Sunday, April 5, 2009

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Google Loses A Round In Sponsored Search Litigation Top
Google has lost the most recent round of litigation over alleged abuse of sponsored search , the sale of keywords based on corporate trademarks, and misdirection.  No, this decision does not change anything in Google's business practices. It does not prove that Google did anything wrong. And it does not create financial liability for Google. It merely sends one case back to court for another trial. It should not send Google stock plummeting. But it does require that we in the online tech community think carefully and debate carefully about Google's business model. Some readers, and indeed some fellow bloggers, have complained that my calling sponsored search misdirection rather than advertising was outrageous, and that they have never heard anyone but me complain about it .  The jury is, quite literally, still out on this one, but a recent appellate court ruling against Google suggests that the issue is still hotly debated in the courts, even if not quite as hotly as in the blogosphere.  MediaPost reports the details : A federal appellate court handed Google a defeat today in a trademark lawsuit stemming from AdWords ads. The 2nd Circuit ruled that allowing a trademark to trigger a search ad is a “use in commerce.” The decision doesn’t mean that Google will ultimately lose the case. It also doesn’t stop Google or other search engines from allowing companies to use trademarks to trigger ads. But it makes doing so riskier: If those ads are found to confuse consumers, search engines could be on the hook for trademark infringement. Here, Google was sued by computer repair shop Rescuecom for allowing rivals to appear as sponsored listings when consumers typed “rescuecom” into the query box. The case (Rescuecom V. Google) has been public since the initial decision was reached in 2006 but it does not appear to have entered into our collective consciousness.  Google is innocent until proven guilty and this latest decision does not prove it guilty of anything; it merely remands the case back to the lower court for reconsideration. But again, we in the online tech community need to understand how businesses are affected, positively and negatively, by Google and its use of its very considerable market power. The Electronic Frontier Foundation believes that there are freedom of speech issues, and others believe that sponsored search increases consumer choice by counter-balancing the power of the largest corporations. The issues surely are complex enough to demand our attention. The ruling is embedded below: Rescuecom v Google 04-03-09 Rescuecom v Google 04-03-09 Legal Writer Publish at Scribd or explore others: Internet & Technolog Business & Economics marketing online Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Grok This: Forget The Business Books, Go Sci-Fi To Stoke Your Imagination Top
One thing I get a lot of are review copies of various business books . A very few are worth the read, although mostly I like the case studies for learning about business and technology history, rather than the lessons they necessarily teach. Most books are a chapter of advice with a whole lot of additional junk thrown in to make it book thickness. There are exceptions, of course, and we’ll occasionally review a business book here on TechCrunch either because it is exceptional or because it provides unique historical insights. But my advice for most entrepreneurs is to ignore most business books. Reading too many of them will only confuse you anyway, since so many of them have conflicting advice on how to grow your company, or how to be a better manager, or how to get more done by working less. Most of the really successful people I’ve met certainly don’t read them - they’ve forged their own path to winning. If you really want to stoke your imagination, spend all those hours reading science fiction instead. Every good entrepreneur needs a certain amount of imagination to envision the future. Science fiction books tend to keep the imaginative juices flowing. And the better ones have moral or other life lessons that are a lot more fun to read entwined with the drama of an unfolding story that involves spaceships, time travel or other worlds. Here are a few of my favorite science fiction books, and what I learned from them (they are roughly in my favorite order): Dune (Frank Herbert, 1965): 20,000 years in the future, a noble family leaves pleasant planet for hopeless desert planet called Dune at order of emperor. Tragedy ensues, but the son fulfills his destiny to become a great and powerful leader. This is my favorite all time science fiction book by a long stretch. Besides giving us an incredibly rich and varied view of an interstellar empire, Herbert has a lot to say about leadership, heroism and strategy in crisis. Dune is the kind of book you really don’t want to end. Herbert wrote five sequels: Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse Dune. Skip the 1984 movie though, it didn’t do the book justice. Foundation Trilogy (Isaac Asimov, 1951-1953) These three books are a small part of what’s now called the Foundation Series , but they’re the best in my opinion and can be read on their own. I read these when I was very young and plan on hitting them again soon. It’s a massive story, covering a thousand years of galactic empire meltdown far in Earth’s future. The key plot line is that a group of scientists become able to predict the future, given very large population numbers, and seeing the bleakness that’s coming they decide to preserve what’s known of art, science, and technology and begin a new empire. It’s massively entertaining and has had a tremendous impact on science fiction writers ever since (for example, the Encyclopedia Glactica in the Foundation Trilogy is humorously mentioned in HitchHiker’s Guide To The Galaxy: “In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitchhiker’s Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopaedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects. First, it is slightly cheaper; and second, it has the words “DON’T PANIC” inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.” A key takeaway from the novel, besides the importance of guessing the future: resource constraints are actually a competitive advantage. Those with less do more with it, which also explains why so many startups shoot ahead of huge, well capitalized companies and essentially perform their R&D for them before they are acquired (or become disruptive and take the top spot). The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams, 1978-2001): Not sure what you’ll learn from HHGTTG , but it’s one of the funniest series of books of all time and if you haven’t read it you pretty much have to. It’s actually a five book series that’s called a trilogy, and if Adams hadn’t died of a heart attack at age 49 in 2001 there would have likely been more books written. HHGTTG and the WWII epic Catch-22 are among my favorite books when contemplating the meaninglessness and hilarity of life (HHGTTG begins with the Earth being destroyed to to make way for a hyperspatial express route). Like Dune, skip the movie, it doesn’t do the books justice. Anathem (Neal Stephenson, 2008): I read Anathem about six months ago when it was first released. Neal Stephenson is another author where I drop everything and read whatever he’s published as soon as possible. I’ve read all of his books: The Big U (his first book), Zodiac (eco-thriller), Snow Crash (world chaos, envisions a future Internet called the Multiverse), The Diamond Age (nanotech), Cryptonomicon (cryptography, computer history), and The Baroque Cycle (historical). Anathem is completely new and deals with an imaginary world where monk-like mathematicians have segmented themselves from the rest of society, mostly ignoring their wars and other petty issues. The avouts occasionally venture out from their sanctuaries to mingle with everyone else. Besides creating an entirely new vocabulary and writing a beautiful story, Stephenson also shows how even large problems can be overcome with intelligence, if you have enough time on your hands. Just don’t give up on the book early, it gets better and better as it goes on. And when you’re done, go read everything else he’s written. The Wasp Factory (Iain Banks, 1984): A creepy book narrated by the 16-year old protagonist Frank Cauldhame. It’s not really science fiction but it was Banks’ first novel and well worth the read, and he has become a giant of science fiction since. Make sure to read all of his Culture novels that may very well lay out the future of humanity. Humans and computers live together harmoniously in a vast galactic empire. Computers are vastly more intelligent than people and treat them with a sort of paternalistic compassion. Whole planets are created to allow larger populations, and people are genetically modified to look however they want. They also tend to live for as many centuries as they like until they get bored and off themselves. These books are very entertaining, and the scope of imagination needed to create this universe is staggering. I highly recommend reading the Wasp Factory and then jumping into the Culture novels. You won’t be unhappy you did so. Stranger in a Strange Land (Robert Heinlein, 1961): Valentine Michael Smith is a human raised by Martians on Mars, orphaned when the crew of a human expedition to the planet died. He comes back to Earth as an adult when a subsequent expedition finds him. He is initially weak because of the high gravity of Earth, but recovers. He’s superhuman and psychic, and teaches these skills to others. Just about everyone in power on Earth wants him and his followers dead. In addition to being an absolutely great book, Heinlein also coined the term grok for the first time in the novel. He also invented the notion of the waterbed in the novel. Frankenstein (Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, 1818): Shelley wrote this book as a teenager, and most of us read it in high school. Often credited as the first science fiction novel. You can read just about any political viewpoint you want into the book, and there are strong undertones that technology isn’t all good. But what I get out of it is the creativeness that can come with solitude, and how new technology can be misunderstood, even perhaps by the creator (see Twitter). Key thing to remember: Frankenstein is the name of the scientist/creator, not the Monster. Everybody forgets that. There are, of course, many other great science fiction novels - these are just a few of my favorites. The point I want to make is that time spent reading books that make you think about what could be isn’t necessarily leisure - you may just get the juices flowing enough to come up with the next great product that just yesterday would have been considered science fiction itself. So get to work, people. And let me know what your favorites are, too. Author’s note: If I do ever write a business book, and I may, don’t go pointing back to this post and criticizing me. I promise to make it as entertaining as possible. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
The Next Web Is Just Around The Corner (The Conference, That Is) Top
The Next Web Conference 2009 in Amsterdam is quickly approaching, and it’s promising to be a good show again this year even if it won’t be Erick Schonfeld moderating the event this time. TechCrunch Europe’s Mike Butcher will be there though, and so will I, so hook up with us if you’re heading down to the conference too. In case you haven’t registered yet, there’s a page set up for TC readers where you can get a 20% discount on the ticket fee. Speakers this year include Jeff Jarvis , Matt Mullenweg (Automattic), Bradley Horowitz (Google), Chris Sacca and author Andrew Keen . The full list can be found here . A web conference would be nothing without a good old startup competition, and today the organizing team of the event have announced the 19 finalists that will be pitching the audience on stage. I’m one of the jury members that will be deciding which European startup takes home the prize, so I’m looking forward to seeing what these have in store: yellowBird - currently in stealth mode, something to do with 3D Contextured - provides a platform that supports customers on search engine marketing and optimization Prezi - an application that allows you to create ’stunning’ presentations E - a service that integrates all your existing social services into a so-called “E•ID”, which you can share with anyone in the real world Aroxo - stealth model start-up that promises to offer ‘a completely new way to buy and sell online’ Silentale - store all your digital conversations in one place and access them from anywhere Klomptek - software development company that creates advanced Mobile Device Management and Security Solutions for enterprises Shout’Em - a platform on which you can start your own co-branded microblogging social networking service Quick TV - a web-based 'Video-as-a-Service' platform Mimic Media - enables online shoppers to fit clothes online with a personalized 3D model and shop real time together with their friends YourTour - a decision support system to plan fully-customized trips plista - a social recommendation service that follows what you like and don’t across sites and personalizes your Internet experience Yunoo - social personal finance platform, looks like a Dutch version of Mint Mendeley - social software for managing and sharing (”the Last.fm for”) research papers Huddle - combines unified collaboration with social networking IRLConnect - ‘visual’ social network that allows you to map where your friends are & what they are saying Visibuild - another interactive 3D environment creation application tarpipe - makes it easy to share content across different social media applications CoTweet - a platform that helps companies reach and engage customers using Twitter The startups above were selected out of total of 200 companies that submitted their profile for consideration. Each of them will get 5 minutes of stage time to impress the audience and the jury. We’ll let you know which ones kicked ass. Hope to see you in Amsterdam! Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Actor Kevin Pollak Jumps Into Social Media, And Is Swimming Quite Well Top
Actor Kevin Pollak (A Few Good Men, Usual Suspects, etc.) met Mahalo’s Jason Calacanis at a poker game and learned all about Twitter - a few weeks later and he has over 160,000 followers (although he jokes “I just don’t know what that means” ). Calacanis also talked him into hosting a video show as well, which is two weeks old and already has 1,000 or so people watching live every Sunday afternoon. Tomorrow he’ll have Tesla founder Elon Musk on the show at 5 pm. Mahalo basically duplicated the Charlie Rose set (all black, single round table) for a total cost, he says, of $20,000. He says he can create a HD show for $300/episode for an editor, makeup, etc. The show is good, and it’s fun to watch a professional actor begin to understand the power of social media, where you can gain a lot of devoted fans very quickly - with the only downside being that you have to listen to what they say back to you. Pollack is handling it well, talking about the chat feature on the video show and how bewildered he is by Twitter. And he also seems to like the fact that he can do literally anything on the show that he wants - swear, be silent, talk for as long as he likes, whatever. Between his talking about what it’s like for a professional actor to do whatever he likes without interference, he throws in a few good comedic bits as well. My favorite - a damned good impersonation of Jack Nicholson at about the 2:15 mark of this video: An email from Kevin: Although we are only two weeks old, and are still the lil’ show that could, we’re hoping to improve the creative content on the internet, if not the future of “Intervision.” As you have been told by Jason, and can clearly see, we are utterly grassroots, but you should know we are determined to stay that way. While the quality of the production will improve as we work out the kinks, I never want it to feel too professional and NEVER tv-slick. Basically, we’ve got a barn (Calacanis’ Mahalo studio) and some costumes (whatever my guests want to wear) and we’re puttin’ on a show! FYI, the show is every Sunday at 5pm, PDT, streaming live on Kevinpollakschatshow.com, and we take questions LIVE from the chat room on the site, as well as from Twitter.com at @kevinpollak. Also, a day later each episode is available on iTunes as a free podcast, as well as on blip.tv, and then shortly thereafter available at Kevinpollakschatshow.com. A list of upcoming confirmed guests: April 5th: Actor Jason Antoon and Tesla Motors and SpaceX Founder/CEO Elon Musk April 12th: Star of the documentary “Super High Me,” comedian Doug Benson, who will be discussing California’s effort to legalize marijuana, and the “Pit Bull of Comedy,” “Yid Vicious,” and a new star of the Las Vegas strip, Bobby Slayton. April 19th: Academy Award winning writer of “The Usual Suspects,” Chris McQuarrie Others Confirmed: Felicia Day: Creator/Star of the internet comedy MEGA-hit, “The Guild” Jon Hamm: Golden Globe winner/star of “Mad Men” Jon Favreau: Director of Iron Man (and just started on the sequel) Alex Albrecht: Co-Creator/Host of Diggnation and The Totally Rad Show, John Krasinski: Actor, “The Office” Luke Wilson: Actor (Old School, etc) A ton of other VERY recognizable names and faces that I am still reaching out to from the tech world and showbiz, not to mention YOU, if you’d care to come on and chat… Thanks VERY much for your time and interest in helping our lil’ show. -Kevin Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
The Google Ventures Cheat Sheet Top
Earlier this week, Google finally announced the formation of a new venture arm called Google Ventures . It is where all smaller-scale venture investments from Google will now originate. The day of the announcement, I chatted on the phone with Bill Maris and Rich Miner, the two Google executives who are managing the fund to get a sense of what they are interested in and how the fund will work. It turns out they are open to investing in pretty much anything from the Internet and cloud computing to healthcare and mobile. “We don't want to artificially limit ourselves,” says Miner. What about space elevators? “Show me one that works,” retorts Maris, “and I will invest in it.” The two of them will run the entire fund pretty much by themselves, bringing in other Googlers as needed for expertise and to help evaluate startups. Both Maris and Miner have done venture investing before: Maris for Swedish holding company AB and Miner for Orange Ventures. Miner will be leaving the Android team at Google, where he negotiated many of the deal with carriers and handset manufacturers. A couple weeks ago, I argued that setting up a venture arm is a bad idea because there are better ways for Google to be deploying its capital. Maris pointed out the relatively small amount of capital involved ($100 million) and responded: “Google has always had a strong belief in the power of entrepreneurs to do amazing things. Google has always made investments in companies, and we will continue to do that.” My big concern, however, was that Google would invest for strategic reasons instead of purely economic ones. Both Maris and Miner assured me that this would not be the case. “It is true that strategics have had mixed results,,” acknowledges Miner, “but we think we can put this money to work. Startups end up doing one thing and then have to shift direction. If you take money from someone who wanted to see you do X because you said you would do X in that first Powerpoint, they may restrict your movement as you need to adapt.” Miner says Google Ventures will avoid that pitfall. If you are an entrepreneur trying to figure out how to navigate your way to a pitch session with them, below is a cheat sheet with the basics you should know. A $100 million fund (that is the amount of capital allocated over the next 12 months).  “We don't have to invest $100 million this year,” notes Maris, “it is what we want to do.” It will focus on seed and early stage startups across any industry, but “won't invest in a company that we don't think we can properly vet and understand,” says Miner. The first two portfolio investments are Pixazza (”AdSense for images”) and Silver Spring Networks (smart grid technology). The sole limited partner is Google All venture investing from the company will now be done through Google Ventures (for instance, Google.org will no longer be making venture investments) Larger strategic investments in the range of hundreds of millions or billions of dollars will still be done by Google’s corporate development team led by David Lawee One-way mirror policy to protect startups from prying eyes. “We can look into Google, but Google can't look into the companies without asking,” promises Miner. Overriding investment criteria will be ROI, not strategic motivations. But that doesn’t mean strategic considerations will be ignored either.  “If a company comes in the door and it looks like something important for Google to acquire,” says Maris, “we will defer to Google's corporate development department to take a look.” So where does that leave startups and can they really trust that one-way mirror?  Any startup related to the consumer Internet, search, or advertising would be well advised to be wary about revealing too much of themselves to Google Ventures. “This is a self-limiting process,” admits Maris.  “We are not going to know the group of people who do not want to talk to us.” I’m sure they will have plenty of people knocking on their door regardless. CrunchBase Information Google Ventures Bill Maris Rich Miner Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Israeli Entrepreneurs: Know What Game You Are Playing Top
TEL AVIV– The other day I spoke at an Israeli event called Techonomy where six handpicked Israeli startups were demoing new products. The companies were impressive, the audience packed, it was sponsored by blue-chip tech names, and well-heeled experts were on stage offering feedback. In fact, it could have been just like a Silicon Valley event a la TechCrunch 50 in every way except one: Experts and attendees were encouraged—strongly—to offer only positive feedback. To understand how rare that is, witness the daily blog posts calling out Valley startups—even the most successful ones—for lacking a business model, redesigning a home page or just generally "sucking." Or just read the comment stream on any TechCrunch post. Everyone surrounding the Silicon Valley ecosystem is a critic, and if they're anonymous, a vicious one. Hell, Michael Arrington gets spit on and half of my career has been made profiting from anonymous, vitriolic haters. And we just write about startups. I don't like it, but that's the unfortunate reality that goes along with doing my job. A lot of this insistence on positivity comes from the Godfather of the Israeli Web scene, Yossi Vardi. It's one of the main house rules at his KinnerNet conference, where he tells people if you don't agree with something someone else is saying maybe you are the problem. Well said, Mr. Vardi. The amazing thing is how people respect the rule. Vardi invokes a combination of fear, respect and sucking up among Web entrepreneurs in Israel, so when he demands people be nice, they actually listen. He came up to me after the Techonomy event, and I was slightly worried he was about to yell at me for saying one of the presenting companies needed a better logo because you couldn't decipher its name. (Sort of a problem with a consumer Web business, if you ask me.) Instead, we got into an interesting talk about this insistence on positivity. In short, he wants to promote a comfortable environment where smart entrepreneurs who may be easily intimidated aren't driven out of the industry. I can understand that. I think a lot of the criticism written about Valley startups is uncalled for at best, and at worst just not that interesting. Many people try to hold startups to an impossible bar. They are startups after all. They are supposed to be doing something that is risky, seems insane and can easily fail. If they aren't, they're probably not taking enough risk. Most lazy bloggers and commenters have learned one thing: If you want to maximize the odds that you're right about a startup, then trash them, because most startups fail. It's much harder to believe in something, and harder still to say you do. That said, I'm not sure I understand the concept of "constructive positivity." I think a lot of startups benefit from, well, honesty. And honesty isn't always nice. Take the first post I did on Israel.  Sure, some people think the Dow Jones numbers are understating returns. But no one will argue that Israeli returns have actually been good in the last eight years. Guess what: They haven't been great in the Valley either, something people write about all the time . You never hear an uproar, because it's true. VCs, entrepreneurs and the whole Valley ecosystem gets it, knows it's a problem and everyone is quietly trying various ways to solve it. If people were openly talking about the poor returns in Israel—the way they do in the Valley—would there have been such an uproar? Or would people just wince, nod, and aim to be the exception? I've spent a lot of time talking to people in Tel Aviv about this idea of honesty—something Israelis are supposed to be known for. Essentially people have said everything about Israel inflames passion. OK, that's a fair point and understandable. But the government, entrepreneurs, and investors can't court mainstream U.S. bloggers and business press for coverage and not expect the same rules by which we write about our own startups, even the standout ones like Facebook and Twitter. That'd be a bit like me saying people should be nice to me because I'm a woman, wouldn’t it? But here's where Vardi's view of the world makes sense: He doesn't aim for his companies to build empires worth a billion or even hundreds of millions of dollars. What's more, he said it's unfair to expect them to. He told me after the event that Israeli companies are great at coming up with technology that a bigger company, with a bigger market, and more resources can then develop. He called them "tomato seeds"—there is a lot packed in there, but it's not going to grow into a tomato plant on its own. And indeed, Vardi has had a good number of exits and made money off them based on this theory. Of course, the natural question then is, should big venture capital money even be in Israel to begin with? I asked Vardi, and he said it was a good question. He noted that big venture capital money shouldn't be funding Web applications, period, given the low capitalization and relatively small exits. Agreed. One of the main themes in my book about Web 2.0 is the comparatively-low importance of big money in this wave of companies, and that's why you've seen such a different role played by angels and the emergence of strong seed funds like First Round Capital over the last few years. Ideally, I think a mix between the positivity of the Israeli scene and the honesty of the Valley scene would be an improvement for both communities. But, I'll grant Vardi that companies just aiming to build a product, don't deserve a Facebook-level of scrutiny and should be nurtured. But, that means as someone who writes for primarily a U.S. business audience, I also probably shouldn't be flying around the world to cover them. In short, Israeli entrepreneurs can't have it both ways. I, for one, continue to believe big things can come out of Israel, the same way they can come from anywhere. After just two weeks of foraging, I've found a handful of entrepreneurs swinging for the fences and building real, viable companies that I expect to watch for years to come. As someone who gets paid to analyze and ask uncomfortable questions, I'm going to hold those companies to the same bar that I hold any company with potential in the Valley to. And if any entrepreneur doesn't want that kind of coverage: Don't call me for a meeting. CrunchBase Information Yossi Vardi Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Why Did Sergey Brin Stop Blogging? Top
Remember back in September 2008 when Google co-founder Sergey Brin started a personal blog ? TechCrunch was the first to spot it , and it was interesting enough for the Wall Street Journal and the NY Times to pick up the story. Of course, it was the actual content of the second blog post (the one after the obligatory introduction one ) that was the real story there. After all, an executive of a major, public company sharing his genetic predisposition to Parkinson's disease is not exactly an everyday thing. The unusual blog post, evidently hosted on Google’s Blogger service, garnered quite some press coverage, and made a lot of people curious about what other insights in Brin’s personal life would follow. After all, the first post said the blog would be reflecting the man’s ‘life outside of work’, and it allowed moderated comments (although none were ever approved after all). But there never came a third post, and the blog quietly slipped out of the attention stream for lack of updates. Today, the blog is still online, but it’s as dead silent as it’s been for the past 6 months. So maybe the real question is: why did Sergey Brin start blogging? I think this excerpt from the blog gives it away: As a customer of 23andMe, I have always been excited about the product. I have found what pieces of DNA I share with various relatives. I checked whether other Brins were related. I explored my various gene journals — learning, for instance, that I have one copy of the fast twitch muscle fiber. I also looked over the health related entries and found that my genetic risk for most diseases is modestly lower than average but for a few diseases it is modestly higher. 23andMe is the biotech startup that was co-founded by Brin’s wife Anne Wojcicki . The company can map customers' DNA and help them find information about their ancestry and their risk of getting certain diseases ( Mike tried it ). Google ended up taking a $3.9 million stake in 23andMe in May 2007, after Brin had personally loaned the company $2.6 million. It’s always been a strange story, and I doubt we’ve heard the end of it. So what I’m wondering: did Sergey Brin actually start the blog with good intentions, hoping he would find the time in his busy life to share tidbits about the personal part of it, or was this just a way for him to draw a lot of attention to his genetic mutation and - conveniently - how his wife’s new startup plays a role in it? I guess we’ll never know for sure, unless of course he responds to this on his blog. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Italian Football Referees Banned From Using Social Media Top
For your Saturday morning reading: Channel4 reports that the new President of the Referees’ Assocation in Italy wants to stop officials from participating in conversations on social networking sites and message boards, and refrain themselves from blogging. The President in question, Marcello Nicchi, was only elected to the position last month and one of his first moves was the release of a list of "rules for privacy and institutional communication protocols." In Italy, it’s generally forbidden for football (that would be soccer) referees to make any public statements in the media even after a game has finished. The memo presumably simply wants to make it clear to the officials what the Association understands ‘media’ to encompass, so it included a detailed list of what they should be avoiding. Literally, the message translates as: “referees are barred from making statements in public including via email, their own websites, mailing lists, forums, blogs or discussion groups such as Facebook and similar systems." Officials who break the rules will be deferred to the Disciplinary Commission. Strangely, this contradicts earlier reports that Nicchi was actually thinking of ‘revolutionizing’ Italian football by scrapping the rule that prevents officials from being interviewed by the media about finished games. We intend to get to the bottom of this, of course, because the public needs to know what is really going on here! Meanwhile, anyone else is still free to bash the referees on social networks, forums and blogs, so no harm done really. (Via Mazi on Twitter ) Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Facebook's Newest Funding Source: You Top
Facebook is testing a new virtual gifts product that allows users to give “credits” to other users. The idea is that you can give other users these credits in addition to or in lieu of commenting or liking a message or status. So if for example I say “out walking the dog,” other people can throw some credits my way. VentureBeat has an exclusive overview . Here’s why Facebook likes the product - you pay for the credits with cash, to the tune of $1 per 100 credits. That’s enough incentive for them to test this out, despite the fact that anyone who looks at it for more than a moment will realize it’s doomed to fail. There’s no real world parallel to this gift, like Facebook’s existing (and reportedly underperforming) virtual gifts product that lets you give someone an image of a cupcake or whatever on their birthday. My strong guess is very few people will use this, I can’t imagine someone saying “nice status update, here’s some fake money.” But it’s another weapon that the giant will use to try to eke out a profit during these tough financial times. And it’s far better than having to return to the capital markets to raise money at what’s likely to be an embarrassing large discount from that ridiculous $15 billion valuation that Microsoft gave them in 2007. Maybe if enough users buy credits that can never be redeemed back for cash they can stretch their runway a little farther. It’s been a rough week for the fast growing network. They fired Gideon Yu , their third CFO in less than two years, on Tuesday. Facebook’s PR group flat out lied to the world about it, telling everyone who’d listen that the reason was they wanted to go public and they needed a CFO with public company experience. In rushing to get the message out they failed to note that Yu already had public company experience, at both Yahoo and Google, and is one of the more respected CFO’s in Silicon Valley. All Facebook succeeded in doing was to cement their reputation as an organization that will say anything they like, damn the truth , even going so far as to unfairly trash their own employees. Not much backbone there, and it’s no surprise that they can’t hold on to executives . Any future candidate worth their salt would do well to think twice before joining. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Mooch Takes Aim At GameStop With Video Game Swapping Market Top
Mooch is a new video game trading site looking to help users trade games directly with each other, allowing them to bypass middleman stores like GameStop and save money in the process. Depending on how new and popular the games being traded are, members can expect to save as much as $30 per trade, and simply have to mail their games to each other after establishing a trade on the site. Mooch uses an automated system to calculate the value of each game, taking into account factors including its lowest price on Amazon, how old it is, and how popular it as. Each game is assigned a point value (new games seem to be around 200-300 points each), and to trade for a game you need to offer something of the same value, or buy more points to match it. If you come up short you can buy extra points, but they don’t come cheap - they’re around $15 for 100, but the purpose of the service is to encourage trading games, not buying them through a roundabout method. At this point the market is nearly empty, and won’t become very useful until it can attract a sizable number of users (it’s the classic chicken-and-the-egg problem). To entice users, Mooch is totally free to use during its beta period, with plans to shift to a $20 annual subscription model later on. The industry may hate it, but video game trading isn’t something that’s going away soon - at least until game downloads with DRM become the norm. And stores like GameStop (and more recently, Amazon ) don’t really offer much value to gamers that frequently trade their games, often exchanging games for significantly less than their true market value. Mooch saves users money, but it also comes with its own problems. For one, you have to rely on other members to ship your game promptly, and there’s always the fear that they may never do it at all (though Mooch does appear to guarantee trades, promising to refund with Mooch points should one go awry). Mooch isn’t the first player in this space, either. SwapTree supports video games, and other sites like the now-defunct PeerFlix and the old Lala tried to swapping models for other forms of media without much success. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Challenge Your Facebook Friends To A Geewa Game Via Chat Top
Casual gaming on the Web is quickly moving to the social networks, where people can play with their friends. Just this week, multiplayer casual games site Geewa launched three of its most popular games on Facebook: 8-ball Pool, Backgammon, and Reversi (which is the same as the board game Othello). Geewa, based in Prague (disclosure: it is a sponsor of an upcoming Crunch Meetup there) , is making some unique moves in the multiplayer casual game space. Namely, Geewa’s games are live, head to head games, also known as synchronous games. Most multiplayer games are asynchronous, like chess, where each player takes a turn at their leisure. Synchronous games happen more or less at the same time, with players moving in parallel and comparing scores after each round (”Who has the Biggest Brain” is a typical example). Another nice feature of the Geewa games is that they allow players to challenge their friends via Facebook chat directly to play a live game. So now you can really play against your friends instead of playing with random people. If none of your friends are available, and since the games are connected to Geewa’s multiplayer server, you can always find a random player if need be. Geewa’s CEO Cedric Maloux says that at peak time, the site’s multiplayer server handles more than 18,500 concurrent players (though mostly from Europe), making it easy to find a worthy opponent. A community platform for casual gaming, Geewa was founded in 2005 and raised $2.2 million in Series A funding from Poland’s MCI Ventures. Cedric Maloux, the former founder and CEO of deadpooled browser-based file-sharing service AllPeers, joined Geewa two months ago as CEO. Available in five languages, Geewa is popular in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Germany and uses Facebook Connect. Geewa monetizes via pre-roll ads. Geewa’s user base is still small compared to social casual gaming networks like Zynga , Playfish, and Mytopia , which both give users the opportunity to connect to several social networks besides Facebook, including MySpace and Bebo. It can be difficult to be a small fish in a big sea of casual gaming sites. Zynga boasts more than 7 million daily users and 30 million monthly users for its games. But Facebook is popular internationally, and perhaps Geewa’s new apps can leverage its European roots to score high in those markets. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Highlights From This Year's Global Technology Symposium Top
Last week hundreds of entrepreneurs, business executives, and influencers convened for the sixth annual Global Technology Symposium , where they discussed issues ranging from the current state of the economy to new methods of energy production. Below we’ve highlighted some of the most compelling panels, which featured exectives from companies including Facebook, Google, and a number of venture capital firms. We were also lucky enough to have the chance to sit down and talk with T. Boone Pickens , which we’ve included in video below. During a panel titled “Founders of Silicon Valley Venture Capital”, which included Reid Dennis (Institutional Venture Partners), Bill Draper (Draper Richards L.P.), Pitch Johnson (Asset Management Company), and Ann Winblad (Hummer Winblad), the attitude reflected the global nature of the conference, highlighting the growing opportunities abroad. A number of large VC funds originally based in Silicon Valley have opened up international branches, and local organizations are growing as well. The panel noted that while we may see reductions of up to 40-50% in the number of VC funds in the United States, international funds will help offset this loss. During a one-on-one interview, Facebook COO Cheryl Sandberg spoke about concerns with the new homepage, noting that the response has actually been more positive than past updates, though Facebook will continue to iterate. She also downplayed the idea that Facebook has not yet found a business model, explaining that it is an advertising based business. During the panel on Corporate Venture Capital, David Lawee (Google), Dan’l Lewin (Microsoft) and Claudia Fan Munce (IBM) discussed the increasing role large companies are taking in the startup space. Programs like Microsoft BizSpark help foster the startup community (Google is also getting involved with Google Ventures ). Lawee said that Google was unsure if the rate of acquisitions will increase or decrease in 2009 (I’m guessing the latter), and everyone seemed to agree that there will be ongoing changes in just about everything that goes on in this space. Prior to the conference, the GTS held a pitch competition at the Plug and Play Tech Center, during which Crystal Clear Technologies won the top prize (the company manufactures a water filter than can inexpensively remove metal contaminants). We also had a chance to sit down and ask T. Boone Pickens about his thoughts on emerging green startups, the United State’s dependence on foreign oil, and entrepreneurship. You can watch the entire interview below. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
DeliveryEdge Tumbles Into The Deadpool Top
DeliveryEdge, the courier aggregator startup which refocused its business model several times in the past few years (and was previously known as LicketyShip until recently), appears to be in the deadpool. We wrote about the startup’s countless changes to its business model and tumultuous history as a startup here. When LicketyShip launched in 2006, the startup tried to deliver ecommerce items to purchasers within four hours of checkout. We predicted that the company might suffer the same fate as Kozmo, which burned through $280 million in capital before it was deadpooled in 2001. Founded by Robert Pazornik, LicketyShip tried to improve upon this plan by charging users a steep fee for same day delivery but found that actual execution of the plan didn’t work. In 2007, LicketyShip gave up on the delivery model and focused on aggregating local courier services. You could use the service to pick up items you've bought over the phone with local retailers. Last summer, the company changed its model again, and decided to provide aggregating courier services for more than just deliveries of retail goods. They planned to take the fragmented courier market and turn it into an actual web service. LicketyShip also built an API to turn courier services into a web service. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Twitter Wouldn't Sell For $1 Billion, Says Source Top
Update to our post last night about Google/Twitter talks: New sources say that Google is interested in acquiring Twitter, and has had talks with the company about a deal. Google’s internal valuation, however, would value the company at a token premium above Twitter’s last round of financing valuation, around $250 million . Some Twitter insiders want the deal, but our sources say CEO Evan Williams wouldn’t sell even for $1 billion. “He may blink, but he wouldn’t do it,” said one source. Google may also be concerned with antitrust issues around any major search-related acquisition, we’ve heard (and others have noted ). Clearly there’s a lot of posturing going on, and quite possibly some dissent in the ranks at Twitter. The company is officially stating “Our goal is to build a profitable, independent company and we’re just getting started.” Which is exactly what any company would say under any circumstances. The fact that Facebook acquisition discussions got so far last year suggests that they were open to merger discussions. But the valuation needed to get a deal done has increased dramatically since then. Would Google pay more than $1 billion for Twitter? No idea. But there’s no way Microsoft lets a deal be negotiated without putting its bid in, too. And if these two giants see Twitter as the future of search, $1 billion is peanuts. The Near Term Deal Meanwhile, business discussions between Twitter and Google continue. The deal Google wants: a real time feed of Twitter updates to speed indexing. Without that feed Google must independently index each Twitter user periodically to look for updates. That means it’s dreadfully slow in grabbing all those Twitter posts. And it’s also very expensive from a computing resource standpoint. A real time feed would be of huge value to Google, and they’d be smart to nail down a long term deal sooner rather than later. A real time feed of Twitter posts would negate much of the head start Twitter has in the nascent real time search space . It would be a coup for Google to get the Twitter milk without having to buy the cow. The real question is, does Twitter fully understand the value of this feed? Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Tapulous To Release Coldplay Edition Of Tap Tap Revenge Next Week Top
Details are a bit sparse for now, but we’ve now heard whispers from multiple sources that Tapulous plans to release a version of their popular iPhone music game, Tap Tap Revenge , themed around British alt-rock band Coldplay early next week. This isn’t the first time the company has partnered with a band for premium releases; December of 2008 saw the Weezer-branded “ Christmas with Weezer ” edition, and an NIN edition was released last September. The application has been submitted to the app store, and will likely see a release on Monday night or Tuesday morning. No whispers of pricing just yet. Both the Weezer and Nine Inch Nails releases went for $4.99 at the time of their release, though the Weezer edition has since dropped to $1.99 (presumably due to its Christmas theme being a bit less relevant now). As such, it is quite likely the Coldplay edition will launch for around the $4.99 price. As for content, we’re told that it’ll be made primarily of recent popular content, though we’re also told that it will feature at least one remix from outside of their standard discography. We will update this story if more details come in. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Yahoo Takes A Few Steps Out Of Image Search With A Better Preview Pane Top
One of the annoyances of doing image search on Yahoo and Google is the way they’ve both handled image previews. Up until now, when you clicked on a thumbnail image after doing a search, both engines took you to a preview page showing a larger version of the image in a pane at the top and the original Website it appears in below. Like many other frustrated image searchers, I find myself constantly toggling back and forth between the preview page and the original search results page to look for a better image. Today, Yahoo is taking a few steps to improve this experience by taking a few steps out of it. Instead of showing a lone image in the preview pane, it is expanding the pane and filling up that real estate with a larger preview of the image, more image results, and image search box. Search assist also works in the search box so that when you start typing you get related keywords tuned to image search. (See illustration below). If you search for rain , for instance, and then click on one of the image results, you will see the new preview pane at the top The original page is still shown in the bottom pane for context (and you can always remove the Yahoo overlay altogether), but you can also continue your search without going back to the full results page. That should help speed things up, which is always a good thing. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Meeting24.tv Keeps Online Meetings Simple Top
Meeting24.tv is a new web conference system that lets up to 24 users simultaneously hold meetings online through an extra-simple UI. The service is offered by WIT , a Tokyo-based research lab (meeting.24 is available in both English and Japanese). Utagoe , the same Tokyo- (and San Jose)-based company that runs Utagoe Live 100 ( FriendFeed for video streams ), developed the streaming technology behind it. Like Utagoe Live 100, meeting24.tv also has a similar minimalistic feel to it, which is supposed to make it easy for anyone to use - even those with little web experience. The service is based on the assumption that other online meeting solutions such as TokBox (which we covered three times ), Cisco’s Webex , Polycom or Skype are just too complex. In fact, meeting24.tv tries to be useful through its lack of functions. There is no client installation needed, no registration, no document sharing, no video mail, no contact list and even no text chatting (short Twitter-style messaging is possible, though). And meeting.24 is simple indeed, and it’s also free in its basic version. I tried the service out with a few participants within Japan (where I live), in Europe and the US and everything worked flawlessly. Only the organizer of the planned meeting is required to sign up and receives a dedicated URL (which looks something like http://meeting24.tv/meetings/page/tc_japan). The URL can then be mailed to a maximum of 24 users who just have to click on the link to go to the “meeting room”. They are then instantly able to see and talk to the other participants for up to 24 hours before the lights go out. (You can then add another meeting room with a different URL for free.) But $100 a month get you a pro account, which lets you use a single meeting room without limitations and protect access with a password (users of the free version also get to see ads). The fee is a bit on the steep side, but in this economy holding meetings online should be a particularly attractive option for many companies trying to push down travel expenses. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Biz Stone Plays It Cool On Colbert Top
Twitter co-founder Biz Stone appeared on The Colbert Report last night. In case you haven’t seen it already, the video is embedded above. Stone describes Twitter as “The messaging system that we didn’t know we needed until we had it.” To which Colbert responds: “That sounds like the answer to a problem we didn’t have until I invented the answer.” Stone plays it cool and sticks to his guns. He waxes poetic about the potential of Twitter, especially across four billion mobile phones, and hints that the company will start experimenting with different ways to make money this year. (If it doesn’t get bought first , that is—despite Stone’s talk about staying “independent”). Colbert was not in top form, I have to say. He threw a bunch of softballs at Stone, and failed to really put him on the spot. The Daily Show’s take on Twitter was much funnier: Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Dice.com Shows 45% Drop In Tech Jobs Top
This morning’s news about the latest unemployment statistics was dismal and quite sobering. The U.S. has lost 5 million jobs in the past 16 months, and the unemployment rate has hit a 25 year high, reaching 8.5%. Our own TechCrunch layoff tracker reports nearly 320,000 tech jobs lost since August. While jobs are being shed at an unprecedented rate, job listings are also being affected, both in tech and general employment sectors. Tech jobs site Dice.com is reporting a 45% year over year drop in available technology jobs for March, continuing the drought of tech jobs in the economic downturn. This drop, as reported by Thomas Weisel Partners, is the highest annual drop Dice has seen so far this year, with February’s listings down 40.4% and January’s jobs down 39.3% (all year over year). In 1Q09, available tech jobs declined 41.4% year over year on Dice.com. Monster.com reports a 27% decline for Q12009 from last year, indicating that perhaps tech jobs are being hit harder than general job listings. And it seems that jobs hit an all time low in 1Q09, job listings declined 22% in 4Q09. Dice said that of the ten reported metropolitan areas, Silicon Valley was hit worst, with available tech jobs down 57.7% year over year. Chicago (down 55.3% y/y) and Boston (down 55.3% y/y) also posted large declines. The Conference Board’s Online Help-wanted Index suggests that monthly job demand dropped 100K in March, down 31% year over year. Our own job site, CrunchBoard, has also seen a sharp decline in available tech jobs over the past three months. A little over year ago 100 - 120 job listings were added to CrunchBoard each month. The number of new listings gradually declined with the onset of the recession and then fell significantly in November 2008, dropping from 68 to 37 listings from the month before. The listings rose slightly over the next few months, with February’s listings hovering around 60. Even though CrunchBoard’s listings don’t meet the magnitude of Dice’s or Monster’s listings database, this decline in available tech jobs is alarming. It’s still not clear if the worst is over when it comes to layoffs and available jobs. Tech companies are continuing to shed jobs and even those companies which appeared to be immune to massive layoffs a few months ago, like Google, have succumbed to letting people go in the wake of the recession. There’s no doubt that the tech industry has been hit hard across the board. But the tech sector survived through the burst of the bubble a while back, and has proven to be resilient even in the most challenging of times. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
European Web Video Network Intruders TV Relaunches Top
About two years ago, web video startup Intruders TV started out by covering tech / internet industry news in Europe with reporters in key countries like the UK, Ireland, France and Germany. Today, the web TV company is relaunching and will soon be expanding its coverage to more countries and other fields like music, movies, cleantech and fashion. The biggest change for today's release of the new Intruders TV is that the company has finally stopped focussing on delivering country-specific content but has instead regrouped all the English-language content in one channel only (the same goes for the French and Italian counterparts). The site and video player have been revamped as well and are well worth a look. Intruders TV produces high-quality profiles of the continent’s most exciting startups and industry events, and regularly publishes interviews with European entrepreneurs and other industry pundits. The company can often be spotted at events across the globe, looking for interesting people to interview. (disclosure: they were also a media partner for my own conference, Plugg) According to Vincent Camara, Head of Content and Co-Founder of Intruders TV, the company so far has streamed over 10 million video plays, conducted 600+ interviews and currently has a library of over 300 hours of HD content available (see example video on the site - the embed code doesn’t like WordPress). Note that all this was done without a dime in funding: the startup has to date been completely bootstrapped by Camara and his business associate Thierry Bezier. So how does the company make money? Camara tells me there are four business models in place, but only two of them are currently bringing in the monthly revenue used to pay its 10 to 15 part-time video reporters: placement of videos via syndication agreements with other video sites based on revenue sharing, and sponsorship of channels (verticals and sub-verticals) by related businesses. The other two revenue streams the company is looking at are 1) the distribution of exclusive content with large video sites in return for licenses and revenue share from advertising and 2) closed circuit VOD agreements with institutions, groups and organised communities where revenue is secured by licenses and sponsorship. In other news, Intruders TV has partnered with technology news site THEINQUIRER to bring to life INQ TV , adding a video presence for the snarky news and reviews site. Check out the site and let us know what you think. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Sources: Google In Talks To Acquire Twitter (Updated) Top
Here’s a heck of a rumor that we’ve sourced from two separate people close to the negotiations: Google is in late stage negotiations to acquire Twitter. We don’t know the price but can assume its well, well north of the $250 million valuation that they saw in their recent funding. Twitter turned down an offer to be bought by Facebook just a few months ago for half a billion dollars, although that was based partially on overvalued Facebook stock. Google would be paying in cash and/or publicly valued stock, which is equivalent to cash. So whatever the final acquisition value might be, it can’t be compared apples-to-apples with the Facebook deal. Why would Google want Twitter? We’ve been arguing for some time that Twitter’s real value is in search. It holds the keys to the best real time database and search engine on the Internet, and Google doesn’t even have a horse in the game. In a post last month called It's Time To Start Thinking Of Twitter As A Search Engine, I wrote: More and more people are starting to use Twitter to talk about brands in real time as they interact with them. And those brands want to know all about it, whether to respond individually (The W Hotel pestered me until I told them to just leave me alone), or simply gather the information to see what they're doing right and what they're doing wrong. And all of it is discoverable at search.twitter.com, the search engine that Twitter acquired last summer. People searching for news. Brands searching for feedback. That's valuable stuff. Twitter knows it, too. They're going to build their business model on it. Forget small time payments from users for pro accounts and other features, all they have to do is keep growing the base and gather more and more of those emotional grunts. In aggregate it's extremely valuable. And as Google has shown, search is vastly monetizable - somewhere around 40% of all online advertising revenue goes to ads on search listings today. If this is accurate, it’s a brilliant deal for Google - the value of Twitter is only going to go up over time. And it will be Twitter founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone’s second sale to Google - they sold Blogger to them just five years ago. But there’s one big question - where’s Microsoft in all this? Letting Twitter go to Google only hurts them, badly, in the long term search game. This is an asset they need to be competing for aggressively. Of course, it’ll be sad to see Twitter become just another subsidiary of Google, if this happens. I would have liked to have seen the company spread its wings a little longer to see what it could do. Updated: Yet another source says the acquisition discussions are still fairly early stage, and the two companies are also considering working together on a Google real time search engine. But discussions between the companies are confirmed. Update 2 (4/3/09) : In a non-denial blog post entitled “Sometimes We Talk” Twitter co-Founder Biz Stone says: “It should come as no surprise that Twitter engages in discussions with other companies regularly and on a variety of subjects.” Update 3: see here . Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
DiggBar Keeps All Digg Homepage Traffic On Digg Top
DiggBar , the new shortURL and toolbar service from Digg, is certainly useful. I expect it to become my default short URL service on Twitter since it is so easy to create a short URL by simply adding Digg.com/ in front of any URL. It will redirect to a short Digg URL like digg.com/d1npNz , which is this story rendered with the DiggBar (click that Digg button!). The Twitter crowd already loves this based on all the chatter I saw on the site today. This will also expose a lot of new people to Digg since anyone that clicks on the link will see the toolbar wrapper with the view count, Digg comments and other information on the top. And it will also increase Digg’s overall traffic substantially - unlike other short URL services, Digg doesn’t simply redirect to the longer URL. It keeps you on Digg and shows the site being pointed to in an iframe wrapper. You can get to the underlying URL by clicking on the X button on the top right. But Digg didn’t stop there. They’re also using DiggBar for all stories on Digg as well. So all those home page stories that send massive amounts of traffic around the web are now redirecting right back to Digg, too. That keeps all that traffic in the Digg ecosystem, to the detriment of the sites being linked to. For most purposes those sites won’t care. The page is still rendered and includes the advertising. The way most internal analytics software works means that page views will still be counted. But some services, like Comscore, won’t necessarily see the visit to the site, and will penalize the domain name. I’d expect Digg to add text advertising to the DiggBar over time, sooner rather than later. It should be a material revenue source for them. Overall it’s a brilliant move by Digg. I’m surprised no one has complained yet though about Digg home page traffic no longer going to the sites being listed. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 

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