Wednesday, August 19, 2009

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Olark Is A Dead Simple Chat Widget For Site Owners Top
The ability to chat live with visitors is an incredibly useful marketing tool for site owners. Whether a site owner operates an e-commerce or consumer or business service site, live chat is increasingly becoming the norm for engaging with visitors in real time. Olark, a Y Combinator -funded startup (re)launching today at Demo Day (it was previously branded hab.la), has made the ability to embed chat into a site incredibly simple. For free, site owners can embed the widget into their site with just a few lines of javascript. One useful feature that Olark offers is the ability to add one-to-one chat to any website without editing any code. Olark’s short link service lets website owners create a link to any site they would like to chat with a visitor about. When a customer/user clicks on the link, the Olark widget will float over to the visited webpage. The site owner can use an existing IM client, such as GChat or AIM, and each customer will show up in the buddy list. So site owners can interact with visitors from their preferred chat program. Visitors show up on a website owner’s buddy list as soon as they hit the site (with an anonymous ID like Web User 1), with the name of the page they’re on. Basically, you can watch everyone’s progress through the site even when they don’t talk to you. While Olark has a free offering, you can add different functionality to the chat widget starting at $5 per month. One paid feature is the ability to hide the widget on the site when the site owner isn’t available to chat. You can also implement chat in certain pages while restricting chat on others. While most customers will use the free version of the widget, paid clients have been doubling every month and the startup is in line to hit profitability next month. Olark is already being used already on 4000 sites, including SurveyGizmo.com and HonestIdeas.co.uk. Of course, there are many competitors to this product out there on the market, including chat offerings by Meebo, Digsby and AOL all with the same functionality. But Olark’s co-founder, Ben Congleton says the beauty of Olark’s widget and short link service is in its extreme simplicity, allowing even a non-tech savvy site owner to be able to implement live chat on a site easily. Plus, Olark lets owners customize the widgets to resemble the look and feel of the site in which its embedded. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
You're Doing It Wrong Part 348: Complete And Utter PR FAIL Top
So this morning a pretty standard email pitch came into my inbox. It wasn’t my cup of tea, so I ignored it. But then someone responded to it, and I saw that response. Uh, oh, I knew immediately where this was going. Sure enough, minutes later dozens of others were responding, most saying something along the lines of “take me off of this list” — of course, whether they realize it or not, they were sending that very message to everyone on the list. Some followed up trying to apologize on behalf of the whole PR industry for this fiasco. Others threatened to out people who kept responding to the thread in national magazines. Then things got even uglier, “ Take me off this fucking list which I never asked to be on and cannot unsubscribe from, ” said one lucky subscriber. The fact that every single one of these replies was going to everyone on the list was very annoying, but ultimately forgivable. What’s not forgivable is when the automated help desk tickets started sending massive amounts of emails to everyone on the list. It looks like some SEO site submitted a help request ticket to get them off of the list, and from that point on, everyone who responded showed up as the same SEO site emailer talking about this random troubleshooting ticket. It started getting really ridiculous. As Justin Smith of InsideFacebook notes on one of my status’ “ this is getting pretty incredible. 13 emails in the last 10 minutes. ” And Caroline McCarthy of CNET just Rickrolled me on Twitter , saying she had a way to get us off of the list. This is getting out of control. So really nice job, Brody PR . Not only does practically everyone in the blogosphere and print media world now hate you, but you’ve ensured that whatever it was you were trying to pitch (some book on social media marketing) will never get any coverage. PR FAIL. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Google Continues To Feed The PubSubHubbub. Google Alerts Now In Real-Time. Top
When PubSubHubbub launched at our Real-Time Stream CrunchUp event last month, pretty much everyone in the audience immediately recognized it as a very cool thing. Basically, it takes any feed and significantly speeds up the time it takes to be found by various sources using new hubs that specifically gather that information. But the biggest fan of it may be the company that employs the two who created it, Brett Slatkin and Brad Fitzpatrick : Google. Today, Google has announced yet another service that is PubSubHubbub-compatible: Google Alerts. That’s huge not just because alerts can now appear in real-time in feed readers, but also because developers can now write applications that take advantage of getting pinged immediately when a new result for a certain query shows up in Google Search results, as Slatkin notes today on the Google Code Blog. “ Think of it as an AJAX search API that tells *you* when it finds new results. Acting upon these notifications your app could update your website, email friends, send an SMS — the possibilities are endless, ” Slatkin writes. Slatkin hopes that new breeds of applications are created based on the protocol. That could well happen, but for now, Google seems content to use it on an increasing number of their products. Aside from Google Alerts, PubSubHubbub is already working on FeedBurner, Google Reader Shared Items and Blogger. As Fitzpatrick noted at our event, " Nothing in the protocol hardcodes Google as the center of the world, I hate that sort of crap too. " Google may not be the center of the world for PubSubHubbub, but it is the key cog moving it forward for now. So what Google product may be next to turn on PubSubHubbub? Here’s a list of possible ones , Slatkin pointed us to, noting that many are far from certain at this point still. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
MySpace Confirms iLike Acquisition. Conference Call Livenotes Top
As expected , MySpace has confirmed that it bought iLike . It is not disclosing financial terms, but our information is that it was around $20 million. During the conference call, Van Natta stressed the importance of music, open content distribution, and talent as the main drivers behind the deal. He also put to rest misinformed speculation that there was any delay in the deal due to tax issues or a canceled iLike board meeting. “I have been doing deals for 15 years now, and this was one of the smoother sailing deals,” says Van Natta. Both iLike’s employees and management team will now work for MySpace, but will remain an autonomous unit based in Seattle. Throughout the conference call, Van Natta’s first, he stressed his desire to make MySpace as open as possible and he cast the iLike acquisition as complementary to MySpace in that it is a distributed application across many social networks. “People want to interact in many places. We will take that strategy and apply it across the Web,” he said. Later he reiterated, “The thrust of this is distributed web, how can we serve users in a more distributed way.” The implication, of course, being that rival Facebook is not so open (although Mark Zuckerberg would beg to differ). Van Natta couldn’t hep but give his former employer a not-so-subtle dig: “We are a much more open network. People can explore each other interests, much more so than on other social networks.” One of the big questions around the deal was why isn’t iLike becoming part of MySpace Music. Van Natta addressed this issue by suggesting that iLike’s recommendation system will be applied to other content on MySpace, including videos and games. He also confirmed that there are no plans at this time to introduce music streaming from MySpace Music into iLike, but he did say that the two businesses would work together to grow the event ticketing business. My full notes are below (I’ve bolded parts for emphasis): Owen Van Natta: This is the first time I am speaking with you since taking on the role of CEO a few months ago. In that time we have restructured and hired some talented people. This is an official announcement that MySpace has entered into an agreement acquired iLike This decision based on 3 things: 1. need to innovate . Music is part of people’s lives. We strengthen our ability to innovate in this area. 2. shared belief in open content distribution . People want to interact in many places. We will take that strategy and apply it across the Web. 3. Great people . Expect to see continued news about great talent coming to MySpace. MySpace is a place where people can broadcast, discover, and express themselves. Where culture gets defined through social experiences around entertainment. By combining two models We believe that what iLike has created is not limited to music, can be extended to video and games. Because we see it as bigger than music, we are making this apart from MySpace Music. iLike’s founders (CEO Ali Partovi, President Hadi Partovi and CTO Nat Brown) will remain and will stay in Seattle. In addition 26 employees joining MySpace. Q&A Q: Any guidance on new applications we can expect? Owen: We will take all the great things iLike has meant for users and extend all the things MySPace does with users and extend that. You will be able to see a broader experience. Q: How is this purchase going to affect iLike’s partnership with Facebook? Owen: iLike is part of many social networks. My expectation is that social networks will be thrilled that we are going to be making iLike an even richer experience in their environments. Q: deal terms and how integrated into MySpace music Owen: We have not disclosed deal terms. iLike has a great product we will continue to extend, a phenomenal management team. Allowing that team to operate autonomously is an important part of it. Q: reports that iLike was poised to offer its own music store? Is this a defensive move to shortcut that? Owen: No, the thrust of this is distributed web, how can we serve users in a more distributed way. Q: Will streaming from MySpace Music be offered through iLike? Also there was speculation that the deal was delayed because of tax issues or a canceled iLike board meeting. Can you comment on that? Owen: first Q about extending MySpace Music into iLike, we have no plans to do that at this time. On your second question, I read some of the reports, I have been doing deals for 15 years now, and this was one of the smoother sailing deals. Q: So there was no delay due to tax or other issues. Owen: No delay Q: Update on MySpace music Owen: MySpace music has been doing extremely well, 1,000% growth since launch, 200% year over year in usage. It will continue to serve users for many years to come. Q: What does MySpace get from iLike? Q: For example, If you look at the recommendation engine that users get on iLike, that is something you could apply elsewhere in MySpace. iLike is a big generator of ticket sales, something MySpace Music has started, that will accelerate, a better experience combined than either could on its own. Q: If iLike develops its own music store, will that hurt your relationship with Amazon? Owen: No, we don’t expect it to. iLike has just launched an MP3 purchasing functionality on its platform. Clearly users are buying music in a number of different ways. We want to serve users Q: Would there be better margins? Owen: What we are really focused on with MySpace Music, and iLike is also, is the discovery, and the socialization around that content. We are a much more open network. People can explore each other interests, much more so than on other social networks. Q: Will iLike management team have any broader role? Owen: First and foremost we want to make sure we don’t disrupt anything they are doing. They have a lot of things in development. This is a very talented group of executives, and the entire team. leveraging that talent more broadly across MySpace is something we will definitely pursue. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Google Doubles Its Cartographers As Maps Continues To Go Wiki-Style Top
As an online free mapping service, Google Maps is a great product. But it’s lacking in certain parts of the world. And rather than pay people to go get information about those places, Google has smartly been using a service called Map Maker , which lets locals and people knowledgeable about the area edit it themselves. And this week, Google has added a couple important areas to the list: Mexico and Eastern Europe. “These two launches have doubled the number of users who can map their country on Map Maker,” Google notes today . That’s impressive, but even more impressive is the full list of countries that can now use Map Maker to improve local maps. And while Map Maker doesn’t work in places like the U.S. and other well mapped-out areas of the world, you can edit things on U.S. maps such as place locations. It seems clear that Google Maps is a wiki of sorts now, meaning the community is responsible for a lot of the data on it. Now, Google still looks over this new country data, and then allows certain portions to “ graduate ” to actual Google Maps. But still, it’s a great idea to get more information in your system for free. I wonder how long it will be until Google lets users in the rest of the world in on the fun to edit roads and other features that are incorrect or not listed? Maybe you’ll be able to put in information when you know a road is under construction for a set period of time, for example. That data is out there for large projects, but it would be very useful on a day to day basis for small jobs when I’m trying to get somewhere on time. Below find an impressive before and after picture of Lahore, Pakistan, after Google Map Maker did its thing. Update : Google has reached out to me with another piece of information about the Map Maker initiative. Earlier this week, they announced that the Map Maker data set in Africa would be available for non-profits and NGOs to download to further promote mapping the areas. More information on that is here . CrunchBase Information Google Maps Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
Google Upgrades Enterprise Search Top
Google’s Enterprise Search offerings have steadily grown in both strength and innovation over the past few years. As we reported in June, Google now counts 25,000 enterprise search customers, up from last year's 20,000 customers. Over half of customers use Google's search appliance and the rest use its hosted site search and other enterprise products. Most recently, Google improved the scalability of its enterprise search appliance (also known as the GSA), allowing businesses to search billions of documents. Today, Google added two new tools for Google Enterprise Search: Side-by-Side search comparison and new connectors for the GSA, both available in Google’s Enterprise Labs, which is similar to Gmail Labs. Side-by-Side search lets employees test and rate results from two different search queries (Policy A vs. Policy B) on the same data, to see which gives better results. Employees can vote on their preferred results, by clicking on either the Policy A or Policy B button and the administrator can then use that information to choose and set up the right search solution for the business. It seems that this feature would be useful to administrators who are constantly trying to make internal search capabilities more effective. Google is also offering a new tool that lets businesses connect to different types of data, both online and offline, for search functionality. The GSA connector has been updated to search across content management systems of enterprises (such as SharePoint, FileNet, etc). Google also now provides a connector specifically for Salesforce data, so the GSA can include internal Salesforce data in search results. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
MySpace CEO To Make A Big Announcement Shortly. We're Betting It's About iLike Top
MySpace just sent out an advisory that it will be holding a press conference shortly at 11:45 PT. CEO Owen Van Natta will be making an announcement (which , incidentally, will be his first public statement since taking over last April ). MYSPACE announcement—PRESS CALL INVITE WHAT: MySpace invites you to attend a press conference call today to be briefed on breaking company news. Could this be the official announcement that MySpace is buying iLike , the acquisition that got away from Facebook and Amazon ? That’s our guess. Deal negotiations were progressing smoothly last we heard. What we want to know is what will happen if Facebook now decides to cut off iLike, which is the most popular music app on the rival social network. More details soon, as we cover this live. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
RiotFeeds Bundles Mundane-less Tweets To Give You The Best Relevant Links Top
There’s no shortage of people who use their Twitter accounts for both personal and business use. That includes plenty of bloggers who send out links to all their articles along with their more mundane updates throughout the day. Some people love this, others hate it, as they just want the links. And while some sites, like TechCrunch , have an account basically just dedicated to those links now, it can still be a hassle to find and follow all of those for every site you want to read. That’s where RiotFeeds comes in. The service basically hand curates tweets from the top sites in various categories on the web. The end result are feeds that just contain tweets with links from sites of the same ilk. For example, the PulseonTech account features tweets with links to stories from TechCrunch, VentureBeat, ReadWriteWeb, Wired and others. The PulseonNews feed features the NYTimes, CNN, Fox News, and others. But those are obvious categories — there are also plenty of not-so-obvious ones, like my personal favorite, TightPantsPulse , which is all about hipsters. Here’s the description of that feed: “Links you probably won't be into from sites that don't even exist yet.” While each of these 20-plus feeds are curated, they are also powered by OneRiot’s PulseRank technology, which it considers the “PageRank for the realtime web”. As we’ve written about before , OneRiot is a real-time search engine that is all about finding the most relevant links being shared on the various social sites in real-time. And by identifying the most popular and relevant shared links, it is able to build consumer friendly-fare like RiotFeeds. OneRiot envisions that RiotFeeds will be a good tool for novice users of Twitter to use to get to their favorite content easier without having to track down and follow each of the sites they care about most. While Twitter has a “Suggested User List”, it doesn’t currently offer bundle packages of people to follow depending on what you’re interested in, which is something that Google Reader, for example, has. OneRiot also hopes this project will shed more light on its APIs, which were recently opened to the public , so others can use the data they’re collecting. CrunchBase Information OneRiot Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
What If Comments Could Be Retweeted? TweetMeme Is Working On It. Top
Twitter and blogs are increasingly feeding into each other. A blog post can go viral if it gets retweeted enough time. But what if it was easy to retweet a comment? TweetMeme , which powers the retweet buttons increasingly found on blog posts (like this one), is working on bringing retweets to comments, at least to comments on its own site. But once it does that, blogs will be able to implement the system using TweetMeme’s APIs. In a post on the TweetMeme blog, founder Nick Halstead gives a preview of the commenting system he is getting ready to release On TweetMeme itself in the next few weeks. (The announcement comes on the same day that competitor Retweet is launching , and is a bit of a preemptive move to try to announce something better). Right now, headlines on TweetMeme such as this one show recent Tweets linking to the story. TweetMeme will be adding a commenting feature there as well. The goals of the system are: 1. Promotion of quality comments 2. Works seamlessly with Twitter 3. Reply mechanism that feels familiar to Twitter users 4. Ability to embed media into comments Each comment will have its own retweet button, and visitors will be able to reorder comments by most retweeted first. In effect, it becomes a voting system for comments with each retweet acting as a vote (and you can only vote once). You can reply to a specific commenter both within comments and on Twitter simultaneously. Another nice feature is that short links get elongated back to the original in the comments, and if the link is to a photo or other media, you see a thumbnail image in the comment itself. While TweetMeme is doing this for itself, the functionality will be available through its APIs (the documentation is not there yet though). I’d love to see this implemented as a blog commenting system where each comment could be retweeted and comments can be reordered by the resulting votes. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
ReTweet.com Launches, Sure Looks A Lot Like TweetMeme Top
ReTweet.com , a TweetMeme challenger put together by Mesiab Labs (the startup behind notorious Twitter spam software program Hummingbird), has made its online debut after teasing the Twitterati with an announcement and landing page a couple of weeks ago. You may remember that immediately after ReTweet.com coming out of the woodworks, TweetMeme was already threatening Mesiab Labs with a lawsuit over the latter’s flat out copying of its retweet button code and website design . Both startups aim to become the king of retweets , an increasingly popular activity on the increasingly popular Twitter service, and they’re clearly not competing on friendly terms. (In the interest of full disclosure: we use TweetMeme’s retweet button here on the TechCrunch network) Since ReTweet.com hadn’t yet launched when the online arguments between both startups began to heat up, it was hard to argue how similar both websites would turn out to be, although the screenshots provided suggested that they’d look much alike. And now that ReTweet.com is finally live, the similarity with TweetMeme is indeed striking: Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with inspiring one’s website design on another service, but considering the fact there are only two noteworthy players in this game and the heat had already been turned on by other events, it may have been wiser for Mesiab Labs to at least try and make it look different enough. But no, the lay-out, wording and color scheme of ReTweet.com is clearly a blatant rip-off, and I’m sure they intended it that way too. I’m reluctant to take a side here, but having tracked Mesiab Labs and their despicable Hummingbird product for a number of months already (more on that later), I’m leaning towards sympathizing with TweetMeme here. They could use some competition for sure, but I’d rather see both companies compete based on merit and trying new things rather than fighting with words and fencing with lawsuit threats. And to reiterate Erick’s earlier point: Twitter could well end up trademarking the term ‘retweet’ just like they did with the word ‘tweet’. Update: also, @Retweet appears to be a suspended account. To be continued, I’m sure. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
AOL Thinks It Owns All Advertising Domains Top
AOL , rather than fixating on building business and staying relevant post Time-Warner, is suing search and display platform provider Advertise.com for trademark infringement and unfair competition. Furthermore, the company is also partly responsible for the near-done sale of the domain name Ad.com for a reported $1.4 million falling through, leading to the seller of the domain name subsequently suing the buying party, says DomainNameWire . But first lawsuits first. Advertise.com, which was purchased by ABCsearch.com earlier this year and rebranded as such a few months ago, is a variation on AOL-owned Advertising.com, the beleaguered Internet company claims . In legalese, that translates as follows: “Advertise.com recently commenced use of the virtually identical and confusingly similar designation Advertise.com and design in connection with the same and complimentary services as those offered by Plaintiffs under their federally-registered Advertising.com name and marks and their Ad.com name and marks.” Update: looks like Advertise.com sued AOL first ( August 17, 2009 ) A search of the USPTO database shows that AOL does in fact have three registered trademarks for Advertising.com, but all are design trademarks, which means they stand little chance of exercising trademark rights over something as generic as the domain name advertise.com. Granted, the logo looks vaguely similar, but ‘virtually identical and confusing’ it ain’t. Note that AOL doesn’t even effectively market Advertising.com as a business unit anymore - although it may soon recommence doing just that - and redirects the domain name to its Platform-A website instead (AOL rebranded it to the name of this whole-owned subsidiary in April last year and now prefers AOL Advertising as the overarching denominator). So why would anyone confuse Advertise.com for an AOL property? It just doesn’t make any sense to try and claim ownership over any domain name with a variation on the word ‘advertising’ in it. What’s next? Ads.com? Advertisement.com? In the court documents, embedded below, AOL even boasts the fact that Advertise.com has only about 25,000 unique visitors per month, so what’s really at stake here? The second case is even more bizarre: although often used in its communication, Ad.com is apparently not a trademark owned by AOL, although the company has filed an application for it in the past. But that domain name is actually owned by a Marcos Guillen, who recently sold it to Directi and Skenzo for $1.4 million. Well, almost sold it, because the deal fell through after all, according to industry watchers due to the fact that the mark has not yet acquired distinctiveness for any of the applicants - including AOL - following a recent examination. Guillen has now filed a lawsuit against Directi and Skenzo for backing out of its auction purchase of Ad.com, seeking $1.4 million, prejudgment interest, and/or damages according to proof. Aol Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
San Francisco Opens The City's Data Top
This guest post was written by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom , who was elected to the position in 2003 and reelected in 2007. Newsom is also running for governor of California in the upcoming 2010 election. In this guest post, Mayor Newsom details the launch of DataSF.org , a new website that will offer convenient access to city data that is relevant to the community. San Francisco has a long history of innovation. We are home to hundreds of technology companies that are changing the way the world operates from Twitter to WordPress to Kiva. In an effort to engage our highly skilled workforce we are launching DataSF.org , an initiative designed to increase access to city data. The new web site will provide a clearinghouse of structured, raw and machine-readable government data to the public in an easily downloadable format. For example, there will be updated crime incident data from the police department and restaurant inspection data from the Department of Public Health. The initial phase of the web site includes more than 100 datasets, from a range of city departments, including Police, Public Works, and the Municipal Transportation Agency. We imagine creative developers taking apartment listings and city crime data and mashing it up to help renters find their next home or an iPhone application that shows restaurant ratings based on health code violations. The idea behind the site is to open up San Francisco government and tap into the creative expertise of our greatest resource – our residents. We hope DataSF.org will create a torrent of innovation similar to when the developer community was given access to the platforms behind popular technologies and devices like Facebook and Apple’s iPhone. Our effort to improve access to city data has already led to the creation of new services never imagined within the walls of government. Earlier this summer, our Department of Environment released recycling data that was used by a third party to develop EcoFinder , an iPhone application that helps residents recycle based on their location. By bringing city data and communities together in one location, we hope to stimulate local industry, create jobs and highlight San Francisco's creative culture and attractiveness as a place to live and work. As we look to deepen and broaden citizen engagement we will face common challenges: resistance to change, political will, and sustaining data streams from government sources to name a few. Collaboration with citizens, non-profits, vendors, academia, and our peers in government will be critical to overcoming these barriers. It will also take leadership as we've seen from President Obama and his CIO, Vivek Kundra to establish our ideals and set forth a shared vision for a more transparent and open government. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
RateItAll Now Lets You Submit Reviews About Anything By E-mail Top
RateItAll , the consumer rating and review network we likened to a "distributed Yelp for everything" when they scored about $1.4 million in early stage funding a little over a year ago, has added a useful feature to its web service that allows its users to instantly post reviews on any topic to the RateItAll database via e-mail. When announcing the new feature, the startup’s CEO Lawrence Coburn told us to think of it as a ‘ Posterous for reviews’, which is as good a comparison one could make. Here’s how simple it is: without the need to sign up for the service on beforehand, you can send an e-mail to reviews@rateitall.com, putting whatever you’re posting a review of in the subject line and the star rating as the first line of the e-mail body. Then simply write your review under that first line, attach images if you’d like to include some and send away. It will be posted on the RateItAll website ( example ), automagically be assigned to the correct topic (which will also get its unique e-mail address) and you can always edit it afterwards if need be. If you’re interested in learning more about the company, check out our earlier review of RateItAll from the beginning of this year, when the startup revamped its website, released an API and showed us that it was getting traction, in part thanks to its policy of sharing advertising revenue with its reviewers. This appears to still be the case, judging from this Compete graph (Coburn says it actually understates RateItAll’s traffic and growth rate, which we believe to be true). Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
The $44.5 Million Zyb Looks Like It Will Be 'Vodafone People' Top
The following two videos, leaked to us by a Vodafone insider, show a new product called Vodafone People that bears a striking resemblance to Zyb , the mobile phone utility and social networking site that Vodafone bought last year for $44.5 million. That’s not unsurprising. But we don’t think Vodafone wants us to know about it just yet. Although there’s a Twitter account with just over a hundred followers, nothing’s going on there and you won’t find much by Googling either. What’s clear, though, is that Vodafone is now aiming squarely at integrating social networks into its service in the UK and other territories. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
iLike Also Had Offers From Facebook and Amazon Top
There’s lots of speculation out there on the yet-to-be-closed MySpace acquisition of iLike that we first reported on Monday. Much of that speculation is factually incorrect, we’ve confirmed from a source close the the deal. iLike, which has been profitable for over a year, had multiple offers to be acquired. Our source says that, in addition to MySpace’s offer, both Facebook and Amazon submitted bona fide written offers to buy the company. At least one other large company expressed interest to Allen & Company , iLike’s advisors to the deal. Activision Blizzard and Microsoft have been incorrectly rumored to have been seriously interested in the company, however. iLike ultimately chose MySpace based party on price, and partly on a fit with the buyer, sources say. Facebook was largely off the table due to building distrust between the companies. Also, multiple sources tell us that the deal negotiations with MySpace have been moving along quickly and are now virtually complete. There was no last minute canceled iLike board meeting (in fact no board meeting was scheduled), and no hiccups over tax issues on the deal. “People are literally making this drama up,” said one source. It’s also clear that the relatively low valuation that iLike commanded in this sale was due less to their performance and more to uncertainty created by Facebook over their future on the Facebook Platform. iLike is profitable and has 50+ million registered users. Unlike other music services they don’t have crushing streaming payments to make to labels because, well, they don’t stream music. They are certainly now in a position to stand on their own as a company over the long term. Except that ongoing uncertainty over Facebook’s intentions to compete with them directly as well as regular changes to the rules around Facebook Platform mean they could get cut off at any time. In other words, this is less about iLike’s financial and user growth and more about the value of users from Facebook Platform. Facebook seems unwilling to let Platform partners get too big. There continues to be no clear line as to where Facebook’s internal apps end and Platform begins. We continue to expect the deal to be closed and announced shortly. And we eagerly await Facebook’s response to their main competitor, MySpace, suddenly owning (the de facto) Facebook Music . Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 
What Are These Bars On My iPhone? Wait, You Mean AT&T Is Working?! Top
Over the weekend I noticed something odd going on with my iPhone: It was working! That is to say I actually had signal in the SoMa district of San Francisco, which is something that I had basically given up on long ago. But it was working, and it was actually solid 3G service. Still, I chalked it up to a fluke. I had been screwed over by AT&T too many times to get my hopes up. Maybe everyone in SoMa was just out of town, I thought. But a few more days passed as people started telling me they were noticing the same thing. It would go in and out at certain times, but for the most part, AT&T’s network actually seemed to be working in the area. Were we all going crazy? No, says AT&T, who I contacted today to see what was going on that my service was actually working. “Improvements are underway,” is what I was told by a representative of the company after he asked around. “Most of this is 850 MHz spectrum being added.” That is inline with recent reports about upgrades for AT&T GSM network. But those upgrades were scheduled to start in Atlanta first. As I said, I’m in San Francisco. I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up (most of all mine), but it looks like AT&T may actually be taking the steps necessary to get its network working in the areas where service is particularly bad. I’m told that this upgrade process (at least in San Francisco) will be continuing over the coming weeks. When that’s complete, AT&T is offering to give us a walk through of the big changes they’re making to improve the network that we rip at just about every chance we get (which I think is fair, given what we pay for the service). I’m cautiously optimistic on this. Has anyone else been noticing better service on their iPhones or any other AT&T device? Let us know in the comments. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
TwitVid Launches First Twitter Video Application For The BlackBerry Top
TwitVid , the easy way to share videos straight to Twitter, released the first video Twitter application on the Blackberry App World for free. [App World URL] TwitVid will easily allow users to upload video from their mobule phones to TwitVid, just like in the iPhone application. With the BlackBerry TwitVid application, TwitVid hopes to expand its overall market share for video sharing on Twitter. When atebits released Twitter for Mac, they partnered with ImageShack, the guys behind yFrog, to bring video recording integration into Tweetie. It doesn’t look like Tweetie will be adding Twitvid anytime soon, although the two are “in talks.” But TwitVid did announce two new partnerships with other mobile Twitter apps; one with UberTwitter, and the other with Twitterrific from The Icon Factory. With both applications, TwitVid is an option to upload video to Twitter. UberTwitter recently started putting advertising in its app, which was the most popular Blackberry application for Twitter, until its received quite the backlash from the community. A number of celebrities have also started using TwitVid as well, including Dane Cook, Mary J Blige, Ciara, Chris Daughtry, Baron Davis, Al Yankovic, David Blaine, Greg Grunberg, Stephen Fry and Dwight Howard, to name a few. Co-Founder and COO of TwitVid, Mo Al Adham , mentioned that over the past month, the number of videos uploaded to the site have increased more than 17x, and the number keeps growing. TwitVid hopes to become one of the main options for uploading video to Twitter. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
Yahoo BOSS Might Be Bigger Than Bing Top
One of the least appreciated, but smartest, moves Yahoo has made in the past year is to launch Yahoo BOSS , its open search APIs which lets developers create their own custom search engine using Yahoo’s algorithms. We use it to power search across the TechCrunch network. And we are not alone. It has become immensely popular. By last May, Yahoo BOSS was serving up 30 million search queries a day . You can see the rapid growth in search volume in the chart above, which comes from a Technology Review profile of Vik Singh, the 24-year-old engineer who was one of the main champions behind Yahoo BOSS. (He is one of Technology Review’s 2009 Innovators Under 35 ) At 30 million queries a day, that comes out to about 900 million queries a month, which would make Yahoo BOSS the fourth largest search engine in the U.S. with about a 6 percent share. That is just below the 9 percent share (and 1.2 billion queries a month) comScore estimates for Bing. But that is based on data from April. The chart is missing the last three months because Yahoo won’t update the numbers (I asked). Depending on the growth rate of Yahoo BOSS search queries since then, BOSS should now either be at par with Bing or even slightly larger. Between February, 2009 and April, 2009, search queries grew 50 percent (from 20 million a day to 30 million). Here are three different growth scenarios for the period May through July and the corresponding search volume numbers they would imply: Growth Scenarios 50 percent growth = 45 million queries a day = 1.35 billion queries a month 40 percent growth = 42 million queries a day = 1.26 billion queries a month 30 percent growth = 39 million queries a day = 1.17 billion queries a month Remember, Bing was at an estimated 1.21 billion queries a month for the month of July. So BOSS might very well be as big as Bing. In fact, a couple months before the Bing-Yahoo deal, I kept hearing from people connected to Yahoo that BOSS on its own was bigger than Microsoft search. Now Microsoft owns BOSS as part of its deal to take over Yahoo’s search operations. On the day the deal was announced , Microsoft SVP Yusuf Mehdi told me that he wants to keep BOSS alive because “there is a lot of goodness there.” I’ll say. It adds about another six points to Bing’s overall search volume market share. (Click the market share table below to enlarge). Update : After some reflection (and sleep), I think it is less likely that BOSS is bigger than Bing. First, as has been noted in comments , the comScore numbers are only for the U.S., while the BOSS numbers are worldwide. So best case scenario (assuming the U.S. accounts for only half of Bing searches, which is the industry norm), BOSS is really only half the size of Bing proper. That is still quite significant. But there is something else to consider as well. Bing also has an API, which back in March served 3 billion queries . Microsoft tells me that number has increased by more than 50 percent, so Bing’s own unmetered APIs are responsible for many more searches than BOSS, and are also not counted in the comScore data. All of this underlines the larger point here, which is that opening up search to outside developers is a powerful way to gain search query share. CrunchBase Information Yahoo! BOSS Bing Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Let It Be…True. Beatles And iTunes Come Together Again In Rumors Top
This happens every year. Rumors begin to swirl that Apple is holding a music-related event, and after the talk dies down of what new iPods are in store, the focus shifts to iTunes. And from there, it shifts to The Beatles. You know, the most popular band of all time that happens to have no songs from its catalog available for legal purchase anywhere online. Yeah, those Beatles. So anyway, every year there are rumors of The Beatles coming to iTunes. The rumors seem to start from just about everywhere: From Steve Jobs’ love of The Beatles, to EMI removing DRM on music, to the settlement of lawsuits with Apple Corp, to the appearance of Beatles’ album covers on Apple event promotions. There have even been quotes from Paul McCartney saying he thought such a deal would happen soon. The only problem is that it never ends up happening. But this year could actually be different. Well, maybe. First of all, The Beatles are definitely releasing their music in video game form for a new Rock Band game. That’s a first for them, branching out of traditional music distribution. This game is launching on 9/9/09, which happens to be the same day as the rumored next Apple event. That, in and of itself, doesn’t really mean much, but there are reports today that on the same day, The Beatles are releasing their entire catalog, digitally re-mastered for the first time, on CD, as Cult of Mac points out . Wait, CD? People still buy those? Yes, they do, though they’re increasingly going digital and choosing iTunes as their store. So it stands to reason that EMI and Apple Corps (the corporation that handles The Beatles’ affairs, not to be confused with the other Apple we’re talking about here) have looked at the numbers and seen the trends, and realize that if they really want the catalog to explode in sales, they’re going to have to release it online, and preferably through iTunes. But there’s more. In the press release for The Beatles re-mastered release there’s this nugget: Each of the CDs is packaged with replicated original UK album art, including expanded booklets containing original and newly written liner notes and rare photos. For a limited period, each CD will also be embedded with a brief documentary film about the album. What does that sound like? It sounds like the perfect type of album for Apple to try out its new “Cocktail” music format , also set to be unveiled at the September event. While not all the details are known about Cocktail, it is believe that it’s a format that places emphasis on album purchases by giving downloaders all types of goodies like, yes, artwork, booklets, liner notes, photos and films. The press release says nothing of online versions of the albums, but it’s entirely possible that those are being kept as a surprise, and possibly even for Apple’s event. Or maybe not. But at the very least, you know that while the engineers were remastering the recordings, they were thinking about how the catalog would be dispersed over the web eventually too. It’s not a matter of “if”, but a question of “when”. And 9/9/09 sounds like the perfect date for a full-on assault of Beatles music on the masses. This is of course all just speculation, that history suggests will be wrong. But if we find out that the Apple event is at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco on 9/9/09, and that Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr both happen to be in town…I’m just saying. And how would that be for a Steve Jobs return to the limelight after months away on medical leave? Boom ! CrunchBase Information iTunes Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
MySpace Disables Auto-Play Of Profile Songs To Get Streaming Costs Under Control Top
MySpace Music , which launched a little less than a year ago, is the one bright spot of growth in an otherwise flatlining MySpace. But all that popularity comes at a price - billions of free streaming songs are costing MySpace up to $10 million a month in streaming fees, says a source, and the joint venture may lose $20 million or more this year. To minimize those losses, MySpace has made a big change to its product - songs no longer auto-play when you visit a MySpace user profile. Autoplays accounted for a billion or more song streams per month, and were costing MySpace a significant amount of money. Turning off that hose is a cost saving maneuver. This also has the benefit, sources say, of improving the user experience and providing labels with better listening data. Personally, I’ve always disliked the autoplay feature on MySpace, although execs there tended to defend it as one of the distinguishing features of the service. Users can still opt-in to autoplay songs. The product continues to improve (and the iLike acquisition should accelerate that improvement). Another key advantage MySpace Music has over competitors - their ability to lock up lots of exclusive content for users . And the service is definitely growing. In July we reported that traffic grew tenfold over the nine months since launch: niques have grown 190% since launch in September 2008 and 1017%. It has grown 4.2 million unique monthly visitors to 12.1 million since launch. It is now solidly in the no. 2 position behind AOL Music, and growing fast. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 
YC-Funded Flightcaster Tells You When Your Flight Is Delayed Hours Before The Airline Will Top
“ON TIME”. It’s the first thing we look for when we arrive at the airport — oftentimes we’ll even check a flight’s status before leaving home to make sure things are proceeding as planned. But as anyone who has done extensive traveling could tell you, that ‘On Time’ indicator isn’t exactly honest. Like an ostrich sticking its head in the sand, sometimes airlines will continue to proclaim that a flight is “On Time” when, minutes before takeoff, your plane is nowhere to be seen. Flightcaster , a new Y Combinator funded company that’s launching today, is looking to provide a much more honest indicator of your flight’s current status, and is capable of alerting you to a delay as long as six hours before the airline will. So how is that possible? Given how poor the ‘On Time’ indicator can be, it should come as little surprise that the airlines often know your flight will be delayed long before they tell you. In fact, they have an incentive to keep you waiting as long as possible, otherwise they’ll have to manage the logistics of rebooking more people on other flights. Flightcaster taps into a variety of data sources to try to uncover the truth. The service keeps track of FAA alerts, weather, network congestion, historical trends, and other factors, which are all run through an algorithm to provide an estimate of how likely it is that a given flight will be delayed. When it makes its guess, it provides you with a percentage chance, along with the reasons it thinks the flight will be delayed (for example, it might say that there is a 90% chance of a 2 hour delay because your plane is still sitting 200 miles away at another airport). With that knowledge, you can attempt to book another flight hours before everyone else does (Domestic only for now — international support is planned for a future release). This could be a godsend for businesses travelers, but I wonder what casual travelers will do when they hear a flight is possibly delayed. Say, for example, you saw that your flight had an 80% chance of being delayed by two hours because of poor weather. What then? It would be foolish to plan on arriving at the airport two hours late — the odds may be in your favor, but if you get unlucky, you could stand to lose quite a bit (especially if your ticket is non-refundable). That said, if you’re the sort of person comfortable with rebooking flights, as most business travelers are, then the app could be very, very useful. Flightcaster allows you to check flights statuses on its website, and also offers applications for the iPhone and BlackBerry which normally run $10 each (in honor of the site’s launch both apps are currently only $5 apiece). Beyond the smartphone apps, Flightcaster also plans to generate revenue by offering corporate customers a dashboard from which they can monitor the flight status of multiple employees, which would allow companies to coordinate around delays. Image via WaveBreaker . Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
 
FriendFeed Cofounder Paul Buchheit Discusses Facebook Acquisition (video) Top
Robert Scoble and I ran into freshly-acquired FriendFeed cofounder Paul Buchheit at a brunch on Sunday. I pulled out my trusty Android myTouch and with his permission asked him a few questions about the sale to Facebook a week ago. Apologies for the audio quality - Powerset’s Barney Pell , BillShrink’s Peter Pham and others were chatting loudly nearby (which led to a side discussion with Pell on the exact price Microsoft paid for Powerset in 2008). A full transcript of the interview is below. A few interesting details came out of the interview with Buchheit. First, the deal was actually signed on Sunday evening (August 9), and these pictures were in fact taken that evening, he says. Buchheit also says that the WSJ got the price wrong , but won’t give more details. Paul Buchheit : “The more people say about the deal, the more wrong they are. There's a lot of inaccurate things being reported…There have been a lot of details and for some reason, the more details there are the further they get from the truth.” On whether FriendFeed will live on as an independent product: Michael Arrington: Back to FriendFeed, everyone's kind of reporting to different groups. This tells me that FriendFeed's disappearing in a year. Is it going to stay on as its own brand, its own product, can users stay secure that FriendFeed's going to be around? Paul Buchheit : We're not going to switch it off or anything like that. The exact form it will take two years from now, I can't really say, but I couldn't really say that before (inaudible) products do evolve (inaudible) We all like the product, we all use it, and none of us want to see it disappear. We're going to make sure it's taken care of. Michael Arrington: You're not going to answer that question at all. Robert Scoble: He promised me it would be up for at least a month. (laughs) Paul Buchheit: It will evolve over time. On nonexistent rumors that FriendFeed had threatened to sue Facebook over copying of features: Michael Arrington: What about the rumors that you had threatened or had actually sued facebook, and that's what lead to this acquisition over them stealing all of your ideas. Paul Buchheit : No, I've never even heard that rumor. Michael Arrington: I just made that up right now Buchheit also talked about FriendFeed’s habit of inventing features before anyone else, and dealing with the copying from Twitter and Facebook. He also says that the day the deal was announced was FriendFeed’s “biggest growth day ever.” The full transcript: Michael Arrington This is Mike Arrington, I'm here with Paul Buchheit, Co-founder and CEO of Friend Feed, and as always Robert Scoble. Robert Scoble: Number one user of FriendFeed. (inaudible) MA: How many follower people do you have on FriendFeed? RS: 47,000 MA: 47,000. Wow, I have 0. RS: I know, you deleted your account. MA: Well, temporarily, but now they won't turn it back on. So Paul, it's been a week since the announcement, and you actually signed it about a week ago, the FriendFeed acquisition. Paul Buchheit: Yeah, Sunday night. MA: Now you guys haven't commented on the purchase price but the Wall St. Journal came out and said 50. Without commenting specifically on the numbers, was that incorrect? I've got an indication there was something wrong with that. PB: Yeah, I obviously can't really comment on the details. The more people say about the deal, the more wrong they are. There's a lot of inaccurate things being reported. MA: Is it materially inaccurate? The number was significantly different? PB: I don't want to comment on that. There have been a lot of details and for some reason, the more details there are the further they get from the truth. MA: This is something I asked you guys about the other night, you guys are all reporting into products or into engineering Mike, what's the deal… MA: (turns to Barney Pell) How much did Powerset really sell for? Barney Pell: God, I mean it sold for…I didn't buy a car, put it that way. MA: It was 100 million, 85 million? BP: I don't remember (laughter) RS: That's called entrepreneur PR 101, "I don't remember" MA: Back to FriendFeed, everyone's kind of reporting to different groups. This tells me that FriendFeed's disappearing in a year. Is it going to stay on as its own brand, its own product, can users stay secure that FriendFeed's going to be around? PB: (inaudible)…We're not going to switch it off or anything like that. The exact form it will take two years from now, I can't really say, but I couldn't really say that before (inaudible) products do evolve (inaudible) We all like the product, we all use it, and none of us want to see it disappear. We're going to make sure it's taken care of. MA: You're not going to answer that question at all. RS: He promised me it would be up for at least a month. (laughs) PB: It will evolve over time. MA: What about the rumors that you had threatened or had actually sued facebook, and that's what lead to this acquisition over them stealing all of your ideas. PB: No, I've never even heard that rumor. MA: I just made that up right now. RS: The new journalism, make shit up as you ask the founder about it. PB: I actually like when people copy my ideas because I just like to see things out there. I mean, to me… MA: Well you say that now after you got bought, but you weren't saying that in January, were you? PB: Yeah I like to see my ideas. That's part of what makes this whole thing fun is that we've been able to have some impact. And obviously I want wherever I'm working on to be successful, and I also like that the things we do have a broader effect…(inaudible) One of the things I thought was great about email was not only did we make this really great email product for the many millions of people who were using it, but we also impacted the community through everyone else in the world who uses email (inaudible) crazy expectations Yahoo had encountered by rewriting their whole thing, and giving people much more storage. RS: Were you always bugged when I came in the office and said, "you're the facebook R&D department?" PB: Yeah, we just make things first, it's just a fact. RS: So are you now the official R&D department? PB: We're part of it (inaudible) I don't think there's an official department, it's all of engineering. MA: What was usage growth last week when the announcement came? PB: It was pretty good. MA: Your best day ever right? PB: The biggest growth day ever. RS: How come Demi Moore joined, right after PB: I don't know, I'll ask her next time. (inaudible) MA: So were there other potential acquirers, were you talking to others or was this really Facebook … PB: We had interest from pretty much everyone for quite a while. MA: Even Twitter? PB: I don't want to be specific about anything, all the companies involved have confidentiality… RS: Is there something you wish you had done differently (inaudible) PB: That's a really interesting question…nothing comes to mind but with reflection, I'm sure I can think of something. MA: How long before you leave and start your next thing? PB: Hopefully not for a long time. MA: Till you vest? (laughter) PB: No but seriously, part of what makes it really exciting is because facebook is at this really interesting point in history. It's at this point where it's almost inevitably (inaudible) successful…(inaudible) that's pretty exciting. MA: So you won the top most promising startup of 2008 at the Crunchies earlier this year. Do you think that was the main driver of the acquisition? PB: (laughs) I have to assume it was…the gorilla was in the term sheet in fact. MA: Oh really? PB: No (laughs) MA: Alright, I'll let you go back to the party, thanks very much. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
 
Facebook 3.0 May Be The Most Useful App On The iPhone Yet Top
When Facebook launched the 2.0 version of its iPhone app in September of last year, it was a huge upgrade from its original app that launched with the App Store last July. And now it’s on the verge of launching the 3.0 version of the app, and having tested it today, we can safely say that it once again takes Facebook on the device to the next level. In fact, it may be the most useful app on the iPhone now, period. This new version simply improves upon the old one in just about every way imaginable. Not only does it have a wide range of new options and features, many of which we went over previously , but it’s actually faster. And the design is rather brilliant. Built by Facebook engineer Joe Hewitt , the app manages to maintain the good practices found in many iPhone apps, while at the same time creating its own unique look and feel. Features Nowhere is this new look more evident than on the new Facebook home screen. It’s sort of like the iPhone main screen, but with a different, distinctive design. The large buttons are easy to hit, and best of all, you can add people’s profiles and pages as icons as well, to provide shortcuts to your favorites. The main screen that you were probably used to from the old app now resides in the upper left corner of the main screen, as the “News Feed.” It largely looks the same but the ability to “like” items has been added to the ability to comment on them. You can also now easily take and post videos if you have an iPhone 3GS. Hitting the “News Feed” button in the upper right hand corner, allows you to sort this feed by the various filters you’ve set up. The “Profile” area is the next button on the main screen. The overall look and feel have been updated, and now also include the “like” and “comment” elements on the Wall. You can also now see your profile pictures. The “Friends” area has been updated to include both Friends and Pages. But a killer feature may be the ability to hit the phone icon and have the option to call or text your contacts. People who consider Facebook to be their contact list, will love this. The “Inbox” is the next main area, and it now features not only new messages, but updates from your groups, and sent messages. But the best thing about this feature is how fast messages load. It’s leaps and bounds better than trying to load messages on the regular Facebook, and I think from now on I’ll simply use the app to respond to any emails I get through it. The “Chat” and “Requests” areas remain largely the same, though both have been cleaned up. The big new feature of this app has to be “Events”. The lack of a way to even see events in the previous version of the app was a major complaint against it — it had people using the web interface to log-in specifically to find events. Now, not only can you see them in the app, you can see details like the address of the event and host of it. And you can RSVP, and you can see who else is attending. With so many Facebook users now using its events feature for social gatherings, it simply made no sense not to have this in there. The Events area also features a “Birthdays” tab to specifically see which of your friends’ birthday is coming up. The “Photos” area now allows you to create new photo albums, and it is significantly easier and more obvious as to how to tag someone in a picture. And at last, Facebook photos allow you to take advantage of the iPhone’s multi-touch to pinch zoom in and out of pictures. The last main page element is “Notes,” which is new. You can see, edit and create new notes from here, just in case your Status Updates don’t give you enough room for all you want to say. Below the main elements is the “Notifications” area that seems to update in near real-time when someone comments or “likes” one of your items or an item you’ve commented on. What’s Missing As good as this new Facebook iPhone app is, there are still some missing features. The two biggest ones are Push Notifications and a robust search. Hewitt had mentioned previously that Push Notifications would not be in 3.0, but hinted that they could come in 3.1. He stated on Twitter that with 3.0 done, the work is already starting on 3.1 . When we asked him about any new features for that build, Hewitt said he wasn’t ready to comment on specifics yet. But it’s probably a good bet that Push Notifications will be one of them. And earlier today, he also noted that there will be a landscape mode in 3.1 . And he’s also noted that videos recorded on the iPhone 3GS don’t yet play in the app because Facebook doesn’t encode them in an iPhone-compatible way. That should change soon too. The bigger omission, as I see it, is the lack of a robust search tool. Facebook recently rolled out the upgraded search functionality on its site, but on the iPhone searching is limited to profiles and pages. Basically, it’s useless, as you can get much of this information from the Friends area. If Facebook is serious about search, it needs to make basically everything that gets updated on the site (allowed for by individual’s privacy settings, of course) searchable on its mobile app in real-time. That would be a killer feature. Overall Overall, the Facebook 3.0 iPhone app is a huge step forward as a social tool. In fact, in terms of the data it lets you access, it’s hard to argue that any app is more robust. It’s now basically a way to keep track of and remark about what your friends are up to, an always up-to-date contact list, a picture and video sharer, an inbox, an IM client, and a event coordinator, all tied to over 250 million social users. With the additions of Push Notifications and a better search tool, it will be nearly perfect. And all of these new features wrapped into an app that is even zippier, makes this a great (and free) upgrade. Update : Hewitt has just let us know about another really nice feature. If you tap the Facebook logo, you’ll automatically go back to the main home screen. Tap it again and you’ll return to where you just were. Subtle, but nice feature. CrunchBase Information Facebook iPhone Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 

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