Wednesday, May 27, 2009

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Video Interview: Biz Talks Twitter Business Models Top
I caught up with Twitter co-founder Biz Stone today on video at the AllThingsD conference to ask him what business models might emerge for the company. In the video above, he talks about different things Twitter can do to help marketers connect with consumers, such as selling verified accounts (something he mentioned onstage last night). But there is is a broader approach which he also hinted at last night : There's a way to make introductions to people, to tell them that things and people are available on Twitter, and there's certainly money in that. Making introductions is one way to put it. Selling followers is another. But how could Twitter sell followers in a socially acceptable way? Here is one idea: Twitter already has a spot where it is testing what amounts to house ads for third-party Twitter apps and services. What if it started using those spots instead to promote corporate accounts? It could get paid for every user who decides to follow a certain company’s Twitter account on a cost-per-action (CPA) basis. The action, in this case, would be following the account. Twitter would get paid for each follower it delivers. I put this suggestion to Stone towards the end of the video. Stone doesn’t dismiss it offhand. He says that it is an “interesting” idea and that the company is leaving the door open to approaches like that. The key would be to present sponsored accounts that a person has a greater chance of actually being interested in, perhaps based on an analysis of topics a person tweets about, links they retweet, or the interest of the people they follow. In the second part of the interview (below) we talk about how to manage the endless stream of information that Twitter throws at its users. He says that real-time might be over-rated and that new ways of filtering Twitter are needed. I also ask him about the growth of microsyntax and how Twitter decides to incorporate things like @replies as features. He says that retweets and hashtags might be the next conventions to become baked into Twitter proper somehow. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Expecting Google Chrome For Mac Tomorrow? Don't Hold Your Breath Top
Nearly everyone around the TechCrunch office is a Mac user, and we’ve been waiting rather impatiently for Google to port over its Chrome browser since its debut (for Windows only) last September. Google has been pretty quiet on when a Mac version might come out, and with Google’s I/O event this week we thought that there might be a chance that the search giant would finally release Chrome for Mac during one of its two keynotes. Today’s keynote was a swing and a miss - we learned about Google’s web elements , new application features using HTML 5, and everyone in the audience got a shiny new GTC phone . But Chrome for Mac was nowhere to be soon. Should we expect more tomorrow? TechCrunch IT Editor Steve Gillmor caught up with Google co-founder Sergey Brin, and asked when we could expect Google Chrome for the Mac. Brin’s response? “I ask about that every other day.” Brin says that Chrome for Mac is definitely coming along. The team measures its progress by how long it can get Chrome to run stably on their computers, and they’ve moved from a few minutes at a time up to a number of hours. But it doesn’t sound like it’s close to being finished. Brin could be playing coy, but it sounds like he wants this as badly as the rest of us. If you’re feeling adventurous, you can always try out the in-development (and buggy) versions , though these obviously aren’t ready for public release. Be sure to watch the rest of the video for more on Google’s experimentation with HTML 5 and YouTube. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Want An HTC Magic From Google I/O? Try eBay. Top
After learning that everyone who attended the Google I/O conference was getting a free Android phone , were you upset that you weren’t here? Well I have good news. But it will cost you. The Google Ion (aka the HTC Magic or the “G2″) that was given to everyone who attended the Google I/O conference today is already available on eBay . Quite frankly, I’m shocked that it seemed to take an hour for this to happen. In the short amount of time since the listing went up, the item already has 8 bids, pushing the price past $200. Considering this thing is unlocked and comes with a month’s free of T-Mobile service (which Google also gave to all conference goers), you can probably expect it to go much higher. The pictures listed for the device on eBay were clearly taken at Moscone West (where Google I/O is taking place), so you know it’s the real deal. Also, the device has a spiffy I/O logo on the back, so that’s worth an extra $50 right there, no? Update : Just a few minutes after our post, the bids and price have almost doubled have more than doubled. CrunchBase Information Android HTC Google Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Microsoft, Tell Sergey About Bing And He'll Give You A Better Name Top
During a Q&A session in the press room following the Google I/O keynote today, Googler co-founder Sergey Brin made a surprise appearance and fielded some questions. One of them was about his thoughts on the name Bing, the supposed name of Microsoft’s new search engine . Brin said he didn’t know enough about it to give a suggestion, but that Google is “pretty happy” with the name it chose, which drew laughs. He then goes a bit more into the name. Watch the video below. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Heyzap Closes Seed Funding Round For Its Flash Gaming Widget Top
Heyzap , the Y Combinator startup that’s looking to become a “ YouTube For Flash Games “, has closed a seed funding round led by Union Square Ventures, with independent investors Naval Ravikant (Hitforge) and Joshua Schachter (delicious) also participating. The exact size of the round was not disclosed, but it was “above $500k and less than $1 million”. Rather than focus on building a portal, Heyzap offers a widget that includes a catalog of 12,000 games that site owners can quickly integrate into their sites. A major part of the company’s strategy lies in partnering with major online publishers to embed the widget, and it sounds like they’re seeing some success - Current features it in the site’s gaming section, and Cooliris is a partner as well. Heyzap generates revenue through advertising embedded in the widgets (most of which is served by Mochi Media ). Heyzap also recently launched an API that allows other sites to present games outside of the widget. At this point the company is operating with a very small team, with founders Jude Gomila and Immad Akhund remaining the sole employees. Akhund says that Heyzap plans to use the funding to expand. For a taste of the kind of games HeyZap offers, check out the widget below. heyzap.com - embed games Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Imindi: "We Accidentally Deleted All The User Accounts" Top
Users beware - if you try out a brand new service in private beta, don’t get too upset when everything goes wrong. On Monday we wrote about iMindi , a new startup that first showed its stuff at TechCrunch50 in 2008. In the post on Monday we gave out 1,000 private beta invites, which were apparently snatched up quickly. Then, disaster. The email iMindi sent out, which contains the dreaded phrase “we accidentally deleted all the user accounts” sort of says it all. Brave souls can start all over again here . I know there are at least a few of you out there that are quite willing to forgive and forget. Here’s the email. Credit to iMindi CEO Adam Lindemann for standing up and taking a beating. Dear Friends of Imindi, Yesterday, we were featured on Techcrunch and many of you were kind enough to sign up to the service. Unfortunately, we had not prepared sufficiently for the demand on our servers and then with some human error we accidently deleted all the user accounts. Darn. We would ask that you forgive us and sign up one more time as members of Imindi. We will set you up with a clean account which we hope you will enjoy using to collect your thoughts and share them with like-minded people. We are extremely embarrassed by this mistake and we have purchased more capacity and instituted safer backup processes to handle the increased demand to prevent a recurrence of this incident. It’s a private beta, and it will be a while before this service is ready to be launched in public but we hope that you will be kind to Imindi as she grows. Below is the new invitation URL: http://imindi.com/invitations/03711dda503b02868903efbed6649d59046952d9 Thank you again, Adam Lindemann Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Google Kicks Off Android Developer Challenge Part Deux Top
In an effort to continue fostering the Android development community, Google has announced the second round of its Android Developer Challenge - a competition that rewards some of the platform’s best applications with large cash grants. Google will begin accepting submissions from developers in August. In an interesting twist, Google is going to let anyone with an Android handset participate in the process, allowing them to vote using a special application available on the Android Marketplace. The voting application will randomly download applications from the pool of competitors, and users will be asked to rate them. These votes will determine the top 20 apps in 10 different categories (for a total of 200 apps), which will then move on to the next round. Users will be able to vote in the second round as well, but votes from Google judges will make up 55% of the final score. So what are the developers competing for? Here’s how Google is breaking down the awards this time around: Prizes will be distributed as follows; all prizes are in USD: For each of the 10 categories: 1st prize: $100,000 2nd prize: $50,000 3rd prize: $25,000 Overall (across all categories) 1st prize: $150,000 (meaning the overall winner will receive $250,000) 2nd prize: $50,000 (meaning the 2nd prize winner will receive up to $150,000) 3rd prize: $25,000 (meaning the 3rd prize winner will receive up to $125,000) In addition, attendees of selected developer events will be provided with devices intended for use in developing submissions for ADC 2. All together, it sounds like Google is setting aside around $2 million for the winners. For more details, check out the official guidelines here . Google’s last challenge kicked off in November 2007, with the final winners announced the following August. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Bartz Wants To Buy Social And Video Startups; Would Sell Yahoo For "Boatloads Of Money" Top
Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz reiterated today that Yahoo is still talking with Microsoft “a little bit” about a possible search deal, but said that it would require a “boatload of money” along with the right data-sharing arrangement (because the search data is key to Yahoo revenues, ad relevance, and user experience). Pressed onstage at the AllThingsD conference whether she would reconsider selling the entire company to Microsoft, she replied: ” Oh, they'd have to have big boatloads of money.” While she still seems resistant to the idea,the fact that she would now consider it at the right price is a softening of her public stance. This doesn’t mean an outright sale is back on the table (that original $45 billion boatload of money left port a long time ago), but at least she is open to the possibility. A search deal with Microsoft remains a more likely transaction. She explained: “There are two parties in all of this. The other party has all the money, we have the data.” Both are valuable. More immediate deals might come from Yahoo doing some acquiring itself. “We are very interested in social, and in video technology,” said Bartz. She was particularly bullish on Web video: “This is just the beginning. The whole video area is so exciting. Video advertising growing four times by 2011.” In terms of what she needs to do to get Yahoo back on track, her main focus remains streamlining management and decision-making at the company. Bartz related the following story of Jerry Yang inviting her over to his house when he was trying to recruit her for the CEO job, which she didn’t want initially: Jerry said, ‘At least come to my house and talk to me.’ I said, ‘I will come talk, but I am not taking the job.’ He pulls a flip chart out of the closet. We all have a flip chart at home, right? I said, ‘Show me who on this board would make the big search decision. He started drawing the arrows. It was like a cartoon. I said, ‘Oh my God. You need management here.’ I couldn't figure out who was in charge. He didn't explain that part very well. So what does she think needs to do fix Yahoo? She didn’t get into specifics, but acknowledged that Yahoo needs to be updated and do a better job of what it already does well: Yahoo drives more traffic to more sites on the Internet than anything else. What is it about us? People trust us. We just have to do an even better job. We have to make it simple. On the other hand, it has to be more customizable. It just has to be a more modern UI and more modern approach, and that is what we are going to do. Bartz distanced her strategy from chasing any particular hot trend, whether it is search or social networking. “Everybody doesn't just go to Facebook,” she noted. “People visit 85 sites a month, but spend most of their time on one or two. They can start on Facebook, but it doesn’t give them their news, their stock quotes, it doesn’t give them a of of things.” Them’s fightin’ words. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Virtual Chat Room TinyChat Adds Video Conferencing And Screen Sharing Top
TinyChat, the simple, free web-based chat room we wrote about here, is now adding video conferencing and screen sharing to its list of features. Once you create a chat room on TinyChat’s site, TinyChat will generate a unique URL that you can share with whoever you choose to invite to the virtual chat room. When users click on the link, they will enter the interface and will be able to input messages, change their usernames and enable video and audio conferencing. Powered by Adobe Flash, the video conferencing feature allows up to 12 different users in the chat room. TinyChat also lets you share any type of file with other members of a chat room. Similar to the site’s previous version, you can embed a badge on other sites and forums to spread the link to the chatroom. The video conferencing feature is very easy to use and the quality of the video isn’t terrible. The startup has also rolled out a premium account, which is $20 per month, where you will be able to add screen sharing to members of the group. Once you enable screen sharing, you will be given a picture window, which can be dragged to the tab or screen where you want the webcast to take place. Additionally, the premium service lets you record and save video conferences as an flv file. The pro account also lets you create passwords for room privacy and offers higher quality video than the free account. Of course video streaming and web conferencing is old news and there are significant amount of services that do the same thing including Cisco’s WebEx, Stickam, Ustream and a host of others. Entrepreneur Daniel Blake, who created TinyChat, TinyPaste and ControlC, says that TinyChat is aimed towards individuals and small businesses who don’t normally use these services but want an easy (and cheap) way to connect with others over the web. Blake also says that he’s hoping to sell the service to social networks like Facebook, to enable video chatting from the site. The interface of the new and improved TinyChat is still very spartan, but for a company or user who is looking for a free service and doesn’t need a whole bunch of bells and whistles, it could be an easy option for video conferencing. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Pics: Google Latitude On The iPhone — But It's Not A Native App Top
Today during its keynote address during Google I/O , Google showed off its Latitude location-based service running on the iPhone. This is notable because so far, Latitude hasn’t been available on the huge popular smartphone. Instead, not surprisingly, Google opted to focus on getting it running on Android. But it’s coming, soon, with the launch of the iPhone 3.0 software this summer. But also interesting is that the reason Google has been waiting for the 3.0 software is because it’s not actually creating a native iPhone app for Latitude — as all other location-based services on the iPhone are — instead it’s using the Safari web browser to run Latitude. Thanks to HTML 5, Safari will be able to access a user’s location information and Latitude will be able to access that as well (provided the user gives permission). This will put it on par with what Google is doing in its browser for Android. Of course, you still mostly likely won’t be able to run Latitude in the background with it being on Safari. That’s the thing that is really holding back these location-based services on the iPhone. Hopefully Apple is getting closer to allowing background apps — at least in a limited form. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Widgets Everywhere! Embed Your Favorite Chunks Of Google With Web Elements Top
During today’s Google I/O keynote , the company unveiled a new set of widgets collectively called Web Elements that are sure to spread across the web like wildfire. The widgets allow users to quickly integrate some of Google’s most popular products, including Calendar, Search, and Maps, directly into their sites with a minimal amount of effort. Much of the same functionality has previously been available through Google APIs (in fact, some of these widgets were built on them), but most bloggers haven’t known how to use them before now. Google Web Elements makes the process much easier - just copy and paste an embed code, and you’re done. Perhaps the most interesting widget is the ‘Conversation’ Element, which allows visitors to your site to post comments and videos, similar to the way they could using a FriendFeed embed. Site owners have the option of restricting these conversations to their sites, or to share them as global conversations through Google Friend Connect. You can check out a sample embed below. Other widgets include ‘Presentations’, which allow you to embed presentations from Google Docs into your site, and ‘Spreadsheets’, which allow you to do the same with Google Docs spreadsheets. This is not going to be welcome news to sites like SlideShare , Scribd , and DocStoc , which let you do this with other documents. The new Custom Search Element makes adding a Google search to your site very easy - just embed the provided snippet of code into your site, and Google will automatically index it. The rest of the widgets are fairly self explanatory. Calendar lets you point out some important dates for you and your visitors, maps let you flag a location, and News shows the latest stories from Google News. Google also says that more widgets are on the way. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Google's "Oprah Moment": An Android Phone For Everyone At Google I/O Top
Today at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco, Vic Gundotra , the VP Engineering for Google has a special surprise saved for the end of the show: A free HTC Magic (aka the G2) for everyone in the audience. Not only that but it comes with a SIM card with unlimited 3G access and talk time for 30 days. As Gundotra joked, he always wanted to have an “Oprah moment.” I would have preferred a free car, but I suppose this will do. Though I do worry that Google seems to love to give these G1s away (see update) . But this seems like a better deal. Update : I previously stated it would be a G1, but it turns out, Google is giving away an HTC Magic, aka the G2 — forget everything nasty I said. Nothing but Google love for this move. Seriously though, this is Google’s thank you to the development community for Android and Google overall. And it’s a great way to further spur development for Android, as of these boxes given away also contains the SDK. Google has stepped up to the plate with this free phone. What will we see next week from Apple at its WWDC event? Probably nothing. CrunchBase Information Android Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Google Earth Is Now Open For Businesses Top
Google Earth has proven to be a powerful and useful tool for combing the Earth.  The virtual-earth application has helped solve a plane crash mystery, was used for a marijuana bust and lets you explore Disneyland Paris. Now, Google Earth is adding something more practical It will let you see businesses and related information on both its desktop and iPhone apps. By adding a “Businesses” layer to Google Earth, you’ll be able to see businesses by default when you start the application. Google Earth will list businesses like restaurants, bars, banks, gas stations, and grocery stores. As you zoom in further to the map, you’ll see more businesses. When you click on the icons, you’ll get additional information like the address. telephone number, reviews, and hours. It’s unclear whether Google is using its database of local businesses in Google Maps to power the business listings, but it seems like that’s the case. CrunchBase Information Google Earth Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
PeopleBrowsr Tosses Its Hat In The Twitter/Facebook Desktop Client Ring Top
There is a heated competition taking place for which Twitter/Facebook desktop client is the fairest of them all. We’ve written about about TweetDeck, Twhirl / Seesmic Desktop, AlertThingy, Sobees, and the clients that focus only on Twitter ( Tweetie, Nambu, Twitterific, etc.). Now, PeopleBrowsr, is entering beta with a free Adobe AIR-powered desktop app that integrates Twitter, Facebook and other social networks into one platform. While in alpha, PeopleBrowsr was able to differentiate itself because it was a web browser based dashboard for social networks, sort of like what Streamy is now. Similar to Tweetdeck and Seesmic Desktop, PeopleBrowsr uses stacks. To add content, you add different stacks for each social network, including Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube, and your RSS feeds. Similar to all the Twitter clients mentioned above, Peoplebrowsr lets you do all the normal twitter activities (read, post, follow/unfollow, DM and reply). And you can update your Facebook status and engage in FriendFeed conversations from the dashboard. Peoplebrowsr is offering different layouts of the streams according to the type of user you are. You are given the choice to run the app under Business mode, which is interesting given how Twitter, Facebook and others are now seen as marketing and PR tools. Companies, restaurants, brands and celebrities all seem to use Twitter as a business platform in some capacity. On first glance, Peoplebrowsr’s bells and whistles seem to cater towards the enterprise community. Business mode lets users manage multiple usernames within one dashboard (Seesmic does this too), conducts conversation threads within the client, and gives you the ability to share a “stack” via RSS or a URL link. PeopleBrowsr also lets you create Twitter groups within the dashboard around keywords and #hashtags. If a group is built around a #hashtag, every time a new person uses that hashtag they are automatically added to the group. Users can browse public groups made by others as well as those based on popular hashtags. PeopleBrowsr offers the ability to filter searches on Twitter by location, groups, specific individuals, posts containing links and sentiment associated with keywords. Results can be further sorted by the number of follower and searches saved for future access. PeopleBrowsr can be set up to send email alerts should a specific keyword appear in the stream. Updates and messages that are key can be flagged, and you can add private notes and comments to a specific user or post. You can also add users to a built in address book within the dashboard. For businesses that want to create reports on Twitter feeds, keywords and direct messages, PeopleBrowsr lets you create custom reports can be exported as RSS feeds and retweets (to share publicly. Like Seesmic and Tweetdeck, PeopleBrowsr is powered by Adobe’s AIR platform, which has some strange user interface bugs and quirks and tends to use a good amount of resources on computers. PeopleBrowsr doesn’t seem to be for the individual who uses a Twitter/Facebook desktop client to simply tweet, follow, DM and update status messages. But for the enterprise community, this application may make tracking social networks for a brand or company much easier. The startup is also retaining the web based browser dashboard that will include all the features of its desktop client. On the consumer side, it will be tough to break into the current race of popular desktop client apps, including Seesmic, Tweetie and Tweetdeck, who all have loyal followings. But it’s wise of PeopleBrowsr to appeal to the enterprise space and this could help the startup make a name for itself out of all the other clients out there. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Live From Google I/O 2009 Top
We’re here at Google I/O , the search giant’s annual developer event in San Francisco. The first day’s keynote address is happening right now, and we’re covering it live. The theme of today is pretty clear: The time for development on the web has arrived. With HTML 5, the ability to create rich browser-based applications is here. Google’s Vic Gundotra has laid out the five key things for HTML 5 that will change things: Canvas, Video, Geolocation, Database and App Cache, and Web Workers. More details on all of those in my live notes below. Find my notes below. Live notes: They’re showing off some Chrome JavaScript goodness set to some odd tribal music. Google CEO Eric Schmidt up first We have spent 20 years trying to build a programming model that is the right one. Then the Internet arrived. “It’s time.” Going to talk about App Engine. Now works with Java. Android looks like it’s going to have a strong year. “Where’s the ‘it works’ option?” We’re just the beginning of getting this right. This is the beginning of the real win of cloud computing, of applications (on the web). Vic Gundotra , VP Engineering for Google “Never underestimate the web.” At Microsoft (where he used to work) we thought web apps could never rival desktop apps . “The web has won.” A more powerful web made easier. New HTML5 standards. A chance to do things differently. Almost half billion people now using modern open source browsers. 5 things that excite Google: 1) Canvas - intrinsic to the web, works with JavaScript, CSS and the DOM. Pixel-level control drawing on the web. Canvas is on Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera — Let’s talk about IE (laughs). Microsoft has made public statements to the HTML5 standard, we eagerly await seeing evidence of that. Matthew Papakipos , Engineering director (Chrome) at Google 3D in the web browser. Game-like graphics, but this is in the web browser. Big on textures, all coded in the source code. Doing all the graphics on the GPU, CPU load in demo is less than 10%. All JavaScript code. Looks great. We want to get to where you can type a URL and immediately play a rich app. So we need common APIs that are in your browser of choice. Standards are the key. Working with Apple, Mozilla and “others” — no mention of Microsoft, chuckles. Back to Vic Gundotra 2) Video - Video in the browser is tough today because it’s about plug-ins. Now a new video tag. YouTube running entirely using the video tag — just a demo today, but it’s possible. No Flash required. Applause 3) Geolocation - All apps could be better with geolocation. Cell ID and WiFi solve the problem of getting the data. They’ve mapped really the entire world. Again all the browsers but IE support this now. Gundotra is thanking Mozilla for their hard work in making new standards possible. Another jab at IE. Jay Sullivan VP Mozilla The browsing competition is heating up again. We all have different missions, but we share things in common. We believe the web is the developing platform for our time. Firefox 3.5, what’s coming. We have about 300 million users worldwide of Firefox 3, but we think Firefox 3.5 is much better. JavaScript performance is 3 times faster in Firefox 3.5 versus 3.0. And it’s 10 times faster than it was in Firefox 2.0. Canvas, video, geolocation, app cache and database, web workers. All coming in 3.5 Demo of Google Maps using Geolocation — a new button to user interface called “My Location” Click one button on Google Maps and it will find you (right above Street View area) But it’s user opt-in. Back to Vic again Demo of Latitude using geolocation — on the iPhone. And this is all in the browser — not a separate app. Will be out shortly after iPhone OS 3.0. New iPhone Safari will support HTML5 4) Database and App Cache - Store what you need locally to make applications faster. Showing off Gmail on an Android phone — running offline. Michael Abbott , Senior VP of Palm A year ago no one would have predicted Palm would be onstage at Google I/O. But we agree the web is the platform — that’s why we made webOS. webOS is built around the JavaScript Back to Vic 5) Web Workers The past problems of having the browser freeze. Background processing now possible with these new standards. JavaScript to do motion detection. It can sense when there is motion and only run when needed. Kevin Gibbs and Andrew Bowers, Tech Lead and Product Manager, Google 80,000 applications deployed since we launched last year 700 requests per second when the white house used moderator Background processing coming soon. Now we have Java support — interest has been remarkable. Opening sign-ups for Java on app engine right now Showing off App Engine demo. Making an app right now. Hey, it works! Applause. Next version of Google Web Toolkit — manual code splitting JavaScript is hard, but now we’ll do it for you with runAsync. Download code after the initial download. Code downloads in background after user up and running. Back to Vic again Over 60 APIs available for our Google products. Over 4 billion API calls everyday coming into Google. Huge. Today something new — You know AdSense and YouTube Embeds so easy to embed. Imagine it for everything else. DeWitt Clinton , Tech Lead Brand new developer product: Google Web Elements Example: Pull in Google News box — embedded in your page. Maps, Presentations, available for a lot of Google products. Google Conversation element, allows visitors to post comments and videos — kind of like FriendFeed embed. Google.com/webelements Vic again Next up, Android. 7 months, 10 carriers in 12 counties 4,900 apps now available 40+ App downloads per user #2 in Mobile web U.S. web browsing (behind iPhone of course) What’s up next: Romain Guy, Software Engineer, Google (Android) Next version: code-name Donut . Search should be more powerful. Kind of looks like the new search in the iPhone 3.0. Add a new API — Text-to-speech API. Lots of different voices, and different languages/accents. Applause. And this engine is open source. And there will be more APIs (not ready to announce today). Back to Vic Recap: HTML 5, App Engine, Google Web Elements, Android Now 3 More things: Part 2 of the Android Developer Challenge. Submissions through August, winners at the end of the fall. User votes now as part of judging. Give away a box a new Android phone. For everyone here. Huge applause. Vic’s Oprah moment. Included with a SIM with unlimited 3G data. Daaaaammmnnn. And call time. Update: And it looks like it’s a HTC Magic, the G2 ! “Don’t miss tomorrow’s keynote” CrunchBase Information Google Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Navify Is An Interface For Viewing Wikipedia With Photo Galleries, Videos And Comments Top
Have you ever been annoyed by the fact that Wikipedia has a wealth of textual information but no videos and hardly any pictures? Take the Wikipedia article for Sony’s Rolly , for example, where the device is depicted as “an egg-shaped digital robotic music player.” If you have never seen a Rolly before, this cryptic description won’t help much. After reading about it in Wikipedia, you’ll then need to look it up on YouTube or Google Image Search to see what it actually looks like. This is where a new service called Navify comes in. Launched in public beta today, Navify intends to enrich Wikipedia by adding pictures, videos and user comments to each article. And it actually works pretty well. Look up “Sony Rolly” using Navify and you not only get the original Wikipedia text but also hundreds of related pictures and videos (pulled in from Flickr and YouTube) by clicking on the tabs Navify puts on top of each article. Look up “Pulp Fiction” and the service retrieves the Wikipedia article itself plus screenshots, covers, posters and trailers from the movie. You get the picture. The site is built upon Wikipedia’s platform with the idea of being a complementary media and discussion layer, similar to the way Friendfeed enables discussions about tweets originating from Twitter. Like Wikipedia, edits are anonymous; anyone can edit the images and videos associated with an article without registering an account. Navify CEO Alan Rutledge says what triggered development was the thought: “If people around the world can help each other by building a free collaborative encyclopedia, couldn’t we make it more useful for everyone by illustrating it together?” What really sets Navify apart is the threaded comment system that allows visitors to discuss the nearly 3 million articles in the English database. Each article is a community waiting to happen- Barack Obama on Wikipedia received 770,000 visitors in the last month alone. Just like Wikipedia, Navify appeals to a very broad target audience, but it looks like just the right online source for people like bloggers, journalists, scientists, students etc. who need to have various kinds of information and data related to a certain subject in one single place. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Ditch The Generic: Weebly Launches Free WYSIWYG Virtual Storefronts Top
Weebly , a popular WYSIWYG webpage maker, is launching a new feature today that will allow users to quickly make fully customized web stores using the Weebly interface they’re already familiar with. Using the new feature is simple. Weebly has added a handful of new ‘revenue’ elements to its main menubar, which allows you to drag-and-drop items onto your page. Simply drag one of the four available ‘Product’ elements onto your page, and you’ll be presented with a small box where you can describe your product, add a photo, and set a price (you can easily create a new item in less than a minute). After creating a product once, you can add it to your other pages without having to recreate it. The store supports both PayPal and Google Checkout accounts, and allows users to add items to a virtual shopping cart as they browse (you don’t have to buy one item at a time). And aside from any fees you might have from PayPal or Google, the Weebly storefront is totally free - the company isn’t taking a cut of any of your sales. To make money, Weebly plans to offer ‘pro’ features for power users at a premium in the future (the site also generates revenue through its pro accounts and domain sales). There are already quite a few services online that allow you to generate your own virtual marketplace, but Weebly cofounder David Rusenko says that most of these do a poor job allowing you to customize the look and feel of your store, which often leads to something generic. Because Weebly can already be used to build your own fully customized webpage, adding the ability to sell items seemed like a natural extension to the product (especially since many users were already trying to sell items from their Weebly pages on their own). At this point my only complaint about the Weebly store is that it doesn’t yet offer templates, though Rusenko says they’re on the way. This means that whenever you create a page for an item, you’re going to have to re-drag all of the links to your other items back to the bottom of the page. This may allow for a wide degree of flexibility, but I think it will also lead to inconsistency on some stores, as some designers forget to add links to their other products (or they get lazy). Rusenko ackowledges that this could get frustrating, but says that the Weebly storefront is really meant for people with small inventories, so this shouldnt be as much of a hassle as it would be for major retailers. Beyond the new storefront functionality, Weebly is doing quite well. The site has almost 2 million registered sites (and is growing steadily, see graph below). Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Siri: A Powerful Virtual Assistant For The iPhone Top
Editor’s note : The following guest post was written by Nova Spivack , CEO of of Radar Networks, the company behind Twine A new paradigm for using the Internet is about to begin: Virtual Assistants (VA's) are coming to a mobile device near you. This week, a stealth startup will demonstrate the first public version of their mobile virtual assistant, Siri . This may mark the beginning of the era of consumer-grade virtual assistants on the Web. Siri is focused on mobile devices – particularly the iPhone and other smart phones, it has an unusually productive interface and user experience, and it is super useful – it is something I would really use every day. As a result I would not be surprised if Siri becomes one of the top iPhone applications within a few months after their launch. (Disclosure: In the past, I worked on the DARPA-funded CALO project from which Siri sprung). The team at Siri has given me a sneak-preview of their technology and product, and here I will dive deep to try to uncover the real significance and technical underpinnings of what they are doing. In addition, I'll delve into the implications of the virtual assistant (VA) trend and what it might mean for us in the future. This is a two-part article. In Part One, here, I cover the basics of Siri as a product, and the Virtual Assistant paradigm compared to search. In Part Two I will go more deeply into the technological foundations and questions. First Look at Siri, the Product Siri is a virtual assistant that is focused on helping consumers complete tasks in their online lives, particularly in the mobile context. The version I looked at runs on the iPhone. Typical use cases are booking dinner reservations, buying movie tickets, getting local information, or finding things to do in your local area. Siri is integrated with the APIs of a "couple of dozen familiar big brand" partners, according to Siri CTO, Tom Gruber, and part of their core technology involves being able to orchestrate and complete tasks across multiple services at once for users. On the iPhone you simply launch Siri and then proceed to interact using a familiar "chat" interface. You make requests or state goals to Siri, and then Siri comes back with answers, questions or suggested actions. You can type to Siri in natural language and it does a pretty solid job of parsing your requests. But more impressive is that you can simply push the talk button on your phone and speak to Siri and it understands you. No need to type. It works surprisingly well. I also like the visual interface – Siri illustrates the progress of each dialogue with nicely illustrated cartoon speech balloons. It's super easy to follow the conversation. It's worth noting here that a speech interface to a Virtual Assistant on mobile phones could probably save lives if drivers used it instead of texting (recent research has found that 1 in 4 USA drivers admit to texting while they drive). Siri is not the only company to offer a push-to-talk speech interface on the iPhone – Google provides one too. But what makes Siri unique is that this takes place within a dialogue, a conversation with your virtual assistant. Siri usually responds with an answer or a follow-up question to whatever you start with. Mobile devices provide numerous challenges, as well as useful information, that make them the perfect venue for a virtual assistant. The main challenges of the mobile platform are screen size, input constraints, and bandwidth. Siri has addressed each of these issues. Siri addresses the screen size issue by not forcing users to type lots of text or look at pages and pages of results. Instead, all interactions take place within compact and user-friendly chat balloons. This is a good fit for the small size of mobile screens. Siri makes input easier as well. While you may type if you want to, Siri allows you to simply speak, using your voice, to give it questions or follow-up information. As for bandwidth, Siri conserves it by reducing the need to surf. For example, if you want to book dinner, just tell Siri and it will do it for you, via OpenTable, without you having to surf through the entire OpenTable site to do so. This is a big timesaver. Siri also takes advantage of information from your mobile device about your GPS location and time information about the your present context. These enable Siri to localize information. For example, while you are out and about you can use Siri to discover a great place to eat, get tickets to a show, plan your weekend, or get help finding your way around town. Simply ask Siri, what movies are showing, and it will show you movies that are near your location and that you can still get to. Or ask it about restaurants and it will suggest restaurants you might like near your present location. Beyond simply suggesting things to do, Siri can also do the legwork of making reservations, and orchestrating your plans, across multiple different services. For example, suppose you want to book dinner and a movie – Siri can do it for you, as a single transaction, making sure that dinner is near enough to the movie that you can reasonably accomplish both without rushing or being late. Siri knows about events in your area, things to do, what's happening. It also knows about your personal context (your location, your current time of day), your preferences, and your personal information that you share with it. By combining knowledge of your local situation and your personal profile, Siri is able to help you complete tasks – like finding a cool thing to do on a Sunday afternoon – in ways that are uniquely targeted to your particular interests and personality. Of course, it will require a lot more testing to determine how well Siri really does this – and how personalized it can be. The current version is not very personalized from what I can tell, however according to Kittlaus, this is very much on their radar for future development. According to Gruber: "Siri deals with the hassle of accessing multiple sites to explore options, make choices, get reservations and buy tickets. It saves your favorites, keeps track of your bookings, and helps you remember what you liked about a place or event. It helps you invite your friends to things you arrange with Siri. It does things that a personal assistant would do for you using the Internet." “Siri is like having an assistant with an internet connection you can call for help when you’re out. For example, you might say 'Hey, I’m at Market and Dolores. Is that modern art museum in the Mission area still open, and how do I get there? And isn’t there a cool Asian fusion restaurant around there? Can you book me a table at 8:00?' You literally *say* what you want in your own words using voice. It’s not a voice recognition veneer on other products. It gets what you want to do on a whole new level." Limited by Design Siri is limited by design — it's not full artificial intelligence. But this is actually a strength, not a weakness. Instead of trying to solve the grand problems of general purpose artificial intelligence, Siri focuses on a few important vertical domains, for example: restaurants, movies, events, local business, weather, and services and data on the Web that relate to them. These limitations mean that Siri doesn't handle general knowledge or tasks outside its focus area. So what can't it do? Siri can’t do general question answering, like Wolfram Alpha or True Knowledge , although the team says that in some cases it can provide answers to questions it knows about, and this feature could be improved in the future. For now, Siri's knowledge is extremely limited and narrow to just the kinds of tasks it helps complete. It wasn't designed to be a knowledge assistant. It won't help you organize information and it won't help you with your homework. In addition, Siri doesn't have much personality; it doesn’t try to be your chat friend or therapist (remember Eliza?) and its not particularly cute or anthropomorphic (Microsoft's ill-fated Bob agent) either – these are all pluses in my opinion. Finally, in terms of task-completion, its core focus, it is still limited to fairly simple kinds of tasks (like making dinner and movie reservations for you). It can’t do complex planning and purchasing decisions, like planning an entire vacation. Where is Siri headed? The Siri team has started by taking on very common, frequent use cases. But the technology is built to scale to new domains as well as to a larger user base. So I would not be surprised to see lots of other things that assistants do coming on line as Siri matures (The CALO project that Siri comes from, was deep in "office assistant" use cases such as scheduling, travel planning, meeting assistance, organizing and learning). It's important to keep in mind that Siri is just getting started, so don't expect it to do your laundry or manage your finances. It won't pass the Turing test either and it's not the beginning of Skynet (not unless Siri somehow mates with Wolfram Alpha…). It's a simple, useful tool, with an impressive amount of intelligence behind it. I am looking forward to the public release. Siri shows promise making smart phones far more productive and useful for consumers. Not a Google Killer – Task Completion vs. Search Before I go too far, I want to state in no uncertain terms that Siri is not a "Google killer." Siri is not trying to solve the general Web search problem (neither is Wolfram Alpha, for that matter), it's trying to do something quite different. Siri is focused on completing tasks for you, not finding Web pages. Siri is shifting the interaction paradigm for the Web from search to assistance. While both search and assistance depend on understanding user intent, the "assistant paradigm" derives user intent through conversation with the user, instead of just a single set of keywords. Furthermore, while the goal of search is simply to provide a set of relevant Web pages, the goal of assistance is task completion – actually doing something for the user, like for example, booking dinner reservations or buying a ticket to a concert. As Tom Gruber, CTO of Siri, explained to me: The current interaction paradigm for the Internet is the search engine. The contract of the search engine with the user is this: you state your intent as search keywords, and it returns links to matching information sources. The measure of quality for a search engine is relevance: i.e., how well links that it returns provide the information needed by the user. The assistant paradigm changes the contract. You express intent in a conversation, as a request or goal statement (”I need an X” or “I want to do Y”). The assistant asks you for clarifying information if needed, and guides you through the process of exploring options and making a choice. The measure of quality for an assistant is task completion: i.e., how well it helps you solve the problem that you expressed in the conversation. Both interaction paradigms are important, but they serve different purposes. When the task is to find information and the problem can be solved by reaching a web page, the search engine paradigm is optimal. When the task is to solve a problem involving personal context, preference, or choice, and when applying multiple information sources to a task, the assistant paradigm is better suited. Siri is not competing with Google. Siri is focused on task completion, not search. However, because task completion is often focused around commercial activities – buying or selling things — it's potentially as or more monetizable than search. This is because task completion uncovers consumer intent more explicitly than search. In search, user-intent has to be guessed at from keywords and clicks. But in task completion, user-intent is directly explained by the user – because the user can state their goals directly, and refine their intent in a conversation. Search queries can be about anything, but assistants know what kind of information is relevant to a task. This is why conversation works for tasks: the user can state a goal, perhaps vaguely; the assistant can offer refinements; the user can choose among them; and the conversation quickly converges on a solution. “Conversion” in this context is not coercion, it is cooperation between the human user and the software assistant that is trying to help them. Consumers use search engines even when they are not in a buying or doing mood, but with a service like Siri a higher percentage of user interactions have true commercial intent. By helping a consumer make a purchase, presumably Siri and other task completion assistants will share in the downstream revenues they help generate. In conclusion, while Siri does not compete with Google in Google's core market (search and advertising), one can easily imagine task completion, and the ensuing commerce transactions it generates, becoming a huge opportunity – one that I would expect Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and others to want to compete in eventually. Virtual Assistants: The Paradigm The idea of Virtual Assistants (VA's) was not invented by the Siri team. It's an idea that has been around for decades. It has roots in Apple's famous "Knowledge Navigator" video, and in the original intelligent agents and DARPA work that inspired the invention of the Semantic Web. Even luminaries such as Google's own Peter Norvig have worked on agents in the past. What's more, it's been an elusive vision, evading the best attempts of several startups of the past, such as the once-super-hot General Magic with their Magic Cap operating system. While General Magic had the right idea, they were too far ahead of their time. Ultimately the Web proved simpler to implement and adopt. Perhaps today the time is right, or at least better, for this to happen at last. In particular several trends make it much easier to build an intelligent agent product today, including: The increasing amount of structured data on the Web (in XML, and even RDF) The wide availability of open API's for services that provide information and commercial transactions. The global adoption of the Web and the simultaneously increasing need for smarter tools to help cope with it The growing adoption of 3G smartphones and other mobile computing devices There are many different kinds of intelligent software agents that have been studied and tested over the years. Some agents are designed purely to interact with other agents, and with other software. But others are designed to interact with humans to help them get things done. These "virtual assistants" are what Siri is focused on. Instead of a Web where consumers have to shoulder the burden of manually searching for things themselves, we are moving to a Web where intelligent agents will assist consumers to meet their goals through a conversational dialogue. The key to the virtual assistant paradigm is conversation. When we interact with a virtual assistant it will not be like using a search box on a search engine. Search boxes are not conversational. You type some keywords, and you get some results. The end. With
 
Another $10.5M Unloads on Peer39's Dock Top
Semantic ad technology provider Peer39 is announcing the closing of its Series C round to the tune of $10.5M, pushing the total amount of funding raised to over $22M . The round was led by Israeli VC Evergreen Venture Partners and was joined by the company’s existing investors Canaan Partners, Dawntreader Ventures, Silicon Valley Bank, and JP Morgan. Since taking an in-depth look at Peer39 nearly a year ago, the company has shifted its focus from developing its own ad network to leveraging its semantic ad platform to transform publishers’ remnant ad inventory into a premium one. The company claims that 70-80% of publisher impressions are sold today as remnant inventory, and that its technology is perfectly suited to analyze these pages so they can instead be used to serve top-tier advertising inventory. Take news sites as an example: These will often categorize themselves as “News” in ad server profiles but in reality they publish content that varies in categories—finance, health, travel, etc. Peer39’s SemanticMatch technology analyzes these pages in real time to determine what they’re really about. Amiad Solomon (CEO) tells me that they are able to shift up to 70% of news content into more sellable categories. Peer39 also offers SemanticProtect , a collection of ‘brand-protecting’ algorithms that can identify whether pages possess content that can be classified as objectionable or sensitive to advertisers (i.e. crime, terror, politics). Integrating with Peer39 requires publishers to add a small piece of JavaScript on their site. On page-load, a request is made to Peer39’s servers, which analyzes the data semantically and assigns the most relevant and profitable advertising channel for the given page. This is where much of the company’s semantic and data mining algorithms come into play. Results are sent back instantly to the publisher and integrated within its ad serving systems allowing the most profitable semantic ad (display or text) to be displayed. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
LG Launches DTXTR Tool To Help Parents Understand What Their Kids Are TXTING Top
LG has launched an amusing (and for some, useful) application that enables you to translate over 2000 words teens tend to use when they’re sending text messages to regular English, and the other way around. The tool is called DTXTR and the aim is to let is keep you in the know of what these kids are txting bout these days, xactli. Frankly, there are a lot of basic words that can’t be converted to ‘teen text’ with the tool yet, but you can always submit a term for inclusion in the glossary. And if you want to test your own mad txt skills, you can do a little quiz on the site to see if you’re up with the times or not. Yesterday, the NY Times came out with an article on texting , with physicians and psychologists saying the increased usage of SMS by teens leads to “anxiety, distraction in school, falling grades, repetitive stress injury and sleep deprivation”. Just imagine how much more of that you’d see if teens were to use full phrases and actual words in text messages! Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Good Technology Buys Social Communication Enabler Intercasting Top
Good Technology has acquired Intercasting , a mobile social networking connectivity company based out of San Diego, CA, for an undisclosed sum. Good, which markets a number of mobility solutions primarily geared towards businesses, is looking to broaden its customer base beyond smartphone users and picks up Intercasting to expand its product line aimed at end consumers. Intercasting Corporation is mostly known for its ANTHEM technology platform, which spans an entire communication ecosystem comprised of social networks, email services, IM providers, content owners, application developers, wireless carriers and device manufacturers. According to Intercasting, carriers currently using the ANTHEM platform include 3, Alltel, AT&T, Bell Mobility, Boost Mobile, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Virgin Mobile USA, and many more. Intercasting is also the company behind Rabble , a mobile blogging and social networking application. Intercasting was founded in 2004 and had raised a total of $17.5 million in capital to date from investors such as Venrock, Avalon Ventures and Masthead Venture Partners. All of its 25 employees will join Good Technology, which is the combined entity formed by the former Motorola company with the same name and one of its rivals, mobile messaging company Visto, which took it off Motorola’s hands now nearly 3 months ago. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Time-Waster Alert: MusicShake Widgetizes Its Soundmixing Service Top
Here’s a fun tool to keep you busy while procrastinating: MusicShake , a VC-funded TechCrunch40 alumni, has lauched a free widget you can use to create, mix and share songs using a simple, intuitive interface. If all goes well you should be able to see the widget in action below. It’s composed of a number of blocks that indicate what type of sound bite (instruments, vocals, etc.) you can expect when you hit the ‘play’ button, and a simple timeline-based overview of the song with all its elements. Hitting ‘Shake’ will make the widget select a random music category and composition. You can then move, delete or add elements by clicking the blocks, or configure them to play the element in a different way or at a higher or lower volume. When you’re finished composing your own mix, you can embed the result on your blog and/or share it with your friends in a variety of ways. You can even download the tune as an MP3 from inside the widget interface. The song catalog is a bit cheesy though, and it sometimes takes a while for the widget to respond to actions, but all in all it’s a fun way to waste some time. The widget is not spectacularly unique, but it’s most definitely a good way for MusicShake to show off the capabilities of its more extensive desktop application and have its users spread the word about its service. All you need to start playing around with the widget is Flash Player 10, no additional downloads are required. CrunchBase Information Musicshake Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Live Video From Stockholm: TechCrunch Europe Roundtable Top
The TechCrunch Europe Roundtable event in Stockholm today (live video streamed below and on @TCEurope on Twitter, official hashtag is #tcen ) will feature an afternoon of panel discussions and presentations followed by startup pitches and a great networking reception. TechCrunchTalk Nordic will be exploring the Nordic and Baltic tech scene which produced amazing companies like Skype , Habbo Hotel and, more recently, Spotify (not to mention the likes of Ericsson, Nokia and many other huge tech companies). Check out our full schedule and speakers here . We’ll be covering several topics such as the interchange between Nordic and Baltic startups, VC investment in the region, and the next wave of innovations that will come from this area. TechCrunchTalk Nordic is sponsored by Bloglovin and Sunstone Capital . Our event partners include: ArcticStartup , Swedish Startups , The Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship and Scandinavian Web Developer Conference 2009 . Our streaming video partner is Bambuser . See after the jump for our live streaming video, which will appear shortly (from 6am San Francisco time, 9am New York, 3pm Stockholm and 2pm London): Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 

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