Monday, April 27, 2009

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Live From Facebook Technology Tasting Top
I’m here at Facebook’s office in downtown Palo Alto, where the company is holding a special Technology Tasting to announce and demonstrate its latest APIs and other features it is going to begin offering developers. In the last two days we’ve heard about some of the announcements, including its decision to grant developers access to full streams - a big step for a service that has previously been quite reserved about exporting its data. And earlier today we learned about its decision to fullly embrace of OpenID, which is a huge leap forward for the initiative. I’ll be streaming the event live using Qik, during which we will be shown demos of some of the first implementations of the full Facebook streams and its integration with OpenID. Update: Facebook is using Plaxo as an example of enabling two-way flow between Facebook Connect, so you can share activity between 3rd party sites and Facebook via linking accounts. Showing Facebook desktop powered by Adobe Air. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Trying And Failing To Live Blog The MySpace Employee-Only All Hands Meeting Top
Our own MG Siegler is attempting to shoot live video of the ongoing MySpace all hands meeting where the new executive team , including new CEO Owen Van Natta , is addressing the troops. The result? Total failure. We had to try since the meeting is being held outside. MySpace’s Los Angeles headquarters has no place for a thousand or so people to congregate, so they are holding the meeting outside in the courtyard, facing a public street. So far, so good. But security put up a fence around the courtyard and checked everyone’s badges carefully. MG tried, and tried again, but was turned away. Ever diligent, MG then tried to video the event from outside the fence. But the audio is so bad that nothing could be heard. On the upside he was kicked out by security and told he’d be arrested if he didn’t leave the property. He’s now trying to find a back way into the courtyard, and I’ve promised to bail him out if it comes to it. The full video, which contains absolutely no useful content whatsoever, is below. Next time we’re renting a helicopter. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
BrightRoll: Video Ad Rates Dropped 12 Percent In First Quarter, And The Pre-Roll Is Still King Top
The ad rates for online video keep coming down, and that is a good thing. Video ad network BrightRoll is about to release some data from the first quarter of 2009 which shows ad rates as measured in cost-per-thousand impressions (CPMs) dropping 12 percent annually. The rate of decline is slowing from the 25 percent drop that video ad CPMs experienced during the fourth quarter of 2008. But if they fall farther that could be a good thing. In a survey of 150 advertising executives in the U.S., more than half (53 percent) expect video CPM rates to be “marginally lower” a year from now, while another 20 percent think CPMS will drop in half. Video CPMs range broadly depending on whether the ads are being sold directly by sites with large video inventories or by ad networks, but a $20 CPM is a broad industry average. These still need to come down to between $7 and $9 to roughly match what advertisers are paying for commercials on TV on average (more like $15 for primetime, and as high as $50 for niche, targeted cable channels). These declining CPMs probably have something to do with the downward revision in ad video revenue estimates that we are starting to see. The high price of online video ads is only one factor limiting its growth, however. Others include poor targeting capabilities, and a still somewhat limited reach for those mostly professionally-produced videos that companies want to place ads on. In the survey, here were the biggest limiting factors: In your view, what are the factors limiting online video advertising’s growth today? • Lack of targeting capabilities: 31% • High price of video: 27% • Limited reach of online video: 18% • Ad format limitations: 12% • Poor inventory quality: 7% • Other: 5% 


 

 And here are the factors corporate clients are worried about. Again, targeting comes up top. Corporations don’t seem as concerned about price as ad agency executives, but overall they have roughly the same concerns. Which aspect of online video do your clients have the most significant concerns about? • Targeting capabilities: 28% • Reach: 24% • Price relative to TV: 17% • Other: 15% • Ability to reuse creative: 9% • Ad unit format: 7% But let’s get back to falling prices because it is really important to understand how that will play out. The lower the rates fall, the more comfortable advertisers are buying online video ad inventory in bulk, and if the prices come down to be more in line with television ad rates then it will be easier for them to think of TV ads and online video ads in the same vein. In fact, 71 percent of the survey respondents think of online video ads as complementary to TV ads. Like anybody else, ad executives like to feel comfortable about what they are buying. The more that online video ads look like TV ads and are priced like TV ads, the more comfortable Madison Avenue and its corporate clients will be. This rigidity partly explains why the pre-roll ad is more dominant than ever. During the first quarter, pre-rolls (video ads that appear in the player before the actual clip) accounted for 81 percent of campaign budgets, up from 63 percent a year ago. In the survey, ad executives perceived the pre-roll as delivering better response rates than other video ad units and “easier to compare it apples-to-apples to a TV: 30 spot.” They also like the fact that they can re-purpose their TV ads for the Web. In other words, they’ve learned nothing about the benefits of molding their advertising to the medium. Everyone in the advertising industry may love pre-rolls, yet very few of them have even done studies to measure their effectiveness or that of any video advertising. According to BrightRoll’s survey, 87 percent have not done any in-house research on online video effectiveness. However, 56 percent believe clients would spend more on online video advertising if they could prove its effectiveness with data. If they did conduct research, here is what they would want to find out: What areas of online video advertising do you believe need to be researched further? • Impact on offline purchase behavior: 39% • Change in purchase intent or brand lift: 36% • Performance vs. TV advertising: 25% Those all sound like important and reasonable things to start measuring. So what is the holdup? Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
MobileCrunch Contest: Cowboys Vs. Giants. Brand New Stadium. You And A Friend? Top
We tend to give away a whole lot of stuff on the TechCrunch network. Phones, DVDs, laptops, TVs - you name it, we’ve probably given it away at some point. That said, I think this is the first time we’ve given away sports tickets. FuzzyCube Software , the folks behind the iPhone game iQuarterback , just dropped us a pair of tickets to the Dallas Cowboys vs New York Giants game coming up in September. This game is going to be one to remember; not only is it a face-off between rivals, but its also the first game the Cowboys will be playing in their brand new stadium . Even with a few months to go before the big day, these tickets are already going for 200 bucks a pop. Want them? Find out how to win after the jump. Read the rest at MobileCrunch >> Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Feed Me: Xobni Going Live With Full Facebook Stream Tonight Top
With the news that Facebook is going to begin allowing developers to incorporate full streams into their applications, developers are scrambling to get their apps up to speed. This morning we got our first look at the upcoming new version of Seesmic Desktop , and now we’ve learned that Xobni , the popular Outlook plugin that helps make Email easier to manage, will be going live with a new upgrade beginning at 6 PM tonight. Because of the way Xobni is built users won’t have to download an upgrade either - all changes will be server side. Up until now Xobni has included some basic Facebook contact information, including profile photos and status updates, but it wasn’t as comprehensive as your full Facebook news feed (you couldn’t see how your contacts were interacting with each other, for example). Now you’ll be able to see this information at a glance directly from your Outlook mail client, which is obviously far more efficient than having to manually check your Facebook page. Unfortunately, Xobni is still available only on Windows machines, so Mac users are left in the dust. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Facebook First Big Site To Really Embrace OpenID Top
Apparently it’s embrace the developer community day at Facebook. In addition to the news that they are making activity stream data available to third party developers, they’ll also be making an announcement around OpenID, we’ve heard. And importantly, the announcement is that they’ll become what’s called a relying party, meaning anyone with an OpenID (Yahoo, Google, AOL, MySpace are all issuers, and Microsoft is in beta) can create and log into a Facebook account using those credentials. Let me take a step back. OpenID is a distributed single sign on solution that allows people to sign into different services with the same login credentials. There are two ways companies/websites can participate in the OpenID framework - as "issuing parties" or as "relying parties." Issuing parties make their user accounts OpenID compatible. Relying parties are websites that allow users to sign into their sites with credentials from Issuing parties. Of course, sites can also be both. In fact, if they aren't both it can be confusing and isn't a good user experience. All the big guys are now Issuing Parties, which allow their users logging in all over the Internet with those credentials. But none of them accept IDs from anywhere else, so anyone that uses their services has to create new credentials with them. It's all gain, no pain. There are two exceptions - AOL Mapquest and Google’s Blogger - but for the most part the big guys are issuers, not relying parties. And that has led us in the past to accuse them of exploiting OpenID for their own benefit without giving back to the community. See our post Is OpenID Being Exploited By The Big Internet Companies? Facebook has been a wild card with OpenID. They’ve talked about adopting it eventually, but their Facebook Connect product has actually muddled the situation - Facebook actually competes directly with OpenID when allowing users to sign in to third party sites via Facebook Connect. Now that’s going to change, and we’ll soon see users have the ability to sign in to Facebook using, say, their MySpace credentials if they choose to. I like the thought of that. But it still may be a while before we see the other major players take similar steps. Facebook has never really had notion of a user ID - you’ve always logged in with your Email address, which could have come from any number of other services, so Facebook isn’t really sacrificing much here. Instead of a user name, Facebook members are assigned a meaningless user ID number (though they’re experimenting with vanity pages ). Contrast that with Yahoo and Google, both of which have built up their own login systems, which can be used across multiple services using a single persistent account name. Users benefit because they can seamlessly jump between services, and Yahoo and Google get their users to stay within their own suite of products. There’s a good chance they’re not going to give that up so readily. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Tweetname Lets You Find And Purchase Domain Names Via Twitter. Oh, Pud. Top
Finding and registering an available domain name just became even easier. Now you can do it via Twitter thanks to Tweetname . Founder Philip Kaplan (aka “Pud,” the former CEO of AdBrite) argues that Tweetname makes domain purchasing much simpler than going through other domain registrars like GoDaddy, which requires you to actually go its site. In truth, it is not that complicated but Tweetname aims to make domain registering Tweet-simple. You set it up once and then it does all the work for you. Once you log into Tweetname for the first time, the site uses OAuth to connect to your Twitter account. You fill out your credentials, including name, address, credit card info, billing info and then Tweetname automatically follows you and arranges for you to follow Tweetname. After this is set up, you can Tweet a potential domain name via a direct message to Tweetname, and Tweetname within seconds will let you know if it is available (”Success!”) or not (”D’oh”), and will purchase and register the domain for you. Domains, which can be registered under .com .net .org .us .name .biz .info, cost $14.95. You then get an email with all the information about where you can manage the domain. Tweetname provides users a free interface where they can manage their domains, set up email addresses, set up url forwarding, and so on. UPDATE: Kaplan tells us that after seeing the comments on this post, he has dropped the price of the domains to $11.95 per year. Here’s a instructional video that shows how Tweetname works: Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Google's Schmidt and Microsoft's Mundie Appointed As Obama Tech Advisors Top
Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, and Craig Mundie, Microsoft’s chief research and strategy officer, have been named to President’s Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). According to a statement released by the White House, PCAST is an advisory group of the the country’s foremost scientists and engineers who will help the President and Vice President form policy related to science, technology, and innovation. The council includes a who’s who in the science and technology fields, with leaders in climate change, medicine, physics, chemistry, and computer science all holding positions on the council. The group is co-chaired by John Holdren, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; Eric Lander, Director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and one of the principal leaders of the Human Genome Project; and Harold Varmus, President and CEO of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, former head of the National Institutes of Health and a Nobel laureate. Members of the council include Christopher Chyba, an expert on the threats of biological warfare and nuclear proliferation; Chad Mirkin, a noted nanotech researcher; and David Shaw, founder of D.E. Shaw & Co. and a computational biochemistry expert. PCAST was originally established by President George H. W. Bush in 1990. President Obama recently named Aneesh Chopra as chief technology officer, a position that was widely speculated to go to a Silicon Valley technologist. Steve Ballmer, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Eric Schmidt (among many others) were named as possible candidates. Last fall, Beet.TV sat down with Mundie for an interview. Here’s the video: Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Facebook Opens Up Its Stream API To Developers. Let The Conversation Wars Begin! Top
As we speculated this weekend, Facebook has opened up its activity stream through a new API for developers. Now any developer can create new applications incorporating the real-time stream. One of the first apps to take advantage of this new API is Seesmic Desktop , A Twitter client which is now adding your Facebook feed through this API (something Tweetdeck already did in the past through other more restrictive means). Facebook has also created its own desktop notification client to demonstrate what can be built with the API. I just got off the phone with Ethan Beard, Facebook’s director of platform marketing, who tells me that the entire feed will be available through a single API call. A developer could recreate the entire Facebook home page if he wanted to or take parts of the feed and remix it to make something more interesting. For starters, I’d expect most Twitter clients to add the Facebook stream as an additional option. On Tweetdeck, for instance, you can read your activity stream, but you cannot respond in-line. The new Facebook Open Stream API is two-way, so it would allow developers to build apps which allow for that two-way communication inside the app. This is a big deal . It potentially puts Facebook side by side with Twitter in all of these desktop and mobile client applications where a lot of the real-time conversation is happening and lets it compete head-to-head with Twitter. Whichever conversation stream is more interesting will prevail. But beyond the arms race with Twitter, the stream API will open up the possibility for many new applications both within Facebook and outside its walls. An obvious one would be better filtering options for your activity stream. It would be simple to create an app that shows you the most liked or most commented on items in your stream, for example. Or now that stream can be plugged into various social search engines to give you socialized real-time results. Hell, if I could just search my own activity stream, I’d consider that a giant leap forward. But Facebook still only allows developers to cache data for 24 hours, so you wouldn’t be able to build a very powerful search engine or return results from more than a day ago. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Three's Company: Meet Your New MySpace Executive Team Top
Less than a week ago MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe still felt secure in his job . Fast forward to today and DeWolfe is out and a new CEO, Owen Van Natta , is starting his first day on the job. And he’s already got two lieutenants, either of which could easily be the CEO: former AOL exec Mike Jones as COO (he has /mike at MySpace and was one of the first 3,000 members) and Jason Hirschhorn is the new Chief Product Officer. MySpace cofounder and President Tom Anderson , who’s currently leading the product team, is having "discussions" about "assuming a new role in the organization." Hirschhorn was formerly the Chief Digital Officer at MTV Networks and was most recently the head of Sling Media Entertainment Group. Van Natta, Jones and Hirschhorn are pictured left to right above. As we said last week , this was more than a simple CEO change. The entire senior executive team has been restructured with outsiders hand picked by News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. Digital Media chief Jon Miller. From what we hear they’re done hiring for now. But as Van Natta, Jones and Hirschhorn settle in, expect many more changes down the road. Those execs that are still left at MySpace are meeting the new team for the first time today (I’d pay good money to listen in on that). Later in the afternoon they’ll lead an all-hands meeting. The full press release is below. News Corporation Expands MySpace Management Team Michael Jones named Chief Operating Officer Jason Hirschhorn named Chief Product Officer ______________________ Los Angeles, CA, April 27, 2009 – News Corporation today announced an expansion of MySpace's management team with two key new hires. Michael Jones has been named Chief Operating Officer and Jason Hirschhorn has been named Chief Product Officer, effective immediately. Mr. Jones and Mr. Hirschhorn will be based in Los Angeles and report to MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta. Jones has founded and operated several online businesses, including Userplane, a leading provider of tools for online communities such as MySpace. Userplane was acquired in 2006 by AOL, where Jones subsequently served as a Senior Vice President and focused on social media monetization and also pioneered the distribution of widgets and other technology to Web publishers. Most recently, he was the founder and CEO of Tsavo Media, an online content and search network developing next-generation publishing platforms and technology services. Hirschhorn has led both start-up and established online businesses. Most recently he was President of Sling Media, Inc's Entertainment Group, which created consumer-driven applications and services for the Slingbox device. Previously, he was Chief Digital Officer at MTV Networks, where he oversaw the company's digital media businesses, products and strategies. Hirschhorn joined MTV Networks following the acquisition of his company Mischief New Media, which provided interactive services to the entertainment industry. "Michael's operational insight and knowledge of the social media market will prove to be a valuable asset as we set out to evolve the MySpace product offering," said Jon Miller, Chief Digital Officer, News Corporation. "From a product perspective, there's no better choice than Jason, who is highly regarded as an incredibly talented innovator, media executive and leader, all qualities I know will greatly benefit our team and our users." "We were attracted to Michael's unique background in building and operating successful businesses that fall directly in our sweet spot, and I look forward to leveraging his skill set as we further refine and shape the MySpace vision," said Mr. Van Natta. "Jason's reputation for creating compelling consumer experiences that leverage the intersection of technology, design and media is unmatched and we're excited to have him join us." "I am so fortunate to have the opportunity to build upon the successes of the company's founders and am eager to work with Owen and Jon and the rest of the incredible management team at MySpace as we enter this exciting new phase in the company's already revered history," said Mr. Jones. Mr. Hirschhorn continued, "MySpace is one of the most alluring innovations of our time and I am honored to collaborate with Tom Anderson and the rest of the MySpace team to take what is already a stellar product into its next evolution." News Corporation (NASDAQ: NWS, NWSA; ASX: NWS, NWSLV) had total assets as of December 31, 2008 of approximately US$50 billion and total annual revenues of approximately US$33 billion. News Corporation is a diversified global media company with operations in eight industry segments: filmed entertainment; television; cable network programming; direct broadcast satellite television; magazines and inserts; newspapers and information services; book publishing; and other. The activities of News Corporation are conducted principally in the United States, Continental Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, Asia and Latin America. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Portfolio Magazine Gets Liquidated. There Goes $100 million. Top
Conde Nast is shutting down its glossy business magazine Portfolio , two years after its launch. Conde Nast famously poured $100 million to launch the publication, which went on an expensive hiring spree in 2007 in its attempt to take on Fortune , Forbes , and Business Week . The magazine always seemed to me to have an unhealthy fixation with Wall Street and the hedge fund boom over other industries, but as Wall Street cratered nobody wanted to read those stories anymore. The drop in print advertising, down 26 percent in the first quarter, didn’t help matters either. Portfolio saw itself in the same vein as the Fortune magazine of the 1930s, filled with lush photographs and long narratives. But that formula doesn’t work in an age where business is about speed, not leisure or luxury. It also doesn’t work in an age where monthly magazines in general are increasingly challenged by the wealth of instantaneous business news available on the Web. (And you thought the daily newspapers had it tough). Portfolio’s insistence on favoring its print over its Website content also helped to hasten its demise. If you are going to start a magazine these days, the Website has to come first. The magazine companies still don’t realize this simple fact. Finally, there will always linger the question of leadership. The magazine’s editor Joanne Lippman alienated and drove away much of her star staff. I know people who used to work there, and the stories I always heard were ones of disarray, which is to be expected at any startup, even one with $100 million in corporate backing. Did anyone here even read Portfolio magazine. Does anyone here even read magazines? Oh well, another one for the deadpool . (Disclosure: I used to work at Fortune a long time ago). Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Time Magazine Throws Up Its Hands As It Gets Pwned By 4Chan Top
The hackers of 4Chan have succeeded in completely gaming Time Magazine’s online poll for its Time 100 list of the most influential people on the planet. At the top of the list is Christopher Poole, aka Moot, the founder of the 4Chan online forum, whose members used some coding to get his name to the top of the list. Not only did they help moot win the poll, but they also arranged the next 20 names to spell out “Marblecake, also the game.” Marblecake is a lewd sexual reference, but is also supposedly the name of the chat room where one of 4Chan’s online collective actions, Project Chanology, originated. This is just the “people’s choice” list, not the official list picked by Time’s editors, but still it makes you wonder whether the editors at Time bother to read anything on the Internet. It is pretty well-documented that the 4Chan community was trying to manipulate the poll results. Nevertheless, Time just threw up its hands and named Moot the winner . Time is obviously aware of the controversy, but tries to justify the choice nonetheless by writing that: Moot denies knowing about any concerted plan by his followers to influence the poll, though TIME.com’s technical team did detect and extinguish several attempts to hack the vote. Except Time.com’s technical team didn’t do a very good job, because the top 21 names still spell out the Marblecake sentence. Time knows it was pwned by 4Chan, but simply throws up its hands. Time.com’s managing editor Josh Tyrangiel tries to defuse criticism by admitting that the poll is meaningless. He says, “I would remind anyone who doubts the results that this is an Internet poll. Doubting the results is kind of the point.” Or maybe the point is to name an Internet celebrity and create a controversy so that people click through to read the results. Well played. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Seeqpod Knocked Down, Will It Ever Get Up? Top
Seeqpod , the ill-fated startup behind the kick-ass media search technology used by many music streaming and playlist services and social networking applications, appears to have cracked under the weight of litigation. At the end of last month, we broke the news that the Emeryville, CA-based company filed a petition for Chapter 11 with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of the Northern District of California. Now it looks like the service, which many third-party developers use as the underlying foundation for their own offerings, has gone completely dark for the past couple of days. Update: site just went back up with a maintenance notice, about 5 minutes ago (10 AM EST) Apparently, after going down Friday afternoon Seeqpod at one point claimed on its website that it was having server issues and that the service would be restored once the technical problems were solved, but the site went down again 45 minutes after the notice was published and has been unavailable since 10:30 PM EST Saturday night. There’s still no 100% certainty that Seeqpod has in fact permanently closed shop. In fact, MP3 Newswire in a post says it has been in touch with Seeqpod CEO Kasian Franks yesterday and that he reportedly stated the company is merely moving servers. Furthermore, MP3 Newswire quotes Franks as having said that the company is in acquisition talks with a “large media company that was a competitor to Apple”. This could of course be a well-considered strategy to let people know it’s up for sale at all (which under the circumstances, would not be much of a surprise), hoping to squeeze a deal out of say, Sony or RealNetworks. In case this is all just talk and an acquisition never happens, things are not looking too good for Seeqpod, who despite the fact that it claims not to host any files on its own servers has become the target of multibillion dollar lawsuits by music labels like Warner Music , Capitol Records and EMI. The company has raised $7 million from undisclosed angel investors to date. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Brandtology Raises $1.35 Million For Advanced Social Media Tracking Top
Walden International , an international venture capital firm headquarted in San Francisco but with a strong foothold in Asia, has invested S$2 million - Singapore Dollars - (approx. US$1.35 million) in Brandtology . The company, which has its headquarters in Singapore but boasts more offices in China, Malaysia and Australia, provides business and brand online intelligence services out of specialist-manned ‘Command Centres’. Despite its military-sounding name, these centres actually help Brandtology customers make ‘timely and informed strategic decisions’ based on an advanced online conversation tracking system, which mines blogs, forums, micro-blogging services etc. for opinions, aided by specialists who monitor the system for clients around the clock. Brandtology in a statement said it will use the fresh capital to further expand its services in North Asia, where it sees most opportunities for growth. The investment in Brandtology is the first to come out of the early-stage fund Seed Ventures IV Pte., a $13.3 million venture fund Walden International set up as a vehicle for small-scale financing rounds. The firm's funds total over US$1.9 billion in committed capital. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Wesabe Meets Mint In The iPhone Finance App Arena Top
When it comes to startups in the online personal finance sphere, most people think of Mint . But another player in the space, Wesabe , has been holding its own as well, seeing some nice growth in the past year. Which one you use is probably a matter of personal taste, but perhaps you were mesmerized by Mint’s slick iPhone app. Well, now Wesabe has one as well. So how do the apps stack up? Well, there are two key differences: Mint’s looks nicer, but Wesabe’s is more dynamic. What I mean by that is, with Mint’s iPhone app you can only see an overview of your finances, and look at things like the budget you set up online. With Wesabe’s iPhone app, everything is editable. And that’s a nice feature because more than a few times with Mint, I have seen a transaction categorized wrong, but had to login on my computer to edit it. One cool feature that comes out of this ability to edit and add transactions from the app is that you can use your phone’s GPS to geo-locate wherever you made a purchase. This means you won’t have to type out the name of every merchant if you really want to take a hands-on approach and enter every purchase you make manually. The app also allows you to tag items on the fly, which is core to Wesabe’s offering. If you’re really worried about security, you’re probably not going to use either of these apps. But one nice thing Wesabe’s features is a separate security layer that allows you to set a password for accessing the app. This is great if you don’t have a password set on your iPhone and worry about losing your phone and someone seeing your finances. Wesabe’s iPhone app gives you access to all the accounts you set up online through the service. Unfortunately, while you can sign up for a Wesabe account through the app, you cannot import any bank accounts or credit card accounts through it — you’ll have to go to a computer to do that. Wesabe CEO Marc Hedlund tells me that functionality will be available in an upcoming release of the iPhone app. Ultimately, the choice of which app you’re going to use on the iPhone will come down to which service you use. But if you’re deciding which to sign up for and being able to edit your finances easily on a mobile device is important to you, than Wesabe may be a good choice. Find the Wesabe app available for free in the iTunes App Store . Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Confirmed: Former AOL Exec Mike Jones To Take COO Role At MySpace Top
We’ve confirmed our story from the weekend that former AOL exec Mike Jones will become the COO of MySpace. This makes him the number 2 executive of the reorganized News Corp. subsidiary under new CEO Owen Van Natta . A third new executive may also be announced later today. An announcement will be made later this morning. Jones and Van Natta will join Jonathan Miller , the CEO Digital Media, at MySpace’s Los Angeles offices today to address employees. Jones is a well respected entrepreneur who founded Userplane , a video chat service that added social features to dating and other sites. Userplane was bought by AOL in 2006 for around $40 million. The acquisition was made at the time that Jonathan Miller was the CEO of AOL, and Jones knows Miller well. As we said in an earlier post about the changing of the guard at MySpace, News Corp. is making a clean sweep of the top executives . Cofounder and CEO Chris DeWolfe is out. Cofounder and President Tom Anderson is is having "discussions" about "assuming a new role in the organization." Our guess is that the final Cofounder, CTO Aber Whitcomb , is next to go. Jones left AOL in 2008 to start a new company, Tsavo , which sources tell us is off to a very fast start. The company raised a substantial amount of capital from American Capital and has made a number of acquisitions . Sources also say that the company is profitable. Jones will be stepping into a board of directors and advisor role, and he certainly leaves the company far more structurally sound than his new boss Owen Van Natta did with his own Project Playlist . This is the kind of executive that many hoped Miller would bring in to run the massive MySpace property, which remains one of the largest sites on the Internet despite lagging badly behind Facebook in growth . Jones won’t have the same authority in the No. 2 position at the company, but if Van Natta is smart enough to give him room to run it will be a good sign for the company. Another good sign - Jones is a long time user of MySpace and is very active on the site. CEO Van Natta barely has a presence , and Miller isn’t yet on the site. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Have Kindle, Will Travel — And Stay Up-To-Date Thanks To Offbeat Guides Top
I used to think the Kindle was stupid. Then I bought one and realized I was wrong . It’s still way too expensive, but it’s great at what it does. And what it does keeps on expanding. Now, it takes a step into the up-to-date travel guide market, with a partnership with the customizable travel guide service, Offbeat Guides . Starting tomorrow, you’ll be able to find 500 of the company’s newest guides in the Kindle store at prices ranging from $3.99 for smaller cities to $7.99 for larger ones. Here’s why these are great. Just like the Offbeat Guides regular guidebook products, its Kindle-ready guidebooks are way more up-to-date than traditional guidebooks. While there have been some guidebooks available on the Kindle in the past, most are only updated once a year. Offbeat Guides are updated every month. This means they can include information such as real-time events for specific cities, like concerts or festivals. It also means the guides can have a Kindle menu option to find out something going on in the city you are visiting that night. For tourists who don’t know anyone in a particular city, that’s a great feature. There are a couple downsides. Naturally, because the Kindle only handles grayscale images, you won’t get the full color pictures you usually find in other tour guides. And because the Kindle’s screen isn’t ideal for displaying maps, tailored, local maps that are a part of Offbeat Guides regular guides aren’t included here. But, at 10.2 ounces (for the latest version), the Kindle is likely lighter than regular tour guides. And, if you’re planning a multiple city trip, you can obviously load up a bunch of these guides on one Kindle. One thing that particularly excites me is the fact that you can also view these on your iPhone if you go somewhere and don’t feel like carrying around a Kindle. Because the Kindle app on the iPhone stays in sync with the Kindle content, you can bookmark pages and look at them later on your phone. Offbeat Guides has been working on these Kindle-tailored guides for 6 months now, CEO Dave Sifry tells me. He also notes that there are 5 times as many cities available as compared to other guides. Right now, if you plan on traveling to a city often and want the most up-to-date guide, you’ll have to buy a new one each time. But Sifry says they will explore the possibility of having subscriptions for certain cities if customers demand that. Such a feature may even be useful to locals of a particular city to know what is going on. But the focus right now remains on leisure and business travelers, he says. Find a full list of the Offbeat Guides Kindle options here .   Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
TC/CG Meet-up: Important Helsinki Update Top
I’ll be in Helsinki next week and I’d like to plan a very informal meet-up on Tuesday, April 28 at 8pm . All those attending, please email me at john@crunchgear.com with the subject line “RSVP HELSINKI.” NOTE - The new start time is now 8pm. We’ve decided to have the meet-up at A21 on Annankatu 21 [Google Map] . PLEASE RSVP ASAP so I can offer them a head count. N.B. If you have a start-up to discuss, please have some information handy, preferably in electronic form. It will probably be hard to do demos unless they’re on a mobile phone, but if you contact me beforehand we can probably sit down to look at your product on a laptop. Best of all, F-Secure , the anti-virus people, will be sponsoring an hour of drinks from about 7pm-8pm. Anyone wishing sponsor another few hours should email me. UPDATE - Nokia is chipping in from 8pm-9pm! For last minute changes follow me on Twitter . See you in Helsinki! Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
AOL Launches Online "News Magazine" PoliticsDaily Top
AOL is adding a twist to old-fashioned political journalism with the launch of its new political news and blog site, PoliticsDaily.com. The site, which will primarily focus on in-depth political commentary as opposed to breaking news, will only provide original content, from long-form analysis to blog posts on issues in the U.S. political landscape. Led by former New York Times Washington Correspondent, Melinda Henneberger, PoliticsDaily wants to tie the old media’s in-depth political analysis with a sustainable digital medium PoliticsDaily is the brainchild of Martin Moe, senior vice president at AOL and is built under Bill Wilson's new MediaGlow division, which is building new content brands distinct from AOL itself. MediaGlow, which recently launched topic directory Love.com, runs AOL News, Engadget and TMZ.com, among other properties. PoliticsDaily is part of the AOL News network, which received more than 27 million unique visitors in March, according to comScore stats. New York Times Digital by comparison had close to 46 million unique visitors in March. PoliticsDaily has enlisted a “dream team” of experienced political journalists from both new and old media, including Walter Shapiro, former columnist for USA Today and former Washington bureau chief for Salon; Jill Lawrence, former national political correspondent for USA Today and columnist for the Associated Press; Carl Cannon, former Washington bureau chief for Reader's Digest and White House correspondent for the National Journal and the Baltimore Sun; Lynn Sweet, blogger and Washington Bureau Chief of the Chicago Sun-Times; and Patricia Murphy, founder of Citizen Jane Politics, a non-partisan website for women. The site will include blogs such as “Woman Up,” a blog focused on political issues from a woman’s perspective; “The Daily FLOTUS,” a blog which focuses on First Lady Michelle Obama; and “The Cram,” a student-focused blog on political news. Consumers are more frequently looking online news for political news, as we saw in the past presidential elections and during the current downturn in the economy. PoliticsDaily hopes to be a mainstream source of analysis and news and shuns the idea of being a news aggregator. While the all-original content includes both long-form articles and blog posts, the site will not be primarily focused on breaking political news—perhaps leaving the real-time, short-form news to other political news competitors like The Politico,The New York Times, The Huffington Post and the A.P. The competition in the political news sphere is tough, especially online. PoliticsDaily will have to build a credible brand with its original content, going up against media organizations that have long been offering in-depth analysis, like the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, The Atlantic and The Huffington Post. PoliticsDaily will also face some competition from The Politico, which incorporates blogs, breaking news, interactive multimedia features and in-depth reporting into one site. And while the New York Times and Washington Post are hemorrhaging money from their print publications, their in-depth political coverage and analysis on their websites is strong, deploying a wide array of multimedia, blogs and long form commentary. News broadcasters sites also provide popular political coverage—CNN.com. MSNBC.com, and FoxNews were among the top five trafficked news sites following the election in November. Moe maintains that PoliticsDaily’s long-form magazine content will differentiate the site from The Politico and other real-time focused news sites. Moe pledges that the differentiation between PoliticsDaily and the Huffington Post will be even more clear. Moe says that while the Huffington Post is largely a content aggregator, has a leftward bent, and doesn’t pay many of its bloggers, PoliticsDaily will be 100% original content from “experienced” paid writers, and will be “poly-partisan” with perspectives from the liberals, centrists and conservatives. Of course, with the financial backing of AOL, PoliticsDaily has the advantage of being able to pay all those editors and reporters. But if PoliticsDaily is supposed to be an online new magazine, why isn’t AOL’s sister subsidiary Time Inc. running it? Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Apple May Hear Verizon Now Top
At the risk of repeating myself for the millionth time, in many peoples’ minds, the Achilles’ heel of the iPhone is the network it’s on in the US: AT&T. Since the day it was announced as being exclusive to that provider, people have been wondering one thing: How long until it’s on Verizon? Rumors have surfaced time and again about the possibility, but today brings perhaps the most concrete news yet that the two sides are talking. The two sides are discussing the possibility of getting Verizon version of the iPhone ready for 2010, sources tell USA Today . There are likely two reasons it would take until next year. The first, is that Apple’s exclusive contract with AT&T runs through next year. The second is that a Verizon version would presumably have to be CDMA-ready, which means the innards of the iPhone would have to be slightly tweaked, as the current iPhone is GSM-only (which AT&T, and most other cell networks run on). Perhaps now we know why it’s been reported recently that AT&T was pushing hard to get Apple to extend its exclusive deal another year, into 2011. Verizon is AT&T’s main rival in the US, and is actually larger. But Verizon lacks the one device that people are switching networks just to get. In announcing its most recent earnings, AT&T said that as many as 40% of all customers who sign up for iPhone contracts are new to AT&T — that is huge. But here’s something to think about: A new iPhone is almost for sure going to launch sometime this summer. It will be AT&T only — and, you will presumably have to sign up for a new 2-year contract to get it (and certainly you will have to do that to get it for the subsidized price). If people know a Verizon iPhone is possible in 2010, will a lot of potential buyers hold off? I think so. Hell, given the recent issues I’ve had with AT&T’s network, I’d consider not getting the new iPhone if Verizon was really a possibility for next year. But it’s still a big “if” at this point. Who knows, Apple would just be talking with Verizon (the company that originally spurned the iPhone) just to increase the pressure on AT&T to give them a sweeter deal. You know, negotiations 101. But if Apple truly does envision the iPhone as a product that it wants to dominate the market with, it will need to get onto other networks eventually. It seems inevitable, but is 2010 the year? Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Facebook To Let Others Play In Its Stream Top
Seeing the explosion in growth of Twitter right now, it’s pretty clear that the hot trend on the web is to have a service which acts as a central hub for information, and allows third-party sites and services to built on top of it. For most of its life, Facebook has been almost the exact opposite, insisting that developers work from within its walls to keep much of the data — and the users — there. Tomorrow, it looks like Facebook may be knocking down its dam to let its streams of data flow more freely. Facebook is expected to announce that third-parties will now have access to data from the site that was previously unavailable, before an event set to take place at 4PM PST tomorrow. The Wall Street Journal has a few of the details, including that developers should be able to access the all-important photos and videos that users upload. Apparently, these third-party developers, assuming they get users’ permission to use this data, could build their own sites and services with some of it. Also of note is that apparently Facebook will begin supporting more open standards for the transporting of data. It’s not yet clear exactly what this will mean, but presumably it could help alleviate some of the issues I wrote about last week in noting that Facebook, Google and others were creating what were essentially proprietary profiles, that forced all of us to actively use and update all of their services. I’ll be very interested to see what this means when it comes to Facebook Connect. If Facebook really is opening most of its data, it would seem to me it’s a smart move to stop some of the momentum that smaller rivals, like Twitter, are getting. After all, Facebook still has its big stick — over 200 million users and more importantly, their data. Now it may be able to fully swing it. [photo: flickr/ rachel thecat ] CrunchBase Information Facebook Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Al Gore Defends His Right To Invest In Green: "Congresswoman, You Don't Know Me." Top
On Friday, during a Congressional hearing on the Obama Administration’s proposal for a cap-and-trade system to curb greenhouse gases, Al Gore had to defend his honor. Marsha Blackburn, the Republican Congresswoman from Gore’s home state of Tennessee, questioned his motivations behind supporting the proposal because of his investments in green startups through his role at Kleiner Perkins, where he is a partner . (Watch the video above, courtesy of Talking Points Memo ). Blackburn comes off as clueless and Gore comes off as defensive. She didn’t seem to know too much about Kleiner Perkins other than that it is a “capital firm” and that it has invested “$1 billion in 40 companies that are going to benefit from cap-and-trade legislation,” or at least that is what she gathered from an old New York Times Magazine article . “Are you aware of that company?” she asked him. Then she asked Gore if he stood to personally benefit financially from these investments, and that set him off: Congresswoman, if you believe the reason I have been working on this issue for 30 years is because of greed, you don’t know me. He pointed out that “every penny” he makes from these investments, his book, and movie go to the nonprofit Alliance For Climate Protection . Blackburn responded by saying that she was just trying to get clarity on the issue, but Gore was having none of it: I understand exactly what you are doing Congresswoman. Everybody here does. . . . I’ve been willing to put my money where my mouth is. Do you think there is something wrong with being active in business in this country? I am proud of it. Is this video from a parallel universe or did the Republican Party become anti-capitalist all of a sudden? Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Swine Flu Spreads Panic Over The Web Top
Earlier today, the U.S. declared a public health emergency over the Swine Flu, after confirming 20 cases of the flu spreading to humans in New York, Ohio, Kansas, Texas and California. More than 80 people have died in Mexico from the disease, which has potentially spread to other countries, including Canada and France. Although Federal officials are urging Americans not to panic about the disease, fear of contracting the potentially deadly flu is quickly spreading over Twitter, Google, and blogs across the web. Swine Flu is the top trending topic on Twitter at the moment, with users rapidly tweeting about the latest news about the disease, including whether it has spread to other states, the Center for Disease Control’s announcement, etc. Google Trends reports that “Swine Flu Ohio” is the 27th most popular search keyword currently, with searches for the “CDC” and “Swine Flu Symptoms” also making the top 100 keyword searches on Google. Google Maps have also been created to chart the spread of the Swine Flu. Below is a Google Map created by a bio medical engineer, that charts suspect and confirmed cases of the Swine Flu in the U.S. and Mexico. Technorati’s index, which graphs the number of times the search term occurs in blog posts across the web, shows that mentions of Swine Flu in blog posts has risen sharply from Friday to nearly 2800 blog post mentions today. Keyword popularity across the Blogosphere This chart illustrates how many times blog posts across the Blogosphere contained the following keywords. swine flu » Configure this widget for your site! Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Here Comes Twitter Spam And How To Fight It Top
A spam-less Twitter feed might just be too good to be true. Spam is becoming an increasing problem on Twitter and something has to be done to separate the wheat from the chaff. Spammers are using Twitter as a tool by replying to your @username, which then causes the Tweets to show up in your timeline. There isn’t really a way to filter Twitter spam directly from a Twitter client. But there may be soon. Loic Le Meur has proposed to add a “report as spam” button to the Twitter desktop clients his company has created, Twhirl and Seesmic Desktop. This button would flag the spammer to Twitter (or to a separate database of users) and Seesmic or Twhirl could then exclude the spammer from its client apps after a sufficient number of users report them as spam. Le Meur also says that the clients would manually check the potential spammers to ensure that they are actually spammers. After the clients are established as spammers, Twitter could then delete or block the user accounts. Le Meur says that his Twitter clients will soon include a “report as spam” button and is calling on fellow popular Twitter clients, Tweetdeck and Tweetie, to follow suit. The one potential issue with the flag button, says Le Meur, is that Twitter prefers spam to be reported by a direct message to its spam account “@spam.” But you need have @spam to follow you first (it seems to be autofollowing) before hitting the flag button on a Twitter client. It’s an extra step the user would have to take to make the button usable, says Le Meur. Flagging is a good idea and a great first step to battling spam but what Twitter really needs is an Akismet -like plug-in. Akismet, created by Wordpress developers, filters link spam from blog comments and trackback pings for blogs. When a new comment, trackback, or pingback comes to a blog site, it is submitted to Akismet, which runs hundreds of tests on the comment and returns a thumbs up or thumbs down on whether it is spam. Akismet says that its plug-in has caught 10.7 billion spam comments from blogs since its launch in 2005. There are a few Twitter applications that let you flag possible spam, but none are tied to the Twitter desktop clients, like Seesmic Desktop or Tweetie. Topify, a nifty service we reviewed recently, gives you a more comprehensive version of the standard New Follower email offered by Twitter, by providing the user's Bio, Follower/Following numbers, the user's most recent tweets and the ability to block and unfollow potential spammers directly from the New Follower email. Twerp Scan scans through your followers and flags Twitter users who could be potential spammers. You can control the filtering options that determine who is a spammer (i.e. number of followers vs. following). But Twitter may have to develop or license its own spam blocking software if the problem becomes more prevalent. >Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 

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