Friday, February 13, 2009

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CamSpace Brings Wii-Like Interactivity To Flash Gaming Top
CamSpace , the innovative technology that allows gamers to use their computer cameras to play Wii-like games , has added support for Flash, making its platform accessible to a much broader range of developers (prior to today CamSpace was restricted to traditional .exe games). To get started, users will still have to download the CamSpace client here , which includes a few dozen games and will be adding more on a frequent basis (sorry Mac users, CamSpace is still Windows-only). CamSpace’s technology revolves around detecting up to four objects in real-time, and translating their movement and rotation into in-game actions. To get started, users are asked to activate their webcams with their objects out of frame for a few seconds, then they hold them in front of the camera briefly until the system recognizes them. Any object will do, provided it is bright and has a near-uniform color (we used highlighters), and the tracking seems to work very well provided there’s adequate light. While many Flash games probably wouldn’t work with CamSpace, some of them translate surprisingly well. For example, the classic ‘Kick-Ups’ game that involves clicking on a soccer ball with your mouse to keep it bouncing in the air is very fun and addictive - I spent far longer testing it than I needed to, and looked a little ridiculous in the process as I waved a highlighter wildly trying to get the ball to stay up. CamSpace isn’t the first system to merge video with gameplay (I recall the PS2’s EyeToy did something similar if a little more basic, though it never really seemed to catch on). But it works surprisingly well and only takes a few minutes to install. That said, it still needs some work - the interface can be confusing, and the fact that it is still Windows-only is frustrating (though a Mac version is on the way). Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Google Pulls The Plug On Its Radio Ads; Retreats To What It Knows Best Top
Google is pulling the plug on its Google Audio Ads and Adsense for Audio products, and is looking to sell off its Google Radio Automation software business. The moves come less than a month after the company decided to stop selling print ads , another experiment to expand beyond Web advertising that went nowhere. Google expects to lay off as many as 40 people as a result of exiting the broadcast radio advertising business. We’ve added teh number to our Layoff Tracker . It also marks the failure of Google’s $102 million acquisition of dMarc Broadcasting two years ago, which formed the basis of these businesses. The dMarc deal could have been worth as much as $1.13 billion if the business hit certain milestones. But radio stations and the companies that own them never gave Google the advertising inventory it needed to make it a real business, despite Google’s outright attempts to buy market share . You’ve got to wonder whether dMarc would have made more inroads on its own had it not sold to Google. As it was, fear of Google’s growing power no doubt played a role in the lack of cooperation from the radio industry. And in this environment, even Google can’t fund money-losing projects forever. So it decided to take its marbles and go home, staying in the audio ad business only as it applies to streaming audio on the Internet. Google says it will still continue to pursue its dreams of serving better TV ads , but it is not clear Google is making much progress on that front either. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Rules of Engagement: Users Are Spending More Time On MySpace Top
We’ve dug a little deeper into today’s latest set of Comscore data. As we noted earlier today, Facebook continues to show tremendous growth, and may well catch up to MySpace in terms of U.S. unique visitors by 2010. But another interesting trend, and one that is important to advertisers, are the increases in engagement both networks have seen over the past year - a metric that MySpace has been building a firm lead in. Since last month, MySpace saw the number of minutes each U.S. user spent on the site per month grow 15%, to 266.3 minutes - a new record for the social network, and a 31% increase since last January. Facebook has also shown an increase over the last month, growing 4% since December to an average of 176.6 minutes per user, but has only grown around 3% year over year. And MySpace is still besting Facebook by around 90 minutes per user. As the graph below shows, MySpace has had the advantage here for quite a while, but the recent spike is likely due to the site’s launch of MySpace Music, as well as growth in MySpace Video . In the struggling economy people are spending more time at home, which tends to benefit these media-heavy sites. Page views are also up for both social networks, at least in the short term. MySpace’s page views are up nearly 10% since December to 579 pages per user per month, while Facebook has grown around 3% in the same time period to 337. Figures for both sites are smaller than they were a year ago, likely because they have both been introducing UI improvements like AJAX that don’t force users to refresh their page for every action. Such improvements generally help with lengthening visits as users are less likely to get frustrated, but they also lead to deflated page views. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
YouTube Hopes To Boost Revenue With Video Downloads Top
YouTube took a step towards monetization by allowing partners to charge users for downloads. In this “test” initiative, selected YouTube partners can offer their video downloads for free or for a fee (determined by the partner) paid through Google Checkout. Most videos in the test are currently charging about $1 each. The partner can also decide how the downloadable video will be licensed to the user - whether it will be restricted to a private non-commercial use video, or whether it can be used under Creative Commons. YouTube’s university partners, which include Stanford, Duke and UC Berkeley, are also testing free downloads of lectures and events. And a small group of YouTube partners (YouTube mentioned partners khanacademy, householdhacker and pogobat in their blog post) are using the test offer as a revenue generation and distribution tool. This initiative would also allow users to access videos offline. YouTube is a innovative product but very expensive and not profitable. Everyone knows that Google has been looking for ways to make money from YouTube, especially in a struggling economy, and it looks like as thought they are flirting with this option as a revenue generator. Google has rolled out several ways to generate revenue, including through YouTubevertorials , selling search results , and ad revenues from big content partners . Google hasn’t indicated how much YouTube would be making from this partnership but we assume that they are hoping to make some cut from this down the line. YouTube is soliciting applications from partners to collaborate on the pilot partnership, but it is restricted to US-based partners only. Will this work? We have a huge amount of traffic to our YouTube download tool so that may be an indication that this new venture could work out to Google’s advantage. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
VoxPop.TV Creates Pop Culture Games For The Masses Top
Ever seen a pop culture clickable game on MTV or Entertainment Weekly asking you to predict and vote on who is going to be a winner in a latest awards show? Or asking you to vote on who is hotter, Beyonce or Britney? Chances are the game was made by San Francisco start-up VoxPop.TV . The under-the-radar VoxPop.tv (the company’s services were launched in 2007) is tapping into a relatively niche market by creating pop culture contextual games for publishers like Entertainment Weekly , E! Online , and Maxim . Unlike traditional casual games, these highly contextual and sometimes ad-supported games are based on opinions and predictions on topics and current events (like the Oscars or the Grammy awards). Games range from an E! Online game on what celebrity wore the best outfit to an awards show to picking brackets for March Madness at NCAA.com . VoxPop has turned the games into free, shareable widgets for anyone to post on a blog, social networking site or website, and users can even create a “game lobby” of sorts by adding multiple games to a page. Users are able find games through VoxPop’s own Game Lobby or through publisher sites like Entertainment Weekly or BillBoard. VoxPop seems to be creating a solid revenue base from creating both ad-sponsored games for publishers and publisher-sponsored games. The turnaround for a game is around an hour, so VoxPop can create a “Who wore it best” game for the Oscars for a publisher and post it by the end of the awards show. And VoxPop hasn’t seen much of a dropoff in sales with the economic downturn. The company said that publishers have less staff and less content and are looking for online games, like VoxPop’s applications, to fill content. There doesn’t seem to be another company doing this niche work out there; and VoxPop said its main competitors are the in-house capabilities of publishers. But VoxPop says creating a pop culture games in-house can be costly and time-intensive. We recently wrote about Heyzap , another online gaming start-up hoping to break into the digital space. VoxPop’s co-founders, Mike Derezin, Bill Armistead, and Michael Hoffman, said the hardest battle was forming partnerships with publishers. Word-of-mouth publicity has helped tremendously, they added. VoxPop received around $2 million in series A funding from True Ventures in 2007 and currently creates close 60 new games a month. The company is hoping to create even more innovative games down the line and wants to offer self-service game production to publishers in the future. Here’s a sample game and screenshot: Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Looks Like Facebook Just Took The Top Spot Among Social Media Sites Top
This past December we reported on how Facebook was coming up on Blogger to steal its top spot among social media sites when measured by total unique visitors worldwide. Now, it appears as though Facebook has finally done it. Data from comScore , which unfortunately goes only through December 2008, shows how Facebook’s visitors (221 million) basically matched Blogger’s (225.5 million) by the end of the year. That’s a gap of just 4.5 million versus the gap of 21 million that existed in November. Assuming Facebook’s upward trend continued in January (and Blogger’s remained flat), the social network sits on top of the roost now. Facebook stands out from the others not only because it’s the most popular; it’s also the only one showing consistently healthy growth. Chris DeWolf in a recent interview with Charlie Rose said how he doesn’t expect Facebook to pass MySpace by 2010 in terms of U.S. unique visitors (as we’ve predicted in the past). But that prospect is still inching towards reality, as shown by the graph below. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Fav.or.it Closes Funding Round For Corporates To Track Your Blogs And Comments - And Reply Top
Blogs and commenting aggregator fav.or.it has closed a new round of funding close to $710,00 from an angel round taking their total funding to date to around $1.5m. The UK-based startup is also launching a about to launch a new property, FeedBroker.net . This separates some of its functionality into a new site which would allow for licensing RSS feeds external to any other site, including fav.or.it, and send the lion-share of ad-revenue back to content owners - not unlike what Feedburner was supposed to do but never quite got around to it. Launched in beta in October 2007 and public from June last year, the site - with perhaps the most annoying URL known to man, but hey… - aggregates content from thousands of blogs and websites and streams them into a network of vertical channels. In this respect it’s not unlike a bunch of Google News Channels but the difference is logged-in users can comment on fav.or.it’s platform and the comments will appear on the original blog . Disqus already makes use of Fav.or.it's full API for commenting, for instance. Thus fav.or.it has been compared to “commenting systems” like CoComment , SezWho , Tangler , and Intense Debate . But it’s now expanding beyond this to allow brands to pay for channels that aggregate the conversation around their brand/product and use it to engage with customers. Think of it as a centralised command and control system. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Why We Often Write About Twitter And Will Continue To Do So Top
As most of you readers know, we regularly cover stuff related to Twitter over here on TechCrunch. When we do, we often get bashed by people in comments for writing about the startup and the slew of applications that make use of the Twitter API so much. Sometimes we’ll get e-mails and - ironically - messages on Twitter from people who are downright angry or disappointed in us for doing that. So we wanted to take some time to explain why that’s the case, and why you’re likely going to continue reading about them on this blog. We should note that this post was fueled by Allen Stern from Centernetworks, who published an article yesterday about why he doesn’t write about Twitter every day that hit Techmeme shortly after. For the record: we don’t write about Twitter related news and applications every single day, just more often than most startups. Also, we’re not the only ones doing that (ReadWriteWeb, for example, had three posts related to Twitter up yesterday, four if you count the Ginx coverage too). So why is that? I’ll tell you why it isn’t first. It’s most definitely not because Twitter is currently the hot Silicon Valley startup with known faces running and backing it, because they raised millions in funding or because they almost got bought by Facebook for much more money than was invested in them. Heck, I work and live thousands and miles away from San Francisco and I don’t know any of the people tied to Twitter well enough to be biased because I would have a blind spot somewhere. But I am an avid Twitter user, and I see its value and potential growing every day. We all do here at TechCrunch. We see an ecosystem of developers swarming around the Twitter API like moths around a flame, and the quality of applications that come out of that ecosystem is limited only by their creators’ imagination (well not really, but you get the point). We receive e-mails in our tips inbox and profile submissions almost daily about Twitter related tools, and most of the time we take a mental note but don’t write about them. But sometimes something resonates with us and we want to share that with you. Why would you expect us to write about small startups getting seed funding (most recently FrugalMechanic , Diddit , Pollsb and Tvinci ) but not if it’s for a Twitter desktop application ( TweetDeck )? Why would you want us to cover e-commerce related startups ( WujWuj ) but not if it’s tied to Twitter ( TwtQpon , Dell , Tweba )? Why wouldn’t Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey joining Ustream.tv as an advisor constitute as tech news? And ask yourself: if all the talk about Twitter’s business model is so irrelevant, why does a post about its potential revenue-generating plans garner 175+ comments (and counting)? If nobody cares about Twitter, then why does a Kevin Rose guest post on how to get more followers trigger no less than 365 people to share their thoughts in comments? If it’s the Twitter downtime posts that bother you (just yesterday, it was out for about an hour ), why not just skip reading them? It’s not like the titles are misleading or anything. Point is, Twitter has grown into far more than just a messaging or status updating service, and anyone who really uses it or develops for it knows that. It’s where news gets broken and what more and more celebrities openly turn to to start getting social with the community. It’s an almost perfect crowdsourced Q&A tool. It’s a place where companies can do business while people can choose to engage only with their peers instead. It triggers and support the organization of worldwide charity events (e.g. today’s Twestival ). Basically, it’s as social as social networking services can get. And it’s still growing like a weed , too. That is why we like Twitter, and why we don’t intend to stop writing about it anytime soon (and we’ll mix the positive with the negative too). You have the comment section to give your opinion, as usual, but try and keep it classy. By the way, you can follow TechCrunch on Twitter (with the occasional update from Mike Arrington) as well as TechCrunch UK , Crunchgear and Crunchbase , and these are our individual accounts: Erick Schonfeld , Jason Kincaid , Mark Hendrickson , Leena Rao , Mike Butcher , Roi Carthy , Steve Gillmor , Serkan Toto , Henry Work , John Biggs , Greg Kumparak , Asad Akbar , Peter Ha and myself ( Robin Wauters ). (Image from Darkmotion - no link because the original image contains a word that is offensive to many) Update: our sincere apologies to all who were offended by the original image that we took from another blog, we genuinely didn’t notice that there was such an offensive word on it until 30 seconds after we published. Obviously, it still got caught by some RSS readers, so again, we’re sorry. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Nightlife Application Breaks Away From Facebook, Tries To Stand On Its Own Two Feet Top
The Scene , a new social network geared towards improving your nightlife, is making its public debut at the Twiistup 5 event in Santa Monica, CA today. After three months in beta, the company is announcing the seed round of funding it has raised from Velocity Interactive Group and angel investor Marko Babic. An iPhone application (for when you’re stumbling around the streets at 1:00am looking for the next bar) has also been released. The Scene has a strong “let’s go out to a club and get drunk” vibe to it (not that there’s anything wrong with that). But it makes me wonder how many people who have this urge will actually boot up their computers and start planning out the best way to go about it, let alone carry the iPhone app around in their pockets and post updates to the site as their nights go on. The founders - four graduates from the University of California at Berkeley - obviously felt the need to create a whole new site around this idea, one that could possibly supplant MySpace as the most party-inclined social network around. The Scene started off as an application on Facebook called TheBarBook , which currently has about 6,250 monthly active users (although the company claims it has over 150,000 total users). It’s previous incarnation as a Facebook app shows through clearly in the new site’s design. Many elements, such as the Wall-like area called “My Feed” that displays prominently on the homepage, were blatantly recreated from Facebook. Things to do on the site include sharing your status, adding photos, creating events, viewing profiles, and making friends. The Scene is also a lot like Yelp, with a near identical set of search boxes at the top of each page that asks you what type of establishment you want to search for and where. Each bar, club and lounge in your area is given its own profile page where users can post quick notes (effectively mini-reviews) and add their own events. Perhaps most usefully, each venue page also shows a list of related places under the header “People Who Go Here Also Go To”. And you can see everyone else enjoys your favorite dive bar under a list simply called “People Who Go Here”. One thing I’d recommend to the team behind The Scene is to open up user profiles. Whenever I click on someone’s avatar, it takes me to a page where I’m abruptly informed that I can’t see the person’s information because I’m not friends with them. This is too much like Facebook where it needs to be a lot more like MySpace. After all, half the point of going out at night is to meet other people who like to have fun, too. Addendum: I should note that The Scene isn’t the first social network to try translating social network activity directly into real-world experiences. College Tonight tried to convince college students to “get up and get out” (but not via Facebook) and failed spectacularly. It’s still trying under a new name but appears to have been forced into side services like college merchandise sales. Update: Co-founder Erik Ober has since pointed out that one of the reasons they decided to leave Facebook and build their own site was “due to Facebook’s platform restrictions”. And he explains that TheBarBook’s current low usage numbers are a result of having not worked on the app since last summer and migrating the app’s users to The Scene. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Skyfire Bumped Up To v0.9, Learns To Be Social Top
Skyfire , a mobile browser for Windows Mobile and S60 which quickly became a favorite around these parts for its abilities to playback Flash video and a number of other rich media formats, has just gotten the update treatment. While it brings the obligatory bug fixes and optimizations that any pre-1.0 release should, the biggest new feature is what they’re calling the “real-time activity wall”, which is essentially an aggregator for RSS feeds, Facebook, and Twitter. It comes preloaded with Digg, ESPN, Google News, Hulu, YouTube and Yahoo! News, but adding in new feeds is a matter of 3 or 4 clicks. Once you’ve plugged in your Facebook/Twitter account info, you can change your status directly from the reader. Facebook and Twitter clients are nothing new - especially in the mobile realm. There are countless varieties. The primary benefit of it being in the browser, however, is sharing: if you’ve stumbled across a new page you want to tweet about, you can do so directly from the “Share” menu. No copying and pasting URLs or, worse yet, retyping them. Also new in this release is WVGA and WQVGA support - so if you’re toting around a Samsung Omnia or an Xperia X1, Skyfire now plays friendly with your handset. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Innovative iPhone Developer Smule Raises $3.9 Million Top
Smule is one of our favorite iPhone developers - besides putting together ridiculously addictive apps like Ocarina ( iTunes Link ), the team is also especially adept at tapping into the iPhone’s network effect , even on something as basic as a virtual lighter . Today, the company has announced that it has closed a $3.9 million funding round led by Granite Ventures, with Bessemer Venture Partners, Maples Investments, and Jeffrey C. Smith (the company’s co-founder and CEO) also participating. The company combines the talents of Smith, an experienced entrepreneur, with Dr. Ge Wang , an Assistant Professor at Stanford’s Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (who is the company’s other co-founder). Wang is partially responsible for the development of ChucK , an “on-the-fly audio programming language” that allows Smule’s apps to create and transmit realistic music over the iPhone’s network connection. Wang also conducts the Stanford Laptop Orchestra (video here ), and the Smule Ocarina orchestra, which played at this year’s Crunchie awards (video here ). Some of Smule’s other applications include Zephyr , a interesting app that combines audio and visual effects to respond to your touch, and Sonic Vox , a voice shifter. Overall Smule’s apps have gained over 1 million users. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Mixx Still Growing (But Not Fast Enough), Relaunches Website Top
Mixx is steadily growing, and they’re hoping to spur even greater traffic increases with a completely revamped website. But every social news service is showing growth, and Mixx actually appears to be lagging if you compare publicly available data. Last time we wrote about Mixx, they were touting healthy traffic numbers and boasting the fact that Hitwise report suggested that its users are more mainstream than those of their main competitor Digg . Today, the company says its visitor numbers have increased to about 7 million per month (citing January figures), which is up from 5.8 million in October 2008. Meanwhile, all the big social news and discovery services are showing healthy growth, and Mixx appears to still play in the minor leagues. Take a look at this snapshot from Compete , for example, which show Digg is thriving and Reddit is steadily outpacing Mixx. Google Trends paints a slightly different picture but still pegs Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon to be more popular than Mixx. Quantcast , finally, says Mixx receives about a 1/5 of the amount of visitors Digg does. For the sake of comparison: Mixx raised $3.5 million in funding so far, while Digg pocketed $40 million to date. Mixx is launching a new website today to better serve their existing users, which they claim have provided all the feedback that was used to put together the revamped web presence. We’ll let you be the judge ( more info here ): Old Mixx New Mixx   CrunchBase Information Mixx Digg Reddit Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Yammer Aims To Bring Microsharing Inside Corporate Firewalls Top
Later today at the LA Twiistup event, the makers of Twitter-for-business application Yammer will announce a new, hosted version of its software that will enable companies to install it inside their corporate firewall. This was an inevitable move for the venture-backed startup to make if it wanted to expand its reach to larger companies who have security policies in place that would prevent users from communicating via the internet (something the normal SaaS version requires). Customers will be able to switch back and forth from the SaaS version to the hosted one, since Yammer promises to transfer network information between both versions upon request. Pricing is $12 per seat per year, although the company says it will change its pricing according to the size and scope of its customers. The Yammer software can be installed on top of existing infrastructure and comes with a licensing agreement and support contract. On a sidenote, Yammer has recently announced that it has open-sourced its iPhone application . The documentation can be found on GitHub . Yammer was the overall winner of the TechCrunch50 conference and recently raised a $5 million round of funding . We’re quite happily using it internally here at TechCrunch, although it’s had its uptime problems before. And if I can quickly slip in a feature request to the team: please add presence status updates for people in the network! Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Google Buys … A Paper Mill? Top
Consider it a sign of the times when internet company Google acquires the buildings and premises of a mill site from a paper, packaging and forest products company that caters to the print industry. Today, Finland-based paper group Stora Enso has announced that Google is buying the buildings and most of the Summa Mill site, where production of paper was ceased last month in January 2008, for approximately €40 million ($51.7 million). From the press release: Stora Enso has signed an agreement to sell the buildings and most of the Summa Mill site in Finland to Google Group of Companies for approximately EUR 40 million.The sale is expected to close by the end of the first quarter 2009. The transaction will improve operating profit by approximately EUR 38 million, of which approximately EUR 15 million is a reversal of earlier impairment, and will be recorded as a non-recurring item in the first quarter 2009 results. Google is expected to announce its plans or future investment “in due course”, and has agreed that part of the mill site will be further transferred to the City of Hamina for other industrial uses. Update: obviously the space is most likely going to serve as a data center, which has now also been confirmed by Reuters . An earlier (brutally honest) press release from Stora Enso reveals that the mill site was closed down because of “persistent losses in recent years and poor long-term profitability prospects” It continues: “Despite tremendous efforts by its employees, the mill cannot compete in today’s and tomorrow’s markets using expensive virgin wood fibre, much of which is imported”. You can read the whole release about further cost reductions and lay-offs here . (Thanks to Jens Agerberg for the tip) Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
The AP Reveals Details of Facebook/ConnectU Settlement With Greatest Hack Ever Top
This is almost too good to be true. The Associated Press has uncovered the details of the Facebook/ConnectU settlement using, of all things, copy and paste. After taking drastic preventative measures to keep the settlement confidential, including barring reporters from the courtroom and redacting portions of the documents, Facebook has been foiled by the most laughable lull in security I’ve heard of: Large portions of that hearing are redacted in a transcript of the June hearing, but The Associated Press was able to read the blacked-out portions by copying from an electronic version of the document and pasting the results into another document. Read that again. Just, wow. Now for the juicy details: The document reveals that Facebook’s internal valuation of the company is $3.7 billion, or $8.88 per share - far less than the $15 billion implied valuation established by the Microsoft investment in 2007 (though this comes as no surprise, as a value around $4 billion has been rumored for months). Under their settlement, Facebook agreed to pay ConnectU $20 million in cash and 1,253,326 shares of common stock. The stock was worth $45 million, based on the Microsoft valuation, but only $11 million under Facebook’s own appraisal. Something worth noting from these figures: Facebook paid out $20 million in cash, but only around $11 million in stock based on its own valuation (when the news of the supposed $65 million settlement was revealed yesterday by a lawfirm’s advertisement, many speculated that it was primarily in stock). The high cash value (at least compared to the stock) may indicate that the ConnectU founders really did have some compelling evidence in their case. Then again, $20 million in cash is still fairly insignificant to Facebook - it may have well been worth paying even if there was no damning evidence given that it was supposed to make the case go away forever. So much for that. Via Techmeme . Update : If you’d like to see the full text for yourself, you can find the PDF of the relevant document here . It appears that the issue is tied to the PDF, as the ‘copy/paste’ trick works with this document. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Diddit: A Social To-Do List For Your Life Top
Diddit , a new site launching today to the public, is looking to help you check off all the things you’ve done with your life, and discover new things that you’d like to do. The site allows users to browse through thousands of activities in categories ranging from the bars you’ve visited to “Bizarre Retro Candies” you’ve eaten at one time or another. To coincide with the launch, Ludic Labs, the company behind Diddt, has also announced that it has closed a $5 million funding round led by Accel Partners with KPG Ventures also participating. At first glance, the site seems a little pointless - I don’t particularly care if my friends know that I’ve eaten Pop Rocks during my lifetime or that I’ve visited AT&T park (though I should note that I had similar thoughts when I first discovered Twitter). But after exploring the site a little more thoroughly, I can see why it might become very addictive. For one, it’s a great place to look if you’re trying to think of things to do during a day trip or a night out on the town. Interested in California’s Gold Rush? Check out the list of historic museums, parks, and landmarks that focus on just that. Want to experience Polynesian culture in the San Francisco Bay Area? They’ve got a list for that too. But the site isn’t just focused on destinations - it has sections for just about everything you could have experienced, including books, movies, games, and foods. If you’ve discovered a new author you’re interested in, there’s a decent chance you’ll be able to find a collection of their best works, along with reviews from other users. Every item in a list - be it a book or an amusement park - has its own profile, which offers a listing of user reviews, ratings, and other essential information (the profiles are very similar to those seen on Yelp). And while today is the site’s first official unveiling, it has quietly built up a user-base of 10,000 who have shared 750,000 items, so there’s plenty to read about. Diddit shares many features in common with a number of other sites (for example, Yelp offers a huge library of user reviews and lists, as does Amazon ). But its broad scope and already-thriving community may help it get a foothold, especially if it can acquire dedicated users who genuinely care about building up a list of their accomplishments (diddits) and To-Dos (wannados). Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Ginx Reinvents Twitter's Interface For The Sake Of Sharing Top
I met up with Randy Ching, co-founder of Ginx alongside eBay founder Pierre Omidyar , this afternoon to finally get a glimpse of what their secret startup is all about. We first wrote about Ginx last month when it was revealed that parent company Peer News had raised $2 million in funding. At the time, we could only infer its purpose from Omidyar’s twitter account, which was hooked into Ginx somehow. Now we know that it’s basically an interface for Twitter on steroids. Ching explains that the most fundamental purpose behind Ginx is to help people share news and other content over the internet. Citing the figure that 20% of all tweets contain links, Ching says that Ginx was built to make better use of them, to encourage more sharing of links, and to connect people who didn’t know each other already along the way. Functionally, Ginx is a replacement for the experience of using Twitter at Twitter.com. The small development team behind Ginx has used Twitter’s API to rebuild virtually all of the functionality found at Twitter.com. And then it has gone a few steps further to make sharing links easier and more powerful. For example, when you look at tweets in Ginx, you don’t see TinyURLs that obfuscate their destinations. Rather, Ginx pulls out the original URL and displays it alongside the webpage’s title and an image from the page, if available. You can also click a tab to view only tweets that contain links, or only tweets that contain links that you have visited previously (for when you want to go back to something you once came across on Twitter). When you click on a link, it takes you to the page but leaves a bar at the top with the Twitter username and avatar of the person who shared it with you. A box lets you enter a reply to that person, retweet their message, send a direct message to the person about the page, or create a brand new tweet with the link. This is intended to make it easier for people to respond to the content they’ve found on Twitter. Back in the Ginx interface, the service tries to keep track of what people are saying about a particular link, even when they’re not in your follow list. Just click on the conversation link below a shared link and you’ll see a thread of messages pertaining to it, from anyone who uses Ginx (in this way it’s like FriendFeed but the replies are not restricted to people within your social circle). Ching says that this feature in particular is meant to help you discover new people with similar interests. ( Update: I think I was a bit confused about this feature. It appears as though the conversations thread only shows replies to a particular person’s tweet that contains a link, not all messages about a particular link that has been shared on Twitter). While Ginx is ostensibly focused on spreading journalism through the Twittersphere, it also takes liberties to improve the Twitter interface in a variety of unrelated ways (hell, if you’re going to rebuild the Twitter interface, you might as well go all out). There’s a feature that lets you view people’s timelines as they actually see them so you can get a better sense of what conversations they’re engaged in. When you copy a link into Ginx, it automatic calculates how long it’ll be once shortened so you have more room to type. And when you click on a term preceded with a hash mark (e.g. “#obama”), it’ll take you to a page that shows all tweets with that tag. Right now Ginx is a sophisticated extension to Twitter, but Ching insists that the company will not limit itself to only one social network. It plans to eventually support lots of other networks in the future, perhaps when the other’s have opened up their APIs as much as Twitter has. As far as monetization goes, there are no firm plans on that front either, but Ching suggests that any revenue model may eventually have something to do with helping publishers spread their content to new audiences. Even as things stand currently, Ginx is an intriguing service that essentially flips the idea of Digg on its head. Instead of the wisdom of the crowds dictating what you read online, Ginx intends to help you discover and share news with people you trust. Ginx remains in private beta but we hope to share invites with readers soon. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
FrugalMechanic Gets A Tune-Up With A New Round Of Funding Top
Start-up FrugalMechanic.com , an online product search engine for auto parts, received seed funding for an undisclosed amount from Seattle venture capital firm Founder’s Co-Op . The fund typically invests between $250,000 to $500,00 in start-ups. FrugalMechanic, like a Froogle for auto parts, has gained a niche following of mechanics and consumers as a nifty price comparison tool in the auto market. Founded in July of 2008, the site doubled traffic from December 2008 to January 2009 and boasts over 5 million auto parts from 50 retailers. In an economy where everyone is looking for a deal, FrugalMechanic’s growth isn’t surprising. And when cash and credit are tight, consumers may be looking to repair cars with new auto parts instead of buying new cars. FrugalMechanic plans to use the funding add new consumer-friendly features to the site as well and to offer a greater selection of parts by adding new categories. In an efforts to cross-brand the site, FrugalMechanic recently partnered with CarDomain.com to allow automotive enthusiasts an e-commerce solution to searching for parts on their own sites. Here’s a screen shot: Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 

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