The Latest from TechCrunch

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• The Droid Is Coming November 6 for $199 With Contract
• Google Redefines GPS Navigation Landscape: Google Maps Navigation For Android 2.0
• MyCE Sees Room For Another Social Network For Consumer Electronics Fans
• PlaySpan Study Shows Growth In Virtual Goods Marketplace
• Frontier Shareholders Approve $8.5 Billion Acquisition Of Verizon Wire Line Business
• Mobile Phone Software Company Not Pleased With Courgette, Sues Google
• Schwarzenegger Gives California Legislature A Hidden Finger
• Pandora Opens Its Box A Bit More With Twitter, Facebook, And Gifting Integration
• Exclusive Picture Of Unlaunched Apple Tablet (circa 1990)
• Neo Technology Commercializes Next Generation Graph Based Database
• Matt Galligan And Joe Stump Are Building An Infrastructure For Location-Based Services
• Stalqer Peers Into Your iPhone For A New Level Of Location-Based Creepiness
• Sprint Drops Call Forwarding Fees With Google Voice In Mind
• In Case You Forgot: Tomorrow Is Droid Day
• Intelius Files To Go Public Again. Still A Huge Toxic Scam
• Flixster Crosses 8 Million Mobile Users, Celebrates With App Updates For Android And BlackBerry
• Consumer Review: The Best Smartphones On The Market
• Facebook Launches A New Hub For World Peace
• Peek Goes Twitter And Is Now Available at Blockbuster
• GSI Commerce Enters The Private Sale Space With Acquisition Of Retail Convergence
• Yahoo To Launch Real Time Search, Too
• I Hope That Someone Gets My Tweet In A Bottle
• Three Years After Their Acquisition, Reddit Founders Move On
• HashCeratops Aims To Formally Add Place Tagging To The Twitter Stream
• Zivity Adds Dudes. Let Me Know How It Goes (#zividude)

The Droid Is Coming November 6 for $199 With Contract Posted: 28 Oct 2009 07:08 AM PDT Verizon just confirmed that the Moto Droid will arrive next week for $199 with a new, 2-year contract and $100 mail-in rebate. Customers will need a voice plan starting at $39 and a web and email plan for $29 per month. See our full Droid coverage here and look for a full hands-on later today. HELLO HUMANS: DROID BY MOTOROLA ARRIVES NEXT WEEK Verizon Wireless DROID By Motorola: World's First Smartphone with Android™ 2.0 BASKING RIDGE, N.J., and LIBERTYVILLE, Ill. – High-speed Web browsing, voice-activated search, customizable large screen, access to thousands of Android applications and hundreds of widgets and the best 3G mobile network in the country: DROID by Motorola arrives on Nov. 6. Verizon Wireless, the company with the nation's largest wireless 3G broadband network, and Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT), a pioneer in the mobile industry, today unveiled DROID by Motorola, the first smartphone powered by Android™ 2.0. DROID by Motorola features the brainpower and breakneck speed of a modern smartphone, designed to outperform where other smartphones fall short.

Google Redefines GPS Navigation Landscape: Google Maps Navigation For Android 2.0 Posted: 28 Oct 2009 06:55 AM PDT If you weren’t sure about switching to an Android phone in the near future, this might put you over the edge. Google Maps Navigation is an absolutely killer app. And it is only available for Android 2.0 phones. Today is Droid day, and for the most part Google is taking a backseat and letting their partners get most of the attention. But Droid is the first Android phone to run Android 2.0, and Google Maps Navigation is clearly the early trophy app for those devices. Google Maps already has 50 million active users across various mobile phones, says Google. But what users have today isn’t even close to the new Navigation product. First off, it’s connected, which puts it ahead of all but a tiny percentage of in-car navigation systems which have no Internet connectivity (Dash is a notable exception). The application is also completely free. So all those paid navigation apps (Navigon, TomTom, CoPilot, MapQuest, GoKivo and Sygic Mobile) are at an immediate disadvantage. But even if Google charged for this app, it would still win hands down. The features include easy search (no need for address), voice search, traffic information (from data sources and crowd sourced from app), and street view close up pictures when you get near your destination. And the car dock mode gives bigger, simpler icons and auto-voice mode (see video): Search in plain English. No need to know the address. You can type a business name (e.g. "starbucks") or even a kind of a business (e.g. "thai restaurant"), just like you would on Google. Search by voice. Speak your destination instead of typing (English only): “Navigate to the de Young Museum in San Francisco”. Traffic view. An on-screen indicator glows green, yellow, or red based on the current traffic conditions along your route. A single touch on the indicator toggles a traffic view that shows the traffic ahead. Search along route. Search for any kind of business along your route, or turn on popular layers such as gas stations, restaurants, or parking. Satellite view. View your route overlaid on 3D satellite views with Google’s high-resolution aerial imagery. Street View. Visualize turns overlaid on Google’s Street View imagery. Navigation automatically switches to Street View as you approach your destination. Car dock mode. For certain devices, placing your phone in a car dock activates a special mode that makes it easy to use your device at arm’s length. Here’s Navigation in the Droid dock, followed by an image gallery for the app: Video Demo Of Google Maps Navigation Screenshot Gallery Of Google Maps Navigation Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

MyCE Sees Room For Another Social Network For Consumer Electronics Fans Posted: 28 Oct 2009 06:54 AM PDT Launching in beta today is MyCE, a community-driven network that aims to cross swords with the CNETs and GDGTs of this world when it comes to building places on the Web people gather to share news, reviews and knowledge about consumer electronics and gadgets. The site is a new venture from Amsterdam, The Netherlands-based RankOne Media. Actually, it’s not entirely new. MyCE is in fact the rebranded version of CDFreaks.com, an online community founded in 2007 focused solely on optical storage devices. The existing community, which the company claims currently amounts to about 3.5 million unique monthly visitors, will be integrated and rolled over to the new platform it is debuting today. Much like the recently launched gdgt, MyCE lets you create a user profile that includes lists of products you own and wish you owned. You can go to the site to discuss news about certain electronics and gadgetry, argue about what certain products lack and what they rule at, compare pricing and write reviews, but also to set up or join conversations centered around support and troubleshooting. The site supports OpenID, so you can sign up with your Windows Live ID or Google, Yahoo, Facebook account (among others). Members can cross-post reviews to Twitter, Facebook, etc. The content on MyCE.com is nearly 100% user-generated, the company says, and mostly consists of in-depth product reviews written by 70+ voluntary community members located all over the globe. The database is currently about 100,000 products strong, and the site will kick off with 450,000+ registered members it’s transferring from the former CDFreaks.com community. About 60% of its traffic comes from the U.S., and the rest is evenly split between the UK and Continental Europe. MyCE is an entirely bootstrapped initiative and its parent company will continue to generate revenue through advertising and affiliate partnerships with online retailers. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

PlaySpan Study Shows Growth In Virtual Goods Marketplace Posted: 28 Oct 2009 06:00 AM PDT Virtual goods are booming and there are various startups who are capitalizing on this growth by facilitating the exchange and e-commerce around these goods. PlaySpan, which powers micro-payments across over 1,000 video games and virtual worlds, has virtual goods storefronts on Facebook, MySpace, within games and on its standalone site. The marketplace lets users sell, exchange and purchase online game items, virtual goods, and game currencies for online games and applications. Today, PlaySpan is releasing a study in conjunction with research firm VGMarket, which reveals interesting statistics about consumer behavior with virtual goods. The survey collected responses from 2,425 customers across the PlaySpan Marketplace, Spare Change, and Ultimate Game Card (other PlaySpan properties). According to the report, 31% of the total number of respondents said they have sold digital goods and 39% of the remaining 69% of respondents, expressed that they are either interested or very interested in doing so. In-Game Virtual Currency is the most frequently sold digital good from player to player and two out of three sellers sold in-game currency in the last 12 months, earning a median of $22 (U.S.). Of course, it’s important to note that the cross section of people surveyed are obviously interested in virtual goods, since they are PlaySpan customers. But the fact that a third of digital goods buyers reported that they also sold goods is promising for the virtual goods marketplace space. I’d be interested to see why the individuals who didn’t sell digital goods but were interested in doing so haven’t yet participated on the selling side. PlaySpan, which recently acquired micro-transaction app developer Spare Change, has processed more than $50 million worth of micro-transactions through its PayByCash and Ultimate Game Card products. PlaySpan also raised $16.8 million in a series B funding last Fall from Easton Capital Group, Menlo Ventures, Novel TMT Ventures, and STIC. The startup was founded by a 12-year-old, Arjun Mehta, but it is actually run by his father, CEO and co-founder Karl Mehta. PlaySpan faces competition from Live Gamer, which we recently wrote about here. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Frontier Shareholders Approve $8.5 Billion Acquisition Of Verizon Wire Line Business Posted: 28 Oct 2009 05:55 AM PDT Frontier Communications shareholders have voted to approve the company’s acquisition of Verizon’s local exchange businesses in 14 states, as well as certain related customer relationships. Shareholders also voted to increase the number of authorized shares of Frontier common stock. Various state regulators still need to ok the deal, but Frontier is confident the deal will be closed during the second quarter of 2010. In May, Frontier offered Verizon $8.5 billion in stock to buy 4.8 million access lines in the 14 states. Frontier yesterday said it will issue shares to Verizon stockholders equal to $5.2 billion, and Verizon will receive $3.3 billion in the form of a special cash payment to boot. The Communications Workers of America has come out in strong opposition to the impending deal. The union claims the buyer will end up being short on cash and that it is too small to integrate Verizon’s systems efficiently. Frontier Communications is a provider of communication services to rural areas and small and medium-sized towns and cities. The access lines it is aiming to purchase from Verizon are located in Arizona, California, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Washington, Wisconsin, and West Virginia. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Mobile Phone Software Company Not Pleased With Courgette, Sues Google Posted: 28 Oct 2009 04:34 AM PDT Red Bend, a VC-backed mobile phone software developer, is taking Google to court over alleged infringement of a patent it holds. In its legal complaint filed earlier this week in Boston's district court, Red Bend claims the Internet giant is using a patented algorithm that allows it to issue smaller-sized updates for its Chrome Web browser. The software maker says it has invented technology that enables wireless carriers to distribute updates for mobile-phone software and that Google’s updating process for Chrome uses a similar differential compression algorithm called Courgette (that’d be the French word for zucchini). Basically, Courgette enables software developers to update portions of existing products rather than replace them in their entirety. According to Google's developer documentation, Courgette is a more efficient way to identify where and how changes must be made in the underlying code. According to Red Bend, this technology infringes on a patent it filed more than 10 years ago and which it was awarded in April 2003 (USPTO: 6,546,552). The patent is titled “Difference extraction between two versions of data-tables containing intra-references” and covers a method for generating a compact difference result between an old and a new program. Red Bend claims Google has known about its patent concerns since early September. Google has not commented on the allegations because it says it has not yet been served with the complaint. The mobile phone software company, which has offices around the world but was originally founded in Israel, is backed by roughly $34 million in venture capital from investors like Carmel Ventures, Greylock Partners, Pitango Venture Capital and Infinity. (Via Law360) Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Schwarzenegger Gives California Legislature A Hidden Finger Posted: 28 Oct 2009 02:05 AM PDT There is absolutely no way I’ll be able to make this relevant to tech. But I’m posting it anyway. Our Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, vetoed a California legislative finance bill – AB 1176. The letter is terse and to the point. And the first letter of each line in paragraphs 2-3 are even terser and more to the point. Schwarzeneggers battles with the state legislature are epic. But this just goes way beyond epic. It’s something for the history books. I wish I had the time to do this kind of thing in my posts here on TechCrunch. See the SF Chronicle for all the quotes and denials. Now, back to our regularly scheduled programing. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Pandora Opens Its Box A Bit More With Twitter, Facebook, And Gifting Integration Posted: 28 Oct 2009 01:05 AM PDT Currently, if you want to share a Pandora station or song with a friend, you have to email it to them. Last time I checked, this isn’t 1994. Tonight, Pandora is joining the 21st century with the addition of simple ways to share stations and songs on Twitter and Facebook. And it’s further emphasizing a feature that no one seems to realize exists: Gifting Pandora stations. On Pandora’s main playback pages you will now see a new set of buttons next to the traditional playback ones. These include a Twitter button, a Facebook button, a mail button, and a gift button. Clicking on any of those allows you to send the current station or current song you’re listening to via those respective services. For Twitter, Pandora is using the API to launch its own tweet box that allows you to select whether to tweet the song or the station, as well as edit your 140 character message that is being sent. If you’re going to be tweeting a lot and don’t feel like doing this over and over again, you can select “Always use this option and message” and Pandora will remember it, allowing you to skip that step. For Facebook, Pandora uses Connect to allow you to post songs and stations to your Facebook profile and News Feed. You’ll also be able to play song previews (30 seconds) right inline on Facebook. For the gifting feature, Pandora takes you to a page that allows you to create a customized station based on either an artist or a song. You can choose up to 5 artists or songs for one station. You then name the station, choose a skin for the message, and enter the email addresses of those you wish to send it to, along with a personal message. This gifting feature, which has existed in the past, but was previously hard to find, is totally free. And it will feature a new holiday option when that time of year rolls around, we’re told. “It’s sort of our version of making a mix tape for someone,” Pandora CTO Tom Conrad tells us. And it’s another another way to monetize a bit better. When a user receives the gift email and clicks on the link, they are taken to a gift mix custom page that is sponsored. From there, a user has to click one more time to launch their station. When users on Facebook and Twitter click on the Pandora links sent out, they’ll be redirected to a redesigned landing page that will allow them to either play a 30 second preview of a song (if it was a song that was sent out) or a link to launch the Pandora station (if it was a station that was sent out). If it’s the former, there is also a big button to create a new station based on that song. So why is Pandora doing this? Well obviously moving into the 21st century where people share via Twitter and Facebook rather than email should help increase usage. But Conrad is quick to note that sharing is the key to this, not massive viral tweeting. There will be no auto-posting to Twitter nonsense, we’re told. CrunchBase Information Pandora Twitter Facebook Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Exclusive Picture Of Unlaunched Apple Tablet (circa 1990) Posted: 27 Oct 2009 10:54 PM PDT Yeah ok it isn’t that Apple Tablet. But this is a picture, taken around 1990, of the Apple Pen Mac, a little known and never launched Apple tablet project. As far as we can tell there is no other image of this device anywhere on the Internet, and very few references to it at all. The Pen Mac was a fully functional Mac computer (it even played the Mac startup chime) with a pen based touch screen. The screen itself was identical to the Mac Portable, but with the addition of pen touch. And of course the case was a lot smaller than the Mac Portable. The Pen Mac was supposedly not much more than one inch thick. Users could plug in a keyboard and mouse or easier input. Holding the Pen Mac in the picture is Glam CEO Samir Arora, who told me about the device over dinner a couple of weeks ago. Arora worked at Apple on the project, eventually going to a spinout company, Rae Technology, which was designing applications for the Pen Mac. Rae Technology eventually morphed into NetObjects. The Pen Mac project was led by Paul Mercer but was eventually axed in favor of the Newton. Then Apple CEO John Sculley wanted a PDA, not a tablet. From a 2006 NY Times article: Then in 1987 and 1988, after Steven Jobs had been ousted from the company by John Sculley, then chief executive, engineers like Mr. Mercer were given wide latitude in exploring new ideas at the company. On his own, Mr. Mercer pursued two projects for hand-held computers, code-named Swatch and Pen Mac. In the early 1990’s, before a meeting of Apple’s top executives, he showed off the Macintosh software running on a hand-held computer, long before products like the Newton, Palm Pilot or the General Magic communicator had been introduced. The technology demonstration was impressive, but Mr. Mercer acknowledged that he was naïve about the reception he would receive for his invention. Instead of being welcomed with open arms, he received a call from Mr. Sculley noting that Apple had just signed an agreement to work with Sharp Electronics on the Newton technology and that there was no room at the company for competing hand-held computing projects. And that was the end of the Pen Mac. There is a picture here of a second generation Pen Mac device called PenLite that Arora tells us was also cancelled. Another picture of PenLite is here. A final picture, also labeled as PenLite, sure does look similar to the tablet that Arora is holding. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Neo Technology Commercializes Next Generation Graph Based Database Posted: 27 Oct 2009 09:53 PM PDT A new generation of database products and companies is beginning to emerge, and one of the more interesting examples is Swedish-based Neo Technology, the developer and vendor of the neo4j graph based database (graph in the data structure sense). The neo4j product has been in development for over 8 years, and Neo Technology are today announcing a new $2.5M round of funding. The company has been developing the neo4j project as a commercial product, and is now taking it to market with a dual-license model.

Matt Galligan And Joe Stump Are Building An Infrastructure For Location-Based Services Posted: 27 Oct 2009 09:25 PM PDT Last May we wrote about a new company called Crash Corp that was being formed by Digg’s long-time Chief Architect Joe Stump and Social Thing founder Matt Galligan, who were looking to build alternate reality mobile games. Over the last six months a lot has changed: the team has changed the company name to SimpleGeo, and they’re now building something that’s entirely different, and significantly more ambitious: an infrastructure that other applications can use to easily build location-based applications. The new company caught our interest when we learned that AOL’s former chief life streamer David Liu had invested in the company. Stump and Galligan declined to comment on the company just yet (they’ll be launching at Under The Radar next month) but we were able to glean some information from Under The Radar’s directory of presenters. SimpleGeo is ready-to-use location infrastructure. They currently have three products: a geo-spatial Context Engine, Storage Engine and a comprehensive SDK. The SimpleGeo Context Engine enables application developers to quickly and easily get relevant information about specific locales including (but not limited to) ZIP codes, real-time weather, and geo-tagged media. Additionally, the SimpleGeo Storage Engine makes it possible to store and query location data in a scalable fashion, as well as perform complicated geospatial operations effortlessly. Located in Boulder, CO It sounds like SimpleGeo is looking to become something analogous to an “AWS for location”. And that may well be a very smart move — Location based services are clearly about to explode as more mobile devices support GPS and fast internet connections. And you can be sure that the new startups and services that emerge won’t want to have to reinvent the wheel whenever they want to integrate location into their app. We’ll be keeping an eye for more on this one soon. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Stalqer Peers Into Your iPhone For A New Level Of Location-Based Creepiness Posted: 27 Oct 2009 08:45 PM PDT Foursquare and Loopt have put location-based social networks on the map, and have potentially created a viable business model as well. Now there’s a new kid on the block, called Stalqer, which best described as a Foursquare on steroids. The iPhone app, which will be free, should hit the app store in the next few hours. In theory, Stalqer is very similar to Foursquare in that it tracks your and your friends’ locations and broadcasts this information via the application and through push notifications. But one of the key differentiators is the fact that Stalqer updates the location in the background, which Foursquare, and most other apps, don’t do at the moment. This is because the device does not allow third party apps to run in the background. But Stalqer has found a way to record your location without you having to actually open up the application. So how does Stalqer do it? The app sets up an email account which operates in the background, and collects large amount of data out of the POP or IMAP handshake relevant to location, primarily via the IP address. Stalqer’s founder Mick Johnson also tells me that the app contains iPhone configuration profiles that make it easy to install an email account pointing to Stalqer’s servers on the user’s iPhone. So when the phone checks for mail, the app gets a location point, which Johnson says happens on average, every 15 minutes. Loopt has also found a work-around the whole background update issue by partnering with other companies in the mobile industry for an "Always-On Location Service (which costs users $3.99 per month). In addition to background functionality, Stalqer lets you import your Facebook friends, via Facebook Connect, to the app. If your friends have made their general location public via Facebook, The app then syncs your friends with your iPhone contacts and will then show you where your friends are. So, Stalqer will basically pull any public information about your friend (i.e. what city they live in) and show where the friends is on your application, if if they haven’t downloaded the app. At the moment, you cannot see anyone on Stalqer who is not your friend on Facebook. You can see your friends’ locations via a list format and on a detailed, high quality map. Similar to FourSquare, you can check into listed locations rather then just the app recording your location via an IP address. Stalqer has close to a half million bars and restaurants listed in the U.S and you can add locations as well. Stalqer will steadily add non-U.S. locations in the future. The app is actually missing one of the key gaming aspects of FourSquare—the ability to collect badges or mayorships. Since the app operates in conjunction with an email account and your address book, it allows you to conduct a conversation with your Stalqer friends within the app. The app also features an augmented reality view of your friends’ locations. And while Slaqer is only available for the iPhone, Johnson is hoping to roll out versions for the Blackberry and Android in the future. So for me, the key issue with this app is privacy. The background location technology is certainly innovative but I really feel strange about Facebook friends knowing where I am at all times, even if I have not started up the app on my phone. Privacy has been an issue with Foursquare and I suspect that it will become an issue for Stalqer. But Johnson says that Stalqer has very powerful security settings that let you specify whether you want your location broadcasted and you can also indicate specific friends who can see your check-ins. Plus you can make sure the app only shows your greater surround area (i.e. San Francisco) vs. your exact location within the city. And you can make customer lists with close family and friends who can see your detailed whereabouts. At the moment, Stalqer isn’t monetizing the app because Johnson is waiting to see if the app will gain popularity. And Johnson adds that Stalqer is aimed towards a younger crowd (which is apparent from it’s demo video), who may not be as concerned with the privacy issues. Stalqer seems to be focused exclusively on broadcasting background location and tapping into your social graph via Facebook whereas Foursquare’s new app includes gaming, Twitter integration and a few more bells and whistles. But Foursquare is addictive and Stalqer could be too, if you really want to stalk your Facebook friends. Of course, Facebook is rumored to be launching their own location based technologies, so it should be interesting to see how that effects Stalqer. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Sprint Drops Call Forwarding Fees With Google Voice In Mind Posted: 27 Oct 2009 07:31 PM PDT As the endless brouhaha ringing from all corners of the Internet has proven, AT&T (or Apple, or whoever takes the blame in the end) really dropped the ball on this Google Voice thing. Whether it was rejected outright or shelved indefinitely, competing parties have been quick to play on their delays. First, Palm essentially put third-party Google Voice dialer gDialPro on its shoulders and carried it across the finish line by ensuring that it was one of the first (and still one of just a few) applications to land on the webOS App Catalog. Now, Sprint has come along and done something rare: they’ve dropped long-established fees. With Google Voice’s new keep-your-number feature in mind, Sprint will be doing away with the call forwarding fees associated with third-party voicemail services come mid-November. Read the rest of this entry at MobileCrunch >> Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

In Case You Forgot: Tomorrow Is Droid Day Posted: 27 Oct 2009 05:00 PM PDT I don't know how you could forget, considering we've been posting Droid updates just about every day, but according to our calculations, tomorrow is October 28th: the day Droid dropped. Now, we don't expect the Droid to set the mobile world on its head exactly, but we're pretty sure that it's going to be the premiere Android device — until the next premiere device comes out. The combination of better hardware, better software, and a slim form factor gives it a leg up on pretty much every other Android device out there, unless you want the non-hardware keyboard, in which case the Hero is your best bet.

Intelius Files To Go Public Again. Still A Huge Toxic Scam Posted: 27 Oct 2009 04:45 PM PDT Intelius is trying to dip its toes into the public market again. Last year we wrote about their business, which combined for-pay people search information with a post transaction marketing scam. After purchasing people information, users were encouraged to take a survey for $10 cash back. In reality, if users clicked yes the $10 was never mentioned again and they were signed up for a nearly impossible to cancel $20 monthly credit card charge. The IPO never happened. But last week the company quietly filed a new registration statement with the SEC, indicating their attempt to try the markets once again. Little has changed with their business. They are still selling people information that you can find on other sites like WhitePages.com for free. And during and immediately after the transaction, users are asked if they want $10 cash back. If they click yes, they are signed up for a $25/month credit card subscription. Consumer complaints continue to flood the company. 1,159 consumer complaints have been filed with the Better Business Bureau in the last 36 months. There are another 214 complaints on RipoffReport. And they have had to deal with class action lawsuits in both Washington and California. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The company even acknowledges that complaints are getting worse. From the registration statement: “Over the past two years the number of customer complaints has risen more rapidly than the number of transactions.” The company had revenues of $123 million in 2008 and $74 million in the first three quarters of 2009. Net income in 2008 was $12 million. Without the post transaction marketing scam, the company wouldn’t be profitable. 2008 PTM revenue was $33 million, or about 27% of total revenue. And that percentage is increasing – For 2009 so far, PTM revenue is $22.6 million, or 31% of total revenue. In my recent test searches I found that Intelius was charging even when there was no data (which you don’t see until you pay). And when the data is available, in all cases I was able to find it elsewhere for free. Intelius is not a business. It’s a huge toxic scam from start to finish. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Flixster Crosses 8 Million Mobile Users, Celebrates With App Updates For Android And BlackBerry Posted: 27 Oct 2009 04:45 PM PDT Flixster, a social networking site for movie fans, is doing pretty well for itself in the mobile space. Name any smartphone platform, and there's a good chance that the Flixster app has spent some time on the top of it's download charts. iPhone? Yep. BlackBerry? Yep. Android and Palm webOS? Double yeps. Earlier today, the company shared with us the news that they'd crossed over a fairly monumental landmark, along with the details surrounding updates for their apps on both Android and BlackBerry OS.

Consumer Review: The Best Smartphones On The Market Posted: 27 Oct 2009 02:35 PM PDT With the Holiday Season nearly upon us, we at TechCrunch thought it would behoove us to share with everyone a definitive list of the best smartphones currently available (or launching shortly), so as to help with any possible purchasing decisions which may occur in the upcoming months. In making our decisions, we looked at these phones from the standpoint of the consumer. Thus, developer struggles, business security, and other such problems were not taken into account. Instead, functionality, price, and the overall usefulness of various smartphones made up the criteria which we adhered to during our reviews. These phones can be found on a multitude of carriers, operating systems, and continents. Feel free to comment below on the merits of this list of the best smart phones currently available. iPhone 3GS You know you’re on top when phone manufacturers are constantly struggling to produce an “iPhone killer”. The iPhone 3GS boasts a massive App Store (with nearly 100,000 apps now), the largest developer base, and is simply put, the best phone on the market. Status: Launched June 19th, 2009 on ATT Screen: 3.5-inch 480 x 320-pixel resolution at 163 ppi widescreen Multi-Touch display Dimensions: 115.5 x 62.1 x 12.3 mm; 135 grams Camera: 3 megapixels w/ AutoFocus, No flash Battery: 1150 mAh Li-Ion Standby Time: 300 hours Talk Time: Up to 12 hours on 2G; Up to 5 hours on 3G Processor: Samsung S5PC100; 600 MHz Internal/External Memory: 16GB or 32GB Extras: 3.5mm Headset jack, accelerometer, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS enabled Operating System: iPhone OS Price: $199 for 16 GB; $299 for 32GB Motorola Droid If any phone is going to challenge the iPhone’s supremacy, it will be the Verizon Droid. The Droid is on a superior network than the iPhone, and will be running Android 2.0 which has a much improved user interface over previous versions of Android. Status: Rumored to be announced October 28th; Verizon Wireless. Screen: 3.7-inch/480×854 Full Touchscreen with Full QWERTY Slider Dimensions: 60 x 115.8 x 13.7 mm; 169 grams Camera: 5.0 Megapixels with AutoFocus Battery: Li-ion 1400mAh Standby Time: 450 Hours Talk Time:7 Hours Processor: Texas Instruments OMAP 3430 processor; 600MHz Internal/External Memory: 512MB Flash, 256MB RAM/MicroSD (16GB capacity) Extras: 3.5mm Headset jack, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS enabled Operating System: Android 2.0 Price: Unknown Palm Pre The Palm Pre signaled the resurrection of Palm. It is well-designed, and has a very promising OS, which if tweaked and improved slightly, can challenge any OS on the market. Status: Available June 6th on Sprint. Available October 13 in Germany and October 16 in UK and Ireland Screen: 3.1-inch touch screen with 24-bit color 320×480 resolution HVGA display and full QWERTY keyboard Dimensions: 100.5 x 59.5 x 16.95 mm; 135 grams Camera: 3 megapixel camera with LED flash and AutoFocus Battery: 1150 mAh Standby Time: 250 Hours Talk Time: 5 Hours Processor: Texas Instruments OMAP 3430 processor; 600MHz Internal/External Memory: 8 GB Extras: 3.5mm Headset jack, accelerometer, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS enabled Operating System: Palm webOS Price: $149.99 HTC Hero/T-Mobile G2 Touch/Sprint HTC Hero The inclusion of HTC Sense makes the Hero the best Android phone currently on the market. It is fast, stylish, and easy to use. Status: HTC Hero Launched July 24th for Orange UK. T-Mobile G2 Touch Launched July 29th. Screen: 3.2-inch/ 320×480 HVGA resolution; Full Touchscreen/TFT-LCD touch-sensitive screen Dimensions: 112 x 56.2 x 14.35 mm ; 135 grams Camera: 5 Megapixels with AutoFocus Battery: 1350 mAh Lithium-ion battery Standby Time: Up to 750 hours for WCDMA, Up to 440 hours for GSM Talk Time:Up to 420 minutes for WCDMA, Up to 470 minutes for GSM Processor: Qualcomm® MSM7200A™, 528 MHz Internal/External Memory:288MB/MicroSD 2.0 Extras: 3.5mm Headset jack, Wi-Fi, accelerometer, Bluetooth and GPS enabled Operating System: Android Price: $179.99 BlackBerry Bold The BlackBerry Bold is RIM’s crowning achievement thus far and the impending Bold 9700 should see widespread adoption. Status: Available on AT&T; Bold 9700 available November 2nd, 2009 Screen: 2.6 inch Half VGA resolution Dispay Screen; 480 x 320 pixels; 65,000 colors Dimensions: 114 x 66 x 15; 136 grams Camera: 2.0 MP w/ AutoFocus Battery: Li – Ion, 1500 mAh Standby Time: 324 hours Talk Time: 4.5 hours Processor: 624 MHz Internal/External Memory: 1 GB Extras: 3.5mm Headset jack, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS capable with extended ephemeris Operating System: BlackBerry OS Price: $199.99 HTC Magic/T-Mobile MyTouch 3G The MyTouch 3G is an easy to use, stylish Android phone. The absence of a standard 3.5mm headset jack is a bit of a disappointment, but otherwise this phone is quite powerful and useful. Furthermore, Mike quit the iPhone for the MyTouch, and that has to mean something. Status: HTC Magic Launched May 1, 2009 and July 10th, 2009 in Japan; MyTouch 3G launched July 8, 2009. Available through T-Mobile, Vodafone, and Docomo Screen:3.2″ /320 x 480 HVGA Touchscreen/TFT, TFD, LCD 262k Dimensions: 113 x 55 x 13 mm; 118.5 grams Camera: 3.2 Megapixels with AutoFocus (MyTouch has a 5MP camera) Battery: 1340 mAh Lithium-ion battery Standby Time: 420 hours Talk Time: 7.5 Hours Processor: Qualcomm® MSM7201a™, 528 MHz Internal/External Memory:192/288 MB (Underclocked)/ MicroSD up to 32GB Extras: HTC ExtUSB Headset Jack, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS enabled Operating System: Android Price: $99.99 (T-Mobile MyTouch $149.99) BlackBerry Storm 2 The BlackBerry Storm 2, while an improvement over its predecessor, still lacks the “wow” factor necessary to push it higher up on this list. Status: Available on Verizon Wireless October 28th, 2009 Screen: 3.25 inch 360 x 480 pixel touchscreen; 65k colors Dimensions: 112.5 x 62.2 x 13.9 mm; 160 grams Camera: 3.2 Megapixels w/ LED flash and AutoFocus Battery: 1400 mAh Li-Ion Standby Time: 270 hours Talk Time: 5.5 hours Processor: 528 MHz Qualcomm processor Internal/External Memory: 2 GB/16 GB microSD Extras: 3.5 mm headset, GPS, bluetooth, and wi-fi enabled Operating System: BlackBerry OS Price: $179.99 BlackBerry Tour Our biggest qualm with the BlackBerry Tour is its lack of Wi-Fi. Other than that however, the Tour is a great phone if you’re a chronic email user or if you text message a lot. Status: Available on July 12, 2009 through Verizon and Sprint. Screen: 2.4 inch 480×360 pixel display screen; 65,000 colors Dimensions: 112 x 62 x 14.2 mm; 130 grams Camera: 3.2 Megapixels with AutoFocus Battery: 1400 mAHr removable/rechargeable cryptographic lithium cell Standby Time: 336 Hours Talk Time: 5 Hours Processor: 528 MHz Qualcomm processor Internal/External Memory: 256 MB RAM Extras: 3.5mm Headset jack, Bluetooth and GPS enabled. No Wi-Fi nor accelerometer Operating System: BlackBerry OS Price: $149.99 Nokia E71x The Nokia E71x is a sleek and stylish phone, but like the Magic, lacks a 3.5mm headset jack. Nonetheless, this phone is just right for those on a budget, given its $99.99 price tag. Status: Available on AT&T Screen: 2.4″ LCD (Color TFT/TFD) display screen; 320 x 240 pixels (QVGA); 16.7 million (24-bit) Dimensions:114 x 57 x 10 mm; 126g Camera: 3.2MP w/ Autofocus and Flash Battery: BP-4L 1500 mAh Li-Po standard battery Standby Time: 480 hours Talk Time: 4.5 hours Processor: ARM 11, 369 MHz Internal/External Memory: 110MB/ MicroSD Extras: 2.5mm Headset jack, bluetooth, wi-fi, and GPS enabled Operating System: Symbian OS Price: $99.00 Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Facebook Launches A New Hub For World Peace Posted: 27 Oct 2009 02:17 PM PDT Facebook has just launched a new portal at peace.Facebook.com that highlights the site’s desire to promote “peace by building technology that helps people better understand each other”. The site appears to be part of a larger Peace dot movement that’s launching tonight, with the participation of some “impressive organizations” (we’re not sure who else besides Facebook is involved quite yet). Peace.facebook.com is fairly simple at this point, with a handful of graphs and a widget that lets Facebook users share what they think of the site. The most compelling portion offers a series of graphs depicting “Friendships of Facebook”, which shows how many members of historically hostile groups are becoming friends on Facebook. These graphs include stats from Geographic, Religious, and Political pairings. There’s also a graph that shows the results of a daily poll conducted by Facebook on whether or not World Peace is possible in the next 50 years (over 35% of Columbians think so, but only 7% of users in the US are optimistic). Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Peek Goes Twitter And Is Now Available at Blockbuster Posted: 27 Oct 2009 02:12 PM PDT Peek, the tiny non-smartphone smartphone dedicated to email and messaging, is now available at Blockbuster stores across the nation. Peek buyers will also receive one month free of Blockbuster Total Access, a Netflix-like service that lets you rent DVDs and BR disks by mail or in-store. You can also refer a friend and get a $15 Blockbuster gift card. The Pronto costs $59.99 with $14.99/month service. The Classic costs $19.99.

GSI Commerce Enters The Private Sale Space With Acquisition Of Retail Convergence Posted: 27 Oct 2009 01:40 PM PDT GSI Commerce, a company that powers e-commerce platforms for major brands, has acquired Retail Convergence, which operates RueLaLa.com, a private sale site and SmartBargains.com, an off-price e-commerce marketplace, in a deal valued as high as $350 million. Launched in April 2008, RueLaLa is a members-only online sample sale that sells luxury brands at discount prices during two-day private sale events in the fashion, accessories, footwear, home, jewelry and other categories. SmartBargains.com, which launched in 1999, is a online marketplace for the sale of off-price merchandise across a wide cross-section of categories. It’s not surprising that GSI wants to enter the online private sale space considering the growth of the other players in the same arena, such as Gilt Groupe, Vente Privee, HauteLook and Ideeli. RueLaLa's membership has already grown to more than 1.2 million members in 18 months and is seeing strong revenue growth. In the third quarter of 2009, RueLaLa’s net revenues increased by nearly five times from the previous year, to $28 million. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Yahoo To Launch Real Time Search, Too Posted: 27 Oct 2009 01:01 PM PDT Not wanting to be left completely behind, Yahoo will soon launch their own real time search engine too. But unlike Microsoft and Google, they won’t be partnering with Twitter and Facebook directly for the data (perhaps memories of their ill-fated blog search engine from 2005 linger). Instead, we’ve heard, they’ll work with one of the existing real time search engines. If our source is correct, that partner is OneRiot, and the product will launch very soon. There isn’t much more to say about this right now. We’ve reached out to both Yahoo and OneRiot for comment and await their reply. The look of the Yahoo search results may look similar to the OneRiot/WebMynd Firefox plugin that adds real time results to the side of normal Google search results – it certainly makes sense to keep the results separated. See image below. OneRiot has raised $27 million to date in venture capital. Update: Yahoo’s response: “We can’t comment on rumor or speculation. Real-time search is important and we’re currently conducting several tests designed to discover if showing such content is useful to people using Yahoo! Search. Yahoo! is focused on creating the most innovative, easy-to-use and valuable search experience for people, and after these tests we will carefully evaluate whether we should integrate such results for everyone using Yahoo! Search.” Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

I Hope That Someone Gets My Tweet In A Bottle Posted: 27 Oct 2009 12:33 PM PDT There’s something alluring about the idea of a message in a bottle. You write something, cast it out to sea, and hopefully someday some random person finds it. Naturally, someone had to do that for Twitter. As a Twitter app, 140inABottle is as simple as they come. On the page, you’re presented with a 140-character space to write whatever you want. You’re not asked to sign in to Twitter to send it, because it will be sent from the 140inabottle Twitter account. The only thing you have to do is complete a reCAPTCHA to ensure you’re a human and not spamming the system. Once you fill out and cast away your tweet, it goes into 140inABottle’s system for the next 1 to 90 days. That’s the key; just like a message in a bottle in the sea, the tweet won’t be delivered immediately, but rather at a random date in the next three months when it finds “land” (the tweet stream). But here’s the kicker: Your tweet (which is again, anonymous and being sent from the 140inabottle Twitter account) will be directed at someone completely random. Essentially, they will have “found” your tweet in a bottle and get to read it. To some people this will undoubtedly be extremely annoying, but come on, it’s one tweet, and kind of cool. I can’t wait to see the reactions on Twitter which will undoubtedly include things like, “@140inabottle why are you sending me random messages?” There have been a few other anonymous tweet services, but most have been based around the idea that you can say evil things and get away with it. This is different. That said, I’m sure people will figure out how to game this to be dumbasses anonymously. It’s not hard, just include an @reply in your 140inABottle tweet and the person you’re directing it to will see it as well. The service is the brainchild of New York-based techster Sam Bensalem. He told us that he drew inspiration for it from Kevin Costner’s 1999 movie Message In A Bottle. We’ll pretend he didn’t say that and instead said the inspiration came from The Police song. CrunchBase Information Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Three Years After Their Acquisition, Reddit Founders Move On Posted: 27 Oct 2009 11:48 AM PDT Reddit founders Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian have just announced that they’ll be leaving the company come October 31, when their contracts expire. The news doesn’t come as a huge surprise — it will have been three years to the day that Condé Nast acquired Reddit, and the founders likely had a three year contract as part of the deal. Reddit’s post notes that while co-founder Chris Slowe’s contract also expired he’ll be staying on board. Reddit was funded by Y Combinator and launched back in 2005, emerging as the most popular alternative to Digg. As with Digg, stories are presented based on how many people have up and down voted them, but the two sites have distinctly different communities. Reddit was acquired on October 31, 2006 by Conde Nast, and has since made some major changes like releasing the site’s software as an open source project. So what’s next for the founders? Huffman writes that he’ll be heading out to Virginia to spend time with his new wife (always a good plan) and Ohanian will be working on his ‘uncorporation’ breadpig, and will also be doing a three month stint in Armenia as a Kiva Fellow. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

HashCeratops Aims To Formally Add Place Tagging To The Twitter Stream Posted: 27 Oct 2009 11:42 AM PDT Twitter is on the verge of rolling out its Geolocation API (actually, it’s already partially rolled out). That feature should be a boon to location-based services which can now send their location information back to Twitter and vice versa. But these locations will just be coordinates, it won’t be like Foursquare or Gowalla where you check in to actual places to tag your location. A new group aims to merge the ideas. HashCeratops (yes, that’s really the name) is a group being led by Buzzd, the service that finds hot places in cities based on other location services. One main feed Buzzd looks to for its data is the Twitter stream. The problem is that without a standard for naming locations, it can be hard to parse tweets to find out exactly where people are. Hence, HashCeratops. The idea is to create a community-driven database of hashtags for various places in various cities. So, for example, if I’m going to the local cafe Epicenter, I might use #epicenter to say where I am. (You can submit requests for formally make place hashtags on HashCeratops’ site.) Of course, if it’s just one service doing this, the likelihood that it will take off is pretty small. But Buzzd has a number of partners on board including Coovents, Geodelic, Xtreme Labs, Yipit, and SocialGreat. SocialGreat is an interesting partner in particular in that it does something similar to Buzzd. It uses data from places such as Foursquare, Twitter, and Brightkite to determine trending places in cities. Despite the similarities, it’s clear that the need for a place standard in on the minds of many of these companies. (It’s also worth noting the one of the creators of SocialGreat, Jon Steinberg, just joined Polaris Ventures as an Executive in Residence.) Buzzd says it has already started using these place hashtags in elements it sends back to Twitter. Expect the others to shortly. They’re also looking for more partners. Find out more here. Below, find the best practices for the hashtags HashCeratops is looking for. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Zivity Adds Dudes. Let Me Know How It Goes (#zividude) Posted: 27 Oct 2009 09:57 AM PDT Venture backed adult site Zivity finally figured out that there’s a whole other market out there beyond guys (and a few women) who want to look at naked women. Lots of women (and a few men) apparently want to look at naked guys, too. So in a lightning bolt of marketing genius, they doubled their potential market size in a single blog post: Zividudes. They’re taking nominations for who users want to see without their clothes on (topless for now). Once the list is set they’ll start going down the list to see who’s brave enough to say yes: “We'll start with the top choice and work our way down until someone is brave enough to say yes! We'll pay for the photo shoot by one of our top photographers, so the Zivity Dude will look *fantastic*.” Who do you want to see shirtless? Twitter the name out with the hashtag #zividude and your vote will be counted. Early favorites include Kevin Rose, Chris Saad, Loren Feldman (although his wife is making the push), Jim Fishef and Sean Percival. Let me know how it all turns out. And be on the lookout for Ashton Kutcher to try to steal the show. That guy will do anything for a little press. In fact, maybe Kutcher and Kevin Rose can do a dual bromance photoshoot? Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

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