The latest from TechCrunch
- Can Plastic Jungle Create A Market Around Gift Cards?
- How Does Lady Gaga Make Money On YouTube? Find Out At TechCrunch Disrupt.
- Wake Me Up When The Circuit Bends: Inside American Idiot On Broadway
- The Return Of The Lost iPhone May Come On June 7, WWDC Day
- Add It To The List: You Cannot Club Seals To Death On The iPhone
| Can Plastic Jungle Create A Market Around Gift Cards? | Top |
| Plastic Jungle, a marketplace for gift cards, is hoping to shakeup the gift card market by allowing gift card owners to use certificates for a given store at another online retail establishment. Plastic Jungle lets you buy, sell and exchange gift cards online. Instead of receiving cash for your gift card, Plastic Jungle also lets you trade the value in for an Amazon gift card or give your money to charity. Users can receive cash for unwanted gift cards for up to 92% of the unused balance and buy gift cards at up to a 30% discount. Plastic Jungle, which just raised another $7.4 million in funding, will partner with online retailers to power a payment portal in the checkout process that will allow shoppers to use a credit from a different store to make an online payment. You enter the gift card like you would a credit card based on the unique serial number and pin code that every major gift card has. Similar to its exchange on the site, Plastic Jungle will offer you a 92% of the unused balance on the card. So if you want to use a $100 Gap gift card at Target.com, you’d receive $92 from Plastic Jungle to put towards your Target.com balance. Plastic Jungle will then transfer that $92 onto another Target.com card and re-sell the balance of the card on PlasticJungle.com. Plastic Jungle is working with both gift card processors and retailers in order to make the process be electronic and, therefore, instantaneous. And the startup will be implementing this check-out system with a major retailer that will go live with mid-summer (Plastic Jungle declined to name the retailer). And this will only be used and implemented in online transactions. It seems like a stretch to assume that retailers would be onboard with this. Gap or Target may enjoy when nobody uses the cards though because then they get to keep the cash without handing over any goods. Helping Plastic Jungle make a more liquid market out of gift cards might not be in their best interest But Plastic Jungle CEO Garry Briggs maintains that with more than $30 billion wasted in unspent gift cards, the ability to transfer balances will jumpstart movement of these cards and inevitably result in more e-commerce transactions and more money for retailers. The startup also just launched a partnership with Facebook, to allows users to sell unused gift cards and receive Facebook Credits. Briggs recently told us that Plastic Jungle’s revenue is eight times more that what it was a year ago. Briggs also said that “millions” of dollars have flown through the marketplace since the company’s launch two years ago. Plastic Jungle faces competition from CardPool and others. CrunchBase Information Plastic Jungle Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| How Does Lady Gaga Make Money On YouTube? Find Out At TechCrunch Disrupt. | Top |
| Have you seen Lady Gaga’s new music video with Beyonce , launched on Vevo and YouTube last month? The one that mixes busty blonde babes with Wonder Bread, Miracle Whip, Virgin Mobile, and a host of other brands? Troy Carter, Gaga’s manager who helped put together this video, will be speaking at TechCrunch Disrupt next month. Carter will join Google President and head of Business Development Nikesh Arora , Facebook product head Chris Cox, Google’s VP of engineering Vic Gundotra , and other executives at Disrupt to discuss our core themes of what’s now in content creation, distribution platforms, and –everyone’s favorite — monetization of media. Disrupt will take place May 24-26 in New York City at 570 Washington. There’s still time to get our early-bird discount for Disrupt if you grab a ticket before Friday. We’ve invited Carter because he is successfully navigating the music industry’s disruption. CD sales are steeply down from a decade ago due to Web-based theft and single-track sales –and no one expects them to recover. Even without theft, Gaga fans can just as easily watch her on YouTube rather than paying for her music. Instead of fighting the stream, Carter and others like him are meeting the audience online and experimenting with ways to monetize popularity. Carter will tell us how one of the world’s biggest stars is managing her brand by using the digital disruption to her advantage, rather than detriment. (And yes, we did ask, but the Lady herself is on tour in France at the time.) We’re also excited to ask the 800-pound gorilla in the room, Google, about the evolution on online advertising. (Is that okay, Nikesh, that we just called you a gorilla?) To pow-wow on how the mobile platform is changing, his Googler colleague, Gundotra, will join us, as will Facebook’s Cox. If you’re a startup and want to exhibit at Disrupt –which also includes the opportunity to attend a speed-dating session with VCs, courtesy of Zoosk – check out exhibitor info . If you qualify for Startup Alley as an early-stage startup, it’s even cheaper than buying two tickets for your team. (No kidding.) Hope we’ll see you at Disrupt. Nikesh Arora President, Global Sales Operations and Business Development, Google Nikesh oversees all revenue and customer operations, as well as marketing and partnerships. Since joining Google in 2004, he has held several positions with the company. Most recently, he led Google’s global direct sales operations. He also developed and managed the company’s operations in the European, Middle Eastern and African markets and was responsible for creating and expanding strategic partnerships in those regions for the benefit of Google’s growing number of users and advertisers. Prior to joining Google, he was chief marketing officer and a member of the management board at T-Mobile. While there, he spearheaded all product development, terminals, brand and marketing activities of T-Mobile Europe. Troy Carter Founder & CEO, Coalition Media Group Troy Carter is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of Coalition Media Group. He manages multi-platinum Grammy award winner Lady Gaga, among other recording artists. Coalition is a talent management and full-service film and television production company. Carter began his career in Philadelphia working for Will Smith and James Lassiter's Overbrook Entertainment. In 1995 he joined Bad Boy Entertainment where he worked in the marketing department under Sean "Diddy" Combs, with artists such as Notorious B.I.G. Carter formed the boutique urban talent management company, Erving Wonder, in 1999. Erving Wonder quickly became one of the preeminent artist management firms, representing hip-hop / R&B stars Eve, Floetry, and Nelly, among others. In 2004 Erving Wonder was acquired by the Sanctuary Group. Carter formed Coalition Media Group in 2007, where he continues to successfully grow his company and their roster. Chris Cox VP Product, Facebook Christopher Cox is the Vice President of Product at Facebook, where he is responsible for organizing Facebook's product strategy and overseeing the product management and design functions. Christopher joined Facebook in 2005 as a Software Engineer and was instrumental in implementing first versions of key Facebook features, including News Feed and Inbox. He then became Director of Human Resources where he drove the development of Facebook's mission, values, and people strategy. Christopher holds a bachelor's degree in symbolic systems with a concentration in artificial intelligence from Stanford University. Vic Gundotra Vice President, Google Vic joined Google in 2007 as a Vice President of Engineering, responsible for mobile applications and developer evangelism. In addition, he is responsible for product management and marketing for mobile products at Google. He also oversees applications development. Previously, Vic spent 15 years at Microsoft, where he worked on a variety of products and operating systems, including Windows 3.0, NT, Windows XP, and Vista. He was recognized by MIT as a “Young Innovator under 35″ for his work in sparking the Microsoft’s change from Win32 to the .NET programming model. Most recently, Vic was General Manager of Microsoft’s developer outreach efforts worldwide, including evangelism and strategy for products like Windows Vista, Visual Studio, Microsoft Office, Microsoft CRM, and Windows Mobile. Vic holds two patents in the area of distributed computing and identity-based access to cloud resources. | |
| Wake Me Up When The Circuit Bends: Inside American Idiot On Broadway | Top |
| Last week I walked through the set of American Idiot , a new broadway musical featuring the songs of the skiffle band, Green Day. I'm not big on musical theatre - I was never given even a chorus part in high school and ended up doing crew, which was much more fun, so maybe it's sour grapes - but this musical has 44 different video screens on stage, each doing something different, making it one of the most technically impressive productions on Broadway. I was there to find out how they did it. The forty-four screens, as you see above, are all Sony Bravia TVs of various sizes. The goal during production was to "sequence" the screens to match the onscreen action. Interestingly, because of union labor guidelines, the TV controls had to be connected to the lightboard using a theatrical networking protocol called DMX512 so the trained lightboard operator - whose training usually stops a the ability to push a slider up and down - would be able to press one button to get all of the TVs to work correctly. Why? If they had to hire a special "TV operator," the unions would force every production in the future to hire a "TV operator" and given tight budgets, they have to kluge like crazy. It's the equivalent of controlling a massive network of computers from a green-screen terminal with only a serial port simply because the boss likes his Wang desktop. There's no business like the slow, outdated network protocols business! | |
| The Return Of The Lost iPhone May Come On June 7, WWDC Day | Top |
| After all the police raids and legal musings , the next-generation iPhone that Apple engineer Gray Powell lost in a bar will likely reappear at Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference, which the company today announced will take place on June 7. It is widely expected that Apple will officially unveil its next iPhone, the iPhone HD or whatever it will be called, at the event. Yup, the one with the front-facing camera for video chat , bigger battery, better microphone, and retro 70s Braun stylings. Maybe there will be some surprises left. If not, there is always the iPad, iPhone OS 4.0 , iAds , and “tips and tricks” sessions on API Design for Cocoa. CrunchBase Information Apple Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| Add It To The List: You Cannot Club Seals To Death On The iPhone | Top |
| Look, I get the porn thing . Well, sort of . But now Apple has gone too far. iSealClub is the latest app to be rejected from the App Store. In it, you yes, club seals. I’m shocked — shocked! — that Apple would reject such an app. Developer Matthew Smyth writes: So I decided to develop a game based on the seal hunt (with a club). You play a seal hunter armed with a club against an unlimited number of seals. Tilting the device in the desired direction moves the club around the screen, and making a flicking motion causes the club to hit a seal or the ground. I tired to keep the game light hearted as possible with no blood, or clubbing baby seals. Well… you can try and club the baby seals, but you lose points and they just take off really fast. Smyth emailed Apple before ever writing the app to see if they would find it questionable, and they responded that they didn’t pre-approve apps. So Smyth built it. And yes, it was rejected on the grounds that it contains “ content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, sounds, etc.) that in Apple's reasonable judgement may be found objectionable .” Actually, I thought the whole thing was a joke when Smyth emailed it to us, but it turns out his app is actually based on something real: the Canadian Seal Hunt . Yes, it’s real — and awful. But actually, Smyth has something of a point with the following: I looked at other apps in the app store which have been approved. Here are a few examples of games available on the app store: Turkey Hunt, iHunt, Deer Hunter 3D, iFishing, Ace Hunter, iHunt 3D, Big Buck Hunter, 3D Hunting, Trophy Hunt… All games about hunting animals for sport. Pocket God… Play God, torture and kill Pygmies iMob, iMobsters…. Create a mob, arm your mob, perform crimes for profit, etc. Various Assult rifle/gun apps.. shoot/build weapons to kill. Various War based games… Kill. Grand Theft Auto… Steal Cars, run people over, shoot and kill people (including cops) in cold blood… Watch them lie in their own pool of blood. The list goes on. He goes on: The Canadian Seal Hunt may be controversial, but it is in-fact sanctioned (unlike stealing cars and shooting cops) by the Canadian government. People also make a living from the seal hunt (ie not a "sport" hunts). The game itself rewards the player with seal based products (such as seal oil, or seal skin jackets), and not "trophies." Given the "objectionableness" of the game's content compared to the above games, I can't help but think that Apple has taken a less then neutral position on the topic of the Seal Hunt. If Apple is truly against the seal hunt, I respect that. I wouldn't kill an animal (non-virtual of course) myself. But… I don't respect Apple for restricting content based these views(when the other side is still socially acceptable). I can understand not allowing games with the cold blooded murder of police officers….. oh wait…. They do.. never mind. A very interesting point. That said, I’d say there’s just about no way this app gets accepted, hypocrisy or not. So you’ll just have to make do with the video of it in action below. CrunchBase Information App Store iPhone Information provided by CrunchBase | |
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