Monday, March 28, 2011

Y! Alert: TechCrunch

Yahoo! Alerts
My Alerts

The latest from TechCrunch

Exclusive: Flashy Website Creator Wix Raises $40 Million Top
Israeli startup Wix, which allows users to build flash websites, has just raised $40 million in Series D funding led by Insight Venture Partners and DAG ventures , with Benchmark Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners and Mangrove Capital Partners participating in the round. This brings Wix’s total funding to $61 million. Founded in 2006, Wix provides a simple mechanism for anyone to create Flash-based websites. Users can customize their Wix websites with a drag and drop editing tool and pretty templates, making the site user-friendly for users who may not be tech savvy. The site makes its money from a freemium model where users pay for extra customization and design features. Over the course of 2010 Wix, which has nine million users, has doubled in size and the company added a West-coast branch to its existing Tel Aviv and New York offices. To date, Wix has developed 8.5 million individual sites. But making a big bet on flash websites is a risk when you consider mobile. Many companies are scrapping Flash all together and betting on HTML5. Wix founder and CEO Avishai Abrahami tells us that Flash is the best platform for websites being viewed on PCs and other computers but that Wix will be rolling out a mobile site creator in the next few months, which will leverage HTML5 technology for mobile devices (a.k.a. will work on iOS devices). The company is also launching a Facebook application that allows users to integrate Wix websites with their fan pages. The new funding will be used towards Wix’s new social and mobile product launches in the coming months. Wix faces competition from Yola. CrunchBase Information Wix Information provided by CrunchBase
 
LinkedIn Uses Food Trucks And Free Coffee To Advertise Social News Platform Top
LinkedIn is using the food truck phenomenon to publicize the launch of its new social news product, LinkedIn Today. In San Francisco and New York, LinkedIn has hired food trucks to give away coffee at locations around both cities. The trucks, which you can follow on Twitter here , are emblazoned with advertisements for LinkedIn Today. Similar to the way that food trucks use Twitter to advertise their locations, the LinkedIn Today trucks will be posting their locations in San Francisco and New York, for the entire week on the account. As we wrote in our initial coverage of the new product, LinkedIn Today delivers the top stories you need to know from your professional network and industry. The social news platform aggregates the most shared news from professionals in your network and allows you to sharestories with your network, specific professionals or on Twitter. It looks like LinkedIn is ramping up its marketing efforts as it prepares for a public offering in the coming months. Last week, LinkedIn co-founder and chairman Reid Hoffman sent a personalized note to the network’s early users, thanking the first 100,000 and million users for supporting the network in its early days. CrunchBase Information LinkedIn Information provided by CrunchBase
 
An Incubator From Down Under: Meet StartMate's First Batch of Aussie Startups Top
Last year, a group of Australian startup veterans and executives created Startmate , a seed fund and incubator designed to provide small, early-stage investment and hands-on mentoring to local startups. Bringing the Y Combinator model to Australia, Startmate chooses 5 startups to participate in its 3-month incubator program. It then seeds those 5 companies with $25,000 and offers them access to its impressive list of mentors , which includes Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar, the founders of the software company Atlassian that last year raised $60 million in funding from Accel Partners . Startmate’s 3-month program includes two demo days, one in Sydney and one in Silicon Valley, and culminates in a two-week trip to Silicon Valley, in which the startups are introduced to American investors. The startups are currently in the midst of their American tour and are slated to stay in Silicon Valley through March 30th, though some have elected to prolong their stay, said Startmate co-founder Niki Scevak. Silicon Valley tends to have that effect. For those interested in meeting the Aussie startups, they will be attending a panel hosted by StartMate mentor and VP of Marketing at stylepage.com Julia French and serial Aussie entrepreneur Martin Wells on Monday night at Pier 38 in San Francisco. For tickets to the event, click here . The panel is free and begins at 7pm. So, here, in no particular order, is a look at the five graduates of Startmate’s inaugural batch: Chorus : Chorus is a customer service tool that allows businesses to prioritize its customer service emails based on level of anger and potential PR fallout. Thus, Chorus attempts to draw meaning from the 10 billion emails that are sent to customer support departments every year. These departments are bombarded by an avalanche every day, and all they can do is try replying as fast as possible, without any intelligence into which issues are the most important, what the changing trends are, and how customers’ relationship with a company changes over time. Chorus lets companies reply to the angriest emails first, decrease risk of bad PR on social networks, and predict future trends and sentiment. The goal: more customer love. BugHerd : Aimed at designers and developers alike, BugHerd is a bug tracker that overlays on a webpage, allowing the entire team to log and manage bugs visually, without leaving the page they’re working on. Users can flag and annotate an HTML element on their website and share that issue with the rest of the team. A simple change request usually requires the user to take a screen shot, mark out the problem area, write a description, upload the image, and fill out a form, etc — a time-consuming and annoying process for most bug trackers. Most bug-tracking tools out there are, generally speaking, aimed at engineers who want to know every little detail, so BugHerd seeks to provide a tool that works for both non-technical and technical users alike. Embedding directly into your website, BugHerd flags and manages bugs visually without the need to fill out lengthy forms or annotate screengrabs, logging them in as little as 5 seconds. BugHerd is currently in open beta. Noosbox : Noosbox is an add-on for Gmail that helps you share and search emails with your work colleagues. Once installed, every conversation has a “share” button which will make that important conversation visible to your coworkers, as well as making the information in it searchable and discoverable. Teams using Noosbox can quickly build up a powerful shared feed of information about the conversations, contacts, organisations they deal with every day with very little effort. Co-founders Andrew Jessup, Phil Lee and Tim Lucas said that Noosbox rose out of their frustration with the fact that, no matter how tech-savvy their past employers were and no matter how many organization tools they used, all of the important information they needed to keep track of just ended up in their inboxes. So, rather than trying to replace email with some other tool, Noosebox sets out simply to extend it. The startup is currently in private beta. Grabble : A free Android and iPhone app, Grabble allows you to record and store your receipts on your phone so that you don’t have to keep track of those pesky paper copies. With Grabble, you can capture your paper receipts using QR codes or grab your receipt directly from a checkout line. Once the transaction is complete, you can choose to print, or not, and then quickly export to your financial applications. Or, if you want to return an item, you can show the salesperson the receipt and authorize the return there in person. IRL Gaming : IRL Gaming makes location based, social games for mobile and web-enabled devices. The company’s first app, “Zombies: In Real Life” is a location-based survival game for the iPhone that uses the real-world as the playing surface. In Zombies: IRL, your town is a horror movie, and you and your friends can compete or cooperate to save your town from the wrestless zombie hordes. Via the location-based app, players enter real-world venues to battle the undead, while seeking out food, weapons and medical supplies to help their friends survive. Gamers must fight to reclaim their neighborhood from the zombies, one infested venue at a time. CrunchBase Information StartMate Martin Wells Julia French Chorus BugHerd Noosbox Grabble IRL Gaming Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Jack Dorsey Takes Over Product Again At Twitter As Executive Chairman Top
Jack Dorsey is back at Twitter in a big way. He just tweeted that he is now taking on the lead product role at Twitter, the company he co-founded and where he’s remained as chairman. To reflect his new operating role, his title will now be executive chairman. Dorsey will remain CEO of Square. News that Dorsey was negotiating with Twitter for an expanded role came out last week. There was some speculation that he might even take the CEO spot, but it is very difficult to be the CEO of two technology companies at the same time and Dorsey is “200%” committed to Square. All you have to do is watch this video to see how much he cares about building great products. And now he will be doing that at both Twitter and Square, while leaving the business side of Twitter to CEO Dick Costolo. Dorsey stepped down from the CEO spot at Twitter in 2008, when he was replaced by Evan Williams . Williams subsequently handed over the CEO title to Dick Costolo , ostensibly so that he could focus on the product. But Williams supposedly hasn’t been around that much. When Williams stepped down, that opened the door for Dorsey to expand his role (there was some bad blood between the two), which is what’s happening now. Twitter is now five years old. Dorsey recently put out some nostalgic Tweets about how the product got started. Today, Twitter is a different beast with more than 200 million users and an array of products (Web, mobile, tablets) that must be best-of-breed. Twitter began much more simply by providing the underlying service and encouraging other developers to build clients and features. The relationship with outside developers is now strained. Will Dorsey work to repair and reinvigorate those ties or focus more on making Twitter’s own products the only ones people need? @jack Jack Dorsey Today I'm thrilled to get back to work at @ Twitter leading product as Executive Chairman. And yes: leading @ Square forevermore as CEO. #200% about 1 hour ago via Twitter for iPhone Retweet Reply CrunchBase Information Jack Dorsey Twitter Square Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Zapd Creates Themed Websites Right From Your Phone Top
Tumblr and Posterous showed the world that making blogging simpler makes it more accessible. Both make also make it really easy to publish from your phone. Now Zapd , a new service from Seattle startup Pressplane, wants to take it one step further and let you create websites right from your phone. Zapd is an iPhone app that lets you create a themed, well-designed, mobile-friendly website in 60 seconds. You pick a theme, snap a photo, add a caption, and if you want you can even write a little text (don’t strain yourself). When you publish the site or a new entry, you can share a short URL with your friends via Twitter, Facebook, or email. (You can also sign in with your Facebook ID). I tried it and it literally took me a few minutes to create these two sites, Seeking and The Truth . “We’re trying to demonstrate a glimpse into the future of web publishing,” says CEO Kelly Smith. “It will start from your phone. Not the other way around.” All editing is done on the iPhone (although browser-based editing will come soon). The sites are optimized for tablet and phone browsers, supporting landscape mode and swiping templates. And you can change themes on the fly right from your phone. The app comes with a bunch to choose from. Pressplane’s other product is Inkd , a graphic design marketplace for business cards, brochures, and other printed designs. The company raised $1.7 million in 2008 and more recently another $400,000 to launch Zapd. Investors include Mika Salmi (formerly of MTV Networks and founder of Atom Entertainment), who is also the company’s new chairman, Mike Slade , and Zillow CEO Rich Barton . CrunchBase Information Inkd Mika Salmi Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Some Day 1 Verizon iPad 2 Orders Still MIA Despite Immediate Payment Withdraw, Overnight Shipping Promises Top
Hell hath no fury like an Apple fanboy scorned. Verizon is just now starting to feel the rage previously directed at just AT&T. That’s what happens when iPad 2 orders fail to ship on time. Fanboys take to the forums and unleash the beast. There’s a large thread of complaints over on Verizon’s official forum that details most of the transgressions. It seems that more than a few customers where promised their iPad 2 would ship either immediately or within 2-3 days upon ordering. That’s not the case. It’s more like 2-3 weeks for some but according to two separate trusted Verizon retail sources, that was the same estimated shipping window given on day 1. Read More
 
Shoparatti: Another Daily Deal Aggregator (But Curated By Melissa Rivers!) Top
Exclusive - There’s a ton of daily deal sites out there, and we’ve seen a bunch of daily deal aggregators pop up in the past few months, too. Today sees the launch of yet another one of those, dubbed Shoparatti . A ‘one-stop destination for busy online shoppers’, Shoparatti’s claim to fame is its semi-famous editor-in-chief Melissa Rivers , daughter of comedian and actress Joan Rivers. Rivers and her team of editors will scour more than 100 daily deal web sites and showcase the best offers they can find through Shoparatti.com, Facebook and an iPhone app. According to the press release, Rivers will be drawing upon her “expertise in spotting trends in lifestyle, entertainment and fashion” to make her Shoparatti selections. Yipit and 8coupons needn’t worry too much at this point, though. "As a mom and passionate shopper I know what it's like to spend hours hunting down the best deals on the web; it's frustrating and time consuming," said Rivers. "Everyone knows I love shopping, not to mention getting a deal and telling my friends about the great deal I just got." Barf. We’d be somewhat excited about the news if endorsements of involvement from celebrities ever helped a startup succeed in the cutthroat e-commerce industry, but alas. Also, why would anyone boast about the fact that ‘everyone’ knows how much he or she loves shopping?
 
Lady Gaga Donates $1.5M To Zynga's Japan Earthquake Relief Campaign Top
As we wrote a few weeks ago, Zynga launched a campaign with Save The Children to raise money via in-game donations in Zynga games like FrontierVille, FarmVille and CityVille for the relief efforts in Japan following the massive earthquake and tsunami a few weeks ago. Today, the social gaming giant is announcing that Lady Gaga has donated $750,000 , through the sales of her Japan Prayer Bracelets, to Zynga's fundraising initiative. She is also donating another $750,000 to the American Red Cross to support relief efforts in Japan. And in the past two weeks, Zynga players alone have raised more than $2.5 million for Save the Children's Japan Earthquake Tsunami Children in Emergency Fund and other causes. In a release issued by the pop singer and Zynga, Gaga said "I'm inspired that my little monsters banded together to help those affected by the terrible tragedy…What Zynga's players have done for the cause is equally inspiring, and I'm thrilled to partner with them to raise money that will go to Save the Children and the American Red Cross." Through Zynga games including Café World, CityVille, FrontierVille, FarmVille, Words With Friends, Vampire Wars, YoVille and Zynga Poker, more than 250 million players had the opportunity to donate 100 percent of the purchase price of newly created virtual items to the fundraising efforts. Via Credits, Facebook donated money generated through the purchases to support the initiative. The Japan fundraising initiative isn’t the first charitable campaign for Zynga. Since October 2009, hundreds of thousands of players have raised more than $10 million dollars for international nonprofits through Zynga.org. And Zynga was able to raise millions for the relief efforts in Haiti last year. Lady Gaga recently sat down with Google’s Marissa Mayer for a candid talk about tech, music and YouTube. CrunchBase Information Zynga Information provided by CrunchBase
 
An App By Any Other Name … Top
“One of the deep mysteries to me is our logo, the symbol of lust and knowledge, bitten into, all crossed with the colors of the rainbow in the wrong order. You couldn’t dream of a more appropriate logo: lust, knowledge, hope, and anarchy.” – Apple exec Jean Louis Gassée on the naming of Apple Why is Color named “Color”? “A tribute to Apple’s color logo from the Apple II. This computer changed my life when I was seven (also a reference to another company name I’ve used.) My dad bought one from ComputerCraft run by Billy Ladin in Houston. He was one of the first computer resellers back in 1977. In an odd twist, I meet him in an elevator 15 years later and worked for him. He introduced me to the Web. Working at Apple was a dream. Color’s name is a tribute to Apple.” – Bill Nguyen, Color founder on why he chose the name Color Reading Semil Shah’s post on group messaging this morning, I was struck by the sheer numbers and diversity of the startup names scattered throughout: Yobongo, Disco, SocialCam, SoundCloud, Beluga, GroupMe, Fast Society, Rabbly, Whatsapp, Kik, textPlus, Convore, SMSGupShup, MessageParty, TextSlide, Bump Technologies, Color Labs and so on, all contenders in the saturated mobile social space. Some like MessageParty or textPlus had names that were actually related to their product, but many like Yobongo, Beluga and Disco had only a tenuous connection. It’s now pretty clear the app ecosystem has gone mainstream: People talk about apps the way they used to talk about music or drugs ( “Omg have you guys tried COLOR. Omg you have to try it. Omg we’re on it right now” ). And naming your startup has become like naming your band — An intricate dance between a multitude of contributing metaphoric and literal factors. So which approach, picking something random or actually related to what you do, makes more sense? @chrysb Chrys Bader You can tell it's a bubble because startups are raising so much money they can actually afford vowels in their domain names. about 17 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone Retweet Reply Two notable app launches this week highlighted how exactly an app’s name plays into public perception. The most visible instance of this was the launch of Color , an ubiquitous noun/verb name picked by Bill Nguyen and Peter Pham for their photosharing app with a hefty $41 million in funding. While initial complaints held that the app was unsearchable in both the Android and iPhone App Store and on Google because of its common name, that problem now seems to have been solved on Google. Perhaps all the inbound links from news and other sites are responsible for the fact that the service is now the eighth result for the word “color”? Color also somehow went from being invisible to being the first app to appear in the Apple App Store under the “color” search term (I’m hearing Android is still having issues ). Color’s name, while initially striking some people as slightly off if only for all its other connotations, is valid in that it accurately describes a core function of the Color Labs product, namely the fact that people are sharing images (a collection of colored pixels) through the app. The Color guys tell me (and Quora above) that they first came up with the name Color in a tribute to Apple’s original reverse-color logo and then bought the domain name for $350K .  In order to appeal to English speakers in other regions, they also bought the domain name Colour.com and redirected it to Color.com. And yes, this did not stave off complaints. @alisontan Alison Tan The 'Color' app isn't spelt the way I like it… #COLOUR about 18 hours ago via Twitter for iPhone Retweet Reply Contrast Color’s name with that of the other hot five-letter app of the moment, Disco . Currently it’s unclear whether Google made the $255K purchase of the domain Disco.com for a Slide-related purpose, or just to have on hand (Google has not given me a straight answer in any of my emails). If the latter is the case then it wouldn’t be the first time Google stockpiled domains ( bayareaburritos.com anyone?) for future use. Whether purposefully acquired or not, the name Disco seems to have a less of a direct relation to its core product than Color. While a disco (nightclub) does bring people together in a sense, the noun has absolutely nothing to do with group messaging, and I think users have already picked up on this distinction. All in all the choice to use Disco as a name for a group messaging app is incongruous, especially when you consider that Google also owns Hello.com. “This one fits to the product  #color , This one doesn’t fit at all  #disco ,” tweeted Berrehili Réda. “I don’t know, when I first heard about google’s product #disco, I thought they had finally released their music streaming service…” @mm Morgan Missen Google has owned Hello.com forever. I'm surprised they didn't use that name for Disco and wonder why they're saving it. http://t.co/lYApre9 about 14 hours ago via web Retweet Reply While it’s possible that the name Disco was already on the drawing board at Slide pre-Google acquisition, if Disco’s makers first chose a vague name and then built out a product for release, then they wouldn’t be alone. Private photo-sharing service Path still called itself Path (at Path.io) back when it was a list-making tool. Guess they thought the Path designation still held after the photo-sharing pivot. In a seminal post on the subject, VC Rich Barton holds in that making up a new word (like Kleenex or Yobongo) is much more powerful than trying to appropriate a already existing literal word like Color or Disco. But if you’d have to go with an existing word, I’d go with the one that has a strong tie-in to the actual product. Then again there’s always exceptions. No matter which apocryphal  origin story you believe, the word Apple has nothing to do with computers.  “If somebody had told me in 1970 that Apple would be the name of the top tech company, I would have laughed to death,” said VC Dani Nofal. Yes, and if someone had told me in 1990 that someone would name their company Color in homage to that top computer company Apple, I too would have chuckled. Color probably hopes it’ll be laughing all the way to an extended featured position in the App Store. @alexia Alexia Tsotsis Are you there Steve? It's me, Color. about 16 hours ago via Seesmic Desktop Retweet Reply CrunchBase Information Color Apple
 

CREATE MORE ALERTS:

Auctions - Find out when new auctions are posted

Horoscopes - Receive your daily horoscope

Music - Get the newest Album Releases, Playlists and more

News - Only the news you want, delivered!

Stocks - Stay connected to the market with price quotes and more

Weather - Get today's weather conditions




You received this email because you subscribed to Yahoo! Alerts. Use this link to unsubscribe from this alert. To change your communications preferences for other Yahoo! business lines, please visit your Marketing Preferences. To learn more about Yahoo!'s use of personal information, including the use of web beacons in HTML-based email, please read our Privacy Policy. Yahoo! is located at 701 First Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA 94089.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)