The latest from TechCrunch
- Facebook, The App Store, And The Sound Of Inevitability
- Dogpatch Labs Unveils New Brood
- Friday Giveaway: Five Tickets To TechCrunch Disrupt In NY May 24-26 #CRUNCH
- Science To The Rescue: The Turbo Encapulator
- Salesforce Launches A Simple Way To Organize Leads With WordPress
| Facebook, The App Store, And The Sound Of Inevitability | Top |
| “ That is the sound of inevitability… “ I’m reminded of this quote from The Matrix as I read headline after headline around the blogosphere about how Facebook and Apple and their (at least relatively) closed ecosystems are going to destroy the fabric of the web as we know it. Me? I’m not worried in the slightest bit. Why? Because it occurs to me that what’s going on now is just a part of a cycle. A necessary cycle. Yes, the web (by which I mean the entire Internet), it seems to me, is cyclical. Just as the United States goes through periods where conservatives being in power gives way to liberals being in power, the web is currently transitioning from open systems dominating to closed systems taking over. Nowhere is this more evident than with Apple’s App Store, and Facebook. The masses, for whatever reason (and there are reasons, more on that later), are embracing these restricted platforms. And obviously, it has some people scared shitless. And while it’s good for some people to worry in order to keep the soon-to-be ruling powers in check, I’m certain that one day in a few years (or maybe less), we’ll be back to the so-called “open” web again. It has happened before. You don’t even have to go back that far to find it. In the early 1990s there was no World Wide Web. Well, there was, but no one you know used it because there was no widely-used web browser. Instead, the Internet mainly existed as things such as Usenet , Gopher , and FTP. The system was open. Sure, there was some barriers to entry (such as a modem), but the real barrier to entry was that basically no one knew what “online” was, and even fewer knew how to get there. Then the companies Prodigy, CompuServe, GEnie, and America Online came along. In 1991, all of these services worked on DOS (Microsoft’s operating system before Windows), and offered a relatively easy way to get online. More importantly, it gave them something to do there, such as read structured news in article form. But, in return for the ease-of-use, each of these services had access fees. This was a closing of the Internet — but people didn’t care. These services grew quickly. None grew faster than AOL. A key aspect to their service was a nice user interface that anyone could understand (CompuServe, by comparison, was oriented more towards the tech community). They also put an emphasis on being able to communicate with other AOL members (but only other AOL members) through chat rooms. Usage quickly exploded. Again, a closed system. The fact of the matter is that closed systems are useful in certain circumstances. One key one is mainstream appeal. AOL was appealing to people because it was easy to understand and seemed (relatively) safe. People started using Facebook because it was easy to understand and seemed (relatively) safe. People are now using the App Store because it is easy to understand and seems (relatively) safe. You get the picture. This is the type of system needed to take mainstream adoption to the highest levels. (Notice I only said “take” not necessarily keep them there.) Closed systems can also adapt and change faster than open systems. To return to politics for a second. It’s a bit like how a government under a King is more efficient that one under a Republic. Governing by committee is slow, a King can rule on something and it’s done. But yes, a King can also make mistakes faster — there are pluses and minuses. This ties into what Joe Hewitt, the famed web/iPhone developer (now with Facebook), said yesterday in a long rant on Twitter against the current state of web development . “ I want desperately to be a web developer again, but if I have to wait until 2020 for browsers to do what Cocoa can do in 2010, I won't wait ,” Hewitt said. His point is that the state of web languages as presided over by the W3C (the Republic) are moving too slow. Cocoa, a framework presided over by Apple (the King) is a good 10 years ahead of it. Maybe Hewitt’s right, maybe he’s wrong, or maybe he’s just exaggerating. It doesn’t matter. The fact of the matter is that something will come along and force these closed systems open again — or they will perish. Speaking of perishing, let’s go back to AOL. By the mid-1990s, it was dominating. Once they switched to a flat monthly fee (instead of an hourly fee — yes, they had that in place for a long time and people still used it) usage soared into the tens of millions. This may not seem like a lot when you consider that Facebook is approaching 500 million users, but this was a much different time. Many people signing up for AOL were using the Internet for the first time ever . By 2000, AOL was so powerful and had so much money thanks to its winning (again, closed) model that it actually bought Time Warner for $164 billion. Then everything started falling apart. A few years earlier, AOL added a feature that would be its eventual downfall, the web browser. Yes, at one point in the 90s, a lot of people were browsing the web from within AOL’s walled-garden. But the web was open, and AOL didn’t block you from going anywhere on it. Content on the web started growing so quickly, and got so diverse, that people started to question if they actually needed AOL at all. When the telephone and cable companies started offering always-on access to the Internet that people could get to directly through a web browser (cutting off AOL), the only reason a lot of people still kept the service was for their AOL email address. This was no longer a sustainable model. AOL’s profits started diving as their dial-up access business did. The open web had won — and in part because AOL gave it a window to operate. But without AOL (or some company like it) you could argue that people would have been slower to adopt the Internet, and the web as we know it today would have been slower to evolve. Does any of that sound familiar? Think about the iPhone. It’s a walled-garden (though much more open than AOL was as third-party developers can work within it, provided they follow the rules), but it too has an open window to the outside: the web. The Safari web browser is the iPhone’s peephole . And Apple even plays that up at times. If people criticize them for now allowing certain apps, they note that anyone can build apps using HTML5 that will work on Safari. Apple doesn’t regulate those at all. As Hewitt notes, HTML5 is not mature enough yet to produce apps that are on par with native apps. But some are getting fairly impressive. It could well be that in a few years, HTML5 leads to the fall of the App Store model as we know. I’m not saying the model will crash and burn as AOL’s did — Apple may adapt and take down their walls (or do something else) before that happens. But I do believe HTML5 (or some other technology we’re not even thinking about right now) will lead to an opening back up of the system. Facebook is a slightly different matter. Whereas they were a fairly closed system at first, they’ve been opening up more in recent years. First we got the Facebook Platform, which allowed third-party developers to play within Facebook’s walls. Then we got Facebook Connect, which allowed other sites to play within Facebook’s walls. And now we have the Open Graph, which seem to extend Facebook’s walls to the broader web (at least those sites that adopt it). Yes, the system is still closed in that Facebook still has control of much of the data flowing in and out, but there are parts of it that are open too. I happen to think that Facebook may have found the right mixture of open and closed with the Open Graph. It’s open enough that they can continue to extend their reach beyond their already incredible (nearly) 500 million members. And yet it’s closed enough that some semblance of order is maintained and people (at least for now) will keep using it. Thanks in part to their closed roots where a system of trust was built, Facebook was able to establish and grow the ultimate social graph. Like AOL’s mail and chat systems before it, this is a form of lock-in for users. AOL failed because it was too slow to open up their system and realize that they already had hooks in place to keep users from leaving. Facebook doesn’t appear to be making the same mistake. They already won the social networking wars, so now they can afford to open up and go after the larger web. And Google . So while everyone fears what the Facebook-ification of the web will mean, I’d argue that the only way Facebook can continue to grow and keep their users is if they continue to open up. At some point, I’d bet that it won’t be in their best interest from a business perspective to do that, and that’s when they may start to decline. But there’s a wild-card. If the company can figure out a Google AdSense-type way to make money while continuing the march towards open, they may be able to hold on. In both of these “closed” examples, Facebook and the App Store, they key to longevity is a movement towards open. If either Facebook or Apple resist that, they’ll become AOL. Something will come along and shove them out of way. It has happened before. It will happen again. And it will keep happening. It’s inevitable. CrunchBase Information Facebook Apple App Store AOL Information provided by CrunchBase | |
| Dogpatch Labs Unveils New Brood | Top |
| Dogpatch Labs, the self-described “frathouse for geeks” has revealed the new class of start-ups that will inhabit its San Francisco location for the next six months. Starting this Saturday, the residents will have access to free office space, internet, coffee, lunch and other perks like visiting advisers, conferences and workshops. The program, backed by Polaris Venture Partners, features a mix of new and former residents, some of which are pretty notable, including Formspring, Burbn, JibJab, StickyBits, and Animoto. Full list with descriptions (Dogpatch Labs’ descriptions are in italics) below: New San Francisco Residents: TaskRabbit (formerly runmyerrand.com) Helps individuals and small businesses in a community outsource their tasks and deliveries, leveraging the latest technology and the social networking paradigm. According to the site, you can sign up for free or just post a task. You put a price tag on the task and a runner will select the job (average response time is 30 minutes). When the task is complete you pay and then score the runner based on his or her performance. Most tasks will pay $10 to $15, but runners can make counteroffers or bid on the task. CrunchBase Information Task Rabbit Information provided by CrunchBase Wild Pockets Is an end to end solution that supports creators throughout the life cycle of 3D game development. Currently in open beta, Wild Pockets was spun off from the Carnegie Mellon University's Entertainment Technology Center (it was originally named Sim Ops Studio). The service, which is free, describes itself as an “easier way to make 3D games and media for the web-browser.” Wild Pockets features a browser-based 3D game engine, file hosting, and a library of game assets. CrunchBase Information Wild Pockets Information provided by CrunchBase AdCru Is a pay-per-follower ad network for Twitter founded in September 2009. Calling itself a “self-service” online marketplace, AdCru brings advertisers and developers together and helps advertisers target users based on keywords or location. Developers can integrate AdCru on their site through a javascript widget and revenues are split with AdCru. CrunchBase Information AdCru Information provided by CrunchBase Burbn Is a new way to communicate + share in the real world. Still in stealth mode, Burbn is a location-based web app that uses HTML5. Founded by former Google employee, Kevin Systrom, the company received a $550,000 round of seed funding in March from Andreessen Horowitz and Baseline Ventures. See previous coverage. CrunchBase Information Burbn Information provided by CrunchBase Recurly Makes subscription billing easy for developers and organizations of all sizes Recurly tries to help other companies simplify the billing process for subscription based payment systems. The company recently expanded international support and introduced a tiered fee structure to make their pricing model more flexible. Recurly recently received an undisclosed amount of angel funding from investor Dave McClure. See previous coverage. CrunchBase Information Recurly Information provided by CrunchBase FanPop Is a network of user-generated fan clubs for different topics of interest created and maintained by the community of fans. FanPop, founded in 2006, allows users to share thoughts, video, photos with other fans. There’s a wide variety of fan clubs on the site but many of the most popular topics are centered on music and entertainment. See previous coverage. CrunchBase Information Fanpop Information provided by CrunchBase JibJab Headquartered in Santa Monica and founded by Gregg and Evan Spiridellis, and backed by Polaris, JibJab is a leading e-Card business. The company behind many of the web’s more humorous customizable videos, like ElfYourself. The site has also made some interesting partnerships with the likes of Weird Al and Soul Train. JibJab has received a total of $16.9 million in funding over three rounds. See previous coverage. CrunchBase Information JibJab Information provided by CrunchBase StickyBits Brings the physical and digital worlds together with barcode stickers which trigger audio, video, photo, and text messages when scanned. Stickybits, which has $300,000 in funding from Polaris, was founded by Billy Chasen, the original programmer of Chartbeat, and Seth Goldstein, founder of SocialMedia. It is a mobile app that lets you scan a barcode and attach a message, video, photo or voice note to that code. The app itself is free, and you can use any barcode, but you can also purchase barcode stickers from Stickybits (a pack of 20 is $10). See previous coverage. CrunchBase Information Stickybits Information provided by CrunchBase Animoto Generates custom, professional-looking slideshows from user-uploaded music and photos. Their "patent-pending Cinematic Artificial Intelligence technology and high-end motion design" drives the web app. Using a freemium model, Animoto lets users submit photos and music to creates sleek slideshows. Rivals include Slide and RockYou. The company, which turned cash flow positive in 2009, has so far raised $5 million in funding. See previous coverage. CrunchBase Information Animoto Information provided by CrunchBase LearnBoost Is an education platform for secondary schools. LearnBoost provides web-based software for students, parents, teachers and admins of grades K-12. For example, there are tools for real time collaboration, online gradebooks for teachers and parents can quickly access grades and track their child’s performance across classes and years. CrunchBase Information LearnBoost Information provided by CrunchBase Millenial Media Delivers the largest reach – 83% of the US mobile audience – through the largest mobile advertising network in the US. With access to a large mobile media audience in the US, Millenial Media works with advertisers trying to reach mobile consumers and publishers trying to maximize ad revenues. The company recently released an iPad specific SDK. Founded in Baltimore, Millennial has enjoyed robust growth, acquiring TapMetrics in February and raising $37.3 million since its 2006 launch. See previous coverage. CrunchBase Information Millennial Media Information provided by CrunchBase Current Residents: Formspring Ask questions, give answers and learn more about your friends. Formspring tries to simplify the creation, management and sharing of online data and forms. One of the company’s more popular services, Formspring.me, helps users create quick online Q&As. It’s a very simple process: you invite people to ask questions which you can then answer. People can post questions anonymously or identify themselves, and you can pick and choose which questions you want to answer. See previous coverage. CrunchBase Information FormSpring Information provided by CrunchBase Hollrr Want to help your friends discover a great new product? A quick Hollrr is the easiest way to let them know what deserves a shout out. Hollrr combines a social network and user-based product reviews. The company, which was founded by former Microsoft employee David Hegarty, merges social recommendation and game mechanics (Hollrr features a badge system). | |
| Friday Giveaway: Five Tickets To TechCrunch Disrupt In NY May 24-26 #CRUNCH | Top |
| You may have noticed that we’re putting on a new event – TechCrunch Disrupt – for two thousand or so of our closest friends in New York on May 24 – 26. The event is all about innovation and disruption – lots of new companies will launch and battle it out to a top cash prize of $50,000 and a shower of press attention, and we’ve lined up some of the most interesting and powerful people in the media and Internet worlds to give deep insights into the creative destruction happening right now. Also, we’re putting you, the audience, on stage in most of the panels . The event will sell out, but we understand that some people just can’t afford the ticket price, plus travel if you don’t live in or near New York City. So today we’re giving out five free tickets to the event. That’s $15,000 worth of tickets that we can give away thanks to sponsors like Yahoo, Second Market, Zoosk, Intuit, Bing, The Ladders and scvngr. Here’s how to get a ticket: Just fan the TechCrunch Facebook page and then do one of two things: either retweet this post, and make sure to include the #CRUNCH hashtag, or leave a comment below telling us why you must attend this event. The contest ends at noon California time tomorrow, Saturday and the winners will be selected at random at that time. Please only tweet the message once, anyone tweeting repeatedly will be disqualified. We'll pick the winners tomorrow afternoon and contact you for more details. Anyone in the world is eligible, as long as you can make your way to New York for the event (you can find cheap accommodations at The Standard hotel or via AirBnB ). And we'll throw in a TechCrunch tshirt to each winner. Update : Ok, contest closed, thanks to everyone who entered. Congratulations to cabo80 , elissafink , Antoine , Andrea , and Brad . We will be reaching out to the winners with more information in the next few days. | |
| Science To The Rescue: The Turbo Encapulator | Top |
| This video was emailed to me this morning by a friend as an attachment along with the message “As I have always said, it is science that will save us from all of the most pressing issues of the day. This video truly is inspirational and speaks to mankind’s ability to innovate and evolve….” . A few frantic searches later and I found it on YouTube for you all to enjoy. It’s not as breathtaking as the DIY CrunchPad kit , but it’s a scientific breakthrough nonetheless. More information here . | |
| Salesforce Launches A Simple Way To Organize Leads With WordPress | Top |
| If you run a website that accepts Salesforce leads directly, chances are it’s running on WordPress . Chances are also that you’re getting emailed each of those leads, which you then have to copy-and-paste back into Salesforce, to put them into your system. Not anymore. Salesforce has just launched a WordPress-to-Lead plug-in that allows you to place a sign-up form on any WordPress post or page, which then automatically puts that data into your Salesforce account. No more email required. It’s the first “Consumerprise” play that Salesforce has attempted. Like all WordPress plug-ins, it requires a little bit of work to install WordPress-to-Lead, but it’s relatively simple. You download the plug-in here, upload the files to your server through FTP, then go into your WordPress set up to activate it. You then need to enter your Salesforce.com Organization ID, and then you’re all set. You can use the [salesforce] WordPress shortcode to display the form anywhere on your site. And yes, the form is customizable with different fields. This seems like such an logical addition for Salesforce that it’s somewhat surprising they didn’t have something like this earlier (though there have been other work-arounds). Especially in today’s world where we’re all bombarded by email, and some are easily overlooked — or you have to hire someone to be in charge of moving these leads from your mail over to Salesforce. This is much, much simpler. The video below has more: CrunchBase Information Salesforce WordPress Information provided by CrunchBase | |
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