The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- Vidly Brings HD Video To Twitter
- Bada Bing, Bada Boom: Samsung Releases a New Mobile OS
- Connect To The CrunchBase Firehose: Sign Up With Facebook Connect
- Triple Engine Browser Lunascape (Firefox, Internet Explorer And Chrome All-In-One) Now Supports Triple Add-Ons
- Yahoo Meme Extends To Indonesia
- Color Code Your Life With Tom’s Planner
- Sun Microsystems Kills Social Programming Project Zembly
- Confirmed: Playfire Gaming Social Network Secures $2.1m Series A
- Source: Jajah In Middle Of Bidding War That Could Drive Price Up To $400 Million
- Alice.com Sweeps In $6 Million For Household Goods E-Commerce Platform
- Realtime Booking Site BookingBug Creates Smart Affiliate Model
- Huddle’s Collaboration App To Go On 25 Million HP Business PCs
- We Know Hollywood Is This Dumb. Et Tu, Netflix?
- Babbel Language Site Dumps Freemium, Goes Subscription
- Former Yahoo SVP Bassel Ojjeh Invests In ArabCrunch.NET
- Too Lazy To Make Your Own Twitter List? Let Conversationlist Do It For You.
- Qik Bumps Up The Recording Resolution For The Droid
- Syncplicity Launches Business Edition For Data Storage In The Cloud
- Zynga’s FishVille Gets Out Of The Penalty Box At Midnight
- The Don Dodge “Ambassador From Microsoft” Exit Interview
- They’re Baaack! ElfYourself 2009 Is Now Live
- Social Networks Continue To Rally Around Twitter As LinkedIn Goes Tweet Crazy Too
- If The WSJ.com Says Goodbye To Google, It Will Also Say Goodbye To 25 Percent Of Its Traffic
- Sometimes Twitter Accounts About Sh*t Your Dad Says Get You TV Deals
- Magic Mouse Works Fine For Multi-Touch Unless You’re The Six-Fingered Man
| Vidly Brings HD Video To Twitter Posted: 10 Nov 2009 09:00 AM PST
Vidly is claiming to be the first HD video service for Twitter. HD video on the web has always been sort of a hazy thing due to varying expectations of resolutions and bitrates, but it seems safe to say that Vidly’s video is the highest quality out there among its competitors. Several of them offer video quality that can be grainy or choppy, but these new Vidly videos are smooth and clear. So why bother? After all, most of these videos are relatively short and storing and serving HD clearly costs more. Vidly is doing it because they see it as a great tool for brands to use to further promote themselves on Twitter. That makes sense, if someone like National Geographic is going to tweet out videos, it probably doesn’t want them to look bad. In fact, Vidly’s biggest competitor here may be that these brands figure out how to store their own HD media and simply tweet that out. Along with the HD launch, Vidly is hosting a new competition alongside mobile video camera maker Flip. Each Friday for a few weeks, Vidly and Flip will give away a branded MinoHD device. To enter, you simply have to tweet something with the #vidly hashtag. Vidly underwent a namechange (it was TwitVid.io) in August, and picked up some fresh funding. It already has several brands using its service, now it’s just a matter of convincing them, and others, that it’s the go-to Twitter video service. It’s also worth noting that any HD which was previously uploaded to Vidly will now also be in HD. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0   |
| Bada Bing, Bada Boom: Samsung Releases a New Mobile OS Posted: 10 Nov 2009 08:53 AM PST  As Sesame Street is currently celebrating its 40th anniversary now seems like as good a time as any for us to practice our counting...of mobile operating systems/platforms. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Darn, my hand ran out of fingers! Well, no matter, Samsung thinks there is plenty of room for more and has taken the wraps off its own, new open mobile platform, bada. |
| Connect To The CrunchBase Firehose: Sign Up With Facebook Connect Posted: 10 Nov 2009 08:39 AM PST
We’re excited to announce that these contributions no longer have to remain unattributed. Starting today, anyone with a Facebook account can sign up for an account on CrunchBase by using Facebook Connect. Edits will still be moderated (after all, this is the Internet we’re talking about here), but users who prove themselves to be trustworthy will, with time, start to see additional privileges associated with their accounts. All of these edits represent a treasure trove of information, so we’ve also been working on ways to better present the edits as they occur. Visitors to the CrunchBase homepage will now notice a list of recent milestones – a “stream,” if you will – that represents the most recent changes to the database. We’ve filtered out the more trivial edits in an effort to make this the kind of real-time information that even Paul Carr could love. These funding rounds, acquisitions, investments, IPOs, and other major milestones will now also appear on the individual pages that they relate to. Lastly, since it’s always better to let individuals choose what news they care about, we’re providing a way for people who sign up for a CrunchBase account to see a summary of these milestones only from the products, people and companies that are interesting to them. Logged-in users now have the ability to follow entries in the database and have relevant updates appear on their home page (sound familiar?). If you are a developer and want to use CrunchBase data, we’ve got a very open and flexible API. And make sure to let us know when you build an app that uses CrunchBase data, we like to highlight them. We hope you enjoy the new features, and are always taking suggestions for ways to make CrunchBase better. You can keep up to date with the latest features on the CrunchBase blog. And if you like what we’re doing, by all means, be our friend.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| Posted: 10 Nov 2009 08:38 AM PST
The main selling point of the browser is still intact: Lunascape users can instantly switch between Firefox, IE or Safari/Chrome mode by right-clicking tabs or by clicking on the engine switcher button on the bottom left of the screen. The browser should come in handy for web developers and designers who have to test sites for browser compatibility or for those people who aren’t satisfied with either one of the five big browsers (in case there are any). But the Lunascape developers say they aim at establishing a “Unified Browsing Platform” for everyone. Their ultimate goal is to help general web users overcome the hassles they encounter when using IE at work and Firefox at home, for example (different UIs, bookmarks, settings, add-ons etc.). Screenshot: Triple engine selection But what’s new in Lunascape 6.0? Screenshot: Firefox add-on in Lunascape 6.0 browser Users can now operate tabs in any kind of window split view, meaning you can compare any given web page rendered by the three different engines side-by-side in one browser window (vertical, horizontal, thumbnail, cascade). This makes a lot of sense and should actually have been included in the previous version already. Screenshot: Multi-view tab display Some smaller revisions include a new extra-minimalist interface available that does away with a lot of the clutter of Lunascape ’s previous version and a revamped “floating” sidebar that can display a number of dedicated add-ons (i.e. a minimap). I’ve tested Lunascape 6.0 for a few days now, and the browser is still a little buggy but pretty stable for a beta release. Granted, the changes from version 5 aren’t huge, but especially the Firefox add-on support and the new design and interface should make Lunascape 6.0 worth taking for a spin. The race for the ultimate browser continues. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. |
| Yahoo Meme Extends To Indonesia Posted: 10 Nov 2009 07:32 AM PST  We’ve written a lot about Yahoo Meme, Yahoo’s new microblogging platform that resembles Twitter. A few weeks Yahoo launched an API for Meme and also shed some light on where the social media site is being used; which seems to be mainly outside the U.S. According to Yahoo, Meme is gaining a following in Brazil, China, the Philippines, India and Turkey. Yahoo initially rolled out Meme in Portuguese, then Spanish and then English. Today, Yahoo is rolling out a native version of Meme in Bahasa Indonesia, the national language of Indonesia. The Republic of Indonesia, which comprises over 17,500 islands, is the fourth most populous country in the world. With the translation, Meme is actually spelled as “Mim” on the site, but it appears to have much of the same functionality as the other versions of the site. Yahoo meme lets users post their own content (including text, photos, videos, links and more) and repost the content of others with one-click publishing, allows users to follow other Meme users (via one-way connections, no friend authorization is required) and comment on their posts. Meme’s content limits are higher than Twitter’s—the limit is 2,000 characters. Coincidentally, Twitter also recently made an announcement concerning Indonesia, launching a partnership with Indonesian mobile carrier AXIS to provide Tweets via SMS. While Yahoo Meme may be growing internationally, Twitter is aggressively going after international markets as well. The site most recently launched a version in Spanish and plans to roll out versions in French, German and Italian soon. Hopefully Meme doesn’t suffer the same fate as Yahoo’s social network in India, SpotM, which didn’t even make it to its first birthday. Thanks for the tip Rama. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| Color Code Your Life With Tom’s Planner Posted: 10 Nov 2009 07:00 AM PST  Netherlands-based Startup Tom’s Planner is launching their dead-simple web-based project management and planning system lets users create and visualize an online planning schedule. The application is meant to be used by a broad spectrum of consumers, from project managers, event and wedding planners to busy soccer moms or personal assistants. Tom’s Planner lets you create color-coded project plans and schedules, share them anyone in a team or groups, embed project schedules, and export to Microsoft Project. To help users get started, Tom’s Planner provides project planning templates for website designers, construction projects, event and wedding planners, vacation home rentals and personnel schedules. And users can save their projects to their hard drives instead of storing the file in the cloud. The startup faces competition from Microsoft Project, LiquidPlanner, Primavera, and others. But the beauty of the application is that it’s simple to use, even for those users who aren’t particularly tech-savvy. And it’s free (for now). Tom's Planner is offering a free, one-year account to all new users who sign up for the public beta launch by December 31. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. |
| Sun Microsystems Kills Social Programming Project Zembly Posted: 10 Nov 2009 06:44 AM PST
Zembly was an interesting attempt to lower the barrier of entry to writing applications for social platforms such as Facebook, Orkut, Meebo, OpenSocial and the iPhone by sharing services and widgets with the developer community. But apparently, Sun’s bold vision didn’t quite cut it, so it’s cutting zembly loose and shutting the service down at the end of this month. In a message sent to its users and posted on its website, the zembly team says the service will be suspended on November 30th, and the FAQ teaches us that all applications and services currently on zembly will be made unavailable, along with the user data of all members of the community. Users have until the end of this month to get hold of their application code and widgets. Zembly is now part of the illusive TechCrunch deadpool.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| Confirmed: Playfire Gaming Social Network Secures $2.1m Series A Posted: 10 Nov 2009 05:37 AM PST
The round was led by Atomico Ventures (founded by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis of Skype fame), in conjunction with Michael Birch (founder of Bebo), Brent Hoberman (co-founder of LastMinute.com), William Reeve and Alex Chesterman (co-founders of LOVEFiLM) and David Gardner (former COO of Electronic Arts and now CEO of Atari). Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| Source: Jajah In Middle Of Bidding War That Could Drive Price Up To $400 Million Posted: 10 Nov 2009 05:26 AM PST
Details are scarce at the moment, but Microsoft, Cisco Systems and Telefónica Europe (O2) are said to be looking to buy the venture capital-backed company for a price ranging from $200M to $400M. We’re digging for more information. Jajah was founded back in 2005 and in March 2006 introduced the world to a pretty decent consumer service that allowed cellphone users access Jajah's low-cost calling system through their mobile devices, over the Web. Jajah went on to raise $28 million in VC funding from investors like Sequoia Capital, Globespan Capital Partners, Deutsche Telekom and Intel. The Skype rival amassed about 10 million users when in April 2008 they announced a deal that would bring its premium voice services to nearly 100 million Yahoo Messenger users more. The deal proved crucial for Jajah, which connected its 1 billionth call last Summer. And that was before it turned to Twitter to spread the voice service even more. Jajah says it currently serves over 25 million consumers and business callers in more than 122 countries, and provides calling access to more than 200 destinations globally. It’s unclear how much revenue it is generating from these users, but it’s apparently enough – or has enough potential to scale and grow – to make for an interesting strategical acquisition target for companies with deep enough pockets to engage in a bidding war. It’s odd to see O2 mentioned as one of the companies who’s sitting at the negotiation tables, and I consider Microsoft and Cisco to be more likely buyers. Both of them sit on heaps of cash and are undeniably acquisition-hungry, and Redmond has the added benefit of having entered into a partnership with Jajah on enterprise IP communication solutions. The price range seems to be on the high end, but that’s what happens when a bidding war goes the way the company that’s on the table (and its financial backers) would want it to go. We’re cataloging this as a solid, plausible rumor for now and will update with more information / confirmation as soon as it comes in. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| Alice.com Sweeps In $6 Million For Household Goods E-Commerce Platform Posted: 10 Nov 2009 04:55 AM PST
Alice.com, the retail platform for household goods, has closed a $6 million Series B round of funding from private investors, bringing the startup’s total funding up to over $10 million. We previously scooped the startup’s $4 million infusion (which was part of this round) in September. Alice.com raised $4.3 million in Series A funding from Kengonsa Capital Partners and DaneVest Capital in November of 2008. Launched in June, Alice.com is an retail platform for consumer packaged goods manufacturers, like Procter & Gamble, to sell directly to consumers instead of going through retail channels like Target or Wal-Mart. On the consumer side, Alice.com lets users create a profile of their household (i.e. how many adults, kids, babies) and then the site will keep track of items and reminds users with emails when they are running low and need to reorder. Each shipment is bundled together in a single 'Alice' box, delivered directly to the consumer's door, with no shipping costs. Alice’s co-founder and CEO Brian Wiegand told me that the new funds will be used to bring on additional home goods partners, such as Procter & Gamble. Wiegand adds that the site has steadily added many of the well-known manufacturers to its partnership base, but declined to name which brands have signed on. As we wrote in our initial review of the platform, we are fans of Alice.com thanks to a competitive pricing plan, an well-understood business model (the site makes money via advertising) and experienced entrepreneurs at the helm of the startup. Co-founders and serial entrepreneurs Brian Wiegand and Mark McGuire have managed to sell three companies in the past +10 years, most recently flipping social shopping service Jellyfish to Microsoft (which it later used to create Live Search Cashback). Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| Realtime Booking Site BookingBug Creates Smart Affiliate Model Posted: 10 Nov 2009 04:50 AM PST
We recently profiled competitor Bookfresh but this site only works for small one-man-bands offering minutes/hour based services. BookingBug has the potential to scale across a much broader range of service businesses, especially with its affiliate program, which lets destination sites earn revenue for showing bookings for businesses that are relevant to their market. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| Huddle’s Collaboration App To Go On 25 Million HP Business PCs Posted: 10 Nov 2009 03:55 AM PST
Huddle will be in a suite of five trial applications included on every HP business computer, starting in the U.S. and extending to the rest of the world. That’s quite a big deal for a startup this size – and relatively unusual for one not even based in the U.S. The deal is based on a revenue split with HP on new signups to the service, which effectively offers a discount for HP customers on Huddle’s tools. The other programs will include three HP- services and antivirus software from Symantec. The three-year-old company, which raised £2.3m from Eden Ventures in 2007, says it is close to break even and is looking for another round of financing to fund expansion. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| We Know Hollywood Is This Dumb. Et Tu, Netflix? Posted: 10 Nov 2009 02:49 AM PST
At the time, it was reported that Blockbuster, the former video giant that is aging anything but gracefully, was also backing this 30-day window idea (where it might see a 30-day rental exclusive on some titles). With the company bleeding money, it shouldn’t be surprising that they’re aligning themselves with the studios. But more recently, there has been some very disheartening news: Netflix seems to be willing to back this idea too. Yes, the poster child for much of what is right about the consumer movie business these days may be on the verge of making a deal with the devil. Let’s be clear about what this means: If you’re a Netflix subscriber, you will no longer be able to rent new movies until 30 days after they’ve been released on DVD. The show business trade publication Video Business reported last week that Netflix would be willing to accept this 30-day model for huge discounts on the movies after that period — perhaps as much as 50%. As a business decision, this would seem to make sense since 70% of Netflix’s main business is catalog (older) release rentals. As a long-term strategy, this is just about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Here’s what this will do: It may drive sales of DVDs a bit short term. But soon, online movie piracy will pick up to new heights. If the movie studios have nightmares about piracy now, their reality will be truly terrifying with this plan in place. There are two major factors that stop movie piracy from being as bad as music piracy was a few years ago: Broadband speeds and convenience. Let’s speak to the latter one first: With services like Netflix, Redbox, iTunes, and the like all offering fairly easy ways to get movies you want, when you want them, it’s less of a headache for most people to use them rather than digging around online to get them for free. But with this new 30-day window in place, the masses would be driven online to search for more illegal content — and more importantly, it would begin to fuel a piracy ecosystem for Hollywood content. There would be more people downloading, but also more people sharing. That’s the key.
Hollywood is making a fatal error with this strategy. In their greed-clouded view, they seem to really believe that most people are renting movies rather than buying them because they’re given an option. Kill the option, kill the problem, right? The truth is that most people are renting movies rather than buying them because the majority of movies released are crap that no one wants to buy. There’s a huge difference between paying $3 (or less, with Netflix) to rent a movie that may be entertaining to watch once (or might not be), than having to spend $20 to buy something you don’t really want and will have forever. Hollywood assumes that because they’ve sort of made this type of buy-first, rent-later environment work on services like iTunes and Xbox Live (where it doesn’t really work and is just hampering both services) that it will translate to Netflix as well. But if you give a mouse a cookie, then try to take away that cookie, he’s going to bite your hand off. What’s really befuddling is that Netflix lacks the vision to see thorough this BS. They don’t seem to realize that longterm it’s going to screw them too. While new movies may not be as core to their business as they are to Redbox (which is suing many of the studios to stop something like this), new movies are the sexy lures that bring in new business. If I can’t get at those sexy lures for 30 days, they’re not nearly as sexy. The Internet, meanwhile, offers plenty of those sexy lures. Sure, there’s some risk in grabbing them, but it’s really pretty minimal. Did I mention they’re free? Because Hollywood and now Netflix are practically screaming it. [images: Miramax and New Line Cinemas] Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| Babbel Language Site Dumps Freemium, Goes Subscription Posted: 10 Nov 2009 02:28 AM PST
“Babbel is now a paid service. Freemium doesn’t work for us,” confirms managing director Markus Witte. Now only the first part of any given course can be taken for free, as a trial demo. Full access now costs between $6.65 and $11.95 per month. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| Former Yahoo SVP Bassel Ojjeh Invests In ArabCrunch.NET Posted: 10 Nov 2009 02:27 AM PST
The platform is a venture by ArabCrunch.com, which like its name suggests kind of does what TechCrunch does but specifically focuses on Arab web and mobile startups. ArabCrunch.NET is launching in private beta today at a conference in Jordan, and will function as a hub where Arab techies, entrepreneurs, scientists, members of the academic community and investors alike can gather and exchange ideas, promote services and build relationships. Ultimately, ArabCrunch.NET aims to accelerate entrepreneurship and technology innovation in the Arab world by building a virtual ecosystem that enables its members to connect with, share knowledge with and support each other. Lofty goal, but an admirable one. (Via @ArabCrunch)
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| Too Lazy To Make Your Own Twitter List? Let Conversationlist Do It For You. Posted: 10 Nov 2009 12:39 AM PST
The idea is very simple: If you’ve @replied someone in the past day, Conversationlist will add them to your “conversationlist” Twitter list. But this person will only stay on that list as long as you keep talking to them. If the next day you don’t @reply them, they’re gone. That in and of itself is kind of an interesting way to keep track of people that you find interesting enough to want to directly talk to at any given time. But it gets more interesting when others start following your Conversationlist, because it gives them a glimpse of the people you actually talk to on Twitter. And if you’re the type of person who wants to try out Twitter lists but doesn’t want to take the time to make one, this is a pretty simple way to create one that could actually be useful. According to Conversationlist, there are only ever 25 people on the list they create for you at any given time. If you want to stop it from updating, simply delete the list on Twitter and Conversationlist will stop building it for you each day. To get it working, you only have to click one button on the Conversationlist site, authorize the service via OAuth, and you’re set. Super simple.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. |
| Qik Bumps Up The Recording Resolution For The Droid Posted: 09 Nov 2009 11:55 PM PST
The first off the bat is the mobile video broadcasting service Qik, who will later tonight be announcing beta support for the increased resolution. Not only is Qik the first to reach such the new resolution on the Droid, but they’re also proudly claiming to be the first of all the mobile streaming services (amongst competitors such as Ustream, Kyte, and Flixwagon) to support such a high resolution in general. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| Syncplicity Launches Business Edition For Data Storage In The Cloud Posted: 09 Nov 2009 11:54 PM PST  We recently wrote about data storage and syncing site SugarSync’s move to attract more small businesses, and today, another syncing service, Syncplicity, is following suit. The startup is launching a Syncplicity Business Edition that provides centralized file management, automated backup, synchronization, sharing and collaboration for business users. Similar to SugarSync, Box.net or Dropbox, Syncplicity is used to store, share, backup and synchronize files from your computer to the cloud. Syncplicity also offers an open platform that integrates well with web applications. The platform enables developers to extend their web applications directly to the desktop, creating seamless interaction between online applications and files stored locally on the desktop. For example, you can associate any text document directly with Google Docs, Scribd and Zoho. Features of Syncplicity's new service include the ability to allows users access to files from any device as well as web applications no matter where the files were first saved and real-rime backup. Syncplicity’s business edition also gives admins central file management to have control over data both inside and outside the corporate firewall. Similar to other syncing services, Syncplicity is easily scalable in terms of storage and number of users. Syncplicity’s Business Edition also promises to integrate Microsoft Office and other desktop applications with Google Apps data, as well as other web applications. And as we wrote earlier, Syncplicity offers a public API that allows 3rd parties to tightly integrate with existing solutions, web applications or new clients.The base price for Syncplicity Business Edition is $45 per month for 3 users and 50 GB of storage, or up to 60 GB with an annual subscription. Customers can also add an unlimited number of users and unlimited amount of storage. Launched in April 2008, Syncplicity raised $2.35 million in funding from True Ventures, Frank Marshall and other investors in October of 2008. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| Zynga’s FishVille Gets Out Of The Penalty Box At Midnight Posted: 09 Nov 2009 10:56 PM PST
Zynga’s now saying that the game will be live again at midnight tonight. 875,000 users flocked to the aquarium game in its first two days, so I’m sure they’ll be glad to see it back. And so far Zynga has lived up to its recent promise. All offers, including legitimate ones like virtual currency for Netflix subscriptions, have been removed from all Zynga games.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. |
| The Don Dodge “Ambassador From Microsoft” Exit Interview Posted: 09 Nov 2009 10:17 PM PST Last week Microsoft’s “Ambassador to Startups” Don Dodge was laid off from Microsoft as part of a broad reduction in staff. We, along with countless others, lamented the decision. Dodge was the face of Microsoft for many, many people. And the comments to our post and other blog coverage attested to this. We had a chance to sit down with Dodge for a few minutes today in our office and give him a proper exit interview (these are always fascinating). For the first few minutes of the video Dodge talks about his job at Microsoft evangelizing their tools and platforms to developers. The BizSpark program is a big part of the conversation.
“When Google was three months old, you would have laughed at them too, you would not have been impressed,” he says. At around 7:05 Dodge talks about what’s next for him (make sure to watch this and you’ll see my not-so-subtle suggestion for his next job). At 8:45, Dodge talks about the companies that he believes are innovating, and he implies that these are some of the companies he’d like to work for: Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter. Each of them would be lucky to get him. And of course we have a few choice “off record” comments at the end while I tried to convince Dodge that the camera was no longer rolling. He’s known me too long to fall for that trick. That part starts at 10:28 and runs for just a few seconds, but it’s good stuff. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| They’re Baaack! ElfYourself 2009 Is Now Live Posted: 09 Nov 2009 09:14 PM PST  ElfYourself started back in 2006, when it received a surprising 36 million views in its first year. In 2007, it took the web by storm, with a whopping 193 million views. In 2008, the company teamed with JibJab to power the site (one of JibJab’s specialities is creating customized videos like these, so it was a good fit). However, there was a significant dropoff between 2007 and 2008 — last year the site drew 55 million views. That dropoff wasn’t a surprise though: JibJab CEO Gregg Spiridellis says that the company decided to require users to register in order to share their videos with their friends, when previous years hadn’t required registration. This led to an anticipated dropoff in virality, but it also resulted in a huge jump in JibJab’s userbase, which is more valuable to the company in the long run. This year though, we can expect some more astronomical numbers, because JibJab has removed its required account registration. Instead, it’s deeply integrating Facebook Connect, which will give users one-click signin to the site and will also help ElfYourself go even more viral as videos get distributed through Facebook News Feeds. Users can make their videos and share them across the web for free. They can also pay to have their elves printed on gift cards or greeting cards, or to download a version they can store locally. Spiridellis also told us some of JibJab’s recent traffic stats: the site has 11.5 million unique visitors in October, up 229% over the same time period last year. 18 million views came from the site’s Monster Mash customized videos. Below are two of the new videos the site is offering this year: Send your own ElfYourself eCards
Send your own ElfYourself eCards
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| Social Networks Continue To Rally Around Twitter As LinkedIn Goes Tweet Crazy Too Posted: 09 Nov 2009 08:55 PM PST
Professional social network LinkedIn has long had a feature that lets users update their status on their profile. But it’s plainly obvious that LinkedIn users don’t nearly use the status feature for mass communication as frequently as they use Twitter or Facebook for the same purpose. In fact, I surveyed a sampling of LinkedIn users who avidly use the site for networking but never update their status on their profile. Many didn’t even know that LinkedIn had a status update feature. Starting tonight, LinkedIn will integrate with Twitter, letting users sync their LinkedIn and Twitter accounts to broadcast LinkedIn status updates on Twitter and vice versa in real-time. So how does this work? LinkedIn will now allow you to update your status on your LinkedIn profile and then share the message automatically to Twitter. To enable to enable the cross posting feature, you just need to click the new Twitter box under your Network Updates box on the homepage and sync with your Twitter account (via oAuth). The integration works the other way as well. You can also share Tweets to your LinkedIn profile from Twitter or any other client by adding the hashtag “#in” or “li”. As part of the setup process on LinkedIn, you can choose to either send all your tweets or select tweets that have the hashtag “in” from Twitter back to LinkedIn as a status update. You can also import your Twitter stream into your profile now, which is also an op-in feature. So your profile will show a “Recent Tweets” section that will include a real-time stream of your Tweets. The ability to show your Twitter stream in your LinkedIn profile no doubt provides a compelling social media context to your professional CV. As Twitter co-founder Biz Stone says in a video about the harmonious integration, “the business use case of Twitter is turning out to be very important.” He adds, “The persona they create for themselves on the web is part of their resume.” Stone also said LinkedIn and Twitter are as complimentary as “peanut butter and chocolate” (hence the logo).  It makes sense for LinkedIn to integrate with Twitter considering that its own status update feature isn’t tremendously popular. The ability to Tweet directly to your LinkedIn profile will add a good amount of fresh content and perhaps new traffic to the site for social purposes as well as for professional interests. And perhaps the Twitter integration will breathe new life to LinkedIn’s status update feature. AIM and MySpace also made similar moves by adding the two-way sync with Twitter. As my colleague Erick Schonfeld eloquently wrote recently, LinkedIn, like other social media sites and networks, is realizing that it's better to swim with the stream than against it. The odd man out in this announcement appears to be Facebook, who has yet to add Twitter syndication to its functionality for all users. It would also make sense for LinkedIn to sync with Facebook, but LinkedIn’s co-founder and VP of product strategy Allen Blue says it something that the site “may consider in the future.” Blue says that for now, LinkedIn is concentrating its efforts on Twitter thanks to the “great amount of business conversations” that are taking place on the microblogging platform. But LinkedIn’s other founder and executive chairman Reid Hoffman, who recently joined VC firm Greylock as a partner, was an angel investor in Facebook, so it would make sense LinkedIn will play nice with Facebook in the future. When asked about the possibility of a URL shortener being added to LinkedIn’s status update feature (which would be useful given the integration with Twitter), LinkedIn spokesperson Kay Luo said that would make a lot of sense and could be a possible addition in the future. Luo declined to say whether LinkedIn will be creating their own URL shortener or integrating with one of the billion other shorteners out there. LinkedIn is no doubt growing, reaching 50 million users a few weeks ago and innovative features like this should only add to the social network’s popularity. And as Twitter continues to globally, this will compliment LinkedIn’s considerable international presence. It’s important to note the Twitter feature will be gradually rolled out over the next 24 hours to all LinkedIn users.  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| If The WSJ.com Says Goodbye To Google, It Will Also Say Goodbye To 25 Percent Of Its Traffic Posted: 09 Nov 2009 06:56 PM PST
Whenever Rupert Murdoch goes back to his home country of Australia, he loosens up and says things to the press (usually his own outlets) that he might not say in the U.S. Of course, everyone in the U.S. picks up on it and it becomes a big story, as it did today after Murdoch told his own Sky News that he might start blocking Google and other search engines from giving searchers full access to articles on the Wall Street Journal’s website, WSJ.com. Asked whether he realized that Google was sending his news site a ton of traffic, Murdoch responded, “”We’d rather have fewer people coming to our Websites, but paying.” If Murdoch wants fewer people coming to the WSJ.com and other news sites he controls, blocking Google from indexing those sites is the perfect way to achieve that goal. Just over 25 percent of the WSJ.com’s traffic comes directly from Google or Google news, according to estimates by Hitwise. About 12 percent of that comes from Google News, and another 15 percent from Google search directly. About 44 percent of visitors to the WSJ.com are new to the site, so Google is doing a good job of introducing new readers to the WSJ. But Murdoch clearly would rather have loyal readers than those delivered by search engines. Or at least that is his story, and he is sticking to it. Never mind that in order to get people to pay for content, they first have to be able to find it. Meanwhile, the WSJ.com still has a deal with Google which allows the search engine to bypass the paywall and show readers the full text of articles when they click through. Perhaps the WSJ is learning that there it can’t be half-pregnant. Either you charge everyone for content, or you make it free, because if there is back door everyone will find it. All the strange arrangement with Google is doing is training people to search on Google News for stories on the WSJ, rather than go directly to the WSJ. But I digress. Here is the full video interview with Murdoch below: Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| Sometimes Twitter Accounts About Sh*t Your Dad Says Get You TV Deals Posted: 09 Nov 2009 06:08 PM PST
Yes, you read that right. A 20-something just landed a TV deal thanks to his Twitter account. Again, not a website, not a book (though there is a book in the works too), just a Twitter account. The TV industry blog The Live Feed reports that CBS is working with Justin (whose last name is Halpern) to create the show along with Will & Grace creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick. Halpern will write it along with another writer, Patrick Schumacker. Warner Brothers will produce it. Here’s the best line from The Live Feed’s story:
I would think so. Below, some other recent gems (obviously, some NSFW):
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| Magic Mouse Works Fine For Multi-Touch Unless You’re The Six-Fingered Man Posted: 09 Nov 2009 05:26 PM PST
FingerMgmt is a simple OS X app that allows you to track points of contact on multi-touch inputs. It was built with Apple MacBook trackpads in mind, but yes, it works with the Magic Mouse too. As you can see in the screen capture below, the Magic Mouse has no problem following up four points of contact relatively easily. It works for five too, but at that point, the surface area on the top of the mouse becomes the issue. The newer, large MacBook trackpads meanwhile can easily distinguish up to 10 points of contact (after that, I ran out of fingers, obviously, as I’m not Count Rugen from The Princess Bride – “the six-fingered man”). So while the Magic Mouse isn’t as versitile as the trackpads due to both the way they are used and surface area, it’s perfectly capable of doing some other interesting things with multi-touch. In the future, I suspect we’ll see Apple add two-finger click, and three-finger click options, as well as a pinch-to-zoom option. Maybe even a three-finger swipe if Apple is feeling really wild. [via Daring Fireball] Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
First, there were the Twitter picture services. Soon, there were a lot of those. Then, there were the Twitter video services. And now, there are getting to be a lot of those. So how do you choose which one to use? Most people base it on two things: First, third-party Twitter client support. And second, features. Today, 
Sun Microsystems sure had some very nice things to say about the 
There appears to be a good old bidding war going on for another VoIP startup, 
Online booking and reservation system 
UK collaboration startup 
Back in August, 
Broadband remains an issue in many parts of the country, but increasingly, it’s not as big of one as the studios might believe. With devices like the Xbox 360, Apple TV, PS3, and services like Hulu and YouTube, people are getting used to downloading or streaming content over their connections. If you take away the convenience of something like Netflix, these same people will eventually put two and two together that these connections can also be used to get new content online for free, illegally.
[Germany] The new version of 
Did you get added to a bunch of Twitter lists today with the name “conversationlist”? If so, you’re not alone. No, it’s not a bug or a worm spreading through Twitter, it’s a new service that aims to create a Twitter list for you based on people you actually have conversations with on Twitter.
As the number of Android-powered handsets on the market continues to expand, so do the technical capabilities of the applications that run on the platform. The Droid, for example, is the first handset to introduce video recording at a resolution 720×480 (more than double that of the 320×240 recording found on most other Android handsets), and app makers are already swooping in to take advantage of it.
A high-drama and high-stakes 
At around the 5:30 mark Dodge talks about his view of startups. “It’s easy to criticize startups” he says, “but it’s much harder to create one.” He also uses a quote that I once grabbed off of a 
Back in August
Earlier, in my review of | You are subscribed to email updates from TechCrunch To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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