Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Y! Alert: TechCrunch

Yahoo! Alerts
My Alerts

The latest from TechCrunch

SocialTables Is An Event Planning App For The True Social Butterfly Top
scaled.socialtables-horizIf you've ever had to think about whether Uncle Phil (the one with the ear hair) should be sitting next to Aunt Clara (the one with the walker) or with the other guys at Frank's table ("Drunk" Frank), SocialTables has you covered. The site, recently relaunched with an entirely new UI and design, allows party planners to create mockups of their space, plop guests at different tables, and then organize the whole party via an iPad in real time. Never again will you have to cut out little circles and put little scraps of paper on the dining room table with each guest's name: this thing can do it for you. The platform is built in HTML5, which makes it easy to use in the browser, and the system pulls social data from each guest in the guest list, allowing party planners to seat like-minded people together or, barring that, create a little frisson by sticking cat lovers with stoat fans. It's completely collaborative and non-linear so multiple users can work on the same floorplan.
 
Tesla Motors: $27 Million Q2 Revenue, On Track To Ship 5000 Model S Sedans By Year-End Top
model-s-alpha-and-roadster_960x640_hTesla Motors, the Silicon Valley based electric car company led by PayPal founder Elon Musk, today announced its financial results for the second quarter of 2012. The announcement encompassed the standard earnings information -- revenue, spending, profits, and the like -- which we'll get to in a minute. But the real news most Tesla-watchers wanted to get from the Q2 results was an update on the rollout of the Model S, Tesla's new all-electric sedan that started shipping last month (you can watch my test drive of the car here.) But as far as the Model S production goes, there was no real news -- which, as they say, is good news.
 
Zynga Falls Short Of Analyst Estimates For Q2: $332M In Revenue, Bookings Decline From Last Quarter, Lowered Outlook Top
zynga logoZynga didn't meet analysts' already-low estimates in its just-released earnings for the second quarter of its fiscal year, in which it showed revenue of $332 million and lost $22.8 million, or 3 cents per share (according to GAAP measures). Analysts had predicted the company would earn 5 cents per share on revenue of $344 million. Zynga says it now has 72 million daily active users, up from 59 million in the previous quarter, and 306 million monthly active users, up from 228 million. Bookings, meanwhile, were $302 million, up 12 percent from the same period last year, but a sequential decline from the previous quarter.
 
Western Digital's Q4 2012 Earnings Beat Forecast: $4.8B in Revenue, Earnings of $2.87 Per Share Top
western_digital_logoWestern Digital just reported its earnings for its fourth financial quarter of 2012. The company reported revenue of 4.8$ billions and earnings per share of $2.87. On a non-GAAP basis, net income was $872 million, or $3.35 per share. That's far better than what most analysts expected and also better than the company's own guidance of $4.2 billion to $4.4 billion in revenue. The consensus was that Western Digital would report revenue around $4.25 billion and earnings of $2.47 per share. In the year-ago-quarter, the company reported earnings of $0.67 per share.
 
Hardware Startups: Join Us At TechCrunch Disrupt In San Francisco Top
hardware-alleyDisrupt has long been the birthplace of software startups - but that's changing. With the launch of Hardware Alley at Disrupt NY, we've inaugurated a very cool opportunity for hardware startups to grab a little Disrupt floor space and we're doing it again in San Francisco. Hardware Alley happens on the last day of Disrupt and lets you get into the event at a discounted rate for one or all three days. Smaller startups should contact me directly at john@techcrunch.com but if you're funded, ready to rock, and interested in holding court with some of SF's preeminent VCs and thinkers, head over here to buy tickets.
 
Paul Graham Says Y Combinator Companies Have Raised More Than $1 Billion Top
y-combinatorY Combinator co-founder Paul Graham tweeted today that YC's 380 companies (prior to the current batch) have raised $1,048,274,000. Y Combinator, which launched in 2005, takes on two classes of startups per year into their three month program, during which they mentor and connect the founders and invest in the companies.
 
Screw Objectivity: Study Finds Opinionated Journalism Boosts Civic Engagement Top
success kid little boy fist on beachVeteran journalists who sing the praises of objective reporting have steadily lost ground to the media's new guard of proudly opinionated voices, from broadcasters such as MSNBC and Fox News, to the growing menu of online news blogs. There's been endless theorizing over whether objectivity should dominate reporting in the 21st century, but what does the evidence say? A new experimental study [pdf] finds that opinionated reporting is better at motivating the politically unengaged than objective reporting.
 
Botiful Is The Telepresence Robot We've All Been Waiting For Top
56bade87c9e20b5475b661533d635946_largeWe've seen a few telepresence devices in our day, including the incredible AnyBot, but this little guy looks like it may make life at the office a little less weird and a little more bearable. It's essentially a little telepresence platform for your Android phone (if the creator, Claire Delaunay, nets $100,000 she'll make an iPhone version) that roams around and lets you chat with people in the vicinity. Think of it as a little robotic dog wearing your face.
 
Stealthy Online Shopping Startup Commerce Sciences Launches A Meebo Bar For E-Commerce Top
Commerce Sciences - LogoCommerce Sciences, the stealthy Israeli and Palo Alto-based e-commerce startup, is launching into open beta today, and is finally revealing what it has built. It's a Meebo Bar for e-commerce! The company made waves earlier this month when it announced $1.8 million in seed funding from Eric Schmidt's Innovation Endeavors, Israeli VC firm Genesis Partners, T5 Capital, and a number of angel investors, including Backplane board chairman and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale.
 
Did Apple Just Quietly End Development Of Safari For Windows? Top
safari_windows_logoSafari 6 brings improved performance and many new features to OS X, including offline reading lists, a unified search field and support for Do Not Track. What seems to be completely gone from Apple's site now, though, is any mention of the Windows version of Safari. Indeed, it looks like Apple has removed all download links for Safari from its site for the time being. This could be because Apple is currently highlighting Safari's new features in Mountain Lion (which pre-installs Safari 6), or because Apple has indeed ended development of Safari for Windows. Windows users can still download the old version from Apple, but the link is hidden on the company's support page.
 
HTC One X+ Rumored To Launch On T-Mobile Come September Top
one-xEarly last week, a screenshot of an internal T-Mobile document revealed the existence of a device perplexingly called the "HTC Era 42," which promptly caused some T-Mobile fans to drool uncontrollably. Some speculated that it would be the latest in T-Mobile's G-series of Android devices and would sport a physical keyboard because of HTC's track record with the carrier, but now TmoNews is calling it slightly differently. Instead of a brand new, keyboard-toting handset, editor David Beren has managed to confirm "with a small level of certainty" that the device is actually a tweaked version of the HTC One X called the One X+.
 
JIBE Goes SaaS To Make All Job Applications Mobile-Friendly Top
logoNew York City-based startup JIBE first appeared on the scene in late 2009 as LocalBacon, a job board that required job-seekers to pay 99 cents to apply for positions, weeding out less serious candidates. Several months later in March 2010, the company smartly re-positioned itself as JIBE -- a recruiting platform to help people find jobs through their social networks. The pivot was a smart one that led to funding and customer wins. But despite the traction, JIBE recently tweaked its mission once again -- and this could be its savviest move yet.
 
GiveForward Raises $2 Million For Crowd-sourced Donation Service Top
givefGiveForward, a crowdfunding site for people to raise money for loved ones during difficult times, announced a $2 million Series A round led by Founder Collective and First Round Capital, with Naval Ravikant and Firestarter Fund participating. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Today's announcement follows a previous $500,000 angel round in 2011 by New World Ventures, David Cohen, Howard Lindzon, Tim Krauskopf and others. Unlike Kickstarter and other crowdfunding sites, GiveForward is designed for users to raise money for a friend or family member in need. 
 
Collaborative Learning Startup Skillshare Introduces New Tools For Sharing Notes And Asking Questions Top
SkillshareSkillshare is devoted to the idea that people should be able to teach each other things, and has created a marketplace whereby anyone can create or attend a class of their choosing. Like an Eventbrite for peer-to-peer learning. But until today, it lacked a lot of the collaborative learning tools that teachers and students need to facilitate that process. So it's rolling out The Classroom, a new place where teachers and students can exchange notes, ask questions, and share resources. The idea for the Classroom came about after Skillshare saw how its students and teachers were interacting with each ever since launching last year, according to founder and CEO Mike Karnjanaprakorn. While it launched purely as a ticketing system for classes, it saw users interacting with each other on social networks, emailing course materials and sharing links on Facebook. So it decided to bring all of those features onto its site, as a way to aggregate the discussion in a single place and also to increase engagement and the usefulness of its site.
 
Microsoft's BUILD Developer Conference Set For Oct. 30 In Redmond, Week After Windows 8 Launch Top
build_microsoft-2012-redmondMicrosoft hosts a number of events for developers, including TechEd, MIX and PDC. The other major event Microsoft has hosted since it announced that it was working on Windows 8 is BUILD. This year, the company just announced, BUILD will take place on its Redmond campus from October 30 to November 2. Just like PDC, BUILD doesn't run on a set annual schedule, but when the company feels it has something important to communicate to its developers. This year, the conference is obviously scheduled to coincide with the launch of Windows 8 on October 26 and the launch of Windows Phone 8, which should also fall around this time.
 
You've Got Facebook Fans, Now What? Booshaka Raises $1M To Ensure Your Posts Earn You Money Top
Booshaka Logo FeatureIt doesn't matter if you have one million Facebook fans if they never see your news feed posts. That's why SV Angel, Founders Fund Angel, and more have backed a $1 million Series A for news feed optimization service Booshaka, which is also launching a big product update today. The startup helps businesses identify their most active fans -- especially the 10% generating 90% of the engagement -- and incentivize them to leave even more wall posts, Likes, and comments. This feedback signals to Facebook's news feed sorting algorithm EdgeRank that a business is high-quality and that its posts should be shown to a higher percentage of its fans. More impressions -> more clicks and awareness -> higher return on investment for businesses on their social media spend. This is social SEO, and it's worth paying Booshaka for.
 
Keen On… Jeremiah Owyang: Why The Internet Is No Longer A Conversation [TCTV] Top
Screen Shot 2012-07-24 at 11.33.27 AMOnce upon a time, we were told that markets are "conversations". But that's all changed. At least if you listen to Jeremiah Owyang, a much respected "Internet Analyst" at the Altimeter Group. As Owyang explained to me when he came into our San Francisco studio, today's Internet is now in what he calls its third "optimization" phase in which the online conversation has been replaced by hyper-targeted ads from companies like Google and Facebook. Indeed, Owyang told me, the big online battle today is between Facebook and Google over how our data will be controlled and leveraged.
 
Maily For iPad Is Your Kids' First Email Application Top
maily1Maily is a new iPad app launching today that aims to be your kids' first email application. Because, you know, kids these days and their busy schedules. Ha! In all seriousness, Maily is a communications tool that lets kids easily share messages and drawings with family and friends through a simplified interface that even a small child as young as three can manage, at least according to early tests.
 
LG's Q2 2012 Earnings: $138M In Net Profits, Up 46% YOY, Phone Sales Still Lagging Top
LG headquartersLG has been turning a corner of late, getting its mobile division out of a six-quarter-long rut. Today's Q2 report outlines a 46 percent increase in net profits year-over-year at $138 million, though phone sales continue to be an obstacle. Overall revenues went up from last quarter, but are still down from a year ago. The handset division in particular had an operating loss of $49.5 million, which has a lot to do with the decline in feature phone sales. Smartphone sales, on the other hand, rose to 44 percent of all units sold, which is up from Q1's 36 percent.
 
24.9M Tablets Sold In Q2, With Apple's Share Of That Now Over 68%, Says Strategy Analytics Top
new-ipad-black-640x480-jpeg-1One of the strong points in Apple's quarterly earnings report yesterday was sales of the iPad. Globally, they were up 52% by revenue and 84% by unit sales, respectively to $9 billion and 17 million. In some new figures out today, Strategy Analytics notes that this translates to an increase in overall tablet market share for the company: Apple now controls 68.3% of the market, compared to 62% in Q2 a year ago, in an overall tablet market that saw shipments of 24.9 million units. So much for analyst predictions: here's one (of several) that had forecast a decline in Apple's market share. So why the reversal? It looks like the competition that many had been expecting to give Apple a run for its money has failed to materialize. But while Apple's market share is the best it's been in years, Strategy Analytics also cautions that overall the market has also witnessed its slowest growth rate since the first iPad launched in Q2 2010, a result of a slowdown in the global economy, it says.
 

CREATE MORE ALERTS:

Auctions - Find out when new auctions are posted

Horoscopes - Receive your daily horoscope

Music - Get the newest Album Releases, Playlists and more

News - Only the news you want, delivered!

Stocks - Stay connected to the market with price quotes and more

Weather - Get today's weather conditions




You received this email because you subscribed to Yahoo! Alerts. Use this link to unsubscribe from this alert. To change your communications preferences for other Yahoo! business lines, please visit your Marketing Preferences. To learn more about Yahoo!'s use of personal information, including the use of web beacons in HTML-based email, please read our Privacy Policy. Yahoo! is located at 701 First Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA 94089.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)