Tuesday, March 6, 2012

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Apple Adds "Catalogs" Category In App Store In Advance Of iPad Event Top
cataddApple appears to have just added a new top-level category in the App Store: catalogs. With taxonomic equivalence to "News" and "Games," it's a fairly major addition and could signal a new direction into which the iPad may be venturing. There are already catalog apps available: single-store apps like Ikea's, and multi-store aggregators like Catalog Spree (the creators of which, naturally, first noticed the new category). But the new category means one of two things: Apple is pushing for more e-tailer presence in iOS, or there are just too many catalog apps clogging up the lifestyle section.
 
Sōsh For iPhone Gives You Cool Socializing Ideas On The Go Top
Screen Shot 2012-03-06 at 5.25.38 PMEclectic local recommendation service Sōsh is launching on the iPhone, giving people a way to find cool things to do in San Francisco even when they're away from a computer. Sōsh founder Rishi Mandall holds that users have moved from the "willing to spend time to save money" mentality of the deep recession (leading to the popularity of startups like Groupon and Gilt) to the "willing to spend money to save time" mentality of tech bubble 2.0 (leading to the popularity of startups like TaskRabbit and Uber). "People are willing to invest either time or money being interesting," he says, "[And] When you find something on Sōsh, you know it'll be a worthwhile and meaningful experience."
 
Trend-Based Ad Targeter Taykey Goes Cross-Platform, Adds Kevin Rose As Adviser Top
taykey logoSequoia-backed social ad startup Taykey is ready to look beyond Facebook. Taykey says it looks at 40,000 data sources and automatically generates campaign keywords to help advertisers to reach the audience they're looking and respond in real-time to online trends. For example, if Paula Abdul does something newsworthy, then advertisers interested in reaching young music fans want to get in front of all those people who are about to start searching for Abdul-related content. So Taykey starts bidding on related inventory on Facebook — and now on the Google Display Network and on Twitter.
 
Polyvore Hits 15M Monthly Uniques By Embracing the Pinterest Effect Top
PolyvoreIt would make sense for Polyvore to feel competitive with Pinterest. But in fact, Polyvore co-founders Jess Lee and Pasha Sadri told me today in an interview, Polyvore has added two million new monthly uniques in the past month alone after having decided to work with Pinterest, not against it.
 
All The Location Apps You Have To Use At The SXSW Royal Rumble Top
location-brawl1It's turning into a battle of apps at SXSW - the sheer number of location-based networking apps hoping to emerge from the conference as this year's breakout hit is nearly overwhelming. What's worse, the apps are often so similar in nature, it's hard to discern the advantages of one over another. Is the app for business networking or making new friends? Does it use check-in data from other networks like Facebook and Foursquare, or does it just connect you with friends? How does the app know who's nearby? Does it kill your battery?
 
With $2M In Tow, Branch Teams Up With Twitter Co-Founders' Obvious For 'New Brand Of Discourse' Top
twiconLast June, Twitter Co-founder Biz Stone announced that he was stepping back from Twitter to again team up with co-founder Evan Williams and early employee Jason Goldman to re-start The Obvious Corporation -- an idea incubator -- the one that initially helped give life to Twitter. A few months later, The Obvious Corp announced that its first incubation project would be Lift, an app development startup founded by Tony Stubblebine and Jon Crosby. Today, the Obvious team has unveiled its second project: A partnership with New York City-based Branch -- the startup-formerly-known-as the group blogging platform RoundTable.
 
Education Elements Raises $6M To Help Schools Accelerate Learning With Technology Top
8224_800There are few people who doubt the ability of technology to help improve education, whether that be at the primary or secondary level. Of course, there are a hundred differing views on the best ways to manage (or moderate) the integration of technology into the educational process -- and the classroom. Many parents, teachers, and schools are not exactly thrilled with the idea of technology, or mobile devices playing a leading role in the classroom at the expense of teachers, etc. And thus, as with so many things, striking a balance (or finding moderation) is key, which is why we've seen a rise in so-called blended learning, or the strategic integration of technology into the classroom -- with the goal of increasing the productivity of both teachers and students. Founded in 2010, Education Elements is one of many startups helping schools, school networks, and districts adopt blended learning by offering a suite of design services and a SaaS-based learning management system to enable school to personalize student education and focus on small-group instruction. In February of last year, the startup raised $2.1 million in seed funding from Tugboat Ventures, NewSchools Venture Fund, Wally Hawley, and Imagine K12 to help get its software and services off the ground.
 
Google Play? What The Hell Was Wrong With Android Market? Top
play_logoGoogle often confuses me. The company, with its thousands of genius employees, often makes the most brain-dead decisions. Just earlier today Google rolled out their latest twist on the Android Market -- but it's not called Android Market anymore. Instead of simply redesigning the e-store, Google also re-branded the whole thing to Google Play. The reasoning is sound: the company wanted to better describe their offerings since it's not just apps. The Play name is multifaceted, evoking thoughts of playing a game or pressing play on a media file. Cool. But most markets also sell more than one sort of good. The old name worked just as well.
 
Glancee To Release Big SXSW Update With Past Encounters, More Location And More Android Top
glancee2.6.12Let's say you want to use your phone to find interesting new people or reconnect with nearby friends -- without revealing your exact location. Glancee is the app for you, particularly if you're an Android user. And the polished competitor to Highlight is getting a big update today, ahead of South By Southwest. The changes should please the people who want what it already offers. The most obvious alteration since I covered the app last month is a nod to location precision. The Radar feature now shows you how many "steps away" somebody is, as measured in number of feet. Before, you'd see people as either "nearby" or as X number of miles away. While subtle, the difference could make it easier for connections to happen. If you only have to walk a few feet to meet someone, you're more likely to do it than walk half a mile, particularly if you're in the middle of a giant party in Austin, Texas.
 
A Picture's Worth 12 Million Downloads: Draw Something Is #1 on iOS and Android Top
Draw Something Logo Funny DrawingDraw Something proves that if you provide an outlet for imagination, the whole world will play. One month after launch, OMGPOP's CEO tells me its Pictionary-style mobile game now has 12 million downloads, around 7.1 million daily active users, and is the #1 free and paid game on both the U.S. App Store and Android Market (Google Play). If Draw Something can hold our attention now that it's got it, the game could become the most popular thing on mobile since those disgruntled birds. To get just how ridiculously popular Draw Something as become, here's how it stacks up against the growth of Temple Run, Words With Friends, Instagram, and Pinterest:
 
New Skype For Mac Update Finally Includes Full Screen Mode, Automatic Updates Top
skypemacI lean on Skype (and Macs) pretty heavily, so when a fairly substantial update for the VOIP/messaging service goes live, my ears tend to perk up. The new Skype 5.6 update has me especially tickled -- it's now available for folks of the Mac persuasion, and it thankfully packs a handful of bugfixes as well as a slew of new (and arguably overdue) features.
 
Health Startup Help Remedies Takes On Blood Cancer With… A Bandage Kit Top
Screen shot 2012-03-06 at 12.27.14 PMDebuting last week at the TED Conference was a new product by a pharma startup, which has largely flown under the radar. The company's name may not be familiar, but you may have noticed its smartly designed products in drug stores around the country. Founded in 2008, Help Remedies is a pharma startup trying to make waves in an industry dominated by Goliaths by re-imagining the over-the-counter (OTC) medication experience. The startup is doing so with a line of OTC products, or medicine kits, distinguished by minimalist, eco-friendly packaging and smart design in an effort to help reduce the overwhelming amount of product choices most consumers experience when perusing the medications aisles at their local pharmacies.
 
Pandora Misses; Revenue Up 71 Percent To $81.3M But Swings To A Loss Top
Pandora RadioInternet radio giant Pandora Media just reported fourth quarter results. The company posted revenue of $81.3 million, which was up 71 percent year-over-year. Non-GAAP net loss per share was $0.03. Analysts expected a loss of $0.02 a share, with revenue coming in at $83 million. Advertising revenue was $72.1 million, a 74 percent year-over-year increase. Subscription and other revenue was $9.2 million, a 51 percent year-over-year increase. For the fiscal year 2012, total revenue was $274.3 million, a 99 percent year-over-year increase. Total advertising revenue was $240 million, a 101 percent year-over-year increase. Total subscription and other revenue was $34.3 million, an 87 percent year-over-year increase.
 
Khan Academy Inspires Flip of Doctor-Patient Relationship Model Top
Salman KhanEducation and healthcare are typically held up as the industries least affected by the technology revolution, however this has begun to change. From Bill Gates to millions of students and parents, the Khan Academy has impressed many of us and inspired teachers to flip the classroom lecture/homework model on its head as described in the video below. Similarly, doctors are now recognizing similar value in videos for their patients.
 
Samsung VP Eric Anderson On The Future Of Smart TVs [TCTV] Top
SamsungToday at Samsung's media event in NYC, I got the chance to chat with VP of Content and Product Solutions Eric Anderson on the future of Smart TVs. The company just recently released a number of new Smart TV offerings equipped with what Samsung is calling Smart Interaction — the ability to control the TV through voice and gestures.
 
Keen On… Amit Shafrir: How Badoo Is Eliminating Loneliness [TCTV] Top
Screen Shot 2012-03-06 at 9.45.56 AMWith over 137 million worldwide registered users, Badoo is one of the hottest social networks on the planet. But, with its reputation as a massive hook-up network, Badoo is also one of the most controversial. So my first question to Badoo president Amit Shafrir, when we met recently in San Francisco, was about sex. Are all those 137 million users using Badoo, I asked Shafrir, simply to hook up with each other?
 
Roccat Connects Your PC To Your Smartphone For Power-Gaming Top
key2One of the more interesting PC accessories of the last few years was the now-infamous Optimus keyboard, which replaced every key with a tiny display that could be customized for games and software. At $1500, it was kind of a stretch. More recently, Razer's Blade laptop and an unreleased keyboard have integrated a touchscreen and LCD keys, though also at a premium. But why haven't we employed the high-resolution touchscreens we all carry around with us - our smartphones? Roccat, a PC gaming brand that has been expanding into the states, has put together a free app that acts as a sort of window into your PC, letting you monitor your components, create custom key layouts for games, and more. It's a geek dream.
 
Too Big To Fail: Why Anonymous And Hacktivism Will Go On After Sabu Top
octopusEarlier today, authorities descended on a hacker called Sabu and five of his cohorts, who are now in custody, with little love lost between him and the bigger Anonymous group with which they were associated. The reports claim that Sabu (real name, Hector Xavier Monsegur) had been an informant for months over the group's hacking, distributed denial of service, and other attacks used to bring down websites against which they were protesting. That's an explosive betrayal that seems almost too dramatic to be true. But while the news today has surely rocked a lot of people, for those closely involved with this movement, experts in the field of online security believe it is unlikely to make much of a difference longer term.
 
Verizon Releases List Of Devices Getting Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich Top
icecreamsandwichDespite the fact that they rarely ever get to use the newest version of the OS when it's launched, Android fans are still patiently and enthusiastically waiting for their Ice Cream Sandwich updates. The latest version of the OS was released alongside the Samsung Galaxy Nexus back in December, and is probably in the hands of about 2 percent of users as we speak. But after seeing Verizon's updated ICS update device list, I'm thinking that figure will change dramatically in the coming months.
 
comScore: More Than 100M U.S. Mobile Subscribers Now Use Smartphones; Android And iOS Market Share Up Top
comScore -2Online and mobile data research company comScore has just released monthly mobile usage data from its MobiLens service, which reports mobile usage stats for the three month average period ending January 2012. One of the notable data points from the report is that over 100 million U.S. mobile subscribers (101.3 million to be exact) are using smartphones, which is up from 97.9 million in the previous period. That's up 13 percent since October 2011. During the period ending January 2012, 234 million Americans age 13 and older used mobile devices in general. Similar to last month's findings, Google's Android OS continued to grow its share in the smartphone market, accounting for 48.6 percent of smartphone subscribers (up 2.3 percentage points) followed by Apple with 29.5 percent market share (up 1.4 percentage points). RIM ranked third with 15.2 percent share, followed by Microsoft (4.4 percent) and Symbian (1.5 percent).
 

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