Sunday, April 1, 2012

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Greylock-Backed Citrus Lane Helps Parents Discover 'Best Of' Products For Little Ones Top
Citrus Lane_ Example BoxesThe dawn of subscription commerce has spawned a number of startups in technology including BirchBox, Kiwi Crate, Babbaco and many others. Citrus Lane is one of the latest startups to tackle the model, which sends a box of kiddie goodies to members each month. The startup is focused on parents as the client, and aims to help moms and dads discover interesting and 'Best Of' products for those expecting babies, as well as for newborns to three-year-olds. Each month, Citrus Lane will send parents a box filled with user-tested and vetted toys and products for babies and toddlers. Each month has a theme. So for example, March's theme for the baby box was "Dining Out With Baby," and included snack cases, a sippy cup, apple crisps and baby food. The startup prides itself on delivering organic and natural products.
 
Bootstrapped Startup Saves Over $100K By Dropping IE Top
Screen shot 2012-04-01 at 12.13.44 PMEditor's Note: This is a guest post by Tyler Rooney, a co-founder of online portfolio startup, 4ormat. It's not every day that you start a business and quickly decide to say "no" to 70 percent of your potential customers. In retrospect, this turned out to be 4ormat's secret weapon. At 4ormat, our goal is to provide an easy way for creative professionals to create and manage an online portfolio website. Although the portfolio itself looks great in all browsers, to this day, the portfolio building interface does not support Internet Explorer. And we don't just mean IE6 or even IE7. We mean every version of Internet Explorer. This might seem drastic, but consider this: when we started 4ormat in 2008, IE had almost 70% market share and IE6 was still used by one-in-four desktops. Chrome, for example, had only been out for 2 months. To call it drastic would be an understatement.
 
TechCrunch Primer: A Crash Course In Cool Camera Apps Top
cam-apps3aLet's face it — there are too many camera and photo sharing apps out there, and not enough time in the day to give each one of them a try. If you've been mulling over which camera app deserves your love and affection, or just have no earthly idea where to start, take a gander below at some of your best options for shooting and sharing your life on the go.
 
The Market Curve: The Life Cycle Of New Technology Markets Top
healthy_marketEditor's Note: This guest post is written by Doug Pepper, who is a General Partner at InterWest Partners where he invests in SaaS, mobile, consumer internet and digital media companies. He blogs at dougpepper.blogspot.com. Everyone expects startups, even successful ones, to undergo a cycle of hype, disappointment and ultimately growth on the way to a sustainable business. But what about new technology markets themselves? Does the growth of a new market follow a similar pattern? Fred Wilson recently wrote about the twists and turns that startups face (expanding on Paul Graham's astute "Startup Curve"). I'd like to take those ideas further and describe the "Market Curve" -- a similar path that new markets take on the path to sustainability.
 
Facebook Considers Adding The Hate Button Top
hateIn 2010, Techcrunch broke the news that Facebook was going to release a "Like" button for the whole darn Internet. Now, TechCrunch has learned Facebook is considering a "Hate" button as well. According to Facebook's S-1 filing, users are now generating 2.7 billion Likes and Comments per day. With the Hate button, Facebook expects to at least double that. The S-1 noted "popular Pages on Facebook include Lady Gaga, Disney, and Manchester United, each of which has move than 20 million Likes." Many inside the company think the Hates could easily top that.
 
April Fools 2012: We Ruin Every (Tech-Related) Joke On The Internets Top
WarbyBarker_dogocleHappy April 1st, Everybody! It's that very special time of year -- the day when tech companies break out their clown shoes to make their annual attempt at being funny. As a public service, we've rounded up every tech-related April Fools joke that we could find, and we've even separated the wheat from the chaff -- highlighting the stuff that's actually funny. The LOLs, the FAILs, the ROFLs, the WTFs. Just for you. We'll update this throughout the day, and if we missed any, feel free to link to them in the comments. (By the way, if you're one of those folks who finds April Fools super-stressful because you're constantly being punked, rest assured that TechCrunch would never do that to you.)
 
Internet Freedom: Diplomats Join The Dissidents, Geeks And Censors Top
granny holding internet freedom torchIn its new "Enemies of the Internet" report, the international watchdog group Reporters Without Borders depicts an Internet under unprecedented pressure from the world's autocratic regimes. The study lists twelve such "enemies," including Iran, North Korea, China and Saudi Arabia, and observes that an increasing number of governments are not content merely to take domestic steps to control online space. "Freedom of expression on the Internet," the study notes, "is no longer the sole preserve of dissidents, geeks and censors. Diplomats have followed in their wake." Internet freedom has become a foreign policy issue.
 
What Smart Techies Are Stealing From Finance Top
Technology-and-Finance1"Portfolio" is a word that Silicon Valley loves. Venture firms have portfolios of startups, web designers have portfolios of their work and even public relations agencies have a portfolio of clients. Now chief information officers and IT architects have portfolios of computing power made up of physical servers, virtual machines and public cloud instances at multiple providers. For most people, a portfolio is little more than an accumulation of individual decisions over time. Look in a typical VC's portfolio, and you'll see a storage locker stuffed with buzzword bingo startups slouching toward an orderly shutdown. A web designer's portfolio? A collection of unrelated commissions.
 
Abolish The Reference Check Top
rsz_5185268326_45cf24babe_zIt's time to abolish the reference check. The unpleasant process of calling up a job applicant's former boss to gab about the candidate's pluses and "deltas" is just silly. Maybe if we all just agree to stop doing it the practice will go away, like pay phones and fanny packs. Instead, I've learned a better way to hire that leverages a universal human attribute—namely, the fact that we're all lazy. What's my beef with reference checks? They don't accomplish the job we intend them to do. In a startup, you can't afford to hire B-players. But reference checks, which are intended to do the screening, fail to eliminate these candidates who are just so-so. This happens because the person giving the reference has no incentive to say anything but good things about the candidate. Telling the whole truth, warts and all, could expose the former boss to a defamation lawsuit. And legal action aside, no one likes to speak poorly about an ex-colleague. It's bad karma and just feels icky.
 
Foxconn Plans New Iowa Plant, Will Hire 10% Of State's Population Top
iowa-foxconnAfter a highly visible meeting with Apple CEO Tim Cook, Foxconn's founder Terry Gou announced plans to open a sprawling Foxconn factory in Guthrie Center, Iowa, essentially replacing the approximately 2,000 residents of that small town with workers from in and around Iowa. The company will hire 300,000 employees for the new factory, about 10% of Iowa's population. The plant will include dormitories for workers, multiple swimming pools and Internet cafes, and meal seating for 100,000 employees.
 
Fragmentation? Open Source? Buzzwords For Android, And Also Google's Latest Effort, Google Campus Top
Eze VidraLondon's claim to being the hub for tech startups in Europe got a boost last week, when Google opened the doors of its latest effort, Google Campus, a seven-story centre for startups, which it has launched in partnership with several existing organizations, and big ambitions to galvanize some of the tech activity that has already marked out London to take it to the next level. The company is keeping much of its corporate profile at arms length from the project, but ironically, in describing Google's aims, Campus' head, Eze Vidra (pictured here), falls back on some of the terminology that has marked out one of Google's other, massive efforts, Android: the building, he says, is "open source." And the aim is to do away with some of the "fragmentation" in the London tech scene. Does that, in effect, lay out both the challenges and opportunities that Campus faces going forward?
 
Google's Sergey Brin To Retire: "I'm Really Into Blues Guitar" Top
Brin-bluesGoogle Co-Founder Sergey Brin has expressed interest in retiring "in a year or so" to take up the intense study of blues guitar, sources inside Google say. The decision places the company at a crossroads in terms of management succession and a replacement is already being groomed. Brin has been learning blues guitar from a number of major players including Eric Clapton (who was given $40,000 for a series of three lessons in a Palo Alto park), Keith Richards, and Ralph Macchio.
 
Defining The Television Experience In A Single Word Top
escaptvEscape. Yes, that's it, escape, that's whole secret right there.  Some say "entertainment" but I believe that is merely a subset of escape, as an experience.  And to be clear, I do agree that people choose to watch television as a form of entertainment.  But when you consider a "typical" 4+ hour session of watching TV in a "typical" North American household, I think it's a little beyond being entertained.
 
Funding Circle, a Kickstarter for SMBs, Picks Up $16M From Index, Union Square Ventures Top
funding circleSome great news for small business owners, and perhaps a sign of more crowdsourced funding coming to the U.S. soon: the UK startup Funding Circle -- a Kickstarter for small businesses -- has just announced that it has raised a $16 million round of funding to further build up its business of enabling non-bank lending to small businesses. The investment included participation from existing investor Index Ventures as well as new investor Union Square Ventures -- a sign of how Funding Circle may have its sights set on taking advantage of the new crowdfunding laws to expand to the U.S. This Series B round takes the total raised by Funding Circle to $21 million.
 
Creating Victims And Then Blaming Them Top
black-box3.31.12Girls Around Me is a perfect storm of everything too many people find creepy about the new mobile age. Download an app to your iPhone, link up your Facebook account and Girls Around Me will find girls around you who've recently checked into Foursquare near your location and return their Facebook profiles. Before Foursquare shut off access to their API and they were pulled from the App Store, Girls Around Me met your 21st century stalking needs, complete with in-app purchases. It is an undoubtedly fascinating story, raising too many issues to discuss in one article. But I found myself with a growing sense of discomfort after reading much of the coverage and discussion surrounding the app. This stemmed from two points that were raised again and again:
 
A Fistful of Smart Media Dollars Top
fistfulThe rise of smart, multi-screen streaming media is fundamentally changing the TV experience. This year, for the first time ever, Americans will watch more movies over the Internet than on physical media like DVD and Blu-ray. Ooyala's Video Index Report found that non-desktop video plays doubled in the fourth quarter of 2011. Tablet sales continue to explode. People now spend more time on Xbox Live streaming movies and TV shows than playing video games. And consumer electronics manufacturers are gearing up to ship 125 million Smart TVs in 2014. Simply put, TV is no longer constrained to a single box, a single screen, or a single UI. Smart networks, broadcasters, studios and service providers recognize that there's real money to be made as TV moves into the information age. People are not only watching more movies and TV shows online, they are paying for access to premium video content. Recent studies reveal that over half of American tablet owners paid to watch a movie in Q4 2011 and more than 40% paid for TV content. These are strong signs that we've come a long way from Jeff Zucker's "digital pennies" remark back in 2008.
 
Hackathon Planning In Less Than 10 Steps Top
hackersIt's been about a month since Photo Hack Day 2, and I've recovered sufficiently from my hackathon hangover – a very legitimate ailment, though less literal than a SXSW one – to put some coherent thoughts together. A number of people have reached out, asking for tips, thoughts, and advice on throwing hackathons; only now that the second one is under my proverbial belt do I feel slightly more qualified to speak on the subject. There's so much involved in terms of planning that I can't adequately address the important points in a single post. The emphasis of this article is the requisite planning, whereas the follow-up will focus on best practices for actual execution of demos, which are the most challenging and stressful element of hackathons.
 
OMGPOP Draws Zynga's Daily User Traffic Up By 25% Top
omgpop3.30.12As the dust settles after Zynga's purchase of New York mobile social game developer OMGPOP, the company is visibly taking on a new shape. A 25% larger and more mobile one. That's the percentage growth of its total daily active user base, when you add in the 14.6 million people playing mobile sketching app Draw Something to its existing 55 million players. The game has gone from 1.7 million to 14.6 over the month of March, based on app tracking service AppData. Today, it's nearly the combined size of Zynga's two biggest hits on Facebook, CityVille and Texas Hold'em Poker. Which means Draw Something's share of the market is likely to grow in the coming months. CityVille was launched at the end of 2010, and Poker years before. Zynga has milked them along, and will no doubt continuing doing so far into the future. But, they're never likely to grow significantly beyond their current sizes, based on the overall lifecycle of these games.
 
Tech Jobs And Airbnb Are Squeezing The SF Housing Market — Here's What To Do Top
planet for rentHave you been searching for a place to live in San Francisco lately? You're not the only one thinking @$#%&! on a daily basis. Forget the speculation about a tech bubble. This is a real estate bubble. It's a common scene on a weekend morning: A line of people waiting for an open house at an apartment that just hit the market, with rental applications, credit reports, and certified checks in-hand. The first one who qualifies wins the prize.
 
We're Going To This Super Happy Block Party In Palo Alto, And You Should Too Top
Screen Shot 2012-03-31 at 2.57.43 PMWho throws a party in Palo Alto?! Well actually ... Today Eric Schmidt's Innovation Endeavors, Talent House, Super Happy Dev House and the City of Palo Alto itself have joined forces to give nerds a place to play on University Ave for 12 hours. So why should you stop coding and jump on the Super Happy Block Party bandwagon? Well a gaggle of VCs have occupied the 3rd floor of the High/Alma South Garage, committing themselves to hearing your  ideas until 7pm tonight. Poor things!
 

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