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- Spotify Will Kill File-sharing, Be A European Home-Run Says CEO
- The Plot Thickens: Skype Founders And Joost Sue Former Chairman And CEO Mike Volpi
- Google’s DoubleClick Launches New Marketplace For Display Ads
- Pearl Jam Takes Over MySpace Music With New Album Debut
- Mint Is Yodlee’s YouTube
- AcceptEdge Launches College Recommendation Engine To The Public
- ToyBots: The Stealth Prototype
- Ustream’s Mobile Video Broadcasting Comes To Android
- The Importance Of Enthusiasm In Any Product
- TC50 Demopit Company TweetFunnel Launches Enterprise-Friendly Twitter Publishing Platform
- TechCrunch50 Wrap-Up. Congrats To All The Startups Who Made It.
- A Couple Little Nifty Facebook And Twitter Username Tweaks
- I’m Sorry, But We Have To Ban Music. That’s Just The Way It Is.
- Seesmic Desktop Continues To Grow, Adds Facebook Fan Pages, Yfrog Integration And More
- Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Europe
- I Swear Twitter Is Going Berserk Today Just To Show Off Its Pretty New Graphics
- Memo to Start-ups: You’re Supposed to Be Changing the World, Remember?
- Twitter Email Notifier TwitApps Heading To Deadpool. Code To Live On In Open-Source
- Skype Sniffing Around Web Chat Startups
- Twitter Rolls Out Some Design Tweaks For Web App
- Palm Dances Around Pre Sales Figures
- Bands Should Really Take Advantage Of Aviary’s Myna Remixing Tool
- Deep Green, The Pool-Playing Robot
- GeeksOnAPlane Jumps The Pond; But First, A Layover in DC
- Jajah Brings Voice Calls To Twitter
| Spotify Will Kill File-sharing, Be A European Home-Run Says CEO Posted: 18 Sep 2009 08:48 AM PDT
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco           |
| The Plot Thickens: Skype Founders And Joost Sue Former Chairman And CEO Mike Volpi Posted: 18 Sep 2009 07:39 AM PDT The Skype-eBay plot thickens. Joost and Joltid, both companies owned by Skype’s founders, have filed a lawsuit against former Joost chairman and CEO, Mike Volpi. The suit also names Index Ventures, the VC firm where Volpi is a partner. We’ve embedded the legal document that appears to have been filed this morning, below. According to a press release issued this morning:
Earlier this week, Joltid, the Swedish firm owned by founders of Skype sued eBay and recent Skype buyers Silver Lake Partners and its partners in the buyout, Index Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board; accusing them of copyright violations. The Twist: Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom also founded Joost and Volpi, Joost’s former chairman and CEO who left the imploding company to become a partner at Index Ventures, has been rumored to be a contender for Skype’s CEO position. While Friis and Zennstrom named Volpi as a defendant in the earlier suit against eBay, it appears that the new suite against Volpi alleges leaking of trade secrets from Joost, breach of contract and “civil conspiracy.” eBay sold Skype in a deal valuing the peer-to-peer telephony service at $2.75 billion a few weeks ago, with the new investors owning approximately 65% of Skype, with eBay continuing to own 35%. Several months ago, Skype’s founders made their intentions public by announcing they wanted to buy Skype back from eBay. Shortly after this announcement, eBay announced that Skype was to be spun off as a separate company and then IPO. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| Google’s DoubleClick Launches New Marketplace For Display Ads Posted: 18 Sep 2009 07:30 AM PDT Google, which has dominated search advertising, is hoping to take over the display advertisement space by launching new DoubleClick Ad Exchange to create an open, real-time marketplace for large online publishers and ad networks and agencies to buy and sell display advertising space. In an announcement made on the company’s blog, Google says that display advertising, which are ad formats that include videos, images and interactive ads are becoming “vital in boosting awareness and sales” on the web. Traditionally, publishers and advertisers using Google’s AdSense and AdWords products would have to manually plan their display ad campaigns. Now, publishers can tap into Google’s ecosystem for ads where prices are set in a real-time auction and advertisers can access a large pool of inventory within one platform. Google says the benefits for publishers include the real-time allocation, letting them allocate ad space to the advertiser that pays the most at a given time; access to more advertisers; greater control over advertisers and ad formats, a sleeker UI, and payment system managed completely by Google. And of course advertisers can access a platform that provides more publishers and ad space, a greater control over where a display ad appears, and access to a new API that lets advertisers and networks integrate their own functionality and systems when working with the Ad Exchange. Google bought display ad provider DoubleClick in 2007 for $3.1 billion in cash, after apparently winning a bidding war with Microsoft. The announcement of this new marketplace is a direct move against Yahoo, which has dominated the display ad marketplace for some time. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| Pearl Jam Takes Over MySpace Music With New Album Debut Posted: 18 Sep 2009 05:45 AM PDT
The album, Backspacer, will begin streaming live today on MySpace Music, a few days before it’s available in stores and online to purchase. This follows MySpace debuting the band’s first single off the new album, as well as a documentary, a few weeks ago. The album is actually live already, if you visit the band’s MySpace profile page. Terms of the deal to premiere this on MySpace we not disclosed, but Pearl Jam has been doing some interesting things for the promotion of this album, including teaming up with Target to launch it. And, oddly, the Target deal appears to be baked into its iTunes release of the album too. Backspacer will also be one of the first albums available in the iTunes LP format. MySpace Music rolled out an updated homepage design earlier this week. It’s entirely dominated by Pearl Jam right now, so it looks good to me. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| Posted: 18 Sep 2009 04:02 AM PDT
Mint, which sold to Intuit earlier this week for $170 million, is Yodlee’s YouTube. That’s because, like YouTube, the core technology behind Mint wasn’t developed in house. It was licensed from Yodlee, who got paid very little for what they provided. Yodlee, which has raised at least $116 million over its 10-year lifespan (a lot of that was written off in a recapitalization), is the leading provider to account aggregation for banks. If you log into your bank’s website and they offer you the ability to aggregate accounts from other banks and financial institutions, it’s likely Yodlee is powering it. Very early in Mint’s life they signed a sweet deal with Yodlee to provide all that back end technology. Mint focused on the front end user experience, and did a great job with marketing. People who have knowledge of the deal say total payments from Mint to Yodlee over the last couple of years are around $2 million/year. So Yodlee made $4ish million off of Mint. And Yodlee never thought to ask for equity in Mint in the early days of the company, so they didn’t make anything from the acquisition. To make things worse, Mint gave a “substantial” amount of Series A stock to Hite Capital in exchange for the Mint.com domain name. That stock was worth a “couple of million dollars,” says one source, after the acquisition. The final insult: Yodlee won’t even be able to collect those small fees any longer from Mint. Intuit has it’s own back-end account aggregation service that it will use instead of Yodlee. To be fair to Yodlee, the situation isn’t quite identical to Adobe/YouTube. The specifications, called OFX, for transferring account information between financial institutions was created in the 1990’s and any company is free to build on them. There are a few competitors to Yodlee, but for the most part they dominate the market. But what Yodlee didn’t forsee is that sometimes having an enterprise approach isn’t the best. Mint focused on design and user experience and sold for $170 million two years after launching. Yodlee, after a ten-year fight and more $116 million or more in venture capital, is still looking for an exit. And don’t just call this luck. Mint founder Aaron Patzer has nerves of steel and knows how to leverage risk. The rumor is he turned down an offer from Intuit earlier this year for $130 million. I’m not sure many entrepreneurs would have been able to do that. But the bet paid off, and he and his investors made another $40 million. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| AcceptEdge Launches College Recommendation Engine To The Public Posted: 18 Sep 2009 02:55 AM PDT
The site starts off by asking you a series of questions about your academic, family, and personal histories. Most of the data entered is pretty run of the mill — things like GPA, SAT scores, and whether you’d prefer a public or private school. But the site also takes into account things like the your interests outside of school, the books you enjoy, and music you like (you can connect your account with Facebook Connect if you’d like to save some typing). After all of this, it spits out an ‘Edge Score’ that tells you just how competitive you are with your peers (I imagine these will be the source of much angst for students on the site) and a selection of your top college matches, with a percentage indicating just how closely they fit. There’s also some extensive data on each school’s admissions history, with information on the most predictive indicators for admission and plots of GPA vs standardized test scores. All in all the site is off to a solid start, though it’s worth noting that there are plenty of sites that offer similar college ‘predictors’ that can analyze your test scores. Rather than rely on the site for its ‘Edge Score’, I think it could be more useful for helping students discover good colleges that they may not have heard of. Other players in this space include CampusBuddy (which is more focused on college communities than test scores), and a host of college review sites like College Confidential and The Princeton Review. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| ToyBots: The Stealth Prototype Posted: 18 Sep 2009 12:35 AM PDT
So he stopped by today to tell me that ToyBots will indeed build their own toy or toys, and to show me his super double secret stealth prototype – a very lifelike dog-type thing, only smaller. And it’s certainly cuter than this scary thing. Pishevar says of the device: “We’ll be bigger than Facebook.” The video is below: Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| Ustream’s Mobile Video Broadcasting Comes To Android Posted: 17 Sep 2009 11:39 PM PDT Tonight, Google’s Android platform is getting another application that gives it functionality iPhone users can only gaze at longingly. This time, it’s Ustream, a mobile streaming application that lets you broadcast video directly from your phone. The application will be available on the Android Market by 9 AM PST tomorrow morning. Ustream isn’t the only option available for streaming video on Android — Qik launched its own version in June. But it’s a very solid debut that comes with some features that Qik doesn’t. CEO John Ham says that one key differentiator for the new Ustream app is the way it handles latency. While competitors can build up a 'lag time' over the course of an extended broadcast, Ham says that Ustream uses a low latency connection and optimization both client and server side to keep this to a minimum — in other words, the lag doesn't build up. In my testing I got a lag time of around three seconds over a 3G connection (nothing to scoff at), and perhaps more importantly the delay didn’t grow over time, which is especially important if you’re going to interact with your viewers through the app’s various community features. And there are plenty of those: the application allows you to poll your views live during the broadcast, and also supports both Ustream’s integrated chat and Twitter chat. It also supports local recording, which lets you take higher quality video for upload later. Another great feature: Ustream for Android lets you ‘overtake’ a currently broadcasting stream, provided you’re the owner of the account. For example, we could use the mobile application to take over our CrunchCam stream while we’re on the go and have some breaking news. Then, when we finished our mobile broadcast, the feed would revert to the camera that’s constantly streaming from inside TechCrunch headquarters (you can see a demo in the video below). Very slick. Ustream also offers some apps for the iPhone, but these don’t let you broadcast straight to the web because Apple has restricted this functionality, despite the fact that the 3GS actually supports 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   |
| The Importance Of Enthusiasm In Any Product Posted: 17 Sep 2009 08:49 PM PDT
While certainly there is some element of hearing something so many times that you start to believe it, that’s nothing new, any good salesman will do the same thing. But why I think the tactic works so well with Apple is because they actually believe what they’re saying. Just watch Steve Jobs in that video. It sure seems like he’s damn sure that what he’s talking about is amazing. He’s excited about it. So is Phil Schiller and the others on the Apple team. And that excitement translates on a level unseen. You’ve undoubtedly seen used car commercials where the used car salesman uses superlatives as well to the nth degree. But the difference is that he’s not genuine. Do you think he loves the junky cars he’s trying to pass off to you? No. Contrast that with Jobs. Do you believe that he loves the Apple products he’s trying to pass off to you? Yes. This is hardly an Apple-only phenomenon. They’re just one of the best at translating their enthusiasm on a big stage several times a year thanks mainly to the charismatic Jobs. But really, I think you’ll find in most successful companies, the enthusiasm about their product is a key to how well that product is doing. Another good example is Twitter. I’ve had to opportunity to meet a lot of Twitter employees over the past few years. One thing I noticed about each of them is their passion and excitement for what they’re doing. Certainly, if you look at it from the outside, the concept of Twitter was something that was just as likely to be a complete failure as it was a success. But the people running it and even the newest employees have a passion about it. When co-founder Biz Stone says he thinks Twitter can change the world, it may sound crazy, but it’s not, because he believes it. Speaking of the newest employees, Twitter’s new COO, Dick Costolo, just started at the company recently. During TechCrunch50, he was asked on stage why he joined Twitter. After all, he had sold his previous company, FeedBurner, to Google for $100 million, and upon leaving Google, he probably never needed to work again. But his response is telling, “My first reaction was, you don't get a chance to work on potentially one of the pivotal companies.” He’s not going to work at Twitter for the paycheck, he’s going to work there because he believes in what they are doing. And that enthusiasm can only further the company. This type of enthusiasm also seems to be prevalent at companies like Facebook, Netflix, and Zappos (which was of course recently acquired by Amazon). And not surprisingly, people seem to love working at those companies. For a long time, Google was in that realm too. To some extent, it still is, but as it gets bigger and bigger, there seems to be no shortage of people who leave, discontent. Google is still making great products, but whenever you have talent leaving, for whatever reason, that’s not a great sign. Maybe Google can overcome that, but you simply can’t discount the recent talk about a possible Google decline. Not to single out Yahoo, but they are one company where employee enthusiasm has seemed waning in recent years, to say the least. It’s hard to know if that started before or after the great products stopped and it fell into decline, but it’s a serious problem, nonetheless. That’s not to say no one is enthusiastic about being there, but I do get the feeling that plenty are there simply to get a paycheck. And a company will never win that way. Microsoft is more of a mixed bag. There are plenty at the company who love it passionately. Most notable of these is of course, CEO Steve Ballmer. While I don’t believe he’s being disingenuous with his Microsoft zealotry, I know that his passion is not shared by everyone at the company. And I believe that translates one way or another to the public (be it by sub-par products, or other less tangible means). And to some extent, that may be why we don’t see the same type of “fanboy” fervor that a company like Apple gets. But you’ll notice a common theme among the last three examples: They’re all huge companies. It’s undoubtedly very hard to keep everyone happy and on the same page about the products as you grow in size. That’s really why Steve Jobs is more important to Apple than doing any tangible work he may be doing. He is the glue that seems to make enthusiasm stick at the large company. When he wasn’t there in the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, things went downhill, and undoubtedly the enthusiasm went downhill. It was interesting talking to startups at TechCrunch50 this past week. A lot of them seemed to have the passion for what they were doing, and that was great to see. But I’m not sure that all of them did, and I have no doubt that those companies are going to be much more prone to failure. My point is an obvious one, but I think it’s often overlooked. Enthusiasm and passion are so important, no matter what you do. If you don’t feel like you have that towards the company you are with, you should seriously consider leaving. Of course, there is something to be said about a paycheck, especially in tough economic times, but if you have the means and are simply spinning your wheels doing something that you don’t believe in, you’re really not helping anyone, and especially not yourself. And you’re not helping us, the public, either, because if you’re not enthusiastic about something, we’re certainly not going to be. Better yet, if you have the power in your company to start something that you are passionate about, do it. Even if it’s something that seems silly, like say, Twitter (which of course, started as a side project at Odeo), your enthusiasm about it just may push it through. And it may slowly bubble up into something bigger. And it may just blow up into the next big thing. Because enthusiasm translates. [photo: flickr/acaben] Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| TC50 Demopit Company TweetFunnel Launches Enterprise-Friendly Twitter Publishing Platform Posted: 17 Sep 2009 08:05 PM PDT As more and more businesses dip their toes in the Twitter stream, there’s a need for enterprise-focused Twitter applications that cater to businesses’ needs from the microblogging platform. TechCrunch50 demopit company TweetFunnel is business-friendly publishing platform for Twitter. The web-based application is both a Twitter client and a platform for businesses to manage all their Twitter accounts. TweetFunnel lets you aggregate and use multiple Twitter accounts, and also makes it easy for several employees to post to one Twitter account. Users can also schedule, monitor and assign posting of Tweets within the platform. And TweetFunnel offers Bit.ly link analytics within its platform. TweetFunnel breaks down users into three different categories—administrators, publishers and contributors. The administrator has permissions to add users to the account and to review and publish tweets. Publishers also have the ability to review and publish tweets and contributors can add tweets to the review queue, but cannot publish tweets. The platform is appealing and has a number of compelling features for businesses, including the ability to time and assign Tweets. Of course, TweetFunnel will face competition from the growing number of clients and services that provide variations of enterprise-friendly Twitter clients, including PeopleBrowsr, ViralHeat, and Socialseek.  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| TechCrunch50 Wrap-Up. Congrats To All The Startups Who Made It. Posted: 17 Sep 2009 07:46 PM PDT  To all those startups who made it to TechCrunch50 this year, whether it was on stage or in the DemoPit, congratulations and thank you. We wouldn’t be here if there weren’t so many creative entrepreneurs out there trying to build something worthwhile out of nothing but ideas, sweat, and a little risk capital. A little risk can go a long why. And while it is true that this year’s crop brought fewer wild ideas than in the past, it is also true that by and large there were a lot more solid ideas as well. One of the best things about TechCrunch50 is not what happens on stage, but what happens before companies even get there. Startups that don’t even have a working demo or a product are forced to build one just to be considered. So many startup founders at TechCrunch50, even those who don’t make it to the final 50, have told me how valuable this selection process is. There is nothing like a deadline to focus your ideas. And once you are there, the dealmaking in the DemoPit was intense. Over the course of the two-day conference, we covered all 50 finalist demos, put up more than a dozen video interviews, and reported announcements made at TC50 from Bing, Facebook, Google, AOL, and MySpace. Even the TC50 winner from two years ago, Mint, had its own little announcement. If you weren’t one of the nearly 2,000 people in attendance, perhaps you were one of the 97,855 unique viewers who caught some of the presentations streamed live on video. The video was shot and uploaded by the team at Ustream, who also were able to cut and upload archived video clips for each presentation within an hour of each one. Those video clips are embedded at the bottom of each post and is probably the best way to relive the experience. There was so much happening at the conference, even if you were there you missed half of it. Below is a handy list of links to all of our TC50 coverage, including every company demo, announcement, backstage interview, and commentary. There is also an extensive list of links to other coverage (if we are missing something, let us know) and, at the very bottom, to Crunchbase profiles of each of the 50 finalists.  TC50 Winner: TC50 Finalists: Best Presentation: Best International Company: Microsoft BizSpark Award Winner: Demopit Winners: The TC50 Video: Photos: TC50 Companies in Order of Appearance: Interviews: Panels: Commentary: Announcements: Other Coverage: Crunchbase Profiles: Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| A Couple Little Nifty Facebook And Twitter Username Tweaks Posted: 17 Sep 2009 06:31 PM PDT
One of the most annoying things about logging into Facebook was that it still required you to use an email address as your username. The problem is that most of the time those are much longer than regular user names. So this move to the vanity URLs is a nice one. On the downside, this may make it slightly easier for hackers to crack open your account as usernames are public while most email addresses probably weren’t.
Earlier this week, Facebook rolled out its update to let you tag friends in your status messages using the @ syntax. Of course, there still is no real interoperable way to connect Twitter usernames and Facebook usernames, as that might be asking too much from this growing rivalry. [thanks Peter] Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| I’m Sorry, But We Have To Ban Music. That’s Just The Way It Is. Posted: 17 Sep 2009 06:18 PM PDT  It has come to my attention that the music industry now wants royalties for those 30-second clips of music you hear in iTunes. That, I think you'll agree, is BS. Seeing as how we're a solution-oriented blog here at CrunchGear, I want to offer a completely fool-proof way to save the music industry and put an end to the years and years of nonsense we've seen since Napster was first released: let's ban music. That's right, let's pass a law that says "the creation or performance of music, in any form, is hereby banned. Any violation of this law will be punishable by death." Problem solved, let's all play Hungry Hungry Hippos.TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| Seesmic Desktop Continues To Grow, Adds Facebook Fan Pages, Yfrog Integration And More Posted: 17 Sep 2009 05:00 PM PDT  Seesmic, the startup behind the Twitter and Facebook desktop and web clients, is launching a new version of Seesmic Desktop that adds Facebook fan pages, yFrog integration, a “reply to all” button for messages and a favorites timeline. Developed by French entrepreneur Loic Le Meur, Seesmic recently launched its browser-based Twitter client at TechCrunch's Real-Time Stream CrunchUp in July. You can download the new version of Seesmic Desktop here. Seesmic Desktop, which launched in April and has reached 2.5 million downloads, is an Adobe Air-powered client that has pulls in status updates from Facebook and Tweets from Twitter in a real-time feed. Today, Seesmic Desktop is furthering its integration with Facebook by allowing users to access and manage Facebook Pages. Users can view and post to activity feeds from any Facebook page they are fans of and can also manage their own fan pages. Each Facebook Page will show up as a column, where you can post messages, and respond to comments and express likes, just as you would in a Facebook feed. If you're an administrator of fan pages, you can post messages as the administrator. I think the compelling part of this feature is Seesmic’s play in the enterprise space. It’s no secret that businesses are actively using both Twitter and Facebook as marketing tools and there have been a plethora of enterprise-friendly clients that help companies and brands manage social networking initiatives. Seesmic’s existing multi-Twitter user functionality and now the Facebook Fan Pages integration is definitely establishing the desktop client as a viable business application (as well as a useful consumer app). Seesmic is launching a reply-all feature that lets users reply to all of the usernames listed in a message. This is useful when re-tweeting a message because the Reply-all function will simply Retweet the exact text of a message. Additionally, you can now add a “favorites” column to your interface that lets you mark and aggregate your favorite Tweets and messages. Le Meur also says that TwitPic-rival Yfrog has been growing fast and when Seesmic was looking to partner with a Twitter picture posting service, Yfrog was the most attractive default picture posting service. Yfrog will now be implemented on all Seesmic products, including the browser version. Speaking of Seesmic Products, I spoke to Le Meur about his much hyped iPhone app, which is scheduled to launch in October. Le Meur was tight lipped about details on the iPhone app’s features, but he did say that the experience on the desktop, browser and mobile versions of Seesmic will be the same. That means that the app will probably be integrated with both Facebook and Twitter. He did mention that the browser version of Seesmic will be integrated with Facebook within the next month as developers are currently tweaking the application’s functionality on different browsers. I’m a big fan of Seesmic’s web-based client, particularly because of its Gmail-like interface and the avoidance of using a desktop app built off of Adobe Air, which is buggy. Seesmic faces competition from PeopleBrowser and rival Tweetdeck, which recently added MySpace functionality and a number of other features. Disclosure: TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington is an investor in Seesmic. I am not. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Europe Posted: 17 Sep 2009 04:55 PM PDT
The first one seems obvious but is worth spelling out one more time: to launch a consumer web service or, increasingly, mobile application, America remains the golden prize worth shooting for. It is a large, homogeneous market which speaks one language. It is quite simply a no-brainer to really go for it there. That has always had implications for European startups. How do you launch in a market when you are not actually in the USA, or headquartered there? How do you get traction? It is of course perfectly possible. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| I Swear Twitter Is Going Berserk Today Just To Show Off Its Pretty New Graphics Posted: 17 Sep 2009 04:55 PM PDT Twitter is going completely nuts right now. Avatars are disappearing, backgrounds are disappearing, 503 errors are popping up, and yes, I’ve even see a Fail Whale. I’m not entirely sure why this is, and people at Twitter don’t seem too sure either, but I have a theory that it’s to show off a bunch of pretty new graphics they’ve been working on. The new Fail Whale in the clouds: The new color birdie default avatars: The new suspended account birdie: I bet the official line will be that Twitter’s been tweaking things (say that ten times fast) quite a bit recently, so these anomalies are probably tied to that. But whatever, I think they just wanted to show off their cool new fail designs. Update: Here are a few updates from Twitter. The API team says:
Meanwhile Twitter support member notes:
[suspended photo via flickr/laughingsquid] Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| Memo to Start-ups: You’re Supposed to Be Changing the World, Remember? Posted: 17 Sep 2009 03:57 PM PDT
Web visionaries like Reid Hoffman and Sean Parker struggled to come up with positive feedback on stage. Robert “I-get-excited-by-nearly-any-start-up” Scoble was so bored he was playing Hangman via Twitter with Paul Carr. Marc Andreessen praised Udorse—a company that he joked would make the world a worse place if it succeeded—because at least it was a new idea. Tim O'Reilly said he didn't care whether Cocodot, one of the companies he judged, succeeded or failed because it was so meaningless in the world. And Tony Hsieh just said it blatantly: "I didn't see anything that was trying to change the world." One big exception was CitySourced—a company that excited Kevin Rose precisely because it was trying to build something that doesn't really exist today and would make a huge difference in people's lives. It was the most excited I saw an expert about anything over the two-day event. I don't say this to knock the conference or the selections we made. But the truth is I heard it too consistently backstage to ignore it. To be fair, we're at that point in the start-up cycle where this is to be expected. Web 2.0 start-ups that are going to break out mostly have and others are running out of time and money. With fatigue setting in around the Valley, most new companies are looking to play it safe. We saw the exact same thing in 2001-2002. Then and now, press outlets compliment this type of thing as "sensibility" or being smart. Jeering ledes get written with told-you-so lines like "Remember profits, Silicon Valley?" Those people just don't understand the Valley and what makes great start-ups great. They're the same people who write about Facebook and Twitter once the companies have raised loads of money and gotten huge audiences. The people who extol the virtues of "sensibility" are never the people at the core of the next great companies. Whether press or VCs, they'll be late to the next wave, just like they were too late to this one. But the experts at our conference do get it and that's why they left mostly un-wowed. Here's why this matters: Start-ups by definition don't have the experience, market position, funding or resources to tackle obvious market opportunities. If what they're trying to do makes clear business sense, a bigger, better-positioned company would do it. A start-up's only edge is that it's not built into legacy businesses and preconceived notions and can do something, well, crazy. There are entrepreneurs somewhere building the next big companies. But it's probably just a wonky side-project that no one—not even the entrepreneur himself—realizes is the next big thing. That's who we need to drag on stage next year. Ten years from now I don't want to look back on TechCrunch50 and see that our winners had a string of $100 million exits. For a conference that seeks to ferret out the most exciting startups in the world, that's failure. I want to see huge audacious failures and huge gaudy wins. I worry if we play it too safe as a conference we'll lose the attention of the Andreessens, the Hsiehs, the Tim O'Reillys and the Reid Hoffmans and eventually, the audience that stayed glued to their uncomfortable seats even in the event's final hours hoping to see something that could change their lives. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| Twitter Email Notifier TwitApps Heading To Deadpool. Code To Live On In Open-Source Posted: 17 Sep 2009 03:56 PM PDT
The service was a useful one that allowed you to get an automated email with all your @replies and follower notifications from Twitter. But it would appear that the developer simply got fed up trying to build a new version while continuing to “fire-fight problems” with Twitter’s API. Here’s the core part of the developer’s statement:
The good news is that the code behind TwitApps will live on as an open-source project. This means that anyone else will be free to build and maintain a new TwitApps themselves. The plan is to publish the code to a GitHub account after the site shuts down, tomorrow, September 18 (the emails will continue to run through the 25th). The service had some 4,000+ users, who apparently have reached out to the developer en masse to try and get him to change his mind, but he says he won’t. So after tomorrow, no more TwitApps. Hopefully someone will use the code to build something similar. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| Skype Sniffing Around Web Chat Startups Posted: 17 Sep 2009 03:34 PM PDT
The rumors just won’t stop. This time, however, it’s about the company’s product strategy rather than its general fate. A well-placed source tells me Skype management is actively shopping around for companies that provide web-based communication services such as browser-based calling and video chats. To date, Skype has focused on desktop and mobile software to handle peer-to-peer based calling over the Internet. This is not surprising, because when Skype first started back in 2003 bandwidth costs were a an order of magnitude higher than they are today and desktop apps were the only way to go if they were ever going to make a decent profit from Internet-based telephony. But with bandwidth prices decreasing worldwide at a fast rate, it makes a lot of sense for Skype to at least consider moving into web applications and claim their ground. The fastest way to do that would be to pick up a startup with proven technology and early traction in that field, like TokBox, PalTalk or Tinychat. Here’s another reason Skype might be looking at web-based communication service providers. What if eBay/Skype cannot develop a workaround that would allow them to continue the service without using the Joltid-owned source code powering its core peer-to-peer engine? It’s conceivable that might drive the company to consider purchasing companies with similar or related Web-based technology to speed up its move away from the litigation threat hanging over them. Of course, companies talk to one another all the time and as far as we know there haven’t been any official acquisition offers from Skype at this point. But they’re definitely looking. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| Twitter Rolls Out Some Design Tweaks For Web App Posted: 17 Sep 2009 03:15 PM PDT Twitter is currently rolling out a couple of design tweaks for its web version. The most apparent change is noticeable when you go to a user’s profile page. Instead of just a ‘Follow’ button under the person’s username, you’ll now get a newly designed follow button next to another button that allows you to follow, public message (or privately when he or she follows you back) or block the person in one click. Also, when you do a search for a popular trending topic, there’s a chance you’ll see a short explanation above the results about why it is trending (coming from WhatTheTrend.com). See an example for a search on ‘Jay-Z’ below. Finally, the default avatar that new users are assigned when they sign up without uploading a proper profile pic has been changed to something, well, better. Slowly but surely, we’re seeing Twitter’s design when logged in change to one that inches closer to its recently launched new homepage, which was largely centered around search and trending topics. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| Palm Dances Around Pre Sales Figures Posted: 17 Sep 2009 03:01 PM PDT
Up until now, Palm has remained mum on the sales of the Pre — its flagship phone that launched with much fanfare earlier this summer, but was quickly overshadowed by the iPhone 3GS launch. That didn’t change today, but we can glean some information from Palm’s statements: the term “vast majority” doesn’t really mean much, but assuming at least 60% of the sell-through figures were from the Pre, that would equate to more than 486,000 units. That’s more than what some have been expecting (a Bloomberg report cited an analyst predicting 400k units sold, while a MarketWatch report put the consensus at about 500K), and Palm’s overall smartphone sales beat analyst expectations. Still, it’s hard to look back at major Palm investor Roger McNamee’s March, 2009 prediction that the Pre would obliterate the iPhone and think that the Pre’s launch was everything Palm hoped for. Let’s revisit that beautiful quote:
Granted, everyone knew this statement was utterly ridiculous as soon as McNamee uttered it, but the Pre has failed to really reach blockbuster status by even the most generous definition. There’s a reason why Palm is not touting its sales figures the way Apple did when the iPhone 3GS sold 1 million units within five days of its release and 5.2 million in the quarter. During today’s call Palm stressed that its success isn’t tied to a single device — rather, it’s about Palm’s webOS platform, which is now going to serve as the operating system for every future Palm release. It revealed in the conference call that more carriers are signing up for the Palm. And it will have a second shot at a smash-hit this fall, when it releases its smaller (and cheaper) Pixi in November. And a third shot after that, and then a fourth shot. Maybe one of these days it will get it right. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| Bands Should Really Take Advantage Of Aviary’s Myna Remixing Tool Posted: 17 Sep 2009 12:36 PM PDT
If you haven’t checked out Myna yet, you should. Aviary released it the other day, and it’s really impressive for software that is fully contained in the browser. It’s not quite as powerful as GarageBand, but most casual users probably don’t need all the bells and whistles that GarageBand provides. Most users will find Myna more than powerful enough, and actually, it seems quite a bit easier to get the hang of as a result of being slightly less complex. But the really cool potential for Myna lies in using its API and getting some partnerships with bands to do remixes on the web. The first such partnership is with the band Major Lazer. They’re currently holding a contest between now and October 1 for whichever fan does the best remix. There will be one grand prize winner (who gets $500 among a bunch of other stuff) and five runners-up. In a time when everyone is talking about falling music sales, and wonder if the recording industry as it’s currently constituted can survive, this sounds like a great way for bands to create a more interactive experience with their fans. Again, Aviary makes this very simple to do. You load up the Myna app from Major Lazer’s website and it’s pre-populated with various musical elements of three tracks that you can remix. From there, it’s simply a matter of dragging and dropping elements to get the mix you want. Cool stuff. Update: Here’s the link for the API information. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| Deep Green, The Pool-Playing Robot Posted: 17 Sep 2009 12:33 PM PDT You’ve heard of Deep Blue, the IBM computer that bested Gary Kasparov in a chess match a decade ago. Now, there is Deep Green, a robot that plays pool. And by the looks of the demo video above, it can’t lose. As Delicious founder, and now-Googler, Joshua Schachter points out, it is “only a matter of time before one of these kills a person.” Deep Green is a project out of the robotics and computer Vision lab in Queens University. They are also working on an “augmented reality” version of pool that lines up your shot with lasers. This is also known as cheating. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| GeeksOnAPlane Jumps The Pond; But First, A Layover in DC Posted: 17 Sep 2009 11:15 AM PDT This past June I had the privilege of traveling to East Asia with a group of techies on a trip dubbed GeeksOnAPlane. The experience was a quick-and-dirty way to familiarize myself with the tech industries of Japan and China, since we were herded through back-to-back conferences and networking events meant to give us primers on a number of sectors such as web, mobile, and gaming (you can read about what I learned in each of those countries here and here). I’m happy to say that the second GeeksOnAPlane trip will take me the other way around the world starting today. Our first stop will be in DC where we plan to meet with representatives from the White House Digital Media Group and the State Department Technology Innovation Team followed by an afternoon Startup2Startup lunch at the Washington Post. After that short layover on the east coast, we’ll jump the pond to attend Seedcamp in London and then the Picnic tech festival in Amsterdam. While I’ll be flying back home after Amsterdam, the rest of the group will continue to Berlin, Prague, Paris, and back to London for a series of other tech events such as Future of Web Apps and Ignite. As during my trip to Asia, I’ll report back here on what I discover about tech and entrepreneurship in the nation’s capitol and abroad. For more information about the trip, visit the official GeeksOnAPlane website. And a special thanks to Founders Fund, AIM, PayPal, O’Reilly and Ignite – the trip’s main sponsors – for making this all possible. Follow us on Twitter at @GeeksOnAPlane. We’ll be using the hashtag #goap. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| Jajah Brings Voice Calls To Twitter Posted: 17 Sep 2009 11:14 AM PDT  Starting today, Jajah is rolling out a brand spankin' new service - Jajah@call, a Twitter user-to-user phone call solution. That's right, ladies and gents. Jajah, the self-proclaimed "world's most innovative IP communications company," is bringing this new feature to the wildly popular microblogging service. This is not too much of a surprise, really, in light of Facebook's recent voice feature announcement - these are all communication tools, after all, and what is the pinnacle of communication if not voice? It will provide Jajah with increased exposure, while giving always connected Tweeters a new "built-in" VoIP tool. See kids, healthy competition is a good thing!TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
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