Tuesday, April 24, 2012

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PricerGrabber, ShoeDazzle, Legalzoom & Shopzilla Founders Back Online Social Platform For Retailers, Social Annex Top
social-annex-logoSocial Annex, a retail-focused social platform that's been in stealth mode for the past two years, is today announcing having gained the attention (and the investment) of some big backers of e-commerce, just in time for its public debut. In addition to Kamran Pourzanjani, the former CEO and founder of PriceGrabber, and Brian S. Lee co-founder of ShoeDazzle, Legalzoom, and Honest.com, Social Annex is now seeing investment from Jody Mulkey, CIO and SVP of Technology at Shopzilla, and Lawrence Ng, the co-founder of Oversee.net. Terms of the investments were not disclosed.
 
Google Drive Is Live Top
gdriveYou can try Google Drive now at drive.google.com.
 
Here Are The Winners Of The One-Sentence Pitch Competition Top
founder institute adeo ressiOver the weekend, we hosted a fun contest from the Founder Institute, where entrepreneurs posted a one-sentence pitch for their companies. We received more than 450 pitches, of which 421 followed the designated format ("My company, _(insert name of company)_, is developing _(a defined offering)_ to help _(a defined audience)_ _(solve a problem)_ with _(secret sauce)_"). Now, Adeo Ressi and his team have spent 15 hours to go through all of the entries, and they've chosen their winners. You can see the winning pitches, as well as Ressi's commentary, below.
 
Buffer Has Scheduled 10M Social Updates And Signed Up 180K Users Top
buffer logoWhen we last covered Buffer, a service for scheduling your social media sharing, the startup had just raised $400,000, and its founders were relocating from San Francisco to Hong Kong due to expiring visas. It sounds like the immigration situation hasn't been entirely resolved, and most of the team is still in Hong Kong — but on the bright side, Buffer's growth has continued. Buffer is designed for marketers and other folks who want to maintain an active social media presence without actually spending every second of their day on Facebook and Twitter. You can load the service up with content that you want to share, then it automatically gets posted throughout the day. Co-founder Leonhard Widrich tells me that on Monday, Buffer posted its 10 millionth update. The service is now posting one update every second.
 
A Closer Look: Facebook's Operating Margins Decline With Growing Headcount, International Growth Top
facebook_magnifyOne thing that has been remarkable about Facebook is its willingness to expand in developing markets that many other consumer Internet companies would otherwise write off because they're hard to monetize. But that growth abroad plus the company's increasing headcount and share-based compensation expenses are eating into its operating margins, according to yesterday's earnings numbers from a revised IPO filing. Facebook made $381 million in operating income (or 36 percent of its $1.06 billion in revenue) in the first quarter of this year. That's down from $388 million in operating income (or 53 percent of its $731 million in revenue) from a year ago. Net income is actually down 12 percent year-over-year to $205 million from $233 million a year ago. Here's a closer look at how revenues and costs are changing for the company:
 
Google Outs Google Drive On Its French Blog: Here Are All The Details Top
googlelogoAfter years of rumors, it looks like the Google Drive has finally arrived. While we are still waiting for official word from Google, but earlier today, the company apparently mistakenly posted the French translation of its announcement to its French blog (and quickly deleted it, of course). Thankfully, intrepid Google+ user Gerwin Sturm made a copy and ran it through Google translate.
 
With $1.5M From Adecco, Path.To Wants To Be The EHarmony For Jobs In Silicon Valley And Beyond Top
path.to homepage_1The job-hunting market today is getting a little more social: Path.to, a kind of About.me-meets-LinkedIn service that lets people create image-filled, sleek professional profiles for themselves online, is today relaunching itself as a network to connect those professionals with job openings. And taking a pro-tip from the matchmaking site eHarmony, Path.to has developed an algorithm to create "compatibility" scores between job seekers and job vacancies. It says it is the first online job service to offer this feature. It is also today announcing a $1.5 million round of strategic funding from HR giant Adecco to help it along the way.
 
Google Opens New 'Devices' Section In The Google Play Store To Sell The Unlocked Galaxy Nexus Top
googlegalnexAnd just like that, Google is selling smartphones again. Andy Rubin, Google's SVP of Mobile and Digital Content, just officially pulled back the curtains on a new section in the Google Play Store where Google will offer hardware directly to customers. The first device to go on sale is the unlocked GSM version of Samsung's venerable Galaxy Nexus, which will sell for $399 but only in the U.S. (for now, anyway).
 
Pencil Us In: Details On TC's NYC Mini Meet-Up And A Thanks To Our Sponsors Top
newyorknotte4That was quick. Sponsorship positions for the TechCrunch Mini Meet-Up in NYC are officially filled, and boy is this thing going to be awesome! If you aren't already aware (and shame on you, if you aren't), we're having a little get-together for the tech/startup industry here in the Big Apple on May 8.
 
The Rise Of Instagram: Tracking The App's Spread Worldwide Top
instagram logoThe industry just can't stop analyzing the Instagram success story, and this month, it's app store analytics firm Distimo's turn to take a crack at it. The company, which typically releases reports revealing notable mobile app and app marketplace trends, has turned its focus to the rise of Instagram. In its latest report, Distimo looked at how Instagram became successful, how it spread across the world, how the app's usage compares to the number of downloads it received and more.
 
Shared Task List Maker Asana Gets A New Pose For Big Groups, Adds Premium Workspaces Top
Screen Shot 2012-04-24 at 6.55.43 AMAsana has been slowly sleeping across TechCrunch lately, and the low-key but ambitious company revealed last week that it has been doing the same elsewhere  -- Twitter, Foursquare, LinkedIn, and Airbnb are some of the other workplaces it's been showing up. And today, the shared task-list maker is rolling out the next part of its enterprise plan. It will now be officially available to teams of more than 30 people, via a monthly membership fee.
 
AT&T's Q1 By The Numbers: $31.8 Billion In Revenue, 5.5 Million Smartphones Sold Top
ATTWe're in the thick of earnings season now, and earlier today telecom titan AT&T jumped into the fray with their Q1 2012 financials. AT&T posted a profit of $0.60 per share on revenues of $31.8 billion -- a 1.8% leap year over year -- beating analyst expectations. Of that $31.8 billion total, AT&T reports that over half ($16.1 billion, specifically) was generated by their wireless business.
 
DG Buys AdTech Player Peer39 For $15.5M After Peer39 Raised Nearly $30M In Its Lifetime Top
Image1 for post Another $10.5M Unloads on Peer39's DockWe are seeing a lot of activity in the world of advertising technology -- from funding rounds to new product launches -- but it's not all good news, and inevitably consolidation is coming, too: Peer39, an adtech provider based in New York and Israel, is getting bought by offline and online ad management and ad distribution company DG. The price: $15.5 million -- roughly about half of what Peer39 had raised from investors over the course of six years. The cash-and-stock deal will see DG pay $10 million in cash, with the rest in shares, as well as a $2.3 million earn out payment, the companies noted in a statement.
 
Fly Or Die: HTC One S Top
Screen shot 2012-04-24 at 9.49.32 AMThe One S is the middle child in HTC's new line of hero devices, not quite as badass as the One X, but a bit bigger than baby brother One V. As is the case with any middle child, it's a bit easy to overlook. But John and I decided to give it some attention anyway, and like usual, we didn't find much common ground.
 
The GDrive Plot Thickens: Google Docs Users Now Have 5GB Of Space Top
Screen Shot 2012-04-24 at 9.23.59 AMUser Hariprasanth sent us a strange missive: it seems that if you upload something to Google Docs today, your storage space immediately increases from 1GB to 5GB. I didn't believe him at first - it said 1GB as I was uploading - but immediately after the upload finished it read 5GB. Given everything we know about GDrive so far, including that it should launch with 5GB free storage and that the original Docs accounts were capped at 1GB, things look pretty good for an immanent release.
 
Wild Berry Report: Chinese iPhones Smell Of Pineapple, Mango, And Apple Top
smell-your-iphoneGo plug in your iPhone, wait a few minutes and then take a big whiff over the headphone jack. Smell anything? Well, there are widespread reports in China that their phones smell like fruit. Seriously. Owners are stating that their Apple iPhones actually smell like apples.
 
Skype Video Calling Comes To The Playstation Vita Top
PS%20VITAA while ago, people opined that the PS Vita - despite horrible battery life and a dearth of compelling game titles - could become a sort of "gamers iPad," a tool that ends up being more than just a console. That dream is coming closer to fruition with the announcement of Skype for Vita.
 
Yammer Updates iOS And Android Apps, Adds Universal Search And More To Enterprise Social Network Top
yammerFresh off its first acquisition and $85 million in new funding, Yammer is debuting a number of product improvements in a new release for its social network for enterprises. The company has added universal search, premium groups, official content, Yammer embed, a new Office 365 integration, and updated mobile apps. Yammer is also announcing that it has surpassed five million corporate users and increased headcount to more than 300 employees As you may know, Yammer has evolved into a more comprehensive, Facebook-like platform for social networking within the enterprise. Beyond being just a communications platform, Yammer now includes applications such as polls, chat, events, links, topics, Q&A, ideas and more. An activity feed aggregates stories about co-worker actions within all of their enterprise apps (both on and off Yammer) and allows users to follow content. The next step of this evolution is adding actual business functionality such as editing and file syncing to the platform.
 
Travora Media Acquires Local Travel Planning Platform NileGuide Top
nileTravel ad platform Travora Media is acquiring The Nile Project, the parent company of one-stop travel planning site NileGuide, local recommendations platform 10Best.com, and mobile, local travel guide Localyte. Financial terms of the acquisition were not released. Founded in 2006, NileGuide allows you to create customized trip itineraries; and aims to be the go-to guide for all local travel planning (meaning where to stay, eat, visit etc.). NileGuide has received $13 million in funding from investors including Draper Richards, KPG Ventures, Austin Ventures, and Tenaya Capital.
 
Fwix Becomes Radius, A Tool For Salespeople Targeting Local Businesses Top
Screen Shot 2012-04-24 at 4.38.23 AMRemember how most companies don't sell practically overnight for $1 billion dollars and it actually takes years before a startup finds its "Aha!" moment and narrows in on a working business model? Yes, we have one of those stories today. Fwix, which started out as a hyperlocal news aggregator, is metamorphosing into an enterprise-facing company called Radius that gives salespeople the tools and data they need to scout local businesses. It's a big bet. While Radius had some early success making in the "low millions" of dollars per year selling access to its content to media companies, its chief executive Darian Shirazi saw a much bigger market opportunity in targeting companies that sell services to small businesses. "I've always wanted to build a large sustainable company and it turns out that this is very hard to do," he said.
 

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