Friday, April 27, 2012

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(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?" On being acquired, Gugnani tells Dixon that Send the Trend 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 is 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.
 
Intuit Acquires Marketing SaaS Company Demandforce For $423.5M In Cash Top
demandforceIntuit has just acquired marketing SaaS company Demandforce for $423.5 million in cash. Demandforce's SaaS application automates internet marketing and communications, so customers can focus on running their day-to-day operations. The startup, which is profitable, has thousands of customers across service verticals that include dental care, automotive repair, spas, salons, chiropractors, and others.
 
The Open Source CEO: Jim Whitehurst Top
JimWhitehurst-01If you read the Red Hat website, you'll find pages describing their attitude toward open source, collaboration, and more. It reads pretty much like every other marketing spiel from every company online today. There's something different about Red Hat, though: they actually believe this stuff. Not only do they believe it, they live it every day. I spoke to Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst recently about the open source culture at Red Hat and he told me it is a journey, not a destination. According to Whitehurst, the tenets of open source permeate all aspects of the culture at Red Hat.
 
Twilio's European March Continues With Its First Full-Time Hire Outside The U.S. [And Telefonica Loses One] Top
Twilio LogoTwilio, developer of a VoIP API that is used by companies like eBay, Airbnb and Hulu to add voice services into their consumer apps, has been adding support for European countries as part of its expansion strategy, first the UK and then Austria, Denmark, France, Ireland and Poland. Now Twilio is giving that effort a bit more muscle with the appointment of its first full-time, permanent employee outside the U.S. James Parton is joining the company as its new European marketing director. His hiring is also effectively a jab at the carrier market that Twilio very much has the chance to really disrupt: Parton has been poached from Telefonica, the Spanish mobile powerhouse, where he has most recently been running developer marketing for Telefonica's multi-regional API effort BlueVia, and before that for BlueVia's more local precursor, Litmus at O2 UK.
 
Q&A Site ChaCha Cancels UK Expansion After Poor User Take-Up Top
ChaCha PictureCan a reasonably successful, U.S.-based mobile content brand find equal success for its English-language service in the UK? It's a question that could have been asked on the Q&A service ChaCha, and unfortunately it looks like the company has figured out the answer the hard way. ChaCha, which launched in the UK in September 2011, has now quietly shut down operations in the country after failing to find enough people to use the service to make it cost-effective.
 
Torbit's Insight Measures The Effect Of Site Speed On Your Bounce, Conversion & Revenue Top
torbit_black_largeAnyone who runs a website, especially those who those who do the majority of their business through a web portal, know how important speedy load times are to keeping their customers engaged, on site, and happy.While there are a number of sources one can turn to for website optimization, few offer both optimization along with the ability to track incoming pageviews and cross-reference their page load times with bounce rates -- and most importantly -- conversion rates. That's why Torbit, a website optimization company based in Sunnyvale, has launched a new product called Insight, which gives any online business the ability to track the correlation between the speed of their website and their core business metrics. Users can view site speed using real user measurement, and drill down to see precisely where pages are hitting snags -- and what's causing those hang-ups.
 
Viddy Is Raising $30M At A $370M Valuation Top
Screen Shot 2012-04-26 at 9.08.27 PMSomeone wise once said "If Instagram for video were to happen it would look nothing like Instagram" but, because it was on Twitter, I briefly saw that tweet before it got lost in the ether and now I can't find it, dammit. But whoever said this is right (please reach out if it was you, I want to give you credit) and also didn't tell Viddy, which for the most part looks exactly like Instagram for video. Fine. Anyways, people have been reporting all over the place about Viddy's current insane Series B so I guess I (and you) should care. And quite honestly, I (and you) totally should really care because it's more money than I've ever seen. Seriously, ever seen. Which means co-founders JJ Aguhob and Brett O'Brien might just be onto something, so ...
 
A MicroReview Of The Fantastic $9.99 MicroStylus Top
microstylus-3This just might be the best stylus ever made. I'm completely serious. The problem with most styli is that there is never one around when needed. Besides that, the pen form factor is often not conducive for use on a small screen. But the MicroStylus, well, it's so tiny yet functional that it's perfect for the task. Plus it's only $9.99 and stores neatly in a 3.5mm headphone jack.
 
SketchUp Is Google's First Divestment In Years, And It Made A Profit Top
SketchUp - Google's First DivestmentGoogle's sale of a previously purchased arm of the company this morning, 3D modeling software SketchUp, to Trimble, isn't just something it does "every now and again". It's actually Google's first divestment ever, according to two sources, and we're hearing the search giant made a profit, as it sold SketchUp for more than it bought it for back in 2006. This could signal a sea change in how Larry Page executes his vision for a leaner, more focused Google. The company frequently shuts down extraneous products, but that requires redistribution of their team members internally. If it's now willing to sell them instead, Google could streamline around the theme of making user's lives more convenient, while making some money at the same time.
 

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