Thursday, June 25, 2009

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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. 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 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. 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.
 
Flash Gaming Payments Heat Up: Heyzap Launches Microtransaction Platform Top
Heyzap , the Y Combinator startup that offers an easily-embedded widget containing thousands of Flash games, is launching a major new product today that introduces the company to an entirely new source of revenue. Dubbed HeyZap Payments, the platform offers developers a way to easily integrate a microtransaction system into their games, which could be a boon for both developers and Heyzap alike. Up until now one of the problems plaguing small-time Flash game developers has been monetization. These games are often ripped from the sites from which they originated, so aside from ads that are integrated into the games, developers haven’t had many good ways to generate revenue. Heyzap Payments may help change this: regardless of where a Flash game is embedded, its developer will be compensated for any in-game purchases through the HeyZap platform. Co-Founder Immad Akhund says that the platform is extremely easy for developers to integrate, with a “drop-in” set of code (he says it shoud require about as much effort as integrating Google Analytics would). Once integrated, users will be able to buy a currency called Heyzap coins, which can be used with any game that has implemented the system. Gamers can acquire points either through Offers (surveys, etc.), Credit Cards, Paypal, or via billing to their cell phone. Points and game saves can be tied to both Facebook Connect and Twitter accounts, allowing the platform to keep track of the goods you’ve purchased in various games. Heyzap is offering a 50/50 revenue share for developers, and will also allow publishers to receive a cut for embedding games. It’s also offering a $50 bonus to any developers who sign up as a means to jumpstart the program. Given the addictive nature of many Flash games out there, this is a great idea, and established casual gaming companies like Zynga have proven how lucrative in-game microtransactions can really be. However, there are still a few obstacles Heyzap will have to overcome. The platform may be easy to integrate, but developers will still have to come up with in-game items or bonuses that users would be willing to actually pay for, so the process won’t exactly be painless. That said, many games already have logical places to implement payments (like in-game stores), so this may not prove to be much of a deterrent. If this sounds famililar, it’s probably because Mochi Media is also launching a similar product that allows developers to integrate payments into their Flash games. Akhund ackowledges that for the time being the products are pretty similar, though he says that Heyzap has a streamlined integration procedure (he says Mochi is more involved) and also points out the $50 incentive being offered to developers, which may be enough to get them to choose Heyzap over Mochi. If you’d like to try out the payments for yourself, check out the demo game below. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
National Handshake Day? More Like National Barricade Yourself In Your House And Don't Go Outside Day Top
Yuck! Today , I’m told, is National Handshake Day. It’s also Take Your Dog To Work Day & National Chocolate Pudding Day, apparently . And, err, it’s National Watermelon Seed Spitting Week. But back to the handshaking thing. It’s disgusting and we need to put a stop to this medieval practice . Most people agree with me. Those that don’t are the people that don’t wash their hands after they use the bathroom. You have to decide which side you’re on. I urge people to follow OpenCandy’s lead - no more hand shakes. A good place to start is at board meetings. Update: Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
iPhone Porn App Not Pulled By Apple, Just "Sold Out." Other Porn Apps Available. Top
The drama in iPhone porn world continues. Yesterday, Hottest Girls, the first app with nudity was accepted into the App Store . But early this morning it was made unavailable , and everyone presumed Apple was behind it. But apparently, the app has not been pulled from the App Store by Apple, but rather by the developers because of high demand. The guy team behind the app, Allen the Geek, writes on its site: The Hottest Girls app is temporarily sold out. The server usage is extremely high because of the popularity of this app. Thus, by not distributing the app, we can prevent our servers from crashing. Those who already have the app will still be able to use our app. To answer the question on everyone’s mind: Yes, the topless images will still be there when it is sold again. -ATG dev team So is this BS? Is this just them covering up for Apple pulling it? I don’t think so. While everyone is assuming that Apple pulled the app from the App Store, when it has done that in the past, you often see the entire page disappear. That’s not the case this time, as the page remains intact on the App Store several hours after the app has been made unavailable. And you can actually click to buy, enter you password and get the pop-up warning you that this app is rated 17+. But when it is about to download, a pop-up comes up saying, “The item you tried to buy is no longer available. The availability of the item changed while you were using the store. The same item may be available with a different price or elsewhere on the store.” Allen the Geek’s wording is odd because apps can’t actually “sell out,” but it makes sense that if high demand for the pictures is crashing their servers, they might pull it. But perhaps more importantly, there are other apps still live that claim to have nudity. Here’s one — it even has “Topless” in the title. I just bought it, with no problem. (Though, to be clear, the app apparently doesn’t have its topless pictures ready yet just yet.) And other developers are reporting that there is a “nudity” check box when you submit an app for approval, so it doesn’t make sense for Apple to have that if it’s going to reject these apps. This matters because now that Apple has parental controls for apps built into the iPhone, it would seem that Apple has nullified the reason it needed to reject apps containing things like images of topless women. And removing that restriction would presumably free up app screeners to do their jobs better, something which has been an issue for several months . And so while it may appear that this is Apple being prudes again, I don’t that is actually the case. I’ve contacted the developer about this removal, and will update when I hear back. [thanks Corey] Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
YouTube Mobile Uploads Up 400% Since iPhone 3GS Launch Top
If there was any question about the significance of the iPhone 3GS’s impressive video functionality , here’s your answer: YouTube reports that in the six days since the iPhone 3GS was released last week, the number of mobile uploads has increased by a whopping 400%. For a single phone model to have such a major impact on the site is simply phenomenal. Even without the iPhone, YouTube is seeing major growth across the entire mobile space — the site has seen uploads go up 1700% over the last six months. It’s not hard to guess why. Video-enabled smartphones are becoming increasingly popular, as are high speed data connections. YouTube also attributes part of the growth to a streamlined upload flow (note how easy it is to upload a video from your iPhone to the site), as well as its improved sharing capabilities (you can now syndicate your videos to services like Facebook and Twitter). As the still-nascent iPhone 3GS continues to take off and more people figure out how to use the video sharing functionality, these figures are going to skyrocket. Other phones are increasingly getting in on the action too, like Android phones, which introduce direct-to-YouTube uploads with the 1.5 Cupcake update. The implications for this are huge. Lowering the barrier to uploading a video will probably result in an increase in the silly user-generated content that litters YouTube, but it will also streamline the uploading of more significant videos. As our commenters point out , an increase in mobile uploads could very well spur the ‘iReporter’ movement, as citizens upload video taken at the scene of a newsworthy event as soon as it happens (we need look no further than the protesting and tragedies in Iran for examples). Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
The Twitter Cycle: Curiosity, Abandonment, Addiction. Global Visitors Hit 37 Million. Top
The adoption cycle for Twitter is a bit strange. It goes something like this: Ever-increasing waves of hype, links, and attention bring in the newbies to Twitter.com where they get their first taste of Twitterdom. Some portion of those set up an account out of curiosity or a fear of being left behind. They try sending out a few Tweets, look around, get bored by the initial banality of the service and abandon it for other pursuits. But that is not the end of it. A lot of them come back, either because they keep getting links from friends or keep hearing about it on TV or whatever, and then they slowly start to see the usefulness—a funny Tweet from a friend, a link to breaking news, a way to keep an eye on the general zeitgeist. Twitter is the kind of thing that is easier to experience than it is to explain. But it is an acquired taste and often requires repeated exposure before people get hooked. Once they do get hooked, there is no going back. A good proxy for the level of general curiosity about what is on Twitter is how many people visit its Website. The worldwide numbers are out from comScore. In May, 2009, 37.3 million people visited Twitter.com, which is up 16 percent from April, 2009 . The monthly growth slowed down from the 68 percent in April, but was not as flat as the 3.5 percent growth comScore reported for the U.S. in May. Remember that these are month-over-month growth rates. The annual growth rate for global unique visitors in May, 2009 was 1,334 percent. And none of these numbers include the activity spurred by the Iranian elections in June, which I suspect will add to a pickup in month-over-month growth once again. But let’s dive a little deeper into the data. The 37.2 million visitors include both people who use Twitter.com as their main interface with the service and curious visitors who aren’t necessarily registered users. About half of all active accounts, by some measures , access the service by desktop and mobile clients, and these numbers don’t count those. To some extent, the comScore number is a good measure of the general curiosity in Twitter for any given month. It doesn’t tell us the abandonment rate, but it does give us some peek at engagement. Most people consume Twitter in a passive, sheep-like manner . They read other people’s Tweets more than they produce their own. How do we know people are reading stuff on Twitter? Look at Twitter’s pageviews. They are up 30 percent month-over-month to 900 million pageviews globally in May. So pageviews are up twice as much as unique visitors, which implies that each visitor is looking at twice as many pages as they were the month before. And if you drill down deeper, the average pages per visitor is up to 24 pages per visitor per month, which indicates an almost-daily habit on average. That number is up from 13 pages per visitor per month in January, and 7 pages per visitor per month a year ago. In other words, the addiction is growing. CrunchBase Information Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Google Voice Makes Its Today Show Debut; Invites Start Going Out Today Top
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News , World News , and News about the Economy This morning Google Voice was featured in a segment on the Today Show, during which NBC News correspondent Janet Shamlian outlined her experiences with the service over the last few months (her verdict: she loves it). It’s an interesting piece to watch if only to see how the mass media is trying to describe Google Voice without confusing everyone watching, which can be a difficult task. Shamlian and Matt Lauer briefly address the potential privacy concerns that have been raised over Voice, which would give Google access to your voice conversations and voicemail. Given that many of us have already used Gmail for years, handing over sensitive data to Google isn’t exactly novel, but it’s a valid point nonetheless. That said, the Today Show piece entirely neglects the other real challenges facing Voice at this point: it requires you to start using a new telephone number (unless you wait it out until number portability ) and the numbers shown by your outbound calls can be different from the ones your friends have, which can lead to confusion. There’s also a pretty big goof at the end of the piece: Matt Laurer concludes the segment saying that Google Voice is “available today, nationwide”, which was big news given that Voice has long only been available to previous GrandCentral members. Google Voice Product Manager Craig Walker has confirmed that this was a goof on NBC’s part, but says that invites have begun going out today to those who have previously requested them. Walker says that the team has “a long list to go through so it will take a while to get them all out”, so don’t be surprised if it takes a while before you get yours. Of course, it probably won’t be long before Voice does open up to the masses, as it wouldn’t make sense for Google to show off the product on the Today Show if the public launch is still months away. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
NoPorn: Apple Removes "Hottest Girls" From The App Store Top
The tech blogosphere was abuzz yesterday with the news that Apple seemingly started accepting applications that contain nudity into the App Store. Now, it appears someone over at Cupertino as ultimately decided to reject the first such app to get into the store after all. In our tests, we could still locate the app via the iTunes link , but were unable to purchase it and download it to our devices. Other applications with the new rating (”Rated 17+ for "Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity.”) could still be downloaded without a problem, so it seems Apple just let ‘Hottest Girls’ slip through the cracks - something we suggested as a possibility yesterday as well - and has now fixed it by blocking it specifically. So much for the grand opening of the App Store to all things naked (regardless, go have your say in MobileCrunch’s poll on the subject ). Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
GROU.PS Finds $1 Million For DIY Social Network Platform Top
GROU.PS, a do-it-yourself social network focused on moderated online collaboration, has raised $1 million in an extended Series A round of funding from Golden Horn Ventures. The company previously raised $1.1 million in Series A funding from Golden Horn in 2008. GROU.PS currently has 1 million registered members and 40,000 social networks on the platform. The DIY social network is growing fast; the platform has grown from 200,000 users to 1 million members within a year. GROU.PS's networks are attractive to users because it lets you run all of your group's collaboration tools from one GROU.PS domain using a single login. The system supports wikis, photos, links, blogs, calendars, chat, forums, maps, profiles, and subgroups - each of which is available as a plug-and-play module for your community. These modules also allow users to pull in their data from other third party services (flickr, Digg, blogs, etc). GROU.PS also recently added ActivityRank Pipelines, a point and reward system that lets moderators of a social network measure and rank members' content contributions and then extend moderation privileges to members based on these rankings. And the social network is launching a subscription model that will allow moderators to charge subscription fees to members (GROU.PS gets a 50% cut on any fees charges). But while the social network is growing, it is still having trouble gaining users in the U.S against the leader in the DIY space, Ning, which hit one million social networks recently. GROU.PS' is mostly popular in Japan and Brazil. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Glubble Scores $1 Million, Simplifies Photo Sharing With Your Family Top
Glubble, social network for families, is launching several new features to improve photo sharing within its social network for families. Formerly a Firefox plug-in that let parents control what websites kids could visit online, Glubble evolved into a social network that resembles a FriendFeed but for families. Glubble has also raised $1 million in Series B funding from European investors, bringing the site’s total funding to $4 million. Glubble lets families set up a private family home page where they can leave messages on the message wall, create online photo albums and organize their familyʼs schedule using the family events feature to post appointment, birthdays, holidays and reminders. Glubble has always let users post photos to their families’ site, but the network has launched a useful tool called the “Family Timeline,” which provides visual navigation of family photos, events and messages through a timeline. Glubble has also created a new Toolbar interface (a Firefox plug-in) which provides families real- time message and events updates from the Family Page. Currently, Glubble has 300,000 “family pages,” on it’s site and is still small. Glubble plans to make money from a freemium model, which will let families pay $39.95 for more storage space for photos. Glubble’s interface and photo sharing features are easy to use but there are a plethora of social networks for families and it may be tough to differentiate itself in such a crowded space. Competitors include Cozi, Geni, and MyFamily.com. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
New Yahoo Homepage Spotted In The Wild Top
With all the chatter about Yahoo’s impending roll-out of a completely overhauled brand - see Techmeme for more - this particular tip that landed in our inbox last night definitely caught our attention. TechCrunch reader Bradley Scott Shoemaker checks in with us to tell us this new Yahoo homepage turned up when visiting the portal using Google’s Chrome browser. All his other installed browsers still showed the classic Yahoo website , which lead him to believe they’re gradually bucket testing the new redesign for now ( update: some users reported seeing it for over a month already). We think so too: the screenshot shows that this design is very close to the redesign we reported on back in September 2008 (embedded below again). They only tested that one for a select few users in a limited amount of countries too, but it was the last we’d actually heard of it. Update 2: The Business Insider posted a screenshot of a new redesign back in May too, but there are some differences, particularly on the color and navigation level. For the record: comScore pegs Yahoo’s total traffic at over 550 million unique visitors worldwide (May 2009), of which 150 million located in the U.S. alone. So, who else has spotted this revamped Yahoo website? Let us know in comments. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Opera: Mobile Search On The Rise, Google Still King Of The Hill Top
Opera , the Norwegian software company behind mobile browser Opera Mini, has released its latest State of the Mobile Web report, providing some interesting data points for a detailed look at the evolution of Web browsing on mobile phones. Looking at global trends, Opera Mini’s nearly 25.4 million users (as measured in May 2009, up 8.4% from the month before and up 36% compared to May 2008) have viewed over 9.6 billion pages. Since April, page-views have gone up 11.0% and increased an amazing 227% since May 2008. Opera says Mini users generated nearly 160 million MB of data for operators worldwide in May 2009, and claims that that would be 1.5 PB worth of data if the company didn’t compress this data up to 90%. As for mobile search, a number of interesting trends are notable. Apart from dominance of local players in some parts of the world (e.g. Biadu in China and Yandex in Russia), Google mostly leads the pack in mobile search across the globe. Opera Mini users in India and Nigeria are the biggest users of search portals. In India, 16.3% of page-views are from search portals, and users viewed an average of 63.7 search-portal pages per month. In Nigeria, 26.6% of page-views are from search portals, and users viewed an average of 49.6 search portal pages per month. Taking a closer look at Southeast Asia, the company mentions the following key trends: the top 9 countries using Opera Mini in the region (Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Brunei, Singapore, Cambodia and Laos) see continued growth. From May 2008 to May 2009, overall page-views in those countries increased 459%, while the number of unique users went up 119% during the same period. In this region, Google is the undisputed number one mobile search engine, followed by Yahoo. Also noteworthy: Facebook is on its way to challenge the leader in mobile social networking in Southeast Asia (that would be Friendster). Full report and press release can be found here . CrunchBase Information Opera Software Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
There May Be 50,000 Apps For The iPhone, But Only A Select Few Become Popular Top
AdMob has released its metrics report for May 2009 ( PDF download link ), and looked closely at the actual distribution of users of the iPhone apps in their network this time. The main take-away? There may be tens of thousands of applications available for the iPhone, but a whole lot of them simply never actually make it onto the device. Out of 2,309 tracked applications (representing 15.1 million unique iPhone and iPod Touch users), no less than 54% are actively used by south of 1,000 persons. That’s a very long tail there, and not an economically interesting one at that. Only about 20% of the tracked apps have more than 10,000 active users, and only 5% (or 116 apps) boasts more than 100,000 active users. For the record, an active user is considered to be someone who used the app at least once in May. Two caveats: the AdMob network evidently doesn’t cover all applications available for the platform in its entirety, and the large majority of those it tracks are free of charge. That means two things: there’s no indication that these findings can correctly be extrapolated to the entire iPhone app universe, and it’s likely the curve is less steep with paid applications (usually, you’d be more actively engaged with an app you paid for than a free app you downloaded just for testing). The report also correctly points out the App Store ranking system feeds the success of top applications, particularly when they are featured on the Apple website in combination with getting rave reviews. CrunchBase Information AdMob Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Movable Type Experts Team Up On Melody, An Open Source Publishing Platform Top
A group of Movable Type specialists - some of them former Six Apart employees - wanted to speed up the development of the open source version of the popular publishing platform and decided to group together in a quest to build an independent, community-driven CMS for bloggers and other publishers. The platform is dubbed Melody and will be managed by a non-profit named The Open Melody Software Group , which has Anil Dash (Six Apart’s outspoken VP and Chief Evangelist) on its board. From what we can gather reading about the project on the website, its founders are passionate about Movable Type but see more value in forking it, community-style, “to see it flourish as a platform”. According to the FAQ section, the team is working together with Six Apart to some degree - which isn’t surprising considering Dash’ presence on the board - and strives for as much compatibility with Movable Type’s core APIs as possible. However, you can also read that the team is inspired by successful open source initiatives such as WordPress (a Six Apart rival), Apache, Linux and Firefox. “While at its onset Melody will have a great deal in common with Movable Type from a feature perspective, we believe that by listening to and empowering our community we will unlock the true potential of open source and begin to advance the platform at a more rapid pace. To that end we intend on decoupling features that add complexity to the product, yet only a minority of users use, e.g. TrackBack and Postgres support, and increasing the level of investment in those areas that will help people become more efficient and successful in designing and building web sites using Melody, like theme building and distribution.” As for the product, it’s not ready yet, even for beta testing. The first release (Melody 1.0) is scheduled for ‘Fall 2009′, but if you’re a developer and you can’t hold your horses than you should check out the latest development snapshot from Melody’s source code repository on Github . Behind Melody: Tim Appnel , Jesse Gardner , Dan Wolfgang , Mark Stosberg , Jay Allen , Su , Arvind Satyanarayn and Byrne Reese . Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Mochi Media Launching Payments Platform For Flash Games. Early Results Are Stunning Top
Mochi Media continues to quietly build out monetization and reporting tools for Flash game developers. In May we reported on the big growth in their ad network - over 100 million people a month now play games that include their ads. You can find their games on big sites like Hi5, RockYou and Meebo. We’ve heard that games that include Mochi Media stats or advertising products are played over 1.5 billion times a month. These games are embedded on publisher sites and are very often “borrowed” by other sites who just lift the Flash files. So it’s important that the game files generate revenue directly. Ads served by the publisher around the game aren’t reliable. Mochi Media puts the ads directly into the games, so even if they are ripped off, the ads still show and create revenue. The problem is these ads don’t make a whole lot of money - the industry average is around $0.50 per 1,000 game plays. To fuel revenue growth to developers (and therefore Mochi Media), the company has launched a payments platform called MochiCoins with a handful of game developers. MochiCoins lets developers charge for game upgrades - users can pay for coins via credit card, PayPal or SuperRewards, and the coins that then be used to purchase upgrades in games. The early results, we’ve heard from someone close to a game developer on the platform, are stunning. Ninjakiwi’s SAS: Zombie Assault 2 is killing it. The game has normal Mochi Ads, but users can also purchase better weapons and other stuff to kill zombies faster and better. It’s addictive. I spent over an hour “testing” the game earlier this evening and spent $5 in upgrades in an astonishingly short period of time. Try it - you can log in via Facebook Connect and be spending money like a drunken venture capitalist in no time. In early testing, says our source, users are buying stuff and lots of it. The average revenue has increased dramatically to $6.50 per thousand game plays. Users are paying for upgrades and subscriptions on the iPhone, Facebook and other platforms already and proving that good apps and games can generate a lot of easy money. But what Mochi is doing is completely decentralized. The game I embedded on that page, without the developers permission, is making money for that developer and for Mochi Media. In other words, go ahead and steal these games. They’d love nothing more. Mochi Media has raised $14 million over two venture capital financing rounds. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
AudioMicro Partners With SlideRocket, Revamps Music Licensing Platform Top
Stock music and sounds effects marketplace AudioMicro has overhauled its web service to make it easier for users to discover and license stock audio material. In addition, the startup is announcing a partnership with online presentation software maker SlideRocket, which basically means its library of stock music and royalty-free sound effects will now be included in the SlideRocket marketplace . The revamp of the site consists of both a cleaner design and more functionality. One of those new features is the addition of promotion codes you can pass to friends, and of course we requested some for you. The first 100 TechCrunch readers to sign up for AudioMicro using the promotion code "TECHCRUNCH2" get access to 2 free audio downloads credits (an $8.99 value). As for the new site: the search process, which was below par before, has been completely redesigned and looks and feels much better now. You can now also take audio files with you on the web, meaning that there’s now an embed code that you can use to embed tracks on your blog, social network account, etc. (example below). AudioMicro also introduced some type of ‘lightbox’ feature that lets you create favorite lists and buy the audio material on there at a later time. Finally, there’s an API available now that allows approved partners to create applications using the AudioMicro library. The SlideRocket partnership is a first result of the new API: utilizing it, SlideRocket users can now license tracks from the AudioMicro archive and incorporate them directly into their SlideRocket presentations. Last month, AudioMicro announced the availability of its second iPhone app, AudioMicro Lite (iTunes link). The app includes over 50 royalty -ree sound effects as well as a "Sneak Attack" feature, which sets the iPhone to play a specified sound effect when the device is moved by an unsuspecting person (lots of fun). For 99 cents, users can upgrade to the full AudioMicro app, which includes over 500 professional sound effects. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
BookFresh Is OpenTable For Everything Else Top
In the online reservation space, you probably know about OpenTable . The restaurant reservation service’s IPO in a time of drought for IPOs, made big headlines . Now imagine OpenTable for just about everything besides restaurants. That’s BookFresh . Who might need such a service? A lot more services and individuals than you may realize. While most services have some sort of scheduling system, many aren’t optimized, and can’t adapt on the fly to openings/changes. Massage therapists, dentists, doctors are all perfect examples of who could use such a system, founder Ryan Donahue tells us. He notes that health and beauty has been a particularly hot area. He knows that because the service has actually been around for a little while, but it was formerly know as HourTown. But BookFresh is a much better name for the service because, “appointments are much like produce items in a grocery store, it’s a perishable thing,” Donahue says. And a name change isn’t all that in-store for users. BookFresh wants to be the main platform for all online appointment booking on the web. As such, they’ve created APIs to let developers of sites take advantage of their tools. But you don’t have to be a developer to implement the service, anyone can do it with a simple line of code added to their site. This is important because a lot of people BookFresh is targeting are one-person or small operations, that probably don’t have a web development team. Donahue likens the idea of BookFresh as an appointment platform to PayPal as a payment platform. (And he should know, he used to work at PayPal — incidentally with Jeffrey Jordan , the CEO of OpenTable .) He notes that just like a lot of sites out there don’t want to go through the hassle of building their own payment system, they also don’t want to have to make an online booking system. Sure, it’s not as complex, but it’s still a hassle — and might as well be impossible for little shops/services. And BookFresh offers some nice things with its platform. One is the ability for businesses that use it to get calls when a customer is requesting an appointment time. From your phone, you can opt to accept or decline the request. That’s perfect for someone like a plumber, who may be always on the go and not able to get to a computer to confirm appointments. And the offers easy integration with Google Calendar and iCal to place appointments in your own personal calendars automatically when you accept them. Alongside the name change, BookFresh is announcing a partnership with Webs.com , one of the largest sites for building free websites out there. A lot of small business owners are already using it, and now they’ll have one click access to install BookFresh if they choose to. In terms of monetization, the service is free for the end user, but businesses/individuals who wish to use it will pay a month fee that starts at $19.95. If larger sites choose to sign-on, there are other deals such as revenue sharing that can take place. In terms of competition, there is Appointment-plus , but their service forces you back to their servers to handle everything. BookFresh’s platform allows users to stay on the page they are already on to set everything up, Donahue says. One service that BookFresh won’t be competing with is OpenTable. They have no interest in getting into the restaurant space, Donahue says. CrunchBase Information BookFresh Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Google Dips Its Toe Into Travel Space With City Tours Top
Google has just debuted the latest entry to its fleet of Labs products, introducing the search giant to the travel space. Dubbed City Tours , the new site can build itineraries for brief trips to locations around the globe in a matter of seconds. At this point details on the new product are fairly sparse — it looks like Google hasn’t written its customary blog post yet, but given how basic the product is it’s pretty easy to figure out how it works. Getting started is incredibly easy — just type in where you’re visiting (say, San Francisco or London), and Google will present a suggested itinerary spanning a three day trip, with around a dozen attractions per day depending on the city. From there you can change the number of days you’ll be staying (Google will show more attractions the longer you stay), and you can also manually adjust the list of places you’d like to visit. You can add a new attraction by entering its name in a text field, and Google will try to find it in its database. All attractions include a star rating, along with its hours operation and location. For the most part adding attractions works pretty well (which is going to be key given that you can’t expect Google to predict everything you’ll want to see). It managed to find the London Eye perfectly, and it even figured out that Platform 9¾ was located at the King’s Cross Rail Station. That said, it isn’t perfect: a search for Hyde Park directed me to a nearby hostel, which I suppose would have gotten me there but probably isn’t the ideal result. Perhaps the coolest part of the new product is the way it uses Google Maps to figure out which locations are closest to each other. Rather than simply present a list of places Google thinks you might want to check out, the site will logically order them according to where they’re located, minimizing the travel time between each. Given its status as a Labs product this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, but there are still a few kinks in City Tours. For one, I am apparently unable to remove events from my suggested itinerary (I’ve tried in both Firefox and Safari with the same issue). Likewise, sometimes when I click on the name of a location nothing happens. And it badly needs support for Google Transit, which can automatically route you across town using public transportiation — my London tour included a 99 minute walk that would have only been a couple minutes away had I ridden on the Tube. In the mean time, there are plenty of other travel sites that offer similar (and in many cases, more robust) functionality than Google’s City Tours, including TC50 finalist GoPlanit , Offbeat Guides , and Zicasso . Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Looking for a Freelance Project Bonanza? Look No Further than DoNanza! Top
Some of you may be growing tired of hearing about companies described as the “Kayak of _____” but if the analogy fits, we might as well abuse it. So without further ado, I give you DoNanza , the Kayak of online freelance project search. With 70,000 projects on offer, there’s a high chance there’s something for you as well so you should consider giving it a whirl if you’re looking to make some extra money on the side in these tough times. The one thing you have to keep in mind about DoNanza is that it keeps clear of offline gigs, so if you’re looking for an office job, DoNanza isn’t for you. It does however have 70,000 projects available right now, with 30,000 new projects added each week, or about 4,000 a day. There are 12 main categories with more than 400 sub-categories. The most active in terms of user-interest are (in the following order): Writing, Web Development, Graphic Design, Virtual Admin. Support, Translation, Marketing, SEO, and Programming. DoNanza currently aggregates its freelance and crowd-source projects from 300 websites, with another 300 sites to be added in the coming months. Amazingly (or maybe not, really), 99% of the projects are indexed via scraping, with only a handful added manually. There are a couple of main features I really like about DoNanza. First, its filtering tools are very clear and effective—nothing innovative, but often common-sense discovery tools are misguidedly cut from a public launch for some reason. On DoNanza, searches can be fine-tuned wit sliders on several levels, from Budget/Reward (Fixed/Hourly/Revenue-Share), to Project Type (Contest/Bidding/Other), to Time Left and Date Posted. The second useful feature is that each project’s details are displayed in an easy to skim form (see screenshot below). Again, not rocket science, but it makes the sometimes cumbersome chore of going through a myriad of search results a breeze. DoNanza is also jumping on the ever-growing Twitter bandwagon by tweeting out new project notifications. Handles include: @dnzSEO for SEO, @dnzWriting for Writing, @dnzPHP for PHP, @dnzDataEntry for Data Entry and more. Demonstrating that it believes in freelancers, the DoNanza team outsourced much of its site development, including the UI, search engine, crawlers, as well as the indexing and data evaluation mechanisms. The company has yet to start making money but is planning on introducing sponsored links and projects in a couple of months. In the meantime, it’s pretty much a traffic and retention game. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 

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