Wednesday, June 24, 2009

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Get A Free Copy Of Sarah Lacy's Startup Book Top
TechCrunch Editor Sarah Lacy’s book Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good came out in paperback edition earlier this month. We posted some of the new Twitter history that she included in a new chapter included in this edition a few weeks ago. You can buy the book here . But since most of you are way too cheap to actually pay for a book, we’re going to give away 15 signed copies for free (postage included!). Here’s what you have to do - retweet this story using the retweet button at the bottom of this post (or just click here ) by midnight California time tonight. We’ll choose 15 at random and contact you for delivery details. Good luck, and enjoy the book. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Adultery Rampant Among South Carolina Governors. This Must Be Craigslist's Fault Top
Another public official of South Carolina shames himself: Governor Mark Sanford is extremely sad that he got caught cheating on his wife. The video is here , the transcript is here . Bottom line, he says “I’ve been unfaithful to my wife.” Read all about it everywhere . All I’m wondering is, where’s South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster when we need him? Adultery is serious business. This is clearly, somehow. all Craigslist’s fault . For example, how do we know that Sanford didn’t meet his mistress in the adultery section of Craigslist? And also, can we please kick South Carolina out of the Union now? Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Video: Apple's Awesomely Improved iPhone Remote App Top
I like the Apple TV as a device, but it’s remote is awful. It’s the same little dinky white one that used to come with all Apple computers a few years ago. While it’s pretty good for using the FrontRow feature on a computer, your computer also has a keyboard for navigation and things like searching — the Apple TV does not. And so the white remote by itself is painfully slow navigating the Apple TV. But with an update to both the Apple TV and its Remote app available for the iPhone and iPod touch, Apple has completely revamped the way you can navigate the system using gestures and multi-touch. Watch the videos below to see it in action, but to say this is improved is beyond an understatement. Rather than clicking those little buttons dozens of times, you can now just slide around the iPhone screen to move around. And it’s much easier to get to the iPhone’s keyboard to do things like searches — a funtionality which is basically unusable with the white remote. Find the updated Remote app in the App Store here , it’s a free download and will work with iTunes on your computer as well. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Evan Williams, Ron Conway, Caterina Fake and True Ventures Invest In Web Typography Startup Small Batch Top
Stealth startup Small Batch has raised an undisclosed round of equity funding from True Ventures with Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, Flickr and Hunch co-founder Caterina Fake, WordPress/Automattic Founder Matt Mullenweg, renown investor Ron Conway , Chris Sacca, Josh Felser and Dave Samuel participating. Small Batch is launching Typekit, a service that lets designers to build sites with web-native typography. Small Batch was co-founded by Jeffrey Veen, who was one of the founding partners of Adaptive Path and project lead for Measure Map, the well-received web analytics tool that was acquired by Google. After the acquisition, Veen worked at Google and started Small Batch in January of 2009. Veen was also the recipient of TechFellow award a few weeks ago. Details about Typekit are still limited but Veen says that the company wanted to “build a nimble, safe tool that makes it easier for web designers to do amazing design online.” Typekit plans to launch a preview of the service in the coming weeks with a library of high quality fonts and design typography tools. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
The Onion Finally Weighs In On The Iranian Situation "Ruining" Twitter Top
More than a few people have left comments on our Twitter posts related to the Iranian situation wondering if they weren’t really articles by the satirical site, The Onion . Here are two that come to mind, Twitter Reschedules Maintenance To Allow Iranian Protests To Continue and Bush Advisor: Twitter Founders Should Get Nobel Peace Prize . Well, The Onion finally has one of its own . And as you might expect, it’s good. The post is short, sweet and to the point. But the best parts are the fake quotes by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey : “Twitter was intended to be a way for vacant, self-absorbed egotists to share their most banal and idiotic thoughts with anyone pathetic enough to read them,” said a visibly confused Dorsey. “When I heard how Iranians were using my beloved creation for their own means—such as organizing a political movement and informing the outside world of the actions of a repressive regime—I couldn’t believe they’d ruined something so beautiful, simple, and absolutely pointless.” Dorsey said he is already working on a new website that will be so mind-numbingly useless that Iranians will not even be able to figure out how to operate it. In all seriousness, Twitter has been proving to be an amazing tool during this crisis, but I’ll admit that the headlines here and elsewhere often do read like Onion headlines unintentionally. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Fever, A Self-Hosted Feed Reader, Heats Up Your RSS Subscriptions Top
Fever is a hot new RSS reader that aims to cure “second inbox syndrome, unread item guilt, and unbold elbow.” In other words, the common plights of the modern RSS power user. Besides offering a full-featured feed reader, the application attempts to create a personalized Techmeme by scanning a user’s feed list for popular (or hot) links. Fever then groups these links into stories and assigns each a “temperature.” This allows a user to quickly keep a pulse on what’s going on in his or her “slice of the web.” The other refreshing feature of the app is its move away from email inbox-style unread counts. As a long-time Google Reader user, I always dreaded the experience of returning from an offline vacation only to find several thousand unread items in my reader. With Fever, the emphasis is on dividing subscriptions into two camps: must-reads (called Kindling) and everything else (Sparks). By moving the “hit-or-miss” feeds into the Sparks bin, Fever ensures that a user gets only the most relevant content. I’ve been using the product for a little less than a week and it has yet to disappoint. I now feel like I’m always aware of the trending stories in my area of Internet interest. Furthermore, I’ve been able to subscribe to a number of high-volume feeds that I would have never added to my Google Reader. And since I added them as Sparks, they now help Fever’s algorithm better find the most interesting stories from my Kindling. Fever is the newest product from designer/developer Shaun Inman : He is also the creator of Mint , a web site analytics suite (not to be confused with Mint , the financial site); Shortwave , a command line bookmarklet; and Horror Vacui , an 8-bit iPhone game. Although Fever has fully replaced Google Reader as my everyday feed reader, there are two drawbacks to the app: its cost and its requirements. Fever costs $30 (there is no demo or trial available). It also requires self-hosting and self-installation. Ultimately, this will prevent widespread adoption. A possible solution to increase mass appeal would be if a hosting company, e.g. Media Temple or Rackspace , were to offer a hosted version of Fever for a few dollars a month. Even better would be an ad-supported free version. But in the end, Inman seems to be fine with a more targeted market: The price for feed readers has bottomed out at free so anything more than that is going to turn certain people off. And I don’t mind the deterrent. Most products price to be inclusive, to make the most money possible. I designed Fever (like Mint) first and foremost for myself. Any money I make on top of the personal utility I get out of it is just icing on the cake. I also support my customers personally. Anything I can do to keep that level of support manageable helps — especially with two commercial products. Check out the demo video here . Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Break.com's New Twitter Show: "As Long As Celebrities Continue To Be Stupid, I'll Mock Them" Top
One of my favorite recent Twitter-related trends is the onslaught of jokes from late-night talk show hosts pointing out how laughably dull (or stupid) some of our favorite celebs’ tweets really are. Read aloud, even the most seemingly innocuous Tweets are often hilarious. Now Break.com , a video site heavily geared towards a male audience, is looking to get in on the action. The site has signed on comedian Mike Polk (formerly of HBOLabs) to host a show called Tweet Boxx , which is specifically focused on making fun of the Twitterverse. You can catch the first episode here . Polk kicks off the inaugural show saying that each week he’ll “be sharing with you my favorite celebrity Twitter tweets of the week” following that up a moment later with, “what am I saying here, these are words?” Welcome to my life, Mr. Polk. The show’s definitely worth watching if you’re a heavy Twitter user, and you’ll also probably love it if you’re still in the “Twitter is stupid” camp. The novelty of making fun of tweets will probably wear off at some point, but I think we still have a ways to go before we get there. Polk closes the show by saying, “as long as celebrities continue to be stupid, I’ll continue to mock them from the safety and comfort of my living room.” He’s got his work cut out for him. If you like Tweet Boxx, also be sure to check out Tweeting Too Hard , a site that shames those Tweeters that really deserve it. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Nielsen Debunks Myths On Teens And Media - They Still Watch TV! Top
Teenagers spend their days texting, tweeting and hanging around on YouTube, Facebook and MySpace! Honestly, that’s what I assumed too. Turns out I’m wrong, and I needed Nielsen to teach me that. The audience measurement company is releasing a brand new report on teens and media with a lofty promise of serious myth busting and hard fact presenting that will downright knock your socks off. Ready for some eye-openers? Here we go: With an ever-expanding media universe, social networks play an increasingly important roles in the lives of teens … as they do in pretty much everyone else’s, too. The 33 million or so teenagers (aged 12 to 17) in the U.S., against all odds, keep on consuming quite a lot of non-connected media, such as TV, radio and - get this - even dead-tree stuff like newspapers next to their online activities. According to Nielsen, teenagers are far from abandoning TV for so-called new media. In fact, television viewing rates among U.S. teens have actually gone up 6% in the last five years. Sure, they browse the Web a lot, but far less than you do. The average time spent browsing for an adult person in the United States comes down to about 29 hours and 15 minutes per month. While I reach that average almost on a daily basis, teens are said to browse the Web a lot less than that: 11 hours and 32 minutes per month on average. I honestly thought the average teen would spend that much time on the Web a week, at least. Here are some other kickers, straight from the report: - if you’re between 25 and 34 years old, you watch online videos about 35% more than teens do (and they don’t have to go to the office every weekday) - Teenagers enjoy video games, but they don’t necessarily carry a particular interest in ones that are violent of nature - Teens who recall advertising are 44% more likely to say they liked the ads than adults (ok now I’m scared) - 1 out of 4 teens reads newspapers daily - one last takeaway from the report is that teens evidently have their favorite TV shows, websites and genre preferences … only they’re almost exactly the same as their parents’. You can download the report over at NielsenWire , or simply consult the embedded file at the bottom of this post. Let us know which finding surprised you the most, if any. nielsen_howteensusemedia_june09 Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
A Million App Downloads For Palm. A Million iPhone 3GSs For Apple. Top
"You know the beautiful thing: June 29, 2009, is the two- year anniversary of the first shipment of the iPhone," Elevation Partners (which owns a huge portion of Palm) co-founder Roger McNamee told Bloomberg in March . "Not one of those people will still be using an iPhone a month later." We’re 5 days away from that milestone. Anyone want to take that bet still? It’s been 18 days since the launch of the Palm Pre, and the device has already passed an important milestone: 1 million app downloads , according to mobile analytics firm Medialets . That’s impressive for a store with only 30 or so applications. While Apple surpassed 10 million downloads in its first weekend following the App Store launch in 2007, it had over 500 applications at launch, and already had a few million devices (the original iPhone) with which people could download from. The big problem for Palm is that is set itself up to be compared to the iPhone with comments like the one above and its feature set . And now it has a huge mountain to climb to get anywhere near it. While the Pre may have seen a million app downloads after 18 days, Apple’s newest device, the iPhone 3GS, sold a million hardware units in just three days after its launch last week. Analysts estimate Pre sales to be about 150,000 so far. All told, there are well over 20 million iPhones now out there (probably closer to 25 million), and when you throw in iPod touches (which also access the App Store), there are over 40 million units. And Palm isn’t making things any easier on itself . During this critical time after launch where new apps are vital, there are only 30 because the webOS SDK still isn’t open to all developers. Palm recently gave an update saying that developers should by the “end of this summer”, but even when they get it, it will likely be another few months before a wide range of apps start coming out. That means it will be the Fall or Winter before there are a ton of apps for the Pre — and that’s assuming developers jump on board. Meanwhile, all indications are that Apple’s new iPhone 3.0 SDK is kicking app development into an even higher level on that platform. The App Store is currently backlogged with app approvals, and just about every developer I’ve talked to, has something in the pipeline very shortly. Oh yeah, and Apple just launched a version of the iPhone that is $99, which everyone seems to be forgetting. The sales numbers on that should be interesting. That’s not to say Palm cannot be successful with the Pre and more specifically, its webOS, it can. It’s a great device, and a great platform. And the mobile arena, and specifically smartphones, are exploding in popularity right now. There is certainly more than enough room for a number of devices and a range of platforms. But Palm still has some very serious question marks on the business side of things, and they’re basically betting the farm on the Pre. It has another webOS device that may or may not come in the next few months, but even if it does, if the apps aren’t there, it could be facing a less than stellar entrance. And that’s the kind of performance Palm needs right now, stellar. On the other hand, McNamee’s comment might technically be true. All those people who bought the original iPhone may not be using one a month from now — they might be using the iPhone 3GS, instead. Let’s revisit this on July 29, shall we? [photo: flickr/ kowitz ] Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Facebook Launches A Live Stream Box, Partners With Ustream Top
Today, Facebook is launching a new “Live Stream Box” feature which allows for Facebook Pages to offer their own live video and chat area. And Ustream will be the first to take advantage of it with Ustream on Facebook , a new service to provide live video support to select Facebook users. This functionality is an extension of what Ustream and Facebook did with some Jonas Brothers concerts last month — events which drew huge numbers. How huge? This huge, according to Ustream: 1.5 million unique posts were made via Facebook Live Feed 23K average posts per minute More than 100K users joined the webcast after seeing their friend's comment on Facebook 974K total unique viewers watched the one hour webcast Ustream reports the Jonas Brothers webcast on Facebook surpassed the largest live video event they have hosted for any music artist So clearly, there’s a big demand for certain live events via Facebook, and Ustream is jumping on it, as Facebook’s preferred partner. Apparently, how this will work is that on Facebook Pages there will now be a way to add a “Live” tab, which will house things such as the Ustream on Facebook feature. Previously, beyond the Jonas Brothers, Facebook has tested this with CNN and the NBA All-Star game. Here’s what Facebook has to say: Today, Facebook is launching the Facebook Live Stream Box as a feature that any website owner or developer can use to enable Facebook users to connect, share, and post updates in real-time as they witness an event online. Websites can run the Live Stream Box next to live streaming videos of concerts, speeches, sporting events, webcasts, TV shows, presentations, or webinars. Sites can also run the Live Stream Box in multi-player games, or with any other experience where many people are visiting a website at the same time. But Ustream’s funtionality is not for everyone yet, due to what will undoubtedly be high demand, we’re told. Any artist or person who thinks they could benefit from the Ustream functionality, can apply to have the feature turned on here . With it, you’ll get not only the live player, but a customizable banner that can link to places like iTunes or Amazon (obviously important for artists). Right now, there are two versions of the player: A free ad-supported version, and a white-label version. The free version is the one with limited sign-ups allowed right now, so click that link above quickly if you think you need the feature. The white-label version comes with a one-time development fee of $15,000. But you also get an ongoing subscription to Ustream’s white-label platform, Watershed. Find out more information here . Eventually, Ustream hopes to port this Facebook experience over to its main site as well using Facebook Connect, we’re told. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
iPhone 3GS JavaScript Performance Blows Away Rivals, Approaches MacBook Speed Top
A few speed tests done on the new iPhone 3GS pitting it both against the old iPhone as well as its main rivals. So far, these have either been eyeball tests or page rendering/boot time tests that take a bunch of variables into account. Mobile analytics and advertising company Medialets has released numbers for a test that it considers to be the most direct line of comparison for the iPhone 3GS against the iPhone 3G, the Palm Pre and the Android G1. And once again, the 3GS blows everyone away. In Medialets test, they are specifically testing WebKit JavaScript performance. This makes sense since all these devices have a WebKit-based browser. WebKit offers a JavaScript test suite, SunSpider , which is used to determine the results. And just to make clear how fast the iPhone 3GS’ JavaScript speed is, Medialets set a 2GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook as the baseline. Compared to the MacBook, the iPhone 3G running the iPhone OS 2.2.1 software had JavaScript performance that was 96 times worse. Meanwhile, an iPhone 3G running the iPhone 3.0 software was on 36 times worse. A T-Mobile G1 running the new Android 1.5 “Cupcake” software was 67 times worse than the baseline. And the Palm Pre was 36 times worse, equalling the iPhone 3G running the 3.0 software. So how did the iPhone 3GS do? It’s performance was only 12 times worse that of the MacBook — three times better than the Pre. That’s pretty incredible when you think about it. Sure, this is only a JavaScript test, and hardly indicative of everything you can do on the device, but JavaScript is an integral part of the web, and sites continue to use it more and more as websites get more robust. And the rate of improvement that the iPhone is seeing in performance in that regards means that soon we could see a mobile device that handles the web just as fast as an actual computer. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
There's That Facebook "Everyone Button" We Told You About Top
Phase 4 has launched. Last week we told you about Facebook’s new “everyone button” that lets users who have chosen to keep their profiles at least partially private send the occasional status message or other content out to the public. That feature, which goes hand-in-hand with the recent search engine for public status messages, launched today to a small number of users. Don’t be fooled by what appears to be a minor change in the user interface. This is another indication of Facebook’s extreme desire to get users to make as much of their data public as possible. Just like Twitter. This new version of Publisher lets users add content such as photos, videos, and status updates on your home page and profile. Each piece of content can be shared with everyone, friends and networks, friends of friends and friends. Users can also customize the settings further. You can now control who you want to inform of your Facebook friends when you add any kind of content to the site. Here’s how it works: After writing a status, uploading a photo or creating other content from the Publisher, use the lock icon in the lower-right corner of the Publisher to access the drop-down menu. From there, you can then choose to make the post visible to everyone, friends and certain networks, friends of friends, and a custom list. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
FriendFeed Adds File Sharing. No Movies, But MP3s Are Fine. Top
The killer features of FriendFeed continue. Today, the service has just added a way to share files on the service. So now it’s just as easy to share a PDF or text file as it is to share a picture. “You can attach (almost) any file to your FriendFeed posts via the web interface or by emailing file attachments to share@friendfeed.com ,” FriendFeed co-founder Bret Taylor says. And what’s really great about this is that using FriendFeed direct messaging aspect, you can easily transfer files to certain individuals, or groups of people at the same time. Unfortunately, it looks like you can’t do things like share movies, but it can share MP3 files, which is awesome. And yes, those MP3s can be played inline right from within FriendFeed. The obvious question is, will this lead to PiracyFeed? You can, after all, download these MP3s after they are shared. Though one-at-time songs might be a little tedious for rabid piracy. Update : Apparently, you can only upload 3 MP3s a day, which is FriendFeed’s attempt to prevent all-out piracy. And as of right now you can only play actual MP3 files on FriendFeed, but Taylor notes that he hopes to add M4A (AAC) files soon, so that iPhone voice memos are supported. Here’s more from Taylor: We have a rolling 24-hour upload limit, so if you upload a number of big files, you will eventually hit it. We have stricter limit on audio file uploads (3 per day per user now, but it could change in the future). Regarding copyrighted materials, our policy is to respond to notices of alleged copyright infringement that comply with applicable intellectual property law (including the Digital Millennium Copyright Act) and to terminate the accounts of repeat infringers. You can see details of our policy here: http://friendfeed.com/about/dmca. Our target users for this launch are the people using FriendFeed groups for collaboration, so we optimized the feature for sharing smaller documents, not just media files. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Changing Of The Guard: Jeff Weiner Takes CEO Spot At LinkedIn Top
LinkedIn had a management shakeup last December - CEO Dan Nye stepped down. Founding CEO Reid Hoffman stepped in again and former Yahoo exec Jeff Weiner joined the company as President. The hiring of Weiner as President was clearly an interim move, and we predicted he’d move into the CEO role sometime this year: “The addition of Weiner is also quirky, and may explain the changes. Weiner was likely expecting a CEO role as his next job. He's now second to Hoffman. Perhaps the company is using the interim period to see how he can handle himself leading the company. I wouldn't be surprised to see Weiner take the CEO job at LinkedIn sometime in 2009, or else leave the company.” It turns out that is exactly what happened. LinkedIn continues to roll. They are the fifth most valuable social network according to our recent model. The site attracts over 15 million monthly unique visitors (Comscore worldwide, April 2009), up from less than 7 million a year ago, and has 42 million registered profiles. They’ve been ebitda profitable since last year and say they plan to be cash flow positive this year. In February, Hoffman told me “We can go public any time we want to.” And Weiner agrees, telling me today that their current plan to to build an independent public company, with three key revenue sources: premium subscriptions, corporate solutions and advertising. To date the company has raised over $100 million. The last round, a year ago, valued the company at just over $1 billion . Hoffman will stay with the company, becoming the executive chairman. This is a full time exec role, he says, not just a board of directors seat. For his part, Weiner has already managed day to day operations of the company. Hoffman says he has done “an exceptional job leading the company.” It was just a year ago that we broke the news of Weiner’s departure from a troubled Yahoo . Weiner first joined Yahoo when former CEO Terry Semel took charge in 2000 and was one of the top execs when he departed, running the Network division (which included Yahoo’s home page, mail, search and media properties). Former Yahoo president Sue Decker gave him a nice sendoff when he resigned. Prior to joining LinkedIn Weiner was an EIR at both Accel Partners and Greylock Partners. Here’s the full press release: LinkedIn Names Jeff Weiner Chief Executive Officer Co-founder Reid Hoffman continues as Executive Chairman Mountain View, CA —June 24, 2009— LinkedIn, the world's largest professional network, today announced that Jeff Weiner has been named LinkedIn's chief executive officer and appointed to the board of directors. Reid Hoffman will remain focused on LinkedIn in his day-to-day role as founder and executive chairman. Since joining LinkedIn as interim president in January 2009, Weiner has overseen all operations and played a defining role in developing and executing the company's strategy to address the accelerating demand for LinkedIn's products and services on a global basis. "Working closely with Reid and the team over the past six months exceeded all of my expectations coming into the company," said Weiner. "I couldn't be more excited about our progress to date, and the opportunity ahead of us." "LinkedIn was founded to harness the power of the internet to create a tool that would help individuals become more effective and successful professionals," said Reid Hoffman, co-founder and executive chairman, LinkedIn. "Over the past six months, Jeff has done an exceptional job leading the company and I look forward to continuing the work that we have begun together." In the past year, LinkedIn has achieved records across virtually all key operating and financial metrics, most recently exceeding 42 million global members. LinkedIn has an established business model with three lines of revenue, including premium subscriptions, corporate solutions and advertising. The company operated profitably in 2008 and is expected to be profitable in 2009. LinkedIn has secured more than $100 million in funding from some of the world's premiere investors. Weiner brings more than 14 years of consumer web experience to the position. Prior to joining LinkedIn as interim president, Weiner was executive in residence at Accel Partners and Greylock Partners. He had previously held key leadership roles at Yahoo!, most recently serving as executive vice president of Yahoo!'s Network Division with responsibility for Yahoo!'s consumer web product portfolio, including Yahoo!'s Front Page, Mail, Search and Media products. In addition to LinkedIn, Weiner serves on the boards of DonorsChoose.org and Malaria No More. For more information, please see Jeff Weiner's LinkedIn profile at: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffweiner08. About LinkedIn LinkedIn takes your personal business network online, giving you access to people, jobs and opportunities like never before. Built upon trusted connections and relationships, LinkedIn has established the world's largest and most powerful professional network. Currently, over 42 million professionals are on LinkedIn, representing all five hundred of the Fortune 500 companies, as well as a wide range of household names in technology, financial services, media, consumer packaged goods, entertainment, fashion, and numerous other industries. LinkedIn is backed by world-class investors including Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners, the European Founders Fund, Bessemer Venture Partners, Bain Capital Ventures, Goldman Sachs, The McGraw-Hill Companies, and SAP Ventures. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Google's Mobile AdSense For iPhone and Android Apps Now In Public Beta Top
Google is moving into the mobile ad market with AdSense for mobile apps . Over the past few months, Google has been testing both text and graphical ads with ten mobile app developers, including Shazam and Urbanspoon. Today it is opening the private beta to more developers who meet certain criteria. These are contextual ads for iPhone and Android apps. They can be targeted by “applications, locations, categories, or keywords,” according to Google’s Mobile AdSense information page. To qualify for the public beta, the apps must be free and generate at least 100,000 pageviews per day. The program is only for iPhone or Android apps. Developers must be ready to go live with the ads in four weeks and participate for three months. Developers with 100,000 pageviews a day is still a limited set of the top free apps, but Google is serious about competing in this market. Mobile ad startups such as AdMob and Greystripe are now officially in Google’s direct line of fire. Google is keeping things small right now to test out different ways to target ads inside apps, but it can pull out the big guns any time it wants. It already has more advertisers than any startup ad network and thus has a clear advantage when it comes to filling up mobile ad inventory. Although it is separate now, when marketers can check mobile apps as part of their overall AdSense campaigns, there should be a lot more bidding for those mobile ad spots within iPhone and Android apps, and those mobile ad rates should go up as a consequence. Mobile app developers are going to sign up whichever ad network can give them the highest CPMs, and will swap out the ones which can’t keep up. Already, we are seeing some jostling for position among the mobile ad network startups. AdMob just kicked out AdWhirl from showing ads within its platform. I wonder if AdMob will allow Mobile AdSense ads on its network. Update : AdMob responds that it will work with any mobile app developer on a non-exclusive basis and that developers which have established a direct relationship with AdMob can work with competing ad networks. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
TV Everywhere is Comcast and Time Warner's Answer to Free Internet Video Top
Cable providers Comcast and Time Warner might be late to the Internet video party, but that doesn't mean they are going to let us enjoy content for free that they pay for. Oh no, the TV Everywhere Model is designed to give Comcast and Time Warner paying subscribers access to content and block-out everyone else. And this system might find its way into Hulu. You can't blame the cable operators for their plans. They have to pay good money for access to cable stations. Then they, of course, pass along the cost to subs via a monthly bill. The thought is that those people that pay for the content should be able to watch all of it on both their TVs and computers.
 
The Europas: Voting opens in TechCrunch Europe tech awards Top
We have now opened voting in The Europas, the tech innovation awards from TechCrunch Europe honouring the best tech companies and startups across the web and mobile scene from across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. We’ll hold the awards ceremony in London on July 9 for 300 people: you can get a ticket here . There is more information about the awards here. You can now vote for the nominated companies and personalities from the industry. You can only vote once for one entrant, so make it count. Your vote will be counted towards nominating the five finalists in each category. Voting will close on Wednesday July 2, next week. Thanks to Polldaddy for this voting mechanism. Now go vote! Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Microstock Photography Is Getting Big. iStockphoto Projects $200 Million In Revenues Top
The microstock photography business is growing out of nothing. The leader in the market, iStockphoto , is projecting $200 million in revenues this year. When iStockphoto was bought by Getty Images February, 2006 for $50 million, its revenues that for year were about $23 million, according to COO Kelly Thompson. In 2007, revenues were $72 million, and the company never disclosed 2008 revenues. ( Update : Thompson says 2008 revenues were around $150 million). Thompson says iStockPhoto has been profitable since before the acquisition and now represents a “significant chunk” of . (Getty Images is owned by the private equity firm Hellman & Friedman and does not break out revenues formally via audited statements). The demand for affordable images for use on Websites and in print is catching on and iStockphoto is the main beneficiary. It sells a photo, illustration, or video every second, and pays out $1.2 million a week to the photographers and artists who upload images to the site. There are nearly 80,000 artists in total represented on the site and 5 million images. “Definitely the print side is declining and we are seeing lots of Web usage,” reports Thompson. But iStockphoto is not without competitors. Rival Fotolia is trying to catch up and recently received a massive cash infusion from TA Associates. It has about the same number of images and recently launched a completely free stock image service called PhotoXpress (which competes against Getty-owned Stock.xchng ). Fotolia also has about 6 million images and roughly 90,000 contributors. The battle, though, is now going to be around quality and price. iStockphoto is trying to go upmarket by exposing some of its top photographers to Getty clients. And today it just launched its Vetta Collection , which is comprised of about 35,000 higher-quality photos which are more produced than the typical stock image (the space farmer image above is one from Vetta). The Vetta images start at around $20 each, compared to regular images, which start at about $1. Thompson says it is all part of iStock’s strategy to move customers up the chain to buy more expensive images: Almost every industry has a free component, everyone gives away free samples. That is what we are doing. Even when it is free, it needs a license around it. Once people get used to using images like that, they move up to buying more expensive images. Even the traffic from iStock to Getty is more than we originally expected. Image search is another area where the iStock needs to win. People need to find the images they want before they can buy them. iStock relies on photographers and artists to tag and title their own photos, but they don’t always do such a great job. After all, they tend to be more visually-oriented. So instead, iStock has been collecting data on which images people hover over and click on after they do a keyword search, and those now are ranked higher in results starting today. By August, the results will be fine-tuned by language and country of origin as well. But if you want to search only for Vetta images, you have to do that in advanced search right now (by tomorrow, you should be able to do it directly on the Vetta portion of the site). Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
PRTMobile.com: The Mobile Web Comes to the Folks Next Door Top
I was out for my evening constitutional last night, enjoying the sight of "For Sale" signs on homes throughout my neighborhood, when I spied with my little eye something new and novel. I've seen URLs on For Sale signs a couple of times, and always thought that that was a fine way to attract eyeballs to your property. Let's face it: trawling though MLS listings sucks , so going directly to a property's URL is a time saver! What I saw last night, though, was even better: a URL specifically geared for mobile phones. "Mobile users, go to prtmobile.com/1908.
 
How to Cross the Digital Divide, Rwanda-Style Top
Whenever I tell someone the countries I'm hitting for my new book, they start out nodding, then the nodding slows, then they just get confused. "China, India, Brazil, Israel and…Rwanda." Then there's the inevitable question: "Rwanda? Is there even any technology in Rwanda?" Sometimes I even get asked if I have to stay in a tent when I go there. The answer to the second question is no. There are plenty of hotels, and I don't do tents unless they have outlets and wifi. The answer to the tech question two fold. First: Despite the last decade of covering nothing but tech, I actually consider myself more of a reporter who covers entrepreneurs. It just so happens that's normally correlated with technology, especially in the U.S. But increasingly some of the best opportunities to build the next great billion-dollar company even in markets like India and China are more tech-enabled service and product businesses than classic high-tech plays. And really, are Web businesses even about the sheer technology anymore these days? Second: Yes, there is technology in Rwanda. And there will be more in the next few years. Rwanda is emerging as an interesting test case on how a digital divide is actually being bridged in a methodical, well-thought-out, step-by-step manner. The first step was basic connection to one another and the Web over cell phones. Nearly everyone has a cell phone in Rwanda—even people in some of the poorest, most remote areas of the country. My Rwandan SIM card and enough minutes to last a month cost me the equivalent of $12 US dollars. It's one of the only things that's cheap in a land-locked country that has to import most everything it consumes. And the cell phone connection works everywhere—even on winding dirt roads where there's no electricity. We could get a connection on safari in the middle of nowhere, but we can't seem to get a good connection in our living room in the middle of San Francisco. Who's the developing nation now, America? The second step is being rolled out now, literally. Everywhere you go in Rwanda, there are huge spools of fiber optic cable. In two years, every district of the country will be connected to each other and the Internet—something the United States can't boast. It's being operated by a private company, but the Rwandan government owns the fiber infrastructure and welcomes competing players to make sure no one company has too much power over the country's Web access, according to Nkubito Manzi Bakuramutsa, the deputy CEO of Rwanda's Development Board in charge of IT. The next steps are being coordinated by the government as well: Rwanda sends 300 students at a time to India Institute of Technology to develop skills in hardware, software and telecom they can bring back to their home country. When one kid graduates, another one gets to go. Why IIT? It's cheaper than Western schools, just as good at training engineers, and has a better understanding of the challenges and needs of emerging markets, Bakuramutsa says. In addition, Rwanda hopes their kids will pick up some of the Indians' entrepreneurial spirit. (Pay attention here, US: We're no longer the education destination of choice for the emerging world.) And of course, you need computers to use all that fiber and enjoy all those new Web applications being built by these kids. Right now, all thirty districts of the country have Internet centers with fifty computers for surfing the web at the low cost of fifty cents per hour, and several more computers for learning computer basics, like Microsoft Word. There are also privately run Internet cafes dotting the country. One Laptop per Child just opened a computer learning center in Rwanda's capital city – in fact, the OLPC folks were in the country at the same time I was doing more outreach. But the Rwandan government isn't going to leave it up to others. The country itself is buying 100,000 low-cost laptops in the next year to distribute between teachers and students in the country. "I'm in charge of IT here, and I'm rarely short of cash," Bakuramutsa says with a smile. Last year the government spent $43 million on all of this; this year he says that’s increasing to $100 million. So where the hell is all this money coming from in a so-called poor African nation? A lot of it traces back to aid and foreign investment. The national budget for Rwanda is 60% taxes and income from the country itself and 40% from "partners"—a lot of those partners are countries and organizations that let Rwanda down during its brutal 1994 Genocide and are stepping up to help the country rebuild. President Paul Kagame has long said he'd rather have foreign investment in Rwanda than foreign aid. But, clearly he'll take it to make the country a place that one day doesn't need aid. Call it guilt money if you want, but at least the country is putting it to good use. The man in charge of all of this, Bakuramutsa, is a Rwandan national but never actually lived in the country until 2007. Just before moving back, he spent a number of years in California working for Hewlett Packard, so he knows tech. He dreams of a totally automated Rwandan society—one where even the milking of cows is automated. That's a pretty big leap from the Rwanda of today— where city councils pay people dollars a day to manually trim the grass on the side of highways with machetes and sickles. First steps will include all government forms are moving online in the country, along with medical records. All that automation is where those 300 IIT grads come in. For Rwanda to truly bridge the digital divide it'll need locally developed sites and software, and there's a lot of work to be done. I don't think anyone is translating Wikipedia or Facebook into Kinyarwandan any time soon, and local Web sites and information pages for Rwandan businesses, hotels and attractions are lacking-to-non-existent. To make an appointment to see the famous Silverback gorillas, you have to physically go to an office in Kigali and pay $500 in cash. In fact almost every place in Rwanda only accepts cash. And if you're paying in US dollars—the date on the bills better be later than the year 2000. That's not exactly going to be e-commerce friendly. When Bakuramutsa says he wants to build a mini-Silicon Valley in Rwanda, he means less a region that will birth the next Hewlett Packard or Google, and more a place that can churn out IT services for Rwanda first, and surrounding countries like Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda second. IT is core not only for the education, connectivity and productivity, but the future economic development of Rwanda. The tiny country is blessed with some of the most fertile soil in Africa, but few rich deposits of minerals and very little manufacturing and industry. 90% of its people are subsistence farmers, and with a booming population there is not enough land for that kind of economy to scale. Many in the country doubt they can compete with more mature industrial economies of like those in Kenya and Uganda when it comes to manufacturing to say nothing of the dirt-cheap prices of making things in China. But IT services? Few places in Africa can call that a specialty. And that's why Bakuramutsa never has a lack of money to invest in IT: Rwanda isn't just trying to bridge a digital divide—but an economic one. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Greystripe Ups The Ante In The iPhone Ad Network Wars, Launches Guaranteed CPM Program Top
There have been questions as to whether iPhone developers can make significant revenue from ads on the iPhone, mainly because the supply of advertisers can’t keep up with the demand for iPhone apps. Others say that developers actually can make quite a bit from ads on free apps. Mobile game advertising network Greystripe is in that camp and it is launching a new CPM Protection Program designed to guarantee ad revenue to iPhone app developers. Greystripe says that the various mobile ad networks, including competitor AdMob, are undercutting each others’ CPMs (cost per thousand impressions) when competing for advertising dollars, thus leaving iPhone app developers with lower CPMs overall. Greystripe’s CPM Protection Program offers to beat any other ad networks' eCPM by at least 25% for 60 days. Greystripe claims that their rates are higher because of their rich media ad formats that use a Flash ad format, giving advertisers more creative options when it comes to developing interactive ads. Another explanation for Greystripe’s higher CPMs is that they are trying to buy market share. Greystripe’s eCPMs come in at around $1.50 to $2.00, which the company says is higher than the average CPM delivered by other networks. In a guest post written by an iPhone developer on TechCrunch, the developer reported CPMs of $0.23 with ads powered by AdMob. But this data is anecdotal and based on one developer’s circumstance. I find it hard to imagine that the CPM of $0.23 is an average for AdMob. We contacted AdMob to see what their average eCPMs are and they fall into a similar range as Greystripe’s: $1.00-2.00. It’s clear that Greystripe is trying to provide an incentive for developers who are using other ad networks to switch over (the program requires that developers have used another ad network). But the issue with switching ad networks is that developers have to change the code of ads and then reapply in the App Store, which we all know can be a hassle. Also, while Greystripe promises to lock in ad rates for developers for 60 days, it’s unclear what happens following that time period to rates. Once the 60 days are up, eCPMs could fall dramatically. It’s definitely interesting to see Greystripe’s approach to competing against mobile ad platforms like AdMob, Videoegg and others. Widely popular and well-funded AdMob is a formidable competitor in the space. Photo credit/Flickr/ WilliamHook Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Censorship 2.0: China Blocks Google Search, Apps, Gmail, And More Top
The People’s Republic of China has apparently barred its citizens from visiting a host of Google properties, including the main search engine, Google Apps, Google Reader and Gmail. A search on Twitter (preferred hashtag seems to have become #fuckgfw ) reveals that many Chinese are complaining, particularly about not being able to use the search engine, although it appears Google.cn can still be reached at this point. Can anyone actually in China confirm this in comments? As far as we can tell from using tools such as WebsitePulse , a lot of Google services are effectively blocked at this point. We’ve also cross-tested other popular US services like Yahoo, Twitter, Facebook and Bing, which appear to remain accessible for the moment. The block of the services appears to have become apparent to users around 10 AM Eastern Time. We’ve contacted Google for comment. Update: A person seemingly located in Xiamen, China, says Google Books, Google Talk and Image Search have also been blocked in the comment section of this post. Other services like Blog Search, Translate, Maps and Analytics are reportedly borked as well. YouTube has been blocked in the country for quite some time already. We should note this is reminiscent of the recent blocking of Twitter and Bing in the lead-up to the anniversary of Tienanmen. CrunchGear has noted in the past that China’s censorship practices are gradually becoming more sophisticated in general. Earlier this week, FastCompany reported that Google clashed with China over pornographic material that could possibly turn up in search results on Google’s Chinese language site. The search giant then agreed to “take all necessary steps” to ensure that this issue was resolved in due time. Perhaps they did not move quickly enough for country officials and they got shut down over this dispute? Either way, this is a draconian measure any way you look at it. Update 2: 11:05 AM Eastern time - reports are coming in saying that access to some Google services have been restored Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Top CEOs Leave Social Media To The Plebs Top
It’s ‘official’; big shot CEOs are social media slackers. The hot news comes straight from ÃœBERCEO , who says it conducted research on the topic for the past few weeks and has found that there’s little chance you’ll ever get to exchange pokes and tweets with Fortune 100 CEOs for the time being. Here’s the ‘miserable level of engagement’ ÃœBERCEO has uncovered: - Only two CEOs have Twitter accounts. - 13 CEOs have LinkedIn profiles, and of those only three have more than 10 connections. - 81% of CEOs don’t have a personal Facebook page. - Three quarters of the CEOs have some kind of Wikipedia entry, but nearly a third of those have limited or outdated information. - Not one Fortune 100 CEO has a blog. Quite frankly, I think this is actually a good thing. Top execs of Fortune 100 companies in my view can do much more harm to themselves and the organizations they represent using social media the wrong way, and I haven’t seen that many CEOs of any size and type of company do it the right way. It’s what social media gurus and other experts are there for! Thank God, I’ve never had to work for a Fortune 100 company, but if ever do I’ll be damned if I’m going to befriend and send Zombie bites to the head honcho on Facebook or send him or her direct messages over Twitter if I’m looking for a raise. Fortune 100 CEOs and Social Media View more Microsoft Word documents from Sharon Barclay . Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Ad Optimizer AdMeld Raises $8 Million, Opens UK Operations Top
Just a little over a year ago Michael Barrett was shown the door at Fox Interactive/MySpace - he was, said insiders, the guy that unfairly took the fall when the company missed its $1 billion revenue target . Fast forward a year and things look pretty good for Barrett. His former boss is long gone from Fox Interactive and shuffled to a new job at News Corp. MySpace is on the ropes . Meanwhile Barrett, landing solidly on his feet, is running one of the hottest online advertising startups in New York: AdMeld . The company already raised $7 million in funding late last year. Today they’ll announce a new $8 million round, bringing the total to $15 million . Existing investors Spark Capital and Foundry Group led the round. The AdMeld platform optimizes and manages multiple ad networks and exchanges for publishers. Customers, which include Discovery, FOX News, Huffington Post, IAC, Thomson Reuters and WWE, use Admeld to manage those various networks and maximize revenues. AdMeld does things like locate undervalued ad inventory and replace it with higher performing stuff. Publishers like this kind of thing, and the ROI is easy to prove out. AdMeld also offers publishers centralized reporting and other features. The company is also opening a London, UK office and data center, they say, to expand European operations. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Ouch! German Court Slams Rapidshare With $34 Million Fine Top
The Regional Court in Hamburg, Germany, has fined file-hosting service Rapidshare a hefty €24 million ($34 million) and has ruled that the company must start proactively filtering certain content. The case was brought on by copyright protection association GEMA , which claims it represent over 65,000 composers, authors and music publishers across the globe. Following a request made by the organization, the Hamburg court ruled that Rapidshare is forbidden from making any of 5,000 music tracks from GEMA's collection available on the Internet. To comply, the company needs to make sure all of those tracks are removed from its servers and also ensure that they are not uploaded again by users. How the company is expected to do the latter, especially since many users upload files in ZIP format and password-protect them, is a mystery to me. Rapidshare is wildly popular, with an Alexa rank of 14 and millions of unique visitors per month (Compete). Late April, Ars Technica reported that the company had begun handing over user information to record labels looking to pursue illegal file-sharers. It’s also not the first time Rapidshare finds itself in court because of GEMA’s persistent attacks: it had already lost a similar case back in January 2008 . For this case, Rapidshare will appeal to higher courts and most likely restrict the scope of the decisions made by the Regional Court in Hamburg. Rapishare COO Bobby Chang, according to TorrentFreak , said “it would make more sense to offer music fans the right products and services at the right price to open up a new source of income for music-markets on the Internet." Hear, hear. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 

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