Wednesday, December 28, 2011

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Call Genie Acquires Mobile Advertising, Analytics Startup VoodooVox Top
voodoovoxIn what looks like a firesale, Call Genie has acquired US-based mobile analytics and advertising network company VoodooVox, which has raised a ton of venture capital from investors like Apax Partners, Softbank Capital, Steamboat Ventures (Disney), Berkshire Capital Investors and Village Ventures. VoodooVox provides demographic information on phone calls and mobile ad traffic in real-time, enabling companies to gain insights into their call volume and mobile application activity.
 
Japan Gets Wi-Fi Dispensing Vending Machines Top
1227-2_bIt's no secret that Japan is the country of vending machines (they even have models like this one now), but this is new: Tokyo-based beverage company Asahi Soft Drinks took the wraps off a vending machine [JP] that not only offers drinks but also sends out Wi-Fi signals within a 50m radius. The Wi-Fi will be available for free, is accessible with multiple devices, without registration, and for anyone to use (meaning users won't have to buy any drinks to go online through the machine). It's possible to use the web for about 30 minutes before the machine cuts you off (re-connecting is possible, however).
 
DIY Health Reform: Employers Solving Healthcare Crisis One Onsite Clinic At A Time Top
DIYIn several of my past pieces, I have written about the importance of a disruptive model of care and payment called Direct Primary Care (DPC) such as The Most Important Organization In Silicon Valley That No One Has Heard About. As the DPC models scale, they become a great option for individuals and small business. However, larger organizations have another option at their disposal that I'm as excited about as the DPC models. Employers fed up with the annual "get less for more" health story when they get annual health plan updates have taken matters into their own hands. This has created one of the hottest sectors of the economy -- onsite clinic providers. These are companies providing corporations with primary care onsite at employer workplaces. Each of the onsite clinic provider CEOs (e.g., Concentra, CareHere) I have spoken with have shared that their business is growing 100% annually. Reportedly 20% of employers with over 500 employees are implementing onsite clinic programs.
 
'Big Data' Giant Mu Sigma Raises $108 Million From General Atlantic, Sequoia Top
musigmaMu Sigma, a provider of analytics and data-driven decision support services for enterprise customers, has raised $108 million in funding in a round led by growth equity firm General Atlantic. The financing comes about half a year after Mu Sigma raised $25 million from Sequoia Capital, which also participated in this round.
 
Will UK Prime Minister Get An iPad App For Work? Unlikely. Here's Why. Top
5071697639_8a2368b573According to some press reports today the British Prime Minister, David Cameron is to get "his own personalised iPad app" to stay on top of Government business. Cameron is known to use an iPad to read newspapers and catch up on media generally, as evidenced by this photo taken at a party conference last year. But this report sounds just a little like a slow news week combined with some idle chatter over the Christmas party season amongst the Whitehall press gang and the 'spads' - insider shorthand for Special Advisers.
 
3DS Sees Record Sales In Japan, Fueled By Mario Kart 7 And Super Mario 3D Land Top
01Nintendo is really lucky to own the Super Mario brand: after the bumpy, Mario-less launch of the 3DS in Japan back in February, big N is seeing record sales for its portable console. As predicted, sales in Japan for the 3DS crossed the four million unit mark before the end of the year, namely sometime between December 19 and 25. That's the week Nintendo sold 510,629 units 3DS systems, according to Japan's biggest video game magazine Famitsu [JP]. In total, the company has shifted 4,135,739 units in the country since the launch on February 26. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata earlier predicted the 3DS will find 4 million Japanese buyers sometimes in February next year.
 
Andy Rubin: Android Had A Jolly Good Christmas With 3.7M Activations Top
andy_rubinGoogle SVP Andy Rubin took to Twitter again today, not to delete one of his tweets but to publish a brand new one, saying Android saw 3.7 million activations in two days (Christmas day and the day before). He also posted it on his Google+ account, just in case you were wondering.
 
Amazon, Apple Soar In Customer Satisfaction In 2011; Netflix Plummets Top
amazonAccording to customer experience analytics company ForeSee, e-commerce giant Amazon once again topped consumer satisfaction in online retail after taking the top spot in 2010. However, Netflix, which had a dismal year, plummeted in customer satisfaction. For the past seven years, Netflix and Amazon have been competing for first place in Foresee's Index, but this is the first year where one of the e-retailers saw a massive dip in sentiment. Amazon climbed two points to score 88 on the study's 100-point scale, which is the highest score from any retailer in 14 consecutive studies. Netflix's well-publicized blunders, including price hikes last summer and the unsuccessful attempt to spin off the DVD rental business, caused its customer satisfaction to plummet by seven points and 8% to 79.
 
For Google+, User Count Is A Journey Not A Race Top
Google User Count JourneyThat's a good thing because Google+ missed the starting gun. And its "invite only" launch strategy saw all its disconnect users flailing independently. But in the long run that might not matter much, because Google+ doesn't need a critical mass or tons of engagement. It needs signups so it can get its identity layer under users of its other products. That way it can turn everyone's searches, mapping, email, and more into fuel for its ad targeting engine.
 
Another Report Shows Google+ With 60M+ Users And Growing… But Active User Count Still Unknown Top
Screen Shot 2011-12-27 at 5.13.15 PMGoogle+ now has more than 62 million users, according to Paul Allen, Ancestry.com founder and unofficial traffic analyst for Google's social network. That's not 62 million active users, though -- a point that everyone covering these numbers seems to have missed. It's just the number of total users. And specifically, it's the number of new surnames that Allen's team has tracked being created on the service. Because Google has aggressively integrated G+ into many other properties, including its top navigation bar and the OneBox, one would expect a certain baseline amount of sign-ups from among the hundreds of millions of people using other Google products. The real question is how many people are returning after creating their accounts, which Allen doesn't try to answer.
 
Find Your Stolen Camera or Protect It First With GadgetTrak's CameraTrace Top
GadgetTrak CameraTraceIf you got a digital camera for the holidays, or already own one, take a moment and write down the serial number. That way GadgetTrak's new CameraTrace service can help you recover it if it's ever stolen. Launching today, for a one-time fee of $10 CameraTrace lets you register your camera's serial number. If you later report it lost or stolen, you'll be notified by email if anyone else tries to upload photos from it. You can also search CameraTrace's serial number database of 5 billion photos for free. Both tools could help you track down unauthorized uploaders and get your gear back. Camera thieves beware, there's a new sheriff in town.
 
The iPhone 4S Is Finally Cleared For Launch In Mainland China Top
iphone-4Here in the States we've been chatting it up with Siri on the iPhone 4S for months, but the folks over in mainland China — the biggest mobile market in the world, mind you — have yet to hear that 42 is the meaning of life. The 4S launched in Hong Kong just last month, and since then we've heard that it would show up on the mainland in December. People's Daily is now reporting that a phone with the model number A1431 has passed the final hurdle in its Chinese certification. That's the same model number that Apple used to get a network entry permit for the 4S from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on December 6, so all signs point to iPhone.
 
YouTube Slam: Google's "Hot Or Not" For Videos Top
youtube-slamBored? Yeah, me too. Which is why I just killed nearly 30 minutes doing mindless web surfing on Facebook, Reddit and Amazon. But it looks like YouTube would like a little of my holiday downtime clicks - and yours, too. The company just blogged about YouTube Slam, a game that involves pairing up two videos and voting for your favorites.
 
GoDaddy Officially Removed From The House's List Of SOPA Supporters Top
gdjkWhen GoDaddy publicly recanted their support of SOPA last week, many were quick to point out that such an act didn't really mean much. As far as the Judiciary Committee overseeing SOPA was concerned, GoDaddy was still a supporter. That's been changed, it seems. In the latest version of the US House Of Representatives' SOPA Supporters list (heads up: it's a PDF), GoDaddy's name is nowhere to be found.
 
Asana Launches iPhone Version Of Its Group Task Manager Top
mzl.navmedjv.320x480-75Group task manager startup Asana launched its first native mobile app last week. It's mostly a straight port of its existing mobile web app, so the main benefit at present is that switching back and forth with other apps is much faster than dealing with Safari. The company says it's planning to invest in native apps more over time, but the version available is already useful for me since I've been dumping all of my story ideas into Asana since I started at TechCrunch in November... because I'm on my phone all the time, and checking Asana to see what I need to do next while I'm also trying to do three or four other things.
 
Half A Million Downloads Later, Social Discovery App Banjo Hits The Web Top
banjo_photosBanjo, the creepy/awesome cyber-stalking app (I mean social discovery service) that shows you who's nearby based on their Facebook and Foursquare check-ins, geotagged tweets, TwitPic and Instagram uploads, is now a web app, too. In case you haven't yet download the iOS or Android application to your mobile device (or are some kind of Windows Phone-using rebel), you can check out the service via the recently updated Banjo website instead.
 
6.8 Million Android And iOS Devices Were Activated on Xmas Day, 242 Million Apps Downloaded Top
Flurry_DeviceActivations_Xmas_vs_Dec1-20_Total-resized-600It was a very Android and iOS Christmas. Mobile apps research form Flurry released estimates on how many Android and iOS devices were activated on Christmas day, as well as how many apps were downloaded. On a combined basis, 6.8 million devices were activated, up 353 percent from the 1.5 million average activations a day over the first 20 days of December. And that number from 2.8 million combined activations on Christmas, 2010, the previous record. Flurry doesn't break out the split between iOS and Android. But you can triangulate the numbers with other publicly available stats. Android chief Andy Rubin recently noted just before Christmas that Android activations surpassed 700,000 a day. So that leaves between 700,000 and 800,000 a day for iOS devices (iPhones iPads, and iPod Touches), roughly speaking.
 
Windows Phone Marketplace Hits 50,000 Published Apps Top
windows-phone-7-marketplaceWith Microsoft and Nokia making a pronounced push to expand Windows Phone's reach, they need the support of their app developers to give the platform some staying power. Fortunately, it looks like Windows Phone is picking up steam up on the app front -- All About Windows Phone reports that 50,000 apps have been published in the Windows Phone Marketplace ahead of their initial predictions.
 
Giving Windows Phone A Chance Top
wp7If you take a look at Techmeme right now, you'll notice that the top conversation in the tech blogosphere is about Windows Phone, and more specifically why it has failed to catch on compared to Android smartphones in particular (according to Charlie Kindel, former GM of the product division). I've read people's different views on this with great interest, but I feel like something's missing: the opinion of an actual Windows Phone owner and user with no real skin in this game. Enter, well, me. A couple of weeks ago, I decided to stop using my HTC Sensation (Android 2.3) and iPhone 3GS (iOS 5) in parallel and made the switch to Nokia's Lumia 800 (Windows Phone 7.5). As you can tell, I'm not exactly married to any company or product - it's just not in my nature. I switched to Windows Phone mainly to see if it can hold its ground when used intensively.
 
Italy Fines Apple $1.2 Million Over AppleCare Sales Top
HT1863-AppleCare_Protection_Plan-en Today, Italy's antitrust body has fined Apple, Inc. $1.2 million (900,000 euros) for pushing customers to buy its AppleCare Protection Plan without adequately disclosing the support that already comes with their device. In Italy, companies are actually required by law to provide two years of free support to customers, which, according to the Italian Antitrust Authority, was not clearly explained to Apple customers either online or at the point-of-sale.
 

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