The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- Aardvark’s iPhone App Is The Best Way To Use The Service Yet
- Myriad Group Acquires Xumii To Expand Mobile Social Networking
- WITTC50?: The TechCrunch50 Day Two Drinking Game
- TC50 Backstage: Tony Hsieh on Why You Should Be Changing the World
- TC50 Backstage: Why Paul Graham Was So Mean and Which of his Companies Will IPO
- TC50: YourVersion Wins Peoples’ Choice Award In The DemoPit
- TC50: DemoPit Winner oDesk Launches A Real-Time Work Stream For Your iPhone And Desktop
- TC50: Mota Motors Takes The Pain Out Of The Used Car Marketplace
- TC50: Short On Cash? Startups Can Trade Goods And Services Instead Of Money On TheSwop
- TC50 Backstage: We Pry Skype Info out of Marc Andreessen (or Try)
- TC50: RefMob Launches Social Media Driven Marketplace For Referrals
- TC50: Job Seekers Pay LocalBacon To Apply For Jobs (And That Might Just Work)
- Oddly, TwitterFon Changes Its Name to Echofon
- TC50 Backstage: Marissa Mayer Talks Fast Flip
- TC50: Yext Offers Local Businesses A Smart Inbox For Phone Calls
- TC50: RedBeacon Lets You Hire Local Service Providers Online, Without Any Phone Calls
- TC50: Control Any PC Game With Your iPhone With iMo
- TC50 (Demopit): LIFEmee Keeps An Online Record Of Your Life “From The Cradle To The Crave”
- A Visual Way To Search Google News. They Called It Flipper. Now It’s Google Fast Flip.
- TC50: Udorse Leverages Facebook Photos For Social Product Endorsements
- TC50: Gift Card Auction Site Rackup Aims To Shake Up Market
- TC50 Backstage: Ross Levinsohn on MySpace, Ad Industry
- TC50: HealthyWage Pays You To Get In Better Shape
- TC50: SeatGeek Is The Farecast For Sports And Music Tickets
- TC50 Backstage: Is Jim Lanzone a Jerk?
| Aardvark’s iPhone App Is The Best Way To Use The Service Yet Posted: 15 Sep 2009 08:50 AM PDT
And it also looks to be the best way to use the service, period. That’s because the way it uses Push Notification on the iPhone is pretty killer. One of the reasons that users love using Aardvark over IM is that responses come in quickly and without you having to do anything — the same is true with the new iPhone app, but it’s even faster, CEO Max Ventilla tells us. Whenever someone answers a question you ask, you’ll get an alert almost instantaneously that your answer is ready. Ventilla says the company spent a long time perfecting this app, 4 months to be precise. And the effort shows, as the app is pretty slick, while remaining straight-forward. The main screen simply asks you to ask a question. And it lets you know that Aardvark will find the right person to answer it. Meanwhile, the Answer tab allows you to answer questions that you are interested in for other people. This works perfectly for mobile because so many people now pull out their phones when they have a few minutes to kill; Aardvark gives you a way to kill time by helping other people with a question. Also built into the app is Facebook Connect funtionality, so you can post Aardvark questions as your status updates. The service promises this won’t spam your friends, as you can choose how much or how little to post. But sometimes you may be asking a question that requires a larger social graph than Aardvark offers — certainly Facebook qualifies as that.
Using the iPhone’s location functionality, Aardvark can also tell where you are, and tailor questions and answers based on that. The service also takes advantage of the in-app browser that iPhone 3.0+ offers. This allows it to also have a form of monetization with the affiliate links it uses in appropriate situations (for example, if an answer to a question of yours is the name of a music album). Ventilla says that eventually the plan is to expand onto other mobile platforms, but for now they really want to perfect this iPhone app. Ventilla himself realizes that it is the best way to interact with the service yet, and they hope it grows the audience. Currently, Aardvark still has under 100,000 users, but they’re quickly approaching that milestone, we’re told. Right now, Ventilla says the vast majority of questions are answered in under 5 minutes. That was a big goal for this year, to get under that time, we’re told. Overall, about 90% of questions are answered. And the ones that aren’t are usually bogus or make no sense. Aardvark Mobile is available now in the App Store. It’s a free download. Find it here. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco           |
| Myriad Group Acquires Xumii To Expand Mobile Social Networking Posted: 15 Sep 2009 08:35 AM PDT
Using a cloud computing architecture, Xumii integrates a mobile user’s phone contacts, social networks and instant messaging services into a single “social phonebook”. Mobile users can then simultaneously access Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, YouTube, Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger, AIM, Windows Live and other popular Internet services, sending messages, updating status and sharing photos and videos. Xumii released an iPhone application back in February, that lets users have a mobile social address book that connects to AIM, Flickr, and other networks. This seems like a great fit for both companies, considering Myriad Group already provides software to all of the major phone manufacturers, as well as more than 30 mobile operators across the globe. Having Xumii’s technology with Myriad Group’s also established relationships with mobile operators makes this a perfect opportunity. Xumii’s 17 employees will be moving to Myriad Group as part of the acquisition. Xumii is based in San Mateo, Calif. and Sydney, Australia, and has raised $5.5 million from CM Capital and Southern Cross Venture Partners in September 2008. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| WITTC50?: The TechCrunch50 Day Two Drinking Game Posted: 14 Sep 2009 09:18 PM PDT
And what did I learn today? Today I learned that the Rocky soundtrack makes any technical hitch a million times more dramatic. I learned that Yossi Vardi believes that any disaster can be solved with a show of hands or a forced round of applause. I learned that, where other entrepreneurs quote Sun Tzu, Calacanis prefers the wise words of Disney’s Ratatouille. I learned that when Arrington and Calacanis squabble, they sound like a gayer version of Statler and Waldorf. But most importantly of all, I learned that there’s no way any of us are going to make it through a second long day without downing some serious booze. And so, with that in mind, I’m delighted to announce the rules of the TechCrunch Day Two Drinking Game. The rules are simple – we start tomorrow at 9am (Pacific). Get up early, grab yourself a case of beer and then either sit in the room or, if you had better things to do with three grand, tune into the live stream and follow these simple instructions…
Good luck everyone. Now, make sure you follow me on Twitter for minute-by-minute commentary of day two, and – hey – let’s try to be wasted by noon! Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| TC50 Backstage: Tony Hsieh on Why You Should Be Changing the World Posted: 14 Sep 2009 09:18 PM PDT
I pressed Hsieh on details about his relationship with Jeff Bezos and Amazon. He can’t really comment because the US Justice Department hasn’t yet ruled on the deal, but he did admit “I’ve always thought Jeff was a lovely man.” So that’s how it works in that soon-to-be corporate family. The most interesting admission may be his advice for start-ups: Do you really need venture capital? TC50 and Tony Hsieh from sarah lacy on Vimeo. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| TC50 Backstage: Why Paul Graham Was So Mean and Which of his Companies Will IPO Posted: 14 Sep 2009 08:31 PM PDT
“Four or five of our companies could go public,” he says in the interview after the jump and names some names. (He also does the cutest face ever at minute marker 3:28. Jim Carrey meets one of Jason’s puppies?) This is a longer video, but it’s one of my favorites I shot all day. Stay until the end where he tells start-ups how to market themselves to customers and investors in a downturn.
TC50 and Paul Graham from sarah lacy on Vimeo. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| TC50: YourVersion Wins Peoples’ Choice Award In The DemoPit Posted: 14 Sep 2009 06:27 PM PDT
YourVersion launched today, and looks to help users search for content across blogs, multimedia sites, Twitter, and other social sites, updating with relevant content in real-time. Rather than force users to run the same searches multiple times or rely on a clunky bookmark system, YourVersion pays attention to your interests, and presents results accordingly. You can browse through results from all of these content sources, indicating which ones you like (or dislike) using thumbs up or thumbs down functions. For mobile users, YourVersion offers an iPhone application, which you can download for free on the App Store here. There’s also a Firefox extension that allows users to quickly share their favorite blog posts and news articles on Facebook, Twitter, and other services. Q: So it’s like Digg and reddit without needing user submissions? Do you have commenting? Video:
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| TC50: DemoPit Winner oDesk Launches A Real-Time Work Stream For Your iPhone And Desktop Posted: 14 Sep 2009 06:18 PM PDT
The first winner for today is oDesk, which is today launching a new iPhone application that allows project administrators to monitor the work stream of their team members while they’re on the go. The stream features photos of your team’s workplace, keystroke events, and lets you know when your workers are checking in and out. Alongside the launch of the iPhone oDesk will also be bringing the new stream functionality to the desktop with a desktop app. oDesk has been around for a while, offering a “marketplace for talent” that makes it easy to hire workers remotely. The company currently has over 340,000 providers, with 12,200+ jobs that are open. Video:
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| TC50: Mota Motors Takes The Pain Out Of The Used Car Marketplace Posted: 14 Sep 2009 06:00 PM PDT
Here’s how it works: Mota has a database of car listings from multiple used car sites, which you can browse through much as you would on a site like Autotrader. But rather than simply aggregating these listings, Mota adds a layer of intelligence to the process. Say, for example, you happen upon a sedan that you’re interested in purchasing. Mota will analyze the text of the car listing and suggest questions that you should probably ask the seller. If the listing only has one photo, Mota will likely suggest that you ask for a few more. If the car you’re looking at has a history of brake issues, it will suggest that you ask about the last time the brake pads were replaced, and so on. The next thing Mota does is help establish trust in the deal. Through the service, car sellers can elect to have their cars inspected at an independent repair shop for around $75 to determine if there are any outstanding problems with the vehicle (Mota already has a national deal in place with PepBoys). From there, the seller and prospective buyer can determine who should pay for any necessary repairs. And this certified inspection also opens the doors to allowing finance and extended warranty companies, which historically have only been been able to offer their services to car dealerships, which perform their own inspections. Mota also offers features directed towards people who are looking to sell their cars: it can effectively write your car listing for you, using sentences that read like an actual human wrote them. And it makes it easy to syndicate your car listing to multiple sites, suggesting an asking price based on current market conditions — CEO Reza Bundy says that the average sale time fro a car can get cut from eight weeks to eight days if you sell it using the proper parameters. The site does a number of other small things to help streamline the process, like using Facebook and MySpace to look up profile photos of buyers and sellers, to help give them a more human face. Though all of this, Mota is making money. The site gets paid for lead generation to the repair shops that verify cars, as well as from the car sites themselves for the transactions that it helps mediate. And because the car inspection process tells Mota any problems with a car that’s being purchased, it can offer buyers coupons for any repairs they might need — again driving more leads to repair shops. And the service is driving customers to financing and warranty companies (all of this is opt-in for the user). All in all, the future is looking bright for Mota. The site has already forged deals with some of the nation’s top car sites, including AutoTrader. And the company has a very solid team behind it: Bundy founded IronPlanet, a successful marketplace for used heavy machinery, and VP Marketing Rafael De La Cruz was one of the key executives behind Vitamin Water parent company Glaceau before it was acquired by Coca-Cola. Q:Are you focused on the seller or the buyer? Q:Why wouldn’t I just go to carmax? Q: How did the text in that description get generated. Video: Other Coverage:
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| TC50: Short On Cash? Startups Can Trade Goods And Services Instead Of Money On TheSwop Posted: 14 Sep 2009 05:47 PM PDT
Because exchanging goods and services this way can be a tricky business — you wouldn’t want to swap time with one of your extremely talented developers for work by a shoddy designer — TheSwop features one-on-one videos of each of its subscribers so that you can see the “whites of their eyes” before you consider a deal. Each subscriber also has a transaction history, as well as reviews left by other members. Another key feature, given the nature of many of these services: the site offers a map of each of its possible service providers, with paid subscribers (who are likely more trustworthy than free users) highlighted with larger markers. Using the site is simple: you run a search for whatever you’re looking for, and then use the site’s virtual currency (called “favor points”) to trade for that. You can also perform transactions with cash if you’d like — the site doesn’t force you to use its platform, so you can take things offline to finalize the deal. Roelof Botha: I don’t like it. Money was invented for a reason, we’ve seen people try to use beans etc. and it doesn’t work. I wouldn’t invest. Video: Outside Coverage: Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| TC50 Backstage: We Pry Skype Info out of Marc Andreessen (or Try) Posted: 14 Sep 2009 05:44 PM PDT
Andreessen also reiterated what Ron Conway said earlier: There’s no dearth of funding for good start-ups in the Valley. More on why he did that Skype deal and what he’d rather hear TC50 companies talk about in their pitches on the clip. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| TC50: RefMob Launches Social Media Driven Marketplace For Referrals Posted: 14 Sep 2009 05:33 PM PDT
RefMob enables people to share paid referrals that they know of for a variety of business categories, like bonuses for getting new apartment tenants or driving more job applications to a company looking to hire, instantly on Twitter and Facebook. The general idea is to let people leverage the tools they’re already using to keep in touch with each other for sharing referrals and consequently making arrangements for splitting the financial gains between them. The big plus for companies is that they get an easy way to create a paid referral program online that they can easily distribute via their customer base, essentially magnifying the reach. They can easily measure the success of these programs in a handy dashboard and evaluate results for future programs. Expert panel Q&A: Q – Paul Graham: I like the idea, and I can see business getting excited about this. But which ones are you going to be able to convince? A: We have found there are lots of small business owners who struggle with their social media strategy and we can help them. Companies who conduct business online are obviously a good match for our service. Q – Marc Andreessen: What does a business do to get started? A: They sign up, create a referral and distribute it to their customers by e-mail. Q – Tony Hsieh: It seems unnatural friend behavior to institutionalize this type of thing? A: Well they do work, although admittedly not in every industry. We just want to magnify the effect for those who it would work for. Video: Pictures: Extra coverage:
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| TC50: Job Seekers Pay LocalBacon To Apply For Jobs (And That Might Just Work) Posted: 14 Sep 2009 05:20 PM PDT
Launching at the TechCrunch50 event today, LocalBacon wants to remove the clutter from the inboxes of many a manager or HR professional looking for the right person to put to work while at the same time giving job seekers the opportunity to stand out from the crowd in their quest to land a good position. The way they want to achieve that is by both increasing the quality of applications and decreasing their amount by charging potential candidates $0.99 (or more based on interest/demand) to apply. If you think about it, making potential candidates cough up cash – well, virtual currency in the form of credits – for applying is a solid way to weed out the ones that apply just for the sake of applying even if they know they’re not really qualified for the job. It also decreases the chances for employers, who get to post job openings for free, to get sent incomplete or sloppy resumes because applicants would likely make more of an effort having put some money on the line. This in turn means solid candidates have a better shot of getting noticed in the first place. Aside from the fairly innovative business model, LocalBacon also offers a pretty amazing lightweight program for employers to keep on top of applications across vacancies and applicants for managing their profiles and resumes. LocalBacon uses a standardized listing format and application process that is aimed to reduce the amount of time it takes for job seekers to search and apply for openings. Job seekers also receive specific contact information about the hiring manager, real-time updates about the status of their application and timely concise feedback regarding their application. Expert panel Q&A: Q – Roelof Botha: I like the idea of turning the job board concept upside down. No one seems to be satisfied about it. Think about clever ways to extract more value. I really like it though. Q – MM: I want to complement the app, but I have a question about the social component. How are you going to work social behavior into the service? A: Facebook is a potential way to go, and we’re thinking more about referrals. Q – Tony Hsieh: It doesn’t seem to fit with Zappos to have job seekers pay for applying? A: Certain cultures might conflict what the job seekers paying. But remember they wouldn’t Q – Paul Graham: Is the chronological listing of incoming applications scalable? A: We’re in early stage right now, so we’re thinking of ways to add more features for organization for premium users. Q – Tony Hsieh: Do you integrate with existing ATS systems? A: Yes, we can (with APIs and such). Video: Pictures:  Extra coverage:
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| Oddly, TwitterFon Changes Its Name to Echofon Posted: 14 Sep 2009 05:14 PM PDT
The reasoning behind the change is a little odd. Naan Studios apparently wanted to unify the names of the products, but why not simply change TwitterFox to TwitterFon? The company says it got feedback and went with the “Echo” name, but both apps still are based around Twitter, so unless they’re planning to move off of (or go beyond) that platform, it just seems like it will confuse users to remove the “Twitter” part of the name. More likely, it seems like this might be a move to avoid any kind of legal problems with Twitter. As we’ve written in the past, Twitter is apparently okay with you using the word “tweet” but they must protect their trademark of “Twitter”. Still, something like “TweetFon” seems like it would have been a better fit. But a nice part of this change is behind the scenes, this new different Echofon apps will talk to one another. From the company’s blog post:
Echofon now supports iPhone Push Notifications for both mentions and direct messages on Twitter. Unfortunately, this feature will only be on Echofon Pro (the paid version of the app), they say they are working on bringing Push support to the free app too. All that sounds great, it’s just too bad they had to switch to such an odd name. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| TC50 Backstage: Marissa Mayer Talks Fast Flip Posted: 14 Sep 2009 05:13 PM PDT
Her product manager was also on camera. Mike’s question to him? Rate Mayer as a boss on a scale of one to ten. It’s just not TC50 until we get someone in trouble with his or her boss. The video is on the jump. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| TC50: Yext Offers Local Businesses A Smart Inbox For Phone Calls Posted: 14 Sep 2009 05:07 PM PDT
Local businesses can use the Yext Calls software to process incoming phone calls and organize them based on semantic analysis of what was said during the conversation, providing them with an easy way of searching or browsing through them at any point. Based on keywords that occurred in the call, the software can detect that e.g. price estimates were requested for a car repair or which part of what type of vehicle the caller was having problems with exactly. The program can even automatically detect if any appointments were made during the conversation, giving the local business owner or representative an easy way of scheduling their calendar based on relevant keywords that were used during the call. Ultimately the analysis of the phone calls helps Yext make their flagship product, the local business search engine which they claim gets visited by over a million users a month, more detailed for visitors and at the same time more effective for listed companies. Basically the data that gets drawn from the phone calls analysis helps business owners get more qualified leads via the search engine. The way this works is that a local business owner can indicate that a call was relevant to his core business by giving it ‘thumbs up’ or ‘thumbs down’, which in turn leads Yext to better decide if they want to show the company in the results when a specific keyword gets used in a search or not. I personally think this is a great way for Yext to automate the improvement of their search engine’s accuracy while at the same time providing huge direct and indirect benefits for local business owners. It also helps that the service is basically free and listed customers only pay per call received. Expert panel Q&A: Q – Roelof Botha: who transcribes the phone call? A: the answer is: we leverage several core platforms, totally automated. The business answers the phone calls. Q – Roelof Botha: are you helping local business with their SEA/SEM campaigns too? A: our partner network takes care of that side of the equation. Q – Paul Graham: you already have an existing business that’s making a lot of money? A: Yes, $20 million in revenue and growing fast. But we are a startup, expanding into a new territory: pay-per-action phone calls. We only charge for actions that are relevant to the local business owner. Q – Roelof Botha: how do you convince business owners of your value proposition? A: it’s an end-to-end solution for them to advertise smarter on the Web. Q – Marc Andreessen: is there adverse selection? are the merchants who are most likely to want phone calls least likely to get the web to get them? A: We found most merchants overall prefer to receive phone calls. Q – Paul Graham: why local business, and not national ones? A: Some are suited for that, but mostly if they work with local dealerships for example. We focused on Yellow Pages categories. Q – Paul Graham: What’s the biggest of the 12 categories you support now? A: Health and fitness. Video: Pictures:  Extra coverage:
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| TC50: RedBeacon Lets You Hire Local Service Providers Online, Without Any Phone Calls Posted: 14 Sep 2009 04:55 PM PDT
Using the site will be easy for anyone who has used a local review service like Yelp. Simply type whatever service you’re looking for (be it plumber, gardener, or hair stylist), and the site will present a list of recommended service providers in your area. RedBeacon also employes natural language processing so it can figure out exactly what you’re looking for (for example, “Cupcake maker” would search for any bakers in the area). The site will then present a list of proviles for each match, featuring reviews and comments from other users, basic information like their hours, and star reviews imported from Yelp. To figure out exactly how much a given service will cost, you first detail what you’re looking for and the site begins an auction among the matching providers, where each bids on how much their fee will be. Once you’ve picked a provider, you can schedule your time online, without having to ever pick up the phone. The site also has a feature that allows you to quickly find workers for projects that don’t require any training. Say, for example, you needed someone to hand out 500 cupcakes at TechCrunch50. RedBeacon would let you post a job, and then would automatically ping RedBeacon members in your vicinity to see who was available. They could then respond with a price quote, as well as an ETA for when they’d be able to perform the task. The site is launching today in a limited beta, inviting local services to fill in their profiles. And in two weeks, it will launch to the public, allowing anyone to start hiring local providers. Q: How do you get over the chicken and the egg problem? Q: How do you reduce friction Q: ServiceMagic seems to be the same idea. Q: Is there a class of job you anticipate being especially popular? Q: Have you thought about focusing on specific verticals? Video: Pictures:  Other Coverage: Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| TC50: Control Any PC Game With Your iPhone With iMo Posted: 14 Sep 2009 04:39 PM PDT
Most PC games are still played using the mouse+keyboard combination. A lot of hardcore gamers like this experience, but more casual users prefer controllers like you find on consoles. The most popular of those out there right now is the Nintendo Wii, undoubtedly thanks to its motion-based control system. With iMo, you can bring a similar experience to all PC games thanks to the iPhone and iPod touch’s accelerometer. Another nice thing about using the iPhone or iPod touch as your controller is that it’s much more portable than traditional PC controller hardware. If you want to play a game on your laptop on the go, for example, but don’t want to lug around a joystick, you could simply use iMo, which is on a device you’re probably already carrying around. The system also features onscreen controls for the iPhone and iPod touch too as every PC game won’t benefit from using things like the accelerometer, obviously. This all works via both bluetooth and WiFi connections between your device and your computer. The plan is to offer iMo in the App Store for $0.99, the first version should be available new in the App Store. And long-term, the company hopes to make it available on other mobile platforms as well including Android. And ultimately, they’d love to include support for gaming consoles as well, like the aforementioned Wii, the PS3, and the Xbox 360. Despite a glitch at the conference that prevented iMo from doing their presentation initially, iMo easily had the most crowd-pleasing presentation of the day. Co-founder Himanshu Baweja rocked the crowd, showing off the demo set to music like “Eye Of The Tiger,” “Danger Zone,” and “In Da Club.” Expert Panel Q&A (paraphrased) The experts: Marissa Mayer, Roelof Botha, Marc Andreesen, Paul Graham, and Tony Hsieh. RB: Controlling a lot of things with the iPhone is turning into big business. TH: I imagine the whole club becoming MA: Grand Theft TechCrunch Q: PC games not console games, right? HB: Yes, right now PC games only, but we’re looking at consoles. Q: Where are you from? HB: We are from India. Q: How does it work? HB: It’s an iPhone application that you run and it sends the data over WiFi to your PC. There is software that people install on their PC to accept the signals. MM: Gutsy presentation, went off really well. Exciting to push the limits of these devices. Video: Other Coverage
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| TC50 (Demopit): LIFEmee Keeps An Online Record Of Your Life “From The Cradle To The Crave” Posted: 14 Sep 2009 04:31 PM PDT
Users can choose between a set of different tools to organize their life on the site. For example, they can keep a daily diary (”MyLife”), list up significant past events in your life (”MyHistory”), manage their assets and annual income or even upload a Last Will and Testament. LIFEmee visualizes all the data you enter in the form of a time line (”LIFEstream”) that reaches from past to future events and lets you browse through these events with the click of a button. For example, you can write about memories of your wedding party that took place 3 years ago but also motivate yourself by uploading a picture of your dream house you plan to buy 5 years later. You’re free to choose to keep all your information private or share it with friends. But you can also open life data stored on LIFEmee to everyone, making it possible to share and compare aspects of your own life with that of other members around the globe. This so-called “World function” allows you to look into what kind of assets those users have or how high their annual income is. LIFEmee also automatically ranks your own assets and income with other users so that you can compare your financial situation with members with similar jobs and biographies living in the same area, for example. LIFEmee launched today and is currently in alpha mode. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| A Visual Way To Search Google News. They Called It Flipper. Now It’s Google Fast Flip. Posted: 14 Sep 2009 04:01 PM PDT
As we wrote previously, the service puts a new face on Google News. Imagine going to a newsstand and looking at all the magazines lined up, only here, it’s screenshots of actual articles. And while the thumbnails are small initially, you can click to zoom in on any of them and actually see how it looks on the actual page. Obviously, you can click-through to read the entire article on its actual site. The name “Fast Flip” comes from the idea that with this visual look, you can easily flip through the news. If you find an article you like that looks interesting, you click through to read it, if not, just flip left or right to go to another. And it is fast. Really fast. If you do like an article, there is a “like” button, similar to that functionality on FriendFeed and Facebook (the smiley face is built into the logo). You can also easily email any article to a friend. Obviously, as this is Google, there is also search functionality built into Fast Flip. One interesting aspect of this is that it’s likely to reward sites and authors that use good visuals (which I’d like to think I do) in their stories. Also, the more you use Google Fast Flip, the smarter it will get to things you like. Not all publishers will like the idea of Google doing this, as news companies such as the AP love to complain about the amount of content that can be legally shown as an excerpt in places like Google News. These Fast Flip thumbnails show much more content than a regular Google News search result excerpt, but only pages from publishers who opt into this service will be shown. And those publishers will get a share of the revenues from ads shown beside their content on Fast Flip. TechCrunch is an initial partner as are others like BusinessWeek, The New York Times, and US Weekly, among others. There is also an iPhone-optimized interface for Google Fast Flip. Google was nice enough to point out our initial scoop of this news today at the TechCrunch50 conference. Interestingly enough, “flipper” is still in their Google Labs URL. And you’ll also notice the “Google confidential!” in the image below. Video: Images:
Other Coverage Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| TC50: Udorse Leverages Facebook Photos For Social Product Endorsements Posted: 14 Sep 2009 03:52 PM PDT
So what the heck is a visual endorsement engine and why on earth would anyone need it? Udorse allows you to link your Facebook profile to your account using Facebook Connect, enabling the web service to fetch all the photos that you share on the social network as well as the ones that your friends have shared with you. Items in the photos can then be highlighted using the Udorse dashboard, after which they function as actual online product endorsements – or ‘udorsements’ as the startup refers to them – made by yourself, publicly. In other words: showing anyone who cares what you think is cool. In the example shown on stage, Udorse co-founder Geoffrey Lewis picked a photo of him and a friend who works as a fahion designer. Endorsing in this case is done by selecting an item – the dress she’s wearing – and identifying it with a description and associated brand name, with the extra ability to add links and commentary to the highlighted item. Every time someone sees the photo and clicks the associated Udorse icon or link, they are able to gather more information about the product or directly be referred to the website where it can be bought. Udorse also comes with a useful search engine that allows you to browse product endorsements made by your social circle based on type of item, brand or tags that were used to identify products. When someone ends up on a product website from a Udorse partner brand – which any type of business can easily sign up for online – following a referral link on a ‘udorsement’, the person who highlighted the item is entitled to 25% of the commission fee in case this person purchases the product as well. The referrer can choose to get cash payment for the tracked referral on his PayPal account or instantly donate it to charity. Udorse is going live today with Armani and American Apparel. In my opinion, this is a really well thought-out concept that fits the social nature of Facebook perfectly and particularly the hugely popular photo sharing activity on the social network. Expert panel Q&A: Q- Marissa Mayer: I really loved it. I always thought that this was one of the way social networks going to raise money. Q-Paul Graham: Are there places where you can and cant run these photos? Technically- A: Can serve them on the Facebook platform, working on plug-ins for blogs, behind the scenes it depends on Javascript. Q-Tony Hsieh: I thought this was one of the more passionate presentations. But I think its weird for you to get paid for me to dress like you as your friend. A: You can opt in to share endorsements. You can also donate the revenue to a charity. Tony Hsieh: It’s sort of creepy, wearing the same outfit as your friends. A: The technology will let you see other items from different stores and brands. Q_Marc Andreessen: Do you have any thoughts on distribution? A-We have a part-time journalist on staff to figure out who are the top influencers who share photos on line. Partners, like American Apparel, are also excited about pushing the app out to users. Q-Marissa Mayer- Apparel might be a big space, but also electronic gadgets might be good for this. You might have a model around cooperative buying. A: In the end, we are aiming towards anything that can be included in a picture. Q-Paul Graham: Are there classes of sellers who are particularly excited about this? A: We’re getting traction from apparel retailers, hoping to make progress with additional brands. Video: Pictures: Extra coverage:
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| TC50: Gift Card Auction Site Rackup Aims To Shake Up Market Posted: 14 Sep 2009 03:40 PM PDT Leveraging the power of the Web, behavioral economics and an applied branch of game theory called auction theory, Rackup is surfacing today at TechCrunch50 with a bold play on online auction platforms and the audacious goal to disrupt the $100 billion gift card market with it. Unlike most web services in this field, Rackup isn’t about offering a trade or resale platform for gift cards but does something unique, basically offering the auction winners a way to always get more value than they pay for no matter what. The goal: bringing the ‘Black Friday’ feel into people’s lives online, every day. How it works: basically people bid on the value of gift cards in very fast auctions. The person who bids first, gets the advantage of gaining more value on his or her gift card the more bidders join in. As long as the person stays in the top 10 for a gift card, there’s an additional bonus on top of the value of the gift card. Rackup offers a dashboard where people can manage and see the history of their auction activity. The bottom line: the money is already being spent on these brands, so why not take a couple of seconds in our lives to get more value out of existing gift cards of retailers. Although the company has remained in stealth up until today, it has signed up over 20 customers for the beta product, including many familiar brands like American Airlines, Nespresso, Nike Golf and Travelocity. Rackup's team is lead by Marc Rochman and is supported by a board that includes Stanford Prof. Paul Milgrom, one of the most prominent experts in auction theory, and Duke Prof. Dan Ariely, author of "Predictably Irrational". The company raised early-stage funding from the founders and some private investors, amounting up to $3.5 million. Expert panel Q&A: Q – Jason Calacanis: is this legal? A: Yes, because it’s not gambling. You don’t pay to participate, can only win more value, and you can’t lose money. Q-Paul Graham: So People don’t have to pay to bid, not like Swoopoo? A: The average discount is around 18 percent, the discount for retailer is flat. We charge an auction fee to the retailer. Q-Mark Andreessen: What do you think about your marketsize? A: Last year the figr car market was was $100 billion so this is a growing segment. Sending online gift cards is a new way to give and spend spend money. A: We get around 8 percent of each transaction. We are signing contracts with retailers, will get hope to get a large portion of giftcard transactions. Video: Pictures: Extra coverage:
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| TC50 Backstage: Ross Levinsohn on MySpace, Ad Industry Posted: 14 Sep 2009 03:40 PM PDT
Then Arrington decided to Segway over and interrupt it. Video on the jump. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| TC50: HealthyWage Pays You To Get In Better Shape Posted: 14 Sep 2009 03:25 PM PDT
America spends a dazzling $2.4 trillion annually on healthcare, 75% of which is estimated to go to chronic, largely preventable diseases like obesity, diabetes, smoking-related diseases, sleep disorders, stress and so on. So what would happen if individuals were offered a financial incentive to improve their health, driving down the immense cost of the system down the line? HealthyWage is launching at TechCrunch50 today a way for people to take ownership over their own health and get rewarded up to $1000 for it in the process. On the company’s website, people can register and complete a health risk assessment which identifies ways for them to improve their health. The individuals are then supposed to return to the website daily and enter specific data (e.g. what they ate, their activities throughout the day, drug compliance etc.) as part of their participation in a program created by Harvard physicians. After a year of participating in the program, successful consumers can earn up to $1000. Besides the direct financial incentive for them, they’d also be in better shape, which should result in a decline of health expenses over time. First challenge that is seeing its debut on HealthyWage today: a BMI Challenge, designed to help people lose weight and get rewarded for it if they succeed. Overweight Americans or the companies they work for can put in $200 on the ‘bet’ that they’ll get to a certain BMI (Body Mass Index) and ‘lose’ all that money if it doesn’t pan out. If they achieve the targeted BMI – helped by friends and relatives and even their doctors through the system – they get their money back fivefold. The company intends to make money not only off the ‘losers’ (people who pay to participate in the program but don’t actually complete the challenge successfully) but also from selling the (anonymous, aggregate) health history and daily health data to drug and food manufacturers, retail companies, healthcare providers, diet companies etc. and by running targeted advertising campaigns from these companies on their website. This is definitely an intriguing (and potentially controversial) idea, and I can see this really taking off when employers start to see the benefit of offering such challenge programs to their workforce. Expert panel Q&A: Q – Tony Hsieh: I would do this at Zappos, we see healthcare costs rising. You may want to figure out how to separate the incentive from the need to logging in on a daily basis. A: we’re open to ideas on how to reward people, cash or other prizes. The big idea is getting people in the habit of being mindful about their health, we tailor tips etc. It’s about wellness. Q – Marc Andreessen: how do you translate it to a company’s bottom line? A: A 20% or 30% decline based on our data. Q – Marc Andreessen: do you have a sense of how much money is required to get people motivated to change their lifestyle? A: Small amounts of money works, but it’s more about the support, the acknowledgement of the money. Q: Why wait a whole year to pay people? A: A year forced it to be a lifestyle change and not a short-term thing. We want to build a foundation, lead people to change their behavior long-term and keep their motviated. Q – Marissa Mayer: I’m skeptic. There are tools for people who are already motivated, what’s to stop Weight Watchers for offering the same service? A: their business model is different, focused on consumers, while we focus on companies/employers. In terms of addressable market, there’s a lot of room in the U.S. and incentives work. A program this comprehensive is unique in our view, and we’re confident people will embrace it. Q – Roelof Botha: Mind that foreign health insurance companies are already implementing similar programs. A: The U.S. is different, consumers are hesitant to participate if the program goes out from the health insurance companies, even if lower premiums are the incentive. Video: Pictures:  Extra coverage:
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| TC50: SeatGeek Is The Farecast For Sports And Music Tickets Posted: 14 Sep 2009 03:15 PM PDT
The main problem with buying tickets on secondary markets is that you have no clue if they reached their lowest price already or if you should be well off exercising some patience and let the price drop a bit more. Enter SeatGeek, launching at the TechCrunch50 conference today, which offers a service that basically forecasts ticket prices on secondary markets so you can make educated decisions on when to break out your wallet. SeatGeek developed a bot that crawls hundreds of secondary market websites every day to aggregate information on transactions like the amount of money tickets are going for and other factors that have an effect on pricing. The startup actually takes into account a very broad set of relevant factors. For instance, when they track baseball games they not only trace the prices of tickets but also if the game was on a weekend, what the weather was like, who was pitching and so on. SeatGeek can go over this multitude of records in their database and analyze historical price points for events, enabling them to forecast what the pricing pattern for secondary tickets is going to look like for future similar events. Buyers can sign up to get notified when the price drops to the rock bottom as predicted by their system and simply purchase only once it does. And the good thing is even sellers can benefit from the forecasting model because they can use it to determine when they should be unloading their tickets. SeatGeek offers a free version for buyers and will soon release a premium version for brokers and other sellers. SeatGeek also gets 7 to 10% of ticket sales thanks to affiliate relationships with ticket brokers. They’re also preparing the roll-out of a ‘ticket insurance’ product, where users get compensated if SeatGeek doesn’t provide accurate forecasts. Expert panel Q&A: Q – Roelof Botha: I like it, like I like Farecast (which did pretty well). Is your goal to become the primary site to go to to get tickets, and wouldn’t that hurt the brokers? A: we’re helping them, we’re doing marketing for them. We’ve spoken to them and they’re supportive of what we’re doing. Q – Paul Graham: What percentage can you predict, e.g. baseball games? A: In average, 40% of baseball games that are sold out. Overall, I don’t know. We’re directionally correct 80% of the time. Q – Marc Andreessen: How high is up? How big can it get? A: The size of the secondary ticket market, $15 billion a year. Q – Paul Graham: why do you make a consumer website, why not use it and resell tickets yourself? A: We thought about it, but the downside is the initial capital injection. Half the battle is acquiring tickets, brokers are good at it and we’re not it, so we focus on providing tools to help them and buyers. We think the opportunity is bigger by not doing it ourselves and letting consumers use our tools. Video: Pictures: Extra coverage:
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| TC50 Backstage: Is Jim Lanzone a Jerk? Posted: 14 Sep 2009 03:13 PM PDT
His answer and more about why he's jumping back into the start-up fray and his “divorce” from Barry Diller on the video clip on the jump. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
Over the past several months, the social search service 
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I grabbed 
Healthcare is one of the top social and economic problems facing Americans today, as the rising cost of medical care and health insurance in the United States continues to significantly impact the livelihood of many of its citizens in one way or another. 
Lots of people purchase tickets for events like sports games, rock concerts, etc. on secondary markets like eBay or StubHub, where they can often be picked up at huge discounts. Of course, it’s a bit of a challenge to know when to make a move and buy tickets exactly.
So former Ask.com CEO Jim Lanzone just launched his new company, 
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