The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- Is Google’s Behavioral Targeting A Bust? Only 25 Percent Of AdSense Publishers Use It
- Bling Nation Raises $20 Million For Cell Phone Payment System
- Apple, AT&T Hit With Another iPhone MMS Class Action
- ICANN Moves Ahead With Non-Latin Web Addresses (Video)
- The iPhone Launches In China Today, But Nobody Seems To Care
- Boom Or Bust? Social Shopping Startup Fruugo Raises Funding To Stay Alive
- Microsoft Tortures Little Kids With Bing Jingle
- Foo Fighters To Stream Concert Tomorrow Night On Facebook, Powered By Livestream
- Epix Officially Launches Movie Streaming Network
- VodBurner Brings High-Quality Video Recording And Editing To Skype
- Layoffs Confirmed At 23andMe
- Ustream Boosts Virality, Now Lets You Syndicate Your Comments Across The Web
- Scoopler Digs Up Some Funding, New Features
- Google Tackles Mortgage Market With New Comparison Ads
- OpenTable Seats One Million Diners Via Mobile Apps
- Where Are All the Great Android Games? The Answer Is Simpler Than You Think
- Facebook Rewrites Privacy Policy, Foreshadows Location Based Services
- Google Music: What Were Ticketmaster And Facebook Thinking?
- How To Measure The True Stickiness (And Success) Of A Facebook App
- Someecards Gives In To Apple So That It Can Take On Asian Boobs
- comScore Acquires Latin American Web Measurement Company Certifica
- Twitter Lists Continue The Twitter Legacy: Downtime
- Data Robotics Raises $10 Million For Enterprise Storage
- Not Sure Which Twitter Lists To Follow? Listorious Has A Directory Of The Best Ones
- Facebook Fights App Spam, Gives Games Its Own Dashboard Link
| Is Google’s Behavioral Targeting A Bust? Only 25 Percent Of AdSense Publishers Use It Posted: 30 Oct 2009 08:47 AM PDT For advertisers on the Web, behavioral targeting is held out as the nirvana they’ve been waiting for: the ability to show ads only to those people most likely to be interested in them based on their past behavior. The growth of this type of ad targeting also raises a host of privacy concerns, but setting those aside for a second, do these ads even work? Do they perform better than regular ads? If they did, you’d expect advertisers to pay more for them and for Website publishers to be flocking to them. At least for Google, the answer seems to be “No.” According to estimates by Jim Brock, chairman of Attributor and a former senior VP at Yahoo, only about 25 percent of AdSense sites are serving targeted ads, which Google calls “interest-based advertising.” Brock comes to this figure by counting the links to Google’s privacy policy, which is a requirement of the program. Google counts 277,000 links, and Yahoo counts 224,000 links, so he splits the difference and divides it by the one million AdSense publishers Google recently disclosed in its latest earnings call to come up with 25 percent. Google actually said there are more than one million AdSense publishers, so the percentage using interest-based advertising is probably lower. Google started behavioral targeting last March. It tries to determine your interests by placing cookies in your browser and tracking what types of sites you visit. You can see what interest Google has assigned to you and even change your interests by visiting Google’s Ad Preference Manager. You can also opt out of the program entirely. So why isn’t there a higher adoption of this type of advertising among publishers? One answer could be that they don’t want to wade into controversial waters. But that’s never stopped Websites or advertisers before. If these ads were performing significantly better than regular AdSense ads, there would be a stampede to adopt them more broadly. Brock suspects Google’s interest-based ads aren’t working so great because Google doesn’t actually know most people’s interests. He’s trying to get some more data on this. You can help him by using this survey tool which lets him count how many people have their interests mapped by Google. So far, based on a very small sample, only one in four do. And of those who can be targeted, the average number of interests is only five, which isn’t a lot. I guess I’m the exception, because Google has my interests down pat. It shows ten different interests, including technology news, business news, mobile phones, blogging services, advertising, and air travel. Am I really so transparent? Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0           |
| Bling Nation Raises $20 Million For Cell Phone Payment System Posted: 30 Oct 2009 06:30 AM PDT What recession? Startup Bling Nation just raised $20 million in Series B funding from Balderton Capital for a new cell phone payment system. This brings the startup’s total funding to $33 million since its launch in 2007. Bling Nation’s ambitions are to establish a revolutionary and comprehensive payments system for physical goods. Here’s how it works. The company partners with local banks in super small communities in the U.S. (where the prominent bank isn’t Citibank or Bank of America). Banks will then offer the consumers who use their services a Bling Nation and “Bank” branded chip that can be stuck onto any cell phone device. The chip will allow any user to make a payment directly out of their checking account similar to a debit payment. Bling Nation also partners with all of the local merchants in given town, to give them special “Bling Nation” credit card machines that will scan the chips. The payment device will calculate the number of times a payee has made a transaction and as an added bonus, will automatically award the user with coupons, points or discounts, which the merchant determines. The device will read the chip and deduct the money for a purchase out of the payee’s bank account. Bling Nation even allows merchants to implement a security feature, in which upon purchase, the customer will have to enter a PIN code for larger transactions. Currently, Bling Nation is being used in two communities in Colorado, including La Junta and Woodland Park, which are both small towns outside of Colorado Springs. Bling’s CEO Wences Casares tells me that the device will be implemented soon in towns in the Northwest and Southeast U.S. And Bling is in talks with universities and military bases to implement its system. Bling monetizes the payment network by taking a cut of each transaction, which Casares says is very small. The reason Bling’s device is attractive to merchants, says Casares, is because they can avoid costly transaction fees associated with credit card purchases. Even with the debit fees and the Bling’s cut, merchants end up paying 50 percent less in transaction fees than if the purchase was through a credit card system. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0   |
| Apple, AT&T Hit With Another iPhone MMS Class Action Posted: 30 Oct 2009 05:35 AM PDT It isn’t the first, and I assume it’s not going to be the last either. Apple and AT&T are facing a new putative class action from an iPhone user who alleges that the companies misrepresented the phone’s MMS (multimedia messaging service) capabilities. Clyde Bernard Franklin filed the complaint (case 1:2009cv00704) in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama on behalf of all Alabama residents last Wednesday. I don’t have proper access to the court documents at this point so it’s a bit unclear what the allegations in this particular case are exactly, but there should be more information about the details available shortly. While iPhone OS 3.0 included support for MMS from the start, AT&T took quite some time to enable the feature, which prompted iPhone owners to initiate two separate class action lawsuits against the carrier and Apple last August. On September 25, AT&T finally rolled out the service for iPhone owners in the United States, so it’s safe to say that the delay isn’t why Franklin is taking Apple and AT&T to court. We’ll update when we learn more. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.   |
| ICANN Moves Ahead With Non-Latin Web Addresses (Video) Posted: 30 Oct 2009 04:37 AM PDT As expected, regulatory body ICANN has approved plans to let web addresses be written in non-Latin characters in a move that it calls the “biggest technical change” to how the Internet works since its invention four decades ago. The vote was announced at the last day of the non-profit group’s Seoul conference. The proposal means domain names could be written in languages such as Greek, Chinese, Arabic, Hindi or Cyrillic and be understood natively by the servers that connect computers together over the web. Currently, domain names can only be displayed using the Latin alphabet letters A-Z, the digits 0-9 and the hyphen, but in the future countries will be able to display country-code Top Level Domains (cc TLDs) in their native language. The organization will launch a fast-track process for approving the Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs) scheme on 16 November, and the first IDN-compliant addresses should be in operation by the middle of next year, said ICANN President Rod Beckstrom. From the statement:
In the fairly cheese video above, Beckstrom says over half of Internet users from all over the world will finally be able to write web address in the “100,000 characters of world languages” that so far were not supported. According to the outlined proposal, ICANN will charge registries $26,000 for an evaluation processing fee, which can be paid in the local currency. ICANN would also like an annual contribution fee of 3 percent of a registry’s revenue, which can be as low as 1 percent for low-volume registries. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.   |
| The iPhone Launches In China Today, But Nobody Seems To Care Posted: 30 Oct 2009 03:30 AM PDT  Japan went crazy over the iPhone when it made its debut in summer last year, but China as another big Asian market for Apple seems to react differently. The iPhone officially launched in China today, offered by China Unicom, one the country's three big cell phone carriers. But our friends over at major Chinese news portal 163.com are reporting [Google machine translation] that not too many people were actually queuing up to get one, at least in Beijing.   |
| Boom Or Bust? Social Shopping Startup Fruugo Raises Funding To Stay Alive Posted: 30 Oct 2009 03:21 AM PDT  Finnish startup Fruugo fascinates me to no end. Founded in late 2006, the company set out to build a massive pan-European social e-commerce service, which it finally launched in closed beta at the beginning of this year. Their mission statement? To make Fruugo the equivalent of Google in search when it comes to social commerce on the Web. The company reportedly raised dozens of millions of euros, at one point flirted with an employee headcount of 150 to 160 people (including contractors) and boasted a rock star board of directors that included people like former Nokia CEO and current Chairman of Shell Jorma Ollila as well as F-Secure Founder/Chairman Risto Siilasmaa. In 2008, they burned through about 14.5 million euros before they even put the closed beta product live and were ultimately forced to lay off almost half of its workforce as a result.   |
| Microsoft Tortures Little Kids With Bing Jingle Posted: 30 Oct 2009 01:31 AM PDT
As you can see in the video below, Microsoft has forced a bunch of middle schoolers in Pennsylvania to learn and perform Mann’s Bing song. The horror. It’s hard to watch this without immediately thinking about parents who accept money to allow their child to be sponsored. Is this the future of branding? Mann actually sent us the video along with the following note:
It is kind of creepy. Actually, it’s terrifying. Hopefully these kids at least got free copies of some Microsoft product that they won’t be able to use on their Apple computers. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.   |
| Foo Fighters To Stream Concert Tomorrow Night On Facebook, Powered By Livestream Posted: 29 Oct 2009 09:06 PM PDT  The Foo Fighters will be streaming a concert live tomorrow night on Facebook, direct from the band’s Studio 606 headquarters in Los Angeles. You can RSVP to the event here, and stream it live here beginning at 7 PM PST tomorrow. As with Facebook’s other recent video streaming events, users will be invited to update their status messages with their thoughts about the concert, which will draw in even more fans as they see the updates in their news feeds. The live video will be powered by Livestream. Live concert streams seem to be a growing trend for the web’s most popular content and social sites. Last week MySpace streamed their Secret Show Weezer concert in San Francisco. And earlier this week YouTube streamed a U2 concert from the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CA. The event was a huge success, drawing a reported 10 million streams. YouTube also streamed San Francisco’s Outside Lands music festival in August. Hulu has also gotten in on the action, with a Dave Matthews Band stream in May. The appeal for bands is obvious — they get a chance to give back to fans, promote their albums, and boost their presence on social networks. And sites like Facebook benefit by attracting more artists to their platforms, as well as the obvious revenue opportunities from advertising and sponsorship deals. Update: It isn't clear if Facebook is actually sponsoring the stream, or if the Foo Fighters chose the platform on their own. We've reached out to Facebook to clarify.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.   |
| Epix Officially Launches Movie Streaming Network Posted: 29 Oct 2009 09:00 PM PDT  We recently wrote about Epix, the movie and entertainment streaming network that works across your TV, computer, and mobile phone. Jointly backed by Lionsgate, MGM and Paramount, Epix is launching its service today with 150 titles, with 3,000 more movies, concerts and shows to be added in the next year. Epix says that eventually it will be able to provide access to over 15,000 titles, but as we wrote in our initial review of the service, that's just a sliver of what's out there, since it’s only the movies available through the studios that are backing the company. And, if you want this content in your living room, you're going to need Verizon FIOS, which only some 2 million people have. But for the next month, Epix is allowing a limited number of people to access a three-day free online preview of its EpixHD.com service, starting this weekend. For this period, you’ll be able to access the service regardless of whether you are a Verizon Fios user. We actually have 200 30-day VIP passes to the service. The first 200 readers who follow @epixHD on Twitter and Tweet “@epixhd Experience Epix” with the hashtag “#techcrunch” will receive a DM from Epix with a promo code for the VIP service. We had a few bones to pick with the service earlier, namely that it’s tied to Verizon FIOS, and that it doesn’t offer a complete platform to watch movies on the web (but no one does). That being said, the platform is useful because it transcends over the TV and your computer and its fairly easy to use. For those of you who are able to grab an invite, we’re interested to hear what you think about the service, so be sure to leave your observations in comments. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0   |
| VodBurner Brings High-Quality Video Recording And Editing To Skype Posted: 29 Oct 2009 08:55 PM PDT  Skype app developer Netralia is bringing high-quality video recording through it’s app, VodBurner. VodBurner lets users create video podcasts directly from Skype calls using webcams, incorporating recording and post-production editing in a single software package. The app, which is $9.95, is fairly simple. Once downloaded, it will let you record a video and audio conversation via Skype and will then let you edit the final file within its software. What’s interesting about the app is that it actually detects who is talking (using volume) and will record the video of that person during the time. If both people are talking, the app will record video on both individuals in the frame. You can also add graphics and sub-titles to the videos and publish the clips as ASF files suitable for uploading directly to YouTube and other video-hosting services. The end video is of course not pristine because users are often using webcams and the editing features are fairly basic (though Vodburner plans to release for advanced editing features in teh next release of the app), but the file can easily be produced into a nifty podcast. Ecamm and SuperTinTin do similar things with recording conversations, but VodBurner’s founder Jeremy Hague says that the app’s beauty is in it’s easy-to-use editing and production tools. Netalia has also created other popular Skype apps including Skylook and Callburner. There’s been an uproar around Skype axing it’s “Extras” developers program, with many saying that Skype is out of touch with its developer community. But Hague said the Extras program was lacking in execution and is hopeful that Skype will launch a new and improved program for developers. And until then, says Hague, Netralia will continue to make apps that are useful to Skype users. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.   |
| Posted: 29 Oct 2009 07:42 PM PDT
23andMe was founded by Linda Avey and Anne Wojcicki back in 2006. Investors include biotech powerhouse Genentech, as well as New Enterprise Associates. The company also has close ties to Google — Sergey Brin (who is Wojciki’s husband) has loaned 23andMe $10 million, and Google also has a stake in the company. Avey left the company in early September to start a new foundation dedicated to Alzheimer's research. I’ve said it before, and I’ll said it again: there’s little doubt in my mind that personal genomics will be a booming industry in the relatively near future, though it may be five years or a decade before this testing really catches on. The concept is still quite foreign to most people, and while there can be some benefits to this kind of testing (such as learning your risk factor for certain diseases), the science is still very much in its infancy. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.   |
| Ustream Boosts Virality, Now Lets You Syndicate Your Comments Across The Web Posted: 29 Oct 2009 06:59 PM PDT
The feature is similar to what Facebook has offered for its video broadcasts (like the one it had for President Obama’s inauguration), where users are invited to update their statuses in real-time as they watch a video. Except with Ustream’s comments, users will be able to check off boxes at the top of the chat window to choose if they’d like to broadcast their updates across multiple services. Each update from the Ustream ‘Social Stream’ box will also include a link to the video you’re watching, which means that the feature can help videos go viral quickly. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.   |
| Scoopler Digs Up Some Funding, New Features Posted: 29 Oct 2009 06:23 PM PDT
When we intially wrote about the service (remember, very early on in the realtime search phenomenon), we noted that the presentation of results was impressive, but the results themselves were utterly dominated by Twitter. That really shouldn’t have been all that surprising considering Twitter’s popularity in the space. But the service has since added some new features to make it more robust. You’ll notice that when you do a search, there is a clean, two-column layout. On the left, popular shared items appear. These can be links shared on Twitter, Digg items, etc. You can also filter this content by videos, links, and images. On the right, you’ll see the live-updating items from around the web. The majority are still coming in from Twitter, but there are plenty of results from places like Delicious and Digg mixed in as well. These two columns have been swapped since when we first covered the service, and the “Your Searches” column has been removed and place in the top bar. More importantly, Scoopler has added an entirely new top area to break searches up into categories. Scoopler is calling the feature “Realtime Channels,” and co-founder AJ Asver describes it as, “like Digg’s categories but updated in realtime. They show the hottest tweets, links, videos and images in News, Business, Technology, Politics etc. The idea is to drive more search queries by suggesting what people should search for.” Makes sense. And the results are pretty solid. For example, I just clicked on the Entertainment channel and I see the live posts are being populated with talk about things like the new Michael Jackson movie and also the new Avatar trailer. There is also a constantly updating area along the top of the page to show you the hottest topics being talked about in realtime around the web. But perhaps the best feature of Scoopler remains the “peek” option. This allows you to quickly see the content being linked to through tweets and Digg results in an overlay without having to leave Scoopler. The service also has little picture thumbnails that get inserted into the stream for things like Flickr pictures. Scoopler’s seed round has attracted investors such as Ron Conway, (Bebo co-founder) Michael Birch, Avalon Ventures, and XG Ventures. Though the amount of the round wasn’t officially disclosed, we hear it’s in the $500,000 to $1 million range. Speaking of realtime, don’t forget our second Realtime CrunchUp taking place on November 20. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0   |
| Google Tackles Mortgage Market With New Comparison Ads Posted: 29 Oct 2009 05:27 PM PDT
Here’s how Google describes the new ad type:
As Leadcritic points out, Google’s entry into this space is obviously going to be bad news to lead gen services like LendingTree, and they aren’t the only newcomers looking to get in on the action — we hear that Billshrink will soon be expanding its price-saving tools to include mortgage comparison shopping. And, as noted before, Google will be expanding this ad type beyond mortgages. This may well be its answer to Bing’s decision engine model, which presents a number of structured options for the services and products you’re looking for that aren’t based exclusively on search rank. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors   |
| OpenTable Seats One Million Diners Via Mobile Apps Posted: 29 Oct 2009 04:50 PM PDT Online restaurant reservation site OpenTable has hit a milestone today, seating one million diners via its mobile apps. And the site says that based on an estimation of a $50 average check per diner, OpenTable believes that diners using its mobile applications have generated more than $50 million in revenue for its restaurant partners. OpenTable allows diners to find and book reservations at more than 11,000 different restaurants in multiple countries via mobile applications for the iPhone, Palm, Blackberry and Android. Other smartphone users can book reservations through OpenTable’s mobile-optimized Web site. This year OpenTable filed for a healthy IPO, despite recessionary conditions in the markets. OpenTable is a solid internet company that has a viable business model. On the restaurant side, OpenTable delivers reservation management software to establishments through a Web browser and collects monthly subscription revenues, similar in theory to the offerings that software companies like Salesforce sell to clients. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors   |
| Where Are All the Great Android Games? The Answer Is Simpler Than You Think Posted: 29 Oct 2009 03:41 PM PDT  I was Tweeting with Michael Gartenberg last night about all the great Android games. After all, the Android Marketplace has so many great titles like Civilization Revolution, Canabalt, iShoot, and… oh… wait… All kidding aside, the reason there is such a dearth of great games has to do with some programming choices in Android itself and it's a problem that can - and should - be fixed before the Droid comes to market this November.   |
| Facebook Rewrites Privacy Policy, Foreshadows Location Based Services Posted: 29 Oct 2009 03:35 PM PDT
The new terms are certainly easier to read, and they also contain some significant changes (including a couple Schrage doesn’t point out). One of these seems to indicate that Facebook may well be releasing location-related features soon (this is the first time any language related to location has appeared in any of Facebook’s policy documents, Facebook has confirmed) :
This is obviously a big step for Facebook, and one that many people have been expected for a long time. Twitter is moving into geolocation, and Facebook doesn’t want to be late to the game. Still, with all of Facebook’s privacy settings this will be a tricky dance for the world’s largest social network. Also important to note is the section on the ‘Everyone’ setting, which talks about what happens when you share something that gets indexed by a search engine (you can’t remove it).
Schrage also writes that the revision fulfills the company’s committment to Canada’s Privacy Commissioner, who has been investigating Facebook’s privacy policies and practices. This brings the privacy policy in line with Facebook’s other core documents, which the site began revamping last February after a user uproar over some changes made to its Terms of Service. Facebook’s ‘governance’ system now invites users to submit their comments and vote on documents before they’re finalized. Other documents that have been written and edited in this fashion include Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, Principles, and Payment Terms. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.   |
| Google Music: What Were Ticketmaster And Facebook Thinking? Posted: 29 Oct 2009 03:14 PM PDT
MySpace is the big lottery winner here. They bought iLike for $20 million in August. What they got: a talented (literally) team that is starting to fill the executive ranks at MySpace, the biggest music application on Facebook, and, it turns out, a deal with Google that is now sending massive traffic flow directly to MySpace Music. Our understanding from sources is that MySpace made an offer to iLike without knowing about the Google deal. Supposedly, since iLike was under NDA, all they knew was that iLike had a big partnership opportunity with some big company, nothing more. In hindsight the iLike deal looks smart even without Google. Add that in and it looks absolutely brilliant. I’m no fan of MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta, but I’ll give the man credit here. Giving Facebook The Benefit Of The Doubt Facebook decided not to aggresively pursue iLike. They seem to have firmly moved away from any desire to deal with content directly, so this looks less like a mistake and more like a strategic decision. But one thing is clear. Facebook utterly failed to execute on their music strategy from last year, even while trying to work via a partner application to avoid direct contact with content. Meanwhile, Google stepped in and quickly brought streaming music directly to users, without paying anything at all for it. iLike CEO and now MySpace exec Ali Partovi, speaking at the launch event last night, didn’t hold any punches against Facebook. He gave huge credit to Google for pulling off a win-win-win-win (labels, google, users, MySpace/LaLa) in the difficult online music space. And he noted that “others have tried or are still trying and have failed miserably.” He was quite clearly referring to Facebook. The truth is that we don’t know if Facebook flailed on a huge opportunity to get into the Google search stream, or if they just decided they don’t want the hassle of dealing with music directly. We’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. And they certainly had no idea of the Google deal back when they were trying to buy iLike anyway. Ticketmaster Flubs It None of Facebook’s excuses (didn’t know about the Google deal, strategically not what they want, etc.) apply to Ticketmaster. The company was a big shareholder in iLike, had a board seat, and certainly new every detail of the Google deal. They could easily have acquired iLike, probably for not much more cash than the $13.3 million they already had invested. But instead they let the company go to MySpace, knowing full well that they were enabling a huge potential competitor. If Ticketmaster had acquired iLike all that Google music search traffic would be under their control. Click throughs to the iLike site could be monetized through event ticket sales. It would probably be a matter of months, not years, before they got their investment back in additional ticket sales. And what’s worse is that MySpace now controls all that traffic. MySpace actually has a much more complete worldwide database of concert events than even Ticketmaster has, and they already flow through a lot of traffic to ticket sales at Ticketmaster and competitors. Now that database is combined with iLike’s impressive concert discovery and alert product. When you plug Google search traffic into all of that, its got to be scary for Ticketmaster:
We frankly can’t see any reason at all for Ticketmaster to let iLike go to a potential competitor, particularly with this Google deal locked up. Ticketmaster CEO Irving Azoff certainly knew what was happening. So why did he make such a huge misstep? Possibly because he’s in the middle of a divestiture of topline assets as part of a merger with Live Nation. Azoff is rumored to be looking for a huge personal payout as part of that deal, and may even be spinning himself off along with assets. In other words, maybe Azoff couldn’t care less about the future of Ticketmaster. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.   |
| How To Measure The True Stickiness (And Success) Of A Facebook App Posted: 29 Oct 2009 02:22 PM PDT
Yesterday, Facebook announced they are going to drastically alter the way applications can message users once again, likely throwing a wrench into every app developers’ growth rate. Hints of the coming turmoil appeared last week when Facebook changed the way feeds work. This caused enough worry that apparently Mark Pincus, Founder/CEO of Zynga, canceled his appearance at Harvard Business School so he could sit with his team and figure out what the impact would be to the viral rates of their massive hits such as Farmville and Cafe World. That’s not surprising, since getting posts in the feed is critical to continued growth, but the myopic focus on the “viral rate” by some in the industry has created an over-dependence on perhaps the wrong number. (As an aside, those who complain about Facebook being an unreliable channel to build a business off of should try dealing with a retailer such as Best Buy. They will be happy to take a 50% cut of your revenue and then one week decide to eliminate your entire section of products and ship them back to you. Oh, and they’ll bill you for the shipping.) In all the talks about virality the general focus is on the new, clever, and sometimes underhanded ways to increase your viral rate. What gets lost is the core message that, as Siqi Chen of Serious Business puts it, viral messaging tactics are just a force multiplier on the inherent viralness of your product. Or, in simpler terms, how good your product is in the eyes of your users actually is the most important thing. Viral messaging is just a way of greasing the skids on that user’s intent. It is an important later step, but not the root. And how do we measure that intent? It turns out that in Facebook at least, the level of retention is the best public number to predict likelihood of a hit. Real retention numbers for other people’s products are notoriously hard to come by, but in Facebook there is good 30 day retention data called the DAU/MAU Ratio – which can also be called Stickiness. This is the ratio of Daily Active Users to Monthly Active Users. For example, a DAU/MAU ratio of 50% would mean that the average user of your app is using it 15 out of 30 days that month. It turns out this simple metric is enough to predict, with a high level of probability, the success of a product. For example, look at the correlation between the following set of Facebook games.  Here we have games that fit a broad set of criteria, in terms of brand association, demographic appeal, play style, and time since launch. See how the second column and the fourth column are almost perfectly in order? Despite this broad cross-section of games it appears there is a very direct correlation between stickiness and success. Let’s take a deeper view of the data.  For those who aren’t stat geeks, this is called the coefficient of determination (R2) and predicts whether two correlated data sets accurately predict future success. If everything lined up perfectly on the linear regression line above you would have an R2 value of 1, and then we could say there is a perfect correlation between Stickiness (x axis) and the Size of the app (y axis). Using these social games we have a rather astonishing “fit” of 0.77. Stepping back, this data is quite remarkable actually, since you would expect Stickiness to go down as you get huge. It would stand to reason that your 20 millionth user, who might be experiencing their first Facebook game, is going to be harder to retain than your 1,000th. The fact that this is not happening yet, that no one has found the edge of users where suddenly retention metrics collapse, says something very powerful indeed about the potential size of the social gaming market. But it isn’t the market size implications that are the big takeaway, the relationship between Stickiness and success is. This of course will also cause a messaging arms race around retention, and the prevalence of Free Gifts is a good example of that already happening. But just as with the viral rate it’s important to remember those are all simply tactics to enhance a products inherent retention. The clear inference is that building something users love to come back to is the best predictor of success. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0   |
| Someecards Gives In To Apple So That It Can Take On Asian Boobs Posted: 29 Oct 2009 02:16 PM PDT
So Someecards decided to give in to Apple and remove any offending content. As such, their app was quickly approved (do what master says and get a cookie). But they’re not giving up the good fight. The guys behind Someecards realize the hypocrisy in Apple’s ways just as much as anyone. But they’ve decided to get their app out there the only way they can and move their fight over to Twitter. The company is currently using its massive Twitter following (over 1.4 million followers) to publicly declare war on the Asian Boobs app that is currently, with Apple’s blessing, a top selling app. Some of the tweets:
Oh yeah, and that app itself is solid. For $0.99 you get access to Someecards content with the easy ability to email any card to a friend while on the go. If you like the site, you’ll like this. Sadly, there’s a distinct lack of Hitler. Find the app here. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.   |
| comScore Acquires Latin American Web Measurement Company Certifica Posted: 29 Oct 2009 01:33 PM PDT Web measurement company comScore, has acquired Certifica, a similar web measurement company based in Latin America. ComScore says the acquisition will help buid its presence in Latin America. ComScore did not disclose the terms of the acquisition. Based in Santiago, Chile, Certifica was founded in 2000 and publishes analytics and statistics on Internet usage in Latin America. The sites measured by Certifica will be available for inclusion (on an opt-in basis) in comScore's Media Metrix 360 measurement product, which combines panel-based audience measurement data and Web site analytics data to provide a more comprehensive view of activity. ComScore also acquired mobile analytics company M:Metrics in 2008 to broaden its measurement of the mobile web. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.   |
| Twitter Lists Continue The Twitter Legacy: Downtime Posted: 29 Oct 2009 11:55 AM PDT
Don’t worry, the lists you just spent hours curating are not being deleted, but your access to them is being disabled for a bit. The reason is that there are already performance issues cropping up, so Twitter is taking “30 minutes or so” to investigate, as Kallen puts it. This is not good timing for Listorious, which just a few minutes ago rolled out its site based around Lists since it felt enough people finally had access to the feature. The reason Twitter has been slowly rolling Lists out rather than giving it to everyone at once is so they could stress test it. Well, here’s that stress. Still, I suppose this intentional downtime is preferable to Lists simply not working when they look like they should be. Also, feature downtime is much better than overall Twitter downtime. Update: And they’re back, and opening it to even more users now. Over 50% of users should now see it, according to Kallen, who also explained that during the downtime they learned that Lists were not the cause of the issue. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.   |
| Data Robotics Raises $10 Million For Enterprise Storage Posted: 29 Oct 2009 11:51 AM PDT Data Robotics, a company that creates automated data storage products, has raised $10 million in Series E funding led by Focus Ventures with Greylock Partners, New Enterprise Associates, RRE Ventures and Sutter Hill Ventures participating. Data Robotics previously raised $15 million in Series D funding from Greylock Partners, New Enterprise Associates, RRE Ventures and Sutter Hill Ventures. The company’ Geoff Barrall says the new funding will be used to produce more inventory and will fuel additional sales and marketing efforts. Data Robotics, which launched in 2006, produces Drobo, a series of self-managing storage products. Drobo products are scalable and designed to meet the data storage needs of small to medium-sized businesses and includes Data Robotics' BeyondRAID storage technology. Barrall says that the company is seeing strong growth in the enterprise space, with yearly revenue of around $30 million. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0   |
| Not Sure Which Twitter Lists To Follow? Listorious Has A Directory Of The Best Ones Posted: 29 Oct 2009 11:25 AM PDT Twitter Lists are rolling out today (although the feature is not quite turned on for everyone yet). The new feature lets users make lists of interesting people on Twitter, grouped together so that they are easy to follow. But how do you find the best lists? Already, there is an independent directory service which is launching in tandem with Twitter Lists called Listorious. (Warning: it only fully works for people who have Twitter Lists enabled). Listorious offers a curated collection of lists across various categories such as media, humor, marketing, finance, and food. You can see the most popular lists, ranked by how many people follow them. It is also possible to search by tags, or just search lists in general. So what are some lists you might want to check out? There’s Robert Scoble’s Most Influential In Tech list and another overlapping Tech Pundits list. I like this list of Venture Capitalists on Twitter. And of course, don’t miss out on following the entire TechCrunch Team with one click. Listorious was developed by Gregory Galant, who is the man behind the Shorty Awards, which goes out to the “best producers of short content.” It is part of his company, Sawhorse Media. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.   |
| Facebook Fights App Spam, Gives Games Its Own Dashboard Link Posted: 29 Oct 2009 10:37 AM PDT Following its meeting with developers yesterday, Facebook announced some changes it will be making to its homepage. As expected, one of the biggest changes is an attempt to fight application spam. Notifications from apps that you sign up for are being curtailed so that you can opt to only see those notifications that your friends explicitly send to you. That should get rid of all those random updates about Joey sending some virtual bananas as a gift to someone else you don’t care about. Facebook will also allow users to specify which applications may contact them via email and for what purposes, much like when you register for any Website and they ask you if they can send you marketing newsletters. Applications, however, will be easier to access. An “Applications” link will appear in the left-hand navigation column. Clicking on that will show you all of your Facebook apps. And in a sign that shows the growing importance of social games in Facebook, “Games” will get their own link in the left-hand dashboard, even though they are a kind of app. Games are special that way. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.   |
Maybe you’ll recall when 
Realtime, realtime, realtime — it’s all you seem to hear now with regard to the web. But back in May, it was just emerging as a new trend that looked poised to explode. And one company at the forefront of that was 
Google has just 
Facebook’s VP of Communications and Public Policy 
Now that the dust is settling on the 
This is a guest post by 
Perhaps you’ve been following the drama surrounding the 
Well that didn’t take long. Over the past 24 hours, Twitter has been 
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