The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- Rocketbox Lifts Off With Better Email Search For Apple Mail
- New Google Chrome Release Adds Support For 1,500+ Extensions, Bookmark Sync
- Bill Gates Hearts Academic Earth
- Soundcloud Partners With Hype Machine To Service Music Bloggers Better
- HarperCollins Debuts Inkpop, An Interactive Writing Platform For Teens
- Break Media Moves Into Social Games With MMA FightPicker
- Mimecast Raises $21 Million For Cloud-Based Email Management System
- Nonprofit Technology Company Convio Refiles For $57.5 Million IPO
- LivePerson To Acquire Web Analytics Startup NuConomy For $3 Million
- Sean Moriarty, Rajeev Chawla Join Mayfield Fund As Entrepreneurs-In-Residence
- StockTwits Acquires Abnormal Returns, Creates Real Time Financial News Hub
- TweetDeck, TwitJobSearch Team Up For Custom Job Search Desktop App
- Dan Abrams Expands Mediaite Empire With Geek Culture News Site Geekosystem
- AOL Acquires StudioNow For $36.5M, Confirms Departure Of CTO Ted Cahall
- ExteNet Systems Raises A Whopping $128 Million For Wireless Network Infrastructure
- Spotify Rival Deezer’s CEO Kicked Out By Investors, Drama Ensues
- Better Place Raises $350 Million To Make This World A Better Place
- Who Needs iTunes? doubleTwist Partners With T-Mobile, Now Bundled On Some Android Phones
- Brightcove Wants To Take “TV Everywhere” Beyond Your Cable Company’s Video Website
- Breaking: Flurry Notices Cupertino-based Users Testing Apps on Apple Tablet
- Exploding Term Sheets Prompt Y Combinator To Sync Acceptance Dates With Competitors
- Overheard: Steve Jobs Says Apple Tablet “Will Be The Most Important Thing I’ve Ever Done.”
- Track New Foursquare Deals And Easily Drink For Free
- The Killer App for Apple’s Tablet: Gaming
- Why VCs Should Take Their Own Advice
| Rocketbox Lifts Off With Better Email Search For Apple Mail Posted: 25 Jan 2010 09:00 AM PST
I’ve been a fan of Apple’s Mail.app for quite some time, even though we’ve had our ups and downs, it’s gotten the job done. One of my biggest beefs with Mail.app is searching through past emails. It’s just horrible. Central Atomics is hoping to fix that problem with Rocketbox. Rocketbox is a new way of searching your e-mail in Apple Mail.app — it’s more advanced than Mail’s search, with the ability to search by person, a search engine that is up to 200x faster than Mail’s, and powerful filters that make it easy to find what you need. One neat thing about Rocketbox is its search-by-person suggestions. Rocketbox analyzes your e-mail correspondence and provides a list of important contacts when you search, so you know who you’ve emailed the most. Also, Rocketbox will show you Inline previews, with highlighted snippets telling you why a message was found, making it easier to scan through emails. The highlighted section then helps you improve your queries and takes the guess work out of using search. Rocketbox is extremely similar to Xobni, which is the Windows alternative, with a few more features like social network information, and contact information, etc. Overall, Rocketbox is a great addition to Mail.app, and the entire search experience. You can get a 30 day trial, or buy the full version or $14.95, but the first 100 TechCrunch readers to use the code “TECHCRUNCH“ can get Rocketbox for $9.95, instead of the regular $14.95, when checking out.
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| New Google Chrome Release Adds Support For 1,500+ Extensions, Bookmark Sync Posted: 25 Jan 2010 08:22 AM PST
You can check for the new version manually if you’re already using Google Chrome for Windows (go to Settings > About Google Chrome), or you can wait for the new release to be automatically updated within the next week. Google previously launched extensions on the beta channel, and says over 1,500 have now made their way to the extensions gallery. The other new feature baked into the Chrome browser for Windows, Bookmark sync, is particularly useful if you use more than one computer, as it enables you synchronize your browser bookmarks on all of your machines. To those using Google Chrome on Linux, extensions are enabled on the beta channel only for now. As for Google Chrome for Mac, the search giant requests you keep hanging tight: extensions, bookmark sync and more should make their way to the beta ’soon’. Or, you could use the dev version of Chrome for Mac, which already supports extensions. Web developers and designers might want to dive into the new features of this Chrome release on the Chromium Blog, as it includes a number of fresh HTML and JavaScript APIs. If you’re using a version of Chrome with extensions support, also make sure to install the TechCrunch one. It works like a charm.
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| Bill Gates Hearts Academic Earth Posted: 25 Jan 2010 08:01 AM PST
Bill Gates has released his second annual letter from the Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation, and he has highlighted a tech startup that he finds particularly compelling, Academic Earth. We’ve written about the online video education site, which is sort of like a Hulu For Education.The startup provides a user-friendly platform for educational video that offers courses and lectures from Yale, MIT, Harvard, Stanford, UC Berkeley, Princeton and others. Gates believes that online learning sites like Academic Earth will revolutionize education. Gates writes that sites that can cater to individual students online, offering a personalized learning experience, are innovative and will take interactivity to a new level. Academic Earth has received considerable amount of acclaim since its launch last year, also being named one of Time Magazine’s best websites of 2009. Gates also highlights the need for organizing online educational content in a more meaningful way. Online learning content needs to be easily accessible on the web, says Gates. But while many software companies are producing innovative products for children, there is still a cost barrier. Gates isn’t sure whether non-profits can join together with these companies to provide these sort of innovations to schools whose budgets don;t allow for the software. According to the report, The Gates Foundation is investing in these online courses that are able to provide interactive applications for children, aiming to connect software partners with teachers and schools. The foundation is also investing in ensuring that all libraries have computers with internet access. So far, 49,000 computers have been installed. Gates recently made waves in the Twittersphere after launching a new Twitter account (Gates Tweeted out the letter this morning). He also re-joined Facebook and launched a new blog called Gates Notes.
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| Soundcloud Partners With Hype Machine To Service Music Bloggers Better Posted: 25 Jan 2010 08:00 AM PST
The Hype Machine is going to be able to aggregate the output of blogs, but more importantly the bloggers get official releases without having to be forced to release an MP3 into the wild. In addition labels/artists can track listens and pull analytics on who and how the content is being consumed, as tracks get released. Since labels and bloggers haven’t traditionally got on, this move is potentially a lot more productive for both sides.
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| HarperCollins Debuts Inkpop, An Interactive Writing Platform For Teens Posted: 25 Jan 2010 07:28 AM PST
Anyway: Inkpop is a project from HarperTeen, HarperCollins Publishers’ teen publishing unit. The platform aims to attract young readers and writers with a combination of community publishing features, user-generated content, and social networking elements. In addition, the company has engaged a group of international HarperCollins editors and authors to function as some sort of ‘editorial board’ whose job it is to review the site’s top five monthly selections, provide teens with feedback and mentorship opportunities, while also considering their work for publication. Susan Katz, President and Publisher of HarperCollins Children’s Books, said: “Teens are a key consumer group with significant financial impact. Teen fiction is one of the most robust and fastest-growing categories in publishing today.” Since its fairly quiet debut in November 2009, Inkpop has attracted more than 10,000 members, who have submitted close to 11,000 novels, poems, essays, and short stories. HarperCollins says visitors are teens ages 13 and older, from 109 different countries and territories (which is strange, because the site is available in English only). HarperCollins says it will announce partnerships throughout the year that will further enrich the inkpop community experience for teen members. The publishers says it’s working on bringing other formats such as photography, video and artwork sharing to Inkpop, in order to enhance projects and promote additional forms of creativity.
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| Break Media Moves Into Social Games With MMA FightPicker Posted: 25 Jan 2010 06:56 AM PST
Seeing the success of Farmville and other social games, Break Media is getting into gaming across its roster of men-oriented video sites. The first game, MMA FightPicker, is launching today on Break’s martial-arts video site, CagePotato. It is a pretty basic fantasy sports game where you pick a line-up of fighters and get points, in the form of potato chips, every time your fighters win. The potato chips also act as a virtual currency, which can be used to advance within the game. Every time you play, you get some potato chips, but you can also buy them. MMA FightPicker is Break’s first game, unless you count the Tiger Woods game where he is chased by his wife. It is just the first of many games the company plans to roll out across its eight sites, including its flagship Break.com. The games are being developed by a new game studio in Shanghai, China that already employs more than three dozen developers who are ready to churn out a variety of games. “We started this studio so we could knock out social games across our properties,” says CEO Keith Richman. Break will also be selling ads next to the games on its sites, and bundling those sals in with its existing video and banner ads. With 30 million unique visitors a month across its properties, Break has enough built-in distribution to sell ads on its own. And then there is the virtual currency. “I think other publishers will realize that gaming can add legitimate revenue,” says Richman. Beyond Break’s own sites, the games will live on Facebook as well, where they will live as standalone Facebook apps.
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| Mimecast Raises $21 Million For Cloud-Based Email Management System Posted: 25 Jan 2010 06:35 AM PST
Mimecast, a startup that offers a email archiving, continuity, and security software has raised $21 million in Series B financing from Index Ventures and Dawn Capital. Founded in the UK in 2003 by Peter Bauer and Neil Murray, Mimecast's cloud based platform extends the capabilities of most in-house email systems by integrating additional storage, archiving, and spam/virus protection. For example, the software could exchange the value of Microsoft Outlook’s email platforms. Mimecast currently has close to 2,500 customers across a range of of industries including financial services, legal, manufacturing and the public sector. The startup claims to have seen triple digit revenue growth in each of the last three years.
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| Nonprofit Technology Company Convio Refiles For $57.5 Million IPO Posted: 25 Jan 2010 06:34 AM PST
The shares in the offering will be offered by Convio and certain stockholders. While the number of shares to be offered and the price range have not been determined, the Wall Street Journal reports (behind paywall) that the sale is estimated to entail $57.5 million in stock. We should note that the figure was submitted for the purpose of calculating the IPO registration fee, and could change substantially as the deal comes closer to market. Convio’s clients include the American Red Cross, American Cancer Society, World Wildlife Fund, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and Planned Parenthood Federation of America. According to the SEC filing documents, Convio’s loss narrowed to $2.1 million in 2009 from $3.7 million the year before. Revenue increased to $63.1 million from $57.0 million year over year. Convio plans to trade on the Nasdaq under ticker symbol CNVO, with Piper Jaffray and Thomas Weisel Partners serving as co-lead underwriters. The company has raised over $47 million in VC funding, and lists shareholders like Granite Ventures, Austin Ventures, El Dorado Ventures, Adams Street Partners and other investors. Notably, Convio had previously filed for an $86.25 million IPO in August 2007, only to withdraw registration one year later due to "unfavorable market conditions."
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| LivePerson To Acquire Web Analytics Startup NuConomy For $3 Million Posted: 25 Jan 2010 06:20 AM PST
We’ve written several times about Israeli startup NuConomy’s compelling analytics offerings that aim to help publishers, advertisers and users better understand and engage with the social web. The platform’s software continually monitors every aspect of a site’s traffic and user behaviors and highlights the most important things for companies to act on in realtime. We are told by a reliable source that NuConomy is being acquired by public company LivePerson, which is an online marketplace for expert advice and information. We hear the acquisition price is around $3 million, which is about the same amount investors put into the company. Israeli news site The Marker wrote about the rumored acquisition here (the article is in Hebrew). Founded in 2006 in Israel, NuConomy raised a $300k seed round in April 2007 from Yossi Vardi, Shlomo Nehama and Uzi Tzuker, and later completed a Series A Round financing in 2008 from WPP Group (the company has since relocated its headquarters to San Francisco). We hear that advertising giant WPP was in negotiations to acquire the startup but the deal fell through. Unfortunately, with the $3 million pricetag, it doesn’t look like NuConomy’s investors made any money. LivePerson is acquiring NuConomy for its intellectual property, which includes powerful targeting technology. LivePerson had previously purchased Israeli startup Kasamba.com for $40 million in June of 2007.
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| Sean Moriarty, Rajeev Chawla Join Mayfield Fund As Entrepreneurs-In-Residence Posted: 25 Jan 2010 05:28 AM PST
Moriarty is the former CEO and President of Ticketmaster who recently joined Eventbrite as a director. He also served on the boards of iLike (acquired by MySpace last year) and Points.com. Prior to Ticketmaster, Sean was part of the technology team at Citysearch, where his roles included Executive Vice President of Technology and Vice President of Internet Systems. Rajeev Chawla founded and is the former President & CEO of NeoPath Networks, which was acquired by Cisco Systems in March 2007. Mayfield Fund’s portfolio includes companies like Rubicon Project, BigDeal, Gigya, and Jaxtr. The firm has over $2.8 billion under management.
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| StockTwits Acquires Abnormal Returns, Creates Real Time Financial News Hub Posted: 25 Jan 2010 05:00 AM PST
Abnormal Returns is a small but influential financial news site that includes curated news as well as original content about the financial markets and stocks. StockTwits is taking that platform and adding its real time news and information feed from the StockTwits network. You can see the new feed on the right side of the Abnormal Returns site. Viskanta will become a StockTwits employee and will continue to manage the Abnormal Returns website and service. StockTwits was originally built entirely on top of Twitter. In late 2009 the company launched a desktop version of the product and moved to their own messaging platform. Users can still post messages to StockTwits via Twitter, but an increasing number of them have moved directly to the StockTwits application. The companies aren’t disclosing the terms of the acquisition. StockTwits has raised $4.6 million over three rounds of funding.
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| TweetDeck, TwitJobSearch Team Up For Custom Job Search Desktop App Posted: 25 Jan 2010 04:55 AM PST
The application indexes tweets related to recruitment from across the Twittersphere, in real-time, based on TwitJobSearch’s algorithm (our earlier coverage). Basically, it’s just a custom branded TweetDeck client that comes with two additional default columns: ‘Job Search Experts’ and ‘TwitJobSearch’, although it can also prove helpful to add a LinkedIn column carrying the latest updates from the professional social network (and perhaps even your Facebook news feed). Recruiters can follow a few simple steps to ensure their tweets are indexed by the TwitJobSearch service, helping them connect with potential candidates through social media more effectively, and for free. The TwitJobSearch site itself offers advertisers the ability to purchase premium, or “Tweetured” job listings, sold on a CPC basis. Current advertisers include brands such as Adidas, KFC, and Lloyds Banking Group, according to Clickz. The JobDeck app itself will not feature any premium ad opportunities at this point.
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| Dan Abrams Expands Mediaite Empire With Geek Culture News Site Geekosystem Posted: 25 Jan 2010 04:00 AM PST  When I interviewed Dan Abrams last year about his new media news and analysis blog, Mediaite, he indicated that he has ambitions of building a Mediaite mini-empire by expanding to other verticals. Abrams announced late last year that he has a definitive plan for this, with sister Mediaite sites covering style and fashion, sports and technology. Today, Abrams’ venture into tech news and analysis, Geekosystem, has launched. Geekosystem aims to cover what Abrams calls "geek culture,” which includes tech news, movies, science fiction, video games, superheroes in comics, and more. The audience is all those “nerd” who don’t necessarily work in technology or have a deep understand of the industry, but want to catch up on the latest trends and news. Original content includes everything from reviews of gadgets to details on the latest sci-fi movie. And the site will also add a dash of traditional tech news coverage, so expect to see mentions of Twitter and Facebook. But by and large, the site will have a mix of coverage and won’t be primarily focused on covering the startups and tech giants that we report on here at TechCrunch and other tech news blogs, says the site’s editor Robert Quigley. Content will be supplied by the site’s two editors, an intern, and a range of contributors. Additionally, the site will aggregate top tech and geek stories from around the web. Geekosystem will off course feature a technologized version of Mediaite’s trademark Power Grid, which ranks and indexes media players based on news, analysis and events on a weekly basis. Geekosystem’s grid includes the obvious; Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Sergey Brin and Larry Page. And Michael Arrington also makes an appearance. The site’s design is basic, which isn’t surprising considering that Mediaite’s UI is fairly simple. Will Geekosystem succeed? Abrams has had considerable success with Mediaite the past year, with the site making Technorati's top 40 blogs list. And the startup expects to turn profitable this year. But the “geek news” space is considerably more crowded than the media news arena, and Abrams might find himself fighting with both tech and gadget blogs for traffic. But that being said, I like Abrams’ “pop culture meets geek culture” ambitions for the site and it could gain a following based on the quality of its coverage. The site is already getting a vote of confidence from one of the biggest players in the tech space, Microsoft. The tech giant is going to be the exclusive advertiser (for Bing) on Geekosystem for a full two weeks. 
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| AOL Acquires StudioNow For $36.5M, Confirms Departure Of CTO Ted Cahall Posted: 25 Jan 2010 03:49 AM PST
Finally, AOL has hired Microsoft and Google vet Jeff Reynar as Head of Technology for Engineering and Products in New York. Reynar will build out and manage AOL's New York Technology Center and will focus on innovation for AOL's content business and lead the company’s engineering efforts in New York. The acquisition of StudioNow provides AOL with a video creation platform that it intends to integrate into its recently launched content management system Seed.com. This system essentially assigns, buys and distributes editorial work for all of AOL's properties, which includes more than 80 branded and niche content sites. AOL says it will harness StudioNow's technology platform and network of more than 3000 creatives to develop and produce professional video at the request of AOL editors. AOL also expects to make use of the company’s technology and resources for its in-house studios, both for AOL productions and for its branded advertising and content partners. Tim Armstrong, AOL CEO and Chairman, said: "Premium original video creation is a fundamental part of AOL's strategy to offer consumers world-class, stimulating content at scale and the integration of StudioNow into Seed.com will enable us to increase our video content/offerings significantly." Founded in January 2007 with headquarters in Nashville, TN, StudioNow had raised $3.5 million over two rounds. The company was co-founded by David Mason, who was previously the CEO of Buy.com Europe (Buy.com was formed out of a merger between BuyComp and SpeedServe, which Mason co-founded with his brother back in 1994) and Adam Solesby. Following the decision of Ted Cahall to wave AOL goodbye (the latest in a long series of executives jumping ship), the company is launching a search for a new global Chief Technology Officer. A key hire for its New York Technology Center in the meantime is Jeff Reynar, co-founder and now former CTO of social search company DBT Labs, whose recruitment was rumored by The Business Insider last week. Prior to DBT Labs, Reynar spent four-and-a-half years at Google, first as a product manager and then as an engineering manager. He was responsible for co-founding and leading an internal startup team focused on new approaches to search including Google Squared and Google Blog Search. Reynar also led the Search UI team in New York that was responsible for much of the search results page on google.com. He previously spent nearly five years at Microsoft where he was a lead program manager on the Authoring Services team that was responsible for Word.
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| ExteNet Systems Raises A Whopping $128 Million For Wireless Network Infrastructure Posted: 25 Jan 2010 03:00 AM PST
Chicago-based ExteNet Systems, which designs, builds and operates network infrastructure, has received $128 million from SSP Offshore, SBA Communications, Centennial Ventures, Columbia Capital, Sevin Rosen Funds, CenterPoint Ventures and Palomar Ventures. This brings the starup’s total funding to over $150 million. ExteNet’s fiber network infrastructure are widely implemented by wireless service providers. The company promises providers with the ability to expand coverage to hard to reach spots.The new funding will support further development of infrastructure for wireless service providers.
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| Spotify Rival Deezer’s CEO Kicked Out By Investors, Drama Ensues Posted: 25 Jan 2010 02:22 AM PST  [France] Music search and discovering service Deezer is currently caught up in a storm of controversy: its co-founder and CEO Jonathan Benassaya has effectively been forced out by his investors. After Deezer faced mounting competition from services like Spotify, it's emerged that investors ousted the founder in order to put in place a more experienced business manager to both reorganize and perhaps prepare some kind of exit. They've been disappointed with Deezer's performance towards a premium service and low advertising revenues. The rumour that this was about to happen began last week grew a head of steam over the weekend, as reported by music expert Philippe Astor on French site Electronlibre (Google translation). Midem, the annual conference for the music industry, is currently taking place in Cannes, France and the departure of Jonathan Bessaya from Deezer was one of the buzzing topics during the weekend. One of the things that confirmed this rumour was that the CEO was due to participate on a panel on Saturday during Midemnet (the part of Midem focused on the online music industry) but he conspicuously did not show up. His name was even up on screen during the panel he was supposed to attend. On this panel was also Paul Brown, SVP of Spotify, that is widely regarded as a Deezer killer.
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| Better Place Raises $350 Million To Make This World A Better Place Posted: 25 Jan 2010 01:29 AM PST
Basically, Better Place aims to reduce global dependency on petroleum through the creation of a market-based transportation infrastructure that supports electric vehicles, relying on renewable energy from solar arrays and wind farms instead of oil. The startup, founded just 2 years ago, is currently building its first electric vehicle network in Israel, and plans to deploy the infrastructure in other nations on a country-by-country basis with initial deployments beginning this year, and commercial sales beginning in 2012. As of April 2009, it had already raised $400 million, with several countries offering tax breaks in favor of the ambitious venture. This morning, Better Place announced that it has raised a massive $350 million follow-up venture funding round to lay the groundwork for these deployments, valuing the company at a whopping $1.25 billion. HSBC led the round with a $125 million capital injection (buying them approx. 10% of the company), with eight other investors participating, including Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Lazard Asset Management, Israel Corp., VantagePoint Venture Partners, Ofer Hi-Tech Holdings and others. Better Place says it intends to expand into markets where the business model economics and investor returns are “optimized”, citing Europe and Asia specifically. The company also reaffirmed its original target to begin full commercial operations at the end of next year, when industry partner Renault plans to offer the first car with a replaceable battery.
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| Who Needs iTunes? doubleTwist Partners With T-Mobile, Now Bundled On Some Android Phones Posted: 24 Jan 2010 10:02 PM PST
For those that haven’t used it before, doubleTwist is a media management program that’s both visually and functionally similar to iTunes in many respects, but with one big difference: it will work with nearly any device (iTunes only plays nice with iPods and iPhones). You can drag and drop songs to playlists, sync music, photos, and video to your devices, and share your media with friends using integrated Facebook and Flickr support. In effect, doubleTwist can serve as an “iTunes for Android”. The software is impressive in its own right, but the company has also gotten quite a bit of attention because it was co-founded by DVD Jon, who serves as CTO. This is a smart move by T-Mobile. One of the most jarring experiences when moving to an Android phone is figuring out how to sync media to the device. First, you have to manually mount the SD drive from the phone’s screen. Once that’s done, you may find yourself half-expecting iTunes to cheerily pop up to help transfer your media, but nothing happens — it’s up to you to drag and drop media from your computer to the appropriate folder on the phone. There are plenty of applications out there meant to help you do this, but it’s a poor experience for users who are trying the platform out for the first time. doubleTwist makes this much easier for new Android owners (it even shows you how to mount the SD card). It may not be quite as robust as iTunes, but it’s going to be good enough for most people. If this proves to be successful for T-Mobile, it wouldn’t surprise me if doubleTwist was adopted by other carriers as well.
One downside to the T-Mobile version of doubleTwist is that it’s missing one of the app’s best features: integration with Amazon’s MP3 Store. The feature, which launched in October, allows users to purchase music from directly within doubleTwist, much as you would with iTunes. doubleTwist wouldn’t comment on why T-Mobile decided to omit the feature, but the company is planning to further expand the software, so hopefully it’s in the pipeline. In any case, you can still download the fully featured version at doubleTwist.com. Money is changing hands in the deal. Co-founder Monique Farantzos declined to comment on any specifics, but says that doubleTwist licensed its software to T-Mobile and that it’s a “significant source of revenue”. We should also note that while it was previously known that doubleTwist would come preloaded on the Fender myTouch phone, the full extent of the partnership hadn’t been announced before now. doubleTwist isn’t the only company looking to establish itself as a viable alternative to iTunes. Earlier this month Songbird, an open-source media player/browser hybrid landed a deal with Philips to come bundled with some of its MP3 player devices.
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| Brightcove Wants To Take “TV Everywhere” Beyond Your Cable Company’s Video Website Posted: 24 Jan 2010 08:46 PM PST  When cable companies like Comcast and Time Warner talk about “TV Everywhere,” they are generally talking about a Web video portal they control themselves which gives their regular cable TV subscribers access to at least some of the same programming online. If viewership is going to shift online, they want to be the ones providing it—and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But when Brightcove CEO Jeremy Allaire talks about TV Everywhere, he envisions more of a federated model where TV programmers make more of their shows available on their own sites to visitors who are authenticated as paying cable subscribers. It’s a video paywall across the Web, and he wants to make it possible with a new Brightcove TV Everywhere product that allows programmers to authenticate which visitors are cable subscribers and which ones are not. So in addition to Comcast or Time Warner offering subscribers an online version of their channels, each channel (i.e., NBC, ABC, HBO, Discovery) can also offer a fuller spectrum of their TV shows and movies on their own individual Websites. Comcast could easily do Hulu one better, but all of those videos should also be available on HBO.com, NBC.com, and elsewhere. All they need is an authentication system and an online video platform, hence Brightcove’s interest in providing the video plumbing to make it all work. Allaire explains this to me via email:
In other words, if they are going to call it TV Everywhere, it really should be everywhere. Or at least available on the sites of related TV channels. The way this would work is that if you are HBO (to use a hypothetical example), only your programming is available on your site. Once a user is authenticated, they can watch whatever they are already paying for on their TVs. The cable companies might like it it because the value of that subscription just went up and they are giving people who are tempted to cut the cord altogether another reason to stay. The programmers might like it because they can now show videos online which they are currently contractually prohibited from showing, and they get to keep any ancillary advertising revenues they make from their high-CPM sites. And consumers? Well, most of us are already paying for cable or satellite TV anyway. If they are going to start to distribute that TV programming online, the more places it is available, the better. But those pesky paywalls are still going to be annoying, especially if you follow a link to one.
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| Breaking: Flurry Notices Cupertino-based Users Testing Apps on Apple Tablet Posted: 24 Jan 2010 07:39 PM PST  Flurry, a mobile app analytics company, has noticed approximately 50 devices in the Cupertino that match the characteristics of Apple's tablet device. Flurry claims to have reliably placed these devices on Apple's Cupertino campus, and are confident that they are "observing a group of pre-release tablets in testing." This make sense - as the Apple Tablet has to be tested before it is announced this Wednesday, January 27 in San Francisco. Furthermore, Flurry has been an extremely reliable source on analytics data thus far and don't often break stories unless they are sure they've checked their facts. They've noticed that a large number of the apps downloaded were Games (140 total downloads or launches) and the next group was Entertainment, followed by News and Books. Here's a chart of the usage data:
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| Exploding Term Sheets Prompt Y Combinator To Sync Acceptance Dates With Competitors Posted: 24 Jan 2010 07:24 PM PST
The move stems from the growing competition between Y Combinator, which pioneered the startup mentorship model, and similar programs that have sprung up in its wake. Last March, Y Combinator issued an advisory to prospective applicants warning them of exploding term sheet offers from some of these competitors. These exploding term sheets are nullified within a day or two, which forces startups to quickly decide if they’d like to accept the offer. Because Y Combinator’s acceptance dates have historically been later than those of some competitors, this led to some startups joining programs that may not have been their first choice. It’s worth pointing out that Y Combinator itself encourages startups to make up their minds quickly once they’ve received a funding offer. But YC founder Paul Graham says that the program will give startups more time if they have a reason for needing it, and that they’ve never used exploding termsheets. Companies that have been accepted to Y Combinator will be notified the weekend of March 26-29. TechStars will be extending their offers on March 28. And DreamIt Ventures will make offers between March 25-31. This session’s application includes one other notable change: startups are being encouraged to submit their applications as early as possible. Before now, half of all applications have been submitted in the last two days before the deadline as founders work to polish their applications. This time, the YC team will be reviewing applications earlier and interacting with founders before the deadline, so it’s in your best interest to apply as early as possible. Applications are due by March 3.
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| Overheard: Steve Jobs Says Apple Tablet “Will Be The Most Important Thing I’ve Ever Done.” Posted: 24 Jan 2010 03:56 PM PST
“This will be the most important thing I’ve ever done” – Steve Jobs, referring to the soon-to-be-launched Apple Tablet.We haven’t heard this first hand, but we’ve heard it multiple times second and third hand from completely independent sources. Senior Apple execs and friends of Jobs are telling people that he’s about as excited about the upcoming Apple Tablet as he’s ever been. Coming from the man who has created so much, that’s saying something. If Steve Jobs thinks the iPhone was just a warm up act to this device, I can’t wait to see what it can do. As if our expectations weren’t already set high enough. We’ll all know a lot more this Wednesday.
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| Track New Foursquare Deals And Easily Drink For Free Posted: 24 Jan 2010 03:41 PM PST
Arthur Klepchukov implemented a pipe which simply takes the Foursquare Businesses page and runs it through some filters to get at the new deals in certain cities. As you can see, in Klepchukov’s version, he’s just looking for new deals in Oakland, Berkley, and Emoryville. But since it’s built with Yahoo Pipes, anyone can take it and easily plug in any city they wish to monitor. It makes some sense that Foursquare wouldn’t more clearly promote which deals are going on where — after all, most venues probably don’t want everyone in a city trying to take advantage of the deal (much like any other form of coupon). But this information can be very useful to people in various cities trying to decide where to go for lunch, for example. And with the number of these deals quickly increasing in a number of cities, it’s not a bad idea to track them so you don’t miss the really good ones. After all, everyone love free beer.
[photo: flickr/Schlüsselbein2007]
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| The Killer App for Apple’s Tablet: Gaming Posted: 24 Jan 2010 02:12 PM PST  This guest post is by Jeff Scott, founder and publisher of 148Apps, a blog providing fanatical coverage of everything iPhone and hopefully soon, the Apple tablet. While we still don't know the name of the new tablet device; could be iPad, iTablet, iSlate, iCanvas, or an extension of the MacBook name. But what we do know, due to many recent leaks on the announcement coming from Apple next week, the tablet is being targeted as a gaming device. Connections with the device and gaming started when the Wall Street Journal reveled that Apple had been working with Electronic Arts purportedly to have games available to demo for the device reveal on January 27th. What games EA will be presenting, we don't know. This follows earlier reports that Apple had been in contact with "select developers" to create apps to showcase on the device. At that time we were unable to find anyone to admit to working with Apple for the Tablet launch. Then in the last couple days came indications from many gaming related publications small and large that they had been invited to the special Apple event on 1/27. This shows a clear push by Apple to have the device covered in the games press, pointing to gaming as a major target for the device. With that in mind, let's take a look at the Apple tablet as a gaming device.
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| Why VCs Should Take Their Own Advice Posted: 24 Jan 2010 12:32 PM PST
And if a firm was one of many that couldn't raise a new fund last year, who needs to know they were even trying? Unlike a startup, any firm that's been around for a cycle or longer still has enough money under management from previous funds to keep the lights on. If they failed to raise a fund in 2009, they can always try again in 2010. It could take decades for even the worst firms to "go out of business." Like generals, bad VCs don't die, they just fade away. It's an industry perfectly structured for sweeping problems under the rug, and as its fundamentals have declined over the last decade, that's just what it's been doing. But those big, lumpy problems are getting harder and harder to hide. Aside from rumors, it's hard to know exactly who couldn't raise a new fund in 2009, but we know the numbers were down precipitously. And slow economic recovery aside, it's not going to get easier in 2010. Limited partners, the institutions that invest in venture funds, are finally accepting what almost every VC I know has been saying for a decade: There's too much money in the industry and it's killing the kind of early stage investing the asset class was founded on. And that’s killing returns. But just as we're finally starting to see limited partners make the hard decisions to throttle back investments in private equity, so too are some VCs grappling with their own hard decision: Stick with a broken asset class and try to fix it or just leave and start anew. Vinod Khosla was one of the first to make that decision: Leaving Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers at the peak of his and the firm's power to get back to real, risk-taking early stage investing. Of course, his recent $1.1 billion fund flies in the face of the too-much-money argument, but it bears noting that Khosla invests in some capital intensive sectors like cleantech. Web 2.0 is a different matter. The capital needs are low, and, YouTube aside, the returns are low too. In the last few weeks, another investor who I respect has made a similar move. Simon Levene of Accel's UK offices has resigned the firm, despite an impressive track record that includes investments in MyHeritage, Seeking Alpha and Etsy. I spoke with Levene this week about the decision and unfortunately for me, it's not a particularly juicy story. This wasn't an intercontinental Accel battle royale. This wasn't an issue where he wanted to invest in sectors the firm deemed dead. Nor was it a case where Levene wasn't pulling his weight. And, of course, with investments in as varied and successful companies as BBN Technologies, Marvel and Facebook, Accel itself isn't in any trouble. It simply boiled down to the fact that, like many of the world's best Web investors, Levene doesn't see the best deals out there needing many millions of dollars. And structurally, a small partnership investing a $525 million fund with $1.5 billion actively under management can't do a large number of tiny deals and still give each investment the attention it needs. As he puts it: "You see something that needs half a million or a million and you think, 'That's a good investment,' but there are only so many you can do given the structure of these larger funds." In London, Accel takes a classic VC approach of putting at least $15 million in each company. That doesn’t leave a lot of room for the kinds of micro-deals that Levene saw netting better returns and frankly, the ones in which he had more fun investing. "I enjoy the bigger deals too, but they are fewer and far between, and they tend to be very competitive, so you have to pay up for them,” Levene says. “When it comes to early stage I'm just seeing a bigger market opportunity in Europe and Israel." That VC angst—while similar to what you hear about in the Valley—has a different twist in markets like Europe and Israel. In the Valley, it's largely a reaction to more nimble angels and seed funds beating traditional VCs in the market. Funds have been forced to adapt or lose. Witness Greylock's hiring of uber-angel investor Reid Hoffman. Indeed, even before Hoffman's arrival, forward-thinking partners like David Sze had been doing less-traditional deals. In 2006 Sze did two deals that didn't seem to fit with the venture model and had peers scoffing that he'd never make money off either. One was Digg, where he could only invest $2 million, a fraction of the normal-sized series A deals at the time. The other was Facebook, where he invested at a whopping $500 million pre-money valuation. At the time, he shrugged and said, "I don't know how I’ll make money, I just believe in the teams and believe it'll work out." In hindsight, he looks like a genius on both. Sze’s approach —not just downscaling to do seed-deals, but investing without spreadsheet-induced restrictions at all — is similar to that of newer firms like Andreessen Horowitz, which does tiny deals as well as mammoth deals like the recent investment in Skype. Andreessen has said he wants a piece of the best tech companies in the world—no matter when they're started, what stage he can get in and what price is necessary to make it happen. (After all, it was pure, math-based investing that helped wreck the public markets.) But in Europe and Israel, there's not that same level of experimentation on the part of venture funds, nor are there many investors like Andreessen or Hoffman who have the clout, confidence and star power to say they're just going to invest in what they want and trust it'll work out. The closest is Saul Klein's firm Index Ventures, which has had plenty of traditional venture hits with Skype, MySQL and Last.FM, but has been open to plenty of experimentation too—much of it lead by Klein himself, a long-time angel investor and entrepreneur. Index has not only supported Klein in continuing to do investments from his seed fund, The Accelerator Group, it's encouraged him on a project called Seed Camp, that scours Europe and Israel for good companies and makes Y Combinator-style investments in them. So far Seed Camp has invested in 21 companies and mentored nearly 300. Klein brought a crop of them over to Silicon Valley this week to meet with investors, get grilled by the press, and get mentored by success stories like Google. "Given that the raw natural material for venture capitalists is entrepreneurs, I find it strange that the venture community does nothing to help develop those raw materials," Klein says. (There's much more on his blog about this topic here.) For Levine’s part, he sees the venture industry in Europe and Israel as "still a work in progress." He continues, "There's more of an opportunity to pioneer and strike new ground. That's part of what was exciting to me when I moved back here seven years ago." Not surprisingly, Levene spent a lot of time talking with both Hoffman and Klein as he was mulling the ballsy decision to leave one of the top firms in the venture universe. What's he going to do now that he's unemployed? He's not saying yet. (My guess is he's not saying because raising a seed fund takes some time, but that's only a guess.) But the more investors who follow their heart in this uncertain time for the asset class, the better for startups here and in Europe and Israel. After all, that's what top investors would advise entrepreneurs to do during a downturn.
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PC users, rejoice, for 
In a savvy move, 
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Menlo Park, CA-based 
Lots of announcements from 
I’ve been quite fascinated by electric car firm 
One of the most interesting things about 
The way venture capital firms are structured makes it almost impossible for outsiders to see what's really going on inside those 1970s lodge-like Sand Hill Road offices. A firm is nothing more than a collection of partnerships around certain funds that run for ten years or more. So if a partner gets fired? Well, he or she is still technically a partner in an earlier fund, so firms don't really have to talk about it if it isn't in their best interest.| 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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