Monday, June 1, 2009

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Now You Also Can Call Bing 411. Top
Lost in all the excitement around today’s public preview launch of Bing , Microsoft’s new search engine , was the subsequent launch of Bing 411 . This is a direct swipe at another Google product, GOOG-411 . Both are free and both use speech-to-text technology and voice recognition to completely automate directory assistance calls. GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411) has been going for a while, and is surprisingly intuitive. It keeps adding features like nearby intersections . Bing 411 (1-800-246-4411) gives you local business listings, as well as local traffic, weather, and movie listings. The voice is a little more obviously computer-generated than Google’s, but it also can get you a phone number, address, or directions. It also tells you how many stars the business has in average reviews. What’s more, the second time you call, it remembers your last request and you can ask for “saved searches.” It is a voice-activated Bing for local business searches. I tried it out, and it was able to find the Trader Joe’s near my Brooklyn apartment. But it had trouble with a french restaurant, Bar Tabac, (which Goog-411 also couldn’t understand or find). If it doesn’t understand your search, it takes you to a decision tree, asking you what type of service you are looking for. I find this highly unsatisfying in voice-activated user interfaces. My suggestion for either service: if they don’t’ understand your request right off the bat, just bail and call 1800-FREE-411 or another 411 service. It will be much faster, even if you have to pay 50 cents. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Blown Cover: A Couple Ways To Stop Those Spymaster Invite DMs Top
As we’ve relentlessly documented, the Twitter-based game Spymaster went from a private alpha , to insanely popular, to feeling a full rush of backlash in about 3 days. While a lot of users were upset with Spymaster tweets from their friends filling up there streams, even more annoying to some was the constant direct messages (DMs) from friends to join the service. Now there’s a couple ways to stop getting those. First, Topify , the power Twitter emailing service, saw the Twitter crowd’s negative reaction to the DMs and decided to add a feature to prevent it . If you’re using Topify, and get a direct message you don’t want from Spymaster, simply forward it to StopSpymaster@topify.com, and Topify will create a filter to stop these message from inundating your inbox. This is a smart move by Topify, as it not only is a nice feature for current users, but it gives other non-users a reason to potentially use the service. That should be even more true going forward, as I’m sure Spymaster is just the tip of a very large iceberg when it come to viral spreading Twitter games. But if you don’t want to use Topify, Spymaster itself has come up with a way to opt-out of these invitation DMs. Simply visit this page and you click the opt-out button (which verifies your Twitter name), and you will no longer receive the DMs. Co-founder Eston Bond notes that while Spymaster never sent DMs without another user specifically requesting invites be sent to friends via DM, he realizes that it was pretty annoying for some people. As I noted above, the key thing to realize here is that Spymaster is just the first of many viral games coming to Twitter — you can’t imagine how many I’ve already been pitched. Ultimately, Twitter is going to need to step up with better filters on their end to stop these type of things from people who don’t want them. Otherwise, you’re going to have people being forced to unfollow people they may not otherwise want to unfollow. And that simply doesn’t make for a very good social service. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
WatchDox Lets You Track And Control Document Sharing (Beta Invites) Top
Sharing confidential documents within a business or between businesses can be risky—you never know who might leak a document or if your document is being shared with other employees. To solve this problem, startup Confidela has launched the beta of WatchDox, a SaaS product that allows a sender to control, restrict and track viewing, printing and forwarding of documents. We have 100 free beta invites here. The service’s basic functionality is similar to document sharing services like Scribd and DocStoc but with ramped up privacy settings and tracking systems. DocStoc and Scribd also offer the ability to set documents as private, but WatchDox is giving users a few more tools that allow users to control and track documents. Watchdox lets you upload any type of document, including PowerPoint presentations, PDFs, Excel files and Word documents. The service gives you a dashboard where you can control who the document is sent to, limit a recipient’s ability to view, forward or print the document and encrypt content of a document. Users can set expiration dates for each document and place watermarks on the document to show versions or the document’s recipient. Watchdox will also track recipient’s activities and location, including when a document is opened and the user’s geographic IP address. You can also send documents directly from Microsoft Outlook by via a WatchDox Outlook plug-in. WatchDox, which is initially partnering with file collaboration and storage service Box.net to make the service available to all Box.net users, is currently in beta and adding features regularly. The startup will offer a free version of the service and will soon launch a premium version, which is $14.99 per month. Negonation also lets you upload and manage private contracts online, but is targeted towards the legal community. WatchDox seems like a useful service for documents that are confidential and private but you do lose the sharing and social elements of Scribd and DocStoc, which let users share documents with anyone and form groups around certain subjects. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Netbook OS Jolicloud Prepares For Launch: Exclusive Screenshots To Whet Your Appetite Top
Jolicloud , the custom OS designed and built specifically for netbooks, is quietly launching later this month in private alpha for a select number of early testers and people who put themselves on the waiting list. I had a long chat with founder Tariq Krim (of Netvibes fame) about the current status of Jolicloud and came away pretty impressed. You’ll need patience before you can give it a whirl, but the good news is that we got hold of some exclusive screenshots of the operating system in action so you can see how spectacular it ( still ) looks, at least. First, the skinny about the project. Krim has always been bullish on the (open) Web in general and open source technology in particular, and when netbooks started to make their way into the low-cost computer market right about the time that cloud computing was clearly maturing, he thought it was a shame that the user experience on the small-screen computers was often below par. In an effort to change that, he sought to develop a custom-built OS using open source technology and betting big on open standards, that would basically make using netbooks sexy in the same way that Apple showed the world how a mobile phone should function when it introduced the iPhone. Michael made the same analogy when he first caught wind of Jolicloud back in December 2008. Jolicloud is based on Ubuntu and Debian but is optimized significantly for use with netbooks that are permanently connected to the Internet, whether it’s over WiFi or 3G. It enables users to install a bunch of web applications that run as if they were installed natively, including Gmail, Skype, Boxee, Twitter, Facebook, DropBox, Meebo, and many more. This is made possible thanks to a close collaboration with the developers behind Mozilla’s Prism project and the open standards that live on the Web. While the Jolicloud team is pondering about some day developing a native Webkit client for the OS, it currently runs Firefox with Google Gears installed by default and supports both Adobe Flash and AIR, which means you can do virtually everything on Jolicloud that you can currently do with your current computer’s browser. Interestingly, you can assign your Jolicloud profile (including all the applications you use) to multiple computers, which also means you can easily power up a brand new netbook, install the OS and use it exactly the same way you’re using it on any other netbook. There’s also a bit of a social layer baked into the system that lets you keep track of your installation history and displays updates in the style of Facebook’s News Feed.  The system also feeds you updates on which software your friends are using (you can follow freinds who install it), so you can check if you’re using the most recent / optimized version for any tool based on their behavior. I think it would also make sense for Jolicloud to incorporate features from social network Wakoopa in there, so you could get recommendations based on what you use most, for example. Below is a presentation with a collection of screenshots that reveal a lot about the functionality and design of the upcoming netbook OS (it works best if you view the slides in full-screen mode) as well as a video from netbooknews.com featuring a review of a slightly older version of Jolicloud. Personally, I’m excited about the project’s potential and can’t wait to test the alpha version—dubbed Robby because of Krim’s fascination with Robby The Robot —on my Acer Aspire One later this month. At the same time, I have my reservations about the potential for Jolicloud to gain the necessary traction to make waves in the market, or the ability for the fledgling company to compete with other Linux-based operating systems, particularly Android which is rumored to be coming to netbooks in a big way in the future.  But Krim is trying to invent the future here, and for that alone Jolicloud is worth keeping an eye on. Jolicloud screenshots CrunchBase Information Jolicloud Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
The Next Big Feature Of Xbox Live: Twitter! Top
Microsoft has just announced that some new features are coming the Xbox 360 at E3. Facebook and Last.fm integration into the Xbox Live dashboard are two of them. The game Metal Gear Solid is another. But the one they seem to be touting the most right now? Twitter ! Yes, it seems the software giant, who has made some nice moves in the gaming space, has just as big of an obsession with Twitter as everyone else. You will apparently be able to see tweets and post new tweets from the console starting soon. While, to me, this doesn’t rank up there with last year’s announcement of Netflix streaming coming to Xbox Live, it’s a pretty nice group of features to add to make the Xbox 360 more social. But the show just began, I’m sure Microsoft has some other tricks up its sleeve. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
MySpace Experimenting With Interactive Ads Powered By SocialMedia.com Top
At this morning’s Conversational Marketing Summit in New York, SocialMedia.com CEO Seth Goldstein revealed that the advertising company had been working with MySpace to develop and deploy ‘Interaction Ads’ - an advertising product that can prompt a MySpace member for input and use that, along with MySpace’s social graph, to tailor the advertising shown to their friends. The ads are a variation on SocialMedia.com’s powerful Friend to Friend social ads, which the company first rolled out in March. The idea behind them is simple: if I visited a page on MySpace Music, an ad could ask me if I preferred Rock or Rap, with a pair of checkboxes where I could indicate my favorite genre. Then when my friends visited MySpace, they could see an ad that said “Jason likes Rock and Roll! Which do you like?” This level of customization may seem a little strange at first to users, but the ads tend to be far more engaging than typical banner ads. I won’t be surprised if ads that pair user interaction and the social graph become the norm over the next few years. This news is obviously a very major win for SocialMedia.com - not only is the company running campaigns from major brands, but MySpace itself is working in tandem with the company to sell the ads. It’s also good to see MySpace working with third parties to maximize revenue opportunities, especially as its user growth begins to stall . Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Google Upgrades Custom Search Box On Blogger Top
Google’s blog publishing platform, Blogger, is bringing its Custom Search Box gadget out of its beta version, also known as Blogger in Draft. The search gadget a blog’s readers search posts, web pages linked from the blog, other blogs on the blog roll, as well as pages on the shared links list. Google initially launched the gadget on its Blogger in Draft platform, which offers users a version of Blogger where Google tests out features and new interfaces. Google says it has upgraded the search gadget to provide simpler defaults as well as the ability for the box to integrate with the aesthetics and color of your blog. The Search Box gadget uses AJAX Search APIs to power the feature and also automatically updates the custom linked search engine when you update your blog, blog lists, or link lists. Custom search can be a useful tool for blogs because it allows readers to not only search a blog’s content but also any pages or favored sites that are linked to, giving readers a related, but still-focused, search experience. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Does Apple want to double charge you for apps? Top
Apple? Greedy? Perish the thought! Some bleeding edge iPhone users may beg to differ though: this past weekend, some of them were prompted to pay up again when trying to re-download an already-purchased app. Read the rest of this post >> Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
The Spoils Go To The Smartest. Apple And RIM Take Majority Of Cell Phone Industry Profits Top
When you look at sales of the iPhone or Blackberry as a percentage of total cell phone sales, they are still a tiny smidgen of the one billion phones estimated to be sold this year. But when you look at what really matters—their share of revenues or operating profits—the picture looks a lot different. Deutsche Bank analyst Brian Modoff calculated the share of operating profits going to each major mobile handset manufacturer and came up with the eye-opening chart above. It shows Apple (pink) and RIM (turquoise) increasingly taking a disproportionate share of industry profits, mostly at the expense of Nokia’s diminishing handset operating profits (blue). In a note, Modoff writes: “Increasingly, the smartphone vendors are claiming more of the industry’s profit dollars even as the pool of profitability stabilizes or shrinks.” Thanks to the success of the highly-profitable iPhone, Apple’s share of industry operating profits went from 3 percent in 2007 to 20 percent in 2008 and will grow again to an estimated 31 percent in 2009. RIM, maker of the Blackberry, is doing even better, increasing its estimated share of industry profits from 8 percent (2007) to 19 percent (2008) to 35 percent (2009). So adding those two together, Apple and RIM are expected to account for an incredible 66 percent of industry profits this year. Meanwhile, once-dominant Nokia is seeing its estimated share of industry profits drop from 64 percent (2007) to 57 percent (2008) to 32 percent (2009). The only other major manufacturer to grow its profit share is Samsung, from 14 prcent last year to an estimated 19 percent this year. (A note on methodology: These numbers take into account operating losses at companies such as Motorola and Palm, and the total adds up to 100 only when you subtract their losses, which are expressed as negative percentages). Such a massive shift in control of industry profits is unprecedented and speaks to the growing value of software in the cell phone industry. It also speaks to the missteps of the traditional handset manufacturers (only Samsung seems to have its act together) and the end of unbridled growth for the industry. Modoff expects total unit sales to decline slightly this year back down to one billion, while industry revenues will continue to come down from their 2007 peak. Nevertheless, Apple and RIM, will continue to take share in both units and revenues as the rest of the industry struggles (see charts below). Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Cliqset Debuts Second Iteration Of Social Identity Platform, Raises $1.5 Million Top
Jacksonville, Florida-based Cliqset is launching the second beta version of its online identity platform today with some nifty new features, and is also announcing that it has raised $1.5 million in financing from a single angel investor. Cliqset is not exactly an easy concept to explain, but here goes. Essentially, the platform aims to stitch together the social web by allowing users and developers build, organize and share social information across a wide variety of services. As an end user, Cliqset can help you merge and share the social information (your status updates, location, photos, etc) currently scattered around the web with the people, applications and devices you already use and trust. Developers on the other hand get access to an extensive set of read/write social APIs they can use as an alternative to building and managing support for their own. The second beta, launching today, comes with a new Location Services API that allows developers to build apps for web and mobile by using location info from users. With the API, developers can fetch and use address information using the latitude and longitude coordinates provided by mobile devices. The gathered location information can be tied to user activities but also be used to store more generic location information that’s relevant to the applications they build on top of the Cliqset platform. A related new element is the integration of Cliqset location services with third-party services like BrightKite, FireEagle and Twitter, basically simplifying how a user can keep their social and location information in sync across the Web. Also new is a fresh push/pull architecture for social information that travels to and from Cliqset, Cliqset-enabled applications and the supported third-party services. A mix of push/pull functionality is now possible with over 30 third-party services, including Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, identica, laconica, Linkedin, FireEagle, and FriendFeed. It’s like the latter on steroids, actually. Cliqset has recently closed its second seed round, $1.5 million coming from angel investor Derek Mercer , founder and former chairman and CEO of Vurv Technology, a provider of talent management software that was acquired in 2008 by Taleo for about $128.8 million. This comes in addition to an earlier early-stage capital injection of $500,000 by the man, bringing the total invested in the startup to $2 million . Cliqset - Merge, Organize and Share Social Information from cliqset on Vimeo . Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
TRV$DJAM Charges Nothing But A Tweet For New Mixtape Top
Here’s a cool way for music artists to reward their biggest fans and get some Viral Marketing® in return: drummer Travis Barker and turntablist DJ-AM (aka Adam Goldstein) are offering their just-released second mixtape, “Fix Your Face Vol. 2 - Coachella ‘09″, up for free download in exchange for a mere Twitter message. The duo, conventiently made up of two heavy Twitter users ( @trvsbrkr and @DJ_AM ), aims to score some extra buzz on the social networking service and is giving away the co-produced mixtape (under the name TRV$DJAM) to anyone who sends out a tweet that reads “Download the new #trvsdjam mixtape “Fix Your Face Vol. 2 - Coachella 09″ in exchange for one tweet!”. Note that you need to go to this website and grant access to an application using OAuth before you send that message. Oh, by the way, that mixtape rocks. CrunchBase Information Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Apparently Bing Is Something Of A Hit Top
Thursday may not have been Microsoft Bing Day , but today sure is. Microsoft quietly launched their new search engine without fanfare and sans parade. Last week everyone got to see the demo video and a few of us were actually able to access Bing for our reviews. Most everyone, though, just had to wait to actually try the service. Initial reader comments tended towards the negative on announcement day. Microsoft got heat for having nothing but a landing page up (and not even that for a while after the announcement). The “Bing stands for But It’s Not Google” comment appeared a number of times, as did sarcastic comments like “Looks like Live search again. Good to see Microsoft trying new things.” There were also a few variations of “MS is a bloated sinking ship…bing is nothing but a desperate attempt by an obsolete company.” You get the picture. Today, though, they can actually try it. And the overwhelming number of user comments on our launch post Sunday evening are extremely positive. People like Bing. A few of them: So long Google … I'm a Binger now lol i agree. all the search results i get are very good and i really like this interface. Bing looks interesting and very promising, It gives perfect results for couple of my favourate searches [aah my name ] It is fast, accurate, visually pleasing - and as Sam said above - Holly crap, it doesn't suck. I really like the way the images are done - click on an image in the gallery and then the results go along the left hand side - that is a sweet feature. The news search falls a bit short - but hey. The results are actually good. i did a search for "extend a dd-wrt network with airport express" and was impressed by the qlty of the results. also the results look clean. and the left hand guided search assistant is great. good results and feels really responsive and fast. Will use. I kinda like it….will have to play with it for a week or so. Wow! Did Microsoft finally nail search? Had to know they would get it right at some point… Also quite impressed. Even though there are heavy graphics, it still feels light and responsive. I actually think it makes Google feel a little stale. wow…… bing is good……..surprise coming from Microsoft… I expected the worst and was pleasantly surprised. The images search was better (more relevant) that what I was getting at Google. I also tried some searches that I normally use Google for and most of the same results came up, in roughly the same order (meaning I could use this thing for real after all). The only problem I see is breaking the habit of using Google. That Bing is actually competent and useful for search is really surprising. MS nailed it. Even if it's not "as good as" Google, it's pretty damn close. My thoughts on Bing: I like it. And I’d consider using it as my search engine. But like many people I’m used to Google and I know how to find the things I’m looking for. Bing returns very different results for a lot of queries, which is great. But it also means spending time learning how to use Bing to get what you need out of it. I’ll spend that time because it’s my job. But for most people, they’ll stick to what they know, and that’s Google. If Microsoft takes search share with Bing, it will likely be from Yahoo. If I were Yahoo and I was thinking of doing a search deal, I’d pull that trigger sooner rather than later. Yahoo wants a “boatload” of money to do a search deal or sell the company outright. Microsoft offered a boatload last year for either deal and couldn’t get it done. If Bing is a hit, there’s little reason for them to offer more. Google’s blocked from working with Yahoo , so they aren’t going anywhere. I’ll sum up with this - whether Microsoft ultimately succeeds or not in “winning” the search war, the competition is very good for the rest of the Internet . Google needs to be pushed to try innovating new things ( not this ). And search marketing competition will ensure that Google doesn’t get too greedy. We don’t need Microsoft to win, but we do need to avoid a world with just one search engine that matters. Maybe Microsoft can win that lesser war, at least. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Seatwave Scores $17 Million In Fourth Funding Round Top
Seatwave , the UK-based upstart behind the eponymous marketplace for secondary tickets, has landed $17 million in Series D funding led by Accel Partners with Atlas Venture, Mangrove Capital Partners, Fidelity Ventures and Adinvest joining the round, writes Atlas partner Fred Destin on his blog . Recently named Europe’s fastest growing digital media company by investment bank GP Bullhound, Seatwave allows fans to trade theatre, sport and music tickets online and thus competes (hard) with TicketMaster (IAC), StubHub (eBay) and that other well-funded startup in the ticket reselling space, Viagogo , which raised over $65 million to date including an i nvestment from tennis legends Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf . The primary reason it was selected is because the company reportedly saw its revenue rise 2203 per cent in the past two years , with user numbers having increased to 1.9m monthly users today and exchange operations in five countries. The company was founded in 2006 by Joe Cohen, formerly with Ticketmaster and Match.com, and Atlas Venture, which remains the largest shareholder. Seatwave has now raised a whopping total of $53 million including this round. The startup raised seed and $3 million in Series A funds from Atlas Venture in 2006, $8 million from Mangrove CP and Atlas in 2007, and raised a large $25 million round back in February 2008. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Edocr Aims To Be A DocStoc For Corporates - Is That Enough? Top
Edocr , a smaller competitor to other document sharing startups like DocStoc and Scribd , re-launches today with new features and an API, after a long time off-radar. Eschewing the publisher focus of Issuu , or the broad business focus of DocStoc , the boot-strapped Edocr focuses on corporates and organisations. So for instance, companies can upload all their public-facing documents, whether they be company reports, press releases, guidance documents, you name it. Admittedly the slightly dull-but-necessary focus is not going to set the world alight, but with plenty of enterprises still getting their heads around the basics of blogging, RSS and even social networks like Twitter, edocr is a simple way for companies to share their PDFs without being lumped alongside a pirated copy of a Harry Potter novel. New features include an improved design, bulk uploading of documents, an API , document categories, better search and the ability to auto-tweet to a Twitter account when new documents get uploaded. The question is, will that be enough to set it apart from the many players in this field? Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Badda-Bing Indeed. Top
This is just too good. One of the features of Microsoft’s just launched Bing search engine is that it auto-plays videos in results when you hover over them. Naturally, the first thing a number of people, like Loic Le Meur , did was search for “sex” or “porn.” The results are majestic — if you’re a teenager looking for a way around porn filters on your computer. And this isn’t artful porn or something like it, it’s straight-up, hardcore pornography. Now, to be fair, to see these results, you do have to manually override the adult filter on the video search, but that’s a whole 2 clicks and doesn’t require that you actually verify your age or anything. The Bing team on Twitter is already warning users about this following Loic and other’s tweets about the issue. But the results literally speak for themselves. If you’re so inclined, go ahead and try , it’s one hell of a way to browse porn. Straight porn, gay porn, you name it. It’s all there, ready to auto-play. I had one hell of a time just finding a result that would be easy enough for me to edit with you still being able to tell what it is. Obviously, this stuff is not safe for work — unless perhaps you work on the Bing team. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
MashLogic Launches, Adds High Powered Angels To Investor List Top
MashLogic , a browser tool that gives users contextual information about content on websites (since publisher-driven links often don’t do the job), is coming out of beta this morning. And they’re announcing a second seed round of financing - $500,000 from high profile investors SoftTech VC , Scott Kurnit (About.com founder), Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn founder) and Gil Penchina (Wikia CEO). Kurnit also joins the board of directors of the company. Bessemer Venture Partners is incubating the startup and put in most of the original $900,000 in seed money. The company has raised a total of $1.4 million to date and works out of the Bessemer offices. We first wrote about MashLogic in October 2008 when it went into private beta: MashLogic is a more direct approach. Users must download a Firefox plugin to use it, but there's no toolbar. Instead, you simply change the settings to tell it what kind of information you'd like to have included on web pages. Links to Wikipedia is an easy one. But it also has company links to LinkedIn to show you people there you might know. And a currency converter. Etc. It's like a frickin Swiss Army Knife for hyperlinks. One setting I like - the ability to remove all links on a page, and then only MashLogic links appear. For a lot of sites, the user experience is vastly superior. You can also create blacklists of domains that won't show up in links on the page, even if the original publisher put them there. Once you've got the tool configured, smart links will start popping up all over the place. Professional Athletes get their playing stats, Politicians get a real time poll of their progress towards the White House. Currencies are *zap* converted. You can even see a map for any street address. Their goal is to save you from having to go back to the search engine to find the next thing you're intersted in but isn't linked on the site. The site has evolved since October. It’s now available for Internet Explorer in addition to Firefox. Also, any topic trending up on Twitter is highlighted and linked (at the user option), with additional information on who’s tweeting about that topic. And if a Twitter username appears in the text of a web page (as they do in our comments), clicking on it brings up a box with that Twitter users information. Users can also post to their Twitter accounts. Here’s how it looks: MashLogic works with publishers to create slightly customized versions of the product that pull information from that publisher first. Users can customize away from those changes, but most don’t. We’ve been distributing a version of MashLogic since last October and it drives a fair amount of traffic to us from people seeing TechCrunch and CrunchBase content “linked” from around the web. It’s one of the few products I’ve tried that I’ve stuck with over these last months. It definitely makes browsing and research easier. Try it , I think you’ll like it. Here’s an interview I did today with founder/VP Ranjit Padmanabhan . After I butcher his name we see how it all works: Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Go Bing Yourself, Right Now Top
It doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as go Google yourself, but now you can go Bing yourself. (Then again, Google took a few years to become a verb.). Bing, Microsoft’s latest effort to compete in search , is now live on a “preview” site. The key thing to pay attention to is the guided search assistance on the left and the different experiences for the travel, images, video, maps, news, and shopping tabs. A few things to try: An ambiguous Web search: “turkey” (do you want images, recipes, facts, or a map of the country? The topic guides in the left explore pane will help you narrow your search). A travel search: “SFO to JFK” Video search: “Simpsons” (hover over the thumbnail to play the video) Image search: “Rollercoasters” (notice the infinite scroll). A health search: “Sore throat” Shopping: “Digital SLR” (sort by price or brand, get average ratings and CashBack). Maps: “BBQ” (automatically knows what city you are in and offers up geo-appropriate results). News Search: “Bing” (what else?) Check it out. Try a few searches and then tell us in comments if you will ever go back. CrunchBase Information Bing Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Real-Time Twitter Search, Hold The "Real-Time" Top
Many believe the greatest potential of Twitter lies in its ability to perform real-time searches of various keywords. So when that functionality is delayed by some 3 hours, as it is right now, and has been throughout much of the night , with no explanation, you can imagine that users are going to get a little annoyed. Go ahead, search for anything right now — a good example is for the word “the,” as it’s used in a ton of tweets. The most recent results you’ll find are from 3 hours ago . [Update below, it's back with a huge gaping hole.] Not only does this badly impact my vanity searches, but there are companies who now rely on Twitter Search to run services such as brand management. Imagine the horror Comcast must be feeling right now not being able to see my tweets constantly bitching about their crap service in real-time. Likewise, Trending Topics is not working as it also relies on Twitter Search. So we’re being tricked into thinking people actually care about the MTV Movie Awards. We’ve gotten tipped this a number of times throughout the day, but I’ve largely been ignoring it, trying to give Twitter the benefit of the doubt to at least update us on what is going on. But this is ridiculous. Fix your damn search functionality Twitter, you’re not much use without it. Update : And it’s back up — with a nice little 4 hour gaping hole of tweets not indexed. Go ahead and try this query and if you go back far enough, you’ll see that it all of a sudden jumps back 4 hours at one point. All those tweets, apparently, lost. CrunchBase Information Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Video: Inside The Google Holodeck Top
At this past week’s Google I/O event in San Francisco, Google brought a contraption it calls the “Holodeck,” for event-goers to experience. Basically, it’s a near-360 degree way to view Google Street View in fast motion, high definition video. Danny Sullivan posted a bunch of pictures of the thing earlier in the week. Unfortunately, Google only allows it to show the area at and around the actual Google campus in Mountain View, as I’m sure it doesn’t want any legal complaint from those caught sunbathing in their backyards. Also, while it does zoom past the area where the Google Goats were kept, it unfortunately failed to catch any of them on tape. Luckily, I did that for you a few weeks ago. Google’s Holodeck isn’t quite as cool as the Star Trek Holodeck , but give them a few years, I’m sure they’ll figure out how to do that as well. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Last.fm Brags About Uptime, Overheats, Goes Offline Top
Music service Last.fm , which was bragging about server uptime a week and a half ago, shuts its doors for the afternoon, claiming “datacenter temperature issues beyond our control” required them to go offline. The outage began around 12:30 pm PST, so we’re at two hours and counting. Updates are on their Twitter account . The twitter from May 20: Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Republican PR Director Calls Facebook's Randi Zuckerberg "totally full of sh*t" Top
One thing I love about Facebook spokesperson Randi Zuckerberg - she says exactly what she thinks, and she isn’t afraid to use the power of Facebook to back up her opinions. Mean bar bouncers can lose their Facebook pages (this was later retracted but remains funny). Meanwhile, Holocaust deniers are given a pass. Now she’s taking on the Republican party, and the Republican party is fighting back. At a Startup2Startup event last week Zuckerberg talked about her experiences at the Republican and Democratic presidential conventions last year. The relevant clip (care of Ustream ) is above. “At the Democratic national convention we were like rock stars,” Zuckerberg said. “At the Republican national convention I sat in my hotel room by myself for three days, no one would meet with us, I was like begging people to meet with us.” Randi also recounts a conversation on a plane where a Berkeley professor calls Zuckerberg “you’re like the most powerful person in the world.” The Republicans aren’t amused. Matt Burns, the Director of Communications for the 2008 Republican National Convention left a long comment, calling Zuckerber “full of sh*t”: With all due respect, Randi Zuckerberg is totally full of sh*t on this one – at least as her comments relate to the Republican National Convention. As the Director of Communications for the convention, I can tell you we worked closely with Google/YouTube, Ustream.tv, Microsoft, and countless other companies to create a comprehensive and successful online campaign. Those efforts were recently recognized with five "Pollie Awards" from The Association of Political and Public Affairs Professionals. And we utilized Facebook – even if it wasn't up to Ms. Zuckerberg's standards – as part of our overall strategy. Is it possible Ms. Zuckerberg sat alone in her hotel room during the Republican National Convention because she never actually contacted anyone? Or maybe she forgot about the major hurricane barreling toward the Gulf Coast on the eve of the Republican National Convention? Or maybe she didn't really want to be around a group of conservative Americans in the first place? According to the Wall Street Journal: "'At the Democratic convention we were like rock stars,' Zuckerberg said Thursday to a conference crowd of what could safely be called Democratic-leaning entrepreneurs and investors." Wait. Ms. Zuckerberg bashed Republicans while speaking to an audience of her liberal friends? Shocker! In all seriousness, can Ms. Zuckerberg tell us what the Democratic National Convention did with Facebook – aside from pet their enlarged egos and take them to glitzy parties with the Hollywood elite – that Republican National Convention planners didn't? I guess next time we won't make the mistake of letting the business of nominating our Presidential candidate get in the way of the folks at Facebook being treated like rock stars. Apologies to Facebook. Our bad. Whenever Randi speaks, point a camera at her. There’s almost certainly a story in there somewhere. All I hope is that Facebook never muzzles her. As the most powerful person in the world, we need to hear more from her, not less. I’ve emailed Burns for confirmation that he left the comment, but the language is definitely his style . Update: Burns has responded: YES. I left it. I LOVE Facebook as much as the next person, but think the criticism was a bit misdirected. I can’t speak for the McCain campaign because I wasn’t working on its new media efforts, but the convention itself made unprecedented efforts to incorporate new media into our campaign. Over the course of our convention, we attracted 1.7 million unique visitors, and strategically partnered with Google/YouTube and Ustream.TV to draw an additional 7 million unique viewers to our content. And the GOP convention had more Facebook “friends” than the Democratic National Convention. We had about 10,000, while the Dem Convention had about 3,300. GOP facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/GOPconvention2008 Dem facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5209534425 Also encourage you to read the following news item: http://www.gopconvention2008.com/news/read.aspx?id=557 Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Fotonauts Offers a Sneak Peak At Its Upcoming Fotopedia Top
When Fotonauts debuted at last year’s TechCrunch50, I called it a “gorgeous photopedia” because it promised to turn your photo albums into collaborative Web pages about different topics and subjects. Fotonauts is a desktop photo client which helps you tag, organize, and share your photos in a live feed, and is still in private beta. But you can see a glimpse of what the Web-facing version will look like at Fotopedia , which just soft-launched. A message at the top of the page states: “Fotopedia, a sneak peek. This site is an in-progress read-only preview of what we are going to launch in a few days.” One of the features of Fotonauts which has yet to be turned on is the ability to turn any photo album into a Web page, complete with tags, associated Wikipedia entry, and Google map information where available. Fotopedia showcases some of the same public albums you can see in the Fotonauts client, plus it adds a few twists. Each photo can be voted up or down or flagged as inappropriate. There is an Encyclopedia tab, which shows albums by topic/tag. For instance, you can see albums about Volcanos , butterflies , or Venice . There are nearly 150,000 high-quality photos already, organized into 4,289 “articles.” Each article is a Web slide show, along with the associated Wikipedia entry and Google Map. Each photo contains a lot of metadata making it search-engine friendly. Fotopedia is supposed to be a cross between Flickr and Wikipedia, an= long-lasting archive of “images for humanity.” Fotonauts founder Jean-Marie Hullot explains in a note: “Flickr and other photo sites give you exposure for only a brief window in time, and adding photos to Wikipedia proved too complicated for the average user.” In addition to the photos, there is also an active community. You can follow other people or follow specific albums. You can also see individual profiles when you are logged in. You can also share albums as widgets. (I’ve included ones for Volcano and butterfly albums below). Volcano on Fotopedia Butterfly on Fotopedia Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Prepare For The Facebook Vanity URL Landrush Top
Facebook will soon be allowing all users to claim a vanity URL pointing to their regular profile page, we’ve heard from a reliable source. The announcement should come sometime later this week. Afterwards, at a certain date and time, the landrush will begin. Users will be able to grab a vanity URL of their choice. The Landrush rules will prohibit trademark infringement and a lots of words will be blacklisted, such as generic terms. But for the most part, we hear, users will be able to grab a name that they like. Facebook has been toying with vanity URLs for some time. URLs for user profiles are currently user id numbers - such as facebook.com/profile.php?id=500065899 (that’s me). In March some Facebook pages started rolling out with vanity URLs , although you must have a business relationship with Facebook (or know someone there) to get one. Facebook.com/techcrunch , for example, links to our TechCrunch page. The reason they need them - vanity URLs have proven to be a powerful tool on MySpace, Twitter and other services. It’s not just that users like them and it makes telling people your profile name easier. People have also long used MySpace URLs as their online identity. Twitter, more recently, has started to become the online identity provider of choice. Even Google is getting in on the vanity URL game. Facebook doesn’t want to give that up. Facebook has recently polled users to see if they’d pay for a vanity URL. We have no idea if they plan on charging for the landrush at this point. Stay tuned, and in the meantime start thinking up that perfect Facebook name. I want facebook.com/mike myself. Oh wait, I guess Facebook employees get first pick . So you’re also out of luck if you’re name is Mark . Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Twitter Goes Down, Spymaster Makes Fun Of Them Top
Yes, Twitter is down. Yes, again. Yes, they’re looking into it . Yes, this is another Twitter post. But, I come bearing gifts. Spymaster , the somewhat controversial and addictive Twitter-based game obviously doesn’t work nearly as well when Twitter is down. In fact, it doesn’t work at all. The creators have made a fun little Fail Whale graphic of their own, indicating the the game will be down until Twitter comes back up. “The Directorate can’t assassinate the failwhale,” the message on the site reads. Funny, but this is a serious problem for a growing number of services that are built using Twitter as their backbone. Even FriendFeed looks like a ghost-town right now with no Twitter messages coming in. Update : And after about an hour of downtime, they’re back. Update 2 : Twitter has blamed the downtime on a “fatal software error.” Despite saying it’s now fixed, the service is down again. Update 3: It’s kind of up again, sort of, maybe. Might I suggest a list of alternative things to do once again? CrunchBase Information Spymaster Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
HTC Killed The Physical Keyboard. Smart Move. Top
We’re less than a week away from the launch of the supposed next “iPhone killer,” the Palm Pre. The iPhone has miraculously survived a few of these attempts on its life before — it somehow weathered the BlackBerry Storm, and before that, the G1 was going to be the device the did it in. The G1 was compelling because it was the first phone to run Google’s Android operating system. But as a piece of hardware (made by HTC), it sucked. You know it, I know, even Google employees will admit it. And that’s why I was at first less than thrilled when I heard Google would be giving away Android phones to everyone at the Google I/O event a few days ago. But it turns out, they weren’t giving away G1s, but rather that device’s successor, which they call the “Google Ion,” though some know it better as the HTC Magic, or even as the “G2.” And it was a brilliant move by Google, because this device is leaps and bounds better than the G1. Mostly setting aside the software itself — the Ion runs the new “Cupcake” variety of Android, aka Android 1.5 — the hardware that HTC has built this time around is much, much better. First of all, the thing just looks a lot nicer. It’s fairly sleek, almost iPhone-like, compared to the G1, which looked like a dull black plastic brick with a protruding chin at the bottom. The Ion is smaller, it’s thinner, the camera is nicer, the buttons are nicer, hell, even that stupid trackball that HTC insists on including is nicer. Most importantly though, it’s much more usable as a device. And we can thank one thing for that, as well as for much of its much improved design: The removal of the physical keyboard. Now, before all your business and power users jump on me, let me say this: I understand how much you love your physical keyboards on your phones. I admit that most BlackBerry’s have quite nice keyboards. That said, the G1’s absolutely sucked and physical keyboards overall will become extinct over the course of the next several years. While the Ion’s vast improvement over the G1 may not solely prove that, it goes a lot way towards making the case that I’ve been making for a long time now: The physical keyboard is just a waste of valuable space . With the G1, not only did the keyboard make the device much thicker than it needed to be otherwise, the overall implementation was poor. The device’s chin made for an uneven typing experience, and the fact that the device had to be held in horizontal mode to use the keyboard was just silly beyond belief. And it actually caused some programs to fail when you would close the keyboard with device in typing mode and move it back to vertical mode. With the on-screen keyboard built into Android 1.5, you can now type while the device is vertical. And if you want to type horizontally, you just turn your device and you can do that too. This alone makes the device much better. The on-screen keyboard itself is better than they G1’s physical keyboard too. I find that I can type much faster with it, and not having to turn the device to the side, makes it easier to do things like type and walk. One major complaint against these virtual keyboards is that you can’t orient your hands without looking down as you’re typing, but improvements in technology such as haptic feedback will help this. Another is that the virtual keyboards often have lag between hitting a key and it showing up on screen — faster devices, like the Ion, will fix this. The physical keyboard is dead — it’s only a matter of time. All that said, the Ion’s on-screen keyboard is not as good as the iPhone’s. The Ion’s slightly smaller screen means the buttons are slightly more crammed together, which makes mistypes more common. But other Android devices with larger screens will undoubtedly help this. Beyond the keyboard and the overall design, the other single biggest improvement in the Ion is in battery life. The G1’s battery life was an absolute joke with applications running the background. The Ion’s battery life is quite good — we hear it’s as much as four times as powerful, though I haven’t tested that extensively — so good that I can have background applications such as IM, current weather and Twitter notifications running all day without the device dying on me. Running just two of those apps on the G1 would result in power drain in just a few hours. But the big question everyone wants to know is: Is the Ion better than the iPhone? No, it’s not. Even all that I said above doesn’t do justice for how much better the Ion is than that G1, but it’s simply still not on par with the iPhone. While obviously, a lot of that has to do with which software you favor, the iPhone’s OS versus Android, the iPhone hardware is still nicer as well. The screen is slightly bigger, the one-button layout (or 4 if you count the side and top buttons) is simpler, and the thing just feels more sturdy. That said, the Ion has a big advantage in its camera, which is much nicer than the current iPhone’s — but that should change with the new iPhone hardware due shortly. But I think that it’s fine that the Ion isn’t an “iPhone killer.” First of all, the mobile space is still evolving and growing rapidly, the idea that any one phone is going to kill any other phone is kind of silly — people have different tastes/desires and the market is big enough for a huge number of these types of devices. Second, the Ion is really a nice phone — it’s easily the second best phone I’ve used behind only the iPhone, and if you want to do something like run background applications, I’d definitely recommend it (at least until Apple gets into that game ). And the Ion is a better device if you care deeply about using Gmail, Google Calendar and Gtalk, as those are all obviously Google products built right into Android. Third, the Ion is just one more of many Android devices due shortly. Google is on record as saying there will be 18 Android phones just this year, but we hear it may even be more than that, north of 25. Google’s goal isn’t creating an “iPhone killer,” it’s creating a vibrant mobile ecosystem that it can use to get more people using Google’s services. Plenty of people use Google on the iPhone, and you can be sure that the company is quite pleased with that. As a platform, Android needs better applications if it’s going to compete (compete, not kill) with the iPhone in the consumer space. But with so many devices coming, developers are sure to pick up their game as demand increases. A major setback in Android development since the launch of the G1 was that the G1 was a junky piece of hardware. Devices of a higher caliber, like the Ion, will help change everyone’s (both consumers’ and as a result, developers’) mind about moving to the Android platform. See how easy that was HTC? All you had to do was kill that awful physical keyboard. Nice work. CrunchBase Information HTC Android iPhone Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 

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