Thursday, February 26, 2009

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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 : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Imagini Gets $13.5m To Work Out Your Personality With Pictures Top
UK start-up Imagini has secured a significant $13.5 million in a second round of funding (the first round was undisclosed). The additional investment comes from Horizons Ventures, NorthZone Ventures and Atomico. Imagini has an interesting technology called VisualDNA which effectively works out people’s personality types by presenting them with picture choices - instead of, say, asking users to type in their profile. The Flash-based quiz is not unlike a game, and can be quite addictive once you get going. The result is that Imagini says online retailers get a 37% uplift from customers after they get profiled. So whether you picked the Grand Torino over the Lamborghini really does say something about you. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
World Economic Forum Announces New Batch Of Young Global Leaders (Mark Zuckerberg, Chad Hurley, Kevin Rose And More) Top
The World Economic Forum has just published its annual list of Young Global Leaders, recognizing “between 200 and 300 outstanding young leaders from around the world for their professional accomplishments, commitment to society and potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world”. The list of honorees, besides celebrities like Coldplay’s Chris Martin and F1 legend Michael Schumacher, includes a good number of people from the technology and Internet industry, so here’s a quick run-down of the names you might know: Mark Zuckerberg - founder and CEO of Facebook Kevin Rose - founder of Digg Chad Hurley - co-founder and CEO of YouTube Josh Silverman - CEO of Skype Michael Birch - founder and CEO of Bebo Premal Shah - President of Kiva Lisa Huddleson - Corporate Foundation Executive Director at Dell Vinny Lingham - CEO of Synthasite Paul Bassat - CEO of Seek Suranga Chandratillake - co-founder and CEO of blinkx Michael Cannon-Brooks - co-founder of Atlassian Andrej Nabergoj - co-founder and CEO of Noovo Matias de Tezanos - founder of HealthCare.com Kamal Quadir - founder of CellBazaar Ashok Vemuri - Senior VP, Banking and Capital Markets at Infosys Technologies Habib Haddad - co-founder of Yamli Josh Spear - founding partner of Undercurrent For the full list, click here (PDF). World Economic Forum Young Global Leader Honorees 2009 - Get more Business Plans Drawn from a pool of almost 5,000 candidates, the Young Global Leaders 2009 were chosen by a selection committee (PDF), chaired by H.M. Queen Rania Al Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, comprising 31 eminent international media leaders. The recently published list of active YGLs includes names like Sergey Brin and Larry Page (Google), Tony Fadell (Apple) Marc Benioff (Salesforce.com), John Battelle (Federated Media), Peter Thiel (Clarium Capital), Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia), Uday Khemka (Sun), Tariq Krim (Jolicloud), Philipp Justus (PayPal), Lila Ibrahim (Intel), Esther Duflo and Kristin Forbes (MIT), Jack Ma Yun (AliBaba), Jorge Blanco (Avaya), Bill Nguyen (LaLa), Tero Ojanpera (Nokia), and Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook). Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Google App Engine Offers Pricing Plan Beyond Quotas; Grab A Free I/O Ticket To Celebrate Top
Google has released a new upgrade for its popular App Engine service that allows developers to pay to extend their application’s resource quotas beyond those that have historically been offered by the free service. According to Google this has been the platform’s most oft-requested feature, as developers with rapidly growing applications have been unable to expand beyond the set thresholds to meet demand. Developers will be able to set aside a specified amount of money each day, which will be distributed across fees related to CPU usage, bandwidth, storage space, and email (you keep any money that isn’t spent that day). For more details, check out the company’s blog post here . To coincide with today’s announcement, we’re giving away three more tickets to Google’s upcoming I/O event this May. If you’d like one, leave a comment below telling us how you’re going to use Google’s new premium quota extensions, and we’ll pick out the best ones. Be sure to use your real Email address so we can contact you directly. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
MySpace Inches Closer To Offering Full-Fledged Webmail Service Top
Last month we reported that MySpace was planning to launch a webmail service - a move that could instantly make it one of the web’s largest Email providers (provided a substantial portion of its users took advantage of the feature). Today we’ve received a number of tips that MySpace has introduced some new messaging features that indicate that the transition is well underway. Most notably, the site now allows users to send a message to multiple friends at once, as seen in the shot below. The feature works as advertised: as users begin typing their friends’ names, an autocomplete window opens with a list of matches. Each picture in the ‘To’ line is a link to that user’s MySpace profile, which makes it easier to confirm that you’re messaging the right friend. While the company wouldn’t comment on its webmail plans, MySpace has confirmed that the new feature launched today, and also detailed some of the other upgrades to the site’s messaging functionality. The site now offers an at-a-glance view of your sent messages so you can see if your friends have read them (frankly I find this feature to be a little creepy, but it’s not uncommon in standard Email clients). Users will also be able to attach video files to their outgoing messages. Of course, while the site’s interface may be gradually moving towards that of most webmail clients, it is still missing one key feature: users don’t have a dedicated name@myspace.com Email address yet, so they can’t receive incoming mail. But as we noted last month, the company has started moving its corporate Email addresses from name@MySpace.com to the domain MySpace-inc.com, paving the way for users to occupy the name@MySpace.com addresses. We should note that Facebook has also been slowly adding features to its messaging platform. While we haven’t heard anything directly related to a Facebook webmail application, the site clearly strives to be a central hub for social communication on the web, so it wouldn’t be surprising if it has similar aspirations (especially if MySpace’s experiment goes well). Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Microsoft TechFest: 'Surface' Upgrade Projects Images Beyond The Screen Top
We’re big fans of of Microsoft Surface, the interactive multitouch tabletop that acts a bit like an iPhone on a much larger scale (though the technology used is completely different). In fact, we like the Surface so much that we’re one of the few private organizations to actually have one. So today when I saw some new technology may well work itself into a future version of the innovative product, I was more than a little enthused. The new technology showcased today allows Surface-like devices to effectively project two different images in the same space. One of these projections is shown on the display as it normally would be, while the other is projected through it, so that it appears on anything that is held above the Surface (watch the video if this doesn’t make sense - it’s very cool). The technology works by rapidly alternating which of the images are projected at a speed that makes the transition undetectable to the human eye. The technology can also be applied to a basic hand held electronic viewfinder that can shift the user’s perspective of the Surface image in real-time (again, see the video). Note : It is tough to see the projected images in the standard-def YouTube video, so make sure to click on the ‘HD’ button to watch the high definition version. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Ginx Helps You Find And Follow The Experts on Twitter Top
Ginx , the third-party interface for Twitter that makes it easier to share news with friends, has added a new feature that organizes experts into groups so you follow their ongoing commentary on your favorite topics. Each group on Ginx is created and administered by a single owner who determines who the experts are in a particular field or category. For example, here’s a group of journalists who are focused on covering Apple news. It’s run by the user mirthlab and members include John Gruber and Arnold Kim . Currently there are 11 groups in total on Ginx, and all of them are listed in this simple directory . The others include one about China and another about Arizona politics . If you’re interested in hearing what the experts in a particular group have to say, you can become a follower of that group with a single click. All of the tweets from the group’s members will then show up in your Ginx timeline, regardless of whether their tweets are related to the group’s topic or not. When asked about whether it would be better to just show followers those tweets that are relevant to a group’s topic, co-founder Pierre Omidyar insisted that getting the whole stream of tweets from group members actually lets you learn more about who the members are as people. And in turn, this makes the news and commentary you get from them more personal. This new groups feature is a natural addition to Ginx’s core functionality, since it advances the notion that Twitter should be used to learn and educate others about the world. It does pose the risk of information overload, however, since by joining just a few groups, you’re expanding the number of people who contribute to your timeline considerably. In anticipation of this problem, there are checkboxes next to the timeline that let you temporarily remove all tweets from a particular group. But something tells me that most users will still want to be part of only one or two groups at a time, lest they have trouble separating the wheat from the chaff. Only select users have the power to create groups, although I’m told that this will change soon so that anyone can set up their own. Everyone can start following the existing groups today, and if you’re not already a Ginx user, the first 100 users to sign up with this code will get in: 842A11AC93EA. Update: We’ve created a group with TechCrunch employees that you can follow. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Microsoft TechFest: Qik Meets Photosynth With Impressive Panoramic Mobile Movies Top
I’m here in Redmond, Washington at Microsoft TechFest 2009, where Microsoft is showcasing many of the projects its researchers around the world. The event is filled with impressive demos covering diverse topics ranging from advanced user interfaces to improving computer-based learning in developing countries. We’ll be posting videos throughout the day, the first of which is a demonstration that essentially combines the mobile video broadcasting of services like Qik with Microsoft’s image and video stitching technology that can be seen in its impressive Photosynth product. The technology can take multiple live video streams focusing on the same subject (as you might find at a concert), and stitches them together to create one large panoramic video. For a full demo, see the video below. It’s important to note that while many of these technologies are extremely impressive, they may not be seen in consumer devices for quite some time (if ever). Still, given the fact that products like Microsoft’s Surface emerged from similar research projects, these may well be a window into the future what our gadgets will soon be able to pull off. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 

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