Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Y! Alert: TechCrunch

Yahoo! Alerts
My Alerts

The latest from TechCrunch

BandPage Unshackles From Facebook, Now Helps 500K Musicians Build Synced Sites and Widgets Too Top
BandPage EverywhereWith $19 million in funding but the Timeline redesign cratering its traffic, BandPage needed to diversify beyond Facebook. So today it launches BandPage Everywhere to let musicians build websites and embeddable widgets as well as Facebook Page apps. Rather than inefficiently trying to sync content, the half million artists hosted by BandPage can now upload streaming music, photos, videos, or tour dates just once and have them pushed to all their online presences. Since 2009, BandPage has focused 100% on building Facebook apps for musicians in need of a home after the fall of Myspace. But that was just the opening act.
 
StackSocial Raises Seed Funding, Launches Platform Publicly Top
stacksocial_hqStackSocial, a digital commerce startup that aims to match web publishers with readers, publicly launched its platform and announced a $800,000 seed round today. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the funding round was over-subscribed.
 
Analyst: iPhone 5, iPad Mini Coming In September Top
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAApple's next-gen iPhone — and the much-talked about (but yet unseen) iPad mini — are some of the most hotly anticipated gadgets of the year. And according to a report by relatively on-point KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the new iPhone and iPad mini will launch in September. Thus far, we've heard that the iPhone 5 will have a larger 4.08-inch display maintaining the same width as current models, at 640 pixels. TechCrunch has also confirmed — along with Reuters more recently — that the new iPhone will replace its original 30-pin connector dock with a 19-pin mini port.
 
Amazon Finally Cracking Down On 3G Browsing Cap Top
scaled.itm_l_771There's a little-known stipulation in Amazon's 3G browsing, available primarily on their e-ink devices. Ostensibly, downloading items over 3G is completely free but browsing the web using the device's weird and slow experimental interface is capped at 50MB. Most users have never hit that cap and there haven't been many reports of actual notifications. That's recently changed. One user of the Kindle Keyboard 3G noticed the message when he was browsing the web in Canada. He received a message that said he could only browse Amazon.com, Wikipedia, and the Kindle Store. Wi-Fi access was unaffected.
 
Tenaya Capital Closes 'Oversubscribed' $372M Fund, Seeks A New Kayak Top
moneyTenaya Capital, the venture fund spun out of Lehman Brothers in 2009 with a history of backing companies like Kayak, Palo Alto Networks and Zappos, has just closed its latest fund totalling $372 million -- in its words, oversubscribed against an initial target of $300 million. Tenaya Capital VI is the company's first fundraise independent of Lehman's, with the two previous funds raised by the VCs for $300 million and $365 million. The fund will be used to make investments in tech companies across a broad range of areas -- from enterprise to consumer internet, as well as electronics and more -- in their initial stages of revenue growth. Tom Banahan, the MD of Tenaya, tells me that the aim is to keep the range diverse. The average size of initial investments, typically made as a B- or C-round, will be between $5 million and $10 million. Tenaya may potentially also make earlier or later stage investment in portfolio companies, so the total amount invested in the lifetime of a company will be around $10 million to $15 million, it says.
 
Microsoft .NET for Mobile Company Xamarin Gets $12 Million In Series A Funding Top
XamarinXamarin, makers of cross-platform frameworks for building mobile applications, today announced a $12 million round of funding from Charles River Ventures, Ignition Partners and Floodgate. Xamarin was founded in May last year after Novell laid off the staff working on Mono, an open source project that brings Microsoft's .NET development framework to non-Microsoft operating systems like Linux. Novell had been supporting the project since its acquisition of Ximian in 2003, but after the layoff the team founded Xamarin to commercialize the Mono project. Until now Xamarin has been bootstrapped.
 
Pearltrees Comes To The iPhone, Goes Beyond Bookmarking And Adds Photos, Notes, Offline Mode Top
pearltrees_ipad_logoFew startups make it through a year without a pivot or two these days. That really can't be said about social bookmarking service Pearltrees, however. The company has stuck pretty closely to its roadmap ever since its launch in 2009. After launching on the web, Peartrees is now available on the iPad and, starting today, on the iPhone. Ever since its launch, the company wanted to provide its users with a library of what they discover online and create a community of people based on their common interests. Until now, that mostly means sharing bookmarks, but the new iPhone app significantly broadens this concept to also include photos and short notes. In addition, the updated universal iOS apps now also cache a user's libraries for offline access (including the text on any website they bookmark).
 
Touch Publishing Platform Onswipe Moves Beyond iOS With Kindle Fire Support Top
onswipekindlefirecloseupSince fully launching a year ago, Onswipe has built touch-optimized experiences for iOS — starting with the iPad and, more recently, adding iPhone. Today it's taking its first step beyond the Apple ecosystem with the launch of support for the Kindle Fire. Onswipe's stated goal is to deliver native app-like experiences through the mobile web. Achieving that on the Kindle Fire was particularly challenging, says CEO and co-founder Jason L. Baptiste, because it's a relatively low-end device with an older operating system.
 
Noodlecrumbs Is A Crowd-Funding Platform For Thinkers, Not Doers Top
Lightbulb_ideaWith successes like the Pebble smart watch, crowd-funding is becoming more and more attractive to startups. But maybe you aren't even at the startup stage in your idea. Maybe all you have is an idea and a computer. That's where Noodlecrumbs comes into the picture. It's a new type of crowd-funding for those of us who don't quite know how much we need to make the dream a reality. In fact, Noodecrumbs could be used by someone who doesn't even want to build the actual product, but just wants it to be built. I have friends who pitch me ideas all the time, and I say, "sounds good, build it." Most of the time, they say they don't have time or don't know how, but they'd love to use the product. That's the perfect situation for Noodlecrumbs.
 
Dashlane Releases iOS App To Avoid Tedious Form-Filling On Purchases Top
dashlane-logoDashlane enables consumers to login, fill out forms and checkout of a purchase faster, removing the need for repeating the process across sites. Its personal data assistant aims to speed up access to websites through password-saving and online form-filling features. But this is not a password manager: it has instant logins and support for automatic checkout on e-commerce sites. Dashlane raised a $5 million Series A back in September last year.
 
Box Debuts Windows Phone App, Qualcomm Deal As CEO Levie Says 40% Of Users Access Box's Cloud From Mobile Devices Top
Screen shot 2012-07-24 at 14.04.22Some good news for users of Windows Phone devices and customers of the cloud-based content sharing platform Box. The company has announced a new app for the platform -- its first for a Microsoft mobile OS. With the app now available in the Windows Phone Marketplace, the relationship between the two is set to deepen in the months ahead, with Box already preparing Windows 8 support for tablets and other devices for when the new platform ships later this year. Separately, Box has announced a deal with Qualcomm offering special integration on devices running on Qualcomm's Snapdragon processor. The move to offer a Windows Phone app is significant on two levels: the first is that it underscores how important mobile, and being everywhere on mobile, is for Box's longer-term success. Aaron Levie, the CEO of Box, says that already 40 percent of Box's users are accessing Box from mobile devices, with that number growing fast. "We see a huge correlation between users adopting mobile, and users adopting Box," he tells me. The second is that, for Windows Phone (be it 7 or 8) to have any hope of taking significant market share away from Android and Apple among smartphone users, it needs to make sure that it's delivering on content. For enterprise users, that means support for services like Box's, among others.
 
SnappyTV Launches Self-Serve Platform, Lets Anyone Create Events And Share Real-time Video Clips Top
SnappyTVSocial video startup SnappyTV launched last year with a platform for making clips of live videos and then sharing them on social networks. Now it's moving beyond custom implementations and launching a platform that will allow any video publisher to enable real-time clipping and social sharing of those videos on Facebook and Twitter.
 
Kids Clothing Service thredUP Adds Netflix Execs As It Prepares To Scale Top
thredup logoOnline kids' clothing consignment shop thredUP says its recent transition from online swap meet to clothing resale service has been working. When the company was originally founded back in 2009, the goal was to offer a platform where parents could trade boxes of used kids' clothes directly with each other. But despite some steady but slow growth, thredUP made the shift into consignment this past March. Now parents send in clothes to the service, and receive credits to spend in the online shop. Since the change, thredUP reports 50% month-over-month growth, and says it's now on track to sell over 100,000 items during back-to-school shopping season. The company is also announcing the addition of a new executive, Chief Operations Officer John Voris, formerly VP of Operations Engineering at Netflix, and new board member Andy Rendich, former Chief Service and Operations Officer at Netflix.
 
Online Radio Service TuneIn Comes To Tesla's Model S, Now Available On 200 Platforms Top
TuneIn_logoTuneIn's online radio service that lets people listen to music, sports and news on their smartphones and on the web, just announced that it is now available on 200 different distribution platforms. The platforms include everything from smartphones, home entertainment systems, connected TV and - most recently - connected cars. Indeed, the 200th platform the company announced today is Tesla's new Model S premium sedan, which our own Colleen Taylor took for a spin last week.
 
Kickstarter: The RollPro III Is A Must-Have GoPro Camera Storage Case Top
238c04915653a5fea48a946aa8929d5f_largeI'm a GoPro fanboy. It's an amazing camera born from an even more amazing American company. But, as any GoPro owner quickly discovers, the camera demands all sorts of accouterments and add-ons. Mine are stored in a large camera bag with different parts haphazardly thrown into a different compartments. It's essentially a grab bag of GoPro parts. Clearly I'm not alone. Riseful's Kickstarter campaign for the RollPro III tackles this problem with an age-old design.
 
The Best Annual Tech Startup Events In Europe Top
medium_web_summit2Well, I guess I'm about to be shot down here. For a while I've been contemplating a post about all the annual events in Europe which are specifically relevant to tech startups. Now when I say that, I do not mean hacker meetups in bars, or monthly events in various European cities. I mean Annual conferences and events where you will find startups, tech entrepreneurs and investors either milling about at a big general event on innovation (like DLD) or pitching on stage at a conference like Le Web. You will notice there are no URLs yet. When I get time I will add them (you can always use Google). For now I just wanted to get this post out there for you to look at and kick the tyres on.
 
Prepping For 2013 IPO, Mobile Ad Player Jumptap Names Ex-Yahoo Exec COO; iAd/Admob Backer Joins Board Top
jumptap-logoIndependent mobile ad network Jumptap is filling out its team with two more key executives as it continues to prepare for an IPO in 2013 -- and look for more M&A activity as it gets there. The company has named Frank Weishaupt, a former VP of advertising marketplaces at Yahoo, to the newly-created role of COO. And joining the board is John Hadl -- a partner at U.S. Venture partners as well as a longtime mobile player who had been an advisor to Admob (bought by Google) and Quattro Wireless (bought by Apple), as well as Jumptap rival Millennial Media (now public). The appointments come in the same month that Jumptap announced $27.5 million in additional funding from Keating Capital, WPP, General Catalyst and others, bringing the total invested to $121.5 million.
 
AT&T's Q2 2012: Revenues Of $31.6B, Earnings Of $0.66/Share, 61% Of Wireless Subscribers On Smartphones Top
att-logo-smallAT&T has just released its Q2 2012 financial results -- the telecom giant reported quarterly revenues of $31.6 billion (that's up 0.3% year-over-year) and earnings of $0.66 per share (up a full 10% year-over-year). AT&T also reported operating income of $6.8 billion, a healthy jump from to the $6.1 billion it reported in the previous quarter. As solid as the numbers seem, AT&T couldn't completely beat analyst expectations. The company couldn't quite match forecasted revenues of $31.7 billion, but easily beat expected earnings of $0.63.
 
Y Combinator-Backed SmartAsset Helps With The Tough Financial Decisions, Starting With Homebuying Top
SmartAsset LogoSmartAsset, a startup incubated by Y Combinator, aims to help consumers make the major financial decisions in their lives. Right now, the site is focused on homebuying — founder and CEO Michael Carvin tells me the service originated in his own experience purchasing a home. When he was trying to figure out whether buying made sense, he found that online resources were pretty lacking, with lots of advice in the form of blog posts ("Content can be helpful, but me reading about your aunt buying a home or your cousin buying a home doesn't really help me," Carvin says) plus financial calculators with little depth and dubious accuracy. So instead, Carvin built his own financial model to figure out how the purchase would affect his finances over time, and he realized that as long as he stayed int he home for at least a few years, buying was good move.
 
The iPhone Accounted For 73% Of AT&T's Smartphone Activation Last Quarter Top
iphone-4The iPhone is dominating. And that's not unsubstantiated flamebait. AT&T just released its quarterly financial statement, which reveals the wireless carrier activated 5.1M smartphones in the last three months. Out of those 5.1M, the iPhone accounted for 3.7M activations, resulting in a dominating 73% market share within AT&T. AT&T also notes that 22% of its iPhone sales were new activations. Verizon revealed last week that it sold 2.7M iPhones during the second quarter, accounting for 45% of the company's smartphone sales (note: sales, rather than activations like with AT&T's numbers). This is down from 3.2M from the first quarter. The iPhone 4S might be aging, but consumers are still buying it en masse
 

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)