The latest from TechCrunch
- Sizing Up Apps For EV Drivers: Coulomb Upgrades, ECOtality Goes Mobile, And Xatori Grows Community
- Social Music App SoundTracking Passes 250K Downloads
- Netflix Earnings Up 88 Percent, Adds 3.6 Million Subscribers
- Google Not Serious About Online Gaming? This Job Offer Suggests Otherwise
| Sizing Up Apps For EV Drivers: Coulomb Upgrades, ECOtality Goes Mobile, And Xatori Grows Community | Top |
| How many apps does it take to recharge a vehicle? Apparently, one is not enough. Several companies offering mobile apps to drivers — to help them find a place to charge up or refuel in an environmentally sustainable way — made product and milestone announcements around Earth Day. Here’s the run down. ECOtality ( NASDAQ: ECTY ) — a San Francisco company that’s building electric vehicle (EV) technology and infrastructure in the U.S. and China— unveiled its Blink Network mobile app (screenshot, above) to help users find and reserve a nearby, available charging station at the Electric Drive Transportation Association conference in Washington D.C. Reservation and status-update features made ECOtality’s app distinct from other charger-finders for about a minute. On Monday, however, Coulomb Technologies announced an upgrade to the ChargePoint app, including similar functionality. ECOtality’s app will be available for English-language users of iOS and Android devices in the next few weeks via BlinkNetwork.com , while Coulomb’s ChargePoint app is available now. Both companies map the charging stations within the networks that they install, own and operate on behalf of their customers. Both companies supply stations and software to: companies with large vehicle fleets; employers that want to offer EV charging at work; retail store and garage owners; homeowners; and municipalities or utilities. Several other web and mobile charging station finders, however, map any and all charging stations — which could make more sense for cross-country drivers. One such app is provided by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the Alternative Fueling Station Locator . The app uses Google Maps technology to show the location of publicly accessible EV charging stations, clean vehicle equipment suppliers, and biodiesel, hydrogen and other alternative fueling stations. The open source site CarStations.com , which is expected to spin out a mobile product this year, includes user-contributed data a la Wikipedia to show charging and clean fuel stations. A newer entrant, the PlugShare app by Xatori (images, below) maps publicly accessible charging stations, along with volunteer homes or businesses that are willing to share their outlets with EV and hybrid-plugin drivers. PlugShare today claimed that its users comprise the “largest consumer electric vehicle charging network” in the United States. According to company reports, about 1,500 outlets have been shared under the PlugShare collaborative consumption model to-date, across 48 states in the U.S. The app has 13,000 some users so far. Xatori chief executive, Armen Petrosian, said that PlugShare is functioning as a kind of social network, and discussed features the company plans to add to it: We are seeing two main types of communication occurring in the [PlugShare] network. One type of communication occurs between members who have shared outlets 10 to 100 miles apart…and are making a request to charge when one member is away from home. Users who are 5 miles apart or less— [sometimes want] to chat with a like-minded individual. I’ve experienced this first-hand as several members in my neighborhood have contacted me just to say hello, see if I have an EV, etc. There are a number of features that we hope to add [to PlugShare] but a couple stand out right now. One is a reputation system so users can rate charging locations (private and public) and add comments. The second is a way to add or edit public charging station information, so that it can be kept up-to-date by the community. Xatori has not yet determined how the open data and volunteer-inspiring app will generate revenue. The company is focused on building a large user base, first. Meanwhile, Coulomb’s ChargePoint app helps the company generate fees from mobile payments— fifty cents per transaction, plus 7.5% of whatever the station-owner adds as a transactional fee for drivers. A veteran engineer and advocate for clean vehicles, Kristen Helsel, vice president of EV Solutions at Aerovironment, believes that apps of the greatest use to electric vehicle drivers, and the industry, should present data about charging stations agnostically. Aerovironment’s own EV charger technology is sold on a “white label” basis, and is included in a number of other brands’ stations and networks. Helsel explained her position further: “At Aerovironment, we work to enable all of the mapping services to have the most up to date information about where we install public charging stations. We don't expect customers just to rely on us. What's really important is that the information is available, and that drivers experience confidence when they want to access EV infrastructure. It will be just as important in the future to make data available about all renewables; where are the chargers that are powered by wind or solar, where are the biofuel stations? The networks can go up, and can be limited. But we have to have open architecture in terms of the data.” Richard Lowenthal, founder and chief technology officer of Coulomb Technologies noted: “Home grown apps are great. They don’t offer features, and real-time data like we can. We offer [back-end] support with billing and asset management that tells you which stations are working and not, lets our customers [who purchase Coulomb's charging stations] set pricing and more. We have phone support for drivers; if someone is having trouble charging, they don’t go into the store, or to the receptionist, they call our 1-800 number. As long as we need to offer our own app to show off all of the benefits and features of our network, we will add to and offer it as a standalone. We do have an open API and offer data to everyone who wants it, PlugShare, TomTom, NREL or anyone. We are not trying to stifle any of them, in fact it’s quite the opposite.” ECOTality’s president and chief executive officer, Jonathan R. Read , believes there is value in providing an app that’s brand-specific, as well. In an interview with TechCrunch he said: “I take my hat off to the community service providers, I really do. There's sort of a brotherhood in the industry. I think that for this EV movement and charge infrastructure to succeed, though, it has to be commercially viable. We cannot rely on good will and trust, or government completely. We need to make sure that EVs and charge infrastructure can stand alone, make money, be profitable so [clean energy] can proliferate with or without subsidies and volunteers. I think the task of building EV infrastructure in the U.S. will be somewhat like the early stages of the cell phone business. We look to create the largest network, and provide the greatest depth of service through our apps. We've built the Blink Network app to be a part of an overall system that will eventually include not just the ability to make reservations, but also to make payments, use home energy management programs and devices on the go, experience connectivity and access a network of hundreds of thousands of charging stations.” ECOtality — with the help of a recovery act grant from the DOE — is set to install approximately 5,700 commercial charging stations in the U.S. by the end of this year. CrunchBase Information ECOtality Coulomb Technologies National Renewable Energy Laboratory Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| Social Music App SoundTracking Passes 250K Downloads | Top |
| Launched at SXSW , social music app SoundTracking has announced its quarter of a million milestone today, surpassing 250K downloads in just six weeks after launch on the iPhone. With 100K downloads taking place in the app’s first three weeks of existence, SoundTracking is experiencing rapid growth for an iOS app without its own web presence. Another music sharing app, Play by AOL , has also hit 250,000 downloads in half the time on Android. While Steve Jang wouldn’t disclose numbers of daily active users or users, he does tell me that over 50% of SoundTracking users are using the app to share their music moments on both Facebook and Twitter, which might explain the increased signups. It seems like every five minutes or so someone else is following the SoundTrack to my life. The latest app update now allows people to search by user name and search for venues as well as ID and share songs that they’re listening to, and Jang tells me that he’s starting to see music and location interests graphs form on the site, “People are starting to use SoundTracking as a way to share music taste and experiences from the real-world with their social graphs. Just like photos have been important in the social space so has music. Music is something naturally that people get excited about, sort of like a universal language.” SoundTracking is a part of Schematic Labs, which creates “ entertainment apps for the real world.” Jang plans on creating more apps based on communities around tastes and is sniffing around the fashion/shopping space next. CrunchBase Information SoundTracking Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| Netflix Earnings Up 88 Percent, Adds 3.6 Million Subscribers | Top |
| Netflix just released its first quarter earnings. Earnings per share were $1.11, up 88 percent (3 cents above the consensus estimate of $1.08). Revenues came in at $719 million. And Netflix added 3.3 million U.S. subscribers in the quarter, plus another 290,000 interantionally, to end at 23.6 million. The 3.6 million new subscribers is slightly below the 3.7 million analysts were hoping for, but still double the growth from a year ago. Depending on how many subscribers Comcast reports this quarter, Netflix might surpass it to become the largest entertainment subscription business in the U.S. Netflix ended the quarter with 22.8 million U.S. subscribers, exactly the same number of subscribers Comcast reported at the end of 2010. Net income was $60 million, and free cash flow in the quarter was $79, a 55 percent increase from the fourth quarter. Netflix saw a rise in domestic operating margins to 16 percent, from 14.9 percent in the fourth quarter, largely due to an increase in streaming-only subscribers and price increases on hybrid subscriptions. Margins should fall back to around 14 percent as streaming and marketing costs continue to rise (offset by declines in DVD shipping). Netflix is licensing more video from broadcasters, and also last quarter commissioned its own mini-series, a r emake of the BBC’s House of Cards with Kevin Spacey. But in its quarterly letter to shareholders (embedded below), Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and CFO David Wells write: Rather than a shift in strategy towards original programming, our decision was driven by a desire to test a new licensing model using a small portion of our content budget. Netflix is hoping to license two or three similar shows in the future, but doesn’t expect to spend as much as it did on House of Cards. The company did not break down its licensing cost for that show. However, overall marketing expenses rose 39 perccent to $104 million in the quarter. That includes content streaming deals with all four TV networks and others as well. The letter also tries to downplay the threat Netflix poses to traditional cable providers, suggesting that there is more “cord mending: going on than “cord cutting.” Essentially, you should think of Netflix as “rerun TV.” From the letter: Recently, the CEO of an MVPD characterized Netflix as "rerun TV". While we don't plan to use that line in our next marketing campaign, he is fundamentally correct. As for competition for streaming online video, it’s coming from Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime and possibly: We also think Dish Networks is likely to launch a substantial subscription streaming effort under the Blockbuster brand. Some other stats from the quarter: Marketing costs rose 39 percent to $104 million The domestic churn rate rose lightly to 3.9% from 3.7% in the fourth quarter of 2010 Free subscribers in trials represented 6.1% of the total, down from 8% last quarter Paid subscribers in the U.S. totalled 21.4M, up 57% Below is Netflix’s quarterly shareholder letter: View this document on Scribd CrunchBase Information Netflix Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| Google Not Serious About Online Gaming? This Job Offer Suggests Otherwise | Top |
| Remember back in July last year when we reported that Google quietly invested $100 million in Zynga in preparation for a new product dubbed Google Games? They even recruited gaming industry vet Mark DeLoura (formerly of Ubisoft, Sony Computer Entertainment America, Nintendo and others) as developer advocate for game-related products, though he quit after only 4 months on the job (he’s now a VP at THQ ). Google later also acquired Slide , which develops social games, while its investment arm Google Ventures backed gaming companies like ngmoco and SCVNGR . This morning, a job offer surfaced on Google’s LinkedIn profile that suggests the search and online advertising juggernaut is ramping up its stake in the digital games ground. Colleague Leena Rao noticed a Google games-related job post back in May of last year, so it seems that recruiting continues. (Thanks to the anonymous tipster who sent this in). According to the job offer, pasted in full below, Google is looking for a Product Manager to “grow its brand-new business – Games at Google!”. It was posted earlier today. Based in Mountain View, this person will be responsible for designing “strategies for game distribution and discovery, player identity, game mechanics, and more”. The company notably writes in the job description that the new Google Games product manager will be “significantly influencing Google's social platform”, which means he or she will likely end up reporting to Vic Gundotra ( SVP of Social ). We’ll also note that Google co-founder Larry Page just took up the role of CEO (again) earlier this month, so there’s always the possibility that Page is responsible for the company to reinvigorate its online gaming efforts. Either way, anyone still in doubt that Google is definitely preparing a big move into online games land – Eric Schmidt, perhaps? – better reconsider. Product Manager, Games – Mountain View Google – California , Mountain View (Global HQ) (United States) Job Description This position is based in Mountain View, CA. The area: Product Management One of the many reasons Google consistently brings innovative, world-changing products to market is because of the collaborative work we do in Product Management. With eyes focused squarely on the future, our team works closely with creative and prolific engineers to help design and develop technologies that improve access to the world’s information. We’re responsible for guiding products throughout the execution cycle, focusing specifically on analyzing, positioning, packaging, promoting and tailoring our solutions to all the markets where Google does business. The role: Product Manager, Games Rare opportunity to grow a brand-new business – Games at Google! We are looking for a strategic, technical and game-loving Product Manager to drive Google’s gaming strategy. You will design strategies for game distribution and discovery, player identity, game mechanics, and more. In addition to designing a great user experience and building out key partnerships, you will be significantly influencing Google’s social platform as you work directly with a critical set of early adopters, game developers. Interesting and impactful decisions involving social gaming, privacy, virality, business, and technical APIs await you and the strong, passionate team of gamers you will work with. Responsibilities: • Drive feature requirements for Google’'s gaming platform • Work with business development and developer relations to drive gaming partnerships/ content deals • Initiate and prioritize projects within engineering, assist in determining the best technical implementation methods, track product development, and develop product launch plans. • Establish partnerships internally and externally to drive the growth of games Requirements: • Technical undergraduate degree or equivalent experience; Masters degree preferred. • Product management experience with a track record of creating innovative and winning Internet or software solutions. • Entrepreneurial experience and a penchant for creating great products is highly valued. • Demonstrated ability to gather user requirements and convert them into a winning product vision. • Strong quantitative and analytical abilities with a deep understanding of gaming platforms CrunchBase Information Google Information provided by CrunchBase | |
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