Monday, May 18, 2009

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Gnip Adds Facebook Data To Its API Mashup Top
Gnip, a platform that helps move data around from one social network to the next, is now integrated with Facebook so that the platform can access data via Facebook’s recently launched open API stream. Gnip lets data-consuming services like Plaxo that take data from other services (like Twitter, Friendfeed, Digg, Delicious, etc.) collect data from requested users pushed to them. Data consuming services are no longer required to build pollers for any of the publishers pushing data into Gnip, they just give Gnip an endpoint and they push the data to them in real time. With Gnip’s Facebook integration, developers and data collectors can choose the specific Facebook users from among those that have authorized their applications and then Gnip will immediately begin collecting the relevant data, normalize it and deliver it in real-time to the developer’s separate applications. Data consumers using Gnip’s platform can also get public data streams for over 30 social media networks and sites, including Twitter, Digg, Delicious, YouTube, WordPress, Flickr, Six Apart and others without ever visiting those sites or accessing their individual APIs, subject only to the terms of service of those networks. Gnip also offers a number of filter options to allow data consumers the ability to create rules based queries based on tags, keywords, etc. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
What's Funny As Hell About The Supposed AT&T iPhone Plan Price Cut Top
Facing criticism that even the minimum iPhone monthly bill is too high for many consumers, AT&T is reportedly thinking about cutting its prices. The big rumored change is that AT&T would apparently offer a limited data package for $20-a-month, a $10-a-month reduction over the current all-you-can-eat plan. This makes me laugh because AT&T clearly thinks consumers are stupid. If AT&T really wanted to reduce monthly iPhone bills it could do something very simple: Start including SMS plans in its unlimited data plans. After all, SMS is data, yet it conveniently falls outside of AT&T’s unlimited service. The reason for this is obvious: Text messages are an absolute cash cow for AT&T and the other carriers. They are also an absolute rip-off , as they cost the carriers next to nothing to transmit. Instead of just folding these SMS fees into the unlimited data plans like rival Sprint does, AT&T wants to pretend to save consumers money by offering a limited data package for $10 less a month. What a joke. Ever since the launch of the iPhone 3G, AT&T has been fleecing customers with text messaging fees. With the first version of the iPhone, users at least got to send 200 text messages for free with their unlimited data plans. With the iPhone 3G’s updated date plan (which was still just as “unlimited” but with faster download speeds), AT&T cut out all free texts and made users pay at least $5-a-month, unless they wanted to pay the utterly ridiculous $0.20 per text. So basically, that was AT&T jacking up the price of the iPhone plans by at least $5 right there. And many people, myself included, use way more than 200 messages, so it’s more like an extra $15-$20-a-month for either 1500 messages or unlimited messages. Again, a joke when we’re already paying for an “unlimited” data plan. Worse, is that a lot of people pay the $5-a-month for the 200 texts, and then go way over, meaning they’re paying a lot more than even an extra $20-a-month for unlimited SMS. So while AT&T reducing data plans by $10-a-month may seem significant, on a month-to-month basis with the SMS fees, it’s really not. And worse, this cheaper iPhone data plan would be limited, and users are probably going to go over that limit as well, which will likely end up costing them more than the $10 they’re saving a month. This “price cut” is pure spin by AT&T. I’m not even convinced that this cheaper plan will be cheaper for anyone in the long run. If it really wanted to reduce the price of the iPhone data plans, it would eliminate the text message fees. And I’m fine if it wants to offer a plan which is the same as the current prices with unlimited text messaging bundled-in, and then offer a cheaper one without the messages included. That’s how it should be. Their “unlimited” plan is a joke. CrunchBase Information AT&T iPhone Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
AWS Rolls Out Cloud Management And Scalability Features For EC2 Top
Amazon Web Services unveiled a suite of new features for Amazon EC2 which will help users monitor cloud capacity, scale on demand, and spread incoming traffic across multiple web servers. Amazon originally announced these features last fall, but the applications didn't enter public beta until today. The first feature, Amazon CloudWatch, provides customers with real-time visibility into resource utilization, operational performance, and overall demand patterns—including metrics such as CPU utilization, disk reads and writes, and network traffic. The metrics are rolled-up at one minute intervals and are retained for two weeks.
 
Facebook's fbFund '09 Names First Batch Of Winners Top
Facebook has just named 25 of the finalists for the latest round of fbFund, the social network’s joint program with Accel and Founders Fund meant to help foster quality applications on Facebook Platform. Today’s announcement represents only half of the finalists for this round, and the company says that the other 25 winners will be annouced soon. These 50 finalists will each be given $1,000 in Facebook advertising, but much more important, they will have a shot at taking part in Facebook’s incubator program this summer. fbFund has evolved since its inception in 2007, shifting from a no-strings-attached grant to an incubator model led by Silicon Valley vet Dave McClure . Of the 50 finalists from this round, a select number of winners will be invited to the incubator program, where they can receive as much as $100,000 in equity investment along with training alongside Facebook executives and mentors. The program’s latest round has also shifted focus from solely applications built on Facebook Platform to include those using Facebook Connect both on the web and the iPhone. Here’s a list of the winners: Connect sites: Frintro GovIt RunMyErrand RentMineOnline MyChurch.org GreetBeatz Workstir NutshellMail RunThere DropPlay Magellan (private beta), Life360 (private beta) Vittanna (private beta) Platform apps : Travel Brain Networked Blogs Gameyola Photos I Like Paradise Paintball 3D Veechi Classes BitStrips (private beta) SamaSource iPhone apps : FriendFreak Near+Now (Sortuv) Paparazzi CrazyMenu Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Yahoo Mobile Abandons Its Smartphone App To Focus On The iPhone Top
Score another one for the iPhone. Yahoo is abandoning its mobile apps for the Blackberry and other smartphones in order to focus more on its recently relaunched iPhone app. For every other phone, it is concentrating development efforts around the mobile browser experience. People applying for the smartphone app, which is still in beta, are receiving a notice (reproduced below) stating that “Yahoo has decided to cease development” of the app on May 20th. Yahoo Mobile now only has eyes for the iPhone . Rather than create a million apps for every other phone, it is standardizing on delivering the same experience through the mobile browser. Or so it would seem. A Yahoo spokesperson confirms: We are reprioritizing some products to help us better deliver the best possible experiences to consumers on mobile. To streamline our services, we will not develop Yahoo! Mobile for smartphones to focus our efforts on mobilizing Yahoo!, improving Yahoo! Mobile for web and Yahoo! Mobile for iPhone as well as developing new and engaging experiences for consumers, partners and advertisers. We currently have mobile products that reach hundreds of different devices (including Blackberry), and we continue to expand that comprehensive list. The company announced a revamped Yahoo Mobile in February, and rolled it out in April with a new iPhone app and browser support for more than 300 devices . Yahoo Mobile now combines mobile search, your email, IM, and social messaging streams, and personalized Yahoo content such as news, sports, stocks, and RSS feeds. Standardizing on the mobile browser certainly makes economic sense. When it comes to developing apps, Yahoo needs to pick a platform and it is clearly going with the iPhone. Every other phone will have to do with the mobile browser for now. (Although, Yahoo says it will develop apps for other platforms when it sees enough demand. Update : Indeed, I have been able to confirm that new apps for the Blackberry and other mobile platforms with a different look and feel than the discontinued smartphone app are in the works ). While Yahoo is putting a lot of effort into making the mobile browser experience more app-like, it will still never be as fully-functioning as a customized mobile app. There is nothing wrong with betting on the mobile browser. But just last March during a briefing I had with Adam Taggart, head of product marketing for Yahoo Mobile, when I asked whether Yahoo was leaning more towards distribution through apps or mobile browsers, he replied: We are embracing both, apps and browser. We as Yahoo are all about ubiquity. We have a renewed appreciation for the browser because they are getting materially better, but you can always do more with an app on your phone. In the immediate time frame you will see a lot more standalone vertical apps coming out of Yahoo. He positioned the other smartphone apps as a way to address people with Blackberies and other Web-capable phones who have iPhone envy. Here is how he positioned the smartphone apps which Yahoo is now abandoning: The smartphone app is a way to turn your smartphone into an iPhone at no additional cost, if you are envying the iPhone. The smartphone app actually included some features not found in the iPhone app, such as a socially aware address book which could pull contacts from the phone’s native address book and merge that with your Facebook friends, IM buddies, or other contacts on the Web. Don’t expect that feature to come to a mobile browser anytime soon. Here is the text of the email sent to interested beta testers: Yahoo! has decided to cease development of the Yahoo! Mobile smartphone app effective Wednesday, May 20th. So you will not be provided access to the beta program for this product. For the time being, we will be focusing our efforts on the newly-launched Yahoo! Mobile experience for browsers (available at new.m.yahoo.com) and for the iPhone (available via the Apple App Store). We really want to thank you for your interest in being a beta tester. The feedback we receive during these programs is extremely helpful in improving the customer experience across all of Yahoo!s mobile products. In the meantime, stay tuned for more exciting new mobile product releases from Yahoo!. Theres a lot coming and we want to hear your feedback! Many thanks, The Yahoo! Mobile team Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Eric Schmidt's Commencement Address At Carnegie Mellon (Video) Top
Here’s Google CEO Eric Schmidt ’s commencement address at Carnegie Mellon’s 112th commencement ceremony, held yesterday. (Via @CarnegieMellon ) Schmidt’s talk to the audience, which he refers to as the ‘Facebook and Google generation’, is basically about the past, present and future of technology, how quickly and profoundly cultural habits change and how important it is to ‘live in the future’. Surprisingly, Schmidt seems to mention services like Twitter and Facebook more often than Google products. Key quotes: “We got our news from newspapers, your generation gets it from blogs and tweets, and for those of you who don’t know, that’s not what you hear in zoos.” “We thought ‘friend’ is a noun, you think it’s a verb.” “You cannot plan innovation. You cannot plan invention. All you can do is try very hard to be at the right place and be ready.” “How should you behave? Well, do things in a group. Don’t do things by yourself. Groups are stronger, groups are faster. None of us is as smart as all of us.” “You’ll find today is the best chance you have to start being unreasonable, to demand excellence, to drive change, to make everything happen.” Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
UserVoice Raises Funding, White-Labels User Feedback Facilitator Top
Santa Cruz, CA-based UserVoice is taking a couple of steps to break its product free from the in-crowd of early adopters that have increasingly turned to using its service for streamlining internal and customer feedback aggregation. In addition, the startup had announced that it has raised an extra $800,000 from a well-known group of investors, led by Baseline Ventures and joined by FF Angel (the seed investing vehicle for Founders Fund), Betaworks, David Shen Ventures, The Accelerator Group, Net Discovery and Howard Lindzon. UserVoice is essentially a hosted way for businesses to intelligently process the feedback it gets from employees and customers, acting as a social idea generator of sorts. This has proven to be a great way for software companies and web application developers to incorporate the tool into their product websites, basically extending their existing product feedback channels with a way for users to voice their opinions on new features, roadmap, etc. But UserVoice rightly recognizes that there are a lot of corporations and institutions (think education, healthcare, government bodies, etc.) that can benefit from such a service too, and aims to package its main product somewhat differently in order to cater to those as well. For that reason, it’s today releasing a white-label solution that enables its customers to embed branded widgets and communities into their websites and facilitate the streamlining of the aggregation and moderation of incoming suggestions, voting, and user feedback. These widgets can be fully customized with the ability to change the CSS, templates, language files, and more. Along with this, UserVoice is introducing ZeroLogin, a method for users to sign in to UserVoice with the same username and password as the company website that deployed its solution. To see such an integration in action, check out this feedback page on Animoto’s website, which is entirely powered by UserVoice. Last but not least, UserVoice let us know that it has attracted a very knowledgeable advisor to help the company gain more traction: Bob Pearson , who spearheaded IdeaStorm at Dell as the company’s former vice president of communities and conversations. Expect to hear more from this company in the future. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Stand Firm Craig (and Jim) Top
South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster is giving even the normally sleazy Attorney General title a bad name. This is an office that has little to do with protecting the public and everything to do with making high profile attacks on targets that will generate a lot of positive press. All that press leads to a run for higher office. Eliot Spitzer was the alpha male Attorney General, attacking the securities industry, Internet fraud and the mortage industry, among others. He was rewarded with the governorship of New York until his spectacular resignation. Which brings us back to the subject of hookers, and South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster. Earlier this month McMaster, who is of course eyeing a run for governor, threatened criminal prosecution against Craigslist management if pornography and ads for prostitution were not removed from the site. Craigslist took extraordinary measures to comply. But quiet compliance isn’t what McMaster is looking for. He wants handcuffs and a trial, the kind of stuff that Spitzer got. He issued the following statement on Saturday “As of 5:00 p.m. this afternoon, the craigslist South Carolina site continues to display advertisements for prostitution and graphic pornographic material. This content was not removed as we requested. We have no alternative but to move forward with criminal investigation and potential prosecution.” Craigslist fired back in an uncharacteristically emotional post that noted how tame the current Craigslist site was compared to a number of other listing services in South Carolina, including one run by Microsoft. Seriously? The craigslist adult services section for Greenville, SC has a total of 1 ad for the last 3 days, featuring a photograph of a fully clothed person. The "erotic services" section for Greenville, which we recently closed, has 8 ads total which will expire in two days, and even for these ads the images and text are quite tame. Meanwhile, the "adult entertainment" section of greenville.backpage.com (careful with link, NSFW), owned by Village Voice Media, has over 60 ads for the last 3 days, and about 250 in total. In sharp contrast with craigslist, many of these ads are quite explicit, quoting prices for specific sex acts, featuring close-ups of bare genitalia, etc. Of course, no one in mainstream legal circles thinks either company should be subject to civil suit, let alone a criminal investigation. But if for whatever reason you were so motivated, would you target a venue with 9 PG-13 rated ads, or one with 250 XXX rated ones? And FWIW, telephone yellow pages and other local print media have both companies beat hands down as adult service ad venues for South Carolina. Any interest in targeting them for criminal prosecution? Didn't think so. As we wrote previously, Craigslist is the hot site right now that triggers an immediate response from the press (it used to be MySpace, then Facebook). There is no public saftey issue in targeting Craigslist. The only issue is politics, and McMaster sees an easy target. I think he made a serious mistake, though, in targeting Craigslist. Not only are the allegations absurd, but he’s failed to realize the huge community of rabid Craigslist supporters. Spitzer always went after deeply unpopular targets. He would never have touched Craigslist. I say to founder Craig Newmark and CEO Jim Buckmaster : Stand firm. Don’t back down. In fact, just turn off the South Carolina site entirely and ban IPs from that state. Forever. And if they press criminal charges, fight it with everything you have. The community will support you, and that’s one hell of a community, with 46 million U.S. unique visitors a month (Comscore, April 2009). Get 5 million of them (less than 1 in 9) to sign a petition calling for McMaster’s resignation (that’s more than the population of South Carolina). It won’t get him to resign, but it may get enough voters to remember how irresponsible he is when the election for governor comes around. And I’m pretty sure that petition will be the top search result for his name for a long, long time. And if you do end up in jail, don’t worry. I promise to visit at least once a month, even though it will be in South Carolina. More on the story at TechMeme . Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
There We Go Again. No, Micropayments Won't "Save Journalism" Top
If you’ve been following the headlines on Techmeme over the weekend, you’ve likely seen more talk about the whole blogger vs. online journalism debate, the short-sightedness of big media and the inevitable demise of its historical business model. Every time that debate heats up, someone somewhere will at some point bring up the unlikely savior of the publishing industry once more: glorious micropayments. This time, it’s The Guardian ’s Frank Fisher taking a stand, and he says not only will micropayments guarantee the newspapers a future, it can also downright “save journalism,” and oh, Google should be the one providing the infrastructure for it, too. Time to debunk “Saving journalism, a farthing at a time” . Fisher correctly points out the dismal state of the economy has driven advertising revenues down, and this puts newspapers in dire need of finding out how it should subsidize its operations in different ways, with the realization that the printing part of the equation is inevitably going to fade away and that there’s too little money to be made from online advertising to make up for the costs of transferring its entire publishing business (as it operates today) to the Web. The rest of his opinion piece comes down to this: wishful thinking and misunderstanding. “Publishers are in a nightmarish situation; they know the print side of their business is struggling, they know punters want their news online, but they can’t see how to make it pay. In desperation others may follow Murdoch’s retreat behind the paywall. Not good news for news addicts. It isn’t so much the money, it’s the usernames, passwords, subscriptions … Actually, it is the money. But publishers need a profit. Information might want to be free – but food and housing isn’t. So is there another way? Some model that brings in more than advertising, but doesn’t exclude casual visitors, either by cost or inconvenience? Well yes – an idea that won’t go away: micropayments.” Publishers are in a nightmarish situation, and in large part they have themselves to blame for that. Fine with me if they want to escape from that situation by retreating behind paywalls - in fact, I encourage them to do so and die there soon so we can kiss that idea goodbye once and for all. How are paywalls bad news for news addicts? Those addicts have been spoiled to death the past few years, to the point where information overload has taken over and made the consumption of news overly tedious. I know because I’ve been one of them ever since I’ve been able to read, and this was long before I discovered the Internet. Introduce paywalls, ease the choice for news addicts, see what happens. Information is now a commodity, so deal with it. And yes, it should be free to end users. But how will that pay for the food and housing of the people working in the publishing industry, you ask? I say it’s not our problem, and tough luck. In no way does the realization that the model doesn’t work anymore mean that the masses, lawyers, the government or any other institution should be bailing out newspapers for screwing up their chance to figure out this Internet thing in time and adapting to it. Publishers need a profit, like any other business, but that doesn’t mean they all deserve to turn one, and certainly not at the expense of better, more innovative publishing businesses that are waiting around the corner. Go read the column in The Guardian (for free) to find out how micropayments for news would work in detail. Basically, it would involve Google doing the bailing out part I was talking about in the previous paragraph. “The transfer potential of [Google AdSense] technology to a micropayments scenario is clear: individuals would sign up with Google, deposit funds. They’d have a unique ID attached to them at that point – an encrypted cookie stored on whichever PC they happen to log in with. When they visit a site with GoogleDosh embedded they’re allowed in, a fraction of a penny is switched to the content provider’s account for every item they read – if visitors aren’t GoogleDosh members, they’re re-routed, perhaps, to a précis, or a sign-up form, or even to a limited trial. The key difference from other micropayment schemes is scale – and that’s what beats individual site subscriptions too – sign up with one scheme, and you get access to thousands of sites. That’s my theory, at least. It’s technically simple – an easy step if publishers accept a single standard, and the success of Google Ads suggests they will. Publishers win, consumers win long-term by supporting content providers, and in the short term, if good sense among sellers prevails, they get a bargain: spending pennies a day for all the content they need.” Publishers win, yes, to a certain extent. Google? maybe. Journalists? Up for debate . Consumers? Not likely. There are some content providers out there who have figured out how to build a business without the need for people to pay to support them, and their number will only grow in size in the foreseeable future. If anything, Google should (continue to) support them, and not the relics of another age. For more perspective on micropayments, you should read “What Would Micropayments Do for Journalism? A Freakonomics Quorum” , in case you haven’t already. I’m lifting this part from the piece, a quote by Marshall W. Van Alstyne (associate professor in the Information Systems department at Boston University and a research scholar at M.I.T) because I think there’s no better way to conclude this post: Putting micropayments on news is like putting tollbooths on an open ocean. Internet users, awash in a sea of information, will avoid new barriers by navigating around them. And frankly, the interests of a free society are rarely served by building barriers between the people and their news. Amen. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Blogging Site For Babies Wee Web Now Helps Tots Save For College Top
Wee Web, a social sharing site for parents of newborns and small children, has merged with the Freshman Fund, a college savings gift registry. The integration of the sites lets parents create a single destination for families to both see updates on children and facilitate donations towards children’s education savings. Created by the founders of online event planner Meetup, Wee Web lets parents create a central social networking site for their babies and children where they can upload photos, videos and Twitter-like updates and then restrict the site to be viewed only by friends and family. The site can be accessed by invitation and family and friends can receive update alerts on additions to the child’s page. Freshman Fund is like a wedding gift registry for college savings. The free service lets friends and family make donations to a child’s college education fund that is transferred directly to a tax-free college savings plan that the recipient chooses. The integration of the two sites is a pretty interesting idea, especially given that college tuition is a hefty expense for most parents. Wee Web estimates that private tuition for a private college can run upwards of $300,000. The ability for parents to solicit donations from the time a child is born until he or she is ready for college could be a very useful tool, especially in light of the current economy. There no shortage of competitor in the baby social network sites space, including BabySpot, KidMondo, and TotSpot which we reviewed here. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
The Real Truth Behind The 104-Year-Old Who Joined Twitter Top
Dear reader, TechCrunch owes you an apology. We thought the “104-Year-Old joins Twitter” story last week was Digg bait created by the media. It turns out it was all just old fashioned re-hashed PR. But at least we are apologizing - unlike the many news outlets that ran with this manufactured story.To explain… On May 15 two UK newspapers ran the story about 104 year old woman “Ivy Bean” / @ivybean104 joining Twitter. We correctly called it out as a ruse , but we got the wrong target. What none of those original stories told you, was that poor old Ivy had not joined Twitter just because it was suddenly the talk of the senior citizens home. No. She joined because home PC maintenance company Geek Squad signed her up, propped her up for a photo opportunity - even using her own account to Twitpic the event - and press-released the hell out of it. And the media fell for it. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Get Ready For Real Time Digg, Whatever That Means Top
Like everyone else , Digg has a serious case of Twitter envy. And they’re doing something about it. In an interview last month Digg founder Kevin Rose told me that the company was working on an overhaul of the Digg service, calling it a “completely new direction” and referring to the new Digg search as an indication of what direction they’re going in. He didn’t (and still won’t) give many details, except to say that Digg needs to to “a living and breathing site” and “a little bit more real-time in nature” (”real-time” is secret code for Twitter, and has been used so much lately that people are mocking it). Earlier in the interview Rose talked about wanting more user participation on the site, with top stories getting 50,000 or more votes (most top stories get a few thousand now). The new product is designed to encourage more user engagement. We’ve taken the relevant clips from the original interview below. Whatever it is, it’s coming sometime soon. Clip Transcript: Rose: What we're working on now is what I would consider to be the biggest overhaul to how everything works behind the scenes, and that's no joke. Like we… Arrington: Front end and back end rewrite? Rose: Completely new directions for us that you will look at and I guarantee you would be like that's a ballsy move. Like it's really, we're evolving and we've got some really exciting things that we believe are going to take us to that turn. Arrington: What’s the timing? Is that this year? Rose: I mean, I'm not going to give out hard dates, but it's some time in the next six months. Arrington: What might that look like? Like, what are we talking about? Rose: Well, we're talking about a revamp of the site. Arrington: Like a logo change? Rose: Yeah, a logo change is going to get us there. We're talking about some lens flares on the logo… Arrington: Well, what are you going to do so that somebody's going to, like, "Hey, here's the stories." And they're saying, "Digg it!" I mean that's kind of it. Right? It's like a one trick pony with bells and whistles attached. I mean, I agree that most of your changes are bells and whistles. So, what is it that you're going to do that doesn’t kill your core idea that's a whole new thing? Rose: I can't go into that stuff right now. [later in interview...] Rose: I will say this. I don't want to get into specific details about the product, but I believe that it's time for Digg to get a little bit more real-time in nature. And we need to be a living and breathing site. And you know, that's an exciting direction for us. I think that's part of the reason why we rolled out a pretty awesome search. It was kind of us experimenting with some of that. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
If The Watchdogs Are Saved: Ethical Repercussions Of A Newspaper Bailout Top
The somewhat depressing and controversial possibility of a newspaper bailout turned into a stone-cold reality in the past few months as politicians, including Sen. John Kerry, Sen. Ben Cardin and President Obama, have hinted at giving the newspaper industry a life vest to save a sinking industry. Kerry, in his dire remarks at the Senate hearing on "Future of Journalism" a few weeks ago, made a call to action to save newspapers and prevent future harm to democracy. Regardless of where direction of this policy is headed, the idea of a government bailout of the news industry, which is supposed to be the “watchdog” of the government, raises a few ethical flags. President Obama echoed Kerry’s concerns at last weekend’s White House Correspondents Dinner, addressing the current state of the industry: “…It’s also true that your ultimate success as an industry is essential to the success of our democracy. It’s what makes this thing work. You know, Thomas Jefferson once said that if he had the choice between a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, he would not hesitate to choose the latter. Clearly, Thomas Jefferson never had cable news to contend with — but his central point remains: A government without newspapers, a government without a tough and vibrant media of all sorts, is not an option for the United States of America.” Obama was perhaps posturing to a room full of journalists, but the message comes across clear: newspapers need help and their existence is a fundamental requirement for democracy to successfully survive. And any time democracy is threatened, the government will come to the rescue, right? Sen. Ben Cardin actually has a concrete plan, The Newspaper Revitalization Act, to aid newspapers in their time of need. His plan allows newspapers to operate as nonprofits for educational purposes under the U.S. tax code, and thus receive the same tax-benefits as a non-profit organization. Revenue from advertising and subscription would be tax exempt, and contributions to support news coverage or operations could be tax deductible. Cardin’s proposal became a reality on the state-level with this week’s news that Washington’s governor approved a tax cut for the state’s newspaper industry. The law gives newspaper publishers a 40 percent cut in Washington’s main business tax. The catch for Cardin’s proposal is that though newspapers would still be able to report on all issues, namely politics and political campaigns, the government would prohibit the newspapers from making political endorsements. This raises two ethical questions. The first is whether newspapers supported with government funding should be barred from making political endorsements. Political endorsements by newspapers and media organizations are a very essence of freedom of speech. Readers often find value in seeing a newspaper’s evaluation of the candidates given that the paper has in-depth coverage of political candidates throughout the course of a campaign. Putting a muzzle on journalists in this capacity is a step in the wrong direction. There are existing models for publicly-funded or assisted media that are not limited to endorsing political positions. The clearest example of this is PBS networks. PBS is a non-profit media organization that is partially funded by federal and state money (less than 50% of PBS’s revenue comes from government sources). PBS stations are not prohibited from taking a stance on political issues, in accordance with the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, but PBS and the government has been embroiled in several sticky situations involving political bias and politicians feeling that they can somehow control PBS’ coverage. Most recently, Kenneth Tomlinson, the former Republican chairman of the Center for Public Broadcasting, the non-profit in charge of distributing federal funds to public television and radio stations, openly criticized PBS for a liberal bias. Tomlinson even hired an outside investigator to evaluate whether PBS’s political news coverage was slanting towards the left. In fact, it was revealed that most viewers didn’t think PBS’s news favored liberals; however, Tomlinson and other Republicans engaged in a heated debate questioning the bias of the well-respected news organization. Like PBS, the BBC, UK’s largest media organization which is partially funded by taxpayer money, has found itself embroiled in its fair share of accusations of political bias. Some would argue that PBS represents a segment of the media in the U.S. whereas a newspaper bailout would effect thousands of news organizations. I fear that if most mainstream newspapers and organizations took on a similar model to PBS, many politicians would feel that they had the free reign to not only question, but investigate, the bias of any unfavorable news coverage if it didn’t lend support to their political leanings. The second ethical question is whether journalists will be able to deliver unbiased reporting of the very people and institutions that are helping to subsidize their jobs. I think journalists at PBS have done an effective job of objectively reporting the news, despite the political pressure the organization faces from politicians. However, newspapers and thus journalists who are “saved” by government intervention are in a slightly different situation. From its inception, PBS was meant to be a non-profit news organization which drew funding from a variety of sources, including the government. In the case of a newspaper bailout, the government could don the image of a “knight in shining armor” to journalists who, without the bailout, would be unemployed. Will all journalists and media execs buy into this? I’m not sure of the answer but the adoption of this perception surely could effect objective news reporting. Yet having an appreciation for a policy, and letting that appreciation impact professional integrity are two different things. Would the politicians who supported the bailout receive favorable coverage? Most journalists would respond with a resounding no, as they should. Journalists are all beholden to an unwritten code of ethics when it comes to reporting the truth. And even in one of the most disastrous modern-day cases of a politician’s efforts to control the media, journalists have still proven that they fight to report the truth. Italy’s prime minster, Silvio Berlusconi, has been accused of limiting the press’ freedom of expression by controlling negative coverage of his government on state-run media networks and papers as well as the institutions he controls financially. Many Italian journalists have retaliated, quitting their jobs, forming protest groups, and advocating fiercely for greater freedom of speech. These reporters have chosen dissent and unemployment over submission and employment within a state-biased media. But the dilemma becomes significantly more cloudy when the people throwing a life vest to the drowning industry are the same people who need to be evaluated through an objective lens. And the question remains in the case of a bailout, if there will forever be the government’s shadow hanging over the media organizations who survive thanks to these benefits. (Photo credit: Flickr/ VaxXzine ) Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Jump Into The Stream Top
Once again, the Internet is shifting before our eyes. Information is increasingly being distributed and presented in real-time streams instead of dedicated Web pages. The shift is palpable, even if it is only in its early stages. Web companies large and small are embracing this stream. It is not just Twitter. It is Facebook and Friendfeed and AOL and Digg and Tweetdeck and Seesmic Desktop and Techmeme and Tweetmeme and Ustream and Qik and Kyte and blogs and Google Reader. The stream is winding its way throughout the Web and organizing it by nowness . This real-time stream has been building for a while. It began with RSS, but is now so much stronger and swifter , encompassing not just periodic news and musings but constant communication, status updates, instantly shared thoughts, photos, and videos. What does this mean for how we will come to consume information? John Borthwick from Betaworks has identified the real-time Web as a key investment opportunity (Betaworks portfolio companies include Twitter, bit.ly, Tweetdeck, Chartbeat, and Tumblr). He admits he and other investors are still feeling in the dark, but he describes the shift he is trying to capitalize on this way in a post titled “Distribution . . . now”: First and foremost what emerges out of this is a new metaphor — think streams vs. pages. In the initial design of the web reading and writing (editing) were given equal consideration - yet for fifteen years the primary metaphor of the web has been pages and reading. The metaphors we used to circumscribe this possibility set were mostly drawn from books and architecture (pages, browser, sites etc.). Most of these metaphors were static and one way. The steam metaphor is fundamentally different. It’s dynamic, it doesn’t live very well within a page and still very much evolving. A stream. A real time, flowing, dynamic stream of information — that we as users and participants can dip in and out of and whether we participate in them or simply observe we are a part of this flow. In a sense, he is trying to rationalize his investment strategy. But if he is correct, the shift from pages to ever-widening eddies of information will have a dramatic downstream impact on many Web businesses, especially media businesses. This rising stream has the potential to fundamentally change the contours of media distribution on the Web. Large destination sites like Yahoo and AOL, already weakened as distribution hubs by search and social networks, now face the prospect of becoming completely bypassed. No wonder AOL is sticking the stream in every part of its service, from its homepage to Bebo to AIM. (Yahoo is grappling with the emergence of the stream as well, but so far still thinks it can hold onto its place as a central traffic and distribution hub). The stream does not replace Web pages or search, for that matter, but it has the potential to completely transform them. Already, we are seeing Web pages adopt the stream as a new user-interface . Web pages are increasingly being designed as places to present the most relevant streams of information. And with streams of data spreading everywhere , search actually becomes more important than ever as a navigation tool. As Borthwick points out: Traffic isn’t distributed evenly in this new world. All of a sudden crowds can show up on your site. Traffic occurs in bursts, depending on what people are paying attention to at that second across a variety of services. Someone might notice an obscure blog post on Twitter, where it starts spreading, then it moves to FriendFeed and Facebook and desktop stream readers such as Tweetdeck or Seesmic desktop and before you know it, a hundred thousand people are reading that article. The stream creates a different form of syndication which cannot be licensed and cannot be controlled. The problem, more than ever before, becomes one of information overload. How do you keep from drowning in the deluge? Borthwick suggests letting go of teh notion that you can ever master the stream, even just your own personal data stream of friend’s Tweets, updates, blog posts, Flickr photos, YouTube video finds and so on: This isn’t an inbox we have to empty, or a page we have to get to the bottom of — its a flow of data that we can dip into at will but we can’t attempt to gain an all encompassing view of it. So jump into the stream and let it carry you away. Or you can stand timidly on the banks until everyone else around you has already taken the plunge. (Photo credit: Flickr/ Justin Lowery ) Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Did The UK Press Con A 104-Year-Old Woman Into Joining Twitter For Digg Bait? Top
There’s a popular story on Digg right now about a 104-year-old British woman who uses Twitter. It’s an obvious headline: “ World’s oldest Tweeter talks cuppas and casserole .” It’s Digg bait. But what’s worse is that if you examine the story closely, it looks like the UK press may have gotten the poor old lady to sign up for Twitter just for their story! The story is about how Ivy Bean uses the hot social network to post mundane updates about her 104-year-old life. But take a look at the picture in the story. On the screen next to Bean, you’ll see her Twitter page with a whopping two updates. These two tweets were sent out at the same time, the day before the story ran in a number of UK publications. In other words, Bean signed up and sent her first two tweets at the time all these guys were writing their stories. Or, to put it more clearly, this whole story was staged. Bean sent out her first tweet at 2:02PM PST (6:02PM local time in the UK) on May 14, it read “ I’m enjoying Twitter for the first time and having my photo taken” (the picture used in the articles). The Sun, which also ran the story, has an even better headline. “ 103-year-old Ivy loves to Twitter ” — clearly, she does — I mean, she had been using the service for a whole two seconds before the story was being reported. Worse, The Sun gets poor Bean’s age wrong (they say she’s 103 years old). We get some flack for running a lot of stories about Twitter, but this is just pathetic. Though maybe it shouldn’t be surprising. Twitter is red-hot right now and “world’s oldest Twitterer” is an easy Digg headline. And the Telegraph, which did get the Digg headline, gets nearly 10% of its traffic from Digg, according to Compete . Does anyone know any 105-year-olds? I need to contact them for a story. And I’ll be nice enough to give them a Twitter ID that doesn’t imply they won’t make it to their next birthday. [photo: PA] CrunchBase Information Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
The Music Store Apple Forgot About Top
Last January Apple released iLife ‘09, the latest addition to its highly regarded multimedia suite that ships with every new Mac. At the time, much of the media attention went to iPhoto and iMovie, which introduced impressive facial recognition and video stabilization respectively. But me? I was captivated by the GarageBand Lesson Store, a virtual marketplace built into Apple’s music authoring program. The store features song lessons taught by the artists who wrote them, including established musicians like Sting and John Fogerty. Combined with an extremely polished platform for delivering the lessons, I thought that Apple’s Lesson Store might be the company’s next revolution in digital music . Was I a little overenthusasitc? Probably. But I’ve toyed around with quite a few of the learning programs and videos out there, and the GarageBand lessons have serious potential. And with lessons going for $5 a pop, even if Apple only saw a tiny fraction of the sales it sees on its other stores (as would probably be the case), it could still drive substantial revenue from lesson purchases alone. Perhaps even more important, at least from Apple’s perspective: a robust lesson store would serve as a perfect marketing vehicle for driving more Mac sales. Imagine a commercial with John Mayer or Eric Clapton wailing away on their guitars for thirty seconds. Close with them saying, “You want to play like me? I’ll show you. Only on Mac”. Sure, most people would never actually get around to playing through too many lessons (after all, learning how to play an instrument takes some hard work), but the knowledge that they could work through those lessons would be enough to drive even more computer sales. Unfortunately, Apple hasn’t really done much with the Lesson Store since its debut in January. At launch, it featured 18 ‘basic lessons’ (nine each for guitar and piano), along with ten ‘artist lessons’ which feature accomplished musicians showing how to play their songs. It was a decent selection to begin with, but it was hardly comprehensive. But it had potential: Apple surely had the clout to attract more major artists, and we were bound to see frequent updates, right? Not quite. Since January there has been exactly one update, which introduced a whopping three new artist lessons , bringing the grand total to 13. Given how varied musical tastes are, I’d be surprised if any one person was interested in more than four of them. So much for that idea. Aside from releasing more artist lessons, Apple would do well to release a tool that let independent artists and teachers build lessons on the GarageBand platform. Apple could take a cut of each lesson sale as it does on the App Store, and users would get a much broader array of material. Now, I’m well aware there are quite a few music lessons stores scattered across the web, including NowPlayIt and iVideoSongs , which offer high quality video lessons, some of which feature the artists themselves. But for every quality site there are countless spammy sites, and it can be hard to tell the good ones from the bad at first glance - not to mention the fact that many fledging musicians don’t know these sites exist in the first place. A unified storefront from Apple, complete with user reviews, could be a boon for teachers and students alike. So come on, Apple. Let the music play. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Not A Typo: Six Apart Opens Up Suite Of Products For Rival WordPress Top
Anil Dash, chief evangelist for blogging software platform Six Apart, announced today that blogging platform has launched a a plugin that provides WordPress users with access to a suite of Six Apart’s add-on features for blogs. Dash made the announcement at WordPress blogger convention WordCamp Mid-Atlantic. While some of Six Apart’s functionality have been available to WordPress users, this is the first time the site is offering these services as a suite to a rival blogging platform. These features include TypePad AntiSpam, a free open source anti-spam service; TypePad Connect, a commenting profile service; integration with Six Apart Media, the site’s advertising network; and inclusion with blog directory Blogs.com. Dash says that this move represents “baby steps” in Six Apart’s tentative first efforts to provide a suite of features and functionality to WordPress users. This a big deal, considering the long standing rivalry between the two blogging platforms. Last year, the two companies had a heated duel via company blog posts, Twitter and in TechCrunch comments. Perhaps this integration between the Six Apart and WordPress will help settle the peace between the competitors. And perhaps this is a strategic move on Six Apart’s side to integrate with WordPress, a widely popular platform in the blogging world. One thing is for certain— it’s a blessing for many WordPress bloggers, who will now be able to use the plugin to access some of the useful features of SixApart without having to switch platforms. WordPress offers its own free and paid features for bloggers including a stats system and the commenting and spam technology Akismet (which TechCrunch uses). Here’s a video clip of Dash talking about WordPress plug-ins and blogging: Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
This Is Getting Ridiculous: Cat Amasses Half A Million Twitter Followers In 3 Months Top
Ok, I dig Twitter and I understand why celebrities - who continue to flock to the service as if their careers and social status depend on it - manage to attract massive amounts of users following their every 140-character move, but this is getting plain ludicrous. Meet @Sockington , a cat on Twitter that has succeeded in surpassing the 500,000 follower mark some time yesterday. Tweeting eye-opening messages such as “and so I slept and then I walked around and then I slept again and then I saw a cobweb and OH FINE YES IT IS A SLOW NEWS DAY” in addition to “HOORAY THE ATTIC IS OPEN awesome view from attic window PLUS I PROVIDE CREEPY CAT SHADOW IN TOP WINDOW wooooooooooo look out socks above” , the cat has gone from a couple hundred to half a million followers in about 3 months, as the account’s TwitterCounter stats depict. Meanwhile, Sockington (aka Socks aka Sockamillion) has his own website , and some members of the group of followers - which now even have their own name, Socks Army - are buying T-shirts with the animal’s tweets printed on them. The pet’s owner, Jason Scott, is even getting interviewed ( repeatedly ) and speaking at events about the Twitter account. Maybe it’s because I’m not really a cat person, but this is beyond me. People have been saying Twitter has jumped the shark for quite a while (that started around the time the startup launched, actually) and I’ve always felt those people were completely missing the point. But honestly, a cat attracting 500,000+ users with this nonsense is utterly incomprehensible from where I’m standing. Meow me your thoughts in comments. (Via Vincente ) Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Longer Queries Driving Down Ad Impressions? How About Bankrupt Advertisers? Top
Comscore has a fascinating post today talking about the relative decline in paid search ad clicks when compared to search query volume in the U.S. Search queries are up 68% in the last year, but paid clicks are up only 18% in the same period. Comscore says the reason for the decline is that there are less search queries that show ads, and proposes that a reason for less ads is that searches are getting longer, up from an average of 2.8 words per query a year ago to just over 3 today. Comscore says: “And this apparently reduces the likelihood that an advertiser has bid to have his/her ad included in the results page from these longer queries, due to paid search advertising strategies that limit ad coverage, such as Exact Match, Negative Match, and bid management software campaign optimization.” Yeah I’m not buying that. The reason there are less ads on search results, I believe, is that there are, simply, less advertisers. Far less. Big spenders, the category leaders, are just gone . Sharper Image, Wickes Furniture, Levitz, Foot Locker, Wilson’s Leather, Ann Taylor, Zales, Mervyn’s, Macy’s, Circuit City and a ton of other retailers are either shutting down entirely or closing lots of stores. And more are on the way. All of these companies used to spend tons of money on paid search ads. Those budgets don’t exist any more. Efficient Frontier says of Q1 2009: “Search engine spending was down overall by 13% YOY and 3.3% Q/Q. The relationship between spending and ROI trends shows that advertisers continue to adjust their budgets to compensate for the economic downturn and to improve ROI. Monthly spend trends indicate that the additional decline in search engine spending in Q1 2009 was directly linked to the decline in ROI between November 2008 and January 2009. As ROI continued to decline, advertisers continued to cut their budgets in an effort to become more efficient.” and “CPCs are down across the board by 19% YOY and 13% Q/Q indicating that the entire marketplace is deflating as advertisers cut budgets and spend less. On a Q/Q basis, CPCs have declined by 14% on Google Search, 7% on Google Content, 28% on Microsoft Live Search, and 16% on Yahoo Search in Q1 2009 over Q4 2008.” I agree with Comscore that the main driver for the decline in ad coverage are improvements in ad targeting, particularly by Google. But the secondary driver, it seems to me, has nothing to do with query length. Perhaps it’s simply because so many advertisers are no longer advertisers. Drawing a line from that to less ad impressions is fairly straightforward. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Digg Lead Architect Joe Stump Teams With Social Thing's Matt Galligan To Found Crash Corp. Top
It must be something in the air. Spring perhaps. But when high level employees start to leave perfectly good startups before a liquidity event, there’s usually something pretty important that they think they need to work on. A recent example is Twitter creator Jack Dorsey starting his own mobile payments company . And today we saw Digg’s Lead Architect Joe Stump announce his departure to start something new. It turns out Stump has teamed with Matt Galligan , who founded Social Thing and sold it to AOL last August. Big company life wasn’t for Galligan, he said in a phone interview this evening. “I’m an ideas and products guy, and needed to try something new.” So what’s the new company? It’s Crash Corp. , a “Alternate Reality Mobile Gaming” startup. Their games will mix the real world with fictional story lines - expect the first title later this year on the iPhone. They’ll also build on other mobile platforms, Galligan says. Galligan, who leaves AOL at the end of this month, will be CEO of Crash Corp.; Stump takes the CTO role once he leaves Digg full time in June. The company, which will have dual offices in Boulder and San Francisco, has yet to raise funding, Galligan says, but they’re starting to pitch angels and venture capitalists now. My guess is they’ll be funded in short order. One thing to note: Stump has clearly been working on Crash Corp. for at least a few months. On March 14 he said in a now deleted blog post (cached version here ) that the company would launch classic games against your friends on the iPhone using Facebook connect. It sounds like it has evolved significantly since then. Crash Corp is pleased to announce the launch of three classic games that you can play against your Facebook friends via Facebook Connect. We started Crash Corp built on the simple idea that playing classic games with your friends should be simple and, thanks to our friends at Facebook, we’re bringing these games to you. The iPhone SDK for Facebook Connect delivers the familiar Facebook experience that will allow you to seamlessly take your Facebook friends and identity with you to your iPhone games. Of course, Facebook Connect for the iPhone also lets you share your gaming experience back with your friends on your Facebook profile. Today we’re announcing three games that allow you keep track of multiple games using your built-in iPhone inbox and play at your leisure, against your Facebook friends, with a simple turn-based concept. * Chess Wars lets you check your mates on Facebook. Crash Corp was founded on Garren’s idea that playing Chess against his friends on his iPhone should be easy. With Chess Wars we hope to realize Garren’s vision. * Checker Wars brings back a classic, an old favorite of pretty much everyone. Why not challenge your friends and relive a little bit of your youth while you’re at it? * Reversi Wars is a subtle and nuanced strategy game that has been a favorite of Joe’s for years. He’s looking forward to beating his friends and hopes you enjoy it as well. We’ll be submitting all three of these applications to Apple’s App Store in the next week or two. We firmly believe that we’ve created a seamless, simple and beautifully designed social gaming experience and hope you enjoy it too. If you’re interested in participating in our private beta please contact Joe. Update: From Galligan regarding the classic games: “Those apps are definitely still being released, however, not under the Crash Corp name. After Joe asked me to get involved, we decided it was best to move away from the board games, so we put up the splash page on the site, and will be moving the board games to a new company name, and spinning those out. They are almost ready to hit the app store…” Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Is Sequoia China in Trouble? Top
BEIJING, CHINA– Starbucks is a franchise in China that worked. The company opened locations at the bottom of all the major tourist hotels and downtown areas where returning Chinese, expats and business people traveling to China would pop in for some familiarity and to hold meetings, much like they do in the U.S. For people hoping to mix with that crowd, Starbucks became something of an aspirational brand in China. Tea was what your parents drank; a latte was something exotic and western. No one thought Starbucks would work in China, but it did. Sequoia Capital, however, is not Starbucks. There are a few ways to set up venture activity in China. One is to become a limited partner for a local firm. Another is to relocate an existing partner to build an office. The most common is to hire well-known, connected investors already in China, and Intel Capital, which has been investing in China longer than almost anyone, is one of a few farm systems for that. Typically this is known as  the "franchise model." The hired China partners operate under the Kleiner Perkins or Sequoia brand name and typically share the same limited partners, but the funds themselves are separate. In exchange for that name and fund raising advantage, the Valley firms take a healthy chunk of the carry. It seemed like the best of all strategies a few years ago. These firms want experts but don't necessarily want to slow down or meddle in their deal making. But the cachet of the top Valley brands only goes so far over here. In 2008 Kleiner Perkins' China partnership exploded, with two of its four partners quitting in a dispute that was far more contentious than a lot of Valley media reported at the time. In a week of touring China's start-up scene, I've barely heard the KPCB brand mentioned at all. Now, it seems it’s Sequoia's turn in the spotlight. It's no secret Mike Mortiz has been traveling back-and-forth to China a great deal, and he's fond of telling reporters that's because of all the opportunity. I asked him at Kenshoo's recent US launch party about the unique challenges of investing in China versus the US, Europe or Israel. He said he wasn't trying to stonewall on the answer, but that all venture investing was just hard, no one place more than another. Really? Several sources in China and Silicon Valley have confirmed Moritz has been in China this week addressing Sequoia's so-called "China Problem." In February , one of Sequoia China's founding partners, Zhang Fan, resigned due to "personal reasons." People are fond of pointing out that Zhang's biggest hit was Asia Media Company, which later had to de-list from the Tokyo Stock Exchange under a scandal. Whether it’s true or not, the situation certainly didn’t do Sequoia’s brand any favors here. That left the other founding managing director at the helm, the highly respected Neil Shen, who founded Ctrip.com, the so-called “Expedia of China,” and Home Inns & Hotels Management. I've talked to several VCs and entrepreneurs in China who say Shen is a prickly guy but his deal judgment is unparalleled in the country. Indeed sequoia has had two other IPOs (Renhe and VanceInfo) and a stake in the hot social networking name 51.com. Another investment, Peak Performance, has filed for its IPO. Shen is even a bit of a hero to some entrepreneurs. But unfortunately, Shen too is in hot water. U.S. firm Carlyle Group is suing Shen for more than $200 million in damages for allegedly blocking a Carlyle deal in a Chinese medical research firm. Even the widespread speculation could be a big blow for Sequoia, which at one point seemed to be one of the better-adapted Valley names here. It still employs two other managing directors and several more vice presidents and associates in China, but for many Chinese entrepreneurs Shen represents the brand as much as Moritz does in the U.S. There are few China investors with solid operating experience, particularly in the Internet. And it can’t be good news for Sequoia’s limited partners who haven't taken too kindly to Sequoia's pressure to make them invest in not only China, but in other unproven Sequoia funds aimed at India and later stage U.S. companies, according to very wide-spread reports and my own reporting. Player hating is part of human nature, so it’s no surprise that other Valley investors have whispered with glee that the once-dominant Sequoia seems distracted by all this. The competition’s biggest fear: Moritz solves the problems and Sequoia starts to focus on what it does well again. (Sequoia did not respond to a detailed request for comment or clairification of this story and has a long-standing policy of not commenting on the firm’s internal matters.) Update: I’ve updated this story based on conversations with additional sources. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Beijing TechCrunch Meet Up Top
You didn't think we'd come to China and not organize some kind of meet-up did you? Sillies! We're hosting a party at Beijing Bookworm , May 20, the evening before the CHINICT conference begins. Tickets are available here . Capacity is extremely limited and we’ve had a lot of demand for this event, so please only sign up if you plan on coming. The party is being organized by my China researcher and traveling companion, Tom Limongello. For more details, releases of future tickets or questions, follow him on Twitter . Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Gambit: Facebook Users Have Deeper Pockets Than Their MySpace Counterparts Top
When it comes to the amount of money being made on social networks, it seems like nobody really knows what’s going on. Sure, we occasionally hear about huge paydays for companies like Zynga , but very few people are willing to talk, and even when they do their figures are nearly impossible to verify independently. Gambit , a payment engine that powers the microtransactions for a number of popular social network apps, is looking to help shed some light on the matter. Since launching to the public last January, the company has grown to seeing over 20 million uniques a month and has racked up a number of notable clients, including SmallWorlds , Facebook’s Friends For Sale, and Playdom , which is currently one of MySpace’s leading application developers. We asked the company (which also blogs about the industry) to pull together some data that was representative of the trends it was seeing across Facebook and MySpace, and the results are quite interesting, if not terribly surprising. The data comes from two applications that Gambit considers to be “very comparable” games, one from each social network. But it comes with two caveats: it only includes information about users who are actually driving revenue either through direct payments or offers (in other words, it neglects to take into account any advertising revenue) and the figures come from only one data point. That said, Gambit says that the stats below are representative of the trends it is seeing across its entire platform. The first stat, which measures the amount of payments to come from the US vs international audiences, isn’t surprising at all. Facebook is seeing huge growth internationally (where MySpace continues to struggle), so far more of Facebook’s transactions come from abroad than they do on MySpace. The data also indicates that Facebook users are more likely to engage in direct payments (submitting money via credit card or services like PayPal) than they are through lead-generation offers (which invite users to try out a new service), while MySpace sees about an even split. Perhaps the most interesting point is the average revenue per user being earned by applications on Facebook and MySpace. I’ve previously heard that MySpace users were more valuable than Facebook users, but Gambit’s data contradicts this, at least for users who are engaging in microtransactions and offers (it’s possible that MySpace apps can drive more revenue through advertising, which isn’t measured in this data). Still, as micro-transactions become more popular this is definitely something developers are going to keep in mind - if you can convince a user to get out their wallets, they’re likely to pay more money on Facebook than they are on MySpace. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 

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