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The Latest from TechCrunch

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• Discovr Unveils People Finder App, Helps You Surface Interesting People On Twitter
• A 4.6-Inch iPhone With 4G LTE? I’d Buy That
• Amicus Wants To Socialize Nonprofit Fundraising And Outreach, Raises $580K Itself
• The Fallen King: Apple Outships RIM In Canada For The First Time
• Facebook Photos Now Shown In 4X Bigger High Resolution and Can Be Viewed Fullscreen
• Have The Samwers Gone Too Far With Their Blatant Amazon Clone Lazada?
• Microsoft And TiVo Drop Their Patent Lawsuits Against Each Other
• Motorola Aims For The Green With MOTOACTV Golf Edition
• Netflix’s New Horror Series “Hemlock Grove” To Air Early 2013
• Home Is Where The Mobile Game Is: 96% Play Games In The House, 53% In Bed
• Carpooling Marketplace Blablacar Acquires PostoinAuto To Drive Into Italy
• Windows Phone Marketplace Tops 70,000 Apps
• GREE May Have Missed OMGPOP, But It Has Another Way To Expand: A Deal With Ad Giant Dentsu
• Lookout: Lost And Stolen Smartphones Will Cost Consumers Over $30B In 2012
• Galaxy Note Won’t Taste Ice Cream Sandwich Until Q2, But New Apps Sweeten The Deal
• Western Union Gets Into Online Payments, Launches PayNearMe Competitor WU Pay
• Online Work Platform oDesk Raises $15M From T. Rowe Price, Benchmark
• Ni Hao Flipboard: Reading App Takes The Bilingual Approach In China To Attract Local Consumers
• Exclusive: Sony Mobile’s First TV Spot For The Xperia, Directed By Wes Anderson
• Angry Birds Space Lands At Last

Discovr Unveils People Finder App, Helps You Surface Interesting People On Twitter Posted: 22 Mar 2012 09:47 AM PDT Discovr, the company behind what’s still one of my all-time favorite mobile app discovery tools, Discovr Apps, is out today with a new application for finding people. Not surprisingly, it’s called Discovr People. The startup, which also has apps in the Music and Movies verticals, is not trying to compete with the trendy “ambient location”/people-stalking apps hitting the scene as of late (like Higlight, Sonar, Glancee, Banjo, etc.), but instead is providing more of a Twitter-based people finder. When you first launch Discovr People (iOS only for now), the app asks you if it can access your Twitter accounts. Say yes, and you’re off. [Note to app developers: this is how social integrations should be done on iOS - stop asking for my Twitter username and password already.] If you’re familiar with Discovr Apps, the new People app works the same way. The interface involves an interactive map showing a network of connected people, the way that Discovr Apps shows you apps related to the one you’re viewing. To start using the People app, you first type in a Twitter user’s name, and out pop spokes connecting them to the people they’ve tweeted with most recently. The algorithm here is a bit of mystery. The company says that it tracks your “recent” conversations across Twitter’s network of 140 million active users, but in my early tests, the results it displayed were odd at times. In my case, for instance, it displayed some who I’ve tweeted with ages ago as well as some who I wouldn’t even call close Twitter friends. Maybe we conversed a bit lately, but I wouldn’t call them “regulars,” exactly. Other results were more on target. When I entered in @TechCrunch’s username, however, the people results were more promising. Here, it was able to surface some, if not all, of the TechCrunch staff, including both writers and editors. It’s a good place to start, at least. The company tells me that the “recent history” it’s referring to is not defined to a certain length of time, as it depends on how much a user tweets. If you tweet a lot, for example, it will be days or weeks. If you don’t, it will be longer – like months. People are shown as connections only if they have been actively talking to each other, which is different than how Twitter makes its own recommendations (a function based more on similarity). There’s other secret sauce, of course, and the algorithm is always being tweaked, too. After the initial network is displayed, you can then tap on any one of the connections to then see their related “spokes” expand outwards, too. You can also tap and hold for quick access to the Twitter bio and a button to follow/unfollow the user as you see fit. Twitter, a network based more on people’s interests than on real-world connections like Facebook, has always faced challenges in helping people find other users they would want to follow. It has attempted to solve this problem in a variety of ways, including through the use of suggested people lists and category suggestions upon first sign up, suggested people presented to users in their Twitter profile, and, more recently, with updated mobile apps that invite you to “Discover,” meaning follow the popular trends happening across the service – another vector for finding people tweeting about things that may interest you. Discovr People is not at all a panacea for the “who to follow” challenge Twitter faces, but it’s a worthy enough third-party complement to Twitter’s own in-house tools as well as those provided by other external developers. It’s also kind of fun for Twitter people-stalking purposes, if you’re into that kind of thing. The new app is available here on iTunes for $0.99. Sorry, Android users, but Discovr says the time is still not right for it to move to that platform. Discovr previously raised $1.1 million in seed funding, led by Australian VC firm Yuuwa Capital. Discover says its code base (which is used across all apps) just hit 2 million downloads as of last night.

A 4.6-Inch iPhone With 4G LTE? I’d Buy That Posted: 22 Mar 2012 09:28 AM PDT Alright. So you have your new iPad. You’re breathing easy knowing that the hectic, crazy part is over and you can simply relax and browse the interwebs on that stunning Retina display. But not so fast. The iPhone rumor mill starting picking up the pace before the iPad was even announced, and now that big brother tablet is out and about, speculation is revving up. Today, the rumors include a 4.6-inch Retina display on the next-gen iPhone, as well as 4G LTE connectivity. Pulling from a Korean newspaper called Maeil Business Newspaper, Reuters is reporting that “Apple has decided on the bigger 4.6-inch display for its next iPhone and started placing orders to its suppliers.” By suppliers, we assume that references LG and Samsung within Korea, but the unnamed sources declined to confirm. There are also rumors of a 4-inch iPhone display that have been swirling around for much longer. This I feel a bit more comfortable reporting on. Making a 4.6-inch display would mean that the size of the iPhone itself would be much larger than it currently is. John Gruber of Daring Fireball agrees with me: Longer and wider? Sounds like bullshit. I can see Apple putting a bigger display on a device of the same size. I can't see them making a bigger device. A 4-inch display could possibly fit on to the iPhone at its current size, especially considering the fact that the next-gen precious will probably undergo a redesign of some sort. Then we have the matter of 4G LTE connectivity to deal with. This is pretty… duh. If Apple felt comfortable enough to put LTE on the iPad, they should feel alright about slapping it in the iPhone. Of course, by the time the iPhone launches, AT&T’s 4G LTE network should be much more built out, and Verizon’s should be much more reliable. But if connecting the dots doesn’t seem firm enough for you, the folks over at iDownloadBlog have something a bit more substantial. After receiving screenshots and detailed information from iOS 5.1 from a tipster, they replicated the 5.1 jailbreak on an iPhone 4 using iFile. Come to find, certain strings in iOS 5.1 (which do not reside in iOS 5.0.1) make reference to 4G LTE connectivity. Yeah, yeah, I know. The iPad has 4G LTE and runs iOS 5.1, so of course there will be mention of 4G. But, before you rush to the comments section to call me an idiot, check out this screen grab: “Enabling 4G will end your phone call. Are you sure you want to enable 4G?” I’m sure, Apple. Let’s do this.

Amicus Wants To Socialize Nonprofit Fundraising And Outreach, Raises $580K Itself Posted: 22 Mar 2012 09:27 AM PDT Amicus, a startup looking to use social connections to make nonprofit fundraising and outreach easier, has raised a seed round of $580,000. You can see Amicus’ founders demonstrate the product in the video below, but the basic idea is that fundraising phone calls and emails are a lot more effective when they come from someone you know. If you’ve ever been contacted by some random person asking you to donate to a good cause, you can probably relate. Doubly so if you’ve been the random person. Other companies like Causes and Fundly have been built around similar ideas, but they’re mostly limited to Facebook, while Amicus supports more old-school forms of communication. So when a volunteer (or whoever) comes in to help with fundraising or outreach, they don’t just get a random list of numbers to call — instead, their social network connections are checked against the group that the fundraiser is targeting (say, young women in San Francisco), and they’re given separate lists of their friends, their friends of friends, and people with whom they have something in common, who are in the target group. That makes it more likely that their calls, emails, or even old-fashioned letters will be successful — co-founder and CEO Seth Bannon says that during the beta test, having a friend contact a friend doubled the likelihood that the person being contacted would take action on behalf of the cause. PennEnvironment, an environmental advocacy group, has already used Amicus to build support for its successful campaign to defend clean air protections in Pennsylvania, Bannon says. The funding comes from RRE (Jim Robinson IV), NYCSeed, Esther Dyson, David Rose (chairman emeritus, NY Angels), Quotidian Ventures, Tabreez Verjee (who led Kiva.org’s first funding round), and other angels investors. Amicus plans to use the money to expand its development and design teams. Bannon also says that for every new hire, Amicus will donate a cow to a family in need in the third world.

The Fallen King: Apple Outships RIM In Canada For The First Time Posted: 22 Mar 2012 09:15 AM PDT Once upon a time RIM was the shining star of Canada. Hailing from the Great White North, BlackBerry phones were the country’s dominant smartphone. But times have changed and RIM has not changed with them. That’s a recipe for failure and it seems that based on data compiled by IDC and Bloomberg, Apple shipped more phones in Canada last year than RIM. Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM shipped just 2.08 million BlackBerry smartphones last year in Canada, where Apple shipped 2.85 million units. This changing of the guard is a long time coming. As Bloomberg notes, in 2010 RIM bested Apple by half a million units and outsold Apple five to one in 2008. RIM is seeing sales declines worldwide. BlackBerrys are still popular in the Middle East and Indian markets but Android, led mostly by Samsung phones, is quickly becoming the dominant player. Canada, where the company is based, was one of RIM’s last strongholds. Canadian sales dropped 23 percent in the third quarter. Even though RIM introduced seven new handsets in 2011, Canadian consumers turned their backs on their hometown team. Now, in 2012, with a new CEO in place, the company is betting that its QNX-powered BlackBerry 10 handsets will stop the bleeding. RIM’s glory days are behind it. Sheer arrogance led the company down its current path of misery. All is not necessarily lost, however. As long as RIM can produce BB 10 handsets on schedule, it might still be able to save the lucrative enterprise market from defecting to iOS or Android. But “on schedule” is not a phrase associated with RIM lately.

Facebook Photos Now Shown In 4X Bigger High Resolution and Can Be Viewed Fullscreen Posted: 22 Mar 2012 09:00 AM PDT Starting today Facebook is allowing Chrome and Firefox users to ditch the black background and comments sidebar that surround photos and view them fullscreen by clicking an expansion arrow in the top right. It also now automatically shows photos at maximum resolution, which is the 2048 x 2048 pixel max upload size,  can be up to 4X bigger on large displays. Facebook has improved the sRGB color profile of photos so that colors appear more vivid and faithful without loading slower. Before now, Facebook photos could only be viewed at roughly 3/4 of your screensize. Today’s updates will encourage high-res uploads, attract more professional photographers, and make the world’s most popular photo sharing service where 250 million photos are uploaded a day a better experience for everyone. It seems kind of crazy that fullscreen viewing wasn’t an option yet, since people have a natural inclination to see photos as large as possible. But Facebook wants photos to be social. If it showed photos fullscreen by default, it would leave no room for Like, comment, share, and tag buttons. Clicks of these buttons create notifications, and get more people to see photos. While Facebook’s product decisions don’t usually hinge on ad views, photos are one of Facebook’s core sources of page views beyond the homepage. A switch to default fullscreen photos where ads couldn’t be shown would slash revenue. Fullscreen mode can also be reached by clicking “Display Fullscreen” in the Options menu beneath photos. Also, remember to check the “High Res” box when creating an album. Facebook has made a series of improvements to photos over the last 7 months. In August it upped the maximum resolution of its photos from 720 pixels to 960 pixels and launched its original light box viewer that appears as a massive overlay. In November it improved its uploader to show progress and allow users to add captions and location details before uploads finished. Then in February it formally announced its new photo viewer design that shows comments and ads in the right sidebar rather than beneath photos, which drew many comparisons to the Google+ photo viewer. The photo enhancements are supposed to roll out today, but they don’t appear to be live yet.

Have The Samwers Gone Too Far With Their Blatant Amazon Clone Lazada? Posted: 22 Mar 2012 08:55 AM PDT Try as they might the poor innovative startups of Germany – we’re talking guys like Soundcloud, Amen and 6wunderkinder to name just three – still have to deal with their industry’s most famous exports being out-and-out cloners. Germany’s most famous tech entrepreneurs are not Steve Jobs-like figures, original thinkers, but a ruthless executors of other people’s business plans and, even designs. The latest has appeared today in the form of Lazada, an Amazon.com rip-off so close to the original we do rather wonder whether this time the Samwer Brothers’ photocopier in Berlin may have been used a little too liberally. Southeast Asia is the target this time, and it’s ripe for development given that Amazon, Apple and other large tech firms rarely have local options, despite the region being highly populous. That’s their loss and the Samwer’s gain. Lazada – aiming at Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Taiwan – will be the latest clone from the Samwer’s Rocket Internet incubator, and more are rumoured to follow. Zalora, a Zappos clone (geez, can’t they even change the first letter?) has already launched in Thailand, and a hiring spree has now been engaged to staff warehouses galore. We can only assume that Oli Samwer is once again exhorting his cohorts to “Do Like In Russia”. Hat tip: TechBerlin

Microsoft And TiVo Drop Their Patent Lawsuits Against Each Other Posted: 22 Mar 2012 08:09 AM PDT Microsoft is dropping its patent lawsuit against set-top box maker TiVo, in which Microsoft had complained of not only copyright infringement, but had also threatened a ban on importing TiVo’s hardware and software into the U.S. And TiVo has agreed to drop its suits against Microsoft, as well. For background, following TiVo’s win of $100 million from Echostar/DISH, it went after AT&T and Verizon, alleging their services illegally used its “time-warping” technology in their DVRs. However, because AT&T’s U-Verse television service is powered by Microsoft’s Mediaroom, the Redmond-based company stepped in to countersue in 2010, claiming TiVo was infringing on a patent Microsoft owned, including, specifically: a system that displays programmable information and a secure method for buying and delivering video programs. (Nope, not overly broad at all.) When that suit alone didn’t have enough punch to it, Microsoft added to it in January 2011, with a second complaint (and more patents) that could have led to a ban on TiVo’s ability to import into the U.S. Microsoft had filed suits in both Washington and with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) on the matter. The judge was scheduled to release his findings in the ITC case next month. Maybe neither side liked what he was going to say, and decided to figure things out themselves. Imagine that. On Thursday, both sides agreed to drop their lawsuits. A patent stalemate, perhaps. In regulatory claims, TiVo said it didn’t grant patent rights to Microsoft and agreed to drop its claims. Microsoft then did the same.

Motorola Aims For The Green With MOTOACTV Golf Edition Posted: 22 Mar 2012 07:55 AM PDT Do you know who Bubba Watson is? I sure don't, but the internet tells me he's a three-time PGA Tour winner — that's right folks, he's an expert at putting balls into cups. As it turns out, Motorola Mobility thinks so highly of his skill that they've "teamed up" with him for a special golf-geared version of their MOTOACTV fitness gadget. Really. "The new Golf Edition of MOTOACTV has features that allows players to make better decisions on the course," said Watson. Apparently, that includes the ability to track your distance from the green and nearby hazards, keep tabs on scores and stats, and sync your golf records for future perusal and analysis on the MOTOACTV website. Of course, all of the device’s usual fitness tracking features are still present and accounted for. I was more hoping for something to tell people exactly where and how hard to hit the ball — having never played golf before, I’d appreciate that sort of unfair advantage if/when I ever hit the links. I'll admit that at first, this seemed like a very strange move on Motorola's part. The MOTOACTV is a pretty niche device on its own, but to load it up with some very specific golf features (without even draping it in plaid) seemed to take it to another level entirely. That’s when it sunk in — golf junk can be really, really expensive. At $299 (same price as the golf-free variant), Motorola’s sporty little doodad may find its legs among pricey drivers and country club fees.

Netflix’s New Horror Series “Hemlock Grove” To Air Early 2013 Posted: 22 Mar 2012 07:35 AM PDT Following last month’s news of Netflix’s second original scripted series, “Orange Is the New Black,” Netflix has confirmed that yet another original show, a horror series called “Hemlock Grove,” will begin airing on its streaming service in early 2013. Netflix has exclusive rights to the 13-episode series, which tells the tale of a young girl’s murder set in a ravaged Pennsylvania steel town, and whose killer could be any one of several odd and frightening people…or creatures. The show’s possible bad guys include a Gypsy kid who may be a werewolf, an escapee from a nearby biotech facility, and, perhaps the most frightening of all, the arrogant son whose family ran the steel mill business and now controls the town. Sounds like good stuff, if you’re into that gothic mystery genre, I suppose. “Hemlock Grove,” which is based on a novel by Brian McGreevy, stars Famke Janssen and Bill Skarsgard and is being produced by Gaumont International Television. Eli Roth, who performed in “Inglourious Basterds” and created the “Hostel” franchise (yeah…thanks for that), is credited as both the director and exec producer on the new series. Also exec producing the series are the book’s author McGreevy, Lee Shipman, Eric Newman (“The last Exorcism,” “Dawn of the Dead,” “Children of Men”) and Michael Connolly (“How to Train Your Dragon,” “Battlestar Gallatica”). It’s notable that in terms of the executive producers at least, if not the actors, Netflix’s shows are not coming from newcomers and unknowns, but rather those who have previous experience in the industry. These are not “wannabes,” so to speak, they’re just among the first to bet big on this disruptive, over-the-top, streaming format for delivering a new way to watch television. Netflix has been moving rapidly to expand into content creation, making deals which have also included the above-mentioned “Orange is the New Black,” the Steven Van Zandt vehicle “Lilyhammer,” as well as new episodes of “Arrested Development,” and an adaptation of the British miniseries “House of Cards,” which is set to arrive in the U.S. and Canada by late 2012. Rumors have been circling, too, that Netflix may pick up the recently cancelled sci-fi show from Fox “Terra Nova,” and today word comes that it’s also eying ABC’s “The River,” also facing cancellation. By the middle of 2013, the company confirms it will have at least five original shows available for streaming. Network TV is safe despite Netflix’s moves (at least for now), since it reaches a broad audience, including those who don’t pay for cable, but who rely on over-the-air transmission. However, Netflix has the potential to shake up the cable industry, especially premium cable TV, if the company decides to take it head on…and doesn’t end up getting into bed with them instead. While today, potential premium cable customers are frustrated with their inability to subscribe to the quality programs on pay cable channels via a la carte options (see, for example, MG’s ongoing complaints regarding HBO’s lockdown on “Game of Thrones”), it’s possible that in the not-so-distant future we’ll have a wide variety of quality TV found outside of premium cable to choose from. And by quality, of course, I mean critically acclaimed, adult-targeted programming – the shows that couldn’t make it on ABC, NBC or CBS where the entire American TV-viewing audience is the demographic they hope to attract. There’s a reason why harmless, but brain-rotting reality competitions and laugh-tracked filled sitcoms starring attractive 20-year olds are among the country’s top shows in Nielsen ratings – they don’t offend anyone. Except those viewers who expect more from the TV format, of course. To compete with what will hopefully be a growing audience who ditches HBO (or Showtime, Cinemax, etc.) for Netflix’s streaming service in the coming months, real battles will begin: for actors, for scripts, for directors and producers, and of course, for viewers. Netflix may even be able to force the pay channels’ hand in the matter, if enough of the audience resorts to pirating their content, while paying for Netflix. It may be too late for today’s “Game of Thrones,” but by the time another show of that caliber rolls around, it might not be on cable.

Home Is Where The Mobile Game Is: 96% Play Games In The House, 53% In Bed Posted: 22 Mar 2012 07:22 AM PDT The magic of mobile games is that they can be played anywhere, but it turns out that quite a lot of us are more than happy to play them when not on the move, according to a new survey from mobile entertainment portal MocoSpace. Taking in responses from some 15,000 U.S. consumers, the company found that 96 percent of them said that they play mobile games at home at least once a day, and among those, 53 percent said they played them in bed — with more than 52 percent playing for over one hour per day and 32 percent playing for more than three hours per day. The findings reinforce data out released earlier this week on mobile gaming from mobile content company Miniclip, which found that 44 percent of people surveyed for the report said that they mostly played mobile games at home. And MocoSpace notes, too, that EA Mobile has also found that mobile games are played at home 47 percent of the time. But before you go thinking that this is a sign that mobile gaming isn’t so mobile after all, it turns out that MocoSpace’s survey revealed a number of other locations that received similarly high (but not as high) responses: 83 percent said they played mobile games while waiting for an appointment and 72 percent while commuting. A lot also seem to play them when they should be doing something else: work and “out with friends” both picked up 64 percent of mobile game play; and 46 percent said they played while in class. Some 10 percent of respondents said they played at work for over an hour every day. While bed was the most popular location for playing a mobile game at home, 41 percent said living room. (Bathrooms, it turns out, are not very popular for mobile games: only five percent said they played there; ditto the dining table at one percent.) And in keeping with the runaway success of Draw Something, social games scored as the most popular in mobile, with 62 percent opting for these over action, puzzle or gambling games. What to make of these results? A lot of the most popular mobile games up to now have been casual games and those that can be played in short bursts — like Draw Something but also Angry Birds and the rest. But if most of the gaming is taking place over at least an hour of time, and in stationary (sometimes very stationary) locations, there is probably scope for the development of more time-based and involved games, the kind that have been traditionally associated with gaming consoles — and fill that niche in the market.

Carpooling Marketplace Blablacar Acquires PostoinAuto To Drive Into Italy Posted: 22 Mar 2012 07:12 AM PDT Back in January BlablaCar, a European carpooling marketplace that connects any driver who has empty seats with paying passengers, raised $10 million in funding from Accel Partners and existing investors, taking it to $12.5 million. And today the startup is putting those funds to good use, rolling up other players. It’s acquiring PostoinAuto.it, the largest car sharing site in Italy, in an all-share deal. BlablaCar’s move into Italy follows a push into Spain and the UK. Just over half of BlaBlaCar’s 1.7 million member community have started using the service in the last year, equating to 350,000 passenger journeys every month. It offers about one million empty seats every month, and has 400,000 drivers among its members. Trips posted range from long distance trips across Europe to daily commutes. The acquisition of PostoinAutom, founded in 2010, adds 30,000 empty seats every month. PostoinAuto Founder Olivier Bremer and team now joins BlablaCar. Blablacar is going up against Munich-based Carpooling.com which claims to move over 1 million people each month in 5,000 cities and 45 countries across Europe. Carpooling is backed by Earlybird Venture Capital. Carpooling says it has 3.6m registered users (registration is optional) and aims to move into the US this year. Nicolas Brusson, Co-founder of BlablaCar, says PostoinAuto were “an ideal fit, in terms of culture, attitude and vision and we are looking forward to work together to create a truly European leader in this space. We expect to reach our second billion miles shared within the year.” Brusson says the UK is still a nascent community “but growing faster” than France and Spain as people pick up on the idea of car sharing. Every passenger and driver has to register with the site with a valid phone number and other information. Members with negative ratings are blacklisted. Key to this is the aggregation of peer-to-peer ratings to build trust amongst drivers – thus avoiding the odd axe murder… Drivers can publish their trips and contact other members who are making the same trip as as potential passengers by sending them a message or calling them directly by telephone. Passengers can search the site and contact a driver who has published a trip that interests them. The service is free but drivers can charge a fixed price per passenger, the average is €20 per ride. Passengers pay via BlablaCar or directly in the car. BlablaCar is similar GoCarShare in the UK, and to U.S.-based startup Ridejoy and ZimRide, which also aims to be a carpooling marketplace.

Windows Phone Marketplace Tops 70,000 Apps Posted: 22 Mar 2012 06:38 AM PDT Windows Phone has been picking up steam lately, launching the platform in China just yesterday and making headway as one of Nokia’s primary partners. But when it comes to buying Windows Phone, the big hesitation for just about everyone is apps. Both the Android Market and the App Store have surpassed half a million apps each, but today Microsoft has an exciting (albeit smaller) bit of good news to share. The Windows Phone Marketplace has topped 70,000 apps. That’s up from 50,000 in December and 60,000 in January. Microsoft knows that variety and quality of apps will be a huge competition point for the platform, and has acted accordingly. The company’s BizSpark program courts developers from all over the world, and the Mobile Acceleration Week specifically ensures that quality apps being built for Windows Phone 7 get as much publicity and attention as they should. It also doesn’t hurt that Windows Phone is generally being seen as a more legitimate platform as great device makers like Nokia and HTC put their efforts behind it. Plus, Microsoft has said before that the company is more focused on quality than quantity when it comes to apps. [via Sina]

GREE May Have Missed OMGPOP, But It Has Another Way To Expand: A Deal With Ad Giant Dentsu Posted: 22 Mar 2012 06:03 AM PDT When Kim first broke the news that Zynga was in talks to buy Draw Something developer OMGPOP, she noted that one other suitor was the Japanese social gaming giant GREE, which had already made a name for itself in buying U.S. gaming companies, picking up OpenFeint in April 2011 for $104 million. Now that Zynga has, in fact, bought OMGPOP, where does that leave GREE? In a partnership with a local player, the advertising giant Dentsu. Announced just today, GREE says Dentsu will help promote its games, acquire content and potentially make other investments. It’s telling that the announcement came less than 24 hours after Zynga confirmed its purchase of OMGPOP, a deal thought to be in the region of $210 million. It shows just how heated the competition is among social gaming companies right now for content and mindshare among users and investors. GREE — whose social gaming network currently reaches around 190 million players with some 7,500 game applications — has yet to reveal many details of what, exactly, Dentsu will be doing to promote games, but for now it looks very much like an international play: not only has GREE made moves to expand its presence in the U.S. but it notes that Dentsu is active in 28 countries and “will use its global reach and expertise to promote the GREE brand internationally.” In terms of M&A, the two say they will be making content acqusitions (let’s think of what other social gaming targets are out there at the moment); and they will also be making venture investments. Again, for now, we don’t have any figures on the size of a potential fund, but one area that is likely to be a focus is mobile advertising and marketing: not only does that play to Dentsu’s strengths but is also an essential cornerstone for how social games have generated revenues to date. It’s also an area ripe for more innovative development beyond simple banners and other kinds of exisitng, in-app promotions. Dentsu is no stranger to mobile, although some of its efforts have been decidedly under the radar (if not totally dormant) since being announced. One of them was a partnership with Apple for its iAd mobile advertising effort, in which Dentsu became Apple’s exclusive partner to sell and develop ads for iAd inventory in Japan. Although the iAd business appears to be growing, from its launch in 2010, it had a lot teething problems related to complaints about minimum ad spends and the kind of control that Apple had originally wanted to wield over ads, to the chagrin of brands and their marketing partners. More recently Apple has reportedly softened its approach with lower and more flexible pricing, among other changes.

Lookout: Lost And Stolen Smartphones Will Cost Consumers Over $30B In 2012 Posted: 22 Mar 2012 06:00 AM PDT From personal experience, losing your phone (especially a smartphone) can be both frustrating and expensive. Lookout, a company that offers security services for a number of smartphone platforms, has conducted a phone loss study, which revealed that lost phones, if unrecovered, could cost U.S. consumers more than $30 billion this year. As part of the study, Lookout is debuting Mobile Lost & Found, a site for people to discover the places where phones are most often lost, the likelihood of losing a phone by region, and the financial impact of lost phones. Lookout’s missing device technology for Android and iOS helps locate your lost or stolen phone on a map or sound a loud alarm to find it nearby. Lookout's analysis, which parsed through data from more than 15 million users, found that demographics and behavior are the largest factors influencing phone loss. Over the course of 2011, Lookout’s phone locater technology located 9 million lost smartphones, which equals one phone every 3.5 seconds. In total, Lookout found that U.S. consumers lose their phone about once a year. If unrecovered, that could cost every smartphone owner more than $250 a year each. Interestingly, Philadelphia residents lose their phone two times more than New York City dwellers, while San Franciscans and New Yorkers lose their phones three times more than Chicagoans. Lookout says that many of the cities with highest rates of lost and stolen phones also were in the top ranks for the FBI's most recent crime statistics, including Cleveland, Detroit, Oakland and Newark. The study also showed that specific locations were more popular with lost phones than others, with coffee shops and bars topping the list. In addition, people lose their phone most often at night; 67 percent of phones are located between the hours of 9 p.m. and 2 a.m. local time.

Galaxy Note Won’t Taste Ice Cream Sandwich Until Q2, But New Apps Sweeten The Deal Posted: 22 Mar 2012 05:58 AM PDT The still-popular Galaxy S II just recently got its first official taste of Ice Cream Sandwich, but Galaxy Note owners hoping to experience the same before the end of the quarter are bound to be disappointed by a new announcement from the Korean electronics giant. Despite a proclamation from the company stating that the update would be available in Q1 2012, Samsung has officially pushed the release of the Note’s ICS update until some time next quarter. Yeah, I know, it’s a bummer. If it’s any consolation, Note owners will have a slew of new pen-friendly apps to fiddle with once the update actually lands on their handsets. Among them is what Samsung calls S Note, a new writing app with plenty of templates for users to quickly format their thoughts and media into handsome snippets. The S Note app is also augmented by the inclusion of Shape Match (which automatically “corrects” drawn shapes and lines) and what’s sure to be a favorite of college students, Formula Match (recognizes formulas/equations and lets users search for answers). Also on board is the new My Story app, which allows users to create and personalize their own digital greeting cards with their own media. You know, just because. Alright, so unless you’re a frazzled student or compulsive life-tracker, they may not be the most substantial additions. Still, when combined with the rest of what Ice Cream Sandwich can do, Galaxy Note owners are in for a hell of an update. Of course, this particular update is meant for the international spec Galaxy Note only, so those of you with carefully cradling your AT&T Notes will have to wait a little longer — that is unless you’re willing to jump into the intriguing realm of rooting and ROMs.

Western Union Gets Into Online Payments, Launches PayNearMe Competitor WU Pay Posted: 22 Mar 2012 05:26 AM PDT Money transfer service Western Union is launching a new online payments platform, called WU Pay, that allows consumers to pay for goods online by using your bank's online bill pay service (similar to the way you pay a utility or credit card bill), or at a Western Union location in the U.S. Here’s how it works. Shoppers can choose to pay with WU Pay at an online retailer’s checkout page, and the order is confirmed with a bill sent to their e-mail address. Consumers pay the bill the same way they pay utilities, loans, insurance, and other bills, either through their online bank account or at one of over 44,000 Western Union money transfer locations in the U.S. The new service, which is powered by the company’s 2011 acquisition of eBillMe, is already available as a payment option though a number of retail sites, including Sears, Kmart, Buy.com, Tiger Direct, RedCats USA and others. The payment option can also be used to purchase over 60 gift cards including Amazon, jcpenney, The Home Depot, Dell, American Airlines and others. The payments platform is similar in a lot of ways to PayNearMe, an alternative payments product from the company formerly known as Kwedit, which provides a way for the 'unbanked' to use cash payments for online goods. With PayNearMe, you pay cash at your local 7-Eleven store. These types of services are especially compelling for the millions of U.S. consumers who are unbanked, and who don't have traditional bank accounts or cannot qualify for credit cards.

Online Work Platform oDesk Raises $15M From T. Rowe Price, Benchmark Posted: 22 Mar 2012 04:29 AM PDT Online work platform oDesk has raised $15 million in Series D funding from T. Rowe Price Associates with participation from Benchmark Capital, Globespan Capital Partners and Sigma Partners. This brings oDesk’s total funding to $45 million. oDesk offers a "marketplace for talent" that makes it easy for companies to hire workers online for work that can be done remotely. This work ranges from writing to marketing to data analysis and more. oDesk contractors are currently earning more than $300 million on an annual basis, and worked a record 2.1 million hours last October through the oDesk website. oDesk believes the market will grow to $1 billion by this year. Companies simply post a job for free, and contractors can apply. oDesk will provide prior work histories and feedback ratings for contractors who have used the site previously. oDesk makes money by taking a 10 percent cut of every work transaction made through the site. The company is also announcing that Gregory Stanger, the former CFO of both Expedia and Chegg, has joined oDesk as Chief Financial Officer. Stanger has also served on the Board of Directors at Expedia, Netflix, Drugstore.com and Kayak, and was previously a Venture Partner at Technology Crossover Ventures. Last Fall, oDesk added former senior vice president of engineering at Sun Microsystems Jeff Jackson as vice president of engineering Jaleh Bisharat, a former marketing exec at OpenTable and Amazon, as vice president of marketing. And in December, former OpenTable CEO and CitySearch founder Thomas Layton joined the company as Executive Chairman. Check out our TCTV piece with CEO Gary Swart addressing the news.

Ni Hao Flipboard: Reading App Takes The Bilingual Approach In China To Attract Local Consumers Posted: 22 Mar 2012 04:11 AM PDT Another step for Flipboard today as it continues to prove that it is the mobile reading app to beat: it has expanded its offerings for China, a fast-growing mobile market that this year is set to overtake the U.S. as the worldwide leader in smartphone sales. Flipboard is taking a double-approach to target Chinese users: there is now a native-language iPhone app (in addition to its existing Chinese iPad app). And Flipboard is also taking steps to make its main, English app more friendly to Chinese users by integrating two popular Chinese social networks into it. The big question now is whether Palo Alto-based Flipboard, equipped with all this local customization, will be able to succeed in a market where other U.S. Internet players like Twitter, Facebook, and Google have not managed to make a dent against very strong domestic rivals. This is a significant, and essential, move for Flipboard as it continues to grow because China, in a sense, represents the future of the mass market for mobile devices and services. IDC projects that China will overtake the U.S. this year in terms of smartphone shipments, accounting for 20.7 percent compared to 20.6 percent for the U.S., with that gap widening in the years ahead. And just yesterday, the mobile analytics company Flurry noted that China now leads the world in iOS and Android activations — meaning that those shipments are actually also translating into a whole lot of usage. The new social network integration will see Sina Weibo and Renren, two of the most popular social networks in China (far exceeding Western services like Facebook and Twitter in their usage), added to the list of networks Flipboard supports. Now, users with Weibo and Renren accounts will be able to log in to Flipboard’s iPad or iPhone apps, and see updates, posts and photos from people they follow on those networks. They will be available on Flipboard’s main English-language apps, used worldwide, and take the total number of social networks supported by Flipboard up to 10. At the same time, Flipboard is adding more navigation features for Chinese readers in the form of a Chinese Content Guide — again available in Flipboard’s main English app. This will help users find Chinese language content and offer content recommendations from a list of partners including Chinese Vogue, Chinese Esquire and Cosmopolitan China, as well as the video network Youku and Douban, another social network dedicated to book, movie and music recommendations. Along with Flipboard’s launch of its Chinese iPhone/iPod Touch app today, it is also introducing Cover Stories to the market as well. Like the Content Guide, Cover Stories is a single-view format introduced by Flipboard last month that aggregates some of the most popular news and photos being shared at the moment by other Flipboard users. It will be interesting to see whether Flipboard’s introduction of the iPhone app will have the same effect in China as it did in the U.S. There, when the app launched last year after an already-successful run on the iPad tablet, it saw one million downloads in its first week alone — a testament to some pent-up demand for the product among users who have wedded themselves to Apple’s smartphone but perhaps haven’t done the same with its tablet, or simply want the ability to use the app in both places.

Exclusive: Sony Mobile’s First TV Spot For The Xperia, Directed By Wes Anderson Posted: 22 Mar 2012 03:19 AM PDT Sony has been promising a big push to promote its new line of Xperia smartphones — the first to come out since the company took full control over the Sony Ericsson JV — and today we get to see the first fruit of that effort, a stop-motion animated TV commercial directed by the great Wes Anderson. Today, Sony Mobile has given TechCrunch the exclusive on this one — meaning you can only view the video here, for now. The commercial marks a debut in more ways than one: Anderson has directed a few other advertisements, but this is the first time that he has made one using stop-motion techniques, something he used to such spectacular effect in Fantastic Mr. Fox. The inspiration for this spot comes from a series of interviews Anderson conducted with kids, asking them about how they thought smartphones worked. That is the springing-off point for a musing on robots and what they do inside the devices. It’s an indirect approach but an entertaining one, which Sony hopes will touch mass consumers in a way that is perhaps almost as important (if not more) than even the specs and other features of the device itself. Sony has a tall task ahead of it: once considered something of a gold standard in consumer electronics, that reputation has been somewhat tarnished by competition from many new players, from Samsung to Apple, and that is true especially in mobile, where the Sony Ericsson line, once a leader, is now trailing far behind the likes of Samsung, Nokia and Apple — with that gap even bigger when you look at smartphones. Key to Sony’s fightback will be convincing users that its brand is one for the future, and one that signifies more than just another handset: the whole Sony ecosystem of other products, and other services like gaming, films and music will need to play a part in that. So far, the new line has impressed reviewers. And Steve Walker, the CMO for Sony Mobile, says that early sales of the devices in various markets have been “very positive.” Walker calls this the first “episode” in Sony’s wider, new Sony Mobile campaign, which will include a big ad push across digital and more traditional platforms, as well as viral marketing campaigns and more. And there will be more TV commercials, although he would not say if they will feature other directors, or whether Anderson will make a return appearance.

Angry Birds Space Lands At Last Posted: 22 Mar 2012 01:28 AM PDT Bird-lovers and pig-haters, today is your lucky day: Rovio has finally pushed the button on the launch of its newest installation of its hugely successful Angry Birds franchise: Angry Birds Space. The game — which Mighty Eagle Peter Vesterbacka told us last week will be its biggest launch yet — is marked by new characters, a new physics engine to account for the “no-gravity” concept and a whole new setting that will take the familiar gameplay of catapulting birds to destroy pig houses to a whole new frontier. The iPhone/iPod Touch version is on sale now for $0.99 The iPad HD version is on sale for $2.99 The Android version for now seems to be via the Amazon Appstore and selling for $0.99 The Mac version is selling for $4.99 And here is an animation put together by Rovio to give you a taste of the game:

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