Monday, March 9, 2009

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Yahoo's Newspaper Consortium Keeps Growing Top
Even as Google is cancelling its experiment with newspaper advertising, Yahoo is expanding its newspaper consortium. Today, Yahoo is announcing that it is adding two new members: The Boston Globe and the St. Petersburg Times . That brings the consortium up to 38 media companies, representing 793 total newspapers, up from 635 newspaper partners a year ago, and 176 at launch in November, 2006 Yahoo’s newspaper strategy has seen success because, unlike Google, it never tried to get into the business of selling print ads. Instead, Yahoo focused on helping newspapers get more traffic to their Websites. One way it does this is by showing article headlines from partner newspapers across Yahoo-owned properties, including the home page, Yahoo News, and Yahoo Mobile. Over the past year and a half, these links have delivered 200 million clicks or views to the partner newspaper sites, including some that have reached a million views for an individual story, such as this one about puppies saving a three-year old . (Puppies sell newspapers). HotJobs is being used by 600 of those newspaper Webistes. And Yahoo also helps 120 of the newspapers with online ad management, through its Apt ad management system, which allows the newspapers to tap into Yahoo’s advertising inventory when they cannot sell the the inventory themselves. This won’t save the newspaper industry, but at least it is a bright spot. Or is Yahoo simply taking share in a dying business? Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
TheOfficialBoard Launches With Wiki Org Charts For 20,000 Companies Top
We’re all getting used to the idea that our personal information information is now public to the extent that we share it on social networks and elsewhere on the Web. Corporate data about people’s roles and functions within different organizations is similarly becoming increasingly public. All you need to do is search on LinkedIn to get a person’s entire work history or Jigsaw to find their direct contact information. Now you can add TheOfficialBoard , a contact database which goes one step further. It shows the organization charts for 20,000 of the largest companies, so you can not only look up an executive like Mark Zuckerberg but also see who reports to him or her. Org charts are not always the most reliable indicator of power within a company, but they do serve as a handy way to visualize the power relationships within specific corporate networks. At launch, TheOfficialBoard is hit or miss in terms of its comprehensiveness and accuracy. (See Google . Where is Marissa Mayer? Does Joshua Schachter really report directly to Eric Schmidt?). But it will get better over time. Like Jigsaw, it relies on its members to fill out the data about each company. And most of the detailed information is obscured unless you either add three contacts, or you can pay $100 a year for premium access . Both contact data or cash can be traded in for virtual currency, which then can be used to access the data. This data exchange model is also similar to Jigsaw’s, over which Michael once had a hissy fit . But TheOfficialBoard takes pains to ensure the accuracy of its data beyond simply relying on the contributions of its members. Every e-mail is kept private. Members can only contact the executive through TheOfficialBoard, much in the same way LinkedIn works. Furthermore, it checks every executive e-mail address that is entered into the system and encourages the named executives at each company to verify the information. (The “contact an executive” feature has not yet been activated, the company is waiting until it has amassed tens of thousands of verified emails). Currently, there are 200,000 executives in the system across 80 counties. The service also offers alerts by company or individual executive. The alerts are sent out whenever there is a change in job positions. TheOfficialBoard is based in France. It was founded by Thomas Lot, the former general manager of Apple France and VP Europe of Amazon. The site was launched with $150,000 in seed capital. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Aviary Acquires Browser-Based Audio Editor Digimix Top
Aviary , a startup that offers a suite of online media editing tools, has announced that it has acquired Digimix , a small company that creates browser-based audio editing software. Aviary is incorporating the technology into its own audio editor, dubbed ‘Myna’, which the company plans to release in the next few weeks. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. Digimix’s Flash-based audio editor can handle up to fifteen tracks in real-time, though its homepage indicates it has not yet launched to the public (you can see a demo video of the technology in action below). The editor appears to offer some of the functionality offered by popular audio editors like GarageBand, but it will be available online with no installation required. Other products in Aviary’s line of browser-based editors include Raven (a vector editor similar to Adobe’s Illustrator), Phoenix (an image editor comparable to Photoshop), Peacock (a ‘visual laboratory’ for pixel-based images), and Toucan , which helps users choose complementary colors for their projects. The Digimix acquisition indicates that the Aviary team is finally prepared to expand beyond its suite of impressive image-based products. But by the looks of things, they’re just getting started: aside from the upcoming audio product, Aviary lists a plethora of other tools in the works, including a font creator, a terrain editor, and a word processor. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Diigo Buys Web Page Clipping Service Furl Away From LookSmart Top
Social bookmarking and annotation service provider Diigo has acquired web page clipping and archiving service Furl from publicly listed search advertising network company LookSmart in exchange for equity. The deal is being pitched as a partnership but looks more like a smart decision from LookSmart to offload a property that had little to do with its core business and Diigo jumping on a relevant opportunity without having to spend any cash. Either way, Diigo has now bought a service that in many ways can be compared to its own product. Both offer a way for website visitors to save entire web pages or just parts as well as annotate and share with others what they consider interesting on the web. Diigo doesn’t refer to its service as social bookmarking but rather as a research and knowledge-sharing tool, but in reality it isn’t all that different from Delicious and the likes, including Furl. You might as well say Diigo bought a rival as it is readying the launch of the upcoming Diigo 4.0 platform, which is said to be taking social bookmarking and annotation ‘to new heights’. Furl, besides being one of the very first web services profiled by Mike Arrington when he started TechCrunch, was acquired by LookSmart back in September 2004. Although it was one of the first startups to focus on leveraging new technologies to add a social layer to site bookmarking, it never really quite took off the way Delicious did and according to the press release attracted only 1 million users for its service since its inception 6 years ago. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Ailing Teen Socnet Piczo 'Merges' With Stardoll Top
Piczo , the long-lost Myspace-for-teens, today merges with Stardoll , the online entertainment destination for young women, and Stardoll’s other property, Paperdollheaven.com . However, it’s probably closer to a takeover than a merger as Piczo’s primarily UK user-base has been dwindling. The three sites will now make up the Stardoll Network, reaching a total of 20 million users a month, most between 5 (yes, five) and 20 years old. However, one does wonder about the value creation here since the young demographic is not known for its affluence. Bebo was recently called out as not being as valuable as previously thought for the same reason. But at least the new Stardoll network will be focused. And presumably U.S. Venture Partners and Mangrove Capital Partners will be glad to exit after investing $11 Million in Series C funding in July 2007. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Angelsoft Lets Startups Find Funding Through New Investor Filtering Tool Top
Angel and VC funding platform Angelsoft has launched an investor filtering tool , allowing entrepreneurs the ability to access detailed profiles on over 1,000 venture capital firms and angel investment groups in the U.S. Angelsoft allows startups to “push” their business ideas to over 400 angel investment groups and 15,949 investors across the world. The site formerly focused on connecting entrepreneurs to angel and early-stage investors only, but recently changed its model to include VC firms. Angelsoft calls it an investor search engine, but it lacks a search box (a big flaw). Instead, entrepreneurs use Kayak-like filters to adjust their sorting results by how much an investment firm usually invests, what terms they typically offer, as well as by company-based criteria such as industry, location and stage. VC and angel firm profiles include a snapshot of the fund, industry expertise, prior investments, executive profiles and links to the LinkedIn profiles of investors. For the 450 investment groups that use Angelsoft’s VC and Angel dealflow management tools, the search engine results provide even more data, including a firm’s average response time to entrepreneurs applying for funding, number of applications a firm receives each month and additional past funding history. The new investor sorting tool gives startups the power to vet and gain insight into potential investment firms and then choose to apply for funding from the firm which best fits their needs. It is certainly an interesting way to add more transparency into the funding world. Angelsoft was launched in 2004 by David S. Rose, Chairman of the New York Angels, and Ryan Janssen. The company’s platform is currently used by 450 angel groups and VCs (that use the platform for deal workflow), with 2,500 startup applications coming in a month. In December, the number of startup applications per month increased to just over 3,000, perhaps a sign that the economy is taking its toll on the ability of startups to get funding through more traditional means. According to Angelsoft, 2.6 percent of the applicants ultimately get funded, which seems relatively small, but that number has increased since December. As more traffic is driven to the site, the number of completed deals could rise. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Big Music Will Surrender, But Not Until At Least 2011 Top
I had a surprisingly candid lunch conversation last week with a big music label executive, and a good part of our talk focused on the future of music. I asked the usual question: Why are you guys so damned clueless? Your business is disintegrating before your eyes, and all you do is go for short term cash gains (lawsuits, mafia-style collection rackets from venture backed music startups, etc.). The long term costs are horrendous - an entire generation or two of young music lovers feel no remorse at outright stealing music. Particularly since most online streaming is now free, it’s hard to understand why downloading or sharing songs should be a crime. His response: It’s all part of a master plan. The labels fully understand that recorded music, streamed or downloaded, is going to be free in the future (we’ve argued this relentlessly ). CD sales continue to decline by 20% per year, and the only thing that’ll stop that trend is when those sales reach zero. Nothing will replace those revenues. They also understand that recorded music will largely be little more than marketing collateral , meaning that the Internet services being sued today for copyright infringement will be embraced in the future as ways to get the word out on hot new music. These services pay for the privilege today (either through high streaming rates or in court), but in the future they’ll be the ones getting paid by labels. Think radio payola at a whole new level, and there won’t be any more talk about social networks giving stock to labels and artists . Money will flow the other way, as it should. By 2013 (maybe as early as 2011) it’ll make sense for the labels to finally reorganize their business models around the reality created by the Internet and person to person file sharing services. No longer will the labels be tied to revenue limited to sales of master recordings - by then most or all artists will be under 360 music contracts that give the labels a cut of virtually every revenue stream artists can tap into - fan sites, concerts, merchandise, endorsement deals, and everything else. But until then, he says, the spreadsheets and financial models dictate that suing customers and partners just makes too much sense. Venture capitalists have directed hundreds of millions of dollars, via their litigation-mired startups, into the label coffers. To some extent those payments will continue, although the big payment days are likely over. Apple still sends a lot of money to the labels for paid downloads, and sites like MySpace Music, Imeem, Rhapsody and Last.fm pay big streaming dollars. Until CD sales really stagnate, all those revenue streams bring in more money than facing reality. For most industries, embracing old revenue streams until they are completely petered out is a great way to open the door wide open to competitors with more innovative business models. But the Innovator’s Dilemma problem doesn’t necessarily apply to the music industry. The big labels have a lock on talent, and there’s no reason to believe that new artists won’t continue to strive to lock themselves in to one of them. What this means for us music consumers - don’t expect much to change for the next few years. But sometime in the next decade we’ll see a real renaissance in how music is distributed and consumed. And who knows, a decade after that we may have all forgiven the music labels. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Pay-For-Play Comes To Online Radio. Is That a Bad Thing? Top
When it comes to promoting new music, pay-for-play schemes are generally frowned upon. The practice, which involves music labels or artists paying radio stations to play their songs in heavy rotation, dates back to the beginnings of terrestrial radio. It got so bad in the 1950s that Congress had to intervene, but it keeps rearing its head in new forms. Now, pay-for-play has hit online radio. Jango , a music streaming service which claims 6 million monthly listeners, is selling paid placement to labels and artists through a program it launched last week called Jango Airplay . For as little as $30, a band can buy 1,000 plays on Jango. Each song has links to buy the song at Amazon or iTunes. Given the scandalous history of pay-for-play on terrestrial radio, it is not surprising that people are skeptical about whether it is a good idea to bring it to the Web. Matt Rosoff at Cnet sums it up : This tarnishes the entire service with a distinct air of “suck”. Rosoff is under the impression that good artists don’t need to pay for promotion. I am not so sure. Bands don’t break out without some sort of promotion, whether that is paid for by their labels, or earned through new kinds of algorithmic and social promotion we are seeing with online music services from Pandora and MySpace Music to iLike to imeem. If we accept paid placement in our search results, why should online music be any different? The real question is relevance. Either the paid promotions will make Jango a better listening experience and the experiment will pay off, or it will make it suck and alienate its listeners. Unlike pay-for-play on regular radio, where the same songs are broadcast indiscriminately to every single listener, Jango’s Airplay songs are targeted to specific stations. The artists themselves choose what other kind of music they want to be played next to, just as an advertiser on Google chooses what keywords should trigger his advertisement. A heavy metal band might be better off buying plays on a Metallica station than on a Bob Dylan station. The whole point is to find listeners who are more likely to become fans. In addition to being more targeted, Jango offers a feedback loop which does not exists on regular radio. Listeners can block songs from ever playing again, or they can give them a positive rating. Any Airplay song which garners 50 positive ratings gets pushed into regular rotation free of charge. In fact, a drop-down window encourages listeners to rate each Airplay song. My only problem with how this works is that the drop-down box characterizes the song as belonging to an “emerging artist” rather than clearly labeling it as an ad ( see here ). It is an ad, and it should be clearly marked as such. I am okay with this sort of promotion as long as t is targeted to my listening preferences. The way Jango has it working now, any given listener will hear an AirPlay song no more than once every two hours, and no listener will hear the same Airplay song more than once a day. That is certainly better than listening to the same blaring commercial for auto insurance every 20 minutes. But Jango needs to make its promotion algorithm a little more sophisticated. Even before promoting songs with 50 positive ratings to regular rotation, Airplay songs that get rated highly should get played more often, or be cheaper to promote. Just as paid search ads that get clicked on more often are cheaper to the advertiser because they are more relevant, songs which resonate more with their targeted audience should get more promoted plays. Designed correctly, there is a place for paid promotion in music, despite what the purists might think. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Delver Gets Acquired by Sears (Really) Top
Social search engine Delver , which we placed on death watch a month and a half ago has been acquired by Sears in a last minute play right out of left field. Israeli business media is reporting that as part of the deal, Delver CEO Liad Agmon will move to Chicago where he will hold a title of VP at Sears Holdings. Delver itself will become an R&D center for Sears and will continue to develop its social graph search engine, as well as additional products. It is not clear what Sears wants to do with Delver. Perhaps it will turn it into a social product search engine, or maybe it just likes the idea of buying an Israeli R&D team on the cheap. The purchase price is unknown but it’s safe to assume it could not be very high considering the company was literally days from being shut down. The bright side of course is that Delver’s remaining 20 employees will not join the unemployed in Israel. The company has raised $4 million from a single investor, Carmel Ventures. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
More Bad News For Online Music Fans: Economy Kills Fabchannel Top
Amsterdam-based online concert destination site Fabchannel is calling it quits after 9 years of digital goodness, blaming the poor state of the economy as a whole and the crisis in the online music and advertising industries in particular. This is the official press release: FABCHANNEL STOPS ITS ACTIVITIES Online concert channel Fabchannel.com ceases its activities as of today, due to bad economic prospects within the music and online advertising market. During the last nine years, Fabchannel have been successfully promoting concert recordings of national and international artists online among a large international audience. The Fabchannel business model bases itself on two essential ingredients: international streaming rights and international advertising/sponsoring revenue. After a substantial investment in 2007, Fabchannel has been focusing fully on increasing its reach among the international audience and the development and implementation of online advertising formats and partnerships. After an energetic start in 2008 with the introduction of video commercials on Fabchannel.com, media partnerships with renowned news sites like nu.nl and Spiegel.de as well as signing a worldwide partnership with Universal Music Group, in the last few months it has been getting ever more difficult to reach the set targets. The audience has not increased as planned, mostly due to the majority of major record labels giving no consent to record their artists. At the same time, the online advertising and sponsoring market has been put under big pressure due to decreasing budgets of advertisers and sponsors. The management and shareholders of Fabchannel expect that this situation is not going to change during the next years. Therefore, they have jointly taken the decision to stop all activities in order to avoid getting into financial problems and, for example, lose the possibility to use the archive they have been building in the future. Fabchannel's concert archive will go offline on Friday 13 March. During the upcoming months, Fabchannel will strive to make suitable arrangements with employees, customers and suppliers. We’re very sad they won’t be around anymore soon and that we have to put this one in the deadpool , but that’s just the way it goes. (Thank to Robbert van Geldrop for the tip) Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Twitter To Start Serving Local News To Users? Top
Germany’s Der Spiegel published an interview with Twitter CEO Evan Williams yesterday on its website, and Williams had a couple of interesting things to say. You can find a poorly Google-translated version of the interview here , which features Williams answering the usual, boring questions ‘professional’ journalists tend to ask about the micro-sharing service (the reporter opened the interview with the Pulitzer-prize caliber question “so does Twitter spark narcissism and idiocy?”). But Williams did share something worth noting at the end of the interview. When asked about possible future features for Twitter, he reportedly said that one of the things being considered is an extension that lets people know what’s happening in their immediate vicinity. That would basically mean that Twitter could actively ping users about local events that are going on in their neighborhood, in real-time, based on the location they’ve indicated. As an example, Williams says users could be alerted to the fact a fire is burning a few streets away from where Twitter knows (or thinks) they are. It’s not clear if this feature is under development or merely in the idea stage right now, but rarely does anyone from Twitter give so much insight into the startup’s plans for the future in terms of product features, so we’re inclined to believe it’s coming sooner rather than later. Some questions arise. How frequently would Twitter ping users on local news? In what form (replies, direct messages, SMS, …)? How personalized would this be (what constitutes news for you may not mean the same to your neighbor)? And if it’s only about alerting people in case of emergencies, like the example Williams cites, who would be the one to determine when and why it’s worth sending warning messages out to users? Would they be possibly opening such a feature up to the authorities (police, fire fighters, etc.) so they could be the ones alerting users about potential risks in their vicinity themselves? Last but not least, could this be an indication of their impending revenue model? If you think about it, location-based marketing messages would fit right into all of the above, for better or worse. (Hat tip to TechCrunch blogger Serkan Toto ) Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Google Privacy Blunder Shares Your Docs Without Permission Top
In a privacy error that underscores some of the biggest problems surrounding cloud-based services, Google has sent a notice to a number of users of its Document and Spreadsheets products stating that it may have inadvertently shared some of their documents with contacts who were never granted access to them. According to the notice, this sharing was limited to people “with whom you, or a collaborator with sharing rights, had previously shared a document” - a vague statement that sounds like it could add up to quite a few people. The notice states that only text documents and presentations are affected, not spreadsheets, and provides links to each of the user’s documents that may have been shared in error. I’ve contacted Google for confirmation and haven’t heard back, but this seems to be legit - our tipster says that he had previously shared the document listed in his notice, but now it has been reset to show 0 collaborators (one of the precautionary measures mentioned in the note). Update: Google has confirmed that the note is real, and says that it was an isolated incident affecting less than .05% of all documents. The damage may not be widespread, but it’s still an unsettling lapse in security. Here’s the letter in full: Dear Google Docs user, We wanted to let you know about a recent issue with your Google Docs account. We’ve identified and fixed a bug which may have caused you to share some of your documents without your knowledge. This inadvertent sharing was limited to people with whom you, or a collaborator with sharing rights, had previously shared a document. The issue only occurred if you, or a collaborator with sharing rights, selected multiple documents and presentations from the documents list and changed the sharing permissions. This issue affected documents and presentations, but not spreadsheets. To help remedy this issue, we have used an automated process to remove collaborators and viewers from the documents that we identified as being affected. Since the impacted documents are now accessible only to you, you will need to re-share the documents manually. For your reference, we’ve listed below the documents identified as being affected. We apologize for the inconvenience that this issue may have caused. We want to assure you that we are treating this issue with the highest priority. The Google Docs Team In short, this is a massive blunder on Google’s part. I fully appreciate the lengths Google has gone to to offer a wide array of helpful online services, many of which are free of charge. But this error highlights why cloud-based services scare many people. Regardless of what a site’s posted rules and policies are, a technical glitch is all it takes to expose your sensitive data. Update: An affected user posted his story and the exchange he had with Google support over the issue on Slashdot . Update 2: A Google spokesperson has confirmed that the note is real: We fixed the bug, which affected less than 0.05% of documents, and removed any collaborators. We also contacted the users who were affected to notify them of the bug and to identify which of their documents may have been affected. We have extensive safeguards in place to protect all documents, and are confident this was an isolated incident. Thanks to Ed McManus for the tip. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Elevator Pitch Friday: Valu Valu Uses A Scientific Pricing Model To Sell Games Top
This week’s elevator pitch comes from Valu Valu , an online marketplace for video games whose prices are based on dynamic scientific pricing, creating the optimal price for both the seller and the buyer. The pitch was concise and outlined the service the the site is delivering well, but didn’t tell us how Valu Valu will make money. After doing a little bit of research, we discovered that Valu Valu charges a 5 percent transaction fee on the total purchases (there’s no transaction fee charged to “local” transactions). The site currently features video games but plans to expand to other markets in the future. Founded by ex-Microsoft techies Emmanuel Marot and Bruno Botvinik, Valu Valu uses a proprietary scientific pricing algorithm that continuously optimizes prices based on market conditions, a.k.a. supply and demand, so that buyers are happy with prices of goods (and thus will make purchases) and sellers make more money. The seller’s price is determined automatically, giving sellers limited control of the price of their goods. Other online marketplaces, like Ebay or Craigslist, allow the seller to determine the price of the item being sold. But Valu Valu’s method saves sellers’ time by establishing a set price, and cuts out haggling or auctioning time. Of course, Valu Valu will face competition in game sales from popular online retailers like Amazon.com and GameStop’s EB Games . I did a side by side price comparison of the “James Bond 007: Quantum of Solace” game for Playstation 3 between Valu Valu and Amazon. Amazon’s price for a new game came in $10 lower than Valu Valu’s estimate for a brand-new game. The Valu Valu’s product that was actually being sold was “just like new” (which sounds like a nice way of saying used), but even Amazon’s used Bond game were selling more than $10 lower once again. Valu Valu just launched the beta version in February, so hopefully the start-up will be able to attract more users in the future. I think Valu Valu may be on to something. It seems like an innovative technology that needs to be tinkered with a bit more. Here’s a screenshot: Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Some Indie Facebook Developers Pulling In Over $700,000 A Month Top
The mass media may be enamored of the rags-to-riches stories of developers on Apple’s App Store, but it isn’t the only game in town for indie developers to strike it rich. We’ve gotten word from SocialMedia , a popular ad platform for social network applications, that one of the company’s clients pulled in over $700,000 in advertising revenues from their Facebook apps in December alone. Granted, this was spread over 30+ of the client’s applications, but the company only consists of a handful of (very prolific) developers. While SocialMedia declined to name the company in question, it confirmed that it was not one of the large social application developers like Playfish , SGN , and Zynga who have raised large funding rounds and have been rumored to pull in over $1 million a month. The news reaffirms Facebook’s position alongside the iPhone as a place to get rich quick (at least for a lucky few). SocialMedia also notes that it has several other independent clients who are making over $100,000 a month. Of course, such results are uncommon, but no more so than they are on the App Store. Also worth noting is that these revenues are entirely based on advertising, while most of the success stories we’ve heard on the App Store have been from premium apps. Facebook isn’t likely to unveil its own premium apps any time soon, but if it ever gets around to launching the payment platform it announced last year, these success stories will probably become far more common. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Pure Digital (Flip Video) In Acquisition Discussions; Cisco May Be Buying (Updated) Top
San Francisco based Pure Digital Technologies , the seven year old company behind the Flip Video line of video cameras, is considering a sale of the company, multiple sources have confirmed. One interested buyer is rumored to be Cisco. Flip cameras - dead simple and small video devices that are tailored towards users who want to upload video to the Internet - have become massively popular. One source says the company has sold more than $200 million worth of the tiny cameras in the last couple of years. Based on reviews of the recently released Flip Mino HD , we’re not surprised. The devices cost between $130 and $230 and have spawned a large group of copy cat competitors. One potential buyer, says a source, is Cisco, which has been more active recently in acquisitions. Ned Hooper , Cisco’s chief M&A guy, is said to be actively looking to buy or invest in consumer startups that offer high-bandwith-using services. A hot startup like Flip, which is helping to fuel the explosion in user generated video (much of which makes its way online), fits in perfectly with that strategy. The company is backed by Sequoia Capital, Benchmark Capital, Crescendo Ventures, Focus Ventures, Morgan Stanley, AllianceBernstein and Steamboat Ventures (the venture capital arm of the Walt Disney Company) and has raised at least $68 million in venture funding. Update : We’re getting another source that says this “is a done deal,” that Cisco is confirmed as the buyer and that the price is “north of $500 million.” Founder and CEO Jonathan Kaplan is said to be taking around $80 million off the table personally. This hasn’t been confirmed. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
PlayOn Moves To Rule The Streaming Roost, Adds Amazon VoD And Revision3 Content Top
If you haven’t heard about PlayOn , MediaMall’s PC-to-console video streaming software, you will soon. Moving to become a major player in the streaming content world, PlayOn has grabbed some huge wins lately, and it doesn’t look like they’re planning on slowing down. In a software update hitting today, PlayOn has added streaming support for Amazon’s Video on Demand service along with content from Revision3. PlayOn is available for $40, and currently compatible with the PS3 and Xbox 360. You just install the server software on your PC, then stream the content over your network back to your console of choice. It’s well known that PlayOn is working on adding Wii compatibility, which ought to make it the dominant force in the console streaming market. This news comes just days after the announcement that Roku has added Amazon VoD support to their $99 player, and the service has found its way to TiVo boxes and Sony Bravia TVs as well. If you’re not looking to add a new box to your AV set, PlayOn seems like a fairly solid alternative. PlayOn has long supported Hulu, CBS.com, ESPN.com, CNN.com, YouTube, and Netflix, and these latest additions are rounding things out nicely. Next up on PlayOn’s plate is ABC.com content, for which they’re currently in talks with ABC. It’s beginning to look more and more like the average joe won’t actually need cable or an antenna in order to stay entertained in their living room. We’ve just started putting PlayOn through the paces, but we like what we see so far - if you want to check it out for yourself, a 2 week trial is available at their site . [via Audioholics ] Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
WaTunes Sells Your Music On iTunes And Amazon Free Of Charge Top
WaTunes , a service that helps independent artists get their music into online music stores like iTunes and Amazon, has announced that it is making its service entirely free. The move is a direct attack on competitors like TuneCore , which also helps independent artists distribute their music but charges fees depending on the number of songs being sold and the number of stores the artist would like to sell their tracks on. In the company’s blog post on the new pricing scheme (or lack thereof) CEO Kevin Rivers writes: We’ve went from being free to be charged, to giving 90% of sales, to giving back all the sales earnings. We’ve finally can say that we have raise the bar even higher by providing you guys an ABSOLUTE digital distribution service. As of now, WaTunes will enable it’s customers to continue to sell unlimited music, earn 100% of the royalties, and more, ALL FOR FREE! There are no fees, cancellations, no gimmicks. So now that the company is giving up its entire source of revenue, how is it planning to make money? I spoke with CEO Kevin Rivers, who explains that the site is moving towards launching a music-based social network with rich music widgets and a community of fans and artists (it sounds like it will compete against sites like MySpace Music ). Users will also be able to buy songs through an online storefront, with advertising as the primary source of revenue. The move to make WaTune’s distribution service free is designed to attract a variety of independent artists to the music social network, which he says will launch around June. While this seems like a great deal for artists, it also sounds a little too good to be true. There are already many online music communities, and even if WaTunes does begin to distribute music for a large number of artists, I still don’t see how they’ll be able to convert them into new users on their music portal. That said, free is free, so I doubt WaTunes will have any trouble attracting new artists for the time being. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
WikiPock Will Put An Entire Copy Of Wikipedia In Your Pocket For $10 Top
Would you pay $10 for an entire offline copy of Wikipedia, the crowdsourced encyclopedia of information that you can get on the Web for free? WikiPock , a Paris-based startup, has compressed the entire English language version of Wikipedia to under 4 gigabytes (not including images), and is selling it for mobile phones. The other language versions are smaller (it also comes in German, French, Polish, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish). The application lets you search and read Wikipedia articles on your mobile phone without an Internet connection. It can be downloaded directly, or on its own microSD card. For $15, you can download updates, but only for a year. The first 30 people to send an email to tc[at]wikipock[dot]com will get a free copy. It is available for Blackberry and Windows Mobile phones right now, and will soon be available for the iPhone, Android, and Symbian phones. Since all of these phones can access Wikipedia via their browsers, what you are paying for is offline access, a mobile-friendly format, and fast search. Consumers seem more willing to pay for mobile apps, even when the same information is free on the Web (witness the success of paid apps in iTunes). And at least WikiPock is giving back to the Wikipedia community. Ten percent of all sales will be donated to the Wikimedia Foundation . Update : For those with iPhones, there is a competing app called Encyclopedia that does pretty much the same thing, and also costs $10. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Ticker Feed Ohpan Offers Uber-Personalized News Top
Web design startup AType Studios has launched the private beta of Ohpan, a free personalized side-scrolling interactive ticker feed featuring breaking news, pictures, web links, blog posts, the weather, and tidbits of information. The first 1000 TechCrunch readers to enter the code “TCRUNCH” when prompted here will be able to join the private beta. Ohpan’s technology is enabled by learning about what communities, sources, and topics users like through their actions on the site (like clicking, saving and forwarding comments). Ohpan will also ask users questions to determine what news should be subscribed to a feed. For example, if a user answers “Yes” to a “Do you use twitter?” question, more Twitter news will be published to the user’s feed. Ohpan then combs through thousands of RSS feeds to find news items and then individualizes the news ticker to the users preferences. Upon accessing the site, Ohpan lets users link to Facebook or Gmail accounts or sign up as a guest. When a user clicks on a news item, Ohpan gives the user a snapshot of the article or news, showing the source and images associated with the item. The user can “star” the article to save this item and show more like it in the ticker, “strike” the item to limit similar items, “flag” the item as cautionary, or “publish” the item to add to the user’s collection that can be seen by contacts via Facebook. Ohpan also allows users to create a feed featuring items they have composed. The technology (a proprietary Atype algorithm) picks up on the user’s tastes pretty quickly. And there’s always a need for personalized real-time news. But the value of a ticker (at least on the TV) is having it scroll at the bottom of a screen while a user is viewing other content. Its a little annoying to keep switching between tabs to look at the scroll. Perhaps a widget of the ticker would be a more useful tool, especially if it could also be easily embedded in a social network or stand alone website. Ohpan is also planning to launch an iPhone application in the next few weeks. Ohpan has some innovative plans for the future, including the ability to score ads as one would news items. According to the founder of Atype, Simon Plashkes, ads will be subject to the same scoring system that other content is and if users overwhelmingly strike an ad, it will be removed from the site. Ohpan is also looking to possibly integrate with user’s Google Reader feeds. Users would be able to forward a Reader item into their feed interface. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Facebook fbFund Winner Wildfire Launches Promotion App (Beta Invites) Top
Facebook fbFund winner Wildfire is launching the private beta of its web application, The Wildfire Promotion Builder, which allows companies to create their own branded interactive promotions, including contests, coupons, sweepstakes and giveaways. Using Facebook Connect combined with the power of the application, companies can simultaneously publish promotion campaigns on the designated “promotions tab” on the company’s Facebook page and on the company’s website (campaigns can also be simultaneously run on MySpace, Bebo, and other standalone websites). Wildfire is giving out beta invites for the first 500 Techcrunch readers who sign up here . To be eligible, TechCrunch readers should write “Techcrunch” in the “How did you hear about us?” field at the bottom of the form. Wildfire’s Promotion Builder application is a simple way for companies to cross-promote across various social networks while still taking advantage of the viral nature and rising dominance of Facebook as the top social network. The promotions tab could complement the recent Facebook redesign of company pages to look more like profile pages. Wildfire charges a fee of $0.99 per campaign per day for sweepstakes and coupon campaigns and $2.99 per day for user generated video and photo contests. The startup also offers a premium service that includes custom design features. Coupons, sweepstakes and giveaways are a good way to engage consumers and Facebook seems to think so as well. The social network has used Wildfire’s brand promotion apps to run multiple contests on the site. In fact, the consumer voting application Facebook used to vote on the the fbFund winners was actually created by Wildfire. In December, Wildefire won $250,000 in cash grants from Facebook’s fbFund, a joint venture between Facebook, Accel, and the Founders Fund meant to cultivate and reward innovative applications on the Facebook platform. Here’s a screenshot that shows the application used in the new Facebook “page more like a profile” format: Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 

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