Wednesday, April 11, 2012

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Cabana's Fan Page Mobilizer Turns Facebook Pages Into Mobile Web Apps Top
FPM-Logo-Large_GREENMobile development startup Cabana is launching a new product today called Fan Page Mobilizer aimed at small businesses who want to bring their Facebook presence to smartphones. There have been a lot of startups promising easy-to-use mobile app-building tools, to the point where my eyes start to glaze over any time a new one launches. However, Cabana has attracted the backing of impressive investors who presumably know more about this stuff than I do, including First Round Capital, Lerer Ventures, SVAngel, Gary Vaynerchuk, Shervin Pishevar, Kevin Rose, Chris Sacca, Dave Morin, Philip Kaplan, Tyler Crowley, Mark Silva, Jack Andrys, Bill Warner, and Alex Elenski. And co-founder Reeve Thompson says it's aiming at a unique audience that falls between the professional developers served by a company like Appcelerator and the more casual customers targeted by AppMakr and Mobile Roadie — Thompson describes his customer base as "serious hobbyists."
 
Sincerely's Mobile Postcards Now Offer Tracking, Scannable Stamps & A Little Something Called "Magic" Top
PostQRScanScreenSincerely, the startup behind a range of photo-printing and greeting card mobile apps, including Postagram, PopBooth, Sincerely Ink and Dotti, is today rolling out a major update to its Postagram product which will introduce post office tracking for its cards as well as scannable QR codes - which the company is cleverly not planning to refer to as "QR codes" (too geeky) in its communications with customers. More importantly, Postagram is the first of the company's apps to gain access to "Sincerely Magic," a new feature that will help build a connected database of the apps' users across all Sincerely products. The feature will allow users to send cards via snail mail to anyone, even if they only know their email address.
 
Taming Email Overload With SaneBox Top
saneboxCalling email overload "a crisis in communication", TechCrunch Founder Michael Arrington issued a challenge back in 2008: "Someone needs to create a new technology that allows us to enjoy our life but not miss important messages." The entrepreneurs at SaneBox read this and other articles by Fred Wilson and Bijan Sabet, and set out to build a better inbox. After a month of testing, SaneBox has really helped control my inbox and risen to Mike's challenge.
 
Move Over 1024×768: The Most Popular Screen Resolution On The Web Is Now 1366×768 Top
last day monitors1024x768 screens are a bit like Windows XP: they have long been surpassed by better options but still remained the most often used screens on the web. That is, until now. According to the latest data from StatCounter, 1366x768 screens just surpassed 1024x768 as the most popular screen resolution used by the visitors to StatCounter's global network of sites. Three years ago, 1024x768 still accounted for almost 42% of all visitors to the roughly three million sites that use StatCounter. Today, that number has fallen to 18.6% and 1366x768 screens now account for 19.28%, up from just 0.68% in May 2009.
 
Bump's Mini-Pivot: Photo-Sharing From Your Phone By Bumping With Your Keyboard Top
Screen shot 2012-04-11 at 17.01.28Bump, the mobile sharing app that lets users exchange photos and information by bumping their phones together, is now taking on a new device: the computer keyboard. And it appears to also be taking on a new frontier, cloud-based photo-sharing. A new, very simple service that the company is currently running in beta lets someone using the app select a photo on their phone, bump their space bar with the phone, and then see the image magically appear on the screen. From there, a user can (so far) keep it in the Bump cloud, download it to their computer, post it to Facebook or send someone a link.
 
BBC Bets On HTML5 Games; Invests Millions In Mobile Game Creation Platform Spaceport.io Top
space-1Spaceport.io, an HTML5, mobile game creation platform, has raised a strategic round of funding from a number of investors including BBC Worldwide and YouWeb, a previous investor. While financial terms of the funding were not not disclosed, we hear the round was in the millions. Spaceport allows game developers to build a game once, using Javascript, and have it play across all smartphone operating systems, with a native app-like experience and fast performance. The web-based games run as a hybrid HTML5 – native app, and the code for the game is written once, in a simple scripting language, so that they can then run on any device. And developers can also create native iOS apps as well using Spaceport.
 
Lost Amongst Its 60 Million Travel Tips? TripAdvisor Highlights Reviews By Friends Of Friends Top
Trip Advisor Shows Friends of Friends Reviews FirstParalysis can set in quickly when you're faced with the infinitude of products and reviews on sprawling sites like Amazon or Yelp. To help you find your way, TripAdvisor has just begun showing reviews by Facebook friends of friends atop results. The site already featured tips from friends, but with 60 million reviews on the site, surfacing content from friends of friends (FoF) means you're 10x more likely to get help from someone you're connected to. TripAdvisor pulled in a staggering $650 million in revenue with a 30% profit margin last year. Spotlighting FoF reviews could lead to less exhausted bounces and more commissions on sales. Other big content sites should look to get friend of friendly too.
 
Mobile Payments Startup Beamit Raises $2.4M From Founder's Co-op, Jeff Bezos, Eric Schmidt & Others Top
Beamit-logoMobile payments platform Beamit, which focuses on international money transfers between the U.S. and developing markets, has just closed a $2.4 million seed round led by Founder's Co-op, with participation from Bezos Expeditions (the personal investment company of Jeff Bezos), TomorrowVentures (the investment vehicle for Eric Schmidt) and a small group of angel investors. The funds will be used to further product development as the company moves towards public availability, currently slated for Q3 2012. The company says the first market being targeted is the Philippines.
 
Meteor: Etherpad Founder & Other Rockstars Team Up To Make Web App Development A Breeze Top
Screen shot 2012-04-11 at 4.25.26 AMWeb apps look a lot different today than they did a decade ago. Today, in the era of smart clients, web and native apps have to communicate with an array of distributed cloud services, and, while legacy infrastructure remains, these new frameworks present ever-trickier problems for app developers. Having to deal with creating software that runs across data centers, communicates with intelligent devices, and integrates with software built by scores of third-parties? Not so simple. Launching without much fanfare today is a new startup called Meteor that is looking to significantly reduce the friction inherent to developing modern web apps with "a new application platform for this new era." According to the startup's mission statement, the platform is based on "smart packages," or bundles of code that are essentially adaptable, allowing them to run on a client or a cloud service and can "manage their lifetime inside the modern distributed environment."
 
After Years Of Holding Out, Verizon Wireless Will Start Charging $30 Upgrade Fee On April 22 Top
Image (1) Verizon.jpg for post 47829All good things, as they say, must come to an end. For years now, Verizon has been the only one of the Big Four wireless carriers not to charge their customers an upgrade fee when they re-signed a two year contract, but that's all about to change. Starting on April 22, Verizon will start charging a $30 upgrade fee whenever an existing customer extends their contract in order to snag some new hardware.
 
U.S. Files Antitrust Charges Against Apple, Book Publishers (UPDATE) Top
ipaddojThe U.S. Justice Department just formally charged Apple, along with book publishers, Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan and Penguin in regards to e-book pricing. The DoJ alleges that the companies colluded in anticompetitive practices involving pricing and sales. This comes after a year-long investigation into the matter after Apple switched to an "agency" model where they retained a portion of the sale of e-books sold through its platforms. This is said to have resulted in higher prices industry-wide, since the power to set prices rested in the hands of only a few sellers. Bloomberg reports that several publishers are seeking to settle with the DoJ. Simon & Schuster, Lagardère SCA's Hachette Book Group and HarperCollins could settle as soon as today. (Update: They just settled) However, Apple and Macmillian reportedly refused to engage in settlement talks, so far denying the claims. This might get ugly.
 
Amazon Now Lets You Trade In Your Old CDs In Exchange For Gift Cards Top
cds-miskan-flickrOnline retailer Amazon is extending its Trade-In Program today to also cover CDs - you know, those round, shiny things collecting dust in the back of your closet? Starting now, customers can send in their old CDs to Amazon in exchange for Amazon.com Gift Cards, which can then used to purchase anything on Amazon.com, including, of course, any of Amazon's 19 million MP3's.
 
Amazon, eBay Among Latest To Add Pinterest Buttons Top
amazonThe Pinterest-ing of the web continues at Amazon and eBay. Ryan Spoon pointed out that the massive online retailers recently added tiny Pinterest buttons to their deck of social media sharing options on product pages. And why not? With Pinterest being the fast-growing social network, these buttons give users easy ways to share while at the same time allowing the retailers to cash-in on the pinning craze.
 
With 350 Investors On Hand, TechStars Debuts New Cloud Accelerator's Inaugural Batch Top
techstars-logoIn September, national startup accelerator and seed fund, TechStars, launched its first program focused on providing mentorship and capital to companies working in a particular space. With cloud computing growing like gangbusters, the company saw fit to focus on the cloud, launching TechStars Cloud, a sub-accelerator that focuses exclusively on backing cloud computing and infrastructure startups. Today, the inaugural batch of 11 TechStars cloud-focused startups will be demoing in front of a throng of what TechStars Co-founder and CEO David Cohen tells us is expected to be 350+ investors. The startups are finishing up a program that began in January and is based in San Antonio, Texas.
 
Attn. Evernote & Pinterest: Springpad's New Social Experience Turns Interests Into Action Top
family_exploreSpringpad was founded back in 2008 with a simple mission: Help people "remember stuff today so that they can make better decisions tomorrow." For those unfamiliar with the digital organizer, the startup is the maker of free web, Android, and iOS productivity apps that constitute a multi-platform, cloud-based digital notebook, designed to help you discover, save, and share the things you care about. Today, the startup is unveiling a completely redesigned Springpad 3.0, which boasts a new social experience that makes it easy for users to collaborate and share notebooks, discover ideas and information from trusted sources, i.e. your friends. The goal of the new app is to free users from the fleeting nature of social media streams by giving them anytime, anywhere access to their notebook's content.
 
Google+ Gets A Big Refresh With New Navigation, A Redesigned Stream, A Dedicated Hangouts Page & More Top
google-plus-newGoogle this morning is announcing a new look for its social network, Google+, which introduces a revamped navigation, with drag-and-drop elements and actions that appear when you hover over each item, as well as the introduction of new features aimed at making it easier to discover conversations to join, new profile pages, a dedicated page for Google+ Hangouts (Google+'s multi-person video chat offering), and more. It's interesting that Google+ has now changed its design, after its first efforts received such praise. But, after using the service for some time, it became clear that Google+'s navigational elements became a little cluttered. That "share a YouTube video" feature, for example, which popped out a box on the right side of the screen, felt tacked on.
 
RIM's Updating Spree Adds BBM Support To Their Facebook, Twitter, Travel And Music Apps Top
bbmThe folks at RIM are no doubt devoting plenty of time and effort to their long-awaited BlackBerry 10 operating system, but they've found the time to whip up a few app updates to please the nearly 55 million BBM users out there. First up on the list are a pair of newly-updated Facebook and Twitter apps — users will be able to share their sparkling wit with their BBM buddies from within each of the apps, ensuring none of their friends will be able to escape their ironic jabs and repartee. While RIM is smart to tie engagement with these two major social platforms into their own, they haven't stopped there.
 
Want A Google Hangout But Without Google? YC-Alum Meetings.io Have A Solution For You Top
meetings.io hangouts smallA startup launched this week is vying to be the next great leap forward for the world of videoconferencing, the promising-but-still-relatively-niche service that lets groups of people in different locations hold Internet-based conversations with each other: Meetings.io, a Y-Combinator alum, has hit the market with just under $1 million in seed funding from (among others) Yuri Milner and SV Angel, and the promise of making a free group video call as easy as clicking on a link, with nothing else required. Meetings.io is the latest step in the evolution of videoconferencing services, a classic example of enterprise-focused social networking, which have always held much potential but have yet to really become mass-market.
 
How French Presidential Candidates Can Learn To Spell 'Entrepreneur' Top
112059v2-max-250x250This is a guest post by serial entrepreneur Nathalie Gaveau. As we get closer to the first round of Presidential elections in France on April 22nd and everyone is focusing on the French economy, it seems like a perfect time to talk about supporting and promoting entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship in France. Yes, we invented the word. But sometimes in the past it's felt a little like we didn't have it in our vocabulary, as President Bush, in a rare moment of clarity, once pointed out. Despite the criticisms, the government has clearly been more entrepreneur-friendly in recent years. The set-up of the Agence pour la création d'entreprises (APCE) in the late 1990s and the special fiscal treatment of independent or "auto-entrepreneurs" has led to a dramatic increase in the number of startups. Moreover, France offers generous tax incentives to young SMEs, companies pursuing R&D even wealthy individuals investing in a startup (known as ISF).
 
Uh-Oh: Nokia Lowers Its Q1 Forecast On Pressures In Emerging Markets, Margins On Smartphones Top
white-nokia-lumia-900Not great news for Nokia this morning in its ongoing attempt to reverse declines in its sales and market share in the world of mobile phones that it once easily dominated. The company has announced that it is lowering its outlook for the first quarter and second quarters of this year, citing lower-than-expected sales in its devices and services segment. In a market statement today, Nokia did not specifically give any numbers on overall revenues but it said that operating margins in the first quarter are expected to be at negative three percent -- down from earlier estimates of being either breakeven or within two percentage points of that; it also said that Q2 margins will be similar or below Q1 levels. As for the the silver lining, Nokia also noted that it has sold more than 2 million Windows Phone Lumia smartphones and now has over 80,000 apps in the Windows Phone Marketplace app storefront.
 

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