Wednesday, February 24, 2010

The Latest from TechCrunch

The Latest from TechCrunch

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Google App Engine Sputters

Posted: 24 Feb 2010 09:30 AM PST


We’ve been getting a number of tips about the Google App Engine API being down hard, causing a good number of third-party services who depend on it to fail or be downright inaccessible. A quick check on API-status, which tracks that sort of thing, confirmed the service disruption.

The outage was also confirmed by the App Engine team in a Google Groups discussion, making it clear this wasn’t a scheduled event:

Since 7:53am PST, App Engine has been experiencing an unexpected outage affecting the majority of App Engine applications. The team is working quickly to correct the cause and will have an ETA on the fix shortly. Please watch this thread for updates. We sincerely apologies for the inconvenience.

This isn’t the first time this has happened – in July 2009 the platform went down for some 6 hours. We’ll update when it comes back up this time.

(Thanks to everyone who sent this in)

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Grogger: A New Platform That Lets You Crowdsource Your Blog’s Content

Posted: 24 Feb 2010 09:29 AM PST


Looking at blogs and news sites across the web, it’s clear that many have robust communities with eager, intelligent people looking to contribute. But up until recently, the only way most sites (particularly blogs) allow users to share their thoughts is through comments, which work well enough, but certainly aren’t always perfect. Grogger is a new service that looks to help sites tap into this community knowledge, allowing you to build a site that includes posts written by both you and your audience.

At its core, Grogger is an easy-to-use blogging platform, but rather than only exposing its editing tools to a handful of site administrators, they’re shown to everyone. When a user comes to your Grogger site and writes an entry (called a Grog), you can have it directly posted to your blog, or added to a moderation queue, where your site administrators can approve it. Once an entry has been approved, other users can vote it up using a ‘Like’ system, and administrators can ‘feature’ it to make it even more prominent. And while readers are free to contribute their own Grogs, they can also leave old-school comments under posts by other writers.

Grogger tracks each user’s profile over time, allowing you to quickly look up all of their previous posts. You can also elect to only follow certain writers if you want to tweak your reading experience (and Grogs can be broken up into categories). Frequent contributors are rewarded through a badge system. The site has only one theme available at this point, but more are coming in the near future, and you can manually edit the CSS if you want to get creative.

Grogger is still pretty early on (I ran into a few bugs, and some of the UI isn’t that intuitive), but it’s got potential. The site is now open to the public and is free, with plans to eventually roll out some premium options.


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Yelp Hit With Class Action Lawsuit For Running An “Extortion Scheme”

Posted: 24 Feb 2010 09:01 AM PST


Two law firms, Beck & Lee from Miami and The Weston Firm in San Diego, have filed a class action lawsuit in Los Angeles federal court alleging unfair business practices by local business review and rating website operator Yelp.

The plaintiff in the suit, a veterinary hospital in Long Beach, CA, is said to have requested that Yelp remove a negative review from the website, which was allegedly refused by the San Francisco startup, after which its sales representatives repeatedly contacted the hospital demanding payments of roughly $300 per month in exchange for hiding or deleting the review.

Sounds familiar, you say?

You may be thinking of last year, when East Bay Express ran an explosive story, basically accusing Yelp of being in the ‘Business of Extortion 2.0′, which covered similar ground. Shortly after reporter Kathleen Richards published the article, Yelp vehemently denied everything and called her piece inaccurate.

Now, the company will have to defend itself in court rather than on its company blog.

The lawsuit essentially alleges that the heavily funded startup runs an “extortion scheme” and has “unscrupulous sales practices” in place to generate revenue, in which the company's employees call businesses demanding monthly payments in the guise of advertising contracts, in exchange for removing or modifying negative reviews.

The case, which is styled Cats and Dogs Animal Hospital Inc. v. Yelp Inc., was filed on February 23, 2010, and is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. We have an e-mail in with Yelp and are awaiting a response.

Update: a Yelp representative commented as follows:

Yelp provides a valuable service to millions of consumers and businesses, based on trusted content. This is evidenced by advertisers and non-advertisers, who each have negative and positive reviews. While we haven’t seen the suit yet, anyone can file one, and since the allegations are false we will dispute them aggressively.”

The class action lawsuit comes mere weeks after Yelp took a large investment from Elevation Partners, and months after we reported the company walked away from a $550 million Google acquisition deal.

(Image via Gawker)

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Guiltvault: A brilliant business idea that I’m giving away

Posted: 24 Feb 2010 09:00 AM PST


Every entrepreneur is familiar with the moment. The moment when you stumble across an annoying problem – a problem that you’d pay money to solve – and suddenly a synapse fires in your brain.

“Holy crap, if I’d pay money to solve this, so would other people. There’s a business here!”.

It’s the moment that has kick started a million businesses and generated billions of dollars over the decades. And on Sunday evening, not for the first time in what I laughingly call my career, I experienced it.

I’d filed my TechCrunch column earlier in the day and with little else planned, I decided to relax by watching some old episodes of Jonathan Creek: the BBC comedy drama about a magician’s assistant who solves seemingly impossible crimes. The show ran for four series in the UK between 1997 – 2004 and, I think, was also shown on BBC America. I’ve looked for the DVDs over here but I can’t find them, nor can I find a legal way to view them online. Like the petty criminal that I am, then, I headed to YouTube. Sure enough all four series were there, as was a recent one-off reunion special.

As I worked my way through the entire back catalogue, I remembered just how great a show Jonathan Creek is. David Renwick’s scripts are brilliant – apparently each one took him several months to write, thanks to the intricacies of the puzzles each episode contains. The show is so good in fact, that I started to feel guilty: I know that Renwick isn’t going to receive a single penny of residual payment from my YouTube viewing. If only there was some way to contact him, tell him how much I enjoy the show, and offer to send him some money for the lost DVD sale. (Note: it’s not the BBC I care about losing money – they can afford it – but Renwick himself.)

And then I realised that I’m not alone in having this desire, or alone in wanting to pay money to solve it. In fact several times recently I’ve found myself on the other side of the equation. Back in December, I decided to give away the US ebook edition of my last book for free, online. My reason for doing so are outlined here – basically it wasn’t widely available in the US and I wanted people here to read it so they might buy my next one.

Since then I’ve had several dozen emails, tweets and other digital notes from people who have read the book for free, asking if there’s any way they can retroactively pay me some money to say thank you. No, really. Most asked for my Paypal details, or a way to send a check for the ebook cover price of $9.99. Others offered to buy me $9.99  worth of beer at events they knew I’d be attending; an offer which would have been much more enticing had I not given up drinking last October.

And that’s when I had the moment. I want to pay David Renwick for work of his that I’ve already enjoyed, but I can’t. People want to pay me for work of mine, but – expect through some tortuous email exchange, which resulted in me turning down the dozens of offers of money because it seemed somehow weird – they can’t.

I thought of putting a note on my site suggesting that people donate to charity instead, but I couldn’t figure out the best way to implement that, or to thank/reward the people who did. Equally, there’s no way of me finding out what Renwick would like me to do to reward him – send him a check? Donate to charity? Buy something from his Amazon wishlist? Does he even have one?

Of course, I’m not the first person to realise that there’s a need for content creators to be rewarded for stuff that is consumed for free online. Peter Sunde, the founder of Pirate Bay, recently announced the launch of Flattr, his micropayment service that allows creators to be paid tiny amounts of money for their work.

Subscribers pay $5 a month, which is then divided up equally between all of the Flattr-enabled sites that the user wants to reward during that period. Setting aside the irony that the guy behind Pirate Bay is now claiming that creating content should be rewarded ( “People love things and they want to pay” he told the BBC, with a straight face), the fact remains that Flattr is a terrible idea.

Dividing your monthly subscription equally amongst all of the sites you enjoy means that the more you use the service, the less each site gets. And given that all of these services have a minimum pay-out (usually between $50-$100), it will be a long time before most creators will see any real reward. Also, the service puts all of the effort in the wrong place. I’m simply not going to sign up for $5 a month in the hope that the creators I enjoy will all use Flattr. There are a whole load of competitors: Sprinklepenny, Kachingle et al…I’d have to sign up to them all to cover all my bases.

For me, as someone who straddles both sides of the creator/audience fence, the idea of micropayments as a way to reward creators is a non-starter, mainly because it fundamentally misunderstands the psychology of why we want to reward creators.

Sure, part of the reason I want to pay David Renwick is guilt – a desire to do the right thing. But even that guilt has selfish motivations: if Renwick isn’t properly rewarded for creating something that gives me so much pleasure, I’m worried that he might be discouraged from continuing. I want to encourage him to carry on writing, so I can carry on enjoying.

Much more powerful is the fanboy motivation. Within all fans, there’s a subconscious desire for the artists they admire to be aware of that admiration. That’s why people send fan letters – not because they’re expecting a reply, although that’s a nice bonus – but rather for the fantasy that the artist will read it. We want a connection with our heroes. Allied to that desire to be noticed, is the desire for our peers to appreciate our generosity. There’s a reason why charity donation sites usually display the names of donors, and the amounts they’ve donated.  It’s an ego thing – if I see that my peers have donated an average of $10, I want to donate $20 to prove I’m more generous – and it drives the average donation upwards.

Giving 1c, or even $1, as part of a regular monthly split through services like Flattr does nothing to satisfy any of those desires. Splitting a regular monthly payment between dozens of creators doesn’t allow me to form a connection with any one of them. Such tiny amounts won’t encourage them to keep creating, nor will they allow me to show off my generosity to my peers. And of course, the chances of my favourite creator being registered with Flattr or any other single payment service is close to nil.

For all of those reasons, micropayment services are a non starter. An embarrassment, even.

Instead what someone needs to build is a macropayment service. A way to make a one-off payment to a specific creator to thank them for their entire body of work. If you insist on using a ‘micro’ word, then the correct one is ‘micropatronage’: an affordable version of the age-old practice of wealthy patrons supporting artists in substantive, public ways – ways that stroke the patron’s ego and/or guarantee their place in heaven.

Specifically, I’d love to see a service that allows me to reward David Renwick – or any other writer, journalist, artist, singer, filmmaker, or content creator – for his entire body of work. The value of the reward might be $5, or $10 or, if I’m wealthy, $100 or even $1000. The important thing is that I get to send the reward directly to the creator, and I get to show off that I’ve done so.

Here in specific terms are the four things the service should allow me to do…

  • Make a ‘payment’ in whatever form suits the creator: through a Paypal transaction, by buying something from their Amazon wishlist, by donating to their favourite charity – even by paying off their bar tab at their local pub. It’s up to them. The more creative the better, actually. I’d love the idea of rewarding a starving artist through Pizza Hut gift certificates, if that’s what they want.
  • Display the payment publicly. I want to Tweet that I’ve made the payment, or add it to Blippy – or whatever. But more importantly, I want my payment to appear on the artist’s website, along with my name. That way, I feel like my fan-dom is being acknowledged both by the artist and by other fans. What would be super cool would be if the artist figured out some other way to reach out to fans who support them: maybe people who donate over a certain amount get a DVD/signed book/print/whatever. But, again, that’s up to them.
  • Allow me to reward the artist directly. No bullshit 10% commissions like Flattr charges. I’m a fan of David Renwick, so it’s him who should get the money, not the dude who created Pirate Bay – he’s made more than enough hay from other people’s creativity.
  • Reward artists who aren’t signed up to the service. This is the big one. For a system to work, users have to be able to use it to reward anyone. That’s one of the things that made Paypal so successful. All you need to do to pay someone using Paypal is to enter their email address. If they don’t have a Paypal account, they receive an email inviting them to sign up to receive the money – which of course, due to the financial incentive – they do. This service should be the same. If the artist I want to reward isn’t registered on the service, I should be able to enter their email address and have the service contact them, asking them to choose how they’d like to be rewarded. When they’ve done that, I get an automated email with a payment link and am able to send the reward via whatever method they’ve chosen. Obviously once they’re signed up, future payments can be processed straight away. And if I don’t know the email address for a particular creator? No problem – I can enter their publisher, record label, newspaper or whoever else distributes their work and the site will figure out the correct contact email. Publishers forward mail to their authors all the time.

…and that’s it. As a ‘consumer’ (urk) of content, I want that service to exist so that I can start rewarding people using it. As a writer, I want that service to exist so that I can add myself to it and display a little logo on my site that links to my listing. That way, next time someone feels the urge to reward me, they can do so without having to ask first.

So what to do with this idea? If I were an entrepreneur, the answer to that would be simple. I’d figure out the specifics of how such a service might work, and then I’d build it. Or at least hire someone to build it. I’d set up a company either raise some seed money or boot-strap the thing myself. I’d do market research and figure out business models and all that stuff. I’d probably give it a name like Guiltvault or Micropatron (both gone). Maybe it would work, maybe it wouldn’t. That’s the fun of being an entrepreneur.

But I’m not an entrepreneur. Moreover, I’ve been one – several times – and I’ve sworn never to go back to that world. Also, there’s a part of me that thinks this idea could work best as a non-profit. Or even perhaps as a kind of open standard thing. Certainly with all the rewards going directly to the creators, no one else is going to get rich out of it – which might actually be the secret to getting publishers, agents and trade bodies on board with it.

So instead of drawing up an NDA and building a business, I’ve decided to do the opposite: to release the idea into the wild in the in the hope that someone – or some group of people – might want to run with it. For once, I’m actually encouraging the wisdom of TechCrunch commenters: I’m curious to know how you see the idea working, or why you see it failing. And if anyone with a history of making things actually happen feels like having a crack at building this, then you have my blessing. I’d be delighted to track your progress here on TechCrunch.

For my part, I’ve vowed to stay out of business – and it’s a vow I plan on sticking to. But if I can be of any help connecting people or throwing ideas into the ring, then give me a shout. Either way, I’ll be the first author to sign up to use it.

And, hell, if you make a billion dollars from the idea, at least you’ll know how to reward me for my contribution.


Google Buzz Boosts Sharing On Google Reader By 35 Percent

Posted: 24 Feb 2010 08:35 AM PST


Social sharing is becoming a big contributor to traffic for many sites. While Facebook and Twitter drive more sharing than any other services, Google is trying to compete with Buzz, which is now part of Gmail but shares links to article and blog posts through Google Reader. Over the past month, according to AddThis, sharing through Google Reader is up 35 percent, with a big jump on February 9, the day Buzz launched.  This number only measures sharing through the AddThis button, which is on more than 600,000 Websites and gives you the option to share content through more than 200 services. So it is only a proxy for total sharing on Google Reader, but a decent one.

Google Reader still barely registers when compared to Twitter and Facebook, which account for 31 percent and 8 percent of all sharing via AddThis, respectively.  But Buzz is definitely giving it a boost.

You can now chart how different services do against each other on the sharing front via a new services directory on AddThis. For instance, Google Bookmarks does much better than Google Reader, with 5 percent of all AddThis activity.  It even beats Digg (which has 3 percent).  Google Bookmarks is probably used more for personal bookmarking than for social consumption, but it is smack in the middle of Twitter and Digg when it comes to activity via AddThis.

Another comparison is Tumblr versus Posterous, which suggests that Tumblr  is much more popular as a reposting tool, and is about neck-and-neck with WordPress.

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Future iPads To Have Front-facing Cameras, Flash (Bulbs, Not Software)

Posted: 24 Feb 2010 07:31 AM PST

What the deuce? It seems that the new iPad SDK 3.2 Beta 3 has some very interesting bits of code and UI components that point to a front facing camera - a boolean called hasFrontCamera - and a boolean for a flash LED (not Adobe Flash) called hasFlash. There are also two buttons in the interface for accepting and declining video chats. Now remember: the iPad has a little spot for a front-facing camera in it already but all signs point to the fact that it won't be implemented in this first version. Unless there's some amazing October surprise that pops up when they ship final hardware, don't expect to be comm-screening with J.F. Sebastian using your futuristic videophone this time around.


Oh No. MuzuTV Launches Music Video Jukebox At Same Time As YouTube

Posted: 24 Feb 2010 07:25 AM PST


It’s the type of scenario that keeps even the most seasoned entrepreneurs up at night. Your startup toils away for months on a new product or feature and – boom – a giant like Google comes along and walks all over it.

That appears to be the case for Dublin-based music video site, Muzu TV (see previous TCEU coverage), which today launched its new music video jukebox feature. A sort of Spotify-for-video, it’s not too dissimilar from Google-owned YouTube’s recent disco beta or ‘Music Discovery Project and Playlist Creation Tool’ to give it its full name.

CA Continues Shopping Spree; Acquires 3Tera To Boost Presence In The Cloud

Posted: 24 Feb 2010 06:34 AM PST



IT software giant CA is acquiring cloud computing startup 3Tera. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. 3Tera’s product, AppLogic, helps enterprises build and deploy cloud-bases applications both to public and private clouds.

CA is opening up the purse strings to boost its presence in the cloud. The company recently acquired Cassatt, NetQoS and Oblicore. 3Tera allows companies to provision, deploy and scale public and private cloud computing environments. 3Tera also makes it easy for service providers to offer application stacks on demand. 3Tera’s client base includes 80 enterprises and service providers globally, which use the cloud computing technology to provide services to users

CA plans to integrate 3Tera’s AppLogic into its own suite of offerings. CA also plans to extend support of 3Tera to include both VMware ESX and Microsoft Hyper-V(TM).

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ChaCha Gets Into The Local Business Listings Game

Posted: 24 Feb 2010 06:25 AM PST


Mobile question and answer startup ChaCha is on a roll, possibly achieving profitability, raising boatloads of money, and even venturing into social media with a Facebook app. Today, ChaCha is getting into the business listings game with local business search company Localeze. Localeze will provide ChaCha’s website with in-depth information about more than 15 million businesses across the country.

ChaCha.com visitors can access the local business listings in a search bar and through a direct listings page. In both cases, they will be served a full content page that includes Google maps, directions, phone, and other contact information. And of course, any questions and answers related to the business can be found on the content pages. Business listings can also be viewed by category and or state and city. Eventually, ChaCha’s listings will be integrated with its chachacoupons.com site.

The local business listings feature makes sense, as ChaCha realizes the importance of local content for both its mobile application and website. Localeze also helps power local business listings for Microsoft Bing’s Bing Local and Bing 411. ChaCha also recently rolled out its API, allowing developers to tap into the startup’s database with of questions and answers. ChaCha’s recently launched Facebook App allows individuals pose a question to any friends within their social network and ChaCha.com. ChaCha returns an answer from its database of hundreds of millions of answers. Users can also select "add to profile" to get a permanent “Ask ChaCha” prompt on their profile pages.

Launched in 2007, ChaCha started as a human powered search engine – meaning a human found you answers when you typed in a query. ChaCha encountered the high cost of hiring humans to basically do Google searches and return results to people but then evolved into a mobile version of the service that lets users ask questions via SMS. The site also archives questions and answers on their website, with 500 million of them currently listed on the ChaCha site. ChaCha is answering one million questions a day via SMS, passing Google as the no. 1 SMS search service according to Nielsen Mobile.

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HyTrust Raises $10.5 Million To Help Companies Virtualize Systems

Posted: 24 Feb 2010 06:09 AM PST


HyTrust, which helps companies manage and control virtual infrastructure, has secured $10.5 million in Series B funding from Granite Ventures and Cisco Systems. Existing investors Trident Capital and Epic Ventures also participated in the round. The latest round of funding brings the HyTrust’s total funding to $16 million.

HyTrust says it will use the new funding to drive product development and to fuel sales and marketing efforts. HyTrust has developed a policy management system specifically for virtualization, enabling IT departments to control and virtualize servers.

Investment from enterprise giant Cisco is a huge coup for the company that only launched last year. Of course, the investment must indicate that HyTrust’s product will work seamlessly with cisco’s own virtualization business. HyTrust faces competition from Catbird.

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Passlogix: One Authenticator To Rule Them All

Posted: 24 Feb 2010 04:50 AM PST


Passlogix, an enterprise software company focused on simplifying access to company resources, is announcing an authentication product which will allow users to log on to Windows with any type of identification device–including national ID badges, access cards, one-time password tokens, and biometrics. The product, v-GO Universal Authentication Manager, utilizes the customers’ existing infrastructure while also leveraging corporate directories, thus lowering the total cost of ownership from an average of $150 per user to $15.

Passlogix aims to be the last strong authentication product that companies will need to buy as their product can evolve based on their customers’ needs. They hope to achieve this goal by providing an open architecture whereby any device from a multitude of manufacturers can be used for Windows login, rather than forcing a company to choose a singular method which is often times proprietary. By employing this type of architecture, clients are able to move to a new authentication vendor, use physical access devices already being utilized for other purposes, and use multiple types of authentication methods across a company’s network. For example, a company could use pre-existing building access cards (which only allow entrance to those who work in that building) to log in at one branch, while others from the same company, but at a different office, can use a completely different proprietary access card to log in from their location. Similarly, those in the second branch could use an entirely different mode of authentication, such as biometrics, to securely log in. This feature is especially useful for companies who have varying levels of access privileges.

By allowing organizations to use authentication devices which are already deployed, Passlogix removes the need for additional investment in secure Windows logon. Those who use this product will never have to remember their password again, as it is stored on the authentication device. Furthermore, dedicated servers typically needed for secure network access are not needed, which again lowers the total cost of ownership, and brings down any potential scalability barriers.

Strong authentication solutions for Windows are also more secure than the use of a password, which can be compromised in any number of ways, as physical access of the authenticator is needed. If an employee loses, or his means of authentication is stolen, Passlogix can remotely shut off the authenticator, thus blocking access to any files or information on an organization’s network. Additionally, they can report on the use of access of the authenticator to see what, if anything, has been jeopardized.

Passlogix is in a unique situation given that most of their competitors are also those whose products they support. Companies such as HID Global and DigitalPersona provide strong authentication tools which can be integrated into Passlogix’ infrastructure.

v-GO Universal Authentication Manager is priced at $15 per user and carries a yearly 20 percent fee for support and maintenance.

Passlogix was founded in 1996 and has raised approximately $20 million in venture capital. Their latest round of funding was for $11.5 million in 2002 and was led by Hanseatic Americas. The company has sold 21M user licenses of their various products in 140 countries.

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The Horror – Welcome Groupola, Yet Another Groupon Clone

Posted: 24 Feb 2010 04:47 AM PST


A new website launches in the UK today that uses “the power of group-buying to save consumers up to 90% off the best things to do, see, eat and buy.”

Sounds familiar? Yep folks, it’s yet another Groupon clone.

Only this time, Groupola.com is already making claims to be biggest group buying site in the UK. That’s because it’s launching simultaneously in 8 of the largest cities across the UK, including London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff and Edinburgh.

This makes it immediately standout from rivals such as Berlin-based MyCityDeal and Groupon itself, both of which have a UK reach currently limited to London.

KODA Secures Another $1.5 Million For Its Social Jobs Site

Posted: 24 Feb 2010 04:30 AM PST


KODA.us, a social recruitment service for employers to recruit young professionals, has received an additional $1.5 million injection of private angel funding.

Back in August last year it raised $1 million in angel funding on top of an existing $2 million, so it now has, you guessed it, $4.5m in capital.

KODA wants to bring social networking and job recruiting together into one unified service, claiming that it is “more professional than Facebook but more personal than LinkedIn”. The jury is out on whether this market space actually exists.

Job seekers get to broaden their CVs with personal attributes and relevant life experience, with the theory being that employers will get more out of it. On the other side, employers themselves get to portray job openings with more “branding” to get across their corporate culture. Sounds like traditional “advertising” to me.

And it must be said, LinkedIn, XING and other professional social networks seem to be doing just fine at getting peole jobs.

Perhaps we are in the midst of a generational shift in how CVs work? Leave your comments below.

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Can Someone Please Tell This Italian Judge What YouTube Is?

Posted: 24 Feb 2010 04:05 AM PST


Sometimes I despair of Europe, even though I’m proud of what can be achieved here. But really, guys, can we get it together?

At the same time the European Union is investigating a pretty flimsy anti-trust complaint against Google, it’s conspiciously ignoring a case in Italy where three Google executives have been found guilty on a ridiculous charge. Here is the bizarre story.

An Italian court yesterday convicted three (ex) Google executives in a trial over a video showing a teenager being bullied. The Google Italy employees were accused of breaking Italian law by allowing the video of bullying of a teenager with Down’s Syndrome to be posted on YouTube in late 2006.

Despite the fact that Google removed the video within hours of being notified of its existence, Judge Oscar Magi (pictured) absolved the three of defamation but convicted them of privacy violations. The three executives have received a suspended six-month sentence, while a fourth defendant was acquitted.

Google has responded in a justifiably vociferous blog post calling this a “serious threat to the web in Italy”. Frankly they are right.

An Investment Bank That Cares? CODE Advisors Opens For Business

Posted: 24 Feb 2010 02:44 AM PST


Former CEO of CBS Interactive Quincy Smith has joined with CBS Interactive EVP Michael Marquez and music industry veteran dealmaker Fred Davis to launch CODE Advisors, a new Silicon Valley and New York based investment bank.

As with all investment banks, CODE Advisors will look to advise companies on mergers and acquisitions and capital raising, for a fee. But the company also wants to be a long term partner for buyers and sellers, acting as a sort of outsourced business and corporate development group. This is something most banks promise, but few deliver on. Unless you’re a high velocity buyer like Google or Microsoft, in which case you get all the attention you want and more.

And these guys are certainly positioned to do that. Smith, Marquez and Davis are among the most connected people in the media and technology worlds. Smith and Marquez spearheaded the growth of CBS Interactive and its acquisitions of CNET and Last.fm, both of which are seen as successful buys, and both have deep experience in those industries.

Davis, a former music exec, is known for representing just about every online music venture over the last several years. When startups want to do business with labels and the other players in music, they go to Davis.

These guys literally know everybody. And they are also opinionated on which exactly what the world will look like when the old media and new media worlds finally collide. I sat down with the three partners on Tuesday for what I expected to be a 5-minute interview on the launch of CODE Advisors. When we were done, we had well over thirty minutes of footage. The conversation was mostly hovering around the future of online video and online music.

CODE Advisors already has several clients, including CBS, Comcast and Spotify (which was in the news yesterday).

We’ll have a full transcript of the video up later today, but the video is below.

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Only 50% Of Twitter Messages Are In English, Study Says

Posted: 24 Feb 2010 02:35 AM PST


Paris-based Semiocast, which helps brands understand and interact with real-time Web services, has performed a semantic and quantitative study of Twitter based on an analysis of 2.8 million tweets.

Turns out roughly half the tweets posted on the micro-sharing service are in English, down 25% from last year, even though the company is based in the U.S. and has more users and momentum in English-speaking countries than anywhere else on the planet. The analysis further showed that the top 5 languages used on Twitter are English, Japanese, Portuguese, Malay and Spanish.

Semiocast says the study was conducted on messages gathered over a period of 48 hours, from February 8 to February 10, with the sole aim of determining which languages were most often used on Twitter. The messages were processed with the company’s own analysis tools, which it says can identify the language used in short messages for some 41 languages, including Greek, Hebrew, Chinese, Korean, Tamil, etc.

English is still the most used language on Twitter, with 50% of messages, although Semiocast says this is a far cry from the two-third share they registered for English in the first half of 2009. Semiocast also forecasts that its share will grow thinner in the future, as Twitter becomes more internationalized (i.e. becomes available in more languages) and its pervasiveness spreads to Asia and Latin-America.

Japanese comes in second with 14% of messages. This isn’t all too surprising; Twitter has been addressing that market for almost two years now. The third most used language is Portuguese with 9% of all messages, mirroring the success of social networks in Brazil.

The rapid adoption of Twitter in Malaysia and Indonesia, where Twitter has partnerships with two mobile telcos in place, shows in the rankings as well. Malay languages, including Bahasa Malaysia and Bahasa Indonesia, now represent the fourth most used language on Twitter, with 6% of messages. Spanish comes in fifth with 4% of all messages.

The ranks six to eight are occupied by major European languages, namely Italian, Dutch and German, each accounting for about 1% to 2% of total messages. French represents a little less than 1% of total messages.

For your reference: Twitter earlier this week claimed that it was seeing about 50 million tweets per day now, so an analysis of less than 3 million messages measured over two days may not be super representative. Nevertheless, it only takes a peek at Twitter’s public timeline to see that there are lots of people using the service in a language other than English.

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The New Twones: Delicious Meets StumbleUpon For Online Music

Posted: 24 Feb 2010 01:05 AM PST


Twones started life as a FriendFeed-type service that aggregated various music services into a single stream, which we dubbed a social music feed when we first caught wind of it.

Problem was, the startup says, since users generally couldn’t play the music on their site and were constantly being directed to third-party websites and apps for streaming, people never really got that FriendFeed experience that would compel them to come back.

The Dutch company figured they needed to do something else, and the result of their overhauled strategy will be going live in alpha mode this morning. The short version: it’s Delicious-type bookmarking meets StumbleUpon-type discovery for online music.

Update: The company faced a launch delay and didn’t bother to tell us about it. They now expect the service to go live within the next few hours, or tomorrow, or some time this year, I hope. Here’s what I gathered from the demo they gave me last night.

Essentially, Twones will now focus on what it refers to as the “Music Bar”, a browser add-on / bookmarklet that lets users bookmark music that is being streamed on other websites or MP3 blogs and discover music others have bookmarked in a fun way. The Music Bar will debut as a Firefox extension, but Chrome and Internet Explorer versions are near completion, I’m told.

When installed, you can use Twones to bookmark music on thousands of supported websites, manage your virtual collection in a sidebar that looks a lot like Delicious, and share music with others in Twones or on services like Twitter and Facebook. In addition, any music you stream can be scrobbled to Last.fm so you can keep track of it there.

Finally, there’s an ‘Explore’ button that basically lets people jump to any random track that is in Twones’ database – no need to install the Music Bar even for that. This can be a great way to discover new music, but arguably there is a need for some kind of controller that lets you explore tracks within a certain genre, at least.

The problem with Twones is that, since it revolves almost entirely around music that’s being shared online elsewhere, you’re never quite sure if the songs you’re so carefully bookmarking are going to be there tomorrow, because the source could be gone for whatever reason. The startup says it’s working on ways to downsize that issue.

Twones aims to make money from advertising, affiliate revenues, maybe a premium version down the line, and/or as an analytics service for online music sharing (kind of what Bit.ly does for general links today). They haven’t really figured out which path to take right now, but the startup says the $500k seed funding it raised earlier is enough to buy them time to do so, as they are very ‘cost efficient’ in the sense that there’s no need to store a gigantic amount of music on their servers, seal license deals or run a complex content distribution network.

All in all, I could see myself using Twones for sure, but it feels more like a feature than a solid business to me. We’ll see if the next iterations of the service will make me change my mind.


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Citrix Online Acquires Paglo, Enters IT Management With Launch Of GoToManage

Posted: 23 Feb 2010 11:51 PM PST


Citrix Online

Citrix Online has announced the acquisition of Paglo Labs. The deal was completed in early 2010 and no financial terms have been disclosed. Paglo’s entire team has joined Citrix Online; Paglo CEO Brian de Haaff is now senior product director, IT Services for Citrix Online. The deal was announced concurrently with the launch of GoToManage, a new Citrix Online Product based on Paglo’s software.

Citrix Online is a market leader in SaaS web-based technical solutions. Its GoToAssist software allows customers to interact directly with a clients computer, resolving issues remotely. Paglo Labs is a leader in IT Management SaaS. Customers are able to monitor, analyze and manage their devices, networks, server, logs and more.

GoToManage combines the abilities of both platforms. It offers remote surveillance, control and support of IT infrastructure. Citrix plans on leveraging its existing relationships with businesses to enter the SaaS-based IT management market. Brett Caine, general manager of Citrix Online notes:

"As a trusted partner to SMBs, we are well positioned to capitalize on the huge market potential in IT management with our signature and proven 'simpler is better' approach to Web-based services. We're confident that GoToManage will be enthusiastically embraced by our customers and the market at large."

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SugarSync Makes It Simple To Upload Files Via Email; Adds 500 GB Storage Plan

Posted: 23 Feb 2010 08:56 PM PST


Sharpcast's SugarSync,, an application that synchronizes data across desktop computers, laptops, mobile phones, and even televisions, is making it easier for users to backup their data via email. The startup is launching an “Upload by Email” feature that lets users store email attachments in their SugarSync account with the ease of sending an email.

The new feature allows a SugarSync user to sync any email attachment to a dedicated folder in their SugarSync account by simply forwarding it to a special email address. Instantly, the file(s) is available on all synced devices and accounts. For example, if a user receives an email with many attachments, they can simply forward it to their SugarSync email address (comprised of random numbers and letters for spam protection). All attachments will transfer to their SugarSync account.For added security, SugarSync will scan all file attachments for viruses prior to syncing, and certain file types are not accepted (e.g., .exe, .cmd, .bat) to prevent malicious files from landing in an account.

At the moment, SugarSync is supporting 2 petabytes of data from users. SugarSync’s CEO Laura Yecies says that because of the popularity of the product, the company is adding a new power-user storage account that has 500 GB of storage, priced at $39.99 per month. Previously, the highest level of storage available was 250 GB.

SugarSync recently launched a small business friendly offering, which Yecies says is gaining considerable traction. You can read our past reviews of SugarSync here and here. The startup has ramped up its mobile offerings, with supports for Android, iPhone, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile powered phones.

SugarSync faces competition from Windows Live Mesh from Microsoft, Dropbox, Box.net, ZumoDrive and Mozy.

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Longtime MySpace Chief Software Architect Chris Bissell Quits

Posted: 23 Feb 2010 06:37 PM PST


We’ve gotten word of another departure from MySpace in the wake of CEO Owen Van Natta’s firing two weeks ago. The latest to leave is Chris Bissell, MySpace’s Chief Software Architect, who has been with the company for over four years. Bissell was one of the few remaining members of MySpace’s old guard, which has gradually left (or been fired) from the company since the executive shakeup last spring that removed long-time CEO Chris DeWolfe.

Bissell was charged with maintaining MySpace’s backend architecture and ensuring that the site scaled to meet demand. MySpace has confirmed that he is leaving the company.  The news comes on the heels of the departure of SVP of User Experience and Design Kate Geminder and stream architect Monica Keller, who both left within a week of Van Natta’s firing.

These departures aren’t really surprising given yet another executive shakeup at the company (though Bissell didn’t have any clear ties to Van Natta), but MySpace has some serious rebuilding to do. We’re hearing that the company has shelved a total redesign Geminder and her team were working on in favor of a Hail Mary strategy to become a discovery recommendation engine.

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Yahoo Strikes A Twitter Deal, Tweets About It Early To Screw Those Who Agreed To Embargo

Posted: 23 Feb 2010 05:49 PM PST


For the past two days, Yahoo has been trying to get me to agree to an embargo on some piece of news they had for tonight. As you probably know, we hate embargoes, so I wasn’t about to accept it. Good thing. Not only did the news leak out almost 5 hours early, but actually, Yahoo itself was giving people hints on Twitter all day, and encouraging people to take guesses to break the embargo on Twitter. And yes, the news is a deal with Twitter.

So first, the news: Yahoo and Twitter have reached an agreement to share data between their properties. That’s great. Yahoo is only a few months behind Google and Microsoft (Bing) doing the same thing. And really, I’m not entirely sure why some kind of special deal was needed. For search, Bing is about to take over the data aspect for Yahoo, and that will very likely include the Twitter data. Meanwhile, Yahoo’s frontend elements and services already include Twitter integration, including Flickr. Plus, isn’t Facebook Connect handling all the social stuff for Yahoo soon anyway?

Well, I’ll wait for the press release coming in 4 hours for more details about that (see below).

The more amusing angle to me is not only the embargo break, but the fact that Yahoo is so starved for attention, they’re resorting to playing games with their Twitter followers to make them guess embargoed news. Here are the first four of five clues that Yahoo tweeted out today:

  • Clue #1/5: Who has approx 29,000 followers as of this morning? #ybignews
  • Clue #2/5: What kind of “moon” had teen moviegoers swooning last fall? #ybignews
  • Clue #3/5: Who might you greet with a friendly "howdy"? #ybignews (use hashtag for previous clues)
  • Clue #4/5:What’s both a sugar substitute & a mathematical symbol? #ybignews (use hashtag for previous clues-forms a phrase)

Our own Jason Kincaid is a master of reading these clues (and apparently knows something about the Twilight saga). Here are the answers:

  • 1: Yahoo
  • 2: New
  • 3: Partner
  • 4: Equal

And, of course, 5, which hasn’t been released yet, will equal “Twitter” in some way. And those quick enough on the uptake could probably figure out that since Yahoo was using Twitter to hint this new deal, the partner is in fact, Twitter.

Oh, Yahoo, thankfully you have MySpace to make you look not-so-bad by comparison (cycling team and all). As for Twitter, this is likely another solid revenue stream for the hot startup that now has the money-making engines going (with more coming soon).

And here’s the full release for those interested in the actual news:

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Feb. 23, 2010 – As part of its ongoing commitment to be the center of people's online lives, Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) today announced a global partnership with Twitter to integrate Twitter's real-time social experiences with more than 600 million people in Yahoo!'s global network. The integration is part of Yahoo!'s commitment to provide personally relevant information to people, from sources across the Web.

A little bird told me: @yahoo is the place to tweet and be tweeted

This partnership includes three primary elements:

  1. People will be able to access their personal Twitter feeds across Yahoo!'s many products and properties, including the homepage, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Sports, and others, letting them check in more easily on what's happening with the people and things they care about while on Yahoo!.
  2. People will be able to update their Twitter status and share content from Yahoo! in their Twitter stream, so they can easily share their Yahoo! experiences with their friends and followers on Twitter.
  3. Yahoo! Search and Yahoo! media properties like News, Finance, Entertainment, and Sports will include real-time public Twitter updates across a variety of topics. Yahoo! Search users will immediately see real-time Twitter results today; go to Yahoo! and try it out.

Tweet and shout: @yahoo pumps up the social volume

Today's Twitter partnership, along with Yahoo!’s recently announced Facebook relationship, will transform Yahoo! into a highly customizable social experience that lets people bring together and unify their activity from their many social experiences across the Web. Because of these connections, anyone with a Yahoo! ID can update multiple social networks simultaneously and stay in touch with the people and information that matter most at every moment of the day.

"Let me try to capture the enormity of this integration in 140 characters or less: We're turning the key to the online social universe — you will find the most personally relevant experiences through Yahoo!," said Bryan Lamkin, senior vice president, consumer products group, Yahoo!. "We're also simplifying people's lives by bringing their social worlds — and the world —- together for easy access."

Add an exclamation point to your tweets

The Twitter integration also provides full access to the complete Twitter public data stream, which Yahoo! will use to improve the relevance and freshness of content across Yahoo! properties. This will drive deeper user engagement, and create new and compelling opportunities for developers, advertisers, and publishers.

“The information in one single tweet can travel light-years farther with this Yahoo! integration.” said Twitter cofounder, Biz Stone. “Tweets in more places brings relevance where and when you need it most.”

The real-time Search integration is available immediately. Other parts of the integration are expected to launch later this year.
About Yahoo!

Yahoo! attracts hundreds of millions of users every month through its innovative technology and engaging content and services, making it one of the most trafficked Internet destinations and a world-class online media company. Yahoo!’s vision is to be the center of people’s online lives by delivering personally relevant, meaningful Internet experiences. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. For more information, visit pressroom.yahoo.com or the company’s blog, Yodel Anecdotal (yodel.yahoo.com).

Yahoo! is the trademark and/or registered trademark of Yahoo! Inc.

All other names are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.


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EU Opens Antitrust Investigation Into Google. Microsoft’s Fingerprints Are Everywhere.

Posted: 23 Feb 2010 04:50 PM PST


The European Union has opened an antitrust investigation into Google to look into claims made by three European-based Internet companies. Not surprisingly, this key part of the investigation is said to be about search, which is dominated by Google is most of the EU markets. The Telegraph and WSJ have more details.

It’s important to note that this probe is just a preliminary one, and nothing may come of it. But at least three companies have filed complaints against Google — and notably, one of them is owned by Microsoft. And another one is a member of a group that is partially funded by Microsoft.

This is, of course, quite interesting since Microsoft has famously been involved in antitrust investigations for over a decade now in Europe (and previously, of course, the U.S. too). In fact, this whole browser ballot thing is a result of the ongoing EU attempt to make sure Microsoft is playing fairly.

Ciao (which is now called Ciao Bing) is the Microsoft-owned German shopping site making one of the complaints. Microsoft purchased them in 2008 for nearly $500 million. The others are Foundem, a UK-based shopping site, and EJustice.fr, a French site that does legal search inquiries. All three are claiming that Google’s search dominance is hurting their businesses. And Foundem is claiming that Google has placed a “search penalty” on its site, which has crippled it.

Something else interesting, as The Telegraph notes, “Foundem is a member of ICOMP, an internet pressure group which receives funding from Microsoft.”

This could get ugly.

Update: Here’s a post on Google’s Public Policy Blog. Not surprisingly, Google makes quick note of both Ciao and Foundem’s ties to Microsoft.

Here’s a few key excerpts:

The European Commission has notified us that it has received complaints from three companies: a UK price comparison site, Foundem, a French legal search engine called ejustice.fr, and Microsoft’s Ciao! from Bing. While we will be providing feedback and additional information on these complaints, we are confident that our business operates in the interests of users and partners, as well as in line with European competition law.

Given that these complaints will generate interest in the media, we wanted to provide some background to them. First, search. Foundem – a member of an organisation called ICOMPwhich is funded partly by Microsoft - argues that our algorithms demote their site in our results because they are a vertical search engine and so a direct competitor to Google. ejustice.fr’s complaint seems to echo these concerns.

And:

We understand how important rankings can be to websites, especially commercial ones, because a higher ranking typically drives higher volumes of traffic. We are also the first to admit that our search is not perfect, but it’s a very hard computer science problem to crack. Imagine having to rank the 272 million possible results for a popular query like the iPod on a 14 by 12 screen computer screen in just a few milliseconds. It’s a challenge we face millions of times each day.

And:

Regarding Ciao!, they were a long-time AdSense partner of Google’s, with whom we always had a good relationship. However, after Microsoft acquired Ciao! in 2008 (renaming it Ciao! from Bing) we started receiving complaints about our standard terms and conditions. They initially took their case to the German competition authority, but it now has been transferred to Brussels.

Though each case raises slightly different issues, the question they ultimately pose is whether Google is doing anything to choke off competition or hurt our users and partners. This is not the case. We always try to listen carefully if someone has a real concern and we work hard to put our users’ interests first and to compete fair and square in the market. We believe our business practices reflect those commitments.

[photo: flickr/fazen]

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Sources: Spotify Takes Investment From Sean Parker At Founders Fund

Posted: 23 Feb 2010 04:05 PM PST


This is has not been confirmed by either party, but we’ve heard from multiple sources that European music startup Spotify has closed a venture investment from Founders Fund. Managing Partner Sean Parker, who was a cofounder of Napster and President of Facebook, led the round for Founders Fund, and we believe he may have take a board of directors seat.

We do not know the size of the investement; however, we believe it may have been a token amount to get Parker’s involvement in the company. The investment was likely done at the same €200 million valuation as the round Spotify raised in late 2009.

This is the first U.S. investor in Spotify, and the service is only available in some European countries. A U.S. launch has been broadly anticipated for months.

We’ve also heard this was a competitive round and a number of U.S. venture funds were interested. Parker, with his ties to Facebook and his experience in early P2P music sharing via Napster, is likely the winner for his strong strategic potential.

In January we reported that Spotify had been in talks with Google over integration with Android for their U.S. launch. When Spotify does launch in the U.S. (assuming it does), we expect them to have a large U.S. partner alongside them. Google, Facebook and Microsoft are all likely to be talking to them, and we wouldn’t be surprised to see one or more of them sign a partnership.

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Omaha Steaks Pays Good Money To Link Their Product To Heart Attacks

Posted: 23 Feb 2010 03:40 PM PST


Proof that the software that matches ads to content still needs a lot of work: Omaha Steaks pays good money to link their product to heart attacks. Free shipping! Thanks to Jon Finegold at Thinking Screen Media for sending this in.

Tim Cook: Apple Is “A Mobile-Device Company”

Posted: 23 Feb 2010 02:56 PM PST


Apple thinks of itself as a mobile device company. In January at the iPad launch event, Steve Jobs noted that “Apple is the largest mobile devices company in the world now.” And responding to a direct question today at a Goldman Sachs conference, liveblogged by the WSJ, COO Tim Cook reiterated: “Yes, you should definitely look at Apple as a mobile-device company.”

Cook also pointed out that the majority of Apple’s revenues now comes from mobile devices (including laptops) or content for those devices. Indeed, if you look at the breakdown of Apple’s fourth quarter revenues of $15.7 billion, nearly $12 billion of that came from portable Macbooks ($2.8 billion), iPods ($3.4 billion) and iPhones $5.6 billion). And another $1.2 billion came from iTunes.

Apple isn’t abandoning computers. It is a mobile device company because computing is going mobile. What about things like Apple TV? “Apple TV is a hobby,” Cook says dismissively, echoing another sentiment Jobs has expressed before. Nevertheless, the company sold 35 percent more Apple TVs last quarter than the year before and continues to invest in the opportunity.

For more on what Cook said today, read the liveblog notes from the WSJ or the Business Insider.


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