The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- Status Search: A Search Engine For What Your Friends Are Saying Online
- Full Disclosure: Sponsored Conversations on Twitter Raise Concerns, Prompt Standards
- Tweeting from the Web? Nine Alternative Web Clients
- Barry Diller Still Doesn’t Like Twitter, Still Can’t Stop Talking About It
- Arrington On Charlie Rose: Talks Twittergate, CrunchPad, and Competition
- lifeIO: A Social Media Dashboard That Combines Email, RSS, And Just About Everything Else
- Another Killer Data Point For iPhone Apps: F.A.S.T. Pulls In $1 Million In Six Weeks
- Are Bing Users Twice As Likely To Click On An Ad Than Google Users?
- FriendFeed Follows For A Change With “Recommend Friends” Feature
- Mixx Turns To Twitter To Start Surfacing Hot Links, Launches TweetMixx (Invites)
- Source: Verizon Hurrying To Launch LTE By Early 2010, Perhaps For Apple
- Shiny Unhappy People - UK’s Shiny Media Blog Network Engulfed In Chaos
- The Song of the PowerSquid: The Inside Story of the Life of an Invention, Part 2
- AdWords Gets More Local
- Report: Steve Jobs Happy With Apple’s Tablet, Fast Tracks It For Early 2010
- SearchMe May Go Offline Tomorrow (Updated: Offline Now)
- Geek Weekend: Roanoke, Virginia
- Facebook Wants To Know If You’d Mind Sharing All Of Your Information
| Status Search: A Search Engine For What Your Friends Are Saying Online Posted: 25 Jul 2009 07:09 AM PDT
But sometimes it’s even more useful to search only the status updates published by your friends and family, like when you’re looking for something specific to your social circle or only want to get an overview of thoughts or recommendations from those people you know and trust. Enter Status Search, which aims to fill that particular void in real-time search. Once registered for this service, brought to you by Elad Meidar and Lior Levin, you can authorize it to gain access to what your circle of connections on both Twitter and Facebook is saying without the need to enter your credentials for said social networks. Basically, it’s what you can accomplish by searching FriendFeed updates from your friends but without the need for them to actually register for that service. Firefox users can enable a quick-search plugin for Status Search inside the browser, which takes away the hassle of having to remember to visit their website to search. I tested a couple of search queries and the results were satisfactory, although I’m not sure exactly how far the index goes back. What I particularly liked was the fact that the trending topics that are displayed in the sidebar are generated from the stream of messages originating from the people you know and not the herd. In the past, I’ve called out for this type of implementation because Twitter’s trending topics have simply lost their appeal from the early days now that the service has gone mainstream. Also nice: an alerts system that enables you to track specific words or phrases that you would like to get notified about. You can choose to receive an unlimited amount of e-mails on these terms, delivered either immediately or on a daily basis. From what I can gather from the Status Search website, the alerts are currently free of charge but there are apparently plans to start charging as much as $10/ month per word at some point (which is ridiculously expensive if you ask me). Simple and useful, just the way I like my web apps. Now if we could get this functionality as a feature in TweetDeck, Seesmic and the likes … (Hat tip to Eyal Sela) Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.  
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| Full Disclosure: Sponsored Conversations on Twitter Raise Concerns, Prompt Standards Posted: 25 Jul 2009 06:49 AM PDT In light of the FTC's recent scrutiny of Social Media practices and the activity that connects brands to influencers and ultimately consumers, we will soon see guidelines and corresponding penalties to serve as governance for future engagement. In the realm of sponsored posts or tweets, the FTC simply cannot delineate the differences between earned and paid postings and therefore assumes that most consumers are equally oblivious. With Izea's impending announcement of a new pay-per-tweet network, combined with existing ad networks and services such as TweetROI, Twittad, and Magpie, the FTC will be forced to pay attention to the paid endorsements in one of Social Media's most promising and also elusive networks. As you could possibly imagine, the reality of mass-sponsored tweets will raise a Tweetstorm that will immediately trigger a blogstorm, which will ultimately escalate into a full-blown Category 5 media hurricane. But the reality is, whether you agree with them or not, sponsored conversations and paid tweets are already here. The question is how to use them correctly and responsibly. Their appeal to marketers is obvious. They increase awareness, expand networks, drive sales, build communities, promote causes, raise money and awareness, and push traffic. So, before the chaos and confusion ensues, I wanted to take a proactive role in steering a productive conversation to explore and introduce solutions, ethics, standards, and also reduce the possibility for consumer confusion and potential backlash. I hosted a virtual summit on the topic via Facebook and invited pundits and industry leaders to discuss:
Disclosure certainly is a first step, but it can also steer perception, which is why this discussion is so critical to the evolution of sponsored conversations. The debate however, centralizes on the mechanisms and terminology for disclosure and whether or not they are effective when either explicit or implicit in nature. To kick things off, I introduced options for consideration such as including a symbol or term in each Tweet that conveyed sponsorship or endorsement such "$," "spon," "paid," "endorsement," "sponsored" or possibly including an is.gd or bit.ly link to a landing page that could more effectively communicate the nature of the endorsement, ad, promotion, and the intention of the relationship. As the conversation deepened, the rationale for one standard or solution unlocked a series of challenges that necessitated further exploration and discussion. As I noted in the forum, the use of "paid" for example, precipitates psychological connotations that will evoke a completely different emotional response as compared to endorsement or sponsorship. Anders Abrahamsson shared an interesting perspective, "Paid is coming close to that you sold out your integrity - some might call it prostitution." Stowe Boyd, the champion for Microsyntax.org, offered a general resolution that resonated with many participants, "My recommendation would be to concoct a new indicator, perhaps ‘AD’, to place at the start of any sponsored Tweet. This has several benefits since anyone would immediately know, at the outset of reading the tweet, that it is sponsored. It stands apart from the tags, which usually appear in a cluster at the end. Also, this would make it easy for tools to build filters to block ADs or to easily find them, depending on your leanings." I believe there's a difference however, between sponsored and paid tweets, one defined by purpose and objective. For example, I enjoy the tweets published by Gary Vaynerchuk and I observe that he has a tremendous following of developing wine (and marketing) enthusiasts. A company may choose to either sponsor his Twitter wallpaper and/or his tweet stream. In this case, they don't necessarily influence his tweets, they simply sponsor them. This introduces another alternative through the disclosure of relationships directly on Twitter backgrounds. However, if I pay for tweets specifically, then I expect to dictate the content related to each paid tweet. Brian Carter of TweetROI shared his perspective on sponsored conversations versus ads, "SP and AD make sense. Surprisingly, even some quality Twitterers, don’t want to change the advertiser’s text…Everyone interprets payment/ sponsorship differently…." At this point, SP and AD become potential preambles for sponsored and paid tweets respectively. But, Jeremiah Owyang, social analyst with Forrester Research, believes that they are not enough, "People won't understand that 'AD' and 'SP' imply that those tweets are paid for. We need to be explicit, even if it occupies more characters in the tweet. The only solution is to specifically state, 'sponsored' in each…" Again, I suggested that an included (shortened) URL that directs to a pre-defined page that explains the sponsorship and further clarifies the intentions and benefits of the program is another option to consider. While it's implicit in nature, it communicates disclosure in a mutually beneficial way that serves the Twitterer, the brand, and the reader. In the leaked Twitter documents, also know as Twittergate,, there is mention that Twitter is already thinking about this as a form of revenue generation. It appears as though Twitter is considering the implementation of color coding or introduction of different fonts for sponsored and paid tweets. James Eliason of Twittad believes that Twitter should release an API to support color-coding as not only a form of disclosure, but also as a measure of preventing spam. Eliason took the case to Twitter co-founder Evan Williams where he recommended that Twitter begin the process of selecting specific ad partner providers to prevent dilution from spam marketers and ensure that the advertising comes from the source through the API. His idea is to assign the API calls from each ad partner through Twitter.com and also third party apps such as TweetDeck, Seesmic, and PeopleBrowsr. He also believes this will introduce a new subscription model for users to pay a small fee for a non-ad model across all platforms. Our challenge isn't only to unite the industry of sponsored conversation providers around common standards and ethics, we must also encourage marketers to put them into practice. Whether it's on Twitter, in blog posts, or in television commercials, paid tweets are technically no different than the array of commercials and advertisements that are available to marketers already – except that everyday people become the spokespeople and thus become difficult for followers to discern real experiences versus influenced perspectives. While everyone agrees on the need for standards, and it's clear that competitors will actually collaborate to help define them, there's merit and promise in top-down regulation from the FTC and/or Twitter itself. In the meantime, I still believe that including "sponsored" as Jeremiah suggests, providing disclosure on individual wallpaper, or including a link to a page that offers context and clarity, represent credible alternatives in the interim. 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| Tweeting from the Web? Nine Alternative Web Clients Posted: 25 Jul 2009 01:49 AM PDT
Believe it or not, almost 50% of Twitter users, prefer to tweet directly from Twitter.com. This isn’t surprising, but most heavy Twitter users agree that Twitter.com is actually the poorest user experience among the plethora of alternative web applications to access the service. But there’s one thing Twitter.com has going for it (besides being the default way all new users access Twitter) - it’s simple and easy to use. But after few months of using Twitter you begin to look for the retweet button, the auto-refresh updates, or a way to create groups, and moreover, you are looking for a better way to navigate through your endless list of friends and/or content. You won’t find these features on Twitter (although the Power Twitter Add-on gets you most of the way there), but here’s a list of alternative web applications that will let you monitor your Twitter account from your browser in a much richer way than the Twitter site itself. With Web Seesmic (Disclosure: Arrington still has a small investment in Seesmic), you can monitor all of your tweet activities in one place and in real-time. Easily navigate through your list of friends, choose your favorite layout, and more - all from a very clean and clear interface. So far, I’ve found Web Seesmic to have the most potential in terms of becoming your next Twitterstream service. There is still room for improvement, of course. When it comes to usability, the design is just too minimalistic. The retweet/direct messages should be visual and accessible via one click only. The “list view” navigation is better than the column, but the font is way too small (that needs to be changed ASAP). In addition, it lacks two significant features: The trend list, which becomes very important if you want to be up-to-date with timely news and current events, as well as a twitpic/yfrog integration. Surprised, I have to ask: Where is the main thing that Seesmic does so well? Video-based comments would leverage this app at least ten times more. Have they given up on video completely? Meanwhile PeopleBrowsr has it all. See all of your tweetstream, your mentions, DMs, search-based keywords, create groups, manage multi accounts from one dashboard, use a to-do list with quick tags, integrate with all your social networks, RSS import, map view, and tons of other features. The problem is - that it’s just too overwhelming! Even the most skilled power user on Twitter won’t need all of these advanced features. Luckily though, PeopleBrowsr has a light version that is more reasonable to use. Still, I did feel a bit lost in both the advanced and light versions. PeopleBrowsr provides so many other services that are related to any and all of your social activities on the web. The service actually reminds me of Zoho, which turned out to be the largest office suite on the net. Maybe this is the direction PeopleBrowsr is heading towards? - Your one-stop-shop for all real time activities. TwitHive is a multi-channel web dashboard for Twitter. The service lets you create channels based on your query. You can customize each channel whichever way you please. It might sound great overall, but during actual testing the service failed to impress me. The service is somewhat annoying to use - search and also new updates opens in a different layer, and column creation takes time, while other services do that for you automatically. One thing that I did enjoy and found unique was the integration of Google News and Blog Search alongside any search you perform. If you have several Twitter accounts that you need to monitor (personal plus brand(s)), you may consider using Splitweet. Splitweet allows you to compose a list of accounts and distribute tweets to more than just one account. You can also follow your contacts’ tweets from all of your managed accounts. OK, so here’s my problem with this service: Each account gets its own color, and Splitweet places this color coded box next to each tweet in the stream. Personally I think it’s a bit weird to have refer to various Twitter accounts by color. I rather see the username of the account, or a small icon, than to remember what color symbolizes that particular account. TweetTabs, a Tweetmeme project, is the easiest way to track trends on Twitter. It’s so easy, you don’t really need to do anything. Just enter the site and enjoy the stream of each trend presented on Twitter right now. Additionally, you can run a keyword search and it will automatically add it as a new column. There’s no registration whatsoever, and if you want to reply or retweet someone else’s tweet, you’ll be redirect to your own Twitter profile (which I found to be very useful always). Although on TweetTabs, you can’t see your friends’ streams or manage anything else beyond what I’ve mentioned above. Similar to TweetTabs, Monitter allows you to track what most matters to you on Twitter without the need to sign up or in. Just type three words into the three search boxes (you are free to add more boxes if needed), and within seconds you’ll start seeing relevant tweets streaming live. The one thing that Monitter gives above all the others listed here is the ability to grab a real-time twitter stream widget for your site, with the option to customise the CSS to make it look the way you want. Kudos to Tweenky, for being the first service that enables real time tweets from the web. Unfortunately, it didn’t evolve any further. Their first version had this nifty Gmail look & feel, but for some reason, today, it just looks pretty plain and boring. Having said that, you may want to use it because of its simplicity. Tweenky is designed to be very obvious to the user. The list of activities and trends are accessible always, and the main stream is easy to adjust to. I found the larger font in the update box to be conveniently useful. Remember all the buzz around Tweetree? I tried it again today and was surprised to see that nothing has changed (usually you get to see more useful features over time, no?). Anyway, it still a good service, if you want to see a bigger picture of your stream. Tweetree embeds external content so you get to see pictures, videos and even the text from submitted links right in your twitterstream. To be honest, I didn’t like how the service overtook the Twitter layout. If you already use Twitter in the background, go easy with your logos. In Tweetree’s case, they placed two extremely large logos on top of the twitter page, and it is just a distraction. It would have been less annoying to get all of the features without all of the noisy design around it. TwitZap is not half bad for a layer that sits on top of Twitter site, and frankly it has great tools that the others don’t have. First of all it lets you organize your favorite channels, then it shows you how many updates you missed when you’re not on the channel, which relates to a RSS reader experience. But furthermore, it shows you who are the people that are viewing the same channel right now, and this is by far the best way to find people based on a shared activity. The page refreshes in real time (you can even choose its speed), and on its browser tab you get to see how many of new tweets you’ve missed. The bottom line, if I have to choose the best service among these 9, I think TwitZap is the winner (they should change their registration to a single sign-in though). Frankly, I’m not completely satisfied with all of these services. I think that Twitter web clients are weak compared to the desktop ones. I wonder who will step up and take the entire experience forward. Who will integrate twitpic, blip.fm, emoticons, videos, and all that fun stuff that we found on other Twitter applications into one? One thing we know - it most likely will not be Twitter. Therefore it’s up to someone else to gather everything into a single, easy-to-use page. I’m still in searching for that one service… Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0  
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| Barry Diller Still Doesn’t Like Twitter, Still Can’t Stop Talking About It Posted: 24 Jul 2009 08:33 PM PDT A couple of weeks ago IAC Chairman and CEO Barry Diller was telling the elite crowd at the Allen & Co. Sun Valley conference that he was “pessimistic about Twitter's prospects for making money.” A couple of weeks later and he’s singing the same tune, this time to the elite crowd at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference in Pasadena. In an interview with Andy Serwer, Diller admitted that he didn’t really understand the service and doesn’t use it himself. He said it was for people who want emote real time information like “I’m going to the doctor now,” “I’ve left the doctor now,” and “I have a cavity,” and that it doesn’t seem like a natural advertising platform. “It’s not exactly for me” he said, “I don’t go to the dentist.” He does admit that it is a “very strong” real time communication device. But he just can’t get much more excited than that. Maybe he’ll take another look if Twitter ever hits those massive revenue projections. Full video is below. Sorry for the low quality, Fortune will likely have a clean high definition version soon and I’ll swap it out. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors  
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| Arrington On Charlie Rose: Talks Twittergate, CrunchPad, and Competition Posted: 24 Jul 2009 05:17 PM PDT TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington recently was interviewed by Charlie Rose for a chat about the latest news and events in technology. Michael gave his take on the Google vs. Microsoft rivalry, saying that each tech giant is going after the other’s core businesses. Michael also touched upon the latest news around the CrunchPad and Apple’s much hyped and potentially similar product, the large form iPod Touch, which is reported to hit the market in early 2010. Of course, Rose unsurprisingly delved into the whole Twittergate controversy, which Michael gave a lot more insight into, including the discussions with Twitter and the ethical decisions he faced in his decision and why he published the documents. Michael also weighed in on mobile social mapping startup Loopt, the iPhone, the Palm Pre (which he says is a “great phone”) Facebook’s viability as a money-making enterprise and more. Read below for the full transcript of the interview. You can see Arrington’s other Charlie Rose appearances on Crunchbase. Full Transcript: Michael Arrington is here. He's the founder and editor of TechCrunch, MICHAEL ARRINGTON: Hello, Charlie. CHARLIE ROSE: Google versus Microsoft. We now have Bing, their MICHAEL ARRINGTON: Yes, it's fascinating, because you think of Google CHARLIE ROSE: But do they really look to have great success in that? MICHAEL ARRINGTON: If you listen to Eric Schmidt at Google, he seems I don't know what their projections are around that, but… CHARLIE ROSE: There was a story that Eric was the one resisting going MICHAEL ARRINGTON: Oh, I don't know if he resisted or not, but he's CHARLIE ROSE: There's also Bing. So, Bing got very good notices. MICHAEL ARRINGTON: Yes. Bing is a great search engine. They One of the problems with search — and all the guys who do search CHARLIE ROSE: And a lot of people have to say Bing was better. MICHAEL ARRINGTON: I think that Microsoft in the past has made CHARLIE ROSE: So, it wouldn't be Explorer? MICHAEL ARRINGTON: Yes. Right. And Explorer's market share is But I think Google wants to get Microsoft out of the PC entirely. And CHARLIE ROSE: Speak to me about mobile phones and mobile technology MICHAEL ARRINGTON: We're in an awesome place. I mean, think back. I CHARLIE ROSE: Because they began to see it as a computer in itself? MICHAEL ARRINGTON: Well, yes. CHARLIE ROSE: That's what… MICHAEL ARRINGTON: Although not just that. CHARLIE ROSE: And it looked good and everybody wanted to have one MICHAEL ARRINGTON: They also figured out Web surfing on a phone with CHARLIE ROSE: And what about the Palm Pre? MICHAEL ARRINGTON: It's a great phone. CHARLIE ROSE: It's a great phone. Why is it a great phone? MICHAEL ARRINGTON: The operating system I think is as good or in some The hardware on the phone I think was a little rushed and feels a CHARLIE ROSE: OK. Tell me what Crunchpad is. MICHAEL ARRINGTON: About a year ago — and I really like where the CHARLIE ROSE: Did you go get venture money? MICHAEL ARRINGTON: Well, you know, I'm not going to answer that CHARLIE ROSE: Why not? MICHAEL ARRINGTON: Because I haven't — I don't want to answer the (LAUGHTER) CHARLIE ROSE: We have our ways, sir. MICHAEL ARRINGTON: But I'll say this. I think that Apple — so Google's new operating system, Chrome OS, is a Linux-based operating CHARLIE ROSE: Facebook versus Google. Is that a big competition? MICHAEL ARRINGTON: You know, last time we talked, it was Facebook CHARLIE ROSE: It's what is Facebook becoming? MICHAEL ARRINGTON: Right. And what is Google becoming. I think it's CHARLIE ROSE: So that's Zuckerberg's argument. Look, I mean, who MICHAEL ARRINGTON: Exactly. Exactly. Yes. Why not? CHARLIE ROSE: Because they will know who you are and what you like. MICHAEL ARRINGTON: Some of the startups that buy traffic on Google Google is very aware of that. The free stuff on Twitter and Facebook CHARLIE ROSE: So, what did you do? You published some internal MICHAEL ARRINGTON: There's this hacker… CHARLIE ROSE: I know that. MICHAEL ARRINGTON: This French guy that got these documents from CHARLIE ROSE: Right, and so what did you do? MICHAEL ARRINGTON: I'll get to it. He — so what he did was, he CHARLIE ROSE: Who came to you? MICHAEL ARRINGTON: This hacker, anonymously, and said, here are all CHARLIE ROSE: What was in the documents? MICHAEL ARRINGTON: It was hundreds of documents taken from Twitter's CHARLIE ROSE: Like credit card numbers, you're not going to post MICHAEL ARRINGTON: We're not going to post the credit card numbers or CHARLIE ROSE: So, what did they say, go ahead and post them? (LAUGHTER) MICHAEL ARRINGTON: They said… CHARLIE ROSE: We have no problem with this? MICHAEL ARRINGTON: The ultimate answer was, we know you're going to And there are people that have come out, major journalists who have And obviously I have an opinion because I'm in the middle of the CHARLIE ROSE: It's interesting how you did it, you know, engaging MICHAEL ARRINGTON: I engaged them, and I would say that 80 percent of CHARLIE ROSE: So, why did you do it? MICHAEL ARRINGTON: Because I think — well, you know, it's funny. CHARLIE ROSE: Do you know the site called Loopt? It's amazing. MICHAEL ARRINGTON: It's this mobile social networking. And it's all CHARLIE ROSE: Wherever you are, you know everybody in your block. MICHAEL ARRINGTON: Yes. I can turn mine on — I mean, I don't have I love it. In fact, I've written about this, where you can imagine a Or you go into a business cocktail setting, and you see people on your CHARLIE ROSE: So, tell me how you see the future of social MICHAEL ARRINGTON: I don't know what it is. I mean, it's hard to That's all — it's sort of really fascinating. What's unclear is CHARLIE ROSE: What about the Kindle space? MICHAEL ARRINGTON: The ebook reader space is very interesting, and I I've argued that Amazon should not be building a hardware device CHARLIE ROSE: You take care of the hardware. Yes. TechCrunch, thank MICHAEL ARRINGTON: Thanks very much. CHARLIE ROSE: Michael Arrington. Thank you for joining us. See you next time. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors  
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| lifeIO: A Social Media Dashboard That Combines Email, RSS, And Just About Everything Else Posted: 24 Jul 2009 04:49 PM PDT
lifeIO is meant to serve as a control panel for all of your communication, featuring tabs for Email, calendar, note taking, social sites, and RSS — in other words, a one-stop-shop where you can conduct the vast majority of your online activities. That’s a lot of personal information to store in one place, but fortunately everything is encrypted and transferred via a secure HTTPS connection. Features are broken into broad sections, like ‘Social’ and ‘Email’, which you can jump between using a slim menu bar at the top of the screen. The site does a good job keeping things consistent — navigation within a section is always done on the left side of the screen, with the content itself appearing in the middle (it works similarly to most desktop mail clients, like Outlook). Finally, the right portion of the screen is always dedicated to the lifeIO MyStream, which provides a real-time stream of new blog posts and notices as they come in. It can be a lot of content to absorb, but fortunately lifeIO lets you customize which items appear at a given time. The ‘Social’ tab is reserved for services like Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace (the number of supported services is actually quite limited right now, but more are on the way). One possible workaround if you’re looking to import as many services as possible: simply import your FriendFeed RSS feed. This social information, along with your Email, makes the site’s search feature potentially very powerful. Other features include the ability to chat with your buddies on most common protocols, including AIM and MSN, and a ‘Shopping’ section that lets you persistently monitor search results for a certain product. The site has some good ideas — I especially like the real-time stream of new content that shows as new blog posts are appearing from my RSS feeds. But there are definitely some usabililty issues to work out before the site launches to the public. For one, the site needs another layer of polish: feeds and search results appear as unnecessarily large boxes (these would be great if they included extra content, like images from the article they linked to, but they’re fairly empty). And navigation can become a bit confusing at times. And perhaps most important: the mail client still has a very long ways to go before it will be able to match Gmail’s interface, which is going to be key if the site is going to draw any hardcore users. All of that said, lifeIO is still in very early stages, and we can likely expect some major improvements in the future. Disclosure: lifeIO was a sponsor at our August Capital party earlier this month. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0  
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| Another Killer Data Point For iPhone Apps: F.A.S.T. Pulls In $1 Million In Six Weeks Posted: 24 Jul 2009 04:43 PM PDT
SGN is clearly trying to find the revenue-maximizing price for the game - it has varied from $9.99 (the price I paid in June), to just $1.99 today. The game will eventually allow paid-for upgrades to weapons and jets when the new version comes out as well, which will bring in more dollars from addicted users. This is an extraordinary game and certainly not representative of the average revenue from other paid apps in the App Store. But it also isn’t even currently on the top list of paid apps, and it continues to pull in substantial dollars, spiking, we hear, to as much as $60,000 per day. SGN is also planning to license the basic platform engine that they created to build F.A.S.T. to other developers as well, who can create their own interactive games. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.  
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| Are Bing Users Twice As Likely To Click On An Ad Than Google Users? Posted: 24 Jul 2009 03:35 PM PDT Are people who search on Bing more commercial than Google searchers? According to a study by search-advertising network Chitika, visitors who arrive at sites from organic search results on Bing are 55 percent more likely to click on an ad than if they arrived from Google. Chitika looked at the clickthrough rates from 32 million ad impressions across its network of more than 50,000 sites in a week in July. Visitors from Bing clicked on an ad 1.5 percent of the time on average, versus a 0.97 percent clickthrough rate for Google visitors and a 1.24 percent clickthrough rate for Yahoo. One reading of this data is might be that Bing users are more susceptible to ads, and in fact may have used Bing in the first place because of the Bing ads Microsoft is plastering all over the place. (Kinda makes you wonder what will happen when that ad budget goes away). But a more likely explanation is that Google represents the vast bulk of the traffic, 83 percent to be exact. Bing only represents 8 percent. There is a law of large numbers at work here. The more traffic that comes from any one source (i.e., Google), the lower the clickthrough rate is likely to trend. If the market share was reversed, Bing would undoubtedly have a lower clickthrough rate. But that still leaves the question of just who are those people on Bing?
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0  
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| FriendFeed Follows For A Change With “Recommend Friends” Feature Posted: 24 Jul 2009 02:38 PM PDT For many features and innovations, FriendFeed has been ahead of Facebook, and even Twitter. It’s usually Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites catching up to FriendFeed, not the other way around. Today, FriendFeed added a Recommend Friends feature, that allows you to recommend subscriptions of friend’s feeds to anyone who subscribes to your feed. The friend suggestions feature was originally born out of LinkedIn and Facebook added the suggestion feature early last year. When you send friend recommendations, your friend will get an email with all of your recommendations, including a link to subscribe to all your recommendations with a single click, which is actually pretty useful. Especially if you are a new user, it’s nice to have the option of having a friend do all the work for you when it comes to finding people to follow. And whenever you hover over a friend’s name, you will see a “recommend friends” link in the popup image. You will also see the link on the profile pages of your friends who have joined the site recently and may need some help in finding friends to link up to. FriendFeed continues to roll out features and tools at an impressive pace, adding real-time search, unveiling a new API, and the ability to disable comments in July alone.  Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.  
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| Mixx Turns To Twitter To Start Surfacing Hot Links, Launches TweetMixx (Invites) Posted: 24 Jul 2009 02:28 PM PDT
TweetMixx works by skimming through tweets and looking for links. The more times a given link appears on Twitter, the higher placement it gets on TweetMixx. Likewise, you can log-in using your Twitter credentials and receive a personalized hotlist of tweets based only on the Twitter users you follow. If this sounds familiar, it’s because the idea isn’t a novel one. TweetMixx is facing off with plenty of competition — Tweetmeme has become quite popular, and sites like twitrollr and tweetlinx do very similar things (and we just saw TuneIn launch this month at our RealTime CrunchUp). But CEO Chris McGill says that there are a few differences that help set TweetMixx apart. For one, the site will figure out the name of the article being linked to, so rather than seeing something like http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/24/adwords-gets-more-local/, you’d see the article’s title, “AdWords Gets More Local”. One other feature offered by TweetMixx is a much-improved version of Twitter Search. Using the standard engine offered by Twitter, you can only search through the text of tweets, but not the articles they’re linking to — if someone fails to explain what a link is in their tweet, then it won’t show up in results. Using TweetMixx, you can search through both standard tweet text and the names of the articles that are being linked to, which can turn up many more relevant results. Mixx’s decision to launch TweetMixx is yet another display of how powerful Twitter can be when it comes to surfacing new content, as it’s often much faster than a Digg-like voting system. The biggest clash is yet to come, though: pretty soon bit.ly, the very popular URL shortener, is going to be launching its own Digg competitor, which is going to have a huge volume of metadata to draw from. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.  
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| Source: Verizon Hurrying To Launch LTE By Early 2010, Perhaps For Apple Posted: 24 Jul 2009 01:45 PM PDT
While it has been known for a while that LTE will be rolling out in select markets at some point next year. The most recent roadmap has 20-30 markets as a target for the second half of 2010. But our source says that Verizon is putting just about everything it has in to moving many of these markets up to Q1 2010 — which is the same timeframe for this supposed new Apple device. While the source had no information to specifically tie Apple to this move by Verizon, they did note that there was talk of at least one non-dongle (wireless card) product that this LTE launch was being specifically geared towards. Verizon is actually already doing limited tests of its LTE network in select markets. And the results have been very impressive — up to 60 Mbps. LTE stands for “Long Term Evolution”, but an easier way for many people to think of it may be as “4G”. It’s the next generation of wireless network after the 3G that many of us currently use. And there’s another reason that Verizon may want to hurry LTE along as it relates to Apple: The iPhone. Apple’s exclusive deal with AT&T to be the iPhone’s carrier in the U.S. is set to end sometime in 2010. While everyone (including me) is quick to dream about Apple offering a Verizon iPhone, currently, Verizon runs a CDMA network which is different from the GSM network that the current iPhone is constructed for. This would mean Apple would need to make a new version of the iPhone for Verizon. And that’s fine, except that CDMA will be replaced by LTE, so it doesn’t make a lot of sense to spend time building a version of the phone that will quickly be obsolete. And AT&T is also expected to roll out an LTE network (though not likely until 2011), so this new version of the iPhone could work on both Verizon and AT&T. Of course, if you’re in a place where LTE isn’t available, what the phone running on Verizon’s network would fall back to is still a question mark. But that’s all just speculation about a Verizon iPhone, let’s get back to the Apple tablet.
Our source doubts that Apple would want to sell the device with a subsidy, locking customers into another contract, but believes that Apple could either try to bake the cost of the network into the device (which would work like Amazon’s Kindle). Or, more likely, customers could sign up for a month-to-month data-only plan for the new device. And because it’s data only, the price would be significantly cheaper than current cellular bills we’re used to. Current data plans on top of regular cellular bills run about $30 a month, but data-only plans offered through wireless cards usually run about $60 a month. Perhaps if Apple could bake part of that cost into the device and get the monthly fee closer to the $30 a month, some users might be willing to pay for that. Or maybe, since the device would presumably have Wi-Fi, perhaps Apple and Verizon would offer variable rates based on your usage. Obviously, there are still a lot of question marks with regards to pricing, but thought of having an Apple tablet that can access data at speeds approaching 60 Mbps is obviously going to be appealing to a lot of people. Our source went on to note that Apple and Verizon doing some kind of business seems inevitable. They reiterated claims — which we’ve heard from several other sources — that the folks inside Apple are not happy with AT&T at all right now given the spotty service, and seeming inability to handle the iPhone’s rapid growth. That will be music to a lot of people’s ears. [photo: flickr/woodleywonderworks]
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0  
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| Shiny Unhappy People - UK’s Shiny Media Blog Network Engulfed In Chaos Posted: 24 Jul 2009 12:54 PM PDT
But in a scene straight from The Office, the company’s commercial manager stood up and dismissively told the assembled media luminaries that they were “all sheep [who] should stop following the big media herd and advertise with Shiny… the new wave of blogs”. “Bah!” said the sheep from major media agency Carat, and promptly walked out in disgust. Since then Shiny Media has been, many times over, lauded as the UK’s great new hope of blog publishing. But the shiny exterior of the operation appears to have been quite different to the reality.
Around the same time other UK entrepreneurs were trying their hands with blog networks like Mink Media and MessyMedia but none lasted - most citing the inability to scale to large traffic numbers in the UK. Shiny apparently thought they could buck the trend.
And yet, fast forward to 2009 and Shiny was limping. The company laid off half of its 17 staff in February, citing a tech advertising downturn. Norris, the original CEO, had departed in August 2008 to start experimenting in online video publishing and had become CEO of online men’s publisher Anorak Media. Katie Lee left in February 2008, at the same time as Shiny's period of layoffs and cutbacks. Recently, Anorak, under Norris, acquired a blog he founded, WhoAteAllThePies from Shiny, which then mothballed the title. Norris resumed blogging with Shiny. Then on July 21, TechCrunch Europe folllowed up on a story broken by a former employee, that Shiny Media had gone into administration. Unknown to us at the time - but subsequently leaked - the day before, co-founder and director Chris Price had sent this email to all employees and freelancers.
What publicly emerged, uncovered by TechCrunch Europe and sites like PaidContent UK, was that Shiny had indeed gone into administration the previous Friday, allegedly due to growing debts. Shortly afterward, the assets - including all websites with the exception of Bag Lady and Shoewawa - were bought by a new company, Shiny Digital. According to the Companies House registry in the UK, the equal shareholders in this new company were Shiny Trends (incorporated by Shiny co-founders Chris Price, Ashley Norris and Katie Lee last year) and Cansas Digital Ventures (a new registered name for Shiny Media's venture funder Brightstation since August 2007). Clearly there was something going on. Why had Price's email and mobile been "switched off by one of the minority shareholders in the business"? Was there a disagreement going on at board level about the new structure? At any rate, an administrator had been brought in and many Shiny blogs had stopped updating. That same day co-founder Katie Lee (who had left Shiny in February but remained a shareholder) confirmed the story on Twitter, saying in a tweet that "Looks like everyone knows Shiny Media has gone into administration. Still not entirely sure what's going on tbh. Sorry for all writers." Lee also Twittered: "Just to clarify, because it's always bugged me, Bright Station did not put $4.5m into Shiny Media." She went on: "It was incorrectly reported in the press and we were told to stick with the story. Was mortified." Of course, this itself wasn’t quite correct. The press had simply reported what Shiny had told them. For years. And what it was still saying on their corporate blog, i.e. “How to spend $4.5 million.” It also appears that Brightstation itself never attempted to correct the record. Bright Station's founders were interviewed in The Times in January 2007, again mentioning the $4.5 million figure. A day later on July 22, co-founder Chris Price gave a more accurate picture of the company’s investment to The Guardian, saying Shiny had received “under a million pounds”. Sources close to the deal have confirmed this to us. Lee continued to Tweet on the matter. She said the status of Shiny was up in the air and that "[I] Don’t know who administrators were. All presented as fait accompli". She also said "As far as I know, Shiny Media has already been bought [before I even knew it had gone into administration]. So hopefully some jobs OK." This suggested that the company had been put into administration and then bought almost immediately in what is normally referred to as a Pre-packaged sale. In a nutshell, this means that a buyer is lined-up - often the company is selling to another company where the directors are similar, if not the same - and a sale is made almost immediately after administration. However, a legal requirement is that the company for sale is advertised somewhere (and we’re not talking in some disused basement here, we’re talking somewhere public and online). So was Shiny Media advertised for sale? If it was we can’t find any evidence of this to date. Moving on… On July 22, The Daily Telegraph followed up. Dan Wagner, CEO of Brightstation told the newspaper he was disputing the administration order for Shiny Media, the UK blog publishing house. He said the company was performing well and the administration was not necessary. He said: “Shaa Wasmund and I, as directors of Shiny Media Limited and representing over 50pc of the shareholding in the company, are currently contesting the appointment of the administrator and the alleged subsequent sale of the assets. We are firmly of the view that Shiny Media was a solvent company on Friday July 17, in good shape and trading well.” However, the company appointed to the administration told a different story. Wilson Field in Sheffield said Shiny Media had been left with no option but administration and said “Legal advice shows the appointment is valid.” A spokesperson said “We are satisfied that the company was insolvent as defined by Section 123 of the Insolvency Act 1986, as it was unable to pay its debts as and when they fell due. HM Revenue and Customs had threatened… proceedings. The administrators are currently considering taking legal remedies against Dan Wagner.” Shiny Media refused to comment at that time. That day Price posted an early comment on PaidContent UK, reasserting his view that the company had gone into administration, saying “Every effort was made to continue trading, including selling of assets, redundancies, downsizing offices and, in the case of the directors, substantial pay cuts.” The Guardian newspaper also reported that Price had emailed them, saying, again, that most of the assets of Shiny Media had been bought by a new venture, Shiny Digital. Again, this had shareholders including Norris and Lee, and Cansas Digital Ventures, the new vehicle for Brightstation. In other words, it seems that Dan Wagner is contesting the fact that Shiny Media is not in administration, when a company he owns, Cansas Digital Ventures, is now part owner of all the old Shiny Media assets. Curiouser and curiouser. The next day, July 23, Paidcontent reported that Ashley Norris had telephoned them to say "I'm completely heartbroken with the way it's turned out. I'm disappointed we're having to maintain radio silence and not comment - but it's for legal reasons - we hope to be much more candid in the next few days." That day also, Katie Lee came out fighting. In a very long blog post (almost as long as this one) on The Daily Telegraph she said a number of things, including that the sale of the Shiny Media company’s assets to Shiny Digital had left her with less equity and some other early writers with none. However, the most interesting part was this: “The pre-pack has certainly left a bad taste in my mouth and having any shares at all is making me uncomfortable.” In other words she confirmed that this was a pre-packaged sale. Again, was it advertised in accordance with UK law? A UK government report has found that in 35% of pre-packed sales, the administrators breached the rules. In addition, further information has been passed to us about what happened at Shiny. TechCrunch has been told by inside sources that Price and Norris “voted another person onto the board” in order to pass through a motion of insolvency. This prompted the “shareholder”, referred to in Price’s email to employees, to start locking down the company offices. This shareholder is believed to be Brightstation. In fact, our sources say staff turned up on Monday and were confronted by some angry representatives from Brightstation. We also understand one freelancer was given the phone number of Brightstation by someone at Shiny, only to be told by Brightstation that it would be bringing to bear “all the legal might they could muster”. We’ve also been told that Brightstation told in-house Shiny staff to go to the offices, and take whatever make-up (they had blogs about fashion and beauty), gadgets and fashion samples they could get their hands on. Comedic scenes apparently ensued when Price and Norris appeared with two “big guys” for protection and police were called thinking there was some kind of break-in going on. The questions that arise from this affair are innumerable. Why does Dan Wagner of Brightstation call this an “alleged sale” if Brightstation already owns part of the company that the assets were sold to. Wagner has declined to comment further. Was Brightstation given the option to buy the assets or to invest further money by Shiny Media prior to is pre-pack sale to Shiny Digital? How much were the assets sold for? What attempts were made by the administrators to find another buyer for the assets? Was there any advertising? We’ve called the administrators but they have not returned our calls. Some freelance Shiny writers say they were still waiting for payments owed prior to Shiny entering administration. Some are owed at least £4,000. This could substantiate the administrator's view that Shiny Media “was unable to pay its debts". At least Lee can console herself in a woodland she bought in 2008, and Norris his beach home, acquired since founding Shiny. Who is this mystery additional shareholder that voted for administration? Was Brightstation aware of the whole process? We’ve spoken to Ashley Norris. He told us “We can’t speak because of various ongoing legal situations.” But he did say the administrators had been happy with the process to date and will be issuing a press release in due course. We have another, well placed source that suggests a further twist. They tell us that Brightstation themselves didn’t put the money into Shiny Media, but in fact acted as a middleman between Shiny and another company (as yet unnamed) which provided the money to power Brightstation. That company made most of its money from sub-prime mortgages so when the market tanked last year, so did their financial muscle. As a result they weren’t able to give Shiny Media all the money they were promised, which may have further exacerbated the company’s woes. The source suggests that it was these financial problems which caused a breakdown in relations and communication between all parties, leading to the chaos we’ve witnessed this week. Finally, it is worth recalling who Dan Wagner is. This is a tough entrepreneur and investor who is best known for running the Maid online information business in the 1990s, and turning down an opportunity to invest $1m (£510,000) for 30% of the fledgling Ebay — a stake that would now be worth many billions. He also bought the assets of Boo.com for a reported $375,000 back during the dotcom crash and turned it into the successful ecommerce player Venda. And his Wikipedia page suggests that he is not one to take things lying down. Perhaps it would be generous however to end on a lighter note. The shiny, flock wallpaper in Shiny’s Central London office (which they shared with fellow-Brightstation-backed OSOYOU) cost £80 a sheet. Isn’t it shiny? Picture of Shiny founders: The Guardian Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0  
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| The Song of the PowerSquid: The Inside Story of the Life of an Invention, Part 2 Posted: 24 Jul 2009 12:30 PM PDT  Hello, my name is Christopher Hawker. I am a professional inventor, specializing in innovative consumer products. My company is called Trident Design, LLC. I have developed many products in numerous industries and have over 20 products on the market. My most famous invention is the PowerSquid, a cephalopod-inspired power strip with outlets situated at the end of short cords, thereby eliminating the problem of losing outlets to bulky transformer plugs. John Biggs, editor-in-chief of this blog, has asked me to write the story of the birth of the PowerSquid and its development and journey to market. This is the Song of the PowerSquid. Read part 1 here. Part 2: Development With the PowerSquid concept in the house, we began our development process by researching the market, to see if a similar product was already out there. We did our own patent and internet searches and combed through mail-order catalogs and hardware stores. We ordered catalogs from manufacturers and searched them with baited breath. But nowhere did we find another PowerSquid. In fact, there were no interesting power strips on the market at all at that time. They were all just rectangular boxes with outlets. We brainstormed for weeks about the form of the PowerSquid. We wanted to stand out on the shelf, so we determined our new product should be biomorphic, looking like an actual squid as opposed to something more traditional and square.
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| Posted: 24 Jul 2009 11:50 AM PDT Google has made AdWords a little bit more local for businesses by allowing them to run location extensions on ads. According to Google, location extensions allow you to “extend” your AdWords campaigns by attaching your business address to your ads. Once you link you AdWords campaign to your Google business center account, Google will dynamically match a business’s locations to a user’s location or search terms and show the appropriate address with text ads. If Google can’t approximate the searcher’s address, then the ad will be shown without an address. You can turn off the dynamic feature and show a specific address with a particular ad, so that the address shown is not based on the searcher’s location. The ads can be shown with their address extensions on Google and Google Maps and as regular text ads without the extensions on partner sites in the Search and Content Networks. Now that AdWords has introduced the location extensions feature, Google says local business ads won’t be a separate ad format, as local business ads will include the extensions. This is all part of Google’s attempt to crack the online local advertising market, which remains a challenge (and opportunity) for all the big Web companies. (Local is one of the five new areas of focus of AOL as well under new CEO Tim Armstrong). Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.  
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| Report: Steve Jobs Happy With Apple’s Tablet, Fast Tracks It For Early 2010 Posted: 24 Jul 2009 10:52 AM PDT
Most importantly, after months and probably even years of tweaking, the device is now said to have Steve Jobs’ seal of approval. All we all know, even now, that is perhaps the single biggest determining factor as to whether a device will see the light of day from Apple. Jobs apparently likes this new device so much, that he’s “cemented” into the company’s 2010 roadmap of products, AppleInsider says citing sources well-respected “for their striking accuracy in Apple’s internal affairs.” And we shouldn’t have to wait a year or more for the device, the goal is Q1, according to the report. This indicated just a small slip from the Fall 2009 launch that we had initially been hearing. So what other details are there? Well, the device will apparently have a 10-inch screen (slightly bigger than the 7 to 9 inch screen prototypes our sources had seen). It will also have built-in 3G wireless access. This is where things start to get really interesting, because there have long been rumors of Apple talking with Verizon about a device that was not the iPhone. Apple, of course, has an exclusive deal in the U.S. with AT&T for the iPhone through next year, but there have been no shortage of whispers in recent weeks that it’s not just us that is displeased with AT&T, but that Apple is as well. And Yesterday, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson made a comment indicating that the iPhone would not be AT&T exclusive forever, perhaps indicating that the end is near for the exclusivity of the partnership. Another interesting partnership element is behind what will power this new device. It had long been assumed that Intel’s Atom chips would be used in such a device, but more recent reports have indicated that Apple has instead used its acquisition of chip-maker PA Semi last year to produce its own, custom-tailored chips. AppleInsider is indicating the same thing. These chips would supposedly handle the device’s power consumption better than the Atoms would. One thing that’s not clear from this new report is what kind of operating system this device would run. AppleInsider’s own mockups (pictured above) indicate that it will run apps like the iPod touch and iPhone. This would seem to suggest a version of the iPhone OS, rather than Mac OS X. But who knows, that’s just a mockup. Certainly, a low-power chip would have an easier time running the iPhone OS. But this would change Apple’s idea of having developers develop for one form factor, something which gives the iPhone platform an advantage over other mobile devices. Another question mark remains the price point. The report suggests it will be “expected to retail for somewhere between the cost of a high-end iPhone and Apple’s most affordable Mac notebook.” That means between $300 and $1,000. And given what Apple COO Tim Cook said the other day during Apple’s earnings call, you can probably rule out anything under $399 and $499 as well. So perhaps $699 or $799? But one pricing wild-card that you must note will be the wireless carrier partnership. If there in fact is one, that could mean another subsidy which could drive down the price significantly. But would people be willing to pay a monthly fee for a device that isn’t a mobile phone? That seems unlikely in this market. So perhaps Apple will work out a deal with Verizon or another carrier similar to what Amazon has done for its Kindle device. That is, it will bake the cost of access into the cost of the product. The problem there is that while the Kindle uses very little wireless data to transfer books, an Apple tablet would presumably use a huge amount of data, for apps and Internet access. That type of access is something which I doubt any carrier would be willing to provide without a huge (and I mean huge) chunk of change in return. This will be something to pay attention to over the next several months. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors  
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| SearchMe May Go Offline Tomorrow (Updated: Offline Now) Posted: 24 Jul 2009 10:24 AM PDT
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.  
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| Geek Weekend: Roanoke, Virginia Posted: 24 Jul 2009 10:19 AM PDT  Geek Weekend is a continuing travel series about geeky things to do in cities around the world. Want your city featured? Write us at tips@crunchgear.com. The RNR region is frequently recognized as a great place to raise a family and for its outstanding quality of life. But more recently, it's getting great marks for business and entrepreneurship, being recognized by Forbes as a Best Small Places for Business and Career, and by CNNMoney as a Tech Launching Pad and one of 100 best places to live and launch. The region is home to a diverse and thriving technology and entrepreneurial community, with businesses specializing in the fields of biology, chemistry, nano-technology, materials science, autonomous navigation, software engineering, bio-informatics, fiber optics, water purification, aerospace, and information technology, among other disciplines. The local Technology Council – The NCTC – is our champion and leader in the tech community. A 33-year old lad from Scranton, PA right out of "The Office" leads our efforts to promote technology start ups in the region. Visit us Sept 18 for Demo Day, the region's most comprehensive science fair.
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| Facebook Wants To Know If You’d Mind Sharing All Of Your Information Posted: 24 Jul 2009 09:51 AM PDT Facebook wants really wants to make as much information as possible on Facebook public. It recently changed the privacy controls on the site to make it easier to share with everyone. It wants to know how much users are willing to share and, depending on the answer, it may keep pushing in this direction. A survey sent out a couple days ago to users asks them to describe how open they are to sharing information on Facebook. The options are:
The correct answer is B. Facebook wants it to be A, though. The more information that is public, the more it can turn up other people’s feed items in search results and take on Twitter in general as the de facto source of the real-time stream. In fact, Twitter has been worrying about this very move since at least last February. In the confidential Twitter papers we published last week, the February notes for a strategy meeting included a section titled “How Could Facebook Kill Us?” The top threat was “Real-Time Search.” The second threat on that list: “Opt-in to make status public.” Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0  
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Sifting through public status updates posted on 
Another data point that profitable businesses can be built on the back of the iPhone/iPod Touch app store: Social Gaming Network’s 
So, it’s looking more and more likely that a large form iPod touch, which 
Our source believes there is definitely some credibility to this Apple/Verizon tablet talk, because such a partnership could work while the Apple/AT&T exclusive iPhone pact is still in place — which it seemingly will be in Q1 2010. The reason is that this tablet will apparently not have a microphone, so in other words, it cannot do voice calls, which puts it outside of the Apple/AT&T agreement. Such a Apple/Verizon deal would then only include data transfer, with is also interesting in what it could mean for the pricing.
[Additional reporting by 
Founded in 2004 by journalists Ashley Norris, Chris Price and Katie Lee, Shiny followed the Gawker/Weblogs Inc “blog network” model so fashionable at the time. The company was best known for its 
Sure enough, in January 2007 Shiny won its “$4.5 million” from Brightstation - headed by long-time UK entrepreneur Dan Wagner - for a 50pc stake. Or at least that’s what was said by the company at the time and consistently since. It appeared to be doing well; according to sources close to Brightstation, by November 2007 traffic to Shiny media was 3.5 millions uniques and revenues were in the hundreds of thousands of pounds per annum.
You may recall back in December, we first reported the news about Apple gearing up for the launch of 
An Update to our 
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