The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- Felicia Day, From SXSW Volunteer To Keynote Speaker
- The Ever-Elusive Mobile Wallet: Why NFC Chips Are Overhyped And Will Underdeliver
- KIT digital Buys Polymedia For $34.4 Million, Teases Big Upcoming Acquisition
- Techonomy3 Is Go! See You In Tel Aviv And At Kinnernet
- Doximity Raises $10.8M, Helps Physicians Connect On The Web – And On The Go
- BLiNQ Media Buys Ruby on Rails Shop Calculated Combustion, Names CTO
- The Android Kill Switch: Mea Culpa
- Google Docs Makes Commenting More Collaborative With Structured Discussions
- Motorola Xoom WiFi Hitting Seven Retailers March 27th For $599
- Intermec Acquires Mobile Lifecycle Services Company Enterprise Mobile
- Plaxo Goes Back To Being A Smart Address Book, Launches Virtual Assistant
- Genius.com Raises Series E Funding – Misspells ‘Genius’
- David Letterman Runs Down The Top 10 Reasons To Buy An iPad 2
- Visa Unveils PayPal-Like Personal Payments Service For U.S. Consumers
- Just-Eat Closes $48 million Funding To Scale Globally
- San Francisco Controller Publishes Candid Report On How Badly They Need Twitter
- Actually, AOL Didn’t Ask Us To ‘Tone It Down’ – Moviefone Did. And Their Editor-In-Chief Should Be Fired
- San Francisco Doing Everything It Can To Drive Zynga And Twitter Away
- Netflix Gets Into The Original Content Game, Buys Upcoming Show For A Rumored $100m
- In Preparation For Its “Social Buying” Launch, ‘Facebook Deals’ Get A New Landing Page
- SoundTracking Sings The Praises Of “Mobile-First” And “From-The-Ground-Up Social”
- Study: Mobile Ad-Tracking Systems Are “Blind” To 80 Percent Of Apple iOS Devices
- Google’s Revamped iPhone App Now Worth Using; Could Be Better Still
- T-Mobile, Sprint Waive Japan Calling And Texting Fees
- Twitter Enables “Always Use HTTPS” Setting
| Felicia Day, From SXSW Volunteer To Keynote Speaker Posted: 16 Mar 2011 09:15 AM PDT SXSW Keynoter Felicia Day is a post-modern day success story. After feeling frustrated with mainstream media’s lack of enthusiasm for stories about gamers, she took her idea for a series based around a MMORPG video game to YouTube. After being fan-supported for season one, the half-hour web series The Guild was eventually sponsored by Microsoft and Sprint and released on Xbox. In its fourth season, the series has an impressive 100 million viewers. Day took the time to talk to TCTV about web series, online identity and how to create content for niche but massively growing online audiences. Key takeaway, “[Don't] think of the web as a backdoor way to get into mainstream, although that might be successful. It’s very hard to market content that mainstream people would like on the web … The web is a place where niche audiences drive success, because it’s so hard to please everyone. You have to be targeted and know where your audience is going to be.” Day, who attended UT Austin, was actually a volunteer at SXSW in 1998-1999. Amazing.        
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| The Ever-Elusive Mobile Wallet: Why NFC Chips Are Overhyped And Will Underdeliver Posted: 16 Mar 2011 08:53 AM PDT
The idea of turning your mobile phone into a digital wallet has a long and fruitless history. People are getting excited again about the prospect of mobile wallets replacing those in your pocket overstuffed with receipts and credit cards because both Google and Apple are pursuing the concept. The key technology that could make mobile wallets a reality are near field communication (NFC) chips. Google is already supporting NFC chips in Android phones such as the Nexus S and is expected to roll out tests of wave-and-pay systems at stores in New York City and San Francisco. Apple has been working on putting its own NFC chips in iPhones since at least last summer, although recent reports suggest the technology won’t be ready for the next iPhone 5. There is no doubt that if Apple or Google can make NFC chips in phones a mainstream payment option, it could upend the payments industry and put either of these two technology companies smack in the middle of billions of dollars of commercial transactions. Apple could tie the mobile wallets to people’s iTunes accounts, and Google could tie it to Google Checkout or some other account. But before that happens, there are a few things standing in their way: Local merchants, credit card companies, and consumer behavior. In order for mobile wallets to take off, they not only need to be built into millions of phones (Apple and Google will solve that problem), new NFC-chip readers also need to be installed at millions of retailers so that consumers can wave phones at checkout. These readers cost a few hundred dollars each, and retailers need one per cash register. Local merchants and even national retailers are not going to be jumping at the chance to spend money on this equipment until NFC chips are standard in practically every new mobile phone. Google might need to initially subsidize the NFC readers is it wants merchants to adopt them (Apple probably wouldn’t do that, “subsidize” is not a word in its vocabulary). Once the NFC chips are in both enough handsets and retail registers, then an even bigger hurdle needs to be overcome: consumer behavior. Waving your phone to pay for something is not a natural act. I have an NFC chip in my Chase ATM/Visa card (they call it Blink), and I have never once used it. I would never even think to use it. Waving a card (or phone, for that matter) over a reader is not a huge improvement in ease or convenience to simply swiping a credit card. Credit cards work. More importantly, people know how they work. They are not going to stop swiping and start waving without some incentive to do so. But okay, let’s say that brands start tying rewards with mobile payments and everyone switches over. It is very likely that the merchants will start to become unhappy. Why? Imagine you are in line at a checkout with your iPhone or Android equipped with an NFC chip for mobile payments. The cashier asks you to tap your phone on the reader. But what are you doing? You are checking your email, sending a Tweet, or checking into Foursquare, and you tell the cashier to hold on a minute. That’s right, you’re holding up the line. In the end, merchants only care about two things: speeding up their checkout lines and cutting costs. Mobile wallets will fail on both those counts. Without getting merchants on board, mobile payments will be a bust. But wait, there’s one more huge obstacle. The credit card companies don’t want to be shoved aside by new payment systems. They will fight tooth and nail against adoption of these technologies or insist that the payments be tied to credit card accounts. But even if your iPhone becomes tied to your Visa account, credit card companies still lose. Right now, their brands are very tangible things that you keep in your wallet and hold in your hands. Their brands are front and center every time you pay with your card. But once they are relegated to the status of an app on your phone, they won’t seem nearly so important. So don’t count the lowly credit card out just yet. More and more, you will probably see deals lik the one American Express struck with Foursquare, where the physical swipe of a card triggers special offers and loyalty rewards. All of the benefits of a mobile wallet—loyalty tracking, geo-coupons, group discounts—can just as easily be tied to physical credit cards. And they will be. It’s a good thing NFC chips can be used for other applications besides just payments. Photo via MacRumors        
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| KIT digital Buys Polymedia For $34.4 Million, Teases Big Upcoming Acquisition Posted: 16 Mar 2011 08:15 AM PDT
KIT digital, provider of video asset management software and related services, has acquired Italy-based Polymedia for a net consideration of $34.4 million plus performance-based earnouts. Polymedia is the IP video platform-provisioning subsidiary of TXT e-solutions, a company listed on the Italian Stock Exchange. Thus continues the buying spree of KIT digital. In the past twelve months, it has snapped up Multicast, BenchMark Broadcast Systems, Brickbox, KickApps, Kewego and Kyte. And apparently, that’s just the beginning (see bottom of this post). Polymedia’s technology is based on a set of proprietary tools that KIT digital hopes will allow it to more rapidly deploy its network operator and broadcaster solutions. Current deployments include video-on-demand (VOD) stores, subscription VOD, e-commerce integrated product placement promotions and advertising-sponsored content. The company’s approximately 90 clients include Telecom Italia, Mediaset, Sky Germany, RAI, Vodafone Italia, Ericsson and Belgacom. Polymedia has a total full-time staff of approximately 150, plus more than 70 contractors. Polymedia, which is profitable, is expected to contribute approximately $19 million in annualized revenue, derived primarily from software licenses, maintenance fees and professional services. KIT digital management expects the Polymedia acquisition to be accretive. The transaction includes guaranteed payments of $34.4 million at closing (expected in April 2011), comprised of $17.2 million in cash and up to $17.2 million in KIT digital common stock. An additional amount will be paid in cash as an offset against positive working capital at closing, and the transaction includes up to $4.2 million of KIT digital stock or cash, subject to performance-based earnouts at the first and second anniversary of the transaction. Following the completion of the acquisition, KIT digital expects to have approximately 39.3 million common shares outstanding and approximately $90 million in cash and equivalents. The company says its client base currently totals more than 2,000 customers across more than 40 countries. In a separate press statement issued this morning, KIT digital released its quarterly results, and the company included this fascinating passage:
Anyone wants to make a guess on who they’re buying next? Myspace? Yahoo? AOL?        
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| Techonomy3 Is Go! See You In Tel Aviv And At Kinnernet Posted: 16 Mar 2011 07:45 AM PDT
But for now I’m really looking forward to heading back to Israel for the awesome Techonomy3 (grab tickets here) event, and before it, Kinnernet. This year’s Techonomy3 event is taking place on April 5th, 2011, and will be a day filled with tech startup launches out of Israel. Hang on to your hats folks!        
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| Doximity Raises $10.8M, Helps Physicians Connect On The Web – And On The Go Posted: 16 Mar 2011 07:35 AM PDT
One of the founders of NASDAQ-listed mobile health software applications maker Epocrates is back with a new startup called Doximity. The young health technology company this morning announced that it has landed a $10.8 million Series A venture capital investment from Emergence Capital Partners and InterWest Partners. The additional funding will be used to accelerate development of Doximity’s physician network, a free communication platform for healthcare professionals across the United States. Doximity basically enables physicians to use their iPhone, iPad, Android device or computer to connect with any other healthcare professional in the U.S. to collaborate on patient treatment or identify the appropriate expert for patient referrals. The software also offers physicians the a text messaging system, supporting care teams with high-resolution images. Doximity is led by Jeff Tangney, co-founder and former President & COO of Epocrates.         
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| BLiNQ Media Buys Ruby on Rails Shop Calculated Combustion, Names CTO Posted: 16 Mar 2011 07:03 AM PDT
Facebook ad management media and technology company BLiNQ Media has acquired Ruby on Rails software development firm Calculated Combustion for an undisclosed sum. In addition, the company has promoted VP of technology & product development Luis Caballero to the role of chief technology officer. Caballero, previously technology director at Vitrue, has been working for BLiNQ since March 2010 and played an instrumental role in the development of the company's proprietary Facebook advertising platform, BAM (an acronym that stands for BLiNQ Ad Manager). So why buy Calculated Combustion? Well, first of all, it’s not really an acquisition as you might imagined it to have gone down. When Caballero started working for BLiNQ, he brought on his former Vitrue colleague Micah Wedemeyer to work with the company as well, on a contract basis, when the latter was still Calculated Combustion's CTO. Wedemeyer later recruited Calculated Combustion CEO and President Ryan Felton to further enhance the BLiNQ development effort, and by the end of April 2010 all three were working on BAM full-time. In essence, BLiNQ simply hired some Ruby on Rails talent. Be that as it may, BLiNQ founder and CEO Dave Williams says the open-source Web application framework is important for the company because it enables its team to respond instantly to Facebook API changes, where it may delay other companies for “up to three months”. In related news, social shopping giant LivingSocial made a similar move yesterday, buying RoR specialist InfoEther.        
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| The Android Kill Switch: Mea Culpa Posted: 16 Mar 2011 07:03 AM PDT
Over the weekend I wrote a piece which argued that walled gardens were conquering the Internet, and Google’s ability to to remotely delete apps from Android devices effectively turned Android into a “subtler but no less forbidding” walled garden than Apple’s iOS ecosystem. Today I am pleased to report that on one key point I was completely wrong. I assumed that since Google can remotely delete apps downloaded from Android Market, then they could also use the same mechanism to remotely delete any apps, so long as Android Market is installed on the target device (which is the case for all Google-endorsed Android devices.) It turns out that that was a failure of imagination. My sources inform me that the remote kill switch does not work on apps from other sources. Right now it’s something of a moot point, since the vast majority of Android apps are downloaded from the Android Market, but rivals like GetJar and Amazon’s app store will increasingly provide significant competition. It’ll be interesting to see if they too come with a remote deletion service. Regardless, kudos to Google for building a system that is more open than I appreciated. Image credit: Shira Golding, Flickr        
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| Google Docs Makes Commenting More Collaborative With Structured Discussions Posted: 16 Mar 2011 07:00 AM PDT
Google Docs has always been an easy way to collaborate over a documents because many users can access the documents at the same time. But today, Google is stepping up the collaboration factor with more structured, threaded discussions. While previously users could add comments in Google Documents, today, Google is upgrading these comments to an actual discussions-like format within the document. Comments are easier to see and visualize with timestamps and profile pictures from the Google account of the commenter. One of the more significant changes is that if comments are not integrated with your Gmail inbox. So when a document you’ve created is commented on, you’ll receive an email with the comment. You can also @mention someone (with their gmail address) to add them to a discussion, and he or she will receive a notification email with the text of the comment. Users can reply within the email or click to the comment in the actual document and reply within Google Docs (Docs users can also mute the email notifications feature). Within Google Docs, discussions are located to the right of the document and are separated by thread and topic. If you’d like to remove comments from a document but want to save them for later, you can “resolve” a discussion thread. The thread will be removed from the document but can be accessed via the discussions button at the top of any document. That way users can keep a record of all discussions made around a document. As Google Docs Product Manager Scott Johnson tells us, existing comments within Google docs doesn’t work from a discussions and sharing comments over email on a doc doesn’t work from a collaboration standpoint. This release helps solve that problem, he says. Like with many products in the Google family, Google employees have been using this next-generation commenting system for several months and the response has been positive around adding structure and email integration to discussions in documents. It seems like a useful addition to the product, and one that definitely makes docs more collaborative. Discussions will be available in the next few days to all users with personal Google Accounts as well as to Google Apps customers on the Rapid Release track. Improved comments are only available in new documents for now.
       
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| Motorola Xoom WiFi Hitting Seven Retailers March 27th For $599 Posted: 16 Mar 2011 06:26 AM PDT
The wait is nearly over, Android fans. The WiFi-only flavor of the Xoom is set to hit a bunch of retailers in just over two weeks on March 27th. Amazon, Best Buy, Costco, RadioShack, Staples, Walmart, and select Sam’s Club locations should all offer the tablet both in stores and through their respective online services. The WiFi-only flavor packs everything found in the 3G counterpart besides the obvious missing cellular modem. The dual cameras, the 32GB storage, 10.1-inch screen, and tasty Honeycomb OS remain. This is the model that the Android crowd has very loudly stated online can stand up to an iPad 2. But did it hit too late?        
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| Intermec Acquires Mobile Lifecycle Services Company Enterprise Mobile Posted: 16 Mar 2011 06:22 AM PDT  Voice and data solutions company Intermec today announced the acquisition of Enterprise Mobile, a provider of lifecycle services for mobile devices. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
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| Plaxo Goes Back To Being A Smart Address Book, Launches Virtual Assistant Posted: 16 Mar 2011 05:58 AM PDT
With its launch of Pulse in 2007, Plaxo expanded into the social networking space, going beyond the address book to aggregate information feeds, like Flickr photos and calendars. Though the results were mixed (if not poor), its core business was attractive enough to draw the attention of Comcast, which acquired Plaxo for $150 million the following year. Since then, the company has tried to distance itself from its somewhat controversial past. Last year, long-time CEO Ben Golub stepped down and was replaced by Justin Miller, who had been acting as GM. Under Miller’s direction, Plaxo has become increasingly focused on working its way back to what gave birth to the company in the first place: trying to solve the problem of “address book decay”, a fancy way of saying “keeping your address book up to date”. Recognizing how many of us struggle to keep our contacts up to date, Plaxo began devising products that would enhance its service, like a "smart search" tool that would act as if it were an executive assistant, using algorithms to comb the web and the Plaxo database around the clock to keep your directory up to date. Today, Plaxo unveils what it has spent the last year building: a new family of address book-related services and what it hopes will be its golden goose, the Plaxo Personal Assistant, a service that intelligently makes automatic updates to your address book so that your contact information is always relevant. This announcement marks a significant relaunch for Plaxo, in which the company will begin to officially segue out of social networking and return to those “address book roots”. Now, if you’re like me, you have several partial address books that you keep in a number of social networks, Web-based email accounts and on multiple mobile devices and hard drives, and you find keeping them up to date and secure to be a huge pain in the ass. The Plaxo Personal Assistant is designed to address this fragmentation by ensuring that your address book remains up to date in near realtime, so you have current information when you need it. To accomplish this, Plaxo has forged partnerships with public profile databases, like ZoomInfo, to allow its software to crawl the swaths of public data available in these hubs. It compares your address book information with the database profiles and, if it finds information that it thinks is more current, sends you a recommendation that you can approve or reject. When you begin using the service, Plaxo will automatically alert you every time it finds more current data and seek your approval. However, the software is built to learn as it goes, so that, ostensibly, after accumulating enough data over a period of time, it will be able to auto approve — though the settings will allow you to choose. And, as the assistant may find multiple updates at one time, the service has a built-in interface that enables bulk approval. As to the extent of Plaxo’s partnerships with public databases, CEO Justin Miller told me that the company is currently negotiating contracts with several other databases akin to ZoomInfo but was unable to share specifics for legal reasons. As Plaxo is using scripts to crawl public data and compare it with your private info, security is an obvious concern. Miller assured me that Plaxo’s primary concern is keeping the 600 million unique contacts in Plaxo’s cloud private. During the process of vetting potential database partners, he said, the company was forced to reject several companies because they did not meet Plaxo’s security standards. Obviously, in light of Plaxo’s checkered history with spamming and data scraping, this is very reassuring.
The company also now “officially” offers apps for iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, and Windows Mobile. Miller said that a Plaxo Android app is on the way. Plaxo will continue to offer its “Platinum Sync” service, which allows two-way, realtime synchronization of your address book across your various devices and hardware, providing a consistent, updated address book from wherever you access it. And Platinum Sync and the Personal Assistant can be purchased together at a discounted price. In his “State of Social Networking” post in December, VC Mark Suster described Plaxo as an old guard and past-its-prime company that “never quite figured out what to do with us all once we were connected online”. This impression of Plaxo is not uncommon. And seeing as other digital address books, sync services, and tools, like Gist, Xobni, Network Hippo, WhitePages’ Hiya, and Soocial are trying to gain traction and market share in similar, if not the same, space, Plaxo’s relaunch today is designed to shake its reputation as a social network — and to establish it as the definitive resource for our contact info. (Because no one quite seems to have done that yet.) The influence of the address book in our online social lives only continues to grow, and it has become a battleground. You know that when Google boots Facebook merging from its phone book on Nexus Ses, the players in the space aren’t messing around. Control over the address book is something to covet. And considering that Plaxo told me it has added 380,000 new users with address books in the last year, it had some momentum going into its relaunch. But whether it can go from the fringe to the center of the conversation remains to be seen. “We’re trying to put forth a new perception in peoples’ minds”, Plaxo GM Preston Smalley told me, “because otherwise they tend to fall back on old impressions”. At SxSW, Miller added, there are “a lot of sexy apps being launched”, but Plaxo’s relaunch and suite of new products aren’t intended to be flashy, nor focused on attracting page views, but on being seen as a utility for busy professionals. “Getting rid of Plaxo’s social networking”, Miller continued, is essential to getting back to the company’s bread and butter — keeping your address book updated, synced, and secured.        
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| Genius.com Raises Series E Funding – Misspells ‘Genius’ Posted: 16 Mar 2011 05:40 AM PDT
Genius.com this morning announced that it has closed its fifth round of venture capital funding, led by Emergence Capital. Existing investors Mohr Davidow Ventures, Accel Partners and Deep Fork Capital also participated in the round, while earlier backer Walden International apparently did not. The size of the round was not disclosed – Genius.com had raised over $40 million over four rounds in the past according to CrunchBase. In a stupendous twist of irony, the San Mateo company managed to misspell its own name in the press release (screenshot below for posterity), triggering yours truly to chuckle. Update: looks like they fixed it. Funny typos aside, Genius.com, which offers marketing automation and sales lead management solutions, says it has been operating profitably and will use the additional capital to step up product development and marketing efforts. The company also announced it has promoted Sam Weber from COO to CEO. Genius.com co-founder David Thompson will step aside but stick around as strategic advisor.
       
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| David Letterman Runs Down The Top 10 Reasons To Buy An iPad 2 Posted: 16 Mar 2011 05:35 AM PDT
You know a product has official hit the public’s consciousness when the late night shows get in on the fun. That’s just what happened last night as Letterman gave the latest iPad his trademarked Top 10 treatment. Apparently he’s addicted to “the damn thing.” Just one thing, Dave. The iPad 2 starts out at $500, not $600. Just saying not that it really changes point number one all that much. Month of fuel > iPad 2.        
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| Visa Unveils PayPal-Like Personal Payments Service For U.S. Consumers Posted: 16 Mar 2011 05:21 AM PDT
Now, bank customers of participating financial institutions will have the option to select a Visa account as the destination for funds when making a personal payment. Users enter the recipient's 16-digit Visa account, email address or mobile phone number, allowing consumers to send funds directly from their bank account to a recipient's Visa account, similar to the act of sending money on PayPal. Visa is actually working with outside company CashEdge to offer this service. Previously, Visa’s personal payments was offered by financial institutions outside the U.S. but the availability in in the U.S. is a big deal, considering the popularity of PayPal. Of course, the virtue of using PayPal is that you don’t have to have a Visa account to use its payments service. Visa has consistently been looking for ways to build its online presence in payments. For example, earlier this year, the company bought virtual goods monetization platform PlaySpan. Competing with PayPal, which has a massive userbase, may be a formidable challenge.        
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| Just-Eat Closes $48 million Funding To Scale Globally Posted: 16 Mar 2011 02:18 AM PDT
Just-Eat now plans an international roll-out. Right now it’s in ten countries and three continents and working with 15,000 restaurants. The company claims to generate over $500m of revenue for local businesses in 2011, buy linking up normal restaurant POS and ordering systems with an aggregator site which takes orders for takeaway food.        
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| San Francisco Controller Publishes Candid Report On How Badly They Need Twitter Posted: 16 Mar 2011 12:55 AM PDT
Or even, apparently, that the city’s own economists disagree with him. A new report published by the city and county’s Office of the Controller outlines the absolute absurdity of San Francisco’s tax treatment of technology startups. The entire report is embedded below. The background: San Francisco taxes startups like no other city in the world. Not only is there a 1.5% payroll tax, but the city also tries to tax stock option gains, something so audacious that no other city, anywhere, tries to do the same. See Sarah Lacy’s February 18 article on how that tax can actually eat up most of the money a company might raise in an initial public offering, ranging into the tens of millions of dollars. Twitter, Zynga and other startups are threatening to leave the city unless the taxes are waived for a period of time. The stock option tax appears to be the biggest issue. From the report:
and
The report goes on to illustrate how much more expensive it is to do business in San Francisco than even South San Francisco, just to the south. San Francisco charges the payroll tax (averaging $1,500 per person per year at Twitter), whereas South San Francisco charges a $15/year fee per employee (yes, fifteen dollars). Another factor – rent in SSF is about $35/square foot, compared to $100 in SF. The report also says that it makes financial sense to give Twitter a tax waiver, saying that it would bring in $52 million more in tax revenue over the next twenty years:
Of course, that assumes that other startups will flock to the area, and they’d be taxed normally. But there also other tax benefits. Note the last sentence in the paragraph above. How will the Board of Supervisors vote tomorrow on the proposed tax free-area? We’ll have to wait and see. But at least the city economists have some idea of how destructive all of these taxes are, and how much the city needs companies like Twitter, Zynga and Salesforce (and TechCrunch!). Being based in San Francisco is nice, so all your hipster designers can ride their bikes to work every day. But being shaken down by the Board of Supervisors for tens of millions of dollars, and regularly trashed in the press, may be a little too much for these startups and their venture capitalists, to handle. Those hipsters may need to fire up their Prius’ and take a short drive down the Peninsula sometime very soon.        
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| Posted: 16 Mar 2011 12:38 AM PDT
I knew it! All that talk of AOL respecting our editorial independence and now they’re emailing Alexia and asking her to tone down the snark? J’accuse Tim Armstrong! J’afuckingccuse. But then I read the rest of the post and – you know what? – I kinda feel like we owe AOL an apology. You see, here’s what actually happened. A couple of days ago, Alexia – an esteemed colleague, and friend – went to see some crappy movie, at the prompting of someone at TC-sister-site, Moviefone. (As a Brit, I don’t really know what Moviefone is, but I do know that’s not how you spell phone.) After seeing the crappy movie, Alexia wrote a solid post, expressing a healthy dose of cynicism about the Facebook game that Summit Entertainment has created to hype it. And that’s where the fun started. Apparently someone at Summit didn’t like the “snark” in Alexia’s post. They passed on their concerns to their Moviefone contact in the hope that, as an AOL sister site, Moviefone would be able to lean on Alexia to tone it down. Sure enough, someone at Moviefone emailed Alexia…
Unsurprisingly outraged, Alexia wrote a follow-up post, quoting from the email and insisting that she will never tone down her snark. Which is fine – after all, Alexia without her snark is like MG without his iPhone. The only problem is, rather than calling out Moviefone in her headline, she called out the whole of AOL, apparently on the basis that “AOL owns Moviefone” and our promise that “if AOL ever asked us if we could change our coverage in any way… we'd immediately publish it.” Hmmm. The problem is Moviefone is no more a representative of AOL Corp than we are. As such, the headline could just as accurately have read “Moviefone asks AOL to tone it down”. An employee of Moviefone sending a dumb email to a TechCrunch writer is not the same as Tim Armstrong sending it, or Arianna Huffington sending it. Yes, it’s a damning indictment of the kind of dumbass hacks that are still inexplicably employed by some of AOL’s content divisions (and who Arianna Huffington has her work cut out to replace), but it’s not an indictment of AOL itself. To suggest otherwise is disingenuous at best, dangerous at worst. No-one who still writes for AOL has been more critical of the company than me. I’ve attacked the Aol Way, and Armstrong’s obsession with SEO while squeezing every last dollar out of underpaid contributors. I’ve bitched about the company’s recent round of firings and I’ve stood on stage at TC Disrupt, ten minutes after we were acquired, and asked that “the owner of a silver Toyota blocking the exit please move it before AOL acquires it and drives it off a cliff”. But if we’re going to attack an entire organization, particularly one that signs our paychecks, we need to be sure we’re on absolutely rock-solid ground. The truth is, for all of AOL’s many faults, they have never once asked us to adjust our content and they have certainly not told us to dial down the snark. They’re hugely dysfunctional but they’re not hugely stupid. To suggest that a silly email by a staffer at Moviefone is the smoking gun we’ve all been waiting for smacks of boy-who-cried-wolfism, which will make it far harder for us to raise a stink if and when someone with a VP title or above at AOL HQ does ask us to “make a few changes”. Headlines like “AOL Asks Us If We Can Tone It Down” might be good for clickthroughs but they’re bad for just about everything else. And there’s one other problem with the headline: in hanging an innocent man (or in this case an innocent corporation), we’re letting a guilty man (or in this case woman) walk free. A few hours ago Patricia Chui, the Editor-in-Chief of Moviefone, wrote a spirited defense of her publication’s actions:
I mean, seriously. An editor-in-chief wrote these words: “we work with movie studios every day, and it is in our best interests to stay on good terms with them”. Actually, Patricia, you only have two loyalties: one is to your readers and one is to the company that signs your paychecks. That’s it. You do not – emphatically do not – have a responsibility to “stay on good terms” with movie studios. On the contrary, when a movie company asks you to try to strong-arm a colleague into dialing down her editorial voice, it’s in your best interests as a professional editor to tell them to go fuck themselves. The fact that you didn’t do that is bad enough, the fact that you’re so bad at your job that you still believe you acted correctly is unforgivable. So, no, Alexia’s headline shouldn’t have read “AOL Asks Us If We Can Tone It Down”. That was unfair to AOL. What it should have said – and what would have been entirely fair to everyone involved – is “Moviefone’s Patricia Chui should resign in shame, and if she won’t resign then AOL should fire her immediately.” And once they’ve done precisely that, Alexia should probably send Tim and Arianna some flowers to say sorry.        
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| San Francisco Doing Everything It Can To Drive Zynga And Twitter Away Posted: 15 Mar 2011 10:23 PM PDT Update: See San Francisco Controller Publishes Candid Report On How Badly They Need Twitter
They’ve got Twitter jumping through hoops to avoid the tax. The company will be forced to move to a new location in order to get a six year payroll tax break. But only if the Board of Supervisors votes to approve the legislation on Wednesday. The upside is that Twitter employees will have immediate physical access to prostitutes, drugs and weapons – the qualifying area isn’t exactly an up and coming neighborhood. The city isn’t thanking Twitter for bringing all these high paying jobs to San Francisco, either. Rather, some supervisors don’t want the tax break at all, and seem quite willing to see Twitter bail to tax-free Brisbane. Says Supervisor John Avalos: "Who are the [Twitter] investors? Probably some of the wealthiest people in this country. And we are giving them more wealth." The stupidity of that statement is self evident. But the city has another potential disaster on its hands – Zynga. The company is already moving into its new 270,000 square foot headquarters on Townsend Street, which is outside of the proposed tax free/hooker area. We heard Mayor Edwin Lee and Board of Supervisors President David Chu met with Zynga at their offices today to negotiate the issue. I contacted Zynga to ask about the meeting. They confirmed it happened, said it was “positive and productive,” and “they appreciated the city’s interest in Zynga’s future growth.” They wouldn’t comment further. We have heard, however, that Zynga is already looking to expand beyond the city into other areas in Silicon Valley. They already have offices in Sunnyvale and Los Gatos, for example. Our sources say Zynga is prepared to drive future employee growth outside of San Francisco. They’ll always keep some presence in San Francisco, say our sources, but may even consider moving the corporate headquarters south. Whatever happens specifically with Zynga and Twitter, the city needs to do a very big reality check and soon. Tech startups aren’t just driving some job growth in the city, they’re driving absolutely all of it. Zynga hired 800 people in 2010, and they’re hiring another 1,500 in the next year, most of which would be in San Francisco. Twitter has a similar story. Those two companies, plus Salesforce, account for most of the technology job growth in the city. Even if they cut specific deals for those companies, other startups understand that San Francisco wants a big payoff from tech startups. And the venture capitalists see absolutely ridiculous statements like the one from Supervisor Avalos above. If the city wants venture capitalists to steer clear of San Francisco startups, and for startups in general to not even consider the city as a place to do their business, they should keep doing exactly what they’re doing. On the other hand, if the city wants to attract lots of high paying, high growth jobs, they need to reverse their policies and their messaging. Because right now they look like a pack of fecking eejits. Particularly Supervisor Avalos. They can have all the taxes they want, but if there aren’t any companies there to pay them, it isn’t going to be very helpful.        
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| Netflix Gets Into The Original Content Game, Buys Upcoming Show For A Rumored $100m Posted: 15 Mar 2011 08:07 PM PDT
Deadline Hollywood reports that Netflix successfully outbid HBO and AMC for the rights to House Of Cards, an adaptation of the successful 1990 British miniseries. The show reportedly stars Academy Award winning actor Kevin Spacey, who we know isn't cheap, and David Fincher, who is hotter than ever following the success of The Social Network.        
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| In Preparation For Its “Social Buying” Launch, ‘Facebook Deals’ Get A New Landing Page Posted: 15 Mar 2011 07:36 PM PDT
“We will test a new feature for our Deals product that allows people to buy deals on Facebook and share them with their friends. Local businesses will be able to sign up to use this feature soon and people will be able to find Deals in the coming weeks,” Facebook told PC World in a statement. More details on the product have not yet been posted. The new feature will center around social buying and this new feature will focus on people who want to sign up for activities with their friends, like a dinner or Pilates class. Facebook tells me that businesses will be able to sign up for the deals soon and that Facebook users will be able to buy deals in the next few weeks. The new deals landing page supports San Francisco, Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, San Diego with “more cities coming soon.” The in-stream updates are not yet live.        
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| SoundTracking Sings The Praises Of “Mobile-First” And “From-The-Ground-Up Social” Posted: 15 Mar 2011 04:04 PM PDT Late last week, we first wrote about SoundTracking, a new iPhone application from Schematic Labs that allows you to easily share not only the music you’re listening to, but the music you’re listening to in the context that you’re listening to it in. Yesterday at the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas, I got a chance to sit down with co-founder Steve Jang for his thoughts on the app and the space. Jang talks about the rise of the “mobile-first” experience, noting that phones are good enough now to match the websites that have been built for years now. And in many ways, the experience is better because mobile is so personal. Jang talks about his inspiration for SoundTracking when he was traveling around Europe and wanting to share the music he was listening to on the go, but in a way beyond text. He also talks a bit about the competitive landscape out there right now. With the mobile photo-sharing apps like Instagram, PicPlz, and Path all getting a lot of buzz, everyone is seeking to find the next genre that will hit. Schematic Labs aren’t the only ones betting on music experiences, AOL is as well with Play. Jang thinks that’s great, because it’s a space that probably should have existed earlier and competition will drive it forward. Jang also talks a bit about the existing players out there like Shazam and SoundHound and his love for them. At the same time, they weren’t built “from the ground up” to be social. This is something Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is also fond of talking about — that social isn’t something you can just tack on. Watch the full interview above. And find SoundTracking in the App Store here.        
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| Study: Mobile Ad-Tracking Systems Are “Blind” To 80 Percent Of Apple iOS Devices Posted: 15 Mar 2011 04:00 PM PDT
Apple mobile iOS devices (iPads, iPhones, and iPod Touches) are used by 130 million people, but they present a huge blindspot to advertisers. All Apple mobile devices use the Safari browser, as do millions of Apple laptop and desktop computers. Safari blocks third-party cookies by default, which is good for privacy and good for consumers. But it is bad for advertisers who rely on browser cookie tracking to measure the effectiveness of their ads. Marin Software, which offers a way to manage paid search advertising, conducted a study it provided to TechCrunch which shows that 80 percent of the time iOS devices don’t count paid-search conversions (i.e., clicks) because cookie-tracking is turned off. On the Mac, the undercounting occurs 50 percent of the time. All told, when you count all browsers, 38 percent of all paid-search clicks are not being counted. These numbers are for so-called third-party cookies, not first-party cookies which come only from Websites you visit. Third-party cookies are served from various advertising networks or monitoring tools, and they are required for any type of retargeting across multiple Websites. While Marin only looked at paid search ad conversions, the numbers should hold true for display ads as well. Not only are ads not being tracked properly on most Apple devices, but if they were tracked properly, Marin suggests that Apple devices actually perform better. As part of the study, Marin compared actual ad conversions to Windows computers as a baseline. While the perceived conversion rate of search ads is 56 percent lower because of the undercounting, the actual conversion rate is 23 percent higher. Following the maxim that you don’t get paid for what can’t be measured, this blindspot poses a growing challenge to the online advertising industry, and Google in particular. (And you thought Apple was just doing this to protect consumers). The way around the blindspot is to use first-party cookies served from the Websites people visit, or to come up with better ways to measure the performance of online ads. But that’s the topic for another post.
       
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| Google’s Revamped iPhone App Now Worth Using; Could Be Better Still Posted: 15 Mar 2011 02:57 PM PDT
What was the “Google Mobile App” is now simply “Google Search”. And as you can see, it looks completely different. The homescreen is now a nice big Google logo with the search box. It also allows you to easily sign in to your account. And when you do a search, this graphical interface rolls upward to reveal the results. And a swipe to the left reveals different categories to filter your search. In other words, Google’s native iPhone app finally feels pretty native, rather than just feeling like their mobile website crammed into a native shell. And the swipe-activated filters, voice search, and Google Goggles all bring the native awesomeness. And the Push Notification options for Gmail and Calendar finally seem to be speedy enough to actually use. But again, it could be even better. At the bottom of the screen in the app is an “Apps” bar. This both gives you one-click access to Google’s entire list of mobile apps and shows you Gmail unread counts, which is great. But the apps themselves are still mobile apps, not native ones. So when I see I have unread Gmail messages, I’m kicked out of the app and into Safari to load it on the web. Mobile Gmail is just about as good as a mobile app can be in my opinion, but it could still be much more powerful as a native app. HTML5 just isn’t there quite yet. Now, who knows if Apple would even approve a native Gmail app, but if this new Google apps had native Gmail built-in, it would become my most-used app immediately. Calendar and Docs would be better too in a native skin, rather than a mobile web one for now. Still, the app is definitely an improvement, and a great upgrade. I anticipate actually using it now. Now if only Google could fix the bugs and slowness in the native Google Voice app…
       
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| T-Mobile, Sprint Waive Japan Calling And Texting Fees Posted: 15 Mar 2011 02:49 PM PDT
T-Mobile USA is allowing postpaid customers to make calls to Japan without charges through March 31, 2011. Text messaging will also be free to and from Japan until the sale date and customers can make Wi-Fi calls to and from Japan free of charge as well. Similarly, Sprint waived fees for text messaging and wireless calls to and from Japan for customers who are on the carrier’s networks, retroactive from March 11 and continuing to April 10, 2011. Both carriers are also waiving text message fees to mobile giving campaigns. Additionally, Time Warner, Vonage and Cox Communications have all waived their long-distance fees to Japan. Photo Credit/Flickr/NateSteiner        
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| Twitter Enables “Always Use HTTPS” Setting Posted: 15 Mar 2011 02:28 PM PDT
So did Ashton Kutcher complain to some Twitter exec after he got Twitter-hacked at TED? As of today, Firesheep-weary Twitter users can check the “Always Use HTTPS” setting at the bottom of Settings on their profiles. HTTPS, or Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure uses the SSL/TSL protocol in addition to HTTP to ensure encrypted communication over a secure channel. This protects users on insecure networks like conference or coffee bar WiFi. While Twitter users could use HTTPS prior by visiting https://www.twitter.com, they now have the option to have it always on. In addition HTTPS will be used when you log into Twitter and on Twitter for iPhone and iPad. Users on mobile browsers have to visit https://mobile.twitter.com to access the feature for now, but Twitter is trying to make the setting work across all devices, hoping to eventually make HTTPS the default setting.
 @apluskashton kutcher Ashton, you've been Punk'd. This account is not secure. Dude, where's my SSL?        
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A few weeks ago I had the privilege of visiting Tel Aviv for the first time and meeting some local mobile companies ahead of Mobile World Congress. What I found was an incredible entrepreneurial environment. Just four hours away from London, in Europe, Tel Aviv is almost like have Silicon Valley in your doorstep. Admittedly it’s not exactly news. Israel has a long history of producing amazing tech companies, in part due to the foresight of the government in nurturing their VC scene. However, I plan to write up my experiences further, in due course (little things like MWC and DLD have gotten in the way unfortunately), suffice it to say that it was great to hang out with 
“SO THIN YOU CAN USE IT TO CHOP VEGETABLES.”
Giant retail electronic payments network operator Visa is giving PayPal a run for its money today, 
London based 
San Francisco Supervisor John Avalos hates the idea of businesses not paying a 1.5% tax on payroll and employee stock option gains (see his brilliantly stupid quote
“
San Francisco, unlike most other cities in Silicon Valley, has a 1.5% payroll tax. And 
On the tail of 
Google’s flagship native app for the iPhone has always been a little odd. First of all, it was called “Google Mobile App”, which seemed a bit redundant. More importantly, it just wasn’t really worth using instead of google.com in the Safari web browser itself. But 
As we 
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