Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Y! Alert: TechCrunch

Yahoo! Alerts
My Alerts

The latest from TechCrunch

I'm Not Sure This Augments Your Reality, But Brightkite Gets Better AR Ads Top
Back in December, the location-based service Brightkite rolled out a new layer to its Augmented Reality (AR) view: ads. At the time, these were Google ads that showed up in a “relatively unobtrusive” way, as ReadWriteWeb put it . Now, those ads are getting more obtrusive because some big brands are on board. Brightkite has been working with both Starbucks and McDonalds to bring more effective AR ads to reality (pun intended). Rather than showing a Google ad at the bottom of the Brightkite view screen when you see a circle in AR view, there are now giant logos for the brands in the AR view itself. For example, see the Starbucks VIA logo in the image in this post. As you can see, when you’re near a retailer than carries VIA, the logo will appear on the screen. Clicking on the logo will give you more info below that including links and videos that you can play inline. Brightkite has been working with McDonalds on this advertising technology as well, and the fast food giant showed it off at their internal conference recently. I’m still of the mindset that AR is a bit away from practical use (though it is awesome for some games ). But products like Google Street View are pushing it closer to the mainstream. The question is: is it a good idea to try and monetize AR before it really even takes off? I’m not sure I’d be thrilled about using the technology if I’m just going to see ads in my face. Well, unless it they look like they do in Minority Report . CrunchBase Information Brightkite Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Eric Schmidt And Founder Collective Giiv Mobile-Gifting Startup $3.35 Top
Mobile gifting startup Giiv raised $3.35 million in a series A round announced today. Investors included Google CEO Eric Schmidt (through his personal seed fund TomorrowVentures), Saban Ventures, Founder Collective, and SK Telecom Ventures. Schmidt was already a seed investor. If the investors could have texted the $3.35 million into Giiv’s bank account, they probably would have. Giiv is a mobile gifting service which works via text messages, an iPhone app, and a Facebook app. It’s tag line is “texting with benefits.” Giiv makes sending gifts easy by letting people text a redemption code for a store credit to a friend. Instead of buying someone a gift card, you can simply send them an SMS code via Giiv which they can use in both physical and online stores, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Macy’s, and Fandango. CrunchBase Information Giiv Eric Schmidt Founder Collective Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga Court Silicon Valley's Entrepreneurs [Video] Top
Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga’s managers are looking for the next best thing. They’re not looking for the next Bieber or Gaga— well, they’re looking for that too, but that’s not what I’m referring to here— they’re aggressively searching for the next great web platform. Troy Carter, CEO of Coalition Media and the manager of Lady Gaga, and Scooter Braun , Founder of SB Projects and the manager of Justin Bieber, oversee two very different performers but when it comes to the philosophy behind their online strategy, the managers speak the same language. After their Disrupt panel , “Success Strategies for Musicians in the Digital Era,” Braun and Carter elaborated on their vision during our backstage video interview (see above). Both have used social media tools, namely Twitter and YouTube, to elevate their artists and both are actively looking for new tools to build and engage their audience. To give you a sample of their online success, Gaga has 4.3 million Twitter followers, Bieber has 2.8 million. On YouTube, Lady Gaga’s top three videos recently surpassed one billion views, the 16-year-old is not that far behind with more than 380 million views on his VEVO channel. Now that their clients are major influencers online, Braun and Carter are ready to use that capital to strike lucrative partnerships with the next generation of startups. This is not idle chatter. “I don’t want to name these companies that I’ve been looking at,” Braun says. “But…I went out and flew out to San Francisco and spent two weeks just meeting with new, young entrepreneurs out there because I want to know who’s next and [I] realized that the power that our artists have created for themselves on Facebook, on Twitter, on YouTube are very, very valuable for launching these new platforms.” Braun sees it as a symbiotic relationship, the artist brings visibility to a company and gains a new way to engage fans. With the record virtually dead, (Bieber managed to recently regain the top spot on the Billboard charts with a measly 60,000 albums sold for the week) the managers and the rest of the industry are still trying to redefine the business model. They haven’t figured it out quite yet, but Braun and Carter both believe that online partnerships with younger companies like Foursquare will be a major part of the formula, especially for artists that achieve a critical mass (like Gaga and Bieber).  Perhaps what’s most surprising, they say, is that they’re part of the minority in an industry that has the most to gain and lose by the rapid evolution of social media and technology: Braun: The fact that Troy and I are the only people that I’ve seen at this conference from the music business is blowing my mind. I said this to L.A. Reid yesterday, the chairman of Island Def Jam, I said to him yesterday, the fact that you’re not down there and people from your company aren’t down there meeting everyone is just… it’s just not right. Carter: The fact that it’s called Disrupt should have every record label here right now because no media business has been more disrupted like the record business… Braun: If we don’t come to conferences like this and find that next young entrepreneur and find that next idea and become a part of it we’re going to die.
 
The Pirate Bay Couples With Meezoog Belowdecks To Launch Dating Site Top
In a bizarre move, The Pirate Bay , the world's largest BitTorrent tracker, is partnering with social dating site Meezoog to launch an online dating site PirateDate.com, to take on Match.com, Zoosk and others. The Pirate Bay, which has had a tumultuous year , is launching a dating network around sharing. PirateDate will allow singles to share and assist their social connections in finding potential dates, while getting recommendations and referrals from their friends. Pirate Date is utilizing Meezoog's technology to provide users with "social proximity" measurements, that allow people to efficiently filter their cyber connections. According to the site, personal information added by members is immediately visible to their friends (through Facebook connect), encouraging users to be honest with their information. Pirate Date’s ‘Social Radius’ technology exposes members to singles who are socially connected to them, as well as displays how they are connected. The site will also share users’ ‘Trust Paths’ to every member, showing people’s social graph. And the site’s ‘Social Proximity Gauge’, calculates how close you are to people you find interesting on Pirate Date. It’s unclear who would actually want to join this site considering the Pirate Bay’s brand. It seems more oriented towards men than women, considering the homepage of Pirate Date includes a picture of an attractive woman in a pirate’s costume. And why would you join this site over Match.com, E-Harmony or others that already have a considerable user base? While a dating site seems like an odd departure for a file sharing site, it makes sense that the Pirate Bay would want to focus on other verticals considering the legal troubles the site has been involved in with sharing content. A few weeks ago the site was shut down thanks to an injunction obtained by the film studios which halted bandwith to the site due to pirated content. The Pirate Bay just announced a new bandwith host , the Swedish Pirate Party. CrunchBase Information The Pirate Bay Meezoog Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Qype Rejects Acquisition Thoughts, Replaces CEO, Doubles-Down Top
We've been wondering what direction Qype would take recently after rumours that it was in potential acquisition talks with various parties, one of which may have been Nokia, although nothing was ever confirmed. What we do know is that there has been an internal "debate" about whether to enter into a strategic partnership (usually code for acquisition) or whether to double down on becoming the go-to local reviews site in Europe. And so far it's held it's own against Yelp on this side of the pond. But today it's become clear that this "exit or grow" debate had reached an impasse. We knew from sources that CEO Stephen Taylor, a former Yahoo! Europe head, favoured a partnership/acquisition. But Founder and Chairman Stephan Uhrenbacher, who remains Qype's largest private shareholder, favoured the go for growth / home-run approach. Whatever the case, last Friday Taylor departed.
 

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)