The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- Wisconsin: Land of Beer, Cheese, and…Startups
- Big Money: AOL’s Beauty Pageant With Google, Microsoft For New Search Deal
- Influencing Innovation: The Americans With Disabilities Act
- Booyah’s MyTown Unlocks Product Check-Ins [Video]
- Apple’s Real Problem With The White iPhone 4 — Well, Potentially
- Marriott Unveils Green Hotel Prototype
- OMG/JK Episode 4: A New Hope
- Twitter Nabs Google’s Lead Android Evangelist. Next Target: Students
- LinkedIn Hires Shannon Stubo, Key Exec For IPO Run
- VH1 Will Be Promoting Foursquare On National Television All Summer Long
- Jon Miller On New MySpace: “It’s Rock And Roll”
- Firefox Just Perfected Tabbed Browsing. It’s Like Apple’s Expose Plus Spaces For The Web
- Quick Look At the Motorola i1 With Push-to-talk
- The Zephyr: The UK-built Green Military Aircraft Just Flew For 2 Weeks Straight
- AT&T Mobility CEO On Hot Seat At Fortune Brainstorm
- EveryTrail Partners With Fodors And Others To Launch Interactive Travel Guides
| Wisconsin: Land of Beer, Cheese, and…Startups Posted: 24 Jul 2010 09:20 AM PDT
Most people associate Wisconsin with cheese and beer, but you should think about adding startups to that list. Led by a tidal wave of mostly young entrepreneurs, Madison, Wisconsin is staking a claim as the startup capital of the Midwest. Madison was recently ranked as the 7th most innovative city in the country by Forbes magazine – just above perennial powerhouse Boston, MA. Several key organizations are driving the growing startup community. Capital Entrepreneurs is a group of over 56 companies that meet on a regular basis to help founders network and develop connections. MERLIN Mentors provides free mentoring services to new startups. Applicants are assigned a team of experienced entrepreneurs who help founders navigate many of the challenges facing a new company. These groups, along with the University of Wisconsin, are fostering a great culture for new startups. Here are just a small selection of technology companies in the area:
Photo Credit/Flickr/infowidget      
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| Big Money: AOL’s Beauty Pageant With Google, Microsoft For New Search Deal Posted: 24 Jul 2010 12:10 AM PDT
But what I really wanted to know about was what AOL’s plans were around search. Their long term Google deal expires in December. And from what we hear both Microsoft and Google are gunning for AOL’s search traffic. Why? AOL is the fourth largest U.S. search engine, but they have just 2.5% market share. If Microsoft could add AOL’s searches, though, they’d be, with Yahoo’s share, above 30%. Search volume brings more advertisers, and more advertisers means a more robust bidding system. Microsoft needs that 2.5%. But there’s more. AOL visitors tend to click on search ads at more than twice the rate that people click on ads on Google’s search engine. So that 2.5% market share is really more like 6% of total search advertising market share. Google has paid AOL more than $600 million/year for search over the last several years. With the appropriate amount of negotiating leverage, that number could increase dramatically. Armstrong says there are more than two companies competing for their search traffic, which presumably means Yahoo has somehow gotten itself into the mix. But the only real competition, says our sources (and common sense), is Microsoft and Google. Both companies want the deal. The bids are getting high enough that one person familiar with the negotiations suggested (jokingly, I think) that it may be cheaper just to buy AOL outright – their current market cap is just $2.25 billion. Lots of people are keeping an eye on the ongoing MySpace search negotiations. But the MySpace deal will be a pittance compared to what AOL brings in. We expect a deal to be done by September, based on information from sources.      
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| Influencing Innovation: The Americans With Disabilities Act Posted: 23 Jul 2010 10:22 PM PDT
Today marked the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a code of law that has influenced society and tech companies in interesting ways already, and is expanding to influence them even more. One recent example: feds encouraged schools around the country, notably Princeton and Arizona State University, to drop the idea of requiring students to use e-readers, specifically the Amazon Kindle DX, until the devices were made “accessible.” Accessible and acceptable e-readers would need features that work for students who are visually impaired, hearing impaired or have limited manual dexterity. The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice – which enforces the ADA – published plans today for four new ADA proposals that would impact our movie going experiences, the way 911 call centers operate, and how automatic teller machines and government websites are built. No matter how much you think government should be involved in private sector business, it's worth asking from a design standpoint: Why can’t a deaf person watch a movie at the theater with closed captions alongside hearing friends? Does an ATM work more effectively in a tiny room where wheelchair access is impossible? Why should 911 dispatchers accept calls from the voiced, but not a text message from someone mute?
There’s definitely a market demand for more accessible technology. Today some 54 million Americans are disabled, or one in every five people, according to government estimates. Seniors and veterans returning from combat are adding to this population. Some companies realize the needs and potential of the market, there. On display at Apps4Access in Washington D.C., today, an event hosted by the not-for-profit Committee on Disability Power & Pride and sponsored by AT&T, were products like the Braille Controller and Vlingo apps. The Braille Controller (or Alva BC 640) by Optelec, a keyboard-like device that’s been around for a few years. It can "read screens” within Windows, web browsers, and now Skype and Facebook, and turn what’s on screen into either narrated audio content, or tactile Braille. Yes, its keys raise and lower almost like the web is typing back. It works with USB or Bluetooth enabled smart phones and PCs and a range of software.
A more mainstream technology provider, Vlingo created the already-popular “search by voice” apps for Blackberry and iPhone, and recently rolled out their Android “Super Dialer.” According to the company website, Vlingo apps let mobile users search the web by voice, listen to incoming email text and text messages, and update their Facebook and Twitter profiles by voice. Vlingo is useful for the vision impaired, and people with limited manual dexterity. But it's also pretty useful for commuters stuck in traffic, or people who hate typing on touch screens.
On a bright note, Americans with disabilities are gaining access to the internet and all the information and sites that can help them there says a new survey by Harris Interactive (sponsored by Kessler Foundation and the National Organization on Disability). Eighty two percent of 18-29 years olds with disability access the internet (compared to 92% of people without disability in their age group). Among seniors, only 37% of those with disability access the internet, while 70% of seniors without disability do so. More than half of all disabled Americans have internet access. Celebrations of the ADA, and conferences concerning the civil rights of Americans with disabilities will be taking place throughout the weekend and on July 26th through regional offices of the ADA Network around the country. [FDR statue image via Jim Bowen]      
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| Booyah’s MyTown Unlocks Product Check-Ins [Video] Posted: 23 Jul 2010 10:08 PM PDT The location check-in was so 2009. Well not exactly, like many, I suspect location-based services will eventually live up to their hype in the mobile arena. However, the geo-location check-in just scratches the surface. The product check-in is next. On Friday, Booyah’s MyTown unveiled a new software update that will let users check-in to physical, real world products. Booyah is not the first to come to market with the idea of checking into a product or activity— other services like Miso and Hot Potato allow users to check into a wide array of “products” like television shows, movies, and online activities. However, MyTown is one of the first LBS apps where you can use bar codes to check into a dress at a department store or a box of Kleenex at your neighborhood grocery store. If this initiative takes off with MyTown’s 2.5 million users (yes, that’s more than Foursquare), Booyah will have a valuable mountain of consumer data and a bevy of marketing partners eager to tap into the power of the product check-in. A few retail partners have already signed up. Booyah is preparing to announce a major product check-in partnership in August, with a mystery (and reportedly, very large) consumer products company. “Location is just a way to drive them to the store, but ultimately people want to actually be able to sell products, so this is one step away, getting closer to the finish line to point of sale.” Booyah’s founder Keith Lee says. “And that’s really where we want to go in terms of validating activities that you do in the real world.”
MyTown’s product check-in is currently available exclusively on the iPhone and iPod. Using the camera option, a user simply scans a barcode on a retail product. Within one second, MyTown recognizes the code and unlocks any points, virtual goods or promotions associated with the product. Thus, the product check-in provides an extra layer of gaming over MyTown’s universe. For those who have never played MyTown, it’s basically an augmented reality version of Monopoly. Users check into real world locations to unlock virtual rewards, they have the option to “purchase” their favorite properties, collect rent from others and update those properties. Furthermore, like Foursquare, you can see where your friends are checking-in and access real-world discounts. Inevitably, other LBS startups will attack the product check-in category, but until then, MyTown provides a unique way for businesses to interact with the consumer. Lee says partners will be able to craft challenges, including scavenger hunts, and offer special real world promotions or discounts through the service. In a way, it’s an ad that incentivizes the consumer to reach out. On the analytics end, there’s a wealth of information that’s probably comparable to Blippy, a social service that aggregates a consumer’s purchase data. Through MyTown, a business will be able to learn about the interests of its consumers, which products they find attractive and how they interact with a retailers’ competitors. The real hurdle here is getting users to embrace the mechanics of the product check-in, the extra step it takes to scan an item, and to get them to do it often enough that it matters.      
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| Apple’s Real Problem With The White iPhone 4 — Well, Potentially Posted: 23 Jul 2010 05:46 PM PDT
In their two-sentence statement on the matter this morning, all Apple said is that the white iPhone 4 “will not be available until later this year.” This is a quick reversal from just one week ago when Apple confirmed that the device was on track to ship by the “end of July” — which itself was already quite a bit of a delay from the original iPhone 4 launch in June. “Later this year” is a bit ominous. It could mean anything from August all the way until December. The fact that Apple isn’t saying “August” or “another month” seems to suggest that it will be at least the Fall when we see the ivory device. And again, that’s a problem. Let’s just pick a random month that it could be released — let’s say November. A white iPhone 4 released in November means it will have been a full five months since many customers have had the black iPhone 4 — the exact same device, only black. More importantly, it will only be seven months until the next WWDC event, where the iPhone 5 (or whatever it will be called) will be announced. Sure, some consumers won’t care about that. But many others now have in their minds three years worth of evidence that a new iPhone will be unveiled every June. Many of those customers will have a decision to make: is it worth it to spring for the white iPhone 4 now and have the latest and greatest Apple gadget for only seven months? Or is it worth it to wait? Compounding this tough decision at that point will undoubtedly be a whole new round of rumors that Apple could unveil a Verizon iPhone shortly — perhaps even at an event in January. Can you imagine the horror customers will feel if they sign their souls over to AT&T for two years in November, only to have the option to instead go with Verizon a couple months later? The white iPhone may reveal itself to be a wolf dressed in sheep’s clothes at that point. But Apple is nothing if not genius marketers. A white iPhone unveiled in November will be spun as a holiday iPhone — the perfect present for Christmas. Look, it’s even the color of snow! Apple will sell millions of them to customers oblivious to the fact that the next version — one undoubtedly without the same antenna issues we’re seeing now, and possibly one that works on Verizon — is just months away. But plenty of consumers won’t be oblivious to this. And Apple will move less iPhones than it could have. The issue here is that more than anything else, people interested in the iPhone but who are holding out are doing so for three reasons. First, many are still unsure about the antenna issue and think it may be worth it to wait until the next iteration next year. Second, many are waiting to see if a Verizon version becomes available. Third, many are waiting for the white version of the iPhone 4. If Apple doesn’t get the white version out there soon, all three of those issues are likely to collide. And it may push a lot of would-be iPhone purchasers back from making the jump until next year. Either that, or the special edition Disney™ Snow White® iPhone 4 will be the fastest selling iPhone yet. [image via NQB]      
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| Marriott Unveils Green Hotel Prototype Posted: 23 Jul 2010 05:06 PM PDT
The prototype is the first of its kind for the U.S. hotel industry, the company says. LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is a voluntary rating system developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). LEED-certified buildings are designed to meet environmental goals including reducing landfill waste and greenhouse gas emissions, conserving energy and water and lowering operating costs. The Courtyard Charleston/Summerville is the first of Marriott hotels following the new, green design. It is expected to open for business in South Carolina in 2012. Using the prototype will save the hotel giant six months of design time on each hotel. That’s about what the company says it would usually take to design a LEED-certificate worth new property. Marriott plans to roll out similar prototypes for its other brands in the future, including Residence Inn by Marriott and Towne Place Suites. The company also expects to save about $100,000, and up to 25% in energy and water savings on each hotel built following this prototype. Going green is nothing new to Marriott. It currently owns close to 50 LEED-certified hotels and aims to raise that number to 300 by 2015. According to the USGBC, there are currently 937 LEED registered and certified hotels in the U.S. The environmental bug has hit the economy segment of the industry, too. A Motel 6 in Northlake, Texas became the country’s first LEED-certified motel property earlier this month. And Motel 6 is using a prototype approach to increase its number of LEED-certified motels as well.      
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| Posted: 23 Jul 2010 04:11 PM PDT It’s that time of week again: the latest episode of TechCrunch TV’s OMG/JK has just landed. As always, the show features fellow TechCrunch writer MG Siegler and myself discussing (and arguing about) the week’s top tech stories. This week’s topics include the demise of the Nexus One, AT&T’s troubled relationship with Apple, and plenty of other key information that will help you impress your friends. Also, one thing to note: you can now subscribe to the show as a podcast! Subscribe now, so you’ll never miss an episode. At some point in the near future we’ll be distributing a subscriber-only video featuring MG serenading his iPhone 4. You wouldn’t want to miss that, would you?
     
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| Twitter Nabs Google’s Lead Android Evangelist. Next Target: Students Posted: 23 Jul 2010 03:35 PM PDT
Twitter has hired the longtime Google employee (he’s been there just about 4 years) to be a part of Twitter’s fast-growing platform team, the company has confirmed. Kim tweeted about the news a few minutes ago, as well. Twitter didn’t have any more to say about what he’ll specifically be doing for the company now, but you can bet he’ll be playing to his strengths as a marketing manager. As he notes on his LinkedIn profile, at Google his job was “Encouraging developers from around the world to build apps for Android.” Now he’ll likely be doing the same thing for Twitter. You may recall that Twitter worked closely with the Android team to make their native Android app. Earlier this year, the head of Android’s core library moved on to the mobile payment startup, Square — a company founded by Twitter chairman (and creator) Jack Dorsey. In other Twitter recruitment news, earlier today, Twitter’s Join The Flock account (the account they use for recruiting purposes) tweeted that they would soon being recruiting for new employees on college campuses. “Twitter University Recruiting is coming…need a Twitter-y name for it, suggestions?,” reads the tweet. Twitter is growing fast, but employee growth can’t seem to keep pace with user (and usage) growth, as they made pretty in their post talking about the recent scaling issues. There are over 20 engineering positions they are actively looking to fill — on top of several other ones. University recruitment is a huge area of emphasis for larger companies like Microsoft, Google, and even Facebook. You’ll soon be able to add Twitter to that list. Update: Jokes Twitter’s Ryan Sarver, the Director of the Platform team Kim will be joining, “he’ll be working on the twPhone :)” iPhone killer watch take 600!
     
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| LinkedIn Hires Shannon Stubo, Key Exec For IPO Run Posted: 23 Jul 2010 01:07 PM PDT LinkedIn has hired Shannon Stubo as their new Vice President Communications, CEO Jeff Weiner tells us. Stubo, most recently at OpenTable, took that company through their IPO process. Prior to OpenTable Stubo spent seven years at eBay, eventually as vice president of corporate communications. Companies usually stack their executive teams with people who’ve previously worked at public companies, and execs who’ve actually gone through the IPO process are particularly valued. Stubo will understand the nuances around complicated SEC rules around publicity in a pre-IPO company.
This isn’t the first addition to the LinkedIn team that indicates that the company is looking to boost its experience of advising a company through an IPO. Earlier this year, LinkedIn brought on its first outside board member, Skip Battle, former Ask.com CEO and board member of Netflix, Expedia and OpenTable. While Weiner told us at the time that Battle’s experience advising consumer focused and enterprise companies made him an ideal choice, it’s clear that the seasoned exec’s role in helping lead a number of technology companies through a public offering may have been a factor as well. I sat down with Weiner earlier today to talk about the hiring of Stubo and to talk about LinkedIn in general. The company has 70 million users now, and about 40 million people visit the site each month. He doesn’t see LinkedIn as a professional version of Facebook. I asked him if LinkedIn, which generates significant revenue from job listings and from companies that pay for insights into people for recruiting purposes, if he considers Facebook or Monster the more direct competitor. Neither, he said. LinkedIn is a unique thing. And just as people think of Starbucks for coffee or Google for search, he wants them to think of LinkedIn for human talent – finding jobs, finding people and making people more successful in business.      
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| VH1 Will Be Promoting Foursquare On National Television All Summer Long Posted: 23 Jul 2010 12:59 PM PDT
Foursquare has had commercials before — like this Bravo one in February — but this one should be the biggest draw for the masses yet. Foursquare has linked up with VH1 and Live Nation for an “unlock it to rock it” promotion. The commercial not only plays up the ability to win Foursquare badges, but also a contest that will have a winner getting access to a year’s worth of concerts for free. The commercial showcases key Foursquare functionality: the ability to check-in to places around your city and get tips. VH1′s Foursquare account also gives you the added bonus of getting tip from celebrities — well, if you consider that a bonus. It took quite a bit of time for other hot startups like Twitter to get this kind of mainstream exposure. Foursquare is getting it much, much faster. And again, this will be playing on VH1 all Summer (Foursquare head of business development Tristan Walker also hints that the promotion will extend past this Summer).      
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| Jon Miller On New MySpace: “It’s Rock And Roll” Posted: 23 Jul 2010 12:24 PM PDT
MySpace is “pregnant with product,” Miller says, and adds that they want to “go younger” to get back to the core part of their user base. He also added that MySpace has been surprised with how quickly mobile usage has ramped, and that it took them a little bit by surprise. They’re embracing mobile in a big way now, he says. The new MySpace should launch sometime in the mid Fall, he says. When asked what MySpace looks like a year from now, he said to expect a “very revitalized experience.”      
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| Firefox Just Perfected Tabbed Browsing. It’s Like Apple’s Expose Plus Spaces For The Web Posted: 23 Jul 2010 12:18 PM PDT
A new feature called Tab Candy is in the works. It’s still early in testing mode, as Mozilla’s Aza Raskin points out on his blog today, but it looks to be exactly what I need. Be sure to watch the video below for a full overview — from the looks of it, it seems as if Tab Candy is sort of like Apple’s Expose feature mixed with their Spaces feature, both of which are baked into OS X. For those who don’t use a Mac, basically these features allow you to zoom out and get a bird’s-eye-view of all your windows (or tabs, in this case) that are open — and you can also arrange open windows (or again, tabs, in this case) in certain spaces so they’re clumped together. This allows you to more easily find what you’re looking for with so many tabs open. For example, when tabs are organized into a group, you can select that group and see only those tabs you put in there. The other tabs you have open (in another group) are still open, you just won’t see them when you’re focused on this particular group. And you can change the sizes of these groups in the bird’s-eye-view mode to highlight certain ones. “Make the group with your calendar and email bigger so that you can see what's new just by zooming out to Tab Candy. Hide the group with distractions in a corner,” Raskin writes. The best part is that you can actually test out Tab Candy right now. If you click on this link, you’ll download a special “super-early” build of Firefox (Firefox 4 beta, to be specific) with Tab Candy. Again, it’s early so there are bugs and performance issues, but this is a very, very good idea.
     
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| Quick Look At the Motorola i1 With Push-to-talk Posted: 23 Jul 2010 10:43 AM PDT
The Motorola i1 is Sprint’s PTT Nextel phone for folks who have probably been “chirping” at each other since 2003. It is small, thin, a bit heavy, and feels quite rugged. It has a 5-megapixel camera, GPS, and WiFi. Interestingly, it is made to military specifications so you could feasibly run a truck over it and it would still work (try at your own risk).      
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| The Zephyr: The UK-built Green Military Aircraft Just Flew For 2 Weeks Straight Posted: 23 Jul 2010 10:40 AM PDT
The aircraft, created by the impossible-to-pronounce Qinetiq, was created with the military in mind. The idea is that you launch one of these aircraft over a battlefield and can spend several days in a row doing nothing but collecting intelligence from the safety of the skies. That, and no pilots' lives are at stake. Granted, since there's no human inside the cockpit that could make commanders more apt to deploy it in less-than-safe conditions, but that's a concern for another day.      
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| AT&T Mobility CEO On Hot Seat At Fortune Brainstorm Posted: 23 Jul 2010 10:01 AM PDT
“We carry about half of the mobile data in this country on our network today,” he says. “We have a great relationship with Apple…from the CEO on down.” Mehta asks “What will a post exclusivity world look like for AT&T?” De la Vega says he’s not particularly worried. AT&T had exclusivity on the Motorola RAZR when it was the hot phone five years ago, and that they did fine after exclusivity ended. “Why are there so many dropped calls?” says Mehta. De la Vega says you need three things for a good user experience – high speed mobile broadband network, smartphones and applications. He says AT&T is getting better at dealing with data surges, and there have been “nice improvements” over the last couple of years. Mehta asked Vega if there are too many mobile operating systems today. De la Vega says they want to carry them all and let the consumers decide. The most interesting part of the conversation – Mehta points out that a few years ago the U.S. lagged the rest of the world in mobile, but that today the U.S. is in a leadership position. De la Vega agrees, saying that investment in mobile infrastructure means that phones now tend to launch in the U.S. first now instead of being a year behind the rest of the world. But he also says “spectrum is the lifeblood of the industry, and to keep this economy fueled there must be enough spectrum.” He says there will be a wave of change where we’ll see more cloud based applications, particularly in the enterprise, than downloaded apps. Jason Hirschhorn, former MySpace co-president, asks a question from the audience, saying that too many calls are dropped on his iPhone. He asks how AT&T views the problem, and also asks why AT&T is charging for the MicroCell. De la Vega says that dropped calls have gone down dramatically. They’ve doubled their capacity in the last three months in New York, he says, and it has helped. And AT&T is testing a variety of prices, including free, for the MicroCell.      
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| EveryTrail Partners With Fodors And Others To Launch Interactive Travel Guides Posted: 23 Jul 2010 09:45 AM PDT
While there is a plethora of travel information online, it can be a challenge to keep this information organized and portable when traveling. EveryTrail's Guides aim to solve that problem by partnering with travel content creators, such as Fodors, offer these customized travel guides to consumers than can be easily accessed from a mobile device. EveryTrail Guides range from a beatnik walking tour through San Francisco’s North Beach, to family-friendly trips in Boston to the best outdoor adventures. Guides range fro $0.99 to $9.99 (which seems steep for an online guide). While EveryTrail has partnered with premium travel content creators for some guides, the site also allows anyone to publish and sell their guides through a marketplace. Users can vote and star guides, so fellow EveryTrail users gain insight into how valuable a guide will be for a destination. Publisher split revenue in half with EveryTrail. EveryTrail, which just raised $1 million in funding late last year, launched to enable people to keep track of their trips, by uploading GPS files or geo-tracking their trails, and allows to them to accompany those with stories and geo-tagged photos. EveryTrail’s mobile apps allows you to geo-tag your trails and travels and the pictures you take along the way instantly and automatically. EveryTrail says members are sharing their trips on EveryTrail.com at a rate of 1,500 per day. The company faces competition from NileGuide, which allows you to create custom itineraries and get local advice for free.      
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Editor’s Note: The following is a guest post by Steve Faulkner. He is the CEO of the 
Time Magazine Editor Josh Quittner and AOL CEO 
I’ve fielded a lot of questions today about the iPhone 4. No, not about the antenna — 
After a bit of a slow start, the Android app ecosystem is now growing at a rapid clip, as it 
Of course Weiner says he hired Stubo for other reasons, and won’t comment on the company’s IPO plans. But it’s clear LinkedIn is looking to file for an IPO sometime in the next few financial quarters. Unless, of course, one of the big guys makes them an acquisition offer they can’t refuse.
The caliber of the partnerships that location-based startup 
Fortune’s Daniel Roth asked News Corp. Digital Chief 
If you’re anything like me, at any given time you have a dozen to two dozen tabs open across multiple web browser windows. It’s great to have all these webpages open and ready to click on at any second, but it’s a nightmare to try and remember where each is with so many open. I shudder to think how much time I waste on this each day. Luckily, Mozilla is working on a solution.
Some more aviation news for your edification. The British-built 
Fortune’s Stephanie Mehta asked 
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