Friday, December 30, 2011

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Shock Horror! Berlin VC Invests In Italian Startup. Is This The Start Of Something? Top
mzl.fwjflxtn.320x480-75Point Nine Capital has made a seed investment into Cibando, an Italian startup which operates a popular iPhone application that makes it easy to find the best restaurants in Rome, Milan, Florence and other cities in Italy. Fabio Pezzotti, one of Italy's more successful Internet entrepreneurs and angel investors, also participated in the round. Terms of the investment were not disclosed. The deal is significant since it's the first investment by Point Nine in a startup in Italy, a market traditional vastly under-served by risk capital. Outside of traditional e-commerce style businesses, there remains very few Italian startups compared to the rest of Europe's major countries.
 
Daily Crunch: Car Tracking Top
1509Here are some recent posts on TechCrunch Gadgets: The Most Important Gadgets Of 2012 Video: Electric Car From Japan Reaches Over 300KM Travel Range Rumor: Apple Will Debut Two iPads Next Month, Retina Displays In Tow (Update) Samsung Ships 1 Million Galaxy Note Phablets The Gizmon iCA Might Be The Ultimate iPhone Camera Case
 
Someone Is Selling An Apple "Five Year Employee Award" On eBay, For $2K Top
Screen Shot 2011-12-29 at 11.56.39 PMToday in employee loyalty and the slow winter tech news cycle, someone is selling an Apple "Five Year Employee Award," on eBay, for $2K if you want to buy it now. While the immediate impulse of you cynical, cynical people is to yell "FAKE" as loud as you can in the comments section, sources are telling me it looks legit. You can't argue with "sources."
 
Verizon Cuts $50 Off The Droid Xyboards On-Contract Price But They're Still Too Expensive Top
droidmemeIt seems that Verizon (or Motorola) got the message: The Droid Xyboards are too damn expensive when tied to a 2-year commitment. Until today, Verizon was selling the 10.1 Xoom 2 for $529 and required a 2-year contract. Ludicrous. Well, after today's price cuts, the prices are less absurd, but just slightly.
 
Google Testing New Email Subscription Ad Format Top
00000193 copyGoogle is experimenting with its Google Adwords offerings, attempting to go beyond regular text ads with Google Email Subscription Ads, allowing companies to buy ads that automatically fill in a "Subscribe to newsletter (or whatever, I'm assuming)" slot with a given searcher's Google email address during a search.
 
The Gizmon iCA Might Be The Ultimate iPhone Camera Case Top
icaThere are iPhone cases and then there are...more iPhone cases. There are probably close to a gazillion different iPhone cases available now. But none are as elaborate as the Gizmon iCA -- at least none I have seen. The case -- if you call it just a case -- is made of 32 different polycarbonate parts, it features a conversion lens mount with additional optional lenses, and adds a working shutter button and optical viewfinder. There is even an optional faux pancake lens for additional street cred with the camera nerds. It gets better, too. No, seriously, this contraption is genius.
 
Tiny Flashlight Illuminates The Kindle Fire's Appstore Impact Top
41Pc8qjEdrL Early this year, Amazon made a bold move: it took advantage of the open nature of Android to launch an Android Appstore — one that serves as a direct rival to Google's official Android Market, which comes installed on many Android devices. Thus far, Amazon's early traction hasn't been particularly strong, primarily because the Appstore is such a pain to install: you need to dive into your phone's Settings menu, enable a scary-sounding option allowing the installation of 'non-Market' applications, and then manually download Amazon's store yourself. Most Android users aren't going to take the time to do this, even though Amazon is doing its best to offer plenty of incentives like free and discounted top-tier applications. But things are starting to change, thanks to the Kindle Fire.
 
Could 'Watched On' Facebook News Feed Stories Save Netflix? Top
Facebook Netflix News Feed Story FinAfter a disastrous Q3 2011, Netflix stands to replace some of the 800,000 subscribers it lost. It's savior? The Facebook news feed. Earlier this month, the House of Representatives passed a revised bill to change the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988 to allow people to opt in to having their movie rental activity shared. This Act had delayed the Netflix Facebook app's launch in the US. Now the Facebook news feed is beginning to show "Josh Constine watched The Walking Dead on Netflix" stories that point back to the Netflix site. After being enticed by something a friend has watched, Facebook users might sign up and pay on Netflix.com so they can watch too.
 
600,000 Calls Later, Callin' Oates' Developers Share Their Code Top
callinCallin' Oates. Heard of it? If not, you've gotta get yourself some more meme-hungry friends. Built (partly as a gag) to satisfy a Twilio employee's new-hire requirements, it's an on-demand Hall & Oates hotline that has managed to pull mentions everywhere from Time to NPR . Call the number, pick a song, hear Hall & Oates music. 600,000 calls later, the developer behind the project is releasing the service's code and a quick tutorial on how to put it all together yourself. Think of the possibilities! Bob Dialin'! Rung D.M.C! The Rolling Tones!
 
Update: Facebook Officially Releases "Messenger For Windows" Desktop Client Following Leak Top
Facebook Messenger For Windows[Update 12/29/2011 5:20pm: Facebook tells me it has now made the Messenger for Windows download link publicly available in its Help Center. Users can also learn details about the client there. Still no sign of a Mac version, though.] The client includes notifications and the Ticker which link back to Facebook.com, and therefore could drive engagement with the website. Messenger could also pull market share away from other desktop chat clients like AOL Instant Messenger and Windows Live Messenger.
 
comScore: Apple Grows Mobile Marketshare From 9.8% To 11.2%, But Samsung's Still Top OEM Top
OEMscomScore has just released its latest numbers regarding the mobile landscape here in the U.S., finding that Samsung is still the top OEM with a 25.6 percent marketshare, up just .3 percentage points from the three month period ending in August. Meanwhile, Apple's price drop on the iPhone 4 along with the introduction of the iPhone 4S has taken its share of the market from 9.8 percent to 11.2 percent.
 
Facebook Started Saturating The US Market In 2011 Top
NASA_earth_lights_usaMost third party web measurement firms have provided a steady drumbeat of positive growth news for Facebook over the years, as the company has gained tens of millions of users in the US and around the world. But now the social network appears to be reaching market saturation among internet users in some of its early key markets, with one firm showing nearly 75% of all US internet users on the site. Instead of raw user growth, the numbers to watch going forward will be around engagement.
 
Burned By Fleeing Customers, GoDaddy No Longer Just 'Doesn't Support' But Actually "OPPOSES" SOPA Top
Screen Shot 2011-12-29 at 1.55.16 PMJust in time for the aptly named "Dump Go Daddy" day, our favorite PR pinata GoDaddy just emailed a number of press, with a fresh statement from new CEO Warren Adelman. From the email ...
The statement is from our newly appointed CEO, who makes it clear, we don't just 'not support SOPA,' Go Daddy OPPOSES SOPA.
 
How to Survive Your First Year As An Entrepreneur Top
HBO1I loved talking to the skankiest prostitutes at three in the morning with a camera crew around me, fires burning in the street, sad, abused people clinging to scraps of life for their pleasures, bailed out prisoners and the drug dealers waiting for them to be released, homeless addicts with nowhere to go and they only weren't freaks if you saw them at three in the morning . In short,  I loved my job. Entrepreneurship ruined it.
 
Good Luck Occupiers, But Here's Why "Facebook For Protesters" Won't Work Top
Occupy Facebook TentMembers of the Occupy movement are building a "Facebook for protesters" called The Global Square, Wired reported yesterday. Less than a traditional social network, it's an international collaboration network. While a valiant effort, I see 3 big problems with the project's concept that will limit its success and impact.
 
Tubalr Is Like Having Your Own Personal 80′s MTV Top
TubalrSay what you will about YouTube's affinity for cats or their audience's collective inability to write insightful comments, but there's one thing that YouTube really just doesn't get enough credit for: saving the music video. As MTV losts its original love in favor of Nick Cannon Presents: Whacky Garbage Nonsense and re-runs of America's Next Quickly Forgotten Reality Show Person, music videos went without a proper home for nearly a decade. Then came YouTube. The only bad part about watching music videos on YouTube? Everything else on YouTube. The soul-crushing comments; the gawdy artist backgrounds; the endless recommendations. That's where Tubalr comes in. It's YouTube's glorious music video collection, minus all of that darn YouTube.
 
LTE-Capable Windows Phones Should Ship In The First Half Of 2012 Top
windows-phone-7There are a lot of naysayers out there when it comes to the Windows Phone platform, but as Robin pointed out a couple of days ago many haven't really given the OS a fighting chance. Some of it has to do with the fact that people often equate cost with quality, and most Windows phones are (at the moment) rather inexpensive. But Redmond apparently has plans to get some higher-end devices on the market next year. According to WinSupersite's Paul Thurrott (who has yet to formally reveal his sources, but promises the news is legit), Microsoft and its partners will release at least three new LTE-capable Windows phones in the first half of 2012.
 
Tampa's TechStars Network Member Gazelle Lab Opens 2nd Location In Orlando Top
gazellelabGazelle Lab, the brand-new Tampa Bay-based TechStars Network member which just held its first Demo Day in November, is expanding its operations. The accelerator has just announced the opening of second location in Orlando, Florida, where it will be working with local academic institution Rollins College. The Orlando team will be led by founder Richard Licursi, CEO of Florida's Spectrum Bridge, Inc. You may remember hearing about that company as being the first to win the FCC's approval to manage a database in the newly-opened "white space" spectrum. Licursi will be responsible for leading the fundraising for the Orlando crew, along with three other founders and support from the original St. Petersburg team.
 
Keen On…. Kurt Andersen: Why 2011 Has Only Just Begun (TCTV) Top
time 2011 person of the yearWhile 2011 is almost over, the year has only really just begun in terms of determining its historical significance. 2011 wasn't, of course, just another year. Like 1989, 1968, 1917 and 1848, 2011 was a revolutionary year, one that - from Cairo to Athens to Tunis to Wall Street to Moscow - may have changed the world forever. And to mark the historic nature of 2011, Time magazine just made The Protestor its person of the year. According to Kurt Andersen, who wrote Time's cover story for its Protestor edition, rebellion was the "defining political trope of 2011" - thereby making it a "great year in world history". And, as Andersen told me over Skype, this "contagion" wouldn't have happened without social networks like Facebook and Twitter which, he insists, were "key" to the 2011 revolutions. The Internet, Andersen thus explained, has emerged as the alternative to the free press in countries like Egypt, Russia and Tunisia; without it, he insists, there would have been no revolutions anywhere in 2011. Video ahead.
 
Is Verizon Joking? Paying Online/By Phone Will Soon Cost You An Extra $2 Top
verizon-2-feeYesterday Droid-Life obtained a leaked internal document from Verizon that had a surprisingly annoying little tidbit within: "Beginning 1/15/12, there is a $2 'convenience fee' for making a credit or debit card bill payment online or via call-in channels." Sometimes leaks are faked or forged, and I hoped against hope that this particular leak was a load of malarkey. But alas, Phonescoop has apparently received confirmation via email that Verizon will in fact impose this "convenience fee" starting January 15. Happy New Year, everyone.
 

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