Tuesday, April 21, 2009

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Should Ad Networks Pay Publishers For Stolen Content? The Fair Syndication Consortium Thinks So. Top
As newspapers and other publishers watch their revenues diminish, one common refrain among them is that maybe they should somehow go after Google or Yahoo for aiding and abetting the destruction of their businesses and sometimes the wholesale theft of their content. We’ve seen how the Associated Press wants to handle this: by aggressively going after anyone who even borrows a headline. Today, a consortium of other publishers including Reuters, the Magazine Publishers of America, and Politico are taking a more measured approach, but one which will no doubt still be controversial. They are forming the Fair Syndication Consortium , which is the brainchild of Attributor, the startup which tracks the reuse of text and images across the Web for many of these same publishers. The Fair Syndication Consortium is initially trying to address a legitimate problem on the Web: the proliferation of splogs (spam blogs) and other sites which do nothing more than republish the entire feed of news sites and blogs, often without attribution or links. There are tens of thousands of these sites, perhaps more. Rather than go after these sites one at a time, the Fair Syndication Consortium wants to negotiate directly with the ad networks which serve ads on these sites: DoubleClick, Google’s AdSense, and Yahoo primarily. For any post or page which takes a full copy of a publisher’s work, the Fair Syndication Consortium thinks the ad networks should pay a portion of the ad revenues being generated by those sites. I know a little bit about this because in January I was invited to a meeting at the A.P.’s headquarters with about two dozen other publishers, most of them from the print world, to discuss the formation of the consortium. TechCrunch has not joined at this time. Ironically, neither has the A.P., which has apparently decided to go its own way and fight the encroachments of the Web more aggressively (although, to my knowledge, it still uses Attributor’s technology). But at that meeting, which was organized by Attributor, a couple slides were shown that really brought home the point to everyone in the room. One showed a series of bar graphs estimating how much ad revenues splogs were making simply from the feeds of everyone in the room. (Note that this was just for sites taking extensive copies of articles, not simply quoting). The numbers ranged from $13 million (assuming a $.25 effective CPM) to $51 million (assuming a $1.00 eCPM). Then they put up a slide with a pie chart showing which ad networks were serving ads on all of the abusive sites. It turns out a full 94 percent of the sites in question were serving ads from three ad networks: DoubleClick (45 percent), Google AdSense (24 percent), and Yahoo (24 percent). Go after those three ad networks, and the majority of the problem could be solved. There is certainly precedent for this type of approach. Look at YouTube’s Content ID program, which splits revenues between YouTube and the media companies whose videos are being reused online. Except this proposal would take money that would otherwise be distributed to the splog sites themselves, and give a portion of it to the publisher as an automatic syndication fee without the consent of the site owner. How would the ad networks know that the content in question belongs to the publisher? Attributor would keep track of it all and manage the requests for payment. The consortium is open to any publisher to join, including bloggers. (Attributor runs a free version of its service called FairShare to give publishers a sense of how much of their stuff is being copied without attribution). It is certainly better than sending out thousands of takedown notices, but many issues still need to be worked out. I’ve seen some of the data for TechCrunch, and there is no doubt that Attributor catches a lot of abuse, not fair use. But some of the sites that fall within Attributors net might still fall within fair use. For instance, I can imagine, a short post two or three paragraphs long being copied in its entirety and being surrounded by commentary. Also, I am not sure that demanding payment is the way to go. For the most part, a link and attribution is good enough for us. But if the Fair Syndication consortium gets the ad networks on board and they take a conservative approach to asserting copyright, we might take another look. What do you think, should we join? Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Go To Google Similar Images, Hit "Similar," Find Live Search Top
Yesterday, Google unveiled its new Google Similar Images search feature under Google Labs. The product is nice, and works very well . But, Microsoft was doing the same thing with Live Search — over 4 months ago. A lot of commenters pointed it out to us yesterday, and naturally, Microsoft reached out today to let us know the same thing with what might as well have been a big, loud “FIRST!” But it’s true, Microsoft rolled out the feature on December 1 of last year. So how does it stack up? I ran the same test I did yesterday with Google Similar Images, a query for “Apple.” Perhaps that’s a bit unfair to Microsoft since that is a chief rival, but the results were solid. The silver Apple logo similar image search returned silver apples across the board. The colorful Apple similar image search was a little more uneven than Google’s results, but that’s just being kind of picky. The apple fruit similar image search worked well, just as Google’s did. I took the test of Microsoft’s tool a bit farther and did a search for “ Daniel Day-Lewis ,” my favorite actor. I wanted to find a picture of him as Bill the Butcher from Gangs of New York in particular. I found one, hit the similar images link, and aside from one odd picture of Penelope Cruz (which I can certainly forgive) and a few of Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood (where he has a similar look), got some good results. So yes, Microsoft, which gets a lot of flack for borrowing features from rivals, appears to have had one of its own borrowed from Google here. Of course others in the search space, such as like.com , have been doing this for a while. “Imitation is the greatest form of flattery and all that,” quipped a Microsoft spokesperson. Indeed. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Windows Live To Add More Social Network Partners (Digg, MySpace, Facebook, Last.fm And More) Top
Microsoft’s social networking strategy around Windows Live gets a little more meat on the bone today. In November they announced a new strategy that brings in activity streams , FriendFeed/Plaxo style, into a Windows Live home page. The goal is to give users a view of what their friends are up to on various social networks around the Internet. A list of the current partners is in the image below. Today Microsoft will announce a number of new data partners, including Facebook, Digg, Last.fm, SmugMug, TypePad and Yandex. This is, apparently, the first time Facebook feeds can be pulled into a third party service (we talked about this last month ). The full list of new partners is below. Also, Microsoft has made some headway on their Contact Interchange product that pulls in friend data from various social networks (we questioned whether it violated the Facebook terms of use last year). Today Microsoft will announce the addition of MySpace, Hi5 and Tagged to the product, joining Facebook and LinkedIn. This is a two way relationship that allows users to pull their Windows Live contacts into those services as well. The full list of new partners: MSN: Microsoft Network Arto (Freeway): Denmark Bilddagboken.se: Sweden Dada: Italy Dailymotion: France Digg: USA FaceBook: USA Fotolog: France Hevre: Italy Hyves: Netherlands Last.fm: UK Live Journal: Russia MClub (GMedia): China Metroflog: Argentina Overblog: France SmugMug: USA TypePad (SixApart): USA Yandex: Russia zoo.gr: Greece Current Partners: More screenshots: Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
SF Mayor Gavin Newsom Tweets His Way Into The Race For California Governor Top
Remember when the hippest way to blaze onto the campaign trail was an appearance on The Daily Show? No more. This morning San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom announced his bid for California Governor via Twitter , instantly sending his new campaign video (embedded below) to his 270,000 followers. No doubt inspired by President Obama’s successful campaign over the last two years, Newsom is looking to social media to help connect with voters. Alongside this morning’s Tweet, Newsom also sent out a message to his 37,000 Facebook fans . I suspect Newsom will be able to strike the same chords with an online campaign as President Obama did - he’s relatively young and a Democrat, with an online presence that’s already quite well established. Now the question is whether his opponents will be able to effectively use the same tools without ringing hollow. Among Newsom’s opponents in the race for the 2010 election is former eBay CEO Meg Whitman , who only has 2,100 supporters on Facebook and a measly 850 Twitter followers . Via Laughing Squid Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Verizon Opens Their Catalog To User Reviews, Probably A Bad Move Top
This ought to be interesting. Apparently never having felt the wrath of a dissatisfied buyer with access to the internet, someone over at Verizon has just decided to enable users to leave public reviews on any phone in their catalog. Users can rate their handsets on a scale of 1-5 for ease of use, display, features, and battery life, then manually add their own pros, cons, and comments. Openness is good. Helping people make educated purchases is good. But this just seems like a bad move. If I’ve learned anything from gallivanting around the internets in search of cell phone knowledge, it’s this: the majority of people taking the time to talk about their phones hate them. Now, that’s not saying that most people hate their phones - just those willing to take 20 minutes to throw down 300 words about a handset on a forum. It’s good ol’ Silent Majority/Loud Minority - though the vast majority of consumers can be neutral or positive on a product, a quick glance around the internet will make it seem like everyone despises it. This tends to be less of a problem on e-commerce resale sites, especially those which see lots of return buyers. Sites like Amazon have built entire communities out of the reviewing process, thus enticing folks to return and leave reviews for all products they buy - not just the ones they hate. People connect with the process and leave reviews both good and bad, and others seem to follow by example. With Verizon, it’s a whole different story. With 2-year contracts as a part of nearly every phone sale, the volume of return sales just isn’t that high. In 10 years, the average soccer mom might buy/trade up through 5-6 phones. That’s 5-6 opportunities to review, across a decade. Are they going to connect with the review process and tell of the good times they’ve had with the handset? Or will the only ones who bother be those looking to unleash their buyers remorse and all of their pent up frustration from spending hours dealing with customer service? Verizon has put up a safety buffer: they’re manually approving reviews, which may take up to 2 days. But what’s the criteria? Are they simply filtering out the messy, profane garbage, or will they nix reviews they feel are being too harsh? The masses (read: angry consumers on social sites) wouldn’t respond too kindly to the latter. What do you think - a good move toward openness, or a good way to doom handset sales? [via PhoneArena ] Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
4Chan Takes Over The Time 100 Top
Look closely at Time magazine’s online voting results so far for the Time 100 and you will see at the top someone called moot (aka 21-year-old Christopher Poole ), the founder of 4chan , the notorious online bulletin board where hackers like to hang out. Not only did moot’s followers manage to get his name to the top of the Time 100 reader’s list, they also manipulated the next 20 spots. If you take the first letter of each name, it spells out the cryptic message, “Marblecake, also the game.” (See image below). It turns out the results were hacked with an auto-voting program spread on 4chan. (For details of the hack, read this post ). What does it mean? Marblecake is a sophomoric sexual reference , which is in keeping with the spirit of 4chan, which also claims to be where Rickrolling and Lolcats got their start. As for the Time 100, the people have spoken. At least the people who hang out on 4chan. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
New York Times Sees Intensifying Advertiser Pullback In First Quarter Top
The advertising outlook for newspapers is going from awful to horrendous. The New York Times announced first quarter earnings today, revealing that total advertising revenues for its news media group (which includes the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and other regional newspapers) declined 28.4 percent, versus an 18.4 percent decline last quarter . So the rate of decline for is intensifying Internet advertising revenues declined 6.1 percent to $67.6 million, compared to a 3.5 percent decline last quarter. The advertising situation at About.com is more “anemic” than at NYTimes.com, although cost-per-click rates at About.com seem to be holding up. Total advertising revenues were $335 million in the quarter and all revenues, including circulation, were $609 million. The company as a whole posted a net loss of $74.2 million. In other words, the New York Times lost more money across the board than it made from Internet advertising. The newspaper has been trimming staff , cutting costs, and selling assets to meet its financial obligations. CEO Janet Robinson expects advertising revenues to decline in the second quarter at a rate “similar to that of the first.” But from her talks with advertisers she gets the sense that they are “saving dollars in the first half” of the year to possible spend more in the second half, if they can. (In other words, they are holding back and taking a wait-and-see approach, which is smart in this economy). During the conference call, she also noted that the company is exploring new ways to generate online revenues beyond advertising, but cautioned that the new revenue models would have to be additive “without affecting the display advertising business.” She didn’t specify where those alternative revenues would come from, whether from some new micropayment scheme or somewhere else. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Would You Like To Send Your Friends Some Ads? SocialTwist Sure Hopes So. Top
Later today at the ad:tech event in San Francisco, SocialTwist / Tell-a-Friend will be debuting a new type of social ad unit, which it claims is the first ‘word-of-mouth widget for ads’, in private beta. We covered the company’s forray into the content sharing widget space in September 2008, and indicated at the time that the startup was thinking of clever ways to monetize the service by working closely with advertisers. Since then Sunnyvale, CA-based Pramati Technologies , the company behind SocialTwist, claims to have grown its customer list from 0 to 35,000+ advertisers from across the globe, including some heavyweights like P&G, Intel and Greenpeace. It’s been working to translate the service into a multitude of European languages and served up to half a billion word of mouth marketing and advertising widgets in the last 4 months alone. And now the company is introducing advertising widgets - dubbed TAF4 Ads - that come with the ability for visitors to share the ads with their friends by e-mailing them a template e-mail and link to a destination chosen by the advertiser. The widget makes a clickable Tell-a-Friend link appear at the top right of an ad unit, which pops up a box where surfers get to e-mail a template message along with the original ad and a link to the website where the ad originally appeared to their Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo Mail contacts, or alternatively send it out to a specific e-mail address. To see it in action, go to this demo page and click the ‘Tell-a-Friend’ link in the top right ad unit. The rest is fairly straightforward. Maybe it’s just me, but I can’t for the life of me imagine this gaining a lot of traction among web users. How many times have you seriously enjoyed an online ad so much you were dying to e-mail the experience to all your friends and relatives? Call me old-fashioned, but I thought word-of-mouth revolved around recommending products and brands, not advertising units that promote them. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Advertising Everywhere: innerActive to Power ICQ's Free Mobile Content Top
Israeli startup innerActive has been chosen by ICQ to power the service’s offering of free mobile content to its worldwide users, now amounting to 42 million. The content—videos, games and applications—will be subsidized using innerActive’s in-content ad injection technology. Over the past year and a half, innerActive has been busy carving out a name for itself as a company aggressively pushing its monetization offering to mobile carriers and portals in Europe. The company’s core technology is the ability to dynamically inject advertising into mobile games, applications and video—content which has strong user engagement, but has yet to live up to its revenue generating potential (at least in the amounts players in the mobile industry hope for). The company has strategically chosen to stay clear of any attempt to monetize the mobile Web and focuses specifically on the monetization of content. innerActive describes its solution as an “Ad-funded AppStore,” a sort of agnostic platform for mobile operators that provides everything from the hosting and delivery of the content, to the campaign management and media planning, to the actual ad serving. The company also works directly with content publishers to create an ad-funded catalog. Co-CEO Offer Yehudai explained to me that it was this end-to-end solution that was key in having ICQ select its solution over alternatives. Under the terms of the deal, both innerActive and ICQ can sell ad space and there’s a flexible rev-share model to support such an arrangement. The content requires a certain amount of prep work in order to be “innerActive ready”. An SDK is available to publishers, allowing them to tag areas inside their content for ad injection (view the video embedded below to see a typical end result—billboards in a game with real, clickable ads). The SDK supports all mobile OS’s and does not require any porting—”hundreds of handsets” are supported. Ads can be configured for click-to-WAP, calling, coupons, polling and the download of content ICQ will make all this free content available to its community from its mobile client, from a soon to be launched ‘ICQ Mobile Portal’, and through the desktop application. The latter will require the entering of a mobile number and then receiving a free SMS with a link to download the content. No client will be required to be installed on the handset. All-in-all this sounds like good news for ICQ’s users. The big question of course is whether offering ad-supported mobile content is a financially viable model. I guess we’ll find out soon enough because if innerActive can deliver CTR’s of up to 15% (as they claim), advertisers will be knocking on their door in droves and users will benefit from a growing selection of free content. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Ages After Yahoo And Google, Microsoft Finally Enables Web-Based IM In Hotmail Top
We’ll say it right off the bat: what the hell took Microsoft so long? Years after Yahoo and Google integrated web IM features into their free webmail services (Yahoo Messenger in Yahoo Mail and Gtalk in Gmail, respectively), Redmond is finally enabling users to log into their Hotmail accounts and converse with their contacts over instant messaging directly without the need to log on to Windows Live Messenger separately, or to even have the program installed altogether. The new feature will be gradually rolled out, starting from today enabling subsets of users in Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and USA to send instant messages from the Windows Live Hotmail and People pages. The feature earlier rolled out to some users users in France, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Spain, and the UK. I’ve said this before: easily dismissed by geeks and savvy web users, Hotmail has a gigantic mainstream userbase who are not likely going to switch to an alternative webmail service en masse provided Microsoft keeps up with the times and lets Hotmail evolve the way its users are increasingly demanding it to. But make no mistake about it: Microsoft is ridicously late with adding this functionality to Hotmail. Your thoughts? Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Micro-Consolidation: PlaySpan Buys Spare Change Top
The micro-industry forming around micro-transactions is now going through some micro-consolidation. PlaySpan , which is quickly racking up micro-payments across hundreds of video games and virtual worlds, is acquiring Spare Change Payments , a startup which focuses on micro-transactions for social networking apps. The value of the cash-and-stock deal was not disclosed. PlaySpan raised $16.8 million in a series B funding just last February from Easton Capital Group, Menlo Ventures, Novel TMT Ventures, and STIC. The startup was famously founded by a 12-year-old , Arjun Mehta, but it is really run by his father, CEO and co-founder Karl Mehta. The company has processed more than $50 million worth of micro-transactions through its PayByCash and Ultimate Game Card products. While its focus so far has been games and virtual worlds, it recently began making its own forays into social networks with a deal to p ower some micropayments on hi5. But Spare Change already has more momentum on social networks. It powers micropayments across 700 social networking apps on Facebook, MySpace, and Bebo, and is on its way to processing $30 million worth of transactions this year. As the social networks and online games collide, and developers seek new ways to make money other than advertising, micropayments will continue to grow. Like any payments business, even micro-transactions are all about scale. The bigger PlaySpan can get before the giants finally wake up and enter the market seriously, the better chance it has to becoming the PayPal of micropayments. Of course, PayPal, Facebook and MySpace all have their own plans to become the PayPal of micropayments. And plenty of other startups, from Zuora to Zong , are vying for the title as well. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Mobile Site Developer MoFuse Rolls Out Premium Service (Discount Code) Top
MoFuse, a service that will take your website and instantly create a mobile version of it, is launching a premium version of its mobile website development service for the enterprise space. MoFuse’s existing platform, which spares websites the development costs of formatting the site by hand, creates customized iPhone versions of sites in addition to the standard versions for basic mobile browsers. MoFuse is offering TechCrunch readers 50% off any premium plan for Website owners who use the promotional code “TechCrunch” when signing up before May 1. MoFuse Premium for Business is a completely separate platform from the site’s original service, which will remain intact and will be known as MoFuse for Blogs. The premium service creates higher quality mobile sites for businesses with more features, including the ability to nest topics in the site with drag and drop technology, search functionality, Google Maps integration, color customization, a local weather app, and more. The pricing for the premium site development starts with the “Basic” plan, which is $39 per month with a 50,000 page view limit for one site; “Small Business,” which is $89 per month, creates 3 sites with a limit of 125,000 page views per site; and “Ultimate,” which is $199 per month, creates up to 10 sites with a limit of 1 million page views per site. Founded in 2007, MoFuse has become popular with publishers—the service has helped nearly 25,000 organizations create mobile websites. Several of our colleague publications in tech news use MoFuse for their mobile sites including GigaOm and ReadWriteWeb. In addition to converting a web site for mobile consumption, Mofuse also allows publishers to monetize their mobile websites via revenue shares with Google AdSense and AdMob. Jag.ag also provides a simple service to help less tech-savvy consumers create their own mobile presence in a few minutes but doesn’t offer some of the same premium features yet. Zinadoo and Wirenode also provide similar services. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Lure In Users With Your Trackle Box Top
Content on the web is constantly changing and while you can track changes in information manually, it’s often a time-consuming process to monitor the things you care about. Trackle, a personalized web and RSS feed tracker we wrote about earlier this year, is launching a “Trackle It” button that can be added to any site to help users track information instantly while surfing the web. Trackle.com’s free web service provides real-time personalized RSS feeds for data such as the latest crime in a user's neighborhood, fluctuating airline ticket prices, how much a user's house value is down this week, updated job listings, sports scores and more. Now with the introduction of the Trackle button, the tracking service wants to let sites provide instant tracking options directly to consumers and hopes to allow users to “Trackle” an item or feed from anywhere on the web. The button allows users to automatically sign up to receive notifications about personalized information, such as price drops, new content, messages about products, etc. via email or SMS directly from the site (instead of tracking the item from Trackle’s website, with the Trackle button, the consumer doesn’t have to be signed up to be a user on Trackle’s site). Trackle’s co-founder Pavan Nigam says that the Trackle button, which is sold to sites on a pay-per-action basis, can be incorporated into a site within an hour, using Trackle’s self serve API. He says that the button helps online marketers reach their audience with customized alerts that give users of a site a reason to return. The Trackle feature can be used to generate statistics about what’s most interesting to users. Currently, Trackle has several sites which are testing the beta version of this feature, including EveryTrail.com, Eurekaspot.com and KLDSoccer.com. Trackle is also offering sites the option of using a Trackle widget, instead of the integration of a Trackle button. The Trackle widget is similar to the button feature and allows users to track any updated information, changes or fluctuations of any item on a site in a widget form. Site owners can choose from over 100 of Trackle's tracking widgets, ranging from "Local Crime" and "Health" to “Weather.” For example, a ski-website might offer the "Trackle weather" widget to allow its readers to track local snow conditions. Widgets are continually updated and are ad-free. Trackle is also trying to integrate social media into its tracking service by launching a Trackle Facebook app. The app, which currently can only track sports scores and events, allows you to create a “tracklet” for a team or type of event to be tracked, and then sends you feeds alerts to you within the application. The alerts also go into your News Feed and your friends can see and comment on your Trackle updates. Trackle says it also plans to develop a MySpace app. As we noted in our original review of Trackle, the breadth and specificity of Trackle's information is what differentiates the site from other RSS and product tracking applications like Google Alerts, Yotify and Notify.me (which also allows sites to embed a “notify” widget to track items). The introduction of the “Trackle” button is a useful idea, but in order for it to be widely adopted by a variety of users, it needs to be more viral. The “Trackle” button needs to be an option on eBay, or Kayak or Craigslist for it to become truly useful, which is an ambitious task. The integration with Facebook is definitely key and Trackle says that the site will also integrate with Twitter and other social media sites in the future. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
IRLConnect puts Twitter and Facebook on a map with live video Top
IRLConnect (as in, ‘in real life connect’) is one of those new social-networks-meets-maps startups, but what sets them apart is some pretty cool integration, a focus on live video and a tantalizing business model based on owning the virtual equivalent of real estate. Today they launch into a public beta after being invite-only since September last year. The site is bringing together mobile devices and multiple social networks, including Twitter and Facebook, into a very visual platform. As well as integrating YouTube video onto their Google map, they’re pulling in partners including pictures from Mobypicture and live video from Bambuser . It will also pull in geotagged content from YouTube and news alerts from media such as CNN and Reuters. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Amazon Wants To Bully Amazee Into Changing Its Name Top
Online retail juggernaut Amazon isn’t too pleased with the name Swiss startup Amazee picked for its social collaboration service, and is now trying to persuade the young company to change it to something else. This has apparently been going on for a couple of months, but now Amazee is stepping up and throwing some good old fighting words out there, claiming ‘peaceful and cooperative efforts to reach an amicable solution’ have led to nothing. Amazon claims consumers could be confused by the similarity of the two names and wrongfully assume there’s some sort of affiliation. Amazee, on the other hand, claims the name is derived from the word ‘amazing’ (sounds plausible) and alleges that there’s no chance for confusion. The startup launched a new project on its own service, and this is an excerpt of the description: Their IP department says: “… the mark AMAZEE is not a natural derivative of "amazing". Amazee is a coined term where the dominant portion of the mark brings to mind Amazon, not "amazing".” Hm. The brand name Amazon is better known than the english word amazing? Well, at least they show great enthusiasm for their company. At this point, it looks like Amazon attorneys representing their Luxembourg subsidiary are demanding the deletion of Amazee in the Swiss trademark register ( after waiting for the opposition period to expire) while their US attorneys have filed an appeal against the registration of Amazee in the US. Amazee, which we likened to a ‘Facebook meets Basecamp for activists’ when it launched, is now calling its users and fans to speak up in favor of the service on the project, and they’re trying to get some publicity out of it in a humorous way: if you join to support the submitted project, you have a shot at winning a 100$ Amazon gift certificate. Personally, I’m pleased to see the young company takes a stance against Amazon, even if they’re clearly now trying to turn the situation into a promotional vehicle. Having taken a good look at Amazee’s size and scope, its logo, the believable explanation of how they came up with the name and particularly its current activities and future plans, I think Amazon is looking ridiculous going after them. (Via BloggingTom - in German) Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Live Video From London - TechCrunch Geek'n Rolla Top
Here you’ll find the live video stream from Geek'n Rolla, a day-long conference created by TechCrunch Europe for European early stage tech startups old and new to share real, hard-core knowledge about their experiences. Here is our agenda and speaker line-up . Geek'n Rolla is sponsored by Viadeo one of the largest professional social networks in the world, and supported by UK Trade and Investment , as well as NESTA , the National Endowment for Science, Technology & the Arts. Not only will we be having a great day of content for startups, we are planning the mother of all evening networking parties at one of London’s premier venues, Cafe de Paris , kindly sponsored by Winston & Strawn’s Bootlaw . Doug Richard’s School for Startups is our Strategic Event Partner. Speaker gifts and competition prizes are donated by Park Lane Champagne . Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
MySpace Finally Opens The Door To Application Notifications Top
Tonight MySpace is preparing to launch a new addition to its application platform that allows developers to distribute notifications from their apps to their users. It may not sound particularly exciting at first, but the feature is one that developers have been clamoring for, as the notifications are essential to drive asyncronous applications (like a long-term chess games), and can be used to keep users engaged with a variety of other apps. The program is only in Beta for now (developers can only send notifications to other developers or themselves) with plans to release it more widely in the near future. Given how basic the feature is, it’s surprising that we haven’t seen it sooner. So what took so long? MySpace says that it’s doing its best to prevent abuse from spammy applications - a problem that Facebook suffered from for a few months when it first got started (it has since employed a variety of measures to curb spam, but it isn’t perfect). Notices will be shown in their own channel on MySpace, similar to the way invites are in the site’s message center, so even if some spam does get through it shouldn’t be too annoying. For more details, check out the MySpace blog post here . Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Katalyst Media Taking Punk'd Live With Ustream Top
“Punked” is one of those words that started out as a slang term, but was taken to a whole new level by a pop culture moment — in this case, the MTV show Punk’d. But as quickly as it heated up in 2003, it quickly burned out, lasting just 4 years. But the company behind it, Ashton Kutcher’s Katalyst Media , may have found a way to revive the formula — take it live and online. Katalyst is teaming up with Ustream , the online streaming video service, to bring “Punk'd-style experiences” to the platform. It would seem to have all the makings of a new web hit: People getting tricked and embarrassed on video, the whole thing happening live, interactivity and, perhaps most importantly to get it off the ground, star power. As we saw this past week with Kutcher’s race to a million Twitter followers, the guy knows how to leverage himself on the web. Of course, content is still king. Kutcher and partner Jason Goldberg’s web cartoon show Blah Girls , hasn’t exactly exploded onto the scene after being unveiled at last year’s TC50. Traffic to the Blah Girl’s site does seem to be increasing nicely now, but it was in a rut for a while — and pales in comparison to say, the amount of pageviews Kutcher’s Twitter profile did just last week. And to be fair, Blah Girls is syndicated a bunch of different places, so website traffic doesn’t mean all that much for the show. But Ustream knows a bit about huge viral shows itself. It hosts the Shiba Inu Puppy Cam , which is literally just a live stream of a puffy puppies sitting there being cute. That video has attracted some 10 million viewers, according to Ustream. And Ustream also did some major streaming during President Obama’s inauguration in January. On top of their web partnership, the two sides plan to bring their videos to the iPhone in May, with a new live streaming aggregator app, taking all of these Punk’d-style live videos mobile. As I said, it sounds like a winning combo, but I would caution Kutcher and company of one thing: There is still backlash on the web. If you overexpose yourself too much, users can get turned off, just as viewers do in Hollywood. Stay focused on what works, but don’t try to do too much. And please follow up on your promise to punk Ted Turner . Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Skout Fully Embraces Location-Based Dating With Homepage Relaunch Top
Earlier this year Skout shifted gears, shedding its role as a traditional location-based social network in the same vein as Brightkite to become a network exclusively focused on location-based dating. It’s now primarily centered around its iPhone application, which launched in January and was one of the iPhone’s first dating apps. But until now its web presence has failed to properly reflect its shift to dating, presenting users with a clunky social network that the Skout team didn’t pay much attention to. Today, Skout is looking to fix that with a revamped and simplified homepage that makes flirting its top priority. The site now primarily revolves around a location-based feed, which anyone in your region can post status updates and photos to. There’s also a ‘hotlist’, which allows users to ‘follow’ the actions of the users they find interesting (the site has swapped its Facebook-like friending system to a Twitteresque following model, so you can follow people you don’t know). The site now also more prominently features a chat area, and allows you to ‘wink’ at people. And that’s about it. The simplicity makes the site easy to navigate, but I can’t help but feel that Skout might have become a little too basic - there just doesn’t seem to be a whole lot going on. That may not prove to be too much of a problem though, as the site is really only meant to serve as an extension to the iPhone app. The company is reporting around 2000-3000 new users sign up per day, with 15,000 unique logins on a daily basis. I’ve previously expressed my reservations about Skout - namely, I question if there’s really room for yet another dating site (I suspect some of the more established players will release location-based apps of their own). But it’s also doing some smart things, like bringing a new product called Skout OUT to bars and clubs, which users can interact with on digital screens (the company currently has some major deals in the works on this front). And it’s also beginning to white label its network, allowing sites to offer their own branded dating apps that are pre-populated with Skout users. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Dora Merges Three Hot Web Services: Pandora, Twitter and Bit.ly Top
Letting people know what music you are listening to has long been a staple of the web. The blogging platform LiveJournal has long had the “listening to” field, instant messaging clients like iChat and Google Talk added the ability to update your status based on the song you were listening to a few years ago, and now people are using Twitter to send our their music selections. Blip.fm is the best for this so far, but a new challenger rises in Dora . Dora is actually an API mashup of three popular web services: the music streaming service Pandora , the micro-messaging service Twitter and the URL-shortening service Bit.ly . When you load Dora, you may think it’s just Pandora, but at the bottom of the page is the Dora overlay which provides you with an easy way to tweet out what you’re listening to. Before you do this, you must authenticate yourself on Twitter, but that gives you the ability to send a tweet out with the title of the song you are listening to (and a message in the remaining characters) with one click. There is also an option to append a link to the song shortened using Bit.ly. Unfortunately, there are a couple weaknesses with Dora. First, before you can tweet, it authenticates your Twitter information over the OAuth protocol. This is nice as it’s a secure way to send information, but it adds a step to the tweeting out process. A lot of users are likely already signed into Twitter in their web browser, and could pass the song information that way. But the OAuth authentication wouldn’t be a bad way to go if Dora didn’t make you authenticate each time you revisit the site. That’s just annoying. Another problem is that links Dora sends out to Twitter, link back to Pandora. The problem with that is that Pandora doesn’t allow you to access full versions of individual songs anytime you want to. Instead, it takes you to a page on Pandora for the song and gives you the option to preview it. Sure, you could create a new Pandora stations around this song, and it may pop up first, but that’s more complicated than it should be. Pandora has to do this because the rules of Internet radio streaming prohibit users from picking the individual songs they want to hear. But Blip.fm, isn’t technically a Internet radio service, so it doesn’t have to adhere to such rules. And, as such, when you tweet out a song from Blip.fm, anyone can click on the link and immediately start listening to the song as well. Blip.fm also offers its own way to sign-in to Twitter without using OAuth. You have to give Blip.fm you Twitter name and password, but it’s more seamless. Another service in this space is Twt.fm . It’s similar to Blip.fm, but uses imeem’s catalog of music to find and tweet songs out. If you’re addicted to Pandora, or really just want to share the titles of songs you are listening to, Dora is a nice solution. But if you want others to subject others to your musical tastes, Blip.fm is still the way to go. At least until it gets big enough to raise the ire of the record industry. CrunchBase Information Dora Pandora Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Qik Launches Facebook Connect Support Top
With too many companies to list battling it out for users in the live mobile video broadcasting space, spreading the word is key. Most people just don’t realize such a thing is possible; outside of geekier circles, the entire concept is still fairly new. Stream a live video from your handset and send the link off to some friends that don’t lurk blogs and social sites all day - chances are they’ll be more amazed by the fact that you’re streaming live video from a phone than they are by the content. Many of these services have turned to outside networks to get the word out, enabling users to automatically share their content out to their already established circle of friends. Just recently, for example, both Qik and FlixWagon added support for Nokia’s Share on Ovi service. That’s all well and good for reaching the geek crowds - but what about everyone else? This evening, Qik is announcing that they are the first to roll out Facebook Connect support, which could potentially introduce the concept to a massive new group of people. As they’re leveraging Facebook Connect, they’re able to post videos directly to your video collection or wall without requiring the user to install additional Facebook apps. It’s as simple as could be for the user looking to share, but not without its faults: due to a limitation of the Facebook Connect API, videos can’t be streamed live directly onto Facebook, only posted after the fact. As an alternative, however, users can opt to publish a status update which links directly to their live video whenever they’re streaming. The update is being rolled out immediately. As it’s a user profile setting, no updates are needed to the handset software. To get things going, users just log into Qik, pop into the “Edit Networks” screen, and authorize Qik as you would any Facebook Connect service. Over time, however, all handsets will see updates which improve upon the new functionality. Available immediately is an update for non-touch Windows Mobile smartphones which allows users to pick-and-choose which videos they want pushed to Facebook. On other handsets, for the time being, Facebook will be updated with all Qik videos set as “public”. This is a huge move for Qik and, as I’d imagine that all of the competition is already hard at work at rolling in Facebook Connect support as well, a huge move for the concept as a whole. Facebook is amongst a small handful of social networks that have really breached the main stream. Integrate a product properly, and you’ll be pitching your wares to one of the few online audiences that isn’t almost entirely geeks. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Apple Rejects App For Using An Icon That Somewhat Resembles An iPhone Top
The number of times I get pinged about an iPhone app getting rejected is almost catching up to the number of times I get pinged for ones accepted. Obviously, it’s a very small percentage that get rejected, but developers are getting increasingly annoyed — and for good reason in some cases. Take one of my favorite apps, Instapaper , for example. Developer Marco Arment submitted version 1.4 of Instapaper several days ago for approval into the App Store. He’s had several other versions approved in the past, but this one was rejected. Why? Well, he decided to use an small icon within the app that looks like it could be an iPhone. Considering this app has been made for the iPhone, it seems a bit silly that you can’t use its likeness in any way. First of all, icons like this can certainly help user experience. Secondly, the icon in question could almost just as easily be a G1, or any number of other smartphones for that matter. But this is the same problem that derailed the popular game Pocket God, last week, as Arment writes on his blog. And, apparently, it’s not always enforced. It would seem to be a problem that’s only brought up if the person looking over the app happens to notice it. The bigger issue is the aspect of timing. When an app is rejected, it basically means it must go back to the back of the line for approval, and this may mean another two weeks of waiting around. For certain time-sensitive apps, this can be a crushing blow. For others, it’s just an extreme annoyance, especially if the change needed is very minor. And, in the case of Instapaper, it means lost sales. As the App Store continues to grow in popularity, you’d think at some point Apple is going to need to devote a larger team to the approval process, particularly when it comes to relations with developers. While certain big name developers have been known to get special treatment when it comes to approvals (though it’s not exactly like Arment is a no-name developer — he’s also the lead developer for Tumblr ), there are many more who feel that Apple could care less when it comes to their apps — which in some cases are now their livlihood. But it’s baby steps for Apple. Shortly after the App Store first launched last summer, Apple would reject apps and not even tell developers why. Now at least it gives a reason — even if some are kind of silly — and forces developers to get back in line. Arment is now completely redesigning the offending icon before he resubmits, so that Apple doesn’t have an excuse to reject it again. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Mobile Roadie Builds Bands Custom iPhone Apps On The Cheap Top
The record industry has approached Apple’s App store with a somewhat amusing amount of hesitation. When the App Store first launched last summer, a few major artists tested the waters with some obnoxiously basic apps, sometimes consisting of little more than a splash screen and a handful of their songs. But things are beginning to change. Leading the charge has been Nine Inch Nails, which partnered with Tapulous last fall to release a special NIN version of Tap Tap Revenge and more recently launched a robust ‘NIN Access’ app that offers fans a library of rich media, news, and social features. The app’s reception has been overwhelmingly positive, with over 75% of reviewers giving it five stars. Now the major record labels (and countless indie bands) are looking to get in on the action. Enter Mobile Roadie , a new application platform that allows bands to quickly deploy their own custom applications to the App Store. For a relatively small fee, bands can use Mobile Roadie’s mostly-automated system to build their apps and have them posted to Apple’s App Store in as little as a week (and the majority of the wait is from Apple’s still-mysterious approval process). The application supports a wide range of content, including photo galleries, streaming music (which can be linked to songs for purchase on iTunes), YouTube videos, a list of upcoming shows, and interactive features, like a ‘fan wall’ where users can post comments and photos in real time for all to see. On the backend, bands will have access to an intuitive CMS, where they’ll be able to update photos and video, manage comments, and post news stories. They can also choose what price they’d like their app to sell for on the App Store. CEO Michael Schneider acknowledges that there are other media platforms available, like Kyte , but says that these can run thousands of dollars apiece. Mobile Roadie is substantially cheaper, running $399 for intitial setup and then $29 a month after that. For larger bands that receive over 1000 installs, there’s an additional 1 cent per month, per install charge. The company is currently in talks with every major record label (some of which are already testing the app), and has forged an exclusive partnership with The Orchard, a leading indie distributor. I’ve tried out a few of Mobile Roadie’s apps, and for the most part they seem to work quite well (though if a band doesn’t upload many media assets the app feels a bit barren). The company has positioned itself well in a space that is about to really take off, especially once the iPhone 3.0 software hits and users will be able to see updates in realtime from their favorite bands without having to open the application manually. If you’d like to check out a band’s app built on the Mobile Roadie platform, you can see a directory of their apps here . Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 

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