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- Study: Smartphone Users Wasting Hundreds Of Dollars Per Year On Unnecessary Contracts
- Bloomberg Businesweek Underwhelms With iPad App (Demo)
- IAC Asks For More Google, Please
- AT&T Rolls Out Digby-Powered Mobile Commerce Software For Retailers
- U.S. Venture Funds Raised $7.7 Billion In First Quarter, Highest Influx In A Decade
- Level 3 To Acquire Global Crossing For $3 Billion In Stock
- WorkSnug Secures Funding, Locates Nine Angels
- Huddlebuy, The ‘Groupon-For-Small-Businesses’, Raises £350K In Angel Funding
- Kiip Is An Entirely New Mobile Ad Model: Real Life Rewards For In-Game Achievements
- Peter Thiel: We’re in a Bubble and It’s Not the Internet. It’s Higher Education.
- Adobe And Zend Launch Flash Builder 4.5 For PHP Development
- Dave McClure On 500 Startups: “If Sequoia Is The Yankees, We’re The Oakland A’s”
- War, What Is It Good For? Three Points!
- Can’t Build A Real Startup? Play The ‘Startup Fever’ Boardgame
- InPulse Adds A Smartphone-Like Experience To Your Wrist Watch
- Larry’s Turn
- How Worried Are Consumers about Privacy?
- Gillmor Gang 4.10.11 (TCTV)
| Study: Smartphone Users Wasting Hundreds Of Dollars Per Year On Unnecessary Contracts Posted: 11 Apr 2011 08:11 AM PDT
       
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| Bloomberg Businesweek Underwhelms With iPad App (Demo) Posted: 11 Apr 2011 07:16 AM PDT Bloomberg Businessweek now has an iPad version of the magazine available as an iTunes subscription for $2.99 a month. You get the same articles as in print, but in a decent, but dutiful iPad app. Bloomberg’s head of mobile Oke Okaro gave me a demo of the app (see video). As far as magazine apps go, Businesweek’s app is fine. You get the entire issue, save articles to your personal archive, read in portrait or landscape mode, share articles via Twitter, Facebook, or email, and search through current and back issues. The best part of the app is that it pulls in market data and headlines from Bloomberg whenever you click on a bold-faced company name. It is a perfectly serviceable magazine app. But it is underwhelming. There are no extra photos beyond what’s in the magazine, or even much in the area of additional multimedia other than a video intro every issue by one of the editors about how cover they chose the cover, and a couple audio interviews to accompany columns by Charlie Rose and Tom Keene. Ever since Bloomberg bought it at a fire-sale price, Businessweek has made a remarkable comeback, especially online. At least in tech news coverage, I find myself reading it more than any of the other major business magazines. Sometimes its best articles coem from the print magazine, and sometimes they are just on the Web. I don’t really know, and I don’t really care. But with the iPad app, I am not getting all of that. It is nothing more than a digital reproduction of the print magazine. The news changes only once a week. In a world where news changes every minute, that lag time is one legacy you don’t want to bring over from print. And Businessweek doesn’t have to either. It’s website changes every day, and there is no reason those articles shouldn’t show up in the iPad app. Even the search function in the app only works for iPad issues in your archives. It doesn’t return results from the website. By making its iPad app less informative than its website, Bloomberg Businessweek is signaling to readers that if they want to stay up to date they will be better off simply going to the website, which is free. So Bloomberg Businessweek thinks readers will want to pay $2.99 a month for less information that is presented in a prettier format. What readers end up paying for, essentially, is the tablet experience and bigger fonts. Like all iPad magazines today, this is more of an advertising play than anything else. Advertisers want more iPad inventory and publishers are ginning up these apps to provide it to them. You won’t find any Apple iAds in the Businessweek app. The ads are powered by Medialets, just like the ads in The Daily.        
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| IAC Asks For More Google, Please Posted: 11 Apr 2011 06:34 AM PDT
According to the release, the agreement, through which Google provides IAC’s search products and network partners with sponsored listings and other search-related services, is comparable to the previous agreement. CEO of IAC, Greg Blatt, said in a statement that its search business has grown from $58 million in Operating Income Before Amortization in 2006 to $125 million in 2010, and generated pre-tax free cash flow(i in excess of $500 million over that period. Handing over search advertising and technology to Google has been a good bet for the company. Google has actually been contributing to a portion of IAC’s Ask.com’s search results and last Fall, IAC announced that it would be completely outsourcing Ask’s search (although it’s unclear to which company, it could be Google), and fading the portal away.        
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| AT&T Rolls Out Digby-Powered Mobile Commerce Software For Retailers Posted: 11 Apr 2011 06:00 AM PDT
Digby Mobile Commerce from AT&T helps retailers create mobile websites that display rich product images and live catalogs, expands the ways they can buy from merchants and more. Digby also allows retailer to create native applications, and tap into both its mobile barcode service and the ShopAlerts service to send promotions and new product information to app users when they walk into connected stores. And the platform will give retailers detailed analytics and traffic data from websites and apps. Digby’s platform allows retailers to develop apps for iOS, BlackBerry and Android devices. Digby has a number of well-known retailer using its offering, including Costco, Toys "R" Us, The Home Depot, Lilly Pulitzer, and 1-800-Flowers. I’m not sure why a retailer would want to use AT&T’s mobile commerce platform over an independent development platform, but it’s definitely interesting to see the telecommunications company further its mobile commerce strategy.        
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| U.S. Venture Funds Raised $7.7 Billion In First Quarter, Highest Influx In A Decade Posted: 11 Apr 2011 05:40 AM PDT
U.S. venture capital firms raised more money last quarter than in any period since 2001. The total raised for new funds was $7.7 billion, according to Dow Jones LP Source. The capital going into VC funds was up 97 percent from a year ago, when they raised $3.9 billion. (Venture capital funds benefited from an overall influx of money into U.S. private equity funds overall, which attracted a total of $31.6 billion in the quarter, up from $13.5 billion a year ago). Institutional investors and limited partners are putting more money into ventre capital, but are concentrating their bets in fewer, higher-quality funds. The money from limited partners, however, was not spread willy-nilly. Only 25 funds tracked by Dow Jones were able to raise money, the smallest number since 2003. A few, well-known firms were able to raise substantial amounts. Bessemer closed a $1.6 billion fund, Sequoia closed a $1.3 billion fund, and Greylock added a $1 billion fund. Early-stage funds attracted the most new capital, accounting for $3.9 billion of the total, up from $736 million a year ago. Later-stage funds collected only $1.5 billion, and multi-stage funds raised $2.3 billion. European VC funds didn’t do so well, raising only $653 million across five funds, down from $1.3 billion a year ago across 13 funds.        
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| Level 3 To Acquire Global Crossing For $3 Billion In Stock Posted: 11 Apr 2011 05:03 AM PDT
Global Crossing’s networking platform offers businesses VPN, leased lines, audio and video conferencing, long distance telephone, managed services, dialup, colocation and VoIP services. Global Crossing’s network is currently being used by 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies, as well as 700 carriers, mobile operators and ISPs. Jim Crowe, chief executive officer of Level 3, said in a statement: "This is a transformational combination that we believe will deliver significant value to the investors, customers and employees of both Level 3 and Global Crossing…The complementary fit between the two companies' networks, service portfolios and customers is compelling. By leveraging the respective strengths and extensive reach of both companies, we are creating a highly efficient and more extensive global platform that is well-positioned to meet the local and international needs of our customers." Global Crossing has had a tumultuous past. The company’s market cap was once $40 billion, which is well below the $3 billion acquisition price (or $1.9 billion minus debt). In 2002, the company filed for bankruptcy. Global Crossing’s founder Gary Winnick was sued for fraud by the company’s shareholders; Winnick and other executives eventually paid $325 million in a settlement. The two companies will create a giant in the networking space. The combined company’s platform will be anchored by fiber optic networks on three continents, and will support clients in 50 countries (including Netflix). The revenue from both companies in 2010 was $6.26 billion.        
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| WorkSnug Secures Funding, Locates Nine Angels Posted: 11 Apr 2011 04:44 AM PDT  WorkSnug, the location-based service for mobile workers, has raised £110k in funding from nine UK-based Angel investors. Yes, you read that correct, nine separate investors, which seems a little extreme for what from the outside looks like a seed round. However, in actual fact, WorkSnug has generated revenue almost from the get-go through partnerships with Plantronics, Cisco, Skype and, most recently, HP. Having launched its app globally over a year ago, the London-based startup is only now taking funding in order to step on the gas as it were by launching on more mobile platforms (beyond iPhone and BlackBerry) and broadening its offering. Interestingly, this could include helping mobile workers not just locate places to co-work and other resources but, eventually, people. Thus unlocking the serendipitous or dare I say temporal social networks that potentially exist in places frequented by mobile workers hunched over laptops. It's not hard to imagine how that could create all sorts of exciting opportunities.
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| Huddlebuy, The ‘Groupon-For-Small-Businesses’, Raises £350K In Angel Funding Posted: 11 Apr 2011 04:12 AM PDT  Is there no end to the group buying craze? It seems not and today news comes that Huddlebuy, the 'Groupon for small businesses', has raised £350,000 in Angel funding. Those that participated in the round include Alex Chesterman, co-founder of LoveFilm and Zoopla, and well-known Angel Sherry Coutu. UK-based Huddlebuy is founded by Per Larsen (ex-Apple), Chieu Cao (ex-Microsoft) and Saurav Chopra (ex-Deloite/Yahoo!) and like a typical group buying site, offers discounts - this time aimed at small businesses - through the so-called power of group buying, which in reality is achieved through a sprinkling of economies of scale supported by a heavy dose of social media marketing as offers are designed to go viral.
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| Kiip Is An Entirely New Mobile Ad Model: Real Life Rewards For In-Game Achievements Posted: 10 Apr 2011 11:59 PM PDT
Going beyond the banner and text ads used by industry leaders iAd and AdMob, the team behind Kiip has thought long and hard about the way people actually play games and has come to conclusion that the moments when players experience in-game achievements like upping a level, completing a challenge or accumulating a certain number of points are the most valuable in terms of providing the most user engagement. Unlike Tap.me, Kiip doesn’t just show an ad when those moments are achieved. What it does instead is pretty interesting: Kiip has partnered up with big brands like Sephora, popchips, Homerun.com, Sony Dash, Vitamin Water, 1-800-Flowers, Dr. Pepper, GNC, Carl’s Jr and Hardee’s to offer players actual in-game rewards like a voucher for six bags of popchips, a lipstick sample or a complimentary smoothie when they complete gaming milestones. “Achievements are the universal currency for accomplishment and every game in the world has achievments,” 19-year-old Kiip co-founder Brian Wong tells me, explaining what he calls the “Achievement Moment.” “The achievement itself isn’t the cool thing, it’s the moment. We realized that the moment was worth something. The natural evolution is to put something there that actually matches the achievement.” Wong emphasizes that Kiip (pronounced Keep) isn’t a conventional ads network but a “Rewards Network”. Hmmm … It depends on what you consider an ad. Offering players custom-tailored rewards is basically lead generation. It’s an easy away for advertisers to associate their brand with a positive moment, almost diabolical in its simplicity; “Driving for customer acquisition when players are happy.” As of midnight tonight the Kiip Rewards Network will be rolling out rewards in over 15 games, reaching 12 million monthly active users (Wong wouldn’t tell me which games they were involved with so if anyone sees a Kiip ad please let me know). Brands will pay up when a user signs up for a reward, from 25 cents to $3 per cost per engagement. The rewards themselves are actually targeted algorithmically based on the game demographics, for example if no girls play a game there will be no offers for lipstick. If someone ends up with something they don’t want they can always gift it. Kiip is also complimentary to other mobile ad networks as it only provides rewards for achievements and doesn’t get into banner ads or the real estate business. Says Wong, “People have been too focused on real estate and pieces of the screen being part of the advertising equation, but they’ve completely overlooked the notion of moments, moments where you’re happy, moments when you engage. These moments are worth something.” Co-founded by former Digg employees Wong, Courtney Guertin and Sequence’s Amadeus Demarzi, Kiip pocketed $4 million in Series A funding from Hummer Winblad and True Ventures just last week. Wong tells me the team has got a lot more up its sleeve, and as always, you’ll read about it first here.
       
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| Peter Thiel: We’re in a Bubble and It’s Not the Internet. It’s Higher Education. Posted: 10 Apr 2011 09:45 PM PDT I can say that with confidence because it’s about Peter Thiel. And Thiel – the PayPal co-founder, hedge fund manager and venture capitalist – not only has a special talent for making money, he has a special talent for making people furious. Some people are contrarian for the sake of getting headlines or outsmarting the markets. For Thiel, it’s simply how he views the world. Of course a side benefit for the natural contrarian is it frequently leads to things like headlines and money. Consider the 2000 Nasdaq crash. Thiel was one of the few who saw in coming. There’s a famous story about PayPal’s March 2000 venture capital round. The offer was “only” at a $500 million-or-so valuation. Nearly everyone on the board and the management team balked, except Thiel who calmly told the room that this was a bubble at its peak, and the company needed to take every dime it could right now. That’s how close PayPal came to being dot com roadkill a la WebVan or Pets.com. And after the crash, Thiel insisted there hadn’t really been a crash: He argued the equity bubble had simply shifted onto the housing market. Thiel was so convinced of this thesis that until recently, he refused to buy property, despite his soaring personal net worth. And, again, he was right. So Friday, as I sat with Thiel in his San Francisco home that he finally owns, I was curious what he thinks of the current Web frenzy. Not surprisingly, another Internet bubble seemed the farthest thing from his mind. But, he argued, America is under the spell of a bubble of a very different kind. Is it an emerging markets bubble? You could argue that, Thiel says, but he also notes that with half of the world’s population surging to modernity, it’s hard to argue the emerging world is overvalued. Instead, for Thiel, the bubble that has taken the place of housing is the higher education bubble. “A true bubble is when something is over-valued and intensely believed,” he says. “Education may be the only thing people still believe in in the United States. To question education is really dangerous. It is the absolute taboo. It’s like telling the world there’s no Santa Claus.” Like the housing bubble, the education bubble is about security and insurance against the future. Both whisper a seductive promise into the ears of worried Americans: Do this and you will be safe. The excesses of both were always excused by a core national belief that no matter what happens in the world, these were the best investments you could make. Housing prices would always go up, and you will always make more money if you are college educated. Like any good bubble, this belief– while rooted in truth– gets pushed to unhealthy levels. Thiel talks about consumption masquerading as investment during the housing bubble, as people would take out speculative interest-only loans to get a bigger house with a pool and tell themselves they were being frugal and saving for retirement. Similarly, the idea that attending Harvard is all about learning? Yeah. No one pays a quarter of a million dollars just to read Chaucer. The implicit promise is that you work hard to get there, and then you are set for life. It can lead to an unhealthy sense of entitlement. “It’s what you’ve been told all your life, and it’s how schools rationalize a quarter of a million dollars in debt,” Thiel says. Thiel isn’t totally alone in the first part of his education bubble assertion. It used to be a given that a college education was always worth the investment– even if you had to take out student loans to get one. But over the last year, as unemployment hovers around double digits, the cost of universities soars and kids graduate and move back home with their parents, the once-heretical question of whether education is worth the exorbitant price has started to be re-examined even by the most hard-core members of American intelligensia. Making matters worse was a 2005 President George W. Bush decree that student loan debt is the one thing you can’t wriggle away from by declaring personal bankruptcy, says Thiel. “It’s actually worse than a bad mortgage,” he says. “You have to get rid of the future you wanted to pay off all the debt from the fancy school that was supposed to give you that future.” But Thiel’s issues with education run even deeper. He thinks it’s fundamentally wrong for a society to pin people’s best hope for a better life on something that is by definition exclusionary. “If Harvard were really the best education, if it makes that much of a difference, why not franchise it so more people can attend? Why not create 100 Harvard affiliates?” he says. “It’s something about the scarcity and the status. In education your value depends on other people failing. Whenever Darwinism is invoked it’s usually a justification for doing something mean. It’s a way to ignore that people are falling through the cracks, because you pretend that if they could just go to Harvard, they’d be fine. Maybe that’s not true.” And that ripples down to other private colleges and universities. At an event two weeks ago, I met Geoffrey Canada, one of the stars of the documentary “Waiting for Superman.” He talked about a college he advises that argued they couldn’t possible cut their fees for the simple reason that people would deem them to be less-prestigious. Thiel is the first to admit some of this promised security is true. He himself grew up in a comfortable upper-middle-class household and went to Stanford and Stanford Law School. He certainly reaped advantages, like friendships with frequent collaborators and co-investors Keith Rabois and Reid Hoffman. Today he ranks on Forbes billionaire list and has a huge house in San Francisco with a butler. How much of that was him and how much of that was Stanford? He doesn’t know. No one does. But, he argues, that doesn’t mean it’s not an uncomfortable elitist dynamic that we should try to change. He compares it to a world in which everyone was buying guns to stay safe. Maybe they do need them. But maybe they should also examine some of the reasons life is so dangerous and try to solve those too. Thiel’s solution to opening the minds of those who can’t easily go to Harvard? Poke a small but solid hole in this Ivy League bubble by convincing some of the most talented kids to stop out of school and try another path. The idea of the successful drop out has been well documented in technology entrepreneurship circles. But Thiel and Founders Fund managing partner Luke Nosek wanted to fund something less one-off, so they came up with the idea of the “20 Under 20″ program last September, announcing it just days later at San Francisco Disrupt. The idea was simple: Pick the best twenty kids he could find under 20 years of age and pay them $100,000 over two years to leave school and start a company instead. Two weeks ago, Thiel quietly invited 45 finalists to San Francisco for interviews. Everyone who was invited attended– no hysterical parents in sight. Thiel and crew have started to winnow the finalists down to the final 20. They’ll be announced in the next few weeks. While a controversial program for many in the press, plenty of students, their parents and people in tech have been wildly supportive. Thiel received more than 400 applications and most were from very high-end schools, including about seventeen applicants from Stanford. And more than 100 people in his network have signed up to be mentors to them. Thiel thinks there’s been a sea-change in the last three years, as debt has mounted and the economy has faltered. “This wouldn’t have been feasible in 2007,” he says. “Parents see kids moving back home after college and they’re thinking, ‘Something is not working. This was not part of the deal.’ We got surprisingly little pushback from parents.” Thiel notes a handful of students told him that whether they were selected or not, they were leaving school to start a company. Many more built tight relationships with competing applicants during the brief Silicon Valley retreat– a sort of support group of like-minded restless students. Of course, if the problem Thiel sees with the higher education bubble is elitism, why were so many of the invitees Ivy League kids? Where were the smart inner-city kids let down by economic blight and a failing education system of a city like Detroit; the kids who need to be lifted up the most? Thiel notes it wasn’t all elites. Many of the applicants came from other countries, some from remote villages in emerging markets. But the program has a clear bias towards talent, and like it or not, talent tends to be found in private universities. Besides, he’s not advocating that stopping out of school is for everyone any more than he’s arguing everyone should be an entrepreneur. But to start a new aspirational example– an alternative path– it makes sense to start with the people who have all the options. “Everyone thinks kids in inner-city Detroit should do something else,” Thiel says. “We’re saying maybe people at Harvard need to be doing something else. We have to reset what the bar is at the top.” That hints at another interesting distinction between the housing bubble and the education bubble: Class. The housing bubble was mostly a middle-class phenomenon. Even as much of the nation was wrapped up in it, there was a counter narrative on programs like CNBC and in papers like the Wall Street Journal pooh-poohing the dumb people buying all those condos in Florida. But with education, there’s barely any counter-narrative at all, because it is rooted in the most elite echelons of the upper class. Thiel assumes this is why his relatively modest plan to get 20 kids to stop out of school for a few years is so threatening to a lot of the people who have the biggest megaphones to scream about it. “The people who are the most critical of this program are the ones who are most complacent with where the country is right now,” he says.        
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| Adobe And Zend Launch Flash Builder 4.5 For PHP Development Posted: 10 Apr 2011 09:00 PM PDT
Zend, which has been working with Adobe since 2008, offers its own distribution of PHP, the popular open-source scripting language for Web applications, and sells software and support services around the language. The Flash Builder 4.5 for PHP gives developers a single code base for applications for Android, Blackberry Tablet OS and iOS while sharing code from Web applications. Adobe Flash Builder 4.5 for PHP includes an integrated copy of Zend Studio 8, which allows developers to develop Flash based applications within a single environment. Specifically, the integrated software offers a single UI framework to create Flex and PHP projects for desktop and mobile and the ability to connect to PHP services and generate ActionScript value objects. The combination of the two frameworks in one suite is powerful, says Zend CEO Andi Gutmans. Adobe says that more than 131 million smartphones are expected to have Flash Player installed by the end of the year. And PHP is the leading language for public facing web applications, says Gutmans. It’s good to see Zend back on the mend, after a rough patch a few years ago.        
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| Dave McClure On 500 Startups: “If Sequoia Is The Yankees, We’re The Oakland A’s” Posted: 10 Apr 2011 08:37 PM PDT After 500 Startups Demo Day on Thursday, I sat down to talk to investor Dave McClure about the strategy and vision behind the early stage seed fund and accelerator program, which he hopes will eventually encompass 500 actual startups (currently the portfolio is at around 110). In the interview McClure talks about the perfect formula for a startup (hacker + hustler + designer) and why the three Ds — Design, Data and Distribution — are important for young companies. He says that the fund basically makes its $25K to $250K bets on companies with simple revenue models, “Things that are easily understood and make money.” He compares the 500 Startups to Ichiro, a smaller Japanese baseball player who has built a career around smaller hits. He then extends the baseball metaphor further, “If Sequoia’s the Yankees, we’re the Oakland A’s,” referring to Michael Lewis’ Moneyball, a book that chronicles the unexpected success of underdog Oakland A’s because of their strategic building of a winning team. While 500 Startups may not have the pedigree of venture capital biggies like Sequoia or Kleiner Perkins, it can still eek out some wins simply by being scrappier and more unconventional.“We say we like to hit singles and doubles, occasionally we’ll hit a home run,” McClure said, driving the point home. Thanks @andrewpbrett        
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| War, What Is It Good For? Three Points! Posted: 10 Apr 2011 08:24 PM PDT
Last night, I visited the BBC News website for the first time in a week. Imagine my surprise on learning that, while I was busy hanging out with strippers and watching 80s boy-band stars in Vegas, I missed the entire federal government almost being shut down. That insulation from reality is both a problem and a selling-point for this town: what doesn't happen in Vegas stays outside Vegas. And so it was with some interest that, during my news catch-up, I spotted the headline on PBS's Idea Lab: "Why Are Newsrooms Resistant to Creating Newsgames?" In a well-argued post, Chris O'Brien outlines various reasons why news organisations should explore ways to include elements of videogaming into their reporting.
Indeed so. In fact, I can't disagree with a single word that O'Brien says: the majority of adults do play games, and repeated studies show that a large proportion of people are turned off by straight news reporting and are turned on by game mechanics in all their forms. Companies like Zynga and Rovio have made billions from social games: there’s gold in tham thar villes. And yet, for all that I agree with O’Brien’s arguments, I couldn’t help buy answer his rhetorical headline thus: BECAUSE NOT EVERYTHING IS A GAME. Maybe I'm getting old. Certainly I'm an old media journalism snob. But the fact is, when faced with the fact that an increasing number of people can't process news without a game element, my instinct is to reply… well… fuck 'em. It was ever thus: a world divided into those with the mental capacity and attention span required to read and digest the day's news, and to understand the importance of doing so — and the perpetual children: the proud morons who say things like "I'm not interested in politics" (despite being mortgaged to the hilt) or ask "why should I care about stuff happening in countries thousands of miles away?" (despite those being the countries that own all the debt). You can tell those people by their drool, their bumper stickers — and, oftentimes, their chronic addition to videogames, used as a way to escape the harsh reality of the world. Increasingly, though, everyone is a gamer; if not through traditional videogames then through the increasing “gamification” (ugh) of real life. It's no longer enough to enjoy a meal with friends: unless we check in (and maybe – gasp! – become Mayor!) the experience is hollow and meaningless. Every soda we drink, or cereal box we open, or wrap of cocaine we score is emblazoned with its own QR code allowing us to unlock points or win some unrelated thing; otherwise, why choose that brand? There is almost no area of life – finance, taxation, education, health that remains un-gamified. And now, apparently, it's news' turn. Because, let's be honest, unless I can pull the trigger and take Gaddafi out myself, who gives a shit? Of course, on that last point at least, I'm exaggerating. O'Brien isn't suggesting that all news should be gamified — just that reporters shouldn't be afraid to make it part of their arsenal. Likewise people aren't socialising with friends, or rearranging their finances, or learning new languages just to earn points: the game element is merely a fun way to encourage them to do those things more frequently, or to guide their choices towards certain brands or venues. And yet… The popularity of gaming – and the time spent doing it – continues to increase (the average young person racks up 10,000 hours of gaming by the age of 21). Meanwhile, you only have to look at the success of the Daily Show, or Fox News, or Michael Moore to realise that audiences increasingly prefer to get their news from sources which sugar the bitter pill of reality with entertainment. With news organisations struggling to attract and retain audiences who would rather spend their days planting virtual crops than doing… well.. almost anything else – the slope between “gamification is a useful add-on” to "if it's not a game, people won't engage with it and we'll all go out of business" is a slippery one. At the top of that slope is a grown-up world where we’re smart enough to realise that certain decisions (to stay informed, to look after our health, to monitor our finances) should be made because they’re important, not because they’re fun. And at the bottom of the slope lies a dystopian future where every aspect of our lives – from the food we eat, to the relationships we form, to the information we process – is driven by the childish question: is it fun? A world where, like drooling, gurgling Peter Pans we never have to grow up. How far we slide down that slope will, of course, depend entirely on humanity's capacity to choose the pursuit of information for its own sake over the childish imperative to always chase fun and prizes. Yeah. If you run into me on the streets of Las Vegas in the next few days, you'll understand if I look a little freaked out.        
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| Can’t Build A Real Startup? Play The ‘Startup Fever’ Boardgame Posted: 10 Apr 2011 03:31 PM PDT
A) You can read TechCrunch and hash out whether or not a product will succeed in the comments section. B) You can hang out on Hacker News, lauding people who have dropped out of school to build a startup and voting up articles that basically amount to entrepreneurship porn. C) You can engage in the intense debates surrounding questions about startups on Quora, despite having no startup experience yourself. D) And if you’re really committed, you can go sit at The Creamery in San Francisco or Coupa Cafe in Palo Alto and pretend to be working on a stealth project, when all you’re really doing is surfing Twitter. Or E) you could play Startup Fever, The Board Game. A Kickstarter project created by Louis Perrochon, Startup Fever is, yes, a board game about running a startup (#bubblealert). Like a Silicon Valley version of Settlers of Catan, Startup Fever allows players to build imaginary product, hire and poach imaginary employees, gain imaginary users and generate imaginary revenue. Perrochon is currently looking for $10,111 to improve the artwork and look and feel of the game, which truthfully leaves much to be desired. Thus far he’s raised $2,390. Backers who pledge beyond $50 will receive an actual copy of the game and backers beyond $60 will receive the Venture Capital Edition complete with six lawyers, 30 company shares, and a limited edition rules addendum. If you pledge $500 and over (and live within 50 miles of Palo Alto) you’ll also get the personal attendance of Perrochon at your game evening where Perrochon will “personally introduce you and your guests to the game and answer any questions you might have.” In addition, Perrochon will randomly bring a 4.5kg Toblerone over to your house (bizarre, I know). Those that have the cash might want to splurge on the CEO-Level and have Perrochon explain things, as playing the game, which sure includes a lot of multi-colored playing pieces, actually seems just as complicated as running an actual startup. So maybe you should just do that, instead.         
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| InPulse Adds A Smartphone-Like Experience To Your Wrist Watch Posted: 10 Apr 2011 02:10 PM PDT
Founder Eric Migicovsky says that he is a avid cyclist and wanted a way to check his email, SMS messages and calls in a hands free devices. Using a smartphone on his trips didn’t make sense because he wasn’t able to actually use his hands while cycling. So he started thinking about how he could add smartphone capabilities to a watch, which he always wore when exercising. Thus, InPulse was born. The device connects via Bluetooth to your phone and will deliver email alerts, SMS messages and calls directly to the watch. The watch can connect wirelessly to all kinds of host devices: computers, laptops, and smartphones and works best with Android, Blackberry, Mac, Windows and Linux (adding iPhone support is in the works, but Apple requires special chips to be built into the watch.) It’s a two way connection, so inPulse can send packets back to the host based on user interaction. As for the specs, the device’s screen features a 1.3″ 96×128 pix full color display. The watch also includes a Of course, a bluetooth enabled watch is not new. For example, Fossil teamed up with Sony Ericsson a while back for a similar device. Another competitor is Casio’s Bluetooth watch. What is innovative about InPulse is the ability to create apps for the device, which then adds some pretty impressive functionalities to a watch. For example, one app allows you to get notifications on the watch, and lets you see your messages coming in without taking out your phone. There are many use cases for that feature, but namely, it can be rude to check your phone for emails in the middle of a serious meeting or event. Another beta user (the device was soft launched earlier this year) is a paramedic who needed both hands free for work. InPulse has opened up it platform to developers and so far over 30 apps have been created for the watch. These range from making your watch into an iTunes music controller to becoming a PowerPoint presentation remote control (Migicovsky used his InPulse watch to present and pitch during Y Combinator’s demo day a few weeks ago). You can also check-in to Facebook Places from the watch. The beauty of the device is that you can program it to display anything via apps. Another popular use case is to programmers is display real time server stats for programmers on the go. There’s even a site devoted to featuring the watch’s apps. While there was recently a Yale hackathon dedicated to developing for InPulse, the startup is sponsoring a hackathon at the Hacker Dojo on April 17. You can find details here. So far, InPulse has sold 600 devices to beta users. As we increasingly become more reliant on constant connectivity, devices like InPulse will certainly make consumer’s lives easier. For example, my phone accompanies me to the gym and I constantly check it while on the treadmill. And I wake up in the middle of the night to check emails, etc. But during my pilates lesson, I’m unable to check my email and keep my phone by my side. A watch that showed me my missed calls, emails and latest news headlines would be ideal for me. Clearly, InPulse’s users are those who want and need to be connected at all times (like me). But it’s important to note that some consumers may be willing to abandon their apps, emails, and phone calls for a few hours while their hands are tired. Of course, in the tech world, those people are few and far between.         
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| Posted: 10 Apr 2011 01:17 PM PDT
We’ll never know what the Gettysburg Address would have looked like after surviving auto-correct. Or what Hitler might have done with GPS. By the looks of Techmeme this weekend, we don’t even have a shot at what is happening right now. Instead, we have Larry Page’s first day at his second take as Google CEO. Stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues again. I know it’s just business. Fear of Facebook has sent Eric Schmidt packing or at least down the hall in some newly refurbished executive building. Larry is being handed something similar to the creaking load of stupid situations that Russell Brand wrestled to the ground in the newly refurbished Arthur. Brand did a good job, and so will Page, but to what end? It is increasingly difficult to remember how amazing Google was just a few story lines ago. Back then, the throw it against the wall and see what sticks approach seemed engaging and faintly revolutionary. Gmail was the real disruption, heralding the Cloud and daring Microsoft to ignore it at what continues to be its peril. Wave seemed like Animal House, live from Australia it’s Saturday Night, now with added realtime. Buzz was like the Apple leaks that came surprisingly true, a capitulation to copying the remaining good ideas out there. Sadly, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, and magic isn’t what it used to be. But there is light at the end of the tunnel. Gmail succeeded because it was given time to breathe. Today’s Gmail is streaming, the magic fountain of youth for Netflix and iPad 2 and AirPlay. YouTube made some noises about turning on streaming this week, and if the Gmail strategy of letting beta dynamics build just barely in time scalability is repeated it will be a really big deal. Google has shown no skill at doing what Jobs does best, wrangling the studios. But wrangled they are, leaving a gaping hole for streaming live news and events to break through. Ustream and the other streaming startups are not moving quickly enough to take advantage of the opportunity, which is summarized in one word: iPad. If Google can do to streaming what iTunes did to podcasting, namely produce ubiquitous iPad consumable live streams of any and all comers, the market will do the rest just like it is doing with Netflix. This will require some heavy duty gumption on Larry’s part. He’ll have to abandon the Schmidt antipathy for all things Apple and support (or continue to support) H264 and the direct channel to the iPad and AirPlay. You can see noises already about doing Google TV right, but that’s a sucker play that people like Sony’s Howard Stringer are already signaling they won’t go for again. It’s hard to remember apparently that Google’s early alliance with Apple on the iPhone was equally good for both parties. Today’s movie analogy is The Fighter, where Marky Mark is forced to jettison his mother and crack addict brother to get another shot at a title fight, and then realizes he must bring his new and old teams together to win. Google still thinks it can invent its way forward, but it’s a bit of a bluff given its Facebook paranoia. The swing vote these days is with the users, who know what they want and will flock to the first group that delivers. We know a tell when we see it, and Larry’s 25% social tax is a loser. He’s saying social is the enemy, and we’re saying no it’s not. Social is not something gained, it’s something we give. Facebook may overreach but we flock to Twitter to reduce the chance of being overpowered. We root for Netflix as much because it is not Comcast as we did for Google for not being Microsoft. We intuitively know that if the majors hold Netflix up for ransom we’ll pay 20 bucks a month instead of 8. And intuitively we know that once we get there it will be a lot easier to cut the cable cord knowing the economics are more in line. In other words, it’s a counter-intuitive world where the cartel’s smartest move would be to keep prices low to keep Netflix from crossing over. A world where the way forward is to hold your friends close and your enemies closer. We pay Netflix $8 a month not for what they deliver but for what they could. We may not be sure who our friends are, but we know who aren’t. Now it’s Larry’s turn.        
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| How Worried Are Consumers about Privacy? Posted: 10 Apr 2011 10:52 AM PDT
This has been fueled in large part by the scrutiny of Facebook. A Wall Street Journal piece in October 2010 provided details about the controversy, which stemmed from concerns that application developers were gathering information about Facebook users – and their friends – then selling that information to advertisers. While concerns about consumer privacy are justified and need to be examined (and possibly legislated) in the age of social media, the current frenzy may be blown out of proportion. We need to ask ourselves whether consumers are truly worried about guarding their information. And if so, what are the conditions under which they are willing to provide personal information? Finally, don't they feel differently depending on what information is being tracked? A review of the experience of the past few decades with traditional customer loyalty programs provides some important insights. As it turns out, consumers will willingly render personal information under the right circumstances. Consider the following examples: · Grocery and department store "preferred shopper" cards have been widely accepted and used in exchange for relevant deals, discounts and information. · Frequent flier programs and credit card companies provide points toward flights, trips, points for shopping and more in exchange for personal information that is widely known to be sold to third parties. · "Nielsen families" have willingly given out information about their TV viewing habits for more than 60 years. Even online, consumers have embraced the benefits that come from providing personal information. Amazon.com and Netflix recommendations are extremely popular. They generate recommendations for consumers based on their past purchases and other demographic information. Consumers enjoy this convenience and view the recommendations as discovery tools that enhance their online shopping experiences. These recommendations are made possible only through access to personal information. Furthermore, looking at social networks, millions of consumers are publishing large amounts of personal information openly to the masses. The problems with privacy begin when companies gather sensitive personal information of which consumers are protective. For example, even though consumers have reacted positively to Netflix's recommendation engine, one woman sued the company (Doe vs. Netflix) because it was collecting information that revealed her sexual preference. When companies gather information about more sensitive preferences, such as adult entertainment, financial services or health, consumers put their guard up. Even so, consumers are fairly tolerant of providing even highly personal information as long as they authorize it. I put these authorization rules into three categories, which have been respected by the traditional approaches to leveraging personal information. Consumers must be able to protect their privacy by: 1. Authorizing companies to gather their information 2. Understanding how the company will use their information 3. Retaining the ability to opt out The lesson? Consumers simply want control of their personal information. In essence, they want access topersonalized content, but they also want to retain control so they can make the provider "forget" the action. You'll readily spot this in all of the opt-out offers when you buy something online. Of course, personalization isn't going away. On the contrary, it's here to stay, and it's only going to become more sophisticated. Consumers, too, will become more savvy as they learn how to control access to their personal information. The industry simply needs to abide by a few tried and true ground rules that provide peace of mind and comfort to consumers. This requires transparency to the process and control of what data is being collected and how it is being used. If this is all as harmless and easy to fix as I seem to imply, why all the controversy? Very simply, it's because many online companies today have extended their practices way beyond consumers' tolerance levels using data targeting in what I call "taboo areas of interest" and making transparency very difficult. Industry guidelines should be set in collaboration with consumer advocacy groups and Washington D.C. to protect the emerging fields of new media and e-commerce, while at the same time being respectful of the rare instances in which consumers want to be left alone. Habib Kairouz is the managing partner of Rho Ventures.        
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| Posted: 10 Apr 2011 09:46 AM PDT The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, Doc Searls, Kevin Marks, Andrew Keen, and Steve Gillmor — dive deep into the reasons why Google has its work cut out for it in the fight for social credibility. @scobleizer thinks it’s because the engineers of the search startup don’t understand the value of wasting time. Doc Searls, who arrived late in the show due to a failure to understand how clocks waste time, thinks there’s room for failing at social. In a week where Netflix paid a million dollars per episode for the full Monty of seven seasons of Mad Men, the new challenger to HBO and Showtime puts a price tag on the value of the model formerly known as the rerun. British philosopher and TCTV interviewer Andrew Keen agrees with In The Plex author Steven Levy that Google’s future lies with mastering Artificial Intelligence. Watch for a secret revealed about new CEO Larry Page. Hint: he doesn’t need a microwave.        
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A new study says that smartphone users are overpaying for their service by several hundred dollars each and every year. The study, put together by Billmonitor, notes that people are overspending primarily because they’re on contracts that wildly overshoot their needs. People have a habit of signing up for contracts with far more voice minutes than they use, and it’s primarily for this reason that smartphone users are paying much more than they need to. In other words, double-check your statement to make sure you’re on the right contract.
IAC has had an agreement with Google for some time now to hand over all search advertising on Ask.com and other IAC sites to the search giant. In 2007, IAC 
AT&T has suddenly realized the power of mobile commerce, most recently 
Level 3 Communications has
Adobe and 
“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” – Corinthians 13:11
There’s actually quite a few options for wannabe-founders looking to live vicariously through this current 
Mobile phones have evolved into smartphones because these devices have basically become computers in the form of a cell phone. Besides browsing, one of the key components that make smartphones as interactive as a computer are the apps that can be used within the device. And it’s interesting to consider how we can add this element of computing and interactivity to other gadgets we use in everyday life. Today, 
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