Tuesday, April 17, 2012

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Pebble Smart Watch Raises Over $3m On Kickstarter After Asking For Only $100k Top
Screen Shot 2012-04-17 at 09.10.23A 'smart watch' that connects to an iPhone or Android to display information that appears on your phone seems somewhat of a no-brainer, but until now few convincing efforts have appeared. Now, a team has developed the "Pebble" project to do just that, and they have clearly untapped a latent need for such a watch amongst smartphone users. After asking for $100,000 on Kickstarter to create a few thousand devices they've raised well over $3 million over a month before their stated goal. Indeed, Pebble raised $1m in its first 28 hours.
 
Gogobot Opens For Business In Europe (Smart Move: 44% Of Its Customers Are Here Already, Says CEO Travis Katz) Top
gogobotnewSocial travel site Gogobot is doing a little traveling of its own. Today, it's announcing the opening of its first European headquarters, in London. The move, says Travis Katz, the CEO and founder of the company, is being done to capitalize on the fact that the site already has nearly as many users in Europe as it does in the rest of the world: some 44 percent of people who have linked into the site to discuss travel itineraries with friends and others are based in Europe.
 
Blur Group Raises $2M To Disrupt How Marketers Pick Creatives For Campaigns Top
Screen shot 2012-04-17 at 07.54.32A B2B company that is trying to change the way that marketers procure services for ad campaigns says that it has just closed one of Europe's largest-ever angel financing rounds. blur Group, which runs a platform calls the Creative Services Exchange, says that it has raised $2 million. Bypassing the VC route, the company instead opted for a group of about 20 business names and angel investors including Archie Norman, currently chairman of UK broadcaster ITV; Kevin Lomax, the founder and former chairman and CEO of Misys Plc and director at M&S; and Tim Schoonmaker, chairman of Grapeshot Limited and ex-chairman of Emap Advertising and ex-CEO of Odeon Cinemas Ltd.
 
Euro SaaS Startups Rejoice – Notion Capital Closes $100m For Its 2nd Fund Top
71535v1-max-250x250We've seen the rise of new kinds of VC funds in Europe recently, mostly notably Passion Capital's $60m last year and the new fund just raised by Earlybird in Berlin, among others. These new kinds of funds are more fleet of foot, reaching into the hot early stage sector right now, largely in the consumer space. What has not appeared as often are brand new funds aimed at disrupting the enterprise. That changes today with the announcement today that London-based Notion Capital has closed the first $100m of its 'Fund 2'. This fund will focus on emerging cloud computing and Software-as-a-Servics companies in the UK and across Europe. The total fund size will end up being $150m at its final close, expected in the next few months. But already, this is one of the largest closes for an early stage VC in Europe to date. With this fund closed, Notion plans to look at 4 or 5 deals closely and will do one or two deals in the next couple of months.
 
Win A Meeting With Sean Parker, SV Angel & More In An Auction To Benefit Cancer Research Top
LLS_logoThe Motion To Dismiss Cancer, a team formed to raise money for the The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS), recently kicked off its annual "Venture Capital Master's Lunch Series," an ongoing auction that offers anyone and everyone an opportunity to win private meetings with an array of top venture capitalists and startup founders -- with all proceeds going to benefit LLS and cancer research. Over the next two months, in six rounds of auctions set to take place on eBay, investors from New Enterprise Associates, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Menlo Ventures, Greylock Partners, along with founders of companies like Lytro, 23andMe, Rock Health, BandPage, Spotify, Pulse, Loopt, Votizen, and more will prepare to subject themselves to your pitches and pleas for funding -- all in the name of a worthy cause.
 
Sacrificing Web Standards for Short-Term Gain? Top
4ormat internet explorerWhen I saw 4ormat's TechCrunch post, "Bootstrapped Startup Saves Over $100K by Dropping IE," I first called shenanigans, but then congratulated them on their brilliant marketing ploy. They might as well have titled the article, "Startup Saves Over $100k in Marketing Costs by Pretending not to Work in IE". I tested 4ormat's admin site in IE10 and used the IE developer tools to bypass the page block in IE9, and it works just fine. They probably saved another $100k by not testing in Opera (try loading the signup page in Opera). Reading the numerous kudos and criticisms in the comments, it did get me thinking about what browsers you should target for your site. I've grown up on a diet of Zeldman's Web Standards First and that the belief that the web is for everyone. That's what makes the web great. For someone to advise otherwise is bad for business and short changes the community of the web.
 
Groupon Acquires Social Recommendation App Ditto.me Top
Screen shot 2012-04-16 at 6.24.10 PMIt's a big day for M&A. The latest of today's deal announcements is the news that Groupon has acquired Ditto.me, the mobile app for discovering and planning new places to go with friends. Ditto announced its sale in an entry on its company blog. Ditto's service will eventually be shut down as part of the integration into Groupon, the company said. Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed. Ditto was founded by Jyri Engestrom, who was previously known as the co-founder of Jaiku, the microblogging site that was Europe's early answer to Twitter and was acquired by Google in 2007. Engestrom left the big G in 2009 to re-enter the entrepreneurial space, and the official launch of Ditto followed in March 2011.
 
Amazon Android Developers Can Now Charge More Than $20 For In-App Purchases Top
images-screenshots-captures-amazon-appstore-logo-21032011_00B4000000001978Amazon is now letting developers charge higher prices for in-app purchases thanks to new parental controls it just overhauled. The company sent out an e-mail to developers today that said: "With our parental controls functionality now updated, in-app items over $20 may now be submitted via the developer portal." Developers depend on these pricier items to make their businesses work since only a small percentage (usually in the single digits) of their users pay in their games. These so-called "whales" are responsible for the bulk of a developer's revenues. In a study earlier this year, mobile analytics company Flurry found that transactions that were more than $20 make up the majority of revenue for top-grossing games on iOS and Android.
 
Inside Founders Den, The Invite-Only Clubhouse For Tech Entrepreneurs [TCTV] Top
foundersdenFounders Den, the "private clubhouse for entrepreneurs" based in downtown San Francisco, celebrated its first anniversary back in January. Now that the invite-only tech startup coworking space is starting to see its third generation of inhabitants (Founders Den houses each company for six months at a time), TechCrunch TV headed over to the Den to get an updated first-hand look at how things are humming along these days. In the video embedded above, you can get a look at the Founders Den space and watch our interview with Zack Bogue and Jason Johnson, two of the Den's four managing partners. Bogue and Johnson are both entrepreneurs in their own rights, so it was interesting to get their insights on the vibe they're cultivating at the Den, the current "fervor" around Internet startups, why experienced entrepreneurs who could easily afford their own office space are still drawn to coworking environments, and general industry news such as the new crowdfunding bill.
 
Windows 8 Will Come In Three Different Flavors (Two For x86, One For ARM) Top
Windows 8 Consumer PreviewMicrosoft just announced that Windows 8 will come in three different flavors: Windows 8, Windows 8 Pro and Windows RT. Windows 8 will be the mainstream consumer edition. The Pro version will bring a number of features that most mainstream consumers don't necessarily need to Microsoft's next operating system, including encryption, virtualization, PC management and domain connectivity. Both Windows 8 Pro and the mainstream consumer edition will be available in 32 bit and 64 bit versions. In addition, Microsoft will also offer an enterprise version of Windows 8. Microsoft has not shared any details about the pricing of these editions yet.
 
Google Creative Lab Gets 'Old Spice' Creative Director Iain Tait From Wieden + Kennedy Top
ian taitA big hire for Google announced today, and perhaps a sign of some sharper viral marketing coming out of the company going forward: the company is adding Iain Tait to the team at Google Creative Lab, the company's in-house team that creates marketing campaigns for all things Google, covering products like Android, Chrome, Google+ and more. Tait comes from London agency Wieden + Kennedy, where he had most recently been executive creative director, overseeing such iconic campaigns as the hugely popular and award-winning Old Spice Response series of viral videos, as well as work for Levi's, Coke and Nike.
 
Path Announces $30M+ Round Of Funding, Investors Include Sir Richard Branson Top
path screenshotFollowing a wave of rumors and reports, Path just announced that it has raised more than $30 million in new funding. "We are delighted to announce that last week we closed a significant round of funding with a new set of investor partners," CEO Dave Morin said in the press release. "It is important to us to work with investment partners who share common values around quality and building for the long term. Our 'Path' has only just begun, and we are looking forward to continuing to bring world-class design and simplicity to the world of mobile personal networking."
 
Google Drive Lives: Google Drive App Found Top
jpgIf you needed any more proof that Google Drive was alive, look no further than this screenshot of the app. I've been able to download and run the app and it is currently idle, sitting quietly in the corner, unable to connect to the mothership. The version we were given is 1.0.2891 and seems to run without issue. I was able to log in using my Gmail account and I suppose I'll have to wait to play with it further. It currently throws an error stating that "Google Drive is not yet enabled for your account."
 
Mor.sl Offers Recipe Recommendations To Hungry Webonauts Top
Screen Shot 2012-04-16 at 4.36.30 PMAn entrepreneur we met in DC, Mili Mittal, told us about her site, mor.sl. Unfortunately, she didn't describe it fully, leading me to believe it was far less cool than it really is. That failure has been averted thanks to a quick browse and subsequent salivation. Mor.sl is, in short, a recipe recommendation engine. You like you some cheese? They got you some cheese. You like you some pasta? Bang. Pasta. The site is arguably beautifully designed - it looks a bit like Pinterest - and it looks nothing like the ad- and text-heavy recipe sites like Epicurous.com. Mili describes it as "Pandora + Amazon for cooking."
 
Study: Those Social Media Logos On TV Actually Work Top
facebook_twitter_logoThere is hardly a program or ad on TV these days that doesn't ask its viewers to like its Facebook page or tweet about it. According to a new survey by global consulting firm Accenture, there's a simple reason for this: those social media symbols actually work. Accenture found that, in the U.S, about a third of TV viewers have liked a show's or brand's Facebook page or tweeted about what they saw on TV after seeing one of these logos.
 
Google Drive Said To Launch Next Week, With 5GB Of Free Storage For All Top
GD1Rumors and reports of Google Drive's imminent launch have been coming hard and fast lately, but this one may just take the cake. The folks at The Next Web managed to get their hands on a draft of an announcement from one of Google's official Drive partners, and have just revealed a few titillating details about the storage-service-that-almost-wasn't. Earlier reports noted that the long-awaited cloud storage service would make its official debut sometime this week, but that no longer appears to be the case. Instead, Google Drive will reportedly launch next week, bestowing all interested users with 5GB of free storage to play with right out of the gate.
 
Twitter Acquires Social Analytics Startup Hotspots.io Top
hotspotsHotspots.io, a startup promising to deliver "social media intelligence that you'll actually use", just announced on its home page that it has been acquired by Twitter. It looks like Hotspots was still in private beta, and as a result, the site doesn't have any product details. However, you can see one example of the analytics in-action through the data the company released after the Superbowl, showing the impact of different TV ads on Twitter, showing the total social media reach compared to the amount spent.
 
Study: Facebook's Ad Business Booms Before IPO With CPC Up 23%, CPM Up 15% Top
FACEBOOK MONAYYYWhile Google's advertising cost per click fell 6% since Q4 2011, Facebook keeps commanding higher prices from advertisers with CPC up 23% in key markets during same period according to a study of the last full quarter before the social network is expected to go public. It seems the shift to mobile where users are harder to monetize hasn't phased Facebook's ad rates yet, which could make its stock very appealing come IPO day. Ads tool developer TBG Digital saw the average cost per thousand impressions (CPM) of the ads it runs on Facebook increase 15% over Q4 2011 and a whopping 41% over Q1 2011 in key markets. The contrast between the performance of Facebook and Google's rates could lead analysts to see Mark Zuckerberg's company and its highly targeted, friend-infused ads as critical to the future of online marketing. And while Facebook only began showing ads on mobile at the start of March, its Sponsored Stories format could fit better on small screens than the traditional display and search ads Google relies on.
 
Mobile Gaming Startup Funzio Is Raising $50M At A $350M Valuation Top
Screen Shot 2012-04-16 at 11.51.28 AMIn what will be a bellwether for the mobile gaming industry after Zynga's deal to buy OMGPOP, Funzio is raising $50 million at a $350 million pre-money valuation, according to sources familiar with the talks. The company declined to comment. Funzio is the maker of Crime City and Modern War, both graphical RPGs that have held top ranks on the grossing charts on iOS. Their vision is to offer true cross-platform games that work across the web and mobile devices.
 
Tinychat Now Has 20 Million Registered Users, Hits Profitability Top
tinychat_logoTinychat, the web-based video chat service, just surpassed 20 million users. Founded in 2009, the company has been on a roll lately and is showing some impressive momentum. Just about a year and a half ago, after all, Tinychat only had about one million users. The company's co-founder Dan Blake also tells us that the site currently sees about 400,000 daily users and signs up about 50,000 new users every day. The average user now spends a good 22 minutes on the site per session.
 

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