Monday, September 3, 2012

Y! Alert: TechCrunch

Yahoo! Alerts
My Alerts

The latest from TechCrunch

From Disrupt Runner-Up To $22 Million In Funding, CloudFlare Tells All Top
cloudflareAccording to Matthew Prince, CEO of CloudFlare, the service that makes websites faster and more secure, he and co-founder Michelle Zatlyn, had their heart set on launching at TechCrunch Disrupt ever since it was called TechCrunch50. They eventually got their chance - though not at TC50. Instead, CloudFlare ended up as runner-up to Qwiki at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2010. But their story is a good one to tell, because it demonstrates that you don't have to take home the trophy to win.
 
Boxee, Anobit, DudaMobile Backer Pitango Closes $150M In Newest $250M Fund Top
pitango logoIsrael's Pitango -- backers of Boxee, Anobit (now part of Apple), fring, mySupermarket, and many other startups --  is gearing up for a new round of investment activity: the venture capital firm has announced a $150 million first closing on its latest fund. The firm is aiming for Pitango VI, as the fund is called, to eventually total $250 million. As with previous investments, Pitango says that it will be using this fund for seed, pre-seed and growth-stage investments in older companies. All investments from now will come out of this fund, it says.
 
Europe Lays Out Proposals For Wireless Spectrum Sharing Amongst Fiercely Competitive Carriers Top
European CommissionCarriers are fiercely competitive, but swallowing their territorial tendencies, several around Europe have started teaming up to share mobile spectrum and other resources in the ongoing race to serve hungry mobile consumers with data for their apps, video chats and film streams -- expected soon to top 1 trillion megabytes of data per month. Today the EU took a step towards formalizing that, with the introduction of a proposal for spectrum sharing. Announced by Neelie Kroes, VP for the European Commission, the proposal "is an essential part of the solution to dealing with the wireless crunch... by using new technical possibilities to create a secondary market for spectrum rights."
 
How Obama Stole Romney's RNC Thunder With Clever Social Media Top
A1mY4mRCAAM_qwXPresident Barack Obama managed to steal an impressive amount of Gov. Mitt Romney's press coverage with a few, cheap social media tricks, including the most retweeted post of the convention. In comparison to the Republican National Convention's all-out multi-million dollar conservative carnival, Obama made front page Google News with dramatically less effort and at no cost with three clever social media projects: answering questions from Reddit users for 30 minutes, tweeting "This seat's taken" in response to Clint Eastwoods silly stand-up routine (51K retweets), and releasing the White House beer recipe. Sure, Obama has the spotlight advantage because he's the President, but it goes to show that all the money and staging in the world can't compete with cleverness.
 
T-Mobile Launches CleverConnect, A Bobsled-Style VoIP Service For Europe Top
cleverconnectT-Mobile today becomes the latest operator to leverage the popularity of free internet phone calls and texts in hopes of luring in more users around its brand. CleverConnect borrows from services like Skype and Rebtel with an offer of free VoIP calls and text to those who download and use the app, which is now live in the App Store and in the Google Play Android store. Similar to Bobsled in the UK and services like TuMe from Telefonica, CleverConnect is aimed at bringing in users that are not necessarily already part of T-Mobile's service. Unlike Bobsled, the service is available in multiple regions. Although the app is already in the App Store you need an invite code to use it for now, and it looks like you need to be a T-Mobile subscriber to set off that chain. TechCrunch understands, however, that those who get invited can bring in another three users to trial the service, regardless of country or carrier.
 
Android Smartphone Sales, Led By Big Screens, Are Growing Everywhere Except In The U.S. Top
LG SpectrumWe've seen a lot of images of an (alleged) iPhone coming soon with a bigger screen, and some numbers out from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, the WPP-owned market analysts, underscore how a bigger iPhone may not be coming a moment too soon. In the last 12 weeks, it found that Android-based smartphones have continued to extend their lead over the rest of the pack, and the charge is being led by the big boys -- literally. Of all the Android devices that have been sold in the last three months, nearly one-third (29%) of them had a screen size of over 4.5 inches, with large-screened devices from Samsung, HTC, LG (pictured), Huawei and more. Apple's current iPhone has a screen of 3.5 inches.
 
MyVoucherCodes Adds Restaurant Booking Functionality To Its Mobile App, Powered By Toptable Top
Screen Shot 2012-09-03 at 12.32.46In a move that seems like a bit of a no-brainer, but for which the company is claiming a UK first: MyVoucherCodes has added the ability to make a restaurant booking from within its location-based 'money saving' smartphone app. That's right, cashing in on those local discounts and promotions just got a lot easier, as has the ability for the 500 or so participating restaurants to generate additional bookings. MyVoucherCodes isn't saying officially who is powering the app's new table booking functionality, although TechCrunch has learned that it comes via a partnership with OpenTable-owned Toptable.
 
Swarmly Debuts Its 'Waze For People' On iOS — Know Where Is Hot Or Not, Right Now Top
cropped.transparentSwarmly, a newly-released app for iPhone, thinks it's seen a gap in the location sharing market. Unlike check-in apps like Foursquare or indeed Facebook's own location sharing feature, it places far less emphasis on the social graph to focus on anonymous, aggregate location data -- powered by each Swarmly user's whereabouts -- so that the app can tell you where is hot (or not) right now. Think of it as similar to Waze's crowdsourced traffic data but for people. That's the ambition, anyway. But first it needs a ton of users to be anything close to useful -- a challenge that far too many, otherwise, good ideas face.
 
Rocket Internet's 'Blitzkrieg': JP Morgan Invests In Russian Fashion Site Lamoda; $40-80M Reported Top
lamoda.ruLess than a month after JP Morgan put investments into two Rocket Internet-baked fashion sites modelled on Zappos -- an undisclosed investment into Zalando and $45 million in Brazil's Dafiti, the bank is taking an equity stake in a third Rocket Internet fashion business. Lamoda.ru in Russia, a site with 5 million unique users and 500,000 "loyal customers," is apparently raising between $40 million and $80 million from the bank. The news was announced by Lamoda itself, although the terms of the investment are only being reported by third parties. Lamoda, you might recall, played an infamous part in an embarrassing email last year from Oliver Samwer, one of the founders of Rocket Internet: in a letter to employees, he made detailed references to the mistakes Lamoda had made, as a cautionary tale for those not to be repeated in other markets. Calling the new, aggressive strategy a "blitzkrieg", it was a revealing and damaging email for a company that likes to play its cards close to its chest.
 
Do Women Love Ann Romney? Only Facebook Knows Top
election-insight-capture-squareFor all the millions spent on the Republican National Convention, the entire operation could only speculate whether their keynote speeches had any meaningful impact. Until Facebook achieved near universal adoption among the voting class, brands had no reliable way to gage public opinion. Large surveys are subject to respondents' notoriously bad memories, focus groups are too tiny to be nationally representative, and the Twitterverse is too liberal and young. However, Facebook's recent experiment with topical chatter during the RNC may have just revealed the social network as the best known barometer of national buzz.
 
Social Gaming, Dating Account For The Biggest Growth In Carrier Billing Top
Screen shot 2012-09-03 at 02.04.07Over the last year, we have seen some notable advances in mobile carrier billing -- which lets people pay for services and content on their phones by charging it to their carrier bills: Google expanded its carrier billing services to music and more; Facebook joined the ranks of those offering it, and Amazon has a deal with a company that could help it potentially roll out such services, too. (Noticeably absent is Apple; more on that below.) Now, data shared with TechCrunch by U.S./German carrier billing company mopay provides a look at just how much money these kinds of services are making.
 
On Lack Of IT Readiness – And Innovators Dilemma. VMware Delivers A Sad Reality Top
headshot smlEditor's note: Ben Kepes is a technology evangelist, an investor, a commentator and a business adviser. More about Ben here. He hangs out 24*7 on Twitter.    At VMware's annual extravaganza in San Francisco this past week, VMware's application to join OpenStack was announced. The keynote in which it was announced held somewhere around 20000 people, arguably the cream of the IT world and, when the OpenStack announcement was made, the silence was deafening. I suspect that this had nothing to do with a reaction to the news in particular, and lots to do with the fact that VMware's traditional customer – IT departments within large organization – are, generally speaking, paying little more than lip-service to the growing calls of a new generation of technology companies led by the likes of Box and Salesforce and heralding agility, mobility and social enterprise as key demands.
 
7-Weeks In, Dalton Caldwell's App.net Gets First Dedicated iOS App, Passes 17,500 Users Top
mzl.rvtbbxxb.320x480-75Back in July, Dalton Caldwell (of imeem and picplz fame) announced an "audacious" goal: To create a better, developer-and-user-supported (and ad-free) alternative to Twitter. And so App.net was born. About a month later, the subscription-based, third party app-supporting Twitter clone reached its fund-raising goal of $500K -- all of which came from a community of 7,500+ enthusiastic supporters. Though the service has a long way to go before it can compete with the big boys, today, the App.net founder announced some milestones that show it's making some solid progress. Over 250K posts have been created in the 7-weeks since App.net's debut, with some 50 percent of posts coming from third-party clients. As of August 28th, the service has over 17,500 (paying) users, which works out to about 14 posts per user. Not only that, but as reported by The Next Web, today the service's first dedicated iOS client officially hit the App Store.
 
Purported Redesigned Apple Earbuds Leaked In Vietnam Top
newheadphones2While rumors of the new iPhone have been rampant for most of the summer, not much has been leaked about accessories other than a purported new cable. That is until now. Vietnamese tech blog Tinhte.vn, which has a fairly decent track record, has posted a video and hands-on images of what appear to be newly redesigned earbuds.
 
Getting Your Product Into the Habit Zone Top
zoneAs the web becomes an increasingly crowded place, users are desperate for solutions to sort through the online clutter. The Internet has become a giant hairball of choice-inhibiting noise and the need to make sense of it all has never been more acute. Just ask high-flying sites like Pinterest, Reddit, and Tumblr. These curated web portals connect millions of people to information they never knew they were looking for. Some have started monetizing this tremendous flow of traffic and though it's too early to call winners and losers, their strategy of driving user engagement by creating daily habits is clear. These companies are following a plan implemented by web titans like Amazon and Google and are hoping to yield similar results.
 
Pandora For Ed Apps: eSpark Nabs $5.7M From 500 Startups, Others, Hires Facebook Mobile Vet As CTO Top
Screen shot 2012-08-31 at 11.14.28 PMChicago-based startup eSpark Learning, which founder and CEO David Vinca describes as "Pandora for education apps," has secured $5.7 million in series A financing from MK Capital, Learn Capital, NewSchools Venture Fund and 500 Startups to help fuel national expansion. The new capital brings the startup's total funding to just under $7 million. In addition to its raise, eSpark is also announcing that it has hired 5-year Facebook veteran Luke Shepard as its new CTO. Shepard is best known for leading the mobile platform (or "platmobile") team at Facebook and helping to build Facebook Connect as well as the OAuth 2.0 protocol.
 
Where Are The Killer Apps For Windows 8 Metro? Top
8688.Start_Default_RTM_3ROW_thumb_4D391858Love it or hate it, but Windows 8 will soon arrive on computers around you. While virtually all of your old programs will likely run without a hitch in desktop mode, it's the Windows 8 Metro interface (or whatever Microsoft now wants to call it), that brings the biggest changes to the OS for users and developers alike. What Microsoft really needs right now more than anything else, though, is applications that can showcase the power of the new Windows 8 user interface. The current crop of apps in the Windows Store is a hodgepodge of games, travel and productivity apps that, for the most part, look fine but aren't very interesting (and that includes Microsoft's own default apps for Windows 8 Metro). What's still missing is a few killer apps for Windows 8 Metro that will get consumers interested in the platform.
 
This James Franco Samsung Ad Is Indescribable Top
Screen Shot 2012-09-02 at 10.47.15 AMEarlier today I was showing a friend this spectacular Oregon Duck Gangnam Style parody video and saw a two and a half-minute ad in which James Franco displays the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1. My first reaction was: how have I not heard of this before? The ad is almost two weeks old, but I'm surprised more people aren't talking about it. It is absolutely absurd.
 
Iterations: The New Movable Type Top
printing pressBack in the 15th century, Johannes Gutenberg changed the world with movable type, laying a foundation for a new printing press to spread ideas faster. Fast forward a few hundred years, and the comparisons made between the Internet and Gutenberg were predictable. Specifically with respect to the written word, the web made any literate person with access to a computer into a writer. Today, most barriers to creating, sharing, and distributing written content have been stripped away, and for every newspaper that seems to be going out of business, a victim of modern times, a new publishing engine is born.
 
Berkeley Study: Half-Star Change In Yelp Rating Can Make Or Break A Restaurant Top
4420985385_6384b01c87Two Berkeley economists have found that the tiniest changes in online restaurant reviews can make or break a restaurant. A simple half-star improvement on Yelp's 5-star rating makes it 30-49% more likely that a restaurant will sell out its evening seats. Online reviews, the researchers conclude, "play an increasingly important role in how consumers judge the quality of goods and services."
 

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)