadowed by many of them. This new API is its attempt to level the playing field by providing an invaluable service to a lot of smaller startups.
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| Google Testing New Service Features On Chrome First? Posted: 06 May 2009 01:54 AM PDT Chrome is a great browser for Google’s web apps because its JavaScript engine is optimized to run most of them as fast as possible. That alone is reason enough for heavy users of applications like Gmail and Google Reader to use Chrome (if you have a PC anyway — the Mac version is still forthcoming). But Google may also be giving another small advantage to those who surf the web on Chrome: The ability to see new features early. Earlier tonight we received a tip with the screenshots below. As you can see, Google Finance has a brand new interface when browsed to with Chrome versus in Internet Explorer and also Firefox (not pictured). It would seem that Google may be checking for the Chrome user agent and giving those users a glimpse at this new version of Google Finance. Our tipster called it “lame” that Google was only offering the new version of the site to Chrome users. But there is, of course, nothing wrong with Google doing this — provided that it doesn’t mean to permanently offer different (meaning better) versions of sites to only those users using Chrome. But that seems very unlikely. Instead, Google is probably just testing some new features out to a small set of users, just as a lot of other sites do throughout the web. After it was launched last year, Chrome caused a bit of controversy on the web because of Google’s previously strong ties to Mozilla (makers of the Firefox browser). Some were quick to jump to the conclusion that Google entering the browser wars meant that it would specially tailor sites for its own browser and neglect all the others. But Google’s prominent position on the web — particularly with web advertising — pretty much ensures that it has to play nice with all web browsers. Or at least those not named Internet Explorer 6.
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| HamCrunch - The TechCrunch Meetup In Hamburg Tonight Posted: 06 May 2009 01:08 AM PDT
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| Just How Much Money Can Free iPhone Apps Make? Quite A Bit Posted: 06 May 2009 01:07 AM PDT
Earlier this year Pinch Media released a report on the state of the App Store, describing some of the trends it had seen as developers tried to monetize their apps. The verdict: advertising on free applications simply can’t match the payoff from even the least expensive ‘paid’ applications, and would require an unobtainable $8.75 CPM to reach the same income per install. AdWhirl, the iPhone advertising platform formerly known as Adrollo, begs to differ. Since launching last month, the company has signed on over 10% of the top 50 applications in the App Store and is serving 250 million ad impressions per month. And their data tells a different tale. According to co-founder Sam Yam, one of the fundamental flaws in the Pinch Media report is that it assumes that applications only show a single ad impression per user interaction (in other words, every time you open a free app, you only see one ad). Yam says that applications actually tend to serve 3-5 impressions each time a customer interacts with them, with even higher figures for some especially engaging applications. And when you divide that $8.75 CPM by 5, things become much more reasonable. The AdWhirl report, embedded below, says that applications that crack the top 100 in the Free Apps list make $400-$5000 a day - a wide range to be sure, but even at the low end that works out to around $12,000 a month. Among these top apps, AdWhirl is reporting an impressive $1.90 eCPM and 2.6% CTR. And while applications that do reach the peak position in the App Store eventually lose steam, revenue tends to remain consistent over time after the initial dip (see the graph below). Of course, making it to the top of the Free Apps list is easier said than done, and most developers make far less than $400 a day. But the same is true of the vast majority of paid applications too - in fact, there’s actually less competition on the Free side of the store.  As for AdWhirl, it seems like the startup is off to a great start. The company allows developers to tap into multiple iPhone ad networks at once, allowing them to compensate when one network doesn’t have enough ad inventory (something that AdWhirl says happens as much as 40% of the time). Finally, it’s important to note that it’s obviously in AdWhirl’s interest to promote iPhone advertising, since that’s their business. But it’s clear that there are definitely quite a few free applications making good money,.
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| South Carolina Gives Craigslist Ultimatum: Remove Prostitution Or Face Criminal Charges Posted: 05 May 2009 11:30 PM PDT
Years ago if a crime was committed and anyone involved had a MySpace account, the press focused only on the MySpace angle. The attorneys general went after them with a vengeance. Then it was Facebook, who managed to stay in the spotlight only momentarily. Now Craigslist is firmly in the AGs’ sites. And those AGs aren’t going to just sit by and do nothing as mainstream press paints a horrifying picture of sexual debauchery and murder. There’s easy press out there for the taking, people, and these AGs aren’t going to let this opportunity pass them by. Earlier today Henry McMaster, the Attorney General of South Carolina, wrote to Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster. The letter, copied below, starts with “I hope you will take immediate steps to end craigslist from being used to facilitate harmful activities in South Carolina.” It ends with a threat of “criminal investigation and prosecution” if ads for prostitution aren’t removed from the South Carolina parts of craigslist by this Friday. McMaster also expressed concern that pornographic images were displayed on Craigslist and were accessible by minors. Craigslist responded on their blog without saying much. We’ll put the pornography issue aside as purely ridiculous (see Google image search and all the rest of the smut filled Internet). But the recent “Craigslist Murder” of a prostitute (or massage therapist, whatever) is going to be too much for Craigslist to overcome. The AGs will salivate over a lawsuit, which equates to press and votes and has no downside. The erotic services category on Craigslist is likely history sometime soon. And, alarmingly, anonymity on the site in general may follow not too long afterwards. Here’s the letter: HENRY McMASTER Mr. Jim Buckmaster I hope you will take immediate steps to end craigslist from being used to facilitate harmful activities in As you are aware, in November 2008 you entered into an agreement with forty state attorneys general and Recent national events, along with ongoing law enforcement efforts in South Carolina, indicate that Also of concern is the unrestricted manner in which graphic pornographic pictures are posted and displayed Many of the classified and communication services on the craigslist site provide the public with a valuable Therefore, please be advised that the craigslist management may be subj ect to criminal investigation and Yours very truly, Henry McMaster Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
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| Posted: 05 May 2009 09:15 PM PDT  It's time to get completely off RSS and switch to Twitter. RSS just doesn't cut it anymore. The River of News has become the East River of news, which means it's not worth swimming in if you get my drift. I haven't been in Google Reader for months. Google Reader is the dominant RSS reader. I've done the math: Twitter 365 Google Reader 0. All my RSS feeds are in Google Reader. I don't go there any more. Since all my feeds are in Google Reader and I don't go there, I don't use RSS anymore. Of course, my friends use RSS, or they used to. Pretty much every blog has an RSS feed, and aggregators like TechMeme spider RSS feeds as well as the original pages on the sites. I've wired up TCIT, the Gillmor Gang feed, and my YouTube feed on my FriendFeed, but that's FriendFeed using RSS, not me. I believe FriendFeed outputs RSS, but I don't use it.
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| LetSimonDecide Takes On Life’s Tough Choices Posted: 05 May 2009 07:09 PM PDT
Nobody likes to make difficult decisions. And while the web has offered outlets for advice for years, ranging from forums to sites like Yahoo Answers, these are prone to flame wars and grossly incorrect information. Now, some new startups are emerging that are looking to take the community element - or at least the flamewars associated with it - out of the equation. Today sees the launch of LetSimonDecide, a new site that looks to help make decisions easier across a variety of topics, ranging from picking a college major to determining if you should buy or sell your stock. The obvious competitor here is Hunch the new startup from Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake. And while there are some definite similarities - both startups revolve around decision making - they’re taking very different approaches. While it is powered by complex algorithms, Hunch’s data comes primarily from the community - you essentially vote on each portion of the decision process to determine how it should impact subsequent users. This means that you’re exposed to new options that you might not have previously been aware of, but it also means that you’ll occasionally get a suggestion that you’d never consider as a viable option. Conversely, Simon is more about helping figure out what’s important to you, and then basing a decision off that. In a way, it’s like an enhanced version of the traditional Pro/Con lists people make when they’re trying to make a decision. It sounds a bit odd at first, so I’ll try to demonstrate how it works with an example. After logging into Simon, I was prompted to build a personal profile, which asked for some of my overarching life goals (these include moving to England and writing a book, for those who are curious). It also asked a handful of other questions, like my favorite activities and my personality type (there’s a choice from a half dozen categories).
From there, I tried using the site to help me with a decision. The first one I tried was to help me pick a college major - a decision I grappled with years ago that I figured might be a common choice for newcomers to the site. The site first asked me for the options I was considering (Political Science and Biology), and then which attributes about each should factor into my decision (I chose ‘Is It Interesting?’, ‘Work Load’, and ‘Job Potential’). The site then asked me to rate each major in terms of these three attributes, and how each would affect my quest to achieve my life goals. Based on my input, it spat out an answer (Biology). So rather than look at data input by the community, Simon used data I had previously entered to help make my decision. Because there isn’t a large database of existing questions and responses it feels a little too basic at first - it’s effectively just presenting you with questions that you wrote for yourself. At the same time, I can see why it could be useful. It forces you to figure out exactly what’s important to you, and helps you make your decision accordingly. And in the end, that’s really the best these services can do. For any genuinely important decision, you probably don’t want to rely on the wisdom of the crowds to land on your ultimate verdict - the average answer isn’t always the best one for all of us. So Simon holds your hand and helps you come to your own conclusions. It’s better than the old fashioned Pro/Con list, but it may still have a hard time attracting many users - unlike Hunch, it isn’t all that fun. LetSimonDecide is the newest product from Ayax Systems, a consumer research company. Rather than include advertising on the site, Ayax is planning to use aggregate anonymized data to generate reports, which it can then sell to universities and Think-tanks.  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
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| AT&T Finally Releases What Should Have Been The First iPhone App Posted: 05 May 2009 07:01 PM PDT  Say you're a wireless carrier with an exclusive deal on the hottest wireless device with the most popular application store. What do you do? Well, up until now, AT&T's answer has been basically nothing. It had released zero apps taking advantage of the fast growing iPhone platform. Today, it finally got around to releasing one. AT&T myWireless Mobile (horrible name -- iTunes link) is an app that does the obvious: It allows users to view and pay their wireless bills from the iPhone. You can also see your current usage and add or remove features from your plan. Given AT&T's close deal with Apple, shouldn't this have been the very first app developed for the platform? Instead, we get it about 10 months later, after other apps, like Pageonce's Celltracker [iTunes link], have launched with the exact same functionality.
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| Star Trek Screening: First Tickets Available Now Posted: 05 May 2009 06:47 PM PDT
Update to our Star Trek screening on opening night this week: Tickets are now available at Eventbrite. This is a Thursday, May 7 screening at 7 p.m. in Redwood City at the Century 20 theater (it’s new, and awesome). This is the earliest the public can see the movie, so you’ll be among the first to experience it. The theater holds 600 people. We’re paying for the price of the ticket, and charging a $2 fee to minimize no shows. After the show we’ll meet at the nearby Broadway Cocktail Lounge for a drink or three. If additional sponsors (thanks, EventBrite!) come in there may be free drinks and popcorn. If you are interested in sponsoring, email asad at techcrunch. If you aren’t attending, please do not purchase a ticket. No shows mean an empty seat and you won’t be able to attend future TechCrunch events. If you email us that you can’t attend, we can fill that spot later. See you Thursday! Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
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| NetHaggler Will Barter With Online Retailers For You Posted: 05 May 2009 06:25 PM PDT
With retail spending at all-time lows thanks to the current recession, stores are looking for ways to provide deals, sales and discounts for consumers. Some stores are even letting consumers haggle for prices. NetHaggler is hoping to woo both consumers and online retailers by providing a service that lets users track and negotiate prices online. Free for consumers, NetHaggler has enlisted retailers to participate in its service through affiliate marketing services, like LinkShare. After installing a simple and secure bookmarklet (called the “Hagglet”), users can click on the link on the link in your bookmarks bar and draw a box with a cropping tool around any product that is from an affiliate NetHaggler Store. This lets NetHaggler capture and store the product and price information so the site can work its negotiation magic. The site will then let you choose whether you want to Tag, Nag or Haggle a product. Tagging an item lets you enter a specific price and then get updates via email with price reductions that occur over the next few weeks or months. Nagging, which is NetHaggler’s flagship offering, enlists NetHaggler to determine whether consumers are eligible for an immediate discount on the list price. Consumers can submit a price that they are willing to pay and then NetHaggler will return with an yes, no or counteroffer from the retailer. NetHaggler’s founder, Satya Iluri, says that the site employs an algorithm to determine how much of a discount the retailer is willing to negotiate (if any) and also takes into account the consumers behavior in the site. Haggling lets you do something similar to nagging, because you still can request a discount and indicate how much you are willing to spend. But if the item you haggle happens to be a popular item amongst other NetHaggler users, then NetHaggler will negotiate a volume pricing or bulk deal that will produce a steeper discount, says Iluri. Its important to note that the discount a consumer receives through NetHaggler will not be deducted from the price of the product (you have the pay the full price). You will instead be issued payment of the discount through PayPal or a check. NetHaggler only makes money if the consumer buys a product; the company receives a small commission on each sale. The ability to track the price fluctuation of a product isn’t new—tracking sites like Trackle and Notify.Me also let you track the prices of retail goods. Aroxo is doing this for eBay and Fididel also has a haggling site. The haggling part of the site may be attractive in the current spending market. NetHaggler has a roster of big names affiliate retailers on the site, including Macy’s, Wal-Mart, BestBuy, and Nordstrom but when I tried to sign up to “Nag” a retailer for a shirt on Abercrombie & Fitch.com, I was only able to Tag or Haggle, the nagging feature wasn’t available for A&F although it is a supported retailer. I also tried to “Nag” a product at Macy’s and was unable to do so. Illuri says that some retail sites don't have the necessary data feed connectivity and web services to work for the Nag function, which is a shame because that is the feature I would use most.   Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
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| Looky What Apple’s Promoting: QuickPWN Posted: 05 May 2009 06:12 PM PDT If you own an iPhone or iPod touch you’ve probably at least heard of QuickPWN, the jailbreaking tool. You’d think Apple doesn’t want you know know about it, because it allows you to open up your iPhone to use apps outside of the App Store ecosystem. But looks what we found: In Apple’s own webapp directory, Apple has a listing for QuickPWN. And in fact, if you do a Google search for “QuickPwn Apple,” this directory listing is the number one result. Granted, this is just a webapp directory listing, so it’s not like Apple let a QuickPWN third-party app slip by the App Store approval process, but still, it’s kind of funny to see it there. And the developer who put it there (who, incidentally, is not associated with the actual QuickPWN Dev Team) is planning to try to make an actual App Store app soon, he tells us. Good luck getting that in there — but you never know, stranger things have gotten through the approval nets. Update: And like that — it’s gone.
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| Sequoia-Backed Kenshoo Moves to San Francisco Posted: 05 May 2009 05:06 PM PDT
Sequoia doubled down on Kenshoo with a second round last March. That round came with a healthy valuation, a 50% premium over the previous funding. Moritz isn't alone. Kenshoo is one of the hottest companies in Israel. It's already turned down two smallish acquisition offers and was the buzz of the investors and corporate Internet folks at Kinnernet. One executive said, "Google will buy them for $150 million to $200 hundred million once they figure out they need them." There were nods all around. Sequoia helped Kenshoo shift from a professional full-service model to more of a simple-to-use, cheaper-to-deliver software-as-a-service play. No doubt Sequoia can also help advise on the potentially thorny situation Kenshoo is in now that its biggest partner (Google) has acquired its biggest competitor (DoubleClick). Moritz also advised Izhar-Prato to focus more on the U.S. market, hence the move. There's a knock that Israeli entrepreneurs are only good at tech, but Izhar-Prato is actually a sales guy and apparently a pretty good one. When I met with him in Israel in April he told me the company was managing $20 million in U.S. search advertising budgets. He said they were managing more than $100 million total, but he also said that number was doubling every few months and that was a few months ago. Competitor Marin Software says it manages $300 million. But, hey, Marin doesn't include Zappos in that impressive tally anymore. Kenshoo stole them. And yes, Zappos is also Sequoia-backed. A good number of haters have noted that a lot of Kenshoo’s high profile U.S. customers are Sequoia-backed companies, suggesting that Kenshoo didn't exactly earn the business. But isn't that just the so-called "value add" of having connected investors? You think Sequoia didn't play a role in the Google-YouTube deal? Regardless, no start-up is going to pay a company that doesn’t deliver. Indeed, Alfred Lin, of Zappos, says the company was asked to check out Kenshoo, but their technology won the business, period. He says Zappos is discovering a whole long tail of keywords it wouldn't have otherwise. Lin, Moritz and crew are at a fancy party that started about two minutes ago to welcome Kenshoo to its new headquarters. I was invited…on Izhar-Prato's provision that I behave. (Whatever that is.) I'll update the post with anything new I learn. Update: Look at what Moritz wrote on the wall:
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| The 24/7 TechCrunch Office Cam Is Up And Running Posted: 05 May 2009 04:26 PM PDT
A few of you have been kind enough to stop by and visit and see us at work. But for those of you who haven’t stopped by, you can now see what we’re up to 24/7, thanks to Ustream. The TechCrunch cam is now up and running (or crunchcam), strategically placed at an angle to show as much of the office as possible. We’ll leave this on as often as we can, and it will double as a security camera at night. Please be patient if it goes down from time to time today, our tech team is busy duct taping the camera to an Ikea lamp that we’re using as a tripod. First class all the way here at TechCrunch. We may install a second camera with a directional microphone to allow some limited audio. Stay tuned.
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| Forget Apple, Amazon Should Buy Twitter. Why Not? Posted: 05 May 2009 04:23 PM PDT
Editor’s note: The guest post below was written by Brian Lawe, CEO and Founder of MyStoreCredit. Brian’s company develops e-commerce tools around payments, cross-promotion and customer mapping. He’s been watching Twitter for some time. The rumors are ripe that Apple, Microsoft, Google and News Corp are all sniffing around Twitter – but no one has mentioned the best fit: Amazon. If Amazon doesn’t jump into the arena, someone at Twitter ought to make a call to Jeff Bezos. Neither Amazon nor Twitter should miss the powerful synergies from merging the two companies. To wit:
Twitter needs a revenue model. Like democracy, the one I propose is the worst—except for all others. I wish the Twitter folks all the best in their decisions in the days ahead. But if Amazon doesn’t step-up to the plate now—and with a very big bat—they will have missed one hell of an opportunity. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
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| Follow The Money: Bookies Favor Apple For A Twitter Buyout Posted: 05 May 2009 03:05 PM PDT
Believe who you want. Twitter may or may not be possibly in late stage discussions with Apple about an acquisition (we’re going with no, though some have said otherwise). Now how about putting some money on it? Last month we covered a Panama-based company called BetOnline that’s doing exactly that, allowing users to bet on which company (if any) will be acquiring Twitter in 2009. Things are apparently going well for the company, because it has just opened up another round of betting, updated with a new set of intial odds. And the money is currently on Apple, which is a 2-1 favorite for gobbling up the micromessaging startup sometime this year. The figures are based on the closing volumes of bets from the first round ‘twitter acquisition’ market, along with input from BetOnline researchers who apparently are putting a lot of faith into the Apple rumors (or they know something we don’t). Google, which was at even money for the last round, has fallen to 5-to-2 odds in the new round. Microsoft has jumped from 10-to-1 odds to 5-to-1. And apparently the bookies believe that someone is going to buy Twitter soon, because the odds for ‘no acquisition’ have gone from 2.5-to-1 to 4-to-1. Here’s the full list of intitial odds. Note that these will change over time, so now might be your chance to jump on this if you have any inside info. Apple +200 – (2-to-1) Betting on startup acquisitions is cool enough, but the BetOnline team is doing something even more awesome. They’re currently climbing Mount Everest, where they’re going to place the first online bet to be taken from the highest point on Earth. And they’re going to be giving away $20,000 to the charity that receives the most ‘@’ reply votes on their Twitter account before they make the top. They’re about half way there, with plans to make it to the summit in the second half of this month. Wow. And may The Force be with you guys…
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| Video Of SGN’s Unlaunched iPhone Jet Dogfighter Game (Verdict: Awesomeness) Posted: 05 May 2009 01:56 PM PDT
Social Gaming Network (among the first to exploit the iPhone accelerometer to create Wii-like games), is coming out with a new jet fighter dogfight game. The graphics are stunning, and you can fight against computer opponents or other people playing the game. This isn’t the first iPhone dogfight game (Flying Aces and Top Gun are popular), but the graphics are way beyond what I’ve seen with the other games, the social fighting aspect is a first and unlike those games, SGN’s will be free. I had a chance to play it this morning in our offices, a video of that demo is below. The application hasn’t been named yet and is still a month or so from launch, but SGN says if you email launch@sgn.com they’ll respond back when the game launches. The game will be free, and eventually users will be able to pay to upgrade their jets and weapons. In the first version users will train and add levels, but when the iPhone 3 comes out this summer, they say, a war is going to break out.
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| Screenshots Of Google’s Next Social Step Posted: 05 May 2009 01:20 PM PDT We just received a screenshot of an iGoogle page, that appears to show a couple interesting new elements of Google’s ever-evolving social blanket. The screenshot supposedly comes from the developer sandbox version of iGoogle (where it tests out new features), and shows options to socially integrate Google widgets. The one shown in the image below is the Google Finance widget, which apparently will be able to access your Google Contacts and place its activity in something called “Updates.” It’s worth noting that Google just recently rolled out a version of Google Contacts that is wholly separate from Gmail. Why a Google Finance widget would need to access that data, I’m not sure. Perhaps it has some kind of easy-to-use “share this with” functionality. Or more specifically, as our tipster notes, that data may be be used to filter who you share something with in your social sphere. But the more interesting element is the posting to the Updates area. One would have to imagine that this will be a river of information similar to Facebook’s News Feed, that will pipe in new information from you when you update something. Where such an Updates area resides will be extremely important. I’d guess it will be on your Google Profile, but there needs to be a centralized place for a full contact stream as well — or centralized places. Maybe Google will simply make another widget for all of your contacts’ updates to place on your iGoogle homepage or maybe even in Gmail. That seems like a smart play as it would be taking on Facebook by doing something slightly different than what Facebook is doing — allowing you to choose the area you wish to view the social stream. There would only be a walled garden insomuch as Google itself is a walled garden — a giant walled garden that encircles most of the web. Of course, Facebook is attempting to at least somewhat do this as well by opening its data stream outside of its walls. I’ve made my distaste for some of Google’s social stumbles very clear. But, if this screenshot is legit, it shows a broader picture that is starting to make some sense. The real question now will be if Google will be able to keep all of this relatively complex tangle of social elements (and the underlying social relationships) simple enough for any user to grasp. Facebook had been really good at that, but it’s getting more complicated. Keep it simple, Google — and it just may pay off.
Update: The iGoogle Developer site has a FAQ which answers more questions about the impending social features. Here’s the key section:
And here’s another screenshot:
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| Tweetmeme Is Getting Freakin’ Awesome Posted: 05 May 2009 12:25 PM PDT
Tweetmeme is on a tear. According to Compete, the Twitter-centric link tracker went from nowhere in February, 2009 (with 26,000 unique visitors) to more than tenfold increase in March (to 385,000 uniques). Nick Halstead, The CEO of UK-based Fav.or.it, the company behind Tweetmeme, tells me he is tracking closer to 200,000 uniques a month based on yesterday’s visitors, but that he is adding 50 percent a week. Tweetmeme seems to be pulling way ahead of the other Twitter link sites such as Twitturly or Twit Links. Any way you slice it, Tweetmeme is doing something right. The site shows the most popular links on Twitter ranked by a combination of the number times the link has been Tweeted (shown as a big number beside each headline), recentness, and momentum of Tweets. It also categorizes different news stories based on the title of the post or article, the underlying domain, and hash tags within the Tweets. You can sort by Comedy, Entertainment, Gaming, Lifestyle, Science, Sports, Technology, or World & Business. You can also sort by news, Images, or videos. It pulls together 200,000 links, images, and videos every day now. And you can follow what is makes it on Tweetmeme’s homepage via Twitter itself by following the @Tweetmeme account or sub-accounts for each channel such as @tm-technology or @tm_comedy. Today, it added OAuth, which lets you sign in with your Twitter account and retweet headlines without leaving the page. It also launched a toolbar, which will be controversial because it opens up the underlying link within a Tweetmeme URL and frame much like the Diggbar does. Instead of showing how many times the story has been Dugg, the frame shows a count of how many times the story has been Tweeted along with a “Shuffle” button (equivalent to the Diggbar’s “Random” button) that will take you to another highly Tweeted story.
I am not a big fan of the toolbar in principle, but I can see why Halstead added it. It keeps people on Tweetmeme and drives more activity. At least, it can be easily closed. But with every site adding its own frames these days, pretty soon there won’t be any room left for the actual destination site you are trying to look at. What I am a big fan of, though, is that after a recent relaunch, it just keeps adding features. A few weeks ago it added a “live” tab which shows the most Tweeted links stream onto the page much like FriendFeed now handles your personal activity stream. Thankfully, you can set it to stream only stories that have been Tweeted at least 5, 10, or 20 times. Even setting it to 5 links is unreadable because the stream moves down too fast, but at 10 or 20 its becomes more manageable and addictive in that you can watch the most popular links in the Twittersphere stream by in real time. This live stream of relevant headlines is much more immediate even than what you find on Techmeme, which can take hours to change meaningfully. With so many sites gunning for Techmeme’s crown as the ultimate arbiter of what news is being talked about the most on the Web (I wrote about one such attempt earlier today), the real threat is going to come from somebody like Tweetmeme, which plays to different strengths. The question is whether Twitter will be a better place to mine for buzz than blogs, news sites, or the rest of the Web. Right now, I’d say the answer is no. Not because Tweetmeme doesn’t surface the most Tweeted stories, but because everyone on Twitter seems to be obsessed with linking to stories about Twitter! For instance, right now 6 of the top ten headlines on Tweetmeme are about Twitter acquisition rumors. To be fair, that was also the top story on Techmeme for most of the day. But at least Techmeme has moved on (to Kindle rumors!). Will the stories on Tweetmeme ever become more relevant and timely than on Techmeme? If I were Gabe Rivera, I’d start worrying now.
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| Come See Star Trek On Opening Night With Us (Silicon Valley) Posted: 05 May 2009 12:16 PM PDT Update: Tickets now available
The original Star Trek series was my first foray into science fiction, and I have fond memories of watching those original episodes with my dad as a kid. So I’m about as excited as a person can be about the new Star Trek movie coming out this Thursday. And I want to share that excitement with 600 or so of my closest friends. We’re hosting a Star Trek screening in Silicon Valley on opening night, this Thursday May 7. Our big goal is to get through this without getting any litigation threats, but we’ll see. Want to come? More details soon, but here are the basics: the screening will be held on Thursday at 7 pm at the Redwood City Century 20 theater. We’ll be charging a couple of dollars to reduce no shows, but otherwise the event is on us. We’ll also be organizing a meeting at a local bar/venue (hopefully with live music, but we’ll see). If you’re interested in sponsoring the event or the drinks afterwards, email Asad at TechCrunch and he’ll give you the details. We’re hoping to find someone who’ll buy everyone popcorn or a drink afterwards at the bar. See you Thursday! And if you can’t make it, don’t worry. I’ll live stream the whole thing on Qik. Update: Here’s season 1, episode 1 of the original Star Trek:
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| Tesla Founder Elon Musk Dreams Of Electric Airplanes Posted: 05 May 2009 10:56 AM PDT
Last week, Elon Musk had a candid conversation with VC George Zachary at the Charles River Ventures CEO Summit. One of the most interesting things Musk talked about was his desire to see electric airplanes in the future—and perhaps even one day help develop these green, energy efficient planes himself. It makes sense—Musk has an interest in aeronautics (he founded Space Exploration Technologies, SpaceX, in 2002, which develops and manufactures space launch vehicles), energy efficiency and sustainability. Electric planes combine these three in a nice package. Musk also mentioned his electric plane idea in an interview at the Churchill Club earlier this year (see video below), where he says he’s very interested in developing an “electric super sonic plane” one day. The nascent technology for an electronic airplane is still relatively unknown but perhaps Musk will change that in the not too distant future. The videos are below with a transcript of the dialogue between Zachary and Musk: Zachary: What will you do next-will you stay inside the three areas Musk: I don’t think I’ll go outside of the three areas. There’s a [inaudible] on the sustainable energy front. I have an idea for an electric plane and really one that you can go suspersonic in. And then it would be interesting to take a look at fusion. That’s a really tough problem. Zachary: So that should keep you busy for awhile. Arrington: I want hear more about the electric plane that you brought up really early on in the talk and how realistic that is from a technology standpoint and from a new startup standpoint possibly. Is it possibe technically to do that in an interesting way. Seems like a lot of batteries. Musk: It’s a lot of batteries.Technically an electric plane gets more feasible as battery energy improves. It’s definitely feasible right now. Its just a questions of the range . . . You have to have energy density for a global plane. Basically, the electrocarrier as it functions for a plane has to be very high and then ultimately, it’s how you really use the fact that you have an electric motor driving the plane as opposed to a jet engine which is taking [inaudible]. You have to design a plane differently to deal with . . . its an interesting configuration of what you can do with vertical takeoff and landing angles with the design. It’s a tricky problem. I try not to think about because I have too much to think about. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
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| Twishitter: Twitter Apps Head Towards The Gutter Posted: 05 May 2009 10:22 AM PDT
Twishitter is a service meant for one purpose: To collect people’s tweets while in the bathroom. If you use Twitter, you’ve probably done it, or seen someone at a bar doing it. Now, there’s an app to follow all the action live. To use it, simply include either “@twishitter” or “#poo” in your tweets, and they’ll appear in the Twishitter timeline. Of course, I’m looking at the site right now and it appears that it’s just aggregating any tweet that includes words like “crap,” which most of the time is completely unrelated. You can easily retweet Twishitter tweets from the site, or leave comments below the tweets on the site itself. Yeah, it’s stupid, and yeah it’s gross, but at least the creators have a sense of humor. Here’s a few choice bits from the site:
It also, hilariously, has an ad for ExecTwshitter — ripping into ExecTweets, the Twitter service for execs that was the first third-party to be sponsored in ads on Twitter. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
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Sharing links on 
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We’re here at the 
The various state attorneys general have focused like a laser on Craigslist these past weeks. Like most politicians hoping to get reelected, Attorneys General tend to follow the press and jump in front of any parade they see. 
Uber-VC Mike Mortiz has a new BFF, and he's moving to Silicon Valley. It's Yoav Izhar-Prato, the co-founder and CEO of Kenshoo, an Israeli start-up that gives companies and advertising firms tools and services to manage sophisticated search campaigns. Sequoia 
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It’s inevitable. A platform becomes popular, gains mainstream appeal, and the race to the bottom begins. We saw this happen with the iPhone, where a plethora of farting applications hit the store. But it happens, at least in part, because people enjoy the humorous, crude app every once in a while. The success that iFart and other apps of that ilk point to this — or at least to their novelty. Now Twitter is getting it’s own gross apps. But they’re not wasting their time talking about farting — they’re going right to the shitter.| You are subscribed to email updates from TechCrunch To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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