The latest from TechCrunch
- Google Begins Soft Censorship Of Arbitrary Piracy-Related Queries
- Quora + CrunchBase + LinkedIn = Best Extension Ever?
- YC Co-Founder Jessica Livingston On The Dearth Of Women In Tech (And Some Steps To Fix It)
- LinkedIn Buys Business Card Converter CardMunch, Will Offer Its Services For Free
| Google Begins Soft Censorship Of Arbitrary Piracy-Related Queries | Top |
| The efforts of media companies to quash online piracy are a bit like someone trying to put out a forest fire with a wet noodle. The latest pathetic flail comes in the form of coercing Google into censoring its results for some search terms. A number of words will no longer be autocompleted or trigger an instant search, among them the interesting and perfectly legal “bittorrent.” It’s a new high for antipiracy theater, because you can of course still search for the terms by hitting enter, and get the same results as before, including direct links to torrent files hosted on well-known indexers. The move will accomplish two things, though: first, it will damage consumer trust of a company whose services are ostensibly objective, and second, it confirms for the hundredth time how quixotic and misguided the efforts of the MPAA et al. are in every action they take. The actual censorship (I use the word lightly) is a joke. A leakier sieve than this was never wrought. While “Bittorrent” is blocked, “torrent” is not, and while some popular cyber lockers are on the blacklist (Rapidshare, Megaupload), others aren’t (Drop.io, Hotfile). As far as preventing piracy, the policy is worthless — incompetent. I have no doubt that this list was put together by the media companies, because Google would have done a far better job of doing it. The team responsible for executing this probably lost more time to derisive laughter than long lunches. As for the damage it does to Google’s reputation, it’s really nothing that wary web users weren’t already aware of. The algorithm and Google’s results have always been at best pseudo-objective, and Google has made these kinds of gun-jumping censorship mistakes before. But when word gets out to the millions of people who don’t care about DMCA requests and cyber lockers that Google is allowing music industry officials in between them and their search results, there may be… well, let’s be honest, there will be a small ripple of outrage, then people will forget. But a reputation as a search-broker for big business isn’t what Google wants. Of course, the practical effects of this move will be utterly nil. The companies and websites being soft-blocked are livid, but the media industry wants nothing to do with them anyway, and Google holds all the cards, so there’s not much the offended parties can do. Will Google expand the blacklist? Will the terms ever be hard-blocked? I’m guessing that the media companies expended a lot of time and capital just getting this non-result, so I doubt future changes will be soon or serious. Google can plausibly demur on broader censorship, calling this little blacklist a gesture of good will and referring the MPAA and RIAA to the allegedly infringing sites themselves. More analysis and comments from the affected companies can be found at TorrentFreak . | |
| Quora + CrunchBase + LinkedIn = Best Extension Ever? | Top |
| A month ago, Polaris Ventures principal Ryan Spoon wrote up a quick blog post looking for a developer with Chrome extension/app experience. He had a pretty simple idea for something to help him with his job. Matt Basta saw the post and created the extension Spoon was looking for almost instantly. Now they’re opening it up for all to use and calling it Polaris Insights . The straightforward app is very, very slick. You simply visit the website of a company you’re interested in, hit the extension button, and you get an overlay of the CrunchBase, LinkedIn, and Quora data for the company. The CrunchBase column shows you the funding information, the LinkedIn column shows you your connections within the company, and the Quora column shows you some of the Q&A conversations going on about about company. Yep. Awesome. Mainly because of the CrunchBase usage, obviously. But okay, the other two are pretty cool as well. “ I imagine bloggers, VCs, business development and sales folks will find this super useful ,” Spoon says. Indeed. This is my new best friend already. We have previously written about a Quora extension , but that only shows you notifications. This gives you actual data — and it does so in an interesting way. Rather than using a Quora API (which is still in its infancy ), the extension uses Chrome’s ability to pull data in the background from Quora.com and auto-complete the extension with it. And it’s all cached, so Basta jokes that it won’t turn Quora into Tumblr — that is, it shouldn’t cripple the service. Polaris Insights is Chrome-only for now, but Spoon says that if it’s popular enough, they’ll gladly do a Firefox version. CrunchBase Information Quora CrunchBase LinkedIn Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| YC Co-Founder Jessica Livingston On The Dearth Of Women In Tech (And Some Steps To Fix It) | Top |
| Last August our own Michael Arrington wrote a post addressing a topic that’s as important as it is sensitive: the lack of women who are running startups. In short, his point was that there simply aren’t enough women who are setting out to become entrepreneurs — and it’s not because the issue is being swept under the rug or because the industry is heavily weighted against them. Now Y Combinator co-founder Jessica Livingston has written an insightful article discussing her own experience with this. Livingston is as qualified as anyone to analyze the problem — she wrote Founders at Work and has also interviewed hundreds (perhaps thousands) of founders for Y Combinator. And her conclusion is similar to Michael’s: So why don't women want to start startups? I wonder if it's not that not enough women want to start startups, but that not enough women even consider it as an option. Livingston’s post is well worth reading in its entirety. She chronicles the things that were on her mind during her mid 20′s (entrepreneurship wasn’t among them, because she wasn’t exposed to it) and discusses the advice she would have given herself at that age had she wanted to start her own company. Here’s one of her tips, on what is one of the most difficult challenges: finding a cofounder. Finding a technical cofounder would have been difficult for me. I was an English major and didn't know any computer programmers. The best advice here is to get out and network. If someone in your IT department is actually good, befriend them. Ask friends of friends if they know talented programmers. Read Hacker News. Go to meetups or other similar events. This may feel uncomfortable but it won't be the first uncomfortable thing you have to do if you want to start a startup. Finding a programmer to work with if you don't already know one will be a challenge. Merely judging if a programmer is exceptional vs. competent will be very hard if you are not one yourself. When you do find someone, work together informally for a while to test your compatibility. Cofounders will endure so much together that their relationship is often compared to a marriage. And while Livingston says that there is probably some degree of discrimination against women from investors (which I suspect is true, even if it isn’t deliberate on their part), she believes the bigger problem is that not enough women are involved with these companies in the first place. Fortunately Livingston isn’t just talking about the issue — she’s taking some steps to address it. Next month she will be working with Grubwithus (a YC company) to organize a series of dinners where women thinking of starting a company, or curious about the process, can interact with herself and YC alumni. If you’re interested (and female) you can sign up for the dinners right here . CrunchBase Information Jessica Livingston Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| LinkedIn Buys Business Card Converter CardMunch, Will Offer Its Services For Free | Top |
| In perhaps one of the most like-minded and forward-thinking acquisitions I’ve ever seen, career-driven social network LinkedIn has bought CardMunch , a Shoeboxed -like startup that scans your business cards and accurately converts them into phone contacts using Mechanical Turk. The price of the acquisition was not disclosed. From the CardMunch blog: “Our long-term vision for CardMunch has been to help manage business contacts and help you to leverage your contacts and connections for doing business. With that in mind, we are thrilled to announce today that CardMunch is now a part of LinkedIn! LinkedIn is the world's largest professional network and as such, provides the perfect platform for us to execute the CardMunch vision. That's not all; we have even more good news! Starting today, the current version of the CardMunch app will be completely free! Yes, you heard right, the current version of the CardMunch app is now a free service, which means that you can capture and transcribe as many business cards as you like, free of charge.” The best part of this deal is that the CardMunch business card scanning services, which used to cost $2.99 for the app and .25 cents per card after the first 10 cards, will now be offered for free with a refund given to people with pre-existing credits. Seeing as though getting a leg up in the social game is all about the social graph a.k.a your contacts list, this could prove to be a very wise move for LinkedIn as people are now incentivized to upload their business contacts for utilitarian purposes. The use of CardMunch is effectively social networking lead generation, when viewed from LinkedIn’s standpoint. As of today LinkedIn’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy will apply to the data users upload to CardMunch. The company also says that it will be adding new features in the coming months and may require users to “use their LinkedIn accounts to access CardMunch.” Exactly. You can download the application gratis here. CrunchBase Information CardMunch LinkedIn Information provided by CrunchBase | |
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