Wednesday, May 27, 2009

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Microsoft, Tell Sergey About Bing And He'll Give You A Better Name Top
During a Q&A session in the press room following the Google I/O keynote today, Googler co-founder Sergey Brin made a surprise appearance and fielded some questions. One of them was about his thoughts on the name Bing, the supposed name of Microsoft’s new search engine . Brin said he didn’t know enough about it to give a suggestion, but that Google is “pretty happy” with the name it chose, which drew laughs. He then goes a bit more into the name. Watch the video below. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Heyzap Closes Seed Funding Round For Its Flash Gaming Widget Top
Heyzap , the Y Combinator startup that’s looking to become a “ YouTube For Flash Games “, has closed a seed funding round led by Union Square Ventures, with independent investors Naval Ravikant (Hitforge) and Joshua Schachter (delicious) also participating. The exact size of the round was not disclosed, but it was “above $500k and less than $1 million”. Rather than focus on building a portal, Heyzap offers a widget that includes a catalog of 12,000 games that site owners can quickly integrate into their sites. A major part of the company’s strategy lies in partnering with major online publishers to embed the widget, and it sounds like they’re seeing some success - Current features it in the site’s gaming section, and Cooliris is a partner as well. Heyzap generates revenue through advertising embedded in the widgets (most of which is served by Mochi Media ). Heyzap also recently launched an API that allows other sites to present games outside of the widget. At this point the company is operating with a very small team, with founders Jude Gomila and Immad Akhund remaining the sole employees. Akhund says that Heyzap plans to use the funding to expand. For a taste of the kind of games HeyZap offers, check out the widget below. heyzap.com - embed games Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Imindi: "We Accidentally Deleted All The User Accounts" Top
Users beware - if you try out a brand new service in private beta, don’t get too upset when everything goes wrong. On Monday we wrote about iMindi , a new startup that first showed its stuff at TechCrunch50 in 2008. In the post on Monday we gave out 1,000 private beta invites, which were apparently snatched up quickly. Then, disaster. The email iMindi sent out, which contains the dreaded phrase “we accidentally deleted all the user accounts” sort of says it all. Brave souls can start all over again here . I know there are at least a few of you out there that are quite willing to forgive and forget. Here’s the email. Credit to iMindi CEO Adam Lindemann for standing up and taking a beating. Dear Friends of Imindi, Yesterday, we were featured on Techcrunch and many of you were kind enough to sign up to the service. Unfortunately, we had not prepared sufficiently for the demand on our servers and then with some human error we accidently deleted all the user accounts. Darn. We would ask that you forgive us and sign up one more time as members of Imindi. We will set you up with a clean account which we hope you will enjoy using to collect your thoughts and share them with like-minded people. We are extremely embarrassed by this mistake and we have purchased more capacity and instituted safer backup processes to handle the increased demand to prevent a recurrence of this incident. It’s a private beta, and it will be a while before this service is ready to be launched in public but we hope that you will be kind to Imindi as she grows. Below is the new invitation URL: http://imindi.com/invitations/03711dda503b02868903efbed6649d59046952d9 Thank you again, Adam Lindemann Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Skyfire Burns Through The Beta Tag, Coming Soon For BlackBerry Top
After 473 days of beta testing and many , many preliminary releases, the rich multimedia mobile browser Skyfire has just hit version 1.0. Though Skyfire's biggest features (namely, its ability to handle formats like Flash and Silverlight) have been in since its early days, there's enough polish and primp in this release to justify branding it with a whole number.
 
Google Kicks Off Android Developer Challenge Part Deux Top
In an effort to continue fostering the Android development community, Google has announced the second round of its Android Developer Challenge - a competition that rewards some of the platform’s best applications with large cash grants. Google will begin accepting submissions from developers in August. In an interesting twist, Google is going to let anyone with an Android handset participate in the process, allowing them to vote using a special application available on the Android Marketplace. The voting application will randomly download applications from the pool of competitors, and users will be asked to rate them. These votes will determine the top 20 apps in 10 different categories (for a total of 200 apps), which will then move on to the next round. Users will be able to vote in the second round as well, but votes from Google judges will make up 55% of the final score. So what are the developers competing for? Here’s how Google is breaking down the awards this time around: Prizes will be distributed as follows; all prizes are in USD: For each of the 10 categories: 1st prize: $100,000 2nd prize: $50,000 3rd prize: $25,000 Overall (across all categories) 1st prize: $150,000 (meaning the overall winner will receive $250,000) 2nd prize: $50,000 (meaning the 2nd prize winner will receive up to $150,000) 3rd prize: $25,000 (meaning the 3rd prize winner will receive up to $125,000) In addition, attendees of selected developer events will be provided with devices intended for use in developing submissions for ADC 2. All together, it sounds like Google is setting aside around $2 million for the winners. For more details, check out the official guidelines here . Google’s last challenge kicked off in November 2007, with the final winners announced the following August. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Bartz Wants To Buy Social And Video Startups; Would Sell Yahoo For "Boatloads Of Money" Top
Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz reiterated today that Yahoo is still talking with Microsoft “a little bit” about a possible search deal, but said that it would require a “boatload of money” along with the right data-sharing arrangement (because the search data is key to Yahoo revenues, ad relevance, and user experience). Pressed onstage at the AllThingsD conference whether she would reconsider selling the entire company to Microsoft, she replied: ” Oh, they'd have to have big boatloads of money.” While she still seems resistant to the idea,the fact that she would now consider it at the right price is a softening of her public stance. This doesn’t mean an outright sale is back on the table (that original $45 billion boatload of money left port a long time ago), but at least she is open to the possibility. A search deal with Microsoft remains a more likely transaction. She explained: “There are two parties in all of this. The other party has all the money, we have the data.” Both are valuable. More immediate deals might come from Yahoo doing some acquiring itself. “We are very interested in social, and in video technology,” said Bartz. She was particularly bullish on Web video: “This is just the beginning. The whole video area is so exciting. Video advertising growing four times by 2011.” In terms of what she needs to do to get Yahoo back on track, her main focus remains streamlining management and decision-making at the company. Bartz related the following story of Jerry Yang inviting her over to his house when he was trying to recruit her for the CEO job, which she didn’t want initially: Jerry said, ‘At least come to my house and talk to me.’ I said, ‘I will come talk, but I am not taking the job.’ He pulls a flip chart out of the closet. We all have a flip chart at home, right? I said, ‘Show me who on this board would make the big search decision. He started drawing the arrows. It was like a cartoon. I said, ‘Oh my God. You need management here.’ I couldn't figure out who was in charge. He didn't explain that part very well. So what does she think needs to do fix Yahoo? She didn’t get into specifics, but acknowledged that Yahoo needs to be updated and do a better job of what it already does well: Yahoo drives more traffic to more sites on the Internet than anything else. What is it about us? People trust us. We just have to do an even better job. We have to make it simple. On the other hand, it has to be more customizable. It just has to be a more modern UI and more modern approach, and that is what we are going to do. Bartz distanced her strategy from chasing any particular hot trend, whether it is search or social networking. “Everybody doesn't just go to Facebook,” she noted. “People visit 85 sites a month, but spend most of their time on one or two. They can start on Facebook, but it doesn’t give them their news, their stock quotes, it doesn’t give them a of of things.” Them’s fightin’ words. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Virtual Chat Room TinyChat Adds Video Conferencing And Screen Sharing Top
TinyChat, the simple, free web-based chat room we wrote about here, is now adding video conferencing and screen sharing to its list of features. Once you create a chat room on TinyChat’s site, TinyChat will generate a unique URL that you can share with whoever you choose to invite to the virtual chat room. When users click on the link, they will enter the interface and will be able to input messages, change their usernames and enable video and audio conferencing. Powered by Adobe Flash, the video conferencing feature allows up to 12 different users in the chat room. TinyChat also lets you share any type of file with other members of a chat room. Similar to the site’s previous version, you can embed a badge on other sites and forums to spread the link to the chatroom. The video conferencing feature is very easy to use and the quality of the video isn’t terrible. The startup has also rolled out a premium account, which is $20 per month, where you will be able to add screen sharing to members of the group. Once you enable screen sharing, you will be given a picture window, which can be dragged to the tab or screen where you want the webcast to take place. Additionally, the premium service lets you record and save video conferences as an flv file. The pro account also lets you create passwords for room privacy and offers higher quality video than the free account. Of course video streaming and web conferencing is old news and there are significant amount of services that do the same thing including Cisco’s WebEx, Stickam, Ustream and a host of others. Entrepreneur Daniel Blake, who created TinyChat, TinyPaste and ControlC, says that TinyChat is aimed towards individuals and small businesses who don’t normally use these services but want an easy (and cheap) way to connect with others over the web. Blake also says that he’s hoping to sell the service to social networks like Facebook, to enable video chatting from the site. The interface of the new and improved TinyChat is still very spartan, but for a company or user who is looking for a free service and doesn’t need a whole bunch of bells and whistles, it could be an easy option for video conferencing. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Pics: Google Latitude On The iPhone — But It's Not A Native App Top
Today during its keynote address during Google I/O , Google showed off its Latitude location-based service running on the iPhone. This is notable because so far, Latitude hasn’t been available on the huge popular smartphone. Instead, not surprisingly, Google opted to focus on getting it running on Android. But it’s coming, soon, with the launch of the iPhone 3.0 software this summer. But also interesting is that the reason Google has been waiting for the 3.0 software is because it’s not actually creating a native iPhone app for Latitude — as all other location-based services on the iPhone are — instead it’s using the Safari web browser to run Latitude. Thanks to HTML 5, Safari will be able to access a user’s location information and Latitude will be able to access that as well (provided the user gives permission). This will put it on par with what Google is doing in its browser for Android. Of course, you still mostly likely won’t be able to run Latitude in the background with it being on Safari. That’s the thing that is really holding back these location-based services on the iPhone. Hopefully Apple is getting closer to allowing background apps — at least in a limited form. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Widgets Everywhere! Embed Your Favorite Chunks Of Google With Web Elements Top
During today’s Google I/O keynote , the company unveiled a new set of widgets collectively called Web Elements that are sure to spread across the web like wildfire. The widgets allow users to quickly integrate some of Google’s most popular products, including Calendar, Search, and Maps, directly into their sites with a minimal amount of effort. Much of the same functionality has previously been available through Google APIs (in fact, some of these widgets were built on them), but most bloggers haven’t known how to use them before now. Google Web Elements makes the process much easier - just copy and paste an embed code, and you’re done. Perhaps the most interesting widget is the ‘Conversation’ Element, which allows visitors to your site to post comments and videos, similar to the way they could using a FriendFeed embed. Site owners have the option of restricting these conversations to their sites, or to share them as global conversations through Google Friend Connect. You can check out a sample embed below. Other widgets include ‘Presentations’, which allow you to embed presentations from Google Docs into your site, and ‘Spreadsheets’, which allow you to do the same with Google Docs spreadsheets. This is not going to be welcome news to sites like SlideShare , Scribd , and DocStoc , which let you do this with other documents. The new Custom Search Element makes adding a Google search to your site very easy - just embed the provided snippet of code into your site, and Google will automatically index it. The rest of the widgets are fairly self explanatory. Calendar lets you point out some important dates for you and your visitors, maps let you flag a location, and News shows the latest stories from Google News. Google also says that more widgets are on the way. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Google's "Oprah Moment": An Android Phone For Everyone At Google I/O Top
Today at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco, Vic Gundotra , the VP Engineering for Google has a special surprise saved for the end of the show: A free HTC Magic (aka the G2) for everyone in the audience. Not only that but it comes with a SIM card with unlimited 3G access and talk time for 30 days. As Gundotra joked, he always wanted to have an “Oprah moment.” I would have preferred a free car, but I suppose this will do. Though I do worry that Google seems to love to give these G1s away (see update) . But this seems like a better deal. Update : I previously stated it would be a G1, but it turns out, Google is giving away an HTC Magic, aka the G2 — forget everything nasty I said. Nothing but Google love for this move. Seriously though, this is Google’s thank you to the development community for Android and Google overall. And it’s a great way to further spur development for Android, as of these boxes given away also contains the SDK. Google has stepped up to the plate with this free phone. What will we see next week from Apple at its WWDC event? Probably nothing. CrunchBase Information Android Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Google Earth Is Now Open For Businesses Top
Google Earth has proven to be a powerful and useful tool for combing the Earth.  The virtual-earth application has helped solve a plane crash mystery, was used for a marijuana bust and lets you explore Disneyland Paris. Now, Google Earth is adding something more practical It will let you see businesses and related information on both its desktop and iPhone apps. By adding a “Businesses” layer to Google Earth, you’ll be able to see businesses by default when you start the application. Google Earth will list businesses like restaurants, bars, banks, gas stations, and grocery stores. As you zoom in further to the map, you’ll see more businesses. When you click on the icons, you’ll get additional information like the address. telephone number, reviews, and hours. It’s unclear whether Google is using its database of local businesses in Google Maps to power the business listings, but it seems like that’s the case. CrunchBase Information Google Earth Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
PeopleBrowsr Tosses Its Hat In The Twitter/Facebook Desktop Client Ring Top
There is a heated competition taking place for which Twitter/Facebook desktop client is the fairest of them all. We’ve written about about TweetDeck, Twhirl / Seesmic Desktop, AlertThingy, Sobees, and the clients that focus only on Twitter ( Tweetie, Nambu, Twitterific, etc.). Now, PeopleBrowsr, is entering beta with a free Adobe AIR-powered desktop app that integrates Twitter, Facebook and other social networks into one platform. While in alpha, PeopleBrowsr was able to differentiate itself because it was a web browser based dashboard for social networks, sort of like what Streamy is now. Similar to Tweetdeck and Seesmic Desktop, PeopleBrowsr uses stacks. To add content, you add different stacks for each social network, including Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube, and your RSS feeds. Similar to all the Twitter clients mentioned above, Peoplebrowsr lets you do all the normal twitter activities (read, post, follow/unfollow, DM and reply). And you can update your Facebook status and engage in FriendFeed conversations from the dashboard. Peoplebrowsr is offering different layouts of the streams according to the type of user you are. You are given the choice to run the app under Business mode, which is interesting given how Twitter, Facebook and others are now seen as marketing and PR tools. Companies, restaurants, brands and celebrities all seem to use Twitter as a business platform in some capacity. On first glance, Peoplebrowsr’s bells and whistles seem to cater towards the enterprise community. Business mode lets users manage multiple usernames within one dashboard (Seesmic does this too), conducts conversation threads within the client, and gives you the ability to share a “stack” via RSS or a URL link. PeopleBrowsr also lets you create Twitter groups within the dashboard around keywords and #hashtags. If a group is built around a #hashtag, every time a new person uses that hashtag they are automatically added to the group. Users can browse public groups made by others as well as those based on popular hashtags. PeopleBrowsr offers the ability to filter searches on Twitter by location, groups, specific individuals, posts containing links and sentiment associated with keywords. Results can be further sorted by the number of follower and searches saved for future access. PeopleBrowsr can be set up to send email alerts should a specific keyword appear in the stream. Updates and messages that are key can be flagged, and you can add private notes and comments to a specific user or post. You can also add users to a built in address book within the dashboard. For businesses that want to create reports on Twitter feeds, keywords and direct messages, PeopleBrowsr lets you create custom reports can be exported as RSS feeds and retweets (to share publicly. Like Seesmic and Tweetdeck, PeopleBrowsr is powered by Adobe’s AIR platform, which has some strange user interface bugs and quirks and tends to use a good amount of resources on computers. PeopleBrowsr doesn’t seem to be for the individual who uses a Twitter/Facebook desktop client to simply tweet, follow, DM and update status messages. But for the enterprise community, this application may make tracking social networks for a brand or company much easier. The startup is also retaining the web based browser dashboard that will include all the features of its desktop client. On the consumer side, it will be tough to break into the current race of popular desktop client apps, including Seesmic, Tweetie and Tweetdeck, who all have loyal followings. But it’s wise of PeopleBrowsr to appeal to the enterprise space and this could help the startup make a name for itself out of all the other clients out there. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Live From Google I/O 2009 Top
We’re here at Google I/O , the search giant’s annual developer event in San Francisco. The first day’s keynote address is happening right now, and we’re covering it live. The theme of today is pretty clear: The time for development on the web has arrived. With HTML 5, the ability to create rich browser-based applications is here. Google’s Vic Gundotra has laid out the five key things for HTML 5 that will change things: Canvas, Video, Geolocation, Database and App Cache, and Web Workers. More details on all of those in my live notes below. Find my notes below. Live notes: They’re showing off some Chrome JavaScript goodness set to some odd tribal music. Google CEO Eric Schmidt up first We have spent 20 years trying to build a programming model that is the right one. Then the Internet arrived. “It’s time.” Going to talk about App Engine. Now works with Java. Android looks like it’s going to have a strong year. “Where’s the ‘it works’ option?” We’re just the beginning of getting this right. This is the beginning of the real win of cloud computing, of applications (on the web). Vic Gundotra , VP Engineering for Google “Never underestimate the web.” At Microsoft (where he used to work) we thought web apps could never rival desktop apps . “The web has won.” A more powerful web made easier. New HTML5 standards. A chance to do things differently. Almost half billion people now using modern open source browsers. 5 things that excite Google: 1) Canvas - intrinsic to the web, works with JavaScript, CSS and the DOM. Pixel-level control drawing on the web. Canvas is on Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera — Let’s talk about IE (laughs). Microsoft has made public statements to the HTML5 standard, we eagerly await seeing evidence of that. Matthew Papakipos , Engineering director (Chrome) at Google 3D in the web browser. Game-like graphics, but this is in the web browser. Big on textures, all coded in the source code. Doing all the graphics on the GPU, CPU load in demo is less than 10%. All JavaScript code. Looks great. We want to get to where you can type a URL and immediately play a rich app. So we need common APIs that are in your browser of choice. Standards are the key. Working with Apple, Mozilla and “others” — no mention of Microsoft, chuckles. Back to Vic Gundotra 2) Video - Video in the browser is tough today because it’s about plug-ins. Now a new video tag. YouTube running entirely using the video tag — just a demo today, but it’s possible. No Flash required. Applause 3) Geolocation - All apps could be better with geolocation. Cell ID and WiFi solve the problem of getting the data. They’ve mapped really the entire world. Again all the browsers but IE support this now. Gundotra is thanking Mozilla for their hard work in making new standards possible. Another jab at IE. Jay Sullivan VP Mozilla The browsing competition is heating up again. We all have different missions, but we share things in common. We believe the web is the developing platform for our time. Firefox 3.5, what’s coming. We have about 300 million users worldwide of Firefox 3, but we think Firefox 3.5 is much better. JavaScript performance is 3 times faster in Firefox 3.5 versus 3.0. And it’s 10 times faster than it was in Firefox 2.0. Canvas, video, geolocation, app cache and database, web workers. All coming in 3.5 Demo of Google Maps using Geolocation — a new button to user interface called “My Location” Click one button on Google Maps and it will find you (right above Street View area) But it’s user opt-in. Back to Vic again Demo of Latitude using geolocation — on the iPhone. And this is all in the browser — not a separate app. Will be out shortly after iPhone OS 3.0. New iPhone Safari will support HTML5 4) Database and App Cache - Store what you need locally to make applications faster. Showing off Gmail on an Android phone — running offline. Michael Abbott , Senior VP of Palm A year ago no one would have predicted Palm would be onstage at Google I/O. But we agree the web is the platform — that’s why we made webOS. webOS is built around the JavaScript Back to Vic 5) Web Workers The past problems of having the browser freeze. Background processing now possible with these new standards. JavaScript to do motion detection. It can sense when there is motion and only run when needed. Kevin Gibbs and Andrew Bowers, Tech Lead and Product Manager, Google 80,000 applications deployed since we launched last year 700 requests per second when the white house used moderator Background processing coming soon. Now we have Java support — interest has been remarkable. Opening sign-ups for Java on app engine right now Showing off App Engine demo. Making an app right now. Hey, it works! Applause. Next version of Google Web Toolkit — manual code splitting JavaScript is hard, but now we’ll do it for you with runAsync. Download code after the initial download. Code downloads in background after user up and running. Back to Vic again Over 60 APIs available for our Google products. Over 4 billion API calls everyday coming into Google. Huge. Today something new — You know AdSense and YouTube Embeds so easy to embed. Imagine it for everything else. DeWitt Clinton , Tech Lead Brand new developer product: Google Web Elements Example: Pull in Google News box — embedded in your page. Maps, Presentations, available for a lot of Google products. Google Conversation element, allows visitors to post comments and videos — kind of like FriendFeed embed. Google.com/webelements Vic again Next up, Android. 7 months, 10 carriers in 12 counties 4,900 apps now available 40+ App downloads per user #2 in Mobile web U.S. web browsing (behind iPhone of course) What’s up next: Romain Guy, Software Engineer, Google (Android) Next version: code-name Donut . Search should be more powerful. Kind of looks like the new search in the iPhone 3.0. Add a new API — Text-to-speech API. Lots of different voices, and different languages/accents. Applause. And this engine is open source. And there will be more APIs (not ready to announce today). Back to Vic Recap: HTML 5, App Engine, Google Web Elements, Android Now 3 More things: Part 2 of the Android Developer Challenge. Submissions through August, winners at the end of the fall. User votes now as part of judging. Give away a box a new Android phone. For everyone here. Huge applause. Vic’s Oprah moment. Included with a SIM with unlimited 3G data. Daaaaammmnnn. And call time. Update: And it looks like it’s a HTC Magic, the G2 ! “Don’t miss tomorrow’s keynote” CrunchBase Information Google Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Navify Is An Interface For Viewing Wikipedia With Photo Galleries, Videos And Comments Top
Have you ever been annoyed by the fact that Wikipedia has a wealth of textual information but no videos and hardly any pictures? Take the Wikipedia article for Sony’s Rolly , for example, where the device is depicted as “an egg-shaped digital robotic music player.” If you have never seen a Rolly before, this cryptic description won’t help much. After reading about it in Wikipedia, you’ll then need to look it up on YouTube or Google Image Search to see what it actually looks like. This is where a new service called Navify comes in. Launched in public beta today, Navify intends to enrich Wikipedia by adding pictures, videos and user comments to each article. And it actually works pretty well. Look up “Sony Rolly” using Navify and you not only get the original Wikipedia text but also hundreds of related pictures and videos (pulled in from Flickr and YouTube) by clicking on the tabs Navify puts on top of each article. Look up “Pulp Fiction” and the service retrieves the Wikipedia article itself plus screenshots, covers, posters and trailers from the movie. You get the picture. The site is built upon Wikipedia’s platform with the idea of being a complementary media and discussion layer, similar to the way Friendfeed enables discussions about tweets originating from Twitter. Like Wikipedia, edits are anonymous; anyone can edit the images and videos associated with an article without registering an account. Navify CEO Alan Rutledge says what triggered development was the thought: “If people around the world can help each other by building a free collaborative encyclopedia, couldn’t we make it more useful for everyone by illustrating it together?” What really sets Navify apart is the threaded comment system that allows visitors to discuss the nearly 3 million articles in the English database. Each article is a community waiting to happen- Barack Obama on Wikipedia received 770,000 visitors in the last month alone. Just like Wikipedia, Navify appeals to a very broad target audience, but it looks like just the right online source for people like bloggers, journalists, scientists, students etc. who need to have various kinds of information and data related to a certain subject in one single place. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Ditch The Generic: Weebly Launches Free WYSIWYG Virtual Storefronts Top
Weebly , a popular WYSIWYG webpage maker, is launching a new feature today that will allow users to quickly make fully customized web stores using the Weebly interface they’re already familiar with. Using the new feature is simple. Weebly has added a handful of new ‘revenue’ elements to its main menubar, which allows you to drag-and-drop items onto your page. Simply drag one of the four available ‘Product’ elements onto your page, and you’ll be presented with a small box where you can describe your product, add a photo, and set a price (you can easily create a new item in less than a minute). After creating a product once, you can add it to your other pages without having to recreate it. The store supports both PayPal and Google Checkout accounts, and allows users to add items to a virtual shopping cart as they browse (you don’t have to buy one item at a time). And aside from any fees you might have from PayPal or Google, the Weebly storefront is totally free - the company isn’t taking a cut of any of your sales. To make money, Weebly plans to offer ‘pro’ features for power users at a premium in the future (the site also generates revenue through its pro accounts and domain sales). There are already quite a few services online that allow you to generate your own virtual marketplace, but Weebly cofounder David Rusenko says that most of these do a poor job allowing you to customize the look and feel of your store, which often leads to something generic. Because Weebly can already be used to build your own fully customized webpage, adding the ability to sell items seemed like a natural extension to the product (especially since many users were already trying to sell items from their Weebly pages on their own). At this point my only complaint about the Weebly store is that it doesn’t yet offer templates, though Rusenko says they’re on the way. This means that whenever you create a page for an item, you’re going to have to re-drag all of the links to your other items back to the bottom of the page. This may allow for a wide degree of flexibility, but I think it will also lead to inconsistency on some stores, as some designers forget to add links to their other products (or they get lazy). Rusenko ackowledges that this could get frustrating, but says that the Weebly storefront is really meant for people with small inventories, so this shouldnt be as much of a hassle as it would be for major retailers. Beyond the new storefront functionality, Weebly is doing quite well. The site has almost 2 million registered sites (and is growing steadily, see graph below). Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
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 : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 

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