The latest from TechCrunch
- Did America Lose its Cleantech Mojo, or Did Brazil, Germany and China Just Get More? (TCTV)
- Snaptu Doubles Userbase In 5 Months, Now Has 5.5 Million Active Accounts
- Browser Extension Lets You "Like" Tweets
- Google's Advertiser Assistance Program (Part II: Video Ads)
- Federal Prosecutors: Supply Line Leaks May Constitute Insider Trading
- Twitter: "No Plans For A Twitter News Network", But It's Still An Interesting Idea
| Did America Lose its Cleantech Mojo, or Did Brazil, Germany and China Just Get More? (TCTV) | Top |
| Nat Goldhaber of Claremont Creek Ventures thinks that 2011 will be the year of the cleantech IPO …finally. So does that mean that America hasn’t totally lost the cleantech race after all? The most optimistic case is that we’re in a clump of countries leading the pack. The glass-half-empty version: Politics, boneheaded legislation and our lousy capital markets will saddle America’s culture of innovation, giving other surging hot spots a leg up. In the second part of our interview with Goldhaber, we talk about America’s cleantech mojo. | |
| Snaptu Doubles Userbase In 5 Months, Now Has 5.5 Million Active Accounts | Top |
| Snaptu , a Sequoia-backed company that offers a suite of smartphone-like applications that can be installed on more basic handsets, has hit another major milestone: it’s now up to 20 million registered accounts, 5.5 million of which are active. And it’s adding users very quickly — it was only last June that the company announced that it had 10 million registered users, 2.5 million of which were active. In other words, the company has doubled its user base in only five months. The company isn’t showing any signs of slowing down, either. Snaptu reports that it’s now adding 2.5 million new users a month — more than one a second — and that it’s drawing 3.3 billion monthly page views. Snaptu says that 43% of its users are in Asia (including India), with 26% in North America and the rest split between Europe and South and Central America. Smartphones like the iPhone and Android devices may be all we hear about these days, but the vast majority of mobile phones are still running operating systems that are much less sophisticated (and data intensive). That’s where Snaptu comes into play: users download the company’s Java application, which they can then use to install ‘sub-applications’. Snaptu’s library of apps includes Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, some news sites (including TechCrunch), and a more generic RSS reader. Snaptu offers these apps for free; it generates revenue through advertising. Many of these services, like Facebook and Twitter, offer their own mobile-friendly web apps, but Snaptu offers a more consistent interface (you can jump between apps using an iPhone-like UI) and says that it’s been highly optimized for better performance. Whatever they’re doing, it seems to be working. CrunchBase Information Snaptu Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| Browser Extension Lets You "Like" Tweets | Top |
| It was inevitable, developer Jesse Stay has built a way “Like” tweets on the Twitter homepage. The winner of Kynetx’s Facebook App contest , Stay’s browser plugin uses Facebook’s iframe code to give you the option to “Like” in addition to “Retweet,”"Favorite,” and “Reply to” Tweets on Chrome, Internet Explorer or Firefox. Just install the extension and the buttons show up when you hover over the tweet in your stream. Well if Twitter wasn’t going to do it … “Liked” tweets will also get posted to your Facebook profile and are a defacto way to share your favorite posts on Twitter with your social graph. Stay plans on further customizing Twitter to integrate with Facebook through plugins and is working on a “post to Facebook” checkbox below Twitter status update box as well as Twitter and Facebook profile pic synchronization. Around 65 million people currently “Like” stuff online daily . As the universal Internet “Like” button evolved out of the Facebook status update, it’s inevitable that the “Like” disease would somehow spread to Twitter status updates as well, especially since the end result is more traffic for everyone involved. You can download the plugins here. CrunchBase Information Twitter Facebook Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| Google's Advertiser Assistance Program (Part II: Video Ads) | Top |
| Well, this is interesting. Google’s Advertising Assistance Program extends to video ads. Earlier today I published an investigative post about Google’s relationship with Publicis and other large ad agencies and incentive programs whereby Google pays the ad agencies to use its advertising platform. That post focussed on the demand-side platforms (DSPs) and trading desks inside the ad agencies which sometimes are powered by Google technology under the covers. Well, it turns out that Google also offers ad agencies incentives to adopt its video and display ads. A reader who used to work at Google sent us a tip with some text from a PDF marked “confidential and proprietary” that was circulated to Google sales people back in 2009 detailing the “North America Display & Video Incentive Program.” The handout basically lists some sales talking points, including some stats on the disparity between consumer online video viewing and the amount of advertising dollars going to video. Google never pays rebates, commissions, or kickbacks directly. Rather it clothes the payments in the guise of technical assistance, on-site consultations, industry research, training, and other assistance to help advertising agencies adopt new kinds of advertising formats such as video. Apparently, coming up with their own pre-roll video ads for their clients is too taxing for the ad agencies and they need some help. Google can call these payments whatever it wants, but it has no way of knowing what the ad agencies actually do with the money. Does it really all go towards “research” and “technical support” or does it find its way to help pad their bottom line. If it is the latter, then these payments effectively amount to a kickback. Before I keep beating up on Google, I should note that Google is not alone here. Such commissions and kickbacks are standard practice in the advertising industry. And in fact, when Google tried to stop paying commissions a few years ago, there was an uproar from the agencies (who control the advertising purse strings of most of all the large companies). That obviously didn’t go so well, since Google is once again playing ball. Here is the part of the PDF about the financial incentives: Financial Incentive The plan includes graduated spend incentives, as well as adoption bonuses to encourage more agencies to try out new media. Participating agencies will receive quarterly reports detailing spend and associated incentives. Incentives will be automatically calculated by Google's Finance team, and paid to qualifying agencies on a quarterly basis. Video Research Google will invest in research initiatives that address both large questions and client specific needs: • Industry-wide research will cover ideal formats and mixes for consumer engagement • Partnership with specific clients and campaigns will focus on ad effectiveness relationship between various media Rich Media & Onsite Campaign Support Since support for constantly evolving rich media formats is both critical and taxing, Google will provide resources to the agency. The program includes, as needed: • Technical support to assist in transitioning video and other assets to rich media, easing the execution of these new formats • On-site operational support to assist creative teams in the implementation of large campaigns Min US Spend Payout % $30M+ 10% $20M – <$30M 8% $10M – <$20M 6% $5M – <$10M 4% $3M – <$5M 2% Min US Clients Payout % 60+ 4% 45 – 59 3% 30 – 44 2% 15 – 29 1% • Annual plan with quarterly cash payment • Based on billed spend during that quarter • Agencies may aggregate to a single entity if contracted under that single entity Payouts matched to quarterly investment Client adoption increases incentives • Annual plan with quarterly cash payment • Client list pre-determined (at the brand level) -exceptions/additions to be approved by Google's Finance team I asked Google if this program is still in place and spokesperson responded that “we work with many advertising agencies and marketers to help them develop and invest in new advertising technologies and formats, including technological assistance, measurement, creative development, research funding and co-marketing.” He also pointed me to the FAQ on this Adwords Help page , which states: From time to time Google offers participating advertisers certain incentives to accelerate the adoption and investment in Google’s advertising programs. Advertisers may receive financial incentives, including but not limited to credits, to help fund their campaigns (e.g., in the Google Display and Video Incentive Program, participating agencies receive financial incentives each calendar quarter based upon the amount of their display and video advertising spend for the previous quarter). In addition, advertisers may receive campaign assistance such as industry research and on-site consultation to support the growth of Google’s advertising programs. If you are eligible for an incentive program, you will be contacted with appropriate opportunities for participation. But just take a look at those incentives. If an ad agency spends $30 million of its clients’ money on video or display advertising on Google, it would get $3 million back in financial incentives. On the lower end, $5 million in ad spending, would generate a $100,000 payment. I’m sure all that would go to “research.” Photo credit: flickr/ Nathan Gibbs CrunchBase Information Google Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| Federal Prosecutors: Supply Line Leaks May Constitute Insider Trading | Top |
| A new federal investigation is focusing on the legality of supply line leaks and their consequences on Wall Street. The poster boy for this would have to be Apple, around which an entire manufacturing and distribution channels has grown, and which is now too big to plug every leak — especially now that memetically propagating news magnifies every murmur into a clamor, for better or for worse . The subjects of the probe are some research firms that make it their business to know what’s going on in, say, Shenzhen or Taiwan, where friends and industry experts dispense information that may or may not be confidential about such things as big new orders, equipment changes, and meetings with other companies. The feds say that at some point, these things must constitute insider trading. I say good luck drawing that particular line. It’s funny watching various sectors react as their perimeters begin to come in conflict with the internet. Not only because that initial reaction usually simultaneously overreaches and underestimates , but because I relish that moment when an industry or person realizes exactly what a den of vipers they’ve stepped into. I wish I could actually be in the room when they first understand the situation. The financial industry and its regulators demonstrate a strange mix of progressive and antiquated thinking. Not to get into political or big money issues here, but even the limited democratization of information currently underway could have serious implications, though there are channels of information deep enough and obscure enough that even 4chan might not be able to uncover them for quite some time. In the meantime, more public forms of “inside” information are becoming public knowledge, and I think the feds are going to have a hell of a time laying down the law on what is confidential, what is privileged, what is within the bounds of journalistic anonymity, and so on. They’re getting hit with the industrial equivalent of privacy concerns. For example, what role do confidentiality agreements signed in China by factory workers have in our laws? What about temporary agreements when they do contract work for an American company? Is a factory floor employee allowed to connect the dots by himself, with knowledge only of, say, what size the current iPad is and what size the unbranded display he’s assembling is? Is it the corporation’s responsibility to compartmentalize and enforce secrecy, or is it each individual company’s? Whose is the liability when a truck delivers an iPad 2 to the wrong address, and some Hong Kong blogger picks up on it? The SEC and whoever else is involved here will have to make a huge number of judgment calls, and a large portion of them will be wrong. Not that I blame them, or that I could do much better myself. But I will say this: any government effort to make illegal the free passage of publicly available information will meet with failure. How can you forbid a research company from making use of anonymous information provided to an industry outlet like Digitimes? They publish “insider” information every day, and I check it every day, because that is valuable information for what I do . Is similar information made confidential simply by the fact that it hasn’t been reported yet? There is a chance that citing such information in decisions to sell, buy, and so on will become illegal. Think about how stupid that is. Yet the regulators are caught between a rock and a hard place, and either the law must change or they must disregard the now-outdated law in light of (relatively) recent developments in technology and information markets. At the moment, however, it’s still appears to be just a preliminary investigation, so there’s no need to get too worked up about it. Still, be prepared for some strange and labyrinthine regulations concerning what information does and doesn’t constitute a breach of confidentiality. And then watch every single party affected sidestep those regulations. “Better luck next time” is all we’ll be able to say. | |
| Twitter: "No Plans For A Twitter News Network", But It's Still An Interesting Idea | Top |
| Earlier today, Reuters ran a short interview with Twitter co-founder Biz Stone in which he talked about the possibility of tweets being used to create a “Twitter News Service”. It seems pretty likely that Stone was just running with a hypothetical idea that was on his mind at the time of the interview. (Okay, it seems very likely .) And in fact, it’s hardly the first time a Twitter co-founder has talked about similar ideas in the press — which nothing ever came of (at least not yet). But that doesn’t mean it’s not an interesting idea. As Stone tells Reuters about Twitter, ” From the very beginning this has seemed almost as if it’s a news wire coming from everywhere around the world. “ Back in the early days of Twitter, it wasn’t the mundane updates from web people that made the service so interesting to me, it was when it started being a go to place for realtime news. This started with Twitter’s ability to spread links faster than other services at the time. But it quickly escalated into something much more when an earthquake would happen somewhere else in the world, or a massive fire would break out. People would be there, on the ground, tweeting about it in realtime. It made the traditional news outlets look like absolute dinosaurs. So it shouldn’t be any surprise that now, a few years later, many of them are using the service on a daily basis to augment their news coverage. Ask yourself this: if a news story was breaking right now, which would you turn to first: your television or Twitter? For many people, it’s now the latter . Twitter is simply a faster way to watch events unfold, and to get more information from all sides. Sure, a lot of misinformation is spread on the network too, but the ecosystem is actually pretty good at quickly filtering out what’s fact from fiction. And it sounds as if Stone is thinking about this as well. “ Stone said he envisaged other news organizations might take more specialized access ,” according to Reuters. That seems to imply that Twitter could potentially create a new, focused tweet firehose that news organizations could use. Perhaps they could be given all the information coming into Twitter about a story, and they’d be in charge of sorting through it and picking fact from fiction. If Twitter had a way to quiet the noise and focus the stream in such a way, this would be very valuable information to any news organization. Further, Stone later says that Twitter could also offer a service where the outlets could easily get in touch with Twitter users on the ground of a story, to perhaps turn them into instant embedded reporters. Of course, the big question in this big hypothetical scenario would be if Twitter could or should make money from this? Reuters notes that Twitter sells access to their firehose of data to Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, implying that such a news firehose might be for sale as well. And many news outlets would likely pay for such a thing. But Stone uses the words “open” and “shared” in his actual quotes. If Twitter actually wants to “ be a force for good “, perhaps such a service is better left free. Otherwise, they’d be dictating who got access to potentially important information based on financial agreements. Of course, all of this is just hypothetical anyway. Again, Twitter has “ no plans for a ‘Twitter News Network’ “. But never say never. Especially when there’s clearly something to an idea. @SG Sean Garrett Ask @ biz a "can you imagine Twitter doing…" Q, & he's going to get creative and imagine. Related: No plans for a "Twitter news network". about 4 hours ago via web Retweet Update : And here’s a link to the video of Stone’s interview with Reuters. Note that Stone says Twitter would obviously be open to partnering with any news networks on such an idea. [image: Optimum7.com ] CrunchBase Information Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase | |
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