Monday, February 2, 2009

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Facebook Polls Bring Reality To Davos Elite Top
YouTube wasn’t the only Internet company making a splash at the World Economic Forum at Davos this last week. Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg was busy bringing a dose of reality into the elite discussion sessions. Zuckerberg arranged for Facebook polls to be conducted during twelve key sessions. In one poll, during a session called Advice to the US President on Competitiveness , Facebook users were asked if the stimulus package is on target. 120,000 responses were recorded in twenty minutes. 59% of respondents said “no,” 15% said “yes” and 26% said unsure. The poll results were displayed prominently above the panelists, including Rupert Murdoch (CEO News Corp.), Ellen Kullman (CEO DuPont), Duncan Niederauer (CEO NYSE Euronext), David Rubenstein (Managing Director, Carlyle Group) and Ronald Williams (CEO Aetna). The panelists largely approved of the stimulus package in their comments before the poll results came in. Facebook users obviously disagreed (the entire session is embedded below). World Economic Forum officials I spoke with yesterday were delighted with the polls, clearly excited that they could bring in direct, real time feedback to the sessions. Facebook polls can no longer be created by users , but Facebook continues to use the product directly. Perhaps their experience at Davos will convince them to re-open the product. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Hulu's Super Bowl Ad Comes With An Ad Top
The Super Bowl is perhaps the one television event where people actually look forward to the ads because so much effort is put into each one. And every year, there are a handful of standouts. You can watch the ads plenty of places online, including on Hulu. You can even watch Hulu’s own Super Bowl ad on Hulu, which oddly enough is preceded by a regular Web video ad. That just seems wrong to me on so many levels, especially since Hulu itself (which is partly owned by NBC) probably didn’t have to pay for the spot I guess you could argue that some of these commercials are now entertainment in their own right, and thus deserve their own mini-commercials. The Hulu spot with Alec Baldwin (above) is certainly one of the better ones. He delivers the line: They say TV will rot your brain. That’s absurd. TV only softens the brain, like a ripe banana. To take it all the way, we’ve created Hulu. There were also lots of ads that poked fun at the economic downturn, including an ETrade ad with talking babies and a Cash4Gold.com ad starring Ed McMahon and and MC Hammer. To get people to come into its restaurants, Denny’s decided to offer free breakfast to everyone in America on Tuesday . But my favorite is this one from Monster.com which asks, Need Another Job? CareerBuilder hit the same theme , but wasn’t quite as funny. In fact, CareerBuilder’s ad which repeatedly shows a woman miserable with her job screaming in her car, is downright depressing. Then, of course, the trailer to the new Star Trek movie debuted as well, which I will embed below just because I know you will watch it (the trailer for Transformers 2 will also be popular). Which was your favorite Super Bowl ad, and why? Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Davos Interviews: Etsy Founder Robert Kalin Top
Continuing my series of interviews with interesting personalities at the World Economic Forum at Davos: Here’s a 6 minute talk with Etsy founder Robert Kalin on the state of his four year old business. Robert Scoble helps with the interview. 28 year old Kalin, who coincidentally looks a lot like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg , talks about how he’s grown the person-to-person ecommerce business despite competing directly with eBay. Etsy focuses on hand made items, and has a rabidly passionate community of buyers and sellers (also, 97% of Etsy users are women). Kalin also eats his own dog food - most of his clothing was purchased from the site, he says in the interview. $100 million worth of goods were sold on Etsy in 2008. The company is generating over $1 million/month in revenue, Kalin told me. We first covered Etsy in late 2005. Since then the company has raised over $30 million in financing, and counts Jim Breyer as a board member (he’s also on the board of Walmart, Facebook and Marvel). The full transcript is below: Michael Arrington: All right. So we have cornered Robert Kalin, the founder of Etsy and Robert Scoble just won’t stop calling me [indechiperable] Robert Scoble: No, I won’t. [laughs] Michael: And we are officially in the hallway, which means we can be on record, which is great. I wanted to talk to you a little bit about Etsy, because I’ve been actually writing about the company since I think 2005. Robert Kalin: Yep, you were the very … Michael: We never met and you had a lot of success since then. Robert K: Yeah, you were the very first person to write about it on the blog. Michael: When was that? When did you launch? Robert K: I launched in June of 2005. Michael: How old were you then? 16? Robert K: I was 20, actually. I age in two year increments. [laughs] I have a portrait in the attic that ages for me. Michael: So you were 20 years old… Robert K: No, no, no, I was 25 and I launched it and so I’m 28 now. Michael: OK and what is Etsy? Robert K: Etsy, the standard pitch, online marketplace for handmade goods. There’s also pictures and supplies so it’s just basically a P2P marketplace. It’s really about the stories that the items tell that you buy. So… Michael: Handmade goods. How big is the market for handmade goods? Robert K: It was about $100 million last year. Michael: How much of that did you have? Robert K: I mean, that’s just on Etsy. Robert S: So, handmade goods period if you think back? Michael: $100 million worth of goods were sold on Etsy in 2008. Robert K: A little bit less than that, but yep. So that’s the general size… Again a lot of people… Michael: What’s the most popular thing that gets bought? Robert K: My favorite categories are art and music but the most popular stuff on the site, because it’s 97% women– the user base, jewelry is the number one selling category. And behind that there is also a really vibrant P2P side of it. Michael: Is it all really crappy handmade jewelry? Robert K: Oh, come on, crappy and handmade are in my mind oxymoronic because any class of goods, the most expensive stuff … Robert S: I’m learning a great interviewing technique here, just slam the interviewee [laughs] Robert K: It’s all handmade. Right, like suits. We’re the most expensive suits? Handmade suits. Michael: So just because it’s handmade jewelry it’s nice? Robert K: No, anyone… you can’t make these generalizations across the whole market. Michael: Is it just like braided beads and like is it silver… Robert K: Oh, no. there is very, very fancy metal smithing going on. Michael: Huh. Have you ever bought anything on the site? Robert K: [laughs] Have I ever bought anything on the site? Michael: You’ve never bought anything on Etsy, have you? Robert K: I’ve bought most of what I own. I am actually trying to curate my entire life pretty much with handmade stuff. No, I just bought… Michael: Really? Robert K: One of the things I was waiting for … Michael: Is everything you’re wearing bought on Etsy today? Anything you’re wearing? Robert K: A lot of it is. I mean, the shirt, the undershirt… Michael: The shirt? Robert K: The stuff you can’t see, the underwear… Michael: The jacket? Robert K: Ah, thrift store. Michael: OK. Robert K: But you know, similar aesthetic. No, when I started Etsy I was waiting for a luthier to show up because I wanted to buy a guitar on it. So lo and behold about a year after I started the site, a guy named Armor Guitars, James in Springfield, an hour above national in Tennessee– and actually we have a feature called “Alchemy” where you can specifically request people to make things for you. So I requested that he make me a guitar. I went down and visited him while he was making the guitar. But the scope of what is handmade is huge, I think. And especially in times like this. We just had record month, after record month, after record month. Even when the economy is doing what it is doing… Michael: What are you doing now, a million a month you said in gross merchandise sales? Robert K: Oh no, GMS per month now is… Michael: I’m sorry, a million a month just in fees. Robert K: Right, total revenue, because we have three different revenue sources. We don’t disclose the exact amount, but yes. Michael: What are those revenue sources? Robert K: There’s 20 cent listing fee, a 3.5% sales fee and then we run our own in-house advertising program called the Showcase. So those three things constitute our total revenue stream. Michael: OK. And you have raised you said $35 million? Robert K: Yeah, we had angel money from Caterina and Stewart and actually Joshua Schacter from del.icio.us as well. Michael: The founders of Flickr and Joshua Schachter. Robert K: It was kind of like right after they sold their companies, which was really painful to me. I invested in Etsy, and then the first VC round after that was led by user ventures with Fred Wilson joining the board. And then once… you know, I always wanted to do things in stages. So once we really built a solid business off that I went to kind of the standard [indecipherable], did that whole show out there and ended up going with Accel with Jim Breyer and joining the board. Michael: So Jim Breyer is also on the board of what? Marvel? Robert K: Wal-Mart and… Michael: Wal-Mart and… Robert K: FaceBook … Michael: FaceBook. So you’re in good company there. Robert K: Yeah, I mean, it’s interesting because he speaks in the “we” as so many different companies. Michael: Does he ever mistakenly call you Mark? There is a resemblance. [laughs] Robert S: Yeah, I had to look over the table twice. Haha. Robert K: I think he’s a little bit more of a keen observer than that, so no, he’s never gotten us confused. That’s for sure. Michael: So what does eBay think about a this whole thing? Robert K: We have pretty friendly relations with them. Even early on, I’ve been asking them for advice and some of the people say that a lot of the spirit that eBay had early on they see really evident in what Etsy is doing now. Michael: How many of your 60 employees used to work at eBay? Robert K: I don’t think any. No, this is the other benefit of being an east coast company is that we’re hiring from a completely different talent pool. We actually did. We had one. A guy who came in as V.P. of Engineering. And he lasted three months and then said he was going back to work at a big company. He tried… Michael: He couldn’t take your autocratic management style? Robert K: Couldn’t take the non-autocratic style of getting things done I guess. It’s been interesting to see how the culture shifts as you grow with more people as well. Michael: What’s the average transaction size on the site? Robert K: $15 and people buy two things on average at once, so about $30 a checkout. Michael: They buy two crappy pieces of jewelry at one time? Robert K: Oh, come on Mr. Arrington. Michael: No, honestly I haven’t been on the site since I wrote about it the last time and I’m going to go on it in a second. Robert K: What do you like to buy? What do you value in life? Fine cheeses? Fine suits? Fine wines? Cars? Women? Michael: I’m not that much of a material guy. I value friendship. Can I buy friendship on the site? Robert K: Yes, that’s a big part of shopping on Etsy. You get to… [laughter] [Cross talk] Robert S: How much of the $15, how much do you get to keep? Robert K: There’s a 3.5% sales fee on the site. So our goal there is to keep it low, especially below eBay because logically we’re competing with them, so we undersell them in price point. But if you search for jewelry on Etsy now, there’s about ten times as much jewelry on Etsy as there is on eBay. So the volume… Robert S: My ex-wife was an eBay power seller and she hates eBay. She’s moved her jewelry store, actually she sells jewelry and it’s pretty nice jewelry. She’s moved it off of eBay. There’s a whole trend going on out there in your favor. Michael: Hey, hey, this is my interview. Robert S: Why? Michael: Because I have the camera. [laughter] Robert S: Well that doesn’t matter. [laughter] Michael: Robert, thanks very much for your time. I appreciate it, except for that one thing that we’ll cut out and people won’t have any idea what I was just talking about. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
UK's Directgov Giving Change.gov A Run For Its Money Top
Directgov.com , the UK government’s one-stop supersite for citizens, has opened up idea generation by allowing developers around the country to share ideas on how to build a word-class online hub for all national government services. The Directgov site, which launched in 2004, reportedly receives more than 11 million visits a month. Unlike President Obama's digital initiative Change.gov (now Whitehouse.gov ), which solicits ideas from citizens of all backgrounds on a range of topics, Directgov is recruiting ideas from the developer community for a specific challenge: how to make Directgov itself more innovative. Through a new Innovate blog , Directgov is trying to engage the developer community in forming and expanding a platform that is opening up the UK government to more input from citizens. The Obama administration might want to engage developers more directly in a similar manner. The administration could make use of techies in developing novel applications and software to share government resources and information. The Obama Administration prides itself on online community engagement. Perhaps it should take a page out of the UK's digital playbook. Whitehouse.gov's technology main page lists ensuring "the full and free exchange of ideas through an Open Internet" as a top priority. Perhaps the next step is to be specific and more goal-oriented about open-source initiatives, as Directgov seems to be. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
LaunchBox Digital '09 Now Taking Applications Top
LaunchBox Digital a startup incubator similar to Y Combinator that offers founders small amounts of seed funding and a mentorship program in exchange for equity stakes of around 4-8%, is now accepting applications for its class of 2009. The incubator will accept up to ten startups, who will be invited to a 12-week program in Washington D.C. where they’ll receive advice from a number of industry veterans. The program will culminate in demo events on both the East and West Coasts. Applications are due by March 16th. The incubator’s first class has done fairly well (you can see an overview of each here ), with six of the nine startups receiving funding following completion of the program (the combined amount raised was around $6 million). Among those to raise funding were Koofers , an online repository for old exams, Mpowerplayer , an online catalog of mobile games, and MyGameMug , a social network for gamers. Also check out JamLegend , a web-based game similar to Guitar Hero. Other similar incubator programs include TechStars , DreamIt Ventures , and Y Combinator, which pioneered the model. It’s great that all of these programs are still open for business in the current economic climate, but I suspect that the success rates for post-program funding will be much lower than they have been for earlier sessions. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Google Chrome Not Cool Enough For Google Docs, Facebook (If You're Browsing Incognito) Top
Google’s Chrome browser has this neat little feature built-in that lets you browse the web in porn incognito mode, which essentially means it will refrain from storing any information when you visit web pages. According to this help page explaining the feature, you can switch to browsing incognito if you want to “plan surprises like gifts or birthdays” in stealth mode. Except you won’t be able to do that using Facebook , and not because it falsely claims it’s a phishing site this time. It won’t even let you open and edit files using Google’s own Docs . If you try to open Google Docs or Facebook with the latest version of Google Chrome (update 1.0.154.46), you’ll see a notice that the browser isn’t supported yet. Facebook will even admit that they’re probably not cool enough to support the browser, pointing to alternative browsers like Firefox, IE, Safari, Opera and Flock instead. This only happens in incognito mode, so this seems to be a mildly amusing oversight on Google’s end. Granted, adoption for Google Chrome can’t be deemed phenomenal so far (still lacking a Mac compatible version doesn’t help) and the browser is still in beta , but they still might want to take a look at why this isn’t working, considering they’re creating incompatibility issues between two proprietary products and with Facebook still growing remarkably fast around the world and all that. (The bug has already been reported as an issue, and there’s a support thread ) Hat tip to Izza Aamer. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
So Bad It Hurts: Classic Hits By Microsoft Songsmith Top
When we first came across Microsoft Songsmith , it was the promo video that made us cringe . But the song-making software is inspiring a whole new genre on YouTube where people alter famous music videos and concert footage by stripping out the original instruments and replace them with tinny keyboards or folk banjos, and keep the vocals. The results are a twisted breed of classic hits that are fascinating in the same way that terrible automobile accidents are. Once you start watching, it is hard to look away. These songs as sung through Songsmith have become a popular meme. Music from the Beatles to “Nirvana to Radiohead have all gotten the Songsmith treatment. There is even a heavy metal version of the Rickroll . Youtube member azz100c , who also appears to be the author of the Journeys of Jack Tripper blog, is particularly obsessed (and adept) at making these Songsmith classics. Below I present some of the best of the worst. “White Wedding,” Billy Idol “Roxanne,” The Police “Wonderwall,” Oasis “Just What I Needed,” The Cars “Beat It,” Michael Jackson Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Betfair Gives Steelers 69 Percent Chance of Winning Super Bowl Top
The Superbowl is in 17 hours, but many people think they already know who will win. The odds on betting site Betfair give the the Pittsburgh Steelers a 69 percent chance of winning versus the Arizona Cardinals. Both were seen as long shots at the beginning of the season, when the Steelers were given a 4 percent chance of winning the Super Bowl, and the Cardinals were only given a 1 percent chance. (See chart). Betting markets like Betfair’s are a form of prediction market, so it looks like it is the Steeler’s game to lose. Then again, what do Brits know about American football? U.S. residents cannot legally bet on Betfair, which is based in London. For what it is worth, the MVP favorites are: 33% Ben Roethlisberger (PIT), 18% Kurt Warner (ARI), 12% Willie Parker (PIT), 8% Larry Fitzgerald (ARI), 5% Troy Polamalu (PIT). Update : The Steelers won, but just barely . MVP went to Santonio Holmes, who caught the winning touchdown with 35 seconds left in the game. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Jimmy Wales Quietly Launches Wikianswers Top
Here’s a question for you. How many Q&A sites does the Web really need? Already, there is Yahoo Answers , WikiAnswers , Mahalo Answers , Linkedin Answers , ChaCha and dozens beyond . But Wikia (and Wikipedia) co-founder Jimmy Wales thinks there is room for one more. We learned from a tip that he has quietly launched Wikianswers , a Question & Answer site that attempts to create one true, consensus answer for each question, wiki-style. If this sounds familiar it is because Wiki Answers, which is part of Answers.com, does the exact same thing and had 26.7 million unique visitors worldwide in December (comScore). (Yahoo Answers had 144.7 million worldwide uniques in December). And then there is the little problem of the name. It is supposed to be Wikia Answers! (see second screenshot below), but in the current logo the last “a” of Wikia shares the first “a” of Answers, making it Wikianswers. The already established WikiAnswers might have a problem with that. (The URLs are different: http://answers.wikia.com and http://wiki.answers.com/, respectively) Update : Wikia Gil Penchina responds in comments : Wikianswers started at Wikia in November, 2004. The other site with the same name was called FAQFarm back then and changed their name without getting our permission. Wikianswers is built on the same wiki platform offered by Wikia, and it is already being promoted from Wikia Search . Building up a searchable Q&A repository is a natural add-on for a search engine or any online information database. (See our post on Mahalo Answers ). But, really, How is Wikianswers different than any other Answers site? Unless Wales can satisfy that question, people will ask look for answers to their own questions elsewhere. Update : Wikia CEO Penchina’s explains below in comments : Wikia's Q+A service is in keeping with the wiki-way and that's what makes it different - The content is freely licensed under GFDL unlike other answers sites allowing it to be re-used and re-purposed by others for free - Anyone can contribute (other answers sites require you to register) We believe that a more open, freely licensed community will always do better than a corporate site that takes customers contributions and copyrights them in order to take rights away from the contributor. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
YouTube And Google Earth Demo The Talk Of Davos Top
Last year I blogged about the YouTube corner at the World Economic Forum event in Davos, Switzerland. They had prime real estate between the main conference area and private meeting rooms, and heads of state, business executives, Nobel Laureates and rock stars strolled by and stopped to leave a video. YouTube was back this year with an even better setup. In addition to computers where people could create YouTube videos answering various questions (Kofi Annan is pictured to left), the Google team brought in a touch screen version of Google Earth, complete with World Economic Forum data layered on top. Google earth was projected onto a wall, and people could zoom around the earth and view interesting data like historic and projected climate changes. Ed Sanders (YouTube Marketing Manager) and Amit Sood (Google International Product Marketing Manager) walked me through both the YouTube and Google Earth products. Video is below: Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Pew Pulling at Straws to Measure the Blogosphere Top
Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism unveiled a new index yesterday that traces blogs and social networking sites. To be honest, it doesn’t say a whole lot that we don’t already know. The New Media Index’s first report states “From the preparations to the swearing-in to the music, President Barack Obama's inauguration was by far and away the dominant subject debated and dissected by bloggers, user news sites and other social media last week.” The index reported that close to 63 percent of links embedded in social media sites related to the inauguration. Big surprise. The report also said that commentary was very passionate and ran the “ideological gamut.” Also, not earth-shattering news and confirms what everyone already knows-people tend to be more politically feisty on blogs and social media sites. What is interesting is that main stream media dropped its focus on the inauguration after Tuesday and concentrated on news surrounding President Obama’s policy agenda and cabinet appointees. Does this suggest that inauguration coverage provided by blogs was generally more insightful and attentive than the main stream media’s coverage? Or simply that blogs tend to chew their stories longer than the traditional press? Pew’s index doesn’t really give any indication one way or the other. PEJ has been searching tirelessly to find a way to monitor the blogosphere, like it does for main stream media . Their solution uses Technorati and IceRocket to track and index more than 100 million blogs and social media sites. PEJ then captures the top daily linked-to stories and analyzes their content. The Project also tracks the most popular news videos on YouTube each week. In another astonishing twist, C-SPAN’s broadcast of the inauguration topped the list. Judging from the content of this week’s index and other indexes Pew has released , I would not expect a whole lot of surprises from the New Media Index. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Google Flags Whole Internet As Malware Top
We’re not quite sure what’s going on, but a couple of minutes ago any search result from Google started being flagged as malware with a message stating “This site may harm your computer”. Including Google’s own websites as you can see above. Twitter is abuzz with people reporting the massive error (also look for tags #googmayharm or #googmayhem ), and it’s clear that this is happening around the world. Apparently, it’s happening with any browser on any platform too. Clicking the message takes people to a support page from Google (image below), but this is being bombarded with millions of people right now so it’s very slow to respond. I saw the page briefly, and it pointed to StopBadware.org (which is obviously also loading slowly or not at all right now). Update: it seems to be fixing itself. I’m having no more issues on Google Belgium, still getting warning messages for malicious software when I search Google.com. Also, it only seems to occur when you’re searching as a signed-in user now. Update 2: it seems to be fine now. Lasted about 15 minutes (Google says the window was more like 55 minutes). You can take a deep breath now and go on with whatever you were doing before Now we just have to wait for Google to tell us what went wrong. It’s quite clear that a meltdown of this size, no matter how short it was, will be the topic of discussion for the coming days (and not only at the Googleplex, I’d wager). Update 3: Marissa Mayer has now explained the error on the Official Google Blog . She puts it down to human error after a ‘/’ was mistakenly put in an update sent from the non-profit StopBadware.org to Google (the non-profit also posted more details ). The result was every URL in Google’s database being classified as “malware” until the stray ‘/’ was removed. Here’s the official post from Mayer below: If you did a Google search between 6:30 a.m. PST and 7:25 a.m. PST this morning, you likely saw that the message "This site may harm your computer" accompanied each and every search result. This was clearly an error, and we are very sorry for the inconvenience caused to our users. What happened? Very simply, human error. Google flags search results with the message "This site may harm your computer" if the site is known to install malicious software in the background or otherwise surreptitiously. We do this to protect our users against visiting sites that could harm their computers. We work with a non-profit called StopBadware.org to get our list of URLs. StopBadware carefully researches each consumer complaint to decide fairly whether that URL belongs on the list. Since each case needs to be individually researched, this list is maintained by humans, not algorithms. We periodically receive updates to that list and received one such update to release on the site this morning. Unfortunately (and here's the human error), the URL of '/' was mistakenly checked in as a value to the file and '/' expands to all URLs. Fortunately, our on-call site reliability team found the problem quickly and reverted the file. Since we push these updates in a staggered and rolling fashion, the errors began appearing between 6:27 a.m. and 6:40 a.m. and began disappearing between 7:10 and 7:25 a.m., so the duration of the problem for any particular user was approximately 40 minutes. Thanks to our team for their quick work in finding this. And again, our apologies to any of you who were inconvenienced this morning, and to site owners whose pages were incorrectly labelled. We will carefully investigate this incident and put more robust file checks in place to prevent it from happening again. Thanks for your understanding. Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP, Search Products & User Experience Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
MySpace CEO Talks MySpace Revenue, Music, Mobile And His Murphy Bed Top
I sat down with MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland for a few minutes between sessions he was participating in. Travis Katz, GM of MySpace International, was also supposed to attend but was off skiing for the day. DeWolfe talks about the two star hotel he’s staying at here in Davos (complete with a Murphy Bed ), and compares the more somber mood of the event to the last time he attended two years ago. Regarding MySpace, DeWolfe says he’s “cautiously optimistic” about revenue for the fiscal year and notes that five-year old MySpace has had faster revenue growth than almost any other Internet company. DeWolfe also talks about upcoming enhancements to MySpace music, particularly around the creation and sharing of playlists and charts that may be able to spot music trends faster than any other service. We end the conversation with a discussion of Mobile. DeWolfe says 18 million people a month now access MySpace via a mobile device ( BlackBerry users love it ). But don’t expect location based services to come soon, which we see as a huge growth market - DeWolfe says “meeting new friends based on a location service sounds a little creepy to me.” (compare to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s comments yesterday when he said they will eventually embrace location services). The full Transcript is below. Also, watch all the way to the end of the video for bonus footage where i make a nuisance of myself waiting for the interview to begin: Michael Arrington: Alright I’m here with MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe Chris DeWolfe: Hi Mike Michael Arrington: Also with Travis Katz, your head of international… Oh, he’s skiing today, right? Chris DeWolfe: I think he put in a few hours.. He had a hard time getting into a few of these buildings. There’s a lot of cops outside. Michael Arrington: He didn’t have an actual official badge, did he? Chris DeWolfe: Nah, I think he’s working on it. Michael Arrington: So first of all, the most important question. What do you think of the two star hotel you’re staying in here in Davos? Chris DeWolfe: I particularly like the Murphy beds that come out of the wall. And the blankets.. I burned myself in the shower. Michael Arrington: So for people who don’t know, this is a very small ski town and there’s 2,500 people at this event. So everyone piles in and pays exorbitant five star hotel rates for two star ski lodge hotels. And literally you have a Murphy bed? Chris DeWolfe: I do. I have a murphy bed. There’s one right next to it too. But nobody’s occupied it so it’s a little bit of a waste of room. Michael Arrington: So this isn’t your first time at the World Economic Forum.. Chris DeWolfe: No it’s actually the second time.. I was here two years ago Michael Arrington: And how is it different that it was two years ago? Chris DeWolfe: I just think the subject matter is a lot different. It’s definitely more somber. I wasn’t so much about the economy two years ago, it was about internet, clean energy, ecology.. Michael Arrington: Yeah, not as much about that now. The green stuff has kind of been put aside and now it’s more about the economy. Chris DeWolfe: The economy effects media, it effects virtually every business. We talked last night … about it’s really been amplified by the media, and by successful companies that are spending less money because everyone else is.. Michael Arrington: How is it affecting MySpace? You’ve been pretty bullish on your sales figures for this year, you’ve done incredible the last couple of years.. Chris DeWolfe: The last six months have been great, so the first half of our fiscal year through December 31st, have been great, and we’re hopeful for the next six months but anyone who says they can control what’s going to happen in the economy is just pretty wrong. So we’re cautiously optimistic but we’re anticipating fewer dollars in the future, tough times ahead. But in terms of how we’re positioned vis a vi our competition, we feel great about that given all the investments we’ve made, and our technology and our sales force.. Michael Arrington: So this is.. We’re right around your fifth anniversary. Chris DeWolfe: Yeah, it was January it was our fifth year anniversary. Michael Arrington: Okay, so you didn’t make the billion dollar number last year that was talked about but if you had of, would that.. that would have been the fastest company to hit a billion or, the same as Google..? Chris DeWolfe: I think so, I think someone else did it in six years, we’re really happy with the number and I think if you had come out last year and said our target was 500 million.. Michael Arrington: Right but you blew it away. Chris DeWolfe: It’s more of a matter of expectations. We’ve had a great year, we had a great first six months.. Michael Arrington: So you guys obviously have been focused on revenue and have been doing a great job with it. Your user growth has continued to add, I think it was 10% per year for very large numbers. Chris DeWolfe: Yeah, we’re.. US we’re at 76 million Michael Arrington: And you were at 69 maybe a year ago? Chris DeWolfe: And as important, our user engagement, which is 40% year over year. Michael Arrington: People are spending a lot of time on the site… Michael Arrington: Have you found that MySpace Music has been increasing user engagement? Chris DeWolfe: I think so, yeah, I mean if you look at it, there’s 95 million playlists that have been created, and that’s a very very beta launch. I think it was October, so it’s only been around for three months, but we just hired a new president who started a few weeks ago, we have a whole product line in place and we’re going to really build that out. I think that’s going to have a huge impact on the site. Michael Arrington: What are some of the enhancements we’ll see to MySpace Music? As a daily user it’s a little slow, a little sluggish sometimes, playlists aren’t really sharable, charts aren’t what they could be. Are those some of the things we’ll see improve in the short term? Chris DeWolfe: Yeah definitely, We’ve made a lot of improvements to the player. The player’s pretty consistent now and it loads pretty well, in terms of charting, there’s going to be virtually every kind of chart imaginable… top playlists, what are your friends listening to, break it down by genre. It’s going to be a lot more about discovery. Right now you get notified when your friend adds a new song to their playlist. Chris DeWolfe: So right now you get notified when you friend adds a new song to her playlist, right Michael Arrington: But I can’t publicly post a playlist, right? other than on my homepage and my myspace right? but if I create a random playlist, there’s no way to make that public yet, right? Chris DeWolfe: Public to who? Michael Arrington: To anyone I might share it with. I can’t actually share, I mean you couldn’t last time I looked at it Chris DeWolfe: to like send a share link Michael Arrington: Yeah Chris DeWolfe: hey come checkout my playlist Michael Arrington: yeah, right, copy it.. Chris DeWolfe: I mean there’s going to be a lot of social elements that we’re gooing to have to do as well as technical elements so collaborative filtering for example. myspace will get smarter and smarter about the music that you’re listening to. I don’t think the genres, but the specific artists themselves. we’ll make recommendations to you. there will also be more of an editorial element as we hire more editors to bring the high-velocity artists forward. when i say high-velocity, I mean artists where there songs got added to the playlist really early. Michael Arrington: To see trends really early. you might be able to see trends before anyone else does, right? Chris DeWolfe: exactly. so our editors will be looking at that from a data analytics standpoint and you know just from a gut feel standpoint. Michael Arrington: You know, where do you see that going? like mobile social networking with presence understanding where your friends are maybe meeting new people based on where you are when will you get deep into that and obviously what are the privacy concerns around that Chris DeWolfe: yeah, so first of all our mobile business has grown tremendously so all the promises of people accessing myspace and other sites through their mobile devices has finally Michael Arrington: Particularly on blackberry devices it seems Chris DeWolfe: yeah, it’s the fastest downloaded application of all time for blackberry and we have about 18 million unique users accessing myspace through their mobile devices it’s definitely here Michael Arrington: In terms of location based services I think there’s major applications for advertizers and that’s what we’re currently excited about and then um, you know the whole notion of taking photos and having the exact location… Chris DeWolfe: I think there’s major applications for advertisers and that’s what we are really excited about. And then the whole notion of taking photos and having the exact location stamped on those photos and being able to upload them directly, that’s been great. We have that. And being able to write a review since location based services now get you within a couple meters of your exact location where you are at, so if you are at a restaurant and have a really good meal, you should be able to write a review directly from there . So we are really excited about the advertising side of things. In terms finding friends or meeting new friends, I think that’s a ways off. And meeting new friends based on a location service sounds a little creepy to me. Michael Arrington: Thanks very much for your time. I know you are literally running to a session. What’s your session on? Chris DeWolfe: It’s on data mining. Michael Arrington: Data mining? That sounds really boring Chris DeWolfe: No that’s actually the future of advertising. Michael Arrington: Thanks for your time. Chris DeWolfe: Thanks a lot Mike. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Nielsen Deletes Reply-To-All Button Top
This happened last Tuesday, but we wanted to make sure you’re aware that Nielsen management, after years of research, has finally come up with an adequate solution to cluttered e-mail inboxes and inefficiency in office environments: control-deleting the reply-to-all button from the messaging software. In a move that could have come straight from Mike Judge’s Office Space , the company has decided to remove the button from their e-mail program of choice, Microsoft Outlook, affecting all 35,000 employees across the globe. In a memo, republished by Folio , Andrew Cawood, Chief Information Officer for Nielsen Company, writes that the measure will “eliminate bureaucracy and inefficiency”. I’ve never been a huge fan of the reply-to-all button either, but removing it sure sounds like a very extreme decision, and claiming that it will eliminate bureaucracy and inefficiency is just plain absurd. Memo below. "REPLY TO ALL" FUNCTION TO BE DISABLED A Message from Andrew Cawood In December, the Nielsen Executive Council (NEC) held an Act Now! event to review suggestions from across the business that would eliminate bureaucracy and inefficiency. Beginning Thursday, January 29, we will implement one of the approved recommendations: removing the "Reply to All" functionality from Microsoft Outlook. We have noticed that the "Reply to All" functionality results in unnecessary inbox clutter. Beginning Thursday we will eliminate this function, allowing you to reply only to the sender. Responders who want to copy all can do so by selecting the names or using a distribution list. Eliminating the "Reply to All" function will: • Require us to copy only those who need to be involved in an e-mail conversation • Reduce non-essential messages in mailboxes, freeing up our time as well as server space This is one of the many changes being implemented as a result of the NEC Act Now! initiative. If you have any suggestions on how we can continue to improve the way we work, please send your comments to Nielsen Communications [mailto: REDACTED]. Andrew Cawood Chief Information Officer It’s funny to me that Nielsen seems to suggest that the change has actually been requested by employees across the board, which I’m quite certain was not the case. About half a year ago Mitchell Habib, Executive Vice President at Nielsen, managed to accidentally cc all Nielsen employees in a reportedly arrogant note to another employee, ending his e-mail with the now famous-in-certain-circles punch line “Who do you work for, and why do you think copying me on this is appropriate?”. I suspect that particular blunder led to this strange situation. Hat tip to BP for pointing to the Folio article and suggesting that we should read the comments. He was right. My three personal favorites: “Fine! Who needs to reply to all anyway. I don’t even have electricity on my farm and I never needed to reply to all. Besides it’s known fact that if you “Reply to All” your email goes into Sub-space and attracts Demon Vampires from The Future. It’s your choice.” “In December, the Nielsen Executive Council (NEC) held an Act Now! event to review suggestions from across the business that would eliminate bureaucracy and inefficiency. Beginning Thursday, January 29, we will implement one of the approved recommendations: removing the "Q" key from all Nielsen Company computers. We have noticed that the "Q" key is only used 19% of the time throughout a typical work day as opposed to the most utilized letters, A, R ,S, T , and L, This results in unnecessary keystrokes, causing a waste of time and silly words that use the letter Q. Beginning Thursday we will remove all "Q" keys, allowing you to type only words without the letter "Q". Employees who want to use the letter "Q" can now substitute the "asterisk" symbol for all words containing "Q"…. ” “It is remarkable to see how Mitchell Habib’s harrassing comments to an accidental “reply to all” respondent has led to an initiative to prevent him from humiliating himself again. It is discouraging to see that money saved through layoffs is used to finance discussions about the “Reply to All Crisis.” I wonder how many high-level executives were flown from around the world to resolve this threat. I wonder if those in charge of this brainchild are the same people that disabled power-save mode from Nielsen computers. Keep up the great work CIO! Look forward to a new comedy of errors in 2009. May I suggest eliminating air conditioning?” Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Elevator Pitch Friday: BookGlutton, The Computer's Kindle Top
This week’s elevator pitch comes from BookGlutton.com . Although the pitch is long-winded and lacking energy and enthusiasm, it did alert us to this site that is worth checking out. BookGlutton.com is basically a community for online book reading. The site promotes and encourages social interaction in reading and is ideal for book clubs. You can read though any of the books uploaded in full length or upload your own and share with others. One downside is the library is limited to public-domain works, which doesn’t offer a lot of recently published books. You can also join groups devoted to a certain author or type of book, like this group that is reading British literature. BookGlutton has even posted a nifty how-to video on YouTube about how to share books. And if you want to restrict your group to just close friends, you can create a private book club. You can even make public or private notes while you read. As of now, BookGlutton is ad-supported, but the site is looking to sell content in the future. I’m already looking forward to starting a TechCrunch book club of my own! Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
WELCOM To The World's Most Exclusive Social Network (Not Really, But Here Are Screenshots) Top
The World Economic Forum in Davos is finally trying to make its mark in social media at this year's conference. The organization is unveiling the beta version of its exclusive Facebook-style social networking site, called WELCOM , reserved for high-profile attendees of the World Economic Forum like Mark Zuckerberg, Vladimir Putin and Kofi Annan. The site, which was designed in partnership with Adobe Systems, BT Innovate and Microsoft, will actually be a pretty nifty way to share ideas between the world's best and brightest. That is, if world leaders will bother to take the time to contribute to the site and establish profiles. (Don’t count on it). It seems like the forum is reinventing the wheel since it uses LinkedIn and Facebook style features, yet doesn’t appear to link to either of those networks. Other conferences such as now-defunct tech conference PCForum have used existing networking sites, such as LinkedIn, to their advantage by creating groups and discussion boards for attendees. Rather than reinvent the wheel, they tapped into sites where most people already have profiles. WELCOM will allow world leaders to sign into virtual meetings with video technology, share documents, and discuss topics live. Members can also set up private rooms and invite guest experts to participate when needed. WELCOM can also publish works and news via a public page, to share results. Although the World Economic Forum is encouraging members to use the site to share personal news as they would a Facebook account, it's doubtful whether world leaders would poke each other and reveal personal details, and other more “complicated” matters. This application comes as no surprise since the World Economic Forum has made several strides into the social web this year. The forum has active MySpace and Facebook pages and a Twitter feed. The forum also uses Flickr to post current photos and features two YouTube channels, the more tame forum channel , and the Davos Debates channel . Here are screenshots of Welcom. It’s probably as close as you are going to get to the site, so enjoy. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Startup2Startup Unites Startup Rookies With Veterans; Five Invites For TechCrunch Readers Top
Startup2Startup , a popular invite-only Silicon Valley networking event, held its 7th get-together last night, bringing 140 entrepreneurs together. The event is the brainchild of Dave McClure , the venerable startup angel investor who recently joined Founders Fund , and the event sponsors include some of the top VCs in the valley. The monthly event consists of a dinner, with an invited speaker or two giving a presentation followed by moderated table-by-table conversations (plus healthy lobby chatter before and afterwords). Startup2Startup brings together three types of startup people: startup rookies and students; entrepreneurs and startup veterans; and investors and experienced corporate employees. See the photo set of the night’s activities and introductory video below: Part of the event’s success has been the ability to pull in big names to speak, including Chad Hurley , James Hong , Naval Ravikant , Matt Mullenweg , Toni Schneider , Reid Hoffman , Matt Cohler , Paul Graham , and Jessica Livingston . The featured speaker last night was Amy Jo Kim of ShuffleBrain , who gave a great presentation on the psychology and practices behind successful games and how to apply them to web apps. Showing how gaming principals make many popular sites work (with a case study on YouTube), Kim’s talk gave practical advice applicable to any social media site. Here’s the slideshow: Fun in Functional 2009 The table conversation allows the startup “rookies” — defined as being a part of their first startup (or not yet part of one) and having raised less than $1 million — to ask whatever they’d like about business, make connections, learn from veterans, and meet investors. My tablemates at last night’s event included Rashmi Sinha , CEO of SlideShare, Matt Cutts from Google, and founders from various startups including Apture , Foodzie , techVenture , Life360 , among others. Each table brings a good mix of first-time founders, people itching to do a startup, investors (typically both VC and Angel), seasoned entrepreneurs, and a moderator. The conversation is generally open, engaging, and off-the-record. February’s speaker will be Jeffrey Veen of Adaptive Path and Google fame. The price of the event is $40 for the invited rookies, but we’ve procured five free tickets for TechCrunch readers. All you have to do is 1) be a startup founder, rookie, or wannabe and 2) leave a comment below explaining why you want to go. We’ll pick the best five submissions and send the winners to the event. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
OpenTable Files For IPO, And Reveals Its Finances Top
OpenTable, the online restaurant reservation site that was founded in 1998, is hoping to raise as much as $40 million in an IPO, according to a filing with the SEC (embedded below). The prospectus offers a detailed look at the company’s finances and operations. Revenues through the nine months ended September 30, 2008 were $41.3 million, a 41 percent increase from the same period in 2007. The company makes money from the restaurants, which pay both subscription fees (54 percent of revenues) and reservation fees for each diner that shows up through the system (42 percent of revenues). It also makes a small amount on installation fees (4 percent of revenues). The company lost 149,000 in net income, but turned an operating profit of 261,000. That is a rather slim margin, however, it appears that the company was spending as much as it could to grow and take market share, especially internationally where it is just getting started. Operating income in North America for teh period was $6.8 million, whereas the company took an operating loss of $6.5 million internationally. Those are startup costs, since it is just getting its foot in the door at restaurants outside the U.S. and Canada. As of September 30, 2008, OpenTable offered reservations at 9,709 restaurants worldwide, 8,788 of which were in North America It seated 25.5 million diners the first nine months of last year, up 45 percent. It employed 292 people, and had $17.4 million in cash. I have a feeling any IPO money will go towards international expansion. A successful IPO would be a coup for CEO Jeff Jordan, a former eBay executive who is well regarded in Silicon Valley. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Travelzoo Buys Fly.com Domain For A Lofty $1.8 Million Top
Travelzoo , a publicly traded travel site launched in 1998, has annouced that it purchased the domain “Fly.com” for $1.8 million. According to Travelzoo’s announcement, Fly.com will be the home of “a new information web site to be launched in Feburary”. A visit to the site itself offers a slightly less vague description: “Fly.com will launch a new travel search engine within the next few weeks that will help you find the best travel options. Please visit us again soon.” The $1.8 million price tag might sound like a lot (and it is), but pricey domains are nothing new, even in the down economy: Vibrators.com sold for $1 million a few months ago and A&T’s YellowPages.com paid a whopping $3.85 million for YP.com in December. Of course, good domain names are no guarantee for success - let’s hope Fly.com has more behind it than yet another generic travel search engine. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
MySpace CEO DeWolfe Jabs Back At Yahoo's Bartz (Video) Top
We heard that some MySpace insiders weren’t exactly pleased when new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz made a subtle jab at MySpace during the Yahoo earnings call earlier this week. When asked if Yahoo would start to focus on the younger demographic, Bartz responded “So one thing I would say, I want to make sure that we serve the demographic that we have now very, very well. Also what I would tell you, the good news is, that crowd is very finicky. And just as MySpace was extremely hot and then moved over to Facebook, who knows what’s going to come next and who knows whether Yahoo! can grab that property and be successful.” The press took that quote and ran with it, writing headlines like this one from Reuters : Facebook hotter than MySpace: Yahoo CEO Bartz. Bartz may have singled out MySpace because of a Financial Times article noting that the company was successfully targeting Yahoo’s advertisers. I caught MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe in the hallway at the World Economic Forum at Davos earlier today. I have a much longer interview that I’ll post tomorrow. But I also asked him what he thought of being called out by Bartz. His response is in the video above. He was polite, but threw in a couple of zingers, saying Bartz, who is new to the consumer Internet space and is still learning, and “she’s not from this industry and it will probably take some time to get acclimated.” He also says he doubts Bartz has ever been on the MySpace website. Full transcript of the brief exchange is below. Michael Arrington: I’m here with MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe. Chris, sorry to grab you in the hallway, there’s something I’ve mean meaning to ask you. A couple of days ago the new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz on an earnings call said something we found kind of funny. She said something along the lines of “Facebook is hot, MySpace isn’t, or MySpace is dead “or something along those lines. I found that interesting given that you guys have a pretty awesome revenue trajectory and also you guys are partners on OpenSocial and some other stuff. What was your reaction to that? Chris DeWolfe: I didn’t have a big reaction to that. I think she is fairly new to the consumer internet space and is probably still learning. I hear she’s a really smart person and she’ll do a good job there. I doubt she’s been on our site and if you look at our numbers in the United States, we have 76 million unique users and our nearest competitor has 45 million unique users. So, it’s kind of an odd statement but again, she’s not from this industry and it will probably take some time to get acclimated. Michael Arrington: All right, thanks very much. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Zazzle Lays Off 15%, Corporate Office Hit Hard Top
Zazzle , the online shop that lets you order custom-decorated clothing, mugs, and a variety of other items, has laid off nearly 40% 25% of its corporate staff and 15% of the overall company, which includes workers in its manufacturing factory. The corporate office was hit hard, with over 30 28 of 110 employees cut, primarily in business development, marketing, and engineering. Cuts were also made in the company’s factories, which houses 140 workers (some of which are working under contract). In an official blog post, the company’s founders write that the site has seen strong growth over the past year, but that the sluggish economy forced them to make cuts in order to ensure the company’s continued profitability. The company says it will continue to sell products currently available on the site, but has cut some projects that have yet to appear and will continue to drop products that aren’t performing well. Update : Chief Product Officer Jeff Beaver says that the Zazzle representative I spoke to earlier was misinformed, and that 28 out of 110 corporate employees were laid off, representing around 25% of the corporate office. He confirmed that 15% of the staff overall had been laid off. The news has been added to the Layoff tracker . Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 

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