The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- iPhone App Prices Fluctuate As Developers Adjust To OS 3.0; Nav Apps Gain Pricing Power
- Can Sears Help OpenID Go Mainstream?
- Once Again, Twitter Trending Topics Polluted By Spam (Or Not)
- Worldwide, Russians Spend Most Time On Social Networks (comScore)
- New Logo For MySpace: No Longer A Place For Friends
- Twitter’s Popular Facebook App Has Been Broken Or Exploited For Days.
- Agenda For Real Time Stream CrunchUp (And Third Wave of August Capital Party Tickets)
- YouTube Increases File Size Limit To 2GB, Now Allows Direct HD Embeds And Links
- Microsoft Starts Officially Tweeting
- Bing Keeps Its Foot On The Gas, Adds Tweets To Results
- Joost, Meet The Competition. Magnify.Net Sees Growth In White Label Video Platform
- Bing Wants To Feature Your Best Summer Photo — No Keg Stands, Please
- CrunchGear Raises ~$5000 for Child’s Play Charity
- Details On The Upcoming New Facebook iPhone App. Now With Events!
- The Looming Facebook Privacy Fiasco
- Twitter To Developers: “Tweet” Your Heart Out, But Don’t “Twitter” It
- GDGT Launches For Non Stop Gadget Action
- Live Blog: The Facebook Privacy Conference Call
- Firefox 3.5 Hits Five Million Downloads in 24 Hours. Respectable, But Not A Record.
- Google Enhances Gmail Labeling With Drag And Drop Feature, Retires Right-Side Labels
- Vote In The Europas, The TechCrunch Europe Startup Awards
| iPhone App Prices Fluctuate As Developers Adjust To OS 3.0; Nav Apps Gain Pricing Power Posted: 02 Jul 2009 07:14 AM PDT Ever since OS. 3.0, the latest operating system for the iPhone, launched on June 17, prices among the top 100 apps in the iTunes App Store have been fluctuating wildly as developers push out apps taking advantage of all the new features in the OS. Some of the new features we are starting to see in apps include push notifications, turn-by-turn navigation, cut-and-paste, embeddable maps, access to external accessories, search within apps, and subscriptions. Mobile app distribution service Distimo just put out its June iPhone App store report As you can see from the charts above, the average pricing among the top 100 paid apps was pretty steady until the middle of the month, when developers started to test different price points. The most popular price for an app remained $0.99, but the month of June saw more top apps priced at $1.99, $4.99, and $9.99 (the green bars on the chart above). Distimo also breaks down pricing by category (see charts below). Medical apps command the highest prices by far (on average, about $8), followed by business, navigation, productivity, and reference (all averaging around $4). The category which benefited the most from the new OS was navigation, thanks to the turn-by-turn directions feature. On June 17, the average price among the top 100 navigation apps spiked by about $1. So it looks like navigation apps have gained some pricing power thanks to a the new OS. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.  
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| Can Sears Help OpenID Go Mainstream? Posted: 02 Jul 2009 04:17 AM PDT
Customers will also get access to special offers and coupons in return for their participation in the community. For the integration, Sears teamed up with Viewpoints Network, a social technology and media company that recently integrated JanRain’s RPX solution into their online community and identification platform. The question is: is Sears - despite its claims of driving innovation in online retailing, which seems a bit over the top - merely a late adopter looking to try something new or is this a sign of OpenID maturing to a point where it can finally reach that tipping point where it really starts taking off with a mainstream audience? In my recent interview with OpenID evangelist Chris Messina, he expressed the hope that integrations outside the technology industry - such as the U.S. government - would at some point occur more often, but he also acknowledged that the initiative struggles with branding and getting the word out there. It’s integrations like these that could really help OpenID gain more traction, but the main question will always be if OpenID is just a solution looking for a problem, or if there’s a genuine need for a decentralized, universal login standard. Despite the flood of criticism from technology pundits, the jury’s still out on that. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors  
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| Once Again, Twitter Trending Topics Polluted By Spam (Or Not) Posted: 02 Jul 2009 02:59 AM PDT Really curious to find out how this is done exactly, but someone somewhere has managed to change a real trending topic on Twitter - #MrsSlocombe - into something childish, as you can tell from the screenshot above. Strangely enough, when you do a search for the less appropriate trending topic, not a single result pops up (for now). Update: ok apparently it’s a legitimate trending topic (see origin here, it was meant as a tribute to British comic actress Mollie Sugden on the occasion of her death, so fans, celebrities and Brits in general started to tweet it) but Twitter is just blocking search results from appearing (which is good). Update 2: I’m not ‘pro-censorship’, but in this particular case it’s understandable behavior on Twitter’s behalf, period. I’m sure they didn’t mean to interrupt or ban tributes to a deceased person. This may seem like something mundane at first glance, but many people (including reporters worldwide) track Twitter trending topics for breaking news, and it worries me that they can be manipulated. I mean, it’s one thing if large groups of people arrange for certain terms to show up in Twitter’s trending topics, but it’s a whole other story when they can be gamed (hat tip to Samuel Ryan) Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0  
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| Worldwide, Russians Spend Most Time On Social Networks (comScore) Posted: 02 Jul 2009 02:34 AM PDT  comScore has aggregated some data based on its World Metrix audience measurement service and put together a study on social networking worldwide. Surprisingly, it appears that the Russians are more engaged with social networking than the rest of the planet (or the biggest slackers at the office, depends on how you look at it). The study found visitors in Russia to spend 6.6 hours and viewing 1,307 pages per visitor per month on average, at the same time - once again - confirming Vkontakte.ru's leadership in terms of popularity with 14+ million monthly visitors. To put that level of 'engagement' in perspective: the average world-wide is 3.7 hours and 525 pages per visitor. Among the 40 individual countries reported by comScore, Brazil ranked closest to Russia at 6.3 hours, followed by Canada (5.6 hours), Puerto Rico (5.3 hours) and Spain (5.3 hours). The United States is ranked number 9, with 4.2 hours and 477 pages per visitor per month.
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| New Logo For MySpace: No Longer A Place For Friends Posted: 01 Jul 2009 10:58 PM PDT
We’ve confirmed that the change just occurred this evening, although MySpace PR is as usual not responding. They refuse to confirm that the logo is new, or say why they changed it. It sure is absurd to have a conversation that goes something like “So it looks like you’ve changed your logo this evening? No Comment. Uh huh. Ok, so any official reason why you changed it? No comment.” Trade secrets, I guess. And heck, I’m just happy someone still works there to pick up the phone. MySpace is also on the warpath to get more users. At login they now strongly suggest you log into your email and invite friends (hopefully they’ll avoid turning this too spammy). And they’ve also added the “people you may know” feature as a widget to all logged in profile pages. We’re also hearing that MySpace will be removing some of the ugliest ad units that adorn the site today. Whether that’s an effort to clean up the user interface or simply a sign of slowing ad sales, we’ll probably never know.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.  
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| Twitter’s Popular Facebook App Has Been Broken Or Exploited For Days. Posted: 01 Jul 2009 09:28 PM PDT Twitter has long had an official Facebook application that allows users to update their Facebook status with tweets. It’s quite useful for those of us who don’t want to have to spend all day updating multiple services with the same messages. The app has over 250,000 monthly active users. But if you’re not already one of them, I have bad news: You’re not allowed to use it. For the past several days, anyone who has tried to install the app has been greeted with the following message:
A few days? Try a week now. And it seems that despite the issue being “logged” neither side seems to care much about fixing it. And what the hell is “session test”? Well, it turns out Session Test is actually another Facebook application created by someone called “Bob McTest” — a Facebook profile with two friends and a crazy picture (below right). Session Test has 45,373 monthly active users and 182 fans, despite awful reviews (because as far as I know, all it does is block this Twitter app). Humorously, when you try to install Session Test, you get the same Session Test error message.
On the Sessions Test page you’ll find some rather humorous reviews and discussions from users who are pissed off about not being able to install the Twitter app. The Reviews area for example features messages like, “Steady errors for weeks now… Way to go… update: another week, still nothing….” and “errors!!!!!!!!!! f@ck!!!!” But you won’t find any kind of response from either side there. And the Discussions area is even better. One thread called “I hate you” features a bunch of annoyed would-be Twitter/Facebook users. Another thread called “TWITTER” features more of the same. Finally, someone made a thread just to point out other apps created to workaround the problem, but really, it’s pretty ridiculous that neither side has even responded to any of this. One user links to a Get Satisfaction thread also talking about the issue. But again, no response from anyone on either side. I know Facebook and Twitter may not be on the best terms right now following Twitter’s rejection of Facebook’s offer to buy the startup late last year. And the subsequent moves Facebook has taken to become more Twitter-like. But it’s the users of both services who are getting angry here. After I reached out to both sides about the issue, both said they would look into it. Facebook doesn’t seem to think it’s a problem on their end as VP of Communication and Public Policy Elliot Schrage told us, “this is a question more appropriately posed to Twitter — they built the app!” But it seems pretty clear that one app is exploiting another one, which would seem to be at least partially Facebook’s problem. Meanwhile, Twitter cofounder Biz Stone tells us that he’s looking into it. It seems hard to believe that neither side would even be aware of the issue, but then again, given that the two seem to be competing more and more, an app that allows you to use one of the services rather than the other is probably not at the top of the priority list for either side. And the app still works for the users who had it installed before this issue arose. But if you try to change your username or password, you will get the error message as well. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.  
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| Agenda For Real Time Stream CrunchUp (And Third Wave of August Capital Party Tickets) Posted: 01 Jul 2009 06:48 PM PDT Our Real Time Stream Crunchup is only a week and half away (get tickets here). We’ve been working hard to pull together the best startups, investors, engineers, and marketers developing products and platforms which take advantage of real-time data and communications in new ways. The real time stream is fast becoming a dominant metaphor for consuming information, increasingly displacing or at least transforming the traditional Web page. It has implications for startups, venture investors, media, search, and business, in general. We’ll explore all of these facets in panels, on-stage interviews, demos, and a roundtable. Twitter to Facebook have already embraced the stream, but they are only the beginning. An whole new ecosystem of real time stream platforms and apps is emerging before our eyes. In fact, so many companies wanted to demo their product launches at the CrunchUp that we had to turn some away. But we still managed to fit in about a dozen demos, many of them will be seen for the first time. The speakers lineup includes founders and executives from Twitter, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, FriendFeed, TweetDeck, Meebo, WordPress, Seesmic, Virgin America, Tweetmeme, Qik, and more. Individual panels will do deep dives into the market opportunity, the real time platforms, real time search (something I am very excited about), and real time business. By real time business, I mean how businesses are adapting to the stream as a tool for marketing, brand management, customer engagement tool, internal communications, and even resource allocation. Putting together this conference has opened my eyes as to how far-reaching the real time stream is already, and these are early days. I hope you can join us to see for yourself. Below is the (almost final) agenda: Real Time Stream CrunchUpFriday, July 10, 9:00 am - 4:45 pm 9:00 - 9:45 am The Real Time Opportunity 9:45 - 10:00 am 10:00 - 10:45 am
10:45 - 11:00 am 11:00 - 11:30
11:30 - 12:15 pm
12:15 - 12:30 pm 12:30 - 1:45 pm 1:45 - 2:15 pm
2:15 - 2:30 pm
2:30 - 3:15 pm
3:15 - 3:30 pm 3:30 - 4:45 pm
All details are here. Press, please email Daniel Brusilovsky for press consideration to attend the CrunchUp and August Capital outing. August Capital TicketsFriday, July 10, 5:30 - 10:00 pm 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. 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. Big Time Thank Yous to Our CrunchUp SponsorsProduct Sponsors: Glam Media Lab’s Tinker live conversation moderation, Tokbox live video chat, Ustream live video streaming, Bantam Live, Charles River Ventures and mailspace cc:Betty. Demonstration Sponsors: Seesmic, OneRiot, PeopleBrowsr, Mashery, IDrive, Sun Start-Up Essentials, Meraki, SocialFeet, Tapulous, Loopt, Grey Goose Vodka, Future Works, Gaping Void and Stormhoek Wines. Event Sponsors: Eventbrite for ticketing and MediaTemple for hosting, Topix, ReTargeter, Coveroo, Pandora. Please contact Jeanne Logozzo or Heather Harde to learn more about sponsorship packages and custom opportunities. Additional details here. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors  
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| YouTube Increases File Size Limit To 2GB, Now Allows Direct HD Embeds And Links Posted: 01 Jul 2009 06:30 PM PDT
Next, the update now allows for direct linking to HD streams, as well as easy embedding of same. While it wasn’t impossible before now to get an HD video by default on your page, or to link right to one, it required a little work. But now YouTube has apparently decided that they are ready for the bandwidth shock as thousands and thousands of users default to HD instead of SD — increasing the average amount of bits being sent by a huge amount. Linking to HD is unfortunately not integrated with the UI yet. You have to add “&hd=1″ to the end of your link — thusly:
With HD link, without HD link. And here’s a sample HD embed. It’s not really worth it this size; HQ looks fine and loads faster. What will the next improvements be? Upload speed is solid, compatibility is good, it goes without saying that they’ve got enough users. More social aspects? More integration with Google Apps? Personally, I’m hoping for a live video broadcast service like Qik — that would make liveblogging things about a thousand percent easier, and I know it’d be Android-compatible. Only Google knows. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors  
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| Microsoft Starts Officially Tweeting Posted: 01 Jul 2009 05:59 PM PDT
To be clear, Microsoft had a rather large presence on Twitter before through its various departments/products/services, but now it’s using the main /microsoft account to tweet. The account is being run by its corporate communications team, consisting of four people. So far there have been only 2 tweets and the account only has about 1,000 people following it. That should change, fast. So what was its first tweet? “Anyone can make games now, Kodu is available on Xbox LIVE Marketplace http://bit.ly/3wlWKo #microsoft #xboxlive #kodu” Like any good Twitter user, Microsoft has self-promotion down cold. But that’s not nearly as slick as Google’s first tweet back in February. There’s probably not much to read into Microsoft’s love-fest with Twitter today, but you never know. After all, rivals have been snooping around, flirting with the service. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.  
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| Bing Keeps Its Foot On The Gas, Adds Tweets To Results Posted: 01 Jul 2009 03:30 PM PDT
While that’s a little misleading — Google actually does have plenty of data that gets into its system almost immediately — what everyone seems to mean by real-time results these days is Twitter results. And that’s exactly what Bing is adding. Kind of. As it notes on its blog:
While Microsoft is still in the process of rolling this feature out, you can see what it will look in the image below featuring AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher (who also has some more details about the feature). Apparently, Bing will update these Twitter results every minute, reports the New York Times. But it’s important to note that Bing will not be crawling every tweet that runs through Twitter. Instead, it will focus on only those from people it deems important based on follower counts and volume of tweets. As they note:
What else is a bit odd about Bing’s addition of tweets is that apparently they’ll only show up for very specific searches. So, for example, if you search for “Ryan Seacrest tweets” you’ll find them in the results, but presumably you won’t (at least not yet) if you just search for “Ryan Seacrest.” That would be much more interesting. Google has been doing things in recent months such as adding Google profiles and Facebook profiles prominently in search results. But so far it has shied away from highlighting tweets in their results, even as dozens of other search companies pop up to do just that. Even if these tweet results are rather pointless, this will be seen as Bing doing something Google cannot. And that may just give a few more people a reason to use Bing. Well played, Bing. Update: The feature is now live. Here’s my result: Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors  
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| Joost, Meet The Competition. Magnify.Net Sees Growth In White Label Video Platform Posted: 01 Jul 2009 02:56 PM PDT With the news surrounding the implosion of Joost and the startup’s move towards providing white label video platforms for companies, we thought it would be a good idea to check in with one of Joost’s new competitors. As we wrote in our post about Joost’s prospects as a white label video community provider, there is already plenty of competition, including Brightcove, Magnify, and Ooyala. Brightcove is perhaps the best-known player in the space. But another one which has been relatively successful in creating interactive video sites for brands is Magnify.net. The video hosting and sharing platform, which launched in 2007, is rapidly growing its white label service and is expected to be cash-flow positive by the end of the year, according to co-founder Steve Rosenbaum. Magnify has recently partnered with several sites to power their video aggregation platforms, including deals with Etsy, CarsonDaly.TV, and Bicycling.com. Magnify has also created white label video channels for Zappos, New York Magazine and The Weather Channel. Bicycling.com recently decided to shift from Magnify’s competitor Brightcove to power its platform for original content. The cycling site is launching its Magnify-powered site in conjunction with its coverage of the Tour de France, which starts July 4th. It was attracted by Magnify’s social features, such as the ability to pull UGC videos from sites like YouTube and updates from Twitter. Bicycling.com online editor David L’Heureux plans to integrate Twitter streams onto the platform from cycling all-stars like Lance Armstrong. Magnify also allows the online magazine to aggregate a mix of videos and makes it easy for the site to offer readers external videos and internal media that is created by Bicycling.com. Additionally, Magnify is creating subject-driven channels, such as IranLive, that aggregates video content around a specific topic and also integrates live Twitter streams with the mentions of that topic. The IranLive Twitter stream has filters that remove any Tweets with derogatory or abusive language. What does the Joost white-label service do again?   Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0  
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| Bing Wants To Feature Your Best Summer Photo — No Keg Stands, Please Posted: 01 Jul 2009 01:59 PM PDT
The Bing Summer Travel Photo Contest is asking Facebook users to submit their best summer vacation photos. The community will then vote on them, and the winner will get its day in the sun, so to speak, on Monday, August 3 — appearing to the millions who visit Bing on that day. Naturally, there are some rules for these photos as Microsoft probably doesn’t want kickass keg party pictures on the Bing homepage. Obviously, no alcohol, smoking, guns, violence or nudity will be allowed. But Microsoft also doesn’t want any pictures with recognizable people or any third party trademarked images, so they don’t get sued. Here’s what they are looking for:
In a blog post on the matter, Microsoft also lays out how it goes about choosing the images it uses on Bing. “The images are chosen from a variety of licensed photos with the goal of inspiring a sense of exploration and delight while piquing your interest to learn more.” Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0  
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| CrunchGear Raises ~$5000 for Child’s Play Charity Posted: 01 Jul 2009 01:50 PM PDT  Wiimbledon 2009 has come and gone and I'm happy to report that it was a great success! We had 98 tournament participants and everything went off without a hitch. With the help of generous eBayers, tournament attendees and Barcade, we've raised somewhere in the vicinity of $5,000 for the Child's Play Charity. On behalf of CrunchGear, Wiimbledon and Child's Play, I'd like to thank the following sponsors for hooking us up.
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| Details On The Upcoming New Facebook iPhone App. Now With Events! Posted: 01 Jul 2009 01:04 PM PDT
From Hewitt’s post:
All of these will be welcome additions, particularly the ability to view and respond to events listings, which were oddly missing in the iPhone Facebook app until now (I routinely found myself having to access the web version of the site in order to look up details). Unfortunately, Hewitt writes that Push notifications, which Apple enabled with the release of the iPhone 3.0 update, will not make it into this release — we’ll have to wait for the next point update later this summer. Update: Hewitt has provided us with some screenshots of the upcoming app. Looks like a big improvement.  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.  
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| The Looming Facebook Privacy Fiasco Posted: 01 Jul 2009 12:22 PM PDT
Facebook clearly wants its users to become more comfortable sharing their content across the web, because that’s what needs to happen if the site is going to take Twitter head-on with real-time search capabilities. Unfortunately that’s far easier said than done for the social network, which has for years trumpeted its granular privacy settings as one of its greatest assets. Now, those settings are turning into problematic obstacles. But Facebook sees its redesigned control panel as an opportunity to invite users to start shrugging off their privacy. So it’s piggybacking the new ‘Everyone’ feature on top of the Transition Tool, which is designed to help users acclimate themselves to the new settings. Facebook is planning to test out six different versions of the Transition Tool, and will probably settle on around two different versions for its general release (apparently different tools will be shown depending on your current settings). To get an idea of just how badly this might mess things up, one need only look at the wording for “Transition Tool 2″, which was shown to the press during the conference call (screenshot below). The tool’s heading invites users to update their privacy settings, which is fair enough given that they’re getting totally reworked. But it also says “While updating your new settings, make it easier for friends to connect with you by making a few fields visible to Everyone. Please note that Everyone means everyone on the Internet.” That may be intended as a suggestion, but it sure sounds like more of a command. And you can be sure that the millions of Facebook users who have no idea what the implications are of sharing their personal data with Google and the world will be happy to tick off those “Everyone” radio buttons. And that’s my real problem with all of this. Facebook has allowed users to share some of their information with ‘Everyone’ for a few months now, but those options have been nestled under Facebook’s privacy settings (most people probably didn’t even know it was there). Now these users are going to be seeing invitations front-and-center to share with everyone, and Facebook is telling them that this will somehow make it easier to connect with friends. Perhaps Facebook is confident that its users are smart enough to realize that sharing those drunken party photos with the world is a bad idea, but I’m not. Many of Facebook’s users are still in high school. Some are even younger than that (it isn’t hard to lie about your age on the Internet). And many of these people simply don’t understand that Google is forever. Just look at Facebook’s Vanity URLs for proof: Facebook made it very clear that these are permanent, which means that you’re going to be stuck with the same username five or ten years down the line. Yet there are still countless users grabbing names like ‘drunkdude’. That’s going to look great when your boss tries to add you as a friend. Fortunately Facebook seems to be preparing itself for the worst. During the call, VP Communications Elliot Schrage noted that while Facebook is using a broad definition for “Everyone” right now — meaning the entire Internet — it isn’t going to actually start sharing the data with search engines immediately. Rather, it sounds like Facebook is going to keep these posts contained inside the social network at first, just in case users start over-sharing with reckless abandon (which they probably will). In any case, Facebook is going to achieve its biggest goals with these updates: people will soon be sharing far more with the web than they were previously, and the social network will be able to mount a substantial challenge against Twitter. Of course, this isn’t the way Facebook is positioning the changes. One of my favorite parts of the conference call was when ReadWriteWeb’s Marshall Kirkpatrick noted that Facebook was clearly looking to encourage users to open up their data to the public and asked for the social network’s motivations. Facebook’s response? It wants people to make their data public because it helps disambiguate users with similar names. My phone was muted at the time, but I was laughing heartily. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0  
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| Twitter To Developers: “Tweet” Your Heart Out, But Don’t “Twitter” It Posted: 01 Jul 2009 11:34 AM PDT
But there was still some confusion about what Twitter was actually saying, and more importantly, what it was planning to do with violators of this. So now Stone has written a blog post further clarifying things. Here’s the key nugget:
So there you go, feel free to use the word “tweet” in your projects. But use it wisely. However, the use of the word “Twitter” is something the company is going to look down upon:
That makes sense since it is the actual name of the company after all. And it does need to do some basic protection of its name. [photo: flickr/d'arcy norman] Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors  
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| GDGT Launches For Non Stop Gadget Action Posted: 01 Jul 2009 10:50 AM PDT Last summer we broke the news that Engadget editor-in-chief Ryan Block would team with former editor-in-chief Peter Rojas to create a new gadget startup. Today that new startup, GDGT, launches. Gadget lovers rejoice - this is a social site where you can obsess over those tiny bundles of tech joy among others just as geeky as you. GDGT (pronounced “g-d-g-t,” but I like to just say “gadget”) is a highly structured wiki that centers on tech gadgets. Like our own Crunchbase, anyone can edit any information on the site, but everything is structured which allows for lots of slicing and dicing of the data. The site includes intensely detailed specs on each product and groups products into logical categories. There are over a dozen categories and thousands of products in GDGT now, and users will quickly add more. All that structured data also allows for an incredibly useful Gadget finder tool as well. Users select gadgets that they own, used to own, or want, and can add reviews and ratings. Blog reviews are threaded into the discussion as well: GDGT also has a forum feature where users can discuss relevant gadget related topics. Here’s a thread, for example, where people fretting over the decision to buy an iPhone 3Gs can use each other as a sort of support group. Each user has a profile page with their gadgets and contributions to the community. GDGT isn’t saying much about funding, although we’ve heard they raised around half a million dollars in an angel round led by True Ventures and Betaworks, plus a number of angel investors. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors  
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| Live Blog: The Facebook Privacy Conference Call Posted: 01 Jul 2009 09:56 AM PDT
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0  
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| Firefox 3.5 Hits Five Million Downloads in 24 Hours. Respectable, But Not A Record. Posted: 01 Jul 2009 09:48 AM PDT In the first 24 hours since its release yesterday, Firefox 3.5 has been downloaded more than 5 million times. (It took only a few hours to pass a million). That is certainly respectable, but doesn’t quite measure up to the mania that Firefox 3.0 set off last summer, when it achieved a “world record” 8.3 million downloads in a single day. Maybe we’ll have to wait for Firefox 4.0 to beat that record. But Firefox 3.5 might still beat the 11 million downloads Safari 4 got over its first three days of availability. Who’s.among.us has some live usage stats from about 800,000 Internet surfers it is tracking. According to its data, it estimates that Firefox 3.5 already has gained about a 2.4 percent browser market share. Overall, it puts all versions of Firefox at 29 percent. That suggests close to 10 percent of Firefox users have already upgraded. It also puts Safari’s market share at only 2.5 percent, which seems low. (Other stats put it closer to 8 percent). Looking at our own Google Analytics for TechCrunch, 28 percent of Firefox visitors are already on 3.5, but our readers are big Firefox fans—nearly half of all visitors use some version of Firefox, which is a much higher percentage than for most sites. I’ve been playing around with the 3.5 release candidate for about a week. It is much zippier than 3.0, and I’m already addicted to the plus-sign feature on the tab bar which makes it easier to add tabs. And I love where it’s going with open video standards. It is also a bit crashy when I have too many tabs open, but that’s getting better. Some add-ons don’t yet work, but nothing crucial. Overall, it’s a much better product. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.  
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| Google Enhances Gmail Labeling With Drag And Drop Feature, Retires Right-Side Labels Posted: 01 Jul 2009 09:43 AM PDT Gmail is constantly adding features to help people become more organized. Today, Google has tweaked its Labels feature to add more functionality to the labels toolkit, helping users implement labels in a more organized way. Your labels will now be located in a new area on your Gmail interface, above your chat list and grouped together with Inbox, Drafts, Chats and other system labels. You can also now control which labels you’d like to show on your UI and you can hide the rest under a “more” tab. Of the more innovative features that has been added is the ability to drag and drop messages into labels, just like you can with folders. You can also drag labels onto messages too. It’s also possible to drag labels into the “more” menu to hide them, making it easier to change labels than going to the Settings function. This feature is huge for those people who complain about Gmail not having some of the drag and drop features of Outlook. Google says these changes will eliminate the need for Right-side Labels, which was an experimental Gmail Labs feature. Apparently, this is the first Labs feature that Google is retiring. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.  
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| Vote In The Europas, The TechCrunch Europe Startup Awards Posted: 01 Jul 2009 07:55 AM PDT
A huge thanks to our sponsors for supporting this inaugural event: Thanks to the UKTI for sponsoring the pitches; Viadeo for sponsoring the Best Design category; Bootlaw for sponsoring Best Bootstrapped Startup; Quick.tv for sponsoring Best European Investor; Zendesk for sponsoring Best New Startup; Latitude and Parklane Champagne for the Awards Prizes; oneDrum for sponsoring the drinks party and Mixcloud for sponsoring the DJ. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.  
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It’s one thing when Internet companies 
From the “
At first, I assumed this was some kind of test application Facebook created to log errors, but it says clearly on the page, “This application was not developed by Facebook.” So why is a second app popping up when you try to install the Twitter app? It may be some kind of exploit. When we contacted Facebook about it, they said they would look into it.
It’s Twitter day at Microsoft, apparently. Not only did the software giant announce that it would start 
Bing
It may sound kind of silly, but when I talk to people outside of the tech world about 
It’s been a big day for Facebook, with news earlier this morning that the social network will soon be totally 
Facebook’s privacy 
There’s been quite a bit of controversy over the past several hours over words and images related to Twitter being used by third-party developers. Yesterday, 
This morning Facebook is holding a conference call/web share for press outlining changes the site is making to its privacy options. Facebook hasn’t given us much of a heads up as to exactly what they’ll be changing, but there’s a good chance it will have something to do with the 
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