Monday, May 2, 2011

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Pandora Is Now 10 Billion Thumbs Strong Top
Personalized radio service Pandora has reached a major milestone: last week it recorded its 10 billionth thumb (and it was a thumbs up). Avid fans of the popular service already know what that means — for the rest of you, Pandora lets users mark the song that’s currently playing with a Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down. The effect is pretty straightforward: hit a thumbs up and Pandora will try to play more music that sounds like the song you’re listening to, thumbs down and Pandora will immediately jump to the next song and send a minor electric shock to CTO Tom Conrad. In other words, these thumbs are explicit signals that users are sending to Pandora to help fine-tune their radio stations, and it shows that plenty of people actually try to take advantage of the personalization features as opposed to just letting the radio play in the background all day. In a blog post announcing the news, founder Tim Westergren writes : Of the many milestones we’ve hit over the past 6 years, this is perhaps the one that makes us most proud. We created Pandora to bring personalization to radio, to allow each individual to determine the sound of their stations, and to make it as simple and intuitive as possible. There is no greater evidence for us of meeting that objective than the ongoing engagement you have all shown in your use of the thumbs. CrunchBase Information Pandora Information provided by CrunchBase
 
TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon BCC Fail. We Apologize #TCLeakers Top
A couple of years ago RockYou couldn’t seem to send an email to partners without screwing up and cc’ing everyone. We pointed each screwup out, with catchy headlines . I knew that someday, somehow, we’d probably do the same thing. And I knew we’d have to take extra criticism for it because we’ve called out others. Today’s payback day. We sent a mass email and we failed to use BCC . It’s Amateur Hour at TechCrunch, and we deserve derision. Consider us rolling over on our backs and showing you our submissive belly. We apologize, sincerely. We sent out a simple email to all applicants of the upcoming Disrupt Hackathon in New York. There are a lot of them – 452, I believe, which is more than any of our previous hackathons, and we still have a month to go. It’s going to be a very fun event. Anyhow, we sent out the email thanking people for applying and letting them know more information would be coming. Everyone was in the To: field. Yes, there have been many humorous responses. Yes, people are annoyed. Yes, there is a hash tag, #TCLeakers , where people can pile on even more. Yes, there is nothing you can say to make us feel worse. And, yes, we can never make fun of anyone doing this again without pointing back to this post.
 
No Improved Displays This Year, Says E Ink Top
One of the main features of the latest version of the Kindle was its new “Pearl” E Ink screen . It offered better contrast, faster response, and so on. And since we’ve gotten so used to new stuff being given to us every year, I guess we all just kind of expected there would be another new E Ink screen this year, along with a new wave of e-readers using it. Unfortunately, that doesn’t appear to be the case. Speaking to CNET , E Ink’s Sri Peruvemba said that the company is actually more on a two-year cycle, and 2011 wouldn’t bring any advances from them, in the monochrome sector at least. Will this leave e-readers scrambling for new features? Continue reading…
 
Want Facebook To Be Better? So Did 'YoZuck!' Creator Youssef Sarhan Top
With nearly 700 million users spending a good percentage of time on the service, its seems like everyone has their own Facebook features wishlist, or complaints list. I would personally like to click through Event locations to Google Maps on the Facebook iPhone app, in order to get directions faster. I’m sure your gripe is probably different but just as granular, depending on what you use the social network for. As the service has sort of tacked on features as it has grown, its designers are faced with the challenge of having all moving parts interact harmoniously with each other, to scale. As one impartial designer described it, “Facebook UI is a Frankenstein. It’s like eBay where network effect is so strong at this point it kinda doesn’t matter what they do.”  Well Irish web designer  Youssef Sarhan  thought otherwise, and implored Facebook to rise to the UI challenge by creating the gif-fueled blog Yo Zuck! Implement This  in early April, gathering ideas for how Facebook can improve its UI and UX, including but not limited to a site wide online status, nested video comments, video chat and an events map. Facebook reached out to Sarhan shortly after his site started garnering attention. We too contacted Sarhan for an in-depth interview about how he thought Facebook could do better, and fortunately he obliged. Here’s the interview broken into Q&A format below. All images via YoZuck! Implement This. What is your current position? At present I am a designer at an enterprise-level CMS Firm, working on User Interface, UX and Brand design. What was the inspiration behind the site? The inspiration for YoZuck! formed organically while using Facebook. Naturally, where a design fails is usually quite apparent, so it’s easy to spot the marks. The bigger challenge is to see past where Facebook has failed, but instead where Facebook has failed to go; the uncharted territory. What are your future plans? Honestly, I’d like to go into space; aside from that I’m not making any predictions just yet. Has Facebook tried to acquire you yet? A couple of people have been in touch and think what I’m doing is pretty cool, which is encouraging. What do you think is the worst thing about the Facebook UI currently? Quite simply nobody has 100, 200 or 300 friends, you have about 10 or 20 if you’re lucky. There are sociological reasons for this and that’s not going to change anytime soon. While I think it’s important to stay in touch with people you meet it’s not necessarily relevant to know what all these people are doing every time you login. I understand Facebook has made some efforts to streamline your news feed to those you interact with most but I still believe there is huge progress to be made in this area. I’m currently working on a solution to this problem. So what is your solution? Simply, it involves an option to temporarily focus your news feed to deliver content which only relates to a predefined circle of friends. The idea being, you login, and straight away you can find out what’s up with the people you care about most. You don’t always want to spend half an hour floating through the noise of 200 other friends to find out what your closest friends are doing. Which YoZuck feature do you want to see actually implemented the most? The idea I want to see is the idea I haven’t thought about yet; but going by what I’ve done so far I’d love to see nested video comments ( http://yozuck.tumblr.com/post/4482821418/nested-video-comments ). At the moment users have two options, leave a nested comment as a plain HTML link or post a separate video on your friends wall in response. Neither really work as they detach the users from the sharing experience, the conversation becomes fragmented. What do you think about the notoriously flawed Facebook Events UI (especially on mobile)? There are many versions of Facebook mobile, depending of course on your device and platform. However you’re correct, Facebook Events are lagging, but this is not restricted to mobile, it’s quite a surprise that for a feature so strongly powered by time and dates there is no option to view these events on a calendar. In general though, Facebook are making great progress with their mobile effort, I’ve noticed a lot of subtle iterations over the last few months. What are some things that Facebook is doing right design-wise? There is a strong consistency to the Facebook brand and interface interactions, people recognize Facebook and know how to use it without having to think too much. It’s also very likable product, no pun intended. That alone is a massive design success. What do you think is the biggest uncharted territory for Facebook? There are two ways to look at that question: 1) What everyday features can be added/dropped to refine the product? 2) What overall direction should the product be taking? When you think about the premise of Facebook and what it stands for, the uncharted territory is exactly everything Facebook isn’t doing. From the smallest UI iteration to the 5.6 billion people yet to signup. I talked about a Facebook browser, when you consider Google already has Chrome, it doesn’t seem all that strange that Facebook could have one too; of course this would come with a litany of privacy concerns, but that’s a conversation and a genuine concern for another day. The purpose of Facebook is to capture the personality and lives of the individual, well for millions that means watching films, listening to music and reading books.. among other things. What are the most far-fetched ideas that you’ve had? What about Amazon on Facebook? Sounds crazy? Might just work. It’s not like the Amazon interface is a pleasure to use, and maybe you’d trust the recommendations of a friend more than you would a stranger. Discounts for referrals? Facebook groups model could be used for online book clubs? Students could recommend books with attached notes to fellow classmates? I’m making these up as I go along. Deals with iTunes. Integration with Netflix: What about a way to simultaneously watch a film with a friend or partner in another country? Think long distance relationships. I could see lot of people using this. These are reckless ideas of course, but it’s these ideas that trigger better things to happen. Of course, I need to stress you can’t implement each and every feature you think of; it needs to be smart, useful and clear otherwise the product will become bloated. This is a lot of feedback, what should Facebook focus on first? At the moment when FB ships a new feature they are generally looking for a 100% uptake, but therein lies the problem. It results in a feature that satisfies the lowest common denominator of user needs. Yes developers can create apps, but the most successful apps are games, not useful tools. I think Facebook should be focusing on the needs of groups of individuals not just the generic needs of all individuals, that is the fundamentally uncharted territory. Site traffic stats over the past couple of days? I honestly have no way of knowing exactly, somewhere between 20K–50K I’d imagine. CrunchBase Information Facebook Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Study: Kindles Aren't Quite All That With The Kids On Campus Top
Researchers at the University of Washington have found that, while useful, Kindles (specifically that larger Kindles DX) aren’t all that popular with students – yet. Their issues, arguably, are UI problems including the need for a “skimmable” abstract of content and better note-taking systems. However, to be fair, Amazon and B&N could fix those problems in a heartbeat. "Most e-readers were designed for leisure reading – think romance novels on the beach," said co-author Charlotte Lee, a UW assistant professor of Human Centered Design and Engineering. "We found that reading is just a small part of what students are doing. And when we realize how dynamic and complicated a process this is, it kind of redefines what it means to design an e-reader." Read more…
 
Cobalt Technologies Raises $20 Million To Make Plant-Based Jet Fuel And Paint Top
Cobalt Technologies , a cleantech startup in Mountain View that develops and makes biobutanol, closed a $20 million series D funding round, the company revealed today. The investment arm of Parsons & Whittemore (the Whittemore Collection) led the round, joined by all of Cobalt’s earlier venture backers: Pinnacle Ventures, Malaysian Life Sciences Capital Fund, VantagePoint Capital Partners, Life Sciences Partners (LSP), @Ventures, Harris & Harris and Burrill and Company. Primarily, Cobalt Technologies turns non-food crops into “n-butanol,” which is used to make a variety of paints and coatings, as well as renewable chemicals used to make jet fuel. The U.S. Department of Energy defines biobutanol as: “…an alcohol that can be produced through processing of domestically grown crops, such as corn and sugar beets, and other biomass, such as fast-growing grasses and agricultural waste products.” Biobutanol generally has greater energy density than ethanol. According to its own press statement, Cobalt will use its $20 million series D capital to build a 470,000 gallon-per-year demonstration plant in Alpena, Michigan. The company’s chief executive officer, Rick Wilson , explained further, in an interview by phone on Monday: “Our Alpena facility will start up around April 2012. We located this facility by a factory called DPI. What they do is make decorative panels from wood. They bring in wood chips and shavings, and cook it so it sticks together. From that process, you end up with sugars, not the kind you'd necessarily want to eat. We ferment and use a non-genetically modified organism to convert that to butanol. We could use corn or sugar, but that's $300 to $500 a ton. Wood chips are $60 to $80 a ton.” The company will generate some revenue from the biobutanol it produces in Alpena. It will use that revenue and the remainder of its series D round to begin development of its first commercial facilities; and continue developing bio jet fuel(s) for use by the U.S. Navy, which struck a partnership deal with Cobalt in late 2010. In January 2010, the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Department of Agriculture set up several goals, including that by 2020, the Navy’s total energy consumption for ships, aircraft, tanks, vehicles and shore installations would come from alternative sources, including biofuels. Unlike other sector players such as Solazyme — a public company that uses algae to make biofuels and chemicals, and supplies these to the U.S. Navy as well — or SG Biofuels , which uses non-edible jatropha seeds, Cobalt’s process draws on feedstocks that are often a byproduct of food and paper makers. CrunchBase Information Cobalt Technologies Pinnacle Ventures Solazyme Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Twitter To Buy TweetDeck For $40 Million – $50 Million Top
Twitter has acquired TweetDeck , we’ve heard from a source with knowledge of the deal, and the transaction will be announced in the next few days. The $40 million – $50 million purchase price includes both cash and Twitter stock, says our source. In February we reported that an acquisition of TweetDeck by Bill Gross’ UberMedia was all but done , in the $25 – $30 million range. And that deal was in fact all but done. But Twitter quickly provided an unsolicited counter offer , and TweetDeck was in play again. TechCrunch EU has the full story on how that played out. This deal is defensive for Twitter, say all the sources we’ve spoken with over the last couple of months. They simply couldn’t allow UberMedia to have so much market share in this space. The company has acquired UberTwitter , EchoFon and a number of other Twitter-related startups. Adding TweetDeck to the UberMedia stable of products would give them too much leverage over Twitter, say our sources, and so Twitter made a strong defensive bid to disrupt the deal. Which succeeded nicely, apparently. CrunchBase Information TweetDeck Twitter UberMedia Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Bin Laden Announcement Has Highest Sustained Tweet Rate Ever, At 3440 Tweets Per Second Top
Twitter has just revised its preliminary measurements of 4,000 tweets per second from last night’s announcement of Osama Bin Laden’s death , tweeting out the new measurements below. At the event’s peak (11pm EST) there were 5,106 TPS, beating out Super Bowl 2011 (with 4,064 TPS) but not NYE 2010 (with 6,939 TPS). The event had the highest sustained rate of tweets ever according to Twitter, reaching 3,000 tweets per second between 10:45 and 2:20am, raking in 38,7 million tweets in 3 hours and 35 minutes. At its peak it averaged 3440 TPS from 10:45pm  to 12:30pm EST, at an average of 12,4 million tweets an hour. For comparison, this year’s Super Bowl had sustained 20 minutes at 3,000 TPS. From Twitter PR : “Last night saw the highest sustained rate of Tweets ever. From 10:45 – 2:20am ET, there was an average of 3,000 Tweets per second. At 11p.m. ET, there were 5,106 Tweets per second. At 11:45p.m. ET, when Pres. Obama finished his remarks, there were 5,008 TPS. Note: The TPS numbers we reported last night were incomplete” The timeline of the event on Twitter was as follows: At 1:00pm EST last night, Sohaib Athar (@reallyvirtual) unknowingly  liveblogged the helicopter raids that eventually killed Bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan. At around 9:45pm EST White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer notified the press corps that Obama would make an impromptu announcement at 10:30 EST, then tweeted out the same information to his followers. At 10:25pm former Donald Rumsfeld Chief Of Staff Keith Urbahn tweeted,  "So I'm told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden. Hot damn."  ABC, NBC and CBS then followed suit, announcing the death of Bin Laden on television at 10:45pm EST. Obama’s speech began at 11:30pm EST and by 11:35 EST the President had confirmed Osama’s death. At 11:45pm EST the announcement was over. For perspective, here is a list of other notable TPS event records: * The all-time record is still NYE 2010 in Japan, with 6,939 TPS at its peak * On the day of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami (On March 11th) Twitter usage reached 5,530 TPS. (Passing the 5,000 TPS mark five times that day). * The 2011 Super Bowl reached 4,064 TPS * Japan’s victory over Denmark in the World Cup reached 3,283 TPS * Final game of the 2010 NBA finals peaked at 3,085 TPS * Last Friday's Royal Wedding reached a peak of 3,966 TPS at 4pm London time @twitterglobalpr Twitter Comms Last night saw the highest sustained rate of Tweets ever. From 10:45 – 2:20am ET, there was an average of 3,000 Tweets per second [1/3] about 4 hours ago via web Reply Retweet Favorite @twitterglobalpr Twitter Comms At 11p.m. ET, there were 5,106 Tweets per second. At 11:45p.m. ET, when Pres. Obama finished his remarks, there were 5,008 TPS [2/3] about 4 hours ago via web Reply Retweet Favorite @twitterglobalpr Twitter Comms Note: The TPS numbers we reported last night were incomplete [3/3] about 4 hours ago via web Reply Retweet Favorite Graph: @miguelrios CrunchBase Information Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Twitter Does Not Supplant Other Media, It Amplifies It Top
Last night, many of us learned about Osama Bin Laden’s death on Twitter . And in fact, the first credible report from Keith Urbahn, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s chief of staff, was also on Twitter. And while the White House kept pushing off the official announcement for an hour to inform different parties, the news was already being analyzed and spread on Twitter. So did Twitter supplant mainstream media as the best source of news about Bin Laden’s death? Yes and no. Yes, many people first heard about the news on Twitter, but more often than not the original source of that news could be traced back to mainstream media. Although some unwitting on-the-ground reporting occurred on Twitter as well, Bin Laden’s death was confirmed by mainstream media (CNN, NYT, etc). Even Keith Urbahn notes that his source was not someone in the military or government, but a “connected TV news producer:” @keithurbahn Keith Urbahn My source was a connected network TV news producer. Stories about "the death of MSM" because of my "first" tweet are greatly exaggerated. about 13 hours ago via Twitter for BlackBerry® Reply Retweet Favorite Urbahn doesn’t believe his Tweet is evidence of citizen journalism “supplanting traditional media.” @keithurbahn Keith Urbahn As much as I believe in rise of "citizen journalism," blogs, twitter etc supplanting traditional media, my tweet isn't great evidence of it. about 13 hours ago via Twitter for BlackBerry® Reply Retweet Favorite And yet, he was able to break the news before the TV producer who told him could air it on traditional media. Twitter is not in and of itself a news source. Whoever is Tweeting is the source. But all it takes is one person to Tweet out news for it to spread faster than through any other medium. The person doesn’t have to be a journalist. Urbahn scooped everyone. Twitter does not supplant other media, it amplifies it. During the President’s announcement, people were Tweeting at a rate of 4,000 Tweets per second , not an all-time-high, but a close second or third—about the same level of Tweets as during the last Super Bowl . Twitter also drives people to traditional media. Last night, news that the President was going to make a surprise announcement certainly drove people to TV. For instance, I first heard about the news conference on Twitter, and then I turned on CNN. Much of what people were Tweeting was what they were hearing on TV, thus passing the news instantly to people who may not have been in front of a TV at the time. But what that means in practice is that if you are following the right people, you don’t have to actually turn on your TV. You can learn most of the salient facts from watching your Twitter stream. It can be such an efficient way to get information that people mistake it for the source of the news itself. For an increasing number of people, it is becoming the first place they turn to find out what is going on. However, it also points to other media (much like a news search does) and people click on those links to find out more. We certainly saw a huge spike from Twitter traffic here on TechCrunch last night, and we are just a technology blog. Related TC posts : First Credible Reports Of Bin Laden's Death Spread Like Wildfire On Twitter Here's the guy who unwittingly live-tweeted the raid on Bin Laden Bin Laden's Compound Gets A Bum Review On Google Maps CrunchBase Information Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase
 

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