Sunday, May 1, 2011

Y! Alert: TechCrunch

Yahoo! Alerts
My Alerts

The latest from TechCrunch

First Credible Report Of Bin Laden's Death Spread Like Wildfire On Twitter Top
@keithurbahn Keith Urbahn So I'm told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden. Hot damn. about 1 hour ago via Twitter for BlackBerry® Reply Retweet Favorite According to the Twitter-sphere, President Obama is about to announce the death of Osama Bin Laden, in an impromptu announcement broadcast on  Whitehouse.gov  and TV this Sunday night at 10:45 EST. This news is actually spreading like wildfire before the broadcast on Twitter where CNN’s Steve Brusk tweeted that the announcement was National Security-related at around 7:25pm PST, and  the first reputable sign of confirmation came from Keith Urbahn, the Chief of Staff for former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who  tweeted   “I’m told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden.” The tweet has been re-tweeted upwards of 100 times. This announcement is coming poignantly enough on the 8th anniversary of George Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” statement. Unsurprisingly, “Osama Bin Laden” is now a Twitter trending topic. Wow this President hasn’t even spoken yet, and the news is already out. Update: The White House keeps pushing back the announcement, but CNN and the New York Times have just confirmed that Bin Laden was killed, with CNN adding the detail that the event took place in a mansion outside of Islamabad, Pakistan. Update 2: The President has confirmed that Bin Laden was killed in an operation today, after a firefight executed by a small team of US Human Ops troops. @stevebruskCNN Steve Brusk Breaking – We are told it is a national security related announcement by the President about 1 hour ago via web Reply Retweet Favorite @brianstelter Brian Stelter CBS News producer reports: RT @ jacksonjk : House Intelligence committee aide confirms that Osama Bin Laden is dead. U.S. has the body. about 1 hour ago via web Reply Retweet Favorite @jacksonjk Jill Jackson House Intelligence committee aide confirms that Osama Bin Laden is dead. U.S. has the body. about 1 hour ago via Twitter for BlackBerry® Reply Retweet Favorite @andylevy Andy Levy Fox News confirms bin Laden is dead. about 1 hour ago via web Reply Retweet Favorite @k_mancklp Kent Matheson Cnn says bin laden is dead about 1 hour ago via Twitter for BlackBerry® Reply Retweet Favorite CrunchBase Information Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Sony Says PSN Services Will Resume Shortly, Offers Apology Top
As the initial hysteria (mostly justified) surrounding the Sony PSN breach subsides, more measured estimates of the damage are appearing, but more serious questions are becoming relevant. It’s still too early to be sure what the extent of the damage is, but the early and sensational estimates (propagated before Sony announced relevant numbers) seem to be giving way to a more complex, nuanced look at the damage. A few people have claimed suspicious activity on their accounts so far, but there doesn’t seem to be any systematic fraud going on – on the other hand, it isn’t easy to immediately leverage 10-15 million credit cards. Sony announced that it will be reestablishing access to “some” PSN and Qriocity services this week, with a focus on access to account details, online play, and access to purchased media. Other services should be online within a month. As far as restitution, Sony is offering a month of Playstation Plus and Qriocity Unlimited for free, plus a free PSN download, currently unspecified. That would likely be enough to compound for an ordinary extended outage, but this was more than a glitch. Sony will likely get rougher handling from an investigation of their security practices than from frustrated customers. Continue reading…
 
The P2P Evolution Top
Many years ago, after graduating college, I came home before moving to NYC, wondering how I would scrounge together the money for the first month's rent and security deposit so my friends and I could all live together in the Big Apple. I had one month to get the cash, and instead of going out for traditional, hourly-wage work, I decided to go through all of my old stuff and throw it on eBay . In those days, I got online through dial-up, would have to mail a hard copy of the pictures to interested buyers, and would ship items to auction winners only when their check arrived by mail and cleared into my bank account. In one month, I got rid of winter jackets, sports equipment, and baseball cards to the tune of $7,000, tax free, enough to buffer the move to NYC. A few years later, when I moved to San Francisco, it was Craigslist to the rescue, helping with initial sublets, furniture, stereo equipment, and the odd jobs I did to soften the transition. Without knowing it, I was stumbling through life fueled mainly by a peer-to-peer (P2P) network and economy that helped me connect supply and demand, as well as time and money. Instead of using consignment shops or hosting a garage sale, or instead of buying new items in a traditional store, I buffered my moves to NYC and SF primarily fueled by P2P networks. That was P2P 1.0, anchored by eBay and Craigslist, networks that have connected billions. And, while these companies continue their march, we are already into the next peer-to-peer evolution: P2P 2.0.  Unknowingly at the time, I was exposed to the thought a few years ago in graduate school, when my classmate, James Reinhart , came up with the idea for a "Netflix for used clothes," which has morphed into venture-backed thredUP , a P2P network connecting parents to trade gently-worn baby and kid clothes, goods that are very expensive to buy new. Another success is Lending Club , a peer lending site connecting lenders with borrowers primarily for refinancing credit card debt or small business loans. Today, P2P 2.0 is in full-swing, and that's putting things lightly. Y Combinator breakout Airbnb began as an ad-hoc solution for the founders to earn a little extra scratch during a convention when tight hotel supply provided an opportunity to rent out air mattresses in their apartment, with the added touch of breakfast. The result today is a rapidly growing company and brand that aims to connect those who seek space with those who need it—you can rent boats, treehouses, and even castles. Airbnb has been so successful that it's spawned a handful of international copycats and motivated the likes of GetAround , a P2P car-sharing network. The newest entrant into the P2P space is the concept I'm most excited about: Zaarly . The founder, being taller than average, realized prior to boarding a flight in economy class that he would be willing to pay someone on the same flight to swap for an exit row seat. That moment gave birth to Zaarly, a new service that will leverage a mobile device's location to connect those who demand something to those who can provide it. Imagine busy New Yorkers with disposable cash demanding something immediately, delivered right now: "Zaarly it." The Zaarly concept connects time and money in the P2P vector, just like eBay connects sellers and buyers. All of this activity in P2P 2.0 is now possible because of advancements in location sensors in mobile devices and social network platforms. The time is ripe for even much more advancement in P2P ideas, leveraging today's technologies in new ways. Even as consumer-focused entrepreneurs work to build the next solutions, they are raising money on P2P services like Angel List , which connects fundraising entrepreneurs with seed stage capital and has shaken up the early stage investing game. Task Rabbit connects individuals and businesses with "task runners" that provide an outsourced task service, and Listia is an eBay for trading free stuff, where site users earn and spend credits. (Many others are also emerging, please add them here .) During all these P2P transactions, companies like Square , Roam , and Bump leverage mobile phones to help drive payments. For instance, buyers and sellers can trade data by bumping their phones together, where Bump technology measures the movement from the accelerometer and pairs two users together. Square connect buyers and sellers using a credit card and mobile device. A merchant can charge a customer for goods or services by using the Square reader attached through a device's audio jack to read a buyer's credit card (like a cassette tape) and transmit the signal to help complete the transaction. (Surprisingly, not many others have yet fully leveraged the phone's audio jack or accelerometer, making Square, Roam, and Bump standout.) The driving force behind all of this P2P activity is the fact that today's technologies make many more types of transaction possible between average consumers by finding an equilibrium between time and money, supply and demand. Transactions once locked up and never realized now create entirely new economies, free of established brands and fat middle-men. In a world where everyone is rushing to drive all commerce online, some P2P solutions sprinkle a dose of humanity into the transaction. Will P2P services keep bringing more of this human element, personalization, and discovery into the foreground? Will services like Housefed , which provides a personal meal service, create a welcome alternative to nuking frozen food for dinner? It will be fascinating to see what new types of businesses are built on top of these P2P engines, and what traditional businesses they will disrupt. The U.S. economy, struggling its way slowly out of a major recession, will only benefit from a continuous flow of new ideas to help connect people and keep things going. And, the potential for these services overseas is just staggering, especially within cultures that already have strong informal economies baked into their DNA. So big, in fact, that the simple desire to swap airline seats or find a reasonably-priced place to crash during a convention could create, accelerate, and fortify new informal micro-economies in the far corners of earth. Photo credit: Flickr/ NASA Robonaut CrunchBase Information Airbnb Square Zaarly Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Yes, There's An Apple "Castle" In The Cloud Top
Yesterday, French site Consomac.fr did some digging into the latest developer preview build of OS X Lion and found something interesting. Buried in the code are references to a service named called “Castle”. Given the context of one of the mentions — “upgrade from MobileMe to Castle” — this led most to assume that the name referred to Apple’s upcoming cloud service overhaul. We can now confirm that to be the case. As TUAW guessed , Castle is in fact the internal nickname of Apple’s new service which many are now calling “iCloud” in the press (thanks to Apple’s acquisition of that domain recently ), we hear. But here are a couple other tidbits about the service from a naming perspective: the original nickname was “Newcastle”, but that got shortened to “Castle” at some point recently. And the actual shipping name of the product may still be up in the air. At the very least, it is still being called “Castle” internally for the moment. And yes, as we first reported back in March , this service will be unveiled at Apple’s WWDC event in June. On Friday, AppleInsider reported that Apple had begun testing iCloud internally with new versions of iOS and OS X. From what we’re hearing, that is true, but again, the name still being used is the Castle codename — hence, the references in the code. Still, given Apple’s quick move to scoop up iCloud and the branding consistency, we wouldn’t be surprised if iCloud is definitely the front-runner for Castle’s eventual name at this point. With WWDC fast approaching, Apple is going to have to make the call soon to get to work on the branding. CrunchBase Information Apple Information provided by CrunchBase
 
The Scandal Of Toothless Social Media Representatives Ends… Now Top
Last weekend, our own Erick Schonfeld wrote an impressive in-flight diatribe against American Airlines; specifically their ineffectual social media representatives whom he described as little more than “a toothless marketing arm” for the company. Of course, the usual dick of troll commenters (‘a dick’ is the collective noun for troll commenters, look it up) complained that personal rants have no place on TechCrunch – despite the fact that a) TechCrunch is built on a proud tradition of personal rants b) Erick is the co-editor of the site and so can write whatever he damn well pleases. In fact Erick’s ‘rant’ was long overdue. American Airlines’ social media department does suck when it comes to providing actual customer service. But here’s the thing: so does everybody else’s. Last night I stayed at the Luxor hotel in Las Vegas and had cause to bitch on Twitter about the wifi. Sure enough I promptly received the standard “we’re sorry, we’ll look into it…” response from the hotel’s social media representative. And of course that was the last I heard from them (until late this morning when I complained again, and they offered to contact me privately – ten minutes before I was due to check out). For MGM, which owns the Luxor, the important thing was they’d intercepted my complaint and encouraged me to discuss it with them privately; effectively “shhhhh”-ing me away from complaining further in a public forum. Across America, and the world, thousands upon thousands of people are current employed as “social media representatives” or “online brand ambassadors” or whatever title we’re giving to this army of 19-year-old, disaffected, invent-your-own-job-title millennials this week. In almost every case, those responsible for the Twitter accounts of giant companies have absolutely no access to customer accounts, nor are they in any way able to make the decisions required to resolve complaints. Instead their job is simply to identify angry customers, publicly apologize and then promise to resolve the matter by DM. Nothing more. This despite the fact that for a growing number of customers, these @companyname or @companynamecares Twitter accounts represent the primary public face of multi-billion dollar brands. Erick and I are fortunate to have TechCrunch as a platform to draw attention to this scandalous waste of company resources and mass-deception of customers. The vast majority of people aren’t so lucky. Well enough’s enough: it’s time we bring this nonsense out in to the open. I want to hear your real world examples of how companies have dealt with your Twitter complaints. Which ones lead to actual remedial action, and which were simply swept under the carpet with the empty promise of a private response? In the coming weeks I’ll write a couple of follow up posts – one to praise the companies who actually practice what their social media representatives are paid to preach, and another name and shame the brands who – like American Airlines and the Luxor (MGM) – promise the earth but deliver nothing. I have a feeling I know which will be the longer post. Tell me your stories here .
 
Flash in the Pan Top
The news from NBC/Universal/Comcast is that the cable giant has finally made deals with both ABC and Fox to carry selected shows on their on-demand service. This is big news for the iPad set, because all four major broadcast networks are now available in a single service, on the iPad, without Flash. Across town we hear talk of hardware acceleration linking up with Android to make Flash finally usable on every other device. This would be a good thing for Flash fans, who can make the argument that more devices will work with Flash than won’t. But in the new world of network broadcasting, the show’s over for Flash. Nobody cares what makes the picture dance on the screen, just that it does. Instead, we care whether it streams or it doesn’t. Live streaming may seem to be about Ustream v. YouTube, about watching the Wedding or GaGa or whatever trending stream is hitting your push notification buffer. But it’s also about your own personal broadcast stream, formerly known as the telephone. Video calls are finally here, and the broadcasters who dither too long about iPad streaming will be in the same kind of trouble Microsoft is in with Windows. The same way that we don’t care about Flash, we don’t care about the distinction between streaming phone calls and on-demand shows. One is about some idiot wasting your time, and the other… Same thing. The same dynamics that Comcast has finally ratified are moving into the phone call. Cable subs are up for those who support iPad access, down for those who don’t. Time Warner and Cablevision softened up the studios, and Comcast came in and closed. Similarly, FaceTime softened up the carriers by introducing a service that obliterated the need for international plans. Those of us who switched to Verizon are out of luck until iPhone 5 anyway for a global phone, so the calculation on a trip to Europe is to get a throwaway phone for the trip from the airport to the hotel and WiFi. And before you say that FaceTime doesn’t work over 3G, Skype video does. The next time you Update All on your iPhone, you’ll see what I mean. On this week’s Gillmor Gang, Danny Sullivan suggests it’s an extra download and besides people don’t want to have to put on makeup to answer the phone (I’m paraphrasing, or just trying to embarrass Danny gratuitously, or maybe myself for carrying blush at all times.) Twitter is an extra download for now, but the second they jump on video calls using their directory this will be a feature not a hassle. When the smaller market of international travelers becomes enamored of video calls, we see another Netflix-style hockey stick. WiFi becomes a differentiator for choice of hotel and event venues, for coffee shops and restaurants, for sporting events and rock concerts. All of a sudden your phone and tablet becomes your portal to personal and professional incoming pings, a push notification router filtered by your business and location rules. How long did it take for Comcast to make this deal? Time Warner released its iPad software less than two months ago, were sued by Comedy Central a week later, and were fast followed by Cablevision as though to say, no we really mean this, 10 days after that. It became clear in a New York minute that people wanted more stuff for their new iPad 2′s, and oh wait, iPad 2′s have a camera. Then ABC, the last of the original big three, capitulates to Comcast, and oh, wait, that’s Steve Jobs’ network. Why would Jobs want to play the Disney card now, except for the fact that iPad 2 sales are going to skyrocket once the pipeline recovers from not being able to make them fast enough. You only have to experience a Skype video call once to want FaceTime to work over 3G, and Skype is softening up the carriers just as they move off flat rate to a profit center for streaming. You may not have been paying attention to the 5 gig limit before now, but the Comcast on-demand steaming at home and Skype push notifications on the go will stoke demand, as it were. Apple already is making the case for a Comcast moment with the carriers by rudely interrupting Skype calls when a carrier call comes in. The Skype call is put on hold (at least on Verizon) and you have to cancel the push notification and decline the incoming call before returning to your video call. Perhaps Jobs is looking for some competition from AT&T to differentiate from Verizon as they have done with simultaneous call and data. Perhaps the lure of selling a higher priced video cap will close the deal. Android has a real problem here that Google is attempting to fix by offering on-demand video over YouTube. Android’s video service is just now making its way into some builds, but the combination of pro and amateur streaming video offered by Apple will be hard to overcome. Not that it needs to be, because compatibility between the two major platforms will come at the cost of paving over Flash permanently.
 
OMG/JK: Insert Pun About Storms In The Cloud Here Top
We’re back for a new episode of OMG/JK (in HD!). This week the news has been all about private data — Google and Apple have been accused of tracking your every move (they aren’t), and Sony has revealed that 77 million user accounts were compromised (this, unfortunately, is true). Tune in to find out where things stand now, and where to get the best deal on your tinfoil hat. Here are some recent articles that are relevant to this week’s episode. Amazon EC2 goes down, taking with it Reddit, Foursquare and Quora Apple Responds To Location Tracking Kerfuffle, Says It's Innocent, Blames Bugs Google Responds To Smartphone Location Tracking Uproar, Says Android Is Opt-In Lost In The iPhone Location FUD Disaster: Playstation Network User Data Compromised, Names, Addresses, Maybe Credit Cards Subscribe to us on iTunes!
 
Intuit's GoPayment Cuts Transaction Fees, Pricing Now More In Line With Square Top
Inuit’s GoPayment reader, which competes directly with Square, is about to become more attractive to small businesses. The company has made the decision dropped the transaction fee ($0.15 per transaction) for both new and existing customers for Visa, MasterCard and Discover cards, both swiped and key-entered as well as qualified and non-qualified transactions. The move will go into effect on Monday. Launched two years ago, GoPayment offers a complimentary app and credit card reader to allow small businesses to conduct charges via their smartphones. GoPayment is available for iOS, Android and Blackberry phones. So now, businesses using the mobile payments reader will only pay a flat 2.7 percent fee of a transaction for any swiped cards. Intuit will charge 3.7 percent for both key entered and non-qualified transactions. This is surely a competitive move against Square, which also dropped its transaction fee (which was $0.15) recently in favor of a flat 2.75 percent fee for all transactions. One important fact to note—Intuit will still charge the transaction fee for transactions using American Express but this is something the company is working on negotiating. Square does not charge a fees for transactions on Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express. For higher credit card processing volume (recommended for more than a $1,000 per month), Intuit is continuing to charge a $12.95 monthly fee but has dropped the set transaction charge of $0.30. The per transaction percentage remains at 1.7 percent for cards swiped; and 2.7 percent for key entered. Mobile payments is a competitive space and it’s hard not to notice some of the attention Square has been getting from both Visa and Apple . Because of this, companies like Intuit have to up the ante to remain competitive and attract businesses. For example, Intuit recently extended the offer of a free version of its GoPayment reader indefinitely. Square’s readers have been free for some time now. Chris Hylen, VP and general manager of Intuit Payment Solutions said this explaining this change in pricing: We started simplifying GoPayment pricing back in January when we eliminated the monthly fee. Now we're removing transaction fees. As we continue to evaluate the market and talk with customers, we believe that making our pricing even more affordable is the best way to give more people an easy way to process credit cards on their mobile devices. While Square is growing fast, as more and more businesses are looking for innovative, inexpensive and painless ways to accept credit cards, Intuit’s reader does offer a compelling product. The company reports that it has seen a nearly 700% increase in the number of people signing up for GoPayment each week compared to the beginning of the year (driven in large part its free swiper offering). Intuit declined to reveal exactly how many users are signing up per day vs. a year ago. And GoPayment users are  processing in excess of $15 million a week using GoPayment and related services. These services also include payments from the Web and through QuickBooks using a GoPayment merchant account, so it’s unclear how much of that $15 million is coming through the readers themselves. Intuit says GoPayment users have processed more than $3 million in a single day over the past month as well. For basis of comparison, Square just revealed that it is processing $2 million in transactions per day and $66 million for the first quarter, but COO Keith Rabois says forecasts that this number will triple in Q2. The other competitor in the space, VeriFone, has yet to eliminate the set transaction fees ($0.17) associated with its payment product. But with pressure from both Square and Intuit, that may change soon. CrunchBase Information Intuit Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Internet Entrepreneurs Are Like Professional Athletes, They Peak Around 25 Top
“Consumer Internet entrepreneurs are like pro basketball players,” a venture capitalist told me recently while discussing the prospects for a thirty-something founder, “They peak at 25, by 30 they’re usually done.” Why? Because young entrepreneurs are more creative and imaginative, and are willing put 100% of their lives into their startups, he said. “It’s not a guess, this is a data driven observation,” says the VC. He had a number of caveats. First, this only applies to consumer Internet entrepreneurs. Enterprise and hardware startups tend to do better with older founders, where experience (and direct sales experience) matter a lot. And there are plenty of founders that, like Michael Jordan, can peak way beyond 25 (and the peak basketball age is really probably at least a 27). “Those tend to be the repeat success founders,” he said, “the rules don’t apply to them.” Peak age of startup founders is an endless debate. Vivek Wadhwa says his data shows that older entrepreneurs are more successful , for example. He argues that ageism is more about exploiting young people more than getting value for money. Other data suggests the opposite. Like this – last year Y Combinator said the average age of their founders is 26 . Of course they could have selection bias, but Y Combinator is one of the most data driven investors I’ve heard of. if older people did better, they’d be funding more of them. At Disrupt in New York in May we’ve got a very cool interview planned. SV Angel says they’ve analyzed deep demographic data for their 500+ investments over the last twelve years or so. It takes years to know how successful a startup will eventually be, so this is particularly valuable data. Will they agree that Internet startup founders should be looking to make a name for themselves before they hit 30, or give up? We’ll know in a few short weeks.
 

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)