The latest from TechCrunch
- Google Employee Redirects Hiybbprqag.com To Google Jobs Page
- (Founder Stories) Instagram CEO: "The Best Products In The World Start Out As Features"
- @KennethCole Sets New Bar For Social Media Stupidity [Update: And Removes Tweet]
| Google Employee Redirects Hiybbprqag.com To Google Jobs Page | Top |
| In what is perhaps the most brilliant move of the whole Bing copies Google fiasco, it looks like Google Taiwan employee Chih-Chung Chang has redirected http://www.hiybbprqag.com, a URL inspired by the nonsense terms Google used to bait Bing, to the Google Jobs page. Search Engine Land points out that that Chang registered the domain on February 1st, the day the story first broke, using the Google Taiwan office address. A quick Google search reveals that a person by the name Chih-Chung Chang is a Google Taiwan employee and another search in ironically Bing (after Google mysteriously failed to bring up more informative results) reveals his google.com email. I’ve emailed both him and Google for confirmation but it seems pretty clear that there’s an affiliation here. Perhaps what’s most awesome about the whole thing is the big “Lets work together” you get on the Google splash page after typing in the now infamous nonsense term hiybbprqag . One can’t help but think that Chang innocently bought the domain pre-emptively, in order to circumvent spammers, or worse, Microsoft. Neither Google or Chang have returned my multiple requests for comment. Needless to say hiybbprqag now has tons of relevant results in both Google and Bing Related. Image via/ Search Engine Land CrunchBase Information Google Microsoft Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| (Founder Stories) Instagram CEO: "The Best Products In The World Start Out As Features" | Top |
| If you care about startups or how hit products are made, watch the video above, which is Part II of Chris Dixon's Founder Stories conversation with Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom. Instagram is of course the hot social photo app that just raised $7 million this week. Yesterday, in Part I , Systrom talked about why he decided to change the product entirely before it even launched and the stress of that launch day when the servers started to crumble. In today’s video, he really goes into his Instagram’s approach to making a product. “I think the best products in the world start out as features,” he tells Dixon. Critics might say that Instagram is nothing more than a couple features (putting filters on photos and sharing them on social networks), he responds: “It is absolutely fair. Sure, those are features, but Twitter was just posting your status. Look at what happens when you are so specific that you can go really deep, and build a product around one feature.” He points out that “often features solve a specific problem.” And if you can solve a problem better than anyone else, you have the start of something that can continue to evolve. (You can jump to this part of the video here ). Instagram was trying to solve three problems 1. “The first problem we tried to solve was making your photo more interesting.” 2. “We wanted it to be fast to upload photos, so you can get back to hanging out with your friends.” 3. Make it easy to “send a picture to as many social networks as possible.” About halfway through the conversation (jump to this spot in the video). Systrom also addresses the fact that there is a lot of competition among photo apps right now (PicPlz and Path, just to name two).: “Sure, money is being thrown at a lot of people right now. I don’t think of Instagram as an iPhone app company. Anyone can build filters, anyone can build a photo-sharing app. Anyone can figure out how to scale at launch better than we did. The hard part is the community.” That community of users is now posting 4 photos every second. Instagram is a social app, but it is building a new interest graph on top of existing social graphs. One of the startling things about Instagram is that people who don’t speak the same language follow each other because the communication is all visual. The fact that Instagram transcends language is one reason it is taking off in Japan, Russia, and all over the world. Towards the end of the interview (jump here in the video), Dixon and Systrom talk about how hard it is to be an entrepreneur in a big company. Systrom used to work at Google, but without a computer science degree he felt hampered. He says: “To be a product manger at Google they love you to have a CS degree, but people who start social products are not necessarily engineers. Being really successful at Google is not the same as being successful as a social entrepreneur.” Dixon concurs: “Having a sense of ownership is why you stay up all night. I am not sure that stock options . . . can ever feel like ownership.” CrunchBase Information Instagram Kevin Systrom Chris Dixon Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| @KennethCole Sets New Bar For Social Media Stupidity [Update: And Removes Tweet] | Top |
| “We had hoped this ad would change the world but we blue it.” - Kenneth Cole Finally someone sees the unrest in Egypt for the marketing opportunity it truly is! I’ve now spent a couple hours reeling from how insensitive it was for designer Kenneth Cole to use #Cairo to publicize the availability of his spring collection online when Egypt is erupting in violence and millions were cut off from Internet communication for days. My first thought here was, uh oh, some PR person is getting fired for this, the most egregious case of hashtag surfing fail I’ve ever seen. But apparently the tweet came from Cole himself, signed “-KC.” Married to former NY Governor Mario Cuomo’s daughter Maria, Kenneth Cole feels entitled to publish consistently superfical ads that dabble in politics, most notably one that equated abortion to purses, “Dear pro-life advocates, Isn’t it a woman’s right to choose? After all, she’s the one carrying it.” Econsultancy points out that furniture maker Habitat pulled a similar move when it hopped on the hashtags #Iran and #Mousavi in order to blatantly advertise its website during the Iran election protests. It ended up firing the intern responsible and deleting the account. What did Kenneth Cole do? He sent out this pithy apology tweet. @KennethCole Kenneth Cole Re Egypt tweet: we weren't intending to make light of a serious situation. We understand the sensitivity of this historic moment -KC about 14 hours ago via Twitter for BlackBerry® Retweet Reply “We weren’t intending to make light of a serious situation.” Bullshit. Yes, yes you were. That’s exactly what you were doing. As of yet the media fiasco, estimated 1500 negative retweets an hour and an @KennethColePR spoof account haven’t affected the company’s stock price. But trust me they will. They will. Update: Kenneth Cole has deleted the original tweet, offering this apology on his Facebook page, in essence admitting that maybe it was too soon for Egypt jokes. “I apologize to everyone who was offended by my insensitive tweet about the situation in Egypt. I've dedicated my life to raising awareness about serious social issues, and in hindsight my attempt at humor regarding a nation liberating themselves against oppression was poorly timed and absolutely inappropriate.” @KennethColePR Rolling through Germany? Gestapo by our new Berlin store! #KennethColeTweets about 10 hours ago via web Retweet Reply @arrington Michael Arrington @ KennethCole I look forward to slavery and holocaust jokes next. about 12 hours ago via web Retweet Reply @hblodget Henry Blodget Hey, @ kennethcole , who's the idiot who sent this tweet? Has he/she been fired yet? http://read.bi/hdMVmj about 13 hours ago via TweetDeck Retweet Reply @alexia Alexia Tsotsis Okay Internet, who do we hate more, Kenneth Cole or Mubarak? about 10 hours ago via Twitter for Mac Retweet Reply @NathanWurtzel Nathan Wurtzel Hey, if you're planning a murder spree, look good doing so in @ KennethCole 's new spring collection! about 10 hours ago via TweetDeck Retweet Reply @gaberivera Gabe Rivera Sadly, outrage over @ KennethCole is mostly played out. Any other angles to take? E.g. http://read.bi/fwuxAI Or maybe: Anti-outrage backlash? about 10 hours ago via web | |
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