The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- Jim Breyer’s Midas Touch. Two Acquisitions in 24 Hours (Marvel And BBN)
- Coupa Raises $7.5 Million, Helps Companies Spend Smarter
- Confirmed: eBay Sells Skype In Deal Valuing It At $2.75 Billion
- Chrome OS: The Code Clues Are Out There
- With Its Desktop App, StockTwits Grows Up…And Away From Twitter
- The Mobile Payments Rivalry Heats Up
- Chrome Is Gaining Desktop Notifications
- Shares In XING Soar On Buyout Rumors - Is LinkedIn Interested?
- The British Are Waning — Cloud Apps Up, Microsoft Down
- Opera 10 Released: Its Turbo Is Fully Functional
- Gmail Hitting Some Turbulence
- What Happened To Adobe Air Today? No One Seems To Know.
- Skype Sale To Investor Group Led By Andreessen Horowitz Confirmed
- Netflix Had Me At “We’re Sorry”
- BeamME Pro Update Hits the App Store
- Another Popular Developer Lays The Smack Down On Apple’s App Store
- The Almost Hopeless Challenge Of Web Security
- TechCrunch50 Partners Step Up with $1 million In Advertising For Launching Startups
- A Look At fbFund’s First Summer As An Incubator Program
- Builds Of Chrome Get Updated To Show Off Their Snow Leopard Spots
- Top Developer Reveals Android Market’s Meager Sales
- Yazzem Launches Version 2; Improves Latest Activity Among Users
- Stir Successfully iPhone-izes FriendFeed
- Call.com Rings Up $1.1 Million
- Google To Affix A “Slow” Scarlett Letter To Some iGoogle Gadgets
| Jim Breyer’s Midas Touch. Two Acquisitions in 24 Hours (Marvel And BBN) Posted: 01 Sep 2009 08:26 AM PDT Investor Jim Breyer of Accel Partners is having a very good day. In the past 24 hours, two companies where he is an investor and board member have been acquired for big bucks: Marvel Entertainment, which was bought yesterday by Disney for $4 billion, and BBN Technologies, which was bought this morning by defense contractor Raytheon for an undisclosed amount. Breyer invested personally in Marvel, while he represented Accel investment in BBN. He sat on both boards (and also is a board member of Facebook, Dell, Walmart, Etsy, Brightcove, Prosper, and Real Networks). At BBN, Accel co-led a management buyout five years ago with General Catalyst Partners. BBN is a storied technology R&D powerhouse. Started in 1948 by a group of MIT professors, it invented many of the technologies of the early Internet, including packet switching (1969), the first network email (1971), the first router (1976). It also came up with the @ sign, but much of its work is for the military, which is why Raytheon snapped it up. Other recent exits for Accel include VMWare’s $420 million acquisition of SpringSource in August and Yahoo buying Xoopit for $20 million in July. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco           |
| Coupa Raises $7.5 Million, Helps Companies Spend Smarter Posted: 01 Sep 2009 07:42 AM PDT Coupa, a provider of on-demand e-procurement solutions, has secured $7.5 million in Series C funding led by El Dorado Ventures and joined by previous investors El Dorado Ventures, BlueRun Ventures and Battery Ventures. With the new capital injection, the total amount raised by the San Mateo, CA startup gets doubled to a healthy $15 million. Coupa markets a Ruby on Rails-driven software suite that allows companies of any size to maintain better control over costs by keeping tabs on purchases, suppliers, existing contracts etc. and automatically looking for ways to spend budgets in a cost-saving manner. The software is subscription-based and Coupa boasts that implementation and training times are way shorter than would be the case with its competitors. Aside from making it easier for people in charge to make purchasing decisions, the completely web-based e-procurement program also helps streamline communication between all employees and executives with a stake in the decision. Ultimately, the software is designed to help companies spend smarter and improve their bottom lines without too much hassle. The company also manages to leverage popular technology in its solution, boasting a one-click integration with Twitter that enables companies to solicit competitive bids from suppliers across the world using the micro-sharing service. Coupa even offers an iPhone app dubbed Mobile Approver that can be used to access the purchasing system at no extra cost for existing subscribers. ZDNet recently published a favorable, detailed review of the service in case you’d like to learn more about Coupa. On a sidenote, Coupa has got one of the best corporate websites I’ve seen in a long time, and I’ve seen many. Even the demo videos are more entertaining than the bulk of what I’ve (been forced to) watch over the years. They’re also great at marketing, having recently invited any federal, state and local government agency to use Coupa e-Procurement free of charge for six months in order to help them establish control over inefficient procurement practices. Definitely one to keep an eye on. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| Confirmed: eBay Sells Skype In Deal Valuing It At $2.75 Billion Posted: 01 Sep 2009 06:57 AM PDT
The acquiring party is indeed an investor group led by private equity firm Silver Lake Partners, who likely paid the bulk of the amount Skype was sold for. Other investors include VC firms Andreessen Horowitz and Index Ventures (a previous investor in Skype), as well as the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) Investment Board. The new investors will buy approximately 65% of Skype, with eBay continuing to own 35%, in a deal valuing Skype at $2.75 billion US. eBay is expected to receive approximately $1.9 billion in cash upon the completion of the sale and a note from the buyer in the principal amount of $125 million. The transaction, which is not subject to a financing condition, is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2009. Worth noting: Andreessen Horowitz partner Marc Andreessen sits on the eBay Board of Directors. Ebay had reportedly been looking to sell Skype for $2 billion, compared to the $3.1 billion it put on the table to buy out the company and pay out its founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis back in 2005. Since then, eBay has written down nearly a billion dollars of the deal value after realizing the supposed synergies weren't going to pan out as planned. Skype is said to be making approximately $600 million a year in revenues, so it seems like the investor group acquired the company at a very reasonable price. Earlier this year, eBay had announced that they would be spinning off the company in an IPO in 2010. As Michael noted when he broke the news about the impending deal that was confirmed today, these announcements are often made to generate acquisition offers from potential suitors. If Skype will ultimately be floated on the stock market in the near future remains to be seen. Full release is below, and bares no mention about the litigation currently at hand between eBay and its initials founders over key Skype technology. Full press release:
(Image via E24) Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| Chrome OS: The Code Clues Are Out There Posted: 01 Sep 2009 06:50 AM PDT
No, we’re not talking about those big icon screenshots, instead, this reveal is buried in code commits. As you can see in this directory, there are a few mentions of “chromeos.” A few days ago, a “brettw” with a @chromium.org address wrote the following:
Seeing as Chromium, while open source, is still very much a Google project, an @chromium.org email address would seem to suggest that this is a Google employee. A quick scan of what he’s been working on reveals that it’s all Chrome, all the time. A quick Google Search reveals him to be Brett Wilson, who is a software engineer at Google, and you can see him in action at Google I/O here. Just prior to that message, Wilson described the “compact navigation bar” in a bit more detail:
Now, certainly this stuff could be related to a new version of Chrome being worked on and not Chrome OS. But remember the latest update above (”Move the compact navigation bar to the chromeos directory”) and then take a look at the one that came right before it:
So this status bar apparently has a clock, and application menu, and a battery indicator. Certainly, that all reeks of Chrome OS rather than Chrome, the web browser. I’m just speculating here, but it seems reasonable to assume that this status bar may be the name of the main upper dock for Chrome OS. It’s hard to know for sure, and it’s even harder to try to dig through the Chromium.org directories for more information, given all the code names and nested directories. Here’s a bit more of what I dug up: This page talks about cookies as they are related to Chrome OS. Of note:
So yes, it would appear that work is well underway on Chrome OS, but it “isn’t there yet.” [thanks Sai] [photo: Warner Brothers] Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| With Its Desktop App, StockTwits Grows Up…And Away From Twitter Posted: 01 Sep 2009 05:00 AM PDT
If you’ve used TweetDeck, StockTwits Desktop will be very familiar to you. That’s because Lindzon and fellow co-founder Soren Macbeth created their client with TweetDeck very much in mind, realizing that people would know how to use it (Lindzon is also an investor in TweetDeck). But StockTwits Desktop’s functionality extends far beyond that of TweetDeck, as what it’s really doing is creating an entire investor ecosystem within this app. Right now, if investors really want to get serious about stock trading professionally, they buy a Bloomberg Terminal. Unfortunately, those run you around $2,000 a month. Thomson Reuters offers a competing system, but that will still cost you almost $1,000 a month. But Lindzon sees an opening because the number one feature on Bloomberg Terminals is chat, he tells us. What if you could open up a free forum to the tens of millions of regular day traders out there? That’s really what StockTwits has always been about. And this new Adobe Air-based app gives them the terminal from which to do it while intermixing the very casual traders with the more serious folks. Lindzon envisions this as the “Social Bloomberg” or the “Facebook for Finance.” But it has always been kind of hard to get the more hardcore financial folks to take a service seriously when it is tied to Twitter, with its famous un-reliability issues. So StockTwits has built up an entire backend that is wholly separate from the messaging service. Yes, StockTwits is slowly breaking away from the service that inspired its name. Using StockTwits Desktop, by default, you don’t send anything to Twitter. Instead, you use the same basic ideas behind Twitter to communicate with a financial community. Of course, you can still send the messages to Twitter (there’s a CC: box that you check to easily do that), but plenty of users who take this really seriously, want to send messages all the time with what they’re trading and maybe don’t want all of those to go out to every person they follow on Twitter. The features you’d expect from a desktop client are all here. But grouping people together is particular important in StockTwits Desktop because of the different types of traders. There’s a “Tech” group for example, but also a “Natural Gas” group. These groups are populated with users considered to be well versed in those fields, and any other users are free to follow them, which will open up a separate column within the StockTwits Desktop app. Also built-in to StockTwits Desktop is a web browser. Many AIR apps don’t utilize this functionality, but it’s very useful for getting information quickly, since you don’t have to leave the app. Instead, another tab opens with a full-fledged browser inside. Speaking of tabs, while you’re probably used to seeing various columns in the TweetDeck application, StockTwits Desktop has tabs on top of columns, to allow you to have a lot of information open at once. This can include Twitter Searches, RSS feeds, and charts (from Chart.ly, which StockTwits purchased back in May) among other things. There is also real-time financial news provided in partnership with SkyGrid. You can easily subscribe to news just about a particular company, or get the firehose of financial information coming to you in a column. StockTwits Desktop is an impressive client anyway you look at it. If you’re not into financial information, it’s feature set is probably overkill, but the grouping experience mixed with the in-app browser is pretty killer. And for the StockTwits junkies, this will be heaven. It’s like a terminal, but free (unless you are a member of one of the StockTwits Network Premium authors, which cost varying amounts, but usually are in the $50 a month, or $400/$500 a year-range). Those subscription bloggers are already bringing in some revenue for StockTwits, but the real key seems to be diversification. StockTwits is serious about moving away from having Twitter as its backbone, and towards having it be simply be one stream that comes into this app, Macbeth says. The plan is to eventually have things like live video content through StockTwit.tv continually flowing into the app (right now, much of it is archived, but some is live). There are also quite a few other plans in the works in terms of new content to pipe into the app, they note. Twitter has taken StockTwits places. On August 25, the company got to ring the closing bell on NASDAQ. But to go to the next level, and rope in more serious investors to become a viable business (and potentially much more), it may be time to expand beyond relying solely on Twitter. This desktop client and a new website redesign (which will eventually take on many of the desktop app’s features) suggest that is where StockTwits is heading. Watch the video below for how to sign up for StockTwits Desktop. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| The Mobile Payments Rivalry Heats Up Posted: 01 Sep 2009 04:55 AM PDT  Mobile payments for micro-transactions on the web are catching wind and there are several players in the space vying for the top spot in the field. Today, Boku, a recently launched mobile payments conglomorate of sorts, is announcing a slew of new customer acquisitions as well as details of its international expansion. Boku, which acquired competitors Paymo and Mobillcash and raised $13 million in Series A funding back in June, doesn't require users to have a credit card or bank account to make a micropayment. Users enter their cell phone number on the site, reply to a text message and then all virtual charges are automatically charged to the user's monthly cell phone bill. As we’ve said in the past, it’s ridiculously easy. Because of its acquisition of Paymo and Mobillcash, systems that had significant international reach, BOKU gained a strong base of users around the world. Today’s announcement adds availability of the payment service in Finland, Indonesia, Slovenia and Taiwan, bringing the company's global reach to 56 countries. Boku’s marketing chief Ron Hirson tell us that they are seeing a strong foothold in Southeast Asia and will be expanding to the Phillipines within a few weeks. Boku has also added a number of online gaming sites, social network applications and the social networks themselves over the past few months, including Playfish, HitGrab and Gambit. Boku says that currently they have over 1000 customers that use its mobile payments platform. So far, Boku has powered 6.5 million online mobile transactions. But competition is stiff in this field and one competitor in particular, Zong, has also witnessed strong growth over the past few months. Most recently, Zong was chosen to test a pilot program for mobile payments for Facebook’s virtual currency, Credits. While Zong may not have had the organic international base that Boku has (Zong is available in 19 countries), this partnership is sure to help Zong’s global reach thanks to Facebook’s ever growing presence and popularity around the world. Zong also reached a big milestone a few weeks after processing mobile payments for 10 million unique users in 2009. However, the potential obstacle to Boku, Zong and other mobile payments platforms are the high fees that mobile carriers charge to the payment systems (which are then passed on to the consumer). Boku told us on June that different cell phone carriers charge varying fees that range between 10% to 50% of the purchase price, which is a hefty amount in transaction fees. But if mobile carriers lower their fees, mobile payments have the potential to be the go-to way to pay for microtransactions. David Marcus, CEO of Zong, says that many U.S. and European carriers that Zong works with are contemplating reducing these fees by building large-scale models to process payments that would in turn lessen the pressure on startups like Zong and Boku as well as the applications and social networks using the systems. Marcus feels confident that if this does happen, the sky is the limit with mobile payments. Regardless, as shown by growth witnessed by both Boku and Zong, mobile payments are catching on and attracting the attention of some of technology’s giants, like Facebook. And of course the rivalry and ensuing competition between the two companies could continue to spur further innovation and growth. It will certainly be fascinating to see which startup comes out ahead. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| Chrome Is Gaining Desktop Notifications Posted: 01 Sep 2009 03:55 AM PDT
It looks like Chrome is about to gain a new built-in feature called Desktop Notifications. An overview document was recently placed in the Design Documents are of the Chromium Developers site. Basically, it sounds like there is an API that will allow a developer to pop up small messages on a user’s desktop area. I imagine this will look something like the FriendFeed notifications, but those are run through Adobe AIR, this would be run entirely in WebKit. Interestingly, the documentation notes that for Mac OS users, there will be Growl integration with these notifications. It notes: “On Mac OS, desktop notifications in icon/title/text format will be routed to Growl for display if Growl is installed.” On Linux, the notifications would similarly be routed through DBus, apparently. These notifications are to be turned off by default for now, but can be turned on using a command line switch. It’s hard to know exactly how these will be used from just reading about them in these documents, but this could be a potentially cool new feature sites can use — or pop-up ads 2.0. [thanks Sai] Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| Shares In XING Soar On Buyout Rumors - Is LinkedIn Interested? Posted: 01 Sep 2009 02:56 AM PDT
Rumors are reaching me that prominent stakeholders in XING - current and former employees - are taking advantage of this moment to offload significant share stakes, and who can blame them. So why the spike? Well, it appears there is chatter of a buyout deal in the offing. But who would want to buy XING? Well the obvious answer is LinkedIn. Such a deal would consolidate it’s position in Europe, making it basically unassailable in business networks. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| The British Are Waning — Cloud Apps Up, Microsoft Down Posted: 01 Sep 2009 02:12 AM PDT
According to a survey by Accredited Supplier, a B2B services marketplace, Microsoft is losing their grip on the UK small business market under increasing pressure from cloud computing and open source software. In their poll of 1,400 Microsoft customers, all small businesses in the UK, they found that 13% of them intend to switch to Google Apps within 12 months while 22% are “undecided”. And 62% would "prefer" or "strongly prefer" to have their business applications work through a browser. In addition, an impressive 32% now use Firefox as their default browser within their business. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| Opera 10 Released: Its Turbo Is Fully Functional Posted: 01 Sep 2009 01:57 AM PDT
As I mentioned in my earlier article, Opera hasn’t exactly made any dents in the desktop browser dominion of Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox in its thirteen years of existence, but as I’ve noticed Opera fans will even attack you for simply stating that fact. Well now that Opera 10 has been let loose and I’ve had the chance to put it to the test for a week, at least I can understand why it has fans in the first place. First of all, Opera 10 feels fast. Super-fast, even, close to the speed sensation I had when I started trying out Google Chrome for the first time. It could be nothing more than a feeling of course - we’re looking into ways to do a massive browser speed test - but Opera did say this version would be about 40% faster than its predecessor Opera 9.6, specifically on resource-intensive pages. If you care about speed, check it out, because it’s zooming alright. The Opera desktop browser has also been given a new lick of paint, but I’ve never really tried previous versions for a long period of time so I can’t tell if the difference is that big. But I have to say the interface that was designed for Opera 10 looks nice and feels quite intuitive. A sweet touch: resizable tabs that show you a thumbnail of what you have opened up in your browser window. Like its innovative ’speed dial’ element, introduced back in 2007, expect it to get copied in other browsers in the near future. Opera 10 incorporates the new Turbo feature, which helps speed up browsing sessions when surfing the Web on slower connections (3G, sluggish WiFi networks, etc.). The new release also comes with a number of bug fixes, usability and web standard improvements, automatic updates, integrated spell checker and a better in-client Opera Mail. Not in this release yet: Opera Unite and the new Carakan JavaScript engine that promises to process JavaScript about 2.5 times as fast as earlier Opera versions. There’s not much else to add about the new browser other than it works as advertised, and who knows, maybe it will get a bigger piece of the pie with this release. I, for one, am not sure yet if I’ll be switching completely in the long run but I’m seriously impressed by how good - and fast - the Opera desktop browser really is. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| Posted: 01 Sep 2009 01:28 AM PDT I tried to log on to Gmail this morning and this is all I’ve been getting for the last hour or so. Anyone else seeing this? Judging from the response on Twitter and a general search, it appears there are indeed some problems with Gmail throwing server errors (503 and 500) left and right, but it doesn’t seem to be as widespread as the February outage was (yet). But at least I’m not the only one noticing and the Google Apps Status dashboard also acknowledges the Google Mail service has been spotty for a while now. Either way, if you rely on Gmail for work as much as I do, this is very annoying. I realize it’s a free service and all, but it’s troubling nonetheless. Gmail is one service that’s growing quickly but it’s very un-Google to run into scalability issues so I suspect it’s something else. Hopefully they’ll acknowledge the problem on the support pages soon - which isn’t the case yet - and the undoubtedly ’small subset of users’ gets access again soon enough. Update: it’s up for me after about two hours of downtime, but several users are still complaining about being blocked out. Update 2: and it’s down again, both on desktop and from the iPhone. Update 3: after nearly 8 hours of downtime for my account, Google acknowledges the problems.
So the ‘near future’ time frame is a guess and it might actually become the distant future? Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| What Happened To Adobe Air Today? No One Seems To Know. Posted: 01 Sep 2009 12:22 AM PDT
I assumed the problem was Yammer, and emailed for support, but they threw their hands up. We narrowed down the problem - it was affecting only those of us on Macs with the Leopard operating system (not the brand new Snow Leopard, which would make more sense). Other people were discovering the same thing and Tweeting about it. Adobe was responding promptly to inbound messages to their Twitter account, but didn’t seem to know what the problem was, either. And, oddly, Robin Wauters, who’s on a Vista machine, complained of issues as well. We’ve heard scattered reports of Tweetdeck and other Air Apps having issues today as well. Anyone else out there notice any problems today? Adobe says they didn’t push any updates to Air today, and nothing changed on our machines. It’s a mystery. In the meantime, we all downloaded Gabble, a native OSX Yammer client, and everything is smooth sailing again. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| Skype Sale To Investor Group Led By Andreessen Horowitz Confirmed Posted: 31 Aug 2009 11:17 PM PDT
As we reported, Index Ventures is also participating in the acquisition. And the unnamed private equity firm is apparently Silver Lake Partners, who is likely supplying the bulk of the capital needed to pay the $2 billion price tag. eBay announced earlier this year that they would be spinning off the company in an initial public offering in 2010. These announcements are often made to generate acquisition offers from potential suitors. The Andreeseen Horowitz fund can make single commitments of up to $50 million. It isn't clear if current Skype CEO Josh Silverman would continue to lead the company after any acquisition. Sources we've spoken with have said he is generally well thought of both within Skype/eBay as well as the possible investors. More from our post last week:
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| Netflix Had Me At “We’re Sorry” Posted: 31 Aug 2009 09:29 PM PDT
Tonight, Netflix emailed a large number of its subscribers to apologize for a Xbox Live streaming outage that occurred yesterday. They’re offering to refund 2% of users’ monthly bills back to them, if they simply click on the link that was emailed. It’s not a lot of money, but what’s remarkable is that Netflix did this for most of us completely unprompted. Now, I’m sure someone somewhere complained, but rather than either arguing with that person or just quietly giving them some sort of discount, it looks like Netflix just emailed everyone that could have possibly seen this hiccup in service, and offered a refund — including users who didn’t suffer through it at all. Refunding 2% of a monthly bill to all of these users will probably add up to a decent sized chunk of change (assuming a large portion of users click on the link), but the positive reaction they’re getting for the move on places like Twitter (and yes, this blog), has got to be worth more than whatever they’re paying. In a time of poor tech customer care, Netflix is the sterling example of how do it the right way.
I’ve had basically no service from AT&T for large portions of my day in various parts of San Francisco for two months now. Do you think I’ll ever see a dime back from them? And before I just recently quit Comcast, my service would go out almost everyday without fail. Did I get an email apology and a refund? Nope. Maybe if I bitched loud enough for long enough, I could get something back from those two companies, but the point is that maybe I shouldn’t have to. Netflix emails me from time to time to see about my movie streaming quality, and also to see if movies I’ve rented through the mail appear on time. If they don’t or the quality of my movies is poor, they apologize. That’s all I want. The refund is just icing on the cake. Too many other companies not only give you no icing, and no cake, but they steal your cake, punch you in the face, and then blame you for the whole ordeal. But when it comes time to renew my plans with those companies, guess which one I’m going to stick with? Netflix. Companies often seem curious how other companies get “fanboys” — this is how. [photo: TriStar Pictures] Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| BeamME Pro Update Hits the App Store Posted: 31 Aug 2009 09:10 PM PDT
Some of the key features in this release of beamMe Pro include contact mapping that enables you to track where you met people by viewing them on a map, a complete history of people you sent your contact info too, and a default Address Book integration. This feature is key because beamMe Pro will syncs seamlessly with your computer and other apps like Salesforce or Highrise without adding new software or complex processes. The new version also includes Twitter integration that lets you gain followers automatically as you meet new people while keeping your contact information secure. And you can send your contact info to anyone on any device, whether or not they have beamMe Pro or even a smartphone. Additionally, there is a “Fun Zone” on the app where you can keep track of your networking stats, compare yourself against other professionals and complete challenges to help you raise your score and level within beamMe Pro. What makes beamMe Pro so attractive compared to other contact sharing applications is that beamME Pro doesn’t have any ads, and has priority support for paying users. BeamMe Pro is available for $1.99 in the App Store today. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| Another Popular Developer Lays The Smack Down On Apple’s App Store Posted: 31 Aug 2009 08:37 PM PDT
In the post, Stump outlines a problem that he had with Chess Wars, the Facebook Connect-enabled chess game that came out in July. After catching a show-stopping bug soon after the initial release, his company Blunder Move promptly issued an update. Soon thereafter they noticed another bug, which they quickly released a fix for. Unfortunately, this second update has sat in App Store purgatory for many weeks now, and Apple has gone silent on when it will be approved. Stump also describes his efforts to get his friends inside Apple to help his cause, going on to say that they’ve been able to do basically nothing other than tell him to contact Apple’s unhelpful team of app reviewers. Even once the update is approved, the app will have to endure the 1-star reviews it has received without any way to reverse them. Here’s how Stump closes out the blog post:
Other notable developers to have criticized the App Store’s policies include Panic co-founder Steven Frank, and Joe Hewitt, who is charged with building the enormously popular Facebook iPhone app. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| The Almost Hopeless Challenge Of Web Security Posted: 31 Aug 2009 07:53 PM PDT  Today we are trusting the web with our most personal and important data, from private photos and social graphs to finances and key work documents. Our hesitation to share such information has dropped over the years as our trust in our favorite services grows. Yet all the while, the web is actually growing less secure, as sites are left open to new attacks that can spread easily and leave users totally unaware when they've been compromised. Looking back on the history of the web, classic security protection involved patching servers to assure latest versions were running, monitoring advisories from vendors, and maintaining some level of filtering and firewall to keep basic attacks out. Simple moves on the part of an admin or developer could protect sites from 99% of automated scripts. But a few years ago, a new security can-of-worms was opened, as new exploits that took advantage of simple oversights within web applications were being used to steal large amounts of user data.TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| TechCrunch50 Partners Step Up with $1 million In Advertising For Launching Startups Posted: 31 Aug 2009 07:44 PM PDT
Today I’m pleased to announce that four of our key partners will be giving an aggregate of $1 million in advertising to TechCrunch50 companies. Facebook, Google (Youtube), Microsoft (Bing) and MySpace are all participating with substantial donations. We expect more partners to join shortly. One of the cooler additional ideas was proposed by the Bing team. They’ll make tshirts that say “Bing Loves [company/logo]” and Bing staff will wear these tshirts, each one promoting a different TechCrunch50 startup, to various events and conferences they’ll attend throughout the year. They promise that the team will be familiar with the startup/product they’re promoting on their tshirts and be ready to talk about it when people ask. Crazy idea right? I love it. YouTube is offering in-video advertising, and MySpace and Facebook will give substantial advertising credits on their ad platforms. So there are lots of ways TechCrunch50 companies will get exposure even after the event is over. Also, sponsor Perkins Coie (which is also our law firm) will be giving away free legal services to one of the winners. Thanks to MySpace, Bing, YouTube and Facebook for helping these young startups get just a little more much-needed exposure. Mad Men Image: New York Times Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| A Look At fbFund’s First Summer As An Incubator Program Posted: 31 Aug 2009 07:11 PM PDT
McClure says that REV is a “social incubator” — an idea that is helped by the fact that all of the startups enrolled somehow take advantage of Facebook, the world’s largest social network. But McClure also says that the structure of the incubator, from the way classes are held to the actual layout of the building, is designed to ensure that the startups involved maintain interaction with each other. Startups have been working in wide, open rooms with white boards and no cubicles, and the program invited mentors to speak to all of the startups around three times per week. The fact that the startups get office hours and help from Facebook employees can also help give them a leg up on the competition. Of course, fbFund has been around for some time now — it was announced back in September 2007, and has since seen a number of graduating classes. But past winners in fbFund were given no-strings-attached cash grants, while the new model, obviously inspired by incubators like Y Combinator invites the finalists to participate in a mentorship program while fbFund takes a small stake in the startups. Here’s a list of talks that were given over the summer, as well as embedded videos of a few of the sessions. Financing Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| Builds Of Chrome Get Updated To Show Off Their Snow Leopard Spots Posted: 31 Aug 2009 05:29 PM PDT
Specifically, version 4.0.203.4 of the Dev channel build of Chrome fixes a host of problems, ranging from text being garbled to favicons no longer working. Find the full list of changes here. I’ve been playing around with the latest Chromium builds all day, and have yet to notice a crash. Flash is still working just fine, but unfortunately the bookmark manager (including the bookmark importer), which was available in builds earlier this month, is still temporarily disabled. You can grab the latest builds of Chromium here, as well as the Dev channel build of Chrome for Mac here. You can also find out information about our Chromium auto-updater here, though we have yet to test it in Snow Leopard yet, hopefully we’ll do that soon and will update you on it. Update: At some point recently, Chromium gained a nice new “About” screen (below): Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| Top Developer Reveals Android Market’s Meager Sales Posted: 31 Aug 2009 03:34 PM PDT
Larva’s Matt Hall attributes this poor performance in part to Android’s shoddy App purchase flow. Unlike the iPhone’s integrated App Store, Android Market doesn’t have screenshots of apps, forces you into the browser at times, makes you use Google Checkout, has some unintuitive navigation issues, and a handful of other problems. These issues are widely known — you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks the purchase process is as smooth as it is on the iPhone — but they’ve been around for quite a while.  Hall also points out the poor sales of the smash-hit iPhone game Trism, which pulled in hundreds of thousands of dollars on the App Store. On Android, it has seen fewer than 500 downloads. Granted, there’s no guarantee that lighting will strike twice when there are many other games available for both markets, but that isn’t exactly an encouraging statistic. Hall also writes that the rumored Android market size of $5 million a month (which still pales in comparison to the App Store’s) is likely an overestimate. He concludes that if Larva is considered an average developer, then half the other developers on the platform would have to be seeing similar sales figures to reach that figure, which isn’t likely. This news comes at a time when many developers would be happy to leave Apple’s troubled App Store, with its ridiculous approval policies and poor treatment of developers, in favor of greener pastures. With a slew of new devices coming out this year and policies that are much friendlier to developers, Android has the opportunity to give these apps a new home — now it needs to build out a marketplace that gives the App Store a run for its money. Google has said improvements will be coming soon, likely with support for PayPal, credit cards, and carrier billing; let’s just hope these come sooner rather than later. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| Yazzem Launches Version 2; Improves Latest Activity Among Users Posted: 31 Aug 2009 03:24 PM PDT
Launching in version 2 of Yazzem is a redesign of the Yazzem site, themes that users can choose from for their page, and latest activity streams for all your friends. Also launching with this version is subscribers, which is similar to Twitter followers or FriendFeed subscribers. Another key feature that is launching is user stats, so now users will be able to see information like number of subscribers and activities a particular user has deciding whether or not to subscribe to them. Yazzem also launched a new mobile version of Yazzem which is basically just a redesign of the old mobile version that fits much better for iPhone and iPod Touch users when browsing on the go. It’s unclear how Yazzem will make money, but for such a young company, Yazzem does show some promising features and a future. Yazzem was started by Zachary Collins and Dustin Snider, who are both 14 years of age. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| Stir Successfully iPhone-izes FriendFeed Posted: 31 Aug 2009 03:20 PM PDT  Are you addicted to FriendFeed? Can't get enough of Robert Scoble's incessant posts? Want to keep up with them even when you're on the go? Are you praying to the heavens that Facebook doesn't screw up FriendFeed post-acquisition? Then Stir (iTunes link) might just be for you. Created by StructLab Stir is an iPhone app that allows you to get your fill of FriendFeed anytime, anywhere. You can use it in the bathroom at work (guilty), while watching a lame chick flick with your girlfriend (guilty) or if you're on the couch and don't want to walk the 10 feet to your desk (umm, yes, guilty). Of course, it is hardly the first FriendFeed app for the iPhone, but it's the first one I've looked at and it's pretty damn good. Mind you, I only started using FriendFeed last week. Twitter is still my micro-blogging platform of choice, but I quickly noticed that FriendFeed has some obvious benefits. And Stir takes advantage of all of them.TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| Call.com Rings Up $1.1 Million Posted: 31 Aug 2009 03:20 PM PDT We just wrote about the dominance of number of .com domains and we’ve also reported that .com domain registrations were starting to turn around again after a poor 2008. Today, another .com domain passed the million dollar mark, with Call.com selling for $1.1 million via domain brokerage Sedo to an undisclosed buyer. The domain was sold by Live Current Media , which had sold, then reacquired the domain over the past years. Live Current apparently sold the domain as part of a package of domains including Makeup.com, Automobile.com, and Exercise.com. Part of the deal was that Live Current would get royalties from any revenue earned from the domains. The company ended up buying back Call.com in 2006, and nullified the royalty stipulation. According to Domain Name Wire, the value of the royalty stream was $250,000 in future revenue, which makes the $1.1 million sale a good bet. Live Current also recently sold Cricket.com for a cool $1.75 million. Last year, Live Current experienced some financial difficulties and was looking to raise cash to survive by liquidating its domain names. Other large domain purchases this year include the sale of Candy.com for $3 million, ToysRUs’ acquisition of Toys.com for $5.1 million, the sale of Fly.com to Travelzoo for $1.8 million, and the sale of Ad.com for $1.4 million. Image via Flickr/greggoconnell. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| Google To Affix A “Slow” Scarlett Letter To Some iGoogle Gadgets Posted: 31 Aug 2009 03:00 PM PDT
Starting in late September, Google says that any widget that doesn’t meet a speed requirement, will get a nice “slow” badge attached to its directory listing. The only detail it gives about the requirement is that it will get the badge if it’s “slow enough to cause speed-related user dissatisfaction.” That sounds pretty arbitrary, and that it could lead to a lot of developers complaining that their apps aren’t really slow, but are labeled as such. But we all know how much Google loves speed, so this move isn’t all that surprising. To make sure your gadget doesn’t get the Scarlett Letter, check out these optimization tips from Google. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
We now have 
A 
There’s some interesting stuff in there. It would seem that Chrome OS may feature some kind of compact navigation bar that has various tab-opening options (including clicking on the “Chrome button”). It would appear that there’s an app menu of some kind in something known as the “status area” which apparently contains the current time.
Things are really starting to get busy in the world of Chromium. Yesterday, we noted how the latest developer builds of Chrome were 
Why are shares in 
Remember all that Web 2.0 hype back in the day? Remember how some predicted an end to the monopoly of Microsoft in those basic applications like Word, Excel and others as these functions moved to the Cloud? Well it looks like that trend is well on its way now and especially in the UK. 
Since the release candidate for 
We were plagued all day today at the TechCrunch offices with a faulty 
The NY Times is now confirming our report last week the 
I do my fair share of 
Last month, we covered 
Another day, another story of Apple’s ridiculous App Store approval policies gone awry. 
In July we said we would be 
As most Mac users have undoubtedly read over the past few days, there are some pieces of software that are a bit buggy with the latest version of OS X, Snow Leopard, which was released on Friday. Applications that have been having issues include the developer builds of Chrome and Chromium for OS X. While these versions are obviously still not complete yet, there are more and more people using them as they had been becoming 
It’s no secret that Apple’s App Store has been leaps and bounds more succesful than Android’s comparable Market, but it isn’t often we get concrete data that shows just how poorly Android’s store is faring in comparison. Today Android developer 
On its iGoogle Developer Blog today Google issued a | You are subscribed to email updates from TechCrunch To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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