Tuesday, July 3, 2012

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Rumor: Twitter To Acquire Sense Networks To Target Twitter Ads Locally Top
sense-networks-2008-logoA good source tells me that Twitter is set to make its sixth acquisition of 2012 with NY-based Sense Networks. Terms of the deal are still under wraps but it is expected to go through this month. Twitter declined to comment. Sense Networks was founded in 2003 and in 2006 launched MacroSense, which the company says "turns massive amounts of mobile location data into actionable, predictive behavioral data." What that means is Sense not only collects location data from mobile devices when shared but also takes that data and creates a unique behavioral user profile to serve ads that users would find useful.
 
Can Someone Send TechCrunch's Fax Number To Vanity Fair? Top
faxmachine Vanity Fair is one of my all-time favorite magazines -- it publishes loads of incredibly well-written stories about fascinating topics and people. Its regular features, like My Stuff and the Proust Questionnaire, are always entertaining. So, I was pretty excited to get an email from one of Vanity Fair's publicists this morning, offering an advance copy of a story that will run in the August issue.
 
Little "Want" Button Code Foreshadows Big Things For Facebook Ecommerce Top
Screen shot 2012-07-03 at 21.58.49Last week, developer Tom Waddington uncovered Facebook code that points to the creation of a "Want" button -- a plugin that potentially points to a new kind of commercial innovation being developed by Facebook itself, different from "want" buttons already being developed by third parties (one example here), and partially working but only within Facebook's Graph API tester. He's continued to dig around and today has presented us with some of his latest finds: looking deeper into Facebook's code, he found more references that point to how Facebook might be thinking about how users can share purchasing information with each other.
 
Please Welcome Alex Williams, Greg Ferenstein, Christine Ying And TechCrunch Interns Billy Gallagher And Natalie Swope Top
863163You may have noticed some new bylines popping up these past couple of days. You're not hallucinating! We've quietly made several new additions to the TechCrunch roster this summer and hiring continues to be our first priority across all departments. In addition to specialist writers like Alex Williams and Greg Ferenstein, we've added a couple of interns and a rockstar product manager to our team. We're also busy with other parts of the company, adding more people to our events team, and working on important but unglamorous projects like getting the site to load faster (hallelujah). Here's the latest on the newest folks we've got working here, and why you might want to talk to each of them.
 
Verizon Wireless Stops Subsidizing Tablets, Now Selling Them At Full Retail Sans Wireless Contract Top
verizonWatch out for exploding prices! Verizon Wireless just stopped subsidizing tablets, which naturally results in a lot higher advertised prices. Want a 16GB Motorola XYZBoard? That will be $629. A Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7? Hand over $549. Verizon Wireless quietly made the switch late last month when launching the "Share Everything" family plans. With this new service contract, subscribers have the option of allowing a tablet access to the bucket of data shared among devices. In the past tablets required a separate data plan, and therefore a separate contract, which locked owners into a tablet that will likely be quickly outdated.
 
With Added Backing From Alexis Ohanian, Harj Taggar, Garry Tan & SV Angel, Quarterly Reopens Its Doors Top
screen-shot-2012-03-28-at-6-11-54-pmAs we spend more and more time online, as our virtual interactions increase, so too does our appreciation for tangible, real-world experiences -- especially those that arrive via the mailbox. Remember how good it feels to receive a letter from a friend in the mail? Now imagine that friend is someone you admire and that letter is an awesome gift, and you have the basis for Quarterly, a subscription-based service that launched last December. Promising curated gifts from notable designers and tech industry celebs for $25/month, Quarterly quickly found an eager audience. In fact, founder Zach Frechette tells us that due to high demand (i.e. $100K in gross sales in 12 weeks), Quarterly had to shut its doors on new users so it could catch up on fulfilling original prescriptions and re-architect for scale. And today, those doors are being re-opened, with new contributors waiting in the wings.
 
Redux Partners With YouTube Stars To Sell Their Movie "Smiley" Directly To Fans Top
Redux_Logo_White-300x231Redux has been through a couple of iterations over the years: Originally launched as a platform for social discovery of video, the startup bet big on building an app for Google TV to create a "lean back" experience for navigating channels of online video. Now it's adding a distribution platform for independent content creators to the mix. When Humble Bundle released its first movie, Kooky, it was Redux that powered distribution for the film. The next project to leverage Redux for Artists will be Smiley, a feature-length film that was a collaboration of YouTube stars like Shane Dawson and Michael Gallagher. Those folks will be distributing the film directly to fans online, selling it for $8 and making it available as a stream or download.
 
Google Shutdowns Continue: iGoogle, Google Video, Google Mini & Others Are Killed Top
GoogleAxeGoogle is continuing to shut down services which aren't core to its business - something it has been actively doing ever since Google co-founder Larry Page took over as CEO. Today, the tradition continues as Google is announcing the shuttering of five more services, the most notable of which are Google Video and iGoogle, its personalized homepage offering.
 
WeForPresident: Myspace's Former Political Director Brings Social Media, Gamification To Politics Top
weforpresidentDuring the 2008 campaign (probably the first election where social media played a significant role in getting a president into office) Lee Brenner handled political programming at Myspace. This time around, he's part of team launching a new a site of its own, called WeForPresident — aiming, in his words, to "build a platform that can democratize the debate." The site was created by HyperVocal (the online media company co-founded by Brenner and Slade Sohmer) and BlocRally. It's hardly the first website for political debate — over the past few years, I've talked to several companies trying to launching debate platforms, most recently Politix, the politics-focused service from forum company Topix. Brenner, however, argues that WeForPresident is the first site to integrate this deeply with Facebook and other social networking services.
 
HP's Unreleased, All-Touch webOS Phone Spotted In Video Teaser Top
windsornotI was always a sucker for Palm and HP's little mobile operating system that couldn't — for all its faults, webOS brought with it some features that put it ahead of the curve. It's sort of a shame then that most webOS phones tended to suck in terms of execution. The original Pre was light and plasticky, the Pre 2 didn't improve enough, the Pixi was underpowered, the Veer was strangely small, and the Pre 3 died before it ever made it to our shores. There was another webOS device that was killed before it ever saw the light of day though, and a newly revealed video from design visualization firm Transparent House shows off what would have been HP's next smartphone.
 
Deutsche Telekom Launches Mobile Component Marketplace Top
verious_logoMobile app component marketplace and former Disrupt finalist Verious has just announced a strategic partnership with mobile operator Deutsche Telekom which will expand its international footprint and reach. The mobile operator is now launching its Verious-powered Developer Garden Component Marketplace across 14 countries in Europe, where it will feature not only mobile app components for iOS, Android, Windows Phone and HTML5, but also Telekom's own APIs.
 
Pora Ora Founder Finds Kickstarter Campaign Has Dual Effect — Cash AND Users Top
Screen Shot 2012-07-03 at 18.22.02If the car-crash Facebook IPO has sent VCs running scared and accelerators issuing warnings to their young charges then perhaps it's time to just break out the crowd-funding campaign? Plenty of startups seem to be doing it these days, but not many get their nine-year-old daughter to front a video on their Kickstarter campaign. Founder and CEO of Pora Ora Neil Gallagher - who put his daughter up to it - tells me he thinks the startup will "end up doing a VC round" as a result of their Kickstarter campaign. That's clearly not guaranteed, but the campaign is having a dual effect. "We're adding about 3,000 new users a week whether people on Kickstarter financially back us or not." Could Kickstarter be the new marketing platform?
 
For Your Pre-Fourth Celebration: The TechCrunch iPad App Just Got An Update Top
photo (1)Our own beloved TechCrunch app, an app that is, at least in my opinion, the best TechCrunch-based application on the Internet today, has just been updated by our handsome and well-spoken dev team. The new app includes improved comment counts, a Crunchbase map that allows you to see where your favorite startups are based, and new sharing options including Instapaper.
 
Google's "Do A Barrel Roll" Easter Egg Now Spinning Jelly Bean Screens Top
do-a-barrel-rollIn case you missed it the first time around, go to Google and search for "Do a barrel roll." Clever, right? It's a fun play on the classic Star Fox saying. But with the power of Google Now, Android users can perform a barrel roll by simply speaking to their phone. Try getting Siri to do that.
 
Ghosts In The Machine – What Really Happened When The Lights Went Out At Amazon Web Services Top
aws.amazonAs we all know by now, Amazon Web Services (AWS) had an outage on Friday. It would not have been much of a big deal except that it was AWS. And the fact that the outage took down big consumer properties like Netflix and Instagram. AWS is usually quite silent about what it does but to its credit they have posted a lengthy explanation about what happened in North Carolina when the massive storms hit the East Coast and took out one of its data centers.
 
Google+ Integration Comes To Chrome Web Store, Now Powers Social Discovery Of Apps Top
Screen shot 2012-07-02 at 10.29.07 AMJust because Google I/O is over, that doesn't mean the Google+ announcements have stopped flowing. Yesterday, the company revamped its Google Places iOS app (it's now "Google+ Local" and includes Zagat integration), and today, it's integrating Google+ into its Chrome Web App Store. The integration presents itself in a section dedicated to social discovery of new apps, add-ons and games called "From Your Circles."
 
Read About It: Gartner Survey Finds Tablets Are Leading To A 'Less Paper' But Not 'Paperless' Publishing World Top
ibookstoreA report out earlier today from NPD highlighted how tablets are taking over from notebooks as the mobile PC of choice. By coincidence, a survey has been published by Gartner today that sheds some light on the "how" behind that shift: more people are using tablets for the functions that used to be the preserve of PCs, such as checking email, social networking and checking the weather. The survey also found that tablets are becoming a mainstay for people who read newspapers, magazines and books. More than 50 percent of respondents said they preferred to read on tablets instead of on paper. It's not clear if 'tablets' in this case includes devices like the Kindle as well, but what's clear so far is that a portable touchscreen is not replacing the physical versions of those completely, yet: it's about "less paper" rather than "paperless", Gartner says.
 
With Places, Payments Platform Dwolla Finally Lists Where It Works, Lets You Request Merchant Support Top
want-dwollaMobile payments platform Dwolla has the potential to disrupt how money moves in the new, digital economy. It's an idea of how a payments network should look, if one had been built today, as opposed to tacking on digital payments to the legacy system that is the current credit card network. But there has been one big problem for end users of Dwolla - no one had any clue where they could actually try the darned thing. That's going to change starting today with the launch of  Dwolla "Places."
 
Netflix Subscribers Watched 1 Billion Hours Of Video In June, Or More Than An Hour A Day On Average Top
netflix-reed-hastingsHere's more evidence that Netflix is slowly chipping away at traditional TV viewing. According to a public Facebook post by CEO Reed Hastings, Netflix subscribers watched a total of 1 billion hours of video for the first time in June. Do a little back of the envelope math, and that comes out to more than an hour of video per subscriber each day. The milestone comes as Netflix is trying to right the ship after a few missteps last year. After announcing plans to split apart and rebrand its DVD-by-mail service -- and then rescinding those plans -- the company lost subscribers in the last year's third quarter. Since then, it's been working to repair its brand image, and apparently succeeding.
 
BenchPrep Grabs $6M From NEA, Revolution For Cross-Platform, Interactive Courses Top
BenchPrepWhen it comes to learning, BenchPrep believes that the most effective educational content doesn't come in the form of books -- or even eBooks. Instead, it's interactive and cross platform. That's why the Chicago-based startup is on a mission to build an adaptive learning hub for interactive courses, where students can study content from any publisher, on the Web or on any mobile device. The startup has already released 100 courses, which are being consumed by 250K students, but the team has bigger ambitions -- they want to reach 500 courses and one million students within the year. To help it meet this scale, BenchPrep is today announcing that it has closed $6 million in venture funding, led by New Enterprise Associates with participation from Revolution Ventures. This is BenchPrep's second round of funding, following the $2.2 million it raised from Lightbank last year, bringing its total to $8.2 million. BenchPrep was one of Lightbank's first investments and Eric Lefkosky and Brad Keywell continue to sit on the startup's board of directors. As a result of the round, NEA partner Peter Barris also joins the board.
 

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