The Latest from TechCrunch

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• Audience: A New York Event Where Technology And Art Collide
• Office.com Goes Live
• Forget The Apple TV, Wait Until You See The Apple TV!
• What Wolfram Alpha Really Did This Summer: Struck A Deal With Bing.
• Late To The Game: Adobe Now Lets You Share Videos On Photoshop.com
• Flickr v. Free Speech. Where Is Their Courage?
• Microsoft Stores Now Hiring. An Apple Store “Genius” Is A Microsoft Store “Retail Technical Advisor”
• ReTweet.com Takes On TweetMeme’s Button With Cash And An Annoying Video
• Apple Continues To Right App Store Wrongs. Obama “Hope” App Is Go.
• Tipjoy Heads To The Deadpool
• Free Beer! Foursquare Starts Alerting Users Of Nearby Mayor Deals
• Facebook Syndicates Updates From Pages To Twitter, Still Holds User Updates Hostage
• Lifehacker Founder Wants To Hack Your Tweets With A New App
• Is The iPhone Mom The New Soccer Mom?
• Listen: Google Launches An Audio Search Engine For Android
• Twitter Gets Another New Design!
• Twitter Can Now Know Where You Tweet
• New Web App ‘Makes Sweet Love’ To Bing APIs, Lets You Search As You Type
• Meet The Fune, Microsoft’s New Smart Phone (It’s Really Hot) - Humor
• Apparently The Safest Browser Is Whoever Is Paying Yahoo The Most
• Guides May Be Less Likely To Dance To ChaCha
• CheckedProfile Is Out To Bust That Fake Profile
• Yahoo Recommends Firefox Users To Switch To The “New, Safer IE8″

Audience: A New York Event Where Technology And Art Collide Posted: 21 Aug 2009 08:49 AM PDT There is a cool new event in New York this November being organized by my friends Loren Feldman and Anton Mannering called Audience that I’ll be speaking at. It’s a lot different than any other tech event I’ve spoken at. The speakers (just a few have been announced so far) include tech people, artists and others: “Bringing together some of the most exceptional people in the world. From the entertainers who engage audiences directly to the statisticians who measure them, to the technologists building tools to help us reach new and larger audiences and engage with them.” We’ll post more on the event later, but the site just went live and the Audience team is offering up to 100 TechCrunch readers a $100 discount off of the regular $549 price. Use the code “TECHCRUNCH.” Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Office.com Goes Live Posted: 21 Aug 2009 07:26 AM PDT Microsoft recently became the new, proud owner of the attractive generic domain name Office.com after purchasing it from a U.S. entrepreneur for an undisclosed amount. Rather than reserving the name for its upcoming online suite of business software services, the domain name went live this morning with a forward to the Microsoft Office Online website. For reference, that website is designed to help people learn more about Microsoft Office’s desktop software although it does also link to some of its web-based products (e.g. Microsoft Office Live). Likely, the domain name will be used for better purposes later on (at least, I hope so). For more information about Microsoft’s plans, read our “The Complete Guide To Microsoft's Office 2010″ post. An excerpt: Most certainly a direct response to Google Apps, Microsoft is rolling out lightweight, FREE, Web browser versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote. All based in the cloud, the web-based versions of these products have fewer features than their desktop cousins but still give users basic tools to edit and change documents. (Hat tip to Patrick) Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Forget The Apple TV, Wait Until You See The Apple TV! Posted: 21 Aug 2009 06:50 AM PDT Gene Munster of 1313 Mockingbird Lane and Piper Jaffray is positing that because the Apple TV isn’t doing so well that Apple will soon sell a TV with AppleTV features built-in, an idea so ludicrous that it caused me to spit out my Metamucil. Let’s look at his reasoning: the AppleTV is “losing ground” to other subscription services - I’d argue it’s lost ground to everything and is now, in its current incarnation, an also-ran - and so Apple will create a DVR combo/download system with Hulu, Joost, FARK, Digg, JDate, and other web services built-in. So that’s not so far fetched, right? But get this: Munster thinks a TV is also in the cards. An Apple television set within the next two years that could wirelessly sync with iPods, iPhones and Macs. “Such a device would command a premium among a competitive field of budget TVs; we believe Apple could differentiate itself with software that makes home entertainment simple and solves a pain point for consumers (complicated TV and component systems).” He’s got all the points right - Apple sells at a premium, Apple thinks different, Apple can solve pain points - but he gets one thing wrong: TVs are so off Apple’s message that he might as well be proposing the manufacture and sale of spear-fishing gear. Apple is in the living room race, to be sure. But a TV isn’t the way they’re going to win it. The set-top box is much more logical and they could build a kick ass DVR inside a sexy little box. They sell hardware with an upgrade cycle of about eight months - a year on the topside - so for them to blow out a TV would be non-conducive to their goals. Something smaller that sits next to the TV can be upgraded an infinitum. Most folks keep their TVs for years, even decades. Why would Apple want to be in that market? Apple knows it’s got a winner with the iPhone OS and an App Store-containing, video-streaming, DVR-ing UberApple TV is a sure bet. However an Apple TV TV? Not so much. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

What Wolfram Alpha Really Did This Summer: Struck A Deal With Bing. Posted: 21 Aug 2009 05:28 AM PDT Computer scientist Stephen Wolfram gave a report today listing what the team at Wolfram Alpha, his new search engine, did this summer. They added new knowledge domains and over 2 million lines of code, classified 54,233 bugs and suggestions, and generally fixed what doesn’t work. (”Close to half the time that Wolfram|Alpha doesn't give a result, it's . . . because it doesn't understand what's being asked.”) What he left out of his school report was the most interesting thing that actually happened to Wolfram Alpha this summer. After long talks, it finally struck a deal with Bing to license some of its data, according to sources close to Wolfram. If nothing else, this is yet another jab at Google, which has a geek rivalry with Wolfram over the growing area of using structured data to improve search results. In fact, there was buzz among insider search circles back in May that Wolfram was going to be part of the initial Bing launch announcement. At that time, I put the question to Microsoft senior VP Yusuf Mehdi who hemmed and hawed. “We are talking to a lot of different folks,” he told me. The only thing he denied was that Wolfram would be part of the initial launch, which it wasn’t. The original excitement around Wolfram’s launch quickly died down, whereas Bing’s continued to accelerate (see a comparison graph of both launches). It helps, of course, to have a $100 million marketing budget and be backed by Microsoft, but Bing actually seems to be striking a chord with regular search consumers. Maybe that is because Wolfram Alpha is not as approachable as Bing. It is good at “computing answers” to arcane questions, and has some very impressive technology under the hood. But it has a long way to go before it can deliver results that really Wow you. As Paul Carr puts it, Wolfram Alpha is the “technological equivalent of a boring uncle; the method was more impressive than the effect, and so the hairs on the back of my neck remain unstood.” The main problem seems to be one of presentation and effect, areas where Bing does very well. One of Bing’s main strategies is to present different types of information in different ways. Travel search results look different than product or image search results. Perhaps Bing’s deal with Wolfram is to license some of its data to create a specific science category search or a Q&A portion of the site. Whatever it is, if it turns out to be popular, Bing might end up licensing more data for more categories of search. In the end, Wolfram could have more luck licensing its data to other search engines than bringing people to its site, despite the surge in “fall traffic” Stephen Wolfram is still hoping for. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Late To The Game: Adobe Now Lets You Share Videos On Photoshop.com Posted: 21 Aug 2009 05:01 AM PDT With online video hosting still in a rather embryonic phase, it’s only natural for Adobe Systems to lead innovation in the space by making it possible for users to upload and share motion pictures with friends and family online. Well, that would have been a good story lead five years ago, and then some. But please forgive my sarcasm for Adobe is lauding the new support for video on its Photoshop.com property today as if it were remarkably cutting-edge. With the newly added video upload capabilities, Photoshop.com users can now upload videos up to 200MB in size through their browsers, or up to 2GB through the Adobe AIR Uploader in most file formats. The videos can subsequently be viewed directly on Photoshop.com (like this one). All Photoshop.com users receive 2GB of free storage. Since Photoshop.com is (obviously) mostly known for its smooth photo-editing features, there doesn’t appear to be an option to edit videos yet, although I suspect these capabilities will be added soon enough. Adobe is also debuting a Group Albums feature in Photoshop.com today, enabling users to group specific photos and videos together into one album and easily share that with your friends or relatives. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Flickr v. Free Speech. Where Is Their Courage? Posted: 21 Aug 2009 03:34 AM PDT One thing I’ve learned over the years is this - screwing over your users while yelling “the lawyers made me do it!” rarely ends well. Particularly when the lawyers are just being lazy, and free speech rights are at stake. Flickr really stepped in it this time. And they’ve sparked a free speech and copyright fascism debate that is unlikely to cool down any time soon. Sometime last week they took down a photoshopped image of President Obama that makes him look like the Heath Ledger (Joker) character from The Dark Knight. The image was created and uploaded to Flickr by 20 year old college student Firas Alkhateeb while “bored over winter school break.” It was also later altered yet again by someone else and used to create anti-obama posters that went up in Los Angeles. Thomas Hawk has a good overview of some of the other details, but the short version is the image was removed by Flickr sometime last week due to “due to copyright-infringement concerns.” People are angry over the takedown. There are lots of pictures mocking President Bush on a Time Magazine cover on Flickr that haven’t been removed. And of the Heath Ledger Joker character. The DMCA Excuse Yesterday Yahoo fired back at everyone who complained, saying that they were required to remove the image pursuant to a DMCA takedown notice. Flickr’s director of community Heather Champ says “In this intance, the Yahoo! Copyright Team here in the US received a complete Notice of Infringement as outlined by the DMCA (Digitial Millenium Copyright Act). Under the DMCA, an individual may choose to file a counterclaim” She added “We very much value freedom of speech and creativity.” DMCA abuse is a growing problem on the Internet, and luckily the EFF often comes in to defend people who are unfairly being accused of copyright infringement. And I don’t think there is a lawyer in America who would argue that Alkhateeb isn’t perfectly within his rights to create and distribute this image under fair use and parody defenses. Yahoo/Flickr should have asked its attorneys if the copyright claim had any validity at all before removing the image, particularly since in this case the image is so clearly non-infringing and also is so politically charged. Yes, Yahoo would have had theoretical liability by not complying if the image was later proven to be copyright infringing. But as I said above, any lawyer could tell you that this is clearly a fair use of the original Obama image, Time Magazine’s copyright and copyright around the movie. In the past Flickr has deleted accounts of users who are critical of President Obama, but as far as I know nothing like this was done to users who were critical of Bush. It’s clear that the Flickr team wanted to take this image down. Not only was the image removed, but the entire page was taken down with all the comments to the image. There’s nothing in the DMCA that says you have to do that, too. Flickr lost my trust over this issue. They failed to stand up for a user who chose to display his work on Flickr over competitors. They should have had the courage to do the right thing. This is exactly the type of speech that our constitution is supposed to protect. This is not a stolen image. It’s a powerful political expression. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Microsoft Stores Now Hiring. An Apple Store “Genius” Is A Microsoft Store “Retail Technical Advisor” Posted: 21 Aug 2009 03:22 AM PDT Have you ever cured your Windows computer of the dreaded blue screen of death? Then Microsoft may want to hire you! Well, at least to work in their new Microsoft Stores. Yes, the software giant is now hiring for its first two stores in Scottsdale, AZ and Mission Viejo, CA. Here’s a rough outline of what they’re looking for: We're looking for new store employees who love technology and teaching and helping others.  In particular, we're looking for people with technical backgrounds who can help customers choose the best Microsoft products and services for their needs and troubleshoot any technical issue they may have. You can find a list of the specific jobs here. It looks like each location is hiring for 8 different types of positions: Retail Assistant Store Manager, Retail Customer Service Associate-Full Time, Retail Customer Service Associate-Part Time, Retail Inventory Associate, Retail Sales Associate-Full Time, Retail Sales Associate-Part Time, Retail Technical Advisor, and Retail Trainer. Those all seem pretty standard for electronic retail, including Apple Stores. Of course, Apple fancies the positions up with nicer sounding titles. What Microsoft calls a “Retail Technical Advisor”, Apple calls a “Genius”. And what Microsoft calls a “Retail Customer Service Associate”, Apple calls a “Concierge”. What Microsoft calls a “Retail Sales Associate”, Apple calls a “Personal Shopping Specialist”, and so on. The headline on the Apple Store jobs page reads “More than a retail job”, so it’s kind of funny that each of the Microsoft Store jobs have “retail” in the title. And here are the “come work at our stores” pitches by the two companies: Microsoft: You have unique experiences, skills and passions—and we believe you can bring them all to Microsoft for a rich, rewarding career and lifestyle that will surprise you with its breadth and potential. Just imagine the excitement and satisfaction of what you can do, where you can go, and the difference you can make with the resources of Microsoft behind you. Apple: Be the face of Apple—help people learn about, shop for, and get the most out of their Apple products. That means we’re not just looking for people with retail experience. Creative pros, technical experts, and business consultants have a place here, too. [thanks Michael] Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

ReTweet.com Takes On TweetMeme’s Button With Cash And An Annoying Video Posted: 21 Aug 2009 02:17 AM PDT You might think that those green “retweet” buttons you see across the web (including on this site) are controlled by Twitter, but they’re actually the key component to TweetMeme, the tweeted link aggregator. And now that key component is under attack by the new service ReTweet.com. ReTweet.com, which launched this week looking shockingly similar to TweetMeme, now has a contest that will reward $10,000 to a blogger that installs their retweet button on their site. While they don’t explicitly call out TweetMeme’s button, they do have this very blurb featured prominently on the site: “Add the Real Retweet Button to Your Website!”, which of course implies that the TweetMeme retweet button is not the real one. All a blogger has to do to win the cash is install the button and fill out a short form to let ReTweet.com know where it is installed. Oh, and ReTweet.com has to surpass 1 million visitors in the next 30 days. So far, after about a day, they’re at just over 30,000 visitors. And just incase the $10,000 doesn’t entice you to install their button, ReTweet.com has also commissioned the following extremely annoying video apparently made by a fitness blogger. Actually, this video may be genius. I could see either “retweet your tweets on the web” or “in THIS economy?” turning into their own memes. And I can certainly see this video showing up on TweetMeme. [thanks Sean] Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Apple Continues To Right App Store Wrongs. Obama “Hope” App Is Go. Posted: 21 Aug 2009 01:13 AM PDT Last month, we wrote about an iPhone app getting rejected because it featured artwork of President Obama. Specifically, it was Shepard Fairey's famous "HOPE" image of Obama that Apple found inappropriate stating that it “ridicules public figures”. Of course that’s ridiculous, and the image is hanging in the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian. And now Apple is acknowledging that the rejection was unjust. The developer, Start Mobile, received the following email from Apple today: After further investigation, we have decided that Start Mobile Wallpaper Gallery is in compliance with our SDK agreement & PLA. We would like to ask that you resubmit Start Mobile Wallpaper Gallery at your earliest convenience if you would still like this application considered for the App Store. Please let me know once your binary has been uploaded and I will ensure an expedited review. Regards, Amy iPhone Developer Program There are three important things to note here. First, this is another example of Apple going back and reviewing a rejection, and realizing they made a mistake. Second, it’s offering the wronged developers an “expedited review”. Certainly, that’s the least they can do for these developers as some have likely lost quite a bit of money due to ridiculous rejections (though this particular app is free). Third, while we’re not entirely sure this has just started, the inclusion of App Store reviewer’s names is something that we haven’t seen in emails previously. For example, in the last round of emails Start Mobile got letting them know why their app was rejected, it was just signed “iPhone Developer Program”. Now, we get “Amy”. Of course, maybe Amy is happy to attach her name to a nice email, and perhaps names still aren’t used in rejections, but at the very least this would seem to further humanize an App Store process that has seemed to be run by random robots up until this point. After months of ridiculous rejection after ridiculous rejection, Apple has seemingly been on a mission get clean up its act. And it has none other than Senior VP Phil Schiller leading the charge, and actually personally handling some of these corrections/misunderstandings. Apple also now has a PR team dedicated to the App Store. Based on tips we receive, certainly some developers are still upset with the process, but we have noted that the ridiculous rejection emails have seemed to grind to a halt the past couple of weeks. All of this is a very good sign that Apple is correcting the App Store approval process problem that lingered for far too long. Start Mobile plans to re-submit the Wallpaper Gallery app tonight, and it should be available in the App Store tomorrow, we’re told. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Tipjoy Heads To The Deadpool Posted: 20 Aug 2009 10:46 PM PDT Tipjoy, a startup that allowed users to easily collect ‘tips’ from their readers and fans in the form of small Paypal transfers, is closing up shop. Earlier this evening Co-founder Ivan Kirigin posted a note to the Tipjoy blog announcing the site’s shutdown. Users with an outstanding positive balance will be able to cash out, but the rest of the site has been turned off. Tipjoy tried to make web tips feasible by lowering the barrier readers would have to clear as much as possible — to leave a tip, users only had to enter their Email address, with no credit card needed. The amount of money left to a site was effectively a pledge to pay up at some point down the line (Tipjoy tallied up your tips so you could pay them all at once). Unfortunately, users often didn’t take the time to tip at all, and those that did usually didn’t actually pay up. The company launched last year as part of the Y Combinator class of Spring 2008 and while it saw steady improvements, like a new API in May 2008, it was seeing slow uptake. Later developments included an API that allowed users to send payments over Twitter, and a useful premium Twitter app called Tata-tweet. It also attempted to expand beyond tips to become a more generalized payment service. But despite a solid run, Tipjoy was unable to gain significant traction. From the site’s blog (be sure to read their post if you have an outstanding balance): We have decided against continuing to pursue additional funding. After a long and hard look at the market and the situation, we didn’t feel it made sense. When we evaluate why there’s been so much hype about payments on Twitter, and yet so little traction for us (and even far less for our competitors) it is clear to us that the reason is that a 3rd party payment service doesn’t add enough value. We strongly believe that social payments will work on a social network, provided that they’re done within the platform and not as a 3rd party. “Simple, social payments” is *the* philosophy needed to do digital payments right, but once a service groks that, they need only to implement it on their own. We’ve been the thought leaders in this space, we see the hype and excitement, and yet we know very intimately the difficulties in gaining actual traction. The only way to get around this is for the platforms themselves to control payments - then all people wanting to operate on that platform would have to play along. We believe that a payments system directly and officially integrated into social networks such as Twitter and Facebook will be a huge success. Thank you to everyone who has supported and helped us along the way. If you have any questions, get in touch: help@tipjoy.com Thanks, Ivan & Abby - Team Tipjoy Tipjoy has been added to the Deadpool. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Free Beer! Foursquare Starts Alerting Users Of Nearby Mayor Deals Posted: 20 Aug 2009 07:19 PM PDT Last month, we wrote about Foursquare’s potential from a business perspective thanks to its location data. This week, the service has started actively tapping that potential by alerting users when locations close to them are offering special deals. As you can see in the image, a large blue alert now appears at the bottom of check-in pages on Foursquare’s iPhone app to let you know if there is a deal at a place close to the place where you currently are. With the headline “mayor offer nearby”, these deals reward mayors of particular places. Users can become the “mayor” of a location on Foursquare by checking in at a place more than any other user over a 60 day period. For businesses, that’s obviously something that would be good to reward. And something like a free beer seems like a very small price to pay for getting people excited about coming to your place more often. While there aren’t a lot of places offering these mayor deals yet, a number of establishments in New York and San Francisco (the cities where the service is most popular) are starting to pop up. There have also been some deals in places like LA and Denver. In confirming that Foursquare is now actively promoting these mayor deals, co-founder Dennis Crowley also tells us that they’re working on doing some new “ad system stuff” for the app, but didn’t elaborate on that. It seems logical Foursquare will eventually partner up with local businesses to notify users of other types of deals — basically, a location-based coupon system. Crowley also confirmed that a new version of the iPhone app, 1.4, should be out soon with a lot of new “bells and whistles.” One of those new features will be the ability to see who else is checked in at a place that you’re checked in to. That should do wonders for new friend discovery. And Crowley sounds excited about the new Twitter geolocation API announced today. He says they’re going to try to squeeze some of it into the new build if they can. As I noted earlier, it would be a great feature if when you tweet out your Foursquare check-ins, it could also attach the location of the place so people reading your tweets don’t have to manually look it up. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Facebook Syndicates Updates From Pages To Twitter, Still Holds User Updates Hostage Posted: 20 Aug 2009 06:00 PM PDT A ray of light is beginning to shine from Facebook’s black hole of information. The site has just released a feature that will allow Facebook Page owners to syndicate their updates from Facebook to Twitter — something that users have been asking for for ages. It may not sound like much, but this is a big deal. Up until now, it’s been quite easy to import Twitter updates into Facebook, as there are a variety of Facebook apps that let you do it with varying degrees of control. But it’s always been a one-way road — there was no easy way to transfer Facebook updates over to Twitter. Today that changes. Page managers will be able to share all updates to come from their Pages, or they can pick and choose which types of content they’d like to share over Twitter. Of course, there’s one major omission from the new feature: you can’t syndicate updates from your personal Facebook profile to Twitter. In effect, the only people to benefit from this are celebrities, brands, and other users that maintain Facebook Pages — something that your average Facebook member doesn’t do. So why not open this to everyone? Facebook has said a lot about its “openness”, but advocates for openness and data portability have long criticized the site for being something of a black hole of information. Sure, you can import some data into third party sites using Facebook Connect, but these connections are fleeting and limited. There are a few reasons why Facebook might hold out on opening this to all users. One of these is the real-time search race that’s currently dominated by Twitter. Facebook is also looking to get a piece of this action — it recently revamped its search functionality, and will soon encourage users to share their updates with ‘Everyone‘, meaning that updates won’t be restricted to users in your social graph. Twitter may have the head start in this race, but even if a fraction of Facebook’s 250+ million users begins sharing with “Everyone” they may well be able to overtake Twitter as the de facto site for real-time search. However, if Facebook users are also syndicating their status updates to Twitter, some of this advantage will be lost. On the other hand, if Facebook does eventually allow users to export their status updates to Twitter, it would actually increase the number of visitors to Facebook — every time you shared a new photo album or video, it would be hosted on Facebook rather than sites like TwitPic. Going further, if Facebook did allow for users to syndicate updates while making it easier to import their friends’ Twitter updates, as FriendFeed did, Facebook could itself become an extremely popular Twitter client — a client that allowed for inline commenting, ‘Likes’, and the other niceties, which could help it actually steal the conversation from Twitter. For more on this idea, see this post by MG Siegler. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Lifehacker Founder Wants To Hack Your Tweets With A New App Posted: 20 Aug 2009 05:47 PM PDT Since Gina Trapani stepped down from her role running Lifehacker, the blog she started under Gawker, she’s apparently been busy working on a new kind of Twitter application. Today, she gave a preview of what it will be on her new blog Smarterware. Tentatively called Twitalytic, it’s a self-hosted web-based application that grabs your tweets, archives them, and uses them to give you some interesting data about the people you follow and those who follow you. As you can see on the preview page Trapani has made public, one interesting thing that Twitalytic does is show you just how many people replied to individual tweets you’ve made. If you click on the link for these replies, you can see each of them on a new page. But that’s just one basic thing you can do with the service. Here’s more from Trapani: That listing is the most basic thing Twitalytic can do. When you set it up and log into the app, you can curate replies and see other views of your data, like your "least likely" followers, your least and most active friends, your most replied-to tweets and more. For each of your friends or followers, you can see mutual friends, conversations you've had, and even what Twitter client that person uses most. If you're approaching the 3,200 tweet mark, Twitalytic will also back up your tweets and let you export them into a simple text file. While she notes that other services do some of what her app does, Twitalytic is a bit different because you install it on your own server to use it. You can grab the pre-alpha code on Github. While not having a centralized app hosted elsewhere will limit Twitalytic’s appeal, plenty of folks will undoubtedly appreciate the ability to archive your own tweets and see more information about them. Here are some more screenshots: Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Is The iPhone Mom The New Soccer Mom? Posted: 20 Aug 2009 05:42 PM PDT According to a recent study done by mobile ad network Greystripe, there’s a relatively new mobile advertising demographic on the street: iPhone moms. Similar to the “soccer moms” demographic, iPhone moms could be a new consumer segment that has vast potential for advertisers and app developers. Greystripe says that “iPhone moms,” which constitute women (with children) who own iPhones, currently make up 29.5% of all iPhone users. Greystripe says that in the past, “soccer moms” has not been a group that advertisers could reach through mobile applications because they tended to be late adopters. I’m not so sure about this assertion, considering the rapid growth of “Mommy bloggers” over the past few years. But as the iPhone becomes central to moms to manage finances, family budgets, to-do lists and vacations, it's sure to become a valuable and portable personal computer and too for the Mommy demographic. There’s even a blog that’s popped up devoted to iPhone Moms. And Moms use the iPhone not just for themselves, but to download kid-friendly apps for their children to use. The ad report surveyed a group of iPhone moms as part of their quarterly Advertising Insights Report, and has collected statics on the demographics and preferences of moms in their ad network. Some of the stats may be intriguing to both advertisers and app developers. For example, on average, 96.2% of moms who own iPhones are involved in household purchase decisions, showing the purchasing power fo this particular demographic. Of iPhone moms with four or more children, 92.3% own a gaming console compared to 50% of iPhone moms with one child and 69.9% of iPhone Moms surveyed own a Nintendo Wii. It appears that Blackberrys and other smartphones are other phones are becoming increasingly popular amongst the mommy demographic as well. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Listen: Google Launches An Audio Search Engine For Android Posted: 20 Aug 2009 04:50 PM PDT Hear that? Google has just unveiled the latest addition to Google Labs, and it’s sure to crowd-pleaser for Android users. Dubbed Google Listen, the new project is an Android application that lets you quickly search through web audio content, which you can then directly download or stream to your phone. The app also acts as a podcast manager, allowing you to subscribe to audio feeds and download new content over the air. Using the app is simple: you head to the search bar, then enter whatever it is you’re looking for, be it a specific podcast or a more general term like “tech”. Google will pull up the most relevant podcast and audio clips scattered across the web, which you can begin streaming immediately. If you’re interested in multiple matches you can build a queue, and Listen will automatically begin playing from your subscriptions once it reaches the end of the playlist. At this point the app is indexing “thousands” of content sources in English only, but Google intends to expand to other languages. The site’s FAQ also hints that it may index video in the future as well. Here’s how Google describes Listen in the company’s blog post: Listen quickly finds podcasts and web audio relevant to your searches, lets you stream over-the-air or download for later, and subscribe to fresh content from your favorite feeds and searches. In short, Listen helps organize the world of audio information and makes it easily accessible anytime, anywhere. For now, Google Listen is only available on Android. This may be because the app is still early in development, but its omission from the iPhone may also stem from the issues Google has recently had getting its applications approved for the App Store — in the last few months, Apple has rejected a native application of Google Latitude, and also banned all Google Voice apps. Even without the recent controversy, Apple may well have smacked the app down for competing with iTunes’ podcasting functionality (other apps have been rejected for this in the past). Whatever the case, Google has a sense of humor about the devices it plans to support. Oh Newton, we hardly knew ye. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Twitter Gets Another New Design! Posted: 20 Aug 2009 04:10 PM PDT Twitter has been undergoing a lot of design changes recently. But the update today may be the best. (Yes, the CSS is completely borked right now. Yes, people are still finding ways to talk about it on Twitter. Maybe the Russians stole it?) Here’s the new design when you’re logged out: And here it is when you’re logged in: Update: It looks like they’ve reverted back to the old design. Too bad, I liked the new one. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Twitter Can Now Know Where You Tweet Posted: 20 Aug 2009 02:20 PM PDT Location is one of the features that a lot of the Twitter apps tack on using things like the iPhone’s geolocation services. It’s a cool feature, but not enough people use it. But they are likely to now that Twitter is adding native support for it with a new API. At first, Twitter is releasing this as a developer preview, co-founder Biz Stone notes on the blog today. This means that third-party apps will be the first to have access to the feature. But Stone also says that support for location on Twitter’s mobile and regular site will come as well. And it’s important to note that the feature will be opt-in, meaning that by default it will be off for users, but if they want to use it, they can turn it on. And they should, because this is potentially a very powerful new feature. Just imagine if a friend tweets something and you can see exactly where they are when they do it. There are no shortage of location-based services attempting to take off right now, but Twitter already has a huge user base and depending on how developers use this new API, Twitter location could replace or bolster many of them. And that’s good news because the main problem that many of these location-based services have is a lack of users. Just imagine if a service like Foursquare was able to send your actual location to Twitter alongside the name of the place you are at. That would save the people who follow you on Twitter but don’t use Foursquare the hassle of looking up the location of the place you are at if they want to meet up with you. It’s potentially powerful stuff. Are there privacy implications? Sure, but that’s why it’s important that this feature is opt-in, at least for now. But Twitter is hardly the only big player entering the location arena. Google has made a series of moves recently to show its support of location-based computing going forward. None is bigger than its Latitude service which is a location-based social network that shows you where your contacts are. And Google also recently introduced location support for Google Maps and the mobile version of its search engine, so if you search for something like a restaurant on your iPhone, it can know where you are and serve up a result close by. And continuing the Facebook versus Twitter saga, it’s interesting to note that Facebook has yet to introduce anything involving location yet. I say “yet” because I think we all know it’s coming. And that will be a big wildcard in the location space because unlike Google, Facebook’s primary purpose is to be a social network where you keep track of friends. And whereas Twitter has tens of millions of users, Facebook has over 250 million users, so how they would react to something like location will be interesting. Hopefully, like Twitter, they’re smart enough to make it opt-in also, at least at first. One way Facebook could have quietly integrated location is with its new iPhone app, something with former TechCrunch developer Henry Work noted the other day. However, they didn’t do that, and now with Twitter in the game, they risk once again losing out to them in a hot new field. [photo: flickr/pixeljones] Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

New Web App ‘Makes Sweet Love’ To Bing APIs, Lets You Search As You Type Posted: 20 Aug 2009 01:35 PM PDT Meet the Real Live Search, a web app with the tagline, “your browser and Bing’s AJAX APIs make sweet love“. No, this isn’t real-time in the sense that you can search services like Twitter (though Bing has been making headway in that respect). Instead, it’s a seach engine that displays results almost immediately after you type each character in a query. For example, if I was to run a query for “TechCrunch”, it would rapidly display results for “T”, “Te”, “Tec”, and so on as I typed out each letter. It’s flashy, fun, and even useful (sometimes). The search engine shows results for images, video, and text, as well as related searches. In my testing I found that the app was helpful sometimes, especially for quick image searches, but for the most part this is a fun diversion more than anything — there aren’t too many search queries that yield good results when you’ve only entered half of a word. Update: As comments below note, this actually is quite useful when you’re subtly modifying the same search query to get even more specific. The app was built by developer Long Zheng of www.istartedsomething.com. In his blog post describing the app, he says that it was built in a few hours and may be prone to bugs (don’t be surprised if increased traffic to the site slows it down for a while). From Zheng’s post: Inspired by the realtime-ness of Google Wave, I wanted to build a prototype search engine that did away with a search button and page loads. Instead, search queries are sent character-by-character to the lightning fast Bing AJAX APIs which returned JSON results easily processed and formatted by Javascript on the page. The UI experience is driven solely by the browser. If nothing else, it’s a reminder that Bing has a solid set of APIs available, though there hasn’t been much attention paid to them recently. Bing is notable for having a less restrictive API than Google — Bing lets you reorder results from the web, while Google does not (Yahoo’s BOSS also gives developers quite a bit of freedom). Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Meet The Fune, Microsoft’s New Smart Phone (It’s Really Hot) - Humor Posted: 20 Aug 2009 01:13 PM PDT “It’s a phone that runs Windows Vista, and it connects to the Internet through America Online.” Let’s end the religious war waging between iPhone and Android fanatics right now and all get our hands on the Fune, Microsoft’s new smart phone. I’m sure the Fapp Store is right around the corner. This is the latest video from UCBcomedy.com, and it made me laugh out loud. (Via DutchCowboys) Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Apparently The Safest Browser Is Whoever Is Paying Yahoo The Most Posted: 20 Aug 2009 11:54 AM PDT Earlier today Robin Wauters posted about Yahoo’s advertorial promotion of IE8 across Yahoo sites. “Get The New, Safer IE8,” says the message, which Robin viewed via Firefox 3. Does Yahoo consider IE8 safer than Firefox? Not if you visit the German Yahoo, which promotes Firefox 3.5 (a tragedy of a browser) by saying “Schneller und smarter: Der neue Firefox 3.5″ (translation: “Faster and smarter: The new Firefox 3.5″). A year ago, when Yahoo and Microsoft were at war, Yahoo promoted Firefox to IE users. So what browser is safest and fastest? As Robin said, “Apparently, Yahoo recommends browsers based on what their latest business alliances are.” My guess is the German staff haven’t received the memo yet. It’s IE, not Firefox, that’s the safest browser this week, guys. Get with the program. As an aside, one Yahoo employee complained this morning that all Yahoo is doing is recommending IE users upgrade to IE8, and Firefox users upgrade to Firefox 3.5, which isn’t the case. After calling Robin an idiot and accusing him of not fact checking, he later apologized. We accept. Update: Poor Yahoo Mexico doesn’t know what to do, so they promote both browsers in the header. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Guides May Be Less Likely To Dance To ChaCha Posted: 20 Aug 2009 11:49 AM PDT Human powered search startup ChaCha has been the subject of a little bit of ridicule at TechCrunch since its launch, thanks to its entertaining snafus and some issues with its business model. Despite its various problems over the years, the company has been able to raise a boatload of money, as much as $62 million, adding another $4 million to the pot most recently. Unfortunately, some of the human “guides” who find the search results for visitors to ChaCha are taking a pay cut once again. Last summer, ChaCha implemented a "Pay-For-Performance" system, that forced guides to work five or more hours per week if they want the higher payrate (20 cents per question), which we said would alienate the site's more casual (but accurate) users. Regular guides would make 10 cents per question. Now, ChaCha has decided to cut the rates of “Voice Transcriber” guides from 4 cents (people who transcribe voicemail questions and answers) to 3 cents per transaction, with the pay cut taking effect last week. ChaCha said that because the startup is answering nearly 600,000 questions a day, they need a workforce of more than 55,000 guides to answer the questions properly. The startup claims that their budget is too small to compensate transcription guides with higher payout. In an email sent to guides, ChaCha said that Transcribers have enjoyed the “relative” highest pay of all guide roles, with other types of guides (i.e. the guides that answer questions) and even ChaCha headquarters staff enduring pay cuts beforehand. We contacted the company to inquire about these cuts, and were told that the “Pay-For-Performance” system was eliminated in February and replaced with a pay system based on the difficulty of the question answered. Many of these guides are only interested in making a quick buck, which is why there are frequently poor search results. But for other guides, ChaCha is an extension of the workday, offering some relatively easy money to help supplement their incomes. Under the new compensation system answering a math question would get a guide 20 cents but answering a more simple question would only get 10 cents. This seems like an improvement to the previous flawed system, which seemed to alienate many guides who actually answer questions correctly. Regardless, the cut from 10 to 3 cents for transcriber guides over the past year is considerable and will likely see some backlash from that faction of guides. Last year, guides were apparently not being paid on time by ChaCha. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

CheckedProfile Is Out To Bust That Fake Profile Posted: 20 Aug 2009 10:53 AM PDT How do you know if someone’s online profile is real? The question has plagued us for some time now, but it’s become increasingly problematic as vast swatches of the mainstream of society goes online and joins a social network, whether it be Twitter, Facebook, or whatever. The problem is of course rife on dating web sites. One of the ways celebrities who arrived early on Twitter verified their profile was to Twitpic themselves in front of their Twitter profile. But now a new startup has taken this verification idea to its logical conclusion. CheckedProfile launches today in the US, but is actually the brainchild of long-time UK entrepreneur Ben Way, who is now based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Here’s how it works. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Yahoo Recommends Firefox Users To Switch To The “New, Safer IE8″ Posted: 20 Aug 2009 09:14 AM PDT Not sure when this started occurring exactly, but Yahoo is apparently now letting Firefox users know that they’d be better off switching to the “new, safer Internet Explorer 8″. Apart from this tweet sent out yesterday, we haven’t noticed anyone noticing, so we suspect it’s fresh and a direct result of the recent Yahoo and Microsoft love-fest. How ironic. About a year ago, following a failed acquisition attempt by Microsoft, Yahoo ran a very different recommendation from their front page, advising Internet Explorer users to switch to the “NEW safer, faster Firefox 3″ instead. Apparently, Yahoo recommends browsers based on what their latest business alliances are. (update: or as Michael puts it, Apparently The Safest Browser Is Whoever Is Paying Yahoo The Most) Maybe they should just develop and market their own browser and rid the confusion? More screenshots: (Hat tip to @jacook11) Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

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