Wednesday, September 23, 2009

The Latest from TechCrunch

The Latest from TechCrunch

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Live At the Barnes and Noble Irex DR 800SG Reader Launch

Posted: 23 Sep 2009 08:44 AM PDT

Nicholas is live at the Barnes and Noble Irex reader event and will report back what he's seeing including, but not limited to, information on the e-reader. Watch this post for more details as they emerge. 11:42 - Ok folks, the Wi-Fi connection here at the New York Historical society is rubbish, so I'm literally "e-mailing" the guys my live reactions. Better stuff a-comin' later in the afternoon. Today IREX, which is a Philips offshoot, is showing off its latest e-reader, the DR 800SG. It's got an 8.1-inch screen (the Kindle 2's is 6 inches), and is optimized to be used with a stylus. There's a little bar on the left-hand side that you use to turn pages. Oh, and IREX partnered with Barnes and Noble, so all those e-books you buy from there work on the reader.
TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco

Microsoft To Open Cafe In Paris To Build Windows 7 Buzz (Pics)

Posted: 23 Sep 2009 08:06 AM PDT

Microsoft is close to opening retail stores in several major cities across the planet, but in Paris they’re doing something special in anticipation of the real shops and the imminent launch of the Windows 7 operating system. Microsoft France has surprised inhabitants and visitors of the French capital with the public preparation of a genuine coffee shop / cafe situated in the heart of the city (47 Boulevard Sebastopol).

The Windows Cafe, which will only be open to the public for a couple of weeks starting October 22nd, will boast a number of Microsoft products that visitors can play around with (Xbox, mobile devices and more) but they will not be able to purchase anything there besides snacks and drinks.

I’m dying to know what these will be called, though. Will we be able to sip a Bing Cappuccino? Devour A Windows Live Fruit Cocktail? Or have a taste of Blackberry Pie Service Pack 2?

My guess is as good as yours.

At least there will be free Wi-Fi for sure, since the writing on the window reads: “The Windows Cafe will open its doors on October 22. Don’t hesitate to browse the web on the sidewalk in the meantime.”

Bon appétit!

(Hat tips to AccessOWeb and ViacomIT for the tip / pics)

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TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco

SundaySky Automates the Multimedia E-commerce Experience

Posted: 23 Sep 2009 07:54 AM PDT

sunday 2_jpg
When I was in Israel two weeks ago I sat down with the guys at SundaySky. I need you to bear with me here because the service doesn’t sound cool outright but once you realize the power for commerce sites it becomes amazing.

Here’s how it works: e-commerce sites have lots of products. Take cameras, for example. You have a few set attributes – zoom, megapixels, etc. – and the rest of the incidental information could fit in a paragraph. So SundaySky creates a video using a product image and audio from a pre-recorded pool of preset phrases (”This W camera has X and Y built-in and includes a Zx zoom lens”, where all the variables are pre-recorded as well). The rest of the info appears as text in the video. That way you could talk fairly convincingly about an Olympus camera with a set of data from a pre-recorded pool and then add the small stuff as a visual. In this way you can make video out of every single item in your store.

This can work with almost any site including a banking CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco

Google Steps Where Many Have Stumbled: Sidewiki

Posted: 23 Sep 2009 07:00 AM PDT

By 2001 web startup Third Voice, which let people annotate websites via a browser plugin, was done. Website owners just didn’t like the idea of people “defacing” their websites with comments they couldn’t control.

But the idea has lingered (really), and now Google is taking a shot at their own version of the service. It’s called Sidewiki, and it just launched.

Sidewiki is part of Google Toolbar (and it will be built directly into Google’s Chrome browser). Users activate the service by clicking on a button and a sidebar appears to the left of whatever website is being viewed. The user can then leave a comment on the entire page or a selected piece of text, and share the URL via email, Twitter or Facebook (stalwart Google partner MySpace is left off for now, but Google says they’ll add more partners later). Users can also embed videos into the Sidewiki.

Other users can read and vote comments up or down. All those votes will create a user ranking for each individual that will determine where their comments fall on the Sidewiki. The higher the ranking, the higher comments appear. The goal, Google says, is to help move better content up and move spammy stuff to the bottom where it won’t be seen. Website owners who have claimed their sites always have the right to the first comment on any URL they control.

Google says Sidewiki is absolutely separate from last year’s SearchWiki, and comments/votes won’t be aggregated.

Besides the sites I listed above, TechCrunch50 startup DotSpots, which launched publicly last week, is very similar to Sidewiki. Its no surpise, then, that Google VP Marissa Mayer liked Dotspots so much when it first demo’d in 2008: "It's a really beautiful idea and I really like anything that pushes the web forward in that way."

Will this work? It’s unlikely that websites will have the same visceral reaction today that they did to Third Voice a decade ago. And Google solves the chicken-and-egg problem nicely by building this into Toolbar. The real question is whether they can control spam, which has plagued SearchWiki. And I guess the other real question is, how long until they put ads in it?

Google Toolbar users will be upgraded over the next several weeks automatically and offered the use of Sidewiki. Those of you who want to try it immediately can find the download link here. Google is also making an API available for developers to access and use the data.

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TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco

Skype For SIP Interoperability With Cisco Gear Confirmed

Posted: 23 Sep 2009 06:14 AM PDT

GigaOm last night already predicted an announcement was forthcoming, but now it's official: Skype has announced that the beta version of Skype for SIP has been certified as interoperable with Cisco's Unified Communications 500 Series for Small Business. This will enable SMBs who manage their networking and communications needs with the Cisco solution to communicate more efficiently by directing their outbound calls to mobiles and landlines over Skype's VoIP service. The integrated solution will also allow employees to receive inbound calls from Skype users (now over 480 million strong according to the release). Earlier this year, similar arrangements were struck by the eBay company with Shoretel and SIPfoundry's sipXecs platform.
TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco

Two Non-Fat, No-Whip Starbucks Apps, Coming Right Up.

Posted: 23 Sep 2009 06:14 AM PDT

Now that Starbucks has at least one store on every corner, where are they to go? To the iPhone, of course! In true Starbucks fashion, they're not rolling out just one app - oh, no. They've got two apps. Next thing you know, there will be a Starbucks app within your Starbucks app, fighting tooth and nail to bring in more than the Starbucks app across the street. The first app, myStarbucks, is essentially an iPhone port of their Store Locator with a few bonus features tucked in. You can search for stores around you, of course - but you can also drill down within these results based off of your criteria, such as whether or not the store is currently open. You can also toss together virtual versions of your favorite drink, calculating the calorie count as you go. (Heads up: your drink? Probably a bit worse for you than you would have guessed.)
TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco

Stock Photography Consolidation: Shutterstock Buys BigStockPhoto

Posted: 23 Sep 2009 05:16 AM PDT

More news from the stock photography world this morning, after leader in the field iStock announced it would be expanding its services to include stock logo sales.

Shutterstock has just announced its acquisition of BigStockPhoto, a credit-based stock photo agency headquartered in Davis, California.

The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Jon Oringer, founder and CEO of Shutterstock, said the expansion into the credit-based market will enable the company to “better satisfy the diverse payment preferences of stock photo buyers worldwide”. BigStockPhoto, founded in 2004, will remain a separate entity and Shutterstock (which operates based on subscriptions) plans to grow the company's global presence by investing in marketing, infrastructure and user experience.

BigStockPhoto says it boasts a library of 3.7 million royalty-free photos and vectors in total, as well as a “vibrant community of image buyers and submitters” from across the globe.

And thus the consolidation of the online stock photography sector continues.

Who will be next?

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TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco

Squidoo Aims To Make Brands Pay For Dedicated Web Dashboards

Posted: 23 Sep 2009 04:14 AM PDT

Remember Squidoo? Founded by current CEO and famous marketing guru Seth Godin, the service allows Internet users to generate rich, topical web pages (dubbed ‘lenses’) to serve as a hub for information, videos, links etc. centered around any given subject. The concept is similar to what companies like HubPages, Mahalo and Helium are all about.

Now Squidoo is looking to monetize the web service directly – rather then depend on on-site advertising – by persuading brands to pay for management of their respective lenses.

In a blog post, Godin shares more details about the new initiative – dubbed ‘Brands in Public’ – and explains why he believes brands will be willing to pay for it.

You can’t control what people are saying about you. What you can do is organize that speech. You can organize it by highlighting the good stuff and rationally responding to the not-so-good stuff. You can organize it by embracing the people who love your brand and challenging them to speak up and share the good word. And you can respond to it in a thoughtful way, leaving a trail that stands up over time.

That all sounds super duper, and I have the highest respect for the man, but I also have mixed feelings about the way Squidoo is going about it.

Rather than convincing companies to set up their own public profile pages for their brands to aggregate and manage online conversations, Squidoo is creating hundreds of unofficial ones (e.g. for Guinness) in the hopes that companies will come to them and cough up $400 per month for the right to develop the page on their terms. Once a company pays up and gains control over the relevant Squidoo lens, the left hand column will ‘belong’ to them.

This will enable companies to post responses, highlight third-party blog posts, run contests and quizzes, and more. Basically, it becomes a place where companies can both lead, monitor and respond to the online conversations about their brands, which Godin says is particularly helpful when shit storms brew on the Web (whether deserved or not).

I’m not sure I like the fact that Squidoo takes the lead in creating pages for brands only to ‘unlock’ them for a monthly fee afterwards. Sure, there’s some truth to its claim that conversations are happening around the web anyway and they’re merely aggregating them, but I’m sure many will claim that the company is doing this for obvious SEO reasons. Get Satisfaction follows a similar strategy of holding company profile pages ‘hostage’, and has in the past been criticized for that behavior.

I also think a $400/month price point is extremely high for something that can easily be built internally. Squidoo seems to realize this and offers the first 100 brands to sign up a share of the $500,000 in-house ads that the company will run across the site promoting the service and the first partnering brands.

Either way, Squidoo already signed up a number of beta-testers (e.g. Home Depot) and hopes to attract more brands in the near future. The company published an e-book (PDF) about why any company should be considering this, and in it shared some numbers about the Squidoo network size.

Founded 3 years ago (Michael Arrington thought it could become Godin’s ‘purple albatross’ at the time), Squidoo claims it has attracted 400,000 users who hand-built over 1 million pages to date. Squidoo also says it has raised a ’significant’ yet undisclosed amount of capital for charity and is one of the 500 most-trafficked sites on the Web. Looking at the Compete chart below, they do seem to be getting a decent amount of visitors (about 4.4 million a month) even if its two closest competitors both attract a bigger audience at this point.

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TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco

iStockphoto Will Soon Start Selling Stock Logos, Too

Posted: 23 Sep 2009 02:22 AM PDT

Getty Images’ iStockphoto is moving into new territory. In a statement sent out last night and relayed on the official forum, the company announced that it will soon start facilitating stock logo sales through its online marketplace. The announcement got the designer community to speculate whether this is a good thing or not, but the jury is still out on that.

Basically, iStock wants to make it possible for clients to buy custom logos for their companies or organizations on its online marketplace the same way it facilitates purchases of stock photography, audio, video and illustrations. The company is looking to tap into its vast community of affiliated designers to create an offering that could match the demand, encouraging them to use iStock as an outlet for the ‘hundreds of different logos’ they supposedly created over the course of their careers but remained unused.

Here’s how they pitch it:

If you create one of the first 10,000 approved logo designs by January 1, 2010, we'll pay you $5 per logo and another $5 if we reach 10,000 approved logos by that date. So fire up Illustrator to create some amazing logos or dust off all those much-loved logos that never made it past the third round with a client.

iStock is still putting the finishing touches on the imminent addition to its services, but shared some details about what to expect in the statement:

– iStock logos can only be sold once, may not be in use or have been previously sold, and cannot feature existing elements (including content from the designer’s own iStock portfolio).

– iStockphoto requires logos to be exclusive to its website. Logos will remain for sale for a minimum of six months after it has been added to the marketplace.

– The price for each logo will range from 100 to 750 iStock credits (the company’s own virtual currency). When designers upload a file, they need to set a recommended price, after which iStock’s ‘inspectors’ will make the final pricing decision based on that recommendation.

– iStock will pay a base royalty rate of 50% per logo design for the first 6 months.

– Designers need to make sure they either own or licensed the font used in logos.

Judging from the chatter about the upcoming iStock service on Twitter, blogs and comments on the forum thread, designers appear to be undecided about whether this is the best thing since sliced bread or the death knell to the entire graphic design industry.

In my opinion, this is a logical step for iStock to take, and one that will rather complement than destroy the industry. Any designers reading TechCrunch who want to share their own thoughts on iStock’s plans in comments?

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TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco

Me Too Mike, Me Too

Posted: 22 Sep 2009 11:53 PM PDT

Yahoo Product Manager Michael McNeely leaves a cryptic Twitter message in response to my “Can We Please Have Jerry Back?” post earlier this evening that is critical of Yahoo leadership. He says “I wish I could fully respond to this…”

Me too! Do you agree with me, Mike, and are venting your frustration? Or are you aware of exciting new Yahoo product plans that will turn the tables on Google, Microsoft, Facebook, AOL, Twitter, etc.?

As usual, I’ve got a free TechCrunch tshirt for you if you’re willing to give us an exclusive interview (and I’m totally seriously not kidding).

In all seriousness, though, I do hope Yahoo has some great stuff to show us. I’d be happy to eat my words and be proven wrong. Don’t let me down, Mike.

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TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco

A Really Nasty Ad Slips Past Google

Posted: 22 Sep 2009 11:36 PM PDT

Generally you can trust the ads on Google to at least be safe. But that’s not the case right now for the top ad being served on the query “Firefox.”

The top ad says it is linking to “Firefox ® OfficiaI Sitе” at the URL www.mozilla.com/firefox/. And that is indeed the official Mozilla Firefox site. But the link actually goes to the much more sinister firefox.mozilla-now.com, a site that dishonestly tries to get users to pay up to $2.50/month for an ongoing subscription to “24/7 Expert Customer Support” (a screenshot of the landing page is below). The credit card provider is based in the Netherlands.

Even advanced users who hover over the link won’t know what’s up before they click, due to Google’s ad redirect URL.

Most savvy Internet users will know this is a con as soon as visiting the site, but a all those middle-America Yahoo users may not know any better, particularly since they were just told it was the Firefox official site. It just goes to show that not even the stuff Google publishes can always be completely trusted.

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TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco

MySpace Expands Twitter Syncing To Six New Countries

Posted: 22 Sep 2009 10:26 PM PDT

Yesterday MySpace launched two-way syncing with Twitter for U.S. users, something Facebook has shied away from to date.

This evening, they’ve extended the functionality to the UK, Canada, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and India. You can sign up for the service at myspace.com/sync.

MySpace says they’ve also got a bunch of celebrities, comedians and musicians to sync their MySpace and Twitter accounts: Lenny Kravitz, John Legend, Rachel Zoe, Margaret Cho, George Lopez, Jamie Kennedy, David Spade, Slash, Cat Deeley, Chamillionaire, Jim Gaffigan, David Alan Grier, Larry The Cable Guy, and John Witherspoon. And I’ve done it too.

What MySpace won’t tell me is how many total users have synchronized their accounts so far. Or exactly when they’ll roll out the features for the rest of the world. Soon, though, all MySpace users should be able to sync with Twitter.

.

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TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco

Can We Please Have Jerry Back?

Posted: 22 Sep 2009 08:27 PM PDT

Last November we all knew Yahoo cofounder Jerry Yang would be stepping down after a disastrous tenure as CEO. He spurned Microsoft without realizing the consequences, and he had no ability to describe an alternate path for the company. We weren’t alone in calling for his dismissal, and the hope was that Yahoo would find the right leader to restore their former glory. They didn’t.

In the few months between Jerry’s resignation and the beginning of the Carol Bartz era at Yahoo, there was much speculation in Silicon Valley about who might lead the once great company. People I spoke with thought Yahoo would go one of two ways. The first would be to try to find the great product visionary to lead the company forward. Their Bill Gates or Steve Jobs (Mark Zuckerberg may someday be on that list). With the right product vision Yahoo could push boldly into new territory and renew its bid to create a lasting brand and company. The second way to go would be to hire someone to sell the company, whole or in parts, and maximize shareholder value in the short run.

It’s pretty clear Yahoo went with door number 2 and chose someone who could negotiate a deal over the next great product visionary of our time. You can’t really blame them – true visionaries are by definition rare. And it’s unlikely they’d want to go to swim upstream at Yahoo during the hard rebuilding years.

So in came Bartz, and the deals started happening. We’ve mostly kept quiet. Any new CEO deserves a honeymoon phase, and Bartz barked at journalists to keep their opinions to themselves on her first day at Yahoo: “It's been too crazy. People outside Yahoo deciding what Yahoo should do, shouldn't do. That's got to stop.”

But the honeymoon ended when Yahoo signed away its most important asset for next to nothing. Yahoo went from being in the enviable position of no. 2 in search to just another portal, albeit a big one. And despite what Bartz said, she held out hard for a big up front cash payment. Microsoft never gave in, and Yahoo caved. Now they’ll watch their search market share dwindle, just as AOL’s did after surrendering search to Google earlier this decade. And since all the people have left or are leaving, there is no way for Yahoo to ever recover what they once had. What in the world will happen to them if the government rejects the search deal? They’d be in very serious financial trouble almost immediately. I almost wonder if Microsoft secretly hopes for exactly that to happen.

Bartz played an excellent game of checkers. It’s just that her opponent was playing chess. And the history books will not be kind.

So what’s next for Yahoo? There’s talk of social stuff, but no one believes it. Products are being sold and shut down left and right. Yahoo may stumble along for years without a forced sale. But there are no real product gurus left there to do anything spectacular and risky. What’s Yahoo’s equivalent of the iPhone? They don’t have the stomach to try it, whatever it is.

Bartz says not to worry, that middle America still loves them: “When you get outside New York and Silicon Valley, everyone loves Yahoo.” You know who else used to say that as they began their long, slow decline? MySpace. But what they miss is that the new generation of Internet users is all about Facebook and Google, no matter where they live. Without a bold and risky plan to reshape the company, there is no way to get back those users.

Do I really want Yahoo to bring Jerry Yang back? No, not really. He loves the company but he certainly wasn’t the leader Yahoo needed. His tenure as CEO was a sad affair. But he did have passion for the product, something Bartz lacks. And frankly, he seemed willing to turn down every offer from Microsoft. After declining the initial takeover offer, maybe that was the best strategy. Giving away search hardly seems strategic.

I miss Yahoo. They used to be warriors, with a bite to back up their bark. You can throw F-bombs all day long, but if you don’t have the product muscle to back up the bluster, eventually it just gets old.

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TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco

“Fidelity Potential Index” Pits MP3 Against Vinyl; Science Or Pseudoscience?

Posted: 22 Sep 2009 06:50 PM PDT

There really isn't much debate to be had regarding sound quality: a poorly-encoded MP3 sounds the worst, and an audiophile system playing something on the medium for which it was mastered sounds the best. However, there is a whole continuum between those poles, and some people (audiophiles particularly) can't resist using arbitrary numbers and unintelligible descriptors to differentiate those different levels of quality. In this case, John Meyer of Newform Research (opting for arbitrary numbers) has computed the effective bitrates of all the major audio formats, from wax cylinder to MP3. You can see the results in the chart pictured. His methods are scientific in a way, but also questionable. The effective bitrate of a record can sort of be calculated, since it does indeed rely on a sampling rate and frequency range among other things, but that's not really the end of the story.
TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco

Magnify.net Expands Mobile Strategy With iPhone App

Posted: 22 Sep 2009 06:27 PM PDT

Social video hosting and sharing site Magnify.net is launching an iPhone app to let users submit videos to a Magnify video channel from their 3GS. iPhone users can shoot, upload, store, and share their personal videos on any Magnify-hosted channel. The app, which is free, is currently available on the App Store.

Last year, Magnify added social networking features to its video channels, which can integrate video from across the web (YouTube, AOL). Magnify is using these features to create white-label video platforms and communities for various businesses, including Zappos, New York Magazine Mediaite, and The Weather Channel. In fact, Magnify has seen significant growth in this side of the business.

Magnify currently has more than 62,000 customers using its video platform. While iPhone 3GS users can submit videos from other sources to their Magnify channels, Magnify Mobile lets users design and layout their individual channels to fit their personal tastes. According to Magnify, the app will be developed for other smartphones, including the Blackberry and Android.

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TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco

Twitter Begins Emphasizing SMS Again

Posted: 22 Sep 2009 04:29 PM PDT

Screen shot 2009-09-22 at 4.27.30 PMFor a long time, it looked like Twitter and SMS were destined for a slow and painful breakup. While the functionality was originally a user favorite, as Twitter exploded in size, it looked like it would become too expensive to maintain. Twitter shut down SMS in several countries (in fact, all of them besides the U.S. and India). But even since Kevin Thau, Twitter’s head of mobile products and partnerships, came on board in January, SMS has seen a resurgence. And today it looks like Twitter is ready to emphasize the service again.

Now, on the profile for any Twitter user you follow, you will notice a little mobile phone icon surrounded by a circle. If the circle is clear, SMS updates for that user is off. If there is a green background, SMS updates are on. You can also hover over the icon to see if they are on or off. Clicking on the icon will turn them on or off. On your Following page, you will also see this same icon under the “Settings” column that you can toggle on and off.

Both of these tweaks provide a much more obvious way of handing SMS alerts. And it makes them much easier to switch on and off. Previously, there was no way to control this on individual profiles and you had to drill down into your followers to toggle them on and off.

Maintaining and expanding SMS support is important for Twitter is other parts of the world, where it remains a simple and effective way to communicate with the service. SMS remains a colossal rip-off for what it is, but in some areas, people who want to use Twitter may not really have many other options, as not all countries have affordable iPhones with data plans.

The next step will be for Twitter to turn on SMS track functionality, which will allow you to get pinged every time a certain keyword is mentioned on Twitter. But hey, one step at a time.

Note: If you aren’t seeing SMS updates working, make sure you check your Settings -> Devices area. Here, you should see your mobile phone number and in the Device Updates drop down, this should be set to “On” if you want to see updates. This is the place that you can also set Twitter to only send you text messages when you get direct messages.

Also, be careful. When I turned on Twitter notifications for the first time in a while, I was bombarded by text message tweets from hundreds of users I didn’t even realize I had turn the feature on for (not only is this annoying, but again, it’s a rip-off depending on your messaging plan).

The functionality still needs some UX tweaks — where’s the “set all to off” button? — otherwise it’s simply easier to keep them all off rather than going through each one to make sure they’re off.

Screen shot 2009-09-22 at 4.22.09 PM

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TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco

Plaintiffs In Google Books Settlement Try To Delay Hearing

Posted: 22 Sep 2009 04:25 PM PDT

It appears that the plaintiffs in the Google Books settlement fiasco are going back to the drawing board by asking to postpone a hearing that was scheduled for October 7.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice made its intentions clear that Google needed to rewrite the settlement that the company made with the Author's Guild to make orphan books available on the web. The hearing was to take place to hear from the plaintiffs, which include the Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers, and others, as to what needs to be changed in the settlement.

Last October, Google signed a $125 million settlement with the Author's Guild to pay authors for copyrighted works it has scanned and made available on the Web through its Google Book Search project. More than 7 million books have been scanned by Google so far, a large portion of them out of print. The settlement, though the site is up and running, is still up in the air, because of the antitrust investigation by the Department of Justice. And the settlement has draw its fair share of critics, including Jeff Bezos.

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TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco

DEMO: Tinker Gets Some New Toys For Its Real-Time Content Platform

Posted: 22 Sep 2009 04:01 PM PDT

Tinker, the product from Glam Media that aggregates real-time conversations on services like Twitter and FriendFeed, and allows publishers to embed them in widgets, has launched a new 1.0 release to the public. The company announced the new version at this week’s DEMO Fall conference.

Tinker actually launched back in March, offering both a consumer facing site that serves as a central hub for monitoring events in real-time as well as a number of widgets for publishers looking to leverage this real-time content. Today’s release introduces a number of new features, including a new section that focuses on News. The feature draws on the real-time updates that Tinker typically monitors, as well as news feeds from online publications and wire services.

Also getting a boost are Tinker’s media apps, which let bloggers, news sites, and other publishers manage the tweets they’d like to display on their pages. For example, we could include a Tinker app on TechCrunch that would only show tweets from TechCrunch staff, or could display the latest tech trends to surface on Twitter.

Tinker has also recently launched a new advertising product called ‘Tinker Stream Ads’, which let major brands create a filtered stream of real-time content relevant to their products, which can then be displayed on publisher sites. In September alone these new ads saw over 50 million impressions.

Finally, Tinker now offers a real-time search engine that lets you search through the news, tweets, media, and other content that’s tracked by the site.



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TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco

Let’s Be Trends: Brizzly Launches A Twitter Trending Topic API

Posted: 22 Sep 2009 03:48 PM PDT

Screen shot 2009-09-22 at 3.42.25 PMOne nice feature of the Twitter web app Brizzly is that it has an explanation for why each trending topic on Twitter is popular at any given moment. And because these explanations are user-editable, they’re always up to date. Now Brizzly wants to share that data with the launch of “Let’s Be Trends,” its trending topic API.

The idea is to have other Twitter third-party developers use this data in their apps. Let’s Be Trends features both “current trends” and “get trend” actions that will allow apps to call the most recent popular topics on Twitter as well as the explanation for any one trend upon search, respectively.

“Brizzly users are coming up with awesome explanations,” co-founder Jason Shellen tells us. He wouldn’t share any exact stats for how often users update these trending topic explanations, but says they do so “quickly.” Quite vague, but based on my own usage of the site, it certainly seems true.

While landing third party apps for this data would be great, the big fish to catch, obviously, would be Twitter. Currently, it uses the third-party service “What The Trend?” to display information about trending topics. Right now, it only shows that information on the main Twitter homepage when you’re logged out, but it has been rolling out showing the data across the site. When that happens, the provider of that data should be in very good shape.

Brizzly, which is a product under Shellen’s Thing Labs, has been steadily rolling out improvements as it nears a public launch.

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TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco

Tweetboard Launches Twitter Client And URL Shortener

Posted: 22 Sep 2009 03:40 PM PDT

Tweetboard, a recently-launched product that lets you create a Twitter-powered forum on any site, is adding additional functionality by releasing a Twitter client, new API, and a URL shortener, called PO.ST.

As we’ve written in the past, the advantage to Tweetboard is is the ability to view discussions as a thread, similar to what you'd find on FriendFeed or Facebook. Tweetboard threads all replies, and all nested replies (replies to replies) on Twitter. With Tweetboard’s functioning web-based Twitter client (which will be released at the end of the month), you’ll be able to access the threaded conversations around a particular Tweet. Plus, you’ll be able to Tweet and access your stream from within the Twitter client.

Aside from its fairly original name, Tweetboard’s new URL shortener is designed to compliment it’s client and site widget, letting people shorten URLs from the client and product. Tweetboard is also releasing an an API to allow developers to integrate Tweetboard and is launching a private label service that will let users create a branded “Tweetboard” widget for their sites.

While Tweetboard, which is a product of startup 140Ware, is currently in private alpha, the startup has generously given us 20,000 invites to TechCrunch readers, which you can access here.

Tweetboard may be a little late in the game to launch a Twitter client and URL shortener, which are both areas that are over-saturated with offerings. But packaging conversations into a forum and thread from the client is innovative and could be appealing to users.

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TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco

DEMO: Can A Hooking Up And Looking Up App Redeem Intelius?

Posted: 22 Sep 2009 03:16 PM PDT

inteliusappThere’s really no excuse for going on a date in this day and age without knowing anything about the person — even if they’re a complete stranger. With so much information available about people online whether through Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, or the like, it’s relatively easy to find out way more information than you probably want to know. And now there’s an app for that.

DateCheck by Intelius (more on them below), which launched today at the DEMO conference in San Diego is an iPhone app that allows you to look up a whole range of information about the person you’re on a date with. All you really need is one piece of data as a starting point. It can be something as simple as a name, an email address, or a phone number. From there, you can look up a whole range of information.

The best feature is the “Sleaze Detector”. Basically, this takes the information you collected and does a background check on the person to see if they have a criminal record. This works by current or previous registered addresses that the person has. You can also check out a person’s net worth, their living situation (are they living with their parents), as well as get the usual range of information from Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Unfortunately, though Intelius didn’t really mention it on stage, obtaining all of this information costs money, as TechFlash notes. For example, a criminal check is $19.95. Pulling social network info? $9.95. So while the app itself may be free, the service is anything but.

All of this is more than slightly creepy, but with tag lines like “hook up before you look up” it was an easy crowd favorite at DEMO. Unfortunately, Intelius, and its co-founder Naveen Jain, have a bit of a sketchy history, including allegations of fraud. Jain, who left InfoSpace to start Intelius, was said to be buried in lawsuits back in March, and the company was looking like it could be in trouble.

Have things turned around for Intelius? Will a hooking up app save them? In a world where a sex offender finder app was a hit, it seems like this certainly could be. But the extra costs will likely kill it. Hopefully, Intelius is up front about these costs unlike it has been in the past.

I also hope people don’t try to go to do a Google search for “datecheck” — the first result is an “Escort Directory of Female MILF Escorts.”

CrunchBase Information
Intelius
Information provided by CrunchBase

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TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco

The Top Ten Twitter Apps On The iPhone Among Early Adopters

Posted: 22 Sep 2009 03:08 PM PDT

What are the top Twitter apps on the iPhone? It’s hard to say because the iTunes store doesn’t have a Twitter category (Twitter apps are lumped in under “Social Networking). But AppsFire, the iPhone app sharing service, might have an answer—at least for the early adopter crowd who tend to use AppsFire (i.e. people like you, dear reader). AppsFire looks at apps actually downloaded and kept on people’s iPhones. Based on a sample of 1,500 AppsFire members, the top ten Twitter apps on the iPhone are:

  1. TweetDeck
  2. Tweetie
  3. Twitterific
  4. TwitterFon
  5. IM+
  6. Twitelator Pro
  7. Twitterrific Premium
  8. iTwitter
  9. ShoZu
  10. Boxcar

Notice that 7 of the top ten Twitter apps are paid apps. The only free apps are TweetDeck (No. 1), Titterific (No. 3), and TwitterFon (No. 4).

AppsFire also collected some data on what percentage of users download Twitter apps compared to Facebook apps (see slideshow below). While it found a total of 32 different Facebook apps on user’s iPhones, compared to a whopping 102 Twitter apps, more users had a Facebook App on their device.

The No. 1 Facebook app, of course, is the official Facebook app for the iPhone, whereas Twitter does not have any official iPhone app. A full 70 percent of users in the AppsFire sample had the Facebook iPhone app, while only 63 percent had a Twitter app. So much for diversity.

The one thing AppsFire does not know, however, is which apps are actually used more often. You can help answer that by answering the poll below:

Appsfire: Facebook vs Twitter, who wins on the iPhone

CrunchBase Information
Twitter
Facebook
iPhone 3G
AppsFire
Information provided by CrunchBase

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TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco

Thank You TechCrunch Sponsors!

Posted: 22 Sep 2009 03:00 PM PDT

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TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco

Picasa Adds Facial Recognition And Geo-Tagging To Its Desktop App

Posted: 22 Sep 2009 02:36 PM PDT

Picasa faces

It took a whole year, but Google is finally adding the facial recognition features you can find in Picasa Web albums to its desktop app. With today’s release of Picasa 3.5, when you add a name tag, it scans your entire photo library and applies that name to every match. If it’s not sure it’s the same face, it gives you the option to apply the tag.

To help you tag people, Picasa auto-completes names from your Google contacts when you start typing a name. And you can also geo-tag a photo by marking a photo on Google Maps.

Once faces are tagged, you can create a face collage of the same person, time-lapse movies, or sync the tags with your Picasa Web albums. You can now upload directly from your camera to Picasa Web albums if you like. Also, with this release the Mac version is no longer in beta.

Facial recognition is now a standard feature for photo apps, both desktop and online. iPhoto has it, Faceboopk Photos has it (through Face.com), and now both Picasa’s online and desktop versions have it.

Here’s a video with a demo of the new features:

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TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco

WTF Is This Article Doing On Facebook?

Posted: 22 Sep 2009 12:10 PM PDT

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing” – Edmund Burke

“Technology will never deliver us from evil. Only decent people can.” – Rabbi Abraham Cooper

What an odd blog post on Facebook today by Rabbi Abraham Cooper. The social network has failed to take a leadership position against Holocaust denial groups. And just when the buzz dies down, they post an article that ends with “We all must do our part to ensure that social media lands on the side of the good.”

So, ok, great. Let’s start by removing the Holocaust denial groups that put Facebook’s logo above some of the most ridiculously vile stuff I’ve ever read. eBay and others don’t allow Holocaust denial because it’s a back door to Jewish hatred. As a private company, Facebook could easily take the position that their site is no place for that kind of nonsense. Show me a Holocaust denier who doesn’t hate Jews and we can start a conversation I guess. But the fact is, they don’t exist.

Do your part, Facebook. Follow the Rabbi’s advice. Shut that evilness down. Sure, it’s funny when Facebook employees mock the situation by creating groups like “Michael Arrington Does Not Exist.” But I think Facebook can do more to be a part of a solution to the problem, rather than part of the cause.

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