Wednesday, November 25, 2009

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Gift Guide 2009: Gifts for the Technologically Impaired

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 08:12 AM PST

If you're like me, you've got a fair number of family and friends who don't quite share the same level of enthusiasm for technology as you. But the thought of buying someone a gift that wasn't a gadget? Insanity. Pure insanity. In that spirit, here's a list of products that ought to make easy-to-use gifts for the technologically ambivalent in your life.

Smartbook Says Bloggers Can’t Use The Word Smartbook Anymore. Smartbook.

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 07:26 AM PST

For most of us, the term ’smartbook’ (a device that’s somewhere in between a smartphone and a netbook) is nothing but the latest tech buzzword du jour. For German company Smartbook, however, it’s apparently a chance to score some free publicity by vigilantly defending a multinational trademark and threatening to sue everyone who dares use it in conversations.

Let me kick off by saying that Smartbook AG does indeed own a trademark on the word smartbook in most of Western Europe, Australia, Singapore, South Korea and a couple of other countries. The company sells laptops that are named Smartbook, so I guess the company is well within its rights to try and protect their trademark in any way it deems appropriate.

In the past, the company has gone after companies like Qualcomm and Freescale, who use the term as a generic denominator for portable Internet-ready devices that are neither smartphones or netbooks in product descriptions (and this dedicated website). That is understandable, and Qualcomm for one has already somewhat complied with the request by restricting access to some of its website for visitors located in Germany.

But Smartbook AG has also targeted media outlets who use the word generically to describe some next-generation devices. For instance, electronics industry newspaper EE Times has removed all references to the word, and even downright deleted an article that dealt with the legal threats put forward by Smartbook against the media company. Do a search and you’ll find some articles (including the one that has now disappeared, second result) referencing the term ’smartbook’, but you won’t see the word mentioned in any article.

And the German company is growing more aggressive. Today, Sascha Pallenberg from blog and video publisher NetbookNews got in touch with us to let us know that he has recently received a letter from a German lawyer asking him to refrain from using the term ’smartbook’ on his online network.

Now it appears the company is actively going to pursue international bloggers and press too, no longer limiting themselves to those in German-speaking countries (watch out, CNET!). And conveniently, exactly at the same time the company is announcing its international expansion. Add to that the fact that Steffen Wilde, Smartbook AG’s outside counsel, told a Forbes reporter that they’d be willing to sell the trademark (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) and we can safely conclude that the small Cologne company is raising all this ruckus for attention and money.

And I realize we’re helping them with the former. Not very smartbook of us.

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Online Advertising In The U.S Begins To Stabilize

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 07:02 AM PST

Online advertising revenues in the U.S. seem to be stabilizing. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers released third-quarter figures showing that online advertising in the U.S. approached $5.5 billion, up 1.7 percent from the second quarter of 2009, but still down 5.4 percent from the same quarter a year ago (which is in line with the losses during the first half of the year). As you can see in the chart, there was a big drop-off after the fourth quarter of last year, and the first three quarters of this year have been flat.

On a global basis, we might already be seeing a recovery, at least for search advertising. The online advertising revenues of the four largest Web advertising companies (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL) increased 1.2 percent in the fourth quarter. Google accounted for all of that growth, however, so we are still waiting for display advertising to find its footing.

It is likely that in the U.S. alone, search advertising is also leading the recovery. But now that Google is mixing more visual elements into search ads (are those display or search ads?), perhaps display ads will see a boost as well.

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Just In Time For #Thanksgiving, TurkeyTwitter Gathers All The #Thankful Tweets

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 06:18 AM PST

Want to know what people are thankful for this Thanksgiving? You can be sure many will be Tweeting about it. Tomorrow if you search #thanksgiving or #thankful on Twitter search, you will get a good sense of what thanks people are sharing on Twitter.

Or you can go to TurkeyTwitter, a site thrown together by Joshua Premuda which gathers all Tweets with the hashtags #thanksgiving or #turkeytwitter. (I think he should add #thankful as well).

There is a lot of noise on the site with a lot of tweets about people preparing for thanksgiving or wishing everyone safe travels rather than just the Tweets about what they are thankful for specifically. That’s why a #thankful hashtag is necessary. But please, be creative. This is not just another social media marketing opportunity and it’s not the Oscars. (”I am thankful for all my followers” is an actual Tweet).

Me, I’m just thankful I’m not a turkey. What are you #thankful for?

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Ustream Brings Its Viewer App To Android Market

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 04:55 AM PST

Ustream has just launched a version of its Ustream Viewer for Android Market, giving users the ability to access any Ustream footage while they’re on the go, free of charge. You’ll be able to use the app for streaming video both over Wi-Fi and 3G.

This is actually Ustream’s second application for Android. The first is its Broadcaster app, which allows you to stream video footage live from your phone to the web. The app launching today is for viewing only, but it will let you watch any Ustream feed – be it a red carpet premiere or footage of someone’s puppies – while you’re on the go.

Ustream is timing the app’s launch with a live KISS concert in Los Angeles, which you’ll be able to stream straight to your Android device (you’ll also be able to watch it on the iPhone or the web as usual).

Ustream launched the iPhone version of the viewing app last January, when it was downloaded a whopping 113,000 times in 24 hours. It’s worth pointing out that the iPhone doesn’t have a Broadcaster app, because Apple won’t approve them (Qik and a handful of others have been kept off the iPhone because of this).



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Sobees Tackles LinkedIn In Powerful New Clients, Android App To Launch Soon

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 04:50 AM PST

The evolution of Twitter clients have been speeding along. While Twitter is the fundamental platform that formed a base for many applications, such as TweetDeck, Seesmic, PeopleBrowsr and Sobees, these platforms soon looked to other social networks such as Facebook, MySpace and FriendFeed for additional integration. And many have conquered all mediums, with desktop, web and mobile apps. In fact, the Twitter client race has gradually become a competition to be the first to launch useful and powerful apps that are chock full of features. Sobees, which has flown relatively under the radar, is one of the first clients to launch LinkedIn integration after the professional social network just released its API.

Sobees, which has a Windows native desktop app built in .NET and a web application built off of Microsoft Silverlight, integrates Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, FriendFeed and now LinkedIn. Sobees will pull in a full feed from LinkedIn including connections updates, status updates, applications updates, jobs posted, groups joined, recommendations and profiles changes. You can also post status updates from the client, maintain connections, search your LinkedIn stream, and view profiles of connections.

In addition to LinkedIn, Sobees previously added a Facebook full feed, with the inclusion of profiles, friends, events, two-way status updates and your Inbox; and MySpace activities, including status, top friends and comments, with the possibility to update your status. And Sobees supports multiple Twitter accounts, replies, retweets, spam reporting, blocking users, replies to all, updates to status, posting pictures, shortening urls, and spell check.

Sobees desktop offers Twitter lists but the web client does not include list functionality yet. And geolocation will be added to both versions of the clients soon. You can also search Twitter and Friendfeed and enable the client in English, French, German, Italian and soon Spanish.

And in its first venture in the mobile space, Sobees is launching a native Android Twitter client which has support for multiple Twitter accounts, Twitter search and most of the basic Twitter functionality. While the app doesn’t yet have geolocation or lists, Sobees will be adding these features in the near future. Sobees says that an iPhone app is in the pipeline as well.

The Twitter client space is crowded, but it seems that Sobees could make its mark with its various clients. Its Windows client is particularly compelling and will face competition from Seesmic’s recently launched Windows app. But Sobees’ clients, both web and desktops, already feature MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter functionality, making it the most all-inclusive offering on the market. Seesmic and TweetDeck both have mobile offerings which are more expansive but Sobees hopes to boost its Android app soon. So why have we not heard more about Sobees? deskNet, the startup that develops Sobees, is bootstrapped and the company’s founder, Francois Bochatay, says that it simply has not been doing an PR or marketing outreach.

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LinkedIn Signs Up 3 Million Users In UK, Won’t Go Public Any Time Soon

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 04:38 AM PST

Business social network LinkedIn has hit a milestone in the UK, surpassing 3 million registered users in these parts. Kevin Eyres, Managing Director Europe at LinkedIn, announced the feat at a London event last night and on the company's blog this morning. LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman attended the event as well, and told Reuters afterwards that the company plans to pursue an IPO at some point, but not any time soon.

iPhone To Be Sold In The UK Equivalent Of Walmart

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 03:11 AM PST

Is an iPhone price war about to break out in the UK? After Vodafone and Orange bagged the iPhone – when O2’s two year monopoly expired in September – we learn today that Tesco, the UK supermarket leviathan, is to sell the iPhone on Tesco Mobile, its MVNO joint venture partnership with O2.

This news just sent the iPhone directly into the mainstream. UK iPhone app developers are looking at an even bigger gold rush than before.

Both iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS handsets will be sold in Tesco Phone Shops and online through Tesco Direct in the UK, possibly before the Christmas holidays.

Tesco Mobile normally focuses on the low end of the market with voice and text, and we’re told the prices will be “competitive”. As an MVNO, Tesco has a fairly free hand regarding the the markets it goes after. O2 says it has sold over one million iPhones since September 2007, clearly to early adopters.

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KIDO’Z Upgrades Its Web Environment For Kids

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 03:05 AM PST

KIDO’Z, the Israeli company behind the eponymous media browser for kids, has released a new version of its program and insists that we now refer to it as a Web OS for kids instead.

It’s certainly not an invalid point, since the new KIDO’Z incorporates communication features besides content consumption elements only, and the company is making strides in signing up computer manufacturers to have the platform pre-installed on machines.

KIDO’Z (an Adobe AIR desktop application) has put a social layer on top of the content part, enabling kids to communicate with each other as well as their parents aside from browsing pre-approved websites and playing videos or games online. Clearly, this is an oft-requested feature, as we’ve noticed when KIDO’Z competitor KidZui recently implemented a bunch of sharing and communication options as well.

Parents can now approve ‘friends’ for their kids to socialize with, which can be other children, the parents themselves, grand parents, and so on. A newly integrated Mail application enables kids to send and receive e-mails, e-cards, drawings, animated backgrounds, stickers etc., allowing the children to express themselves creatively even if they haven’t yet mastered reading or writing skills.

Also new is the addition of Places, which are essentially virtual rooms where kids can socialize with others in a cartoonesque setting. Kids can create an avatar and visit and create their own rooms, and communicate with other kids or exchange virtual gifts in a safe, child-friendly environment.

The Israeli company behind the application has now also added a premium version dubbed KIDO’Z PLUS, enabling parents to unlock more features (statistics, advanced security settings, etc.) for a monthly fee that ranges from $4.18 to $7.5 depending on how long you’d like to subscribe.

The company informs us that KIDO’Z already comes pre-installed on over half a million MSI computers, and that it expects to be on 6 million computers next year. Also worth noting: the startup has managed to attract former National Geographic Kids Entertainment President and Founder Donna Friedman Meir as its Chief of Content and Strategy.

Give KIDO’Z a whirl and let us know what you (and your kids) think.

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Four Years In, You Can Now Subscribe To WordPress.com Blogs By E-mail

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 02:01 AM PST

You would think that, almost exactly 4 years after opening up to the public, WordPress.com would have a way for people to subscribe to blogs by e-mail, right? You’d be wrong, at least until today.

While there has always been the possibility to subscribe to blogs by e-mail using FeedBurner or other RSS facilitators, WordPress.com’s parent company Automattic has now added an email subscription feature to the popular free blogging service.

To enable this, simply install the Blog Subscription widget on your WordPress.com blog and you’ll enable anyone to get updates from your blog in their e-mail inboxes, whether they’re WordPress.com users or not, on a per post basis, daily or weekly. Evidently, all subscriptions require confirmation by the address owner and can be canceled at any time.

E-mailed blog posts will come in as HTML, although users can opt to receive them in plain text too should they still be using a mail client sans HTML reading capabilities (seriously, does anyone still use those?).

I’m still wrapping my head around the fact that Automattic has only added its very own e-mail subscription feature now, on the verge of entering the year 2010. E-mail is such a huge deal still, and shouldn’t be treated as an afterthought even by ‘new media’ companies like them.

Good thing they ask us to stay tuned, because they have a ‘lot more plans for email’. What, like the ability to send in blog posts for publication by e-mail like Posterous and Tumblr have been doing for quite a while? Update: as Automattic’s Ranaan points out in comments, that was already possible, my bad. Looking forward to their future plans with e-mail.

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Scamville Shakeout: Was Gambit The Right Fall Guy?

Posted: 24 Nov 2009 11:56 PM PST

I’m not sure any lasting change will come from our series of Scamville posts. For now the most egregious of the social gaming offers are gone, which is a good thing. But none of the big players seem to have felt much pain. And, importantly, Facebook’s rules still allow most of the really bad stuff (as long as users are being told in the fine print exactly how they’re being screwed). It’s only a matter of time before business as usual kicks in.

Four companies have felt the wrath of Facebook in the wake of Scamville: Tattoo, Gambit, Social Hour and Social Reach. Facebook doesn’t openly talk about the fact that these companies have been “banned,” but they’ve let the app developers know – work with these guys and there will be trouble.

Zynga also got a slap on the wrist with the suspension of Fishville for a few days, but their cash cows, like Farmville, were never touched. And that’s despite the fact that we showed clear violations of Facebook’s rules on Zynga games via DoubleDing, an offer provider that Zynga has some control over.

Gambit Gets A Firing Squad

Ultimately only those four companies took a permanent hit. And we’re still scratching our heads over Gambit.

Because nearly everyone in the industry, including Gambit’s direct competitors, told us before and after the ban that Gambit, along with TrialPay, were among the good guys in the offer industry.

So why did Facebook ban them? And what has happened to Gambit since the ban?

Some people we’ve spoken with say that Gambit pushed Facebook too far with gambling and tobacco ads, and tried to hide those ads in other countries where Facebook may not see them.

Fair enough, but all the other guys were doing the same thing. We even caught Zynga/DoubleDing red handed when ads were being filtered away from my personal account, but showed up for everyone else

But on November 5 Facebook sent a cease and desist letter to Gambit, telling them that they could “no longer…access the facebook website, use the Facebook development platform, advertise on Facebook or use any of the services offered by Facebook…for any reason:”


Kickflip Cease and Desist –

Whatever Gambit did, it was certainly less egregious than what Zynga pulled immediately afterwards. Why didn’t Zynga get the same letter?

It’s also clear that Gambit and Facebook were getting along just fine even a couple of days before the cease and desist letter was sent. We’ve seen emails between the Facebook and Gambit discussing whether certain ads are ok under Facebook’s guidelines, and a Facebook representative was emailing back saying everything looked just fine.

There’s one easy explanation – Gambit was a smaller player in the ecosystem, and an easy one to step one. SuperRewards, Offerpal, Zynga and others are making way too much money – much of which eventually makes its way to Facebook indirectly through advertising.

People close to Facebook say this is ridiculous, and that Facebook would never put users at risk for a few tens of millions of dollars of advertising revenue. Which makes some sense. Until you watch this video and read this post. Banning DoubleDing at least seems like an easy decision.

Gambit’s Business Takes A Huge Hit

It didn’t take long for the vultures to circle Gambit when the news got out that they were banned by Facebook. SuperRewards, one of the large scale bad guys in the whole Scamville ecosystem, raided Gambit’s customer list with emails and calls that any app developers using Gambit were at risk.

SuperRewards grabbed a lot of business, which explains why the founder was recently boasting that SuperRewards revenue and profitability has increased dramatically since Scamville (watch video here).

In about a week, we’ve heard from sources close to Gambit, the company’s business with Facebook developers took a huge hit as app developers moved over to one of the worst Scamville offenders, SuperRewards. Gambit still has a strong business on other platforms. And it’s not clear that Facebook can really ban them anyway, since there’s no direct contractual relationship between the two companies. Some Facebook apps still use Gambit offers and payment solutions.

We may be hearing the worlds smallest violin being played over Gambit’s loss. But if Facebook wants to make lasting change to its platform and protect users, everyone needs to face the same consequences. Even the biggest players. Especially the biggest players.

Update: Gambit CEO Andrew Hunter comments below:

I'm co-founder and CEO at Gambit, and I'd like to offer a few more details about this story.

First, the gambling and tobacco ads that Mike mentions in this story were because of a verifiable bug, not because we were trying to push Facebook's limits. Once we realized the bug, we immediately fixed it. Our relationship with Facebook was very cordial, we were working with them on a daily basis, and we were stunned to receive the C&D.

Second, plenty of our clients continue to run traffic on Facebook, and those clients are at no risk. We are confident that Facebook does not have the ability to shut Gambit down nor the right to punish apps because they choose to use Gambit.

For the full explanation, see our blog post here: http://blog.get…ers-compliance/

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Mobile Web Usage Continues To Explode As Opera Mini Nears 40 Million Monthly Users

Posted: 24 Nov 2009 10:54 PM PST

We all know the Mobile web is exploding in popularity. Opera Mini, Opera’s mobile browser, grew its monthly users by 11 percent to nearly 40 million users in October from 32 million users in August. In terms of page views, Opera Mini delivered 17.2 billion last month, a 238 percent annual increase, indicating that mobile web usage is growing fast. Since September’s report, page-views have gone up by nearly 15 percent.

Opera also reported increased data consumption on its mobile browsers, which compresses up to 90% of the data to save network bandwidth, with Mini users generating more than 263 million MB of data for operators worldwide in October 2009, a 16 percent increase in data consumption since September 2009. Since October 2008, data traffic is up 233 percent.

Although these stats are impressive, it’s important to acknowledge the immense popularity of Webkit and Apple’s Safari Browser. But Opera Mini does seem to have a stronghold in Russia, Asia and Europe. The top 10 countries for Opera Mini usage are (in order): Russia, Indonesia, India, China, Ukraine, South Africa, United States, United Kingdom, Poland and Vietnam.

From October 2008 to October 2009, overall page-views in these countries listed increased by 332 percent, but Opera released some interesting statistics about usage in Latin America in this month’s State of the Browser report. Brazil, Mexico and Argentina lead the countries with the most usage in Latin America.

Unsurprisingly, Google and Facebook are doing well in Latin America, according to the report. While Orkut is strong in Brazil and Paraguay, Facebook is slowly chipping away at its stronghold. Hotmail is the most popular e-mail site in Latin America and Auction site MercadoLibre, eBay’s Latin American partner, is drawing large amounts of users in Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia and Peru. And Nokia and Sony Ericsson are by far the most popular handset brands chosen by Opera Mini users in Latin America.

Opera claims that using Opera Mini saves people “billions of dollars every year off their mobile phone bills” because the browser compresses data by up to 90%, which could reduce the amount users pay each month for mobile data. To promote these savings, Opera is launching a new cost savings calculator to let users figure out how much they could save each month. Opera claims that Mini users save a total of $9.4 billion USD per year.

It’s important to take this number with a grain of salt. Opera’s complex calculations look at the top operators in each country, and determine how much they typically charge per MB of browsing, and averaged those figures together. The average cost of browsing in each country is then multiplied by the amount of traffic generated in each country, and the resulting totals are summed and compared to the totals for uncompressed data traffic. The caveat is that Opera's calculations reflects metered rates (cost per MB) and not flat-rate subscription options, which skews the numbers in their favor.

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Blogging Vs. Microblogging: Twitter’s Global Growth Flattens, While WordPress’ Picks Up

Posted: 24 Nov 2009 10:03 PM PST

Only a year ago, the conventional wisdom was that blogs were dead and microblogging would soon replace them. Twitter was supposed to kill blogs because it’s so much simpler to publish one sentence fragment at a time rather than whole thoughts bunched together into what is known in the trade as “paragraphs.”

Today, blogs are doing fine, while Twitter is struggling with flattening growth, at least to its Website Twitter.com (clients like Seesmic and TweetDeck have seen no slowdown). The weakness Twitter has been experiencing in the U.S. since last summer is now finally hitting its worldwide visitor growth as well.

In October, comScore estimates that Twitter had 58.3 million unique visitors worldwide, down from 58.4 million in September. Meanwhile, Wordpress.com gained 10 million unique visitors to end the month at 151.8 million—this is after going pretty much nowhere since March, 2009.

Of course, I am using Wordpress.com as a proxy for all blogging here (I could have just as easily used Blogger, which is actually bigger with 291.7 million visitors worldwide. And Blogger saw a similar holding pattern since March, with a huge sudden jump of 18.2 million visitors in October

So is blogging back, while microblogging is on the skids? A one-month spike in the popularity of blogs doesn’t tell you much of anything, but in any case it’s the wrong question. Blogging never really went away, and was in fact helped by Twitter, which is becoming the preferred feed reader for many people (thanks to services like Twitterfeed).

And don’t count out microblogging just yet. Twitter is finally rolling out improvements to its site such as Lists and the new Retweet button. Once geo-location features kick in, Twitter’s growth could come back with a vengeance.

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Dropbox Raised $6 Million Sequoia-Led Series A In October 2008

Posted: 24 Nov 2009 08:07 PM PST

Earlier today GigaOm reported that Dropbox raised a new $7.25 million funding round over the summer (a number they derived from a SEC filing but that CEO Drew Houston wouldn’t confirm). We just spoke to Houston, who says that figure is wrong, and it’s off by nearly a year: Dropbox did close a Series A funding round, but it was for $6 million, and it was back in October 2008. And it was led by Sequoia, not Accel (though Accel did participate in the round).

Previously, Dropbox raised a seed round from Sequoia that was $1.2 million in convertible debt (they also raised money through the Y Combinator program).

Aside from the not-so-recent funding, Dropbox has been killing it lately. Houston tells us their membership numbers were up 25% in October, spurred in part by their new iPhone app. And the company also managed to gain control over Dropbox.com (previously their service was hosted on the domain getdropbox.com). They’ve also recently hit 3 million users, only two months after they passed the 2 million user milestone.

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If Kerouac Lived In The Present, OnTheRoad, The Service, May Have Interested Him

Posted: 24 Nov 2009 06:07 PM PST

Screen shot 2009-11-24 at 5.58.25 PMThere’s a ton of buzz around location right now. Our discussion on it at the RealTime CrunchUp this past Friday easily could have gone on twice as long as it did. There are just so many interesting facets: Business models, privacy, real-life social implications, and so on. Not surprisingly, we’re seeing an explosion of services that are built around it. One such service was a TechCrunch50 demo pit company this year, OnTheRoad.

Started in 2004 in the Czech Republic to connect travelers, newer devices like smartphones with GPS are poised to take the service to the next level. While a lot of location services such Foursquare, Gowalla, and now Loopt are built around the idea of “checking-in” to venues, OnTheRoad takes a different approach. It’s more about creating a geotagged travel diary when you specifically go on a trip somewhere.

Visitors to your OnTheRoad travel page see a map with various locations marked. On the other side of the screen there is a dynamic timeline of entries depending on what place on the map they click on. (A good example is the page the OnTheRoad team created for their TechCrunch50 trip.) This journal can contain both text and pictures. The use of this map-plus-timeline to navigate through your trip makes a lot of sense. There is also a horizontal timeline along the top of the page to go step-by-step through a trip that way.

And for the person on the trip, it’s easy to update on the go, which is obviously key. You can update your OnTheRoad journal via SMS, email, IM, or the service’s dedicated mobile apps. But what’s great is that even if you don’t have access to something like GPS to tag an entry, if you simply state where you are, the service will be able to figure it out. And if you do have access to the service’s Android or iPhone apps (the latest version of the iPhone app was rejected recently due to an API issue that they are resolving, we’re told), it’s even easier to update.

Screen shot 2009-11-24 at 5.35.16 PM

The company says Symbian and BlackBerry apps are also in the works. They also have an API they will be launching later this week. If you choose to update your page through the main website admin center, it’s a little cluttered, but overall seems to be pretty intuitive. But again, the mobile way to update seems to be key.

Though, as I said, OnTheRoad originally launched in 2004, the new direction for the service as a location-based travel journal only came about around 9 months ago. Since then, they have added about 5,000 registered users with over 50% of those coming from mobile devices. And the service is only currently localized for three areas, the Czech Republic, Germany, and the U.S. (with Japan and China in beta testing). They hope the new iPhone app, when approved, will help them make a stronger push in the U.S.

So what’s the plan to make money? Next year, the team has “5 or 6 revenue streams” they’re going to look at, U.S. marketing manager Michaela Romanova tells us. One is looking at subscription-based premium features, such as breaking news for locations. Another interesting idea involves using OnTheRoad to supply worldwide 911 numbers to travelers. In Europe, the company has already been monetizing a bit, having launched in the past year a promotion with a new Volkswagon SUV that had OnTheRoad built in to the dashboard console.

They face some competition from the likes of TripIt and Dopplr, but really this trying to be something else. It will no doubt help you organize trips a bit better like those services do, but this is more about simply sharing stories and pictures from where you are while on the go with people back home.

OnTheRoad may not be the Ker0uac novel, but it’s interesting.

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For Teracent Rival Tumri, Google Becomes A Frenemy

Posted: 24 Nov 2009 05:25 PM PST

Google’s acquisition of display advertising startup Teracent yesterday had significant meaning for rival Tumri; the San Mateo-based advertising platform now counts tech giant Google as a competitor. Tumri, which launched in 2004, provides a similar advertising technology to Teracent. The startup’s product, the AdPod, creates display ads that are customized in realtime to the specific consumer and site.

Tumri’s dynamic ad platform is optimized at the creative level to enable advertisers to change the animation, background template, featured product, headline, image, and more dynamically based on who is viewing the ad and where the individual is viewing the ad from geographically.

Over the past five years, Tumri has picked up a roster of impressive clients including HP, Dell, Lenovo, Sears, K-Mart, Nike, Bank of America, Expedia and British Airways. While Tumri’s CEO Calvin Lui won’t reveal the startup’s revenue numbers, he says Tumri has seen triple digit revenue growth over the past few years.

Interestingly, Tumri has an ongoing partnership with Google which allows them to serve Tumri’s display ads within Google’s content network and via DoubleClick. Tumri also has partnerships with AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo. Both Tumrui and Teracent partner with Yahoo to power its Smart Ads program for PC advertisers.

Lui told me that he doesn’t anticipate the partnership with Google ending but he did admit that with the acquisition of Teracent, Google has become somewhat of a “frenemy.” As I wrote yesterday, Google says that Teracent's technology will now be offered to its display advertising clients who run campaigns in Google's Content Network and to DoubleClick clients. Both Teracent and Tumri were reported as possible acquisition candidates as of a few weeks ago, but Lui declined to comment on any talks with Google about a buyout.

It’s unclear what the state of these partnerships will be when the dust settles post-acquisition but a Yahoo spokeswoman told me that they anticipate to continue its deal with Teracent. But it should be interesting to see if Google will be ok with parsing out its new advertising technology to competitors. Regardless, Lui and Tumri seem to seem optimistic about its prospects facing now rival Google. Says Lui, “This has been an a great opportunity to evangelize this part of the advertising market.”

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Canopy Financial Turns Into Sad, Comical Game Of Hot Potato

Posted: 24 Nov 2009 04:54 PM PST

This morning we broke the news that Canopy Financial, no. 12 on this year’s Inc. 500 list of fastest growing companies, is a complete sham.

And it’s no surprise that today, everyone is trying to point the finger at everyone else.

The company’s investment bank, Financial Technology Partners, which has represented Canopy Financial through at least two separate rounds of fraudulent fundraising, emailed to say:

“Hi there, I’d respectfully ask for some consideration here and would like to have our information / logos / screenshots taken off of your Canopy Financial posts. We clearly had no clue about any such wrongdoing and exposure to this is not something we are interested in. Understand you guys are all about the news, but we’re a small firm and had nothing to do with this. Please pass to Michael Arrington if you don’t mind.”

Let me just highlight one part of that email – “We clearly had no clue about any such wrongdoing.” Err, what? You are the investment bank that was out pitching the deal to venture capitalists. You proudly stated that you were the company’s “sole strategic and financial advisor.” And you never made a call to KPMG to see if they actually represented the company and if their financial statements were real? A 10 second phone call could have cleared this up before investors plowed $85 million into the company.

But even better is CEO Vikram Kashyap’s comment, which comes via his attorney:

Statement from Ismail Ramsey, Vik Kashyap's Attorney Regarding Allegations of Fraud at Canopy Financial

Vik Kashyap had no prior knowledge whatsoever of any fraud regarding Canopy's financial statements. He is as surprised as anyone about these allegations. He relied on financial and legal professionals in accepting the authenticity of the company's financials. Going forward, he will leave his role as CEO of Canopy, but will remain as Chairman of the Board of Directors, helping to ensure that anyone who committed fraud is held fully accountable.

I mean, sure, he’s just the CEO. What does he know? The company was engaging in long term financial fraud with completely made up numbers. And he’s the victim. Never fear, though, he’s “helping to ensure that anyone who committed fraud is held fully accountable.”

Except himself.

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In Time For The Holiday Retail Frenzy, Lucky Magazine Makes Editorial Picks Shoppable

Posted: 24 Nov 2009 03:50 PM PST


As fashion magazines, like Vogue, are trying to establish viable digital strategies, Lucky Magazine is making their first venture into the e-commerce world with the launch of a online retail site. Partnered with loyalty shopping technology startup Mall Networks, Lucky is rolling out a retail site that makes editorial picks “shoppable.”

The site will feature daily editorial picks on clothing, accessories, and beauty products. Users can then click to purchase the picks on various retail sites. You can filter results by category, designer, price range and store. Users can share products to Facebook, Twitter and save any items to an Amazon Wish List. The site also serves as a comparison shopping site between merchants, and features nearly 100,000 various fashion items from more than 450 brands.

Lucky is using Mall Network’s loyalty shopping technology to power a rewards program that would let shoppers receive up to 25 percent cash back for purchases. The site is an obvious take on how to incorporate editorial content with retail engagement. It seems like the first step for the magazine to create more of a digital presence in the retail world

Lucky is making money from affiliate fees from retailers as well as advertising on the site. Vogue Magazine, which like Lucky, is a Conde Nast publication, just hired President Obama’s campaign digital strategists, Blue State Digital, to help them maximize revenue online. But Lucky seems to have curated its own digital strategy without the help of consultants. The magazine’s Editor-in-Chief, Kim France, says the new site is designed to bring the magazine’s content online, but in an engaging and contextual way. The site doesn’t aim to create an e-commerce platform but is geared more towards supporting editorial content and retail stores. Inspired by the idea of comparison shopping portals on Google, Bing and other search engines, Lucky’s web director, Mary Gail Pezzimenti, aimed to create a better version of this that caters to fashion products.

Pezzimenti says that Lucky is looking to broaden its footstep in the digital world in the future, with the possibility of partnering with online sample sale sites, which are gaining serious traction in the space. The magazine is also interested in exploring the intersection of social media and shopping, which startups IMshopping and Weardrobe is furthering. Pezzimenti also highlighted the possibility of bringing click-to-buy technology to Lucky’s site, where users could by products directly from a video or phone. And Lucky is looking into providing personalized styling recommendations, like that of Like’s Covet.com, to help create customized product referrals for users

Earlier this year, Lucky launched a pretty nifty iPhone app that serves as a digital concierge service. The app will locate the closest retailer that carries a particular item or you can buy it online immediately. Once the app locates the retailer that contains the desired item, it will put it on hold at the store. The app has seen over 160,000 downloads since February.

You’ve got to hand it to Lucky. In an age where print magazines are floundering, it’s refreshing to see a publication look towards startups, social media and the web for digital inspiration.

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YC-Funded WakeMate Helps You Kiss Groggy Mornings Goodbye

Posted: 24 Nov 2009 03:02 PM PST

Ah, the curse of the groggy morning. You may have followed all the rules: no caffeine before bed, an early bedtime, and all the rest. But your best efforts are oftentimes for naught, foiled by the mysterious ways of sleep cycles. There may be an answer: WakeMate, a Y Combinator-funded startup that’s launching today, is looking to help you catch that ever-elusive good night’s sleep (and maybe even the perfect nap, too).

WakeMate is one of the few startups we’ve see that actually involves its own physical product (another that comes to mind is FitBit). To use the service, you first order the WakeMate wristband from the website, which costs $50. Then, you download an application for your Bluetooth-enabled smartphone (WakeMate is launching with support for iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Mobile, and a standard Java app for non-smart phones; support for Palm’s WebOS is on the way).

Once you’ve installed the app and paired your wristband with your phone, you set your alarm (more on that later) and hit they hay. The wristband tracks the movement of your wrist through the night, which it can use to analyze your sleep patterns. If you’re raising your eyebrows you’re not alone – this sounded strange to me at first, but co-founder Greg Nemeth explains it’s a well established sleep-study technique called actigraphy.

The WakeMate wristband collects data throughout the night and stores it on internal Flash storage. When it’s time to wake you up WakeMate doesn’t necessarily sound an alarm at exactly the time you set. Instead, it monitors your sleep patterns for the 20 minute window prior to that and sounds your alarm when you’re in the lightest sleep mode, which can help eliminate that groggy feeling you sometimes wake up with. The alarm doesn’t come from the wristband though – instead, the wristband uses Bluetooth to trigger your cell phone’s alarm. It then transmits your sleep data to your phone, which in turn uses its cellular data connection to upload it to the WakeMate servers. You can then browse through your sleep history from the WakeMate website.


WakeMate will be facing off with a number of other sleep devices, including the Zeo Personal Sleep Coach, which was released over the summer. The Zeo consists of a standalone alarm clock that pairs with a headband that measures your brianwaves as opposed to your wrist movements. It’s also quite a bit more expensive than WakeMate, running around $250. Nemeth says he says the Zeo as a powerful tool for people who need to diagnose their sleep problems. But he says that WakeMate has a much broader appeal, in part because of its lower price, but also because it’s more portable.

For example, WakeMate can be used to help you take the ideal nap, even when you’re on the go. The device has modes for both ‘power naps’ (which last around 30 minutes) and ‘full naps’, which range from 60-90 minutes.

WakeMate shows promise, but I don’t love the fact that it requires a Bluetooth handset to trigger its alarm. It seems like it would be easier just to integrate an alarm directly into the wristband, along with a cheap LED display so you can set the time (you could still use Bluetooth to transfer your sleep data via a handset). Co-founder Arun Gupta says they’ve considered this, but that integrating an alarm would make it bulkier, less comfortable, and more expensive. He also points out that some people might sleep with their arm under their pillow, which could muffle the alarm (perhaps they could include a ‘vibrate’ mode).

All of that said, the sleep industry has a broad appeal – who hasn’t wished they could kiss those groggy mornings goodbye? And the $50 pricepoint is low enough to make the product attractive even for people who don’t have serious sleep issues. You’ll have to wait a while to try one though: the site is now accepting preorders (you get $5 off) but the wristbands won’t start shipping until January.

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SafetyWeb To Target Anxious Parents

Posted: 24 Nov 2009 02:43 PM PST

Mike Clark and Geoffrey Arone are preparing to roll out a new startup – SafetyWeb – we’ve confirmed. The company has raised a small angel round from Battery Ventures.

Clarke was an early executive and SVP of Engineering at Photobucket and was there from the start and for two years following the $300 million acquisition from FIM/MySpace. Arone, a cofounder of Flock, recently sold his startup DanceJam to SportsNet. Both are now full time on SafetyWeb.

For now the two aren’t saying much about the product. Except for this: SafetyWeb will target parents who want to know what their kids are up to online. This isn’t about filtering and key logging the home computers, but rather a service that will monitor publicly available information on the Internet and report back to parents. The key goals are to understand how to interpret real v. perceived threats to children/teens, and also report back any anomalies that the parents should be aware of. For example, if they friend someone who is a known sex offender, etc.

This is a subscription product for parents, but will also give parents particularly worrisome content about a child for free when it is discovered.

We’re waiting to see a full demo, but our guess is parents are going to be more than willing to pay to see what their kids are up to. Competitors include ReputationDefender’s MyChild product

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Microsoft Loses Its CFO, Promotes From Within

Posted: 24 Nov 2009 02:26 PM PST

Microsoft is losing its chief financial officer, Chris Liddell (pictured right), who will be departing the company at the end of the year. Liddell will be replaced by Peter Klein, the current CFO of Microsoft’s Business Division.

Lidell joined in May, 2005 from International Paper. The stock is at about the same place as when he joined. Liddell has overseen a period of cost-cutting and stock buybacks at Microsoft.

Klein heads up finance for Microsoft’s largest division, which includes the Office business. Last quarter, the Business Division brought in $4.4 billion in revenues and $2.9 billion in operating income, which was nearly twice as much profits as Microsoft’s Windows business. Microsoft is handing over the corporate CFO spot to the man with the most individual financial responsibility in the company.

Lidell will remain at Microsoft through the end of the year to oversee the transition.

Microsoft’s next earnings report will be crucial as it comes off another down quarter. Some of the decreases in the company’s Windows business were due to the building anticipation leading into the Windows 7 launch last month. Early reports of Windows 7 sales have been positive, but it’s still too early in the product’s lifespan to call it a hit.

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Maybe Mark Zuckerberg Won’t Hate That Facebook Movie After All

Posted: 24 Nov 2009 01:18 PM PST

Screen shot 2009-11-24 at 1.13.53 PM

Yesterday, Facebook’s Dave Recordon commented that he just finished a marathon session of The West Wing, a great show about the inner-workings of a fictional White House that ended its run on NBC in 2006. I agreed with Recordon, it was a great show. You know who else agreed? Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

So why is this interesting? Well, the creator of The West Wing was Aaron Sorkin. He was also the executive producer and primary writer through the first four seasons. If you’ve heard Sorkin’s name in the tech sphere recently, it’s because he’s also the writer of the new Facebook movie, The Social Network, currently filming under the direction of David Fincher.

On his Facebook Wall, Recordon wrote, “Just finished watching all seven seasons of The West Wing for the first time. Sad that there isn’t more!” To which Zuckerberg replied, “I had the same feeling. It’s such an amazing show.”

So Zuckerberg is clearly a fan of Sorkin’s work pre-The Social Network. But will he be a fan of the movie? That still seems unlikely given that it’s based on the Ben Mezrich book, “The Accidental Billionaires”, which paints Zuckerberg and his early Facebook team in a less-than-favorable light.

Still, with a Sorkin script and Fincher directing, there’s no doubt there is some great creative talent behind the project. On-screen, Zuckerberg will be played by Jesse Einsenberg (maybe best known for Zombieland and Adventureland, but better in The Squid and the Whale). Meanwhile, early Facebook President, Sean Parker, will be played by Justin Timerblake — something which interrupted a tech party Timberlake was to be at a few months ago in San Francisco.

Ah, the ever-tangling web of Hollywood and Silicon Valley.

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Mega Machu Picchu Luxury Holiday Giveaway

Posted: 24 Nov 2009 01:05 PM PST

The holiday season is approaching fast, and that means one thing here at TechCrunch: more giveaways! Sure, we’ve given away Twitter gadgets and wireless music systems, but this is definitely the best giveaway yet by a mountain peak. In fact, the winner will be climbing a mountain in Peru to the fabled Inca city of Machu Picchu. Well, you and a guest will actually be on horseback most of the way, and staying in WiFi-equipped luxury eco-lodges. But you can walk part of the way just to say you hiked the Inca trail.

This 7-day adventure for two, which is worth about $7,000, is being donated by the tour operator Mountain Lodges of Peru in conjunction with ekoVenture, a marketplace for “experience travel” (read our recent post on them). You can enter the contest here to win the trip by using the secret code “ilovetc” (and if you want to retweet this contest or share it on Facebook use the buttons above). Airfare is not included, but everything else is. Mountain Lodges of Peru is a past recipient of National Geographic’s “50 Tours of a Lifetime” award so you’ll be in good hands.

Man, I wish I was eligible. The contest ends at midnight Pacific Time on December 3. Everyone who enters will get periodic Photo of the Day emails from ekoVenture, but there is an opt-out link for those who don’t want it.

It’s going to be hard to top this giveaway, but if you are a company out there with ideas (and prizes) let us know. Nothing is too good for our readers.

Update: For legal reasons, this contest is open only to U.S. residents.

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Amazon Announces Better Battery Life and Native PDF Support For the Kindle

Posted: 24 Nov 2009 12:17 PM PST

Amazon announced some major changes to their Kindle e-book reader today. Specifically, it stated that they've worked out a way to increase battery life by 85%. That means that the new firmware update will allow you to leave your Kindle on (with the wifi active) for about 7 days before you need to recharge. Additionally, the Kindle will now support Adobe's PDF format natively. Previously, you had to convert PDFs in order to view them on the Kindle.

American Express Is Twitter Crazy Too. Unveils Its Small Business Tweet Stream.

Posted: 24 Nov 2009 12:17 PM PST

Screen shot 2009-11-24 at 12.08.08 PMBusinesses using Twitter; there’s something to this idea. Even Twitter itself realizes it, as it’s expected to be a part of its own business model launching soon. In the meantime, other companies continue to jump into the ring. The lastest is American Express, which today unveiled Pulse, a Twitter stream focused on small businesses.

Pulse, which is a part of American Express’ Open Forum site, uses Twitter’s API to display the public tweets from small business owners. This stream can also be broken up into different small business industries, such as auto dealers, cleaning services, restaurants, and many others.

The service also has its own Trending Topics area, and highlights the top shared links on Pulse in the right hand column of the page. And if you click on the “Links” hyperlink near the top of the stream, it will show you all the top links being shared. There is a little star icon next to these to allow you to pick which ones you think should receive higher placement. These are all little nice features.

Front and center on the page is also a way to search for any business you think may be a part of the Pulse stream. And if you’re a small business owner not yet a part of it, you can sign up and nominate your company to be included.

We’ve reached out to ask American Express if there is any kind of financial agreement with Twitter to use these tweets, but it would seem that they’re just using the public API. This is a similar concept to what Federated Media has been doing with ExecTweets, a curated stream of tweets from business executives.

Screen shot 2009-11-24 at 12.07.56 PM

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