The latest from TechCrunch
- Rising to the Top: 5 ways indie developers succeed on the App Store
- The Countdown to TechCrunch50 is on!
- What Cleantech Should Learn from Nanotech (Before It's too Late)
- Twitter Conferences Continue To Grow
- How Yelp May Have Further Harmed The App Store Approval Process With Its Easter Egg
- Vidly: Twitvid.io Changes Names, Direction, And Gets Funding
| Rising to the Top: 5 ways indie developers succeed on the App Store | Top |
| It's no secret: there's some Benjamins to be made on the App Store. In fact, the App Store is now a $2.4 billion dollar per year business, according to AdMob's monthly mobile metrics report . Here's another fun fact you probably already know: most app developers fade into the App Store abyss long before they ever find fame and fortune. Even if you ignore the junk apps and the million e-books each published as a separate app, you've still got a solid 5-10,000 apps clamoring to grab a piece of the App Store pie. Many developers feel like the App Store is akin to high school : an anarchic and ruthless popularity contest to see who's got the biggest, well, um, you know what I mean. That brings us to the $2.4 billion question: how do you succeed on the App Store? We've spent the last few weeks trying to answer that question and have come up with a list of tips and tricks that'll help you edge your way into App Store glory. Now, none of these will replace making a good product or compensate for a million-dollar advertising and PR budget, but they'll likely help you get noticed or keep your current momentum. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco | |
| The Countdown to TechCrunch50 is on! | Top |
| Our 50 companies are locked and loaded. We've got magic lined up, a power panel of experts and a big exhibitor hall DemoPit that will be filled with lots of start-up energy and chaos. TechCrunch50 celebrates entrepreneurship, and we want as many start-ups involved as possible. There is still time to participate in TechCrunch50 with prices that can't be beat: $2,995 DemoPit Tables include 2 tickets to TechCrunch50 and one day to demo (that's cheaper than 2 tickets to the conference) The DemoPit is open to start-ups who have not yet completed a Series A Round of $500k or more in financing and have just launched or would like to launch their start-up in conjunction with TechCrunch50. Demo for one day of the conference. We provide a 24" cocktail-height table, linens, tabletop sign, power and wireless internet access. Companies who launch at the conference are eligible for Audience Choice voting to be the last presentation slot of the day on stage at TechCrunch50. Else, all early-stage companies will get prime table-traffic access to the 1500+ expected attendees, including leading VCs, corporate buyers and biz dev executives, 200+ participating start-ups, 150+ credentialed press and other general attendees. Press list distributed one week in advance of TC50. TechCrunch will announce all DemoPit participants on Monday, September 14. (Optional: Companies who choose to launch at the conference will be listed in the conference press release.) BUY HERE , based on availability. $8,000 Exhibitor Tables include 4 tickets to TechCrunch50 and two days to demo (as cheap as 4 early-bird tickets to the conference) The exhibitor package enables early-stage companies to demo for a full two days of the conference and includes a 5' rectangular table, linens, tabletop sign, power and Ethernet-based internet access. Logo and 50-word business description on TechCrunch50.com and in printed program guide. One ticket to our Monday night VIP dinner, honoring our TC50 companies, experts and event partners. Press list distributed one week in advance of TC50. BUY HERE , based on availability. Hope to see you in just a few short weeks. Reminder, early bird ticket prices expire Monday, 8/31 at midnight pst. Buy now , last call. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco | |
| What Cleantech Should Learn from Nanotech (Before It's too Late) | Top |
| Back before we had Web 2.0 and cleantech to obsess about the Valley was abuzz about nanotech—the idea that sub-atomic particles would suddenly be the building blocks of, well, everything. It would make the paint on our houses last longer, the non-stick on our pans stick less, and our pants impervious to wrinkles. Somewhere, someone was probably promising their board they could use nanotechnology to make Harry Potter's invisibility cloak a reality. It seemed like a great investment thesis for a few reasons: There was actually real patentable science there and because the possibilities seemed so limitless, it was a huge market. A February 2005 BusinessWeek cover pegged it at nearly $300 billion by the end of the decade. (You know, now .) There were some VCs who shied away, some—like Steve Jurvetson —who went whole hog, but most were somewhere in the middle. In other words, they didn’t really know if this tiny thing could be huge, but wanted some horses in the race just in case. In all more than $1 billion was invested in the space, according to that same BusinessWeek cover, and some 1,200 startups created. (The typical venture research firms don’t break out nanotech investments so better numbers are hard to find. I think BusinessWeek’s figures are actually pretty conservative considering fundings of $20 million-$40 million a pop weren’t unheard of.) By some measures, the movement succeeded. According to a new report from the Pew Charitable Trusts' Project on Emerging Technologies more than 1,000 nanotech products are available to consumers now, up from only 212 products in 2006. The director of the study David Rejeski told PEHub he expects the number of products to reach 1,600 within the next two years. Awesome. Oh, wait. Not awesome—What about the exits? Where's all that nano-cash the Valley was supposed to be awash in by now? Pending IPOs of companies like Nanosys , Nanofilm and Konarka never happened. (All three companies are still in business and have raised hundreds of millions in venture capital and private equity between them.) What exits nanotech had were, well, tiny. There was never a huge, iconic nanotech IPO to justify all that hope and keep the believers believing and investing. Looking at the Pew study, the product potential was clearly there. So what happened? One of three things: The markets for those products were too small and the companies couldn’t scale as hoped, the products and science was just too incremental to turn into a big hit, or some huge IPOs are still around the corner. In some ways, that's not too different than complaints lodged at the Web 2.0 generation. Skeptics say that most of the startups are less companies and merely Y Combinator-style features and apps that at best will get acquired for $20 million or so. The difference with Web 2.0 is these sites and apps are incredibly cheap and quick to build and host. Designing sub-atomic particles that will be manufactured into pants are not. You know what else isn't? Most of the big opportunities in cleantech. Cleantech investments are down 30% this year in terms of deals and 60% in terms of dollars—with a big shift going away from energy generation towards energy savings. It's in danger of looking a lot like nanotech several years from now. For the billions that have poured into cleantech—what do we have so far? There've been a few public exits. We've had a smaller number of jaw-droppingly killer products, mostly in the car space with companies like Tesla , Fisker and Better Place . And….what else exactly? As oil prices have spent much of the last year in more reasonable territory and the whole Inconvenient-Truth-fad has faded, cleantech needs a huge Netscape-like IPO to get everyone excited and ignite real investment in needle-moving science and development, not play-it-safe software programs to manage smart grids more effectively. VC Paul Holland of Foundation Capital says in the Press:Here clip below that there are a few contenders on the horizon right now. [Discussion near the 4 minute mark.] Others have speculated that several cleantech companies were readying themselves to go public before the crash, signaling a potentially active 2010. But most of these are well under the $1 billion market cap level. For an industry that billions have been invested in—that's like kissing your sister. No doubt the opportunity is huge for cleantech to remake nearly every old-line industry in the world. And I don't doubt that it will. The question is whether it succeeds where nanotech failed and remakes the golden era of VC returns. [BTW: Steve Jurvetson, if you're reading this and that big IPO is just around the corner, we'd love a guest post rebuttal on why nanotech is still alive.] Crunch Network : CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco | |
| Twitter Conferences Continue To Grow | Top |
| A few months ago we wrote about the growing number of Twitter-focused conferences that are taking place around the world. Many were informative, with thought-provoking and compelling insights made by VCs, pundits and entrepreneurs. At Jeff Pulver’s 140 Characters Conference in New York in June, Twitter investor and VC Fred Wilson expounded on Twitter as a power-distributor of passed links. Of course, this particular conference was not without glitches, as noted eloquently by TechCrunch’s Paul Carr. It looks like the trend of Twitter conferences is growing, with more events popping up around the country. As we’ve said in the past and will continue to say, there are tremendous opportunities for businesses, brands, non-profits and individuals to use Twitter as a tool for customer support, fund raising, brand management, advertising, job search and much more. Twitter continues to grow at a steady rate and is mulling over different ways to monetize. There was some light shed on possible revenue streams during the whole Twitter document leak fiasco. And Twitter recently made a move to engage businesses by launching “Twitter 101,” a how-to guide for how businesses can best use Twitter. Whether Twitter will successfully monetize its platform is yet to be decided but one thing is for sure: conference coordinators around the country are banking on the buzz. Here are the ones we found taking place over the next few months: TWTRCON DC 09: Taking place in Washington D.C. on Oct. 22, TWTRCON focuses on discussing how to use Twitter as a business platform, paying particular attention to use by non-profits and government agencies. Speakers include Craig Newmark and Scott Harrison, from Charity:Water, which wrote about here. 140/Twitter Conference LA: Endorsed by Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, this conference, which takes place on Sep. 22 in Los Angeles, features a roster of celebrities and tech stars to talk about ways to tap into the real-time web via twitter. Panelists and speakers include Stone, Jaime Kennedy, Tony Hawk, Veronica Belmont and Dr. Drew. 140 Characters Conference: Organized by Jeff Pulver, this conference had its first stop in New York City in June. 140 Characters will be taking place in Los Angeles on Oct. 27 and like its sister conference, will address Twitter’s disruption of social media and look at microblogging’s effect on businesses, brands and advertising. Panelists include Jason Calacanis, Dave Winer, and Billy Bush. Cool Twitter Conferences: This is a roving conference that makes stops accross the country, aimed at advertising and marketing professionals and entrepreneurs who want to leverage Twitter’s real-time and viral platform. It seems to targeted towards those who are newbies to Twitter and want to learn some of the basics. Future stops include San Francisco and Boston. If there are other Twitter conferences taking place in the near future, let us know in the comments. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco | |
| How Yelp May Have Further Harmed The App Store Approval Process With Its Easter Egg | Top |
| Editor's Note: This guest post was written by Matt Galligan , CEO of CrashCorp , a company working on a product called SimpleGeo providing “location as a service” as well as an Augmented Reality SDK for app developers. (We covered their founding here .) As such, Galligan clearly has a stake in the AR game, but he was genuinely surprised by the revelation of the AR element to the Yelp app update yesterday. You can follow Matt on Twitter here . Yelp has had no shortage of hullabaloo surrounding the most recent improvement to its iPhone app. Rightfully so, it added an Augmented Reality view for its restaurant reviews. Using the AR view, users of the Yelp app can pan around using their camera, and see information overlaid, presumably, on top of the restaurant of their query, garnering review information. While this functionality is certainly useful, and nothing short of excellent eye candy, could there be a thorn with this rose? Augmented Reality has been all the rage with app developers recently, originally employing unreleased SDK features to build the technology. However, in recent months, it was discovered that the new iPhone OS 3.1 upgrade changed the camera functionality in a way that would enable app developers to build their Augmented Reality views in a more sanctioned environment. This development has been a shot in the arm for AR developers, and there seems to be many implementations being built . However, it was understood that the world would have to wait for AR on the iPhone, at least until iPhone OS 3.1 was released. That was, until, Yelp’s most recent iPhone app got approved in the store with an easter egg that, after shaking the device three times, enabled an Augmented Reality view. Call it sneaky, call it clever, but I call it deceit. Apple has put forth specific guidelines, and “rules” around their app development, and while I don’t always agree, it’s the reality of how we must work with them for now. Yelp hid their easter egg behind shaking the device, which isn’t always the most intuitive action to take on an app that contains some maps and lists. As a result, the unsanctioned Augmented Reality view was gone from Apple’s radar. The same would seem to be true with a couple other applications that snuck in AR features as updates to their apps. As recently as last month, Apple was telling developers making AR apps that they would have to wait for iPhone 3.1. It was only after approval, that Yelp announced that the functionality existed. There was palpable excitement around the Yelp’s announcement (and the other apps), having been the first AR apps to be approved, but something smelled afoul. My concern is that Yelp has set an awful precedent by this act. Now, every app developer will likely undergo even more scrutiny. Accessing private API’s goes against the agreement every iPhone developer has to abide by when submitting applications to the App Store. By subverting this agreement through an “easter egg”, Yelp could very well cause the approval process to become more draconian. Whereas before, Apple was primarily looking for trademark violations, “correct” usage of their Human Interface Guidelines, and show-stopping bugs, they’ll now have to go over each app with fine-toothed comb to make sure no feature that is likely to be unsanctioned will be released. Now granted, this may also be seen as a big cry for openness in the App Store, but so long as the App Store approval process remains in the status quo, deceitful acts like this won’t continue to go unnoticed by them. The implications are simple: a longer wait time for apps to be approved, longer time for bug fixes and overall, a poorer experience for developers and users both. While I hope for a less strict App Store, so long as that’s not the case, I hope more that developers stick to more of the straight and narrow (read: not so shady tactics) so they don’t ruin it for the rest of us. Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco | |
| Vidly: Twitvid.io Changes Names, Direction, And Gets Funding | Top |
| When Twitvid.io launched back in May, it was amid a mad rush of startups trying to become the “TwitPic of Video” for Twitter. This included another startup, Twitvid.com , which caused a lot of confusion among users. It also apparently brought out the cease and desist orders from Leo Laporte , who has the rights to the TWiT (This Week in Tech) name. Needless to say, the timing was right for a name change for Twitvid.io, and so they’ve done that. They’re now Vidly . But the change is about more than just removing user confusion and clearing up legal issues, it also represents a shift away from a sole focus on Twitter. Vidly’s new goal is to be the most convient way for people to share video on the web, no matter what service they use. And they’re going to start that by launching an iPhone app that will allow users to easily upload videos they take to a range of services including yes, Twitter and Facebook. And Vidly (which can also be spelled Vid.ly, as they own that domain as well as the dot com) already has a big time supporter: California’s Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yes, when he’s not busy doing Q&A sessions at Twitter HQ , the Governator is using Vidly to spread his agenda. Here’s Schwarzenegger’s page on the site. While the first step is an iPhone app (alongside the website), Vidly co-founder Chrys Bader also says that BlackBerry and Android products are in the pipeline. “ Basically, we want to be anywhere where there is a video audience. And not necessarily just in the U.S. either, ” Bader tells us. Along those lines, the company has taken a $500,000 angel round of funding from the likes of Ron Conway and other individual investors. The money is being used to staff up, since the company currently only has 2 employees. Before Vidly was Twitvid.io, it was known as Fliggo , a Y Combinator startup. As Vidly, the startup still faces plenty of competition, though many are solely focused on Twitter video sharing right now. CrunchBase Information Vidly Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network : CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 TechCrunch50 Conference 2009 : September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco | |
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