The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- Microsoft Moves Visual Studio Towards The Cloud
- Loopt’s Mix Grows Up; Becomes An iPhone App
- Google Gives The Ultimate Holiday Gift: Free WiFi On Virgin America Flights
- HubSpot Closes $16 Million Series C Round Led By Scale Venture Partners
- Plastic Logic’s Que E-reader: One For The Businesspeople In The Audience
- Google Europe COO Bails, To Head Operations For Rival European Directories Next
- Middle Eastern Media Giant Backs Upcoming Music Video Site VEVO
- YC-Funded DailyBooth Raises $1 Million From Sequoia, Kevin Rose, Ron Conway Et Al.
- Zoho Projects Now Integrated With Google Apps
- Comes With Spotify? Music Startup Bundled With Mobile Tarrif
- Facebook 3.1 With Notifications Should Soon Highlight The iPhone Push Problem
- Healthcare Reform, Chinese Startup Style
- Rock Band Hits The App Store
- Google Expands “Going Google” Ad Campaign Worldwide
- Episodic Rolls Out Publishing And Management Suite For Online Video
- Adobe to Envato: Flash Is Ours, Change Your Name
- Wolfram Alpha Miscalculates What Its iPhone App Should Cost
- TringMe’s App Lets You Make Calls From Facebook
- Google Figured Out Where New Zealand Is
- Launch48 Startups Present Their Ideas After 48 Hours Of Hacking
- A Digital Magazine Without Links Is a CD-ROM
| Microsoft Moves Visual Studio Towards The Cloud Posted: 19 Oct 2009 07:56 AM PDT
Microsoft is making a significant announcement for developers today, upgrading and adding functionality to Visual Studio 2010 to make the product more cloud-friendly in anticipation of Microsoft’s release of its commercial cloud platform Azure. Visual Studio is Microsoft’s a development environment that can be used to develop web applications, sites and services based on Microsoft’s technology platforms. Visual Studio 2010 will have additional testing options for developers to ensure quality code. Microsoft has included built-in tools for Windows 7 and Microsoft SharePoint 2010, and new drag and drop bindings for Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation. This is the first time that Microsoft has offered specific tools for building applications off of SharePoint. And with Visual Studio, developers can also build applications that cut across both Microsoft’s cloud computing platform Azure and on-premises databases. Microsoft is making it much easier for developers to build on the Azure cloud with these new tools. The specific Windows Azure tools for Visual Studio let developers build ASP.NET web applications and services that are hosted in Azure’s cloud services operating system. The tools also includes a SDK environment, and a simulated cloud environment that runs on the developer's machine, so developers can test and debug their applications locally. Microsoft is also upgrading its .NET Framework 4, which will let developers experience smaller deployments with an 81 percent reduction in the framework size when using the Client Profile. Other benefits include additional support for industry standards, inclusion of the Dynamic Language Runtime for more language choice, new support for high-performance middle-tier applications (including parallel programming, workflow and service-oriented applications) and backward compatibility through side-by-side installation with .NET Framework 3.5. Visual Studio is being restructured in terms of the product lineup, with customers now being able to choose from three main versions of Visual Studio 2010: Professional (which includes essential tools), Premium, and Ultimate (a comprehensive package of life-cycle management tools). Microsoft has also redesigned the UI of the MSDN developer website, including a faster version of the MSDN Library and additional community resources for programmers and developers. Although we all know that Microsoft has strong ambitions in the cloud, it appears that part of its strategy involves providing developers with the best tools possible to build high-class applications off of Azure. Microsoft knows it must engage developers to help build momentum for the much-hyped Azure. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.   |
| Loopt’s Mix Grows Up; Becomes An iPhone App Posted: 19 Oct 2009 07:54 AM PDT
At TechCrunch, we’ve always been big fans of mobile social networks, particularly on the iPhone. In fact, Loopt, one of the first location-based iPhone apps and social networks to gain popularity, was offered a feature, called Mix, that acts as a social compass that allows people to connect with and learn about others around them. Mix turned out to be such a popular feature that Loopt is breaking the feature out into its own free iPhone app. Loopt is basically a social-mapping app that allows you to discover the world around you on your mobile phone. Mix was the part of the app that let you meet new people (who also have the app) nearby. You see a list of people, profiles/interests, their latest status, ranked by their approximate distance to you and can message the people who you find compelling. While Mix can be used for any type of connection with users, Loopt’s co-founder and CEO Sam Altman says the feature is primarily used for dating and love connections. The new app, called “Loopt Mix,” has much of the same functionality as the feature integrated with the Loopt app, including the ability to browse profiles of people near you, to post photos and status updates about yourself and to message people around you. The app lets you use “likes,” similar to Facebook, to indicate your preference for someone; status update, and also includes the ability to filter search within the app. And Mix now includes real-time, in-app chat with push notifications. Altman tells us that location-based dating apps are the future of mobile networking and believes that Mix is doing this better and more efficiently than the competition, which includes Match.com’s iPhone app. And of course, Mix and Loopt both face competition from Foursquare, which has a slightly different take on location-based social graphing. On a separate note, Altman also told me the next version of Loopt’s app will include e-commerce within the app, thanks to Apple’s recent allowance for in-app commerce for free apps. Loopt also recently introduced a new technology for background location on the iPhone which could be a huge win for the startup. Disclosure: Loopt offers a TechCrunch branded version of the app. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| Google Gives The Ultimate Holiday Gift: Free WiFi On Virgin America Flights Posted: 19 Oct 2009 07:52 AM PDT
Google is going to make a lot of frequent flyers, and Virgin America, happy this holiday season. As a gift to people who fly on Virgin America’s WiFi-equipped planes, Google will be footing the bill for everybody on board between November 10, 2009, and January 15, 2010. For Google, this is a smart marketing move because it generates tons of good will among everyone who flies Virgin America. But Google is really giving a gift to Virgin America in the form of yet one more incentive to fly its planes over competitors’. Will American Airlines and others with WiFi on board have to respond with their own freebie giveaways? I hope so. Not that I mind paying the $13 per flight to use WiFi on Virgin America flights. In fact, I go out of my way to try to fly on Virgin America, just so that I don’t waste 6 hours going from coast to coast. But giving it away free makes it even more appealing. In fact, as I’ve suggested in the past, I wonder if Virgin America would be better off giving the WiFi away for “free” to everyone on board regularly, but charging more per flight. I’d certainly be willing to pay $25 to $50 more per flight if I knew there was WiFi. But that’s just me. The only thing that worries me is whether the in-flight WiFi system can handle everyone on board surfing the Web at the same time. At least with the $13 fee, there is a natural cap to how many people use it at once. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| HubSpot Closes $16 Million Series C Round Led By Scale Venture Partners Posted: 19 Oct 2009 06:33 AM PDT
According to the blog post announcing the investment, the valuation of the company went up again with this fresh round of funding. The capital will mostly be used to increase investment in R&D in solutions that fix the ‘broken’ set of outbound marketing tools currently used by many companies, says the startup. HubSpot claims revenue growth of 350% over the last year and adds that its growth in number of customers is consistent as well:
HubSpot offers an Internet marketing application that helps businesses with their SEO strategy and lead generation and conversion efforts. The company is behind tools like Website Grader, which essentially audits websites for their search engine friendliness, and boasts similar tools specifically for Twitter and Facebook. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| Plastic Logic’s Que E-reader: One For The Businesspeople In The Audience Posted: 19 Oct 2009 06:24 AM PDT  Another day, another e-reader. Toady's is the Plastic Logic Que, which is pronounced like the letter that falls between P and R. I, however, will henceforth pronounce it like the Portuguese word for "what," and the European Portuguese pronunciation at that. (Sorta sounds like "quh." It's a movement!) Plastic Logic seems to be aiming it at the business market, which I don't think we've really seen before. |
| Google Europe COO Bails, To Head Operations For Rival European Directories Next Posted: 19 Oct 2009 05:53 AM PDT  European Directories has announced a big win this morning with the appointment of Ben Legg as Chief Operating Officer. Legg joins the Dutch/British company from Google, one of its main competitors, where the man served as COO Europe since January this year and as Director of Operations in the two years before that. European Directories, which provides local search and lead-generation products in eight European markets including The Netherlands, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Poland says Legg will assume direct responsibility for three of the company's country operations. |
| Middle Eastern Media Giant Backs Upcoming Music Video Site VEVO Posted: 19 Oct 2009 04:50 AM PDT
VEVO has just announced a ’strategic’ investment was made by Abu Dhabi Media Company (ADMC), a giant of a media company with headquarters in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, reports MediaMemo. The specifics of the deal remain under cover, but the rumor mill suggests the company is being valued at around $300 million. Slated for launch in the U.S. and Canada next December, VEVO is going to attempt to leverage YouTube’s massive audience to build a destination and syndication network for “the very best in top-notch music video content”. The three founding shareholders will be sharing the revenue from the music video site with YouTube as it will be using Google’s video sharing site as its main distribution platform. Question is: how attractive will the service turn out to be considering the fact two other majors, Warner Music and EMI, are still holding out? And how did Abu Dhabi Media Company come into play? ADMC was created in June 2007 as a joint stock company (wholly owned by the government of Abu Dhabi) from the assets of Emirates Media Incorporated. The company owns a host of television and radio networks and multiple newspaper and magazine businesses. The company boasts dozens of partnership and distribution agreements with media companies from around the globe, including Bertelsmann, Warner Bros., Participant Media and National Geographic. Its CEO is veteran media pro Edward Borgerding, who was Executive Vice-President of Walt Disney International in Hong Kong before joining ADMC in 2007. ADMC Chairman H.E. Mohamed Khalaf Al Mazroui in a statement said the deal will help the company establish a leading position in the digital media industry, and added that taking a stake in the joint venture is part of an integrated approach to expand its global presence and brand portfolio. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| YC-Funded DailyBooth Raises $1 Million From Sequoia, Kevin Rose, Ron Conway Et Al. Posted: 19 Oct 2009 04:11 AM PDT
The startup was launched in February 2009, received some initial seed funding from Y Combinator over the summer and has now raised an additional $1 million from an all-star team of institutional and individual investors. Wall Street Journal blog Digits broke the news earlier this morning, and reported that DailyBooth has secured ‘roughly’ $1 million in financing from Sequoia Capital, Ron Conway's SV Angel, Betaworks, Digg co-founder Kevin Rose and Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake. In an interview with DailyBooth co-founders Ryan Amos and Jon Wheatley, we learn that its users use the site like real-time poster child Twitter only with webcam-shot photos, which they say is in line with current trends of more personalization in short-form online communication means. The company says it’s currently receiving about six million monthly unique visitors, a number that’s reportedly still growing by about 35% a month. Talk about swift adoption and viralness. The two men also went into the demographics a little, saying that the majority of its user base is located in the United Stated and other English-speaking countries such as the UK and Canada (which makes all the sense in the world, since the service isn’t multi-lingual yet). The majority of its users are 15-to-25 years old women, they add. DailyBooth says it will use the extra cash to help them scale the service first and think about making money later on – currently they’re thinking in the direction of media-based businesses, premium offerings and offline distribution like photo-printing. In conclusion: DailyBooth is growing fast, has gotten the attention and money from some of the nation’s most prolific and well-connected investors in real-time Internet startups and doesn’t appear to be all too worried with monetizing the service just yet. Its co-founders were right: it is very much like Twitter.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| Zoho Projects Now Integrated With Google Apps Posted: 19 Oct 2009 03:45 AM PDT
Web-based productivity suite Zoho has continued to integrate its products with Google in order to make it easier to use Gmail and Zoho apps simultaneously. Last summer, Zoho, a web-based software suite that includes document, project and invoicing management tools, integrated Google and Yahoo sign-ins, allowing users to sign into Zoho using a Google or Yahoo account. And over the summer, Zoho is launched sign-in integration with Google Apps, letting users login to Zoho using their Google Apps credentials. Today, Zoho’s project collaboration product, Zoho Projects, will become an extended application to Google Apps. Zoho Projects is a team collaboration and project management application that allows teams to plan, track and collaborate on everyday activities and big projects with external customers. With the new integration, Google Apps users can login to Zoho Projects using their Google Apps sign-in info. Users can then upload their documents from Google Docs to Zoho Projects directly. Any tasks, meetings or activities in Zoho Project will automatically bee updated in Google Calendar. And Zoho Projects gadgets can be embedded within Gmail, iGoogle and any other OpenSocial compatible sites. The integration comes on the heels of the initial roll out of Google’s own all-in-one, futuristic collaboration tool, Google Wave. But despite facing competition from the big guns like Microsoft and Google, Zoho continues to remain as a player in the document management space thanks to continuous innovations and iterations to its products. It’s almost reminiscent of Salesforce.com’s strategy. In fact, because of this highly competitive landscape, integrations are vital to the software's success as an application suite. Recently, Zoho launched integration with Microsoft Sharepoint as well as with Microsoft Access. Zoho's project management application, Zoho Projects 2.0, also added the capability to import existing projects from MS Project, Microsoft's project management desktop software. And Zoho also launched a forum tool, called Zoho Discussions. It looks like the startup’s strategy is paying off—Zoho has been able to accumulate 2 million users in just 4 years. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| Comes With Spotify? Music Startup Bundled With Mobile Tarrif Posted: 19 Oct 2009 03:23 AM PDT
The offer will come in at £35 ($57) a month over 24 months plus £99 ($161) for the Hero handset. That tariff includes unlimited use of Spotify Premium on both the handset and the owner’s PC for 2 years. That is a pretty good deal. The announcement hints at Spotify appearing on other handsets and, I daresay, other networks at some point – though the service has yet to launch at all in the US. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| Facebook 3.1 With Notifications Should Soon Highlight The iPhone Push Problem Posted: 19 Oct 2009 02:39 AM PDT
While we’ve long suspected that this would be a feature in the next major iteration, developer Joe Hewitt confirmed it tonight on Twitter. And that feature will make what is already one of the best iPhone apps out there, even better. The lack of Push Notifications is probably the biggest complaint users have about the app, right now. Facebook with Push Notifications could be significant in another way as well: It could well be the most popular app people are using with the functionality. Why that matters is that it could start showing everyone what some of us iPhone power users have realized for a while: The Push Notification management system beyond a certain threshold is basically useless. That is to say, when you’re getting a large number of Push Notifications on your iPhone, it’s almost laughable how bad the built-in system is for trying to figure out what you just got notified about beyond the most recent message. That’s why Boxcar, a Push Notification app, is so great, it has a main dashboard where you can see a full list of your recent Push Notifications. I realize that I’m hardly representative of the average user, but I often find myself looking over this list after a few days, and there are a couple thousand Push messages accumulated. But sadly, this only works for notifications run through Boxcar. So if you have say, a notification from Foursquare, one from AIM, and one from BNO News, none of those will be in that list. Boxcar (which also already does Facebook notifications, by the way) also doesn’t solve the issue of smartly displaying various kinds of messages on your main screen when they come in. For example, if I have a text message that comes in, but a Push Notification after it, the Push message will override the text message, so I will not know I have a text at all unless I unlock my phone and look at the Messages app. There also badly needs to be a universal “quiet time” setting, when no Push Notification are sent to your phone. Several apps are starting to build this in, but that’s just more management for users to deal with on an app-by-app basis; it really should be a universal system setting. The Push system is such a mess right now, that many of the most popular developers are letting others deal with it. Loren Brichter, the guy behind the excellent Twitter app Tweetie, tells us that he’s tabled Push Notifications for the time being, letting others like Boxcar handle it, because it’s a potential headache. With iTunes 9, Apple completely revamped the way to organize and manage apps on your computer. It was a much needed, and welcomed change. The next step is to completely revamp the Push Notification management system. And I think Facebook with Push Notifications will go a long way in highlighting that need.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| Healthcare Reform, Chinese Startup Style Posted: 19 Oct 2009 01:12 AM PDT
Inauthentic? Tell me more. Twenty-nine year old Zhang, who has lived exactly half of his life in China, is a ringleader of a brat pack of smart, well-schooled Beijing expats working in everything from media to tech to education. I've twice run into him and a giant gang of friends in the Beijing nightlife scene. Said someone the last time, "Oh, everybody knows Yan." They genuinely work hard and most have studied in Asian history and Mandarin. What's more these aren't the expats of old with rich, corporate relocation packages. Most decided to move here first and figured out what they'd do second—even if many of them have family money that pays the bills in the meantime. But many nights they also play hard—and usually just with other expats. (Ahem, see video here. That’s Zhang at the end.) They toss back drinks at Manhatten-esque nighclubs and British-style pub quizzes. I'm not judging. It sounds a lot like what I do with friends in San Francisco, truth be told. But I didn’t relocate to experience China either. "Are we living the Chinese experience? Not really," Zhang said. "But neither are expats who live on a Hutong and also go out with other Americans at night." But unlike a lot of gadfly expats I've met in two trips to China, Zhang is building a real company. He's been at it for two years. It's actually aimed at the Chinese market, while a lot of expats just seek to leverage China's workforce. And it's not a U.S. copycat site. In fact, it's a site that wouldn't work in the US. Zhang's company is Meiloo.com, a site that helps Chinese Internet users find, source and compare doctors and hospitals for elective surgery. It's not one of those Silicon Valley thank-God-the-URL-wasn't-taken, nonsense word companies. It means "happy and beautiful." Elective health care services are a $10 billion a year market in China that already heavily advertises on TV, billboards and the Web. Elective medicine doesn’t just refer to things like plastic surgery here, but also to preventive care like annual physicals and dental check-ups. And unlike in the United States, where HMOs and private insurance companies own or control much of the market, in China's growing, fragmented market finding a good doctor for a good price is, well, a lot like the challenges in comparing and sourcing travel in the pre-Web days, Zhang says. Will the whole Chinese market jump to use Meiloo? No. But Zhang points out that Chinese travel site Ctrip taps less than 10% of the domestic travel market and is a multi-billion company. And Meiloo’s 15% cut of any service or surgery booked online can add up a lot faster. Plus, the demographics will increasingly work in Meiloo's favor. The largest base of Chinese Internet users were born in the 1980s, and increasingly that audience is aging and will want – and be able to afford—dental work, plastic surgery, and laser eye surgery that government plans don't cover. In fact, government health care doesn't even cover annual physicals. Meiloo is growing transactions at a pace of 15%-25% per month, and has helped book nearly $1 million US dollars in transactions in the last twelve months. Those numbers aren't massive. But the biggest victory, according to Zhang, is that patients don't use the system for research and then go around it to actually book services, and that doctors and hospitals actually pay Meiloo's cut. 90% of Meiloo's account receivables are resolved in sixty days. "We've worked to align everyone's interest," he says. "That's the key to doing business in China." So far there are 330 clinics on the system and 1,100 doctors listed. A lot, but a drop in the bucket by Chinese standards. There are two other things I like about Meiloo. One: Zhang's co-founder Jeffrey Wu (right in the picture above) isn't your typical smart engineer plucked out of a top Chinese school. Within six years he went from a drop-out running a bar in Shanghai to the CTO of DangDang, one of China's largest e-commerce companies. In my interview with Kai-Fu Lee earlier this week, he noted that all multinationals use universities as a hiring filter and admitted it's not always the best or most fair way to find talent. Wu's story proves it. I have a feeling that scrappy gray area is where many of China's best entrepreneurs will come from in future years. Two: So far, Wu and Zhang have bootstrapped the company, taking only modest funding from a group of angels in California. Zhang let it slip that he's going to the Valley in early November. Given his anxious behavior as I asked more and more questions about the trip, I wouldn't be surprised if a Valley funding round is on the horizon for the young company. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| Posted: 18 Oct 2009 09:26 PM PDT
The much anticipated and hyped Rock Band for iPhone and iPod Touch is out! We first scooped the news of the launch of the app a few weeks ago. Shortly afterwards, Rock Band for the iPhone/iPod touch was officially announced by Electronic Arts. The app costs $9.99 and can be found here. The game features a multi-player mode (via Bluetooth), allowing up to 4 players to rock out on the go. While you can also play via single-player mode, you can use the integrated Facebook Connect to invite your friends to join in. Rock Band for iPhone allows players to choose between vocals, drums, bass, or guitar. The game involves tapping the screen on the correct notes and the vocals are also performed through tapping (as opposed to singing). The app features 20 tracks from a varied list of artists and musicians (see the song list below). The app has premium content that can be purchased via an in-game store. Rock Band also includes an in-game message center to check your band’s status and will have push notifications when friends invite you to rock out. In an earlier post, we speculated the impact of Rock Band’s app on Tapulous with their immensely popular Tap Tap Revenge series. Tap Tap Revenge already has a massive following on the platform, but it's very similar to Rock Band. Tapulous just launched Tap Tap Revenge 3, which focused on premium content through In-App Purchase, similar to Rock Band. Full track listing: Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| Google Expands “Going Google” Ad Campaign Worldwide Posted: 18 Oct 2009 07:58 PM PDT
The Going Google campaign, first launched in August (and spoofed within a day) with billboards that changed messages daily, is expanding. The target? Microsoft Office/Exchange/Sharepoint. The message? Give your employees shared documents, calendars, email, etc. without the hassles of managing email servers or rolling out software updates. Customers are pointed to google.com/gogoogle. Tonight Google is announcing the expansion of the Going Google campaign into the U.K., France, Canada, Japan, Australia and Singapore (”train stations such as Paddington, La Défense and Shinagawa, and at airports in Singapore, Toronto, Dallas and beyond”). They’re also announcing new enterprise customers onica Minolta, Rentokil Initial and TOTO. Other recent customer wins include Recent wins include Motorola’s handset division (20K users), Konica Minolta (7K users), Rentokil Initial (business services company, 35K users), and MeadWestVaco (VA based global packaging company, 17K users). They’ve also created a montage video of the campaign: Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. |
| Episodic Rolls Out Publishing And Management Suite For Online Video Posted: 18 Oct 2009 07:50 PM PDT
Video publishing platform Episodic is rolling out its publishing suite that lets users manage and measure video content, and use the platform’s monetization services which enable ad insertion and credit card transactions for both live and on-demand video streaming. Episodic is hoping to make its mark in the online video publishing space by offering additional features for easy monetization, distribution and customization. The suite itself is made up of five functional areas, including the ability to create video libraries, customer metadata fields, and the ability to encode. The player itself works on both the web and mobile browsers. Currently, Episodic is formatted for the iPhone only but Android, Blackberry and Symbian device support are coming soon. Interestingly, Episodic also offers an ad server that is interoperable with all major ad serving platforms, letting users insert ads into videos via a fairly simple process. Like YouTube, Episodic also offers an analytics engine that gives publishers real-time metrics and reporting around audience engagement, viewer performance, network quality and the quality of the overall viewing experience. And the platform offers users the ability to syndicate videos to other destinations like Hulu, iTunes and Amazon. With Episodic, content producers can also build custom branded iPhone applications around their media. Episodic is trying to make a name in a crowded space chock full of popular platforms such as Brightcove, Ooyala and thePlatform. But the startup is offering a simple and easy way of monetizing, analyzing and syndicating videos, so it may have success in gaining a following. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| Adobe to Envato: Flash Is Ours, Change Your Name Posted: 18 Oct 2009 07:02 PM PDT
Adobe is a big company, with a lots of products, but one of its strongest brands is Flash. So when Adobe contacted Envato, an Australian startup that operates a set of popular marketplaces for digital creative goods to change one of their marketplaces names, Envato had no choice. Envato operates a property called FlashDen, which sells Adobe Flash and Flex files like preloaders, galleries, site templates and utilities. Files are created and sold by a huge community of authors from all over the world. Last week Adobe contacted Envato and asked Envato to change the name and URL of FlashDen so that it would no longer contain the term 'Flash', which is a registered trademark of Adobe. With little time, Envato changed the name from FlashDen to ActiveDen. Seeing this change, we reached out to Collis Ta’eed, the CEO of Envato, and he mentioned that Envato received a letter from a law firm representing Adobe asking to change FlashDen’s name. Envato followed through, not wanting more legal problems with Adobe. Ta’eed also mentioned that “FlashDen” was filed as a trademark in Australia in January 2008 and entered on the Australian trademark register in August 2008. Envato is based in Melbourne, Australia. I guess the main takeaway here is that if you are trying to help Adobe build its ecosystem of apps around Flash, don’t try to communicate that by including the word Flash in the name of your site. Envato currently operates five “marketplaces” including ThemeForest, GraphicRiver, AudioJungle, VideoHive and now ActiveDen. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. |
| Wolfram Alpha Miscalculates What Its iPhone App Should Cost Posted: 18 Oct 2009 04:00 PM PDT
There are two key points about Wolfram Alpha’s iPhone app: 1) It is pretty cool, and very nicely done. 2) They’re insane for trying to sell it for $50. I’m going to mainly focus on second point here, because if you’ve used Wolfram Alpha, you don’t really need much explanation about this app, which is a slick interface for the service. And while I get Wolfram Alpha’s logic behind selling the app for $50, I think it’s faulty logic. Here’s what they’re telling us:
Both of those points are true, but the App Store has created a different economic reality than say, walking into an Office Max and buying a graphing calculator. It’s no secret that most apps that sell well tend to be cheaper — as in, free or $0.99. Apple has recently tried to de-emphasize this by adding a “Top Grossing” section to the App Store. That’s fine, but with the exception of the $90 Navigon GPS turn-by-turn app, all of the top grossing apps are under $10. And most are under $3. The reality is that you can probably count the number of iPhone apps over $10 that sell really well on your hands. Of those, the number over $20, you can probably count on one hand. And of those, if you remove the GPS turn-by-turn apps and maybe a few apps meant for doctors, you’re probably down to a couple fingers. And I’m sorry, but Wolfram Alpha does not yet have the clout of Navigon, nor is it in the hot turn-by-turn GPS space that would warrant such a high price. “We do plan to offer regular discounts and sales,” the team tells us. But if they really want this app to sell, they’re going to have to knock off like 90% of its price. Actually, to be honest, even at $10, I’m not sure how many people would buy this app.
Wolfram Alpha may have to figure that reality out the hard way. It’s fine that it can replace your $100 graphing calculator, but it’s also limited because it requires WiFi or a 3G connection to do so. And the iPhone already comes with a calculator, which can turn into a more advanced one, and both of those are free. And there are dozens of graphing calculator apps in the App Store that sell for a whopping $0.99. Okay, you might say, but Wolfram Alpha does offer a lot of interesting data far beyond graphing calculators. That’s also true, like giving you a detailed read out of how many calories are in a Big Mac, fries, and a Coke. But if you’re using this on your iPhone or iPod touch, you already have access to Google, and more to the point, the mobile web version of Wolfram Alpha, which is free. Clearly, the service had some insight into how controversial the price will be. They go on to note:
I can only assume they mean “ergonomics” there, but we’ll forgive them for that Freudian slip.
As we’ve noted previously, the iPhone app is the first example of Wolfram Alpha’s new APIs that they hope will extend their most valuable asset: Their data. But if you’re trying to get more people to use access your data, charging $50 is not a great play. A better one may be to get people hooked on your data, then charge down the road when they realize how valuable it is — if they ever do, which is still far from certain with Wolfram Alpha. It’s also interesting to note that despite talk of a deal with Bing, the defautl web search in the Wolfram Alpha app is Google. Both Bing and Yahoo are options, but you have to change it in the settings. You can find the Wolfram Alpha app here in the App Store. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. |
| TringMe’s App Lets You Make Calls From Facebook Posted: 18 Oct 2009 01:30 PM PDT  VoIP startup TringMe has launched a Facebook application that lets users make calls from the social network using its Flash-based web phone for browsers. The app also lets you embed widgets to your profile for your Facebook friends to call or SMS you. The app has much of the functionality that a regular VoIP app like Skype has. TringMe’s app lets users set up caller-id, send SMS messages from Facebook, lets callers leave voicemails that the users can access and lets you add TringMe widgets to your profile that let friends and visitors call or SMS you from that page, which seems to be the most appealing feature of the app. And if you have a TringMe account, you can integrate your account with Facebook. Of course, you have to buy credits to use the application, which range from $5 to $100 worth of credits, bought via PayPal. Facebook also has a similar Skype-based app called SkypeMe. that lets you Skype your friends. TringMe also recently launched a demo of a widget that now allows a user the ability to make a VoIP call from Microsoft Silverlight applications. Silverlight doesn't allow access to a microphone, thus restricting VoIP calls, so TringMe used a backdoor Flash widget to access the microphone. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. |
| Google Figured Out Where New Zealand Is Posted: 18 Oct 2009 11:44 AM PDT
I wondered how long it would take for them to make the change. If they did it right away it would be too obvious. They’d probably wait until the middle of the weekend to fix it. Today, in the middle of the weekend, they fixed it. And now we can link to a clip from The Chaser’s War On Everything (which is even better than Flight of the Conchords): Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| Launch48 Startups Present Their Ideas After 48 Hours Of Hacking Posted: 18 Oct 2009 11:13 AM PDT
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| A Digital Magazine Without Links Is a CD-ROM Posted: 18 Oct 2009 09:51 AM PDT
When the next generation of touchscreen tablet computers hits the market, one of its highly anticipated uses will be as a full-color reader for books, newspapers, and magazines. Of those three, the main beneficiary may very well be old-style magazines. The black-and-white Kindle doesn’t do magazines justice, and they never really quite translated to the Web. The magic of a magazine is all in the layout—the interplay of lush prose with stunning photography or standout illustrations. A tablet computer holds forth the promise of a high-resolution color screen that is big enough so you won’t have to squint at it. Tablets will be portable and comfortable enough to hold in your hands while you are sitting in an easy chair. And subscriptions can be delivered on an ongoing basis as quickly as an issue or an article can be published, without those pesky printing, paper, or shipping costs. It’s not hard to understand why beleaguered magazine executives and editors can’t wait for these tablets to appear. They are already talking about creating a Hulu for magazines—kind of like a giant digital newsstand which delivers its digital editions to tablets and other devices from all of today’s major print magazines. But what will a digital magazine look like exactly? My former editor Josh Quittner, who is now working on some prototypes for digital magazines at Time Inc. (among other things), recently offered the following perspective on re-imagining magazines for these devices:
When I read that, I did a double-take and asked Quittner whether he was he actually suggesting removing the links from digital magazines. He responded, and even wrote another blog post, saying that is exactly what he meant:
What Quittner is evoking here is the iTunes model, where you download self-contained apps to your iPhone. Imagine magazines for sale on iTunes, but for a bigger device. And they are not just filled with words and pictures, but have interactive elements, perhaps video too, and operate more like an information app. I think that’s a great idea, and would love to see magazine “apps” like that. But not including links in the text would be a mistake. And in fact, Quittner’s analogy only goes so far because many iPhone apps support links which then open a browser. That kind of hybrid design could work for digital publications as well. Digital magazines should be immersive, self-contained experiences, Quittner argues. I agree with the immersive part, but if it’s too self-contained you end up with a CD-ROM. When was the last time you bought one of those? But Quittner seems to want e-mags to be more like e-books, which don’t have any links at all. In his mind, every link “leaves the barn door open” and points “away from the product . . . to the wide-open Web,” where nobody wants to pay for anything. Sorry old pal, but that horse left the barn a long time ago. I can appreciate the challenge magazine companies have of transitioning from print to digital without losing paying subscribers, but they ignore the link structure of the Web at their peril. Those links are there whether they acknowledge them or not and people will seek them out. If the Web has taught us anything it is that information does not exist in a vacuum. An article without links is a dead story. An interesting artifact perhaps, but not something that will engage and delight the modern reader, who finds information these days by following links or passing them around. If you close the door to the Web, you’ll only be locking yourself in. And that raises another question about these digital magazines. Will each story have an associated link, and will people need a tablet reader to open up those links and read them? While you can create a much richer experience in a dedicated app than in a browser, the gap between the two is quickly closing. The latest Javascript rendering engines, HTML5, and a whole slew of advancements are turning the browser into a rich application platform. When Google launches its own electronic book store, the books will be delivered via the browser. No special electronic reader will be required. The same should be true for digital magazines. New browser technologies can make digital magazines more immersive than a standard HTML Website, and in fact a magazine’s Website can be programmed to unlock different features depending on the type of browser and device that is being used to view it. If it detects a touchscreen tablet, maybe the UI changes to deliver the most compelling experience. There will always be demand for information that is packaged in an informative and entertaining way. But the most vibrant magazines (and newspapers) of tomorrow will live on the Web (not some jewel-encased app), and they most certainly will have links CD-ROM image by Clinton Little; Tablet magazine image via Gizmodo. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
Digital marketing startup 
When we first 
Mobile operator 
Sometime soon, Facebook 3.03 for the iPhone will be available in the App Store. It should be a small update with some bug fixes. The bigger news is what will be coming soon after it: Facebook 3.1 for the iPhone, complete with Push Notifications.
BEIJING, CHINA– Give Yan Zhang (left) credit for honesty. You ask most expats about life in China and they talk up building bridges, mixing with the locals and their valuable expertise in building government contacts. When I asked Zhang about his expat life over breakfast he looked at me and said, "You do feel a little guilty about this life, because it can feel inauthentic."
Google continues to hit milestones with Google Apps – 2 million businesses and 20 million users in over 100 countries and 40 languages (up from 
Apple wasted little time approving Wolfram Alpha’s new iPhone app, which 
And that’s too bad for the team. As I said, the app is a solid one, but this is the reality of the App Store. Games that sell on systems like the Nintendo DS for $30, are $3 on the iPhone. Hell, there are even some games that sell on the bigger consoles for $60 that are less than $10 on the iPhone. They’re not quite as good graphics-wise, but I would argue that they’re every bit as fun. And don’t think for a second that studios like EA wouldn’t sell them for $30 if they could, but they realize that they can’t.
The app absolutely does offer a nice experience, one that yes, is better than the free website. But $50 better? No. $10 better? Maybe. $5 better? We’re getting closer. Again, right or wrong, this is just the reality of the App Store economy.
Last week we wrote about Google’s odd habit of putting the 
The 
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