Friday, April 27, 2012

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All-Star Cast Invests 750K In Ben Huh And Matt Galligan's Mobile News Startup Circa Top
Screen Shot 2012-04-27 at 11.12.08 AMSimpleGeo's Matt Galligan and Icanhascheezburger's Ben Huh have teamed up to change the way people consume news via mobile. Their startup Circa, which boasts a newsworthy list of advisors like former Digg CEO Jay Adelson, has just raised 750K in seed funding from eonCapital, Quotidian Ventures, Techstars' David Cohen and David Tisch, Tumblr's David Karp, Eric Norlin, Manesh Arora, Pedro Torres-Picon, Rick Webb, Scott Belsky and Soraya Darabi. "40% of our current funding is provided by Davids," Galligan jokes.
 
42Floors' PDA: The War For Talent Among Startups Needs A New Approach. Here's Why Top
WeWantYou-black-400Startups do the darndest things. As you may or may not have seen, Y Combinator startup 42Floors made a bold and fairly unprecedented move today -- as hiring goes, in any case. 42Floors Co-founder Jason Freedman had been following the work of UPenn sophomore Dan Shipper on Hacker News. The two had chatted a few times by phone and on Twitter, and Freedman was so impressed by the quality of Shipper's programming, design skills, and smarts, that he decided to publicly offer the sophomore a job -- via the company blog. Why? Well, first off, it was likely to turn into publicity both for Shipper and for 42Floors. So there's that. It was also done somewhat with an ulterior motive. As Freedman says in his post, the team believes that "hiring is dead." And he has a point: If you're looking to hire the kind of talent that is out there actually building products, companies, etc. (and who isn't?), those men and women likely aren't filling out job applications. So if you want them, you have to court them.
 
Google Drive Arrives In ChromeOS Developer Channel Top
Google DriveEver since Google released its cloud storage service Google Drive earlier this week, there has been some speculation as to what its integration with ChromeOS, Google's cloud-centric operating system, would look like. Today, Google released the first developer version of ChromeOS 20 with support for Google Drive. As expected, Google Drive is now deeply integrated into the ChromeOS file manager, though this is clearly just a first effort and still needs quite a bit of work.
 
Klouchebag, Finally Something More Douchey Than Klout Top
klouchebagToday my Twitter friends are going nuts about Klouchebag, the service that takes social media parody (and Klout puns) to the next level, with algorithms and stuff. As with Klout, you enter your Twitter handle and are given a score between 1 and 100. But instead of measuring social media influence, Klouchebag tells you "how much of an asshat you are on Twitter." Apparently, you're judged on four factors: anger, "retweet abuse", reposting from social apps, and misuse of the English language.
 
TechCrunch Giveaway: 2 Free Tickets To Disrupt NYC #TCDisrupt Top
disrupt_graphic_03-11_info1-1TechCrunch Disrupt NYC is almost here! Yes, we are very excited. And you should be, too. We have already announced some incredible speakers and judges who will be joining us next month in New York, and we have even more surprises in store that will be announced as we get closer to the event. Starting this week, we are going to be giving two free tickets away every Friday. So, if you don't win this time, make sure to check back next week to win. Disrupt NYC is going to be so much fun. These free tickets, each worth around $2,000, will get you into the whole three days of the conference, plus all of the after parties. Check out the images below. We are already all over New York.
 
Social Networking And Gaming Mobile Apps Are Now Neck-And-Neck For Time Spent On Android, iOS Top
instagram-rankingIn another sign that something fundamental is changing on the iOS and Android platforms, mobile analytics provider Flurry has found that consumers are spending as much time in social networking apps as they are in mobile games. Games have historically led usage on mobile. The last time that Flurry took a look back in January, it found that half of app sessions were spent in games while 30 percent was spent in social networking apps. "We take the rise in Social Networking apps as a signal of maturation for the platform," wrote Flurry's vice president of marketing Peter Farago. "As game demand may be hitting its saturation point, consumers are also discovering other apps, namely Social Networking."
 
Be Concise! – The Top Questions Asked At A Y Combinator Interview Top
pgAs of yesterday Y Combinator began its marathon series of interviews to decide which startup teams will ultimately go through the - now world-renowned - program. Interviews go on for five days. Rumours that people have been seen running screaming from the building shouting "The Horror!" have not been confirmed. But I'm currently in the Valley catching up with one or two of those European hopefuls trying to get into Paul Graham's good books - indeed I bumped into one team at San Francisco's SFO airport. Turns out the YC pitch document I saw being worked on a laptop on the plane over was for Stackblaze. The guys behind it, James Cunningham and Colin Hayhurst, also put together a cute web app full to the brim with the kinds of typically blunt questions you get asked at a YC interview. You can check it out here, and subject yourself to the same torture as all those YC hopefuls.
 
Report: 69% Of Tablet Owners Watch TV And Surf The Web Simultaneously Top
3 screen summer event viewing | Flickr - Photo Sharing!Just watching TV without also using a tablet or smartphone at the same time seems to be on its way out. Earlier this month, Nielsen launched the first part of its report on primetime TV viewers in the U.S. and today, the analytics company is taking a deeper dive into the demographics of those who simultaneously watch TV and use their tablets. According to Nielsen, 45% of tablet owners watch TV and use their tablet together at least once a day. A whopping 69% say they do so at least several times a week and only 12% say they never do this.
 
(Founder Stories) Send The Trend's Gugnani & Chris Dixon Discuss M&A Top
(Founder Stories) Send Trend Episode 2.mp4In episode II of Divya Gugnani's Founder Stories interview with host Chris Dixon, the two dive into M&A, a topic that both founders know well. Dixon's company Hunch, was recently acquired by eBay and Gugnani's company, Send The Trend was recently acquired by QVC. On being acquired, Gugnani tells Dixon that she was approached much earlier than she had anticipated and it was a "really intimidating and scary" experience. She adds, "there were really two directions; do I go down this route and potentially distract myself from the base business that is growing ... or do I just keep focusing on my business and have that kind of bravado that you know what, it is going to be worth so much more later?"
 
Now Out Of Beta, Tykoon Teaches Kids (And Parents) About Managing Finances Top
tykoon-logoNYC-based financial services startup for families, Tykoon, is exiting its private beta and is launching its first mobile app for iPhone. The company, which aims to change the ways kids think about and use money, is more that your typical allowance tracker application - it's a platform for earning, saving, giving and spending, the latter which includes kid-friendly access to a curated and controlled Amazon store.
 
HTC Titan II Review: Initial Impressions (Hands-On Photos) Top
IMG_0009The Titan II is yet another success for the hardware team over at HTC. It feels excellent in the hand, even if it's huge, has a nice balanced weight to it, and the little chin at the bottom gives it some extra pizazz when lined up against other designs on store shelves. It calls to me. But there are a few issues, as is the case with most any phone. The first, and most important one, is the screen size vs. resolution. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Microsoft, please push out Apollo so that your hardware partners aren't stuck slapping a 480x800 WP build onto a massive display.
 
Over A Year Since Launch, The Mac App Store Passes 10,000 App Milestone Top
mac app storeApple's iOS App Store always seems to outshine its computer-based counterpart, but it seems the company's Mac App Store has just hit a big milestone of its own. With the help of some timely database queries, French blog MacGeneration reported earlier today that Apple's Mac App Store now plays host to over 10,000 applications. A quick check with iOS and Mac app directory AppShopper homes in a bit more -- at time of writing, they count 10,334 listed apps in the Mac App Store. The Mac App Store, for those of you who don't make it a point to remember minutia like this, launched back in January 2011 with just over 1,000 apps available for download.
 
Crackdown On Download Bots Meant Installs For Top iOS Apps Took A Dive In March Top
web-botsDownloads for the top 200 free apps in the U.S. iTunes app store took a 30 percent dive in March, according to Fiksu, a Charles River Ventures-backed company that helps mobile developers find users cheaply. The culprit? Two things. One is that we're just coming out of the very lucrative holiday season, when downloads spike and people get new phones that they're eager to experiment with through trying tons of apps. The other may be Apple's crackdown on download bots, or automated programs that downloads apps tens of thousands of times to help them break into the top of the charts. Fiksu says that the top 200 free U.S. iPhone apps saw 4.45 million downloads per day in March, down from 6.35 million per day in February. Apple issued a warning to developers during the first week of February, telling them not to use services that explicitly manipulate the charts.
 
Samsung May Have Just Become The King Of Mobile Handsets, While S&P Downgrades Nokia To Junk Top
Image (1) samsung_logo_crown-300x268.jpg for post 47500Samsung has been, for years, slowly approaching Nokia as the world's biggest handset maker, and today looks like the day the crown has been passed: As of last quarter, Strategy Analytics noted that Samsung shipped the most mobile devices of any single manufacturer world-wide, also taking pole position in smartphones. At the same time, Nokia not only slipped in those rankings but it also got another slap in the face, as Standard & Poor's, the credit-rating agency, downgraded Nokia to "junk" status. The news comes on the same day that Samsung presented its Q1 earnings, in which the Korean company reported revenues of 45 trillion won ($40 billion) for the three months that ended March 31 -- citing strong results in the division that includes mobile devices, with especially "brisk sales" of its GALAXY S II smartphone and newer Galaxy Note device.
 
Mobile "Edutainment" Startup Fingerprint Digital Doubles In Size With Addition Of 6 New Games Top
Fingerprint LogoSan Francisco-based Fingerprint Digital, a startup building educational apps for kids as well as a parent-child communication system for iOS apps, is doubling the size of its network today with the addition of a series of six new apps from French developer Happy Blue Fish Studio. The developer has chosen Fingerprint's in-app "Mom-Comm" system (as the company calls it) to enhance its "The Deskplorers" story-telling apps designed for ages 6 through 9. The newly added apps are focused on reading comprehension, problem solving, and foreign languages, while also taking kids through adventures in history.
 
Dan Bull's Facebook Epic Rap Aims To Be Most-Torrented Single On Global Music Charts Top
This is a few days old but it's well worth revisiting if you haven't seen it yet. It's by English rapper Dan Bull and it's about everyone's favorite time-waster, TheFacebook. The best part? He also does a Twitter one. Give it a listen and then download it for free to help Bull hit the record books.
 
TheWhoot Co-Founders On Taking The Flakiness Out Of Social Planning Top
Screen shot 2012-04-27 at 11.07.40 AMBack in the day, before the cell phone, people had to be where they said they'd be. There was no such thing as flaking out, and if you did, you were just a bad person. But these days, even when we make a firm commitment, the convenience of cell phones makes it really easy to flake out at the last second. But co-founders Ryan Coyne and Will Quartner think that going out and having fun with your friends shouldn't have to be so difficult, and thus was born TheWhoot.
 
Eventbrite Launches First Industry-Specific Ticketing Platform For Races And Walks, Endurance Top
event-1Online ticketing platform Eventbrite is debuting a new vertical today, called Endurance, which focuses specifically on selling tickets for races and walks, including marathons, triathlons, races, fundraising walks, and more. As you may know, Eventbrite, which has sold 57 million tickets and hosted over 500,000 events in the past year, has been used as a registration and ticketing platform for a broad range of events, from large fundraisers, festivals, tech conferences, and concerts to cooking classes and HTML workshops. But this is the first time the company has launched a dedicated, industry-specific ticketing manager for a vertical. The company says they realized there are a couple of key markets that have more advanced feature requirements, and in order to take advantage of more opportunities in these markets, the company is building an expertise in select verticals.
 
TicketLeap Introduces Seating Chart Design Tools For Ambitious Event Planners Top
objectsSure there are services to sell tickets to arenas and event spaces (not to mention parties and the like) but thus far there hasn't been a good way to allow customers to pick their seats. TicketLeap, a ticketing website, has solved that problem. Wedding planners don't get too excited yet: the system is mostly for folks who run bigger event spaces like halls and arenas. You can lay out your space using TicketLeap's browser-based tools and add various features like bathrooms, Wi-Fi points, and handicapped access spots.
 
Skype Launches Ridiculous New Facebook App, "Humoticons" Top
skype-humoticonSkype introduced a new Facebook app this morning, and before you get your hopes up, it's not some amazing new way to Skype from the browser plug-in free, or kick off multi-person video chat sessions right from the News Feed. Nope. The app is this goofy, ridiculous creation called "Skype Humoticons" which lets you use your webcam to post pictures of you mimicking Skype emoticons to Facebook. Uh-huh.
 

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