Saturday, January 28, 2012

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To Pivot or Not to Pivot Top
mountain bikeAh, the internet – how you hijack our vocabulary.  A few years ago, "embedded" had connotations of journalists following soldiers.  Today, it's most associated with YouTube clips.  Similarly, a pivot was something that I vaguely recall my basketball coach talking about.  Today, it's the repositioning of a company and without a doubt, 2011 was the year of the pivot.
 
Book Review: Distrust That Particular Flavor By William Gibson Top
135254914William Gibson is the defining author of our digital age. More than any social media pundit or Popcorn futurist, he has defined the dystopia we can expect once we escape the dystopia we're in now. His fiction - a trilogy of trilogies that works backwards from the distant future to a world that is ours - is constantly approaching the present while exploring what it means to exist in a culture mediated by electronics. Although his early work owes more to Burroughs and Verne than anyone cares to admit, he was wildly prescient in his prediction that soon we would see the entire world - an entire world - through the lens of gadgetry. While the web isn't cyberspace yet and the East Coast isn't the Sprawl, we're headed in that direction. And that's just his fiction. Gibson's non-fiction writing is a peanut in the bland Cracker Jack of the dead tree publications where they first appeared. He's often graced the otherwise leaden pages of Wired with his unique style and many of the pieces in this book appeared elsewhere, whether in magazines or at public talks. His non-fiction is rare enough that we definitely want more, but do we want a whole book's worth?
 
Why Every Entrepreneur Should Self-Publish a Book Top
snoopy_writingI've published eight books in the past seven years, five with traditional publishers (Wiley, Penguin, HarperCollins), one comic book,  and the last two I've self-published. In this post I give the specific details of all of my sales numbers and advances with the traditional publishers. Although the jury is still out on my self-published books, "How to be the Luckiest Man Alive" and "I Was Blind But Now I See"  I can tell you these two have already sold more than my five books with traditional publishers, combined. If you, the entrepreneur, self-publish a book you will stand out, you will make more money, you will kick your competitors right in the XX, and you will look amazingly cool at cocktail parties. I know this because I am seldom cool but at cocktail parties, with my very own comic book, I can basically have sex with anyone in the room. But don't believe me, it costs you nothing and almost no time to try it yourself.
 
Ron Paul, Mitt Romney Leading On Facebook Ahead Of Florida Primary Top
Screen Shot 2012-01-27 at 5.40.06 PMThe Republican presidential candidacy is still far from decided, based on the split primaries and mixed polls so far. So here's another source for trying to figure who's really pulling ahead -- the number of new Facebook fans that each candidate is getting, according to the Inside Facebook Election Tracker. Mitt Romney is finally making some strong gains this month, in contrast to his Facebook performance over December. By "strong gains" I mean he's been attracting a roughly similar number of fans to Ron Paul, the candidate who normally dominates on the web (and the clear leader last month). The two have fought for the daily lead for most of January, except for when Rick Santorum surged around his Iowa primary win on the 3rd.
 
Harvard Gets Its First VC Firm: The Experiment Fund Top
Experiment FundAs just about everyone should know by now, the seeds of what grew into Facebook were planted at Harvard. Might there be a bunch of mini-Zucks lurking in the dorms of Cambridge? If so, a new venture capital firm — the first housed right on the Harvard campus — wants to find them.
 
Secret Windows 8 Weapon: Kinect Built Into Your Laptop Top
not_real_obviouslyThe Windows release of Kinect is coming up in a couple days, but for most people that won't be a major event: the Kinect they have is sitting on their TV or in a drawer, waiting to be taken out for an impromptu Dance Central 2 party. Of the 10 million Kinects out there, the only ones connected to computers are the ones being fiddled with by the various hackers and students making science projects out the things. But according to the Daily, Microsoft is hoping to remedy this particular situation by building Kinect sensors right into your laptops. TechCrunch alum Matt Hickey got to handle a pair of prototypes, which were confirmed to be official, not just one of the many experiments that hide within Microsoft's various lairs.
 
Twitter Puts Its DMCA Takedown Requests Up For All To See Top
twixYesterday's announcement that Twitter would be selectively censoring tweets based on country was not well-received. But part of that announcement was the assurance that the process would at least be transparent. A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. They also mentioned that they were working with Chilling Effects to make notices and orders sent to Twitter publicly available. At the time of the post yesterday, the site wasn't up yet, but you can now browse it at chillingeffects.org/twitter.
 
Y Combinator Names Seasoned Entrepreneur Geoff Ralston As Its Newest Partner Top
geoff-ralstonY Combinator has just announced the newest partner to join the prestigious firm: Geoff Ralston. Ralston's previous credentials include founding Four11, which was acquired by Yahoo back in 1997 for $96 million and served as the foundation for Yahoo Mail. Ralston spent eight years at Yahoo, eventually becoming Yahoo's Chief Product Officer. Several years after leaving Yahoo he was named CEO of Lala, before it was acquired by Apple in 2009. Most recently he cofounded Imagine K12, a tech incubator for education-related startups, which presented at TechCrunch Disrupt SF (you can find the incubator's first batch of companies here). 
 
Gillmor Gang Live 01.27.12 (TCTV) Top
Gillmore Gang test patternThe Gillmor Gang - Danny Sullivan, John Taschek, Kevin Marks, Doc Searls & Steve Gillmor - is recording live today at 1pm PT. Recording has concluded.
 
Flurry: Amazon's Kindle Fire Is Already Starting To Smoke Samsung's Galaxy Tab Top
flurryWuh oh, Samsung — better watch your tail. While Apple might not be seeing any impact (be it positive or negative) on iPad sales from the launch of the Kindle Fire, Samsung's Galaxy Tab ought to be feeling the heat. Tapping into the data provided by their app analytics platform (which they estimate has found its way onto around 90% of the Android devices out there), Flurry highlights a few surprising numbers.
 
Android Smartphone Round-Up: December/January Edition Top
groupshotWe took a break from the Android round-up in December because, well, to be honest I was on vacation. But January gave us a few extra smartphones and the holidays are over, so we're back. What we've got for you today leans into more expensive turf, and unfortunately, our favorite Android devices for the past two months are also exclusively at Verizon, so Big Red subscribers should pay attention. Without further ado, these are our favorite December/January releases of the Android persuasion: The Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the LG Spectrum, and the Motorola Droid RAZR Maxx. Enjoy!
 
Davos: BraveNewTalent Allows Job Seekers To Follow Their Future Employers Top
Screen Shot 2012-01-27 at 20.23.00BraveNewTalent is a social recruitment platform operating in the UK and moving into the US. I caught up with CEO and founder Lucia Tarnowski at Davos. The startup is built around the idea that people want to follow companies they might want to work for in the future, and companies in turn want to educate potential hires about how they work. They recently introduced a few new features, which Tarnowski outlines, notably the new feature enabling a user to follow the key employees of a company.
 
Davos: Ushahidi Grows Its Global Crowd-sourcing Platform, Slams Twitter Censorship [TCTV] Top
Screen Shot 2012-01-27 at 20.11.37At Davos I managed to catch Juliana Rotich, Co-Founder of Ushahidi, the incredible crowd sourcing platform which came out of Kenya. Starting with just a handful of countries in 2009, it's main product, Crowdmap, is now used in hundreds of countries for crisis mapping and even crowd sourcing information about nuclear weapons in Iran. I got an update from her about their latest moves. These include news that the Omidyar Network, which put $1.4m towards Ushahidi, and which late last year put in another $1.9m.
 
WSJ: Facebook Filing For IPO As Early As Wednesday Top
facebooklogoThe Wall Street Journal has just reported that Facebook may file for its long-awaited IPO as soon as this Wednesday, but notes that the "timing is still being discussed", according to an anonymous source. The article says that Facebook is eyeing a valuation between $75 and $100 billion as it raises up to $10 billion, which is in line with a previous WSJ report last November. The article also reports that Morgan Stanley is currently the frontrunner to secure the top, "lead left" position in the filing, with Goldman Sachs playing a "significant role" as well. The news comes shortly after Facebook temporarily froze secondary trades on its shares, sparking speculation that the IPO filing may be imminent.
 
#Humblebrag: Jack Dorsey, Reid Hoffman, Kevin Rose Coming To The Crunchies; Harris Wittels Hosting Top
normalAfter writing for NBC's Parks and Recreation for the past couple years (he's about to start a writing gig for HBO's Eastbound and Down), and authoring the sarcastic but brilliant and hilarious @HumbleBrag, Harris Wittels has decided to bring his talents to TechCrunch. This year, he will be hosting the Crunchies Awards, and bringing his chiding humor. If you're not familiar with Humblebrag, he scours Twitter in search of  braggadocio wrapped in humility. I'm willing to bet at least one of you has been retweeted. If so, post them in the comments below. We want to see. Not only is Wittels hosting, but Jack Dorsey, Kevin Rose, Marissa Mayer, Kevin Systrom, Reid Hoffman, Ron Conway and many more will also be joining us, many of them presenting awards themselves. This is going to be one night you won't want to miss. We have just released our last batch of tickets. If you would like to come to the Crunchies Awards, make sure to go here to get them, and get them quickly since they tend to sell very fast. And there's still time to vote for the best startups, apps, investors, and founders of the year. Voting ends at midnight on Sunday.
 
Gillmor Gang 01.24.12 (TCTV) Top
Gillmore Gang test patternThe Gillmor Gang — Dennis Crowley, John Taschek, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor — visit with the ghosts of Foursquare Past, Present, and Future. @dens is semi-bicoastal these days, trying to stay ahead of his growing business. He just moved in to a new office in NY, and the one in SF is expanding as rapidly as he can hire. We try to get him to say bad things about Google +, but he demurs. But he never escapes the Gang without leaving a bit more of his roadmap than he anticipates. Of course, you'll need gamification chops to uncover it.
 
Keen On… Payvment: Making eCommerce More Social (TCTV) Top
Screen Shot 2012-01-24 at 2.46.31 AMEarlier this week, Facebook announced changes to its Open Graph which have huge implications to the social ecommerce platform Payvment. The two year-old Palo Alto based start-up, which already manages 80% of the ecommerce transactions on Facebook, will now be able to be integrated into the Open Graph. What this means, according to Payvment's Founder and CEO Christian Taylor, is that we can now broadcast what we want on our Facebook pages. Such social one-click purchasing power is "big trouble" for Amazon and eBay, Taylor predicts. And even bigger trouble, I suspect, for parents who will now be inundated with gift ideas by their Facebook loving kids.
 
Playfish Product Leader John Earner Is Leaving To Be An EIR At Accel Top
1c46bcdAt this point in his career, it's safe to put John Earner in the "names as destiny" category. Following a hugely successful run with Playfish, he's leaving the social game developer today to start as an entrepreneur in residence at Accel, according to sources. A former naval officer, he joined as the company in 2008 as its first game producer, where he shepherded the development of its first big simulation game, Pet Society. Having figured out how to monetize virtual goods with it, he went on to launch the company's next big hit, Restaurant City.
 
YC Alum Curebit Raises $1.2 Million For Online Referral System Top
curebit-logo-200x200Y Combinator alum Curebit, an online customer referral platform that leverages social media for "word-of-mouth" advertising, has just raised $1.2 million in funding. The investors include 500 Startups, Karl Jacob, Auren Hoffman, Dharmesh Shah, Gordon Tucker, Alex Lloyd of Accelerator Ventures, and others. The funding will be used for continued product development and a slight expansion to the team involving three new hires (two developers, one designer) to the company's now five-person outfit.
 
Jon Rubinstein Leaves HP After "Fulfilling Commitment" Top
SANY0045.JPGHP's had quite a 2011 and Jon Rubinstein, former Palm CEO and a top-level executive at HP after the giant acquired Palm in 2010, was along for the ride. But according to a report out of AllThingsD, Rubinstein has officially left the company.
 

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