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The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- Google’s GoMo Expands, Adds DIY Mobile Website Building Tools
- Indie Music Agency Merlin Scores Another Settlement: $1.6 Million From Sirius
- Don’t Hold Your Breath For A 3D Samsung Smartphone
- Nokia Lumia 900 Review: Head-To-Head With The Lumia 800 And iPhone 4S
- Graphicly Kills Its Mobile Apps To Double Down On Publishing Tools
- FLUD 2.0 Rolls Out To Android & Windows Phone, As Startup Readies Its Series A
- Nielsen: U.S., UK Couch Potatoes Love To Tap On Tablets While Watching TV
- YouTube Adds A “Play In 3D” Option Across Its Site
- Amazon Goes Bilingual In The U.S. Kindle Store With Launch Of Spanish ‘Tienda Kindle’
- Nest 2.0 Adds Advanced Energy-Saving Features
- New Project Aims To Add A Little High-Tech To Antiques Appraisal
- Here’s A More Realistic Look At Google’s Project Glass [Video]
- Microsoft’s SemanticMap: After Project Glass, Another Take On How To Make The World More User-Specific
- Hipmunk Adds Calendar Integration To Mobile Apps For Trip Planning Bliss
- 16M Users Strong, TwitchTV Takes Live-Streamed Gaming Portal Mobile With iPad And Android Apps
- With JOBS Act Becoming Law, Crowdfunding Platforms Look To Create Self-Regulatory Body
- Yandex.Disk Wants To Give iCloud, Skydrive and Dropbox A Run For Their Money In Russia
- Help Wanted: Songkick Founders Bring Back Silicon Milkroundabout Networking Event
- Silicon Valley Entitlement Gets Political
- Twitter Nabs Googler Gabriel Stricker As Comms VP
| Google’s GoMo Expands, Adds DIY Mobile Website Building Tools Posted: 05 Apr 2012 08:54 AM PDT  DudaMobile, the DIY mobile website maker, fresh off news of its $6 million Series B, is today announcing a partnership with Google. Going forward, Google’s GoMo service, which launched last November to refer business customers to development shops that could take their website mobile, is now offering a mobile website builder that’s powered by DudaMobile. To be clear, prior to today, the GoMo website provided a list of vendors, but never actually integrated any of their tools into the service. Now, GoMo has expanded its offering via this exclusive DudaMobile partnership, and will offer free mobile websites to businesses across the U.S. (Sorry, world.) The new website builder, available now on Google’s Howtogomo.com, offers templates, site hosting, and even free premium features like “click-to-call” and mobile maps, all of which will remain free for a year. DudaMobile and Google worked together previously on a GoMo-sponsored event in Mobile, Alabama which saw more than 450 local businesses build mobile-friendly sites using DudaMobile's platform. According to DudaMobile’s Chief Marketing Officer, it was this event that opened the doors for today’s collaboration. “The joint effort between DudaMobile and Google was a no-brainer. Google is on a mission to educate the world on how to GoMo, and DudaMobile's platform allows businesses to go mobile literally in minutes," Mink said of the partnership. The startup, which started off as a white label offering, rolled out its self-serve platform in August 2011, allowing anyone to instantly create mobile websites. However, one of the company’s more unique features was its ability to keep the mobile site in sync with changes made to the desktop version. The resulting mobile version works on iOS, Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone devices. As of March, DudaMobile announced it broke 1.4 million websites built and hosted on its platform, and that, since the beginning of 2012, its user base has grown by more than 100,000 new users each month. The Google partnership, clearly, will help those numbers skyrocket.
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| Indie Music Agency Merlin Scores Another Settlement: $1.6 Million From Sirius Posted: 05 Apr 2012 08:46 AM PDT  On the heels of a payout from the owners of P2P filesharing site Limewire, another claim finally settled for Merlin, the group that represents independent music labels in licensing negotiations and legal actions: the group says that Sirius Satellite Radio has settled for $1.6 million in a copyright infringement suit brought against Sirius by the agency. The claim concerned Sirius’ Stiletto recording device, and was years in coming: Sirius had settled similar claims brought by the major record labels in 2007 and 2008. Merlin says the court has approved the settlement, which had been brought originally as a class-action suit. This means that Merlin members and other independent labels that had sound recordings transmitted by Sirius Satellite Radio between November 2005 and August 26, 2011, are entitled to get some proceeds. Merline represents labels like Warp Records, Epitaph, Naïve, Tommy Boy, One Little Indian, Beggars Group, Merge, !K7, PIAS, Domino and Koch/E1; and artists like Adele, Arctic Monkeys, Vampire Weekend, Arcade Fire, The xx, The National, Tom Waits, DJ Khaled, Dorrough and Tiësto. However, considering the size of the total settlement, this is probably more of a symbolic victory than something that will actually mean a windfall for individual musicians. On the positive side, along with other settlements achieved by Merlin, this also lays the groundwork for future negotiations over licensing music from smaller players. "At a time where market consolidation is swallowing up more independent interests, delivering even more power into the hands of the largest major labels, adding this settlement to the growing list of litigation successes achieved by Merlin on behalf of its members is gratifying,” Charles Caldas, Merlin CEO, said in a statement. “Actions such as this further underline the enormous value that Merlin provides to the ever growing list of independents that have chosen to enhance their business by joining our organisation." Merlin says it had reached a similar settlement over copyright infringement with XM Satellite Radio (now merged with Sirius) back in April 2011. Other settlements include a deal with Grooveshark. Merlin says that collectively the labels it represents currently account for about 10 percent of the music market in the U.S. In the UK, where Merlin is based, the proportion is slightly higher at 11 percent.
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| Don’t Hold Your Breath For A 3D Samsung Smartphone Posted: 05 Apr 2012 08:25 AM PDT  Of all the peculiar gimmicks a smartphone manufacturer could lean on to make a device stand out, 3D always seemed like one of the most pointless. Sure, it sounds great in theory — who doesn't want fully immersive video and apps — but actually using it on-the-go can be a completely different story. As it turns out, Samsung is right there with me. In an effort to combat some of the more fanciful Galaxy S III rumors floating around, the company told Engadget today that they have no intention to release a 3D smartphone any time soon. Here’s the full quote, just to make it clear:
Word of a 3D-capable Galaxy S III first surfaced back in December thanks to a report Korean news outlet ETNews, at which point the claim quickly started making the rounds. Samsung’s denial on this front shouldn’t be a shocker, seeing as rivals HTC and LG both gambled with 3D handsets last year, neither of which managed to gain considerable traction. That of course doesn’t mean that 3D as a trend is going anywhere — Samsung still churns out 3D televisions and YouTube just announced more pronounced support for 3D content — but at least in the mobile space, 3D seems like a technology relegated to the fringe. Though Samsung seems keen on quashing outlandish rumors as they come, that hasn't stopped the rumor mill from spreading questionable new information. Most recently, a supposed invitation to a Galaxy S III event on May 22 in the UK features what may or may not be half of the forthcoming handset. To absolutely no one’s surprise, it looks absolutely nothing like any of the other leaked images that have surfaced before, which means it’s either a) the real deal or b) absolute crap. I’m leaning towards the latter personally, but I really hope that Samsung starts offering details soon instead of just shooting down peculiar claims.
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| Nokia Lumia 900 Review: Head-To-Head With The Lumia 800 And iPhone 4S Posted: 05 Apr 2012 08:21 AM PDT  Yep, I’m writing another post on the Lumia 900. It’ll be my fourth in the span of 24 hours, but there’s just so much to talk about. So after receiving a fly and a die, getting checked out by our camera crew, and being weighed by yours truly, we’re putting the Lumia 900 up against baby brother Lumia 800 and the titan of smartphones: the iPhone 4S. Which will come out victorious? Well, that all depends on what you need and want, so let’s not beat around the bush any longer. If you’re new to the world of smartphones, the Lumia 900 was built specifically for you. Sure, I’d prefer a smaller display to go along with that resolution (480×800), and the specs themselves are what you’d find on a phone from last year, but I can promise you that performance is a dream on this bad boy. Plus, Windows Phone brings a welcome option to those of us who are sick of Android and iOS. Oh, and did I mention that you can nab this phone for $100 on-contract from AT&T, complete with 4G LTE connectivity? Nokia and Microsoft have managed to strike an astounding balance between performance and price with the 900. But perhaps you prefer a smaller display. The Lumia 800 has everything that the 900 has save for a 4G radio, however, the Lumia 800 display measures in at 3.7-inches as opposed to the 4.3-inch Lumia 900. The only catch is that you’ll have to pick up the Lumia 800 at a Microsoft store as a part of a ridiculously pricey bundle. For $899, you’ll get an unlocked handset, along with a Nokia Play 360 Bluetooth speaker, Nokia Purity HD headphones and a Luna Bluetooth headset. If you actually want all that stuff, the value proposition isn’t so bad, but otherwise I’d say to pass. Then, of course, there’s the iPhone 4S. What can be said other than that it’s an exceptional device? But, there are plenty of us who are ready for a change in the OS department, and the iPhone 5 will be out in a few months anyways. That will significantly downgrade the iPhone 4S’s cool point status. Past that, the most basic iPhone 4S costs double what the 900 does — prices start at $199 for the 16GB model. Obviously, the decision is yours, dear readers. But I depart with one final request: please just consider Windows Phone. You don’t have to buy it — hell, you don’t even have to like it — but giving it a chance in your mind will allow for the emergence of a third mobile ecosystem. And as competition grows, our phones will only get better and better. Check out all of our Lumia 900 review posts here.
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| Graphicly Kills Its Mobile Apps To Double Down On Publishing Tools Posted: 05 Apr 2012 08:19 AM PDT  Over the past few months, Graphicly started to abandon its vision of becoming the “iTunes of comics” and instead focused on digital publishing tools for comics and other image-heavy books. Today it’s fully committing itself to that strategy, shutting down the comic store apps that it offered on both iPhone and Android. CEO Micah Baldwin says that decision reflects the difficulties of launching a marketplace app in the Apple App Store and Android Marketplace — you face your own challenges attracting users to those app, then only a fraction of those users are going to purchase any individual title. “The more we thought about it the more we thought having a marketplace within a marketplace is not a strong long-term strategy,” he says. Meanwhile, Graphicly’s digital publishing tools — which are optimized for titles with a strong visual component, and which allow authors and publishers to release their books to platforms like the iBookstore and the Kindle market, then see readership analytics — seem to be taking off. More than 1,000 customers have signed up for the product and published more than 2,100 books. Revenue is increasing 300 percent month-over-month. And nine out of the top 10 graphic novels on Apple last week were published through Graphicly, Baldwin says. When I spoke to Baldwin a month ago, he said he was starting to see interest from non-comics authors and publishers, but now he tells me the growth has “gone a lot faster than I anticipated.” Forty percent of titles published through Graphicly aren’t comics, and that number will probably grow — after all, Baldwin notes that cook books alone are a much bigger market than comics, even before you factor in things like children’s books and art books. Graphicly isn’t completely abandoning the marketplace strategy, because readers can still buy titles on its website. And Baldwin isn’t ruling out the launch of new apps in the future. For now, however, abandoning the iPhone and Android apps seems like the best way to focus on what’s working.
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| FLUD 2.0 Rolls Out To Android & Windows Phone, As Startup Readies Its Series A Posted: 05 Apr 2012 08:15 AM PDT  FLUD, the scrappy news reader backed by $1 million in seed funding, is today introducing FLUD 2.0 for Android and Windows Phone. FLUD 2.0, for those who don’t recall, was the big redesign that turned FLUD from being just another news reader into a true social news experience. Although participating in a crowded space, where it goes up against better-known brands like Flipboard, Zite, and Pulse, FLUD founder Bobby Ghoshal believes his company has what it takes to stand out from the crowd. Not only is the startup building its own social network – as opposed to one built on top of Facebook or Twitter – it’s now also doing so cross-platform. “If you look at the news space, there are about 600 applications that do RSS reading, but a lot of them become cookie-cutter, just bad experiences,” says Ghoshal, who also happens to be FLUD’s designer. In developing the new apps for Windows Phone and Android, the idea was to customize the experiences to showcase the features of their respective platforms, while adhering to the design guidelines of each. For example, the Android app takes advantage of the contextual controls option at the top. And, in the Windows Phone app – the way it uses tiles, the panorama view, the big blown-up logo at the top – all the features were meant to make it feel like a native experience. “It looks like the application came pre-packaged with the phone,” says Ghoshal. “Ultimately, that’s the goal. If you’re building for an OS, you need to go all in on the OS,” he says. Ghoshal also talked about how FLUD does social in a way that sets them apart from some of their competition. For example, Pulse. “You can use Pulse today and they’re a completely non-social experience,” says Ghoshal. “You can share content to Twitter and Facebook, but is that really social? Any application in the world today shares to Facebook and Twitter, so by definition is every application social? The answer is ‘no’.” FLUD, like other social networks based around content (as with Spotify for music, Instagram for photos, etc.), uses the friend/follower model. When you follow people on FLUD, you’ll be able to track the news they find interesting. This feature, however, still needs some work. It’s not as easy as it could be to find your friends, or even the newsmakers whose opinions you respect. For the latter, the delay to implement, at least, was intentional. Says Ghoshal, the company wanted to wait until they went cross-platform before they began to highlight any sort of featured users on the system. However, the feature has been in development for a month and half now, so it’s sure to arrive soon. After all, if they could roll out two new apps in the time between the December launch of FLUD 2.0 (which introduced social on iOS) and today, they must be pretty speedy over there. Another thing the company has in the works is a mobile web version of the service that will work on any mobile browser. That’s something that the company believes will help it expand internationally to markets in Asia, India and China, specifically, as well as into Africa, which Ghoshal sees a big opportunity given the mobile penetration there. (More phones than desktops!, he says). The company has come this far – 3 platforms, and a major update – on its $1 million in seed funding, and now it’s raising a Series A round of $5 to $8 million to internationalize the service and to build out the team accordingly. The new mobile apps are available for download here.
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| Nielsen: U.S., UK Couch Potatoes Love To Tap On Tablets While Watching TV Posted: 05 Apr 2012 07:21 AM PDT  For anyone who’s loved to watch Twitter reactions or a liveblog of a big event on TV, this may come as no surprise. And for advertisers and broadcasters who haven’t figured out how to make use of this fact, you are missing a trick: we are fast becoming a culture of people who love to use devices like smartphones and tablets while watching television. According to the latest study from Nielsen covering Q4 2011, in the U.S., a full 86 percent of tablet owners and 88 percent of smartphone owners said that they used their devices while watching regular TV at least once in a 30-day period. Nearly half (45 percent) actually did this on daily basis with their tablets, with 41 percent saying they watched TV while tapping on a smartphone every day. But what’s perhaps surprising is that, while sites like GetGlue and Twitter have capitalized on the idea of social streams coinciding with TV viewing, Nielsen says the most popular activity is actually checking email, with the second most-popular activity being related to checking content related to the program or products being advertised around it. In the UK, the numbers were equally high — although not as high — as the U.S. Among British consumers, 80 percent used tablets and 78 percent used smartphones while watching TV in the last month. On a daily basis, Brits were nearly just as addicted to tablet/TV combo use as Americans, at 24 percent. Interestingly, although past studies from Nielsen have revealed that Italians and Germans are pretty big on using their smartphones and tablets for consuming other content — they scored high in paying for news, for example — when it comes to TV mutlitasking, they say, “no” and “nien.” Some 29 percent of consumers in both Italy and Germany said they never use a tablet while watching TV, and 34 percent said they never use a smartphone. [Image: dazza chazza, Flickr]
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| YouTube Adds A “Play In 3D” Option Across Its Site Posted: 05 Apr 2012 06:58 AM PDT  Last September, YouTube began offering new tools that allowed users to convert their uploaded 2D videos into 3D videos with just a click. That feature, which has been in beta testing, was available only to YouTube creators at the time. Today, YouTube is rolling out the beta to all of YouTube’s users – creators and viewers alike – by offering the option to automatically convert short-form videos that were uploaded in 1080p to 3D. In other words, viewers no longer have to wait on YouTube creators to convert their videos into 3D – you can now do it yourself. The new 3D option will be available in the “Quality” settings of the uploaded video (look for the gear icon). YouTube’s system doesn’t involve traditional 3D video capturing techniques using two simultaneously captured videos, of course. It’s a software hack that’s meant to convert regular 2D video into 3D using a number of techniques, which are described in more detail on YouTube’s blog. For example, the technology uses a combination of video characteristics like color, spatial layout, and motion to estimate depth. It then uses machine learning processes to improve depth estimations as the number of 3D videos on YouTube increase. The end result is a 3D video, which, while not as good as a video that was shot in true 3D, is still good enough to work…if you feel like popping silly glasses on your face and loading up some YouTube, that is. The work needed on the backend to make something like this is possible is impressive – YouTube talks of the cloud computing scalability involved here – but the project was initially kicked off in the hopes that the 3D would become the next big video trend for casual video viewing. Whether that’s actually the case remains to be seen. It’s one thing to watch an award-winning movie like “Avatar,” it’s quite another to think, “wow, I really need to see that kitten in 3D.” Well, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe 3D kitten videos are the future. We’ll know more after the feature has been live across YouTube for some time. Adoption statistics, assuming they’re ever revealed, won’t lie.
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| Amazon Goes Bilingual In The U.S. Kindle Store With Launch Of Spanish ‘Tienda Kindle’ Posted: 05 Apr 2012 06:43 AM PDT  Amazon has been making some big strides in extending its footprint outside of the U.S. with its Kindle e-readers and Kindle bookstore, but today it took a step to improve how it caters to Spanish speakers closer to home, with the launch of a new section of its U.S. Kindle store dedicated to books in Spanish. Called “Tienda Kindle“, Amazon says the store features 30,000 e-books in Spanish along with a whole new level of customer support aimed at Spanish-speaking users, including help pages as well as phone and email customer support in the language. The move represents how Amazon is looking to take its Kindle offerings beyond the first tier of early adopters that have bought the product to date. It also underscores how companies like Amazon are trying to capitalize on the rise of e-readers and e-books. Research out today from Pew shows that at the moment only about 21 percent of adults in the U.S. have read an e-book in the last year. That number appears to be on the rise, though, going up by three percent just between December 2011 and February 2012. Amazon is going into this with the intention of dominating from the word go: it says that the new bookstore, which it is calling eBooks Kindle en Español, will have the most Spanish-language bestsellers of any e-bookstore in the U.S., as measured by Nielsen. Titles will include both translations and those written specifically in Spanish, among them "El Alquimista" by Paulo Coelho, "Cien años de soledad" by Gabriel García Márquez and "Juegos del Hambre" by Suzanne Collins as well as the Twilight series. It will also feature the largest representation of Mexican authors, including Jose Emilio Pacheco, Carlos Monsivais and Sergio Pitol; as well as an exclusive selection of children’s books in Spanish, with series covering such brands as Dora the Explorer and Go Diego Go. It will also feature news from Spain’s El Pais, as well as subscriptions to 14 different Latin American newspapers such as El Universal and La Nacion. But Amazon is not going into unchartered territory: Although B&N has yet to take its Nook outside the U.S. it has been offering Spanish-language titles in the U.S. for some time, and currently has over 45,000 books, although not within a dedicated store with a Spanish-language level of support in the way Amazon has done here. As with the regular Kindle store, the tienda will also have around one thousand free classics, as well as Kindle Singles in Spanish. It also provides instructions on how to customize a Kindle “for complete Spanish-language reading and navigation,” which would include highlights and other social features, it says. including popular highlights and other social features. For now the Spanish-only store is only available in the U.S. but it looks like the plan is to make it international: "We're looking forward to continued expansion of our store for Spanish language readers around the world,” noted Russ Grandinetti, Vice President, Kindle Content. "We expect our Spanish-speaking customers to enjoy both the newly-added books in Spanish, and the improved shopping and reading experience—including dedicated customer service in Spanish—that we've added to eBooks Kindle en Español. E, por nuestros lectores en español, hay una traducción de este artículo.
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| Nest 2.0 Adds Advanced Energy-Saving Features Posted: 05 Apr 2012 06:39 AM PDT  An update to the Nest thermostat is rolling out to device owners over the next two days, just in time for AC season. The improvements include advanced energy monitoring – essentially more data about your current energy usage – and something called Airwave, a program that will turn down your air conditioner and run the fan for a period of time, thereby saving energy. Writes Matt Rogers, VP of Engineering: The enhanced Energy History we've launched today is for those of you who've requested more detail about your energy use and easier access to energy info. No longer locked inside your Nest, this deeper energy data is now available on the Web app, iPad and both Android and iPhone smartphones. Now you can compare how much energy you used at a glance, then click or tap on any day to see what times you heated or cooled your home and what caused a change in your energy use. Thus far, the Nest has been sort of like the first iPhone – cool-looking, but the utility was limited. Now, however, with these improvements the device can start showing its energy-saving potential. Sadly folks without AC controls may find the update a bit limited. However, if you’ve got a full-bore heat-pump forced air super system with a Mr. Slim in the back yard, you might just be in luck. You can read all about the update here and expect the software to appear on your thermostat in the next few days.
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| New Project Aims To Add A Little High-Tech To Antiques Appraisal Posted: 05 Apr 2012 06:11 AM PDT  As the proud owner of a number of antiques including an original Game Boy and an unopened box of Circus Fun cereal, I’m well aware of the value of those things passed down to us from the ancients. However, when you’re dealing with jewelry and other high-end baubles, the value depends quite a bit on hallmarks, mint marks, and quality notes. This project, called Info-Snap, aims to improve the process of assessing hallmarks in the wild, making anyone a junior antiques detective. The system works either for smartphone owners – you simply take a picture of a hallmark and the system will look it up for you – and dumbphone owners who can find examples of hallmarks in a research wiki on the fly. You could even snap on a “branded” lens in order to magnify the scene and really get a good look at the little lions rampant and golden pentagrams stamped on fine jewelry and porcelain. The concept is currently a Nokia IdeasProject and there’s no guarantee that it will ever see the light of day but it definitely would bring a bit of control back to the antiques business. We currently depend on the word of a number of experts who, when they’re good, are prohibitively expensive to hire and when they’re bad will cost you too little or too much when they misvalue your items. This lets everyone be a little bit smarter about the detritus of years past and, although they won’t help me sell the Jimmy Carter commemorative plate my grandmother bequeathed to me, it may allow me to identify the value of my extensive collection of Wacky Wall Walkers.
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| Here’s A More Realistic Look At Google’s Project Glass [Video] Posted: 05 Apr 2012 06:09 AM PDT Because walking and texting isn’t dangerous enough, Google Glasses will put AdSense 5mm in front of your retina. Disclaimer: I actually don’t know if Google plans on using in ads in their glasses. The video above comes by way of Reddit and was made by Tom Scott. It humorously shows what the future could hold through the eyes of Project Glass. Of course the Google Glasses are likely made in such a way that they won’t completely dominate a person’s field of vision but there’s no way they won’t be distracting to some. Instead of walking with their head down looking at their phone, pedestrians are going to wander around in a zombie-like stupor, completely immersed in a YouTube video being shown on their glasses. I can’t wait. More From TechCrunch On Google’s Project Glass: Google's 'Project Glass' Augmented Reality Glasses Are Real And In Testing [With Official Demo Video From Google] Apple and Facebook Should Be Scared Of Google-Tinted Glasses
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| Posted: 05 Apr 2012 06:07 AM PDT  Augmented reality seems to be all the rage this week: Microsoft earlier today got in touch to give us the heads up on some technology it’s been working on — its designs for how to make a user’s experience of a location specific only to that user — one day after Google revealed more details about its own take on that idea in the form of Project Glass. Called SemanticMap, the idea is technology that lets physical signage change based on a specific user, that user’s location and what that person is looking for. Unlike Google’s glasses, Microsoft’s technology doesn’t require the user to have any special headgear or other equipment; and it makes use of three key bits of technology that Microsoft is working on and will very likely become more and more ubiquitous in the years ahead: face analysis, gesture recognition and proximity detection. Microsoft has already been using some of this to good effect in the Kinect. SemanticMap’s only in prototype form now, says Sergio Paolantonio, senior research designer with the Human-Computer Interaction Group at Microsoft Research Asia in Beijing, where the technology was created. And, he adds, “There are no current plans to deploy the current scenario as a new Microsoft product.” But this is a working prototype and very much shows the direction that we might expect things to go from here on in. “The demo is here right now, in front of me and works very well!” he told me earlier today. “It is not science fiction! …it is Super-Real, using Microsoft Research Technology.” As you can see in this video, the ‘Super-Real’ technology is being used to help a woman navigate her way around an anonymous, labyrinthine office space. That’s a bit dull, but you can see how it could be used for more: marketing campaigns, games, and anywhere, really, that a wall full of information has never felt like quite enough — and a pair of glasses or a smartphone with an augmented reality app might feel like too much.
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| Hipmunk Adds Calendar Integration To Mobile Apps For Trip Planning Bliss Posted: 05 Apr 2012 06:00 AM PDT  Hipmunk, the flight and hotel search startup known for its snazzy user interfaces, has done it again. The company today is rolling out a new integration for its mobile apps with popular calendar applications (right now it works with iCal, Google Calendar, and Microsoft Outlook.) Essentially, this makes the often odious task of searching for travel transportation and accommodation just a bit easier and more plugged-in to the way many modern web aficionados function today. What the new calendar integration means for users is this: If you choose to plug your calendar app of choice into Hipmunk, it will overlay your flight and hotel search results with your existing calendar entries. Not sure if you should take the 2pm flight on May 22nd or the 4pm flight? Hipmunk will let you know if you have a conflict penciled in on your calendar, to make the decision a bit easier. The handiness of the calendar integration really flexes its muscles with the hotel search function. Now when you’re looking at potential hotels overlaid on a map in the Hipmunk app, it will also highlight nearby places where you have existing appointments during the same days when you’re booking the hotel. So, for example, if you’re attending a conference in San Francisco’s Moscone Center, looking at the Hipmunk app will show that it might not be the wisest idea to book a hotel across the city in the Outer Sunset district — even though it has a San Francisco address. This kind of information has of course been accessible before, but it’s nice to have the trip planning features all tied up into one application. From a privacy perspective, Hipmunk says it has taken care to make sure users know that the app update is totally on the up-and-up. None of your calendar entries get uploaded to Hipmunk’s servers — the data is only used within your searches on the app at the time you conduct them. In all, the additions complement Hipmunk’s existing offerings very well. And in a world where air travel prices keep creeping higher and higher (with little hope of reprieve), improvements like the ones that Hipmunk are making will help separate it from the other apps out there, especially among the set of early-adopting folks who will be able to afford plane tickets and hotel rooms. For a long time, Hipmunk has been all about the UI and the user experience, and it seems that that focus will continue to pay off going forward. We talked to Hipmunk co-founder and CEO Adam Goldstein at the South By Southwest conference in Austin, Texas last month during TechCrunch TV’s live show. It was a bit hectic at the time, but we managed to get some good insights from Goldstein about Hipmunk as a company and where the travel app space is headed in general at the moment. You can check out our talk in the interview embedded below:
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| 16M Users Strong, TwitchTV Takes Live-Streamed Gaming Portal Mobile With iPad And Android Apps Posted: 05 Apr 2012 05:00 AM PDT  TwitchTV, a live-streamed video game portal and community for gamers that was spawned last June from live video platform Justin.tv, has been booming in terms of growth and revenue. But the platform didn’t yet offer native mobile apps for the iPad or Android, which was a main requests from users. Today, TwitchTV is debuting an Android application and a universal iOS app for the iPad and the iPhone (we’re told the iOS app has not yet gone live in the App Store but should be available soon). Piggybacking on the massive success of Machinima, TwitchTV features live video competitions of a variety of games and platforms with top gamers, tournaments and commentary. The platform aims to be a one-stop-shop for live video for ‘eSports,’ which the company says is synonymous with competitive video gaming. TwitchTV features live video game battles and commentary from titles like Halo:Reach, Starcraft II, World Of Warcraft, Call Of Duty: Black Ops and others. TwitchTV also recently debuted a partner program for game developers and now has 1500 total partners via the program, which is up from 500 in August. Partners include Electronic Sports League (ESL), Day[9]TV, IGN Pro League (IPL), Major League Gaming (MLG), and North American Star League (NASL). TwitchTV previously launched an iPhone app but is consolidating the app into a native iOS app that can work both on the iPhone and the iPad. The iOS and Android application's key features include the ability to view all of TwitchTV's streaming content in high definition in full landscape mode. The apps also include search functionality, such as the ability to browse by game or featured offerings. Users can follow their favorite channels directly from the video stream, as well view a list of live broadcasts from the channels they follow. In addition, users can chat with their friends on the video stream via a fully-featured in-app chat. Emmett Shear, CEO of TwitchTV, tell us that having a bigger mobile presence is a huge deal for platform since “the single most requested feature by our community since we launched has been the ability to watch and chat from phones and tablets.” He added that TwitchTV’s userbase is fairly split between Android and iOS. The startup is also releasing a number of impressive metrics for viewership and engagement. TwitchTV is attracting more than 16 million unique visitors a month, with month-over-month growth averaging 11 percent. That’s double what the site saw last July. The average session-time on TwitchTV is 47 minutes, says Shear, which he says shows that each viewer is highly engaged with the site.
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| With JOBS Act Becoming Law, Crowdfunding Platforms Look To Create Self-Regulatory Body Posted: 05 Apr 2012 03:30 AM PDT  Today, President Obama signs the JOBS Act into law, legalizing crowdfunding in startups by non-accredited investors, so that anyone and their mother can invest. The new law stipulates that entrepreneurs can now raise money from any and all, however, startups are limited to $1 million per year, and must stick to portals approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission. What’s more, the legislation dispenses with the 500-shareholder rule, which put a limit on the number of shareholders a company was allowed before registering with the SEC (and going public). The new law gives high-growth companies a longer grace period, or on-ramp, leading up to IPOs, and lifts some of the one-size-fits all regulation that likely has been hampering the IPO market. While this is a big win for startups, it puts significant pressure on the crowdfunding market to self-regulate — which is risky. That’s why 13 equity and debt crowdfunding platforms and insiders have come together to form a leadership group to bring attention to the need — really, requirement — for the industry to develop effective self-regulation, best practices, and investor protection. As the JOBS Act requires all crowdfunding sites to be members of a national securities association, the group is on a mission to find the best way to do that in a way that encourages the new industry while protecting investors. The “leadership group” is to include members of the crowdfunding industry, (duh), who will be working in collaboration with legal, securities, and SEC experts — many of the same people who helped push the JOBS Act forward. According to the its statement, the leadership group will seek to “agree upon a set of principles as well as explore the development of a robust industry regulator.” The group will be collaborating with the SEC during its 9-month rule-making process that will enact the crowdfunding rules. The group aims to create principles to:
In the end, it’s all about implementation, and how effectively these principles can be established and protected on the wild and woolly web that’s seen its fair share of fraud. Plus, a cynic might raise an eyebrow at asking the very platforms that stand to gain financially by an explosion of crowdfunding to police themselves. That being said, this is an important step for the crowdfunding industry to take — as long as it’s not simply for show. The passage of the JOBS Act is a veritable miracle, in the sense both parties’ political interests actually aligned. It seemed for once it behooved them to dispense with the typical partisan tomfoolery, and send a message to their constituencies (in an election year, by the way) that they are taking the necessary steps to create jobs. By starting work right away on regulation that protects investors and enables a strong crowdfunding market, the group is demonstrating a willingness to work with the SEC for the good of mom and pop investors and to take self-regulation seriously. Crowdsourcing.org, a neutral professional association and industry resource that offers news, articles, videos, and site information on all things crowdsourcing and crowdfunding, has established the Crowdfunding Accreditation for Platform Standards (CAPS) program to create standards for crowdfunding operations, and while the industry creates self-regulatory frameworks, CAPS has been designed to govern the accreditation of crowdfunding platforms. With more than 400 crowdfunding platforms already operating in January 2012, and a new wave of sites likely to launch in the wake of Obama’s approval, the initiative to establish accreditation criteria — in collaboration with the SEC — to ensure crowdfunding platforms adequately protect fundraisers and investors is essential. Council member and founder of Crowdsourcing.org, Carl Esposti, said that more than 200 crowdfunding platforms are expected to apply for accreditation in 2012. The leadership group’s goal is to use CAPS criteria as a way to mandates for SEC approval, along with building a united voice that can work carefully and quickly to launch equity crowdfunding in the U.S. so entrepreneurs can innovate and create new jobs, Esposti said. [The leadership group includes, thus far, CAPS, Crowdfunder, Funding Roadmap, Gate Technology, Indiegogo, Launcht, Motaavi, RocketHub, and more.] There is no doubt that the JOBS Act can have a big effect on later-stage startups on the path to IPO. When asked about the potential consequences, Rally Software CEO Tim Miller told us:
There are likely very few entrepreneurs who would disagree, but that deregulation has to be managed very carefully, or the industry will be in for a very bumpy ride. CAPS and a crowdfunding leadership group doesn’t sound like a bad place to start. What do you think?
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| Yandex.Disk Wants To Give iCloud, Skydrive and Dropbox A Run For Their Money In Russia Posted: 05 Apr 2012 02:06 AM PDT  Yandex, according to some speculation, may be in line to become the default search engine on devices that Apple sells in Russia. But for now it’s engaging in a little competition with Cupertino, and others. Today the Russian search giant is launching its own answer to iCloud: a free, web-based storage product it’s calling Yandex.Disk. Users of Yandex.Disk get up to 10 gigabytes of space that they can use for personal documents, photos, music and videos. Like iCloud and Microsoft’s Skydrive, the service is aimed specifically at offering storage services that help keep users tied in to the rest of Yandex’s portfolio of products. Once uploaded to Disk, the files can subsequently be accessed from any internet-enabled device. Like the integration that we’ve seen from attachments.me to automatically save email attachments to services like Dropbox and Box, Yandex.Disk also automatically saves email attachments from users’ Yandex.Mail accounts — a service that is on top of that 10GB allowance. Yandex says it will be adding more of its own services to that list in future. Disk is currently invitation-only for those who are registered with Yandex. And it could be that Yandex is using the new service to grow those ranks. Yandex controls more than 60 percent of the search market, as of February 2012, and had 45 million unique visitors to its sites in December 2011. But when it comes to registered users it looks like the numbers are significantly lower. Yandex says that Mail is the second-most-popular service after search. But as of February 2012, that translated to only 11.6 million weekly users of its Mail service (so under a third of the number using its search product). That doesn’t reflect a potential Disk audience 100 percent, since some people do not login when they use Yandex, the spokesperson said. “But I suppose they probably will when they know about Disk…as Disk is closely integrated with Mail,” he added. Having registered users that you can cross sell services like Mail, Maps and other products, of course, makes that person much more valuable for Yandex and potential advertisers, the basis of Yandex’s business model. There is another reason it is important for Yandex to have launched this service: offering digital lockers and cloud storage services have also become almost like table stakes for big companies that want to build businesses out of distributing other kinds of cloud-based content (see HTC’s own Dropbox deal), and the same goes here for Yandex. In the Russian’s case, in addition to products like its email service, it also has Yandex.Music. This is a free streaming service that Yandex offers in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan that covers some three million tracks and has 2.8 million monthly unique users. Yandex tells me that for now, Disk, designed with a Russian interface, is being marketed specifically in Russia and other Russian-speaking markets; there are no stated plans at the moment to extend that, although Yandex has done that with other products in its portfolio (such as search), so you never know. In addition to being accessible via a web interface across different platforms, Yandex.Disk will also work via a Windows or MacOS GUI client, as well as via the Yandex.Mail app available for iPhone and Android devices. There has been some speculation that Yandex and Apple might link up, as part of a larger strategy from Apple to offer integration with local leaders in certain big markets outside the U.S. So far, Apple has integrated a lot of Chinese services, for example, into its latest Mac OS, Mountain Lion. And Yandex has inked similar deals to be the default search client on Samsung’s bada devices in the CIS region as well as Windows Phone 7 devices in Russia. Some believe that this will extend to China’s search leader Baidu becoming the default search engine on iOS devices as well, something that has yet to be confirmed. Yandex also would not comment on the question of whether it would do the same for iOS in Russia.
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| Help Wanted: Songkick Founders Bring Back Silicon Milkroundabout Networking Event Posted: 05 Apr 2012 12:59 AM PDT  Attention young engineers and budding product geniuses! If you’re thinking about moving jobs, or if you’d like to work for one of the UK’s hawt startups, mark out May 26/27 in your calendars for the third edition of the Silicon Milkroundabout. Nature abhors a vacuum and so it goes that because there are actually very few hiring events for startups in London, past Milkroundabouts have been massively oversubscribed. “We had to turn a bunch of people away on the day,” Pete Smith, co-founder of Milkroundabout (and co-founder and COO of one of the UK’s startup success stories, the live music alert service Songkick) said of the debut event. “The bar ran dry and every company there hired at least one person and some hired four or five people.” This year’s Silicon Milkroundabout (wordplay for those outside of the UK on the ‘milk rounds’ that big companies make when recruiting at universities; and the Silicon Roundabout nickname for the part of London where many of the startups are based) is going to be the biggest ever, with 105 startups offering 800 jobs so far and now extended to two days and covering more types of jobs: Past events focused on recruiting engineers because startups here in the UK have just as big a problem finding good engineering talent as in other tech hubs — and Smith says, it’s possibly even more challenging, since a lot of banks and ad agencies with their headquarters in London (not to mention big tech companies like Microsoft and Google) are also very aggressive in recruiting the exact same people. This year the engineering emphasis will continue but the second day is being used to expand to covering other fields such as product management, user experience design, visual design, and intelligence/analytics. The event is also growing beyond London, with an additional event now in Cambridge, taking place one month before, on April 28. (That expansion, too, is mark of how the startups themselves are maturing and looking to get a little more savvy in how they go to market.) The thinking goes that while a dinky (but promising) startup can never compete against Google for attracting talent, bringing many of them under one roof improves their profile immensely. They’ll be benefiting, too, from the fact that some of these startups are actually not really so small themselves: among the companies participating this year are Twitter, MOO.com, Songkick, Wonga, CBS’s Last.fm, Just Giving, Stack Overflow and Moshi Monsters. With the first event attracting 500 attendees and the second drawing 1,500, Smith and Ian Hogarth, the other co-founder of Songkick and Milkroundabout, say they are expecting around 3,000 people to show up this time (and we’ll be there, too). While the UK is no different to other parts of the world facing economic difficulties in the current climate, events like this are riding the wave for one route to more recovery. Boston Consulting estimates that the UK digital economy is already worth £121 billion ($192 million) and will be growing at 10.9 percent annually until 2016, outpacing other countries in the G-20. You can find out more and register for a free ticket here, and if you’re a startup looking to get in on the action, get in touch.
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| Silicon Valley Entitlement Gets Political Posted: 04 Apr 2012 10:23 PM PDT  Editor's Note: This guest post was written by Frank Barbieri, a serial entrepreneur and occasional blogger. You can follow him @frankba. Taxes are for old businesses. That seems to be the sentiment coming from the oft-offended Silicon Valley sycophants. I'm not talking about the measured approach of Mayor Ed Lee and Ron Conway who are doing what every major city in America is doing, luring businesses to their neighborhoods by issuing tax breaks for highly attractive growth industries. That has always been good civic policy, and it still is today. I'm talking about the entitled indignation of bloggers who believe that all businesses touched by technology deserve tax exemptions and that calling something "ridiculous" is the only evidence needed to support such a thesis. I'm a soon to be an Airbnb lister and I'm thrilled about renting out one of my flats for collaborative consumption. When not renting, we'll have a great place for family and friends to stay. My fiancé has a dream of providing free nights for families of cancer patients at CPMC, just down the street. But what part of any of this entitles me to a blanket amnesty from an occupancy tax that the hotel around the corner pays? The argument that the technology solipsists make is: Taxes are a burden on innovation and consumers are not businesses. But let's examine the two central claims of the thesis: Taxes are a burden on innovation – This may be true of some taxes. When I operated a start-up in San Francisco and was hit with a $50K city tax for the pleasure I felt fairly burdened. I would have much rather allocated the $50K to revenue generating activities. But how is a tax on listers in Aribnb a burden on innovation? I'm a lister, and I haven't innovated anything that I can think of. I painted a few walls, bought some nice furniture at Cost Plus and I'm in business. Sites that enable small businesses to effectively compete with large businesses are innovative, but the businesses themselves are not necessarily innovative. They are just businesses. By the logic, Uber drivers should be exempt from paying gasoline tax and any suggestion otherwise is a burden on innovation. What what? Lastly, as collaborative consumption models start to gain traction, taxes will be incorporated in the pricing models of the service providers and eventually passed onto the consumers. It is probably inevitable and frankly it's OK. Temporarily exploiting a tax loophole that a traditional business does not enjoy simply puts the traditional provider at a disadvantage, artificially rigging the marketplace in favor of the individual provider of the same or similar service. There is no innovation there, just artificial leverage. The playing field should be even. And if a review and tax overhaul is happening, great, as long as it applies to all participating parties. I'd rather compete on a level playing field as that will lead to a more sustainable long-term business. I know I can compete with the hotel around the corner because our apartment is fantastic, we'll provide superior service and we have a yard that is pet friendly. I'd rather win on those terms than an artificially low price that punishes local businesses. To sum, all taxes are not created equal and simply using technology as part of your business operations does not entitle one to tax exemption. But using tax exemptions to attract high paying jobs to distressed neighborhoods, is probably good for all involved. [Image via Flickr/ramonmarkuskadi]
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| Twitter Nabs Googler Gabriel Stricker As Comms VP Posted: 04 Apr 2012 08:27 PM PDT  Back in November, we reported that Sean Garrett, Twitter’s Head of Comms, would be stepping down from his post. As he tweeted at the time, for the first time in his career, he would be taking more than a two week break between jobs. Since Garrett stepped down, Karen Wickre, who was hired shortly before Garrett’s departure, has been filling in an interim role. Today, Twitter moved to more officially fill the vacancy, as Gabriel Stricker, the Director of Global Communications & Public Affairs at Google, will become the new Head of Comms. Stricker tweeted the news on a seemingly brand new Twitter page. His official title will be VP of Communications. When reached for comment, the new Twitter employee was reluctant to elaborate beyond what he’d said in his tweet, other than that he enjoyed his 5+ years at Google and is looking forward to new challenges at Twitter.
At Google, Stricker headed up Search communications, specifically, where he was in charge of search and search properties, i.e. Maps, Earth, News, and Books, as well as use of IP and partnerships. Stricker is also, according to his Google profile, the author of “Mao In The Boardroom,” a best-selling book on guerrilla marketing. Stricker is also apparently a fan of alternative, if not poetic, approaches to communicating with the media and others. According to the New York Times, fellow Google exec Marissa Mayer was set to tweet the news that Google had acquired Zagat, but Stricker recommended that she instead opt for a haiku. And she did. With any luck, Twitter announcements, blog posts, and press releases will begin integrating iambic pentameter. But don’t cross your fingers. Image credit: Mediabistro & Nancy Lazarus
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