Saturday, April 14, 2012

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Too Cold For Coachella? Watch Couchella On YouTube Top
Screen Shot 2012-04-14 at 12.05.43 PMIt is freaking cold here in Indio California, so cold that half of the house I'm staying with for the weekend left the Coachella music festival last night around 9pm. Even though I stayed until midnight (made it to Swedish House Mafi, yesss!), I ended up buying an ugly $60 Coachella hoodie to not freeze my buns off. A LOT of people now own this hoodie, I think we should totally pass it on to our kids. In lieu of watching Coachella live, my de facto PGA Villa roommates -- who have paid hundreds of dollars for their VIP tickets -- have been instead addicted to the livestream on YouTube, sitting in front of our fireplace at home. Brave New Musical Festival world we live in. This is actually the second year that YouTube has livestreamed the festival, and as I attest to above people, like normal people, are watching it.
 
Apps Have Got Your Back Top
circle-of-6Who needs governments? The ongoing trend toward mobile, social and crowdsourcing apps has led to a wealth of new community-based resources that support or supplant traditional civic and government services. Think Kickstarter instead of the NEA or Canada Council. Or consider the new Circle of 6 app, which is intended to help prevent violence before it happens, by letting users reach out to friends when dicey situations arise, instead of calling 911 after they get out of hand. Circle of 6 is the brainchild of health educator Deb Levine and anti-violence activist Nancy Schwartzman, who have found that it's often easier for people to reach out for help via a screen, and that it's important for groups of friends to offer concrete strategies for supporting each other. It's already won the White House's Apps Against Abuse challenge, and racked up tens of thousands of iPhone downloads. "We are working to get the app in the hands of Android users as soon as possible," says lead developer Christine Corbett Moran (an astrophysicist with a double-major Physics/CS degree from MIT, who develops apps in her copious spare time.) Apps like Circle of 6 are the thin edge of a really interesting wedge.
 
Gillmor Gang: Moe, Larry, and Curly Top
Gillmor Gang test patternThe Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, Dan Farber, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor — have a lot to work with this week: Instagram, a Google+ redesign, and Ann Romney joining Twitter. But if Larry is Larry, who are Moe and Curly? @dbfarber makes a good case for Twitter owning the realtime media; if you make it on Twitter, you can make it anywhere. We don't know Moe's business model, but who cares. That leaves Zuckerberg as Curly, the intellectual whose empire keeps growing no matter what mistakes he seems to make. In fact, those mistakes usually turn out to be ephemeral. Lose trust with overwhelming growth, buy the most phatic startup and its 30 million users. Facebook is betting only a few will bolt, and where are they gonna go anyway? The Three Stooges are beating each other up, but what they're really doing is keeping Microsoft boxed out of the social party. Nyuk nyuck nyuck.
 
StraighterLine Nabs $10M To Make College More Affordable Through Online Education Top
Screen shot 2012-04-14 at 6.43.56 AMA year ago, Peter Thiel called it a bubble. Whatever you call it, the cost of attaining a college degree has skyrocketed to the point of absurdity -- to the point of one trillion red flags. Student debt in the U.S. recently pushed over $1 trillion, and the average debt per student now stands at more than $25K. (And 30 percent of students are more than 30 days overdue on payments.) StraighterLine, a Baltimore-based startup, is one of many young companies trying to find a solution to these rising costs, through online education. Founded in 2010, StraigherLine offers a low-cost, subscription-based service that allows students to take a variety of accredited, general ed courses online. And, now, with the goal of bringing its service to a wider audience, the startup has announced that it has raised $10 million in venture capital.
 
We Are Our Scores: The Aspirational Self Top
scoreboardI left off last time talking about how gamification and the Quantified Self -- the use of sensors and devices to gather and analyze as much personal numeric data as possible for new insights into the self--can help us have fun while getting closer to our ideal selves. It's time to explore how that last idea has evolved in the past few years and how savvy entrepreneurs are putting it to work. Each of us has that picture of who we want to be and where we want to go. This is the version of ourselves we want the world to see. Convincing others that there is no gap between that image and our real selves used to be the domain of public relations professionals and doting parents. But in this era of social networks and constant connectivity, we all take the reins of our own reputations.
 
CEO Bloggers: To Blog or Not to Blog Top
carnegie"Where do you get the time to write so much as a company CEO, and more importantly, shouldn't you be closing deals or doing something more useful?" Fair enough. Do What Comes Naturally To You Some entrepreneurs are technologists, others are salespeople, a few are storytellers.
 
Open Office Hours With TechCrunch Europe Top
officeHours1Doing meetups and attending conferences is great for uncovering new startups and entrepreneurs, but sometimes you just want to sit down over coffee for a few minutes and explain what you're doing. So I'm starting a new series of one-to-one sessions which will hopefully be fairly regular (schedule allowing). I'll be doing "Open Office Hours" sessions at various locations associated with startups, and as I'm based in London that's where I'll mainly be doing them. The idea is you apply for a slot and wait for confirmation. This isn't about long meetings, it's more about getting a quick heads-up and then following up later. Next week I'll be at startup space White Bear Yard, home to Passion Capital and a number of their startups. You can sign up for a slot here. The next session after that will be at Innovation Warehouse, slots here. To follow other sessions, here's my OHours profile or follow me on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.
 
How Kik Survived The Group Messaging Wars And Built A Sweet Mobile App For Controlling TVs Top
click-uiIf a consumer mobile fad comes and goes, and you don't play consolidation musical chairs, what do you do next? This is kind of what happened to Kik, a Canadian startup that took off with the explosive growth of its messaging app last year. Amid the hype around messaging, Kik raised $8 million in funding from RRE Ventures, Spark Capital and Union Square Ventures. Not too long after, Kik's rivals Beluga and GroupMe got acquired in some respectable (but not crazy huge) deals by Facebook and Skype last year. Meanwhile, Kik has stayed independent and is charting a completely different course. About two months ago, they launched Clik, a mobile app that lets you control a TV right from your phone. There are a few steps to making it work, but the major plus to Clik is that it doesn't require additional hardware. You point your desktop or smart TV browser at ClikThis.com, which generates a unique QR code (which are two-dimensional barcodes). Then you open the Clik iPhone or Android app, aim the camera at the screen, and the phone syncs to the TV or computer. Once they're connected, you can use your phone like a remote control to play YouTube videos on your TV.
 
Facebook Explains Why It's Supporting Congress' CISPA Cybersecurity Bill Top
Screen shot 2012-04-13 at 4.56.05 PMFacebook today explained why it has taken a positive stance on the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or "CISPA", bill currently under consideration in the United States Congress. The social networking company is one of a group of tech companies that have announced support for CISPA -- Microsoft, Oracle, Intel, IBM, and Symantec are also among its backers. In a post today on the official blog for Facebook's Washington D.C. office, the company's U.S. public policy VP Joel Kaplan wrote that Facebook is supporting CISPA in part because it would not ask Facebook to share any more of its own user data than is currently required.
 
Death To The Gatekeepers: Bezos Talks Innovation In The Publishing Space Top
scaledwm-3251The heart of Jeff Bezos' mission has always to circumvent the traditional "gatekeepers" of commerce. He started with books, an industry ripe for disruption, and moved onto, well, everything else. At this point, his vision has come true. The old gatekeepers in the book sales cycle are on the ropes and electronics companies are already planning to collude in order to maintain a "minimum" accepted price, thereby ensuring Amazon doesn't eat all of their lunch. But Amazon is hungry and, like Plainview, they have a long straw. They won't just eat the world's lunch, they'll drink its milkshake, too.
 
Nokia Fixes Lumia 900 Data Woes Ahead Of Schedule With New Software Update Top
Lumia900-Cyan-Image-jpgNokia certainly didn't waste any time when it came to fixing that pesky data connection bug that popped up in a few first-run Lumia 900s. Just two days after Nokia acknowledged the issue and pledged to make things right, they've already made that critical update available to those in need. In case you were keeping track, that's a full three days before Nokia promised to have the fix in the field. Not too shabby, Nokia.
 
Verify Now Lets Designers Test More Of Their Ideas In More Places Top
verify_tests

Interaction design and strategy firm ZURB has turned more and more of its internal apps into products for other designers over the last few years. Among these products is Verify, a handy little tool that allows design firms to quickly collect and analyze user feedback on screenshots and mockups. With Verify, for example, a startup could test multiple versions of its homepage or logo and see which one people like best, where they click and even what they remember about the site. Today, ZURB launched the latest version of this tool, which includes two major new features: multivirate testing and multi-device support, allowing developers and designers to test their designs on the actual devices they are intended for.

 
SnapTerms: Terms Of Service As A Service Top
SnaptermsYou might not think that something like a website's Terms of Service would be all that interesting, but you'd be wrong. After that post about how awesome 500px's Terms of Service are (tl;dr: they translate them into human speak), the inbox kind of blew up with questions. Is anyone else doing this?, emailers wanted to know, can I talk to them? (Also: hey, stupid, Aviary has done this forever. Thank you, thank you, and yes, the post is updated.) Regardless, one email stood out from the crowd. It described a newly launched legal service called SnapTerms, which provides startups with simple, reasonably priced, and personalized Terms of Service and Privacy Policies.
 
After Three Years, Visual Voicemail Service YouMail Calls It Quits On BlackBerry Top
youmailFreemium visual voicemail service YouMail never forgot their roots — they first launched in late 2007 with the mission of making visual voicemail available to the masses, but soon focused their attention on what was then the market-leading smartphone platform: BlackBerry. I don't need to tell you that RIM's fortunes have changed since then, but the YouMail crew dutifully updated their BlackBerry app even though registrations from users of that platform began to dip. Until now, that is. With one final (and seemingly substantive) update in place though, YouMail has officially decided to call it quits on BlackBerry.
 
I've Finally Found The Perfect iPhone Case: The Cygnett Icon Top
Screen shot 2012-04-13 at 4.34.27 PMOne of the best things about the iPhone is its design. It's beautiful — slim, sleek, and finished in piano black with a hint of brushed aluminum. Sometimes I just stare at it. But there's a big problem: the iPhone is less than durable. It loses in almost every drop test, and will shatter the first time it slips out of your hands. The answer of course is a great case, but most of them ruin the beautiful shape and size of the phone, covering it with grubby rubber or scratched-up metal or cheapo plastic. It effectively ruins one of the greatest selling points of the phone, and it's always pissed me off to be quite frank with you. But the other day I found my dream case, and I couldn't stop myself from telling you about it. It's the Cygnett Icon Art series case, which I stole from my boss John. And it's perfect.
 
The Other Sinister Plot At Groupon Top
groupon logoI love Silicon Valley. Love almost everything about the technology ecosystem. I grew up in New Jersey watching with extreme envy and wonderment as the '95-01 boom-bust played out. Like most, I also share a certain reverence for Steve Jobs. Unfortunately, the Valley tends to indulge in one of the less enviable Jobsian traits: the shithead/hero rollercoaster. People and companies are always one or the other. We glorify when it's smooth sailing and bash mercilessly during turbulence. Groupon has taken the entire ride. From wonder boy CEO and "fastest growing company ever" to becoming the evil company out to defraud merchants/investors. Now that I'm no longer directly affiliated with the company (other than being a locked-up shareholder), I thought it would be nice to provide a little balance. There's plenty that's been said on the negative side of the ledger — no doubt inspired by a righteous desire to protect the little-guy merchant and investor and not at all fueled by a desire for twitter followers or endless TV appearances.
 
Microsoft Needs Your Help: Promises Free Software In Return For Windows 8 Feedback Top
Join Our User PanelWith Windows 8 getting ever closer to its release date, Microsoft today announced that it is looking for volunteers to join its invite-only feedback program for active Windows 7 and Windows 8 Consumer Preview users in the U.S. In return for providing feedback to Microsoft - both by sending the company data or by filling out surveys - participants who stay in the program for more than four months will be eligible for "free software and Xbox games such as Microsoft Office 2012, Kinect Disneyland, and Forza Motorsport 4."
 
Nicholas Sparks On Using Tech To Write Books, Make Movies, And Keep A Creative Edge Top
nicholassparksNicholas Sparks, the bestselling novelist and screenwriter known for hits such as The Notebook and A Walk To Remember, is currently on a nationwide tour to promote The Lucky One, the latest movie to be adapted from one of his books. Right now he is making the rounds in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, and we were really pleased when he agreed to swing by TechCrunch TV for an interview this morning.
 
How The Pebble Smart Watch Hit $2 Million On Kickstarter [Q&A] Top
pebbleThe Pebble smart watch - a clever little device that connects to your iPhone or Android device and, oddly enough, tells the time - was a twinkle in the eye of founder Eric Migicovsky just a few weeks ago. Now the product has reached $2 million in funding. And if that weren't enough, InPulse, the company that makes the Pebble, only ever asked for $100,000 over the course of the entire project. It's not only a testament to the watch itself, which from what I've seen is pretty damn cool, but a testament to the power of Kickstarter and crowd-funding in general. We decided to have a little chat with Mr. Migicovsky to figure out how this incredible success story came to be. Here's what we learned:
 
Apple Patents A Tool Allowing Non-Developers To Build Apps Top
iPhone AppsIf you think the iOS app ecosystem is big now, as it pushes some 600,000 apps available for iPhone and iPad, just imagine how big it could become if Apple made good on this newly filed patent application titled "Content Configuration for Device Platforms." The application describes a way for non-developers to create iOS apps using a simple, graphical interface. Whoa.
 

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