Wednesday, January 27, 2010

The Latest from TechCrunch

The Latest from TechCrunch

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Looking For Stock Photos? Compare Prices With The SpiderPic Search Engine

Posted: 27 Jan 2010 09:13 AM PST

Ginipic has partnered with Picitup to launch SpiderPic. That’s a lot of pics, and it will undoubtedly be not much of a surprise if I tell you the product has something to do with pictures. Stock photography, to be more specifpic specific.

SpiderPic is essentially a meta-search tool for stock photos that aggregates relevant shots from a host of third-party providers and lists results in one crisp interface, pricing from all (eight) suppliers included.

As pointed out on the Examples page, these price differences can be quite huge even for identical imagery, so if you find yourself regularly buying stock photos, this is a service you might consider bookmarking right now.

When you do a search for say, tablet, SpiderPic returns as much information as possible about each photo, and refer potential buyers to the source for actual purchases of photos or to get more detailed information such as promotions, special offers, and specific license restrictions.

The only thing that bugs me is that the prices or price range aren’t actually displayed when you get the list of search results, which means you have to click through every time.

Ginipic / Spiderpic co-founder Lior Weinstein tells me:

The technical challenge behind SpiderPic’s comparison feature, was to create a system that you can use only an image, with no text as a reference, and search in real-time between millions of images and return results within split seconds. We decided to partner with Picitup to supply the image recognition technology since they are by far the best out there – they serve top tier players such as eBay and Shopping.com.

SpiderPic also offers browser extensions to enable people to search and compare prices quickly from whatever browser they’re using (though the Google Chrome extension is still in the works).

SpiderPic plans on rolling out a similar image search feature soon, which will enable buyers to take any image they found on the web and find out whether the same or a similar image one is available for purchase for commercial purposes on the various agencies they support (Fotolia, iStockPhoto, BigStockPhoto, etc.). With the tool, the startup intends to make it possible for buyers to use any tool on the web for searching images, without the need to worry about copyright infringement.

Weinstein admitted to me that the agencies are not all happy about the service, understandably. He says he has even received e-mails from some demanding that he remove their search results from SpiderPic, but that he isn’t too worried about and that the same thing happened when the first regular online retail comparison shopping engines launched several years ago.

You can read up on Ginipic, which is a desktop application for searching images across photo sharing services, in my earlier review of the product.

Live From The Apple Tablet Event

Posted: 27 Jan 2010 08:31 AM PST

We’re here in San Francisco for Apple’s event today where they’re expected to unveil their new tablet computer which may or may not be known as the iPad, iSlate, iBook, iTablet, the Apple Tablet or some other variation. The event starts at 10 AM PT. Be sure to check back in.

For now, follow the CrunchGear guys do a little pre-show commentary starting at 9:30 AM PT.

Technology And Materials Marketplace Inventables Scores $2 Million From True Ventures

Posted: 27 Jan 2010 07:46 AM PST

Ever wonder where inventors and companies find the technical materials needed to manufacture their products? Traditionally, inventors could find materials at trade shows or could order the products via trade magazines. Unfortunately, both channels have many drawbacks, including travel, connectivity and accessibility. Chicago-based Inventables has entered the scene has an online marketplace for materials where vendors can advertise their products and engineers and designers can easily find these materials. And the site has just closed a $2 million funding round from True Ventures.

Inventables allows vendors to create online profiles for their products in order to generate sales leads. Customers, ranging from mega companies such as Procter and Gamble to individual inventors, who are looking to source new materials and technologies can browse through these profiles and submit inquiries about products they are interested in. Each vendor profile includes exact details on composition, makeup and use of the material, commercial uses for the material, similar materials and more. Products range from electroluminescent fabric to concentrated cheese flavor powder. The site currently lists over 1500 different materials and technologies.

As a vendor, (e.g. Dupont, RTP Company, MDI Products), you are notified by email each time your Inventables profile receives a new inquiry and given an opportunity to purchase the corresponding sales lead from Inventables. It’s free for vendors to list their products; they only pay Inventables for specific leads that they are interested in.

The essence of Inventables is that it helps vendors develop “sales leads worth their time”. The site’s cognitive technology, remembers and “learns” what kinds of materials the potential buyers are interested in and will suggests similar products based on this. The investment from True Ventures is going to be used towards further product development and to hire additional software engineers.

Launched in January, the site doesn’t include a ton of bells and whistles and has a fairly simple userface; but it’s easy to navigate and serves a genuine purpose in the materials and technology industry. And Inventables is already gaining the attention of Fortune 500 companies and prominent brands such as Palm, Microsoft, PING Golf Clubs, and Kraft Foods.


The $62 Million Sale Of A Touch Tech Startup Fans The Tablet Flames

Posted: 27 Jan 2010 07:04 AM PST

Welcome to the Touch revolution. Ahead of the impending news about the iTablet/iPad from Apple today, comes news that a French maker of touch input technology has been acquired by Tyco Electronics for $62 million upfront. Motorola’s venture arm also has an interest in the technology. Will we see the mobile maker create new touch devices? Could be.

The news wraps up a good day for key European venture capital firm Sofinnova Partners, which has exited its stake in its portfolio company Sensitive Object. At the same the VC has announced the closure its sixth fund, Sofinnova Capital VI, raising €260 million.

Sensitive Object has created a touch input technology based on acoustic waves processing (more here). Oh yes, you read that right. Instead of making the screen itself touch sensitive, it analyzes the sound waves that pass through object when somone touches it. Star Trek huh.

Drupal Goes Hosted With Private Beta Launch of “Gardens” (Invites)

Posted: 27 Jan 2010 06:06 AM PST

Open source content management system Drupal is increasingly being used by organizations, corporations and governments to power their websites and communities.

To name but a few entities who rely on Drupal for their websites: The White House, AT&T, Intel, BBC Magazines, Forbes, Stanford University, Reuters and Procter & Gamble (and plenty more where that came from).

But up until now, there was no other way to set up a website or blog with Drupal than having to download and run code from a server. Acquia, a commercial company that provides Drupal-based products, services and technical support, is today bringing change to that situation with the private beta launch of Drupal Gardens.

You need a beta invite code to get in for now, but the first 100 TechCrunch readers to sign up here will get access today (others will be granted access in the next few weeks).

Drupal creator Dries Buytaert – also co-founder and CTO of venture-backed Acquia – in a blog post announcing the private beta launch refers to Drupal Gardens as the Wordpress.com or Ning for Drupal. Which was also the first thing I thought when I tried it out for the first time (see screenshots below).

Built on the Drupal 7 core, currently still in alpha, Acquia powers the entire back-end for Drupal hosted websites and communities so users don’t need to worry about server management and can focus on the personalization and content part of the equation instead.

Unlike Wordpress.com, Buytaert tells me, Drupal Gardens isn’t really meant for individuals looking to set up their own blog as much as it is aimed to help organizations and small businesses set up a Drupal environment with multi-user blogging features, social integration, forums, custom content types, and so on.

The way I see it, Drupal Gardens is thus more of a competitor to the likes of Ning and Six Apart. Both companies, as well as Automattic, have of course a considerable head start when it comes to hosted micro-site content management services, so time will tell if Drupal Gardens can break the mold.

As powerful as the Drupal CMS and its small army of code contributors may be, how much demand can there really be for another browser-based site builder?

Drupal Gardens will be available for free until the end of this year. By the end of 2010, Acquia hopes to have finished incorporating all of the important features that will enable organizations to create feature-rich, social microsites. Although this is still undecided, Acquia thinks it will be able to continue offering a free tier for smaller sites alongside paid tiers for larger websites or those who want access to premium features.

Preliminary pricing can be consulted on this page, but to be clear: all of these packages will remain free of charge until the end of this year.

You can sign up for the beta here; Acquia will open up the beta to thousands of users in the next couple of weeks. General availability is expected in the second quarter of 2010.

Good Technology Buys Up CloudSync

Posted: 27 Jan 2010 05:58 AM PST

Good Technology, which markets a number of mobility solutions primarily geared towards businesses, has acquired CloudSync, a mobile device management company, for an undisclosed sum. Good says the acquisition will help enable more device choice for businesses by providing management features for a board range of devices including laptops, tablets, and all smartphone platforms.

CloudSync, similar to Good, offers a cloud-based service offering that allows enterprises to manage devices being used in their business through a web-based management system. CloudSync’s product line includes a device management console, a remote help desk application, access control, and a CloudLocate GPS-based location application, which gives IT managers a real-time view of all the mobile devices in a fleet including their location. CloudSync supports all Microsoft Windows mobile devices, Windows laptops, and RIM BlackBerry devices, and combined with Good, will extend its support to iPhone, Android, Symbian, and webOS devices in the coming months.

Good Technology recently acquired Intercasting, a mobile social networking connectivity company. The company was originally a unit of Motorola and was sold in February of 2009 to email provider Visto.


Survival Of The Fittest: DST’s Yuri Milner Talks To Us At The World Economic Forum

Posted: 27 Jan 2010 05:42 AM PST

Yuri Milner, the CEO of Russian investment and operating company Digital Sky Technologies, had quite a 2009. I had a chance to sit down with Milner today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland for a short video interview.

The company now holds substantial equity in two of the hottest pre-IPO startups, Facebook and Zynga. And their innovative way of structuring deals, where they buy both preferred stock from the company and common stock from employees, is becoming the hot new way to invest in startups. In fact, people are now referring to “DST-style deals,” even where DST isn’t one of the investors. See Yelp, for example:

The size of the rounds is in the $50 million range, but includes both a primary investment component as well as a secondary offering for long time employees. These deals are now being referred to as "DST deals," since DST first invested in Facebook in May 2009 at a $10 billion valuation and later funded employee buyouts at a $6.5 billion valuation. They did a similar deal with Zynga.

I first met Milner the day he announced his investment in Facebook, where he and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained the details and rationale for their investment in an exclusive TechCrunch video interview.

The price he paid for his Facebook stock – a $10 billion valuation – was scoffed at in May. Today, it’s clear he got a great deal as Facebook common stock is trading at $14 billion and above. The Facebook common stock purchased by DST last summer cost Milner just a $6.5 billion valuation.

It was just a few months later that Milner was in the news again, beating out the competition to become the lead investor in a huge venture round for Zynga.

We’ve had our fun with Milner and DST, watching as the Russian firm stepped in and paid higher prices for hot startups than local VCs would even consider.

But the reality is that DST’s investment decisions look pretty damned smart with the benefit of hindsight. And the entity isn’t really “Russian” anymore – Milner is making almost all of his investments outside of Russia, and most of the new investors he’s bringing in to fund all this activity are non-Russian.

More and more, Milner is just looking like a really smart and really aggressive investor.


The Receivables Exchange Receives Another $17M From Bain Capital Ventures

Posted: 27 Jan 2010 04:43 AM PST

The Receivables Exchange, an online marketplace for real-time trading of accounts receivable, this morning announced that it has closed $17 million in Series C financing led by Boston, MA-based Bain Capital Ventures, with prior investors Redpoint Ventures and Prism Ventureworks participating.

This third round of financing brings the total invested into the company to just south of $30 million.

The Receivables Exchange started its online receivables financing marketplace in 2008 with the launch of its proprietary receivables trading platform.

The platform essentially enables businesses to sell their accounts receivable to a global network of accredited institutional investors that compete in real-time to purchase them. That way, companies are able to reduce their cash conversion cycles and gain access to capital that can be reinvested into growing their core business operations.

According to the company, the majority of companies have more than 60% of their working capital tied up in accounts receivable, limiting their ability to fund their own growth and contribute to that of the U.S. economy.

The Receivables Exchange says it will use the funding to scale its operations and sales activities and to expand its marketing, business development and corporate partnership efforts.


Baidu And Japan’s Rakuten To Invest $50 Million In Giant Online Shopping Mall

Posted: 27 Jan 2010 02:17 AM PST

Chinese search leader Baidu and Rakuten, Japan’s largest e-commerce player, have announced an agreement to jointly invest US$50 million over three years in a joint venture to build a huge online ‘B2B2C’ shopping mall for Chinese Internet users.

Under the terms of the agreement, Rakuten will become majority shareholder of the new, yet to be named joint venture (51%) with Baidu owning the remaining 49%.

B2B2C refers to an online marketplace that links and provides value-added services to both business to business and business to consumer.

The online mall, which is expected to go live in the second half of 2010, aims to provide customers with merchandise from well-known Chinese and foreign brands as well as small and medium sized enterprises at ‘competitive prices’. The mall is anticipated to quickly become the largest online B2B2C shopping mall in China.

Rakuten sure has the experience of running such ventures: founded in 1997 as MDM Inc., the company operates Rakuten Ichiba, Japan’s leading Internet shopping mall with over 30,000 participating merchants and over 47 million items registered on its e-commerce platform.

Baidu, meanwhile, has seen two top executives depart the company just this month (both CTO Yinan Li and COO Peng Ye bailed citing ‘personal reasons’), but that hasn’t stopped it from teaming up with other companies to strengthen its foothold in China.

Earlier this month, word got out that Baidu was setting up a new independent online video company in partnership with Hulu investor Providence Equity Partners.


Key Video From The World Economic Forum’s Social Networking Powerhouse Panel

Posted: 27 Jan 2010 12:58 AM PST

Each year the World Economic Forum at Davos holds number of technology focused sessions. Last year I moderated a high profile discussion about the next digital experience. This year, Loic Le Meur is hosting a discussion on the growth of social networks.

Participants include Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn, Greylock), Owen Van Natta (MySpace), Gina Bianchini (Ning), Evan Williams (Twitter) and George Colony (Forrester Research) and Don Tapscott (nGenera). Randi Zuckerberg, Jeff Jarvis, Russian super-investor Yuri Milner and others also dropped by to participate.

The room is packed, standing room only, and bursting at the seams. These guys are popular in Silicon Valley. Bring them to Davos, Switzerland and everyone wants to hear what they have to say.

Each panelist is giving a short 3-4 minute talk on how they frame the interesting issues around social networking (Hoffman says, for example, that privacy is only an issue for old people, young people don’t care.). We have videos of most of these comments and will embed them below as we process them..

Seven of the 15 most traffic sites in the world are social sites, Colony says in his intro. Only 17% of online users will visit a social site each day, though, including mobile usage. This varies widely by age – 27% of those 25 and under will visit a social site each day.

Below are clips from Hoffman, Van Natta, Bianchini, Williams and Zuckerberg:

The Tablet Could Spur A Media Revolution, But It Will Be Out Of Apple’s Hands

Posted: 26 Jan 2010 08:49 PM PST

Here we are, on the eve of the Tablet’s unveiling, with only hours to go before we find out just how ambitious Apple’s latest creation is. Countless articles have been written about how the forthcoming Tablet could be the savior of old media. Supposedly, people will finally start paying for this content because it will be readily available at their fingertips. But the promise of the tablet does not lie in immediate access to content; the Internet can already do that, as can the Kindle, to some extent. The true revolution lies in the new medium the tablet will give us. Three months ago Dan Lyons, writing as Fake Steve Jobs, totally nailed it:

New technology spawns new ways to tell stories. That's the really exciting thing here. Not the tablet itself, but what it means for news, for entertainment, for literature. Gasp. Geddit? Is the f***ing light going off yet? This is what Anton Chekhov meant when he said that the medium is the message. This is why the Tablet is so profound.

There is no point in moving to digital readers if we're just going to do what we did on paper. That's why Kindle is such a piece of shit. All they did was pave the cowpath. And that's why we've held back on our Tablet — not because the technology wasn't ready, but because the content guys are such f***tards that they still can't create anything that makes it worth putting the Tablet into the world.

You Say You Want A Revolution

Now, I don’t think the Kindle is a “piece of shit” by any means. The Kindle is to text what the iPod was to music. It lets you store and easily carry a vast amount of content with you at all times. That’s in no way a bad thing — the iPod has been adopted by a significant portion of Earth’s population because its appeal is so universal. But the Tablet can break new ground. It won’t just be a new way to conveniently access content. It will be a new way to consume it. Last September, Gizmodo reported that Apple was urging publishers to create so-called hybridized content that “draws from audio, video and interactive graphics in books, magazines and newspapers, where paper layouts would be static. ”

When we hear talk of Steve Jobs saying this is the most important thing he’s done, I don’t think he’s excited about giving people a bigger screen to watch their movies on, or to play better games. I think he’s excited about changing the way we read and learn.

But it’s going to be tough. My concern is not that Apple will fail to deliver; I have little doubt that their product launch tomorrow will be stellar. My doubts lie with the content providers themselves. Yesterday, the LA Times ran a story that touched on this:

Although Apple has proved its deftness at creating trendy devices and a digital store in which publishers could sell their wares, Gartner Inc. analyst Allen Weiner said there will be plenty of trial and error before newspaper, magazine and book publishers figure out the “fine art” of creating digital editions that take advantage of the device’s graphics and video”… “Where’s the opportunity? It’s creating book experiences. It’s taking a cookbook and adding video and author updates. That’s an opportunity, because you can charge extra for that.”

The question, then, is how long it will take publishers to figure this out for themselves.  Perhaps I’m a pessimist, but I think that this will be a long and frustrating process. Look at how long it has taken the large media companies to fully embrace rich, multimedia content on the web.

Old Media Is Still In Trouble

The online buying model for newspapers and magazines isn’t going to save the publishers, any more than iTunes Music and TV downloads have been saviors for their respective content owners. Will consumers benefit? Absolutely. But they won’t be willing to pay a premium for content they can access on the web for free. And if old media shifts to a pay-only model, consumers will just switch to free online alternatives. There will be exceptions — publishers with high quality, exclusive content (say, the New York Times) will likely benefit. But the majority of newspapers and magazines? Not so much.

But what about this promised land of revolutionary hybridized content — won’t people be willing to pay for that? Thing is, that’s going to be time consuming and expensive to make. A handful of very large publishers, like the NYT, may be able to scrap together some compelling content on a regular basis. But it’s going to be difficult to quickly integrate additional supplementary material in a way that doesn’t feel tacked on.

So Who Will Benefit?

Textbooks. Guides. Biographies. Novels. Pretty much anything that has previously been offered in book form, but has been handicapped because it was restricted to paper. Few of these have ever been ported to the web in a rich media form, because they’re lengthy and it just isn’t fun to read a book on your computer screen. And even when textbooks have been digitized (like for the Kindle DX), they didn’t bring anything new to the table. But there’s so much room for improvement.

Imagine a biography of Abraham Lincoln that allowed you to pull up photos of every person and place mentioned with a single finger swipe.  Flicking the top of the screen would bring down an interactive timeline of Lincoln’s life, making it easy to get your bearings. The hybrid book could include comprehensive references for each person mentioned in the book. Not just a Wikipedia article, mind you, but information that is contextually relevant to the moment you’re currently reading about. The experience wouldn’t simply be one of jumping from hyperlink to hyperlink. All of this supplementary material would naturally flow into the reading experience, while you never left your place in the primary text.

There are plenty of other potential applications. Picture a chemistry textbook where you could freely rotate any molecule, tapping on a chemical bond to learn more about why it behaves the way it does. Or a Shakespeare play (in text form) where you could tap a piece of dialog to hear it spoken aloud, or perhaps even played in a video. Tapping a sidebar at any time would bring up a roster of characters and their allegiances, lest a love triangle leave you confused.

There are infinitely more possibilities ready to be unlocked.  Many of these things could be done were this content converted to a rich webpage, but up until now there hasn’t been much benefit to doing so because there was no way to comfortably consume it.

My guess is that come Wednesday, Steve Jobs will hold up a Tablet with a piece of content that lives up to this dream. Instant lookup of relevant information. An experience that simply has never been seen before. It won’t just be a webpage with a touchscreen — it will be a living book. It will be the future. And then we’ll have to wait years until we start seeing books that really live up to that promise. Apple can build the tools, but someone will need to deliver the content.

I’m still excited for the Tablet, I’m just not expecting it to live up to its potential for quite a while. The big publishers will figure out this new medium eventually. Well, maybe they won’t. But someone will.
Fake tablet image via Gizmodo


 
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Loopt To Start Pushing Check-In Specials Hard Using A New App And Facebook

Posted: 26 Jan 2010 04:25 PM PST

When Loopt released its iPhone app alongside the App Store launch in 2008, it seemed to have everything going for it. Founder Sam Altman was given time on stage at WWDC to show off the app. It was featured prominently in the App Store for a while. And it was really one of the first hot location-based services. But then it cooled off, partially because the app needed to be open to update your location. And since the iPhone didn’t allow for third-party applications to run in the background, it was severely hamstrung. Meanwhile, a series of check-in based location apps that didn’t need to be open all the time came along and stole the location buzz. More importantly, they brought to light new business opportunities for local venues with the idea of location-based deals. Loopt’s new goal is to make a strong push for that.

As you can see in the deck we’ve obtained below, Loopt is working on yet another new product that is all about location-based deals. This deck is apparently making the rounds with a bunch of agencies and advertisers, as Loopt hopes to get them on board when they launch they app in a few months. The new app is called LooptCard. Clearly, from the deck it will run on the iPhone, but it should also work across all the major mobile platforms, we’re told. And these advertisers are being told that Loopt already has several retailers and venues on board with deals for when they launch.

So why is it any different than what Foursquare, Gowalla, and most recently, Yelp, are doing with location-based deals? It would seem that Loopt is trying to convince venues to use their system by offering the most customizable deals to give away. For example, certain deals are only unlocked if you do certain tasks, such as check-in at a certain time of day. This could be enticing to venues because while something like a coffee shop may be busy in the morning, it may be dead in the afternoon, and may want a way to pull in more traffic at only that time. There are also incentives for users to check-in with friends, which obviously benefits the venues since it means more people in the store. There are also options to give customers real goods or virtual goods. Users will also have an easy way to see what specials they are close to unlocking.

Perhaps most significantly though, LooptCard will be built entirely on top of Facebook’s social graph, we hear. This means there is a low barrier to entry to gain new users who may be wary of signing up for yet another social network. This also means that it will be tightly integrated with Facebook Connect so that all of these deals and check-ins will pour back into users’ Facebook streams, upping the viral potential of both the app and the deal.

Loopt has tried to rebuild itself before. They’ve spun off their Loopt Mix feature into its own app and made Loopt itself more predicated around check-ins. But they’re still fighting an uphill battle since those other players either got to the check-in game first — or they happen to be Yelp, with millions of users. Loopt has also crossed into Yelp’s more immediate territory recently with a local review site.

The new application is apparently an offshoot of Loopt’s recent acquisition of the Y Combinator startup, GraffitiGEO.


 

 

 

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The Top Ten Groundbreaking Slates

Posted: 26 Jan 2010 04:18 PM PST

Tomorrow is a big day. Apple will be revealing a brand new product to the masses. While we don't know what it will be called, we're quite certain Jobs will be unveiling the much-anticipated Apple Tablet. While the Apple Tablet may very well revolutionize the tablet industry--as their previous products have done many times before--it wouldn't be where it is without those that came before it. Below you will find a list of what we believe to be the top slates.


Yahoo Posts Q4 Results: Down Year Over Year, But Moving In The Right Direction

Posted: 26 Jan 2010 04:07 PM PST

Today, Yahoo posted its fourth quarter results, marking the end of CEO Carol Bartz’s first year with the company. Yahoo reports revenues of $1.732 billion for Q4 2009, decreasing 4% from Q4 2008 but up 10% since last quarter. Year over year, search is down 15% and display ads down 1%. However, the company has seen a rise in each of these metrics between Q3 and Q4 2009. Yahoo reported $119M in profit, and EPS of 15 cents per share.

YHOO Q409EarningsPresentation Final


Who Gets The First Hands On With The Apple Tablet? Maybe Jack Bauer.

Posted: 26 Jan 2010 02:58 PM PST

To say there are no shortage of Apple Tablet rumors leading up to tomorrow’s event is perhaps the king of all understatements right now. But here’s maybe the best one yet. Apparently, Fox is in the process of cutting a deal with Apple to get the tablet on an upcoming episode of 24 this season.

That news comes from Rodney Charters, who is the director of photography on the show. He’s been tweeting about it pretty much all day, first saying it might be in episode 20 (episode 5 just aired this week), but then saying it might actually be more like episode 22. At one point, Charters notes that he’s “getting giddy with excitement” about the possibility. He’s not the only one.

Charters also notes that Apple has done product placement with 24 since its first season. But this season (the show’s eighth), Apple computers have been particularly prevalent in the show’s main setting, the CTU office.

Charters calls the device the “iSlate,” but who knows if that’s what it will actually be called. He could simply be guessing like everyone else. Though the device is expected to be announced tomorrow, it likely won’t ship until a later date. Some have pegged this in March, some later. That episode of 24 would likely air in May but would shoot much earlier. So it’s possible that Jack Bauer (24’s main character) could get his hands on the device before anyone else.

AllVoices Raises $3 Million For Citizen Journalism Site; Takes CNN’s iReport Head-On

Posted: 26 Jan 2010 02:50 PM PST

With the events that took place in Iran last year, the Mumbai bombings and even the plane crash on the Hudson River, there’s no doubt of the power of citizen journalism in today’s media age. Whether it be through social media sites, such as Twitter or through news sites catered towards citizen journalism, the active voice of the eyewitness is now a significant part of any story taking place in the world. Citizen journalism platform AllVoices is seeing significant use traction and is giving its rivals ( many of which are similar sites started by traditional media companies, such as CNN’s iReport) a run for their money. AllVoices also recently closed a $3 million round of funding from VantagePoint Partners, bringing the startup’s total funding to $9 million.

AllVoices allows anyone to contribute blog posts, images, videos and other observations, on local and global news. The site’s proprietary technology (AllVoices has filed for three patents) will tag, rank and sort news based on a global, regional, country and city pages and will determine what is breaking news and popular (in terms of phases of a news cycle). The system will also filter for spam, police the site, fact check each user report for credibility and assign a credibility rating to each news report. The site also lets users file reports from their cell phone via MMS and SMS, which is helpful to users in countries where computer usage is low but mobile device usage is high. The end goal is to provide a 360 degree view of reported news that also has a multimedia view of what’s happening in the world.

The brainchild of Amra Tareen, AllVoices was launched by Tareen and her co-founders in 2008. A former VC at Sevin Rosen Funds, Tareen recognized the importance of the citizen voice in everyday news in 2005 when she was an aid worker in Pakistan following the catastrophic earthquakes that caused massive damage and deaths in the country.

Tareen may be onto to something with AllVoices. The site currently has a community of 275,000 citizen reporters and is seeing close to 5 million unique visitors per month, which is fast growth for a recently launched media startup. Half of AllVoices’ traffic and visitors are from outside the U.S. and U.K, with citizens reporting from over 160 different countries. Tareen emphasizes that the site is as much a community as a news platform. Contributors can collaborate on stories and discuss news with other users and readers on the site.

While AllVoices may be seeing steady growth, the citizen journalism platform may be close to overtaking CNN’s iReport, which seems to be the site’s main rival in terms of traffic. Tareen says that as of late 2008, iReport had 118,000 registered users and is “fully confident that AllVoices is the largest citizen reporting cite in the world.” Another competitor in the space, NowPublic was acquired by the Examiner.com last year for $25 million.

So what’s next for the site? Tareen says that she wants to focus on expanding the hyper-local coverage on the news site in the U.S. I can;t help but think that AllVoices may be a possible acquisition target for a media company that doesn’t have a popular citizen journalism portal. One things for sure; we’ll be hearing more from AllVoices in the future.


McGraw-Hill CEO Confirms What Everybody Knows: The Apple Tablet Is Coming Tomorrow

Posted: 26 Jan 2010 02:34 PM PST

McGraw-Hill. Ever heard of them? If you've picked up any textbook written in the last hundred years or so, chances are they published it. Well, its CEO just spilled the beans on Apple's not-so-secret surprise on live TV. Going beyond confirming that it's the much-fabled Tablet, Terry McGraw confirms that they "have worked with Apple for quite a while" on this – so unless this guy has gone on a crazy binge, it's pretty likely he knows what hes talking about. He goes on to matter-of-factly state that the tablet will be based on the "iPhone operating system". The words, straight out of McGraw's mouth:


Square Announces Its Full List Of Angels With Some Surprises (Mayer, Crowley, Fanning)

Posted: 26 Jan 2010 01:41 PM PST

Square, the startup that is making mobile payments for the iPhone, just announced it’s full list of angel investors. Kevin Rose announced his involvement in a video demo (embedded below) he did a few days ago, but until now it wasn’t known who else was involved.

The full list includes: Marissa Mayer from Google, Dennis Crowley from Foursquare, Kevin Rose from Digg, Ron Conway, Biz Stone of Twitter, Joshua Schachter, Shawn Fanning (who’s starting a new venture with Dave Morin), Zachary Bogue, Andrew Rasiej, Greg Yaitanes, Jean-David Blanc, David Lee, Esther Dyson, Robin Chan, First Round Capital and Fritz Lanman. Basically, it’s an extremely impressive list.

Most notable are Marissa Mayer and Dennis Crowley, making their first investments, and it seems like a great investment to get into.

Square has gotten off to a fast start these last few months. When it raised $10 million, it was rumored that the company was valued at $40 million. For a company whose product isn’t even available to the public, that’s not bad. Our own MG got a demo of Square, and saw its potential to democratize mobile payments.

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Lessig Calls Google Book Settlement A “Path To Insanity”

Posted: 26 Jan 2010 01:25 PM PST

The last person you’d expect to speak out against the Google Book settlement with the Authors Guild which will make available the contents of millions of orphan books in digital form is Harvard law professor and free-culture advocate Lawrence Lessig. In a lengthy essay in The New Republic he calls the settlement a “path to insanity” that will be “culturally asphyxiating,” but not for the reasons you might think.

Lessig believes the problem lies not so much with the settlement itself or Google, as it does with copyright law.  But after pouring over the complex language of the 165-page settlement, he believes more than ever before in the need to overhaul copyright law for the Internet era (a theme he’s hit on before). Here is the gist of the problem as he explains it:

The deal constructs a world in which control can be exercised at the level of a page, and maybe even a quote. It is a world in which every bit, every published word, could be licensed. It is the opposite of the old slogan about nuclear power: every bit gets metered, because metering is so cheap. We begin to sell access to knowledge the way we sell access to a movie theater, or a candy store, or a baseball stadium. We create not digital libraries, but digital bookstores: a Barnes & Noble without the Starbucks.

By breaking up books into different licensable parts, Lessig fears that we are going to encounter the same problem with books that we do today with film. He gives the example of documentary films which are sometimes nearly impossible to restore or preserve in digital form because the rights to every song and clip of archive footage need to be cleared again. This is an artifact of the types of licensing contracts that became the norm for film, where each constituent part of a work carries its own copyrights into perpetuity, making it more difficult down the road to update into digital form or pass along as a piece of shared culture. Up until now, books for the most part are treated as one single work.

Yet the language of the Google Books settlement threatens to break books up into different constituent parts. The result is that you might be reading from a medical book on your iPhone in a hospital waiting room trying to figure out what’s wrong with your child, as Lessig did, only to find that a crucial illustration or table is missing because it is under a different license. As Lessig notes:

In real libraries, in real space, access is not metered at the level of the page (or the image on the page). Access is metered at the level of books (or magazines, or CDs, or DVDs).

It’s not so much that Lessig thinks the Google settlement is bad as far as it goes. He actually gives Google some props on the settlement, which makes up to 20 percent of even protected works accessible for free. (Google has argued vehemently that the settlement is a good deal for authors and the public alike, and wants to change it as little as possible). Lessig writes:

There is much to praise in this settlement. Lawsuits are expensive and uncertain. They take years to resolve. The deal Google struck guaranteed the public more free access to free content than "fair use" would have done. Twenty percent is better than snippets, and a system that channels money to authors is going to be liked much more than a system that does not.

But it sets a bad precedent for how we treat digital copyrights. We must balance those rights, as we always have, with the right to access and pass on our culture. Lessig calls the settlement a path to insanity because he fears it puts us on the road to making the consumption of culture “a legally regulated event”:

When you send your children to a library to write a research paper, you do not want them to have access to just 20 percent of each book they need to read. You want them to be able to read all of the book. And you do not want them to read just the books they think they would be willing to pay to access. You want them to browse: to explore, to wonder, to ask questions–the way, for example, people explore and wonder and ask questions using Google or Wikipedia. We had a culture where an enormous chunk of cultural life was proliferated and shared without most of us ever calling a copyright lawyer.

We are about to change that past, radically. And the premise for that change is an accidental feature of the architecture of copyright law: that it regulates copies. In the physical world, this architecture means that the law regulates a small set of the possible uses of a copyrighted work. In the digital world, this architecture means that the law regulates everything. For every single use of creative work in digital space makes a copy. Thus–the lawyer insists–every single use must in some sense be licensed. Even the scanning of a book for the purpose of generating an index–the action at the core of the Google book case–triggers the law of copyright, because that scanning, again, produces a copy.

And what this means, or so I fear, is that we are about to transform books into documentary films. The legal structure that we now contemplate for the accessing of books is even more complex than the legal structure that we have in place for the accessing of films. Or more simply still: we are about to make every access to our culture a legally regulated event, rich in its demand for lawyers and licenses, certain to burden even relatively popular work. Or again: we are about to make a catastrophic cultural mistake.

Regulating copies simply makes no sense in a digital world where every piece of content is made up of bits because those bits must be copied before they can be consumed or shared. There is no digital equivalent of the library or used book store where culture can be preserved and found by anyone. The Google Book settlement has special provisions for libraries and academics, but Lessig warns against relying “upon special favors granted by private companies (and quasi-monopoly collecting societies).” Rather, he proposes something more radical and far-reaching. A complete overhaul of copyright law which would include a mandatory registry of who owns what (to make it easier to track down copyright holders to ask for permission to use a work) and protection of a work as whole rather than protection to its constituent parts.

“Once a work is made,” he writes, “we need to recognize that it has its own claim within our culture.” If permission is granted once to use a song for a film or an illustration in a book, then after a period of time (he suggests 14 years), the rights holder for any one part should not be able to “control the whole.” And as for the registry, he suggests that it be operated by private companies much like Internet domain registries are today, with the rules for registering being mandated by law. It would be up to copyright holders to register otherwise their works pass into the public domain.

These are extremely reasonable suggestions to which I am sure the copyright lobby will strenuously object. But this debate needs to happen and Lessig gives us a good place to start.  How would you change copyright law for the digital age?

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If It Were Up To Me, The iPad Would Have A Touch Sensitive Case

Posted: 26 Jan 2010 12:16 PM PST

This isn’t a rumor, it’s just a wish. I’m hoping that the Apple Tablet that is announced tomorrow will have a capacitive touch interface that extends past the screen and to the actual case. Particularly the back of the device where the fingers will naturally rest during two-handed use.

Touch interfaces are something I’m sort of obsessed with. Like most people, the iPhone was what really opened my eyes to what it could do. I was one of the first individuals to actually buy a Microsoft Surface computer, happily paying $17k, including delivery and warranty. And I joyfully tested the Microsoft TouchWall, and still beg them to actually ship that OS and touch kit. I’ve also bought at least one of just about every touch computer out there, just to see how they perform.

Touch is awesome as a user input mechanism. But there are problems. One problem is that it doesn’t work well at all on machines sitting on a desktop because of arm fatigue.

Another problem, that also affects laptop and mobile devices, is the simple fact that you have to block part of the screen from your eyes while you touch it. It’s a real problem for a number of applications, particularly gaming. Touch is great, but blocking the screen isn’t.

That’s why I’ve obsessed over the 10/GUI concept and hope that something very similar to it comes to desktop computing soon. There’s touch, just not on the screen.

The Apple Magic Mouse is a variation on this, giving users a capacitive touch interface on the top of their mouse. My work efficiency increased dramatically when I started using that mouse, and I’ll never go back.

There are rumors that the next iPhone will have a capacitive touch case. That’s great for the iPhone, but there’s a far more compelling use case for a tablet to have a capacitive touch case. That’s because when you hold it you’ll naturally put your palms on the side edges of the front and wrap your hands around the back. And where your fingers touch the case is a really awesome place to put capacitive touch.

Lots has been said about the supposedly amazing way people will interact with the Apple Tablet. And while the new gestures look to be pretty awesome, that still doesn’t address the problem of blocking the screen with touch, or having to move your hands to do basic navigation like scrolling and clicking.

If I was building the tablet, I’d include touch on the case as well as the screen. Has Apple done that? We’ll find out soon.


FCC Probes Google, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, And Verizon On Early Termination Fees

Posted: 26 Jan 2010 10:47 AM PST

The FCC has just sent letters inquiring about Early Termination Fees to each of the major wireless carriers in the United States — AT&T, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless — and one outlier: Google. We’ve embedded all five letters below. The inquiry is the first action taken by the FCC’s recently formed Consumer Task Force. The inquiry comes only a few weeks after the FCC questioned Verizon about its high $350 ETF for “advanced devices” and deemed Verizon’s response to be “unsatisfying, and, in some cases, troubling”.

The text of the letters to each of the carriers is very similar, explaining that the FCC is looking to ensure that customers are being fully and transparently informed about any ETFs they may face. But the letter to Google includes some interesting passages explaining why the company is being questioned alongside the carriers. With the recent release of the Nexus One, Google has been criticized for charging its own fee in addition to the ETF imposed by T-Mobile):

Google's introduction of the Nexus One handset presents consumers with new
options for obtaining mobile wireless service, from a new entrant in the wireless phone
market. The Commission welcomes new choices for consumers and new entry into the
market because it recognizes that robust competition benefits consumers by
accommodating the wide variety of consumers' communications needs.
At the same time, where new options may subject consumers to substantial ETFs,
potentially from more than one entity, the Commission has a special interest in ensuring
that consumers have a clear and complete understanding of the rates, terms, and
conditions on which the communications services are being offered and the rationale for
those rates, terms, and conditions. The combination of ETFs from Google and T-Mobile
for the Nexus One is also unique among the four major national carriers. Consumers
have been surprised by this policy and by its financial impact. Please let us know your
rationale(s) for these combined fees, and whether you have coordinated or will coordinate
on these fees and on the disclosure of their combined effect.

While the explanations for why each company is being questioned vary, it appears that the questions being asked are identical. Here are the twelve questions each company is being asked:

1. Do your ETFs apply to all service plans or only some? If so, which ones?
2. What is the amount of the ETF for each service plan where ETFs apply? If there are different ETFs for different plans, what is the rationale for those differences?
3. How much of a discount on handset purchase is given in return for a consumer accepting an ETF? Does the amount of the discount differ by device, and if so, how?
4. Does the ETF itself vary by device (e.g., higher ETFs for advanced devices)? If higher ETFs apply to a certain class of devices, exactly how is that class defined?
5. Is it possible for consumers to buy a handset from you at full price to avoid an ETF? If this is possible, can consumers buy unsubsidized handsets online, as well as at brick-and-mortar stores?
6. Do monthly service rates and terms differ: (1) between customers who assume a term commitment and accept an ETF, and those who don't, and (2) between customers who purchase an unsubsidized device (either from your company or a third party), and those who purchase a subsidized device? If so, how do they differ, and what is the rationale for the difference? Can customers easily determine the impacts of their decisions and their rates and terms?
7. Are ETFs prorated so that the customer's liability decreases over time? If so, what is the exact schedule by which they are prorated?
8. If a customer renews his or her contract without buying a new handset, does his or her monthly service fee change in any way?
9. How long is the trial period during which consumers can cancel their service without an ETF penalty? If they cancel, can they return the handset? If they return it, will they receive a full refund, no refund, or a refund minus a restocking and/or refurbishing fee?
10. When do consumers receive their first bill under your service plans? How does the trial period relate, if at all, to receipt of the first bill?
11. Are there consumer fees or charges in addition to ETFs if consumers buy handsets and/or service plans from online phone dealers, such as Amazon, LetsTalk, and Simplexity (d/b/a Wirefly), or from a service provider, if a customer does not complete the contract term? If so, what are they, and what are their levels, terms, and conditions? Do the fees or charges affect the ETFs and if so, how?
12. Press reports and public statements from wireless companies have attributed ETFs to several different factors. What is the rationale for your ETF(s), and how specifically do the structure and level of those ETF(s) relate to that rationale?

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Weebly Deal Gives Hosting Provider Endurance International A Web Editor That Doesn’t Stink

Posted: 26 Jan 2010 10:03 AM PST

Since mid 2007, Weebly has offered an intuitive and powerful drag-and-drop website building tool that makes it easy to build rich sites websites with no technical know-how required. Up until now, the company has marketed its product directly to consumers, generating revenue by offering some premium features and services. Today, the startup is bringing its technology to a new market: web hosting customers. The company is announcing that it has been integrated with Endurance International Group, a company that owns a number of hosting providers. Endurance has over 700,000 paid customers across all of its properties, and all of them will get Weebly integration.

Weebly has provided Endurance with a dedicated set of servers that will be running the service. By keeping the Weebly machines on site, Endurance will be able to keep access speeds high to its customers, and can better control reliability and data storage. But while Weebly won’t be directly in control of the servers, they’ll still be pushing regular updates as Weebly proper gets updated.

Weebly CEO David Rusenko says he can’t disclose details of the deal, but that Weebly will make money through a revenue sharing agreement. Endurance customers will be offered Weebly’s premium features, with pricing tiers set by Endurance. Customers will pay through their Endurance accounts, and Weebly will take a portion of the proceeds. The tool itself will look identical to Weebly.com, but will be accessed through an option in the hosting provider’s control panel.

This is a win for both Weebly and Endurance users. Anyone who has recently used a web hosting provider knows that the page building options almost always leave a lot to be desired — sure, you may be able to install WordPress using an automated script, but for building a custom website your options are extremely limited. These integrataed tools typically leave you with something that looks like it was designed in 1999. Weebly is a big step up from these outdated tools, allowing users to build custom sites that can include everything from blogs and rich media to Ecommerce.

Rusenko says Weebly is in talks with other hosting providers to launch similar integrations, so it’s likely we’ll be hearing related news in the near future. He also notes that Weebly recently passed 3 million users.

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FunMail’s Picture Messaging App Launches On Android

Posted: 26 Jan 2010 09:50 AM PST

FunMobility’s picture messaging app for the iPhone, called FunMail, has a seen a fair amount of traction, with 100,000 downloads since its launch in November. Today, the developers are rolling out a similar app for Android phones. You can access the app here.

Similar to the iPhone app, FunMail for Android allows users blasts their text into the application, which then breaks down whatever the user typed for context. FunMail's learning technology "Media Brain” will return a handful of context-related graphics (pulled from Creative Commons sources and their own user-generated library), with your original text. The user picks the graphic they want, and off it goes via SMS, Facebook, or Twitter. In addition, FunMail leverage's Google's voice-recognition and transcription technology, enabling consumers to turn spoken messages into images that can be shared.

The service is free to the users but FunMail plans to monetize via partnerships (though its unclear what those partnerships will be). Considering the decent amount of downloads of the iPhone app, the Android app could be popular. And the app’s ability to leverage the phone’s transcription and voice-recognition technologies makes FunMail even more compelling. The iPhone app, which you can download here, has also received an upgrade, with new content and performance enhancements.

Bill Gates Busts a Move At Sundance

Posted: 26 Jan 2010 09:32 AM PST

GuestofaGuest found some pix of Bill Gates rocking out at Robert Redford's party at Sundance. Curious as to what he was dancing to, we ran "ENHANCE" in Windows 7 and were able to pull the audio by sensing the vibrations in each person's hair as well as a reflection of someone's Zune in the blond woman's right eye. Then, by using Windows Movie Maker we grabbed all of the images and interpolated them into one video and then pulled the audio from the metadata. The result? Bill Gates busting a move. Click through for video.


Frequent Flyers Rejoice: TripTracker Automagically Brings Your Travel Details to Your iPhone

Posted: 26 Jan 2010 09:19 AM PST

Pageonce has quietly built a solid business by aggregating its user's various online accounts into one place. They've got over 1.3 million registered users and recently raised a $6.5 million Series B round. And though Pageonce hardly gets neither the fame nor the fortune of its competitor (Mint), it is still a very solid way to manage your online accounts. Unlike Mint, which focuses on personal finances, Pageonce's goal is to provide you with a one-stop view of all of your online accounts, including financial, travel, e-mail and social networking. Though a single web interface for all of those accounts may be unnecessary, it is a perfect service for mobile devices. Specifically, the Pageonce iPhone App - "Personal Assistant" - is done extremely well, and I still use it to this day. It blows Mint's iPhone App out of the water. Today, Pageonce launches TripTracker [iTunes Link]. This is a free iPhone App ($1 removes the ads) that enables you to keep track of all of our trip itineraries - hotels and flights specifically - on the go.


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