The Latest from TechCrunch

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• MojoPages Raises $5 Million For White Label Local Business Search Engine
• Recommend Your Favorite iPhone Apps With AppsFire
• $6 Million For Sense Networks? Makes Sense.
• 6rounds Launches Video Communication Platform With Several Layers Of Fun
• Ricoh Launches Visual Online Storage Service quanp
• Social Browser Extension Yoono Adds OneRiot’s Real-Time Search Engine
• The iPhone 3GS: Should You Get It?
• Swedish Software Firm Acquires The Pirate Bay For $7.7 Million
• MIT’s EurekaFest Showcases High School Students’ Problem-solving Prototypes
• Venture Capitalists V. Founders: Battle At Mochi Media
• Sense Of Fashion Is A Social Marketplace For Indie Fashion
• Birdfeed: Finally, An iPhone Twitter Client To Match Tweetie’s Speed And Simplicity
• YouTube To Broadly Release Call-To-Action Overlays, Allow Linking Off-Site
• Web Site Story: CollegeHumor’s Epic Internet Musical
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• Bit.ly’s Grand Plans, And Their Inevitable Clash With Digg: Bitly Now
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• SharesPost Report: Facebook Worth $4-6 Billion. So Much For That $10B Valuation
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• Yahoo Kills Maven: From Acquisition To Deadpool In 17 Months (Updated)
• Here’s How iPhone App Store Ratings Work. Hint: They Don’t.
• Submit Your StartUp To TechCrunch50 NOW For Your Chance to Pitch Kevin Rose, Sean Parker and Yossi Vardi
• Xing To Give Up China And Make Way For LinkedIn In The US?
• Apple Wants You To Know Steve Jobs Is Back At Work
• Facebook Names Genentech Exec David Ebersman As CFO

MojoPages Raises $5 Million For White Label Local Business Search Engine Posted: 30 Jun 2009 08:18 AM PDT MojoPages, a local listings search engine, has raised $5 million in Series A funding led by Austin Ventures. MojoPages’s search technology powers local business listing search engines for local newspapers, and TV and radio stations. Originally a stand alone search engine for business listings, the company found that it could not compete with bigger players like Citysearch and Yelp. So Jon Gardner, CEO of MojoPages, decided to overhaul the site’s business model and offer white label, branded local search engine technology to media companies. The site’s listings are similar to Yelp in that they offer user reviews and ratings of businesses. To date, MojoPages has contracted with more than 1,000 media sites to create branded local business search engines. Gardner says MojoPages will use the funds to expand the capabilities of its Yelp-like search engine, so that the search engine will become an aggregator of listings and reviews. The site hopes to pull local info from sites like Yelp, CitySearch, and YellowPages into one engine. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Recommend Your Favorite iPhone Apps With AppsFire Posted: 30 Jun 2009 08:00 AM PDT A couple weeks ago, we wrote a post detailing why there needs to be some sort of iPhone app recommendation system. Just like iTunes has its “Genius” feature for music and movies, with over 50,000 apps now in the App Store, there needs to be a way to filter out what you don’t want and find what you do. If you have a lot of friends with iPhones or iPod touches, AppsFire may offer just that. The service, launching in private beta today, allows you to share your favorite apps with anyone. Now, to be clear, I don’t mean actually share the apps themselves, but rather share the names of the ones you like and give others one-click access to download them also, from the App Store. So, say I have 100 apps on my machine, but I only really would recommend 15 or so, I would select those 15, and could send them out to friends on the various social networks. AppsFire is actually an application that you install on you machine. Right now, it only works on Macs, but it’s coming for PCs soon. And there will event be an iPhone app, we’re told. Once the software is on your machine, it scans your iTunes folder to find your apps. It then opens a personal webpage on the AppsFire site and places the icons for your apps in front of you, asking you to choose your favorites. Once you do that, you can share them using the social networks, via email, in a widget, or simply get a link back to your AppsFire page. For example, here’s the link a co-founder of AppsFire, Ouriel Ohayon’s page. It’s hardly a perfect system. First of all, the sharing mechanisms are a little clunky. And this isn’t a way to get personally tailored app recommendations based on what apps you already have an like. But it is a way to potentially find some new and interesting applications based on what people you know enjoy using. The model for this is straight-forward: Affiliate links (through LinkShare and Tradedoubler), though Ohayon promises a “surprise” in that regard soon. The limited private beta will be open to about 1,000 users at first, we’re told. You can sign up here. Disclosure: AppsFire co-founder Ouriel Ohayon is a former member of the TechCrunch family, and still contributes from time to time. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

$6 Million For Sense Networks? Makes Sense. Posted: 30 Jun 2009 07:52 AM PDT Intel Capital has led a Series B funding round in Sense Networks, a NY-based developer of nifty machine-learning technology that allows for digital indexing and ranking of real world locations based on movement data. According to Venturebeat, which broke the news before the weekend, the amount invested was about $6 million in a ‘hotly contested deal’ that left Sequoia pulling the short straw. Having recently witnessed a panel discussion at the Mobile 2.0 Europe conference on ‘Context’, which Sense Networks CEO Greg Skibiski was a part of, I’d wager it’s a smart investment. The startup has developed Macrosense, a so-called ‘location analytics platform’ specifically designed to mine mobile location data for advanced user segmentation, and it also markets a really great free mobile app for BlackBerry and the iPhone platform called Citysense that enables ‘real-time nightlife discovery and social navigation’. In essence, the latter app helps consumers find popular nightlife spots using large amounts of real-time location data in aggregate. From Erick’s review when the company first emerged out of stealth mode: “The company ingests billions of data points about people's location from cell phones, GPS devices, WiFi, and even taxis. The company also collects geo-location data from everyone who downloads Citysense, or any future app (although, the company considers the data to be yours, and you can delete it from the database at any time). Using machine-learning algorithms, it then indexes all of this location data and ranks places in the real world much like a search engine ranks Websites. But instead of looking at Web links, it looks at how much data (i.e., people) are moving between locations. The company makes money by selling this data in the aggregate to professional investors and financial institutions, who are keen to find out things like where people are shopping.” Sense Networks was founded by MIT computer scientist Alex Pentland and Columbia computer scientist Tony Jebara back in May, 2003. The company was only incorporated in 2006, though, and it went on to raise a Series A round from a number of angel investors and hedge funds like Passport Capital, Drobny Global Asset Management and the Challenge Funds in April 2008. The amount was not disclosed, but VentureWire reported that it was $3 million, which means total funding for the company now stands at about $9 million. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

6rounds Launches Video Communication Platform With Several Layers Of Fun Posted: 30 Jun 2009 07:01 AM PDT With a webcam built into or sold together with nearly every computer that goes over the counter nowadays you’d expect direct video-based communication to have massively taken off by now, but the reality is that it’s far from being as ubiquitous as some proclaimed it would become in the past. But maybe it’s just that there’s isn’t always that good a reason to video chat with your friends and family when you can just as easily use voice call or text chat to communicate with them directly. After all, once you’re connected you can just as easily get your message across without actually seeing someone. But Israel-based 6rounds thinks that there is a demand for a video platform that offers additional layers of fun, social interaction and utility on top of the basics of video conversations, and they’ve raised the necessary funds to bring the idea to market. CEO Dany Fishel and COO Ilan Leibovich tell me that they view 6rounds essentially as a live meeting point that comes with real-time video chat but also a set of additional features that should enhance the “sharing experience”. Sharing can mean anything from co-browsing YouTube to playing games, adding funny effects to a live video conference, interacting on Facebook together with your contacts or even shopping for things online together with your friends or family members. You really need to try it to experience how much fun that can be, and for that reason we’ve arranged invitation codes for 500 TechCrunch readers. Simply head over to this webpage and enter code "6techcrunch". If you’re too late, check out these screenshots and a short demo video below to get an idea of what 6rounds is all about. 6rounds is not just a mere destination site, and wants to enable users to interact socially in real-time regardless of what their favorite social network is. The platform comes with an open API and can easily be integrated into third-party websites or services – starting with a Facebook or MySpace app, continuing with a plugin for WordPress or an embeddable widget in users personal pages, and ending with various extensions to IM, ICQ, Skype and Firefox. It also does a fine job at tapping into your social networking accounts to build a profile for yourself that indicates your interests, hobbies, music and movie taste etc. When you’re in a video chat you can click a button and a question will be proposed based on the profile of the person on the other end. This could be useful as an ice-breaker when you’re having a conversation with someone you don’t know very well yet. Sounds all fine and dandy, but how will they make money? The founders explained to me that they see four different revenue streams for 6rounds: 1) users could purchase virtual and real gifts (think ringtones, MP3s, etc.) and send them to other users during the video experience. 2) users could personalize their video experience by purchasing customized skins and choosing different applications for private arenas (unique games, targeted extensions and special activities). 3) affiliate fees from e-commerce majors: from music, movies, TV shows and books through the personal profile slideshows to a dedicated co-shopping experience in a variety of online retail stores. 6rounds aims to earn revenue shares from these transactions and allow other developers to tap into this stream by means of the open API. 4) advertising, licensing and product placement: the company at a later stage intends to offer advertisers licensed versions of 6rounds as well the ability to insert video advertising units within the layers (think sponsored gifts, targeted activities, and promoted themes). The company just closed a seed investment of $1 million, led by Rhodium Investment Group and followed by private angel investors from the Israeli Startup Factory group, who previously invested $350K (November 2008). The founders had initially founded the startup with the help of family and friends on some $150K back in February 2008. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Ricoh Launches Visual Online Storage Service quanp Posted: 30 Jun 2009 06:37 AM PDT If you’re like me, you always try to avoid storing or backing up files, even those that are important to you. It’s too boring, time-consuming and cumbersome to remember doing it regularly. This is where a new service called quanp (short for “quantum paper” and pronounced "kwan-puh"), launched today in beta, comes in. Developed by Japanese technology giant Ricoh, quanp wants to become your online center for collecting and organizing all of your personal “digital life memories”. Dropbox and many other services basically do the same, but the idea behind quanp is to turn storing and sharing pictures, music, videos, PDFs etc. online into a more enjoyable experience by making it more “visual”. The service is currently free and as Ricoh says, mainly aimed at US residents for the time being (in Japan, quanp is available in free and paid versions since March). The US version is being managed by a Ricoh office based out of Cupertino in California. The structure of the quanp site is a tad confusing, but you basically get a suite of three tools: quanp.on (a Windows-only online storage client) quanp.net (a browser version) quanp drop (a desktop widget) Here is a quick rundown: quanp.on I had to unearth my Windows machine for quanp.on, but once installed (system requirements), the software works as promised. It lets you drag and drop, tag and date files you can then navigate through a pretty “3D” interface (Ricoh calls this 3D visual browsing). Files can also be easily shared with other quanp users over the web. quanp.net Definitely not as sexy as quanp.on or the widget, this browser version (for Mac and Windows users) doesn’t offer anything similar services have been offering for years. quanp drop "quanp drop" is an animated, customizable widget that sits on your Mac or Windows desktop (system requirements) and allows you to share files by dragging and dropping them into it as if you’re adding files to a folder. You need to register in order to then manage and share these files. quanp drop also requires Adobe AIR to function. Ricoh says these beta versions of their tools are mainly aimed at geeks and heavy web users whose opinions the company wants to use as a basis for further improvements. So give one of the tools a shot (personally I recommend the widget and the client version), follow them on Twitter, and post your feedback in the forum (or write an email). The following video provides more background on the service. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Social Browser Extension Yoono Adds OneRiot’s Real-Time Search Engine Posted: 30 Jun 2009 05:43 AM PDT Yoono, an extension built to enhance both the Firefox and IE browser experience that comes in pretty handy when you go on the Internet mainly to interact socially with your peers and friends, has just released version 6.1 of its add-on, and revamped the interface along with adding a couple of useful features. I’ve been trying it out for a couple of hours now, and I have to say I’d already miss it if it were gone from my Firefox browser (which, admittedly, I use less and less thanks to Google Chrome). Yoono is essentially a browser sidebar that aggregates and centralizes your online profiles, including from IM tools like Windows Live Messenger, Google Talk and AIM but also a wide variety of social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Flickr, FriendFeed and more. The latest version of the extension, next to expanding support for Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace as well as the ability to easily share pages, images, or videos from your browser across all networks at once, boasts another useful new feature: real-time search. The search engine is powered by OneRiot, one of many trying their hand in this hot field but effectively one that does what it does very, very well. Granted, this isn’t exactly a huge innovation (doing a search simply opens up a new browser tab with results from the OneRiot website), but people who already use Yoono will no doubt be pleased with the integration. Try it out and let us know what you think. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

The iPhone 3GS: Should You Get It? Posted: 30 Jun 2009 03:29 AM PDT Disclosure: I have not bought an iPhone 3GS — I'm still unsure if I will. Apple gave me a review unit to play with for 60 days. I’ve had the new iPhone 3GS for a little over a week now. Using it day-to-day over the course of that time, I have a pretty good feel for it. A good enough feel to answer the question that every single person seems to be asking: “Should I get it?” The answer to that is not so simple. And so I’m going to break it down a bunch of different ways based mainly on the device’s functionality and who I think is considering buying it. I’ll lay out what someone may be interested in the device for, and then give a “yes” or “no” (or a couple “maybes”) answer on if I think it’s worth it. I’ll follow that up with an explanation. Here we go: If you have an original iPhone from 2 years ago? Yes. Yesterday marked the two-year anniversary for the people who bought the original iPhone on day one in 2007. That also means it marks the official end of those people’s contracts with AT&T (though many are eligible to end them, or get upgrades much earlier). If you’ve had your original iPhone this long, chances are that you’re a fan of it. And if you’re a fan of that version, you’re going to love the iPhone 3GS. Not only will its computing speed blow away that version, but since you skipped the iPhone 3G, you haven’t experienced the big increase in data speed that 3G offers over EDGE. I’ve talked to a few people who upgraded from the original iPhone to the iPhone 3GS, and all of them cannot believe how much better then device is in its third iteration. If you have the iPhone 3G? Maybe. There are simply too many variables at play here to answer this with a simple “yes” or “no.” I’ll address many of them below. But the biggest one for many users right now will be if you’re eligible to get the full $199 and $299 subsidy on the device. Even after AT&T’s relaxing of the rules a bit, most iPhone 3G owners still are not able to get the subsidy yet. If you cannot, I say wait until you can. If you can get the cheaper price now, the iPhone 3GS is probably worth it — if you don’t mind signing your soul over to AT&T for another 2 years. Which leads me to… If you have never had an iPhone? Yes. It’s an easy call if you want an iPhone and have never owned one, as this is the best one yet. Definitely get one, unless you have a strong dislike of AT&T. If so, skip to the next question. If you hate AT&T? No. This is a big “no.” If you really dislike AT&T, the iPhone 3GS only gives you more reasons to dislike them. MMS still isn’t working. Tethering still isn’t working. The iPhone 3GS has a chip that can handle data transfer speeds of 7.2 Mbps, but AT&T’s network isn’t ready for that, so that data speed is the same as with the iPhone 3G. And that faster AT&T network won’t fully be ready until 2011 — obviously, there will be at least one, and probably two more iterations of the iPhone by then. And there will likely a version of the iPhone that is not exclusive to AT&T by then as well. That possibility alone should be reason for a lot of people not to sign up for a new two year contract with AT&T. And unfortunately, that means no iPhone 3GS. If you love video? Yes. This is a big, emphatic “yes.” I truly believe the iPhone 3GS should have been called the iPhone 3GV, for “Video.” The device is simply great at shooting quick videos and giving you one-button publish capabilities to services like YouTube. While there were some video applications that worked on older jailbroken iPhones, like Qik, the quality of the video with the 3GS is leaps and bounds better. And the trimming capabilities on the phone are very simple to use. And playback looks great on the device. I could go on, but as I said already, if you’re really into video and want a great mobile device for doing it, the iPhone 3GS will be worth it for you. The Flip cam should definitely be scared. If general speed is your only reason? No. The iPhone 3GS is noticeably faster than the iPhone 3G, but in my opinion, that speed alone is not worth the upgrade price. One problem is that while apps do load faster, you still have to wait for AT&T’s often shoddy network to connect for many of the apps to work. As I noted above, the iPhone 3GS can handle faster wireless data speeds too, but AT&T’s network isn’t yet up to the same task, so it renders that advantage moot. I have found myself getting frustrated with using the iPhone 3G after using the 3GS for a while due to the speed difference, but that’s only because I have a point of reference. If you haven’t used a 3GS yet, or don’t use it extensively, you shouldn’t have too much of an issue staying with your iPhone 3G (or buying a new one for $99) and still taking advantage of the new features in the 3.0 software upgrade. If you’re really into iPhone games? Yes. Having said all of that about speed, if you’re really into gaming on the device, the faster processor and better graphics chip will undoubtedly be worth it for you. I’ve been playing a bunch of games on the 3GS, including some larger ones like Tiger Woods PGA Tour, and the iPhone 3GS performs much, much better than the iPhone 3G does. If you’re a developer? Yes. Likewise with the gaming, if you’re a developer making apps on the iPhone, you’ll undoubtedly love the faster speeds the 3GS offers. Plenty of developers, such as Facebook’s Joe Hewitt, are already raving about this. If battery life is your main reason? No. The battery life on the 3GS does seem to be better, but it’s hard to know if that’s just due to the fact that this is a fresher battery compared to the one in the year-old iPhone 3G. Apple has stated that the battery in the 3GS does boost times for certain things (like browsing the web on WiFi), but it also apparently is leading to some overheating. I’ve also noticed that the auto-brightness setting on the iPhone 3GS is much dimmer than on the iPhone 3G. I’ve done a number of tests to make sure I wasn’t just seeing things, or it wasn’t a one-time fluke. For whatever reason, the iPhone 3GS is much dimmer when auto-brightness is turned on, and this undoubtedly saves some battery life too. The dimmer setting doesn’t bother me at all until I look at it side-by-side with the the iPhone 3G. The iPhone 3GS also has a feature that allows you to tell you the percentage of your battery has left. This is a pretty nice feature, but it does get a bit nerve-racking. If you have very oily hands? Yes. This may sound like a joke, but the iPhone 3GS’s new oleophobic (anti-oil) screen coating really is making a noticeable difference on my iPhone’s screen. While you may assume that my iPhone 3G has a dirtier screen simply because it’s older, I had a protective covering on the screen up until the day before I got the iPhone 3GS, so basically the screens were in the same condition a week ago. Now, one is constantly much more dirty. If you’re excited about voice control? No. The voice control feature would seem to be a nice touch, but it’s pretty wonky in my experience with it. More than a few times I’ve tried to tell the device to play music by a certain band, and it will end up calling someone — and without fail it is usually someone I really don’t want to be calling. The “play more songs like this” which kicks in the iTunes Genius features is by far the best part of the whole thing. Otherwise, it’s just a system that is too slow to activate, and too inaccurate. If you want a better cameraphone? Yes. While I’ve already raved about the video capabilities, the camera itself is so much nicer than the iPhone 3G’s. This camera is 3.2 megapixels compared to the old version’s 2 megapixels. But the real difference is with the auto-focus, which turns crap pictures, good. The camera isn’t as nice as some of the ones found in phones by Nokia, but it’s definitely good enough for your average point-and-shooting in good light. If you want more storage? Yes. There’s no denying that having 32 GB (on the more expensive model) versus 16 GB is nice. I remember buying my first iPod five years ago — it was a hard-drive based model with 40 GB of storage. The thing was a brick. Now the iPhone has just about as much storage, which is pretty crazy. And considering you can now not only shoot movies on this device, but can download them from iTunes with the 3.0 software, you might need that extra space. For the compass? No. Don’t get me wrong, the compass is interesting, but aside from Google Maps and maybe the GPS apps, I really don’t see the point of it. And for the first few days I had no idea how to activate the compass features in Google Maps — you have to tap the location button (in the lower left corner) twice. I hope some applications arise that do cool things with it, but I certainly wouldn’t buy the device for this. Overall? Maybe (See Above). As I said, there’s really no clear-cut answer as to if you should get the device. You really need to look at the functionality and use cases above, and determine where you reside with regards to those things. If you think a bunch of stuff is missing from the list, you’re probably thinking about features that are a part of the iPhone 3.0 software. Most of those work on the older iPhones as well. If something like cut, copy & paste is most important to you, that works on the iPhone 3G, so it probably makes sense to stick with that device. Or if you don’t have one, consider paying $99 to get one — that seems like a hell of a deal. If you’re a really big fan of the iPhone, you probably already bought this new model. But it’s the fence-sitters that this post is meant to help. Both those who are unsure if the time is right to get their first iPhone, or if it’s worth it to upgrade. It’s a tough call — but simplified: If video is the feature you most care about, then get it. If not, consider the iPhone 3G for $99. If you’re worried about AT&T, don’t get either — wait to see if Apple renews its exclusive deal with AT&T next year. Even if it does, you can be sure another phone, more advanced than the iPhone 3GS, will be on the verge of being revealed. CrunchBase Information iPhone 3GS AT&T Apple Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Swedish Software Firm Acquires The Pirate Bay For $7.7 Million Posted: 30 Jun 2009 01:24 AM PDT Swedish software firm Global Gaming Factory X this morning announced it has agreed to buy file-sharing service The Pirate Bay for 60 million Swedish crowns (which currently converts to approx. $7.7 million). In addition, GGF has entered into an agreement to acquire the shares in Peerialism, a software technology company that develops solutions for data distribution and distributed storage based on new p2p technology. The transaction is scheduled to be closed in August 2009. Update: The Pirate Bay has confirmed the news (see their commentary below). Last April, the founders of The Pirate Bay were sentenced to one year in jail and a fine of $3.6 million for running the site, which is one of the world largest for downloading files on the Internet (one of the 100 most visited websites in the world according to the press release). The case had been brought on by a number of groups from the music and movie industry. For that reason, GGF has stated that The Pirate Bay requires a new business model, which “satisfies the requirements and needs of all parties, content providers, broadband operators, end users, and the judiciary.” Global Gaming Chief Executive Hans Pandeya didn’t give a lot of detail about what type of business model it has planned for the file-sharing service, and only said: “We would like to introduce models which entail that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site.” We’re gathering more information and will update this post accordingly. Statement from TPB: “A lot of people are worried. We’re not and you shouldn’t be either! TPB is being sold for a great bit underneath it’s value if the money would be the interesting part. It’s not. The interesting thing is that the right people with the right attitude and possibilities keep running the site. As all of you know, there’s not been much news on the site for the past two-three years. It’s the same site essentially. On the internets, stuff dies if it doesn’t evolve. We don’t want that to happen. We’ve been working on this project for many years. It’s time to invite more people into the project, in a way that is secure and safe for everybody. We need that, or the site will die. And letting TPB die is the last thing that is allowed to happen! If the new owners will screw around with the site, nobody will keep using it. That’s the biggest insurance one can have that the site will be run in the way that we all want to. And - you can now not only share files but shares with people. Everybody can indeed be the owner of The Pirate Bay now. That’s awesome and will take the heat of us. The old crew is still around in different ways. We will also not stop being active in the politics of the internets - quite the opposite. Now we’re fueling up for going into the next gear. TPB will have economical muscles to let people evolve it. It will team up with great technicians to evolve the protocols. And we, the people interested in more than just technology, will have the time to focus on that. It’s win-win-win. The profits from the sale will go into a foundation that is going to help with projects about freedom of speech, freedom of information and the openess of the nets. I hope everybody will help out in that and realize that this is the best option for all. Don’t worry - be happy!” Update 2: TorrentFreak was informed by TPB’s Peter Sunde that the site will soon decentralize and quit running a properietary BitTorrent tracker, instead encouraging its user base to use a yet to be launched third party tracker for their torrents. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

MIT’s EurekaFest Showcases High School Students’ Problem-solving Prototypes Posted: 29 Jun 2009 11:00 PM PDT EurekaFest is a yearly event held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that showcases the prototype inventions of high school students from around the country. The inventions consist of various gadgets and devices aimed at helping solve real-world problems. One of the more impressive ideas I saw during the two days I spent covering the event was a prototype "sensing" cane for blind people. The cane features sensors that can detect objects up to eight feet away, at which point the cane's handle begins buzzing once per second and increases in intensity as objects get closer.

Venture Capitalists V. Founders: Battle At Mochi Media Posted: 29 Jun 2009 10:33 PM PDT Mochi Media, the fast growing Flash game advertising network and payments platform that we covered last week, is in the midst of an internal battle over the fate of the company. The company is mulling over an acquisition offer that would give investors Accel Partners and Shasta Ventures their original investments of around $14 million back, but not much more. Founders and other employees wouldn’t make much from the sale. Normally this is an easy offer to turn down. The company is doing well and has “plenty” of money left in the bank, sources say. The founders obviously would want to continue to grow the business and hope for a good outcome. But for some reason at least one investor, Ping Li from Accel, wants to close the deal and take his original investments off the table. He has been pressuring the founders and management team to accept the terms offered, multiple sources say. That’s left the founders frustrated, who apparently turned down an offer from Time Warner to acquire the company for $65 million or so a year ago. Li convinced the founders not to take that deal, sources say, and instead raise more money to go for a “home run.” Now, a year later, Li wants to sell the company for a small fraction of that $65 million. Generally venture capitalists like to keep their money on the table when startups are doing well and aren’t in danger of folding, as is the case with Mochi Media. No one we’ve spoken with can explain why Li would want to force this deal on the company. Li is a somewhat controversial venture capitalist - he was one of (or the) architect behind the extraordinary undoing of a $17 million round of financing for BitTorrent last year - we questioned whether Li violated his fiduciary duty to the company in closing that deal at the time. Seeing venture capitalists square off against entrepreneurs is never fun. And as ugly as this situation has become, I don’t want to unfairly single out Ping Li. He’s got plenty of people that he’s invested in that say glowing things about him. For example, I spoke with Dennis Fong of Raptr this evening, and he says Li is a model investor. This situation is more of an example of a trend that we’re seeing, where the goals of investors and entrepreneurs veer off in separate directions. It’s also a red flag for entrepreneurs in general - sometimes the needs of a venture fund can lead that fund to make bad decisions on behalf of their companies. Be prepared for that, protect yourself in contracts as much as possible and choose your investors wisely. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Sense Of Fashion Is A Social Marketplace For Indie Fashion Posted: 29 Jun 2009 09:37 PM PDT Sense of Fashion is an Israeli startup that aims to be a marketplace for both Indie fashion designers to sell their designs and for consumers to be able to access clothes made by aspiring designers. The site also serves a social purpose—it lets any user create a fashion homepage of sorts where you can add photos of what you wear your favorite clothes and designs. Designers can create storefronts on this platform as well. The site has ambitions to be more than just a marketplace for new and interesting fashion. The site hopes to connect shoppers, designers and trendsetters. Designers can tap into a potential customer base of users who have created their own fashion pages and users can influence designers by commenting on designs and fashions posted on the site. Users can also interact with other shoppers on the site. For example, Sense of Fashion has a “Fashion Emergency” feature that allows you ask friends to vote and choose which item of clothing looks best on you. Sellers can operate e-commerce on Sense of Fashion via Paypal. The site takes a 3% sales commission on all sales and charges designers an undisclosed listing fee as well. Launched in 2009, Sense of Fashion has received seed funding by VOIP pioneer Jeff Pulver, Ori Levy and other investors. Sense of Fashion is an interesting way to combine social networking, fashion, and retail for the Indie design space. I can imagine aspiring fashion students and design connoisseurs will find the site particularly appealing. FashionSpace has a similar concept. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Birdfeed: Finally, An iPhone Twitter Client To Match Tweetie’s Speed And Simplicity Posted: 29 Jun 2009 07:51 PM PDT If you own an iPhone, chances are you have at least one Twitter client on it. And while everyday seems to bring new ones into the App Store, at the end of the day, Tweetie always seems to be the one that I go back to. TwitterFon, Twitterriffic and most recently, TweetDeck, all are worthy challengers, but I find each of them lacking in some regard. Usually, it’s either speed or simplicity. Tweetie seems to be a perfect combination of the two. But a new app, Birdfeed, may be a little more perfect. When you first boot it up, you may think Birdfeed looks a little sparse. But there’s a lot behind this simple design, it’s just tucked away, so as not to clutter the main experience, as so many apps do. The main Birdfeed screen consists of your Twitter timeline, a button to load newer tweets, a button to compose a tweet, and a button to your account — that’s it. Clicking on any tweet in your timeline will load it on its own screen and from there you can easily see that person’s profile, reply to that tweet, favorite it or forward it (retweet it, post a link to it, or mail a link to it). But it’s the button that takes you back to your account that leads you to all of the tools you’re accustomed to on many Twitter clients. There’s a “Mentions” area, a “Direct Messages” area, and a “Favorites” area. You can also view your profile, your tweets, perform a search, or jump to a specific user. On a user’s profile page within Birdfeed, there are also some cool tools. At the bottom, you’ll find a “Services” button. Clicking on that pops up a menu which allows you to automatically scan that user using DoesFollow (a service that tells you if a user is following you on Twitter), Follow Cost (which tells you how annoying a user is to follow based on number of tweets), Favrd (which tracks interesting things on Twitter), and Twitter.com (to show you their actual profile on Twitter). Another couple nice features that Birdfeed highlights is the threading of direct messages in a way that looks like the SMS (and one day, MMS) messages area on the iPhone. And the app bookmarks where you last updated your Twitter timeline, so that when you load the app again, you don’t have to scroll through past tweets to remember what you haven’t seen. And yes, there is multiple account support. Birdfeed has really whittled down its Twitter client to just the essentials. But it does so in a way that makes perfect sense. As the developers put it on their site, “We’re as proud of the things we left out as we are of the things we put in.” As someone who is a huge fan of keeping things simple, I wholly approve that message. But as great as the simplistic look of Birdfeed may be, it’s the speed that is arguably even better. Whereas an app like Twitterriffic can often take in excess of 10 seconds to load up with you tweets, Tweetie typically takes about 3 seconds. But I’ve found Birdfeed is able to boot up and load new tweets in about one second. The reason for this is that the app does local caching. And not only does this allow it to load faster, it also allows you to view tweets even when you’re not connected to the Internet. I just put my iPhone in Airplane Mode and web back through over several hours worth of tweets, seamlessly. So, are there any downsides to Birdfeed? Yes. The biggest one for many users will be its price: $4.99. While many users opt for clients that are free (TwitterFon’s free version is a nice option), Tweetie sets its price at $2.99. But System of Touch (yes, from the Tears For Fears song), the team behind Birdfeed that consists of Buzz Andersen and Neven Mrgan, have plenty of experience developing for the desktop side of things, and consider a Twitter iPhone client much more of a challenge than a desktop version. As such, they note in a blog post that, “because we put a lot of sweat into producing a polished, Apple-caliber application, we feel Birdfeed is worth $4.99.” Fair enough. Another downside is that the all-important “Mentions” or “@replies” are not just one-click away on Birdfeed like they are on Tweetie. Instead, they are two clicks away (back to the main screen, and then into Mentions). But, Birdfeed features an indicator (next to your name on the button to go to the main screen) to let you know if there is a new mention or direct message for you to view. Another feature I’m not thrilled with is that it uses chat bubbles as the default view for the timeline. While I think these bubbles are fine for Direct Messages, they take up too much space in the main screen, where I prefer to see as many tweets as possible without having to scroll. Tweetie gives you an option to have a straight-forward block-style look, Birdfeed does not. Birdfeed has only been available for one day, so it’s too early to declare it the new de-facto iPhone Twitter client. But I will say that it’s closer than any other app has ever been to dethroning Tweetie, in my mind. It’s so good that I’ve already moved it onto my first page of apps on the iPhone, just to make sure it gets a fair shake against Tweetie. We’ll see what I’m still using in a week, but I suspect is may just be Birdfeed. You can find Birdfeed in the App Store for $4.99 here. CrunchBase Information Birdfeed iPhone Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

YouTube To Broadly Release Call-To-Action Overlays, Allow Linking Off-Site Posted: 29 Jun 2009 06:25 PM PDT Tomorrow, YouTube is going to release a very important addition to its suite of advertising products, and it has the potential to have a huge impact for politicians, brands, and charities alike. The funny thing is, you probably thought it was already out there. The product’s official name is the Call-To-Action Overlay, and it’s about as straightforward as ads come: it’s a semi-transparent pop-up that links viewers to any website you choose. For example, I could place an overlay on a TechCrunch video inviting users to visit the corresponding post we wrote about it. Yes, it’s that simple. It’s hard to believe, but you’ve never been able to do this on YouTube before now. If you ever wanted to drive users watching your YouTube video to another site, you’d have to include it as a link in the summary at the right-hand side of the page, which most people ignore anyway. Users can include links in annotations, but only to other YouTube videos. Think back to President Obama’s landmark election campaign, which was helped in no small part by his YouTube presence. If he ever wanted to direct visitors to one of his campaign homepages, he’d have to ask visitors to enter his site’s URL manually. That’s a pretty major hurdle to overcome. This gets rid of it. So why has YouTube taken so long to implement such an obvious feature? The answer likely boils down to the fact that this is effectively driving traffic away from YouTube, which isn’t an ideal situation for a site that thrives on views. This is probably a somewhat scary step for the video giant, but it’s taking some initiatives to negate any possible downsides. You can only place these customized overlays on a video that you’ve entered into YouTube’s CPC Promoted Videos program. You don’t have to pay anything extra for the Call-To-Action overlay, but you do have to be a paying YouTube advertiser. The feature has been in testing with select partners and non-profits for some time, and the results have been extremely positive. Last March, the organization charity:water managed to raise $10,000 in a single day by including an overlay on one of its videos. A handful of politicians have also been trying it out, using it to entice voters to sign their petitions. It’s worked well enough that politicians who haven’t had access to the feature are clamoring for it. At this point the potential uses for the links are fairly obvious. Brands can link their commercials back to the products they’re selling. Publishers (like us) can link back to relevant articles. And politicians can link back to their campaign homepages or petitions. But there’s almost certainly some other kind of creative use for the new ads waiting to be tapped, just as YouTube’s annotations were used to create choose-your-own-adventure video journeys. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Web Site Story: CollegeHumor’s Epic Internet Musical Posted: 29 Jun 2009 04:59 PM PDT CollegeHumor has outdone itself again. Just a few days after unveiling Bing, the better way to Google, the site has released Web Site Story, a five minute musical tribute to some of the web’s most popular websites. I’m not going to ruin any of the jokes, but suffice to say if you’ve ever bashed Evite, found yourself a few characters over the Twitter limit, or relied on Pandora to serve up some new tunes, you’re going to love this. See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Who Needs Clip Art? OffiSync 2.0 Integrates Google Image Search Into Microsoft Office Posted: 29 Jun 2009 04:11 PM PDT Last month we wrote about OffiSync, a powerful plugin that directly ties Microsoft Office to Google Docs, allowing you to save your desktop files to the cloud automatically. Since launch the plugin has fared quite well, with over 50,000 downloads. And today it’s releasing a new version that could prove immensely useful for those of you that frequently use Office. The biggest addition to the plugin is integrated text and image search. While Office comes with a directory of clip art, it leaves something to leave desired — I almost always find myself just going straight to Google Image search. Now, using OffiSync, you can search Google Images directly from within Office. The plugin supports advanced searches, like sorting by color, size, and usage rights. Once you’ve found an image you like, simply hit ‘Insert’ and the picture will appear wherever your text cursor was. There’s also an integrated browser: just navigate to the page you’d like to quote, highlight the text, and hit Insert. Of course, you could accomplish the same thing by opening up your browser and copy/pasting an image or piece of text into your Office document, but this streamlines things and should also automatically deal with any formatting issues. My biggest gripe with the plugin is the way it handles attribution. Or, rather, the way it doesn’t. When you choose to import and image or piece of text, a popup appears reminding you that the content may be subject to copyright. But there’s currently no way to automatically generate a bibliography or footnote for the content, which means you’ll have to do it manually. It’s not a deal-breaker by any means (plagiarists would just disable the feature anyway), but having to manually keep track of that information can certainly become a hassle. OffiSync is free, with plans to release a premium version for businesses in the future. The plugin is Windows-only for now, but a Mac version is on the way (the company hopes to have it out by the end of the summer). Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Bit.ly’s Grand Plans, And Their Inevitable Clash With Digg: Bitly Now Posted: 29 Jun 2009 03:34 PM PDT URL shortener and analytics service Bit.ly has been working on a new set of products, being referred to as “Bit.ly Now” internally, which will define the next stage of the company’s growth. The company confirmed these plans to us today. The services will include both a destination website as well as a distributed service via expansions to the Bit.ly API. The core Bit.ly service, which lets users shorten web URLs into something suitable for Twitter and other services with limits on characters per post, has continued to grow quickly. 7 million URLs are shortened via the service each day, the company says, and 2-3 million of those are unique URLs Bit.ly has not seen before. Those Bit.ly URLs are clicked on 150 million times per week across a wide range of services - Twitter, Facebook, instant messaging, email, etc. Twitter itself now uses Bit.ly for URl shortening, and the service has quickly taken the lead in their market. The magic behind Bit.ly are the stats that the service makes available on the underlying domains being clicked. Investor John Borthwick explained it all to investors in an email we obtained earlier this month: bit.ly has been on a tear since we launched it last summer — let me sketch out what it is, why its useful and offer some data points on progress. bit.ly is on its surface a link or URL shortener, helping people take long and unwieldy links and make them short and easy to share via email, Twitter, Facebook etc. But once you shorten a link with bit.ly the fun begins. You can put a simple "+" on the end of any bit.ly link and see, real time, the pace at which that link is getting shared and clicked on as it moves around these social distribution networks. Bit.ly Now will take all of this deep (and wide) data on popular real time URLs and turn it into a service. That’s where the inevitable clash with Digg comes in. Digg shows popular links based on what people vote on, filtered massively for fraud. The Digg home page is populated with the top stories voted on by Digg users. But only 20,000 or so new links a day are submitted to Digg (compare that to 2-3 million for Bit.ly). And Digg has to constantly fight users who try to game the system and get access to home page traffic. They also rely on users to categorize links and provide other metadata about the stories. That’s why Digg launched their own URL shortener service, and are planning a new real time product of their own. The goal is to reduce the dependence on this flawed human voting system. Bit.ly’s new Bit.ly Now service will show popular links at any given time, just like Digg (for now, Bit.ly sends the most popular link every hour to a twitter account). When Bit.ly Now launches, that link data will be combined with additional metadata about the URLs. In particular, they plan to extract important entities, people and topics from the stories in real time, allowing for a categorized approach to popular links. Bit.ly says they are talking to a number of third party services, including Reuter’s Open Calais, to help them do this. Those are two big advantages Bit.ly has over Digg - distributed link clicking data that is far harder to game than Digg, and automated real time categorization of links. But there’s a third advantage as well. Bit.ly says that the data flow they are seeing is so massive that they are getting very good at predicting the number of clicks a link will get in the future. They look at acceleration of clicks as well as the source (Facebook, Twitter, IM, whatever) and whether people are clicking that are outside of the social graphs of other people clicking. In other words, you could say that Bit.ly knows what will be on the Digg home page tomorrow. They knew, for example, that the Neda Youtube video would be popular far before it was featured on CNN and other major media sites and then made its way to Digg. The Bit.ly Now service will be both a destination site as well as a distributed service via the Bit.ly API. Third parties will be able to access the data based on topics or keywords. News sites may find this particularly valuable to monitor trends and supply additional relevant content to readers. Perhaps even Digg may find this interesting. The real time stuff Digg is working on will overlap significantly with Bit.ly, we’ve heard. Digg will be looking for link information beyond what the Digg community adds directly. The last thing Digg wants is to become reliant on Bit.ly data, though, with a directly competing Bit.ly destination site out there. If I were Digg, I’d start talking to Bit.ly now to see if I could find a way to avoid that situation. It’s also clear that the new service will become a huge competitive advantage to Bit.ly’s core shortener service. Sites like ours, which use our own shortener service, will be left out of the Bit.ly service. Publishers who otherwise wouldn’t care will start to use Bit.ly to increase exposure in the ecosystem. Then the network effect kicks in - as more people use Bit.ly they get more data, making the service stronger, and forcing more people to use the service. It’s a great place to be. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Pleo Is Back and We Want to Give You One Posted: 29 Jun 2009 02:27 PM PDT Pleo is back, thanks to electronics and entertainment leader Senario, and we want to give you one. The $349 artificial dinosaur hit the news this April when Ugobe, its creator, filed for bankruptcy. However, it is thankfully still available from web outlets such as Amazon, Target, Best Buy and BotaBingBotaBoom. In July, it will also be sold on QVC Live, followed by the Sharper Image's Online Store.

SharesPost Report: Facebook Worth $4-6 Billion. So Much For That $10B Valuation Posted: 29 Jun 2009 01:48 PM PDT They may be mysterious and perhaps even a bit shady, but secondary equity markets, which allow employees to sell off their shares to other buyers, are quickly heating up. Because of the rarity of IPOs and acquisitions in the startup world these days, early employees and founders are becoming increasingly anxious to convert some of their shares into cash (one need look no further than reports of employees selling Facebook stock at relatively low prices for proof). Unfortunately, because these markets are trading shares of private companies, buyers and sellers are often left in the dark as to the worth of their stock. SharesPost, a private equity market that’s currently operating in public beta, is looking to help: the site has launched a publication platform for analyst reports meant to complement its equity market. And it’s offering a free two month membership to TechCrunch readers, which you can sign up for here. As a teaser for what’s available on the platform, the site has shared two valuation reports on some of the world’s biggest social networks: Facebook and LinkedIn. You’ll want to check out the full reports here and here to read the full analysis and methodology (you may have to register). Facebook The report concludes that Facebook has an approximate valuation of between $3.1 billion and $6 billion, using three different methods of analysis. This is in line with the recent price we’ve been hearing on the secondary market, which pegged the valuation at around $3 billion. But it’s well short of the $10 billion valuation Facebook earned with its most recent funding round. Using a steady-state growth valuation, which examines Facebook’s main revenue streams including advertising and virtual gifts, and extrapolating growth rates to the year 2013, the report estimates that Facebook is worth between $4.301B (Bull) and $3.253B (Bear) using a 25x market multiple and normalized net margins of 25%. These valuations are largely subject to how much revenue Facebook will generate in the future: the Bullish prediction projects that Facebook will pass $1 billion in revenues by 2013, while the Bear case predicts $800 million for the same year, using a weighted average cost of capital of 15%. Likewise, using another method that guages Facebook’s value based on the performance and valuation of other companies in the tech space, the report estimates that Facebook should be worth $4.2B. As a final measure of the social network’s worth, the report uses the most recent social network transaction, which was AOL’s $850 million acquisition of Bebo in early 2008. This valuation was around 17x Bebo’s 2008 revenue and 7.1x its 2009 revenue. The report uses the same multiples based on Facebook’s estimated 2009 revenue to generate a $3.15 billion valuation. The report discounts the $10 billion valuation of Facebook from the recent Digital Sky Technologies investment, citing the fact that this price was for preferred shares. Instead, the report says we should pay more attention to the common stock valuation: DST offered to buy an additional $100 million of common stock valued at an estimated $6 billion, though the transaction has not yet been made. LinkedIn Another report uses similar methodology to measure the value of professional social network LinkedIn, concluding that the company is worth around $1.4-$1.6 billion. This is in line with the company’s $1 billion valuation from its funding round a year ago. Using a steady-state growth valuation, the report projects that LinkedIn should be valued between $1.64B and $1.42B. Again, this is very dependent on revenue predictions: the Bull cases estimates that LinkedIn will have revenues of $460 million by 2014, while the Bear case uses $380 million for the same year. As with the Facebook study, the LinkedIn report uses the Bebo acqusition to generate a valuation (which I doubt is particularly accurate given the very different natures of the sites). By this metric, LinkedIn’s projected revenue of $210 million for 2010 would yield a valuation of $1.49 billion. SharesPost will continue to offer other reports submitted by third party firms in its marketplace. Of course, the majority of these research reports will not have had access to the actual numbers driving these private companies, so all analysis has to be taken with a grain of salt. No matter how detailed a report is, if its original assumptions about a company’s revenue prospects are off the mark, then any subsequent numbers will be too. That said, these reports are certainly better than nothing — even if the absolute numbers may be incorrect, the logic is usually sound. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Yes, Rackspace Is Down And So Are Many Of Your Favorite Sites Posted: 29 Jun 2009 01:39 PM PDT Last week, Michael Jackson’s death caused sites to fail left and right. Today, it’s a very different problem. The hosting service Rackspace has been completely down for the past 30 minutes or so. Don’t believe us, just listen to Justin Timberlake or Michelle Malkin, both of which have sites on the service and took to Twitter to complain. Apparently, it’s an entire network outage [Update below, while it was a massive outage, it wasn't a full outage, apparently.] and so the usually very responsive Rackspace team cannot even respond to emails or tweet (though I’m sure we’ll be seeing some updates from smartphones shortly). Along with sites like Timberlake’s and Malkin’s, the popular event site, EventBrite, is apparently down as well. Update: Here’s the status from Rackspace via Twitter: “We are having an issue that is affecting part of our DFW data center. No details yet. Will update as we get more information.” Update 2: It looks like a lot of the sites on Rackspace are finally coming back up — including Rackspace’s own site. Downtime looks to have been about an hour. And here’s the all-clear from Rackspace itself: “All power is restored to the DFW data center - all devices affected are starting to come on-line. Details to follow.” Update 3: Rackspace officially says that only one of its nine servers were affected, but it still hit a huge number of sites. And it notes, “We owe better, and will deliver.” Well played. CrunchBase Information Rackspace Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Yahoo Kills Maven: From Acquisition To Deadpool In 17 Months (Updated) Posted: 29 Jun 2009 01:33 PM PDT At the beginning of last year, Yahoo made a fairly large acquisition with the purchase of online video distribution and advertising platform provider Maven Networks. Under the terms of the agreement, which we reported as a rumor the same day the papers were signed, the company acquired the startup for approximately $160 million. At the time, the press release touted the acquisition to lead to an expansion of the “state-of-the-art consumer video and advertising experiences on Yahoo.com and Yahoo's network of leading premium video publishers across the web”. Now we’ve learned Yahoo is going to kill Maven Networks instead, the most recent in a long series of deadpooling of products and services by the Sunnyvale Internet behemoth. A tipster, who works for a large media company, tells us that he has been a Maven customer for years and was informed last week that Yahoo will cease all development on the platform and will no longer be supporting it in 2010. We’ve confirmed with another source that Yahoo has effectively decided to shelve Maven, firing most of its employees in a move packaged as a restructuring and has already notified customers that the product will no longer be supported as of next year. Furthermore, the source tells us that the Maven technology has never even been used for Yahoo’s own video properties, underscoring why the quote I lifted from the press release in the first paragraph of this post sounds so void today. Update: we received a statement from Yahoo about this: “Since acquiring Maven Networks in 2008, Maven has played an important role in our video strategy, providing essential talent and core technology that has helped Yahoo! to enhance its consumer and advertising offerings. Maven technology is used in the Yahoo video player, as well as in the Yahoo Video Advertising Platform that is being used to serve both on- and off- network advertising for Yahoo! partners. While video initiatives remain a priority for Yahoo!, both for its consumer and advertising experiences, we are increasing investment in some areas while scaling back in others. After careful consideration, Yahoo! is planning to wind down its Maven Networks customer base. This decision will allow us to focus our resources on the continued improvement of our core video offerings, such as enhancing the consumer video experience on Yahoo!. Since Q4 2008, we have closed or announced our intention to close, nearly twenty Yahoo! services– such as Yahoo! 360, GeoCities, My Web and Yahoo! Briefcase. We continue to evaluate our portfolio of products and services on a regular basis, and plan to share details of further changes with people who use our products in the months ahead.” Yahoo also said that the rumor about the Maven team being mostly laid off is inaccurate. There’s always the possibility that the platform will eventually live on under different ownership of course, but rest assured that competitors like Brightcove, Ooyala and KIT Digital are currently celebrating over the news. This is the third video property Yahoo has killed off in less than 8 months, after shutting both Y!Live, a live video streaming service, and Jumpcut, an online video editing tool. Remarkably, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz recently declared on stage at a conference that the company is actually still interested in acquiring startups in the business of digital video technology. One month and the shuttering of a $160 million video technology acquisition later, it’s close to comical reading those words again. Then again, Yahoo’s prospects and financials at the time the acquisition was made sure looked a whole lot better than they do today, so maybe it’s just too easy to judge the move in hindsight. Either way, Maven Networks is now a member of the deadpool club, although there’s always the possibility of Yahoo selling off Maven to someone who wants to revive it. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Here’s How iPhone App Store Ratings Work. Hint: They Don’t. Posted: 29 Jun 2009 12:47 PM PDT We’ve been a bit baffled by the system Apple has in place when it comes to ratings for applications in the App Store. Is it allowing apps with nudity? Not allowing them? Allowing them with a 17+ rating? We’ve talked to some developers willing to break their NDAs because they think the App Store approval process in general is messed up, and would like to see Apple do a better job handling it. So here’s how the ratings system currently works for the App Store. The Ratings When you go to submit your app through iTunes Connect, one of the steps takes you to a ratings matrix that you must fill out. This contains 10 questions listed under “Apple Content Descriptions.” For each of the 10 questions you must say “None”, “Infrequent/Mild”, or “Frequent/Intense.” Depending on what answer you give for each of these, the rating of your app in the upper right corner will change. These ratings go from “4+” to “9+” to “12+” to “17+” to “No Rating.” That last one is key. If your app gets the “No Rating” label, a warning written in red appears underneath it stating that: “This content will not be sold via iTunes.” So what triggers such a rating? Well, not a lot. Basically, it comes down to the final two questions in the 10 question matrix. Let’s run through them in descending order: Cartoon or Fantasy Violence Realistic Violence Sexual Content or Nudity Profanity or Crude Humor Alcohol, Tobacco, or Drug Use or References Mature/Suggestive Themes Simulated Gambling Horror/Fear Themes Prolonged graphic or sadistic realistic violence Graphic sexual content and nudity As I noted, those last two are the keys to getting your app banned. But there’s a few interesting things about this. First of all, you may notice that these final two are not capitalized in the same way that the other questions are. That suggests to me that Apple added them at a different time than all the others and possibly even in a rush. Second, you’ll notice that there’s a question about both “Sexual Content or Nudity” and “Graphic sexual content or nudity.” What’s interesting about this is that apps with “Sexual Content or Nudity” are still allowed — even if you select “Frequent/Intense” in that field. You’ll get a 17+ rating, but your app will still be allowed. However, if you click even “Infrequent/Mild” in the “Graphic sexual content and nudity,” your app is banned. I’m not sure what the difference is between “intense sexual content and nudity” and “mild graphic sexual content and nudity”, and neither do a lot of developers. The Gray Area And while you might think that since apps can be classified as having frequent/intense sexual content or nudity, that an app with topless girls would be okay. But apparently, it’s not. In Apple’s words: Apple will not distribute applications that contain inappropriate content, such as pornography. So, then what exactly is frequent/intense sexual content or nudity that is allowed? One developer we spoke with believes Apple may be intending that for applications to feature things like sexual education. If so, that is hilarious. Why would only people over the age of 17 be allowed to look at such apps? The questions that pertain to violence are just as bad — maybe even worse. I understand that there’s a difference between cartoon violence and realistic violence, but both of those are allowed. How “frequent/intense realistic violence” differs from “mild prolonged graphic violence”, seems again like a pretty big gray area. Yet one is allowed, and one isn’t. And not only is one allowed, “mild realistic violence” carries only a 9+ rating. “Intense realistic violence” carries only a 12+ rating. Apparently, the jump from “intense realistic violence” to “mild prolonged graphic violence” means skipping over the 17+ rating entirely, and going straight to banned. That makes no sense. That’s the key point to all of this: The ratings range from making no sense to having way too much gray area. Apple is expecting developers to rate their apps correctly, but if it simply doesn’t allow anything in the last two categories to get through, of course those developers are going to wiggle their apps into the “safe” categories. Any why shouldn’t they? A lot of those definitions appear to be the exact same. And that’s probably why we’re seeing a lot of apps that aren’t supposed to get through, slip through the system. Flat out: The system is broken. When the Hottest Girls app got through, just look at the rating that was attached to it: Rated 17+ for the following: Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity Frequent/Intense Mature/Suggestive Themes That seems like a reasonable rating for an app with topless girls. But apparently, Apple wanted it rated under “Frequent/Intense Graphic sexual content and nudity” — meaning it wouldn’t have been allowed in the App Store. (Though, to be clear, according to Apple, the app in question was tricky and added content to the app after Apple approved it. But it was just more topless girls, and so the main point remains the same.) And at the same time, Apple is letting in apps that say they have topless pictures right in the title of the app. If it’s aiming to ban all of them, it’s doing a pretty awful job. The Hypocrisy Perhaps my favorite thing about all of this though is the hypocrisy that is staring back at each one of us who have an iPhone or iPod touch. Load up iTunes on the device, you can buy any number of movies that have plenty of nudity, sex, sadistic violence, prolonged violence, and any combination of them. Yet if you want an app that has any of those, forget about it. I can understand why Apple would want to restrict mature apps before it had parental controls in place for them, but now it has those in place — there should be no reason why an adult shouldn’t be allowed to get an application with nudity in it if they want. Especially if that same type of content is available on the device through movies in the iTunes store. (Not to mention through any number of websites using the Safari browser.) I understand that the store is run by Apple and it has the right to accept or reject whatever content it wishes, but again, this is about an absurd gray area for developers and hypocrisy. The gray area, I believe, is making app screeners lives a living hell, and all of us have to suffer for it. I can’t tell you how many emails we get from developers complaining that their apps have been in Apple’s approval queue for weeks or months with no response. Some of these developers are hoping to make a living off of these apps, yet Apple is backlogged in the approval process because it has to check for things like a certain level of nudity in an app, rather than letting the rating system do its job. Apple hasn’t responded to multiple attempts to contact it on this matter. Frankly, I don’t think it knows what it really wants to do in this regard. Judging by its own rating system, it wants to allow “Nudity” with a capital “N,” but not “nudity.” Or maybe it’s that the nudity can’t be “graphic.” But how are topless pictures graphic? And if those are graphic, what is non-graphic nudity? Maybe it means that it wants to allow for “tasteful” nudity, but again, that’s a big gray area. Is Apple — and by Apple I mean app screeners — now going to be arbiters of taste? As if they needed any more to do. I think what Apple really wants to see is the image below. And that’s too bad. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Submit Your StartUp To TechCrunch50 NOW For Your Chance to Pitch Kevin Rose, Sean Parker and Yossi Vardi Posted: 29 Jun 2009 12:37 PM PDT Digg founder Kevin Rose, Founders Fund partner Sean Parker and leading Israeli angel investor Yossi Vardi will return to our third-annual TechCrunch50 conference Panel of Experts September 14 - 15 in San Francisco. Our experts judge the fifty startups launching at the event and discuss each of the demos on stage as a group. Yossi, Sean and Kevin were experts last year and return based on popular demand with Roelof Botha, Marc Andreessen and Marissa Mayer. We have an amazing line-up of new and returning experts, and additional judges will be announced over the coming weeks. If you’re a new startup, and want a shot to launch at TechCrunch50 and pitch our expert advisors on stage, you have until June 30 to submit your application. That’s tomorrow night. (Late applications will be accepted until we close our 50 slots, but companies who submitted on time will be reviewed first.) All the details for the conference are here. TechCrunch50 is an action-packed conference where fifty new startups launch over two days. The event will be held at the San Francisco Design Center, a huge and beautiful venue where we packed nearly 2,000 participants last year. Tickets for the event can be purchased here courtesy of Eventbrite (extra early-bird pricing is available until June 30). More on the TechCrunch50 blog. Kevin Rose Kevin Rose is the founder and chief architect of Digg. Kevin started Digg in September 2004 as a personal project. His initial idea was to conduct a social experiment in how masses of users could control and promote news and other content on the Web, without external editorial control. After a very short time, he realized the power of his idea, as Digg was becoming a resource for breaking news stories and developed a strong user following. Kevin is also a co-founder of the Internet Television Network Revision3 where as a member of the board he provides strategic direction to the company. CrunchBase profile. Sean Parker Sean Parker is the co-founder and Chairman of Causes on Facebook and MySpace, a new network that aims to enable large-scale political and social activism on the Internet. Sean is also a Managing Partner at The Founders Fund, an early stage venture capital firm based in San Francisco . Previously, Sean was the co-founder of the category defining Web ventures Napster, Plaxo, and Facebook. At Napster, Sean helped to design the Napster client software and led the company's initial financing and strategy. Under Sean's leadership, Napster became the fastest adopted client software application in history. Following Napster, Sean co-founded and served as President of Plaxo, where he pioneered the viral engineering techniques used to deploy Plaxo’s flagship smart address book product, ultimately acquiring more than 15 million users. In 2004, Sean left Plaxo to become the founding President of Facebook, one of the most rapidly growing sites on the Internet today. Sean sits on the boards of several private companies. CrunchBase profile. Yossi Vardi Yossi Vardi is an Israeli entrepreneur most famous for being the original investor in ICQ - the first Internet-wide instant messaging system. Vardi has invested in over 50 tech companies in diverse areas of software, energy, Internet, mobile, cleantech, and others. Vardi has been an active civil servant in Israel through projects involving energy and infrastructure. He also co-founded Alon, an Israeli oil company. Vardi acted as an advisor to the World Bank and the United Nations Development Program on issues of energy in the developing world. Vardi has received many awards including The Prime Minister Award, The Industry Award, Entrepreneur of the Year (Tel Aviv University), and the CEO!'s Entrepreneurs Hall of Fame from the Collegiate Entrepreneurs' Organization. CrunchBase profile. We’re really lucky to have the corporate support of some of the best names in the business. Sequoia Capital, Charles River Ventures and Perkins Coie all returned quickly to support us for the third year in a row. Google, Founders Fund, MySpace and Microsoft are back for their second year of partnership. Additional partners will be named in the months leading up to the conference. Want to learn more? Partner and exhibitor details here. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Xing To Give Up China And Make Way For LinkedIn In The US? Posted: 29 Jun 2009 11:44 AM PDT LinkedIn has bolstered its position as America’s leading business social network by the month lately, with Germany-based Xing as the only company regarding itself a worthy competitor in the last few years. But now those days seem to be over - in the US and China, at least. Today German newspaper Hamburger Abendblatt published an interview [GER] with Xing CEO Stefan Groß-Selbeck (who recently replaced founder Lars Hinrichs), and he revealed a couple of interesting tidbits of information about the future direction of his company (find a horrible, Google-translated version of the full interview in English here). Talking in broad strokes, Groß-Selbeck said 3.5 million of the 7.5 million Xing members are based out of Germany, Austria and German-speaking Switzerland. This isn’t really that surprising, given the background of the company. But the interview also marks the first time a Xing representative publicly (albeit indirectly) admitted losing in the USA and China. Groß-Selbeck said he rather sees Xing’s future in those countries where the company has opened offices: Spain, Italy and the rapidly growing web market of Turkey. This statement was followed by him dodging a question about Xing’s previous plans to enter the US and China (he specifically responded that the focus lies on said countries and Xing plans to double its German user base in the next years). In other words, Xing seems to have stopped thinking about expanding into those regions for the time being. My guess is LinkedIn never really feared the Germans entering their home market anyway, as a) almost no American really knows Xing, b) about half of LinkedIn’s 42 million members live in the US, c) coffers are filled to the rim and d) a $1 billion valuation is sure to let all key employees sleep soundly (Xing’s current market cap at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange: $220 million). Google Trends shows that LinkedIn outclasses Xing in global traffic, too: But Xing backing up in the US and China isn’t necessarily good news for LinkedIn. Their strategic decision won’t make it easier for LinkedIn to gain market share in said European countries where Xing already boasts a strong brand name and position. Here, LinkedIn is in for an uphill battle, which may take years to win (especially as Groß-Selbeck also said in the interview he intends to boost the number of employees from 240 to 360). And China has no shortage of business social networks either (Tianji, Wealink [CN] or Alibaba’s Ren Mai Tong to name just a few). LinkedIn is currently available in four languages (English, Spanish, French and German), with more to come soon. The only office outside the US is located in London. In Europe, LinkedIn is particularly strong in Belgium, Holland, France, Great Britain and Denmark). Traffic in China is negligible for both LinkedIn and Xing. Quick note: German is my mother tongue, which means I didn’t have to rely on the Google translation linked to above when writing this posting. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Apple Wants You To Know Steve Jobs Is Back At Work Posted: 29 Jun 2009 11:28 AM PDT Steve Jobs is officially back at work, according to Apple PR. Even though he had a liver transplant earlier this year, a detail which was leaked to the Wall Street Journal and conveniently reported on a Friday night after the markets had closed. Last week, Jobs was spotted back on Apple’s campus and was even quoted in a press release! Today, Apple is hammering home the message that Jobs is back on the job, telling multiple news organizations from ABC News to Bloomberg to the New York Times to Reuters the exact same canned quote (sometimes attributed to spokesman Steve Dowling, sometimes not). Steve is back to work, Jobs is at Apple a few days a week and working at home the remaining days. We are very glad to have him back. Hopefully, he is working from home more than from the office until he is fully recovered. But what is all of this messaging about? When Jobs took his medical leave of absence in January, he said he would return by June 30. This is Apple’s way of telling investors that he kept to that deadline despite the seriousness of his operation. The official story is that he is back, even if only part-time. But honestly, if he took another six months, would anyone blame him? Apple’s stock has always been tied closely to Steve Jobs, but if the past six months have taught investors anything it is that the company’s fortunes are tied even closer to its products. And Apple’s products are on fire right now. Over the past six months, the stock is up 82 percent. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Facebook Names Genentech Exec David Ebersman As CFO Posted: 29 Jun 2009 11:17 AM PDT Facebook has just named former Genentech Chief Financial Officer David Ebersman as its new CFO. The news comes three months after Facebook ousted Gideon Yu from the position, citing at the time its desire to find someone with “public company experience” (which was bizawrre given the fact that Yu had public company experience). At the time of Yu’s departure there was speculation that he had been unable to secure investments at the company’s lofty $15 billion valuation established by the Microsoft deal, and that the company was considering an early IPO. Since then, things have changed: Facebook just raised a $200 million investment from Russian firm DST at a $10 billion valuation, which means it has plenty of money to keep its server farms churning and keeping pace with the site’s staggering growth. Ebersman had been CFO at Genentech up until the company’s acquisition by Roche. From the press release: Facebook today announced that David Ebersman, the former executive vice president and chief financial officer (CFO) of Genentech, the pioneering biotechnology firm recently acquired by Roche, will become the company's chief financial officer. Ebersman will report to Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Founder Mark Zuckerberg. He will oversee Facebook's finance, accounting, investor relations, and real estate functions. He also becomes a part of the company's executive management team, which directs all aspects of company strategy, planning and operations. Ebersman will formally start in September 2009. "We received a lot of interest in the CFO position and had the opportunity to meet with many impressive candidates," said Mark Zuckerberg. "We quickly recognized that David was the right person for Facebook. He was Genentech’s CFO while revenue tripled, and his success in scaling the finance organization of a fast growing company will be important to Facebook." "After meeting with Mark and the rest of the team, I was thoroughly impressed with everyone's drive and sense of purpose to help people connect and share," noted Ebersman. "Mark is constantly pushing the company forward and he's assembled a world-class team that is achieving remarkable results both for its users and as a business. I'm excited to join this effort and this new industry." Ebersman worked at Genentech for nearly 15 years. He served as the firm's executive vice president and CFO from 2006 through April 2009, when Roche Group acquired the company. Prior to joining the company's finance organization, he was senior vice president of Product Operations. He joined Genentech as a business development analyst. Previously, he was a research analyst at Oppenheimer & Company Inc. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

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