Tuesday, July 3, 2012

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Lynx2Games Lets You Pass Along Used Games For Fun And Profit. Mostly Profit. Top
LynxSquare-Transparent-sm-darkA website called Lynx2Games.com has a new approach to buying and sharing that could help consumers avoid paying full price for video games. When people buy a games on the site, they're buying them in pairs — there's a "borrower" and a "buyer" (friends can make a purchase together, or Lynx2Games can match up consumers interested in the same product). The borrower pays 25 percent and gets the game for the first three weeks, then they ship it to the buyer, who pays 75 percent and then gets to keep the game indefinitely. The average new console game costs $60, so that breaks down to $15/$45.
 
Facebook News Feed Is Getting Faster, So I Made It This Tramp Stamp Top
Facebook Fast - Tramp StampFacebook's news feed is so slow to give you the goods, you could almost call it prude. But you're about to get lucky. Now the feed will load faster, as it will be pulling in fewer stories to start so you can get browsing immediately, Facebook just told us. Plus, if you don't want to see every little move your friends make, there's a new "Hide Ticker" button in the top right of the web home page.
 
Triposo: Ex-Googlers Raise $3.5M From InterWest To Put Social (& Traditional) Travel Guides To Shame Top
Screen shot 2012-07-03 at 1.53.10 PMLast fall, ex-Googlers Jon Tirsen and Douwe Osinga launched a new mobile travel platform called Triposo, which aimed to bring a little PageRank order to an unruly ocean of travel content in service of a greater good: Giving we, the end user, more relevant, personalized travel recommendations. Because there's already a mess of public destination and travel information in databases like Wikitravel and Open Street Maps, rather than become another player in the brimming social travel space, Triposo took an algorithmic approach to travel recs. Even though models, users and money have favored the social approach, Triposo has seen high ratings and has attracted nearly two million downloads of its travel guides on iOS and Android since launch. This early traction has also been appealing to investors, with the latest interest coming in the form of a $3.5 million series A round led by Keval Desai of InterWest Partners.
 
Single Dad Building Sequel To "Jetpack" Video Game He Built As A Teenager Top
level-jetpack"Look for Jetpack 2 in 1995." The message carried on the 1993 2D video game "Jetpack," created by 16-year old Adam Pedersen and distributed by Software Creations on floppy disk, pledged an updated sequel to fans in a couple of years. 19 years later, Pedersen, now a single dad, is working to deliver on that promise. He has taken to Kickstarter in an attempt to raise $40,000 by the end of July for "Jetpack 2." As a 16 year old, Pedersen tells me he was a big fan of "Lode Runner," "Jumpman," and "Boulder Dash" and wanted to make a game like those. "A game that I would enjoy playing," he describes, his voice filled with excitement.
 
Rumor: Twitter To Acquire Sense Networks To Better Target Local Ads 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
facebook-money-360Last 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.
 
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.
 

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