Thursday, February 26, 2009

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Facebook Opens Up Its Terms Of Service To Input From Users Top
After the uproar that ensued when Facebook tried to change its terms of service a couple weeks ago, along with its subsequent backpedaling and public assurances that users own their data , the company is trying a different tack. It is inviting users to comment and contribute on proposed changes to its terms of service. Facebook has posted a p roposed set of Facebook Principles (reprinted below) and proposed Statement of Rights and Responsibilities . Members can discuss these proposals in two groups dedicated to each set of statements. The Facebook Principles We are building Facebook to make the world more open and transparent, which we believe will create greater understanding and connection. Facebook promotes openness and transparency by giving individuals greater power to share and connect, and certain principles guide Facebook in pursuing these goals. Achieving these principles should be constrained only by limitations of law, technology, and evolving social norms. We therefore establish these Principles as the foundation of the rights and responsibilities of those within the Facebook Service. 1. Freedom to Share and Connect People should have the freedom to share whatever information they want, in any medium and any format, and have the right to connect online with anyone – any person, organization or service – as long as they both consent to the connection. 2. Ownership and Control of Information People should own their information. They should have the freedom to share it with anyone they want and take it with them anywhere they want, including removing it from the Facebook Service. People should have the freedom to decide with whom they will share their information, and to set privacy controls to protect those choices. Those controls, however, are not capable of limiting how those who have received information may use it, particularly outside the Facebook Service. 3. Free Flow of Information People should have the freedom to access all of the information made available to them by others. People should also have practical tools that make it easy, quick, and efficient to share and access this information. 4. Fundamental Equality Every Person – whether individual, advertiser, developer, organization, or other entity – should have representation and access to distribution and information within the Facebook Service, regardless of the Person's primary activity. There should be a single set of principles, rights, and responsibilities that should apply to all People using the Facebook Service. 5. Social Value People should have the freedom to build trust and reputation through their identity and connections, and should not have their presence on the Facebook Service removed for reasons other than those described in Facebook's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. 6. Open Platforms and Standards People should have programmatic interfaces for sharing and accessing the information available to them. The specifications for these interfaces should be published and made available and accessible to everyone. 7. Fundamental Service People should be able to use Facebook for free to establish a presence, connect with others, and share information with them. Every Person should be able to use the Facebook Service regardless of his or her level of participation or contribution. 8. Common Welfare The rights and responsibilities of Facebook and the People that use it should be described in a Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, which should not be inconsistent with these Principles. 9. Transparent Process Facebook should publicly make available information about its purpose, plans, policies, and operations. Facebook should have a town hall process of notice and comment and a system of voting to encourage input and discourse on amendments to these Principles or to the Rights and Responsibilities. 10. One World The Facebook Service should transcend geographic and national boundaries and be available to everyone in the world. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Yahoo's Bartz Cleans Up House; CFO Jorgensen, Mobile Chief Boerries Out Top
Yahoo’s new CEO Carol Bartz is streamlining the company and picking which executives will remain on her team and which ones won’t. Chief Financial officer Blake Jorgensen will be departing , as will the head of Yahoo Mobile, Marco Boerries, among others. In her first blog post, Bartz writes : So today I'm rolling out a new management structure that I believe will make Yahoo! a lot faster on its feet. For us working at Yahoo!, it means everything gets simpler. We'll be able to make speedier decisions, the notorious silos are gone, and we have a renewed focus on the customer. For you using Yahoo! every day, it will better enable us to deliver products that make you say, "Wow." In addition to getting rid of unnecessary layers of management (and, oh boy, does Yahoo have plenty of that), Bartz also says that she is going to get the company to pay more attention to its customers and to burnishing its brand. To that effect, she is creating a “Customer Advocacy” group to speak for the customer inside Yahoo, and she promises to clarify “what the Yahoo! brand stands for. . . . Look for this company's brand to kick ass again.” In a note that just went out, Barclays Capital analyst Doug Anmuth says of the CFO’s departure: We are not surprised by Jorgensen’s departure given that he was largely brought into the company by Sue Decker who left YHOO upon new CEO Carol Bartz’s recent appointment. However, we are increasingly concerned about Yahoo!’s thinning management ranks & about who internally will help guide new CEO Bartz as she moves deeper into the Internet space & soon makes critical strategic decisions for the company. In other words, where are the star hires? Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Yahoo SearchMonkey Adds Facebook Profile Actions Into Search Results Top
Yahoo just embedded some Facebook functionality directly into its search results via SearchMonkey . When you search for a person on Yahoo, if they have a public Facebook profile, a link to that profile will appear in results, along with a photo and several actions you can take. these include adding them as a friend, “poking” them, sending them a message, and viewing their friends. You can see how it looks like in the image above, which shows results for Yahoo marketing VP Raj Gossain . The blue links under his name are the actions you can take. These are similar to the deep links SearchMonkey added to Yahoo Search for Wikipedia results . The links save you at least one step. But I’ve also noticed that the Facebook profile is often far down the results page. I wonder if this will help to change that. By all rights, Facebook should be the default people search, whether on Facebook or on search engines like Yahoo and Google. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Import Facebook Photos Into Your iPhone Contact List with Photo Phonebook Top
How much overlap is there between your Facebook “friends” and the real contacts in your mobile phone’s address book? If those two world’s align and you have an iPhone, you might want to check out a nifty utility called Photo Phonebook ( iTunes link ). It finds the matches between the people in your iPhone’s contact list and your Facebook friends and downloads their Facebook profile photos. (Right now, there is a limit of 100 photo downloads because of memory constraints on the iPhone, but the developers are working to fix that). Next time a Facebook friend calls, their Facebook photo appears on your iPhone. It also appears in the address book. When your friends change their profile photos on Facebook, they change on your iPhone as well. HotorNot founder James Hong, who is an adviser to the developers behind the app, says: The novel idea is for people to basically start publishing their picture to other people’s phones, taking control of what picture represents them. Sort of like if you could control the ringtone that plays when you called someone, rather than them setting it. Photos taken with the iPhone can also be published directly to Photo Phonebook’s directory. The plan is support more phones in the future, and other image sources ranging from photos to avatars. This seems like the type of feature Facebook itself should make available through its mobile apps. It would also be much more useful if you could download and sync phone numbers between your Facebook contact list and your mobile phone. But then you might actually have to talk to some of your so-called Facebook friends. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
TechCrunch Roundtable & Meetup In Warsaw, March 19 Top
TechCrunch is hosting a Roundtable and Meetup in Warsaw on Thursday March 19, 3pm-6.30pm. “TechCrunchTalk Central & Eastern Europe” will feature an afternoon of panel discussions and some evening networking with CEE startups and the investment community. The event will be live video streamed. Please grab a ticket here. Read on for details: The TechCrunchTalk event - put on by TechCrunch UK & Europe - is aimed at bringing together the Web/mobile startups and the VC community. It will be the day after the Mini Seedcamp event for startups. TechCrunchTalk CEE will feature two quick-fire panel discussions with the hottest entrepreneurs and investors selected for their leading views on the market, with topics focused around the following themes: • Central and Eastern Europe is a hotbed of tech talent, but how best does it capitalise on this? • What will help CEE countries create the next Internet giants of the future? • What do startups need the VC community to do better? • What are investors looking for? What are the hot trends? Why Warsaw? In the past 15 years Central and Eastern European countries have experienced dynamic growth in the last few years. EU accession significantly lowered risk profiles which has led to the inflow of foreign capital and now entrepreneurship, producing new technology companies and, in turn new, hunting grounds for VCs. Poland is the largest country in the region and an emerging hub for CEE startups. Please contact our event organiser Petra Johansson on petra [at] twistedtree.co.uk for any enquiries about demo tables or sponsor packages. Press enquiries for press passes to rassami [at] rassami.com. The event will be followed by product pitches from three to five companies (products or startups that actually launch at the event will receive extra consideration, but it is not a requirement). If you have a startup ready to launch then and would like to give a demo, send a brief pitch to TechCrunch UK & Europe Editor Mike Butcher . And I’m happy to report we’re also getting some help from our friends at Warsaw-based New Europe Events, who’s TMT.Ventures'09 Warsaw conference (http://tmtevents.eu/) is happening on March 5, at the Warsaw Stock Exchange, Poland. More Upcoming TechCrunch UK & Europe Events London 21st April Topic: A day-long event for UK & other European startups. More details to follow Sign up for further info Stockholm 27th May - Nordic and the Baltic states event for startups and VCs Topic: Connecting Northern Europe - Where are the strong and weak links? Sign up for further info Berlin 10th June – More details to follow Topic: How does Berlin and Germany become a key node for European Tech? Sign up for further info London 9th July – TechCrunch Summer-Party Topic: Party! Sign up for further info Past TechCrunchTalks: Barcelona 19th February - "Mobile 2.0″ event alongside Mobile World Congress Topic: The future for Mobile 2.0 startups. Archive here Paris 25th February Topic: Building the Tech scene in France, scaling across Europe and the world. Please check at TechCrunch UK for the video archive shortly. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Google Friend Connect Hooks Up With Blogger Top
Google has integrated Friend Connect with its weblog publishing service Blogger . Essentially, this enables people to start following (i.e. subscribing to) blogs using their Google, Yahoo, AIM or OpenID accounts and turns Blogger more into a social network than a straightforward blog publishing service. Blogs that you follow will be listed in your Blogger profile and the integration will also leverage existing relationships, meaning you’ll be able to quickly see if your friends are also following those blogs. The integration was announced on Google’s new Social Web Blog , and the post promises more goodies in the future: And this is just the first step in the integration, so be sure to stay tuned for further improvements, including an easy way to add OpenSocial gadgets through Blogger and the integration of the commenting features. Here’s a video: Just two weeks ago, Google introduced what it calls the Social Bar , a way for webmasters to include a small strip on top of their web pages and to enable them to add links for drop-down gadgets that lets visitors do things such as sign in via Friend Connect, see who else has signed in recently, check out comments, etc. Google Friend Connect, which is the company’s own data portability effort , was opened up for all websites in the beginning of December 2008, right when Facebook made Facebook Connect generally available as well. And thus, the battle for who will control access to your online identity continues. My guess is it’ll go on for a while before someone can be declared the winner, if at all. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Lawsuits Galore: Songbeat Silenced For Now, Won't Go Down Without A Fight Top
With a comic message on its website saying that the service has gone away to enter the 36 Shaolin Chambers of Software Kung Fu but will return stronger, music discovery application Songbeat lets its visitors know that it has received a first blow in court after Warner Music (and other music labels) sued the German startup for enabling users to stream and download music without permission. Songbeat essentially allowed you to scour the web for MP3s using integrated search for Seeqpod, Project Playlist, SpoolFM, iASK and more, stream tracks and even download them from a neat and fast desktop application. This comes fresh off the heels of the news that Warner Music is suing Seeqpod and even a developer that was using the application’s API, which prompted us to write that they’ve reached a new low. It’s not getting any better today. Warner Music succesfully sued the startup in a Hamburg court last week, so they have a court enactment which they also served last Friday. Songbeat says it will respond with a fast appeal but has taken the service offline for the time being just to make sure. The company believes it has a good chance of winning the appeal; I’m a bit less optimistic but I like the fact that the startup firmly believes they can make the labels start listening to them instead of chasing them around. One can always dream. Either way, Songbeat says it will be back online soon. The company says it’s currently in talks with music labels and will continue to do so even if it loses the case for good. If the latter should happen, the startup plans to relocate and simply reboot the service anyway. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
3Sixty Fishes DivShare Out Of The Deadpool Top
When we reviewed file-sharing service DivShare way back in October 2007, we were mildly impressed with its one-stop solution for storing, managing and sharing files. A month later, the service was put up for sale on an auction site which prompted us to deadpool it . Fast-forward to January 2009, when the small startup behind DivShare was finally picked up by a group of internet veterans who started a new company called 3Sixty and aim to not only continue the service but also add some bells and whistles to it in the near future. The reason it took so long for DivShare to be acquired, so I was told, was because the service was doing well and making money and the owners just wanted to make sure it fell into the right hands and not sell it off to quickly and see it fade. As everyone knows, online file storing and sharing services are a dime a dozen, but DivShare boasts over a million registered users and - gasp - profitability (it helps when you haven’t take a dime in VC funding, of course). I tested the service and while it was not special in any way you look at it, it did work as advertised and you get a decent amount of storage (5 GB) for free. The company is apparently also very serious about not hosting anything but legitimate material on their servers. Annoyingly, a free account means that when you upload a file, it displays on a page filled with blatant in-your-face advertising units and pop-up ads, so that’s definitely a big turn-off. That said, the price for an ad-free service is reasonable and the company is re-evaluating how it displays advertising at the moment. DivShare also has some nice features like an iPhone application to access your files, a Facebook application for easy sharing on the social network, a WordPress plugin that replaces your regular uploading form with one from DivShare and an extensive API. You can find out more about that here . Interestingly, the people behind 3Sixty (who used to work for companies like Netscape, Roku, Verizon Wireless, AT&T, PSINet, Sybase, etc.) tell me that the acquisition of DivShare is just one of the steps in the direction they want to take their company, and that they’ve got some really exciting integrated internet communication services in the pipeline. Unfortunately, that’s about all they shared for the moment so we’ll just have to wait and see how that translates in practice. In any case, DivShare is no longer tagged ‘deadpool’ and you should try it out. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Google Responds To 'Gfail' Outage With Apps Status Dashboard Top
In response to its extended Gmail outage yesterday, Google has just launched the Google Apps Status Dashboard . The dashboard offers an at-a-glance look at the system health of most popular Google services, including Gmail, Google Calendar, and the company’s suite of web-based document editors. Google has been pretty good about responding to down time with blog posts alerting users with status updates, but having a dedicated page seems like a much better solution (especially for users who don’t follow Google’s blogs). The news is in line with recent trends seen by other popular web services, like Twitter, which now offers its own dedicated Status Update . Given that users (especially business customers) are becoming increasingly reliant on Google’s cloud based services, this is a welcome move, though I’m hoping we won’t have to use it too often. For more, check out Google’s blog post here . Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Music Labels Reach A New Low, Sue Developer For Using Seeqpod API Top
It’s no secret that the record industry hates Seeqpod , a music site that lets users stream songs for free. Last year the company was sued by Warner Music Group (the outcome of the suit is still pending). Now, the company has just been slapped with a complaint from EMI. But the new complaint goes one step further, personally naming some of the Seeqpod executives, and in a move that may well raise the ire of countless developers, a developer named Ryan Sit who happened to tap into the Seeqpod API. The legality of Seeqpod is murky. The company says that it doesn’t store any songs, but instead streams them from countless music files littering sites across the web. In effect, it acts as a powerful music search engine with a media player built in. The record industry claims that this is still illegal, and the new EMI complaint goes as far as to say that Seeqpod actually does host some of these music files, at least temporarily (which would strike a major blow to Seeqpod’s defense if proven true). In any case, Seeqpod is clearly on some shaky legal ground, so the new lawsuit doesn’t come as a surprise. What is surprising, and potentially very alarming, is the fact that Ryan Sit was named in the suit for running the one-man startup Favtape, which leverages the Seeqpod API to stream music. Sit has created a number of sites, including Swurl and FavThumbs . In short, he’s a prolific developer who takes advantage of the APIs offered by many popular websites. Favtape allows users to create playlists of their favorite songs, which are then streamed using the Seeqpod API. Favtape never hosts any of these files. At its core, it’s essentially just a fancy front-end for Seeqpod. In my past coverage of Favtape, I’ve noted that the site would become virtually useless if Seeqpod ever got sued. But it never crossed my mind that the site itself, and the man who built it, would also be named in the case. For one, there are dozens of other sites that use the Seeqpod API to do exactly what Favtape does. Why was Favtape singled out? There’s also the fact that - given the already murky laws surrounding Seeqpod - Favtape is yet one more degree removed from any possible transgressions. If EMI does win, it would set a precedent that the usage of an API puts the developer at risk of a lawsuit should the service they’re tapping into ever get sued. Such a decision would have huge ramifications for developers, who could become weary of using any service that could conceivably be considered illegal. It would stifle innovation. And frankly, it’s ridiculous. For more, check out this post by Michael Robertson. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Online Ads: Even the Evangelists Turning Bearish Top
It wasn't too many months ago that saying online advertising would decline in 2009 was enough to get you laughed at in the blogosphere, mocked on Twitter, and have Eric Schmidt roll his eyes and explain, again, why Google ads were such a better value than traditional media. Flash forward to this week and the Interactive Advertising Bureau big wigs are predicting whole businesses dependent on online ads could go belly up, and researcher IDC has completely reversed its growth estimates. No longer will online ads grow 10% in 2009, says the firm. IDC now predicts a 5% drop in revenues in the first quarter that could get worse in the second. Fingers crossed for the second half of the year. The trend is certainly already moving in that direction: Last year the market was growing at 18%. Last quarter it grew a sad .4%. That's flirting dangerously close to the first quarter-over-quarter drop in online ad sales since the great dot com bust. Suddenly everyone's bull scenario isn't double-digit growth; it's a year that doesn't tip negative. How'd everyone get the story so wrong? (Ok, not everyone . Stop waving your hand Henry Blodget, I see you.) Two big assumptions were at work here: One was that online advertising is more actionable and more measurable than advertising in the offline world. The other was this pie chart that Yahoo's PR department used to love to trot out showing the discrepancy between the amount of time people spend online and the percentage of advertising spend that goes online. “At some point, that has to balance out, right? RIGHT?” There's enough truth in these assumptions to ensure that online advertising won't have nearly as bad of a year as offline advertising. But in this market, that's like saying a broken leg is better than an amputated one. Plenty of attendees at this week’s IAB conference pointed out that problems like reliable audience measurement are no closer to being solved than they were during the industry's last identity crisis in 2001. Some people argue, it's gotten worse . There was also plenty of worried chatter that desperate times would lead to desperate measures, causing advertisers to play fast and loose with user privacy in an attempt to make a sale. I have a better idea: How about actually come up with innovative advertising products? Google-aside, I think the Web industry has gotten lazy when it comes to advertising innovation. There's too much outsourcing to the ad networks and too much of an assumption by the portals and other large properties that gaudy eyeballs will be enough. That’s old media thinking. It's enough to get ads when times are good, but not necessarily to keep them when times get bad. A lot of people criticize newspapers for just putting their stories online, the same way they'd dummy them up on the printed page, rather than really utilizing the two-way medium. I think you could argue the same about the way many sites think about display ads. Too often it seems a cat and mouse game where I'm chasing an ad around a page looking for the close button so I can read some content. Sure, maybe I look at your message more than I would in a banner. But it's also annoyed me enough that I will never buy your product. In many cases, even a back-to-basics approach works better, as I wrote about in my BusinessWeek column today that highlights some of the shockingly high CPM rates that un-high-tech email newsletters are getting. Like so many things in the recession, it's ultimately a good sign that marketers are panicked. We might actually see some innovation here. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Salesforce Hits $1 Billion Dollars In Annual Revenues Top
Salesforce is now officially the first enterprise cloud computing company to hit $1 billion in annual revenues. The company announced its fourth quarter and year-end earnings. It’s quarterly revenues were up 34 percent to $290 million, bringing the total for the year to $1. 077 billion. Net income for the quarter was $13.7 million ($0.11 a share), and $43.4 million ($0.36 a share) for the year (which doesn’t sound like a lot compared to $1 billion in revenues, but it was more than double last year’s earnings). Its operating cash flow for the year was a quite healthy $230 million. Salesforce ended the year with 55,400 corporate customers, and 1.5 million individual subscribers. And it has $883 million in the bank. Salesforce expects revenues to increase by about 30 percent this fiscal year to $1.3 billion. Passing the $1 billion mark is a major milestone for both Salesforce and cloud computing in general. Salesforce is the first enterprise computing company to get to that size based solely on selling Web apps. Here is the press release: Salesforce.com delivered the following results for the fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2009: Revenue: Total Q4 revenue was $289.6 million, an increase of 34% on a year-over-year basis and an increase of 5% on a quarter-over-quarter basis. Subscription and support revenues were $266.1 million, an increase of 35% on a year-over-year basis and an increase of 5% on a quarter-over-quarter basis. Professional services and other revenues were $23.5 million, an increase of 15% on a year-over-year basis and an increase of 2% on a quarter-over-quarter basis. For the full fiscal year 2009, the company reported revenue of approximately $1.077 billion, an increase of 44% from the prior year. Subscription and support revenues were $984.6 million for the year, an increase of 45%, while professional services revenue rose 35% to $92.2 million. Earnings per Share: Q4 GAAP diluted earnings per share were approximately $0.11, including approximately $21.1 million in stock based compensation expense and approximately $2.9 million in amortization of purchased intangibles related to previously announced acquisitions. For purposes of the Q4 GAAP EPS calculations, there was an average of approximately 125 million diluted shares outstanding during the quarter. For the full year, GAAP diluted earnings per share rose approximately 130% year-over-year to $0.35, including approximately $77.4 million in stock based compensation and approximately $8.0 million in amortization of purchased intangibles related to previously announced acquisitions. For purposes of the GAAP EPS calculations, there was an average of approximately 125 million diluted shares outstanding during the year. Customers and Paying Subscribers: Net paying customers rose approximately 3,600 during the quarter and approximately 14,400 during the year to finish at approximately 55,400. Net paying subscribers rose to greater than 1.5 million, an increase of approximately 400,000 from the prior fiscal year end. Cash: Cash from operations for the fiscal fourth quarter was approximately $76 million, up from $17 million in the third quarter, and down 7% year-over-year. For the full year, operating cash flow totaled $230 million, an increase of 12% from the prior year. Total cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities finished the year at approximately $883 million, an increase of approximately $78 million from Q3 and approximately $213 million from the prior fiscal year end. Deferred Revenue: Deferred revenue on the balance sheet as of January 31, 2009 was $594 million, an increase of 24% on a year-over-year basis and 27% on a quarter-over-quarter basis. As of February 25, 2009, salesforce.com is initiating guidance for its first quarter, fiscal year 2010. For its full fiscal year 2010, the company is updating its prior revenue guidance and initiating EPS guidance. Q1 FY10: Revenue for the company’s first fiscal quarter is projected to be in the range of approximately $304 million to approximately $305 million. GAAP diluted EPS is expected to be in the range of approximately $0.10 to approximately $0.11. Stock based compensation expense is expected to be approximately $22 million, and amortization of purchased intangibles is expected to be approximately $2.6 million. For purposes of the Q1 GAAP EPS calculation, the company is expecting an average diluted shares count of 126 million shares, a GAAP tax rate of approximately 43%, and a minority interest expense of approximately $200,000. Full Year FY10: The company today is updating the full year revenue guidance it provided on November 20, 2008, with revenue now expected to be approximately $1.30 billion to approximately $1.33 billion. The company is also initiating its earnings outlook for the full year, expecting GAAP diluted EPS to be in the range of approximately $0.54 to approximately $0.55. Stock based compensation expense is expected to be approximately $91 million, and amortization of purchased intangibles is currently expected to be approximately $9.3 million. For purposes of the full fiscal year 2010 GAAP EPS calculation, the company is expecting an average diluted shares count of 128 million shares, a GAAP tax rate of approximately 43%, and a minority interest expense of approximately $1 million. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Biden Forgets Recovery.gov's "Website Number" Top
This morning Vice President Biden went on the CBS early show to promote Recovery.gov , the website that will detail where all of the money in The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will be going. Unfortunately, he forgot the actual address of the site during the interview, explaining that he was embarrassed that he didn’t have the “website number”. And thus, we have a new internet meme in the making, as Biden follows in the footsteps of Senator Ted Stevens’s Series of Tubes and President Bush’s reference to the “internets” . In Biden’s defense, at least he was smart enough not to take a guess at what the website might have been called, only to have an entrepreneural domain squatter grab the domain and start a porn site. The last thing the government needs is something along the lines of NBC’s hilarious Hornymanatee fiasco. Thanks to Paul Kedrosky for the tip. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Coupon Tweet Joins The Search For Deals On Twitter (Beta Invites) Top
Every day we hear about new businesses being built around Twitter. Corporations such as Dell are discovering that it is an ideal way to distribute marketing information about deals and and services such as TwtQpn makes it easy for businesses to create Twitter coupons. But who wants to follow Dell? Maybe for a week or two while you are in the market for a new computer, but then you have to remember to unfollow. And if you are really into finding deals, following every retailer you love is a sure way to turn your Twitter stream into a constant flow of spam. As a result, services are popping up to help you search for deals and coupons on Twitter. CheapTweet has already launched, and one that is in private beta is called Coupon Tweet. (To check out the beta be one of the first 500 readers to enter this code: TCBETA500). Coupon Tweet was developed by a Chicago firm called 12 Interactive, which is also behind employee discount site PerkSpot . It filters out all the coupon-related messages from Twitter, categorizes them, and and lets you search them on its site. The latest deals appear chronologically in a familiar Twitter stream. Tabs across the top allow you to browse through specific retail categories (apparel, cell phones, computers, tickets, travel). Deals can be voted up or down the page, or retweeted. (CheapTweet has similar functionality). The top three deals are featured items. Stores can register with Coupon Tweet to ensure that all of the deals they Twitter are captured. Since the links go straight to the retailer’s page, Coupon Tweet can simply feature items from retailers with affiliate programs like Amazon to start generating revenue. And those slots could be sold to keyword bidders as well. Anyone can also follow @CouponTweet on Twitter to get a stream of the best deals of the day. How much of the total Twittering that goes one every day is commercial and are there really that many deals being Twittered every day that we need two services to keep track of them all? It is a tiny niche. Coupon Tweet founder Christopher Hill estimates that 4 million to 5 million total messages get Tweeted every day, and out of that he finds only about 1,500 coupon-related Tweets. He scrubs that down to 500 coupon Tweets a day, which comes out to about 0.01 percent of all Tweets. But you know what they say about early bird getting the worm and all that. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
I've Seen The Future Of Mashups, And Its Name Is PizzaShare Top
What could be yummier than a mashup using the Google Maps API to crowdsource and pinpoint the best pizza places in America? Thanks to PizzaShare , you’ll hopefully never have to wonder where to get them slices because you can just enter the city or zip code and go for the one that has the biggest circle. It’s as easy as pie (you knew that was coming, right?). Seriously though, there are plenty of services on the web and on mobile devices that you could use to find a decent pizza place if you’re ever somewhere where neither you or anyone you know can tell you which one’s “the best” ( Yelp leaps to mind). Also, the downside of crowdsourcing is that you have to at least try to prevent gaming; PizzaShare lets you vote (share) on a pizza place as much as you wish. Creator Mike Mueller says he’s going to keep adding new features to PizzaShare, like geo-location, tagging, microblogs for each pizzeria, a recommendation tool, etc. My advice? Don’t give up on your day job just yet (but keep building stuff). You can follow Mueller’s PizzaShare blog here , it’s about pizza mostly. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Y Combinator Startup Fliggo Lets You Build Your Own YouTube Top
First we had Ning , which lets you build your own niche social network. Now we have Fliggo , which lets you build your own YouTube. Fliggo is the latest startup to come out of Y Combinator . It has been in private beta for a while, but is now open to the public. Fliggo lets you create your own video-sharing site. It hosts and streams the videos, and provides “grandma-friendly” management tools to customize the site and monitor usage. Fliggo sItes can be private or public, and are geared towards groups, companies, or video bloggers who want more control over who can see and comment on their videos, and the ads placed against them. Fliggo takes the expense and custom-work out of building a video-hosting site. Right now, if you want to create your own video site, the easiest thing to do is to simply use Wordpress and embed YouTube’s videos. In fact, that is exactly the approach we used with our own video site, Elevator Pitches . The downside to that is that all of the videos also reside on YouTube, and if we wanted to enable advertising, we’d have to split that with YouTube. Fliggo lets you control all the videos, as well as who gets to comment on them, and the related videos that are suggested alongside them. In fact, Fliggo created a quick-and-dirty version of Elevator Pitches just to show us how easy it could be done. (We’re not switching over, though, so please continue to upload videos to the official Elevator Pitches site). The downside is that your videos don’t show up in YouTube searches. And Fliggo doesn’t yet offer HD uploads (athough that is coming). Another danger for Fliggo is that it becomes a magnet for videos taken down for copyright violations elsewhere or porn (both of which are prohibited by Fliggo’s terms of service). The basic service is free, but Fliggo charges for premium features such as teh ability to serve ads or host Fliggo on your own domain. The company has a not-yet-public API it shares with partner sites which want to embed Fliggo functionality on their own existing sites. JamLegend (a LaunchBox startup ) recently did just that, adding a video section based on the Fliggo API where players can film themselves rocking out on their keyboards (literally). Above is the screenshot of the JamLegend implementation. Below are screenshots of the Fliggo version of Elevator Pitches and a view of the management dashboard. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Mendeley Snags $2 Million In Early-Stage Funding For Research Paper Management Tool Top
Mendeley , makers of a desktop and web application designed to make it easier for academics to manage and discover relevant research papers on any topic, has raised $2 million in early-stage funding from some high-profile investors, including Stefan Glänzer , early seed investor in and former Chairman of Last.fm, former Executive VP of Digital Strategy and Business Development for Warner Music Group Alex Zubillaga and ASI , the investment vehicle of Skype’s former founding engineers. The connection with the popular social music network Last.fm doesn’t stop there, since the company is pushing to become the “Last.fm for research”, which means the startup essentially aims to enable academics to manage and sharing their research paper inventory and at the same time discover like-minded people and papers thanks to a recommendation and matching algorithm. I registered for the service and downloaded the Windows version of the desktop app (it’s available for Mac OSX and Linux too) to give it a whirl. First thing I noticed is that you can easily invite fellow academics from your network to join Mendeley based on existing accounts for LinkedIn, Gmail, Windows Live, etc. I also took note of the fact that your profile settings, which include information about your field of research, a CV, etc. automatically has you signed up for the company newsletter, which I think should be optional. My entirely fake public profile can be located here . The desktop app is actually quite nice: after installation, you can import PDF files using the tool’s “Automatic Medata Extraction” or import your existing library from EndNote XML, BibTeX or RIS files. Mendeley also features a Word Plugin which lets you insert citations and create formatted bibliographies in documents using Microsoft Word 2003/2007. Academics can also upload their own research papers and syncing files and information with the web-based version with just one click of the mouse. Mendeley also boasts features that let members connect with their peers online, and - taking a page from Facebook - the tool also features a newsfeed that displays newly shared or uploaded documents etc. Mendeley claims to have “scrobbled” data on almost 3 million research papers in just two months, so it’s likely to become one hell of a resource if growth continues and enough academics take notice. Similar services include Labmeeting (which we likened to a “social network for scientists” ), Academia.edu (which we likened to a “Geni for researchers” ) and Questia . If you know of any others, please share in comments. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Appcelerator Releases New Preview Of Open Source Developer Platform Titanium, Adds Bells And Whistles Top
This morning, Mountain View-based startup Appcelerator is taking the wraps off its second Preview Release for Titanium , an open-source developer platform meant to compete with Adobe AIR and the likes for building rich internet, mobile and desktop applications. Titanium PR2 comes with a number of new features that are worth taking a look at, like an extensible Module API and built-in support for Linux and a wide range of programming languages like Python, Ruby and JavaScript in addition to C++. More technical details are outlined on the company blog Appcelerant . The new release of the open developer platform, licensed under Apache Public License (version 2), can be downloaded for Windows, Mac OSX or Linux here . The release also includes a nifty tool dubbed Titanium Developer which groups a number of social media and communication services like Twitter, FriendFeed and an IRC chat module which is supposed to make it easier for the open-source developer community to connect and collaborate when using Titanium for building apps. Check out this screencast to see how it works. I have my doubts about Appcelerator being able to compete with more established players like Adobe with its cross-platform AIR runtime (at version 1.5.1 since yesterday), but it never hurts for developers to have alternatives, especially when they are open-source and as flexible as Titanium. The startup features a couple of demo applications you can play with, like Tweetanium (desktop Twitter client) and Playtanium (a desktop YouTube video player). I tested both (admittedly very basic) apps on my Windows Vista powered PC and they worked like a charm. Appcelerator recently raised $4.1 million in a Series A round led by Storm Ventures. Below are a couple of screenshots and a tutorial video on how to get started with Titanium. If you build an app with it, be sure to let us know! Titanium Developer: Getting Started from Appcelerator Video Channel on Vimeo . Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 

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