Wednesday, March 4, 2009

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Liveblogging Facebook's Open Door Press Conference Top
Facebook is holding a two-hour press conference today to go over new products and the direction of the social network. Both Jason and Mike are there live, and we will be updating this post as information comes out. Here are our notes: We’re here at the Facebook press event. This is a two hour event. Facebook hasn’t pre-briefed the press on what they are announcing. All we know at this point is that at least one new product is being launched at noon PST today Mark Zuckerberg just took the stage. He’s talking about FB as a platform to let users share more an dmore information across applications and devices. When we launched in 2004, he says, people weren’t sharing much online. FB provided the basics, picture, name, etc. 1:14 PM: FB now has 175m users sharing hundreds of millions of pieces of data a day. more than a billion photos a month are being uploaded Talking about STREAMS. Profile redesign last year was first step. 1:15 PM: Twitter connects with people quickly. myspace has done really with in terms of bands having done well.. we admire what they’re doing Complimenting Twitter and MySpace for what they’ve accomplished. “we’re not exactly sure where this is going to end up” 1:16 PM: Mark is introducing Chris Cox, the Director of Product Development 1:17 PM: Cox built the original news feed product 1:20 PM: Cox is describing the news feed as a personalized newspaper for everyone, based on what’s going on with their friends. “The message of any media or technology is its change of scale or pace” Marshall McLuhan “He talked about how electronic media was going to change what print mediaa had created. No matter where you went in the world, the connection would be immediate.” The thought of this idea is what is exciting to me. 1:25 PM: original Facebook was basically an address book. Could see who was in your classes, who else was in your dorm In 2006, started to focus the profile on what was going on. People could leave status messages. 2006 fb added status and news feed 1:28 PM: 2007 - Built Platform. Applications were the things putting content into the stream of information that you’re seeing today. 2008 - Made the wall the most prominent thing. You’re not here to really learn about me (favorite books), you’re here to see what’s going on Saw after we made that change that engagement went up, it was a good thing. 1:29 PM: 2009: people want to talk about elections and also talk about what they’re eating for breakfast. This morning it the site was translated into Hebrew and Arabic. It is on its side, really beautiful, you should check it out. Fundamental problem: How do I give my message to the people who care in real time? picture of graph showing users We come from a world where we were very focused on privacy, tight knit groups of people we call friends. Where we’re going, there are lots of different needs, and that’s what we’re working on today Discussing the different ways we interact with the people we know (Friends, Family, Coworkers, the general public). Whether it is my Mom talking to me and my brothers and sisters, or Anderson Cooper talking to hundreds of thousands of people. The New York Times is not a person, but it is an organization with one voice. the graph is the connection between people and their audience, the stream is the flow of voices in real time, Connect is how we get that out to the Web. 1:35 PM: Cox is discussing the way that FB thinks about how sharing works (picture coming). It starts with the social graph, connecting voices to their audience. This moves to the stream, and making sure it is consolidated and simple. Finally, FB connect brings sharing in anywhere from the web. first announcement: Pages and Profiles are now the same thing The Mike Arrington feature! unlimited number of connections on profile pages. “We’re calling this the Arrington feature”… As many people as want to can see his profile. NO MORE LIMIT ON 5k friends. launch partners for Pages: CNN, U2, Barack Obama. oprah winfrey, stanford university, lance armstrong “The stream is what is happening. We think it is as core as the graph. The graph is the connections, the stream is what is happening.” 27 total partners today We’re launching a new homepage today. Users can now sort through the items in their feed using friend lists, so you can weed through the content you actually want to see in your news feed. At the right side there will be a Highlights widget, featuring items from the friends you interact with most. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Ex-Googlers Start Up Likaholix, A Micro-Sharing Service For Personal Recommendations (200 Invite Codes) Top
Likaholix is a brand new web service that lets you share personal recommendations about virtually anything with the world. The tool lets you build a list of things you like and recommend with the help of a pre-populated database of items (think books, movies, tv shows, products, etc.) readily available and put together from sources from across the web. For each of those items, Likaholix provides you with list of landing pages with descriptions, various topics centered around the items along with relevant image and video material so you’d have a central point to add information about stuff instead of having to gather it from multiple sources. The service, which is sort of like a Twitter for personal recommendations, is still in private alpha, but we scored 200 invites for readers: simply head on over here and complete your details. The company is also giving away Amazon Kindle devices to 5 lucky beta testers. I’ve embedded three screenshots below, showing the steps I took to add a like for the movie Office Space (which I honestly recommend to everyone). It’s a very easy process, and you can instantly push your personal recommendations to third-party social networking services like Facebook, Twitter and FriendFeed. It’s easy enough to add likes, and it can be a fun and engaging experience when you invite your Gmail contacts (the service also lets you connect your Facebook profile and invite your friends), but I’m missing an incentive that will make me want to go back to Likaholix every time I think of something I like. I’m also not sure about which business model the team intends build around the tool, although I suspect it would be easy enough for targeted advertising to be displayed on your profile pages based on the recommendations you’ve added. Likaholix was founded by Bindu Reddy and Arvind Sundararajan, a former Google Product Manager and Senior Staff Engineer, respectively. Both were among the key people behind GMail, Google Base, Google Docs, AdSense and Google Video. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Language E-Learning Startup Myngle Secures €1 Million Euros Top
Amsterdam-based Myngle , which operates a platform for online language education, has just secured nearly €1 million euros ($1.25 million) in the form of a bank loan from Rabobank. The loan is backed by the Dutch government through an innovation program. Myngle had earlier secured €800,000 seed investment from the HenQ fund and private individuals. Myngle, founded by ex-eBay employees, is essentially a “marketplace for languages” where teachers and students can virtually connect and determine if there’s a match for an online course to start between the parties (from both sides). The e-learning platform advocates the use of Skype for video-conference tutoring and accepts online payment transactions via PayPal, so most of the operation is automated and doesn’t involve Myngle staff. Here’s how they pitch the service on their site: Myngle is free for students and teachers to sign up and provides an online environment for live individual and group lessons for basically any language and level from any type of teacher. You can choose your own teacher or student depending on your specific needs, availability and price! If you are a student, you can try out a demo lesson with your selected teacher before you have to pay anything. Myngle claims to have attracted almost 50.000 members in 125 countries since its inception in 2007, and boasts providing language courses in 52 languages. VoxSwap , LiveMocha and Babbel offer a similar proposition. Coincidentally, the startup is one of the 20 finalists that will be pitching at the Plugg conference in Brussels next week (which I organize), so we’ll be able to share more about their future plans then. Below is a screenshot and a cheesy introduction video about Myngle. Unfortunately, we were unable to confirm if all the female teachers are as hot as Milagros. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Conveneer Raises $4.5 Million To Turn Cell Phones Into Servers Top
Conveneer , a Swedish mobile startup with offices in Lund, Sweden and Palo Alto, California, closed a $4.5 million venture round, led by the Swedish foundation Industrifonden . Broken Arrow Venture Capital also participated. The company previously raised seed money from the founders and Teknoseed . Conveneer is building a mobile platform called Mikz, which will be able to assign a URL to your mobile phone, making the content on your phone accessible on the Web. In essence, it turns each mobile phone into a Web server. Once your phone has a URL like http://joe.mikz.me, other Web applications and services can ingest the data that is locked in your phone, and also your phone can take advantage of common Web APIs. Mikz can pull information off your phone such as your contacts, GPS coordinates, photos, music, ringtones, and other files. It creates a Web interface for your phone. That is a powerful idea. How well it works in practice, and on which handsets remains to be seen. The company is talking to both handset manufacturers and mobile carriers to embed the service in new phones. Carriers could strengthen their mobile Web offerings by giving customers their own mobile URL. The business model is selling and maintaining these mobile domains, which can provide a Web interface to a mobile phone. This is the type of premium service for which carriers would charge extra. The company’s goal is to launch Mikz sometime this year. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Zynga Brings Scramble To The iPhone Top
Social gaming company Zynga is consistently releasing awesome games for the iPhone / iPod Touch (e.g. Live Poker ), and today they are debuting the popular word game Scramble exclusively for the platform with the launch of the “Scramble Live” app (iTunes link). The decision to bring Scramble to the iPhone specifically was a good one. After all, its Scramble Facebook app is currently one of the social networking service’s top 25 games with more than 1.2 million monthly active users and its popularity is still soaring. Interestingly, Zynga’s new game lets you compete live with other users on Facebook too and even with other people around you in real time if they have the app installed on their devices as well. "Scramble Live" is available for $4.99, with a $2.99 limited-time launch special. Here’s a video that shows the game in action: San-Francisco based Zynga is funded by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, IVP, Union Square Ventures, Foundry Group, Avalon Ventures, Pilot Group, Reid Hoffman and Peter Thiel. The company claims more than 7 million daily users and 30 million monthly users for its games, which it creates for social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, and Hi5 in addition to the games it releases for the iPhone / iPod Touch. It competes against companies like SGN , Mytopia and the European MegaZebra . Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Two Twitter Games That Help Make Your Day Less Boring: @TwitBrain And @BeatMyTweet Top
If you’re procrastinating on Twitter anyway, might as well train your mind while you’re at it. Here are two simple games that make use of the microsharing service’s functionalities and keep your brains busy while tweeting: TwitBrain Follow @TwitBrain and get served calculations on a regular basis (like 3 per hour). If you’re the first person to reply with the correct answer, you’ll earn one point and hopefully make your way to Internet fame (well, not really) by getting on the top 10 lists . BeatMyTweet Follow @BeatMyTweet and do the exact same thing, but this time with word scrambles. Warning: it’s ridiculously easy so be fast if you want to be one of the first 10 to reply with the correct answer. Leaderboards here . Update: check out Twoof and @Twitoku too! Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
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 : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
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
 

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