Friday, June 26, 2009

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Say Hello To The First Someecards Video Cards. Ads That Are Hilarious. Top
As we wrote about a couple weeks ago , Someecards , makers of hilarious online greeting cards, are delving into doing video cards. The first batch are now online. And yes, they’re quite good. The cards feature the same solid color backgrounds that are distinct on Someecards, but rather than black and white drawings, they have actors acting out short video skits. The first ones feature comedians Michael Ian Black and Michael Showalter, who are promoting their new Comedy Central show, Michael & Michael . Yes, these are ads. But as we wrote previously, these are the best kind of ads cause they’re actually funny, and something I would watch. Plus they have a lot of swearing. Watch below. I really want to embed them all but they auto-play (I’ll embed the one with no swearing until the end but be warned, possibly NSFW). Watch the rest of them here . Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Chart: What It Looks Like When Everyone Searches Google For "Michael Jackson" Top
Just like every other major Website, Google was inundated with people looking for news about Michael Jackson yesterday. Above is a chart showing the volume of search queries for the deceased pop star. Searches peaked right around 3 PM PDT, as people all over the world were trying to find out information about his passing. More details on the Google blog . Update : Here’s a graph that was posted by the Facebook Data Team showing off the number of Michael Jackson-related status updates during the same time frame: Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Video: Introducing Bing. The Better Way To Google. Top
A lot of us here at TechCrunch quite like Bing , Microsoft’s new search, sorry, discovery, no sorry decision engine . For a number of queries it seems to provide better results than Google. But that doesn’t mean the public will start using it. And this video by College Humor I think lays out why. “Bing helps you Google the best choice, faster. And shows related Googles right there on the results page. Bing knows what you like to Google.” See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor . Gotta love the sub-caption too on the video page: “The easiest way to Google since Yahoo!” [thanks Ian ] CrunchBase Information Bing Google Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
MythBuster Adam Savage Leads Twitter Revolt Against AT&T Top
For the last few weeks it hasn’t been unusual to see AT&T among Twitter’s trending topics — following its disappointing performance at WWDC and the activation issues with the iPhone last week, the carrier hasn’t exactly been garnering positive reactions from its legions of Twitter-using members. Today, it’s reached the top spot on Twitter once again, and, once again, AT&T is the target of waves of contempt. The source of the recent flurry of AT&T tweets is Adam Savage of MythBusters fame, who tweets that for “a few hours of web surfing in Canada” he was charged a whopping $11,000. AT&T is apparently claiming that Savage managed to download 9 gigabytes in Canada using his USB data connection (which he calls “ frakking impossible “). What’s worse, the customer service rep Savage was dealing with was apparently a bit loose with their decimal points, telling Savage that “data is charged at .015 cents, or a penny and a half, per kb”. Read that again — there’s a couple orders of magnitude difference there. Now Twitter is in revolt. With over 50,000 followers Savage has a pretty loud voice, and his outraged tweets certainly resonate with a broad audience. In the end, he’ll probably get a pass from AT&T — nobody wants to mess with a man who blows things up for a living. But it’s clear that AT&T needs to work on letting its customers know when they’re spending exorbitant amounts of money on data charges. An AT&T spokesman says that any phone taken abroad that begins racking up excessive charges will automatically receive an SMS alert, but apparently there are no such mechanisms in place for members using the increasingly popular USB wireless connections. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
StreamAPI Opens Live Video Funtionality To All On Facebook Top
A couple of days ago we wrote about Facebook’s new Live Stream Box funtionality . Ustream was the first to offer a live video solution for users with Facebook Pages. But the sign up for the free option is limited, and the white-label version carries a one-time fee of $15,000. Enter Stickam. It’s offering live video via its StreamAPI service to anyone. And there’s no set up fee and no monthly fee. But it will still cost you. The StreamAPI solution is pay-as-you-go, with live video costing you 45 cents a gigabyte. That includes support for HD video, customizable solutions (with no Flash knowledge required) and analytics. It’s a similar approach that Stickam takes with its regular StreamAPI product. On this sample Facebook page , you can see live video of traffic in LA. Find out more here . CrunchBase Information StreamAPI Facebook Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Is Execution More Important than Vision? Top
A few years ago, Max Levchin —of PayPal and Slide fame— told me there were two kinds of entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley: Those who work tirelessly and are great at execution, and those who are visionary and truly create new ideas—and sometimes new markets. Levchin put himself in the former category. Indeed, a lot of Slide's success has just been the result of doing a better job ripping off ideas from competitors like RockYou. He put Evan Williams of Blogger and Twitter in the latter. At the time, Twitter was only a techy phenomenon, but Max noted that unlike a lot of other Web 2.0 companies, Twitter was one of the only ones doing something untested and new. With all the hyperbole about Twitter today, if I asked you whether the executor or the visionary would wind up being more successful, nearly everyone would say the visionary. But—as Levchin no doubt knew when he made this point—the visionary is usually the one that gets the shaft in Silicon Valley. Napster changed the music world, but it was iTunes that profited off of it. Google was one of the last companies in the Internet bubble to try their hand at building a search engine—and was laughed out of some VCs' offices as a result. Palm pioneered the smart phone, not Blackberry. And Friendster was the social network pioneer before Mark Zuckerberg even entered college. What about Apple? Well it was visionary when it came to the computer, but what turned the company around was the iPod and the iPhone—both just way better versions of MP3 player and smart phones. You can extrapolate it to enterprise software too: Is it i2, PeopleSoft or Siebel that ended up reaping top dog rewards for creating the software that now runs every single large company? Nope. It's SAP—a company great at applications but horrible at underlying technology—and Oracle—a company great at technology but horrible at applications. Of course, you can't talk about this issue without bringing up TiVo: The company that revolutionized how we watch TV and dramatically altered the business model of nearly everyone in that medium, whether it's cable companies, networks, or advertisers. What was its reward? The company has mostly limped along losing money as competitors ripped off their idea and gave boxes away for free. Most people who use the verb "TiVo" have never even owned a TiVo. Tom Rogers, TiVo's CEO, granted a rare interview to NBC's Press:Here, and he laid out his vision for why TiVo is getting stronger. First there are the financials: It finally turned a profit on net income last year, and a healthy one at about $100 million. Second, there's the stock: It's up from a November 16 low of $4.60 a share to nearly $11 a share. But the big question is where future growth will come from. Who doesn't have a TiVo who wants one at this point? In essence, Rogers says the company's future lies in three main areas: Getting way more content than just broadcast and cable on their box; pioneering Internet-like market research on what people watch down to the second they start fast-forwarding through a commercial, and cooperating with TV stations to come up with ways to get their advertising message across that people will actually consume. The heavy lifting here won't be innovation as much as it'll been tough execution. Of course the company could always get bought. But given the stock bump, that's probably not in the offing any time soon. It's not surprising that the focus is on programming and TV-partnerships since Rogers is a TV guy, not a techy. He was a long time NBC executive who co-founded CNBC and MSNBC. Notice in this clip how deftly he bats aside the question I asked about product innovation and why TiVo was so late to the HD game. The full episode can be viewed in the Bay Area on Sunday morning on NBC or here now . CrunchBase Information TiVo Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Adding Insult To Injury: MySpace Botches Layoffs Top
When you’ve just gotten laid off, the last thing you want to hear is that you can’t cash your last check because of one final payroll screwup. But that’s apparently exactly what’s going on over at MySpace, which laid off over 30% of its staff (or around 480 employees) earlier this month. The company has just asked many of its laid off employees to refrain from cashing their checks due to an error in calculating how much they should be receiving. Employees are getting voicemails from FIM notifying them that the company has issued a stop payment on their checks, and that they can expect an updated check next week. This isn’t the company’s only blunder during this sensitive time. We’ve heard that that last day for the terminated MySpace employees was chaotic and poorly planned, and that the company hasn’t been very tactful regarding treatment of laid off employees. In the press release announcing the layoffs, CEO Owen Van Natta called the company “bloated”, displaying a surprising lack of respect towards the terminated workers. It gets worse: MySpace has been holding a number of meetings for staff who are still at the company, during which they’ve referred to the recently terminated employees as “fat”. Unfortunately, some of these “fatty” employees have been present at these very meetings — the company has kept a number of terminated employees onboard through the duration of their contract, creating a group of so-called “walking dead” who are being insulted to their faces. Classy. Of course, MySpace isn’t the first company to botch their layoffs. Earlier this year Microsoft asked some of its laid off employees to send back part of their severance checks. Microsoft’s goof was perhaps more insulting because the company didn’t realize its mistake until after many employees had cashed their checks, so the company actually wanted employees to return money that was already in their bank accounts. MySpace at least caught their mistake early enough to just cancel the old checks and issue new ones, but the company’s lack of sensitivity leaves a lot to be desired. Image via Biojobblog Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
The Real Time Search Dilemma: Consciousness Versus Memory Top
One of the hottest areas of search right now is real time search, which attempts to find results based on what is happening right now. Twitter’s search engine fast becoming one of the key ways to navigate the service and discover what people are thinking about any subject at any given moment. Facebook is testing out ways to let you search your personal stream . Google is waking up to the challenge as well (Larry Page is particularly concerned with keeping up). Every week, it seems, a new startup launches tackling real time search from a different angle. ( Collecta , One Riot , Scoopler , Topsy , Almost.at , Tweetmeme , CrowdEye , Omgili , to name a few). They are trying to apply real time search to all the different streams of information flowing over the Internet right now: Twitter, Facebook feeds, Digg submissions, blog comments, RSS feeds, Flickr photos, YouTube uploads, shared links on bit.ly and elsewhere. The list keeps getting longer every day. There is something about human nature which makes us want to prioritize information by how recent it is, and that is the fundamental appeal of real time search. The difference between real time search and regular search didn’t really crystallize for me until I had a conversation with Edo Segal, who sold his real time search company Relegence to AOL a few years ago and holds three patents on the subject. “Real time taps into consciousness,” says Segal, “search taps into memory. That is why it so potent. You experience the world in real time.” This raises an interesting dilemma. If real time data streams are akin to the living consciousness of the Web, how do you search them? How do you search consciousness? It is not the same as searching memory, which is what Google does when it looks at its indexed archive of the Web and how those pieces of information build up authority over time. The real time search dilemma centers precisely around how to rank results, and how to resolve the tension between recency and relevancy. The default, or at least the starting point, for most real time search engines is simply to put the most recent results up top and then keep pushing then down in a free-flowing river of information as new results which match the query come in. That is what Twitter search does, for instance. It is a chronological stream of the most recent Tweets containing a particular set of keywords. Real time search startup Collecta also takes this approach of simply presenting the stream as it comes in, and letting you filter by source. Ranking results any other way would automatically reorder them and automatically make them less real-time. Yet not being able to filter that stream generates too much noise. Other approaches attempt to add in other factors. OneRiot, for instance, is developing what it calls PulseRank , which takes into account the freshness of the information, the link authority of the Webpage where it is coming from, the authority of the person who is sharing the link, and the velocity with which the information is being passed around the Web. This seems like a reasonable approach, but it may not catch something important as fast as simply watching the unadulterated stream. There are other approaches as well. You can look at what people on the Web are actually doing in real time or look for variations in the stream of mentions for any given keyword to notice spikes of activity. When everyone is talking about Michael Jackson or Iran above and beyond the normal level of chatter for those topics, that is when you want to know that you need to pay attention. So maybe real time search is more like an alert system. Can you search consciousness, or can you only watch it pass by? We’ll be debating this at one of the panels on real time search at our Real Time Stream CrunchUp in July. But it is clear that in order to make sense of the stream, it needs to be ranked by order of importance as well as by time. (Photo credit: Flickr/ Andrew Sea ) Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Flicker (No, Not That One) Bares Its Stats In An Attempt To Get Rich Top
Flickr , Yahoo’s photo property, is one of the largest picture sharing services in the world. However, if you were to ask a group of random people how you spell its domain, a high percentage would likely tell you F-L-I-C-K-E-R. That’s not surprising, but it’s undoubtedly longstanding a headache for Yahoo. And now the people who own Flicker.com are looking to capitalize on it. If you visit the site, you’ll see that it now exposes its traffic stats in the lower right-hand corner. It’s a blatant attempt to make money, at the very least from advertisers willing to throw links on the page. Or presumably to get someone to buy the domain. Here are the stats they publish: Flicker by the numbers: Unique Visits: 3.6MM /yr Source: Direct Navigation (95.74%) Outbound Clicks: 400K /yr CPC Keyword Values: (Photography equipment) $2.50 -$3.00 /click Daily Value to Advertisers: $2700.00 - $3300.00 (Data is approximate, tracking by Google Analytics) Below that is a link to contact them. You’ll notice that over 95% of the traffic comes from direct navigation. That’s because if you Google “Flicker,” you’ll find flickr.com first, and flicker.com nowhere to be found on the first page of results. And that means that millions of people each year are typing in “flicker.com” likely expecting flickr.com. Certainly, that’s worth something, and Flicker knows it. But the people who own flicker.com probably shouldn’t hold their breath for Yahoo to buy the domain anytime soon. After all, they’re busy selling off their own killer domain names on the cheap to make money. And so the site is resorting to rather shady tactics. While its main page claims that it’s down for maintenance, there’s a Twitter button right next to that to tweet out that it’s down for maintenance. You might think that most sites wouldn’t want people to know that they’re site is down, but not Flicker. That’s because they clearly want people to advertise on their new “down” website. And it’s working, look at how many people are actually tweeting this garbage out . You can be sure that a lot of them think Yahoo’s Flickr is down, and they’re just trying to let others know. Flicker has its own Twitter account that highlights all these tweets. On the site below its maintenance message, you’ll find a bunch of links to camera equipment (the same group Flicker directly appeals to with its ‘CPC Keyword Value’ stats). And just to keep things even more shady, all of these links are bit.ly shortened links. Update : As commenter Noah points out, some of those Bit.ly links aren’t exactly bathing in traffic. This one has only 500 clicks in the past two weeks. CrunchBase Information Flickr Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Maybe that Guy Does Need to Get Laid After All Top
We’ve all heard it before, whether you work in a Fortune500 company or waited tables at a restaurant.  There’s always an uptight guy or girl who’s defensive, paranoid, over-stressed and nitpicky. And someone– maybe you’re too polite– but someone says, “That guy (or girl) soooo needs to get laid.” (Note, I didn’t use the example “leading tech blog” above. I’d like to keep my job.) A new study says there’s some truth to that. Seriously. According to Dr. Helen Fisher, biological anthropologist and chief scientific adviser to Chemistry.com , regular sex can make you a better worker bee. The dopamine rush from sex improves creativity making you a better problem solver. A boost of oxytocin and vasopressin generate feelings of trust, making you more likely to be a team player. And, a boost in testosterone can make you more confident and competitive. Yep, sounds like a dude wrote the study. But, hey, if it’s true, maybe there’s a productivity justification for all that porn online. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Catch The Second Wave Of Tickets To August Capital Summer Outing July 10 And Real Time Stream CrunchUp Top
The second batch of 150 tickets to attend our 4th annual summer outing on July 10 at August Capital are available now , courtesy of Eventbrite. They’ll go fast so grab them now. Update : This batch is sold out. We are also selling tickets for our Real Time Stream CrunchUp earlier that day (a CrunchUp ticket includes entry to the party as well). The CrunchUp is a mini-conference exploring all aspects of the real time stream and its impact on everything from information consumption and search to media and business. The lineup of speakers includes founders, CEOs, and top engineers from Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, Google, Salesforce, Tweetdeck, Seesmic, Collecta, Qik, and more. It is amazing how much activity is going on in this area. The number of stealth companies and products that want to launch at the event alone is overwhelming, and we are working hard to fit as many of them as we can into the schedule. (More details soon). August Capital Tickets Friday, July 10 5:30 - 10:00 pm 2480 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, CA Tickets are $20 to help manage the guest list and minimize no shows. Due to extremely limited availability, we regret that tickets are non-transferrable and non-refundable. If you use your name to purchase multiple tickets, your guests must arrive with you to check in at the door. Additional tickets will be released over the next two weeks. As usual, there will be lots of start-up demos, giveaways, drinks and fun. CrunchUp tickets include expedited entry to the August Capital outing. Demo tables, photowalls, games and other sponsorships are available to make a memorable impression with MeetUp attendees. Please contact Jeanne Logozzo or Heather Harde to learn more about sponsorship packages and custom opportunities. Double your TechCrunch fun and join us for the Real Time Stream CrunchUp. We are calling it a CrunchUp because it will be highly participatory and real-time in every sense of the word. CrunchUp Friday, July 10 9:00 am - 4:00 pm Fox Theatre , 2223 Broadway, Redwood City Get CrunchUp tickets for $295, which include expedited check-in to the August Capital party. Morning Fireside Chat with Real Time Angels: Ron Conway , angel investor John Borthwick , betaworks Our confirmed speakers include: Jack Dorsey , Twitter Chris Cox , Facebook Bret Taylor , Friendfeed Robert Scoble , Building43 Iain Dodsworth , TweetDeck Nick Halstead , Tweetmeme Loic Le Meur , Seesmic Joel Strellner , Twitturly Vipul Ved Prakash , Topsy Gerry Campbell , Collecta Kimbal Musk , OneRiot Andrew Baron , Magma Bhaskar Roy , Qik Eric Marcoullier , Gnip More details are here . Big Time Thank Yous to Our CrunchUp Sponsors Product Sponsors : Tokbox live video chat, Ustream live video streaming, Bantam Live , and Charles River Ventures . Demonstration Sponsors : Seesmic , OneRiot , Loopt , Future Works and Stormhoek Wines. Event Sponsors : Eventbrite for ticketing and MediaTemple for hosting, ReTargeter , Coveroo , Pandora music. Please contact Jeanne Logozzo or Heather Harde to learn more about sponsorship packages and custom opportunities. Additional details here . Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Glam Media Looking To Aggregate, Monetize Twitter Applications Top
Glam Media , a distributed media network comprised of both its own properties and a publisher network of hundreds of lifestyle websites and blogs, is looking to build an advertising network powered by Twitter . We know this because a number of third-party Twitter app developers have received an e-mail this morning from Derek Houdyshell , Network Sales and Program Director for the California company, and one of them forwarded that e-mail to us. This is what the message reads: Hi [REDACTED], I am interested in discussing syndication, distribution, and advertising opportunities with you. Glam Media is building a Twitter powered advertising platform by aggregating the best Twitter apps on the web. The demand is high and we want [REDACTED] to be part of it! Please contact me at your earliest convenience. Best Regards, Derek Houdyshell Glam Media, Inc. The description is rather vague, but apparently Glam wants to build upon its model of wrapping an advertising network around topical websites and blogs and extend it to the host of third-party Twitter applications that have come out of Twitter’s developer ecosystem. As far as we can tell, it has little to do with Tinker , another one of its ventures related to Twitter that centers around micro-payments but it could be connected to Glam Apps ( its own application platform ). We’ve asked Glam CEO Samir Arora for more information and will update when he gets back to us. Glam Media, which has raised a massive amount of funding ( $125 million reportedly ) to date, is one of the fastest growing networks on the Web. Like many other companies, it had its share of layoffs and other cutbacks following the economic downturn, and in an effort to conserve cash, Glam also recently slowed down payments to its partner publishing sites. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Farts v. Explosions: Which iPhone App Was Rejected From the App Store? You'd Be Surprised Top
An exercise for the reader: First, we present Fracture. You tap the iPhone to "crack" the screen and then you tap again to cause the apps to explode, triggering the rest of the apps to explode in rapid succession. Next, we find SkyFart. You press a little man and he farts. Then you press him again and he farts and again and flies into space. Then you press him again and he farts and flies. Then you press him again... So which app was accepted by the App store with open arms and which one was rejected? The logical thing to say, based on the common understanding that the expression of gas and fecal matter as a mode of transport is considered by some to be offensive, is that SkyFart would be rejected out of hand. This is not true.
 
Internet-Connected, Social Networking Scale Shares Your Shame With the World Top
I'm not a svelte man anymore, I'll admit. Two kids - I ate them both - and lots of beer have forced my metabolism to run, cowering, resulting in size changes that would swallow the average man. This product is what I need. The BodyTrace is a wireless scale that sends your shame to the Internet, allowing you to follow your slow decline - or incline - into our out of lassitude. It will be available in November for $119 and it costs $19.99 for a three month weight loss subscription. The system also includes a grouping feature so you an add your friends and family to your fight - or even create social groups of like-minded fat losers - and the service also makes suggestions for eating and working out. You can also upload progress pictures and cry when they never change, not once.
 
Mainstream Media Still Has Eyes Wide Shut Top
Michael Jackson’s unfortunate passing is a sad event on many levels, and a moment to reflect upon the man’s rich life and career as well as a time to pass support - silent or loud - onto his family, friends and everyone who needs it now that the King of Pop has ceased to be. For us here at TechCrunch, it’s also an opportunity to take a look at how media, old and new alike, handle news reporting and distribution in this day and age (as well as a sneak peek at how it’ll likely evolve in the near future). Like many others, I had Twitter open in one of my browser tabs when the first reports of Jackson’s hospitalization and at the time rumored cardiac arrest started circulating. At first, there was no indication that the news had been confirmed by anyone and people were just frantically retweeting messages carrying lots of question marks while trying to find an online news source to serve as a beacon for further updates on the story. Quickly enough, people started linking to AOL’s online gossip powerhouse TMZ , which was the first to call out his passing away when everyone else was still referencing the hospitalization part. Granted, TMZ may well not be the most credible source in the world (quick, which one is?) and there’s a possibility they just went with the story of Jackson dying as fact before it really was, but all that doesn’t matter anymore now. They called it first, and they got it right. We soon learned that, despite the fact many news blogs and sites were struggling to keep up with all the massive influx of people looking for more digital reports. For a visualization of Twitter trending topics as they evolved in real-time, check out this video, courtesy of TwitScoop . So TMZ broke the news and Twitter was red hot with all the chatter about it, approximately 40 minutes before the L.A. Times followed up with a confirmation of Jackson’s death on one of its blogs, citing its own sources. Not really that big a deal, but people did see the LAT follow-up as a more credible confirmation of what everyone was assuming already, which is fine, even if some of them minutes before couldn’t stop bashing TMZ over the so-called rumor-mongering they displayed. But noteworthy, and somewhat disturbing in my view: most mainstream media who followed up on the story after these two outlets were mostly regurgitating and filtering what the two blogs had reported before them, more often than not without proper credit or attribution, let alone a link. Some of them, like NY Times blog Bits acknowledged Twitter to be the place to be for watercooler-type chatter about the events, yet practically none of them dared admit that blogs and Twitter had simply been quicker with spreading the facts than they were (and yes, we realize using both as a source for rock-solid news can be quite dangerous too, but that’s beside the point in this case). A jaw-dropping case of being painfully out of touch with reality was to be found in this Chicago Tribune article , carrying the subtitle “TMZ leads with early details, while Los Angeles Times and AP do the heavy lifting”, in which we read nonsense like: Gossip site TMZ.com, owned by Time Warner, was out in front with Jackson news and digital-era pipelines spread the word, as has happened before with other major celebrity news stories. But it was old media stalwarts that did the heavy lifting, with giants such as The Associated Press and the Web site of the L.A. Times, sister paper of the Chicago Tribune, reporting the fastest, most credible information on the emergency call for paramedics and ultimately his death. Yes, I laughed out loud too. Chest-beating over old media doing the “heavy lifting” for blogs and Twitter, and being faster in reporting information than those new media when it was exactly the other way around is beyond ridiculous. TMZ was the first to report Jackson’s death, and its sources in this case proved to be as “credible” as those of any of the old-media laggards. Statements like the above are evidence of massive misunderstanding of the author - and he’ll certainly not be the only dinosaur thinking along these lines - of how the world of news distribution is evolving. The author was also happy to find someone to back him up, this time Adam Fendelman, founder and publisher of entertainment news site HollywoodChicago.com, whose first response to his staff was when he was filled in on the news was apparently: “Are we sure?”. Here’s what he reportedly said to the Chicago Tribune journalist: “The Web and TV phenomenon that TMZ is is very good at fast-breaking and late-breaking news, but there’s an inherent problem with trust in the everyday consumer’s mind.” Damn right and for the better too, but as far as I’m concerned you can replace TMZ with just about any news outlet out there, including the old big ones, who are rapidly becoming far less big and relevant . To me, this whole thing just proves that mainstream media are justifiably freaking out with their eyes wide shut to what’s happening instead of learning and adapting to the new age of journalism. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Facebook Click Fraud 101 Top
Our posts earlier this week about the alarming amount of click fraud at Facebook left more than a few unanswered questions. The problem is real and was confirmed by Facebook . But what wasn’t clear is exactly how or why it was happening. Now, after we’ve interviewed a number of advertisers and fraudsters, we know exactly how and why they are doing it. First the why. Click fraud is serious business on the big search engine advertising networks because the bad guys can make serious money. Sign up for an Adsense account and put those ads on parked domain names or wherever. Then all you have to do is start clicking those ads like crazy, using bots or cheap labor. The search engines fight this via obvious and not so obvious means, and an arms race begins. To win you need access to a lot of good IP addresses and not get too greedy. And like inflation and the government, a little click fraud is tolerated by Google and others. It keeps the dollars flowing. But Facebook is a different story. As of now they don’t really have an Adsense equivalent - Some App developers can run Facebook ads for a revenue split, but that’s it. Those guys wouldn’t be able to get away with click fraud for very long because there are too few of them and it’s too easy to monitor spikes in performance. So what’s the incentive? We’ve spoken to a number of Facebook advertisers who have explained exactly what’s happening - advertisers are clicking on competitor ads to drive up their costs and drive down their ROI. As advertisers leave the system in disgust, prices go down and the people left win. At least that’s the theory. But what’s really happening is better explained by game theory stuff that we all learned in micro economics courses. The advertisers know they’d all collectively be better off if they didn’t engage in click fraud against each other. But anyone that “does the right thing” is put at a severe disadvantage competitively. So unless and until Facebook can put a stop to this, advertisers argue that they are actually forced to engage in click fraud to have a fighting chance at making any money. Some of these guys are spending $30,000 a day on ads on Facebook alone (the maximum for self serve advertisers) and put significant capital at risk. They’re not particularly worried about much more than keeping that capital safe, and earning a living. And for the most part these are affiliate marketers - middleman arbitragers that don’t create or sell products but simply pass leads and orders on to others who monetize users directly. They have to monitor ROI carefully, particularly because they are paying Facebook per click and in turn getting paid for conversions (sales, leads, etc.). Click fraud puts them out of business fast. Facebook Click Fraud 101: Here’s how advertisers are engaging in click fraud: First, its hard to even see the ads in the first place. On search engines they are there on the parked domain page, or you see them when you type in a query. But on Facebook ads are hyper targeted to users based on deep demographic data - like single men who live in San Diego and like the Xbox and U2, for example. If you aren’t a user who fits that description on Facebook, you don’t see the ads. So the bad guys just create thousands of fake Facebook accounts with a wide variety of demographic information. This sounds like a lot of work, but it’s highly automated. One advertiser told me how he paid $200 to an Indian operation for 2,000 Facebook accounts. Another said the going rate was just $10 per 100 accounts if you supply the unique email accounts. Once the accounts are created, they use software to fill out the varied demographic information, and that software also manages all these accounts. The fraudster then logs in to Facebook via these accounts and views the ads that are displayed. The right competitive ads come up and Bingo, the software then clicks them. Facebook rules allow an account to click any advertisement up to six times in a 24 hour period, and all those clicks are charged. All you need is a few accounts to view the ads and then click to the max. Facebook even makes it easy to find the ads. They have an “Ad Board” that shows all ads targeted to that user (mine has 15 ads on it). Often the fraudsters have their art down to a science and their software clicks ads so fast and moves on to the next one that it doesn’t even hang around long enough for the underlying URL to resolve. Facebook still sees (and charges for) the click, but the advertiser’s server never registers a page view. That’s what bugs advertisers the most. In our original post we quoted one advertiser who at least wanted to see the traffic from the spam bots: “If I were at least getting bot traffic or something that would be one thing, but right now Facebook is simply stealing 20% of clicks that I paid for, which adds up to thousands of dollars.” The people we spoke with say they’ve been doing this since last year, and have had almost no account profiles shut down. “Just 2 of my 2,000 accounts were closed” said one source. How Facebook Is Fighting This: We’ve spoken to Facebook a number of times this week to understand how they are fighting click fraud. We also wanted to wait on this story until Facebook felt comfortable that we weren’t going to make the situation worse by mapping out how fraud is done. Facebook says the fraud is now under control. One way they monitor fraud is to view conversions off ad clicks - some ads ink to other Facebook pages where surveys and offers are completed, and Facebook can monitor if a click results in a conversion. Conversion rates have stabilized since the changes they made last Sunday, Facebook tells us, meaning fraud has decreased. Facebook has told us a few ways that they are combating the fraud. They’ve asked us not to publish all of those methods because fraudsters may have an easier time bypassing the defenses. But we’ve checked with experts who agree that the protections Facebook has put in place make sense. One thing Facebook is willing to talk about on record is that they are heavily monitoring click rates on ads and flagging accounts that are statistically out of bounds for human review. It doesn’t sound like they intend to close known fraudster accounts down, though. Just keeping an eye on them and reversing any ad clicks may in fact be a smarter way of combating them and gathering more data. I agree. Advertisers who’ve been affected will have credits applied to their accounts automatically, Facebook says. And they can also contact Facebook directly with concerns. Some advertisers are saying click fraud rates haven’t declined this week at all, but others are saying they see a significant decline in fraud over the last few days. We’re working with one group who’ve set up test ads to monitor fraud on Facebook as well. As of tonight they are still seeing discrepancies in the number of clicks Facebook says they sent and what their server logs show. So clearly the problem has not been fixed entirely, and it probably never will be. It’s an arms race, but at least Facebook is admitting to the problem, and actively fighting it. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Apple Nearly Triples Stake In UK Chip Maker Imagination Technologies Top
Apple is nearly tripling its stake in UK-based Imagination Technologies , boosting its interest to 9.5 percent with the purchase of 2.2 million new shares at £1.4275 ($2.35) each - the mid market close price on 25 June - and another 11.52 million shares. In total, Apple is spending £3.14 million (approx. $5.17 million) for the new shares, exactly the same amount it paid last December when it purchased a 3.6 percent stake in the microchip maker. Imagination Technologies is a two-division company: its ‘Technology’ arm is an IP licensing business providing multimedia capabilities for SoC devices (embedded graphics, video and display acceleration, multi-threaded processing, etc.), while its ‘PURE Digital’ division uses proprietary technologies as a differentiator in its consumer products, which include some of the world’s most popular DAB digital radios. Imagination also boasts PURE to be the number one supplier of radios in the UK. Earlier this week, Intel had also increased its stake to 16.02% by buying nearly 5 million shares, a week after snapping up 25 million shares to take its shareholding to 13%. It is believed that the increased stakes of both Apple and Intel are a direct result of the fact that Saudi group Saad was recently forced to cut back its stake in Imagination after its accounts were frozen by the Saudi central bank. Reuters says nearly 10 million shares in Imagination changed hands on Wednesday at 150 pence each, with Saad to be the likely seller. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Who Exactly Is In Charge Of The App Store? Anyone? Top
Okay, the situation surrounding the App Store and its approval process continues to get weirder and weirder. As you may have heard, an application featuring nudity first appeared in the App Store yesterday. Today, that app was removed , which everyone presumed was a move by Apple. But the developers said that the removal was its own doing because its servers were getting slammed with picture requests. Then more applications claiming to have nude photos started appearing. And now Apple is apparently saying none of these apps will be allowed in the App Store. But that seems to contradict its own rating system that now clearly allows for nudity. This makes no sense. To the point where I’m not sure there is anyone actually in charge of all of this for Apple. Instead, I’m starting to think this whole system is run by a group of people, all with different thoughts on the approach Apple should take with apps. And none of whom seem to communicate with each other very well. Here is Apple’s statement to CNN earlier today: Apple will not distribute applications that contain inappropriate content, such as pornography. The developer of this application added inappropriate content directly from their server after the application had been approved and distributed, and after the developer had subsequently been asked to remove some offensive content. This was a direct violation of the terms of the iPhone Developer Program. The application is no longer available on the App Store. But the app was clearly labeled on its App Store page with a 17+ rating that said the app contained “Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity.” Those are not the developer’s words, those are Apple’s words. And a few developers have now told me that there is an area in the app submission process to designate if your app contains nudity — hence the need for a 17+ nudity label, which again, Apple offers. So why pull this app? The reasoning seems to be that the developer wasn't honest upfront that the app would contain nudity. But then why would it have the nudity warning attached to it? Is it possible that Apple approved some of the nudity but then the developer was trying to push something like hardcore pornography into the app? Maybe, but I haven't heard any reports of that — just that it featured pictures of topless women. And from its statement, it would seem that Apple doesn’t want any nudity, period. And if that’s true then why are there other apps out there claiming to also have nude photographs in them, that are getting approved as well? Some are even touting it in the title of their apps. Yet Apple isn’t rejecting them. So, either we have a situation where for some reason Apple has app warning labels that it never intends to use, and has app screeners that are once again doing a sloppy job watching submissions. Or, there are no clear-cut rules for what should be allowed when it comes to this in the App Store. I’m definitely thinking it’s the latter, given what we’re seeing. It’d be one thing if Apple didn’t have a rating that accounts for sexual content, but it does. So clearly it expects some apps to have “”Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity” in the store. But according to its statement, it won’t allow for them. And further, Apple allows for plenty of movies that contain all kinds of nudity to be in iTunes. You can even now download those directly to your iPhone. Why are those okay, but apps of that nature are not? I’m repeating myself, but it makes no sense. The App Store approval process has basically been a joke for much of the past year. I was hopeful it would get better now that parental controls are a part of the iPhone 3.0 software. Apparently, I was wrong — it looks like it’s getting worse. We’ve reached out to Apple for further clarification on this. I’ll update if we hear back. [photo: flickr/ arbo ] [thanks Chris] CrunchBase Information Apple iPhone App Store Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
It's Kill Feature Time Again At Twitter To Stay Afloat Top
Twitter has a history of killing off features in order to stay up. And it looks like it had to do that again today , in the wake the avalanche of tweets that are flowing in following Michael Jackson’s death . Gone are Search and Trending Topics from logged-in Twitter account main pages. It’s probably not that tweets that are so bad for Twitter right now, it’s the searching for tweets to get information about not just Michael Jackson’s passing, but also Farah Fawcett’s and Ed McMahon’s. Plus there’s a whole trend of celebrity deaths being erroneously reported that probably isn’t helping Twitter too much either. Twitter says the features are “temporarily disabled,” but then links to a blog post on a site that is also apparently down. For anyone who has seen the new Pixar movie, Up , this reminds me of the scene where they have to throw stuff out of the house to make it float again. Update : Okay, the post is up now. Here’s what it says: We've had to temporarily disable search results from the logged-in homepage of twitter.com (this includes the saved searches and trends shown in the sidebar). We're working on the underlying problem and will bring back these features as soon as we can. You can still search Twitter and see the latest trends at search.twitter.com. Update 2 : And after about 4 hours away, the features are back. The fact that it’s now 2:30 AM on the east coast of the U.S. probably helped relieve some of the load. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Qik Brings Live Video To The iPhone 3GS. But You Still Won't Find It In The App Store. Top
Today, we got the latest version of the live-streaming app Qik , a version that will work on the iPhone 3GS. No, we didn’t get it through the App Store, because Apple or AT&T or both still won’t allow for applications that stream live video from the device to be accepted into the store. So instead, just like before, we have to settle for the ad-hoc version, which is fine, but severely dampens the application’s potential reach. So how does the iPhone 3GS version of Qik compare to the one that worked on the iPhone 3G? Overall, video quality-wise, I would say the iPhone 3GS version of Qik and the iPhone 3G version look about the same. This is despite the 3GS having a nicer camera (3.2 megapixels versus 2). And even though the iPhone 3G didn’t have video camera capabilities, Qik was able to build its own encoders to use the regular camera for video capture. The iPhone 3GS of course, can do video, and it has APIs that give developers access to it. But it would seem that Qik is still limiting the quality of the video that gets streamed, to ensure better live performance. But where the new version of Qik shines is when you get in close to something. That’s because it uses the new camera’s auto-focus feature to maintain quality up close (check out the third video below). This is a very welcome feature. The entire app itself seems to run faster as well, no doubt thanks to the iPhone 3GS being a much faster device than the iPhone 3G was. And it can do a few other neat tricks, such as shut the camera down when Qik is open but you haven’t been streaming anything for a while (you simply tap the screen to activate it again). Another curious option appears to suggest that you can allow the app to run in the background (when the Qik app is closed). I tried that out, but couldn’t get it to work. Perhaps that feature is coming later to take advantage of the fact that Qik cannot put this app in the App Store, so it doesn’t have to play by the App Store’s rules. The iPhone 3GS does get pretty hot when live streaming, but it did while streaming from the iPhone 3G as well, in my experience. The bottom line is that Apple/AT&T need to allow these live-streaming apps in the store eventually. Video is the killer feature of the iPhone 3GS and live video is a key part of the market. Though I don’t think you’ll hear too many people complaining for the time being because uploads to YouTube, and using the new Kyte app are so fast (and better quality), but eventually, live video streaming from the device will be demanded. Qik also recently released a version of its app that will work on the older iPhone 3G with the new 3.0 software that is jailbroken. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Foursquare Push Notifications, For The Ultimate In Friend Stalking Top
Foursquare , the location-based social networking service, is about to activate Push Notifications in the new version of its iPhone app, due shortly. I’ve been beta testing it out for the past week, and I’m happy to report that it works brilliantly. But be warned: Some of you will not like this idea. Applications using Push have been rolling out over the past week. None so far have been bigger than the IM clients like AIM and Beejive, as instant messaging is an obvious use of Push messages. But location can work quite well too, as Foursquare is proving, but only for a certain kind of location app. Foursquare is all about explicitly “checking-in” places . That is to say, when you go somewhere, you have to boot up the app, load the site or send a text to let it know you want to check-in there. It doesn’t do it automatically, even if you have the app open. Because of this, Push Notifications make sense, since they ping your followers when you check-in somewhere. And you really shouldn’t have to worry about privacy because you are the one checking in to a place, on purpose, to let the people you know — that you personally allowed to let follow you — see where you are. Of course, regardless of that, there will be people who don’t like this concept. Some have been too liberal with who they allow to follow them. Others won’t like the idea of someone getting pinged every time they check in somewhere. I imagine it will be kind of like how some users at first didn’t like the Facebook News Feed because it made the information updates from your profile more obvious — even though all that information was already there for people to see. Others won’t like the concept of their own phone getting pinged every time a friend checks in somewhere. But, of course, you can always turn the Push Notifications off. Right now, the service is wrestling with the idea of having them set to “on” as the default when you download the new version, co-founder Dennis Crowley tells us. While that may sound like a bad idea to power users of the service who may follow dozens of people, Crowley notes that most users follow far fewer than that. And so if the average user only follows say, 10 people, the Push Notifications should be a welcome way to follow that number of people. And you can toggle notifications on a per-user basis. Though in this version of the app (1.3), it’s somewhat of a pain to do because you have to click on a user’s profile, then click on the “Pings” tab, then flip the switch on “Checkin Messages.” In the future, Crowley hopes there will be an area of the app that contains a list of all your friends and you can easily go through that to toggle them on or off. Right now, you can do that on the Foursquare website on this page . And it’s easy to turn all these notifications on or off. In the upper right side of the app there is a “Ping: On/Off” area. Clicking on that takes you to a Pings page that gives you a few options. One is to turn checkin messages off until the following morning (great for if you’re going to bed). Another allows you to turn them off until you turn them back on in the same menu. Again, I understand that a lot of people won’t like this idea of being able to “stalk” your friends’ whereabout. But this is where social networking is heading. Just imagine being hungry around lunchtime or being in the mood for a happy hour drink, and getting pinged with a message showing you that a friend is doing one of those activities. These types of apps actually put the “social” — as in, real life social — in “social networking.” Foursquare 1.3 with Push Notifications should be available soon in the App Store for free. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Study Suggests People Prefer Bing's Design To Google's, But Still Won't Switch Top
Brand loyalty is a powerful thing, especially when it comes to technology. Consider the battle brewing now between Google and Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing . Even if Bing proves to be just as good as Google, it might not matter because of the strength of Google’s brand. An independent usability and consumer preference study, which we’ve obtained and embedded below, suggests as much. It was conducted by the Catalyst Group , a usability research and design firm located in New York City. The study was an intense focus group in which 12 subjects were monitored with eye-tracking cameras as they conducted searches. Afterward, they were interviewed and completed a survey. Prior to the test, all the subjects used Google as their main search engine. Following the test, 4 out of the 12, or one third, said that overall they preferred Bing. The other 8 said that they preferred Google because they were already familiar with it, used other Google products, or that Bing’s improvements are simply not enough to make them switch. What is amazing is that when the test subjects were asked to rate Bing on specific criteria (visual design, organization of features, filtering options, and relevance of results), Bing handily beat Google in everything but result relevance. Arguably, that is the most important criteria, but most of the study participants thought that both search engines tied on result relevance. So even though Bing ranked better on design, and tied on relevance, that was not enough for most of them to switch. Catalyst CEO Nick Gould concludes that Microsoft “created something as good as Google and that is not good enough.” Overall, the test subjects “were not swayed.” No wonder Microsoft is spending up to $100 million on Bing marketing. Remember, this is only a dozen people so it is not a statistically valid sample. Consider the survey results anecdotal. What is more conclusive are the eye-tracking results. About half of the participants found and used the Explore Pane on the left side of Bing’s home page and results pages to aid in refinement and navigation, while all of them ignored the navigation/refinement links along the top left of Google (Web, video, Images, Maps, News). Also because the Explore Pane on Bing takes up the left hand column and then stops, creating white space underneath, people naturally stop there. Heat maps generated by the eye-tracking data showed that people scroll much farther down Google’s search results pages, perhaps because there is no visual cue telling them to stop or they were not finding what they were looking for. It is not clear they got better results with Bing, but if the result they wanted was not above the fold, then they might use the Explore pane to refine their search. The way results were displayed also had an effect on how long people looked at the ads along the top. The amount of time spent on the ads varied by search, depending on what kind of additional navigation information was presented just below the sponsored results. For instance, a search on Bing for “digital camera” concentrates attention there with navigational links to filter results by top brands, prices and guides. Participants spent 150 percent more time looking at the ads just above that activity zone than on Google. A search for a local hotel, however, produces similar results on both search engines in that area just below the top ads (a map with local listings). So there was not much difference between the two in the how much time was spent looking at the top ads related to that search. In all cases, the ads on the right were only noticed about half the time. Catalyst Group Bing V. Google Usability Study - Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Shocker: We Still Suck When It Comes to High-Tech Education Top
Ever since I've been in Silicon Valley, I’ve heard mass anxiety about the state of higher education, particularly when it comes to training the next generation of tech thinkers, innovators and worker bees. But for all those speeches and pledges to change things, the situation only seems to be getting worse. According to a new study released today by the Bay Area Council, the Campaign for College Opportunity and IHELP, some 40,000 new jobs are created every year in California that need people with degrees in science, technology, math or engineering. To meet that need the state would have to see a 90% upswing in these types of degrees.  The study hints at a “devastating” impact the current shortfall of techy grads could have on the state's $1.7 trillion economy if more people don't go into these fields. Of course, these groups recommend all sorts of investments in the University of California and other state education systems, but here's a quicker, cheaper solution no one wants to admit outside the board rooms of Silicon Valley: Remove H-1B Visa caps. The new study argues that international workers won’t be enough given the hightech explosion of jobs around the world. Ok, so let it fill some of them. Education is like the mess masquerading as the American healthcare system—there's simply no quick fix. After all, the study doesn't talk about a shortage in people going to college, just going into these fields. Is more money really going to change what people want to study? We need high tech workers: The India Institutes of Technology are graduating nearly 4,000 engineers per year who presumably would like jobs. And if they come here, they help build tech companies and we get tax revenue. How is that not a win-win? Below is an interview I did with LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman about the topic a few months ago. He boldly argues that instead of restricting H1Bs, the government should just levy a payroll tax on them. That way there’s no argument that it’s a “cheaper” option for employers– it’s a pricey last resort, but one most tech CEOs would still jump at. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
The Web Collapses Under The Weight Of Michael Jackson's Death Top
In terms of well-known celebrities, few are bigger than Michael Jackson. Love him or hate him, pretty much everyone on the planet knows him. And that caused big problems for a lot of huge websites today with the news of his passing. It was probably to be expected that Twitter would struggle as reportedly hundreds of thousands of tweets came in about Jackson in a very short amount of time. While I only got a couple actual Fail Whales, the site was really sucking wind for much of the hour that people were trying to get information about him. But Twitter was hardly the only site that was struggling. Various reports had the AOL-owned TMZ, which broke the story , being down at multiple points throughout the ordeal. As a result, Perez Hilton’s hugely popular blog may have failed as people rushed there to try and confirm the news. Then it was the LATimes which had a report saying Jackson was only in a coma rather than dead, so people rushed there, and that site went down. (The LATimes eventually confirmed his passing.) Meanwhile, CNN wasn’t down, but failed for another reason. CNN first said that Jackson was revived (see screenshot at the bottom) before going to the hospital. Update : And just in case you didn’t believe this story is dominating the web right now, 9 of the 10 trending topics on Twitter are MJ-related. The lone exception is Ed McMahon, who also passed away two days ago. Meanwhile, Twitter search seems to be running about 20 minutes behind. Update 2 : And here’s a tweet in kind of poor taste from Google Maps API team: “Sad about MJ & FF? Cheer up by watching some Geo I/O talks.” Way to promote yourself at the expense of someone’s death, Google. Classy. Update 3 : And Google has apologized. Update 4 : And now Twitter has had to remove features like Search on its main site to stay afloat. Update 5 : Here’s a statement from AOL regarding TMZ during the news: our internal records show that the site didn't experience any interruption due to traffic. It's possible that some people may have had trouble accessing the site due to local network issues, but TMZ was not down. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Vyoom: A Social Network Built From The Ground Up Around Real-Time Top
In the last six months or so, the real-time web has really started to take hold. Services like Facebook, FriendFeed, and YouTube are finding ways to update their services on the fly with impressive results. But aside from Twitter, there haven’t been many sites built from the ground up with real-time in mind. Until now. Today sees the launch of Vyoom , which may well be the first robust social network to launch with real-time at its core. The site behaves (and looks) like a mix between Twitter and Facebook. You’ll be spending most of your time in the ‘Social Stream’, which is a constantly updated list of the latest status updates posted by both your friends and other members of the site. The Social Stream is broken down into two sections: the public stream, which shows every update posted to the site by anyone, and the private stream, which shows updates posted by your friends. All updates are displayed immediately after they’re sent — you never have to refresh the site or click a ’show new updates’ button. And if things are flowing by too quickly you can always hit pause. This can add up to a lot of content, so Vyoom lets you filter and search through each stream, which is where the site’s real power may come from. The public stream allows you to restrict updates to a certain network (for example, I could display only updates that came from San Francisco) while the private stream lets you search for updates by a certain friend. Finally, there’s a stream-wide search similar to Twitter Search which allows you to find any updates with a certain keyword. If the site manages to achieve a large number of users (which is obviously easier said than done), then this search functionality could prove more flexible than Twitter’s. Outside of the main stream, the site has most of the features you’d expect from a social network. You can build a profile displaying your photos and interests (along with a Facebookesque Wall), and there’s an integrated Mail system. The site includes a nifty feature called RPilot that’s effectively a miniature version of the Social Stream described above. The RPilot (pictured below) allows you to navigate through the site without ever having to take your eye away from the constantly updated stream. Another way that Vyoom differentiates itself from Facebook is its point system and Rewards store. Facebook has been toying around with points and a payment system for a while now, but aside from a few Platform apps in testing the only thing you can use them for are virtual gifts. Vyoom is taking a different approach. The site rewards users for executing various actions on the site, like inviting friends to join, sending messages, and so on. After accumulating many of these points, you can exchange them for gadgets like cameras and PS3s, though these go for millions of points (you start with around 70,000, and get 5,000 for every friend you invite who winds up joining the site — so start inviting). Vyoom is quite well done and I like the fact that real-time was kept in mind during the site’s formation, rather than as a tacked on feature. But the social network space has become very difficult to carve a niche in — everyone seems to already have a Facebook (or decreasingly so, MySpace) profile, and getting them to maintain yet another site is going to be tough. The site’s Rewards features may be enough to entice some users, but it may also be a double-edged sword: if Vyoom makes it too easy to win expensive gadgets, they’ll quickly run out of money; make it too hard, and users will scoff at the points system entirely. Still, rewards system aside, Vyoom does a good job walking the line between Twitter and Facebook, which may be enough for many users to give it a shot. Vyoom: Where Social Activity is Rewarded! from Mark Takenaka on Vimeo . Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 

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