Saturday, July 17, 2010

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Is Google at Risk of Becoming the Next Microsoft?

Posted: 17 Jul 2010 08:29 AM PDT

Editor’s note: The following guest post is by Peter Sims, co-author of True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership with Bill George. His next book, Little Bets, debuts with Simon & Schuster next spring, with previews on www.petersims.com and Twitter @petersims.

In late April, JP Morgan invited me to a "thought leaders dinner" to discuss the latest goings on in Silicon Valley and digital media. In a private room at the swanky San Francisco restaurant Kokkari, there were about 20 of us seated around a long rectangular table, including venture capitalists from prominent firms, highly successful entrepreneurs, and a handful of people from J.P. Morgan, including Jimmy Lee, the firm's well-known Vice Chairman, who sat at the head of the table. (I was, like Kevin Costner's character in Bull Durham Crash Davis, "the player to be named later.")

Anyhow, after about an hour and a few glasses wine, Jimmy raised the main question he was curious about: "I want to know from each of you: which company would you go long on and which would you short?" We could pick any timeframe. And, as it turned out, while the long picks varied widely from Amazon to Yahoo!, 12 of the 15 'thought leaders' shorted Google. Jimmy was surprised, virtually astounded: "Wow!" he exclaimed, "You guys are really negative on Google, huh?"

I, too, was surprised. Google has been, after all, the most successful company in recent history (in terms of churning out growth and profits), led by Eric Schmidt, a well-respected CEO. And, we've seen book after book about why everyone should be more like Google. I admire Google, its people, and what they have been able to accomplish enormously. It's astonishing. But the opinions in that room were not based on the company's past performance. They were based on insights about Google's future. Below are the reasons people cited for shorting the company (which, interestingly, were fairly diverse):

  • Google has experienced a severe talent drain over the past several years, losing some of its most entrepreneurial and innovative people. Although Google's has high retention rates, Google's talent challenge is not in terms of numbers, it's the type of people who are leaving and why they are leaving. The talent drain from Google has been well documented. Venture capitalists in the room (without a vested interest in the companies) argued that Facebook and Zynga are currently considered hot places to work in Silicon Valley. Google has, for example, seen a stream of people leave for Facebook including, more recently, the likes of Erick Tseng, the senior product manager of Android, Google's critically important mobile initiative.

    People close go Google say upward management is slowly replacing the company's early culture of innovation. Entrepreneurial types and thought leaders who feel confined or unmotivated are moving. People will even say that it reminds them of Yahoo back in 2004-2005, not the meritocracy they once joined.

  • The company has run out of easy growth opportunities and must now find big chunks of new revenue. With the core search business maturing, Google increasingly seems to increasingly feel the need to make some "big bets." That is a problem that maturing companies face that CEOs call "the tyranny of large numbers." Even mobile search, which is seeing impressive growth numbers of a small base, is still too small to make a material difference for the company. The company is obviously trying like crazy to find growth pockets, knowing that mobile is a ways off. The recent $700 million ITA acquisition is a great case in point of how it is going to spread out some medium-sized to big-bets to see what sticks. That is, companies must find bigger and bigger chunks of revenue to maintain growth rates. This problem is documented well by innovation researchers Professor Clayton Christensen in The Innovators Solution, and Jim Collins in How the Mighty Fall.
  • The company lacks a coherent strategy, especially in mobile. As Schmidt and other Google execs have stated, mobile is core to future growth. A number of people around the table that night had unique insight into Google's mobile efforts. They argued that growing nascent mobile revenues will take significant time, especially since there aren't many sizable acquisition targets available in mobile after Google's purchase of AdMob. Instead, the recent purchase of ITA Software was an indicator of how the company might make some medium to big bets to see what sticks.
  • It's about people, people, people. Google's engineering-dominated culture isn't news to anyone. But As Peter Drucker opined in his landmark book Innovation and Entrepreneurship, "Successful innovators…look at figures, and they look at people." The company has long recruited people who fit a very specific profile.

Product manager candidates, for example, are told they must have computer science degrees from top universities. But while Google's core algorithm was a brilliant feat of engineering innovation, a growing chorus of voices question whether it can be sustained. That cookie-cutter approach to people misses important opportunities for diversity and creates glass ceilings for non-engineers, both of which stifle innovation. Cultural hubris, another pattern Jim Collins in particular raises, is of foremost concern. It is often said that at Google the engineers lead engineering, product, and even marketing decisions. But when the company has failed, such as with Google Wave or Google Radio, critics have questioned whether the company really understands people.

For these reasons and more, perhaps the question that "in the know" Silicon Valley observers are now increasingly asking is: Could Google be the next Microsoft? That is, much like Google revolutionized search, Microsoft was a pioneer with its market-dominating operating systems and Microsoft Office. But outside the Xbox, Microsoft has struggled severely to produce new innovations. Deeper cultural problems were hidden by amazing performance and success.

One thing is for certain: it's a pivotal time in Google's history. If the company does not put these types of issues on the table, the chorus of short sellers will increase. But with mountains of cash, access to great people and big problems, I see the moment as an opportunity. It's a chance to reflect, ask some tough questions, openly discuss the challenges, and incorporate some fresh thinking and people, so that this great symbol of global innovation can evolve and grow.

What do you think—are you long or short? Is Google at risk of becoming the next Microsoft or on the verge of a creative explosion?

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Why I’m Craigslisting My iPads

Posted: 17 Jul 2010 04:02 AM PDT

*Photo credit ZDNet photo gallery

You can definitely call me an Apple fanboy: I've bought practically every device that Steve Jobs has made since 1985—when I got my first Macintosh. I own an Apple TV, several iPods, a Macbook Pro, a Macbook Air, an iMac, two iPhones, and two iPads (one was a gift). For various reasons, I need to use Microsoft Outlook and Windows, so I run these in a virtual machine on my Mac. But this fanboy is listing his iPads for sale on Craigslist. Why? Because they've become like the paperweights on his desk. I just don't use them.

When the iPad was first announced, I predicted that it would be a game changer. I touted, to my Twitter followers, that grandma would soon be able to tell her cable company to take back its cable modem. She would no longer have to deal with the complexities of configuring Wi-Fi connections on her router.  All she would need in order to surf the web and check email is the $15/month AT&T 3G service.  Junior would soon be able to traverse new virtual worlds and learn world history while playing games on this slick new device.  I also expected that I wouldn't need to carry around my bulky laptop; instead I would have a device that provided almost the same features as my laptop, but had the elegance and simplicity of an iPhone. I really believed that this cool new device would solve the world's technology problems and reduce the number of electronic gadgets I had to carry around.

I still think that Grandma and Junior should keep theirs, but it just doesn't do its magic for me any longer. Here's why:

First, I can't easily load my Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint documents on the iPad or access the year or more of e-mails that I carry around on my 32 GB USB drive.  The iPad has no USB port, and its means of transferring documents—through iTunes—is pathetic.  Apple's cloud strategy seems to be centered on iTunes. This is fine for buying movies and music, but not good for document management and retrieval. Yes, there are apps that provide a drop-box service. But I have thousands of research papers and other documents that I need to be able to search and retrieve; a drop box doesn't provide what I need.

Second, Apple's Microsoft Office-like products on the iPad are just cheap imitations. Apple's Pages is a decent word processor, and Numbers is okay as a spreadsheet manager, but these don't hold a candle to Microsoft Word and Excel. Moreover, I can't use the excellent cloud-based word processing tools that Zoho offers, or the decent tools in Google docs. The iPad doesn't recognize the rich-text format that these applications use, so it doesn't display a keyboard when you try to type.

Third, I usually need to view different applications in multiple screens when I am writing. I want to have my web browser appear in a split screen next to my text editor, and I want to be able to jump between applications—just as I do on my Mac and in Windows. The multi-tasking in iOS 4 allows me to listen to music as I work, but doesn't do much more for me.

Fourth, on many of the websites I visit, I can't watch Flash presentations. I am tired of the blue legos telling me that Flash isn't supported.

Last, I didn't miss the camera that didn't come with my iPad until I got my new iPhone, but now I can't fathom why it isn't there. Facetime, on the new iPhone, is a killer app. It changes the way you use your phone and the way you communicate with your friends and relatives. The iPad lets you make Skype calls over Wi-Fi, but there is no Facetime app—and that's because there is no camera.

I know that the iPad's book reader is awesome, and that the device can play some cool games.  But these are things I also have on my Macbook Air—and there I have a full keyboard, larger screen, and multiple windows in case I want to take some notes. The iPad doesn't replace my laptop, and it doesn't replace my iPhone. So, for me, it's neither here nor there; it's simply an extra gadget that I need to carry around.

I am sure that the iPad 2 will have the camera and magnificent new features. And I will, without doubt, get in line and wait for hours with my fanboy comrades on the day it is released. So, Steve, have no fear. You still have a loyal fan. But until then you won't see me carrying around an iPad or tweeting about how it is going to change the world. (And Steve, no worries about that iPhone antenna, I agree this issue is blown out of proportion.)

Editor's note: Guest writer Vivek Wadhwa is an entrepreneur turned academic. He is a Visiting Scholar at the School of Information at UC-Berkeley, Senior Research Associate at Harvard Law School and Director of Research at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization at Duke University. You can follow him on Twitter at @vwadhwa and find his research at www.wadhwa.com.



Weekend Giveaway: A Droid X from Rebtel

Posted: 16 Jul 2010 10:02 PM PDT

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, an what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of stuff, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them.

They’re quite touchy about anything like that, especially my father. They’re nice and all–I’m not saying that–but they’re also touchy as heck. Besides, I’m not going to tell you my whole autobiography or anything. I’ll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around last
Christmas just before I got pretty run-down and had to come out here and take it easy. I was giving away a Droid X sponsored by a company called Rebtel and they wanted me to post it on CrunchGear and TechCrunch and ask people to comment to win.

Read more…



Facebook Co-Founder Favors Movie Version Of Events With Drinking And Sex

Posted: 16 Jul 2010 07:03 PM PDT

By now everyone has seen the first official trailer for the Facebook movie. While there’s no question that there’s a lot of talent behind it, I’m actually quite surprised that it looks good. But that’s just my opinion. What does someone portrayed in the movie actually think of it? Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz has weighed in on Quora.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Moskovitz takes some exception to what was included in the movie versus what was left out. For example, he’s never even met the Winklevoss twins, who play heavily in the film’s plot. Instead, Moskovitz wishes the filmmakers would have included more of of the other people in each co-founders’ lives that supported them at the time. Yes, there’s a reason Moskovitz made Facebook and not movies.

He also calls it “cool to see a dramatization of history.” But his money quote is this:

A lot of exciting things happened in 2004, but mostly we just worked a lot and stressed out about things; the version in the trailer seems a lot more exciting, so I’m just going to choose to remember that we drank ourselves silly and had a lot of sex with coeds.

Moskovitz makes it seem as if he’s read both the book and the script of the film and takes exception to the attacks on CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Still, he thinks the trailer actually shows some of Zuckerberg’s more positive qualities.

“At the end of the day, they cannot help but portray him as the driven, forward-thinking genius that he is,” Moskovitz concludes. “And the Ad Board *does* owe him some recognition, dammit,” he jokes (a reference to the end of the trailer).

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A Raging, Rambling Debate About Antennagate, Followed By A Fanboy Intervention

Posted: 16 Jul 2010 06:17 PM PDT

I had a theory about today’s Apple iPhone 4 Press Extravaganza. Apple was just too eager to get all the press that cares about Apple stuff into one room at the same time on one day’s notice. They were either going to (1) get Steve Jobs to hypnotize everyone with a reality distortion field “there is no problem” and have them walk out dazed and confused but with vague warm feelings towards Apple. Or (2) they gathered all the press to one place to simply kill them. It was 50/50 in my book. Apple went with no. 1, probably based on a coin flip.

There were two key messages from the event. The first message is that there is no iPhone 4 antenna problem. All phones suffer from this, and the iPhone is a superior phone. The second message is that even though there is no problem Apple is going to give everyone a free bumper that will make the non existent problem go away.

Anyone not in a hypnotic daze will clearly see the conflict between the two statements. If there is no problem, no fix is needed. If a fix is needed, by definition there was a problem. Jobs never did address the disparity in the Q&A session following the presentation.

We grabbed our own MG Siegler and Daring Fireball’s John Gruber when they returned to the office for a debriefing video. The uncut version is above. We did do some creative editing to get Gruber to say that the iPhone is the worst phone on the market, but he didn’t really say that, as you’ll see from the longer video above.

Siegler and Gruber struggled repeatedly to apply logic to the debate and eventually threw up their hands in despair. But still they believe that Antennagate doesn’t exist, but that it is perfectly reasonable and generous for Apple to apply a fix (free bumper) to the non existent problem.

At the end we just tried an intervention. It’s a first step towards recovery.

Allure Energy Announces a Thermostat That Knows When You’re Coming Home

Posted: 16 Jul 2010 06:12 PM PDT

Two days ago I wrote about a thermostat you can adjust from your phone, and today Allure Energy announced another twist on the idea. The company connects your thermostat to a BlackBerry or iPhone app that tracks how far you are from home and adjusts your thermostat accordingly. Think of it as a location-based service for interacting with your thermostat.

When you leave in the morning, the system calibrates your home’s thermostat so you don’t waste energy while you’re away. Likewise, it senses when you’re on your way back, returning the temperature to your perfect degree of cozy.

“We are doing for home energy management what TiVo did for the VCR,” CEO Kevin Imes said in a statement. The technology could attract those who find programming their thermostat too much of a challenge or hassle. The company says the system could increase energy savings by up to 30%.

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YC-Funded PagerDuty Makes Sure Your Team Knows When A Server Goes Down

Posted: 16 Jul 2010 06:06 PM PDT

Server downtime is a fact of life for most web administrators, and there’s no shortage of products and software that make it easy to monitor when something has gone awry. Of course, an inbox full of urgent emails telling you your server is frying isn’t too helpful when you’re sound asleep.That’s where PagerDuty, a startup that launched a year ago, is looking to help. Today the company is announcing that it has received funding from Y Combinator; it’s also forged a deal with monitoring platform CloudKick, is launching an API, and is losing its beta tag.

PagerDuty lets you set up and prioritize alerts for an entire team, with the ability to send SMS and voice messages along with the standard email alerts. And if a team member isn’t responding, the system can automatically escalate the alerts — for example, if an email isn’t answered quickly, an SMS could be sent a few minutes later, and so on. Another option is to start alerting other team members if someone isn’t responding. The service also lets you set up on-duty calendars, allowing you to alternate who you want to alert first depending on the date.

PagerDuty isn’t the only solution for receiving alerts about your server status — just about all server status software offers email alerts; some offer SMS as well. And there are also plugins available for some open-source software that add some of these features. That said, the PagerDuty team says that it’s a pretty involved process to implement these features, and they have a few that the others dont.

For one, they offer two-way SMS (you can respond to an SMS alert with a message saying you’re on the case). And it’s also SaaS, whereas other solutions generally involve uploading and installing the software yourself. Another SaaS service that offers some similar features is Wormly.

The process for getting PagerDuty working with your system varies a bit depending on your setup. If you’re using Nagios (which is quite popular), PagerDuty offers a plugin that should work seamlessly. The service also recently launched an API feature that lets you use any service that can make an API call. And if that isn’t an option, you can just have your monitoring system send alert emails to PagerDuty, which can in turn send SMS/Voice alerts according to the rules you’ve set up.

Pricing for PagerDuty runs $12 a month for a single user, and runs $300/month for a bigger team (there are also custom plans for large organizations).

PagerDuty was founded by ex-Amazon employees, who say that as engineers they were using a similar system that was built in-house (they say that other large companies like Google have also built similar systems). They’re hoping to serve the large number of smaller businesses who could also benefit from less downtime, but don’t have the resources to build tools of their own.



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We Have Met Antennagate, And It Is Us

Posted: 16 Jul 2010 04:55 PM PDT


There is no Antennagate.

Well, that’s not true. But what Jobs called Antennagate at today’s press conference is more than just the design flaw in the iPhone 4 they insisted was a non-issue. It’s a design flaw with the entire way the issue was handled — by them and by us. The feeding frenzy around the iPhone 4 has been a months-long affair, for a combination of two reasons: one, that Apple has a unique position in tech coverage, and two, that controversy generates traffic. The result is outrage, confusion, expenditure, flamewars, and everything else that’s been happening online since the launch.

Sorry about that. We’re not perfect.

Continue reading…

Breaking: French Government Still Can’t Get France.fr live

Posted: 16 Jul 2010 01:48 PM PDT

On July 13, three days ago, France launched France.fr to give the world a multilingual website with information about the country. It shortly went down. And stayed down. Today we checked back in to see how the little site was doing. Not so well, it turns out.

This is more than a mild embarrassment for France's senior government official overseeing the Internet, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet. When the site launched she tweeted out "Lancement aujourd'hui du portail officiel de la France dans le monde" ("Today's launch of official website of France in the world"). She’s been rather quiet since then.

We’ll let you know if/when the French government is able to make the site live. If the country’s experience with building aircraft carriers is any indication of their ability to build websites, we should see it limping along sometime in 2013.

Bonus link: click the flag.

Update: Huh. they did manage to change the site is down message though. It used to say it was a victim of its own success, or something similar. Now it says, roughly “The team France.fr regret not being able to help you find the gate of France. We are currently facing a problem configuring our servers. We have undertaken an audit of all systems to allow us to reopen as quickly as possible. Thank you for your patience and very quick!”

TechCrunch Friday Giveaway: We Don’t Want This Xbox, So You Can Have It

Posted: 16 Jul 2010 01:34 PM PDT


A few weeks ago Microsoft sent us the new Xbox 360. No note or explanation, just a another random box delivered to our address. It’s been sitting here unopened and no one in the office seems to want it. So, we’re going to give it away. This is the new slim version that’s Kinect-ready.

There’s also a bunch of additional stuff that came with it, we’ll send all that to you, too (see photo below).

Here’s how you can win: Just "like" (fan) the TechCrunch Facebook page and/or the TechCrunch Google Buzz page and then do one of two things: either retweet this post, and make sure to include the #crunch hashtag, or leave a comment below telling us why this device must be yours.

Anyone in the world is eligible, as long as you can receive delivered packages. And we'll throw in a TechCrunch tshirt. The contest ends at noon California time tomorrow (Saturday). Please only tweet the message once, anyone tweeting repeatedly will be disqualified. We'll randomly select a winner tomorrow afternoon and contact you for more details.

Yelp’s Android App Approaching One Million Downloads

Posted: 16 Jul 2010 01:28 PM PDT

Yelp has one of the most popular apps on the iPhone, but its Android app is catching on too. Launched last December, the app is approaching one million downloads and activity on the app is picking up like crazy due to a recent upgrade that adds the ability to check into Yelp locations and Tweet them out or share them on Facebook. The number of active users is growing 50 percent week over week, according to Yelp.

Across all mobile phones (iPhone, Blackberry, Android), Yelp has 2.5 million active users a month. The vast majority of those are still on the iPhone. And while, this is only a small fraction (7 percent) of the 34 million monthly unique visitors going to the Website, mobile users account for 27 percent of Yelp’s local searches. CEO Jeremy Stoppleman tells me that mobile is Yelps’ “fastest area of growth.”

With 2.5 million active mobile app users, Yelp has slightly more active mobile users than Foursquare has total registered users, and it is definitely moving into Foursquare’s territory with its check-ins and recent addition of badges, dukedoms, and kingdoms. And while you can broadcast your check-ins to Twitter or Facebook, Yelp does not let you check into Foursquare from its apps.

The game mechanics are definitely driving usage, but one thing you can’t do on Yelp’s mobile apps is post reviews! “It would just be annoying if the average review had punctuation errors and was obviously written on the phone,” explains Stoppleman, “so we added quick tips instead.” I predict he will have to bend and let mobile reviews take over. I’ll be sure to ask him about his stance at our Social Currency Crunchup on July 30, where Stoppleman will be speaking along with Google VP John Hanke (who heads up Google Places, Maps, earth, and local search).

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Skype Mysteriously Vanishes From The iPhone App Store (Updated)

Posted: 16 Jul 2010 01:10 PM PDT

This is odd. Skype, which has offered an iPhone application for quite a while and recently released a version that gives users the ability to make calls over 3G, has vanished from the App Store. This is especially strange because Skype was recently featured on stage during the debut of iPhone’s OS 4.0, which will allow for the application to run in the background. We reached out to Skype about this and were told that they’re currently investigating:

We’re not seeing the Skype app in the App store. We’re very eager to get to the bottom of this, and I can tell you this has nothing to do with our Verizon deal. The Skype for iPhone app and the Skype Mobile app on Verizon Wireless phones have co-existed.

Update: Skype says that this is due to the fact that they just uploaded a new version of Skype for iPhone 4.0 which had “some difficulties” and that they’re working to fix it:

Today, Skype just submitted a new version of its iOS4 build to Apple. In the process we encountered some difficulties. Skype will work quickly to get its current Skype for iPhone app back up as soon as possible.”

Update 2: Alright, looks like it’s back.
There’s still a page on Skype’s official site that details the application’s features and doesn’t give any indication that the application is being killed off. But Skype’s mobile site oddly omits any mention of it — it only talks about BlackBerry and Android devices from Verizon. We’ll update as we learn more.

Thanks to Will Shanklin for the tip

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Mapping Earthquake Recovery Projects in Haiti

Posted: 16 Jul 2010 12:52 PM PDT

Haiti is still struggling to recover from the 7-point magnitude earthquake that struck on January 12th. The natural disaster disrupted everything there, including the systems that keep water clean, garbage away from homes and farm land, and people (let alone habitat and animals) healthy.

Despite an outpouring of donations and promises to help from international nonprofits, shelter, food and medical care are still hard to find and hard to deliver in Haiti, according to recent reports from the United Nations. A new website — HaitiAidMap.org – aims to increase the efficacy and visibility of U.S. non-government orgnizations relief efforts on the ground in Haiti, though.

It maps NGO projects in country, updates them in real time, and makes information about these searchable by category, location or the NGO’s name. The site was created by InterAction, a Washington D.C. based alliance of 192 poverty-alleviating NGOs, in partnership with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Business Civic Leadership Center. It is sponsored by FedEx.

The president and chief executive of InterAction, Samuel A. Worthington, says he was inspired to use mapping innovation for NGOs originally while working on a special report for former president Bill Clinton about the relief efforts following the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004 that killed 230,000 people across 14 countries.

“We wanted to apply lessons learned from the Tsunami immediately following the earthquake in Haiti. One of the first things we did was to establish an NGO Coordination Office there, associated with the United Nations, to ensure better coordination among nonprofits with the UN-system and Haiti’s government both. [We] clearly needed to know where the NGO community was working at all times. A map had been done after earlier hurricanes, but it was static, a sheet of paper. Given the size of the engagement, we needed better data,” he says.

InterAction began working on the pilot site in February. Geo-location software makers FortiusOne and open source tech consultants Development Seed built the site using GeoIQ and OpenStreetMap technology.

HaitiAidMap.org allows NGOs to link their databases (which can be as simple as Excel spreadsheets) to the site. It renders all of their data about in-country projects on a single, easily readable, interactive map. The projects are searchable by name, location, or “cluster,” through check boxes, drop-down menus, and the interactive map itself. (There’s no search field, however.)

Clusters, or categories of relief work include things like: shelter and non-food items, water sanitation and hygiene, protection or health.

Clicking on the map, it’s easy to learn things like: large central cities such as Delmas, Port Au Prince and Carrefour have more than 100 water sanitation and hygiene relief projects, while the Southern city of Port Salut has just two. Yes, Port Salut was further from the epicenter of the earthquake. But it was still damaged badly enough that many of its communities still lack necessities, and electricty though temperatures this summer have routinely ranged above 100 degrees Fahrenheit there.

Because HaitiAidMap.org aggregates NGOs’ data, relief workers and philanthropists can use it to identify where there may be a gap in services, and thus where their help is needed.

InterAction, Worthington says, has a broader goal for its mapping project: “We want to be able to map all U.S. non-government organizations’ projects globally, to see all of their billions of dollars of work around the world. By harmonizing data, and providing this mapping tool that’s linked to the databases of NGOs, starting with members of InterAction, we think we can do this within the decade.”

Eighty-one InterAction members are involved in Haiti relief efforts, and about 50 have projects operating there.

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Happy Friday: 100 More Tickets Released for July 30 Summer Party

Posted: 16 Jul 2010 12:43 PM PDT

UPDATE: Batch if tickets is sold out. Check back again next week.

We’re releasing another 100 tickets now to our July 30 summer party at August Capital. Act fast if you want one, these things sell out in less than an hour.

If you don’t get a ticket, don’t email me begging for one. Come to our Social Currency Crunchup earlier that day instead. A ticket to the CrunchUp gives you entry to the party afterwards.

We’ve got a great lineup of startups and investors ready to explore the rapidly growing realms of social commerce, the local Web, Geo, and game mechanics.

  • Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman and Google VP of Product Management John Hanke (who is in charge of Google Places, Google Maps, Google Earth, and local search) will discuss how the Web is taking over the Yellow Pages for local businesses and how mobile is accelerating that trend.
  • Groupon CEO Andrew Mason will explain what’s behind the explosive growth of social buying talk about how the online coupon business is changing with News America Marketing president Chris Mixson.
  • Twitter product manager Shiva Rajaraman (who runs @earlybird), Foursquare’s biz dev dynamo Tristan Walker, and CityGrid Media’s Kara Nortman will discuss how social media and commerce can go hand-in-hand.
  • Tapulous founder (and now Disney Mobile exec) Bart Decrem and SGN CEO Shervin Pishevar will talk about what makes social and mobile games addictive and how game mechanics are filtering beyond games to other types of products.  You can see the full agenda here

Summer Party Details:
July 30, 2010
5:30 – 10:00 pm
2480 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park CA
Get Summer Party Tickets Now @ Eventbrite: $30. Tickets are non-refundable and non-transferrable, based on availability.

And while the summer party is always a lot of fun, we encourage you to spend the whole day with TechCrunch and join our Social Currency CrunchUp at Stanford’s amazing Arrillaga Alumni Center. We have an amazing line up and lots of fun surprises still to be announced. Trust us. And you get expedited fast-pass entry into the summer party at August Capital.

About the Social Currency CrunchUp:
July 30, 2010
9 am – 4:00 pm
Arrillaga Alumni Center, Stanford University
326 Galvez Street, Palo Alto, CA 94305
Get CrunchUp-Party Combo Tickets Now @ Eventbrite: $295 INCLUDES admission for one (1) to the August Capital party and expedited fast-pass door entry. You DO NOT need to purchase a separate August Capital Party ticket if you purchase a CrunchUp ticket. Tickets are non-transferrable, based on availability. Capacity limited to 500 attendees.
All details here.

Please contact Heather Harde or Jeanne Logozzo for sponsorship opportunities and help support our summer tech fest.

Contact Laura Boychenko to request a press pass.

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Social Fundraising Engine BlueSwarm Raises Angel Round, Heads West [Video]

Posted: 16 Jul 2010 12:35 PM PDT

Since its launch, BlueSwarm has raised more than $172 million for fundraising campaigns, with the vast majority of those funds directed towards political election campaigns.

The startup, which is a platform that leverages social media tools to attract and track donations, has wooed many politicians, including several gubernatorial candidates like Massachusetts’ Charlie Baker, Wisconsin’s Tom Barrett and California’s Meg Whitman. Whitman, who has already invested a decent portion of her personal fortune into her campaign, has also amassed more than $20 million through BlueSwarm.

Now, it’s time for BlueSwarm to do a bit of fundraising on its own.

Although far from $172 million, the startup has raised an $800,000 angel round from a collection of individual investors, including Harvard Business professor Clayton Christensen. Originally founded in Boston in 2009 by Erik Nilsson, the company is also decamping for Silicon Valley. Last week, BlueSwarm officially moved its headquarters to Palo Alto as part of its larger expansion plan and a growing need to attract top tier talent in social media and consumer software development.

Political fundraising is going through a dramatic transformation.

Traditionally, politicians have heavily relied on sophisticated fundraisers who bundled donations from a network of wealthy patrons.  Now, with varying degrees of success, politicians are becoming more web-focused to take advantage of social networking channels. One of the most notable examples is, of course, President Obama’s 2008 campaign. By developing a sharp online portal and tapping into Facebook’s power, the candidate raised roughly half a billion online from 3 million donors and some 6.5 million donations— most of those donations were in increments of $100 or less.

BlueSwarm, along with its competitors, are trying to facilitate this evolution by creation a platform to help politicians connect with small and large donors and ultimately, transform those donors into fundraisers. BlueSwarm is a program that lets any campaign manage and track all online donations, recruit new fundraisers and review their progress.

There is also a Facebook app, which allows anyone to sign up to donate for your campaign and promote the cause within their social circle. The idea is to create a tree of donors and fundraisers that constantly expands, as people use their personal connections to pull in their friends.”The key is that I get my personal brand on it before it gets to you…and then it becomes a personal request,” says Dave Boyce, BlueSwarm’s newly minted CEO.

According to Boyce, BlueSwarm is processing more and more transactions — the number of contributions doubled in the second quarter from the first quarter.

The company says the platform is currently being used in 50% of US Senate races and 30% of gubernatorial races, in addition to many local races. However, despite the high volume of transactions, the amount of revenues is still fairly low because BlueSwarm only takes a 2.9% cut.

In order for the team of 12 employees to expand and turn profitable, the platform will need to see a major growth in transactions. US political campaigns, which form a $3 billion annual market, currently serve as the backbone BlueSwarm’s business. Thus, BlueSwarm will need to aggressively expand in other markets, such as university and alumni giving organizations, to get a major lift in volume. Boyce contends, it’s a matter of when, not if, “We’re just entering those markets now, we’re in a dozen conversations with universities, three of whom are saying they want to go live this summer,” Boyce says. “Universities in the US raise $30 billion a year, so it’s 10 times larger from a market size.

Full interview above.

Boyce also joined us, along with angel investor Chris Sacca, for our daily episode of TechCrunch NOW. We discuss a PR roadmap for Apple and those hilariously odd The Social Network trailers.

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European Ministers Push to Increase Target for EU Carbon Emissions

Posted: 16 Jul 2010 12:30 PM PDT

Ministers from France, Germany and the UK are calling for the EU to cut its carbon emissions by 30% on 1990 levels by 2020, arguing that failure to reach the goal will have long-term economic consequences. The current target is a 20% reduction from 1990 levels.

The officials say increasing the target will help create jobs in clean energy sectors and help keep the EU competitive with China, Japan and the US, each of which is investing in green technology and sustainable energy. The US has set a goal of reducing 2005 greenhouse gas emissions 17% by 2020.

Renewable power sources such as wind and solar made for more than half of all new electricity capacity added in Europe and the US last year, according to a report from the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (REN21).

This chart from the European Wind Energy Association that the EU as a whole has been on target to meet its 20% carbon emissions goal, though it might need to ramp things up to reach 30%:

(You can download the original PDF here.)

This is good news for green tech, and supported by the continued growth of sustainable energy investments worldwide, despite the economic downturn.

DA Withdraws iPhone 4 Warrant, Returns Gizmodo Editor Jason Chen’s Possessions

Posted: 16 Jul 2010 11:56 AM PDT

The iPhone 4 may be available to the general public, but the police investigation into the leaked device that Gizmodo purchased last spring is still going strong. Now there’s been a new development: the EFF reports that the San Mateo District Attorney has withdrawn the warrant it used to search Gizmodo editor Jason Chen’s house last April, when it confiscated multiple computers, hard drives, and other electronics.

Update: The Wall Street Journal reports that Gawker has reached an agreement with investigators. Chen’s materials will be returned, and Gawker/Chen will be voluntarily handing over materials deemed “relevant to the case” by a court appointee.

The seizure of these possessions was quite controversial — the EFF said it was illegal and should have been protected by California’s Shield Law. When I called the District Attorney about the case in April, I was told that the investigation was on hold as these issues were considered, and that Chen’s property was sitting in a warehouse untouched. It’s apparently been sitting there for months. At the time, I noted how bizarre the series of events were:

When I asked if it was typical for the DA to evaluate the relevance of these shield laws after removing evidence, Wagstaffe did concede that it was unusual. Which makes the situation extremely od d— it should have been readily apparent that Gawker would defend its actions using this shield law defense, why put the brakes on after the fact?

However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that Chen is in the clear. The EFF says that police could “attempt to subpoena the same material without running afoul of section 1524(g) and still proceed with their case.”

Document via EFF

Google Acquires Metaweb To Make Search Smarter

Posted: 16 Jul 2010 11:43 AM PDT

Google has bought semantic search startup Metaweb, according to recent post on the search giant’s blog. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Metaweb develops both semantic data storage infrastructure for the web, and Freebase, an "open, shared database of the world's knowledge". Freebase is a massive, collaboratively edited database of cross-linked data. The idea behind the product is to create a system for building the semantic web. Freebase allows anyone to contribute, structure, search, copy and use data. It sounds like Wikipedia, but instead of arranging by articles, it is more of an almanac, organized like a database, and readable by people and software. You can read our previous coverage of Freebase here.

Clearly, Google is acquiring Metaweb to boost its own search offerings. Metaweb’s database of tagged data will help make Google search smarter. And Freebase will be maintained as a free and open database but Google will continue to develop and contribute to Freebase. According to a blog post on the Freebase site, the site will increase the frequency of its downloadable database dumps from quarterly to weekly. The company says that it will continue to support Metaweb’s existing partners, but won't be taking on new partners.

Co-founded by Danny Hills, Metaweb has raised close to $60 million from Omidyar Network, Millennium technology Ventures, Benchmark Capital and Goldman Sachs.

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Apple: iPhone 4 Antenna Software Fix Claim “Patently False”

Posted: 16 Jul 2010 11:21 AM PDT

Today during the Q&A session after the iPhone 4 antenna press conference a question was asked about the report in the New York Times yesterday that there will be a software fix for the issue. CEO Steve Jobs fielded the question but was confused as to how anyone would think there could be a software fix for a problem that’s an issue with many smartphones, as he put it. But SVP Scott Forstall spoke up to directly answer it. “That statement is incorrect,” Forstall stated.

He then stood up to elaborate. He says the report in NYT (which cited an anonymous source) was “patently false.” He said that there is no bug in the baseband software that is causing the issue — and so no software update can fix it.

That said, he did note that they continue to tune the way baseband works. And that they’ll continue to do that all the time. These may help certain issues, but for this issue specifically, there will be no software fix.

Earlier, Jobs also reiterated Apple’s stance that a BusinessWeek report stating Jobs was told about the antenuation issue before the iPhone 4 launched. ”Yeah, it’s a total crock,” Jobs said. He continued, “total bullshit.”

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eBay’s Newest iPhone App Takes Fashion Mobile

Posted: 16 Jul 2010 11:15 AM PDT

eBay has ambitions of becoming a destination for fashionistas, recently launching eBay Fashion, a new one-stop-shop for all things fashion on eBay’s online site. And the commerce giants also unveiled FashionVault, a site that sells designer clothes and includes Gilt Groupe-like flash sales on designer items. Today, eBay is taking fashion mobile by launching an eBay Fashion iPhone app.

On the free app, shoppers can browse, buy, and even virtually "try on" clothing from the site’s new, designer, branded and vintage merchandise. Features include a personalized closet that allows users to add, store and curate favorite fashion finds. You can also build outfits and mix and match items from eBay.

Additionally, the app includes both direct access to Fashion Vault and a Virtual Style Gallery that shows latest trends and fashions on the home screen. If a users wants a similar look, they can then just tap the outfit to search for similar items on eBay.

It’s no secret that eBay is making a big push into mobile e-commerce. eBay is on pace to reach a whopping $1.5 billion worth of goods sold via mobile phones in 2010 eBay has a number of iPhone apps available and the company launched iPad and Android apps this year. And the mobile apps are seeing success. The core eBay iPhone app has seen 10 million downloads.

Apparel is the number one selling item on eBay’s main app, so clearly this is a big market for the company. The niche eBay fashion app (similar to the app eBay has for deals) could help draw even more attention to the company’s clothing inventory.

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Antennagate: Complaints, Returns, And Call Drops Are All Extremely Low

Posted: 16 Jul 2010 10:52 AM PDT

Today at Apple’s headquarters, CEO Steve Jobs took the stage to address the issues surround the iPhone 4 antenna. How did he do that? With numbers.

Jobs rattled off some key numbers about how the iPhone 4 is doing overall since its launch three weeks ago. The gist? Compared to the iPhone 3GS, which Jobs noted is the most successful smartphone ever, the iPhone 4 is basically doing even better. Complaints to Apple Care are extremely low, returns are down, and the amount of calls dropped is up — by less than 1 call in each 100.

According to Jobs, 0.55% of all iPhone 4 users have called Apple Care to complain. Yes, one half of one percent.

What about AT&T return rates? If people are having a major problem with the antenna, they’re going to return it right? Well, they’re not. The iPhone 3GS had a return rate early on of 6% — which Apple was very happy with. With the iPhone 4, that return rate is 1.7%. The return rate is one-third of what it was for the iPhone 3GS.

Finally, Jobs mentioned the drop call rate. In this case, Jobs admitted it was higher than with the iPhone 3GS. How much higher? According to AT&T, the iPhone 4 is dropping less than one more call per 100 calls when compared to the iPhone 3GS.

And while it’s only slightly higher, Jobs has a theory as to why this is. He thinks that because the iPhone 3GS was the same form factor as the iPhone 3G, there were a ton of cases available out there for it at launch. In fact, 80% of people who bought an iPhone 3GS at Apple stores left with a case, he says. The iPhone 4 is a new form factor, so there aren’t a lot of cases out there yet. And so only 20% of people who buy iPhone 4 are leaving with a case.

Jobs says he isn’t sure that’s the reason for the bump in dropped calls, but that’s what he believes.

So it should be no surprise that Apple is giving away cases for free to iPhone 4 users from this point on.

“There is no Antennagate,” says Jobs.

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Apple: White iPhone 4 Will Ship At The End Of July

Posted: 16 Jul 2010 10:42 AM PDT

Anyone remember how there were two iPhone 4 models announced at the last Stevenote? A black one and a white one, right? But we’re three weeks into the iPhone 4′s life and only the black model is available. Mr. Apple himself just stated at the end of the iPhone 4′s antenna talk that’s going to change by the end of the month.

Steve Jobs: “We’re Not Perfect.”

Posted: 16 Jul 2010 10:39 AM PDT

After starting out with a light-hearted YouTube video about “Antennagate” at the Apple press conference going on right now to address the issue (read our livenotes), CEO Steve Jobs came onstage with a mea culpa: “You know . . . we’re not perfect.”

In fact, Apple knew about the issue shortly after the first phones were shipped, and the company has been working on the problem for 22 days. “It doesnt seem like a good thing if you can touch your phone in a certain way and it loses signal,” acknowledges Jobs. Even so, he is quick to point out that 3 million iPhone 4s have been sold in just a few weeks. And, repeating a pervious Apple talking point, he says it is not an issue that is unique to the iPhone 4.

Much as we predicted, Jobs then demonstrated how other phones (including a Blackberry 9700, an HTC Droid Eris, and a Smasung Omnia) have the same reception issues when gripped tightly. “We haven’t figured out a way around the laws of physics. Yet.” he says.

But how big is the probemm? Jobs says the issue only affects 0.55 percent of all iPhone 4s, half of one percent. Return rates are only 1.7 percent. And while the iPhone 4 does drop more calls than the previous iPhone, it is only 1 more out of every 100 calls.

To remedy the situation, Apple will give everyone who buys or has bought an iPhone 4 a free case. All in all, masterfully handled.

Let’s recap: Jobs acknowledged the problem, then offered evidence that people don’t really care because the phones are still selling like hot cakes. Not only that, but other phones have the exact same problem. And it only affects less than one percent of all iPhone 4s anyway. Still, we love our customers so much we are giving them al free cases. Any questions?

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Jobs: A Free Case For Every iPhone 4 User

Posted: 16 Jul 2010 10:32 AM PDT

Today at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, CEO Steve Jobs took the stage to address the iPhone 4 antenna issue. First he rattled of some numbers to show how small the problem actually is. But he also acknowledged that some people are having problems — and they want everyone to be happy. So what are they doing? Free bumpers and cases (as we predicted).

Jobs says that everyone who buys an iPhone 4 through September will get a case for free. He also noted that anyone who has already bought an iPhone 4 will get one for free. And if anyone has already bought one of Apple’s bumpers, Apple will refund the cost.

But Jobs acknowledged that they can’t make their own bumpers fast enough. So how are they going to make good on this promise? By giving away other third-party cases if users want them.

Jobs reiterated that the iPhone 4 antenna issue is a small one but that “we care about every user.”

Expect details about how to claim these free cases to come out soon.

If that’s not good enough, Jobs also noted that they were welcome to return the iPhone at anytime in the first 30 days after purchase with no restocking fee.

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Twitter: The World Cup Final Was Our Most Tweeted Event, Ever

Posted: 16 Jul 2010 10:22 AM PDT

The 2010 World Cup has come to a close, and you can bet that the team at Twitter is losing slightly less sleep than they have been over the last month. That’s because the global event drove record traffic to the service, resulting in some downtime and other quirks. But it also led to some pretty staggering stats: Twitter has just announced that The World Cup Final marked the largest period of sustained activity for an event in the service’s history, with over 2,000 Tweets Per Second during the last 15 minutes of the match, and 3,051 tweets per second when Spain scored its winning goal.

To mark the occasion Twitter’s analytics and relevance teams created a nifty infographic tracking tweets over the course of the tournament (the flags denote the number of tweets containing a hashtag for a given country). You can see it above (click it for the full version).

Other key stats from the World Cup:

  • During the final, people from 172 countries tweeted in 27 different languages.
  • At the moment of the winning goal, people from 81 countries tweeted in 23 different languages. This moment is represented on this Wordle infographic.
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