Thursday, September 17, 2009

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A Couple Little Nifty Facebook And Twitter Username Tweaks Top
So, you remember those Facebook vanity names ? Yeah, well starting today they’re even more useful. That’s because you now use them to sign in to your Facebook account. One of the most annoying things about logging into Facebook was that it still required you to use an email address as your username. The problem is that most of the time those are much longer than regular user names. So this move to the vanity URLs is a nice one. On the downside, this may make it slightly easier for hackers to crack open your account as usernames are public while most email addresses probably weren’t. Not to let Facebook take all the username glory today, Twitter also rolled out a small tweak. Now, your @NAME will work in your Twitter URL. So, for example, if I direct people to twitter.com/@parislemon , that works just as it would without the “@”. I have no idea why they did this, but I have to believe there is some reason. Earlier this week, Facebook rolled out its update to let you tag friends in your status messages using the @ syntax . Of course, there still is no real interoperable way to connect Twitter usernames and Facebook usernames, as that might be asking too much from this growing rivalry. [thanks Peter] Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco
 
I'm Sorry, But We Have To Ban Music. That's Just The Way It Is. Top
It has come to my attention that the music industry now wants royalties for those 30-second clips of music you hear in iTunes . That, I think you'll agree, is BS. Seeing as how we're a solution-oriented blog here at CrunchGear, I want to offer a completely fool-proof way to save the music industry and put an end to the years and years of nonsense we've seen since Napster was first released: let's ban music. That's right, let's pass a law that says "the creation or performance of music, in any form, is hereby banned. Any violation of this law will be punishable by death." Problem solved, let's all play Hungry Hungry Hippos. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco
 
Seesmic Desktop Continues To Grow, Adds Facebook Fan Pages, Yfrog Integration And More Top
Seesmic, the startup behind the Twitter and Facebook desktop and web clients, is launching a new version of Seesmic Desktop that adds Facebook fan pages, yFrog integration, a “reply to all” button for messages and a favorites timeline. Developed by French entrepreneur Loic Le Meur, Seesmic recently launched its browser-based Twitter client at TechCrunch's Real-Time Stream CrunchUp in July. You can download the new version of Seesmic Desktop here. Seesmic Desktop, which launched in April and has reached 2.5 million downloads, is an Adobe Air-powered client that has pulls in status updates from Facebook and Tweets from Twitter in a real-time feed. Today, Seesmic Desktop is furthering its integration with Facebook by allowing users to access and manage Facebook Pages. Users can view and post to activity feeds from any Facebook page they are fans of and can also manage their own fan pages. Each Facebook Page will show up as a column, where you can post messages, and respond to comments and express likes, just as you would in a Facebook feed. If you're an administrator of fan pages, you can post messages as the administrator. I think the compelling part of this feature is Seesmic’s play in the enterprise space. It’s no secret that businesses are actively using both Twitter and Facebook as marketing tools and there have been a plethora of enterprise-friendly clients that help companies and brands manage social networking initiatives. Seesmic’s existing multi-Twitter user functionality and now the Facebook Fan Pages integration is definitely establishing the desktop client as a viable business application (as well as a useful consumer app). Seesmic is launching a reply-all feature that lets users reply to all of the usernames listed in a message. This is useful when re-tweeting a message because the Reply-all function will simply Retweet the exact text of a message. Additionally, you can now add a “favorites” column to your interface that lets you mark and aggregate your favorite Tweets and messages. Le Meur also says that TwitPic -rival Yfrog has been growing fast and when Seesmic was looking to partner with a Twitter picture posting service, Yfrog was the most attractive default picture posting service. Yfrog will now be implemented on all Seesmic products, including the browser version. Speaking of Seesmic Products, I spoke to Le Meur about his much hyped iPhone app, which is scheduled to launch in October. Le Meur was tight lipped about details on the iPhone app’s features, but he did say that the experience on the desktop, browser and mobile versions of Seesmic will be the same. That means that the app will probably be integrated with both Facebook and Twitter. He did mention that the browser version of Seesmic will be integrated with Facebook within the next month as developers are currently tweaking the application’s functionality on different browsers. I’m a big fan of Seesmic’s web-based client, particularly because of its Gmail-like interface and the avoidance of using a desktop app built off of Adobe Air, which is buggy. Seesmic faces competition from PeopleBrowser and rival Tweetdeck, which recently added MySpace functionality and a number of other features. Disclosure: TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington is an investor in Seesmic. I am not. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco
 
Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Europe Top
This week’s TechCrunch 50 conference in San Francisco brought together a number of threads and stories which have been kicking around the back of my mind for while. A little like Borat , I’ve been asking the Americans a lot of questions (though hopefully without the accompanying chaos). The first one seems obvious but is worth spelling out one more time: to launch a consumer web service or, increasingly, mobile application, America remains the golden prize worth shooting for. It is a large, homogeneous market which speaks one language. It is quite simply a no-brainer to really go for it there. That has always had implications for European startups. How do you launch in a market when you are not actually in the USA, or headquartered there? How do you get traction? It is of course perfectly possible. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco
 
I Swear Twitter Is Going Berserk Today Just To Show Off Its Pretty New Graphics Top
Twitter is going completely nuts right now. Avatars are disappearing, backgrounds are disappearing, 503 errors are popping up, and yes, I’ve even see a Fail Whale. I’m not entirely sure why this is, and people at Twitter don’t seem too sure either , but I have a theory that it’s to show off a bunch of pretty new graphics they’ve been working on. The new Fail Whale in the clouds: The new color birdie default avatars: The new suspended account birdie: I bet the official line will be that Twitter’s been tweaking things (say that ten times fast) quite a bit recently, so these anomalies are probably tied to that. But whatever, I think they just wanted to show off their cool new fail designs. Update : Here are a few updates from Twitter. The API team says : We are witnessing elevated error rates on OAuth requests. There is a disturbance in the force. We are looking into it. Meanwhile Twitter support member notes : Twitter is currently experiencing issues with backgrounds and avatars disappearing. Don’t worry, they will be back shortly. [suspended photo via flickr/ laughingsquid ] CrunchBase Information Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco
 
Skype Sniffing Around Web Chat Startups Top
Skype has been in the news a lot lately.  Over the past six months, rumors swirled that the peer-to-peer telephony service provider was going to be bought back from eBay by its original founders, to be spun off as a separate company and then IPO, and ultimately to be sold to an investor group (which was confirmed at the beginning of this month). Now Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis through their Joltid holding are suing eBay and the new buyers over copyright issues centered around core p2p technology used in Skype product which they have developed and own. The rumors just won’t stop. This time, however, it’s about the company’s product strategy rather than its general fate. A well-placed source tells me Skype management is actively shopping around for companies that provide web-based communication services such as browser-based calling and video chats. To date, Skype has focused on desktop and mobile software to handle peer-to-peer based calling over the Internet. This is not surprising, because when Skype first started back in 2003 bandwidth costs were a an order of magnitude higher than they are today and desktop apps were the only way to go if they were ever going to make a decent profit from Internet-based telephony. But with bandwidth prices decreasing worldwide at a fast rate, it makes a lot of sense for Skype to at least consider moving into web applications and claim their ground. The fastest way to do that would be to pick up a startup with proven technology and early traction in that field, like TokBox , PalTalk or Tinychat . Here’s another reason Skype might be looking at web-based communication service providers. What if eBay/Skype cannot develop a workaround that would allow them to continue the service without using the Joltid-owned source code powering its core peer-to-peer engine? It’s conceivable that might drive the company to consider purchasing companies with similar or related Web-based technology to speed up its move away from the litigation threat hanging over them. Of course, companies talk to one another all the time and as far as we know there haven’t been any official acquisition offers from Skype at this point. But they’re definitely looking. CrunchBase Information Skype Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco
 
TC50: Six Noteworthy Startups From Korea And Japan Top
Nearly 130 million people use the web in Japan and Korea combined, with Japan itself boasting the world’s third biggest Internet population (94 million users). But getting exposure on an international scale is a big problem for globally positioned web startups in these (and many other Asian) markets. TechCrunch50 has always been very welcoming towards companies from countries other than the US. Last year, for example, a total of five companies from Japan made a showing at the event (three startups presented onstage, two were in the DemoPit). This year, Korea sent four promising companies to TechCrunch50 (finalist Sealtale , and DemoPit participants UniQube , touchring and FillThat ), while Japan had two startups exhibiting in the DemoPit ( LIFEmee and Spysee ). These are the four noteworthy Korean services that made it to TechCrunch50 this year: Sealtale (TechCrunch50 finalist) Launched by six college students, the Korean version of Sealtale , a social widget service, has attracted 200,000 users in six months (the English version launched Monday on TechCrunch50’s first day). Sealtale lets users express their interests, preferences or causes via so-called seals, which are interactive widgets. You can integrate these seals into your blog or profile page on a social network and interact with other people within the seal itself. The system works across various blog platforms and social networks. The seals can include content like text (RSS feeds, comments, posts), audio and video files. Sealtale allows you to design and distribute your own seals, too. Companies can create branded seals and use them as viral marketing vehicles. A movie studio, for example, could create a seal for one of its movies and provide trailers and text-based information for users who choose to show that seal on their blog. Read more about Sealtale in our previous post . FillThat (DemoPit company) Monetizing blogs is notoriously difficult. FillThat intends to solve this problem by creating a revenue stream for bloggers within a blog’s commenting space. The way it works is that you buy virtual currency (”Fill Dollars”) with real money and then reward insightful comments with a tip. As a result, the valuable comments will (hopefully) bubble up to the top of the comment thread, at the same time suppressing spam and useless comments. FillThat will go live next month. Touchring (DemoPit company) Touchring wants to bring voice communication into the social space. The Flash app makes it possible to call up friends over so-called Touchrings, cell phone-like icons that you can design yourself and integrate into your blog or profile on various social networks. Calls with other Touchring users are free, but you can also make phone calls to landlines and mobile phones ( rates ). Touchring launched yesterday. UniQube (DemoPit company) Seoul-based Solspectrum showcased UniQube in the DemoPit, an in-stream ad placement solution that’s supposed to help video portals monetize their content. The aim is to enhance brand awareness and customer engagement by integrating interactive ads into video clips or movies at the right moment in a non-intrusive way. When an actor eats a pizza in a certain scene of a movie, for example, an overlay pizza ad could be displayed. Viewers choosing to click on it could then sign up for a competition or get discount coupons directly within the video without navigating away to another page. Snippets containing the interactive ads can be cut out and sent to friends via Twitter, Facebook and other media. UniQube users can track the distribution paths and effectiveness of their video ads in real-time. The solution is built upon Silverlight and still in development. These are the two services from Japan that were in the TechCrunch 50 DemoPit: LIFEmee LIFEmee is a comprehensive life management service that allows you to store and share the significant aspects and events of your life online (from “the cradle to the crave”). Keep a diary, list up and control personal assets, upload a Last Will and Testament, lay out future plans and compare certain elements of your life, i.e. your annual income, with LIFEmee users around the world. LIFEmee launched at TechCrunch50 (a Japanese version follows soon). Read more about this service in my previous post . Spysee The Japanese version of this people search engine went online last year and instantly gained impressive traction . Much like Spock , Spysee is focused on collecting information on individuals and shedding light on their relation with other people. Type in “Michael Arrington” , for example, and you’ll get a mini bio, a diagram displaying people (relatively) close to him, pictures (i.e. this one ), relevant news, keywords, blog posts and video clips. Spysee went live Monday (in beta). Photo credit: Fumi Yamazaki Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco
 

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