Tuesday, May 29, 2012

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Cook Reveals More Details About Apple's Product Naming Policies, And Yes, The 'S' Stands For Siri Top
photoApple's product naming polices can be somewhat confusing and arbitrary: And today an audience member at D10 called Apple CEO Tim Cook out on the somewhat bizarre strategy, "How did you guys go from an iPad to an iPad 2 to an iPad 4 to a 4s?" "A lot of people ask me that question," he said.
 
With $1.3M In New Funding, CodeGuard Launches Its Free Website Backup, Monitoring Service Top
Screen shot 2012-05-29 at 6.27.47 PMAt TechCrunch Disrupt NYC last May, the unanimous winner of the "Audience Choice" award was a young, Atlanta-based startup called CodeGuard. The startup caught the audience's attention based on a simple value proposition: To become a "time machine for your website." In other words, CodeGuard's free service allows any site owner to back up their website and revert to earlier versions, while monitoring for infections. After months of tweaking and beta testing, today CodeGuard is officially pulling back the curtain on a new-and-improved service, backed by a fresh $1.3 million in funding from Imlay Investments and a host of angel investors, including Palaniswamy Rajan, Bert Ellis, Tom Noonan, Matt Chanoff, and Merrick Furst.
 
Tim Cook On Apple TV: "We're Going To Keep Pulling The String" Top
apple tvApple CEO Tim Cook talked about the company's TV plans tonight at the D10 conference. His comments were all pretty vague, but if nothing else, he hinted strongly that Apple does in fact have plans for future TV products. When interviewers Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher pressed Cook on whether he thinks the current Apple TV product is good enough, he said, "We're going to keep pulling this string and see where it takes us." Mossberg then suggested that the current version of Apple TV doesn't solve all of the problems with TV watching, to which Cook replied, "I agree" — but he didn't want to talk about it further. Of course, a full-fledged Apple TV (one that includes an actual TV) has been rumored for a long time now, and this isn't the first time the company's executives have suggested that big plans in this area — but if nothing else, Cook's comments should chase any lingering doubts away.
 
Tim Cook On Apple's (Tumultuous) Relationship With Facebook, "Stay Tuned" Top
photoAsked onstage by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher about what could be done about the lack of Facebook integration on iOS despite it's formidable 900 million uses, as well as other stalls in the Apple and Facebook relationship (Ping anyone?), Apple CEO Tim Cook mysteriously replied, "Stay tuned." Multiple times. "Facebook is a great company." Cook said, "And the relationship is solid. I saw Sheryl (Sandberg) earlier outside. We have great respect for each other."
 
The Most Important Lesson Tim Cook Learned From Steve Jobs: "Focus Is Key" Top
photoIn his first major public interview since replacing Steve Jobs as CEO, Tim Cook took the stage with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher at the tenth annual All Things D conference to talk about the state of Apple. "Apple has gone through a tremendous change," Walt Mossberg segued into perhaps the most important question of the interview, "How is Apple different with you as the CEO?" "I learned a lot from Steve," Cook responded. "It was the saddest day of my life when he passed away. As much as you should see or predict that I really didn't. It's time to get on." Cook said that he most admired Jobs' "intense determination" and described him as "laser-focused." Cook also explained that the most important leadership lesson he learned from Jobs is that  "'Focus is key' .. not just in running your company but in your personal life. You can only do certain things well."
 
Educational App Maker Mindshapes Picks Up $4M Round Led By Index; Adds Big 5 Publishers To Magic Town Top
magic town lionAnother funding announcement that underscores what big business kids' and educational apps can be. Mindshapes, a UK-based developer of interactive learning apps, has picked up a $4 million round of funding led by Index Ventures, with Richmond Park Partners and existing investors also participating. The news caps off an eventful couple of weeks for Mindshapes. Earlier in the month, it had launched a flagship app, Magic Town, which Mindshapes calls the first virtual world based on picture book characters. Magic Town, a highly visual app, incorporates content licensed from Hachette Group, Simon & Schuster and Penguin Group, among others, into e-learning tasks. Mindshapes is ramping up content on Magic Town quickly: it currently contains content from 70 popular picture books but aims to have 200 titles in there by year's end.
 
An $800M Buddy Media Acquisition Would Be Worth 8X Its Current Revenue Top
buddy media logoSalesforce.com may be close to acquiring Buddy Media in the largest social media marketing acquisition to date, according to sources close to the company. AllThingsD reported earlier today that Salesforce is getting close to a deal for more than $800 million, and we'd heard acquisition rumors earlier this week too, though Buddy Media declined to comment. Now our sources say the price may be considerably higher depending on the equity component of the deal. That may put it more in the neighborhood of $1 billion. If the acquisition happens in that price range, the deal would would be an impressive multiple given Buddy's current revenue run rate. As of last year, Buddy was projecting a run rate of $100 million for 2012 and $180 million for 2013, we hear. That's a much more generous multiple than the 3x one that Vitrue got in its $300 million acquisition by Oracle.
 
Groupon Picks Up Breadcrumb For A Little Point-of-Sale Magic Top
Screen shot 2012-05-29 at 3.27.07 PMGroupon just announced via its blog that it has acquired Breadcrumb, the creators of an affordable point of sale system and iPad app that targets local restaurants. While the terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed, Groupon has made a run of acquisitions over the last six months, and this move is likely one being made for talent. Not only that but the daily deals behemoth is looking to create more defined inroads with local mom and pop restaurants in its quest to become "the OS for local commerce," and adding Breadcrumb and its technology to the team is a step in that direction.
 
Google Brings ChromeOS To The Desktop, Launches Its First Chromebox Top
chromebox_largeGoogle, together with its partner Samsung, launched a new Chromebook and its first desktop Chromebox today. The most important change to the new Samsung Series 5 Chromebook is that it is significantly faster. While earlier versions featured a battery-friendly Intel Atom chip, these first Chromebooks often felt underpowered. This new version features an Intel Core chip, as well as 4GB of RAM, an HD camera, two USB 2.0 ports and a 1280x800 display. Pricing starts at $449 for the WiFi-only version. While this is a nice update, what's more interesting here is the launch of Google's first Chromebox ($329), a Mac Mini-like desktop version of the Chromebook that features more ports than the Chromebook, though it is missing an SD card reader. Otherwise, though, its specs are pretty similar to the laptop version. This is the first time Google is officially putting ChromeOS on a desktop machine, something it hopes will make the browser-centric operating system more appealing to business customers.
 
Why Facebook Is Still The Perfect Startup (Slides) Top
Facebook and mobile walled gardensFacebook had another tough day today in the public markets, with shares now trading at around $28 after debuting less than two weeks ago at $42.05. Good timing, then, for a new slideshow report out today from the boutique French consulting firm faberNovel, which encourages us to look at the bigger picture, and why, in its words, Facebook is "the perfect startup." The mammoth slideshow is an annual thing for faberNovel, which picks one company to tackle each year -- others have included how Amazon controls e-commerce, how Apple dominates, and what could go wrong with Google. Like those before, the one out today on Facebook is a deep-dive into the company, and it looks not just at the origins of the social network, but what sets it apart from other attempts at global social networks -- and other startups. (And by the way, faberNovel sees all this drama and attention on the IPO as just "one point on a startup trajectory." Some investors may not feel quite the same.)
 
For Your Programmer's Arsenal: A Working Clippy For Any Web Page Top
Screen Shot 2012-05-29 at 5.28.06 PMYou're hitting deadline and you want to add that special something that will totally knock your web app out of the park. Do you add rounded corners? A Tweet This button? No, motherlover, you add Clippy JS. Clippy JS, made by Smore, is a cute little bit of Javascript code that allows you to embed Clippy, Merlin, Rover, or Links (all of Microsoft Office fame) into any webpage. You can make these folks do all kinds of things including look around, jump up and down, and even converse with your users. Why? Because it's funny, that's why.
 
Keen On… Andrew Keen: On The Social Web's 'Creepiness' And How To Stop It [TCTV] Top
Screen Shot 2012-05-29 at 2.23.04 PMIn this very unique edition of the "Keen On" web video series series typically hosted by Andrew Keen, we had the chance to turn the tables on the self-professed antichrist of Silicon Valley. Keen was interviewed on-stage by our own Alexia Tsotsis last week at the TechCrunch Disrupt NYC conference, so I was able to snag him just after that for a conversation about his new book, "Digital Vertigo: How Today's Online Social Revolution Is Dividing, Diminishing, and Disorienting Us."
 
Akismet Just Filtered Its 50 Billionth Piece Of Spam, Now Seeing 700 Spam Comments Per Second Top
akismet_greenWordPress just hit an impressive milestone today: it has now filtered its 50 billionth piece of spam. Akismet, the homegrown comment filtering system from WordPress maker Automattic is the tool responsible for all the spam fighting. And those spammers keep the system busy. In April, Akismet blocked 1.8 billion spam messages, or 60 million pieces of spam per day, 2.5 million per hour, or 700 per second. Whoa, that's a lot of spam.
 
RIM Halts Trading To Issue Business Update, Hires RBC And J.P. Morgan For "Strategic Review" Top
rimoneyCanadian smartphone manufacturer RIM has briefly ceased trading of their stock today in order to issue a "business update" from CEO Thorsten Heins to their stockholders. Though the release takes the time to outline some of the company's recent personnel changes, Heins also points out that the company has enlisted the services of both the Royal Bank of Canada and J.P. Morgan to help the company evaluate their financial strategies going forward.
 
Bitly Goes Beyond Link Shortening, But Its Users Are Not Amused Top
bitly logoBitly launched a major update and redesign of its link shortening service today that, in the eyes of many of its users, de-emphasizes some of its core feature. Instead of being able to just copy and paste a link, users now have to go through a few extra steps to get their shortened links, for example. This extra complexity brings many new features to the service, but some of its users are anything but happy about the changes.
 
Facebook Has Lost About $35 Billion In Value Since IPO As Shares Dip Below $29 Top
Screen Shot 2012-05-29 at 12.51.12 PMPain, pain, and more pain for Facebook's stock. Facebook sunk into the $20s for the first time today, declining about 9 percent as options trading started. The decline also came a day after a third wave of reports came out about a Facebook phone, which would push the company into the risky and expensive world of building hardware. Shares hit a new low of $28.65 and have closed nearly 10 percent lower at $28.84. After-hours trading has the company down another 0.5 percent to $28.69. That gives the company a market capitalization of $79.02 billion, down from $115 billion market cap Facebook opened at on the day of its IPO when it started trading at $42.05 a share.** (That said, if you're a glass-is-half-full kind of person, Facebook is now cheap, cheap, cheap!)
 
Game Closure Poaches Zynga's CTO Of Mobile To Lead HTML5 Game Development Top
l_desegur_game closureLast we heard from Game Closure, the young startup had just turned down offers from Zynga and Facebook on its way to a $12 million raise from Highland Capital, Greylock, Benchmark, General Catalyst, and more. Even in spite of $100 million-plus offers, Game Closure CEO Michael Carter tells us that the startup is not eager to sell -- not now, and not in the future. Yet, stealing high-placed executives at the big gaming companies? Not a problem. Today, Game Closure, which is building a game development environment and SDK that makes it easy for developers to create, host, and deploy HTML5, cross-platform, multiplayer games, is announcing that it has poached Laurent Desegur away from Zynga, making the engineer and executive VP of Mobile Engineering. Until recently, Desegur had been CTO of Zynga Mobile, on top of being a veteran of Netflix, Big Fish Games, Amazon, Apple, and EA -- to name a few.
 
Amazon Instant Video Comes to Xbox 360 Top
xbox_amazon)instantAmazon just announced that its Instant Video service is now available on Microsoft's Xbox 360. With the Amazon Instant Video app for Xbox Live Gold subscribers, Xbox users can now access the roughly 120,000 movies and TV episodes available for renting and purchasing on Amazon's streaming video service. The app also offers access to the more limited Prime Instant video selection, Amazon's video service for its $79/year Prime members.
 
Doing It Wrong: Irish Newspaper Licensing Organization Asks Women's Charity To Pay For Links Top
spanish_inquisitionAn Irish women's charity, Women's Aid, linked to some articles on the Irish Examiner (like this, this, and this) and thought that all was right with the world. Heck, that's how the Internet works, right? It turns out that according to the Irish Newspaper Licensing organization, you need to pay to link to the newspapers. And there the troubles begin.
 
HTC Evo 4G LTE Review: Initial Impressions (Hands-On Photos) Top
photo8Evo. It's one of the few HTC/Sprint models to make a splash in the mobile ocean, and after a brief stay at U.S. customs, the latest iteration should do the same. The Evo 4G LTE is the most powerful Evo to date, with a 4.7-inch 720p display, a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, and 1GB of RAM under the hood. But these specs are in no way novel, which means that quite a bit comes down to HTC's software offerings and design language.
 

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