The Latest from TechCrunch

---

• More Bars, Less Security, in More Places: AT&T Can’t Keep Out Hackers
• Chad Hurley: That F1 Racing Team I Invested In Is Just Like YouTube
• Microsoft to Pit Windows Mobile 6.5 and 7 Against One Another?
• Twitter Outcasts: @Home, @Jobs, @Tos And @Privacy
• SEO.com Jumps Into Web Design Business With Graphics.net Acquisition
• Kidlandia Is Bringing Its Personalized Fantasy Maps To A Pottery Barn Kids Near You
• Posterous Finally Has An iPhone App, Could Have Been Way Better
• Like Electronic Music? You’ll Love Mugasha
• Fuze Box: Sitting Pretty with No Public Shareholders and 1.1 Million Users
• Archos To Unveil Android Tablet In Paris On September 15
• Lunch.com Launches Micro Reviews, Reveals Its Quest To Make The World A Better Place
• Droidify: An Unofficial Spotify Android App To Tide You Over
• Lawsuit Against Tesla Dropped
• Heyzap’s Flash Payment Platform Now Gives Publishers A Cut Of The Action
• Yahoo Quietly Rolls Out Yahoo Meme In Spanish
• Simplify Media Launches New Photo App; Simplify Photos
• Pics: Facebook’s Sexier New Inbox Starts Rolling Out
• Silicon Valley Elite Flock To Y Combinator Demo Day
• Crimespotting: Crime Has Never Looked So Good
• TechCrunch50: Ron Conway, Reid Hoffman, Tony Hsieh, Tim O’Reilly, and Robert Scoble join Panel of Experts
• Olark Is A Dead Simple Chat Widget For Site Owners
• You’re Doing It Wrong Part 348: Complete And Utter PR FAIL
• Google Continues To Feed The PubSubHubbub. Google Alerts Now In Real-Time.
• MySpace Confirms iLike Acquisition. Conference Call Livenotes
• Google Doubles Its Cartographers As Maps Continues To Go Wiki-Style

More Bars, Less Security, in More Places: AT&T Can’t Keep Out Hackers Posted: 20 Aug 2009 08:46 AM PDT Kevin’s new phone There’s a guy named Kevin Mitnick who, once upon a time, was public enemy number one when it came to computer crime. Mitnick has turned over a new leaf and is now a computer crime consultant and, apparently, his disloyalty to the script-kiddie credo has made him a target for hackers. These hackers are attacking Mitnick’s account with relative impunity and posting his account info almost daily. As a result, his webhost and AT&T have knocked him off their networks. As Kevin notes: “They can’t seem to secure my account,” Mitnick told The Register. “And then instead of doing something about it, they try to kill the messenger and want to boot me off their network when all I want them to do is to secure my account so no one gets access to my phone records.” One would assume that Mitnick has some fairly good protections put up around his private information and it’s clear that AT&T is the semi-sized hole in his armor. If hackers can get Kevin Mitnick’s information while AT&T sits blithely by and eventually decides rather than fixing the problem they oust him then I can only imagine that our information is probably in boxes in front of a AT&T store in Scranton with the words “PRIVATE CUSTOMER INFORMATION DO NOT DISPOSE” written on them. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Chad Hurley: That F1 Racing Team I Invested In Is Just Like YouTube Posted: 20 Aug 2009 06:56 AM PDT We recently broke the news that YouTube co-founder and CEO Chad Hurley had invested in the new U.S. Formula 1 Racing team USGPE (previously US F1). Now in a series of articles posted on Autosport.com, Hurley shares more details about the investment. The most interesting article was this one, in which Hurley is quoted as saying he believes the new grand prix team can “do a YouTube” and become a huge success by doing things differently. Here’s the full quote: “The business aspect of what attracted me to US F1 is just that, that it is a start-up. And it’s a very similar situation to one that would be in Silicon Valley. It’s a small team of talented, smart individuals trying to break the mould, trying to accomplish something that others think is impossible. I believe in Ken and Peter and the team that they have put together, and I believe that we have a chance to hopefully start from a clean slate and try to build a team in a different way.” Hurley also said he hopes to be able to actually help the racing team “with business relationships, and helping the team with integrating technology - ways that they can leverage and benefit from social media and the Internet broadly.” The full interview can be found here (it includes a bit about Hurley having had a conversation with Bernie Ecclestone, the primary authority in Formula One racing). (Thanks to Darren Stuart for the tip) Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Microsoft to Pit Windows Mobile 6.5 and 7 Against One Another? Posted: 20 Aug 2009 06:55 AM PDT According to Digitimes, Microsoft will be using a “dual-platform” strategy to compete with Android and the iPhone. 6.5, due to be rolled out October 1, will stay alive just to compete with Android, while WinMo 7 will compete with the iPhone. I don’t think this is as shocking as Gizmodo does, but I certainly don’t see the wisdom in having dueling OSes. Dueling salsas, maybe. On the other hand, I see the necessity: Windows Mobile is entrenched in its current form and that inertia is going to be difficult to overcome. At the same time, there’s pressure to compete at a lower level with a lighter and savvier OS — something 6.5 really isn’t able to pull off (despite looking nice). What to do, what to do? Microsoft is between a rock and a hard place, but I think keeping a “legacy” system alive is a bad idea — as Microsoft has proven over and over in various arenas. I’d say take the Palm route: have an emulator or “classic mode”! Take 6.5 off the table, focus on 7, but make sure you’ve got enough soft back-compatibility to let businesses make the changeover. With luck 6.5 will be nice enough, and run fast enough, at the end of 2010, that it will be a viable option for lower-end smartphones. We shall see. [via GigaOm and others] Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Twitter Outcasts: @Home, @Jobs, @Tos And @Privacy Posted: 20 Aug 2009 06:22 AM PDT Looking for the Twitter homepage? You can head on over to Twitter.com/home. Wanna learn more about the company’s terms of service or privacy policy? There’s Twitter.com/tos and Twitter.com/privacy for you. Interested in taking a job at Twitter HQ? Zoom over to Twitter.com/jobs. Just make sure you use nothing but lowercase characters when you type in those URLs, because you might get a little confused when you don’t. Funny enough, there are a couple of users on Twitter whose accounts have almost the exact web address as the pages linked above, with the exception that you need to use uppercase characters to get to them. You can try it out by going to twitter.com/Home or twitter.com/joBs for example. These and the @TOS and @PRIVACY accounts (I’m sure there are more like these) have in common that they were created a while ago - back in 2007 or early 2008 - and that Twitter apparently overlooked them or doesn’t really know what to do with them. This is evidently not a big deal, but I wonder what will happen to these accounts now that we and TC reader Patrick Altoft - who alerted us to the anomaly - have started pointing them out. I’m particularly interested in who owns the @Home account; he or she must be getting tons of mentions. To conclude, don’t even try to get @TeCHCrUncH or whatever: it’s impossible to register the same account name even when you change some lowercase characters to uppercase and vice versa nowadays. Sorry. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

SEO.com Jumps Into Web Design Business With Graphics.net Acquisition Posted: 20 Aug 2009 05:34 AM PDT Online marketing and search engine optimization firm SEO.com is expanding its services to include web design / development with the acquisition of Graphics.net, as announced yesterday for an undisclosed amount. Michael Benson from Graphics.net will join SEO.com as the vice president of Web development. The acquisition of Maryland-based Graphics.net by SEO.com makes sense, because the latter can now combine website optimization with design services and social media applications. It’s also funny to note Graphics.net actually did some design and other work for SEO.com in the past, so there were already some ties. Update: as a commenter points out, there are more connections than this: apparently both SEO.com and Graphics.net are portfolio companies of private equity firm WashingtonVC, which means this isn’t so much an acquisition as an investor / owner melting two of its companies together. SEO.com further added that there’s seeing decent growth after a decade in business: in the last year alone, the SEO firm says it has quintupled its size, growing from 12 employees to more than 50, and moved to a larger office in Salt Lake County. It’s not clear how many people Graphics.net employs and if all will be transitioning to SEO.com. (Hat tip to James Green for the heads up) Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Kidlandia Is Bringing Its Personalized Fantasy Maps To A Pottery Barn Kids Near You Posted: 20 Aug 2009 05:00 AM PDT Regular TechCrunch readers may remember Kidlandia, the awesome site that lets you create your own personalized fantasy maps for your kids. Choose one of Kidlandia’s pre-designed map layouts, and you can customize it with various mythical characters, your child’s name, and whatever else suits your fancy. Thing is, it can be tough for kid-friendly companies like this to really reach their target audience without a presence in retail stores. But soon, Kidlandia will be getting just that: the company has forged a deal with Pottery Barn Kids, which will soon feature the maps in its catalog, its website, and its retail stores. Maps will be a bit more limited than they are on the main Kidlandia site — you’ll only be able to choose from a fairy-themed map or a pirate map, but you’ll still be able to customize it will up to 25 different names. Maps will sell for around $130 each and are 27×35 inches on material designed to last “up to 200 years”. You’ll have to wait until late fall if you want to get your map through Pottery Barn, but if you’re looking to grab one now you can still get it through the main Kidlandia site. Alongside today’s news, the site is launching a revamped homepage, and is also adding support for Zazzle products — you’ll now be able to get portions of your custom map printed on mugs, T-shirts, and other items. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Posterous Finally Has An iPhone App, Could Have Been Way Better Posted: 20 Aug 2009 04:02 AM PDT We’re big fans (and users) of übersimple microblogging service Posterous here at TechCrunch, and I’ve been eagerly awaiting the day that the young upstart would finally come out with an iPhone app. Frankly, needing to go to the camera roll on my iPhone and e-mailing in pictures I wanted to post on my Posterous blog every time had become a little tedious. Now Posterous co-founder Garry Tan just checked in to let us know the iPhone app that had been submitted about 15 days ago has finally been approved by Apple and live in the App Store (iTunes link). Unfortunately, it’s a bit underwhelming. It’s not that the app, dubbed PicPosterous, doesn’t do what is advertised on the product website, it’s just that I wish it did a little more. Billed as ‘Your iPhone Instant Camera’, you can basically use the iPhone 3GS’ camera to shoot both pictures and videos, which you can subsequently add to virtual albums and upload directly to your Posterous blog. When you log on to the app using your registered Posterous account (which you don’t necessarily need to have to use it), you can manage multiple sites, create private albums and auto-post whatever you upload to your Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and FriendFeed stream. The app is capable of geo-tagging photos and videos, so you can switch on a location map online next to each album. The nice thing about it is that you can add a first picture to an album and then simply keep uploading photos to that album for as long as you like, so the pictures are not each posted as a separate blog post when you send them in. A couple of gripes though. First, when you send pictures or videos to your Posterous blog, it’s impossible to add any kind of text or link from within the app (something I was able to do when I simply e-mailed in photos I took with my iPhone camera using the mail application). Second, when you add multiple pictures to one album you can’t delete individual pics afterwards, leaving you only the option to clear all your albums and start over. Third, you need to use your iPhone camera in landscape mode when you want your pictures to come out right on your blog, something that’s not indicated anywhere and you need to find out yourself. And finally, while you can turn off the auto-post feature, it would be nice if you could get the option to send it to e.g. only your Twitter or Flickr account rather than all or nothing. Great to finally see Posterous come out with an iPhone, but I sincerely hope they keep improving it based on my and other users’ feedback to make it as satisfying an experience as the actual web service. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Like Electronic Music? You’ll Love Mugasha Posted: 20 Aug 2009 02:51 AM PDT There’s no shortage of websites that enable you to tune into electronic music streams (Digitally Imported leaps to mind), but that doesn’t mean there’s no way to better the offering. Just take a look at Play.fm for example, which we covered favorably earlier this year when they launched their public beta. A new serious contender that is making its debut today is Mugasha (from ‘music-gather-share’), and its strategy is to focus on the top DJs in the world primarily rather than having the largest collection of sets. The upstart positions Mugasha as the ‘Hulu for electronic music rather than YouTube’, indicating that it focuses on quality rather than quantity. If you’re into dance music, you’ll dig the DJs the fledgling company has managed to persuade into collaborating: Tiësto, Markus Schulz, Andy Moor, Matt Darey and Menno de Jong are some of the names it’s launching with. As a recovering electronic music addict, I enjoyed testing the service a lot and the content - which includes both DJ sets and music podcasts - really is high level. Mugashan, which started as a small project at Startup Weekend in Portland, sports a very intuitive interface and a couple of nice features. For instance, you don’t need to register for the service to stream music, only if you want to express your opinion on sets or even individual tracks by ‘liking’ or commenting on them. You can subscribe to shows and the artist profile pages include links to their other social networking presences, to allow you to dig deeper into specific artists’ work and personal life. When you click through to a specific set - e.g. Francesco Pico’s Magnitude - you’ll notice that you can jump from track to track using the playlist or by sliding the bar on the timeline on top. You can easily share a set or individual tracks on a variety of social networks, and you can also head straight to iTunes or Amazon to buy the music you’re listening to. It’s very slick, and the only thing I thought it lacks is a decent search box on the homepage. Mugasha aims to make money, apart from running advertising on the site, by collecting affiliate fees on digital music sales originating from their website. It’s notably hard to generate any serious revenue that way, as countless online music startups before them have already proven, but at least the project is entirely bootstrapped by founders Akshay Dodeja and Justin Thiele which means they don’t need to worry about investors breathing down their necks as they make their way. As the title reads: if you’re into electronic music, you’ll be loving this. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some Tiësto sets to go listen intensely to. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Fuze Box: Sitting Pretty with No Public Shareholders and 1.1 Million Users Posted: 19 Aug 2009 11:31 PM PDT Lately I've been writing a lot about the downsides of small-to-mid sized Tech IPOs. Fuze Box's CEO, Jeff Cavins, can vouch that I'm not exaggerating. Last October he found himself in charge of a decade-old and dusty company—then called CallWave— that had a surprisingly modern and sexy new product. Called Fuze Meeting, it was a cloud-based way to collaborate in real-time, on any computer, BlackBerry or iPhone in high-definition. It had just launched its the beta iPhone app version of the product to positive reviews. But Steve Jobs himself endorsing the app would have done little to alleviate the company's core problem: It was a publicly traded company with all of the downsides and none of the benefits. The downsides of a running a public company are well documented. Cavins had to spend a huge chunk of his time managing Wall Street and running the company on a quarter-to-quarter basis. And the company was spending upwards of $25 million a year in public company costs like directors & officers insurance and Sarbanes Oxley compliance. But in Fuze's case the upsides weren't there either. The stock didn't trade enough to give anyone any real liquidity or give the company any real access to raising additional capital. The final straw was the October financial meltdown: The measly two analysts covering the stock got laid off in all the Wall Street bloodletting. Imagine an earnings call with nothing but crickets chirping during the Q&A. No research means even less press and even fewer buyers. Ouch. As a publicly traded company, CallWave, Fuze Box, or whatever you want to call it was just a failure. It had a weird mix of old CallWave shareholders who were trapped in the stock, and new believers in the Fuze Meetings product that were never going to get much appreciation no matter how well the product did. That's when Cavins went to his board and suggested "an LBO, without the L." In other words, taking the company private using the cash of the company, not debt. Fuze Box's bankers couldn't find another example of this happening in tech or Silicon Valley history. Here's why it worked: -    The stock was 67% owned by the board and Cavins who agreed not to sell shares in the transaction and vote with the management to approve the deal. -    The company had some $33 million in cash—enough to give the shareholders a 44% premium on the stock and have $20 million still left in the bank for growth. -    There actually was a pretty good vision and product for the future. Fuze Box also has a Fuze Messenger product and a Fuze Movies project in beta that helps Hollywood filmmakers collaborate on dailies and special effects in real time and high definition. Here was the downside: Fuze Box announced the tender offer in May– the same time it released its full Fuze Meeting product that the new company is being shaped around. Because Fuze couldn't afford any price swings, Cavins had to duct tape his marketing department’s mouths shut. (Although our own intrepid Jason Kincaid ferreted the news out and liked the product, as you can see here. Others do too.) The silence didn't stop sales. The company will announce Thursday morning that it has 1.1 million registered users in the short time the product has been out. It gives the software away for free for three-person conference calls so the majority of those users don't pay. That said, in coming months the company will be announcing a new Fortune 200 customer who spent several million on the software, and a big Hollywood studio using the Fuze Movies product to remotely collaborate on special effects for an upcoming Denzel Washington blockbuster. Fuze Box has roughly $20 million left in the bank and is on a $25 million-revenue run rate. It has a software-as-a-service business model, but Cavins insists that unlike other SAAS companies like Salesforce.com and NetSuite, it won’t have to hire up huge sales and marekting staffs. We’ll see. But even if it does, at least the company is saving more than $25 million by being private. (PS- Hey, Cavins: You can find out more about that sweet T-shirt here.) CrunchBase Information Fuze Box Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Archos To Unveil Android Tablet In Paris On September 15 Posted: 19 Aug 2009 09:28 PM PDT Ooh la la. A real deal Android tablet this summer? Am I dreaming? No! I'm so in love with this OS it's disgusting. Put aside my sickening love for a freaking OS and consider taking a gander at AppsLib? It's the Application Store for Android launched by Archos, which states that registration will begin on September 15 "following the launch of this initiative". If that isn't enough to whet your appetite then how about some specs for the Archos Android tablet?

Lunch.com Launches Micro Reviews, Reveals Its Quest To Make The World A Better Place Posted: 19 Aug 2009 07:59 PM PDT Lunch, a review site that made its debut earlier this year, is launching a new feature it calls micro reviews — highly condensed reviews on just about anything, with a maximum length of 140 characters. You’ll be able to see a stream of incoming reviews on the site’s homepage, and you can also syndicate the microreviews you write to Twitter and Facebook. Of course, review sites aren’t anything new. Neither are so-called ‘micro reviews’ — we’ve seen a number of sites that invite users to submit condensed reviews rather than the lengthier entries you’ll find on sites like Yelp. But there are a few things that make Lunch a little bit different, not the least of which is CEO J.R. Johnson’s ultimate goal with the site: to make the world a better place by changing the way people think about each other. A lofty goal to be sure, and one that’s going to be extremely difficult. So how does Lunch plan to do it? Johnson explains that review sites in general tend to change the way people think about what they’re doing — a phenomenon he watched unfold in the travel industry (he founded VirtualTourist in 1999, which sold to Expedia last year). Johnson says that during his time at VirtualTourist, he observed that people who consumed content on the site tended to be more analytical during their own travels, because they had the intent of sharing their thoughts with other members of the site once they got back home. He hopes that Lunch’s new microreviews will have the same effect, encouraging people to more analytically observe the world around them as they look for things to relay back to their peers on Lunch. He says this effect could also be magnified because of the way Lunch’s recommendation engine (called a “Similarity Network”) works. Based on reviews you’ve submitted and other actions on the site, Lunch tries to pair you up with other members that it thinks are most similar to you — the idea being you’d rather read a review from one or two very similar people than dozens of reviews from users you know nothing about. Johnson’s theory is that if you’re going to be sharing your reviews with a highly relevant audience, you’re going to be even more analytical in your daily life. Johnson says that the big picture here is to help people understand eachother better, allowing them to use the Similarity Network to find some common ground where they wouldn’t otherwise and encouraging people to approach life with a more critical perspective. And because the site deals with pretty much any topic, running the gamut from ice cream reviews to politics, there’s a lot of things for people to potentially connect on. Micro reviews are a start — a “critical thinking onramp” — and more robust features in the future will continue the trend. This all sounds nice in theory, but Johnson’s goals are going to be really hard to see through. For one, the site is still quite small, and there are countless other review sites out there, including both generalized sites like Lunch and niche sites. Making the world a better place is a great long-term goal, but in the short term, Lunch is going to need to find a way to drive people to use the site by offering something its competitors don’t. And even if Lunch had an exceptionally large userbase, I have a hard time believing the service would be able to put much of a dent in the prejudices that run throughout the world. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Droidify: An Unofficial Spotify Android App To Tide You Over Posted: 19 Aug 2009 06:30 PM PDT Spotify, a free and increasingly popular music streaming service available on the other side of the pond (and currently by invite only in the US), has yet to launch an official Android Market app. But not to worry. A group of Spotify fans have developed Droidify, an unofficial Spotify client for Android. The free app:

Lawsuit Against Tesla Dropped Posted: 19 Aug 2009 06:20 PM PDT Remember that whole sour grapes law suit filed against Tesla Motors and Elon Musk by co-founder and former CEO Martin Eberhard? According to Eberhard’s lawyer, he has dropped the suit but doesn’t give any clarification as to why Eberhard dismissed the legal action, according to the San Jose Business Journal. We reported earlier this summer that Eberhard filed a lawsuit against Tesla and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, citing allegations of slander, libel and breach of contract. Eberhard made many outrageous accusations, alleging that Musk "compromised Tesla Motors' financial health." Eberhard also said that Musk began a smear campaign against Eberhard on media outlets, accusing Musk of pushing him out of the company that he founded and taking full credit for developing the first electric car the company produced, the Roadster. Eberhard also claimed that Musk not only falsely said that he was the founder of the company, but has also misrepresented his past roles, including the extent of his involvement with the company he founded, PayPal. Tesla immediately issued a short statement when the lawsuit was filed, calling the lawsuit a "fictionalized account of Tesla's early years." Musk then took to Tesla's blog to give his own lengthy and in-depth version of the messy situation, defending his education and past professional roles and his role as CEO of Tesla. According to reports, a judge recently ruled that the lawsuit could move forward after Tesla filed a motion to dismiss in late June. Apart from the lawsuit debacle, this summer has proved to be a positive one for Tesla, which achieved profitability in July with approximately $1 million of earnings on revenue of $20 million, thanks to improved margins on its sports car, the Roadster. Tesla Motors also recently announced that the company will build a powertrain assembly facility in Palo Alto, which will also house the corporate headquarters, engineering and R&D departments. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Heyzap’s Flash Payment Platform Now Gives Publishers A Cut Of The Action Posted: 19 Aug 2009 05:14 PM PDT Last June, Heyzap, the Y Combinator-funded startup that builds products around Flash gaming, launched a new micro-transaction platform for Flash that looked to offer developers a way to monetize their highly viral but difficult-to-monetize games. The platform is off to an encouraging start, and today Heyzap is taking it one step further with a new payout system that offers publishers a chance to take 15% of the proceeds. As a special promotion, the site will offer 20% of in-game proceeds to the first 1,000 publishers to sign up for the program through this link. Heyzap’s gaming widget allows publishers to embed thousands of games in one fell swoop, and is already being used by over 35,000 publishers (you can see an example game that integrates payments below). Up until now these publishers have used Heyzap’s games to increase engagement, but haven’t been able to directly monetize the embeds. Now they’ll have an even greater incentive to use Heyzap: they’ll be able to increase user engagement while generating revenue any time a user makes an in-game purchase. Co-founder Immad Akhund says that so far, around 15 developers have integrated Heyzap payments into their games. He expects that number to increase quickly, as many developers are currently working on games that are being built with microtransactions in mind from the start (most of the games currently using the platform integrated it after initial release). Participating publishers will receive a 15% cut that will be taken from the proceeds first, and the remaining revenue is split with 70% going to the developer and 30% going to Heyzap (note that this has changed in the developer’s favor since the platform initially launched with a 50/50 split). Publishers will be able to monitor the money generated by games embedded on their site though a dashboard on Heyzap’s homepage. Other players in this space include Mochi Media, which has also launched a payment platform for Flash games. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Yahoo Quietly Rolls Out Yahoo Meme In Spanish Posted: 19 Aug 2009 04:45 PM PDT Yahoo recently launched a Portuguese language micro-blogging product, Yahoo Meme, that drew similarities to Twitter and Tumblr. And on second glance, it seemed to be a mediocre competitor to Twitter, Tumblr and other micro-sharing services in terms of its offerings and features. And the blogosphere questioned why Yahoo launched the product in Portuguese only. But now it appears that Yahoo has lofty ambitions for Yahoo Meme, as it has stealthily rolled the micro-blogging service out in Spanish to appeal to the masses. The Spanish language is currently the world’s second most popular language in the world in terms of native speakers (it’s fourth in terms of total speakers). Here's how Yahoo Meme works: you create an account and it starts you off with an empty blog that you can fill with text, images, videos, music or a mixture of those things. All you can add to your blog - apart from the content - is a title, a 100-character description and an avatar. You can also create a comment thread underneath the content you post, which was a feature that was missing when we reviewed Yahoo Meme previously. Like Twitter and Tumblr, you can search other people's public accounts and follow them, with updates from these users appearing in your stream. You can also 'Repost' anyone’s entry, similar to the 'Reblog' feature that's integrated into Tumblr. As we’ve written before, the micro-blogging service seems lacking in its features and its potential to surpass its competitors. But Yahoo aggressively targeted the Portuguese market and is now going after Spanish-speaking population and its 330 million native speakers. Yahoo also recently launched Yahoo Know Your Mojo, a site that claims to tell you what kind of "social mojo" you possess by analyzing your Tweets, but actually appears to do basically nothing. CrunchBase Information Yahoo! Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Simplify Media Launches New Photo App; Simplify Photos Posted: 19 Aug 2009 04:30 PM PDT Simplify Media, the music streaming startup based out of Redwood City, Calif., has launched a new application on the App Store called Simplify Photos. [iTunes Link] With the new Simplify Photos application, users will be able to access a digital photo library on a home computer to access them anytime, anywhere on their iPhone, iPod Touch, or laptop. Essentially, the application connects to your home computer and syncs batches of photos over to your iPhone, so you can view the photos on the go. In order to get the photos over, you need to have both Simplify Photos running on your computer, and your iPhone/iPod Touch, and the syncing process will begin. The photos are never stored on the iPhone/iPod Touch, and this brings a big advantage of the application — this frees up gigabytes of space on your iPhone/iPod Touch, since you never have to store the photos on your iPhone or iPod Touch. Simplify Photos lets users browse photos by folder and timeline, or GPS location on a map, view thumbnails, individual photos or slideshow, access iPhoto albums, events, faces and places, search by tags, comments, title or description. On the computer side, users can see shared photos or albums from other people’s computers who have shared with you through iPhoto, browse by folder and timeline, or GPS location on a map, import photos into other applications via Windows Explorer, share within a private network instead of uploading to a website. You can read more about Simplify Photos on the Simplify Media blog. Simplify Photos is $0.99 and available from the App Store today. Below you’ll find a demo video of the new application. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Pics: Facebook’s Sexier New Inbox Starts Rolling Out Posted: 19 Aug 2009 03:31 PM PDT We’ve known since June that Facebook was going to revamp its inbox, which has been one of the social network’s real weaknesses. Today, the new inbox appears to be rolling live for some users. And you can see, the changes are a little different than some of the ones previewed two months ago. But as expected, there’s a more obvious way to jump between the inbox, updates and sent messages. It is also much easier to filter out which emails are unread versus the ones that you’ve already seen. Perhaps most notably, the composition box for a new message is an overlay rather than a new window, which is much nicer. The threaded discussions for actual messages has also been significantly cleaned up and now look more like the News Feed, complete with the square-shaped icons. We haven’t had a chance to test it yet (it’s only beginning to roll out to users), but I would assume that the search functionality has been upgraded as well, alongside with the recent upgrade to Facebook’s regular search functionality. Facebook rival MySpace also recently overhauled its inbox in an effort to get it up to par not just with other social networks, but with the big boys like Yahoo Mail and Gmail. Below find some screenshots. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Silicon Valley Elite Flock To Y Combinator Demo Day Posted: 19 Aug 2009 03:22 PM PDT I’m here at Y Combinator’s Demo Day, where the latest batch of the incubator program’s startups are showing off the fruits of their labor to a room of press and VCs from around Silicon Valley. The turnout today is huge —  VCs representing billions of dollars in managed funds are here, with investors from US Venture Partners, XG Ventures, Founder’s Fund, Greylock Ventures, First Round Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, True Ventures, Freestyle Capital, Venrock, O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, FBfund, renowned angel investor Ron Conway and more in attendance. There are also plenty of executives from established companies, including Google exec Bradley Horowitz and Don Dodge from Microsoft. Past Demo Days have certainly received their fair share of attention, but it seems like YC’s larger class size, and perhaps the companies themselves, are bigger draws than ever. FlightCaster FlightCaster, which launched yesterday, is a new startup that lets you check if your flight is delayed hours before the airline will tell you. The company says that 25% of all flights are delayed, and oftentimes passengers aren’t notified about the delays until the very last minute. The startup says that more established travel sites don’t offer this information because they often have relationships with the airlines, and they aren’t willing to disrupt those partnerships. In the future, the company plans to offer a list of alternative flights so you can quickly rebook once you learn of a delay. RethinkDB RethinkDB is a new kind of database that’s built from the ground up for solid state storage (the same kind you’ll find in an iPhone or thumbdrive). The company launched last month, and says that all existing databases were designed for traditional, platter based hard drives and the constraints associated with them. The startup says that solid state drives change these assumptions (they’re already ten times faster than MySQL), and that the space is about to explode, explaining “we’ll have lots of competitors so we have to move fast”. DailyBooth DailyBooth, which we covered yesterday, is a “Twitter for pictures”. The site invites users to upload photos to the site on a regular basis, at which point the community is free to leave comments both in the form of text and their own photos. The company will soon be rolling out ‘push’ functionality, so users will be able to send out their photos to sites like Facebook, MySpace, and other social sites. JobPic JobPic is a new marketplace that allows users to sell their services, allowing users to “shop for services the way you shop for goods”. JobPic brings the shopping cart model we’re familiar with at sites like Amazon to service providers — people who might offer things like one-on-one lessons, or haircuts. In other online service markets, buyers submit a service request to providers (Guru, Elance). This works well for some things, but not others. JobPic wants to be an ‘eBay for services’, where the seller specifies what they have to offer. Mixpanel Mixpanel, which launched last month is a realtime analytics platform that allows developers to track more advanced metrics than what they could typically track using services like Google Analytics. The platform allows developers to track pain points in their apps, which allows them to further streamline things like signups and payments. The company will process 100 million events this month and will be profitable this month. JobSpice JobSpice, which launched last Monday, is an online resume editor. The site allows users to quickly generate highly stylized, web-friendly resumes with a minimum amount of effort, and also lets users swap between styles with one click (jumping between templates using programs like Word can be much more frustrating). HighlightCam HighlightCam, which we covered last month, is a service that can look through hours of video footage and identify when something happens. The company’s first product involves security cameras — it can take many hours of security footage and then identify the few moments when things out of the ordinary are happening, cutting down the footage to only a few minutes of important content. Soon the company will be releasing its API, which will allow developers to tap into the software to shorten a variety of different kinds of content (including things like wedding videos). The software can produce 20-30 second trailers automatically for any kind of video. Olark Olark is a new site that launched moments ago and allows you to easily integrate a chat widget on your website. When a visitor is browsing your site, you can track their browsing in IM clients like iChat, and any time they attempt to contact an operator through the chat widget, you can have the conversation automatically relayed to your chat client. Bump Technologies Bump is smartphone application that allows users to quickly exchange contact information simply by tapping their phones together. It has already been featured by Apple in an iPhone commercial and is seeing strong growth (you can see our post here). But contact information exchange is only the beginning for the startup: The company is working to become cross platform with support for a variety of smartphones, and will also open an API/Platform “Powered by Bump” that allows developers to transfer other types of data. RentHop RentHop is a housing marketplace, without the broker fee. The company says that Craigslist is bad for renters, because it’s often overloaded with fake listings. RentHop is currently focused on the NYC market, offering rich search and structure to ensure quality. Both founders are engineers, but they’ve put the time in to get real estate licenses too. FanChatter FanChatter, which launched earlier this month, is a platform for sports teams, television networks, colleges, and corporate sponsors that allows them to deploy social-media powered products to new mediums, like the billboard of a baseball stadium. One of the site’s products includes a photo sharing feature that lets fans at a stadium submit their pictures from a ball game to a designated Email address for the chance to have it shown on the stadium’s Jumbotron later in the game. Other products include a social media chatterbox which pulls in content from sites like Twitter. NBC Universal is using the FanChatter ChatterBox for homepage for a show called GhostHunters. Listia Listia is an “eBay for free stuff“. While you’ve always been able to give away free items on Craigslist, that comes with many problems like mountains of Email. To work around these issues, Listia uses an eBay auction-like system, in which you use on-site ‘credits’ to bid on getting these free items. You can earn credits either by selling your own items or by buying them. Because these credits have some value, you can unload things on Listia without having to worry as much about an endless number of queries from people who aren’t genuinely interested in what you’re giving away. DirectedEdge DirectedEdge says that the web is soon going to see an Amazonification — you’ll see Amazon-like recommendations in a variety of other spaces. DirectedEdge is looking to lead this trend by providing a recommendation engine for any site. Since launching two weeks ago, the site has gotten dozens of customers. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Crimespotting: Crime Has Never Looked So Good Posted: 19 Aug 2009 02:49 PM PDT There’s nothing cool about crime, but Stamen Design comes pretty damn close to making it cool with the new site it built and designed, San Francisco Crimespotting, that launched today. The site offers a visual representation of reported crimes in the city during a set period of time. Various types of crime ranging from alcohol-related to theft to murder are represented by different color dots placed on a map of the city. Not only does this visually show you possible trends in various types of crime, but you can manipulate both the date range an time range to further drill into the data. Not surprisingly, there are more crimes committed at night, but it’s interesting the trends in crime during some months versus others. If you zoom in, you can click on any of these dots to get more information about the actual crime, including the police report number. As the site describes it, Crimespotting is “a tool for understanding crime in cities.” It also notes: If you hear sirens in your neighborhood, you should know why. Crimespotting makes this possible with interactive maps and RSS feeds of crimes in areas that you care about. We've found ourselves frustrated by the proprietary systems and long disclaimers that ultimately limit information available to the public. As citizens we have a right to public information. A clear understanding of our environment is essential to an informed citizenry. The San Francisco launch follows the Oakland version of the site in 2007, as LaughingSquid notes. But the San Francisco version features several of the newer updates including the sort-by-hour and days feature. One thing that would make the site even better is if there was real-time data for crimes being reported. Unfortunately, much of the data is days or even weeks old, as the site clearly notes along the top. But the APIs for this data could lead to even more interesting uses. You can find out more about those here. The site is quick to note that it is in no way affiliated with the city of San Francisco or the SFPD. Again, it just uses the publicly available data to build these maps. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

TechCrunch50: Ron Conway, Reid Hoffman, Tony Hsieh, Tim O’Reilly, and Robert Scoble join Panel of Experts Posted: 19 Aug 2009 02:16 PM PDT TechCrunch50 is just a few weeks away, and it’s time to announce more expert panelists who’ll judge the fifty launching startups in front of a crowd of 2,000 or so eager attendees. Today we’re pleased to announce Angel investor Ron Conway, LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, O'Reilly Media CEO Tim O'Reilly, and tech blogger Robert Scoble will join us on stage at the event. They’ll join the already announced Marc Andreessen, Roelof Botha, Marissa Mayer, Yossi Vardi, Kevin Rose and Sean Parker. And yes, the experts are already jostling for the right to judge the new product that Penn & Teller will be launching at the event. But there are 49 other awesome startups showing their stuff for the first time, too. Ron, Tim, and Robert were experts last year and have returned based on popular demand. Reid and Tony will be making their first appearances. Additional judges will be announced next week. 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. Last week we announced Penn & Teller will be attending to launch a new product. Tickets for the event can be purchased here courtesy of Eventbrite. We've slashed our early-bird prices from 2008 to $1995 through August 31. (Prices escalate to $2,995.) Students interested in volunteering for the event can contact Gené McPherson at gene@techcrunch.com. Additionally, exhibitor passes are available for $8,000, which include entry to the conference for 4 people, a 5' exhibitor table, and other goodies. More on the TechCrunch50 blog. Ron Conway Ronald Conway has been an active angel investor for over 15 years. He was the Founder and Managing Partner of the Angel Investors LP funds (1998-2005) whose investments included: Google, Ask Jeeves, Paypal, Good Technology, Opsware, and Brightmail. He was recently named #6 in Forbes Magazine Midas list of top “deal-makers” in 2008 and is actively involved in numerous philanthropic endeavors. Ron was with National Semiconductor Corporation in marketing positions (1973-1979), Altos Computer Systems as a co-founder, President and CEO (1979-1990) and took Altos public on Nasdaq in 1982 and served as CEO of Personal Training Systems (PTS) (1991-1995). PTS was acquired by SmartForce/SkillSoft (Nasdaq SKIL). Ron has served/serves on Boards/Advisory Boards including: Twitter, Digg.com, Bright Mail, Ask Jeeves, Rupture (acquired by EA), Associated Content, Facebook, RockYou, ScanScout, Zappos, Trulia, StumbleUpon, Plaxo (acquired by Comcast), Photobucket (acquired by Fox), and Anchor Intelligence (co-founder). Philanthropically, Ron is Vice Chairman of the UCSF Medical Foundation in SF, Board Member of The Tiger Woods Foundation, and SF Homeless Connect, and on the Benefit Committee of Ronald McDonald House, College Track, and the Blacked Eyed Peas-PeaPod Academy Foundation. Reid Hoffman Reid Hoffman is Executive Chairman and a co-founder of LinkedIn. Prior to LinkedIn, Reid was Executive Vice President of PayPal where he was in charge of all business relationships: business development, corporate development, international, government relations, and banking/payments infrastructure. During his tenure at PayPal, Reid was instrumental to the acquisition by eBay and was responsible for partnerships with Intuit, Visa, MasterCard and Wells Fargo. Reid also has held management roles in significant technology companies, including Fujitsu Software Corporation and Apple. In addition to LinkedIn, Reid serves on the Board of Directors for SixApart, Kiva.org, and Mozilla Corporation. Reid graduated with distinction from Stanford University with a BS in Symbolic Systems and from Oxford University with a Master's degree in philosophy and a Marshall scholarship. Tony Hsieh Tony Hsieh is the CEO of Zappos.com, which was recently acquired by Amazon. Since he joined Zappos full time in 2000 Zappos has grown gross merchandise sales from $1.6M to $840M in 2007 by focusing relentlessly on customer service. Prior to joining Zappos, Tony co-founded Venture Frogs with Alfred Lin. Venture Frogs is an incubator and investment firm that invested in Internet startups, including Ask Jeeves, Tellme Networks, and of course, Zappos.com. Prior to Venture Frogs, Tony co-founded LinkExchange, an advertising network that was successfully sold to Microsoft for $265M in 1998. Tim O’Reilly Tim O'Reilly is the founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media, Inc., thought by many to be the best computer book publisher in the world. O'Reilly Media also hosts conferences on technology topics, including the Web 2.0 Summit, the Web 2.0 Expo, the O'Reilly Open Source Convention, and the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference. Tim's blog, the O'Reilly Radar, "watches the alpha geeks" to determine emerging technology trends, and serves as a platform for advocacy about issues of importance to the technical community. Tim is an activist for open source and open standards, and an opponent of software patents and other incursions of new intellectual property laws into the public domain. Tim's long-term vision for his company is to change the world by spreading the knowledge of innovators. Robert Scoble Robert Scoble is a leading blogger, technical evangelist, and author. He is currently working for Rackspace where he is building a community for people fanatical about the Internet called Building43. Scoble is best known for his popular blog, Scobleizer, which came to prominence during his tenure as a technical evangelist at Microsoft. He currently works for Fast Company as a video blogger. He is also the co-author of Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers. Great partners make great conferences 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, Microsoft and MySpace are back for their second year of partnership. Additional partners will be named in the next few weeks. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Olark Is A Dead Simple Chat Widget For Site Owners Posted: 19 Aug 2009 02:10 PM PDT The ability to chat live with visitors is an incredibly useful marketing tool for site owners. Whether a site owner operates an e-commerce or consumer or business service site, live chat is increasingly becoming the norm for engaging with visitors in real time. Olark, a Y Combinator-funded startup (re)launching today at Demo Day (it was previously branded hab.la), has made the ability to embed chat into a site incredibly simple. For free, site owners can embed the widget into their site with just a few lines of javascript. One useful feature that Olark offers is the ability to add one-to-one chat to any website without editing any code. Olark’s short link service lets website owners create a link to any site they would like to chat with a visitor about. When a customer/user clicks on the link, the Olark widget will float over to the visited webpage. The site owner can use an existing IM client, such as GChat or AIM, and each customer will show up in the buddy list. So site owners can interact with visitors from their preferred chat program. Visitors show up on a website owner’s buddy list as soon as they hit the site (with an anonymous ID like Web User 1), with the name of the page they’re on. Basically, you can watch everyone’s progress through the site even when they don’t talk to you. While Olark has a free offering, you can add different functionality to the chat widget starting at $5 per month. One paid feature is the ability to hide the widget on the site when the site owner isn’t available to chat. You can also implement chat in certain pages while restricting chat on others. While most customers will use the free version of the widget, paid clients have been doubling every month and the startup is in line to hit profitability next month. Olark is already being used already on 4000 sites, including SurveyGizmo.com and HonestIdeas.co.uk. Of course, there are many competitors to this product out there on the market, including chat offerings by Meebo, Digsby and AOL all with the same functionality. But Olark’s co-founder, Ben Congleton says the beauty of Olark’s widget and short link service is in its extreme simplicity, allowing even a non-tech savvy site owner to be able to implement live chat on a site easily. Plus, Olark lets owners customize the widgets to resemble the look and feel of the site in which its embedded. Olark, which was originally a side project of its founders before the startup entered Y Combinator’s program, was rebranded from hab.la during the program. Congleton says that the decision was based on a few considerations, including confusion around the spelling and pronunciation of “Habla” as well as the advantage of having a .com domain versus the .la domain from Hab.la. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

You’re Doing It Wrong Part 348: Complete And Utter PR FAIL Posted: 19 Aug 2009 02:05 PM PDT So this morning a pretty standard email pitch came into my inbox. It wasn’t my cup of tea, so I ignored it. But then someone responded to it, and I saw that response. Uh, oh, I knew immediately where this was going. Sure enough, minutes later dozens of others were responding, most saying something along the lines of “take me off of this list” — of course, whether they realize it or not, they were sending that very message to everyone on the list. Some followed up trying to apologize on behalf of the whole PR industry for this fiasco. Others threatened to out people who kept responding to the thread in national magazines. Then things got even uglier, “Take me off this fucking list which I never asked to be on and cannot unsubscribe from,” said one lucky subscriber. The fact that every single one of these replies was going to everyone on the list was very annoying, but ultimately forgivable. What’s not forgivable is when the automated help desk tickets started sending massive amounts of emails to everyone on the list. It looks like some SEO site submitted a help request ticket to get them off of the list, and from that point on, everyone who responded showed up as the same SEO site emailer talking about this random troubleshooting ticket. It started getting really ridiculous. As Justin Smith of InsideFacebook notes on one of my status’ “this is getting pretty incredible. 13 emails in the last 10 minutes.” And Caroline McCarthy of CNET just Rickrolled me on Twitter, saying she had a way to get us off of the list. This is getting out of control. So really nice job, Brody PR. Not only does practically everyone in the blogosphere and print media world now hate you, but you’ve ensured that whatever it was you were trying to pitch (some book on social media marketing) will never get any coverage. PR FAIL. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Google Continues To Feed The PubSubHubbub. Google Alerts Now In Real-Time. Posted: 19 Aug 2009 12:39 PM PDT When PubSubHubbub launched at our Real-Time Stream CrunchUp event last month, pretty much everyone in the audience immediately recognized it as a very cool thing. Basically, it takes any feed and significantly speeds up the time it takes to be found by various sources using new hubs that specifically gather that information. But the biggest fan of it may be the company that employs the two who created it, Brett Slatkin and Brad Fitzpatrick: Google. Today, Google has announced yet another service that is PubSubHubbub-compatible: Google Alerts. That’s huge not just because alerts can now appear in real-time in feed readers, but also because developers can now write applications that take advantage of getting pinged immediately when a new result for a certain query shows up in Google Search results, as Slatkin notes today on the Google Code Blog. “Think of it as an AJAX search API that tells *you* when it finds new results. Acting upon these notifications your app could update your website, email friends, send an SMS — the possibilities are endless,” Slatkin writes. Slatkin hopes that new breeds of applications are created based on the protocol. That could well happen, but for now, Google seems content to use it on an increasing number of their products. Aside from Google Alerts, PubSubHubbub is already working on FeedBurner, Google Reader Shared Items and Blogger. As Fitzpatrick noted at our event, "Nothing in the protocol hardcodes Google as the center of the world, I hate that sort of crap too." Google may not be the center of the world for PubSubHubbub, but it is the key cog moving it forward for now. So what Google product may be next to turn on PubSubHubbub? Here’s a list of possible ones, Slatkin pointed us to, noting that many are far from certain at this point still. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

MySpace Confirms iLike Acquisition. Conference Call Livenotes Posted: 19 Aug 2009 11:51 AM PDT As expected, MySpace has confirmed that it bought iLike. It is not disclosing financial terms, but our information is that it was around $20 million. During the conference call, Van Natta stressed the importance of music, open content distribution, and talent as the main drivers behind the deal. He also put to rest misinformed speculation that there was any delay in the deal due to tax issues or a canceled iLike board meeting. “I have been doing deals for 15 years now, and this was one of the smoother sailing deals,” says Van Natta. Both iLike’s employees and management team will now work for MySpace, but will remain an autonomous unit based in Seattle. Throughout the conference call, Van Natta’s first, he stressed his desire to make MySpace as open as possible and he cast the iLike acquisition as complementary to MySpace in that it is a distributed application across many social networks. “People want to interact in many places. We will take that strategy and apply it across the Web,” he said. Later he reiterated, “The thrust of this is distributed web, how can we serve users in a more distributed way.” The implication, of course, being that rival Facebook is not so open (although Mark Zuckerberg would beg to differ). Van Natta couldn’t hep but give his former employer a not-so-subtle dig: “We are a much more open network. People can explore each other interests, much more so than on other social networks.” One of the big questions around the deal was why isn’t iLike becoming part of MySpace Music. Van Natta addressed this issue by suggesting that iLike’s recommendation system will be applied to other content on MySpace, including videos and games. He also confirmed that there are no plans at this time to introduce music streaming from MySpace Music into iLike, but he did say that the two businesses would work together to grow the event ticketing business. My full notes are below (I’ve bolded parts for emphasis): Owen Van Natta: This is the first time I am speaking with you since taking on the role of CEO a few months ago. In that time we have restructured and hired some talented people. This is an official announcement that MySpace has entered into an agreement acquired iLike This decision based on 3 things: 1. need to innovate. Music is part of people’s lives. We strengthen our ability to innovate in this area. 2. shared belief in open content distribution. People want to interact in many places. We will take that strategy and apply it across the Web. 3. Great people. Expect to see continued news about great talent coming to MySpace. MySpace is a place where people can broadcast, discover, and express themselves. Where culture gets defined through social experiences around entertainment. By combining two models We believe that what iLike has created is not limited to music, can be extended to video and games. Because we see it as bigger than music, we are making this apart from MySpace Music. iLike’s founders (CEO Ali Partovi, President Hadi Partovi and CTO Nat Brown) will remain and will stay in Seattle. In addition 26 employees joining MySpace. Q&A Q: Any guidance on new applications we can expect? Owen: We will take all the great things iLike has meant for users and extend all the things MySPace does with users and extend that. You will be able to see a broader experience. Q: How is this purchase going to affect iLike’s partnership with Facebook? Owen: iLike is part of many social networks. My expectation is that social networks will be thrilled that we are going to be making iLike an even richer experience in their environments. Q: deal terms and how integrated into MySpace music Owen: We have not disclosed deal terms. iLike has a great product we will continue to extend, a phenomenal management team. Allowing that team to operate autonomously is an important part of it. Q: reports that iLike was poised to offer its own music store? Is this a defensive move to shortcut that? Owen: No, the thrust of this is distributed web, how can we serve users in a more distributed way. Q: Will streaming from MySpace Music be offered through iLike? Also there was speculation that the deal was delayed because of tax issues or a canceled iLike board meeting. Can you comment on that? Owen: first Q about extending MySpace Music into iLike, we have no plans to do that at this time. On your second question, I read some of the reports, I have been doing deals for 15 years now, and this was one of the smoother sailing deals. Q: So there was no delay due to tax or other issues. Owen: No delay Q: Update on MySpace music Owen: MySpace music has been doing extremely well, 1,000% growth since launch, 200% year over year in usage. It will continue to serve users for many years to come. Q: What does MySpace get from iLike? Q: For example,If you look at the recommendation engine that users get on iLike, that is something you could apply elsewhere in MySpace. iLike is a big generator of ticket sales, something MySpace Music has started, that will accelerate, a better experience combined than either could on its own. Q: If iLike develops its own music store, will that hurt your relationship with Amazon? Owen: No, we don’t expect it to. iLike has just launched an MP3 purchasing functionality on its platform. Clearly users are buying music in a number of different ways. We want to serve users Q: Would there be better margins? Owen: What we are really focused on with MySpace Music, and iLike is also, is the discovery, and the socialization around that content. We are a much more open network. People can explore each other interests, much more so than on other social networks. Q: Will iLike management team have any broader role? Owen: First and foremost we want to make sure we don’t disrupt anything they are doing. They have a lot of things in development. This is a very talented group of executives, and the entire team. leveraging that talent more broadly across MySpace is something we will definitely pursue. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Google Doubles Its Cartographers As Maps Continues To Go Wiki-Style Posted: 19 Aug 2009 11:37 AM PDT As an online free mapping service, Google Maps is a great product. But it’s lacking in certain parts of the world. And rather than pay people to go get information about those places, Google has smartly been using a service called Map Maker, which lets locals and people knowledgeable about the area edit it themselves. And this week, Google has added a couple important areas to the list: Mexico and Eastern Europe. “These two launches have doubled the number of users who can map their country on Map Maker,” Google notes today. That’s impressive, but even more impressive is the full list of countries that can now use Map Maker to improve local maps. And while Map Maker doesn’t work in places like the U.S. and other well mapped-out areas of the world, you can edit things on U.S. maps such as place locations. It seems clear that Google Maps is a wiki of sorts now, meaning the community is responsible for a lot of the data on it. Now, Google still looks over this new country data, and then allows certain portions to “graduate” to actual Google Maps. But still, it’s a great idea to get more information in your system for free. I wonder how long it will be until Google lets users in the rest of the world in on the fun to edit roads and other features that are incorrect or not listed? Maybe you’ll be able to put in information when you know a road is under construction for a set period of time, for example. That data is out there for large projects, but it would be very useful on a day to day basis for small jobs when I’m trying to get somewhere on time. Below find an impressive before and after picture of Lahore, Pakistan, after Google Map Maker did its thing. Update: Google has reached out to me with another piece of information about the Map Maker initiative. Earlier this week, they announced that the Map Maker data set in Africa would be available for non-profits and NGOs to download to further promote mapping the areas. More information on that is here. CrunchBase Information Google Maps Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

You are subscribed to email updates from TechCrunch To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610