The latest from TechCrunch
- Skyfire 2.0 for Android Launching Today
- myGengo's New API Lets You Plug Human Translation Into Websites And Apps
- Steve Jobs Tells The World Just What He Thinks Of Flash
- The Huffington Post Starts To Give Out Badges To Readers
| Skyfire 2.0 for Android Launching Today | Top |
| Back in February, Skyfire (makers of the popular, Flash-enabled smartphone browser of the same name) announced that they’d snatched up Kolbysoft , the company behind the well-established Steel browser for Android. Today, we’re seeing the first fruits of that purchase coming to the market: Skyfire for Android is here. Skyfire’s flagship feature is that it supports Flash video playback, so you’d expect their Android port to do the same, right? And it does! It just does it… a bit differently. Read the rest at MobileCrunch >> | |
| myGengo's New API Lets You Plug Human Translation Into Websites And Apps | Top |
| Translating a website isn’t an easy task, especially if you have limited internal resources, a complex site structure, or multiple languages to deal with. Usually, the process requires manual work and coordination, for example managing translators or keeping track of texts in various languages. This is where myGengo , which we recently described as “Mechanical Turk for translations” , comes in. The Tokyo-based startup today rolled out an API that allows developers to plug on-demand human translation directly into websites, apps, widgets, social networks, etc. The main idea is to automate the process for dynamic content as much as possible, without forgoing the power of human translation. Take an e-commerce site, for example, that keeps adding items to the database on a regular basis. That site could make use of the API by sending new item descriptions for translation to myGengo automatically from within the site. The startups’s team of now 800 pre-tested translators worldwide would then translate the item descriptions into any of up to eight different languages. The texts would then be inserted back into the e-commerce site automatically (“within hours”, as myGengo promises). myGengo also pitches its API as a way to monetize the user base of international social networks or community-driven sites. Owners of a document hosting platform, for example, could re-sell translations to users who might be interested in publishing their texts or presentations in multiple languages, earning a mark-up. Using the API itself is free (as is opting for machine translation for selected pieces of content), while customers are charged the same prices for translation through the API as through the web form (starting from $ 0.05 per word). myGengo CEO Robert Laing says his company aims to have plug-ins available for the top 10 content management systems out by the end of the year and that its multi-lingual site tool “String” will be connected to the API next month. CrunchBase Information myGengo Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| Steve Jobs Tells The World Just What He Thinks Of Flash | Top |
| Once upon a time there were two little boys, Apple and Adobe . Back when they were kids, they used to hang out, play kick-the-can, and generally lived in harmony. But one day Apple got sick and Adobe met some new kids and the two drifted apart. Now that they're all grown up, Apple wouldn't spare Adobe the steam of his coffee and their interests, though not divergent, are no longer really friendly. Think of it as A Separate Peace but with multi-national conglomerates. That's how Steve Jobs sees his company's relationship to Adobe and, in an odd letter to the world he lays out what he thinks of Flash . He begins: I wanted to jot down some of our thoughts on Adobe's Flash products so that customers and critics may better understand why we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads. Adobe has characterized our decision as being primarily business driven – they say we want to protect our App Store – but in reality it is based on technology issues. Adobe claims that we are a closed system, and that Flash is open, but in fact the opposite is true. Let me explain. | |
| The Huffington Post Starts To Give Out Badges To Readers | Top |
| The Huffington Post is taking on more of the trappings of a social network. Borrowing from Foursquare, today it will start giving out badges to loyal readers who comment like crazy and share HuffPost stories via Facebook and Twitter (the Superuser), collect a lot of fans and followers (the Networker), or flag inappropriate comments (the Moderator). The site also redesigned its user profile page to better highlight each user’s comment stream, and her friends, fans, or followers. Last summer, the site launched its HuffPost Social News network , allowing readers to log in with their Facebook IDs, and friend, fan, and follow each other on the site. It later added Twitter, Google, and Yahoo as login options. “We want to incorporate the best of social media,” Arianna Huffington tells me. “It is important for the growth of the site so far, and even more important for the future growth.” The Huffington Post is already fairly huge. Five years after she launched it as a politics blog, it now attracts 23 million readers a month in the U.S. (comScore, March, 2010), which is more than the NYTimes.com (13.3 million). And the site now covers 20 different news categories, including media, entertainment, sports, business, and local city sections for New York, L.A., Chicago, and Denver. An art section is launching next month, and after that a travel section. Politics now represents less than a quarter of the HuffPosts’s traffic. Of those 23 million visitors, most are casual readers. But 800,000 of them have HuffPost Social News profiles. They are the ones who log in and leave 2.3 million comments a month. In an effort to “maintain a civil environment” and prevent the “trolls from taking over,” says Huffington, in addition to the site’s own paid comment moderators, readers are encouraged to flag inappropriate comments. Now, those who earn the Moderator badge and level up will be able to delete comments as well. Much of the HuffPost’s growth is coming from readers sharing links on Facebook , Twitter and elsewhere with their social networks. The Networker badge is supposed to reward that kind of behavior. The HuffPost also encourages this behavior with its aggressive promotion of Facebook and Twitter buttons all over the site. Links spread through social sharing “is the fastest growing part of our traffic,” says CEO Eric Hippeau. “Search is still bigger, but referrals from social networks is growing much faster.” In other words, the more the HuffPost becomes like a social network itself, the more it will rely on Facebook, Twitter, and the rest to drive its growth. CrunchBase Information Huffington Post Arianna Huffington Information provided by CrunchBase | |
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