Thursday, April 19, 2012

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Fab.de Hits Half A Million Users, Revenue Reaches 1.5M Euro Per Month Top
tumblr_m2qcfm7eMa1qzjfbqFab has just released new figures on its growth in Germany and Austria, following February's acquisition of Casacanda, a top flash sales site previously serving Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. And the news is good, it seems. As of today, the German vertical Fab.de has 500,000 users, having added 300,000 over the past month. And revenue per month is up by over half a million euro.
 
AT&T Opening Watson Speech Recognition To Developers With New APIs In June Top
watsonapiHot off of a AT&T Labs event held in New York City, AT&T has just announced they will be opening up their Watson speech recognition technology to developers this June. Though Watson has been open to licensing for years now (Vlingo inked a licensing deal with AT&T in 2009, for instance), the release of a new series of APIs means that developers of every stripe will soon be able to access AT&T's voice transcription engine instead of having to piece together their own solution.
 
Struq Secures $8.5 million From Reed Elsevier, Pentech, Allen & Co Top
52258v2-max-250x250The problem with internet advertising - and there are many - is that while there are plenty of users who interact with ads, the hard part is working out which users are actually the most valuable to advertisers. While the advertising industry normally sends one brand message and blasts it out across all channels, Struq, an advertising platform startup, works out which users show behavioral patterns that make them statistically more likely to purchase. But instead of showing them the one brand message it shows video or display ads most likely to chime with that user. To that end it's attracted the attention of major backers today, with a significant $8.5 million funding round from Reed Elsevier Ventures, Pentech Ventures and Allen & Company LLC.
 
Badoo Hires Google Exec Ben Ling As New COO To Push Its Platforms And US Growth Top
23661v1-max-250x250Dating/meeting-people site Badoo has been putting together a 147 million registered user base over the last six years, with a huge run on Facebook helping it to reach around the world last year. And today, it follows up on the momentum with a key hire. It has appointed long-time Google executive Benjamin Ling as chief operating office to help push it out across mobile and Web platforms. He'll oversee product, engineering, business operations, partnerships and corporate development. Badoo has been best known for expanding into emerging markets like Russia and Brazil but it's now growing in the US where it already has eight million users.
 
Screenfeeder Is A Gorgeous Way To Display Social Feeds On Your iPhone, iPad Or TV Top
iPad TwitterScreenfeeder is a gorgeous new app for the iPhone, iPad or TV (via Apple TV's AirPlay), which displays your social feeds on the screen from services like Twitter, Foursquare, Instagram and Dribble. But the interface doesn't use columns like TweetDeck - it just flashes the updates as they arrive against an ever-changing background of images and colors. The idea may not be as practical for serious news watchers who follow thousands of accounts, sorted into multiple lists, but for the everyday user whose tweets flow a bit slower, Screenfeeder offers an attractive interface to view them in.
 
Nokia May Be Down, But They're Not Out Top
super_macho_man_2 As bad as Nokia's financials look right now - a $4 billion drop in sales won't make anyone's day - don't consider the Windows Phone move a failure just yet. They've done what many phone companies have thus far failed to do - namely change swiftly with the times - and, more important, they've done it quite admirably. If you'll recall, the first real Android phone was HTC's G1. Considered a clunker by all but the most die-hard of users, the device sold fairly well (1 million in 2008). But it did something more important than make T-Mobile the first Android carrier - it grabbed a certain contingent of user who understood Android, understood the framework, and would follow Android to the grave. The popularity of the G1 was a direct reaction to the burgeoning iOS platform. The same thing happened in the WebOS space, but WebOS was exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time and is a disaster distinct from the Android launch.
 
Enterprise Data Software Company Splunk Prices IPO At $17 Per Share; Valued At $1.6B Top
splunkSplunk, an enterprise data company, will be making its debut on the public markets this morning after pricing its IPO at $17.00 per share (this is up from the range of $11 to $13 per share). At this price, Splunk is valued at a whopping $1.57 billion. Splunk, whose stock will begin trading on the Nasdaq today under the symbol "SPLK," raised $230 million in the offering. Splunk is a provider of intelligence software used to monitor, report and analyze real-time machine data as well as terabytes of historical data–located on-premise or in the cloud. For example, Splunk indexes and makes searchable data from any app, server or network device in real-time including logs, config files, messages, and alerts. Clients can also monitor distributed deployment across thousands of servers in multiple data centers; manage the infrastructure of a cloud platform-as-a-service (PaaS); monitor performance of cloud- delivered SaaS solutions and monitor hybrid SaaS/hosted models.
 
The TC NYC Mini-Meet Up Is Go! Here Are The Details Top
nycskylineAs we mentioned before, we were floating the idea of a mini meet up in our own back yard and we definitely got quite a bit of interest. So here we go: Get ready for the TC NYC Mini-Meet Up on May 8 at Bar13. We'll run from 6pm until about 10pm, with potential evening activities for those still in the mood. Note that the date and location have changed since our last post. We would have completely filled the AOL offices if we tried to do it there.
 
TuneUp Takes On Shazam With Free (And Ad-Free) Mobile Music ID App Top
03_listeningTuneUp, the service that cleans up your iTunes or Windows Media music collection, is moving into mobile from an unexpected angle. Unlike the TuneUp iTunes and Windows Media plugins, the main feature of the new iPhone app isn't its ability to correct song titles and supply missing album artwork. Instead, you can activate the app when you're listening to music that you don't recognize, then it will identify the song based on the audio. (You can also look up the lyrics, and there's a link to download the song from iTunes.) In other words, yes, the experience is pretty similar to Shazam and SoundHound.
 
BranchOut Hits 25 Million Users, Nabs $25M In Series C Funding Top
BranchOutBranchOut is officially going for the big time. The company, which makes a professional social network that runs on top of Facebook, is announcing today it has closed on $25 million in new funding, bringing its total venture capital investment to $49 million. This latest batch of money, which serves as BranchOut's Series C round, was led by the Mayfield Fund with the participation of previous investors Accel Partners, Norwest Venture Partners and Redpoint Ventures. The money will be used mainly for hiring more employees to add to BranchOut's current full-time staff of 45, founder and CEO Rick Marini said in an interview, which you can watch in full in the video embedded above. At less than two years old, BranchOut certainly seems to be on a fast track when it comes to funding. But according to Marini, the money is only following the company's very real growth. BranchOut now has more than 25 million registered users, more than half of which -- 13.5 million -- are active on the app each month. To put those numbers into context, more than three new users are joining BranchOut every second. When BranchOut first debuted in July 2010, it was often characterized as a "LinkedIn for Facebook" -- but it's becoming apparent that BranchOut is carving out a very clear identity of its own.
 
Lots Of Pain, No Gain: Nokia Reports $4B Drop In Q1 Sales To $9.7B, Blames Restructuring, Competition Top
Nokia-LogoNokia warned us last week that it would be reporting some worse-than-expected numbers, and here they are: sales down by $4 billion (€3.4 billion) to $9.7 billion (€7.4 billion), with a corresponding fall in earnings per share, down by a quarter of a euro and now at a loss per share of just over $0.10 (€0.08).
 
WPP Makes Big Leap Into E-Commerce, Leads On $10 Million mySupermarket Investment Top
mysupermarketThe media and advertising giant WPP is taking a big step into e-commerce and how it can use it to leverage its other digital investments: today it has announced that it is investing $7 million into the grocery comparison shopping site mySupermarket, part of a $10 million round that also includes participation from existing investors Greylock and Pitango. WPP says that it plans to use the investment to help extend its digital portfolio, and specifically help in the marketing and other services that it offers to is customers in packaged goods -- the FMCG segment is one of the most important in WPP's client base. The deal will see WPP become a minority shareholder in Dolphin Software, the company that makes mySupermarket.
 
Another Siri-Like App, Voice Answer, Hits The App Store For Those Of Us Without The iPhone 4S Top
Screen shot 2012-04-19 at 10.30.53Looks like Apple might be loosening its grip even more on voice recognition apps? Or, it simply just feels that the competition is not as good as its own native Siri. We've just gotten word from Netherlands-based developer Sparkling Apps that its voice-response app, Voice Answer -- rejected by Apple for nearly three months -- has been approved by Apple and is now live in the App Store, and usable on any iPhone, iPod or iPad running iOS 4.2 or later. It took "almost three months of negotiating, tweaking and pushing," developer Martijn van der Spek tells TechCrunch. Like Siri, the app is based on data from Wolfram Alpha, among other sources, and lets users ask questions by either speaking to the app or typing in a question. It's priced at £2.49 ($3.99).
 
Kixeye Is The Lucrative Dark Horse of Facebook Gaming Top
willWhile Zynga and other gaming companies seem to be doing everything possible to claw their way off the Facebook canvas, at least one San Francisco company is still in. Big time. With just shy of 5 million monthly active users on Facebook, Kixeye is ranked a dismal 72nd on the developer leaderboard behind Zynga, EA and Angry Birds-maker Rovio, according to tracking service AppData. But the astonishing revenue Kixeye makes per user has the company on track to gross more than $100 million in total revenue this year. That's up from between $25 to $50 million last year, according to an independent source familiar with Kixeye's financials. Kixeye is part of a class of companies that is taking Facebook gaming far from its "Cow Clicker" past. The company doesn't target the stereotypical 35-year-old female demographic that Zynga is well-known for, but rather a subset of hardcore gamers that are willing to pay up. Think fewer virtual potatoes and more epic sea battles.
 
Dorsey Pitching Square At $4B Valuation To Legg Mason, Fidelity And Other Institutional Investors Top
squarePayments company Square is raising another major round of funding, but is targeting institutional investors first because of the enormous size of the round, we hear from sources. Square's CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey and COO Keith Rabois have met with both Fidelity and Legg Mason over the past week, and as AllThingsD reported earlier, Square is looking to raise at a $4 billion valuation, which we've confirmed as well. In addition, we are also hearing that the company is raising around $250 million, which was originally reported in the New York Times. We hear Dorsey wrapped up the 10-day trip to the East Coast to conduct the raise.
 
With Help From Facebook Timeline, Viddy Becomes Top Free iPhone App Top
Screen shot 2012-04-18 at 5.56.43 PMWith the skyrocketing popularity and billion-dollar sale of Instagram, there's an ongoing race to apply Instagram's wildly successful photo sharing model to mobile video. There are a number of startups vying to claim the "Instagram for Video" title, with Socialcam, Viddy, Klip, Mobli, and even the infamous Color all in the running. Yet, today brings evidence that Viddy may now be the one to beat, as the social video sharing app became the top free iPhone app on the App Store -- with much of that growth emanating from its new Facebook Timeline app.
 
It's Not About Instagram — It's About Mobile Top
instagram logoIt has been more than a week now, but Techmeme today is dominated by Instagram related headlines. Was the Board involved? Did Marc Andreessen know? Did Instagram take the $50m from Sequoia and others before agreeing to be acquired? Was $2bn the right ask? Was $1 billion cheap or is it a bubble? These are soap opera-like questions. Interesting? For sure if you have insomnia. Deep? Not really. A week after the acquisition I think we all need to be stepping back and reflecting on the meaning of the deal as it relates to our future. Actually, if we do that, many of the other questions do become easier to answer, and possibly more interesting.
 
Facebook Targets May 17th For IPO Date Top
Screen Shot 2012-04-18 at 4.39.29 PMThis just in: According to multiple sources close to the company, Facebook is eying IPO on May 17th -- depending on whether the SEC agrees that all the reams of paperwork are in order.  This is in line with earlier reports that the company was going to hit NASDAQ during the third week of May. And also in line with what a single source told CNBC at depth, that the social network was considering either the 17th or the 24th.
 
MoveInsure Aims To Be Esurance For The Moving Industry Top
Screen shot 2012-04-17 at 5.30.01 PMBelieve it or not, 37 million Americans, or about 16 million households, pick up and move every year. Depending on whom you ask, we move as frequently as once every three years. Yes, moving is a part of life, albeit a stressful and emotional one. Unsurprisingly, the many services and operations that go into household moves have collectively come to represent a sizable industry. If you take transportation, warehousing and storage, packaging, processing, distribution, and logistics into account, industry revenues total more than $16.5 billion annually. The problem, however, is that the moving industry is rife with legacy systems and is dominated by a fragmented group of players, so a startup called MoveInsure has set out to streamline communication between those players and bring efficiency and automation to moving transactions, aiming to be the Esurance for the moving industry.
 
Here, Waste The Evening: Prince Of Persia Source Code Posted To Github Top
It's not every day that you see code like this:
*------------------------------- * Superimpose "Turn disk over" message *------------------------------- FLIPDISKMSG lda #flipbox ldx #>flipbox jmp superimage
Yep. That's assembly language, about as far from Ruby as you can get. It's from the original, Apple II version of Prince of Persia, one of the best games in anyone's childhood, anywhere. As we mentioned before, Jordan Mechner found the original disks in his father's place last month and was looking for someone to help pull the files off of the disks. Thanks to Jason Scott, Mechner held a copy party in his house to drag, kicking and screaming, into the light of day.
 

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