Sunday, June 28, 2009

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Need More Michael Jackson? Love "Billie Jean"? This Site Is Awesome. Top
The web is still inundated with Michael Jackson news , but just in case you haven’t had your fill, I highly recommend the site Billie Tweets . The concept is simple: Take Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” and pull in tweets that sync words to the music. The site was made by 9Astronauts , the development house that also made the Blame Drew’s Cancer site a few weeks back. Another solid creation by them. Considering that Jackson’s music is utterly dominating all of the online sales charts right now, this site is also a smart play to pull in some affiliate fees for sales from Amazon. You’ll notice the links at the bottom of the site. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
The $99 iPhone Is James Bond. The Other $99 Phones Are Joe Schmoe. Top
While it’s not being talked about too much, the $99 iPhone 3G is a very interesting play by Apple. It takes what was previously a just out-of-reach device for many, and puts it at a magical price-point. Sure, it still won’t sell everyone, like the people who only care about getting the phone that their carrier is offering for free, or those looking for the cheapest possible monthly plans. But just look at the iPhone compared to the other $99 phones out there. That’s what we did. And originally we set out to compare the various specs. But looking them over, it’s really a joke. And you can basically see all you need to see simply by looking at the devices being offering by the major carriers in the U.S. at this price point. Of course, there are legitimate iPhone competitors out there, namely the Palm Pre and the soon-to-be-released T-Mobile myTouch 3G . But the Pre sells for $199 (or $299 before rebate) and the myTouch will also cost you $199. That’s iPhone 3GS territory now. This $99 range is a whole different ball game. When I looked at the $99 phones, I started to think of a high school reunion. Some show up as successful business people, some as boring cookie-cutter suburbanites, some as fat, overweight slobs. And that’s fine. But then there’s that one person who shows up and makes everyone else look worse. Everyone there has something in common (in this case, the high school), but you wouldn’t know it just by looking at this one James Bond-type in the full tuxedo while everyone else is wearing rags. In my opinion, that’s kind of like the $99 iPhone 3G compared to the other $99 phones out there. Let’s take a look. AT&T’s $99 Offerings: James Bond. The successful business guy. Kind of pudgy, pretty boring. The less successful but skinnier business guy. A pencilneck. The guy who thinks he’s James Bond, but bought his tux at the thrift store — and it’s blue. The guy wearing his clothes from when you were still in high school. That odd foreign exchange student that no one still wants to talk to even though he’s popular in Europe. Some crazy-looking dude. A total square. That guy who just got out of rehab. T-Mobile’s $99 Offerings: The girl was popular in high school but now is just kind of ugly, and oddly shaped. Another business guy. Bland. Has his family on his “Fave 5″ though. The short, fat guy with the shiny large head. Verizon’s $99 Offerings: Spunky, ditzy, short girl. No one took her seriously then, no one takes her seriously now. The dude who’s really into guns. The guy who’s trying too hard. Again, nice suit — in 1999. Wanna-be hipster. The short sidekick of the wanna-be hipster. Oh God. Don’t talk to this one. Sprint’s $99 Offerings: The ugly duckling. The homeless guy. Hasn’t bathed in months. Had a bunch of kids at 19. Now divorced and wears bold colors to stand out — which doesn’t work. Business guy with a big chin and a square head. The girl with the Coke-bottle thick glasses. The former high school star quarterback. Still loves sports, but is between crappy jobs. [Thanks Cameron] CrunchBase Information iPhone 3G AT&T Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
FriendFeed, Syphilis And The Perfection Of Online Mobs Top
People have always been inclined to join mobs - most people have at least one story to tell about a time that they got swept up in or had to face a crowd demanding justice for one thing or another (both of my experiences were in college). The Internet has proven to be a frighteningly efficient tool to create virtual mobs. But we note two trends that suggest a bleak future: the increase in non-anonymous mob participation and the evolution of online services towards ever more efficient and real time communication platforms that facilitate mob creation and growth like never before. Things are changing online way too fast for society and culture to adapt. Something will eventually break. I’m going to pick on FriendFeed in this post because I believe it is the nearest thing to Shangri-La for mob justice enthusiasts. I explain why below. But first I want to compare FriendFeed to Syphilis, which may have been the “perfect” disease when it first hit Europe in the 15th century. Today Syphilis takes years to kill its victims and is easily treated with antibiotics. But back in the early 1500’s it led to certain death within months. Consider the surprising evolution of syphilis. Today, our two immediate associations to syphilis are genital sores and a very slowly developing disease, leading to the death of many untreated victims only after many years. However, when syphilis was first definitely recorded in Europe in 1495, its pustules often covered the body from the head to the knees, cause flesh to fall off people’s faces, and led to the death within a few months. By 1546, syphilis had evolved into a the disease with the symptoms so well known to us today. Apparently just as myxomatosis. those syphilis spirochetes that evolved so as to keep their victims alive for longer were thereby able to transmit their spirochete offspring into more victims. (Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond) What changed? Syphilis killed people too quickly. And dead people can’t spread a sexually transmitted disease nearly as well as non-dead people. So the disease evolved to keep its victims alive. FriendFeed today is like Syphilis in 1495. It will be forced to evolve to something less dangerous or it’ll destroy itself. This really shouldn’t be happening because FriendFeed isn’t an anonymous service. Just a couple of years ago experts were saying that the rise of online mobs could be traced to sites that promote mass anonymous content creation. From a 2006 Time Magazine article : Along with all the sites that encourage individual expression, we are seeing a flood of schemes that celebrate collective action by huge numbers of bland, anonymous people. A lot of folks love this stuff. My worry is that we’re playing with fire…There’s the Wikipedia, which has absorbed a lot of the energy that used to go into individual, expressive websites, into one bland, master description of reality. Another example is the automatic mass-content collecting schemes like DIGG. Yet another, which deserves special attention, is the unfortunate design feature in most blog software that practically encourages spontaneous pseudonym creation. That has led to the global flood of anonymous mob-like commentary. But FriendFeed users tend to be easily identifiable as real people. The site’s original purpose was to let users link their blogs, photos, social networking, Twitter and other content streams in one place. The whole idea is that you know exactly who it is that’s posting content there. And suddenly these people are getting comfortable talking hate under their real name. TechCrunch writer MG Siegler wrote about this trend earlier this month on his personal blog . For whatever reason, people are becoming comfortable writing seriously threatening stuff under their real name. That boldness means people are becoming even more comfortable with mob mentality, and more willing to take direct action. Real Time Content Can Easily Become Real Time Mobs In the past for an online mob to get any real traction outside of anonymous chat rooms, lots of people had to write about their outrage on their blogs or other websites. That meant an issue had to be broadly interesting to a lot of people. There are lots of examples of these situations, particularly in Asia . One example : “In another well-known Chinese case, an angry husband who suspected his wife was having an affair with a college student she’d met in an online game asked for help tracking him down. The Associated Press reported that the student, who denied the accusation, was bombarded with harassing and threatening e-mails. This vigilante action might be prompted by understandable moral outrage, but some are concerned that the headline-grabbing witch-hunts have been vastly out of proportion with the original transgressions.” In these examples outrage built over a number of days. Some actual facts were able to spread as well, which usually calmed the mob before real world threats could be carried out by vigilantes. But sites like FriendFeed allow the centralization of a conversation to occur, with real time updates appearing on screen without even the need for a refresh. Things can get out of control instantly. I was on the receiving end of mob justice a few weeks ago when Leo Laporte exploded at me for asking rudely about a conflict of interest. People massed at FriendFeed and called for my head (a lot of the worst comments have now been deleted). What the mob didn’t know is that it was largely a misunderstanding (I thought he was joking and egged him on, he was most definitely not joking). Leo and I quickly resolved the issue (and now it’s all just a joke ). We both apologized and had a subsequent podcast and really talked things through. But most of the mob members had no idea that was happening. And in the meantime a number of death threats were posted in the comments on TechCrunch. Emails came in as well, including one from a non-anonymous account saying “Go TO FUCKING HELL YOU FUCKING TROLL, HOPE YOU FUCKING DIE” These weren’t direct “I’m going to kill you” threats that I’ve gotten before . But they were serious enough that, like last year, I had to cancel a number of speaking engagements and generally worry about personal safety issues again. This is the problem. The mobs get going, and even then most of them wouldn’t even consider physical violence as a real solution to the situation. But enough people are crazy enough that when they get fired up, they want to do something about it. And then, suddenly, I’m in a position of worrying about my personal safety because I asked someone to disclose a conflict of interest about a mobile phone. Seems crazy, right? Some people say it’s not appropriate to pick on FriendFeed. Other services like Twitter, which are much bigger, have similar problems. But the conversations on Twitter aren’t centralized. It’s hard to see it when a mob forms unless it’s something massive like the almost-revolution in Iran . But on FriendFeed all the comments are aggregated on one page, and everyone participating sees it all. It’s much more likely to break out into a mob. And even niche topics, like mobile phones, can lead to death threats. So what can we do to change this? In my opinion, nothing more than doctors could do to fight Syphilis before it changed itself. Things are going to get much worse before they get better. At some point an online mob, maybe one that begins at FriendFeed, is going to break out and seriously hurt someone. Perhaps it will be someone who’s being unfairly accused, like the student in China. And at that point society will demand change. Tools will emerge to temper mobs as they begin to form on mainstream sites. A lot of us, me included, will look back at today as a time of freedom on the Internet. But the system is breaking under it’s own weight. It is not sustainable. Image Credit . Update: A very relevant post that I missed before from blogger and former FriendFeed user Aaron Brazell. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
The Akiduki Pulse Box Posts Your Heart Beat Rate To Twitter, Lets Followers Know You're Alive Top
It surely didn't escape anyone's attention Twitter is on track to becoming a mass phenomenon globally . The service is also growing nicely in Japan where it has been embraced by the geek community in particular ( Japanese is the only alternative language Twitter is available in until today ). And today a small group of those Japanese geeks, members of the so-called Koress Project, have announced the development of the Akiduki Pulse box, a device that automatically posts your heart rate to Twitter [JP]. Video and more info after the break.
 
PollyTrade Lets You Trade Stocks Via Twitter Top
Last month, Lance Walley left his position as co-founder and CEO of Ruby on Rails hosting company Engine Yard , after the VC-funded startup was forced to trim its workforce by 15% last January. With nothing else on his hands immediately, Walley started building a Twitter application on his own dime (about $10,000) that would basically link your Twitter account to a brokerage account and enable you to trade stocks via the micro-sharing service. PollyTrade is the result of his work, and it’s currently available in public beta . What it does is link your Twitter account to your E*Trade account (more brokers will be added in the future based on user feedback), and subsequently enable you to do transactions using tweets that start with @pollytrade and include the respective ticker. For instance, if you’d want to buy 200 shares of Apple, you would tweet ‘@pollytrade buy 200 shares AAPL’ and likewise for selling e.g. 100 shares of General Electric (’@pollytrade sell 200 shares GE). After communicating with E*Trade, which should only take a few seconds, PollyTrade tweets back your order status along with your brokerage order number. In case something went wrong - because of incorrect formatting or a refusal from your broker - you'll receive an error message instead so you know the order didn’t go through. It’s that simple, and the ease of use is what Walley touts as the main selling point: “I always have access to Twitter, even if through SMS, so trading is always just a short text message away.” That’s true, but there are issues: the service’s flaky reliability is one, security is another. Anyone remember the Mikeyy worm attacks earlier this year? To get around that, you’ll still need to log into your E*Trade account to confirm any transactions passed through PollyTrade, so the app is more like an easy way to start transactions than to actually go from A to Z with buying and selling stock. On a sidenote: if you have a public Twitter account, other users can see which stocks you’re buying and selling when they follow both you and @PollyTrade, or when they simply go to your profile. Obviously, don’t use PollyTrade if that’s information you want to keep to yourself until they start supporting trading via direct messages (which is in the works). If you’re all ok with the above and you want to sign up, you can do this here , but note that while in beta the PollyTrade team will decide to let you in only after contacting you. Curious to see if this takes off, when they’ll team up with the StockTwits folks, and what you think of PollyTrade. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
How To Save The Newspapers, Vol. XII: Outlaw Linking Top
Of all the misguided schemes put forth lately to save newspapers ( micropayments! blame Google! ), the one put forth by Judge Richard Posner has to be the most jaw-dropping. He suggests that linking to copyrighted material should be outlawed. No, Posner does not work for the Associated Press (which also has some strange ideas on linking ). He is (normally) considered to be one of the great legal minds of our time. Posner is a United States Court of Appeals judge in Chicago and legal scholar who was once considered a potential Supreme Court nominee. He is someone who should know better. Yet in a blog post last week on the future of newspapers, he concludes there may be only one way to save the industry: Expanding copyright law to bar online access to copyrighted materials without the copyright holder’s consent, or to bar linking to or paraphrasing copyrighted materials without the copyright holder’s consent . . . Let me repeat that. He wants to “bar linking” to newspaper articles or any copyrighted material without the “copyright holder’s consent.” I am sorry Judge Posner, but I don’t need to ask your permission to link to your blog post or to a newspaper article online. That is just the way the Web works. If newspapers don’t like it, they don’t need to be on the Web. Much of what Posner wants to outlaw is public discourse. Why is it okay for people to talk about the day’s news in a bar or barber shop, but not online? People should be able to discuss the day’s news on the Web without fear of violating copyright law. The natural way people discuss things on the Web is by quoting and linking to the source. (Except maybe Posner, he doesn’t seem to link to much of anything in his blog posts). Posner never squares his position with freedom of speech or fair use rights. He doesn’t even mention them. Yet those are precisely the rights which allow me to paraphrase his argument without his permission so that I can disagree with it. Posner is more concerned with the “free rider” problem. You know, all of those “vampires” and “parasites” supposedly sucking the life out of newspapers by quoting from them or linking to their stories. Blogs and other sites just take content from newspapers, Posner asserts, but they share none of the costs of news gathering. Of course, that blanket assertion is simply not true. A growing number of blogs, including TechCrunch, do their own news gathering and send writers to cover events at their own cost. But even if we limit the discussion to cut-and-paste sites, the free rider argument still doesn’t hold much water. You can’t be a free rider if you are giving something back of value. A link on its own is valuable. Where does Judge Posner think all of these newspaper sites get their readers? It is mostly through links, not direct traffic. Removing the links would obliterate the majority of the online readership for many newspapers. Beyond that, extending copyright law to criminalize linking would cripple the entire Web. In all of these debates, newspapers are always placed somehow at the center of the Web, completely ignoring the millions of other sites out there which have nothing to do with news. Yet changes to copyright law to make linking illegal would have much wider, unintended consequences. I can’t believe I even have to explain why this is a bad idea. (Hat tip to Jay Rosen ). Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Aardvark Open For Business Via Facebook Connect Top
Aardvark’s social search service has been allowing beta users to invite friends since March. But if you don’t already know someone on the service, you’ve had to wait in line. That wait ends today, though, at least for Facebook users. You can now create an account via Facebook Connect and start using the service. The service, which we described a couple of months ago , lets users ask questions of their friends and friends of friends like “What’s the best place to go hiking in Marin?” But it only works well, the company says, when your friends are already on the service. That’s why people who weren’t able to get an invitation from a current user had to wait in line until now: Aardvark is a way to get quick, quality answers to questions from your extended social network. You can ask questions via an instant message buddy or email. The questions are then farmed out to your contacts (and their contacts) based on what they say they have knowledge of. If you ask taste related questions about music, books, movies, restaurants, etc., they'll ask people who tend to show similar tastes as you in their profile. The company was founded by Max Ventilla (Google corp dev), Nathan Stoll (Google News) and Damon Horowitz (Perspecta) and has raised $6 million in capital from August Capital, Baseline Ventures and a number of angels. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
9-1-1 Should Never Give Me A Busy Signal Top
This post is a bit different from the technology news that we generally cover here at TechCrunch. But it’s something that I think needs to be said. Last night I got word that my parents had witnessed a tragic accident while driving in Northern California. I won’t get into the details, but suffice to say one person was killed and others were left bleeding, in various states of unconsciousness. Thank God my parents were not hurt in the accident, but they witnessed it first hand, as well as the disturbing aftermath. Immediately after the accident, my parents and other witnesses began trying to dial 9-1-1. Attempt after attempt resulted in a busy signal. This isn’t unusual in the event of an emergency, as multiple dialers often tie up the lines to report the same incident. Except it seems that nobody managed to get through for far too long: emergency personal didn’t arrive for 20 minutes. The first officer to arrive at the scene said it took him two minutes to get there from the time he got the call. Which means that it took approximately 18 minutes for the news to reach him in the first place. During a conversation with my father following the accident, he said one of the most profound things I’ve heard since I arrived in Silicon Valley: “Why is it that I can pull out my cell phone and call France or browse the Internet whenever I want, but I got a busy signal for 9-1-1 for 20 minutes?” I wish I had an answer for him. In the United States, we’re taught from a very young age to call 9-1-1 whenever there’s an emergency. Something bad happens, you call that number, and someone on the other line will be there to help you. Getting a busy signal after dialing 9-1-1 is the closest thing you can have to a mental null set. It doesn’t compute. But it’s apparently happening more often than most people would believe. A recent report in the Sacramento Bee says that more than 26% of all wireless calls to 911 in California are “abandoned” — in other words, more than a quarter of the people calling 911 hang up in frustration before they even get to talk to someone. In a world where we can interact with people across the world at a moment’s notice, I just don’t understand how one of the things we’ve always taken for granted can fail so miserably. Now, I’ll be totally upfront and admit that I know relatively little about the way 911 dispatchers work. I am sure that the incident can be fully explained by a lack of staffing at the CHP center that routed the call, or maybe the fact that the accident occurred near a county line caused some jurisdiction issues. I don’t know what the reason was. But as far as I’m concerned, the discussion shouldn’t get that far. This is the kind of problem that we shouldn’t have allowed to form in the first place. It’s as if we’ve forgotten the fundamental reason why most of us keep cell phones with us at all times: to keep each other safe. At its core, this is more a political issue than a purely technological problem: more money needs to be routed to the right places. But at the same time, there’s no denying that technology plays an important role here — the call routing systems could probably be made more efficient. Calling filters could be improved. Perhaps the system could detect when multiple phones were calling from the same area and inform callers that an accident had already been reported. Whatever the answer, things need to change. And given how upset we get over homepage redesigns and SMS fees, why not exhibit a bit of outrage when technology fails us in a matter of life or death? As one final note, I hope this doesn’t come across as an attack on the men and women who staff emergency call centers, or the law enforcement officers and paramedics who respond to the scene. I have the utmost respect for everything they do. I just wish that the infrastructure supporting them was as up to the task as they are. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Apple App Store vs. Nokia Ovi Store - A Quick And Dirty Comparison Top
When Nokia launched its Ovi Store for mobile applications a month ago , it was clear that - despite its less than stellar launch - it would be a mistake to simply dismiss the Finnish mobile juggernaut’s efforts as meaningless. The company may be struggling to stay relevant on the software and services side, but with a reach like Nokia’s on the handset distribution level I think it goes without saying that a lot of eyes are firmly fixed on Nokia’s initiatives in the field. There was some criticism about the lack of content on the Ovi Store at launch day, particularly because of the fact that a lot of big names were lacking, but I figured I should give it at least a month to see if and how many developers would flock to the platform. Now, I think it’s time to take a look at where they stand after that month, and I thought I’d start by comparing the content offering to that of Apple’s App Store, the central application marketplace for iPhone and iPod Touch devices. This is evidently not really a fair comparison, since Apple’s App Store has been around for almost a year now, while Nokia is still getting started. Still, it’s worth noting that a lot of the big names on the Internet - whether we’re talking about social networks, search companies or game developers - are still missing on the Ovi Store. A quick and dirty comparison (note that my top lists for the App Store may differ from yours depending on your location, mine being Belgium, Europe): Social networks Ten popular apps in the App Store (free and paid mixed together): - Facebook - Skype - TweetDeck - Nimbuzz - fring - LinkedIn - Truphone - AIM - Tweetie - BeejiveIM Ten popular apps in the Ovi Store (free and paid mixed together): - Gravity (a Twitter client) - Insy - Friendster - ThumbDive - Hi5 - GyPSii - IM+ For Skype - See-Fi - Twittix (another Twitter client) - Facebook for Nokia News and information Ten popular apps in the App Store (free and paid mixed together): - BBC World News Live - NY Times - AP Mobile - France24 - Thomson Reuters News Pro - CNN - Wall Street Journal - L.A. Times - The Telegraph - USA Today Ten popular apps in the Ovi Store (free and paid mixed together): - Daily Star - Daily Express UK - France24 - AP News - Reuters - The Straits Times (daily newspaper, popular in Singapore) - The Star (Malaysian newspaper) - The Guardian - CNBC - Breaking News Music Ten popular apps in the App Store (free and paid mixed together): - Sirius XM - Pandora Radio - Shazam - Y! Music - imeem Mobile - PocketGuitar - AOL Radio - Last.fm - KCRW Radio - Ocarina Ten popular apps in the Ovi Store (free and paid mixed together): - Mundu Radio - NME - MusAic - Midomi - Nokia Internet Radio - Tunerific - Bandfan - MixPack - Mozart Killer - MyRMX I could go on with a number of other categories, but I think you’ll agree the trend is clear: Nokia so far hasn’t attracted many familiar names on the Internet to develop and/or submit applications to the Ovi Store. If the company wants to catch up and make its mobile marketplace a success, that needs to change . Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Confirmed: Glam Media Shares (Some) Details On Twitter Ad Network Plans Top
Yesterday we posted about Glam Media contacting Twitter app developers concerning an upcoming ‘Twitter-powered ad network’ , and requested more information from CEO Samir Arora as the e-mail we were forwarded by one of the developers was rather scarce on details. He came through earlier this morning to confirm the accuracy of the scoop, and also provided a statement from his team in order to shed more light on the imminent initiative. As we suggested, the new solution is tied to GlamApps , the company’s application platform . Arora tells us: With the launch of Tinker.com to help monetize “real-time” trends and events, Advertisers have been asking Glam to reach real-time stream users across multiple applications. Unlike Social Network apps that live “inside” MySpace and Facebook, Twitter is revolutionizing the apps business by pioneering an open model- Glam sees this as the first mid and long tail of Social Apps, much like iPhone has done for mobile apps with a pay for apps model. Given internet apps are free, except for a small “pro” apps upgrades, it is vital that we can figure out a monetization quickly. Given the audience and vertical targeting Glam has developed for content publishers and the trust with brand advertisers, Glam can bring the learning to the Twitterverse. Like Portals like Yahoo and AOL offered advertisers content along with social apps like AIM, Twitter Apps Network helps Glam Media offer distributed social apps to brands- taking the next step in building a true distributed media company. Yep, that’s still vague. Hopefully we’ll have a better understanding of what Glam Media is trying to accomplish when they share more details about the project next month. We didn’t really ask, but Arora also shared some statistics about the current reach of the Glam network. He claims Glam Media currently boasts over 1,000 publishers with 6,000 editors/journalists/bloggers reaching 56 million unique users a month in the United States. That’s one big vertical. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
Unique Auction Site Swoopo Expands To Canada, Testing 'Buy It Now' Top
It’s been a while since we last took a look at Swoopo , the “entertainment shopping” site that’s one part auction-house, one part virtual casino. Since launching in late 2008, the site has closed a $10 million funding round led by August Capital, and has grown to over 2 million members. Now, the site has quietly expanded to launch a Canadian portal , and is also beginning to test a ‘buy it now’ function on its German site that allows users to apply the costs of their previous bids towards the purchase of an item. For those that aren’t familiar with Swoopo, here’s how it works: the site uses a unique pricing model that invites you to purchase virtual “bids” for 75 cents, which can then be used to bid on goods ranging from video games to high-end televisions. Whenever you bid on an item, its price increases by fifteen cents and an extra 20 seconds are tacked on to the duration of the auction. Oftentimes items wind up selling substantially below their market value, but this lower price comes with some risk: if you bid on an item, you don’t get that 75 cent bid back when the auction concludes. Even if the item winds up selling below its normal market price, Swoopo can make money from these bids (the site does sometimes lose money on an auction, but relies on the proceeds of other auctions to cover them). It’s definitely a departure from traditional auction sites like eBay, and after navigating through the flashy site it’s easy to see why it might be a bit more fun. Sure, there’s always a chance that you’ll throw away a few dollars on lost bids, which will be enough to put some people off, but you also have the potential to score a TV for a fraction of its typical retail price (of course, dozens or even hundreds of bidders might be competing against you). To help take some of the risk out of bidding, the site is experimenting with a ‘buy it now’ feature (apparently only on its German site for now), which allows you to apply the cost of your bids towards purchasing a product outright for its normal market value. You won’t be able to get the low auction price, but you’re not throwing away the cost of those bids, either, which should be enough to drive even more bidding. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
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. Update : The issue has been resolved according to this tweet sent by an official AT&T Twitter account. Update 2 : You can in fact receive alerts through SMS messages sent to your LaptopConnect device, which will appear in the associated software on the computer. AT&T also says that it often Emails the account on record and sometimes calls the account. 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 be 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.
 

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