Sunday, June 7, 2009

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What's In A Name? That Which We Call An "iPhone 3GS" By Any Other Name Would Smell As Sweet Top
We’re on the verge of Apple’s WWDC keynote tomorrow morning in San Francisco. We’ll be there covering it live starting at 10 AM PST. After the usual months of speculation, there are two things Apple’s VP of marketing Phil Schiller is expected to focus on during the keynote: Mac OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard” and the iPhone platform. Obviously, the iPhone 3.0 software will be a big part of that, but most of those details were already given during Apple’s iPhone 3.0 SDK event a few months back. That’s why a new piece of iPhone hardware seems likely to take center stage tomorrow as well. Details of such a device (or devices) have been trickling out over the past few months. It now seems fairly likely that the device will look similar to the current iPhone 3G, perhaps with a different, more matte-finish back and a loss of the silver ring that goes around the screen now. It will likely feature a better camera — probably 3.2 megapixels (as opposed to the current version’s 2 megapixels) and could have autofocus. The device should also be able to record video. It’s also possible that it could have a front-facing camera, though that may be saved for a future version rather than this one. Speed will likely be a focus as the device should have a faster processor , more RAM and be able to handle faster 3G connection speeds. And that leads to two final rumors: The device’s name and battery life. Daring Fireball’s John Gruber made his predictions for the WWDC keynote this morning, talking about what he’s heard and what he’s unsure about. He has a great track record when it comes to such things, so when he says he’s heard a new possible name for the device, it’s at the very least probably a code name, which he notes. And I hope it is a code name, because it’s kind of lame: iPhone 3GS. As I allude to above, he makes the case that the “S” in iPhone 3GS would stand for “Speed.” That makes sense given what Apple is likely to tout with this version, but is a rather boring naming convention. I would much rather see Apple go with some other names that have been tossed around like “iPhone Video” or the “iPhone Pro.” The latter makes some sense given the other recently reported talk that there will be a slightly cheaper version of the iPhone that will be for sale when this new version comes out. A lot of people including Gruber believe this cheaper version could simply be the current iPhone 3G reduced in price to either $149 or $99. Eventually, such a model would undoubtedly be phased out in favor of a new, smaller model just as Apple has done with its iPod line. And that’s why I still have some hope that Apple will simply call its new iPhone the “iPhone,” while it gets ready to transition to an “iPhone nano” or whatever they’ll call that when it comes out eventually (not tomorrow). But calling it simply the “iPhone” could raise some confusion if the cheaper iPhone model is still the “iPhone 3G” — some people might be tricked into thinking that the iPhone 3G is more advanced than the one which would be called the iPhone. So that’s a roundabout way to describe why would could be stuck with a clunky iPhone 3GS name. I just wonder if that name will draw some confusion from people misreading it as the plural version of the iPhone 3G. I can just see ads touting that a store has iPhone 3Gs in stock — while they mean the iPhone 3GS. Of course, I also thought the MacBook Air was a bad name because it sounded like “ MacBook Error ,” but that seems to have worked out okay for Apple. The other juicy tidbit in Gruber’s predictions is that he’s heard this new iPhone 3GS will have 15 to 20% better battery life. If true, that is awesome. I recently complained about the diminishing battery life of my iPhone 3G, but when it was still young, I found the device’s battery life to be pretty good — not great, but good, considering how much I was using it . But a 20% boost on top of that would be most welcomed. [photo: flickr/ kennymatic ] CrunchBase Information iPhone Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Seesmic To Launch New Desktop Version, iPhone App And Browser Based Client Top
I had an informative chat with Seesmic founder Loic Le Meur at the TechFellow Awards Friday night, where he revealed to me the future plans for Seesmic Desktop, a desktop Twitter and Facebook client that’s built on Adobe Air. Seesmic will launch a new version of the desktop client next week that will let users compress their stream of Facebook updates and Twitter messages into one column. Currently, the client divides streams from different accounts and social networks into several columns. The new version also features a new button that will let you post a Tweet to multiple Twitter accounts at the same time. And Seesmic will also let you see tracking stats from links sent out with url shortening service bit.ly. Seesmic’s current version lets you use a variety of other url shorteners, including tr.im and Snurl, but doesn’t let you see stats within the client itself. According to Le Meur, Seesmic will soon be offering a browser based client. This offering is actually appealing, considering that Adobe's AIR platform has some strange UI bugs and quirks and tends to use a good amount of resources on computers. And Seesmic will also launch an iPhone app, which is currently under wraps along with the web-based product. Details about the features of the browser client and iPhone app will be officially unveiled at TechCrunch’s Real Time Stream CrunchUp on July 10. Seesmic Desktop, which faces competition from popular client and rival Tweetdeck and a plethora of others, officially launched in April. Le Meur tells us that Seesmic is getting about 10,000 downloads a day. PeopleBrowsr, another social network aggregator, recently made the opposite switch, adding a desktop Adobe Air client to its browser product. As TechCrunch’s Robin Wauters recently wrote, the social network aggregator market is almost fully saturated. It seems like every day there are new startups that are trying to venture into the already competitive landscape. So it makes sense that Seesmic would want to not only build up its offering with useful features, but also try to conquer all the mediums—web, desktop and mobile. Disclosure: TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington is an investor in Seesmic. I am not. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Asia-Bound With GeeksOnAPlane Top
It’s been over three months since I wrote anything here on TechCrunch, but over the next 10 days or so you’ll be hearing more from me as I travel with a group of 32 techies through East Asia as part of GeeksOnAPlane , a field trip of sorts organized by Dave McClure intended to open our Western eyes to how the technology industry works in Japan and China. The web as experienced by the biggest continent on the planet unfortunately gets short shrift on the blogs that regularly hit Techmeme . I personally can profess to have only cursory knowledge of the trends and companies that come out of Asia, and that knowledge consists mainly of echoes that get passed along by word of mouth. Sarah Lacy has done all of us a favor by recently reporting from China, but we can always use more to enlighten us about what’s going on across the Pacific. In a couple of minutes, I’ll be boarding a plane bound for Tokyo with the group you see above. And over the next few days we’ll be attending conference-type events, such as Startonomics Tokyo , where we’ll hear about a variety of topics such as the Japanese investment climate and startup success stories. My main goal is to share with you all what this all looks like to someone who’s familiar with the web but from an almost purely American point of view. If you find these insights interesting, I encourage you to follow GeeksOnAPlane on Twitter . I’ll also be posting snippets of my experience to my own account . If you want to comment on any of our travels, use the hashtag #goap on Twitter. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
A Map Of Social (Network) Dominance Top
Even on the Web, world dominance must be achieved one country at a time. While Facebook has long been the largest social network in the world, and should soon pass MySpace in the U.S. , it is not the largest social network in every country. The map above created by Vincenzo Cosenza resembles more a game of Risk, with Facebook sweeping across the globe from the West. Using Alexa and Google Trend data, Cosenza color-coded the map based on which social network is the most popular in each country. All of the light green countries belong to Facebook. But there are still pockets of resistance in Russia (where V Kontakte rules), China (QQ), Brazil and India (Orkut), Central America, Peru, Mongolia, and Thailand (hi5), South Korea (Cyworld), Japan (Mixi), the Middle East (Maktoob), and the Philippines (Friendster). Apparently, Alexa already thinks that Facebook is larger than MySpace in the United States. And Maybe it is, or maybe Cosenza’s isn’t using the best data. But I love being able to visualize market dominance on acountry-by-country basis. I wonder what the map would look like using comScore data, some of which can be found in our recent social network valuation model . Below is an interactive version of the map. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Scan Your Books And Search Them On Google Top
One of the most useful, if often-overlooked, features of Google Book Search is the ability to enter your own books and create a personal library which you can then search if Google has scanned those books. (And chances are it probably has). If you are trying to find a passage or a factoid you once read but can’t remember the book no matter how hard you wrack your brain, the ability to search your personal library can come in handy. Except who wants to enter each book one at a time? Now you can scan your books into your library on Google Book Search using a normal barcode scanner. I am not one hundred percent convinced that this is actually faster than simply typing in the title of the book and adding it to your library. It is faster than typing in the ISBN numbers, however, which is how Google Book Search handles mass imports. But if we are willing to convert our entire CD collections to digital form, it is high time we started tackling our books. Right now, Google is merely matching your books with the books it has already digitized for search purposes only. But once they know what books you own in print, the next logical step is to sell you a digital version of the book and related books on the same topics or by the same author. Once Google collects a big enough book search history on you, it shouldn’t be too hard for them to recommend new books to you which are spot on. Knowing what books you’ve read, will certainly help them in that regard. In the video below, Google’s Matt Cutts goes through the process of scanning your books into Google Book Search. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Hands-On Review Of Jolicloud, The iPhonesque OS For Netbooks Top
Founder and former CEO of Netvibes Tariq Krim is moving forward with his ambitious Jolicloud project, looking to build a better operating system for web workers with netbooks (or smartbooks or cloud computers, whichever term you prefer). A couple of days ago, we got a couple of exclusive screenshots from the team, and just a day after the startup started sending out a handful of invite codes for early adopters who wanted to get a peak at the alpha developer release. I also got hold of one and have been using Jolicloud on my Acer Aspire ONE for about four days now. These are my initial findings. Installation Jolicloud is still in alpha mode, and there’s no denying that there are a lot of kinks left to iron out before it’s ready for public use. For instance, the process of installing it on my Windows XP-powered netbook was frankly a pain in the butt. You need to download an IMG file from the Jolicloud website, ‘burn’ it to a USB key and boot your computer from that drive. But, not only did mine not boot automatically from the key (I had to dive into the BIOS and change the order manually), it also completely froze at the first installation screen. I only got it to start up once out of perhaps 30 attempts, which was frustrating. And the one time I got into the OS (I didn’t install it, just ran it on test mode) I wasn’t even able to install any applications, which is supposed the main USP for the system. After the first day of not being able to effectively try Jolicloud, Krim advised me to try using another USB key, and lo and behold everything went fine from there. The speed of booting up and shutting down have been impressive ever since I finally installed the full system on my computer. Using Jolicloud I’ve now had Jolicloud installed on my netbook for about three days now, alongside Windows XP to make sure, and already I don’t think I’m going to be booting up Windows much from now on. As you could tell from the screenshots we received earlier this week, a lot of thought has been put into the design of the OS, adapting it for optimal use on smaller screens. Even when you run Jolicloud for the first time, everything is quite visual, making it easy to navigate even when you’re not familiar with all the buttons and processes. Compare it to switching from Windows Mobile 6 on your smartphone to the iPhone OS: it’s incredibly easy to get used to, and it’s just a better general user experience, particularly if you use a lot of web applications. I can’t wait to try Jolicloud on a touch-screen enabled netbook to see how it stacks up. I installed a bunch of applications on Jolicloud in just a matter of minutes, web-based ones such as Gmail, Twitter, Flickr, Wikipedia, but also tools usually run from desktops like Boxee and Skype. All behave the way they should, and smoothly at that. The only hick-up I’ve noticed so far is that sometimes I’ll get a blank screen when you start up applications from the My Jolicloud interface for no apparent reason, but apart from that it’s all pretty impressive, and fast. I particularly like the fact that there’s a persistent bar at the top of your screen that puts all the instances you’re running neatly into tabs with icons, making for seamless switching between applications (including Firefox, which comes pre-installed and enables you to do whatever you’re used to on your current computer with Mozilla’s browser, including installing add-ons and plug-ins). The team is currently talking to application developers in order to get more on board, and even some that are creating Jolicloud-specific tools. A bit of social You can ’subscribe’ to other Jolicloud users, which means you’ll get updates on what they’ve installed on their own netbooks. This should provide a great way to get to know the best applications when eventually the list of tools grows too big for users to easily find their way. It’s also a good way for Jolicloud to analyze who is using what on which type of machine (this reminds me a bit of Wakoopa ). It could prove beneficial for Jolicloud to integrate more social features in the future, like the ability to communicate directly with other users or instantly share applications, reviews, screenshots, etc. on the multitude of social networking services out there. Technology Jolicloud builds upon Debian and Ubuntu 9.04 , tweaked to be more suitable for computers that are in general relatively low on disk storage and memory, and have smaller screens. Hence, they are suited for the so-called netbooks and offer little added value for more powerful laptops. To run applications, Jolicloud uses either custom Linux builds for services or Mozilla Prism for anything that can run off the web. For Windows-only products, there’s Wine, an emulator that runs those applications in a virtual desktop. Conclusion The frustrating experience with the initial installation aside, Jolicloud - especially for an alpha release - is impressive. Particularly for people like myself, who use a lot of web applications on a daily basis, it’s definitely a step up from running Windows XP on my Acer Aspire ONE. The design of the system is spot on, the processes are straightforward and everything ‘just works’. That said, I have my doubts about the potential of the OS to become more than a niche product for people aleady using a niche product (netbooks), and it will be interesting how much of a competitor Google turns out to be with Android, which is poised to become a netbook-specific OS in the coming years. I wouldn’t mind having Krim prove me wrong and invent the future with his small team instead, though. (If you want to give Jolicloud a whirl yourself, your best chance is to put yourself on the waiting list and well, wait. If you’ve received a promo USB key at an event in the past, it likely doesn’t even work anymore) Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
I Don't Know If The New iPhone Has A Frontal Camera, But It Should Top
We’re just two days away from Apple’s WWDC keynote where it’s expected to show off the next generation iPhone hardware. Not surprisingly, pictures are starting to surface on the web of the purported device — a French site, Nowhere Else , has a bunch of them, that have since been posted elsewhere. Who knows if the pictures are real or fake — it seems like just as often these days people yell “Photoshop,” when the product is actually real as the vice-versa situation. But real or fake, I have to say that I hope they’re real for one reason. While at first glance, that device looks nearly identical to the current iPhone (it seems like that will definitely be the case), there is one big difference: A front-facing camera. This is interesting to me for two reasons, because it could jump-start two trends: Mobile video chatting and the self-picture. Now, there are a few other devices capable of doing mobile video chatting, but none have taken off yet. But an Apple chat app built exactly like its iChat app on Mac computers, could change that immediately. Just imagine placing a call to another iPhone user (or maybe even someone using iChat on their computer) and being able to hit a button and see their face. It’s something that seems like an obvious direction to go in, and there’s been talk about it before, and patents filed indicating such functionality. Assuming this new iPhone is significantly faster than the current model, it certainly seems like a possibility. But there’s a major x-factor pointing in the direction of why this won’t happen: AT&T. Considering that it gets all worked up when developers try to create a Sling app that can stream video over its 3G network, and blocks it (it’s Wi-Fi only), just imagine what it will think about two-way live streaming video chat. Of course, that stance is pretty ridiculous considering that AT&T allows the Sling app to work on other phones on its network. But given what it knows about how much bandwidth iPhone users use versus the other smartphones out there, AT&T made a play to attempt to salvage its often sketchy network. But it’s possible that if AT&T really is doing massive upgrades to its network to get ready for this new iPhone which will supposedly connect to the Internet at higher speeds, that the company could allow video streaming as long as it’s from Apple. After all, it doesn’t want to piss off Apple, lest it expands its business to other carriers, like Verizon , as well. Or Apple/AT&T could just say that this mobile video chatting is limited to Wi-Fi, like the Sling player is. But that would be pretty lame. But it seems logical that sooner or later this functionality will come to the majority of smartphones. And you can bet that Apple wants to be credited with jump-starting this trend. And I think it would work because while video chat is cool on the computer (most people still seem to be impressed when they see a video iChat for the first time), it sucks being tethered to a desk and chair to use it. Using it on the go could be much more interesting. Naturally, some people would hate such a feature, but it would be one of those things that eventually became a norm, I think. It wouldn’t replace straight-up voice calling obviously, but it would be a nice option. The other trend I noted above is one that is actually already alive and well: Self-picture taking. People have been doing this a lot pretty much since the dawn of the digital camera since you can immediately take a picture, see how you look, then delete and re-take if it’s bad. And people seem to love doing it on the iPhone already , as you can see clearly on all the web’s photo sharing sites. But as it stands right now, you either have to take the picture in a mirror, which just looks odd because you’re holding your iPhone in the picture — and you’re well, taking a picture in a mirror of yourself. Or you have to hold the iPhone away from you to snap the shot. But that often results in a crap picture because the iPhone’s camera sucks and doesn’t have a steady-cam features (though it seems likely that the new one will). But a forward-facing camera could be a game-changer for the vain — which, come on, we all are in some regard. And it’s something that Apple already has experience with thanks to its Photo Booth program which is included in OS X. For those that haven’t used it, basically it just allows you to use a computer’s camera to take a picture of yourself and you can do weird things to the picture like give yourself a giant head. I could definitely see Apple including that same funtionality on the iPhone. So again, I don’t know if these latest pictures are legit at all. They look pretty good, but there is odd issues with focus, blurriness and illuminated dots. But that really doesn’t matter, eventually I think Apple will add a forward-facing camera to the iPhone to lead the way in the mobile video chatting and self-picture trends — it just may not be announced this Monday. [photos via Gizmodo and Engadget ] Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
If You Didn't Get A Pre Today, You Missed This Kick-Ass Startup Video Top
No, we didn’t get a Palm Pre to check out before its launch today — something which is a bit fishy and contributed to a big heap of drama earlier today. But it does seem like a ton of people both on the web and in real-life are very excited about the device. And they should be, having just read others’ reviews and talking to friends who have used it, it seems like it will easily be at least the number two coolest phone out there. So for those of us who didn’t get one today, here’s the video that plays upon starting up your new Pre. It’s pretty damn awesome — much better than the iPhone’s startup screen — which I’ve been seeing a lot of lately . This one actually reminds me a bit of the cool Apple TV startup video . [via PopWuping ] Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Pre-crazed Granny Takes Out A Chicago Sprint Store Top
Judging from the reaction on the web , people aren’t having too hard of a time getting the new Palm Pre at Sprint stores across the country. But last night, one woman was apparently so concerned that she wouldn’t be able to get one that she sped her car to a Sprint store — wait, let me rephrase that — she sped her car into a Sprint store. Check out the video embedded below from NBC Chicago . It’s pretty incredible. Joking aside, I highly doubt the elderly woman behind the wheel actually wanted a Pre and more importantly, she was fine aside from a few bruises. But as you can see, the store didn’t fare so well. And it was probably the worst time something like that could have happened given the Pre launch today. The store apparently said it would still be ready for the 8 AM launch. Anyone in Chicago know if they made it? Perhaps having absolutely no storefront helped with the crowd flow. Let’s just hope they cleaned up the broken glass and picked up the poor fallen giant Pre display. [via PalmPre.org ] [photo: Jesus Leal Jr.] Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Ouch Top
So. The Gillmor Gang was today. We started things off with a nice talk about Rajeev Motwani and his contributions to the community. That was nice. Then Leo Laporte started talking about the Palm Pre, which launches today. That part of the show, which turned as ugly as a show can turn, is in the video clip embedded above. The unedited audio file of the show is here, you can listen to the pre show banter and the first bit about Motwani before the train wreck. I ask Leo whether he bought the Pre or got it free and in advance of the launch, which I think is relevant because Palm is being very picky about who they give them out to. We were promised one but it wasn’t delivered. We suspect our critical coverage may be the reason, one other blogger I spoke to is in the same situation. Many of the pre-launch reviews are overtly positive, and we’re comparing those reviews where the journalist got a free Pre in advance of launch to the less cheerful ones written by people who had to pay for the device. Getting a high profile device in advance is a huge advantage, and is a conflict of interest that should be disclosed in our opinion. But the catch is this - as long as Palm sends out a letter with the device asking for it back in a week, it isn’t considered a financial conflict of interest. The fact that few people ever return them is rarely brought up. Anyway, Leo lost it and shut down the show. I’ve had a lot of interactions with him and they’ve always been positive. Or at least I thought so. I wasn’t watching the video live during the show and I really thought Leo was joking until the very end (as did Steve Gillmor and Loren Feldman, who were chuckling in the video). My “what are you going to do about it” comment doesn’t sound so great in hindsight. But I really did just think he was joking around. We’re under so much scrutiny at TechCrunch (read the last two paragraphs here ) that i guess I don’t always stop and think about the fact that most journalists are never questioned, and don’t react particularly well when they are. We were once, for example, accused of a conflict of interest when we wrote a story about a product and I happened to be a “friend” on Facebook with the PR person for the company. So you could say I’ve had to develop a thick skin when it comes to questions about conflicts of interest. And I don’t consider asking a journalist to disclose if a device he says he loves was given to him for free or not as being a particularly trollish thing to do. I’m bummed this has to be an issue on a day that we’re all mourning the loss of such an important member of our community. And I’m sad that my professional relationship with Leo is apparently over. I apologize to you, Leo. I didn’t mean to imply that you were being unethical. I just think that, given the story that’s brewing about favoritism at Palm, it was important to disclose whether you paid for that Pre, and/or got it in advance. I think I’ll go take Laguna for a walk now and try this blogging thing again tomorrow. I know a lot of you are going to be commenting strongly on this. Comment moderation is going to be tight on this post, so keep it constructive. Update: comment from Leo below: Thanks for the post, Mike. Apology accepted. Now that I know what was going on in your mind, I apologize to you. There seems to be something about the Gillmor Gang that just engenders over the top passion. I'm embarrassed by my overreaction. Peace. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
8 People Palm Poached To Make The Pre Top
In early June 2007, Palm was teetering on the edge of obscurity. Their flagship Treo product line had gone stale, numbers were down across the board, and rumors of a sale were abound. On June 4th, 2007 it was announced that Elevation Partners had purchased a 25% equity stake of Palm for $325 million. Flash forward to today; just two years later (almost to the day), Palm has launched the Pre, a phone which managed to nab the attention of just about every blog and blog reader out there. So what changed? What had that new-found $325 million bought them? Talent. Lots and lots of talent - from their competitors, no less. With a good amount of lucky timing and some decent salary proposals, Palm managed to snatch up at least 8 people who were just oh-so-damn good at what they do, ending up with the Palm Pre and webOS as a result. Read the rest of this post >> Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
The Early Google Papers: Rajeev Motwani's Contributions To Search Top
Larry Page and Sergey Brin have always given Professor Rajeev Motwani significant credit for helping them create what would eventually become Google. Today, as I say my personal goodbye to the man who helped so many people in our community, I’m also spending some time going back and reading some of the early papers that Rajeev co-authored describing how PageRank could become the basis for a new kind of search engine. In a 1998 paper called “What Can You Do With A Web In Your Pocket” Brin, Motwani, Page and Terry Winograd say “…we have developed a global ranking of Web pages called PageRank based on the link structure of the Web that has properties that are useful for search and navigation..we have used PageRank to develop a novel search engine called Google, which also makes heavy use of anchor text.” An even earlier paper in 1998 that the four co-authored called “The PageRank Citation Ranking: Bringing Order to the Web” went into much more detail on PageRank. “In this paper, we take advantage of the link structure of the Web to produce a global “importance” ranking of every web page. This ranking, called PageRank, helps search engines and users quickly make sense of the vast heterogeneity of the World Wide Web.” Today much of what they wrote appears as little more than common sense. But in 1998 it was a revolutionary way of thinking. AltaVista, the leading search engine at the time, turned down the chance to buy Google for $1 million, saying spam would make PageRank useless. Yahoo also declined to purchase Google, supposedly because they didn’t want to focus on search, which only sent users away from Yahoo.com. So what seems obvious today was considered sort of meh by the leading technologists a decade ago. The papers are embedded below. What Can You Do With A Web In Your Pocket? - The PageRank Citation Ranking: Bringing Order to the Web - Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Facing A Lawsuit And Complaints From Celebs, Twitter Launches Verified Accounts Top
Twitter has faced harsh criticism from celebrities, including Kanye West, about impersonators creating unauthorized accounts on their behalf. Tony La Russa, the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals Major League Baseball franchise is suing Twitter claiming that someone is pretending to be him on the site. Today, Twitter’s co-founder Biz Stone responded to the lawsuit, adamantly stating that Twitter will not settle with La Russa, calling the lawsuit an “unnecessary waste of judicial resources bordering on frivolous.” Twitter, as it has done with other similar situations, suspended the account in question. But in response to the problem of impersonators of brands and famous people, Twitter is giving us a sneak peak of an experimental feature they call “verified accounts.” Twitter says it will start rolling out the beta of this feature this summer for a small set of public officials, public agencies, famous artists, athletes, and other celebs who run the risk of impersonation. Businesses will not be included in the initial beta testing of the verification seal. As you can see from the image, the account holder’s page will have a “verified account” official seal in its profile box. Impersonation is a problem on the web in general. Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler recently tried to sue a group of anonymous bloggers for pretending to be him, which proved to be futile. Facebook, like Twitter, is another platform where impersonators can create unauthorized pages on behalf of celebs and public figures. Of course some Twitter impersonations can result in amicable situations. During the Ashton Kutcher vs. CNN race to a million followers, it was revealed that CNN didn’t own the CNNbrk Twitter account. CNN ended up taking control of the CNNbrk account, under the agreement that the original account holder, James Cox, would act as a “social media consultant” to the network. While Twitter’s verification seal is still in an experimental phase, it seems like a step in the right direction. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Are Social Network Aggregators The New Cheese? Top
Here’s a question that’s been running through my head ever since Michael posted about FriendFeed being in danger of becoming the coolest app no one uses : exactly how many startups out there are trying to be the one social networking service aggregator to rule them all, and how many is enough? It seems like every day startups come up with new applications, be it for desktop, Web and/or mobile phone, that essentially want to be the gateway to our online lives. In reality though, there are not that many people who want - let alone need - continuous access to multiple social networking services, and even if they do, how many people (outside of the tech industry) do you know who are genuinely waiting for a extra third-party that helps them manage all their online personas? Is this a sucker’s game? Is it a battle worth fighting? For example: how many clients exist that basically aim to lure you away from using Twitter’s standard web interface by adding more features to the core micro-sharing functionality and throwing in more eye candy? And yet, the Twitter website remains, by far , the most popular way for users to update their message streams, with dozens of apps like TweetDeck, Twhirl / Seesmic Desktop, PeopleBrowsr, Sobees, Streamy, Tweetie, Nambu, TwitterBerry, and HootSuite trailing in its path (and there are many more where that came from). Don’t even get me started on the plethora of apps that syndicate FriendFeed feeds alongside Facebook and Twitter to deliver the best-user-experience-known-to-mankind when it comes to updating your social graph on your current status. It’s the ultimate social networking service aggregator update management tool, baby! All these applications appeal to only a fraction of the users of the more popular social services, many of which are still trying to figure out how to turn all that attention into cold hard cash themselves. I’m not necessarily saying that that’s a reason not do get into that business, I’m just saying chances are little that they’re ever going to be able to turn it into something even remotely profitable. I sincerely think we’ve seen enough of these social network aggregators, and while I’m sure one or two will live on, get acquired or turn out to be a successful venture in another way, most are destined for failure like most startups in any other market, especially if they’re as saturated as this one has quickly proven to be. I’ll sure be pointing back to this post when the next contestants in this particular arena find their way to our inboxes. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
On Twitter, Most People Are Sheep: 80 Percent Of Accounts Have Fewer Than 10 Followers Top
Let’s face it, most people are sheep. It is much easier to follow than to lead, and on Twitter it is no different. A full 80 percent of Twitter accounts have fewer than 10 followers, according to an analysis of seven million Twitter accounts provided to TechCrunch by Web security firm Purewire (which operates TweetGrade ). What’s more, 30 percent have zero followers. Does this mean nobody is using Twitter? Or that they are using it more as a one-way information consumption service? The fact that an estimated 32 million people around the world visited Twitter.com alone in April certainly indicates that there is something going on there. It just may be that Twitter really isn’t as much about two-way micro-conversations as it is about one-way micro-broadcasting. Indeed, a recent Harvard Business School study suggested that the top 10 percent of Twitter users produce more than 90 percent of all Tweets. Here is how Purewire breaks down activity on Twitter by number of followers, followings, and Tweets: Followers Accounts with 0 followers: 29.4% Accounts with 1 to 9 followers: 50.9% Accounts with 10 or more followers: 19.7% Followings Accounts following 0 people: 24.4% Accounts following 1 to 9 people: 43.4% Accounts following 10 or more people: 32.2% Tweets Accounts with 0 Tweets: 37.1% Accounts with 1 to 9 Tweets: 41.0% Accounts with more 10 or more Tweets: 21.9% What stands out from this data is that about a quarter of all accounts are not following anybody, nearly 30 percent have zero followers, and more than a third have not posted a single Tweet. The problem with all of this data, however, is that it includes abandoned accounts (as most likely does the Harvard data as well). Like any popular Web service, millions of people create a Twitter account, try it once, and never come back again. The Purewire data shows that about 40 percent of users have not sent out a Tweet since the day they created their accounts. You can compare this with the 60 percent abandonment rate claimed by Nielsen . But even these may not be the true abandonment rates. Just because you are not Tweeting does not mean you are not listening. After getting rid of the dead accounts and spam accounts (24 percent of accounts follow nobody), what do we have left? All the activity on Twitter is coming from the remaining people who stick around—that 20 percent with more than ten followers and the 32 percent following more than ten people. If you look at active accounts—which Purewire defined as those with at least 10 followers, 10 followings, and 10 tweets—it shows that Twitter is still filled with sheep. Of those active accounts, 63.6 percent follow more people than they have followers (2.8 percent have the same number of followers as followings). But that is what you’d expect. When only 22 percent of accounts have more than 10 Tweets, people who bother to Tweet on a regular basis will attract more followers than people who prefer to sit back and read. Twitter is no different than any other form of participatory media. A small fraction of users produce the overwhelming amount of content, even if it is just 140 characters at a time. Everyone else just drinks from the stream. Baaaa! (Photo credit: Flickr/ Stacie Brew ) Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Silicon Valley Grieves Rajeev Motwani's Passing Top
The news of Professor Rajeev Motwani’s untimely death on Friday afternoon spread quickly throughout the couple of hundred attendees of tonight’s TechFellow event in San Francisco. The mood of the event turned from cheerful cocktail sipping banter to stunned silence. Most everyone who was there is his friend. And most everyone there had a story to tell about how Motwani had helped them at one time or another, asking nothing in return. I have a couple of those stories myself. Ron Conway , a long time friend of Motwani, was visibly shaken. We asked Ron to make a few remarks to honor Motwani before the event started. His talk was not scripted or prepared. He was in a state of shock before, during and after his talk. And it clearly came directly from the heart. He talked about a man who loved entrepreneurs and who would meet with anyone to at least give them advice. Motwani influenced hundreds of entrepreneurs and students, Conway said, and never refused a meeting. We’ve included the video of Conway’s tribute to Motwani above. Google founder Sergey Brin , who describes Motwani as his “friend and teacher,” also wrote a tribute on his blog : Remembering Rajeev It has been a long time since I have updated this blog. In fact, I have been doing some research for what I thought would be my next post. Unfortunately, life does not always give you the luxury to plan what may be close to your heart next. It is with great sadness that I write about the passing of my teacher and good friend Professor Rajeev Motwani. But I would rather not dwell on the sorrow of his death and instead celebrate his life. Officially, Rajeev was not my advisor, and yet he played just as big a role in my research, education, and professional development. In addition to being a brilliant computer scientist, Rajeev was a very kind and amicable person and his door was always open. No matter what was going on with my life or work, I could always stop by his office for an interesting conversation and a friendly smile. When my interest turned to data mining, Rajeev helped to coordinate a regular meeting group on the subject. Even though I was just one of hundreds of graduate students in the department, he always made the time and effort to help. Later, when Larry and I began to work together on the research that would lead to Google, Rajeev was there to support us and guide us through challenges, both technical and organizational. Eventually, as Google emerged from Stanford, Rajeev remained a friend and advisor as he has with many people and startups since. Of all the faculty at Stanford, it is with Rajeev that I have stayed the closest and I will miss him dearly. Yet his legacy and personality lives on in the students, projects, and companies he has touched. Today, whenever you use a piece of technology, there is a good chance a little bit of Rajeev Motwani is behind it. Goodbye, Rajeev. You will be missed. What a sad, sad day. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
2009 TechFellow Awards: The Winners Top
We’d like to congratulate the twenty-two inaugural winners of tonight’s TechFellow awards , each of whom has made outstanding contributions in one of four different categories: Engineering Leadership, Product Design and Marketing, General Management, and Disruptive Innovation. Below is a listing of the winners, broken down by category. Disruptive Innovation This category is meant to highlight the visionaries, the starry-eyed fools who believe when no one else will. They are undaunted when told NO by stern parents, when told it WON'T WORK by a thousand dismissive VCs, when failure after failure would dash the hopes of lesser mortals. These are the men and women whose incredible ideas burst forth like Athena from their foreheads, and they know what it means to make Fire, the Wheel, and the Printing Press. Scott Banister Andrew Frame Will Harvey Blake Krikorian Mike McCue Engineering Leadership Engineering Leadership candidates are people who have demonstrated technical excellence, built amazing technology infrastructure and products, or led teams that together built complex and elegant solutions that changed our lives. They are the uber geeks who calculate 10-digit squares in their heads, and write a thousand bug-free lines of code on the fly without skipping a beat. Michael Abbott Adam D’Angelo Sandy Jen Elaine Wherry Eric Ries Rich Skrenta Product Design and Marketing Product Design and Marketing candidates are people who have designed insanely great products, who have made technology beautiful, who have created the marketing campaign that blows you away and make you want to go out and buy ten of them for your whole family. These are the storytellers, the artists, the people who make our dreams come alive. Michael Birch Daniel Burka Adam Goldberg Zach Klein Jeffrey Veen General Management General Management candidates are people who have built the teams and organizations that create and deliver great technology and products to the world. They are company builders who provide foundations and processes for all the rest of the geeks and dreamers to make their dreams reality. They are the folks who wake up at 6am and open the doors, make the donuts, play reveille, and lead the charge to take the hill. They make it *happen*. Scott Dietzen Mike Jones Sukhinder Singh Cassidy David Sprosty Jason Rapp Scott Weiss Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
VirtualDatingAssistants.com Lets You Outsource Your Online Dating Life Top
Although TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington recently posted an April Fool’s joke about hiring a matchmaker to find him a wife, matchmaking services are becoming an alternate (and pricier) way to find a mate (think Millionaire Matchmaker ). For those guys who are looking to meet a lady but don’t have the time to devote to the due diligence, outsourcing the job is the obvious option. Trolling Match.com, eHarmony and other dating sites can be a time-consuming and frustrating task. Even setting up an appealing profile on these sites can be daunting. To help these dudes out, VirtualDatingAssistants.com has launched a service to allow busy male professionals to fully outsource their online dating experience. At a price of $480 per month, the company's virtual dating assistants will use "advanced internet dating techniques and strategies to create online dating profiles, interact with women and set up dates with them.” The company says it will work approximately 40 hours per month for each customer and guarantees them a minimum of 2 dates per month (or their money back). Co-founders Mark Anderson and Scott Valdez are overseeing a cherry-picked team of virtual assistants that are referred to as "007" Dating Assistants due to the "suave and sophisticated nature of their undercover interactions." Yes, they are actually called “007″ Dating Assistants. Anderson attests to the power of virtual assistants representing you on online dating sites because that’s how he found his wife. As a pharmaceutical sales exec, Anderson had his assistant manage his online dating accounts and schedule 79 dates with attractive women within a period of a year. One of these women happens to now be his wife. Virtual assistants will help clients fill out their profiles and then search dating sites like Match.com and eHarmony to find women that fit each client’s tastes and preferences. Once the client informs the assistant of necessary information for a profile, the assistant will take over the process of finding, messaging, and setting up dates with women. According to the site, the “007″ assistant will begin “contacting and interacting with the candidates. Once an interesting candidate is qualified as a strong candidate, your 007 Dating Assistant works to stimulate interest, build comfort, and flip her attraction switches.” The client doesn’t have to participate in the process until a “pre-date evaluation” meeting before the actual date. The service makes me a little uneasy. I get that people are busy but the idea that I’d be trading emails with a virtual assistant posing as the potential date seems disingenuous and gives me the creeps. Not to mention that $480 a month is a hefty price to pay for someone to just handle dating websites for you. There’s no doubt that online dating is a huge market, and there have been similar startups that have emerged to feed off this pool, such as ProfileHelper.com, which assists people in creating the perfect profile for online dating. But I think Virtualdatingassistants.com takes it a step to far. It almost seems like misrepresentation. What ever happened to romance? (Photo credit/Flickr/ Nick Slide ) Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Live Stream Of This Evening's TechFellow Awards Top
Tonight many of Silicon Valley’s best and brightest have come together for the TechFellow Awards , a new startup investment program that we have created in partnership with Founders Fund . We’ll be annoucing the winners shortly, and are live streaming the event below, compliments of Ustream . Here are more details about the program: At least twelve fellows will be granted $25,000 each tonight to invest in an early stage startup of their choice. Founders Fund will invest an additional $25,000 alongside those investments and request an additional right to invest another $250,000 when the company raises its next round of financing. In all, Founders Fund expects to devote around $3.6 million to the program. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Rajeev Motwani, Early Google Advisor And Silicon Valley Luminary, Has Passed Away Top
Tragic news today for the Silicon Valley community. Rajeev Motwani , a prominent Silicon Valley angel investor and the Stanford professor perhaps best known for serving as the advisor for Larry Page and Sergey Brin during the formative years of Google, has passed away. Rajeev was an ardent supporter of Silicon Valley startups, investing and mentoring many of them while continuing his research at Stanford University. With investments in companies that included PayPal and Google, he saw an overwhelming amount of success. And through it all he continued to give back to the community though his mentorship, investments, and his time at Stanford, where he continued to teach as recently as last semester. We owe Rajeev a debt of gratitude here at TechCrunch, as he was kind enough to speak at a number of our events and was genuinely supportive of our efforts. Om Malik has shared his thoughts on his old friend, writing that there wasn’t a startup that Rajeev didn’t love on his quest for the unknown. Our deepest sympathies go out to Rajeev’s family. He will be sorely missed. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Apple Gets Pwned, SF Store Is Now Advertising DVD Jon's doubleTwist Top
Apple may be known for its advertising prowess, but this little marketing coup is going to go down as one of the most hilarious ad placements in recent history. doubleTwist , the company co-founded by renowned software reverse engineer DVD Jon , has managed to place a banner for its product directly next to the main entrance to Apple’s flagship San Francisco store. The ad invites passersby to try “The Cure for iPhone Envy”, which they can use to access their “iTunes Library on any device. In Seconds”. It’s clearly a message that Apple doesn’t want anything to do with. We’re hearing that Apple employees are currently scratching their heads as to how this appeared. So how did this wind up only a few feet from the store’s entrance, and directly beneath a giant Apple logo? Apparently the window technically belongs to BART, the Bay Area’s commuter transit system. doubleTwist got in touch with an ad agency that BART deals with and leased the window, giving them the chance to plaster their ad just below the Apple logo in its full glory. This is apparently the first time the window has been used for this purpose (before it just sat bare). And because everything was done legally, Apple’s going to have a hard time getting rid of it. While DVD Jon has a long history of reverse engineering digital media security, doubleTwist is a perfectly legitimate software application that makes it easy to manage media files for a variety of hardware devices. It’s sort of like iTunes, except it works for nearly any device — not just your iPod and iPhone (you can find an extensive overview here , and the app now supports both Windows and Mac). Given that one of the iPod’s biggest advantages over competitors is the seamless experience it offers to users, Apple probably isn’t a big fan. Update : The ad has apparently been taken down, as noted by a few commenters, but Jon Lech Johansen (AKA DVD Jon) has tweeted that it will be back up soon. Thanks to Chester Ng for the tip. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Join Us: TechFellow Awards Live on Ustream Tonight Top
Tonight’s the night that we’re announcing the winners of The TechFellow Awards , and you can watch the ceremony live right here on TechCrunch at 9 pm PST, care of a live video feed from Ustream. The TechFellow Awards is a a new startup investment program that we created in partnership with Founders Fund . At least twelve fellows will be granted $25,000 each tonight to invest in an early stage startup of their choice. Founders Fund will invest an additional $25,000 alongside those investments and request an additional right to invest another $250,000 when the company raises its next round of financing. In all, Founders Fund expects to devote around $3.6 million to the program. An amazing group of people have helped us select winners of the TechFellow Awards and will be attending the ceremony tonight at the beautiful and newly-renovated California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park: Marc Andreessen , Co-Founder and Chairman, Ning Michael Arrington , Founder / Editor TechCrunch John Battelle , Chairman, CEO, Federated Media Ron Conway , Special Partner, Baseline Chris DeWolfe , Co-Founder and CEO, MySpace Esther Dyson , Chairman, EDventure Caterina Fake , Co-Founder, Flickr Shawn Fanning , Co-Founder, Napster, Co-Founder SNOCAP, Co-Founder Rupture Reid Hoffman , CEO and Co-Founder, LinkedIn Joi Ito , CEO, Creative Commons Max Levchin , Founder and CEO, Slide, Co-Founder, PayPal John McKinley , CEO and Founder, OurParents Jonathan Miller , Chief Digital Officer, News Corp Tim O’Reilly , Founder, O'Reilly Media Sean Parker , Co-Founder, Napster, Plaxo, Facebook; Managing Partner, Founders Fund Geoff Ralston , CEO, LaLa and former Chief Product Officer, Yahoo! Terry Semel , Chairman and CEO, Windsor Media and former Chairman and CEO, Yahoo! Danny Sullivan , Editor-in-Chief, SearchEngineLand.com Peter Thiel , Managing Partner, Founders Fund, Former CEO, PayPal Jeff Weiner , Executive-in-Residence, Accel Partners and Greylock Partners Michael Yanover , Business Development, Creative Artists Agency Mark Zuckerberg , Founder and CEO, Facebook Don’t worry if you can’t watch the video stream live. We’ll upload the full video after the ceremony and add information about each of the winners. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
MySpace Ditches New Playa Vista Offices Top
A year ago MySpace and Fox Interactive Media were trumpeting an upcoming office move to Playa Vista in Los Angeles. Peter Levinsohn ( former ) President of the no longer existing Fox Interactive Media, justified the move to the 300,000 square foot space based on the “phenomenal success” of the business, and noted that he expected “even greater growth and achievements in the coming fiscal year.” FIM has experienced phenomenal success in its three-year history, and we have plans for even greater growth and achievements in the coming fiscal year. Given our tremendous track record, it's only fitting that we should enter into the single biggest real-estate transaction in Los Angeles in the last 25 years. When we move to our new facility between June of 2009 and January of 2010, not only will we enjoy the distinction of having one of the largest corporate headquarters in the LA area, but we will be housed in a state-of-the-art facility that reflects our corporate identity and culture. Fast forward through that next fiscal year and just about everything in Levinsohn’s email worked out exactly differently. Peter’s gone. FIM is dissolved. MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe was terminated . And MySpace is facing dramatic traffic declines and the prospect of a world without Google welfare payments . Time to cut costs. And people cuts alone won’t do the trick. Levinsohn said “Given our tremendous track record, it's only fitting that we should enter into the single biggest real-estate transaction in Los Angeles in the last 25 years.” Now new digital chief Jonathan Miller , who has probably noted that with all the layoffs MySpace doesn’t really need all that hip new square footage, is saying they’re backing out of that transaction. In an email to all MySpace employees, Miller said: Everyone, Since coming on board, it's no secret that I have asked each of the executive teams within my organization to conduct a comprehensive strategic review of their businesses to ensure that we are operating as efficiently and effectively as possible. These reviews have included a very close look at our costs and a full examination of our resource allocation – an important exercise that will help us determine whether our resources are aligned properly with our business priorities. This process is still ongoing and we will be communicating the details of the reviews as the results become available. One immediate result is that we have determined that we will not be moving to Playa Vista. After taking many different factors into account, we have decided that the best plan for our businesses is to remain in our current locations for the near future. We're making great progress building strong standalone businesses at each of our LA locations, and the last thing we want to do is to interfere with that momentum. In addition, the realities of the current economy make the prospects of a move incredibly expensive, a fact that I believe makes this decision not only good for our working environments, but also for our bottom line. As I mentioned above, the strategic reviews are ongoing and I assure you that our executive teams are working as quickly as possible to determine what, if any, additional decisions will be made and we will communicate with all of you as frequently as possible in this regard. Best, Jon It’s funny how MySpace PR fell all over themselves to get the word out on the new office space last year, but not a word on pulling out now. We hear the San Francisco office is next to go. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
If Facebook Is Worth $10 Billion, Twitter is Worth $1.7 Billion Top
Last week, Facebook took a $200 million investment that valued the company at $10 billion. So if Facebook is worth $10 billion, how much is Twitter worth? After all, Twitter turned down $500 million from Facebook late last year, and founder Evan Williams might not even sell it for $1 billion . But how about for $1.7 billion? That is the valuation we come up with when we run Twitter’s numbers through our new social network valuation model . The model takes into account the size of each social network’s audience in different countries and the average online spending per capita in those countries. Using Facebook’s $10 billion valuation as a baseline, Twitter would be the fourth most valuable social network after MySpace ($6.5 billion) and Bebo ($1.8 billion). Of course, that $10 billion valuation was for preferred shares, so $1.7 billion might be a valuation a strategic investor or acquirer would be willing to place on Twitter. If you use the $4 billion to $6 billion range Facebook’s common stock is being valued at in private sales, then Twitter’s valuation would come down to $671 million to $1 billion. And if you use Bebo’s 2008 valuation of $850 million as a benchmark instead, Twitter would be worth $781 million. So there is your range: roughly $700 million to $1.7 billion. And remember, Twitter may still have scaling issues, but it doesn’t have all the costs that Facebook has in terms of storage and other capital expenditures. For one thing,Twitter isn’t keeping everyone’s photos on its servers—that is what TwitPic and Yfrog are for. On the flip side, there is also the question of revenues, which remains an open question for Twitter (and for Facebook, for that matter). Is Twitter going to make money from real-time search, corporate accounts, or maybe even figuring out a way to sell followers? Given how engaged a large portion of Twitter’s users are already and how it is becoming a hot testbed for opt-in marketing, it is not inconceivable that Twitter’s users will be worth more to advertisers than Facebook’s. But before we can find out, Twitter needs to pick a business model. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 

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