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India’s World Startup Report Is Released And The Future Of Technology Looks Bright For The Country
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Drew Olanoff
| 2,013 | 3 | 19 |
Wrapping your brain around technology trends here in the United States, or even just in Silicon Valley, is a chore. Figuring out the trends and who the major players are in an emerging market like India is 10 times as difficult. Bowei Gai, former LinkedIn employee by way of , has done just that under his umbrella. Brad Feld and Dave McClure have been leading the mentor and seed-funding charge in India, as well as the Valley, as of late, and shared some interesting thoughts with us based on what they were able to pull from the report. Feld told us that the online and offline business differences in India are what stood out to him: I wasn’t tuned into the difference between online and offline businesses in India. The friction in offline society has a tremendous impact on any businesses, especially ones outside India, whereas the online world has enormous opportunities that seem unconstrained in the near term due to the extremely low penetration of smartphones when compared to the high penetration of mobile. Here’s the , complete with population information, market opportunity and current players in the country: [slideshare id=17355238&doc=indiastartupreport-130319053055-phpapp01] The idea for the World Startup Report is that one will be done in all major markets that are up-and-comers in the tech space. This is no small task, but if this India report is indicative of the types of information that Gai and his team are mining, then good things are bound to happen. Its mission is to share these documents for free, to empower local startup “activists” to become ambassadors for their region and ecosystem. Once those leaders emerge, then all of the pieces will start coming together for places like India. Gai told me about the experience of gathering all of the information in the report above, which seemed like quite an adventure: It’s been a life changing experience, having the ability to walk into startup’s office and ask any questions about their experience. In the last 3 months, we spoke close to 2,000 young entrepreneurs, well-known successes, angels, VCs and policymakers to get everyone’s perspective on their startup ecosystem. McClure talked to me about what it means to be more global as far as investing goes and why 500 Startups is starting to spend actual time, and money, in India: The benefits and opportunities for getting in early (but not *too* early) in India are tremendous. For only small amounts of capital and resources (say, $1-2m/year?) we can get started now in India, and potentially see impact and returns within just a few years. Particularly seeing the rise of mobile / smartphone business in india, and the Indian middle class growth opportunity over the next 3-5 years is amazing. Yes, mobile is something that you’ll hear about a lot when it comes to emerging markets. In India, mobile devices easily outnumber desktop ones, and all trends are pointing to smartphone adoption setting up booming potential in the country. Today it’s all about feature phones and SMS, but tomorrow, mobile apps will be bigger than desktop software ever was in the country for consumers. It’s not easy to get involved in the startup scene in India without some learning and networking, as McClure explained to me. There’s a great bit of mentoring that will take place over the next few years to fuse all of the engineering talent that exists in India with consumer marketing expertise that hasn’t hit its stride in the country as of yet. This report is a great primer for anyone thinking about taking the long plane ride over to build some amazing things for consumers who are just getting ready for it.
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Study Shows Censorship On Sina Weibo Is A ‘Sophisticated’ And Very Speedy Operation
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Catherine Shu
| 2,013 | 3 | 26 |
Known as the Twitter of China, Sina Weibo is also infamous in the West for the number of high profile users who have had tweets censored, including Kai-fu Lee. The former head of Google China, who was , recently posts have been censored. Computer scientists Jed Crandall and Dan Wallach conducted a study on how quickly censorship on Sina Weibo can work, with findings and originally . The two researchers, who believe their study is the first “real-time analysis of Weibo posts,” say they “found a landscape in which a post could be deleted as quickly as five minutes after being put online and where the censors appear not to work a regular day, but seem to take a break when China’s all-important 19:00 news comes on.” Censors work rapidly: most deletions happened within the first hour after a post had been made, with about five percent of deletions happening within the first eight minutes, and 30 percent in the first half hour. Nearly 90 percent were made within the first 24 hours. Crandall and Wallach spent 30 days tracking posts by 3,500 users on Sina Weibo. During that time, they write, 300 of the accounts, or 12 percent of the total, were deleted. Accounts that got censored the most often also had posts censored the most quickly, showing that they might be the target of more scrutiny. Though they could not estimate the exact number of people dedicated to deleting posts on Sina Weibo, the two computer scientists said that Sina Weibo would need to employ at least 4,000 censors every day if none of the process was automated. Crandall and Wallach called censorship a “sophisticated operation,” with “relatively sophisticated programmers who build their censorship tooling.” Automated systems appear to include keyword alerts for sensitive topics, as well as monitors for certain users who write frequently about controversial issues. Launched in 2010, Sina Weibo has 300 million users, with about 100 million messages sent daily.
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iStockphoto Founder Returns To Stock Photography With Stocksy, A Co-op That Puts Artists (And Quality) Before Profits
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Rip Empson
| 2,013 | 3 | 26 |
With the launch of this week, is officially taking another shot at building a digital stock photography service. His last attempt, , which he founded in 2000, has since become one of the largest resources for stock images, media and design elements on the Web. And, as a result, Livingstone has become known as one of the pioneers of “microstock” or “micropayment” photography. Having learned from the ups and downs of iStockphoto (and its sale to Getty in 2006), Livingstone is now on a mission to put a new spin on the world of stock photography. With Stocksy, the founder wants to create a digital licensing co-op and an online marketplace that is actually owned by its members and is dedicated not only to paying them for sharing their work with the masses, but to helping them sustain their careers. To do that, Stocksy will give its photographers 50 percent of each transaction it sees, along with 100 percent on extended licenses. In addition to that, 90 percent of all profits will be divided among its members at the end of each year. And, what’s more, photographers accepted into the co-op will be given equity in the business and “will have a real say in how the business is operated,” he says. Given how competitive the market for selling digital photos online has become over the years, these are some ambitious goals, to say the least. But it’s also true that Livingstone has a long history with stock photography — especially on the Web — one that dates back to the 1990s. When the graphics company he was working for in the 1990s put the kibosh on his suggestion that they should begin selling online, Livingstone struck out on his own. He built a small collection of stock photography, but struggled to find buyers. Frustrated, he pulled a 180 and opted to give them away instead. In 2000, he founded and launched a site where people could register and download “as many high-res photos as [they wanted] and use everything with a royalty-free license,” . was born. But, again a funny thing happened: People didn’t want Livingstone’s images; instead, photographers and designers wanted to upload their own images to share with the community. The platform started to snowball thanks to its user-generated content and, over the next year as bandwidth expenses became too high, iStockphoto began selling credits — but at a much lower price than competing stock photo sites. Users could get high-res images for a buck and artists got paid a royalty. The site continued to grow from there — to the point where it now has millions of images, members and tens of thousands of contributing artists. In 2006, Livingstone sold to Getty for $50 million, where he stayed on as CEO until being fired in 2009. However, in the years after the acquisition, the microstock and royalty model that Livingstone put in place in the early years was slowly eroded. Over time, Getty changed its format and licensing deals and decided to reduce its high royalty rate, which, points out, . Since then, Getty has struck up a deal with Google that allows Google Drivers to use its photos in their work, paying only a relatively minor one-time fee. Now, with the capital gained from the $50 million sale of iStockphoto, Livingstone has the runway to develop a model that is, in fact, much more favorable for the photographers. Again, , compared to iStockphoto, which gives photographers 15 percent of sales and as much as 45 percent of exclusive sales, and Shutterstock which offers 20 to 30 percent royalties, the share that Stocksy doles should look pretty attractive to photographers. 90 percent of profits divided equally among contributors and shareholders at the end of each year? Hard to beat that. Livingstone says that photographers have continuously sought him out to tell him how tough the industry is and how unfavorable the terms are for artists on most digital photography sites. So, while there are plenty of big names out there, like Shutterstock, the Canadian believes that there’s plenty of demand for the Stocksy model — one that gives photographers and artists a more equitable shake. The model has already attracted people like Sean Locke, who Fast Company says had nearly one million license sales on iStockphoto until the company ended the relationship , he explained on his blog. Locke is now one of 220 photographers on board at Stocksy at launch — photographers who are collectively uploading 1,000 photos each day and selling those images at prices that range from $10 to $100. From that price range, it’s easy to see that Stocksy is making a play at becoming not only a resource for stock photography, but a repository for premium photography. The founder says that you won’t find the traditional, run-of-the-mill images that comprise the bulk of the inventory on most photography sites. Instead, Stocksy will prioritize quality over quantity, screening each image before it goes on the site. Of course, Shutterstock also plans to launch its own premium stock photography site in the near future ( ), so even if Stocksy is seen as being relatively alone in the space for now, it won’t be for long. Stocksy plans to add vector-art illustrations to its catalog at some point in the near future, and may look to video after that, but it likely won’t be soon. The problem is that, while Stocksy may be an incredible deal for photographers, the average person on the Web looking to use photography for their content or website (or whatever the case may be) isn’t looking to pay $100 for a photograph, unless they plan to frame it and hang it on their wall. So you won’t be seeing Stocksy opt for the iStockphoto or Shutterstock model anytime soon, and, naturally, that’s just the way Livingstone wants it. The hope is that, just as consumers are becoming increasingly interested in Fair Trade coffee and how their food is grown, packaged and distributed, for example, and interest has grown in brands like Tom’s that put social good ahead of profits, they’ll be willing to do the same for photography. Stocksy may have a leg up on the bigs in this market by not worrying itself with profits and big quarterly returns, and it certainly has plenty of appeal to photographers. Of course, being able to support the careers of its resident photographers requires enough sales to make that possible. There’s no reason to think it can’t get there over time, but relying on the consumers of stock photography to be as fair-minded as those buying Tom’s Shoes may mean that Stocksy is waiting for a long time. In the meantime, .
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Ooyala Launches Discovery Guide For Personalized Channels, Hook Plugin For Android Mobile Video Viewing
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Ryan Lawler
| 2,013 | 3 | 26 |
Video distribution platform wants to get more people watching more video on more devices. That’s its job, right? Well, ahead of NAB, the company is launching a couple of features that will help do just that. That includes a new discovery engine that its clients can use to extend the amount of time people spend watching their videos. It also includes a plugin for improved video viewing on Android devices and a way to connect with *ahem* connected TVs. The new Ooyala Discovery Guide provides a way for its customers — big media companies with lots of videos — to increase the number of videos that viewers end up watching. The product works with both linear and on-demand video feeds and provides a list of videos that users might want to watch next. Using behavioral data, as well as content metadata, program schedules, and other information, the Discovery Guide offers up a TV-guide-like directory of content to choose from. But it’s done in a way that is probably more enticing for viewers, as each guide is personalized to fit their specific tastes or viewing patterns. Even if users aren’t watching the content immediately, they can save it for later with a new DVR-like feature. In tests with viewers, the discovery guide has shown an increase in engagement of up to 47 percent, according to Ooyala director of engineering Belsasar Lepe. That will hopefully enable its clients to better monetize their videos through advertising. Or at least keep subscribers happier. For that reason, the Discovery Guide will come as an add-on rather than a free feature for Ooyala’s clients. In addition to the launch of its new Discovery Guide, Ooyala is hoping to help increase viewing on Android devices. It’s doing that with the introduction of its Hook video runtime. Hook enables Android users to download a single application from the Google Play store and then enjoy high-quality streaming video directly from within the Chrome web browser. Due to the number of devices and form factors, as well as differing video capabilities throughout the Android ecosystem, providing a single viewing experience across them all wasn’t always possible, especially for media companies that required a certain DRM or copy protections. With Hook, Ooyala can serve up videos with live, adaptive bit rate, DRM and other capabilities across almost all Android phones and tablets. It also provides publishers with advertising and reporting tools. That will allow Ooyala clients to serve up high-quality video directly in their mobile websites without having to develop expensive native applications. Android users typically watch half as much video as their iOS counterparts, but the one-time Ooyala Hook install should hopefully change that. Users can download it themselves from Google Play, or they’ll be prompted to do so when they hit a page that uses it. There’s also that matter of getting videos from mobile devices, tablets, etc. and being able to watch them on the TV. More and more, people are browsing (discovering!) content on their phones and whatnot. But who wants to watch that on a 5-, 6-, or 7-inch screen? No one! So Ooyala is rolling out XTV Connect, a cool little feature that lets users beam content from their little screens to their big screens. The feature uses DLNA technology to connect with a number of supported connected TVs, Blu-ray players, game consoles, and other companion streaming devices. That will give it access to a whole bunch of screens for beaming and viewing. Ooyala is showing off all this — and more! — ahead of the NAB Show in Las Vegas, hoping to from broadcasters and cable networks who wish to make more of their content available online, on mobile devices, and on connected TVs. The company has raised more than $80 million since being founded in 2007, including a big last summer.
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A Leaner, Stronger, More Modest Y Combinator
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Josh Constine
| 2,013 | 3 | 26 |
“This is way better.” That was the prevailing sentiment at today’s Demo Day where 47 fresh startups strutted their stuff for investors. Compared to the 65 demos a year ago and tedious 75 in August, investors told me this tighter Demo Day was more manageable, the quality of the startups was higher, and it felt like the old YC that earned the reputation as tech’s premier incubator. The founders who at Mountain View’s Computer History Museum dug the more exclusive version of YC too. “I thought the class size was pretty perfect” said one co-founder of an ecommerce startup who preferred not to be named. “There was a huge round of applause when they announced [how few applicants were admitted]. Everyone felt so much more special.” Beyond the feeling like they’d won the startup lottery, cutting the class size by a third granted each company more face time with YC’s partners and mentor network. While Demo Day presentations are always meticulously practiced, that guidance may have led the companies to clearer visions of where they were headed. I heard fewer vague ideas where monetization would get hammered out later, and more concrete roadmaps. Amongst the batch were the typical “Airbnb for X” (Flightcar’s airport vehicle rentals) and “Kayak For Y” (SimplyInsured’s health insurance selector). There was as also a bit of deja-vu. Swapbox, which sets up public lockers for package delivery, was nearly identical to the previous YC class’ BufferBox, which got leaving an opportunity for an independent approach. And WeFunder’s equity crowdfunding platform for startups does almost exactly the same thing as YC Summer 2012’s . Great minds think alike, I guess, especially when there are big markets to chase. There were a fair number of “no-brainers”, said investors in attendance, though that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It just means there were plenty of startups tackling offline problems where people: 1. Hate the experience, 2. Spend a lot of money, and 3. There’s little technology being applied. Wevorce wants to smooth out divorces, Zenefits makes doling out employee benefits easier, and Lawdingo connects people to attorneys. These companies are a bit like modern art. “Anyone could make that!” “Yeah, but you didn’t, and they did.” Perhaps there weren’t as many crazy moonshots as years ago. Some investors mused that many of the building blocks of the web have been built, so now founders are addressing more discrete problems. However, it can be very tough to tell the difference between a startup that sounds too simple, and one whose simplicity could turn it into a backbone of the Internet. A handful had the , though. Thalmic’s armband that senses electrical impulses to control apps was downright futuristic. And Watsi’s platform for crowdfunding medical care tugged our heartstrings when it showed a little Nepalese girl whose life it saved. Their success will determine that of YC itself now that . YC has to support itself on exits from its investments from here on out. Time will tell whether the startups that presented today will eventually change the world. But Y Combinator’s willingness to scale back it size shows admirable modesty. Entrepreneurship has grown into a full-fledged fetish these last few years, and YC grew along with it. To buck that trend, raise the bar, and offer more personal attention took handing out some tough rejection letters. But the benefits could be felt in the excited atmosphere. This isn’t a startup factory anymore. Today Graham, Jessica Livingston, Garry Tan, and the other YC partners looked visibly less frazzled than at past Demo Days, like they’d been sleeping at night rather than fielding emails from frantic founders. This time they could sit back in confidence and watch the companies they nurtured make their big debut. And I think the startups made their parents proud.
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Creator Rob Thomas Calls The Veronica Mars Kickstarter Campaign A Guinea Pig For Cult TV Shows
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Anthony Ha
| 2,013 | 3 | 26 |
After the initial success of for a movie based on the TV show (with a goal of $2 million, it has currently raised $3.9 million, and there are still 17 days to go), I had a chance to interview the show’s creator Rob Thomas and his agent Julien Thuan about what’s next for the movie, as well as what the campaign’s success means for other TV shows and films. There’s been some . Thomas said the campaign should make things easier for people who want to do something similar, but they’re “guinea pigs” for just “a specialized subset of projects” — namely, cult TV shows with a fan base that wants to bring them back. “Is destroying the Hollywood business model?” Thomas said. “I don’t think so.” I’m a fan of Thomas’ work, particularly and , both of which were prematurely canceled. When I asked whether Thomas could see himself running a similar campaign for a movie, he replied that he’s still pursuing a “traditional path” on that front. “I will say this about the path that we took [on Veronica Mars] – it is labor intensive,” he said. “It took me a year and a half to get to this point. … To pitch a movie to a studio that buys it is clearly the simpler way.” Thuan told a similar story, saying that Thomas called him up a 18 months ago, reported that he’d heard about crowdfunding, and asked, “Do you think that’s crazy?” Thuan didn’t think it was crazy, and in fact he said the United Talent Agency (where he’s a partner) had been looking for ways to experiment with marrying crowdfunding and “a branded, preexisting property.” Of course, once they actually decided to put pursue the campaign, they had to put a plan together, get people on-board, figure out the prizes and how to fulfill them, and get approvals from the various departments in Warner Bros. (which owns ). As for whether Thomas was nervous about the campaign’s success, he said he was “ridiculously confident” until the night before it launched, when he and star Kristen Bell tweeted at each other with hints about their plans. That didn’t seem to start much discussion, prompting Thomas to wonder, “What if it has just been the same 20 fans talking about it all these years, and I’ve allowed them to talk me into this?” (Thuan compared the experience to taking a “a trust fall” into the arms of the show’s fans.) Naturally, Thomas is relieved that the movie campaign didn’t just reach its goal, but is already exceeding it by a healthy margin. Apparently he outlined the script based on a budget in the $3 to $5 million range, so if he had only raised $2 million, he would have had to cut back. And yes, there’s been some criticism of the campaign, much of it boiling down to the fact that fans are being asked to bankroll a studio movie – the Kickstarter funding is supposed to cover the production budget, while Warner Bros. handles the marketing and distribution. For example, Alyssa Rosenberg at ThinkProgress that she would have been more excited if Thomas was was looking for funding to buy the rights from Warner Bros. “It’s not on the table,” Thomas said when I asked if he’d considered that. However, he said that before he reached the current deal, he had initially proposed a more independent production, where the studio would grant him a one-picture license to make the movie on his own. He also noted that without the Kickstarter campaign, the film would not happen, because Warner Bros. doesn’t normally make movies for this small a budget. (My two cents: A certain amount of skepticism is healthy when it comes to the movie studios, but I’m also part of fan communities that have been asking for years to get opportunities like this to support work that they care about, so it’s hard for me not to get excited. And yes, I did back the campaign.) Finally, I asked Thomas if the movie could lead to sequels. He said he’s trying to have it both ways, writing the script so that it’s a satisfying conclusion to the story, but also leaving the door open for more movies or another TV show: “Spoiler alert: Veronica survives the movie.”
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North Korea Cuts Off 3G Access For Foreign Visitors Just Weeks After Allowing It
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Catherine Shu
| 2,013 | 3 | 26 |
Just weeks after , North Korea has reportedly cut off mobile Internet service for short-term tourists, reports (h/t ), which spotted a notice on Koryo Tours’ . The Beijing-based company, which specializes in arranging tours to North Korea, said: “3G access is no longer available for tourists to the DPRK. Sim cards can still be purchased to make international calls but no internet access is available.” Foreigners visiting North Korea were allowed to get uncensored 3G data for the first time on March 1. Typically banned services like Twitter and Skype were available on the network, which was set up by Koryolink, a joint venture of Egyptian company Orascom Telecom Holding and North Korean state-owned Korea Post and Telecommunications Corporation (KPTC). North Koreans are blocked from accessing the global Web and allowed only a few services, such as MMS messaging and subscriptions to Rodong Sinmun, the state-run newspaper. There’s no word yet on why North Korea decided to cut off 3G access for visitors, but it could be because the government was unnerved by the worldwide interest in tweets, , and other online missives sent by visitors to the highly-secretive country. The news that the DPRK has suspended 3G access for foreigners comes hours after North Korean state media said that the country’s military has ordered rocket and artillery units to to strike bases on the U.S. mainland, Guam, Hawaii, and other targets in the Pacific and South Korea. In response, Seoul said it hadn’t detected any warning signs of an attack, while the Pentagon said that U.S. military bases are ready to respond to “any contigency.” Image from
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Russia’s Growth Leads Yuri Milner Back As Ostrovok Takes $25M From General Catalyst, Accel and Others
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Mike Butcher
| 2,013 | 3 | 26 |
It’s often difficult to discern the mind of Yuri Milner. Despite building his investments out of Russia initially, he hasn’t invested in a startup there for over three years. What’s luring him back? No doubt the enormous growth and potential of the market there. So it’s not a huge surprise that he’s invested in one of Russia’s hottest startups today — hotels booking service , which has pulled in a $25 million Series B round. Ostrovok may now be the best funded startup in Russia. However, putting boots on the ground to build up the hotels inventory – which is really only just coming online in Russia – is a very capital-intensive business. Milner joins lead investor General Catalyst Partners, Frontier Ventures, Accel Partners, and Eric Blachfor, the former CEO of Expedia, as well as high-profile investor Shervin Pishevar, and the former head of UBS Russia, Edward Kaufman. Ostrovok even got $2 million from the founders themselves, they are so confident. Formerly, Founders Fund and Atomico invested $13.6 million in the Series A round two years ago. For context, Internet travel agency Oktogo.ru raised $11 million. Founded in 2010 by former Google and Slide employees Serge Faguet and Kirill Makharinsky, Moscow-based Ostrovok aims to become the Hotels.com / Priceline / Booking.com for Russia. They told me they intend to turn Ostrovok into a “multi-billion dollar company.” Online sales are growing at a clip. Russia has Europe’s largest Internet market, ahead of former leader Germany, with 60 million users and counting. Ostrovok has 1 million unique visitors a month, 25,000 hotels in the database, 200 employees and API partnerships with Yandex, Google, Megafon and Russian airline systems. However, it’s the signal that Yuri Milner’s involvement indicates that is perhaps most interesting. Because many of his investments in Russia – Mail.ru among them – add up to around 70% of the actual page views in Russia, he is in a position to influence where that traffic is directed. Point it vaguely in the direction of a startup like Ostrovok and away, as they say, you go. As Serge Faguet told me: “In most emerging markets, the local players have won the market. Russians love travelling and spending money so it’s a great market.” “Russians spend $60 billion a year on travel and $20 billion on hotels. The online share of that is small, 8% of the total market. In the US the comparable number is 40%. In China it is 30%.” And what of Shervin Pishevar? Will we see Uber come to the streets of Moscow I wonder out loud to Faguet? “I have no idea but I would love it if it did,” he says. Watch this space perhaps.
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Meet Forecast, The Web App That Has Web App Developers Drooling
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Greg Kumparak
| 2,013 | 3 | 26 |
Anyone remember the last time I said “Wow! Look at how pretty this web app is!”? Because I don’t. At least, not before this morning when I saw . Warning before anyone is like “WTF? Why is TechCrunch writing about a weather app? UNSUBSCRIIIIIBE”: Yeah, Forecast is a weather app. But it’s a really, pretty weather app. Brought to you by the same guys who built (which is already one of the prettiest weather apps), Forecast is a rather remarkable demonstration of what web apps — in both mobile and standard form — can do with good scripting and solid design (You can read all about the development of Forecast ) First, check it out in your computer’s browser. Click around a bit. Tap the little Play button beneath the globe. Drag the pin around. Shift through historical weather data in the Time Machine. Your mind blown yet?
Now check it out on your Android phone or iPhone. Play with the amazingly smooth sliding drawers, and the buttery slide-in navigation bar. If your mind still isn’t blown, you’ve never tried to build something like this on the web. Or you have and you’re just way, way too cool for your own good. I figured I was just easily impressed, but just about every code-minded person I follow on the Twitters has raved about Forecast sometime in the past two hours. Even the had nary a negative comment. I kind of wish I didn’t have to add the web app to my homescreen before I was allowed to play with it, but given the way people tend to stumble upon weather apps when they need them and then immediately forget about them once they’re done, it’s a forgivable retention trick. Hell, even people who look at web apps for work are impressed. Here’s our friend Lisa Brewster, who used to fight for better web apps at Palm and now reviews web apps and web app standards for Mozilla’s upcoming Firefox OS: Now THIS is a web app: — Lisa Brewster (@Adora) Bar, set. Welcome to my homescreen, Forecast.
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The New Flipboard Lets You Create Your Own Mobile Magazine, Adds Search, Etsy And More
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Eric Eldon
| 2,013 | 3 | 26 |
TechCrunch is like most other publications founded before 2011 in that our readers have gone mobile way faster than our products have. In 2010, 10 percent of our readers were reading us from mobile devices. With the launch of a mobile-friendly version of our website, as well as an increasing breadth of new native apps and mobile magazine Flipboard, mobile platform readers now represent 35 percent of our total traffic. Which is why we’re particularly excited about ‘s new version coming out tonight. The company is already aggregating our content into a beautiful new format while actually trying to help us develop our mobile business. It provides a solid chunk of our mobile traffic now, and today it has some 50 million total (not monthly unique) visitors. The new version pushes its mission forward in two key ways: universal content search and a way for anyone to create their own “magazine.” Think of the latter feature as a much sexier personalized homepage than iGoogle and its ilk that you can share with the world.
Let’s say you, a TechCrunch reader, want to create your own magazine. You’re mainly visiting us for posts about 3D printing, like about a couple of guys who made a robot hand for a boy born without fingers. Using either a new Flipboard bookmarklet ( ) while browsing the web, or the + button now appearing on any story in Flipboard, you pull the robot hand story into a magazine editor window. You’ll then be presented with options to create a new magazine starting with this article or add it to existing ones. If you choose to make a new magazine, you’ll also be able to enter a name, description and category for it to enable easier distribution. Then, Flipboard adds the article headline, body text, images, and any available audio or video. In this case, you’d get the story image, as well as the YouTube video that Biggs had embedded about the robot hand. The story will appear as the lead in your magazine. Attribution to the original publisher is maintained. Any interactions from your readers, including commenting, retweeting and liking, shows up in the original social network. You can also add as many article links, images, videos and soundtracks as you want, creating a permanent record of all your favorite 3D printing stories. If you want to change the cover image and story of your magazine, you can just tap and hold any item to promote it. This isn’t just about news content, though. Flipboard also has a new partnership with Etsy, which lets you pull in items for sale on the handmade marketplace. This would let you pull in your favorite homey 3D objects from its store for your magazine, like this . A little Pinteresty, sure, but founder Mike McCue tells me that he still thinks the biggest business will be in ads (which includes revenue splits with, in full disclosure, publications like TechCrunch). The affiliate model is intriguing, though, and you can see how it could expand this type of affiliate relationship to other e-commerce sites. Once you have your magazine going, you can share it to Facebook, Twitter and other social services. A new sidebar feature, marked by a red ribbon in the main interface, shows you all your subscriptions, your own magazines, and any notifications from other users interacting with you across the site (including your own magazines). It also shows you curated categories like “News,” “Business” and “By Our Readers” to further help discovery. But the content search part will likely be the biggest cross-promotion driver. There’s now a search box at the top of each page, based on people, topic or hashtag. If you click through it you’ll get a Flipboard-style magazine format of all of your search results, which you can then browse through or add to your own magazines. Stepping back from all the details, my biggest issue with the new version is that it commoditizes great design. Just like a rash of personalized homepage and “daily newspaper” web startups let any user curate anything — usually in meaningless ways —the Flipboard features are certainly going to lead to garbage user creations. The company has thought that through pretty well, though. Popular user magazines will float to the top of the recommended sections. And those of us who create content for a living get some added features — beyond monetization, these include sidebar modules so readers can flip to different sections. These are currently based on RSS feeds, so TechCrunch readers will be able to sort by “Startup,” “Mobile,” “Venture” and other versions of our feed once we get this set up. Overall, Flipboard is already delivering the usage numbers that we hope for from an aggregator. Monetization is starting to kick in as advertisers come to appreciate the superior mobile browsing experience. The features in this new version, meanwhile, should only increase distribution, as readers discover more of our content and think of new ways to remix it to their own tastes. You can get it now in the App Store if you have an Apple device (support for other OSes coming later).
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Amazon Web Services Launches CloudHSM, A Dedicated Hardware Security Appliance For Managing Cryptographic Keys
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Frederic Lardinois
| 2,013 | 3 | 26 |
Amazon just the launch of , a that provides Amazon Web Services users who need to meet corporate, contractual and regulatory compliance requirements for data security a way to do so by using a dedicated Hardware Security Module (the ‘HSM’ in CloudHSM) within the Amazon cloud. Until now, Amazon argues, the only option for many companies that use its cloud services was to store their most sensitive data – or the encryption keys to it – in their own on-premise data centers. This, of course, made it hard for these companies to fully migrate their applications to the cloud. The new service, Amazon , can be used to support “a variety of use cases and applications, such as database encryption, Digital Rights Management (DRM), and Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) including authentication and authorization, document signing, and transaction processing.” The actual appliances are from SafeNet, Inc. The new CloudHSM service uses Amazon’s (VPC) and the appliances are provisioned inside the user’s VPC with an IP address the user specifies. The service, Amazon says, provides businesses with secure key storage and protects these keys with “tamper-resistant HSM appliances that are designed to comply with international (Common Criteria EAL4+) and U.S. Government (NIST FIPS 140-2) regulatory standards for cryptographic modules.” Because the HSMs are located close to the user’s EC2 cloud computing instances, network latency should be very low. All of this, however, doesn’t come cheap. The upfront cost to provision a CloudHSM is $5,000 and the hourly cost are $1.88 per hour, which comes out to $1,373 on average per month. For businesses that need this kind of security, that’s probably a small price to pay, but this is clearly not a service that’s geared toward startups that just want to ensure their encryption keys and data are stored safely. The HSM client software can load balance requests across two or more CloudHSMs, though Amazon notes that it can take “ ” to provision more than two HSMs.
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WordPress.com Has Imported 15M Posts In The Last 30 Days, Remains A Top Safe Haven For Nomad Bloggers
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Drew Olanoff
| 2,013 | 3 | 26 |
Here’s a familiar scenario: You’ve become bored with the current blogging platform you’re on or it decides to after . What do you do with all of your posts? Sure, you could hop from one platform to the other, but you need a safe and trustworthy place to store all of your important thoughts. I spoke with Automattic’s yesterday about the topic, and he gave me some insight on how WordPress.com provides a consistent and simple import process for a lot of the popular publishing platforms out there. And it seems that WordPress, after all these years, is still the place people come to with their content. In the past 30 days alone, 15 million posts have been imported into the platform. The top two services that tend to migrate to WordPress are Blogger and Tumblr, Mullenweg tells me. And then there is Posterous. As soon as Twitter announced Posterous’ shutdown date, the Posterous founders jumped into action with a service called Posthaven, promising to keep it alive forever. The new service has since . However, there has been a spike in Posterous imports to in the last few weeks and 2 million total since WordPress began supporting the platform in July 2010. Mullenweg discussed why WordPress is an important and longstanding platform in the blogosphere and how the freedom is really in your hands. When did you start seeing a lot of activity coming from Posterous? We’ve seen two big spikes: in March 2011 when they de-emphasized blogging to focus on group sharing and events, and in March 2012 when they were acquired by Twitter. The latest spike started in January but wasn’t as big as those first two. As far as importing, what are the other services that you get content brought in from the most? The top two by far are Blogger and Tumblr, with residual amounts from Movable Type and LiveJournal still. In the past 30 days we’ve imported over 15 million posts. Tumblr and Blogger are always the two highest because they’re both good at introducing people to blogging, and in Blogger’s case they get huge promotion and integration from Google, but people quickly run into their limitations and look for a more flexible platform. How many Posterous posts all time have been imported and how many have been imported since the April 30th shutdown date was announced? Just under 2 million posts altogether. I’m not sure exactly when the shutdown was announced, but our stats tracking for Posterous was broken for a few weeks around then so that previous number is likely under-counting. It seems like WordPress becomes the haven for all of this abandoned content. What do you feel that says about your work over the years and staying power? WordPress.com is the only service of its kind that not only lets you export your data, but gives you an open source package you can run on pretty much any web host out there to run your own instance of the software. So the freedom is really in your hands. I’ve always believed that if you make it easy for people to leave, they’re more likely to stay. ———– When you’re looking for a new home for your published content, WordPress is more than likely on your list of places to check out. The fact that it’s then super easy to export that content again means that there’s little to no risk of giving it a shot. For Posterous, once you grab your export file and upload it to WordPress the files and posts come in completely intact: Importing from other services is just as easy: , WordPress’ platform initially launched on May 27, 2003. That’s nearly 10 years of being a solid platform with no signs of slowing down. With each iteration on both the hosted and self-serve side of the house, WordPress remains a top choice. The plus for WordPress is that it is open source and leverages that culture to allow people to make what they want out of the platform, which makes it so that it never goes out of style.
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TechCrunch’s Picks: The Top 7 Startups From Y Combinator’s W13 Demo Day
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Josh Constine
| 2,013 | 3 | 26 |
Y Combinator was than ever this season, and the quality showed on stage. Thirty-three startups presented on the record at the incubator’s Winter 2013 Demo Day today. Picking the most promising ones was no easy task. But after a team huddle and taking input from VCs and founders, TechCrunch has chosen seven startups that have the potential to disrupt big businesses and make the world a better place to live. YC’s head honcho Paul Graham said that he and his partners were about which startups were admitted to the Winter 2013 class. YC sported an this time around, though they still only make of 10 percent of the class. Fourteen of the 47 startups have refused press for now, but you can read about all 33 of the startups that demoed on the record in our write-ups about and . You can also check out our thought piece on a . Congratulations to everyone who presented. But now, on to our favorites. Thalmic Labs has developed a sensor you wear on your forearm designed to detect electrical signals that map to movements in your hands. The device, called the MYO, is a gesture controller that doesn’t require a Kinect-style camera. The limitation with camera-based systems like the Kinect is that you have to perform a limited set of gestures in a fixed space. Thalmic is pitching this as a “once in a generation” shift in human-computer interfaces. It can be used to move through a slide presentation, play games, or control other wireless devices via Bluetooth. When it opened pre-orders in February, people bought 10,000 MYOs at $149 a pop in just two days, which adds up to $1.5 million in sales. You can read more TechCrunch coverage of Thalmic and the MYO and . Watsi is Y Combinator’s first non-profit. (Or, as YC’s Paul Graham joked, it’s the incubator’s first company that’s “intentionally” not-for-profit.) It’s a crowdfunding platform for global health care. Essentially, people can pool funds to pay the medical bills of someone in need. For example, the first patient it helped was a 12-year-old girl in Nepal whose parents couldn’t afford transportation to the country’s capital for surgery. Watsi’s community crowdfunded the project in eight days. The company says that it’s working with 13 medical organizations, and that it funds 17 patients per week on average. And 100 percent of the donations go directly to fund the medical care, with Watsi planning to cover costs several ways, including optional tips. You can read more of . The eBay of designer goods, Lollipuff attempts to take the risk out of buying designer goods online by serving its customers with an authentication layer on luxury items from Chanel, Louboutin, and Herve Leger. That means zero counterfeits, so you can buy luxury items with confidence. Since its soft launch in January, the platform has fulfilled over $45,000 in orders, growing 10x in 3 months. The startup has also seen 13 percent week-over-week user growth in the same amount of time. Founder Fei Deyle came up with the idea after starting a successful blog as a designer authenticator. Deyle brings up the crux of the buying-designer-goods-online problem in one statistic: 75 percent of Herve Leger sold on eBay is fake. “Would you spend $3k on ‘Chanel’?” Eventually she’d like to scale this authentication process by a combination of software and human expertise. “Over half of our users have never used eBay before,” she says, estimating the authentic designer retail market to be at $30 billion. . How do e-commerce shops know which products to sell and how much to sell them for? Semantics3 wants to use big data to answer those questions. Its audacious goal is to index all the products and all the prices on the web in one centralized location. It then sells a data license or API access to e-commerce merchants. This lets them see who else is selling the products they’re selling, how much they’re charging, how their prices are changing, and what products are doing well. And beyond traditional e-commerce, Semantics3 wants to help app developers and other verticals, as well. If it can sell a $12,000 a year license to just the top 1 percent of the 2 million U.S. e-commerce market, it could start earning $240 million a year and help a new wave of commerce entrepreneurs succeed. . Wevorce offers a system for handling divorces that attempts to avoid the pain and cost of going to court. It covers six broad steps — divorce planning, co-parent planning, a parenting agreement, financial mapping, financial agreements, and divorce settlement. Its service is a combination of divorce professionals and online tools. Apparently, the system is working for early customers. The company says that 109 out of 110 Wevorce clients have never gone to court with their divorce cases. Divorce has become an institution of modern culture as people search for fulfillment even if it requires some tough decisions. If Wevorce can smooth the process, we’ll be a happier, better-adjusted society. SimplyInsured wants to make buying health insurance as easy as booking a flight. The company says that the process normally goes through a health insurance broker, and between paper copies, phone calls and faxes, it can take two to three days to get a quote. Plus, it says that thanks to Obamacare’s reduction in commissions, there are 20 million policies that can no longer be served by traditional brokers. With SimplyInsured, you don’t need a broker. You just go online and get side-by-side comparisons of all the major providers. The company has been seeing 60 percent monthly growth in recurring revenue for the past six months. Many people see health insurance as so complicated that they fail to make the best decisions about it, despite it being a huge cost to them or their employer. SimplyInsured could guide people to the most affordable and effective plan so when they get hurt, they’re taken care of. Flightcar is a car-sharing startup that is specifically focused on travel around airports. Car owners drive to the Flightcar location that’s five minutes away from a given airport, drop off their cars and get black car service to their flights. With Flightcar, owners are guaranteed free parking, a free car wash, and curbside pickup and dropoff. In exchange, users authorize Flightcar to rent out their cars out to other travelers while they’re gone. From the rentals side of the business, Flightcar is the cheapest car rental agency at SFO. Launched 10 weeks ago, the startup has seen 450 rentals of over 220 vehicles — since then it’s seeing 10 percent week-on-week growth in revenue, and it’s currently making $12,000 in revenue per week. Seventy-five percent of the cars parked at Flightcar have been rented so far. The founders see the market as a combination of the $11 billion a year rental market and $5 billion a year airport parking market. “A huge opportunity,” they said. Read our earlier coverage of FlightCar .
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Ingrid Lunden
| 2,013 | 3 | 19 | null |
Visual Identity Platform Vizify Launches Out Of Beta, Now Lets You Share Graphics Via Social Media Cards
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Rip Empson
| 2,013 | 3 | 26 |
The Portland-based came out of TechStars’ accelerator in 2011 with the goal of helping everyday people turn their personal data — the stuff that’s fragmented across scores of profiles, networks and websites — into one, unified visual profile. Essentially, piggybacking on the rise of digital portfolio platforms that aim to recast how we use the resume, Vizify wants to help change how we build our identities online. Shortly thereafter, Vizify won support from Tim Draper, Feedburner co-founder Matt Shobe and others to do that. Now, eight months from launch, with 250K users, a partnership with Twitter and a redesigned , the startup is finally emerging from beta today with a new update up its sleeve. (This means no more “invite” code required.) Previously, Vizify has tried to be About.me on steroids, offering users their own personal websites populated by their social data. The sites essentially Hoover data from your Foursquare, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter accounts to create a simple profile and a “unified dossier,” if you will. Coming out of beta today, Vizify is expanding on that experience with “Vizcards,” which are essentially bite-sized infographics about you, designed to be easy to customize and publish on your Vizify profile or social network of choice. Users can showcase their achievements, interests and quirks and help you present yourself personally or professionally online. Again, Vizcards can be added to your bio or published on social media channels as a single graphic. CEO Todd Silverstein says that it’s an easy way for social media uber users down to the experimental novice to show what makes them tick and what matters. The team explains in detail how , but, essentially, users start by choosing a topic that matters to them from Vizify’s library of subjects. For example, take “cups of coffee” (in my case Red Bull), which allows you to share how many cups you’ve had, while enabling you to customize the mood these cups of coffee have inspired, the color and so on. You can then display these cards in a collection on your bio in a cascading, Pinterest-style layout, or on social media. In a way that’s mobile and tablet friendly. “We think the lines between your professional and personal identity online are blurring,” Silverstein tells us. “For instance, our research with hiring managers told us that their biggest pain point was finding a cultural fit. Our vizcard prompts are designed to address that; they showcase your achievements, but also your interests, and quirks.” More on .
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Y Combinator Winter 2013 Demo Day, Batch 2: Meet Lollipuff, Goldbely, And More
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Anthony Ha
| 2,013 | 3 | 26 |
Demo Day, where 47 startups are taking the stage to pitch investors and press, continues to roll along. Here are short descriptions of the second group of presenting companies (the descriptions in the headlines come from the companies themselves). As we mentioned earlier, , and since many of them are presenting on an off-the-record basis, this is the last group that we’ll be able to write about today. You can also check out our picks for the and our thought piece on a . Screenhero is a screen-sharing tool that goes beyond simply showing what’s happening on one screen to let people collaborate together in realtime. With Screenhero, two people can be actively working on the same screen together, distinguished from each other with a uniquely colored mouse pointer. Since the app launched in December, Screenhero says it has seen 76 percent monthly growth — and in March alone its user numbers have tripled, with staffers from Facebook, GitHub, and Salesforce using the tool at work every day. Screenhero’s first goal is to take on WebEx, which it dubs a “dinosaur” in the presentation and collaboration space. The company relates what it has built to YC alum Dropbox, since it’s “one of those products that lots of people want, but you have to get a lot of little things right” in order for it to actually be useful. . Paying with slabs of plastic is an antiquated practice. PayTango wants to let you make purchases with your fingerprint. Its technology converts biometric data into traditional card data so it can integrate with existing point of service hardware. That means with just an additional fingerprint reader any store can quickly get set up with PayTango. In the immediate future, the startup plans to work with gyms, restaurants, and convenience stores. But its founder says “We can replace membership cards, loyalty cards, and even ID cards. This is just the beginning.” While payment cards may be on the way out, PayTango will have to compete with a slew of mobile wallets that are based on your phone. PayTango may need to rely on its strength in security, and focus on businesses where verified identity is critical. That might not be your local quickie mart. . Mobile optimized Strikingly is the website builder for the mobile age. Since its launch seven months ago, over 25,000 websites have been built using its tool and the startup is seeing 40 percent revenue growth. Strikingly’s platform allows users with little or no development background to create a global optimized website in about 30 minutes. The founders are aiming to do for website building what Twitter has done for blogging — simplify it; they use an example of the blind person who easily created their website on Strikingly. “Mobile has reopened the entire website building market,” the founder asserted, viewing their market as the 75 percent of U.S. small businesses, such as event planners, that still don’t have a unique website. . Prizeo is a startup that runs raffles to let fans of brands and celebrities donate to causes and win prizes for their social media influence into actual funding for charitable causes. The company already counts boy band One Direction, Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, and singer Alicia Keys as users of its platform; and at Demo Day, the company announced a partnership with talent agency superpower William Morris Endeavor, which has selected Prizeo to be the preferred digial partner for all its clients. According to Prizeo, it’s not only charities that benefit from celebrity- and brand-oriented philanthropy: Raffles are a great way to collect rich consumer data, making Prizeo a unique way to monetize and expand influence. The potential here is big, the company says — there are tens of thousands of “influencers” with hundreds of millions of fans around the world, and brands have told the company that they are willing to spend some $50,000 per campaign. . Designed to replace fashion magazines, StyleUp delivers daily, personalized fashion advice emails to women. The emails show off an outfit tuned to the recipient’s taste and that day’s weather, and they’re getting a stunning 70 percent open rate. That’s much better than the 14 percent industry average. The fashion magazine market is worth $2 billion but it’s dying out. Some top mags saw a 15 percent to 20 percent drop in newsstand sales last year. Meanwhile Style Up is seeing 20 percent monthly growth. Brands will likely be willing to pay to get in front of StyleUp’s users. While it might not be revolutionary, translating an important offline market to the web and augmenting it with personalization can be an easy route to success. . Ebay of designer goods Lollipuff attempts to take the risk out of buying designer goods online by serving its customers with an authentication layer on luxury items from Chanel, Louboutin, and Herve Leger. Since its soft launch in January, the platform has fulfilled over $45,000 in orders, growing 10x in three months. The startup has also seen 13 percent week-over-week user growth in the same amount of time. Founder Fei Deyle came up with the idea after starting a successful blog as a designer authenticator. Deyle brings up the crux of the buying-designer-goods-online problem in one statistic: 75 percent of Herve Leger sold on eBay is fake: “Would you spend $3k on ‘Chanel’?” Eventually she’d like to scale this authentication process by a combination of software and human expertise. “Over half of our users have never used eBay before,” she says, estimating the authentic designer retail market to be at $30 billion. . Billing itself as “Kickstarter, but only for pre-orders,” Swish says it is filling a gap that is deliberately left open by Kickstarter, which emphatically states on its official website that it is a crowdfunding platform and “not a store.” Swish says that today, individual hardware creators are creating their own sales and pre-order software, since there is no good solution out there — until now. Swish has made a full-service pre-order platform that handles listings, payments, escrow and fulfillments. It seems to be hitting a nerve: Since launching last month, Swish has already become profitable. Going forward, Swish says it aims to be the marketplace on which a new generation of hardware sales will take place. . How do e-commerce shops know which products to sell and how much to sell them for? Semantics3 wants to use big data to answer those questions. Its audacious goal is to index all the products and all the prices on the web in one centralized location. It then sells a data license or API access to e-commerce merchants. This lets them see who else is selling the products they’re selling, how much they’re charging, how their prices are changing, and what products are doing well. And beyond traditional e-commerce, Semantics3 wants to help app developers and other verticals, as well. If it can sell a $12,000 a year license to just the top 1 percent of the 2 million U.S. e-commerce merchants, it could start earning $240 million a year and help a new wave of commerce entrepreneurs succeed. . Medisas is a a software as a service startup that wants to replace the piece of paper (!) that doctors use to transfer information to each other between shifts. Medias founder Gautam Sivakumar brings up a scary statistic that 66 percent of all serious medical errors stem from errors on these notes, resulting in the deaths of 10K people every month. Optimized for web tablet and mobile, Shanharam assert that their SAAS powers a better doctor shift handoff and is a $1 billion market, “Enterprise sales happen fast when people are dying,” he says. He sees the opportunity as much bigger than just the handoff notes, which he calls “the spine of the medical record market.” “We can eventually save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people,” he says. Swapbox is a system of automated kiosks for people to pick up their packages at their convenience by entering in PINs sent to their mobile devices. The aim here is to make it so that people “never miss a delivery” again, a pain that the Swapbox folks say they know too well: In a clever part of their Demo Day pitch, Swapbox’s co-founder said his team was not wearing company logo t-shirts due to a missed UPS delivery. Swapbox, which currently has 18 kiosk locations active in San Francisco and has inked a deal for a 15-kiosk pilot in Houston, claims that they have a leg up on Amazon Lockers (and, presumably, ) because it’s an independent company. “Simply put, Amazon Lockers only work for Amazon,” Swapbox says. “Everybody can use a Swapbox.” Charging $2 per package, Swapbox says that it can quickly scale up to a $150 million annual revenue run rate with 10,000 locations — and that’s just 10 percent of the addressable market. . “We are not simply giving startups dumb money,” says Wefunder’s co-founder. His company is an equity crowdfunding platform that creates rich profiles for startups and lets anyone invest in exchange for owning part of the dream. Or at least it will when the JOBS Act is up and running. Investors can cash out when their startup goes public, gets acquired, or sells stock on the secondary market. Wefunder will have to compete with FundersClub from the last Y Combinator class and other equity crowdfunders. But if the JOBS Act goes into effect as expected, it could make bottom-tier venture capitalists obsolete. That’s because like top-tier VCs, Wefunder believes the crowd can add value along with their cash. With 60 investors instead of a round of six comes an army of evangelists, recruiters, marketers and testers who could give their startups an edge. . Zenefits wants to eliminate the pain involved in offering employee benefits and health insurance for smaller companies. After going through this difficult process as a two-time founder, Zenefits founder Parker Conrad knew there was an easier way. “Usually setting up health benefits involve a couple of weeks and a dozen trips to the fax machine,” Conrad says, “Zenefits is ‘set it and forget it,’” mechanizing a process that has thus far been completed using people and paper. With Zenefits, all a small business needs to do is enter a new employee’s 401K info like name, email, salary, stock options, and hire date, and the startup generates an offer letter and a flow for getting insurance memberships up and running. The service is offered free to clients, but makes revenue as a form of lead generation for insurance companies, making a $50K a year commission per company. “It’s rare to have a free service to clients with such significant reoccurring revenue,” Conrad says. . Teachers spend an unbelievable amount of time grading tests. Terascore is building a tool to let these educators create and administer tests online. That means a lot less time checking to see if everyone knows the capital of Idaho. Terascore piggybacks on the trend of everyone carrying smartphones and tablets, so teachers don’t need to book computer lab time to give a test. They’ll also be able to give students real-time feedback to improve learning. In a surprising move, Terascore’s business model is to get teachers, not school districts, to pay for its platform. The districts are just too slow moving, but the startup believes teachers will pay $9 a month and change their behavior to get more of their precious off-hours back. . Lawdingo purports to have created the most efficient way to conduct legal services, with an online platform where lawyers and clients can connect, consult, and even exchange payments. According to the company, with its growing consumer traffic levels and more than 600 lawyers plugged into its service, Lawdingo today is comparable in scope and scale to some of the largest law firms in the world. The site lets people search for help using natural language — type in “I hate my wife,” for example, and you get results for divorce lawyers (no kidding). This is a big market: Legal services is a $250 billion market annually in the U.S., and law firm advertising is a $4.5 billion market. This startup aims to “elegantly” address both sides. . Meldium is a single sign-in layer for teams, an account and password manager alternative to the horribly inefficient and insecure spreadsheet most companies currently use. With Meldium, a given team signs up for a single Meldium account, and members can use it in the form of a browser extension, enabling sign-ins for some 400 independent apps, including Box, GitHub, Salesforce, Box and Google Apps. “When you fire someone you know they’re out,” founder Boris Jabes said, on the benefits of Meldium versus something like Google Docs to hold sensitive login information. The startup currently has 2,000 users and companies seem to be adopting Meldium from the bottom up because of the problem it solves, “My office manager can use this!” The founders estimate the size of the market as $1.3 billion a year, with 55 million knowledge workers and 2 percent of that paying for the premium version. “It’s 2013 and we have these amazing cloud services managed with a spreadsheet,” Jabes reiterates. . Goldbely connects its customer base of “Food Explorers” with the most interesting foods from iconic restaurants all over the country, delivering Chicago deep-dish pizza, Texas barbecue, Buffalo chicken wings, and the like to anywhere in the U.S. within a matter of hours. Goldbely prides itself on shipping these items in top-notch condition to ensure that they taste exactly like they would on site. And it seems to be taking off. Goldbely, which today announced a partnership with Facebook Gifts, says it just broke $100,000 in total sales and is seeing 100 percent month-over-month growth since its late 2012 launch, with 50 percent of its customers coming back as repeat users. Goldbely says it’s targeting an $11 billion market that is incredibly fragmented and dominated by lackluster brands — the top three players in the food gifting space are Omaha Steaks, 1-800 Flowers, and Harry & David, not exactly gourmet food providers. .
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Women Make Up 10% Of Founders In Y Combinator’s Current Class
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Colleen Taylor
| 2,013 | 3 | 26 |
Winter 2013 is a in many ways — 47 startups are graduating at today’s event, down significantly from the and the . However, there’s one very notable aspect of YC that saw growth this time around: The percentage of founders that are female. Out of 111 founders in the Winter 2013 YC class, 12 are women — that’s more than 10 percent, an all-time high for the program. Nine of those co-founders, which you can read more about in-depth in this , are part of startups launching on the record today (14 of the 47 Winter 2013 startups opted to present at Demo Day today on an “off the record” basis.) It’s still a hugely underrepresented minority, of course, but it is a significant step up from the balance seen in previous classes, which on average had a ratio of female founders. Y Combinator partner told me today that this is not the result of any deliberate “affirmative action” type initiative on the part of its partners. YC is simply seeing a greater number of talented women apply for its program, she said. Also, Livingston said, more of the female founders in the Winter 2013 class are serving as team leaders in the CEO role than they’d seen in any other past class. There is still a long way to go before we hit the goal of full 50-50 gender representation in the upper realms of technology and business (and on an anecdotal note, there was still absolutely zero line for the women’s room here at YC Demo Day.) But if Y Combinator continues to fill its role as a smaller bellwether of what’s to come to the larger industry, this could show that the world of tech executives is slowly but surely moving toward more gender diversity.
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The Pint-Sized ‘Fuel’ Phone Charger Is As Useful As It Is Adorable
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Chris Velazco
| 2,013 | 3 | 26 |
Most of us have faced that sense of dread that comes when our phones lay drained and dysfunctional right when we need them the most. Sure, we could beat ourselves up for not charging them as long as we should have (or perhaps making a bad choice of phones), but that’s where this particularly cute Kickstarter project comes into play. Devotec’s is a terribly tiny rechargeable external battery for when a smartphone’s charge goes south at an inopportune moment. How small is it? Think “clip it to your keychain small.” And it’s shaped like a little gas can! How quaint. As you could probably guess from its size, there’s only so much juice you’ll be able to squeeze out of this thing. The Fuel’s internal battery is only capable of holding about 220mAh worth of charge, which Devotec figures will give your smartphone up to a half hour of extra talk time — more than enough to fire off a few frenzied emails or to make a brief emergency call or two. I’ve come to appreciate bulkier fare like Mophie’s PowerStation Duo, but folks looking for a pint-sized lifesaver that won’t weigh down their bags will find something to like here. For this first production run, Devotec is focusing mostly on churning out Fuel chargers with microUSB connectors, but the team is also plugging away on Lightning versions for the iPhone 5s in your life. There’s still no ETA on when to expect them though, so iPhone 5 owners may want to look elsewhere for now — after all, the first-party microUSB-to-Lightning adapter costs nearly as much as the Fuel itself. Devotec’s Kickstarter campaign launched less than a week ago and the team has already blown past its $20,000 funding goal, but you can still lock in your order for a microUSB model for around $18 at this point. The final retail version will cost $25, so the cheapskates among you may want to jump on this now (like I just did).
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Paul Graham Says Y Combinator Is Pickier Than Ever, With ‘Hardly Any’ Bad Startups In Current Batch
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Anthony Ha
| 2,013 | 3 | 26 |
Before the pitches kicked off at today’s Demo Day, partner Paul Graham said the incubator was stricter than ever when selecting the current batch — there are 47 companies demonstrating today, . “There are hardly any startups in this batch that are bad,” Graham said. For that reason, he claimed that it will be just as hard for investors at this demo day as in the past to select the best startups. That’s a general complaint about demo days in general, especially YC’s (where there are more presentations, and those presentations are only a few minutes long), but Graham said it’s not about the format. When it comes to choosing winners, Graham said, “if it seems like it’s hard, it actually is hard.” He added that it’s best to think about the presentations as a “live action” name tag, and that investors should make their real decisions after talking to the founders. Graham offered a few more details about the process in a short conversation before the event. He said that this time around, YC looked at “predictors of failure,” not just “predictors of success.” For example, he said that in the past YC might have chosen a company that had great founders (a predictor of success), but this time it might have filtered that same company out because those founders, while great individually, all hate each other (a predictor of failure). He also . As for what he means when he says there are fewer bad startups, Graham said he normally ranks all the companies, then goes down the list to find the point at which he’s comfortable predicting that a startup won’t be one of the big hits coming out of Demo Day. This time he didn’t reach that point until five or six companies before the bottom, which is unusual. To be clear, Graham said this isn’t the first time YC decreased class size — it also did so right before Graham and YC partner Jessica Livingston had a child together. (He pointed out that the smaller class had Airbnb in it, so being stricter didn’t prevent YC from landing a big hit.) However, Graham said this is the most serious the firm has been about cutting back.
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Tokyo-Based Voyagin Gives Travelers A More Up-Close And Offbeat Look At Asian Cities
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Catherine Shu
| 2,013 | 3 | 21 |
For many travelers, their sense of adventure is only limited by language barriers. With its roster of offbeat activities, however, travel site seeks to give visitors a more intimate look at five Asian countries-Japan, India, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Tokyo-based startup, which launched its site last December, plans to add more countries this year. The company, which was originally called FindJPN, has raised $450,000 so far. It started as part of Open Network Lab, a Japanese incubator, and then raised seed funding from Digital Garage and other investors. The Web site targets both backpackers and luxury travelers between the ages of 25 to 50 who prefer not to book packaged tours. “They’re mostly interested in food, cultural, and off the beaten track experiences,” says Tushar Khandelwal, Voyagin’s head of marketing and community . Activities, or ‘experiences’ as Voyagin dubs them, are hosted by local residents, and currently include outings ranging from the kooky (such as getting in Tokyo) to artistic (learning how to ). Experiences that can give tourists a sense of what daily life in a country is like include a and a tour to meet the (lunch box deliverymen) of Mumbai. Locals can to become hosts by submitting an application and chatting with a member of Voyagin’s team. Listings are free and Voyagin prides itself on having met with 90 percent of its hosts in person. There are currently about 400 listings and the site makes money by taking a 15 percent cut plus a $3 service fee when a booking is made. In-depth information about each experience is available in English, along with the length of time each activity takes and its price. One of the startup’s goals is to expand its offerings as its team grows, says Khandelwal. He adds that Voyagin, which currently has about 8,000 unique visitors per month and sees several bookings per day, is on target to double its growth this month.
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Dungeons & Dragons Coming To iOS Later This Year As Wizards Of The Coast Teams Up With Playdek
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Darrell Etherington
| 2,013 | 3 | 26 |
A new partnership between mobile game publisher and , famed creator of Magic: The Gathering and other tabletop games will bring Dungeons & Dragons to the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch later this year. Playdek will be developing officially sanctioned and licensed titles that bring various Wizards of the Coast tabletop experiences to iOS devices, with the first such efforts slated to go live sometime in 2013. The full details of the arrangement weren’t shared in an official release announcing the news, in which Playdek CEO just said that it was “thrilled to to work with Wizards of the Coast” in order to “re-create this compelling entertainment in a mobile form.” Playdek has a solid reputation, though: it created the that takes a lot of cues from Wizards of the Coast classics like Magic: The Gathering. Speaking of Magic, that’s a title that already has an from previous Wizards of the Coast efforts not involving Playdek. Magic 2013 is a freemium title with virtual decks that can be purchased in-app which Wizards of the Coast released last year. On its own, the company (which is owned by Hasbro) has also released iOS games based on its popular Kaijudo franchise, but we’ve yet to see an officially blessed Dungeons & Dragons property hit the App Store. If there can be said to be a definitive name in digital tabletop games, it’s definitely Carlsbad, Calif.-based Playdek. In addition to the Penny Arcade game mentioned above, the company’s Ascension series has been lauded with accolades and positive reviews. Playdek was founded in 2011 by Jeff Garstecki, Gary Weis and Joel Goodman, all vets of Sony Computer Entertainment America and THQ’s Incinerator Studios. The company has raised $1.56 million in funding to date from a seed round and an Angel round, with investors including Greycroft Partners. The partnership with Wizards of the Coast might be a perfect storm of Playdek’s digital tabletop genre choices and the source material that holds a special place among its core target audience. Definitely looking forward to tracking the progress of this new partnership.
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China’s Broadband Penetration Is Increasingly Lagging Behind Developed Nations, Says MIIT’s Research Head
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Catherine Shu
| 2,013 | 3 | 21 |
The research chief of China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said (link via Google Translate) that there is still a significant gap between China’s broadband coverage and that of developed nations, and that the lag is increasing. At a panel about the future of digital technology, MIIT research chief Liu Duo said that despite government efforts to increase broadband penetration, China’s coverage still trails behind countries like the U.S. and Japan and that the gap is widening. Last year, the number of broadband users in China 159 million, or a 11.7 percent penetration rate, compared to an average of 25.7 percent in developed economies. The Chinese government has said that it broadband coverage to 95 percent by 2015. Other problems facing Internet users include the relatively high price of broadband, poor connections and customer service, disparity in coverage between cities and rural areas, and lack of infrastructure. Last month, the MIIT that it plans to extend 4M broadband coverage to more than 70 percent of China’s Internet users by the end of this year as part of the Broadband China initiative, which was in the middle of 2012. The government also said it intends to add 1.3 million wireless hotspots throughout the country as part of the plan. As of December 2012, China had 564 million Internet users, a penetration rate of 39.9 percent, according to a report by the China Internet Network Information Center. Expanding broadband coverage is key to improving Internet infrastructure for small- to mid-sized businesses, especially since China is lagging behind other member countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OCED). Futhermore, it is also important as China’s government on developing related sectors such as critical chipsets, software and system industries. While the Chinese government is focused on broadband coverage, it’s important to note that more and more Chinese consumers are to get on the Internet for the first time, spurred by the increasing availability of low-cost Android-based smartphones from domestic manufacturers. Last July, the government reported that 388 million Internet users logged on using the mobile, up from 356 million in December 2011.
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Filing Says Glenn Beck’s Network TheBlaze Is Raising $40M
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Anthony Ha
| 2,013 | 3 | 21 |
, a set of online ventures run by conservative pundit Glenn Beck, is raising $40 million in new funding, according to . The filing states that the company has raised $1.5 million so far. It also says that TheBlaze currently has revenue between $25 million and $100 million. I emailed the company earlier this afternoon to confirm the news, but I haven’t heard back. If I do, I’ll update this post. As a news and opinion website, TheBlaze was , but the name has become the umbrella for several online properties, including (formerly GBTV, which was launched after Beck’s departure from Fox News in 2011) and . Recently, the company has been outlining more ambitious plans. In January, it said it was , opening three foreign bureaus and moving to bigger offices in New York. And in February, to get the channel carried on more cable and satellite TV networks (it’s currently carried by Dish Network).
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Personal Assistant App Sherpa Raises $1.6M
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Anthony Ha
| 2,013 | 3 | 21 |
, a personal assistant app that launched initially in the Spanish-speaking world, just announced that it has raised $1.7 million in funding from undisclosed angel investors. Sherpa users can speak or type their requests, and the app answers them by collecting information from around the web. The company has also partnered with PayPal and other services, so that users accomplish tasks like making travel reservations and transferring money. The technology was developed by founder and CEO Xabier Uribe-Etxebarria. He actually stopped by the TechCrunch office last fall to show off the app and to compare the results to what you would find in Siri and in Wolfram Alpha. There were, in fact, a number of cases where he’d asked some factual questions and get more complete and relevant answers from Sherpa than the competition. (To be clear, that was a pretty limited test. Since I don’t speak Spanish fluently or own an Android phone, I haven’t tested the live app.) The big differentiator, he said, is the level at which Sherpa can understand your question — for one thing, he said the app understands more than 250,000 concepts and 5,000 syntactic and semantic rules. Sherpa, which is currently Android-only (the goal is to turn it into a broader cross-device platform), launched in October, and the company says it has been downloaded 400,000 times. Next it plans to launch in North America, the United Kingdom, Australia, and South Africa in the second quarter of the year. If you’re a Spanish speaker, you can .
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Five Out Of Six Game Of Thrones Cast Members Prefer The iPhone To Android
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Ryan Lawler
| 2,013 | 3 | 21 |
On Wednesday night, HBO took over the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco for a screening of the Season 3 Premiere of Game of Thrones, giving about 600 folks a sneak peek of what’s in store for the new season. Somehow, Anthony Ha* and I were lucky enough to interview several of the cast members, and since we work for a tech blog, we weren’t that interested in learning what they were most excited about when talking about the new season. Instead, we wanted to find out what each cast member’s smartphone of choice is. Well, you’ll be happy to learn that five out of the six Game of Thrones cast members we surveyed said they had an iPhone instead of an Android device. The lone Android holdout was Rose Leslie, perhaps because her character Ygritte is one of the savage wildlings who live above the North Wall. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who plays famed “Kingslayer” Jaime Lannister, however, made sure to let us know that the device he owns isn’t necessarily representative of some dogmatic preference for one or the other. “You ask me what I have and that’s an iPhone, but I’m not voting for [it],” he said. The cast members mostly seemed to use their smartphone apps for playing games to pass the time and communicating with friends. Leslie said her favorite app was , while Maisie Williams, who plays the young Arya Stark, preferred . Natalie Dormer (Margaery Tyrell) uses to stay in contact with all of her friends while traveling on press tours, and Kit Harrington (Jon Snow) highly endorsed — an app for brightening a person’s day by sending them a postcard. Coster-Waldau admitted to using social workout app , as well as purchasing train tickets via mobile app while at home in Denmark. Meanwhile, Michelle Fairley, who plays Catelyn Stark, said, “I don’t do the Internet at all.” That said, she’s a big fan of mobile shopping: Her favorite app is , which she uses to find and purchase fashionable items to send straight to her home. While the cast was made up mostly of iPhone users, they were joined on the red carpet by two tech founders who preferred Android devices. Both Craigslist founder Craig Newmark and Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger stood by the Google operating system, although Krieger just switched allegiances about a month ago. (Unsurprisingly, Krieger’s favorite app is Instagram, although he said he was happy the Jawbone Up now has an Android app.) While they all had smartphones, the cast admitted to not being quite as tech savvy as much of the San Francisco audience attending the premiere. Harrington, for instance, told us he prefers not to participate in social media. “I don’t tweet, because I don’t trust myself to tweet,” he told us. “If I wasn’t maybe an actor and people wouldn’t follow me, then I wouldn’t mind. But I don’t trust myself to tweet because I don’t know what I’d say.” (It’s ok, Kit. .) ==
* Anthony has asked me to apologize for his massive head being in every shot. Our cameraman John Murillo had a small space to work with, but also, Anthony’s head really is that big.
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Twitter Archives Now Available In 12 More Languages, Including Japanese, Portuguese, Russian And Simplified Chinese
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Drew Olanoff
| 2,013 | 3 | 21 |
On the occasion of today, Twitter has announced that personal archives of tweets are now available for 12 more languages: [tweet https://twitter.com/twitter/status/314875925953130497] In December, when Twitter rolled out the option to , this is what they had to say about the feature: Today, we’re introducing the ability to download your Twitter archive, so you’ll get all your Tweets (including Retweets) going back to the beginning. Once you have your Twitter archive, you can view your Tweets by month, or search your archive to find Tweets with certain words, phrases, hashtags or @usernames. You can even engage with your old Tweets just as you would with current ones. Sadly, tweets in the above languages weren’t available, but they are now. Simply go to your settings page, and then click “request your archive.” You’ll then be emailed once the archival process is complete. Once you download the file, you’ll be able to open it on your desktop and review everything you’ve ever said or retweeted. It’s fun until you read things that you wrote while you were drunk: Happy downloading. [Photo credit: ]
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The TechCrunch ‘Lean In’ Roundtable, Part 3: Linking Up With Real Mentors — And The Right Life Partner
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Colleen Taylor
| 2,013 | 3 | 21 |
In , posted Tuesday, we discussed the controversy surrounding as well as the element of fear and how it plays into women’s career paths. In , posted yesterday, we discussed the emotion of guilt and the myth that women can “do it all.” For our roundtable, we assembled a small group of Generation Y female leaders that represent the Silicon Valley tech industry’s rising new guard: , the former IBM engineer who is now the founder and CEO of , the startup that has for outsourcing errands, tasks, and deliveries; , the senior director of communications for cloud-based enterprise storage technology firm ; , the and alum who last year into the venture capital world as a partner at ; and , the Stanford MBA and former engineer who is now the of educational Q&A platform . In this segment, we first tackled the topic of finding a mentor to help steer your career path. In , Sandberg argues that many women go about seeking mentors in all the wrong ways, and says that asking outright “Will you be my mentor?” is one of the most common mistakes women make. One of our panelists admitted that earlier in her career she was guilty of asking that very question — to Sheryl Sandberg herself! Though she says it ended up being a positive learning moment, that was certainly a surprising disclosure for us all to hear. We also discuss Sandberg’s viewpoint on finding and linking up with the right life partner. Sandberg minces no words in about how important a solid partner is for having a successful career, and offers very frank advice on how to find one, writing: “When looking for a life partner, my advice to women is date all of them: the bad boys, the cool boys, the commitment-phobic boys, the crazy boys. But do not marry them. Marry the boys who are going to change half of the diapers.” Tune in above to hear our panelists talk about the mentors in their own careers, Sandberg’s straightforward view on dating and marriage, and more. And please check back in tomorrow for the fourth and final installment of our roundtable, in which we discuss how women can be their own worst enemies and our favorite takeaways from .
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Now Powering Finance Data For 300 Startups, Yodlee Peels Back The Curtain On New Accelerator & 4 New Incubations
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Rip Empson
| 2,013 | 3 | 21 |
Compared to the glut of young tech startups that have popped up in the financial services space over the last several years, is a veteran. Founded in 1999, the company got its start by developing technology to make the back-end aggregation of banking data more efficient and secure, leading to the birth of companies like Mint.com, which went on to be acquired by Intuit. Now, with more than 40 million users and $100 million in funding, the financial apps and management solutions provider has turned its focus back to the startup ecosystem. Last summer, that aimed to provide entrepreneurs both in and outside of the financial services space with a delivery system to help them more quickly and easily bring their fledgling ideas to market. Powered by Yodlee’s financial services platform, the accelerator program provides startups with — among other things — access to its API, which enables founders to pull in Yodlee’s reservoir of transaction-level financial data for everything from bank accounts, insurance and rewards programs to investment accounts. Since then, a slew of companies have used Yodlee’s financial cloud and accelerator resources to build a range of applications focused on consumer debt protection, lending, taxes, eWallets and targeted marketing — to name a few. Today, the company is peeling back the curtain a bit to give TechCrunch a peek into the program’s performance over the last 10 months. Since launching, Yodlee Interactive (the arm of Yodlee’s business that contains its accelerator program) has attracted companies like Xero, Credit Karma and LearnVest, which are now relying on the company for secure access to financial data. As a whole, Yodlee Interactive is now servicing millions of consumers, along with more than 300 companies (and their applications), a number Yodlee expects to grow to 500 by the end of 2013. Yodlee Chief Strategy and Development Officer Joseph Polverari tells us that, over the last year, the company has begun to expand aggressively into international markets, with 20 percent of its customer base now located outside the U.S. Yodlee is also now powering what he says are two of the fastest-growing startups to come out of this year’s Finovate Europe conference, EZBOB and FreeAgent — and the U.K.’s top financial app, OnTrees, is also on board. Behind the expansion of its international footprint, Yodlee is also today announcing a new class of startups that will be entering into its API incubator program: FairLoan, Glyph, Planwise and Prime Student Loan. The accelerator has incubated 10 companies to date, six of which have already launched, including Glyph, Planwise, FairLoan, Prime Student Loan, Sociogramics and MatchFund. The other four are still in stealth mode, and the accelerator typically averages two incubations per quarter, Polverari tells us. Of its recent incubations, Glyph and Planwise have found the most traction thus far, he says, with Glyph recently launching version 2.0 of its app, and integrates account balance and data through Yodlee. The companies selected by Yodlee do not offer up equity and do not have to pay to participate in the accelerator, which the CSO thinks gives Yodlee a leg-up amidst the glut of accelerators to launch over the last two years. In addition, entrepreneurs are given full access to Yodlee’s API for six months for free, as well as PR support, mentorship and strategic planning. But what founders have found most appealing, Polverari says, is the access that Yodlee provides to bank distribution for their services — the 40 million-plus users at some of the world’s largest banks. For developers in financial services, overcoming the legal, regulatory and security hurdles is a tall order that often equates to a multi-year process. Yodlee wants to help take that barrier out of the equation for fledgling financial services startups. On rare occasions, the CSO adds, Yodlee may invest capital in its incubations, but only at the prevailing valuation; “We don’t act like a VC or the typical incubator,” he says, “our interest is solely in facilitating innovation and the growth of the ecosystem.” It’s not all philanthropic, of course, as Yodlee isn’t without self-interest; if it happens to pick a winner, that’s good for Yodlee’s business. Its incubations can become a great source of future partnerships. For startups, because Yodlee does not provide a public API (only a private, paid API), this means access to Yodlee’s relationships with banks and its financial services ecosystem. The incubator accepts applications on a quarterly basis, with the next due date being March 29th, with final decisions to be made by mid-April. After that the next decisions will be made in June and announced in July. The accelerator doesn’t have strict application guidelines, Polverari says, and does not limit its startups to the FinTech-focused, instead considering a startup’s vision and stage of development to determine if it’s the right fit. Officially, the program mentors its selected companies for six months, but tries to maintain its relationships for as long as possible — when those aforementioned partnership opportunities are most appealing, of course. Yodlee has also partnered with external incubators like Y Combinator and Techstars, offering their incubations a similar deal, meaning free use of its APIs for six months — but without the same level of mentorship and strategic planning. The program has helped accelerate 12 companies from external incubators by offering them the free API, including companies from YC, TechStars, 500 Startups, and Harvard University (like InDinero and ReadyForZero, to name two), the CSO says. Below, you’ll find a bit more on the four latest additions to Yodlee’s accelerator: was founded to bring transparent, affordable and fair credit opportunities to the over 70 million Americans with limited access to credit. recently launched its brand-new web app and updated iOS app, which provide smart spending recommendations in order to maximize credit card rewards and improve a user’s overall credit score. offers an app that lets consumers see visualizations of their financial outlooks, to determine how spending decisions affect the present and future, and allows them to ultimately take control of their finances and save money. focuses on refinancing existing student loan debt for qualified borrowers to pursue its goal of bringing fair and logical credit diligence to the student loan market. For more information, check out Yodlee’s .
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Exec CEO Justin Kan Talks Competition, Cleaning, And Future Plans
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Jordan Crook
| 2,013 | 3 | 21 |
Hot on the heels of Exec’s Cleaning Service launch in NYC, we couldn’t resist the opportunity to get CEO and co-founder Justin Kan in the studio for a quick chat. We also couldn’t resist checking out the service in action, and thusly hired Execs from the company’s standalone Cleaning app to help tidy up our NYC Aol Ventures crib. For those unfamiliar with , the concept is quite simple. Exec lets you hire people on a case-by-case basis for errand-running and cleaning. The app originally launched as an errand-running service, letting Execs who sign on to the platform (and pass background checks) run to get you coffee, pick up your dry cleaning, or assemble that Ikea bed for you. You’re charged $25 per hour, the majority of which goes to the Exec and a percentage of which goes to the company. After realizing that cleaning was dominating over 50 percent of Exec’s orders, the company launched a in February. Since, the cleaning side of the business to Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago and here in New York City. “We wanted the cleaning app to be the easiest thing you can imagine,” said Justin. “We don’t want you to have to make any decisions.” He mentioned that most of the current cleaning services force you to play phone tag and call a number of services. Meanwhile, on Exec, you simply open the app and are instantly given the availability for your house cleaning and a quote. But even though cleaning makes up a large part of the Exec business, we can’t forget about errand-running. I asked Justin how Exec gets users to change behavior, as most people in the younger demographic feel somewhat uncomfortable giving directions for others to do their chores. But Exec has added layers to the app that give you prompts for what you might do with it, like have someone stand in line for you at Brunch. (Justin’s actually used Exec for that very purpose.) As the company continues to enter new markets, the biggest challenge (according to Justin) is handling the logistics on the backend as the apps scale. In the past eight months, over 11,000 people have applied to be Exec contractors. Not only does the company have to handle the massive hiring funnel, complete with interviews and background checks, but also handle scheduling thousands of workers with real-time tasks on the spot.
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Apple’s Jony Ive Said To Now Work Closer With iOS Interface Team, Is Pushing For ‘Flat’ Design
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Darrell Etherington
| 2,013 | 3 | 21 |
Apple’s hardware design chief is now collaborating more closely with software and interface design staff, according to a new . Apple’s mobile software team now gets peeks at hardware prototypes sooner than before, the report claims, and Ive is pushing for a “flat design” in future versions of iOS. The report is well-timed: Apple has just released an (those that resemble physical objects, in this case a tape deck) from the design. That could very well be Ive’s influence at work, if he is indeed working more closely with iOS software interface teams. Or it might just be an indicator of the general shift in design climate at Apple resulting from recent management changes. Ive now occasionally sits in on the human interface team led by Greg Christie at Apple, according to the WSJ, vetting new designs when they come up for review at regular meetings. And while he is reportedly pushing for change, the paper’s sources stress that those changes will be relatively subtle. There’s also the claim that Apple’s newly united Mac and iOS teams are undergoing slow change under Craig Federighi, according to the unnamed sources, with more shifts expected in the summer. Apple also just , so there are clearly still changes being worked out in the upper echelon of the company’s management. Apple did not immediately respond to request for comment on the WSJ’s report. Apple’s minor visual , music playback controls, the music player itself, and the changes to Podcast could be a clue as to where Ive is having an influence on software interface design. The integration of thinking around software and hardware design could be a small but important ingredient in driving still more consumer interest in iOS, even if the impact of design isn’t always the most apparent. I wrote about a shift in the thinking around in a previous post, but a changed internal approach could bring about a similar, but likely more gradual internal shift. Hopefully this means the change to Podcasts today won’t be the last in terms of modernizing Apple app designs.
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On The Internet, Everyone Knows You’re A Dick
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John Biggs
| 2,013 | 3 | 21 |
In light of the in which an offended party publicly shamed two developers at a conference for discussing dongles, I thought it would be interesting to address the problems of “lad culture” on the Internet (and, partially, the Silicon Valley/Alley societies) where wizards stay up late and make dick jokes over IRC. A close friend of mine asked me why she was never included in a cliquish group of guys who hung out at the same events she visited, and I told her it was because they were, to a degree, facing a very specific and detrimental dilemma. I believe that men/boys in tech are at once inclined to be polite to the point of harm to women – expressing a protective patriarchalism and elevating the woman in the industry to the level of untouchable Madonna – and are also inclined to one-up each other in an electronic form of the dozens, slinging the most outrageous things they can think of in order to make the group laugh. This does not excuse their cliquishness or diminish her hurt at being excluded, but tech culture (and many cultures where men are often alone together socially and professionally and the female is the anomaly) is at once hopelessly awkward and horrible at the same time. I would wager that the men at PyCon were called out not because they were an anomaly, but because they were caught by someone who was angry enough to react. But something far worse happened after the fact. Dunderheaded jokes at professional conferences are not professional, but that’s not the problem. The problem is the Internet’s immediate and disproportional retribution and the hu´ers that protest far too much. The great thinker Joel Johnson addressed this problem : The culture that bred the sort of behavior at PyCon is, in short, the same instinct that drives other “outcast cultures” to dress differently, curse authority, and generally be wildly unpleasant to those around them as a protective measure. The same situation would arise at any gathering of nerds, and PyCon, even given the mainstream nature of Python programming, is such a gathering. Boys clubs are corrosive and dangerous and have, for the most part, been hidden or destroyed over the past few decades. That doesn’t mean that these unique cliques won’t pop up like mold on bread given the right circumstances. And, while I agree that the official reactions were far too harsh for the crimes, it seems that now the complainer, is being attacked by Anonymous, and her personal information is being strewn across the Internet. This is where the old “Python programmers will be Python programmers” argument breaks down. Because now, when bad behavior happens and someone is upset, an asymmetrical reaction will occur that attempts to protect the group rather than the individual. It is a rancid form of self-protection that wound its way into the depths via , SWATing, and the folk justice meted out by various hordes of Internet vigilantes. I’ve seen strong, intelligent women stalked online because they were women and their proximity to the things the lads loved was enough to make them targets of derision and anger. The nastiness finds purchase in mundane discussions about one technology versus another, and sexism and misogyny is often celebrated in online forums that, for the vast majority of users, are simply a pleasant diversion. Richards was wrong to publicly shame a pair of dicks, but the reaction to the shamer is far worse. It needs to stop. I know this cry into the wilderness will do little to help Richards. However, we as users and creators of technology are partially responsible for the ability of a group of ragers to mass against a common enemy. We take far too much personally and put far too little thought into our straw men. To defend the laddishness of tech culture is impossible and, I would say, not the point. The laddishness is a product of too much frustration, too much striving, and too much time spent behind the keyboard. When this laddishness metastasize into true hate posing as defense of the herd it becomes truly dangerous. It is a waste of energy akin to methodically lighting a car on fire because you don’t like the song on the radio. In explaining “our” peccadilloes to my female friend, I was forced to face what I and other men dedicated to the cultivation of their online lives have become: we are shy people lashing out at perceived threats, be it mildly in the form of refusing invitations or virulently in the form of online retribution. There’s a New Yorker cartoon featuring two . One says to the other: “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” That was, once upon a time, a comment on the freedom afforded us by life behind the screen. Now, however, given the nastiness we exhibit and the good heart of the average labrador, I doubt those dogs want anything to do with us.
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AngelHack Launches A Startup Accelerator, Bringing Its Hackathon To 30+ Cities This Spring
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Anthony Ha
| 2,013 | 3 | 21 |
has always been a little different from your average hackathon — rather than taking place in one spot over one weekend, it has become a global event that takes place in multiple stages. As a result, the projects are usually pretty polished, though not yet at the level of full-fledged startups. Now it’s taking another step in that direction with the launch of . The program will admit 40 teams into a 14-week program – 12 weeks of local mentoring, then two weeks in San Francisco pitch training, investor meetings, and events. In that sense, it follows the broader AngelHack model, where there are local hackathons which feed into a big competition among the finalists in Silicon Valley. In exchange for the mentorship (and tickets to this fall’s TechCrunch Disrupt), AngelHack takes 2 percent equity. Founder Greg Gopman said that his goal is “to be the largest funnel of seed-stage technical talent into incubators and investors around the world,” and he noted that previous AngelHack winners have joined Y Combinator, AngelPad, MassChallenge, TechStars and 500 Startups, and also raised hundreds of thousands of dollars on AngelList. In addition to launching the accelerator, Gopman is also announcing the spring round of hackathons, which will take place in more than 30 cities, with the goal of enlisting 6,000 participating developers. It starts in late April. He said that last fall’s AngelHack was held in 11 cities with 2,200 participants (70 percent developers). And the hackathons feed into the accelerator — 10 teams will be selected from direct applications (the deadline is June 8), but the other 30 will be the winners of their local AngelHacks. You can and .
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Zynga.com Makes Facebook Connect Optional As It Looks To Build An Independent Platform For Players And Developers
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Leena Rao
| 2,013 | 3 | 21 |
Last March, Zynga its ambitions to create a web and mobile platform for social games. is a for both the company’s own games as well as for third-party developers who want to leverage Zynga’s social feed and users. In September, Zynga debuted its first third-party games. And today, Zynga is rolling out a number of changes to Zynga.com, namely how you sign in. The platform itself allows developers to post to the stream of social gaming activity at Zynga.com, and also to include social features like chat and real-time multiplayer. One of the major changes with this update is how players sign in. Previously, you signed in via your Facebook login, and your experience was built around all your previous Zynga gaming interactions on the social network (based on your permissions). With the new sign-in, you actually sign in with a Zynga account that is created and Facebook Connect is optional. You can still integrate all of your Facebook game boards, progress and friends, but this is no longer required. Reading between the lines, it appears that Zynga wants to continue down the road of becoming less reliant on Facebook for social interactions and more. This isn’t particularly surprising considering that were released late last year. As part of the agreement at the time, the Zynga.com platform was no longer obligated to use Facebook ad units and Facebook credits. In exchange, Zynga’s right to cross-promote its non-Facebook games using Facebook data and email addresses are limited by the standard terms. Since launching, Zynga has noticed a number of things about how people are playing games on the platform, namely that people want to be challenged and they want the ability to progress faster. For example, on the social stream, you can see who else is playing a current game (and your friends), and by interacting in the stream, you can share gifts to the community. So if you are in FarmVille, and you needed a specific tool, you could share this to your social stream, and any friends could click on this to send you the gift as a reward for interacting with the stream. Zynga does keep track of how many people you have helped. It’s not only a way to showcase the millions of players that are playing with you, but it’s also a way to actually share gifts and benefit not only yourself within a game, but others. Seventy percent of players on Zynga.com are interacting with the social stream, and some are clicking more than 100 times a day. Zynga also found that interweaving ads within the stream was better for players in terms of monetization than a static ad across the bottom of the page. The company has also been experimenting with actions like watching a video ad to get through a segment of a game. Right now, Zynga is shipping more third-party games on Zynga.com than in-house. There have been more documentation, SDKs and tools (even a help forum) added to aid developers in building games around the platform. It’s no secret that Zynga is rethinking its approach to gaming at the moment. The company has of once-popular titles and is releasing fewer games and spacing their releases further apart. Zynga’s and a continuing series of executive and mid-level departures. It’s clear this is a transition point for the gaming company, but the Zynga.com network is one of the areas that the gaming giant is doubling down. The goal is to figure out what’s sticky for both the player and the developers, and it’s a challenge to find a balance on both fronts.
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Colleen Taylor
| 2,013 | 3 | 26 | null |
Facebook Adds Weather Forecasts To Events And Public Places To Show Useful Info Where People Need It
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Drew Olanoff
| 2,013 | 3 | 21 |
Facebook has come up with another way to prevent you from leaving its site. While you’re setting up an event, especially one that’s going to take place outside, it makes total sense that your potential guests would want to know what the weather conditions are for that day. Today, Facebook rolled out a project that was a part of a hackathon, which drops weather information onto event pages and unowned pages for places like parks and cities. The positive here is that Facebook is carefully surfacing this information in places on the site that make sense for users, rather than cramming it all over the place so that it just feels like clutter. For example, seeing the weather on an event page is fine, but it’s not something I want to see on my news feed. By providing this information, it’s just one less step you have to make when you’re making decisions on where to go. The addition of events is great for the guests, but when you’re setting up an event, you’ll also see the weather prediction for that day, which can help you form your description, suggesting that people bring a sweatshirt, perhaps. If the event is within the next 10 days, you’ll see a 10-day forecast: For people that you invite, they’ll see the predicted forecast for the location on the date of the event, as well as the the estimated high and low temperatures. For locations like cities and parks that have pages, you’ll see current conditions. All of this data is provided by : These details are also available on Facebook’s mobile app: For examples of the integration for location pages that aren’t owned by any particular user, check out the , and more specifically , here in our neck of the woods. Once you see the weather information, you can choose to leave Facebook to get more detailed information, like satellite imagery, from Weather Underground’s site. This reminds us a little bit of , displaying the important data so that you don’t have to click around to sites to find it. While this might take traffic away from third-party sources, it is helpful for users. Regardless, it’s a fine line to walk for Facebook, as there is probably a host of relevant information that it could start slapping up all over the site hastily. Nobody wants to see scores attached to status updates that mention specific sports teams, for example. For now, weather seems to be a nice place to start and it’s doubtful that anyone will complain.
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Apple Updates Podcasts App, Adds Custom Stations With iCloud Sync And Fixes Playback Resume Bug
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Darrell Etherington
| 2,013 | 3 | 21 |
Apple has just issued , which brings a long list of improvements to the iOS app. Among the changes are a new feature that lets users generate their own custom playlists with any podcasts they choose, with auto-updating of new episodes for each. Stations are stored in iCloud and synced across devices, and users can choose to start with either the most recent episode or oldest unplayed one. The update also adds on-the-go playlist creation and syncing of playlists back to iTunes, and fixes a problem users were reporting with playback not resuming correctly when jumping back into the app from another or the home screen. The interface has also been changed, notably in favor of something cleaner and more in line with the native iTunes music player. The playback issues and interface were both resulting in some pretty negative reviews from users on the App Store. Now, the app looks to be much improved, and the new Stations feature actually adds a lot of value versus the old instantiation where podcasts were simply rolled in as part of the Music app on iOS. Apple has a lot of competition in the App Store for its own podcasts app, including Casts, Podcaster, iCatcher and PodCruncher to name a few. Its original release of Podcasts failed to impress a lot of users, but this second kick at the can looks to get a lot of things right on the surface at least, which could mean less breathing room for the non-Apple competition.
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“In The Studio,” Felicis’ Aydin Senkut Shares His Thesis On Frontier Markets
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Semil Shah
| 2,013 | 3 | 21 |
TechCrunch “In the Studio” opens the spring of 2013 by welcoming one of the best-known “super angels,” who arrived to Valley, by way of Boston, Philadelphia, and , in the mid-1990s, held early product management stints at Silicon Graphics and a little startup called Google, which ultimately catapulted his career into what it is today. founded Felicis Ventures after leaving Google, and today is regarded as one of the — and earliest — super angel or micro VC funds in the Valley. As Senkut describes it, however, it’s more of a “boutique VC” operation, as Felicis is actually investing in companies that meet its criteria regardless of stage or location across mobile, e-commerce, enterprise, education, and health. As a thesis-driven firm, Senkut and his colleagues have also identified “frontier markets” of interest, which include 3D printing, imaging, and vision; genomics; and connected devices. In this conversation, Senkut and I discuss a range of tactical and investment issues which would be relevant to early-stage founders. As Google’s first product manager, Senkut brings experience of seeing a rapidly growing company expand internationally and hit scale, an operational point of view which informs his investment intuition. Now as his has grown at Felicis, he and his colleagues have, over the years, in over 80 companies with nearly half of them finding exits. That type of track record underscores the fact that Felicis are active, hands-on investors who understand the pressures (and dangers) founders face with respect to rising valuations in today’s funding environment. For instance, Senkut warns against the dangers of founders wanting to minimize dilution at the cost of limiting exit options in the future. He is remarkably on this dimension, and I believe every early founder should hear his rationale.
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BlackBerry On The Defensive, Says BB10 And PlayBook Getting Approved By The DoD In April
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Ingrid Lunden
| 2,013 | 3 | 21 |
has now issued a statement confirming that its relationship is still on with the Department of Defense — for its sake hopefully closing the loop on the story that started with that the DoD would be dumping its deal with the troubled Canadian handset maker, once a mainstay of business users, who are now migrating to Apple and Android devices. BlackBerry says that its devices and services are in the so-called Security Requirement Guide approval state right now, as are others, and BlackBerry will be the first to come out of it. BlackBerry says that it’s getting approval for BB10 devices, the PlayBook and the on-device enterprise services that it runs on these, with that expected to come in early April. From a BlackBerry spokesperson: Our work with the U.S. Department of Defense is going well and the U.S. Department of Defense is moving forward with testing of BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 and the new BlackBerry Z10 smartphone. We are currently working with the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) and anticipate Security Technical Implementation Guides (STIG) and Security Requirement Guide (SRG) approval for the BlackBerry Device Service, BlackBerry 10 and BlackBerry PlayBook by early April. BlackBerry was the first to go through the new SRG process by the Defense Department and will be the first to successfully come out of it.
BlackBerry is in a critical position right now where each example of a key enterprise customer dumping the company’s devices is like another thorn in its side, or a straw on its back. The report that its position at the organization was getting would have been a catalysing example of how far it had fallen from its incumbent position as the king of enterprise mobility. Some believe that while BlackBerry are still making the list for approved devices, when it , many are opting for other devices like Android handsets and iPhones — an opportunity that companies like Samsung and Apple are now trying to seize. The DoD had the original report, but what BlackBerry is doing is spelling out that not only will the order include its new range of BB10 handsets but also its ailing tablets as well as its Device Service, putting on a brave face to fight the next battle of the smartphone war.
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Online Gaming Company Bigpoint Appoints New CEO In The Face Of Industry “Transition”
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Steve O'Hear
| 2,013 | 3 | 7 |
, the European free-to-play online gaming company that has seen shareholders invest around since 2002, is finally announcing a new CEO. Khaled Helioui, formerly Bigpoint’s Chief Games Officer, is taking over the role, some four months after founder Heiko Hubertz announced he would be stepping down. The change comes as Bigpoint, like other online gaming companies such as EA and Zynga, faces a wave of challenges, the biggest being market saturation and trying to drum up loyal gamers from a savvy but fickle user base. Hamburg-headquartered Bigpoint creates and publishes a portfolio of free-to-play online games, including casual titles like Farmerama, Rising Cities and Skyrama, along with “core” titles Drakensang Online, Battlestar Galactica Online and Dark Orbit. It currently claims 300 million registered users and 1,000 “global” distribution partners, and largely makes money through the up-sale of virtual items and add-ons in its games. In the official announcement, Helioui, who originally joined from private equity firm TA Associates – an in Bigpoint – candidly makes reference to the “transition” that the industry is facing, although he says that Bigpoint has “undergone a number of changes over the last year” to address this, namely through a renewed focus on the quality of its games, innovative content, and longer development cycles. Broadly speaking, the free-to-play online gaming industry is being attacked on several fronts. In the last few years, it’s moved from being a market that was underserved to somewhat of a gold rush with supply outweighing demand. As a result, consumers are wising up, particularly casual gamers who now expect a greater level of quality from an industry that has become with “me-too” offerings and an avalanche of sequels. Hence, Bigpoint’s emphasis on returning to a strategy of quality and differentiation. Conversely, the traditional console and PC gaming sector has seen smaller developers being squeezed out due to its inability to keep up in terms of development budgets that often exceed $50 million, notes Bigpoint. This has contributed to an exodus of talent from traditional games companies who have been recruited to free-to-play online games outfits. And in fact, Bigpoint says it’s made a number of such hires, as well as partnering with traditional gaming companies, such as Square Enix, to help them build online, free-to-play business models in a way that doesn’t eat into their existing revenues. Then there’s crowdfunded projects which throw in a relatively new unknown. But the biggest attack has arguably come from mobile, an area where Bigpoint hasn’t had much success (it closed its dedicated mobile business last July). And in fact, there’s no specific mention of mobile as a strategy, although the company does stress that its browser-based games target multiple devices, including tablets, and that its browser technology offers a “level of graphics and gameplay competitive to consoles and client based games”. So, yes, the industry is certainly in transition (and I’ve barely made Zynga). Helioui comments: “I am really excited about the new concepts and the quality of the games that we are going to see over the next few years. I genuinely believe we are entering a new era for gaming and the space is going to experience a disruption that is not driven by a new business model, technology or platform but by unleashed creativity.” As for the timing and reasons for founder Hubertz stepping down as CEO, this certainly isn’t a case of “when it’s time to scale, it’s time to bail”. The company has existed in one form or another since 2002 and, despite recent layoffs, Hubertz has grown Bigpoint to over 700 employees with offices in Hamburg, Berlin, San Francisco and Paris. After doing a little digging, however, it seems that this is a classic example of a founder feeling fatigued and that they are no longer able to do what they enjoy most (and arguably do best), which is to come up with and give birth to new ideas, instead of being bogged down in the day-to-day running of a company the size of Bigpoint. I also understand that Hubertz remains a shareholder and is both publicly and privately talking up Bigpoint’s future despite a difficult period for the industry. He also retains an advisory role. That said, the timing of these things rarely looks good and Hubertz, a strong leader within the company, is undoubtedly a big loss to Bigpoint, although I have the feeling that the writing was on the wall for some time. Even back in 2011, he tried the role in half and for a short time Bigpoint had CEOs, as part of the company’s push into North America, which it’s since pulled back from, shuttering its U.S. development studio after disappointing results, although it still has an office in San Francisco. Finally, there appears to be some acquisition noise bubbling up around Bigpoint, with rumours that a large European media company has been around. In addition, new CEO Helioui has a fundraising and M&A background from his time at UBS. According to , its backers at one time or another have included GMT Capital, Peacock Equity, TA Associates, and Summit Partners. The latter two currently own a majority stake in the company.
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With Users In Over 83 Countries, Social Discovery Platform At The Pool Wants To Be The Anti-Facebook
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Rip Empson
| 2,013 | 3 | 7 |
, the Los Angeles-based social discovery platform, is today rolling out a big re-design that sees the startup becoming laser-focused on creating the “anti-Facebook” social network for young people. , Facebook said that it is at risk of losing young users to other services that are similar to or act “as a substitute for Facebook.” Not only that, but as a whole, polls like the show that people are spending less time on Facebook, some abandoning it altogether. As the reports, “38 percent of [Facebook] users aged 18-29 — the focus of advertisers on the site — plan to slash their time on Facebook this year.” At The Pool wants to be one of those “similar” or “substitute” services to capitalize on this Facebook attrition. To do that, whereas Facebook keeps you online with people you already know, says the startup’s founder Alex Capecelatro, At The Pool focuses on “getting you offline and connecting with new people.” At launch in July 2012, the service was exclusive to the Los Angeles market, but since then, At The Pool has gained members in 83 countries and has now made over 1.8 million connections for its members. To continue that growth, the startup is today launching a new homepage. The old version of the site used to show updates from people you’ve been connected to, activities, pools and notifications in a grid format, but now the site just features “splashes,” or the activities going on around you. Now, when a user visits the homepage, they will see what people are looking to do and can easily add what they’re looking for — whether it be a designer for your startup, a roommate into rock climbing or someone to grab lunch with at SXSW. When a user splashes one of these from the homepage, the service alerts up to five people nearby who are likely into the same activity as well (based on their behavior and personal usage data, etc.) in an attempt to make it easy to connect with people. Prior to the redesign, At The Pool had a very rudimentary version of its “splashes,” experimenting with placing them on the bottom of the profile page, and so on, but Capecelatro says they’ve been getting the most engagement front and center and began introducing members based on splashes. “It’s much more integral to the entire flow of the site, and it essentially acts as an ice breaker, much like a Facebook poke but with context,” the founder says. Users will also find that the site has brand new “Pool” pages, which now let you see who else is in a pool, both new and existing members, so that you can see which of your friends in your hood are in the TechCrunch pool — to use a completely random example. Users can also post directly to a pool as well, so if you wanted to find a roommate that plays tennis, for example, you could post “looking for a roommate” into the tennis pool. Makes sense, right? The founder says that At The Pool is sneaking up on the million-user milestone and hopes to pass it soon. In terms of plans to actually make money (in true anti-Facebook fashion), in November and, going forward, Capecelatro sees opportunity around connecting local merchants and deals with consumers, based on its interest graph. Up next, the startup is working on an enterprise model to offer exclusive pools to conferences, companies, and other organizations and has plans to build native apps over the next quarter (adding to its existing mobile site). More on At The Pool and in .
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Community Site Topix Sees 40 Percent Year-Over-Year Traffic Growth As Political Focus Pays Off
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Anthony Ha
| 2,013 | 3 | 7 |
, a site for locally focused online discussion that first launched in 2004, has seen significant traffic growth in the past year. According to CEO Chris Tolles, that’s because of the big bet that the site made on political coverage and discussion. Traffic grew 40 percent between December 2011 and December 2012, the company says, and there were 12.4 million unique visitors in January. Those visitors are spending an average of 11.5 minutes on the site each month, and a lot of that activity is coming from smartphones — in fact, the company says that more than half of its traffic is mobile. Back in 2011, that political content was driving the site’s traffic growth, and that he was trying to find the right product and content strategy to take advantage of that interest. That ultimately resulted in of politics-focused sub-site , where users can share political articles, fill out polls, and comment on the news without being (in Tolles’ words) “that guy on Facebook” who’s always annoying his friends with political commentary. With the presidential election, it would probably be hard to find a major political site that see traffic growth last year. Note, however, that Topix is sharing numbers for December and January after the election. (Maybe everyone was just enthralled by the sequester negotiations.) Tolles said the February numbers that he’s seen have been solid, too, with around 1 million unique visitors per day. The company is also announcing some new executives. Mike Sawka, who has been at the company for seven years, has been promoted to vice president of engineering. And Schuyler Hudak, whose experience includes a senior staff position on Jerry Brown’s 2010 campaign for California governor, has joined as director of business development. Tolles wouldn’t reveal any revenue numbers, but he said Topix continues to be profitable. I also asked if the growth makes Topix a more likely acquisition target, and he replied, “We’re always having conversations, but we’re building a long-term business. … Right now, the chances of us getting acquired and us acquiring someone are about even.”
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Facebook’s Riskiest Bet Yet. Can It Uproot A Billion People’s Behavior?
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Josh Constine
| 2,013 | 3 | 7 |
“Fortune Favors The Bold” reads a 20-foot-tall poster in the room where Facebook unveiled its . It’s possibly the most looked-at page on the Internet, and if we don’t like the changes, traffic and ad revenue could plummet. Despite a slow rollout where it will watch for our reactions and make tweaks, Facebook’s never put it all on the line like this. Panicked erupted when Facebook first overhauled its homepage with the launch of the news feed in 2006. But in the end, Facebook won that bet. We all realized the feed didn’t violate our privacy. It just collected what we could already see on Facebook, and we discovered that constant stream of information was highly addictive. Time-on-site shot up and the social network grew into the powerhouse we know today. Now Facebook’s trying to pull off that feat again, but the stakes are much higher. It’s got 1 billion users, thousands of third-party businesses depending on it, fickle advertisers, and Wall Street nagging it to make more money. Luckily it’s learned a lot in the last seven years. It doesn’t shock and awe us with simultaneous product changes. A system called Gatekeeper lets it roll out new features to tiny fractions of its user base so it can bug test and gauge reactions before pushing further. Still, the news feed redesign isn’t like Open Graph, Timeline or Graph Search. Those are Mark Zuckerberg and his squad can experiment all they want with apps like or money-makers like , but it’s the news feed where we actually spend our time on Facebook. It’s the homepage, the main screen of its mobile apps, and the reason we come back so many times a day. The flap of a butterfly’s wings on the feed’s design spins tornadoes through our ingrained behaviors. Humans are inherently averse to change, and, good or bad, we grumble. Facebook doesn’t care. Or, more accurately, it’s okay ruffling a few feathers if it thinks it knows better than we do. The original news feed launch was grand proof of that. One of its early privacy scandals, Beacon, turned out to be just a little too far ahead of its time. Years later practically the same feature emerged as Open Graph frictionless sharing, and people accepted it. It was time for a shake-up. As recounts, Mark Zuckerberg explained “As what we all share changes, the composition of News Feed should change as well…. We want updates from our friends but also from publications and businesses we care about, so this is the evolving face of News Feed.” Facebook saw attention slipping away to more visual feeds like Instagram, and Twitter getting more serious about media with its embedded cards. Mobile-first design threatened to make Facebook’s website, and its apps that are modeled after it look dated. Meanwhile Facebook wanted to drastically increase the amount of time we spend on the service not only to get us sharing more, but also to show us more ads that are now more vivid, as Rebecca Greenfield details for . That meant changing the news feed. on Tuesday, this morning Facebook revealed a , bigger pictures, and extra feeds. For some of us, it may be a bit overwhelming. Suddenly, Facebook isn’t such a linear experience. We have to decide what to view. If the update works as Facebook planned, that added choice will make us feel like the masters of our social networking destiny. The danger is that it’s too complicated. Remember that Facebook is a global utility that reaches a lot of people without a solid education or a ton of tech literacy. Many already complained the site was too confusing. The redesign only exacerbates that problem. If users get frazzled or find news feed navigation too mentally taxing, they may visit and scroll less. Facebook will be closely monitoring to see if that happens. VP of Product Chris Cox said the roll out will be “slow” and “cautious” over the next few weeks, and tweaks will be made where necessary. The big press event today mean it can’t just scrap the whole thing if it bombs, though. Whether the world wants it or not, whether we use Facebook more or less because of it, the new news feed is coming. But standing still wasn’t an option. It’s Facebook’s willingness to tinker that sets it apart from previous tech giants whose power has faded. Nimble startups are a huge threat to sluggish corporations, yet Facebook seems dead set on continuing to “move fast and break things” even now that it’s a public company. Facebook turned nine this year, but that won’t stop it from trying to live out classic rocker old quote: “You never slow down, you never grow old.” Now we’ll see if users bail out, or come along for the ride.
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Mobile Rewards Startup Kiip Launches Its Second $100K ‘Build Fund’ With Sponsorship From Pepsi
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Anthony Ha
| 2,013 | 3 | 21 |
A year ago, ran for independent developers, offering $100,000 in prizes. Founder and CEO Brian Wong told me recently that the fund was supposed to be a one-off promotion, but this year, enough developers asked if he was going to do it again that, indeed, he’s doing it again. Just like the first fund, Wong is looking for the best developers of apps that integrate with Kiip’s mobile rewards system, where users receive prizes from advertisers when they achieve certain goals in an app. There are, however, a couple of changes this time around. For one thing, there are only going to be 10 winners this year, not 20, which means that there’s more prize money for each developer — $10,000 in cash, plus $5,000 in services from partners like Parse, Urban Airship, Amazon Web Services, Crittercism, and Localytics. The contest is also designed around a theme this year: “Creation.” The idea, Wong said, is to focus on apps that are really doing something innovative and creating new categories, rather than just offering a small tweak on what others have already done. “We are trying to look for the true creators who literally do not care about anything but just making something great for the sake of it being great,” Wong said. The other addition this year is that Pepsi is sponsoring part of the Build Fund, specifically by offering sponsorships to the fitness apps that win. You can .
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Join Us In Austin At #SXSWi Office Hours On Sunday, March 10
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John Biggs
| 2,013 | 3 | 7 |
We love talking with start-ups but sometimes we don’t have time to sit down with everyone. That’s why we started TC Office Hours. It’s a chance to meet a few TC editors and pitch your business, ask questions or advice, or just stand in awe of our majestic presence. We’ll be visiting SXSWi this week and we want to talk to you – with a few caveats. Here’s what’s up. We’ll be taking turns sitting at Hilton in downtown Austin with a cold beer in one hand and some food at the ready. You’ll show up promptly at your allotted time, sit down with us for about 10 minutes, and then head back into the scrum. It will be a fun way to meet you all and for you to meet us. Don’t have a start-up or not ready to talk about it? Use this as an opportunity to bounce ideas off of us. We’ve seen it all. I’m especially partial to hardware startups, so if you have some gear you want to show off, head my way. Otherwise, take your pick of the TC litter. You can sign up for individual editors by visiting these links:
Looking forward to seeing you in Austin.
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The Philips Hue Is The Perfect Minecraft Accessory To Track The Day/Night Cycle
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Romain Dillet
| 2,013 | 3 | 7 |
[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cz5XcM_pdw”] It’s hard to find a compelling use case for the Philips Hue. But and hacked the wireless LED lightbulbs to be in sync with the day/night cycle in Minecraft. It creates an immersive setup and is actually useful as creepers start appearing at nighttime. In Minecraft, 24 hours go by in 10 minutes. It’s therefore fairly easy to program the Hue to progressively change color. But Rutherford had to find a to sync time between the game and the light. He developed an iPad app to adjust the position of the sun or the moon in the sky according to the game. You just have to pan your finger across the screen. Then, the app handles the interface to the lightbulb. You can see how it pans out at the end of the video. At $199 for the Philips Hue starter pack, it sure is an expensive accessory. Only the existing Hue owners or hardcore Minecraft players should consider replicating this setup. Rutherford said that he will release the app in the App Store so that everyone will be able to enjoy Minecraft’s virtual sunset. For now, you can have a look at the .
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Pandora’s Long-Time CEO Joe Kennedy Abruptly Steps Down, Just As It Starts Making Money On Mobile
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Rip Empson
| 2,013 | 3 | 7 |
for the streaming music service, Pandora has announced that its long-time CEO and President, Joe Kennedy, will be stepping down. In a statement this afternoon, Pandora said that he will “continue in his current role until his successor is named.” Kennedy, who has been at the helm of the streaming music service since July 2004 and helped take the company public, helped Pandora build a platform that now has over 67 million monthly active listeners. In its earnings report today, the company also said that it now stakes a claim to 8 percent of total U.S. radio listening market share. “As I near the start of my tenth year at the helm of Pandora, I am incredibly proud of the team and what we have accomplished in redefining radio,” Kennedy said in a statement today. “As part of our Board discussions of the road that lies ahead, I reached the conclusion and advised the Board that the time is right to begin a process to identify my successor.” Kennedy’s exit comes as a surprise to many, and really marks the end of an era for Pandora. Oh, right, and it could put a damper on the 19 percent jump the company’s shares took in after-hours trading today. That being said, it seems as if — now that Pandora has begun to monetize mobile, exceeding its expectations for the fourth quarter as mobile revenue increased 111 percent year-over-year to $80.3 million — either Kennedy or Pandora is ready for a change. The board’s statement doesn’t shed much light on the reasons behind Kennedy’s impending departure, nor does that by Pandora’s founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Tim Westegren, who said: “Over the last nine years, I have enjoyed an extraordinary partnership with Joe, working with him to grow the Company and build an exceptional team … I look forward to continuing to work with Joe to achieve our goals for 2013 and to help assure a smooth leadership transition.” Not particularly enlightening, but it does raise an important question as to whether or not, as the board forms its “search committee,” the next CEO is in fact already serving as Pandora’s CSO. It will be interesting to see if Pandora turns to its founder or looks to find new blood as Pandora transitions into its next phase. It also just so happens that Westergren will at SARTA TechEdge conference, so we may learn more about the impending transition then. Stay tuned for more. [tweet 309789883696828416 align=’center’]
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Fly Or Die: Google Chromebook Pixel
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Jordan Crook
| 2,013 | 3 | 7 |
Google’s new is a curious device. While its beautiful, seamless hardware nearly justifies its $1,299 price tag, the Chrome OS (which only offers access to a limited pool of third-party apps and Google products, plus the Internet) does not. In the specs department, both John and I are impressed. The Pixel has a 12.85-inch 2560 x 1700 touchscreen. To be exact, that’s 4.3 million pixels (not 4.1 billion, like I mentioned in the video). As , the touchscreen is truly beautiful. I find myself longing for it at this very moment, while I type this out on my MacBook Air. The Pixel powered by an Intel Core i5 processor, and comes with 1 terabyte of free storage on Google Drive over three years. If you prefer, Google is also coming out with an LTE-capable version of the Pixel soon, which will come with 100MB/month for two years courtesy of Verizon. And boy is the Pixel a beauty! It’s possible that the Pixel is one of the best looking laptops I’ve ever set eyes on, and John seems to agree (albeit less enthusiastically). The main obstacle between the Pixel and two flies is how caged-in the user will eventually be. If you use all Google services, exclusively, then please don’t hesitate to pick up the Pixel. However, if you’re fond of Skype or Microsoft Office or TweetDeck, you’ll find yourself quite displeased the moment you realize you can’t download any of that. Of course, Google has its own answers for those services with Docs, Hangouts, Drive, etc. But we all have our preferences, and no one likes to feel restricted while at the computer. As we move toward life entirely in the cloud, the Pixel will become increasingly relevant. For now, however, you either need to adore Google products exclusively or be ready to install Linux.
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Does Spotify Need A Web Player? (Of Course It Does)
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Michael Seo
| 2,013 | 3 | 7 |
News broke out today that Spotify would be making a beta version of its web player available to all of its users in the UK, with the promise that a full release would come later this year. I’m not complaining that I’ll soon be able to access Spotify through my browser. But why is Spotify, well established streaming music juggernaut that it is, using its resources to make this happen? In other words, does Spotify need a web player? It isn’t as if there are a growing number of Chromebook users out there that are just itching to get their streaming music action on. revealed that Chromebooks accounted for only 0.07% of desktop and laptop web traffic. The fruit there isn’t ripe for picking. In fact, the fruit there hasn’t even started growing at all. Spotify’s main competitor in this space, Rdio, runs completely off desktop, mobile, and web applications. But the notion that Rdio is scaring Spotify into making a play in this web player space is laughable. AppData’s monthly estimates peg active monthly users at over 300,000. In comparison, currently boasts around 20 million. And yet, of course Spotify needs a web application. Having Spotify on the browser isn’t just about appeasing a few Chromebook users or sticking it in the face of Rdio. It’s about accessibility anywhere on the world on any platform with an Internet connection. Spotify has already squashed its competitors in the music streaming world. Next, it’s setting its sights on the web. For example, take Spotify’s Play Button. The Play Button is a widget that can be embedded in any news site to provide easy access to Spotify’s tracks and playlists. You’ve probably come across it yourself plenty of times since . But for users without Spotify’s desktop application, clicking on the Play Button simply redirects to Spotify’s download page. Well then, why is that a problem? After all, the app is a free download and if you don’t mind ads, you can stream music for free too. The limitations of having Spotify accessible only from desktop and mobile applications stretch well beyond Chromebook and Linux users. As our very own Josh Constine noted in , there are plenty of work, school, and other public computers that you can’t install software on. With a web player, you wouldn’t have to worry about installation restrictions and passwords and administrator access. All you would need is one open browser tab. A browser is the one thing every single computer with an Internet connection in the world is guaranteed to have. That’s just where Spotify wants to be.
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Darrell Etherington
| 2,013 | 3 | 21 | null |
The SXSW Transportation Wars Are On, As Uber And SideCar Launch Free Ride Sharing In Austin
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Ryan Lawler
| 2,013 | 3 | 7 |
It looks like transportation around Austin during SXSW might not be as painful as it has been in years past. Increased competition in the ride-share market means that getting around will be a whole lot easier, as conference goers won’t have to sit around and wait for a taxi. Not just that, but transportation could be free, as both Uber and SideCar have committed to offering free rides over the next week or so. Last week, SideCar announced that it would have , as the company seeks to make Austin one of its first expansion markets. For its launch, the company had planned to introduce a fun (but complicated) promotion where some handpicked VIPs would be able to pick certain “spotlight” areas throughout town where riders could be picked up or dropped off for free. The Austin City Council had other plans, however. Seeking to keep ride sharing out of town, the city passed an ordinance that stated that unlicensed drivers who accepted payments for rides could have their cars impounded. The goal seems to have been to keep unlicensed drivers from taking rides during one of Austin’s biggest events of the year. But if the goal was to protect the revenue of cab drivers, the ordinance might have backfired. That’s because rather than have to deal with sting operations during the conference, SideCar decided to make all rides during the conference free, paying its drivers as brand ambassadors during the event. Theoretically, at least, since no money is changing hands between passenger and driver, the local police would have no grounds to impound any vehicles during the SXSW ride-share experiment. SideCar won’t be alone in Austin, as Uber announced on its blog today that it would make UBERx available for the first time in Austin for SXSW Interactive. That’s a big step up from previous years, when Uber made pedicab rides available during the conference. But it also falls in line with the startup’s plan to introduce low-cost ride offerings in all of the markets that it operates in. Late last month, Uber began for its UBERx service in San Francisco, accepting unlicensed drivers driving their own cars for the first time. Previously, it had partnered with third-party limo services for its black car and UBERx rides, but with the California Public Utilities Commission while it investigated the possibility of . That opened the door for Uber to offer ride-sharing in San Francisco (and potentially Los Angeles), it does nothing for Uber’s promotional offering in Austin during SXSW. So it, like SideCar, will be making UBERx rides from unlicensed drivers free, to avoid running afoul of the new city ordinance. And, of course, driving app adoption from tech-savvy users at the conference should be a positive side effect. Uber will have free UBERx rides throughout town, but those who want to ride in style will also be able to do so. That’s because Uber has partnered with a local limo company to offer UberLUX rides in Austin as well. Those who choose UberLUX will pay a lot more — minimum $75 a ride — but they’ll get ushered around in some baller vehicles, like a Rolls Royce Ghost or . While Uber and SideCar will have free ride shares throughout Austin over the next week, the city is apparently reconsidering its stance on ride sharing. Thanks in part to a urging Austin to embrace ride sharing, as well as some talks with SideCar over the last week, the city will soon vote on a new ordinance that will study ride sharing, with recommendations for new law in June. In the meantime, though, folks on the ground at SXSW get free rides. Not a bad deal for the rest of us.
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Chatting Is Great, But GroupMe’s Mobile Apps Now Let Users Split Payments, Too
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Chris Velazco
| 2,013 | 3 | 7 |
While the folks at GroupMe have spent some time exploring , they certainly haven’t given up on refining the formula that made them in the first place. Earlier today, GroupMe pushed out a that add some curious (and tremendously thoughtful) features to the company’s iOS and Android apps. As you’d expect these updates play host to a few minor tweaks and bugfixes (they’re apparently so minor GroupMe won’t even lay them out on its blog) but two new features are the real stars of the show here. First up is GroupMe’s new gallery view — rather than forcing users to scroll upstream through scores of old messages in search of previously shared photos, the app now lets them view all those photos in one fell swoop. Useful, sure, but nothing all that weighty. More importantly, GroupMe users can now include what the company calls a “Split” into any conversation — as the name sort of implies, it’s a way for users to quickly add expenditures in hopes that the rest of the group will chip in. Users can either set up the expense as a fixed goal that group members can contribute to, or as a set dollar amount that each person must contribute, and the actual payments are handled by . Aside from learning which of your compatriots are unrepentant cheapskates, the caveats are few — the first transaction could take up to 3 to 5 days to clear with a user’s bank, and the inevitable contributor fees ($0.99 plus 4.0% of the total amount) will kick in on March 12. Granted, there’s really no shortage of cute ways to split a payment these days (consider PayByGroup and PayDivvy, just to name a few) but baking that sort of functionality directly into a messaging application is an awfully savvy move. After all, GroupMe is already providing a useful way for multiple people to communicate and get things done — further enhancing that ability to get things done by adding support for in-app payments could help cement GroupMe as something more substantial than just another media-centric messaging app.
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Pandora Shares Jump 18% After Better-Than-Expected Earnings, Mobile Revenue Up 111% To $80.3M
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Rip Empson
| 2,013 | 3 | 7 |
Veteran streaming radio platform released its fourth quarter earnings today, in which it saw its fiscal 2013 revenue of $427.1 million, representing a 56 percent year-over-year increase, and fourth quarter revenue of $125.1 million, an increase of 54 percent year-over-year. In turn, mobile revenue for the fourth quarter grew 111 percent year-over-year to $80.3 million. Pandora to report a loss of about 5 cents per share on revenue of $122.7 million for the quarter, compared to a loss of 3 cents per share on revenues of $81.3 million from the same quarter last year. In spite of the expected loss, Wall Street (and the markets) seem to have been viewing Pandora favorably of late, as its stock has increased over 45 percent over the last quarter, and 1 percent on Thursday leading into the report. On the other hand, it’s been unclear how much Pandora’s recently-imposed limit on free listening hours on mobile devices will affect people’s loyalty and usage of the music service. Pandora has had to withstand a lengthy battle against rising royalties and apparently it now feels that harkening back to its old cap on free mobile usage is the best way to fight this — even if it comes at the detriment of the user experience. This means that those who go over its new 40-hour cap wil have to pay $0.99 to access unlimited listening for the rest of the month, or they can subscribe to Pandora One for $3.99/month to avoid commercials. Pandora lifted its 40-hour cap on free monthly desktop streaming radio in September 2011, but Pandora CEO Joe Kennedy said recently that the company’s mobile business is now “in a similar position to its desktop business a few years ago — it needs to make more money,” which naturally runs counter to the company’s long-standing mission to offer free music to everyone. This quarter it seems that Pandora is in fact finally starting to monetize mobile in a significant way. “We continue to monetize mobile at record levels and exceeded our expectations for the quarter,” the Pandora CEO said in a statement today, “and we closed the year with a record 8 percent share of total U.S. radio listening and record mobile monetization.” Some have expected trouble ahead for Pandora thanks to reports that Apple is planning to launch a competing, ad-supported radio service, offer royalty rates at half that of Pandora. Luckily for Pandora, that Apple’s new music service has been delayed until later this year, which, combined with Pandora’s better-than-expected earnings, seems to have contributed to the 19 percent leap in its share price . As you can see in the graphs above, for the fourth quarter, revenue increased 54 percent year-over-year to $125.1 million, with advertising revenue rising 51 percent to $109 million and subscription revenue increasing 74 percent year-over-year to $16.1 million. However, Pandora saw a GAAP net loss per share of $0.09 and non-GAAP net loss per share of $0.04, excluding $6.9 million in stock-based compensation, the company said. On the other hand, Pandora ended Q4 with $89 million in cash, up from $80.5 million last quarter, and cash generated in operating activities was $8.4 million in Q4, compared to $1.9 million in the fourth quarter last year. Another notable statistic: Total listener hours grew 53 percent to 4.05 billion in Q4 (up from 2.66 billion in the same period last year). Looking forward, Pandora is setting expectations that it will maintain rather than look to exceed its performance in Q4, forecasting revenue to be in the range of $120 million to $125 million, with non-GAAP loss-per-share between $0.13 and $0.10. Not long after we posted this (and Pandora announced its fourth quarter earnings), Pandora President and CEO Joe Kennedy, who has led the company since 2004, It’s a relatively unexpected news, and the board is now convening a committee to search for Kennedy’s replacement. Thus, it remains unclear whether the long-time CEO was pushed out or whether he was just ready to move on to something else (or both), but, either way, it marks the end of an era for Pandora — at least metaphorically. As a result, it will also be interesting to see how it makes the transition to its next phase, and whether Tim Westergren (the Pandora founder and Chief Strategy Officer) steps into the role or new blood — and what the market’s reaction will be to the news. Hard to imagine Pandora opening with the same 19 percent hike it found after hours.
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The Snapchat Lawsuit, Or How To Lose Your Best Friend Over $70 Million
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Billy Gallagher
| 2,013 | 3 | 7 |
One week ago, Reggie Brown alleging that he is a co-founder of , a red-hot impermanent photo messaging app, and is entitled to an original one-third ownership stake along with co-founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy. What’s at stake? Snapchat won “Fastest Rising Startup” at the and recently at a $70 million valuation. Brown and Spiegel lived on the same floor of the freshman dorm Donner at Stanford University during the 2008-2009 school year. The two quickly became very close friends. The duo rushed the Kappa Sigma fraternity in the spring of their freshman year, and lived there with Murphy the following year. “[Murphy and I] were living in the house together for a little while. He was down the hall and whenever I needed CS help I’d go wake him up at like four in the morning,” Spiegel told me . In the spring of 2011, when the app was born, Spiegel and Brown were juniors and still very close friends; Murphy had graduated the previous spring. One source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he was in his room in the spring of 2011 with Brown and another member of the fraternity, neither Spiegel nor Murphy, joking about sexting when Brown came up with the idea for an app with disappearing photos. “Spiegel wasn’t even part of the convo at the idea’s inception,” the source tells me. “Reggie [Brown] ran out of my room after he thought he struck gold and went to Spiegel…he just knew [Spiegel] would take him seriously and move forward.” claims Spiegel “repeatedly exclaiming that Brown had indeed conceived of a ‘million-dollar idea.’” While no one has been able to verify this exact scene as the initial creation of the idea, as Brown did not respond to an interview request and the source would not identify the other member in the room with them, nearly a dozen sources confirmed that Brown was involved in the early stages of the company, but refused to comment further as many claim ongoing friendships with Brown, Spiegel or both. Spiegel and Murphy did not respond to requests for comment on this story. Spiegel has never mentioned Brown in the five interviews he and I have done for TechCrunch pieces, and he has talked at length to the media about coming up with the idea with Murphy. One example, possibly referring to Brown as the friend, pops up in Snapchat’s first media exposure, an April 2012 : “The idea came to him when a friend said, “I wish these photos I am sending this girl would disappear.” As Spiegel and his partner conceived it, the app would allow users to avoid making youthful indiscretions a matter of digital permanence.” When I asked Spiegel to elaborate on this comment—specifically the app’s ties to sexting—in our original May 2012 interview, he told me, “I think that definitely was the inspiration for something that ended up being quite different.” That summer, Brown, Murphy and Spiegel worked at Spiegel’s father’s house in Los Angeles, where the company was headquartered until December 2012. A source says Brown, an English major, acknowledged that he “had a little less to contribute but was still working on what he could do” and that there were emails about Spiegel and Murphy taking equal cuts that were larger than Brown’s. Spiegel majored in product design and Murphy studied mathematical and computational science. Another source, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, says Brown would go out constantly, partying at all hours and not working on the app, while Murphy coded and Spiegel worked on design. The source says Brown added virtually nothing to the team beyond the initial concept. Brown’s suit claims he worked on a number of tasks, including writing the app’s terms of use and answers to FAQs, marketing, and the patent application. In August 2011, the suit alleges that Spiegel and Murphy changed the passwords and forced Brown out of the company after a big argument. “There was a big argument over patent filing,” the first source tells me. “Then there was a huge fight where each person said terrible things about the other and then Spiegel changed the passwords and Reggie just sat and waited to file…it was something to do with who’s name was listed first. Literally a pointless argument. The bigger thing was what happened after. I really don’t think the patent ended up being a problem. It’s pretty much just a fight between friends and people calling each other out. Not much basis for why they actually had a big split up.” After that, the source says Spiegel and Brown didn’t talk at all, besides a few attempts from Brown to try to figure out a settlement. In September of 2011, as Spiegel and Brown prepared to return to Stanford for their senior years not on speaking terms, the app only had around 100 users. That fall, Spiegel and Murphy introduced the app to parents and high schoolers in Orange County, and the app quickly gained thousands of users in tight circles in a few Malibu high schools. In January of 2012, Snapchat had over 30,000 users who were primarily using it as a goofy communication tool, not for sexting. Over the next year, with Murphy leading the coding team and Spiegel speaking and maneuvering as the public face of the company, the app exploded in popularity, seeing 60 million snaps sent per day as of February 2013. Spiegel and Murphy regularly appeared on TV and in newspapers and blogs. The company raised nearly $14 million, hired more engineers and support staff, and moved to a new office on Venice Beach. Meanwhile, Brown graduated from Stanford in June 2012 and moved back to his native South Carolina.
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We Built This SimCity On A Shaky Foundation Of DRM
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Darrell Etherington
| 2,013 | 3 | 7 |
EA’s anticipated SimCity launch has officially become a cavalcade of fail. Amazon is in the face of massive negative buyer feedback, with the electronic title managing to accrue an overall rating of one star on the retailer’s site. This comes after EA disabled certain features to try to ease launch woes, and after it delayed the European launch by 24 hours to do the same. By all accounts, the game itself is great. The problem is that EA decided to make sure that everyone, regardless of whether they wanted to play with others or by their lonesome selves, be connected to the Internet and EA’s SimCity servers in order to have access to the game. It’s the most insidious kind of DRM, in that it punishes legitimate players almost as much as it punishes pirates. Rule number one of being a tyrannical game company fallen on hard times enforcing an outdated form of content copyright protection: make sure your servers can handle the load. EA has since said that it will bring in additional servers over the course of “the coming two days,” according to , and has already shut down the servers to install updates in an attempt to set things right. It’s also turning off leaderboards, achievements and region filters, hoping closing down non-essential elements will ease the network strain. Of course, the irony here is thick. EA and Maxis are shutting down gameplay features in order to make sure that a title doesn’t really *need* to be online, can remain online anyway to keep the DRM component in place. From a late last year, Maxis SVP Lucy Bradshaw defending the always-on connection (emphasis added): Running the regional simulation on our servers is something we also use to support features that will make this SimCity even more fun. We use the Sim data to , where you get to see your city or mayoral standings as compared to the other cities in your region and between all of the regions in the world. And since SimCity is a live service, we’re also using the data to create weekly global and local challenges for our players that keep the gameplay fresh and surprising. So when challenged on why SimCity has to have a constant connection to the Internet, even for single-player games, a senior Maxis executive highlighted the very features that the developer now has to disable just to keep the lights on. It was a thin excuse back then, and it’s about as thick as tattered onion skin now. There’s absolutely no excuse for SimCity’s launch issues beyond simple short-sighted greed. Diablo III, a top-tier title put out by Activision Blizzard last year, faced the same kind of massive launch problems. The title sold well however, thanks in large part to the same kind of pre-order hype that benefitted SimCity, shipping over 12 million copies through the end of 2012. Active players were rumored to have declined quickly in the months following its launch, but the company recently said it’s , so it can’t be doing too badly. The sad truth is that EA, like Activision Blizzard before it, might not suffer that much material hurt from SimCity’s shaky launch, despite the outraged protest of frustrated Amazon reviewers. But here’s hoping it does, because this is bullshit.
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Google And MPEG LA Sign Licensing Agreement Covering Google’s VP8 Video Codec, Clearing The Way For Wider Adoption
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Frederic Lardinois
| 2,013 | 3 | 7 |
Google’s , which the company acquired from On2 Technologies, is an open standard and covered by a free patent license. That, however, didn’t stop MPEG LA, the guardians of the H.264 patent and license, from looking into creating a patent pool in 2011 and potentially suing Google for patent infringement upon its competing codec. Today, however, and Google that they have come to an agreement. MPEG LA will grant Google a license “to techniques that may be essential to VP8 and earlier-generation VPx video compression technologies under patents owned by 11 patent holders.” The agreement allows Google to sub-license the techniques covered by the agreement to any VP8 user and also covers the next generation of the VPx codec. As part of this deal, MPEG LA is discontinuing its efforts to form a VP8 patent pool. Chances are Google had to pay for this license, but the financial details of the agreement were not disclosed. The relative uncertainty around VP8 definitely hindered its adoption outside of Google. Microsoft, for example, decided to keep the Google-backed WebM media file format that was built around VP8 out of its browser because of this uncertainty. The WebRTC standard, however, which most browser vendors have now adopted, is built around the VP8 codec. “This is a significant milestone in Google’s efforts to establish VP8 as a widely deployed web video format,” said Allen Lo, Google’s deputy general counsel for patents, in a statement today. Despite Google’s efforts, H.264 remains the de facto standard for video codecs. The fact that it is build into WebRTC (and that the standard doesn’t allow for alternative codecs) is a boon for proponents of open standards. Now that the uncertainty around VP8 is out of the way, Microsoft may even decide to adopt WebRTC for Internet Explorer instead of its own version of the standard. For the time being, however, this for hardware-based VP8 encoders and decoders, while virtually every video-enabled device can handle H.264 without taxing the CPU. With both the next-gen standards and Google’s already in the works, today’s agreement could mean we’ll see more competition in the video codec space in the coming months. Mostly, though, this agreement takes away the uncertainty around VP8 and will surely lead to its wider adoption.
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“In The Studio,” FLOODGATE’S Mike Maples Maintains An Outsider Mindset Despite His Valley Successes
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Semil Shah
| 2,013 | 3 | 7 |
TechCrunch “In the Studio” welcomes a co-founder of a company which went public, a native Texan who studied engineering in Silicon Valley and business on the east coast, and who, upon returning to the Valley to begin investing, encountered a different path than he originally anticipated. By now, everyone in the Valley knows or knows of , a co-founder of . What they may not know, however, is how difficult it was, despite his success with Motive, the company he co-founded while in college and went public, to return to the Valley and embark on the next career he imagined for himself. Maples wanted to be a VC, so he was offered EIR positions at two firms, but never full-time employment. During this time, he also noticed a gap in the investment market between individual investors deploying their own money and larger, institutional venture capital firms, who wanted to write bigger checks. This experience gave Maples the idea for his investment firm, which is now FLOODGATE, to fill in the gap with a smaller institutional fund. Maples’ insights, company intuition, early-stage dealmaking abilities now speaks for , with early stage investments in companies such as Zimride (Lyft), Wanelo, Ayasdi, Weebly, Reputation.com, Playdom, Okta, ngmoco, Modcloth, IFTTT, digg, Chegg, BranchOut, Bazaarvoice, and many others. And, a little company called Twitter. In this video, Maples and I discuss how he came back to the Valley after working in industry, how he had stints as an EIR with two large venture firms but wasn’t offered a full-time role, and how, as a result, he started angel investing which eventually led to the formation of Maples Investments, which is FLOODGATE. This video would be of interest to any early-stage founder as well as any technology investor, given Maples’ track record of success. He also goes into detail about how he tactically started his investment fund. Most notable to me in this video, however, is how humble Maples is, despite his successes. Around the 5:00 minute-mark in the talk, Maples actually chokes up for a second while recounting how it was founders who helped paved the way for his success. He frames his initial investments as being made possible by the graciousness of founders who let Maples into the rounds to participate. It’s become cliché for investors to attribute any of their successes to the work they do for their company, and yet Maples almost says the opposite, that it is really the entrepreneur who gives the investor the chance to begin with.
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More Data Showing iOS, Especially The iPhone, Still Killing It In The Enterprise, At Android’s Expense
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Natasha Lomas
| 2,013 | 3 | 7 |
Apple’s iOS is consolidating its grip on the enterprise market and taking share from Android, according to customer data from enterprise file sharing and hybrid cloud storage company , which offers cloud back-up and storage services for a , from large corporates with thousands of seats to SMEs with just a handful. Of course different enterprises have very different needs and requirements when it comes to mobile devices. Take a look at governments, for instance, and you’d be convinced BlackBerry is still killing it. But as a snapshot of the mobile OSes being favoured by different sized companies, mostly U.S.-based (80 percent of the data, with the other 20 percent pertaining to European businesses), this data is an interesting subset to add to the pile. The data, shared directly with TechCrunch, covers 100,000 of Egnyte’s paying customers over the last year-and-a-half+, tracking which OS they are using to access its services on mobile devices and also splitting out iPhone and iPad use. The numbers look strong for Apple, with the iPhone especially growing its proportion of users since the second half of 2011 to-date — perhaps helped by the halo effect of iPads arriving in the enterprise and persuading business folk to trade their BlackBerrys for iPhones. Egnyte’s data doesn’t specifically refer to BlackBerrys but does show Apple taking share away from Android. “Apple seems to have at least temporarily won the hearts and minds of business users with its products accounting for about 70 percent of our traffic,” Egnyte told TechCrunch. In , Egnyte’s data shows the following device breakdown — giving iOS a 68 percent majority of Egnyte’s enterprise user-base: In , the iPhone grew its proportion, while the iPad’s very sizeable share shrank to below a third — suggesting iPhone usage cannibalised iPad usage to an extent. Overall, though, Apple’s percentage rose to 69 percent: Egnyte has also scraped some early data for , which shows both iPhone and iPad usage rising — this time apparently at the expense of Android phones and tablets, which had previously held a steady share of 30 percent. There is also no sign as yet of a Microsoft enterprise mobile resurgence with its Windows Phone OS (the ‘other’ catch-all category doesn’t yet figure in the 2013 data). Apple holds a whopping, ‘Pacman-shaped’ 78 percent share of the user base as of Q1 2013: Egnyte’s data on enterprise users’ preference for iPhones tallies broadly with data from mobile device management company Good Technology, covered recently by . Good reported even higher percentages for iOS — with nearly 77 percent of devices activated by its corporate customers in Q4 2012 powered by iOS, up from 71 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011. Good also found Android’s enterprise mobile shared declining, dropping to 22.7 percent in Q4 2012, down from 29 percent in Q4 2011. (It also tracked a 0.5 percent rise for Windows Phone.) Returning to Egnyte’s data for 2012, almost a fifth (19 percent) of the Android traffic was generated using a Nook tablet — so despite the iPad’s popularity with business users, some enterprises are evidently not immune to the lure of using . The company also breaks out Wi-Fi access by device for 2012. It found that 40 percent of iPad sessions occurred over Wi-Fi, while just 31 percent of iPhone sessions did — suggesting the iPhone still prevails as the device of choice in the most mobile situations, ie when users are moving around a lot or aren’t in range of a Wi-Fi network (perhaps because businesses have purchased Wi-Fi only iPads to keep ongoing costs down). Egnyte speculates that smartphones are fractionally quicker to begin using than tablets, typically sitting within easy reach, so tend to be the device of choice for viewing files on the fly, with users waiting for a more comfortable environment before getting out the tablet to do some editing. “Overall, tablet use in the corporate marketplace hasn’t been as high as we would expect, but… we think this may be more due to people’s love affairs with their phones, than for any lack in the capabilities of a tablet,” the company said. Commenting generally on the data, Egnyte told TechCrunch: While initially iPads dominated our use, iPhones have taken over. 2011 use showed the iPad accounting for 40 percent of our usage, in 2012 iPhones are now 42 percent of usage, and Android has remained constant at about 30 percent of use. There are two interesting points here, first, Apple seems to have at least temporarily won the hearts and minds of business users with its products accounting for about 70 percent of our traffic. This is important because it’s a flip-flop from the days of old, where Apple products were rarely seen in the corporate landscape. It’s also an indication that when BYOD wrested control over what devices consumers used from IT, they overwhelmingly chose an easy to use product that focused on UI and usability, perhaps even at times over depth. The second interesting point is that while tablets are certainly hot, iPhones are driving most of the traffic. This may be due to the fact that the iPad doesn’t replace a laptop yet as the corporate device of choice, but try and take a business person’s smartphone away from them, and you may not have a hand left. Smartphones are a must have, and we suspect that since people are already checking email on such a phone while they are working remotely, it’s an extra step to get out and bootup your tablet, so if you have a great phone app that does the same thing, just use it to view your files. Most editing we think still happens on the laptop/desktop. This ‘on the go’ access is further confirmed by the fact that only 31 percent of iPhone sessions occurred over Wi-Fi, that means over three-quarters of access happens via cellular services.
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Hands-On With The New Facebook And Its Boredom-Killing Feeds [TCTV]
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Josh Constine
| 2,013 | 3 | 7 |
There’s always something else to browse on the redesigned Facebook unveiled today. Instead of churning through the main feed until you hit reruns and leave, Facebook hopes to keep you switching between Photos, Music, and All Friends feeds so you stick around. The design previewed at Facebook’s HQ today was actually stripped down, but I got the rollout early, so here’s what it really looks like. Facebook said it will be slowly and cautiously rolling out the redesign so it can get feedback as it goes, but over the next few weeks users will see a banner announcing “Coming Soon: Less Clutter, More Stories” with a button to give it a try. The mobile app changes that mirror the website will be available in the next few weeks, too. Once you’re in, the first thing you’ll notice is the big black left sidebar. It holds the standard bookmarks from before, but also lodges the Chat buddy list at the bottom, stealing it from where it used to be on the right side of the screen. Depending on your screen size and resolution, the bar will be minimized and only show bookmark icons and friends’ faces for chat instead of their titles and names too. Overall the look is slick and clean, and much less ‘late 2000s’ like the old feed. Stories in the news feed are much bigger now. In fact, photos are almost as large as when you click through to view them by themselves. Overlaid text about who posted the photos and who Liked them frees up this extra feed space. The thumbnail images and blurbs of shared links are bigger, so you’ll know more about the website you’re about to click to. The most important part of the new design are the content-specific feeds. Available from a chooser in the top right where Birthdays used to be, you can select to look at feeds on “All Friends,” “Photos,” “Music,” “Games,” “Following [Pages and public figures],” and any friend or interest lists you’ve created. Ads, birthdays, requests, and other right-hand sidebar stuff has been pushed downward. Photos is quickly becoming my favorite place to go beyond the default feed. It feels like Instagram but for the web. By showing you just images and no text or links, you don’t have to consciously think as much. You just look at the pretty pictures. Music is an awesome place to discover jams from your friends. If you’ve Liked a bunch of Pages over the years but hate their updates, you can look at All Friends. And if your friends are boring you with their inane baby photos, the Following feed lets you just see the stuff shared by Pages you Like and the public figures you subscribe to. One thing not mentioned at the press event at all are the cool new sidebar features in each of the different feeds. For example, in Photos you get highlights like “New Cover Photos” and “New Profile Pictures.” Facebook already feels more addictive to me. My typical loop on the Internet was Twitter, email, and then browsing down the Facebook news feed until I saw what I’d seen last time I visited. Now when I hit the wall, instead of bouncing I’m inclined to go discover new music, check out photos from friends, or read interesting articles from the journalists I subscribe to. In the end, the redesign means Facebook can give us more to look at, get more time spent on the service so it can show us more ads, and better accomplish its mission of connecting the world — but in a more personalized way where the users are in control.
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Backed Or Whacked: Pursuits Of Pet Peeves
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Ross Rubin
| 2,013 | 3 | 9 |
Our furry friends are often labelled our faithful companions, but their loyalty can often come at a price. We humans must accept the responsibility of their care and tolerance for some of their less-savory traits, such as the bouquet of their breath, the piling of their pelage, or the proliferation of their poop. To ease the burden, Indiegogo inventors have been applying creativity to address each of these options to help enable our animal friends to come closer to matching the clean convenience of the immortal robots destined to replace them in the future. As Ralph Wiggam once keenly observed, “my cat’s breath smells like cat food.” Wouldst that were the worst scent to emanate from the mouths of our furry friends. Believing dogs’ barks to be stronger competition for their bites than often given credit for, 75 year-old dentist Bob “I put the ‘wag’ in” Wagstaff has developed the Orapup, a mouth cleaner for dogs designed to drive the halitosis from your havanese. Given that oral hygiene isn’t at the top of dogs’ natural gifts, Dr. Wagstaff developed brisket-flavored bristles that encourage the hound to lick its way to minty freshness, or at least a less obnoxious odor. After raising nearly $63,000 in its Indiegogo campaign, the Orapup is now available for preorder at Amazon.com for about $16, but isn’t due to arrive until December, where it may offer holiday comfort to Lucy Van Pelt and others who have contracted dog germs. Unavailable to the late adopters who use such a traditional channel is the “I kissed my dog and I liked it” t-shirt that was offered to those who pledged $95 and described by the campaign page as “delightfully inappropriate.” The idea of a device to clean up spills isn’t intrinsically a pet accessory; indeed, the SpotVac also claims to effectively suck up milk, paint and other stray substances. That said, it sure can come in handy if any undesirable solids, liquids or gases have been transferred from your pet’s body to your carpets. Such is a highlighted application for the $120 SpotVac Pet Odor Pack, which attaches to an inexpensive wet vac to permeate carpet stains “the way the professional does it” and without using an “aggressive chemical,” such as sodium punch face. The highlight of the SpotVac video, seemingly excerpted from a future infomercial, involves the inventor’s mom nose-diving into her dining-room carpet twice and describing the lack of dog-related smell to be “like a Christmas miracle” (although one would be hard-pressed to name which one exactly). For now, the makers of the SpotVac need to suck up to the crowdfunders a little better, as they’ve reached a bit less than half of their $25,000 goal. However, there’s still about 23 days left in the campaign in which to prove that this dog can hunt. Cats may no longer be the widespread object of worship that they once were to ancient Egyptians, but they have many exceptional abilities, including balance, the ability to infiltrate Internet message boards and social networks, and, yes, the ability to use toilets. Getting your feline in line when it comes to eliminating the litter box is the goal of the CatMan-Doo, a toilet seat for cats intended to impart potty training within three weeks and then remain on the toilet to accommodate kitty. As the campaign site admonishes in threatening bold, all caps, and an exclamation point: “DO NOT EVER expect the cat to use a human toilet seat!” (Yes, but what about CatMen?) The CatMan-Doo system, starting at $39 for a cat-show special, was supposed to ship in February. The backers attracted only a bit over a third of their $10,000 goal, but they get to keep all the money raised via the Flexible Funding campaign, enabling them to purchase at least a one-way ticket to Katmandont.
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Attention Bikers! Chaotic Moon Has Built A Video-Powered Black Box For Your Dome
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Ryan Lawler
| 2,013 | 3 | 9 |
One of the cool things about going to a crazy tech event like SXSW Interactive in a different city is being able to meet with local entrepreneurs and check out the things that they’re working on. Yesterday, I got the chance to visit the offices of Chaotic Moon, a software and app development firm in Austin. The company is probably best known for dev work that it’s done for clients like Rupert Murdoch’s The Daily, or the that just hit the Apple App Store. But when one of their coworkers was hurt in a brutal hit-and-run bike accident, they spent some time on a side project designed to help cyclists who find themselves in a similar situation. The end result is a bike helmet prototype that includes seven cameras for a 360-degree field of vision, and a built-in accelerometer and microphone to recognize sudden movements or loud noises. The idea is not only to provide a sort of black box to help cyclists in the case of an emergency to gather information about accidents, but to raise awareness about bicycle safety in general, and to show manufacturers just how quickly and inexpensively such a thing could be put together. The whole project took about a week, Chaotic Moon Labs GM Whurley told us, and the company not only tied together all the hardware that was needed to make it work, but also built software to download and display all the different camera angles at once. Check out our video interview above to see how it was put together and how it works.
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Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley On Whether Hot Apps Can Still Be Born At SXSW [TCTV]
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Colleen Taylor
| 2,013 | 3 | 9 |
So it was great to take some time with Foursquare’s founder and CEO Dennis Crowley in Austin at to talk about the past, present, and future of launching apps at the conference. In the video embedded above, watch Crowley discuss whether SXSW or not as the springboard for hit apps in the way that it was for , what advice the Dens of today would tell the Dens of 2009 and 2010 as Foursquare was blowing up, how he views the from smaller apps as well as industry giants such as Facebook, what’s next for Foursquare in the months ahead, and more.
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As It Hits 3M Users After 6 Months, hoppr Checks-In Its Bid To Be India’s Foursquare
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Mike Butcher
| 2,013 | 3 | 9 |
While Foursquare has been concentrating on smartphones for some year now, much of the rest of the world has remained on a feature phone (though that of course is changing). So the opportunity to do location-based services has been limited – though not impossible. It has always been possible to triangulate a phones’ rough location based on the nearest three base stations using. So taking that idea, last year a new startup called launched in India, offering real benefits to people who could simply SMS to check in their location and gain benefits with local retailers. That simple strategy has lead to the point today where, after only six months in full operation, hoppr has garnered over three million registrations and over a million monthly active users. Given this is India we’re talking about, the numbers can look pretty good. CEO and fonder Mohammad Imthiaz told me they are getting half a million check-ins daily and have racked up over 65 million check-ins to date. Although hoppr comes as an Android app which went live only recently, this growth is largely in part because hoppr can be reached via seven of India’s mains mobile operators. This footprint reaches about 95% of mobile users in the country, through hoppr’s simple free SMS code they can text to ping their location. On hoppr, you don’t become the Mayor of a venue, but the Skipper. And you can, like Foursquare, see how you rank against your friends in number of check-ins. See what they did there? Cleverly, even if users don’t have a smart phone, they can share their location back into to Facebook just by texting hoppr. Given that 95% of India’s 700 million mobile population use basic feature phones ranging in cost between $20 and $60, you can see why SMS remains so important. As Imthiaz told me when I was in India recently, the speed of the mobile connection is a big deal in India, which is why just being able to send an SMS to check-in is so important. hoppr is owned by BhartiSoftBank, a 50:50 JV between India-based Bharti Enterprises and Softbank, the Japanese telecommunications giant. Bharti Enterprises is one of India’s biggest companies with interests in telecom, agri business, retail and manufacturing.
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A Big Deal For The Middle East, Daily Deals Site Cobone Acquired By Tiger Global Management
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Steve O'Hear
| 2,013 | 3 | 9 |
After months of speculation that its backer Jabbar Internet Group were shopping around for a sale, the leading Middle Eastern daily deals site has been acquired by investment firm . The size of the deal remains undisclosed, though my understanding is that the figure of $40 million that’s been touted building up to this sale isn’t far off the mark. Furthermore, the acquisition — which sees Jabber Internet Group exit entirely — is said to leave Dubai-based Cobone with additional capital to further its ambitions in the region, while its Irish founder and CEO Paul Kenny, along with other key members of the management team, will remain with the company. Launched in July 2010, Cobone operates a group buying model akin to Groupon, by offering subscribers to its site a daily deal on the best things to do, see, eat and buy in cities across the Middle East. While this acquisition likely represents one of, if not, the largest e-commerce exit in the region, where e-commerce remains far behind many other parts of the world, the company’s funding and finances remain opaque. It’s not clear, for example, how much Jabbar Internet Group or Cobone’s other backers — Klaus Hommels and Oliver Jung — have invested in Cobone, so it’s difficult to gage how successful an exit this is. The company doesn’t disclose revenue, either, or if it’s profitable (last year one pegged its revenues in 2012 at around $31m). The company willing to wax lyrical about user numbers, however. It says that it has a subscriber base of 2 million to its daily deals newsletter, and has sold 1.5 million coupons, “saving” its customers $100 million. What’s also clear is that Cobone has successfully fended off one global competitor in the form of LivingSocial. The U.S. company made strides to enter the Middle East by local player GoNabit in June 2011, only to shut down operations just over a year later. Samih Toukan, Chairman of Jabbar Internet Group, comments in a statement: “This deal represents the international recognition of a highly successful local business. With Paul Kenny, we created a company that lead the way in regional group buying, and took on global players on our own turf. While this deal represents a successful exit for the Jabbar Group, we have little doubt in Cobone’s commitment to the region and in Paul’s determination to continue excelling and leading his brainchild to new successes.” Finally, an interesting tidbit to the Cobone story. So nascent was e-commerce in the Middle East when the startup first set up shop almost three years ago, 80% of its business involved cash on delivery. Users would order their daily deal online and get the voucher delivered to their door where they’d be asked to pay.
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What Games Are: The PC’s Struggle To App-Up Continues
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Tadhg Kelly
| 2,013 | 3 | 9 |
Oh Sim City 5, . Right about now, when the media should be filling up with tall tales of virtual skyscrapers and cooperation between players on a grand scale, your life must be miserable. Between server crashes, Amazon suspending sales and reviews comparing the experience of attempting to activate you to paying “ ,” it’s been a tough week. And all, largely, because you tried to insist that you be played always-online. Depending on where a user comes from, these Sim-City-esque situations are either maddening or baffling. There are the PC gamers for whom the whole idea of always-online games has long been egregious. Ever since Half Life 2 required Steam activation (and probably before), something about connected games rankled some players. It made sense for, say, massive multiplayer games like World of Warcraft. But what if I wanted to play my game on my laptop? What if I was on a plane? What if I just don’t want to be online? Why should my single-player game have to contact the Internet? On the flip side is the increasing acceptance from mobile and tablet consumers that software comes through central providers, that being online is more common than being off, and that this sort of tension being played out on the PC should have been solved five years ago. Okay you might be on a plane from time to time and maybe the game needs to be smart about that, but the principle of connected games ain’t no thing. It has a lot of advantages, such as easily keeping apps up to date, connections to friends and so on. Functionally speaking, the app customer is right. Better connected devices are dramatically more convenient in a whole bunch of little ways, and also safer. You don’t, for example, see any malware on iPad. You just don’t have to put up with the stresses of virus checkers, managing files, having uninstallers degrade your operating systems and all the rest of it. And yet the attempts by both Apple and Microsoft to transform the desktop and laptop computer into app platforms have met with muted, or even hostile, responses. It’s less a functional argument and more a philosophical one. Apple has tried to integrate bits of iOS into the Mac, such as increasingly serving their own applications through the Mac App Store, and it works but has yet to set the world on fire. Then there is Microsoft’s Windows 8, which – for all its faults – tries to make a big hullaballoo about modernising the PC. And yet the overall reaction to it has been apathetic. Even the recent idea floated by Gabe Newell (of Valve) that Steam might become more of an app market by allowing more aggregation and less curation is met more with puzzlement than joy. In part the resistance of the PC to apping-up is historical. Unlike mobile and tablet, the PC has long appealed to the sort of person who views a computer more as a power tool than a content-consumption device. Programmers like having power at their fingertips, the sensation that – if they really needed to – they could dig deep into the internals of the machine code and rewrite the kernel. They dislike barriers, and new-fangled smart devices are all about barriers. Your average power PC user can see how that sort of thing is all very well for the muggles, but feels that he doesn’t need training wheels. Moreover there is a political sentiment ( ) that the general-purpose-if-complicated computer represents an important tool for liberation. It’s important for a slew of reasons, from settling the larger issues of copyright to encouraging revolutionary thinking, that the PC style of computing endure. Without our messy machines, the risk is that the Internet becomes as dumb as television. Then there’s the problem of existing powers. Part of the reason why Sim City 5 is a debacle, much as was, is that there are many companies who are already in the PC software landscape who do not want to cede their power. It seems to make more sense for EA to provide its own online servers and services, for example, and turn gamers into EA gamers. That way they can capture more value over the long term. Activision believes the same with its Blizzard games, as do many other publishers who use Steam but wish they had the resources to roll their own. For the customer, however, this leads to a junky experience. If Android vs. iOS has taught us anything, it’s that persistent connectivity needs a single point of access, that when it becomes necessary for customers to know which app vendor they’re working with (or even that such a concept as different app stores exists) then the result is a sticky and trust-less interaction. It becomes a hassle, and not one that gets solved by yet another store. That’s why there are more Android devices, but iOS is the platform of choice for developers who want to make money. Finally there’s the technology. To the user app platforms feel unified and smooth, and this breeds a sense of confidence. For example it does not take a long time for an app to start up or to close. Apps don’t generally hang while a hard drive grinds a load of data. Users don’t really have to deal with graphics settings or drivers. Apps handle notifications with consistency. And so on. Despite the veneer of fancy new launchers or dashboards, this is not at all true of the PC. The Mac is basically still a Mac as it was five years ago, with a couple too-many bolt-ons to the core user-interface and hangovers from yesteryear that have yet to be resolved. Windows 8 may have attempted to make us all rethink what Windows is with panels and widgets and so on, but its core metaphors are weird and mix old and new in uncomfortable ways. How, users ask, the blazes does it actually work? So the PC muddles on and inches its way into a technical ghetto. As muggles drift over to using app platforms in droves (because life is just too short), the PC increasingly becomes a machine by developers for developers. At the moment there may be a disparity in power between “proper” computers and app platforms, and you can’t yet develop for iPad on iPad, but over time those factors will reduce. Then where will the PC be? It has always been in the middle of transition in some shape or form, and the argument for the importance of general computing isn’t insignificant. But – to me at least – it feels as though Apple and (especially) Microsoft have to really decide for the long term whether the PC is going to go all the way in on apping-up or go another way. The half-in/half-out model is just not working, and sooner or later will motivate even gamers to find some simpler solution to their needs. Oh Sim City 5. Don’t you wish you’d been developed as an iPad app?
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“The US Is A Country Of Explorers” Says Elon Musk As He Plans For A Texas-Based Spaceport
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Jay Donovan
| 2,013 | 3 | 9 |
Wired’s Chris Anderson interviewed Mega-Entrepreneur Elon Musk about his many projects, including SpaceX and Tesla Motors. Throughout their fairly technical and detailed conversation, Elon when into detail about the rigors of launching rockets and dealing with bad press about cars. Part of the reason he is here in Texas is to meet with Texas legislature to talk about launch facilities. Elon detailed that SpaceX really needs a third launch site besides Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg; they need a commercial launch facility and they need to be able to launch Eastward and near the equator. As a state, Texas is the leading candidate, but other states are being considered. They have some things to work through like making sure beaches can be closed. If everything works out though, in the best case, SpaceX could be start starting construction next year on a facility in Texas. Launches could happen within two to three years. In the end, the bulk of the conversation really came down to Elon’s opinion that “the US is a country of explorers and people need to believe that [space travel] is not going to bankrupt them.”
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Elon Musk Says His Only Regret In NYT Controversy Was Not Rebutting The Rebuttal
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Anthony Ha
| 2,013 | 3 | 9 |
During this afternoon’s keynote interview at South by Southwest Interactive, Tesla CEO and founder Elon Musk briefly addressed about a negative article by writer John Broder, which Musk said was “false.” Asked if he would do anything differently, Musk said there was just one thing — he would have posted “the rebuttal to the rebuttal.” Broder’s article recounted a test drive of Tesla’s Model S in which the battery was depleted in the final part of the drive, meaning that it had to get towed. Musk in turn in which he accused Broder of improperly charging the vehicle, taking a long detour, and otherwise setting up the test drive to fail. When Musk mentioned the “rebuttal,” he was referring specifically to a piece by , which she said that Broder undertook the drive in “good faith,” but that he didn’t always use good judgment: In particular, decisions he made at a crucial juncture – when he recharged the Model S in Norwich, Conn., a stop forced by the unexpected loss of charge overnight – were certainly instrumental in this saga’s high-drama ending. In addition, Mr. Broder left himself open to valid criticism by taking what seem to be casual and imprecise notes along the journey, unaware that his every move was being monitored. A little red notebook in the front seat is no match for digitally recorded driving logs, which Mr. Musk has used, in the most damaging (and sometimes quite misleading) ways possible, as he defended his vehicle’s reputation. Musk said that he only saw it as a “low-grade ethics violation,” rather than Jayson Blair-level fabrication. (He did a few years ago.) Nonetheless, he argued, “It was not in good faith. That’s an important point. And I probably shuld have posted that rebuttal to make it clear. That’s what I regret.” Other than that, Musk said he’s still comfortable with his initial blog post: “I don’t think the language was inaccurate.” On-stage interviewer Chris Anderson said that Musk has boasted about his ability to take negative criticism. So what happened here? Musk argued that the criticism wasn’t he problem, but rather the alleged inaccuracy. After all, there have been “hundreds” of critical reviews of Tesla, and he’s only spoken out about a “handful” of them.” “I don’t have a problem with critical reviews,” he said. “I have a problem with false reviews.” During the talk, Musk also .
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With 26.5M Daily Users, Denmark’s Kiloo Pioneers New Ways of Producing Mobile Games
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Kim-Mai Cutler
| 2,013 | 3 | 9 |
One of the sleeper hits on the charts over the last year has been a tiny game out of Denmark called Subway Surfers. It’s a runner game like Imangi’s Temple Run that has a character named Jake riding train tracks and dodging trains. That single title has helped and , the studio it co-produced the game with, reach 26.5 million daily active users. For comparison, that’s more Subway Surfers on U.S. iPhones in December, according to app tracking company Onavo. It has some off-the-charts retention numbers with 91 percent of players returning after day 1 and 60 percent returning after 30 days. How did they do it? Kiloo’s chief creative officer Simon Moller credits a co-production model where they split development of the game with outside studios. Kiloo handles the free-to-play part with the user interface, monetization, marketing, user retention and community. Their developer partners focus on the concept and art. Moller, who co-owns the 50-person company with his brother, says Kiloo’s model isn’t about publishing. He insists it’s different. “This model is good for people who come out of the traditional gaming world. They know how to do gameplay and graphics, but they’re really confused about free-to-play,” he said. “Maybe they know it’s the way the industry is moving, but they don’t realize it requires a whole different skill set and mentality.” What’s happened over the last year on mobile platforms is that early companies like Pocket Gems and then big publicly-traded companies like Zynga have started a publishing arms race. With their reach, they promise indie studios distribution and customers. While indie hits do break out from time to time, the market overall is just getting a lot more expensive and competitive. Last month, Distimo said in the iPhone App Store were “newcomers,” versus just 3 percent in the Android store, Google Play. Publishing is also a way for the bigger gaming companies to de-risk their portfolio and counter the hits-driven nature of the business by relying on outside studios for original IP. The publishing model, which was necessary in a world where games were packaged goods sold on store shelves for $60 or more, is controversial on mobile platforms where anyone can just submit an app to the store. There is always a question who really created the value? Was it the game developer with the original concept and art, or the publisher made certain tweaks or suggestions to make a game more appealing to a mass audience? “These guys are playing off the myth that traditional publishers make a difference,” Moller said. “They just put their name on it and then publish it to the market.” Even to this day, the original Angry Birds game published with the Chillingo label still has some lingering bad blood. The thing is that hits can be so unpredictable that it’s hard to say looking backward who was truly responsible for making a game successful and what a fair revenue split should be. In co-production model, the company splits revenues 50-50 with partners. It goes back to the Mollers’ childhood where everything between the two brothers was split evenly. He said the company probably spent at least 20 thousand hours on building the game and then another roughly $20,000 on marketing it (which is a lot lower than the few million dollars per month many of the top studios spend on marketing these days). “We spent all our money on product because we believe that product can win by itself,” he said. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYysQOHTimo&w=560&h=315]
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Elon Musk’s SpaceX Is Testing Technology To Make Rockets Reusable
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Ryan Lawler
| 2,013 | 3 | 9 |
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is getting closer to having technology which could dramatically lower the cost of space travel. In a keynote speech at SXSW Interactive, Musk demonstrated tech that could be used to make rockets reusable. During the interview, Musk showed off a couple of videos demonstrating how the technology works. The first video was a simulation, which showed theoretically how the different rockets used to launch shuttles into space could return to earth and land. That is in contrast to previous rocket technology, which typically breaks off and is not reused. SpaceX has a prototype available which has already had a real-life launch, which was the second video that Musk displayed. The video had been shot a few days earlier and showed rocket, which is about 10 stories tall, launching briefly, and then returning to earth after a short time. While the rocket didn’t go very far in that initial test, Musk said SpaceX plans to continue going higher and higher with each test launch. The successful launch was due to the thrusters and landing gear that were built in, but also due to a terminal guidance system that SpaceX had developed. That technology will be used in the design of its Dragon 2 capsule, which will allow it to land anywhere on Earth with the accuracy of a helicopter. Musk said that reusability would be the most important part of making the economics of space travel feasible. The founder of PayPal, SpaceX, and Tesla, said it was crazy to throw away rockets after each trip. “If society is going to expand beyond earth, we need to have reusable rockets,” Musk said. And all of that is important, because Musk really wants to see humans get to Mars in his lifetime. That’s kind of why he started the whole SpaceX thing to begin with. In fact, he apparently would like to see civilization on Mars, and maybe be a part of it. “I would like to die on Mars, just not on impact,” Musk said. Oh yeah, and Musk said about .
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EA Apologizes For SimCity Disaster, Says It Was “Dumb” And Offers Free Game To Players
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Frederic Lardinois
| 2,013 | 3 | 9 |
Electronic Arts’ was easily the most anticipated game of the season, but its launch was an because the DRM solution Electronic Arts and Maxis dreamt up means users have to always be online if they want to play. Sadly, EA’s servers weren’t up to the task and most players were either unable to connect or got kicked out of the game after a while. Today, Lucy Bradshaw, EA’s general manager for its Maxis label, . EA is also offering players who were affected by these issues a free game from its catalog. Bradshaw says that not having enough server capacity was ‘dumb.’ EA has now increased its server capacity by 120 percent. In an age where spinning up a few Amazon EC2 or Windows Azure instances takes minutes, it’s surprising that EA wasn’t able to scale its platform quicker, but at least, Bradshaw also says, the number of “disrupted experiences has dropped by roughly 80 percent.” “The good news is that SimCity is a solid hit in all major markets,” she writes. ” The consensus among critics and players is that this is fundamentally a great game. But this SimCity is made to be played online, and if you can’t get a stable connection, you’re NOT having a good experience. So we’re not going to rest until we’ve fixed the remaining server issues.” Starting March 18, all SimCity players who have activated their game will receive an email that will tell them how to get their free game. It’s not clear if this only applies to players who bought the game before the apology was issued, or if new players – who are still facing issues today – will also be able to redeem this offer.
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If It Gets Them, Google May Open .Search, .App, .Blog And .Cloud gTLDs To The Public
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Frederic Lardinois
| 2,013 | 3 | 9 |
If Google is awarded the right to manage the domain registrations for .search, .app, .blog and .cloud, there is now a that it won’t just use them for its own services and will open them up for non-Google properties, too. Last year, when opened up the first phase of the registration process for new generic top-level domain names, Google accounted for of the over 1,900 applications ICANN received. Among those were some that referenced Google brands and products like .google, .chrome, .android and .gmail, but Google and many of the other applicants also applied for the right to manage top-level domains with very generic terms like , , , and . ICANN CEO Fadi Cherhade recently that the organization will start recommending the first new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) for delegation around April 23. Currently, however, the question of what to do about these very generic domain names like .book remains unclear. The companies that get the right to manage the new top-level domains don’t necessarily have to open them up to the public, so these so-called “closed generics” like and (all of which Google and at least companies applied for) are currently the focus of a hot debate among those interested in owning and operating these new domains. In a letter to ICANN ( and embedded blow), Google VP and CIO Ben Fried writes that ICANN should “allow all closed generic string applications to proceed.” In Google’s view, he writes, the new top-level domains will allow for much-needed innovation in this space. He especially notes that “for many users, domain names remain decidedly difficult to use and manage,” so chances are Google will work on lowering the barriers for registering domain names and linking them to users’ sites. Most importantly, however, Fried also notes that there are a number of terms in its portfolio that “have been identified by governments (via Early Warning) and others within the community as being potentially valuable and useful to the industry as a whole.” Those are , , and . Google says it is amending its applications for these domain names, and while it isn’t disclosing the details of these changes, the language definitely makes it sound as if Google will open them up for use outside of Google, too. “We also believe,” Fried writes, “that for each of these terms we can create a strong set of user experiences and expectations without restricting the string to use with Google products.” So if you are a cloud-based service or an app developer, there is some hope that you – and not just Google – could soon own a or domain to market your products. There is, however, still a chance that somebody else could get the rights to manage these domains and another company may just decide to keep these top-level domains for itself. by
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Can’t Afford To Stay At The Driskill? Here’s What $60 A Night Gets You At The Firehouse Hostel
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Ryan Lawler
| 2,013 | 3 | 9 |
Every year, the tens of thousands of SXSW attendees who descend upon Austin cause a huge crunch on accommodations. If you’re lucky, you might be able to book a hotel months in advance. If not, you can maybe find an affordable Airbnb a few miles away. This year, a few lucky attendees were able to score digs in a great location right downtown, as a place called the . The hostel is actually remodeled firehouse, with a “hacker’s lounge” and bar with free WiFi and breakfast during the conference. All 50 beds at the Firehouse are already booked for SXSW, thanks to a with . For as little as $60 a night, attendees could book a shared, dorm-type room during the conference. We talked with WeHostels CEO Diego Saez-Gil, who told us about his app, the FireHouse, and what the company is doing at SXSW/ Check out the video above for a look at the coolest little hostel that it’s too late to book for SXSW.
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Forget Google Glass, Google Debuts ‘Talking Shoe’ Concept At SXSWi, Wants More Social, Motivational Everyday Objects
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Gregory Ferenstein
| 2,013 | 3 | 9 |
Meet Google’s “talking shoe,” which aims to translate movement data in witty messages to users and their friends. The concept apparel, showcased at the search giant’s swanky SXSW Interactive headquarters, is part of a – “Art, Copy, Code” – which aims to breathe a social, life-like experience into everyday objects. “If standing still was a sport, you’d be world champion,” the trash-talking shoe projects on a monitor hanging over a rainbow-colored obstacle course after it senses I’ve been standing still. At a distance, users seem a tad pathetic trying to trigger positive feedback from the shoe. But when I strapped it on, I felt oddly compelled to impress my new automated coach. Combining coaching (even robotic coaching) made lifeless data unexpectedly motivational. Essentially, it’s in a shoe. In case critics think this is another one of Google’s flights of profitless creative fancy, Arts Copy Code is deliberately about improving advertising. “It’s explicitly aimed at how translating how Silicon Valley thinks about technology into how creative agencies think about advertising,” says project lead Aman Govil. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcaSwxbRkcE?feature=player_embedded&w=640&h=360] Brands such as Nike, who outfit professional athletes with health-tracking shoes and bracelets, could broadcast an athlete’s spring-training performance in realtime. Rival athletes’ apparel could trash talk one another automatically. It’s still (very) early days for the arts project. The talking shoe (and shoe strap) concept was developed through a grant to electronics agency . Google plans to open up the project to more everyday objects in the near future. One hypothetical use-case, imagines Govil, is an alarm block that sends snarky messages to co-workers if users have to hit the snooze on their alarm clock more than three times. There’s been heightened attention to research that quantifies how much our friends affect our weight, success, and personal lives. University of San Diego political scientist and author James Fowler that having an obese friend can significantly increase people’s chances of also having their own set of marshmallowy love handles. And it’s no secret that a spirited friend can get us up at 5 a.m. for a morning run as much as they can tempt us into finishing their plate of fries. Health startups have attempted to “gamify” good behavior by encouraging users to share personal goals with friends. Nike+ FuelBand, for instance, with their friends on the personal social network, Path. This project attempts to remove the barrier presented by current products. The social aspect has always required one extra step of human effort. However fast a one-word message of encouragement could take to type about a friend’s morning run, the minor inconvenience is enough to seriously limit engagement. This new automated personality seems to have a place, especially when we’re all too busy to be personal. Currently the project is just a concept. There’s no need to jump over to the Google Play store and find the buy link. But was just a concept at one point, too.
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Frederic Lardinois
| 2,013 | 3 | 7 | null |
How To Make A Million Dollars With A Hot Dog Cart
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James Altucher
| 2,013 | 3 | 9 |
My wife, Claudia was upset with me. She said, “I didn’t shower! I haven’t left the house. I’m having coffee in the afternoon. I feel like And quite frankly, she looked sort of disgusting while she was saying this to me at 3 in the afternoon. “You realize that everything you say to me right now is potential material for a blog post.” “Oh wait. No. I’m fucked! That’s it, I’m not going to say anything to you,” she said. She poured herself the coffee and left the room. I had asked her to make the coffee. She’s 20 pages into a sample script for the HBO TV show “Girls” and I wanted her to finish it. For no reason. Nobody asked her to do it. They have no idea who she is. I told her if she wrote the script I could get it to them. I don’t know. I just said that. But I can probably figure out how to show it to someone. Meanwhile, I wanted a coffee. I had been trying to write since 5 in the morning and I needed my mind sharp so I figured I’d make two phone calls to people who weren’t expecting me to call. Who could I learn from within the next hour? Hmmm…. My first call was to Shahed Khan. He had just Facebook-friended me an hour earlier for no reason at all. We had never spoken or interacted. I Googled him and then I Skyped him for the heck of it. He’s on his third successful startup, BOLD Entertainment. He sold his first startup, MyStartupGear, after just three months in business. His second startup, Viatask, is growing like crazy. I called him up and we started talking. “I left day-to-day responsibilities on Viatask in order to focus on this new one,” he told me. BOLD hooks up startups with celebrities and structures the relationship with them. Some of the celebrities BOLD represents: Mark Wahlberg, Justin Timberlake, Leonardo DiCaprio, and many more. “We act almost like how a venture capitalist would act,” he said. “First we analyze the companies to see if they are good. Then we determine if there is a celebrity who would be interested who would be a good fit. Then we structure a deal and take 20 percent of the economics, just like a venture capialist would.” He was 14 when he started MyStartupGear. Fifteen when he sold it and then started Viatask. “Yeah,” he said, “in a few months I finish high school so I will have a lot more time.” “Wait a sec,” I said, “when you sold your first startup were you the coolest kid in school?” “Well, I defintely made a lot of money for a 15-year-old,” he said. “I used it to travel and go out to the Valley to meet other entrepreneurs, go to hackathons, do a lot more networking, and eventually I used some of it to help start Viatask.” “Are you going to go to college next year?” “I’m definitely going to take a little time off to focus on BOLD. Maybe even raise some money so we can invest in companies side by side with what we are doing with BOLD.” “Haven’t people done the BOLD idea before?” “Most startups have no idea how to get direct access to the celebrities. They try to go through the talent agencies. With my partner, Nate Blonde, we have direct access to the celebrities.” “How did you get started doing all this?” “I started programming when I was eight. Learned most programming languages by the time I was nine. And just read blogs non-stop and watched videos about entrepreneurship all the time.” Damn! Just this past weekend I bought my 14-year-old daughter her first laptop. I even felt she was too young for a laptop. Ugh. Maybe I should’ve gotten her a laptop when she was six years old. I feel really bad now. What a horrible parent I am! “I have a 14-year-old,” I said. “What advice would you give to kids or teenagers today if they want to go out and do what you did?” “You’ve got to network, hustle, read, learn. ” And finally, I had to ask. “Doesn’t all this entrepreneurship stuff interfere with your social life?” Shahed laughed. “You’re the first one to ask me that,” he said. “I guess I’ll get to it one day. Facebook and Twitter are my social life.” Man, I was jealous. At the age of 14 I was too busy having girls reject me despite my glamorous acne, braces, glasses, and uncombed hair. Why didn’t I start any businesses? After the call I started thinking of companies to introduce Shahed to. I introduced him to two right away that I felt he could help. But I was busy, busy, busy. I made my next call. — Perry Belcher made a million dollars selling the book “How To Start a Hot Dog Cart Business.” I had been in Austin a few weeks earlier when Perry described to me and Claudia how he and a partner invented and then sold (way too early) Purell. “What’s Purell?” I said. “Of course you don’t know,” Claudia said. “It’s the hand sanitizer that normal people use to clean their hands.” Ok. Now I know. Then Perry started to mention the hot dog cart thing but I had forgotten the details. So right after I spoke to Shahed I called Perry. “Perry, I bought the book. How much did you actually make selling this book? It’s just about making a hot dog cart.” “You’d be surprised how many people want to make a successful hot dog cart business,” he said. “I’ve easily sold over a million dollars worth of the book in the seven years since I wrote that up.” “What made you write this?” “Funny, it was on my first visit to Austin and we were all walking around drinking and this guy at a hot dog cart started pitching us ‘Hey, try my hot dogs. I got the best hot dog in town’ and he was doing it all wrong. When I was 20 and broke I sold my taxicab I was driving and started a hot dog cart. One of the things we did was have girls in bikinis start selling the hot dogs. That tripled my sales right there. But that wasn’t the ultimate secret, though. “So after I saw that guy in Austin I went home. And now I want you to carefully imagine this: I got naked and drunk and went into my bathtub. I took a microphone with me and talked for about two hours into the microphone about everything it takes to make a super-successful hot dog cart. “Are you picturing my glistening body in the bathtub?” “I’m very good at blocking out obscene images in my brain before they appear,” I said. He laughed. “I then had the recording transcribed and I made it into a book. I don’t think I’ve even ever read the book. I set up a website and-” “What’s the website?” “Oh gosh, it was so long ago I can’t remember. One sec.” I heard Perry yelling in the background and someone yelled back at him. “ was one of the sites we set up,” he said. “I wrote a 5,000-word sales letter and then I just bought the phrase on Google ‘I want to start a hot dog cart,’ and for every $200 I spent on Google I made $1000 so I kept doing it and upping the buy.” “That simple?” “I’m a big believer in the Warren Buffett saying: ‘Instead of climbing 30 foot walls I’d rather find 2 foot walls and step over them all day.’ So that’s what I did.” “Isn’t a 5,000-word sales letter too long? Who on the Internet can read that?” “The kind of person who will buy your product! I tested this all out. I videotaped a thousand people going through the website to see how they did it and I tested out different variations. You know how much my sales went down when I shortened the letter so you didn’t have to scroll?” “How much?” “85%. , and then the more likely they are to buy. Here’s another big secret: people read the letter from the bottom up.” At this point, my phone went out. I got upset. I wanted to know why people read 5,000-word letters from the bottom up. I couldn’t get my phone to work so I switched batteries, got it to work, called Perry back. “Why bottom up?” “People read the very top to learn what they are going to get. Your sales pitch is at the very very top. Then they go right away to the bottom to see the price. This is what everyone does. “By then they’ve decided if they want to buy your product. So they start slowly scrolling upwards from the bottom. They aren’t looking for more reasons to buy. They’ve already decided. Now they are just looking for reasons not to buy. So don’t make any outrageous claims in the middle. “I call this ‘give them just boiled chicken in the middle of the letter.’ Just keep them interested. Give them as many facts as possible, keep them scrolling, and if you don’t scare them away, they’ll buy.” “So what’s the secret of a successful hot dog cart?” “Location, location, location,” Perry said. “But it’s not in the locations you think. You have to read the book for that.” “So let me get this straight. You come up with an idea like that. You write a long sales letter with the sizzle at the top and bottom. You buy Google ads. You keep the middle of the sales letter non-threatening and you make a million dollars selling a book about hot dogs.” “I’ve sold over $200 million worth of information products that way,” Perry said. “Is it still that easy now? Do you still do it?” “Yeah, you can still do it. There’s a lot more competition for Google keywords. But there’s ways to use Amazon Kindle books and other techniques to add to that basic approach so you stay high on the search ranking and also Amazon search rankings. I’m working on a book on this right now.” “Send me a free copy,” I said, “so I can write about it!” — I had a third phone call I was going to make. But this post is already too long. Maybe next week. It’s with a guy who has helped 74 out of 74 clients get their books on the New York Times bestseller lists. But I tried calling him and he wasn’t in. Next time. Meanwhile, Claudia finished her spec script. So I have my work cut out for me tonight. I have never watched an episode of “Girls” so I figure I will watch a few, then read her script, then try to figure out if I know anyone who can read it. I want her to be happy. Happy wife, happy life.
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Zaarly Shutters Its Reverse Craigslist Marketplace, Goes All In On Virtual Storefronts As Co-Founder Exits
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Rip Empson
| 2,013 | 3 | 9 |
When Arrington first introduced the world , my first thought was “a fast, mobile way for me to request booze delivery on demand? Sign me up.” But my second and third and so on were: “Wait, why should I trust a stranger to do the job and actually show up? Isn’t this akin to a marketplace specializing in herding cats? Do I even like cats? Hello? Where are my pants?” For those unfamiliar, began as a mobile-focused “reverse Craigslist” service — in other words, a peer-to-peer marketplace in which local buyers could request nearly anything from local sellers. And people seemed intrigued. Smart people. After winning LA Startup Weekend, Zaarly almost immediately a long list of notable investors (even ), and then before the end of the year in a round led by Kleiner, while adding Meg Whitman to its board. Fast forward to today and you’ll no longer find Zaarly’s marketplace on the web. And, with the next update to its mobile app, co-founder Bo Fishback tells us, its “request anything” model will disappear from the Zaarly experience completely. That means, not only has the concept with which it raised $14 million been put to bed in order to move in a new direction, but we’ve also learned that Zaarly co-founder Eric Koester left the company around the same time. (It also means .) Both Fishback and Koester say that the departure was amicable and “for the best,” but understandably a change of direction and the early whiff of attrition don’t exactly a success story make, so to speak. But the truth may be just the opposite — if not slightly more complicated. The co-founders would prefer not to see Zaarly’s change of direction as a pivot — after all, “pivot” is a dirty word in Silicon Valley, often a synonym for “failure” — but they also have good reason for that. Lately, TechCrunch has received tips from Zaarly users informing us that the service is no longer available on the web. In fact, that’s been true for a few weeks now, as the startup (though it will be news to most that “Request Anywhere” will be gone completely by the end of the month). But, really, as some already know, the shift started back in September — for Zaarly sellers. Just as it sounds, Zaarly’s new Storefronts provide local merchants or sellers with customer-facing websites that allow them to showcase (and sell) their goods and services, essentially leveraging the Etsy (and Shopify) model(s). Now, instead of enabling users to request anything and everything, Zaarly enables its merchants to offer relative certainty (of identity, inventory and delivery, for example) and proactively market their products to customers, receive orders, payment, confirm details, and so on. In fact, Fishback tells us that the decision to drop the peer-to-peer model and focus exclusively on its merchant product was the result of a number of stressful, white-knuckled internal conversations that took place over months. Coupled with metrics on the original marketplace, it became increasingly clear that the new direction was necessary. The founder still remains hopeful that the “request model” can be integrated into the new platform, but the hard truth is that its original concept was just more of a feature than a service, or a real business. Fishback scribed to the question of why Zaarly pivoted in September (when they launched Storefronts), which is a must read. But his answer is telling in terms of how the experimentations with the request marketplace informed the new direction. While some predicted that the “request model” of Zaarly’s P2P marketplace would make it difficult to establish a significant level of trust (and quality), Fishback tells us the real issue was actually one of certainty. A startup doesn’t enter the market with the trust of an established brand or guaranteed supply, so that a pure request model “is like going fishing in a black water pond,” he says. If you don’t know if there are any fish in the pond, or what kind of fish are there, why would you fish? (Well, you might, but only if you also enjoy herding cats. Or you’re a .) , Fishback explains that, in a marketplace like this, startups can either try to guarantee supply for certain services or recommend/surface items that they know have plenty of supply or show off the supply they do have. Zaarly chose to do the latter, but highly empowered buyers are in short supply, and the request model only worked for “a small segment of buyers.” Instead, they found that the key was to show off the most talented sellers, and in designing its new direction, Zaarly started with those who were the most active and popular sellers. To guarantee quality in its new marketplace, the startup handpicks from an applicant pool, using a dozen different touchpoints when vetting candidates. Most just do a background check, but Fishback says that these sellers need to have a number of referrals, and need to have reviews up and running on the site. The startup spends time interviewing them, getting to know them, because it wants to help them build sustainable online businesses, and if sellers aren’t responding promptly, can’t demonstrate an existing network (and three or four referrals) or the ability to sell quality items, then it declines. It’s a high-touch way of vetting candidates, not the same as just filling out a short online form and getting up and running in 15 minutes. Zaarly has an editorial team that helps sellers create the text in which they describe their goods or services, and, taking a page from the Airbnb model, sends a photographer to take photos of their products. Over time, it wants to reduce the amount of involvement in the process, but, at the outset, high-touch curation guarantees quality. Fishback says that its “request model” (while once in a month) in the end only had a 10 to 20 percent close rate, but with its Storefronts, that has flipped to over 90 percent. The other incentive for sellers is asking them what they want to make from their products and does its best to guarantee that. Using an eTail markup, if they want to make $200, Zaarly includes its own 10 percent fee and lists the item for $220. Today, Zaarly has over 750 merchants on the platform, offering everything from custom meals (and delivery) and home service and repair to custom speakers, music lessons and event planning. So, like Etsy, a large portion of Zaarly’s sellers are women (70 percent), but, unlike Etsy, the platform isn’t just offering homemade, handcrafted goods — although that’s a part of it. Sellers are now making between $1,500 and $2,000 per month on average, with the highest grossing doing between $6 and $7,000. The idea is to provide the world’s hobbyists who have a particular talent, something they’ve been doing for years, and give them a supplemental revenue stream – help pay their rent. Fishback said that some are already quitting their jobs to manage their storefronts full-time, and that’s the startup’s end goal for all of them. There’s still a long way to go, but the founder says that it was almost relieving to be able to focus on one thing, especially since the new marketplace is growing in a way the initial idea wasn’t. He thinks this one is much closer to finding product-market fit. Going forward, the next steps for Storefronts are to add more management tools for sellers, in the way that Groupon has been doing for its merchants, whether it be inventory management tools, scheduling or sharing tools. Storefronts have launched in San Francisco, Seattle and Kansas City (where Fishback is from) and it’s about to go live in New York, with Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and Portland all potentially following the Big Apple. As to Koester, the departed co-founder, he tells us that “While I wanted to write something very ‘Andrew Mason-y’ about leaving Zaarly, I quickly realized that I just couldn’t come up with anything that damn hilarious. I love Zaarly and the team, believe in the direction of Storefronts, but the time was right to start working on my next startup. Am excited to share more about that soon.” More It may be the end of the request-driven marketplace, or it may not. Time will tell. If Zaarly can scale Storefronts and maintain quality, there’s a chance it could make a return. After all, we’ve heard from sources that Zaarly is now doubling transactions every month and looking to raise a B round. If that’s true, Zaarly may just become the first to pivot into an eBay acquisition. Though with Whitman on the board, that could be awkward. For more, find
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Bring On The Platform Wars!
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Jon Evans
| 2,013 | 3 | 9 |
Writing software used to be so simple. A giant pain in the ass, mind you, but simple. You were a Microsoft developer, with binders full of Visual Studio CDs; you were a Java developer; you used the ; or you worked with something proprietary from IBM or SAP or the like. Nowadays, though, while the tools and technologies we use have improved enormously…imagine, God forbid, that you’re building some sort of web service. Should you use Ruby on Rails? Node.js? Python and Django? PHP and Drupal? .NET? Any of the panoply of Java servers? Something new and cool like Go or Scala? And how/where will you your code? Amazon? Heroku? App Engine? Joyent? EngineYard? Force.com? How about your app? You’ll have an app, right? On which platforms? Native code? Hybrid HTML5? Cross-compiled with ? And then there’s your … The mind gibbers and reels with . It’s almost enough to make me miss the bygone days of Microsoft’s dominance. Is a mediocre standard better than an industry splintered into a dozen excellent fragments? Is a single authoritarian government better for its citizens than a dozen city-states set against one another in perpetual civil war? And, wait, isn’t better software supposed to make life ? The problem is that nowadays everybody wants to be a platform–but none of the available options are obviously better than the others. Consider . I’m a big fan of theirs. use them for tons of projects – startups like , , , etc., and for larger clients, too. Heroku started as a Ruby On Rails service, but they support Node.js, PHP, Python, etc. They offer a free tier. Deploying to the server is as easy as typing “git push heroku master.” Add-ons like database connections, email services, etc. etc. etc., are very nearly automagical. They’re mostly a joy to work with. But they’re expensive; they don’t seem to scale to large sites; every now and again you still run into some obscure and tricky configuration error that takes days to debug; and they have exactly themselves in with their recent RapGenius controversy. It’s sad to say, but my Heroku love has been waning over time. Then there’s . I GAE. You can tell by the fact that I build all of my side pet projects — e.g. , , — on it. It makes testing, deployment, and versioning a breeze. It makes a panoply of really powerful tools available (for example, asynchronous tasks, a headache with Heroku, are a snap with GAE; and there are experimental full-text search and MapReduce tools, too.) It used to only give you Google’s powerful-but-quirky BigTable datastore as an option, but nowadays you can plug in Cloud SQL with ease. It offers a very capable free tier, and you can write your code in Java, Python, or Go. It can be expensive, but that’s not the problem. The problem is that . (There are some halfhearted attempts at open-source cognates, but they’re a long, long way from prime time.) So once you start writing code that uses them — and you will, because they’re really powerful and really easy to use — you’re locked into GAE… …and for some reason this notion drives managers and executives . Which doesn’t make any sense if you ask me. Yes, I suppose there’s a that Google will abandon its flagship web platform, or hike its prices to punitive levels; but compared to all the other business risks out there, that looks pretty tiny to me, and the advantages are significant. But for client after client, that one fact makes GAE a complete nonstarter. There are lots of other options. Microsoft has bet big on its . I really like as a simple and powerful built-in backend for Android and iOS apps, for instance. (It’s approximately 1 billion times better than the horror called RestKit I had to use once. Shudder.) If you use Parse, you don’t have to write your own back-end server at all! …Of course, on the other hand, if you need a back-end server to do anything more than mildly interesting, you’re currently out of luck. But for straightforward apps, it’s an excellent solution. There are many other platforms, some of which I mentioned above. If you use the good ones, you can get more done, faster, with fewer developers. But for one reason or another — one being cost — so many projects keep falling back to infrastructure services like , where instead of simply deploying to the cloud without much caring about what happens next, you have to provision individual servers running Linux or Windows and configure them as you would a machine of your own. App Engine hasn’t exactly taken off, so Google introduced . And then there are second-rate AWS knockoffs like Rackspace and Savvis, whose business models, based on my (limited but nonzero) experience, consist largely of schmoozing corporate decision-makers into buying inferior technology at inflated prices. There’s nothing wrong with AWS. There a problem with Amazon’s attempt at a platform, called Elastic Beanstalk, which, when I last tried to use it, caused me to throw my hands in the air before nearly using them to gouge my own eyes out. But Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud is generally awesome: seriously cheap, insanely powerful, proven to scale to enterprise levels, and provides a host of really useful and effective tools. In fact, Heroku and Parse are both built atop AWS. The problem is that after using GAE and Heroku — or (I presume) any of the other platform services — configuring servers just feels so painfully and unnecessarily slow, byzantine and complex. Alas, sometimes it remains the right choice. Or at least no undeniably better one has come along yet. And so we remain stuck with all the choices I listed earlier, and more, and more, and seemingly more every year, and whatever decision you make, you’re left with the nagging feeling that you could have done better. (Unless you chose PHP on Drupal, in which case it’s more like a nagging certainty.) I guess that’s life, and I suppose this kind of ferment is necessary and good: “You know what the fellow said – in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.” ( ) This is the software Renaissance. Which is nice. But it still sure can be tough on the ordinary artisan. : Building the world’s largest Christmas tree in Mexico City’s Zocalo, by yours truly.
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Twitter Announces “Twttr” — Will Start Charging $5 A Month If You Want To Tweet Using Vowels
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Drew Olanoff
| 2,013 | 3 | 31 |
Vowels aren’t really necessary in today’s digital age, are they? Twitter doesn’t think so, as it including its free model called “Twttr.” You can only tweet without vowels though. Want the vowels back? Pony up $5 a month. Seems like a pretty sweet deal to me. Luckily, Twitter really cares about its users and will offer up the “sometimes Y” free of charge…forever. Also free are vowels in link URLs. Whew. If you’ve seen the text messages from anyone under 25 years old, you know that vowels often get left out already. This is pretty forward-thinking of Twitter, as it attempts to monetize its older set of users who can still speak and write using a real language. Here’s what Twitter had to say about the disruptive approach to : We’re doing this because we believe that by eliminating vowels, we’ll encourage a more efficient and “dense” form of communication. We also see an opportunity to diversify our revenue stream. Here’s a mockup, with a condensed version of the legendary Barack Obama re-election tweet: Take , Fcbk. How did they come up with this amazing concept? , Twitter’s VP of Product shared the brainery that went behind this genius move to beef up its revenue before : I was carpooling home after Twitter’s seventh birthday party with my head filled with images from our past, like our early logo where we spelled it TWTTR, in neon green toothpaste. And then Prince’s song “I would die 4 U” came on the radio. I felt like there was something there, but I wasn’t sure what or how to bring it to market. Then later that night, I was watching “Wheel of Fortune” with @adambain, and a contestant yelled out ‘I wanna buy a vowel’. Everything just sort of clicked. Adam and I turned to each other and high-fived. It was one of those product moments that just felt like magic. The company had some other revenue-producing ideas up its sleeve and will introduce extra characters, past 140, for a price: In addition to our normal suite of Promoted Products for advertisers, we are now also offering a single character extension, expanding the length of a Tweet to 141 characters, for those moments when you need just one more character to finish your thought. The price of the extra character is based on a bidding system reflecting the popularity of the character you would like to add. All of this will be rolling out slowly to a “small percentage of users” who actually believe things that are announced on April Fool’s Day. Twitter has some advice to get yourself prepared: We recommend that you practice using only consonants (and “y”) with the hashtag #nvwls (or if you have paid for our premium service, use #icanhasvowels). to have a play. Ws gng t typ ths ntr pst n MGHRD spk bt thr s n wy n hll tht y’d ctlly b bl t rd t. Thrfr, ths prgrph wll hv t d. It’s kind of neat seeing the old name used for something . As you know, it was the original name of the service.
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Rocket Internet-Backed Zalora Denies That It Is Shutting Down Taiwan Operations [Updated]
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Catherine Shu
| 2,013 | 3 | 31 |
UPDATE: A spokesman from Zalora Taiwan said: To better serve Taiwan on its business operations model, the company has decided to conduct a review to make changes – From April, we are shifting part of Taiwan’s operations to our regional headquarters in Singapore. During this migration period, our company will temporarily disable operations of the Taiwanese site. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause to our customers, and we promise that any returns and refunds will be processed as per the time period stipulated on our site. If you have any further queries, please contact [email protected], our customer service department will answer your questions within one working day. ZALORA TAIWAN denies any rumours regarding bankruptcy or closure. We will process and complete all payments to our customers and vendors. All our employees will be managed in accordance with and with respect to the labour law in Taiwan. We will not make any further comment on rumours, and reserve the right to take legal action against any parties making false statements about us. One year after launching in Taiwan, Rocket Internet-backed may be shutting down its operations in the country. Though the Singapore-based fashion e-tailer has yet to issue a confirmation, that a closure of its Taiwan branch is already in progress. Zalora Taiwan’s currently says that it will no longer provide telephone services for customer support after today. Furthermore, (link via Google Translate) that more than 100 employees were suddenly laid off as Zalora canceled orders from suppliers. Reasons cited by TVBS for Zalora Taiwan’s potential demise include the high cost of marketing in Taiwan’s saturated online retail market, which is already dominated by e-commerce sites and . Zalora recently landed several high-profile investments, including but as Jacky Yap of e27 notes, Rocket Internet has already encountered in Southeast Asia, including the closure of Home24. “Rocket Internet will not hesitate to pull the plug when it comes to evaluating a likely failure,” just as it shut down its operations in Turkey last August, Yap writes. Despite Zalora’s rapid growth, the reported closure of its Taiwan operations is a reminder that Rocket Internet’s foothold on the Asian market is still not a sure thing. I’ve reached out to Zalora’s HQ for comment and will update if I hear back from them.
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The Weekly Good: KULA Helps You Turn Loyalty Points, Rewards And Miles Into Charitable Donations
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Drew Olanoff
| 2,013 | 3 | 31 |
[ ] It seems like every time we make purchases online or in a store, we’re collecting some sort of points or rewards. For the most part, those points go unused, mostly because the companies who give them out don’t do a great job of explaining what you can actually do with them. You know the drill, you purchase a video game and you get some GameStop points that you can use after you purchase three more games, or something along those lines. Inevitably, you forget to use them when the time comes or you refuse to sign up to get their card. A company called wants to point those points, rewards and frequent flyer miles to good use — for charity. KULA converts those points into actual currency, spreading goodwill all over the world. According to the research firm Colloquy, at least $16B worth of reward points and miled went unredeemed in 2011 alone. KULA has built a service to turn those unused rewards into cash contributions for over 2.5M causes around the world. By working with brands on building this three-way bridge between companies, causes and consumers, KULA is making a real difference in over 80 countries all over the world. Since there are so many causes in KULA’s database, it’s easy to find a few that you really care about, and then you’re motivated to put your unclaimed rewards to good use. KULA calls the process “democratized transactional giving,” which the company hopes will build goodwill between companies and consumers, even if the reward points that someone has collected aren’t used by them for in-store purchases. The company was founded in 2010 and has raised $1.6M to date. It’s up to the companies to integrate KULA into their reward offerings, but it’s a win-win for everyone involved. [vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/27924518 w=600&h=338] The company also has a great blog called “ ” that is worth a read. The mixing of companies focusing on both profitability and non-profit programs is an important one, as consumers do care more about companies that do social good. Would you give your points and rewards away for charity?
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Google Introduces “Gmail Blue” — It’s Completely Blue, Because Brown Was a “Disaster”
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Drew Olanoff
| 2,013 | 3 | 31 |
The Google April Fool’s train continues with the announcement of “ .” Yes, it’s a version of Google’s email service where everything is the color blue. The , and the , but I’d actually use this product if it existed, especially since it took six years to “develop the technology.” Can you imagine something like this actually happening? Some people flipped out about the , so they’d lose their mind if Google changed all of the colors in the email service. The real bit of news here? . Yes, we’re all old. The video for Gmail Blue is pretty damn hilarious and worth checking out. Be sure to count the number of buzzwords used: I can’t help but wonder if this is a not-so-subtle poke at Facebook, which of course is well-known for having the color blue all over the place within its apps and site. One of our readers, Edd Friedman, smartly suggested in the comments that this could be Google making fun of . Makes sense. The line about brown being a disaster? Commenter syntaxsyntax999 thinks it’s a riff on the Zune. Regardless, hearing Googlers have a sense of humor about themselves and their “ ” was enjoyable. Get ready for more April 1st funnery from Google, and the rest of the Internet, tomorrow.
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Ambitious Startups Could Signal The Coming Of A Second Space Age
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Chris Velazco
| 2,013 | 3 | 31 |
In late March, the American Geophysical Union announced that the Voyager I space probe became the first man-made object to leave our solar system. Just a few hours later though, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory shot down that claim noting that the tell-tale sign of hitting interstellar space (a “change in the direction of the magnetic field”) hasn’t been detected yet. Still, this whole thing got me thinking: NASA launched Voyager I in 1977 to peer more closely at the outer planets. By late 1980, the probe had completed its tour of Jupiter and Saturn and made a gravity-assisted beeline for the edge of the solar system. In the 40 or so years that Voyager has toured the outer fringes of the solar system, our focus on space has grown more limited, and in many ways it’s a new breed of space-based startups that are helping to spark imaginations the way NASA has done for decades. You see, back on Earth, some people are looking to the heavens with renewed vigor — emphasis on “some.” There’s still plenty of work to be done in low Earth orbit, with SpaceX and a handful of other companies crafting and perfecting their cargo-ferrying space taxis for trips to the International Space Station. But the U.S. government’s drive to search out newer and farther frontiers in space has been seemingly tempered by political pragmatism and a dearth of available funds. Ventures like Curiosity’s Mars landing were highlights in the history of space science and exploration, but these days NASA can’t even maintain its public outreach programs thanks to . That’s why the promise of privately operated space startups is so captivating: national priorities have shifted since the sixties, but that hasn’t kept some ambitious entrepreneurs from almost literally reaching for the stars. SpaceX founder Elon Musk famously noted that he hoped to establish a , and at least one is looking to get people living and working on the Red Planet as soon as possible by way of a televised spectacle meant to raise funds and select the first batch of Martian astronauts. Mars isn’t the only floating hunk of rock that entrepreneurs are currently eying up, either. A startup called (unimaginatively enough) has received backing from and aims to explore/hopefully mine nearby asteroids for precious materials with a fleet of specialized robots. It’s not as though every space startup has ambitions as wild-eyed as those listed above. took home the top at NewSpace 2011’s business plan contest for its vision of simplifying the process of wrangling out-of-control satellites and the like. Meanwhile, won that same prize a year later for its inflatable antenna concept — they fold up for easy storage during launch, and can inflate and harden once in orbit. These sorts of less-flashy startups are just as important as SpaceX and Planetary Resources — should their long term visions pan out, they could help lay the groundwork (spacework?) for more majestic, horizon-expanding ventures to come. Even the Startup Weekend guys are getting into it: the very first SW event is slated to kick off in late May with the goal of coaxing would-be space entrepreneurs into cooking up the next great space startup. Some of the plans above sound like spurious tales of science fiction, pages ripped from a pulp novel, but they shouldn’t be immediately discounted just for that. I suppose the notion that a device of mankind’s creation would break free from the influence of the sun would’ve sounded like science fiction a few decades ago, so who’s to say what the next few years will bring. Speaking of the next few years, Voyager doesn’t have much longer to live. At the probe’s current rate of power consumption, it has enough juice in its plutonium-powered generators to keep it going until about 2020, when NASA will begin to remotely shut down Voyager’s instruments one by one. Ultimately, Voyager will continue to drift in the sea of interstellar space, but humanity will lose contact with its most far-flung explorer in short order — here’s hoping that some savvy startups help to kick off a second Space Age before then.
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What Does A Ghost Smell Like? Google Nose.
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Greg Kumparak
| 2,013 | 3 | 31 |
Google is shutting down ? Good riddance! There hasn’t been a video worth watching since Paula Abdul’s anyway. With the announcement of their newest project, Google is making it clear that they know where the future of online entertainment really is: smells. Meet Google Nose. With , you’ll be able to stop and smell the roses without having to stop a damned thing. So, how can you take part in on Google’s new olfactory odyssey? It’s easy! You don’t even have to tweet at Google in hopes that you’ll win the opportunity to give them a pile of money for the appropriate hardware. You’ve already the appropriate hardware! Just Google for your scent of choice (be it a , a cracklin’ , or the ), tap the “smell” button, and sniff away. Google will “intersect photons with infrasound waves” to emulate the requested aroma. That, my friends, is . If it doesn’t work right away, just lean closer and keep on sniffin’ — like many a Google product that came before it, this one is in Beta, so it might not work every time. (And, like many a Google product that came before it, they’ll probably kill it off in about 2 weeks) [I’m pretty sure we’ll have a running list of April Fool’s gags tomorrow (it is , after all), but this one is hittin’ early enough and got a hearty enough laugh out of me that it’s worthy of its own post. Plus, it had me contemplating what the hell a ghost would smell like for at least 5 minutes.]
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The Big Roundtable Rethinks The Editorial Model For Long-Form Journalism, Hits Its Kickstarter Goal
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Anthony Ha
| 2,013 | 3 | 31 |
Michael Shapiro isn’t the sort of person I’d expect to circumvent the gatekeepers of traditional journalism. He’s a professor at the Columbia School of Journalism, and he said he’s been published in The New Yorker, Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, and Sports Illustrated — in other words, he seems to be on pretty good terms with those gatekeepers. Yet Shapiro is launching a new journalism startup called . The reason? He said that there are a lot of untested assumptions in the journalism world. As a parallel, he pointed to book publishing, where he said it was long believed that “black people don’t buy books.” There was, in fact, “this whole sub rosa world” of independent black book stores, with its own bestsellers like ‘s . Yet traditional publishers had no idea that world existed until the mainstream success of writers like Terry McMillan in the 1990s. Similarly, Shapiro isn’t criticizing anyone in particular, but he said that submitting to the shrinking number of magazines that support long-form journalism means subjecting yourself to the taste of individual editors. He said he’s often asked by students and colleagues whether the New Yorker or a similar magazine might be interested in a particular story: “The answer is probably not. This is not the era in which I came of age.” The web has spawned new venues for selling that long-form journalism, like the Atavist, Byliner, and Amazon’s Kindle Singles program, but Shapiro said they’re still applying the same editorial model. With The Big Roundtable, he hopes to do things differently. Shapiro has assembled a group of 50 readers, who are supposed to vet the stories. The first 1,000 words of each submission are sent to a subset of those readers, who are then asked whether they’d read more. (That’s they’re asked — Shapiro said that in earlier versions of the system, readers offered more detailed feedback, but “it felt like homework” and “it quickly devolved into workshopping — you know, ‘I wouldn’t choose a semicolon here.'”) If someone in that first group likes the excerpt, then it’s passed to a second group, and if someone likes it there, only then does an editor — specifically Mike Hoyt, executive editor of the Columbia Journalism review — start working with the author. Ultimately, Shapiro plans to sell a new nonfiction novella on the site every week, and the writer will get $1 from each sale. Hopefully, this will allow The Big Roundtable to find work that didn’t catch the attention of particular editors but will still resonate with some readers. In that vein, Shapiro is looking for finished pieces rather than commissioning articles in advance — this should be a story that someone to write, and they just haven’t found a home for it. “If you’re going to say, ‘Well, I don’t know, I want to take my idea to some place where they can pay in advance,’ my response is: Go with God,” Shapiro said. He also said he wants to expand the reading group from 50 people to “hundreds”, with a broad set of tastes and experiences, but Shapiro emphasized that it’s not quite the same thing as crowdsourcing. “The thing about crowdsourcing is, it’s a crowd,” he said. “By its very nature it’s a huge, undifferentiated bunch of people.” To illustrate his point, he mentioned the , a magazine that, in 1936, polled millions of people and as a result predicted that Alfred Landon would beat Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the presidential election — which was completely wrong. Shapiro’s point: That it’s less important to have an enormous group of readers, and more important to make sure that it’s the right mix. Put another way, Shapiro is emulating the (a famous group of writers) and “scaling it out intellectually.” To help fund The Big Roundatble’s costs, Shapiro has been . He recently passed his $5,000 target, but he said he deliberately set the goal low to make sure that he would meet it. He’s hoping to raise more money, which would presumably support The Big Roundtable for a longer period of time and allow it to get a little more ambitious. Shapiro said he’s going to be exploring other funding options, too. “I’ll be looking at things like grants or investors to establish a real, ongoing laboratory, a laboratory in which … this is all to be shared,” Shapiro said. “I’m welcoming competition. If this spawns more digital publishing ventures based upon our knowledge, then I will believe that we are succeeding.”
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All Quiet On The Western Front: Gaming M&A May Be In A Lull As A New Generation Grows Up
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Kim-Mai Cutler
| 2,013 | 3 | 31 |
When you step off the elevator into new downtown San Francisco office, a guy in military fatigues has you sign an NDA. After you do (I didn’t), a receptionist with a lot of piercings takes your name, while The White Panda’s “Foolish Monsters” blares in the background. Kixeye has whale harpoons stapled to its office walls, bad oil paintings (see left), ceiling-to-floor drawings of fire-breathing dragons and jacked unicorns, a 3-D printer of questionable purpose and little desire to answer to anyone else. All while remaining profitable, the midcore social gaming company has quintupled its headcount over the last year to more than 450 employees. The company says it they raised stowed away in the bank. Too expensive for acquirers and still too small and unproven for public markets, privately-held gaming companies like Kixeye are chugging along profitably and doing things their own way. “We don’t talk about exit scenarios here. The employees are not here for that,” said . “Most people are here because they love making games and that’s what they want to do. Focusing on that stuff at this point in our trajectory is super distracting.” Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, other privately-held gaming companies such as Finland’s Rovio and Supercell, the U.K.’s King and Germany’s Wooga are also growing profitable businesses. That feeling is mutual on the buyers’ side too. Warner Bros said last week that it would be opening a gaming studio in San Francisco. “Every time we looked at a company that was really interesting, we found that the price tag was more money than we thought was reasonable to pay,” said , who is Warner Bros. senior vice president of digital games. Similarly, EA is holding off after some big ticket deals in the last few years to buy . “With regards to a large acquisition, we’re probably OK for the time being,” said , who oversees most of EA’s free-to-play games as a senior vice president there. “If the right deal presents itself, we would make that deal. But we’re not actively seeking it.” He said his arm of EA’s business, the All Play label, is putting more effort into a smaller number of games this year. Likewise, in an interview with me last month. Zynga’s shares were . After some layoffs and a hard pivot to mobile platforms, Ko said the company is a lot more rigorous about what it looks for. Since OMGPOP, Basically, buyers and sellers are at odds over what these companies should be worth. Sellers want several times annualized revenues — based on the months where they have hits. Buyers have limited cash and are aware of how difficult it is to integrate acquisitions and retain talent in such a competitive market. GREE’s U.S. CEO Naoki Aoyagi told me in a panel at an event put on by investment bank earlier this week that the company was much more careful about compared to the time . He said he was much “happier” with the Funzio outcome, given that the co-founders have stayed on. “Just a few years ago top media companies would pay high multiples for game companies on emerging platforms whose ultimate profitability was still unclear,” said Kristian Segerstrale, and . “Most large media companies are still digesting past acquisitions and can simply not afford a reasonable multiple on today’s stars.” At the same time, if you can run a creative business that generates loads of cash when you have a hit, why work for anyone else? On the back of two hit iOS games “Clash of Clans” and “Hay Day”, Finland’s Supercell is over acquisition conversations, sources tell me. “There is a set of profitable, cash generating companies that feel they have a very legitimate shot at challenging the existing cadre of public game companies as the industry’s next leaders,” added Segerstrale, who didn’t comment specifically about Supercell. His early-stage firm Initial Capital is one of Supercell’s largest shareholders. What that means is that is that the M&A market for big gaming deals might be quiet in the short-term — at least in the West. (The Japanese market is an exception with deals like , and .) It’s possible that the big gaming companies could start to feel comfortable with public markets in a few years, if they have a broad enough portfolio of hit franchises. Companies like , Seattle’s Big Fish Games and basic revenue figures to generate interest — either from future public shareholders or buyers. On top of that, it looks like this year is the first one where a single mobile game’s revenues could rival that of a traditional console blockbuster. Japan’s Gung Ho Entertainment published a financial statement a few days ago suggesting that its iOS game Puzzle & Dragons , all in a single month and all from Japan. That company’s stock has surged by more than 2,000% in the last year because of that single title, and But none of these companies are going out to market now, especially considering that Instead, this generation of gaming companies is biding its time, riding the wave of surging iOS and Android revenues and making sure that their businesses are more hit-proof. “IPOs are fine, but there have also been scenarios where it was too much of a focus. Ultimately, they’ve been very destructive to companies that were doing notable and amazing things,” Barber said. “Those variables have to be weighed super carefully, so we’re not in a rush.” King, an arcade-gaming company that started more than a decade ago, just made the leap to mobile last fall. Its game Candy Crush Saga has been competing with Supercell’s “Clash of Clans” for the top-grossing spot in the U.S. That single title blew through all of the’s company 2013 financial targets in a single month and . They’ve quadrupled their headcount in the last two years ago, haven’t taken funding for eight and have always been profitable. “We’re not planning to be acquired. There’s a bright future for us, whether we will do an IPO or not,” said . “We’re just working on execution.”
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Facebook’s Android Homescreen Could Expose Apple’s Inflexibility
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Josh Constine
| 2,013 | 3 | 31 |
The mainstream has had little reason to care that Android gives developers much more customization freedom than iOS. But if Facebook’s is a hit, the stubbornness of Apple’s closed mobile platform could be framed as a drawback after years of its cohesive design and ease being seen as assets. Cheapness and handset/carrier choice are two of the biggest factors convincing people to pick up Android phones today. There’s its premier integration of Google’s app suite and the “rebel without an iPhone” attitude too. But Android’s flexibility for app developers has been more of a selling point for geeks and early adopters than for the average Joe. Meanwhile, the straight forward “it just works” aspect of iOS that leans on its rigidity has made it a popular introduction to smartphones for hundreds of millions of people. There just hasn’t been a killer brand name app to grab the mainstream’s attention that depends on Android’s cooperative architecture and that iOS won’t support. No one has forced the issue of open vs closed on the common man. But six years after the iPhone’s debut, the average mobile consumer has matured. They crave more personalization through homescreen widgets and custom launchers. They want to make their phone truly theirs. The mobile world may finally have reached the turning point where the benefits of Android’s customization outweigh the benefits of iOS’ simplicity. And it’s Facebook homescreen for Android that could crystallize this moment. Last week, Facebook sent out invites to a big press event to “see our new home on Android”. My sources got us for Android that pipes in its news feed content and notifications for instant access. We’re told this experience will be debuted on an HTC handset running a version of Android that’s been modified by Facebook. The homescreen replacement is also likely to make its way to other handsets, either in the form a launcher app that can run on standard Android builds, or through Facebook partnerships with other OEMs. The kicker is that Facebook’s homescreen cannot run on iOS as it exists today. Now, for any of this to actually alter the mobile landscape, Facebook “Home” as it may be called will have to be a real success. Not just “Oh that looks cool”, but “I need to have that on my phone”. A lot people will never say that, because they just don’t care that much about Facebook. Beyond that, it may be tough to add a lot of value on top of the full-featured Facebook For Android app that’s just a few taps away. Still, it’s possible that Facebook’ heads up display, , could be good enough to shift the balance in the Game Of Phones. Even if not directly or immediately, the mere existence of Facebook Home could bring the open/closed debate into the sphere of public consciousness. In that sense, it could at least begin to generate momentum for Android’s “do as you please” ecosystem. Apple is typically resistant to diverging from its roadmap to head off potential threats. As I’ve said, . But if it stays locked down, we might outgrow its hand-holding. For all Google’s talk off Android being open, it could take Facebook to make us realize its liberty we really want. Learn more about Facebook’s new Home on Android:
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What Games Are: My Three GDC Themes
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Tadhg Kelly
| 2,013 | 3 | 31 |
The was, as expected, a whirlwind. Folks from all across the games industry and associated media came together, ate, drank, talked, queued, played, partied and even danced with wild abandon, and everyone’s takeaways from the event were different. GDC is so big that nobody is able to objectively summarize what it is, but the separation between the talk and the business sides is palpable. If you mostly hung around in Moscone West and North then your GDC was probably all about education and big ideas. If you stayed more in the Expo, Moscone South or around the W hotel, it was more likely a sea of business cards. Depending on where you spent your time, there were whole parts of GDC you’d never see, news that you heard indirectly, rumors and issues which emerged on one side that the other either misunderstood or was completely unaware of. This year I found myself straddling the divide, with many meetings and talks filling my calendar to bursting. I saw some things, learned some stuff and met some people, and some themes emerged for me. No doubt others who attended had a completely different experience. My first theme was the increasing voice of women in games. The role, perception and treatment of women in the industry has been a long-standing issue. The most visible sign of this is the use of booth babes at trade shows to promote games, but it goes way beyond that. Female game makers have long felt that they have to struggle twice as hard to be taken seriously. They also feel woefully underrepresented by the industry’s output – even though women make up the majority market for casual and social games, for example, representations of women are often anodyne at best. As a result of the meme of last year (which saw many female game makers express their frustrations on Twitter) this issue of women in games was the subject of the . It also featured heavily in the “microtalks” and “rants” sessions, with Leigh Alexander talking about the tone-deaf practises of game marketing and Anna Anthropy advocating that male conference panelists should refuse to participate on a panel that doesn’t feature at least one woman. (As someone who participated on an this year, this talk in particular has made me think hard about the unconscious culture in which I participate.) Yet these noble expressions were undermined by the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) party, which featured skimpily dressed female dancers. A catastrophic misjudgment of sentiment, the party – sponsored by Yetizen – led to many outbursts on Twitter and the subsequent resignations in protest of many high-profile IGDA members. Most notable was , who only hours previously had been the leading light of the #1reason talk. It seems that the issue of women-in-games has gained much (rightful) traction on the Moscone West side of the conference. However it has yet to permeate through to the Expo side, the people who run marketing departments and PR events. Calls such as Anthropy’s are a start, but there is still a great deal to do to get those who aren’t really aware of the issue to care about it. My second theme was . There were two parties, one for OUYA and another for GameStick, where unveilings and announcements were made. Perhaps most impressively, Julie Uhrman announced that OUYA had shipped in March as the original Kickstarter had promised, that a much larger network of retail partnerships have been formed than most industry insiders expect, and that there are around at launch (including a mix of vintage titles like Canabalt along with brand-new games). The was also apparently very interesting (I wasn’t there) and it too is set to ship very soon (June, by all accounts). And there are other microconsoles in the pipeline. However the resistance from the main industry to an app-style console that costs little and runs free, free-to-play and cheap games is very high. Many really don’t see what the fuss is about, comparing the microconsole to the console in a like-for-like comparison. Many question who the devices are for exactly, and what they are supposed to achieve. Personally I think this resistance comes from the same mindset that led many game developers to misunderstand the importance of social games, netbooks, tablets and a whole host of similar left-field market movements. It will probably take a year for a Supercell, Zynga or Rovio to emerge on microconsoles for game developers to suddenly realise that they’ve missed the boat. The more relevant question is whether any of the existing microconsole contenders will be the ones to ultimately win. A rumour surfaced, for example, that Apple is almost ready to release a – which led some tweeters to tell me that this means microconsoles are already dead when it actually validates the idea. There is also the haunting feeling that Samsung and some of the other big Android handset makers are eyeing the space. Could Amazon get in on it? It’s entirely possible. My final theme was the idea that real-money gaming is becoming respectable. This is a time when many publishers are facing up to the hard reality of making money in online gaming (and many are still advancing deals that will likely lead to game-a-day or vertical operations down the road), while retail games are capable of . Real-money wagering, betting and the like were prevalent in back-channel talk at the conference. There is the expectation that at some point the United States will legalize real-money gaming in the form of small wagering, sports betting and similar, and various companies are poised to provide solutions when it does. What surprises me is how less stygmatized that idea has become. There was a time, perhaps five years ago, when the games industry considered itself entirely separate from real money, but not quite so much any more. Perhaps as a result of free-to-play gaming starting to go indie (such as through games from Nimblebit and Spry Fox, both of whom talked about their experiences), sensitivity to the very idea of real-money seemed a little more confined to sensitivity about predatory practises. Provided the model is well-managed and controlled, some game makers seem quietly open to the idea. Personally I’m not sure how I feel about that yet, but the sentiment on the Expo side was palpable. I wonder whether the ethics, morality and practise of real-money gaming will be next year’s hot button issue in Moscone West. (PS: if there’s one GDC game that I recommend you look at Jason Rohrer’s .)
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Eventbrite’s Julia And Kevin Hartz On Building A Business As A Couple, And More [Video]
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Colleen Taylor
| 2,013 | 3 | 31 |
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdM3dJr7TFA]
We all know that co-founders with a longstanding personal bond have a better chance of building a successful company than co-founders who don’t share a strong friendship. But what about when that bond between two co-founders is a bit deeper, as a romantic relationship? co-founders and have shown that building a business with your significant other — in this case, a spouse — can lead to big success. The online event planning and ticketing platform, which is understood to be making its way to an IPO, just hit a major milestone this week, and 100 million tickets sold. I had the pleasure of interviewing the Hartzes in a fireside chat last month at the really fantastic conference headed up by tech entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. In our 30-minute conversation, we talked about all things Eventbrite, from the early days as a budding startup to its current status as a sizable tech company, and you can watch it all in the video embedded above. But, being that today is said to be the wedding of co-founders and , another (congratulations!), I especially wanted to highlight Julia and Kevin’s comments about running a business with a loved one. Kevin and Julia said placing a priority on keeping their interpersonal relationship strong was a smart decision that should be used by other co-founding teams, whether they’re in a romantic relationship or not. Starting at around 4:50, Kevin said: “There’s been famous husband and wife teams where it’s worked out remarkably, and famous husband and wife teams, as in the case of Cisco, where it’s kind of a disaster — but, you know, Cisco became a great company. Like anything, it’s a co-founder relationship, and in our case we had to be extra sensitive about it because there was this extra personal relationship important aspect about it. So, we approached it somewhat cautiously. We had many different chances where we would say, ‘OK, we’re not going to ruin the marriage,’ so you know, one of us steps out, and we have this kind of a Plan B if things went poorly. I also think it’s a great exercise in really ensuring we’re compatible founders, and we were very conscientious of it. When you’re working with founders, your fellow founders, that relationship is fundamental whether it’s romantic or not.” And Julia added: “We were so cautious about the decisions we made and what kind of modes of operations we would have. We had this law that we would divide and conquer, and wouldn’t work on the same thing at the same time. It just so happened we had complimentary skills so that was an easy thing to do. When I overlay that over any co-founder relationship, it’s vital actually to be talking about those kinds of things.” There was much more where that came from, and you can see it all in the video above.
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As Crowdfunding Takes Off, SEC Greenlights AngelList’s Investment Platform
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Ryan Lawler
| 2,013 | 3 | 31 |
The Securities and Exchange Commission is making way for a number of startups and online investment platforms to enable startups to crowdsource investment. Early last week, Y Combinator-backed that the agency would not pursue action against its crowdfunding platform. But it wasn’t alone: a few days later, received a . [hat tip to ] The regulatory response came after AngelList requested its own assurance from the SEC that the agency wouldn’t pursue enforcement action against its investment platform, . In its letter to the agency, AngelList noted that it was going to form a limited liability corporation that would serve as investment advisors, and would operate a platform through which accredited investors would be able to put money into startups. Like other crowdfunding investment platforms that are popping up, under AngelList’s plan, the company would introduce individual investment vehicles for each portfolio company that its users invested in. According to the filing, AngelList Advisors would determine whether to create an investment vehicle for particular startups, then negotiate the terms of the investment for the larger pool. It would also exercise all voting rights for the investment vehicle and decide on whether it should distribute cash and marketable securities to investors, subject to any lock-up agreements or similar restrictions. Already, AngelList is being used to help raise funds for some companies and funds, through its . Open only to , the tool lets users put as little as $1,000 each into startup companies that it’s created an investment vehicle for. The whole idea is to allow a larger number of individual investors to make small investments in interesting startups, but to do so in a way that reduces the friction of most funding rounds today. Under current SEC rules, startups can’t advertise or announce that they’re raising funding, which means that investors might not even know that they can put money into a certain company. And, in a sense, to increase the efficiency with which startups can get funded. According to a filing from the SEC last week, AngelList has gotten the green light to operate this online investment platform. You can read the , but it all comes down to this paragraph: “Based on the facts and representations set forth in your letter, and without necessarily agreeing with your conclusions and analysis, the Staff will not recommend enforcement action against AngelList, AngelList Advisors or any Lead Angel to the Commission under Section 15(a) of the Exchange Act, ifthe parties engage in the activities described herein without registering as a broker or dealer in accordance with Section 15(b) ofthe Exchange Act.” With both AngelList and FundersClub receiving the blessings of the SEC, we can expect more platforms for crowdfunding investment in startups to take off. A few weeks ago, for instance, another Y Combinator-backed startup called WeFunder launched with its own . These letters are also being sent in the wake of the passage of the JOBS Act, which is . That act will make it easier for non-accredited investors to make investments in non-public companies, while also enabling startups to publicize that they are raising funds. We’ve requested comment from AngeList and will update when we hear back. AngelList has confirmed the SEC has approved the network’s investment platform. AngelList co-founder Naval Ravikant explains: The /Invest feature on AngelList is working well so far. We do curate the opportunities to those with a high-quality lead investor, and to date we’ve announced 7 fundings, 14 are closed or in closing, 18 are currently open for Accrediteds, adding about one per day. We’ve received over $6M in commitments in the last Quarter in 915 separate transactions. We have 12,000 Accrediteds on AngelList, and via our SecondMarket Partnership, can reach another 20,000. Unlike others in the space, we don’t think we can pick the winners – rather, it’s a more open approach for any company with a high-quality lead investor. We also don’t view it as a money-maker for AngelList – more of a community service. We also think it makes sense to augment it with our base service of introducing high-quality companies to sophisticated investors (VCs, Seed Funds, Professional Angels) – we currently drive 500-700 of those introductions per week, and drive about $10M / month there. Other updates – on the talent side, we’re adding 600 candidates per week, and doing 1,600 introductions per week now between talent and 3,300 recruiting startups.
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Happy World Backup Day! Go Backup Your Stuff! Seriously.
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Greg Kumparak
| 2,013 | 3 | 31 |
Hard drive backups are like the socks of gifts you give yourself. They’re initially about as unexciting as gifts can get, only to become the in a pinch. Got a meeting in 20 minutes and your normal sock reserve is empty? Thanks for the bag-o-socks, Uncle Steve! Your hard drive just exploded, taking the past 3 years of your digital life with it? Thanks for the backup, past-me! Besides being the day that keeps the people who make Peeps in business, today also marks the Third Annual World Backup Day. World Backup Day is a tradition that started on reddit back in 2011, and has been rippling out through the rest of the tech-loving world ever since. Making today’s Backup Day particularly special is the fact that it falls on Easter, which, if nothing else, means you get to use “BRB! Gotta go check my backups!” as a way to escape any awkward family conversations that pop up before the ham is done. Or you could be a cool guy and introduce your less tech-centric family members to the concept of backin’ up their bits. Oh, and tomorrow is April Fool’s day. Probably not the safest day for data, you know? So, how should you go about backing things up? If you’re trying to keep it simple, just go buy/find a big ol’ external hard drive, plug it into your operating system’s built-in backup tool (Here’s a guide to on Windows, or on OS X), let it do its thing, and then stick the backup somewhere safe. If you can find somewhere off-site (like a trusted friend’s house), that’ll help you retain your data in case of fire or flood. If you want to get fancy and push your backups online, a couple of the big backup guys are doing deals in honor of today’s techno-holiday. dropped their annual price from $71 down to $42 for the day, and is giving away 3-months free to all newcomers. If you’ve only got a handful of files that you need to keep backed up, Dropbox’s free 2GB plan is a solid option. Hard drives are cheap. Lost data isn’t. Go, go, go!
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Iterations: Calendar Frenzy, Google Now, and Apple’s “Anticipatory Computing” Problem
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Semil Shah
| 2,013 | 3 | 31 |
TechCrunch Now that the Mailbox to Dropbox is complete, let’s move on to the next native iOS app that everyone wants to replace: The Calendar. Yes, the calendar. Nearly every other conversation I had this past week included some chatter about all the new calendar apps (see the screenshot of my iPhone). Peeling back the layers on all these calendar apps and the herd-like interest in the space, however, reveals both challenges and opportunities that go much deeper than comparing mobile apps based on product features. For those among us who use Android, Google Now is the type of anticipatory computing, powered by data and algorithmic learning, that enables a machine to guide us in life almost like an assistant would. On Apple’s iOS, however, there is no such thing like “Apple Now,” and as a result, savvy entrepreneurs are seeking to build that service as a third-party application. And, curiously, they’re using the mobile calendar on Apple to kickstart this game and using calendar “intent” to infer what to send to the user. The motivation to write this post came as a surprise. You may have noticed that, over the past month, the amount of “smart calendars” and “intelligent assistants” has seemed to explode, all at the same time. Not too long ago, iPhone users had the chance to buy well-designed calendar apps like and to have a better experience that what Apple’s native calendar app provides. I’d guess many Gmail loyalists on iPhone would to have a native Google Calendar app, just as Google has shown in iOS recently, but that doesn’t seem to be a high priority for now. Back in the middle of 2012, I started using a service called , which started on the web. It is a well-designed product that integrates your social networks and calendar to provide more context around upcoming meetings. More recently, Sunrise has built a clever iOS app that has many , such as allowing users to go straight from Sunrise to Google Maps for iPhone, since our friends in Cupertino won’t let us set our own app-defaults for actions like these. There are many players in this category, broadly speaking. Apps like , which starts out with the goal of automating arrival alerts between meeting participants via SMS, or (formerly Greplin), which presents your day’s information with more context on mobile, or , a daily planner tying tasks together with the calendar, could grow into something larger at scale. The big idea here is that systems like Sunrise and the others could, over time, start with making a better mobile iOS calendar and then grow into more anticipatory services, perhaps becoming a “Google Now for Apple.” And, as competition goes these days, just as Sunrise is drawing attention, we have witnessed a whole new crop of “intelligent assistants” on Apple’s platform, such as (originated at SRI) and , as well apps that we can only anticipate (pun intended) like and , which haven’t yet been released. (I have not tried Sherpa or Donna.) These are all great apps, quite sophisticated in their feature offerings, but overall, while I find this particular entrepreneurial pursuit more than noble, I wonder about how much of an effect these apps could have within the iOS ecosystem given all the presented by Apple. Let us count the ways. App Store seems to be getting worse, not better. Most of these apps ask for access to your iPhone contact list and your iPhone calendar, and if users don’t allow those permissions during onboarding and registration, users will need to navigate their way into “Settings” to reactivate those permissions piecemeal. Even if an app can extract these permissions, many of them end up grabbing location persistently, even though some of them talk about access the GPS sensor in low-power mode. I’m of the that these always-on, location-aware apps are slightly ahead of their time and will require fundamental advancements in moile battery technology before consumers will give up their battery life. (Even apps as elegant and useful as or , for instance, which passively grabs user location data throughout the day, may have their overall adoption impacted because of this reason.) The larger question here, ultimately, is the delta between the efficacy and utility of a service like Google Now and what is possible given the current iOS environment. The way things stand today — and I know things could change, with advancements like Google Glass or an iWatch, etc. — recreating a “Google Now-like” experience on iPhone can only happen at the application layer, hence the competition listed above, but in order to really work for consumers, it will have to be an OS-level solution. Perhaps Apple assumed technologies like Siri could start to train iOS users to start giving voice-commands as inputs with a long-term goal of delivering intelligent outputs. I don’t fully understand the depth of the technological problems underneath this, but at least as a consumer, this notion not only seems far off in the future, it may also be a pipe dream. This poses a curious opportunity and challenge for iOS app builders in this space. Even though they may have deep technologies and elaborate product roadmaps, all of the hurdles of getting to scale on iOS as well as all the permissions they require from the mobile operating system present a series of minefields. In order to compete with a service like Google Now, an iOS app would need continuous access to data in our email, calendars, address book, and location logs. And, with the acquisition of Mailbox fresh in our minds, that transaction may have set a bandwidth that any app in this productivity space could fetch on the market. While I would never want to constrain a young team’s sights on more short-term goals — and I do sincerely hope one of these players emerge to be on everyone’s iPhones — the combined reality of (1) Apple’s legacy mindset with respect to its own mobile operating systems and (2) today’s acquisitive environment for iOS teams means startups in the calendaring or assistant space on iOS have a small but rare opportunity to sprint to grow ( ). And, if successful, they may end up in Cupertino building this, because it’s only at the OS level — not app layer — that Apple could begin to provide more pervasive computing services and allow their machines a chance to to get better with time. In long-run, all of this poses a significant challenge to Apple’s iOS platform. Perhaps this is just one way to read the tea leaves. Unless something drastically changes in the meantime with respect to the App Store, battery technologies, or simply how Apple sets up their OS, I just don’t see any other way.
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CrunchWeek: Amazon’s Purchase Of Goodreads, YC’s Smaller Demo Day And Bitcoin Hitting $1 Billion
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Leena Rao
| 2,013 | 3 | 31 |
It’s time for that very special time each week when a few of us writers gather around the TechCrunch TV cameras to shoot the breeze about the biggest and most interesting stories from the past seven days. , and I sat down to discuss Amazon’s Y Combinator’s this past week and whether Bitcoin now that it is a billion dollar market.
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256 Shades Of Grey
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Devin Coldewey
| 2,013 | 3 | 31 |
I want a black and white computer, and I don’t want it out of sheer, wanton weirdness. I actually think it’s a good idea. Here’s why. A huge, huge proportion of the content we consume every day is text. And, for many, an equal proportion of what they work with is text — be it code, email, or published content like this. For the consumption and creation of text, a monochrome display is all that is necessary, and in some ways even superior to a color one. Pixels on an LCD like the one on which you’re probably reading this are made up of dots or sub-pixels — usually one red, one green, and one blue. The transistor matrix changes the opacity of a sub-pixel of a given color, and by working together they can create millions of hues and shades. But they work (with a few exceptions such as sub-pixel font smoothing and pentile layouts) only as triads, meaning a display with a resolution of 1920×1080 addressable has three times that many addressable dots. (This is the reason why simply desaturating the image does not improve the resolution.) Consequently, if you were to remove the color filters, each sub-pixel would become a pixel — all only able to show shades of grey, of course, but pixels nonetheless, and far more of them than there were before. Result: extremely high spatial resolution, far beyond the so-called “retina” point, even at close range — beyond even glossy magazine levels of sharpness, a dream for rendering type. (The two previous paragraphs previously contained miscalculations as to the pixel density, which have since been amended) It would also be brighter, or put another way, would require less backlight, since the removal of the filters allows far more light to pass through. That saves battery. Also saving battery is the reduced amount of graphics processing power and RAM necessary to store and alter the screen state, and so on. Small things, but not insignificant. It would, of course, retain all of the other benefits of a modern, connected device, remaining as responsive and powerful as any other laptop or tablet, just minus the color. Logistically speaking, adapting existing content would not be that problematic (“time-shifting” apps and other extractors already do this). And it’s more than a glorified e-reader: the limitations of that type of hardware are lethal to many of the methods in which we are now accustomed to finding, consuming, and creating content (to say nothing of the screen quality). But what the hell is the point, you ask, if it’s not in color? The web is in color. The is in color! Your Instagram feed won’t be quite as striking in greyscale, it’s true. Rich media wasn’t designed for monochrome, and shouldn’t be forced into it. It demands color, and deserves it. Obviously you wouldn’t want to browse Reddit or edit video on a monochrome display. But if something does require color, it seems pointless to provide it, especially when doing so has real drawbacks. You’ve seen the apps that prevent procrastination, or make the user focus on a task, by blocking out distractions and the like. At some times, we want a tool that does one thing, and at other times, we want a tool that does others. That’s why computers are so great: They can switch between, say, text-focused work mode and image-focused movie mode in an instant. They’re like Swiss Army knives: a corkscrew one minute and a can opener the next. But, as I tried to suggest in , if you tend to open a lot of wine bottles and very few cans, wouldn’t you prefer that you had a dedicated wine opener, without a bunch of other tools attached? That it can’t open a can is tragic, but more than made up for by its facility in its chosen task. I believe some people would not only be unperturbed by an inability to watch videos or what have you — in fact, they may prefer it. We already have different computing tools for different purposes, and we don’t demand that they all do everything — I have a laptop so I can write, as I am at the present, while enjoying some fresh air and coffee. I have a desktop for games and heavy productivity. I have an iPad for this, and an e-reader for that, and a phone for this, and a camera for that. What’s one more, especially when it would be, I believe, quite good at what it does, even if that’s “only” working with text? There’s also a less practical, more reason I would enjoy a black and white device. The content we consume and the ways we navigate it have become loud and colorful, and to me it does not appear that this profusion of saturation has been accompanied by a corresponding subtlety of design. The eruption of capabilities has made many lose touch with the beauty of austerity, and what’s billed as “minimalism” rarely is. There is a set of qualities that sets that starkness apart, and while we have always enjoyed ornamentation, there has always been (and will be for the foreseeable future) a place and purpose for the essential alone. On that note, I think it would be an interesting experiment, and highly beneficial one, to attempt to rebuild, say, Facebook or an OS, without any color at all. When you subtract color cues like green for yes and red for no, or implicit boundaries based not on contrast and flow but on different coloration, the problem of presenting and consuming the information concerned is totally changed. Perhaps one would learn better the fundamentals of layout, flow, proportion, and so on, and that would inform the color world as well. I read a lot, and I write for a living. I want a specialized tool for doing those things, just as a logger would want an axe instead of a big knife, or a runner a good pair of shoes instead of slippers. In the end, I like the idea of a black-and-white device and interface for many of the reasons I like black-and-white photography. It’s different, and has different strengths, and both requires and provides a different perspective. For me, that’s enough to at least want it on the table.
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YouTube Announces That It Has Been An 8-Year Contest, Will Shut Down On April 1 To Determine The Winner
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Jordan Crook
| 2,013 | 3 | 31 |
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H542nLTTbu0&w=640&h=360] Bad news, guys. YouTube is shutting down. The platform launched eight years ago, and some of us have gotten so distracted by YouTube videos that we’ve forgotten that the whole thing is actually a competition. Or, YouTube never actually mentioned that it was a competition. Either way, that competition, called YouTube, is coming to a close. To decide who has made the best YouTube video of all time, the company has put together an expert panel of judges, replete with film critics, prolific YouTube commenters, and YouTube celebrities including Charlie from and Antoine Dodson of YouTube has over 30,000 technicians working tirelessly to narrow down all the YouTube submissions that have come in over the past eight years. The judges will then spend the next decade discussing which video should ultimately win. Tomorrow, at midnight, the site will be shut down and all of its content will be permanently deleted. YouTube won’t be ressurected until 2023, at which point the only video on the site will be the winner of this competition. That said, the winner won’t be chosen for another decade, but you can watch the first 12 hours of judging live-streamed from YouTube’s L.A. offices tomorrow. Talk about slow and steady, right? Will people in 2023 remember YouTube? Luckily, of the 150,000 submissions viewed by the judges, none of them are judged by popularity. Gangnam Style has the same chance of winning as . The winner will get an MP3 player and a $500 creative stipend for their next creative project. Reactions to this news should be interesting. YouTube is one of Google’s most successful and valuable properties, and it’s a global necessity in terms of easy, made-for-everyone video sharing online. However, Google has been spring cleaning lately, and a handful of other products from its portfolio. Perhaps this is yet another step in streamlining its offerings. , April Fools apparently happens one day early in Mountain View. ;)
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Google’s Doodle Features American Labor Leader Cesar Chavez On Easter Sunday, Users Retaliate On Twitter
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Leena Rao
| 2,013 | 3 | 31 |
Google’s Doodles on the Google.com search page don’t frequently stir up too much controversy, but today many users are outraged by the search giant’s choice in featuring Cesar Chavez, an American farm worker, labor leader and civil rights activist. Of course, today is also Easter, which is one of the most observed and celebrated religious holidays for Christians around the world. Users have , expressing anger over the fact that the Doodle features the labor leader instead of a drawing honoring the holiday (Google search engine rival Bing did feature Easter Eggs on its homepage). Why Cesar Chavez? In 2011, U.S. President Barack Obama March 31 as “Cesar Chavez Day.” That being said, since the company frequently celebrates major U.S. and international holidays through the Doodles, it is a little bizarre that Google wouldn’t include an Easter Egg-type of Doodle. But if you do a that celebrate Easter, it appears the search giant hasn’t created an Easter Doodle since 2000. It would be easy to say Google doesn’t commemorate religious holidays. But there have been Doodles that have honored
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Blunts And Dancing Dogs In Tutus: How The Sharing Economy Is Re-Humanizing Business
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Gregory Ferenstein
| 2,013 | 3 | 31 |
I feel oddly guilty rejecting my Uber driver’s offer of a beer and a blunt. It’s 4 am. I’m drenched, hungover, and bewildered as to why I’m in a rustic garage on the outskirts of downtown Austin, watching tattooed pedicab drivers dance with a tiny dog in a pink tutu. This was not the ride home I expected. Yet, my experience isn’t entirely unusual. After two years of experimenting with Internet services that allow everyday individuals to sell their cars, houses, and things — the so-called “ ” — I’ve become accustomed to getting a face full of the sellers’ hopes, fears and quirks. Between services rendered and cash exchanged, friendships are forged, awkwardness is experienced, and memories are made. Before the Industrial Revolution uprooted us from our small-town community roots, I imagine most business transactions included a side of humanity. Modern-day business sterilize transactions of the personal element. Human resource departments have hollowed out their employees, leaving little more than a pleasantly smiling husk of a person. Every March, over 25,000 technology enthusiasts cram into the moderately sized metro of downtown Austin for the annual tech pilgrimage, South By Southwest Interactive. Hotels are sold out six months in advance, and every public service is bleeding out their windows with demand. You’d have an easier time catching a cab stumbling naked and drunk down Times Square on New Years Eve than hailing a taxi during SXSW. At 4 a.m., after the final after parties had simmered down, the only shot I had at making it back to my bed before I had to wake up the next morning was Uber, the popular smartphone taxi application that had contracted with independent pedicabers during SXSW, to usher sleepy technologists to and fro downtown Austin. I did not, however, foresee the torrential downpour halfway though my trip that instantly saturated my clothes to my frigid bone. No longer able to stand the sharp icicles falling from the sky, yet still needing to finish the ride, our courtesy pedicab driver took a pit stop at Pediacab HQ to pick up his car and stow his bike.
Pedicab headquarters is like the second-class deck of the Titanic, a dimly lit haven where free-spirited tattooed servicemen party their blue collars off to loud music, an abundance of cheap beer, and liberally available recreational drugs. “I got jungle juice for sale! It’s strong,” yelled a muscular African American man in his mid-thirties, who backed up a truck full of tortellini and cheap liquor, during what appeared to be his nightly run to the breaking pedicabers. Passing off a blunt, a line forms to offer him wads of crumpled dollar bills in exchange for a styrofoam box filled to the brim with cheap, delicious carby goodness. “They just aren’t cut out for straightforward jobs,” explains my pedicab driver, about his uniform-less colleagues. “I had a regular sort of office job,” he adds. But, pedicabbing “filled a niche that I didn’t even knew existed.” Indeed, eccentric personalities seem to flock to the peddling business. The night before I had been driven home by a red-headed engineer, whose super-skinny, yet muscular body supported a head with a beard so thick and unkempt, it look liked it had burst out of his chin. He told me that between judo tournaments, he was pulling 22-hour days as a driver to pay for graduate school in geographic information systems. It goes to show that behind every invoice and credit card terminal is a person who has experienced their own unique set of crazy, which life inevitably presents while living on our crowded Earth. Traditional retail robs us of a truer view of humanity, with its memories and the tangible sense of its diversity. Though I wouldn’t knowingly pay money for it, sometimes the worst experiences are the most enriching. I once endured 20 minutes of forced laughter, as my driver regaled me with his amateur comedy routine. Lyft, a popular car-sharing alternative in San Francisco, encourages its drivers to be extroverted. Usually, this just means a mandatory fist-bump and a “how’s your day?” On occasion, it’s much more. My would-be comedian driver reminded me that not every starving artist is hocking paintings on a street corner. More often than not, it’s a cashier scribbling notes in between customers, dreaming of the day he’ll make it big and tell his boss to screw off. Many of the world’s cherished artists, scientists, policymakers, and businessmen have humble roots.Who knows how much creativity and innovation the world has lost due to the callous whims of an entitled consumer. So, while I can’t give our comedian his big break, my time with the sharing economy has made me more patient with those I regularly interact with. I’ll think twice about giving the stink eye to a barista who forgets my request for extra-foam on my no whip tazo chai frappuccino. I’ll wish my Verizon customer service agent a happy Easter. I might even refrain from tweeting nasty remarks at a politician or vote for a bill to fund a community arts center. Or, as the Scottish author Ian MacLaren : This man beside us also has a hard fight with an unfavouring world, with strong temptations, with doubts and fears, with wounds of the past which have skinned over, but which smart when they are touched. It is a fact, however surprising. And when this occurs to us we are moved to deal kindly with him, to bid him be of good cheer, to let him understand that we are also fighting a battle.
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Backed Or Whacked: May The Funds Be With You
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Ross Rubin
| 2,013 | 3 | 30 |
A short time ago on a crowdfunding site not very far away… There are a number of schools regarding the existence of alien intelligent races. Among those who refute that we’ve been able to detect extraterrestrials among us, there are a broad range of theories. Perhaps such beings don’t exist. Perhaps they haven’t advanced far enough to reach us. Or to the contrary, perhaps they are so advanced that we can’t detect them. Maybe Earth just can’t compete as a tourist destination. But if angry aliens arrive and neither the Avengers nor Will Smith are anywhere to be found, we should probably have something available that can take them out — at least according to the Intergalactic Rifle Association. Always a popular weapon to rebuild, the Death Star has appeared as a Kickstarter project requiring a modest £20 million for plans and enough chicken wire to protect the exhaust ports. But not thinking bigger would cause one to find the project owners’ lack of faith disturbing. The group has also set a stretch goal of £543 trillion (or US$850,000,000,000,000,000) for construction of the actual planet destroyer. It may seem like a tidy sum, but the group assures that it is doing everything it can to keep costs down by using open source hardware and software. Indeed, few know that the first Death Star was prototyped on a Makerbot printer that was R2-D2’s second cousin once remade. The world-wiping weapon ran on nothing more than an Arduino board programmed by mass-murdering Sith Lord and popular Maker Faire speaker Darth Solderous. Thoughtful backers have weighed in on the campaign. One, for example, bemoans the lack of a premium reward tier with the opportunity to press the button that generates the next Alderaanian fate. Alas, while funds have been pouring in and the campaign passed the £200,000 mark some time ago, there’s scant chance of the campaign attracting a sum more than 10 times the global GDP by April 1, an ending date that seems significant for some reason. The slim chance of the open source Death Star making it past the planning stages has not been enough to deter a countermeasure campaign. Whereas the originators of the Death Star campaign hail from a .uk domain, this effort from the Rebel Alliance (apparently a tight-knit group of Rebel Wilson fans) originates from Shanghai. Lacking the largesse of the Galactic Empire, the group seeks only $11 million to create its prototype of an X-Wing fighter. An initial rush of funds has swept in, but their only hope will have to be a lot richer than Obi-Wan Kenobi. That means that no one will be able to claim the $10,000 reward tier of extensive Jedi training. Despite the certainty that project owner Simon Kwah will miss his target like a stormtrooper, he has created an array of imaginative Star Wars-themed stretch goals. These include approximately $4.5 billion — the total gross of all the Star Wars movies — for a fleet of X-Wing fighters. And 13 million Galactic Standard Credits will net a Millenium Falcon plus crew. Despite aligning with the other side of the Force, the X-Wing Squadron campaign will wrap up along with the Death Star campaign on April 1.
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The Tivoli PAL BT May Be The Best-Looking, Best-Sounding Bluetooth Speaker
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Darrell Etherington
| 2,013 | 3 | 30 |
Long before the advent of the Jawbone Jambox, there was a portable speaker that was decently rugged, had tremendous battery life and amazing sound, and that was the PAL. The PAL boasted an audiophile pedigree and an auxiliary input that made it a good partner for early iPods, but the introduction of decent stereo Bluetooth streaming made it fall behind somewhat in convenience when the Jawbone and its ilk came around. Recently, however, Tivoli has updated the PAL with the PAL BT, a model that does offer A2DP Bluetooth stereo streaming, alongside the built-in AM/FM radio and auxiliary inputs found on the original. And if you’re in the market for a portable, powerful speaker with great sound, there’s nothing quite like it out there. The PAL BT is frankly the best looking portable speaker available. My review unit was in glossy white, so the faceplate matches the rear casing, but those looking for a splash of color can opt to get it in a gloss black, blue or red finish up front, too. The styling is somewhat retro without feeling kitschy, and the ports and antenna are all easily accessible on the back, and protected by water and dust-resistant flaps. [gallery ids="788703,788702,788701,788700,788699,788698"] The face of the speaker is dominated by the speaker grill itself, and also the large tuner dial for the built-in AM/FM radio. These are visually appealing, but more than that, the knobs and dials are actually very pleasantly textured and turn with a very satisfying amount of resistance. It sounds silly to complement a speaker based on the design and build of its controls and knobs, but when you use the PAL, you’ll notice immediately that attention was paid to their design. The rectangular form factor isn’t the most portable among portable speakers, but it’s still a small, light device that is easily thrown into a carry-on or larger luggage. Tivoli has a great reputation for delivering high-quality sound in a relatively affordable package. I’ve seen other reviewers knock the PAL BT for its sound quality-to-price value ratio, but to my ear, after extensive use and comparison with the Jambox and other Bluetooth speakers, the PAL still defends the reputation of its non-Bluetooth predecessor very well. The Tivoli PAL BT is a mono speaker which might cause some potential buyers to hesitate, but that shouldn’t be a factor in anyone’s decision-making process. Sound separation in most portable Bluetooth speakers is dismal as it is, so they’re hardly “stereo” anyways. And the high-quality mono audio from the PAL BT even holds up pretty well when you crank up the volume (and it goes a lot higher than most of its competition, too, which is why it’s well-suited to backyard BBQs and other outdoor activities). Battery life is another place where the previous PAL excelled, and the PAL BT is great there, too. Rated for 16 hours, you’ll get less depending on volume and whether you’re actively connected over Bluetooth, but no one would be disappointed by the duration of its battery no matter how you’re using it. I’ve been using it as my workday soundtrack next to the computer, and I often forget it’s a wireless speaker because of how long-lived it is. Plus, Tivoli equips the PAL BT with a user-replaceable internal rechargeable battery, so you could theoretically carry a back-up. The Tivoli PAL BT is pricier than its non-BT version, and for bass-heads who actually like the exaggerated lows of companies like Beats and Bose, the sound might disappoint. But for audiophiles looking for a speaker that’s relatively affordable, long-lasting and still a category leader in terms of sound quality, this is a perfect device, especially as we head into beach, park and picnic season.
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Natasha Lomas
| 2,013 | 3 | 31 | null |
Amazon Instant Video Suffered Long, Unexplained Outage Last Night
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Frederic Lardinois
| 2,013 | 3 | 30 |
At the end of last year, Netflix suffered a because Amazon’s cloud services, which Netflix uses to host most of its infrastructure, went down. At the time, Amazon’s own video services continued to function without any issues. Last night, it was Amazon’s turn to suffer from a multi-hour outage. According to a number of tips we received, as well as a number of and other social networks, Amazon’s service and went down sometime in the late afternoon yesterday and remained offline for a large part of the evening. So far, Amazon hasn’t publicly acknowledged last night’s outage and its account has remained silent since the first reports came in. Amazon Web Services, which powers Amazon’s Video Services, continued to work last night. One of our readers provided us with a boilerplate email he received from Amazon last night after he complained about the outage: Hello, We’re sorry for the trouble you had while trying to connect to Amazon Instant Video. If you try again, you should be able to connect without encountering further problems. We look forward to seeing you again soon. We have contacted Amazon for more details about this outage and will update this post once we hear back from them. Hey maybe mention VOD is down right now. It's nice when the marketing tweets come with useful info between them. — Ry4an Brase (@Ry4an) https://twitter.com/Aaron_RS/status/317805525507125248 . A little notice of when you're going to do maintenance would be nice. I expect a credit, or will cancel Amazon Prime. — djdeedle (@djdeedle)
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Gillmor Gang: Spring Training
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Steve Gillmor
| 2,013 | 3 | 30 |
The Gillmor Gang — Doc Searls, Robert Scoble, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor — takes turns sizing up the new season. With Steve Ballmer running out of room and close to the warning track, we talk about who might be called up from the minors. The consensus is that Steve has 18 months to tur n things around. He’s a proud man, though, and may make the big move to Emeritus sooner than too late. Dave Winer is back with a nifty pivot on Google Reader’s trip to the showers. The Gillmor Gang rode RSS and podcasting to the Big Show, and it’s good to see Dave going even further back to his outliner roots. More than anything, Winer made the hard stuff look easy and gave the tech generation a voice. Today it seems obvious, but Winer, with a little help from his friends, changed the way the game is played. Batter up. @stevegillmor, @scobleizer, @dsearls, @kevinmarks Produced and directed by Tina Chase Gillmor @tinagillmor
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