Friday, June 19, 2009

Y! Alert: TechCrunch

Yahoo! Alerts
My Alerts

The latest from TechCrunch


Widgetizing The Web: Widgetbox Hits 500 Million Impressions A Month Top
Widgets were all the rage last year. And the trend seems to be growing. Widgetbox, a widget creation and distribution platform, is reporting 500 impressions worldwide in the past month, according to Quantcast. Widgetbox says that the vast majority of activity exists across hundreds of thousands of publishers who embed the widgets in blogs each month and through partners who integrate Widgetbox’s widget galleries. That being said, Widgetbox is still behind other widget makers in the space, including competitor RockYou, which had 9.5 billion impressions in the past month, according to Quantcast. Clearspring also seems to have more of a reach than Widgetbox, but we don’t have the comparable Quantcast numbers. Clearspring’s widgets had 520 million unique visitors in April of 2009, according to comScore. We also received these comScore numbers of uniques for April 2009 for most of the widget producing platforms: Widgetbox, provides tools for both novice and advanced developers to create a variety of widgets, from simple embeddable RSS feed readers (called "blidgets") to full social network applications for Facebook, Bebo, MySpace and others. Although Facebook represents only 1% of the widget maker’s traffic, Widgetbox says that they are specifically targeting Facebook as a growing priority, recently launching Facebook Connect integration for users and widgets (which can be published in the Facebook feed). Perhaps this is because of Facebook’s steady growth in the U.S. and its popularity abroad. Last fall, Widgetbox launched a blog network. To be part of the network, a blog owner needs to embed one of the 29 channel-specific widgets created by Widgetbox. Each widget displays the same leaderboard content as the Widgetbox homepage, which allows users to browse through a network's top blogs without having to frequently return to the Widgetbox site. The majority of Widgetbox’s impressions come from blogging platforms Blogger and Wordpress, with a fair amount of traffic also coming from Bebo and MySpace. While Widgetbox is seeing success as a startup, it is competing in a crowded space of other more popular widget makers, including Rockyou, Clearspring, and Slide. Get the The TechCrunch Network Widget widget and many other great free widgets at Widgetbox ! Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Devver Promises To Speed Up App Testing For Ruby Frameworks Top
Devver, a TechStars startup , is releasing its developer service to speed up running Ruby testing frameworks. Currently in private beta, Devver runs tests in parallel on their cloud, completing test suites in as little as 1/3 of the time it would take on a developer's machine. Devver says that using their cloud-based system, which splits up processing to multiple machines, it can run full test suites many times faster than in a typical developer environment. In addition, Devver is building features that will reduce setup and configuration time, enable easy scheduling, generate rich reports, and make it simple to share data between local and distributed developers. The product should be particularly useful in encouraging developer best practices -- ie, not skipping a run of the full test suite before deploying a critical bug fix.
 
Charles River Ventures Hires That FuckedCompany Guy Top
Remember Philip Kaplan, better known as “Pud,” the guy who created FuckedCompany at the tail-end of the first Internet bubble? Yeah, him. He just joined Charles River Ventures this week as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence. The EIR position is usually where venture firms park executives they want to work with but who don’t yet have a company. EIRs get to see a lot of deal flow, work with the portfolio companies, and usually end up starting their own companies which the venture firm can invest in. For those of you too young to remember, FuckedCompany was the original deadpool site. Mike once wrote an April Fool’s joke announcing that TechCrunch had acquired the site, which some people still ask us about seriously. But it was always just one of many projects for Kaplan. Kaplan went on to found AdBrite , which is now one of the top 25 ad networks . Kaplan is still chairman of AdBrite, but he’s been tinkering with his own projects for most of this year, including several fun Twitter apps like flirt140 ( Twitter dating ), fast140 (a typing challenge game), Tweetname ( domain name registry via Twitter), AlumTweet (Classmates.com for Twitter), and HitMeLater (a snooze button for email). He says he has about 16 sites or apps that are currently live. So what’s the big idea he will be pursuing for Charles River Ventures? He’s still figuring it out, but he thinks it will have something to do with the intersection of business, social networking, and finance. Whatever it is, you can be sure it will be interesting. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Google Maps Finally Gives Me The Feature I've Wanted From Day 1: What's Here? Top
I don’t know about you, but when I look at an online map and see outlines of buildings, I get a little frustrated. I want to be able to click somewhere, and find out exactly what’s there. And with a new feature in Google Maps , you can do just that. If you right-click somewhere on the map, it will bring up a menu with a bunch of options. The new last option allows you to select “What’s here?” And if Google knows — which it does for a lot of places — it will pop up information about what is actually at the location you’re pointing at. If it knows the name of say, a store that is there, it will give that to you. Otherwise, it will give you the address of where you are pointing. And if you’re zoomed out, it works too. The example Google gives is that if you’re looking at a zoomed out view of the Galapagos Islands, using this feature can get you the name of each individual island. Same with Hawaii, as you can see below. Sure, in some cases you could find out what was at certain points on a map previously by switching to satellite view, or better yet, Street View. But this is much easier. And this technique, which is called “reverse geocoding,” has been a part of the Maps API for a little while now, according to Google. So you can use it on your maps as well. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
CrunchBoard: TPS Reports Annoying The Job Out Of You? Top
If you’re annoyed by TPS reports right now, consider yourself lucky. This week saw the staff reduction of MySpace by 30%, to bring the total number down around 1000 employees. Things dont look good abroad as well. But the situation might be turning a corner. Last week the U.S. Labor Department issued their Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report. While it showed an increase of 608,000 in jobless claims last week, the number of continuing claims dropped to under 6.7 million. Here is our layoff tracker , which is updated regularly. If your on the hunt for a new job, CrunchBoard may be the place to find a new opportunity. Check out a snapshot of the jobs available below: Sr. Java Engineer Cramer Production Business Trust - Norwood, MA Senior Brand Strategist Red Lever Inc- Santa Monica, CA Sr. Front End Developer eHarmony - Pasadena, CA Member of Technical Staff- Systems Kosmix - Mountain View, CA Ad Product Manager Cirius Technologies,Inc. - Sunnyvale, CA For job hunters in Europe, check out our Europe CrunchBoard. Don’t forget we’re looking for a few good hackers here at TechCrunch. Click here to see all the jobs on CrunchBoard. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
I Have A Crush On ManBabies.com Top
I post this because it’s Friday, because it’s freaking hilarious, and because it could be a killer last-minute Father’s Day gift . Go visit ManBabies.com right now. I cannot stop laughing. Babies are cute, and men are usually normal looking — but when you swap their heads, the results are truly terrifying. ManBabies does just that, both by creating its own images and accepting user submissions for photos that are then voted on by the community. And you can easily share all these pictures via the normal means: Twitter, Facebook, email and you can even embed them. And they’ll even take your photographs and do the swap for you, if you’re willing to pay them — $15 per Manbaby photo. If you’re interested in submitting your picture, just like Fight Club, the first rule is the most important one: 1. The picture MUST have both a man and a baby. Man + baby = ManBaby. Get it? Below find a few of my favorites: [thanks Adam ] Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Twicsy Is A Killer And Kind Of Creepy Way To Search Pictures Shared On Twitter Top
I don’t know about you, but when I see a link to a picture shared on Twitter, I almost always click on it. Sharing images in real-time is a particularly interesting use of the service. And now there’s a more interesting way to view these time-sensitive pictures with Twicsy . The service, launched by the social search engine Searchles , features a main page that is filled with image thumbnails. All of them are images shared over Twitter on either TwitPic or yFrog (two of the most popular Twitter picture sites, currently). The default is to show images from the past hour, but you can set different time intervals to change what images are shown. Hovering over any of them shows a larger version of the image, along with some details about it, like its link and tags. If you click on any of these thumbnails, you’re taken to a page that shows the image, shows who has tweeted about it, and images that Twicsy believes are related. These related images are shown based on contextual tags and user analysis, we’re told. Interestingly, Twicsy doesn’t use Twitter’s search API to find these images. Instead, it indexes all tweets with image links and populates them from that. But perhaps the most useful feature of Twicsy is its own search functionality. For anything you query, Twicsy pulls up related images that have been shared on Twitter. You can sort these by time or by relevance. The results are pretty solid. As you might imagine, this service pulls up a lot of slightly personal pics, such as couples being all cutesy together. Since you don’t know any of them, it’s slightly creepy. But hey, if they don’t want those seen, they shouldn’t be sharing them over Twitter in the first place. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
YouTube Plays Nice With The Movie Industry, Puts Trailers In Their Own Channel Top
YouTube has launched a new directory for movie trailers. While YouTube has had movie trailers on its site from distributors in the past, Google’s video-sharing site has launched a new channel where official trailers are organized by “Latest,” “Popular,” “In Theatres,” and “Opening Soon.” Apple’s movie trailer platform has long been the most comprehensive and popular site in distributing online trailers . Hulu also provides a good amount of trailers on its site. Recently, YouTube launched a premium section with movies and TV shows from Crackle/Sony Pictures, CBS, MGM, Lionsgate, Starz, the BBC, Anime Network, Cinetic Rights Management, Current TV, Discovery, Documentary Channel, First Look Studios, IndieFlix, and National Geographic. A spokesman for YouTube told us there isn’t a a lot of content on the new trailers site because its new but this will be the main portal for content partners to upload movie trailers. He added, “Trailers have always been popular on the site, and we got a lot of feedback from users and partners and there should be a place on the site specifically for them.” YouTube also launched a few new search options today today, including the WonderWheel, a search feature Google added in May. to its main search engine. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Android Users Are Stickier Than iPhone Users Top
No, no - that headline wasn’t intended as commentary on the hygiene of Android users (though if a good chunk of the Android devotees I know are any indication, it very well could be. Zing!) Earlier this morning, mobile analytics group Flurry gave us an exclusive sneak peek at their Smart Phone Industry Pulse report for June. Flurry’s June report harvests data from 1,100 applications running across 4 platforms (iPhone OS, BlackBerry, JavaME, and Android) on over 40 million handsets, and sheds a bit of light on the usage habits (stickiness included) of smart phone users over the past few months. Read the rest of this post >> Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
In Its Rush To Offer A Persian Version, Did Facebook Violate Its Terms Of Service? Top
Yesterday evening, Facebook hurriedly launched a Persian (Farsi) version of the site for users in Iran. Following the past week’s events surrounding the Iranian elections and subsequent protests, Facebook felt that there was an immediate need to provide a Farsi version of the social network as an act of solidarity with the citizens of that country. But this recent move may be in violation of Facebook’s own terms of service. Clause 4.3 of Facebook’s terms of service states, “You will not use Facebook if you are located in a country embargoed by the U.S., or are on the U.S. Treasury Department’s list of Specially Designated Nationals.” A spokesman for the Bureau of Industry and Security, a division of the U.S. Department of Commerce, confirmed to us that there are currently five countries that the U.S. has imposed embargoes against: Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Syria, and Sudan. This was also confirmed by the U.S. Department of State . Many of these embargoed countries seem to have Facebook users in their respective countries. We also heard anecdotally from someone who lives in Cuba that Facebook can be used in there as well, although the U.S. has historically implemented strict embargoes against Cuba. Facebook doesn’t specify what exactly it means by “embargoes” (trade embargo or arms embargo, or both) or how strictly this rule is followed. As Facebook’s popularity grows internationally, perhaps the social network should take another look at its terms of service. Other Web companies such as AOL, Microsoft, and Google are reportedly banning users in embargoed countries from using instant messaging and other software. Twitter’s and MySpace’s terms of service make no similar mention to restricting users from embargoed countries. But Facebook may have a way out. It can apply for a a special export license if it can argue that its service promotes “independent activity intended to strengthen civil society,” which is a rule that is used with Cuba, according to Department of Commerce guidelines. We’ve contacted Facebook for a comment. We will update as soon as we hear back. Here’s the excerpt from Facebook’s Terms of Service: UPDATE: Facebook has issued the following response: To be incompliance with US law, we need to prohibit commercial activities from embargoed countries. As events in Iran have demonstrated, we have allowed, and plan to continue to allow, users to set up accounts from those countries and communicate, as long as they are not engaging in commercial activities on the site. This section you are referring to was addressed in our response to user comments on the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. They are very common terms, though they are worded differently by different companies…Our terms have caused some confusion so we may also propose revising this section in the future to be more clear. Photo Credit: Flickr/ Misterarasmus Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Want A Super Cheap iPhone 3G S? Bing It. Top
In honor of the iPhone 3G S launch today, I thought I’d point out a humorous little deal circulating around the web. Apparently, you can use Microsoft’s Cashback program that it runs through its search engine (and now through Bing ), to get a healthy 35% discount off of the device. Depending on your eligibility for AT&T’s subsidy ( more on that here ), that means you can get an iPhone 3G S 16 GB for $129.35, the 32 GB version for $194.35. Or, perhaps even better, an 8 GB iPhone 3G for $64.90. Yes, you can get a new iPhone for $65 — thanks to Microsoft. Crazy. Here’s is a full rundown of how to make it happen: New iPhone Contracts Only: 1. Visit ATT Wireless website and validate your email address with Premier. 2. Check your email and click the link to your ATT Premier Store. 3. Open a new tab with the same browser that your ATT Premier Store is open in. 4. Go to bing.com in the new tab and search “att wireless” 5. Click the 35% CashBack Sponsored Link 6. Sign into your CashBack account and get redirected to the main AT&T Wireless page. 7. In the top right enter the term “Premier” into the search bar. 8. Click the first link that reads “at&t premier login” 9. You will get directed to the same Premier store you have open in the original tab. 10. Congratulations, you are in the Premier store under the CashBack AT&T Site If you have an account with AT&T and you just want to make an upgrade or add a line: 1. Go to bing.com 2. Search ” ATT WIRELESS “. 3. Click the AT&T sponsored link, you will redirected (after you enter your email) to either the regular AT&T store or the Premier store depending on which account you have 4. Log in to your account and make your purchase. 5. The cashback will show up as “pending” after a couple of hours. 6. If it takes more than 48 hours for the cashback to show up, contact bing’s customer service then you will asked for your order number, method of payment( I attached my whole purchase order to the email): You cash will show up within hours I have no idea if this will actually work — it may go against AT&T’s rules for device — but if you’re seeing all the hype today and still looking to buy one online, it’s worth a shot. [via IntoMobile ] [Thanks Nick] Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
YouTube Search Gets The Wonder Wheel Top
YouTube search now has its own Wonder Wheel. The Wonder Wheel is a visual navigation tool which Google first rolled out on its main search page a month ago when it added some new search options to filter results in different ways. If you do a search on YouTube, which on its own would be the second largest search engine in the world, you will see a new option under the search box on the right called Wonder Wheel. If you click on that, your search term appears in a circle with lines branching out to related tags. Anytime you click on a related tag around the wheel, it creates a new wheel attached to the original with its own set of related searches. YouTube has also added some new features to its advanced search option, including the ability to search by video duration, location, and when it was uploaded. You can also search by category, keyword, video type, and for HD videos only, but those aren’t new. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Microsoft Tells Its Rude IE8 Campaign To "Get Lost" Top
For the past few days, we’ve been digging in pretty deep against Microsoft for its odd way it’s trying to push IE8 online. And we were hardly the only ones . Apparently, Microsoft was listening. Today, it has changed the worst of those campaigns, the “ Ten Grand Is Buried Here ” one, to remove the restriction that required you use IE8 to have a chance to win the money. Previously, there were 4 rules for the promotion, but Microsoft cut those in half, removing the ones that told you to get rid of your current browser and download IE8. More importantly, it removed the language that told users to “get lost” if they were using anything besides IE, and implying they were idiots for using any other browser. The Microsoft blog I Started Something tries to spin this as Microsoft just making changes to make more clear what it always intended for the campaign, saying that “get lost” was meant to be “get lost in the hunt" (both have since been removed from the site), and saying that, “The "it's not as stupid as it sounds" text in the footer was always in context of the "tell a friend" messaging. It implies that telling your friends about this competition is not a bad idea since you might not have the chance to follow or solve all the clues yourself. Some people obviously misinterpreted that.” Yeah, whatever. From what I’m hearing, Microsoft was not happy at all with Australian team for this campaign (the MSFT Aussies made it) and made the moves to correct it. Now anyone, using any browser, has a shot at the money. Smart move, though I’m not sure it will fulfill the original intention: To get more people to use IE8. But they’re still trying. The key line says, “How will you know if you’ve found it [the money]? It’s a cleverly concealed webpage you can view on Internet Explorer 8.” “Can” is the keyword there, you don’t need to use IE8, but you can , to view it. I think I will use Safari or Firefox to look for the money. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
More News On The Real Time Stream CrunchUp And First August Capital Tickets Top
We’ve been flooded with interest in the Real Time Stream CrunchUp to be held Friday, July 10 in conjunction with our 4th annual summer meet-up at August Capital (see ticket info below). Since we first announced the event two weeks ago, some major speakers have confirmed their attendance and the schedule is really starting to come together. Jack Dorsey, the inventor of Twitter, will be on hand to share his first-hand account of how the real time stream rose to prominence so fast and where it needs to go from here. Chris Cox, the director of product at Facebook, will have his own thoughts on the subject. And we might even stream Robert Scoble live via video from London just so that he can tell Dorsey all about FriendFeed . If Scoble needs help, FriendFeed co-founder Bret Taylor will be there to set him straight. We’ll kick things off with a morning discussion between two of the smartest investors focusing on real-time startups today: John Borthwick and Ron Conway. Both hold shares in Twitter, but their commitment to the real time stream goes way beyond that. Borthwick runs betaworks , a startup accelerator with investments in bit.ly , Summize (which was acquired by Twitter and now powers its real time search), TweetDeck , and most recently Twitterfeed , among others. Conway, an early investor in Google and more than 500 other startups, is now laser-focused on the real time opportunity as well. Come learn why they are scanning the horizon for real time investments and how they think these startups are poised to reshape the fabric of the Web. Individual panels will take a look at how emerging real time platforms are setting the stage for other companies to build applications on. These include not only other Websites, but also desktop and mobile clients. The stream is not bounded by the browser, as stream readers from TweetDeck and Seesmic Desktop are proving. We’ll also do a deep dive into real time search with Collecta (which launched yesterday ), OneRiot, Topsy, and others. The stream will touch every aspect of the Web, from real time media (including social reporting and live video) to real time business (brand monitoring and rapid response when customers complain in the public stream). We’ll be exploring those realms as well. Interspersed throughout the day will be new product demos from Google, Salesforce, Seesmic, Andrew Baron’s Magma , and several stealth startups. (If you have an eye-opening demo or want to launch a product at the CrunchUp, please contact our conference producer, Asad Akbar . We have just a few spots left.) It is going to be a whirlwind day. TechCrunchIT editor Steve Gillmor and I will be hosting the event. We are calling it a CrunchUp because it will be highly participatory and real-time in every sense of the word. Our confirmed speakers include: Jack Dorsey , Twitter Chris Cox , Facebook Bret Taylor , Friendfeed Ron Conway , angel investor John Borthwick , betaworks 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 Additional speakers will be announced over the next three weeks. If you’ve got some real-time hotness you are ready to unleash on the world, contact us . CrunchUp Details The CrunchUp will take place on Friday, July 10, between 9:00 am and 4:30 PM at the historic Fox Theatre in Redwood City. CrunchUp tickets are $295 and include expedited check-in to the August Capital party. Get CrunchUp tickets here , courtesy of Eventbrite. The complete line-up is here . Big Time Thank Yous to Our CrunchUp Sponsors Tokbox is our offical video-chat sponsor of the CrunchUp. Thank you also to demonstration sponsors OneRiot and Loopt . And to Eventbrite for ticketing and MediaTemple for hosting. Please contact Jeanne Logozzo or Heather Harde to learn more about sponsorship packages and custom opportunities. Additional details here . August Capital Tickets August Capital year 4, can you believe it? Friday, July 10 5:30 - 10:00 pm 2480 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, CA We’re also releasing the first batch of 150 August Capital meet-up tickets here , courtesy of Eventbrite. Hurry, they’ll go fast. 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 three weeks, so please be patient and stay tuned. 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. Hope to see you there. UPDATE: August Capital Tickets SOLD OUT quickly as predicted. Watch for the next batch next week. Else, get a CrunchUp ticket and attend both events with us. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
MySpace Employees In Europe Await A Bloodbath Of Firings Top
Four days ago MySpace announced they were laying off 30% of their staff in the U.S. and promptly sent 400 employees packing. The announcement stated that the layoffs only applied to U.S. employees. That strongly indicated that the next up for termination were over 100 of its international employees, as it has almost 30 offices around the world MySpace in Europe covers 19 territories via 6 offices. Now we’re hearing from employees inside MySpace’s offices in Europe, who paint a black picture of hushed meetings between management, PR and HR teams. We’ve been told that MySpace PR people in London burnt candles late into last night, going over how to announce the re-structuring of MySpace internationally. Needless to say, requests for “recommendations” on LinkedIn between MySpace staff in Europe have soared, and we’ve even heard that estate agents have visited the expansive London offices, which suggests major downsizing there as well. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Occipital Brings Seamless Barcode Scanning To The iPhone With RedLaser Top
Now that the new iPhone 3G S has a video camera, TechStars startup Occipital has released an update to its RedLaser app ( iTunes link, $1.99) which speeds up barcode scanning by not requiring you to first take a picture. Occipital claims that its “realtime barcode scanner” is the only one which works on phones with both autofocus (the new 3G S) and without (the older iPhone and iPod Touch). Other barcode scanning apps, such as ShopSavvy’s, can also take advantage of the autofocus camera on the 3G S, but can’t do on-the-fly scanning on the older models. Like other barcode scanning apps, many of which are free, RedLaser looks up price comparisons in an ever-growing product database. The utility of these apps is really determined by how good the back-end database is more than the scanning technology itself. But RedLaser is really more of a technology demo for Occipital, which is developing some some impressive mobile visual search technologies. The scanning technology is available to other developers through an SDK . Here is a video of the app in action: I am more excited by what Occipital has in the works for more sophisticated visual-recognition apps. Last year, at a TechStars Demo Day which Don Dodge covered for u s, he explained They can stitch photos together into a panorama, automatically label and tag photos, and construct 3D scenes from your photos. They can zoom in, fly over, step inside buildings…all based on simple photos stitched together into a 3D presentation. They find objects in your photos and link them to the same or similar objects in other photos and stitch them together. This is hard to explain with words, but the visual demo was amazing. Below is a video of a prototype visual-navigation app Occipital is working on. When can I get that on my iPhone? Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
That Was Quick: Veodia Acquires Screen Capturing Startup ScreenToaster Top
ScreenToaster , easily one of the best web-based screen recording tools out there, is now in the hands of enterprise video platform provider Veodia . The San Mateo, CA based company - backed by $8.3 million in venture capital - has acquired the former for an undisclosed sum and intends to integrate its offering in its enterprise video SaaS suite later this year. For Paris-based ScreenToaster’s founders Marco Fucci and Elie Curetti this is a remarkable feat, considering the fact that the startup only launched its service in private beta about 8 months ago. Perhaps its fast growth made Veodia notice the team might be onto something: ScreenToaster claims to have seen 40% month-to-month average growth in its user base since it launched its service publicly. Or it could be the French Connection: Veodia happens to be founded by its current CEO Guillaume Cohen, who hails from France. Regardless, this acquisition makes sense for Veodia. They can now complement their existing offering, which powers high-quality video services for the likes of Sun Microsystems, BEA and Stanford University, with a rapid way for these organizations to capture more basic screen recordings for product demos, tutorials etc. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Mobile 2.0 Europe: Video Interview With GetJar CEO Ilja Laurs Top
I’m here at the Mobile 2.0 Europe conference in sunny Barcelona and today had a great conversation with GetJar founder and CEO Ilja Laurs which I recorded and uploaded to our YouTube channel. GetJar, in case you don’t know, is a platform and device-agnostic central marketplace for mobile applications which Laurs bills as the world’s largest independent, open application store. The company is backed by $6 million in venture capital from Accel Partners and flirts with running a cash-flow positive operation. GetJar hosts over 45,000 applications, supports a community of more than 200,000 mobile app developers and sees over 36 million downloads of applications a month, with some of the top developers seeing downloads numbers ranging up to 20 million per unique app. Besides this enormous distribution scale, the two main other reasons mobile developers would decide to put their apps up in the GetJar marketplace, Laurs tells me, is that the company offers a range of services like stats, analytics, a beta testing environment and tools for distribution as well as a set of tools that enables developers to monetize their apps more efficiently. GetJar is currently testing a pilot program for in-application advertising together with some developers, and aims to release this solution publicly in the near future. Asked which platform he would choose to create apps for if he were an independent mobile app developer with limited resources, Laurs remains diplomatic and says a lot depends on the business model, target audience, type of application and what kind of developer you are. I was also curious about the effect the rise of all the different application stores from handset vendors and mobile operating system makers has had on GetJar as a destination site that pre-dates all these platforms by a margin. Laurs tells me the introduction of Apple’s App Store had an overall positive effect on the GetJar network, doubling its growth in a very short time, because it raised awareness about centralized application marketplaces in general and validated the mobile app development industry to a certain degree. Long term, he admits that there are negatives to the app store hype too, obviously the most important one being the increased competition. Check out the video if you’re curious in finding out which devices Laurs uses and what his personal favorite mobile application is. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
As Events Unfold In Iran, Facebook And Google Translate Quickly Add Persian Versions Top
In response to the events surrounding the Iranian election last week, Google and Facebook have both added the Persian language Farsi to their capabilities. The Persian version of Facebook will be available starting tonight. The Facebook blog post announcing the new version is here. Facebook says the Persian version was already being developed but it decided to unveil it because of the sudden increase in activity with the Iranian elections and protests. Facebook adds the disclaimer that the translation is still in rough form. If your browser is set to Farsi, you should automatically see the Persian version of Facebook. Facebook says that more than 400 Persian speakers submitted thousands of individual translations of the site. Google has also added Persian (Farsi) to Google Translate, making it easy to translate any text from Farsi into English and from English into Farsi. Google, like Facebook, says that the launch of the Persian translation was primarily due to the events taking place in Iran. And like Facebook, Google warns that the translation isn’t perfect. Google also invites people to click on the “contribute a better translation” link if they find a poor translation. It’s unclear what will happen with Facebook in Iran, under the current situation. FriendFeed was blocked and Twitter seems to be one of the main forms of social communication online in Iran. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
All In the Family: Sergey Brin Loans 23andme $10 Million And Google Ponies Up $2.6 Million Top
Google is still tightly intertwined with 23andme, a company that helps consumers understand and decipher their genomes. 23andme has raised another $2.6 million from Google out of a total $24.26 million it is trying to raise in a Series B round of funding, according to regulatory filings. This brings the total amount raised from this round to $13.6 million, after May’s $11 million funding round. At the time, Mohr Davidow Ventures divested its stake in 23andme after investing in a direct competitor Navigenics. The juiciest disclosure in the filing is that Brin loaned the startup an additional $10 million which is being converted into Series B preferred shares. Earlier in 2007, he had loaned the company $2.6 million which was repaid from the proceeds of Google’s subsequent $3.9 million stake in 23andMe in May, 2007. The debt was repaid after the Google investment. It appears that Brin once again had to dig into his own pocket to help keep the company afloat. The filing also says one of the investors in the Series B round in May was New Enterprise Associates, which also invested in 23andme’s Series A round. And it mentions that Google has entered into a lease agreement with 23andme, possibly for office space, but it is unclear what exactly is being leased. 23andme, which was co-founded by Sergey Brin's wife, Anne Wojcicki, raised $9 million in a Series A round of funding from Google, Genentech, New Enterprise Associates, and Mohr Davidow Ventures in 2007. The company maps consumers' DNA and helps them find information about their ancestry and their risks of getting certain diseases (Michael tried it last year). Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 

CREATE MORE ALERTS:

Auctions - Find out when new auctions are posted

Horoscopes - Receive your daily horoscope

Music - Get the newest Album Releases, Playlists and more

News - Only the news you want, delivered!

Stocks - Stay connected to the market with price quotes and more

Weather - Get today's weather conditions




You received this email because you subscribed to Yahoo! Alerts. Use this link to unsubscribe from this alert. To change your communications preferences for other Yahoo! business lines, please visit your Marketing Preferences. To learn more about Yahoo!'s use of personal information, including the use of web beacons in HTML-based email, please read our Privacy Policy. Yahoo! is located at 701 First Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA 94089.

No comments:

Post a Comment