Thursday, June 18, 2009

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As Blogger Nears Its Tenth Birthday, It Still Dominates. But For How Long? Top
Never underestimate the power of first-mover advantage, especially when being one of the first movers gets you bought by Google. Back in August, 1999, Pyra Labs launched Blogger. LiveJournal had launched six months before and Open Diary in October of the previous year. But it was Pyra Labs which was acquired by Google in February, 2003, and the rest was history. Now, nearly ten years later , Blogger is still the dominant hosted blogging platform. In May, 52 million individual people from the U.S. visited a Blogger blog, almost twice as many as the 28 million who visited a blog hosted by Wordpress.com (comScore). Six Apart properties, including Typepad.com, attracted 14 million. Millions of bloggers still use Blogger because it is easy. However, Wordpress.com is making steady gains and growing its aggregate audience in the U.S. at more than twice the annual rate of Blogger (40 percent versus 14 percent). These numbers don’t count all the blogs that host Wordpress on their own servers, such as Techcrunch. The vast majority of Blogger traffic comes from outside the United States, where its annual growth rate is 38 percent compared to Wordpress.com’s 59 percent. On a worldwide basis, Blogger blogs have a readership of 267 million people a month, compared to 143 million a month for Wordpress (comScore, April, 2008). The biggest countries are, in order: 1. U.S. 2. Brazil 3. Turkey 4. Spain 5. Canada 6. U.K. From a business standpoint, Blogger is good for Google because it creates millions of sites which can show AdSesne ads. It creates more inventory for Google. Only recently has Google bothered to start showing ads to the users of Blogger itself every time they publish a post . Can Blogger keep its lead indefinitely, or will Wordpress eventually catch up? Or will something else entirely overtake both of them? Today, two of the people behind the original Blogger, Evan Williams and Biz Stone, have another little service that is capturing people’s attention. It is called Twitter, you may have heard about it. In May, Twitter.com had 17.6 million unique U.S. visitors to its Website alone, making it bigger already than Six Apart. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Justin.tv Gains DVR Functionality Top
The thing that saved television watching for me was the advent of the digital video recorder (DVR). I love the idea that you can be watching something, but have to stop to do something else, so you just pause it, and it will record it so you can come back later and pick up where you left off. Now you can have the same functionality on the live-streaming video site, Justin.tv . While most live-streaming services offer archives of live recorded video, the nice feature here is the simple way to pick up just where you left off watching something. The feature, rolling out this afternoon, will offer a bar under each video that will read, “Continue watching this later.” If you click on it, all that live video will be recorded so that you can come back to it at a time of your choosing. You’ll receive a link to a place to come back and watch it with a message that looks like: Use the link below to continue watching this broadcast when you have time, starting from what you’re watching right now (to within a few minutes). This link will continue to work for 7 days. You could also use this link to share with friends if you all wanted to pick up watching something together. Unfortunately, unlike TV DVR, there is no way to fast-forward through parts that you may want to skip. But I’m told that such functionality is likely in the works for a later release. CrunchBase Information Justin.TV Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Facebook Makes It Easier To Search Your Inbox Top
Facebook has had a big week. The social network finally caught up to MySpace in the U.S., according to ComScore. News leaked of its upcoming Everyone button. And Facebook made some significant improvements to its search capabilities . Now the social network is improving its inbox’s interface, which previously was a little clunky and difficult to organize. The new design gives you filter options at the top of your inbox to help you identify unread messages as well as to report any spam, or unwanted messages you receive. Facebook has also ramped up its search feature within the inbox, which was lacking in its earlier version. To find specific messages, you can type a keyword or a friend’s name in the search box in the upper-left corner of the screen, and then the results come back only for messages from that person. Yes, this is pretty basic stuff, but it should make it easier to search your Facebook inbox. Facebook is keeping some of the same functionality as before. You can still view Updates from the Facebook Pages you are connected with. You can also manage subscriptions to your fan pages by clicking the “Edit Subscriptions” link beneath “Inbox of Updates.” Facebook says it plans to send messages from Groups and Events to Updates as well. Friendfeed has also updated its email capabilities today, making a few useful improvements its email alerts for new subscribers. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
FriendFeed One-Ups Twitter Again With Its Subscription Emails Top
A few months ago, Twitter significantly updated its new follower email alerts to show you information such as how many followers that person has, how many tweets they’ve sent, and how many users they were following. It’s a decent indication of if the person is someone you actually would want to follow back, rather than making you click through to the site to get that information. However, it was still lacking some context, such as what that person actually tweets about. The service FriendFeed has rolled out an update that adds this context. Now, when get an email alert from FriendFeed that you have a new subscriber, you get a big FriendFeed logo, followed by the user’s icon and a link to easily “Subscribe back.” Below that though is the key part. You now see: “Here are some of the things XXXXX has recently shared on FriendFeed,” followed by three recent FriendFeed updates from that user. On each of those items there are also links to easily comment or “like” any of the items. This three element context is a great addition to these updates because it shows you if that user is actually worth following or not. If Twitter had this you could see if that person was simply a spammer as well. Update : There’s also the ability to see which of your friends is subscribed to the person subscribing to you in the email, which is very useful. More on it at the bottom of the post. FriendFeed has a history of beating Twitter to the punch on a lot of things it should be doing. It had a search that could search tweets well before Twitter, has a functional IM service , and has at least partial “track” functionality right now. Some third-party services like Topify and Twimailer already add this advanced email notification functionality to Twitter, but most user still don’t know about such services. The new way: The old way: The Twitter way: Update : Oh and I initially missed this, but this is huge as well. The emails will also tell you if people you know are subscribed to the person who is subscribing to you. Obviously, Facebook has had such functionality on its site for a while, but in a notification email, it’s very useful. CrunchBase Information FriendFeed Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Google Flipper Is About To Jump Out Of The Water Top
Google is about to launch a new Google Labs project it calls Flipper , we’ve learned. No, it’s not a dolphin. As you can see in the screenshot, it looks like the project is a more visual way to read Google News , or to “flip through it,” as it were. While we have yet to use it, what looks nice about it is that you can not only browse by sections, but also by sources, keywords, and most importantly by elements such as “most popular” and “recommended.” The visual representation probably won’t revolutionize Google News’ often sub-par performance , but the better filters could. The URL currently takes you to a Google log-in page, but when you sign-in you’re greeted with: Please visit this page from any computer on the corporate network to automatically enable access for your account. Which means this remains internal to Google right now. But look for it soon. Click on the image below for a slightly larger version. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
First Look: Beejive 3.0 For iPhone Top
Before we start this first look, there’s something I have to admit: I hate most mobile IM clients. We see a whole lot of phones go in and out of the MobileCrunch office, each generally toting its own crappy, broken instant messaging suite. Be they slow, flakey, or just outright terribly designed, we’ve grown to have a nearly unshakable bias against them. With that in mind, know this: We love Beejive 3.0 on the iPhone, which should be hitting the App Store later today. Read the rest of this post >> Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Congressman Compares The Plight Of Iranians To GOP On Twitter, Sticks Foot In Mouth Top
Republican Congressman Pete Hoekstra sent out a tweet yesterday comparing the current oppression of Iranians and their reactions on Twitter to “what we did in the House last year when Republicans were shut down in the house.” Apparently Hoekstra is referring to the time last year where Republicans took to Twitter to express their anger after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi adjourned the House, preventing a vote on an energy bill. I don’t know what’s worse-the fact that he is actually comparing a Republican tiff with House Democrats to the oppression and brutality taking place in Iran or the fact that he used Twitter to express this clearly idiotic statement. You would think that a public figure would know better than to write something so ridiculous on a platform that millions of people can see. But according to CNN, Hoekstra has a reputation for Tweeting about things he shouldn’t. Apparently earlier this year, he Tweeted out details about a classified Congressional trip to Baghdad. Apparently, a rep for Hoekstra issued a clarification: “The two situations do share the similarity of government leadership attempting to limit debate and deliberation, and the ability of new technologies to bypass their efforts and allow for direct communication. That's the only point that he was trying to make." Whatever. Twitter is now abuzz with heckles at Hoekstra-I’ve included some of the best ones below that were listed on a blog that popped up in response to Hoekstra’s remarks: Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Google Books Adds New Features And Tools Top
Google has launched a bunch of new features to Google Books in an effort to promote interactivity between readers and the online books. 1. Embeddable previews of books: This new feature allows you to embed a preview of a full view or partner book in your websites or blogs, just like you would with a YouTube video. You can also copy and paste a url link in an email to share the book with your friends. 2. Ramped up in-book search: For public domain and partner books, Google has made the ability to search for a term within a book a little bit more user friendly. When you search for a term on a book, you can now see an image from the part of the page on which it appears. You can also click on those images to navigate directly to the pages inside the book. And you can filter search results by relevance in addition to page order in the book or magazine. 3. Thumbnail view options: You now have the option to click on the thumbnail view button to see an overview of all the pages in a public domain book or in a magazine. 4. Contents drop-down menu: Via a contents drop-down menu, Google Books will now allow you to jump to chapters within the book–or articles within a magazine (the same technology supports the mobile version of Google Books). 5. Plain Text Mode: Google’s made it easier to see the plain text versions of Google Books. The tool bar now includes a ‘Plain text’ button to see the HTML version of the text, which Google says is especially useful for visually impaired users, who can use this format for text-to-speech and other types of software. 6. Page Turn Button and Animation: In addition to scrolling through the book, you can now also click the page turn button at the bottom of the screen. Google also has implemented an an animated line to move with the page turn to make it easier to keep track of your location in the text. 7. Overview Page Overhaul: Google has added an assortment of data about the book on its overview page, including reviews, ratings, summaries, related books, key words and phrases, references from the web, places mentioned in the book, and publisher information. Last October, Google signed a $125 million settlement with the Author's Guild to pay authors for copyrighted works it has scanned and made available on the Web through its Google Book Search project. More than 7 million books have been scanned by Google so far, a large portion of them out of print. The Settlement, though the site is up and running, is still up in the air, facing an antitrust investigation by the Department of Justice. And the settlement has draw its fair share of critics, including Jeff Bezos. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Collecta Enters The Real Time Search Wars Top
As we become inundated with more and more streams of data from Twitter, Facebook, blog, Flickr, and everywhere else, we need better ways to search what is happening right now. Twitter, Facebook, and Google are working on their own real-time search efforts, along with a slew of startups including OneRiot , Scoopler , and CrowdEye (which launched last night). The latest entrant in the real time search wars is Collecta It just launched a few minutes ago, and it scours the Web for real-time information. Results come from Twitter, of course, but also from news feeds, blog posts, comments, and Flickr photos. Status updates on Jaiku and Identica are also captured. If you do a search for iPhone , for instance, you will get a constantly updating stream of results which flow down the middle column of the page. If you click on any result, you will see a bigger version of the Tweet or the entire comment or feed item on the right. You can filter the stream by stories, updates, comments, or photos by checking boxes on the left under Search options. Everything Collecta collects and indexes is then pushed out via an XMPP stream, which means that your search results get updated the second that Collecta recieves new information. When CEO Gerry Campbell gave me a demo yesterday, I asked him why Collecta doesn’t rank results by some sort of authority instead of simply showing a chronological stream. Campbell used to be the president of search at Rueters, and before that the SVP of search at AOL. So he is very familiar with the traditional search mindset of trying to show the most “relevant” results. He suggested that those types of filtering options could be added in the future, but he wanted to start out with a new experience. What you are getting with Collecta is the pure stream of what is happening right now. If you want to refine that then you can do that by refining your search terms. He wants to encourage users to perform searches and let the results wash over them. The second he starts re-ordering results by some sort of authority ranking, then something that happened an hour ago or last week might turn up at the top of results. (Of course, a simple time decay could solve that problem). I appreciate that he is trying to encourage new forms of interacting with search results, but at some point I think he really needs to add relevance filters as well. Collecta was founded in November of 2008, and raised $1.85 million in a series A round which closed in March 2009. True Ventures and Campbell were the investors. The company was co-founded by Jack Moffitt, Brian Zisk, and Patrick Mahoney. Derek Powazek of JPG Magazine fame is the creative director. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Demdex Comes Out Of Stealth, Offers Advertisers Their Own Behavioral Data Bank Top
Advertisers and websites all too often rely on other companies for data about their own potential customers. A new advertising analytics startup called Demdex came out of stealth mode today to give companies a way to store and make sense of all the behavioral data which they collect or which is collected on their behalf. They put all of this user profile data into a “behavioral data bank” and then score each user across more than 40 behavioral and demographic variables to come up with a “traitweight.” This number is supposed to be able to help websites segment their audiences better and advertisers target their messages more exactly. Demdex was founded in 2008, and its investors include First Round Capital and Genacast Ventures. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Here Comes The iPhone 3G S Top
AT&T has just released official word about the upcoming wave of iPhone 3G S device deliveries to its retail locations and directly to customers who have pre-ordered the widely anticipated phone. TechCrunch is here to make it easier for you to skim the information by breaking the press release down to the core items (no thank you required): When, how, where - the device will be sold in 2,200 AT&T retail locations and 211 U.S. Apple retail stores - you can expect these locations to open at 7 AM local time (pre-ordered only) - customers who have pre-ordered at an AT&T store should go to the same store they ordered the device at, with their receipt, but check their arrival date before to avoid disappointment - customers who have pre-ordered online can expect their devices to start getting shipped over to them today at the earliest - other customers can come at regular business hours and will be served at a ‘first come, first served’ basis Pricing (with two-year contract commitment) (ad verbatim) - $199 (16GB) and $299 (32GB) for all new AT&T customers and existing AT&T customers who have fulfilled their previous agreement. In addition, AT&T yesterday extended this pricing to iPhone 3G customers who will be eligible for a full upgrade in July, August, or September 2009. - $399 (16GB) and $499 (32GB) for existing AT&T customers who have not yet fulfilled their existing agreement but would like an early upgrade to iPhone 3G S. This early upgrade option is exclusively available for iPhone 3G and iPhone 3G S. Data plans - monthly plans for consumers start at $69.99 per month for voice and data, and families who share minutes get special rates (starting at $129.99 a month for two iPhone lines with bundled voice and ‘unlimited’ data) - small businesses are also eligible for special discounted service rates and can share up to 20,000 minutes per month between as many as 40 employees - all iPhone plans include nationwide long distance and roaming, Visual Voicemail, Rollover, and unlimited Mobile to Mobile calling MMS and tethering Coming ‘later this Summer’ and ‘in the future’, respectively. How many can you buy? - New customer: one iPhone 3G S per person - Existing customer: one iPhone 3G S per eligible telephone number - Online customer: one iPhone 3G S per household - Inheriting the good old iPhone 3G from someone else? Visit an AT&T store to activate your device. So, are you getting one? CrunchBase Information iPhone 3G S Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Lacy, Birch, Krim And Glaenzer To Attend TechCrunch Europe Awards Top
Preparations for The Europas - The TechCrunch Europe Awards 2009 - are coming together. Held on July 9 in London, these will be the first Europe-wide awards ceremony for technology innovation, honoring the best tech companies and startups across the web and mobile scene from the continent of Europe. The first tranche of tickets are now on sale . Put July 9 in your diary, get a flight and grab a hotel through our hotel search partner . On the evening itself we will be joined by some of the great and good from the European startups scene, and some from the US. Check out who is coming already , and we’ll also be joined by a number of VIPs including Michael Birch (co-founder of Bebo), Stefan Glaenzer (co-founder of Last.FM), Sarah Lacy (author & TechCrunch editor) and Tariq Krim (founder of Netvibes and now Jolicloud). The main way is to make sure your company is able to be selected for nomination is to put it in CrunchBase , with all fields filled in, as well as key staff, like CEO etc. Don’t forget your logo and your picture! There are more details here . We will be releasing the list of nominees to vote on shortly. We’re also looking for sponsors for the award categories, details here . Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Mozilla Shows Microsoft Where $10,000 Is Buried Top
Yesterday, we poked fun at Microsoft’s tacky $10,000 online treasure hunt to get people to use IE8, at the domain TenGrandIsBuriedHere.com . We were hardly the only ones . Today, a developer at Mozilla, makers of IE rival Firefox, weighed in with his own way of mocking Microsoft: TenGrandIsBuriedThere.com . The site is simply a Google Map zoomed out to a certain point. If you zoom in enough, you’ll find a surprise. The developer took exception to Microsoft calling Firefox “old” on its site. That is a bit odd since IE is much older than Firefox. [thanks Alan ] CrunchBase Information Mozilla Microsoft Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
TinyPetition Aims To Become The Default Petition Engine For Twitter Top
Dan Blake from Harkness Labs - who is working on far more projects at the same time than he could possibly tell me about in just one conversation - recently filled me in on his latest Twitter-related venture, TinyPetition . Basically, Blake is looking to address the apparent need for a tool that allows the many opinionated people that inhabit Twitterland to voice their concerns about anything that gets their hearts pumping: a digital petition engine that can quickly spread online thanks to the viral nature of Twitter and the concept of retweeting in particular. We’ve already seen Twitition pop up, most recently for aggregating opinions from Twitter users on the iPhone 3G S upgrade prices AT&T is going to charge. So far, that service has racked up 41800 signatures for 730 topics. TinyPetition, in contrast, has only soft-launched its website so far and stands at about 5800 signatures for only 5 petitions. Still, Blake thinks he can eventually overtake Twitition, which prompts the question how he intends to do so. Well for one, Blake has access to an existing user base of millions he could potentially draw from, as he also happens to be the guy behind this website called PetitionSpot , one of the most popular online petition services in the world. It’s a good start: PetitionSpot boasts about 4 million registered users (although Blake says it’s more like 2 million who have actively shared petitions since the site’s inception) and these are all people who have already expressed their interest in signing digital petitions, obviously. We’ll see how far this gets TinyPetition further down the line. I’ve set up a test petition (unsurprisingly, about our quest to have Facebook management reconsider their policy on Holocaust denial groups ), which you can find at tinypetition.com/facebookholocaust . Here’s my tweet about it , which I’ve shared from the TinyPetition website (something seems to have gone wrong with it). Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Animoto Is Already Cash-Flow Positive, Raises Another Round To Go To 11 Top
In a world where most startups choose gaining users over making money, Animoto is an odd exception: It’s doing both. Since launching in August 2007, the company has signed up some 750,000 users, and some 10% of those are paying customers. And that’s allowed the company to run cash-flow positive since December of last year, CEO Brad Jefferson tells us. And it could keep going on like that, but like most startups that taste success, it wants to do more. So it has raised by far its biggest round of funding to date, a $4.4 million Series B led by Madrona Venture Group . With an already proven business model, Jefferson says the company just wants to accelerate everything it’s doing, and push harder. That means a more diverse roadmap and more importantly, a much broader distribution strategy with more partnerships. One of those partnerships with with iStockphoto , whose founder, Bruce Livingstone , participated in this round. For those not familiar with Animoto, the startup basically allows you to take your images and your music and mash them together to create cool videos. What makes the videos cool is the company’s technology that renders the pictures so they’re in-step with the music you’ve chosen, adding nice transition effects. We’ve gushed over it previously here , here and here . One relatively new area of focus for the company is the mobile realm. Back in December, it launched an iPhone app that allows you to create videos from your pictures and music on the device. The app already has 300,000 users. And Animoto has had version 2 of the app ready for months, but Apple has yet to approve it. Jefferson isn’t sure what the actual hold-up is since the first version submitted had very little different besides some upgrades from the first version. And later, Apple apparently didn’t like that it was pushing users to its site to sign up for pro accounts, something which should be rectified shortly with the iPhone 3.0’s in-app purchase system, according to Jefferson. The plan is to have an app that charge the same $3 (or less) that it does on the site to make premium videos (using full-length songs). And another reason the company is going to need that money is because it’s expanding beyond using photos for its videos and into also using actual videos. Jefferson wouldn’t say too much about it, but check out the Webby’s video below for a preview of how that will work. At this year’s Webby’s it won both the Judges Choice and People's Voice awards for Best Services & Applications. “We really believe we’re at the tip of the iceberg for cinematic artificial intelligence technology,” Jefferson says. “We want to allow users to create high production video that tells a story. That has the feel of a short form documentary. Right now that’s mostly teed off of music, but in the future it will be done off of meta data in the photos as well,” he says. Animoto has raised $5 million in funding total so far, including money from Amazon back in May that was rolled into this round. Prior to that a group of personal investors provided $600K. Additional investors in this round beyond Madrona, Livingston and Amazon include Jeff Clavier's SoftTech VC . Matt McIlwain , the Managing Director of Madrona Venture Group is joining Animoto’s board of directors. CrunchBase Information Animoto Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Yahoo Is Now Resorting To Selling Killer Domain Names On The Cheap Top
No sooner do we finish writing up Yahoo deadpooling yet another project, Gallery , do we get a tip that Yahoo apparently has another money saving/making plan: Selling off domains it owns. That’s exactly what it has done with contests.com , which sold during a live auction last night. What’s really odd though (aside from an Internet giant actually selling a domain rather than buying one), is the price at which it sold. Contests.com is a killer domain name. People like my mother love nothing more than going online and searching for contests to enter to win stuff. But what’s crazy is that Yahoo sold it for only $380,000. Let’s put that in some perspective. In February, Toys.com sold for $5.1 million in auction. Sure, that’s a better domain, but not over 10 times better. And a few weeks ago, Candy.com sold for $3 million . How Yahoo failed to secure even a million for the name is beyond me. Just poor luck in the auction? This guy , who apparently left right before the auction started last night is flabbergasted as well. I just really would like to know why Yahoo would even sell it in the first place? I know times are tough at Yahoo but is $380K really going to help much in the long run? No. Hell, it’d probably be better to keep the domain and just put a load of ads on it, perhaps even Google ads. Or, I don’t know, run some Yahoo contests on it. People on the web love that stuff, I hear. [photo: flickr/.larry page] [thanks Sahar] CrunchBase Information Yahoo! Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Exhibition Over: Yahoo Gallery Closing Top
One thing Yahoo has been very good at over the past year is closing down services. Today brings news of another one shutting down: Yahoo Gallery . Come July 14, it will be no more. Yahoo Gallery was a project that never left beta testing. It was intended to showcase cool applications that were built using Yahoo’s various services and APIs. And while it was a decent idea as a way to show off cool things like Flickr apps , it never really took off. Here’s Yahoo’s explanation message about the shuttering: Yahoo! Gallery will be shutting down on July 14, 2009. After careful consideration, we have decided to close the Yahoo! Gallery beta service. Although the Gallery gained a core of loyal users who enjoyed the service, Yahoo! has been reprioritizing some products to help us deliver the best possible experiences to consumers and developers. The decision to close the gallery is part of this larger strategy and will allow us to focus on helping our customers develop engaging applications using Yahoo! technologies. If you have submitted any applications, you can go to the My Applications page, then download any images or text descriptions you wish to save. The sentence, “The decision to close the gallery is part of this larger strategy and will allow us to focus on helping our customers develop engaging applications using Yahoo! technologies” doesn’t seem to make much sense. Isn’t that exactly what Gallery was supposed to highlight? But whatever — Deadpool , it is. Gallery’s closing follows the much bigger decision to shutter Geocities earlier this year. And Yahoo officially shuttered Yahoo 360 last month, and Jumpcut shut down two days ago. [photo: flickr/marshall astor ] [thanks Akash] Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Tinker Becomes A More Powerful Twitter Trends Discovery Engine Top
Tinker, the recently launched microblogging topic tracker from Glam Media, will be rolling out several new features to upgrade its service. Tinker, which we covered in depth during its launch here, allows users to quickly browse through different real-time Twitter and Facebook searches relevant to various current events, trends and breaking news. Each event, trend or news item is associated with one or more terms, which Tinker then searches for across all Tweets and then presents the relevant ones in a single stream. Tinker is launching a people section that allows users the ability to search and discover people on Twitter. Users can find people by name, but also by location and profession. This feature ends up being a comprehensive directory of Twitter users, listed by profession, category or interest, that helps find, follow and filter people that are micro-blogging. Tinker also lets you see the most popular and influential of the Twitterati, by categorizing the people that create events and breaking news by topics such as Information Technology, Media and Real Estate. Within each category, Tinker offers sub categories of popular Twitter users. So under politics, you can search for Twitter user who blog about conservative, liberal and Republican politics. Tinker has added a featured page, which provides users with lists of hot topics and trends to follow on Twitter, including streams on events, news, celebrities, and topics. Similar is the look and feel of the iTunes homepage, Tinker’s featured page let you browse through categories of the top trends on Twitter. And Tinker now allows a large range of topics to be tracked semantically, creating a powerful search capability across Twitter. On of Tinker’s most innovative features is the ability to go viral with widgets. After creating an event, users can share the event's feed using an embeddable widget, which they can place on their webpage or blog. These widgets allow users to both view the feed of an event and to submit their own messages, which can then be sent to Twitter and eventually sites like Facebook and FriendFeed. Samir Arora, Glam Media’s CEO and founder, says that the widgets are being used by brands and companies for advertising purposes. For example, the movie “Away We Go” has created a branded widget and event page, with a video and Twitter stream that can be embedded on any site (see below). Tinker says that the site is now running over 50 million widgets and applications a month on distributed sites and networks. Widgets are getting a slight upgrade, and now let users make widgets in different sizes and colors. As we said in our earlier review of Tinker, the site is the perfect answer to Fred Wilson’s call for a Twitter events firehose—a place where users could input a handful of keywords collectively referred to as an 'event,' which could be used to monitor current news as it happens in near real-time. Of course, there are trending topics on Twitter (which can be misleading ) as well as a plethora of Twitter apps out there that try to tell us what exactly the buzz is on Twitter. But Tinker does this and more by doing most of the work for users-by categorizing topics and events, dividing Twitter users by the topics they Tweet about, and letting anyone embed real-time streams into their own sites. 50 million impressions Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Stealth Startup 5to1 Raises $4.5 Million With All Star Founding Team Top
5to1 , a stealth startup founded by former Fox Interactive execs Jim Heckman (pictured left) and Ross Levinsohn , has raised $4.5 million according to a recent SEC filing. Heckman is the CEO of the new company. Levinsohn, a partner at Fuse Capital , is on the board of directors. The company isn’t saying what they’re up to yet. But Heckman has a history of successful startups - he founded Rivals.com ( acquired by Yahoo in 2007 for $100 million), and Scout.com (acquired by News Corp./Fox Interactive in 2005 for around $50 million). Other founders/execs/investors include Dale Strang , Mark Stieglitz , Michael Barrett and Woody Benson . A summary of funding from the recent filing shows the company closed $2.2 million in April 2009 and $2.3 million in June 2009, bringing the total to $4.5 million. Fuse, Prism, and several angles are listed as investors. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
What's Ghetto? Pushing Digital Album Sales On Twitter (Video) Top
If Twitter is good for one thing, it is for promoting whatever it is you have to sell. Some of the best self-promoters out there are rappers, and they’ve taken to Twitter just like every other type of celebrity. Just as Twitter can drive traffic to Websites , it can also drive music sales on iTunes. On a panel at the 140 Characters Conference yesterday, Xavier Jernigan ( @xjernigan , the director of digital marketing at Universal Motown Republic, described how Twitter help put one of his new artists, Asher Roth ( @asherroth ), on the map. Roth released his first album, Asleep In the Bread Aisle , on iTunes on April 20, a Monday. The night before he Tweeted out to his followers (he currently has 69,566) that the album would be on iTunes. And then he Tweeted out a short link which opened up to the album page in iTunes. With no other marketing , the album rose to become the No. 1 digital album for the week. Since then, it has sold about 100,000 copies. Update : As people point out in comments, Roth’s own team did a lot of groundwork before the album hit. Nevertheless, Twitter did play an important role in turning that early interest into iTunes sales. The key to engaging fans, as is well known by now, is for the celebrities themselves to really send out Tweets and show fans a more personal side. Then when they Tweet that a new album is out, it doesn’t seem like marketing. It seems like inside information. One rapper on the panel was Jim Jones ( @jimjones ), who has more than 500,000 followers. He’s also seen iTunes sales spikes after Tweeting out to his followers. In between releases, he entertains them with dirty knock-knock jokes and observations on “What’s Ghetto?” For instance, “drinking out of mayonnaise jars” or getting the last bits of ketchup out of the bottle by putting water in it and shaking it, that’s ghetto. So is using Twitter to move albums on Twitter. I caught up with Jernigan and Jones in the hallway after their panel and got them on video: Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
I Love Rewards Raises Another $1.6 Million For Employee Rewards Program Top
I Love Rewards, the Canadian operator of employee rewards and sales incentive recognition programs for companies, has secured a $1.6 million ($1.8 million in Canadian dollars) in an extended Series B round from Ontario Venture Capital Fund. These funds add to I Love Reward’s previous Series B funding roun d in May led by GrandBanks Capital with prior investors JLA Ventures and Laurence Capital participating, bringing the company’s total Series B funding to $7.7 million ($8.7 million in Canadian dollars). The company raised $4 million in Series A funding in 2008 from JLA Ventures and Laurence Capital. The company says this round of funding will be used to expand its sales and marketing efforts. I Love Rewards operates employee rewards and recognition, sales incentive and service award programs for corporations, including Microsoft, Marriott, ConAgra and Bell. Rewards are distributed as 'points' that are then used by employees to choose brand name reward merchandise (i.e. Apple), experiences (i.e. travel and special events), gift cards and virtual awards (i.e. music downloads). Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Amazon Associates To Pull Out Of North Carolina Due To "Unconstitutional Tax Collection Scheme" Top
We’ve received numerous reports of Amazon Associate members in North Carolina receiving emails stating that Amazon is going to have to discontinue the service there due to a pending change the in state’s tax structure. Sometime in the next two weeks, Amazon expects that it will be terminating the service for all North Carolina residents. That will be very bad news for a lot of people who rely on Amazon’s popular affiliate sales program as a source of income. Here’s the full email: We regret to inform you that the North Carolina state legislature (the General Assembly) appears ready to enact an unconstitutional tax collection scheme that would leave Amazon.com little choice but to end its relationships with North Carolina-based Associates. You are receiving this e-mail because our records indicate that you are an Amazon Associate and resident of North Carolina. Please note that this is not an immediate termination notice and you are still a valued participant in the Associates Program. All referral fees earned on qualified traffic will continue to be paid as planned. But because the new law is drafted to go into effect once enacted – which could happen in the next two weeks – we will have to terminate the participation of all North Carolina residents in the Amazon Associates program on or before that same day. After the termination day, we will no longer pay any referral fees for customers referred to Amazon.com or Endless.com nor will we accept new applications for the Associates program from North Carolina residents. The unfortunate consequences of this legislation on North Carolina residents like you were explained in detail to key senators and representatives in Raleigh, including the leadership of the Senate, House, and both chambers' finance committees. Other states, including Maryland, Minnesota, and Tennessee, considered nearly identical schemes, but rejected these proposals largely because of the adverse impact on their states' residents. The North Carolina General Assembly's website is http://www.ncleg.net/ , and additional information may be obtained from the Performance Marketing Alliance at http://www.performancemarketingalliance.com/ . We thank you for being part of the Amazon Associates program, and we will apprise you of the General Assembly's action on this matter. Sincerely, Amazon.com So what exactly is this “unconstiutional tax collection scheme”? Here’s what the site news-record has to say : The tax change is part of a package passed by the House last week in its attempt to rewrite the budget. Lawmakers are struggling to fill what they say is a $4.5 billion gap between the money needed to keep government operating as it is and the revenue the state is due to take in next year. As part of the effort to bridge that gap, House members broadened the number of items to which state sales tax would apply and have to be collected by retailers. The tax on the category "digital click-throughs" under which the Amazon agreements fall would raise $13.2 million next year, according to estimates by the General Assembly's fiscal research arm. With its “scheme” and “unconstitutional” wording, Amazon is clearly not happy about this. It also notes that other states have thought about similar measures but rejected them. But hey, that’s a pretty huge budget gap, makes me worried for what California might do. And what’s with the Carolinas and getting into dustups with web companies ? [thanks Mark ] Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Twitterfeed Gets An Overhaul, Adds Analytics Top
If your Twitter feed is beginning to replace your RSS feed , you can probably thank Mario Menti. Back in March, 2007, he created the initial prototype of Twitterfeed in London as part of a BBC developer program. Twitterfeed is a simple publishing tool which turns any RSS feed into a Twitter stream. Each feed item becomes a new Tweet consisting of the headline and a shortened link to the story or blog post. Today, 170,000 publishers are using Twitterfeed to convert 300,000 feeds into Twitter streams. By one count , Twitterfeed is the third largest Twitter client, being used by 6.5 percent of all Twitter accounts and at one point was generating 9.2 percent of all Tweets .But it is not really a Twitter client, as investor John Borthwick of betaworks pointed out to me last night while we were riding in one of those bicycle rickshaws across Manhattan (I do not recommend this mode of transportation, we were in a hurry and there were no regular cabs available). Nobody uses Twitterfeed to consume their Twitter stream, so it is not really a client like TweetDeck or Seesmic Deesktop. However, a lot of people use it to populate their own Twitter account with messages. So many people, in fact, were pushing their feeds through the service that Menti’s one-man shop was having trouble scaling the service. About a month ago, he sold a majority stake to betaworks and The Accelerator Group (TAG), and today it is relaunching with a completely rebuilt back-end, which should improve reliability. Working with betaworks (which includes a stable of interconnected real-time startups including TweetDeck, bit.ly, and Chartbeat), the new Twitterfeed now also includes a basic analytics dashboard which brings in bit.ly data so publishers can see how much traffic is coming to their site from Twitter. They can also compare that side-by-side with traditional Feedburner stats to see where most of their redares are coming from and which source is growing faster. Twitterfeed is also adding more sign-in options. In addition to OpenID, it now accepts usernames and passwords from Google, AOL or Yahoo accounts. But one big drawback the service still needs to address is the lag time between a post hitting a feed and the corresponding Tweet hitting Twitter. It can still take a half an hour between those two events. When you are talking real-time, that is 30 minutes too long. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 

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