The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- Google Finance Adds Realtime News Streams
- Sun-Tanned Russian Raises $1 Million For Stealth Mobile App “Friends Around Me”
- Mint Explains Why The Real Unemployment Rate Is 17.2 Percent
- An In-Depth Look At Pivot, Microsoft’s Newest Data Visualization Tool
- Bad News For Yandex: Google To Power Search For Mail.ru In 2010
- Hi, My Name Is Mike And I Was A FishVille Addict
- Sources: Amazon And Vente-Privee In Talks Over $3 Billion Acquisition
- Eric Schmidt: Government Too Slow For Me, Comcast Made A Pretty Smart Move
- 200 Invites To The Put.io Cloud Storage Startup
- Google Expands Its Reference Section With Its Own Dictionary
- Extensions Gain More Steam As Shareaholic Is Chrome-Ready
- Bing Bombs
- Twitter Debuts New Mobile Site, Eats Its Own Dogfood
- Duffel: A Virtual Bulletin Board For Planning Your Next Trip
- Next Big Sound Raises Seed Round For Online Music Analytics
- Twitter Is So In Vogue Right Now
- Second Life Gets A Life 2.0 At Sundance
- The Most Stalker-Friendly People On The Web
- Nice Try, Wolfram Alpha. Still Not Paying $50 For Your App.
- ExactTarget Raises $75 Million More, Up To $145 Million In Venture Capital
- Early Trading Values AOL At $2.5 Billion
- Our Star Writer Moves To Chicago Because Groupon Had To Hire A VP Product
- AdMob Launches Beta Ads For Palm WebOS
- Zyxio Unveils Top Product Ideas For “Be A Mind Blower” Contest
- Santa-Pain Brings The Cheer, Adds Holiday Tunes to I Am T-Pain
| Google Finance Adds Realtime News Streams Posted: 04 Dec 2009 09:08 AM PST
You’ve heard of realtime stock quotes. Nearly every finance site has those. Now Google Finance is adding realtime news streams. If you go to its market news page, the stories will update automatically without refreshing the page, kind of like updates on FriendFeed but not as frequent. Looking at it now, new stories are updating only every minute or two, so I’m not sure how useful this is going to be most of the time. But when a stock-related story is breaking, it could be very compelling, giving you a sense of how quickly market information is reported. When new headlines break every 10 or 15 seconds or so, it becomes a new way to consume news. You can sit there and literally watch the news as headlines scroll down automatically. Perhaps that is why the news stream will only be turned on during trading hours. It switches back to the static news page 90 minutes after trading ends in the U.S. and starts up again the next morning 90 minutes before. Although it seems silly to me to turn the feature on and off. If the page isn’t moving, that simply means no news is breaking. People will figure that out. This is just becoming the way people consume news, whether on Twitter, Facebook, or news sites. We autorefresh headlines on TechCrunch, for instance. You can’t be half-realtime. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0  |
| Sun-Tanned Russian Raises $1 Million For Stealth Mobile App “Friends Around Me” Posted: 04 Dec 2009 08:35 AM PST
I had a brief chat with one of the startup’s co-founders, Miami-based founder Egor Lavrov, to learn more about the app. I learned only a little about the company’s plans, and much more than I needed to know about Lavrov. Lavrov, who immigrated to the States after becoming an Internet millionaire in Russia at a young age – he sold his first company at age 16 for just south of $2 million – told me the app will be unique in the U.S. in the way it enables people to acquire new friends, rank users, handle group chat functionality and virtual currency. That’s fairly vague of course, but the startup aims to launch its first app for iPhone/iPod Touch by the end of this year and on other platforms like Android and BlackBerry in the first half of 2010. According to the fledgling company, the experience of mobile versions of existing social networks and other ventures is simply sub-par (even though Facebook is the highest ranked iPhone app in the App Store), so it’ll be interesting to see what’s so different about what they come up with. I searched the Web for more information, and found more than I bargained for about Lavrov, who’s quite a colorful character. Check out this bit in a profile of Moscow’s nouveaux riches written back in 2003, for instance:
The man’s personal website boasts pictures of himself in private jets and helicopters and his wife, Russian-Dominican model Lourdes Espinal, while his YouTube account is an utter goldmine of videos of a man showcasing his wealth, driving fancy cars and partying at exclusive night clubs. Last year, he set up a contest called Tattoolizator where he would tattoo the highest bidding company’s logo on his hand (Engadget scored pretty high). If the video below is any indication of where his mind is at, other mobile social networks have nothing to worry about. Or do they? Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. |
| Mint Explains Why The Real Unemployment Rate Is 17.2 Percent Posted: 04 Dec 2009 07:56 AM PST The U.S. unemployment numbers are out today, and most headlines will show that the U.S. unemployment rate in November was 10.0 percent, down from 10.2 percent in October. That number is depressingly large, but even that under-counts the true number of unemployed. For instance, it doesn’t count those people who don’t have a job and have given up looking for one, or those who have found marginal part-time work but still can’t make ends meet and are still looking for a full-time job. The government keeps stats on all of these “marginally attached workers” and people “employed part time for economic reasons” (rather than by choice). If you add all of those people in, the total unemployment rate in the U.S. is 17.2 percent, compared to 12.6 percent a year ago. The only good news is that number is down from 17.5 percent in October. To explain all of this (and I guess to remind people why it’s important to budget in these trying times), the folks at Mint prepared the video below. Despite its attempt to be lighthearted, it’s probably the most depressing cartoon you’ll see all month. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| An In-Depth Look At Pivot, Microsoft’s Newest Data Visualization Tool Posted: 04 Dec 2009 07:30 AM PST At Microsoft’s PDC event a few weeks ago, Microsoft Live Labs introduced a new technology, called Pivot, to make sense of interconnectedness between objects on the web. The underlying premise of Pivot is to view relationships between “collections” of individual information on the the web. Many of the connections between items on the web aren’t necessarily tangible, but Pivot helps crawl massive amount of objects on the web and produces sleek visualizations of all that is connected. We sat down with Microsoft developer Gary Flake, who created Pivot, and Microsoft evangelist Brandon Watson to take an in-depth look at the application. While Pivot is currently in private beta, we have 500 invites for TechCrunch readers who use the code “16FC 2946 0C4C 4CCB” when downloading the app here. Pivot is itself a standalone application, but it relies heavily on Internet Explorer’s rendering engine. The best way to understand the importance of Pivot is through a real-world example of how this technology would work. So let’s say I wanted a visualization of all the Wikipedia links to TechCrunch, Pivot would essentially crawl all of Wikipedia and create a map of the Wikipedia pages that are connected to TechCrunch, such as Michael Arrington’s Wikipedia page. Another real-world use of Pivot is extracting data from Facebook. For example, you can use Pivot to crawl Facebook and break down friends by various data points like relationship status or college. Microsoft has an interesting example of Pivot being used to sort through Sports Illustrated covers, where you can break down covers into verticals by type of sport, team, athlete and more. On the backend, Pivot is a rich media application that is built on top of the .NET framework and is powered by C Dragon, which also is integrated with parts of Silverlight, Microsoft’s version of Flash. C Dragon contributes to the advanced zooming and movable interface of Pivot. The application also includes an Excel plug-in that lets you import data into Pivot. When turned on, Pivot can also make sense of your own browsing history (if you are using Internet Explorer). Pivot hosts a portion of IE within the app, and will get a sense of your browsing history over time and then will slice and dice your history based upon various verticals. You could even integrate Pivot with our own data base CrunchBase so users can visually break down all of the data within the site. Pivot is definitely a cool toy to play around with and its scalability and results are impressive. Not only does it allow for deep-data dives from the web, but its visualizations are sleek and the rich-media features from C Dragon make the app easy to navigate. Pivot isn’t the first compelling technology to come out of Microsoft’s Live Labs. Photosynth, a graduate of Live Labs, is an impressive photo viewing project that stiches together images to create pseudo-3D worlds. Here’s a nifty screencast of how one developer used Pivot to mine data from Facebook: Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| Bad News For Yandex: Google To Power Search For Mail.ru In 2010 Posted: 04 Dec 2009 05:52 AM PST  It's all over the news in Russia this morning: Mail.ru, the leading Internet portal in the country, will reportedly be replacing Russian search king Yandex as its default search provider and hand over the keys to Google again. While nothing has been official confirmed by either party yet, the information comes from solid sources, according to multiple publications. |
| Hi, My Name Is Mike And I Was A FishVille Addict Posted: 04 Dec 2009 05:09 AM PST
I know exactly how she feels. Because part of the fallout of all the Scamville posts I wrote last month is a lingering addiction to one of Zynga’s games, Fishville (yes, the game that Facebook shut down for three days for violations of their advertising rules). A lot of the information in those Scamville posts came from good old fashioned research. I played the games to see what would happen. At first I thought they were ridiculous. I was growing acai trees and milking cows on Farmville, slaying the undead on Vampire Wars, and hitting mafia bosses with crowbars on Mob Wars. And of course I clicked on the offers and even paid cash a few times for currency. It was all business of course. Until I noticed that I was going back to FishVille, even after the series was completed. I had 8 tanks going and hundreds of fish being grown from eggs to adults. Those were sold off and I bought more eggs and the cycle continued. Before long I was at level 34 – so high that there I had access to every kind of fish that you could buy. I’d racked up 808,647 experience points. I was proud of my tank’s pristine condition and cornucopia of decorations. Notice the bevy of happy, well-fed fish:
A big part of these games is the urge to go back to them multiple times per day. To feed the fish. Or harvest the corn. Wait too long and the fish dies, the corn wilts, and you lose currency and experience points. I was making sure to check back in regularly on my fish so they didn’t die. I actually thought to myself at one point “wow, when I go on vacation I’ll need to plan ahead so the fish don’t starve.” At some point I was talking about FishVille in the office and a couple of people asked why in the hell I was still playing the game with the posts completed. I realized then, in a flash, that I had a problem. I was addicted to FishVille. Total. Loser. I quit that day. Cold turkey. I checked back in a couple of days later to see what kind of situation I had on my hands. It was ugly. Most of the fish were dead, the few left alive were starving and the aquarium was dirty and mucked up. I took a screenshot and got out quickly.
And this morning I checked one last time on my FishVille situation. All of the fish are now extremely dead. The tank is a mess.
Before you laugh too hard at me (or after you’re done), realize this: seventy million people a month play FarmVille on Facebook alone (it was 60 million last month). There are Facebook groups on FarmVille addiction. Here are some tips from an ex addict on how to avoid becoming addicted. And YouTube is littered with people admitting their addicted to these games. Social gaming addiction is a real problem. It may be a somewhat funny problem, but it’s still a problem. And it’s no wonder that kids without access to credit cards are taking all these sketchy offers to get game currency. They’re hooked. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| Sources: Amazon And Vente-Privee In Talks Over $3 Billion Acquisition Posted: 04 Dec 2009 04:22 AM PST  US retailing giant Amazon is in deep and secret negotiations with Vente-Privee, the French private sales club which has taken the ecommerce and fashion industries by storm, our sources say. We asked Xavier Court, marketing director at Vente-Privee, on the record if Amazon had acquired Vente-Privee. His response was "Very flattering but not true at all." However, our sources say that although the two companies have not yet agreed anything, they are in fact negotiating a price close to 2 billion Euros, or $3.01 billion. In October we learned that Vente-Privee was looking for a sale of between $2 billion and $4 billion. |
| Eric Schmidt: Government Too Slow For Me, Comcast Made A Pretty Smart Move Posted: 04 Dec 2009 04:14 AM PST
The full clip is embedded below, but here are some of the highlights of what Schmidt said: - small and medium sized businesses do much of the hiring in the U.S., so they should be running into less problems getting loans Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| 200 Invites To The Put.io Cloud Storage Startup Posted: 04 Dec 2009 02:03 AM PST
The service has created a lot of buzz, because it’s able to keep redundant copies of your files which you can access from anywhere with a browser, including files for the iPhone and PS3. These can be fetched automatically from bittorrent networks, FTPs, direct download links, Rapidshare links or basic http authenticated links. And you can stream your downloaded files instantly with an appropriate player. For example, Divx Web Player for DivX files. Cleary it has the potential to create something of a media storm. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| Google Expands Its Reference Section With Its Own Dictionary Posted: 03 Dec 2009 09:22 PM PST
It works exactly as you’d expect: type in a word, and Google will give you the definition, part of speech, and maybe a similar phrase or two. If you’re logged in, you can star a word for future reference. The new dictionary obviously isn’t good news to the many other web dictionaries. Answers.com, in particular, stands to lose out, as it is currently Google’s default whenever a user clicks the “define” link on a Google results page. The Times article says that Google now uses its own dictionary as the default, but I’m still seeing Answers.com as the source, so apparently the switch isn’t live for everyone. Google has actually offered some dictionary features for a long time. If you Google a query using the format “Define:word“, the search engine will present you with a handful of definitions it finds on sites scattered across the web. Some of these definitions usually come from well known online dictionaries; others, from obscure web sites, which can make the results inconsistent. These aggregated definitions have been available on Google.com/dictionary before now, and now compliment Google’s own in-house definitions. For those wondering if Google might further expand into territory traditionally owned by reference books — it already has. Last year it launched Knol, a user-edited encyclopedia. That venture hasn’t gone very well: after failing to draw much interest as an encyclopedia, people started using Knol as a poor man’s Craigslist.
Image by ElektraCute Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| Extensions Gain More Steam As Shareaholic Is Chrome-Ready Posted: 03 Dec 2009 07:36 PM PST
As we noted in September when Shareaholic closed its seed funding, the extension has surpassed over 1 million downloads for Firefox. And for good reason: It makes sharing on just about every service on the web as simple as two-clicks. The new Chrome version works pretty much exactly the same as the Firefox version; you click the button and you are presented with a drop down list of social options for sharing. A shortened URL is automatically made for the webpage you are sending. If you have a Shareaholic account you can set options for the extension including picking and choosing which social networks to include in the drop-down. You can also pick which URL shortener to use (Bit.ly is the default one). But you don’t have to have a Shareaholic account to use the extension, it will simply use the default sharing options (such as Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, etc) to populate your drop-down. The extension is fast, and thankfully, does not seem to slow down Chrome at all. Obviously, extension support is a big key to Chrome competing with Firefox, the browser known for its extensions. And this simple extension support also gives Chrome a huge leg up over the top dog of the browsers, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Shareaholic’s extension, which is technically still is beta, is accessible through this direct link. Once you download it, simply drag it into your Chrome (version 4.0 or greater, which is still testing) browser window to install it. One note: It’s not working correctly with the latest dev build of Chrome for Mac, but it is working in the latest Chromium builds for Mac. Chrome for Mac’s beta launch is imminent, but Google has stated that extension support will not be in that build right away. Shareaholic noted that the team at Google helped them port the extension over to Chrome. Clearly, they want to have the best extensions available early. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| Posted: 03 Dec 2009 06:53 PM PST
Wow. Bing is completely and utterly down right now and has been for several minutes. The tweets about it are flying in at a massive pace — as are the tips to us. [Update below, it's back after about 30 mins of downtime.] It’s one thing when startups, like Twitter, go down, which happens all the time. It’s another when a major search portal does it. If this is part of the new strategy to beat Google, Microsoft didn’t mention it in the Fall Release event the other day. Remember the shitstorm when Gmail went down several months ago? Just imagine if it were Google itself — the Internet would grind to a halt. Update: A Bing team member writes that they are “working on bringing @bing back up.” Update 2: And at least now they have an error page (below):
Update 3: And they’re back. Total downtime around 30 minutes…
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| Twitter Debuts New Mobile Site, Eats Its Own Dogfood Posted: 03 Dec 2009 06:21 PM PST
There are quite a few obvious changes in the new version. First and foremost, you’ll notice that it looks quite a bit nicer than the old site, with more color and a much improved layout. You’ll also see that everything more closely mirrors the desktop version of the Twitter.com homepage. As with the desktop version, you’ll be shown Twitter’s real-time search engine when you first visit the site. More importantly, the new client includes all of the basic features that every Twitter client has had for years, but the old mobile page lacks. These include the ability to see @replies (mentions), favorited tweets, and direct messages. All of these were missing in the old version, but you’ll find them in a menu at the top in the new one. Some features, like recently-launched lists are still missing, though. Other improvements include the addition of user profile pictures next to their tweets (you can turn these off if you’re on a slow connection), and a brief list of trending topics at the very bottom of the page. Twitter’s blog post also notes that this was built using Twitter’s own APIs — in other words, it’s “eating its own dogfood” with the new mobile site (that’s what the title Takeout Dogfood on Twitter’s blog refers to). From the post:
The Twitter blog post says that this works best on Webkit browsers, which are found on Android, the iphone, Nokia S60, and Palm OS. It’ll still work on other platforms, but the Twitter team hasn’t fine tuned it yet. For comparison’s sake, here’s a shot of the old version (left) next to the new mobile site:   Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| Duffel: A Virtual Bulletin Board For Planning Your Next Trip Posted: 03 Dec 2009 06:00 PM PST
Of course, as an online service Duffel’s bulletin board is virtual, but many of the concepts stay the same. To get started, first you tell Duffel what city you’re going to be traveling to. The site presents you with a virtual bulletin board populated with a handful of suggested activities and places to stay, each represented by a small note card. From there, you can add your own ideas manually (you enter a title, notes, and URL) or you can use the site’s bookmarklet to quickly save things from across the web to your Duffel. The site is well done, with a clean design and refreshing simplicity. But there are some features it lacks that competitors do have, like the ability to generate an itinerary with an hourly schedule (on Duffel everything is just listed by day, though some people may prefer it that way). More importantly it’s in a very crowded space — there are many travel sites out there, and even sites that help generate an itinerary for you aren’t very novel. Competitors include Nile Guide, GoPlanIt, Offbeat Guides, TripWolf and a host of others. Granted, there’s room for more than one player here to succeed, but Duffel is going to need to find a way to rise above the crowd. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| Next Big Sound Raises Seed Round For Online Music Analytics Posted: 03 Dec 2009 05:56 PM PST
Next Big Sound, a TechStars 2009 company that tracks the growth and popularity of music groups across major web properties like MySpace, Twitter, Last.fm, and others, has raised a seed round in the $1 million range. The company would not reveal the exact amount, but did confirm that they had recently raised the funding. As Robin described it in August, Next Big Sound is a statistics and comparison engine à la Alexa or Compete, but for music artists and industry professionals. Next Big Sound measures number of fans, number of plays, and comments for bands. According to an SEC filing, Next Big Sound filed a Form D for their seed round that stated they had raised ~$100k, though they have in fact raised significantly more. Foundry Group led the round, with Jason Mendelson taking a board spot. Also participating were SoftTech VC, Alsop Louie Partners, Professor Troy Henikoff from Northwestern University and TechStars Executive Director David Cohen. Next Big Sound has been tracking over 500 million fan interactions and almost 500,000 artists since launch. Next Big Sound launched in August at the TechStars Investor Day in Boulder. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| Twitter Is So In Vogue Right Now Posted: 03 Dec 2009 05:41 PM PST
Who says Twitter isn’t mainstream? Vogue Italia has just dedicated an issue to the microblogging network. The magazine’s December cover features a montage of TwitPics of some of the world’s most famous models, including Gisele Bundchen, Christy Turlington, and Natalia Vodianova. In the collage, models are taking pictures of themselves via popular Twitter photo sharing app TwitPic. And the layout of the editorial feature is also an ode to Twitter. This isn’t the first time Vogue Italia has shown a little technology love. In 2007, the fashion-forward magazine devoted a cover to the rise of YouTube and webcams. While the Twitter-focused issue may take some by surprise, it’s not irrelevant to the fashion community. As Twitter becomes more of a platform for designers and consumers to converse about fashion, the platform becomes a key mechanism for both news and new styles. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| Second Life Gets A Life 2.0 At Sundance Posted: 03 Dec 2009 02:39 PM PST
Does anybody go to Second Life anymore? It seems like a ghost town these days, although every now and then you hear rumblings of a quiet comeback for the proto-virtual world. Well, at the very least Second Life will be getting a second life at the movies. A documentary called Life 2.0 will be screened at the Sundance Film Festival. Life 2.0 was produced by PalmStar Entertainment (which is theglobe.com co-founder Stephan Paternot’s indie movie company) and Andrew Lauren Productions (The Squid And The Whale). Here is how they describe the move in a release:
Exactly. If the movie is able to rouse the remaining residents of Second Life up and away from their computers to a movie theater with other actual people I, for one, will consider it a success. Although, I am not sure how many real movie theaters the people of Second Life can fill. Below is a teaser trailer which tells you absolutely nothing about the movie:
“Life 2.0″ documentary teaser from Jason Spingarn-Koff on Vimeo. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| The Most Stalker-Friendly People On The Web Posted: 03 Dec 2009 01:54 PM PST
Osnapz’ Top Foursquare Users list takes advantage of Foursquare’s new API to create a list that sorts the “top” users of the service. I put “top” in quotations because the way they determine this by default isn’t a very good metric: It’s the number of people you allow to follow you. On Foursquare, unlike Twitter, you have to explicitly accept new followers. The reason for this is obvious: Foursquare is all about sharing your location, so your probably are only going to want to do that with people you actually know. Well, unless you’re Scoble, of course. But truth be told, I’m on this list as well, at #42, with 234 people I allow to follow me. I wouldn’t consider myself close friends with all (or probably even most) of those people, but I do generally accept people that I’ve met before. But I have plenty of others that I don’t accept. That’s not meant to be a slight to them, but simply because the idea of random people knowing where I am is still a little weird. This type of symmetric social relationship is of course the key to Facebook as well. But the rise of Twitter has led to the popularity of the asymmetric network. Even Facebook is doing plenty of asymmetric things now with its “everyone” sharing button and fan pages. But location adds a different element to this because it’s the bridge between the online social world and the real-life social world. That’s undoubtedly the reason that Facebook is taking its time with implementing native location elements to its service. With time, people will become more comfortable with sharing their location with others online. But sadly, we’ll undoubtedly also see some situations of real-world stalking (both extreme and not-so extreme cases) that will crop up. The fact that Scoble and Leo Laporte (#1 and #2 on the list), who are both web celebrities of sorts, basically seem to be using Foursquare asymmetrically is interesting in that regard. To be fair, Osnapz also allows you to sort the lists by number of mayorships on Foursquare (basically, what you get when you’ve checked-in to a certain venue more times than other people). That would seem to be a better indicator of “top users.” You can also sort these lists by the various cities that Foursquare supports. “The foursquare API has a low rate limit so I can only add a few members at a time, but my process runs every hour to add more users, so over time, the list will be more comprehensive,” Osnapz creator Tuyen Nguyen also tells us. I hope so because I’d love to know if someone is more stalker-friendly than Scoble.
[photo: flickr/r.f.m II] Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| Nice Try, Wolfram Alpha. Still Not Paying $50 For Your App. Posted: 03 Dec 2009 12:35 PM PST
As we pointed out at the time, one of the most humorous things about the app’s pricing is that the mobile version of Wolfram Alpha was completely free. Free beats $50 any day of the week, and I think WolframAlpha finally realized that as they have decided to destroy the mobile web version that was tailored for the iPhone and iPod touch, which TUAW noticed today. Now, when you point your iPhone’s browser to wolframalpha.com, you’ll be greeted by a pop-up letting you know that the WolframAlpha app is now available in the app store, complete with a link to go there and download it. You can also click the “X” to close this popup, but if you do, you’ll be greeted by a version of the site that is the same as the regular web site — which is to say, not at all tailored for a smaller mobile screen. It’s still usable of course, but it is much worse than the previously custom formatted version. If you try to go to wolframalpha.com/iphone (the page where wolframalpha.com would redirect to if it detected mobile Safari), you’re greeted with a full page once again touting the iPhone app. What’s humorous about this page is that it’s also not at all tailored for the iPhone. Come on guys, you could have at least made the page that is trying to sell the iPhone app to iPhone users look nice on the device. Despite Apple featuring the app in the App Store, indications are that it’s simply not selling like hotcakes. One indicator: There are only 30 reviews for the app so far. Many popular apps have thousands of reviews. And many of WolframAlpha’s reviews are simply bitching about the price. Another indicator: The app is nowhere to be found in the top 100 grossing apps, the area Apple made in the App Store specifically to help showcase more expensive apps. If a $50 app is not among the highest grossing, that’s not a good sign for its sales. The bottom line: The app is still too expensive. And nuking the iPhone-optimized version is not going to change that. If you do happen to have $50 just burning a hole in your pocket, you can find the app here. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. |
| ExactTarget Raises $75 Million More, Up To $145 Million In Venture Capital Posted: 03 Dec 2009 12:22 PM PST
Wow. Marketing email software provider ExactTarget has secured another $70 million in funding, according to an SEC filing, bringing the startup’s total funding this year alone to $145 million. The company raised $70 million earlier this year from Battery Ventures, Scale Venture Partners and Montagu Newhall. Not too shabby considering the state of the economy. The latest round of funding comes from Technology Crossover Ventures, (TCV) according to a report in the Indianapolis Business Journal. The VC firm has also invested in HomeAway, Zillow, eHarmony, WhitePages.com, Expedia, Orbitz and Netflix. When we reported on ExactTarget’s earlier funding, the startup said it would delay its IPO plan and had withdrawn its application with the SEC to trade on the Nasdaq under the symbol EXTG. Interestingly, TCV has helped guide many startups in its portfolio to an IPO, so it makes me wonder if ExactTarget is readying itself to go public in 2010. ExactTarget’s software provides enterprises with email marketing platform that powers everything from email coupon offers and automated fraud alerts to e-statements and SMS text messages. ExactTarget's software provides email marketing tools for a widespread group of big-name clients, including CareerBuilder.com, Expedia.com, the Gannett Co., and The Home Depot. The software is also integrated on Salesforce.com’s AppExchange and Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 |
| Early Trading Values AOL At $2.5 Billion Posted: 03 Dec 2009 12:04 PM PST
AOL won’t officially become an independently traded company again until December 10 when CEO Tim Armstrong is scheduled to ring the bell on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. When AOL announced the details of the spin-off last month, it was possible to estimate a valuation for AOL at about $3.15 billion, but as I noted then, we wouldn’t really know for sure until the shares start trading. Well, some shares already are trading ahead of the official spin-off, settling at around $24. With 105.7 million shares to be distributed, that gives AOL a market cap of $2.5 billion. It seems like AOL’s value just keeps on going down every time you look. Now, the shares are being very thinly traded right now, and we could still see a pop on December 10. But what is more likely is that there will be continued pressure on the stock as existing Time Warner shareholders take the money and run. It doesn’t help that some Wall Street analysts don’t forecast any growth whatsoever in either revenues or profits over the next four years. For investors, AOL is really a turnaround and cost-cutting story. But Armstrong is hoping to change that perception. For instance, JP Morgan analyst Imran Khan writes in a note that he came away from a meeting with Armstrong with the impression that AOL will “pull back premium inventory from Ad.com and begin monetizing this inventory at a fuller valuation.” AOL’s own sites command higher ad revenues than the ads on its Ad.com network, but since 2007 it’s been making AOL ad inventory available through its ad networks, pushing down the value of those ads. If Armstrong follows through with this plan, it would be a step towards creating more scarcity for the ads which run on AOL properties, and could perhaps lead to higher revenues. Armstrong needs to find more ways to juice revenues and profits if he wants his AOL options to be worth anything. A year from now, how much will AOL be worth? Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| Our Star Writer Moves To Chicago Because Groupon Had To Hire A VP Product Posted: 03 Dec 2009 11:45 AM PST
Why the move? No, Facebook didn’t poach her, although that’s happened to us before. And she isn’t going off to do her own thing, which we’ve had to bear as well. No, what happened is, Groupon made her husband, Suneel Gupta, an offer he couldn’t refuse. He’s moving from his current job as Director of Mozilla Labs to VP Product Development at Groupon. I tried everything to get Leena to stay here in Silicon Valley. Pointing out the horrendous weather in Chicago was one tactic that didn’t work. I also suggested she continue to live here and see Suneel on alternate weekends. Which also didn’t work. Outright divorce is apparently out of the question as well. Luckily though we’ve talked her into staying on and working remotely. We lose a sense of camaraderie with our remote team members, and I’m not happy we won’t have her around at the office. But she’s promised to come visit regularly, so that’s something. But I’m still hoping Groupon does a faceplant and goes out of business or something, opening the door for Leena to move back here. But sadly their business is exploding (in a good way), and that’s not likely any time soon. So for now I’ll just say congratulations to Suneel and Groupon, and try not to be too passive aggressive towards Leena. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. |
| AdMob Launches Beta Ads For Palm WebOS Posted: 03 Dec 2009 11:44 AM PST
Though its had an application store of its own for many months now, Palm’s webOS has really yet to flourish as a development platform. As it currently stands, webOS’ App Catalog only offers up around 400 applications. This stunted growth is largely because Palm still considers the App Catalog “beta” – thus, they’re being rather selective with what gets in. Once the beta tag is pulled away, however, Palm expects a barrage of applications to hit their store. While plenty of these new apps are sure to be free, their developers still need to put food on the table. Looking to capture these developers before the floodgates open, AdMob is today announcing beta support for the webOS platform. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| Zyxio Unveils Top Product Ideas For “Be A Mind Blower” Contest Posted: 03 Dec 2009 11:20 AM PST
We recently wrote about Zyxio, a startup that has developed a proprietary technology called SensaWaft that lets people control computers via air flow. Basically Zyxio’s technology enables anyone to control a mechanical device, or a mouse pointer on a screen, or whatever, by blowing. How hard you blow, as well as minute differences in direction, are converted to commands. The variety of products that could use the technology are endless. With that in mind, the startup launched a contest, BeAMindBlower, to crowdsource new product ideas and is going to fund development of the most innovative product ideas that are submitted. Today, Zyxio is entering the second phase of the competition by announcing the top 25 most popular ideas. The startup is inviting everyone to vote on their favorite products; Zyxio will announce the top 5 winners at the end of the competition on December 18. Current ideas to leverage SensaWaft’s technology range from blowing passwords into your computer, flicking through digital pages, enhancing immersion in virtual worlds to using the technology to power a communication device for disabled patients. The five “Mind Blowers” who receive the most votes will sit on the Mind Blowing Advisory Board for a six- month period and assist with the development of the new products inspired by their ideas. They will also receive $6,000 and an all-expense-paid trip to Las Vegas. And if you vote for an idea, you’ll be eligible to win a Samsung netbook or an Android phone. Judging from the list of the final 25 ideas, there are some fascinating ideas that could come out of this contest. Be sure to check the site out and vote for your favorite “Mind Blower”! Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors |
| Santa-Pain Brings The Cheer, Adds Holiday Tunes to I Am T-Pain Posted: 03 Dec 2009 11:15 AM PST  Considering that it's still one of the App Store's top grossing apps of all time, I Am T-Pain is pretty great. With that said, it's not exactly something you'd want to pull out at your family Christmas party. Believe it or not, Grandma probably wont be impressed with the on-the-fly Autotuning technology be it that you're singing songs about strippers. Making things a bit more family friendly while adding a bit of holiday cheer, Smule has just snuck a handful of festively themed tunes into the app's catalog of songs. |
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