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| Googler Defects To Twitter, He Tweets Posted: 24 Apr 2009 06:40 PM PDT
“It’s kind of shocking we couldn’t keep him,” another Googler tells us, calling Diaz “one of the best frontend developers around.” But of course, Twitter is the hot new company, just like Facebook was months back when it was stealing employees left and right from larger companies — like Google. As he famously blogged about, Bowman took exception to some of the mentality surrounding design at Google, and cited it as a reason for leaving. As a frontend engineer, it’s certainly possible Diaz felt similar. He did, after all, author a book called “Pro JavaScript Design Patterns.” Or, as I said, maybe he just wanted to go work for the hot company. Update: Diaz was nice enough to tweet us a picture to use representing his move.
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| Dropbox: Now Effortlessly Syncing Files For 1 Million Members Posted: 24 Apr 2009 06:21 PM PDT
Dropbox, the Y Combinator and Sequoia-funded file synchronization startup that makes it easy to share files across multiple computers at once, just hit a major milestone: it now has over 1 million members. And as the graph below shows, much of that growth has come in the last few months, with over 900,000 signups since the product’s public debut at TechCrunch50 last September. We don’t hear about Dropbox too often (it seems that they’re a bit too secretive for their own good at times), but their product rocks, and is gaining fans quickly. We’ve been using it around the TechCrunch office for over a year now to collaborate on group projects and keep key files handy regardless of which computer we’re using. And we’re not alone - I often hear about other startups that are using Dropbox for their own projects, including Facebook’s Dave Morin. Dropbox is going to be introducing a few key features soon, too. One of them is Peer to Peer sharing, which will allow users on the same network to share their files directly through their routers, without having to first upload them to Dropbox’s servers. The service’s web interface also just got a UI refresh, though many people simply use the folders that the Dropbox application integrates directly into your desktop. CEO Drew Houston wouldn’t talk about how many of Dropbox’s users are paid (the service offers a free version with a limited amount of storage), but he says that the site’s referral program has been driving signups, with the service seeing around 22-25% growth month over month since launch.
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| Creepy Alert: Isthisyourluggage.com Posted: 24 Apr 2009 05:13 PM PDT
The site, run by some anonymous person, collects this auctioned off luggage, and takes pictures of it to put on the site. Yes, this person opens the lugguage, takes out all of the items, and photographs them. Yes, this is creepy. But it’s also a great web oddity. The main page of the site features pictures of each suitcase, you can click on any of them and get taken to a page that shows the pictures of each item inside. If you click on this picture, it zooms in, giving you a closer view of the items. I haven’t noticed anything too out of the ordinary, though one bag has a sort of strange nurse’s outfit, which may or may not double as a stripper outfit. At least the creator of the site is honest. As they write on the about page, “I GO TO THESE AUCTIONS AND BUY THE CASES SO I CAN PHOTOGRAPH THEM FOR MY WEIRD VOYEURISTIC PASSION.”
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| Show Your Best Talent, Win A Ton Of iPhone Apps Posted: 24 Apr 2009 05:02 PM PDT
Last week, we held an absolutely massive iPhone App Giveaway spree. Over a span of about 12 hours, we gave away hundreds and hundreds of promo codes across 50+ different iPhone applications. It was a blast, but all good things must come to an end - but it’s not over just yet. Throughout the competition, we hung on to one promo code for each app. We’ve taken all of these promo codes and put them together, forming one ridiculously huge omega-prize. One lucky person is going to take home a copy of every application we gave away that day - plus more. That’s dozens upon dozens of applications, worth hundreds of dollars in all.
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| Following Their Massive Layoffs, Hi5 Gets A New Leader Posted: 24 Apr 2009 04:34 PM PDT
In the release (below) you can read between the lines to see where Hi5 is looking to head as it continues on at a smaller size. The site, is now focusing on forms of entertainment like casual gaming and micro-payments. Hi5 also recently partnered with Paymo to power mobile payments for virtual goods. Gossman, who obviously has experience in monetization, will now try to monetize hi5. The company’s former CEO, founder Ramu Yalamanchi, will stay on and take the roll of Chief Product Officer. With nearly 60 million active users, the service has a good sized audience, but it’s long been far behind the big boys in the social networking space, MySpace and Facebook. Facebook is the most popular social network worldwide with 294.7 million unique visitors, with MySpace is coming in second with 125.7 million unique visitors. hi5 gets about 63 million monthly unique visits worldwide but only 3.7 million of those are from the U.S., according to ComScore's March stats. And the problem with its audience is that a good chunk of it is in countries where it will be hard to attract advertisers, as VentureBeat’s Eric Eldon notes. Below, find the press release:
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| Wolfram Alpha Getting A Public Preview On Tuesday Posted: 24 Apr 2009 04:11 PM PDT
The rest of us won’t know for sure until May, when it’s scheduled to launch. But if you want to catch a glimpse of how it will work, the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard is hosting a webcast on Tuesday of an event with Wolfram and Jonathan Zittrain, a law professor at Harvard. The sold-out event will be streamed live on the web at 3PM EST this coming Tuesday on this page. And Harvard is calling for web users to participate in the preview by submitting questions, by @replying or direct messaging BerkmanCenter on Twitter during the event, or joining their IRC chat. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| CrunchGear Exclusive: Sit-Down With Rob Spence - AKA the Eyeborg [Update] Posted: 24 Apr 2009 04:00 PM PDT  Remember Rob Spence? You know, the Canadian filmmaker dude with a camera prosthetic eye AKA Eyeborg? We just sat down with him for a few minutes and he talked to us about his Eyeborg project and what the heck he's doing south of the border. Hit the jump for our exclusive pics and video. Update: Images are now included. |
| Posted: 24 Apr 2009 03:34 PM PDT
The site has a home directory at love.com, and topic sites are organized under subdomains. Current content on literally anything you can think of (or at least that I could think of) is there: dogs, The Beatles, sex, money, rock and roll. Hamsters. Barack Obama. You get the picture. Search engines love this stuff. The site is built under Bill Wilson’s new MediaGlow division, which is building new content brands distinct from AOL itself. The content is all automated, with main articles pulled from third party sources via Relegence, videos from YouTube, Twitter messages linking back to individual pages, and links to major news sites. All of this is automated and requires very little human involvement. Right now AOL isn’t saying much about Love.com, other than they plan to roll it out officially sometime later this year, and that the goal is “to create sites with content on any topic that people love.” Love.com is described on the MediaGlow site as “The Love.com Network covers all the topics you love, all under one big roof, with hundreds of thousands of topic blogs to suit fans of all things.” Eventually, we hear, users will be able to create a customizable home page which brings in content from specific topics they want to track. Love.com originally launched in 2003 as a personals site. it was later changed to simply redirect to Match.com, which has a long term partnership with AOL. More on AOL employee Frank Gruber’s blog. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| Dear Owen: Good Luck With That Posted: 24 Apr 2009 02:47 PM PDT
Just how big a task does MySpace’s freshly appointed CEO Owen Van Natta have in front of him? Let’s take a quick peek at the latest global traffic stats from comScore which just came out today. On a global basis, Facebook attracted more than twice as many visitors in the month of March as arch-rival MySpace. Facebook had an estimated 294.7 million unique visitors in March, 2009 on a worldwide basis, compared to 125.7 million for MySpace. While Facebook gained 19 million visitors during the month, MySpace gained only 2 million. In terms of pageviews, MySpace has seen a drop of 20 percent since January (to 37.9 billion), whereas Facebook has seen growth of 22 percent in the exact opposite direction (to 87.3 billion). And while MySpace is still bigger in the U.S., Facebook is closing that gap fast. Owen Van Natta must figure out some way to reinvigorate MySpace and keep it from languishing its way towards mediocrity. Maybe the answer is to turn MySpace Music into the new engine of growth for the entire social network or focus on some other niche where MySpace can win. But if Van Natta’s ambition is to retake the top spot in social networking, well, good luck with that. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| A Sign Of Things To Come: Naked Pizza Erects Twitter Billboard Posted: 24 Apr 2009 02:01 PM PDT
It was only a matter of time. Naked Pizza, a uniquely healthy pizza joint in New Orleans, has replaced its “call for delivery” billboard in favor of something a bit more unorthodox: its Twitter handle. The restaurant now features a large Twitter bird above its storefront, inviting passersby to follow ‘NAKEDpizza‘ for special deals. Aside from being among the first brick and mortar businesses to so prominently feature its Twitter handle, Naked Pizza is notable for a few other reasons. Its menu was created to offer the “world’s healthiest pizza”, with each slice only weighing in at a fraction of the calories and fat of standard pizza, while still tasting delicious, according to Yelp reviewers . Oh, and Mark Cuban just partnered with the company to turn it into a national franchise. To be honest I was skeptical of the sign at first (it’s fairly easy to Photoshop the Twitter logo onto a billboard), but I’ve confirmed with the New Orleans sign company that installed it that it’s real. And while it’s still a pretty strange sight to behold, it makes perfect sense. With the growing ubiquity of smart phones, free 411 services, and Google Local on the computer, looking up a restaurant’s phone number is trivial. And phone numbers only form a very fleeting bond with the business, anyway. But if a business can get a customer to add their Twitter handle, it gets a free channel to constantly remind them that they exist. By tweeting out promotions a few times a week, Naked Pizza will maintain a presence in the customer’s consciousness, and the customer gets a chance to score some cheap pizza. This isn’t the first time Twitter has been featured on a billboard. Just last week, Ashton Kutcher’s Twitter handle was displayed on thousands of digital billboards across the country in support of his quest for 1 million Twitter followers.
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| NYC’s Pogby Aims To Become The OpenTable For Events Posted: 24 Apr 2009 01:34 PM PDT
Why is it that you can book a table at a fancy restaurant through OpenTable, but you can’t book the bar for a corporate party? That is the question that a startup in New York City called Pogby is trying to answer. Barely in beta, Pogby is an event booking service founded by Joshua Gooch, who used to run JetBlue’s Website and helped build its TrueBlue customer loyalty program. Pogby aims to become the OpenTable of events, where corporate event planners and others can find and book venues for parties. Pogby is one of the finalists competing in a startup competition at NYC Entrepreneur Week, where I was a judge today. The site is really not much more than an online demo right now, with only a half dozen venues in New York City on the site. But Gooch and his VP of sales Duane Lawrence plan to sign up 50 to 100 restaurants, bars, and other event spaces in short order. They are focusing on New York City to prove the concept. (This is really early stage—the company is still looking for seed funding). Each venue on Pogby gets its own page with pictures for each available event space, along with a calendar showing availability and a booking engine. Gooch knows a lot about reservation systems from his time at JetBlue, and you can see some of the design influences on Pogby. it’s a fairly simple concept. Find a venue, check pricing and availability, and book online. Pogby plans to charge venues an 8 percent commission fee for any bookings and eventually will introduce a $99/month subscription fee. A typical event can cost $4,000 or more, and event spaces typically go unused 70 percent of the time. So any extra events a restaurant or venue can capture is worth the fees. Why hasn’t anyone done this already? There is an obvious need for this service. Pogby however faces a few challenges. First, it needs to sign up a critical mass of popular event spaces before anyone will take it seriously. Second, it needs to make it easier for venues to sign up themselves in a self-serve fashion (this is coming, but to appear on the site right now involves too many manual processes). Third, it needs incentives to prevent people from looking up availability on the site and then calling up on their own to strike a better deal. (A discount would be good). Fourth, it needs to give event planners a way to negotiate prices and other terms on the site. Fifth, it needs to look beyond New York City. But the biggest threat might come from OpenTable itself, which could add event booking a sa feature fairly easily since most of its restaurants rent out spaces for parties as well. Until they do, Pogby has an opportunity to carve out a niche for itself.
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| Celebrities + Twitter + A Good Cause = A Retweet Explosion Tomorrow? Posted: 24 Apr 2009 01:28 PM PDT
With that in mind, tomorrow, Kutcher, with his nearly 1.4 million followers, and Digg’s Kevin Rose, with his over 500,000 followers, along with other notable users plan to use to Twitter as a platform to further the cause. The message they will send out is simple: “Every 30 seconds a child dies from Malaria. Nets save lives. Support World Malaria Day = http://bit.ly/30Io8” Just from those two users, the tweet has the potential to be seen nearly 2 million times on Twitter. But the real power will come when people start retweeting the message. Savvy Twitter users will know that retweeting (copying a message to all of your followers that someone else sent) has become the key to sending a viral message on Twitter. And given the celebrity angle, mixed with a good cause, I think it’s a pretty good bet this may be one of the most retweeted messages ever for the service. And we’ll play along, because it is a good cause. And if you feel like doing your part, send out the message above tomorrow as well, or retweet it. More importantly, if you’re able, donate to the cause to buy nets to help save children in Africa. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| The Evolution Of Twitter Spin-Offs: Twitter Begat StockTwits Begat Chart.ly Posted: 24 Apr 2009 01:10 PM PDT
It was only a matter of time before an app was was built to support another app that was built for Twitter. Chart.ly is a stock charting app to be used directly in conjunction with another Twitter app, StockTwits. Chart.ly lets Twitter users upload and share stock charts via Twitter and StockTwits. It’s kind of like TwitPic for stock charts. Chart.ly lets you upload a chart of a particular stock with stock symbol and tags, and lets you include a tweet about the chart. This is then broadcast to your Twitter account and to StockTwits, which is a community for Tweets about stocks and investments. You can also see the most popular charts that have been uploaded on the Chart.ly site. Chart.ly has collaborated fully with StockTwits. In fact, StockTwits and Chart.ly creator Adarsh Pallian share ad revenue from Chart.ly (StockTwits owns 80% and Pallian owns 20% equity and revenue share). The frustrating part about the site is that it doesn’t let you create charts for stocks—you have to generate a chart independently and then upload it onto the site. You can get a stock chart from sites like Finviz.com or Wikinvest.com and then upload, but it would be easier to do everything in one place. Pallian says that the site is going to launch the ability to create your own chart within Chart.ly and tweet about it directly in the next few weeks.  Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. |
| Cloudkick Now Lets You Migrate Your Amazon Machine Images To Slicehost Posted: 24 Apr 2009 11:46 AM PDT  Cloudkick, a Y Combinator startup that offers a free server management system to businesses whose web infrastructure is maintained by Amazon's EC2 or Slicehost cloud-based servers, is unveiling a nifty feature today at Under the Radar. Cloudkick has added the ability for users to migrate their Amazon Machine Images (the template for servers on EC2) on their EC2 servers to another service provider, like Slicehost (which is owned by Amazon Web Services competitor Rackspace). This lets users who are tied to Amazon's servers be able to easily switch to a less-expensive provider. |
| Most G1 Owners Love Apps — But Not All Posted: 24 Apr 2009 10:53 AM PDT Some numbers we published yesterday showed that while iPhone owners (not surprisingly) love to download apps, owners of other smartphones do not. As we noted, the numbers seemed a bit incomplete since the Android platform wasn’t represented. We asked Compete, which took the survey, to send those our way. To be clear, the sample size is “very small,” but it’s somewhat interesting none the less. Sure enough, Android users do seem to enjoy downloading apps more than all other smartphones aside from the iPhone. But interestingly, there were some G1 owners who had downloaded zero apps. Even though a lot more iPhone owners showed up in the survey, there were none that said they had downloaded zero apps — whereas that was a popular number with the other smartphones. Also worth noting is that 43% of G1 owners surveyed said that all of their apps were free. That’s perhaps not so surprising since the Android Market only launched paid apps two months ago. Still, it would seem that paying for apps isn’t as popular in the Android market as it is in the App Store. That is something that a few developers have complained about to me as well.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| News Corp Pulls The Trigger: Owen Van Natta Now Runs The Circus. Err, MySpace Posted: 24 Apr 2009 09:13 AM PDT
Van Natta is a former Facebook and Amazon executive who, until today, was the CEO of a decidedly unstable music startup called Playlist. He’s got the resume to run MySpace, but as we said yesterday there are some serious questions around whether he’s the right guy. He still owns a significant part of Facebook and he’s clearly leaving Playlist, and the executives and investors he brought on board, in a bad situation. He joined that company just a few months ago. The rumor is that they’ll now be forced to shut down, although Playlist announces in a separate release that board member John Sykes, a cofounder of MTV, will take over as CEO for now. This has been a dramatic week for MySpace, and the situation probably couldn’t have been handled more poorly. One person close to the situation described the firing of DeWolfe and the hiring of Van Natta as resembling “retarded drunk people riding bumper cars.” We broke the news that News Corp. was looking to replace founder and CEO Chris DeWolfe on Tuesday. Later that day we confirmed the news. On Wednesday News Corp. issued a short press release that DeWolfe was leaving and that cofounder and president Tom Anderson would be moving to a new role. We published a short list of possible candidates for the new CEO, which included Van Natta. Negotiations were concluded yesterday, we’ve heard from a source close to News Corp. During all this time very little news has made its way to MySpace, and even the executives were left completely in the dark. Yesterday an executive of the company asked me if I’d heard any news and whether he was on the list to be terminated. That’s a sad situation. “The clowns have taken over the circus,” he said. More. Much more, on this story later. The full press releases of both announcements are below: News Corporation Names Owen Van Natta Chief Executive Officer of MySpace Los Angeles, CA, April 24, 2009 – News Corporation today announced the appointment of Owen Van Natta to the role of MySpace Chief Executive Officer effective immediately. Mr. Van Natta will be based in Los Angeles and report directly to Jonathan Miller, News Corporation's CEO of Digital Media and Chief Digital Officer. A highly-regarded digital executive, Mr. Van Natta, 39, previously served as Chief Revenue Officer and Vice President of Operations for Facebook, where he helped negotiate Facebook's $240 million investment from Microsoft. Earlier, he served as Vice President of Worldwide Business and Corporate Development for Amazon.com. Most recently, he was the CEO of Playlist, Inc., an online music company. "Owen combines a deep understanding of social networking, a keen business sense and the operational experience to guide MySpace through its next phase of growth. I'm confident his leadership will be an invaluable asset," said Mr. Miller. "I plan to work closely with Owen to shape our long-term vision around this vibrant community that already attracts more than 130 million users worldwide." "I'm thrilled to have the privilege to pilot MySpace in what is sure to be an incredibly exciting and rewarding next chapter for the business," said Mr. Van Natta. "I feel honored to build upon the immeasurable achievements of the MySpace founders and look forward to working with Jon and the MySpace team to meet the challenges and make the most of the opportunities before us." While serving as Vice President of Operations and Chief Revenue Officer for Facebook, Van Natta focused on revenue operations, business development, strategic partnerships and technical operations. As Vice President of Worldwide Business and Corporate Development at Amazon.com, he managed global marketing programs and strategic partnerships. He was also part of the founding team of A9.com, the Amazon.com search company, and was responsible for site operations and sponsored-link advertising. Owen earned a B.A. from the University of California at Santa Cruz. Playlist Names Board Member and Veteran Media Executive MTV Co-founder and Former VH-1 President Replaces Owen Van Natta Palo Alto, Calif., April 24, 2009 – Playlist, the leading social media network where over 43 million music fans discover, create and share playlists, announced today that Board Member and industry veteran John Sykes has joined the company as Chief Executive Officer. As a Co-founder of MTV, President of VH1, and CEO of Infinity Broadcasting, Sykes brings extensive operating experience and industry relationships to the company as it partners with the music industry to provide advertising, subscription and e-commerce services to music consumers. Owen Van Natta will serve as an Advisor to Playlist. "John was a pioneer of the MTV revolution that forever changed the music industry landscape by giving fans a whole new way to discover and enjoy music," said Bob Zangrillo, Chairman of Playlist. "Playlist looks forward to leveraging John's tremendous track record operating media businesses and deep relationships in the music industry as it builds out the world's premier social media service." "Creating and sharing playlists has become a phenomenon in our culture. With over 43 million registered users, Playlist is the number one site where fans go to discover, share and enjoy their favorite music," said John Sykes, CEO of Playlist. "Leveraging our newly forged partnerships with the music community, we can now offer consumers deep access to their music and provide the industry with powerful new revenue streams." Playlist, one of the fastest growing sites on the Internet, continues to establish partnerships with the entertainment industry in an effort to offer a comprehensive collection of content that can be discovered, shared and monetized at www.playlist.com. About Playlist Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. |
| Posted: 24 Apr 2009 09:12 AM PDT
Up next: China. I'll be in Shanghai and Bejing May 9-22. It's my first trip to China, and I have a long list of potential companies and investors to meet, but I want to make sure I'm not missing any gems. So if you know any such gems, local venture capitalists, angel investors or anyone with an interesting entrepreneurial story please email me at sarah(at)techcrunch(dot)com or leave it in the comments. I now return you to your regularly scheduled Friday flood of news about MySpace and Twitter. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| Project Playlist Fills CEO Void With MTV Co-Founder John Sykes Posted: 24 Apr 2009 09:10 AM PDT
Hot on the heels of the announcement that Owen Van Natta is unceremoniously leaving Project Playlist to run MySpace, Project Playlist has announced that John Sykes will be stepping in as CEO. Sykes is a co-founder of MTV, former president of VH1, and former president of Infinity Broadcasting, one of the largest radio broadcasting companies in the US. Sykes has been a boardmember at Playlist up until this point. Project Playlist is a decidedly troubled company. After showing very impressive traffic numbers late last year, Playlist saw its traffic plummet after its embeddable playlists were removed from both MySpace and Facebook, which were threatened with lawsuits by the major music labels. Under the guidance of Van Natta, who only joined the company in November, the company had been making some headway with music industry. With his extensive background in the music industry Sykes may be able to keep Playlist on the right track, but Van Natta’s abrupt departure isn’t exactly a vote of confidence in the company. Full press release below:
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Last month, Douglas Bowman, the design lead at Google, left to become the creative director at Twitter. Today, a former co-worker joins him. Dustin Diaz, who was an engineer working on Gmail, resigned from Google and announced he was taking a job at Twitter, 
If you’ve traveled enough, there’s a good chance you’ve lost your luggage before. Sure, it’s annoying as hell, but most people get it back within a few days. However, some people, for whatever reason, never claim their lost luggage, and the airlines then auction it off for charity. That’s where 
Last month, the social network 
When it was first unveiled in March, 
The race between actor Ashton Kutcher and CNN to a million Twitter followers at first 
They pulled the trigger: 
As regular readers know, I'm working on a 
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