The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- Twitter Starts Rolling Out Lists To Everybody. Have You Gotten Yours?
- Netlog To Launch Global Social Game Distribution Platform Called Gatcha!
- PlayHaven Lets iPhone Developers Create In-App And Online Gaming Communities
- PlaySpan Strikes Deal With Nickelodeon To Power Microtransactions
- Amazon Launches PayPhrase — Will It Be Easy To Game?
- Mobile And Social Platforms Want To Be The King Of Local Search
- Netlog Gets A New Look, Signs Up Half A Million New Users Every Week
- With Open Graph, Facebook Sets Out To Make The Entire Web Its Tributary System
- Meet Zong+, A Mobile Payments Platform On Steroids And Potential PayPal Killer
- With, Not Without U2, YouTube Saw 10 Million Streams Sunday Night
- Venture Capital’s Q3 Temperature
- Google’s Eric Schmidt On Magical Potential Of Mobile + Cloud
- Google Music Onebox: Video Interviews With Just About Everyone Involved
- It’s Almost Here: Exclusive Video Of Lala’s Upcoming iPhone App
- Netvibes Delivers A Potent Stream Reader With Wasabi (Beta Invites)
- Mac Browser Camino 2 Gets A Release Candidate
- DeepDyve: Like iTunes for Scientific Papers
- Live From Google’s Music Roundtable In Hollywood
- Two More iPhone Overhaul Concepts: Multitasking And Dashboard Widgets. Would You Use These?
- Google’s Response To FCC Inquiry: We Now Restrict Calls To Fewer Than 100 Phone Numbers
- Live From Hollywood: Google’s Music Onebox Launches, Powered By MySpace And Lala
- Five Things That May Shock You about the LOLCats Network
- Live: Storming The Beaches Of Facebook’s Developer Roadmap Event
- The Bearable Lightness of Droid: The iPhone Aesthetic Has Finally Hit the Majors
- Google Should Make Apple Beg For Maps Navigation
| Twitter Starts Rolling Out Lists To Everybody. Have You Gotten Yours? Posted: 29 Oct 2009 08:44 AM PDT
Ever since Twitter announced it is working on a new Lists feature a month ago, users and developers have been awaiting its broad rollout. Over the past few weeks, Twitter has been expanding the number of people in the Lists beta, but now it appears that a full rollout is under way. As of yesterday, Twitter employee Nik Kallen reported that “25% of all users have Lists.” And then he Tweeted: “We’re releasing lists to even more people. Don’t get your panties in a bunch, Twitter.” Judging from the what we are hearing from tapped-in Twitter developers, the buzz on Twitter itself, and our tip box, a full rollout is under way and is expected to be completed either today or tomorrow. (Remember, this is Twitter, so there are no guarantees). Why is everyone so excited about these Lists? Finally, you will be able to create groups of people you follow on Twitter. So if there are 10 or 20 people who consistently deliver good Tweets, you can separate them out from the rest of your stream and just listen to them. Or you can create lists by topic, people you actually know versus people you only know via Twitter, or any other category. And the cool thing about these Lists is that once somebody makes a good list, other people can follow that entire list, which makes it much easier to get started on Twitter. Because finding interesting people to follow is actually a lot of work. Has Lists been turned on for you yet? Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.   |
| Netlog To Launch Global Social Game Distribution Platform Called Gatcha! Posted: 29 Oct 2009 08:07 AM PDT  I'm currently blogging from a boat, rented by Belgian social network operator Netlog to host about a hundred of their closest business partners for a presentation about their freshly redesigned website and a roadmap of what's in store for the future. In their presentation, co-founders Toon Coppens and Lorenz Bogaert introduced something other than the newly revamped site. The company has also been developing a separately branded social gaming platform called Gatcha! which was talked about publicly for the first time today. |
| PlayHaven Lets iPhone Developers Create In-App And Online Gaming Communities Posted: 29 Oct 2009 08:00 AM PDT
Games, both online and on mobile devices, draw such an intense following that often there are fan communities and forums created entirely around a single game. PlayHaven is hoping to empower developers with the tools to create their own online and in-game (for the iPhone only for now) fan communities for free. PlayHaven has created shell communities around 15,000 games on Apple’s app store, so most developers can automatically claim their community. If their community hasn’t been pre-created, developers can also create their own communities. The transition between online communities and in-game communities are fairly seamless, says Raymond Lau, co-founder and CEO of PlayHaven. Lau says that in-game communities on iPhone apps can be integrated by inserting a snippet of code. In the app, the “community” feature will be able to be accessed under the menu button, so users can access the community from within the feature. On both the app and online communities, fans and developers can share their passion for games by creating guides, tips, reviews, and other content. Developers can also have a channel to connect to fans to notify users of news and new releases. PlayHaven is already testing its communities in-game and online for several apps, including Geared, Minigore and The Quest. In fact, one-third of all Geared players are active on PlayHaven’s community on a daily basis. Competitors include OpenFeint and Plus+.  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| PlaySpan Strikes Deal With Nickelodeon To Power Microtransactions Posted: 29 Oct 2009 06:50 AM PDT
We just wrote about PlaySpan’s recent study showing positive growth in the exchange and e-commerce of virtual goods exchange. PlaySpan powers micro-payments across over 1,000 video games and virtual worlds and has virtual goods storefronts on Facebook, MySpace, within games and on its standalone site. Today, PlaySpan is announcing a fairly significant deal with Nickelodeon to power payment services for virtual goods and microtransactions for the Nickelodeon Kids and Family Virtual Worlds Group. PlaySpan’s technology and services will power Nickelodeon’s virtual worlds' currency, called NeoCash, across multiple payment providers including credit cards and prepaid cards. Through PlaySpan's subsidiary PayByCash, Nickelodeon will offer users over 80 global payment methods. This is a big move for PlaySpan, considering Nickelodeon’s vast reach and popular games, including virtual world NeoPets, which has a user base of 45 million gamers. PlaySpan recently acquired micro-transaction app developer Spare Change, which powered micropayments across 700 social networking apps on Facebook, MySpace, and Bebo. Earlier this year, PlaySpan also made deal to power micropayments on hi5. Micropayments are huge these days and the number of players are scaling quickly. With continued expansion on social networks, media properties and virtual worlds, startup PlaySpan has become a player in an arena where bigger players like PayPal, Facebook and MySpace are all investing in. In fact, PayPal’s new API powers micropayments. The competition may be stiff but as micropayments for virtual goods continue to gain traction in virtual worlds and integrate with consumers’ social graphs, there is definite potential for both startups like PlaySpan, Live Gamer and Zuora, and the more established players to play in the same pool. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| Amazon Launches PayPhrase — Will It Be Easy To Game? Posted: 29 Oct 2009 06:14 AM PDT
It’s simple stuff. You set up a unique phrase like “Axe Murderer” or “Car Lover” or “Honey I shrunk the kids” and tie it to a 4-digit PIN. This is linked to your Amazon account which, of course, is pre-loaded with your credit card and shipping address. I do have to wonder what was so hard about entering an email address and password, but clearly Amazon’s psychological research unit thought “Fluffy Bunnies”, or some such, was going to be easier for the average Jane or Joe to remember. It’s also positioned as a parent/teen solution competing (kind of) with PayPal Student Accounts, because, like the latter, you could give your student son or daughter a PayPhrase which access your account which doesn’t actually access your account controls. PayPhrase lets parents track spending and set account permissions/alerts/etc. There are other participating websites which will be implementing PayPhrase, including DKNY.com, Jockey.com, and Buy.com that already accept by Amazon’s Checkout service. Of course, earlier this month, eBay came up with its Bill Me Later deferred payment option for both eBay and PayPal which will be carried by Toys R Us, Zappos.com, Petco and Wal-Mart among others. However, how many people are not going to have a cutesy phrase and default instead to something like “Dad’s Birthday”. All you then need do is type in a plausible month and day like “0820″ for the PIN and… voila! And how many people will just use “1234″ for their PIN? Plenty. What do you think? Leave your thoughts in the comments. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| Mobile And Social Platforms Want To Be The King Of Local Search Posted: 29 Oct 2009 05:27 AM PDT
The study shows that the web generally, but in particular mobile and social network search, are increasingly factors fueling growth in the overall search market. This grew to 21.9 billion total US searches in June 2009, a year-on-year increase of 31%. In particular 4% of ‘young people’ do their searches for local information on social sites like Facebook. That figure can only grow:
It’s interesting that traditional directories remain strong. Internet Yellow Pages type sites sites gained ground, from 19% usage last year to 21% this year. As you’d expect, print directories declined 3%, but I would have thought flat directory type sites would be going down. Anyhoo, more interestingly, mobile search is booming, with 32% of searchers with internet-capable cellphones now searching for local business information, an 11% increase from 2008. Some 60% of smartphone owners search either via their on-board browsers or via applications, and you can bet most of those will be iPhone users. I love the stat that shows that only 5% of mobile searchers send text messages from their cellphones to directory assistance. I mean why would you – you’re already on the Web? However, SMS is convenient and growing – overall, the number of mobile users who got their local information via SMS increased by 27%. The study also shows that the most popular local content categories searched on mobile are directories (42%), maps (41%), restaurants (37%) and movies (30%). [Hat tip to Marketing Vox] Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| Netlog Gets A New Look, Signs Up Half A Million New Users Every Week Posted: 29 Oct 2009 04:04 AM PDT  Today, Netlog - the 'European MySpace' as they're often referred to - is hosting a Partner Day at and around their global headquarters in Ghent, Belgium. The most important thing the company will be sharing is a look at their redesigned website, which has been in the works for about a year and is today being rolled out to a number of key countries. I got an exclusive preview of the revamped website from co-founder Toon Coppens, so here's an impression of what it will look like and where they're going with the social network. Netlog currently sees about 250 million visits from 56 million unique visitors on a monthly basis and is handling half a million new sign-ups every week. Its main target has historically been young people (65% of its user base is between 14 and 24 years old) and with the redesign the company is clearly catering to that particular demographic, making the homepage much more visual and far less cluttered. You can see some screenshots of the impending new version below, along with a screen capture of the 'old' homepage. |
| With Open Graph, Facebook Sets Out To Make The Entire Web Its Tributary System Posted: 29 Oct 2009 02:30 AM PDT
Today, amid the hoopla that Facebook was once again making changes to its site which may or may not make things more difficult for developers, something big was largely overlooked. To me, the more interesting thing was the new API Facebook briefly unveiled: The Open Graph API. To say details are vague at this point is being overly generous. But, the key idea is in place, and was presented today. Basically, the Open Graph API is a way for Facebook to allow other companies, sites, services, etc to interact with Facebook without having to create a dedicated Facebook Page. Big deal, you might think — isn’t that what Connect is? Yes, to an extent, but it would seem that the idea here is to go way past that. With the Open Graph API, Facebook wants to allow anyone to take their own site and essentially wrap it in a Facebook blanket. This doesn’t necessarily mean in a visual way, but rather that these sites which use the APIs will be able to replicate many of the core Facebook functionality on their own sites. Facebook isn’t being more specific at this time about what elements would be included in this, and when I spoke briefly to new Director of Product Management for Platform, Bret Taylor (fresh from the FriendFeed acquisition), about it afterwards, he made it very clear that many of the details are still being ironed out and thought up. Still, it’s not hard to imagine what this will be. During his presentation, Facebook’s Head of Platform, Ethan Beard, laid out the Open Graph as essentially a Facebook Fan Page for any site on the web. So you can imagine that you might be able to create a Facebook-style Wall to include on your site, but able to update your statuses from your site, leave comments, like items, etc. Again, it’s like a Facebook Page, but it would be on your site. And you can only include elements you want, and leave out others. The idea is to keep expanding Facebook’s social graph, and more importantly, it’s social reach. As I’ve described it so far, this API doesn’t sound like much of a tributary. But it is. Using the APIs, the data will also flow back from these sites to Facebook. Even if the site/brand doesn’t have a Facebook Fan Page, elements created on this page by other visitors will be sent back to Facebook and placed on their Walls or in their Streams, etc. This is a very smart play by Facebook (assuming they can pull it off, of course). Connect is already massively successful. It’s becoming more and more rare to go to a popular site on the web that doesn’t implement it in some way (even if it’s just for commenting). But in many ways, Connect doesn’t go far enough. If Facebook truly wants to be the main hub of social data on the web, it needs more data coming in from more sites, and Open Graph can provide that. With it, they don’t need to convince every site to make a Facebook Fan Page, those sites themselves can be their own Facebook Fan Page. And the data still flows. There’s another reason why this is a brilliant maneuver: Facebook has no shortage of critics who say it’s too closed-off, or “sandboxed.” By extending Facebook functionality outside of Facebook proper (something the team really played up today at the event), it would seem that Facebook is taking a step in the right direction. And it is, to a certain extent. But again, let’s be clear, the end goal for this is still to make Facebook the social center of the web. Not that there’s anything necessarily wrong or nefarious about that. But rival companies, like Google, undoubtedly will not like this. They may say the right bland things in public after PR combs out any hostility in comments, but Facebook and Google remain very much at odds when it comes to the social web — and naturally, control of it. Google would undoubtedly prefer sites use Open Social, but giving users the options to do things with a social entity (social is the keyword there) that is well known to them, Facebook, will be a very enticing proposition for a lot of sites. And another announcement from today my further propel Facebook blanketing the web with its socialness. Now that Facebook has decided it will share user email addresses with developers, Connect could become even bigger. As Yammer founder David Sacks tweeted tonight, “Now that Facebook is willing to share user emails, Facebook Connect will become default signup for most websites.” That’s an interesting thought. One stream to rule them all? [photo: flickr/three slow] Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| Meet Zong+, A Mobile Payments Platform On Steroids And Potential PayPal Killer Posted: 29 Oct 2009 01:53 AM PDT
Zong has seen tremendous growth over the past year from when the company debuted its mobile payments service from the TechCrunch50 demo pit. Zong’s model of billing micropayments to your cell phone bill caught our eye and sure enough, less than one year later, the startup is picking up serious traction, including a partnership with Facebook to power the purchase of the social network’s new currency. And in 2009 alone, Zong has processed mobile payments for over 10 million unique users worldwide. Today, Zong is launching a new feature that not only expands its payment services, but could make a lasting impact on the micropayments field. Zong is launching Zong+, a extension of the mobile payment startup which lets users bill microtransactions to credit, debit and prepaid cards. We have an exclusive demo of Zong+ by the startup’s founder and CEO, David Marcus, below. So in addition to making online purchases through their cell phone bill, Zong customers will also be able to link any type of payment card to their Zong account through a one-time entry process and continue to purchase goods by simply entering their mobile number and confirming the security transaction code sent to their phone. So if I wanted to buy credits on Facebook via Zong’s payment service, I would now have the option to enroll and pay via Zong+. Once I create and account with all of my credit card info, Zong will automatically bill my card. But each time I want to make a purchase via Zong+, I will only need to enter my mobile number. Zong will then send me a transaction code via SMS, and I will need to enter that code to complete the transaction. Zong is also incentivizing the use of Zong+ by offering users merchant credits (a cost which Zong swallows) if they purchase a certain amount. In fact, Zong will double whatever amount of credits your buy, if you sign up for Zong+. And there are benefits to using Zong+ (besides the incentives). Zong allows you to make larger transactions, in the range of $9.99 or higher, via Zong+. Zong’s other method of payments, via your mobile phone carrier account, works in a similar fashion. You enter your mobile phone number to pay for a virtual good and then you get a text message on your phone with a pin number. Once you enter that pin number, the charge will be reflected in your cell phone bill. But this cell phone carrier model has proven to have some complications, which may be why Zong is looking to expand its offerings to different models. Zong and other mobile payments platforms, such as rival Boku, face high fees that mobile carriers charge to the payment systems (which are inadvertently passed on to the consumer via the merchant), creating a potential obstacle in the business model. Zong recently launched a subscription feature to mitigate this issue and potentially produce lower fees for the end users. Marcus told me in September that many U.S. and European carriers that Zong works with are contemplating reducing these fees by building large-scale models to process payments that would in turn lessen the pressure on the mobile payments startups as well as the applications and social networks using the systems. But this new system will undoubtedly open new channels for Zong and perhaps even attract additional merchants to adopt its payment systems. Merchants who may have previously been frustrated with the high fees from carrier rates, will now find themselves able to enjoy greater transaction completion at the typical card rates. And as Zong+ is able to increase the amount of the tendered transaction, the startup could even give PayPal a run for its money. One of the first merchants that will be utilizing Zong+ is social network hi5. The social network’s director of business development, Rajat Kongovi, says that because of Zong+’s flexibility and frictionless model, hi5 will be able to offer a wider variety of virtual goods at more varied price points and give users more freedom of choice. Of course, it’s important to point out that the mobile payments method via cell phone carrier has gained serious traction internationally, where many virtual goods buyers don’t have a credit or debit card but do have a cell phone. So Zong+ may not be take off in some regions, but the service will undoubtedly offer users a more varied and dead, simple way of using your credit card for purchases. So when will Zong and Zong+ hit Facebook more extensively? Marcus told us that while Zong is currently being used on a limited number of apps to buy currency at the moment, the mobile payments system will be rolled out to a greater user base “soon.” I think that Zong+ only enhances the service and definitely gives it a leg up over competitors on the mobile payments space as well as competitors in the micropayments space such as PlaySpan and Live Gamer. Zong has become a powerful hybrd with the launch of Zong+. Watch your back, PayPal. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| With, Not Without U2, YouTube Saw 10 Million Streams Sunday Night Posted: 29 Oct 2009 12:48 AM PDT
That’s massive, and it’s obviously the biggest live streaming event YouTube has ever done. But even more impressive is just how smoothly it went. I watched about half of the two and a half hour show, and if there were any interruptions, I didn’t see any. I didn’t even see any hiccups, it was that good. I had the show running full screen on my desktop computer, and it was pretty great picture quality for live streaming video. Though YouTube hasn’t officially commented on it, it’s widely believed that Akamai [update below], and not Google, were the ones actually handling the streaming capabilities. They’re the group that also handled it for YouTube Live, this past summer. That event saw some 700,000 concurrent views during its peak, undoubtedly, this had way more. Of course, even 10 million is nothing compared to some of the most popular television shows, but we’re starting to see audience of comprable sizes (though on a worldwide level whereas TV ratings are generally cited for the U.S.). The recorded version of the full 2 and a half hour concert is now officially being served up by YouTube and it already has over a million views in 3 days. Update: As Stephen Donner points out in the comments, he was able to trace the stream as it was happening, sure enough, back to Akamai.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| Venture Capital’s Q3 Temperature Posted: 29 Oct 2009 12:01 AM PDT
But University of San Francisco associate professor of entrepreneurship Mark Cannice puts a bit more stock in what VCs say. And to be fair, he's got some data to prove it. While there are tons of studies that track what VCs did in a quarter, for the last six years Cannice has polled nearly 40 local VCs to ask how confident they feel about the high growth industry in the next six to 18 months. And interestingly, the results almost always presage an upturn or a downturn in exits by a quarter. For instance, the fourth quarter of 2007 was a banner 90 days for IPOs, but the confidence index plunged. Sure enough, the market plunged in early 2008. Similarly, in the first quarter of 2009, returns sucked, but confidence ticked back up. And in the second quarter we got five venture-backed IPOs. USF just released the third quarter numbers and for the first time since Cannice started the survey the measure of confidence was exactly the same as the previous quarter—down to the hundredth decimal place. Confidence was pegged at 3.37 on a scale of zero to five. So what does that mean? In short, they're still confident, but waiting for that confidence to be backed up by reality. Here's the good: VCs still feel there's a lot of good new companies out there, and they know that to make returns ten years from now, they have to keep the dollars flowing now, according to the survey. What's more: There are more private tech companies with more than $50 million in annual revenues that haven't yet exited than ever before. It's a combo of some dot com survivors whose markets finally caught up with their original hype and some surging newer companies. Both are either having a hard time going public in stock market that ignores mid-cap companies or are run by CEOs that just don't want to go public in a short-term, Sarbanes Oxley world. Here's the bad: VCs essentially have two "customers" and both are cautious buyers of what VCs are selling right now. One are the LPs, who despite the recovering public markets are way over-allocated in illiquid venture capital funds and—whether they believe in the asset class long term or not—they're being forced to sell stakes or at a minimum curtail investing in the next cycle of funds. And then there are the markets. There are a backlog of IPO candidates, but they're largely not big multi-billion offerings that can go anytime. And like we've seen with OpenTable, with small deals the floats are modest enough that even if a company gets out, VCs being able to sell their shares without tanking the stock is another matter. As one VC said in the survey comments, "The IPO market is like Hotel California. You can check it but you can't check out." Let's remember: The point of an IPO is to make illiquid shares liquid. If you can't sell, the corks stay in the champagne. Sure there's a lot of optimism about acquisition markets heating up. But– while a positive– those deals aren't likely to be outsized without the threat that the private companies could go public instead. A lot of people criticize VCs for tailoring their investing mood based on what the broader markets are doing. Should you really be taking cues from the public markets when you're supposed to be focused on funding startups? But as Cannice correctly points out, it's a circle-of-life thing. If VCs can't spin mature companies off to buyers or public market investors, they have to keep more reserves for them that can't go to new deals. And without those exits—some firms may not be able to raise their next funds, which also hurts their ability to do new deals. That means a lot is hinging on the next few quarters and whether this coming IPO boom materializes. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| Google’s Eric Schmidt On Magical Potential Of Mobile + Cloud Posted: 28 Oct 2009 11:22 PM PDT I was sorting through my notes and video footage of the Google press event around the launch of Google Maps Navigation for Android 2.0 and saw this gem. It’s a minute or so of footage of Google CEO Eric Schmidt talking about the potential of today’s mobile platforms when combined with the cloud.
His words echo Arthur C. Clarke’s famous quote “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Schmidt says that today’s mobile platforms are so powerful that when combined with a robust cloud service they can do “magical things.” And he encourages people not to limit their imaginations when thinking of new applications to serve people. Inspiring stuff for people out there thinking up the future. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| Google Music Onebox: Video Interviews With Just About Everyone Involved Posted: 28 Oct 2009 10:46 PM PDT
Key takeaways – Google will integrate new partners as it makes sense. And while MySpace knew about the negotiations between iLike and Google prior to announcing their acquisition of iLike in August, the deal was far from certain. More on that in a subsequent post. All are below: Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| It’s Almost Here: Exclusive Video Of Lala’s Upcoming iPhone App Posted: 28 Oct 2009 08:48 PM PDT
For those that haven’t used Lala before, here’s a quick overview of the service: Lala revolves around the concept of the ‘web song’ — you’re allowed to listen to any song you want totally free exactly once. If you like it, you can then pay 10 cents for the right to stream it as many times as you’d like from then on. This means that you can ‘purchase’ and entire album for around a dollar. You can also use Lala’s Music Mover tool to upload your entire library of MP3s to the cloud free of charge. This is all built on top of a very slick interface, but so far it has come with one downside: because all of the songs are streamed, users didn’t have a way to access them when they weren’t at a computer. Lala’s iPhone app changes that. The app will be familiar to anyone who has used the iPhone’s native iPod app. The big difference is that all of your songs are streamed from the cloud, so you don’t have to worry about syncing your songs. The app is also better for music discovery than the normal music app, because you don’t have to wait for songs to download — you can instantly add an album to your music library in one click. And it’s significantly cheaper. Of course, streaming has its own problems. Normally if you’re disconnected from a streaming music service, your music goes dead. Fortunately the Lala app uses caching to store hundreds of songs from your library, which it has waiting in case your connection dies. Lala wouldn’t say exactly how many songs are saved, but they say that the app uses some intelligence to determine what gets cached (e.g. it will generally save songs you’ve most recently added to your library). So what was the reason for the delay? Lala CEO Geoff Ralston says that “basically everything” had issues, from dealing with licensing from content owners to tweaking the app itself. Suffice to say, it works very well now, and is sure to be a hit among Lala users. It has good timing too: Lala just launched as one of the partners powering Google’s music search service, which is sure to drive a lot of traffic to the site. Other music streaming apps coming for the iPhone include Spotify, though that isn’t out in the US. Check out a video walkthrough of the app below.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. |
| Netvibes Delivers A Potent Stream Reader With Wasabi (Beta Invites) Posted: 28 Oct 2009 07:49 PM PDT
Netvibes, original widget homepage, is morphing into something much more interesting. The next version of the service, dubbed Wasabi, is a potent stream reader which consolidates news feeds, blogs, Twitter and Facebook streams, email, and much more in an extremely manageable interface. Wasabi will become available early next week in a private beta, but you can start signing up for it now. CEO Freddy Mini demonstrated parts of Wasabi at our first Realtime CrunchUp in July. In addition to the traditional widget view, which breaks up your feeds and applications into a grid of boxes on your Netvibes homepage, Wasabi now also has a “smart reader” view. The smart reader borrows from traditional RSS readers in that all the feeds and widgets you subscribe to are presented together in one column, updated in reverse chronological order. You can see just a list of headlines, or an expanded view with the full feed. It looks similar to Google Reader, except that Netvibes supports more than just RSS feeds. You can import your Twitter and Facebook streams (read-only right now), as well as Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Flickr photos, weather widgets, stock widgets, and more. “Any service that has a stream we can display it,” says Mini. Rather than scan across 20 boxes, Netvibes users will now have the option to mash everything together and filter simply by what’s been posted most recently. Wasabi has infinite scroll, so you can keep going down until you’ve had enough. There is also a new mosaic view, which shows each item as a visual tile. When you click on a tile, you get an expanded view that allows you to read the item, while keeping a strip of navigational tiles up top (see screenshots below). On the backend, Netvibes is speeding things up to make the stream as realtime as possible. It is caching content from the most popular feeds and pushing that down to users as soon as there are any updates, and it will also be supporting both the Pubsubhubbub (PuSH), which also launched at the Realtime CrunchUp, and RSSCloud standards aimed at eliminating the lag time inherent in RSS and Atom feeds. So Wasabi is not only a potent stream reader, it is faster too. I won’t miss the widget view one bit. Photo credit: YouTube/FatoosVanRobin.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| Mac Browser Camino 2 Gets A Release Candidate Posted: 28 Oct 2009 06:31 PM PDT
Camino, though much less prevalent than its Mozilla sibling, Firefox, has a solid following among Mac users who appreciate its speed. It has long been my browser of choice as it’s relatively lightweight and very fast compared to Firefox. And compatibility with various sites seems better than Apple’s own Safari. We’ve been beta testing Camino 2 for several months now, and it’s solid. It offers several improvements over the first iterations of Camino, notably in speed and the way it looks. Mozilla notes that this Release Candidate 1 could become the final, first official build of Camino 2 if there are no critical issue found. So it looks like despite Pinkerton’s Chrome time commitments, Camino 2 will beat Chrome for Mac even reaching beta status. The anticipation for Chrome for Mac continues to build. Even Google co-founder Sergey Brin admits that he’s disappointed with how long it has taken to develop. But, as we noted the other day, Chrome for Mac — not Chromium, the open source browser on which Chrome is based — looks like it’s getting closer to a beta release.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| DeepDyve: Like iTunes for Scientific Papers Posted: 28 Oct 2009 06:00 PM PDT
Thanks to a new online market, DeepDyve, I’m never further than a click away from those relaxing and enlightening scientific papers. The site, launched today, offers full-text search of scientific articles along with 99 cent downloads and a subscription service that allows fans of Clinical Chemistry to read as many stories as they’d like. DeepDyve launched last year as a search company. Their specific expertise was in large string searching, allowing you to look for multiple topics in one search string. This led to work in the research space and, ultimately, the company changed into a article rental service. Articles cost 99 cents for 24 hours and an unlimited plan for $19.99 a month. A $9.99 plan allows you to access 20 articles per month for up to seven days each. The company is based in Menlo Park and received $9 million in angel funding. Are you a big fan of research? Leave a comment and we’ll be giving away free subscriptions to DeepDyve to 10 random readers. Now back to Spinal Injuries and the Sacral Arch and another snoot of whiskey. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. |
| Live From Google’s Music Roundtable In Hollywood Posted: 28 Oct 2009 04:50 PM PDT
Mike Shinoda: We used to be called Hybrid Theory. We settled on Lincoln Park, we went online to see if we could get our URL. We were online early on, changed the name of the band to get URL that would give the fans the most direct link to our fans. Q:What do you think of what we’re launching today, what do you see happening from record label perspective? Q: We’ve been talking about music discovery. Q:What gets you excited in the world of Technology? Q; You represent lots of up and coming artists, what does this launching mean to you? Q: I was watching the video for your music video to Apologize, started counting up the numbers for number of people who had watched the video. And setting aside all the fun and crazy covers, just looking at yours, over 120 million views. Can you speak to how this has an influence on ou going forward? Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| Two More iPhone Overhaul Concepts: Multitasking And Dashboard Widgets. Would You Use These? Posted: 28 Oct 2009 04:45 PM PDT
A few weeks back, we shared a video by Swedish Design agency Ocean Observations which demonstrated a rather clever (but arguably useless) concept: Exposé for the iPhone homescreen. We shared that video on a whim, and the resulting conversation and comments were outstanding. As a result, the same design firm has since churned out two more iPhone-related concept videos: Coverflow Multitasking, and Dashboard Widgets. Just like the last time, we’re left wondering: would you use these? Read the rest at MobileCrunch >> Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| Google’s Response To FCC Inquiry: We Now Restrict Calls To Fewer Than 100 Phone Numbers Posted: 28 Oct 2009 04:22 PM PDT
Google has responded to the FCC’s inquiry regarding Google Voice (see document embedded below). There’s been and intense back-and-forth between AT&T, Google, and the FCC over Google Voice's blocking of some rural telephone numbers. AT&T recently sent a letter to the FCC to undermine Google's recent argument that it's blocking exorbitantly expensive calls to some numbers in part because they are associated with sex lines. AT&T's also thinks that the FCC should consider regulating the search giant on the web as well. Google response says that its engineers have developed a “tailored solution” for restricting calls to specific numbers engaged in what some have called high-cost “traffic pumping” schemes, like adult chat and “free” conference call lines. Google didn’t want these schemes to exploit the “free nature” of Google voice and over the past few weeks have been trying to locate the source of the problem. Google now says that Google Voice now restricts calls to fewer than 100 specific phone numbers, which Google thinks are part of a traffic pumping scheme. For those that haven't been following the story so far: Google's decision to block certain numbers stems from the way some rural local carriers have been exploiting current FCC rules. Some local carriers charge very high prices for AT&T, Google Voice, and other services to connect their calls. Few people would normally call these rural numbers, so these local carriers team up with conference calling centers and sex lines to further drive traffic. AT&T has previously tried to block these numbers but was barred from doing so, and is upset that Google Voice is getting away with it. AT&T has framed this as part of the Net Neutrality debate, though given their past stance on the issue it's hard not to take their arguments with a grain of salt. AT&T complained pretty loudly, even enlisting member of congress to sniff around the issue, and called upon the FCC to take a hard look at Google Voice. FCC responded to AT&T's complaint by asking Google for more information about Google Voice, which Google claims is a free web-based free application designed to "supplement and enhance existing phone lines, not replace them." Google wrote in an earlier response that AT&T is in a completely different situation, in part because the carrier charges users for their services and receives hundreds of millions of dollars in universal service subsidies. Google says that web applications like Google Voice and Skype shouldn't be treated like traditional phone services and calls attention to AT&T's hypocrisy in the whole matter. Here’s the passage in the response where Google answers the questions of how and why Google Voice restricts calls to certain numbers:
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| Live From Hollywood: Google’s Music Onebox Launches, Powered By MySpace And Lala Posted: 28 Oct 2009 04:00 PM PDT  I’m here at Capitol Records in Hollywood, California for a special media event where Lala, MySpace, iLike, Google and others are officially announcing the launch of Google’s Music Onebox — a special new kind of Google search result that will let you instantly stream songs directly from Google’s results page. We first broke the news of the feature’s impending launch last week, though none of the companies involved have been willing to comment on it until now. Here’s how the new feature will work: Onebox will let users stream songs directly from Google’s search result page, and will also include additional content like tour information and music videos (the actual content shown will vary depending on the partner — more on that later). Enter a query for “Use Somebody”, and you’re going to see a small ‘play’ button in your search result that lets you stream the Kings of Leon song in its entirety, or buy the song. Clicking on the play button will bring up a small browser window that will immediately start streaming your song. If you enter the name of an artist rather than a song title as your search query, Google will present a handful of popular songs by that artist with multiple ‘play’ buttons. Here’s what the results page looks like, when multiple songs are being presented: The new feature is being powered by two entirely different services: Lala, the innovative music site that lets people buy ‘web songs’ for ten cents, and iLike, the popular streaming music and artist hub that was recently acquired by MySpace. In an interesting twist, iLike’s appearance in OneBox will be short-lived — MySpace branded widgets will soon be taking their place. This is an important step in MySpace’s transition to being seen as a media/content hub rather than a pure social network. MySpace is also leveraging some of the new features it has recently rolled out since the iLike acquisition, including its artist dashboard and extensive library of music videos — you’ll be able to jump to a music video for a song directly from MySpace’s Onebox results (this is impressive given that the site only launched those services a week ago). Likewise, this is also a massive win for Lala. We’ve been big fans of Lala since the site relaunched back in October 2008 with a unique business model that lets users build their music libraries in the cloud for cheap — you can purchase an entire streaming version of an album for around 80 cents, or 10 cents per song. The service’s only problem has been establishing traction, and this will certainly help with that. Expect the service’s userbase to see a big jump as millions of people on Google are exposed to Lala for the first time. The joint partnership comes with a few quirks. Google will basically be doing a coin toss with each eligible query to determine which service will be serving up the widget. That will help the service distribute load and perhaps leaves the door open for Google to include multiple other music services, but I’m not sure it will provide the best user experience — some users may get confused when a feature in one widget isn’t available in the other. Google VP of Search Products and User Experience kicked off the event,talking about how Google has expanded its search offerings over time, with Images (2201), Book (2003) and Maps (2007). “Music” is one of Google’s top ten searches of all time, as is “lyrics”. But it hasn’t always been easy to actually find music, which is why Google is looking to offer full song streaming directly from Google. Google has also partnered with Gracenote to provide full lyric search — if you type in the lyrics from a portion of a song, they’ll identify the song. Song purchasing partners include imeem, Rhapsody, and Pandora, who will help with music discovery. Google passed the baton off to MySpace, with MySpace Music President Courtney Holt outlining how much growth MySpace Music has seen and how happy the site is to be working with Google. Ali Partovi, iLike’s former CEO (and MySpace’s current SVP Business Development) took the stage, first taking the time to congratulate MySpace on acquiring iLike. He was joking, but what he says has some truth to it: MySpace made an offer on iLike before iLike could talk about the Google partnership, which iLike had been working on for a long time. In other words, MySpace lucked out with the deal. Lala’s Bill Nguyen next to the stage, saying that Lala has always been about finding music, and then discovering more that you might like. He says that for the last ten years, music has been about business models, not discovery. Once you wind up on Lala, you can follow other users and see what they’re listening to. The new feature will be gradually rolling out to users, with a small percentage (1-5%) having access today and rolling out gradually over the next couple days to everyone in the US. Here’s the Lala player: Here’s MySpace’s widget (you’ll be seeing an iLike widget temporarily, but eventually they’ll shift over to look like this): Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| Five Things That May Shock You about the LOLCats Network Posted: 28 Oct 2009 03:59 PM PDT
Annoyingly, Huh is also running around San Francisco this week doing all kinds of media interviews. But here are some things I pried out of him yesterday that you may not know. A word first about Huh: People almost always open an interview by asking if he has cats or if he's always been funny, which misses the point of what he loves about his job. Huh is a businessman. Unlike a lot of media entrepreneurs, he says his job has become more fun the larger the staff, the site, and the operational worries have grown. People frequently forget that Huh actually acquired I Can Has Cheezburger? and the FAIL Blog—he didn't start them. (More on that purchase price below…) Since then he's opened dozens of humor sites, about 50% of which fail, but some grow spectacularly fast, proving that LOLCats wasn't a fluke and that Huh has an eye for what makes something funny in that specific viral sort of Internet way. Right now, he's got a spreadsheet of 150 ideas that he's moving around, honing and assigning to a team of writers who each curate about five blogs each. Simply put, Huh has built a serious company out of something inherently hard to take seriously. As he frequently says, it shouldn’t work, but it does. Now, some details I pried out of Huh with the allure of coffee and a breakfast sandwich yesterday: 1. That I Can Has Cheezburger? purchase price was probably lower than the $2 million Time and others (ahem) reported. Huh is unflappably mum on what he spent, but he's too good a business man to have ponied up that much—even as fast as the profitable site was growing. Plus, regulatory filings show his angel round he raised to buy that blog and build a company around it was just $2.25 million. When I asked why he'd spend almost the entire amount on one acquisition, he didn't so much nod, answer or agree as make a face that said "Yes, thank you for not assuming I'm a total idiot." But, yeah, he won’t comment. 2. Huh has really studied what makes humor catch and made an interesting observation: Male sites and female sites grow distinctly differently. Men tend to share by gut instinct, so male oriented sites grow faster but can churn users quickly too. Women are more trust-oriented, says Huh. That means they share links and sites less frequently, but with more credibility. So the sites grow slower but maintain their audiences better. It's an interesting observation given how much of the early breakout Web 2.0 were so male dominated, and Huh should know seeing the traffic patterns of Hawtness (slightly NSFW) and LovelyListing. (Guess which one is for men?) For the record I Can Has Cheezburger? is about 50%-50% male-female, but nearly 100% geeks-who-love-cats, both of which have aided huge and sustained growth. As Huh explains it, dog people go to parks, cat people sit inside on computers. 3. Just how good that traffic is. The Pet Holdings Network boasts 12 million uniques a month and does 1 billion page views every four months. Those numbers are astounding for a 26-person, user generated content company built largely on frivolity. We all know about Cheezburger, which surpassed 1 billion page views last month. But FAIL blog went from zero to 10 million page views-per-month in just 90 days, and the recently launched ThereIFixedIt.com has matched that pace. That said, Huh doesn't hugely care how fast a blog grows, as long as it grows. What gets one of his sites shut down is a huge spike and then a fall. His newest site, NotVeryTalented.com launches on Friday. 4. Revenues. Huh has done a great job making money in tough industries. While a lot of blogs are sputtering, his have 30% margins, posting CPMs anywhere between 15 cents and $8. The least profitable is clearly Hawtness, which Huh doesn’t even try to sell ads on, given the dodgy inventory. "It just hooks in readers," he says. Here's the shocker: The company also makes 30% margins from book publishing deals, and advances and royalties make up nearly a third of the company's revenues, which are in the "single digit millions." More shocking: Huh can't seem to get a publisher to sign him to a multi-book deal. This despite the fact that the first LOLcats book spent 13 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List. Really, New York publishing houses? Huh plans on releasing six books next year and – SPOILER ALERT- the third LOLCats book will be all about kittens. 5. Huh has a social network too. Even if you knew all of the above, this one must surprise you because it recently surprised Huh. Pet Holdings has long offered a log-in and profile for contributors who regularly post images and passively given them the ability to friend each other. The result? A niche social network with 1.3 million users. Huh hasn't quite decided what to do with this revelation, but he's thinking about it. As comparatively well as he's done with blog ads and book sales, to really scale the company, he'd like a sexier revenue stream that can grow fast without massively growing content. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| Live: Storming The Beaches Of Facebook’s Developer Roadmap Event Posted: 28 Oct 2009 03:38 PM PDT
Below find our live notes (paraphrased): Mark Zuckerberg: Thanks for coming to our first ever edition of the roadmap developer garage. The Platform and Connect are quick becoming the most important part of our strategy today. We hope what we’re doing will help foster innovation. The first key is a really good team. We’ve added some really good people recently to our engineering and Connect teams. We want to build out a real middle structure for our platform. It’s all about “eating our own dogfood.” This will take a while to complete, but it will improve speed and stability. On the product side, Bret Taylor (from FriendFeed); he’s now the director of product management for Platform. There’s a lot of cool stuff coming out. Some of which we’ll talk about today. This is the roadmap for the next few months. It’s progress for us to do a roadmap (laughs). Ethan (Beard) has been bugging me to do this for a while now. We knew we needed to do this for the developers. Ethan is one of the real stars at Facebook, he came from Google and runs the developer network now. We couldn’t think of a better person than Ethan to do this. The roadmap is the next step for all of this.
Ethan Beard: Some of our biggest developers are here, and some of our smallest. All of you are totally kicking butt on platform today. We have over 1 million developers now, the growth is incredible. Over 350,000 applications, and 10s of thousands are sites. 3 of the 10 ten iphone games now use Facebook Connect. Our goal today is to reduce the amount of anxiety, despite what you heard in the press – “the death of Platform is greatly exaggerated.” 70% of Facebook users are touching the things you guys build every month. You guys are building businesses, so you need a roadmap. Facebook is very fast moving and dynamic, so it’s challenging to nail down what exactly is coming out in the future and tell you guys. But Platform is so important to us. Today: Communication Channel, Discovery and Engagement, and New Things. This is a 3 to 6 month roadmap. These are mock-ups, not final designs. We’re not launching any new products today, we’re just talking about what we’re launching in the future. This is a discussion we want to have with you and the public for what we should be doing. First up: ———————————— Communication Channels ———————————— When users come to Facebook, they struggle to understand where they should go to get messages. There are too many places to go. This is one thing we want to fix. And from the developer perspective, there is also confusion. In Notifications we know that bad messages drown out the good ones. So which ones do you want to get across. First important one to use is the Stream. This is the best location for one to many broadcasts. Nothing will changes about the Stream other than small things. Second one is User-to-User communication. This is the source of some confusion. We’re going to consolidate all the various ways you do one-to-one in the inbox. You should send messages directly to users with attachments as you can now. But you should also be able to send out a mass message (this is still user-to-user). We’re experimenting with how to have these in the inbox without blowing out the other one-to-one messages. We need better selectors for multiple users. Maybe if you’re talking about Scrabble, it only shows your friends who play the Scrabble app. Third, we are going to make available to developers user email addresses. This will allow developers to prompt users and they can share their email with you. No longer will this be about ‘who owns the user. These will allow you to future-proof your business. ————————————- Discovery and Engagement ————————————– Users struggle to find applications – we know where it is but they don’t. We’re moving navigation from bottom to the left side, we think this will be a big improvement. In the left side there will be notifications to let you know if there’s a new message to see. This will drive user re-engagement.
We will also have a one-click bookmark button to allow users to easily find the apps they want. Another new thing: Dashboards. There will be an applications and a games dashboard. Our users love games, so this is for finding their existing games, and find new ones. We’ll use Dashboards for our own products as well. User Interface updates. We’re working on changes to the top navigation – we’re going to downplay that it’s a Facebook page, and show that it’s your page (for apps).
————————————– New Products And Programs —————————————- We’ve spent a lot of time developing new products for developers. There’s an entirely new developer website. developers.facebook.com – there will be all new documentation, better collaboration and community features. This will be all on the public-facing developer roadmap shortly. And we’ll keep updating it. There will also be a new Platform Live Status area. It’s hard for developers to know if it’s on their side or our side – we get that. This should help. Platform Policies – ours are exceptionally confusing now. We have over 14 pages on Platform policies – no one knows them all. Our goal is that everyone should understand them. Key ones: Be Trustworthy – Create a great user experience
14 pages have been reduced to 3 pages now. It’s much more simple. This is all about ‘what can i do, what can’t i do?’ This will be much easier. Enforcement is another key focus now. We’re ending the verifications as a stand-alone program. Platform will still be free to use and open to everyone, but we’ll be checking. If we see something we don’t like, we’ll work with those developers to get their apps right. Analytics is something we’re improving a lot now too. There will be a new Insights tool, and it will be available through an API, for the dashboards you guys use. An entirely new API – Open Graph API – This allows any page on the web to have the same features as a fan page inside Facebook. These web pages can post info into that users News Feed. This is a continuation to the move to add objects and people into the graph, but now the graph can be anywhere on the web. And we’re opening this up – you guys can help build out the core social graph. F8 will be happen in the first half of 2010. This will be a return to our roots. Building great tech and providing you with the building blocks. —————– Q&A —————– Q: Can we vote on the features? EB: We’re not launching any voting tools on the site. But you can voice your opinion. We expect to see that happen, but no voting. Q: Can you speed up mobile SDK? EB: Absolutely. Q: I don’t get Open Graph API, more details? EB: We think the graph is more than just people – also objects, products, and things. This shouldn’t all have to be in Facebook proper. So we want the functionality on any URL. This will be good for brands like Coke.
Q: The distinction between applications and games, is there a difference between the two? EB: No difference in privacy settings. Our goal is just to make it easier to find games. But it’s all the same. Q: Is the Dashboard for apps the same? EB: Yes. Q: Where does Facebook Currency fit into this? EB: Nothing to announce today. But Facebook Credits today are used to purchase items in the gift store – and we’ve been running some tests to use those credits with developers and good they’re selling. That’s as far as we’ve gotten. Q: Will developers be able to store email addresses? EB: Yes. It will be valid and up-to-date for the users. We’re not sure about the names, but I think that will be ‘yes.’ Q: Other changes for permissions? EB: This is something we hear a lot – frustration with the variety of authorization dialogues. We’re spending some time investigating how to simplify that. There will be more granular controls for users to see what they’re sharing with developers. Q: Will Open Graph site owners be able to interact easily? EB: Through the API, yes. Q: Will there also be age-verification? EB: Nothing to announce now, but we have some APIs for age verification already. Q: Are Notifications going away. EB: For applications, yes. Q: So what if users don’t feel comfortable giving the email address? EB: That’s like saying I want to get a phone call from you, but don’t want to give you my phone number (laughs). It’s important for developers to be able to email users, but users have to see what is going on. Q: Can users choose which email to give them? EB: We haven’t decided that yet, but we’ll figure that out. Q: Will there be proxy emails for these notifications? EB: Email addresses will be actual real email addresses – like Gmails. Q: Talk a bit more about the counters thing in the new sidebar. EB: It shows up next to the bookmark, if a user has bookmarked an app. Developers can set the counter for any reason they choose. We expect it to be for good reasons, we’ll be watching it. It should be obvious to the user. The counters shouldn’t always be on. Q: What about publishing to the wall now? EB: That hasn’t been addressed yet, but I don’t think we have plans to take that away from the Stream perspective. Q: With verified apps, are you killiing that program, and just raising the standards across the board? EB: The program as you know it now will be ending. We’ll be using the same tools broadly across the platform. Q: Will search results be effected? EB: Not sure yet, I don’t think so though. Q: Will you be verifying apps below a certain size? EB: Our goal is to extend our policies very broadly. We’ll obviously focus on the bigger ones more, but we care about all of them. Q: What are you thoughts on all these changes for developers? EB: There are very few platforms that are this open about the changes, like we’re doing today. Our goal is not to break backwards compatibility. We want to maintain it whenever possible, but Facebook as a product changes very quickly – and somethings maintaining compatibility is impossible. So we provide warning – at least 30 days, for major changes, more. And we want to offer a clear path to help developers. Q: In Open Graph API EB: There are no specific changes to announce, but the on and off-Facebook should be the same or similar. Q: What about location? With Twitter doing it? EB: We have nothing specific to announce at this point. Q: What about profiles? Anything new coming up? EB: We are making some changes to the profile. We think it should be a great place for users to accurately represent their identity, but we have some changes. We can’t share them right now. Some will affect developers. Boxes tab will be going away. Profile pages will be getting narrowed – 710px to 550px. Q: So you don’t want apps to grow quickly? EB: Not at all. We just don’t want developers to do it by violating policy. We will continue to shut down apps that grossly violate our policies, but that’s not our goal. That’s a wrap. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| The Bearable Lightness of Droid: The iPhone Aesthetic Has Finally Hit the Majors Posted: 28 Oct 2009 03:19 PM PDT  One thing that that struck me when I first slid open the Motorola Droid is that the software must have been a non-shipping copy. Historically, when Verizon ships a phone, the stuff in the VCast Music Center, VCast Video, VCast Navigation, and VCast Electo Pet Shop - essentially bloatware that masquerades as value added software. Swiping through the Droid menus I found none of that. No widgets offering NFL sports scores, no Apps offering downloadable videos from Lady GaGa, just a clean, clear interface. I know most Android phones don't ship with much extraneous software (MyTouch, for example) but for Verizon this is a real first. What does this mean? It means carriers are finally resisting the urge to bling out their phones like NASCAR racers. Without massive branding you get a cleaner experience and although I love the Hero's Sense UI, the Droid in this pristine state shows us that carriers, and Verizon in particular, has grown up. |
| Google Should Make Apple Beg For Maps Navigation Posted: 28 Oct 2009 03:00 PM PDT
When Google announced what is clearly the best car navigation application on any mobile today, it didn’t just take a swipe at GPS navigation companies such as Garmin and TomTom. It took a swipe at Apple. Beyond the advanced features of the Google Maps Navigation app (voice search, crowdsourced traffic data, Street View navigation), what makes the app noteworthy is that it launched on Google’s own Android phones first rather than on the iPhone. By doing so, Google is putting Apple on notice that it is no longer reserving its best apps for the iPhone. Navigation apps are a key category for mobile phones, and the iPhone is for once at a disadvantage here. Even the paid navigation apps in the iTunes store can’t compete because Google’s new navigation app is an extension (albeit a customized one) of its search engine. When a navigation app becomes an interface to Google’s massive search engine, it begins to deliver things that GPS app developers like Garmin and TomTom will never be able to build (search along a route, natural language search). Oh yeah, and did I mention it is free? This is but the latest sign of a growing rift between Apple and Google. A couple years ago, when the iPhone first launched, Google and Apple had a strong partnership. At the time, Google CEO Eric Schmidt described the relationship as so close that it was akin to merging “without merging. Each company should do the absolutely best thing they can do every time.” Google supposedly didn’t need to creat its own phone, because it could simply create software for the iPhone. And, in fact, some of the best apps on the iPhone—Mail, Maps, YouTube, Search—were developed by Google. Only two years later, Apple and Google no longer have such a cozy relationship. A new Android phone is now launching every other week, it seems. Feeling the competitive threat, Apple started blocking Google apps such as Google Voice and Latitude from getting on the iPhone, and Schmidt stepped down from Apple’s board (although there were also other reasons for that having to do with antitrust scrutiny). The tensions really came to a boil around the whole Google Voice saga. As we wrote at the time:
So Apple starts to back away from letting Google take over the iPhone with all the best apps by rejecting them. And now we have Google’s response: a big middle finger. If Apple is going to make it hard to get on the iPhone, then Google will stop giving Apple its best apps first and use them to make its own Android platform more appealing. Apple is in a terrible position here because the future of mobile apps are Web apps, and Google excels at making those. Apple needs Google, it’s most dangerous competitor in the mobile Web market, to keep building apps for the iPhone. Google would be foolish not to since the iPhone still has the largest reach of any modern Web phone. But it will no longer be a priority. The sad thing is that Apple has been here before—with Microsoft. In the late 1990s, Apple had to beg Microsoft to keep building Office for Macs. Now it may be in the same position with Google. There may be more than 85,000 apps in the App Store, but it is only a handful which actually drive purchases. If Google Maps Navigation becomes one of those types of killer apps, Apple might need to do some begging first before Google goes through effort to make it for the iPhone. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
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After a decade in Silicon Valley, I've learned there's a difference between what some VCs say and what they do. For instance, there's the well-worn phrase that nearly every venture firm utters: "We believe downturns are the best time to invest." And yet, somehow, the investment numbers always go down in recessions.
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It’s been years since I let my subscription to Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery lapse. I could barely afford it and, as those Shriners soon found out, I am not actually a surgeon. However, I do enjoy pouring a glass of Old Granddad, sitting down in my favorite chair, and reading up on Snapping Scapula Syndrome or the Three-Dimensional Kinematics of the Rheumatoid Wrist After Partial Arthrodesis. It does a body – and a soul – good.
Google has just launched into a surprise roundtable at its music event in Hollywood, where a number of top music executives and artists are discussing the news and the music industry. I’m live blogging my notes below (everything paraphrased).![Screen shot 2009-10-28 at [ October 28 ] 3.05.44 PM](http://www.mobilecrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Screen-shot-2009-10-28-at-October-28-3.05.44-PM-173x300.png "Screen shot 2009-10-28 at [ October 28 ] 3.05.44 PM")
Ben Huh is usually holed up in his Seattle-based company Pet Holdings Inc—better known as the company that brings you 
We’re here today at the Facebook Developer Garage being held at the company’s headquarters in Palo Alto, CA. The point of this rather large meetup for developers and the press is to talk about the future of Facebook’s Platform. As such, they’re calling this event the “Roadmap Edition.” As we noted earlier, big changes are expected to be announced today that will alter the way developers interact with Facebook’s Platform; 
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