The latest from TechCrunch
- The Ultimate Guide To Disrupt NYC 2011
- After Surging Past Angry Birds, The Heist Now Selling An App A Second
- A Bit More On WWDC, The Mythical iPhone "4S", and iOS 5
- By Popular Demand, The Music From Disrupt – Available For Download
| The Ultimate Guide To Disrupt NYC 2011 | Top |
| The latest Disrupt has wrapped, but given the volume of news it created and the rate at which posts were pushing each other off the front page, you could be forgiven for missing a few items or videos here and there. Don’t worry, though: we’ve got the highlights of the show collected right here. Actually, that’s not entirely true. We still have a ton of backstage talks and other footage we’re editing and processing, so expect more Disrupt content over the next week as we post these candid interviews with CEOs and Battlefield competitors. In the meantime, enjoy this central repository of all things Disrupt NYC 2011. Photos of the hackers working diligently …and continuing to work diligently deep into the night Video: Lora meets with some of the hackers and collects advice on how to maximize Hackathon time Video: Meet a 14-year-old self-taught hacker and his hack, BuyBy Video: the winning Hackathon demos and interviews with their creators Hacks : NerdNearby : finds tweeters and people checking in near you Gilt-ii : a second layer for shopping site Gilt that lets you auction off your reserved items Joinable : a cloud-based tool for providing email and voice mail to the homeless JoystiCC : lets you control other human beings like chess pieces? Dispatch.io : for easily sharing local documents to cloud services like Google Apps Docracy : allows for collaboration and version tracking on legal documents Interviews, panels, and Fireside Chats (with video and transcript): Fred Wilson: “Be your own bitch” Dennis Crowley talks about worldwide Foursquare adoption and his Gap sweater Arianna Huffington and Michael Arrington discuss the AOL acquisition, Mapquest, and orzo Ron Conway and David Lee on their new fund and myths of entrepreneurship Nora Ephron, Jay Rosen, and Arianna Huffington discuss new media Dave Morin shows off Stacks and explains why they declined to be acquired Charlie Cheever discusses Quora’s growth and why they don’t intend to sell Jeff Jarvis urges transparency in new media journalism and calls Bill Keller “obnoxious” Tim Armstrong explains how paid content can work Disrupting music with social Disrupting social commerce Battlefield session one: disrupting search and discovery: Do@ : a slick search engine that searches using apps instead of the web Rexly : a media recommendation engine based on trusted social graph connections Weotta : plans an outing for you based on mood and intention Skylines : a personalized photo stream based on topics and keywords, instead of people Deja : a flashy interface for video discovery and consumption Battlefield session two: disrupting location, location, location SpotOn : recommends places to go nearby, based on your own social network information Karizma : a video chatting app that connects you with people nearby Sonar : find people by you who you don’t know but should know, based on mutual connections Arrived : a location-aware social planning app that tells you what to do now that you’ve arrived Gnonstop Gnome : an experimental gnome-sharing application with a clever transfer method Battlefield session three: disrupting commerce SneakPeeq : a social shopping site that counts down prices until someone buys an item StyleSeat : a powerful job management system for stylists and other independent operators Spenz : deep spending tracking app with a reward system for usage BillGuard : “Antivirus for bills” that identifies fraudulent charges on your bank account Happy Toy Machine : a plush toy customization engine, “Build-a-Bear on steroids” Bonus link: The TechCrunch Disrupt Official Drinking Game Interviews, panels, and fireside chats: Paul Graham on the Y Combinator process Ashton Kutcher lays out his investment strategies Bing Gordon weighs in on Facebook and Zynga ( and drops some rhyme science ) David Karp and Kevin Systrom on managing hockey-stick growth Roelof Botha: RIP Good Times was no mistake Disrupting display advertising Disrupting publishing, from links to tablets Chris Dixon, Ron Conway, and Eric Hippeau discuss the New York startup scene Battlefield session four: disrupting the real world Desmos : a platform for rich educational content Smartheart : world’s smallest hospital-grade ECG and an iPhone app to go along with it Avado : a tracking and communication platform for doctors and patients MotherKnows : an app for keeping track of all your kids’ important medical data from shots to height Battlefield session five, disrupting enterprise Getaround : rent nearby cars or put yours up for rent, with a special keyfob and app Thinkfuse : richer, shareable status reports for your business ccLoop : collects emails into subscribable “loops,” reducing email clutter ThriftDB : a powerful database tool that’s difficult to describe but very impressive to watch Foretuit : a platform for collaborating on and tracking projects and sales Battlefield session six, disrupting something else Lumier : no one is quite sure what Lumier is – possibly a skin for Windows InvoiceASAP : a mobile invoicing app with cloud backup and media integration Meporter : a citizen journalism platform aimed at hyper-local news Everything Butt Art : an iPad app for teaching kids to draw, relying on butt-based drawings (yes, really) CatchFree : a platform for finding, rating, and recommending free services Kohort : a unified service for managing groups and events Tracks : “Color for normal people,” creates collaborative picture timelines for events Codeguard : an enterprise-level website backup system for consumers Bonus link: Lark launches in Apple stores (plus an onstage proposal ) Interviews, panels, and fireside chats: Google bets on NFC Chris Farmer, a partner at General Catalyst, reveals the top 10 venture capital firms John Biggs talks with Yancey Strickler of Kickstarter as well as a few of Kickstarter’s more successful projects Security and performance booster CloudFlare reveals some impressive stats Electric vs efficiency with Brammo CEO Craig Bramscher and EcoMotors CEO Don Runkle Office hours with Paul Graham: The investor brings entrepreneurs from the audience onstage to hash out their ideas The first Disrupt NYC winner Soluto offers some cool new features Qwiki lets you Qwiki yourself Fireside chat with Christopher Poole of Canvas Networks and 4chan Mike Arrington interviews Marissa Mayer The final Battlefield session | |
| After Surging Past Angry Birds, The Heist Now Selling An App A Second | Top |
| For as long as I can remember, there has been one app that has constantly held the top paid app spot in Apple’s App Store: Angry Birds. Sure, other apps surge to the top briefly. But Angry Birds always comes flying right back. But a new app appears to be bucking that trend. Today is day 3 of The Heist ‘s reign, and sales are quickening. As The Loop noted after a partial day 1, The Heist saw download numbers just over 25,000. This was already enough to overtake Angry Birds. But what’s really remarkable are the day two numbers. There were 89,798 downloads of The Heist on day two. Again, that’s for a paid app ($0.99). There are 86,400 seconds in a day so… yeah, the app is selling at a pace better than one a second. Crazy. In total, that puts downloads now well north of 100,000, and revenues are nearing $100,000 already. In fact, they’re likely well past that number as I write this seeing as the app is also still the top-grossing app in the App Store. So what is fueling the surge? Well first of all, they had a good launch strategy. The team behind The Heist is the same team behind MacHeist , the popular OS X software bundle. They began hinting about The Heist game earlier this year, and actually hid clues in the initial version of Twitter for Mac (which they had a deal with). That proved to be enough to push it to number one, past Angry Birds, Tiny Wings, and other insanely popular apps. And getting to number one has its own perks. Because everyone sees you’re number one, they get curious and want to download your app as well, which led to the day two surge. Well that and the fact that the puzzle game is getting excellent reviews across the board. The tap tap tap team behind the app is also behind the truly great Camera+ app, which happens to be the number seven paid app in the store. In other words, these guys know how to make good apps — and money. You can find The Heist here in the App Store . | |
| A Bit More On WWDC, The Mythical iPhone "4S", and iOS 5 | Top |
| With WWDC quickly approaching, the rumor mills are heating up with what we should expect at Apple’s annual conference known for big announcements. We’ve learned a little bit more that speaks to what to expect — including a couple of big, widely-requested things. First of all, a lot of sites seem to be working themselves into a tizzy about the so-called “iPhone 4S”. While it has already been widely reported that there will not be any major hardware announcements at WWDC this year, people seem to be letting their imaginations get the best of them anyway. This site , for example, notes that Apple is pushing for British journalists to fly out for WWDC. And today, there’s a report about Australian journalists getting the same message. Both conclude this must be for the “iPhone 4S”. As Electricpig writes: A source tells us that Apple's UK iPhone PR team is approaching journalists from major publications to fly out to the event in San Francisco next month. The obvious conclusion would be that Apple is announcing a new iPhone. Or rather, an updated model. The iPhone 4S is slated as a stop-gap before the appearance of a true, '&%!*, they've done it again!' game-changer next year. In no way is that an obvious conclusion. I’m not disputing the fact that Apple’s iPhone PR team wants people at this event. But guess what else that PR team is in charge of? iOS. Apple is Apple — they may always have a “one more thing” up their sleeve. And at least one of our sources still thinks that Apple will surprise with some new iPhone hardware. But right now, we’re not buying it. All other (solid) indications are that there will still be no hardware announcements at WWDC. None. And the extension of invitations to journalists in no way indicates anything different. Instead, we’re hearing that Apple is pushing for journalists to come to WWDC because the software announcements will be huge (and they likely know that journalists hearing there will be no iPhone 5 announcement may choose to stay home instead this year). And the changes will be vital for all developers in the Apple ecosystem(s) to know about. And remember, this isn’t just about iOS 5. This is about Apple’s entire software backbone. iOS and OS X are both about to receive massive upgrades at the same time. And both will likely be extensively previewed at WWDC. Add to this Apple’s cloud announcements (which may or may not include the “iCloud” music stuff) and you suddenly have a WWDC that looks anything but boring, new iPhone or not. The second bit of information we have heard is about iOS 5 itself. First of all, while we’ve been leading the reports of Nuance technology being fully baked into iOS 5, one place we’ve heard it won’t be used (at least not yet) is Voice Control. That’s odd since it’s perhaps the most obvious usage. But apparently, in the builds of iOS 5 currently being tested, the little-used feature hasn’t changed at all, we hear. That could obviously change before the release (which is still likely months away , even though it will be previewed at WWDC), but apparently the Nuance technology is meant for bigger things more core to the OS than that one feature. The other big news for iOS5 — and yes, I’ve completely buried the lede here, thanks for reading! — two things: completely revamped notifications and widgets. Expect a lot more in a couple weeks. Obviously, we’ll be there live covering the event. CrunchBase Information Apple Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| By Popular Demand, The Music From Disrupt – Available For Download | Top |
| We’ve gotten a lot of requests for our Disrupt conference theme music. Some conference attendees and webcast viewers apparently can’t get the music out of their heads and want to hear it some more. Instead of picking music from a music production library, this year we created custom tracks. The music came to us all the way from New Zealand from a company called Smith & Keats Music . They have a background in creating pop hits and have earned a reputation for specializing in music for the tech industry. Other clients have included Nintendo and Sony-Ericsson. The composers say living in New Zealand gives them exposure to a broader range of artists from around the world. In the US and other countries, the music charts are dominated by local artists. Not so for New Zealand, where they claim only the best of the best makes it to their shores. The time difference in New Zealand was also a plus. TechCrunch gave Smith & Keats direction and feedback on the music via email late at night, which was midday in New Zealand. So, when we woke up the next day, there was new music sitting in our inbox. Tanya Porquez, our Event Director for Disrupt, felt strongly that music was key to creating energy and excitement for Disrupt. The music far exceeded her high expectations and she was happy to hear our own theme song and watch people responding and singing along. Here are the 5 music cuts. Smith & Keats has given us permission to post them online and make them available to download. We even heard about a special dance that developed to them, so dance away. Track 1. Get Ready to Disrupt [ download link ] Track 2. Walk This Way [ download link ] Track 3 TechCrunch Disrupt Theme Song (featuring “TechCrunch Disrupt” audio sample; a crowd favorite) [ download link ] Track 4 Battlefield Rumble (used for the Startup Battlefield segments and the motorcycle giveaway deliberations) [ download link ] Track 5 High Energy Techno [ download link ] Photo credit: Joe Corrigan/Getty Images for AOL CrunchBase Information Smith and Keats Information provided by CrunchBase | |
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