The latest from TechCrunch
- Memo to Start-ups: You're Supposed to Be Changing the World, Remember?
- Twitter Email Notifier TwitApps Heading To Deadpool. Code To Live On In Open-Source
- Skype Sniffing Around Web Chat Startups
- Twitter Rolls Out Some Design Tweaks For Web App
- Palm Dances Around Pre Sales Figures
- TC50: Six Noteworthy Startups From Korea And Japan
| Memo to Start-ups: You're Supposed to Be Changing the World, Remember? | Top |
| I did interviews with most of the TechCrunch50 experts backstage and there was a common gripe about the companies launching there: Not enough passion, not enough swinging for the fences, not enough trying to change the world. There were too many people building safe businesses, too many companies just trying to make existing things slightly better, and too many people wanting to be the next Mint.com, not the next Google. Nothing against Mint, but Silicon Valley wasn't built on $170 million exits . Web visionaries like Reid Hoffman and Sean Parker struggled to come up with positive feedback on stage. Robert “I-get-excited-by-nearly-any-start-up” Scoble was so bored he was playing Hangman via Twitter with Paul Carr. Marc Andreessen praised Udorse —a company that he joked would make the world a worse place if it succeeded—because at least it was a new idea. Tim O'Reilly said he didn't care whether Cocodot , one of the companies he judged, succeeded or failed because it was so meaningless in the world. And Tony Hsieh just said it blatantly: "I didn't see anything that was trying to change the world." One big exception was CitySourced —a company that excited Kevin Rose precisely because it was trying to build something that doesn't really exist today and would make a huge difference in people's lives. It was the most excited I saw an expert about anything over the two-day event. I don't say this to knock the conference or the selections we made. But the truth is I heard it too consistently backstage to ignore it. To be fair, we're at that point in the start-up cycle where this is to be expected. Web 2.0 start-ups that are going to break out mostly have and others are running out of time and money. With fatigue setting in around the Valley, most new companies are looking to play it safe. We saw the exact same thing in 2001-2002. Then and now, press outlets compliment this type of thing as "sensibility" or being smart. Jeering ledes get written with told-you-so lines like "Remember profits, Silicon Valley?" Those people just don't understand the Valley and what makes great start-ups great. They're the same people who write about Facebook and Twitter once the companies have raised loads of money and gotten huge audiences. The people who extol the virtues of "sensibility" are never the people at the core of the next great companies. Whether press or VCs, they'll be late to the next wave, just like they were too late to this one. But the experts at our conference do get it and that's why they left mostly un-wowed. Here's why this matters: Start-ups by definition don't have the experience, market position, funding or resources to tackle obvious market opportunities. If what they're trying to do makes clear business sense, a bigger, better-positioned company would do it. A start-up's only edge is that it's not built into legacy businesses and preconceived notions and can do something, well, crazy. There are entrepreneurs somewhere building the next big companies. But it's probably just a wonky side-project that no one—not even the entrepreneur himself—realizes is the next big thing. That's who we need to drag on stage next year. Ten years from now I don't want to look back on TechCrunch50 and see that our winners had a string of $100 million exits. For a conference that seeks to ferret out the most exciting startups in the world, that's failure. I want to see huge audacious failures and huge gaudy wins. I worry if we play it too safe as a conference we'll lose the attention of the Andreessens, the Hsiehs, the Tim O'Reillys and the Reid Hoffmans and eventually, the audience that stayed glued to their uncomfortable seats even in the event's final hours hoping to see something that could change their lives. Crunch Network : MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco | |
| Twitter Email Notifier TwitApps Heading To Deadpool. Code To Live On In Open-Source | Top |
| As the current hot platform of choice for a lot of developers, we’re not seeing too many Twitter apps just yet in the Deadpool . But one, TwitApps , will hit it tomorrow, the developer is notifying users . The service was a useful one that allowed you to get an automated email with all your @replies and follower notifications from Twitter. But it would appear that the developer simply got fed up trying to build a new version while continuing to “fire-fight problems” with Twitter’s API. Here’s the core part of the developer’s statement: I love Twitter and use it a lot, but I'm tired of developing for the API. It's not that I don't think the API team over there do a fantastic job, or that I think the API is bad, it's a personal thing. It no longer excites me the way it once did, and this is part of the reason it's taken a long time for me to get v2 finished, and it's still not ready. So I've decided to shut it down rather than continuing to fire-fight problems and pick away at the new version. I'd rather tell the several thousand users of the service have to find alternatives where the developers are more committed to it. I'm sure I'll continue to tinker with the Twitter API – I do find it fascinating, but that's not the same as maintaining a quality product with users to answer to. The good news is that the code behind TwitApps will live on as an open-source project. This means that anyone else will be free to build and maintain a new TwitApps themselves. The plan is to publish the code to a GitHub account after the site shuts down, tomorrow, September 18 (the emails will continue to run through the 25th). The service had some 4,000+ users, who apparently have reached out to the developer en masse to try and get him to change his mind, but he says he won’t. So after tomorrow, no more TwitApps. Hopefully someone will use the code to build something similar. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors 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 a Skype M&A exec 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 | |
| Twitter Rolls Out Some Design Tweaks For Web App | Top |
| Twitter is currently rolling out a couple of design tweaks for its web version. The most apparent change is noticeable when you go to a user’s profile page. Instead of just a ‘Follow’ button under the person’s username, you’ll now get a newly designed follow button next to another button that allows you to follow, public message (or privately when he or she follows you back) or block the person in one click. Also, when you do a search for a popular trending topic, there’s a chance you’ll see a short explanation above the results about why it is trending (coming from WhatTheTrend.com ). See an example for a search on ‘Jay-Z’ below. Finally, the default avatar that new users are assigned when they sign up without uploading a proper profile pic has been changed to something, well, better. Slowly but surely, we’re seeing Twitter’s design when logged in change to one that inches closer to its recently launched new homepage , which was largely centered around search and trending topics. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco | |
| Palm Dances Around Pre Sales Figures | Top |
| Today Palm held its conference call for its Q1 FY 2010 results, during which it outlined the performance of its roster of smart phones. It’s a day that has been long awaited by investors, who are eager to see how the company’s flagship Palm Pre has actually been performing. And the results are in, sort of. Across its entire smartphone line Palm shipped 823,000 units this quarter, and its carrier partners “sold through” 810,000, of which the “vast majority” were the Palm Pre (the others were older Treos). In other words, Palm still isn’t talking. Up until now, Palm has remained mum on the sales of the Pre — its flagship phone that launched with much fanfare earlier this summer, but was quickly overshadowed by the iPhone 3GS launch. That didn’t change today, but we can glean some information from Palm’s statements: the term “vast majority” doesn’t really mean much, but assuming at least 60% of the sell-through figures were from the Pre, that would equate to more than 486,000 units. That’s more than what some have been expecting (a Bloomberg report cited an analyst predicting 400k units sold, while a MarketWatch report put the consensus at about 500K), and Palm’s overall smartphone sales beat analyst expectations. Still, it’s hard to look back at major Palm investor Roger McNamee ’s March, 2009 prediction that the Pre would obliterate the iPhone and think that the Pre’s launch was everything Palm hoped for. Let’s revisit that beautiful quote : You know the beautiful thing: June 29, 2009, is the two- year anniversary of the first shipment of the iPhone. Not one of those people will still be using an iPhone a month later.—Roger McNamee Granted, everyone knew this statement was utterly ridiculous as soon as McNamee uttered it, but the Pre has failed to really reach blockbuster status by even the most generous definition. There’s a reason why Palm is not touting its sales figures the way Apple did when the iPhone 3GS sold 1 million units within five days of its release and 5.2 million in the quarter. During today’s call Palm stressed that its success isn’t tied to a single device — rather, it’s about Palm’s webOS platform, which is now going to serve as the operating system for every future Palm release. It revealed in the conference call that more carriers are signing up for the Palm. And it will have a second shot at a smash-hit this fall, when it releases its smaller (and cheaper) Pixi in November. And a third shot after that, and then a fourth shot. Maybe one of these days it will get it right. Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors 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 : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco | |
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