Tuesday, April 10, 2012

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Interview Street Helps Sequoia-Backed Startups Recruit With Its Latest CodeSprint Top
interview streetInterview Street, the startup that helps companies recruit by holding programming contests called CodeSprints, is doing something a little different this week — it's holding a CodeSprint for 13 different startups, all backed by Sequoia Capital. The CodeSprints started out as big events with a long list of recruiting companies, but while there are still plans for more comprehensive CodeSprints in the future, Interview Street started holding smaller, more frequent events, usually tied to a specific company or technology. It even did a CodeSprint with the White House, and it's working on a second.
 
Hoppit Launches The World's First Ambience Search Engine For Restaurants Top
Hoppit_logoFinding a good restaurant - even in a city you've never been to - has never been easier. Thanks to Yelp, Urbanspoon and its various brethren, a good place to eat is generally just a few clicks away. What if you want to find a restaurant with a very specific atmosphere, though? Say you're in the mood for a pizza at a relaxed place where the noise level is just right for a good conversation? Chances are, Yelp won't be much help there, but the newly redesigned Hoppit is putting these kind of searches at the core of its service. The New York-based startup describes itself as the "world's first ambience search engine for restaurants and bars."
 
Yahoo's New Catch-All Units For Consumer, Regions And Technology Highlight Challenges In All Three Top
yahooOne week after Yahoo announced that it would lay off 2,000 employees, the company has now confirmed the second part of its restructuring: a reorganization that puts the company's assets into three new business units -- consumer, regions and technology, with at least one operation put to the side for a potential sale. The announcement, revealed to the company in an all-hands meeting as well as an internal memo earlier today (first published by AllThingsD), was not released in a public statement, but TechCrunch understands that Scott Thompson, Yahoo's new CEO, has put three different functions within the consumer division: media, "connections" (interactive and social businesses) and commerce. Regions meanwhile will oversee all of Yahoo's ad business. And technology will provide the "science" and infrastructure that will underpin how the first two work.
 
500px Debuts 'Plus' Paid Membership Plan To Go Head-To-Head Against Flickr Top
500px500px, the photo sharing website that has become the new darling of the photo buff set, today rolled out a new $19.95/year 'Plus' membership plan, putting it more squarely in competition with Flickr. Up until now, 500px's premium offering has catered mostly to the "power user" and professional photographer set, with a $49.95/year "Awesome" plan offering unlimited uploads along with a personalized online portfolio. The new "Plus" offering is meant to address more middle market users -- it offers the same unlimited uploads and detailed user analytics provided by the "Awesome" plan, but without the personal portfolio feature. The site also has a free membership that allows for 10 photo uploads per week.
 
Powhow: Former Googler Unveils An Online Marketplace For Live, Webcam Classes Top
Screen shot 2012-04-10 at 9.42.44 AMWhile there are a host of startups currently offering distance learning options in the traditional academic sense, many people are interested in pursuing other hobbies or activities, like, say, boosting workout regimens, or learning how to cook, box, or draw their favorite cartoon characters. Of course, the problem is that we're all busy, and it can be tough to find the time to sign up for those classes at the gym, and, while YouTube likely offers some instructional videos in the category of your choice, there's a lot of noise, and the experience is far from personalized. That's why a New York-based startup called Powhow is launching its public beta today, which aims to allow anyone and everyone (with a webcam) to find and take classes in subjects like fitness, cooking, music, arts, DIY, and crafting from curated rosters of professional, credentialed instructors all over the world.
 
SAP Acquires Enterprise Mobile App Platform And Development Partner Syclo Top
SycloSAP is furthering its mobile presence today by acquiring Syclo, a company that provides an enterprise mobile app platform. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Syclo helps companies build and deploy secure mobile apps on a number of devices with confidence. Specifically, Syclo focuses on helping companies in the in the field service and mobile professional sectors extend their applications to mobile phones. The company supports integrations with IBM, Oracle, TRIRIGA, and SAP.
 
Crashlytics, A Startup For Crash Reporting on Mobile Apps, Raises $5M From Flybridge, Baseline Top
Screen Shot 2012-04-10 at 10.40.03 AMCrashlytics, a Cambridge-based startup that helps developers understand how and why their mobile apps crashed, is taking another slug of funding with a $5 million round led by Flybridge and Baseline Ventures. The company's co-founder Wayne Chang said the company decided to take funding after its $1 million seed round was oversubscribed. (This round was also oversubscribed.) "We liked the investors that we were working with," Chang said. "Obviously, we liked the valuation and the terms of this round too." Crashlytics provides developers with an online dashboard that helps explain where mobile app crashes might come from. It details the device's state at the time of crash (software version, orientation, model, etc.) and even shows developers the exact line of code that the app crashed on.
 
Report: Chrome Doesn't Win Weekend Browser Battle After All (But Still Popular After Work) Top
chromelogoRemember last month, when StatCounter noticed that Chrome surged to briefly (for one day only!) become the world's most popular web browser? Well, another key finding in its report had to do with the time of day Chrome usage peaked - according to StatCounter, Chrome seemed to be used more on weekends. The implication, of course, was that people were forced to use Internet Explorer at work, and used Chrome when they had the freedom to choose. Today, new data has emerged to dispute StatCounter's specific claim of Chrome's jumps in weekend usage, but that backs up the overall claim that Chrome is the people's choice when outside of work.
 
Survey: Trust In Online Ads Grows, While Trust in Print and TV Ads Drops Top
nielsen_logo_350It's no secret that most of us put more stock in the recommendations we get from friends than traditional forms of advertising. What's interesting, though, is that while most consumers also increasingly trust online reviews and ads, trust in paid advertising on television, magazines and newspapers has been declining pretty rapidly. The latest data from Nielsen's Global Trust in Advertising Survey shows just how dramatic this decline is: while 92% of consumers say they trust word-of-mouth recommendations, less than half trust paid ads in traditional media outlets. The trust in these ads has declined by more than 20% since 2009.
 
Jetpac For iPad Lets You Explore The World Through Your Friends' Eyes Top
IMG_0052-1It's funny how the news hits, sometimes. Just this morning, one social travel service (Gtrot) made the decision to shift away from the travel vertical to focus on local discovery, while another, Jetpac, is going all in. Jetpac's newly launched iPad application, already sitting at #1 in the "New Travel App" section of the iPad App Store, aims to do what Gtrot once tried to: inspire you to take a vacation. Using the app, you can discover and share places you like and want to go, as well as mark the places you've been.
 
MS Office App CloudOn Ramps Up Productivity On The iPad With Box And Adobe Reader Support Top
apptouCloudOn, a mobile productivity app for the iPad that allows users to access Microsoft Office documents in the cloud, is debuting a new version of its service by integrating with Adobe Reader, Box and Dropbox. CloudOn's goal is to allow users to easily create, edit, share and save their work using only their iPad. The app connects to Microsoft Office (the company has licensed the technology from Microsoft), giving users access to their Office documents and features, including tracking changes in Word, manipulating pivot tables in Excel and viewing PowerPoint slideshows in full presentation mode. Users can also display, edit or create charts, insert formulas, change formatting, spell check, or insert comments into any Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint document.
 
Google: Mobile And Video Research Drive In-Store Cell Phone Purchases Top
googleCurious how consumers are making decisions regarding which cell phone to buy? Google teamed up with Compete on a study examining how the online consumer shops for a wireless device and we have the results of the survey and study exclusively. Google and Compete tracked consumers online and searching patterns, analyzed the behavior of those purchasing cell phones by tracking their behavior backward from the point of purchase, and surveyed buyers as well. Some of the results aren't necessarily groundbreaking, it is interesting to see what factors drive in-store purchases. For example, Google says that 72% of mobile researchers purchased their phone in store (vs. 55% of non-mobile researchers).
 
Get A Drink And A Job At NYC Uncubed, The New Silicon Alley Talent Fair Top
NYC UncubedWhat if you could down drinks at a Tumblr open bar, rock out to live music from Spotify, and battle it out at ping pong and foosball, all while finding a sweet new job? Then you'd be at NYC Uncubed, a recruiting event for those sick of awkward, traditional recruiting events. Formerly the Silicon Alley Talent Fair, Uncubed has over 70 New York City startups that are on fire and ready to hire programmers, designers, marketers, and more. It's all going down on April 26th from 1pm-7pm at The Altman Building, 135 W 18th St New York, 10011. Attendees and startups can both sign up on the Uncubed website.
 
Everyme Launches Mobile App That Aims To Get Social Circles Right Top
2Everyme, a Y Combinator-incubated startup with a long list of impressive investors, is launching its iPhone app today. Its goal? To create an environment where you feel comfortable sharing whatever you want with specific groups of people. Co-founder and CEO Oliver Cameron demonstrated the app for me over the weekend. At the core of the Everyme experience are Circles — private news feeds that you create with specific groups of people. The problem, Cameron says, is that as you get more and more friends on Facebook, people who you have wildly differently relationships, the less comfortable you feel sharing updates and content.
 
Please Welcome Peter Ha, Frederic Lardinois And New Co-Editor Alexia Tsotsis Top
joe-dimaggio-mickey-mantle-and-ted-williams-1951Sure, legends like Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle don't play for the Yankees now, but the team hasn't just survived the ups and downs over the years. Hate it or love it, the franchise attracts many of the best players in baseball today, and wins championships. That's TechCrunch, too. Peter Ha is returning to us after a few very solid years of editing successes under his belt. He started out as a CrunchGear writer under John Biggs, back in 2006. He went on to found the Techland blog for Time and turned it into a growth story. Then he became the tech editor at The Daily, News Corp's ambitious tablet project.
 
Now At 4M Users, Video Startup Animoto Adds Former Aol/Yahoo Exec Brad Garlinghouse To Board Top
114811v1-max-250x250Back in July of last year, Animoto, the startup that lets people easily create good-looking videos from user-uploaded audio, video and images, raised $25 million in venture funding, led by Spectrum Equity Investors, bringing its total outside investment to $30 million. As Mike pointed out at the time, were Animoto interested in a quick sale, they would likely have taken an exit in 2009 or 2010. However, the big series C round seemed to be an indicator that Animoto had other plans, like the goal of turning the company into a giant. To help in its quest to do just that -- to build on a user base that's now 4 million-strong, Animoto is today announcing the addition of former President of Mobile and Consumer product teams at Aol, Brad Garlinghouse, to its board of directors.
 
Gigwalk Adds Company Work Groups, Messaging And Field Tools To Paid Task Mobile App Top
gigGigwalk, a mobile app that allows users to get assigned basic "gigs" or jobs from companies via their location, is unveiling a new suite of tools to allow companies to manage local work via the phone. Gigwalk, which launched last year, basically allows companies to tap into a mobile workforce for simple tasks. Users simply download the app, enter PayPal information and get assigned entry-level "gigs" or jobs that may take just a few minutes at a time in a particular location. For example, TomTom uses Gigwalk's workforce to snap pictures to verify certain navigation points, such as one-way streets, etc. These workers simply snap a picture, email them in and receive a few dollars for the easy task.
 
Apple Of Our Eye: Gartner Predicts 665 Million Tablets In Use By 2016, Over 45% Of Them iPad Devices Top
ipad consumerThe age of the tablet is definitely upon us: figures out today from Gartner forecast that by the end of 2016 there will 665 million media tablets in use worldwide -- a counterpoint to the sluggish sales we have seen in PCs in the last couple of years. This year, there will be sales of 118.9 million tablets, growth of nearly 100 percent on a year ago. But while the tablet market is picking up some momentum from competitors like Amazon and its Kindle Fire, and Samsung and its many sizes of Galaxy Tab, it looks like the day will continue to belong to Apple and its iPad. Apple will continue to be the single-biggest vendor of tablets for the next four years, holding on to more than 45 percent of the sales in that time -- although that represents a significant decline from the 83 percent market share that Apple had in 2010 and the 61.4 percent that Gartner estimates it will have this year.
 
Lightbank-Backed Social Travel Planning Service Gtrot Shifts To Local Discovery Top
gtrot-logoSocial travel planning service Gtrot is changing its focus and is now officially relaunching its website with a new emphasis on local discovery. Somewhat reminiscent of Foursquare's "Explore" feature, Gtrot is working to build a platform where you can discover, save and share the best restaurants, bars, clubs, arts, events and even the best local deals from services like Groupon and Gilt City. These changes have been underway for some time, as Gtrot has been moving away from the travel vertical since as far back as last fall. But the current version of the website you see now, was soft-launched just last week.
 
Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn Just Resigned Top
6a0133f3a4072c970b0162ff3e21ba970d-550wiBest Buy's Brian Dunn just stepped down as the retailer's CEO and director effective immediately. This comes just days after Best Buy missed Wall Street's estimates last quarter and the retailer announced plans to shutter 50 large stores and open smaller, likely more lucrative Best Buy Mobile locations. Director G. Mike Mikan will replace Dunn as interim CEO while the company searches for a new skipper. Wall Street reacted positively to the news. Best Buy's stock price jumped over 3% with heavy trading after the announcement but seems to be dropping back towards its opening price as of this post's writing. Update: The stock price now crashing. The company's full press release follows below.
 

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