Tuesday, July 31, 2012

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Amazon Updates Cloud Player: Scan & Match Imports, 256 Kbps Audio Upgrades, Premium Accounts Top
cloudplayer-logoAmazon just updated its Cloud Player music storage service with a number of interesting new features, including an iTunes Match-like scan and match technology that allows Amazon to just scan a user's music library and add matching songs to that user's library without having to upload those songs one by one. Just like Apple, Amazon now also upgrades the audio quality of matched files to 256kbps audio, no matter the original bitrate. In addition, Amazon will automatically move all of its users' previously purchased music from its MP3 store to Cloud Player. To enable these new scan and match imports and audio upgrades, Amazon signed deals with Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Music, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and more than 150 independent distributors, aggregators and music publishers.
 
Google Acquires Wildfire, Will Now Sell Social Marketing Services On Facebook and Twitter Top
blog_imageGoogle has just bought social marketing software developer Wildfire, which lets brands serve marketing and ad campaigns on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube and LinkedIn. Wildfire has grown to 400 employees over the last four years and now serves 16,000 customers. Several sources and blogs say the sale price was around $250 million The acquisition will allow Google to provide advanced software and services to brands who want to run contests, sweepstakes, branded games and more on Google+. Wildfire will still operate as a marketing tool for brands on Google's competing platforms, including Facebook, putting the search giant in an curious position.
 
NBC Retracts Complaint, Guy Adams Is Back On Twitter Top
twitter-nbc2Independent reporter Guy Adams Twitter account was restored today. It was suspended after Adams tweeted NBC President of the Olympics Gary Zenkel's email address. Adams tweeted in two parts, "Twitter emails to tell me: "we have just received an update from the complainant retracting their original request...Therefore your account has been unsuspended." No further explanation given, or apology offered."
 
Welcome To The New And Improved Yahoo Mail. And It's Crashing. Top
Screen Shot 2012-07-31 at 10.44.47 AMYahoo Mail users were surprised today by an upgrade that never went through, blocking them from accessing their inbox. Hundreds of users have taken to Yahoo Answers to try to figure out what's happening. Yahoo user "Brad" started a popular thread, "I got a message that Yahoo Mail has been upgraded, that it's faster and easier to use. Yahoo said I needed to consent to the new terms of service. I clicked Accept and the screen blinks and gives me the same Accept or No Thanks option."
 
Is The #NBCFail On Olympics Coverage Giving Rise To VPN Pirates? Top
BBC streaming blocked? StrongVPN promoted tweetWe've been pretty outspoken about NBC's coverage of the Olympics. From what looked like a good start full of social media promise, the broadcaster has failed to deliver the most crucial element of all: a large, unfettered river of live sports content from the event itself, available to anyone, not just cable subscribers (coverage here, here, and here). It's been getting a lot of grief on platforms like Twitter, but one subset of annoyed U.S. consumers have taken a more industrious route: getting VPN services. "We have seen a very large spike in UK VPN sales in the last week," says Phil Blancett, president of StrongVPN.com, a VPN service provider that gives customers the option of a U.S. or UK IP address. With a UK address, users can effectively visit BBC's site, as if they were in the UK, meaning they would have full access to the Beeb's online Olympics video offerings: live plus catch-up streams for every single event, tagged in small chunks based on individual athletes for easy navigation. A regular U.S. user would normally be geo-blocked from accessing this -- it is available, theoretically, only to UK TV license fee holders.
 
Caught Blue-Handed: Someone is Buying Mitt Romney Twitter Popularity Top
edited-countIt looks like someone made the colossally silly decision to buy Mitt Romney Twitter followers. In just a few days earlier this month, Romney saw of a spike of 150,000 Twitter followers, and most of these likely fake accounts, had less than 2 followers themselves, according to some crack reporting by The Atlantic. It is unknown whether the purchase was made by someone at Camp Romney, a clueless PR flack, or a conspirator trying to make him look bad. Regardless, fibbing politicians are a serious affront to democracy, and someone owes the American people an explanation.
 
Google May Soon Give Chromebook Users 100 GB Of Free Google Drive Storage Top
Google DriveGoogle's browser-centric Chromebooks have now found their way into your local big-box electronic store and they seem to be a hit with schools, but there is little evidence that mainstream users are warming up to Google's ChromeOS devices. Nevertheless, the company is pressing on with this program and now it looks like Google has a nice perk for ChromeOS users up its sleeve that could make Chromebooks a bit more palatable for mainstream users. Google+ user Francois Beaufort recently noticed a few lines in Google's source code for ChromeOS that seem to indicate that Google is about to give Chromebook owners 100GB of free online storage on Google Drive.
 
Facebook Unleashes Powerful Marketing Tool: Page Post Targeting By Age, Gender, Likes, and More Top
182042_10150187066264572_2673726_nToday Facebook begins the roll out of "Page Post Targeting Enhanced" allowing Pages to target their posts to segments of fans with certain genders, ages, and other characteristics so they can tailor market messages to specific audiences. For example, a business could tell teens they've got "swag" while telling adults they're "reputable". Until now, Facebook Pages could only target posts to fans of certain locations and languages, but the social network just told some admins that the new targeting options are opening to a select number of Pages today and will roll out to all Pages over the next few weeks. The tool could make Pages even more useful to marketers and convince them to pay for ads to buy additional fans.
 
Shelby.tv Raises $2.2 Million More To Rebuild Its Video Discovery Platform From The Ground Up Top
shelbylogoWhen Shelby.tv shut down its online video discovery engine earlier this month, some viewed it as a sign that the New York City-based startup was in trouble. While Reece Pacheco assured users that and headcount would remain the same, it's not every day that a startup just pulls its product without having something new ready to show off. Well, breathe easy Shelby.tv fans: Investors have doubled down with a new round of funding, allowing the team to continuing working on bringing the next version of its video discovery app to market. Last summer, Shelby.tv raised $1.5 million from Avalon Ventures and a group of angels that included DFJ's Tim Draper, Buddy Media's Mike Lazerow, Simulmedia's Dave Morgan, former Flatiron Partners member Jerry Colonna, Hashable's Mike Yavonditte, extension.fm's Charles Smith, Saba's Bobby Yazdani, Hearst's George Kliavkoff, and Allen Morgan, who was formerly with Mayfield. Avalon's Rich Levandov and Brady Bohrmann also joined the board. Now those investors are back for more, putting an additional $2.2 million into Shelby.tv.
 
Y Combinator-Backed Hiptype Launches A Google Analytics-Style Service For E-Books Top
Hiptype_LogoA new startup called Hiptype wants to bring the bring all the analytics data that have become standard on the Web to the world of e-books. Hiptype's co-founders, James Levy (CEO) and Sohail Prasad (CTO), describe the product as "Google Analytics for e-books." They say they were collaborating on an e-book of their own about big data, and they were surprised to find that the information available via the big e-book stores is limited to download numbers/sales, user ratings, and reviews. There are other products trying to provide more detailed analytics, but they require publishers to go through a specific store.
 
Obama Campaign Releases Mobile Voter Engagement App Top
tax_ncObama For America released the iPhone version of a voter engagement app today with the Android version set to be released soon. The app is meant to bolster the campaign's grassroots efforts, 100 days out from November's presidential election. The app synchronizes with Facebook, Twitter, email and SMS, as well as a web app, Dashboard, on the OFA website. The campaign is billing the smartphone app as a tactic that will allow organizers, volunteers and voters to better engage with the campaign.
 
Decide.com's Shopping Engine Now Tells You What To Buy, Not Just When To Buy It Top
decideLogoDecide.com, the shopping engine that tells you when to buy, is expanding into a new frontier: it's now going to tell you what to buy, too. The service, launched last summer by former Farecast engineers following that company's acquisition, has come a long way since its original debut where it was positioned as an electronics-only shopping service. Today, Decide offers "buy or wait" recommendations across 150 product categories, and will now start the rollout of its new product recommendations across 16 categories within the electronics and appliance verticals, with more to come. Says Decide CEO Mike Fridgen, the company is on its way to becoming the "big data technology version of Consumer Reports."
 
Microsoft Reboots Mail Service, Calls It Outlook; Attacks Clutter, Adds Social Top
Screen Shot 2012-07-31 at 11.50.46 AMContinuing its rollout of updated and revamped services, Microsoft today is releasing a preview of its upcoming mail client reboot. Outlook, as it will be called going forward, is a fresh take on a dated service (cough: Hotmail) that some people still use. So what's new in Outlook?
 
Gay Mobile Social Network Hornet Is Fabulous: Rakes In 150K Users With 150% MOM Growth Top
Screen shot 2012-07-31 at 11.58.25 AMWhile location-based social dating apps haven't gotten the best rap of late — Skout being a particularly egregious example — a certain segment of the population seems to just love them: the gay folks. Grindr has seen incredible success since its launch, and now a new gay dating app is set to make things a little more interesting. Hornet, which has raised $500K in funding since its January launch, has seen 150,000 users in the past six months. And that's only expected to keep growing, as PandoDaily reports 150 percent month-over-month growth and 100,000 sessions per day.
 
Apple TV Finally Adds Hulu Plus — Why It Took So Long, And Why It Makes Sense Now Top
AppleTVGood news for Hulu Plus fans who also happen to have an Apple TV in their homes: The subscription VOD service is now available as an app on the streaming device. But wait -- why is Hulu Plus coming to Apple TV now, years after it first began rolling out on other connected devices? Well, there are a few likely reasons. For one, the new Hulu Plus app lets users sign up for the service using Apple's own in-app purchasing and subscription renewal. Hulu follows Netflix, which also recently added subscription directly through the streaming box. Previously, both had eschewed such purchasing options, in part because, as payment processor Apple TV took a cut of the $7.99 subscription. But also because, with users signing up directly through Apple TV (or any Apple device, really), Apple owns the customer and billing information, something that those companies don't want to lose control over.
 
Could A New Coupon App Bring Facebook One Step Closer To Retail Commerce? Top
redplum social savings valassisThere have been some signals coming from Facebook that point to how it could one day become a platform for e-commerce beyond apps and virtual goods on Facebook itself. There are its patent holdings, and there is the code for a (not live) "Want" button to use on posts for particular products that could trigger a purchase. Today comes one more opening on this front, but from a third party rather than Facebook itself: couponing giant Valassis, which already works with some 15,000 advertisers to create electronic coupons, has launched a new Facebook app that lets brands offer coupons that can be printed or downloaded directly within Facebook itself, without taking users off the site -- a first for Facebook, according to Valassis' chief digital officer Jim Parkinson.
 
NBCFail: Would Twitter Delete Gaga's Account If She Linked To An Email? Top
imageWe're not going to apologise for returning to the storm surrounding the suspension of a journalist's Twitter account because in a free-speech democracy, this stuff matters. To re-cap: The Twitter account of Guy Adams, a US-based journalist for the UK-based Independent newspaper has been suspended by Twitter. In common with many, many media outlets, Adams has been highly critical of NBC's Olympics coverage, and he's by no means alone. But when he tweeted a top NBC executive's email address, NBC complained, and his account was suspended, as we've reported, for allegedly posting someone else's private information. Something against the company's rules. (Twitter and NBC are partners for the Olympic Games, although there's no suggestion that there is any conspiracy here).
 
Sprout Social Releases Queue and ViralPost To Help Clients Better Reach Their Audience Top
s2_5_splashSprout Social, a social management and publishing tool suite, released Sprout Queue and ViralPost today, estimating that the new features will help brands increase engagement with social content by 30-40%. Sprout, founded in 2010, offers users tools for social media monitoring and engagement, a "smart inbox" that combines social feeds, collaborative tools and analytics, among other features. CEO Justyn Howard tells me the company, which counts Nike, McDonald's and Yahoo among its more high-profile clients, is known for its simple user interface and collaborative style.
 
Evernote Hires CNET's Rafe Needleman As Its New Platform Advocate For Third-Party Apps Top
rafeneedlemanEvernote, the Silicon Valley company that makes note-taking and personal archiving software, is announcing today that it's hired longtime tech journalist Rafe Needleman as its new Platform Advocate and the leader of its newly-formed "Developer Voice Platform." Needleman is joining Evernote from CNET, where he's worked as an editor and writer covering startups and Silicon Valley since 2004.
 
Pinterest-Like Social Travel Planner Trippy Inks Deals With 6 Major Brands, 20 More To Come Top
Chase_profileTrippy, the social travel planner which debuted last fall at TechCrunch Disrupt, is going to begin pulling in some additional revenue starting today, thanks to a newly launched feature: brand profile pages. The initial lineup includes roughly half a dozen brands such as Chase Sapphire Preferred, Thompson Hotels, Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau, Hilton Hotels & Resorts, Brides, Air New Zealand, and Forkly. However, Trippy founder J.R. Johnson says they've got about 20 more brands waiting in the wings, which will roll out over the next few weeks.
 

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