The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- Vudu Tries Plan B, Offers 1080p Streaming on LG TVs
- Oops, @MarissaMayer Deletes Sensitive Tweet That Can Still Be Found
- Bartz On Bing Search Deal: “Everyone Wants A Real Alternative.” (Live Notes)
- Microsoft-Yahoo Search Deal: The Most Important Facts (And Some Opinion)
- Microsoft-Yahoo Search Deal: The Official Press Release
- Microsoft-Yahoo Search Deal Imminent: Analysts Weigh In
- 1-800-FLOWERS.COM Sets Up Shop Inside Facebook
- Booyah Society: Level Up in Life! with your iPhone
- YC-Funded HighlightCam Makes It Easy To Remotely Watch Babies, Pets And Burglars
- Larger Than Life Prints: Because Giant Custom Stickers Make Everything Better
- Exclusive: Former MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe Raising Money For New Venture
- New Twitter Homepage Goes Live With Search Front And Center
- YC-Funded RethinkDB: A MySQL Storage Engine Built From The Ground Up For Solid State Drives
- TuneIn Tunes In To $500k From True Ventures, Mitch Kapor
- Mad Men Is This Year’s Manga. Assault Begins On Twitter Avatars.
- Bing’s Idea Of A Perfect Summer Vacation: A Terrifying Lightning Storm
- Pigs Fly As Facebook And Google Work Together On An Android App
- Best. Comment. Ever.
- Can AT&T Handle The iPhone?
- Downside Of OpenDNS: It Can Extend Website Outages
- Remember What Steve Said About the App Store?
- Alfred Lin Has The Midas Touch: The Man With $2 Billion In Acquisitions Under His Belt
- Google Realizes That Short Links Are Smart Links In Mobile Gmail
- Microsoft, Yahoo Still Negotiating; Deal Could Be Announced Any Time
- UK Encouraging Civil Servants to Tweet ‘Issues of Relevance’
| Vudu Tries Plan B, Offers 1080p Streaming on LG TVs Posted: 29 Jul 2009 06:54 AM PDT  Vudu had a great run. The company made boxes you set up near your TV that could download stream HD video without glitches, a sort of Netflix On Demand, as it were, without the popularity. Well, Vudu is teaming up with LG to offer Vudu streaming in their new LH50 and PS80 TVs which puts their position as one of the better and more promising hardware providers and video streaming services in serious doubt.
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| Oops, @MarissaMayer Deletes Sensitive Tweet That Can Still Be Found Posted: 29 Jul 2009 06:45 AM PDT
A link to a satirical article on BBspot about the whole Google Voice iPhone app removal brouhaha, titled “Google Pulls Apple from Search Results”. In it, an author of the comedy news site writes that Google has removed all search results leading to Apple.com from its index, and redirecting searches for “iPhone” and “app store” to the IMDb.com page for Payback. Mayer gets quoted a couple of times in the piece as well:
Pretty funny for much everyone, but for such a key Google employee to link to that article could be a bit offensive to some (both inside Google and Apple), hence the removal, probably. But it does show what she thinks about the whole thing, that she has a sense of humour, and which sites she tends to visit to get her news. Update: this is very reminiscent of Randi Zuckerberg’s joke on Twitter about possibly deleted a club and its bouncer’s pages from Facebook. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.  
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| Bartz On Bing Search Deal: “Everyone Wants A Real Alternative.” (Live Notes) Posted: 29 Jul 2009 05:40 AM PDT Microsoft and Yahoo announced their search partnership this morning. In a nutshell, Microsoft will power search technology for both companies, while Yahoo will take over ad sales. Here are my notes from this morning’s Yahoo-Microsoft conference call (I’ve bolded parts for emphasis): Carol Bartz: This is a great day for Yahoo. A game changer. benefits for Yahoo. half of all Internet users come to us, but face a formidable competitor in search. share investment expense to scale the market. Our vision is to be center of people’s lives online. We must do that by working on our own properties or working with others like Microsoft. Only covers search and search advertising business. Self-serve advertising will go through Ad Center. Yahoo will continue to integrate search in its properties but back-end technologies will be powered by Bing. What this deal is really about is scale. Advertisers want an alternative that has scale. Everyone wants a real alternative and advertisers are no different. Ballmer: About creating efficiencies. The search scale we will get for Bing will allow us to create greater innovation for searchers and advertisers. Win-win agreement for MSFT and YHOO. Both get more scale, advertisers get more scale, the whole industry will benefit. Carol Bartz: Terms of the agreement. Gives MSFT a 10-year license to Yahoo’s core search technologies. will integrate into AdCenter, which will power both our search and theirs. Display is separate. MSFT pays 88% TAC on Yahoo’s owned and operated sites for 5 years. Revenue will come down a bit because of revenue share, operating income will be $500M higher, costs $200M lower, operating cash flow $275M higher at full implementation. This deal won’t happen over night. We will work with regulators. Anticipate closing the deal by early 2010. Will begin with major markets including the U.S., transition to Bing in 3 to 6 months, transition from Panama to Ad Center will take 12 months. Q&A Q: Why not add a display advertising component to the deal? How big is the RPS [revenue per search] gap? Bartz: On the display side we wanted to keep this as simple and straightforward as possible. Ballmer: We are taking a big bite here. Search is more well-known when it comes to automation on the selling side. On RPS, I don’t expect a negative consequence on our P&L, but a risk we are willing to take. [Also antitrust concerns, which he doesn't mention] Bartz: This is more about making the outside world feel comfortable because we are very comfortable with [the RPS the deal will generate] Q: You moved from a deal that would generate a boatload of cash to a deal with a boatload of value. Why no upfront fee? Bartz: What was really important to Yahoo was that we had a deal that flowed successfully through our P&L. What we really wanted was a significant TAC rate. As far as we are concerned the boatload of cash is preserving our revenue line Ballmer: You take the current revenue mix Yahoo has, a certain RPS, we are guaranteeing that. If it is the same query mix and same market it ensures revenue only varies by the TAC amount and nothing else, that is a floor, not a ceiling.. Q: Transition costs? Ballmer: There will be two years of transition costs. Upside really comes as we improve the relevance of search ads. As we improve monetization on both Yahoo sites and MSFT sites, there is clearly upside in that. Our upside comes as execution builds. For us the investment will be a few hundred million over the next two years to get this to work. Q: How does this affect total CapEx? Ballmer: Some additional CapEx, nothing that affects FY10 for us. We have a plan where some Yahoo engineers over time may move over to Microsoft. Q: What if any opposition will you face in Washington to make this all happen? Ballmer: We will face some opposition from a competitor who may not want more competition. Certainly we would expect the competitor to be aggressive. I think we have a good case for how this improves competition for consumers and the advertiser. We will be called on to present that case in Washington and Brussels. ?: Will start filing process next week. Google has 78% of paid search. Don’t know of any instance where a company so dominant made antitrust objections to a deal. Q: Any impact on jobs? Bartz: Yes, there are certainly many Yahoo search employees who will be asked to take jobs at MSFT. There will also be search employees [who get redeployed]. Unfortunately there will be some redundancies in Yahoo. This is a transition over the next 2 and half years. Nothing will change until we get regulatory approval, but yes, there will be redundancies, but in the future. Q: Do you have a number? Bartz: That is in the planning. We have no numbers to announce at this time. Q: How much does this affect the place search takes in Yahoo’s services? Ballmer: The way the deal was constructed, most complex part of the discussion, was to ensure that engineers on both sides could innovate around and about search around other things as much as the other company can, and to protect the privacy of the consumer that they deserve. During the last many months, the challenge was not just to work through the high-level financials but to work through these details. Q: How can Yahoo be innovative if MSFT takes over search technology? Bartz: There is a lot of innovation that happens above the search result. Q: What does this mean for mobile? Bartz: What we are very interested in is doubling down on the mobile experience to integrate search into that, to integrate our content. Being able to have integrated search is important and also frees us up to innovate on the other areas. Allows Yahoo to do want we do well, be the center of information, entertainment, friends and family. Q: You said what the TAC rate was for O&O, but what is TAC rate when Yahoo sells on Bing.com? What assumptions are you making for risk to affiliates (YHOO)? How do you convince Google advertisers to run a multiple campaign. Bartz: On Bing there is no TAC, that is MSFT’s revenue . . . Ballmer: You don’t know when you sell a campaign where the keyword will show up. You are buying the keyword on both environments. Bartz: That is exactly right. You are really selling the combined market. On affiliates, it makes sense they would go straight to MSFT. The small advertisers don’t want to learn three platforms. What is important is that there is scale. They know how to answer into the Google ad system. We really expect we can provide a much better experience for this tail of advertisers and win them over. Ballmer: The gap where we will be when we put our platforms together will be there, but it won’t be 800,000 [advertisers]. Google is something like 92% in Western Europe. At least there is a clear alternative choice. Q: How will Bing use Yahoo search code? Ballmer: Our engineers know Bing and will build to that platform, but we wanted to make sure we could put together our expertise and code with Yahoo’s expertise and code. We are very pleased it is not a rip and replace. Bartz: On the paid search side, we are the provider for MSFT now in most of the international geographies. So there are both platforms to consider. Q: Innovations as part of the deal? Ballmer: We have access to two of the best sets of technology. Do we think we will have better algorithms for relevance? Yes we do. There is a feedback loop in search. the more searches you serve, the more you learn about what people click on. Scale drives knowledge. There is a return to scale from seeing that much activity than Yahoo or MSFT sees independently. Bartz: We should talk about innovations on the ad sales side. Online advertising is in its pre-infancy. All of that is enhanced because it is a bigger marketplace. Q: Why is this deal better than the one MSFT had on the table last year? Bartz: I’ve done some exploring of that. there is actually more fiction in the market than fact. The big difference is that it was perceived as more of an upfront payment and a lower TAC. That is not interesting for us. We feel this is a true partnership with the technology and selling. Ballmer: The deal last year was tailored more towards an investor than an operator. This deal is different, not better. Less upfront payment, and definitely a higher TAC rate. Q: What pushed this through? Bartz: Transferring paid search so people are comfortable with the platforms. Like the proverbial snowball down the hill once it gained momentum. Ballmer: It is not like we come here with a two-page term sheets. I think we have well over 100 pages to describe what we are doing. What we were spending our time on wasn’t the high-level principles. Q: Doing a partnership is harder Bartz: Sure it is. Dating is one thing, but having a partnership is another. We had to make sure we were committed. It is a distraction. We will put the right team in place to make the transition. Once we got to the point we believed it would be advantageous for us, we moved ahead. That is what a partnership is. Q: What will happen with other areas of search, Yahoo News, delicious, etc? Bartz: When we talk about internal Yahoo search that is some of the innovation we are looking at doing. Paid inclusion we will decide on later. We have full flexibility on what to do inside our site. That is the important thing, there is a lot of value there to add search to our properties. Ballmer: It was important to us to structure the deal to give Yahoo full flexibility [to add search to its services]. (Flickr photo via Yahoo). Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.  
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| Microsoft-Yahoo Search Deal: The Most Important Facts (And Some Opinion) Posted: 29 Jul 2009 05:18 AM PDT
As expected, Microsoft will power Yahoo Search while Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies' advertisers. This will have major repercussions for the online advertising industry, where both Microsoft and Yahoo carry a lot of weight. Likely, it will take months if not years to align these important businesses. On the flip side, as Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz indicated in the press release, advertisers and publishers would benefit significantly from a unified platform and the promise of scalability all around. I believe this is indeed the core advantage of the deal in terms of being able to compete with the dominant rival to both companies, Google. Of course the companies didn’t spell out Google in the official announcements made this morning (except for a link on the Yahoo blog post), but which other company “dominates more than 70 percent of all search”? We actually thought it was more like 65%, but the reality is that this difference in statistics isn’t nearly as important as the obvious fact that Google controls the large majority of search market share on one hand and even more of the advertising dollars that flow through search, on the other hand. Clearly, Microsoft desperately wants a piece of this cake, and it won’t settle for a small one. Microsoft has shown it can compete in search by releasing Bing, which already has claimed its stake as a quality search engine that people actually use and enjoy using to boot. It helps that it has boatloads of cash ready to market Bing aggressively, and you can make sure that they will, too. Furthermore, the companies claim the search deal and technology exchange can lead to more innovation in search, which I agree with wholeheartedly and encourage on multiple levels. If it effectively will eat away at Google’s core business by stealing significant market share organically remains to be seen, though. One of the most apparent facts in the announcement that was not known beforehand by any blogs or news sites, is the longevity of the agreement: 10 years, which is like an eternity in the Internet space. Microsoft will acquire an exclusive 10 year license to Yahoo's core search technologies, which is basically the same as saying it just gained unparalleled access to the blueprint of Yahoo Search, something that can only lead to improvement of its Bing search engine. That and the fact that Bing will be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo! sites confirms the notion that Sunnyvale has indeed given up on search in a big way. Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies' premium search advertisers. Self-serve advertising for both companies will be fulfilled by Microsoft's AdCenter platform, and prices for all search ads will continue to be set by AdCenter's automated auction process. That means there’s now Google AdWords vs. Microsoft AdCenter and Google AdSense vs. Microsoft PubCenter, and little else that matters in the search marketing arena. Take note, marketers. Microsoft will pay traffic acquisition costs to Yahoo at an initial rate of 88% of search revenue generated on Yahoo's owned and operated sites during the first 5 years of the agreement, and guarantee revenue per search in each country for the first 18 months following initial implementation in that country. This is huge, and it shows Redmond will continue to chase after the heart of Google, no matter how much money it takes. After those 18 month and 5 year periods, it’s unclear what will happen. Important to note is that Yahoo! will continue to syndicate its existing search affiliate partnerships. Yahoo expects to fully implement the combined effort within 24 months following regulatory approval, which it hopes to gain in early 2010. The company estimates - based on current levels of revenue and operating expenses - that the agreement will provide a benefit to annual GAAP operating income of approximately $500 million and capital expenditure savings of approximately $200 million. Yahoo! also estimates that this agreement will provide a benefit to annual operating cash flow of approximately $275 million, something it sorely needs and which shareholders will be very happy about if it checks out eventually. Already, Yahoo and Microsoft are fencing off regulatory investigation and criticism, stating clearly that they will be limiting the data shared between the companies to the “minimum necessary to operate and improve the combined search platform”, and restrict the use of search data shared between the companies. What do you think: is this a win-win agreement for both Microsoft and Yahoo? How about users? Should Google be worried? Will the deal be approved at all? Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.  
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| Microsoft-Yahoo Search Deal: The Official Press Release Posted: 29 Jul 2009 04:38 AM PDT
Official press release (emphasis ours apart from title and subtitles):
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| Microsoft-Yahoo Search Deal Imminent: Analysts Weigh In Posted: 29 Jul 2009 02:47 AM PDT
If the deal is completed it will close the 18-month long negotiation that began with a $45 billion merger offer on February 1, 2008. The details of the deal will determine the bump in Yahoo’s share price, something investors really desperately desire. Here’s what the deal may look like (from a Thomas Weisel Partners analyst report colorfully titled BingHoo! earlier this evening):
The bottom line is, no one expects any upfront payments to Yahoo. Revenue split estimates range from 80% - 110% to Yahoo (higher in the beginning), and there is likely a hefty guaranteed revenue component so assuage the Yahoo board of directors. This is a much different search deal that Microsoft offered Yahoo a year ago. From our summary of that long-dead offer:
It’s also much different, and likely much less attractive, than the Google/Yahoo search deal announced last summer and which was terminated before implementation. We’ll analyze the actual deal terms as they are announced, but our guess is the likely outcome of this is one big complicated mess. The result: Google will take even more search share. Why these two companies don’t just merge is beyond me - everyone we’ve spoken with says everyone, on both sides of the table, would prefer a merger. Everyone, that is, except Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.  
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| 1-800-FLOWERS.COM Sets Up Shop Inside Facebook Posted: 29 Jul 2009 02:38 AM PDT
Registered users can now order all kinds of floral products from the popular florist and gift shop without ever leaving the social network. 1-800-FLOWERS is a bit of a pioneer when it comes to initiatives like this. In 1992 (!), the company was already fiddling with selling goods via the Internet, and two years later it became the first merchant of any kind to transact on AOL. Now, at least according to the company, it’s the first online retailer to launch a fully functional commercial storefront inside Facebook. Somehow, I doubt that statement rings true, but I couldn’t immediately think of or find any other e-commerce outlets that can handle online orders from a to z inside Facebook. Alas, when I did a search on Facebook for “1-800-flowers”, the very first result was a group unambiguously called 1-800-Flowers Sucks and when I filtered down the results for Pages only the only result was one dubbed 1-800-flowers-screwed-u-2? (albeit with 0 fans). I finally found the official Facebook Page when I added “.com” to the search query, but at first sight it seems currently people are using social media more often against the company than vice versa. Anyway, this is what the company’s Facebook shop looks like: 1-800-FLOWERS.COM has teamed up with ad network / app developer Alvenda to bring its store to a potentially massive audience on Facebook (although only some 1530 people have become a fan of the florist shop’s Page so far). I’m told future versions of the store will integrate more robust social features, including birthday calendars and group gift giving options. Currently, 1-800-FLOWERS accepts payment with all major credit cards, but it’s conceivable that it will be quick to implement Facebook’s upcoming proprietary payment platform, which is currently being tested with a handful of developers. To conclude, a tip: when you become a fan of the retailer’s Facebook Page, you get a discount code. Happy flower shopping! Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.  
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| Booyah Society: Level Up in Life! with your iPhone Posted: 29 Jul 2009 12:30 AM PDT  So what is Booyah and what does it bring to the iPhone that no one else has done? Before we dive into that here's a little background info on the Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup. Founded by three former videogame industry vets from Blizzard, Activision and Insomniac Games, Booyah looks to shake things up with real-life achievements for the iPhone (and iPod Touch). Booyah CEO Kevin Lee is an industry vet having worked on Ratchet and Clank, Diablo II, Resistance: Fall of Man before parting ways with Blizzard to launch Booyah with Brian Morrisroe and Sam Christiansen. Booyah's main goal is "to motivate people to pursue their real-life passions while positively impacting themselves and the community around them. It's the first achievement system for life."
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| YC-Funded HighlightCam Makes It Easy To Remotely Watch Babies, Pets And Burglars Posted: 28 Jul 2009 11:16 PM PDT
It does this by watching for changes in video streams, which is to say that it looks for motion happening within the video. When it senses something, it knows to remember that portion of the video. And, if you set it up to do so, it can also send an email to you to let you know there is activity currently happening on the video stream. You can probably dream up a bunch of uses for something like this, but the obvious ones are monitoring babies from other room, watching your pets when you’re away, and yes, watching to make sure no one is breaking into your house. This sort of technology has only existed up until now in high-end security systems for big commercial buildings, we’re told. But HighlightCam does this at a fraction of the cost. To use it, you simply have to set up a webcam and then visit the HighlightCam site. The service is entirely browser-based. And you don’t even need an account to start using it (though you will need one to access recordings later). If you want to see it in action, Justin.tv has been using it for their pets section, and it was a part of their recent API launch. The Y Combinator-funded HighlighCam makes use of the freemium model. With the free version you get the core features including the ability to use any webcam and e-mail notifications. But the main limitation is that your recorded videos are only stored for 24 hours. With the premium version (which is $8.99 a month), videos are archived for 2 weeks, and you get higher resolution recordings, no ads on the site and the ability to download recorded videos. I think we definitely need to set this up for the TechCrunch CrunchCam. Most of the time when I’m not in the office and I tune in, I just see Jason and Leena diligently typing away with absolutely no perceivable motion occuring. It’d be great to get an alert for the 15 minutes a day when there is actually something going on, like Segway jousting. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors  
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| Larger Than Life Prints: Because Giant Custom Stickers Make Everything Better Posted: 28 Jul 2009 09:04 PM PDT
The site is still fairly new, but’s already beginning to attract some top talent, including Susan Kare, who is famous for designing the on-screen graphics of the original Macintosh computer and many of Facebook’s popular virtual gifts. LTL Prints is featuring many of these artists in a collection of ‘big wall art‘, which includes art curated by the Start Soma Art Gallery. It’s hard to really get excited about stickers, but these are actually pretty impressive. They’re made out of a study fabric-based paper that’s really hard to tear (we tried), and it can also be applied many times on various surfaces, like walls and glass. You can roll the sticker up in a ball, and it will pull apart without any lasting damage. Contrast that with most other large stickers, which are typically made of vinyl, and it becomes clear that these are truly some high grade stickers. Prices for the stickers range from $20 for a 2ft sticker to $165 for a massive 7 ft tall sticker. From there you’re free to charge higher prices if you sell your sticker in the site’s integrated marketplace. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors  
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| Exclusive: Former MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe Raising Money For New Venture Posted: 28 Jul 2009 08:04 PM PDT
We’ve confirmed that DeWolfe has been pitching a number of private equity funds to raise up to $100 million for a roll up of an Internet industry vertical. In exchange for confirmation we’ve agreed to keep exactly what that vertical is confidential for now. But at least two funds, both with significantly more than $1 billion to work with, are interested. DeWolfe, as is his style, won’t comment on the fundraising. It’s not surprising that there is such strong interest. Few executives have been able to grow a company from zero to 1,700 employees and $800 million or so in revenue. In just five years. DeWolfe may be eccentric but he’s also clearly one hell of a business man and entrepreneur. And there is no one in the world with his connections and experience in both the geeky Internet world and flashy Hollywood scene. Case in point - a couple of funds I called today to see if they’d been pitched yet eagerly asked for an introduction. I suggested they add him as a friend on Facebook. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors  
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| New Twitter Homepage Goes Live With Search Front And Center Posted: 28 Jul 2009 06:41 PM PDT
Most importantly, the new version features search functionality front and center. This way people who aren’t even Twitter users yet can search for things being said on the service. And results are nicely placed on the same page below the main area. You’ll also notice that when you click on any of the popular topics, a description of why that topic is being featured appears along the top of the search results. This is something that is very helpful, as quite a few trending topics seem to make no sense on the surface. It looks like Twitter is using the third-party service What The Trend? to populate these descriptions. It’s important to note that nothing has changed about Twitter’s UI and functionality for those who are logged in. This is simply part of Twitter’s goal to make the service more accessible and obvious to new users, as well as increase engagement, and the use of search/trends. The bigger goal is to make it easier for businesses to use Twitter, which will allow the service to finally make some money. It’s new Twitter 101 area is another of the initial steps in that direction. Find screenshots below of both the new main page and the old version. As well as what the new main page search results look like. Update: And here’s Twitter’s post on the new homepage. Here’s the key blurb:
Update 2: It also looks like Twitter is using this new homepage search interface to highlight some of the lesser-used search operators, like the “:)” symbol for results with “positive attitude.” Update 3: As Adobe’s Ryan Stewart notes on Twitter, this homepage change seems like it could be a fairly big shot across the bow of Google. After all, if everyone now visiting twitter.com sees search front and center, it’s pretty clear that the product is being positioned as a major player in the search game. It will be interesting to see Twitter’s next step, which undoubtedly will include another homepage redesign to match this new Twitter home screen. Will we also see the search box more prominently featured there? Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0  
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| YC-Funded RethinkDB: A MySQL Storage Engine Built From The Ground Up For Solid State Drives Posted: 28 Jul 2009 05:58 PM PDT
The company, which is part of the latest batch of Y Combinator-funded startups, is in fairly early stages (it started developing the product only two months ago), but it’s already making some substantial headway in the features it can offer. Among these are live schema changes, which allow developers to make significant modifications to their database structure without having to go through complex sync and backup procedures. It also offers lock-free concurrency, which means users will be able to read from the database even while other users are writing to it. And it’s an append-only database, which means developers can quickly recover in the event of a system failure. RethinkDB is also taking a relatively novel approach to its development, at least as far as database storage is concerned. It’s following the “release early, release often” mantra, which it’s kicking off with the release of an early developer pre-alpha, which you can download and try out for free (the company says that implementing the software is quite easy because of the way MySQL handles storage engines). However, given that you’re going to be using this to manage your data, it is absolutely vital that you use this for testing purposes only — make sure you have any crucial data stored elsewhere. The company hopes to use developer input over the next few months to improve the product up until its release. RethinkDB plans to have its commercial product out the door in the next six months, with an enterprise-level pricing structure that charges on a per-CPU basis (with support included). Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0  
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| TuneIn Tunes In To $500k From True Ventures, Mitch Kapor Posted: 28 Jul 2009 05:16 PM PDT
Lanzone is not working on the startup full time, he’s taking a board seat going forward. TuneIn first launched a couple of weeks ago at our RealTime CrunchUp. It’s a web based Twitter client with a lot of additional features, including highlighting popular content from your network or anyone else you want to view. Lanzone has described it as “TiVo for Twitter” because it lets you peruse linked media and sites from your network. The site has only rolled out initial features, Hertz tells me there is a lot more coming. Keep an eye on it. Here’s the video of TuneIn’s debut at the CrunchUp: Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors  
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| Mad Men Is This Year’s Manga. Assault Begins On Twitter Avatars. Posted: 28 Jul 2009 04:55 PM PDT
The television station AMC has set up a website, MadMenYourself, to allow users to create cartoon representations of how they might look if they were on the hit show, Mad Men. The results are quite good, and the avatars are already quickly spreading on Twitter. The site takes an excruciatingly long time to load, but once it does, the process is fast. You start off selecting either a man or woman, choose a few attributes, pick you clothes and accessories. Then you get the option to download a full image complete with a backdrop that you might see on the show, a shot of just your full avatar (nice for Facebook or for an iPhone background), or just your face (perfect for Twitter). Naturally, this is all just a promotion for the show, which starts its third season in a few weeks. But I’m all in favor of that because the show is awesome. Still, I give it about a month until we’re all sick of seeing these new avatars everywhere. At that point I may just yearbook my Mad Men avatar. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.  
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| Bing’s Idea Of A Perfect Summer Vacation: A Terrifying Lightning Storm Posted: 28 Jul 2009 04:24 PM PDT So, Microsoft had that contest where it would feature one user’s picture on Bing for an entire day — you know, the one I was mad about because you couldn’t submit keg stand pictures. The idea behind the contest was to have users submit their best summer vacation photos to a special Facebook group, where they could then be voted on. Well, now we have a winner. And it doesn’t exactly reek of summer. The winning image (below), was one of 9,400 picture submissions. You’d think out of all of those, users would have found a more perfect summer vacation image than a giant lightning storm, but whatever, it is a good picture. The contest apparently attracted more than 13,000 unique voters. And the pictures garnered nearly 28,000 wall posts on the Facebook page. But the stat I’m really interested in is that there were over 10,000 submissions, and only 9,400 were accepted. I’d love to see those other 600+ pictures. Keg stands? The image will be featured on Bing on August 3, for the entire day. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0  
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| Pigs Fly As Facebook And Google Work Together On An Android App Posted: 28 Jul 2009 03:26 PM PDT Well, we never thought it would happen because of its intense rivalry with Google, but Facebook is almost ready to launch an official app for Android phones. Hints are already popping up here and there, but I’ve been able to confirm it. The app could hit the Android Market (its version of the App Store) as soon as the end of this week. Facebook’s Android app will launch with a more limited set of features than its current, and very popular, iPhone app. For instance, it won’t have an inbox, I’m told by a source who has seen it. But it will have the full Facebook stream, which is really all you need. The Facebook Android app is built around the stream and status updates. It was built with Facebook’s new Stream API. Your updates keep coming in, with a notification number telling you how many new items are available at any given time. As recently as last October, Facebook had no interest in building an Android app. Why help its arch-rival Google? Back then, Michael wrote:
So what changed? Well, for one thing, Android is now on the verge of becoming a serious competitor to the iPhone, with nearly two dozen new phones set to launch this year. For another thing, the Android team at Google offered to help, and even loaned Facebook an Android engineer. Facebook still doesn’t have one of its own, says my source. (Facebook wouldn’t comment). Some Google engineers are already using the app like crazy. Meanwhile, we are still waiting for the next version of Facebook’s iPhone app, which will include events, video uploading, and so much more. The current app, which many social networking junkies find indispensable, launched a year ago. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.  
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| Posted: 28 Jul 2009 02:53 PM PDT
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.  
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| Posted: 28 Jul 2009 01:43 PM PDT
The latest issue involves the story we covered yesterday about apps using the Google Voice service getting pulled from Apple’s App Store. In a follow-up post, we didn’t exactly go out on a limb suggesting that it was AT&T and not Apple, that was responsible for the app being pulled. After all, word is that Apple VP Phil Schiller personally ushered one of those apps, GV Mobile, through the approval process initially. And today brings word that the apps were indeed removed at AT&T’s request. Daring Fireball’s John Gruber cites a “reliable little birdie” on the news, and we’ve just heard the same thing from a source as well. While some found it very hard to believe that AT&T would be the ones behind something like this, given that it allows Google Voice apps on other phones on its network, those kind of contradictions are nothing new when it comes to AT&T with the iPhone. It’s the same contradiction that prevents the SlingPlayer iPhone app from working on AT&T’s network, while it works just fine on other AT&T devices. And the same one that is likely to cripple a Hulu app, if it ever gets released. It’s well known that iPhone users consume a lot more data than other smartphone users, and so all of this seems to be a case of AT&T getting more than it bargained for when it signed the exclusive deal to be the iPhone carrier in the U.S. And while you might think that it would be a nice problem to have, a number of sources have indicated to us that the iPhone’s rapid growth is what is responsible for AT&T’s network degradation over the past several months, particularly in places like San Francisco, where iPhone usage is very high. Now just imagine the service nightmares if AT&T permitted high-use/high-bandwidth services on the device. While it has been laughably slow to roll out its official tethering option for the iPhone, I shudder to think of what it will do to the network when it does become available later this year. Of course, AT&T is expected to charge and arm and a leg for the option, in a move that is undoubtedly, at least in part, to limit the number of users who will sign up. And that’s what it has come to for AT&T with regards to the iPhone: Restrictions, restrictions, restrictions.
Certainly, losing the exclusivity would hurt the company’s bottom line, and would hit the customer base pretty hard, but losing the iPhone exclusivity may end up being a good thing for AT&T. Good in that it’s network may finally work again. Of course, AT&T is said to be working hard to extend the exclusive deal with Apple beyond next year. But that will be a nightmare for everyone involved. We have no shortage of sources, some very close to Apple, now telling us that as mad as all of us (the customers) are with AT&T, Apple is just as mad, if not more so. Apple can speak in platitudes all it wants during earnings calls about its partnership with AT&T — behind the scenes, trust me, they hear our complaints loud and clear. But the one hot new wireless partner that is always mentioned, Verizon (since it is the biggest network and generally considered to be more reliable), looks like it is still playing hardball. This morning it officially announced that it would be getting the Palm Pre in early 2010, and it’s playing up its RIM partnership and its own app store. That’s what you call leverage in negotiating with Apple, which it is. Still, even the iPhone on another, smaller GSM carrier, like T-Mobile, would undoubtedly help ease some of the strain on AT&T’s network. Again, AT&T would never admit it, but the era of iPhone exclusivity may have to be ended over sheer strain. And when that happens, we may just see AT&T approving of Google Voice apps and SlingPlayer apps on the iPhone again. AT&T has painted itself into a corner, and it’s fighting hard to keep itself there, but it’s simply not a viable option anymore for any of the parties involved (Apple, the customers, and even AT&T). When I asked for a comment from AT&T on this latest fiasco, here’s what I got:
That would seem to suggest that AT&T is saying Apple is in complete control over all of this. But we know that’s simply not the case. Is AT&T in denial? No, I think that they think we just can’t handle the truth. And I think that truth is that they can’t handle the iPhone, anymore. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.  
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| Downside Of OpenDNS: It Can Extend Website Outages Posted: 28 Jul 2009 01:18 PM PDT
The problem at SoftLayer was resolved, but some users of OpenDNS, a DNS service provider that is becoming more and more popular, still can’t reach those websites. The reason? OpenDNS caches IP addresses for domain names on a user’s computer, and they’ve cached a bunch of bad DNS entries now on these computers. This speeds up web surfing considerably, and has helped some users avoid major outages at the ISP level in the past. But in cases like today, with outages at the hosting level, the bad IP information ends up being cached for up to a day. Users who know what’s going on can reboot their computers to clear the cache, but that’s clearly not a good overall solution. OpenDNS says they are turning on a feature called SmartCache that caches both the current and “last good” IP address, so situations like today won’t be an issue any longer. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.  
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| Remember What Steve Said About the App Store? Posted: 28 Jul 2009 11:22 AM PDT  We've been screaming and whining about the iPhone App Store for nigh on a year now and we seem to have avoided talking about one of the most obvious sources of information about the Store: Steve himself. Harry "Long Tail" McCracken remembers what Steve said way back in the old days about the App Store. Jobs said that Apple wouldn't distribute porn or malicious apps or privacy-invading apps, and said that Apple's interests and those of third-party developers were the same. The slide also mentioned "Bandwidth hogs," which apparently meant stuff like SlingPlayer, and "Unforseen," which I assumed at the time referred to other applications that put iPhone owners at risk in one way or another. What he didn't do is say that Apple would reject software that competed with Apple or AT&T offerings.This "unforeseen" section is what really bugs everyone. Google Voice, for example, could feasibly recreate some basic iPhone functionality and also act as a resource hog.
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| Alfred Lin Has The Midas Touch: The Man With $2 Billion In Acquisitions Under His Belt Posted: 28 Jul 2009 11:08 AM PDT
Lin dropped out of a PhD program at Stanford to join LinkExchange in 1996 as acting CFO. Two years later the company was acquired by Microsoft for $265 million in stock. He then cofounded Venture Frogs, a $27 million venture fund, with college buddy Tony Hsieh. Investments included Zappos, TellMe, OpenTable, MyAble, Mongo Music and Ask Jeeves, all of which have been acquired or went public. Lin then joined TellMe in 2001 as VP Finance and Business Development. At the time he joined the company was losing $60 million per year, he tells me. Microsoft bought the company for $800 million in 2007. Then he really outdid himself. He joined Zappos, reuniting with his old friend Hsieh, in 2006 as COO and CFO. How’d they do? Yeah, they were acquired last week by Amazon for close to $1 billion. I don’t know if Lin is the master operator (his former colleagues and venture capitalists all say glowing things) or if he’s just really, really good at picking winners. But one thing is clear - this guy has the Midas Touch. I highly recommend interviewing at whatever company he ends up at next. It’s likely to be a big winner. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0  
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| Google Realizes That Short Links Are Smart Links In Mobile Gmail Posted: 28 Jul 2009 10:54 AM PDT Google is finally figuring out that short links are just easier to deal with, especially on a mobile phone. No, it is not rolling out its own URL shortening service just yet (bit.ly, stand down). But today it is introducing what it calls “smart links” to the mobile version of Gmail. When it recognizes a super-long link like the one for Google Maps shown above right, it will shorten it to the underlying name thing being linked to. In this case, it is an address (below right) Basically, it translates the URL into English. Gmail’s smart links also work for direction destinations on Google Maps, and the names of YouTube videos and Google Sites pages. It is starting with Google-owned properties, where it knows the underlying names. But it doesn’t need to be limited to those. It seems like a good idea and one which could be expanded to other links across the Web, including news headlines, image titles, Tweets, and countless other things. I kind of wish I could enable this feature in regular Gmail as well. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0  
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| Microsoft, Yahoo Still Negotiating; Deal Could Be Announced Any Time Posted: 28 Jul 2009 10:11 AM PDT
That doesn’t mean the deal is guaranteed, of course. But everything we’re hearing says it’s highly likely. The deal will be announced publicly shortly after it’s signed, and could come “today, tomorrow, next week” according to our source. Most of the negotiations have been over an up front payment to Yahoo, speculated to be in the $500 million - $1 billion range. The size and specifics of the up front payment have been a sticking point, including whether it is a simple payment for the deal or a guarantee on future revenues. We have no additional information on where the two companies ended up on that deal term. Both companies announced less than stellar quarterly earnings last week. Yahoo revenues were down 13%, and Microsoft had its own woes to deal with. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0  
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| UK Encouraging Civil Servants to Tweet ‘Issues of Relevance’ Posted: 28 Jul 2009 10:10 AM PDT  Years ago, London ruled one-fourth of the world's population. Now? Training its civil servants how to tweet "issues of relevance or upcoming events." The UK's Cabinet Office original story titlehas published a 20-page "how-to" of sorts, the goal of which is to encourage civil servants to learn and use the micro-blogging service that, one day, will bring clean drinking water to the more than 1 billion people in the world who lack it. (Am I mistaken? Why else is Twitter so popular then?)
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Google’s 
Now that the 
In another testament to the notion that 
Live video monitoring systems are great — except for the fact that someone actually has to be watching for them to be of much use. Even if that doesn’t mean watching it live, that means pouring over hours of footage that likely contains a lot of the same thing: Nothing. And that’s why 
Just three months ago 
Twitter has just rolled out the new version of its 
Remember last summer when seemingly everyone on Twitter had a 
This is, without a doubt, the best comment ever on TechCrunch. Left by “J” on MG’s latest 
You almost have to admire AT&T’s consistency. They are consistently finding new ways to screw up almost daily now.
AT&T is constantly promising that network upgrades are coming, but Apple keeps selling more and more iPhones. While it would never admit it, I think it’s beyond time to wonder if AT&T can handle the exclusive iPhone partnership anymore. I’m not saying that the situation would be different had it been Verizon who got the exclusive deal, I’m simply stating what is on everyone’s mind: AT&T is 
Hosting provider 
If you’ve got a company and you want a big acquisition in a year or two, you may want to consider hiring 
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