The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- Live From The RealTime CrunchUp
- Infoaxe Launches Real-Time Search Engine Based On Web History Platform
- Brizzly Opens To All. And Snatches Someone From Facebook.
- CrunchGear Gift Guide 2009: Smartphones
- Review: Nyko Charge Base IC Plus a Giveaway
- Remains Of Streamzy Picked Up, Reborn As Web Radio Service Listen.fm
- Accommodation Portal AirBnB Adds Groups, Locations All Around The World
- Want To Try Out Google Chrome OS For Yourself? Here’s How.
- CrunchGear Gift Guide 2009: Wireless E-book Readers
- Cisco Lets You Access Network Security Information On The Go Via iPhone App
- CrunchUp Starts Off With A Bang Tomorrow With Twitter COO Dick Costolo
- French Tweet: Twitter Goes French In Time For LeWeb
- Breaking: eBay Completes Skype Sale At $2.75 Billion Valuation
- Twitter Turns On Location. Not For Twitter.com Just Yet.
- With New Staff In Place, Techmeme Polishes Its Mobile Experience
- This Season, “Crazy Monkey Shoes” Are The New Hotness At The Chrome OS Event
- Google Is Keeping Chrome OS Simple. Maybe Too Simple.
- Foursquare Continues Its Ground Assault With 50 More Cities
- What ChromeOS Means For Netbooks And Why Microsoft Needs To Be Scared
- BigDeal.com Reinvents And Legitimizes Swoopo’s Controversial Auction Bidding Model
- Video: Google Chrome OS’s Interface, 7 Second Boot Time, And More
- Video: Chrome OS For Dummies
- Twitter Now Asks “What’s Happening”
- Live From Google’s Chrome OS Event
- iPhone Ad Network Greystripe Rolls Out Guaranteed Download Program
| Live From The RealTime CrunchUp Posted: 20 Nov 2009 09:13 AM PST We’re here at the second TechCrunch RealTime CrunchUp in San Francisco, where we’ll be taking a deeper dive into realtime technology and where the streams are taking us. Kicking off the event is a conversation with Twitter COO Dick Costolo. And we’ll have much more real-time goodness coming your way throughout the day (see the agenda below). Watch the live stream of the event, powered by Ustream, here! CRUNCHUP AGENDA 9:00 – 9:30 AM From RSS To Realtime: A Conversation With Twitter COO Dick Costolo 9:30 – 11:00 AM Roundtable: Filtering The Stream. Getting Rid of the Noise. Facebook, VP of Product Chris Cox 11:00 – 11:15 AM Break 11:15 – 11:45 AM The Social Enterprise: A Conversation With Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff 11:45 – 12:30 PM Where Is The Stream Going? Tomorrow's Killer Apps (Demos) Hot Potato, Justin Shaffer 12:30 – 2:00 PM Lunch 2:00 – 2:45 PM Where Is The Stream Going? Tomorrow's Killer Apps (Demos) Plymedia, Matt Knopf 2:45 – 3:30 PM Media Streams: Are These The Ultimate Marketing Vehicles? DailyBooth, co-founder Ryan Amos 3:30 – 3:45 Break 3:45 – 4:30 Geo Streams: We Know Where You Are, Right Now Foursquare, VP business development Tristan Walker 4:30 – 5:00 Can We Kill Email Already? All Aboard The Micro-Message Bus A discussion with Paul Buchheit (Facebook/Friendfeed/Gmail) and Rob Goldman, CEO Threadsy 5:00 – 5:45 PM Where The Realtime Rubber Meets The Road: When Does The Serious Money Come In? Angel investor, Ron Conway 5:45 – 7:30 PM Realtime After Party and StartUp Demos Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.  |
| Infoaxe Launches Real-Time Search Engine Based On Web History Platform Posted: 20 Nov 2009 08:55 AM PST
There are a number of real-time search engines in the space, including Collecta and OneRiot. Today, at the Real-Time CrunchUp, Infoaxe debuts its real time search engine. What makes Infoaxe unique is that it doesn’t tap into streams from Twitter, Facebook, or Digg for content. Infoaxe’s search engine relies completely on attention data generated by the startup’s web history search engine. Infoaxe doesn’t want to replace Google or even other real-time search engines. Instead, it wants to provide another layer on top of Google search results, which is why all results on InfoAxe are featured side by side with the same results from Google. One criticism of InfoAxe’s search algorithm is that it only draws from the data hose of its product, which provides a limited view. But InfoAxe says that its web history search engine toolbar just crossed 2 million registered users. Regardless, InfoAxe could have a promising real-time product. Advised at Stanford by the late Rajeev Motwani, InfoAxe has raised $900,000 in seed funding from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Labrador Ventures, Band of Angels and Amidzad Partners. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. |
| Brizzly Opens To All. And Snatches Someone From Facebook. Posted: 20 Nov 2009 08:00 AM PST
For those who have not had the opportunity to try Brizzly yet, it’s a web app that serves as a way to interact with both Twitter and now Facebook. It has advantages over Twitter’s regular website because it shows pictures and videos inline, and they actually did lists (which they called Groups) before Twitter. Now that Twitter has rolled out that functionality, Brizzly has integrated it. Perhaps more importantly, Brizzly also offers as one-click way to do the old-school way of retweeting. You know, the “RT” way. But the opening of its service is not all Brizzly is announcing today: They’ve also made a new hire. Ben Darnell joins the team from Facebook, where he worked for just a few short months since he came over after the FriendFeed acquisition. But Darnell’s ties run close to Brizzly as he’s a former Googler like Thing Labs’ Jason Shellen, Chris Wetherell, Dolapo Falola. At Google, Darnell was one of the original Google Reader team members. With Brizzly, Darnell will work on “larger framework for communication and content discovery,” Shellen tells us. This means he’ll be working on their infrastructure and APIs. And Brizzly has one more new trick up its sleeve today: On-the-fly translation of tweets. While Twitter is busy rolling out its service into other languages, Brizzly is translating it to anyone who wants it thanks to Google Translate. Translating a tweet is as simple as clicking a button.
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| CrunchGear Gift Guide 2009: Smartphones Posted: 20 Nov 2009 07:00 AM PST  Buying someone else a phone is risky business. Preferences vary, you've gotta get their carrier right... it's a tough game. But if you're down to make a gamble, we're here to help. I've spent more time playing with new phones in the last year than anyone should ever spend with any phone ever, and have broken down my favorite offerings from each carrier by "Best Bet", "Best Bet For Under $100" (though it's usually worth it to splurge), and "Best Bet for Business" for you Enterprisey folks. |
| Review: Nyko Charge Base IC Plus a Giveaway Posted: 20 Nov 2009 06:28 AM PST  Beauty, they say, is in the eye of the Wii-holder. The Charge Base IC is a $34.99 induction charging device for Wiimotes and looks like something out of a Frank Lloyd Wright sketchbook. The base sits firmly on the ground while sweeping cantilevered arms reach out to cradle your Wiimotes with magnets. It's almost graceful, this amalgamation of clear and white plastic, the glorious sense of weightlessness, the architectural stability with just a touch of grandeur. But darn it if the lights on this thing aren't too bright. |
| Remains Of Streamzy Picked Up, Reborn As Web Radio Service Listen.fm Posted: 20 Nov 2009 02:14 AM PST
Currently still in private beta, Listen.fm is not going to be a ‘revolutionary’ service, says Anderson, but rather just a great place to listen to and discover new music that can legally be shared with others. The site has been in the works for nearly a year and should be launching in public beta some time next year. As you may recall, Streamzy, a media search startup that used the late Seeqpod’s database as a content source but became a shell after Seeqpod folded, was recently put up for sale on eBay. Anderson took notice of the sale, and picked up whatever was left of the project in a rush to see if some of the technology could be used to enhance Listen.fm. Turns out there wasn’t much left at all (the Seeqpod API didn’t work anymore and the YouTube API didn’t provide much benefit to what they were building either) although Anderson says they don’t regret ‘acquiring’ the Streamzy leftovers because it allowed them to play around with the backend, Google Apps Engine, in a working context. Not that Streamzy cost him and his team a fortune: the auction closed at $2,700. More on Listen.fm when they are closer to launching. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| Accommodation Portal AirBnB Adds Groups, Locations All Around The World Posted: 20 Nov 2009 12:49 AM PST
Once called Airbed and Breakfast in full, AirBnB aims to provide a secure online marketplace for these types of transactions and make people ‘travel like humans’ again. Now the startup, which came out of Y Combinator’s winter 2009 class, is making it easier for people who share interests (e.g. photography) or have another connection with each other (e.g. alumni who’ve attended the same university) to share travel accommodation and recommendations thanks to the addition of Groups. Basically, the groups feature lets travelers form virtual tribes made up of peers, and exchange rental space among each other through the AirBnB system. The idea behind that is that connecting to someone with similar interests or lifestyle improves the chances of coming to a mutual agreement, and traveling that much more fun. Amusing factoid: there’s also a Y Combinator and Hacker News group, whose members regularly host each other when traveling the country to go pitch somewhere, meet up with partners or attend industry events. AirBnB is also expanding geographically: it now lists properties in over 100 countries and more than 1,700 cities. In case you’re interested, the most popular is New York City with 1,500 listings, and the most popular international city is Paris (hint: Le Web). Since its soft launch, over 2,500 people have joined 53 groups. One of the startup’s founders who we spoke to, Brian Chesky, declined to share specifics but informs us that revenue has gone up 10% every month since its April launch. Which group are you going to join for your next trip? I picked mine:
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| Want To Try Out Google Chrome OS For Yourself? Here’s How. Posted: 19 Nov 2009 10:18 PM PST
First, a few caveats: we didn’t create the Chrome OS build ourselves — it was downloaded from BitTorrent. In theory it could possibly have been tweaked by some malicious hacker to steal your Google account information (this is unlikely, but who knows). There’s an easy fix if you’re worried though: just go make a throwaway Gmail account, and use that to play around with the OS. Also note that because this is running in a virtual machine, you’re probably not going to be seeing great performance (like that 7 second boot time). But it’s more than good enough to get a feel for the OS for yourself.
First, you need to get an image of Chrome OS. You can do that using this torrent. You can also try out the build that GDGT has uploaded, which worked fine in our test as well. If you get the torrent version, you’ll see it’s in a .BZ2 format. You’ll need to extract it. Macs should be able to do this automatically, but for Windows you may need a tool like Win Rar. Once that’s done, download a version of VirtualBox for whatever OS you’re running on here and install it. After registering (or declining to) you’ll be met with a screen like this. Click the button that says “New” in the upper left hand corner. We’re going to be making a new virtual machine.:  You’ll enter a wizard like this. Hit next.  Go ahead and title the OS whatever you’d like. For the operating system, choose Linux, with Ubuntu as the version (other setups could potentially work, but this is the only one we’ve gotten working).  Choose how much memory to allocate to this virtual machine. This will be dependent on how much memory you have in your computer. The more, the better, but if you choose too much your real computer will become unstable/very slow.  Here’s the tricky part (fortunately it isn’t very tricky). You don’t want to create a new hard disk, instead, you want to use an existing hard disk. Don’t choose one from the drop down menu either — you’re going to want to hit the folder icon just to the right of that to enter the ‘virtual media manager’.  Hit the ‘Add’ button.  Now you have to find the Chrome OS image you downloaded earlier. This is probably on your desktop or in your downloads folder. Once you’ve found it, hit ‘Open’.  Hit ‘Select’ once you reach this window.  Almost there. Make sure ‘use existing hard disk’ is checked. Hit next.  Hit ‘Finish’  You’re done! Hit Start. Hopefully the screen will go black, but only for a little while (this could be anywhere from 10 seconds to a minute or so, depending on how fast your computer is).  Once you’re in, you’ll see a splash screen for ‘Chromium’ (which is what Google calls dev builds of Chrome). To login, you’ll need to enter a valid Google Account ID. Your standard Gmail account should work, but as we said before, this build of ChromeOS came from bittorrent, so you may want to use a throw away account like we did in the screenshots below (you can make one here).  You’re in. Now time to explore. To be honest, everything looks quite similar to Google’s Chrome browser, but there are a few key differences. Note the battery life indicator and options menu in the far upper right. Also try playing around with the ‘New Window’ functions — you’ll find that it’s difficult (if not impossible) to navigate between multiple windows. And be wary of the Bookmarks manager. As far as I can tell, there’s no easy way to get out of it — you’ll have to manually create a new bookmark, which will kick you back into the browser mode once you click it. Oh, and good luck finding the ’shut down’ button, because we sure can’t.   You probably won’t need it, but the shared user password for this install (which you’d need for functions like sudo) is ‘chromeos’ according to the torrent’s listing on ThePirateBay. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| CrunchGear Gift Guide 2009: Wireless E-book Readers Posted: 19 Nov 2009 10:05 PM PST  We're only about five weeks away from Christmas, so now's as good a time as any to talk about (drum roll, please) e-books. Amazon kick-started the e-book market (with apologies to earlier e-book readers) with the introduction of the Kindle in the fall of 2007. Two years later, Barnes and Noble, IREX, and Sony announced new or updated e-book readers of their own. The question becomes, which e-book reader is right for you? The truth is, they're all very similar, so it should come down to what books their compatible book stores carry. Oh, and price, of course. |
| Cisco Lets You Access Network Security Information On The Go Via iPhone App Posted: 19 Nov 2009 08:55 PM PST
For security nuts and enterprise clients, Cisco is launching an iPhone app, called Cisco SIO, to put Cisco Security Intelligence Operations in users' hands. The app gives giving users real-time access to security information and also lets users create personalized alerts to show security threats that could impact their network. Powered by the Cisco’s Security IntelliShield Alert Manager Service, the app informs, protects and enables IT staff to respond in real time to alerts and threats to the network. The application will deliver data on early warning intelligence, threat vulnerabilities and sill suggest solutions to any problems that take place. It also provides unique IP and URL address e-mail and Web reputation look-up powered by the Cisco’s IronPort SenderBase Security Network. Via the app, you’ll also be able to access Cisco security news and information from the company’s blog, Twitter feed, podcasts and press releases, which Cisco hopes to use to engage with the greater security technology community. Cisco’s Security Intelligence Operations product has four main components. Cisco SensorBase is a threat-monitoring network pulls in data from allof Cisco devices and services. Cisco IntelliShield is a historical-threat database of 40,000 vulnerabilities and 3,300 IPS signatures; and more than 600 third-party threat-intelligence sources, which track more than 500 third-party data feeds and 100 security news feeds around the clock. Cisco also offers enterprises a Threat Operations Center which is composed of 500 security analysts around the world that monitor and research threats 24 hours a day. SIO also offers real-time updates with recommendations and other content to try to help clients track threats, analyze intelligence and more. As the iPhone increasingly gains traction as a mobile device used in the business world, enterprise giants like Cisco are also throwing their hat in the ring. Real-time information, especially when it comes to IT security, is necessary to have on-demand. Cisco has also rolled out apps for its WebEx Meeting Center and mobile offerings. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| CrunchUp Starts Off With A Bang Tomorrow With Twitter COO Dick Costolo Posted: 19 Nov 2009 06:53 PM PST
And we’re starting off with a bang. Twitter COO Dick Costolo is on stage first for thirty minutes of cold war style interrogation by Steve Gillmor and me. And we want your help. Let us know in the comments what questions you’d like us to ask. We can’t promise that Costolo will answer those questions, but we can guarantee that we’ll ask them. And if your proposed questions are good enough, you can get into the event. We’ll give up to five passes (the last seats in the house) to anyone with deeply insightful ideas. Just make sure to use your real email. Don’t limit yourself to Twitter-related stuff, either. If Twitter is willing to give advice to Rupert Murdoch on how to run his newspapers, then absolutely anything goes. I’m looking forward to meeting everyone tomorrow in person, if not at the event then at the party afterwards. See you there. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| French Tweet: Twitter Goes French In Time For LeWeb Posted: 19 Nov 2009 05:37 PM PST
As the service announced in October, it needed help from the community in order to roll out to the so-called “FIGS” languages. That is French, Italian, German, and Spanish. Just over a month later, 2 of those are already complete. Just as they did the last time, Twitter wrote the entire post in the new lanuage, so we’ll give a rough translation here:
As they note, they got this done just in time for LeWeb, where member of Twitter’s team will be talking about their platform. Quite a few members of TechCrunch will be participating in the event as well. And no doubt even more people will be tweeting about it now. UPDATE: In fact TechCrunch Europe is helping to organise the Startup Competition at Le Web. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| Breaking: eBay Completes Skype Sale At $2.75 Billion Valuation Posted: 19 Nov 2009 03:11 PM PST
As previously announced, eBay received approximately $1.9 billion in cash and a note from the buyer in the principal amount of $125 million. The company also retained an approximately 30 percent equity investment in Skype. The company also purchased senior debt securities with a face value of $50 million as part of a Skype debt financing. The news of the completion of the sale of the successful Internet communication company comes two weeks after Skype founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis announced that they had reached a settlement with eBay in return for a 14% stake and board seats, clearing the way for the deal to close after some very public legal quarrels. As you may remember, Andreessen Horowitz partner Marc Andreessen swiftly deemed Skype one of the most important companies on the Internet after the settlement was reached and announced (and made quite a strong case for it). TechCrunch was first to report the imminent sale of Skype to the investor group back in August 2009 and shortly after confirmed that the deal would value the company at $2.75 billion. As a reminder and just for reference, eBay bought Skype in 2005 for $2.6 billion, although eBay has since written Skype down to $1.7 billion. You won’t hear me say it was the smartest acquisition eBay ever made – not buying the actual core IP was downright idiotic – but they did kinda ok with it in hindsight. Let’s not forget eBay still owns a little less than one third of the new Skype either. In the words of Skype CEO Josh Silverman: say hello to the future. How much bigger can Skype get on its own two feet? (Thanks to @YarinHochman for the tip) Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| Twitter Turns On Location. Not For Twitter.com Just Yet. Posted: 19 Nov 2009 01:58 PM PST
This means that applications that have been built using the APIs — such as Birdfeed, which we previewed recently — will be the first to be able to use location features. As Twitter notes, Seesmic Web, Foursquare, Gowalla, Twidroid, Twittelator Pro and a few others are also supporting location right now. As you can see in the screenshot, there is a new “Enable geotagging” option in the Settings menu on Twitter. It’s important to note that this feature is entirely opt-in. There is also a button to delete all your location data if you feel the need to do that. The process apparently takes up to 30 minutes to complete.
Location appears to be a big part of Twitter’s strategy going forward. Not only do they have the Geolocation API, but they have a new API to serve up better Trending Topics based on location. In his blog post, Twitter Platform Director Ryan Sarver notes, “This release is unique in that it’s API-only which means you won’t see any changes on twitter.com, yet.” “Yet” is the key word there. Given the extensive UI changes Twitter has undergone in the past few weeks with features like Lists and now Retweets being added, it shouldn’t be that surprising that Twitter is choosing not to roll this out on the main site right now. But you can be sure it will be a part of the experience eventually. Developers interested in Geolocation should also look at the notes left today in the Twitter API Google Group. Twitter has a good sense of timing with this rollout as our Realtime Crunchup is taking place tomorrow in San Francisco, and Sarver will be a part of our panel talking about geolocation. It’s good that he now has something to talk about. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| With New Staff In Place, Techmeme Polishes Its Mobile Experience Posted: 19 Nov 2009 01:51 PM PST
If you visit the regular Techmeme site now on devices like an iPhone, a Palm Pre, or the new Verizon Droid, you’ll see a site optimized for touchscreen phones. The site include three main tabs, “Top, ” More,” and “New.” These represent the three key areas of Techmeme’s main site. This tabbed navigation allows you to easily jump through the sections. Each section contains the main headlines and a right pointing arrow which you click on to see the discussion items. As you’d expect, clicking on any headline opens that story (in a new browser window). Thumbnail pictures are also pulled in for main headlines. And there’s a ‘back’ button to make navigation easy. Even if you don’t have an officially supported device, anyone can access the new site by visiting techmeme.com/m/. But why not do a native application, such as an iPhone app? “We might make a native app in the future, but with Android phones multiplying and capable browsers appearing on so many devices, it just made sense to start with something with broader support,” founder Gabe Rivera tells us. Just yesterday, Techmeme announced that it had doubled it staff to 6 people. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| This Season, “Crazy Monkey Shoes” Are The New Hotness At The Chrome OS Event Posted: 19 Nov 2009 01:20 PM PST  Velcome, darling! Look what we have for you! Sergey Brin wearing VFF KSOs, CrunchGear's favorite - as Greg calls them - "crazy monkey shoes." He wore them to the ChromeOS event and Michael took a few candid shots of him. I'm personally a VFF convert and I'm very impressed that Sergey is willing to walk around in these. Embiggen after the jump. |
| Google Is Keeping Chrome OS Simple. Maybe Too Simple. Posted: 19 Nov 2009 12:38 PM PST
Ever since Google started talking about its Google Chrome OS, developers, competitors, and observers have been wondering why Google needs two operating systems: Android and Chrome OS. At today’s chrome OS briefing, Google was asked whether Chrome OS would support Android apps. The answer is no. Of course, as Michael pointed out during the Q&A, Steve Jobs said the same thing when he launched the iPhone without apps, and then when he was ready, it was all about the apps. But Google had a good response: they want to make web apps work well on Chrome OS and therefore will only be focusing on those. Later on Sergey Brin touched on the same theme when he said, “Call us dumb businessmen, but . . . we believe the Web platform is a much simpler way.” Here’s the initial exchange from MG’s live notes: Q: So Android's marketplace is key – what about Android apps on Chrome? SP: Independent of Chrome OS we're all about moving web apps forward – including things like Photoshop on the web. Android apps currently will not run on Chrome OS. Q (from Mike): Steve Jobs said the same thing when he launched the iPhone (about web apps). There will be pressure to get Android like apps right? SP: Currently we're only working with web apps. The iPhone was a bit different because THEY made their own native apps. We're not doing that, we're doing all web apps for Chrome OS. Netbooks are a better size for web apps. And here is what Sergey said to a different question at the end of the session: Call us dumb businessmen, but we really focus on user needs rather than think about strategies relative to other companies and whatnot There is a real user need to be able to use computers easily. These netbooks are now $300 to $400, it is really easy to buy one. You could buy 5 to put them around your house. But if you did it today there is no way you could manage them. The overhead to manage the software on them would be way too high. We believe the web platform is a much simpler way, where the machines are essentially stateless, more cache-like, but can still be performant. And yet much easier and simpler for individuals to use. Since that is a very important need in the market right now, that is what we are trying to fill. Rather than support Android apps and other sorts of apps, there is only one kind of app Google is interested in: the Web app. Chrome OS is all about making Web apps the only apps you will ever need. Which kind of makes you wonder how long we’ll need Android apps, or iPhone apps for that matter, because you know it is only a matter of time before a phone comes out running on Chrome OS. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| Foursquare Continues Its Ground Assault With 50 More Cities Posted: 19 Nov 2009 12:36 PM PST
Though they haven’t formally announced the massive expansion yet, which pretty much doubles their total (they had 53 cities previously), Foursquare’s Harry Heymann tweeted about the addition today. And if you look in the site’s city drop down list, you’ll see a huge list of new cities. After a quick scan, new ones I see include Oslo, Mumbai, Brighton, Tel Aviv, Tokyo, and a bunch in China (Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai) and Australia (Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne). There also look to be a bunch of new U.S. additions like Bristol, CT, Columbus, OH, and Tucson, AZ. Update: And here’s the official post on it. Complete with a list of new cities: NORTH AMERICA Calgary, Canada Mexico City, Mexico SOUTH AMERICA EUROPE AFRICA MIDDLE EAST ASIA AUSTRALIA NEW ZEALAND Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| What ChromeOS Means For Netbooks And Why Microsoft Needs To Be Scared Posted: 19 Nov 2009 12:18 PM PST  While you won't be able to sense it at first, expect to feel a high frequency buzz from the direction of Redmond in the next few months. That's the Windows 7 and Office group fearing the rise of a new juggernaut on low-cost computing hardware, ChromeOS. ChromeOS may not be powerful, it may not play Far Cry and it may not run Microsoft Office but it's a game changer. The underpowered laptops that limped along under Vista, XP, or 7 will fly under a new ChromeOS regime and thin-and-light laptops will fall below the vaunted $199 mark as the so-called "Microsoft Tax" - basically the small cost manufacturers pay for OEM licenses - disappears. |
| BigDeal.com Reinvents And Legitimizes Swoopo’s Controversial Auction Bidding Model Posted: 19 Nov 2009 12:15 PM PST
We recently wrote about stealth startup Project Fair Bid, which aimed to reinvent and legitimize a controversial bidding model pioneered by Swoopo. Today, Project Fair Bid is emerging from its cocoon as BigDeal.com, an auction-based e-commerce site which takes a different twist on the questionable paid bidding model. Similar to Swoopo, BigDeal lets users purchase virtual bids $0.75 each which can then be used to bid on goods ranging from video games to high-end televisions. Whenever you bid on an item, its price increases by $0.15 and an extra 30 seconds are tacked on to the duration of the auction. With this model, items end up selling substantially below their market value. But one of the main criticisms of Swoopo was the risk of losing your money spent on bids (regardless of whether you win or not) when the auction concludes. BigDeal takes a couple of steps to mitigate this risk. With BigDeal’s model, any users who get outbid get a full credit of the money uses for bids to buy the item via a “Buy Item Now” option (which Swoopo also has, called “Swoop-it-now”). So if you spent $10 on bids, your Buy It Now price will be dropped by $10. Of course, the Buy It Now price will frequently be higher than the price of item sold for in the auction but at least users aren’t necessarily losing money all together. And the Buy It Now price is set at the same price that Amazon lists for the same product. That’s not all. BigDeal provides an added incentive for bids by letting all users trade in the money they spent on bids for gift cards. All users get $1 gift card discount for every $1 spent on bids. So if you buy $25 in bids, BigDeal will give you a $100 gift card for $75. Gift cards that can be bought are from prominent retailers such as Amazon, Gap, Walmart, Foot Locker and more. It all sounds too good to be true, right? Well, Big Deal admits that they are taking a cut when it comes to the gift card bonus, but the incentive is designed to build loyalty around the site and draw a viral following. Big Deal monetizes by taking a percentage off of the sale price.  Big Deal’s co-founder, Nicolas Darveau-Garneau tells me that the site aims to insert transparency in every step of the bidding and buying process. For example, on a given item’s page, you’ll see a list of the other bidders who have submitted bids on the item, their time spent on bidding on the item, number of bids, and the time since each users last bid. Interestingly, Bid Deal also features the previous auctions that have taken place around an item, which gives you the bid history and the exact price the same item was sold for in past auctions. The site, which claims to only feature the top-of the line products, has also added high-quality pictures of all items and quirky (yet informative) descriptions of products. For example, part of the description for the Nintendo Wii includes a poem, “Ode To The Nintendo Wii.” For now Big Deal, which is open to the U.S. only, is concentrating on consumer electronics but hopes to expand to additional verticals in the near future. Big Deal’s founders all have significant experience in both the auction and e-commerce space, with alums from eBay, Yahoo Shopping, Walmart, and more. from The startup raised $4.5 million in funding from from the Mayfield Fund, First Round Capital, and Foundation Capital, with Raj Kapoor, Charles Moldow and Josh Kopelman on the the board of directors. There is evidence that Big Deal could takeoff. While Swoopo’s model was controversial, the startup was able gain a loyal following since launching in late 2008, with the site counting nearly 2 million members in Canada, Germany, the U.S., Austria, and Switzerland and recently raising a $10 million funding round led by August Capital. It seems that Big Deal has taken the best elements of Swoopo’s model and added several features which make it more of a win-win for consumers. Plus, it adds information, like bidding history, to the process to make the auction more fair. And the very least, you can leave the site with a gift card, so the money you spend on bids isn’t completely lost. While the site will face competition from Swoopo, and even eBay to a certain degree, it is compelling. After demoing the product, I’m actually a fan and am looking forward to trying it out to perhaps check some items off of my holiday shopping list. Like any auction model, Big Deal requires more of a time investment than a direct buy retail site but it’s actually fun to compete for a product. I’m just waiting for the site to start selling designer handbags.  div class=”cbw snap_nopreview”> Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. |
| Video: Google Chrome OS’s Interface, 7 Second Boot Time, And More Posted: 19 Nov 2009 11:50 AM PST
Check out the video below. And here’s a video Google just posted showing off Chrome’s UI: Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| Posted: 19 Nov 2009 11:08 AM PST Still not sure why Google is building its own operating system? It created this animated video to try to explain why the Web needs a new OS, and why that OS should be Chrome. Google just showed the video at its Chrome OS press event which MG is liveblogging. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. |
| Twitter Now Asks “What’s Happening” Posted: 19 Nov 2009 10:45 AM PST
Twitter has implemented a small change today, which by comparison to Retweets and UI redesigns isn’t such a huge deal but it’s definitely worth mention. Twitter’s prompting question above the box from which you Tweet from has been “What are you doing” since the microblogging platform launched. Today, it’s been changed to “What’s Happening.” It’s a wise move because “What are you doing” seemed too narrow for the platform. Broadening the question to match all the things people use twitter for was necessary. Considering that Twitter is now used for breaking news, that term doesn’t really cover it. Here’s the full text of co-founder Biz Stone’s blog post:
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| Live From Google’s Chrome OS Event Posted: 19 Nov 2009 10:05 AM PST
Sundar Pichai, Google's VP of Product Management and Matthew Papakipos, Google’s Engineering Director for Google Chrome OS are speaking at the event. And there will be a Q&A session afterwards. Below find our live notes (paraphrased): SP: Welcome everyone. We’re here today to talk about Google Chrome OS. We aren’t launching it today and not beta today. But we’ve made progress. As of today the code will be completely open. We’re excited to announce this. Google Chrome is foundation of everything we’re doing here. Why do Chrome. It’s been a year. We just announced we’re over 30 million users – and now we’re already over 40 million users. We focused on speed, simplicity, and security. It’s 40% faster in JS than IE8. “One is fast and one is slow.” The most common feed back we get is “Chrome is fast.”
In the last year we’ve updated Chrome about 40 times, but most users don’t even notice. And we’re really focused on HTML5. We really want to push the web forward. Just this year there is tons of new stuff coming: 1) Chrome for Mac will be ready before the end of the year. Very close now. 2) Chrome for Linux is coming along very well. That’s the foundation of Chrome OS. 3) Extensions are coming. We’ve taken our time to do this right. We have more details coming about extensions with certain partners. These update automatically.
HTML5, we want the web to apps as well as they do natively. We’ve been working hard on this. We want web apps to be able to use system resources the same way. Graphics is one example, we need a way to access to the GPU. Audio/video playback is key. And we need apps to work offline. We’re working with the other major browser vendors to make sure HTML5 comes along. The growth in netbooks is amazing. Growth is exploding despite the recession. Ultra thin, ultra light computers. The trend is clear that we’re moving to web applications – not desktop applications. It’s the most successful platform out there right now. We’re moving from laptops down to netbooks on the regular computer end. On the other side we’re going from phones to tablets – these are all computers. Laptops are becoming more like phones too – always on connectivity. Is there a better model of personal computing? We believe so. That’s Chrome OS. We focus on three things. Speed. Simplicity. Security. We want Chrome OS to be blazingly fast, basically instant-on. Chrome (the browser) on Chrome OS is going to be much faster.
In Chrome OS every application is a web application. There are no native applications. That gives us simplicity. It’s just a browser with a few modifications. And all data is Chrome OS is in the cloud. This is key, we want all of personal computing to work this way. If you lose your machine, you just get a new one, and it works. With security, because everything is a web app, we can do different things. No system is ever fully secure. With Chrome OS no user install binaries, so we can see bad things easier. We run completely inside the browser security model. ——–DEMO——— It takes about 7 seconds to to go the log-in screen. And another 3 seconds to log in to your application. And we’re working to make that faster.
Should be no surprise that it looks like Chrome the browser. We are opening up the project a year ahead of release right now. A lot of the UI will change in that time. But many of the core concepts here will carry over into the final product. It looks like Chrome but it has application tabs. (Just like the pictures we posted.) And there is an App Menu. The UI will change a bit, but we want to give you a way to find your favorite applications. Panels are pesistent lightweight windows that never move. Buddy lists and chat are great for this. Or a notepad. And media pops up in little windows. Demo of a chess game being played within the browser. And you can allow it to take over the full screen so you don’t realize you’re in the browser. And we want you to be able to read books in Chrome OS. And YouTube videos look great. And there is an all view mode (and the YouTube video is still playing. You can drag and drop tabs. “It just works.”
What happens if you plug in a camera? It simply opens a window with the camera’s files. I can pull any picture and open it in a new browser window. Microsoft Office launched a killer-app for Chrome OS (laughs). So if you get an Excel doc, it will open in Office online. People have many types of files with computers right? They need to get in them. Like PDFs, but these work instantly in the browser too. ———–Time for Matthew Papakipos to go under the hood of Chrome OS—————– MP: Excited about the tech under the hood. All the code is out in the open now, you can go check it out. We want this to feel much more like a television than a computer. All Chrome OS devices will be based on solid-state storage.
One of the reasons computers boot so slowly today is that they’re still looking for things like floppy drives. Does anyone use those anymore? No. We cut out a lot of the startup processes. And we open the browser immediately. And we have something called Verified Boot – Chrome OS auto-updates itself with all the security patches. Everytime you boot we double check that you’re running what you should be running. If something fails the cryptographic system check, we reboot to get a clean image. Basically this is system recovery. Current OSes allow apps to have the same power as you. They can modify files, etc. This means a rogue app can do bad things. In Chrome OS all the apps are web apps, with a different security model. All apps are treated as if they are hostile at a system level. A web app can change files on your hard disk, etc. And we have security sandboxing – same thing we do in Chrome. Every tab run in Chrome OS is locked down and different from other tabs.
The File System: It’s always auto-updated. There are a few areas of the hard disk. The root partition is read-only. This is locked down, which is unusual in OSes today. User data is always encrypted. This is key for safety of your data. So important if you lose your machine. All user data is synced with the cloud at all times. If you lose your machine, it’s not really gone.
———Back to Sundar Pichai——- This is all about offering a choice for users. We’re not going to go into too much detail about going to market today. We’re working on the software right now, but we are also working with manufacturers on the hardware level. For example, we only support solid-state drives and certain types of WiFi cards.
You cannot download and install Chrome on any machine. You will have to buy a new one. End of next year. Before the holiday season. While netbooks are popular, but some have usability issues. We want to make slightly larger netbooks with full sized keyboards and big trackpads. Again, the code is all open source now. The Linux kernal, Unbuntu, Moblin have all been important to what we’re doing now. We can’t wait to see what people do with our code now. If you are a developer and have the right type of netbook (and a screwdriver) you can get Chrome OS running today. ————Video Demo Time———– ———-Q&A Time——— Q: So many questions. One is what is the focus group for this type of device? I have an Android device now – can you run Android apps on Chrome OS? And Android devices are becoming so powerful, so why not just use this – is there a Chrome server solution? SP: There are many possibilities. What we are doing across Android is great because it’s all open-source too. I think we’re going through a shift in computing, it’s exciting. Time will tell.
Q: Do you know what this Chrome OS netbooks will cost? SP: You will hear that from our partners. They will be in the price range that people are used to for netbooks today. But it’s hard to predict a year from now. Also remember, they will be bigger. Q: Price target you want to hit? SP: No we don’t have one.
Q: What netbook are you running this on right now (for the demo)? SP: That’s an Eee PC. Q: With the APIs support W3C working group standards? What about docs for partners? SP: There’s a lot of documentation on our website. And we’ve been reaching out to partners for a while. MP: For standards, yes we’re working closely with all the standards group like W3C to standardize as much as we can. But web standards take a while to be finalized. But it’d be nice to see all this on different OSes. Q: Will there be an app store? What about driver certification? What about editing apps – like editing photos? SP: We will have more details about the idea of an app store down the line. We care about web apps – on the web there are hundreds of millons of applications. MP: We’re working closely with hardware makers for the drivers. SP: Back to apps that you can’t use on the web, like powerful editing. This will be a secondary device, it may be a primary device in terms of time spent on it, but we expect people to have other computers too.
Q: Codec support and native client support? MP: Yes, everything that works in Chrome will work in Chrome OS. SP: And we’re investing in new tech to make web apps run just like desktop apps. Chrome OS will also influence Chrome (the browser).
Q: Will you support Silverlight? SP: Certain select plug-ins we’re trying to work on. But I don’t have a comment on working with Microsoft (laughs). Q: Other browsers? SP: Chrome OS is all about Chrome, so another browser can’t really work here. That said, it’s open source, so other browser makers can make their own OSes if they want. Q: Will the system be exclusive to netbooks or other devices too? Any hardware partners you can make? SP: Hardware details will come in the middle of next year. We are intially fully focused on netbook-like computers (clam shell). In the future it will be able to work on anything though. Q: How big is the whole OS? SP: Since it’s open source, there’s a lot in there right now. But we’re working hard to make it simple. Q: Offline access with Gears? What about being on a plane? SP: WiFi is the use case we have in mind. But having said that, there will be ways to plug in and play media (listen to music and read books, etc) And with HTML5 there is offline support. Q: What WiFi will you use? MP: We’re focused on 802.11n. Q: Virtualization, can you run it now? MP: Sure, you could build it and run it in a virtual machine. That’s a great way to compile and debug. Q: What about partners like Adobe? So Android’s marketplace is key – what about Android apps on Chrome? SP: Independent of Chrome OS we’re all about moving web apps forward – including things like Photoshop on the web. Android apps currently will not run on Chrome OS. Q (from Mike): Steve Jobs said the same thing when he launched the iPhone (about web apps). There will be pressure to get Android like apps right? SP: Currently we’re only working with web apps. The iPhone was a bit different because THEY made their own native apps. We’re not doing that, we’re doing all web apps for Chrome OS. Netbooks are a better size for web apps. Q: What processors will this run on? SP: x86 and ARM eventually. Q: So different code? MP: Not ready to answer that, but basically yes. Q: What about other machine timeline? What about business model? SP: We’re just focused on netbooks in 2010. For business model, Chrome OS is free, using the web more benefits us for a company. Q: Any new ads in Chome OS? SP: No plans for that. These are all just web apps. Q: What does Chrome OS do that other browsers on other OSes can’t do? SP: Most of what we show here you can do in other browser. But there are new user concepts we’re exposing, app tabs, panels, and there will be more. MP: We can do more stuff with the file system and faster boot times. Q: How do you get people past the cloud reliability? And what about storing this on Google’s servers. SP: If your cloud is down, it affects every computer now, so this isn’t really much different. Compare the cloud reliability with what you have to do – the cloud compares favorably. In terms of trust, it’s important that users have choice. And things are open so developers can tell users what is going on. Q: Is the Signature process – is Google in charge of that? MP: Yes, we’ll open source that as well.
———Google co-founder Sergey Brin Enters——— Q: Chrome runs JavaScript really well – what about supporting Java? SP: Technically there is nothing limiting what you’re talking about. But we’re focused on web apps. Q: Dell has a full laptop but also a small netbook that runs ARM and is instant-on. Any plans to be a second OS on a laptop? MP: No we’re focused on being the core OS on a machine. Q: What about running printers or flip cams? SP: We plan for all standard keyboards, mice, and storage devices. For printing – we’ll have more to share next year. Yes Chrome OS will print. We’re working on it. Q: Is this about moving the community/ecosystem forward again? MP: Yes definitely, that’s why we’re open sourcing it. Hopefully this will help other products out there. This makes it easier to work with hardware vendors too. Q (from Steve): Realtime notifications on every page? SB: I think we definitely need support for that in the browser. And especially in Chrome OS. Hopefully we can solve the problem of chatting when you’re not signed in to Google. MP: There is a new notification API standard that is being worked on now. Q: What about Wave. SB: Wave will work with that. Q: What is Chrome’s strategic position for Google? SB: We really focus on user needs rather than strategies based on other companies. Netbooks are now $300 or $400 you can buy a bunch, but there’s no good way to manage a bunch of them — that’s where the web comes in, and Chrome OS comes in. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| iPhone Ad Network Greystripe Rolls Out Guaranteed Download Program Posted: 19 Nov 2009 10:00 AM PST
There continue to be conflicting views as to whether iPhone developers actually make money from ads on the iPhone. One issue is that free app developers who advertise in games end up paying on a CPC basis, in which the click takes the visitor to the App Store. But often times the actual download doesn’t take place, so the developer is left paying for clicks that don’t produce conversions, says mobile game advertising network Greystripe. Now the network is changing its ad network economics around to help developers mitigate this issue. Greystripe is offering a $0.99 per download program available today to guarantee iPhone application developers downloads of their free apps. Of course, this comes with a catch. Greystripe is offering download program to publishers who spend a minimum of $10,000 and is being offered on a limited basis to the first 200 developers who apply. The first 100 qualifying developers who email techcrunch@greystripe.com will gain instant access to the program. Greystripe’s says that its rich media full-screen ads generate higher click through rates and are able to generate better revenue to its publishers. Based on this, the network thinks it can run a pay per download program that works for its publishers and advertisers. Greystripe also recently introduced a guaranteed CPC program. Although Greystripe claims its rates are higher, we’ve heard they are on par with AdMob’s rates. It’s important to note that with Google’s acquisition of AdMob, other mobile ad networks may be left scrambling. Greystripe is not only aiming to make their network for attractive, but is also trying to provide an incentive for developers who are using other ad networks to switch over. Google has high hopes for AdMob and it should certainly continue to be the leader of the pack in the future. That being said, Greystripe has been able to raised several rounds of VC funding and even got a $2 million infusion from NBC. It should be interesting to see how the smaller ad networks like Greystripe, Videogg and others fare against Google-owned AdMob. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
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This morning Google unveiled its much-anticipated new operating system, Google Chrome OS. We were there to 
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