Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Y! Alert: TechCrunch

Yahoo! Alerts
My Alerts

The latest from TechCrunch


How Ridiculous Does This Headline Sound? Top
Screen Shot 2012-04-25 at 1.44.50 AMSo I am sitting here staring at this New York Times article and it is titled"Apple Chief's Offhand Comment Spawns Internet Quip," which is probably one of the most ridiculous news headlines I've ever seen, bar this. The word "Quip" here is probably the issue, because who says that? Really who says that?
 
With A New Educational Platform, TED Gives Teachers The Keys To A Flipped Classroom Top
Td_large_verge_medium_landscapeYou may know TED, not as the guy from marketing, but as the nonprofit organization devoted to "Ideas Worth Spreading" -- or as the set of global conferences, Talks, and videos that touch on the many heady, relevant issues surrounding Technology, Entertainment, and Design. As an increasingly powerful medium through which the world's experts share their hard-won knowledge, TED is also an educator. In March, the organization launched the first phase of its "TED-Ed" initiative, in practice a series of a dozen short animated YouTube videos "created for high school students and lifelong learners," in the big picture an invitation to teachers to collaborate with TED to create more effective video lessons that can be used in classrooms. Tonight, TED is announcing the second phase of its education initiative -- a website that lives on TED.com, which is designed to enable teachers to create unique lesson plans around its video content.
 
Fan Wars: Former Google Biz Dev Head David Dowd Becomes VP Of Social Marketer FanBridge Top
FanBridge David DowdRight now there's a cutthroat battle between social marketing platforms to represent the world's biggest brands. In hopes of seducing dollars from offline and clients from competitors, social marketing platform FanBridge has just hired away Buddy Media's GM of lifestyle brands David Dowd. Previously the head of branded content biz dev for Google, his experience courting fashion, retail, luxury and other companies there and at Buddy Media will give him the edge as FanBridge's new VP of brands. Selling big brands on the future is tough. There's plenty of social skeptics still clinging to TV. Many companies aren't shifting their whole marketing budgets to digital, but that's the direction the money is flowing. Be it Buddy Media, FanBridge, or their many competitors, those who can lock down trend-setting clients and get positioned for the coming wave will surf their way to multi-million dollar contracts.
 
OpenUDID Gets Back-Up From 17 Mobile Ad Companies In The Hunt For UDID Alternatives Top
openudid-supportOpenUDID, a new, open-source identification scheme that was created by marketing company Appsfire, says it has rounded up support from 17 mobile advertising companies (including itself) as developers look for alternatives to the UDID. Mobile app developers are scrambling for solutions as Apple phases out an older unique ID system called UDIDs that was criticized for compromising consumer privacy. A straightforward ID system is key for developers who want to understand who their users are and how to target them with advertising, so developers are looking for alternatives that Apple will tolerate. There are several contenders and many different methods, but it's still not clear which one the industry will settle on.
 
Birchbox Co-Founder Katia Beauchamp: We're Poised To Grow Way Beyond Beauty [TCTV] Top
katiabeauchampBirchbox, the New York City-based startup that provides a monthly delivery service of beauty and personal care product samples, seemed like a lark to some when it when it first came on the scene back in September 2010. Since then, of course, Birchbox has been validated a few times over. Female-oriented websites have skyrocketed -- Pinterest, anyone? -- and the subscription commerce space has taken off as well. Today, Birchbox itself now has more than 100,000 paying subscribers, a staff of 60 full-time employees, and has raised nearly $12 million in venture capital funding. So when we heard that Birchbox co-founder Katia Beauchamp (pronounced "Beechum") was in San Francisco this past week, we invited her to swing by TechCrunch TV to give us an in-person update on how things are going at her company. You can watch our full interview in the video embedded above, but here are some of the topics we touched on:
 
Incubator Lemnos Labs Is Looking For Its Next Class Of Hardware Startups Top
lemnos labsIt seems like everyone's worried about an incubator bubble, but seriously — Lemnos Labs is doing something different. It's not just incubating for the latest social network or iPhone app. Instead, it's looking for startups that build hardware. At first, hardware and incubators sounds like an odd match, since the incubator boom is driven, at least in part, by the way that the Web has driven down the costs of starting a company. Hardware, on the other hand, sounds expensive and not conducive to the rapid iteration that that's now part of startup doctrine. However, co-founder Jeremy Conrad says that thanks to developments like rapid prototyping, it's becoming faster and cheaper to build a hardware startup too.
 
Google+ Launches Share Button, Ignores That Few Users = No Referral Traffic = No Installs Top
Google+ Share Button logoBlogs and content sites are only willing to give up valuable real estate and clutter themselves with social sharing buttons if they get ample referral traffic in return. That's the big problem with the Google+ Share button that launched today with no launch partners or live examples of it in use. The embeddable button for posting webpages to the Google+ news feed with an optional comment is going to struggle for installs unless Google can prove it drives page views. After flops like the Google Buzz and +1 buttons, and plenty of competition, it's going to be a tough sell. In the end, it could backfire, sidestepping the bullshit registered user counts Google cites as awesome growth and exposing the social network as a place few people spend time. And it's all kind of sad because the G+ Share button could be the answer to the Google+ content drought.
 
ComScore: Travel Sites Grow 10% To 69.7M Uniques In March, With TripAdvisor In The Lead Top
online_searchComScore today released its analysis of this month's top properties on ye olde Webernets in the U.S. There are a number of points of interest, but among them, it seems that lotto sites were the top beneficiary of U.S. internet traffic. This was largely a result of the unprecedented Mega Millions jackpot, which became the largest jackpot in U.S. and world history, reaching $656 million in March. Lotto sites drew nearly 29 million visitors (with MegaMillions.com grabbing the top spot), up 25 percent from February, making it the biggest mover in March. Travel sites were the next biggest beneficiary of traffic, according to comScore, as Americans looked to book last-minute spring break trips and summer travel. This made travel info sites one of the top-gainers, up 10 percent to 69.7 million visitors in March.
 
Chinese Web Search Giant Baidu Sees $677 Million In Q1 Revenue, Up 75% Year-Over-Year Top
baiduBaidu, China's leading web search company today issued its quarterly earnings report for the first three months of 2012. The company made $677 million in top-line revenue, up 75 percent from the revenue it posted in the first quarter of 2011. Baidu performed just as strongly at the bottom line as well, posting a net income of $299 million, up 75.9 percent year-over-year. In case you need some context for that: Google reported revenues of $10.65 billion and net income of $2.89 billion for the first quarter of 2012; Facebook's Q1 revenue was a bit over $1 billion.
 
WTF Was That "Happy" Song At The End Of The Apple Earnings Call? Top
Screen Shot 2012-04-24 at 4.47.33 PMEarning calls are super fascinating when you think about it; For multiple hours a quarter we tune in with the thousands of other tech bloggers to dissect the financials of the public companies we spend our lives covering. Here at TC we've started calling covering these calls "putting our Rao face on," inspired by our star senior editor Leena Rao, who is just amazing at covering earnings. Like any other collective experience, these calls have their own unique culture; Yahoo earnings calls were particularly hilarious back when Carol Bartz was CEO ("I'm going to go get a Diet Coke," I recall her randomly interjecting with once). And I've played more than one drinking game with fellow bloggers on the Google call (Larry Page says "excited," A LOT. Like so much that this happened.).
 
Workout Spots Wants To Be The OpenTable For Fitness Top
workout spotsWorkout Spots is hoping to bring the oh-so-popular "OpenTable for X" approach to the world of fitness. The goal, as the name implies, is to help people find nearby gyms, and to register for classes at those gyms. The interface is pretty straightforward — you just enter your zip code, how far you're willing to travel, whether you're looking for a "spot" or a class, and in the latter case, the class type, and then you get a list of results. Each gym has a profile with basic information and a calendar of classes. If you find a class that you like, you can register directly from the Workout Spots site.
 
See It To Believe It: AOL Is Launching AOL On, A Video Network To Drive Video Ad Sales Top
AOLON_blackAOL has had a few knocks from shareholders over whether it's on the right track with its content strategy -- a mix of high-volume, ad-based websites that cover lifestyle, tech, travel, news and more -- but CEO Tim Armstrong has stayed the course, and today the company is launching a video portal that it hopes will prove that the value of those holdings extends beyond even what you see on the sites themselves. AOL On, as the new site is called, is a premium content portal that will work across desktop, mobile and tablet optimized sites and apps, as well as connected TV devices. And the guy running it, Ran Harnevo, SVP of AOL On, makes clear that it is nothing like a YouTube wannabe: "No dogs on skateboards, and no upload button," he says.
 
Unlike "Thermonuclear" Steve Jobs, Apple CEO Tim Cook Says He'd Rather Settle Litigation Top
thermonuclearLooks like Tim Cook doesn't quite want to go as "thermonuclear" on rival phone makers as Apple founder Steve Jobs did. Cook didn't sound so eager to pursue patent infringement suits against Samsung, Motorola and HTC on today's quarterly earnings call. "I'd highly prefer to settle versus battle," Cook said. "But you know the key thing that's very important is that Apple doesn't become the developer to the world." He added very pointedly, "I've always hated litigation. We need people to invent their own stuff." His words are at odds with what iconic Apple founder Steve Jobs in Walter Isaacson's biography:
 
Apple's iTunes Stores Generates $1.9B In Revenue in Q2, Has 600,000 Apps Top
Apple - iTunesApple's iOS ecosystem keeps on rolling. The company said it has more than 600,000 apps in the store, up from the 550,000 number they confirmed a month ago. On top of that the iTunes store generated $1.9 billion in revenue in the second quarter of this year. Apple didn't break out how much of that was devoted to songs versus apps. They also didn't update the recent 25 billion app downloads figure they also shared last month. Just to look back at previous stats the company has shared, Apple said it has paid out more than $4 billion to developers cumulatively. Google's store in contrast has at least 450,000 apps and it still lags in monetization (although it's improving!)
 
Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer: "The New iPad Is On Fire" Top
peteroppenheimerIf you were one of the naysayers who thought that there wouldn't be a very strong consumer appetite for the newest twist on the already very popular iPad, it may be time to think again. Apple's top executives said today that just a few weeks after the new iPad's formal launch, the response to the company's latest iteration on the tablet has been incredibly strong -- and it's making an impact from a financial perspective. "We're just learning about the elasticity of demand and the $399 price point is doing well, but I have to tell you the new iPad is on fire and we're selling them as fast as we can make them," CFO Peter Oppenheimer said during the company's first quarter earnings call with investors, a sentiment that Tim Cook echoed verbatim later on in the call. This latest release, which saw three million devices sold in its first weekend alone, was Apple's fastest iPad rollout ever, he said.
 
iCloud Has Over 125 Million Users, Says Apple CFO Oppenheimer Top
icloud_heroWell, that was fast. Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer just announced on Apple's Q2 2012 earnings call that the company's iCloud service has attracted 125 million users in the roughly six months since the service launched. It seems like just yesterday that Oppenheimer revealed that the service had 85 million users, and the service's subscriber base continues to grow at a seemingly steady pace.
 
Apple Stores Continue To Be A Juggernaut, With $4.4B In Revenue, 85M Visitors To Stores In Q2 Top
Screen Shot 2012-04-24 at 2.19.33 PMApple just reported its second quarter earnings, revealing that the revenue from its Apple Stores was at 4.4 billion, an increase of 38 percent year over year. Apple stores were responsible for a little over 10% of its total $39.2 billion revenue (with $11.6B in profit).
 
Facebook Makes Android Apps More Viral With Social Discovery Top
wpid-facebook_logoFacebook has been in the process of ramping up its effort to leverage its ever-growing platform to aid mobile developers to market their native and HTML5-based apps. In this attempt to extend its platform on mobile, Facebook brought its social channels and social app discovery to mobile web apps on Android and native apps on iOS. With a new update to Facebook for Android, the social network today announced that it is bringing social discovery to native Android apps.
 
Apple's Chinese iPhone Sales "Mind-Boggling," Bring China Revenues To $7.9B Top
chinapple2The angry mobs in Beijing weren't lying. Apple's iPhone 4 has made a splash in China, bringing the company's phone sales there up by fivefold from a year ago. The device didn't debut there until this last quarter, months after it had been released in the U.S. Revenue in China reached a record $7.9 billion, which is up threefold year-over-year. That brings Apple's revenues in the country to $12.4 billion for the first half of the fiscal year. That's nearly what Apple made in all of the last fiscal year when it made $13.3 billion in China. "It is mind-boggling that we can do this well," said Apple chief executive Tim Cook on the earnings call.
 
Apple Q2 Earnings: Apple Now Has Over $110 Billion In Cash Reserves Top
apple_rainbow_logoApple has once again beaten analysts' expectations with its Q2 results out today, and correspondingly the iPhone giant now has an even stronger cash position than it did before: $110 billion in the six months ended March 31, 2012 versus $81.5 billion in the six months ended September 24, 2011. In cash and cash equivalents the company now has over $10.1 billion; short-term marketable securities are at $18.4 billion; long-term marketable securities are at $81.6 billion. This is a rise in every segment compared to six months ago.
 

CREATE MORE ALERTS:

Auctions - Find out when new auctions are posted

Horoscopes - Receive your daily horoscope

Music - Get the newest Album Releases, Playlists and more

News - Only the news you want, delivered!

Stocks - Stay connected to the market with price quotes and more

Weather - Get today's weather conditions




You received this email because you subscribed to Yahoo! Alerts. Use this link to unsubscribe from this alert. To change your communications preferences for other Yahoo! business lines, please visit your Marketing Preferences. To learn more about Yahoo!'s use of personal information, including the use of web beacons in HTML-based email, please read our Privacy Policy. Yahoo! is located at 701 First Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA 94089.

No comments:

Post a Comment