The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- Catch The Second Wave Of Tickets To August Capital Summer Outing July 10 And Real Time Stream CrunchUp
- Glam Media Looking To Aggregate, Monetize Twitter Applications
- Farts v. Explosions: Which iPhone App Was Rejected From the App Store? You’d Be Surprised
- Internet-Connected, Social Networking Scale Shares Your Shame With the World
- Mainstream Media Still Has Eyes Wide Shut
- Facebook Click Fraud 101
- Apple Nearly Triples Stake In UK Chip Maker Imagination Technologies
- Who Exactly Is In Charge Of The App Store? Anyone?
- It’s Kill Feature Time Again At Twitter To Stay Afloat
- Qik Brings Live Video To The iPhone 3GS. But You Still Won’t Find It In The App Store.
- Foursquare Push Notifications, For The Ultimate In Friend Stalking
- Study Suggests People Prefer Bing’s Design To Google’s, But Still Won’t Switch
- Shocker: We Still Suck When It Comes to High-Tech Education
- The Web Collapses Under The Weight Of Michael Jackson’s Death
- Vyoom: A Social Network Built From The Ground Up Around Real-Time
- Flash Gaming Payments Heat Up: Heyzap Launches Microtransaction Platform
- National Handshake Day? More Like National Barricade Yourself In Your House And Don’t Go Outside Day
- iPhone Porn App Not Pulled By Apple, Just “Sold Out,” Says Developer
- YouTube Mobile Uploads Up 400% Since iPhone 3GS Launch
- The Twitter Cycle: Curiosity, Abandonment, Addiction. Global Visitors Hit 37 Million.
- Google Voice Makes Its Today Show Debut; Invites Start Going Out Today
- NoPorn: Apple Removes “Hottest Girls” From The App Store
- GROU.PS Finds $1 Million For DIY Social Network Platform
| Posted: 26 Jun 2009 08:12 AM PDT
The second batch of 150 tickets to attend our 4th annual summer outing on July 10 at August Capital are available now, courtesy of Eventbrite. They’ll go fast so grab them now. We are also selling tickets for our Real Time Stream CrunchUp earlier that day (a CrunchUp ticket includes entry to the party as well). The CrunchUp is a mini-conference exploring all aspects of the real time stream and its impact on everything from information consumption and search to media and business. The lineup of speakers includes founders, CEOs, and top engineers from Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, Google, Salesforce, Tweetdeck, Seesmic, Collecta, Qik, and more. It is amazing how much activity is going on in this area. The number of stealth companies and products that want to launch at the event alone is overwhelming, and we are working hard to fit as many of them as we can into the schedule. (More details soon). August Capital TicketsFriday, July 10 Tickets are $20 to help manage the guest list and minimize no shows. Due to extremely limited availability, we regret that tickets are non-transferrable and non-refundable. If you use your name to purchase multiple tickets, your guests must arrive with you to check in at the door. Additional tickets will be released over the next two weeks. As usual, there will be lots of start-up demos, giveaways, drinks and fun. CrunchUp tickets include expedited entry to the August Capital outing. Demo tables, photowalls, games and other sponsorships are available to make a memorable impression with MeetUp attendees. Please contact Jeanne Logozzo or Heather Harde to learn more about sponsorship packages and custom opportunities. Double your TechCrunch fun and join us for the Real Time Stream CrunchUp. We are calling it a CrunchUp because it will be highly participatory and real-time in every sense of the word. CrunchUpFriday, July 10 Morning Fireside Chat with Real Time Angels: Our confirmed speakers include:
More details are here. Big Time Thank Yous to Our CrunchUp SponsorsProduct Sponsors: Tokbox live video chat, Ustream live video streaming, Bantam Live, and Charles River Ventures. Demonstration Sponsors: Seesmic, OneRiot, Loopt and Stormhoek Wines. Event Sponsors: Eventbrite for ticketing and MediaTemple for hosting, ReTargeter, Coveroo, Pandora music. Please contact Jeanne Logozzo or Heather Harde to learn more about sponsorship packages and custom opportunities. Additional details here. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
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| Glam Media Looking To Aggregate, Monetize Twitter Applications Posted: 26 Jun 2009 06:55 AM PDT
We know this because a number of third-party Twitter app developers have received an e-mail this morning from Derek Houdyshell, Network Sales and Program Director for the California company, and one of them forwarded that e-mail to us. This is what the message reads:
The description is rather vague, but apparently Glam wants to build upon its model of wrapping an advertising network around topical websites and blogs and extend it to the host of third-party Twitter applications that have come out of Twitter’s developer ecosystem. As far as we can tell, it has little to do with Tinker, another one of its ventures related to Twitter that centers around micro-payments but it could be connected to Glam Apps (its own application platform). We’ve asked Glam CEO Samir Arora for more information and will update when he gets back to us. Glam Media, which has raised a massive amount of funding ($125 million reportedly) to date, is one of the fastest growing networks on the Web. Like many other companies, it had its share of layoffs and other cutbacks following the economic downturn, and in an effort to conserve cash, Glam also recently slowed down payments to its partner publishing sites. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
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| Farts v. Explosions: Which iPhone App Was Rejected From the App Store? You’d Be Surprised Posted: 26 Jun 2009 06:40 AM PDT  An exercise for the reader: First, we present Fracture. You tap the iPhone to "crack" the screen and then you tap again to cause the apps to explode, triggering the rest of the apps to explode in rapid succession. Next, we find SkyFart. You press a little man and he farts. Then you press him again and he farts and again and flies into space. Then you press him again and he farts and flies. Then you press him again... So which app was accepted by the App store with open arms and which one was rejected? The logical thing to say, based on the common understanding that the expression of gas and fecal matter as a mode of transport is considered by some to be offensive, is that SkyFart would be rejected out of hand. This is not true.
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| Internet-Connected, Social Networking Scale Shares Your Shame With the World Posted: 26 Jun 2009 05:38 AM PDT  I'm not a svelte man anymore, I'll admit. Two kids - I ate them both - and lots of beer have forced my metabolism to run, cowering, resulting in size changes that would swallow the average man. This product is what I need. The BodyTrace is a wireless scale that sends your shame to the Internet, allowing you to follow your slow decline - or incline - into our out of lassitude. It will be available in November for $119 and it costs $19.99 for a three month weight loss subscription. The system also includes a grouping feature so you an add your friends and family to your fight - or even create social groups of like-minded fat losers - and the service also makes suggestions for eating and working out. You can also upload progress pictures and cry when they never change, not once.
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| Mainstream Media Still Has Eyes Wide Shut Posted: 26 Jun 2009 04:38 AM PDT
For us here at TechCrunch, it’s also an opportunity to take a look at how media, old and new alike, handle news reporting and distribution in this day and age (as well as a sneak peek at how it’ll likely evolve in the near future). Like many others, I had Twitter open in one of my browser tabs when the first reports of Jackson’s hospitalization and at the time rumored cardiac arrest started circulating. At first, there was no indication that the news had been confirmed by anyone and people were just frantically retweeting messages carrying lots of question marks while trying to find an online news source to serve as a beacon for further updates on the story. Quickly enough, people started linking to AOL’s online gossip powerhouse TMZ, which was the first to call out his passing away when everyone else was still referencing the hospitalization part. Granted, TMZ may well not be the most credible source in the world (quick, which one is?) and there’s a possibility they just went with the story of Jackson dying as fact before it really was, but all that doesn’t matter anymore now. They called it first, and they got it right. We soon learned that, despite the fact many news blogs and sites were struggling to keep up with all the massive influx of people looking for more digital reports. For a visualization of Twitter trending topics as they evolved in real-time, check out this video, courtesy of TwitScoop. So TMZ broke the news and Twitter was red hot with all the chatter about it, approximately 40 minutes before the L.A. Times followed up with a confirmation of Jackson’s death on one of its blogs, citing its own sources. Not really that big a deal, but people did see the LAT follow-up as a more credible confirmation of what everyone was assuming already, which is fine, even if some of them minutes before couldn’t stop bashing TMZ over the so-called rumor-mongering they displayed. But noteworthy, and somewhat disturbing in my view: most mainstream media who followed up on the story after these two outlets were mostly regurgitating and filtering what the two blogs had reported before them, more often than not without proper credit or attribution, let alone a link. Some of them, like NY Times blog Bits acknowledged Twitter to be the place to be for watercooler-type chatter about the events, yet practically none of them dared admit that blogs and Twitter had simply been quicker with spreading the facts than they were (and yes, we realize using both as a source for rock-solid news can be quite dangerous too, but that’s beside the point in this case). A jaw-dropping case of being painfully out of touch with reality was to be found in this Chicago Tribune article, carrying the subtitle “TMZ leads with early details, while Los Angeles Times and AP do the heavy lifting”, in which we read nonsense like:
Yes, I laughed out loud too. Chest-beating over old media doing the “heavy lifting” for blogs and Twitter, and being faster in reporting information than those new media when it was exactly the other way around is beyond ridiculous. TMZ was the first to report Jackson’s death, and its sources in this case proved to be as “credible” as those of any of the old-media laggards. Statements like the above are evidence of massive misunderstanding of the author - and he’ll certainly not be the only dinosaur thinking along these lines - of how the world of news distribution is evolving. The author was also happy to find someone to back him up, this time Adam Fendelman, founder and publisher of entertainment news site HollywoodChicago.com, whose first response to his staff was when he was filled in on the news was apparently: “Are we sure?”. Here’s what he reportedly said to the Chicago Tribune journalist:
Damn right and for the better too, but as far as I’m concerned you can replace TMZ with just about any news outlet out there, including the old big ones, who are rapidly becoming far less big and relevant. To me, this whole thing just proves that mainstream media are justifiably freaking out with their eyes wide shut to what’s happening instead of learning and adapting to the new age of journalism. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
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| Posted: 26 Jun 2009 02:26 AM PDT
First the why. Click fraud is serious business on the big search engine advertising networks because the bad guys can make serious money. Sign up for an Adsense account and put those ads on parked domain names or wherever. Then all you have to do is start clicking those ads like crazy, using bots or cheap labor. The search engines fight this via obvious and not so obvious means, and an arms race begins. To win you need access to a lot of good IP addresses and not get too greedy. And like inflation and the government, a little click fraud is tolerated by Google and others. It keeps the dollars flowing. But Facebook is a different story. As of now they don’t really have an Adsense equivalent - Some App developers can run Facebook ads for a revenue split, but that’s it. Those guys wouldn’t be able to get away with click fraud for very long because there are too few of them and it’s too easy to monitor spikes in performance. So what’s the incentive? We’ve spoken to a number of Facebook advertisers who have explained exactly what’s happening - advertisers are clicking on competitor ads to drive up their costs and drive down their ROI. As advertisers leave the system in disgust, prices go down and the people left win. At least that’s the theory. But what’s really happening is better explained by game theory stuff that we all learned in micro economics courses. The advertisers know they’d all collectively be better off if they didn’t engage in click fraud against each other. But anyone that “does the right thing” is put at a severe disadvantage competitively. So unless and until Facebook can put a stop to this, advertisers argue that they are actually forced to engage in click fraud to have a fighting chance at making any money. Some of these guys are spending $30,000 a day on ads on Facebook alone (the maximum for self serve advertisers) and put significant capital at risk. They’re not particularly worried about much more than keeping that capital safe, and earning a living. And for the most part these are affiliate marketers - middleman arbitragers that don’t create or sell products but simply pass leads and orders on to others who monetize users directly. They have to monitor ROI carefully, particularly because they are paying Facebook per click and in turn getting paid for conversions (sales, leads, etc.). Click fraud puts them out of business fast. Facebook Click Fraud 101: Here’s how advertisers are engaging in click fraud: First, its hard to even see the ads in the first place. On search engines they are there on the parked domain page, or you see them when you type in a query. But on Facebook ads are hyper targeted to users based on deep demographic data - like single men who live in San Diego and like the Xbox and U2, for example. If you aren’t a user who fits that description on Facebook, you don’t see the ads. So the bad guys just create thousands of fake Facebook accounts with a wide variety of demographic information. This sounds like a lot of work, but it’s highly automated. One advertiser told me how he paid $200 to an Indian operation for 2,000 Facebook accounts. Another said the going rate was just $10 per 100 accounts if you supply the unique email accounts. Once the accounts are created, they use software to fill out the varied demographic information, and that software also manages all these accounts. The fraudster then logs in to Facebook via these accounts and views the ads that are displayed. The right competitive ads come up and Bingo, the software then clicks them. Facebook rules allow an account to click any advertisement up to six times in a 24 hour period, and all those clicks are charged. All you need is a few accounts to view the ads and then click to the max. Facebook even makes it easy to find the ads. They have an “Ad Board” that shows all ads targeted to that user (mine has 15 ads on it). Often the fraudsters have their art down to a science and their software clicks ads so fast and moves on to the next one that it doesn’t even hang around long enough for the underlying URL to resolve. Facebook still sees (and charges for) the click, but the advertiser’s server never registers a page view. That’s what bugs advertisers the most. In our original post we quoted one advertiser who at least wanted to see the traffic from the spam bots: “If I were at least getting bot traffic or something that would be one thing, but right now Facebook is simply stealing 20% of clicks that I paid for, which adds up to thousands of dollars.” The people we spoke with say they’ve been doing this since last year, and have had almost no account profiles shut down. “Just 2 of my 2,000 accounts were closed” said one source. How Facebook Is Fighting This: We’ve spoken to Facebook a number of times this week to understand how they are fighting click fraud. We also wanted to wait on this story until Facebook felt comfortable that we weren’t going to make the situation worse by mapping out how fraud is done. Facebook says the fraud is now under control. One way they monitor fraud is to view conversions off ad clicks - some ads ink to other Facebook pages where surveys and offers are completed, and Facebook can monitor if a click results in a conversion. Conversion rates have stabilized since the changes they made last Sunday, Facebook tells us, meaning fraud has decreased. Facebook has told us a few ways that they are combating the fraud. They’ve asked us not to publish all of those methods because fraudsters may have an easier time bypassing the defenses. But we’ve checked with experts who agree that the protections Facebook has put in place make sense. One thing Facebook is willing to talk about on record is that they are heavily monitoring click rates on ads and flagging accounts that are statistically out of bounds for human review. It doesn’t sound like they intend to close known fraudster accounts down, though. Just keeping an eye on them and reversing any ad clicks may in fact be a smarter way of combating them and gathering more data. I agree. Advertisers who’ve been affected will have credits applied to their accounts automatically, Facebook says. And they can also contact Facebook directly with concerns. Some advertisers are saying click fraud rates haven’t declined this week at all, but others are saying they see a significant decline in fraud over the last few days. We’re working with one group who’ve set up test ads to monitor fraud on Facebook as well. As of tonight they are still seeing discrepancies in the number of clicks Facebook says they sent and what their server logs show. So clearly the problem has not been fixed entirely, and it probably never will be. It’s an arms race, but at least Facebook is admitting to the problem, and actively fighting it. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
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| Apple Nearly Triples Stake In UK Chip Maker Imagination Technologies Posted: 26 Jun 2009 02:10 AM PDT
In total, Apple is spending £3.14 million (approx. $5.17 million) for the new shares, exactly the same amount it paid last December when it purchased a 3.6 percent stake in the microchip maker. Imagination Technologies is a two-division company: its ‘Technology’ arm is an IP licensing business providing multimedia capabilities for SoC devices (embedded graphics, video and display acceleration, multi-threaded processing, etc.), while its ‘PURE Digital’ division uses proprietary technologies as a differentiator in its consumer products, which include some of the world’s most popular DAB digital radios. Imagination also boasts PURE to be the number one supplier of radios in the UK. Earlier this week, Intel had also increased its stake to 16.02% by buying nearly 5 million shares, a week after snapping up 25 million shares to take its shareholding to 13%. It is believed that the increased stakes of both Apple and Intel are a direct result of the fact that Saudi group Saad was recently forced to cut back its stake in Imagination after its accounts were frozen by the Saudi central bank. Reuters says nearly 10 million shares in Imagination changed hands on Wednesday at 150 pence each, with Saad to be the likely seller. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
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| Who Exactly Is In Charge Of The App Store? Anyone? Posted: 25 Jun 2009 11:05 PM PDT
As you may have heard, an application featuring nudity first appeared in the App Store yesterday. Today, that app was removed, which everyone presumed was a move by Apple. But the developers said that the removal was its own doing because its servers were getting slammed with picture requests. Then more applications claiming to have nude photos started appearing. And now Apple is apparently saying none of these apps will be allowed in the App Store. But that seems to contradict its own rating system that now clearly allows for nudity. This makes no sense. To the point where I’m not sure there is anyone actually in charge of all of this for Apple. Instead, I’m starting to think this whole system is run by a group of people, all with different thoughts on the approach Apple should take with apps. And none of whom seem to communicate with each other very well. Here is Apple’s statement to CNN earlier today:
But the app was clearly labeled on its App Store page with a 17+ rating that said the app contained “Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity.” Those are not the developer’s words, those are Apple’s words. And a few developers have now told me that there is an area in the app submission process to designate if your app contains nudity — hence the need for a 17+ nudity label, which again, Apple offers. So why pull this app? The reasoning seems to be that the developer wasn't honest upfront that the app would contain nudity. But then why would it have the nudity warning attached to it? Is it possible that Apple approved some of the nudity but then the developer was trying to push something like hardcore pornography into the app? Maybe, but I haven't heard any reports of that — just that it featured pictures of topless women. And from its statement, it would seem that Apple doesn’t want any nudity, period. And if that’s true then why are there other apps out there claiming to also have nude photographs in them, that are getting approved as well? Some are even touting it in the title of their apps. Yet Apple isn’t rejecting them. So, either we have a situation where for some reason Apple has app warning labels that it never intends to use, and has app screeners that are once again doing a sloppy job watching submissions. Or, there are no clear-cut rules for what should be allowed when it comes to this in the App Store. I’m definitely thinking it’s the latter, given what we’re seeing. It’d be one thing if Apple didn’t have a rating that accounts for sexual content, but it does. So clearly it expects some apps to have “”Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity” in the store. But according to its statement, it won’t allow for them. And further, Apple allows for plenty of movies that contain all kinds of nudity to be in iTunes. You can even now download those directly to your iPhone. Why are those okay, but apps of that nature are not? I’m repeating myself, but it makes no sense. The App Store approval process has basically been a joke for much of the past year. I was hopeful it would get better now that parental controls are a part of the iPhone 3.0 software. Apparently, I was wrong — it looks like it’s getting worse. We’ve reached out to Apple for further clarification on this. I’ll update if we hear back. [photo: flickr/arbo] [thanks Chris] Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
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| It’s Kill Feature Time Again At Twitter To Stay Afloat Posted: 25 Jun 2009 07:43 PM PDT
It’s probably not that tweets that are so bad for Twitter right now, it’s the searching for tweets to get information about not just Michael Jackson’s passing, but also Farah Fawcett’s and Ed McMahon’s. Plus there’s a whole trend of celebrity deaths being erroneously reported that probably isn’t helping Twitter too much either. Twitter says the features are “temporarily disabled,” but then links to a blog post on a site that is also apparently down. For anyone who has seen the new Pixar movie, Up, this reminds me of the scene where they have to throw stuff out of the house to make it float again. Update: Okay, the post is up now. Here’s what it says:
Update 2: And after about 4 hours away, the features are back. The fact that it’s now 2:30 AM on the east coast of the U.S. probably helped relieve some of the load.
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| Qik Brings Live Video To The iPhone 3GS. But You Still Won’t Find It In The App Store. Posted: 25 Jun 2009 07:26 PM PDT
So how does the iPhone 3GS version of Qik compare to the one that worked on the iPhone 3G? Overall, video quality-wise, I would say the iPhone 3GS version of Qik and the iPhone 3G version look about the same. This is despite the 3GS having a nicer camera (3.2 megapixels versus 2). And even though the iPhone 3G didn’t have video camera capabilities, Qik was able to build its own encoders to use the regular camera for video capture. The iPhone 3GS of course, can do video, and it has APIs that give developers access to it. But it would seem that Qik is still limiting the quality of the video that gets streamed, to ensure better live performance. But where the new version of Qik shines is when you get in close to something. That’s because it uses the new camera’s auto-focus feature to maintain quality up close (check out the third video below). This is a very welcome feature. The entire app itself seems to run faster as well, no doubt thanks to the iPhone 3GS being a much faster device than the iPhone 3G was. And it can do a few other neat tricks, such as shut the camera down when Qik is open but you haven’t been streaming anything for a while (you simply tap the screen to activate it again). Another curious option appears to suggest that you can allow the app to run in the background (when the Qik app is closed). I tried that out, but couldn’t get it to work. Perhaps that feature is coming later to take advantage of the fact that Qik cannot put this app in the App Store, so it doesn’t have to play by the App Store’s rules. The iPhone 3GS does get pretty hot when live streaming, but it did while streaming from the iPhone 3G as well, in my experience. The bottom line is that Apple/AT&T need to allow these live-streaming apps in the store eventually. Video is the killer feature of the iPhone 3GS and live video is a key part of the market. Though I don’t think you’ll hear too many people complaining for the time being because uploads to YouTube, and using the new Kyte app are so fast (and better quality), but eventually, live video streaming from the device will be demanded. Qik also recently released a version of its app that will work on the older iPhone 3G with the new 3.0 software that is jailbroken.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
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| Foursquare Push Notifications, For The Ultimate In Friend Stalking Posted: 25 Jun 2009 05:48 PM PDT
Applications using Push have been rolling out over the past week. None so far have been bigger than the IM clients like AIM and Beejive, as instant messaging is an obvious use of Push messages. But location can work quite well too, as Foursquare is proving, but only for a certain kind of location app. Foursquare is all about explicitly “checking-in” places. That is to say, when you go somewhere, you have to boot up the app, load the site or send a text to let it know you want to check-in there. It doesn’t do it automatically, even if you have the app open. Because of this, Push Notifications make sense, since they ping your followers when you check-in somewhere. And you really shouldn’t have to worry about privacy because you are the one checking in to a place, on purpose, to let the people you know — that you personally allowed to let follow you — see where you are. Of course, regardless of that, there will be people who don’t like this concept. Some have been too liberal with who they allow to follow them. Others won’t like the idea of someone getting pinged every time they check in somewhere. I imagine it will be kind of like how some users at first didn’t like the Facebook News Feed because it made the information updates from your profile more obvious — even though all that information was already there for people to see. Others won’t like the concept of their own phone getting pinged every time a friend checks in somewhere. But, of course, you can always turn the Push Notifications off. Right now, the service is wrestling with the idea of having them set to “on” as the default when you download the new version, co-founder Dennis Crowley tells us. While that may sound like a bad idea to power users of the service who may follow dozens of people, Crowley notes that most users follow far fewer than that. And so if the average user only follows say, 10 people, the Push Notifications should be a welcome way to follow that number of people.
And you can toggle notifications on a per-user basis. Though in this version of the app (1.3), it’s somewhat of a pain to do because you have to click on a user’s profile, then click on the “Pings” tab, then flip the switch on “Checkin Messages.” In the future, Crowley hopes there will be an area of the app that contains a list of all your friends and you can easily go through that to toggle them on or off. Right now, you can do that on the Foursquare website on this page. And it’s easy to turn all these notifications on or off. In the upper right side of the app there is a “Ping: On/Off” area. Clicking on that takes you to a Pings page that gives you a few options. One is to turn checkin messages off until the following morning (great for if you’re going to bed). Another allows you to turn them off until you turn them back on in the same menu. Again, I understand that a lot of people won’t like this idea of being able to “stalk” your friends’ whereabout. But this is where social networking is heading. Just imagine being hungry around lunchtime or being in the mood for a happy hour drink, and getting pinged with a message showing you that a friend is doing one of those activities. These types of apps actually put the “social” — as in, real life social — in “social networking.” Foursquare 1.3 with Push Notifications should be available soon in the App Store for free.
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| Study Suggests People Prefer Bing’s Design To Google’s, But Still Won’t Switch Posted: 25 Jun 2009 04:20 PM PDT
Brand loyalty is a powerful thing, especially when it comes to technology. Consider the battle brewing now between Google and Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing. Even if Bing proves to be just as good as Google, it might not matter because of the strength of Google’s brand. An independent usability and consumer preference study, which we’ve obtained and embedded below, suggests as much. It was conducted by the Catalyst Group, a usability research and design firm located in New York City. The study was an intense focus group in which 12 subjects were monitored with eye-tracking cameras as they conducted searches. Afterward, they were interviewed and completed a survey. Prior to the test, all the subjects used Google as their main search engine. Following the test, 4 out of the 12, or one third, said that overall they preferred Bing. The other 8 said that they preferred Google because they were already familiar with it, used other Google products, or that Bing’s improvements are simply not enough to make them switch. What is amazing is that when the test subjects were asked to rate Bing on specific criteria (visual design, organization of features, filtering options, and relevance of results), Bing handily beat Google in everything but result relevance. Arguably, that is the most important criteria, but most of the study participants thought that both search engines tied on result relevance. So even though Bing ranked better on design, and tied on relevance, that was not enough for most of them to switch. Catalyst CEO Nick Gould concludes that Microsoft “created something as good as Google and that is not good enough.” Overall, the test subjects “were not swayed.” No wonder Microsoft is spending up to $100 million on Bing marketing. Remember, this is only a dozen people so it is not a statistically valid sample. Consider the survey results anecdotal. What is more conclusive are the eye-tracking results. About half of the participants found and used the Explore Pane on the left side of Bing’s home page and results pages to aid in refinement and navigation, while all of them ignored the navigation/refinement links along the top left of Google (Web, video, Images, Maps, News). Also because the Explore Pane on Bing takes up the left hand column and then stops, creating white space underneath, people naturally stop there. Heat maps generated by the eye-tracking data showed that people scroll much farther down Google’s search results pages, perhaps because there is no visual cue telling them to stop or they were not finding what they were looking for. It is not clear they got better results with Bing, but if the result they wanted was not above the fold, then they might use the Explore pane to refine their search. The way results were displayed also had an effect on how long people looked at the ads along the top. The amount of time spent on the ads varied by search, depending on what kind of additional navigation information was presented just below the sponsored results. For instance, a search on Bing for “digital camera” concentrates attention there with navigational links to filter results by top brands, prices and guides. Participants spent 150 percent more time looking at the ads just above that activity zone than on Google. A search for a local hotel, however, produces similar results on both search engines in that area just below the top ads (a map with local listings). So there was not much difference between the two in the how much time was spent looking at the top ads related to that search. In all cases, the ads on the right were only noticed about half the time.
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| Shocker: We Still Suck When It Comes to High-Tech Education Posted: 25 Jun 2009 03:58 PM PDT
According to a new study released today by the Bay Area Council, the Campaign for College Opportunity and IHELP, some 40,000 new jobs are created every year in California that need people with degrees in science, technology, math or engineering. To meet that need the state would have to see a 90% upswing in these types of degrees. The study hints at a “devastating” impact the current shortfall of techy grads could have on the state's $1.7 trillion economy if more people don't go into these fields. Of course, these groups recommend all sorts of investments in the University of California and other state education systems, but here's a quicker, cheaper solution no one wants to admit outside the board rooms of Silicon Valley: Remove H-1B Visa caps. The new study argues that international workers won’t be enough given the hightech explosion of jobs around the world. Ok, so let it fill some of them. Education is like the mess masquerading as the American healthcare system—there's simply no quick fix. After all, the study doesn't talk about a shortage in people going to college, just going into these fields. Is more money really going to change what people want to study? We need high tech workers: The India Institutes of Technology are graduating nearly 4,000 engineers per year who presumably would like jobs. And if they come here, they help build tech companies and we get tax revenue. How is that not a win-win? Below is an interview I did with LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman about the topic a few months ago. He boldly argues that instead of restricting H1Bs, the government should just levy a payroll tax on them. That way there’s no argument that it’s a “cheaper” option for employers– it’s a pricey last resort, but one most tech CEOs would still jump at.
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| The Web Collapses Under The Weight Of Michael Jackson’s Death Posted: 25 Jun 2009 03:54 PM PDT
It was probably to be expected that Twitter would struggle as reportedly hundreds of thousands of tweets came in about Jackson in a very short amount of time. While I only got a couple actual Fail Whales, the site was really sucking wind for much of the hour that people were trying to get information about him. But Twitter was hardly the only site that was struggling. Various reports had the AOL-owned TMZ, which broke the story, being down at multiple points throughout the ordeal. As a result, Perez Hilton’s hugely popular blog may have failed as people rushed there to try and confirm the news. Then it was the LATimes which had a report saying Jackson was only in a coma rather than dead, so people rushed there, and that site went down. (The LATimes eventually confirmed his passing.) Meanwhile, CNN wasn’t down, but failed for another reason. CNN first said that Jackson was revived (see screenshot at the bottom) before going to the hospital.
Update: And just in case you didn’t believe this story is dominating the web right now, 9 of the 10 trending topics on Twitter are MJ-related. The lone exception is Ed McMahon, who also passed away two days ago. Meanwhile, Twitter search seems to be running about 20 minutes behind.
Update 2: And here’s a tweet in kind of poor taste from Google Maps API team: “Sad about MJ & FF? Cheer up by watching some Geo I/O talks.” Way to promote yourself at the expense of someone’s death, Google. Classy.
Update 3: And Google has apologized.
Update 4: And now Twitter has had to remove features like Search on its main site to stay afloat. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
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| Vyoom: A Social Network Built From The Ground Up Around Real-Time Posted: 25 Jun 2009 02:48 PM PDT
The site behaves (and looks) like a mix between Twitter and Facebook. You’ll be spending most of your time in the ‘Social Stream’, which is a constantly updated list of the latest status updates posted by both your friends and other members of the site. The Social Stream is broken down into two sections: the public stream, which shows every update posted to the site by anyone, and the private stream, which shows updates posted by your friends. All updates are displayed immediately after they’re sent — you never have to refresh the site or click a ’show new updates’ button. And if things are flowing by too quickly you can always hit pause. This can add up to a lot of content, so Vyoom lets you filter and search through each stream, which is where the site’s real power may come from. The public stream allows you to restrict updates to a certain network (for example, I could display only updates that came from San Francisco) while the private stream lets you search for updates by a certain friend. Finally, there’s a stream-wide search similar to Twitter Search which allows you to find any updates with a certain keyword. If the site manages to achieve a large number of users (which is obviously easier said than done), then this search functionality could prove more flexible than Twitter’s.
Outside of the main stream, the site has most of the features you’d expect from a social network. You can build a profile displaying your photos and interests (along with a Facebookesque Wall), and there’s an integrated Mail system. The site includes a nifty feature called RPilot that’s effectively a miniature version of the Social Stream described above. The RPilot (pictured below) allows you to navigate through the site without ever having to take your eye away from the constantly updated stream.
Another way that Vyoom differentiates itself from Facebook is its point system and Rewards store. Facebook has been toying around with points and a payment system for a while now, but aside from a few Platform apps in testing the only thing you can use them for are virtual gifts. Vyoom is taking a different approach. The site rewards users for executing various actions on the site, like inviting friends to join, sending messages, and so on. After accumulating many of these points, you can exchange them for gadgets like cameras and PS3s, though these go for millions of points (you start with around 70,000, and get 5,000 for every friend you invite who winds up joining the site — so start inviting). Vyoom is quite well done and I like the fact that real-time was kept in mind during the site’s formation, rather than as a tacked on feature. But the social network space has become very difficult to carve a niche in — everyone seems to already have a Facebook (or decreasingly so, MySpace) profile, and getting them to maintain yet another site is going to be tough. The site’s Rewards features may be enough to entice some users, but it may also be a double-edged sword: if Vyoom makes it too easy to win expensive gadgets, they’ll quickly run out of money; make it too hard, and users will scoff at the points system entirely. Still, rewards system aside, Vyoom does a good job walking the line between Twitter and Facebook, which may be enough for many users to give it a shot. Vyoom: Where Social Activity is Rewarded! from Mark Takenaka on Vimeo. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
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| Flash Gaming Payments Heat Up: Heyzap Launches Microtransaction Platform Posted: 25 Jun 2009 01:57 PM PDT
Up until now one of the problems plaguing small-time Flash game developers has been monetization. These games are often ripped from the sites from which they originated, so aside from ads that are integrated into the games, developers haven’t had many good ways to generate revenue. Heyzap Payments may help change this: regardless of where a Flash game is embedded, its developer will be compensated for any in-game purchases through the HeyZap platform. Co-Founder Immad Akhund says that the platform is extremely easy for developers to integrate, with a “drop-in” set of code (he says it shoud require about as much effort as integrating Google Analytics would). Once integrated, users will be able to buy a currency called Heyzap coins, which can be used with any game that has implemented the system. Gamers can acquire points either through Offers (surveys, etc.), Credit Cards, Paypal, or via billing to their cell phone. Points and game saves can be tied to both Facebook Connect and Twitter accounts, allowing the platform to keep track of the goods you’ve purchased in various games. Heyzap is offering a 50/50 revenue share for developers, and will also allow publishers to receive a cut for embedding games. It’s also offering a $50 bonus to any developers who sign up as a means to jumpstart the program. Given the addictive nature of many Flash games out there, this is a great idea, and established casual gaming companies like Zynga have proven how lucrative in-game microtransactions can really be. However, there are still a few obstacles Heyzap will have to overcome. The platform may be easy to integrate, but developers will still have to come up with in-game items or bonuses that users would be willing to actually pay for, so the process won’t exactly be painless. That said, many games already have logical places to implement payments (like in-game stores), so this may not prove to be much of a deterrent.
If this sounds famililar, it’s probably because Mochi Media is also launching a similar product that allows developers to integrate payments into their Flash games. Akhund ackowledges that for the time being the products are pretty similar, though he says that Heyzap has a streamlined integration procedure (he says Mochi is more involved) and also points out the $50 incentive being offered to developers, which may be enough to get them to choose Heyzap over Mochi. If you’d like to try out the payments for yourself, check out the demo game below. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
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| National Handshake Day? More Like National Barricade Yourself In Your House And Don’t Go Outside Day Posted: 25 Jun 2009 12:19 PM PDT
But back to the handshaking thing. It’s disgusting and we need to put a stop to this medieval practice. Most people agree with me. Those that don’t are the people that don’t wash their hands after they use the bathroom. You have to decide which side you’re on. I urge people to follow OpenCandy’s lead - no more hand shakes. A good place to start is at board meetings. Update: Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
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| iPhone Porn App Not Pulled By Apple, Just “Sold Out,” Says Developer Posted: 25 Jun 2009 11:47 AM PDT
The guy team behind the app, Allen the Geek, writes on its site:
So is this BS? Is this just them covering up for Apple pulling it? I don’t think so. While everyone is assuming that Apple pulled the app from the App Store, when it has done that in the past, you often see the entire page disappear. That’s not the case this time, as the page remains intact on the App Store several hours after the app has been made unavailable. And you can actually click to buy, enter you password and get the pop-up warning you that this app is rated 17+. But when it is about to download, a pop-up comes up saying, “The item you tried to buy is no longer available. The availability of the item changed while you were using the store. The same item may be available with a different price or elsewhere on the store.” Allen the Geek’s wording is odd because apps can’t actually “sell out,” but it makes sense that if high demand for the pictures is crashing their servers, they might pull it. But perhaps more importantly, there are other apps still live that claim to have nudity. Here’s one — it even has “Topless” in the title. I just bought it, with no problem. (Though, to be clear, the app apparently doesn’t have its topless pictures ready yet just yet.) And other developers are reporting that there is a “nudity” check box when you submit an app for approval, so it doesn’t make sense for Apple to have that if it’s going to reject these apps. This matters because now that Apple has parental controls for apps built into the iPhone, it would seem that Apple has nullified the reason it needed to reject apps containing things like images of topless women. And removing that restriction would presumably free up app screeners to do their jobs better, something which has been an issue for several months. And so while it may appear that this is Apple being prudes again, I don’t that is actually the case. I’ve contacted the developer about this removal, and will update when I hear back. Update: Okay, this gets weirder and weirder. Now a spokesperson for Apple tells CNN that it did remove the app. It is now gone from the store. Here’s the statement:
So, apparently, Apple has a rating system that includes nudity, but it doesn’t plan to allow nudity in any app? And it’s letting apps in that both have nudity and claim to have nudity. I’m not sure Apple knows what is even going on at this point.
[thanks Corey] Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
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| YouTube Mobile Uploads Up 400% Since iPhone 3GS Launch Posted: 25 Jun 2009 10:44 AM PDT  If there was any question about the significance of the iPhone 3GS’s impressive video functionality, here’s your answer: YouTube reports that in the six days since the iPhone 3GS was released last week, the number of mobile uploads has increased by a whopping 400%. For a single phone model to have such a major impact on the site is simply phenomenal. Even without the iPhone, YouTube is seeing major growth across the entire mobile space — the site has seen uploads go up 1700% over the last six months. It’s not hard to guess why. Video-enabled smartphones are becoming increasingly popular, as are high speed data connections. YouTube also attributes part of the growth to a streamlined upload flow (note how easy it is to upload a video from your iPhone to the site), as well as its improved sharing capabilities (you can now syndicate your videos to services like Facebook and Twitter). As the still-nascent iPhone 3GS continues to take off and more people figure out how to use the video sharing functionality, these figures are going to skyrocket. Other phones are increasingly getting in on the action too, like Android phones, which introduce direct-to-YouTube uploads with the 1.5 Cupcake update. The implications for this are huge. Lowering the barrier to uploading a video will probably result in an increase in the silly user-generated content that litters YouTube, but it will also streamline the uploading of more significant videos. As our commenters point out, an increase in mobile uploads could very well spur the ‘iReporter’ movement, as citizens upload video taken at the scene of a newsworthy event as soon as it happens (we need look no further than the protesting and tragedies in Iran for examples). Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
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| The Twitter Cycle: Curiosity, Abandonment, Addiction. Global Visitors Hit 37 Million. Posted: 25 Jun 2009 10:00 AM PDT
The adoption cycle for Twitter is a bit strange. It goes something like this: Ever-increasing waves of hype, links, and attention bring in the newbies to Twitter.com where they get their first taste of Twitterdom. Some portion of those set up an account out of curiosity or a fear of being left behind. They try sending out a few Tweets, look around, get bored by the initial banality of the service and abandon it for other pursuits. But that is not the end of it. A lot of them come back, either because they keep getting links from friends or keep hearing about it on TV or whatever, and then they slowly start to see the usefulness—a funny Tweet from a friend, a link to breaking news, a way to keep an eye on the general zeitgeist. Twitter is the kind of thing that is easier to experience than it is to explain. But it is an acquired taste and often requires repeated exposure before people get hooked. Once they do get hooked, there is no going back. A good proxy for the level of general curiosity about what is on Twitter is how many people visit its Website. The worldwide numbers are out from comScore. In May, 2009, 37.3 million people visited Twitter.com, which is up 16 percent from April, 2009. The monthly growth slowed down from the 68 percent in April, but was not as flat as the 3.5 percent growth comScore reported for the U.S. in May. Remember that these are month-over-month growth rates. The annual growth rate for global unique visitors in May, 2009 was 1,334 percent. And none of these numbers include the activity spurred by the Iranian elections in June, which I suspect will add to a pickup in month-over-month growth once again. But let’s dive a little deeper into the data. The 37.2 million visitors include both people who use Twitter.com as their main interface with the service and curious visitors who aren’t necessarily registered users. About half of all active accounts, by some measures, access the service by desktop and mobile clients, and these numbers don’t count those. To some extent, the comScore number is a good measure of the general curiosity in Twitter for any given month. It doesn’t tell us the abandonment rate, but it does give us some peek at engagement. Most people consume Twitter in a passive, sheep-like manner. They read other people’s Tweets more than they produce their own. How do we know people are reading stuff on Twitter? Look at Twitter’s pageviews. They are up 30 percent month-over-month to 900 million pageviews globally in May. So pageviews are up twice as much as unique visitors, which implies that each visitor is looking at twice as many pages as they were the month before.
And if you drill down deeper, the average pages per visitor is up to 24 pages per visitor per month, which indicates an almost-daily habit on average. That number is up from 13 pages per visitor per month in January, and 7 pages per visitor per month a year ago. In other words, the addiction is growing.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
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| Google Voice Makes Its Today Show Debut; Invites Start Going Out Today Posted: 25 Jun 2009 09:58 AM PDT Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy This morning Google Voice was featured in a segment on the Today Show, during which NBC News correspondent Janet Shamlian outlined her experiences with the service over the last few months (her verdict: she loves it). It’s an interesting piece to watch if only to see how the mass media is trying to describe Google Voice without confusing everyone watching, which can be a difficult task. Shamlian and Matt Lauer briefly address the potential privacy concerns that have been raised over Voice, which would give Google access to your voice conversations and voicemail. Given that many of us have already used Gmail for years, handing over sensitive data to Google isn’t exactly novel, but it’s a valid point nonetheless. That said, the Today Show piece entirely neglects the other real challenges facing Voice at this point: it requires you to start using a new telephone number (unless you wait it out until number portability) and the numbers shown by your outbound calls can be different from the ones your friends have, which can lead to confusion. There’s also a pretty big goof at the end of the piece: Matt Laurer concludes the segment saying that Google Voice is “available today, nationwide”, which was big news given that Voice has long only been available to previous GrandCentral members. Google Voice Product Manager Craig Walker has confirmed that this was a goof on NBC’s part, but says that invites have begun going out today to those who have previously requested them. Walker says that the team has “a long list to go through so it will take a while to get them all out”, so don’t be surprised if it takes a while before you get yours. Of course, it probably won’t be long before Voice does open up to the masses, as it wouldn’t make sense for Google to show off the product on the Today Show if the public launch is still months away. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
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| NoPorn: Apple Removes “Hottest Girls” From The App Store Posted: 25 Jun 2009 09:33 AM PDT
The tech blogosphere was abuzz yesterday with the news that Apple seemingly started accepting applications that contain nudity into the App Store. Now, it appears someone over at Cupertino as ultimately decided to reject the first such app to get into the store after all. In our tests, we could still locate the app via the iTunes link, but were unable to purchase it and download it to our devices. Other applications with the new rating (”Rated 17+ for "Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity.”) could still be downloaded without a problem, so it seems Apple just let ‘Hottest Girls’ slip through the cracks - something we suggested as a possibility yesterday as well - and has now fixed it by blocking it specifically. So much for the grand opening of the App Store to all things naked (regardless, go have your say in MobileCrunch’s poll on the subject). Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
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| GROU.PS Finds $1 Million For DIY Social Network Platform Posted: 25 Jun 2009 09:30 AM PDT
GROU.PS, a do-it-yourself social network focused on moderated online collaboration, has raised $1 million in an extended Series A round of funding from Golden Horn Ventures. The company previously raised $1.1 million in Series A funding from Golden Horn in 2008. GROU.PS currently has 1 million registered members and 40,000 social networks on the platform. The DIY social network is growing fast; the platform has grown from 200,000 users to 1 million members within a year. GROU.PS's networks are attractive to users because it lets you run all of your group's collaboration tools from one GROU.PS domain using a single login. The system supports wikis, photos, links, blogs, calendars, chat, forums, maps, profiles, and subgroups - each of which is available as a plug-and-play module for your community. These modules also allow users to pull in their data from other third party services (flickr, Digg, blogs, etc). GROU.PS also recently added ActivityRank Pipelines, a point and reward system that lets moderators of a social network measure and rank members' content contributions and then extend moderation privileges to members based on these rankings. And the social network is launching a subscription model that will allow moderators to charge subscription fees to members (GROU.PS gets a 50% cut on any fees charges). But while the social network is growing, it is still having trouble gaining users in the U.S against the leader in the DIY space, Ning, which hit one million social networks recently. GROU.PS' is mostly popular in Japan and Brazil. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
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Michael Jackson’s unfortunate passing is a sad event on many levels, and a moment to reflect upon the man’s rich life and career as well as a time to pass support - silent or loud - onto his family, friends and everyone who needs it now that the King of Pop has ceased to be. 
Our posts earlier this week about the alarming amount of 
Okay, the situation surrounding the App Store and its approval process continues to get weirder and weirder.
Twitter has a history of killing off features in order to stay up. And it looks like it 
Today, we got the latest version of the live-streaming app 
Foursquare
Ever since I've been in Silicon Valley, I’ve heard mass anxiety about the state of higher education, particularly when it comes to training the next generation of tech thinkers, innovators and worker bees. But for all those speeches and pledges to change things, the situation only seems to be getting worse.
In terms of well-known celebrities, few are bigger than Michael Jackson. Love him or hate him, pretty much everyone on the planet knows him. And that caused big problems for a lot of huge websites today with the news of his passing.
Yuck! 
The drama in iPhone porn world continues. Yesterday, Hottest Girls, the 
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