Wednesday, March 4, 2009

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The Smart Execs Leave Before The Fall. Top
When a smart, ambitious executive who isn’t the CEO leaves a company, it isn’t necessarily a sign of trouble. Sometimes that executive isn’t performing all that well, or he/she wants to see if they can make it at their own startup where they call the shots. Top execs leaving to start their own companies is the story of Silicon Valley. But when bunches of them leave, watch out. With obvious exceptions, like a sale that results in a lot of liquidity being sloshed around the founder ranks, fleeing talent is an indication that a company is about to go sideways, or worse. There’s a reason why most of Yahoo’s executive talent bailed out in 2007 and 2008. And that’s just a high profile example. Whenever we hear about multiple executives leaving a startup, there’s always trouble brewing. Today’s news that MySpace’s COO, SVP Product Strategy and VP Technology are leaving to take some time off and then start a new company isn’t an exception. I know each of these guys personally, and they are all highly talented execs with a lot of competitive fire. MySpace needed these guys. Sure, they’ll find replacements. But the real news is that they voted with their feet, and decided that now is the best time for them to branch out on their own. The fact that we’re in the middle of one of the biggest economic downturns that any of us have seen just reinforces the point - the sun is setting on MySpace. There’s no way to deny it any more. MySpace had a banner revenue year in 2008, and they are still by far the largest social network in the U.S. But within a year Facebook will have taken that trophy . And it may not be long after before Facebook revenues eclipse MySpace, too. I won’t go through all of MySpace’s missteps, but there were a few big ones. They’ve generally trailed Facebook in taking risks with new products (News Feed, self serve ads, Facebook Connect), and they made a crucial strategic mistake in how they handled international expansion (Facebook gets its own users to create local translations of the site, MySpace opens offices in every country they want a presence in - guess which one scales). And the things MySpace did right, they didn’t capitalize on. MySpace Music , so promising a few months ago, remains in slow motion development for new features. And it only works in the U.S. But worst of all, MySpace is bogged down in a ridiculous corporate structure. MySpace reports to Fox Interactive Media (FIM), which in turn reports to News Corp. FIM appears to be , little more than another layer of bureaucracy to slow things down. We’ve heard repeatedly that FIM head Peter Levinsohn and MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe both try to exert direct power over MySpace, leaving employee’s heads spinning. DeWolfe theoretically reports to Levinsohn, but in reality he’s Murdoch’s guy. FIM’s original purpose was to acquire a variety of Internet companies, but those days are gone and we can’t figure out what it actually does any more besides muddle things up at MySpace and get in the middle of petty turf wars. Their best bet would have been to leave the damn thing alone and let DeWolfe do his thing. Add to that the fact that MySpace employees have no stock incentive to stay, and its no wonder top talent is fleeing. Founders Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson have employment contracts that come up for renewal later this year. Unless News Corp. pays them a bundle (their current contract pays them an aggregate of $30 million/year already), they’ll likely be gone before 2010, too. They may have already made the decision to leave, which would make today’s defections unsurprising. This is the way of things with tech startups (remember that MySpace is only 5ish years old). In this case FIM may have acted as a big speed bump in MySpace’s race with Facebook, hobbling them and ensuring that it wasn’t even close. But the result is the same. And good news comes out of this - all of these talented execs and engineers will start and grow new companies, and the cycle continues. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Amazon launches Kindle application for the iPhone Top
Not looking to drop $360 bucks on a gadget purposed almost solely for book reading, but still want to partake in Amazon’s new found love for eBooks? You’re not alone - and if you’ve got an iPhone or iPod Touch, you’re in luck. As we’d assumed they would , Amazon has just launched a free Kindle application for Apple’s much-lauded touchscreens, available immediately. While it won’t go and turn your iPhone’s display into an e-Ink screen, the Kindle application does replicate much of the functionality provided by the namesake device. You can read any Kindle-compatible book you’ve purchased from Amazon’s catalog, read the first chapter of other books for free, adjust text size, bookmark pages, and view notations you’ve made on the Kindle. One of the big features here is WhisperSync, which automatically keeps track of where you left off in each book, allowing you to pick up from that spot from any Kindle-friendly devices you may have. The feature didn’t seem too useful when the Kindle 2 was announced (How many people have more than one Kindle?) - but with Amazon stretching Kindle across multiple platforms, it makes perfect sense. Leave your Kindle on the bed side table, pick up where you left off on your iPhone once you’re on the bus. Buying new books is a bit more tedious for iPhone users, as Apple doesn’t allow third parties to sell content within their applications. To get a new book, you’ve got to pop into Safari, then head to the standard Amazon Kindle store and purchase the book there. Amazon’s syncing sorcery takes over from that point. It’s not too bad, but the experience isn’t as seamless as it is on the Kindle. Will this put Kindle sales at risk? Not likely. The Kindle is a fairly niche product - not that reading is a niche activity (though it’s probably a bit less common than it should be), but the ideas of eBooks/e-Ink/etc are still fairly foreign to most (though Oprah’s mention definitely didnt hurt). This lets Amazon push e-products they’ve already got licenses to sell to more consumers, all the while coaxing the stubborn folks into the idea of reading books on an electronic screen without requiring them to drop $360 bucks on a dedicated device. What it may put at risk, however, are all of the other publishers ( ScrollMotion , for example) looking to peddle eBooks on the iPhone platform. Amazon’s eBook library is massive, and almost always cheaper than these other options. Has Amazon just conquered the iPhone eBook market? Check out the free application and catch up on your reading here . [iTunes Link] Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Facebook Connect + Facebook Ads = A Social Ad Network Top
The push to ramp up revenues is clearly on at Facebook. If Mark Zuckerberg wants to prove Facebook’s valuation (something he won’t budge on for new investors ), he is going to have to start showing some serious revenues. That means figuring out how to make social advertising pay. At Davos, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg told us to expect to see “the evolution of the advertising products” this year. One big evolutionary step the company is working on is the combination of Facebook Connect and Facebook Ads , in effect turning Facebook Connect into a social ad network. We’ve learned this from two independent sources, one with direct knowledge of the product. Asked for comment, a Facebook spokesman offers the following statement: We are always looking at new opportunities for our developers but have not launched anything new. Last month, we did announce that we are working with a few developers to test the placement of Facebook Ads within their applications specifically on Facebook.com as part of our efforts to help developers monetize. The results of those initial tests will help us determine if and how we could extend Facebook Ads to additional applications and developers in the future. The introduction of ads through Facebook Connect is an obvious way to expand revenues, and our sources say it is part of Sandberg’s larger efforts to do so. Just last month, as the statement notes, Facebook began testing ads for the first time on third-party application pages . It also introduced a commenting widget for sites that use Facebook Connect which expands the footprint of FB Connect on sites that install it. One can imagine other Facebook Connect apps, and even third-party apps, appearing on partner sites. The more real estate those apps take up, the more room there will be to insert an ad or two. Our understanding is that the ads will initially appear on this expanding real estate rather than in traditional advertising spots, where Facebook would have to compete directly against Google, Yahoo, and all the other established ad networks. Given the known under-performance of ads on Facebook’s own site and social networks in general, that is probably a prudent strategy. For now, Facebook Connect remains a developer program for partner sites to allow visitors to sign in using their Facebook ID and voluntarily exchange data about their activity on those sites back to their Facebook friends via their activity feeds. But targeting ads to Facebook members on partner sites through Facebook Connect could become a potentially powerful revenue generator. At the very least, it would multiply Facebook’s available advertising inventory beyond its own site. At most, it would create better returns by letting Facebook place highly targeted ads in different contexts where people may be more receptive to them. One of the reasons ads perform so poorly on social networks is because they are the worst place to show someone an ad. People on social networks tend to be in a socializing mode instead of a shopping or information-gathering mode. But if you show the same people an ad on another type of site (say, a clothing ad on a fashion blog), and you can target that ad based on their social profile (you know their age, gender, and where they live), that in theory should be a formula for better response rates. Facebook started down this road before with Beacon, before that effort blew up in its face because of privacy concerns. So it has to tread carefully. But it learned from Beacon, and FB Connect is completely opt-in. So far, it is a success. Now it is time to make money off of it, and leverage the data Facebook has about its 175 million members. And have no doubts: If Facebook doesn’t create a viable social ad network, somebody else will. In fact, all the major social networks have plans to use access to their members, and their member data, as a wedge to create social advertising networks that can target ads based on profile or demographic data. For instance, Google Friend Connect, Google’s answer to Facebook Connect, is laying the groundwork for what Google insiders call “ Friendsense” (Friends + AdSense). Even MySpace and AOL are working on their own flavors of socially-targeted ads. While these efforts are all couched in terms of making it easier for consumers to share data about themselves between the sites they care about, don’t be fooled. They are less about sharing data than about targeting ads. This is the next evolutionary step in online advertising. it is only a matter of when, not if, it will occur. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Phishing Attack Takes Down iStockPhoto Top
Twitter is abuzz with news that iStockPhoto , a photo store that was acquired by Getty Images in 2006, has been hit with a phishing attack. All users who have logged into the site today are being instructed to change their passwords (presumably because they have been compromised) and the site’s homepage has been taken down. While the site is currently inaccessible, Sean Locke writes that the site did offer a brief explanation earlier this evening: This afternoon a phishing attack was conducted in the forums and through sitemail. This attack created a fake istockphoto.com login screen, prompting users for a username & password, saved them to a malicious server, then redirected the user back to the iStockphoto main page. Update 7:18 PM PT : A spokesperson responds in comments There was indeed an attack against iStock today that was discovered by our security team. As a precaution we took down the site but it will be up shortly. Please see the site for further details. It appears to be back up now. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
YouTube Holds A Casting Call To Educate Its Users Top
In the last year, YouTube has introduced a slew of new features, including deep linking , improved analytics , and a new API . But aside from a few very obvious additions, like the bump up to HD, most people have no idea that many of these features exist. YouTube is looking to change that. The site is launching a new Adopt A Feature campaign, inviting users to create videos showing off some of its lesser-known features, like AudioSwap . YouTube will track the progress of the features on its blog, and will present the most effective videos on the YouTube homepage and as permanent additions to its help pages. Below is a sample video showing off the site’s ‘ Subscription ‘ feature by YouTube celeb LisaNova. Aside from being a little bizarre, the video is notable for LisaNova screaming at her caveman comrade for asking if YouTube was free (she shrieks “It’s YouTube, of course it’s free!” in response). Sounds like the general population might not be quite ready for the site’s paid videos, which rolled out last month . To take part, users can choose from the following features (be sure to include the associated tags so that the system picks them up): AudioSwap (use tags: audioswap, adoptafeature) Country and Language Options (use tags: countrypulldown, adoptafeature) Insight (use tags: insight, adoptafeature) Playlists (use tags: playlists, adoptafeature) Quick Capture (use tags: quickcapture, adoptafeature) Subscriptions (use tags: subscriptions, adoptafeature) For more details, check out the YouTube blog post here . Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
TinkOmatic Makes Deal and Job Hunting More Organized (500 Invites) Top
In this economy, everyone is looking for a good deal. Startup TinkOmatic (currently in private beta) allows deal-hunting consumers to search and track classifieds or auction sites for multiple items at once, all in one location. Tracking classifieds on Craigslist or deals on Ebay can be overwhelming and tedious to consumers and TinkOmatic is hoping to provide an easier way to view these listings (The first 500 readers to enter the code “techcrunch” will get access to the beta). The search aggregator application allows users to find items on Oodle , Kijiji , Ebay and Craigslist (Which opens in a new window). TinkOmatic also allows users to add RSS feeds from Trulia, Google Base and others to track items, jobs, apartments and cars. The results from each site are displayed in separate panes, a.ka. TinkBoxes, within the page. The user can access the site-specific searches (on Ebay or Craigslist) by clicking on the corresponding TinkBox. Searches can be limited by both location (TinkOmatic offers over 20 geographic locations) and by type of item. All searches can be saved and refreshed whenever the user accesses TinkOmatic. The site also enables people to create advanced search filters within their RSS readers and TinkOmatic searches featured on the site. Here’s a instructional video about the site: One economy-relevant feature is the ability to hunt for jobs, track listings and have the job searches updated each time a user logs in to the site. And of course, it’s a useful tool to organize updated multiple classified and auction searches in one area. In theory, it’s sort of similar to Trackle , NotifyMe and Yotify , except devoted to a concentrated area. On the downside, TinkOmatic’s interface is fairly basic and could be spruced up to offer more features like email alerts. But it’s certainly a good start. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Three MySpace Execs Departing To Start New Company (Leaked Memo) Top
This just breaking: Three executives at MySpace are leaving the company to form their own startup, led by COO Amit Kapur (pictured here). He will be joined by senior VP of technology Jim Benedetto and and senior VP of product strategy Steve Pearman . They have internally announced their departures, we have been able to confirm with the company. MySpace is well into its monetization phase , and is facing increasing competition from Facebook, which is larger worldwide than MySpace and may soon overtake it in the U.S. as well. The growth and the big rewards that go with growth, may now be easier to find elsewhere. Kapur, Benedetto, and Pearman are voting with their feet. Possible successors to Kapur for the COO post include Adam Bain (a FIM hotshot who heads up the Fox Audience Network), Jeff Berman (head of sales and marketing for MySpace), and Travis Katz (head of MySpace international). External candidates, assuming they’d want the job, might be departing Yahoo Mobile exec Marco Boerries, former Yahoo SVP Brad Garlinghouse , Playlist CEO Owen Van Natta (who at one point was considering the MySpace Music CEO position), or Benchmark’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence Dave Goldberg . Below is the memo just sent out by MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe: From: Chris Dewolfe Sent: Tuesday, March 03 To: FIM MySpace All Subject: IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM CHRIS DEWOLFE Hi everyone, I want to notify you of some changes occurring to the senior executive team at MySpace. Amit Kapur, our Chief Operating Officer, will be leaving the company to start a new venture. Many of us who have been lucky enough to work with Amit can attest to his tenacity, passion, and creativity as a leader within MySpace and the larger industry. Jim Benedetto, SVP of Engineering and Steve Pearman, SVP of Product Strategy will join Amit in this new chapter. Personally, I'm incredibly excited to see what this team creates together and wish them the best of luck as they transition from helping run a company to building a new one. Most importantly, Amit, Jim, and Steve depart as great friends of MySpace and of our senior executive team. They will remain on board for the next few weeks to ensure a smooth transition company-wide. We recently celebrated the five year anniversary of the launch of MySpace—it's a major milestone and everyone should be extremely proud of the global business that we have created in such a short amount of time. At its inception, MySpace was a product of the new social Web and in the last few years we've developed the most robust and diverse business in the marketplace. MySpace is a social portal that empowers its global community to interact with people, content, and culture by giving individuals a personal, portable, and secure social experience. Originally, Yahoo gave consumers an organized way of navigating the Internet. Then, Google made searching the Internet extremely easy. Now, MySpace is making it simple for users to organize what's important to them through a personal and social lens. Despite what the market tells us, 2009 will be a big year for our business. This year we will mature our existing market leading advertising technologies such as MyAds and HyperTargeting, as well as continue to innovate new ways for companies big and small to best leverage the MySpace platform. We are effectively monetizing the stickiest sections of our site such as Music and Video by coupling the world's richest content offering with creative ad programming online and off. What will always differentiate MySpace from others in the industry is our commitment to balancing revenue and relevancy. On the product side, this past year was full of innovation including a site-wide global redesign, the impressive growth of our mobile initiatives, and the beginnings of our Open Platform product suite including MySpaceID. We're at the tip of the iceberg with the Open Platform and in the coming year we expect major new launches including payments and virtual goods. Also in 2009, MySpace Music will deliver the next round of product development such its international rollout, and new functionality including charts, ticketing, and merchandise. Most important, we will remain committed to executing on our product vision in a manner that engages our users in the process and considers their feedback every step of the way. Tom and I want to reiterate how passionate we are about MySpace—we love the people, the product, and we believe in the future of the company. MySpace has a dedicated team of senior executives and I'd like to take the opportunity to spotlight some of these individuals. I encourage everyone to get to know our executive team as they are an enormously capable group of professionals from successful media and Internet powerhouses such as eBay, Yahoo!, MTV, and Symantec that will lead our company into its next phase. MySpace Executive Team: · Tom Anderson—President and Co-Founder · Aber Whitcomb—Chief Technology Officer · Travis Katz—GM and SVP of MySpace International · Courtney Holt—President of MySpace Music · Jeff Berman—President of Sales and Marketing · Lin Cherry—General Counsel · Tom Andrus—SVP of Product · Manu Thapar—SVP of Engineering Operations · Allen Hurff—SVP of Engineering · Tish Whitcraft—SVP of Customer Care · Jason Oberfest—SVP of Business Development · Angela Courtin—SVP of Marketing · Abe Thomas—VP of Online Marketing · Dani Dudeck—VP of Global Corporate Communications In a tough economy, we're continuing to prove to the industry that we're a serious business defining a new social portal category for a Web that's more personal, portable, and collaborative than ever before. Thanks everyone for a record breaking year 2008—the coming year will be even more important for the company and our 130 million global users worldwide. Best, Chris Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Google Code Lab Is Like High School For APIs Top
Google has launched Google Code Labs , a central place where developers can find links to the early-stage Google products. With over 60 Google APIs already available on Google Code (Google’s general code site), the company is using the Code Labs group to engage the greater developer community in the early-stage product and API ideation process. Google Code Labs will also include its most popular APIs and tools for “Labs graduates” such as Google Maps , Google Earth , YouTube and more. The list of APIs for applications that are still in the Labs development process include Calendar Gadgets , Toolbar and Gears . In order for an API to graduate from Labs, the code needs to pass through a rigorous set of standards, including the need for a “dedicated, ongoing engineering team and a comprehensive test suite.” Google is also differentiating between which established products have published with a deprecation policy and which “graduated” products are still in “experimental” development. Google Developer Products Director Tom Stocky said in a blog post: For these graduates, we’re increasing our commitment with published deprecation policies and other critical support services. The Visualization API terms, Contacts Data API terms, and Picasa Web Albums Data API terms include good examples of transparent deprecation policies. They state that we’ll support each version for at least 3 years from when it’s deprecated or a newer version is introduced. We’re working to get policies posted for the other graduates as well, though the time period may vary a bit from product to product. It will be 3 years for most, but it might be less for some. The AdWords API, for example, has a policy of supporting old versions for 4 months. Of course, even established products need a way to experiment with new features. With that in mind, some products will have features labeled “experimental” that could change (or even be removed) at any time, while the rest of the API is covered by a deprecation policy with long-term support. . Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
This Year's Global Technology Symposium Takes On The Turbulent Economy Top
Later this month Stanford University will host the sixth annual Global Technology Symposium , which will bring together a collection of esteemed investors, entrepreneurs, politicians, educators, and business executives to discuss the changes affecting the world’s economic situation. This year’s event runs from Thursday, March 26, 2009 - Friday, March 27, 2009, and will focus (appropriately) on Entrepreneurship and Investment in a Turbulent Economy. Tickets run $795 apiece for the three day event, and we’ve got five of them to give away. If you’d like one, leave a comment below letting us know why you need to be at the GTS, and we’ll pick the best responses (be sure to use your real Email address). Included among this year’s speakers are Sheryl Sandberg, Reid Dennis, Steve Jurvetson, Lip-Bu Tan, Bill Draper, Tina Seelig, Vish Makhijani, Dan’l Lewin, Pitch Johnson, and T. Boone Pickens (you can see a full listing here ). The GTS is also holding a Global Pitch Competition at the Plug and Play Tech Center , during which seven startups will have the chance to pitch their companies to a panel of VC judges and the event’s attendees. After the presentations, the panel will select one of the startups as the winner of the Global Technology Symposium Winner's Certificate. For more details on applying to take part in the Global Pitch Competition, check out this page . We’ll be attending the event, and will also have the chance to sit down for an interview with T. Boone Pickens , which we’ll post following the symposium. If you have any especially compelling questions you’d like us to ask, leave them in the comments. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
TheFunded Founder Creates A Startup Camp For Young CEOs Top
What this economy needs to get out of its rut is more startups . Adeo Ressi , the founder of VC-rating site TheFunded , wants to do his part to help jump start the economy with fresh ideas and leaders. He is planning to roll out a start-up incubator, TheFunded Founder Institute (the site isn’t live yet), to groom young founders into CEOs. The Institute will play in the same entrepreneurial waters as Y Combinator , TechStars , SeedCamp , and LaunchBox Digital . Ressi’s new venture is a semester-based startup camp for very, very early-stage entrepreneurs and students who have basic ideas for potential startups but have not yet founded a company. The classes will be limited to 150 students and will be a part-time commitment, allowing professionals the ability to hold their jobs (other incubators require entrepreneurs to relocate and take time off from work to attend programs). The students will be worked through an aggressive training schedule, where they will have access to lawyers, CEOs, and investors throughout a four month period. By the end of the semester, all the students will be required to have an incorporated company with a prototype and potential investors. With access to a wealth of CEOs and investors through theFunded, Ressi plans to provide students with a wide array of contacts in the tech industry. Ressi’s says that what differentiates his incubator from others is that he won’t take any initial investment stake in the startups that are launched under his program. Instead, he plans to take out “warrants” on start-ups, where there is a mutual agreement that the incubator can choose to invest in the startup at fair market value, as determined by a network of investors within the four month window of the program. Once the startup enters its first funding round, the incubator will be able to exercise the warrant. This differs from Y Combinator, a well-known incubator which has nurtured and produced innovative startups including Reddit , Loopt , Justin.tv , Xobni , Disqus , and Scribd . Y Combinator gives startups a base sum of $5,000 as well as $5,000 per founder in return for a 2 to 10 percent ownership stake in the company. The benefit of this is two-fold; the startup gets money from the get-go and Y Combinator’s investment adds legitimacy to the startup when it looks for investors down the line. Ressi also says that the Founder Institute’s model will focus on recruiting only early-stage entrepreneurs who have not previously founded a company. “We’re searching for more unusual, unique founders from a variety of industries who can be groomed into successful founders,” he explains. The institute is focusing more on the quality of a potential entrepreneur than on the potential of the initial idea for the startup. The inaugural class begins in late Spring and Ressi will start soliciting applications online in the near future. At the moment, Ressi is putting together the curriculum of the program (which can be found here , but he warns that the site is not ready and may crash). While the Institute will be based in the VC hub of Silicon Valley and will take place twice a year, all of the curriculum will be available online to the mass public. The Founder Institute is a novel model somewhere between a crash-course in executive education and a proper incubator. It will focus more on investment in the founder and less on the idea. Y Combinator’s idea-focused model has been proven to be a valuable springboard for startups as well, both in terms of incubating viable startups and finding investors for those ideas. In the current recession, we can use all the new CEOs and startups we can get. Thanks to Scott Scheper for the tip. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Skype To Give Away New SILK Audio Codec Top
Skype’s new state of the art speech codec SILK will be made available to third party licensees for free, the company is announcing later today. Skype GM Jonathan Christensen will be speaking about the new program at the eComm event in San Francisco later today. SILK has been highly regarded by the guys that follow this sort of thing and is included in the most recent version of Skype for Windows (the Mac version with SILK will be coming in April). If both sides of the call have a version of Skype that includes the new codec, the call quality increases dramatically. Skype is now making the codec available for third party use on a royalty free basis. There are a number of speech codecs available on the market today, including iSac and AMRWideband, and an open source codec called Speex. Skype claims that SILK outperforms all of these. So why give it away to competitors? Christensen says its about setting standards in the industry so that VoIP services can spread more quickly, particularly to hardware devices that today are not optimized for voice over the Internet. It’s also a sign that Skype, with 400 million or so worldwide registered users, isn’t particularly concerned about the competition any more. They’re handing over a key piece of intellectual property to competitors that can reduce their costs and possibly improve voice quality. They wouldn’t do that unless they felt their pole position was fairly permanent for now. More importantly, it signals that Skype may be preparing to open up their service in the future. Skype has long been derided for being a closed service (by people like me, who continue, however, to use it daily). Their API allows developers to access limited features of the service, but a call requires the opening of the Skype client. If Skype were to open its core calling functions as a service, the number of applications that would build it in would explode. Skype would benefit from a surge in paid calls to traditional and mobile phones (Skype Out). Our guess is that the debate to open these core functions through the API is still raging within Skype, but that the proponents of openness are slowly starting to turn the tide. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
UK Entrepreneur Dies In Tragic Skiing Accident Top
Rob Williams, co-founder of one of the UK’s leading online companies Dolphin Music , died in a skiing accident yesterday evening while on holiday in the Swiss Alps. Mr Williams had been part of a group break for UK entrepreneurs in the ski resort of Verbier. He became separated from his group during very harsh weather conditions. His family and work colleagues have now been informed. The hunt for Rob and his co-founder and life-long friend Jason Tavaria has been well documented online and involved his friends frantically attempting to use Twitter, GPS and iPhones to try and pinpoint their location. And although the technology used may well have been of some help to the search party, it is likely that Verbier’s Mountain Rescue team was far more instrumental in Jason’s rescue. Whatever the circumstance - and no doubt more details will come out in due course - tragically, Rob had become separated from his friend in harsh blizzard conditions. Rob was one of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs, building an $18m turnover business in the UK, as well as encouraging young people in business. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Twitter, Google Maps Used To Track Down Two Missing Skiers Top
Update : Tragically, one of the skiers, Rob Williams, was not able to be saved . Our thoughts go out to his family. Yesterday, a group of technology entrepreneurs from the UK on a skiing vacation in the Swiss Alps (Verbier) lost two of their party around 4 PM CET. Other members of the group put out a request on Twitter in order to learn the numbers of their mobile phones, so they could use the signals to track them down. According to follow-up tweets, one person (Jason) was rescued using a combination of GPS, Google Maps to determine longitude and latitude, and the signals returned from his iPhone, but another one (Rob) was still missing as the two had apparently been split up. It’s been 7 to 10 hours since the last Twitter messages at this point, so unfortunately we can only hope and not confirm if Rob has been found by now. Below are a number of screenshots with Twitter messages from some of the group, including Alex Hoye (CEO of digital marketing agency Latitude, Michael Acton Smith from Mind Candy, Joshua Marsh and Hermione Way (TechFluff.tv) Michelle Dewbs (winner of The Apprentice). Let’s hope everything is alright. We’re frantically tracking Twitter to learn more, and we’re not the only ones . (Hat tip to Google Maps Mania ) Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
The Daily Show: "My Stalker Just Grunted On My Twitter" Top
One sure sign that your product is entering mainstream consciousness is when Jon Stewart makes fun of it on The Daily Show . That happened to Twitter last night. I’m sure most of you have already seen the Twitter segment, but in case you haven’t, it is embedded above. Jon Stewart plays the frustrated old man shaking his fist at useless new technology, while reporter Samantha Bee plays the middle-aged enthusiast glomming onto every new Web service she sees “young people” getting into, even though she doesn’t quite understand why. She is not only on Twitter, but also on Grunter and Stalker (where she has 97 followers after only one week!). Those sound like startups we should be covering on TechCrunch. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Apple Updates Just About Everything Top
Apple just updated just about every little thing they could today including adding a $2,400 24-inch iMac and a faster MacBook Pro . Remember that new Mac Mini with 5 USB ports? It’s real. Other highlights include: Airport Extreme - Apple's latest refresh of the Airport Extreme adds a dual broadcasting mode that simultaneously broadcasts on both the 2.4GHz and 5.0GHz band. Time Capsule - The new 1TB or 500GB Time Capsule runs dual Wi-Fi, streaming at 802.11n and 802.11g speeds. The Capsule will pick the right band automatically, allowing for more efficient back-ups - a huge issue when transferring large files. Mac Pro - Two new Mac Pros today with some pretty serious power configurations and very-serious price tags. There's a quad-core version that starts at $2499 and an eight-core version that starts at $3299. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Socialtext Adds Twitter-like "Signals" And a Desktop AIR App Top
In yet another sign that this will be the year of the activity stream, Socialtext is adding a Twitter-like message stream to its enterprise wiki/workspace service, The new feature is called Socialtext Signals, and it appears both as a widget in the Socialtext dashboard and as a standalone desktop app built on Adobe AIR. Socialtext Signals is essentially an enterprise version of Twitter, much like Yammer. Employees within a company can micro-message each other without competitors or the rest of the world snooping. They will see only the messages of the co-workers they are following. In addition to the 140-character messaging between co-workers (the “signals”), there is also an “activity” tab. This generates a micro-message every time a person you are following takes an action inside Socialtext, such as creating a wiki page, writing a blog post, or making a comment. The activity stream which Socialtext makes visible is very particular to its products, and in fact is designed to keep employees engaged with those products. Any time someone changes a page that you’ve created or edited in the past, it shows up as an activity. So constant updates from Ralph in engineering about the progress of a project serves as a reminder for everyone else to do their part as well. Unlike Yammer, there is no ability to create subgroups within Signals, or upload files. But then, you can always create workgroups elsewhere in Socialtext, and upload files directly into linked wikis. Signals just ties it all together. There is no mobile support either, however, which is a more serious gap. Socialtext is used as a collaboration tool by 5,000 companies (subscriptions are as much at $15 per employee per month). Signals and the desktop app should go far towards increasing employee interaction with the service. Each update serves as a prompt to follow up on a project or keep it moving along, while Signals can also serve as the new watercooler. Companies that don’t need Socialtext’s other apps (the workspace and the dashboard, primarily) might want to check out a simpler enterprise micro-messaging service such as Yammer or WIzeHive . Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Investor Deadpools Jooce. Not Sure They're Aware. Top
Funny how we receive tips sometimes. Yesterday we covered the latest Startup2Startup meetup, and a certain ChrisATSo33t commented on the story pointing to the latest quarterly report (PDF) of Luxembourg-based VC firm Mangrove Capital Partners in which they state that Paris-based portfolio company Jooce would be “closing its doors” during the month of February. We’ve now entered the month of March, and the Jooce website is still alive, people can still sign up, and their blog has been silent since October 2008. No notice of shut-down anywhere to be found, and e-mails are not bouncing (we hope they’re still being replied to since we contacted the Jooce team for comment). But since Mangrove was the company’s only investor, having injected seed funding into the startup in 2007, we’re pretty sure we can deadpool the startup. Update: wow. Jooce got back us with a completely different story: I think the gun was jumped just a bit, Jooce is not closing. In fact, Jooce has been recently been in talks with an undisclosed buyer within the internet cafe world wishing to acquire Jooce. Doors don’t shut so easily on great technology. When I asked why the VC would possibly claim such a thing about one of their portfolio companies, they made me laugh out loud by saying that “VCs are apparently not omniscient” and that “God can rest easy for now”. We covered Jooce , which operates (operated) a web-based OS, a couple of times before starting with its launch in August 2007 . It offered a virtual online desktop that provided a Flash platform for communication services like chat and e-mail combined with a custom way to play games, listen to music, etc. so you could essentially have the same user experience when you go online on any computer anywhere in the world. I’ve always had doubts about this kind of concept, which is similar to what startups like Goowy , Cloudo , eyeOS and others are up to, given the current evolution of the web. See, I already have a web-based OS. I just refer to it as my browser. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Sequoia Pumps More Funding Into Search Marketing Startup Kenshoo Top
Israel-based search engine marketing (SEM) automator Kenshoo has received another capital injection from its existing backers Sequoia Capital and Arts Alliance . As with the Series A round, this second round of funding remained undisclosed, although our contact person at the company ensures it that this was an “up-round” financing and that the valuation was “50% higher than the last time” it attracted outside capital. The startup, based out of Tel Aviv but active worldwide, says it will use the funding to further fuel its expansion and explore new business opportunities in the search marketing space. Kenshoo’s flagship product, Kenshoo Search, is billed as an end-to-end SEM platform and essentially automates most if not all of the work usually carried out by marketing consultants (who are of course much pricier than automation software). In that regard, Kenshoo also competes with bid-management software from all the online advertising giants (DoubleClick, aQuantive's Atlas Solutions, and Omniture) but at the same time goes a step beyond that by taking a look at the quality of the campagns. Kenshoo is able to find relevant keywords across different search engines, and automatically changes campaign specifics to maximize their returns. In the economic downturn we’re in, marketers should be focused on building or maintaining decent levels of Website traffic and drive better conversions. Search marketing is still the best customer acquisition tool in the online space, so it’s not a surprise that eMarketer predicted continued growth from 2008 to 2013 in a very recent report on the state of SEO spending in the U.S. If Kenshoo can keep winning customers over by cutting out the middlemen and maximizing campaign ROIs, it definitely has potential to continue riding that wave and keep / make their investors happy. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Oodle on Facebook Is Live Top
As TechCrunch reported back in December, Oodle is taking over Facebook classifieds. The new service launches Wednesday and will be rolled out to Facebook users over the next sixty days. I’ve been bearish overall on companies that require local network affects, and usually classifieds fits in that bucket. As good a job as Craigslist has done it only monetizes about 1% of its users, and that’s probably one reason it has spread as far and as fast as it has. But- by design- it’s not the next great billion dollar Web powerhouse. Oodle, too, has been a long slog. As founder and CEO Craig Donato told me last week, had he known how hard of a slog classifieds would be, he might have chosen a different startup idea four years ago. I’m sure he was (partially) joking, but Oodle has long been the question mark in David Sze’s otherwise stellar Web 2.0 portfolio that includes Digg, LinkedIn and Facebook. (Now, some see Digg as the question mark, but that’s a different post.) Oodle has done two things well to combat the local trap. One is deals with huge properties like MySpace, Facebook and AOL that really juice distribution and listings. As a result, before it even goes live with Facebook or AOL, the site has 40 million listings with 500,000 new ones added each day. Second smart move: Making classifieds social, not local. Increasingly, the social Web has created more meaningful communities than just geographical proximity. Sure, we are more likely to know and regularly interact with people near us, so you can’t ignore geography. But think about how many times you’d rather sell something or buy something from someone you know or someone who knows someone you know, than someone whose only commonality is living in your city. The Oodle app is coming about just at the right time for Facebook. Not only is the site huge, but it’s so focused on the Wall that distributions of listings and conversations around items for sale will be natural and organic. And unlike eBay or Craigslist, it’s just a few clicks to post something. You fill in what it is, why you’re getting rid of it, how much you want and designate whether you’re giving it away, selling it, or want the money to go to charity. Can you imagine if posting something on eBay was that easy? My dining room of boxes would be empty. That’s not to say Oodle replaces Craigslist or eBay. You can reach a wider audience, and hence conceivably make more money on both of those. And Facebook could be too tied into your social graph for some transactions. Do you want your boss to see your old Playboys are for sale? Lastly, if you’re setting up a small ecommerce business, I doubt Facebook marketplace is the right fit. But if you’re just a regular person who has something they want to buy or sell for a fair price from a reputable dealer whose reputation they can trust– it’s going to be a stiff competitor. And come to think of it, wasn’t that the original eBay community? Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Index Closes a New 350M. Euro Venture Fund Top
London-based investing hotshot Index Ventures has just announced a new early-stage 350 million Euro venture fund. To hear partner Bernard Dalle tell it, raising the fund was a breeze, with all existing limited partners re-upping their investments. He further said that good startups in London are having no problems raising venture capital and deal flow was just as strong. Really? Well, I guess all those reports that this is a global downturn were just plain wrong! You heard it here, struggling Silicon Valley startups: Just move to London! Apologies for giving Dalle a bit of a hard time, but I am subbing for Michael Arrington, and it's a huge pet peeve of mine when venture capitalists blithely shrug off an epic downturn that, let's face it, has to be hitting them in some way. Let's just say, I don't buy that it's all still that easy. Of course if anyone could make it look easy, I'd give it to Index. The firm has torn through its 2007 fund of the same size, raised a $400 million late stage fund last year, and has had a string of big exits including Skype and MySQL. Those two helped to rank its best-known partner Danny Rimer as number 16 on Forbes' annual Midas List. I first knew Rimer as an open source software bull , and last I talked to him , he was bullish on a reinvention of ecommerce. For Dalle's part, he wouldn't tell me much about where the firm was investing going forward. He said the firm would still focus geographically on Europe, Israel and the U.S. and was looking closely at mobile advertising, that ever-present buzzword "the cloud" and virtualization. Regardless of the fact that I could have gotten more answers from the CIA than this briefing, I congratulate Index on the new fund and indeed hope that money and deal flow is holding up as well as they say across the pond. If you’re in Europe raising money, let us know your experiences in the comments. Update: Given Index is London-based, there’s further analysis on TechCrunch UK . Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Doodle launches API to unleash group events apps Top
Doodle is a free web app which helps you find suitable dates for group events, like a conference call, by creating a poll for a suitable meeting time and lettting people fill in their availability. It’s an idea which works very well, and is easily messed up. London-based ikordo closed last year through lack of funding and a complex interface. However, Doodle, which grew from a hacker project, has well-funded competitors like Tungle , which also comes as an Outlook plugin and has $1.5m in backing, as well as TimeBridge , and Jiffle . So Zurich-based Doodle is hoping its Outlook plugin, generic calendar feeds, white-label version and - most importantly - new open API for developers will set it apart from the pack. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Startup2Startup Tackles Web Design As Measure Map Founder Unveils Latest Project Top
Last Thursday over 140 entrepreneurs, investors, and startup rookies came together for Startup2Startup , a monthly invite-only dinner built around fostering the startup community. This month’s featured speaker was Adaptive Path founding partner and ex-Googler Jeffrey Veen , who walked the audience through some of the key aspects of website design and how to deal with associated communication issues. Following Veen’s presentation, the attendees shared their thoughts and experiences related to design in intimate round-table discussions. The event’s co-founder Dave McClure painstakingly creates seating arrangements to ensure that each table has an array of attendees ranging from startup rookie to veteran, ensuring that discussion is both lively and informative (and strictly off-the-record). The evening was an overwhelming success, highlighted by Veen’s engaging presentation that was both accessible and entertaining (you can see an intro video and his slides below, and we’ll post the full video of his talk shortly). As a bonus, Veen introduced the audience to one of his newest projects. Dubbed Wikirank , the site tracks the popularity of Wikipedia articles, sifting through hundreds of gigabytes of Wikipedia’s publicly available traffic data and presenting it in an intuitive and attractive interface. With this data, the site can generate an at-a-glance view of what the world is interested in at any given moment. The site also allows users to create embeddable charts comparing the popularity of different topics over time. If you’d like to try it out, the first 30 TechCrunch readers to enter their Email addresses here will have access to the site’s private beta. Next month’s Startup2Startup event will feature Tony Hsieh , CEO of Zappos , who will be offering tips on building a great company culture and customer service (for which Zappos is widely acclaimed). Design For Startups View more presentations from veen . (tags: design webdesign ) Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Vanno's Watchdog Index Keeps Companies Honest With ReputationCheck Top
The Company Reputation Index Social evaluation platform Vanno launched a widget application of its real-time company reputation index called ReputationCheck . Vanno’s platform allows customers and others to share stories about their personal experiences with a particular company, submit news articles they've read about companies, fill out surveys and comment on companies. Vanno then quantifies this dialogue and information into an index using Bayesian algorithms (the same statistical methods used to filter spam and detect credit card fraud). The company’s index measures the reputation of more than 5,800 companies worldwide. Vanno’s reputation index was recently brought into the public light when Vanno quantified the damage Kellogg’s brand sustained after the company pulled the plug on Michael Phelps’s sponsorship following the swimmer’s marijuana photo fiasco. Vanno’s data suggested that Kellogg’s reputation plummeted after its decision, falling even further on the index than when the company had to recall products after this year’s peanut butter salmonella scare. ReputationCheck, the index’s embeddable widget, shows a company's real-time reputation rank and compares the rank to the best and worst companies relative to customer and employee satisfaction, community involvement, the environment, patriotism and social responsibility. The widget can be used in a post or in the sidebar of a site. Considering all of the various inputs of the index, the ranking system cannot be deemed as 100 percent authoritative. But it certainly is a measure of the public’s perception of a company. (Contrast to Glassdoor , another reputation service from employees’ point of view) . While the index widget could be useful to bloggers and writers to show one measure of a reputation of a company, its probably best not to rely upon ReputationCheck as the final arbiter of a company’s standing. Here’s the index for Google, which ranks highly The Company Reputation Index Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 

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