Wednesday, May 27, 2009

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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 itslef. “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
 
Free As In Android Top
Not since Apple stunned a developer/media crowd by giving away free iSight video cameras has a company gone to the heart of what Jonathan Schwartz calls the tendency of not just software but hardware to trend to free. Google's giveaway of 4,000 Android phones and 30 days of 3G answers the musical question: is that an Android phone in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? Google's HTML 5 pitch got a whole lot more interesting when developers realized the company was moving into the kind of viral marketing Apple seemed to own until recently. The App Store has created an always-on version of the developer evangelism connection, and we'll see how effective Google is in building on the momentum created by the phone toolkit. The iPhone 3.0 release continues to keep Apple ahead in lining developer pockets with money through increased monetization scenarios. Now the differentiator will come on the media side of the equation.
 
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 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
 
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 : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
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
 
Time Warner To Decide On AOL Spinoff At Thursday Board Meeting (It's A Done Deal, Supposedly) Top
Last month Time Warner announced that it would likely spin off its AOL assets into a new company, followed by an IPO (10Q SEC filing is here ). Little detail was given about the transaction, other than the fact that Google’s 5% stake in AOL would be repurchased. But exactly when the transaction would occur, and what assets it would include, were left unstated. New CEO Tim Armstrong will lead the independent company. Sources close to AOL tell us that the board of directors will make a final decision on the AOL spinoff at a board meeting this Thursday, May 28, possibly undoing the $147 billion 2001 merger of the two companies. Sources characterize the decision as “a done deal.” The big question is whether AOL’s dial up access business will remain with AOL. Last year Time Warner was in discussions to sell it to Earthlink. The dial up business continues to decay - at one time AOL had 26.7 million dial up subscribers, but it has fallen to just 6.9 million today. Still, it’s a nearly $2 billion business that brings in, sources say, around $1 billion in free cash to AOL. At current decay rates the business will peter out in another couple of years, but for now it’s an important way for AOL to finance growth (more on that in a post later today). Our sources say the dialup business will become part of the new AOL entity. Total AOL revenues in 2008 were $4.2 billion, a 20% drop from 2007. AOL had $867 million in revenue and $150 million in operating income for the first quarter of 2009. From the 10Q filed last month: AOL's business is focused on attracting and engaging Internet consumers and providing advertising services on both the AOL Network and the Third Party Network. In addition to growing its Global Web Services business, AOL is focused on managing costs in this business, as well as managing its declining subscriber base and related cost structure in its Access Services business. In the first quarter of 2009, in an effort to better position its Global Web Services business, AOL undertook a significant restructuring. As a result, for the three months ended March 31, 2009, the Company incurred restructuring charges of $58 million primarily related to involuntary employee terminations and facility closures, and currently expects to incur up to an additional $90 million in restructuring charges during the remainder of 2009. During 2008, the Company announced that it had begun separating the AOL Access Services and Global Web Services businesses, as a means of enhancing the operational focus and strategic options available for each of these businesses. The Company continues to review its strategic alternatives with respect to AOL. Although the Company's Board of Directors has not made any decision, the Company currently anticipates that it would initiate a process to spin off one or more parts of the businesses of AOL to Time Warner's stockholders, in one or a series of transactions. Based on the results of the Company's review, future market conditions or the availability of more favorable strategic opportunities that may arise before a transaction is completed, the Company may decide to pursue an alternative other than a spin-off with respect to either or both of AOL's businesses. The Platform-A business unit sells advertising services worldwide on both the AOL Network and the Third Party Network and licenses ad-serving technology to third-party websites. Platform-A offers to advertisers a range of capabilities and solutions, including optimization and targeting technologies, to deliver more effective advertising and reach specific audiences across the AOL Network and the Third Party Network. The MediaGlow and People Networks business units develop and operate websites, applications and services that are part of the AOL Network. In addition, AOL's Products and Technologies group develops and operates components of the AOL Network, such as e-mail, toolbar and search. The AOL Network consists of a variety of websites, related applications and services that can be accessed generally via the Internet or via AOL's Access Services business. Specifically, the AOL Network includes owned and operated websites, applications and services such as AOL.com, e-mail, MapQuest, Moviefone, Engadget, Asylum, international versions of the AOL portal and social media properties such as AIM, ICQ and Bebo. The AOL Network also includes TMZ.com, a joint venture with Telepictures Productions, Inc. (a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.), as well as other co-branded websites owned by third parties for which certain criteria have been met, including that the Internet traffic has been assigned to AOL. During the first quarter of 2009, AOL's Advertising revenues were negatively affected by weakening global economic conditions, which contributed to lower demand from a number of advertiser categories, a deterioration in the financial position of certain significant customers and downward pricing pressure on advertising inventory, as well as an overall increase in marketplace competition, an increased volume of inventory monetized through lower-priced sales channels and other sales execution issues. During the remainder of 2009, the Company anticipates that these factors and trends may continue to negatively affect AOL's Advertising revenues. Additionally, in the first quarter of 2009, AOL made a number of organizational and personnel changes, including hiring a new chief executive officer and changing the leadership within its Platform-A business unit. The AOL Network and Third Party Network components of the Global Web Services business have differing cost structures. Third Party Network advertising has historically had higher traffic acquisition costs ("TAC") and, therefore, lower incremental margins than display advertising. As a result, a period-over-period increase or decrease in aggregate Advertising revenues will not necessarily translate into a similar increase or decrease in Operating Income before Depreciation and Amortization attributable to AOL's advertising activities. Paid-search advertising activities on the AOL Network are conducted primarily through AOL's strategic relationship with Google Inc. ("Google"). In connection with the expansion of this strategic relationship in April 2006, Google acquired a 5% interest in AOL, and, as a result, 95% of the equity interests in AOL are indirectly held by the Company and 5% are indirectly held by Google. As part of the April 2006 transaction, Google received certain registration rights relating to its equity interest in AOL. In late January 2009, Google exercised its right to request that AOL register Google's 5% equity interest for sale in an initial public offering. Time Warner has the right, but not the obligation, to purchase Google's equity interest for cash or shares of Time Warner common stock based on the appraised fair market value of the equity interest in lieu of conducting an initial public offering. The Company is in discussions with Google and has notified Google of its intention to purchase the 5% equity interest. AOL's Access Services business offers an online subscription service to consumers that includes dial-up Internet access. AOL continued to experience declines during the first quarter of 2009 in the number of its U.S. subscribers and related revenues, due primarily to AOL's decisions to focus on its advertising business and offer most of its services (other than Internet access) for free to support the advertising business, AOL's significant reduction of subscriber acquisition and retention efforts, and the industry-wide decline of the dial-up ISP business and growth in the broadband Internet access business. U.S. subscribers declined 0.6 million in each of the three-month periods ended March 31, 2009 and 2008. The decline in subscribers has had an adverse impact on AOL's Subscription revenues, and the Company expects the total number of subscribers to continue to decline. AOL's Advertising revenues associated with the AOL Network, in large part, are generated from the activity of current and former AOL subscribers. Therefore, the decline in subscribers also could have an adverse impact on AOL's Advertising revenues generated on the AOL Network to the extent that subscribers canceling their subscriptions do not maintain their relationship with and usage of the AOL Network. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Zensify iPhone app shows key trends across your social graph Top
Zensify is a new lifestreaming iPhone app which lets you update, discover and track pictures, videos and comments across multiple social networks. Other apps have tried to do similar things. But what sets Zensify apart is that it shows the user trends within your social graph in the form of a tag cloud of key words. In other words it brings a lot more intelligence to your social graph. Suddenly, you can see a big trending topic amongst people you follow. I’ve been wanting something similar for a while and I’m not alone. David Winer recently Tweeted : “Wouldn’t it be cool if “trending topics” were localized to the people who are followed by the people you follow.” Well Zensify does this. And it doesn’t just do it across Twitter. It does it also does it across updates from Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Digg, Delicious, Photobucket and 12seconds. For that reason it is my new favourite app, bar none, and it’s available for free from the app store here . Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Adify Opens Up API To Expand Technology For Ad Networks Top
Adify, a company that powers vertical ad networks, has released its API through a newly formed partner program to allow customers to extend online advertising technologies to the 12,000 publishers who use Adify’s vertical ad networks. Adify’s Network Builder is a technology platform upon which customers can build and commercialize vertical ad networks. Adify’s Amplified Partner program brings together advertising technology companies Aggregate Knowledge, Ooyala, Rovion and Wave2 Media Solutions and networks who use Adify’s Network Builder, such as SixApartMedia's VIP Ad Network and Resonate Networks. The release of Adify’s API allows ad technology companies to deliver video, display, and rich media advertising options tailored to each of Adify’s 180 vertical ad networks, which also include networks for the Politico, NBC Universal, The Washington Post, and Martha Stewart Living. Adify, which was bought by Cox Enterprises in April of 2008 for $300 million, hopes to create a virtual marketplace for Network Builder customers integrate ad products and technology, from Ooyala’s video technology for ads to Rovion’s rich media ads. Adify also recently launched a horizontal business, Adify Media, to let advertisers buy across the networks built on its platform. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Exclusive Video: Mark Zuckerberg And Yuri Milner Talk About Facebook's New Investment Top
I had a chance to sit down this afternoon with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Yuri Milner , the Founder and CEO of new investor Digital Sky Technologies . Digital Sky Technologies is the new owner of just less than 2% of Facebook, paying a whopping $200 million for the privilege. But it’s still a bargain compared to what Microsoft and others paid - this current round values Facebook at a third less than the $15 billion valuation they accepted in October 2007. We live blogged the press call on the announcement earlier today. The full transcript of the video is below. One thing that isn’t clear is why Facebook took the money. Late last year Zuckerberg said he’d be willing to raise more, but only at the $15 billion valuation . Now they’ve raised money at $10 billion, even though they still say they’re approaching profitability and don’t really need it. We discuss that in the interview, but the answer still eludes us. Milner is a colorful character. He was the first Russian to get an American MBA - he graduated from Wharton Business School in 1992. Instead of taking a U.S. investment banking job he returned to Russia “to take advantage of the developing free markets,” he said, adding “My idea is to be in the most useful place in the proper time.” Milner’s DST has made investments in Mail.ru, the “Yahoo of Russia,” and Vkontakte.ru , the largest Russian social network with 34 million users. Vktontakte, by the way, looks a lot like Facebook. It hasn’t been all roses and champagne for Milner. He was an executive at Bank Menatep , the company that had an indirect controlling interest in Yukos Oil Company and was involved in the $4.8 billion diversion of International Monetary Fund funds. That entity was accused of having ties to organized crime, and some of Milner’s colleagues are still in prison (there have never been any accusations against Milner at all). His time at Bank Menatap is not mentioned on his DST bio . One thing Milner doesn’t seem bothered by is the lack of a board seat at Facebook, a sticking point for the company . Transcript: Michael Arrington: I'm here with Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and Founder of Facebook and new investor Yuri Millner from Digital Sky technologies. Hey guys. First of all congratulations to both of you, you've got some more money Mark, and Yuri, you've got a piece of facebook. How much do you own? Yuri Milner: 1.96% MA: 1.96% Plus there will be more when you buy common stock in a couple of months YM: Yes, depends, you know, we'll see how much. MA: Why did you invest in Facebook? YM: Because it's a great business MA: You're comfortable with the $10B valuation? YM: Absolutely. And, you know, I can repeat the reasons why. Basically, I think they have a very unique perspective on social network monetization, that other investors don't necessarily see. You see how social networks have been monetized in our part of the world, and we're just doing our math and coming up with numbers that we feel very comfortable with going forward. We don't really value this business on (fee?) basis 2009 but rather on a longer term, based again on our experience, and we're very confident that, you know, those numbers can be achieved. MA: And what revenue numbers are you looking at for 2009 YM: Well we…you know, it's a question for Mark. We've done our due diligence but I'm not sure I can disclose that. MA: Is it $550M Mark, is that what you're telling investors? Mark Zuckerberg: You know, I mean like anyone who's doing diligence on the company gets to see the forecast, and we've said three things, (I'm so confused about whether to look into the camera…) MA: Camera's best MZ: We've said three things publicly about our finances for this year. And one is that we've been cash flow positive for 5 quarters. Another is that revenue is growing 70% year over year at least and that you know, we're really happy with just given the economic climate. And the third is that we expect that on our forecast we'll be cash flow positive in 2010, along the cash level that we had before doing this investment. So, that really made it so that when we were thinking about doing this we had a lot of optionality as to pick the partner that would be best for us and find the terms that would make the most sense for us and a lot of the investments in the portfolio that Yuri and DST have were really attractive for us in terms of the insight and understanding that they have in this space, so you were just talking about this a bit, but it's really interesting how all of the different Russian social networks, and he has stakes in all of them, monetize in different ways, but all very effectively. Right so, we're not looking at that and saying we want to do any of those specific models right now, but it is a very directional, it is an interesting directional indicator of how far we can expect things to scale and I think when coming up with valuation analysis, that's why it was so simple for you to do, and that's kind of how we were thinking. MA: Would you have paid a higher valuation? What was your top price? MZ: So that's the question that you never ask after it's done. I don't want to know the answer to that. MA: But I'd love to know the answer . MA: Yuri, are you a FB user? YM: Yes MA: When did you create your account? YM: It was not an extremely active account but it will be more active now MA: You're going to be clicking those ads. And, do you have many friends? YM: I've been using more local networks in Russia MA: You're going to stop doing that as much. YM: I will just use more. MA: You're going to social network a lot more. YM: Yes, I'm just a big fan of social networks MA: How popular is FB in Russia, just on the streets talking to people. Is FB THE thing? YM: You know among people who kind of travel a lot and have exposure to the United States and some other countries, they do have accounts, but you know, Russia is not exactly the place with multiple language skills so local networks kind of have an edge. But I mean, going forward, it's not inconceivable that people would be members of two social networks. I mean, that's what we see in Russia, I mean, between our properties I think about 30% of people have multiple accounts. And they're not really migrating, which is interesting. MA: How do you feel about that? People on two different social networks? Does that work for you? MZ: It's interesting and it's evolving pretty quickly but (sorry gotta look at the camera now) . MA: Just do whatever's comfortable. MZ: A lot of times people ask us about, this comes up a lot when we're talking about our platform strategy, right because, people ask us how we see the system evolving to become more open and the way that I think about is that in the early days of an industry, take for example Apple with the PC, it really makes sense to have one company doing the whole thing to kind of birth the concept and bring it out to the market, but over time if it's a really important industry, then what will happen is people will specialize and people will do different aspects of it. Just like what happened with the pc and you get companies that focused on chips, companies that focused on other parts of hardware, companies that focused on software applications, operating systems, etc. I think we're going to see more and more of that with social networking as well. So what started off as one monolithic thing will end up becoming a more decentralized model, and that's a lot of what we're trying to do with FB connect. Now, I think a big implication of that is that people will use different services. MA: FB connect, is that the intel, the Microsoft, or the Dell in your analogy? MZ: That's taking analogies too far. MA: So we'll stick with the Apple analogy to start MZ: There are any number of examples of the start of industries starting off centralized and becoming more decentralized and I think that one of the natural implications of that is that people will use multiple services and that the services will interoperate, and I think that's kind of the world that we're moving towards. MA: Yeah, and FB will be the plumbing. MZ: Hopefully we'll provide a lot of utility in being people's, in helping people share their identity and communicating with friends and the people around them. MA: So kind of a combined Microsoft, Intel. (MZ laughs) I don't expect an answer. I do have one question that's sort have been on the top of my mind. We met late last year November, December and we talked about funding at that time, and you had said, look, we're open to investing more, the $15 B valuation, we're not really actively looking, we're talking to some people, I don't want to misquote you but basically what you said was: open to raising more at that valuation. Now clearly things have changes, and there's no reason things wouldn't change, but can you just talk me through the difference between now and then because you talk about If anything, your financial situation has gotten significantly stronger. You almost didn't need to raise this money based on what you're saying. MZ: We did this to increase our option value for the future. We have no plans to use this money immediately and we may never use it. We may use it to make an acquisition or to open up data centers, if some strategic option makes itself avail and now we might be able to do it whereas otherwise we wouldn't have been able to , that's the option value that we gain through this investment. Just to clarify where we were before, what I was trying to kind of explain was our approach to the follow-ons after Microsoft. Right so there was the Microsoft investment of the $15 B valuation and then there were a series of other investments that we did afterwards at the same terms. And that was basically an analogous approach to us where we weren't going out saying ok we need this money, we want to find money on whatever terms it comes on we'll get it. We kind of said, if people want to invest at these terms that we think are good terms, and we're really comfortable with the people, then we'll go ahead do that. And that's really similar to where we are now. And obviously the market is at a lower position so the terms aren't exactly the same but fundamentally, this wasn't a financing where we said we need to go out and raise the money to make our operating plan work, it was more one where people started approaching us and these conversations have been going on for a while, right. I don't remember the last time that we talked about this but basically we've been talking to folks for a while. Recently it kind of got to the stage where we realized we have good caliber of people that we're talking to the terms are in a good range, let's actually go do this thing and we kind of finalized that we wanted to work with Yuri and DST and then we nailed it all down. MA: How close did you get with General Atlantic and Silverlake? MZ: We talked to a number of firms earlier in the process, as I was just saying, and just because things are going really well and growing quickly. I think a number of different firms… MA: Things are definitely growing. How many, 30m users a month you're adding, is that right? It's about 30. MZ: It's growing quickly. MA: Comscore's over 300 million now. It's the whole internet, there's no one left. MZ: Our internal numbers are lower than Comscore's because Comscore is tracking all the unique visitors but we're focusing on active users. But it's growing really quickly. so a bunch of folks just approached us to do different things and as time went on we kind of zeroed in on where we wanted to be and that's when we really started talking seriously about what the final terms would be, and that's where we are now. MA: How many acquisitions will you make this year, if you just had to guess. I mean, you're clearly going to get more active in that. MZ: So unless I'm missing something, we've made one acquisition and it was this talent acquisition which in my mind was one of the coolest things that we've done. We got two exceptionally bright guys. Blake Ross, who is now one of the key folks on the product side at FB and Joe Hewitt, who has single handedly built out much of our mobile stuff including the iphone app by himself and just really cool. Our track record I guess you could say is we're one for one. Might make us want to explore more of that. Honestly, to me, being cash flow positive is also really important. So I'm not looking to take this money and go do a bunch of things with it immediately. We will continue looking at talent acquisition just as we had over the last period of time and if any make a lot of sense, then we'll surely go ahead and do it , and this money might make it more possible for that to happen, but the plan isn't to use it for that. MA: Yuri, more investments to come in the US? YM: Well I have Stage 2 coming. So let's complete this one and then have a look. MA: Ok great, thanks very much for your time guys. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Multiply 4.0: Social Network Photo Sharing Done Right Top
Multiply , a social network with a heavy focus on sharing media with friends and family, is getting a major upgrade at 10 AM tomorrow, introducing an overhauled (and much improved) interface, extensive photo editing functionality, a fully integrated photo finishing platform. Multiply doesn’t get nearly as much attention as bigger players like Facebook and MySpace, but it has built up a solid base of users, some of whom are giving the company a steady source of income through its premium accounts. Where other social networks like Facebook have embraced a mentality of helping users widely share their thoughts and photos, Multiply has held onto the belief that sometimes users only want to share their personal media with a handful of their good friends and family. With the latest release, Multiply is looking to embrace the “digital mom”. Recognizing that many of the site’s members are adults looking to share their media with loved ones, the site has adopted an interface that is best described as a media inbox. When you first log in, the site presents you with a stream of content similar to Facebook’s news feed (in fact, Multiply had feeds long before Facebook did). Your friends’ newest events, messages, and photo albums appear in the main column, with thumbnails next to each. Navigation through the new interface largely revolves around a new sidebar at the left hand side of the screen, which strongly resembles something you might see in an Email client. The panel includes links to your most important friends and family, allowing you to make sure you catch all of their latest updates. Likewise, there are filters for the site’s groups, and you can create powerful custom filters - a feature that will appeal to power users. Aside from this feed of new items, the other main area to get an overhaul in Multiply 4.0 is the Media Locker, where you can upload and manage all of your photos, videos, and blog posts. This is where the new site really shines - Multiply 4.0’s photo manager strongly resembles native photo software like iPhoto, allowing you to drag and drop photos into whatever albums you’d like. You can use a slider to adjust how large the thumbnails appear during navigation, and the top bar includes handy links that let you quickly share albums via Email or through Multiply itself. It’s also much easier to export photos to the site’s printing storefront , which allows you to have your images printed into physical photo books, cups, and other products. The Media Locker also includes a number of basic photo editing features, like red-eye reduction, color adjustment, and image cropping. Multiply isn’t the first social network to offer these features (MySpace launched similar tools earlier this year), but unlike the MySpace editor Multiply’s doesn’t need a Flash embed. To get your photos onto Multiply, the site offers a range of plugins for your computer’s photo software, as well as an AIR application that can monitor your folders for any new images as they are imported from your camera. My one major gripe with the new site is the inconsistent appearance of the sidebar. While it appears and changes contextually when you’re in the Inbox or Media Locker sections, any time you visit a page or album on a friend’s profile, the sidebar vanishes. You can still get back to the other pages using the links at the top of the screen, but it’s strange for a UI element that seems persistent to disappear occasionally (imagine if Facebook’s menubar at the bottom of its pages only showed up some of the time). Aside from that, Multiply’s new site seems solid, offering a social network that can really do your media justice. Facebook may be the web’s leading photo sharing service, and it’s great for sharing day to day photos with friends. But for those shots that really matter you can’t beat full resolution, which Facebook doesn’t offer. Multiply allows users to upload full resolution photos, with the option of paying $20/year for an unlimited amount of storage to to have them all backed up (not to mention its more extensive photo editing features). Multiply isn’t going to overtake Facebook or MySpace any time soon, but it’s doing a great job bridging the gap between photo sharing services like Flickr and the larger social networks. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Topsy Search Launches: ReTweets Are The New Currency Of The Web Top
New search engine Topsy , which has been in stealth development for three years, launches, well, now . Before Google, search engines like AltaVista determined relevance based on how well a web page matched the query. Then came Google, which views the web as a network of documents. Today, all search engines analyze linking behavior around the web. When a web page is linked to a lot, it’s given more influence than other pages competing for attention around the same topics/keywords. Jeff Jarvis summed it all up nicely in 2005 “In this new world, links are currency. Links grant authority. Links build branding. Links equal value.” There’s lots more to it, but the notion that links create value is what drives Internet search. Well, it’s no longer 2005. Back then blogs were giving Google fits because of how fast and irregularly they updated. Google had to make decisions on how often to index pages. Indexing is expensive, so there’s a tradeoff. Ping servers and blog search engines rose briefly to fill the niche, but Google indexes most popular blogs so often that those blog search engines are no longer much better. Now, though, we have so much real time content being created that Google and the other engines can’t keep up. Most of this content is on Twitter, but FriendFeed, Facebook, Digg and lots of other services are adding to it, too. The result - more and more people are doing searches on Twitter Search in addition to Google. For me, someone who’s obsessed with news and stuff that’s happening right now, Twitter search is about 25% of my total Internet searches. The ratio keeps going up over time. That’s where Topsy comes in. It’s not strictly speaking a real time search engine like Scoopler , which we wrote about earlier this month. Topsy is just a search engine. That has a fundamentally new way of finding good results: Twitter users. The 30 million or so Twitter users are an army of little content-finding machines. Topsy says those users are sending tens of thousands of unique links per day to interesting things around the Internet. Some of those users have more influence than others. And some links are sent by lots of Twitter users, others just sent once. Those links, combined with the information in the Twitter message itself, is what Topsy uses as the basis of its search engine. And the results are…amazing. New stuff in particular percolates up very quickly. A search for Facebook, for example, shows lots of news about the funding that was announced earlier today. And the links are sorted by those that Twitter users are sending around the most, weighted in favor of links sent by more influential Twitter users. You can sort results over all time (going back to September 2008), last month, week, day or hour. For all time, top results for Facebook are the Facebook site and developer site, among others. But in the last hour and day, it’s all about the funding news. Results show popular links but also the most influential users tweeting about that topic. Click on that user and you’ll see all their tweets about the topic. Here’s the results for TechCrunch and Facebook, for example. User influence is a hot topic , of course. Topsy isn’t looking at the number of followers. Rather, Influence is gained when others retweet links you’ve sent out. And when you retweet others, you lose a little Influence. So the more people retweet you, the more Influence you gain. So, yes, retweets are the new currency on the web. Told you . Topsy was founded in 2006 and has raised nearly $15 million to date in venture and debt funding. More information on the funding and founders is on the CrunchBase page for Topsy . Here’s a video where the Topsy founders give an introduction to the service and how it works: Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Warning: Twittercut Worm Plays On Your Desire For More Followers Top
Everyone wants more Twitter followers. It’s kind of the name of the game. But if you see some tweets in your stream that proclaim: “OMG I just got over 1000 followers today from http://twittercut.com” — don’t be fooled, it’s a scam. The link takes you to a site that requests your Twitter login and pass. It then sends out this tweet to all your followers — a typical worm. The reason to watch out for this is not only for the tweets of your friends and the retweets, but the links seem to have originated from the account twittercut — which was suspended. But then the links started up again from the account tweetcut (which has also been suspended). In other words, it looks like the perpetrators are just jumping from account to account to keep this thing going. As a Twitter Search shows, the worm is spreading quickly . Do not give it your Twitter credentials. If you do click through to the site, you’ll notice that they didn’t even attempt to create fake pages for the bogus site navigation. There is no “About” page, etc. Here’s the message on the page: TwitterCut.com is the best place for you to grow your twitter network and gain a ton of followers. We recommend giving it a shot, it’s free and will help you get the followers you need. This system is brand new, so the quicker you get involved the better it will be, fill out the form below and get started right away… The quicker you get involved! The play on getting more Twitter followers is a smart one — something that wouldn’t necessarily work for a Facebook’s worms of a similar nature. I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of these. Again, do not give this site your Twitter info. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 

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