Monday, April 6, 2009

Y! Alert: TechCrunch

Yahoo! Alerts
My Alerts

The latest from TechCrunch

New FriendFeed: Simpler, Faster, Better (Maybe Too Fast) Top
FriendFeed cofounder Paul Bucheit was recently asked what it was like to be the R&D department for Facebook . His response was appropriately humble, but you can’t help but wonder how long it will be before Facebook, Twitter and FriendFeed all start to look pretty much identical as the services simply copy the best features from their competitors . One thing is for sure, though: FriendFeed moves the fastest. They were the first to add comments to status updates, the first to bring in third party feeds and the first to realize the value of search . They also experimented with real time streams way before the others. So much of what they’ve done first has been copied by others - even Google has dipped into the well . Now FriendFeed is taking the next step in its evolution with a complete redesign and lots of new features. We were able to see a demo of the new site last week and have been testing it over the weekend. Our opinion: the new FriendFeed, which launches into beta today , is simpler, faster and better than the old FriendFeed. In fact, it may be a little too fast. The first thing you’ll notice is the new look of the site. The left sidebar is gone, and key information is in separate areas on the right. The main part of the page is now just for messages. It actually looks quite a bit like Twitter. The most noticeable new feature is real time streaming. The experiments from last year have now been pushed to every part of the site. FriendFeed’s co-founder Bret Taylor says that by adding this functionality, FriendFeed can be used as a Gmail-like chat interface between one or many friends and is hoping to change the way FriendFeed is being used as a communications tool. Having a real-time feed of your friends’ and contacts’ status updates is really cool but watching the page constantly add updates gets a little annoying. As real time feeds come into your stream, it pushes what you are reading further down, which also can be a little annoying. FriendFeed has a solution for this: a pause button where your can turn the real-time updates off, and when off, the icon will tell you how many real-time updates are waiting to be added to your stream. The new interface also allows you to send direct messages and photos to your friends and lets you post these messages to Twitter. Another significant change to the interface is that service icons (the images that appear next to messages), have been changed from the source of the information (Twitter, RSS, Flickr, etc.) to the profile picture of the person who created the message. It makes it much easier to scan messages for interesting stuff. FriendFeed has added a number of features to promote interactivity between users including sharing features, where you can share a conversation, direct messages, feed, link, etc. to any number of your friends or one friend. The search filters have become more powerful, allowing you to filter searches by keyword or name or restrict searches to certain groups of friends or all of FriendFeed. And the search box will give you suggestions of your friends profiles, helping you to navigate to friend’s feeds easily. FriendFeed has also given you the ability to create a private “chat room” amongst your friends, dubbed “FriendFeed Feedback.” Similar to a group page, the private room feature let’s you create a feed that is restricted to a number of users, can be marked as public or private, and can be used as a communications tool to enable chats in a forum-like environment. These changes are all part of a new beta version of the service that users can opt into starting today. FriendFeed says they launched the interface in a beta format because they want to make adjustments to the interface as they receive feedback from users and plan to change the interface all together after they receive comments. FriendFeed has changed its interface and added new features previously, adding advanced search features earlier this year and creating a neat live blogging tool during the presidential campaigns last fall. Here’s a short version of the demo we saw last week. Robert Scoble has a longer version in HD as well. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Revolution Money Raises Another $42 Million For Alternative Payment Service Nobody Is Using Top
Steve Case’s startup Revolution Money announced a series C funding today of $42 million led by Goldman Sachs. Case and other existing investors (Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, former AOL vice chairman Ted Leonsis, former Charles Schwab CEO David Pottruck, and JP Morgan vie chairman David Golden). That is on top of $50 million the company raised is September, 2007. The company is using the Internet to lower the cost of credit card charges and payment transfers, charging merchants only a 0.5 percent transaction fee instead of credit card fees which can be four to eight times as high. Revolution Money has done a good job signing up banks and merchants to accept its credit card and online payment service, but it is not so clear how good a job it is doing actually signing up customers. In tandem to its regular credit card, it also operates Revolution MoneyExchange , an online payment processing service that is trying to compete with Paypal. MoneyExchange is basically a loss leader to get people to sign up for the credit card. The problem is that nobody is really using MoneyExhange. Only 33,000 people in the U.S. even visited the site in February, down from a marketing-fueled high of 742,000 a year before in March, 2008, according to comScore. Hopefully, it’s found another way to sign up customers, and I’m not talking about Washington Capitols hockey fans (Leonsis owns the hockey team and is trying to get fans to pay for tickets with Revolution Money credit cards). The company must be signing up tons of new cardholders through more traditional marketing techniques. Right? I have an e-mail into Revolution Money asking for more details. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Amazon No Longer Allows Associates To Bring In Traffic Via Paid Search Top
Amazon has decided to make some changes to its Associates program, no longer allowing third parties to bid on keywords that would send visitors straight to Amazon websites where they’d earn a referral fee for each purchase. The change only applies to the Associates programs in North America, and the company is referring Associates based outside the U.S. and Canada to check their respective terms and conditions agreements. As of May 1, 2009, Associates will not be paid referral fees for paid search traffic. Also, in connection with this change, as of May 1, 2009, Amazon will no longer make data feeds available to Associates for the purpose of sending users to the Amazon websites in the US or Canada via paid search. Amazon is not very communicative about the reasoning behind the decision, and the FAQ on its website only cites that it is based on ‘their review of how they invest their advertising resources’. I concur with blogger Gee that paying out these referral fees is probably costing Amazon a lot of money, which is not necessarily a reason to block Associates from using paid search as a way to bring in traffic in normal times, but likely hurts the bottom line in the economic turmoil we’re in now too much to justify continuing to allow it. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Only The Beginning Top
On Friday the FriendFeed founders Bret Taylor and Paul Buchheit debuted a radical redesign of the product for about 15 journalists, technologists, and Robert Scoble. We were asked not to discuss the details until Monday morning. I've been playing with the beta for the last few hours and have already come to several conclusions about what this means for the social media community and by extension enterprise computing. First, the disruption occurring around the realtime universal message bus invented by Twitter has now spread much more widely than commonly anticipated. Twitter's breakout in the mainstream media hints at the speed with which this technology is moving, as does Dave WIner's fascination with harnessing Twitter while at the same time questioning the validity of a single commercial company's dominance of the space. Some analysts have suggested that Twitter has moved past and consumed RSS at the center of the information machine. As newspapers and other print vehicles appear to collapse, the common concerns expressed about the permanent loss and funding of the fourth estate ignore the rise of a superclass of information creation. What some call the fallow ego-driven spew of the Warholian elites is more likely to be seen in the rear view mirror as something more akin to body painting and ultimately jazz. Without directly violating the embargo, what FriendFeed 2.0 suggests is the capture of the sense of the moment. Like a Kennedy press conference or the incredible rhythm trills of Lennon on the roof in Get Back, we're seeing something electric and tangible appearing out of nothing. I dive in and swim in the current, swooping from swirl to eddy, then into direct communication and back to the world I've left behind for a moment. It still takes several moves to accomplish a single task, but the handwriting is on the wall and the time is near when we can pick up where we left off months ago.
 
Glam Media Lands A $10 Million Round, Its Fifth in 5 Years Top
Distributed media network Glam Media has raised $10 million more, this time specifically for its Japanese and German operations, reports PaidContent . The fifth round of funding in as many years of existence comes from Japanese VC Mizuho Venture Capital and several local advertising / media companies, but also includes a separate investment round for its German joint-venture from partner Hubert Burda Media. The total amount of capital invested in the company so far now exceeds a whopping $125 million. Not that Glam isn’t putting their funding to good use. In 2008, the company made a couple of strategic acquisitions and keeps on displaying a clear focus on international growth, while at the same time launching interesting side projects like Tinker . Late last year, we reported that Glam Media was slowing down payments to its publishers as well as making significant pay cuts although it self-reported its Q4 to have been ’surprisingly strong’. One month later, ComScore data showed Glam Media was one of the fastest growing websites in the US. It was also the ninth largest publisher of display ads, serving up an estimated 2.1 billion ad impressions per month. It will be interesting to watch how Glam performs the next few quarters. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
PragueCrunch II Is GO! Top
This Saturday marks our second annual PragueCrunch to be held at the magnificent Hergetova Cihelna (try the veal!) on April 11 at 2pm. The program will be fairly off-the-cuff this weekend and I encourage those who’d like to speak for about 5 minutes during the event to drop me a line ASAP (john@crunchgear.com). We’ll also have a job hunt portion to the event with colored name tags for networkers, job seekers, and employers. Robin Wauters will dance. If last year is any indication, you’re going to meet the cream of the Prague tech community at this event so if you’re out of work or looking for a crack COBOL programmer, you’ll be in the right place. Finally, special thanks to our amazing sponsors: Wirenode Geewa Ataxo Learn10 Kerio Dial Telecom We’ll be breaking out a post for them as we get closer to the even. Until then, if you would like to RSVP, drop us a line at john@crunchgear.com with the subject line “RSVP PRAGUE” or just hit up the Facebook Event . Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Great Visualization: Web Trends Map 4 (Final Beta) Top
This is likely going to spread like wildfire, and it isn’t even finished yet: Information Architects has released the final beta for the fourth iteration of its awesome Web Trends Map series. This is a great visualization of current Internet trends, and how companies and individuals fit into it. The picture that’s embedded above doesn’t do it justice in any way, so be sure to check out the full-sized image hosted on Flickr . Update: better yet, head over to Zoomorama . The Web Trend Map is a yearly publication by iA Inc. It maps the 333 most influential Web domains and the 111 most influential internet people onto the Tokyo Metro map. Domains are carefully selected by the iA research team through dialogue with map enthusiasts. Each domain is evaluated based on traffic, revenue, age and the company that owns it. The iA design team assigns these selected domains to individual stations on the Tokyo Metro map in ways that complement the characters of each. Oh, and in case you like it and you want to buy a printed version, they’re only making and selling 1,000 of them, so be quick. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Facebook Completes Rollout Of Haystack To Stem Losses From Massive Photo Uploads Top
One nugget of information Facebook leaked out to press last week during the Gideon Yu fiasco : the company has been EBITDA profitable for five quarters, but doesn’t expect to generate positive cash flow until 2010. Why the discrepancy? There’s only one answer to that - Facebook is paying out big dollars for something that must be depreciated over time. If they could just write off the expense in full as they paid it they’d be having much bigger losses now that matched cash flow, and they’d hit profitability sooner. But accounting rules let them pay cash now and recognize the expense later on. In early leaked projected financials, there was a $200 million difference in 2008 cash flow and EBITDA profitability (or lack thereof). What have they been buying? Stuff to serve up all these massive page views, and photos in particular. In our post last October , when Facebook was fishing for dollars in Dubai, we noted some of their expenses, including a massive ongoing outlay for NetApp storage systems that cost $2 million each: The company is likely spending well over a $1 million per month on electricity alone, say experts we've spoken with. Bandwidth is likely another $500,000 or more per month on top of that. The company has earmarked $100 million to buy 50,000 servers this year and next. And sources say they've been buying one NetApp 3070 storage system per week just to keep up with all this user generated content. At up to $2 million each, that adds up quickly - we've heard estimates that they may have spent as much as $30 million this year alone with the company. And the icing on the cake - earmark another $15 million per year in office and datacenter rent payments. As we noted in February , Facebook is the largest photo application on the web (forgetting everything else they do). More than 850 million photos uploaded to the site each month, and these things chew up bandwidth and storage like crazy. And it’s even more expensive to serve photos in poorer countries where Facebook is getting all its growth ( and little revenue ). Enter Haystack Haystack is Facebook’s way of substantially lowering the cost of storing and serving photos, and the rollout of the new internal infrastructure was recently completed . See Niall Kennedy for a technical overview of what Haystack is and why it’s so much more efficient than third party solutions they’ve used to date, as well as this 2008 presentation by Jason Sobel. What isn’t clear is if Haystack will really help Facebook control costs outside of the U.S., particularly in Asia. But it’s a step in the right direction for cost control, and is certainly being factored in Facebook’s estimates of cash flow profitability by next year. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
So Now Everything Is Google's Fault Top
A year ago British musician Billy Bragg was whining that Bebo should be paying musicians a portion of their $850 million liquidity event, arguing that “the musicians who posted their work on Bebo.com are no different from investors in a start-up enterprise…Now that the business has reaped huge benefits, surely they deserve a dividend." We dismantled his emotional rant and suggested that, actually, Bebo should be paid for all the free marketing they gave those musicians. 367 comments later, our readers were still divided between the realists and the “it’s not fair” crowd. Now he’s back again, this time targeting Google. Thank God the bloggers are here to call bullshit because the journalists, fearing their own looming unemployment, are jumping on board the idiot bandwagon. Last week Bragg pointed his anger at Google , demanding that the company play music videos on YouTube’s UK site and pay the demanded royalty (Google just took the videos down instead of paying). His argument is ridiculous - that Google should literally be forced to play music videos that it no longer wants to play, and then pay a per play fee. Really, this begging for handouts is unbecoming: Sir, We have growing concern over the use of our music on the internet and the unfair way we believe music is treated by Google and YouTube, which it owns. At the heart of the issue is Google's disagreement over the prices it should pay to PRS for Music, the not-for-profit licensing organisation. Music fans in the UK are confused and angry at Google's stance. We, as songwriters and composers of music, share those concerns. It is not in anyone's best interests to block access to music. Fans are denied enjoyment, creators aren't paid and illegal music sites benefit from the resulting displacement of web traffic. Google says it cannot operate YouTube if it has to pay a royalty — however small — every time a video containing music is played. In 2007 the UK's independent Copyright Tribunal established that a minimum royalty per play was an essential requirement in the licensing of online services. Google fails to recognize this and ascribes little value to music — in spite of a huge increase in music usage on YouTube's UK service. Royalties are a vital income source for all professional creators and must be preserved to ensure a continued vibrant music industry. We trust that Google will reinstate music on YouTube and pay a fair price for it. David Arnold, Jazzie B, Billy Bragg, Guy Chambers, Robin Gibb, Pete Waterman, Mike Chapman, Wayne Hector, Pam Sheyne, Debbie Wiseman The audacity of the letter is staggering. But The Guardian’s Henry Porter uses it as a launchpad to attack Google more generally as an “amoral menace” , adding that “Google is in the final analysis a parasite that creates nothing…” Either he refuses to understand, or just ignores, the fact that Google is the one being bullied here . The company is making a simple profit/loss decision and apparently concluded that it can’t make money on the deal being offered. To suggest that Google must accept the deal is to suggest that Google needs to subsidize the music industry simply because it is a profitable company. It’s ridiculous and only makes sense when Porter moves on his his argument to talk about newspapers, which provide his livelihood (with no discussion of the direct conflict of interest). He then spends paragraphs trying to tie Google’s success with the failure of newspapers. He never really gets there, but does say that Google is “delinquent and sociopathic” near the end, which at least keeps things interesting. Let’s all be clear here. What Porter and Bragg want is a subsidy from Google. A sort of welfare tax on a profitable company so that they can continue to draw the paychecks they’ve become accustomed to. That isn’t going to happen, and all this hand wringing isn’t helping to move their respective industries toward a successful business model. They either need to adapt or die. And they’re choosing a very noisy and annoying death. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
A Picture Is Worth A Thousands Tweets: Pixim And TweetPhoto Emerge Top
There’s been a proliferation of photo sharing apps tied to Twitter , including TwitPic, Twitxr ( review ), and Yfrog ( review ), giving users a vast amount of choice when it comes to image sharing on the popular micro-blogging service. But TwitPic seems to have emerged as the leader of the pack. The service took the top spot on our list of the most popular Twitter applications according to Compete and was in the top ten of Twitter clients according to TwitStat. Compete pegs TwitPic to have had close to 1.6 million unique visitors in February, and its traffic doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. TwitStat says TwitPic is now the sixth most popular app used by Twitter clients, rising from being the tenth most popular app when we wrote about TwitStat’s rankings in mid-February. And TwitPic was even used to break news of the plane crash on the Hudson River. Two more competitors to TwitPic have emerged. TweetPhoto and Pixim are both photo sharing applications attempting to challenge its dominance, so we took a closer look. Pixim uses OAuth to integrate with Twitter (so you don’t have to give out your username and password) and lets you adjust privacy settings on sharing pictures, tag friends in uploaded pictures, view stats on how many people and who has seen you pictures and see your friend’s pictures on the site. Pixim is similar to TwitPic in many ways but the latter incorporates a geotagging tool and mobile support, which Pixim doesn’t have on its site. While Pixim is planning to release their API soon, TwitPic has the advantage of already being built into most popular Twitter clients, and users who are interested in photo sharing have a familiarity with TwitPic. TweetPhoto, who plans to launch later this month, also lets you use OAuth to integrate your Twitter account. You are then able to send pics through your mobile phone or upload pics via the site. Like TwitPic, TweetPhoto lets users comment on pictures on-site and tag photos. TweetPhoto will also feature integration with Facebook Connect, which is pretty cool, and something both TwitPic and Pixim lack. Like Pixim, TweetPhoto plans to release its own API, but might confront the same issue with TwitPic’s dominance. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Chinese Social Networks 'Virtually' Out-Earn Facebook And MySpace: A Market Analysis Top
Editor’s Note: Social networks are taking off in China. The following guest post by George Godula. David Li, and Richard Yu explores how Chinese social networks are pursuing different business models than their American counterparts, relying more on micropayments and the sale of virtual goods. George Godula is the co-founder of Web2Asia , an East Asian incubator and also a consultancy for Western startups trying to enter markets in China, Japan and Korea. David Li is a developer of social networking applications such as Growing Gifts, and he also was the developer of OnChat, an early in-browser graphical avatar chat system. Richard Yu is a Seattle native living in China, where he consults for Shanghai-based web startups while writing his blog . Despite China's massively growing internet market, international giants like Google and Facebook are having trouble making gains with the 300 million Chinese online users. China's netizens are on average very young – 66.7 % of them are younger than 29 years old and 35.2 % of them are teenagers—with social networking and entertainment applications being the most popular. While companies like Facebook struggle to conquer market share in China and to create viable business models everywhere, their Chinese clones have built lucrative cash machines literally earning billions of dollars a year. Unfortunately, adopting Chinese methods may not help American social networks due both to cultural differences in Chinese user behavior and industry practices. Below is our analysis of the Chinese social networking scene. Chinese Social Networking is Dominated by Local Players Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) have long played the dominating role in Chinese Internet life and still continue to be one of the most popular online platforms for social interaction. Registered user accounts, which are mostly anonymous, surpass 3 billion (users have multiple accounts) and 80% of Chinese sites run their own BBS. However in the last year social networking services, most of which require real name registrations, have shown explosive growth in China with 19.3% of netizens using them regularly. Despite the popularity of social networking in China, the social networking market is dominated by local Chinese players, and Western networks have trouble adapting to Chinese culture and user expectations. Facebook does not rank among the top 15 asocial networks in China while MySpace has only 6 million users (vs. the goal of 50 million users after 2 years initially proclaimed by Rupert Murdoch). Meanwhile, China's leading social network Qzone , which is targeted at teenagers, may even be the largest in the world . Tencent, Inc. , the company that runs Qzone, recently announced group revenues of over $1 billion in 2008. As ad sales slump in the recession, only approximately 12% of Qzone's revenue stems from online advertising with the rest coming from virtual item sales such as applications and avatars. Internet ad spending in China is expected to reach $1.7 billion in 2009, which is about 4% of total ad spend. In comparison, the US is estimated to spend $25.7 billion reaching consumers online through advertising. These comparably low online budgets in China are largely spent at four large news portals, which earn the majority of online ad revenue. This forces most "smaller" portals to find more innovative ways to monetize their traffic. 51.com , which targets working class adults from rural parts of China, is the second most popular social network in China with 130 million registered users. Concurrently, Chinese students flock to Xiaonei with approx. 40 million users. It is backed up with $430 million in funding from its parent company Oak Pacific Interactive and investors like Softbank. Kaixin001 , which skyrocketed out of nowhere to 30 million registered users from the middle of last year, targets white collar workers in China’s largest cities by employing controversial invitation techniques and copying apps directly from Facebook. Yet the astronomical growth of China's social networks can be attributed as much to its massive market size as to its cultural norms and values. Social networking apps can hit hyper-viral levels in China due to a higher tolerance of intrusive app invitations. It is not uncommon for apps to essentially force new users to invite people and perform tasks before being able to join their friends online. Once friends have joined they are required to interact much more with the apps and advertisements than on Western applications. While this model is not replicable for the US market, certain aspects of this strategy/cultural mindset are necessary if companies like Facebook or Myspace want to compete in China. Open Social Networks are Not So Open in China In the middle of 2008, Myspace was the only social network to support OpenSocial in China. Despite Google’s effort, the adoption of OpenSocial was slow among the major social networks. Eventually, other platforms caved into the partnership with Google and gave half-hearted support to OpenSocial. Apart from some of the large social networks mentioned previously this included City!N, Yiqi.com as well as the business network Tianji and BBS Tianya. Other social networks such as Douban, Hainei or news portal Sohu had originally announced to join OpenSocial but then never implemented it, choosing an F8 style API instead. Today, only one of the top 50 apps in China’s social networks runs on OpenSocial despite the hard work put in by the Google team in China. When Xiaonei and 51.com at first opened their own platforms, their terms of services outraged the developer community with clauses that practically blocked all monetization opportunities and a shared user base with their own websites. The developers launched several public protests against the social networks including the website www.anti-opensocial.com to rebel against hypocritical support for these “fake open” platforms. The executives from these social networks did respond quickly to the developers demands and changed the terms of service to more reasonable terms, allowing limited monetization opportunities for the developers. Unfortunately, most social networks continue to ignore "Open Social" practices, opting for the more familiar "Guanxi paradigm" in business practices with third parties. The term ”Guānxi” describes the basic dynamic of gaining influence and receiving favors within social relationships, and is a central concept in Chinese society. For social networks, this means that rather than developing an open ecosystem, they focus on dealing with third parties individually and face to face. New Open Social Networking platforms (or better put, "selectively opened") such as Yahoo’s Guanxi , Tencent's Xiaoyou and Tianya court established third party app developers like Five Minutes while largely ignoring the wider developer community. Additionally, ad sales are also strictly controlled by the social networks themselves even though 51.com set a threshold of a $35k fee to be paid for app developers to operate their own ad revenue -based applications (which until now no developer was willing to pay). Keso , China's most widely read tech blogger, who we asked to contribute to this article through China's online expert panel BloggerInsight , summed up the situation by saying "Despite an open platform strategy, Chinese SNS are still competing with each other on the application level". Imitation of Facebook was only a Launching Point Chinese sites are notorious for their C2C strategy, or “Copy to China”. This applies to the app market in the same way as it did to the social networks and all other Web 2.0 and eCommerce services. A year after Facebook introduced the F8 open platform, Xiaonei.com followed suit and announced its open platform in July 2008. The developer group xCube on Xiaonei attracted individuals and companies interested in third-party apps. Yet Chinese outsourcing developers such as Apptz and Ismole armed with experience working on Facebook applications made significant inroads by launching several apps and attracting millions of users in just a few short months. At about the same time, the apps space also felt the power of C2C with copies of popular apps on Facebook such as “Friends for Sale” and “Parking War” popping up on just about every social network in China. Other leading social networks such as 51.com and Comsenz!'s Ucenter Home (similar to Ning.com) launched their own open platform soon after Xiaonei’s effort. Chinas 51.com first social network in the world to open up payment API While Chinese social networks started out as mere clones of existing sites, they've managed to innovate the business models to create a very lucrative market by cementing the relationship between application developers and the site's user base. Happy Farm, the most popular app in China reportedly collects well over $75k a month through installations on various platforms, and according to Chinese application tracker, Appleap , the value of the total social network’s apps install base is approx. $4.5 million. Opening up the payment system was one of the most anticipated announcements from Facebook’s developer conference F8 2008 but the company failed to create an integrated ecosystem for users to buy and sell apps. China’s socail networks took the great leap forward in this area when 51.com became the first social network in the world opening up its payment system to third party developers in 2008. Users pay money to 51.com and receive virtual coins which they can then again spend on third party applications. The revenue is split 50/50 between the social network and the developer. Facebook on the other hand currently does not offer developers access to its payment system. If a third party application redirects Facebook users to their own website and payment processor, they usually lose the advantage of Facebook's trusted brand name and the majority of potential revenues. At the same time, companies like Becomedia are cooperating with 51.com to bring OfferPal-style cost-per-click/cost-per-action (CPS/CPA) for virtual currency models to China. CPS/CPA is one of the fastest growing sectors of Internet ads in China. This means revenues for the developers by trading their virtual currency for hard cash. Season Xu from Five Minutes, the maker of China's most popular app, confirmed the three basic revenue models for apps in China: shared ad revenues, income through virtual currencies, and customized development for branded applications. However he and Herock , a leading figure in the Chinese tech blogosphere whom we also spoke to, expect a consolidation in the app development market soon with larger companies taking over and benefiting from effects of scale, rather than individual developers still being able to produce top apps. What can Facebook and Western social networks learn, if anything? If monetizing a social network is so easy, then why hasn't Facebook opened up its payment API to third party developers? While the aggressive and intrusive hyper-viral aspects of the apps in China may not be replicable in a Western Market, the problems for creating a more viable business model run deeper. Western companies cannot innovate in the same way due to institutional problems stemming from their own struggle for an identity and revenue. Facebook has just recently announced a "credits" system , but it seems to miss the mark. The new system demonstrates little incentive for users to shell over money, and does not speak to the same need as paying for a social application that all your friends are already on and talking about. Facebook may be afraid to become a marketplace for applications, because they are reluctant to be labeled as a social gaming network or a social app store. Instead, they are a self-styled guru of dynamic human interaction. If they opened up their platform to become an apps store, their major revenue streams would put them into a pigeonhole, calling their $15 billion valuation into question. They obviously don't want to be labeled as a "gaming platform" either, and don’t want to fully depend on selling digital trinkets. Like during the American gold rush in 1849, where Chinese merchants prospered while most prospectors went bust in search of striking gold, it appears that building viable, scalable businesses for Social Networking sites may still be an ancient Chinese secret for Westerners. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
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 : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
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 : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
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 : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 

CREATE MORE ALERTS:

Auctions - Find out when new auctions are posted

Horoscopes - Receive your daily horoscope

Music - Get the newest Album Releases, Playlists and more

News - Only the news you want, delivered!

Stocks - Stay connected to the market with price quotes and more

Weather - Get today's weather conditions




You received this email because you subscribed to Yahoo! Alerts. Use this link to unsubscribe from this alert. To change your communications preferences for other Yahoo! business lines, please visit your Marketing Preferences. To learn more about Yahoo!'s use of personal information, including the use of web beacons in HTML-based email, please read our Privacy Policy. Yahoo! is located at 701 First Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA 94089.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)