The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- Startups Continue To Attract Funding, Create Jobs
- Outright Raises $5 Million More For Simple Online Bookkeeping App
- Rdio Recruits Star Designer Wilson Miner (Apple.com, EveryBlock)
- Remix On Your iPhone Like It’s Your Birthday With 50 Cent’s Sound Lab App
- Shareholder Class Action Suit Seeks To Block 3Com-HP Merger
- A Big Google Chrome Extensions Push Is Imminent (Pictures)
- President Obama Admits That He’s Never Used Twitter, But Thinks The Chinese Should Be Able To
- Time Revisits Techland
- IBM Furthers Investment In Business Analytics With Smart Analytics Cloud
- Brightcove 4 Adds Support For The iPhone, Facebook, Live Video, And More
- Microsoft’s Loss, Google’s Gain. Don Dodge Gets A New Job
- Mark Cuban Has An iPhone App
- Introducing the CrunchGear Gift Guide
- Bookmark Away: Instapaper Comes Up With A New Way To Work With The Kindle
- Android Market Badly Needs A Desktop Presence To Compete With The App Store
- How to Profit off the Poor… and Keep Your Soul
| Startups Continue To Attract Funding, Create Jobs Posted: 16 Nov 2009 08:13 AM PST
Let’s kick off the week on a positive note: innovative startups in the U.S. continue to attract capital from investors, and in turn are doing their part to counter the trend of the rising unemployment rate in the country. Evernote, an information capturing service provider, recently closed a $10 million round while personal TV service Sezmi has been able to add another $25 million to its already sizable war chest. In addition, mobile advertising network operator Millennial Media scored $16 million in Series C funding. And, as we’ve already covered, Outright has raised $5 million in venture capital from Sequoia and other VC firms. That means we can add over $56 million in funding to CrunchBase so far today. Not too shabby for one Monday morning’s worth of funding news for U.S.-based tech startups, and it’s good news for the economy, too. According to the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) and StartUpHire.com, thousands of jobs are available at venture-backed startups today, despite the overall job-cutting trend that is still apparent in the wake of the financial crisis that hit the global economy unequivocally hard. StartUpHire, one of the many job boards / search engines focused on startups, says it currently lists nearly 11,000 jobs that are available at more than 2,500 companies across a variety of industries, states, and functions (also check out our CrunchBoard, where you can find great places to work at, including TechCrunch). As part of Global Entrepreneurship Week 2009, the NVCA and StartUpHire will highlight the contributions of these young entrepreneurial companies to economic growth by releasing detailed jobs data throughout the week, improve the visibility of the job board on the NVCA website and by publishing testimonials from start-up company employees on their work experiences – in 140 characters or less. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors  |
| Outright Raises $5 Million More For Simple Online Bookkeeping App Posted: 16 Nov 2009 06:14 AM PST
Outright (formerly called GoBootstrap) launched its online bookkeeping app in public beta earlier this year after raising $2 million in seed funding from undisclosed angel investors and the VC firms that have now joined this second financing round alongside Sequoia. Outright wants to make it easier for small businesses and self-employed individuals to keep track all of their income and expenses in order to get their taxes done accurately (it was designed for the United States tax system). The service is currently free to all customers and will remain so, although the company aims to introduce a number of paid options and fee-based services at some point in the future. (Via peHUB) Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| Rdio Recruits Star Designer Wilson Miner (Apple.com, EveryBlock) Posted: 16 Nov 2009 05:30 AM PST
The latest name to surface on LinkedIn is that of Wilson Miner, a designer, web developer and entrepreneur from San Francisco. Miner was formerly interactive designer at Apple, where he worked on the first comprehensive redesign of Apple.com in more than 10 years. He went on to co-found and head design for EveryBlock, the hyperlocal news startup that was acquired by MSNBC for an undisclosed amount in August 2009, a mere two years after its inception. Miner was also one of four people that helped create the original version of Django, an open source web application framework written in Python. At Rdio, Miner will be working with Malthe Sigurdsson (former lead designer and creative director for Skype) on the design of the online music service, which will conceivably be available both as a desktop, web and mobile application. ReadWriteWeb recently got its hands on some screenshots, although I’m told the actual product will look distinctly different from these early design mock-ups. I’m left wondering how much capital has already been invested in Rdio pre-launch, considering that the startup has quite some top talent from all over the world working for them (some for about a year and a half already) while its first public beta has yet to ship. And of course I’m curious about the fate of the company: will Rdio prove to be another Skype (lots of hype, solid product, disruptive, successful and a moneymaker) or another Joost (lots of hype, full stop)? (Photo cc Flickr / yaili) Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. |
| Remix On Your iPhone Like It’s Your Birthday With 50 Cent’s Sound Lab App Posted: 16 Nov 2009 05:29 AM PST
A plethora of rap and hip-hop artists have jumped at the opportunity to create branded iPhone apps, Including T-Pain, Snoop Dogg, Lil’ Jon, Soulja Boy and P. Diddy. Now 50 Cent is getting an app of his own, in partnership with Vitamin Water. The free app, called 50’s Sound Lab App, lets users create and share their own mixes of "Baby By Me", a single off of 50 cent's latest album, Before I Self Destruct. You can download it here. The app is powered by mobile digital entertainment studio Moderati's Romplr remix platform. Romplr allows fans to interact with music by creating their own versions of tracks by artists. Users can record and share their personal mixes via Facebook, email, or on Romplr’s site. Romplr was first implemented on Soulja Boy’s pp, which was actually $4.99 in the app store, instead of free. But 50 Cent’s app only offers one song to remix, while Soulja Boy let users remix several of his tracks. In addition to being able to remix the single, 50 Cent is giving the user that creates the best remix with the app (and shares it on the app’s branded site), the opportunity to meet him. Compared to the other rap-focused iPhone apps out there, this one falls a little short in my opinion. It only lets you remix one song, and it seems for like more of an opportunity for 50 Cent to create buzz around his new single and promote Vitamin Water than to actually create a broadly entertaining app. That being said, its free and could provide for some interesting and funny songs. Plus, songs can easily be shared to social networks. If the app could include some of 50 Cent’s more popular songs, such as “In Da Club,” perhaps it could give T-Pain’s popular app a run for it’s money.  Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| Shareholder Class Action Suit Seeks To Block 3Com-HP Merger Posted: 16 Nov 2009 04:27 AM PST
The plaintiff in this case, New York bankruptcy lawyer David Shaev, filed the action last Thursday in a Delaware Court, claiming the proposed agreement – which involves HP paying stockholders of 3Com $7.90 a share – constitutes a breach of 3Com’s fiduciary duties owed to public shareholders. He argues that 3Com’s directors should have pushed for a higher price. The complaint, which names the entire company’s board of directors, alleges the defendants are attempting to deceive 3Com shareholders and unfairly deprive them of the true value of their investment in the company. The acquisition – which was clearly leaked – is currently awaiting approval from regulators as well as 3Com stockholders. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2010. Should the merger indeed be completed without a hitch, the class action will seek damages caused by the alleged breach of fiduciary duties. (Image via eHow) Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| A Big Google Chrome Extensions Push Is Imminent (Pictures) Posted: 16 Nov 2009 02:54 AM PST
As first spotted by DownloadSquad earlier today, Google appears to have tipped its hand a little early. In the newest builds of Chromium across all the platforms (yes, even Mac and Linux), you can clearly see the jigsaw puzzle area in the lower right hand corner. This is in the same place that the colorful stripes usually appear to take you to the Theme Gallery. But clicking on this area currently redirects you back to google.com — but as you can see when you hover over it, clearly there will be something at https://chrome.google.com/extensions, presumably an Extensions Gallery. Next to this new jigsaw picture is a note at the bottom of the page reading: “New! Chromium now has extensions and bookmark sync.” “Extensions” links to the URL above, while “bookmark sync” links to a Google help page to show you how to use bookmark sync. Sadly, while this does appear to be working on the Windows and Linux versions of Chromium right now, it’s not yet working for the Mac. Also note that when you go to the current extension page in Chrome (which you can find by typing chrome://extensions/ into the URL field), you will see a message that reads, “Want to browse the gallery instead?” The phrase “browse the gallery” is again linked to the still non-existant extensions page.
And there’s more. Below, find some other pictures and information I was able to find in the Chromium Code Reviews area (placed by Google employees) that seem to make it very clear that Google is about to unleash extension support to rival that of Firefox. Based on what I’m reading, developers will be able to add icons to the Chrome toolbar (likely what the image above represents), add temporary icons inside the Chrome address bar (think: RSS icon), allow users to customize the extensions, and developers will apparently even be able to implement their own versions of “standard browser pages such as the New Tab page.” From the backchannel talk, it sounds like Google will have a few of its own extensions ready to go at launch. One will have something to do with Google Maps, another will have to do with Google News, a third will allow you to automatically update builds of Chromium (much like the tool we built several months ago). But by far the most interesting is the Gmail Checker. As you can see in the image up top, it will use badging, tagging a number to the icon to let you know how many unread items you have. The key for all of this though appears to be to show developers just how easy it is to make your own extension for Chrome. That’s what many of the images below represent, an easy “hello world” extension that can apparently be built in just a few steps. With speed no longer its strong suit, extensions are perhaps the last great feature Firefox has a stranglehold over. If Google gets it way, that could soon change.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| President Obama Admits That He’s Never Used Twitter, But Thinks The Chinese Should Be Able To Posted: 15 Nov 2009 10:23 PM PST
That revelation was made tonight during a Q&A session at a town hall event with Chinese youth that was held in Shanghai this evening (which was streamed live on the web). The President fielded a question about the restricted use of Twitter in China and he had this to say, “I have never used Twitter but I’m an advocate of technology and not restricting internet access.” This is interesting considering the Internet, and social media in particular, was considered a large part of his ascension to the Presidency. Obviously, he had a killer team around him that was able to embrace the web without the then-Senator getting too much involved. Still, it’s somewhat surprising that he never sent any of his own tweets during the primaries. And undoubtedly part of us wants to believe that when you see tweets like “This is history,” which was sent on November 7 — or “Humbled” after he won the Nobel Peace Prize in October, that’s it could the President really sending it. Nope. Of course, the more important story here is his stance on Chinese Internet censorship. It’s ridiculous that people in China are restricted from accessing certain parts of the Internet. But we’ve all known that for a long time, and we’ve known the President’s position on it.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. |
| Posted: 15 Nov 2009 09:12 PM PST Time Inc just launched a new technology blog called Techland, headed up by one of our former CrunchGear editors Peter Ha. Time magazine’s senior tech writer Lev Grossman is also a contributor. Techland covers the intersection of gadgets and geek culture, and is aimed at a mainstream audience. Some of the debut posts cover the movie 2012, Samsung’s new Android phone, and a recap of Apple’s legal victory over clone-maker Psystar. It’s a crowded field, but the appetite for gadget culture is seemingly endless. Random Internet history note: This won’t be the first time that Time Inc. trots out a blog by the name of Techland. It used to be one of the Business 2.0 blogs, and then a Fortune blog (archived here). My former editor at Business 2.0, Josh Quittner, who is now at Time, bought the domain way back when. Now it’s up to Ha to bring it back to life.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| IBM Furthers Investment In Business Analytics With Smart Analytics Cloud Posted: 15 Nov 2009 08:50 PM PST
During IBM’s Q3 earnings call a few weeks ago, IBM CFO Mark Loughridge highlighted business analytics as a sector where Big Blue is investing significant amounts of cash. The company recently acquired data analytics company SPSS for $1.2 billion and business analytics firm RedPill. Tonight, IBM is unveiling a new internal analytics product that the company is touting as the “largest private cloud computing environment for business analytics in the world,” which launches internally with more than a petabyte of information. Along with this internal product, IBM will launch a companion product for clients to build upon this cloud-based architecture, called IBM Smart Analytics Cloud. The internal product, dubbed Blue Insight, will provide 200,000 employees in IBM’s sales and development department with the ability to extract data and information to make decisions and gain further insight at the point of sale. Blue Insight will gather information from nearly 100 different information warehouses and data stores, providing analytics on more than a petabyte (1,000 terabytes or 1,000,000 gigabytes) of data. For example, sales execs may use customizable queries of real time data to understand revenue opportunities and how many sales in their region are closing to help improve prediction. Or a manufacturing process engineer can evaluate real-time data on the plant floor to identify trends and data to improve yield and reduce shipment delivery times. IBM Smart Analytics Cloud offering for clients will similarly deliver powerful business intelligence via the scalable, private cloud. The product will lets the client import data and than transform this information into insights to develop strategies and decisions. The service sill offer the ability to create reports, analysis, dashboards, and scorecards to monitor business performance and measure results. IBM has been shifting its focus towards software and services as opposed to hardware and Big Blue’s strong earnings are an indication that this strategy is paying off in a big way. It’s not surpising that company is continuing to invest in R&D in cloud computing and business analytics, which seems to be the future for both Big Blue and other enterprise-focused tech giants like Oracle. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| Brightcove 4 Adds Support For The iPhone, Facebook, Live Video, And More Posted: 15 Nov 2009 08:15 PM PST
It’s been about a year since Brightcove released the last upgrade to its professional online video platform with Brightcove 3. On Monday, it’s going to release Brightcove 4, and it’s a massive upgrade. Brightcove 4 now supports a native video player on the iPhone, in Facebook, and live video streaming on the Web. It’s got Twitter integration for sharing videos, faster-loading video players, the ability to switch between Flash streaming and HTTP, adaptive streaming based on a user’s device and bandwidth, behind-the-firewall video delivery, support for most major ad servers, better analytics, and a new, cheaper, entry-level subscription service called Brightcove Express. The biggest new feature is the iPhone player. Instead of clicking off into the Quicktime player, Brightcove uses the Quicktime APIs to render the player within an app. Developers are going to love this because they can skin the player any way they want, tie it into the same ads served through a publisher’s Brightcove player on the Web, add email and Twitter sharing, and Coverflow-style browsing. The Facebook integration will also be popular. Brightcove 4 offers a template which allows for Facebook Connect logins with realtime comments which appear in each commenter’s Facebook stream. Brightcove videos shared on Facebook will also be playable within the stream, just like YouTube videos. Brightcove 4 will also support live video streams for the first time. Live videos of events can be scheduled, archived, mixed with on-demand videos, and tied into the same advertising backend. If a publisher has a huge event and would rather use their own CDN, they can do that as well. Why now? “We waited until there was sufficient market demand,” says CEO Jeremy Allaire. Yet more evidence that live video on the Web may be finding its legs. So far Brightcove is mostly used by media companies and professional video publishers who can afford to pay at least $500 a month for the service. But with this release, Brightcove is also trying to broaden its appeal with service plans which now begin at $99 a month. It’s still not a consumer platform, and probably never will be. But for professional Web video publishers and companies with video marketing budgets, the new entry point should help to expand Brightcove’s market. I am not sure why Brightcove holds all of this good stuff back until they can package it in a new, numbered release, since it is a Web-based service, which could just as easily upgrade on a rolling basis. But doing it all at once like this does highlight all the changes to the code-base, and shows why Brightcove is considered the leading Web video platform for professional use. Brightcove boast 800 customers which use its players across 2,500 different Web sites. Collectively, they reach 135 million unique viewers per month, according to Allaire. He won’t disclose exact revenues other than to say that it is in the “tens of millions” of dollars a year, and growing at a 50 percent annual rate. But he does say that the company, which has raised a total of $91 million in venture capital, isn’t burning any more cash. “During the first half of this year we were profitable and cash flow positive,” he says. Like everyone else, Brightcove cut back on expenses last year, and even went through layoffs of 13 percent of its workforce. The fourth quarter was the low point, but demand started picking up again at the beginning of the year, especially from branded goods companies, marketing departments, and even manufacturers looking to add video to their sites. Last quarter, Allaire hired 30 people, and currently employs 180. Next quarter he is looking to hire 30 more.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. |
| Microsoft’s Loss, Google’s Gain. Don Dodge Gets A New Job Posted: 15 Nov 2009 07:58 PM PST
We sat down with him to do a proper exit interview while he was in town. I got a few tips from Googlers that he was seen roaming their Mountain View headquarters, and I confirmed tonight that he has been offered a job at the company. He has accepted, and will shortly begin working for the company that he only recently considered the enemy. It’s unheard of for Google to go from a first interview to an offer in such a short period of time. For Dodge, the process from first interview to first day on the job was less than a week. He’ll be working for another ex-Microsofter, Vic Gundotra. Gundotra worked 15 years at Microsoft as General Manager of Microsoft's developer outreach efforts. He joined Google in 2007 as VP Engineering, responsible for mobile applications and developer evangelism. Dodge will have a similar job at Google as he did at Microsoft – developer evangelism. He’ll be focusing on Google Apps. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. |
| Posted: 15 Nov 2009 07:25 PM PST
Mark Cuban’s image is on the home screen of the app, and users can choose to turn some of his personal pictures into puzzles, or use your own. The app is available now at rockapp.com/cuban (redirects to iTunes). You compete for fastest time to put a puzzle together. If I had an iPhone I’d definitely buy this just to make fun of Mark the next time I run into him. Alas, I’m on a Droid, so I’m safe for now. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| Introducing the CrunchGear Gift Guide Posted: 15 Nov 2009 05:01 PM PST  It is officially on: we're running our super duper, extra sassy Holiday Gift Guide from now until the end of time, giving you the latest in hot gift ideas for you and yours. Why are we doing this so early? Because we have so much to give away this year it's scary. That said, let's hit the slopes and shush our way into Gift Guide Nirvana. What do you need to do? Well, first you have to click through to our gift guide and keep your eye on daily posts for news of what we're giving away. We're starting off with the five days of Peek Pronto: five full days, one Peek Pronto each day. How do you win? Just comment using your actual email and we'll pick a winner a day from this post. We'll also run other giveaways concurrently with this one, so fear not. |
| Bookmark Away: Instapaper Comes Up With A New Way To Work With The Kindle Posted: 15 Nov 2009 04:55 PM PST
There were a number of problems with the Kindle/Instapaper support. The biggest is that the system was completely unreliable. The way Instapaper works on the Kindle is that you have to set up the service to email your Kindle either daily or weekly wrap-ups of the articles you bookmark on the web. In my experience, about half the time this would work, the other half, these summaries simply would not get sent. Arment says he’s tried talking to Amazon about the issue, but has never received a response. Considering that Kindle users are paying $0.15 for each of these emails sent (an unfortunate side effect of the Kindle’s free built-in network), and it still is completely unreliable, this is totally unacceptable. So Arment has come up with a new way of doing Instapaper + Kindle: USB transfers. To be clear, this isn’t the most ideal solution, since at least the over-the-air sync required you to do nothing and now you’ll have to attach your Kindle to your computer. But USB transfer will be infinitely more reliable and 100% cheaper (as in, free). This new process (which Arment stresses is still very much “beta”) allows you to download a Kindle-compatible .mobi file. These files are populated with your 20 more recent Instapaper saved articles. This also isn’t ideal if you want to see older articles you have saved, but I suppose you could always re-save them if you really wanted them on your Kindle. On the upside, Instapaper will now work with non-U.S. Kindles (the email service was previously U.S.-only). Also nice is that many articles will now contain images, which previously were not transfered via the email route. Along with Kindle-ready .mobi files, Instapaper now also allows for ePub downloads, the format that many other popular e-readers use (like Sony Readers). The idea is the same with the Kindle support, you get your 20 most recent articles converted into .epub files which you can then read on these devices. There is also now print support for all Instapaper folders. Arment notes that because the over-the-air Kindle solution is completely unreliable with no support from Amazon, he plans to completely discontinue it next week in favor of the USB method. And if you’re wondering why you can’t simply use the Kindle’s built-in web browser to visit Instapaper, the answer is because the Kindle’s built-in web browser is awful and Instapaper currently doesn’t work on it (though Arment seems to suggest he is still trying to fix that). While it’s the Kindle that is the dedicated reading device, it’s interesting to note that Instapaper’s iPhone app is at least a billion times better for consuming Instapaper content away from your computer. Not only does it seamlessly sync over the air, but you can mark items as read from it, visit the actual content on the web, and do about a dozen other more useful things. Of course, the downside is that the iPhone has a backlit screen (harder on your eyes) and is much, much smaller than the Kindle. An Apple Tablet + Instapaper app might be the perfect remedy for the latter. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. |
| Android Market Badly Needs A Desktop Presence To Compete With The App Store Posted: 15 Nov 2009 04:12 PM PST
Currently, all Android Market browsing and transactions are done through an application that comes with the phone. This mobile application used to be pretty bad (it didn’t even offer screenshots of the apps), but was finally overhauled in September to be more competitive with the iPhone’s mobile version of the App Store. The new version is a big improvement, but browsing the store from the phone isn’t exactly a good time — you can only see a few apps at once, so scrolling through various lists gets tedious. Contrast that with the App Store that’s integrated into Apple’s iTunes. Using iTunes to download new applications isn’t just something people do when they need an app to accomplish a certain task. It’s something they do for fun. Clicking through various top apps exposes plenty of high quality games, apps from popular sites like Yelp, and even the occasional productivity tool. It’s all very fast too — you can easily download fifteen new apps in a single browsing session without breaking a sweat. Android doesn’t have anything close to that. The official Android Market website (pictured below) is a total joke. It shows a list of some of the top apps from its Paid and Free sections, along with a handful of screenshots. It doesn’t even have a full listing of the apps available, or any kind of search feature (as an aside, the entire Android site looks terrible — type in “Android” into Google, and this homepage is the first result). Yes, there are more comprehensive third-party listings, but there’s no way to download apps to your device without looking them up from your phone.
There’s an answer to this, and it’s one that’s right up Google’s alley: Google should rework the Android Market site into a full-fledged AJAXy web app, hopefully with the input of some talented designers. From a functionality standpoint the new Market should be a fairly blatant ripoff of Apple’s App Store on iTunes, with Top App lists, search, ratings, and so on (though there’s plenty of room for Google to improve on application discovery). Users would log in using their Google accounts, and use Google Checkout for payments. Next to every app listing would be a ‘Download’ or ‘Buy’ button. Clicking that would then send a notification to your phone, alerting you that you had outstanding downloads that could be sent straight to your device at your leisure. Large applications would require a Wi-Fi connection to download. Your Android phone is already tied to your Google account anyway, so the entire experience would be seamless. Of course, there’s the argument that most people don’t buy mobile apps from their desktop anyway — AdMob recently conducted a survey(PDF) that found that over 90% of users download their iPhone apps Over-The-Air (i.e. they’re downloaded directly to the phone) rather than through an iTunes sync. That number sounds high to me, but it’s one that Google shouldn’t pay much attention to for a few reasons. For one, syncing with iTunes is a pain. Yes, Apple has made the process about as easy as it could given the bevy of options it has to include, but between the backing up, nebulous ‘Syncing’ messages, lengthy transfers from PC to iPhone and vice versa, it’s just a lot easier to download straight to your phone. A cloud based push solution wouldn’t have those syncing issues — you’d be able to purchase apps from just about any computer connected to the Internet, and the only downtime required would be the time needed to actually download the app from Google’s servers. And even if the bulk of purchases would still be done directly from handsets, that doesn’t make a full fledged Android Market experience on the desktop any less important. Android Market is still very much the underdog to Apple’s App Store, and consumers considering an Android handset are likely turning to the web to scope out the applications available on Android to see how they compare to the App Store. Right now, Android fails that test. Done properly, this setup would likely see the number of apps downloaded increase, as would the number of paid purchases (entering a credit card number on a computer is far easier than on a phone). And that would bring more developers to the platform, boosting the number of quality apps available. Of course, Android has a few other problems to worry about — some developers complain about the inability to install applications on a phone’s SD card, and there’s always the problems involved with developing for multiple devices running different versions of the OS. But turning the Market into something users can actually browse from their PCs is a good start. Oh, and don’t be surprised if Apple adopts their own web based store some time in the future — they’re already experimenting with ‘iTunes Preview’ for music and video content. Image via GearDiary. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| How to Profit off the Poor… and Keep Your Soul Posted: 15 Nov 2009 11:58 AM PST
These weren't middle class kids on the well-trod, parent-driven Indian path to seats at IIT. These were Delhi slum kids, whose families likely live on less than $2 a day. And yet, for the last five years, they've spent several hours of their free time every day playing games and learning English, Math and Science on computers. So how have they bridged the much-agonized-about digital divide without a hand out from a chip company, computer company or wealthy philanthropist? A for-profit Indian company called NIIT. It started back in 1999 when Sugata Mitra, NIIT's chief scientist, noticed his kid could learn how to use gadgets like a mobile phone far faster than tech-savvy adults could. At this time, most computer "labs" in Indian schools were one or two computers that were only to be used under the strict supervision of a teacher. The reasoning was computers were expensive and required training and supervision. As a result many kids only got to look at them from afar in the classroom. Instead Mitra wondered what would happen if he left a computer out in the open for a group of children to discover. So he literally knocked a hole in the office wall to the slum on the other side. He shoved a computer in the hole and set up a camera on a tree limb to record what happened. A 13-year-old, illiterate kid who'd never seen a computer wandered over tentatively, and soon realized he could move the cursor by moving a finger across the touch pad. Within four hours, a small group of kids had gathered. They had figured out how to open Internet Explorer and were playing a game on Disney's Web site. "All of us were absolutely shocked watching that," says Abhishek Gupta who heads the program now. Some expected the kids to break or even try to steal the computer. A pilot project with the World Bank followed, and 22 of these "Hole in the Wall" kiosks were set up around the country from 2001 to 2005. The organization studied the results closely. The most obvious take-away was that kids left on their own will learn computers. The project also helped develop team-building and social skills—with 200 kids sometimes huddled around one screen. Whether the computers lead to more general academic improvement was less clear, but in many cases it was up measurably, Gupta says. But interestingly when that partnership was over, NIIT didn't take the project down the non-profit route. It's not because the company is adverse to such things—it's also opening a new high-end university that is run as a non-profit. But there's a unique attitude in India that believes the way to eradicate poverty is to turn India's scrappiest, free-market entrepreneurs on the problem, not to increase handouts. NIIT now sells the kiosks at between $6,000 and $20,000—depending on which model and how many screens—to the government, who puts them mostly in schools in India's poorest areas. There are 500 stations in India and a handful in 10 different African countries. Having customers means NIIT has had to compromise on the original vision. For instance, the government requires administrators to keep an eye on the systems. They're not open when an administrator isn't there. But running the program as a business has assured its survival and given NIIT the cash flow to pour money into content creation so it doesn't have to rely on the country's spotty Internet connections for kids to stay engaged. Gupta says his job isn't necessarily to be a profit center. Success is running a break-even program that makes a social impact. But that's still a world away from a donor-funded program. NIIT isn't alone. For profit companies have made microfinance loans for years in India. One of the most known is SKS Microfinance. It was run as a non-profit in the early days, but when it was time to scale, decided to turn into a Sequoia Capital-backed startup. "It's important to realize the poor have been paying three-to-four times more to the local money lender," says Surendra Jain, a managing director with Sequoia in Bangalore. "There's nothing wrong with using the same tools to scale the way other companies scale. The question is: In your heart are you doing the right thing?" Even non-profits I've met over the last two weeks run themselves to rely on revenues not donors. An example is LabourNet, a company that seeks to move India's huge informal workforce into a formal channel. The company organizes phalanxes of construction crews, drivers, cooks and retail clerks and matches them with the best employers. How does it reach them? Word of mouth and SMS. So far 7,000 workers are in the system. It was started by Solomon JP. His umbrella non-profit organization, MAYA, has already produced one self-sustaining company that trains poor youth in making high-value furniture. With a grant from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, CHF International, an international NGO addressing urban poverty in India, is providing technical and financial support to help LabourNet become a self-sustaining enterprise. "Being poor isn't about not having money, it's a lack of capabilities," JP says. So LabourNet doesn't stop at getting poor people a job, it offers access to healthcare benefits, issues ID cards, and helps with bank accounts, literacy, and job training too. The worker pays a small fee, and the employer pays LabourNet a larger one in exchange for matching them up. It's hard work. JP has been working with the poor in Bangalore for some 15 years and says it's like Hotel California. "I don't recommend this path. I can never leave. I'm trapped!" he says with a weary half-smile. (I'm not sure what percentage of that is a joke.) But he believes he and others can solve the problem through self-sustaining means as long as organizations don't sacrifice humanity in the name of efficiency. It's a dramatic difference from China, where most entrepreneurs are building businesses that are aimed squarely at the top of the pyramid or the burgeoning middle class. But since India is a democracy—and not an authoritarian one—it doesn't have the same social safety net of other emerging worlds. It's fitting that it's trying to use a free-market economy to solve its social ills instead— something American do-gooders could probably learn from. After all, we've got our own digital divide. One final note on NIIT's Hole in the Wall program: It was allegedly the inspiration for the book "Slumdog Millionaire" which spawned the movie. "Where's my Oscar?" is a favorite joke of Rajendra Pawar, the chairman and co-founder of NIIT. I asked a lot of people working to eradicate poverty how they felt about the movie, and most said it was neutral-to-positive for India. It doesn't hurt to show rich Americans how one-third of India's 1.2 billion-person population lives, even if it was sensationalized. The difference is none of them are banking on a one-time windfall as the answer. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
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DELHI, INDIA–"I'll take you! I live there!" a small boy with a blue shirt and a perfect toothy grin said as he ran ahead of me. His quiet friend in yellow jogged beside him smiling shyly, his jet-black Elvis curl bobbing on his forehead. The boy in blue stopped a few yards in front of me turned around, beaming and added in Hindi, "I know computers quite well."| You are subscribed to email updates from TechCrunch To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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