Saturday, June 20, 2009

The Latest from TechCrunch

The Latest from TechCrunch

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Flip Has Little Chance In An iPhone World

Posted: 20 Jun 2009 12:21 AM PDT

As successful as Pure Digital has been with their Flip line of video cameras - selling $150 million worth of them last year - they face a new type of threat that they can’t defeat. The video capable iPhone, and video mobile phones in general, will make them irrelevant in the next couple of years.

Flip cameras have really grown on me. A year ago I didn’t see any point in it, since most point and shoot cameras did everything the Flip could do at the same or better price point, and they took good pictures, too. The Flip was very simple to use, but the software wasn’t so great and it didn’t play well with Macs. I didn’t see the point in carrying the extra device.

But at the end of last year Flip released the Mino HD and everything changed. The device was a lot smaller than most point and shoot cameras, and took way better video (1280 x 720 high definition video v. 640 x 480 on most point and shoot cameras). They also fixed the software to work well with Macs. And the joy of taking a device out of the box - no cords or wires at all - was real. Their $590 million exit to Cisco was well deserved. I now love my Flip camera, and not just because the company sent me a check for $1.3 million.

Along the way Pure Digital fought ridicule from the big video camera companies, who said nobody would want the device. Then, once Pure Digital proved the market, all those competitors jumped in with their own offerings. There are now many devices with similar tech specs as the Flip, but Pure Digital has managed to stay ahead of them all by innovating faster.

Flip Can’t Beat The iPhone

That’s just not something they’re going to be able to do v. the iPhone and other similar devices to come.

The new iPhone takes very good video (640 x 480). That isn’t as good as the Flip, but it’s still able to shoot perfectly good videos on the go (example), which is exactly what the Flip is for. And the iPhone has something that the Flip will never realistically have, cellular and wifi connectivity that lets you upload your videos immediately. No need to sync back with your base computer to edit the video and upload it. You can do basic editing right on the iPhone, and publish it to YouTube immediately. As an added bonus, that video can be geo-stamped via the phones GPS capability.

That makes it significantly more useful as a video device than the Flip, and worth the reduction in quality. You already have to make some quality tradeoffs with the Flip anyway, so if you are going to have a second video device after your iPhone, it may as well be a slightly bigger video camera that you keep in your bag. I just don’t see people grabbing that Flip when they run out the door.

And one last killer feature of the iPhone - live streaming video from services like Ustream and Qik are already a reality - most TechCrunch authors have been using it for months on the old iPhone. At some point soon Apple will allow those apps to launch, and iPhone users will be able to stream video in real time from their phones to the Internet.

The Flip still costs less than the iPhone, and the transition will be gradual. But most everyone carries a phone anyway. And within a couple of years video will be as ubiquitous on those phones as photos are today. Flip won’t have a chance.

Or do they?

Flip As A Brand v. Flip As A Device

Last year I wrote about a possible way for Amazon to fork it’s Kindle business to really dominate the e-book market: build signature devices and actually pay ODMs to use the software in a unique reverse-licensing model:

Imagine if Amazon launched a licensing program that gave hardware manufacturers the ability to build Kindle clones, along with an incentive to sell them at near-zero margins. Amazon would give those manufacturers access to the core Kindle hardware specs (there's no real magic there anyway) and the right to call it a Kindle device so long as they also put the core Kindle software on the device. That software links the device to Amazon's store, meaning downloads revenue flows through Amazon.

Flip could do something similar - leverage its brand to convince handset manufacturers to Flip-certify their devices.

Garmin, facing stiff competition for its GPS devices from mobile phones, is doing exactly this: “the nuvifone is Garmin’s entry into the cellular phone market and considered key to the company’s future. Cell phone carriers have increasingly been chipping away at Garmin’s market, adding navigational features to their phones.”

There’s no reason why Cisco shouldn’t work with handset makers to make them “Flip certified” - high quality video hardware plus the awesome Flip software installed right on the phone.

Another way for Flip to go is to launch a series of higher quality video cameras to compete higher up the food chain.

Both strategies have big holes, and neither may work. But one thing is certain - In another year there will likely be multiple mobile devices that record video as well as the Flip, and have the benefit of GPS geo-stamping and mobile uploading. Flip will hit a huge brick wall. If the brand wants to live, it needs to adapt.

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Not Only Was Steve Jobs Sick, He Had A Liver Transplant.

Posted: 19 Jun 2009 09:19 PM PDT

steve-jobsThere really isn’t much to say here beyond what are being reported as the facts. Apparently, Apple CEO Steve Jobs had a liver transplant two months ago, the Wall Street Journal reports tonight. When you read that, it’s pretty shocking — but not that surprising.

After Apple initially tried to pass off Jobs’ gaunt physique as a minor ailment, Jobs himself came out in January and announced that the undisclosed illness he was suffering from would require him to take a leave of absence from the company. He has been on that leave ever since. But the good news in the WSJ report is that Jobs is in fact feeling well enough now to return to work as scheduled at the end of this month — which is just days away.

But here’s an interesting nugget from the story:

When he does return, Mr. Jobs may be encouraged by his physicians to initially “work part-time for a month or two,” a person familiar with the thinking at Apple said. That may lead Tim Cook, Apple’s chief operating officer, to take “a more encompassing role,” this person said. The person added that Mr. Cook may be appointed to Apple’s board in the not-too-distant future.

That seems to suggest that the transition is well underway for Cook to eventually lead Apple. That shouldn’t be a surprise, Cook has done a masterful job in Jobs’ absence, pretty much doubling the value of the company’s stock during that time. Jobs has long been thought to be perhaps more important to his company than any single figure is to their’s. But his time away has seemingly proven otherwise. Of course, there was already likely a multi-year pipeline for products when Jobs left.

The business angle is the important one here. Some have alleged that Jobs and Apple have held news of Jobs’ health too closely for a publicly traded company. But Apple’s board of directors, which includes Google CEO Eric Schmidt and former Vice President Al Gore, apparently were getting updates on the situation. Here’s what the WSJ had to say on that:

At least some Apple directors were aware of the CEO’s surgery. As part of an agreement with Mr. Jobs in place before he went on leave, some board members have been briefed weekly on the CEO’s condition by his physician.

We’d be remiss if we didn’t note that the timing of this story appears favorable for Apple. This news breaks late on a Friday, after Apple has just held a successful launch of a very high profile new product, the iPhone 3G S, that sent the stock soaring today. Obviously, the market won’t be open again until Monday.

In 2004, it was disclosed that Jobs had suffered from pancreatic cancer, which was cured. But, a side effect of that cancer is likely the thing that lead to this liver transplant, many doctors familiar with such things have stated.

While little is known about the actual operation, the belief is that it was done in Tennessee, because first and foremost, the waiting list of a liver there is much lower than the rest of the country. From the WSJ:

The specifics of Mr. Jobs’s surgery couldn’t be established, but according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, which manages the transplant network in the U.S., there are no residency requirements for transplants. Having the procedure done in Tennessee makes sense because its list of patients waiting for transplants is shorter than in many other states. According to data provided by UNOS, in 2006, the median number of days from joining the liver waiting list to transplant was 306 nationally. In Tennessee, it was 48 days.

It’s good to hear that Jobs has apparently recovered well from the very serious procedure, and we look forward to him returning to work, when he’s ready.

Update: It’s worth noting that others brought up the possibility of Jobs being in Tennessee for something health-related months ago. Here’s one, here’s another, and the first comment here is very interesting:

Posted by: Anon
April 15, 2009 5:17 PM

I live in the Memphis area. There was a rumor swirling around yesterday connected to someone high profile in a local hospital saying that Steve Jobs at their hospital undergoing a liver transplant.

CrunchBase Information
Apple
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Widgetizing The Web: Widgetbox Hits 500 Million Impressions A Month

Posted: 19 Jun 2009 07:39 PM PDT

Widgets were all the rage last year. And the trend seems to be growing. Widgetbox, a widget creation and distribution platform, is reporting 500 impressions worldwide in the past month, according to Quantcast. Widgetbox says that the vast majority of activity exists across hundreds of thousands of publishers who embed the widgets in blogs each month and through partners who integrate Widgetbox’s widget galleries.

That being said, Widgetbox is still behind other widget makers in the space, including competitor RockYou, which had 9.5 billion impressions in the past month, according to Quantcast. Clearspring also seems to have more of a reach than Widgetbox, but we don’t have the comparable Quantcast numbers. Clearspring’s widgets had 520 million unique visitors in April of 2009, according to comScore.

We also received these comScore numbers of uniques for April 2009 for most of the widget producing platforms:

Widgetbox, provides tools for both novice and advanced developers to create a variety of widgets, from simple embeddable RSS feed readers (called "blidgets") to full social network applications for Facebook, Bebo, MySpace and others. Although Facebook represents only 1% of the widget maker’s traffic, Widgetbox says that they are specifically targeting Facebook as a growing priority, recently launching Facebook Connect integration for users and widgets (which can be published in the Facebook feed). Perhaps this is because of Facebook’s steady growth in the U.S. and its popularity abroad.

Last fall, Widgetbox launched a blog network. To be part of the network, a blog owner needs to embed one of the 29 channel-specific widgets created by Widgetbox. Each widget displays the same leaderboard content as the Widgetbox homepage, which allows users to browse through a network's top blogs without having to frequently return to the Widgetbox site. The majority of Widgetbox’s impressions come from blogging platforms Blogger and Wordpress, with a fair amount of traffic also coming from Bebo and MySpace.

While Widgetbox is seeing success as a startup, it is competing in a crowded space of other more popular widget makers, including Rockyou, Clearspring, and Slide.

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Devver Promises To Speed Up App Testing For Ruby Frameworks

Posted: 19 Jun 2009 07:10 PM PDT

Devver, a TechStars startup, is releasing its developer service to speed up running Ruby testing frameworks. Currently in private beta, Devver runs tests in parallel on their cloud, completing test suites in as little as 1/3 of the time it would take on a developer's machine. Devver says that using their cloud-based system, which splits up processing to multiple machines, it can run full test suites many times faster than in a typical developer environment. In addition, Devver is building features that will reduce setup and configuration time, enable easy scheduling, generate rich reports, and make it simple to share data between local and distributed developers. The product should be particularly useful in encouraging developer best practices -- ie, not skipping a run of the full test suite before deploying a critical bug fix.


Charles River Ventures Hires That FuckedCompany Guy

Posted: 19 Jun 2009 05:14 PM PDT

pk_blue_sm

Remember Philip Kaplan, better known as “Pud,” the guy who created FuckedCompany at the tail-end of the first Internet bubble? Yeah, him. He just joined Charles River Ventures this week as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence. The EIR position is usually where venture firms park executives they want to work with but who don’t yet have a company. EIRs get to see a lot of deal flow, work with the portfolio companies, and usually end up starting their own companies which the venture firm can invest in.

For those of you too young to remember, FuckedCompany was the original deadpool site. Mike once wrote an April Fool’s joke announcing that TechCrunch had acquired the site, which some people still ask us about seriously. But it was always just one of many projects for Kaplan.

Kaplan went on to found AdBrite, which is now one of the top 25 ad networks.

Kaplan is still chairman of AdBrite, but he’s been tinkering with his own projects for most of this year, including several fun Twitter apps like flirt140 (Twitter dating), fast140 (a typing challenge game), Tweetname (domain name registry via Twitter), AlumTweet (Classmates.com for Twitter), and HitMeLater (a snooze button for email). He says he has about 16 sites or apps that are currently live.

So what’s the big idea he will be pursuing for Charles River Ventures? He’s still figuring it out, but he thinks it will have something to do with the intersection of business, social networking, and finance. Whatever it is, you can be sure it will be interesting.

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

Google Maps Finally Gives Me The Feature I’ve Wanted From Day 1: What’s Here?

Posted: 19 Jun 2009 04:51 PM PDT

picture-241I don’t know about you, but when I look at an online map and see outlines of buildings, I get a little frustrated. I want to be able to click somewhere, and find out exactly what’s there. And with a new feature in Google Maps, you can do just that.

If you right-click somewhere on the map, it will bring up a menu with a bunch of options. The new last option allows you to select “What’s here?” And if Google knows — which it does for a lot of places — it will pop up information about what is actually at the location you’re pointing at. If it knows the name of say, a store that is there, it will give that to you. Otherwise, it will give you the address of where you are pointing.

And if you’re zoomed out, it works too. The example Google gives is that if you’re looking at a zoomed out view of the Galapagos Islands, using this feature can get you the name of each individual island. Same with Hawaii, as you can see below.

Sure, in some cases you could find out what was at certain points on a map previously by switching to satellite view, or better yet, Street View. But this is much easier.

And this technique, which is called “reverse geocoding,” has been a part of the Maps API for a little while now, according to Google. So you can use it on your maps as well.

picture-251

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CrunchBoard: TPS Reports Annoying The Job Out Of You?

Posted: 19 Jun 2009 04:49 PM PDT

tps-reportsIf you’re annoyed by TPS reports right now, consider yourself lucky. This week saw the staff reduction of MySpace by 30%, to bring the total number down around 1000 employees. Things dont look good abroad as well.

But the situation might be turning a corner. Last week the U.S. Labor Department issued their Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report. While it showed an increase of 608,000 in jobless claims last week, the number of continuing claims dropped to under 6.7 million.

Here is our layoff tracker, which is updated regularly. If your on the hunt for a new job, CrunchBoard may be the place to find a new opportunity. Check out a snapshot of the jobs available below:

For job hunters in Europe, check out our Europe CrunchBoard.

Don’t forget we’re looking for a few good hackers here at TechCrunch.

Click here to see all the jobs on CrunchBoard.

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I Have A Crush On ManBabies.com

Posted: 19 Jun 2009 04:25 PM PDT

301I post this because it’s Friday, because it’s freaking hilarious, and because it could be a killer last-minute Father’s Day gift. Go visit ManBabies.com right now. I cannot stop laughing.

Babies are cute, and men are usually normal looking — but when you swap their heads, the results are truly terrifying. ManBabies does just that, both by creating its own images and accepting user submissions for photos that are then voted on by the community. And you can easily share all these pictures via the normal means: Twitter, Facebook, email and you can even embed them.

And they’ll even take your photographs and do the swap for you, if you’re willing to pay them — $15 per Manbaby photo.

If you’re interested in submitting your picture, just like Fight Club, the first rule is the most important one:

1. The picture MUST have both a man and a baby. Man + baby = ManBaby. Get it?

Below find a few of my favorites:

306 305

293 295

[thanks Adam]

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Twicsy Is A Killer And Kind Of Creepy Way To Search Pictures Shared On Twitter

Posted: 19 Jun 2009 03:26 PM PDT

picture-231I don’t know about you, but when I see a link to a picture shared on Twitter, I almost always click on it. Sharing images in real-time is a particularly interesting use of the service. And now there’s a more interesting way to view these time-sensitive pictures with Twicsy.

The service, launched by the social search engine Searchles, features a main page that is filled with image thumbnails. All of them are images shared over Twitter on either TwitPic or yFrog (two of the most popular Twitter picture sites, currently). The default is to show images from the past hour, but you can set different time intervals to change what images are shown. Hovering over any of them shows a larger version of the image, along with some details about it, like its link and tags.

If you click on any of these thumbnails, you’re taken to a page that shows the image, shows who has tweeted about it, and images that Twicsy believes are related. These related images are shown based on contextual tags and user analysis, we’re told.

Interestingly, Twicsy doesn’t use Twitter’s search API to find these images. Instead, it indexes all tweets with image links and populates them from that.

But perhaps the most useful feature of Twicsy is its own search functionality. For anything you query, Twicsy pulls up related images that have been shared on Twitter. You can sort these by time or by relevance. The results are pretty solid.

As you might imagine, this service pulls up a lot of slightly personal pics, such as couples being all cutesy together. Since you don’t know any of them, it’s slightly creepy. But hey, if they don’t want those seen, they shouldn’t be sharing them over Twitter in the first place.

picture-214

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YouTube Plays Nice With The Movie Industry, Puts Trailers In Their Own Channel

Posted: 19 Jun 2009 03:24 PM PDT

YouTube has launched a new directory for movie trailers. While YouTube has had movie trailers on its site from distributors in the past, Google’s video-sharing site has launched a new channel where official trailers are organized by “Latest,” “Popular,” “In Theatres,” and “Opening Soon.”

Apple’s movie trailer platform has long been the most comprehensive and popular site in distributing online trailers. Hulu also provides a good amount of trailers on its site. Recently, YouTube launched a premium section with movies and TV shows from Crackle/Sony Pictures, CBS, MGM, Lionsgate, Starz, the BBC, Anime Network, Cinetic Rights Management, Current TV, Discovery, Documentary Channel, First Look Studios, IndieFlix, and National Geographic.

A spokesman for YouTube told us there isn’t a a lot of content on the new trailers site because its new but this will be the main portal for content partners to upload movie trailers. He added, “Trailers have always been popular on the site, and we got a lot of feedback from users and partners and there should be a place on the site specifically for them.” YouTube also launched a few new search options today today, including the WonderWheel, a search feature Google added in May. to its main search engine.

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A Second Opinion On Palm’s Pre App Numbers

Posted: 19 Jun 2009 03:17 PM PDT

The Pre is emerging as a polarizing device, even more so than the G1 (which everyone agreed was kind of beta), probably because it's the closest thing to a legitimate threat that the iPhone has faced. Who wouldn't get defensive? With strong sales in its first two weeks and an entirely new OS for developers to do their thing with, it's strong out of the gate but controlled — because the jockey is holding the reins tight. Palm didn't expect a dynamite launch or a million app sales in a week; what they've got so far is, if we can believe what they say, pretty much what they'd hoped for. Of course, the TechCrunch network is a treasure trove (a rat's nest, some would say) of opinions, and we have been known to attack the Pre (savagely and repeatedly) despite our interest in it. The app sales numbers for the Pre need more context than a direct comparison to the iPhone App Store, but that is an important data point, so let's do it thoroughly.


Android Users Are Stickier Than iPhone Users

Posted: 19 Jun 2009 01:33 PM PDT

gloves

No, no - that headline wasn’t intended as commentary on the hygiene of Android users (though if a good chunk of the Android devotees I know are any indication, it very well could be. Zing!) Earlier this morning, mobile analytics group Flurry gave us an exclusive sneak peek at their Smart Phone Industry Pulse report for June. Flurry’s June report harvests data from 1,100 applications running across 4 platforms (iPhone OS, BlackBerry, JavaME, and Android) on over 40 million handsets, and sheds a bit of light on the usage habits (stickiness included) of smart phone users over the past few months.

Read the rest of this post >>

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In Its Rush To Offer A Persian Version, Did Facebook Violate Its Terms Of Service?

Posted: 19 Jun 2009 12:15 PM PDT

Yesterday evening, Facebook hurriedly launched a Persian (Farsi) version of the site for users in Iran. Following the past week’s events surrounding the Iranian elections and subsequent protests, Facebook felt that there was an immediate need to provide a Farsi version of the social network as an act of solidarity with the citizens of that country.

But this recent move may be in violation of Facebook’s own terms of service. Clause 4.3 of Facebook’s terms of service states, “You will not use Facebook if you are located in a country embargoed by the U.S., or are on the U.S. Treasury Department’s list of Specially Designated Nationals.”

A spokesman for the Bureau of Industry and Security, a division of the U.S. Department of Commerce, confirmed to us that there are currently five countries that the U.S. has imposed embargoes against: Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Syria, and Sudan. This was also confirmed by the U.S. Department of State.

Many of these embargoed countries seem to have Facebook users in their respective countries. We also heard anecdotally from someone who lives in Cuba that Facebook can be used in there as well, although the U.S. has historically implemented strict embargoes against Cuba.

Facebook doesn’t specify what exactly it means by “embargoes” (trade embargo or arms embargo, or both) or how strictly this rule is followed. As Facebook’s popularity grows internationally, perhaps the social network should take another look at its terms of service. Other Web companies such as AOL, Microsoft, and Google are reportedly banning users in embargoed countries from using instant messaging and other software. Twitter’s and MySpace’s terms of service make no similar mention to restricting users from embargoed countries.

But Facebook may have a way out. It can apply for a a special export license if it can argue that its service promotes “independent activity intended to strengthen civil society,” which is a rule that is used with Cuba, according to Department of Commerce guidelines.

We’ve contacted Facebook for a comment. We will update as soon as we hear back.

Here’s the excerpt from Facebook’s Terms of Service:

UPDATE: Facebook has issued the following response:

To be incompliance with US law, we need to prohibit commercial activities from embargoed countries. As events in Iran have demonstrated, we have allowed, and plan to continue to allow, users to set up accounts from those countries and communicate, as long as they are not engaging in commercial activities on the site.

This section you are referring to was addressed in our response to user comments on the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. They are very common terms, though they are worded differently by different companies…Our terms have caused some confusion so we may also propose revising this section in the future to be more clear.

Photo Credit: Flickr/Misterarasmus

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Want A Super Cheap iPhone 3G S? Bing It.

Posted: 19 Jun 2009 11:08 AM PDT

picture-191In honor of the iPhone 3G S launch today, I thought I’d point out a humorous little deal circulating around the web. Apparently, you can use Microsoft’s Cashback program that it runs through its search engine (and now through Bing), to get a healthy 35% discount off of the device.

Depending on your eligibility for AT&T’s subsidy (more on that here), that means you can get an iPhone 3G S 16 GB for $129.35, the 32 GB version for $194.35. Or, perhaps even better, an 8 GB iPhone 3G for $64.90. Yes, you can get a new iPhone for $65 — thanks to Microsoft. Crazy.

Here’s is a full rundown of how to make it happen:

New iPhone Contracts Only:

1. Visit ATT Wireless website and validate your email address with Premier.
2. Check your email and click the link to your ATT Premier Store.
3. Open a new tab with the same browser that your ATT Premier Store is open in.
4. Go to bing.com in the new tab and search “att wireless”
5. Click the 35% CashBack Sponsored Link
6. Sign into your CashBack account and get redirected to the main AT&T Wireless page.
7. In the top right enter the term “Premier” into the search bar.
8. Click the first link that reads “at&t premier login”
9. You will get directed to the same Premier store you have open in the original tab.
10. Congratulations, you are in the Premier store under the CashBack AT&T Site

If you have an account with AT&T and you just want to make an upgrade or add a line:

1. Go to bing.com
2. Search ” ATT WIRELESS “.
3. Click the AT&T sponsored link, you will redirected (after you enter your email) to either the regular AT&T store or the Premier store depending on which account you have
4. Log in to your account and make your purchase.
5. The cashback will show up as “pending” after a couple of hours.
6. If it takes more than 48 hours for the cashback to show up, contact bing’s customer service then you will asked for your order number, method of payment( I attached my whole purchase order to the email): You cash will show up within hours

I have no idea if this will actually work — it may go against AT&T’s rules for device — but if you’re seeing all the hype today and still looking to buy one online, it’s worth a shot.

[via IntoMobile]

[Thanks Nick]

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YouTube Search Gets The Wonder Wheel

Posted: 19 Jun 2009 10:39 AM PDT

YouTube search now has its own Wonder Wheel. The Wonder Wheel is a visual navigation tool which Google first rolled out on its main search page a month ago when it added some new search options to filter results in different ways.

If you do a search on YouTube, which on its own would be the second largest search engine in the world, you will see a new option under the search box on the right called Wonder Wheel. If you click on that, your search term appears in a circle with lines branching out to related tags. Anytime you click on a related tag around the wheel, it creates a new wheel attached to the original with its own set of related searches.

YouTube has also added some new features to its advanced search option, including the ability to search by video duration, location, and when it was uploaded. You can also search by category, keyword, video type, and for HD videos only, but those aren’t new.

wonderwheel-2

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Microsoft Tells Its Rude IE8 Campaign To “Get Lost”

Posted: 19 Jun 2009 10:19 AM PDT

For the past few days, we’ve been digging in pretty deep against Microsoft for its odd way it’s trying to push IE8 online. And we were hardly the only ones. Apparently, Microsoft was listening.

Today, it has changed the worst of those campaigns, the “Ten Grand Is Buried Here” one, to remove the restriction that required you use IE8 to have a chance to win the money. Previously, there were 4 rules for the promotion, but Microsoft cut those in half, removing the ones that told you to get rid of your current browser and download IE8. More importantly, it removed the language that told users to “get lost” if they were using anything besides IE, and implying they were idiots for using any other browser.

The Microsoft blog I Started Something tries to spin this as Microsoft just making changes to make more clear what it always intended for the campaign, saying that “get lost” was meant to be “get lost in the hunt" (both have since been removed from the site), and saying that, “The "it's not as stupid as it sounds" text in the footer was always in context of the "tell a friend" messaging. It implies that telling your friends about this competition is not a bad idea since you might not have the chance to follow or solve all the clues yourself. Some people obviously misinterpreted that.”

Yeah, whatever.

From what I’m hearing, Microsoft was not happy at all with Australian team for this campaign (the MSFT Aussies made it) and made the moves to correct it. Now anyone, using any browser, has a shot at the money.

Smart move, though I’m not sure it will fulfill the original intention: To get more people to use IE8. But they’re still trying. The key line says, “How will you know if you’ve found it [the money]? It’s a cleverly concealed webpage you can view on Internet Explorer 8.” “Can” is the keyword there, you don’t need to use IE8, but you can, to view it.

I think I will use Safari or Firefox to look for the money.

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More News On The Real Time Stream CrunchUp And First August Capital Tickets

Posted: 19 Jun 2009 09:32 AM PDT

crunchup-1

We’ve been flooded with interest in the Real Time Stream CrunchUp to be held Friday, July 10 in conjunction with our 4th annual summer meet-up at August Capital (see ticket info below). Since we first announced the event two weeks ago, some major speakers have confirmed their attendance and the schedule is really starting to come together.

Jack Dorsey, the inventor of Twitter, will be on hand to share his first-hand account of how the real time stream rose to prominence so fast and where it needs to go from here. Chris Cox, the director of product at Facebook, will have his own thoughts on the subject. And we might even stream Robert Scoble live via video from London just so that he can tell Dorsey all about FriendFeed. If Scoble needs help, FriendFeed co-founder Bret Taylor will be there to set him straight.

We’ll kick things off with a morning discussion between two of the smartest investors focusing on real-time startups today: John Borthwick and Ron Conway. Both hold shares in Twitter, but their commitment to the real time stream goes way beyond that.

Borthwick runs betaworks, a startup accelerator with investments in bit.ly, Summize (which was acquired by Twitter and now powers its real time search), TweetDeck, and most recently Twitterfeed, among others. Conway, an early investor in Google and more than 500 other startups, is now laser-focused on the real time opportunity as well. Come learn why they are scanning the horizon for real time investments and how they think these startups are poised to reshape the fabric of the Web.

Individual panels will take a look at how emerging real time platforms are setting the stage for other companies to build applications on. These include not only other Websites, but also desktop and mobile clients. The stream is not bounded by the browser, as stream readers from TweetDeck and Seesmic Desktop are proving. We’ll also do a deep dive into real time search with Collecta (which launched yesterday), OneRiot, Topsy, and others.

The stream will touch every aspect of the Web, from real time media (including social reporting and live video) to real time business (brand monitoring and rapid response when customers complain in the public stream). We’ll be exploring those realms as well.

Interspersed throughout the day will be new product demos from Google, Salesforce, Seesmic, Andrew Baron’s Magma, and several stealth startups. (If you have an eye-opening demo or want to launch a product at the CrunchUp, please contact our conference producer, Asad Akbar. We have just a few spots left.)

It is going to be a whirlwind day. TechCrunchIT editor Steve Gillmor and I will be hosting the event. We are calling it a CrunchUp because it will be highly participatory and real-time in every sense of the word. Our confirmed speakers include:

Additional speakers will be announced over the next three weeks. If you’ve got some real-time hotness you are ready to unleash on the world, contact us.

CrunchUp Details

The CrunchUp will take place on Friday, July 10, between 9:00 am and 4:30 PM at the historic Fox Theatre in Redwood City. CrunchUp tickets are $295 and include expedited check-in to the August Capital party.

Get CrunchUp tickets here, courtesy of Eventbrite.

The complete line-up is here.

Big Time Thank Yous to Our CrunchUp Sponsors

Tokbox is our offical video-chat sponsor of the CrunchUp.

Thank you also to demonstration sponsors OneRiot and Loopt. And to Eventbrite for ticketing and MediaTemple for hosting.

Please contact Jeanne Logozzo or Heather Harde to learn more about sponsorship packages and custom opportunities. Additional details here.

August Capital Tickets

August Capital year 4, can you believe it?
Friday, July 10
5:30 - 10:00 pm
2480 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, CA

We’re also releasing the first batch of 150 August Capital meet-up tickets here, courtesy of Eventbrite. Hurry, they’ll go fast.

Tickets are $20 to help manage the guest list and minimize no shows. Due to extremely limited availability, we regret that tickets are non-transferrable and non-refundable. If you use your name to purchase multiple tickets, your guests must arrive with you to check in at the door. Additional tickets will be released over the next three weeks, so please be patient and stay tuned.

As usual, there will be lots of start-up demos, giveaways, drinks and fun. CrunchUp tickets include expedited entry to the August Capital outing.

Demo tables, photowalls, games and other sponsorships are available to make a memorable impression with MeetUp attendees. Please contact Jeanne Logozzo or Heather Harde to learn more about sponsorship packages and custom opportunities.

Hope to see you there.

UPDATE: August Capital Tickets SOLD OUT quickly as predicted. Watch for the next batch next week. Else, get a CrunchUp ticket and attend both events with us.

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

MySpace Employees In Europe Await A Bloodbath Of Firings

Posted: 19 Jun 2009 09:06 AM PDT

Four days ago MySpace announced they were laying off 30% of their staff in the U.S. and promptly sent 400 employees packing. The announcement stated that the layoffs only applied to U.S. employees. That strongly indicated that the next up for termination were over 100 of its international employees, as it has almost 30 offices around the world MySpace in Europe covers 19 territories via 6 offices.

Now we’re hearing from employees inside MySpace’s offices in Europe, who paint a black picture of hushed meetings between management, PR and HR teams. We’ve been told that MySpace PR people in London burnt candles late into last night, going over how to announce the re-structuring of MySpace internationally. Needless to say, requests for “recommendations” on LinkedIn between MySpace staff in Europe have soared, and we’ve even heard that estate agents have visited the expansive London offices, which suggests major downsizing there as well.

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

A quick hands-on with the iPhone 3G S tethered to my Macbook Air

Posted: 19 Jun 2009 09:02 AM PDT

Yes, the major media figure on the Internet has an iPhone 3G S. On initial examination, I'd safely say that if you're planning on getting an iPhone with a new contract, go ahead. The price is right and the features are great. Everything on this phone is snappier - Maps especially - and the auto-focus and video uploads passed the wife test who said that this is what she's been looking for from the iPhone from the beginning. Looks like someone is going to have to upgrade someone.


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