Sunday, April 12, 2009

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Some Of Our Favorite Easter Eggs Top
Just as children love hunting for Easter eggs, we love finding virtual Easter eggs in software and Web apps—those intentional hidden messages, features or jokes built into the software that users in the know may stumble upon at some point during their experience with the application. We’ve compiled a list of some of our favorite software Easter eggs of all-time (in no given order) in light of today’s holiday. Of course, there are many more Easter eggs out there. Tell us us your favorites in the comments! 1. Atari: The first ever software Easter egg is speculated to have occurred in 1979 in an Atari game. Apparently, programmer identities were kept behind locked doors in the easly days of software development, with companies not wanting staff to gain more celebrity status than their brands. Warren Robinett, a programmer for Atari sneaked his name into the Atari 2600 game Adventure. Here’s the YouTube video showing the egg: 2. Google’s Picasa Teddy Bears: Image editing software Picasa has an entertaining teddy bear Easter egg. If you open Picasa and press Ctrl-Shift-Y, a teddy bear will pop up. 3. The Book of Mozilla: If you type “about:mozilla” in the address bar of any version of Firefox, you will be led to a page with a quote from the “Book of Mozilla” about the birth of Firefox. 4. Google Earth Flight Simulator: If you open Google Earth, version 4.2, and press Ctrl-Alt-A (”Command” “Option” “A” on a Mac), Google inserted a flight simulator that lets you simulate being in the cockpit of a F16 fighter jet ot a lightweight SR22 propeller plane. 5. The Dark Castle on the iPhone/iPod Touch: According to this report, a teenager in the UK managed to discover this egg, the classic Mac game "Dark Castle", in its entirety, available on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Activating this game is a bit complicated but, here are the directions. 6. Google’s Mobile App: Google unveiled a surprise Easter egg for its Mobile App for the iPhone earlier this year. If you click on the settings tab, scroll to the bottom and keep swiping upwards until a secret option dubbed 'Bells and Whistles' appears (this also works in the foreign language versions of the app). The hidden menu lets you change the theme color of the app and its default sounds to chicken or monkey noises. 7. Microsoft’s Volcano: Microsoft inserted a volcano Easter egg in all Windows Operating Systems prior to XP. If you go to control panel display, click on the screen savers tab, select “3D Text,” then click on settings and in the graphics text box type “volcano.” The screen saver then shows names of all the volcanoes in the U.S. 8. Google’s holiday Easter eggs: Last holiday season, Google put Easter Eggs next to the sponsored link search results for terms like Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa Gifts, Christmas Sweaters, Hanukkah Sweaters, etc. 9. Mac OS X “Here's to the Crazy Ones”: If you open Finder and go to Applications, look for TextEdit. If you enlarge the icon in CoverFlow, you'll see a letter from John Appleseed quoting the text from Apple's "Think Different" advertising campaign. 10. Goldeneye Breakdance: This egg was recently discovered. Apparently when playing Goldeneye 007, if the user tilts the cartridge during gameplay, this causes the characters to breakdance. It’s pretty funny-see the YouTube video of the dance below: Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Does Google Really Control The News? Top
Once again, Google is the favorite bogeyman responsible for the rapid deterioration in the health of the news industry. This time it is Nick Carr doing the finger-pointing , describing Google as the most powerful middleman in news: When a middleman controls a market, the supplier has no real choice but to work with the middleman - even if the middleman makes it impossible for the supplier to make money. So how powerful is Google when it comes to parceling out traffic to news sites? If you are talking about Google News , the answer is that it is not quite as powerful as you might think. In the U.S., Google News is overshadowed by both Yahoo News and even the sites controlled by the New York Times (which includes NYTimes.com, Boston.com, HeraldTribune.com, and several other newspaper sites). According to comScore, Google News attracted 16.2 million unique visitors in the U.S. in February, compared to 42.3 million for Yahoo News and 46.2 million for the sites operated by New York Times Digital. So Google News is not the middleman here. Let’s just put that notion to rest. Yahoo News is three times as large, and Yahoo sends even more traffic to newspaper sites from other parts of Yahoo through its online newspaper consortium . The bigger question is whether Google as a search engine is controlling access to news sites. That really seems to be Carr’s main concern, although it is not clear because he uses a Google News search as his main example. Nevertheless, Google’s main search engine is certainly a major source of traffic to information sites of all stripes. At TechCrunch, for instance, it is the single largest source of traffic, accounting for about a third of the total. I have no idea whether this is representative of other news sites, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Google search is a very important middleman indeed. Does that make Google like Wal-Mart, as Carr suggests, a middleman of such might that it squeezes everybody else’s margins? Does that give it “monopoly control over content distribution,” as Scott Karp tries to argue? Not exactly. Information economics work slightly differently than retail economics. Let me stick with the TechCrunch example. One third is a lot, but it is not a monopoly. Google sends us all of that traffic because many of our posts rank highly for the topics they cover. We don’t pay them for that traffic. We are not buying keywords. Yes, Google makes money from other ads shown besides any searches where TechCrunch posts shows up as results. But the money Google makes from those ads does not detract from our revenues. Quite the opposite. Those searches send a considerable amount of traffic to our site, where we have our own ads. The more people who see those ads, the more we can charge for them. It’s all good. Google does not control the news, it exposes it. The retail/distributor analogy is all wrong. Information is not the same as a flat-screen TV or a blender. It does not become less valuable the more available it is because all news is not the same. Information dissemination is not a zero-sum game. Carr and Karp would have you believe otherwise. Karp writes: The more content there is on the web, the less money every content creator makes, and the more money Google makes by taking a piece of that transaction. Again, that is not how it works. Google doesn’t force suppliers of information to charge less for it as Wal-Mart does with suppliers of packaged goods. The money Google makes from its search ads is not necessarily money that would have otherwise gone to a “news” or content site. If Google didn’t exist, those ad dollars might have gone to an e-commerce site or a travel site or a real estate site or any number of other places. News sites have no claim to those search advertising dollars. It is incumbent upon each of us to attract an audience by having something original or interesting to say. When news sites do that, other sites link to them, and then they rank more highly in Google search results, which sends new readers their way. And then once those readers do find a news source they trust, you know what? Some of them actually keep coming back on their own volition without Google telling them what to do. That is called direct traffic. Or they come through other sites. Google isn’t the only one who benefits from all those links. If you want to be known as an authoritative source of news, it is no longer good enough to simply proclaim yourself to be one. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Warning: Twitter Hit By StalkDaily Worm (Updated) Top
A bad week for Twitter just got even worse. The service has apparently been infected by a worm originating from the owners of the website StalkDaily ( Note: Do not visit this website, as it may cause your computer to become infected ). At this point details are scant, but it appears that visiting the Twitter profile page of an infected user can lead your profile to become infected as well (some reports say that the worm modifies your ‘About Me’ section to include a link to the worm). Infected users begin to repeatedly spam tweets directing users to the StalkDaily website. The attack appears to have originated early this morning, when a handful of blog posts popped up detailing the worm. However, it is only now hitting critical mass, with hundreds of related Tweets appearing on Twitter Search in the last few minutes alone. Twitter’s official Spam watching account updated this morning stating that the company was aware of the issue but that it had been mostly resolved, and just issued another update stating that it was aware of the worm’s resurgence this afternoon. To stay on the safe side, it would probably be wise to stick with a third party Twitter client and avoiding viewing profile pages until the company confirms that the issue is resolved. Some early comments are indicating this is an XSS attack on Twitter. Others note that the attack may have started after one of Twitter’s many third party applications took the login credentials entered by Twitter users and hijacking their accounts. Update 9 PM PST : Twitter has posted the following update to its status page stating that the issue has been fixed: Update on StalkDaily.com Worm 36 minutes ago Earlier today we were informed of a malicious site that was spreading links to StalkDaily.com on Twitter without user consent via a cross-site scripting vulnerability. We've taken steps to remove the offending updates, and to close the holes that allowed this "worm" to spread. No passwords, phone numbers, or other sensitive information were compromised as part of this attack. Update: Apparently StalkDaily has updated their website to say that it has nothing to do with the attacks. Regardless, do not visit the site for the time being. For everyone wondering, I did NOT promote and/or was involved with the spamming ON Twitter. All bad things you are hearing about this site is not true. Please reconsider as I am not the person who did this…StalkDaily is a website that follows the same functions as Twitter, except more advanced How? Well, instead of just adding an "update status", people can add pictures and videos. Then you can stalk them, so when they upload a video or picture, or comment someone, you'll know! Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Apple Offers Another Fleeting Glimpse At The App Store's All-Time Leaders Top
Yesterday Apple announced that it was closing in on its whopping 1 Billionth application download from the App Store, which now features over 25,000 apps built by thousands of developers. In honor of the milestone, Apple has also posted an updated version of the store’s most popular apps ever (iTunes link) - something they’ve done only once before , at the end of 2008. The list includes such popular mainstays as Facebook , Koi Pond , and Shazam , allowing the millions of new iPhone owners to discover favorites of months gone by. It’s a shame this list will probably be shortlived. This isn’t an accident. One attribute that has helped the App Store reach its upcoming billion download milestone so quickly is the fact that its featured App Lists are constantly churning - even the most popular applications probably won’t be on the top lists a few weeks down the line. This ensures that users who pop into the store will always have some new, quality apps to try out, boosting downloads and giving new applications a chance to shine. But it can also be frustrating for new iPhone owners, who visit the store unsure of what they should download. This isn’t to say they’ll leave empty handed - there’s always a variety of great apps being showcased on the App Store. But the classics that everyone else already has, like Tap Tap Revenge, Ocarina, and Shazam often aren’t featured on the App Store’s homescreen any more, so new users might miss out on them. Apple has made progress since I wrote about this issue last August , now allowing users to browse through apps by category, each of which features its own top lists. But the need for a more readily available all-time leaderboard still remains. To give an idea of how popular these applications have been, ComScore recently reported that 32% of all iPhones and iPod Touches have a version of Tap Tap Revenge installed, making it the platform’s most popular game ever with around 6.5 million installs of TTR and 3 million installs of its sequel. But a new user wouldn’t know it from the App Store’s homepage - they’d have to drill down to the Games section, where TTR2 is currently ranked as the 7th most popular free game. iBowl , a Wii-like bowling game, is on 25% of all iPhones according to the same ComScore report, and isn’t featured on the Games section at all. There have been many other tweaks suggested for the still-nascent App Store, including a section for higher-priced premium apps and a new method for calculating popularity that measures how many money an app has gained, not just the number of times it has been downloaded (the current system tends to strongly favor cheaper apps). Apple has done an incredible job building this platform and masterminding its massive popularity. Now it just needs to give users a better way to find the cream of the crop, not just the latest fad. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Live from the PragueCrunch II Meet-up Top
Prague Crunch in Prague Welcome to PragueCrunch II, Prague’s foremost party held in Prague every year around the time TechCrunch writers feel like going to Prague to drink great beer and talk start-ups, tech, and gadgets. We’ll be streaming live through Qik and posting images throughout the day. If you’re still vacillating and you’re in Prague, come on down! We’ll be at Hergetova Cihelna from 2pm until late in the evening. Confounded as to whether to come at like 11pm? Check my Twitter Updates to see if we’re still at the event or if we’ve moved on. Otherwise, expect to see Robin and I there all night. Special thanks to the venue and all the great sponsors. Click through for live video feeds throughout the evening. Special thanks to these fine folks: Gold Sponsor: Dial Telecom - Dial Telecom provides services for both the wholesale and the retail sectors. Our wholesale sector specializes in providing cable ducts, dark fibre and backbone capacity to international and national carriers, ISPs, and ASPs. Dial Telecom also provides IP-based services to regional ISPs over its own fibre network. The company has an exceptionally well-developed Ethernet over fibre network and DWDM connections to most major regional capitals. Dial Telecom is connected to the world's largest Internet exchanges (most notably to DE-CIX and KleyerEx in Frankfurt am Main, AMS-IX in Amsterdam, LINX in London and ECIX in Düsseldorf). Naturally, it is also connected to Czech NIX.CZ and Slovak SIX.SK . The Dial Telecom company is part of the well-established international Dial Telecom Group (Dial Telecom CZ, Dial Telecom SK, eTel SK and Telecom Austria Czech Republic (Volný, a.s.). The group actively contributes to the consolidation of the fixed telecommunications market. The most significant acquisitions in the last year have been eTel Slovakia and Telekom Austria Czech Republic (Volný brand). Adamantium Sponsors: Ataxo With more than 5.000 clients and 200 employees, Ataxo is the biggest Internet marketing agency in the Czech Republic and a leading Search Engine Marketing provider in Central Europe. Ataxo has offices in the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. We provide expert Search Engine Optimization and manage several thousand Pay-per-Click Campaigns for our clients from these countries as well as outsource Pay-per-Click Campaigns for clients from other parts of the world. Binary Age Yet another web-based site builder from the author of open-source tools FirePython, FireRainbow, XRefresh and DryDrop. There is tough competition in this space, but Darwin is going to attract developers by bringing Firebug’s CSS prototyping experience into the HashPage editor. Geewa Play original multiplayer casual games on Geewa.com for free! Up to 18,700 players online at the same time. More than 5,000 games to choose from. Join our growing community now. Kerio Innovating in Internet security since 1997, Kerio Technologies, Inc. provides Internet messaging and firewall software for small-to-medium sized businesses and organizations worldwide. Kerio is headquartered in San Jose, California, and has offices in New York, Germany, United Kingdom, the Czech Republic and Russia. Kerio is a member of CalConnect, a calendaring and scheduling consortium, and a premier member of the Apple Developer Connection. The company has 4,400 channel partners in 108 countries. Technology partners include McAfee, Inc. (NYSE: MFE), IBM Corporation (NYSE: IBM), and Notify Technology Corporation (OTCBB: NTFY). Learn10 Learn10 is a system for language learners which enables members to quickly develop a durable learning habit. They create fresh, new content every day, limited to the length of a text message. This is distributed across the web and beyond via a popular Facebook app, widget, email, iPhone webapp, Twitter feed, affiliate ‘adverts’, as well as competitions, windows screensaver & Seesmic videos . Learn10 creates user engagement in learning by encouraging cooperation and competition between learners in a mix of free and premium flavours. Learn10 is the work of a European team of four, split between Birmingham, UK and South Bohemia, CZ. It is inspired by the efforts of three of the founders to learn Czech, and informed by experience in advertising research analysis & English teaching. With 27,000 members this self-funded project is one year old. After extensive testing based on the prototype - LearnItLists - they have re-branded to Learn10 and are ready to launch. TasteKid Tastekid is a recommendation engine that lets you discover music, movies, and books. CNET recently ranked TasteKid as one of the 10 best movie sites. WebExpo 2009 Biggest Central European conference about web development and business on internet. From web frameworks, agile management through UX and webdesign to startup contest and marketing insights. In Prague, October 16-18, 2009. Wirenode Wirenode is a mobile marketing platform. It allows individuals and companies to create mobile friendly websites very easily and use them for promoting their business. So far, more than 20000 mobile websites were created. The pages created in the Wirenode platform is used by companies such as European Directories, Vodafone, Telefonica O2, Ford, Reebok or Air France. Zeality Zeality.cz is an online map-based service for real estate search. It offers relevant data for each property, such as nearby points of interest and travel times. Zeality.cz targets Prague at the moment and will cover other cities soon. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Report: Founders Want To Buy Skype Back From EBay Top
As the New York Times reported, Skype’s founders, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, are in talks with several private equity firms and are amassing their own financial resources to make a bid for the internet phone business. eBay bought Skype from Zennstrom and Friis for around $3.1 billion in 2005. We reported last year that eBay would be willing to sell Skype if the company couldn’t support eBay’s core ecommerce business. eBay has been having trouble finding ways of using Skype across its other products. eBay removed Skype co-founder and CEO Niklas Zennstrom in October 2007, reportedly due to frustration at the financial performance of Skype. Ebay also negotiated down the huge earnout due to Skype stockholders and took a $936 million one-time loss around the transaction. As we wrote last spring, a sale was projected to be likely late last year or in the first half of this year. Of course, with the economy in such poor condition, the sale was probably put off momentarily. There was something brewin g between Google and Skype last spring, but nothing came of it. Google recently launched its own voice product, Google Voice (formerly Grand Central). Skype recently launched a nifty iPhone app, which was downloaded 1 million times in the first two days of its release. Skype recently made a move to be a player in the enterprise space, but it wasn’t clear how much of a money-maker the new service would be. There’s no doubt that Skype brings a lot to the table but eBay was probably just not the right buyer. Skype’s scalable technology and a proven platform in the VOIP, VOIP2POTS and P2P Video is impressive to say the least. The service currently has more than 405 million registered users. Following their respective departures from Skype, Zennstrom and Friis formed VC firm Atomico and founded online video/TV site Joost. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
President Obama, Where's Our CTO? Top
President Obama incorporated technology into his election campaign in an unprecedented way, became known as the YouTube president within the first week of being elected, and seems to be forward thinking in his views on innovation and technology, which is why we endorsed him last year. But now we are almost four months into his tenure as President and leader of the free world, and the Obama administration has yet to name a Chief Technology Officer. They have, I should note, appointed a Chief Information Officer, Vivek Kundra, the former CTO of Washington D.C., whose office is being investigated by the FBI for bribery and money laundering (which apparently occurred when he was the boss). Still, it’s confusing as to why the President is taking his sweet time to appoint a CTO, when there are clear issues that a CTO could be working on. For starters, there are tech-centric issues like the FCC’s National Broadband Plan to give all American’s high speed internet access, and the DTV Delay Act, which was signed into law in early February. There’s the Open Government initiative, through Change.gov, which seems to be in a stalemate. And certainly a CTO could lend his or her expertise and leadership in incorporating technology into the President’s health-care, education and energy initiatives. Take a look at the technology issues page of the White House’s website for a more extensive to-do list awaiting our future CTO. And there’s definitely no dearth of talent for this position. The names that have been bandied about for the position even before President Obama was victorious in November include Bill Gates, Microsoft founder; Padmasree Warrior, Cisco’s CTO; Eric Schmidt, Google CEO and longtime Obama supporter (but he apparently said no to the job); Vint Cerf, the so-called “father of the internet” and VP at Google; Lawrence Lessig, Stanford Law professor and founder of the school's Center for Internet and Society; Ed Felton, Princeton computer science professor and founder of Princeton's Center for Information Technology Policy; Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and CEO; and Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO. Perhaps the Obama administration is being extra careful not to make another “Kundra” mistake and is carefully evaluating the backgrounds of each candidate. But this should hardly take 5 months. Regardless of what the holdup is, we need someone with true technology smarts in the White House soon. I mean, how hard can it be to find a technology exec that has paid his or her taxes? Give us your favorite candidates for America’s CTO in comments. Or take our poll. Who should be the CTO of the USA? ( online polls ) Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Current TV Cancels $100 Million IPO Top
Current Media , the media company backed by former Vice President Al Gore, has cancelled the $100 million IPO that it originally announced in January 2008. In a document submitted earlier today, Current TV attributed the IPO’s cancellation to the current economy: In light of current market conditions, the Registrant has determined not to proceed at this time with the public offering contemplated by the Registration Statement. The Registrant hereby confirms that no securities have been sold pursuant to the Registration Statement and all activity regarding the proposed public offering has been discontinued. The Registrant hereby informs the Staff that it may undertake a subsequent private offering in reliance on the safe harbor set forth in Rule 155(c) promulgated under the Act. The media company is best known for cable channel Current TV, which is broadcast internationally to 59 million homes with markets in regions including the United States, Italy, and the UK. Current also has a strong web presence, tapping into popular social media services like Digg and Twitter for special events like the 2008 presidential election . The network’s social media efforts during the election were deemed a success by the company, but it was still hit by layoffs in November, when it said that the IPO was being “put on hold”. Current says that there have have been no further layoffs since then, and that the direction of the company has not changed. Via PEhub Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Elevator Pitch Friday: Smallaa Lets You Sort Your Activity Stream By Topic (Invites) Top
It is becoming clear that activity streams are taking hold as the default communications interface across a wide variety of social networks and media, from Twitter to Facebook to FriendFeed to Bebo and beyond. Yet the more people we try to keep track of in one consolidated feed, the more noise we have to deal with that increasingly threatens to drown out those golden information nuggets we all seek. So it is appropriate that today’s Elevator Pitch comes from Smallaa , a startup that aims to help people sort and categorize their streams by interests. Smalla is still in private beta, but TechCrunch readers can sign up with the promotion code c3p0 . When you sign up, you can bring in your FriendFeed stream. (Integration with Facebook is scheduled for April 23, and then Twitter will come after that). Your regular FreindFeed stream appears in a column on the right. You also pick what interests you want to follow. For instance, I picked “Internet Startups,” “Technology,” “Google,” and “Unusual Things.” I could have also picked “best Photos,” “Pets,” “Formula 3 Racing,” “home,” or I could have created my own topics. Those selections create an interest stream on the left. This is the main Smaalla stream. There are two ways you can inject something into the Smallaa stream. You can add it directly as a comment, link, video, or picture and assign it to an interest category when you place it into the stream. (Smallaa asks “What’s going on in your interests?” That could probably be clearer. A simple, “What are you intersted in?” would do.) The second way to inject items into the Smallaa stream is to assign them directly from the FriendFeed stream on the right (which will expand in the future to include Facebook and other streams as well). For instance, Robert Scoble just wrote a post and did a video trying to explain why Mike is wrong about FriendFeed because of its superior mechansims for picking out signal to noise compared to Twitter. Scoble is particularly enamored with FriendFeed because he can pick out what’s interesting based on how many comments an item gets or how many people liked it. Yet with Smalla, I can simply grab the link to Scoble’s post from my FriendFeed stream and assign it to my “Technology” interest in Smallla. I trust what Scoble has to say about technology, so I pay attention to that, but I can ignore his comments about how awesome it is to live in Half Moon Bay. Now, everybody in Smalla following with an interest in technology will see that link to Scoble’s post and any comments I have about it (unless they choose to view only items from people they follow in Smalla). The relationship between Smallaa and other services is reciprocal. When I add a post to Smallla, it appears in FriendFeed as well. And whenever you assign an item from a friend in another service, it prompts you to invite them to follow the particular interest you are assigning their item to in Smallla. Finally, as another way to figure out who to pay attention to, for each item in your Smallaa feed, it shows you how many people are following the person who posted it in that category . So again, to pick on Scoble, he might quickly gain the most followers in technology but not so many in fashion. Hopefully, this would create a reinforcing feedback loop which would encourage Scoble to write and share more about technology and less about his favorite pair of pants. Or as Smalla CEO and founder Tim Lai says in the Elevator Pitch video below, it would be great to follow what Bill Clinton has to say about “politicians or giving public speeches without ever being distracted if he has anything to say about honesty and family values.” Lai built and sold his first software company in Hong Kong, an enterprise document management company called Paradigm, before moving to California. He has invested $3 million of his own money to start Smalllaa. His pitch would probably have been less confusing if he explained why he is sitting in a racing car at the beginning, but he comes around to that in the end. If you would like your startup to be featured on TechCrunch, submit your Elevator Pitch . Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Tesla's Elon Musk Calls NY Times Writer Stross "A Huge Douchebag…And An Idiot" Top
Undoubtedly Tesla isn’t going to be happy about this video getting attention, but I think it’s awesome to see CEO Elon Musk take a stand against the company’s many detractors. Last November New York Times writer Randall Stross trashed Tesla as a rich man’s car that the government should shun. "Only the Rich Can Afford It. Should Taxpayers Back It?" he wrote. Later, the article was much edited after well deserved criticism . Stross also corrected errors suggesting that Tesla’s loan requests were for the $109,000 Roadster, when in fact they were to be used for the $50,000 Model S , their most recent and much more affordable all-electric car. That rewriting, though, apparently hasn’t appeased Musk. In an interview last week (video above) with Yahoo TechTicker, Musk calls Stross a “huge douchebag…and an idiot” (skip to the 40 second mark) and says "What is he doing picking on an electric car company? Why would he pick on the little guy who is trying to do good when you've got egregious waste of money in the tens of billions occurring in Detroit?" Musk also points out that Tesla investors only make money if the loan is repaid, and that Tesla has applied for just 1.5% of the $25 billion appropriation. Nicely done, Mr. Musk. I'm definitely going to buy one of your cars. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Google Earth Flythroughs Come To The Browser Top
Earlier this week the Google Earth team released a new plugin that allows users to view Google Earth tours directly from their web browsers. These tours, which were introduced in the 5.0 release of Google Earth in February, allow users to create virtual flythroughs through any location on Google Earth, which can lead to some pretty impressive results. Google has compiled a handful of the best tours in this gallery , which includes a reenactment of the historic Flight 1549 landing in the Hudson and a whirlwind tour through San Francisco. The plugin weighs in at a hefty 30 MB (80 megabytes after installing on a Mac), so it can hardly be considered lightweight. But the functionality is impressive, and could definitely be used in a variety of innovative ways now that the tours have been freed from the Google Earth desktop client. I image news organizations could use the tours to help liven up online reports (tours can include audio voiceovers), and travel companies could use them to help showcase where their tour packages will take their customers. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Veoh's Hail Mary: Spreading Video Search Across The Web With Video Compass Top
As video sites on the Web struggle to find a business model that will pay their mounting bandwidth and storage bills, many of them are trying to reinvent themselves. Veoh , which has raised a total of $70 million, had to cut 35 percent of its staff earlier this month and the site seems to be losing steam. Unique visitors are down 18 percent from their high a year ago to 15.2 million worldwide, and users of its desktop app VeohT V are down 40 percent to 7.2 million worldwide, according to comScore (see chart below). Founder Dmitry Shapiro is now back as CEO and he is pouring the company’s remaining energy into a new product launched six weeks ago called Video Compass (read our review) . Since launch, it has been downloaded 800,000 times, and is currently being downloaded at a rate of 25,000 a day. Video Compass may amount to a Hail Mary pass to try to save the company. It is an attempt to spread video search across the Web by bringing you search results when you don’t even know you are looking for videos. The way it does this is through a browser add-on for Firefox and Internet Explorer that is triggered whenever you do a search on a growing list of sites, including Google, Yahoo, Amazon, Craigslist, Wikipedia, and even YouTube. In the past few days, it just added Twitter Search, MySpace, Hulu, DailyMotion, and Metacafe. Up next will be Flickr, Photobucket, and Facebook. Whenever you do a regular search on these sites, a ribbon with Veoh video search results pops down triggered by the same keyword you are searching. For instance, if you are searching for “police” on Amazon, a bunch of Police music videos appear along the top ribbon, along with some car chase footage. You can cycle through the videos by clicking an arrow to see more results in the ribbon or you can click on related tags along the top (”Sting,” “crime,” “japanese police”) to refine your search. If you click on any of the thumbnails, a semi-transparent player opens up and lets you watch it in-situ, without necessarily going to Veoh.com. When you are done, you close the window and you are back at where you left off. I’ve been testing Video Compass for the past few days, and the video results pretty decent. I find them to be a bit redundant on other video sites such as YouTube, but they can sometimes offer better results on narrower video sites. For instance, try searching for “Moldova” on Hulu and you get one result, whereas the Veoh Video Compass bar turns up plenty of protest videos. And do a search on Twitter and it adds a whole different dimension to your search. Even searches on Google bring up more video results than occur naturally. And you can always turn it off if it starts to annoy you. The big question is can Veoh create a business around a browser add-on? That all depends on how much of a habit people make of clicking on the Veoh video results and how good they are. Veoh has developed its own behavioral targeting technology which generates both video recommendations and helps target advertising. Shapiro tells me: Today we are doing a pretty good job monetizing Veoh.com. We serve pre-rolls (at high CPMs), mid-rolls, overlays, and targeted display units. Our behavioral targeting engine lets us get higher CPMs than our competitors, while selling out more inventory. While I can't share the exact numbers with you, I can tell you that our quarters are in the millions and every quarter has been a record quarter, although we are not cash flow positive yet. With Video Compass, he can promote content from partners directly in the toolbar when people are conducting associated searches elsewhere on the Web. Movie trailers would be one obvious type of content to promote, but sponsored video ads of all stripes could be placed in both the results or during playback. There is also a lot of empty real estate around the player that can be filled with ads in the future. Finally, Shapiro is working on ways to drive users back to Veoh.com where the monetization model is more clear. So he is not giving up on his destination site entirely. Relying on people to download his add-on, however, is a risky strategy. Not only does it require people to go out of their way, as more and more browser add-ons adopt similar triggering mechanisms, conflicts could emerge. For instance, Glue has a similar user interface, although it is not triggered by searches. But you can imagine a time when two different add-ons are both triggered and either one cancels out the other or the top of the browser becomes a mess. This is essentially the same problem people have with the new Diggbar and other Website framing mechanisms. They can create a lot of clutter instead of helping you cut through it. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
When Will Apple Hit 1 Billion App Downloads? Top
Apple is really, really close to hitting 1 billion app downloads across the world, according to its new countdown page. If you download an app, you’ll be enrolled in a contest to win a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card, an iPod touch, a Time Capsule, and a MacBook Pro. TechCrunch is holding its own contest in honor of this occasion. Whoever guesses when it will hit one billion, and is closest in minutes and seconds will get free TechCrunch T-shirt. Leave the guesses in comments; we’ll contact the winner. Apple also featured the all-time top 20 apps, both paid and free. Top 20 All-Time Free Apps : 1. Facebook 2. Google Earth 3. Pandora Radio 4. Tap Tap Revenge 5. Shazam 6. Pacman Lite 7. Backgrounds 8. Touch Hockey 9. Labyrinth 10. Flashlight 11. Urbanspoon 12. Movies 13. iBowl 14. Lightsaber Unleashed 15. SOl Free Solitaire 16. MySpace Mobile 17. Virtual Zippo Lighter 18. The Weather Channel 19. BubbleWrap 20. Remote Top 20 All-Time Paid Apps : 1. Crash Banidcoot 2. Koi Pond 3. Enigmo 4. Bejeweled 2 5. iBeer 6. Moto Chaser 7. Pocket Guitar 8. Flick Fishing 9. Tetris 10. Texas Hold Em 11. Super Monkey Ball 12. Pocket God 13. Cro-Mag Rally 14. Ocarina 15. Fieldrunners 16. iFart Mobile 17. Touchgrind 18. iHunt 19. iShoot 20. Monopoly Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
VidPay: Dead Simple Sponsored Video Ad Platform Top
Straight out of the “why didn’t they think about this before” department, comes VidPay whose entire premise can be summed up in a single sentence: A white label platform for sponsored video campaigns. There must be more, right? Wrong. VidPay is as dead simple to use as it is to comprehend. One more thing… It started generating revenue from minute one. What more could you ask for in a startup? To appreciate my gushing enthusiasm over VidPay you must understand that one of the occupational hazards of writing for TechCrunch requires the deciphering of what startups actually do. Increasingly rare are startups like VidPay that offer straightforward value for its customers and have a CEO that knows how to intelligently communicate what the product actually does without overselling it or using tiring hyperbole. So let’s dive in: The problem VidPay set out to solve is allowing small/mid-sized advertisers to promote their videos on sites such as Metacafe, Dailymotion and Vimeo. These sites usually don’t have dedicated sales teams to support such advertisers because they focus on larger, more budget-laden campaigns. MetaCafe is VidPay’s pilot customer and through this partnership alone VidPay is serving ~50M sponsored video impressions per day, or ~1.4 billion per month. Current click-through rates are between 0.1% and 1%, depending on how many video ads are displayed in the sponsored video sections, and whether campaigns are targeted for specific keywords or not. VidPay’s solution is a self-serve advertising platform for sponsored videos. It is similar in concept to YouTube’s “Promoted Videos” offering , differences being: 1) It allows campaigns to be built for multiple publishers (video sites), and 2) Its interface can be integrated right within the publisher site. The second point is important because it means that any video site can integrate a fully branded self-serve sponsored ad platform with zero investment, and begin reaping revenue it was previously unable to bring in. For video sites, integrating VidPay functionality is a two step process. First, the video publishing site needs to send VidPay information such as visitor IP addresses, the category being visited, current item tags and the maximum number of sponsored videos to display. Second, the publisher site needs to receive a list of sponsored videos from VidPay and then display them of course. Completing these two steps should take no more than a few hours. Integrating the interface is optional and would require the use of an iFrame. On each page view, the publisher site sends an HTTP request for sponsored videos to be displayed in pre-defined locations. VidPay returns the best-matching sponsored videos to display by taking into consideration the maximum cost-per-click, click-through rate and targeting parameters such as geo-location and language. The sponsored videos are all located within the publisher’s inventory so all traffic remains under its umbrella. Advertisers can choose the videos they want to promote manually, search for them through VidPay’s interface, or upload them to the publisher site right from the VidPay interface. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
AMD Launches 3D Media Browser: Does Anyone Care? Top
For whatever reason this week’s launch of the beta version of AMD’s Fusion Media Explorer , the company’s first forray in the social media hub / browser space, isn’t being met with a mountain of buzz. For a 40-year old giant of a tech company that’s mostly known for its micro-processors and related technologies, that’s quite surprising, especially because the product actually appears to be quite cool, if not very innovative these days. I say appears, because the installation failed on my computer for lack of an AMD processor (I should have known), and I should probably note the application has only been tested for use on Windows and Linux machines. From what I can gather, it most certainly makes me want to test it asap though. Here’s how AMD pitches the browser (buzzword alert): The AMD Fusion Media Explorer (FME) is a new 3D Immersive Social Media and Digital Media Browser, built and distributed by AMD. In addition to enabling unique multimedia and social media experiences, FME does a great job of showcasing the power of AMD CPUs and GPUs. This application demonstrates what our platforms are capable of when the software is designed to take full advantage. AMD Fusion Media Explorer combines a user's local media items, plus related online content from providers such as, Flickr, YouTube, and Microsoft Live. In addition, FME has Facebook integration which gives our users even more options for posting or interacting with their favorite photos or friends' photos. All of this is managed by an integrated search engine, that makes it very easy to quickly locate what you are looking for. So basically, the FME application allows you to view and search for multimedia content like photos, videos, music etc. straight from your hard drive as well as online destinations like Flickr, YouTube and Facebook, and enables you to share them with your friends on a variety of social networking services from within the three-dimensional interface. The scrollable 3D ribbon appears to be a nice touch. For a comprehensive review, check TheInquirer or read the release notes . The screenshots and video below remind me a lot of the ( now dead ) Pogo Browser initiative from AT&T, and also of Cooliris , which offers a similar desktop application. In the blog post announcing the limited beta release of the Fusion Media Explorer, AMD’s Director of Product Marketing Casey Gotcher says that the platform has been specially developed for its Puma and Dragon-based notebook and desktop systems and will be provided free to AMD customers, and in some cases may come pre-installed on select AMD-based systems. (Via GadgetVenue ) Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Windows Live Hotmail Service Disruption Locks Out Users Top
Windows Live Hotmail (former Hotmail) is one of - if not the most - popular free webmail applications on the planet, so naturally there’s a bit of an uproar (warning: highly emotional teenager grunts here) since apparently users have been unable to access their mail account for hours on end. We’ve been getting a lot of tips about this in our inboxes, so we ended up taking a look at the official Windows Live Help website, where this message appears: Hotmail and Windows Live ID experienced a service disruption starting at 8:44 PM (PST), which ended at 10:15 PM (PST), and during this disruption you may have been told your inbox did not exist. This was incorrect messaging. Your inbox, contacts and Live ID are all intact. We’re all Hotmail customers, so we appreciate how frustrating this experience was. Thanks for your understanding. If you’re still getting errors, please close out all browsers and sign in again. It’s after midnight in California at the time of this writing, so according to Microsoft the service disruption should have stopped over 2 hours ago. The problem is that most of the tips we received came in after that time (and keep on coming), so the issue doesn’t seem to have been resolved completely, provided of course the tipsters have effectively tried to restart their browsers. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
About Those New CrunchPad Pictures Top
A little background for those of you who haven’t heard of the CrunchPad: This is the post that kicked off the project. I wanted something I couldn’t buy, and found people who said it could be built for a lot less than I imagined. The goal - a very thin and light touch screen computer, sans physical keyboard, that has no hard drive and boots directly to a browser to surf the web. The operating system exists solely to handle the hardware drivers and run the browser and associated applications. That’s it. The key uses: Internet consumption. The virtual keyboard will make data entry a pain other than for entering credentials, quick searches and maybe light emails. This machine isn’t for data entry. But it is for reading emails and the news, watching videos on Hulu, YouTube, etc., listening to streaming music on MySpace Music and imeem, and doing video chat via tokbox. The hardware would consist of netbook appropriate chipsets (Intel Atom or Via Nano), at least a 12 inch screen, a camera for photos and video, speakers and a microphone. Add a single USB port, power in and sound out, and you’re done. If you want more features, this ain’t for you. Price? it can be built for less than $250, including packaging. Add in fixed costs and other stuff you have to deal with (like returns), and you can sell it for $300 and probably not go out of business. Physical design is important, and the software is the key to winning. We stumbled through an initial prototype that barely booted, but we finished it in a month. Prototype B was much more impressive and usable. That effort was led by Louis Monier , with software developed by Singapore-based Fusion Garage and industrial design work by by David Yarnell and Greg Lalier from Dynacept . Anyway, we’ve continued to tinker with the project, which is referred to as Mike’s Science Project internally (or, “that thing”). But we certainly aren’t ready to talk about anything more at this point. But we did meet with Fusion Garage again today to test out the most recent prototype (B.5?). This is a significant step forward from Prototype B because the software stack is now entirely customized. The last version had a full install of Ubuntu Linux with a custom Webkit browser. This version has a bottom-up linux operating system and a new version of the browser. We also switched from Via to the Intel Atom chip. The total software footprint is around 100 MB total, which is a solid achievement. Also, this time the ID and hardware work was driven by Fusion Garage out of Singapore. In fact, all the credit should go to Fusion Garage. But frankly we weren’t planning on talking about it at all, it just isn’t the right time yet. But, to make a long story short, someone accidentally published some photos we took to the web, they were seen and shortly were everywhere ( see lots lots lots lots lots more ). Even our own CrunchGear couldn’t resist . Ok, so now that what’s done is done, where do things stand? Well, I’m not ready to say yet. But one thing I’ve learned about hardware in the last year is that you need partners to actually make things happen, and the credit for what we saw today goes entirely to the Fusion Garage team. Those guys are rock stars. Here’s are pictures of the various prototypes in chronological order if you’re interested. The first was our initial conceptual drawing. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
A Look At The Tesla S 17-inch Haptic Entertainment And Navigation System Top
Mike and I were the first journalists to ride in the new Tesla Model S sedan yesterday and we were captivated by the massive 17-inch touch screen (so was Gizmodo) featured in the center console of the car. Both Tesla CEO Elon Musk and chief designer Franz von Holzhausen didn’t say much about the on screen system, except that it does have touch capability, it is an “entertainment center” and that it is a prototype which is still undergoing changes and improvements (see what both Musk and von Holzhausen said in our video). Tesla says that 520 S Model all electric sedans have been reserved by customers in first week since it was announced. At that announcement, Tesla debuted the screen but it wasn’t much to look at (see right). Now it looks much better (Thanks to Nik_Nik for the picture above). Here’s what we know about the screen. Its a 17-inch LCD touch computer screen that has 3G or wireless connectivity. When we were in the car, the screen featured Google Maps. Tesla’s website verifies that the screen will be able to feature sites like Google Maps and Pandora Music. From what we saw yesterday, the screen is divided vertically into three separate areas: the maps/navigation screen, radio/entertainment area, and climate controls. The navigation screen has several tabs: “internet,” “navigation,” “car,” “backup,” and “phone.” The entertainment section has several tabs, including “audio,” “media,” “streaming,” “playlists,” “artists” and “songs.” The climate controls seem pretty standard. Our driver (see video) says that the computer is going to be run on some kind of Google Maps software and will feature a “full browser.” It’s not surprising that Google Maps is integrated into the interface, Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page are investors in Tesla. The dashboard is also an LCD touch screen. Tesla has also confirmed to us that the computer/entertainment center will be Linux-based. Here’s the video of both Musk and von Holzhausen talking about Tesla’s computer and footage of our driver revealing more about the technology: Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Battle Of The Google Voice iPhone Apps: VoiceCentral vs. GV Mobile Top
For those of us that rely on being but a series of digits away at all times, Google Voice is a godsend. Regardless of which phone I’m closest to, be it the home line, my iPhone, or any of the phones we’ve got out on review, I’m reachable. As helpful as it may be, it’s not perfect - at least, not right out of the box. Google provides a fantastic backbone, but some of the solutions they provide for basic functionality (such as making a call or sending an SMS from your Google Voice number) aren’t reasonable replacements for what we’ve all grown accustomed to. Dialing another number before dialing the one I actually want? Pft. Loading up my browser and waiting for the web interface to load to send a new SMS? No thanks. I’m a whiny iPhone user, and thus expect every product to have a companion App that makes my life better. Back when Google Voice was still GrandCentral and lacked all of the features that the new name carried in tow (SMS, Voicemail transcription, etc), an application called GrandDialer was released which allowed iPhone users to dial out from their Google Voice number through an interface nearly identical to that of the default Phone application. Unfortunately, enough changed when a user would migrate from GrandCentral to Google Voice that GrandDialer no longer functioned properly. This, of course, resulted in deafening cries for an update from a userbase now again stuck with the more tedious dialing process. Alas, there would be no such update - the day after Google Voice went live, GrandDialer was pulled from the app store, with its developer announcing that the project had been retired. It wouldn’t be long before we started hearing about an app in the works, ready to step up and fill the shoes left empty by GrandDialer’s demise. In fact, there are now two applications (that we’re aware of) sitting in Apple’s moderation queue: RiverTurn ’s VoiceCentral, and GV Mobile by Sean Kovacs . Both are ready to hit the App Store at any moment, and both are going for the exact same price. We’ve obtained pre-release copies of both and pitted them head-to-head - so which one should you give your hard earned $2.99? Note: It’s worth reiterating here that both of these applications were tested in their pre-release, freshly submitted forms. The versions we used for testing are very close to what we’ll see when they hit the App Store, though bug fixes and new features could have slipped in by the time they get approved. Cost: Whether by pure coincidence or not, both of the applications are set to sell for $2.99 when they make their way to the App Store. Important to note here, however, is that GrandDialer was free - but lacked much of the functionality found in either application. This is the App Store, where every third review on any given 99 cent application is complaining that the app isn’t free. GV Mobile will be releasing a gratis feature-for-feature GrandDialer replacement, called GV Mobile Free. It lacks voicemail, history, and SMS, but does everything GrandDialer did. SMS: If any one thing kept people from GrandCentral, it was the absence of SMS - what good is having one unified number if text messages sent to it disappear into the oblivion? At the time of testing, only GV Mobile had support for text messaging. VoiceCentral’s developers tell me they are hard at work on SMS functionality, expecting to have it implemented within the next few days. Depending on when Apple gets around to giving it the green light, it may well have SMS support at launch. Contacts: Both applications allow you to dig through your iPhone’s contact list. VoiceCentral places a Contacts key in the static bottom navigation bar, while GV Mobile places a Contacts icon in the dialer and SMS screens. Of the two designs, we prefer the latter; with the contacts icon off of the bottom bar, more space is available for other icons. The contact screens of both apps are identical to that of the default Phone app’s screen, as it’s simply being pulled up through the API. History: Both applications will show recent incoming/outgoing Google Voice calls. The build of VoiceCentral we used for testing does not currently have it built in, but the developers have shown us that it is ready to go in the next build. Visual Voicemail: Both GV Mobile and VoiceCentral support playback of voicemail messages left on your Google Voice account, and both feature easy to use Visual Voicemail interfaces. In our test builds, however, VoiceCentral’s voicemail interface was much better than GV Mobiles. Both support playback (through the ear piece or the speakerphone), and message deletion. However, only VoiceCentral allows you to scrub to any point in a message, manually refresh the voicemail list, or create new contacts from the voicemail caller’s number. Voicemail is one place where VoiceCentral really shines. Startup Time: In our completely unscientific testing of start-up times (recording each app starting up 3 times, timing how long it took for them to fully load after the icon was tapped, then calculating the average), GV Mobile started up nearly a whole second faster than VoiceCentral, coming in at 3.7 seconds and 4.6 seconds respectively. It may seem trivial - but when you’re constantly clicking into an application to make calls, each second of load time feels like an eternity. One thing involving startup struck us as a fairly notable difference: when GV Mobile starts up, it launches into the dialing keypad. When VoiceCentral starts up, it launches into the voicemail screen. Which is better is a matter of personal preference, though we’d imagine that most users would prefer the quick keypad access. GrandCentral Support: For whatever reason, a number of people plan on stickin’ with GrandCentral until Google makes the jump to Voice mandatory. Of the two, VoiceCentral is the only one to support this legacy option. GV Mobile only plans on supporting Google Voice. Conclusion: It’s a bit tough to recommend one application over the other when what we’re seeing isn’t the absolute final release. However - judging solely on what we have in front of us, we’d recommend GV Mobile. While VoiceCentral’s Voicemail screen is quite superior to GV Mobile, that seems to be it’s only real advantage. As mentioned above, it also has GrandCentral support going for it - but how many legacy users are only hanging on until applications like these make Google Voice as iPhone-friendly as GrandDialer made GrandCentral? VoiceCentral plans on implementing a number of features that would balance things out significantly - but as far as we can tell, GV Mobile has a drastic lead. We prefer a number of GV Mobile’s user experience choices, and the overall design of the application - so in the end, that’s where we’d spend our 3 bucks. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
The A.P. Apologizes, Admits To A "Misunderstanding Of YouTube Usage" Top
My post yesterday about the Associated Press going after one of its own affiliates for embedding videos from the A.P.’s own YouTube channel on its Website caused a bit of a dust-up . As I noted in an update to the original post, the A.P. is now backing down and apologizing . It will allow the videos to go up again. The A.P. also sent me a statement saying no cease-and-desist letter was ever drafted. And technically, it wasn’t. An A.P. executive delivered his warning to the radio station in an e-mail , which had the same effect as a formal letter. “This was a misunderstanding that has mushroomed into something else entirely,” an A.P.’s spokesman tells me. Here is the A.P. complete official statement: There was a misunderstanding of YouTube usage when the Tennessee radio station was contacted by the Associated Press regarding the AP's more extensive online video services. No cease and desist letter was drafted or sent by AP to the station at any time. The AP was trying to offer the station a superior service for their needs. In other words, at the same time it was threatening the radio station it was trying to convince the station to use its “more extensive online video services,” (that would be OVN ), when all the radio station really needs is what the A.P. already makes available on YouTube. At least they apologized. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Ev's Advice For Startups: "Do Something Awesome" Top
Twitter co-founder Evan Williams is on the Web video show Tekzilla in an interview conducted by Veronica Belmont on-stage last week at the Web 2.0 Expo. It was the same day that Biz Stone was in New York taping the Colbert Report . The best part of the interview is when Ev starts answering questions from the audience submitted via Twitter, which is where the clip starts above (you can watch the entire segment here ). The first question is what advice would he give to someone trying to build their own startup. His answer: The core thing would be just do something awesome. Try not to get caught up in the echo chamber. That is probably the toughest thing when you are trying to break out and do something original. A lot of things are evolutionary, and it is easy to get caught up on what the geek subculture thinks. There's lots of valuable businesses that can be built there, but I think that is where a lot of people tend to spin their wheels, and I've been caught up there before. When I've had more successful things, I've thought, "Back to basics. What do I want? What do I want to see in the world?" And create that. He is also asked what he thinks about Facebook’s Twitter-like redesign . “Did they redesign?” he jokes. Then he admits he is impressed and hints that some of the things Facebook did is on Twitter’s own design roadmap. (Maybe Facebook got some ideas from their acquisition discussions with Twitter which fell apart). One thing that Twitter plans to do better is make it easier to share videos and photos, perhaps with inline viewing. Now, that would be awesome. Williams says: Yeah, I think we should support images and video better than we do today, it does not mean we should host them, maybe viewing inline. I don't want to get into competition with Youtube. Twitter is lubricant for Web content. And asked about a business model, he says Twitter will be experimenting with different approaches, but that for now it is still a “secondary” concern to building out the service. One thing Twitter won’t do: allow people to go beyond 140 characters. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Pixelpipe: A Distribution Console For All Your Media Links Top
Pixelpipe, a Web service that lets you syndicate text, audio, video and image files to 75 social networks, blogs and sites, is launching a new version that will allow you to customize the landing page of your Pixelpipe account to look more like your profile on Facebook or Twitter. The new version targets the micro-blogging networks and sites, giving users the ability to send various types of media files through shortened urls across several different social networks. Like TwitPic, Pixelpipe will now let you Tweet a link to a picture, video, PDF file or audio file (using a new shortened url with the domain of http://pi.pe). The url will then link back to your customized Pixelpipe page. Pixelpipe will also let you send a short url for a page hosting media content via a Facebook status update or your FriendFeed stream. And sort of like a Ping.fm for media, Pixelpipe automatically distributes any new audio files, images, or videos to your profiles on social networks, including Twitter, Facebook, and FriendFeed. You can choose to group these services by tags, so you can be more selective about where you’d like to to post the content. Pixelpipe also has native mobile apps for the iPhone, Nokia N Series, and Android and has clients compatible with Windows, Linux and Mac desktops. The new version targets the micro-blogging networks and sites, giving users the ability to send various types of media files through shortened urls across several different social networks. Pixelpipe’s new customized landing page feature lets you create various backgrounds and titles for your page, and view comments on your page. Currently, Pixelpipe’s application supports video, image and file content distribution to Britekite, Friendfeed, Identi.ca, Jaiku, Kwippy, Ping.fm, Plerb, PLURK, Rejaw, Youare.com and will roll out the service to Facebook, hi5, Imeem and MySpace next week. Pixelpipe’s CEO and founder, Brett Butterfield, says that this new version could be especially useful to companies which want to publish media content across several sites and social networks at once and still be able to retain the user experience of a brand by leading viewers of the content back to a customized, branded page. There are other applications that help you easily publish images, videos and text files to your micro-blogging accounts. Ping.fm does this for texts, TwitPic has mastered this for photos to Twitter, and HeySpread lets you publish videos to a number of social networking sites. And you can also easily copy and paste the link of your YouTube video in your Twitter feed or Facebook status update. But the virtue of Pixelpipe is that it lets you publish all types of files, to various social networks and sites from one centralized place, which makes it worth a look. Here are some screenshots of a user’s Twitter page and the Pixelpipe page you can create to mirror your Twitter page: Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Viewers Flock To CBS Sports For March Madness: 8.6 Million Total Hours Watched Top
CBS Sports has just released the final tally of their traffic figures for this year’s NCAA March Madness, and the results are pretty impressive. Over the course of the tournament, viewers watched a total of 8.6 million total hours of streamed audio and video (a 75% increase over the 4.92 million last year). 7.52 million visitors used the on Demand video player, versus 4.76 million last year. During the Final Four (semifinal) round and championship games, viewers watched 515,000 total hours of content, which was a 51% increase over last year’s stats. There were also 2.77 million clicks of the ‘Boss Button’ - a feature that allowed viewers surreptitiously watching the games from work to quickly pull up a fake spreadsheet whenever someone walked by. These figures still pale in comparison to the number of people who watched the tournament on TV, but they beat out CBSSport’s expectations (they had previously predicted a total of 7.2 million visitors. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 

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