The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- Skype Goes Down – And The Buzz On Twitter Goes Insane
- The Handstand: An iPad Case… For Your Hand!
- Ujam Is Now Ready To Turn You Into A Rockstar
- Talking Santa Says: 41 Million App Downloads In Six Months
- Confirmed: Motorola Mobility Acquires Cloud Storage Startup Zecter
- Chirpstory Lets You Filter And Bundle Tweets Into Stories
- Teradata Buys Marketing Automation Software Company Aprimo For $525M
- MMC Ventures Injects $2.32 Million Into Online Children’s Wear Retailer Alexandalexa
- Where Is Awarded The “Mother Of All Geofencing Patents”
- 2010 Kindle Sales May Be As High As 8 Million
- Language Learning Service Voxy Closes Another 600K, For A Total Of $1.2 Million
- Adventures In Planned Corporate Leaks And Espionage, HTC Mystery Phone Edition
- Was It Google And Verizon Or The FCC That Just Screwed Us On Mobile Net Neutrality?
- “Evil” D0z.me URL Shortener Facilitates DDoS Attacks
- OMG/JK: Gingerbread Has Never Tasted So Delicious
- Instagram Captures A Million Users. Up Next: API, Android, And Funding
- Judge Sides With Google, Throws Out Android Trademark Suit
- Gowalla Snaps Back: 1 Million Photos …But Foursquare May Hit That In 2 Weeks
- Motorola Close To Acquiring Cloud Storage Startup Zecter
- FCC Net Neutrality Vote Is Just The Beginning
- Salesforce Buys Email Contact Manager Etacts
- Q: Why Did Twitter Acqhire Fluther? A: “Search Is Mature,” Social Q&A Is Still “Wide Open”
- The Pandora-Elevation Deal that Never Closed and a Mid-2011 IPO?
- Email Contact Manager Etacts Shuts Down
- SoundCloud Adds Android Version Of Its Mobile App
| Skype Goes Down – And The Buzz On Twitter Goes Insane Posted: 22 Dec 2010 09:07 AM PST
Of course what’s so funny is that so many of us now use Twitter DM (direct message) and perhaps even Facebook IM as a sort of alternative “Skype-a-like” IM platform that there are now potential alternatives. It looks like for now that Skype has huge issues though – and it’s coming at a delicate time for the company as it tries to forge path independent from former owner eBay.        
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| The Handstand: An iPad Case… For Your Hand! Posted: 22 Dec 2010 08:40 AM PST
Why would someone use this? Probably because they were a doctor or something and needed to make rounds. Otherwise, this is kind of a hindrance to normal existence, especially considering the iPad is strapped down pretty hard to your hand. It’s not uncomfortable by any stretch, but it’s pretty hard to yank off if you need to get at your sidearm or katana. For $60 this is a pretty pricey single-use item and I wouldn’t recommend it as an “around the home” device. However, if you’re using the iPad for any inordinate length of time on a daily basis, it’s worth a look. Click through for my hands-on video.        
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| Ujam Is Now Ready To Turn You Into A Rockstar Posted: 22 Dec 2010 08:09 AM PST
During our first TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York last May, the startup that nearly stole the show and was the obvious audience favorite was Ujam, a sophisticated Web-based music creation site which lets even tone-deaf people like me compose songs. During their demo at Disrupt, angel investor Chris Sacca, who was one of the judges, took it upon himself to test the application onstage and belted out a tune (see video above). Now you can try it too. Ujam quietly came out of private alpha last week, and is allowing a set number of new users in every day. All you do is hum, whistle, or sing, and Ujam can turn your voice into nearly any instrument and fix it so that it is in tune. You can also upload your own pre-recorded tracks or pick pre-existing tracks on Ujam from different styles of music (Kraftwerk, 80s Rock, Campfire Guitar). The Ujam music editor lets you change the instruments, tempo, pitch, and mix between vocals and music to create your own composition. Once you are done, you can save your songs and download them as MP3s for sharing. Below are a couple sample tracks I recorded in just a few minutes for different versions of a song I made up called “I Fight For The Users (TRON).” The first one, “Tron Arcade,” I created by first humming the notes and then turning them into a Nylon Guitar & Strings with a Kraftwerk style and it is just instrumental. That one I am pretty proud of. For the other one, I picked a pre-existing track and added vocals. Don’t worry, I am not going to quit my day job. It helps if you have a decent microphone. I recorded these on my headset, and it only took me ten minutes. (Can you tell?) While my singing is still pretty awful, just be happy that you didn’t have to hear the original recording. Now imagine what someone could do with this who can actually carry a tune. Ujam is putting up a bunch of tutorial videos to help new users navigate the site. Right now all you can do is pretty much create and edit music. Sharing is done elsewhere after you download your MP3s. At some point it would make sense for Ujam to add music embeds or partner with someone like Soundcloud so that you can share songs more easily with your friends on Facebook or Twitter. Ujam has many improvements planned, such as giving would-be musicians the ability to lay down multiple tracks. Out of the gate, it is a pretty impressive standalone Web-based music editor. Give it a shot, tell us what you think in comments. Above is a video Robert Scoble captured of Chris Sacca trying out Ujam at Disrupt, and below that is the full Disrupt demo. Watch live streaming video from disrupt at livestream.com         
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| Talking Santa Says: 41 Million App Downloads In Six Months Posted: 22 Dec 2010 06:42 AM PST If you have an iPhone, iPad or Android phone, chances are you have at least one “Talking Friends” app on your favorite device, especially if you have kids. Which is it? Tom Cat? Santa? Roby the Robot? Rex the Dinosaur? Harry the Hedgehog? Or is it Bacteria John? Kids may abolsutely adore those quirky apps, but apparently building and selling them is quite a solid business to boot. Outfit7, the company behind the ‘Talking Friends’ series of apps for iOS and Android, says it has reached 41 million downloads in less than six months since the first app was released. The download rate is accelerating at 10 million a month and the company’s CEO, Andrej Nabergoj, tells me they expect to hit 100 million downloads by the second quarter of 2011. For your comparison: the oft-hyped Angry Birds apps have been downloaded roughly 42 million times to date – 12 million paid, 30 million free apps – only it took Rovio twice as long than it took Outfit7. In case you’re not familiar with ‘Talking Friends’: each of the apps from the series features an animated 3D character that can be poked, tickled, and played with in various ways via the touch screen. Using the device’s microphone, you can speak to the character, and they will repeat back everything they hear in “their” voice. Trust me, kids go absolutely crazy over this. And not just kids, apparently.
Users can also record their own videos of the characters speaking and playing, and share them on YouTube, Facebook, or via email straight from the app. While I’ve used some of the apps in the past, I’d never recorded a video before, until now (the one on top, not the above). So from the 41 million downloads, how many were for the paid apps? About 6 million units, Nabergoj tells me, with prices ranging from $0.99 to $2.99 each. The free apps are advertising-supported and boast in-app purchases, and Nabergoj tells me they’re seeing “significant revenue streams”, using multiple ad networks (AdMob, InMobi and MobClix). Taking into account Apple and Google’s cuts on sales, the company could be bringing in up to $20 million in revenues, according to my very own back-of-the-envelope calculations, including the revenue streams from advertising and in-app purchases. The company declined to confirm if my projections are correct, but indicated that they come very close. Outfit7, which employs some 15 people and was initially founded in Ljubljana, Slovenia, has just planted its new HQ office in Palo Alto, California. The company is self-funded and, according to Nabergoj, “needless to say, profitable”.        
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| Confirmed: Motorola Mobility Acquires Cloud Storage Startup Zecter Posted: 22 Dec 2010 06:16 AM PST
Motorola says that Zecter’s technologies will be used to “enhance Motorola Mobility’s mobile content experience” by allowing users to access their content on a variety of devices. According to the release issued by the company, Motorola Mobility, which encompasses Motorola's Mobile Devices and Home businesseswill integrate Zecter’s syncing, desktop integration, video transcoding and thin-file retrieval technologies across its device and Motoblur offerings. ZumoDrive’s cloud storage product wirelessly syncs playlists, images and other digital content between devices, auto-detects content, and streams content to a number of devices. ZumoCast was launched as a way to avoid cloud storage costs on multiple devices by streaming media libraries to your mobile devices upon demand. Motorola will also be suspending the new distribution of ZumoCast until the integrations have been completed; however ZumoDrive will be open for new registrations. Existing ZumoCast and ZumoDrive users can continue to use thes services. This latest acquisition adds to Motorola’s recent buying spree. Over the past few months, Motorola has acquired connected home software developer 4Home, location based mobile software startup Aloqa and reportedly bought 280 North in August.        
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| Chirpstory Lets You Filter And Bundle Tweets Into Stories Posted: 22 Dec 2010 05:03 AM PST
Enter Chirpstory, a new and Twitter-focused curation tool, which lets you gather and share collections of tweets around a specific topic. Popular news items, events, or trends may see thousands of related tweets, retweets and spam posts in a matter of hours: Chirpstory offers a way to curate and “summarize” related tweets in the form of a continuous or thematic narrative. Each story (you can also call this a list or summary) is hosted on an easy-to-read, dedicated page hosted on Chirpstory.com or can be embedded on external sites. The way it works is simple: on the “Create story” page, just choose a headline and drag relevant tweets loaded in the left-hand column and drop them to the right (or use the Chirpstory Chrome web app). You can then add videos and pictures from the web, edit the story, and publish it- logging in with your Twitter account is enough. All stories can be shared with others, tagged, commented on, kept private (as a personal archive) or saved in a “Storybook”. Examples: the Chirpstory page for MG Siegler’s recent article on Google, a list of stories tagged with “funnytweets” or the story (a tribute) for the late Elizabeth Edwards (see screenshot below).
Developed single-handedly by ex-Yahoo Japan employee Toshiaki Yoshida, Chirpstory is the international version of Togetter, Japan's most popular Twitter curation service. Togetter (which is also Yoshida’s brainchild) was launched in September 2009 and currently boasts two million unique users.        
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| Teradata Buys Marketing Automation Software Company Aprimo For $525M Posted: 22 Dec 2010 03:52 AM PST  Teradata is to acquire Aprimo, a cloud-based integrated marketing software maker, for approximately $525 million including the assumption of roughly $25 million of cash at closing. Aprimo delivers a suite of integrated marketing applications to more than 150,000 professionals worldwide, and says more than 36 percent of the Fortune 100 relies on its solutions for integrated marketing management.
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| MMC Ventures Injects $2.32 Million Into Online Children’s Wear Retailer Alexandalexa Posted: 22 Dec 2010 03:36 AM PST  MMC Ventures has invested £1.5 million (roughly $2.32 million) in AlexandAlexa, a UK-based online retailer for luxury children's wear, selling premium brands such as Ralph Lauren Kids, Burberry Kids, Little Marc Jacobs and Junior Gaultier. MMC said in a statement that it is taking a "significant minority stake" in the business. 
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| Where Is Awarded The “Mother Of All Geofencing Patents” Posted: 21 Dec 2010 11:06 PM PST
Just as geo mobile services are taking off, the U.S. Patent Office has awarded an extremely broad patent on “Location-based services” to Where. Patent No. 7,848,765 covers 31 claims ranging from sending an alert to offering a coupon when somebody crosses a geofence with a mobile device. Where CEO Walter Doyle calls it the “mother of all geofencing patents.” A geofence is a predefined boundary on a map. For instance, it could be a two-block radius around a business. When somebody crosses into that area, they could be offered a geo-targeted ad or coupon. The patent also defines a geofence as possibly being “associated with a moving location that is associated with a portable electronic device.” In this case, the geofence is placed around individual users and moves with them. The patent seems to describe practically every mobile app with any kind of geo-trigger, from simple “location-based alerts” to “verifying transactions and tailoring information to the behavior of a user.” The full abstract reads:
Where applied for the patent five years ago in 2005, well before the current crop of hot geo startups even existed. It was finally awarded two weeks ago on December 7. At the very least, the patent should give Where some defensive armor against patent trolls and others trying to enforce their own intellectual property in this market. Where builds mobile apps across every major mobile device platform—including Android, iPhone, and Blackberry—and boasts about 4 million active users a month. The apps show local listings for restaurants, bars, merchants, and events, and recently started to suggest places for you based on your location and past behavior. Doyle thinks the recommendations can act as a “Netflix for places.” The apps work on the principle of showing interesting places nearby, essentially by placing a geofence around the user. Where is also using some of what the patent describes in its Where Ads, which allow advertisers to show their mobile ads only to people near their store, or perhaps near a competitor’s store (after the user opts in to see these types of ads). Another ad campaign that takes advantage of geofencing is one which tracks the flu index and maps areas where there is a high incidence. Where’s “Deal Alerts” also work on the same principle. Soon, Where will offer the ability to “follow” places and receive messages when you are nearby.        
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| 2010 Kindle Sales May Be As High As 8 Million Posted: 21 Dec 2010 08:27 PM PST
“Two people who are aware of the company’s sales projections” have made bold to say that sales have exceeded said projections by a quite a large amount, and actually fix 8 million as a rough estimate of how many will have been sold in 2010.        
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| Language Learning Service Voxy Closes Another 600K, For A Total Of $1.2 Million Posted: 21 Dec 2010 07:43 PM PST
Founded by Paul Gollash, the New York-based startup uses multimedia platforms to help people “learn a language from life.” Voxy utilizes SMS, the web and mobile apps in order to teach ESL to native Spanish speakers through content people would normally read, like magazine stories. The service has over 16,000 active users. New angel investors John Frankel from ff Assett Management, Paul Whetsell from WD Capital and Jim Dannhauser of Six Flags will be joining current investors Doug Levine and Mike Brown in backing Voxy. The startup will be using the new round of funding in order to focus on scaling product and hiring Voxy plans on rolling out a formal iPhone app in January and adding a Spanish to English version next year.        
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| Adventures In Planned Corporate Leaks And Espionage, HTC Mystery Phone Edition Posted: 21 Dec 2010 05:59 PM PST
Most of these leaks are even planned as part of a given product’s marketing strategy nowadays as marketers know us blogs will help their cause along. Even a little pic of an unannounced BlackBerry spreads around fan sites quicker than the online celebrity tabloids can report the latest juicy scandal. So generally a few months prior to the official announcement, a blurrycam pic of a mildly hot device will appear in the inbox of some niche website, who will quickly watermark the pic as their own and post it. Then the medium to large blogs pick up on it, followed by the news aggregators, who will keep the story alive for weeks. That’s how it’s supposed to work. But HTC clearly slept through the class when all this was explained. You see, us, along with several other sites all got slightly different pics of the same device tonight. They are all like pieces of a puzzle with the final picture making some random HTC cell phone instead of a unicorn prancing over a river of rainbows — or a mystery device from Microsoft, who tried this technique when promoting the Arc Touch Mouse. Let's begin with our pics, which as per the rules of engagement listed above, are watermarked with our logos.        
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| Was It Google And Verizon Or The FCC That Just Screwed Us On Mobile Net Neutrality? Posted: 21 Dec 2010 05:07 PM PST
Engadget dug up the FCC’s release [PDF] and found the following nugget buried in the all-important section “Measured Steps for Mobile Broadband”:
While that may read like it’s a statement from Google or Verizon — actually, the entire section reads a lot like their joint proposal — it’s actually the FCC’s statement. Yes, that’s the FCC citing Android’s openness as a reason why they don’t need to impose net neutrality rules for mobile broadband. Except wait. What the hell does an open operating system have anything to do with network access? Nilay Patel wonders this. John Gruber wonders this. Everyone should wonder this. It really does almost read as if they just copied what Google and Verizon laid out and forgot to remove the self-promotion. As Patel writes:
I am slightly more paranoid. What the hell is Android doing in that statement? I’ve made my thoughts on Android’s “openness” very clear. So have others. I believe the carriers are taking advantage of it and will continue to do so to the detriment of consumers. Now the FCC is using the “openness” label to screw us on net neutrality? Great. Why doesn’t the FCC just say something like: “We just attended this great Google conference and heard that Android was open. Therefore, we see no need to regulate mobile broadband. It’s open, you see. That’s good for everyone. That means that everyone is going to do the right thing. An open operating system ensures there won’t be any throttling or filtering. Why? Because. Well. Open! Verizon agrees.” It was only a month ago that FCC head Julius Genachowski said that the Verizon/Google proposal “slowed down” the process of coming up with a net neutrality proposal. Apparently, that’s because they had to rewrite the thing to include exactly what Verizon and Google agreed upon. And now you see the danger of Google backtracking and screwing us in this regard. It seems greed, for lack of a better word, was just too good.        
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| “Evil” D0z.me URL Shortener Facilitates DDoS Attacks Posted: 21 Dec 2010 04:27 PM PST
Conceptual hacker Ben Schmidt has combined his interest in the recent spate of DDoS attacks surrounding the WikiLeaks dump as well as what he holds to be the public’s increasing over-reliance on URL shorteners and created D0z.me. D0z.me is a “proof-of-concept” URL shortener that attacks a server while re-routing links. In theory, potential attackers could visit d0z.me and submit a link they wanted to share as well as the URL of a server they wanted to attack. When users click on the link, they are redirected to the requested site with the addition of a invisible iFrame that unleashes a LOIC-canon like Javascript DoS that runs while the user is browsing. The malevolent script runs for as long as a user continues browsing from a page and is even more potent when run from an HTML5 browser. Attackers interested in scaling attacks would then share this text with as many people as possible with the objective of either creating content that would go popular (tricking users to share the link) or have people voluntarily involve themselves in the distributed attack by clicking on the link. Schmidt makes it clear that his tool is just an illustration of how easy orchestrating something like this and getting people to attack could be. He also includes a message for people who have a nasty sense of irony and are pondering using the tool to DoS his own site: “Let’s just save each other the time and hassle and say that you win, theoretical attacker. Congratulations.”        
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| OMG/JK: Gingerbread Has Never Tasted So Delicious Posted: 21 Dec 2010 03:40 PM PST After a brief hiatus (MG was spreading the Apple gospel in Paris during Le Web), we’re back for the latest episode of OMG/JK. There’s been a lot of big news in the last couple weeks, so we had a lot to talk about. In this episode we give our first impressions of the Nexus S (MG still likes his iPhone, naturally). We also take a stab at ChromeOS, which both of us have had on our test Cr-48 laptops for over a week now. Finally, we take a look at Yahoo, which has been making headlines lately for its decision to shutter (or sell off) delicious. Here are some posts relevant to this week’s topics:
       
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| Instagram Captures A Million Users. Up Next: API, Android, And Funding Posted: 21 Dec 2010 03:20 PM PST
It took Foursquare just over a year to get a million users. It took Twitter about two years. Instagram? They accomplished the feat in less than three months. The rapid growth started early on. It took the service less than a week to get their first 100,000 users. Remarkably, they’ve apparently been able to keep up that pace. Also remarkable is how they’ve been able to scale for that rapid growth. While they started as a two-man team, they’ve since expanded the team and moved into a proper office — appropriately enough, Twitter’s original office. The’ve quickly scored some partnerships along the way. National Geographic is experimenting with using the service to share interesting photos, Twitter now includes their photos in the right-side pane, and they were a launch partner for Foursquare photos. They even got Apple executive Phil Schiller using the service. This past weekend saw them release a few new features, including two new filters, and seven new languages. But what’s next? How are they going to get their next million users? First up is likely an API, co-founder Kevin Systrom tells us. At this point, he believes that will beat their next big project out the door: an Android version of the app. Yes, they’re working on it, but Systrom says they don’t have any timing to announce on when it will happen. “Android is really important to us, and we know it’s important to lots of people too,” he says. He suspects that people will use their API to come up with interesting ways to use or interact with Instagram on different platforms. I also asked Systrom about potential updates to the bare-bones website. “Along with an API, this is going to be one of the biggest priorities going forward. Our goal is to remain mobile focused for production, but create an engaging browse/consumption experience on the web,” he says. When I asked him about the Twitter partnership and if it has led to fewer people visiting their website, he noted that every day sets a new high water mark in terms of traffic from Twitter. “If it’s one thing I’m starting to see over and over again, it’s that if you do the right thing for users, it will benefit you in the end,” he says. “Part of our philosophy is making it easier for you to broadcast your content anywhere – and I’m excited about all the integrations we’ve done so far,” he continues. A key part of Instagram’s fast growth has also been their international success — that’s the reason they’ve focused on language support early on. While the U.S. is the top country in terms of users, Japan is huge as well, Systrom notes. The service is also big in China, Taiwan, Germany, the UK, Malaysia, Canada, Indonesia, and South Korea, he says. Finally, I asked about funding. Since it was revealed that one of their original backers (before they pivoted), Andreessen Horowitz, decided to fund their rival PicPlz going forward, there have been a ton of rumors swirling about who would swoop in to back Instagram. We established the the early Sequoia talk was pure rumor. But yesterday, VentureBeat reported that Benchmark Capital may be closing in on a round with the company. We haven’t been able to confirm that, but a number of people we talked to found that scenario likely. We do know that Instagram is definitely working on a new round at this point. Sources have said there is “a ton” of interest in backing the company — hardly surprising given the traction they’re seeing. And the amount is likely to be in the same $5 million range that PicPlz got. Systrom, naturally, won’t comment on any of that. So after the million user milestone, expect funding, an API, a revamped website, and an Android app, in that order.        
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| Judge Sides With Google, Throws Out Android Trademark Suit Posted: 21 Dec 2010 01:28 PM PST
Last week, Google got some good news: a judge granted Google’s Motion for Summary Judgment to throw out the case. The judge has also canceled Specht’s original trademark, on the grounds that it could result in confusion with Google’s mark, and because Specht has already used it “as a sword” against Google.:
The order, which you can read below, gives a timeline of how Specht’s companies came to acquire the Android trademark, and then subsequently lost it. Specht created the Android Data Software Suite, which he licensed from 1998 through 2002 to three clients, generating some $600,000. He filed for the Trademark ANDROID DATA with the USPTO in June 2000, and it was granted in October 2002. Unfortunately 2002 proved to be a bad year for the company — all of its clients either stopped licensing the software or went under, and Android Data essentially shut down as Specht attempted to sell its assets and abandoned the Android Data mark. It lay dormant for years until someone tipped Specht off to Google’s use of “Android”, and he threw up a quick website to ‘prove’ that he was still using the mark. Obviously the court didn’t buy it. Reached for comment, Google gave this statement:
Specht Order        
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| Gowalla Snaps Back: 1 Million Photos …But Foursquare May Hit That In 2 Weeks Posted: 21 Dec 2010 01:15 PM PST
Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley told Business Insider yesterday that they were already approaching one photo per second. I checked back with Crowley today and he says they’re still not there quite yet but to ask him again “in a few days”. And when they hit that rate, that means it will take them about 11 and a half days to hit a million photos. In other words, in two weeks, Foursquare could have a million photos as well. Now, it’s not exactly a fair fight. Foursquare launched their photo functionality with three big partners: Instagram, PicPlz, and Foodspotting. Based on just what I see in my Foursquare timeline, those guys are contributing quite a bit to the Foursquare picture mania — especially Instagram. Gowalla has no such partnerships for pictures. That being said, those partner pictures still do reside on Foursquare’s servers when they’re transferred from each of those services — for example, here’s a lovely picture of some beer I took with Instagram to check-in to Foursquare — so they do count as Foursquare pictures. Also remember that Foursquare just launched this feature yesterday and not all users have updated their apps yet. And the Android version with pictures won’t hit until next week (with BlackBerry and webOS coming early next year). In fact, Crowley just tweeted about testers being needed for the Android version. Once the feature is fully out there, they could just rocket past the picture-per-second rate. For some perspective, Flickr recently hit 5 billion photos. And they’re seeing 3,000 images uploaded every minute. Above, find the 1 millionth Gowalla photo taken by user “Anna B.” at Chinese Arts Centre in Manchester, UK. (Humorously, Crowley “liked” the Gowalla post on Tumblr.) Update: Crowley suspects it may take a little longer than two weeks to hit the milestone just because of the ramp up and holiday. But he is acknowledging that it will happen very fast.        
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| Motorola Close To Acquiring Cloud Storage Startup Zecter Posted: 21 Dec 2010 12:44 PM PST
So why would Motorola want Zecter? The startup has a number of compelling cloud storage products that have steadily gained traction amongst users. Zecter’s ZumoDrive offers a simple cloud storage and syncing service with a slight twist. Similar to other storage services, Zumodrive creates a drive on your device that is synced to the cloud. But service includes a slightly different twist-ZumoDrive tricks the file system into thinking those cloud-stored files are local, and streams them from the cloud when you open or access them. ZumoDrive wirelessly syncs playlists between devices, auto-detects content, and lets users link file folders on their devices to ZumoDrive only once so that changes in that folder will always be linked to ZumoDrive. The service also integrates with media applications, like iTunes, so users can play entire music libraries saved in ZumoDrive on multiple devices without manually syncing content. And ZumoDrive offers a number of mobile apps, including native offerings for iPhone, Android and Palm smartphones. Motorola could be looking to add Zecter’s storage technologies to its suite of mobile phones. Zecter recently launched ZumoCast, another cloud storage service. ZumoCast was launched as a way to avoid cloud storage costs on multiple devices. The app essentially turns your computer into a personal cloud server that streams your media libraries to your mobile devices upon demand. And it eliminates the cloud when syncing video and music on devices. As more consumers move to the cloud, the startup has seen considerable success with ZumoDrive, raising $1.5 million in funding and landing a deal with HP to provide the cloud storage app on netbook devices. Zecter, which was co-founded by David Zhao, previously launched a product called Versionate, an office-wiki product, that we first covered in July 2007. We wrote about them again a year ago. ZumoDrive faces competition from Dropbox, SugarSync, and Box.net. Over the past few months, Motorola has acquired connected home software developer 4Home, location based mobile software startup Aloqa and reportedly bought 280 North in August.        
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| FCC Net Neutrality Vote Is Just The Beginning Posted: 21 Dec 2010 12:30 PM PST
"Given the importance of an open Internet to our economic future…it is essential that the FCC fulfill its historic role as a cop on the beat to ensure the vitality of our communications networks and to empower and protect consumers of those networks," FCC commissioner Julian Genachowski said at the meeting. The idea of the FCC as an Internet traffic cop does not sit well with many. FCC commissioner Robert McDowell, who voted against the rules, emphasized the divisiveness of about Genachowski’s proposition,“We agree that the Internet should remain open and freedom-enhancing…Beyond that, we disagree. The contrast between our perspectives could not be sharper.” What was actually voted on today has still yet to be published, but according to reports it lays out two different frameworks for fixed broadband and mobile broadband traffic. In both cases carriers like Comcast or Verizon will need to provide transparency to customers and will be prohibited from blocking competing services such Google Voice or Skype. The discrepancy between the way the two different services are handled and the precise meaning of “reasonable network management practices” is what has the opposition in a huff. Initial reports of the regulations describe them as explicitly forbidding providers to accept pay for unreasonable traffic prioritization in the case of broadband and offering no such protections in the case of mobile broadband. If today’s vote has succeeded in anything it is in creating debate as to whether or not the FCC has ultimate authority to regulate Internet practices. Republicans have already started to make noise about blocking the regulations when a more Republican Congress takes over in January. McDowell has also hinted at potential blocks from courts “the F.C.C. has provocatively chartered a collision course with the legislative branch." This is not without precedent: A federal appeals court ruling against the FCC in April quashed the FCC’s authority as it attempted to enforce net neutrality principles against Comcast for discriminating against file sharing. Verizon’s official reaction to today’s vote also underscored the fact that the FCC has an ongoing struggle on their hands, “This assertion of authority without solid statutory underpinnings will yield continued uncertainty for industry, innovators, and investors. In the long run, that is harmful to consumers and the nation.”        
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| Salesforce Buys Email Contact Manager Etacts Posted: 21 Dec 2010 11:42 AM PST
Etacts, which launched in February of this year, connects with your Gmail account (using oAuth), and integrates with your inbox to build out your list of contacts. The service also allows you to connect your mobile phone will track who you talk to frequently over the phone or SMS. Etacts will then rank contacts by how often you communicate with them, the total number of communications, how long it’s been since you’ve corresponded with contacts and will send you reminders of when you should reach out to contacts, and prioritize messages. In terms of funding, Etacts raised $700,000 in angel funding from on Ron Conway, Joshua Schachter, Jawed Karim, Ashton Kutcher and others. Etacts also developed EmailOracle, a Gmail plug-in that tracks your messages, provides analytics, and sends you reminders. The Salesforce acquisition makes sense considering how useful Etacts’ technology could be within the CRM giant’s flagship product. Clearly, since it is shutting the service down, Salesforce is looking to integrate the technology into its own applications. This is the company’s sixth acquisition of the year. Salesforce just bought Heroku for $212 million and earlier purchases include Activa Live, Sitemasher and Jigsaw.        
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| Q: Why Did Twitter Acqhire Fluther? A: “Search Is Mature,” Social Q&A Is Still “Wide Open” Posted: 21 Dec 2010 11:12 AM PST
People already ask a lot of questions on Twitter, but it is not designed as a structured social Q&A site like Quora. But that may change judging by a talent acquisition of the team at Fluther, a social Q&A service founded in 2007 that raised $600,000 from Ron Conway, Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, and Naval Ravikant. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Twitter did not buy the Fluther product or shares of the company. Rather it entered into an agreement with the five-person team to join Twitter in return for some sort of compensation to Fluther’s shareholders. I reached CEO and founder Ben Finkel on the phone a few minutes ago. He couldn’t get into details of the deal and isn’t even sure what his new title is going to be or where exactly inside Twitter his team will land. “It is too early to say,” he tells me. What he will say about how the deal is this: “We were basically planning to raise another round, then people started to talk to us about an acquisition. Once we thought about it, given where we were, it made a lot of sense.” Fluther offers a crowd-sourced Q&A service along the lines of Aardvark, Quora, and even Yahoo Answers. What distinguished Fluther is how it tries to deliver an answer in realtime and distributes questions to people based on what they know. The company was branching out into a federated Q&A product which could be used by different websites, but all share the same database. Like most Q&A sites, the majority of its traffic came from organic search, although Twitter aso produced a “healthy amount of traffic.” Finkel says the site has more than 1 million unique visitors a month,and is growing quickly. But based on external estimates such as Google Trends for Websites, it appears that it was recently overtaken by Quora (see chart below). The Fluther site will continue to operate independently, but the team will now work on other projects at Twitter. What exactly they are going to work on Finkel wouldn’t get into, but it is a fair assumption that Twitter acq-hired the Fluther team for its expertise in social Q&A. That could mean that Twitter is going to go after Quora now, or perhaps that it simply wants to do a better job organizing all the questions and answers already on Twitter. Speaking generally about why social Q&A sites are so hot right now, Finkel suggests that it is because it is an entirely new way to search for information: “Search is overly mature. People want to interact with other people. Ultimately, it is still a hard problem because you are connecting people who don’t know each other. It is still a huge, wide-open space.” I will speculate a little here and take that thought one step further. Twitter also is about “connecting people who don’t know each other,” at least people who only know each other online for the most part. Social Q&A works better the more people who can potentially answer a given question, but there needs to be some connection, otherwise it’s no different than Yahoo Answers. Whether or not you trust someone’s answer might depend on who else they are connected to. The relevance of a given answer therefore depends on the authority of the person giving the answer, and authority is relative to each questioner. Twitter is already trying to solve the social relevance problems in different ways. Q&A is the next logical step. So here’s my question: How long will it take before we see a Q&A product inside Twitter?
       
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| The Pandora-Elevation Deal that Never Closed and a Mid-2011 IPO? Posted: 21 Dec 2010 10:53 AM PST
Here’s what we’ve been able to piece together, from several sources on different sides of the negotiating table. Many of Pandora’s founders and executives had been reticent to do any sort of partial liquidation. For one thing, the company has raised so much funding even the founders didn’t own Mark-Zuckerberg-like-equity in the company. And Pandora had gone through so many near deaths trying to stay afloat between the Scylla (the RIAA) and Charybdis (Congress), suffering through layoffs and months of foregone paychecks. Like people who lived through the Great Depression and insist on rinsing and reusing paper towels, Pandora has been careful to put all its venture capital towards securing the business, not lining the founders’ pockets. But Pandora isn’t in the Great Depression anymore. It’s a surging company thanks in part to its wildly successful mobile apps, with more investor attention than it can handle. It was Elevation that started to shake the tree and found that an earlier investor, a hedge fund called King Street Capital, was hungry to cash in their shares at a mild step-up from Elevation’s most recent valuation, somewhere in the hundreds of millions, but south of $1 billion. It wasn’t a reflection on the company, but the hedge fund isn’t really in the venture business and was anxious to lock in a nice return on its investment, said someone close to the matter. That forced the conversation of whether or not some founders and executives would also like to cash out some shares, which several did. And rightfully so. We’re big fans of partial liquidations when they’re done right. Founders live on scant salaries for so long, and have so much of their net worth invested in their startups that taking a small percentage off the table helps align them with investors who want them to go for the big win. So, given all this, back in August things were looking good for Elevation. Their window for new investments was closing and it looked like they’d be able to squeeze in one more with Pandora. Enough investors wanted to sell stock, and there was a willingness to let the firm buy them. Only one thing got in the way: How well Pandora was doing. The existing investors had the right of first refusal on an shares changing hands and they all wanted more of the company and happily gobbled up the shares for a slight increase over the previous valuation. I hear that Greylock did the lion’s share of it, but most existing shareholders participated. The round wound up being nowhere near as large as we originally reported– under $50 million, in part because so few early shareholders wanted to part with large chunks of stock. And with good reason: We’ve heard Pandora is teeing up for a mid-2011 IPO, according a firm they contacted about potentially working on it. That’s not a huge shock given the hiring of well-heeled CFO Steve Cakebread earlier this year, and its recent ad revenue expansion into things like home-connected devices. Someone is getting gussied up for the ball. What does this mean for Elevation? The fund is still mostly riding on Facebook and Yelp. Facebook’s surging valuation– even if it’s all on paper and just on the secondary markets– isn’t a bad consolation prize.        
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| Email Contact Manager Etacts Shuts Down Posted: 21 Dec 2010 10:47 AM PST
Etacts, which launched in February of this year, is sort of like a CRM for your email contacts. The service connects with your Gmail account (using oAuth), and integrates with your inbox to build out your list of contacts. The service also allows you to connect your mobile phone will track who you talk to frequently over the phone or SMS. Etacts will then rank contacts by how often you communicate with them, the total number of communications, how long it’s been since you’ve corresponded with contacts and will send you reminders of when you should reach out to contacts, and prioritize messages. Etacts raised $700,000 in angel funding from on Ron Conway, Joshua Schachter, Jawed Karim, Ashton Kutcher and others. Here’s the message Etacts sent out to users:
       
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| SoundCloud Adds Android Version Of Its Mobile App Posted: 21 Dec 2010 10:43 AM PST
       
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Do you carry an iPad? Do you need it always stuck to your hand? This is the product for you. This $60 case protects and attaches your iPad to your hand, ensuring you can be “that guy” when people mention iPads. I ran this old girl through her paces and thanks to a very special assistant I discovered that having an iPad stuck to your appendage is not a fun way to live. This 
It’s a done deal. As we 
For whatever reason, Amazon won’t come out and say just how many 
TechCrunch Disrupt finalist 
Psst. Wanna know a secret? Most of the blurrycam pics and backroom shots are really planned leaks. They’re not taken by some reader loyal to specific blog that’s willing to risk his job just to pass on something cool. No, most are taken by some random PR flack whose manager then decides what outlet gets the pics and when. Think of it as corporate “astroturfing.” Everyone does it.
We’ve already covered 
It was exactly three months ago yesterday that 
Back in April 2009 — before the incredible rise of Android had really picked up steam — Google’s mobile operating system faced a challenger that had almost nothing to do with cell phones. Erich Specht, a man who ran a data company called Android Data from 1998 through 2002, came forward to say that 
Yesterday morning, 
We heard earlier today that Y Combinator-funded 
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